I'm really in agreement with you on this. Question though, you call this a manifesto. Do you have a literal written down version of this that I could find somewhere? My wife and I have had conversations about this topic many times, and I think this would go a long way to helping her see my point of view on it. She retains information better when she reads it.
Regarding Palantir, apart from what exactly the company is doing as a business, it is part of Thiel-universe. And we have to admit that this is who is holding the strings from the second row. From the US government to Big Tech, there is an open, pretty transparent connection.
I think AI is more like the first time people realized they could have a slave do all the work. I’m sure at first, they felt it was the beginning of a utopia for the enslavers.
You are observing AI from the position of your personal efficiency—you will be more efficient by needing help from fewer people. What happens when trust between people is no longer needed because we no longer need to relay on each other to increase efficiency? What makes up the fabric of our society?
For me, it seems that trust constitutes the very fabric of society. It’s every person you know or have heard about, every brand, every nation—your or my representation of what that person or brand means to us within our” human embedding”. If you remove from that person or brand all the values you’ve formed through interactions, you remove their entire history; essentially, you erase them. Once erased, your interactions with them revert to the starting point, where no trust exists. I think what’s gradually happening is that we’re moving toward a world where mutual trust will become less necessary, simply because it will be more efficient to interact with computers than with people. So less interaction leads to less history and less history leads to less trust.
On the other hand, human creativity will be unleashed!
Dear David, yes, I do agree to kost of what you said.
However a word of caution: As a frequent user of AI myself for researching a broad spectrum of questions my patients confront me with, I am still somewhat sceptical: I frequently find the papers cited by, for example the Consensus-GPT not mentioning the topic. I am afraid that Hallucinations - even scientific quotes (!) - are a little more common than we think. Not all of us have the access or the ability or the time to cross-check the data we are presented with.
Secondly AI is only as good as its training material and the algorithm I use does not heavily on quality but on quantity. Instead of citing a nature article it will come up with some low-level publications because there is simply more of them.
There is also the risk of false conclusions drawn by AI:There is a recent study where AI drew a correlation between beer consumption and knee X-rays. Unfortunately Korrelation was not valud since the AI did not investigate the X-ray but the meta-data. It then guessed beer consumption on the geographic location.
Ai maximalism sounds like exactly what we need. Don’t worry about the cult moniker, it’s just a label that gets thrown on any grass roots group effort that has a social aspect.
It’s very similar to the conspiracy theory label. Yes there are both destructive cults and ridiculous conspiracy theories, but they are a small minority of what is labeled as such, usually by a self interested status quo.
I’ve read the whinny articles by educators on Substack, warning that Ai is causing a cheating epidemic and making gen z phone zombies with low cognitive capacity.
While I don’t think constant screen use and tic tok have done this generation any favors, all I hear is lazy job protectionism from these ‘educators’ who simply don’t care to adapt to the new technological realities.
Educators can use Ai to weed out cheating and perhaps integrate Ai into their curriculum and start actually educating , rather than merely conditioning young people to be compliant workers.
I have initiated “CAN FICTION HELP US THRIVE” to empower writers who create fiction with an overarching, sustainable vision.
My book, “The Jacksons Debate,” is published under this banner.
It explores the ethical complexities of interspecies relations through the lens of an advanced alien civilisation called the Jacksons. The novel challenges readers to consider how easily a more advanced civilisation might view humans as a resource, mirroring humanity’s own treatment of other species on Earth.
I LOVE the way you end your podcasts. Of course it was a good informative talk (yes you are preaching to the choir but some of us need a push now and then). Keep up the good work.
AI is a very prominent part of a much larger crisis. Humanity has made a "God" out of science the last 300+ years. We're developing "God" power in an expanding sphere of technologies: CRISPR, Robotics, Bio-tech, Quantum computing, Fusion energy, New materials, renewable energy, Interplanetary travel, etc, etc. The problem is we've sacrificed out emotional/psychic development in the process. We as a species are completely out of balance. Most people are stuck in childish/adolescent behavior patterns, which is why some leaders are able to effectively tap the "let Mommy/Daddy take care of me" emotional vacuum. The existential question is are we mature enough to responsibly handle these new technologies given our emotional immaturity? No one talks about this core issue. Now, with the emergence of quantum computing, we're facing a contextual/paradigm shift that is greater than the Copernican shift, and for our survival, this shift in understanding has to happen rapidly and not over a generation of two. Here's an excellent intro to this this new opportunity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FUFewGHLLg
The stuff that is going on, with David's excellent work, is so much more profound for humanity.... good luck to us all!
You don't want to use food as example. USA is reactive mostly for the wrong capitalistic reasons. You have a large mass of people to feed while maximizing profit, so let's use chemicals to make more food that'll give em cancer in 20 years...
I am absolutely with you. And those who get in early increase potential to positively influence AI’s trajectory
Hi David,
I'm really in agreement with you on this. Question though, you call this a manifesto. Do you have a literal written down version of this that I could find somewhere? My wife and I have had conversations about this topic many times, and I think this would go a long way to helping her see my point of view on it. She retains information better when she reads it.
Thanks and love your work!
I could write one here
Regarding Palantir, apart from what exactly the company is doing as a business, it is part of Thiel-universe. And we have to admit that this is who is holding the strings from the second row. From the US government to Big Tech, there is an open, pretty transparent connection.
https://www.thenerdreich.com/politico-peter-thiel-problem-dopfner-jd-vance/
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-peter-thiel-trump-administration-connections/
I think AI is more like the first time people realized they could have a slave do all the work. I’m sure at first, they felt it was the beginning of a utopia for the enslavers.
🚀 😎
Thanks for the sanity, Dave.
You are observing AI from the position of your personal efficiency—you will be more efficient by needing help from fewer people. What happens when trust between people is no longer needed because we no longer need to relay on each other to increase efficiency? What makes up the fabric of our society?
Thanks, David,
For me, it seems that trust constitutes the very fabric of society. It’s every person you know or have heard about, every brand, every nation—your or my representation of what that person or brand means to us within our” human embedding”. If you remove from that person or brand all the values you’ve formed through interactions, you remove their entire history; essentially, you erase them. Once erased, your interactions with them revert to the starting point, where no trust exists. I think what’s gradually happening is that we’re moving toward a world where mutual trust will become less necessary, simply because it will be more efficient to interact with computers than with people. So less interaction leads to less history and less history leads to less trust.
On the other hand, human creativity will be unleashed!
Efficiency never made up the fabric of society, and neither did trust.
Dear David, yes, I do agree to kost of what you said.
However a word of caution: As a frequent user of AI myself for researching a broad spectrum of questions my patients confront me with, I am still somewhat sceptical: I frequently find the papers cited by, for example the Consensus-GPT not mentioning the topic. I am afraid that Hallucinations - even scientific quotes (!) - are a little more common than we think. Not all of us have the access or the ability or the time to cross-check the data we are presented with.
Secondly AI is only as good as its training material and the algorithm I use does not heavily on quality but on quantity. Instead of citing a nature article it will come up with some low-level publications because there is simply more of them.
There is also the risk of false conclusions drawn by AI:There is a recent study where AI drew a correlation between beer consumption and knee X-rays. Unfortunately Korrelation was not valud since the AI did not investigate the X-ray but the meta-data. It then guessed beer consumption on the geographic location.
Love Michelle
this is why I stress test and cross validate. I never test one query or even one tool
Is there an AI yet?
https://open.substack.com/pub/luciferv/p/in-the-beginning-was-the-word?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=5e4lda
I agree, count me in AI Maximalism tribe, too :)
Ai maximalism sounds like exactly what we need. Don’t worry about the cult moniker, it’s just a label that gets thrown on any grass roots group effort that has a social aspect.
It’s very similar to the conspiracy theory label. Yes there are both destructive cults and ridiculous conspiracy theories, but they are a small minority of what is labeled as such, usually by a self interested status quo.
I’ve read the whinny articles by educators on Substack, warning that Ai is causing a cheating epidemic and making gen z phone zombies with low cognitive capacity.
While I don’t think constant screen use and tic tok have done this generation any favors, all I hear is lazy job protectionism from these ‘educators’ who simply don’t care to adapt to the new technological realities.
Educators can use Ai to weed out cheating and perhaps integrate Ai into their curriculum and start actually educating , rather than merely conditioning young people to be compliant workers.
Hi David
I have initiated “CAN FICTION HELP US THRIVE” to empower writers who create fiction with an overarching, sustainable vision.
My book, “The Jacksons Debate,” is published under this banner.
It explores the ethical complexities of interspecies relations through the lens of an advanced alien civilisation called the Jacksons. The novel challenges readers to consider how easily a more advanced civilisation might view humans as a resource, mirroring humanity’s own treatment of other species on Earth.
It can be found here — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228994545-the-jacksons-debate
see if it resonates with your view of the world
I LOVE the way you end your podcasts. Of course it was a good informative talk (yes you are preaching to the choir but some of us need a push now and then). Keep up the good work.
AI is a very prominent part of a much larger crisis. Humanity has made a "God" out of science the last 300+ years. We're developing "God" power in an expanding sphere of technologies: CRISPR, Robotics, Bio-tech, Quantum computing, Fusion energy, New materials, renewable energy, Interplanetary travel, etc, etc. The problem is we've sacrificed out emotional/psychic development in the process. We as a species are completely out of balance. Most people are stuck in childish/adolescent behavior patterns, which is why some leaders are able to effectively tap the "let Mommy/Daddy take care of me" emotional vacuum. The existential question is are we mature enough to responsibly handle these new technologies given our emotional immaturity? No one talks about this core issue. Now, with the emergence of quantum computing, we're facing a contextual/paradigm shift that is greater than the Copernican shift, and for our survival, this shift in understanding has to happen rapidly and not over a generation of two. Here's an excellent intro to this this new opportunity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FUFewGHLLg
The stuff that is going on, with David's excellent work, is so much more profound for humanity.... good luck to us all!
Here is the perspective on our emotional immaturity: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/goamh6uej8yt9m17xxbfo/The-Universal-Scientism-of-Modern-Society.pdf?rlkey=01nwj5r9jsbilipkl3hevnaa3&dl=0
This makes too many assumptions to count. You're basically imagining a long series of worst case scenarios that, ultimately, are absurdly improbable.
You don't want to use food as example. USA is reactive mostly for the wrong capitalistic reasons. You have a large mass of people to feed while maximizing profit, so let's use chemicals to make more food that'll give em cancer in 20 years...