Scott

And convey important information and get the answers to the questions that both sides need in this short period of time.

Perry

We have a generation that really does not yet value the longitudinal component of the environment. I wish there were some way we could push people back toward human interaction. But I think that recognizing the pathology that comes from the dopamine driven experience is very important. I think that what you’re trying to accomplish is going to be critically important. Otherwise, AI is going to kill us. AI holds hallucinations and lots of pathology within it. And unless we have a much better understanding of how that is going to affect us in the long term, we’re doomed.

Scott

So, 73% of people on TikTok believe that it is addictive and unhealthy. 73% of them. Which is probably the same as cigarettes. A good friend of mine is a college sports coach. He just switched to a new school and is building the sports program to be better. He said to the team, hey, let’s get some social media stuff. He was thinking about recruiting. The kids told him, we don’t want a TikTok account for the school, for our team. And he said, why? And they said, because we don’t think it’s healthy. We think it’s a screwed up, terrible thing and we want to stay away from TikTok. So, there is something that is very hopeful in me—seeing these kids recognizing it’s not real and feeling that lack of something.

I think their judgments were really critical—because I was in the midst of building our AI systems. I was tempted to geek out on them.  I wanted to build AI girlfriends. I wanted to construct this website where I can provide some avatars. I wanted to build an AI therapist. Let’s test drive one of those, see what it’s like. I wanted to build all this stuff. And it was just pages and pages of building your own fake girlfriend so that you can take pictures of a CG naked girl doing whatever you want. And then I thought to myself: “how can you look at the internet and say, I just don’t think there’s enough pornography for me. I need to start making my own using the most advanced technology I can get my hands on. How unsatisfying it must be to create your fantasy, to create your fake girlfriend, to create all these things.” And then you turn it off and you’re still in your living room in the dark. That’s all you have. It’s better than nothing. But we need to use these technological tools to make it better than just settling for “that’s all you have”.

We are facing quite a challenge. The dating apps have turned into gamification for users. They’re now optimizing for users because that’s how they get the multiple to the VCs. So, the way they’re going to make their money is by getting as many users as possible, not as many happy users. The same thing is true of BetterHelp. BetterHelp’s funding is not based on patient outcomes. BetterHelp’s funding is based on customer acquisition. And you have these algorithms focused on customer acquisition, not outcome generation.