What Socrates and Elevators Teach Crypto About Trust: DEX in the City

Transcript

Okay, so the AI news this week is that the vibe check for AI is just super bleak and I think it's worth talking about because it has ramifications for all tech including crypto. So polls came out this week and last week showing that despite the tech bubble that we all happily float in, the public trust is squarely turning against AI, which is sometimes hard to see because people talk about using chat GPT and really liking it or clawed or etc. But a few readouts are, and I'm going to read this poll exactly, but the share of Americans who think AI could quote unquote literally end the human race is at 43%.

Now, people are vandalizing AI ads. They're booing tech founders that are speaking at college commencement speeches. I don't know if you guys saw that and things being thrown at them. Nearly half of voters want a full ban on data centers. And most of them don't even live near one. So, it's not like a nimi argument. It's like not in my future or something like I don't want this part of my life because more and more and I don't think tech is helping. I don't think AI founders are helping. People are seeing AI as something happening to me, not for me or with me.

And people are just getting richer. And my work is training the model. My data is being controlled. My base is giving the data. My neighborhood is getting the data center. It's taking my water. It's polluting our our lakes, etc. And that narrative is really really sticking. So why should crypto care, right? Like AI has been like the big dog for a while. Now it's our turn, right? No, but crypto should care because although we've never been the public's favorite industry in my mind, we're, you know, you could say we're winning. Like institutions are here. Look at what prediction markets are turning into. We don't need to be liked maybe, but I I don't really think that's true. And that's something I've

been trying to carry through this episode, but also just generally because the public is not just like a random mix of people in a different town or that our parents know. The public can be the jury. I think we've seen that happen in a lot of cases that end up at jury relating to crypto. I definitely saw it. The public can be the judge. Like they can try and be objective, but you know, everyone's affected by what they see. It's the prosecutor, the customer, etc. and the voter. I mean, we have seen how important that can be. And so, when an industry loses public trust, every bug in crypto or bug in the AI code looks like what the purpose of it is or the

business model of it is, right? Like a hack becomes proof of the whole thing being safe. Like if someone hacks your wallet or you hear about something on the news, you're not going to be like, "Oh, that was just one project." instead or that was you know look how great ele how elegant the architecture is somewhere else instead it's like f it like I don't want to be a part of it let's figure out a way to stop this right because institutions can't fix this they can't bring the legitimacy really they need to bring their customers with them they need to bring our parents with them really okay so how do we change this and how do we address this and I really love to get your thoughts but I am also a history nerd and I really dove into this issue and

got a little obsessive about the history of people being terrified with tech. The examples from the past are endless. We have I didn't know this until recently, but Socrates thought that writing would rot our memory and it would get rid of public discourse, but that obviously hasn't happened. Look how many podcasts there are. People feared that bicycles would make women too free and loose, that gave them freedom to leave their home. the radio, which sounds a little like social media how people talked about it, although I'm torn on social media, but the radio would dis dist distract our brains, invade our homes and our family units, and bring too much jazz into people's homes, which I do listen to a

lot of jazz, so I'd like that one. Every time pretty much the fear has faded, right, with time, but it's not just because like the public moved past it. It faded when the tech got familiar enough, useful. Let's focus on that. And also someone credible showed that they were putting checks. So like flying is a good example 100 years ago. I mean flying sucks right now. Let's all say that. But you don't feel really scared on it. But >> well it's I think it's pretty scary. It's like inherently terrifying. >> But 100 years ago you were going to crash in an airplane. It was a I mean not even a hundred years ago in 1970s when like lots of planes were hijacked to be used for terrorist attacks, right?

But it is largely one of the safest things you can do even though it feels unsafe and horrible and they make you stand in like 20 lines on your way there. And the reason the fear wore off is because there are rules, right? There's oversight. Someone has the actual power to ground a plane if they see an issue. And then think about elevators. That was a freaking terrifying thing. I was stuck in an elevator last week and that was scary. But once they had safety breaks, once they had an inspection regime that we still use, it got a lot safer. So what do we do? We stop trying to win the argument by being like, "They don't understand this. Who cares?" we start earning the trust that I think we

talk about a lot on this podcast because we need to fix first the lived experiences for the people who aren't us and learning it and understanding the tech and appreciating it every day. And that's why every hack is something that we should be thinking about and talking about. Every person who lost their money, it's sad sad. It's something we should fix, but also it impacts all of us and how the industry is seen because it's all about proving to the public who then turns into the juries and the judges and the regulators and the news media and the next elector like elected parties that we have because they are all coming from the public which seems like this homogeneous space. But you could just look at what happened with AI

and Fable, right? like people got scared and the government reacted. And you can look at many many like cases around the country of people suing Open AI because there was a shooting because someone used a chatbot to like plan their shooting. So there's just so much of this happening right now and we need to take the narrative back and I think that this is the time to do it. >> Um it is interesting the kind of theme that people are afraid. This is actually making me feel better because the one thing that I don't like about AI is that there's been some preliminary data that says that the more reliant you are on AI, the more your mind deteriorates

effectively. And that's always scared me a little bit, especially because despite my interest in this sort of thing, I'm not like a crossword puzzle person. I don't like Sudoku, you know, and there's all this research that says when you're when you get old, you need to be doing these puzzles to like exercise your mind. So, I'm like, and I love AI. So, I I I've always thought, well, does my reliance and I don't think of it as reliance. I think of it as creating more efficiency for my day-to-day on AI, is that going to like make my mind deteriorate faster? But assuming that historically there's been an assumption that that's going to happen with a lot of this, you know, these tools, theoretically societyy's going to

develop something to counteract and counterbalance that effect. Um, you know, much like exercise emerged as a, you know, a counterbalance to the fact that nobody's doing physical labor anymore. It is interesting because I do think like AI and crypto are making similar problematic choices about how they're responding to the anti-tech narrative. Right? So crypto I think historically has felt they don't get us angry when you don't quite understand why a regulator is going after you or a person is saying there's illicit finance here and this is unsafe or whatever.

Like and and they probably are overstating it, right? And a lot of people in the policy space push back against that. But I do think we like when a Wall Street Journal article comes out, not to pick up Wall Street Journal, but they've had a few lately that is against our narrative. It shouldn't just be like, "Oh, these biased horrible people, none of this is true, right?" Because that doesn't change anything. We're still just receding into our bubble. And AI is doing the same thing in a lot of ways. Like I listen to far too many AI podcasts, but a lot of the narrative right now is like, "Get on the wagon or you miss the whole thing." and you're going to be out of a job, you're going to lose all your money. But like, think about the people dayto-day that can't afford a subscription to one of

these AI tools are seeing everyone who works at Enthropic become bazillionaires. They can't afford to live in San Francisco or Seattle or whatever anymore. Data centers are coming in to where they want to live. I mean, the narrative is so easy to follow if the people who are working in tech that really understand why it can be useful don't step in in the right moments. That was a clip from Decks in the City, where the wallets are cold and the takes are hot. And we've got a lot more in the full episode. Links in the show notes. I'm host Jesse Brooks. Subscribe and join us on the live stream every Tuesday at noon Eastern.

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