Zack Kass - AI Keynote Speaker - How AI will Change Society Forever

[music] I'm super excited to talk to Zack Cass today. He's a former leader at OpenAI

today. He's a former leader at OpenAI and he's an AI futurist in his own right. So, I'm really excited to get the

right. So, I'm really excited to get the inside scoop on what's happening next in AI as well as with all future tech. What

we call digital disruption, he calls the next renaissance. and he's got some big

next renaissance. and he's got some big ideas for how the rest of the century is going to evolve for organizations, for workers, [music] and how technological change is actually going to impact

things way beyond technology. Should be

a great conversation.

[music] Zack, I wanted to talk a little bit about just your sort of, you know, approach [music] toward AI, your like, you know, kind of view of the world from

here. you know, you you kind of branded

here. you know, you you kind of branded it the next renaissance in this kind of explosion of of technology and capabilities. Um, why do you call it

capabilities. Um, why do you call it that? What what does that mean to you

that? What what does that mean to you and what are the implications?

>> We So, I studied history at Berkeley.

Um and what we sort of forget about is that um, the known universe, what we, you know, what we know of the universe today

hasn't always been a known universe.

And, uh, it actually takes a lot of discovering of technologies, things like the telescope, things like submarines to expand our understanding of a known

universe. And this is what the this is

universe. And this is what the this is what the first renaissance actually was about, right? It wasn't just high flutin

about, right? It wasn't just high flutin thinking.

>> It was political thought. It was

advancements in military-industrial complexes. It was advancements in

complexes. It was advancements in sciences. And it was it sort of came at

sciences. And it was it sort of came at the same time as we massively expanded.

It was the first major expansion of human potential. what one person could

human potential. what one person could do in the first uh in you know the chapter prior to the first renaissance pald in comparison to what one person

could do after. And some of this was you know the way governments were informed.

Some of this was the way that you know we we started embracing far more technology. Um cities started to sort of

technology. Um cities started to sort of expand. People started to gather and

expand. People started to gather and sort of like exchange thought more. And

the the easiest way that I found to to explain to people what I thought would happen was by sort of comparing it to this initial event. Now obviously things are going to happen more logarithmically.

Um but it's not sufficient to say that humans will expand our potential because something else is clearly going to happen which is like what you and I know about the universe today is going to feel sort of silly compared to what

we're going to know about the universe in >> you know 10 20 years. um and and and sort of forever more.

So, I mean, at the risk of asking you to predict the future, like how how is this all unfolding? How like what aside from

all unfolding? How like what aside from like the, you know, the two-letter AI answer, like how how is the way we

understand the universe changing now and how is it positioned to change, you know, in the next 20 years or whatever time horizon.

>> Yeah. So the easiest way to to think about the ways in which the universe is changing. Let's talk about known and

changing. Let's talk about known and unknown universe first. Let's just

define these things. It's helpful.

>> A known universe is basically everything that exists around us that we can sort of consider a discrete or a finite problem. So if a calculation can solve

problem. So if a calculation can solve this thing, we can consider it a finite problem and it exists in our known universe. if there is no calculation for

universe. if there is no calculation for it either because we don't even know that it is a thing or because the variables are just too infinite right like for example a finite problem in

this case is how do we get to Mars >> an infinite problem or an indefinite problem is how do we get to the Andromeda galaxy or how do we get to a galaxy beyond that it's just not even something that we could really make

sense of today because we just don't lack the tools to fully understand and we don't even know where we would go in the Andromeda galaxy to begin with um or or what we might face as we go out there.

>> Yeah, >> obviously bio and life sciences, molecular sciences, particle sciences, you know, have this probably the largest

scope of known universe finite problems that we can sort of point at and they are starting to make incredible grounds because in a world where we unlock human potential,

we can start supercharging the experts that we have. And so, you know, if there are 10,000 oncological researchers in the world because the aperture for oncological research is just very small

for reasons that, you know, listeners can can make sense of. The one answer is we could just make more of these people, but that's really hard. We don't have the infrastructure to do that. The other

answer is we supercharge these people.

And so, what we're going to see is in the in sort of the very short order, the answer to the question, what if there were like 10 million oncological researchers? What if there were 10

researchers? What if there were 10 million people studying molecular science, particle science, etc. And this is going to lead to the breakthroughs in novel science that we're sort of

expecting fusion quantum um AGI etc. And and as a reminder, OpenAI was 90 people when we shipped chat GBT. Uh sorry, 90

when we shipped GBT 3.5 and 130 people when we shipped chat GBT.

>> Yeah, >> small teams are very capable now >> uh for the reasons I've described. So in

short order, I think the obvious answer is going to we're going to unlock a lot of what we consider finite problems. Things like cure for cancer, you know, is something that I think we

know we can solve and I think we're going to solve it. What's the meaning of life is going to remain probably an indefinite problem for a long time. And

and is there a god is going to remain an indefinite problem for like there are things that will remain in our sort of unknown universe outside the scope of what we can solve for for quite a while.

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