The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
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?
00:19:51 · Harry Stebbings, Thomas Sohmers
[00:19:51] S1: Do you think we should have export controls? [00:19:53] S0: I am very much a strong believer in free trade and and free exchange of ideas. The the exception to that is a little bit, I think, China has been a free rider of all of the benefits of, you know, a liberal free trade order for the rest of the world. Well, they get to keep everything closed off. I am very very happy and and think that any government societies, people that want to embrace free exchange of ideas and trade and everything else, we should have a very vibrant economy and ecosystem, but totalitarian regimes should not be able to participate with that, especially in the case where they get all of the benefits of that and get to export themselves, you know, things that make them better able to have that totalitarian, system keep up. [00:20:37] S1: Can I ask? We we mentioned, you know, the pacing the frontier and, you know, the different people who supported it. You had Zuck and Jensen say nothing. Well, Zuck actually come out in opposition to it saying that we should continue as planned. What should we take from those two seemingly silence and opposing it?
00:20:37 · Harry Stebbings, Thomas Sohmers
[00:20:37] S1: Can I ask? We we mentioned, you know, the pacing the frontier and, you know, the different people who supported it. You had Zuck and Jensen say nothing. Well, Zuck actually come out in opposition to it saying that we should continue as planned. What should we take from those two seemingly silence and opposing it? [00:20:53] S0: I I I would say based on my overall beliefs right now, as probably evidenced by the the conversation so far, I would say I'm overall opposed to, you know, the pace of the frontier direction it's going in. And so I appreciate anyone that is adding to the discussion that is, I think, being realist about the benefits and risks, but you always have to take that with a a grain of salt of what are the motives of of anyone that's that's discussing in it. And I would say I probably appreciate Zuck or Dario's comments infinitely more than a random politician and not just random. The the quote unquote leading politicians that don't actually understand the technology. The scariest thing to me on on the political spectrum and the way all of this being treated is that it's now become a almost unifying issue on left and right about being anti data centers. I think that is almost entirely a Chinese SIOP.
00:20:53 · Thomas Sohmers, Harry Stebbings
[00:20:53] S0: I I I would say based on my overall beliefs right now, as probably evidenced by the the conversation so far, I would say I'm overall opposed to, you know, the pace of the frontier direction it's going in. And so I appreciate anyone that is adding to the discussion that is, I think, being realist about the benefits and risks, but you always have to take that with a a grain of salt of what are the motives of of anyone that's that's discussing in it. And I would say I probably appreciate Zuck or Dario's comments infinitely more than a random politician and not just random. The the quote unquote leading politicians that don't actually understand the technology. The scariest thing to me on on the political spectrum and the way all of this being treated is that it's now become a almost unifying issue on left and right about being anti data centers. I think that is almost entirely a Chinese SIOP. [00:21:48] S1: Can I ask why is it a Chinese SIOP being anti data centers? Because, like, it does increase. I... I'm totally with you in the benefits of them. And, you know, Gavin Baker said it, how is that the greatest economic kind of needle mover for large parts of the country? I guess they see increased electricity prices, increased water prices, and ugly data centers in their backyard. Why is it a Chinese sub? What what am I not seeing?
00:22:09 · Thomas Sohmers
[00:22:09] S0: Well, just on the ugly and all that, I I totally am in support of a... We we we need to have beautification campaigns and and really turn them into, centerpieces of of our society. I think if thousands of years in that from now, you know, future history looks and they should see these massive data centers, the the really, really massive impressive ones should have, you know, be like the Great Pyramids or or something like... They've we we need to dress them up to be the the world wonders that they are technologically. The thing from water usage and, like, the amount of power they consume, etcetera, like, so much of the early information that went out by unsophisticated writers or things that are just patently false. Like, you know, a single In N Out uses, you know, more more water than, you know, the largest data centers in The United States. And, like, it's... Golf courses are orders of magnitude more. Like, it's... It... The meat... Like, these are closed loop, you know, liquid cooled systems that that, you know, you don't even wanna use water in a lot of these cases even. So from the Chinese SIOP perspective, they're not... To your your point, they're not pacing the frontier. They're adding, you know, gigawatts of, you know, new electricity generation capacity, most of it being dirty. They're building massive new data centers, horribly displacing people. Like, it just irks me so much that we have the freedom in the Western world to criticize companies, governments, everything based on false information. And I I love the freedom elements of that. But it is a strategic disadvantage when China can just say, yeah. We're going to just bulldoze all these people's homes and and do rolling blackouts wherever in order to, serve the greater good of new new training capacity.