Reid Hoffman Says AI Isn’t an ‘Arms Race,’ but America Needs to Win

Bold Names

The Wall Street Journal

Technology

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

LinkedIn co-founder and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Reid Hoffman is cautiously optimistic about the future of artificial intelligence. In his new book, “Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future,” he argues that the current state of AI is similar to the automobile at the start of the 20th century. What does that mean for what Hoffman calls the “cognitive Industrial Revolution” and its potential to create positive change, and who is best suited to regulate it? And what does he think of his old friend Elon Musk’s influence in the Trump administration? Hoffman speaks to WSJ’s Tim Higgins on the Bold Names podcast. Check Out Past Episodes: Why Bilt’s CEO Wants You To Pay Your Mortgage With a Credit Card Why This Tesla Pioneer Says the Cheap EV Market 'Sucks' Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and the AI ‘Fantasy Land’ Why Elon Musk’s Battery Guy Is Betting Big on Recycling Let us know what you think of the show. Email us at [email protected] Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Here's the truth about AI. AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into. Service Now puts AI to work for people across your business, removing friction and frustration for your employees, supercharging productivity for your developers, providing intelligent tools for your service agents to make customers happier. All built into a single platform you can use right now.
0:23.4	That's why the world works with ServiceNow.
0:26.6	Visit ServiceNow.com slash UK slash AI for people.
0:33.2	There's a lot of doom and gloom when it comes to predictions about our future with
0:37.1	artificial intelligence.
0:38.9	Think Terminator-style AI warfare.
0:41.5	Asta, baby.
0:45.7	Or, more personally, will it take away our jobs?
0:49.5	But Reid Hoffman has another take.
0:52.2	He's on the board at Microsoft.
0:53.9	He co-founded LinkedIn, and he was part of
0:56.2	the so-called PayPal Mafia as one of its earliest employees. Hoffman is cautiously optimistic about
1:02.9	the future of AI, even as he acknowledges that new technologies can be frightening at first.
1:09.1	When we have these kind of industrial revolution transitions, they can be difficult.
1:14.5	How do we steer towards the positive, towards the graceful, towards the more human outcomes?
1:20.5	I think is one of the things that we should be doing.
1:22.2	It's part of seeking the positive.
1:24.1	Hoffman calls himself a bloomer.
1:26.2	Not a doomer or a gloomer, somebody who believes that AI can make our lives better in countless ways.
1:32.3	He was an early backer of Open AI and is on the board of Microsoft.
1:36.3	Two companies that are making huge bets, investing billions of dollars into AI infrastructure
1:41.3	in the hopes that it will pay off, even as upstarts like
	...

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