Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we take a look at the ongoing AI development race and consider whether China may be poised to overwhelm the US from a capability standpoint as we move forward.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man who's been popping his collar at least as long as I've known him. Tunde on Okina Lana Tunde, are you ready to show him how you stay fly out here?
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Yeah, man. You didn't warn me that I should have wore a collar today.
Got my T shirt on and I can't pop anything.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: It's too early for that, man.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Anyway, let's go.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Now, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and like the show on YouTube or your podcast platform, doing so really helps the show out.
Now recording on March 11, 2025. And last week, we saw a Chinese firm announce a new AI agent named Manus, which has been touted as a big advancement because it's way more than just a chatbot, but it's an autonomous agent, as they say, that can be directed to, quote, turn your thoughts into actions. Now, many remain skeptical of these claim capabilities, and this is just any announcement and kind of private testing phase, but it's still, the announcement shook up the global AI community, not unlike what happened a couple months ago when we saw the Deep Seek app get released, which was apparently made with, or supposedly made with much less cost and being much more efficiently than a lot of the chatbots that are out there now.
Some people have compared the AI development race that's ongoing right now as being similar to the space race of the 20th century. And these developments have some wondering whether China may be poised or maybe in the process of trying to pull ahead. Not unlike the Sputnik 1 launch from 1957. So, Tunde, just to get us started with our conversation today, what do you make of these developments that we're seeing as far as AI tech and China kind of taking a lead with some of its recent releases? Do you think it may be time to get concerned about America's standing in the global AI development race?
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Personally, no. I mean, I don't wake up with cold sweats at night worrying about where we are in the AI development race as the United States compared to the rest of the world.
So that's my answer is no. I think that.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Think we got enough stuff to worry about, man, not have to worry about that, too.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: I'll say yeah. There's other things that would keep Me up in a cold sweat at 2am way before AI, both personally and nationally. So, you know, but on a serious note, man, I just think that you're alluding to the space race and obviously those who have been making these comparisons very interesting. I think it's easy to make that comparison. And it looks obvious that, you know, you have these two nation states with the two leaders in the world at this point from an industrial and technology standpoint, and they're both racing to be the first at doing something with this new technology. So I think the kind of allusion to the space race is valid. But also that reminds me that part of the journey that we've learned now, looking back historically and learning about how the United States saw the Soviet Union really at the top, that by the time we started flying U2 spy planes in the mid-50s over the Soviet Union and really the Russian landmass, our government understood that the Soviet Union probably couldn't compete with us really at all. And so a lot of what happened in the 50s and 60s during the cold War was a lot of just fear. And I think we had our famous President Dwight Eisenhower, that gave his speech on the military industrial complex and some.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Of those goals to tell people to beware of that.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Because there's a lot of money to be made in making Americans scared. And so I don't want to make it out like a lot of money.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: To be made, a lot of power to be made, acquired, all that. Yeah.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: And. And I don't want to be that this is some big conspiracy theory. I'm going about AI today. I'm just making the point that the idea of fear and the idea that as a, as a big superpower that we kind of need a foil to get us going and get us energized should also not be missed in this conversation as well.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: But you know what's interesting? I hadn't thought about this, but you raise an interesting point as far as how the perception was created that, hey, we gotta really. And maintain that we gotta really worry about these people and we gotta do a lot to keep up or to. So that they don't surpass us and so forth, to drive a fear that then was leveraged. You know, whether it be from a budgetary standpoint to build up the military and enrich a lot of people in the military industrial complex. I think that. And then your answer to no, I'm not really that concerned about this. Maybe we just people, just citizens aren't necessarily the target of the fear here. Maybe this is about mainly getting people, the investor class, to continue to pour money into AI as it doesn't really generate a return on investment right now. But the people that are developing AI still want all that investment. So if enough fear can be ginned up amongst them, then that keeps the spigot of money flowing. And, and that may be happening. Like we're just watching it, but the people who are supposed to be afraid and then open up their wallets aren't necessarily us right now. So we're not the target of that. That may be a part of what's happening. I think that I find this to be even more interesting than the space race. The space race was achievement, was prestige, but it wasn't something that was going to turn directly into something that affected your day to day life.
This race with AI, it's, I find it, it's interesting in the sense that they're trying to develop stuff that then we're going to use or people are going to be used on us, you know, or some stuff like that, like in the very immediate future thereafter. Like this is not unlike the way when, when you have all this social media stuff being released and then, then we're going to turn around and start using it right away or just whatever, the Internet and so forth. Like these technologies are technologies that have consumer applications and that's what the target is really is to develop consumer applications. I'm sure they're doing military applications as well, which again could be used on us. So I am watching this just from the standpoint of whose interests are kind of being served as this stuff is getting developed. Is this being developed so that people can have more fulfilling and happy lives? Certainly not. I don't have any illusions that that's happening but, but what is happening and who ends up controlling this? And I'm not saying that China's the bad guy and the US is the good guy. Like, I don't know, like, it's all a black box to me as far as the motives and what people will want to do with this stuff once they have it. But it's definitely, I would say it's more akin to what our life is going to look like in five years or 10 years than the space race was then. And so keeping an eye on it and you know, the machinations of it is at least worthwhile to some degree because yeah, you're going to feel this one way or the other pretty soon in your day to day life.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think the another thing distinction between the space race and this AI stuff is like the space race, I think, is a little bit more tangible to the average person. Right? Yeah.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Look up the moon.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Like you see rockets going up. We know that, you know, a satellite orbits the earth and we knew that, you know, eventually Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. So it's kind of like, all right, like you said, it's kind of this progress, this innovation is visual. We can get excited about it. AI literally is all happening, binary code and machines talking to each other kind of behind the scenes and we get to see some cool output. Like when I ask ChatGPT a question or ask it to draw me some skyline or some city, it's cool, but it's a little bit less tangible about what all this means. And like you're saying how it can permeate out into our lives and touch us in all these ways and so.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: No, you're right. Just real quick.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Putting something in space and then that thing is in space. And so while that might not affect your day to day life, you can conceptualize that just the same way if they're going to put a boat in the water, the boats then in the water, you know, like it's kind of like it's a physical, tangible thing.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. So I think the ability to create the potential, let's say put it that way, to create more fear about, let's say, a superpower rival that has maybe advancing capabilities in this type of technology. I think it's also because it's more of a nebulous topic to us, like layman, at least those of us in the outside of the big tech world.
I think it's easier to create this kind of level of fear that. Oh, big bad China for sure.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Because think about it, because it's more nebulous. Our imaginations can take it and run with it. So it's like the level of fear or the type of fear can be seeded and then your imagination can take it and run with it versus now. And there was a lot of fear then, you know, in terms of being able to put things in space that could then attack you from space and so forth. Yeah, but then that was, you know, during the time of, you know, you got the nuclear arms race and so forth as well, which was a very something to be a very, very afraid of as well. But yeah, this is kind of, you know, like sci fi fear. Like. Yeah, this is going to, this is going to do some kind of thing to you.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Let me jump and say some actually Positive about our American system and our, you know, just ability to do things and walk and chew gum with the same guys. As you're saying this about a space race, I'm thinking that was going on in a very like combustible, if I can say that time in the United States, the 1960s. Think about it, we put Neil Armstrong on the moon in a decade by 1969, when Gordon Kennedy announced it in 61, that that was the goal. So over that eight year period during the height of the Vietnam War, the height of the civil rights and all that stuff, domestic violence, you know, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy Sr. As well as MLK and Malcolm X. So you had all this kind of turmoil and you know, this country was able to get through it all and innovate and beat the Soviets at the space race. So I feel like just a reminder, I mean, you're talking and just thought of it like, wow, we act like the world is so crazy right now that we can't do anything without, you know, the strongmen, leaders in the world and the guys that can really, you know, there's just all this manliness. And I'm just thinking like there's nothing right now compared to what was going on in the 60s from kind of a, you know, domestic cultural upheaval as well as like a Vietnam War and these other things that's going on. And so it's just a, it's just, I guess I say it and it just makes me realize that we do have the ability to do a lot of great things as a nation, as people, but we seem to have been convinced by our own, like, internal dialogue as a nation that we need to be scared of everybody all the time. Well, and so part of that is.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: Kind of where you've talked about like the information, our information environment has changed. Like those things weren't necessarily in our face at all times when they were going on in the 1960s. You and I weren't alive then, but just the nature of the way information. You might read the paper in the morning, you might watch the news in the evening, but it wasn't all day that you were being put in your face as far as, oh, here's what's happening here, here's what's happening there. And I'm not saying better or worse. I'm just saying in terms of your own feeling maybe of overwhelmed with what's happening in the world, like right now, every time you open your phone, if there's something that makes you afraid that thing might be on Your phone. And you might see something like that, something related that 30 times a day, which is just a lot different than seeing it.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: I'm smiling, James, because this is all I want to keep us moving by us tech companies. And this conversation is we're being told to be scared of the Chinese. You know what I mean?
[00:11:53] Speaker A: That's kind of why. But I mean, in the specific nature of kind of this, you know, this interaction that we're having with the Chinese. And I just, I think that it's not a bad thing to have someone, and not necessarily an adversary, but someone who also is trying, that you're competing with for something like this. Competition drives success a lot of times and drives advancement. So the idea that, you know, like, if you have two people competing in the 400 meters, they're going to push each other and they're going to go further and further than they would if it was just one guy running it. So the idea that you have a competitor here with China that is trying to move the envelope forward, and I think it could be a good thing if competition is treated in a way that's healthy. That could be a good thing as far as overall advancement. That being said, you know, like many of race concerns, we were passing around something, you know, having the show notes from Ray Dalio talking about, you know, like, well, China, you know, like, if we're going to try to compete with them from a manufacturing standpoint when it comes to AI chips or really anything, you know, we're just. We're biting off more than we can chew in that sense, because just the number of people that they have and the capability they have in manufacturing already is something that is going to overwhelm us. And so he was talking about the, the need to maintain our lead and not on the manufacturing and the hardware side, but on the development side, on the brain side, so to speak. And which part of that is, you know, like talking about how our immigration system allows people, you know, the best and the brightest from all over to come here, our cultural, open kind of culture and allow people to speak up and so forth, promotes further kind of economic or, excuse me, intelligent advancement and so forth. And, and so not configuring our. Or having our society configured in a way that allows us to maintain a lead there. What are your thoughts on. On that idea? Just as far as the, the uphill kind of thing that we're looking at for manufacturing, but our current advantage, and then also our advantage that we have right now in investment. But, you know, that can. That's something that can change, you know, but nonetheless, the, the, the kind of the brain advantage that we have right now.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Well, let me speak to that a bit because that's very interesting. So, and I want to come back, you big gave a great example about the 400 meters, so I'll save that for the end of our conversation.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: My thought on that.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: But so, because I wrote a note here, I'm reading that because I thought of the same thing that where we have such an advantage. And this is one thing that I think, you know, we don't appreciate as Americans, this idea of kind of our soft power. And I'll include in soft power not just, you know, the State Department and our ability to negotiate things, but also like you said about our innovation, the ability to kind of draw in the world's kind of brightest and smartest who want to come here because of our cultural, kind of open cultural society, so on and so forth, and the ability to again live the American dream, you know, the great story of the 20th century. And so the.
I do think there's truth to that, that we have an edge there over the rest of the world. And part of it is that edge.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: For a long time. I mean, part of us winning the space race, well, part of us developing nuclear weapons in the first place and then winning the space race was bringing in science scientists and scientists wanting to come here and so forth from other countries, you know, like, kind of like that's been a part of the strength of America is this kind of immigration. You know, like, that'd be a crazy thing for many people to think about. But, you know, that's been one of the strengths that we've had for a.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Long time now, and here's my concern is that as we're seeing the dismantling of things like the relationship between the federal government and research grants and kind of spending in that way, because we've had this discussion in several different shows about, you know, the private sector isn't in business to go bankrupt all the time. So the federal government is the kind of private public partnership where the federal government does the research and development and kind of, you know, lets rockets blow up on launch pads without it costing a shareholder. But once the research and development is done, whether it be computers, pharmaceuticals, whatever, then the private sector gets a hold of that new technology or new development, comes to an intellectual property attorney like yourself, gets a patent, and then, you know, the, the private sector does its magic. In the United States, you know, we have capital markets, a startup goes public, so on and so forth. And I think that's the, the, the kind of, you know, that's the intangible.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Let me say it a little bit differently. Just the, the idea the public private partnership being, getting from zero to, to some having something is not necessarily where the private sector shines, because when things are so speculative, it's hard to maintain the level of investment that you need to make the mistakes and make the mistakes and perfect something to get it right. And so that government money oftentimes is very helpful. And we see that to get you from having nothing to having something. And then from once you have something, then the private sector oftentimes can work its magic then in the marketplace to try to take that and exploit it in all different types of ways.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: And a great example of that is the first man, Mr. Musk, which I say with a smile, I was waiting for you to get that one. But no, because think about it. He was a private company, Tesla, but He got a $500 million grant in 2009 for the federal government. And that's what allowed us to have a Model s Tesla by 2012, driving on the streets, SpaceX. The amount of federal subsidies he's got to test his rockets and let them blow up on, on the launch pad on behalf of the taxpayers dollar, not his dollar or the investor's. So, so long story short is my concern is that we are now destroying that kind of ability of the federal government to provide the dollars for, whether it's nih, whether it's, you know, Palo Alto Networks or, or the, or DARPA in the military. You know, if we stop spending on research and development in these areas. Because remember, it's the government that invented the Internet, the World Wide Web, and then gave it to the private sector. And that's how we had Netscape and those kind of things and Internet explorer by the 90s. Right, yeah. And so that's where I was thinking, Remember in the 2000 campaign, because they were saying how Al Gore.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Yeah, George W. Put that in. But I was like, I don't know if enough people would remember that or.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Get that we're old enough. Somebody out there is old enough. It's funny because I remember when he was like, if he was so smart.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Why would he call it www?
[00:18:31] Speaker B: I love that line. But anyway, long story short, and get back to the topic is, yes, my concern is that we have this great ecosystem of innovation that then can lead to the capital markets and the financial profits for the nation and the GDP and all that. And we're kind of Collapsing that internally.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: No, that's what I said. We've had it traditionally but I mean even the hostility towards immigration now also, you know, like, and, and kind of just taking that with a broad brush and, and that's, that's something that while whether you change the law or do this or do that, that might be something where some scientists somewhere who's, you know, brilliant or whatever might have hesitation like oh, maybe I don't want to go there if that's how they're treating people, you know, that aren't from there like scanning their, their social media and then deporting them because of something they said on social media. Like that's, you know, even if you're there legally, you know, so it's one of those things when you look at kind of the environment in the country and that as being promoted by the leadership, which is quite incre stuff that I find like the concept of waste even for example being very interesting on how it can be applied subjectively. Like yes, you could say that the money given to SpaceX over the past decade and a half for a long time you could classify that as waste because all they were doing is blowing stuff up and it's like, oh, but eventually they get to the point where they can do something more than blow something up. But so does that then retroactively at stuff that we could have considered waste for 10 years, does that then become a good investment once they start successfully putting stuff in space? Or would it have been if 10 years ago or whatever, if somebody was trying to cut waste, they would have just cut that and it wouldn't be there now? You know, so we're kind of looking, we're kind of if our advantage, if we're not going to catch up, you know, from the standpoint of we're not capable of establishing a manufacturing base from a cost effectiveness standpoint to be able to be the person who makes all the chips for everybody. You know, if we're not going to be able to maintain that kind of advantage, then the only way we can keep an advantage is from the intellectual standpoint, then we probably shouldn't be dismantling all of the things that allowed us to build the intellectual advantage, so to speak. But you know, like that when you look at things short sightedly when, when the considerations you have maybe political or even selfish, like hey, if I pull up the bridge now, then I don't have to worry about coming anybody coming behind me with a better idea and being able to, to use the mechanisms I order to make Things happen then self serving doesn't necessarily help us win an AI development race or anything like that. So definitely there will be a concern, whether it be intentional or unintentional, just that the mentality we have now is not of a growth mentality, it's more of a take it apart mentality. And if that's going to be the case, then it's hard to be on the forefront of development. I mean, and that to me it's kind of an overall mindset. Americans don't, don't seem to be dreaming big at the moment. They seem to be wanting to, to dream small and you know, like just kind of cut, cut, waste, cut, waste. And again, what's, what's waste, so to speak? If something doesn't deliver a return for 10 years, even though that something may be amazing, well, you know, right now that could easily be classified as well.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: The beautiful thing is we're going to learn, right? Americans are going to find out what, what, what is considered a waste and what's not. But there's a couple of things because.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Well, but the thing I'd want to say because I know I'm going to get back to you and then I want to get out of here. But the thing where we always see this is where scapegoating comes into place. Like right now we're watching the kind of systems be dismantled that could allow us to maintain or grow an advantage in something like this. And then if five years and we look up and our advantage is gone and we're falling behind, a lot of times the people won't look and say, okay, well yeah, the reason why we're behind now is because we took these steps and dismantled our advantage. It'll be oh, because of this, this group of people, you know, because, oh, they got, you know, immigrants, you know, were the reason we fell behind in the space race. And it's really the decisions of people, but it's always going to be some marginalized group that gets blamed for it. And so, and kind of societies tend to take that hook, line and sinker each time. And so, but we, right now we're in a position where we can see this happen. And ideally enough people will speak on it that the, it will be observed what's happening. But you know, like that's still beholden to the information cycle and so forth.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Well, let me jump in because you, there's a couple of things I wanted to said some good stuff there. One is going to what you just are finishing on and you mentioned Oppenheimer oh, sorry, you mentioned the nuclear stuff, the Manhattan Project. And there was a very interesting scene in the film Oppenheimer, I remember, where they were talking about the Nazis and Germany getting its hands on the nuclear kind of, you know, the designs and blueprints from nuclear bomb. And I think it was Oppenheimer who made the point about Einstein and some of the Jewish scientists who had to escape Germany after 1933 because of what was going on with the Holocaust and all that. And he made a comment that, you know, the Germans hate Jews more than they want to win. And it was an interesting point because then it got me thinking about things like the Tuskegee Airmen.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: And he, I mean, for the purposes of the movie, he said that not in some accusatory way or some like, it was just kind of a matter of fact. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: So. And that's why I just bring it up to say that that's the point you're making is that we run the risk that our ideology, you know, overtakes the American sense of innovation. Because that's why I thought about Tuskegee Airman. Even though we had high racism back around the World War II time and even after, during the space race, the America wanted to win, so eventually said, okay, we're going to use these black people too, and all that and put all its resources into winning, unlike the Nazis who had an ideology that prevented them from using all of the resources in the country. And that's, you know, the results are what they are. Now, one of the things that I thought of, as I know we want to get out of here because you made. I'm going to go back to what I said when you said the comment about the 400 meter race and competition, because it doesn't escape me as you're talking about waste and potentially SpaceX and that a SpaceX rocket just blew up last weekend. But it's interesting how silent everybody on a certain political side is about that. It wasn't DEI that caused that rocket to blow up. Maybe it's because Elon Musk is the one behind that rocket. But when other stuff blows up, it's dei. So that goes to your point about ideology and this kind of fear of the other internally putting us at scapegoating in general.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: If something goes wrong, if there's an opportunity to scapegoat, we see the issue. There are always the kinds of people that scapegoat. What's happening right now in our society that's concerning is that the type of people who like to scapegoat right now are ascendant like this would be. And I look at a lot of things in these sports contexts. Like, you would. You wouldn't want to hire a football coach who is always looking to blame somebody every time something goes wrong. It's like, well, no, that guy's not going to be successful. We need to find a football coach that knows how to establish accountability and to get the best out of people, not to just point the finger and blame people all the time. And so right now, though, you know, again, the scapegoating mindsets are ascendant in our leadership, which is just not going to get the best, not going to get the nation to live up to its potential, whether it would be a sports team or a government, you know.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: In that you want to take a wager of whose fault it's going to be. We got so many groups in America that can be targeted.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: I think, I think we got to get out of here from this topic. I mean, we've hit it, hit it good.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: But I'm going to pick the Amish. How about this? You think so?
[00:25:56] Speaker A: But no, I mean, I do think that we have to understand it's a dynamic world, you know, and because something is or was doesn't mean that's what it will be. And this AI development race and the relative standing of the people that are participating in that, none of that stuff is static. So we have to pay attention to where we're strong, where we're weak. It just is like with any competition, you know, like where we're strong, where we're weak, try to double down on our strengths, try to bring up our weaknesses a little bit, and then try to move forward. And we don't know ultimately what the payoff is, you know, for this AI stuff. But I do acknowledge and appreciate that we don't want to just be left behind on it, because if the payoff is something amazing, we don't want to be completely left out. And, you know, if it's not that great, then at least we explore it and see what it is. And a lot of times the, the advancement, the way something will change the world or will make things better or can make things better, aren't. Isn't apparent before it happens. And so a lot of times you got to walk down that path and then see what happens. So that's where we are at this time. So, I mean, we'll, We'll. We'll see what happens. But I do think there should be a level of concern, not because China is having success, but just because whether our mindsets in the United States are oriented towards the idea of, hey, we're going to have to put our mindset towards competition, towards optimizing ourselves, you know, And I don't know that we're thinking like that right now, so. But I think we can wrap this topic from there. We appreciate everyone for joining us. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Till next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Aramada.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk soon.
