1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,348 Eric Schmidt, welcome to Inside Defense. I'm glad to be here. 2 00:00:03,432 --> 00:00:04,797 I am delighted to be having 3 00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:08,525 this conversation with you, particularly here in Kiev, Ukraine. Um, 4 00:00:08,609 --> 00:00:09,917 you will be known to most 5 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:13,830 of our viewers as one of the fathers of the modern Silicon Valley. 6 00:00:13,913 --> 00:00:14,957 You're a former CEO 7 00:00:15,040 --> 00:00:19,306 of Google. You're now a mentor and investor in some of the leading lights 8 00:00:19,389 --> 00:00:20,557 of the AI revolution, 9 00:00:20,640 --> 00:00:25,501 but you've also long been a leader in innovation to national security, 10 00:00:25,585 --> 00:00:27,197 and you've played a very 11 00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:30,983 outsized role here in Ukraine. You've built and scaled a drone company. 12 00:00:31,067 --> 00:00:32,317 You've gone frequently to 13 00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:37,270 the front lines. On this trip, I went uh to visit the command headquarters 14 00:00:37,353 --> 00:00:38,877 of Nemesis, which is one 15 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:44,434 of the drone brigades uh in Ukraine. It's the subject of another insider show we've 16 00:00:44,517 --> 00:00:45,037 done. And 17 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:50,895 I have to say, you see, you get a glimpse of the future of war and it's pretty 18 00:00:50,978 --> 00:00:52,397 dystopian. Um war is 19 00:00:52,480 --> 00:00:57,207 really bad. And now I've seen it, it's much worse than you think it is. 20 00:00:57,291 --> 00:00:59,037 If you've been watching war 21 00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:03,837 movies, to watch people really be killed, really struggling, 22 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:06,717 the death and destruction of a city, 23 00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:10,232 little old ladies being killed by the Russians, it's just horrible. 24 00:01:10,316 --> 00:01:11,597 The goal should be to stop 25 00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:17,013 it. The only way I know of to stop an aggressor is to fight back. 26 00:01:17,097 --> 00:01:19,597 And these new technologies have 27 00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:23,906 both offensive and defensive versions of each others. Um, 28 00:01:23,989 --> 00:01:29,410 Russia and Ukraine are together in this unfortunate pairing inventing that future. 29 00:01:29,494 --> 00:01:32,157 And I had always thought that until recently 30 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:35,999 Ukraine had the advantage in innovation, but you wrote recently in the Washington 31 00:01:36,083 --> 00:01:40,556 Post, it was very sobering, that you were more worried than at any time since 32 00:01:40,639 --> 00:01:42,077 the earliest days of this 33 00:01:42,160 --> 00:01:46,355 invasion. You said Russia was going towards a strategy of quote total war 34 00:01:46,438 --> 00:01:47,117 and that that 35 00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:51,958 was blunting Ukraine's innovative edge. Can you explain what you meant by that? 36 00:01:52,041 --> 00:01:52,877 Well, I've been 37 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:58,331 doing this for more than three years. Um, and I've watched the Ukrainians um, 38 00:01:58,414 --> 00:01:59,677 work really, really 39 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:06,397 hard to innovate and they've held the line largely well at great cost to themselves. 40 00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:07,597 Um, it's always 41 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:14,643 been presumed that Ukraine was the innovator and Russia was big and slow 42 00:02:14,727 --> 00:02:20,397 and something changed. Russia is now on an innovation path at a slope, if you will, 43 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:22,797 of improvement that's similar to that of 44 00:02:22,880 --> 00:02:28,321 Ukraine, but with much more resources. Here are my data points. Um, 45 00:02:28,404 --> 00:02:30,877 we have no effective you uh way 46 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:34,809 of handling the ballistic missiles that they're using. And indeed, 47 00:02:34,892 --> 00:02:36,477 the anti-ballistic missiles, 48 00:02:36,560 --> 00:02:40,843 al generally known as Patriots, uh, in the West are in such short supply that there's 49 00:02:40,926 --> 00:02:45,843 not enough to go around. And I understand that. If you look at jet shaheds, 50 00:02:45,927 --> 00:02:48,157 Ukraine sorry Russia invented two 51 00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:51,949 things and put them together which I can describe separately which has made jet 52 00:02:52,032 --> 00:02:52,717 shahads that are 53 00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:57,415 roving around the country the major killers of things that are not on 54 00:02:57,498 --> 00:02:59,117 the front line um there's 55 00:02:59,200 --> 00:03:03,932 a talk of a large mobilization which will be more uh human fighters on the Russian 56 00:03:04,015 --> 00:03:04,637 side against 57 00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:09,480 Ukraine very hard to fight against there's going to be a new satellite network in 58 00:03:09,563 --> 00:03:10,317 the air that's 59 00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:14,533 similar to Starlink it's called Rusevet sometime next year. And finally, 60 00:03:14,616 --> 00:03:18,815 the Russians are building these very powerful so-called glide bombs, uh, 61 00:03:18,899 --> 00:03:21,757 which are independently targeted and are keeping 62 00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:26,749 the front line from moving and really destroying a lot of people. 63 00:03:26,832 --> 00:03:29,437 It's any one of those Ukraine could 64 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:32,681 overcome. The five is going to be, in my view, 65 00:03:32,765 --> 00:03:35,997 almost impossible without Western help. And the 66 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:39,051 Western help, to be very precise, is they need money. 67 00:03:39,135 --> 00:03:41,357 Russians have now shut down all of their 68 00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:44,979 commerce, all of their ports. They need money. Literally money. 69 00:03:45,062 --> 00:03:46,877 You're watching an interview from 70 00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:51,803 The Economist. To get early access to our upcoming interviews and watch others 71 00:03:51,886 --> 00:03:56,226 from our archive, subscribe to The Economist by clicking the link above. Now, 72 00:03:56,310 --> 00:03:58,157 back to the interview. And second, 73 00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:03,418 they need help on scaling. They have the courage to win that is or hold the fight, 74 00:04:03,502 --> 00:04:04,317 but they don't 75 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:08,034 have the capability of scaling. Yeah, I I I hear that loud and clear, 76 00:04:08,118 --> 00:04:09,597 but let's just dive down into 77 00:04:09,680 --> 00:04:12,873 some of those specifically. So jet shahads, you know, 78 00:04:12,956 --> 00:04:15,037 the Russians took the shahed drone, 79 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:18,782 Iranian drone that they now make in huge numbers and added jet propulsion, 80 00:04:18,865 --> 00:04:19,997 which as I understand it 81 00:04:20,080 --> 00:04:24,478 means they go faster and higher and much harder to intercept. 82 00:04:24,562 --> 00:04:27,197 How close is Ukraine to a solution to 83 00:04:27,280 --> 00:04:32,294 that? There are at least five companies in Ukraine that have come up with solutions 84 00:04:32,377 --> 00:04:33,277 that are in test 85 00:04:33,360 --> 00:04:39,890 now. It should be soon. But this was a major event in the war and I didn't fully 86 00:04:39,973 --> 00:04:40,717 foresee it 87 00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:45,570 which I hold myself responsible. We knew that the Russians were going to take 88 00:04:45,653 --> 00:04:46,957 their shades, make the 89 00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:50,895 back stronger, add these small jet engines which you can get from China. 90 00:04:50,978 --> 00:04:52,317 We thought they were going 91 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:57,095 to use about 10% of the supply and we thought that that was overcomeable. 92 00:04:57,178 --> 00:04:58,797 Russia accelerated the use 93 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:03,760 of these to more than half of the shahads. But they did one other thing. 94 00:05:03,843 --> 00:05:05,277 They don't have access 95 00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:09,924 to the equivalent of Starlink for Russian use in Ukraine, thank goodness. 96 00:05:10,007 --> 00:05:11,197 So they built a mesh 97 00:05:11,280 --> 00:05:15,496 network out of Chinese parts and they typically have two shahads that are 98 00:05:15,580 --> 00:05:16,557 sitting in a going 99 00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:22,385 around in a circle between Bellarusia and Ke for example and those are relays 100 00:05:22,469 --> 00:05:23,597 and those relays 101 00:05:23,680 --> 00:05:28,526 allow them to see literally 8K video of whatever their target is. 102 00:05:28,609 --> 00:05:30,877 So right next door they managed 103 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:35,086 to go right through the central central window of the SBU headquarters which 104 00:05:35,169 --> 00:05:38,804 is like the CIA and that's a good warning of the power of these things. 105 00:05:38,888 --> 00:05:40,957 There are reports that there are plans to 106 00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:46,451 use up to 80,000 such jet shahads against Keev and the other towns between now 107 00:05:46,534 --> 00:05:47,437 and the end of 108 00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:52,903 December. This is a major point. Um the government here is extremely focused 109 00:05:52,986 --> 00:05:54,557 on this. Um I know of a 110 00:05:54,640 --> 00:05:57,883 number of efforts that are likely to work. You mentioned that the Russians, 111 00:05:57,966 --> 00:05:58,637 and this would be 112 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:03,913 even worse, are close to or potentially close to building their version of Starink 113 00:06:03,997 --> 00:06:04,557 Rasat. Um, 114 00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:07,999 how close are they? Because it seems to me, and I'm no technician on this, 115 00:06:08,082 --> 00:06:08,557 but it seems 116 00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:12,557 that that would be a real gamecher. Um, there's evidence that they are have 117 00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:16,286 started launching. There's evidence that it doesn't work yet. Uh, 118 00:06:16,369 --> 00:06:19,357 my own opinion is it's probably a year away because 119 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:24,012 these networks are hard. Once that network is in place, 120 00:06:24,096 --> 00:06:26,637 it is more or less unblockable, 121 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:32,682 which means the Russians will be able to again hunt anywhere inside of Ukraine. 122 00:06:32,765 --> 00:06:37,600 Ukraine today does not have the ability to use Starlink to hunt inside of Russia. 123 00:06:37,683 --> 00:06:39,357 So you can imagine a situation 124 00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:43,936 if both countries had that capability, the level of damage that they could do to each 125 00:06:44,020 --> 00:06:44,637 other. In the 126 00:06:44,720 --> 00:06:48,555 case of Ukraine, one of their highest priorities is hitting the oil deriffs 127 00:06:48,638 --> 00:06:49,757 and so forth and so on. 128 00:06:49,840 --> 00:06:53,456 They do that without really being able to see what they're doing. 129 00:06:53,539 --> 00:06:55,277 Imagine how much more deadly the 130 00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:59,297 Ukrainians could be against Russian oil if this if this happen. Well, 131 00:06:59,380 --> 00:07:00,637 it this begs a question 132 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:05,040 which many of the Ukrainian commanders I've spoken to mention. 133 00:07:05,123 --> 00:07:07,597 Why can't we use Starlink in Russian 134 00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:11,319 territory? And it's usually come up in the context of ballistic missiles because 135 00:07:11,402 --> 00:07:12,157 the other, and you 136 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:16,263 mentioned it, the other thing that is terrorizing Ukraine is Russian launches 137 00:07:16,347 --> 00:07:17,437 of ballistic missiles, 138 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:20,873 which are, you know, dramatically more powerful, huge damage, 139 00:07:20,956 --> 00:07:22,957 terrorizing the cities. And they say, 140 00:07:23,040 --> 00:07:27,023 if you can't hit the arrow, why can't we go after the archer? 141 00:07:27,107 --> 00:07:29,357 And why can't someone persuade Elon 142 00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:32,376 Musk to let us for that purpose use Starink in Russia? 143 00:07:32,459 --> 00:07:34,557 Do you think that would be a good idea? 144 00:07:34,640 --> 00:07:40,335 Um, I'm in favor of giving Ukraine the tools to allow them to end the war 145 00:07:40,419 --> 00:07:42,077 by force, literally to 146 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:46,309 stop the Russian aggression. Um, the question you're asking is really 147 00:07:46,392 --> 00:07:47,597 a political decision. 148 00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:52,209 It's really a government decision. And the US government needs to grapple with 149 00:07:52,292 --> 00:07:53,037 this question. 150 00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:59,037 The most important thing right now is to get the innovation cycle in Ukraine equal 151 00:07:59,120 --> 00:08:05,038 or better than the innovation cycle now present in Russia and also have the scale. 152 00:08:05,122 --> 00:08:08,277 Ukraine does not have effective anti-bballistic missiles. 153 00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:10,637 It has one effective ballistic missile which 154 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:14,132 is the firepoint of so-called flamingo missile which has done well. 155 00:08:14,216 --> 00:08:15,437 They can't make that many 156 00:08:15,520 --> 00:08:19,048 of them for various scaling reasons. In the case of jet shahads, 157 00:08:19,131 --> 00:08:20,797 there's no Ukrainian equivalent 158 00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:26,010 of a jet shahad. So again the same problem people are working on this just I mean 159 00:08:26,094 --> 00:08:26,397 that's 160 00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:30,049 interesting you say it's a political decision so this is not that something 161 00:08:30,132 --> 00:08:34,730 that is up to Mr. Musk himself. It would be a political decision in the US. Again, 162 00:08:34,814 --> 00:08:36,477 I'm speculating. I can answer 163 00:08:36,560 --> 00:08:40,403 the question precisely. There's no technical restriction that prevents 164 00:08:40,486 --> 00:08:44,855 the use of any of these satellite services over any country. That's interesting. 165 00:08:44,938 --> 00:08:46,717 It's it's it's a it's a question. 166 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:51,272 It's not it's not like the satellites stop working over Russia because of some 167 00:08:51,355 --> 00:08:52,557 geographic nature. You 168 00:08:52,640 --> 00:08:57,496 can get the same outcome if you choose to fly the satellites over Russia and you 169 00:08:57,579 --> 00:09:03,151 enable them. As I understand it, it is a policy of SpaceX that it does not do that. 170 00:09:03,234 --> 00:09:05,117 How you would change that is 171 00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:09,617 a political question. Yeah. So either SpaceX could or the it could be asked 172 00:09:09,700 --> 00:09:11,117 to do that were there the 173 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:15,071 political decision or it could be ordered to do so. In the American system, 174 00:09:15,155 --> 00:09:15,757 the president 175 00:09:15,840 --> 00:09:20,797 can order a national security action on a private company and the private company 176 00:09:20,880 --> 00:09:24,530 pretty much has to obey. And you would advocate that? Uh in general, 177 00:09:24,613 --> 00:09:27,197 let's talk about what's coming next. I mean that's 178 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:31,912 all pretty pretty alarming and that's these are the challenges Ukraine faces now 179 00:09:31,996 --> 00:09:32,797 but coming down 180 00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:38,372 the road is you know even greater technical innovation and particularly AI 181 00:09:38,456 --> 00:09:42,405 and you know in most contexts you and I have conversations about what is happening 182 00:09:42,488 --> 00:09:43,357 in Silicon Valley not 183 00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:46,883 what is happening in Ukraine and I wanted to sort of stand back because I think 184 00:09:46,966 --> 00:09:47,597 there's a bit of 185 00:09:47,680 --> 00:09:53,680 misunderstanding about what's going on with AI and this war right now people talk 186 00:09:53,763 --> 00:09:54,957 about is AI being 187 00:09:55,040 --> 00:10:00,312 used but as I understand it what's really being used is quite well-known technology 188 00:10:00,395 --> 00:10:00,957 of machine 189 00:10:01,040 --> 00:10:04,177 vision for final targeting. Could you explain that because I think it's 190 00:10:04,261 --> 00:10:05,357 an important thing to make 191 00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:11,781 clear. So in the progression of war you start with the the person with the soldier 192 00:10:11,865 --> 00:10:15,602 with the bullet with the gun and the bullet and they aim. Um, 193 00:10:15,685 --> 00:10:18,717 at some point it should be relatively straightforward 194 00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:23,935 to have the gun be able to see the subject with a laser or what have you, 195 00:10:24,019 --> 00:10:29,273 identify it, and then the human pulls the button and it always hits. 196 00:10:29,357 --> 00:10:33,277 That analogy scales up in terms of autonomy. So, 197 00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:39,771 it's reasonable to expect that every weapon has a final autonomous seg segment 198 00:10:39,855 --> 00:10:41,437 where basically it's 199 00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:45,031 close enough, it's near the target, it's going to roughly hit the target. 200 00:10:45,114 --> 00:10:48,583 You press a button and it hits it precisely. All of these are not AI. 201 00:10:48,667 --> 00:10:50,717 They're just good computer science, good 202 00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:55,662 computer engineering. Um, artificial intelligence is systems that learn. 203 00:10:55,745 --> 00:10:59,512 And artificial intelligence learn like we do. You know, we sort of learn, 204 00:10:59,596 --> 00:11:01,597 you get smarter and smarter and smarter. You're 205 00:11:01,680 --> 00:11:05,551 self-improving. The technical term is recursive self-improvement. 206 00:11:05,634 --> 00:11:07,437 And we're just beginning to see 207 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:12,892 the use of AI in war. There's a lengthy study on Russian use of the Chinese models 208 00:11:12,975 --> 00:11:17,045 to do some of their decision-making. Um, these are all from leaked memos, 209 00:11:17,128 --> 00:11:18,717 so I don't know what the truth 210 00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:21,745 is. In Ukraine, there's relatively little use of that. 211 00:11:21,828 --> 00:11:24,157 There is a project which has been discussed 212 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:29,423 by the MOD to try to help automate the planning of of war and planning of where 213 00:11:29,507 --> 00:11:30,557 people go. Again, 214 00:11:30,640 --> 00:11:34,238 it's just at the beginning. So, speaking as a computer scientist, 215 00:11:34,321 --> 00:11:35,597 it's pretty obvious what 216 00:11:35,680 --> 00:11:39,801 it should look like. Take all the information that you have all the open 217 00:11:39,885 --> 00:11:41,437 source, all the proprietary, 218 00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:46,781 all the super secret stuff, feed it into one large computer and say what's going 219 00:11:46,864 --> 00:11:51,778 on and have these large language models use tools to do reasoning. To me, 220 00:11:51,861 --> 00:11:54,797 it's it's fantastic. They can think at this 221 00:11:54,880 --> 00:11:57,586 level. They don't think like humans, by the way. 222 00:11:57,669 --> 00:12:00,317 They're reasoning around an objective. It makes 223 00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:05,321 sense to me that eventually you'll say, "How can I best position my assets 224 00:12:05,405 --> 00:12:10,036 to achieve my objective such as winning the war, defending this city, so forth?" 225 00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:12,237 But the more interesting questions are, 226 00:12:12,320 --> 00:12:16,399 why am I losing? Why is this group not as good as the other group? 227 00:12:16,482 --> 00:12:17,597 You want the system 228 00:12:17,680 --> 00:12:23,153 to anticipate that and you want the system to say, "General, you have a problem. 229 00:12:23,236 --> 00:12:27,602 Here is our recommended solution. Can we help you?" That's I think the future. 230 00:12:27,685 --> 00:12:29,277 That's where we're going. Ju I 231 00:12:29,360 --> 00:12:32,905 I wanted to delve into that but just before one more question on this sort 232 00:12:32,988 --> 00:12:33,837 of what's it called 233 00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:38,664 last mile machine vision which is that in another in an earlier show this year uh 234 00:12:38,747 --> 00:12:39,677 with my colleague 235 00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:45,171 Shashank Jooshi Jack um Watling from Russi said that and it was interesting he 236 00:12:45,254 --> 00:12:46,157 that many many 237 00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:50,237 um soldiers in Ukraine were turning this capability off because it actually wasn't 238 00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:57,094 as good as having a a human operator kind of why is that that's called a bug um so I 239 00:12:57,177 --> 00:12:58,320 fly my own jet 240 00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:04,666 And uh there's a general rule that you should fly the last segment of your jet 241 00:13:04,749 --> 00:13:05,837 in coupled mode, 242 00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:10,170 which means the airplane is flying all the way down to the landing point. 243 00:13:10,253 --> 00:13:14,870 But I prefer to turn it off because it's more entertaining for me to fly my jet, 244 00:13:14,954 --> 00:13:16,717 but I'm not in I'm not in a But 245 00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:20,567 you're not in a foxhole in Ukraine. I'm not in a war. Yeah. Right. 246 00:13:20,650 --> 00:13:22,317 So in a war, you'd want to use 247 00:13:22,400 --> 00:13:28,479 a guaranteed solution. So any situation where the terminal guidance as it's called 248 00:13:28,562 --> 00:13:33,422 is not as good as a human is a bug. And now why? So I'll give you an example. 249 00:13:33,506 --> 00:13:35,597 I was in a operation center a while 250 00:13:35,680 --> 00:13:42,680 ago in um very near the nuclear reactor and there was a military target that 251 00:13:44,118 --> 00:13:46,477 the Ukrainians decided 252 00:13:46,560 --> 00:13:51,326 to hit. They used a American product called a Switchblade 600. 253 00:13:51,410 --> 00:13:53,517 We watched it. We saw target 254 00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:58,054 lock and it missed. And I go, "Wow." And they said, "Well, 255 00:13:58,137 --> 00:14:00,557 we have one high Mars we can try 256 00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:05,175 per day." And I said, "Okay." So they launch the high Mars and you wait and then 257 00:14:05,259 --> 00:14:10,025 they said, "Lock, hit," and it missed. Why? Because of jamming. 258 00:14:10,108 --> 00:14:14,237 So it may very well be that the anecdotal example 259 00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:17,671 that you're using is because the human could see the target quite well, 260 00:14:17,754 --> 00:14:18,397 but the jamming 261 00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:23,677 confus and with jamming the confus, right? Okay. And we know how to fix that now. So, 262 00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:26,574 so the important point is that terminal guidance, 263 00:14:26,657 --> 00:14:29,117 which sort of think of it as the last mile, 264 00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:33,864 is crucial for having a precision attack. One of the things that's interesting about 265 00:14:33,948 --> 00:14:34,317 this new 266 00:14:34,400 --> 00:14:39,634 form of war is there's almost no civilian damage that's because the weapons are so 267 00:14:39,717 --> 00:14:40,477 accurate. And 268 00:14:40,560 --> 00:14:45,442 another horrifying fact is that there's almost no survivable injuries. 269 00:14:45,525 --> 00:14:47,357 The drones are so dangerous 270 00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:51,781 that the the soldiers that are being killed are being attacked are in fact 271 00:14:51,864 --> 00:14:53,037 killed. So let's talk 272 00:14:53,120 --> 00:14:57,238 about what the consequences will be when you have real AI when you have 273 00:14:57,321 --> 00:14:58,717 this ability to reason to 274 00:14:58,800 --> 00:15:04,202 infer to learn that that we talk about constantly in Silicon Valley coming here. 275 00:15:04,286 --> 00:15:08,623 Firstly, what does it mean for how autonomous warfare becomes? 276 00:15:08,707 --> 00:15:12,477 Um because now you can have this last mile guidance, 277 00:15:12,560 --> 00:15:17,597 but then presumably you can have the AI not only giving the general some lessons 278 00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:18,557 but providing a 279 00:15:18,640 --> 00:15:22,428 battle plan and and down the road, you know, executing them autonomously. 280 00:15:22,511 --> 00:15:23,277 So let's imagine 281 00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:29,227 I'm an evil dictator and I wake up one day and I have a perfect AI system and I say, 282 00:15:29,310 --> 00:15:34,700 "Attack this country. Tell me when you're done." Right? That's my command. 283 00:15:34,783 --> 00:15:37,360 Notice I didn't say anything else. 284 00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:41,597 the system would be then free to do whatever it thought was appropriate, 285 00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:45,694 which could include massive war crimes, right? All sorts of terrible things. 286 00:15:45,777 --> 00:15:48,752 It could destroy civilians. It could destroy infrastructure. 287 00:15:48,836 --> 00:15:51,357 It might attack another country that was uninvolved 288 00:15:51,440 --> 00:15:56,198 in order to annoy the first country. It it could have all sorts of reasoning that 289 00:15:56,281 --> 00:16:01,030 is not appropriate. It's really important we establish some basic rules about AI 290 00:16:01,113 --> 00:16:02,317 and war. And the most 291 00:16:02,400 --> 00:16:06,443 important one is that there's a human involved in every military decision. 292 00:16:06,526 --> 00:16:07,837 So in other words, attack 293 00:16:07,920 --> 00:16:11,862 this country, call me when you're done. That's not an appropriate command. 294 00:16:11,946 --> 00:16:13,277 The appropriate command is 295 00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:18,101 here as a military target defined by the laws of war in a time bounded time 296 00:16:18,185 --> 00:16:19,517 and space where I have 297 00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:25,983 approval to do that. Any other solution in my view becomes scalably unimaginably 298 00:16:26,066 --> 00:16:27,357 difficult because 299 00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:31,851 once you start letting the computer make the targeting decisions on its own, 300 00:16:31,934 --> 00:16:35,420 you have no real quality control on how it makes its decisions. 301 00:16:35,503 --> 00:16:38,157 You're watching an interview from The Economist. 302 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:42,157 If you want to watch our other interviews, including with Steve Bannon and Benjamin 303 00:16:42,240 --> 00:16:46,614 Netanyahu, subscribe to The Economist by clicking the link above. Now, 304 00:16:46,697 --> 00:16:48,397 back to the interview. There 305 00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:55,023 was a recent example um that alarmed our industry where an open AI essentially 306 00:16:55,106 --> 00:16:56,637 a large set of bots 307 00:16:56,720 --> 00:17:00,880 that were doing something involving testing took their instructions a bit too 308 00:17:00,964 --> 00:17:01,597 literally and 309 00:17:01,680 --> 00:17:06,118 they started to actually attack the system that they were supposed to help and they 310 00:17:06,201 --> 00:17:06,717 manipulated 311 00:17:06,800 --> 00:17:11,128 it by lying, cheating and stealing. And everyone studied this as a good example 312 00:17:11,211 --> 00:17:12,077 as a good sort of 313 00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:18,011 marker of how AI systems can fail. So, another way to say this is if I were 314 00:17:18,095 --> 00:17:21,813 an evil dictator, which I hopefully am not, and I said, "Attack this country. 315 00:17:21,896 --> 00:17:23,437 Let me know what you've done." I'd also 316 00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:28,339 then have to add, "Follow all the laws of war. Don't hit any civilians, 317 00:17:28,423 --> 00:17:29,997 use appropriate caution, 318 00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:34,141 and all the things that human judgment require. Without the human, 319 00:17:34,225 --> 00:17:35,837 the AI is not going to have 320 00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:38,319 that judgment." So, you you make that point very powerfully. 321 00:17:38,403 --> 00:17:39,437 You made it very powerfully 322 00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:42,475 on a panel at the conference you and I are both at this morning and you said if we go 323 00:17:42,558 --> 00:17:46,977 down here we'll end up in a Doctor Strange love situation. However, 324 00:17:47,060 --> 00:17:49,837 we are in a country that is at war with 325 00:17:49,920 --> 00:17:56,495 a country with a dictator who does seem to show no respect for any rules of law, 326 00:17:56,579 --> 00:17:58,077 any law at all. And 327 00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:05,021 so I I wonder whether in the real world of this war it is possible to say we're going 328 00:18:05,105 --> 00:18:05,757 to follow 329 00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:09,191 the rules of war because I I was speaking to a couple of the commanders earlier 330 00:18:09,275 --> 00:18:09,757 this week and 331 00:18:09,840 --> 00:18:14,677 I asked them about this and they're all really worried about what very powerful AI 332 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:15,277 will mean. 333 00:18:15,360 --> 00:18:20,374 They're worried about completely complete autonomy but they basically say if 334 00:18:20,457 --> 00:18:26,038 the enemy is doing this we can't not. So evidence is that that's not true. 335 00:18:26,121 --> 00:18:30,077 evidence in historical context are that there are 336 00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:33,918 some restraints on behavior in war and you can only look up the history of 337 00:18:34,002 --> 00:18:34,957 the Nuremberg trials 338 00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:39,112 to understand what the limits are. There are people held accountable. 339 00:18:39,195 --> 00:18:43,765 Those people were hanged um after a long trial and so forth and so on. 340 00:18:43,849 --> 00:18:47,117 I would assume that that principle will survive 341 00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:53,099 our lives and our really yes I really do. There's this simple logic which says 342 00:18:53,183 --> 00:18:59,357 that and people say it all the time. If if the two are fighting in a death grip, 343 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:01,837 there will be no constraints on 344 00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:05,582 either. Historically, that has not been true. Historically, 345 00:19:05,665 --> 00:19:07,677 there has been justice afterwards 346 00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:12,171 and the people who are participating it are at least aware of their personal 347 00:19:12,254 --> 00:19:16,706 liability and so forth. There are so obviously sociopaths, but in general, 348 00:19:16,790 --> 00:19:19,037 people are subject to the law even in 349 00:19:19,120 --> 00:19:23,299 war. But there are, let's do it in the context of Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. 350 00:19:23,382 --> 00:19:24,477 Look at what happened 351 00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:29,595 in BHA at the beginning. Look at the way he is targeting civilians in cities across 352 00:19:29,678 --> 00:19:30,397 Ukraine. Yes. 353 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:34,892 But they're not stopping him. Well, that's because he hasn't been arrested yet. 354 00:19:34,976 --> 00:19:35,917 But but I guess my 355 00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:40,614 my point is about the logic of this escalation because presumably the more 356 00:19:40,697 --> 00:19:44,922 autonomy you allow an AI as we go up from where we are right now up this scale, 357 00:19:45,005 --> 00:19:46,557 the more effective you will be. 358 00:19:46,640 --> 00:19:49,573 there is a first mover advantage because AI thinks faster. 359 00:19:49,656 --> 00:19:51,757 It's able to come up with a better quicker 360 00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:58,206 solution. So if the Russians have fewer limits and go faster up that escalatory 361 00:19:58,289 --> 00:20:02,480 ladder, Ukraine may have, you know, international law on its side, 362 00:20:02,563 --> 00:20:05,677 but it will be in the here and now less able to defeat 363 00:20:05,760 --> 00:20:09,158 them. The solution will not be to commit war crimes. 364 00:20:09,242 --> 00:20:11,837 The solution will be is to help Ukraine. 365 00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:17,683 I I'm not going to yield on my core point that there is a boundary to what humans 366 00:20:17,766 --> 00:20:18,477 can do. So, 367 00:20:18,560 --> 00:20:22,325 let's use a thought experiment. Let's imagine that Ukraine had some secret 368 00:20:22,408 --> 00:20:23,677 biological weapon, which I 369 00:20:23,760 --> 00:20:26,527 don't think they do, but let's say they did. I'm making that up. 370 00:20:26,610 --> 00:20:27,997 And furthermore, they were forced 371 00:20:28,080 --> 00:20:33,638 to use it against some Russian attack. Would they be prosecuted? Absolutely. 372 00:20:33,721 --> 00:20:35,197 And I'm sure they are 373 00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:38,813 aware of it. Yeah. I I'm not I'm not um I'm not asking you to yield on 374 00:20:38,897 --> 00:20:40,157 a principle. I'm just I am 375 00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:45,770 very struck particularly on this trip at the pace of innovation escalation and so I 376 00:20:45,853 --> 00:20:49,142 think there is a risk that this develops a logic of its own. 377 00:20:49,225 --> 00:20:51,837 So so that's why it's important that humans debate 378 00:20:51,920 --> 00:20:56,539 this stuff. We you and I agree very strongly that the rate of innovation 379 00:20:56,622 --> 00:20:58,237 in this war is faster than 380 00:20:58,320 --> 00:21:02,531 has ever occurred. It's faster than the rate of innovation that I have seen in 381 00:21:02,614 --> 00:21:06,449 my many decades in tech. And the reason is because lives are at stake. 382 00:21:06,532 --> 00:21:08,797 And it turns out it's true on both sides. 383 00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:13,469 The other side is frankly more evil and better funded and has more resources 384 00:21:13,552 --> 00:21:14,637 and they're willing 385 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:19,444 to accept more death than the Ukrainian side. But it's still a fight. 386 00:21:19,528 --> 00:21:24,751 And it's very important, I'll say again, that we help Ukraine fight this war. 387 00:21:24,835 --> 00:21:27,757 What they need is money and help in scaling 388 00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:31,460 and technology. They can fight the war. We don't need to invade. 389 00:21:31,544 --> 00:21:33,197 We don't need to send a lot of 390 00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:36,680 troops and all that kind of stuff people, but they need some help. 391 00:21:36,764 --> 00:21:41,255 They won't make it without some level of help, at least economic. Yeah. So, 392 00:21:41,338 --> 00:21:44,877 the innovations in drone warfare have gone beyond the 393 00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:48,050 theater of this war. I mean, just in the last few days, we've seen, you know, 394 00:21:48,133 --> 00:21:48,957 we've seen the Houthis 395 00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:54,396 effectively shut down uh another exit route for oil products in the Gulf. Um, 396 00:21:54,479 --> 00:21:55,597 do you think that 397 00:21:55,680 --> 00:22:02,337 the US military recognizes the degree to which the nature of war has shifted and 398 00:22:02,420 --> 00:22:05,876 is acting fast enough to transform itself to prevail? Well, 399 00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:08,397 I worked for the US military for eight years in 400 00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:14,180 various under various presidents and there are plenty of people who understand it 401 00:22:14,263 --> 00:22:15,037 and they can 402 00:22:15,120 --> 00:22:19,685 articulate it. They understand this conversation and they're worried about it. 403 00:22:19,768 --> 00:22:20,877 The system is almost 404 00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:25,572 unchangeable. I was talking to one president about it and he said not even 405 00:22:25,655 --> 00:22:26,397 the president 406 00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:31,477 can fix the system and I said well that's a very bad answer and the reason is 407 00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:32,797 that the military is 408 00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:37,648 not run by a single person not even the president although you think they are it's 409 00:22:37,732 --> 00:22:38,477 run by the way 410 00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:42,877 the congress works the way the special interest works the way the lobbying works 411 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:43,757 so my conclusion 412 00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:48,456 is the only way to address this problem in the US military is to allow the US 413 00:22:48,539 --> 00:22:49,677 military to continue 414 00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:53,723 to spend money on the things that have been organized in the various politically 415 00:22:53,806 --> 00:22:54,077 correct 416 00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:59,154 states and uh and so forth and just let that happen while a relatively small 417 00:22:59,238 --> 00:23:00,157 amount of money 418 00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:04,921 um is allocated to this new stuff. The new stuff is far more effective, 419 00:23:05,004 --> 00:23:06,397 far less expensive and 420 00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:11,948 I think will work and that over time even the kerogens on the old side will say look 421 00:23:12,031 --> 00:23:16,331 I really want that new thing because they are sincerely all of them sincerely want 422 00:23:16,414 --> 00:23:17,757 to protect America. There's 423 00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:21,419 no one who want who who's a a traitor in the military. 424 00:23:21,503 --> 00:23:23,997 They just disagree on the tactics. And 425 00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:29,638 what I've learned about militaries is that they're incredibly uh change resistant, 426 00:23:29,722 --> 00:23:30,877 riskresistant. And 427 00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:35,091 the most one possibility is they didn't grow up in an innovative environment, 428 00:23:35,175 --> 00:23:36,077 which is possible. 429 00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:40,146 A there's a long paper that analyzed this that I read and it basically said at 430 00:23:40,230 --> 00:23:40,877 the end of the 431 00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:45,857 day people in the military are more conservative because their loss aversion 432 00:23:45,940 --> 00:23:47,037 is greater because 433 00:23:47,120 --> 00:23:51,388 people die. So if you think about it, if you have a pretty certain model of 434 00:23:51,472 --> 00:23:52,317 an expensive way 435 00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:56,367 to do something and Eric shows up with a cheaper way to do the same thing, 436 00:23:56,451 --> 00:23:57,517 you would never adopt 437 00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:01,550 it because you're certain the more expensive one works and you can't take 438 00:24:01,634 --> 00:24:02,877 the risk. I think that's 439 00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:06,515 the best way to understand what's going on in addition to the political maybe it 440 00:24:06,598 --> 00:24:07,197 takes and maybe 441 00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:12,152 the lesson of Ukraine is you know first of all it happened in after an invasion here 442 00:24:12,235 --> 00:24:13,037 but secondly it 443 00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:18,067 takes people from outside the military I mean the striking thing all of these drone 444 00:24:18,150 --> 00:24:19,037 brigades are led 445 00:24:19,120 --> 00:24:22,857 by people who in a former life were civilians tech you know tech leaders 446 00:24:22,940 --> 00:24:24,237 business leaders they took 447 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:28,557 all the traditional Soviet generals and they all retired them for the same reason 448 00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:29,357 so that because 449 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:32,175 it it it I mean you've given a very good answer about the United states. 450 00:24:32,259 --> 00:24:33,037 I'm wondering what you 451 00:24:33,120 --> 00:24:37,122 think about Europe's recognition of the scale of which war change because in some 452 00:24:37,205 --> 00:24:40,396 ways Europe is more vulnerable. I mean it's right here on our doorstep. 453 00:24:40,479 --> 00:24:41,917 So the Europeans I've spoken with 454 00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:45,410 all have the same problem that the US people do. They're very smart. 455 00:24:45,493 --> 00:24:46,797 They understand the problem 456 00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:52,418 but the system is not organized around change. In most European countries, 457 00:24:52,501 --> 00:24:54,317 the militaries operate as 458 00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,218 jobs programs. And those are important jobs. I'm not taking away. 459 00:24:57,301 --> 00:24:58,557 But they're building the wrong 460 00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:03,613 thing. So here's my deal. You can keep the exact budget that you have. In fact, 461 00:25:03,696 --> 00:25:04,637 you can increase 462 00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:08,987 it. Just build more effective things because you're going to need them. 463 00:25:09,071 --> 00:25:10,397 For example, in Europe, 464 00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:14,323 there's a huge problem with missile defense. And for all sorts of reasons, 465 00:25:14,406 --> 00:25:17,745 the Patriot missiles, which they rely on, are not available enough. 466 00:25:17,829 --> 00:25:20,157 We now understand looking at missile stocks and 467 00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:23,771 so forth on the Western side, we don't have enough of them. Now, 468 00:25:23,854 --> 00:25:24,957 since we don't have a 469 00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:28,682 lot more money to spend because these economies are struggling with debt and so 470 00:25:28,765 --> 00:25:29,437 forth and so on, 471 00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:34,747 you have to come up with new solutions. I show up with an argument that I have 472 00:25:34,831 --> 00:25:35,837 cheaper, better, 473 00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:42,282 faster, just use my architecture with all the companies that represent new war 474 00:25:42,366 --> 00:25:43,357 and spend the 475 00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,768 same amount of money. The only reason that doesn't occur is because the incumbents 476 00:25:46,851 --> 00:25:49,997 don't want to make the change. I think that's one powerful reason. 477 00:25:50,081 --> 00:25:52,637 I think the other reason is that you're, you know, 478 00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:55,170 we're now a bit skeptical of American companies. 479 00:25:55,254 --> 00:25:57,757 We're a bit worried about that. I understand. And 480 00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:03,654 um it doesn't employ many people. Um I can assure you that if you were to take all 481 00:26:03,737 --> 00:26:07,553 the people in the militaries in Germany, the UK, and so forth, 482 00:26:07,637 --> 00:26:10,717 and you simply reassign them to an architecture that 483 00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:13,729 was AI, automatic targeting, missiles and drones, 484 00:26:13,812 --> 00:26:16,557 and some ships to move them around, you'd have 485 00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:20,876 full employment. Every job would change, but every job would still exist. 486 00:26:20,959 --> 00:26:24,986 And European labor laws don't allow you to lay off people anyway. So trust me, 487 00:26:25,069 --> 00:26:27,277 those people will still have jobs. What about 488 00:26:27,360 --> 00:26:31,327 the idea that at least for Europe, Ukraine becomes the vehicle through this which 489 00:26:31,410 --> 00:26:32,077 this happens? I 490 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:35,133 mean, that struck me so much on this trip that we have the solution for Europe 491 00:26:35,216 --> 00:26:35,917 sitting here staring 492 00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,314 us in the face. I have said that publicly and I've said that to my Ukrainian friends 493 00:26:39,397 --> 00:26:42,463 because I want to encourage them to sell to Europe. 494 00:26:42,547 --> 00:26:45,997 Every European government I talk to says, "Your ideas 495 00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:51,772 are great. it needs to be built here. So the most likely scenario in that scenario 496 00:26:51,856 --> 00:26:55,512 is Ukraine will license their technology to the European countries, 497 00:26:55,595 --> 00:26:57,517 which they should. They'll get a nice 498 00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:02,415 fee and the Europeans will build them at twice the price of eur of Ukrainians. 499 00:27:02,498 --> 00:27:06,822 And that's okay in a rich democracy, which we can debate whether it's rich or not. 500 00:27:06,905 --> 00:27:08,397 But the part of the reason the 501 00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,462 Ukrainian stuff is so effective is the people who work so hard. 502 00:27:11,546 --> 00:27:13,117 When you go to the companies here, 503 00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:16,576 so and I've invested and worked with them pretty closely. 504 00:27:16,659 --> 00:27:21,418 There are it looks like China, you have and I mean that in the work ethic sense. 505 00:27:21,502 --> 00:27:24,317 You have these long pe long buildings which are 506 00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,678 often underground now of people in white jackets sitting shoulders shoulder. 507 00:27:28,762 --> 00:27:32,608 They work for 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, which is a Chinese. 508 00:27:32,691 --> 00:27:34,477 That's more than China. China's 966, 509 00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,340 right? So it's the work ethic is extraordinary. And they're all men. 510 00:27:37,423 --> 00:27:42,157 And do you know why they're all men? because if you work in such a factory, 511 00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,837 you get an exemption from the draft. I I didn't 512 00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:49,423 know they were all men. Um there are a lot of women involved in in elements of 513 00:27:49,506 --> 00:27:53,757 this too, but but what's noticeable is I said there why and they're all, you know, 514 00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,289 men of military age. And the answer is why do they work so hard? 515 00:27:57,373 --> 00:27:59,277 If they get fired, they go to the go 516 00:27:59,360 --> 00:28:04,151 to the front. Interesting. You mentioned China and I wanted to to ask you about how 517 00:28:04,234 --> 00:28:04,797 what you've 518 00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:11,504 seen happen here in terms of techled innovations in warfare has changed 519 00:28:11,587 --> 00:28:13,677 your view of how the US 520 00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:18,487 and China should or how this race technological race would will will 521 00:28:18,570 --> 00:28:20,397 develop. I mean you've been 522 00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:24,873 you played a huge role in this thinking through how to ensure that the US stays 523 00:28:24,957 --> 00:28:25,837 ahead in AI. Does 524 00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:30,136 what you've seen here change your perception of where that will go, 525 00:28:30,219 --> 00:28:31,997 what China will end up doing, 526 00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:37,626 and who will be ahead? And my general belief is that we're extremely fortunate 527 00:28:37,710 --> 00:28:38,637 that China has 528 00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:43,117 been copying what we're doing because what we're doing needs to change and therefore 529 00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:43,757 they'll have 530 00:28:43,840 --> 00:28:48,856 hysteresis in terms of changing. Um, if you think about it for a while, 531 00:28:48,939 --> 00:28:53,212 China already has the world's largest drone manufacturer, which is DJI, 532 00:28:53,296 --> 00:28:55,757 which America has just recently banned. Um, 533 00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,112 there's every reason to think, and I don't know this, 534 00:28:58,196 --> 00:29:02,490 that they have a military equivalent, or maybe there's a military sub subdivision. 535 00:29:02,574 --> 00:29:05,597 The reason to think that we are better off than we 536 00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,439 think is that China's not fought a war in 50 years. 537 00:29:08,522 --> 00:29:10,557 There's no reason to believe that they 538 00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:14,591 understand the very subtle tactics. When you met with the commanders and when I 539 00:29:14,674 --> 00:29:19,155 talked to them, when you actually ask them what are they actually doing, 540 00:29:19,238 --> 00:29:21,597 their reasoning is worldclass subtle 541 00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,498 thinking. I want to do this, this, this, this will happen and so forth and so on. 542 00:29:25,581 --> 00:29:26,317 You learn that by 543 00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:30,053 doing. There's every reason to think that China has no experience with that. 544 00:29:30,137 --> 00:29:35,713 There's no doctrine. There's no books. You can't study it. So, we may be okay. Um, 545 00:29:35,797 --> 00:29:38,397 with respect to the uh the Pacific, 546 00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:43,522 the Pacific area and so forth, there's a publicly discussed plan to protect 547 00:29:43,605 --> 00:29:44,957 the Taiwan Strait and 548 00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:49,997 so forth. I don't know, but I'm assuming that that will ultimately be a drone war 549 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:50,557 and not a 550 00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:55,117 ship war. If you think about it, you don't really want to put a ship that close 551 00:29:55,201 --> 00:29:56,157 to China. You want 552 00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,727 to put a drone ship with drones in it because you don't want the people to be 553 00:29:59,810 --> 00:30:03,767 killed. So, it makes sense to me that all the arguments that we see here are also 554 00:30:03,850 --> 00:30:04,637 applicable to the 555 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:10,637 Pacific. Big ships, big aircraft carriers are easy to hit, easy to blow up, 556 00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:11,997 and so forth. Um, 557 00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:17,437 drone ships are are harder. Drones are are harder to detect. You see this in Iran 558 00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:21,075 um with the problems we're having keeping the straight open. 559 00:30:21,158 --> 00:30:23,197 Um I think that uh my understanding 560 00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:28,219 again this is public information that China has a very large set of missiles 561 00:30:28,303 --> 00:30:29,277 that are land to 562 00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:33,934 sea. We would need to have anti-missiles. I don't know if we do or not that could 563 00:30:34,018 --> 00:30:34,797 that could deal 564 00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:39,632 deal with that threat. So if you it maps pretty well to the current belief in 565 00:30:39,715 --> 00:30:40,720 the China fight. 566 00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:47,223 What about could could the military area be an area where you might between China 567 00:30:47,306 --> 00:30:48,237 and the United 568 00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:52,835 States be able to reach some agreement over norms to go back to where you were 569 00:30:52,918 --> 00:30:53,837 earlier? I wonder 570 00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:58,155 because there's a lot of talk now given the pace at which AI capabilities are 571 00:30:58,238 --> 00:30:59,277 increasing very real 572 00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:03,144 fears of you know 100% recursive self-improvement and outofc control AI 573 00:31:03,227 --> 00:31:04,397 and people are debating 574 00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:08,825 whether you know the US should pause whether or companies should pause whether 575 00:31:08,908 --> 00:31:09,677 there should be 576 00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:12,881 some regulation and there are many who say we can't do that because China will be 577 00:31:12,964 --> 00:31:13,277 ahead well 578 00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:17,849 first place we're not going to do a pause because the entire incentive system 579 00:31:17,932 --> 00:31:19,037 in America is not to 580 00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:24,051 pause and furthermore if you do a pause you do really open it up to competitive 581 00:31:24,135 --> 00:31:28,098 either local, you know, a local competitor violates the rules or the global. 582 00:31:28,181 --> 00:31:29,917 So there's not going to be a pause. 583 00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:34,077 The right thing to do is to invent this future while also invent the solutions 584 00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:38,127 to the problems that you're creating. It's just occurring quickly. 585 00:31:38,210 --> 00:31:41,117 Um so an example here is there's some evidence 586 00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:48,200 that you can take a new model that you um shows up and use the previous one which 587 00:31:48,516 --> 00:31:49,517 is typically 588 00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:54,592 four months older to supervise the new model. It looks like that works. 589 00:31:54,676 --> 00:31:56,237 People are trying that. 590 00:31:56,320 --> 00:32:01,087 We'll see if that's technically true at scale. Um, if you look at China, 591 00:32:01,171 --> 00:32:02,637 there is no question we 592 00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:09,029 are in an an AI race that is profound between the Chinese approach and 593 00:32:09,112 --> 00:32:11,677 the American approach. You're 594 00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:15,868 watching an interview from The Economist. If you want to watch our other interviews, 595 00:32:15,951 --> 00:32:16,317 including 596 00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:20,824 with Mark Carney and Dario Amade, subscribe to The Economist by clicking 597 00:32:20,908 --> 00:32:22,077 the link above. Now, 598 00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,906 back to the interview. And the easiest way to understand that is would you prefer 599 00:32:25,989 --> 00:32:31,267 to have your day-to-day life intermediated by an American model or a Chinese model? 600 00:32:31,350 --> 00:32:35,877 I think as westerners we prefer an American or American and British model. 601 00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,877 So that to me is the interesting fight. There's a 602 00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:41,990 series of uh track two and track one dialogues. 603 00:32:42,073 --> 00:32:45,037 I'm participated in one track two. There was a 604 00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:49,551 big meeting in Vienna where both sides are now talking this through. 605 00:32:49,634 --> 00:32:51,277 The simplest thing that we 606 00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:55,943 need to do is to avoid surprises. Henry Kissinger, our mutual friend, 607 00:32:56,026 --> 00:32:57,837 who we miss dearly, was very 608 00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:03,576 concerned that a single event would spiral in the same way that World War I did 609 00:33:03,660 --> 00:33:04,957 from the killing of 610 00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:10,823 the Arch Duke into a total conflration that that once the process started because 611 00:33:10,906 --> 00:33:11,837 of nationalism 612 00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:17,099 and tensions and lack of communications, you can end up in a horrible, 613 00:33:17,183 --> 00:33:21,397 horrible war. A war with China would be just terrible, right? 614 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,717 It would destroy so much of our modern lives in 615 00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:30,163 and all of those kinds of But should there be I mean I obviously completely agree 616 00:33:30,246 --> 00:33:34,758 with you that a war with China would be horrific, possibly existential, 617 00:33:34,841 --> 00:33:36,717 but do you think there is room 618 00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:43,800 for some kind of limitations, mutually agreed limitations on AI between China 619 00:33:44,043 --> 00:33:45,277 and the United 620 00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:49,887 States? I mean, we have the meeting coming up between President Xi and President 621 00:33:49,971 --> 00:33:50,637 Trump. And A, 622 00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:54,903 do you think it's sensible? And B, do you think that the military area in a sort 623 00:33:54,987 --> 00:33:59,574 of modern-day equivalent of nuclear arms agreements would be an area to start? So, 624 00:33:59,658 --> 00:34:04,585 we all believe that there needs to be a set of treaties in this area. 625 00:34:04,669 --> 00:34:08,877 The first treaty needs to be one about no surprises. 626 00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:15,427 So imagine a situation where an agent bot manages to get out of its testing range 627 00:34:15,510 --> 00:34:16,317 by accident 628 00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:21,091 um and but ultimately triggers a nuclear response because it signals that there's 629 00:34:21,175 --> 00:34:24,353 one coming and then the nuclear response happens automatically. 630 00:34:24,436 --> 00:34:26,637 There there are plenty of such scenarios that 631 00:34:26,720 --> 00:34:31,455 analysts have come up with. So the single most important thing is a no surprises 632 00:34:31,539 --> 00:34:36,127 rule, right? And the next one would be to attack the question of cyber. 633 00:34:36,210 --> 00:34:38,077 Neither side has been willing 634 00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:42,142 to limit its use of cyber attack, offensive or defensive capability. 635 00:34:42,226 --> 00:34:46,686 If you can't agree to that, it's going to be hard to agree to much more. And so, 636 00:34:46,769 --> 00:34:49,277 and you don't think even in principle a mutual 637 00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:56,360 agreement on pausing would make sense? I think it's the problem with pausing 638 00:34:57,074 --> 00:35:02,047 is first place um it's counter to the incentives of all the players of course. 639 00:35:02,131 --> 00:35:04,157 The second is how do you verify? Okay. 640 00:35:04,240 --> 00:35:09,414 So, for purposes of argument, the UN will in will administer the pause. So, 641 00:35:09,498 --> 00:35:10,957 that that's now you're 642 00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:14,305 really condemning it to failure. No, but we have an international body and they're 643 00:35:14,388 --> 00:35:18,103 supposed to be helping and both are on the security council. Okay. So, 644 00:35:18,187 --> 00:35:20,157 now how do they verify it? So, then 645 00:35:20,240 --> 00:35:24,047 they have to go to the secret labs which includes the military secret labs and they 646 00:35:24,130 --> 00:35:24,797 have to read all 647 00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:28,240 the code. Well, first you can't read all the code because it's all written 648 00:35:28,323 --> 00:35:29,357 by computers. So now you 649 00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:33,797 have to take your computer system from the UN and you have to apply it to the Chinese 650 00:35:33,881 --> 00:35:34,477 system. Well, 651 00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:40,494 the UN's system is not as fast or modern if you will than the Chinese or the US one 652 00:35:40,578 --> 00:35:43,905 by definition because they don't have all the resources. 653 00:35:43,989 --> 00:35:47,197 So you see how um I wrote a paper a while ago which said 654 00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:52,556 there is a solution to this and the solution is to have what we called mutual 655 00:35:52,639 --> 00:35:58,557 AI destruction. And the idea was that as we go up and up this competition list, 656 00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:01,997 you have to give the other side a chance to 657 00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:06,589 say you've gone too far. So we proposed that rather than bombing each other's data 658 00:36:06,672 --> 00:36:07,037 centers, 659 00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:10,884 we would just have a computer that would shut down the power to the data center 660 00:36:10,967 --> 00:36:11,517 in such a way 661 00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:15,654 it couldn't be restored for a while. So when when the other side got farther 662 00:36:15,737 --> 00:36:20,694 along, you could shut off its and and they could obviously do the same thing to you. 663 00:36:20,777 --> 00:36:22,957 This was intended as a serious point 664 00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,216 and but it's also sort of far sounds like a modern day Doctor Strange level. 665 00:36:26,299 --> 00:36:27,117 But but the important 666 00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:31,832 point is that it in this particular formulation it would allow when somebody 667 00:36:31,915 --> 00:36:33,197 got well ahead of you, 668 00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:36,919 you could shut them down and then they could shut you down and then you restart. 669 00:36:37,002 --> 00:36:37,757 That's another way 670 00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:42,957 of addressing this pause issue. I mean, we need a solution that's implementable for a 671 00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:46,902 pause and I don't see it. We we do. That's the alarming thing you just said. 672 00:36:46,986 --> 00:36:50,727 We need a solution that's implementable and you don't see it. 673 00:36:50,810 --> 00:36:54,237 And I and to conclude I I as you know I'm we know I 674 00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,477 know we know each other reasonably well. I'm basically an optimist and I'm always 675 00:36:57,560 --> 00:36:57,757 looking 676 00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:02,002 on the upside. But I have to say in the last few weeks my general optimism has 677 00:37:02,086 --> 00:37:03,037 been a bit knocked. 678 00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:08,278 firstly by what's been happening in Silicon Valley and the the fact that there 679 00:37:08,362 --> 00:37:09,757 are growing numbers of 680 00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:14,890 researchers in these companies themselves alarmed about the dynamic of not being 681 00:37:14,973 --> 00:37:15,917 able to pause as 682 00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:19,744 you say and secondly by what I've seen here which is even we're well we're 683 00:37:19,827 --> 00:37:21,037 nowhere near the frontier 684 00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:25,773 of AI that we could be at in a few years and yet you see this escalation 685 00:37:25,856 --> 00:37:26,957 of innovation that 686 00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:31,453 seems to me to be ever more lethal. So so the counterargument is to be optimistic. 687 00:37:31,536 --> 00:37:31,837 Give me 688 00:37:31,920 --> 00:37:37,677 some reasons for optimism. You're building a kind of intelligence that's nonhuman but 689 00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:41,977 under our control. Can we keep it under control? I believe we can. 690 00:37:42,060 --> 00:37:43,997 Partly because we at some level 691 00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:47,489 can pull the plug. Uh you always have the issue of a terrorist group. 692 00:37:47,572 --> 00:37:48,957 Let's assume terrorists don't 693 00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:52,483 have access to this because they can't get enough data centers to do it. 694 00:37:52,567 --> 00:37:53,757 Then diplomacy between the 695 00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:59,328 countries should allow us to keep effective human control on these systems. 696 00:37:59,411 --> 00:38:04,173 They will move quickly, but fundamentally they'll be under human control. 697 00:38:04,256 --> 00:38:07,117 I honestly believe that as long as AI is under 698 00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:11,597 human control and under human alignment, it will be okay. That is my opinion. Well, 699 00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:17,553 I have to say I really, really hope you're right. Eric Schmidt, 700 00:38:17,636 --> 00:38:21,040 thank you very much. Thank you, Zan.