Travis Oliphant: Agent-first coding, PostPython development, and building a distributed AI economy

Welcome to we have Travis Olifant for around two at the podcast. Yeah, reinvited Travis for a reason. Super interesting guy. Uh just as a reminder, creator of uh Lumpai, Cypi, Numba, uh some coding languages I used to use when I was learning Python. I guess uh Travis connecting companies with communities. So he's co and founder at uh open teams. He's also chair founder at Quansite and head of open source at Zyra.

Uh Travis, welcome to POD. Tell us a bit more about yourself and what you've been up to. >> Hey, awesome to be here. Thanks so much, Charles. Yeah. Um been up to a lot it feels like and sometimes not as visible as other times in my life. But although recently I just uh announced a new project where I'm experimenting with uh coding agents to essentially recreate the foundations of sci-fi using um something I'm calling Post Python which is performance optimized statically type Python.

I I uh so I'm working on a kind of a new project. Um working on pushing open teams uh to help every company own their own intelligence, their own intelligence hub. Uh lots of people are leaning into the open weights world and I'm excited about that. We've been pushing that for a couple of years. And then uh still investing in early stage startups with my business partner.

We run a a technology incubator and we're starting a a studio version of that at Open Team. So still the same story just uh working closely with open source communities uh but Quansite the company I founded seven years ago still doing well uh in fact you know new CEOs over there Ralph and Tanya are doing great uh driving that story um I feel like that's a success story uh Anaconda was a previous success story where that's going great my co-founder Peter there is the

new CEO uh they're they're actually I finally turned it around I feel like there's a uh Anaconda did some wonderful things and now they're continuing to do some wonderful things building for the uh openweight community and really the same mission of helping everybody build intelligence that's uh geared towards what I call the distributed AI economy a world where we're not just a few AI overlords but there's AI is a capability that enhances all of our lives.

>> Yeah. Uh fascinating. We'll get more we'll get on that uh in a couple of minutes. But first, I think last time we spoke was around GPT4. >> Okay. [laughter] >> What what changed since then in uh in your world? >> Yeah. Well, you know, like everybody else, you know, uh I've been doing machine learning for a long time. You've done AI for a long time, but you know, like everybody else, when GPT kind of five showed up, uh GPT4 was was pretty good, too.

But this this world of oh these this these AI um chat bots you know the attention um not there's two several things wasn't just the introduction of the attention algorithm it was also the u improvement on the GPU side of massive parallel computing enabling you know lots and then hardware improvements on the data sides just lots of data could be processed all at once in parallel and

you know at that scale all of a sudden you know these uh neural nets organized a particular way started to actually make predictions about human text, you know, human-based text. Those predictions started to match our experience with each other. Like, oh wait, this is like close to what we find when we talk to each other. That's pretty wild. Now we've kind of replicated that at least language loop.

Um, and then what people could start to do with that uh just intensified. So, lots of people everywhere kind of experimenting with this space and going, well, what can we do with this and how do we go farther with this? And so incredible research I would say over the past eight months incredible um progress on coding agents on this you know this this loop being able to be useful to developer communities who are used to coding all of a sudden um AI supported coding is everywhere and I don't know of a single developer who isn't um isn't touched by that at this point uh and it's it's been a rapid growth actually really rapid growth.

Uh I was at PYON recently. I spent the time going around talking to everybody I could find about how they were using coding agents. Uh some of my you know good friends in the in the open source communities have been using it. Now some some are there's a there was a tiny few at Pyon four months ago that were still resistant and even inside of open teams there are a few holdouts and people like oh you know the AIS do this and look AI is not perfect.

these these coding agent bots. They're not like they're, you know, just let it it's everything. They they'll do everything for you. I I in fact, a lot of it's like really smart teenagers who just went to, you know, MIT, Stanford and learned everything possible, but they still don't have much street sense. They come in, they're still a little bit unruly.

They're still a little bit um a little bit arrogant sometimes. You got to go, okay, don't have the experience they need. But man, everybody I know has been using them somewhat effectively and that's gotten a lot of people excited. How are you using AIS to to code? I guess you would be a fun use case. Uh yeah, describe day in your life coding. >> Yeah, exactly.

So, I've leaned in pretty heavily, too. Um in fact, for years, I would say, you know, I started my career early as a scientist and then I and I coded then I released that code on the internet and started sci-fi and numpy and did a lot of coding myself. Since I started companies and started, you know, Numbo was a first example. I wrote the first version and then I started essentially coding through other people and really for the past 15 years, the code I've been writing has been through others.

So, Numba, Jupyter Lab, uh, Dask, these other projects I've been involved with, I wasn't the one coding, but I was heavily involved in the conversations and kind of I I was prompting other other coding agents. So for me it's kind of been oh well I've been doing this for a while with other people and now I have this coding agent that's a little more responsive you know doesn't have any uh doesn't doesn't sass kind of doesn't have their own story on the other hand not as creative not as you know they kind of do what you tell them uh a little bit

of you know they'll bring things to mind that you may not have thought about which is cool so I decided to start with a couple examples and I just started to build uh a few examples um myself using kind of oh let me see if I can code a little bit and it was it was incredible how much I could code. Three years ago I did the same thing and it was not quite there.

You know I I built some examples of well let me try this this piece of um it was an interpolation strategy that I've learned to build years ago and I tried to get AI to do it and it missed. I had to kind of fill in the details use vectorzed programming and it wasn't wasn't as good. Fast forward today I said wow this is pretty good. that it actually gives me back a story that I'm looking at go that's not bad code that it's writing uh let me you that's a great first start so I decided actually to finally take the reigns by idea but it's might have been in my head for about three years I call it post python posy performance optimized statically typeyped python it's not just a compiler for python

in fact it's a reference implementation of a standard so uh years ago I wrote numpy to unify numeric and numera Okay. And then that was like 11 years ago now. Uh three years ago, four years ago, we started something called array API at data-appis.org. And when more arrays showed up, instead of saying we're going to write the one array to rule them all, we're going to write a standard for what arrays what the API for an array should be in Python.

and then libraries like uh scypi and scikitlearn and uh these ecosystem around it they could use the API and then if they wanted to switch from numpy to coupai to tensorflow to jack it'd be easy they could write the long downter libraries and then they could just put the backend however they wanted if they followed the API so we wrote that and that actually has led to

you know recent blog post just where people are like oh yeah scikitlearn now runs on coup because they use the standard API and it's it works really well So given that when I when I have this concept of really Python um has a subset that first uh I first explored in the project Numba. Numba is a compiler for Python but it was a subset of Python. One of one of the differentiators between me compiling Python and other people compiling Python is some people are like let's compile all of Python.

I've been like well I'm not sure that's that's that's a non-goal for me. I don't really care about compiling all the dynamic nature and all the scriptability and all the capability of integration that Python has. But I do want to be able to compile a loop. Uh I do want to be able to compile something that like a that could be a kernel in a in a in a EU called a generalized universal function.

A generalized EU uh or a kernel in a PyTorch module right now. I want I want that. And in fact today 14 years after the first version of Numba was released there are 20 or 21 different Python compiler technologies that are in this space. Uh TYI lang Kodon Mojo you could consider in this space. It's a little bit if you squint it's a it extends it. Syon my pyca like there's all these but I'm like what what standard Python are they compiling?

It actually varies just there's no standardization around well what is it that they're compiling. So the idea of PostP Python was to just create a standard or well here's the language that defines this subset of Python that's typed that can be performance optimized and let's just define it and so well if you're going to do a definition you got to have a reference version of it that says okay so here's so that's the idea and I said well let me use

a agents to help me and turned out with claude and codeex kind of both interchangeably kind of use them both as co-co competing agents on the same problem I could make progress in the first version of that in four to six hours, right? And actually have something kind of a working compiler in that time frame, which is amazing. It was like, wow. So something that otherw it's not perfect, but I could start.

And then basically a series of of sessions allowed me to create not only PostPython, but something I'm calling Postcipi uh as a and starting to create modules. And part of the reason for that is sci was how numpy got built. Like numpy got built as a reference implementation for sci. And how I knew numpy was far enough along is it could implement all of sci-fi.

So I'm kind of doing this as an experiment. Post python is a experiment in constructing a standard using agent first. a I call agent first coding where agents are participating in the conversation human oversight you know for on behalf of humans and then 14 modules that I'm writing for I call you know PP special PP stats PP like sci-fi has a whole host of modules underneath it and instead of having a a single you know PP sci or something it's post python special post python constants as

separate modules and those become now testing grounds to make sure they're compile or standard is sufficient to support that use case. So um that's a project I've started. I've got a few interns working on it. It's open to anybody who wants to participate. But it's coding, it's agent first development, uh which is also gives a chance to experiment with what that means.

Uh there's a lot of open source communities out there. They're experimenting with what that means. I think a lot of my friends are are some are excited, some are frustrated because they get um AI slot poll requests coming in that they then have to manage. They got too they're too busy. way here we just go you know what um it's the output that matters.

We're going to do documentation driven, test driven development and if you know it's more about does it work and does it give us something we're looking for and then the ultimate ultimate result is a spec file and then an implementation of that spec and so the spec file is something that humans can review and look at and say yeah that's something we could support and ideally if

we're successful we'll get you know kodon my cpi like all the rest of these compilers implement that spec or at least portions of that spec you got to subdivide it in different portions anyway so But how do you code on a daily basis? Like you >> Oh, I code with agents. >> So, I prompt agents. That's >> You prompt agents and then you watch them work and come back and look at the code and [snorts] I tell it, "Oh, that that wasn't right.

Do this differently." >> Uh, >> and what do you use like cloud work mostly or? Well, I use I use cloud co-work and cloud code and then co-work both. >> Sorry. Uh it's actually codeex which is then merged recently in chatbt to a single which is better. They might as well have it together. But I've been using those interchangeably. I've started to experiment with the GLM models.

We have at open teams a new desktop app called Collab that we're just putting out there that's essentially like a co-work but it's a a free download that lets you use open models. And what the main the main purpose of it is to help maintain the context. Now I you know I'm a big proponent of privacy and a big proponent of owned AI for public open source development.

I'm not that concerned about using the foundation models. It's totally fine. I'm happy to use them. Uh and so far my usage hasn't gotten so much that it's too expensive. >> Yeah. Um did you get an aha moment with like all these new AI tools? Because what's the difference between this and being a manager of many talented software developers like 10 years ago?

There's no difference. >> There's no there there's not. Well, there's some differences because coding agents are different than humans, but but in terms of the ability to produce, there's it's it's um No, I I did have that aha moment. That's like I started this by saying I've been kind of >> speed, right? You get your results way way quicker. you the result loop is closed way way quick way quicker.

>> The iteration loop is so much more so quick. Yes. So it it helps me realize that man the future is going to be I think small tools. I feel like it's we're going to go back to the Unix philosophy of you know this yes there's going to be a lot of open source but the kinds of open source that people will rely on are modules that do what they said they'll do really well and that they could be integrated together with and you can depend on it.

uh I so kind of the big framework ideologies are kind of I think going to be less interesting to people because they're just more complicated and more surface for that they'll just go well I'll just recreate that for my own needs >> right >> so >> and can we trust AI agents to vet like what is the best underlying framework or is is that still a human

>> no not entirely I mean yeah yeah I think so ultimately those AI that what we're trusting is actually the previous documentation that oriented the AI in the first place like the AI, how does it get that information? Well, it gets it from the from Reddit and from the internet and from all the different blog posts that are out there. So, you're essentially interpolating the past five to 10 years of decision- making kind of that's what AI is telling you to do.

Can you trust it? No, not yet. Because we're not entirely clear on why it makes the decision it does. I think we need we definitely need human loop. We definitely need validation. Um, but we should but everybody should be leaning into it. like there's no reason to to to run away from it or be scared by it. >> Like if we depend on human bias, right? Like um even Wikipedia to some degree is it's great, but it's very biased, right?

There's a bunch of editors that have like political sentiments and the the full information is cute, right? code is way less political fortunately but >> it's like there's still a lot of brain power needed and I feel >> yeah like the best humans will are sort of merging with AI and are intertwining in a forever spiral of growth um do do you feel that is the case do you feel that AI will replace like most jobs because most humans are not super hard workers

and want to just chill do do you feel that the full economy is in danger if AI is let loose. What are your thoughts on that? >> So, so, so, so yeah, couple things to unpack there. Um, I I don't feel the economy is in danger unless unless we allow AI to concentrate power and wealth too much. That's the real danger. >> But how can we stop that? It feels unstoppable this AI arms race even if politics are intervening.

>> I think a couple of things are happening. I mean, one, the the the hardware providers don't want that either because they want more people to sell to than just the, you know, five oligarchs, you know, five monopouists, you know. So, you see recently, you know, Jensen, they're supporting openweight models. Um, Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD, they're all um leaning in.

You've got this massive open source ecosystem out there that's starting to experiment. Uh, I think I don't think it's unstoppable at all. I think in fact we're at the precipice of a I think it'll take a little bit because it'll be kind of a a bit of a a dip as a lot of people rely on this easy button and then as oh these tools emerge and people start writing on their own tools you'll have this resurgence of a more distributed economy.

That's what I'm pushing for and what we're trying to help encourage and support. Um so in terms of the economy yes I think AI will replace or modify many jobs people do today. Um however I don't think it means people won't have jobs. I mean I think people will and the reason I think that is multiffold. One an economy is simply people serving each other.

As long as there are humans there'll be needs those humans have and want. Now if many of them can be provided by machines great but fundamentally there's a lot of things that machines won't provide to humans and humans will still want. You know the the the le not the least of which is connection community uh relationships. Um and so ultimately the question really amounts to where is the money dissipated?

How much you know if people if the money is distributed broadly and there's lots of businesses in the then lots of people will be able to participate in the economy the way they want it. So it's more about it's less about AI replacing jobs and more about AI concentrating wealth. That's the thing I worry more about and what I try to encourage by helping create more owners, creating more builders, creating more owners.

That's in fact my life goal right now is to create as many owners as we can. Yeah. Well, I mean it's also my life's mission to create like as many founders as possible, right? Uh and humans are gritty, but I feel with nine-to-f5s and uh corporations the past decades, we really lobize grits in humans and it's like, oh, be comfortable and don't take risk, right?

And just chill. And I'm not sure how we're going to adapt to that shock, right? I do feel that the future is fully entrepreneurial, people owning pieces of uh businesses and revshare and all of that and the hourly wage I feel will just dissipate, right? Uh and if we talk about agents, it's going to be per usage. But >> it's just like I have a hard time to see how we're going to have humanity pivot another time away from sort of comfort and embrace grit again.

[snorts] >> You know, uh it's a great point. Um, I think it'll be fits and starts. Frankly, there are a lot of people in humanity who have already embraced grit, are still embracing grit. Yes, there are a lot of people who don't. Um, that's going to be and and either they're going to be independently wealthy and fine or they're going to be not and not fine.

And so, um, I think there's going to be if I I am a firm believer in the more wealth there is, the easier it is to support that. Um I'm more concerned right now about the geopolitics frankly supporting a stable economy than I am uh you know right now specifically over the next I'd say two to three years that's the thing that concerns me the most I think on the technology side I was concerned even a year ago but now with all the movement towards open weights that's happening through you know very large organizations

realizing that's the future and then also realizing there's massive numbers of people out there who will lean into this um I'm actually more confident so I'm I'm very optimistic on the 10 year horizon, the five to 10 year horizon. And on the the one to five year horizon, I'm like, okay, it's going to be a bit of a we're going to have to be all working together.

>> It's going to be dicey. >> So, do you feel government will survive that? Like, as a coding guy, as a systems guy, as a scientist, a mathematics guy, what would be your ideal version of a governing body for human beings? >> Yeah, that's a great question. I I would say generally and I don't have exact answers but I have general answers is um kind of the inverted pyramid right the the more people that you're trying to govern the fewer the rules should be and the more exact they should be so if you're trying to govern a massive group of people then effectively AI should be able to govern it right because it's a

very few few set of rules and it's a very clear set of decision- making the fewer people you're governing the more flexible it can be the more judgment can be involved the more you So essentially it becomes until all the way down to the tribal level you essentially have you know just good judgment people interacting with each other. So I like to see many overlapping systems of governance with lots of you know power corrupts and absolute power corrupts.

Absolutely. And how do you push against that is you distribute it. You make sure that there's no single autocrat that has too much power. And that's something that I thought the internet would help us with so far. And it's not just the internet because it's this has been going on for thousands of years. This is not just this this this tension between you know ruling the ruling class and the uh burgeois has been happening for a long long time.

Uh, I'm I'm still very hopeful. In fact, my hope right now is we can use AI assistance to help more people understand how they can lean into their own, if not themselves, at least their tribe, their group, their organizational group can actually have more ability to push up against the tide, the tide of of uh essentially um lack of autonomy, the tide, more independence because you've got support.

I mean, right now, even today, I've got attorneys who I work with who are like, you know what, just go talk to Claude. I mean, they do whisper me that because, you know, they can't officially say that, but honestly, you get pretty good advice just from these, you know, interpolating the legal information that that the AIS have access to. Like, that's very powerful because all of a sudden, you know, you have the ability now to get better advice and better ideas about how to interact with folks.

So, I think that's that's exciting. I think there's the opportunity for that, but there's still organizational work. There's still there's still, you know, I would say the ecosystem to support that is still very anemic. We don't have, you know, for example, a metaphor I'll use is in the United States, home ownership is supported by Home Depot and Lowe's on every corner, you know, hardware shops in every corner, and then also services to people to help support your ownership of your home.

We need the same thing in the AI ecosystem. We need an ecosystem of support for owning your own AI, right? that actually has many places you can go for services and support and because you want to enrich your data, you want to enrich solutions, you want solutions that support your ownership of your AI, not ones that are secretly trying to take it from you, right?

And that's kind of the battle we're in, I think, right now >> is that ecosystem support needs to grow and change. >> Yes. Um, and it's interesting that you have these philosophies as a guy that's uh wealthy, right? like me, I tend to lean more on a libertarian side and I do believe in the wisdom of the crowd and and I think we talked about it last time, but you know, you said like uh more rules when there's more people or more pre precise rule.

I think that's what we're getting in this society, right? And >> well, few fewer fewer rules the more people you're trying to govern. More more very clear and fewer the more people you're trying to govern. >> Okay. Uh yeah, I see I see why you're thinking this because it's simple and uh people with less education can understand faster these rules and can end up less in jail.

Um [laughter] but >> yeah, you said you said another >> Yeah, but you said you said another thing, right? Like more people to govern the the system. I think there's a trade-off there and it's that the decisions are slower if there many if there's more people. Of course, there could be a technological solution to that. And also, [snorts] there's less expertise.

You're you're rounding out you're rounding out sharp corners. Experts know their [ __ ] Like me, I'm more on the technocratic side of things. You just put an expert in power. >> You give them a lot of power, but you do put mechanisms because I do agree with you that power corrupts, right? Um, and my system also, we would people would be able to choose it from scratch.

You mentioned something about tribes, right? I think that's smart. I think a fundamental flaw is that you're born into a country, taxes are imposed on you, and you didn't even choose to be there. [laughter] It's like >> that that is not uh and a lot of people end up in prison also is like from a country that didn't even choose, right? So, >> I think people should be able to choose that in the future.

I think last time we spoke about network states, right? >> Network states from Bellagi. I think that would be like the concepts uh the concept I'm hinting at here. >> I love it. I think that I think it's exciting because I think it gives us a chance to talk about some of the ideas. I think AI gives us the ability to actually have simulations better because all of a sudden if especially if you could have a bunch of trusted AI what we don't what we don't want is like okay five you know overlord AIs that tell us everything that's never going to work.

If you have a million AIs, you know, essentially paired with every organization, they have an AI, they go, "Oh, this is our AI." And then you have aggregator, you have a sovereign AI, and then you have aggregators that say, "Hey, here's a policy we're testing. Let's let's futureproof this policy and see what your AI says. how to like play this out like simulate this in a model economy where where where individuals or groups can say here's an AI that represents my worldview and I'm going to see how it plays out in your future world.

Imagine if you had a world where no law could be passed unless it was simulated on AI's where instead of a representative in government, you have your AI representative that plays in the simulation to see the impact on your way of thinking that that policy would have. And that's got to basically be done and reported on before any laws passed. Like imagine a world like that that that's a that's a positive thing that could happen where we could actually get better just better data around laws because right now the problem with most organiza even democracies organizations you end up with a you know a bunch of people who don't really know and then frankly right now now they're mostly bought out by uh by by dollars by by

their uh the donors who have who funded them and then they're not really representing people and even if they were how would they know? They're trying to pass a law and they're like, "Well, we don't know the impact implication of this law." And history and governance is just littered with with unintended consequences or bad laws, right? Because >> and you could argue, some would argue that well, some of those laws could have been contemplated if you just had the right framing of understanding.

Yes. >> So this is a but I could see actually if we have a world of many AI systems where people truly are feel represented by that model. And if you don't, guess what? You can move to another group where it feels like that AI represents you better, >> right? Yeah. >> And ultimately, >> yeah, exactly. Exactly. Digital simulation. Digital simulation of cognitive, you know, cognitive uh views.

At open teams, we have a concept called cogs. I'm I'm promoting a cog is not just the model because a lot of people talking about models. Cool models, but that's that's barely the story. The model is just the interpolator of the information. The other part is what information are you giving it? Well, how are you orienting that model? What's the expertise?

What's the context? What's the prompting? What's the tools? The skills. So if you combine a model with the context, you get what I call a cog that could be specialized. And now there could be billions of cogs. Now, you know, that's a lot of infrastructure to support that. But let's start with tens of thousands. Let's start with hundreds of thousands of cogs, you know, for every line of work, for every expertise, for every person, for every hey, I've got this this history cog, right?

I've got this this thing that then can be used and pulled into your to your uh AI workflow. So that's what we're promoting at Open Teams, a world of, you know, millions of cogs. A cog for every org. In fact, 10, in fact, most orgs will need like a hundred of them. You need one for your accounting department, one for your HR department, maybe three or four for your sales department, you need some for your engineering, and of course your engineers will need several because you want a cog that's an expert in some area.

So I actually, this is [clears throat] what gets me excited because I do see a world where you have this distributed AI economy. If we can take the AI capability built on open source and apply some of the same principles that made open source thrive, which is, you know, putting tools in the hands of people, allowing these communities to self-organize and form and creating uh support infrastructure, companies that support that infrastructure in ways that people can self- select.

Like ultimately markets work if people can say no. Like you know markets don't work when they become monopolies and uh and it's just you know top down you know forcing but they work when people can say no and then can opt in because then then the pe then the companies that are that are serving that market have to serve the market in order to survive.

They have to give people what they want. But but if people can't choose what they want because they're essentially forced to take it. It's not really a market. And unfortunately, that's kind of one of the things that we've been [clears throat] moving towards is sort of non-market horses. Um, a lot of that >> I like the test like I have a three months old daughter, right?

And it's like what is she going to think at 15 years from now of what's archaic, right? >> Oh, 9 to5 model hourly payment and me enslaving someone to 9 to5 archaic. Me eating meat archaic. um me having like us dying of cancer or just dying from natural cause archaic, but dude, the political system it it'll be like super [ __ ] archaic. Like, oh my god, that how could they pass laws without like testing them, right, >> and seeing the effects on humanity, >> right?

>> It's so archaic. It's crazy, >> right? I I totally agree with you. Yes, exactly. So, so these things give me optimism. The current structure gives me some pessimism, you know, so short term, but long term, you know, I guess um keep everybody excited. Uh because those who survive the the the coming challenges are going to be are going to have an opportunity to build something incredible.

>> So, what will be these challenges? Do you see like uh I don't know polit uh wars, civil wars and upheaval like of people getting their jobs slashed or like >> unfortunately I do see I do see some um potentially you know one you have the you have the increase of physical violence just in the world that could you know and physical violence prompts physical violence right and that's you know that's what's happening

and so we'll have some of that and and so then you know different people and the common reaction to that is escalation And as you escalate, of course, it just creates more and more and more unless you can find a way out. Um then I see um companies making bad judgments and doing things like you already seen it a little bit like companies went and they did mass layoffs thinking that AI would help them and it was way too soon and then they had to hire back because AI wasn't anywhere near where they thought it might be.

Uh, so I think you'll see some of that and then you'll see honestly just a little bit of fear because one of the challenges people in a when they're in a when they're in a state of uncertainty or fear then they'll kind of pull in and they won't lean in because progress requires people to lean in with faith. Lean in with a vision for where they want to see the world in order to take action towards that vision.

And you know in fear people don't they just sort of it sort of and then the effect of that is like jobs are harder. People end up being a little less open for new new experiences. Um so but I think I think there going to be pockets of the world that are doing very very well. And so I think there's places there going to be places to go and places to engage that are going to be doing very well all through this.

>> Yes. So granted that prediction how does that change where you invest your time, money and energy? >> Yeah. [snorts] For me personally, it doesn't change much because I've been, you know, committed to this to doing as much as I can to build a world of distributed ownership for, you know, 15 years and still doing that. And so, uh, for many people, I think, frankly, I I think, you know, build meaningful relationships.

That's still the most important thing you do in your life. Yes. And and part of building meaningful relationships is what drives you then to do things in the broader world. my own life. The reason I got excited about business was because I had a family when I was excited about open source. Reason I got excited about about open source because I love science.

I loved the idea of learning about the world. And that pursuit of science led me to open source to help pursue that science. And then that led to just the oh these relationships I have with people all over the world. Building open source is phenomenal. And then my relationships with family, with people that I've committed to and and my children, my wife, my extended family, like, oh, they they they need me to earn a living, to earn money.

So that led me to, well, how do I do that? And so kind of all of my choices have been led primarily from the people closest to me and then the ideas that I get excited about. And I think, you know, that's recommend that to everybody. You know, everybody think you kind of just do that then you end up, you know, building strong connections. You build tools that matter to you and the people around you and that'll inspire you as to what to build next I think.

>> Have you been like ever been excited like you are today? Has there not been ever a time to be alive as today? >> It's like great threats but great opportunities as well, right? >> Yes. Exactly. Pray you live in interesting times. It's never been so much so so true now. There there's there's it's like there's dangerous times uh but it's also super exciting times like just the ability to take an idea and I've I've not just watched myself do this.

I've watched other people do this who otherwise weren't coders but they have an idea they've wanted to bring into fruition and now oh all of a sudden with a coding agent they can bring it to fruition. And this is what we've been doing with Python for 20 years is Python was that language that let people who weren't necessarily coders do enough coding to give an idea of what they wanted, right?

And then there's still plenty of room. I think there's still plenty of room for expert coding capability guided by agents because you're still going to need to just to support that. Okay, cool. Now you've got an idea. Um, and I'm looking I'm watching that happen already with PostPython and I'm experimenting more with what's going to happen. Where will humans still be needed?

because they're going to be needed. >> Yeah. [snorts] It's like the architecture, the engineering part of it. Do you feel that the human mind could be an infinite box in which AI would fit in or can AI actually replace that? Um that infinite uh >> creativity. So, so uh definitely the the current incarnation of artificial intelligence with the attention model and the transformers will not replace human capability.

It's just not possible. So I'm definitely in the camp of the Yamokun, the other folks out there who don't believe that that >> which is pretty contrarian in your position. >> It is relatively contrarian. However, the current intelligence systems we have are very powerful and they can be used to do lots of things. In fact, I'm interested in what they teach us about ourselves.

For example, you know, humans are a very complex organization. We we barely have scratched the surface of what neuroscience means. What does it mean to be a human? What does it mean to have our brain? What is consciousness? We don't know the answer to these questions. Right? So all of a sudden with the success of some of these language-based intelligence systems, these attention based intelligence systems, I'm convinced there's a part of our brain that just does that.

It essentially just just plays out language in our head and is a little module in our brain. Now, it's not all that's going on in our brain, but it's a big part of it. And so, >> but isn't this like a god-given argument and an argument that we're all so special while in reality we're just like a data filtering machine? >> Not necessarily. I didn't I didn't I actually didn't say that.

I personally believe we are special, but I'm not claiming that because of >> we're special like statistically we're special for sure. >> Right. Right. But but but I don't know the I mean but I'm not trying to claim that that's more that is more of a religious argument. Um but it's it's also an argument but >> why couldn't we for it like why we reproduce it.

>> I'm not saying we couldn't. I'm saying >> the current systems won't do that. >> Attention is not all you need for that. That's all I'm saying. Attention is not all you need to reproduce >> the human machine. >> Yeah. >> Now, could we do more? I I believe we could do more to replace to to to mimic, you know, the intelligent machines that that biology uh has constructed, right?

I believe we could. I'm not I'm not in the camp that oh we'll never see not that camp at all. I actually think in fact I think most humans primarily live their life as a machine anyway. Like that's my belief is most humans live their life as a machine. So of course it be replicated by a machine >> as NPCs to put it not in a nice way. >> Correct. Like >> we're all many humans live their life as NPCs.

>> Yeah. As I'm I'm watching World of Warcraft gameplay as we speak. that maybe that's why >> um >> I mean the human brain is infinitely complex, right? It'll take us a while to understand what's in that box and how it works. >> Um and and what about emotions, right? Like emotions are crazy complex as well and and biochemistry, right? Like dopamine, serotonin.

>> It's true. >> It'll take a while for us to to understand all of that. Um okay. And but you believe in super intelligence, right? like in 5 10 years we're going to get it. >> I I believe I don't know. I don't know if in 5 to 10 years we'll get it. I think we'll get better models in 5 years. I think some of these world model ideas are good ones are good are good directions.

I think we have uh there's other feedback loops. The human brain I believe is a complex system like several systems. I'm a believer in the thousand brain hypothesis where there's actually many systems that are integrated into our human brain. And so I think we'll be able to it is crazy. You talked about the emotions. >> It's one big frontal lobe. It's mostly the frontal lobe.

It's which is like computation ultimately. >> The frontal lobe is what differentiates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. That's correct. Correct. But we still it's most of her brain. It's most of her uh liquid wear. Uh it's most of like her brain wear. It's like 80% of it. Right. Yeah. 80% >> 80% frontal lobe. Is that right? I thought it was only like 20% is frontal lobe.

Maybe 25%. Well, we've got neoortex, we got visual cortex, got basil ganglia, got cerebellum, we got lots of brain structure. So, neuro anatomy is something I studied in in in university at Mayo Clinic. I thought I'd be a neuroscientist at some point. Um I was just better at computers than lab equipment. But um the brain is fascinating and it's the frontal lobe that differentiates primates and then particularly our frontal lobe is bigger than most other primates.

And so we have the ability to and and if you believe Yuri uh in sapiens, which I tend to think he's on to something there, what separated the homo sapiens from Neanderthalss was our ability to reason about mythology, to reason about things that aren't there. Basically to to to make assumptions and have an an ideal. So we're so yes, that's also the difference.

It's also what ends up killing us because of you you look at, you know, wars and fighting and at scale. What are we fighting over? Typically, it's an ideology. It's a concept. It's a it's >> it's emotions, right? It's testosterone is like >> emotions then under undergard that and give it energy, right? But the logic that constructs the ideal that the emotion then feed is a feedback loop to support comes from the frontal lobe >> and it's just >> and generates cortisol and testosterone >> generates cortisol generates all those things.

That feedback loop is what keeps us stronger. Yes. >> And of course sometimes that feedback loop gets out of bands. I mean for me for example I noticed my weight gain go crazy when [snorts] I was CEO of Anaconda because I wasn't managing the cortisol levels well you know cortisol that stress you have to exercise when you're feeling it and I didn't do enough >> yeah exercise my drug I couldn't do anything without it last question for you which is very much related to that right and

you do serve uh defense in your company you talked about geopolitical conflicts like are we going to blow ourselves up till we get super intellg ence is that the real danger and not AI. >> That is one of the dangers. Yeah, that I Yes, I believe the danger is not super intelligence. It's potentially uh blowing ourselves up before we get there. >> So, how how to how do you prevent that?

More dialogue, more data, more less emotions. >> Yeah, you have to lean in >> less humans. >> Well, I would say more people at the table. I mean, I'm a believer in the US Constitution that it separated powers or tried to, right? And so, anytime, you know, so anointing kings and anointing single points of power is always a danger, right? Even even if they're benevolent for a little while, you can never rely on that for >> for a little while till they get corrupted.

>> Exactly. Or until somebody else takes their place, their son comes in. I mean, history's replete from this. This is the lesson of history. So, ultimately, I you need more people. You need people to acknowledge that they need to step up into their into their um power, what they have, and they need to, you know, you're a leader. If you're a leader of a tribe or an organization or a group, you have an opportunity to be at the table and say, "No, this is my group.

This is our representation. This is what we need." And you and you respectfully, you know, look for ways to um for peaceful dialogue. Uh use your creativity and your brilliance to come up with um satisficing conditions. Understand this is what they want. This is what they want. How do we find a a place of cooperation? Even if what that means is we just go our separate ways like we we we can't trade because there that may be the case.

It might simply be you know what we don't really align and so we're going to live in different parts of the world right and have very you know trade through an intermediary right that may be the answer right but okay right that's worked for thousands of years to create peace >> but has humanity gone better like I think we have shocks every now and then last one

has been second world war and then we tried to learn from that there's an argument meant to be made for that also I don't think that generally we're killing machines I mean We do eliminate like competition which is pretty scary. Imagine if super intelligence would do that, right? But we don't tend to exterminate one another all the time, right? Like only a couple pathological few >> that probably needs to be controlled in in some in some context, right?

So there is an argument to be made that >> humanity is getting better. Uh but it feels like right now we're we're at the tipping point, right? Like we're period of conflict. I think communication is critical. Really getting information out. Usually like in order to support antisocial behavior, you have to restrict communication because by default, humans are actually pretty social >> like except for a few pathologies out there.

Vast majority the vast majority of humans are social. This is what open source taught me just and and it was actually in in uh breathtaking and super uh optimizing you know optimist producing just to go to different countries. I mean even in you know country you know Persia or Pakistan or countries I've never been and seeing there's groups of people there and they they have the same hopes and dreams I do you know different uh emphasis different things they care about but the end of the day there's a lot in common and so building on those common pieces open source has been a place that

people could cooperate I'm excited because AI means everybody can now participate in open source because you know okay you don't code that's fine you can prompt an AI to tell it what you want and it can build a thing you can then share with the world. >> Okay, last question. >> I I know I know you need to run, but the AI arms race right now uh good or bad thing?

I probably know the answer to that. Uh and if it's a not so good thing, what would be a a better [snorts] way to I think sustain innovation >> for a lot of a lot of money has been in the flawed idea that we have to go support a couple of big labs. Like I think that's a flawed idea. Uh we need u we need AI development to be happening in hundreds of places, thousands of places.

And so it's better to distribute that both knowledge and uh investment. Uh so um that's that's my main story. It's like don't call it an arms. An arms race is when you have you know concentrated power trying to go after something. If you if you treat it more like science then you have >> USVs China is what I mean right now right it's like US >> US versus China I think we need to deescalate that [laughter] >> yes >> right and so I'm a big believer in Jensen's note he just wrote he wrote a great note on Twitter or an ex today posted the AI uh you know

the US needs to really like the US policy the US government the US research labs they need to think hard about oh we should be promoting open AI as a science and as a as a gift to the world they like the United States should absolutely be doing that. Uh we've got the talent, got the capability, we've got people who are already doing it with very little money.

>> It should be it's a no-brainer to me that we should have >> populism is so so much easier to be populist, right, than just like go with the emotions and manipulate people and take low education people and just convince them that >> China is evil. I I just encourage people to visit China. Go step in China and uh talk to the people. you'll see they're they're just like you and I and uh they're very smart.

They're smart business people. They're great and um >> yeah, >> it's it's uh a bit more complex than it sounds. Like I don't want to sound like a peace and love hippie, >> uh which I'm not. I'm a super capitalist, but it's like there's good business to be done with China and probably better business to be done with China vs. than just uh against them.

Uh Travis, where can people find out more about you? Yeah. So, I'm on X at Telephant. I'm at LinkedIn on Telephant. You can go to uh openteams.com uh our YouTube channel. Um uh DM me on X or or on LinkedIn. So I was Travis and