The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:13:23 · Thomas Sohmers, Harry Stebbings
[00:13:23] S0: Yeah. I don't think that's actually the intention or anything. But, yes, the... That's the bulk of their costs. [00:13:27] S1: How did you analyze the pacing of frontier? You brought it up. How did you analyze it?
00:13:32 · Thomas Sohmers
[00:13:32] S0: I have mixed feelings on on the safety topic. I I am a human, you know, would like to, live old age and and more more so than that, have have humanity, continue to the stars and beyond. But I believe much more in the ability for this technology to revolutionize every part of humanity in in a positive way. I do worry that pacing in a lot of the ways that's being talked about, not necessarily how it will be implemented, has two big risks. One, a major pause and sort of that playing into, for lack of a better word, the Luddite sentiment that exists and that by pushing for pause, it's actually giving ammunition, giving better basis for those that actually just wanna stop the technology over completely. And I I see that as a major risk for humanity. The second piece is my actual PDU, my... The thing that I'm most worried about of any, you know, AI outcomes is that technology and capability being concentrated to relatively few people. And having a lot of what's being discussed from a regulatory framework and limitations on on technology, etcetera, I think is like the modern, you know, road to serfdom. It's like the concentration of technological capability, making it legal to do matrix multiplications is, like, the thing that will set us back to, you know, pre... Not not just industrial revolution. It's like pre enlightenment capabilities. Like, that that is, like, the biggest attack on classical, like, liberal freedom concepts that I I can I can think of? Because while I do think that the vast majority of tokens are going to be produced by the big players, if the technology itself is restricted to just those, then they're going to be the new lords and and kings and everyone else is is back to serfs.
00:15:23 · Harry Stebbings, Thomas Sohmers
[00:15:23] S1: The greatest of respects is it not just lip service. Gray will stick meter in the corner. They can do that compliance, and then we can IPO. Sam can have a reason not to IPO because his numbers aren't as good as anthropics. It plays into both our desires. [00:15:38] S0: And and Elon wants time to catch up as well. And [00:15:41] S1: So so it plays into everyone.
00:15:43 · Thomas Sohmers
[00:15:43] S0: Completely agree. And I I think that is the biggest internal reason for everyone other than Dario. Dario and and I would say the vast majority of people in Anthropic are true believers both in all of the promise and capabilities of technology and the risks. And if I were in their shoes, I would also be... Take it the the massive amount of responsibility for that. But I will say, like, yeah, there... There's a lot of strategic reasons of saying, okay, by having these auditors, etcetera, that removes some potential responsibility, culpability from, like, a legal perspective, etcetera. The risk that I just don't think that any of... I think this is a problem with a lot of very smart people, especially when they've amassed large wealth and power, etcetera, is they think that they're going to be able to keep that. And the the scariest thing and kind of my my point, like, the centralization of technology, like, it gets concentrated with companies, governments, etcetera, is you've got people that think that they're the smartest people in the room, not realize that they are not gonna be the ones to actually control it when they put these measures in place. Like, Dario basically, on one hand, verbally begging for government governments to take over Anthropic. He's in part saying that because he doesn't think it'll actually happen. I would love to see his reaction if and when that actually happens, and he realizes, oh, shit. I thought that if I was begging for regulations, they would then make me the regulator. And when that doesn't happen, and it just becomes a bureaucracy that halts all progress and the capabilities that currently exist basically get squandered to select bureaucrats, that's the worst outcome I can imagine.
00:17:16 · Harry Stebbings, Thomas Sohmers
[00:17:16] S1: When you consider the advancements that China are making, especially with their open ecosystem, but they are an incredibly talented ecosystem right now moving forwards. If we pace and they don't, what happens then? [00:17:30] S0: I guess when I said that the worst possible outcome, I wasn't counting the Terminator outcome, and I wasn't counting that. So I think, of course, everyone can agree Terminator or similar or similar is is very bad, but I think is extremely low probability. And and just... I'm not a believer in that doom scenario. For the vast majority of people, would result in the same level of serfdom that I worry about with the scenario that I I described would be significantly worse for some number of people in a Chinese CCP controlled, you know, super intelligent AI scenario. You know, on one hand, their strategic angle right now is have technology proliferates through open source, etcetera. I think as soon as they get into pole position, the latter gets pulled up with them in some way. I I don't think they actually want the technology to be easily accessible to everyone. Now I don't know if they will decide that it's okay if the rest of the world has some access to the technology, but they definitely will not let the billion people that are not CCP party members, benefit equally from from technology. [00:18:35] S1: So just so I understand, do you agree with it? Because, to me, I just didn't get it. You can't pace the frontier unless the global AI community paces the frontier, and I don't see Putin signing up.
00:18:35 · Harry Stebbings, Thomas Sohmers
[00:18:35] S1: So just so I understand, do you agree with it? Because, to me, I just didn't get it. You can't pace the frontier unless the global AI community paces the frontier, and I don't see Putin signing up. [00:18:46] S0: Agreed. And I I think this is a little bit the same naivety that that I described by these company leaders and and, in general, people in the Western world thinking, oh, we're so great. We're so advanced and so far ahead that we can't get caught up to. I mean, on paper, is The US the greatest military force in the world? Yes. If we had to all of a sudden have a drone incursion, the same level of, you know, what's happening in Ukraine, Russia, you know, coming up from Mexico. And if you take Mexico, let's just say that they developed, you know, very naive drone technology and etcetera, like, on the level of what's happening in Russia, Ukraine, and and Iran, how would we respond to that as a country if we had that coming up across our border? Doesn't matter. Our amazing military might. I... We built our military to fight the last war. And I think geopolitically, our thinking is, oh, we're the big dog still. And that when it comes to AI technology, there's not the acceptance that export controls and all of the other elements that theoretically would allow us to pace and have people keep paces behind us just aren't good long term solutions. [00:19:51] S1: Do you think we should have export controls?