Aaron Ginn: robots won't be dystopian — they'll democratize access to services the rich already have

proclaims. He has a new piece out in the wild. I believe it's in the Wall Street Journal. Will we will get the latest from him. Aaron, how you doing? Hey, man. How's it going? Wait, did I get that right? New piece in the journal or somewhere else? Uh the one of Robots? Uh, well, I mean, Arena Mag. Is that where? Yeah.

Yeah, that one. That was Yeah, Arena Mag. And then I did You're prolific. Yeah, it's fun. I'm I'm a kind of a not only a Christian, but academic at heart. So, I like I like writing. I like all sorts of things in in that zone. So, uh, but yeah, I have a new one on on robots. Okay, take me through it.

What was the inspiration? What's the thesis? Give me the details. Um I guess you know I kind of known for hot spicy hot spicy takes done in a kind manner in a gentlemanly manner. Uh but I think I think most of the analysis done with people in our space is devoid of any kind of reference framing.

They uh kind of live people in Silicon Valley particularly people in AI live in they they think they live in this kind of arrogant microcosm as CS Lewis would say like chronological snobbery. Mhm.

So they don't appreciate how other things that look very similar are just patterns of repeating uh as the uh you know one of the most famous Solomon phrasing because the theorize in the Bible that Solomon said that uh you know that there's nothing new under the sun.

uh we don't fully know what it's driven to but generally it's driven to Solomon and and in that sense like innovation kind of goes the same pattern that you have something that innovation is always intentively oriented to capex both in the sense of knowledge workers and also capital expenditure and and it always starts with a as a rich luxury but then it gets proliferated out and robots as people have been kind of pitching both in the sense of the doomsday sense and the utopian sense uh I think are wrong because they if you if you look at past patterns terms of innovation and how it's been adopted in society, it generally doesn't get oriented towards the rich.

Like the rich continue to do what they do. Like like there's a reason why rich people have their own planes, have their own drivers, have a yacht, have multiple houses, have chefs and caterers, things like that. Like that's basically the same trajectory of lifestyle that they've had for a while.

And in terms of like things that you own, things that you do, things you buy, like there's the the names that are associated with the Yale club and the Harvard club continue to be the same names. Yeah.

uh people who go to Davos to the same but the real arc of capitalism uh which is why the existentialist the German the Frankfurt school was completely wrong is that what it does is that it takes those luxuries and gives it to everybody else.

Um I think that there's a there's um I've heard the name of the venture capitalist but he said that uh his his kind of moniker of looking at innovation and adoption is oriented towards taking something that is available for the rich and giving it to somebody else. So Uber is the example of that, right?

Private driver to everybody else. Yep. Yep. Um and and so robots will be the same thing. Like certainly like robots will there'll be a certainly, you know, a luxury version of a robot that will be deployed for people in the rich and famous, but the rich and famous can afford people. Yeah.

And rich and famous like character. They like things that are like go listen to like I know people love comparing you and Jordi to Allin, right? And just go look at what Shamoth talks about. It's like it's things that are take a long time and are delicate. Cashmere. I love it. That's one of my favorite. Yeah.

Oh, this is made of endangered panda fur, right? That I looked it myself, right? I am. And so, no, no all-in host has ever wore panda fur. That's the king's cashmere is real. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, so like so for the rest of us, right? Uh upper middle class down, robots will be for us.

Robots will give us the ability to do things that we didn't have before that makes us more like rich people. Yes. And aka time. And and so that's what it's arguing is that that robots will not be dystopian. It will not be utopian.

It'll be every other pattern of wave innovation and helping the average American live a better life. Yeah. Yeah. I I noticed this when I started interacting with um like the the multi multi-billionaires that uh every app on my phone they had a person for.

So, if you do incorporation of your company through Legal Zoom or Stripe Atlas, they have a lawyer full-time on staff. Uh, you have Uber, they have a driver. You have Door Dash, they have a chef. And and it's like guys, the new technology. Yeah. The guys. Yeah. How many problems can you solve by just calling a guy?

Uh, very interesting. What do you think about it? Was Chris Pike, right? Who had this going to create guys. app. They're going to be democratizing access to guys to just a guy. It's just a database of like good lawyers and drivers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, even even like, you know, you don't call 911 and that that's for everyone. Private security is the opposite side of that.

Um, but what do you think about Chris Pike's take that um when I I mean, I guess this relates, but I think his take was that if there is a human that is acting as like a a a roadblock to something that you want, that will be a that will be replaced by uh artificial intelligence or robotics.

But if it's but if the human is is part of the delightfulness of that experience and his example was like an omac chef that will never be replaced because you want what do you think about that? Give your reaction please.

So, so like I I'll I'll like um I'll I'll be a chim for right because like there was a question once he said like you know he was talking to Jal right he's the ultimate like the thing guy whatever the thing is that's that's Jal right and he goes you know talking about watches and Shimato was like oh get a handmade mechanical watch right so I'm wearing one right now actually so like and and so you look at this right so it's a go to getbazzle.

com your bezel is available now to source you any watch on the planet literally any So, so it so it uh you know hand and hand gil hand and carv software engineer then he'd be watches and and so the reason why this is worth it is because of that human interaction. Yep. Right.

It's that his his ability to do everything by hand. He has like the machine built in like late 1900s. He does everything. He can show it. It's like that's the point, right? And so another example of this would be like being a waiter. Like you could I use this an example like there is automated checkout in Applebees.

I don't know if you've been there recently, but there's automated take on Applebee's like Chick-fil-A, right? One of the most highest grossing per store sale fast food joint in in the world. One of the best delicious has tons of people, right?

So, it could if it wanted to, but it's not the point of what you go and and fundamentally there there's this disconnect. I think it's spiritually connected.

I think you could watch some of Peter Chill's recent uh interview with through that and you can kind of hear some of these trends is like if you remove the ability of the anthropomorphic orientation of what innovation is and why you do it, you come up with these inconclusions that are basically absurd.

Like there's people in the Silicon Valley who argue absurd things about the nature of what the arc of innovation is going to because the presupposition and priors and the metaphysics built into it are basically that humans are worthless and existential and they kind of a have a start daycart view.

the world that's very dark and and the same thing exists with social media the same thing exists for search the same thing exists for mobile phones now it exists in AI all of these are continuations of the same thing and just like the AI doomers if you go look at the names of the people it's like the same people who are like that title to social media is going to end the universe sort of people because it's the same line of thinking so humans just like what you're doing now people watch this show because of you too sure like like it does even if there was a mimetic machine It's not the most efficient way to get the news, but it's fun.

But it's fun, right?

Like like like because it's it's part of what the nature of this uh it's hard for me to imagine the idea that that uh let's say a humanoid robot, you know, gets real traction in restaurants will natur you know and you can go and sit down at a restaurant, a humanoid can serve you and whatever and and it's efficient, it's fast, it's smooth.

that will naturally create even more opportunity for human waiters, waitresses that love the craft of service. And I think it is a real craft. And I think that anybody that's had a truly fantastic dinner and uh can can uh can attest. Yeah. Yeah.

So so it's a uh this is one reason why I think the adoption curve of AI is going to be kind of like two different bucks of buckets of things. There's going to be the infrastructure side which we're going to excel at.

And then there's going to be the adoption side which we're not going to excel at and some of it is political which is everything from we lost the AI mortorium in the bill but thankfully the bill got passed so we're not paying higher taxes so thank you Daddy Trump. Uh Daddy T wins again.

So yeah you know so yeah exactly make what noise right? So, but but the but but on the other side is like if we're going to do let's say uh one of the best things AI does is that it allows this the ability of computers to look like humans behave like humans.

It's fantastic at that is the ability to to to model us right to to make a mimemetic version of us. And from a education perspective that could be incredibly powerful because my upbringing even though I went to public school before it was insane.

So like I was safe from that, but my dad who's Chinese raided me much more of a tutu traditional tiger dad sort of fashion. So I still remember this one conversation I had with my dad. I think it was in like fourth grade and I got like a hundred in a class uh and he said, "Why did I why did I do extra credit? " Right?

That was like his immediate response and and you know and the you know the the more Caucasian people in the audience will clutch the pearls, oh my god, that's so traumatic. Right? But but the point of it, right, is like you always can do more, right?

He's teaching me resiliency, teaching me how to challenge myself, teaching me how to uh push beyond what I think I could do and to like open my experience because his goal was to not have the upbringing he did, which was super poor. And and so imagine the AI that could do that, right? That could be your your own Yeah.

Yeah. It did like it your own ability like challenge your thoughts like people are thinking it like the cluey thing, which I think is a very surface level understanding what AI can do.

But imagine if AI was actually like a challenge agent that let's say you got the right answer and AI was like you're wrong so prove it to me like you're right. Right?

there's a whole other layer of of this and this is this is what like in terms of the El Salvador project that we're working on is like that that's kind of like the orientation of why other countries don't have that like they don't have the teacher the the library units let alone they don't have the internal capability of delivering these types of things today but a computer can come in now because what they have now they have nothing right and they're willing to take a swing being like well you know if it works 50% of the time that's a huge win for our country but America the lawsuits and this and this and this, right?

But, you know, Belli is just like, "Oh, this sounds a great idea. We should just try this. If it doesn't work, well, I'll do something else. " Right? And and so that's why I think we will excel at infrastructure, which is why it's so important.

We push in video products everywhere, but the adoption is going to be in Africa, second world, third world countries. It's not going to be in America because we already have people doing it today and people will still be the preferred like rich people still have tutors, right?

And they're still going to have tutors even if AI can actually good at tutoring. Interesting. uh give me the update on sovereign AI generally.

Uh there's an article in the Wall Street Journal I think yesterday about more and more Western companies adopting Deepseek and Quen's like I read that yeah I need to check now it's Josh Chim Lyn. Uh but uh but yeah I mean any major updates there?

Did anything get stuffed in the bill related to chips or semiconductors or anything like that that's relevant? Uh not that I not that I know of. I mean I mean people all have to to take a step back and realize this is a tax bill. Yeah. Not a spending bill. I'm I'm an Austrian economics guy as yall know.

So I don't like that. I'm I don't believe that you can keep spending forever. This is a tax bill. It's literally why he's going through reconciliation to be willing to like lower your threshold. Like I agree with Elon. It's one of my heroes. He's very wrong on the purpose of this bill. But he's he's but he's right.

We're spending too much money. But it's also we have to get away from omnibuses. So the the AI mortoriian stuff got removed.

I'm pro that Sax is pro that uh the OSTP office is pro that I I this is not something should the states it it's something that we have to win and we can't have these like varying laws everywhere on the chip side essentially you know there are uh like I have a hat that the the president seller gave me.

So like the so like for countries like you know Belli who's trying to uh basically provide this sort of infrastructure and capital to the world the market is there for us and we have these um basically voices that I think are living in an era of where the mo resided in areas that they previously defined sort of infrastructure waves and we're at this moment now where we could accelerate victory to where hey how about you know China we outsource all you know manufacturing the last 30 years to them that make all the stuff in t-u all the stuff in sheen and all this crap like why can't we do that to them for semiconductors now like why can't we take their money right and you see all these people like oh but wait a minute like what if AI destroys the world right and it's like it's all this kind of like sooths saying again title two people go back to the to that debate remember free speech debate online and like telco versus where does the right to speak reside and the right to serve content those people are the same people in the AI mortorium.

It's literally the same line about thinking and and so the the the AI mortorium was supposedly specifically on like training and application but in El Salvador like they pass an AI law like basically a free training law where which is how the law should be structured.

When you train something it's up to the user to apply it. If the user applies that to make a robot to kill somebody just like you get a hammer and kill somebody, right? or get a robot to scratch, you know, Jord's Mercedes, right? It's that person's fault, right?

It's not gonna be like if John trained that, you know, open source model and they use it against, you know, Jordy. It's like it's not John's fault. So, like in South, they pass that law, but in America, they want to co-mingle these responsibilities. Yeah.

Uh most out of baseless baseless fear, but but but still the policy of the administration is still towards we need to export.

we need to become the AI exporter of the world because we have this ability to be the definite infrastructure of the next era and not reside in this kind of loose or not loose it's definitely it's actually really hard to understand I mean even what the critics are saying even with something less dramatic than like you know using an open source LLM model to commit a crime or something just just the intellectual property thing like it's very easy that we've had the ability to go and uh you know pirate a movie and upload it to YouTube for a very long time.

That's like not a crazy new technology, but it is in the sense of like copying data is new and distributing it all over the world. And yet you don't you don't even YouTube doesn't even need to stop it ever from happening. They just need to stop there to from being an economic model.

Like you can't build a business on top of YouTube just uploading Star Wars. Like that's not going to work for you. And as long as you kill that economic model with enough pressure and and say, "Hey, we're not going to serve ads against this. We're not going to pay you out. We're going to ban your account eventually.

" Uh, there's a bunch of ways to prevent this stuff at at at the level of like, yeah, like someone might some kid might upload Star Wars and five people see it and before it gets taken down, not the end of the world. Who cares? Exactly. And so, yeah. Yeah. Going after the uh like the individual actors.

That That's a very very good point. I like that.

the the the most the most freeing phrase you could ever and maybe you could raise your kids this way too because it was the most freeing phrase I ever received from a from a guy who's famous but I won't say his name because uh uh but he's huge radio star and he he taught me this he goes whenever you feel stuck just say the phrase so what so what right and and like why should I buy into your presuppositions why should I believe in these things like prove it to me like so what and and and it's so freeing to reside in that zone of like Like you just said, so what?

Like somebody does that, like why is that a big deal?

Like and and it kind of puts people on their heels like like I I said this once in a debate about like since we're talking about chips like well whoa like you know by dance could get access to this like first of all Oracle's number like top five customers are like Chinese so like you know they're already doing it right then I said like so what?

Mhm. Oh my god. Like it's like, "Oh my god, videos will be more musical. " Like I was like, it's a and and they're like, "Well, we could do this. Could you do this? Could do this. " I'm like I'm like, "Yeah, I could say the same thing about anything.

I could say the same thing about like, well, you know, you if you if you buy this watch, you could use this to put on a bomb, right? " And like it's like it's like that's like their level of thinking. There's so many steps. Yeah.

I was going to I was going to ask Chris earlier, you know, how if how he thinks about AI war versus AI race. And then you would have to ask him the question, well then should you have named your book the chip race and then that would have sold like 1% of the copies. Um, is it a war or is it a race? Interesting.

Yeah, it's so tough. I mean, so many of the loudest voices in our industry are beautifully conflicted because they run multi-billion dollar businesses that are dependent, you know, the future fundraising, current fundraising is dependent on certain narratives and so it's hard to figure out what's what's real. Yeah.

uh me as it relates to like the like the the China stuff.

Uh not just that even even just like the progress of models how much we should be spending when AGI will arrive when super intelligence will arrive AI war versus AI race because if if you brand it as a war then all of a sudden it's it it it brings in a new level of funding like you know there's all sorts of uh downstream implications of well you know um uh it's it's it's it's really important that uh we get the AI doom question Right?

And so we need to overinvest or it's really good that we win. It's really important that we win the geopolitical battle and so we it's okay to overinvest in this case. You know, it's it's all about just like justifying different levels of underwriting.

And when you add one of these infinite numbers, you can say 1% chance of infinity is still, you know, I'll pay any price. Yeah. Yeah. I I guess I guess my my firm is just way more optimistic. Like I understand like why can't we just invest because it's cool? Yeah.

It it like like I like I like we we like stuff that Elon does. I don't own a Tesla because I like my my cars to go boom, right? So, but it's still cool. Like why can't it just be cool? Why can't it just be, hey, this is awesome. This is like moving the trajectory of the human race to something even more amazing.

It seems like there Yeah, but it seems like we're getting there. I mean, I don't know if you saw Nat Friedman's post, but you know, he was saying he started at Meta and he's gonna just build some cool stuff. And I'm like, yes.

Like that sounds awesome because I mean there are a lot of AI products but a lot of them are to discover the great lost wonders of history. I hope so. I hope so. Better. Anyway, thank you so much for stopping by, Aaron. This is always a pleasure. What are you What are you doing for the fourth? Yeah.

What are you doing for the fourth? Uh no, I don't work. Uh I'm doing something with like my church and uh I usually my my house is a third space. Uh so for like the community so it's very on the other side of this is I built it.

I built it at custom house and so like it's a big basically like I don't drink but it's like a big beer hall essentially from front to back. Wow. So so we usually host something. It's like uh I don't know maybe 3 or 4,000 ft. Yeah.

And it's just a big open room with like a kitchen, dining room, living room, outdoor space. Very cool. So we usually like host stuff and people like use use my house uh to do that. Um, so I I think this goes back to the the you know the human element.

It's like fundamentally innovation is supposed to be anthropomorphic is supposed to be make humans better. That's why people pay for it. Yep. And there's certainly negative downsides of this. Uh and we have to mitigate those downsides.

But you always should start from the the phrase so what or go read Thomas Soul about can you even regulate downsides without creating a secondary effect of mitigating upsides.

And and I mean I think that from many people are projecting lots of things in AI that they could just get from just like being in community and just like having friends and uh and like y'all have your sauna workout. Yeah. Yeah. Like Yeah. Exactly.

like you you you like so much of the projecting of internal problems people have into technology when if they had a friend uh they resolved their loneliness academic they had a good family they surrounded by a religious community uh you know particularly Christianity uh that a lot of these things kind of go away where you can just look at a technology you can look at innovation from where it is which is like this can just be awesome it doesn't need to kill us it doesn't need to start a war it doesn't need to AJI all those are certainly things we can talk about but to overextend you dig into that person that's arguing that there's typically like a a pathology built into them that is projecting externally when it's just like hey dude like you just like want to hug like you just like you just want like you want to hang out like a pool or like go to CrossFit or something like and then and then it kind of like you know fades away because there there there are many things in the world you should not care about and and I don't like I get asked tweet about things and I'm like I don't really care about that.

Like it's not something I want to talk about. And and because you care about less things is the key to joy because less things means you're actually more responsible for more things which means you can be happy because you can see your work go into something that has output.

But there's when you become unhappy is when you see all this crap happening around you and you get worried about it and do something about it and you really can't.

And in reality it's like there's there's just things you just shouldn't care about and then you're like I'm sensing uh I hate to cut you off but I'm sensing a TED talk. too. We'll do we'll do a TBPN talk very soon, but have a fantastic weekend. Great seeing you as always. See you soon. See you guys.

Well, speaking of fantastic AI products, go to Finn. ai, the number one AI agent for customer service, number one in performance benchmarks, number one in competitive bake offs, number one ranking on if you if you like winning,