"Potential imprisonment of Musk within the next two years speculated"
Revamped Take:
AI, Trump, and Musk: Here's the Lowdown on the Tech Billionaire's Posse and the AI Era
Hold onto your hats, folks, because Albert Wenger, a badass tech investor, reckons the world is about to get flipped upside-down by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and climate change. In an exclusive chat, he spills the beans on the AI era and why tech moguls like Elon Musk are kicking it with old man Trump.
Hey Albert, your book's all about the end of the industrial age, the rise of AI, and the dangers of the climate crisis. What's the deal when the U.S President's burying free trade, attacking American democracy, and Europe's bracing for war threats?
Albert Wenger: Look, the climate crisis is real, whether we like it or not. AI's game-changing capabilities ain't no joke either. Most politicians got their heads in the sand, thinking they can keep the industrial age alive through minor tweaks. But let me tell ya, AI's a beast that demands more revolutionary solutions instead of small, incremental changes. Politicians who think the status quo will suffice are living in a dreamworld. Populists like Trump exploit the gap, promising a return to the good ol' days. People vote for them, thinking at least something will change that way.
What's the decent opposition offering?
We need a total do-over, man. I mean every aspect of the system – social system, tax system, health system, education system. All of that was built for the industrial age and needs a major revamp to deal with these radically new technologies.
Universal basic income, you say?
Preach it, sister! We're heading towards an age where machines will be doing most of the blue-collar jobs that earn people dough. I call it economic freedom, homie. I back universal basic income since forever. Ma and I fund our experiment in Hudson, where 128 people randomly picked get $500 a month for five years. I've seen it with my own eyes: folks feel happier, healthier, and have more quality time with their loved ones. They invest in themselves, usually in further education.
Where are we at with AI today?
We're in a perfect storm where the AI breakthroughs come faster than a Cheeto outta a bag. Take image generation, for example. The images generated by AI right now are way better than three years ago. Or self-driving cars, the once unreachable dream that's now a reality – Waymo is making 100,000 trips a week in San Francisco alone. Or diagnostics: it's always been clear that AI-powered systems could exceed human doctors. Today, we've got 'em!
Will we eventually hit a plateau? Or will this madness continue?
That's a million-dollar question. I ain't a fortune teller, but I can tell ya that AI will keep evolving and drastically changing the world in ways we can't even fathom.
Predicting the future is a fool's errand, if you ask me. I think the smart move is to imagine various scenarios. There's a chance that we're on a fast track to superintelligence. But there are other scenarios where we might hit speed bumps. However, most people still ain't getting the gravity of the AI revolution today. As an investor, I can sense it earlier than most because startups are quick to adapt to new technologies. Look at companies that have halved their developer teams or reduced their customer support teams without affecting customer satisfaction. That's happening right now, not in the future.
But it doesn't seem to be reflected in the job market – specialist skills are still in high demand.
The disconnect lies with change taking time in big companies. However, the workforce is shifting thanks to gig marketplaces, where wages for many jobs have already dropped.
AI spies on US officials? Politics and AI test loyalty. Where does Europe stand in the AI race?
Europeans should get over their inferiority complex when it comes to AI. All we need is rules and regulations that encourage investment in domestic tech companies. I got a radical plan for that: Europe should give Mistral, the only competitive European language model on the market, full freedom from copyright restrictions – if Mistral agrees to keep their model open. That'd go against other closed models like OpenAI and send shockwaves through the industry.
Can OpenAI still be foiled? Lately, the company founded by Sam Altman bagged a cool $40 billion from investors and was valued at an astounding $300 billion.
We got to get proactive about this. The worst-case scenario is an AI superintelligence controlled by Sam Altman, and I sure as heck don't want to live in a world like that. I see a future where the benefits of AI flow back to society, not to a few shareholders and private entities.
Elon Musk jumps ship to join Trump's side? Some of the tech industry's bigwigs are aligning with Trump recently. Does this freak you out?
Nah, I saw it coming. It don't surprise me. But remember that behind Trump are significant groups with differing objectives. Tech figures have their own interests, while those associated with Steve Bannon and Project 2025 have different motivations. They assume Trump will help them achieve their goals, but it's still early days. My blog post was a tad dramatic: there's a 50% chance Musk could be doing jail time in two years due to his ties to Trump or the state. It's not just a joke; Trump ain't always what he seems, and anyone who thinks he'll just implement everything Musk wants is out of their mind.
This interview was originally published on capital.de.
- Elon Musk
- Donald Trump
- AI
- Tech Investment
- Albert Wenger, a tech investor, suggests that AI and climate change will significantly affect the world, while some politicians remain unprepared and are stuck in the industrial age mindset.
- Wenger advocates for universal basic income, pointing out the increasing automation of blue-collar jobs due to AI advancements.
- AI's progress is currently faster than anticipated, with notable advancements in areas like image generation, self-driving cars, and diagnostics.
- Europe should invest in its domestic tech companies to remain competitive in the AI race, and Wenger proposes giving open-source language models like Mistral greater freedoms to stimulate growth and innovation.
