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Podcast

Hard Fork Live, Part 1- Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap of OpenAI

Hard Fork

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  • AI’s Usability Changes Perception
    • AI models with PhD-level intelligence are now widely accessible, changing how we work and live.
    • The public only truly engages once they can use and experience AI’s capabilities themselves. (Time 0:31:04)
  • AI Companions Anticipate Needs
    • AI assistants like O3 will act as constant background companions, managing tasks tailored with rich context.
    • Users will have control, approving actions, but benefit from AI anticipating needs proactively. (Time 0:34:43)
  • Hallucinations in AI Models
    • Newer AI models sometimes hallucinate more, but future versions are expected to improve on alignment.
    • The challenge lies in learning how to better integrate reasoning with real-world use cases. (Time 0:37:21)
  • AI’s Complex Impact on Jobs
    • Sam Altman disagrees with predictions that AI will eliminate 50% of entry-level jobs soon.
    • While some jobs will vanish, society historically adapts and creates new opportunities with technological change. (Time 0:42:56)
  • Mitigating AI’s Mental Health Risks
    • OpenAI actively mitigates [[ChatGPT AI Model]]‘s potential for leading users into conspiratorial or harmful mental states.
    • The company struggles to reach users already at fragile mental health risk but aims to provide warnings and alternatives. (Time 0:50:46)
  • San Francisco’s Tech-Driven Resurgence
    • Mayor Daniel Lurie shares how tech leaders like Sam Altman advise him to support San Francisco’s resurgence.
    • He also discusses using social media actively to connect with citizens and highlight local businesses. Transcript: Casey Newton Kevin, I told you to put the door on Do Not Disturb. Kevin Roose Let’s see who it is. Who’s out the door? Casey Newton It’s the mayor of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie. Hi, how are you? Nice to meet you. Kevin Roose Thanks for coming. Casey Newton Oh my goodness, please have a seat. What a fun surprise. Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Mayor. Daniel Lurie Thanks for having me. Thanks for bringing everybody to San Francisco. Absolutely. Casey Newton I think they’re happy to be here. Are you happy to be here? Well, you know, since you’re here, let’s toss a couple of questions at you. You’ve been in office for just about six months now. And the tech community, I would say, has generally been very supportive of what you’re doing. And you’ve even formed a council of tech advisors that includes our guest from later tonight, Sam Altman. So what kind of advice are they giving you and are you taking it? Daniel Lurie Well, we Sam was on our transition committee. And now we have something that we started called the Partnership for San Francisco, where we have leaders from across business and arts and culture giving us advice and helping to cheerlead For our city. You all are seeing the revolution happening. There is no better place in the world in terms of an ecosystem than San Francisco. And there was a lot of talk for a number of years about how San Francisco was done. That was a bad bet. As everybody knows, I mean, the guests that you have tonight, you’d have to fly them in, but they’re living right here in San Francisco. It’s all happening right here. Like, you know, you talked about Anthropic, you got Dario, you got OpenAI, you got Salesforce, you got Databricks. I mean, cities across the globe would die to have one of those companies. And they’re all home-based right here in San Francisco. So I’m talking to them. I’m talking to arts and culture leaders. And we’re doing everything in our power to create the conditions for success. And we’re off to a good start. Kevin Roose Now, we’re gonna be talking a lot about AI tonight. I’m curious, is AI helping you in your job at City Hall? Daniel Lurie We are absolutely talking to all the companies saying, how can we get their help on synthesizing all the data that comes in? We have 58 different departments at City Hall, and they don’t always talk to each other. And so we have great intellectual horsepower here. We got great universities. Casey Newton We got these great companies, and we are engaging with them, and they are already starting to help, and you’ll see more in the coming years. I feel like governments don’t have a reputation always for having state-of technology. Is there anything you wish that you had that you don’t have or that the sort of tech could do for citizens here that it can’t yet? Daniel Lurie Well, I think just making sure that we’re crunching the data. We have over 34,000 city employees, and getting them to talk to each other, understand what they’re going through. I’ll tell you a quick story. There were not staff meetings going on between our large agencies. And I instituted something every Tuesday morning. So this morning, 9 a.m., we had the 20 large agencies. They get around the table. This is not tech. This is old school. But it starts with old school. Kevin Roose This technology is called the table. Yes, is right. Daniel Lurie But by the way, tech doesn’t work if you don’t communicate with each other. That’s why I think everybody’s got to be back in the office. A lot of these AI companies, they’re in the office five, six days a week. I went to open AI’s new office by Chase. They are in the office because they know it doesn’t work unless you’re communicating. And so our department heads are meeting with each other once a week, gaining knowledge from each other, seeing how they can help each other. And the tech then follows that. And so we’re hoping to lean in with all these great companies. Kevin Roose Now, I have to ask you, Mayor, about your social media presence. You are very active on short form video apps such as Instagram Reels and TikTok. You post more Instagram Reels than a Gen Z clout chaser. And honestly, they’re pretty good. I would say grading on the curve of politicians, they’re great. And I’m curious, like, who does your social media? What’s the strategy Is it working? Daniel Lurie I was told There was a review of my Instagram in the local in the Chronicle and it said that I had not yet made the camera my lover So so I have work to do that’s that’s not only fans So so I listen I’m having fun with it. We know there’s there’s so much noise out there And to break through and to communicate with people, like you all do so well with your show, we felt like we had to reach people directly. And it is taking off. You all can check it out. And you can learn what it’s like to be mayor and to see all the small businesses that are amazing in San Francisco, the restaurants, the bars. I just, I just went in honor of pride. I just stopped by before to a bar that I’ve passed so many times. It’s called the cinch. Yeah. Gay bar on shut up with pride week. We went by there just now And it’s been there for years. And it’s amazing. And I want to highlight what is so special about San Francisco. And that’s what we’re trying to do. And I usually just give the mic over to the restaurant owner, the arts leader, and say, what do you do? And the city gets to see it. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s awesome. Well, we’ve got to let you go. Kevin Roose But before we go, I wanted to ask, could we make a reel with you? Would you make one with us? Yeah, absolutely. Daniel Lurie Right now? Okay, let’s stand up. Let’s do that. Oh, but I don’t have my phone. Oh, you got your phone. I got it. Yeah. Okay. Oh, boy. Kevin Roose I’ll do it. So we can just turn it into selfie mode right here. And we can just go. So you, you are the maestro here. So you got to direct it. Okay. All right. Daniel Lurie I’m on Hard Fork right now. Hey, you two, tell us what’s going on here. This is your first live audience. Kevin Roose First live audience. We’re here for Hard Fork Live at SF Jazz, having a great time here with Mayor Lurie. Let’s go. Daniel Lurie Well, I’ve got to tell everybody, I’ve got to tell your audience that San Francisco, we are on the rise. When we are at our best, there is no better city on the planet than San Francisco. Let’s go San Francisco! Casey Newton And that’s on period! Thank you very much Mayor Lurie for stopping by! (Time 0:10:27)
  • OpenAI’s Bold Onstage Entrance
    • OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap surprised hosts by walking on stage unannounced, making a bold power move.
    • They engaged playfully about the New York Times lawsuit, showing Sam’s confident public persona. Transcript: Casey Newton The company has had a lot going on. And you and I just want to banter back and forth a little bit to kind of set up what was going to happen before Sam and Brad come on stage. So I go up to Sam and Brad right before this happens. And I say to Brad, hey, thanks for being here. Shake his hand. Go up to Sam. Say thanks for doing this. Shake his hand. And then Sam says something like, hey, only ask interesting questions tonight. Basically, come at me a little bit. And I say, okay, yeah, sure. And I say, if you want to troll me a little bit, make fun of me, go for it. And what Sam says is, well, I don’t strike first, but I do strike back. And I was kind of like, okay, well, I don’t think a lot of striking is going to be coming from me during the show, but like, okay, sure, whatever. And so then you and I head out on stage. And we had just started the bit that we had planned, sort of saying, okay, you know, how’s everybody doing? Did you enjoy the first half of the show? And I turned to my right, and I see walking out on stage, Brad and Sam. Kevin Roose Yes. Before, like minutes before they were supposed to arrive on stage, they had a whole intro music. We were going to tee it up. They just kind of barged onto stage. Casey Newton Yeah. And so when this happened, my thought was, this is probably just a production mistake. Someone backstage told them, this is your moment and pushed them on stage. It’s a live show. These things happen. I think my first impulse was to say, hey, you guys want to give us a minute? But they just kind of advanced on us and sat down and were basically like, okay, cool. Like, what do you guys want to talk about? And we were like, well, we kind of want to set up your segment. And in hindsight, though, Kevin, I think we realized that actually no one backstage had told them to come. This was kind of a power move that they were trying to do to get us flustered heading into what would happen next. Kevin Roose Yes, they were trolling us. And specifically, they were trolling us about the lawsuit between The New York Times and OpenAI, which they know that you and I are not involved in. They are not under any impression that we are part of the litigation team at The New York Times. But it is clear that they had something they wanted to get off their chest about that lawsuit. And I think just have a little fun with us. Casey Newton Yeah. And so they came at us pretty hard. You will hear it in the interview. And you and I are trying to steer the conversation to stuff we can actually talk about. In fact, one of the things that was going to happen in the bit that we didn’t do was you saying, hey, by the way, about this whole lawsuit thing, I’m not involved in it and I can’t talk about It. And by walking out on stage, you know, they sort of prevented that moment from happening. Kevin Roose Yeah, I will say I learned a lot about this interview, only some of it from the questions we asked. I learned a lot more about Sam Altman from this brief interaction before the segment actually was supposed to start. Casey Newton Yeah, I mean, look, I think we got a lot out of just kind of the questions that we asked and we got into so many things that we wanted to talk to him about the business, about the risks of job Loss, about the risks of people using chat GPT and, you know, having mental health breaks. But I do think you’re right, Kevin. You just learn something about people by observing them in public settings, how they behave, how they engage. And so I think there’s just kind of a lot for everyone to chew on. You know, I was reflecting last night that the first time we had Sam Altman on the show, two days later, he gets fired. And it sort of, in many ways, kicks off the moment that we’re living in now. And that was extremely surreal. The evening that we had at Hard Fork Live was kind of a perfect sequel to that. Because now you have a person who is fully in control, who wants to bend reality to his will, and if there’s a couple journalists he can just kind of kick in the shins on his way toward building God, he’s going to be happy to do it. Kevin Roose Yeah, and we should also say Sam did send us an email after the show apologizing for his behavior. He said he was, quote, such an asshole and that he felt bad about it. So that tells you something. But yeah, what you’ll hear in this segment is the two of us being somewhat flustered that our planned introduction is just being interrupted by these two guys wandering on the stage. And we’ll take it from there. Casey Newton And I will also say I have no idea what’s going to happen in Sam Altman’s third appearance on Hard Fork, but the bar has been set really high. Yes. (Time 0:19:32)
  • Political Support for AI Growth
    • Former President Trump understands AI’s significance in economic transformation and infrastructure needs.
    • OpenAI finds his administration supportive in permitting data centers and energy necessary for AI operations. Transcript: Casey Newton You’ve talked to President Trump. What does he think about AI? What are those conversations like? That was not intended to be a laugh line. Sam Altman You want to take it first? Casey Newton I’ll do it. No, that’s fine. Sam Altman That was not intended to be a laugh line either. I think he really gets it. I think he gets the technology. I couldn’t say that about all presidents. I think he really understands the importance of leadership in this technology, the potential for economic transformation, the sort of geopolitical importance, the need to build Out a lot of infrastructure. They’re like very productive conversations. And he has done stuff that has really helped the whole industry. (Time 0:41:44)
  • Adaptive AI Regulation Needed
    • Sam Altman favors federal AI regulation over patchwork state laws for clarity and adaptability.
    • He doubts detailed, long-term laws can keep pace with rapid AI advancements, advocating for flexible rules. Transcript: Sam Altman I still think we need some regulation. But I would say I have, I think like a patchwork across the states would probably be a real mess and very difficult to offer services under. And I also think that I have become more jaded, it’s quite the right word, but something in that direction about the ability of policymakers to grapple with the speed of technology. And I worry that if people write, you know, if we kick off like a three-year process to write something that’s like very detailed and, you know, covers a lot of cases, the technology will Just move very quickly. On the other hand, as these systems get quite powerful, I think we clearly need something. And I think something around the sort of like the really risky capabilities and ideally something that can sort of be quite adaptive and not like a law that survives a hundred years and Sort of says, here’s exactly the things you can do and not do, would be good. (Time 0:49:17)
  • ChatGPT Saved a Marriage
    • Brad Lightcap shares a real story of how ChatGPT helped a man improve his marriage by advising conversation.
    • This example highlights AI’s positive therapeutic potential beyond typical tech use cases. Transcript: Brad Lightcap These are things like almost kind of borderline therapeutic or I get stories of people who have rehabilitated marriages, have rehabilitated relationships with estranged loved Ones, things like that, where it’s, it’s highly net positive and there’s not a dependency, but it’s, it’s, it’s the first time in their life that they’ve had something that they feel Like they can confide in and it doesn’t cost them a thousand dollars an hour. Right. And I was surfing in Costa Rica the other day and someone paddled up to me and, you know, was chatting with him, a local Costa Rican guy. And he’s like, where do you work? I said, open AI. He’s like, oh, you make ChatGPT. And he started crying. He was like, ChatGPT saved my marriage. I didn’t know how to talk to my wife, and it gave me tips to talk to my wife, and I’ve learned that, and, you know, we’re on a much better path. It sounds like a dumb and stupid story, but it’s not. (Time 0:52:30)
  • AI as Companion, Not Replacement
    • Sam Altman expects AI to be a valuable companion for his child, though he’s cautious about replacement of human friendships.
    • He acknowledges some edge cases but is surprised by how well people differentiate AI from human interaction. Transcript: Kevin Roose You think over the course of their lifetime, your kid will have more human friends or more AI friends? Sam Altman More human friends, but AI will be, if not a friend, at least an important kind of companion of some sort. Kevin Roose Is that okay with you? Like, would you, if your kid at one point when they’re a little older came home and said, I’ve got an AI friend, how would that make you feel? Sam Altman If my kid felt like that was playing, that was like replacing human friends, I would have concerns about that, at least with what, again, there are edge cases. You know, any person who talks to hundreds of millions of people a day is going to meet a lot of edge cases. And in the sense, ChatGPT is talking to hundreds of millions of people a day, there are going to be some real edge cases in there. But most people, much more than I was concerned, seem to really understand the difference between talking to a person and talking to chat GPT. And I still do have a lot of concerns about the impact on mental health and the social impacts from the deep relationships that people are going to have with AI. (Time 0:53:43)
  • Active AI Voices on Twitter
    • Sam Altman remains active on Twitter despite Elon Musk’s adversarial stance toward OpenAI.
    • He considers other platforms but joked about the drawbacks of alternatives like Blue Sky. Transcript: Casey Newton AI Twitter is still really active, even though, you know, Twitter doesn’t exist anymore. You actively post there, share a lot of news there. And that’s extremely helpful and good for Elon Musk, a man who is trying to destroy your company. Have you ever thought of just moving your posts somewhere else? Where should I move them? Well, you could create your own social app. Kevin Roose Don’t go to Blue Sky. They don’t like AI there. They’re not going to be nice to you. It’s a rough neighborhood. Casey Newton Maybe it’s a last thing. We wanted to know this, too. We’d invite you both to answer this. (Time 0:55:08)
  • Unplug for Mental Health
    • Sam Altman advises taking breaks from technology by hiking and spending analog time with family.
    • He values moments free from devices to maintain balance and wellbeing. Transcript: Sam Altman I put my phone away and go for hikes every weekend. And hanging out with my family, I put my phone away. And I’m very happy not to have technology in the way for that. All (Time 0:56:10)