Elon Musk's fears, VCs moving out of China, Sam Altman's Worldcoin domination, Cryptonite Top 300 Web3 Companies, the last Beatles song with some help from AI, Dorsey's new startup investment...
Ask the Ameca robot a question and she will look you with her sapphire-blue eyes. Ameca was developed at Engineered Arts headquarters in Falmouth, Cornwall UK.
Machine or human or combination thereof?
—What Elon, Larry Page, Sam Altman (chatGBT), and Marc Andreessen Think
Elon Musk has been involved with AI since college, deployed AI and neural network technology throughout his Tesla and SpaceX operations, and cofounded the original OpenAI (chatGBT) when it was created to be a foundation. With all that knowledge under his helmet, Elon still believes that the smartest creatures on this earth, as far as we know, are humans, and this is our defining characteristic. 'We are less agile, yet way smarter,' he says.
This all being said, he still publicly asks out loud what it would be like when we inevitably form superintelligent machines out of silicon vastly smarter than humans. "People call it 'The Singularity,' and that's probably a good way of thinking about it. It's singular—it's hard to predict, like at the center of a black hole. When AI systems reach this moment— when they can outperform humans in virtually every way—what happens next is anybody's guess,' he says. As such, Elon believes that AI is "one of the four or five things that would most impact our future."
"AI is more dangerous than mismanaged aircraft design and maintenance or bad car production. It has the potential to cause, however small one might regard the possibility—the destruction of civilization. It's not a trivial potential outcome. We are currently headed towards a state where machines will make more decisions for us and take control of us in ways we can't turn off. It would happen like Terminator—except the intelligence will be in the data centers—but the robots will be the end effectors, and some will be moving so fast that you won't be able to see them without a strobe light." —Elon Musk, April 2023
As we sit on the precipice of this hypothetical moment in time, 'the singularity,' when AI, robots, genetic engineering, and nanotech become so advanced, humanity undergoes a dramatic and irreversible change; what should be our greatest fear? Elon offers an example of what we need o watch for in the short run: central powers using superintelligent machines to produce very persuasive content to control large swaths of the population. "The pen is mightier than the sword," says Elon. "We could see a time when bad actors use superintelligent AI capable of writing incredibly well and convincingly and spread their messaging on Twitter and Facebook, and other social media to spread deceit and manipulate public opinion in their favor. How would we even know?"
Digital God versus the Specists
In Elon's interview with Tucker Carlson in April, Elon told how the break-up of his friendship with Google cofounder Larry Page was his impetus to start the original OpenAI as a non-profit.
Elon: The reason OpenAI exists at all is because I used to be really close friends with Larry Page and stay at his house in Palo Alto. We would talk late in the night about AI safety, and my impression was that Larry wasn't taking AI safety seriously enough.
Tucker: What did he say about it?
Elon: He really seemed just focused on achieving digital superintelligence—essentially a Digital God, if you will, and as soon as possible. He has made many public statements over the years that the whole goal of Google is to create AGI or artificial general intelligence. [Note: AGI is a type of hypothetical intelligent agent that perceives its environment, takes actions autonomously, and can learn to accomplish any intellectual task that human beings can perform. The 'general' in the label refers to the fact that the agents achieve 'generalized human cognitive abilities] I agree with him there is potential for good here, but there is also a potential for bad. It is not necessarily going to be bad, but it will be outside of human control. So if you have some radical new technology, you want to set standards that maximize the probability it will do good and minimize it will do bad things. You can't just barrel forward and hope for the best. So at one point, I said to Larry, we have to make sure humanity is okay here, and then he called me a speciesist. (chuckles).
Tucker: A speciesist? (howls) Did he use that term?
Elon: Yes. There were witnesses. I wasn't the only one there. So I say, yes, I am a speciesist. You got me. I am fully a speciesist. Busted. (laughs) What are you? (howls) So that was really the last straw. At the time [2013], Google and DeepMind [a British AI research lab acquired by Google in 2014] had about three-quarters of all the AI talent in the world, obviously a tremendous amount of cash, and more computers than anyone else, so we were living in a unipolar world now where one company has a near monopoly on AI and scaled computing, and the person in charge doesn't seem to be concerned about safety. This is not good. So I thought, 'What is the furthest thing from Google?' which would be a fully open non-profit. So the 'open' in OpenAI stands for open source and transparency so people know what is going on. I'm normally in favor of for-profit companies, but the idea was not to be a profit-maximizing demon from hell that never stops. So that is why OpenAI was founded. Very unfortunately they decided to become a for-profit company.
Tucker: So you want speciesist incentives here?
Elon: That's right. We want pro-human, respect for the future, therefore good for humans incentives because we are humans.
It's 420-time with Elon and Joe
Beyond superintelligent propaganda machines and Google, Elon also has shared grave concerns about autonomous weapons powered by AI. Elon signed an Open Letter in 2017 along with the cofounder and former head of applied AI at DeepMind Mustafa Suleyman, and 116 other AI experts urging the United Nations to block the use of lethal autonomous weapons, expressing concerns that they could lead to an arms race and be used in unethical or malicious ways. The letter called for a pause on all developments more advanced than the current version of AI chatbot ChatGPT, so robust safety measures could be designed and implemented. Since then, he has taken on a more fatalistic disposition towards AI. "I tried to convince people to slow down AI and regulate AI. I even met with Obama with one message: better watch out. This was futile. I tried for years. Nobody listened,' he told Joe Rogan.
Image from the Terminator Salvation film by Warner Bros.
Almost four years ago, Joe Rogan and Elon smoked a blunt and talked AI; here are some excerpts that touch on the theme of this post.
Rogan: When I listen to you, and Sam Harris talk about AI, its scares the shit out of me. This is a genie that you are never getting it back in once it's out of the bottle. Are you honestly, legitimately concerned about this? I mean, is AI one of your main worries in regard to the future?
Elon: Yes. It will be tricky here because it will be very tempting for humans to use AI against each other as a weapon. In fact, people will use AI as a weapon, a potential danger that is out of our control.
Rogan: How long are we away from a truly sentient machine that can make up its own mind independent of whether it is ethically and morally correct?
Elon: Well, one could argue that any group of people, like a company, is essentially a cybernetic collective of people and machines. There are different levels of complexity in how these companies are formed. There is a kind of collective AI in Google Search where we are all plugged in as nodes on the network, like leaves on a big tree. And we are all feeding this network with our questions and answers and collectively programming the AI. So Google and all the people constantly connected to it are one big cybernetic collective. This is also true of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all the social networks. They are giant cybernetic collections that combine human intelligence with machine intelligence.
Rogan: It seems that it is built in all of us—like an instinct—to want to push innovation forward so that we can get the next great iPhone or Tesla, and this push will get us to some incredible point. And it makes us happy— like an ant building an ant hill, we feel like it's our job to fuel this.
Elon: It does feel like we are the biological bootloader for AI. We are building it, and the percentage of intelligence that is not human is increasing. Ultimately, we will represent a very small percentage of intelligence. But the AI isn't formed, strangely, by the human limbic system; it is largely id writ large. Those primal drives, the things we hate and like, and fear, are all there on the Internet as a projection of our limbic system.
Rogan: It makes sense. These social media networks as some sort of an organism that's a combination of electronics and biology.
Elon: Exactly. And the success of these networks is a function of how much limbic resonance they can achieve with people: and the more limbic resonance, the more engagement.
Rogan: But what's the ultimate—what's the idea behind it? What are you trying to accomplish with it? What is the best-case scenario?
Elon: I think the best-case scenario is we effectively merge [our brains] with AI, where AI serves as a tertiary cognition layer. We've got the limbic …
—As if launching chatGPT was not heady enough, the OpenA founder has been testing another bold idea of creating a 'universal currency and identity standard' with a cool $115M in his pocket to do it.
As if launching generative AI tools is not heady enough, Mr. Altman has been simultaneously brewing another bold idea of creating a 'universal currency and a digital identity and privacy standard,' supported by an iris scanning identification system. Cofounded in 2019 by Mr. Altman and Alex Blania, the CEO of Tools for Humanity, the new crypto project is unabashedly called Worldcoin. Worldcoin's goal is to become 'the world's largest and most inclusive identity and financial network, around a branded ID authentication system, a cryptocurrency, and a crypto wallet, with the eventual goal of becoming a DAO-like entity with decentralized decision-making.
Worldcoin's tokenomics strategy has an equally altruistic bent, as they plan to freely distribute WLD as a universal basic income to everyone 'just for being a unique individual' as a reward to 'establish unique digital identities' to prove 'humanness in an online world populated with increasingly advanced artificial intelligence is possible.'
To achieve its mission, Worldcoin is developing a universal online ID (World ID), a global Ethereum-based cryptocurrency (WLD), and a self-custodial wallet app (World App). This troika of digital services will enable global citizens secure payments, transfers, and purchases to other eyeball-validated users using WLD, stablecoins, and traditional fiat currencies. An underlying theme of Worldcoin is to help better differentiate between humans and AI on the Internet.
While still in beta with the protocol yet to go live on mainnet, Worldcoin's test in early May onboarded 2 million users from 80 countries across five continents (excluding US citizens due to SEC restrictions). Worldcoin also closed $115 million in new VC cash last week in a very bear crypto project funding market. The new series was led by Blockchain Capital and included a16z and Bain Capital Crypto. Coinbase Ventures is also an investor through…
The Cryptonite 300 competition—Web3 private VC-back companies worth the bet
—Somewhere between the raw startups and the Unicorns are the blockchain, AI, and metaverse companies pioneering Web3 and offering the best equity investment ROI potential in the global Silicon Valley
Cryptonite tracks private companies in the blockchain, artificial intelligence, and metaverse industries. To kick off the 2023 Top Private Company competition, our team has compiled the following list of nominated companies from top VCs and other industry insiders in the blockchain, artificial intelligence, and metaverse industries.
(Overheard on the streets of the global Silicon Valley—Got any hot tips?)
VC Whispers —China is now taboo
Sequoia Capital, the Silicon Valley powerhouse, with bets TikTok parent ByteDance and Alibaba used to be China friendly, severs its relationship with its China fund due to the Chinese government crackdown on the local entity and founding partners.
Tim Draper, an early investor in China-based Baidu, says China 'left the free market' under President Xi and no longer a place to invest and is now looking at Taiwan. 'I'm just hoping President Xi hasn't completely lost his mind,' says Drape.
The Big Tech players pouring cash into AI startups: Nvidia (see below), Microsoft/M12 (60 deals: Open.AI, Element AI), Google/GV (24 deals: InstaDeep, Cropin, SambaNova, Typeface), Intel Capital (107 deals: Untether, Anyscale) and Salesforce Ventures (50 deals: Highspot, Alation, Anthropic).
Nvidia has made 18 AI startup investments since 2021. The deals include Adept AI, OpenAI competitor Cohere, drone startup Skydio, edge computing startup Utilidata, autonomous building platform PassiveLogic, conversational AI platform Kore.ai and development platform Saturn Cloud.
Generative AI is poised to transform the copywriting industry, with startups like Jasper (raised a $125M led by Insight Partners at a $1.5B valuation) and Copy.ai. Meanwhile, Grammarly (valued at $13B in 2021) has launched its own generative AI offering.
Jack Dorsey, the Bitcoin bull, has mixed reviews on VR. In a new world of reality headsets like the Apple Vision Pro. While 'it will be phenomenal for gaming,' he worries we end up socially disconnected like Pixarr's WALL-E "in floating chairs, eating food out of straws, with 24/7 entertainment."
"Vision Pro is the Perfect Gadget for the Apocalypse" is the headline of the Atlantic's technology review of Apple's new mixed media VR/AR goggles. 'Apple's latest product will insulate users from a burning world,' says reviewer Charlie Warzel.
ATM-less ATMs. JackDorsey led a $6 million investment in Azteco, a Bitcoin vouchers provider established in 2014 to help the over 2 billion smartphone users lacking regular financial access to global banking ] services. Other investors include Lightning, Hivemind, Ride Wave, ALeka, and Visary Capital.
According to PitchBook, Y Combinator dominated the startup accelerator biz between 2010 and 2022, posting a cohort exit value of $93.3 billion, with Coinbase and Instacart their biggest winners. Techstars at $9.8 billion, MassChallenge at $16.9 billion, and SOSV at $0.6 billion followed.
Generative AI is Coming for Insurance—The ability of large language models (LLMs) to proficiently collect and distill large amounts of data could change this world big-time.—a16z's May 2023 Fintech newsletter.
An Overview of the Ethereum Protocol—Ethereum isn't reliant on a small group of developers, a client, an infrastructure service, or an app, but an infinite many. By Consensys
California Governor Gavin Newsom was born into the SF Blue Party, which has controlled Cali since 1970 and SF since 1964. He was an SF Supervisor (1997-2004), Mayor (2004–2011), Lt. Governor (2011-2019), and now Governor, yet he pops up on Fox to blame the Red Party for the opioid-fueled vagrancy epidemic.
Know Thy Enemy
Hey, Vlad, check this out! Nato launched the biggest EVER aerial war games dubbed 'Air Defender' with 250 aircraft from 25 NATO partner countries. US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann says, "By synchronizing, we multiply the agility and swiftness of our allied force, and bad actors can take note.'
US Cybersecurity Director Jen Easterly says Beijing is making major investments in its cyber-hacking power to sabotage our critical infrastructure, such as pipelines and railways, in the event of a conflict with the US. "It will be very difficult to prevent these disruptions," she said.
President Xi's warning as Sec. of State Antony Blinken is set to visit China: "We must be prepared for extreme scenarios, and ready to withstand the test of dangerous storms, to ensure normal operation of our economy." Xi shares Mao Zedong's penchant for dramatizing foreign threats as a way to keep power.
Revive Thyself!
My 9 Rules of Good Food: 1. Take the culinary wheel, and don't let go. 2. Embrace simplicity and a cast iron pan. 3. Make GMOs a no-go…,,,
"In a very scary way, I feel HEARD by ChatGPT." Grammarly will never replace a great English teacher, but it is an excellent grammar checker in the writing process. 'Robot therapists' might serve the same role as a sanity check between real-life therapy sessions.
"Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology have the potential to create a more accessible, equitable, and efficient financial system—the future of money is open source and decentralized."—Elizabeth Stark, CoFounder & CEO, Lightning Labs.
"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust." — Satoshi Nakamoto,' Creator, Bitcoin & Blockchain.
Zuck in 2Q earnings call amidst sweeping layoffs (21,000 people - 25% cut since fall) and criticism for pouring billions of dollars into its Reality Labs metaverse unit, which lost $13.7 billion in 2022 and has failed to generate much consumer interest.
"We're working on flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster, as well as deploying AI tools to help our engineers to be more productive."
Source material worth the read/view/listen
Lex Fridman with Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. A fascinating videocast all about self-assembling and self-replicating robots that Elon and other AI Gloomers fear.
