Humans Create Intelligence

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Andrew Keen

What makes the sky blue?

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Andrew Keen

Hello, everybody. It's that time of the week again. That Was The Week, our weekly technology summary with my old friend Keith Teare, publisher of That Was The Week newsletter. Keith has some big news this week, at least according to his headline. Humans create intelligence. And now, he says, everybody can access it with, you know what, artificial intelligence, Keith argues. And it seems kind of self-evident, but it's an interesting idea. He says that he believes that humans need access to intelligence because human knowledge should not be, and I'm quoting him exactly, should not be trapped in Inside experts, institutions, or companies. In other words, what we're talking about now, when it comes to AI, is a radical democratization of intelligence. Everybody has it, and it's a theme that... is in a lot of the articles he connects with this week. Noah Smith, for example, also, like Keith, believes, I think, in the democratization of intelligence. He talks about the end of the age of heroes. So, Keith, we're living through historic times. Is that fair? You sometimes accuse me of mischaracterizing what you've written or said, but are we talking about the radical democratization of intelligence?

Keith Teare

I think you've got to distinguish between individual contribution to intelligence and collective intelligence. We're not going to ever democratize individual contribution. That is where experts live and belong. And, you know, some individuals contribute more to collective intelligence than others.

Andrew Keen

Like you and I.

Keith Teare

Exactly. So that's always going to be true. But the sum total of all intelligence made up of everybody's contribution, and everybody just doesn't mean living humans, but all humans ever, that is really the meaning of the word intelligence when thought of as a collective, a word for the collective sum of all progress today. And it's that that needs to be distributed. And up until now, that would have been impossible. You know, it would have been encyclopedias, libraries, books, Maybe search engines. What we have for the first time with AI is the ability to aggregate, distill, digest, and then leverage intelligence. And it's now cheap enough that billions of people get access to it. Ultimately, it should be cheap enough that everyone gets access to it. That isn't my wish. It's almost like the inevitable endgame of what AI is. It uplifts every individual to the level of what previously only a wealthy individual would have been able to have access to.

Andrew Keen

Well, it's not just wealthy. I mean, this idea, and I'm going to quote it again, human intelligence should not be trapped inside experts. I mean, an expert... Of course, historically, at least in the modern age, to become an expert, you had to go to university, you had to work hard. There were more or less successful experts, more or less authoritative experts. You said earlier that there's still going to be experts. What kind of experts if, in your view, human knowledge shouldn't be trapped inside them?

Keith Teare

I think the same way there's always been experts. I mean, look, if two different people look at the output of an AI conversation about, let's say, viruses, an expert in viruses is going to have a very different understanding than somebody who isn't an expert in viruses. So experts don't go away. In fact, explosives, if anything, get elevated.

Andrew Keen

I mean, you can't have it both ways. Noah Smith doesn't try to have it both ways. In his End of the Age of Heroes, he talks about essentially, or he predicts, the end of mathematical heroes. I'm not sure he's particularly unhappy about that. He said few of us really did get to be heroes in the age of science, and now nobody's gonna be. And he said it's not, I'm quoting his end, he said it's not so bad really, never, and I'm quoting him, most people never get the chance to be heroes. Truck drivers don't, financial advisors don't, executive assistants don't. They have to find meaning just from being regular people, from taking care of their kids, having friends, having hobbies, joining civic organizations, getting involved in politics and so on. It's not such a terrible fate. So is this not such a terrible fate, Keith, the fate of all of us in this age of radical democratization of intelligence?

Keith Teare

Yeah, I kind of disagree with Noah Smith in one detail.

Keith Teare

If we're talking about the sum of human intelligence, I agree with him. We can all benefit from that. The lowest of the low and the highest of the high equally can benefit from that. Where I disagree with him is there will still be heroes because individual intelligence doesn't go away. It actually gets amplified. And so think about math, his area of focus, math. I do not believe AI will mostly solve new math problems. There's no evidence yet that AI can create new knowledge, new intelligence. What it can do is understand and distribute existing intelligence. And it will still take individuals to go beyond. And there will be individuals that do. And in fact, they'll do it more because the AI will level them up to the understanding of what is already understood and known. So their starting point For innovating will be much higher. And so there will still be heroes. I think he's wrong about that.

Andrew Keen

Well, in a sense, then we're starting all over again, a fresh slate. And this was another Theme that you pick up on in your newsletter this week. You connect with an interview that Yasha Munk made of the great MIT economist Darren Akamoglu, who has a new book out. The book is called What Happened to Liberal Democracy? And it's really a book about the opportunity in AI. Akamoglu also had a good article in The Atlantic summarizing his book. Like you, he recognizes this radical democratization of intelligence with AI. And he talks about, I'm not sure if you read the Atlantic piece, but he talks about what he wants to see as a radical pro-worker AI. Do you share what Akamoglu is arguing if you believe that we still live in an age of experts?

Keith Teare

No, I completely disagree with it. I put it in because I disagree with it. I think the, let's call it fetishization of workers, it's almost like the middle class worship of the working class as some kind of romantic, iconic group of people that should be preserved is both paternalistic, but also just historically inaccurate. The history of The working class has been that it grew in order that it could shrink.

Keith Teare

It grew through the industrial revolution and he's quite right about that. And wages became stabilized and standardized to some extent through things like minimum wage. But the idea that the wage represents some kind of progress is only true if you look backwards at feudalism or early capitalism. The wage is symptomatic of a power relationship between the employers and the employees.

Keith Teare

And what technology is doing, he calls it severing that relationship. It's completely removing that relationship. The whole idea of labor and capital is now Open to question as whether that's the future organization of society. And that's a good thing. And unfortunately, a lot of the left, you know, they make permanent what is temporary.

Keith Teare

And the wage capital relationship is temporary.

Andrew Keen

So let's be concrete here. He says, Silicon Valley's attention needs to be shifted towards pro-worker AI. And I'm quoting him here from his Atlantic piece. He says, starting at the international level, the US and Europe should create AI agencies that can generate incentives such as grant programs or public competitions for technologists to develop models that are designed to expand workers' capabilities. You would disagree with that?

Keith Teare

Completely disagree with it. What's happening now? Is the end of the working class. Not the preservation of the working class or the looking after the working class, which is why I call it paternalistic. The working class is going to be replaced because there won't be one. There will be robotics. There will be AI. There will not be traditional wage labor jobs. And that's a good thing. Looked at from a progressive point of view, When you want to take, you know, my aspiration as a working class kid growing up in a council estate in England was to not be working class. I didn't want people seeking to make me permanently working class. I didn't want to be working class. And now, for the first time in history, it's actually...

Andrew Keen

Yeah, but how many of the kids you grew up with in Yorkshire ended up in Palo Alto?

Keith Teare

Why is that relevant?

Andrew Keen

Well, because it's a bit of a lottery. I mean, if many of them did well, I mean, you've always said to me that most of the people you grew up with, what are they all doing now?

Keith Teare

Well, they're doing better than they were doing when I was a kid, I can tell you that, because life in general is better than it used to be. But that's kind of a micro point. The macro point, which is, I think, more fundamental to his argument, is that As automation kicks in, human labor diminishes. That's inevitable.

Andrew Keen

So what happens? Okay, so you don't agree with Akamoglu. So what about Smith's point about heroism has to change? Do you agree? I mean, how are we supposed to value people in this new age where intelligence is, at least according to guys of optimists like you, is abundant? Well, there's no scarcity of intelligence.

Keith Teare

Actually, you're now reinforcing why I chose the title this week, Humans Create Intelligence. There is no such thing as intelligence separate from humans. And heroes defined by Noah are those humans who contribute more to the collective intelligence than others. They don't go away. They absolutely don't go away. AI doesn't replace innovation. It's just a tool for innovation. And so this whole idea of a counterposition between, and the word AI and the word intelligence are not the same word. Intelligence is 100% human, and AI is a tool created by humans to distill, digest, and distribute intelligence. That's a very, very important distinction. And what both Noah and, I can't pronounce his name.

Andrew Keen

Hakamoglu.

Keith Teare

Hakamoglu are doing is they're papering over that distinction between AI and intelligence. Intelligence is only human. And therefore, the idea that humans will cease to contribute to it is just not true.

Andrew Keen

Yeah, and the title of the interview with Munch on persuasion is why liberalism has become a victim of its own success. And I wonder, I mean, this is a bigger point. I wonder whether liberal ideology, the dominant ideology of the last two or three hundred years, Which is built around the self and the ability of individuals to create and recreate themselves. I wonder how this is going to be impacted by AI, whether we become more collective. It seems to be the central long-term question of the AI age.

Keith Teare

I actually think the opposite. I think we become more individual. I mean, I can just... Tell you my own experience of this.

Keith Teare

So my hard drive ran out of space a week ago, and it's a Mac, right? So normally you can't upgrade a Mac's hard drive, you have to go and buy a new one. Or you clean it out. So what I decided is to take the step of upgrading the hard drive in the Mac, which is doable, it's just difficult. And to do that, to wipe out all of the stuff on the hard drive. And so I said to Claude, please back up the AI part of the hard drive in such a way that we can put it back afterwards, almost like a brain transplant from robot A into robot B. And over the course of 48 hours, it completely backed up Then I upgraded the hard drive.

Keith Teare

Then it restored the clawed, the open AI, the open claw brain, if you will, back to the new hard drive.

Andrew Keen

So, okay, I can imagine. So what's your point? Your point is that everyone's going to be able to do that?

Keith Teare

My point is that as an individual,

Andrew Keen

I was empowered to

Keith Teare

do something that I couldn't have done on my own. And so the idea that the self is undermined, no, the self is Completely expanded.

Andrew Keen

So I think the fear would be, and you know, we seem to repeat this conversation every week, the fear of people like Akamoglu is that the reality on the ground headlines today of fewer jobs being created. For all the theory, in practice, inequality is being compounded and that the AI age will only, it might create a few cute tears who get out of their council estates and become wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, but most people For one reason or other won't take advantage of that. It's only going to compound inequality. So if you reject... Hold on.

Keith Teare

If you reject... Justify that, Andrew. I think that's just blatantly not true.

Andrew Keen

Well, maybe you should get out of Palo Alto. I'm not sure that that's necessarily typical of the rest of America. But if you reject Akamoglu's point that there's no need for pro-worker AI, are you suggesting the government should just stand back and just let this revolution happen?

Keith Teare

What even is pro-worker AI? This is complete bullshit.

Andrew Keen

But are you suggesting then that no one should do anything?

Keith Teare

I don't want you to echo his words. Tell me what that means. What did you I mean, you need to read bullshit. There's no such thing.

Andrew Keen

Well, I'm quoting him here. He says, Pro worker AI could boost productivity across other services.

Keith Teare

What is pro worker AI?

Andrew Keen

In education, a model trained on relevant curriculum material might allow teachers to spot patterns in test results and tailor lesson plans for particular groups of students who tend to make the same mistakes. So he's not necessarily completely disagreeing with you. He's simply saying that AI can help Teachers, for example, become better teachers. But I think what he wants then, and I'm quoting him here again, a pro-worker AI could create good service jobs for workers who aren't college educated and thus begin to uproot the inequality that has been entrenched in the post-industrial economy. Do you disagree that With that, that there is, that inequality has been entrenched in the post-industrial economy. I mean, I think that's just a reality. I mean, that's a quantifiable reality.

Keith Teare

I think what it's doing is, is Anthro... How do you say that word? Turning AI into a living being. Anthro... I can't say it. Can you say it?

Andrew Keen

No.

Keith Teare

You know what I mean? The idea that there could be a pro-worker AI or an anti-worker AI, the very framing of AI as being, you know, we can choose, it's a mistake. I actually agree with his point, and he's really making my point, that AI creates better individuals, better experts. He's more agreeing with me than Noah Smith who said heroes go away. I think probably every single teacher becomes a hero in a world of AI.