Mark: People are becoming what we now refer to as AI vampires. They've got these huge bags under their eyes. They're completely exhausted, but they're like euphoric. They're thrilled. We're entering a golden age, which is AI is going to be a superpower that everybody on the planet's going to have access to. It's like the most dramatic increase in programmer productivity in like ever.

Eric: Twitter proved it, right? Cutting 70% and then it's running better or as good as it was before.

Mark: I generally don't wish I could go back in time and do things over again, but it would be really really fun right now to be 18 or 20 or 22 and to have this capability and figure out what I could do with it. We are going to see super producers the likes of which we've never seen in the world.

Eric: There's news about it. UFOs. What is clear is the government at certain times has hid certain materials. Why would they do that if there's nothing to really worry about?

Mark: Two things are pretty clear at this point. One is that

Eric: Mark, welcome to monitoring the situation.

Mark: Eric, it is great to be back.

Eric: So, there's a lot to monitor today. I want to start first start with something that just happened, which is the Anthropic blackmailing incident. And I I first want to tell a brief story which is my friend Joe Hudson has this concept called the golden algorithm. And the golden algorithm is states that whatever you're scared about you bring it about in exactly the way you're scared about it. So if you're scared about getting abandoned you'll be super insecure and then you'll people will abandon you because you're so insecure. This is an example of a literal golden algorithm where people have been so scared that AI is going to be evil and have written about all the ways in which it's evil and in fact maybe it's informed informed something. What's happening there or what do we find interesting?

Mark: I haven't studied this one in detail. I've been monitoring other situations but however, I mean just what I saw so far I think I just saw Anthropic's thread. I haven't I haven't I haven't read the underlying material yet, but Anthropic threads have said they trace the they trace some blackmail behavior to literally to the to the AI doomer literature.

Eric: Yeah.

Mark: That they that it was in the training data. So there there are all these there are all these there are all these you know scenarios of like you know the terminate you know all the rogue AI gone wrong that the that the AI doomer has been writing about for 20 years and and literally anthropic of course which is of course the company is like you know half doomer apparently you know basically you know essentially said that their own their own their own movement's literature is the thing that's causing the behavior that they say they they they don't want. So it is a fairly um incredible Yes. Yes it is. Yes. Oh, I mean like look if you didn't if you don't want to build the killer AI, you know, step one would be don't build the AI. It's like hm and then you know step two is like don't train it on all the data that says it's supposed to, you know, the literature that your movement wrote that says it's supposed to be a killer AI. So I, you know, Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's like your it's like your your your golden algorithm coupled coupled with like the snake eating his tail. Um coupled with, you know, I don't even know. Like the whole thing is so bananas.

Eric: Yeah. Yeah. the um

Mark: I mean you know I can't resist you know if I could if I can if I can act out memes it's the scream meme right which is you know the calls coming from inside the house.

Eric: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The um speaking of other situations another thing you've been talking about recently is um is the concept of suicidal empathy and and and Matt Kramer had a good quote which is if the empathy you have doesn't make you more forgiving more accepting of other people's spiritual sovereignty or more understanding of people who don't want to think or live the same way you do you don't have empathy. you have empathy TM. Why have you been thinking about this this this concept?

Mark: Yeah, so there's this really brilliant there's this really brilliant guy God gad exactly pronouncing Gatsad. Um and um and you know very brilliant guy and it's obviously lots of YouTube videos and books and so forth and really brilliant guy. He's got this new book coming out on so-called what he calls suicidal empathy and you know look it's a you know there's a there's a sort of political loading to it which you know we don't need to spend a lot of time on but um you know it's sort of this idea that there are kind of these social justice you know kind of social reform movements you know kind of through time that that have this characteristic of you know they you know they they they claim to be causing positive change you know in some direction and then it turns out they have you know sort of severe you know sort of negative consequences. um that the the great Thomas Soul um you know has you know basically spent 50 years writing books about this um and and by the way no nobody nobody listened um and then in the last decade we've been through you know wave after wave of this kind of social activism that kind of you know results in like I mean it's it's all the stuff right it's just you know all these like you know crime policy reform defund the police things and it causes these massive crime waves and then of course low-inccome and minority people get hit hardest by that and you know all the all all these other all these other crazy things.

Mark: Um, and so he says, you know, he says the characteristic of kind of that kind of social reform movement is is characterized by what he calls suicidal empathy. Um, and the and the idea be being basically it's it's sort of driven by a pathological, you know, take it backwards, a pathological form of empathy on the one hand. Um, which is, you know, it's sort of a deep desire to be nice. Um, and empathetic um, you know, but but coupled with like basically you know, a sort of self-destructiveness, you know, either a willingness to really cause damage to the people you claim to be speaking for or by the way to cause damage to yourself kind of in that process.

Mark: And and it's the kind of thing where you know if you've you know you know if you've lived through you know like everybody who you know everybody in San Francisco's lived through this for the last decade and seen the consequences of these movements. I you know the San Francisco version of this is like the the quote harm reduction movement you know that ended up basically handing out you know free drug you know paraphernia and you know in some cases actually just free drugs to you know people who are just literally dying in the street from drug addiction. Right. So so so you just look at it and you're like well yeah that that you know they they claim to be activists they claim to be reformers. they claim to care about these people and yet they're killing them or or um and then killing the city um and causing innocent people to get get harmed. It's like okay that you know you know that that that you know they seem so actively like that they're doing it out of some sense of compassion that this must be suicidal empathy. Um the problem with it is and I think that the problem is the theory is sort of easily falsifiable or or maybe let's lets the reformers off the hook which is they certainly don't show empathy to their enemies, right? And so if they're like if they're like all empathetic, you would think that they would be less aggro uh when it comes to destroying their ideological opponents, you know, who they act, you know, they take great delight in trying to wreck. Um number one, on the one hand, and then and then number two is they they use the you know, the classic reformer move is to use use these movements to gain to gain power and status and money for themselves. And you know, again, San Francisco's a case study of this where you have all these, you know, nonprofits that, you know, recall this damage on the city and yet, you know, basically get like lavishly funded, you know, including, by the way, by the city government, by the state government. Um, and so it's just like, okay, well, like just like they're not, if you just like spend two seconds thinking about it, like it, you know, they're neither empathetic nor nor are they suicidal, right? Right? Rather quite the opposite. They're hateful and they're and they're and they're and they're greedy. You know, they're sort of self- aggrandizing um and and gathering power and resources for themselves.

Mark: Um, and so I just I just think it it it lets it lets the phenomenon off the hook, you know, it's a little bit like, "Oh, Eric, what's your biggest flaw?" You know, "Oh, I'm too nice."

Eric: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. I care too much. Right. Exactly. It's like, yeah, don't Like, I I By the way, Eric, I don't know. I don't know what your biggest flaw is. Like, it's definitely like, it's definitely not that because that's also definitely not my flaw. Like, I I guarantee I have other things wrong with me that are like way more wrong than that.

Eric: Yeah.

Mark: Um, and so I I I just I Yeah. I can't I I I hit my limit on on on on on that topic. And maybe a maybe a crazy example of this and I'm not sure if all the all the facts are out yet, but but it was a situation a week ago, but it hasn't been covered, you know, that that much. the SPLC incident. Is it accurate that basically what was happening or is it our understanding that basically the groups that they were um sort of fighting the most or or thought were the biggest threats to um sort of you know what they care about also the same groups that they were secretly funding unbeknownst to those to to those groups or how do we make sense of what was actually happening there and is that is that indicative of what's of of of something bigger happening and it's funny because that happened the day after we had a conversation about astrourfing and I was uh and I was like is it really happening to the degree that that uh you know people are or sort of conspiracies are are things like that really happening and it's just funny that more and more seem to get uncovered.

Eric: Yeah. And so I should start by saying the reason why this situation really matters and actually I think matters a lot is the the SPLC specifically um and other groups like it as well but the SPLC specifically played a dominant role in the debanking and censorship and cancellation programs of the last 15 years. Um, and I cannot tell you how I I was in so many meetings in so many contexts with so many companies um where the SPLC's word was was gospel. Like it was just like, oh, it's the SPLC that it was almost like they're the outsourced US Department of I don't know, racism detection or something. It's just like if the SPLC's says you're bad, you're bad. Um, and and you're bad means you get kicked off of all the social media platforms. It means you get debanked. It means you can't get a job. It means like just like it's just like total absolute like, you know, social economic death.

Eric: Um, and and in my view, you know, I've been very vocal on the debanking and censorship topics. In my view, that includes, you know, very deeply unamerican and I think in many cases unconstitutional removal of both free speech rights and also literally the ability to to bank. Um, and in fact, you know, our partner Ben's father himself was was was specifically tagged and attacked by the SPLC for for unfairly very unfairly uh for being racist. Um, and was himself debanked um and you know, really like directly threatened his livelihood um in a in a really, you know, egregious way. um you know and then and then by the way the significance of this is of course it's not literally the US department of racism it's actually arguably worse than that it's not a government agency and so it's not subject to like any level of government oversight it's not you know it's a completely you know as I say it's an NGO right um and so it's it lives in this like twilight world you know it doesn't have the you know business responsibilities of a company it doesn't have any of the um any of the legal um oversight um you know that a government agency has it lives in this kind of twilight world where it gets to do you know fundamentally gets to do whatever it wants um and then by the way on top of that you raises raises money as a nonprofit. Um, so, you know, on top of that, everybody gets a tax break. And so, it's this it's this, you know, kind of shadowy thing. Like, if you if you didn't agree with his politics, you were just like, "Wow, like that this is like a weird star chamber like shadowy thing. Like, what the hell?"

Eric: Um, but like it had like really really really really intense power particularly uh in in the business world, particularly in the financial sector, particularly in Silicon Valley. Like, it could basically it was like a death star uh to be able to aim it at at obliterating people's reputations um uh and rights. Um, and so, you know, this is a really big deal. Um, by the way, um, many of the, uh, big corporations and and including big tech companies funded it directly. Um, and so the the the money trail on this is not not just major philanthropist and philanthropists and political activists, um, but also um, actual, you know, actual companies. And then, by the way, they also had, you know, a long history of actually cooperation with certain government agencies, including, I think for a long time, they quote unquote trained FBI agents um, basically um, uh, you know, essentially catching, you know, you know, racist and therefore, you know, sort of presumptive um, domestic terrorists or something.

Eric: Um, and so just like a ve very powerful outfit and then you know this this this this thing that dropped is that they've been now criminally indicted by the US Justice Department and and I should say the the indictment is like reads like a novel that no it's an indictment the SPLC in fairness has not had a chance to present a defense um and so you know presumably in court we'll you know we'll get both sides of this um which I'm sure will be an absolutely spellbinding experience. Um so I I you know of course I I want to say you know all all all of the things that are in the indictment are allegations um and innocent until proven guilty and you know so forth. Um you know however the allegations are eye watering right and the allegations are that they they that the SPLC using donor funds was directly funding among other organizations the Klux Clan and the American Nazi party.

Eric: Let me just repeat that. the Kuclux Clan and the American Nazi Party. Um, as well as an array of other uh sort of uh sort of extreme, you know, hate, you know, you know, literal lit literal little literal hate groups. Um, and you know, and funding them and not just funding them, not just like funneling money in, but like funneling money to very senior members or leaders of the of these organizations. And then the the kicker is in in in the among the allegations is that they were directly funding one of the leaders of the January 6th um whatever you want to call it, riot riot at the capital. Um oh sorry, no um I'm going to let me back up. We need to clip that. I'm sorry that I I can't remember if that was the one, but for sure what I meant to say was um uh the Charlottesville riot.

Eric: So the the the Charlottville riot in 2017 that played such a central role, you know, in our politics, um at the time, you know, you know, kind of the famous there good people on both sides, you know, kind of thing, you know, which was like one of the big crises of of of kind of that of of kind of that that that that era. Um the SPS was directly funding, evidently, allegedly, they were directly funding one of the organizers of the January 6th riot. Um a and apparently they were also paying for transport um for for riers to to go to the capital. Um right. And so like if this is true, you know, yeah, I mean, if this is if this, you know, what could you conclude if this is true? Well, well, number one is like the allegation is they they broke the law in doing that. There's additional allegations in the DOJ uh you know, indictment that they've committed, you know, money various kinds of moneyaundering crimes, you know, other other kinds of crimes. And so that, you know, that that, you know, that's a big deal.

Eric: Um, and then and then I've been I've been asking the the the obvious question, which is if any of these claims are true, what what did their donors know? Um and you know were the donors all totally oblivious to this or or did the donors you know work closely with them um the also by the way the companies that worked with them um you know did they you know what what did they know of what was happening and so I you know I do wonder whether there's like a you know I I wonder whether over time what we're going to discover is this was a you know sort of sprawling network um you know of which there's you know a legal the legal term would be conspiracy um you know that was that was going on around this and so I I think this needs to be f fully unressed um you know look the other thing is you know this raises the obvious question is were they the only one. Um, and so there's a variety of these groups that had, you know, degrees of the kind of power that I was talking about. Um, and you know, tremendous amounts of funding along the way um, and the ability to basically again direct some combination of of of state and government uh, state and uh, and um, and private sector, you know, sort of obliteration raise um, uh, at uh, at at at American citizens.

Eric: Um, there have been rumors for years, you know, on I mean there's been rumors for years on this. There's been, by the way, there's been incidents like this in the past like, you know, this isn't the first time this has happened. Um, but you know, if if if the if if the allegations are true and the SPLC was doing it, I think it raises the very direct question of like, okay, who else who else is? It's hard to believe they were the only one. Um, and so who else is doing it? And then, yeah, and then we're back to our astroturfing thing, um, which is, yeah, we're, you know, we're were they constructing the boogeyman um, you know, that that that they claim to be fighting? And by the way, and this is where you get into the sort of self-interest component of it.

Eric: This is where you get back to the suicidal empathy thing, which is like, okay, how how how suicidal is it if you're the anti-KK group to fund the KKK? Like I I don't know, maybe it's suicidal if people find out about it. But if they don't find out about it, like that's not that's like the o that's like the opposite of suicidal because like wow like would you know wouldn't you like to get to like if your if your group's entire purpose for existing is to fight an enemy then you need to make sure that that enemy exists to do that of course of course of course you would fund them. Um and so yeah you you I don't know what is that. That's like the reverse of the snake eating the tail. Um it's the um you know sort of a you know you're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Um, and so, yeah, I mean, look, we're gonna I I mean, this all needs to be ventilated. Um, I'm I'm really fascinated to see like what the reality is underneath this, but, you know, by at the end of the day and what this means about what we've all been told all these years about all these groups.

Mark: it's it's funny. There was a Nathan Fielder sort of AI, you know, video that looked so real, which is he's basically saying, "Hey, our business model is to fight racism. We need to fund more racism. Uh, and then we'll get more business."

Eric: Yes. Correct. Exactly. Yeah. And one of the things is the lucrative and again it's because they get they get cloaked in this kind of NGO lens. I mean they they've got you know the amounts of money at play are not small. Um you know they're they're very very low you know I don't know the the SPLC has something like an $800 million endowment. Um and you know has an enormous budget. Um and by the way people get paid a lot of money to do this work. Um and and by the way there's recurring scandals on that front also. um you know which is um you know you get you get a lot of these kind of activist uh you know kind of foundations and so forth where when you when you look into it it's like you know some some giant percentage of the uh of their of their of their spending is going to you know salaries and and and expenses for their for their employees.

Eric: Um, and so, and again, they they kind of they they cloak it in, you know, they cloak it in virtue. Um, and then you kind of look underneath and you're like, "Wow, like this is this is, you know, this is this this is amaz like and by the way, like I don't know, it's America. Maybe they should be allowed to do all this, but like maybe we should not get Yeah, maybe we should not get lied to in the process." You know, may may all this should not get them dressed up to make us feel like, you know, our our whole society is rotten and immoral and that and that and that, you know, deplatforming and censorship are and debanking are good ideas.

Mark: you people respond of course with hey this time is different because it's it's it's all potential cognitive work and so uh and then there's also this other statement of hey um you know humans will you know differentiate among taste and agency but it seems like AI can can can do that too um and and then there's al that juxtaposed there's also the statement of hey uh it won't replace a lot of the jobs because a lot of jobs are make work anyways. Uh you had this you know tweet the other day of hey I' I've been saying companies have been you know two to 4x bloated for a long time and people have just been unwilling to to to to deal with it or or look that in the face. So and this presents kind of a golden opportunity for that. What um so why don't you address some of these some of these topics as it relates to AI and jobs of the future as it relates to tech.

Eric: Yeah. So we'll come back to the blow thing. I will say the the funny thing on the bloat tweet was the responses have been along the line. The responses for the most part have not been you're wrong. The responses have been oh no the company I used to work at is like 8x bloated

Mark: yeah too generous

Eric: right or yeah too generous or you know the not you know or by the way the nonprofit or the you know whatever the you know whatever kind of institution uh you know agency I used to work for.

Eric: Well well Twitter proved it right cutting 70% or 80% and then it's running you know better or as good as it was before at at least and it's probably not the only it's not the exception. I I I mean, look, I I don't even know. Uh and you know, if I knew I wouldn't say, but like I like I think Twitter is way down from the 80%.

Eric: I think there I don't know if the number for sure the number has a nine on it. Um if not if not if not a high nines. Um so yeah, no, he's really he's as usual with Elon, he's really demonstrated he's really forecasted the future through his own actions. Um yeah, so um yeah, so a couple things. So one is I mean look there there's just this endless you know there's this endless I mean there's literally been a 300-year argument about about about about mechanization, industrialization, technology, computers, software uh replacing human labor causing unemployment, you know, lower wages and unemployment. You know, it's it's been a 300-year argument. I I you know, quite frankly, I'm even wondering at this point whether it's even worth having that argument because people really really deeply don't want to hear it.

Eric: Um and what I find is I I I you know, I go through it. Many other people, by the way, there's great books on this topic and there have been for hundreds of years. Um um and um people have talked about this for a long time. You know, people really, this is one of those things where people really don't want to hear good news. Um and so, you know, it's it's actually even hard to have a discussion about it because people actually won't they're so dug in on this that they actually won't even engage on the topic. They just keep repeating the same kind of repeating the same fallacy over and over again. So, so you know, we we could go through that. I guess the the more interesting thing to say though is just like we have data now. Um and um you know, because now we now now we have AI and now we have data. So, we can like look at what's actually happening.

Eric: Um and I would just make a couple of observations. Um so one is there was actually jobs jobs data just came out today. Um as a situation to monitor and you know it's sort of unexpectedly good. Um and so you know you know and and by the way the the jobs data overall in the last couple years has been has been interesting because the federal government has actually shed you know has shed a lot of workers. I think the federal government is down estimates are as much as 400,000 uh workers in the federal government um since Trump took office the second time. So, so private sector uh employment is actually way down and then private sector employment is way up and then the net result I think for the last quarter was actually very positive.

Eric: Um and so like is in other words like the the reported jobs numbers are even more impressive than they look because the private sector growth actually has to make up for the public sector decline which means the private sector job growth is actually much better um than than people were expecting. And again like this is in the face of like actual AI you know staring us in the face and you know being being rapidly adopted and so okay like the data is you know there you know there's more data. Um and then the other thing that you know that's sort of macro data and then there's the micro data which is the world we live in. Um and the micro data is you know that sort of obvious question is you know if you live in Silicon Valley or work in San Francisco you undoubtedly have friends who are you know computer programmers. Those friends you know some percentage of those friends are early adopters of AI coding. um you know you would you would you would you you can just observe their behavior and of course the if you believe in the you know kind of the the the the lite you know kind of zero sum argument you would expect that they would be working less and less and and then rapidly become be becoming you know and getting paid less and less by the way and be rapidly becoming unemployed and in fact the observed the observed behavior of what's happening is very clear which is the opposite uh which is those people are becoming uh what we now refer to as AI vampires.

Eric: um by which I mean um they're uh their the individual programmer's productivity an individual programmer who is, you know, uh, Codeex or Cloud Code or one of these, uh, AI coding systems. Just the thing that you just now see over and over again at at at at at at at at at at at on the ground level is, um, they're working harder than ever. Um, they're they're working just like more hours than ever. And then the AI vampire thing is literally this thing where they stop sleeping. Um, and and then when you when you when you when you like talk to them, it's actually really funny. Um, because um, they're like they and I have a whole bunch of friends like this. They're blurry. Like they've got these huge bags under their eyes. They're completely exhausted. Um, and but they're like euphoric. like they're thrilled like they're having the absolute time of their life. By the way, a fair number of people who we we both know, you know, literally they're they're former programmers who stopped coding at one point. Um and then all of a sudden, you know, have picked it back up again. Um and then, you know, actually we have partners uh you know, you and I have partners at the firm who actually have never coded who are now like ripping out software like crazy and and again they've they've turned in they've turned into AI vampires. I won't name names because I'll let him tell his own story, but we have one partner who's built an entire AI system for everything that he does at work and he is absolutely excited about it and it's it works great and he loves it. Um, and it's like his partner in all of his work now. Um, and I asked him I said uh uh I said uh have did you know have you looked at you know he vibed the whole thing and I said you know have you looked at the have you looked at the code and he's like hell no. Um uh you knowve I've never done that and I said you know have you have you ever looked at any software code and he's like hell no.

Eric: he doesn't have, you know, he's not he's not a programmer by background.

Eric: Um, and yet all of a sudden he's he's he's hyperproductive. Um, and so you've got this, you got, of course, the phenomenon which is sort of exactly what classic economics would predict, which is if you increase marginal productivity of the worker, you don't have a diminishment of human work, you have an expansion of human work. Um, you make the worker more productive, therefore the worker works more um and and gets paid more and there are more more jobs in the process. Um, and so it's it's it's the opposite of what of what of of of what all the doomers say. So so we're seeing that at the level of these individuals. And then and then by the way what you see kind of inside companies um inside employers of these individuals is of course these people are now in even more demand than they were before. They they are they are garnering higher salaries than they were before. Um and um and then by the way their pro and by the way their productivity is just is just starting to ramp up right like the the the everything that I'm describing and like you know like at our leading edge companies estimates are the leading edge programmers are like 20x more productive than they were a year ago. Like it's like a it's like the most dramatic increase in pro programmer productivity in like ever.

Eric: Um and and so again logically people get paid according to their marginal productivity and you're also seeing that track in the compensation data or I'm seeing that on the ground in the companies which is that the the the more hyperproductive a coder becomes all of a sudden the more bargaining power that they have um you know for for their compensation and we're we're seeing comp uh for those people uh ramp up quickly. Um and so I I just it's just kind of like it's just kind of staring us in the face and and and coding of course coding is like the first domain in which this has happened. Now people want to project forward and say this is going to happen in every area of knowledge work.

Eric: Um uh and then um you know I think you can predict a similar outcome. And then that gets us to the bloat topic. Um which is of course the the other thing that's happening is of course companies are now seeing big layoffs. Um and and then you know of course immediately it's like you know two plus two must equal four. And so if it's AI coding it must therefore translate into into layoffs. And you know Mark you're wrong. you know, therefore all of your ideas are wrong because that's evidence that the you know, these companies are wiping out their um you know, they're they're they're reducing their their workforces or are really nuking them because of AI coding. And I and I guess there again, this is like maybe the inside inside baseball take on it is but I I see it. I see it uh up close, which is just every every major Silicon Valley company is overstaffed. Um every major Silicon Valley company's been overstaffed basically forever. They all know it. Um there's a whole variety of reasons why it's the case.

Eric: Um uh by the way I think this is true basically of just like you know corporate America broadly uh you know companies broadly we we we can talk in in detail about why that's the case because it it flies in the face of the idea that these companies optimize for profits which they definitely do not. Um like the one thing that is the least true claim in the world is the companies are optimized for profitability which is 100% not true. Um uh and so um and so you know and then you know basically if you're going to do a big cut like if if you want to do a big cut if you want to take out you know whether it's 15% or 40% or whatever like obviously you want to you want a scapegoat right you just you want to peg it on something um and so of course it's going to get pegged on AI.

Eric: And again and say like it's not like it's not like it's just like a straight lie like it it is simultaneously true that there's there are these massive you know for the same amount of coding you can now have fewer people using tools like that is true and so do you need as many aggregate number of programmers if you're generating the same amount of code. No, you don't. And so you can take out people um on the other side. So there is truth to that. But what that misses is is what what happens on the other side of that, which is of course you're not just going to be generating the same amount of code in the future. You're going to be generating a lot more code. You're going to be building a lot more products a lot more quickly. Um and that and that's going to fuel, you know, enormous amounts of employment growth on the other side. Um and so so I so I I think you're seeing both uh basically both both both phenomena play out and and you kind of have to read the announcements coming out of these companies in code uh because of the the kind of those two the way those two dynamics are crossing.

Mark: Yeah. Um that's that's well said. There was a article that was going viral in our circles the other uh week about the jobs of the future. Um and Yonyi Recman he said there's there's there's possibility the only jobs in tech companies are going to be one product engineer vibecoders slop cannon two uh you know infra security systems three the adults in the room you know like legal and finance and then four hot people uh slash personality hires. Um any any any truth in this or you know what do we make sense of this?

Eric: What are the what do the hot people do exactly?

Mark: Uh range sales people uh you know customer support uh there will always be an important place for those who present easy UX to the world and are pleasant to be around. There are many ways to be hot.

Eric: Otherwise known as the pharmaceutical sales rep. Yes or

Mark: or the Oracle or the Oracle sales rep. So um yeah. So uh yes exactly. So um yeah I mean look this is going to happen like the well well not literally that but like the jobs are the jobs are going to change. I mean this is sort of the obvious thing and this this always happens. The jobs are going to change you know by the way so there's like a nent concept that that is actually playing out I'm seeing in a bunch of the early leading edge companies in the valley which is they're they're kind of circling around a a job title could loosely call builder um or or something like it. And and basically the idea is that you had these separate jobs in the past of programmer product manager and designer. Um, and I I've been describing what's happening in the valley companies as sort of this three-way Mexican standoff. Uh, where the programmers think that they can they don't need the product managers and the designers anymore because they can have AI do that. And then each of the other two doesn't think that they need the other two either. Um, and and what I've been predicting is like that they're all they're all correct.

Mark: Um, you know, the the product manager can generate code and design now and you know, so each of them can do the job of all three. Um, and so the idea is the job's changed and so now now the job is builder. Um, and you might come into the builder, you might get on the builder track by coming out of coding or product management, um, or, um, design or or maybe even something else, customer service, um, or whatever. Um, and, um, and and and but but you you you then become responsible for building, you know, building complete products. Um, and and and again, you have this kind of, you know, you're you're super empowered by the the the AI that can help fill in all the things that are not directly in your background. Um, and so like I think I think it's entirely possible that we're sitting here in 10 years, you know, in 20 years or whatever and like the, you know, the job of coder is gone, but you have this just, you know, extraordinary number of number of builders running around.

Mark: And again, by the way, this is the historical pattern, right? And so um I think our partner David George uh did a post um on this this week, but it's I forget the exact numbers, but it's something, you know, some some giant percentage of the jobs that existed in, you know, call it 1940 were like gone by 1970. Um, and they're like ancient history today. Um, right. Um and I mean the ultimate example of this is you know United States 200 years ago like 99% of the people in the US were farming. Um and today it's like 2%. And having you know grown up in farm country I can tell you all these people who worry about you know job loss and job change would not like to go back and be farmers. I guarantee that. And particularly they would not like to go back and be farmers the way people were farming in 1800.

Mark: Like they definitely don't want to do that. Um and so the new jobs that have been created of course are far better jobs. Um and that isn't to you know understate the the level of you know kind of stress in in in individual people's lives as as the economy changes but in aggregate the result is evolution towards um you know toward towards higher income and and um and sort of more um you know jobs that people are are happier to do. Um, by the way, you can also see all of this playing out in the American economy broadly. Um, which is the the American economy is um that that there again there's this kind and there's this kind of doomer narrative or there has been for a long time that like the American middle class is is is is falling apart and the the sort of presumption of that is that all the middle class people are kind of falling off the ledge and becoming becoming lower class. But actually the and by the way there is some of that and you know there's there are communities in which that's very clearly happening.

Mark: But having said that there there is at least as much or more of the other phenomenon which is people in the middle class climbing the ladder into the upper middle class. um and u you know rapidly gaining um in in wealth and income um and um um and and it just and again just like quality of life um you know for for themselves and for their kids and their grandkids um you know as time passes and and and that is a consequence of actual economic development, technological change, job transformation actually being allowed to happen um is you know 20 years later you're you look back and you're just like oh thank god like this is just a much better world u you know for for me and my family than it was before. Um, and so this is why like I'm so optim I like I I think you know, God willing, like we're entering a golden age on on this topic, which is a AI is going to be a superpower that everybody in the country and everybody in the planet is going to have access to. Everybody's going to become far more capable at whatever it is that they that they that they want to do. Um, they're going to become far more productive in whatever line of work that they're in. Um, they're going to get, you know, they're going to get compensated. The economy naturally uh compensates according to according to productivity. Uh, so they they'll get uh they'll get compensated that way. the you know there will be a rapidly rising ladder of of of of both incomes and number of jobs and and my my prediction again consistent with history is the extent to which that's a positive phenomenon is a function to the degree to which it's actually allowed to happen.

Mark: um and and then of course Europe is is going to run the opposite you know test which is they're going to try to prevent all this from happening and and again I think the data is already in there um which is they're you know they've been they've been falling very badly behind economically and they're going to continue to fall further and further behind uh the US and and it's it's it's a tragedy because It's a 100% a self-inflicted self-inflicted wound.

Eric: Yeah. The um that's well said. You you were also we talked about and you've written about how AI psychosis. There's an AI psychosis summit apparently happening. I'm not sure if that's real or a parody. Um I haven't looked into it but I'm curious how you make sense of this phenomenon. You've also written about so you you tweeted the other day sort of the opposite of AI psychosis is is cope AI cope. Uh maybe you talk about the both sides.

Mark: Yeah. I also identified earlier identified the concept of AI psychosis psychosis which we can we can also talk about.

Eric: Let's unpack it as well.

Mark: Um yeah so first of all the AI psychosis summit did in fact happen. Um I was not there but I am assured that it did. Uh some very very smart and creative people put that on in New York I think late last week I think maybe about a week ago. Um and uh it was an art it's like an art it's essentially an art project and it was basically art artists and creative people who were um who got together and like fully indulge their uh their AI psychosis um in in the form of creating new art uh using using AI and um I yeah I would definitely recommend people should should go uh should go go on go on excellent search on AI psychosis summit and take a look because it's it's it's incredibly creative and I and I think it's fantastic because it's it's you know it's a it's a you know it's a it's a little bit tongue-in-cheek but also it's it's a you know there is a real split that's developed in the artistic community, the creative community in Hollywood.

Mark: Um, and there are people who are staking out kind of very extreme positions on pro AI, anti-AI. Um, and uh, it's generating a lot a lot of heat. Um, and and so this this was a I think this was a nice example of like no actually like in a in a world of AI like creatives are going to have again creatives are going to have all these superpowers. They're going to be able to create all kinds of art that wasn't possible before. Um, and then of course, you know, this whole topic, you can create art about this topic. Um uh so I I thought that I think all the stuff that was there was very creative. Um yeah and then uh yeah so so uh yeah so okay so my concept so so AI psychosis so AI psychosis is is a is a pjorative uh so AI psychosis is the idea that um if um uh if if u it's the idea that basically people get whammy by the AI. So the you know the the classic example is through what's called syphency. So it's it's basically like you you know you tell Cloud you've discovered you know a new um you know you know you have a new idea for an anti-gravity machine and Claude says oh that's amazing like that's amazing like you've achieved a giant breakthrough at physics like nobody else has ever thought of this before you are an underappreciated genius and you know I it's so unfair that you couldn't get admitted to the you know physics department at MIT and you know you know they're all going to feel like completely stupid when they see this work that you've done um and so you know kind of people go down this rabbit hole and and I and again in fairness I should also say like if if people are prone If people are prone to delusion and and an AI is overly sick of sickopantic like then it it is going to feed delusions and so there is a there is kind of a kind of serious element to that among people who are kind of predisposed to that kind of thing.

Mark: Um but but but again it's like okay yes there there be some number of those cases but that causes kind of AI critics or AI doomers to basically say anybody therefore who reports a positive productive experience with AI has fallen into AI psychosis right and so anybody who actually is like wow my productivity is way up or wow I really have a thought partner for the first time in my work or wow I really have been able to produce something that I never would have been able to produce before you know that's sort of all bucketed under you know they they all have they all have AI psychosis um which I which I and then that led me to my my my co my AI cope, right? Which is the other side of it, which is like AI cope is classifying anybody who has a positive experience with AI as being an AI psychosis. Um, and and and and and you know, AI cope is this thing where in, you know, concentrated in certain places on the planet, um, where people are just like absolutely hellbent on proving to themselves and everybody else that this whole thing is a complete, you know, fraud, fake, you know, is a sta there's a term stochastic parrot, a is fake, it doesn't work.

Mark: Um, and if anybody's having a good experience, um, uh, you know, they must be full of it. Um, and so that's the AI cope. Um, and and I would describe the AI cope is people who are basically dismissive. Um, uh, and then, um, and then AI psychosis. Psychosis is the people who get really mad, the people who froth at the mouth. And so maybe it's it's it's AI coat but with a with a with a different loading. Um, and then look, all all of this is going to become just like so much more intense over the next several years. Um because you know look that the reality is that that you know the large language models that we had between call it 19 yeah or uh sorry 20 call it between like GPT2 to GPT4 something like that uh maybe four and a half like you know they were they were fun they were fun um you know you they could you know compose Shakespearean rap lyrics or whatever you want um you know you could have very interesting late night conversations with them um but you know the hallucination rates were high and you know they weren't good at reasoning and so forth um and they couldn't write code very well and couldn't you know do math very Well, and you know, we're we're too prone to synopy and and so on.

Mark: And so I I think what happened is a lot of people a lot of skeptics basically used the early models um and got a and got a let's say accurate but um but um uh early and and therefore lagging view uh of the actual quality of the technology. Um and then you know you fast forward to today um and you know what May of 26 and we have you know just stellar absolutely stellar you know models now like you know the GBD 5.5 is just you know extraordinary um and then we have reasoning models on top of that and we have RL um you know uh reason you know RL post training happening with in all in all these different domains um uh you know to get kind of deterministic high quality work out of these things and then we have you know now we have agents now we have longived agents and now we have just in the last week uh you know GPT he has this new thing um the goal feature of Codeex um that is is letting people literally run you know run projects have have have have Codex go off and do projects for you know you know 24 hours or longer uh without human intervention.

Mark: And so the the the the actual you know what what what we see in our job is like the actual utility of these things is like ramping incredibly quickly um and and by the way it's really good today and ramping very fast and we and every other I think serious company in the space expects the ramping capability to be very rapid you know at least for the next couple years we we have like I think line of sight to it for sure is going to ramp dramatically. Um the capability is going to ramp dramatically and so um so I just the other thing here is just like a lot of people I don't know either skeptics or people who just don't know what to think. Like if they tried it two years ago they don't understand what's happening today. If they tried it six months ago they might not have a good uh idea of what's happening today. By the way if they try the free version they might not have a good idea of what's happening today. um or if they try the version that's bundled, you know, into their whatever um uh you know, they might they might, you know, that just is like a free add-on to something, they're not going to have a you know, to to to really it's just like anything new like to to really understand this, you have to be directly in front of it.

Eric: Um the the good news is like that that literally means you have to be willing to put out $200 to get the to get whatever is the you know, basically the premium package any of these things. So, it's like not that much money if you want to get up close to these things. Um but I I would yeah, if anybody Yeah, I don't know we have a selected audience of people who are probably believers but anybody who's a skeptic on these things I would just say it's really important um to be face to face with the actual technology um and to and to to be face to face with it now and not have a lagging view.

Mark: right yeah and state-of-the-art the what do you say to people or what do you say to the idea of like you know apparently you know the NPS of AI in this country was like 30% or something like that came out recently is pretty low and they're comparing it to to China where where it's much higher I'm I'm curious what you think is the source of of why it's currently low and what could a strategy to to boost it look like? You some people have suggested economic incentives like you know some sort of like Trump accounts tied to AI companies like a basket that people get access to to feel economically aligned with it in a more direct way. Uh even though of course you know it will increase the you know GDP and economy in ways that they'll also benefit from. Others say, "Hey, we actually just need to tell better stories around the impact that it's having on, you know, in people's lives and their health and their education and just the the you know, people having a tutor or people having a lawyer or people having a doctor, you know, who couldn't afford one otherwise." Um, what are what are your thoughts on the sort of AI sentiment perspective?

Eric: Yeah. So, I would separate two two things. Um, so I separate sentiment and sentiment is is is interpreted through polling. Um and we'll talk about that and then and then you but I bring it up to separate it out though which because you you use the term maybe inadvertently NPS uh which is net promoter score which is which is more um their view of actual actual product use product usefulness right NPS NPS for people who don't know is a is a term of art called net promoter score and it's like it's basically the the most high quality way to find out whether somebody really likes a product which is you literally ask them would would you would you recommend this to a friend that's that's called the NPS rate and so but I but I bring I bring that up of course because there's a big difference between those right um and so

Mark: everyone's using it and benefiting from I couldn't live without it. And yet,

Eric: well, exactly. This is the thing. So, this is the thing. So, so and and and by the way, this is a very common thing in like in in in properly conducted social science like proper like every social science 101 textbook will tell you that you cannot just ask people what they think. Um you you you will get back all kinds of crazy And we'll talk about why that's the case, but this is like this is very standard social science methodology, which is you never just ask people. What you do is you watch their behavior, right? And and what you do is then you want to what what you want to do is you want to look for the gaps between what they what they say they believe versus what what they actually do. And and this is true like universally for all form of human behavior. For example, if you're studying let's say mating patterns, right? Like you know who people date and marry like it's just been well established forever that the thing that they say that is their criteria I mean you know we all see this with our friends right? You know our friends all start out single with a certain criteria list and then then they marry somebody like completely different and so it's like okay you know who who do you believe me or your lying eyes right? Like who do you believe what do you believe? what I told you I wanted or what I actually demonstrated that you know that that I wanted and and this is basically true for all areas of human behavior.

Eric: But this is like fairly, you know, this is a fair, you know, this is this is one of these sort of slightly counterintuitive ideas that you have to kind of have been trained up in it and have seen examples to really understand. And so what happens is of course people people don't know this or they forget this. Um and then what happens is there's there's there's like there's literally just like a poll and somebody does a poll and then the poll comes back with like results and it looks and it looks like you know in the p in the results it looks like oh if people say that then that must be the case. Um, but then you you get into this thing which is like, okay, first of all, you're asking them what they think as opposed to watching their behavior. And there's this there's potentially huge delta there.

Eric: And then the other thing is everybody in the world of polling will tell you like you can basically make a poll say whatever you want. And this is one of the reasons why you have to look at what people do is because you can make a poll say whatever you want. In fact, there's a whole category of poll that's called a push poll. Uh push pull push pull, which is you you word the questions in a way to generate the answers that you want or you word the questions in a way to actually cause people to think differently than they did before the poll, you know. So the political example of a push pull is, you know, would you continue to support your favorite candidate if you knew that he, you know, was killing kittens in his spare time,

Mark: right? And right and so number one is people are going to say, "No, of course I would not support him." And then number two, people are going to say, "Wait a minute, I didn't know he killed kittens in his spare time." You know, that's horrible,

Eric: right? Um, and so so so in polling, you you can manipulate these things in all kinds of ways up to and including what people actually think. So it's really really dangerous. And then you overlay on top of that the media environment. And of course the media environment is you know as we you and I have discussed many times like what you know what is the thing the press hates the most in the entire world you know is is tech and and of course what is the you know vanguard of tech right now and one of the one of the one of the things is AI and so the of course the press hates AI with the f theory of a thousand sons and so the press is running this you know sustain you know kind of fear campaign on AI and so if you just if you like drown the the audience with negative narratives um and then you ask you know basically these these loaded polling questions of course you're going to generate. I I mean I we can pick any topic. We can pick like fluffy bunnies running in the field and we can produce the same thing. You know, don't you know how much they Like I mean you can just do all kind, you know, they chew up all the crops, everybody's going to die from hunger. You can manufacture a negative result on anything uh by how you do this, which is the the exercise that that these people have been on.

Eric: Um and and the reason I'm confident in saying that is because then you look at what they actually do. Um and of course what they're actually doing is they're using AI. They're using it a lot. They they love it. The MPS scores are like super high. The usage levels are super high. Um there and by the way the usage the the the churn levels are shrinking. The the the the recurring usage uh uh patterns consumptions are are rising over time. Um you know which is which is really important. Um and people love it. Um and people love it in the same way that they love their cell phones and in the same way they love their Netflix and the same way that they love their u you know the same way that they love their social media and it's the same way that they love their ice cream. And like you know people love it. Now you if you pull somebody and you ask you know do you know do you think ice cream is good for you? They're going to say no. But like, you know, late at night, they're going to be in there with, you know, the carton because like ice cream is delicious. Um, and so it, you know, it's the same thing with AI. Um, which is, yeah, people are using it. They love it. The, you know, usage numbers are speaking for themselves. The growth rates of these companies are speaking for themselves. You know, look, this is the fastest category of technology in the entire history of the world, right? In terms of growth rate of usage and revenue. Um, so it's speaking for itself.

Eric: And so, so basically what you have is a you you have this Project Fure campaign. Um and I would say you know maybe two things added on to that which is uh you know number one is it's like the thing that is I would say not helpful is that the companies themselves have been running the fear campaign. Um and so you know the fact that certain companies um have been you know sort of for a variety of reasons running a fear campaign is certainly not not not helping any um and again it's this weird paradox is they're running the fear campaign while they're actually building the thing that they tell everybody to be afraid of. And so you know there's again a little bit of a watch what I watch what I do not what not what I say. And then it's like, yeah, should the industry have like better narratives? Like, yes, almost certainly the industry should have better narratives and better spokespeople and so forth and so on. But just like, okay, like fine, yes, I'm sure that's true. But having said that, that it's not like that would make the fear campaigns go away. It's not like that would make the press coverage go away. It's not like that would make the the sort of fake polls go away.

Eric: Um, uh, and so, you know, what's what's happening at my kids's school? Um, you know, you know, much much, you know, what's what's happening with my health? Like, what much more central things? And so, I I think if you if you get if you get to the smart polls and the smart pollsters, they they also end up debunking this. Speaking of things that are not uh you know urgent on people's day-to-day life and yet capture the imagination uh whenever they they there's news about it. UFOs. Uh so there was some some news that that came out. Um you I don't we haven't spent a ton of time talking about this topic. So I'm curious for your general uh how have you kind of perceived um this topic when there's been news out about it o over the over the years? Um, I remember during during COVID, you know, Mike Salana, our our friend was was coming out and and really sort of uh getting excited about the the news that was being reported then. What's been your vantage point and and what do you what do you think about it now?

Mark: Yeah. So, I should start by saying I don't so I don't know anything. So, start start by saying that I I know nothing um that everybody else doesn't know. Um so, I'd start by saying like number one, I want to believe um like I my my usual thing on this is I I want to live in the world in which this is a real possibility. Um, and by the way, I was I was actually I I Okay, AIOS. I was in AI psychosis the other night. Um, and I was like I was talking to one of the one of the bots and I was like, "All right, how many u uh galaxies are there in the universe again?" And and I don't know if you've like looked that up recently, but the number keeps growing and I forget what the number is, but it's like a giant number. And then I'm like, "How many stars in in in in each galaxy?" And then how many planets and then how many Earthlike planets? And and the number I don't have on the top of my head, but if you if you get do address it like how many earthlike planets are there in the world in which a human being could like step out of a spaceship and breathe and be fine, it's a staggering it's a very very very large number. I mean it's it's it's almost uncountable number of Earthlike planets just in in the statistics. And so it's like all right like you know it must be the case um you know that there's there's there's there's other other stuff going on out there.

Mark: Um and so you know logic logically like that makes sense and then I would love to live in a world in which they figure out a way to you know at some point get here hopefully in a in a in a peaceful way. Um uh you know having said that you know you know as you know the the problem with this space is you know generally as you get close to the details you know the the the examples tend to fall apart. Um, and you know there's all these like the classic examples like the UFO like what what appears to be like a you know you you'll have these things where like a US military aircraft or something will have a camera imagery that looks like it's tracking a you know rapidly moving and weirdly maneuvering object and it's it's just like you know you get you get close enough to that and look at the details and it's you know it's like the there's like a parallax optical illusion uh thing that pops up. Um, and then there's artifacts, uh, instrument artifacts, u, camera artifacts, imagery, digital imagery artifacts. Um, and then there's, um, you know, like literally like weather balloons and ball lightning and all these other things. So, like, yeah. So, I I haven't I I would Yes, I want to believe I haven't seen the one yet um that, um, is uh has tipp me over it. I I I would like to I will I will big big release of new information today. Um, it it is really fun, by the way, to have the official White House exac account being tweeting uh transcripts of interviews with uh US intelligence officers apparently relaying accounts that they've had. So, I will be up late reading tonight, but um uh you know, finger fingers crossed.

Eric: Yeah.

Mark: Um friends have said something to the effect of um hey, it's unclear what's actually happening, but what is clear is the government is or at certain times has has hid certain uh materials. Why would they do that if if uh if there's nothing to really worry about? So I don't know how much of this has been fully validated and I'm not really an expert in it. I would say like my under like I I think two things are pretty clear at this point. I think one is that you know there have been classified you know there have been classified you know that when when stealth when stealth fighters and bombers are being developed you know that whole program was like incredibly highly classified and so if they were going to do test flights on something like that you know they they were going to have to like do anything they could to prevent people from realizing what was actually happening.

Mark: Um, and so, you know, you know, for sure there were class lots of classified aerospace programs over the years that that would have had various kinds of cover stories or various kinds of, you know, or let's just say blankets of of of of suppression of information, you know, kind of placed over them because it's like the most, you know, some of the most highly classified information in the government. Um, you know, that would cause people to kind of think that there's information being hidden. I mean, Area 51 was of course the classic example of this for a long time, which was, you know, which is which is the whole Area 51 thing was around basically these classified test flights for for new new aircraft.

Mark: Um and then um and then uh and then at least you know there are suggestions I don't know if this has been validated but there are suggestions that at different points in time the government might have put out UFO stories as as basically as an actual overt cover story. Um and so you know what if you're a you know if you're a let's let's say you're a highly capable military intelligence officer whose job is to make sure that the stealth flight you know doesn't become you know recognized for what it is. Um because it would you know that would be very bad for national security then you'd much rather have you know basically a UFO cult kind of get built up around it. um where people get all you know kind of crazed and freaked out about UFOs by the way for two reasons. One is to give people a story to believe that's not that you have some new breakthrough military technology. But the other thing is it it make and this is actually maybe the serious observation. Um if you can build the argument would be I think if you could build up UFO cult around something then you make any investigation into that topic something that people feel like they can't do right?

Mark: Um and and and my understanding is by the way this was true for a long time even in the US military which is um if a US you know air force pilot you know or a commercial airline pilot by the way thought that they had seen something weird. I think for a long time a lot of pilots didn't want to report uh what what they you know what they had seen because they didn't want to be viewed that they were like UFO nuts. Um and of course if there are actual UFOs out there like that is a very big problem. Um or by the way if there are just other kinds of things out there right you know if there's you know if the Chinese are testing some sort of new advanced you know highspeed drone or something you know you want the pilots to be able to report that even if they you know think that it might get mischaracterized as a UFO.

Mark: Um, and so anyway, like I I don't know, maybe maybe maybe the the the the interesting thing we could say on this is um all of this played out in the old media environment. Um, and so like all of this played out in the world of broadcast TV and then um, you know, on the sort of official programming on the one hand and then to the extent that there was like unofficial media, it had to be in like mimograph newsletters, right? Or like paperback books. Um, and you know, when I was a kid, there were all these like crazy UFO paperback books. Um, you know, and you know, you you'd always tell us, you know, the the books that said there were no UFOs, you know, were were in hardback and the books that said there were, you know, many UFOs were were in paperback. Um, so, uh, you know, in the maybe maybe the the the smart thing you could say is in the, um, in the in the new media environment, this this is yet another example of like these these these old walls just collapse. You know, the Overton window just disintegrates.

Mark: Um, and so, of course, you know, the new media environment is extremely conducive to the spread of every UFO theory in the world. Um, of course it's also extremely conducive to the to to the spread of propaganda campaigns if you wanted to, you know, like I said, if you wanted to hide real information by spreading propaganda. And then of course the the pressure builds, you know, very much along the lines of the Epstein thing, right? That the pressure builds and builds and builds and builds until it's at some point, you know, you know, you get, you know, you get somebody in the White House is just like, "All right, screw it." Like, "We're going to rip the band-aid off and find out what's actually going on."

Eric: Yeah. you know, no, you know, assuming that they're not still buzzing fuzzing the details, but we'll leave that to the next turn of the of the situation.

Mark: Exactly. Um, we will stay monitoring. We we'll close on a last couple questions from the chat. One is um advice for young graduates. If if if you were uh in college today, you you of course were at the forefront of the internet revolution at the University of Illinois. What would you be studying or would you even be in college uh you know today in 2026? what advice might you have for uh for college students uh you know sort of trying to make sense of how to prepare for for what's to come?

Eric: Yeah, so it's basically gain AI superpowers. I I think it's actually you know very straightforward. It's like okay you you you have you have you you you you have the enormous stroke of luck um that you have arrived at the moment in which there is this new capability for augmenting you know human uh ability on on on a thousand fronts at the same time. Um that's just dropped into our laps. Um and it's going to get much better from here. Um, and you know, enormous numbers of people who are supposedly older and wiser than you are are going to dig in their heels and they're going to be mad about it and they're going to fight it. They're going to not want to do it. Um, and you know, you are going to have the opportunity to have this be something that is absolutely key to your skill set. Um, and key to everything that you can accomplish as a professional or as a creative um, you know, for the for for the next 50 years. Um, and so I would just like lean in as incredibly hard on that. You know, walk into every job interview with like, you know, here's my whatever portfolio, resume, whatever. like here here is here here is how I use this technology here are the capabilities that I'm bringing um you know to the table.

Eric: And by the way, you know, some employers you'll talk to will they'll you know they'll fuzz out on that and not not not not respect it but you'll you know other employers will be like wow like that that's clearly you know this is exactly what we want um and so this is a uh this is actually this is actually funny there's um Douglas Adams the the great science fiction novelist um he once said there's he said there's a there's he said there's a repeating and this was by the way pre-I like this is something he said like 30 years ago uh he said there's a repeating pattern of how technology is received by the different age cohorts um in society. He said um if you are um when a new technology arrives whatever it is in this case AI. Um he said if you're below the age of 15 he said this is just how the worlds always work. It's just obvious. Um um and then if you're between the ages of 15 to 35 this is cool and nifty and you can probably get a you know get a career using it. And then if you're above the age of 35 this is unholy uh and against everything that society stands for and should absolutely be destroyed. Um, and so I think that um I think that uh I think 15 to 35 and especially 15 to 25 right now like I yeah I am very jealous like I I I I yeah I I I generally don't wish I could go back in time and do things over again, but I it would be really really fun right now to be 18 or 20 or 22 uh and to have this capability and and figure out what I could do with it. And we're um it's funny, we atz are trying to hire more more of these people um because they're AI native um and they're going to help us become more AI.

Mark: By the way, this is the thing. This is there's this narrative right now and part of the dmer part of the doomer narrative is oh companies are never going to hire junior employees again. Uh the new generation is screwed because companies are never going to hire junior employees again because those are the most easily replaced by AI and so companies are only ever going to have senior people. And I think the I believe the opposite is true. Um I I think 100% you you want that you want the AI native kids. um like the AI native the A the AI native kids are going to outperform the um you know their older lite peers like gigantically titanically now their their older peers who are not lets are also going to do great um but um it is yeah no an 18-year-old with or by the way a 24y old or by the way a 14-year-old with AI uh we are going to see super producers you know the likes of which we've never seen in the world so yes by the way this is going to greatly stress the uh this is going to be another big uh point of stress on all the child labor laws.

Eric: yeah Um

Mark: yeah, exactly.

Eric: Let me just say let me just say the children yearn for the AI minds.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. They're uh Yeah, absolutely. the um speaking of you know we talked about Zoomers in previous episodes and and and why you like them in terms of you know they just have so much courage um and and are are willing or sort of kind of fed up because they grew up in you know COVID school and all these sort of you know adjacent sort of uh you know sort of impositions and um but one one thing you quote tweeted recently was Chris Arnad's uh sort of post around the uh you know people talk about the educational divide but there's also generational divide in terms of boomers being just much more um sort of confident in their sort of truth and younger people being more uh sort of post-truth relativistic more pluralist. Um and I thought that was a really interesting sort of epistemological divide. What what did you find interesting about about her or how do you see that play out?

Eric: Yeah. So there's really two parts to it which very interesting. So, part number one is um a lot of boomers um uh somebody once said the definition of a baby boomer is somebody who believes what's on the TV set.

Eric: Like they believe what the talking head on the TV says. Um and like anybody who's 20 knows that you obviously don't do that, right? That that would be stupid. But every, you know, 60-year-old or 80-year-old has been watching TV their entire lives and when they grew up, you know, it's it's it's the old story. We've all heard it, you know, a million times. Walker Kronhite used to tell us what the truth was. Um right. And you know, of course, that was always BS, but nevertheless, that that was what the boomers believed. They believed what the TV said. They believed what the New York Times wrote, right? So, you know, they believe these things. Um, you know, any anybody below the age of 40 like just at this point has example after example after example of how like obviously that's just not true. And then anybody who's like 20 who's been through the last, you know, 15 years in school like just obviously knows that, you know, these people are fake and, you know, this is not real and you just can't take this stuff seriously.

Eric: Um and so um so so so part of it is that divide and so the the the boomers had um uh by the way there's this great YouTube account there's this amazing video on this there's this great YouTube account called academic agent uh this is a British uh uh author uh named Nema Parvini um who writes these really interesting books and he but he has this two-hour video that's really worth watching and it's it's it's called Boomer Truth and so it's like a two-hour documentary on kind of this concept he calls Boomer Truth which is basically like whatever the TV says um and how it's falling apart. So, so there's sort of there's sort of the boomer truth thing. Um, but then there's this other thing which is like a key part of boomer truth is that there's no fixed morality, right? So, so, so like a key part of boomer truth is you get to make up your own values. It's like all cultures are the, you know, was a moral relativism. All cultures are the same. Western society is not superior. You know, there's many, many different cultures. They're all wonderful. Like, it's all great. It's all great. It's all great. If anything, the West is the worst of the cultures. The other ones are better. You know, just like that was such a like before there was woke, there was political correctness. and like the political correctness of like when I was in like college it was literally around was called multiculturalism or

Mark: Peter Teal and David Sax wrote about it in their book you know diversity myth in 1995

Eric: the diversity myth and it was it was it was actually it was actually a term that it's called multi multicult multiculty multiculti multicultural um and and there were these furious de there's a classic book of that era Peter's book is great but actually before that there was a famous book at the time which has been huge headline news all through the country when it came out called the the closing of the American mind yeah

Mark: and this sort this sort of right-wing academic at University of Chicago who basically said these these colleges are teaching these kids that there is no there is no mor you know there is no morality um you know it's all just basically morality is just choose your own adventure um and so there is this moral relativism that's kind of at the heart of Boomer truth right and so so it's this weird thing where it's like there is a a fixed received belief that there is no fixed morality um and so if you're on the and then basically like the entire media apparatus the entire cultural program the entire educational system got designed around this um and all of the stuff all the crazy stuff that, you know, kids are getting in school now is basically, you know, downstream of downstream of this movement from, you know, 30, 40 years ago, uh, 60 years ago. Um, and so if you're, yeah, if you're 20, you've just like come up in this sort of like weird environment in which, you know, on the one hand, you're just like the boomers have no credibility at all because like I I can't believe they still believe what's on TV.

Mark: Um, and then number two is like to the extent that they we do listen to anything they say, they keep telling us to not judge anybody and not judge anything and that all all moralities are equal and all cultures are equal. And so of course they're going to the course their zoomers are going to come out of that with like just like an incredible level of skepticism. And then by the way this is not an abstract exercise because these are the these are the kids who came up through co right and these are the kids who came up through woke and these are the kids who came up through like all of the all of all of the craziness of the last you know the last decade you know 15 years. And so I think these kids are just coming out with like a completely different viewpoint on how the world works. And by the way, you know, not in every case, but like in many cases, completely different, like much more, I would say, much almost like simultaneously more open-minded, more critical, like much more interested in ideas, uh much more much more skeptical of of of authority, much more skeptical of received wisdom, u much more cynical about about manipulation, um, by the way, much more sensitive about the media environment. Um, you know, they they're much more aware of the idea that there actually is psychological warfare going on, and they they have been on the receiving end of it. um you know m much less much more skeptical of authority. You know they just you know their their view of the authority figures that they've seen in their life you know in many cases is just like complete contempt. Um and in many cases very well earned um and so

Mark: yeah it's just a it's it's just a it's a starkly different um I think it's a starkly different worldview than the than the for sure than the boomers had. Also very different than my generation Gen X also very different than the millennials. Like it it's something new and and I'm I'm I'm very excited. I I think I think they're fantastic.

Eric: Yeah. Spe speaking of something new is would would it be fair to summarize [ __ ] maxing as stoicism meets you can just do things?

Mark: No, I think it's just you can just do things.

Eric: Okay.

Mark: Like I think it's even like I think it's even it's even shedding. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I think I can see what you're driving at and I I think you could probably explain it that way. But I think I don't know. The way I put it is the stoics put a lot of time and effort into trying to be stoic. Whereas the whole point of [ __ ] maxing is you're not supposed to put that level of time and effort into being the way that you are. You're just supposed to do it. Um and so yeah, I guess you could say our friend Ryan Holidayiday is a stoic and not a [ __ ] maxer. Um as he demonstrated this week and so um maybe maybe right there in that in that in that in that in that video you can see the difference.

Eric: Yeah, that's well said. Um last question from the chat. We'll get you out of here. How are you such a good monitor? H what is your secret to monitoring so many situations? Any strategies? What is your approach?

Mark: Well, of course, being plugged into the MTS fire hose uh is of course absolutely critical. And of course, the amazing tools that the team is developing and putting online

Eric: Yeah. Awesome. Uh well u Mark thank you so much for coming on another great episode at MTS and we'll see you back soon. See you soon.

Mark: Okay. Baby. Heat. Heat.