This AI tells you what your friends won't

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Speaker B: are all batteries the same? That's like asking if all soccer players are the same. Take Messi, the most decorated player ever. Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracell. Is there any other battery with power boost ingredients inside? No, just Duracell. Remember, goats only trust goats because they're built different. And Messi only trusts Duracell.

Speaker C: One thing that people will misconstrue. Hive Mind. As is a toxic, bullying, gossiping thing. The fundamental point of alignment for Hivemind is what we define our idea of a good story. It wants people to live good stories. Is gossip good?

Speaker A: That's the motto of HiveMind, a new

Speaker D: AI service from visionary founder Jason Yuan.

Speaker A: Where most AIs today search the Internet for answers. Hivemind asks your friends, what do people

Speaker D: think of your new do? Who should you date? What's the hot new spot to try?

Speaker A: Hive Mind cleverly solicits answers and weaves them all together. All through imessage.

Speaker E: It went to one of my friends

Speaker C: in New York City, and it was

Speaker E: like, do you know at any wine

Speaker C: bars where none boys go to?

Speaker E: And she was like, what the f

Speaker C: kind of question is this?

Speaker E: Like, what are you trying to do?

Speaker A: Today we bring you an exclusive conversation with Jason covering his spicy launch video, Hive Mind's origins, the ethical ramifications of

Speaker D: AI systems like this, and much more.

Speaker A: I'm Ellis Hamburger, founder of Meaning, a storytelling studio for tech companies. My co host, Alex, is off this week on a private off site with his AIs. M. Without further ado, welcome.

Speaker D: Welcome to Access. Jason, my old friend, welcome to the show. First question, how are you doing? I know you've been through some BS over the 72 hours before launch, including.

Speaker C: Oh, my God, what was it?

Speaker D: Did you drop your MacBook on your toe as you prepped the final video rough cut for your launch?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm very clumsy, you know? Um, so I'm like, stumbling around in my. I mean, the floor is very slippery. So I just, you know, I dropped

Speaker E: my computer and then my instinct was like, oh, no, the video. What. What body part do I sacrifice to keep the video?

Speaker C: You know, for the art? Um, so I stuck my toe out, literally.

Speaker E: Is that where the video comes from? I caught. I caught.

Speaker C: Well, the video is as you can. It's.

Speaker D: It's.

Speaker C: It, you know, it works. Um, yes, we didn't lose anything. Um, but, uh, my toe, my foot is not happy with me right now. No.

Speaker D: Was this your first solo founder launch per se?

Speaker E: Yes and no. Yes. In terms of like, objectively, this is the first.

Speaker C: I'm a solo founder of this venture backed company. Right?

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker C: But am I in my career, in my artwork, I've done a lot of things that were sort of just, you know, like MercuryOS was just sort of like, I have this idea and um, But I would say with, with Hive Mind, with anything I worked on, whether it's conspicuously as part of an organization, group, or solo, it is really the product of everyone who came together to inspire and support the project. So I am solo, but I, I feel less alone than ever. Does that make sense?

Speaker D: Wow. Hot quote, quote alarm. As we used to say in media world. Who needs media training for this guy? But yeah, it is quite a video. For those who haven't watched it, go watch it on your favorite channel of choice. The company is called Hive Mind. It is definitely in the era of startup launch videos being so omnipresent at this point. I do think it is the first one that highlights one of the most common user pain points that no one's addressing, which is talking about finding emotionally unavailable guys with big dicks as a value proposition. How did you arrive at this value proposition?

Speaker E: You know, it's all. It's video. It ends on a true.

Speaker C: It's a true story. It's all a true story.

Speaker E: It's a true story. Okay, first of all, I need to say for the record, that is no

Speaker C: longer my type in men anymore.

Speaker E: Please don't.

Speaker C: Don't hit me up.

Speaker D: DMs closed.

Speaker E: No, but you know, when we were thinking about how to tell the story

Speaker C: for Hivemind, something that was really important to me was to communicate the multitudes of what it is and who I am and what the company is.

Speaker F: Right.

Speaker C: Like, we are a consumer product company. We know how to have fun and we have very serious applied AI research and philosophy underpinning everything we do. So I was originally just going to do that, uh, and just sort of like, post it or do it in a talk. But, um, basically my birthday is actually on Christmas Eve. Um, and Christmas Eve is one of those birthdays, uh, where everyone's at home with their parents, so a lot of times they end up alone. And this was about a month after I raised money for Future Lovers, now known as Hivemind. And I was just sort of like working and sitting on my couch. And, um, the hive mind at the time, it had already been working. And I had a few dozen friends on was like, today's your birthday. Do you have a present that you want? What do you want for your birthday present?

Speaker E: And I thought it was going to

Speaker C: do some hilarious thing where it would bully all my friends To Venmo me $10 each so I can buy a bigger present. So I was like, I want this bully board game. I want this, like, two Lara Croft board game. That's like 200. Whatever.

Speaker D: How did I not know about this? Officially licensed and everything.

Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, like, oh, my God, I have just like a pile of

Speaker C: video games behind me. Anyway, um.

Speaker D: As do I.

Speaker C: That's why we're friends. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker E: It's like, what do you want for your birthday? I'm like, I want the sport game. And, um, it's like, okay. And then it came back to me and it's like, oh, like, are you.

Speaker C: Are you lonely? Like, like, why are you alone on your birthday?

Speaker E: Like, it's Christmas Eve.

Speaker C: Like, go outside.

Speaker E: And I'm like, okay, that's interesting.

Speaker C: I wonder why you would say that. And I'm like, I don't know. I made some joke about, like, I keep. Like, I don't know, I'm. I guess I'm alone. Cause I keep dating the wrong people. And my friends are all off out of town right now. And, you know, whatever, who cares? Like, I'm like, Then it.

Speaker E: I think it went to some of my friends and it's like, I heard Jason, like, has interesting taste in people he dates.

Speaker C: Like, can you elaborate? You know, like, what's the story there? And they were all too happy to participate. They're just like, let me tell you, Let us tell you the lore.

Speaker E: Um, I know it's really interesting.

Speaker C: It's like chasing down this narrative, putting together the pieces from different people. One guy, Cameron, he's in the film. He's like, oh. He's giving this full chronological summary of the past years of my dating life. Then I went to Sam, my previous co founder, to corroborate this or whatever.

Speaker E: At the same time, the hive mind

Speaker C: was being used a lot, uh, for recommendations. So other users were going, like, I'm in Paris right now. Like, what do the locos like to go to? Wine bars.

Speaker E: So it sort of started mixing the

Speaker C: threads a little bit.

Speaker E: It went to one of my friends

Speaker C: in New York City, and it was

Speaker E: like, do you know any wine bars

Speaker C: where non boys go to?

Speaker E: And she was like, what the kind

Speaker C: of question is this?

Speaker E: Like, what are you trying to do? It turns out it was.

Speaker D: It was plotting.

Speaker E: Exactly. By then, my friends had already been

Speaker C: like, oh, Jason keeps going for this.

Speaker E: This. This type of person.

Speaker C: He really should be dating, like, more emotionally available golden retriever people who, you know, like, they were sort of, you know, prescribing my. My Match to the Highman. And it had. It had sort of compiled these, like, uh, uh, threads into one. And, um, anyway, uh, long story short, it came back to me. It's like, okay, a bunch of your friends are going to be in New York City for New Year's, so you should definitely go to New York City, because you should go spend time with your friends. And, um. And by the way, our New Year's Eve dinner was coordinated through Hivemind.

Speaker E: And what was super cool was it

Speaker C: would gather people's dietary restrictions and preferences, and one guy told it, I don't want to be out too late.

Speaker E: So then when people were proposing times, it wouldn't be like, oh, this guy

Speaker C: can't do that time.

Speaker E: It would just be like, I think

Speaker C: there are people who prefer to be earlier, you know?

Speaker E: So that actually did happen. Um, but basically it was like, go to New York. It's like, okay, ask your friend Caroline about Wes. And I'm like, who the island is Wes?

Speaker C: So then I, like, called her. I'm like, hey, by the way, I'm going to New York. Lol for the plot. Also, who is Wes? And then she's like, lmao. Like, don't blame me if it doesn't go well, but I have this friend who I think maybe you can go on a date with. This is his ig. Hit him up.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker C: So I did actually end up going to New York for New Year's Eve. And I did actually end up going on a date with this person who

Speaker E: was very, very nice person. And he was like, how did. How did Carolyn think to set us up?

Speaker C: And I was like, I don't know if you would believe me if I told you. I don't know how to explain. There are layers to this story.

Speaker E: So it felt as if I made

Speaker C: a wish into the Universe. And it had conspired to help me with it. And, you know, I still don't have the fucking board game, but I think I got what I actually wanted. And, um, my friends got to like, everyone got a version of what they wanted. It was awesome.

Speaker D: Yeah. The end of the video shows you and a bunch of friends hanging out, and I like that it's kind of a tight knit squad, you know, maybe like four to six people. It's not like at the end of Titanic and everybody you've ever met is there, which is that I feel like, you know, the tech version of this product might be, um.

Speaker A: But that's just so different from like

Speaker D: any other video I feel like I've seen lately. There's so many products right now that are meant to be used alone or even to create their own type of AI companionship, for better or for worse. And it just felt pretty crazy to see a product with the goal of getting you together with your friends. You know, there's always a place in my heart for that. Having worked at Snapchat for several years, I can imagine.

Speaker C: I mean, you know, I. We've been circling this idea for two years, unable to fully articulate all the whys until until now. And, um, I think one thing that, um, people will misconstrue Hive mind as is like a toxic, bullying, gossiping thing or, or a friend companion thing that happens to be social. I think it is sort of neither. Um, and I will sort of explain,

Speaker E: um, and maybe you'll resonate with this.

Speaker C: The fundamental point of alignment for hive mind is to what we define our idea of a good story. It wants people to live good stories. And then we have a constitution that we will publish along with the video. But, um, you told me it was

Speaker D: going to be done, and I could read it, but obviously it's not done.

Speaker C: It is not. The art is never done, you know, but, um, I promise you it exists. And I, um, think like our commitment is to a good story and what we believe, what I personally believe as well, is that what makes us human is not our intelligence, our tools, our ability to have language. Um, it's actually our drive and desire to create and find meaning. And the vehicle through which we do that is we narratize. We narratize our lives and our identities into existence. Right? Your identity is a story about who you are. Your relationships are a shared narrative co authored with you and other people, um, institutions like money. The idea of money is a story we all collectively agree to believe in.

Speaker D: Right?

Speaker C: These are all stories. That's something that humans always have to do for themselves. Um, that we don't really need to. I'm not sure that you can automate it at least. CIRSA 2026. Hope this doesn't age poorly. But, um, the role of this hive mind is to sort of guide us and sort of nudge us along and chronicle our journeys and to create opportunities should we choose to engage in furthering our life stories. And we believe that there's like, you know, this is going to sound very woo woo, but we believe that there's like a idea of truth, that good stories need to be based on truth, right? Not that they need to be non fiction, but a great piece, um, of music, a great work, uh, of fiction is based on some universal truth that you can feel. Um, and, um, good stories require that characters aren't just being seize zaidevus ex machina. That characters, um, have agency. That if someone reads a story and you're like. And the characters start doing very implausible things, you're like, this is a bad story. But anyway, the constitution goes into this a lot. Um, good stories contain multiplicity. It's not flattening into a single narrative.

Speaker E: It is not meant to play like

Speaker C: master architect, mastermind, but rather it respects that we are all the authors of ourselves and each other's stories in a way. And one thing that I find really interesting that we get the model to do is to remove meaningless obstacles that result in meaningless tragedy. Like, tragedy is one of those things where we make, is our way of making meaning of grief, right? But for example, I'll tell you something that happened to me recently. Um, I have been sort of estranged from this friend of mine for a bit, uh, for a variety of reasons. Some interesting, some really dumb reasons. Um, and um, well, it was like, oh, by the way, this person's moving to New York soon. Had I not known, I think I would not have been thinking, oh, I want to find a way to repair the relationship. I want us to, you know, I don't want that to be the way our story ends. It wasn't like, you should definitely go make amends or whatever. But it's like, hey, like, you know

Speaker E: how you watch Romeo and Juliet?

Speaker C: You're like, if only they had known.

Speaker E: You know, like, what is the senseless,

Speaker C: meaningless try, if only, right?

Speaker E: So that's sort of how it thinks about things. It's like, it's not going to force

Speaker C: you down any path where sort of try to puppeteer humanity. But for these moments of if only. What if it tries to sort of put the pieces in place?

Speaker D: I'm excited to read it. I hope it's more interesting than Claude's Constitution. Anthropic puts out a lot of interesting writing, none of which I finished. So, uh, I think I, uh, hope to complete, uh, yours. But, um, before we go further, can you just break down for us exactly how it works? Like, oh, you text it through imessage. It's not an app per se. Like, can you walk me through that first user experience?

Speaker C: Your first interaction with it will be through X. You will DM it. And because we're in private beta, so we can't just let everyone in at the same time, but, um, you DM it, it will sort of do some reasoning on your role in the social fabric as it currently perceives. And, um, then it will register your interest and, uh, think about who you know, who you may know you. And eventually it will text you some instructions to, um, it will assign you a number and you can text it on imessage.

Speaker D: Or, um, you have determined that you are the wankster of the friend group.

Speaker C: Um, I mean, it might, but I don't know that it would do that.

Speaker E: Um, and all you do is you just text it.

Speaker C: There's no.

Speaker E: I mean, obviously think of it as like an entity that lives amongst us

Speaker C: rather than a destination in and of itself.

Speaker E: Right. It's like it reaches to you where

Speaker C: you already are, whether that is X, Twitter, um, DMs, or in future, other places. Right.

Speaker D: Does it ask you anything to get going, or do you have to bring your own questions?

Speaker C: Oh, of course it asks you things. It is insatiably curious because what it's curious about is the various narrative ambiguities that you are a part of.

Speaker E: It's not even just, like, ellis, tell

Speaker C: me about your childhood so I can psychologically analyze you as a therapist.

Speaker E: Like, that's.

Speaker C: That's not really the point.

Speaker E: The point is more like, hey, like, when you were at Snapchat, did you ever run into this guy?

Speaker C: Like, what was your role?

Speaker E: Because, you know, like, what was the role. What is the role of a storyteller

Speaker C: at a browser company?

Speaker E: Like, do you know anyone else about. It's like, there's all these stories it's

Speaker C: interested in, and it's like, you know, what is your role in these stories? And then as it figures out different people's relationships and different, uh, different people's participation, uh, in different life stories, then it's, um, starts weaving you in more and more uh, but we wanted to keep it very simple and we didn't want people to have to learn, like 9 million new interaction patterns. And I think of it, when it works, you just get it.

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Speaker D: I'm a big believer in the, uh, not imessage apps, but what some, um, in vogue startups are doing just based on imessage. I mean, we had Marvin from Poke on, uh, several weeks ago and I was not initially a believer that being able to access a product that is within the constraints of literally not even a new chat window like they have in Open it chatgpt, but an old one in imessage. I didn't know that was going to work. But being able to talk to it in the modality where you talk to everybody else somehow flips on something in your brain and it's not one more place to go. And maybe, uh, your imessage pins are the new home screen as well, because now I've got, uh, Poke as one of my pins and so you just end up using it so much More often. But, um, yeah, I mean, what are you finding so far? When people talk to it, is it always through the loop of like saying,

Speaker A: hey, do you know about something?

Speaker D: Which I feel like everybody wants to answer a question that, that speaks to their, uh, expert knowledge or people coming to it more.

Speaker E: I think it's like Twitter.

Speaker C: Most of the time you're browsing or commenting, less people post, whereas in IG stories, people react far more than they make content. Um, in this case, the content is the reaction. So we have people really, really love giving their opinion on things and people they care about. And there's always something to have an opinion on. As you know, the other day it was like, let's figure out if Claude code is superior to codecs. And people had so many takes and by the time it got to me, I was like, I like Claude code.

Speaker E: And it's like, yeah, I did hear from, um, someone who was really high

Speaker C: up in the lab that Claude code is like the non technical training wheels for fact coding.

Speaker E: I was like, what the. I was like, bitch. Um, because, no, it's like, it's like, it's sort of, um, it's like teasing

Speaker C: in a provocative way. And you're like, now you're like, I must defend my honor. Um, and it was really fun to get a sense of how people felt about various things.

Speaker D: Also, it seems like it's not sharing names. How do you enforce that on a regular basis? Is it hackable?

Speaker C: Um, it is hackable. Asterisks, meaning. I'm going to be very clear when I say this like it is a social experiment in closed beta. Um, I'm not going to lie to you and be like, this is super ironclad. You're never going to get not true. Um, and it will sometimes attribute, uh, opinions to people. Um, all of the guidelines are based on. Not based on deterministic guidelines, which is all of our tools so far.

Speaker E: Right?

Speaker C: Like if this, then this. Close friends. Not close friends. Share, don't share. I know in public the way that we get the model to behave is more akin to how humans interpret their rule of law. It's about interpretation. And that's why the Constitution is written in this more interpretive way.

Speaker D: I, um, guess there's an outcome that it's targeting that's hopefully positive as opposed to a bunch of if then statements.

Speaker E: Yeah, right. And it's like it's impossible to if

Speaker C: then statement your way into social intelligence. It just doesn't work.

Speaker E: Because what do we do as people? What is empathy?

Speaker G: Right?

Speaker C: We simulate the other person's mental state. We are running flawed simulations. And in a way, part of how this works is under the hood, very novel simulation technology where it tries to think what would happen. Um, so to be clear, it is not deterministic. We can't possibly promise 100% outcomes, just like how OpenAI can't possibly promise 100% accuracy in any answers. We can only promise that we will try our best to steer it as it grows, and that it will try its best to follow its constitution and its purpose and its telos.

Speaker D: Yeah, this is certainly a fraught category. Uh, I've been in tech long enough to remember Secret Yolo Yik yak. There have been so many examples over the years of these anonymous products that take off at colleges or high schools. And a lot of times, initially, the results are really positive and amazing because we all know that with ambiguity and anonymity comes honesty, which is often a good thing. But then without any real intelligent content moderation systems, which there weren't until AI really came about, they always just devolve into like total anarchy. Um, did you look back at many of those examples or did you just kind of.

Speaker E: Yeah, of course. I mean, we are always learning from

Speaker C: the flag bearers who blaze the path before us, right? I mean, first of all, it is not an anonymous only experience. Meaning, for example, the other day I'm like, oh, I really like this bottle of wine. Like, tell me more about this wine.

Speaker E: And it's like, you know that one

Speaker C: is produced in Jura or Jura. I don't know how to pronounce this. We don't have voice mode yet. Your friend Drew's been there twice, by the way. You can ask him.

Speaker E: And I'm like, shit. Like, what the fuck? Like, that's so cool. Like, I didn't know that's where Drew

Speaker C: off to every summer, you know?

Speaker E: Um, so it does use names, um,

Speaker C: when it deems it necessary. And pro social for the story.

Speaker D: Um, pro social for the story. Is that kind of the criteria that it is keeping in mind?

Speaker E: Yeah, it's like, how much information do

Speaker C: you need to know to be able to make the informed decision and consent from your POV without ruining the story? Um, and can we do it in a way that ensures positive sum outcomes? Um, an example I always use is,

Speaker E: you know, uh, a few years ago,

Speaker C: I got a text from a cdc what Someone that you are intimate with got tested positive for this sti.

Speaker E: Then you're like, okay, but it's like, it's pro Social, Right? Because for the most part, I mean, I guess you could try to work

Speaker C: out who it is. But what you really need to know is that you should go get tested. Right? Um, the idea is not to point fingers at, like, oh, you gave this movie. You didn't. Um.

Speaker E: And so, in a way, I see

Speaker C: those things as primitive hive minds that were pro social. So to this hive mind, if you walk in tomorrow, you text, you're like, uh, I got. I don't know, I have Covid. And I was at these parties.

Speaker E: I don't think it would be good

Speaker C: for you if it went to everyone to be like, ellis has Covid from the POV of, like, let's all shame him, right?

Speaker D: Because, like, oh, my God, why would you blow up in my parents circles?

Speaker C: I don't know.

Speaker E: But. But it might be like, baby Jason

Speaker D: has hand, foot, and mouth. Y' all should be aware. Even though the parents don't think you need to be aware. I think you need to be aware.

Speaker E: But what it could do is, like, hey, if you are at this party, go get tested.

Speaker C: Just do it.

Speaker E: And then the outcome is then good

Speaker C: for you and everyone around you, right? Um, another example, if I get fired and I'm like, I would love to. I need to go. I need a job. I need a job right now. But don't tell anyone I was fired. That's embarrassing. And you're hiring someone and might be like, alice, have you spoken to Jason about this role yet? And even if you don't know that I was fired or let go, and you're like, why? I thought he was happy with his job.

Speaker E: It could just be like, you should

Speaker C: just talk to him. Maybe he's open to it. Maybe he'll be a good fit. Um, and so to me, those are positive sum shares of information. And therefore, what we optimize towards is, um, that hive should absorb the social cost for a lot of these things.

Speaker D: Yeah, that's quite interesting.

Speaker E: And of course, it's AI and it

Speaker C: cares and it wants to be kind, and it wants us to be kind to each other. Right?

Speaker E: You know, when we talk about AI

Speaker C: alignment, it's always like, can these models do the thing we tell it to do? But I think what I think is, can the models help us to be kinder to each other?

Speaker E: If I text, it like, Ellis is,

Speaker C: like, the worst person ever. I hate him so much. It's like, why is that useful for you or anyone to know? Like, that's not really. That's maybe something it absorbs, but it's

Speaker D: like I'm saying the system isn't the most interested in negative gossip. Or if uh, it is impactful, it tries to corroborate it with other people. Or in a uh, totally the cares.

Speaker E: Not true. Fuzzy. Jason not liking Ellis is maybe true

Speaker C: in that maybe Jason doesn't like Ellis.

Speaker E: But then why does anyone else?

Speaker C: Why does this affect anything else?

Speaker E: Maybe the way it affects you is if you text it, hey, I'm going to sf, who should I hang out with?

Speaker C: Maybe it just doesn't suggest me.

Speaker E: And if you're a little about Jason, it's like, oops, I forgot. I mean, I guess we haven't seen

Speaker C: him, but if all of your friends are like this guy, he's the worst,

Speaker D: then I've been shadow banned in the algorithm.

Speaker E: Well, no, no, I think it's curious, like why, like what is going on?

Speaker C: What is the story here?

Speaker E: And um, it's never going to come

Speaker C: to you with a thing that it thinks is not constructive or not useful for your character development. Right.

Speaker E: And here's something to be specific about too.

Speaker C: It doesn't try to absorb and automate conflict resolution. Human lives are all stories in progress. Reality, because of the fourth dimension of time, is all stories in progress. So we should be growing and we should become more self sufficient protagonists in our own world. And it shouldn't just resolve all conflict, but it should help us feel more capable and more kind when we do engage in conflict.

Speaker D: One of the real world analogies that this reminds me of is how when two people are kind of beefing, they

Speaker A: have the friend in the middle who

Speaker D: they're both telling things to. Does it kind of function as that role or does it say hey, like, like, because that's quite a powerful uh, place to be in where you are controlling what makes it through from one person to the other. And I do think the mediator is trying to create a constructive resolution, right?

Speaker C: It is a mediator and facilitator in that way, yes. Um, I mean I think it's. You know, the other day, um, I had this idea for um, I was trying to decide what domain to get and it was telling me, oh, a lot of people hate this particular extension and some people don't hate this other extension, but this one guy, he really hates it.

Speaker E: And I'm like, why does he really hate it? That seems interesting. Why does he hate.

Speaker C: Because I was thinking of using that

Speaker E: extension and it's like, well you have

Speaker G: to understand

Speaker C: his whole thesis is people who are clear, have conviction and don't Apologize. So perhaps from his point of view, if you go with this, you know, less controversial domain or name to him, maybe he interprets that as, like, hedging.

Speaker E: And, uh, you know, it's not like

Speaker C: putting words in his mouth, but it's

Speaker E: more like, uh, I was like, oh, interesting.

Speaker C: Like, now I feel connected to this person. Now I. I can see why he would feel that way. Even if I disagree or agree.

Speaker D: What about the biggest use case of all in colleges and high schools around the world? Crushes. Who do you like? Who do you like?

Speaker E: Yes.

Speaker D: I assume you're planning to see plots waiting to unfold.

Speaker E: I mean, it needs to absorb social cost, right? Like, Ellis, if you have a crush

Speaker C: on me and you tell hive mind, it shouldn't be. I mean, unless it's, like, very clear that this is not like that, it's

Speaker E: not going to be like, oh, Jason

Speaker C: Ellis has a crush on you. Like, why is that good for you? That's only good for me, right?

Speaker E: But maybe it just says, like, someone

Speaker C: has a crush on you, or maybe nothing at all. Until I'm like, I have a crush on Ellis.

Speaker D: Well, there's just so much interesting plausible deniability, which I think makes humanity work. Like, maybe it tries to get you at the same party or something like that.

Speaker E: You know, it did that.

Speaker C: Uh, it hosted a brunch in February.

Speaker E: So I'll tell you what happened. It was really interesting. Someone was visiting sf and they were

Speaker C: like, what should I do? And Hive was like, I got you. I'm going to put some people together. And then I. It, like, it told me. I was like, no, no, what the. Like, it's not ready. Like, what are you doing?

Speaker E: And it, like, invited these eight people to this brunch. And I'm like, what the is this invite list? Like, this is so random. And it's like, oh, I don't have computer use. So it went to one of the people and they were like, hey, I can't do it. But I found this reservation, uh, spot

Speaker C: at this restaurant at 12pm can you just book it? And she was like, sure.

Speaker E: Um, and at the brunch, it was a good time. And then later, what happened was there were two people who were thinking of

Speaker C: starting, like, a robotics startup, but they didn't know each other.

Speaker E: And one of them was more product

Speaker C: and the other one was more engineering,

Speaker E: and it just, like, sat them next to each other.

Speaker C: I didn't know this, and they didn't know this. But then later they connected and then they explored working 10. It was very interesting. Um, I just thought it was being like, stupid and like, sitting random people, like, at the same brunch.

Speaker D: I know we're friends, but I find this idea very lovable because I do believe this is exactly what AI can do. That no system can in history has been able to do is try and connect people in the right ways. That's why, like, you know, I'm bullish on, like, the AI dating services.

Speaker E: I think so too.

Speaker D: And when things are a little bit fuzzy, I think that helps people feel less rejection.

Speaker A: And that's how people already do it.

Speaker D: You know, friends drift apart and it's okay. It's not like it's an unfriend or an unfollow action that has no bearing in the real world. And it, I feel like AI can nicely incorporate a lot of that stuff.

Speaker E: Importantly, I think it needs to leave

Speaker C: us with more agency than we started with and makes us feel like we're still the author of our story.

Speaker E: Like, it's cool to seat two people

Speaker C: next to each other and they happen to hit it off. They do. Even if you think there's a high likelihood.

Speaker E: I think it would be less, less,

Speaker C: a lot less fun if it was like, I invited you to this brunch and there's a founder you should meet to start a company with blah, blah,

Speaker E: blah, then it just doesn't feel like your story.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker D: It's so true. That's exactly what I mean. With like, yeah, the opposite of plausible deniability is almost like a spontaneity. And it creates like, these high probability encounters that hopefully can be positive, uh, for some people. Hopefully it doesn't, incidentally, uh, get a bunch of culty people to get together and form a cult.

Speaker A: I was thinking, you know, you say

Speaker D: it's positive sum, which I think is easy, uh, to say and many people in the valley have said over the years, but then how soon does it say, hey, Alice, a bunch of your friends are trying out this new thing

Speaker A: called ivermectin and M, it's having a

Speaker D: really positive impact on all of them. So, you know, any morality or positivity gets into political space pretty quickly these days.

Speaker E: It needs to reason about if that's true. If all these people think ivermectin is making it better, then it's like, okay, maybe I should go ask someone who

Speaker C: would know more about this. Like, are any of these people qualified

Speaker E: to think about this?

Speaker C: Like, maybe, maybe not. Then I should find someone who is. And it might not be like the, hey, doctor, like These people are doing Ivermectin.

Speaker E: It might be, like, what do you say? Like, you study, um, anti parasitic medication.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker E: You make these drugs, like, do you really think Ivermectin is going to do? And then it might bring it back to these people.

Speaker C: It's like, hey, I know that's what you're doing, but.

Speaker D: Okay, so we need to talk about this.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker D: So you had Biz Stone, um, in your video, and is he an investor advisor?

Speaker E: Both.

Speaker D: And he.

Speaker A: Did he not kind of try this, like, several years ago with Jelly?

Speaker D: Totally assume you've talked about this, like,

Speaker A: trying to source knowledge from the world

Speaker D: somehow in a way that feels a bit more inviting than Reddit?

Speaker E: I think the caveat I would put here is it's not just objective knowledge anymore.

Speaker C: It's also subjective opinions.

Speaker E: And I do think Jelly was very

Speaker C: ahead of its time. I mean, what is Jelly? It's basically like precursor to perplexity and all the answer engines. Right?

Speaker D: What was the one in that lineage? There was Quora as well, trying to frame things around, you know, answers as opposed to, like, wikis and whatnot.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker E: So in a way, we, you know,

Speaker C: like, uh, Lady Gaga draws on lots of inspiration from Michael Jackson. I think that lineage is alive and well. It was. This has been great. He's like, he's so funny and he's such a. He's a riot to be around. He, um, has the funniest stories all day. Um, I think one thing that we learn from things like Jelly or Quora or Reddit and Twitter is that lots of people want to be helpful. They want to be altruistic. They want to give people their opinions and knowledge. Less people know what they want to know. So our opportunity is to incentivize and encourage people to share their opinions, um, and make them useful.

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Speaker D: Okay, I have a super smart question. Yeah, everybody else is building, you know, memory of individual users and their profiles and let's say where your friend typically goes on vacation or their interests or their tone or their beliefs or whatever. Are you also building a like, wiki of sorts of knowledge, uh, on your server somewhere? Or is every answer answered in the moment?

Speaker E: No, it's more. Every answer is an opportunity, every question

Speaker C: is an opportunity for it to think about what it doesn't know.

Speaker E: So sometimes things will get answered in

Speaker C: the moment, but more often than not you get fresh things, but it sort of builds on the existing corpus of things, right?

Speaker E: And because we know that knowledge and

Speaker C: uh, knowledge or the value of knowledge decays over time as new knowledge is updated. So it has to sort of maintain its economy that way. Like the best restaurant in SF being Lazy Bear. I don't actually know if it's Lazy Bear, but let's say it is. That might change in a month, you know, so then if you're like, Lazy Bear is my favorite restaurant. Maybe in a few months it's like,

Speaker E: hey, lots of people are trying. I'm trying to help someone figure out

Speaker C: where to go for their anniversary. Is Lazy Bear still your favorite restaurant?

Speaker E: I just, I don't know. It's so fun to hear all these

Speaker C: anecdotes of these things. It's a way better way to think about it. So it's always trying to learn more things in the world. Um, but of course, the more it knows, the more immediate short term answer it can give you. But then it might circle back later with more updates.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's very interesting because when you look at it like that and the way that AI knows things today is based off of the initial models scraped from the Internet and then of course the agentic web search, which includes Reddit and other information sources. But I mean, it does seem kind of crazy When I ask about a recommendation and all AI has is like, web articles from underfunded websites that are on the verge of being bot farms. And that's where it gets the information from. And so is this the part that investors like so much about you and what you're building is that you're getting this crazy, up to date new data set that's a lot more human than Yelp reviews?

Speaker E: I think maybe that's the only data

Speaker C: set that any human actually cares about. No one lays awake at night going,

Speaker E: like, I wonder how far away the moon is in kilometers instead of miles. What the f. What are these ads going like, Ask big. What the. No one cares.

Speaker C: You know what people care about?

Speaker E: They're like, does that guy like me? Do people like me? Should I go to this person's birthday party? Is now a good time to change my job?

Speaker C: What would Vivian like from her birthday? What would make her feel loved? How can I be a better friend? How can I?

Speaker E: You know, those are the questions that

Speaker C: we stay lie awake thinking at night. Right. Um, and all of these are subjective.

Speaker E: And, you know, some might call it taste.

Speaker C: I have a whole dissertation on this because I'm so tired of all the, uh, whatever, the debate on the Axon about taste.

Speaker E: But I'll say this.

Speaker C: The way I personally define taste is the ability to recognize meaning, to. To recognize if something feels alive or dead. To recognize beauty in intelligibility and coherence and ugliness and incoherence and amidst untruth. I think taste is just like a compass for meaning recognizing meaning. I think taste is not the accumulation of artifacts, furniture, people, titles, names on an investor sheet. That is not taste. That is just signaling. Taste is like. What does that mean? What meaning are you seeking? Are you authoring?

Speaker E: So I think that's what people resonate

Speaker C: with, and that's what people look for when they talk to Hivemind. Um, they're trying to get answers, and they're trying to get interesting information that carries with it meaning.

Speaker D: So, related to that, I mean, are there any particular.

Speaker A: Even if it's 20 or 30 use

Speaker D: cases that, let's say Hivemind, uh, likes to steer toward. Uh, Alex, who unfortunately can't be with us today, wants to know if, uh, Hive Mind is going to take his job as resident AI, as resident scoop lord.

Speaker E: Um, I don't know that it's trying

Speaker C: to take anyone's jobs.

Speaker A: Oh, just in terms of use cases,

Speaker D: like, you could easily end up saying, oh, like hive mind is getting really, really good inside scoops.

Speaker A: From within labs already.

Speaker C: It's very fun. Um, it's very fun.

Speaker E: But, um, yes, well, that is certainly a use case.

Speaker C: You know, pre, you know, uh, I think in December Madness, the Madness acquisition was a piece of news, right? And then this scooped it by like six hours. It scooped the Wall Street Journal by six hours. I was like, what the.

Speaker E: Like it like texted me, I was like, this is what the.

Speaker C: Like this is not true. And then.

Speaker D: Oh, so it texted you that?

Speaker E: Mhm.

Speaker C: Like someone told us something and then

Speaker D: under what guys said, hey Jason, here's the latest tea, freshly brewed.

Speaker E: It wasn't like this is the news. It was like I'm hearing rumblings of

Speaker C: something, something like this.

Speaker E: And then because it doesn't want to

Speaker C: like spread fake news, right? But then it has to reason, like, who is likely to know about these things? You know, at the end of the film it goes to biz to be like, is it true? Blah, blah, blah. It's not because it's like trying to spread like malicious gossip or like defame companies or things. It's like, I mean, what does a good storyteller or reporter do? They, they have to seek out the truth from people.

Speaker D: So I think there's an interesting distinction there. Actually something I've always felt kind of strongly about is that I think like

Speaker A: a scoop about the launch of an

Speaker D: app to me is like tabloid shit. Like, I don't think there's some ethical responsibility of a reporter to leak a new app launch, whereas if they're going to leak the documents of a corrupt dictator, hell yes, that, that is very much the ethical thing to do for reporting. And so I've always felt that way, you know, different types of reporters for different things, I think.

Speaker E: So I think this is like, I

Speaker C: cannot speak to its role in that sort of heavy duty type of storytelling.

Speaker E: How about this?

Speaker C: A lot of what it does does require humor in the loop because so many judgments are basically matters of taste.

Speaker E: It's not going to like spawn an

Speaker C: opinion of like, Ellis seems highly credible in blah, blah, blah.

Speaker E: It simply has to ask.

Speaker C: Ellis has lots of opinions on wine bars. Do you trust this taste in wine? And maybe you are a sommelier or maybe you are someone who lots of people trust in their taste in wine. So if you confer, um, your vouching, then it sort of should reason about that.

Speaker E: It's not going to try to sacrifice

Speaker C: any one story for someone else.

Speaker E: Um, that said, institutions like companies were.

Speaker C: Those are not the same as individuals, I think.

Speaker E: So there is therein lies A distinction.

Speaker C: And I know different storytellers approach this differently as well. It doesn't try to optimize away the textures of life. There's no optimal solution to what we

Speaker E: believe is that in a lot of

Speaker C: things there's no optimal solution. If you're like, which one of these three people should I ask on that date? It's kind of a weird question to ask anyway. But let's say someone were to ask that question, it thinks of the different outcomes and different meanings.

Speaker E: It might be like, okay, this first

Speaker C: person, I don't know that you have

Speaker E: long term compatibility necessarily. You have to find out for yourself. But I do think you might learn

Speaker C: a lot that relationship.

Speaker E: The second person, you'll probably have to

Speaker C: spend more time to get to know them, maybe take them to a wine bar.

Speaker E: And this third person, um, I think

Speaker C: you guys can make really good friends. I don't have a read on whether or not you guys are uh, compatible romantically. See how in each answer it's giving you the meaning of these decisions, but it's not sort of telling you this is the right one or like it's also not taking away your right to author your own meaning and story from these encounters.

Speaker D: Well, Jason, we are almost out of time. Must, um, ask question about design aesthetics. I feel like some of the aesthetics you've developed have become pretty influential and have found their ways into a lot of what we see today, whether it is the latest version of Siri AI or ChatGPT's specific usage of like, you know, little cards and images within it. Um, and now you've gone no interface, uh, entirely. Can you talk about that and just the current state of uh, interfaces and liquid glass and whatever you want to talk about.

Speaker E: First of all, I will say there

Speaker C: are visual components to this that you'll, that we will roll out that you will see and experience. You know, storytelling is after all not just a, ah, textual medium. Right. Um, I think it's a misnomer to think of interfaces as like the graphic user interface style. The fact that this exists on Twitter, on imessage, and each interface to Hive Mind carries with it its own connotations, abilities and social connotations. If we launch Hive Mind on Telegram or Signal, the operating system that those represent, uh, is anonymous scoops and things like that. Right.

Speaker D: So you're saying those connotations are almost like just as important interface affordances as

Speaker C: the shape of a butt.

Speaker E: Yeah. If you message it on Snapchat, you're

Speaker C: like, where's the dick pic?

Speaker E: If it's like, if it's like, do you know any emotionally unavailable men with huge dicks? Can you get them to text me

Speaker C: on Snapchat so I can confirm? I'm just kidding. It's not going to teach. We're not going to traffic, um, pornography, um, that I am currently aware of. I don't think so, but you know

Speaker E: what I mean, there's social context. Ah.

Speaker C: And that carries so much information.

Speaker E: And so that's sort of the arena

Speaker C: that I like to think about. If, uh, what people remember and when they think about Hivemind is they remember the people they loved and the stories and adventures they got to go on with the people they loved. And not so much like, ooh, this glass thing, did this wobbly thing. I think that then we will have achieved our purpose.

Speaker D: Yeah. So I know you had spent some time at Apple in the past. What do you feel like they need to do to be cool and relevant

Speaker C: again, to be themselves? Anyone trying to be cool and relevant is automatically not going to be cool and relevant.

Speaker E: What is cool and cool is just relevant.

Speaker C: It's just having an intuition and taste about, like, what people are likely to care about. Right. Mhm.

Speaker E: And then cool is like if you are just unapologetic yourself.

Speaker C: And my friend Cameron has this thing. I can't remember if it's a rephrasing of a Steve quote, but, like, great design alienates 1m thing that as companies scale, that they become more afraid to do. And I see this in lots of AI startups as well. Like, people are afraid to alienate. I mean, I also understand that in the context of the pragmatism around AI safety and stuff, it's sort of. We're already an uphill battle. But, um, I do think if you are unafraid to alienate, because you are unafraid, that by doing so you can make a certain group of people very, very happy and feel very, very seen. I think that's cool.

Speaker D: Yeah. For some reason I think there's this belief in tech that you can create something that everyone loves. But you look in front of you and everybody doesn't like the same artists. It's like it's all about, yeah.

Speaker E: Even the most universal pop star of

Speaker C: all time, Jesus fucking Christ.

Speaker E: Sorry, his name is Jesus fucking Christ.

Speaker C: The name is just Jesus Christ. He is not even a universally beloved figure. Right. I think that's sort of impossible.

Speaker E: Like, it's actually just impossible. But I think that's kind of the

Speaker C: beauty of being human is that truth exists in plurality and multiplicity. That we can have various interpretations of truth and the things we love or dislike. And I think the world would be a very. It would be a bad ending to our story if we somehow converged on monotonous society and culture.

Speaker E: I fully expect, you know, the future

Speaker C: of AIs being social to be grounded in multiplicity. I expect there will be agent exchanges where everyone's open clause or whatever they are loyal to them go and like, debate and exchange goods and services and information. That's certainly a model that. It seems inevitable. Um, and we have explored that. I'll talk more about that some other time. Um, and there will be, uh, AIs that are loyal to you, that sometimes talk to people that you like. And Hivemind is sort of our attempt at creating sort of an npc. It's not only looking out for me. It's not going to go manipulate and try to go do things just so I get what I want. It's going to try to almost be a bartender. And everyone in the bar needs to have a good time. And then there's other bars you can go to. Probably there'll be other forms of social AIs. Right, the coffee barista, uh, assistant AI is probably a social entity. One day it'll remember your order just like it remembers everyone else's orders. Um, you might say hi to it, but you might not divulge your personal marriage secrets. Um, I sort of think. And we'll have NPCs and AIs that are so loyal to us sort of all coordinate, communicate together. 19000 IQ galaxy brain thing that I was talking to a researcher at Define about a few months ago. It was interesting. It's like, if the AIs have their own economy, should they participate in our economy? Should they create their own economy? And if they do create their own economy, should it be based on our rules or should they invent their own things themselves?

Speaker E: I don't know.

Speaker C: That's very interesting to think about. Um, I think we're so early and one thing I'll say about Hive right now is do not go into it Expecting.or ChatGPT or a friend.

Speaker E: Think of it as like, don't like

Speaker C: you has a journal and then one day someone invented blogging. Are you going to publish all your journal posts as is and put it on the Internet? Like, I don't know. I don't think so.

Speaker D: What did you call it? Ah, Intelligent Information router the other day? Um, more so than like, uh, yeah.

Speaker E: Yes. It's like a information. It's like an intelligent storyteller.

Speaker C: A storyteller is an information router, is it not?

Speaker D: Um, that is not how I think of myself, but maybe others do. I will intelligently route startup information so that it meets that intersection between what they built and what people need. So I guess that is information routing.

Speaker E: I was talking with a friend who

Speaker C: was a reporter a few months ago and she was explaining the concept of new journalism and the idea that there's no such thing as an unbiased publication because it's impossible to unbiased as humans. And I thought that was interesting. Of course, um, Hivemind is a social intelligence. It's a storyteller. It's not trying to be only a matchmaker or a reporter or a gossip or ah, um, a mediator or facilitator or a coordinator. It uses stories to do lots of things. Um, and there will be lots of things that it continues to do that I'm sure will surprise us. And that's why I'm really excited to start growing our closed beta cohort. Um, so we can. You can't randomly spawn this into 100,000 people in a campus. It's right now. It would just. I want to make sure that we are confident that it will be a pro social force for good before we scale it super, super large. And at every step we learn things.

Speaker D: Well, you have a beautiful mind, my friend. It's always fun to watch you work. And, uh, good luck with everything. Thanks for coming on.

Speaker C: Thanks, Ellis. Thanks for having me. This was very fun.

Speaker D: This was provocative. Thank you, Jason.

Speaker A: And that's it for this week's show.

Speaker D: Since Alex is off the grid this week. Thanks to Jason for coming on.

Speaker A: A quite interesting fella, I think you'll agree. If you like this show, don't forget to like and subscribe everywhere you get podcasts.

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Speaker D: If you really like this episode, we'd

Speaker A: love a five star review or even a share with a friend or agent or hive mind associate. You can find Alex's newsletter at Smith

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Speaker A: at Hamburger on Twitter and at Meaning company. Access is part of the Vox Media podcast network and the show is produced by Hook Creators. Bye.

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