What AI, AGI, and the Metaverse Mean for the Future of Humanity w/ Alvin W. Graylin | EP #104

I can't think of someone who has been thinking about this longer I think there definitely is a lot of confusion about what the metaverse is these kind of capabilities are going to move into 100 grams and less devices that's something that will transform our relationship with Computing and with devices in general the idea of living in the Multiverse living in the metaverse uh is a compelling notion so will we get there I think that actually can happen a lot faster than than most people expect when you're on this digital parallel universe as long as you

are smart as long as you're hardworking as long as you're creative you will be able to provide value to somebody else somewhere else in the world everybody Peter dandis here welcome to moonshot today I've got an extraordinary guest a gentleman who is brilliant in the areas of the metaverse in AI Alvin grillin is the global VP of corporate development for HTC one of the leading companies in the VR XR World he's really been leading this uh this revolution for the last 30 years under his leadership at HTC they've introduced 50 different Hardware products formed a

100 different Partnerships globally he holds Advanced degrees from MIT including an MS in computer science and an MBA uh a BS in electrical engineering from University of Washington where he was with the famed hit lab the human interface technology lab love the work they've done there Alvin a pleasure to have you here buddy well great to be here and thanks for inviting me Peter it's been uh I've known you a while and and it's just amazing to follow what you've been doing so uh it's it's uh great that we can chat about this because I

think we're at a very pivotal time in the history of humanity we are and and just for everybody I just consumed this book it's called our next reality here it is uh by by Alvin grillin and his partner Lewis Rosenberg um I got a chance to read an advanced copy and actually contribute a little bit to the book but if if you've been hearing about the metaverse and about Ai and wondering where this is all going this is a compelling um uh you know Visionary look at what's happening over the next decade and I really

commend it to everybody our next reality so Alvin let me tell you what I want to talk about here all right it's it's a hell of a lineup here are you ready okay so today on this podcast everybody listening here we're going talk about what is the metaverse the convergence of XR and AI the future of Education Health and the nation state I want to talk about us and China as a collaboration or competition you bridge Both Worlds and Taiwan as well I talk about the timelines of mass adoption for XR technology is there a

killer app I mean you know Apple's Vision Pro has sort of flopped it's not popping is it a decentralized or a centralized AI future can we create a world of abundance with this and let's talk about ethics and human rights in the metaverse as well how's that for a lineup well um that should give us plenty to talk about but I'm sure more things will pop up as we discuss things yeah so you know I can't think of someone who has been thinking about this longer um I just let's start with the beginning you know

metaverse had a real Buzz uh when when uh Facebook changed their world their world to their name to meta a lot of conversation and now the last three years it's been AI so let's begin by defining what is the metaverse what is XR and how does AI play and all of that yeah so um I think there definitely is a lot of confusion about what the metaverse is and particularly there's a lot of conflation between the metaverse and web3 and you know crypto and so forth I think those are you know different areas um they

both have their place in the world as you know um but the the simple way to think about the metaverse is really the 3D version of the internet that the world has been building for the last 30 40 years but instead of having websites we're going to have 3D virtual worlds and you know humans we've evolved over you know millions of years to be optimized for a 3D space you know to be surviving in a 3D World and so we actually had to adjust ourselves to 2D screens for the last you know few dozens of

years is our way to communicate um but you know it makes a lot of sense for us to move you know into where are we're most natural and not just using things like keyboards and mice to interface but using our hands our eyes our mouth our bodies um as the natural way of connecting with uh the computers with other people around the world and and with future AI entities that will be inhabiting these 3D spaces so and I checked this definition with um with Neil Stevenson who coined the word metaverse and he's like well you

know I kind of made the up when I when I wrote the book but uh what you're describing makes sense to me so you know if it's good enough for for Neil yeah and Neil Stevenson wrote the the forward to the book and those who know he's an extraordinary science fiction writer uh most uh famed he he wrote uh about what's called the young ladies Illustrated primer right um yes and yes in Diamond age um so when I think about the metaverse I think about uh headsets I think about an XR we refer to as

both VR and AR correct the sort of the the going back and forth between the two I think about Ai inhabiting and creating that virtual world for you and then crypto being sort of an economic layer for transactions on top of that is that fair um yeah so I I think right now there's a lot of distinction between people say oh this is a VR device or NR device the the reality is that very soon we're going to get to you know devices I mean we're already at these devices here which are you know 200

grams um and they already do VR AR um that is the uh the Vive XR Elite so as you see it you so it's actually onethird the size of the Apple Vision Pro but it does a lot of the same functionalities and it can see through it it has color you know high high definition see through it has immersive capabilities and it has ability to transform into a glasses form factor or more of a headset form factor so you know that's already available today but within the next one to two years what we're going to

find is that these kind of capabilities are going to move into 100 grams and less devices that will look a lot more like glasses than than the headsets that we we've seen today so you know uh the distinction between AR and VR are going to really meld away and I I think that's that's really going to be important because that's when people start to say okay I can actually wear this outside it's it's both socially acceptable and it's comfortable and it gives me an added superpower of essentially being able to see anything have access to

all of my information instead of pulling a screen out of my pocket have a screen that's in my in front of my face when I need it but at the same time it can go away and I can see through it and be able to to have uh connection with the the physical IAL space that I'm that and when that happens we we will people will will uh will not be debating whether this is going to happen right I mean when you have right now you know people wearing the The Vision Pro out there it

just it just looks dorky I mean I know people do it for clout for clout points um but I think that that's like a temporary thing but you know having a 50 gram 60 G device on your face that allows you to have all those capabilities it's comfortable you can wear it all day and it allows you to have access to any information you want I think that that's something that will transform our relationship with Computing and with devices in general so uh let's put some more of a visceral feel on this what is a

50 or 60 gam device feel like a little heavier sunglasses yeah so I mean if you look at the current Rayband sunglasses they're about 50 grams so uh if you wear a a you know a you know little bit thicker it's not kind of the super thin versions but let's say the W fair type glasses that's a 50 gram uh device or you know product on your face so and you know people will wear that all day they're out in the sun they're they're exercising with it it's it's not it's not a weight that becomes

cumbersome and I I and it's actually I'm testing it today I'm testing smart glasses that that weigh in that that type of of uh ranges and they're comfortable um and I don't have an issue with them wearing it all day and and mul multim modal AI which is coming on strong gives AI Vision through your glasses and then you know the question becomes can you get high resolution back into the retina I remember um uh fesse your your P your thesis adviser um what's his first name again um Tom Fess Tom Fess yeah Tom Fess

who hit you know was uh leading the uh the hit lab the human interface lab he talked about a future of a sort of a a laser raster scan in the back of the eye that could paint super high resolution with something really small and I'm still hoping and waiting for that to materialize yeah I mean in fact his his patents were what was some of the bases for a magic leap I don't I don't know if you remember them but I saw last week billion dollars yes but that that was what they were trying

to do but they never actually executed on it I'm not sure if we need to get to that type of Technology because because we we really haven't refined it enough to to to know when that's going to be available but what we can say is that wave guide type devices uh are getting to a acceptable level where you can get to that kind of uh weight and size levels that we just talked about um and at the price levels that become affordable because even this year I think at the end of this year there's two

or three manufacturers that are already talking about devices similar to what I'm talking about uh I mean they it won't have a full immersive capability it's probably 30 or 40 degrees field of view but for a lot of Youth cases that's enough and that's that that's a good stage right and if you wait another one or two more Generations after that I think we're going to get to that immersive you know degree field of view capabilities so the question is when do we get to Ready Player one right I mean there's probably no other film

or book that captured the Public's imagination um with all due respect to Neil Stevenson but just the idea of living in the Multiverse living in the metaverse uh is a compelling notion so will we get there and when um um well I think some of the things in Ready Player One are going to take a lot longer things like the the Optics and this the feel and the temperature and all the you know the full bodysuit they a lot of those Technologies exist today but they are not mature and they're probably a little too expensive

too um High friction for it to be a mass market so um at at you know but I I think in terms of getting to the visual quality we're we're definitely not that far away in terms of getting to all of the different senses that's gonna GNA take some time and in fact you know R player one I don't know if you know but HTC was the official VR partner for for Warner Brothers and ready player one so I actually negotiated that deal and we got all of the access to their 3D content and made

seven different game titles from it so uh you know I I I really enjoy that book and and I you know also enjoyed snow crash and Stevenson's book as well but um but I I I I you know I think that the thing that they they really did well was that they kind of meld modern kind of popular culture uh together with technology and um I think we're we're we're getting there we're getting close let me paint the picture of a near term uh scenario where I'm wearing my XR glasses I'm walking around I can

turn on History mode and as I'm walking down the streets of of Manhattan it can show me what the buildings were 100 years ago or tell me what famous thing occurred here or if I turn on shopping mode it can tell me um and if I'm looking for a particular you know wristwatch or jacket it can show me what's inside the stores as I'm going forward or if I turn on you know physics mode as as cars are accelerating I can equations I can be learning 24/7 so it can be an AI overlay on my

favorite mode by the way would be Health mode like you know don't eat that uh take the stairs instead of the escalator uh so when is that going to be here is that that's more of an AI function than even a VR function I think that actually can happen a lot faster than than most people expect um because it doesn't require that much processing power to do what you're what you're describing and fact essentially all you need is an agent that is able to to see what you're doing if you give it access to your

environment your camera and it's able to to analyze kind of both your conversations your where you're looking at um it can give you all of that kind of advice in real time so essentially you have a a full-time assistant on the device now if the processing is happen in the cloud then device can be even smaller if it's if it's happening on board on the device um you it may require a little bit more powerful capabilities or maybe it's linked to a phone that does the processing and it's just transferring it to your glasses but

um the the the AI for it is actually available probably today you could do pretty much everything you just described with the AI capabilities today um it's just a matter of do we want to give that AI access to all of that information and and I think there's a lot of fear today about you know privacy and how much information we're sharing if that processing is happening in the cloud people are more worried I think very soon we actually are now getting models that are you know two or three uh kind of gigabyte type models

essentially two billion three billion parameters that are able to do most of the things that you're describing and if that's the case that will run on a cell phone so if it runs on the cell phone um you don't need to go in the cloud you don't you don't have to worry about your data going uh into some some server somewhere and and you know having your privacy invaded so if that's the case I I actually think that what you described earlier about the young ladies primer can happen very soon yeah you know it's interesting

I believe more of a you know my favorite uh character is Jarvis from Iron Man and I believe that we're going to have that version I think you're going to give your your XR AI partner access to everything I mean you're going to allow it listen to your phone calls read your emails see what you're eating because by doing that it gives you such value you and people say oh my God my privacy well I mean listen you're on your email with Microsoft or with Google you know Alexa I want to say her too loud

she'll hear me you know is listening to what's going on in your bedroom I mean if you think that you have your real digital privacy already I mean let's be honest it's not really there I I I can agree with you more in fact so this is kind of a counterintuitive thing everybody's so worried about privacy but that when they actually uh take action very few people actually protect the Privacy that they they value so much and here you know before we're trading our privacy for the ability to to access you know cat pictures and

and videos on YouTube now if we say okay now instead of that I'm actually giving access to this agent that is working on my behalf I think that changes the entire equation and then at that point you you actually want to do exactly what you said is make as much possible available to this agent have it understand my needs my wants my preferences my friends and then be able to to help me be a better version of myself and and that is actually uh possible today that the amazing thing people think it that is so

far away but that technology is available to your subtitle here is how the AI powered metaverse will reshape the world and I was going to ask you you know we've heard these hype Cycles on uh on the metaverse on VR for you know 20 30 years I mean you've been in this field for 30 years um 33 years I think so why is it different now is it AI why did you write this book this is actually a really important question because um we are at such a pivotal time in in the development of our

species and this is why I wrote it because if we let things go by default it probably will not end well because of what possibilities are being creaded by the the combination of AI and XR Technologies and I'll actually talk about why those two come together because a lot of people you see people talk about the metaverse and you see people talk about AI but you don't see a lot of people putting them together and explaining the relationship between the two what we're what we're now creating with um AI essentially is a superpower brain that

allows us to to to supercharge everything that we're thinking and it's going to help us solve problems that we haven't U been able to solve for for hundreds of years now if if if you have the wrong people using that power um it can be used for bad right so we we know the whole double Ed sword thing so um that you know how do we make sure that that uh bad people don't get their hands on or aren't able to do as much with it that's really one one of the biggest concerns with with

AI the other issue with AI is um when it actually does even the good things that it wants it will disrupt our society it will you know put people out of their job it will change the way that the the the the way we we work and live and play and the way we interact with each other and the governmental systems and can our society adapt to that at the speed of change that's coming right um you know as you know the the prior industrial revolutions took eight decades seven decades and six decades or something

to to unfold and it gave Society a lot of time to to adapt this one's going to happen in the next 5 to 10 years it's going to be like that in in societal years I I you know you've been on my my stage at the abundance Summit um a number of times and I I hope you'll come back um you know Elon was there this year and talking about timelines as was Ray KW and you know their prediction for AGI is like next year um and and then digital super intelligence by 2030 and there's

no way in the world that society and Humanity can possibly adopt at that adopt at that rate that that's exactly the the the issue is that it's going to come fast I'm not sure if it's next year or if it's you know three or four years from now but it is I I think it's within the next five to 10 years for sure right I think if you talk to most experts it you know if you talk to them three four years ago the consensus was 30 40 years something right if you talk to them

now the consensus is somewhere between one to about 10 years and and that's shrunk a lot so even the the the the the pessimist folks are are probably saying like 10 to 20 years but they used to say a 100 years or never you know so so I I I I I I think that the pace of change and the our ability to adapt and need to prepare today that that's why I wrote this book right and and the other thing is how can how can play a role to help solve some of these problems

right because uh for the issue of for the issue of job displacement if we actually create a proper Global metaverse ecosystem um infrastructure on a on a global basis then when those people are displaced from their physical jobs it gives them another parallel economy to go do something right whether to to to make an additional supplemental income or whether to to actually have a place just to go Express themselves and go travel and go learn and and have an outlet for their energies I think that's something that having the metaverse will will will help with

and the other thing is that having a global metaverse system allows you to create more natural um rebalancing of wealth and and equality between the the halves and the Have Nots in terms of Nations because when you have a a digital economy it doesn't really matter where you are but today with the phys economy it matters a lot where where you were born and but when you're on this digital parallel universe as long as you are smart as long as you're hardworking as long as you're creative you will be able to provide value to somebody

else somewhere else in the world and that that allows um essentially a redistribution of of wealth in in in a in natural way right not forcing something to happen but allowing the the the people with capabilities to find a new way to to increase their capabilities their personal capabilities by going to you know an online school I mean you've been working on the singularity University for for you know dozens of years and trying to educate re-educate the world and I think there and and you know from the book I mean there's just so many studies

that show in a 3D space you learn a lot lot faster and you retain a lot more right and so allowing that to be the the the education platform is going to be tremendous in terms of reshaping education and the other thing is that it allows for um it allows for us to to you know then allow these people once they have been re-educated or educated then to to find employment on a on a virtual economy and that that you know solves some of these issues so let me let me let me let me drive

let me ask you about an issue that is of concern you bring it up in the book and I really want to discuss it with you which is in a future where we've got digital super intelligence and humanoid robots both of which are coming extraordinarily fast um and we are it enables this amazing world of abundance where you can have anything you want but the question becomes will you know we humans like struggle and we like purpose right we like to have challenges we in our video games right if a video game if you jumped

into a video game and every time you shot you hit and you would always win you'd stop playing after a few it'd be boring and I think life is that way too we need this sense of like purpose and going big and so the question is when we have this superpower capability can Humanity uplevel its sense of purpose and and what it wants to go after so we remain engaged in the game um I actually think that it it is the thing that will help us up level because if if you look at um the

Renaissance why why did all of these you know why did Michelangelo Leonardo D Vinci why were they able to spend so much time creating beautiful sculptures and art and inventions because they had a patron that helped to support them that that took care of their basic you know uh you know food shelter uh clothing other things and they said go and focus go and focus and spend your time doing what you want and when they did that they were these people were able to create amazing new inventions and we had a Renaissance right what we

will see with with AI and Robotics is that essentially we will allow these machines to to be our patrons because they will go and do the labor that we used to do which then liberates us to go and you have the ability to to find our calling you know most people talk about occupation you know my job is my occupation occupation if you look at the root the land rot that is occupational which is to be occupied to spend to waste time or how to spend your time right what we should be thinking about is

our vocation so vocation the the the root is vo show which is about it's the call to be called the calling right which is your purpose now if if we focus rather than saying I'm going to trade my time for money which is my appication to become I want to spend my time on my calling on my purpose how I can contribute the most to the world then then then the the the the question of money goes away and it's really more about okay I don't need to think about what I need to buy next

week and can I pay rent how can I contribute the most what I want to learn the most whether it's it's being a musician or being artist or being an inventor or being a coder or being researcher all of that right in fact there's a quote I recently read that that really spoke to me which was um Picasso he said the meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away right he didn't say the purpose of life is to accumulate wealth or to accumulate status and I

think that that really uh summarizes a really important question that we you know we struggle with in just two phrases and and that actually helps to think about you know when we have these Ai and Robotics and and new new you know Dimensions to work in not only are we now uh given the resources to go and do these things we now have a a new canvas to unleash our creativity to to now just not make statues but to create 3D worlds that we can share with with other people right to create 3D experiment to

go in and you know allow us to go and and do research because we don't have to think about whether or not I need to sell this thing but whether or not this thing is good and brings something that that the world didn't know before and I think that's going to create a a a real abundance of of new breakthroughs that we have yeah no I that is so it's interesting right some people say they're worried about digital super intelligence they're worried about can Humanity survive in a world of of digital super intelligence and I

almost fli the question and say can we survive without digital super intelligence um yeah in fact I mean as you know in the book one of the parts I to talk about is is later on once this this super intelligence is available you know it actually can help us solve some of the the real societal issues in terms of the conflict between people right between governments you know that today all of these constructs of you know different countries or different parties or different religion that are creating you know consistent thousands of years of conflict between

people if we uplevel ourselves and say hey you know what um this this super AI is able to take everybody's perspectives and give us some guidance in terms of how we should solve some of these long-term conflicts and you know and when we also start to move from a physical world to spending more time in a virtual world we don't necessarily have the limited resources of I only have one Jerusalem or or you know one Washington DC or one Whatever right and and now everybody can have whatever versions that they want and you're not fighting

over limited resources I think I think those those kind of things are going to happen and one of my favorite examples in a in a simple form is if if I have a watch and you have a piece of gold and we trade in the old economy now you have a watch and I have a piece of gold in the digital economy if you have a Digital Data set and I have a digital data set and we trade now we both have the digital data set right it's a it's an abundant mindset absolutely I think

I think knowledge is is it's just like that right knowledge and intelligence the more you have everybody wins right and and and it is so different than the prior um Society we were worked in where it's all about scar space about foring it's about who has access to what resources and that's what everybody's tried for if once we get to this this place of you know abund because of digital intelligence because of Robotics because of genetic engineering that will give us maybe a little bit longer Health right all these things that we we felt were

were constrained and scarce becomes abundant I think changes everybody's mindset of conflict that that that has persisted since since we can you know since recorded history everybody I want to take a short break from our episode to talk about a company that's very important to me and could actually save your life or the life of someone that you love company's called in life and it's a company I started years ago with Tony Robbins and a group of very talented Physicians you know most of us don't actually know what's going on inside our body we're all

optimists until that day when you have a pain in your side you go to the physician or the emergency room and they say listen I'm sorry to tell you this but you have this stage three or four going on and you know it didn't start that morning it probably was a problem that's been going on for some time but because we never look we don't find out so what we built at Fountain life was the world's most advanced diagnostic Centers we have four across the us today and we're building 20 around the world these centers

give you a full body MRI a brain a brain vasculature an AI enabled coronary CT looking for soft plaque dexa scan a Grail blood cancer test a full executive blood workup it's the most advanced workup you'll ever receive 50 gab of data that then go to our AIS and our physicians to find any disease at the very beginning when it's solvable you're going to find out eventually might as well find out when you can take action Fountain life also has an entire side of Therapeutics we look around the world for the most Advanced Therapeutics that

can add 10 20 healthy years to your life and we provide them to you at our centers so if this is of interest to you please go and check it out go to Fountain life.com Peter when Tony and I wrote Our New York Times bestseller life force we had 30,000 people reached out to us for Fountain life memberships if you go to Fountain life.com back/ Peter we'll put you to the top of the list really it's something that is um for me one of the most important things I offer my entire family the CEOs of

my companies my friends it's a chance to really add decades on to our healthy lifespans go to fountainlife decomp it's one of the most important things I can offer to you as one of my listeners all right let's go back to our episode so one of the things you know I used to come to China every year um I would take a group my bundance community and we visit Beijing and shenzen and and Shanghai and Hong Kong and it was an incredible trip and I'd meet with the CEOs of all the top tech companies and

a huge respect for the entrepreneurs in China right um and you've bridged Both Worlds right you born the US you're a US citizen you've worked in China I was actually born in China but I when I was yes but I moved here when I was nine so I I you know I spent a lot of time in both countries yeah do you have a dual citizenship or us no no actually uh I think China does not allow dual citizenship so I'm a US citizen okay I spent exactly half my life in the US and half

my life in in China you bridge Both Worlds and what I've seen over the last three years is an increasing um uh you know tension growing and especially in the realm of AI and that can't be good for Humanity um can you speak a little bit about that because you know one of the things I'm going to bring to the Abundant stage this coming year is you know the I want to bring a balance to that conversation yeah then unfortunately I think that that the rhetoric on both sides have just gotten very overheated um you

know over the last six months I've actually seen a little bit of reconciliation so so it is a little bit better than it was a year ago um but I think it'll probably get worse before it gets better because of Elections there you know whenever there's an election you have to create an external enemy um and the the reality is that these two countries need each other and these two countes right now are the the the leading drivers of growth and innovation in the world and if they work together we can solve so many problems

right if you look at the AI side there was a report that was recently published that showed um 50% of the world's AI researchers were actually were born in China of the world's AI research 37% of of the AI researchers in a top AI research top 20% AI researchers in the US are actually from China and only 37% are from the US so actually more re there are more Chinese born researchers in AI in the US than there are us born so it's clear that these two countries are already working together but we're because of

you know I guess um policies and and governmental positioning um we're creating this artificial conflict and we you know you know I guess some is economically driven some is politically driven but you know it's actually made worse recently because of all the the hardware restrictions right so not not only is you know is the the us talking about hey I you know we we we we can't work together but they're also saying you can't buy this equipment you can't buy equipment not from us companies but not also from other companies in the world that are

supplying the semiconductor space or that are creating chips that are creating whatever and and that that you know essentially what that does is saying okay you need to create your your parallel technology stack and we will become more and more bif bifurcated and the the the the the the interdependence that we created that actually unites people becomes weaker and weaker and I think that's the completely the the opposite thing that we need to do because when these two countries are both so smart so powerful so capable and in economic perspectives they're they're becoming more and

more equal if you create enemies out of each other it won't end well right we've seen in history what happens when that when when you know two very strong countries are put into that type of adversarial relationship so so I really I really hope the the you know this was just just a short-term issue because of the elections that will go back to where we have been for the last 20 30 years where there was a lot of cooperation and the growth you know there was more growth out of China uh over the last 30

years then you know since almost the rest of the world combin in in terms of economic GDP growth you know there's there's a good analogy in the space industry back uh 20 years ago this thing called itar which was preventing uh us launch companies from sharing information or satellite companies from sharing information with Russian launchers or european launchers and so forth and it created this divide and all it did was force uh non us entities to build their own technology since the US couldn't sh share it openly I mean it it's not going to go

away you look at the space station is the same thing right if you look at the the International Space Station now China's actually having a more modern space station than than the international one that's going to be coming decommissioned soon so you know in a few years actually Chinese will will be the only space station out in the in you know in orbit so you know these kind of fire policies that are very shortsighted we really need to to get out of that that cycle you know we've had a lot of other Technologies where we've

done Global cooporation you know like the the CERN uh super collider right I mean you know every every year people are putting one to two billion dollars to to put that together keep it running so that the world can come out with you know kind of the the particle physics and better understand the universe you know same same with all of these U communication across these radio telescopes that are trying to understand what's going on you know to to find the the uh the the the gravity uh waves right I mean so there's just so

much that we could do we we cooperated to to solve the ozone problem you know the ozone whole issues so and and you know just there it's possible to do that it's possible but uh we're we're we're definitely not not doing what we should be doing and and this is why I I said it's so important for people to read this book because um it it it's not just a a Sit telling you kind of what's happened but it's also has a lot of um specific recommendations in terms of what policy makers need to do

what you know uh Ai and and you know metaverse company need to do and actually also what students and and young people need to do so that we are prepared for what's coming and we we we try to bend that future towards the positive version of what could happen right because as you know the book is a debate it's a debate between Lewis and I and and he's he plays the more you know kind of uh pessimist of kind of the world's you know the bad things that can happen to the world and I I

play The Optimist and and the reason we did the the two positions that most books today are either one or the other and most people will read one side and they they're done with that that topic and and they won't think more and by by putting both perspectives into one book we we want to force you to think we want to force you to to to to see the arguments on both sides in a fair and just way and then come to your own conclusions but you know so that that's um you know I think

Plato was when they said I can't teach anybody anything but I can only make you think and and you know that's what we want to do if I think once people think whatever conclusion that they come up with will be something that they hopefully will will now take action on instead of just listen to and then put away listen I you know I love how you think because it's how I think too so we're on the same side let's talk about um a little bit more about AI in particular decentralized democratized AI versus uh you

know you know Sovereign or closed AI where do you think we're going and you know given the near-term dangers right so I put AI into three categories uh today it's amazingly useful there's very little downside it's incredible I use it all the time as do you it's as my family uh long-term digital super intelligence I think is going to be one of the greatest gifts to humanity it's the interim you know one to five one to8 year time frame where it's the dystopian use of AI by by malevolent individuals that are most concerning so how

do you think about that what would if you had the ability to set policy to guide us through this period of time what would you advise what would you recommend so so I think there's actually a lot of confusion terms of because of the terms that you were talking about you know open source Ai and decentralized Ai and Sovereign Ai and so forth and and each one of these um there there's multiple meanings so so let me kind of give you a quick summ so that we we are kind of aligned on what we what

we think we mean by them um when people talk about Sovereign what they're saying is every country has their own AI right every country to be a us AI a China AI a Saudi Arabia AI whatever and each AI is based on your culture your information and your your ethics and your you know your culture right and and what that creates is actually the exact opposite of what the world needs because what that creates essentially is 200 countries that see each other as enemies because you're different than me and then and you know the world

has always been about a an ingroup and an outgroup us and and if if the AI is only trained on your perspective and it doesn't see other people's perspective it will work for you it will try to make the world better for you but by doing so probably make the world worse for everybody else right so if we succeeded in creating 200 super AIS that the world is in trouble the other thing is by dividing our resources across 200 countries we will probably never get to supera because we're going to run out of compute and

we're going to run out of energy and we're run out of data everybody today you know when I talk to aot researchers they say hey it's it's hard to get data today and uh you know if I just had more compute I could do so much more and when you know I understand why if you look at Jensen Wong is the one that is like super uh Pro Sovereign AI because of course he's gonna sell 200 versions of his chips to every single country in the world and every single lab in the world so it's

good for his chips and good for his his you know profit margins but it's it's um it's probably not the best thing we can do for society right so so I think that that's one thing we can think about the other thing is by combining our resources we actually now you know I'm sure you know about the scaling LW right essentially the more compute you you give some AI system the more data you give some AI system and the more parameters you give that AI system it will become smarter right it's it's loss function essentially

the error from what you would expect would go down and it's been consistent across you know several dozen orders of magnitude across all of these areas so and and we don't see we actually don't see a a change in that Trend at least for the foreseeable future otherwise you wouldn't have you know companies out there you know trying to raise you know create 10 billion or 100 billion dollar uh infrastructure because they know that having 100 billion infrastructure is better than a 10 billion is better than a one and so what that means is that

if we instead of having 200 versions or something let's create one version one giant resource where all of the compute for for these type of capabilities are put in one place all the data of the world let's put everybody's data together because um the more data we have the more complete view it will the more likelihood it will take into the perspectives of other cultures right and I was you know speaking in inara about a month ago and you know the the people in the Middle East said you know all these AI systems none of

them take into our culture or our language it's all trained on English it's all trained on Western ideals you know when I ask at things it doesn't tell it from my perspective and I don't like that right and so we we need to have them instead of them hoing their data and saying I only wanted to be train on my data it should they should put their data into a general pool in fact um I don't know if you you heard the saying from um uh freedrick nii he said uh you have to be a

SE to take an input from an impure stream and still stay pure right so so it means that that you have to be big you have to be you know you have to have all the information and when you have all the information then when some wrong thing comes in it's okay it you you will just it will just meld into meld into the the whole system just like you know if I told you today that drinking bleach will will help solve your you know your your disinfect or will help solve your your Co problem

you'll probably say oh that's not you know he's he's just joking with me but if you told to a child he may actually think that that's the real thing because he doesn't have that that base of knowledge and by foring no one would ever say that no one would ever say that oh hypothetically right um so but you so so that that's the issue with with Sovereign a right we we we are we are reducing our Compu and we are reducing our data and we are reducing our accuracy the other thing is now there's open

source Ai and then there's kind of close close Source AI now that's really uh the idea is that okay you open source AI is saying hey if everybody has an AI system then the good guys using the AI system will be able to beat the bad guys using the AI system and that may be true if if it was a you know a known attack vector and you know back in the back in the day when we had castles and we had people that Siege castles you know castles you probably need like two to three

times of people uh inside the castle to attack them so there was a as uh kind of um asymmetric whatever asymmetri asymmetric uh force to be able to overcome but as as you know there's there's very few castles that are working in the world today right because different tactics came and they said okay actually the castle idea doesn't really work anymore and particularly in cyber um it doesn't work and and we see today you know you can have one Cyber attack one attacker some some teenager somewhere in let's say Russia can take down a whole

network and do was you know maybe hundreds of of people that were trying to protect that Network and it doesn't it's it's not you know you cannot say I I have a you know a good guy with a gun and a bad guy with G and and they'll be even I think that that logic doesn't make sense because it's now slip completely the other way the asymmetric ratio is so much more in favor of the just like a terrorist I just need one gun or one bomb and I can shut down the whole city so

we we we really need to change that Minds we just need to make sure that the uh the systems are smart enough so that that doesn't happen um now the other thing is uh open source vers Source now they're centralized versus decentralized right in terms of um the problem with with with um if if you look at what the internet is built on today there's there's decentralized aspects but a lot of the the the capabilities are actually built on centralized servers and it's you know it's on server Farms that are in in in data hubs

and giant networks all over the world in specific places to say that I'm going to to run the entire internet off of everybody's laptop and everybody's phone and completely distributed it's actually not really viable if you're doing you know the the Extraterrestrial search and you're not really worried about timing and you're just saying okay I just need some cycles that it's probably okay but if you are saying hey I I need to run a a mission critical system and I'm I don't know if if that particular phone's going to work or and the problem is

when you're training these these AI system they all have to kind of come back around the same time you know it's it's not really that great in terms of of of a a um this is why those people are building you know hundred billion dollar data centers because they want everything to be in one place so that all the training happens and and every second every microsc or nanoc matters because you have to do so many trillions and trillions of of of calculations and when you try to distribute it across different devices across different placees

of network it's just it's intractable um to to to make that work right so so I I think you know it sounds good in principle why don't we just everybody distribute all the compute and that way there there's there's no Reliance on on you know the cloud systems on the aws's or Google Cloud it's it's actually it's hard to do and this is why if you look at the internet today it's not let let me just hit on on two things first of all I think one of the things that's important um just to double

click on is the importance of being able to uh preserve the cultures of every nation and make sure that the large language models are inclusive of all stories history Untold recipes and so forth from every nation right so you're not so that's one element now where that becomes resident is it one super AI I think we talked about decentralized but for me the the real term is democratized so every nation has access for its citizens it becomes a um infrastructure like you know a ubiquitous infrastructure just like you know Communications and just like internet and

Just Like Oxygen right where it's available to everybody so so that I completely agree I think democratization in terms of making it accessible to to everybody right in fact I think the only way it will be democratize is if you have a global effort to to do it instead of national efforts because a national effort to do it means that I built it this is mine it's available to my people but it's not available to your people and and likely the only two countries that will win the race is either China or the us because

they are right now the most powerful and richest places maybe EUR the European Union together as a group and don't forget the Middle East is going to invest heavily you know you're going to see Saudi and the Emirates investing yeah oh yeah yeah I mean they're they're definitely investing a lot but right now it's very difficult for them to get the talent and to get access to the data as much as is is as is available in in these other three three major regions right so so I I I think if you really want this

democratize we need to take the same effort that we did you know with the with with these Global programs you know we we we we've had examples like the the the the nuclear nonproliferation everybody in the world agreed let's let's you know let's not do these bad things we had the um the the human genome uh you know trials that we said okay let's not let's not you know change the the human genome and spread it out to the world right we we've had we talked about the the U the ozone um uh treaties and

so forth so so there are there are lots of examples where where we've done and you know and that it's it's actually turned out yeah let me let me continue on AI for a little bit I want to go back to the metaverse I want to talk about um Apple's Vision Pro I want to talk about addiction in the metaverse because my kids are if I left them alone they'd be on Roblox 247 I think I think instead of food or sleep it's video game playing but before that you know this year at Ted uh

Mustafa saliman who will be on my stage next year uh at abundance at the abundance Summit and he's now I guess head of AI at uh at in Microsoft um you know suggest that we don't allow recursive Improvement we don't allow AI to program AI um what are your thoughts about that he honestly I think um the only way for us to get to ASI is to allow AI to program AI right ASI artificial super super yeah yeah and and you know what we really need to get to is to get to ASI because if

we are at a an immature baby AGI level that's when bad things happen that's when you have a superpower but you have an immature understanding and ethics and Consciousness if you have the ability to to have yes if you have a toddler with a gun it's a thing right and and that's that's what kind of very powerful but not complete trained systems are and and when it gets into the hands of these Bad actors that you were talking about things will happen so we we need to get as quickly as possible to ASI versus as

quickly as possible to that toddler with a gun and and the only way to do that is to have it be self recursive in terms of training why why are humans able to to have done what we have even though our brains have not changed in 100,00 years actually it's gotten a little bit smaller right it's because we are recursively teaching each other we are we every generation teaches the prior Next Generation and we learn and accumulate we're able to adjust how we work and how how we do things and if we allow these AI

systems to do that same thing which is which is already happening actually and honestly it's not something you can because even you know recently there was the Devon I don't know if you saw that the the the um you know the kind of Deon announcement which is an AI engineer that's you know made of AI and he can go in and change his own systems there was some controversy in terms of how real those demos were but I think a lot of people do agree that it didn't perform exactly what they had promised but it

it is actually significantly better than what was possible with jgb for so like 10 x now so you know just imagine in a few years or with or with in a few months probably when GPD 5 comes out it will probably have the capability to do a lot of those things and when you do that you are able to then progress at a very different rate and we need to get to that rate to to be able to to get the breakthroughs that we're looking for uh you know humans work on you probably about two

to three hours a day of quality work right and and our our brains our signals to our brain is about 100 meters per second you know these machines are going to work 247 and they are you know traveling at the speed of light their signals are traveling at a speed of light and you've got you know 100,000 of them on in one data center right so so um it just we we cannot be we cannot limit this with our capabilities we we should allow this to happen now we do need to be careful because if

we allow it to happen we need to allow it to happen this is why it's actually important to have a metaverse ecosystem because if we trained it and then we kind of let's let's test it out on a a mini Matrix Universe for AI right in the movie Matrix they're put humans into a matrix and a simulation to allow them you know to to kind of live this world and see what happens what we should be doing is to create a metaverse system and allow these AI to go in there and then they can run

at you know at you know 10x or a million x speed and we'll see okay well is this a dangerous AI or not is this an AI that's going to kill us is this an AI That's going to misunderstand us and we put it in there so that it can um play out its timing right because one of the things that people were afraid of is that you know there's now this uh this fear that people say you know in 2024 nothing bad happens but this super AI in 2025 starts to destroy the world right

but let's just put it into this this world and run it through the next million years and see what does it do right and and see if it see if it becomes an evil or or a benign or a compassionate a and I think I think you know so so we we should let it happen but we should in a controlled Manner and we should let it happen in a globally um collaborative manner uh because we need to do what you said we need to make sure that everybody's culture and language and history are all

represented and by knowing everything it will then take into everybody's uh perspectives into account to give you the guidance that that that we need as a species because our leaders today are probably not doing that yeah no I I would I do believe I would that human have a higher uh probability of successful survival under a benign digital super intelligence than under human uh human leadership you know uh there's a great analogy that MOA do from his book scary smart uses which is that of Superman right which is that you know Superman landed in Kansas

was brought up by a a god-loving you know respectful family and became Superman but if he had landed in a drug Den he'd become a super villain and so how we train our AI how we raise our Ai and AI are our progeny they are we they are our derivatives of of humanity really matters and I do love the idea of building a simulation I mean I I believe that we're living in a simulation so it'd be a simulation within the simulation but that's another another conversation where we put these AIS and see how they

play out and we've done this a little bit there have been a few times where uh Facebook um back then and and Google have created AIS that have gone Divergent um in uh in their behavior uh one of the things I'm I'm interested in is do is a does uh an abundance mindset does a loving caring um you know benevolent mindset scale with intelligence I believe the answer is yes I hope the answer is yes um actually there there's been research in fact one of the papers in there showed that the more information that it

had the more benevolent the the personality of thei was even if it's unaligned or unrefined not fine tune version that we found that that was the case so and and I I think we we see that in in our daily lives right that that the most compassionate people I know are the most informed most educated and the the the you know probably the Elder generation because they've seen everything and they've seen the bad things that can happen when when you do bad things and when other people do things and so we we can learn from

that right in fact um I don't know if you remember one of the chapters I I actually read the biographies of the the kind of most respected leaders of last 100 years and the most despised leaders of the last 100 years and the the key the key difference between the two wasn't military service they they you know 60 100% of the of the of the kind of authoritative leaders were had military background but 60% of of the most respected ones also had military background the thing that separated them was the amount of Education they had

and then even more so the amount of uh interest in lifelong learning so that they broadened out their their their understanding and those are the ones that had the you know the the the longest uh I guess track record of success and and people just saw them as you know these are really great examples and you know we we can share a slide of that because I I think it's very clear you know the the Hitlers and the Stalin and the Poots they either left school early or they kicked out of school or they they

you know didn't get their education or you know just all these issues that were consistent with just you know they they may not have been bad people if they actually had a fuller education because they're they're clearly smart people because if they weren't smart that's one of the most important points for me because people should you know the hope is that with intelligence comes tremendous wisdom right when you ask why is someone watch wise they're wise as an elder because they've seen a lot of stuff and I imagine that a digital super intelligence is going

to be able to run a billion simulations and say these these directions not so good these directions okay this is where we should go and and then guide us that way well that that's kind of what we were saying earlier that you know once you get to the as aisi level then when somebody when a bad actor says Hey I want you to make me a bomb or I want you to make me a supervisor it was say you know what that's probably not a good idea I'm not going to do it but if they

were that that teenager who just listen to everybody and just try to be helpful then we're GNA we're in trouble you know so um as you know there there's a saying that uh know power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely I I think the opposite is also true with knowledge because knowledge enlightens an absolute knowledge enlightens absolutely and if if if we think that that's really the case we need to make it as knowledgeable as possible because I I don't know you know any knowledgeable people that are you know corrupt super corrupt I mean it's just

you know people who who who understand who've been through things they they have a a much more complete perspective did you see the movie Oppenheimer if you did did you know that besides building the atomic bomb at Los Alamos National Labs that they spent billions on biod defense weapons the ability to accurately detect viruses and microbes by reading their RNA well a company called viome exclusively licensed the technology from Los Alamos labs to build a platform that can measure your microbiome and the RNA in your blood now viome has a product that I've personally used

for years called full body intelligence which collects a few drops of your blood spit and stool and can tell you so much about your health they've tested over 700,000 individuals and used their AI models to deliver members critical Health guidance like what foods you should eat what foods you shouldn't eat as well as your supplements and probiotics your biological age and other deep Health insights and the results of the recommendations are nothing short of Stellar you know as reported in the American Journal of Lifestyle medicine after just 6 months of following biomes recommendations members reported

the following a 36% reduction in depression a 40% reduction in anxiety a 30% reduction in diabetes and a 48% reduction in IBS listen I've been using viome for 3 years I know that my oral and gut health is one of my highest priorities best of all viome is Affordable which is part of my mission to democratize health if you want to join me on this journey go to vom.com Peter I've asked naine Jane a friend of mine who's the founder and CEO of viome to give my listeners a special discount you'll find it at vom.com

Peter you know I was talking to Elon recently about xai and his mission is uh to create an AI that is maximally curious and Truth seeking and I I like that a lot um Elon also uh has said if we can't beat them join them and how about if we merge with AI right so uh neuralink is going to connect my neuroc cortex to the cloud you know Ray Kur we also know has predicted high bandwidth uh you know BCI by 2033 or thereabouts what do you think about this idea of of connecting with this

you know ASI yeah so so um you know as part of my work I've actually invested in multiple BCI companies and I have to say we are really in a very early stage with BC and and I know also have friends who are who are in their link and and know what they've been doing and and we you know if you look at what they've recently released and it's looks really cool you have a guy who's playing video games with a chip in his but essentially that capability was in the Utah array 15 years ago

right people had that capability and it's you know essentially collecting connecting to the the the the mo motor CeX and it's you know a few dozens of of of um of links of of little uh you know I guess little wires that are taking the signal but but it is not really knowing your thinking it is able to see what you want to move for for us to do a full grain uploading or downloading we essentially need you know 80 billion of those things and you know from a few hundred to tens of billions um

where where're you know it just it's I don't see it as being feasible anytime soon and I don't think it's a it's 2033 maybe it's a 2333 but you know and maybe with ASI it's different once we get to ASI everything is off right because I think I think that's that's the point right everything becomes possible when you've got you know digital superintelligence doing the design work for you including including uh you know longevity Escape velosophy um but one of the things that is driving I guess I guess one one thing though to that point

is I don't know if if that should be our goal because I feel like um people think that okay now you have this AI we need to we need to be as smart as this AI just like right now nobody's going out and saying I'm I'm running faster than a car or I'm jumping higher than some machine it just you accept that hey you know I have limitations to to my body and you know what it it's probably okay that it is smarter than us um and it's probably okay that you know these machines can

do things faster than us so um just like you know we came from a lot of other species there are you know bacterias and frogs and fish and birds and they're all fine and they're not out there trying to say I want to be a human and you know I want to be the the the the Superbird who's going to be faster than more smart than a human they're not trying to do that and I feel like you know I don't know if we need to say that we have to be a smart or smarter

than a data center of the the fastest latest chips I I just you know our our machines are constrained in terms of this is a a 100,000 year old meat machine that um won't be changing that much um why why do we need to try to compete well you know listen I am I am all for uh BCI if I can think in Google if I can occupy the the a a humanoid robot and be able to physically instantiate myself someplace else I'm also open to uh you know a digital upload I mean those are

all things that I think are expansive of of humanity and we are undergoing a rapid evolution of what it means to be human and and Society will change as well uh so I don't think you're saying it we're you're you're against it you're just not saying it's not necessary is that true yeah I'm saying it's not necessarily in terms of making that a real goal because if that's the short-term goal then people are saying um you know we're going to put a lot of resources to to to to make that happen I I would rather

we focus on you know even if these machines are better than us we are still going to have the the the the the human side of it we you know what will be more important to us later is not about how much money we have it's going to be about our family our friends our community our relationship with each other and you know and and being having a fulfilling life and having fulfilling let's talk about let's talk about happiness let's talk about human happiness because that is ult you know ultimately when you ask people like

what do you want and then you go further and say what do you what do you really want what is it I want to be healthy I want to be happy and so you thought about happiness talk about that for a second yeah so so you know one of the last chapters is kind of you know we will will achieving this bring us happiness and um the the research is actually pretty clear um you know at least in terms of what what brings us happiness is you know the freedom to choose what we do uh

having uh close family relationships you know having some kind of purpose in in your life and then you know having at least your your your basic capabil your needs taken care of right and so you know in fact and one I think even in your abundance book you talked about at a certain income level it doesn't bring you actually extra happiness in fact if anything the the once you get past a certain level it actually goes negative you start getting more stress from having more money so what um I think what we need to think

about is how do we bring those kind of of qualities to more of the world right if you look at the current chart of in terms of income to to happiness level it's a pretty um It's relatively uh linear chart in terms of you know uh the higher income groups do have a a higher uh happiness or satisfaction level right but then there are also the strange thing is there are also some relatively lower income groups that are as happy as the the higher income level so so even there there's a trend it is not

a it is not onine so what what it and what we also found out is that with the uh when I was doing my research in terms of of different you know uh levels of income in the in the US it used to be 75,000 now it's I think 150,000 something like that but in in other places in the world in in China it's probably like 20 to 30,000 and in Africa it's like 5 to 8,000 you know so it it's actually not a fixed number it's not a fixed point that everybody's going to be

super happy it is actually just about how how am I compared to my neighbors if I'm relatively good compared to my neighbors then I'm I'm actually happy and I don't need I don't need more more income right what we do see is actually the amount of energy you use is is something that actually is is is highly related to to your happiness so the the the more successful you are the more developed you are the more energy you're using but that also uh levels out in fact if you look at the last 20 years there's

actually been a downtrend of how much energy every major developed country has been using per person per year right so I think it popped out in probably like 1990 and since then it's been dropping every pretty much every year consistently so it it shows that having more doesn't really doesn't really satisfy you it's really about having enough and that actually creates a much more sustainable world we don't need to get everybody to the US level we actually probably get it to the the the European levels like about half of the US level in term of

per capita energy use right if we get it to that level that's only about you know I think about half uh one or twox more than southeast Asia and probably two or 3x more than than Africa so if we can increase energy abundance by 2 to 3x we essentially get everybody to kind of the European lifestyle and I actually think that European Lifestyles probably more from a happiness perspective they are much happier than the Americans who are using more energy have more per capita income but they're they're they're less happy right so so this is

this is what um I think we will we will be able to do when we have ai uh offloading a lot of our work we will have time to go learn music and Lear learn languages and go travel and go kind of enhance ourselves and when we have that freedom we will be happier and we will also be more knowledgeable and by being more knowledgeable we will probably be more understanding and more compassionate which you know it's like a a reinforcing positive Loop that just makes the world a better place yeah agreed you know I'd

be remiss if we didn't talk about abundance uh since I wrote a a small passage in the uh in the book on the subject thank you for your contribution and important important contribution well and and you talk about abundant abundan ISM as a uh a term and and just for people to get a sense of where the metaverse will enable abundance where which for me is um accessibility to anyone everywhere at the highest possible levels and I I use the example that Google and by do right as search engines Google in the United States and

by doing China provided equal access to knowledge um independent of economic level right the Google for the poorest child and Google for the wealthiest child was the same um can we list where we're going to see abundance coming from the metaverse yeah so if if you look at what's happening with metaverse is actually it is able to supercharge our senses right you have ai supercharged our minds you have you know genetic engineering will supercharge our body I but metaverse and immersive Technologies supercharges our senses and when you supercharge our senses it allows us to experience

anything we want and anywhere so not only are we able to to learn more we're able to also travel back in time we're also able to to you know become different size we can be the size of a of a planet or be the size of of a a microb and if you look at in terms of abundance what what does today's build what can they do that the today's average person can do it's about experience right it's about experience and and when you have a a lifelike immersive world that you can go into anybody

can have any experience they want so there there's nothing lacking and when when when you have that then you essentially have kind of a de facto Equalization of of fulfillment of Life fulfillment because you know if if I wanted to travel to you know Egypt or if I want to go go into space there's there's not not very many people go to the Moon how many people there 300 people is has left the orbit you know since the the invention of of of or since the the start of time right now anybody can put on

the headset and be in space and go to moon and go to the Mars and and at some point when we have our our AI agents out there traveling the the rest of the the Galaxy we can be in this headset traveling with them in fact that's one of the one of the the final epilog it is kind of that that story right so um I I think that that's the sense of abundance that because nothing is limited when you're talking about a virtual world right everything that we we we think of today as a

constrained resource becomes completely abundant and and knowledge is also the thing that I really think becomes super abundant because you are able to to just learn so much more and everybody can become the best version of themselves and I I I think that that's all we need to be that's all we need to ask for I don't think we need to be we don't need to know as much as you know gpt7 but I think we we need to be able to say that hey I I've learned as much as I can you know I

try to read something like 80 to 100 books a year and that's my most fulfilling thing every time I finish a book I'm like oh I learned something new and that that made me more complete person right and and so I can see why you know Elon is saying the making curiosity the the the the reward function because if that's a reward function that's a very positive reward function and and you know nobody's going to say oh be curious and because of that I'm going to make a bunch of paper clips right that that's that's

not those are not alive right if you're curious you actually want to have as much diversity of life as possible you want to have as much diversity of experience as possible so you want to preserve a a a very diverse ecosystem of of humans of animals of of all kinds of animal beings in the world right and so that actually is very kind of prum when when you have that type of a of a reward function versus things like ma maximize uh you know compute or or maximize production or something so so I I I

think I think we're we're we're we we should be able to get them let's let's talk to the teenagers listening uh the young adults listening and to the parents listening and I want to drive into two questions here as we as we close out what's your advice for young people school right now and then the second thing is you know I what's your advice to me I have two 12-year-olds who are love love their metaverse and for them it's Roblox and uh other equivalent gaming uh worlds um you know how much China limits use of

of computers and games uh significantly should the US be doing the same thing uh you know your kids are grown um what it what's your advice to me so let's let's address both of those uh items so so um we actually have a a one section at the end of book which is a tips for young people um and you know I I advise everybody to to read I'll actually make I'll make those pages available to everybody so you don't have to buy the book to to see it um but I think the key is

is really you know most parents today are saying Hey I want them to learn them I want them to be super great students and and make lots of money and I think that's um that's probably not the best advice for long term for these for these young people I think we need to we need to help them find their purpose like like pico said we I think you gotta find your gift whatever your gift is and it may not be in in you know programming and it may not be in you know science it could

be in music it could be in poetry it could be in in history so I think getting a broader um curriculum to your young children is actually a really good thing in fact you know also music and and um Arts opens up different types of of connection in their brain than than just you know doing stem work so so I think that that that's important so having them find that that that really real purpose and passion that they have and then having them go deep in it because I think one of the things I see

with young people today is that they they tend to have very short attention stance and you know probably because of all the Instagram and Tik Tok culture everybody's got you know they just want everything fast in one minute or five seconds I want to know what's going on and to really understand something you have to read you have to read pH books you have to really you know watch these two or three hour podcasts and and and understand the the the the the real connections and reasoning behind it and we really need to get people

to get away from just getting the quick answer and to think about how do I what questions can I ask and I I I remember hearing you say that a lot it's like the important thing is to get your kids to to ask the right questions and I cannot agree more with that because if they're asking the right questions it means they're thinking it means that they're they are questioning themselves of of what do I need to learn more about this and when when when you have an AI system that can answer anything knowing what

to ask is a lot more important than getting the answers and and I I actually find myself right now with AI systems I'm just asking trying to find understand a topic and and something that I may not I would hear a word somewhere or or a topic somewhere and I want to know deeper I would just you know pretend that I'm a year old kid and just keep asking questions and honestly in in the half an hour I can become you know fairly knowledgeable on the topic that I had very little understanding for and I

I think we need we need that kind of curiosity because most education today teaches us to go for the quick answer and and and to be afraid to ask questions because asking questions a lot of people think is is showing you don't know something but the reality is that we don't know a lot of things and we just need to accept them um playing with these tools and I think we we just got to go out and and use them because you when you don't understand you're afraid of it if you start using it you're

going to to see the value of where it applies and you know today they are tools in in another you know five to 10 years they're going to be our patrons they're going to be the ones that helps to offload us and and give us the freedom to do all those things that we wish we had time to do and then in you know 10 20 30 years it's going to be our progeny so we we we need to see it grow up and be able to to to also um guide it along the way

I think it's allowing it to to just say okay I don't need to think about it somebody will take care of it I think that's that's something that uh we will not end in the way that we want we need to be an active part of the process to parents of young kids should parents be limiting the amount of time kids are playing video games or is that training them for the future that's coming our way honestly I I think um limiting is is probably the right thing because most games today are designed to be

addictive they they they provide maybe in some cases they provide some value but in in most cases they they only provide the value uh for a very short term if you if if I play the game for let's say an hour or two to understand what it is which I do sometimes because I need to understand what's out in the market but I'm not going to go spend 00 hours on something because there's the the additional value that I would gain from it is very limited right so in in some ways I actually agree with

what China is doing in terms of saying you know each child three hours a week and uh you know limit that um and and you know I think that they should probably we should probably do that with social networks too because a lot of these social networks especially the ones that are maybe less meaningful uh I think we we may want to also limit how much time we uh our children spend on that just like we used to say Hey you know don't don't watch more than an hour hours of TV or don't can't watch

TV after a certain time right I think we we we should take that same same U perspective with with gaming um one thing I do want to talk about is I think we we really have undersold the value of soft skills now that now that the the hard and stem skills are essentially a given we need to make sure that our kids spend more time learning philosophy and psychology and communication and history and you know how to lead because those are the things that will actually separate how they will um be integrated into this future

world uh it is because in the future the the most the most important thing is how we will interact with each other and that's all about the soft skills um so I agree yeah yeah debate leadership compassion the ability to lead somebody to convince them to support a vision right to provide a compelling uh story for folks you for sure to allow us to to to ask the question why right because before people all about how how do you do this how do you do that but now it's now that we know we can do

almost anything or soon we will be able to do almost anything is why should we do it right should we do this and and having the the ethical guidelines to to to go along with and who does it affect when I do these things I think that that that's um an important part that we we uh we miss a lot um another thing I think is important is actually spending time on Health and Fitness a lot of people uh especially in Asia you know they they don't put their kids into into sports classes there like

it's a waste of time I just want them to to focus on school and um I think you know that the US and probably Australia whatever is probably a little bit better than that but I think that's something that we should we should get people into sports because Sports allow especially team sports allows you to to have the the the trials and tribulations of success and failure and the the the concept of teamwork and how do you work with it a large group how do you lead groups how do you follow you know and what

happens when things don't work out and it's okay when things don't work and what happens when you work really hard and you really the difference of of you know training a lot versus training a little um the other thing we don't do enough is sleep I think you know I used to PR myself oh I only sleep four or five hours you and both I can get so much more sleep when I'm dead yeah and and I honestly um these days I I I think by sleeping more your brain brain just works so much better

and and young people will be the same when when they sleep is when they remember and and turn that shortterm memory into the long-term memory and too many parents don't don't prioritize sleep for their for their children and I think that's that's critical so and then lastly for for young people you need to think about finding mentors and also spending more time with your parents because time goes so quickly and you know I lost my dad last year and I just I wish I had spent more time with him and um you know and you

don't realize it until until it's it's it's too late and you know also my my my children have grown up like instantly and I was you know traveling between China and us and I felt like I didn't get to see them enough uh as they were growing up you know that's probably one of my my biggest regrets and so so I feel like young people while they have a chance to spend time with their parents do it because as the older you get the less time you will spend with them and you will wish you

had spent more and you will learn things from them because they are one of the few people in the world that that you know essentially is is um just it's un I guess it's it's the unconditional love right the true unconditional love is a parents love for their child and to to have that they will give you advice that that they think is truly helpful for you so so spend more time listening to your I'm going to go I'm going to go hug my kids I'm going to go hug my kids right now as soon

as they get back from school Alvin grillin um the author of our next reality um how AI powered metaverse will reshape the world uh get the book it's on Kindle it's hard cover I consumed it on Audible uh Alvin uh you're an amazing friend and Visionary I'm grateful to have you in my life and thank you for joining us today on moonshots ohk thank you Peter you you've been a a real Mentor you know I was talking about mentors and I I see you as a mentor and I I I I listen to all of

your shows and I I learn something from every show so it is my honor and privilege to uh to speak to you today fantastic where do folks follow you on on Twitter or other platforms uh yeah so Twitter is a grillin and then uh on LinkedIn is Alvin grin so uh pretty easy and then also you can go to our next reality.com and find out more information about the book oh actually there's one thing I do want to mention is we created a custom gbt for the book that you can ask any questions in and

it it uses all of the content from just the book to answer you so uh hopefully that that will you know give you a preview of any you know concerns that you have that's on that's on our next reality.com is where you find the uh GPT yeah or actually you there's a link to it but it goes to the custom gbt of open AI CH gbt wonderful thank you my friend talk to you soon thank you sir [Music]