TDS 2023: Dr Alex Karp - Exclusive Interview "Our Oppenheimer Moment?"

come on [Music] so hello and welcome eight excellencies and distinguished Quest it is my privilege to introduce you Dr Alexander karp CEO of planetary and you are a co-founder of this company and and before that you had a quite distinguished academic career which wasn't distinguished it was academic well at the end of the day you became lawyer you became a doctor of philosophy in Germany starting also under urgent Harbor months who's who's really famed philosopher and you are a active as well in the fitness Fitness area you do martial arts as I understand you swim and you do cross-country skiing which is a big finger Estonia I'm a cross-country ski addict yes I'm quite good we can all go cross-country skiing at some point it's not very popular actually in America because um if you want to be have a sport that's successful in America you have to have an after party there's no after party in cross-country skiing because yeah there's an after party okay well you can help cross-country skiing because in America we suffer because um you know you need to maintain a high cardio and strength basis and then if you do alpine you kind of go downhill and my impression is you smoke and drink and have fun and if you're doing cross-country skiing you go to sleep and get up early uh but yeah there's a lot of advantages to cross country skiing the patients we drink butter beer so basically okay well that can work too yeah so there are two similarities between us one is a to avoid trouble and jail we have to be really careful what we say in public second one is we both love cross-counters King so you ever do classic or skating or both both it depends on the snow range yeah so uh you were one of the first CEOs to go down to Kiev last year and uh and offer your support so how has the AI actually impacted the battlefield in your opinion um well one there's the official version of AI in the broader space which was really large language models convincing people that technology was relevant that it could help them with homework and poetry and they could wrap like a rapper except for they're not a rapper but the real beginning of the of the AI Revolution really started a number of years ago uh using it it's kind of obvious but when people say AI what they really mean are currently mostly I mean large language models but there are you know large-scale algorithmatic uh utilities of software which are Ai and that there they have the advantage of being precise large language models have the advantage of being uh being able to gather information from all over the world but are not precise um what what happened in on the battlefield uh was that um you saw a small power with negligible investment uh in in in Hardware doing much better than it should based on technical Acuity and instruments and um the interesting thing about technology is in by and large technology doesn't lead to societal change until there's a galvanizing moment where people really believe it can make a difference meaning life or death or your business goes out of business and I I before the war there was certainly a sense uh in we have a global business so in every Market we're in that software AI was kind of a luxury product if you were geeky or unpopular you would kind of you know get involved in it but otherwise you could kind of just not invest in it and I think that's luckily for the West that was the approach of our adversaries uh on top of that what happens in in these countries is where things look like they're fraudulent like their view of Technology probably the fraudsters grifted on and took all the money and put it in their bank account so there it it it really led to a a very surprise a surprising moment and then that combined uh with large language models coming on the scene has has basically changed the world uh a world where um Hardware dominant industry with very light software which light is being a euphemism for maybe basically non-existent um were the dominant players in the world uh this this had some huge advantages for the Western Alliance because in general uh Europe is a dominant player in hardware and America is a dominant player in software with exceptions they're phenomenal software companies in outside of America and there are phenomenal Hardware companies inside America but if you had to generalize that would be the generalization and what has happened now is you and then inside of America you have the problem that most of the software companies that are relevant are really West coast-based and we moved to to Colorado which is also on the west coast but this this moving from this is a joke when we started 20 years ago and we were building products for Intel agencies really everyone outside the Intel Industries thought that these products were non-relevant basically may be useful for a narrow use case but wouldn't change the world despite the fact they did I mean am I I tell I think Europe would be very different if the terror attacks that have been stopped by many people in this room in many cases using our product you would have a different populist landscape but any case it's now Center on everyone's mind and how to negotiate this especially in the war context is arguably the most important thing we can all think about so my Ukrainian colleagues told me that cyber Commander's Forum that war changes everything so it means that we have the privilege and time to kind of make those changes in advance so what's your kind of take on how do you see that AI will change the relative kind of power of different countries well there's different forms of AI so internal surveillance um we should avoid and we should use Ai and software to limit the scope and intrusive nature of internal surveillance on our citizens in fact you have to fight weapons with weapons so people who understand how surveillance actually works technical uh actors with legislative interests have to write the legislation to guarantee us the maximum amount of Freedom we in the west and that freedom includes the right to be forgotten the right to request to be forgotten I tend to be there's there's many different ways of looking at um civil liberties I I still am probably mostly in Europe you're focused on consumer and government I'm much more concerned about what the government sees and how they use it can it be used in surveillance under what conditions can it be used to prosecute can it be used to defend mu so limiting the scope of that is also a technical Endeavor and has to be done by people actually understand this and who are non-politicized which is a problem um we we had a vibrant civil liberties community in America D exists that still exists but it's often you know Republicans are bad Democrats are good I I'm more on the Democratic side and um uh but you need nonpartisan people to do this um and um then you have a an issue which is that if you just look at it from the American perspective um the west coast is the dominant player almost every almost not all providers of this technology come from the West Coast so even in America you have to negotiate a number of people asking for governance which I support are actually just interested in not buying the best product um you have in Europe uh Europe is a you know has regulation Europe is obviously you have big countries in large countries I do think that there's a somewhat of a division of interest there because it is maximally in the interest of of Europe to both Foster its industry and make it possible for companies to export their their their software but it's absolutely imperative for the small countries and it's in a massive Advantage for the small countries because you don't need with the correct implementation of software you can out maneuver the large countries uh on the battlefield or on the economic field and here this country has a just a huge Advantage as do countries in this region um because there's the legislation but then to quote durkheim on contractual thing is there's the there's the preconditions of the contract so you can have the legislation but but do people really still buy the best product or do they buy the local product I'm here to tell you if you buy the product that's not the best you will lose so and then you have the question well how do you identify the real product and I can tell you exactly what I tell people in America um there are the leaders of this field you must be in contact with them the good news for Europe is a lot of the leaders in that field are European the bad news is many of them are living in America so you must talk to them talking to your local provider whether that's your local provider in DC who's never heard of a large language model or it's your local provider that's necessary but it's to use an overused term it's not sufficient because the unlike the Revolutions of the past the difference between the person you know and the person who's best is the difference between winning and losing a war and it and this is just a massive shift and the people who understand this will outperform the people who ignore this are going to do very poorly America does have a huge Advantage we have a lot of political craziness you may not be aware of it um uh but um but to factor the GDP of America is going to increase it already has increased Visa Europe quite a bit which is a cause for concern um uh uh because uh these it's easier and the adoption is much much quicker especially in the in industry in in in the military context also and then there's a question of how do we know then vis-a-vis our adversaries look China which I think is and that's something that Europeans have to pay attention to America has shifted from a country that where I think I'm the only reasonably prominent person I know that has an educational background in Europe and this would have been different 50 years ago 30 years ago that does not exist America does not have the emotional connection to Europe it once had and so that's another reason I think small countries are particularly important because you have to go to America and explain what's going on it's not the case anymore that Americans are are as focused on what's Happening Here is emotionally and that will affect the politics over time but America is very focused on China um and then the question is what are Russia and China doing they're behind but we might we have to be very focused in America because they won't stay behind very long simply because while we have the better technology players they have leadership that's very friendly that navigates engineering structures arguably as well or better than we do I would say especially in the case of of China that there's a huge it's very hard for Humanity Humanities people and Engineers to actually communicate and that's something all Western societies struggle with um and that gives say China an advantage because they don't that's not an issue that that they they have as much on the other hand they focus most of their efforts on internal surveillance and the actual selection Technologies which are a hybrid of uh LMS and algorithms are being produced in the West so some of the people who are advocating that we should pause the development of AI what's your kind of uh well um you know there's a there's it's it's very easy to talk in absolute terms we live in on the battlefield in relative terms meaning in absolute terms of course I it typically you have two camps those that say it's dangerous and those that say it's safe I'm in a arguably different Camp I think these Technologies are potentially dangerous and the dangers are obvious even if you don't get to General AI where the AI takes over there are real surveillance dangers uh that we should all be afraid of in working against you know we we should you should have the right to have a personal life your health your Private Affairs these things should not be things that the government has easy or arguably consumers uh uh consumer companies have access to or in an unregulated way um but I I think the Dem the debate is very academic because the the basis of our civilization civilization I believe is that the West imposed technological Superior superiority uh and through that technological superiority garnered the rule of law human rights that the flaw and the logic at least in in the I would say Western context is many people believe that the rule of law and human rights are ipso facto in an automatic way something that appears and we internalize them because they are a superior way to live I believe they are a superior way to live but I believe that they were adopted because people saw that the people who build the best Rockets the best bombs the best cars the bill safety devices also believed in this ethical framework and therefore people equated the ethical framework with technological innovation and growth if you if you believe that and those are a series of assumptions that many people most people I knew do not believe the logical consequence is that these Technologies are dangerous but we have to be ahead because our otherwise our adversaries will be ahead and the framework that they want to live in is not a rule of law not a human rights for all the problems we have in the west there are no other places where you can be as experienced as little discrimination as little bias as little uh as little as little unfairness as Western countries so I'm not saying we're perfect but I I do think we're the best in perfect societies that have ever existed uh and um uh and and this is why not to go offline I I think the fundamental erosions of the West are where people inside Western countries or outside Western countries believe we're not delivering on Innovation and things that help economies grow and therefore adopt what I would view as more regressive view policies and Views and and vote for those people so I I think the progressive classically defined approach requires heavy investment in these Technologies especially in the military context and coalitions of Partners uh both partners and translators uh um and I would say on if we're being optimistic they're like I I I've been saying this for 20 years and mostly got yelled at now I only get yelled at every two every two days not every day uh so I I think people write you know are are moving towards this not because of the persuasiveness of my arguments but because of the persuasiveness of the actions of our adversaries which see always exploit weakness to the end there is no there there's like we have a raging debate in America about all these issues and my only simple point is you can be right on all the issues but if you miss the point that our adversaries will always and ruthlessly exploit internal and external weakness you just You've Won every point but you've lost the argument so you've had over 20 years of experience actually implementing those Solutions so what's the role of palantir and what's the advice to our distinguished tests here to kind of audio employee or kind of introduce effective AI Solutions and mitigators um call your children ask them who the smartest Tech person is and get them to work for you that that you know I mean I can make the pal look I think our products are unique we've proven they're unique we're a successful company you need accurate information I could give you accurate information but you might have trouble believing me because I'm also selling a product so don't believe me um you have and find the person the best person you can find is the smartest person who's worked at a company that's world class in this area there there's a famous meme in in America that's it's it I think it's wrong it's like you win by failing and failing and failing until you win but in reality you learn by being in an organization that's had major setbacks and then wins and there's subtle difference you don't really want to call the person who's had 50 failures you want to call the person who's had a company or an organization that has had major setbacks and in the end won and that you want to identify people who've been at those companies who you trust so from your country and you want to put them very close to you and ask them who's real who's not there's other ways you're going to get a lot of conflicting interests and you're going to make the wrong decision about who to work with what products to buy what products to implement who to avoid so I know this is not I I I know your jobs are to talk to everybody and you do a great job of that I'm I'm here to tell you identify a couple people and talk to them regularly uh and um and then you have to have a business or military specific use case with a very tight timeline and one of the advantages small countries have and a relatively small budget one of the dangers we have in big countries around this is we start in the end you will need someone you will need some that are real but in the beginning you need to identify the players that are real and have enough money just to get them going and to actually test what's working you need to be personally involved uh we one of the mistakes we have we're running out of time but now we have it all over large organizations not governments but any large organization is they're built for a hardware world in the hardware world you had the CEO and the tech person and they didn't like each other they avoided each other as much as possible uh and then you know but honestly probably tried to get each other fired the whole time and then you see who wins and and the only winner at the lousy results that software the software world presupposes the person in charge gets involved in the tech issues in you don't have to be technical but you have to understand what is the business what is the military outcome we want what is the timeline cut that timeline in half because if the people are actually delivering a product they're actually employing they need 10 of the time that they say they do um and uh and flatten your hierarchy now this isn't possible across a large organization tomorrow but you can pick a subset of organization and start with accurate ingredients who's good who's not flatten the hierarchy Define the business use case cut the business time in it by at least two uh offer that a small amount of money with a large amount a larger amount if it's successful and run don't walk uh and you can have a world-class uh software empowered organization if you violate any of those steps you will invariably spend a lot of money and the first way you will know you've gone wrong is you will hear from the person oh this is going to work out but we need twice as much time and four times as much money that's when you pull the plug so I think good show and good interview ends well when people want to hear more so I think you have succeeded in that so thank you Dr carp found Applause please thank you foreign [Music]

Channel: Tallinn Digital Summit

Views: 736

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Id: 7zhHkabWX2c

Length: 22min 27sec (1347 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 06 2023