Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Tunde Ogunlana: You know, one of the things that just bothers me about the way that this is happening in public for all of us culturally is these same guys, Sam Altman, you know, I'll just name him as one of the famous guys, right. But you know, Elon Musk, whoever it is, these, these kind of tech bros, right, Zuckerberg, all them, you know, for the last, I'd say 12 years, 13 years since the early 2010s they've been selling us on this idea that they were going to build utopia for us. You know, that this was, this AI stuff was going to revolutionize the world. I mean I had.
[00:00:36] James Keys: But that was definitely trying to raise money.
[00:00:38] Tunde Ogunlana: Well, that's why I just.
[00:00:40] James Keys: They don't build, that's why is for people, you know, like they build Facebook.
[00:00:43] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, but that's kind of my point of getting into this, which is, you know, us in the public as well have a responsibility here. So we gave them the keys to our society in a sense. Over the last decade, you know, they, they, they, they, they, they got fabulously wealthy. They now have. We just for the first time in US history in 2025 had a co president for the first five months because the fabulous wealth he made through technology and all that stuff over the prior decade allowed him to write a check to be the largest donor in an entire presidential campaign. And that bought him a seat into the government. And it seems like ever since these guys got to a certain level of power and wealth, they flipped the script on the story.
So it went from this is going to revolutionize humanity and no one's going to work. It's going to be so good. We're going to have to figure out how to do this basic universal income. Remember that like three, four years ago. And now they've switched their tune entirely, which is this is going to destroy humanity. Da da da. And I just feel like James is starting to really remind me of the bankers in the great financial crisis that they built everything up. They're the ones that told us along with the administration in 2005, 2006, go buy homes, go, go buy, you know, 105% mortgages. You know, if you, if you can just fog up a mirror, we'll give you money. How can this go wrong? And then when it goes wrong, they're right there saying, hey, we're the only guy to Goldman Sachs and blackrock. We're the only guys that can fix this because of the complexities of credit default swaps and derivatives. And then they get more trillions of
[00:02:06] James Keys: dollars and I think, but it's not quite the same.
[00:02:08] Tunde Ogunlana: Are setting that up.
[00:02:09] James Keys: But it's not quite the same though because the bankers weren't telling us before the market crashed. Hey everybody, we got to put the brakes on this. What's going on here? Like there just the scenario you laid out. There is space for to, to say, yeah, they changed their tune. Well, they may have seen things that made them change their tune. So there is space for that in the world now. I happen to agree with you. I just don't trust these guys. So while I recognize that yes, they may have seen things that have caused them to change their tune and now they're like, hey guys, we're in, we got to, we're in trouble. Based on what we're seeing this thing doing now, we're scared of what it's going to do in three months and.
But see, to me, a lot of times you can learn a lot about people if you just always keep one kind of psychological mechanism in mind and that's projection.
So to me, I do believe the thoughts as far as AI, us being able, us losing control, the quote unquote misalignment and all this other stuff where AI is no longer aligned with our goals, that has its own goals and so forth.
I, I believe all that stuff is possible on the table, but I don't think that's the biggest risk we should be worrying about. I think the biggest risk is actually these guys, like all of the power that AI systems can be used to exert.
I think these are also the kind of people that would want that power for themselves and to be able to use that power for themselves. And if that ends up being, hey, you know, people are going to die, I'm not 100% confident that these people be like, oh no, we can't, that's a bridge too far. You know, it seems like the kind of leadership that we have, there are no bridges too far, you know, like, so I'm more concerned as the capabilities increase that of not just the machines going crazy or having goals and objectives that require us to be out of the way and more so people who have, don't have the moral compass that I would want powerful people to have getting control of these kinds of systems and, and then using them to do all this stuff that they're telling us to worry about. You know, I think we have a people concerned much more than the AI concern, at least in the short term, maybe 30 years down the road, you know, like it may be something else, but the people have demonstrated that they'll kill us all.
You know, people have demonstrated. The AI machines haven't demonstrated they'll kill us all yet. So I think we need to be worried about this power, you know, that the AI systems may offer at this point, much more so than we are now.
[00:04:40] Tunde Ogunlana: You're right. So let's just say it right. So far, AI has not dropped two nuclear bombs on a human society. And humans have done that. Right.
[00:04:47] James Keys: And I think you're right that drop nuclear bombs on Iran.
[00:04:51] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah. So. So you know, you're right.
[00:04:53] James Keys: Thing a little less date.
[00:04:54] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, humans do a great job at killing each other.
You know, I probably needs to catch up if we're going to say it's so sinister. Right.
[00:05:02] James Keys: So I mean it learns though. So that also creates a difficult issue as well.
[00:05:06] Tunde Ogunlana: But, but the. But as you're talking, we're already there, James, Think about it. We just recently in recent weeks had a show about the flock cameras. And think about how the society reacts to this idea that we're being constantly surveilled. And think about it, what we talked about. 90% of the cameras out there in this country are owned by one company.
So it is about revenue, it is about. It is about money. Which then leads to control.
Because to your point, if someone is making money watching having one company watch all of us, that type of power is not going to give itself up easily. Right. Like they're just not going to walk off and oh, you know what, I'm going to take competition now.
[00:05:47] James Keys: Hey, remember our show from about power? More likely that that's just going to make somebody want more power.
[00:05:53] Tunde Ogunlana: Yeah, exactly. And so that's why I just think that that's why I said what I said with a strong sentiment. Like I'm really beginning to be disgusted with these tech bros in that sense because I.
One thing that, you know, was my pet peeve in recent years, I think it was in 2023 or something. So a few years ago I saw Sam Altman on stage saying that I was going to solve all of physics in a few thousand days.
And I just thought this sounds so stupid that you say that the level of hubris, number one, as if fundraising.
[00:06:25] James Keys: Fundraising.
[00:06:26] Tunde Ogunlana: I know it's called fun, but that's my point. But it's also a little bit. We done financial discussions where I've talked to you about how it grinds my gears a bit when I watch financial shows and some people use the term basis points like to me a little bit too much. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a 1/100th of a percent for the audience here. So instead of just saying, hey, you know, the interest rates are going to change, you know, from 3.75% to 4%, they'll say they're going to increase them by 25 basis points to 400 basis. You know, it's a way. Honestly, I think some Wall street guys just talk to sound smarter. And that's what Sam Altman and some of these guys remind me of. They just talk all this stuff to try and sound smarter. And now they just, you know, now it's like they're the opposite. Now they're just trying to get us all scared. And it's just like, I just feel like they're, they're gonna collapse our system and not, not necessarily kill us with AI, but we're gonna collapse the economy and they're gonna be standing there just like the bankers were in 08. Hey, this is so complex. You know, these algorithms are all black boxes. So we need more trillions of dollars to, to get society out of this mess. And that's, you know, I think we're setting that up. So, sorry, sorry, if that's a buzz.
