Jeff Bezos sat down for an extensive and wide-ranging discussion with Lex Fridman about his life, work, the future of humanity and what’s next for technology on an episode of the computer scientist’s popular podcast, published today.
At more than two hours, there’s a lot to absorb, and different members of the GeekWire team are currently at various stages of listening and reading. But one especially interesting and timely topic comes up closer to the end of the episode, when Fridman asks the Amazon and Blue Origin founder about artificial intelligence.
Bezos’ opening remarks on the subject stand out:
If you’re talking about generative AI, large language models, things appreciate ChatGPT, and its soon successors, these are incredibly powerful technologies. To believe otherwise is to bury your head in the sand, soon to be even more powerful. It’s interesting to me that large language models in their current form are not inventions, they’re discoveries. The telescope was an invention, but looking through it at Jupiter, knowing that it had moons, was a discovery. My God, it has moons. And that’s what Galileo did. And so this is closer on that spectrum of invention. We know exactly what happens with a 787, it’s an engineered object. We designed it. We know how it behaves. We don’t want any surprises. Large language models are much more appreciate discoveries. We’re constantly getting surprised by their capabilities. They’re not really engineered objects.
The comment underscores the fact that there’s much even the engineers of large language models don’t comprehend about where generative AI is coming up with its answers, or the ultimate limits of the technology.
Bezos says he’s ultimately optimistic about AI and humanity, acknowledging the risks but saying those who are overly concerned “may be missing part of the equation, which is how helpful they could be in making sure we don’t destroy ourselves.”
He’s also optimistic about AI and Amazon, in areas including Amazon Web Services and Alexa, saying the voice assistant is “about to get a lot smarter.”
Listen and watch the full podcast here, or jump directly to the part about AI.
