Possible Reid Hoffman

In this episode, Aria asks Reid about the roles and responsibilities of technology journalists, along with his thoughts on the TikTok ban (recorded before President Biden signed the TikTok Ban bill into law). 

For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/

Alongside this week’s riff from Reid on tech journalism and last week’s episode with Kara Swisher, we’re bringing you a conversation between Reid and Kara that originally dropped as a March 2023 episode of “On with Kara Swisher.” This duo has known each other since the 90s, when Reid was fresh off the sale of PayPal and before he co-founded LinkedIn. On this episode, they discuss Reid’s donations to Biden and other Democrats, how his political views have impacted his friendships with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, and why he is so bullish on AI.

What will the media landscape look like as tech companies, as opposed to traditional media, own increasingly more ink? And who better to offer an optimistic take on the news industry’s future than…Kara Swisher?! 

Reid and Aria speak with the famous—and famously direct—tech journalist, author, and podcast host about the roles and responsibilities of journalists covering rapidly developing innovations, along with those of the technologists driving advancements. They cover the OpenAI/New York Times lawsuit, disinformation, TikTok legislation, and AI’s potential to improve healthcare and climate outcomes. Plus, Kara makes the case that today’s content creators benefit from staying relatively small vs. striving for scale. 

Topics:
3:30 - Hellos and intros
3:54 - Technology that makes Kara optimistic
6:40 - Technology to solve climate change
8:43 - Why health-tech and climate tech inspire optimism
10:09 - State of the media landscape
15:34 - Can smaller-scale media work?
16:56 - Pi weighs in on Patrick Soon-Shiong
19:33 - How will AI impact media misinformation
22:27 - Impact of AI in politics
27:52 - Kara’s latest book
30:36 - Is AI training “stealing”?
37:28 - TikTok ban
42:51 - A question for Reid: Is TikTok worth buying?
45:43 - How to shape capitalism
51:30 - Rapid-fire questions

For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ 

Select mentions:
Burn Book by Kara Swisher 

Platformer News founder Casey Newton 

Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson 

Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig

Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Anchor Oyster Bar

What if, in the future, everything breaks humanity's way? Possible is an award-winning, weekly podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. Hosts Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger explore what’s possible with forward-thinking leaders, deep thinkers, and ambitious builders across many fields, such as technology, art, education and healthcare. These conversations center on the ways technology—and, in particular, AI—is shaping the future. In episodes, AI tools such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Inflection’s Pi are at work, offering informational asides, prompting guests, or demoing what they can do. Lastly, between guest episodes, Aria interviews her co-host Reid on his latest takes on what’s possible if we use technology—and our collective effort—effectively.

Reid recounts the story of a milestone GPT-4 demo at Bill Gates’ house—and shares what series of achievements by AI would most impress and excite him next. 

Aria also asks Reid about the investment in technology and AI that he’d like to see be made at the domestic and international level. Lastly, Reid addresses the skepticism people have about AI—and how to best direct that skepticism to the benefit of people. 

For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/

What if artificial intelligence becomes so ubiquitous that, in the future, we won’t be able to imagine what life was like without it? 

Kevin Scott is Executive Vice President of AI and Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft. He joins the Possible Podcast to talk about AI, its impact on education, healthcare and jobs, and how AI can benefit more of us, irrespective of our geography. Kevin, Reid, and Aria discuss Kevin’s leading role in Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership, along with collective decision-making for ethical AI, how technology can empower rural communities, and what’s underlying Kevin’s humanist perspective on artificial general intelligence. Plus, Kevin reacts to some advice from Microsoft Copilot. 

Topics: 
4:13 - Hellos and intros
5:48 - The origins of the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI 
14:34 - Kevin’s wildest hope for Microsoft/OpenAI partnership
17:32 - Making Microsoft Copilot as accessible as possible 
26:43 - How technology can revitalize communities that are being left behind
34:34 - A quick break
35:42 - A humanist approach to AI
42:00 - Copilot’s suggestions for getting Copilot into more businesses’ hands
43:20 - AI and its impact on work, productivity and labor markets 
51:10 - Framing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
57:19 - Rapid-fire Questions

For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/ 

Select mentions:
Behind the Tech Podcast with Kevin Scott

Reprogramming the American Dream by Kevin Scott

Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky 

What if, in the future, everything breaks humanity's way? Possible is an award-winning, weekly podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. Hosts Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger explore what’s possible with forward-thinking leaders, deep thinkers, and ambitious builders across many fields, such as technology, art, education and healthcare. These conversations center on the ways technology—and, in particular, AI—is shaping the future. In episodes, AI tools such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Inflection’s Pi are at work, offering informational asides, prompting guests, or demoing what they can do. Lastly, between guest episodes, Aria interviews her co-host Reid on his latest takes on what’s possible if we use technology—and our collective effort—effectively.

Reid recently created an AI version of himself—REID AI—and recorded a video Q&A to see how this digital twin might challenge him in new ways. Watch the full clip here: https://youtu.be/rgD2gmwCS10

This is Reid’s latest AI experiment, following the book he co-wrote with GPT-4 (Impromptu), the podcast he co-hosted with ChatGPT (Fireside Chatbots), and, of course, Possible, in which we use AI tools like Pi and GPT-4 to prompt guests and enrich conversations. 

Possible returns next week, but in the meantime, we thought you might like to watch and learn more about Reid’s latest experiment with AI tools.

Watch the full clip: https://youtu.be/rgD2gmwCS10

The backstory on making REID AI in Reid’s newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/long-reids-6953437305957232640/

Lastly, the video avatar is generated by Hour One, and its voice was created by 11ElevenLabs. 

Hour One - https://app.hourone.ai/home
11ElevenLabs - https://elevenlabs.io/

REID AI’s persona—the way that it formulates responses—is generated from a custom chatbot built on GPT-4 that was trained on Reid’s books, speeches, podcasts and other content that Reid has produced over the last few decades. 

This video is fully endorsed by Reid Hoffman.