Marc sees human-level AI as a milestone, not a ceiling

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 1:22:21

   thesis? Like as we approach AGI and hit AGI as an investor, how do you think about your investment thesis changing. Yeah, so I've always kind of had a little bit of an issue. I've always kind of struggled with the concept of AGI because it at least, well, let's put it away. There's defined terms, which is where I kind of struggle with it, which is there's like the prosaic, there's the, there's the prosaic definition of AGI. And then there's like the, I don't know, cosmic definition.

2. 1:22:48

   And the way I would describe it as, well, let's start with the cosmic one. So the cosmic one is basically, it's the singularity, right? And so AGI is the, is the moment where you enter the singularity, which is to say that where the world fundamentally changes and like the rules of the old world are gone, we're not operating in a new domain. And then, you know, the kind of the full definition of singularity is like, it's a world in which, you know, human judgment is no longer really relevant because the, you know, you get this self-improvement loop, the AI is improving itself and it's sort of racing, you know, so-called takeoff scenarios. You can see at this takeoff thing where the AI is improving itself and the machines are making decisions so much faster than people and people are just sitting there watching the machine do its thing, you know, and I kind of

3. 1:23:26

   described, but I don't really think we live in that world. Whether you could call that utopian or dystopian, I don't think we're lucky or unlucky enough to live in that world. We could debate that. We could talk about that more. But the prosaic definition of AGI that at least I think the industry participants have kind of converged on, and tell me if you agree with this, is it's when the AI could do every economically relevant task as good as a person. The way the co-founder of Anthropic put it is like a basket of the most valuable economic tasks. So it's like 10, 15, not every single economically valuable task. Okay, got it. Yeah, so it's maybe even a slightly reduced definition. And by the way, you're clearly getting close to that if we're not already there.

4. 1:24:03

   And so on that one, I kind of feel like the cosmic one overstates what's going to happen. And then I kind of feel like the kind of AGI definition that you just gave, I think it kind of understates what's going to happen. It's almost too reductionist. And the reason for that is I don't think there's any reason to assume that human skill level is the cap on anything, right? And so the way we say that is AGI always is, you know, the definition you gave, the definition I gave, it's kind of, it's always kind of relative in comparison to a human worker, right? And it's like, I don't know, like human skill level caps out at a certain point, but that's because of the inherent, like biological limitations of the human organism, right? Like we're all, you know, human, I give you an example, human IQ, human IQ, you know,

5. 1:24:45

   kind of what they call fluid intelligence or the sort of G factor of kind of, you know, fluid intelligence. IQ, I think tops out in humans as a species, it tops out around 160, right? Where at like 160, it's like Einstein level, Einstein, Feynman. In terms of IQ. In terms of IQ. Like you just tops out at 160. The 160 IQ people are the ones who come up with new physics. There's only a small handful of those. Generally speaking, when we run into somebody in the world who's like incredibly smart, who's like a bestselling author or like a, you know, one of the world's best, I don't know, research scientists or one of the world's best doctors, you know, whatever, it would be probably 140 is kind of the IQ that you're looking for there. If you're looking for like a really good lawyer, it's probably 130. If you're looking for

6. 1:25:30

   like a really good like line manager in a business, it's probably 110. You know, if you're looking for like an accountant, like a small business accountant who's good at doing the books for small businesses, it's probably 105. Right. And so the kind of scope of like impressive human, And, you know, the ability of the human organism to do intellectually impressive things, you know, it's sort of that 110 to 160 is kind of the spectrum.

7. 1:25:52

   And, you know, good news is there's a lot of those people running around, but, like, there's not that many at 140, 150, 160. But it's like, that's just, that's like the limitations of what can fit in here, right? And it's like, there's no theoretical limit on where this goes if you release the limitations of human biology, right? And so can you have a, you already have people running these experiments to kind of do human equivalent kind of IQ for existing AM models.

8. 1:26:17

   And by the way, existing AM models right now are kind of testing around the 130, 140 level, which means they're going to get to the 160 level. And they're arguably on the mass size starting to get to the 160 level now. But I think we're going to have AM models relatively quickly that are going to be like 160, 180, 200, 250, 300. By the way, and I think that's great, right? I feel as great about that as I do about the fact that we occasionally get an Einstein, right?

9. 1:26:41

   It's like, would the world be better off or worse off with more or fewer Einsteins? And the answer is, of course, the world would be better off with more Einsteins. And of course, the world would be better off with machines that have more IQ like Einstein or greater than Einstein. But I think IQ of the machines is going to exceed that on humans. I think that's really good. And then the performance, again, it goes back to AI coding thing that's happening.

10. 1:26:59

    The performance against task is going to get better also. Like, I think this is where Linus Verbalt in particular is like, yeah, OK. This thing is starting to generate better code than I can. OK, so now we're going to have AI coders that are actually better coders than the best human coders. I think that's great. I think we're going to have AI doctors that are better than the best human doctors. I think we're going to have AI lawyers that are better than the best human lawyers, which actually is going to be very interesting to see, which I think is also great.

11. 1:27:25

    I think we're used to living in a world where we just don't understand how good good can get, because we've been capped by our own biology. And we're going to get to experience what it's like when you have the capability at your fingertips that's actually better than human in these domains. And so you see what I'm saying, which is like, I think this idea of like human equivalent is just going to be like a footnote.

12. 1:27:44

    It's like, oh yeah, that was just on Tuesday, you know, in 2026 is when they hit that. And it kind of didn't matter because the next question was like, okay, what are we going to, what are we going to, what do we get to do in a world in which we actually have machines that are better than that? Right. And so, so I think this is going to be much more of an exploratory process for actually exceeding human capability than it's going to be any sort of particular singular singularity moment or whatever that happens, just that just happens to coincide with the human threshold.

13. 1:28:10

    200 IQ. I, uh, just like that frame of reference is such a, uh, mind expanding way to think about just how fast and how smart these things are going to get and quickly. Well, I don't know if you have this experience. I have this experience all the time. Well, two experiences I have all the time. One is just like, I've just like, like, I know I ought to be able to do this, but like, I just can't, like, it's going to take too long. You know, I want to write this thing or I want to like whatever I want to have this theory on this thing or I have a plan or whatever and it's just like fuck like I don't have the eight hours or by the way the eight weeks or the eight years right and like I just don't know enough yet and I'm just like I can't do the math in my head and my memory isn't perfect and like I can't remember and I read you know if you

14. 1:28:55

    have this you get interested in something you read 10 books and then you're like shit I forgot almost everything that I just read like I I wish I could retain it all but I can't it's just like I you just have this, I sort of live in this kind of state of like, endless frustration. I was like, I, like, if I could just be smarter than I was, like, I'd be so much better at what I do, but I'm not. So there's that. And I don't know how often you have this, but I have this on a regular basis.

15. 1:29:16

    It's just like, you know, I, you know, because of what we do, like, I know a bunch of people who I know for fucking sure are smarter than I am. And I know it because when I talk to them, I just find myself at a certain point, you know, it's like for the first half of the conversation, I'm just taking notes the entire time. And for the second half of the conversation, I'm just like, fuck, like, fuck me. Like this person is just smarter than I am. And they're just out thinking me and they're going to keep out thinking me. And I just can't. And I'm just like, all right, God damn it. Like I got to go home and I got to like have a drink because I'm just not, you know, I'm just not whatever that is. I'm not that. And so we're just so used to having those limitations that the idea of having machines that work for us that don't have those limitations. I just,

16. 1:29:56

    I think that's much more exciting than people are giving you credit for. Oh, man.