AGI is coming. Reid Hoffman just wrote the book on how to prepare.

According to Reid, every major tech breakthrough (the written word, the printing press, the telephone) triggered mass fear. But, contrary to our worries, new technology tends to enhance human agency—even more so, if you know how to use it well.

In Superagency, his book that was released yesterday, Reid examines how we’ve historically adopted new technologies and focuses on AI’s potential to increase our agency—the ability to make decisions that affect outcomes. He wrote the book for two audiences: anyone who is curious, or even skeptical, about AI; and technologists who are building in AI, with the hope that they will think about human agency as a design principle for their products. As someone who straddles both worlds, I read the book and really liked it.

Beyond being a prolific author, Reid is the cofounder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI, and Manas AI; a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners; an early backer and board member of OpenAI; and an award-winning podcaster—and I was pleased to invite him onto AI & I again, this time in person. 

We recorded an hour-long conversation, going deep on:

• The notion of human agency, how our sense of agency shapes our response to new technologies, and its interplay with uncertainty
• Why Reid believes that private commons and equitable access to AI will be beneficial for society at large
• How the history of AI mirrors a philosophical shift in how we understand intelligence, from trying to program explicit rules about how thinking works, to building systems that learn patterns from data
• Reid’s take on how the next decade of AI will involve a play between rule-based systems and pattern-matching ones   

It’s a must-watch for anyone who wants to help build a more human future with AI. 

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Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Reid Hoffman: @reidhoffman

Superagency, Reid’s newest book: https://www.superagency.ai/