How WIRED’s Kevin Kelly Predicts the Future After 40 Years in Tech

What I've learned with the future is that it's easy to make predictions and hard to make predictions that are true.

Jiren Laneir showed me VR in 87. I was completely blown away and I

87. I was completely blown away and I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is the future." The VR that we had back then is

future." The VR that we had back then is not that much different than the VR you get now, the difference was that was multi-million dollars and it cost now

$100. I've been very very surprised

$100. I've been very very surprised about how slow that has been. You could

say VR is still waiting for its LLM moment. AI's 50y year overnight success.

moment. AI's 50y year overnight success.

[Music] [Music] Kevin, welcome to the show. It's a

pleasure to be here. I'm glad to be seen. I am very excited to have you. In

seen. I am very excited to have you. In

addition to being a personal hero of mine, I am a longtime Wired reader. I

had like a gigantic shelf of magazines growing up.

So, it's sort of crazy to get to chat with you. There's a lot of things I want

with you. There's a lot of things I want to talk to you about, but I want to start with we have a mutual love of Annie Dillard. We do. She is my favorite

Annie Dillard. We do. She is my favorite uh writer and I know she's your favorite writer as well. Tell me why you like

her. For for th for those who aren't

her. For for th for those who aren't familiar with Annie, she burst onto the scene

with a meteorite of a book called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek that for some reason

it's account of her spending some year on musing kind of like a Henry David Thorough intimate investigation of a creek in

Virginia or West Virginia, I don't remember. And so it was just the writing

remember. And so it was just the writing and the style and the ideas and her blazing brilliance in

being able to capture this into a few words. It was almost like poetry. There

words. It was almost like poetry. There

was pros. It somehow just worked on my brain. And I don't know enough about

brain. And I don't know enough about literature to describe her in relation to other writers and why it doesn't work for me as much. But there was something

about her spirit as well as her writing which was very expansive, cosmic, enthusiastic,

questioning. She talked about feeling as

questioning. She talked about feeling as if at one point in the story that she was a bell that someone else had rung and I felt exactly the same in response

to her writing. It was like she was ringing my bell in a curious way. Yeah.

I lifted and struck. There's another

part in the early part of the book where she talks about the tree with the lights in it. Yeah. And that moment is so very

in it. Yeah. And that moment is so very evocative of like one of her big themes which is you can just be sort of walking around in in ordinary life and ordinary

nature and somehow like the veil is lifted from your eyes and um you can experience these um moments of transcendence where everything feels like it's glowing from within.

So yeah. So, so there was this her kind of cosmic poetic, you know, ability to kind of take these moments, but

then interstitual with that were these findings, these weird little trivia bits that you'd find in some

obscure book that you would be grounded in before the next jump. It was it was a

a very distinctive way of kind of wrapping repsotic ecstasy with very

concrete science trivia or oddities and that combination just somehow appealed to me. Yeah. The uh the thing I remember

to me. Yeah. The uh the thing I remember is she spends a long time talking about Henley's loops which are like this little part of the kidney, right? Um,

and it's just like where does that even come from? Um, and uh, yeah, I think

come from? Um, and uh, yeah, I think like she sort of zooms out to the biggest stuff and then zooms into the smallest stuff, right? But another thing that's really interesting about her writing, and I'm I'm curious how you've

thought about this in your own work, is um, she spends a lot of time talking about the beauty of the world, but she also spends a lot of time talking about the worst of the world. like there's an

entire um chapter on insects and how gross insects are. She's also angry about it and not afraid to be angry about it, you know. Um and I think a lot of writers are usually either one or the

other. Either you're like really angry

other. Either you're like really angry or you're really everything is beautiful and awesome and she does both pretty well. That's true. She said, I think

well. That's true. She said, I think either she said in the book or elsewhere that she wrote the book as if there was a patient of cancer

dying in her room. Oh wow. And she's

talking to them. So yeah, that was uh um that yeah it it is not just saccharine.

It's not just sweet kumbaya. It's yeah,

she's she can be pretty harsh too. And

and as you said that is part of the attraction of you know the sweet sour flavor. How has she, if at all,

flavor. How has she, if at all, influenced how you write or edit?

Well, in some ways, it's why I write at all because I I I came across that book in the weirdest of all places. It was in

a library, American library in Candy, Sri Lanka. Wow. And I walked in because

Sri Lanka. Wow. And I walked in because there was air conditioning and there was a book. Why they had the book there, I

a book. Why they had the book there, I don't know. But there was a book I

don't know. But there was a book I opened up and from the first immediate paragraph. I once had a Tom cat, you

paragraph. I once had a Tom cat, you know, like it was I was I was caught and I didn't put it down and it was like I don't know what she's doing, but I want

to do that. If I could do that, I would, you know, I'm in. I'm golden. I feel the same way. Have you read any of her other

same way. Have you read any of her other any of her other stuff? Yeah. Yeah. I

didn't I didn't write read her fiction book but the other essay books of essay teaching a stone to talk and holy the firm the writing life yeah holy the firm

and all those yes and her account of the eclipse has uh the total eclipse it's sort of never to be equaled

um anybody who writes about eclipse has to start with Annie's version.

Yeah, it's it's so funny because like the reason I started with Annie is um I love her so much and I and she evokes all the same kind of feelings in me that I think she evokes for you and and gives

me that same kind of energy to write stuff. If I write stuff after I've read

stuff. If I write stuff after I've read something that she's written, it just it brings something out in me that I just love.

Um, and also no one else I know likes her or even really has heard about her.

Like I feel like a lot of her work is um, uh, it's maybe taught in school, but it's like kind of the thing that you're assigned, but people don't like as much.

Well, they probably also don't read the whole thing. They probably would have

whole thing. They probably would have understood is they only get the excerpt.

Yeah. Um, you know, it's probably some one passage about the the lights in the trees or whatever.

Um, yeah, it it is true because because she didn't really I mean she wrote a couple other books but she didn't really go on to

have a huge amount of work and a huge amount of output for whatever reason. I

actually sent her a book that I did when I was riding my bicycle across the country. I did a haiku and a sketch

country. I did a haiku and a sketch every day and I sent her the book, the original, and because I thought I was inspired by her. I just thought that she would enjoy it. And she actually sent

some nice words in response to the book and sent it back.

Um, so that was my kind of my one, it was the one time when I kind of wrote to a hero.

That's really nice. Yeah, she she did reply. I bet a reply a reply from Annie

reply. I bet a reply a reply from Annie is probably pretty rare. So, uh, that's that's pretty great. I think I still have it. I I think it's right behind me.

have it. I I think it's right behind me.

I should dig it up and see. She did

There was one little drawing. She said

she really liked that little drawing.

So, that was that was good. Yeah.

Another thing um to move on from Annie for a second, one thing that you wrote in your book, The Inevitable, that I really loved and thought was interesting is um after living online for the past

three decades, first as pioneer in a rather wild empty quarter and then later as a builder who constructed parts of this new continent, my confidence in this inevitability is based on the depth of these technological

changes. I really love the the sort of

changes. I really love the the sort of like pioneer to builder transition. Mhm.

I've been watching this show. It's an

old HBO show called Deadwood. I don't

know if you've seen it. I haven't seen it. Um, but it's it's basically about

it. Um, but it's it's basically about Deadwood. Uh, I think now it's South

Deadwood. Uh, I think now it's South Dakota, but it was like a it was a mining town in Indian territory before it was annexed into a state, and so it had no law. Um, and the whole show is

kind of about that transition from pioneer to like or order out of chaos. I

think there's a lot of resonance with with sort of what you wrote and and this um yeah the transition from pioneer to to builder feels like something that's

deeply embedded into tech. Even with

every single wave like in the in this new AI wave there's this whole movement of pioneers like kind of figuring out the whole new landscape and then the builders kind of move in. Tell me about

what that's been like for you to participate in and watch over the last couple decades. Yeah. Um there are a lot

couple decades. Yeah. Um there are a lot you know there are always um feelings of loss as the the kind of the freedom of no laws the unvarnished the

unconstrained ability to do what you want without having to ask permission that goes away and and oh actually I was just just just I had another experience

that was like that which was Burning Man. Yeah. And um um I was reminding

Man. Yeah. And um um I was reminding them because I did a a podcast with Burning Man today and they we were reminiscing about you know my the first 96 or so the first uh time I was a

Burning Man when there were no streets, there were no uh there's no adult supervision at all.

There was no sense of order. There was

it was it was crazy and chaotic and wonderful.

But there was a second year I think there was somebody who died because they got run over by a car and they were just sleeping on the sleeping bag. And so it

was like oh we need streets. Okay. And so

streets. Okay. And so

um and over over years and years of Burning Man, they have more and more of the layering of law and order and they have tons and tons of police and

sheriffs and whatnot and laws and and the bureaucratic stuff that I had to go through because I did artwork last year was unbelievable. what it was like

was unbelievable. what it was like dealing with somebody in India and um so but at the same time I think Bernie means better than ever and so you lose

something but actually I think um there's more to be gained by adding that layer of

organization and structure and governance and so um what you want to have is though you still want to have those zones whether it's a frontier you want to making new

territory that generates new frontiers and some people are better on the frontier than back at the center and I

think that's a wonderful way the world would work and so for me I want to maintain both of constantly new

frontiers where those who are suited to not having to have many rules um are able to thrive and then Those who

prefer to have the discipline of working within rules also can thrive. What about

in your own life? Because

um you know as someone who's interested in new technology that requires being on the frontier and the interesting thing about the frontier is if you're a little

bit of a restless spirit it's pretty cool. That's it. Um but being a restless

cool. That's it. Um but being a restless spirit is um it can be hard, it can be lonely. How have you balanced that in

lonely. How have you balanced that in your own life or dealt with in your own life? So I tend to visit the

life? So I tend to visit the frontier. I'd spend a lot of my adult

frontier. I'd spend a lot of my adult life in the very remote parts of Asia where there is very little infrastructure. I spent a early portion

infrastructure. I spent a early portion of my adulthood for many extended time in areas where there was very little modern

infrastructure and I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it but I would have died if I needed to live there. I mean so so it was a great place

there. I mean so so it was a great place to visit but it was only great because I was going to leave. I have the same kind of things with the frontiers is like yeah Bernie man's fantastic for two

weeks but it'd be horrible to have to live there year round and you know being on the the frontier of the internet and

or AI my understanding is is that you know it's a moving it's a moving frontier it's going to move I can keep going up to the to the edge to see

what's happening but I don't need to stay there and I'm going to actually come back and report anyway Okay. Um, so

I have the liberty of, you know, being a nomad in that sense of um, occupying it. So for me, it's a fantastic place to spend some

time in, but not a a place that I want to spend all my time in. And how does that work? Because I understand sort of

that work? Because I understand sort of the frontier of going to another country and be able to come home, but with technology, um, you can be at the frontier in your

house. Um, and so is that is that

house. Um, and so is that is that structured for you? Like there are there are periods in your life or periods in your day where you're sort of immersing yourself in what's new and then periods where you're kind of in the sort of

stability of whatever you're familiar with or how does it work? Yeah. Right.

So, one of the things that I I discovered over time is the all the my favorite people who were best about the future were actually great historians

too. So I would balance reading

too. So I would balance reading something about AI with trying to read something historical in the past and um I balance you know wrestling with the

latest AI stuff with working in my workshop and using my hands. So for me yes that's exactly what it is. Um Jeff

Bezos said, you know, he was trying to build a business on the things that didn't change. And so the long now foundation,

change. And so the long now foundation, which I've been very central to, is trying to take a long-term view and not

just to forward, but also the past. And

so for me, I would spend time on this ephemeral frontier, but also then try to think about the next 10,000 years and the last 10,000 years. As you're digging into the current AI wave, what are the

historical periods that you're thinking about or diving into? Yeah, actually, I spent a good amount of time recently reading about

the discovery and or invention of electricity.

Because my contention right now is we have no idea what intelligence is. That

we're as ignorant of it as um Isaac Newton and others were of electricity when it was first encountered. And Isaac Newton, one of

encountered. And Isaac Newton, one of the smartest humans ever, was totally wrong about electricity. Right? He had

just wrong weird ideas about it that were just that were just wrong. What did

he think about it? I I have not heard anything about Isaac Newton in electricity. That's really interesting.

electricity. That's really interesting.

He was one of the people who kind of thought that there was this either floan. Have you heard of floan? Yeah.

floan. Have you heard of floan? Yeah.

Fleetin. Yeah. Yeah. So it was it was something that creates fire. Yeah. It

was this kind of Well, no, it was just this kind of um element. there was

another element and this and and the the uh discovery electricity was happening at the same time that basically we were understanding what elements and atoms

and compounds were. So Davies and Faraday and those guys um were almost discovering stuff about um electricity

weekly and the origins of the Royal Academy came out of the weekly meetings that they would have where they would sell tickets and do

demos with electricity and make sparks and stuff. And one of the

and stuff. And one of the biggest news items in the shocks was when they and I forget who it was, maybe

if I already proved that electricity would happen in a vacuum because there goes the ether. You

don't need ether. It's like well then what is it? Okay. And um and there was you know some of the earliest beliefs electricity was that it was primarily a

biological phenomena and there's all those um all those reflexes and reflexes and stuff and so there were just endless theories about what is and they all

reminded me of all the theories we have about what intelligence is because we don't really know what it is and I have been saying I suspect that intelligence

is not an element but a compound that it is made up of a complex of different cognitive elements and that we

haven't even identified yet in the same way that salt's not a element. Salt is

actually a compound of some elements that they had not yet identified. So you

can think of the kind of the current AI is we're making some kind of salt and we don't even know what it's made from.

Yeah, I think that's true. where it

makes my mind go and I'm curious how you would respond to this is um we actually do know what it is but we don't know it in the same way that we know what

electricity is. Um so we don't have a

electricity is. Um so we don't have a explicit exact mathematical theory in the same way that we can talk about talk about electricity and we don't have a

way to decompose it into parts that um that that reduce down and then recombine into it. But we do know what it is on a

into it. But we do know what it is on a in a different way. Like I'm talking to you and I know that you're intelligent.

Um, and that's harder to grasp. It's not

it's not the same kind of graspy um I can pin it down to the wall kind of thing, but I think that that just may be a property of of intelligence that it is

sort of like this fuzzy thing. How do

you think about that? Well, I don't know. You may be confusing recognizing

know. You may be confusing recognizing something with with knowing it. So I

think we can recognize it, but I definitely don't think we know what it is. And in fact, I think our brains are

is. And in fact, I think our brains are incredibly opaque to introspection on deliberately. I I I I think we have these complex things that

that deliberately does not allow the organism to interfere and meddle with it. Because you imagine if we had access

it. Because you imagine if we had access to the source code, we'd be we would be completely uh wrecking ourselves. And what the it is again I I

ourselves. And what the it is again I I I think we humans have a very peculiar complex of things that if we map it out in the possibility space of

all possible minds which is a very highdimensional space that we're going to be our compound is way at the edge.

We're an edge species. We're not at the center of anything the galaxy or the solar system or evolution. We are an

edge. our kind of intelligence will be

edge. our kind of intelligence will be revealed to be a very peculiar mixture that's um evolved for us. And then what

we're going to be doing with AI is making hundreds of various other kinds and filling out that possibility space

with many types of thinking. And so

we'll look back and you know we we won't even recognize maybe some of these other things as intelligence right now because doesn't we don't have a very good definition. You know it's like what are

definition. You know it's like what are the definitions or what are the marks for something that doesn't like a humanlike intelligence. The some people

humanlike intelligence. The some people say well there isn't anything. There's

only universal intelligence and we're just going to make more of it. that

there's only one thing and I that's possible but I suspect that's wrong. I

suspect that there is many compounds and that they will be engineered to do different things and to some degree we

won't understand even how they work but that's because they're different and so um uh I I I think we are very much like

the early days of electricity where we simply didn't have a clue about what it was even though we could use it even though we could recognize it. Where does

your intuition that it's made up of compounds come from? Well, and several reasons. One is Marvin Minsky was the

reasons. One is Marvin Minsky was the first who suggested it called the um society of mind. And then these days the AIs have mixture of experts

um where they are already doing that where they already are taking different kinds of cognition and making them into compounds and so I think we'll have various layers of this like tissues

where you have cells and and um or molecules made from elements and so we're going to make some very high

chain heavy compounds of intelligence at some made up from lots of little bits of elemental cognition. What we haven't

elemental cognition. What we haven't done yet is done the chemistry of identifying what some of the basic

cognitive units are or the cognitive elements and um um we may be starting to do that.

Thinking about the way neural networks work, a way to look at them is they learn many many thousands or millions of rules for what to do in particular situations that they can

partially apply and run many many of those rules in parallel to find the right set that sort of applies to a particular situation. So in that case

particular situation. So in that case like intelligence is a compound of rules that are about like little microcorrelations.

um that are applied depending on how relevant they are to a particular situation. Um but it's interesting to

situation. Um but it's interesting to think about [Music] um how much of those rules are uh

contingent like they're just situational versus they're they're sort of universal. Um because we do know for

universal. Um because we do know for example how neural networks function at a low level like we know the atomic units and in fact like the specific architecture the specific set of atomic

units that you use doesn't really matter for the high level behavior. It does to some extent but you can get basically the same behavior no matter the the simple components you use right so there's something like always hard to

understand in between the simple components and the like outward behavior that we observe. I mean, you know, Danny Hills made a computer with tinker toys.

So, you can make computers out of all kinds of elements, logic gates and stuff like that. So, I

don't want to confuse sort of like your neuronets. I don't think that is the

neuronets. I don't think that is the basic unit. I think there's a type of

basic unit. I think there's a type of reasoning or learning or something that happens with the neural nets that we haven't

quite identified yet that I would say that's that that would be the the element is is what is

that process of pattern matching or if that is what it is or deduction or what's the logic or what's the workflow

for doing deduction and it could be uh you know could be agnostic to the actual platform. It seems like it must be um in

platform. It seems like it must be um in in some way. But yeah, that's interesting. Um one of the things I love

interesting. Um one of the things I love about um the way that you've set up your career and and I think probably also the um the way that you think about just

creative work in general is um it's about being honest and authentic to who you are instead of what you think you should be doing.

And I found that over and over again like especially like at the beginning of a career it's like really easy to be like I need to do things in this particular way and then at some point

you're like I don't know this kind at least for me you're like this isn't working as well as it should and this kind of sucks and like I guess I have to like do the thing that's like more honest to who I am and more shaped to

who I am and and it it removes all of this like daily friction.

Um, so like honestly like hearing you talk about that in various forms over the year has been like quite helpful for me. How does that look now after many

me. How does that look now after many years of thinking that way? Is that

still something that's that's on your mind that's difficult that you have to like unstick yourself from or are you kind of do you get used to living that way after a while?

Um, yeah. I mean my own life was never very planned or deliberate in that sense. I had I had more directions than

sense. I had I had more directions than destinies or destinations. A phrase that I like or

destinations. A phrase that I like or advice that I like to give these days is about don't aim to be the best. Aim to

be the only be the only. But that was not something that I

only. But that was not something that I was doing consciously when I was younger. That was something that I only

younger. That was something that I only realized I was doing much later. And

it's it's part of the book about wisdom I wish I had known earlier is I really did wish that someone had told me that earlier. Um and

earlier. Um and so I think I did some a bunch of things very intuitively without necessarily um having a grand plan about it. And so so

I kind of naturally move in that direction. And um this this idea of

direction. And um this this idea of being the only was made clear to me first at

Wired where I was trying to assign stories that I had to other writers and often not getting any

traction with a great idea that um I couldn't sell to anybody.

And after years of kind of um trying to kill it, I would wind up doing it myself and then realizing, oh, that's

because only I can do it and that's what I should be focusing on to begin with.

And um so that was so I think the the the clarity of it I I think I have more clarity of it but I'm still kind of doing what I've always

done but maybe being a little bit more aware of the the actual process of of doing it. Yeah. Um I I resonate very

doing it. Yeah. Um I I resonate very much with this like trying to get writers to to do an idea. Um so every the company that I run it's a media company and

um it's so different from other any other business because like uh I come from the software world and if you have a product idea and you build a little bit of it you can have someone else like build a lot build most of the product

and it's totally it can be great but getting a writer to write your idea it's never any good almost never there's like the people who are good ghost writers are like such a

small portion of writers That actually wasn't that actually wasn't my experience. My experience was that the writers were even better. So,

you know, I assigned uh I had I discovered reading it e spectrum that they were laying the um fiber or you know, fiber optic cables around the

globe and I thought they're wiring up, you know, the new sphere. Um that would be a great story.

sphere. Um that would be a great story.

So, I signed Neil Stevenson to that. He he, you know, he just did this

that. He he, you know, he just did this masterpiece. I could never ever have

masterpiece. I could never ever have done. Um, and Bruce Sterling and the

done. Um, and Bruce Sterling and the other great writers, um, they did a much better job of writing it than than I ever could have.

Well, I wish I had Neil Stevenson writing for me. Okay, here's the thing.

This is what I tell every aspiring is get the young science fiction writers of today and give them journalistic assignments. They love it because

assignments. They love it because they're they're born storytellers.

You're paying them to go learn something that they want to learn and they'll come back with something amazing. I think

that's the key thing and and what I what I'm more talking about rather than like it's it's I I' I've worked with a lot of like really talented writers. Everyone

that I work with, I think, is super talented. But trying to get someone to

talented. But trying to get someone to write about something they don't really want to write about, it's never going to be that good. Um in my experience. Well,

yeah. But yeah. So, so you have you have to match it to something that they're interested in. So, um yeah, that's

interested in. So, um yeah, that's that's the that's the trick. I wasn't

giving them I wasn't making them write something they weren't interested in, but I was and sometimes that's how the conversation would start, you know, okay, what's something you're really

interested in um that we can help make happen that we can pay you to educate yourself in?

And you know, we could jointly come up with an idea. Um, and I mean, if again, if I was running a magazine, that's the first thing I would start doing is finding the youngest science fiction

writers and giving them assignments. I

should uh I should look into that. Mostly, I just uh find people who

that. Mostly, I just uh find people who write good tweets that I'm that I find interesting. Yeah, that's fine. That's a

interesting. Yeah, that's fine. That's a

good way, too. But

um uh find someone who could tell a good story and has a little bit of a um ability to kind of fantasize or you

know whatever. So um you know and Neil

know whatever. So um you know and Neil was not Neil when we were first starting you know he he he he was still at the beginning of of his career which is of

course why he agreed to it. Yeah. One of

the things you you talk about a lot is being a reluctant writer. um and born editor. And one of the just getting into

editor. And one of the just getting into AI for a second, one of the things that strikes me about AI is it it puts you into editing mode much quicker. Yeah, it

does. How has that worked for you? It's

been great because it's I can get over that big hump. just just kind of helping get something on the page and starting to work with and kind of

illuminating the spots that I'm most ignorant of and um yeah, for me it's a really great uh way to start. Is there

anything that has worked particularly well like um as part of your workflow to like to get it started? Um well I use it for re

it I use some of them for research too and that's another way you know while you're researching you're summarizing stuff and synthesizing. So there are these elements that begin

to to take place. It's that the LMS are really good at organizing things and that's see I'm not that organized normally. I don't I don't I kind of um

normally. I don't I don't I kind of um I'm a gardener rather than an architect in terms of things and so I can get a little bit more further along in

thinking about it in an or architectural way. Um so for me it's a yeah it's a

way. Um so for me it's a yeah it's a great way to start on things. What are

you using day-to-day AI wise like which models? I'm using mostly Open AI right

models? I'm using mostly Open AI right now. Do you use uh any like any

now. Do you use uh any like any particular one like are you using 401 03? Um I have the 01 pro. Do you

401 03? Um I have the 01 pro. Do you

like it? Yeah. I mean I I've done some of you know for very deep research and it's it's it's astounding. I'm just reminded again

it's astounding. I'm just reminded again again that this is a skill. Using him, getting the most from

skill. Using him, getting the most from it is a skill that will take you 10,000 hours. And it's definitely not just

hours. And it's definitely not just pushing the buttons. It's not just clicking. And so, um, it it's very

clicking. And so, um, it it's very apparent to me that, um, you know, I need to spend a lot more

time whispering and understanding how it is and what is, how to use it. And so,

um, my needs right this moment are not so that I'm using that level of research every day. Do you have specific examples

every day. Do you have specific examples of like when you've used it for research that it has like blown you away? I did

something uh and this is a little bit of something I've been meaning to write about which is um I I I had this fantasy

um I had had this observation that I realized that um uh Leonardo da Vinci, Martin Luther and Christopher Columbus were all alive at the same

time and I said I was this is my conversation with the AI. I said, ' imagine it's a snowy evening and all three are stuck in the same hotel

together and they have a conversation, you know, give me the conversation based on, you know, based on your writings and or their interests and their personalities and their and so they did the conversation. I said that was

the conversation. I said that was amazing. But um there they got along so

amazing. But um there they got along so well they decided to collaborate on a project. What would that project be? And

project. What would that project be? And

this was um the AI's idea. The AI's idea was that they would um want to start a a new city in the new world that was based

around science and religious freedom. And I said,

freedom. And I said, "Okay, you know, start writing Wikipedia articles about this city and start we'll start start filling it in." And then we

had characters and peoples and histories. And then I was going on with

histories. And then I was going on with um starting to tell actually to tell it research stories based on these characters. And then I introduced other

characters. And then I introduced other things like uh other contemporaries like Queen Victoria who was alive at the same time. She was the main rival trying to

time. She was the main rival trying to take down the city. There was they reached uh China 10 years before the Portuguese and then they would bring all the books from China. And so I was just

making this bigger and bigger and bigger thing, world building. And I started I I got 10 different novels from it. And

then I had them had synthesize and iron out all the contradiction between the novels and make a big epic saga. And

then I had it write the um making book covers and writing the marketing materials. And the point of all this is

materials. And the point of all this is that I'm not going to show it to anybody because the I don't need to the joy of creating it

was better than reading it. It was it was the audience of one. And so what I'm hypothesizing is that a lot of the generative stuff, the 50 million

uh images that are generated each day with AI, 99.999% have the audience of one.

They're generated for the pleasure of the co-creator. And this idea of people will

co-creator. And this idea of people will be making featurelength movies for themselves. And the the the

pleasure will be in the generating of the movie, the co-generating of the movie that you're directing. You'll be

directing the movie for yourself.

And um anyway, so that was a project I was using pro because the the the degree of historical realism and fantasy was

mindbending.

That's really cool. I love that. It

seems like an there's an interesting line from a thousand true fans to an audience of one. Yeah. How have you thought about that?

Well, of course, there's no economic model for the audience of one.

There is for open AI, right? Exactly. I think this is in, you

right? Exactly. I think this is in, you know, this is the abundance mindset where where you have the time to to do this. So So I I think this is not so

this. So So I I think this is not so much a business or someone's career. I

think this is kind of like a different form of entertainment or self-expression. This is like Sunday

self-expression. This is like Sunday painting or keeping a journal or um you know um someone doing ice

skating. It's it's a form

skating. It's it's a form of selfexpression and relaxation and enjoyment entertainment. So it's it's

enjoyment entertainment. So it's it's closer to entertainment than it is to actually um you know a career. It

reminds me a little bit of um have you are you familiar with active imagination?

No. It's a

um uh it's part of like yian psychotherapy.

Um the idea being um you can do active imagination where you um you take a dream that you've had recently and you sort of like re-enter the dream world while you're waking and

you explore some of the archetypes and themes um either by writing them out or just like exploring them to to to and with yourself. And in doing that um it

with yourself. And in doing that um it kind of reflects back to you things that might be like a little bit more latent in in your psyche. So, the fact that you're playing around with these characters and you're and these novels are going in different directions or

whatever and the decisions that you're making might say something to you about what you're processing or like what you're what you're currently thinking about that um in addition to just being

really fun, it might tell you something about yourself.

Um yeah, so it may be something like that. In fact, you know, I mean, I think

that. In fact, you know, I mean, I think there will be very very good AI therapists.

Um, and maybe to the extent that we may not even make that distinction, maybe some particular AI companions, AI buddies, AI partners will perform some

of that and people will use them in that capacity even though they're not maybe nominated as that. Um, and again, this is something else I've been saying is I think people are going to be shocked by

the degree of emotion emotional bonding that we will have as we put emotions into the AIS. Um, and some people will

be very very close to these on a always on basis and very dependent on them to do their best. Yeah. One thing that um I don't know if you saw but just came out

today like a couple hours ago. No, I

haven't seen them in podcast all you're in for a treat when you get off the when you get off the podcast grind, but OpenAI released uh a new memory

system for chatbt. So, previously

chatbt, you could ask it to save memories, but it would like do it when it was really explicitly told to um and you know when it like really thought, okay, this is definitely something I

need to store. But what the new memory system does is it just it it is able to access all the past history of all your chats that are relevant automatically.

So you can ask things like um what do you know about me that from all of our chats that I might not know about it myself and it will just go through all these historical chats and tell you a a lot of really interesting things. I've

been playing I was playing around with it all day before we got on the show.

Um, I think you'll really uh I think you'll really like it. And I think to that sort of emotional attachment point, I want to use something that feels like it knows me. Sure. I get I get more I

get more more attached to it. I

personally think that's really good, but there's there's trade-offs obviously, and I'll be curious to see how that changes how we relate to each other, too, over the next couple years.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. I've been I've noticed that you're also doing a lot of tweeting with uh it looks like AI generated images. Are you using um are

generated images. Are you using um are you using native image gen for that? I

think you're mostly midjourney.

Midjourney. Yeah. Which for me I just have a habit of that. It's it's

comfortable.

Um, I know Dolly, I mean, not Dolly, the chat now has some, which I've tried and and it's pretty good, but I just, um, I actually like the public aspect of the

MidJourney Discord where you actually it was a huge quick learning curve because you were seeing what the prompts other people were doing and how you could get there. And I and I like

that public aspect of it.

Yeah. I'm curious if we if we zoom back out.

um you've seen a lot of different technology waves. Um I think one of the

technology waves. Um I think one of the interesting things about this particular one is um how how scared people are. Um and

that's probably been true to some extent of of previous ones. Uh but I think in a lot of ways like with mobile it was like people didn't even care. It just like

wasn't even on their minds for a while.

um at least in my lifetime. Um and I'm curious what you've

lifetime. Um and I'm curious what you've learned about like seeing all these different waves come and go like what you've learned about the future uh and how to think about the future.

It's a pretty big question. I think

um the first thing I think about all the places that I was wrong. Where were you wrong? Oh, so many so many times. I was

wrong? Oh, so many so many times. I was

very wrong about VR.

I saw Jiren Lenir showed me VR in 87 something like that in his lab

and I was completely blown away and I thought, "Oh my gosh, this is this is this is the future. This is amazing."

And to to be clear, the the VR that we had back then, which was 30 40 years ago, it's crazy. I can't

remember. It's a lot of years ago, many decades, is not that much different than the VR you get now. The difference was that that was multi-million dollars and

it was now $100. That's the main difference. It was not that it was

difference. It was not that it was actually that much better now. It is. It

is better, but it's not a million times better, but it's a million times cheaper. And so,

cheaper. And so, um, I I was I've been very very surprised about

how resistant how slow how how slow that has been because I really expected that to take off.

Um, I was uh wrong about eBay just as a trivial example. I thought I don't get,

trivial example. I thought I don't get, you know, what's it's who who would use this? And I just didn't have the

this? And I just didn't have the imagination to um to see it. I was early to blockchain,

but I I didn't think Bitcoin was really going to be much. I didn't understand I didn't I didn't foresee the way in which

it became this um store of value and uh I expected like everyone else that it could be used for microp payments

um but it was I didn't understand or we didn't appreciate or we didn't know how expensive it was going to be to to do a

processing and so so my expectations about the role of blockchain. I also

thought that we would have more of a headway into things that were not financial and and again so blockchain became completely overwhelmed by the amount of

money in it and it became about money and finance and I was thought that it would be used for things that had nothing to do with finance. That really

didn't happen. So,

um, so that's when I think about what I've learned with the future is is that it's easy to make predictions and hard to make predictions that are true.

Um, well, if we if we go back to those specific cases, it seems like there was one case where you were like, this is definitely got a future and another and two other cases where you're like, this is not I don't think these are really

that that great. Um, and what do you think you missed? Let's talk about the first one. You're like, "This definitely

first one. You're like, "This definitely has a future." What do you draw from that? What do you think you you missed

that? What do you think you you missed there that made it much harder than you expected to get people to adopt it? I

think it required a lot of biology and uh understanding or or being able to work with biological things rather than just our mind. You

you have focusing on your eyes. you you

have um just the weight of the thing on your head. There's just a lot of biological

head. There's just a lot of biological things in addition to the hardware things. You have hardware biology and

things. You have hardware biology and that that is just going to go slower.

And so one of the things I take from that is I think the arrival of robots is going to take a lot lot lot longer than people think because we have a 25 watt

supercomputer and a quarter horsepower engine and and there's no there's no way we can do all that kind of stuff with that kind of

efficiency anywhere close to that. So

the amount of of power that we need to either compress or to eliminate by making more efficient things is is is a huge huge huge gap. And so that again

that physicality of it particularly around our bodies and stuff are near scale of our bodies I think is is going to be a lot slower. That's what I've

taken away from the thing that what I've learned about VR is that it's going to take a lot more time than than just making AI. Well, that's interesting

making AI. Well, that's interesting because I was going to bring up AI as an interesting parallel example where it also took a lot longer to do AI than we thought it would, but then it just all

seemed to suddenly happen in like 10 years. Um, and I'm curious what you

years. Um, and I'm curious what you think uh the leading indicators are for something like okay so AI didn't work for 50 years and then like suddenly in

like 2010 or so it started to like there was some like glimmers of hope and then chatbt a couple years ago it was like really wow this is a thing

um in VR like if we wanted to measure where we are in that cycle do you have a thought for that yeah I mean you could say VR is still waiting for its LLM moment right where we're where where

there's some technical breakthrough um in the

lenses or focusing or something or projection that um allows for that.

So it's interesting too that the LMS were kind of not working on reasoning directly. they were they were doing

directly. they were they were doing language translation and that's they noticed that there was some reasoning happening in language translation which

was completely unexpected um and maybe uh the key technology for VR AR will come from somewhere else but

it hasn't happened yet and doesn't look like it's happening um right now um so I yeah um we you know AI is AI

That's a 50-year overnight success. And

um um what about uh what about going back to the other two examples? Um so

eBay and blockchain of like hey like I don't this isn't really that interesting. Right. Right. So eBay

interesting. Right. Right. So eBay

um I think uh with the auction stuff and I think the only reason why eBay worked is that people move beyond the auction.

I use eBay all the time and I've never used auction. I just have no patience

used auction. I just have no patience for it. And so I think the idea that it

for it. And so I think the idea that it was this idea that it was auctions and that I didn't connect to and I was never really interested. And I I could be

really interested. And I I could be wrong, but for me, eBay is only now succeeded because most people aren't using the auctions, but I don't know if

that's really true or not. Do you use auctions on eBay? I I only I got really into eBay when I was like 10 and I was like I want to sell everything in my

dad's garage, you know. Did you? Uh I

didn't end up doing it because uh it it just it selling things online as a 10-year-old was it was a complicated uh situation. Yeah. Um but I was really

situation. Yeah. Um but I was really into it for that reason, but I've never really bought anything on eBay. Never

I've never I never bid. So So eBay is actually very very useful. It's kind of like there's Amazon and then there's, you know, Alibaba and then there's eBay, which is sort of like all the things

that either aren't officially for sale or, you know, they're way out of stock or

out of print or they're totally obscure.

And so for me, if you if I can't find it on Amazon, you Alibaba and then you're then you're on to eBay. U Etsy is another level which is like, you know, handmade stuff. But there's eBay is

handmade stuff. But there's eBay is really good for like really obscure stuff and then they do have the option of auction but I never use it.

But anyway, so for me the the thing was this idea of auctioning for everything. Didn't seem

like that was going to work. Um but for a while it it it did and that was just me personally just not being much of a bargainer type. I guess you can't win

bargainer type. I guess you can't win them all. Um

them all. Um um I know you have a hard stop. Uh

Kevin, um it was really great to get a chance to chat. Thank you so much. Um

would love to do this again soon. Yeah,

it was a pleasure. Um great things and um I'm glad there's another Andy Diller fan.

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