This is the full transcript of Diary of a CEO podcast titled ‘Ex-Google Officer Finally Speaks Out On The Dangers Of AI! – Mo Gawdat’.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Steven Bartlett: I don’t normally do this but I feel like I have to start this podcast with a bit of a disclaimer. Point number one, this is probably the most important podcast episode I have ever recorded. Point number two, there’s some information in this podcast that might make you feel a little bit uncomfortable. It might make you feel upset, it might make you feel sad. So I wanted to tell you why we’ve chosen to publish this podcast nonetheless and that is because I have a sincere belief that in order for us to avoid the future that we might be heading towards, we need to start a conversation.
And as is often the case in life, that initial conversation before change happens is often very uncomfortable but it is important nonetheless.
Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watch this channel didn’t subscribe. We’re now down to 69%. My goal is 50%. So if you’ve ever liked any of the videos we’ve posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you’ve seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode.
Mo, why does the subject matter that we’re about to talk about matter to the person that’s just clicked on this podcast to listen?
Mo Gawdat: It’s the most existential debate and challenge humanity will ever face. It’s bigger than climate change, way bigger than COVID. This will redefine the way the world is in unprecedented shapes and forms within the next few years. This is imminent. It is, the change is not, we’re not talking 2040. We’re talking 2025, 2026.
Steven Bartlett: Do you think this is an emergency?
Mo Gawdat: I don’t like the word. It is an urgency. There is a point of no return, and we’re getting closer and closer to it. It’s going to reshape the way we do things and the way we look at life. The quicker we respond, you know, proactively and at least intelligently to that, the better we will all be positioned. But if we panic, we will repeat COVID all over again, which in my view is probably the worst thing we can do.
Steven Bartlett: What’s your background and when did you first come across artificial intelligence?
Mo Gawdat: I had those two wonderful lives. One of them was a, you know, what we spoke about the first time we met, you know, my work on happiness and, you know, being 1 billion happy and my mission and so on. That’s my second life. My first life was, it started as a geek at age seven. You know, for a very long part of my life, I understood mathematics better than spoken words.
And I was a very, very serious computer programmer. I wrote code well into my 50s. And during that time, I led very large technology organizations for very big chunks of their business. First, I was vice president of emerging markets of Google for seven years. So I took Google to the next 4 billion users, if you want. So the idea of not just opening sales offices, but really building or contributing to building the technology that would allow people in Bengali to find what they need on the internet required establishing the internet to start.
And then I became business chief business officer of Google X. And my work at Google X was really about the connection between innovative technology and the real world. And we had quite a big chunk of AI and quite a big chunk of robotics that resided within Google X.
We had an experiment of a farm of grippers, if you know what those are. So robotic arms that are attempting to grip something. Most people think that, you know, what you have in a Toyota factory is a robot, you know, an artificially intelligent robot. It’s not. It’s a high precision machine. You know, if the sheet metal is moved by one micron, it wouldn’t be able to pick it. And one of the big problems in computer science was how do you code a machine that can actually pick the sheet metal if it moved by, you know, a millimeter? And we were basically saying intelligence is the answer.
So we had a large enough farm and we attempted to let those grippers work on their own. Basically, you put a little basket of children toys in front of them and they would, you know, monotonously go down, attempt to pick something, fail, show the arm to the camera. So the transaction is blocked as it’s, you know, this pattern of movement with that texture and that material didn’t work until eventually, you know, the farm was on the second floor of the building and my office was on the third.
And so I would walk by it every now and then and go like, yeah, you know, this is not going to work. And then one day, Friday after lunch, I am going back to my office and one of them in front of my eyes, you know, lowers the arm and picks a yellow ball, soft toy, basically soft yellow ball, which again is a coincidence. It’s not science at all.
AI is Alive and Has More Emotions Than You
It’s like if you keep trying a million times, one time it will be right. And it shows it to the camera. It’s locked as a yellow ball. And I joke about it, you know, going to the third floor saying, hey, we spent all of those millions of dollars for a yellow ball. And yeah, Monday morning, every one of them is picking every yellow ball. A couple of weeks later, every one of them is picking everything. Right. And it hit me very, very strongly.
One, the speed. OK, the capability. I mean, understand that we take those things for granted. But for a child to be able to pick a yellow ball is a mathematical spatial calculation with muscle coordination, with intelligence that is abundant. It is not a simple task at all to cross the street. It’s it’s not a simple task at all to understand what I’m telling you and interpret it and and build concepts around it.
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