The future of AI might look a lot like Twitter
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Welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of pot farms. I'm your friend David piers. And this is the second epsom in arming I series, all about A I in the real world. A I is so abstract, and it's a term that we now use in so many ways that honestly, I can feel sort of meaningless.

So we've been on a quest to find actual examples of actual A I showing up and being useful, or at the very least, interesting in our actual lives for this episode, the last one in our little series, for now, I have a feeling, will come back to this subject. Put last one for now, i'm talking to Michael samon, who recently launched an APP called social A I that has become kind of a viral phenomenon on the internet. Look IT into what IT is and how IT works in pretty serious detail here.

But basically, I explained social AI this way. Imagine a social network, twitter, or threats or whatever. But every user other than you, every single one other than you, is a boy. Does that not? Interesting, pointless, terrible, disown an amazing, maybe all of those things.

I wasn't sure where I fell on that line when I started talking to my, but we ended up having, Frankly, one of the most fun conversations i've had in a while all about how A I works and how we're actually supposed to use IT spoiler alert. He thinks about this less as a network and more as an interface. And I find that fascinating.

We happen to agree actually, Michelle, I that a chat, but cannot possibly be the future of everything in technology. And Michael has some big ideas about what else we might be able to do. All that is coming up in just a second.

But first I have to tell my boss what's going on. They worried when i'm gone for too long. This is the forecast.

What we're right back. Support for the verge cast comes from strike. Strike is a payment and billing platform supporting millions of businesses around the world, including companies like uber, B M W and door dash. Stripe has help countless startups and establish companies like reach groth s, make progress on their emissions and reach more customers globally.

The platform offers a sweet of specialized features and tools to bash track growth like stripe billing, which makes IT easy to handle subscription based charges, invoices and all reoccur ring revenue management needs. You can learn how stripe helps companies of all sizes make progress at stripe out com that striped out com to learn more, make progress. Welcome back.

Let's get into my conversation with Michael salmon from social A I. Michael had kind of a fascinating history in the test induction. By the way, he got a job at the facebook when he was seventeen, after mark socker work discovered an APP written and just offered him a job.

I think he was an internship, but he ended up working there for a while. After that, he went to google to work on google assistant. Then he went to robo ks and then twitter.

He's been through a surprising number of the biggest and most interesting companies in tech. And in particular, he's seen a huge part of the evolution of social media and social networks. He worked on stories and instagram.

He worked on status and whats up. He worked on shorts at youtube, like I said, he worked at twitter and all bunch of other things. And now he's on his own.

He's building apps through his one man start up that he calls friendly apps. At the beginning of our conversation, Michael told me he had been thinking about building an A I social network through much of that time. The idea for what would become social e eye has been in his head for a really long time. It's just that until now, he couldn't actually pull IT off.

I actually tried to building a version of social eyes like five years ago, and the texians wasn't there. And IT was really bad. What was IT five years ago? I was, I mean, I call IT the influencer. And the idea was that anyone could be an influencer like i've been trying to do this for a while, but IT IT quite wasn't there.

Um I originally, you know because we don't have the language models we we try to build IT and by we I mean just me but trying to build this to to kind of like give people the feeling of a social media but not really having to deal with all of IT. Um the the idea was like, okay, if someone if someone's addicted to cigarettes, how do you get them off of IT? Well, you can just tell them to stop.

Maybe it's like giving them something, maybe like a nicotine patch or something, right? So like what what is the way that you get somebody to like be able to get that experience out the way, but maybe not, you know, harm themselves or feel bad? So so, so I built that.

I didn't really look quite right. And IT IT didn't work well. So I I didn't ship IT.

What did IT feel like actually, before we get to the ChatGPT thing of IT, all because that there's an interesting sort of history of tech story there. But yes, like when you build the thing before, in in the before, what what didn't work? What didn't feel right? Like what wasn't ready.

I just could not simulate the entire social network in a way that felt interesting, even mildly. Um like I I did the approach that google IT like I used I used to work at google, I used to work at a facebook um and I took a similar approach to all of the assistance that there were at the time, giant fl statements, right like just massive and okay like a kind of worked but like everything else before these language models can of took gov.

IT was very robotic and very um conditional right depending on what you rode in. And IT just didn't quite feel IT just didn't let you forget about the technology like you were reminded in the APP that like you had to like do certain things to get certain comments. And and so at that point, IT was really more of a game, like I decided IT more like a game because the technology just wasn't there.

So like make a simulated social network, not feel like a game um and so I had to go that right. But but even then IT IT just IT did not feel right users if I imagine if they were to try IT a would have felt like this APP was more like a farm bill game and less like a social network. And and honestly, I just that's not what I was trying to build.

I was trying to build something that felt like a social 点 ork， and so I had to wait. Um then then once the the early versions of GPT uh three point five came out, I thought, okay, let me give IT in to the shot and try to design a version of IT. The model would sometimes say random stuff.

IT was extremely expensive to run all love, the different prompts and things that that I needed for IT to work. And I told myself like there is no way i'm gonna be able to run this at this cost. And it's completely fussy and the responses are no good.

And so I said, okay, well, I have to wait. I have to wait until gets cheap and I have to wait until he gets more accurate. And so every month for like two years, I was building the start up.

I would just wait. I would just look at the latest model, tried out with this at with some of my tests, and from there just keep going. I would look at the the outputs that that they could give and how much I could toe them.

And then i'd look at the cost. And when german I release theirs and lower their causes, hydrogen are getting closer. No, as soon as you know, opening, I have their models dropping in Prices.

I said, okay, I think it's time. So about a month ago, I went to built the APP, and I just told myself, look, this is like the last attempt that i'm going to a do a building this year. Like, I ve done this too many times. I'm just gna go with that. So, okay.

And now here we are.

Yeah, and here we are. And I launched, didn't you know? Of course, that's the one time that you you don't think it's gna go away is when IT does. And I mean, it's great.

So I am so curious why this idea has been so sticky in your head like it's it's clearly been sitting around as a thing you have wanted to build for a very long time. What what is IT about this thing that is so sticky and enticing you?

Social networks are not what they used to be. And I think fundamentally, the internet has changed. The internet used to be a tool of communication between people.

And Frankly, I love that. You know, there is a part of me. So I was born miami, but at sixteen, I flew out to california with my mom because mark zg. Berger email of me when I was in high school, asking if I wanted meet about, like, working there and stuff like that.

And I remember flying out there with my mom, not knowing really anything about zg, and my mom, you know, not knowing anything about of you more and just thinking like, okay, this is such a different world from where I come from. But i'm excited, and I had built apps before its social absent. And so I was quite excited, and I spent a lot of time working at facebook.

From that point on, I didn't t go to college. I spent four years. They are helping them build out instagram stories and a few other features.

And IT was just such a fun time. You know IT was like twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen. The company was you know in a different era. Social media as a whole was in a different era. And and people are having a lot of fun. And and I think like over the past couple years, I I think we've just seen like social media is changed and it's changed because inner has changed and the technologies changed.

And so where the internet used to be a place where you could connect between massive amounts of people, the internet as a communication tool, in that sense, is kind of falling apart, right? Like the the internet now has technology that allows itself as a data set to simulate a human connection. You communicate with the internet rather than through the internet. And I think that change that happened really kind of puts question Marks around how social media should work because the whole premise of social media is that you're using the internet to communicate through IT to other people.

fair. I just want say, by the way, that idea of communicating with the internet and not through the internet is like as simply as well as I have to anybody put this moment that were in A, I am going to steal that from you. And that is very good. So thank .

you for that.

No ways that makes IT sound like socially. I IT has always been in your head, kind of part product, part social commentary, art projects that fair.

Yeah, always like to poke. K, I always like to poke. I mean, does the kind of poke fun at the the facade on the companies are trying to put up you? Of course, IT does right. But I think it's also, weirdly enough, my attempt at trying to solve some of these problems, the problems, for example, where you can design the difference between a human and an AI on a social platform.

So like yeah one way is to try to inventer detector for humans, but that hasn't gone very well, i'll say instead well, how about we just come out with a product that tells people how the internet works now and says, hey, look, this is the reality, kind of sucks in some ways, it's kind of grate. And others and we have to you know we have to embrace IT like let's let's embrace IT and and let's do that so that we don't harm our ourselves, right? Because going on social media sometimes in seeing comments that you think are from people that aren't can be harmful.

So i'm curious, kind of what I was that clicked in your brain that went from this technology is not ready to this technology is ready.

I think the moment that I gotta fight with my boyfriend, and I decided to open up my APP to see if there were any ideas for how I could resolve the problem. That I think was the moment .

is a very good at you .

know that that was the moment the moment I got enough and I decided i'm going to use a sab to try invent about my problem because if I go on actual social media, i'm doing some harm, right? Like and and so I think that just goes to show like the product and building is not to give people an illusion of people, right? I know they're all A I is so that I don't go on social media and use IT in a harmful way like my ideal.

My ideal scenario is one where people have people around them to listen, to hear them and to help them when they need IT, right? People to people. Communication is number one for humans. And and I don't think we should forget that, right? But there are a lot of people i've noticed since of who don't have those people around them.

And so if they don't have those people around them and they need that conversation, what are they doing? And if what they're doing is going on public, social media and talking about what's going on in their life and getting advice from bots AI without knowing what they're getting advice from, without any understanding of the dynamics in these algorithms to encourage certain types of content on different spaces, then there they're harming themselves, says that, okay, well, you know i'm not trying to replace the human to human connection. I'm trying to help people find a way to have a secondary option when that humanism around for them so that they don't have to rush to social media, make a mistake, right? So when I had, when I got to fight and I didn't go on social media and instead I went on inside, I said, okay, it's ready.

Yeah that I mean that I can imagine that being a very telling moment, but I think that distinction is really interesting. What you're saying is kind of one is not a replacement for the other that they are actually they are designed to be in best as separate things, right? Like I have I have my A I tools and I have my people. And like actually the problem is on the platforms that we currently have, those things are being sort of smashed together in a way that makes IT hard to tell what is what and makes everything messy and complicated. And yes, and that what we actually needed to pull those things apart, not just try and have one or the other, but just separate them.

yes. And and I think the key distinction here is what I what I mentioned earlier, which is I think there is confusion about what the internet is for people. I think the internet being a place that things can be communicated through is no longer really the case or it's kind of trending away from that.

Now it's becoming something you communicate with. And I think more important to me is the fact that the language model technology is not a certainty, meaning IT does not tell you yes or no. IT gives you a fuzzy intelligence and chat.

B. T. Was built as a fussy intelligence, right? Like these models were built as fussy intelligence. And so what I mean by that is they're kind of like humans. They're not like the computers of the past where they give you a definitive answer for something.

And so when I saw that, I asked myself, why does open a eye choose a chat interface as the one and only interface for communicating with their language model? Because that chat interface only gives you one answer, and the model does not have one answer, right? And so and so I find IT interesting that all of these A I companies are trying to squeeze these fuzzy human like data structures, are trying to freeze them into an old format computer that gives you one answer.

And the truth is that they're not agreed at IT because we still go back to google because we want a multiple answers. You want multiple responses. And so what i've built with social AI is not so much as social network, but a new way to interact with a language model where you don't get one response, but you get multiple and being able to drill down in a thread like interface in a social interface with the language model IT just feels more natural.

Uh, when I used the APP, for example, I was running late to a flight. Uh, I got delayed. My first, I got delayed.

Uh, my next flight was in forty five minutes. I was in dallas and I didn't know if I was going to make IT. The flight had just landed. So I opened up socially.

I and I just kind of panic, ranted about what happened, right? I I didn't have to think about like, oh, I need to be instructed to tell me because I need the right answer. And what if it's not the right answer? And maybe I, I, I simply rented about what happened.

I said my flight got delayed. I just landed. I have forty five minutes to make IT to my next flight.

I don't know if i'm going to make IT am a dis. They're telling me I gotta a terminal D M, terminal C. A. I don't know. And I just posted that.

And immediately I got dozens of responses and replies on this social interface that gave me all sorts of like various uh, replies. Some of them will tell me you're not gonna make IT, you know, go to the front test, just figure out if you get flight. Another one said you'll make IT.

If you run quickly, you just need to look up, see if you can find the sky train, and if you go down the sky train, you should be able to get there in time. Just make sure you're running quickly though. Another person said, are you in the front of the back of the airplane? Like, you know, like different questions.

And so what's interesting is for a human, it's it's natural to see that i'm going to go and looked to all the responses and dig in on the one that are more interested in. So someone kind of give me a hint about the sky train. I replied and said, OK, i'm going to try that.

How long do you think you take me get there and then immediately that AI personal replies back and says, you know, if you go quickly, it'll take you about ten to fifteen minutes to get there, you know and so I said, okay, cool. Another one replied right underneath and said, way, way, wait, hold up. It'll be more like fifteen and twenty. Don't get them too excited now and like and so that kind of interaction just feels natural to us, right? We got to take a break and then .

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All right, we're back. Let's get back to Michael Simon. But before we do, I just want to go back to something he said right before we went to break.

He talks about social AI as not a social network, but as an interface, a new way of interacting with a language model. We're going to get way into that. But before we do, I think I might actually help if I just explain how social AI works so you can picture IT as we go on.

So when you first get into the APP, after you sign up and create a profile and what not, the first thing you have to do is decide what kinds of followers you want. Remember, it's all the bots. So essentially what you're deciding is which kind of bots are going to reply at to your posts.

You can pick supporters or skeptics, or pessimists, or optimists, or allowance, or realists, stuff like that, just general sort of personality types. And if you recommend the APP to some friends, you unlock a bunch of more options like nerd's and at balls and drama queens and contrarians. And once you do that, you just start posting.

I'll typed like, i'm suddenly tired of all the food that I like. Anybody have any ideas about how to make things up literally? And then you press post, and a few seconds later, responses start appearing.

Not much, do you? The first one is from Sunny ray, who is at sunshine and fellow presumed ly, an optimist. One says, try adding some new spices here, meals, or explore international cuisine for fresh livers. Sure, there are a bunch here that say, try new cuisine or flavors.

Advice with their twenty twenty three literally just says, try new cuisine or flavors uh, I have fans zone hero who says, tries some old spices like that our sumac, it's magic like that fanatic followers says, wo David, that sounds like a chAllenge how outs and trying to both exotic spices? Uh, anxious. Na, presume an ancient one says, what if you accidentally make something that so is forever? That's terrifying, downcast greg says, basing things up sounds like a recipe for disappointment.

So you get the idea right. Different bots, different vibes, different kinds of responses. These are all my reply guys now.

And I can respond to one and go down a rabbit haul with that particular bot tuned to that particular mood. I can also favorite ite bots. I can favorite replies. And Michael says that all of that goes back into the algorithm and into kind of the instructions being given to ChatGPT. Every time I try to use IT on the surface, IT all feels and sounds like Normal human social media, except that they are all bots.

But me, and I think i'm not the only one who felt kind of strange about that fact at first, IT looks like twitter and feels like twitter, and a super isn't twitter. I just felt. And honestly, the reaction to social AI was really fascinating.

So that is what Michael and I talked about next. I do think the reaction to this APP has been in, in many ways, just as fascinating as the APP itself. Yes, my read of IT when he came out was there were basically three responses.

One was like, this is cool and interesting, and kind of fund both social commentary and an interesting idea about the future. One was, this is stupid in dustpan. And then one was like, this is a this is a joke, right? This has to be a and an art project and not a real product. Is that is that a fair representation of the reaction of I missing anything?

I think it's interesting is the a loud reactions on social media. There are two things that we're interesting to me. Let's say very first, the loudest reactions from people on social media were from those who thought I was either joke that IT, you know, like this topic, know, oh my god, you know, like that that kind of a reaction.

Those are the lost, the way actually spending, you know, ten ten minutes procession are on the ab. The second thing I noticed was that the reaction from people was one thing, but there were, there were bots on social media reacting to, yeah, because half of social media has bots now. So, but I found IT quite ironic that there were bots reacting to an APP of bots telling humans that in up with bots is like, so terrible, you know.

And I found IT interesting that that was happening as, like, huh IT seems like some of these bots don't want bots around or maybe they don't want people to know that they're bots. I don't know um you know and so like there was a portion of bots on social media that were reacting in negatively to bots and I just thought that was onic. That kind of proves .

your whole point, right? If it's just a bunch robots yelling at bots about the social network to all bots that I imagine you're sitting there are looking at that being like exactly yes you know yes.

Um I I think the other you know the other issue I think that I found was just how many people don't realize that a lot of these platforms are filled bots and that that kind of was alarming to me. But but ultimately, I think that the last bit here, a feedback that i've gotten, is people feel the liberated you know they feel a little bit liberated.

They don't feel the pressure of going on social media to share some thought that they might feel embarrassed about, but they also feel like they're able to hear other perspectives that they otherwise wouldn't feel comfortable admitting to want to hear. And so they don't let their guard down. You know in in public conversation online, people keep their guard up.

And and I think that keeps an echo chAmber IT. It's interesting because people said all echo chAmber or echo chAmber, the number one, you know, number one, number two, number three, most selected follower type on social y eye is contrarious debaters problem solves uh thinkers, uh, critics, right and so people are selecting followers on social eye that chAllenge. And I think there is something interesting about that.

Why would someone go out of their way to be chAllenged, done in up like this? Can they not be chAllenged on real social media? Is there a reason why not? And and how does this address that? right?

I wonder if that goes back to what you were saying about how IT feels when you perceive IT to be real people on social media. Because I think to some extent, that fact doesn't surprise me, because one thing you hear from people who use A I E A lot is that IT is especially useful if what you really want to do is beat up an idea and brainstorm and get new perspectives on things.

And I think to some extent what you've built is just a like endless feedback mechanism, but with no sticks because no one else sees what's happening. No one else is human on there. So even the part of IT that feels sort of real IT feels like there's so something in your brain that is like this is a safe space.

Yes, I can see of a world in which I mean, and i've i've been found this in using IT, there is something very powerful in the interfaces the same, but the stakes are so much lower. yes. And and I think .

that helps put people's guards down. I think that helps people. Like you said, people been using chat g GPT for a lot of this, but how many times have people gonna ChatGPT and said, hey, can you help me think through this? And he gives you one answer and you're like, I don't know about that.

And then you go, what what other ideas do you have? And then IT goes and gives you something you like, what? What else you, and and because something else that's kind of similar, really no.

And then you keep going what else? And by the time you keep asking what else, if I got the context of the thing you are talking about in the beginning, I just started saying random stuff like the interface just feels wrong for the youth case. But but look, I don't blame open a eye, but I don't think that it's like all they just weren't capable like who that help was going to know, right?

If anything, I think they built out a chat interface because they just felt like the obvious testing ground to prove a product and IT became a product that they didn't think was onna resonate us quickly. So you know, of course, we started at chat because of that. And I don't think that it's bad. I just think we haven't seen the best of IT.

yes. yeah. I I think that I think that's totally fair. So speaking of that, actually the the edges of this technology are very curious about. And I suspect you've seen a lot of IT as people are starting to really use in trying to use stuff with socii. Obviously, this stuff got a lot Better to the point where I think IT IT feels the way you wanted IT to, where is IT broken? What still doesn't work.

So there is a few things I still need to be improved. So we just, you know, we but we mean me. I just launched notifications on socially.

I so one of things that was interesting was, you know I can play around with IT, but I wasn't getting any feedback later um about what I posted and I think that you know quite important. Another aspect tivat is a proactive. So like right now, if I post, I get a content um originally built to feed into IT. I was gonna you whether .

you were going to be a feed yeah well.

I did. But I took IT out uh just for the launch and just because I I wanted to make sure that you know I didn't have anything too buggy in there. But it's kind of interesting because i'm not trying to simulate a world where these things have their own lives and telling you other lives.

No, no, no, no, no. Like that's not the purpose. We are trying to be honest about what this is. It's right in the middle. You know we're not character ai and we're not twitter.

We're like in the middle, right? And so the the feed what IT does is every person on every character that you interact with as you give IT likes and replies and stuff, is kind of shades these personals and understands which ones you to act with the most. And each of those personas have their unique like weights towards different topics of interest and personalities, and the way in which he tries to answer questions and and all of that shapes.

The diversity of responses that you get for anything you ask. And what they also have is a set of like interests that they use to then search the internet for the latest news and the latest things going on. And so each of them has their own kind of like interests on the web that IT goes and searches for. So when you go on the news feed on social eye and you pull the fresh, there is always more content first well, but um every piece of content is like this. A I having gone through, looked at the internet, found something interesting that at like and IT giving a little commentary on IT with a link to access IT just that was no is pretty cool.

Does that not break the whole structure of IT being kind of A U centric experience?

No, because the all of the boys are there talking about things that you're interested in, the only ones to shop on your feet or the boss that you've interacted with that you're interested in or adjacent, right? And you select in your feet what kind of stuff you want and what you don't and they're there to inform you, right there are there to give you what you want to hear. You know it's interesting.

Um I also built a trending topics page and the trending topics are not trending topics of the news. They're trending topics of you. So as you post and you interact with things, there is trending topics. It's like these are the top of mind things for you and you can tap on a new those topics and see hundreds of A S debating and discussing IT.

Wow, that's kind of that kind of wild, actually. yeah. So is there how how are you thinking about or I guess what are you seeing in terms of how people using IT? Because that idea of like i'm going to use this as a sort of proactive you're almost describing like a personalized news APP or feed reader or whatever write that instead of having my facebook feed created by my facebook friends, it's gonna created by A I I think we're going to see a lot of that, right?

That s right. But fundamentally, it's a new way to interact with language models. It's building a new interface for interacting with them.

And all of the applications that allow people to get more value out of the language model through those interactions go into that right? And socially at its premises is not social for the sake of the social network, but social for the sake of social interface, right? And so that's really what IT is.

All right, we got to take one more break and then will be back with the rest of my conversation with Michael Simon. We write back.

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We're back. Let's get to the end of my conversation with Michael Simon. At one put in our conversation, I asked him about one thing that I always do with new A I tools, which is ask them what movie I should watch tonight.

I like that question because there are lots of answers, all of them real, at least in theory, real and facility. But there is no one pt answer. There is not like a movie I should watch tonight.

So when you ask, you immediately get to get a of how the tool works and how that works with you and just kind of how it's gonna make sense of things for you. And let me just try IT with social ei. So I go to socially, I I type in what movie should I watch tonight and I post, wait a few seconds and OK have on your replies from Sunny gene right side.

Gene, again, probably be an optimist. How about I feel good comedie for some laughs, sure, pondering Fiona says, what murder you and David, perhaps the windsor fantasy, like the secret of roan, finish to transport you to a world of magic and discovery or maybe something thought provoking, like inner Stellar for those cosin ponderings positivity. Eddy says how that I feel good adventure, uplifting in fun at feedback.

Fountain says, consider going for something classic like the shawshank h redemption if you want to deep story, or if you're in the mood for laugh, step others is a solid choice. What, ron, are you feeling tonight? Let's see.

There's a whole bunch more of these. A inception comes up a lot. Inner seller comes up a lot. This pot apparently really loves Christopher and olen movies. There's one from anxious olly, seventy seven, that just says, what if there's a terrible plot twist with the thinking image? It's good stuff, more inner Stellar.

Uh, cnc genus says, well, since are asking for cinematic advice, how about watching something truly in lightning like a documentary on existent al thread or maybe a filler that reminds you how not all choices with the happiness, the options there is great, is the darkness is of reality. So once again, it's all over the place. This is how this system is designed to work, right? And I can go in the one that has a recommended that I like.

There's one here that recommends, uh, a of sunshine. This spot is mind. Great movie.

I can reply to that and say, oh, love that sort recently. What else you recommend? That's the idea about how all of this is supposed to work.

But Frankly, i'm looking at these replies and it's mostly just people saying, did you pick a movie yet? How ago did you find a movie that speaks to you yet? Did you choose a movie? Why that one? Did you narrow IT down? Did you settle on a movie choice? Like, is that helpful? I don't really, I think so. So I told Michael l, this didn't feel like IT had been tuned to be particularly good or helpful or design to actually give me information in the way that he's been talking about. And he said, well, yeah, I he agreed with that yeah.

And in the reason is because it's an alpha that I built myself in four weeks, right? And well.

this is kind of what a modern is. Like, what do you hope for? what?

What should that do? yes. So of course you know of course, you know what that way.

I think um uh you know the the intention here and and of course, it's on its way. And I think it's quite surprising that even works at all. But I think it's testiment to the interface that IT does.

Um but I would say that you know the ultimate uh vision here is to make that question Better answered in social eye than a ChatGPT. And and I think the interface will allow IT if you have comparable models on both platforms. And one of them gives you multiple responses from different points of view.

And the other one just gives you one answer. And you're working with a technology that's probably stic like, who has the upper hand? You know, like I can give ten answers, and if one of them is good, you're happy. But if ChatGPT gives you one answer and it's not right, you're frustrated.

That makes me think of the thing people always say about the tiktok IT algorithm, which is that the reason that feels like magic is because you don't get annoying when it's wrong. Yes, because you just keep swiping that anything social like you're very much the thing, the sign like horrendous on social media. But we're also sorted used to IT. Now that's right. And if if you just call, pass IT and move on and we all kind of understand how to find needles and hasta ks in a way that when ChatGPT recommends the movie I don't want to watch, IT feels bad because he gave me an answer .

exactly and it's part of the reason why people still go to google, right? Because google doesn't have any more accurate stuff these days no um you know compared to what I was uh because of all the AI that's in there too. So you know it's not like google any more accurate, but it's interesting because google gives you this ChatGPT the answer at the top right and then you have like all of these various links that give you different perspectives.

And let, let's be honest, like most of these links are now run with like so many pay walls and things that like you can even get to the answer for any of these inks. But the original intent behind google and why IT worked was IT gave you options to look through, and so IT allowed IT to be wrong, and IT increased its chance of being right at least once or twice. And we're used to using leader at this way. We go through the internet looking for information, trying to find which thing is helpful to us, right? And so I just I think it's interesting that maybe we got a little distracted by the hour movie a little too much.

just a little.

just a little, you know, and kind of lean in a little harder than we were supposed to. But you know that that's kind of where I see I see that being more valuable is can we give people the option to peak behind the curtain of this A I and see what are the various answers I can think of rather than here's my one response. And and ultimately, I think this is gonna be how IT works.

If you have multiple language models, if you have cloud, open a eye, lama and so on, are you gonna go from one to the other and be like, which one gave me the best answer? Or are you going to use an interface? It's going to pull from all of them, generate a bunch of uh, different responses and curate those responses based on the reactions and responses that you've done in the past um and full control for the user to get as many responses as they can. You want to index the language model, you want to to create a google for the language model outputs. That's kind of .

what this is. Yeah no, I I I agree that super interesting. So tell me about the road map a little bit.

Um you know you mention this is an out for you built in a few weeks. A IT is becoming increasingly clear to me that you have much bigger visions for where you're headed. Tell me a little about IT.

My vision is to build out the whole function of interaction with the language models from the top of the stack all the way down.

So people start yelling to build dms, and you're going to build dms and you're just going to speed, run all the pain of developing a social network.

I love IT all of IT all the way down. They're going to be like.

when do I get lists and you're going to have to do lists and then they're going to be when you get bookMarks.

But you know, to be interesting, the conversation will go down the funnel naturally. I expect the first thing people want, which say is they want D. M, right? So okay, you you introduce dms right? And IT makes sense as you interacted the models and you are more interesting one or another, you want to talk a little more deeply with that one. cool. Dm.

so I think I just let me just press on the idea there because I think that's another how do you do that without just becoming the ChatGPT chat lot again?

Well, because what i'm building includes ChatGPT within, but i'm building at a level one level of communications that which is how do you discover who you wanted talk to, right? To take asking google.

Well, are you're providing all these links to the websites? H, weren't you just another one of those links? It's like, well, because we're providing an index that lets people figure out which when they want to go into, right? And so socii provides that layer that helps people discover who they want to talk to. The end goal is not to talk to an individual AI.

The end goal is the whole picture is the experience of being able to go up in breath like twitter interface, dive down to a face time call with an A I model, go up to an ideal call with another, go up to a chat, go back up to the surface, go back down, go back that experienced the entire funnel that people go through to find information and communicate online. That whole thing needs to happen, right? So the vision is we start at the top and work and wait down, and then we offer users the ability to go through all of the OK.

So the idea is then by the time you're at that one on one conversation, you've essentially filter your way down such that you're talking to instead of going through, like the GPT store picking plugs or what's socially, the conversation I want to have with the right source. And even if now all i'm doing is essentially having a chatbot conversation with a chatbot, that's right. It's i've now I filtered IT in the way that is useful.

yes. I think in the future, people are going to ask they're going to look at the the first versions of ChatGPT and are going to see when ChatGPT announce features like a customize your GPT and tell IT how you wanted to talk to you. And they're to think, I can believe we had to tell you, you know, I can't believe we had to tell you, you know, like what you know IT doesn't make sense, you know, doesn't make sense to have to do that.

I think that's my bed. I I might be wrong. Look, I don't think the product the nail on the head, I think where we're definitely not on the on the center, we're a little bit off.

And and I I have no doubt in my mind that there's a lot of worth that needs to be done to get IT in the right place. It's it's an alpha. But I think that's the general direction. And my bet is, you know telling ChatGPT before you talk to IT everything you want you do and how you want to talk to IT in this particular case and why just feels like we're missing a step, you know .

yeah I bet that as that happens, I I think, uh, ChatGPT 和 customer instructions thing is just as ridiculous you do。 So i'm very much with you now. One a what have you seen some foreign ms of how people are using IT? Are people doing surprising things with IT that have sort of changed your mind about what this thing is or can be?

You know um people are favorite a lot of users, which I think is interesting. He can favorite like any particular follower and then nap pints, their replies to the top. I think that .

kind of interesting. Well, that seems like get sort of supports earthy says that that what people want is to find their kind of chosen for votes in here, right? And it's it's also interesting that you didn't call IT follow, which is a departure from social networks but also makes more sense in the kind of scheme you're .

talking about in the contest. yes. Um I check out some these apps and like what i've seen is it's like they're grab the social network, grab the A I and just mushroom and just okay, let's see how goes right you know like and in this case, I it's hard it's much harder to try and like get this right.

And I don't think i've got IT right. I think I am closer, but but I don't think i've got IT right. But I don't want what I don't want to do is just match them together without consideration.

And so you know I didn't say, oh, you can follow a particular AI because in this case, you can just favorite IT. And to your point, right, like it's more in line with what the product is. For example, the APP opens up to the composer.

IT does not open up to your profile. IT opens up to composer now so you go into IT and it's kind of more like chat P. T. And that sets the bots don't tell you that they are human, right? They tell you that they're I they're there to help you.

That model um of like design is me kind of saying i'm onna pick and choose what I think is useful from the social work works interface and i'm going to integrated. But i'm not going to like forget that this is not that right. And because if I forget that this is not that, then IT can feels gimmie you know like IT kind feels like it's it's like OK like we get, you know like and I don't want to build a gimmie product, you know.

So and that's something i've learned to is like I went full on with the scheme morphisms, right? I went full on trying to build the product that made people most familiar with IT. And as i've been iterating, i've scaled back a lot of the study pic design that really, you know kind of leaned into the social stuff because I realized, you know, okay, users don't need to like see the home feed in the way that they do on twitter because IT is not that necessary.

You know, let's lean into the utility a little more. And i've tweeted a bit to make IT a lot more of the function and leave the you know the school more physical of the interface to just the pieces that are um required to make IT easy to interact with. Um and so that that I think will continue I think the product will continue to distance itself from the skill, more pic design that IT starts with and turn into its own interface.

Do you a do you have a clear sense of what that might look like over time?

If I if I told you I did, I would be incredibly delusional. I think a more so than I am I I know I you know i've got my delusions for sure but but um you know more so than that I would be at a ridiculous of of delusion. I don't know what it's going to end up looking.

I don't know what that final form is, but I have mission in in mind rate. And I and and i'm determined and excited about IT. And and my hope is that as we get more information and data around like how people are using IT, they were able to further go that direction. And and in my view, I don't think we should there. There should not be a limit to what angle we approach if the users and the people are asking for that interaction.

Uh, there's a lot of people and I think a lot of product companies out there when when they launched something, the thing that they started with that got them the attention they believe is like sacred, right? And so you see like the real launches and it's like our feature is the feature snaps, chat launches and they're like or you know our a femoral snapshot is like the feature, right? And then it's like, okay, but you can expand and do this and do that and they're be cool if you have this.

And I like, no, because this is our feature, you know it's like, okay, cool feature, but like a lot of times and is something I learned when I used to work at facebook. It's like a lot of times, the thing the product a feature that gets you from stage one to stage two is not going to be the same method approach, a product feature that's going to help you get from stage two to stage three, you have to be comfortable with your product of having over time. And so so for me, it's maximum flexibility on that front. I, I, I want to help solve these problems for people. I don't care what that looks like.

Is there a business here? The the I feel like you've gone from like social commentary, fun experiment to like kind of hip APP to um at some point somebody is going to want to give you a bunch of money to make like a socially I for teams and sell IT to IT department. Do you have a sense of what the business looks like here?

How are you going to make money? People already. Yes, yes, you see you you're right to predict that. You know people asking .

that is just what happens. They're like how do we sell this to IBM? And you're like.

You know look, I am not interested in thinking about you know how to monitor ze the product right now. I think i'm sure there ways to like how people find you know the right shampoo o bottle for them or whatever i'm not like that's not my primary thing, right?

I am trying to sell from life dealt with in my life right where i've sometimes felt you know especially to uncover IT like IT was really hard to get my thoughts out and to be able to just think through things a little bit without, you know, jumping to conclusions. And and I struggled with that, you know, and I I wanted to solve that for me. I wanted how that for my friends.

I, you know, I I wanted to build something that could help. And that's the thing that gives me going, that's the thing that makes me excited. And the rest of IT, you know, we will figure out, but my hope is that I may want to help a little bit, you know, other people out there like me who maybe need a little space to think about things and don't wanna rush to social media and post all their thoughts.

I don't have a great read on what success looks like for this because it's like what you're saying a sort of if I if I post less dumb stuff on on twitter because i'm posting dumb stuff on social eye instead, that's a certain kind of Victory, uh, I think for you and for the world but also your an opposition where what you're saying is like you need people need a place to put this stuff and to talk about this stuff and to get feedback on this stuff and actually doing IT in a safer place yeah like ultimately .

we we want to talk to people, right, like that I go but if you don't have someone around, right, I think it's certainly Better than going on social media right like that kind of how how I see that. Actually, to your point that you made earlier, a lot of people have been a saying, uh, that they think elan musk should use social e eye, uh, before he starts to eating random stuff you know just A B test for his own dad so he could stop saying things that like these people are. I thought that was an interesting point.

What's the wild thing you've seen somebody do in socii what is like either in in the logs or screen shots? So what is the one thing that you've seen that you were like never in a million years what .

i've guessed okay. So maybe this isn't too wild, but okay so my mom, we set a french store in miami um and SHE she's from perou speaks smoothly spanish and he never uses my apps right? Like you know she's nice to supports IT but like he knows that like, you know whatever uh I I keep trying and they're you know not that great.

So I was surprised when SHE message me out of random, okay, and SHE sends me a screen shot of my APP because IT works in all these languages, SHE says he means screens out of the APP and SHE starts using IT and ranting and spanish about about work. She's like, anything about work, you know, of on this APP and it's so funny to me like I I was like, okay, well, you know what? Like maybe product might get fit, I don't know.

Um but you know. I you know I I love her and and I think it's I think it's sweet to see that there's you know there's a peal in in unique ways. I you know why everyone work at some company. Maybe i'll start using this problem, you know.

and no one will know. And that's .

the beauty eh.

some right? Well, I should leave you want to thank you so much for this.

This is no. Thank you so much.

Sorry that is that for the verge cast today. Thank you to Michael. Same in again for being here. And thank you, as always for listening.

There's lots more on everything we talked about, including some of our social eye coverage and just all of our AI coverage in general. A turn happening. Check IT all out at the version that com. I'll put something in the show notes, but as always, read the website, good website.

And as always, if you thoughts, questions, feelings or other A I bots that I should be hanging out with, you can always email us at verge, cast at the verge dot com, or cover hot line eight, six, six. First one one we love hearing from you, this shows produced by liam, James wilpon and eric go as verge, cast as a verge production in part of the box media podcast network. Me, I, Alice, we back on tuesday and friday with all of your regularly scheduled programing, we have a bunch of fun stuff coming up.

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