What problem have you thought about longer than most people? Why does it matter to you?
What's going to be the future of work? That is a problem that I've thought a lot about, and I have come to, I think, a very niche conclusion about it, well not niche in the way of the outcome, but niche in the way of how we are going to get to that outcome. It matters to me because it's literally the path that human civilisation is going to take or the path rather that makes more sense for civilisation to take. It will drastically change how we view the world and how the world works fundamentally because work generates capital and capital is what runs the world. So, if you try to think about the future of work in a certain way, then you are essentially creating bias for the outcome of the world, which is wrong. And so you have to think about it in a very proactive and 1st principles way so that you don't create any bias along the way. A very easy way to think about it is how would work have been done before a certain period, right? So if we're in 2026 right now, how would work have been done in, say, 2010 and when you get to that view, right? Then you start thinking about how work would have done in 1990s and then you just sort of repeat this pattern until you get to a very period where you're not really sure of how it worked anymore. And that is the unbiassed view that you have. And I think going forward in a world where there is going to be so many AI and robots around us, the human computer interaction layer is going to be so seamless that many of us are never going to have to work again because everything that we work towards is probably going to be done. better and faster and cheaper by agent. So, There are 2 sides to this problem. One is how do we, one, get to that point or rather for some people, how do we avoid getting to that point? And 2 is what work do then humans do and if we get to that point. So I've been able to draw a pretty decent and workable conclusion according to me for the 1st problem. And my view on it is that we're going to get there and we're getting there sooner than most of us expect. And so, there need to be systems in place to achieve that reality in a way that it's not counterintuitive to survival of the human civilisation.
What is something people do manually today that shouldn't exist?
Work. work is something that people still do today, that shouldn't be, right? If we look at our ancestors, humans are meant to be out in the wild, hunting, not sitting on laptop screens, and interacting with AI, or any interface that isn't even human. Where inherently social beings and we've got to exercise that right again, it's almost like that aspect of civilization has just been forgotten or is only limited to the affluent class who have quite a lot of time to spend on these social incentives. So, the leverage that AI will give us is not that it does work faster, right? That is a very obvious advantage, the leverage that AI gives us now is that, regardless of your social class, you are now entitled to your job being done in a much faster way, whether your employer lets you do the job or hires AI to do it for you, which means replaces you, is a different question. But what it leverages you with is time, you know, time to do other things, namely social interactions, being more out there, acquiring taste, immersing yourself in culture, you know, all that 3rd world. Stuff that we used to associate only the rich with. I think that with the advent of AI, it's become more in the hands of even people from a substantially lower class of society.
What would make you quit?
That's a good question because I really don't think I would quit. I could quit on a certain problem, but I wouldn't quit on the vision right? And that's why a lot of people and a lot of great companies pivot because you never truly know what you want, really, until you've dug deep, right? And you either realize that you want it or you realize that you want it but through another path. So I don't know if that classifies as quitting. I mean, sure it does quitting on a certain path, but not on the problem. Right? I would never quit on a problem that I put my heart and mind behind because not only has it consumed a lot of my time, which is valuable, but every time you think of quitting, you need to realize that you're much closer to the end than you are to the beginning. Unless you're objectively quite close to the beginning, then you should definitely, uh, if provoked, think of a different problem. But, The amount of time that I've put into a problem like this, right? I will never be able to, even if I want to quit the problem because it will always keep nudging me, that's just my nature. So rather than quitting on the problem, I would say that I'm statistically much more likely to quit on a certain solution to solve the problem rather than abandon the problem as a whole.
What changes a person more - responsibility or failure? Why?
I think what changes a person more is failure and more specifically the failure to rise up to a certain responsibility that you've been given. I think when mistowed upon with a certain responsibility, be it great or small. A person is almost owed to the universe that they rise up to this occasion and do their best to achieve a certain outcome, and the failure to do so, which is also good because it shapes you more than success would. The failure to rise up to a certain responsibility, or even, you know, given a small task, puts you into a deep state of introspection, and that is where the real magic happens where a person is criticising themselves rather than spewing stuff at the situation or blaming it on other factors. And I think it's very important to be in a sense of introspection, not all the time, but at least on the times you fail or Don't deliver a certain quality of work, so I think failure shapes a person in far greater ways than only responsibility does, because executed right responsibility can lead to success, Which is very good. Don't get me wrong, but the failure to live up to that responsibility is what leads to introspection, and that is the real game changer.