The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:10:50 · Jason Lemkin, Rory O'Driscoll, Harry Stebbings
[00:10:50] S2: There's so much going on here. It's it's it's hard to track. Right? I would just add two things I thought were the best things said. One, maybe a little political. One, I think, nonpolitical. I think the best thing actually was David Sacks this week who said, If it's that bad Dario, it's your f ing job. Whether it's 10% or if there's any material risk, your company is going to exterminate even a subset of humanity. That is your job. Your job is to fix it, down the company if you can't, right? And if you're unable to see a... Bring in a new CEO. This is your... If there's any company that had these sort of odds, it is it is your job. Right? This is product liability one zero zero zero zero one. You can't kill so... You know, there's only so many people you're allowed to kill with your product. [00:11:29] S1: And, Jason, it is... First of you're exactly... I gotta hand it to death. I think it was spot on a 100%. And I think it was really odd to see Lina Khan, who is probably the antitrust regulator most of the Silicon Valley hates the most, come out on exactly the same point. When you get David Saxe and Lena Khan, both on the same side and both making excellent points, it's a really fun issue. I I I agree with you. [00:11:50] S0: I... I'm sorry. I'm naive. If you build recursive self improvement in the way that people talk about it, is what it becomes not relatively unknown. Like, I could have good intentions for it, but it could become something else or used by malicious actors could be weaponized to be something else.
00:12:08 · Rory O'Driscoll
[00:12:08] S1: And I think... Okay. Being really clear here. I agree. That is actually the only one of the three risks itemized in the Dario thing that I think is interesting. Because the other two, economics, I think it was a foolish thing to say for a whole bunch of reasons. You can't say I'm not gonna invent technology because it puts people unemployed. We'd still be back on on all on our farm, 73% of work in the farm. That was a dumb point. Just trying to be nice and sucky yuppie. The whole cyber thing is real, but that cat's out of the barn. The commies have the the cyber, so we're done. The only thing that was a fair point... And then on the other hand, the Pee Doom thing he didn't talk about. So the only thing in his letter that was actually simultaneously, yeah, that's a fair point. And I don't have the answer is exact that we could quote lose control of the things, recursive self improvement, that kind of stuff. You're right. Of the three issues he raised, as I think from the three responses he gave, that was the one that you go, okay. I can't... Jason's point... I think Jason and David's point went on at that point. What you're saying is forget the other two, which are about other people will do shit with our technology. We'd come back. What you're saying is you're building something you can't control. If you're building something that you can't control, then maybe you should stop building it. Because you're the CEO. And as Jason... I'm gonna greet Jason and David. The third parties can keep an eye on you. But if there's people cleverer than you who can figure out the problem that you can't figure, you'd have hired them years ago. We should probably assume you're the cleverest people doing this. So either you think this is a manageable problem, in which case, keep building, or you think it's not a manageable problem, in which case, you probably should stop. But stop wringing your hands and saying, if only the rest of the world could stop me killing humanity. You're the CEO. The cacophony of anti was really good there.
00:13:44 · Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:13:44] S0: But you've also taken it to a level where you've weaponized a Chinese economy to have an open source ecosystem that's incredibly strong. And now to go mayor culpa that's put the brakes on. You've weaponized them enough to be a serious cyber threat to all of our institutions, and now you wanna put the brakes on. [00:14:01] S1: First of all, I'm gonna push back on the weaponize. You're basically saying, oh, they wouldn't have had these models without us doing... I'm not sure that's the case. I mean, can get into how much of open weight has been distilled, I can't assess that. So there's some of it. But, you know, they got smart people too. I think there's too much attribution of godlike status to individuals. The truth is, independent of probably what Anthropic did, there's probably going to be a bunch of LLM alternatives in China. This technology, the cat's out of the bag, it exists. And you're right. So your main point is correct. It's out of the bag, so you can't... I mean... But it's out of the bag [00:14:36] S0: because you let it out of the fucking bag. Like, that... Sorry to be blunt.
00:14:36 · Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll, Jason Lemkin
[00:14:36] S0: because you let it out of the fucking bag. Like, that... Sorry to be blunt. [00:14:39] S1: Well, I don't know if you just did. You are. You you you were the best at it. You are. You are. Yes. It's it's like I hate the atom bomb metaphors because they're like Nazi metaphors. They're just so crude and simplistic, and it actually, in this case, feeds the ego of all involved. But it's a really good metaphor here, Harry, unfortunately, because you can say, if these folks are all the Oppenheimers and The US invented the bomb, there's no doubt that the Russians had the bomb by, like, four or five years later... Three or four years later, and in part because they stole our shit. They had spies in Los Alamos from The UK, let me remind you, Hans Fuchs, and then they stole our secrets and they built the bomb too. But, you know, what are you gonna do? They probably wouldn't have done [00:15:15] S2: their own. Elon's been clear on that for three years. He said he wished that AI hadn't happened. He said, but since it did, I'm going to do it anyway because it's too late. He he's he didn't just say this last week. He's been saying this for three years that it's gotten too strong. Before XAI even got anywhere, he was consistent. I don't want to be doing this, but it's already been done. It's too late. I I I don't think we should have this much progress.
00:15:15 · Jason Lemkin, Rory O'Driscoll, Harry Stebbings
[00:15:15] S2: their own. Elon's been clear on that for three years. He said he wished that AI hadn't happened. He said, but since it did, I'm going to do it anyway because it's too late. He he's he didn't just say this last week. He's been saying this for three years that it's gotten too strong. Before XAI even got anywhere, he was consistent. I don't want to be doing this, but it's already been done. It's too late. I I I don't think we should have this much progress. [00:15:34] S1: And in fairness to the CEO of Anthropic, some of the most hyperbolic stuff he's not saying, but you have the pacing letter that a bunch of scientists signed. There's a lot of hyperbole that's not coming from him, he's a little more nuanced than what he is worried about, where the only one that's really meaningful is this kinda losing control of it. Right? [00:15:56] S0: But I think this is where his prime messaging has come back to bite him on the ass. Because to Jason's point previously in episodes where he's so dogmatic about what it's gonna do to jobs and employment, Now when things do come out, it's tied to him, sometimes unfairly, just because he's had that stance because of his labeling before.
00:15:56 · Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:15:56] S0: But I think this is where his prime messaging has come back to bite him on the ass. Because to Jason's point previously in episodes where he's so dogmatic about what it's gonna do to jobs and employment, Now when things do come out, it's tied to him, sometimes unfairly, just because he's had that stance because of his labeling before. [00:16:13] S1: Yes. And to to Jason's point, we're doing a spot on. My god. Is this unpopular in the rest of the world? I mean, because, yeah, it turns out if you... I mean, you know, we're building a technology. It's going to definitely cause 20 to 30% white collar unemployment. And my VP of Safety, whom I haven't fired, has said on Twitter, there's a 10% chance it blows up the world. I wonder why we're not popular. Well, let me give you a few quick clues.