Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
· Darren Farber
[00:00:00] S1: A well-known ambassador to the United States said something to me that I thought was so profound. He said, "Democrats are obsessed with process, and Republicans are obsessed with outcome." That's the challenge between these two sides of the aisle right now. But really, it's a very good mix. If you have someone that spends a lot of calories on form and someone that's very outcome-focused too, and you can bring the concept together, you should get the optimal outcome. Presidents have declared or functionally created contingencies without the consent of Congress since Truman. When the opposite side of the aisle is doing something, it's an effrontery. That statement is actually very profound because you can kind of see it in the current contingency right now. We're not following a process that's conventional. What would be conventional? Conventional would be — you go to the UN, Security Council resolution, build up to the war, there's kind of diplomacy, shots fired. That would be the conventional way that it would happen. But obviously, if it's devoid of the outcome, what was the purpose of it? Think of the Iraq contingency. Here, there hasn't been any of that process. Could you get the outcome that you wanted, then history would forgive you. You're seeing the strength and the weaknesses of both of those worldviews play out over the last 25 years. Gulf War II — we tried to remake the environment in our image instead of remaking it in our interest. Now we're operating almost exclusively to try and remake these environments in our interest and not in our image. Venezuela is a perfect example of that. That environment is functionally remade in our interest. I know a whole series of members of Congress that just went to Venezuela for a trip — former members of Congress.
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Darren Farber
[00:00:00] S0: A lot of people are going. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, for a business trip. Can you imagine that four months ago? It's kind of amazing. The power structure there hasn't changed. We've just chopped off the head, and we've remade the environment in our interest, not in our image. That's probably a good natural evolution of where we've been. The question is, will it be enough to change the behaviors of these martyrdom cultures that point towards their suffering as a test of faith that they're winning? How do you win that? [00:00:00] S0: I realize I didn't ask you about AI. What wrench does that throw in the works of all of this stuff?
· Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Darren Farber
[00:00:00] S0: I realize I didn't ask you about AI. What wrench does that throw in the works of all of this stuff? [00:00:00] S1: I'm so fascinated by how it can be co-opted. I don't know if you've read these stories about people producing fake academic papers and leaving them out there on established sites. The established sites say, "This isn't peer-reviewed, but it exists in the ether, and we're going to get to it, and here's the access to the paper." Then the models pick it up. One test of this was — someone invented a phenomenon, or invented a medical condition, and left it out on an academic website posted for about three months, and then asked the large model, and it said, "You have this disease." And you made it up. We're talking right now about the power of AI and its ability to do all this computing, and it's smarter than us. But if we co-opt it — the danger of co-opting these models when they become part of the loop of decision-making in these important military systems. Can you imagine if you can create a foundation of fact that is wrong for a model? I could see an alternative universe where the models become complete Towers of Babel. We've lost them because of what they've imputed through the junk that we've posted. [00:00:00] S0: Interesting place to leave it off. Darren, thanks for your time. [00:00:00] S1: Of course.