Ray Dalio - How to embrace conflict

I was assigned to a match between India.

and Pakistan

this game was being televised.

I'll guarantee you I didn't sleep the night before on this one.

That's Steve Horgan

legendary field hockey umpire for the Olympics World Cup and the NCAA

and he's telling us about one of the most

memorable games from his decades in the

sport. But before we hear about that, you might be trying to

remember which one is field hockey again, you might want to take ice hockey mix it with.

Add a little bit of Lacrosse.

That's right. It's the one that's like soccer but with sticks see I know about sports in any athletic competition the umpires keeper and enforcer of the rules, but they also play a less visible role conflict mediator and even field hockey has its share of conflict. It's not

technically a contact sport.

But there is physical contact when people challenge for the ball.

Sometimes you need to be a little bit of extra pushing or shoving. I don't want to say fights over up because that's very rare in our game, but people do get a little

Players got annoyed during Steve's most memorable game as a field hockey Empire. It was the final day of a six-nation tournament leading up to the 96 Summer Olympics. These players were about to represent their country in front of the world. So emotions were running

High both of these teams Indian Pakistan when they play hockey either it can be very difficult to manage and be very conflicting or they play beautiful hot.

And it's just a sight to behold

Steve knew that his mission in this game was to manage the conflict. So

fans across the world could witness the Elegance of a beautiful game a field hockey?

Steve blew the whistle the game was underway.

And about 30 seconds into the match one of the Pakistani guys went to hit the ball and when he followed through he hit one of the Indian guys and he actually developed a cut underneath of the shin guards.

That's how hard he got hit.

I recognize that as a little bit over aggressive. So gave a green card warning to the Pakistani player about 30 seconds later. One of the Indian gentleman ran over one of the Pakistani players kind of pushed him down. So it was like you hit our guy we're hitting your guy, right? We gave a green card

to the India player as well.

For some reason I have to still to this day don't know why

did it.

I stopped the time

and called for the two captains to come meet us.

I said gentlemen, we haven't started this game very well you to know that you're responsible for your teams and they both go. Yes, sir. We understand.

And I said we cannot have this go on any further. I said, it's my understanding that 50 million people back home woke up at four o'clock in the morning to watch you boys play hockey. They don't want the game messed up and neither do we

Do you understand? They said yes, sir. We understand and I said now would you like a minute to go talk to your teams? And please understand that we are going to hold you responsible for your teams for the rest of the match.

They went back. They had a little huddle with her teams. We played excuse me.

69 minutes, I'll been absolutely brilliant hockey the game ended in a 2-2 draw both teams came up when the match was over they were so appreciative of the way we handle the match. It was a sight to see when you can take something like that that you're really afraid is going to explode.

And bring it down to a comfort level that the players trusted us. We trusted them and 69 minutes of hockey was just brilliant.

Steve Horgan took a disaster in the making and

transformed it and one of the greatest games of field hockey. He ever

witnessed this game stuck in Steve's mind and throat

because the simmering conflict which

threatened a boilover was

resolved in a way that inspired

every athlete to play the top of their game.

The same is true in business. I believe disagreement is the Wellspring of great ideas and great companies. But only if you harness the conflict constructively

you got to have incredible Talent at every position.

There are fires burning when you're going home

so many easy way to sort so I have no idea what to do. Sorry. I made a mistake.

Have to time it right. This is masters of

We'll be right back

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You have to make decisions quickly break turn avoid something braking Lane changing has to happen in a nanosecond. That's Robert. Boyanov. Ski a 5 G expert at AT&T business and those quick decisions. They're made by a self-driving car today the decisions happen in the car itself. But someday the network will play A Part cars are getting smarter and smarter. We see a smarter.

Work and a connected car as the future. The real question is how can we drive out accidents and highway deaths for this self-driving future among other things you'll need a really reliable network, but Robert says businesses today already need this kind of reliability think about video cameras in the subway. They want it to be a hundred percent reliable. You don't want to miss the image of an Angel.

Incident because your reliability is not there or packet losses creating a poor image quality. There are customers that really can't have any downtime customers who can't afford downtime need the increased reliability of a 5G Network and one place where down time is an issue is the hospital. Robert will take us into one later in the show. In the meantime. Learn more at att.com 5G for Biz. That's

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I'm Reid Hoffman co founder of LinkedIn partner Greylock and your host and I believe disagreement is the Wellspring of great ideas and great companies. But only if you harnessed that conflict constructively think for a moment about the last time you had an argument not a passive aggressive Email exchange, but a direct forthright disagreement about something fundamental how long ago was it?

How unusual is it? We all have our own personal threshold of

comfort around conflict.

Some people thrive on lively debate others find it deeply stressful and that discomfort can extend to organizations as well. If the boss can't be challenged safely then no one can but I actually think it's your job as a leader to invite good criticism the advice I always give

Is don't ask people what they think about your idea ask them what's wrong with your idea invite them to poke holes in it because you want to find those holes before you bring your idea into the world and by constructively harnessing disagreements on your team, you improve ideas and fuel great focused work. I wanted to talk to Ray dalio about this because for more than 40 years, he's made this kind of constructive disagreement.

With a Bedrock of his company the legendary hedge fund Bridgewater Associates as founder Ray shepherded Bridgewater from a one-man operation working out of his apartment to the largest hedge fund in the world managing some hundred and sixty billion dollars for about 350 institutional clients globally, but it wasn't a straight path and to start the story. I need to take you back to October 1982.

Were in the halls of the United States Congress a smart-looking young man in a dark suit and striped tie is testifying

the chairman. Mr. Mitchell. It's a great pleasure and a great honor to be able to appear before you and examination with what is going wrong with our economy.

You can tell it's 1982 because as the young man speaks one of the lawmakers up on the diocese lights up a cigarette you can also tell because of what the young man is saying

the economy.

He is now flat teetering on the brink of failure

that young man is, of course Ray dalio. And he's there before Congress providing expert testimony Mexico just defaulted on its foreign debts and race. He's a debt crisis coming a rolling recession. Even total economic collapse mind you re isn't the only one calling a future this way a book called The Coming currency collapse soars up the book charts.

Internal White House memos advised President Ronald Reagan on how to manage permanent economic decline. So Ray isn't the only voice but he's loud and he's confident and he's met his own Investment Portfolio on the decline of the economy. He's there to warn us and I couldn't have been more wrong. That's radar Leo today. It was the exact bottom in the stock market and we had began a bull market after.

After that, I lost money for me my clients and I only had a small company then but I had to let everybody in my company go and I was down to me and I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad to pay for my family expenses. It was a devastating humbling loss for Ray and his company the sort of loss. You might want to put in a vault and never think about it again, but that's the opposite of what Ray has done Ray tells the story in public.

A lot in speeches in the Press if you follow his work, you can probably recite the lines along with him being laid Low by his own hubris. Taught him. Something foundational pain is a great teacher. Yes, it gave me the humility. I need it make me think. How do I know? I'm right and that changed my Approach what Ray had been missing before giving that testimony was someone who could challenge his theories the picture it seems

So clear to him. He saw no need for a second opinion and it almost ruined him Ray wanted to make sure he would never again to realize company and his life with an unchecked belief. But how do you do that by surrounding yourself with people who aren't afraid to check you. How do I find the smartest people? I know who disagree with me and are willing to disagree with each other. But oh really care about your outcome. You learn a tremendous amount and that

Raises ones probability of being right. I couldn't agree more whether you're starting a new venture or just going about your life. We tend to seek out agreement so we can feel secure and supported but agreement on its own can lead to confirmation bias. This is why I believe and actively encouraging disagreement. I should clarify though that disagreement can take many forms from gentle note sessions to vigorous debates over coffee to what

The folks at Bridgewater call probing sessions personally. I tend not to enjoy debate that feels too much like arm wrestling and I certainly wouldn't encourage ad hominem attacks. You don't even need to raise your voice. I prefer discourse. That's a little bit more

Socratic. The unexamined life is not worth living

the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates believed in Cooperative argumentative dialogue to stimulate critical thinking.

One thing only I know and that is that I know nothing.

The Socratic method was based on one person asking questions and the other answering and together. They would eliminate hypotheses until only one was left the discussion could get Lively but both parties understood that they're challenging of each other was in service of a greater truth. It's probably worth mentioning that Socrates was put to death for his beliefs and spreading those beliefs to widely to the Youth of Athens. So it's safe to say that challenging established the king.

Doesn't sit equally well with every person but I would argue it is not only a good idea to harness constructive conflict. It's critical to the decision making process Ray dalio made his epic mistake calling the markets in 1982 and in retrospect. It's easy to see how he made this mistake. He had seen a pattern emerging and he thought he had the whole picture but he had missed something. He had failed to predict that the FED would loosen monetary policy. Which JumpStart

Did the markets and led to the 80s boom his mistake was understandable, but it was also avoidable had he consulted anyone but himself had he built a system for testing his theories before betting big. He might have been able to hedge his bets and reduce the company's exposure what he needed was more opportunity for people to tell him he was wrong. I've got a principle that it's okay to make mistakes, but it's not okay to not learn from them Ray clawed his way back from the disaster of

82 and Bridgewater eventually recovered and started to expand but it was determined not to make the same mistakes again. So we re-envisioned the way his team interacted with him and with each other. I think every organization or every relationship requires people to decide how they're going to be with each other. I'm going to be radically truthful with you and radically transparent and I would expect you to be radically truthful and transparent with me. And so that's

That's really how it started. Allow me to draw your attention to that phrase you just heard radically truthful and transparent. It's more than just a bracing way to describe total honesty. Radical transparency is an organizing principle of Bridgewater and for a personally a rigorous formalized method of truth-telling that puts the highest premium on speaking uncompromising truths the idea behind his

Radical Candor is simple May the best ideas win. I want to have an idea meritocracy.

I want to have a company and which the best ideas went out wherever they come from.

And that I want to be challenged and I want others to be challenged and then it put me in the position of thinking. How do I actually create a real idea meritocracy not like the way people throw the term around but a real way where everybody puts their honest opinions on the table.

A word about meritocracy Ray is right people do throw this term around a lot. And I believe that meritocracy is an important ideal and a dangerous religion. It's important as Founders as disruptors and as people to evaluate our Diaz with his little ego as possible if an idea is good. It's good. No matter who gets the credit if it's bad you should say it's bad, even if it's yours, but beware it looking at

Percy as the sole Arbiter of success, there are also factors of circumstance that play like luck where you were born. What means you had access to what obstacles you faced these circumstantial factors impact success as well to ignore that fact is to use meritocracy as a cudgel instead of as a goal. Okay back to Ray. How do I actually create a real idea?

Not like the way people throw the term around but a real way where everybody puts their honest opinions on the table and works themselves through so that we could have these independent thinkers challenging each other to raise their probabilities of being right and then also have great relationships.

That last part is key a company practicing radical transparency needs to allow anyone in the organization to be completely honest about their position as well as the disagreement with yours. They also need to encourage those same people to get along at the end of the day that's easier to do when your company is still small lean and Scrappy as the company grows. So does the need for formalized structures that let you maintain this type of rapport?

When the company started getting larger I needed or wanted to keep that way of operating together. So whenever and this is a big thing and I would recommend it to like anybody and I wish that you would do this. And that is that when you're in a position of making an important decision, if you maybe just after you do it, you take pause and you reflect and you write down your criteria or your principles for doing it you write it down in your own mind it.

It's a Clarity because everything happens over and over again, so that think's going to happen again, and then it allows one to communicate that to other people that they're working with or they're living with so you get a book of your principles or it's like a book of your recipes. I'd love to have a book of reads recipes, right? Yep means recipes. What I would do is I would show the people this the tapes the videos. Okay. Here's the reality happening.

Nothing getting and then the principles that I'm using to deal with that situation so they can consider those make sense or would you do something differently and then we could have discussions like are those sensible principles or not? Sensible principles Ray believed so strongly and recording these principles that they became first an internal memo and then eventually a downloadable compendium.

Aptly named will hear all about that right after the break.

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I had this compendium that we did I put it a pdf online and it was downloaded about 3 million times on a lot of people ask me about it and so on so I felt a little bit more comfortable. I saw that it was helping a lot of people and then when I decided that I'm in my transition out of second phase. Mm one's life to the third phase in one's life. I decided that I would put it all together and put it out as a book to pass it along the book became a New York Times.

A

seller then animated videos and then an iPhone app, the principal's Instagram account has nearly 300,000 followers who receive daily doses of wisdom like be extremely open own your outcomes.

Don't pay as much attention

to people's conclusions as to the reasoning that led them to their conclusions. And here's the one that jumped out at me especially make sure people don't confuse the right to complain give advice and openly debated.

Date with the right to make decisions. You may have noticed that the last one has a bit of an edge to it. All of Rea dahlias principles are meant to be constructive but not all are warm and fuzzy and I wanted to talk about this principle in particular because it helps add a little structure and Clarity to the idea of inviting disagreement. Let's hear it again. Make sure people don't confuse the right to complain give advice and openly debate with the right to make decisions.

A common reason some organizations and some people resist inviting open debate is because we don't want it to result in chaos or total lack of boundaries. Imagine a group of friends trying to decide where to go out to dinner. All right, who wants Pizza?

Seriously we did pizza last week

and this example there is presumably no hierarchy between the friends. Each hungry person has equal say

Say so who's to say when the debate ends or our winner selected? This is what I would call unstructured disagreement and it's only resolved when someone takes on an additional mantle of responsibility to be the self-appointed leader or facilitator in the

situation guys guys. Why don't we just choose the place that's closest to us with the highest

In a work environment, you're more likely to encounter a more structured configuration organizations tend to work on at least some kind of hierarchical system. There are employers and employees managers and team members bosses and staff. You might be saying to yourself. I want to make sure my company is constantly challenging our own assumptions, but we don't want to enter key we want to make sure at the end of the day the leaders whose job it is to make hard decisions.

Actually make them in other words. If you want to have disagreement to lead to action instead of more disagreement. It helps to have an agreed-upon structure in place first. That doesn't prevent someone in the Mailroom from challenging an idea from the c-suite. It just means it's up to the c-suite to listen another distinction between constructive and destructive conflict is that in constructive conflict? Each party's end goals are shared or at least compatible.

That goal could be as sweeping as Google's old. Don't be evil or as narrow as let's figure out how to cut back on manufacturing waste by 2% If the goal is shared each person can trust that. They're working toward the same end. It's not a zero-sum struggle with one winner and one loser. It could be two winners enjoying a better outcome. Really the key to success is you don't have to do everything yourself you

I have to say I'm the guy who came up with the idea and be possessive about that. You just want the best idea wherever it comes from and you want to know that oh, I've got these weaknesses so I can work with these people who have this strength. This is true outside of the business framework as well. A constructive disagreement could lead to better understanding in a friendship or a marriage or simply find a good place to eat instead of a struggle in which you try to be right and try to prove me wrong.

It's a situation in which we are trying to learn together lose sight of that shared goal and you can find your constructive conflict slipping away destructive conflict can occur for a lot of reasons one is not having a mutually advantageous goal in mind. It's an argument for argument sake a way to exercise frustrations or air grievances. Another is if the parties don't all have a stake in the outcome fine, like two or three people.

Who disagree with you and are willing to disagree with each other? But oh really care about that output your outcome. Is it possible for a constructive disagreement to turn destructive? Absolutely, I'd even argue this makes up the majority of disagreements and it has to do with a little thing called.

People have feelings about confrontation. They have feelings about challenge. It goes all the way down to our DNA.

Radar Leo found himself hitting a wall of feelings at Bridgewater and it took them a little off guard. I remember having a dinner. Well not a dinner. We have this 360 reviews and different people reviewing the people I work with said to me that some of this radical transparency in this radical truthfulness is hurting morale. People are feeling bummed out about it and all of that these good friends who are also a working with took me out to dinner and then we talked about that.

And so I was kind of caught in this dilemma. Like should I not let them know what I really think should we behave differently and not to me look like slipping back into that other way of being that sticks in my mind as a very difficult moment in an ironic way. The fact that raised colleagues were able to tell them this hard truth and that he listened makes a good argument for a system of radical Candor and constructive disagreement rather than him blowing.

Off a criticism of his radical transparency system their words genuinely gave him pause the system worked Ray knew he didn't want to go back to the old way in which employees kept their opinions to themselves, even when they saw problems lurking but neither did he want radical transparency to make everyone miserable. He wanted to fix the problem but to fix it he had to understand why it was happening people aren't robots. Of course, we care deeply when we're told were doing something wrong.

Wrong Andrei found himself looking at the way most of us learn about right and wrong answers in school. I think the problem of our whole system and our educational system is that it teaches you to be right and you have a possessiveness to be right and all now, it's embarrassing when you're wrong. It's embarrassing when you have a weakness. No, like everybody's wrong at times. Everybody's got weaknesses. Okay by understanding that and knowing how to deal.

At that well individually as well as collectively that one can be successful Ray and I couldn't resist taking a tangent into the educational system. In other words when a mistake is made then they get the grade. That's when the learning begins not that's the grade and it ends because you got that grade. So now take that moment and say okay. This is how life is you learn? It's okay to have mistakes. It's okay to have weaknesses everybody's

At those just figure out what they are and how you work well with others in order to achieve your goal. And I think that could be done from a very early age. Yep. Well, I look at that as the speed of learning curve and if you're actually not making mistakes that you're learning from you're not learning fast enough. That's right and anything. Yes exactly. Right took those ideas back to his colleagues at that dinner. The ones would have alerted him to the morale problem within the company. I said to the people. Okay, well

I have a meeting. I don't look I don't want to do this. I don't want to make you feel bad. So what should we do about it? And do you not want me to tell you what I really think? Yes. Do you want to be inhibited from telling me what you really think how should we do that? And that allowed us to go really more into our cerebral mines and away from our emotional Minds because they would say no no. No, it's a real benefit that you're telling me what you really think and it's a good thing that we're having that but it's

emotionally difficult and then we shifted to how do you handle the emotional difficulties rather than stop being radically truthful and transparent. How do you handle the emotional difficulties of criticism of disagreement? Well, it helps to know just how conflict is experienced in the brain. I asked neuroscientist Daniel Amen founder of Amen Clinics what leaders need to know we have seen over the years thousands of couples.

who are in trouble because of conflict people who get fired from their jobs because they seek conflict kids who've had problems at school with conflict either bullying or they are excitement-seeking almost conflict driven for many people conflict becomes synonymous with trouble and I think the reason the brain hates conflict is

because we become worried we're going to end up being shunned by the group or the other person and that's an evolutionary survival Instinct. So to keep our relationships and our place in the community intact, we might learn to avoid conflict but this depends on who you are through brain Imaging techniques. Daniel has found that there are three kinds of people those who hate conflict those who seek it and those who were

Really rigid personally, I'm probably conflict hating having been taught the value of conflict and become by teaching conflict seeking but whatever your leanings Neuroscience shows that self-knowledge and Trust are you to best tools for harnessing constructive conflict? So for example, if you're a CEO and you can't fire people what you do is you end up with a team that

It is not as competent as they could be on the other side If you're sort of an it because you can't filter the impulsive stupid thoughts you have in your had.

Well, you're not going to have a great

executive team because people don't like to be abused and so it's really having a balanced brain and then working on trust because if I trust you, I'll let you say

Things to me if I don't trust you, I probably not going to let you do that. And so I think of trust as the number one currency of being able to have healthy conflict as dr. Daniel Amen just shared underlying trust is essential for harnessing constructive conflict, but has raised quick to tell you you're also going to need some process. Well, I have another principle.

Which is whenever you're having a disagreement with somebody or some difficult time with somebody pause it and then go above it and agree. How should you be with each other? What are your protocols one of the rules and then once you can agree on that, then you can go back down into your disagreement and navigated in the agreed upon way at Bridgewater. There are protocols in place to help navigate constructive conflict and harness its benefits. We have a two minute.

Rule, we have mediators. We do certain things to have the protocols to be able to have that disagreement and then to go beyond that disagreement and also to show that failure or being wrong is not anyway bad. Well you want to learn from it and Ray also has some good general advice on how to approach disagreement in a constructive mindset relish the conflict have curiosity be a

Sir, like if you're seeing something different than I'm seeing one of us be wrong. I don't know who that might be. Maybe it's me another way to find Grace in Conflict find ways to let go of ego and trade it for a more centered mindset. Some people can do this with just a few cleansing breaths for others. It's a lifelong struggle some like Ray turn a deep focusing practices like meditation, which he has been committed to for years and now

Deeply in a transcendental meditation. You are I learned how to meditate in my freshman or sophomore year of freshman year in college. I think whatever success I've had in life has been more due to meditation. I think than anything else maybe my curiosity because it gives one an Equanimity and a creativity that's really really great. Whether it's meditation or any other focusing practice anything that helps you achieve a focused the eagle.

Estate will serve you well. The goal is to find a balance that let you lay any ulterior motives to rest what's left is a desire to find the best answers for the good of a shared goal.

Before we close out this episode. I can't resist sharing one more Jewel from my interview with Ray as many of you know, we end our long-form interviews with a lightning round of questions. I'm going to share a couple of rays answers with you as one of them stood out amongst nearly all the other answers I've ever gotten to this question what follows is some honest-to-goodness disagreement was a constructive free of ego. Did it serve are coexisting and

Goals, you be the judge lighting round lighting round.

What's something that's in your pocket? Besides your phone? Well my money my let's see my money. It's just I think my money and then a pad that I whenever spontaneous ideas occurred to me that I scribble those ideas down so that I don't lose them. Yep. I actually have I always carry pad with me to for the exact same reason best movie ever. Ooh The Big Lebowski, uh-huh. Yeah.

And the next one mine is hudsucker proxy, which is another clue Brothers right one coming up artificial intelligence fills you with. Hope or dread pick one.

Dread your fate. You can then use yes. Yes, absolutely.

I'm a guy who has found that making algorithms as been so fabulous in my decision-making and I really believe it's totally great. Right, but I have a belief a principle that if you have decision rules in your app or however that you don't have deep understanding about

And the world is different in the future than in the past.

You're going to crash and I think in the desire to move along very quickly the speed of I'm going to use algorithms to make quick that's on these things will probably at some time make very important decisions be very major mistakes. And since we're all connected that scares me, so by the way in radical transparency, I actually have hope

And unfortunately just because at times I do want to get through the lightning round questions to our next conversation will go into the AI stuff a little bit more. Let me ask you the question. Do you agree with the principle? I just said another words. If so, I'm just let's just chat. Yeah, of course is invaluable because I love your outfit. Of course. I was like, yeah I'm saying if you apply a eye and a it doesn't give you understanding and the

future is different from the past hip.

Do you agree that that's dangerous? Well, the question is is it more dangerous than the norm of human behavior? So take for example a subset of it. Like I actually think that within 10 years. We will strongly want a world in which it's only autonomous vehicles on the road and not human beings. Yeah. Sure, right so that would be an instance of within a domain and that doesn't mean that everything on the road is all known though. We know that Isaac you what you're doing is to your face.

To reply to my principal. Okay. So I'm with you in the car. Okay. Now the question is if something important that you don't have understanding and you're going to rely on the algorithm you're going to be in trouble, right? Well except what I'm saying is that there's a set of domains. I agree on the set of domains. Yes, but I think when I'm saying when you're looking at that set, isn't that set what I've just described meaning

The when it has happened in the past. Okay, go ahead. Well, but that was the reason I was like the only using a v is a simple thing as there will be driving situations that will happen in the future that have not happened in the past right some combination of electrical storm certain way that a an animal or a kid is crossing highway Etc. And there will be some kinds of sets of consequences are on that but the comparison set is not will

And II system in that situation be perfect. The comparison set was will the AI device decision-making Etc. Be comparable to Human Performance that would be confronted in a similar situation. Absolutely. Right and I'm saying I think in that particular case that the AI would perform significantly worse than the human so I don't think that's necessarily the case. I think the certain tenets of the necessarily well well because it's domain so for example, if you said

What I want to take AI technology today and put them in charge of a military put them in charge the government. Absolutely not right. The AI systems are not there that's reason I say select the domain. So the question is where did the mains and I think that the reason I would say an answer of Hope is I think the number of domains that we can rely upon an AI system to give us human lover or better competence and refining it is increasing your last statement, which I totally agree with you.

Doesn't get to the other statement of why the domain in the Army and I agree with your prior principal. Your prior principal was what is it in comparison to the alternative? Yes, but then if you have a domain like that and you think you're going to do army, you're going to commit do that command and you're going to get to the right answer versus the human that's a very dangerous thing to do. And so I'm saying it's the understanding relative to the human understanding. Can we agree on that?

Well, so it depends on where the AI systems go in terms of ultimately creating understand but I'm creating the universal law you're responding to me in a way that is basically says it depends which I agree with it. It's depends but what is the universal law? So if you don't have understanding and you have human thinking let's call that okay that will Define the domains so we could take those other domains that where there's better human understanding that would mean that we're saying

in the same thing. I've imp I think we are with maybe the caveat of we are finding it surprising the number of things that we can apply a classifier AI system which generally thinking you don't have to understand it just does classification, but it can Encompass a lot more domains and we would have previously thought 10 years ago. Yes, but I think that what you're not doing that should be done is to try to say which of the ones that it can do.

The universal truth of the ones that it is in didn't like you want the AI to raise your kids. Uh, no not yet. Okay do you want and I could store one and a eyes a tutor may be? Okay, right. Not that I'm saying. Now, let's list all of those. I think the common element that you will have is whether the human intelligence is going to be able to be better than the machine intelligence the AI intelligence and I'm calling that understanding, okay.

So the one thing I would say is I don't think any AI system today has anything approaching understanding whatsoever. But I'm saying I think what what I'm calling about understanding is what the human has just to keep it in our terms that the computer doesn't have that's when the human is superior. So we'll come back to the okay. So this because II guess

all right lightning

round the lightning round your favorite place to

think big.

To be clear our shared goal in this discussion wasn't a determine that morality of AI or even to win the debate our shared goal was to exchange ideas and a way that might give us both New

Perspectives. If you actively find

opportunities for this kind of positive conflict, you'll constantly open new avenues for