The boys of the all-in podcasts make fun of the “Psychosis of the AI” of Uber Founder (which they encouraged)

Remember when the guys from the all-in podcast spoke with the founder of Uber Travis Kalanick of “Vibe Physics”? Kalanick told viewers that he was about to discover new types of science by pushing his AI chatbots in a previously unknown territory.

It was ridiculous, of course, because it is not that a chatbot or a science of AI works. And Kalanick’s ideas were ridiculed endlessly by people on social networks. But the Gentlemen of All-in now seem to be distant from the ideas of Kalanick, even suggesting that it could be linked to the rise of “Psychosis of AI”, despite the fact that they were more than happy to entertain the disjointed nonsense of the founder of Uber when he was in the series.

Kalanick appeared as a guest in the episode of July 11 of All-in, explaining very seriously how he was about to discover new fascinating things about quantum physics, previously unknown to science.

“I will go down this thread with (cat) GPT or Grok and I will start to arrive at the edge of what is known in quantum physics, then I do the equivalent of the mood coding, except that it is atmosphere physics,” explained Kalanick. “And we are approaching what is known. And I try to bite and see if there are breakthroughs to have. And I have become damn close to a few interesting breakthroughs that do that.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0k-4Wyh5vk

The reality is that AI chatbots like Grok and Chatgpt are not able to provide new discoveries in quantum physics, as this goes beyond their capacities. They spit sentences by remixing and restoring their training data, not by testing hypotheses. But everyone’s co-host, Chamath Palihapitiya, thought that Kalanick was on something, going further, insisting that the AI chatbots could simply understand the answer to any problem you pose.

“When these models are fully divorced to have to learn about the known world and can rather learn synthetically, then everything is reversed upside down what is the best hypothesis you have or what is the best question? You can simply give it a problem and that would understand it,” said Palihapitiya.

This type of insistence on the fact that AI chatbots can solve any problem are at the heart of their marketing, but it also configures users for failure. Tools like Grok and Chatgpt always fight with basic tasks such as counting the number of names of American states that contain the letter R because this is not what language models are good. But that did not prevent people like the CEO of Openai, Sam Altman, from making grandiose promises.

The co-host Jason Calacanis was the only one to suggest that Kalanick may understand his own experience during the July 11 episode. Calacanis asked Kalanick if he was “in a way read in it and he simply tried random stuff on the fringes”. The founder of Uber admitted that he could not really offer a new idea, but said it was only because “these things are so married to what is known”. Kalanick compared it to the firing of an obstinate donkey, suggesting that he was indeed capable of new discoveries if you just worked hard enough.

You expect it to be the last word on the subject, given that all guys like to avoid controversy. They sadly did not produce an episode of the Podcast the week when Elon Musk and President Trump had their eruption. (The Podcast hosts are all friends with Musk, and the co-host David Sacks is Trump’s Tsar Crypto.) Thus, the listeners of the new episode may have been a little surprised to hear the strange ideas of Kalanick discussed again, especially if it was to make fun of him.

The latest episode of All-in, downloaded on August 15, opened with a discussion on the so-called “AI psychosis”, a term that was not defined in medical literature but emerged in popular media to discuss how people who struggle with their mental health could see their symptoms exacerbated by engaging too much with AI. Gizmodo reported complaints lodged with the FTC last week about users with hallucinations, swollen by Chatgpt. A complaint even told how a user stopped taking his medication because Chatgpt had told him not to at the same time because he suffered a delirious break.

AI psychosis is not a clinical term, and it is difficult to determine the precise number of people who experience serious strains on their mental health from the use of AI chatbots. But Chatgpt creator, Openai, admitted that it was a problem. And Calacanis opened the show talking about how people can be “one”, the new slang has co -opted by video games and used for people who fall too deep in the AI burrow. They anthropomorphize AI and do not understand that it is only a computer program, sending out in a delirious spiral.

“You may have even witnessed a little of that when Travis (Kalanick) was in the program a few weeks ago and he said that he was like spending his time on the sidelines or the edges of … physics,” said Calacanis. “It can really take you to the rabbit burrow.”

“Do you say that Travis suffers from AI psychosis?” Co-animator David Friedberg asked.

“I may say that we may have to take stock of health. We may have to do health control because intelligent people can get involved in these AI. So we will have to make a little well-being check on our TK boy,” said Calacanis, apparently seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-Kzyitjhds

Palihapitiya seemed to think that the underlying problem with AI psychosis was only a product of the so-called Solitude of Loneliness, but he ignored his own role in the food of Kalanick’s story that AI chatbots were really capable of new discoveries in science. David Sacks did not, insisting that AI psychosis was just a moral panic similar to the fears 20 years ago on social networks.

“This whole idea of AI psychosis, I think I have to call bullshit on the whole concept. I mean, what are we talking about here? People are doing too much research? ” According to Sacks, trying to minimize reports. “It looks like moral panic that was created on social networks, but updated for AI.”

Sacks admitted that there was a mental health crisis in the United States, but did not think it was the fault of the AI. And there is probably a truth in what Sacks says. All new technologies include a form of social upheavals and worries about what a given invention could mean for the future. But he does not only deny that people are much more soluble and isolated since the advent of social media. And it may not all have been the fault of social media. But revolutionary technologies will inevitably have positive and negative impacts on society.

The question is always whether the positive points prevail over the negatives. And the jury is undoubtedly still on social networks and IA chatbots.