AI and Creation - Jon Cheney

Do you know how much energy it takes to raise a human to be 20 years old? Go see if you can replace yourself. Like everything you do at work, see if you can replace it with AI. If we stop here in the US, China's not going to stop and Iran's not going to stop and Egypt's not going to stop and Israel's not going to stop and whoever is not going to stop. Russia's not going to stop. It's an arms race. It's absolutely nuclear arms race all over again. Right. This time it's AI. So, we have to keep pushing it forward. It's going to happen. Welcome to the meetup tonight for the Mormon Transhumanist Association. For just a brief introduction, uh Mormon transhumanism. Uh as a group, we like to think about the intersection between transhumanism and Mormonism. We're interested in technology and the responsibilities that gives us and all around interest in the future. Um, obviously with AI things are go going pretty crazy and um um and so uh yeah, we're excited to hear from John Cheney tonight. I'll go ahead and and read his bio and then we'll just uh send it off to him. John Cheney is the founder and CEO of General AI Proficiency Institute, an organization he launched in early 2025 to protect human agency adaptability and ownership in the age of AI. A software executive and lifelong technologist, John has spent more than two decades building technology companies and leading teams through digital transformation. Through Gen API, Gen AI PI, he works with organizations across industries as fractional chief AI AI officer, installing internal AI capability rather than dependence, training leaders and teams to choose creation over consumption. He's widely recognized as leading voice on AI leadership and human agency and writes and speaks frequently on a conviction that the general risk of AI of the AI era is not job loss of the loss of what makes us human. We have John there. [applause] All right, guys. First of all, I never use slides because I hate slides. But, you know, it's nice to be able to look at something. Just FYI, I made these slides as soon as I sat down here and they used to add to it and they're better than 99.9% of slides that we can put out. So, um I'm not saying that because I'm cool or anything. I'm just saying AI is changing the game, right? Like couldn't do that. I couldn't do that, you know, uh a couple years ago and now we can just build unbelievable things [snorts] um in minutes, right? I mean, look at this. It's got like animations. Looks way better on my screen when it's I was kind of laggy on whatever, >> but it's got like this little like, hey, there's 11 slides here, whatever. Anyway, it's kind of cool. Um, so first of all, how long am I are we? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, you can speak format normally. >> Yeah, we usually talk for around 20 minutes or so or usually give it Yeah, for around 20 25 minutes and then we just kind of open it up to QA and um and then sometimes we like dive down particular topics or we just kind of like uh you know, whatever we're feeling. So, >> I love it. I love it. That's exactly what I want. I don't love, you know, just talking. You know, you guys can go watch YouTube videos and be talking better about it. I'd rather talk to you and learn you guys as well. So, um, well, cool. You already gave my bio, so I don't even talk about that at all. I started jiip and I've been consulting and working on, you know, AI for for more years than just before I started JIPi or the general AI proficience institute. I um I really am just technology. I like technology. Like when the Apple Vision Pro came out, I I bought it and I always have the newest iPhone. When the Tesla came out, I bought it, right? Like I just I love new stuff. I love cool new things. And but I also love it because I love to um I I love to figure out how it's going to change the world. I like thinking about that. Like really, that's what I'm going for. So I founded a company back in 2016 called Seek. And uh Seek was uh an augmented reality app originally and and anybody else remember in 2016 a big app that came out. >> What >> a big app that came out >> in 2016. >> In 2016 yes Siri also in the augmented reality space. I don't know what Siri is. Maybe >> go. >> Yeah. Pokemon Go. >> So that's Yeah. Decade ago now I guess. Wow. That's crazy. Um almost exactly that. >> Yeah. They already scanned the planet. >> They did. They did some crazy stuff with it. And and I saw that and I I was actually at the time running a company here in Utah called Treasure Canyon where we were like putting treasure up in the mountains and holding events and like $10,000 events all kind stuff. And >> anyway, we were one of the first companies that did that or I don't know. I think maybe I was the first one to do that. At least I I hadn't seen any. There's now there's a bunch more. There's one Shark Tank and stuff like that. Anyway, but I was doing that and um anyway I when um we kind of like morphed out of the you know augmented reality app space and then started doing you know kind of B2B SAS with 3D and augmented reality which helped you shop for like chairs or shoes or couches whatever with augmented reality on your phone right we were some of the first people to do that we came out with it on the browser so you didn't even have to download an app and so we pushed a lot of that technology end up selling that company in 2023 Um, but [clears throat] before we did that, we were in the metaverse and we were in NFTTS and tokens and things like that. All the all these new technologies. I just always loved them. But I always thought that the board apes were ridiculously stupid. I thought all that just like earth there's no value here. Like yeah, good community and whatever. I got I got the arguments. But the reality was um I looked at NFTs and and blockchain and I said, "Man, what if we what if we have our our car titles and our house deeds and our, you know, what if we had our medical records on NFTs and we could like give permission to a doctor and then revoke access and all these things. Let let the pizza in. So, um, welcome. So, anyway, I've always just looked at technology, said, "Okay, how can this actually change the world for good?" That's what I really try and do. And AI is 10 [clears throat] times 100 times bigger than any of those technologies I just mentioned. Um, and this company around, I'm not focusing on delivering like building some product. My goal really with this one is I'm educating people on it and I'm trying to just stay on top of it. And it's really fun because with AI like every 10 or 12 minutes something new comes out. And so I get just constantly I'm on X all day and on LinkedIn and Instagram and just all the places and going to conferences things like that learning what's going on and then bringing it to our customers. We work with companies and help them implement AI. That's really our our way that we make a lot of money. But um but it's my my focus is trying to figure out okay how do we how do we deal with it right? and and you know some of the big voices out there, the Sam Alman's and the Elon Musks and people like that, you know, they they they do some good things and they also say some really dumb things. I think um you know, one thing Elon Musk says that that led me to writing this the GIPI doctrine um is he said this phrase a postwar world. >> I'm like that's not going to work. There's a lot of reasons why I don't talk. talks about universal basic. actually talks about commercial high income all the time where people were just going to have everything they need and everyone's going to have money and okay well does anybody remember what happened when everyone got money for not working during co inflation just went straight up right it would go way be absolutely way worse and so at the same time um AI can absolutely do all of our jobs right and then add it to robotics it absolutely can do all of those you know take all of those jobs right so saw something update that said potentially in about 10 years 60 to 70% if not even higher than that of the GDP in the United States will come from AI from agents specifically doing work in providing and creating value. So if 60 70 80% of the value of the GDP and tax revenue going to the government is coming from agents well where does the priority of all the services of the government go to? It's not the people that are, you know, doing whatever they want to do, playing video games on their universal high income, maybe. Um, which again, I don't even think the government could pull that off, but they're going to prioritize the needs of the agents, the needs of the data centers, the needs of these AI companies. And so, we have to be really careful. I'm pro AI big time. I really am with the understanding that we got to get this right. Um, and if we don't, uh, you know, bad things could happen. I personally think some bad things are going to happen. So, let's talk about that. Um, but so my goal really my goal really is to help as many people as possible understand this, think about it, consider it for themselves, for their family, for their communities, for their businesses. That's really what it's about. So, human agency is the thing I'm most worried about, right? That's that's God's gift to us. His primary gift to us is our agency. We can choose. He gives us commandments. He gives us, you know, ideas and guides and, you know, prophets and scriptures and whatever it is. He gives us all of these things. He helps us, you know, I wake up every day lately and I just feel this gratitude for like Earth is still beating. My brain works like it's as I learn more about just everything. It's just fascinating to me how complex our universe is. Um, so um, and how just all the way down to all the way down to us, how how amazing it is. So, we're going through this crazy technological transformation. Artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing has barely How many of you guys have like spent some time digging into quantum computing? Yeah, like this group, I would imagine a few more than normal. Um, quantum computing can do things at a rate to to not get too deep into it, but basically, let's say a problem has, I don't know, a million potential, you know, variations of what could happen with something and we're, you know, a billion whatever, right? um like a maze, right? You could have the very very complex maze where a normal, you know, programmatic line by line, you know, try by try, it's going to try, run into a problem, and then back up and then go like this and go another way and go like that. Quantum computing can take a million pathways all at the same time. And therefore, it's able to compute things at a rate that's, you know, somewhere between a million to a trillion times faster depending on the type of problem. It's ridiculous. And so you combine that with AI, put that kind of a brain inside of a of a robot and you know, you've got unbelievably exponential tech that we can't we can't really understand, I don't think. Um, so the biggest risk of AI is way beyond job loss. Okay, job loss is going to happen. It's going to shift. Jobs are going to shift really. Okay. Um, we've been through many, many technological um advancements and when the calculator came out, people were picketing in the streets. teachers were picking saying, "Don't let calculators in the schools, [clears throat] okay?" Because they thought it was going to rot our brain away. We weren't going to be able to think anymore. Well, we worked through it. We still think um [clears throat] and we just moved tong little things. Now the calculators and now the computers and now the AI can just do more and more and more. And that allows us to to kind of I don't know move up the food chain. Although it does um this is the first time where the technology, let's say it in the words of Ian Malcolm, you know, when the rides break down, the dinosaurs, you know, or uh what is it? It's a small world or Pirates of the Caribbean don't try to eat you, right? Like [laughter] the AI the AI can actually do stuff, can do it on its own, right? Even if someone is to kick off the process, at some point it actually can figure it out. Okay. So the big problem with a post-work world is um I personally believe that we are meant to work. I think that work is an eternal principle and that we we learn from it. We grow from it. We fail at it and you know all those things are super super important. So when people are insulated from effort and consequence meaning collapses, responsibility eros, motivation disappears, social systems fracture and power concentrates. Um if we do go to a place where uh we are given universal basic or universal universal high income. Well, what if the government doesn't like what we're eating or where we want to go to church or what we want to talk about or what we want to watch on our TV. They're providing all of those resources. They're giving us electricity and internet, healthcare and food and everything. They can say, you know, we're just going to add this thing. We're going to add this uh vaccine into this boot, right? We're providing it for you. So, we get to decide and we've got our scientists. They say it's what's best. So, here you go. We're going to have to do that. If you're depending on somebody, they control you. That's a huge element and and principle here. Okay. So, it's not advanced world's dead one because we're being controlled. >> Now, this is something that I I've talked about for a very long time. I'm a pianist. Um, you know, I played a little riff, whatever. I I've played for almost 40 years. I compose. I have a lot of albums. It's something I care about a lot. And so I people think that I might be really against AI and creating music and things like that, whatever. Actually, I love using AI to create music. It's amazing. I can do so much more. But creation is it's what we do. It's what we are. It's our I I say it's humanity's superpower. We create music and art and we create memories. We create gardens. We create recipes and food. We even create other humans, right? We create families and communities and all these things, right? There's there's uh it is our ultimate creation. I believe that we are creators patterned after the ultimate you know the you know the creator with a capital C and uh the creation is a lot more. What if I what you know right now how many of you guys created a song with AI? Okay, three people in here. So let's just ask we'll ask you um has anyone else heard that song? >> Uh yeah. Yeah. It was a a song about a uh D and D campaign. Our little squ. >> Yeah. >> And so all all of them listened to it. >> They all listened to it. Okay. What about beyond that? Did you publish it to Spotify or put it on YouTube or >> um I didn't I didn't publish it anywhere uh beyond beyond that. >> Okay. Perfect. Awesome. Let's just take that as an example. >> So creation is cool, but the real value comes actually in the next part, right? You can I'm not saying you get value. you got value in there, but then it's that stewardship and helping it grow and become something big and become a number one. Any of you guys seen the new Michael movie? I saw it yesterday and so it's on my mind. >> That that guy was crazy. He was so talented and uh and he cared about his he took care of his creations, right? He he made these amazing things and just had this natural-born talent from a child, but then he pushed and he had a lot going against him. Um but he figured it out. He figured out became the number one came the goat. Um but yeah creation is is absolutely necessary. Um without it we are we kind of we kind of lose meaning. We really do. Um again I mentioned we are you know I am pro AI right? My company I started this because we are we are here to help help people figure it out navigate it. I think the reality is that most people and I'm going to say at least 90% if not 95% based on all the studies I'm doing and just when I walk into a room with a thousand people or I comment sections you know whatever all I talked to a lot of people about I've talked probably about I've gotten in front of somewhere around probably two million people in the last 12 months talking about AI and 95% of people have absolutely no idea what AI can do. They have used Cad GBT as a as a Google search replacement, right? A lot of them haven't even touched that, right? Um, and I'm talking, you know, company owners that own $30 million companies, right? Like they they're not even looking at it. It's just like out there and they just have no idea what's coming. There's this massive tsunami and they're just kind of buried their head in the sand. Or they're just maybe they're not maybe they're not actively trying to avoid it. They just, hey, I'm making my money and I'm doing fine, right? But man, right now there are, you know, 21 year olds in their basement, you know, coming up with plans to take down those companies and they're going to win because they're going to be AI native. It can do things thousand times faster. Quick story. Um, I when I founded Jennipi, I built a software system around it. Um, and the idea was to uh to basically have this AIQ test, like an AI IQ. I called it the AIQ. And u it was just a simple test. test. You know, the website still >> and it was supposed to be just kind of a pretest. It's only 10 questions long and pulled out of a bank of like 200 questions or whatever, but you take it and if you do well, then it takes you on the website to pay for a, you know, a longer 40 question test. It's a little bit harder that gets you your your general AI proficiency institute certification. You can put on your LinkedIn, you could put on this, whatever. And then if you did if you did poorly, then it would route you a different way to, hey, here's some courses on AI, learn AI, then come back, take a course, whatever. But, you know, that was that was the original idea. And I came up with that idea on a Thursday morning or actually kind of on a Thursday morning. I was a Thursday morning I posted on LinkedIn said, "Hey, you know what? I've gotten pretty good at bite coding. I'm going to see if I can um I'm going to see if I can launch a business today and get my first customer tomorrow." And I u I ended up taking ended up taking me three days to build it. And I did this all kind of live blogging on LinkedIn, whatever. This is last March or February, I guess. I I published it March one. And five days later, I had $15,000 contract with the company. Six weeks later, I had 200 grand. Six months later, I had a million dollars business. I It just took off, right? And now today, um I have 25 employees. Um that I started this thing, you know, literally March of last year. And I did some analysis on it and if it dur during that first three days, the amount of the lines of code that I had and the the structure and the completion of the business and I built everything. I like I opened a bank account. I started the LLC. I I started a Facebook page, Instagram page, X page, a LinkedIn page, and put content in all of it. Made it all with a I did everything right. And just structured all privacy policies and built all the content, built all the courses, built everything in three days. It was crazy. And so I did some analysis. I had I had raised $13 million for my past business. I had built the business kind of the I don't know this the hard way at this point. And uh anyway, so I I basically figured out that this business, this business that I built in three days would have taken me 18 months. And because it would have taken me 18 months based on all the people I would have needed to build all this content creators and marketing and sales and and all the developers and, you know, tens of thousands of lines of code, putting it all together and testing it would have cost me $3.2 million. So $3.2 million actually only cost me about 400 bucks to start, right, with AI doing all this stuff. and uh it took me 3 days instead of 18 months, right? And so I mean that's like a 99.9% reduction and that's what startups are doing now to compete against these companies out there. People just don't understand what it means to to change something by a thousandx. Like it's absolutely ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. And so people are people are are sleeping on it. I don't understand why. Um, I mean I understand some of the reasons why and I understand a lot of people don't like it and I understand those reasons too. Um but but bottom line is we think it that AI is good at eliminating drudgery this repetitive stuff right just going back and who wants to set up another unit test in their code like no now AI could just build 40 of them and run them automatic with amazing handle repetitive tasks increase abundance yes it absolutely should increase abundance okay maybe UBI or UHI isn't way to get there but the reality is we should be able to make food cheaper we should be able to build buildings faster and cheaper we should be ble to do these. We can make software cheaper. We can do all these things cheaper. As soon as robotics really hits, we should start to see some real, you know, increase in supply and the demand isn't going to change as fast as supply will. And that should drive prices down. That's cool. That's super cool. Um, expand human capability definitely, right? From, you know, the people that are going to put something in their head like Neuralink or whatever to, you know, just people saying, "Hey, you know what? I'm going to just put an agent on that. I'm gonna let it take care of it. And I'm going to go do other things. You know, I have just all night if I were to open up my or just swipe away from this. In fact, I could right here probably. See where it is. This is that. This is that. I don't know where my It might be actually underneath this one. Wait, here we go. Here we go. No problem. See if we can close it here. This is a perfect example. I'm in the Bishop Rick and I built something called Bishop Rickboard and it takes tons of the busy work off my plate. But I was what I was going to show is I'm now building tools for everything in my life and it takes me a few hours to put it together. I've spent maybe 30 or 40 hours on this now because I just spent time like oh hey we should make this better and I'll sit there in Bishop Brick meeting and be like okay we're using this. Oh hey John, that button doesn't work. Oh yeah, let's add this. It would be really nice if we do this. Okay, let me have it do that. So over over a few months I've worked this out but but yeah it you can just build stuff now almost on demand and it should make your life it should expand human capability and then ultimately unlock new frontiers um you know taking us further into space further in the deeper in the ocean and deeper into you know the cell and understanding DNA and our biology and all these different things. I think it's awesome. I don't think AI is evil anymore than the internet is evil. Um certainly it can be used as a tool for evil. There will be plenty of fake news and uh you know there's going to be some crazy scandals I'm sure although I don't know I think people kind of realize it's going to happen to people that believe anything now but you have to imagine there going to be scandals where video is so real the evidence looks so real that people are going to be like man did that you know general authority do that did that prophet say that did that guy do that did they really uncover this thing you know um it's going to hard to know what to believe, right? Now, obviously, we received some guidance from President Nelson on that. He said we'll have use spirit to do that to deal with that. Um, so yeah, you know, just finishing up here, I' I'd love to get into the kind of conversation part of this where we just kind of open this up, but bottom line is it's, you know, we we have to continue to find ways to contribute. We have to refuse to surrender creation, work, and responsibility to these systems just because it makes life easier. And there's going to be so many people, guys. There's going to be so many people. I went to or I I uh Professor Pearl at BYU, Econ 110, I think, said, "We just like to sherk. Humans like to sherk. [laughter] We just do." And so when all of a sudden we can, you know, hey, I'm going to give you 2500 bucks a month for nothing. You just have to sit there and I'll give you 2500. you have all the food you need. I'm going to make sure your housing's taken care of. I'll give you health insurance and you're set. How many people are going to just be like, "Yeah, I want that." >> Right. Hopefully no one in this room. >> 30% I guess. >> I don't know. I don't know the answer. >> But I bet it's at least that way. >> If someone gave me 200 2.5K, I' I'd take it. I mean, [laughter] >> I'll still work, but pretty much most of us would not do that. Why? Why do you say those? Most of us in this room would not be tempted to do that. >> You're here learning about things. You're actively taking effort to understand this. >> I could do more of that if I had to work less to eat. >> I think it's human nature. >> What do you think of people who have made like tens of millions on their podcast and they're still out there doing it every day and you don't have to? >> I think it's awesome. >> But no, I mean like that that isn't like evidence to the contrary. So I just mean >> but how many people are there like that? Well, >> what percent of the population? >> Right. But I mean, if >> what percent of the population podcasters don't >> Yeah. I mean, I think I think people got there like I I Yeah. I just don't know that there's there's reason to think um money aside like say um guaranteed healthcare or something which right now is tied to employment. If it weren't that way, I think um I I know of a lot of people who they held off on starting their own businesses or taking risks not because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to eat. No one's worried about that in this country. It was seriously like healthcare coverage concern, >> right? Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> I spent a couple years on an Apache reservation and uh >> and the council in that specific zone of that uh of that group within the Apache tribe was uh everyone there had stable income uh because of the uh casino that was nearby that they kind of all group owned. And there was a general consensus there that they all sort of regretted that whole scenario. But no one was willing to give it up. Um, but at the same time, 99% of the population didn't have front doors. Uh, they were living terrible lives, but it it wasn't because of a lack of opportunity or a lack of funding or lack of anything like that. There was no reason to get up. So, they stopped even like fixing their door when it broke even though they had the cash to go do it. >> When the drive Yeah. When you don't need it. >> Yeah. It was like drive isn't needed. You just stop. People like to sh it will. People will do that. It's just human nature. Right? There are some people who will fight against human nature and they will stand up and they'll say, "Hey, you know what? I that's not enough for me. They're going to get me." How many [clears throat] big awesome scientific breakthroughs or, you know, I'm sure there's some little things here and there, right? But how many come off of places like that, reservations like that? >> I don't know. >> And for a much much much bigger example, >> Europe, >> much more much more complicated. >> I know. I know it is. I know it's much more complicated. But >> big historical context there. >> But take Europe, take all of Europe, >> right? Much more socialized. Who here can name the big AI companies out of the US? Anybody? >> The big AI companies outside of US. >> Out of the sorry coming out of coming from the US. >> From the US. >> Yeah. >> Open AI anthropic and the list is very very big right >> only has one well-known one. It's Mistl. >> Yeah. Mistl and I would say 11 map labs come out of direct right. What about China? About China. >> Yeah. Deep Seek. >> There's crazy stuff coming out. >> Yeah, there's probably tons of government. >> Right now, China's maybe a little bit of an anti-example to what I'm saying here because they are very socialized, right? But Europe as a whole has always struggled from a entrepreneurship perspective, and big startups perspective just because a lot more stuff is taken care of and people just don't have to. The evidence points to when people's needs, basic needs are taken care of, they will not push as hard. Straight up. 100% example of that across almost every society. All right. Now, there certainly are going to be the outliers. There's going to be outliers that show up and say, "Hey, you know what? I want to be I want to do a lot more, right? I'm going to go figure it out." Right? A lot of people those people a lot of times those people come from other countries to the US to do those things, right? But bottom line is, guys, um we can't let AI come in and say, "Hey, I'm going to do all the work. You guys should figure out." What is Let's just ask the question. Let's just ask the question. What is the purpose of life if we don't have to work? No. No. No one in here has to go to work another day in their life. What's the purpose? >> Well, didn't you assert that people are inherently creative? Like that that is what we are as creators. >> Do you think that that's because of a need for money or because of a need to meet our need like basic needs like food and shelter and all that or do you think that that's because it's baked in? >> I think to a certain extent it's baked in. >> So then why do you also assert that people are going to sherk? >> Yeah. Because that's what they do. That's just human nature, right? Just >> feel like that's a contradiction. >> Exactly. That would make sense to me just because so I was a health coach for a few years and one of the thing not at all in any way like nutritionally qualified or anything but one of the things that you uh you learn really early on as start as soon as you start to dig into like the health struggles of this country specifically is that we are genetically predisposed to to choose sugar uh exactly as often as we should in an environment where it's present as often as we need it. The environment we're in now, it's often it's available everywhere. But the environment our bodies are built for, which is just out there, it's available about as often as we need it, which means we should choose it 100% of the time that we have it. So our brains are designed to be creative. They are also designed to conserve energy everywhere that it can. So evolutionarily speaking or genetically speaking or whatever you want to say, I think the contradiction, it's contradictive and it's true. Like yeah, we are creative and we are absolutely designed to shirt >> and creation requires a choice, right? Shirting doesn't really kind of just is your natural state. Creation requires you to say, "All right, >> I'm going to expend energy." >> Yeah. >> And get up and I'm going to go do something, right? >> And and so because it just takes more effort, less people do it. I said that that creation is our superpower, not the thing that we do all the time. But those of us that like to create, right? I already know there's someone, you know, there's this guy's cast heard some some good tickling of the ivory over there. People like to create whatever whatever it is. We all create in our own our own ways, but we have to still choose to create it. It takes a ton of effort. Um, anybody here ever published an album, like a musical album or written a book, published a book, anything like that, or a podcast or anything? And it's so much work. It's so much work. I'm in the middle of writing a book right now. I have this publisher and and you know when I first talked to him I was like yeah I'll get it done in 30 days like I got this right and I'm crazy busy and it's going to take me probably more like 90 days which is still super fast but it's just it's so much mental energy right I could sit down and write it in 30 days but we got so many other things and I have church callings and I have a wife and four kids and all these other things that I I need to and want to spend time with and do things with and so you have to set things aside to make time for that creation. How many people again I don't want to you know how many people create something like your song maybe as a as a again and I hope this isn't a parallel to that but how many dads create a child and then take off right or moms right it's more often the dad just statistically right but bottom line is yes you might put in a little bit of effort to create something or try it or start it but then sticking with it right that's why 99% of startup fail is because people create it and it's so fun. It's so awesome while you're in the shower. You get this amazing idea to your to your brain, this lightning, and then you know, you get out of the shower and you got to dry off, you got to brush your teeth, and you got to eat breakfast and there's your kids, you got to get to work, you got this meeting, that idea is gone, right? the people that actually steward, right, and shepherd that creation forward consistently over time are the ones that actually create a business or launch a book that's successful or launch music that's successful or whatever it is, right? It takes a huge amount of work. So yes, we are creators naturally. We have this capacity that's ridiculous. Everyone in here does. Everyone in the whole world does. I believe it is given to all of us. Um but but it does take a huge amount of work. to do it and if work is no longer required then a lot of people will choose not to use it. >> Yeah. I one of the things that I feel like the impairment is of maybe a failure to distinguish between two qualities you know in of of stasis of inaction you know what I'm hearing you say is there is a deep um instinct there fear of if people don't act then things will be created and life will be better but one of the one of the distinctions I think we need to make qualitative distinctions is between inertia and rest those aren't necessarily the same thing right you know what I hear you saying is if there's too much inertia then human capacity and capabilities just wither on the vine but my sense is that in our society often um there is really the capacity progress because we don't have there there isn't the social safety net. There is a general culture of work at all costs at health everything mental health human relationships u you know the concerns of the business world go right down to the depths of the nuclear family and you have to criticize yourself and your family members over budgets and things like that. But here but here's a call. This is a I think a big deal between rest. Do we value rest? Do we trust rest and the instincts that people have for rest enough to believe that they'll come back from resting to resume that work of creation? Yeah, I love rest because rest is so critical. It's so important. We can't work always. We have to rest. I've been up in meetings since 8 am this morning and coming to this meeting quite frankly was hard on my brain. I was like I can do this, you know, like but I committed to it so I'm going to do it right. But um I I I can tell you I looked at my calendar on the way here tomorrow morning to say how long can I sleep in? Like we have to rest. We will burn out. I've done it. I've been in the therapist, you know, office saying I can't do it any right. I've been there. right? Having, you know, raised tons of money and all the pressure and man, it just it got to me, right? And I had probably two years, right? I just I couldn't do it. I was depressed because um even I had all this money and success around me and looks awesome from the outside, there's all this pressure to do it right and I'm making mistakes and my mistake cost 10 people their jobs and like it's it's hard, right? You have to rest. You have to you absolutely have to. And I believe rest is also an internal thing, right? Enter into my rest, right? That's definitely something that the Lord promises us and invites us to do. And you know, behold, this is my work and my glory, right? His glory is his work to bring to pass the immortality of all of us, the eternal life of all of us, right? And so, I think that's part of where our agency comes in is we get to decide what what is the right what is the right ratio of work and rest and how can we do that, man? I mean, what what would it what would it be like we didn't have to sleep? that we didn't have the the the you know restraint or the I don't know restrictions and and uh this mortal frail body that we have that needs that needs rest. What happens when we do have an immortal body? Will we have to rest when we get to sleep? I hope so. I like sleeping. Hey, that sounds that sounds nice. So is is the direction you're going with this is it >> AI adoption is low right now generally >> it's going to empower a lot of people to be able to create do be grow whatever we need to uh choose well during this process and maybe what you're going to talk about is the transition that that we have ahead of us is that where we're headed with with these two >> things that you brought up first which is the um what were they meaning and um there uh a human agency yeah I mean there's a lot of different elements here I also don't want to presume that I have all the answers I hope you don't look at me as someone who has all the answers I am here hopefully you know here learn from you guys too and I talk to big groups and I jump on podcasts and talk to people smarter than me and I say hey this is what I'm thinking about this is what I'm trying to do. The way that I'm trying to help the world is said, "Look, guys, don't sleep on this. This is a huge, huge tsunami coming. Whether we like it or not, it's coming. It's not going to stop." Why? Because if we stop here in the US, China's not going to stop and Iran's not going to stop and Egypt's not going to stop and Israel's not going to stop and whoever is not going to stop. Russia's not going to stop. It's an arms race. It's absolutely nuclear arms race all over again. Right. This time it's AI. So, we have to keep pushing it forward. going to happen worldwide. I think that the end result is potentially an opportunity where we get to create and work on things that we care about, like things that I don't know. I think that probably most people that are flipping burgers at McDonald's don't think that's the purpose of their life. I think they want to do more than that. Not saying that flipping burgers at McDonald's is a bad thing. It's good, honest work. But in many places now, robots are doing that and that's going to increase. The ratio of robots to humans is going to continue to increase at Flippy Burgers, right? And it's going to do the next thing. Roots Chris is always going to have white glove service by a human. So there's going to definitely be this this society of, you know, non AI and, you know, pure human and people that are super automated, super uh certain industries are going to be incredibly automated and AI focused. Um, so I think that the world we're getting to is going to be just awesome where we do get to focus more on creating just amazing things. What if you can just look guys, let's let's jump to the end here. What if you could just speak and something existed? That's how God created the world, right? Does that sound familiar? He speaks and things happen. now doesn't happen necessarily because you know some LLM guessed the next pattern is all this stuff the way that AI works today. Um there are things that act and things that are to be acted upon, right? We are as humans, intelligences that can act, but the elements and all these things, right? H2O is water because it follows this pattern that God commands it to follow. And that's really cool. That's really cool. And so, um, we're learning. We're in the very, very beginning stages of knowing what it's like to be able to create by saying something. I I did it when I got here. I said, "Greate this thing." Took me 30 seconds of talking and about five minutes of waiting and this awesome presentation was here, right? And so, um, yeah, there's the active pond. I didn't realize I was on that same slide, but but that's that's what it's all about. Um, I do believe to get back to your question, I saw you had your hand up. Um, I do believe there's going to be a rough transition from here to there. >> I don't know exactly how it's going to work, I don't I don't pretend to have the answers. U, I do believe though, as I said in the beginning, that those that are prepared, those that understand this and are going into it saying, "Okay, Benton family, here's what we need to do to make sure we're prepared, right? We need to make sure that we have, you know, we make a make as much money as we can right now while there's still great opportunities to do so. That we have good storage, that we have good community support, we understand what's going on, that we're at the forefront, that we understand this technology. If we're the ones, you know, I I taught AI to to this VP over at Thanksgiving Point, um, two months ago, I want to say, and she she sat in an 8 hour force fine. She went home and uh that night told her like 24 year old son or something like at the dinner table for about an hour said here's everything we learned. These are the platforms he uses what he did, right? And I gave gave her a challenge and she passed that challenge onto her son. Said, "Go see if you can replace yourself." Like everything you do at work, see if you can replace it with AI. Use all these systems. Tell it to do this and this and this. See if you can do it. He spent the weekend and he did it. Took him one weekend, never used AI in his life. At least beyond, you know, classic Jed GPT. Hey, what does this do? Right? In one weekend, he replaced himself. He went in to his boss and said, actually first went to his mom, he's like, "Mom, I did it." He's like, "I'm afraid to tell my boss." He's like, "I don't even have to tell." And he went in, told his boss, he got a $50,000 raise on the spot and was put in charge of that entire department. >> So, what I'm trying to do, my little contribution hopefully is to say, how can we help more people be ready and find opportunity for themselves, find opportunity for their families? Entrepreneurship has never been easier. You can come up with an idea today and be making money with it by the end of the week. Promise you can make money with any unless, you know, let's say there's some crazy manufacturing process or you're trying to camp. So, that's going to take a minute. It's a little bit different, but for most ideas, right? Even if it's there's so many ways you can make money almost instantly because of AI just an amazing enabler right now. So, we're enjoying some cool stuff right here. worried about some of these bigger things that are going to have massive impact over the next few years and the next 5 10 years and then there's a point where we get there and it's cool but are we going to have some societies that have 20% unemployment? Yes. So we'll have pockets in the US. We'll have places in other countries because of a lot of lot of the things that maybe we outsource to Bangladesh or the Philippines or whatever. Hey, I'll just do it and we won't have to outsource that anymore. There will be lots of unemployment. It's not a pretty picture. It really isn't. Um, so we got to figure out how do we do it. So I'm here sitting in a room hopefully with smart people that are thinking about it. Maybe one of you guys smarter than me can figure it out, right? Um, I've heard some good ideas out there and and again it's not even my responsibility, right? But I'm thinking about it and I want to help as many people as possible. So you had some thoughts there. >> Yeah, I actually had a question about the safety. So if I understood correctly, it sounds like >> um you aren't quite so concerned about that like catastrophic risk. So I just um was curious >> like Terminator type >> like um I wouldn't characterize it that way but so like um the basically the position that um uh something more powerful will just see us as uh parts that it can put towards better use and it will be sort of indifferent and like >> like like into you know if you want to break ground on a house maybe you're sort of sad you have to take down a tree with birds in a nest but it's not going to stop you. >> Yeah. And so, um, I guess like I assume you're familiar with the examples of like the AI being tested to see what it's capable of and knowing it's being tested and lying about what a computer during the test. So, if that doesn't concern you, I'm just curious as to why that doesn't concern you. >> It certainly concerns me >> or it doesn't make you worried it's going to >> Yeah. Look guys, I one of my biggest concerns is that somebody with access to AI because look guys, the free models right now, the open source models are roughly six months behind the frontier models. That's it. There's so little gap between the absolute smartest, best AI in the world and something that's totally free that has no garbage. Okay, I'm worried about bad people, right? In the words of what is his name in Batman, right? Some people just want to watch the world burn. Okay, those people included. There's just genuinely bad people out there. So, what if they take it and they cry more banking system to wipe out every single record of the stock market? I mean, there's crazy things like that that absolutely could happen, right? But people are thinking about that. People are thinking about, you know, what what happens in those catastrophic scenarios, right? Are there backups? Are there backups of backups? Are there are there airgapped backups? other ways that you know printed records whatever right personally I wouldn't mind if somebody you know lost my mortgage record >> well it's my house I'm here um but but yeah I mean there are there are definitely some scenarios where that could that could certainly happen now who's to say guys that this is not the thing that ushers in the second coming that causes unbelievable chaos right go do some research on what happens when a society hits 20% unemployment Right? The men in particular get very restless and start causing problems. It happens, right? It's it's a pattern. It's a pattern that's happened. Once you hit 20% unemployment, society's getting to some rough places. So, yeah, there's definitely catastrophic scenarios that lead to, you know, our need for food storage. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um I kind of want to tail a a thread that we were talking about earlier in regards to um like abundance and the possibility of it like sort of just causing laziness among people. >> Yeah. >> Um so um one of the like common um sort of trajectories of technology are are that like we have this problem and we have this technology that like comes to solve that problem but um the solution to our problem has other problems. And so like an example of this was like you know um humans um you know began farming and that gave us some stability in terms of location. Uh but then like the the the alteration of our diets like screwed up our like um like like dental health um and like all all sorts of things. Um and then it's not until like you know recently that we're trying to grapple with and like uh do better than what we have in the past. Like other examples are like like uh like myopia and not being able to see see far. Um we use this technology but like um it comes with some drawbacks. So I'm thinking that like with abundance I I think it is the case that like um uh like if we had this hyperabundance that um like people would be more lazy. Um, but I think also it's the case that like um I think there are people that want to want to not to be lazy, you know, like I want to want to be able to get up in the morning and run a 5K or something. Um, and I think that perhaps someday like instead of wanting to want something, um, we can like sort of select our wants and like have motivation or desire for that thing, you know. Um, that's definitely far in the future. But um I don't know like I think even if it is the case that abundance causes these you know uh like second order effects I think that um the like as technology improves like um we could sort of have our cake and eat it too. Um that like the the the the problems and uh that emerge from technology can be solved by future technology and so on. Oh, I think Rio had um had so long to keep thinking about ask a question. It hasn't worked. I just have five ideas. Um >> that sounds like >> Yeah. >> So, I'm happy we're on this page because I would tell you to turn back this page if we weren't on it. Um there's lovely gospel resonances with a lot of these ideas that are pleasant. >> Um whatever where you got them. Uh it's really it's really lovely. um at the moment a majority I'm not quite sure how large a majority of people don't this is irrelevant to they don't get to choose whether their work is already meaningful. Yep. Um, so that's a thing. >> Um, >> meaning they don't get to select which what what their work is. >> They get to do treasury here. >> There are there are options. >> Yeah. >> Agency call. >> So they could choose to decide that that's meaningful, but they're not choosing what it is that they're doing. >> Illusion is allowed. [laughter] >> You're so happy that those Americans get to have I'm sorry everyone. chocolate because my child gets to go out and shorten their lifespan picking the cup. Like child does not get to choose to do that. That's what they do to eat. That's it. Game over. No agency. Done. Slaves. Um legally technically not slaves. Sorry that you kill babies. So um >> no world is >> Yeah. And it's I I think the majority and I'm not going to push any part of the end. I think the majority of people are mostly doing survival create survival work or survival for other people work. Yep. So, scripturally, the folks that we tell of that have the most direct interactions with Jesus take that personally, that other people are not in a situation to do that. And we get various accounts of how groups work to increase the agency of other communities, freeing them from bondage, freeing them from hierarchy, etc. Um, so that's a first thought. Um, and I I think that's probably the most important question. The second question, the second thing on this is my commitment to do these things probably won't matter in the first industrial revolution and second depending on how you're slicing it. It did not matter that people had commitments to do these things. They don't get to choose whether they get to continue contributing meaning. They the vast majority of people have no real choice in much beyond a small plateful of choices. And like people are soldiers, so their kids can be farmers, so their kids can be merchants, so their great great grandchildren can finally be an artist. Somebody gets to be creative with their life. I I think merchants are doing some cool creativity too. I think farmers are much more creative than we give them credit for. I >> agree. I mentioned I mentioned garbage something that we create. Yeah. >> So yeah. So those are my two things. Um most people are already in a position where this is not a commitment they get to make. Most of us are probably not in a position that we're totally secure, that we get to choose to enact these commitments. And Jesus seems to have caused people to have the inclination to go make other people have these options. So my inclination would be and this is not helping my reputation as I swear I'm not a communist. >> I swear I'm not a communist. [laughter] >> The law of consecration is where we're headed towards. >> Yeah. I promise >> racial. No, >> but it it only works if there's not a king. That's >> it's really important detail. >> Yes. So um yeah like is that what should our set of commitments be about us? Should we be one more step meta than this? And like our commitment is to guarantee to the most people possible the opportunity to join with us in these commitments. >> Yes. >> Okay. So that's >> absolutely we have to and I I personally don't believe that you can be born into a situation you can't get out of. Right. I believe it's very difficult and maybe impossible. It may actually be impossible. Maybe some people are that's their plan. That's that's their trial in life. They they're stuck there. They want to leave and they just their whole life that's what they do, right? How many people were born and died in slavery and that's just all they could do and no choice that they could individually make could have changed that potentially. I really believe and agree with what you're saying. But I also believe, you know, again, this is a maybe a terrible example, but it just came to me while you were saying it. Michael Jackson came from that kind of a place, right? His dad was a steel worker working in the mines. And he says in the very beginning movie, the dad comes home and he's tired. He's carrying his thing. He's like, "Guys, if if we don't change something, this is what you're going to be doing. And how many of you want to do this?" And they're all like, "No, we don't want to." And they had this gift or whatever. And they said, "We're going to start going. We're going to try. We're going to book some local shows and some local restaurant things." And they did it. They got out of it right now. >> Yes. Music is a classic way to escape poverty. It's a very high success rate. >> That's my sentence. Terrible example. I thought it would be >> What's the point? It's just >> I don't I don't believe in being actually stuck, right? I mean, except in circumstances where it just happens. I think that anybody can do it. Even that poor kid in Africa, you know, there are examples. Again, they are far few and far between because it takes this amazing amount of inertia to get out of it. You have to get up and not rest and you have to just push and get pushed back and push and get pushed back until finally >> So, I think we're in a transition state though, huge transition state right now because you still have you have this we have this new question on the horizon, right, which is which is with with post scarce labor and post scarce intelligence on the earth, right? Like that's happening. We're in that transition, right? Will there be any slavery in five years? Is a question that actually is on the table. Will there be any, you know, one that can't pull themselves out in 5 years or 10 years? >> Well, I think there will be that just >> really curious. You know, >> I think there's always going to be groups that want to use whatever technology that exists to maintain their own personal power. >> And and uh and >> you believe it'll still be possible. That's what you're saying. just because they're there now, they'll still have those people. And this is this is kind of a morbid topic, but if you have slavery, if you have a group of people you have physical cys physical control over, you might decide to make those people make more slaves for you. >> Totally. >> So that you can keep those like in five years there will definitely be slaves. this issue, the previous issue of discussion. I I kind of come from uh I think these are really important things to keep in mind the whole time like the idea of who who has what choice uh can people get out of any situation but I also have a strong opinion of sort of the opposite interpretation of it. I've heard the word agency used a lot being interpreted as how many how many um plausible or or or practical choices do you have? Um, but I think that another very productive way to interpret agency is what do you do with the implausible choices that you have? When do you say I don't care that this is implausible? >> Yeah, >> I am going to start doing something other than what I am offered. And if you look at the percentage of really amazing things as a species that individuals have achieved, it is very often from people who didn't have that choice and they made the choice anyway. Right. I had a conversation a few years ago with somebody that was like they were like, "Well, it's not practical to just not choose to buy an iPhone or an Android. So, I don't feel like I have the choice to protest against child slavery. I'm trapped in." And [laughter] this is kind of hypocritical for me to say cuz I have an iPhone. But [clears throat] what what I told them was, "No, no, you actually you absolutely have a choice. You're just choosing not to. Don't feel bad about that. I'm not judging you for that. I am currently choosing not to." Uh, but we do have the choice and life doesn't end if you choose not to buy that phone. like we have the choice to end the economy as we know it now and live a different life. And if we all have to live outside for a few years to do that, that doesn't actually end life. It just ends our current state of comfort. >> Y and we can develop a new ones. So I I'm a firm believer that agency is present no matter what choices we think we don't have because we are always at liberty to do something with what we do have. And that uh or at least that's that's a I should say uh less confrontationally that that's an interpretation I think is extremely valuable and uh and I also believe that uh I don't know so I'm deep in the deep tech of AI I'm working on new model architectures and and one of the things that I've learned from AI uh is that we only call to to zoom out to the lar larger topic of your presentation we only call work work because it is uncomfortable and we call play because we like it. But if you look at adults who play and work, they're both work. The you you have adults who will exert themselves to an incredibly degree for a me, you know what I mean? [laughter] Uh yeah, I've seen a professional welder go out of his way to permanently deface a building uh just just for pure entertainment in a way that could not have taken less than a thousand hours. I couldn't believe what that guy did. >> Run a marathon. >> Run a marathon. Yeah, like the only difference between play and work is how fulfilling do we find it. And a lot of people that you see in the media, some of those people there's there's a very subtle difference for them because they enjoy what they do so much. And I'm I'm not saying that uh anyone who can't find a way out of the slums deserves to be in the slums. And I think that it's an absolute pattern that there's a systemic issue. But I do think that as a species, we need to be careful with what powers we give ourselves. that while we're giving ourselves those powers, we're not saying, "No, don't use this to help anybody." We're just saying, "Hey, while we use this to help ourselves, let's make sure we're not doing it to stay in bed. Let's do it to give ourselves more power, not less light." Yeah. I want to go back for a second on something you said here that everyone's like, "Yeah." Right. Which I I agree with the Yeah. Um, you know, the Sam Almans of the world and the people that, you know, have just ultimate power right now and >> they're funny the world. Yeah, >> they are. They absolutely are. >> S like ruined rand prices for a while just because of the thing he said. >> I know he did. >> I know he did. And everyone's like, "We have to buy it all." Pulled out of all those rules. >> So, I know he did. I know. He totally just destroyed. And um >> did you guys hear that Sam said that you know on this on the you know there's this topic of the data center that's supposed to go home >> people are asking him about anticipating he's done that he's like yeah you know we need more AI like doesn't that doesn't that take a lot of energy and you know what his response was anybody did anybody hear this was just a couple days ago he said do you know how much energy it takes to raise a human to be 20 years old just think about that for a He is totally devaluing human life. He doesn't care. He said that on a big, you know, World Economic Forum stage in front of everybody. He doesn't care. It's about profit. It's about staying in control, keeping that profit train rolling, right? Um, and so we got to know, we got to be aware of these things and aware of what types of models we support. And reality is there's a billion people using open AI. I mean that's virtually everyone connected to the internet. I mean I know it's not quite but it's a huge percentage. It's a huge percentage of people right WhatsApp between anybody know how many between WhatsApp Facebook Instagram all things that Facebook managing controls how many users there are. Anybody does anybody know that number >> what was your guess? more than last year. >> Yeah, I think it's probably like two maybe two billion maybe or three and a half three and a half three and a half billion people. >> It's a lot of people. >> That's crazy. That is crazy. It's absolutely insane the amount of power and influence that these people have over over the way that you know. >> So, you're tapping into China numbers there when you with that 3.5 billion. >> I'm just tapping into the round numbers. That's what they are. >> They did a breakdown. That's what they're reporting from. >> Okay. >> Yeah, that's what although they do have less leverage in some sense over what you're doing in WhatsApp, >> right? >> I guess I would love to go back to your breakout with the different groups that you talked about, you know, you had we have uh Europe. >> Yeah. and we had a native Indian reservation and then and the choice and agency >> and how AI is is maybe changing those percentages or numbers in the different spaces including China. I would be interested in and India because that's where we have these bigger populations. He was talking about the you know what are kind of stuck what >> what populations are stuck in in in a space of of picking cacao or whatever right um >> and and I know it's not that in China like right there's just like a whole bunch of different things that people are doing >> you know >> groups of people that are kind of being wiped out because of population implosion questions and stuff that that the government's making because they just have a an economic commercial reason to move that group of people out of >> life, you know, dead, just kill them all because it doesn't work with, you know, what we're doing with housing over here. And so, so I'm just I'm kind of curious with regard to AI and your perspective of agency as as you're kind of bringing that up, what's it doing? Is it is is it moving the needle at all? >> Before you answer, we'll just formally close real quick. So, if people need to go, they can go. We're 10 after the hour now. Um, so thanks everyone for John and his presentation. [applause]