WEBVTT
00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:15.679
Hello everyone and welcome to our Dream Wonders series on Mindlex.
00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:25.199
We are joined today by Viktor Vorsky, a wonderful explorer, co-explorer of a question very close to my heart.
00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:32.240
What if AI could help us become not merely smarter, but wiser together?
00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:55.520
Victor's work challenges the old image of organizations as machines, hierarchies of boxes, roles, and control, and asks what happens when we begin designing them instead as living adaptive systems where humans and AI agents sense, learn, coordinate, and evolve together.
00:00:55.840 --> 00:01:08.480
And this resonates, as many of you know, deeply with my own lifelong work on multi-agent systems and organic governance, and takes us toward the much bigger questions.
00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:27.200
What new forms of collective intelligence become possible when humans and artificial minds, and our podcast Mindplex, involves exactly this kind of mix, learn not only merely to coexist, but to organize and evolve together.
00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:29.120
So welcome, Victor.
00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:34.480
Please tell us a bit about yourself, your life, education, and what drew you to this quest.
00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:38.400
Whatever you want to tell us to introduce yourself, please, Victor.
00:01:38.799 --> 00:01:39.599
Yeah, thank you.
00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:40.560
Thank you so much.
00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:49.840
I uh given what uh I've heard about your work, I would say I'm a little bit intimidated because I think you've gone so much deeper in your research and so on and so forth.
00:01:50.079 --> 00:01:58.319
But I think it's an exciting area, and and we need many different perspectives, and I think we need many more people having the conversation.
00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:07.280
So I'm sure because of my life journey, I have some interesting angles uh that I can bring, and and yeah, really excited about this conversation.
00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:12.479
So I think uh where do I start?
00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:17.919
I would say I'm uh an interesting place is I'm a third culture child.
00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:20.240
Are you familiar with that expression?
00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:22.560
So it's people that have grown up.
00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:24.000
Yeah.
00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:35.360
So uh in my case, I was born in Poland, then I moved to Kuwait, then I moved to Canada, so I had one culture at home, and then I was living in other cultures.
00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:50.080
And the reason I think this is relevant to this conversation is it of course it all depends on how you process it in your life, but if you process it one way, you realize that normal is a social convention.
00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:58.000
The different societies are organized different ways, and their normal is actually different than other people's normals.
00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:02.400
And if you start looking at it that way, that enables you to take a step back.
00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:08.400
Okay, if there's this one normal and this one normal, well, maybe we can invert a different kind of normal, right?
00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:15.680
And I think this opens up the possibility of invention systems change.
00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:21.599
Uh, I went on, I'm actually a second-generation uh IT computers person.
00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:26.639
My father was the first class of computer science at the University of Warsaw.
00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:48.000
But I got a degree in computer science uh only to kind of discover that, well, first of all, whilst I do love tech, uh at the same time, uh really the kinds of problems that I'm interested in are much more on the human side, right?
00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:56.400
So, of course, there is some hard science problem in technology, but overall the human side is much harder.
00:03:56.960 --> 00:04:11.199
So, what uh what drew me or where how I kind of ended up in this space is on the one side, so I was like, okay, tech, interesting, but I want to get another degree.
00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:12.879
Uh, what's next?
00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:19.680
I did an MBA, which kind of made me look because I was trying to understand the business world.
00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:27.199
I come from a non-business world, which means Poland, socialist Poland, and also non-business family.
00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:35.040
Uh, but I went through the MBA and I was like, oh, if this is the world for business, I'm not excited.
00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:35.680
Right?
00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:39.120
This is not the dream world that I want to be part of.
00:04:39.199 --> 00:04:41.199
And of course, this was 20 plus years ago.
00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:47.439
I imagine MBAs have moved on, but and then I was just consulting, searching.
00:04:47.600 --> 00:05:00.319
Uh, in 2008, I think I started really exploring the depths of I think of it, I feel my life in a way like a mind trying to explore, you know, like where are the walls of the matrix?
00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:09.120
And my first exploration was in 2008, after around the financial crash, when I was like, oh, it's all falling apart.
00:05:09.279 --> 00:05:12.240
Wait, I have an MBA, I should be able to understand this.
00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:14.399
Oh, wait, it's all about money.
00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:17.120
And then it's like, what is money?
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:19.279
Where did it come from?
00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:21.040
How does this work, right?
00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:27.519
I have a business degree, but I don't understand the fundamentals of you know, what is this?
00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:41.279
And I started reading, and then I re I discovered there's a whole universe of people for over a hundred years with alternative theories, with experiments, and people reinventing and trying to reinvent the system.
00:05:41.680 --> 00:06:02.639
And I think one thing that I carry as coming from a comp as computer scientists, one of the things that we kind of have in our DNA zitogized, if we see a system, we're thinking how to reinvent it, and we our general attitude is if there's a system, we think we can build a better one.
00:06:03.600 --> 00:06:16.240
And then if you start applying this mindset and looking and seeing society as a whole bunch of systems, you start thinking, oh wait, maybe we could design different systems, right?
00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:21.040
Uh so then yeah, my kind of exploration continued.
00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:26.240
I was living in Japan a long time that kind of added to my more I spent 15 years living.
00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:28.000
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:33.279
So I spent 15 years living in Japan and lots of beautiful discoveries there.
00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:43.839
Uh and then uh I've been working remotely also for over 20 years, 30 years, depending on how you look at it.
00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:56.560
So maybe I'm not much smarter than people, but I've just had many more years to experiment, to fail, to succeed, of what this way of working means.
00:06:56.720 --> 00:07:13.600
And that also made me realize, right, so many of the standard paradigm ideas around how do we build an organization and what an organization is actually don't fit very well a distributed and remote company.
00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:25.360
I can talk at length about that, but that kind of made me start and I fell into the teal for teal, reinventing organizations, non-hierarchical, that whole universe.
00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:29.360
There's, I don't know, you you must be familiar with the book Reinventing Organizations, right?
00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:34.319
Around the time when it came out, there was like a format of people being excited about it.
00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:37.439
It was my first internet organizing with a friend.
00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:39.680
We started a group called Teal for Startups.
00:07:39.920 --> 00:07:49.199
We had over 150 people come together trying to think because already I was thinking transforming existing organizations is really hard.
00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:55.199
Uh and in general, this is not how change works in the world, right?
00:07:55.519 --> 00:07:58.639
Things don't transform, the next generation is different.
00:07:58.879 --> 00:08:04.160
You know, there was no dinosaur that was born a dinosaur and died a bird, right?
00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:08.800
It was a process of evolution with many other beings in the middle.
00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:11.600
And I was like, well, startups are newly starting.
00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:18.000
So invested a lot of energy and thought into learning around that.
00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:31.439
That was 12 plus years ago, and I've been really looking and thinking about that space and also looking and thinking about why it didn't succeed in the sense of taking off as a bigger movement in the world.
00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:33.840
Okay, so let's tell me, let me stop you there.
00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:38.480
I have a few questions based on already the fascinating things which you shared.
00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:41.519
So, but first of all, where are you based now?
00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:44.320
Of all, uh I live in Portugal.
00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:50.320
The way I like to describe it is I'm one hour north of Lisbon, the last house at the end of development.
00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:52.639
Oh, I we look forward to visit you.
00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:56.879
We will be there during the web summit, so maybe you will be there as well.
00:08:57.039 --> 00:08:59.200
But we'll we'll we can take that offline.
00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:05.600
But you know, um, tell us a bit, maybe if you can kind of nail it in a few words.
00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:12.399
What didn't you like about how business was taught in uh in university or wherever you studied?
00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:17.279
And I mean okay, so let's start with that and then I will ask you the next.
00:09:17.919 --> 00:09:18.240
Yeah.
00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:41.039
So I mean, I think at the time I wasn't able to, you know, now I've it's been 20 some years and I've learned about you know regeneration, you so now I can give you a theory of uh of why that system didn't excite me.
00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:43.919
At the time, I just kind of felt it in my gut.
00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:48.159
Yes, no, I agree with that because I also I was in the same situation, you know.
00:09:48.240 --> 00:10:05.840
I come from Romania, and when I moved to the West, I did not study business, but I have seen how things work there here, here, because I live in DC now in the US, and indeed it was kind of I didn't feel that you know it's not aligned with the natural order.
00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:14.240
And though then the second question to you is did you find in the meantime an explanation for what is money?
00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:36.799
Uh yes, so I mean, I've I read about four or five of the better books around money, and also so for me, when I approach topics like this and like understanding the matrix and society, I am really interested in the big arc of history, right?
00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:44.240
You know, starting with at least the agricultural revolution, so at least 10,000 years, preferably more.
00:10:44.399 --> 00:10:54.559
I think if you look at any smaller slice of history, it's interesting, but it doesn't really give you an answer to the deeper question of what is money, right?
00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:58.240
Because it's evolved and it's there is so many things around it.
00:10:58.480 --> 00:11:02.960
Uh I wouldn't say I'm the best person to give a definition.
00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:17.200
I mean, there is this store of value, there's this, it's a way, it's I would say the way I look at it now, fundamentally it's a coordination mechanism that society uses to coordinate at scale.
00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:26.799
I completely agree with that, and that it ties us into exactly these organizational structures and work and fluidity.
00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:32.320
I completely agree with you because you know, much of today's organization was designed for another world.
00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:39.039
The factories, the office, fixed jobs, as you mentioned, you know, reporting lines and managers overseeing employees.
00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:40.799
But now we are all distributed.
00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:41.679
We are doing this.
00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:51.919
You're in Portugal, I'm in DC, and many, many, many, many things are happening in this distributed uh fluid uh fractional, if we may, manner.
00:11:52.080 --> 00:12:01.279
So, how can we actually coordinate easier and reward, you know, incentivize people to do things and come together in this what I call ad hocracies?
00:12:01.600 --> 00:12:07.600
So, what exactly has broken uh or was broken in the old organizational model?
00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:16.559
And and why do we keep trying to bolt 21st century intelligence into organizational structures designed for an industrial age?
00:12:16.799 --> 00:12:25.600
Anyway, maybe you are kind of or answered this question already, but if you uh if you can tell us something to that effect.
00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:33.360
So, to begin with, what I would say is I am not so presumptuous to say that the old models are broken.
00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:38.399
I have no idea how to run a post office, an army, or a factory.
00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:40.159
I am not going maybe.
00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:43.840
What I know is that I don't want to be a part of those, but okay.
00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:45.279
It's not my world.
00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:50.159
I don't I I cannot say whether the old model is the best one to run a factory or not.
00:12:50.320 --> 00:12:51.519
That's not my world.
00:12:51.840 --> 00:13:12.240
My world is of distributed and fractional, and those are two dimensions because you could be distributed so remote and working full-time on one thing, but in the world where you're distributed, you're fractional, and you're trying to be purposeful, I I think of it now as purposeful inward and purposeful outward at an organizational level.
00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:29.600
Purposeful inward in the sense that we're trying to be a human organization that supports people thriving, well-being, da-da-da, and purposeful outward, which to me simply put means that we measure the organization's contribution through more than just financial means.
00:13:31.039 --> 00:13:42.639
So if you put those things together, hierarchy, uh I mean, the traditional model is basically strongly based around extrinsic motivation.
00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:44.000
Sticks and carrots.
00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:45.039
Yes, yes, exactly.
00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:49.120
Extrinsic motivation doesn't work when we're remote.
00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:58.960
Maybe it works, you know, with incentivized now with uh crypto tokens and so on and so forth, but maybe not really.
00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:05.759
Oh no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry if you just tell us the crypto world is now old enough.
00:14:05.919 --> 00:14:09.759
It's what a solid 15 years, right?
00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:21.039
So we have, I think it's old enough that we are uh in a position and it's uh it's we can start drawing conclusions.
00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:21.840
Yes, right?
00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:29.039
We can start, we can start judging where it's gotten to and where it's not gotten to, and what has worked, what hasn't worked.
00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:33.360
And that was actually it was also it's one of my disappointments.
00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:44.720
I mean, I will tell you, I hold a grudge against the crypto world because I thought that they were going to bring us the new organizational models, and in the end they haven't at all.
00:14:45.840 --> 00:14:48.080
No, not in any kind of I agree.
00:14:48.320 --> 00:14:51.759
There is yeah, it's still a win or takes all uh game.
00:14:51.919 --> 00:14:52.320
Yeah.
00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:55.600
And also, you know, the whole DAO thing, right?
00:14:55.679 --> 00:15:04.639
And this is from my friends who are very deep and very successful in the place, and they're like, yeah, DAOs exist so people don't go to jail for certain financial things, right?
00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:06.799
Distributing responsibility.
00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:11.679
This is not a cynical outsider, this is a cynical insider.
00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:35.519
So yeah, uh, I don't think crypto, there is a bunch of ideas in crypto which are important and need to be around value and dynamic, but they haven't deployed it and built it in such a way that it enables day-to-day entrepreneurship uh to work more effectively.
00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:38.399
Totally, totally.
00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:50.639
I I agree, and I have my own uh complaints about crypto, and I have um I have two podcasts which address that the this this capture of the cyberpunk movement, you know.
00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:57.600
Interestingly enough, because I've been around the crypto world since the early 90s.
00:15:57.840 --> 00:16:03.519
Because the university I went to, there were a bunch of guys that were deep into crypto.
00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:11.759
Uh, a friend who was two years behind me in university was Butelix Thesis supervisor, Vitalic's Thusi's supervisor.
00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:18.879
So I was hearing them talk about it in the 90s and the promise and the hope.
00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:24.480
And the promise and the hope hasn't been delivered on, in my eyes.
00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:30.320
Uh I can't remember where I was going with that, but yeah, it just hasn't happened.
00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:47.039
I know what you were going with, where you were going with that, because I was talking about how it was captured actually, and the initial the cryptography, you know, that it only was about cryptography, and these cypherpunks who believed that you know a new order, a more equitable society can exist.
00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:54.799
And they wanted crypto actually to be that, to enable that for everyone and to touch the fringes.
00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:56.480
And it didn't accomplish that.
00:16:56.559 --> 00:17:00.080
It again became a hierarchy, a pyramid scheme, you know.
00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:11.519
And and for me, the learning there is that because as I said, you know, I was hanging out with a lot of those guys in the 90s.
00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:16.880
I wasn't part of that movement, but you know, I was at all of the same parties and listening to them.
00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:32.319
The philosophy, and I'm a technology, so the philosophy was this distributed, you know, all of this technology in and of itself would create a new society.
00:17:33.119 --> 00:17:40.400
And my reading of it is is that that was not enough of a philosophy.
00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:46.079
Technology in and of itself is a tool, it's not a means to an end.
00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:48.720
It I mean, it's not an end in and of itself.
00:17:49.119 --> 00:18:05.599
So to actually create a different and better society, we need a shared purpose, a shared narrative about what is the society we want to create, not just like we will have these tools and society will be better.
00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:07.200
That's not how it works.
00:18:07.519 --> 00:18:19.279
I think what they were uh hoping or dreaming was that once the infrastructure is unleashed, society will self-organize on it and for the better, you know, automatically.
00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:26.880
But actually, what occurred on that infrastructure was the same game, the same pyramid schemes which we had without the infrastructure.
00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:29.039
And I know that very well because I studied it.
00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:38.400
I had the research chair in e-society, in which I really studied this, and and it was kind of in the incipient ears as well, which you are talking about.
00:18:38.559 --> 00:18:41.759
And I was very disappointed, and I knew that it's not gonna work.
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.759
That's why, for example, and now this is not crypto, it's another kind of e-society.
00:18:45.839 --> 00:18:50.480
I was never on Facebook because I knew it's uh it's another kind of capture game.
00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:53.200
But you know what I wanted to ask you, yeah, going on.
00:18:54.720 --> 00:19:04.000
So I what I I believe I was fully right in the sense that crypto in the end hasn't had an impact on day-to-day society.
00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:16.319
But what I was not thinking about and wrong, and I didn't appreciate that you can still make shitloads of money with the technology not being transformative for society at large.
00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:20.880
But yeah, I was not enough of a capitalist and I missed that.
00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:22.319
Well, it's okay.
00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:31.680
You know, it seems like uh you stayed more true to your purpose and and you worked on on your uh organized new organizational models and other things.
00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:35.680
So maybe we can move to that uh that part of the conversation.
00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:46.880
I know you don't have much time today, but I still wanted to touch on maybe I do not know if there are principles or guidelines that would allow an organization to behave more like a living organism.
00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:50.480
And this still, uh, of course, you you studied that.
00:19:50.559 --> 00:19:54.319
I I am uh familiar with that, but I think you go beyond that.
00:19:54.559 --> 00:19:59.119
So tell us a bit about your your work and and what can we learn in that regard?
00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:07.119
Yeah, so I think where I would say I am trying to go.
00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:34.160
I have this Audax OS initiative where I'm trying to go and is not to create a framework because there is a lot of good frameworks out there, but rather to map out what are the pieces that a framework and my framing is distributed, fractional, inward purposeful, outward purposeful, and also a agentic organization.
00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:46.960
So I'm not going to tell you how to run the post office or the government, but this particular kind of organization, which is becoming more and more common, I have a lot, a good amount of experience, and that's what I'm focused on.
00:20:48.160 --> 00:21:09.680
So, in a way, it's one one little description that I like to say with these new organizational models, all there is a huge number of pieces out there, whether it's governance or the human stuff or agile, there's so many different pieces, but they're all scattered, right?
00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:23.279
So I feel like I would like to go to the market to get some vegetables to cook a great meal for my family, and I'm put into a warehouse and told all of the cars for a part are maybe here.
00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:26.960
Some of the shelves are labeled better than others, good luck.
00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:30.720
And I was like, I'm just trying to feed my family.
00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:34.880
I don't want to be a car maker, I don't even want to be a car mechanic.
00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:40.640
You know, I can follow a maintenance manual, but I just want to get in, turn the key and go.
00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:42.240
And that doesn't exist.
00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:44.400
So instead, what do people do?
00:21:44.559 --> 00:21:46.880
Well, they're like, Well, I need to fill my family.
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:48.960
I don't want to learn to be a car builder.
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:52.400
So people just get on the old donkey cart of hierarchy.
00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:59.279
Because it works, it's crude, it's ugly, but it gets me there and back, and I know how it works.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:00.319
Right.
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:07.519
So I'm trying to figure out how to make a map of okay, what are all of the pieces that you need?
00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:08.079
Right?
00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:09.759
What is a car?
00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:14.880
Not how do you make a Volkswagen, whatever, but what is a car?
00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:16.880
Okay, you need four wheels, you need a steering.
00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:26.000
But but before this, before we go on this rabbit hole, I would like to stay with this because you mentioned now AI agentic organizations, and I have a few questions there.
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:30.559
Because you explicitly, as far as I understand, imagine these three kinds of relationships.
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:35.039
Yes, human to human, human to agent, and agent to agent.
00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:40.880
And I'd like to understand what might I actually experience in that kind of organization?
00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:43.119
Like, would I have AI colleagues?
00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:45.839
Do agents negotiate with other agents?
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:47.920
Do they participate in decisions?
00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:49.279
Can they represent me?
00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:59.519
And it's actually what is this AI agentic organization like I will, but first, just briefly to connect with that.
00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:02.480
The reason that because it's not obvious to some people, right?
00:23:02.559 --> 00:23:04.319
It might feel like we're jumping.
00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:10.720
But to me, it was already 12 years ago when we're doing this teal for startup and looking at these new ways of organizing.
00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:15.359
I was looking at it and going, This is beautiful, but it's really complex.
00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:18.400
And I need good mentors.
00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:25.680
And the only way to scale this is to create AI guides to guide people through these new ways of organizations.
00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:35.359
So to me, it's directly linked that these new ways of organizing, because they're not natural to us, our whole society is not built around it.
00:23:35.440 --> 00:23:38.640
There is so much unlearning and learning that needs to be done.
00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:47.599
The only way we're able to actually make it happen in practice at scale is if we have AI guides who can take us through it.
00:23:47.839 --> 00:23:48.400
I love it.
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:55.680
I I completely agree because I mean to like, you know, let's do this and then you well, whose authorization, or should I do this?
00:23:55.759 --> 00:24:00.480
And then the agents can tell me, yes, you can do this and all this.
00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:01.440
I agree with you.
00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:04.720
Yes, we need guidance to learn how to do things differently.
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:10.480
Because we've been all in regimented in the wrong organizational structures forever.
00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:13.200
So yes, yeah, I love that.
00:24:13.599 --> 00:24:22.160
And and the thing is, you know, I it's not my claim that AI will be as good or better than a human guide or mentor.
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:26.400
However, a human guide or mentor is expensive.
00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:28.480
They're not with you all the time.
00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:34.960
So the question is not, you know, will an AI be as good as a$100 an hour consultant mentor?
00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:36.720
That's not the point.
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:43.440
The question is, will for a$20 a month subscription the AI guide be 80% as good?
00:24:43.519 --> 00:24:46.799
Even if it's 50% as good, will that be useful and impactful?
00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:48.400
And I think it will be very much.
00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:51.519
Yes, and now let's come back to your example with the car.
00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:57.759
So would would the AI agent be the one who is telling you this is you I need the wheel and I need that and so on and so forth?
00:24:57.920 --> 00:25:00.079
Or how do we tie these stories together?
00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:12.079
You know, the way I imagine it, you know, the AI agent uh as a as your organizational building guide will support you through the journey.
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:20.240
I mean, you must have started some kind of organizations for profit or not others in in your path, right?
00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:24.319
And I'm involved in some right now, yes.
00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:49.519
So probably you have come to appreciate that there is so much to do and so many things you could potentially do, that a lot of the time just understanding what is the three important things that I should do today, this week, that will actually move the organization forward out of the 150 that I could do, right?
00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:57.119
How do I balance the things which will affect my future hugely in six months, but are not important this week?
00:25:57.279 --> 00:26:06.240
And to find the time, you know, like right, so it's not about the AI making you the decisions, but the AI saying, look, the three questions, right?
00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:15.440
The three questions you should engage, given what I understand about the maturity of your organization and what you're doing, these are the things that I think will shift the needle.
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:19.440
These are the conversations you should be having with your coworkers.
00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:20.000
Amazing.
00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:30.480
This this is very useful because I mean, for SingularityNet, for example, yeah, the organization uh in which I'm immersed now, it's a decentralized organization.
00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:43.440
And indeed, yes, I mean, uh, I do not know how many of what many of my colleagues are preoccupied and and where to help, you know, it's like many times I'm like, and then I find out, and like, oh, I could have help here and there.
00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:49.440
And it's like this is yeah, this is exactly, I would love to segue the question that you parked.
00:26:49.519 --> 00:26:50.880
What would it feel like?
00:26:51.119 --> 00:27:14.559
Well, if every person in the in that organization had an agent which understood that person's needs, challenges, availability, and so and so forth, then all of the agents could talk to each other and emerge those opportunities for collaboration, for uh for conversation, for mutual learning, and so and so forth.
00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:23.200
So you would start your morning and say, oh, there's this person in the organization who maybe just joined and they have these questions, and I know you're an expert on this.
00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:26.240
Can I connect you so that you have a conversation with them?
00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:27.920
No, this is amazing.
00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:32.079
And we actually have um, and I'd like to work with you on that.
00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:41.839
We have um um multi-agent system uh side product, uh which is called Omega Hive, uh hives of agents.
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:58.480
And if each of us would have would would have one personal agent, and then the agents collaborate overnight while we sleep, you know, you can Mihela, you can help, and in the morning I find out you can help X and Y and here and there, that would be so much more productive indeed.
00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:07.039
And I I'd like to, of course, after after this, to to collect you to our team and see how we can work together on that.
00:28:07.119 --> 00:28:07.759
So this is amazing.
00:28:08.319 --> 00:28:08.880
I would love to.
00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:22.799
I I mean, because I think we are at this stage, this amazing stage, that our limitation is not the technology, but our ability to imagine how to use it and how to make it helpful for us.
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:40.160
So I think we need all of us talking, especially since there is a powerful narrative of AI as the ultimate surveillance society, AI destroying society, etc., which is one possible path, I'm not denying it, but we really need to think about the positive path.
00:28:40.319 --> 00:28:44.400
Because if we can't imagine something, then we can't make it happen.
00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:47.119
And now, if we continue this thread, right?
00:28:47.200 --> 00:28:49.279
Like we said, every person having an agent.
00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:50.400
Yes, great.
00:28:50.640 --> 00:28:52.640
Every team can have an agent.
00:28:53.119 --> 00:28:58.079
And then what I'm really interested in is every organization having an agent.
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:04.480
So agents talking between organizations, especially between friendly organizations.
00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:11.359
You know, all of us now on LinkedIn or wherever, we have hundreds or thousands of uh connections.
00:29:11.599 --> 00:29:14.720
We go to events and so on and so forth over our career.
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:21.039
We make hundreds of connections where, like, wow, I like this person, I'd like to keep in touch with them.
00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:27.200
Today there's nothing for us to do, but one day I would really love to do something with this person.
00:29:27.519 --> 00:29:35.920
And as you know, within our human capacity, we can only stay on top, and and there's a limited number of people that were able to do this.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:41.680
So it's this, I feel, and I've been having thank you so much, by the way, for taking the time to talk today.
00:29:41.839 --> 00:29:47.839
And I've been having these sorts of conversations with tens, with hundreds of people over the last few years.
00:29:47.920 --> 00:30:01.119
And after a while, I was like, oh my god, I've kind of connected with all of these people, but there's no way cognitively, with a human brain, I can keep in touch and on top of two or three hundred or or let alone 8,000 relationships.
00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:11.680
But with an AI agent, with you know, after this conversation, we would just say, uh, you would say to your agent, oh, I'm kind of interested in this Victor guy.
00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:13.440
Please stay in close contact with him.
00:30:13.519 --> 00:30:16.319
And when there's an opportunity that emerge, ping me.
00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:25.759
And then immediately, when the agents will know that we're going to the web summit in Lisbon, uh, they would contact your agents and say, Oh, let's arrange a meeting.
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:38.640
Maybe you can come to Lisbon if you're not living there, but you know, uh, but in Portugal somewhere, and you know, that they would they would help us and if I forget, you know, that you are based there, and so many other things.
00:30:38.720 --> 00:30:49.119
Because you know, today uh AI is designed mainly around another kind of productivity, like write this faster, more individual, analyze this faster, automate this task.
00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:54.079
But the biggest thing humans accomplish are collective, exactly as you say.
00:30:54.240 --> 00:30:56.640
So this would enable the collaboration.
00:30:56.799 --> 00:30:58.240
I completely am with you.
00:30:58.480 --> 00:31:01.599
You also go ahead if you want to say something, but I I want to.
00:31:01.920 --> 00:31:07.839
Yeah, yeah, I have a few things I need to slowly wrap up, but I have a few things uh I would love to throw in.
00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:23.200
So the way I've come to really in one line explain this to people is that I believe that agents will do to collaboration what LLMs did to content creation.
00:31:24.400 --> 00:31:28.079
I love it, and I'm going to put this as my signature.
00:31:28.799 --> 00:31:31.200
I will quote you in my emails.
00:31:31.359 --> 00:31:31.920
It's amazing.
00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:32.960
No, use it.
00:31:33.119 --> 00:31:33.920
No, use it.
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:44.400
Let's because this is one key thing that I want us to collaborate on is creating a better narrative to get people excited to experiment more, right?
00:31:44.559 --> 00:31:47.279
And we need simple communication for that.
00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:58.640
And I think that's a good way because now most people have experienced the power of LLMs to accelerate their whether it's making pictures or movies or writing text, right?
00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:03.200
So now imagine that same level of power up to collaboration.
00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:09.599
Uh so that's one idea uh which I think is key, and I forgot the others.
00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:14.240
Yeah, I I have more questions, and maybe you will remember in the meantime.
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:32.319
So, you know, because you also mentioned, and it's clearly also from the examples which we kind of uh co-created here together, um, that uh humans and AI together are more powerful, but I think uh your thesis is that they also become wiser together, you know.
00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:42.079
And the question is now because wisdom is something kind of different from intelligence, and I think that's also a component which you are considering.
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:43.680
Can you tell us a bit about this?
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:47.119
So I remembered what I was gonna say before that.
00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:48.960
Go ahead, go ahead with what you remember.
00:32:50.319 --> 00:32:54.640
Okay, so what I'm the reason that I'm also really excited about it.
00:32:54.720 --> 00:33:06.319
I mean, first of all, I'm excited about AI not for efficiency, which means we pump out more of the same that we're doing before just 10 times.
00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:08.480
I think that's boring.
00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:16.480
Not only boring, but it will keep us stuck in the old ways of thinking and in the old ways of doing things.
00:33:16.640 --> 00:33:17.119
Exactly.
00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:20.880
But we will just do it faster and go faster on the rabbit hole.
00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:24.160
Yeah, and in my personal opinion, that's boring.
00:33:24.319 --> 00:33:32.400
Uh, what I'm excited about is AI allowing us to do the things that we dreamed of that we didn't have the capacity to.
00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:44.400
So, as a company, not to make 10x, but to have three, five other products and services offering which you can see your customers want and it would fit, but you never had the capacity to.
00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:45.680
Right?
00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:53.759
To increase the level of quality of things that you're doing, which you always wanted to, but you didn't have the ability to.
00:33:55.279 --> 00:34:04.799
To work with people which you wanted to work with, but for example, because of language, like I'm working with a group now in Uganda, hopefully, for one of the projects.
00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:12.000
I send them all of the documents in Swahili because it's more natural for them and it's easy for me, right?
00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:19.760
So, this so we can collaborate with people we weren't able to before, we can do things which we're dreaming of, but we weren't possible for.
00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:22.000
That's what I'm excited about with AI.
00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:46.719
And then the next idea that I wanted to share is, and it will segue into the wisdom part, but this idea that we discussed, like your agent talks to my agent, you know, emergence opportunities, this only works if we are open, and the more open we are with each other, the more value we will get out of it.
00:34:47.039 --> 00:34:47.519
Right?
00:34:47.679 --> 00:34:55.679
If all my agent knows about is what services I'm selling, then that's kind of, you know, there's not so much it can do.
00:34:55.840 --> 00:35:10.239
But if my agent knows about, like, oh, I learned this and I'm sharing this, and actually I have this challenge, you know, these kinds of things I'm struggling with, then the possibility for interaction greatly increases.
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:18.639
And the reason I think that this is interesting is that I'm mostly around the purposeful impact, you know, kind of build a better future space.
00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:22.159
And in general, in that world, people are much more open.
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:26.719
It's much more common to see people say, look, I figured this out, this is good for the earth.
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:28.239
Please, everybody, copy me.
00:35:28.400 --> 00:35:29.679
Here's the idea.
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:33.519
Or, you know, just in general, there's much more openness.
00:35:33.679 --> 00:35:47.199
So, what I believe is that when we apply the power, the jet fuel of a gentic collaboration, it's going to be exponentially more powerful in an open by default impact ecosystem.
00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:49.199
Amazing.
00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:54.400
And you know, uh, this um human-agent collaboration raises other questions.
00:35:54.480 --> 00:36:04.559
And um, so one of them is um, I mean, the issue of agency, because usually for us, of course, agency lives in a human.
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:21.519
But now when agents starts to work on our behalf, right, and and and give us advice and guide us, I mean, how do we preserve human responsibility without reducing our AI collaborators back to sophisticated tools that merely execute orders?
00:36:21.679 --> 00:36:26.559
I mean, uh is the agency now both human and agentic?
00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:33.039
Do the agents have obviously that's why they're called agents, but where does accountability leave?
00:36:33.760 --> 00:36:35.199
So, this is the question, right?
00:36:35.360 --> 00:36:40.079
Accountability, and I think uh first of all, I would disagree.
00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:47.840
I am in general, my philosophy, I see the world much more in terms of systems than in human systems.
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:50.480
I think we overestimate individuals.
00:36:50.639 --> 00:36:54.719
Individuals are always part of teams, organizations, societies, right?
00:36:54.800 --> 00:36:59.199
You know, the things that I believe I'm a product of my reality, right?
00:37:00.480 --> 00:37:06.079
So, and we already have agency that's not human in terms of companies, right?
00:37:06.239 --> 00:37:07.760
Companies have legal ability.
00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:09.679
We've worked this out.
00:37:10.159 --> 00:37:14.960
So I think there's some interesting questions there, but it's not my area of expertise.
00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:24.719
What I would love to twist the question to is how do we get the agents to align with our purpose?
00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:44.880
So the decisions that they are making are in alignment with our organizational purpose, and that's where what I think becomes interesting is now we really we've been trying to define purpose and values, but we know most organizations kind of do it, but usually not as well as they would hope.
00:37:45.039 --> 00:37:52.159
Sometimes it lives, you know, like it's fairly informal, and oftentimes it doesn't work as well as we hope.
00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:54.559
Well, now with agents, we don't have a choice.
00:37:54.880 --> 00:38:15.360
We really have to get our shit together, get our discipline, and be able to communicate the organizational purpose in such a way that agents, which are super intelligences but also super stupidities with no common sense, actually do and make the choices and follow the purpose that we want them to.
00:38:16.239 --> 00:38:39.119
And you know, I cannot now not hold you accountable, no pun intended, because you threw in the or you opened the alignment canoe forms and you know that alignment, AI alignment and so on is now kind of on everyone's lips, like uh this is like they the AI will kill us if we don't align it with us.
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:41.360
What do you have to say in that regard?
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:51.280
Well, I would say that uh this is not a new problem because we are already killing ourselves through lack of alignment.
00:38:51.519 --> 00:39:04.320
We have created all kinds of superpowerful organizations in the form of companies, in the form of religions, in the form of all other kinds of you know, non-human entities, right?
00:39:04.559 --> 00:39:13.840
A corporation, a nation state, it's a humans are pieces of it, but in and of itself, it has its own kind of agency, right?
00:39:14.320 --> 00:39:19.760
Uh so the problem of lack of alignment was there a hundred years ago.
00:39:20.079 --> 00:39:24.480
It's you know, how long have we been trying to create world peace and yet we don't?
00:39:24.880 --> 00:39:27.039
Uh so it's a continuing question.
00:39:27.199 --> 00:39:30.559
Um we just found a scapegoat now.
00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:31.119
AI.
00:39:31.519 --> 00:39:36.880
Of course, it's accountable for our own, you know, lack uh of alignment.
00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:38.559
Yeah, I completely am with you.
00:39:38.639 --> 00:39:39.199
Thank you so much.
00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:42.960
This is a blind spot which uh most people don't see.
00:39:43.119 --> 00:39:49.360
And you know, I think I do not know how much more time do you have to be with us, but I would like to cover this question.
00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:55.440
To be honest, I would if you're interested for it, why don't we schedule a follow-on conversation?
00:39:55.599 --> 00:39:59.440
Because yeah, it's also not just I think we've gone through a lot of things.
00:39:59.599 --> 00:40:05.360
I feel like it's been very juicy, and I don't know if we can improve much on what we've said over the past 40 minutes.
00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:22.639
I agree, but let me just then ask you a last question, and this is the last one, you know, because um I think it's so aligned, no pun intended again, with uh with our work and with my work as well, and it's very dear to my heart, and I think you I think you have an answer.
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:27.119
And if you want, you can just simply tell me I'm gonna tell you in the sequel.
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:31.599
But can AI liberate human potential rather than compress it?
00:40:31.679 --> 00:40:40.880
Like, you know, one of my lifelong concerns is that our institution offered shacklour, very human potential that they claim to organize.
00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:47.840
And we put people into job descriptions, department, uh, hierarchies, KPIs, and permission structures.
00:40:48.079 --> 00:40:57.440
And then we wonder why creativity disappears, why, why, you know, all the talent which we hired is kind of dissipating in these structures.
00:40:57.920 --> 00:41:00.559
So, could AI actually help us do the opposite?
00:41:00.719 --> 00:41:10.639
I mean, I would I would say you actually put your finger on it, it's not about AI, it's what are the structures that we create.
00:41:11.519 --> 00:41:21.760
So the AI doesn't liberate or or limit us, but it can be a multiplier for one particular kind of structure or another one.
00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:22.880
Right?
00:41:23.119 --> 00:41:30.559
If we choose AI to multiply dictatorship, oppression, surveillance, it will limit us.
00:41:30.800 --> 00:41:39.360
If we choose AI to build new organizational societal systems, then it will liberate us.
00:41:39.679 --> 00:41:44.239
Absolutely, Victor, and thank you so much for taking your time to speak to us.
00:41:44.400 --> 00:41:46.079
We look forward to the sequel.
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:58.559
I'm sure there will be many, and I will invite um our audience to write questions uh in the description, and I will post a few links here which you mentioned to the teal and so on, your previous work.
00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:08.639
So uh so people can come up with uh follow-ups, and I'll connect you to our team as well as hopefully you can meet them on the occasion of the Web Summit in Portugal.
00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:11.039
Thank you again, it was really wonderful.
00:42:11.599 --> 00:42:12.639
Thank you so much, amazing.
00:42:12.719 --> 00:42:19.360
Yeah, I look forward to continuing the conversations in many ways, meeting in person sometime and and weaving.
00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:24.960
I think the work that you're doing here of spreading the narrative is incredibly important.
00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:27.119
That's the word weaving.
00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:15.679
Hello everyone and welcome to our Dream Wonders series on Mindlex.
00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:25.199
We are joined today by Viktor Vorsky, a wonderful explorer, co-explorer of a question very close to my heart.
00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:32.240
What if AI could help us become not merely smarter, but wiser together?
00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:55.520
Victor's work challenges the old image of organizations as machines, hierarchies of boxes, roles, and control, and asks what happens when we begin designing them instead as living adaptive systems where humans and AI agents sense, learn, coordinate, and evolve together.
00:00:55.840 --> 00:01:08.480
And this resonates, as many of you know, deeply with my own lifelong work on multi-agent systems and organic governance, and takes us toward the much bigger questions.
00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:27.200
What new forms of collective intelligence become possible when humans and artificial minds, and our podcast Mindplex, involves exactly this kind of mix, learn not only merely to coexist, but to organize and evolve together.
00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:29.120
So welcome, Victor.
00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:34.480
Please tell us a bit about yourself, your life, education, and what drew you to this quest.
00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:38.400
Whatever you want to tell us to introduce yourself, please, Victor.
00:01:38.799 --> 00:01:39.599
Yeah, thank you.
00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:40.560
Thank you so much.
00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:49.840
I uh given what uh I've heard about your work, I would say I'm a little bit intimidated because I think you've gone so much deeper in your research and so on and so forth.
00:01:50.079 --> 00:01:58.319
But I think it's an exciting area, and and we need many different perspectives, and I think we need many more people having the conversation.
00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:07.280
So I'm sure because of my life journey, I have some interesting angles uh that I can bring, and and yeah, really excited about this conversation.
00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:12.479
So I think uh where do I start?
00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:17.919
I would say I'm uh an interesting place is I'm a third culture child.
00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:20.240
Are you familiar with that expression?
00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:22.560
So it's people that have grown up.
00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:24.000
Yeah.
00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:35.360
So uh in my case, I was born in Poland, then I moved to Kuwait, then I moved to Canada, so I had one culture at home, and then I was living in other cultures.
00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:50.080
And the reason I think this is relevant to this conversation is it of course it all depends on how you process it in your life, but if you process it one way, you realize that normal is a social convention.
00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:58.000
The different societies are organized different ways, and their normal is actually different than other people's normals.
00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:02.400
And if you start looking at it that way, that enables you to take a step back.
00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:08.400
Okay, if there's this one normal and this one normal, well, maybe we can invert a different kind of normal, right?
00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:15.680
And I think this opens up the possibility of invention systems change.
00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:21.599
Uh, I went on, I'm actually a second-generation uh IT computers person.
00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:26.639
My father was the first class of computer science at the University of Warsaw.
00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:48.000
But I got a degree in computer science uh only to kind of discover that, well, first of all, whilst I do love tech, uh at the same time, uh really the kinds of problems that I'm interested in are much more on the human side, right?
00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:56.400
So, of course, there is some hard science problem in technology, but overall the human side is much harder.
00:03:56.960 --> 00:04:11.199
So, what uh what drew me or where how I kind of ended up in this space is on the one side, so I was like, okay, tech, interesting, but I want to get another degree.
00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:12.879
Uh, what's next?
00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:19.680
I did an MBA, which kind of made me look because I was trying to understand the business world.
00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:27.199
I come from a non-business world, which means Poland, socialist Poland, and also non-business family.
00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:35.040
Uh, but I went through the MBA and I was like, oh, if this is the world for business, I'm not excited.
00:04:35.360 --> 00:04:35.680
Right?
00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:39.120
This is not the dream world that I want to be part of.
00:04:39.199 --> 00:04:41.199
And of course, this was 20 plus years ago.
00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:47.439
I imagine MBAs have moved on, but and then I was just consulting, searching.
00:04:47.600 --> 00:05:00.319
Uh, in 2008, I think I started really exploring the depths of I think of it, I feel my life in a way like a mind trying to explore, you know, like where are the walls of the matrix?
00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:09.120
And my first exploration was in 2008, after around the financial crash, when I was like, oh, it's all falling apart.
00:05:09.279 --> 00:05:12.240
Wait, I have an MBA, I should be able to understand this.
00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:14.399
Oh, wait, it's all about money.
00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:17.120
And then it's like, what is money?
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:19.279
Where did it come from?
00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:21.040
How does this work, right?
00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:27.519
I have a business degree, but I don't understand the fundamentals of you know, what is this?
00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:41.279
And I started reading, and then I re I discovered there's a whole universe of people for over a hundred years with alternative theories, with experiments, and people reinventing and trying to reinvent the system.
00:05:41.680 --> 00:06:02.639
And I think one thing that I carry as coming from a comp as computer scientists, one of the things that we kind of have in our DNA zitogized, if we see a system, we're thinking how to reinvent it, and we our general attitude is if there's a system, we think we can build a better one.
00:06:03.600 --> 00:06:16.240
And then if you start applying this mindset and looking and seeing society as a whole bunch of systems, you start thinking, oh wait, maybe we could design different systems, right?
00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:21.040
Uh so then yeah, my kind of exploration continued.
00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:26.240
I was living in Japan a long time that kind of added to my more I spent 15 years living.
00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:28.000
Yeah, yeah.
00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:33.279
So I spent 15 years living in Japan and lots of beautiful discoveries there.
00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:43.839
Uh and then uh I've been working remotely also for over 20 years, 30 years, depending on how you look at it.
00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:56.560
So maybe I'm not much smarter than people, but I've just had many more years to experiment, to fail, to succeed, of what this way of working means.
00:06:56.720 --> 00:07:13.600
And that also made me realize, right, so many of the standard paradigm ideas around how do we build an organization and what an organization is actually don't fit very well a distributed and remote company.
00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:25.360
I can talk at length about that, but that kind of made me start and I fell into the teal for teal, reinventing organizations, non-hierarchical, that whole universe.
00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:29.360
There's, I don't know, you you must be familiar with the book Reinventing Organizations, right?
00:07:29.600 --> 00:07:34.319
Around the time when it came out, there was like a format of people being excited about it.
00:07:34.480 --> 00:07:37.439
It was my first internet organizing with a friend.
00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:39.680
We started a group called Teal for Startups.
00:07:39.920 --> 00:07:49.199
We had over 150 people come together trying to think because already I was thinking transforming existing organizations is really hard.
00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:55.199
Uh and in general, this is not how change works in the world, right?
00:07:55.519 --> 00:07:58.639
Things don't transform, the next generation is different.
00:07:58.879 --> 00:08:04.160
You know, there was no dinosaur that was born a dinosaur and died a bird, right?
00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:08.800
It was a process of evolution with many other beings in the middle.
00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:11.600
And I was like, well, startups are newly starting.
00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:18.000
So invested a lot of energy and thought into learning around that.
00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:31.439
That was 12 plus years ago, and I've been really looking and thinking about that space and also looking and thinking about why it didn't succeed in the sense of taking off as a bigger movement in the world.
00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:33.840
Okay, so let's tell me, let me stop you there.
00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:38.480
I have a few questions based on already the fascinating things which you shared.
00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:41.519
So, but first of all, where are you based now?
00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:44.320
Of all, uh I live in Portugal.
00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:50.320
The way I like to describe it is I'm one hour north of Lisbon, the last house at the end of development.
00:08:50.559 --> 00:08:52.639
Oh, I we look forward to visit you.
00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:56.879
We will be there during the web summit, so maybe you will be there as well.
00:08:57.039 --> 00:08:59.200
But we'll we'll we can take that offline.
00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:05.600
But you know, um, tell us a bit, maybe if you can kind of nail it in a few words.
00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:12.399
What didn't you like about how business was taught in uh in university or wherever you studied?
00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:17.279
And I mean okay, so let's start with that and then I will ask you the next.
00:09:17.919 --> 00:09:18.240
Yeah.
00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:41.039
So I mean, I think at the time I wasn't able to, you know, now I've it's been 20 some years and I've learned about you know regeneration, you so now I can give you a theory of uh of why that system didn't excite me.
00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:43.919
At the time, I just kind of felt it in my gut.
00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:48.159
Yes, no, I agree with that because I also I was in the same situation, you know.
00:09:48.240 --> 00:10:05.840
I come from Romania, and when I moved to the West, I did not study business, but I have seen how things work there here, here, because I live in DC now in the US, and indeed it was kind of I didn't feel that you know it's not aligned with the natural order.
00:10:06.080 --> 00:10:14.240
And though then the second question to you is did you find in the meantime an explanation for what is money?
00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:36.799
Uh yes, so I mean, I've I read about four or five of the better books around money, and also so for me, when I approach topics like this and like understanding the matrix and society, I am really interested in the big arc of history, right?
00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:44.240
You know, starting with at least the agricultural revolution, so at least 10,000 years, preferably more.
00:10:44.399 --> 00:10:54.559
I think if you look at any smaller slice of history, it's interesting, but it doesn't really give you an answer to the deeper question of what is money, right?
00:10:54.720 --> 00:10:58.240
Because it's evolved and it's there is so many things around it.
00:10:58.480 --> 00:11:02.960
Uh I wouldn't say I'm the best person to give a definition.
00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:17.200
I mean, there is this store of value, there's this, it's a way, it's I would say the way I look at it now, fundamentally it's a coordination mechanism that society uses to coordinate at scale.
00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:26.799
I completely agree with that, and that it ties us into exactly these organizational structures and work and fluidity.
00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:32.320
I completely agree with you because you know, much of today's organization was designed for another world.
00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:39.039
The factories, the office, fixed jobs, as you mentioned, you know, reporting lines and managers overseeing employees.
00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:40.799
But now we are all distributed.
00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:41.679
We are doing this.
00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:51.919
You're in Portugal, I'm in DC, and many, many, many, many things are happening in this distributed uh fluid uh fractional, if we may, manner.
00:11:52.080 --> 00:12:01.279
So, how can we actually coordinate easier and reward, you know, incentivize people to do things and come together in this what I call ad hocracies?
00:12:01.600 --> 00:12:07.600
So, what exactly has broken uh or was broken in the old organizational model?
00:12:07.919 --> 00:12:16.559
And and why do we keep trying to bolt 21st century intelligence into organizational structures designed for an industrial age?
00:12:16.799 --> 00:12:25.600
Anyway, maybe you are kind of or answered this question already, but if you uh if you can tell us something to that effect.
00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:33.360
So, to begin with, what I would say is I am not so presumptuous to say that the old models are broken.
00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:38.399
I have no idea how to run a post office, an army, or a factory.
00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:40.159
I am not going maybe.
00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:43.840
What I know is that I don't want to be a part of those, but okay.
00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:45.279
It's not my world.
00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:50.159
I don't I I cannot say whether the old model is the best one to run a factory or not.
00:12:50.320 --> 00:12:51.519
That's not my world.
00:12:51.840 --> 00:13:12.240
My world is of distributed and fractional, and those are two dimensions because you could be distributed so remote and working full-time on one thing, but in the world where you're distributed, you're fractional, and you're trying to be purposeful, I I think of it now as purposeful inward and purposeful outward at an organizational level.
00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:29.600
Purposeful inward in the sense that we're trying to be a human organization that supports people thriving, well-being, da-da-da, and purposeful outward, which to me simply put means that we measure the organization's contribution through more than just financial means.
00:13:31.039 --> 00:13:42.639
So if you put those things together, hierarchy, uh I mean, the traditional model is basically strongly based around extrinsic motivation.
00:13:42.879 --> 00:13:44.000
Sticks and carrots.
00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:45.039
Yes, yes, exactly.
00:13:45.440 --> 00:13:49.120
Extrinsic motivation doesn't work when we're remote.
00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:58.960
Maybe it works, you know, with incentivized now with uh crypto tokens and so on and so forth, but maybe not really.
00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:05.759
Oh no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry if you just tell us the crypto world is now old enough.
00:14:05.919 --> 00:14:09.759
It's what a solid 15 years, right?
00:14:10.320 --> 00:14:21.039
So we have, I think it's old enough that we are uh in a position and it's uh it's we can start drawing conclusions.
00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:21.840
Yes, right?
00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:29.039
We can start, we can start judging where it's gotten to and where it's not gotten to, and what has worked, what hasn't worked.
00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:33.360
And that was actually it was also it's one of my disappointments.
00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:44.720
I mean, I will tell you, I hold a grudge against the crypto world because I thought that they were going to bring us the new organizational models, and in the end they haven't at all.
00:14:45.840 --> 00:14:48.080
No, not in any kind of I agree.
00:14:48.320 --> 00:14:51.759
There is yeah, it's still a win or takes all uh game.
00:14:51.919 --> 00:14:52.320
Yeah.
00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:55.600
And also, you know, the whole DAO thing, right?
00:14:55.679 --> 00:15:04.639
And this is from my friends who are very deep and very successful in the place, and they're like, yeah, DAOs exist so people don't go to jail for certain financial things, right?
00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:06.799
Distributing responsibility.
00:15:07.360 --> 00:15:11.679
This is not a cynical outsider, this is a cynical insider.
00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:35.519
So yeah, uh, I don't think crypto, there is a bunch of ideas in crypto which are important and need to be around value and dynamic, but they haven't deployed it and built it in such a way that it enables day-to-day entrepreneurship uh to work more effectively.
00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:38.399
Totally, totally.
00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:50.639
I I agree, and I have my own uh complaints about crypto, and I have um I have two podcasts which address that the this this capture of the cyberpunk movement, you know.
00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:57.600
Interestingly enough, because I've been around the crypto world since the early 90s.
00:15:57.840 --> 00:16:03.519
Because the university I went to, there were a bunch of guys that were deep into crypto.
00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:11.759
Uh, a friend who was two years behind me in university was Butelix Thesis supervisor, Vitalic's Thusi's supervisor.
00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:18.879
So I was hearing them talk about it in the 90s and the promise and the hope.
00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:24.480
And the promise and the hope hasn't been delivered on, in my eyes.
00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:30.320
Uh I can't remember where I was going with that, but yeah, it just hasn't happened.
00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:47.039
I know what you were going with, where you were going with that, because I was talking about how it was captured actually, and the initial the cryptography, you know, that it only was about cryptography, and these cypherpunks who believed that you know a new order, a more equitable society can exist.
00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:54.799
And they wanted crypto actually to be that, to enable that for everyone and to touch the fringes.
00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:56.480
And it didn't accomplish that.
00:16:56.559 --> 00:17:00.080
It again became a hierarchy, a pyramid scheme, you know.
00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:11.519
And and for me, the learning there is that because as I said, you know, I was hanging out with a lot of those guys in the 90s.
00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:16.880
I wasn't part of that movement, but you know, I was at all of the same parties and listening to them.
00:17:17.279 --> 00:17:32.319
The philosophy, and I'm a technology, so the philosophy was this distributed, you know, all of this technology in and of itself would create a new society.
00:17:33.119 --> 00:17:40.400
And my reading of it is is that that was not enough of a philosophy.
00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:46.079
Technology in and of itself is a tool, it's not a means to an end.
00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:48.720
It I mean, it's not an end in and of itself.
00:17:49.119 --> 00:18:05.599
So to actually create a different and better society, we need a shared purpose, a shared narrative about what is the society we want to create, not just like we will have these tools and society will be better.
00:18:05.759 --> 00:18:07.200
That's not how it works.
00:18:07.519 --> 00:18:19.279
I think what they were uh hoping or dreaming was that once the infrastructure is unleashed, society will self-organize on it and for the better, you know, automatically.
00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:26.880
But actually, what occurred on that infrastructure was the same game, the same pyramid schemes which we had without the infrastructure.
00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:29.039
And I know that very well because I studied it.
00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:38.400
I had the research chair in e-society, in which I really studied this, and and it was kind of in the incipient ears as well, which you are talking about.
00:18:38.559 --> 00:18:41.759
And I was very disappointed, and I knew that it's not gonna work.
00:18:41.839 --> 00:18:45.759
That's why, for example, and now this is not crypto, it's another kind of e-society.
00:18:45.839 --> 00:18:50.480
I was never on Facebook because I knew it's uh it's another kind of capture game.
00:18:50.720 --> 00:18:53.200
But you know what I wanted to ask you, yeah, going on.
00:18:54.720 --> 00:19:04.000
So I what I I believe I was fully right in the sense that crypto in the end hasn't had an impact on day-to-day society.
00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:16.319
But what I was not thinking about and wrong, and I didn't appreciate that you can still make shitloads of money with the technology not being transformative for society at large.
00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:20.880
But yeah, I was not enough of a capitalist and I missed that.
00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:22.319
Well, it's okay.
00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:31.680
You know, it seems like uh you stayed more true to your purpose and and you worked on on your uh organized new organizational models and other things.
00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:35.680
So maybe we can move to that uh that part of the conversation.
00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:46.880
I know you don't have much time today, but I still wanted to touch on maybe I do not know if there are principles or guidelines that would allow an organization to behave more like a living organism.
00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:50.480
And this still, uh, of course, you you studied that.
00:19:50.559 --> 00:19:54.319
I I am uh familiar with that, but I think you go beyond that.
00:19:54.559 --> 00:19:59.119
So tell us a bit about your your work and and what can we learn in that regard?
00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:07.119
Yeah, so I think where I would say I am trying to go.
00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:34.160
I have this Audax OS initiative where I'm trying to go and is not to create a framework because there is a lot of good frameworks out there, but rather to map out what are the pieces that a framework and my framing is distributed, fractional, inward purposeful, outward purposeful, and also a agentic organization.
00:20:34.480 --> 00:20:46.960
So I'm not going to tell you how to run the post office or the government, but this particular kind of organization, which is becoming more and more common, I have a lot, a good amount of experience, and that's what I'm focused on.
00:20:48.160 --> 00:21:09.680
So, in a way, it's one one little description that I like to say with these new organizational models, all there is a huge number of pieces out there, whether it's governance or the human stuff or agile, there's so many different pieces, but they're all scattered, right?
00:21:10.079 --> 00:21:23.279
So I feel like I would like to go to the market to get some vegetables to cook a great meal for my family, and I'm put into a warehouse and told all of the cars for a part are maybe here.
00:21:23.440 --> 00:21:26.960
Some of the shelves are labeled better than others, good luck.
00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:30.720
And I was like, I'm just trying to feed my family.
00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:34.880
I don't want to be a car maker, I don't even want to be a car mechanic.
00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:40.640
You know, I can follow a maintenance manual, but I just want to get in, turn the key and go.
00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:42.240
And that doesn't exist.
00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:44.400
So instead, what do people do?
00:21:44.559 --> 00:21:46.880
Well, they're like, Well, I need to fill my family.
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:48.960
I don't want to learn to be a car builder.
00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:52.400
So people just get on the old donkey cart of hierarchy.
00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:59.279
Because it works, it's crude, it's ugly, but it gets me there and back, and I know how it works.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:00.319
Right.
00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:07.519
So I'm trying to figure out how to make a map of okay, what are all of the pieces that you need?
00:22:07.759 --> 00:22:08.079
Right?
00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:09.759
What is a car?
00:22:10.559 --> 00:22:14.880
Not how do you make a Volkswagen, whatever, but what is a car?
00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:16.880
Okay, you need four wheels, you need a steering.
00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:26.000
But but before this, before we go on this rabbit hole, I would like to stay with this because you mentioned now AI agentic organizations, and I have a few questions there.
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:30.559
Because you explicitly, as far as I understand, imagine these three kinds of relationships.
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:35.039
Yes, human to human, human to agent, and agent to agent.
00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:40.880
And I'd like to understand what might I actually experience in that kind of organization?
00:22:41.039 --> 00:22:43.119
Like, would I have AI colleagues?
00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:45.839
Do agents negotiate with other agents?
00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:47.920
Do they participate in decisions?
00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:49.279
Can they represent me?
00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:59.519
And it's actually what is this AI agentic organization like I will, but first, just briefly to connect with that.
00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:02.480
The reason that because it's not obvious to some people, right?
00:23:02.559 --> 00:23:04.319
It might feel like we're jumping.
00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:10.720
But to me, it was already 12 years ago when we're doing this teal for startup and looking at these new ways of organizing.
00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:15.359
I was looking at it and going, This is beautiful, but it's really complex.
00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:18.400
And I need good mentors.
00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:25.680
And the only way to scale this is to create AI guides to guide people through these new ways of organizations.
00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:35.359
So to me, it's directly linked that these new ways of organizing, because they're not natural to us, our whole society is not built around it.
00:23:35.440 --> 00:23:38.640
There is so much unlearning and learning that needs to be done.
00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:47.599
The only way we're able to actually make it happen in practice at scale is if we have AI guides who can take us through it.
00:23:47.839 --> 00:23:48.400
I love it.
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:55.680
I I completely agree because I mean to like, you know, let's do this and then you well, whose authorization, or should I do this?
00:23:55.759 --> 00:24:00.480
And then the agents can tell me, yes, you can do this and all this.
00:24:00.640 --> 00:24:01.440
I agree with you.
00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:04.720
Yes, we need guidance to learn how to do things differently.
00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:10.480
Because we've been all in regimented in the wrong organizational structures forever.
00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:13.200
So yes, yeah, I love that.
00:24:13.599 --> 00:24:22.160
And and the thing is, you know, I it's not my claim that AI will be as good or better than a human guide or mentor.
00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:26.400
However, a human guide or mentor is expensive.
00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:28.480
They're not with you all the time.
00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:34.960
So the question is not, you know, will an AI be as good as a$100 an hour consultant mentor?
00:24:35.920 --> 00:24:36.720
That's not the point.
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:43.440
The question is, will for a$20 a month subscription the AI guide be 80% as good?
00:24:43.519 --> 00:24:46.799
Even if it's 50% as good, will that be useful and impactful?
00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:48.400
And I think it will be very much.
00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:51.519
Yes, and now let's come back to your example with the car.
00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:57.759
So would would the AI agent be the one who is telling you this is you I need the wheel and I need that and so on and so forth?
00:24:57.920 --> 00:25:00.079
Or how do we tie these stories together?
00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:12.079
You know, the way I imagine it, you know, the AI agent uh as a as your organizational building guide will support you through the journey.
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:20.240
I mean, you must have started some kind of organizations for profit or not others in in your path, right?
00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:24.319
And I'm involved in some right now, yes.
00:25:25.839 --> 00:25:49.519
So probably you have come to appreciate that there is so much to do and so many things you could potentially do, that a lot of the time just understanding what is the three important things that I should do today, this week, that will actually move the organization forward out of the 150 that I could do, right?
00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:57.119
How do I balance the things which will affect my future hugely in six months, but are not important this week?
00:25:57.279 --> 00:26:06.240
And to find the time, you know, like right, so it's not about the AI making you the decisions, but the AI saying, look, the three questions, right?
00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:15.440
The three questions you should engage, given what I understand about the maturity of your organization and what you're doing, these are the things that I think will shift the needle.
00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:19.440
These are the conversations you should be having with your coworkers.
00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:20.000
Amazing.
00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:30.480
This this is very useful because I mean, for SingularityNet, for example, yeah, the organization uh in which I'm immersed now, it's a decentralized organization.
00:26:30.559 --> 00:26:43.440
And indeed, yes, I mean, uh, I do not know how many of what many of my colleagues are preoccupied and and where to help, you know, it's like many times I'm like, and then I find out, and like, oh, I could have help here and there.
00:26:43.519 --> 00:26:49.440
And it's like this is yeah, this is exactly, I would love to segue the question that you parked.
00:26:49.519 --> 00:26:50.880
What would it feel like?
00:26:51.119 --> 00:27:14.559
Well, if every person in the in that organization had an agent which understood that person's needs, challenges, availability, and so and so forth, then all of the agents could talk to each other and emerge those opportunities for collaboration, for uh for conversation, for mutual learning, and so and so forth.
00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:23.200
So you would start your morning and say, oh, there's this person in the organization who maybe just joined and they have these questions, and I know you're an expert on this.
00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:26.240
Can I connect you so that you have a conversation with them?
00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:27.920
No, this is amazing.
00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:32.079
And we actually have um, and I'd like to work with you on that.
00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:41.839
We have um um multi-agent system uh side product, uh which is called Omega Hive, uh hives of agents.
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:58.480
And if each of us would have would would have one personal agent, and then the agents collaborate overnight while we sleep, you know, you can Mihela, you can help, and in the morning I find out you can help X and Y and here and there, that would be so much more productive indeed.
00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:07.039
And I I'd like to, of course, after after this, to to collect you to our team and see how we can work together on that.
00:28:07.119 --> 00:28:07.759
So this is amazing.
00:28:08.319 --> 00:28:08.880
I would love to.
00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:22.799
I I mean, because I think we are at this stage, this amazing stage, that our limitation is not the technology, but our ability to imagine how to use it and how to make it helpful for us.
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:40.160
So I think we need all of us talking, especially since there is a powerful narrative of AI as the ultimate surveillance society, AI destroying society, etc., which is one possible path, I'm not denying it, but we really need to think about the positive path.
00:28:40.319 --> 00:28:44.400
Because if we can't imagine something, then we can't make it happen.
00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:47.119
And now, if we continue this thread, right?
00:28:47.200 --> 00:28:49.279
Like we said, every person having an agent.
00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:50.400
Yes, great.
00:28:50.640 --> 00:28:52.640
Every team can have an agent.
00:28:53.119 --> 00:28:58.079
And then what I'm really interested in is every organization having an agent.
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:04.480
So agents talking between organizations, especially between friendly organizations.
00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:11.359
You know, all of us now on LinkedIn or wherever, we have hundreds or thousands of uh connections.
00:29:11.599 --> 00:29:14.720
We go to events and so on and so forth over our career.
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:21.039
We make hundreds of connections where, like, wow, I like this person, I'd like to keep in touch with them.
00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:27.200
Today there's nothing for us to do, but one day I would really love to do something with this person.
00:29:27.519 --> 00:29:35.920
And as you know, within our human capacity, we can only stay on top, and and there's a limited number of people that were able to do this.
00:29:36.079 --> 00:29:41.680
So it's this, I feel, and I've been having thank you so much, by the way, for taking the time to talk today.
00:29:41.839 --> 00:29:47.839
And I've been having these sorts of conversations with tens, with hundreds of people over the last few years.
00:29:47.920 --> 00:30:01.119
And after a while, I was like, oh my god, I've kind of connected with all of these people, but there's no way cognitively, with a human brain, I can keep in touch and on top of two or three hundred or or let alone 8,000 relationships.
00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:11.680
But with an AI agent, with you know, after this conversation, we would just say, uh, you would say to your agent, oh, I'm kind of interested in this Victor guy.
00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:13.440
Please stay in close contact with him.
00:30:13.519 --> 00:30:16.319
And when there's an opportunity that emerge, ping me.
00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:25.759
And then immediately, when the agents will know that we're going to the web summit in Lisbon, uh, they would contact your agents and say, Oh, let's arrange a meeting.
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:38.640
Maybe you can come to Lisbon if you're not living there, but you know, uh, but in Portugal somewhere, and you know, that they would they would help us and if I forget, you know, that you are based there, and so many other things.
00:30:38.720 --> 00:30:49.119
Because you know, today uh AI is designed mainly around another kind of productivity, like write this faster, more individual, analyze this faster, automate this task.
00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:54.079
But the biggest thing humans accomplish are collective, exactly as you say.
00:30:54.240 --> 00:30:56.640
So this would enable the collaboration.
00:30:56.799 --> 00:30:58.240
I completely am with you.
00:30:58.480 --> 00:31:01.599
You also go ahead if you want to say something, but I I want to.
00:31:01.920 --> 00:31:07.839
Yeah, yeah, I have a few things I need to slowly wrap up, but I have a few things uh I would love to throw in.
00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:23.200
So the way I've come to really in one line explain this to people is that I believe that agents will do to collaboration what LLMs did to content creation.
00:31:24.400 --> 00:31:28.079
I love it, and I'm going to put this as my signature.
00:31:28.799 --> 00:31:31.200
I will quote you in my emails.
00:31:31.359 --> 00:31:31.920
It's amazing.
00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:32.960
No, use it.
00:31:33.119 --> 00:31:33.920
No, use it.
00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:44.400
Let's because this is one key thing that I want us to collaborate on is creating a better narrative to get people excited to experiment more, right?
00:31:44.559 --> 00:31:47.279
And we need simple communication for that.
00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:58.640
And I think that's a good way because now most people have experienced the power of LLMs to accelerate their whether it's making pictures or movies or writing text, right?
00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:03.200
So now imagine that same level of power up to collaboration.
00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:09.599
Uh so that's one idea uh which I think is key, and I forgot the others.
00:32:10.240 --> 00:32:14.240
Yeah, I I have more questions, and maybe you will remember in the meantime.
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:32.319
So, you know, because you also mentioned, and it's clearly also from the examples which we kind of uh co-created here together, um, that uh humans and AI together are more powerful, but I think uh your thesis is that they also become wiser together, you know.
00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:42.079
And the question is now because wisdom is something kind of different from intelligence, and I think that's also a component which you are considering.
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:43.680
Can you tell us a bit about this?
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:47.119
So I remembered what I was gonna say before that.
00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:48.960
Go ahead, go ahead with what you remember.
00:32:50.319 --> 00:32:54.640
Okay, so what I'm the reason that I'm also really excited about it.
00:32:54.720 --> 00:33:06.319
I mean, first of all, I'm excited about AI not for efficiency, which means we pump out more of the same that we're doing before just 10 times.
00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:08.480
I think that's boring.
00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:16.480
Not only boring, but it will keep us stuck in the old ways of thinking and in the old ways of doing things.
00:33:16.640 --> 00:33:17.119
Exactly.
00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:20.880
But we will just do it faster and go faster on the rabbit hole.
00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:24.160
Yeah, and in my personal opinion, that's boring.
00:33:24.319 --> 00:33:32.400
Uh, what I'm excited about is AI allowing us to do the things that we dreamed of that we didn't have the capacity to.
00:33:32.720 --> 00:33:44.400
So, as a company, not to make 10x, but to have three, five other products and services offering which you can see your customers want and it would fit, but you never had the capacity to.
00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:45.680
Right?
00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:53.759
To increase the level of quality of things that you're doing, which you always wanted to, but you didn't have the ability to.
00:33:55.279 --> 00:34:04.799
To work with people which you wanted to work with, but for example, because of language, like I'm working with a group now in Uganda, hopefully, for one of the projects.
00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:12.000
I send them all of the documents in Swahili because it's more natural for them and it's easy for me, right?
00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:19.760
So, this so we can collaborate with people we weren't able to before, we can do things which we're dreaming of, but we weren't possible for.
00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:22.000
That's what I'm excited about with AI.
00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:46.719
And then the next idea that I wanted to share is, and it will segue into the wisdom part, but this idea that we discussed, like your agent talks to my agent, you know, emergence opportunities, this only works if we are open, and the more open we are with each other, the more value we will get out of it.
00:34:47.039 --> 00:34:47.519
Right?
00:34:47.679 --> 00:34:55.679
If all my agent knows about is what services I'm selling, then that's kind of, you know, there's not so much it can do.
00:34:55.840 --> 00:35:10.239
But if my agent knows about, like, oh, I learned this and I'm sharing this, and actually I have this challenge, you know, these kinds of things I'm struggling with, then the possibility for interaction greatly increases.
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:18.639
And the reason I think that this is interesting is that I'm mostly around the purposeful impact, you know, kind of build a better future space.
00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:22.159
And in general, in that world, people are much more open.
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:26.719
It's much more common to see people say, look, I figured this out, this is good for the earth.
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:28.239
Please, everybody, copy me.
00:35:28.400 --> 00:35:29.679
Here's the idea.
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:33.519
Or, you know, just in general, there's much more openness.
00:35:33.679 --> 00:35:47.199
So, what I believe is that when we apply the power, the jet fuel of a gentic collaboration, it's going to be exponentially more powerful in an open by default impact ecosystem.
00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:49.199
Amazing.
00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:54.400
And you know, uh, this um human-agent collaboration raises other questions.
00:35:54.480 --> 00:36:04.559
And um, so one of them is um, I mean, the issue of agency, because usually for us, of course, agency lives in a human.
00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:21.519
But now when agents starts to work on our behalf, right, and and and give us advice and guide us, I mean, how do we preserve human responsibility without reducing our AI collaborators back to sophisticated tools that merely execute orders?
00:36:21.679 --> 00:36:26.559
I mean, uh is the agency now both human and agentic?
00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:33.039
Do the agents have obviously that's why they're called agents, but where does accountability leave?
00:36:33.760 --> 00:36:35.199
So, this is the question, right?
00:36:35.360 --> 00:36:40.079
Accountability, and I think uh first of all, I would disagree.
00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:47.840
I am in general, my philosophy, I see the world much more in terms of systems than in human systems.
00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:50.480
I think we overestimate individuals.
00:36:50.639 --> 00:36:54.719
Individuals are always part of teams, organizations, societies, right?
00:36:54.800 --> 00:36:59.199
You know, the things that I believe I'm a product of my reality, right?
00:37:00.480 --> 00:37:06.079
So, and we already have agency that's not human in terms of companies, right?
00:37:06.239 --> 00:37:07.760
Companies have legal ability.
00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:09.679
We've worked this out.
00:37:10.159 --> 00:37:14.960
So I think there's some interesting questions there, but it's not my area of expertise.
00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:24.719
What I would love to twist the question to is how do we get the agents to align with our purpose?
00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:44.880
So the decisions that they are making are in alignment with our organizational purpose, and that's where what I think becomes interesting is now we really we've been trying to define purpose and values, but we know most organizations kind of do it, but usually not as well as they would hope.
00:37:45.039 --> 00:37:52.159
Sometimes it lives, you know, like it's fairly informal, and oftentimes it doesn't work as well as we hope.
00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:54.559
Well, now with agents, we don't have a choice.
00:37:54.880 --> 00:38:15.360
We really have to get our shit together, get our discipline, and be able to communicate the organizational purpose in such a way that agents, which are super intelligences but also super stupidities with no common sense, actually do and make the choices and follow the purpose that we want them to.
00:38:16.239 --> 00:38:39.119
And you know, I cannot now not hold you accountable, no pun intended, because you threw in the or you opened the alignment canoe forms and you know that alignment, AI alignment and so on is now kind of on everyone's lips, like uh this is like they the AI will kill us if we don't align it with us.
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:41.360
What do you have to say in that regard?
00:38:42.800 --> 00:38:51.280
Well, I would say that uh this is not a new problem because we are already killing ourselves through lack of alignment.
00:38:51.519 --> 00:39:04.320
We have created all kinds of superpowerful organizations in the form of companies, in the form of religions, in the form of all other kinds of you know, non-human entities, right?
00:39:04.559 --> 00:39:13.840
A corporation, a nation state, it's a humans are pieces of it, but in and of itself, it has its own kind of agency, right?
00:39:14.320 --> 00:39:19.760
Uh so the problem of lack of alignment was there a hundred years ago.
00:39:20.079 --> 00:39:24.480
It's you know, how long have we been trying to create world peace and yet we don't?
00:39:24.880 --> 00:39:27.039
Uh so it's a continuing question.
00:39:27.199 --> 00:39:30.559
Um we just found a scapegoat now.
00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:31.119
AI.
00:39:31.519 --> 00:39:36.880
Of course, it's accountable for our own, you know, lack uh of alignment.
00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:38.559
Yeah, I completely am with you.
00:39:38.639 --> 00:39:39.199
Thank you so much.
00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:42.960
This is a blind spot which uh most people don't see.
00:39:43.119 --> 00:39:49.360
And you know, I think I do not know how much more time do you have to be with us, but I would like to cover this question.
00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:55.440
To be honest, I would if you're interested for it, why don't we schedule a follow-on conversation?
00:39:55.599 --> 00:39:59.440
Because yeah, it's also not just I think we've gone through a lot of things.
00:39:59.599 --> 00:40:05.360
I feel like it's been very juicy, and I don't know if we can improve much on what we've said over the past 40 minutes.
00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:22.639
I agree, but let me just then ask you a last question, and this is the last one, you know, because um I think it's so aligned, no pun intended again, with uh with our work and with my work as well, and it's very dear to my heart, and I think you I think you have an answer.
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:27.119
And if you want, you can just simply tell me I'm gonna tell you in the sequel.
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:31.599
But can AI liberate human potential rather than compress it?
00:40:31.679 --> 00:40:40.880
Like, you know, one of my lifelong concerns is that our institution offered shacklour, very human potential that they claim to organize.
00:40:41.119 --> 00:40:47.840
And we put people into job descriptions, department, uh, hierarchies, KPIs, and permission structures.
00:40:48.079 --> 00:40:57.440
And then we wonder why creativity disappears, why, why, you know, all the talent which we hired is kind of dissipating in these structures.
00:40:57.920 --> 00:41:00.559
So, could AI actually help us do the opposite?
00:41:00.719 --> 00:41:10.639
I mean, I would I would say you actually put your finger on it, it's not about AI, it's what are the structures that we create.
00:41:11.519 --> 00:41:21.760
So the AI doesn't liberate or or limit us, but it can be a multiplier for one particular kind of structure or another one.
00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:22.880
Right?
00:41:23.119 --> 00:41:30.559
If we choose AI to multiply dictatorship, oppression, surveillance, it will limit us.
00:41:30.800 --> 00:41:39.360
If we choose AI to build new organizational societal systems, then it will liberate us.
00:41:39.679 --> 00:41:44.239
Absolutely, Victor, and thank you so much for taking your time to speak to us.
00:41:44.400 --> 00:41:46.079
We look forward to the sequel.
00:41:46.239 --> 00:41:58.559
I'm sure there will be many, and I will invite um our audience to write questions uh in the description, and I will post a few links here which you mentioned to the teal and so on, your previous work.
00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:08.639
So uh so people can come up with uh follow-ups, and I'll connect you to our team as well as hopefully you can meet them on the occasion of the Web Summit in Portugal.
00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:11.039
Thank you again, it was really wonderful.
00:42:11.599 --> 00:42:12.639
Thank you so much, amazing.
00:42:12.719 --> 00:42:19.360
Yeah, I look forward to continuing the conversations in many ways, meeting in person sometime and and weaving.
00:42:19.519 --> 00:42:24.960
I think the work that you're doing here of spreading the narrative is incredibly important.
00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:27.119
That's the word weaving.
