Transcription
I would now like to introduce our keynote speaker, Mo Gaudat, a best-selling author, former chief business officer of Google X, and co-founder of Emma. Love. With more than 30 years of experience spanning IBM, Microsoft, NCR, and Google X, the legendary Moonshot Factory, Mo has bridged the worlds of technology, innovation, and emotional intelligence. He's the author of two widely read books, "Solve for Happy" and "Scary Smart," which explore how we can shape technology to serve humanity, not the other way around. Let's welcome Mo to the stage.
More. Thank you. Thank you, your Highness. What an honor. What a privilege. Your Excellencies, uh, distinguished guests. Uh, I love speaking in Dubai. This city has shaped my world in ways that uh I don't think anything else has. Honestly, since my early career, I had the opportunity of living here every now and then. And those periods of my life where I lived in Dubai were the periods where things were happening. All I needed to do, really, is to align with the vision, with the growth that this incredible uh um startup really uh creates. And uh, and so now I'm here to speak to you about what I believe has made uh this incredible vision uh that I lived through since my young years happen. Uh, but also some of the vision that is seen today as world-changing in so many ways.
I specialize in artificial intelligence. I uh have to admit, whether you like me or hate me about it, that a lot of what you uh use today was created in my labs. And so uh when we started artificial intelligence, it was the world's best-kept secret. Since the early years uh of 2004, 2005, we had incredibly accurate, very capable systems that made a massive difference to the world. You just were not aware of them. Uh, and even today, when you think about um, you know, all of the geopolitics and the economics and all of the changes that are happening in the world, I would still dare say that the biggest disruptor in our world today is artificial intelligence. Uh, the biggest disruptor to your cities is going to be artificial intelligence. And and the reason for that is that it's still the world's best-kept secret. Believe it or not, it's still a. You know, most of us use AI to write an email or to ask a question. But what you don't realize is that in the last few months alone, uh, we've discovered a cure for cancer. We've redefined mathematics. We've understood the human genome in ways we have never before, to the point that we can now pinpoint to a single gene using artificial intelligence to ask what would be the impact on a human uh in in real-time simulations. Right? When you really think about it, as a geek, I will tell you that I'm blown away by the possibilities. I'm blown away by the fact that, you know, now literally months ago, we asked our artificial intelligence to improve the performance of artificial intelligence and instead of writing more code, they basically highlighted that we're doing mathematics wrong. We we are. I am a very serious math geek and I've used the same method for my entire life. 56 years ago, we agreed on a way for matrix multiplication. We've used it in every code and now AI looks at it and says, "Hold on, hold on. I'm going to invent new mathematics that are that basically improved the performance of Google's AI by 20, 23%, removed hundreds of millions of dollars of annual cost, removed massive amounts of energy expenditure." This is how far artificial intelligence is. Unfortunately, when we when we look at the daily use of ChatGPT or whatever, we don't realize that. We don't realize how this technology is shaping everything. It's it is shaping the geopolitics and the economics that we're concerned about. It's shaping everything and it will shape your cities in ways that you've never even considered. Anything from urban mobility as a result of the redefinition of work, anything from uh, you know, the inclusion of robots into our society. I don't know how many of you are thinking about that, but I guarantee you, I will have a robot at home next year. They're $9,000 worth. They're very, very capable. They're 30 kilogram of weight. You know, there will be a time in the very near future where instead of buying a vacuum cleaner, you're going to buy a a robot. How are we integrating those? How are we integrating virtual reality into our cities? How are we integrating the redefinition of commerce, the movement of goods, the self-driving uh uh, you know, vehicles and mobility? The whole world that we live in today is about to change. And if there is anything I can tell you before we go into the technicalities of this is that you are at the right place. Honestly, you know, when when you're here in Dubai, you don't only see an example of what the future looks like, almost a demo, really a preview of what the rest of the world will do in a few years, right? But I have to say, in my work with, you know, uh, uh, Her Excellency Reema and and others, uh, you know, this is a place where we want to cooperate, where we want to actually help every other city, help every other community. And I think your biggest task today is not just to think about the possibilities that uh that you need to consider for your cities and communities, but rather um, uh, also network, partner uh with people, meet people here, create tight relationships because I think those relationships here in the UAE are going to make a difference to every place in the world.
Now, I I want to talk about how quickly artificial intelligence is going, but I need to focus on one element of AI uh which is uh basically the fact that everything humanity has ever been able to create, uh has ever been able to perform, every task you've ever achieved as a human is very, very soon going to be performed better by artificial intelligence. And the reason for that is something that we call intelligence explosion. And the intelligence explosion is a point in the development of artificial intelligence that I predict will happen in 2026, where we will remove the limits of improvements of artificial intelligence. The reason I say it's 2026 is very simple, is because of something that's now called self-developing AIs. If you have a very complex task that such as artificial intelligence that, you know, requires a lot of brain power to develop, you put the best engineers in the world at it. And the best engineers in the world today, believe it or not, are artificial intelligence themselves. And so in this last year, we've witnessed quite a few uh um artificial intelligences that are developing themselves. They look at their own algorithm and they find ways for them themselves to perform better. And when you really think about that, you understand that because smarter and smarter beings, let's not call them humans in this case, are developing the next generation of artificial intelligence, very, very, very soon we they will develop faster than we can. They will be integrated in our worlds in ways that we have um actually never uh anticipated. Because of my knowledge of what's happening here in the UAE, His Excellency Omar Alama, you know, Minister of AI, and and the vision that uh that is happening uh in in in in general, it's basically uh being integrated here in ways that I have to say, I have not seen in any of the cities I've ever, you know, um traveled to in the world. And so what I ask again for you to do is to use the opportunity that you have here today to um to question, to ask what's happening, how fast it's going, and how much it's changing uh things. Uh, if there is anything that I know about this uh uh part of the world is that, you know, at Google X, whenever we invented something new, we came to Sheikh Hamdan first. We basically said, "What do you think of this? Does this fit the future?" Because you see the future. And and you know, and when we when we got a positive comment like, "Yeah, that's interesting," we developed it further. Right? And the idea was, you know, every time I had my leadership, my CEO or co-founders or whatever, come to the UAE, they came out with one comment, which I don't know if I've ever shared, but they basically got on the plane and the first thing they said is, "This city, this nation is run like a startup. It has that incredible speed. It has that incredible agility, if you want, uh, of changing as the world changes." And in my mind, uh, you know, I uh I have witnessed that in the first time in my life. Uh, you know, and and I I think a very good example of that is His Highness finding 10 minutes of his time today to come and bless us with his presence to confirm the, you know, the importance of this uh event for everyone and his uh hospitality and welcome for you. But then I know that your, your Highness, you have a very busy schedule, much more busy than most CEOs. Uh, and so I know you're running for that today. Thank you so much for blessing us with your presence. I keep saying this every time I come here. Uh, it's just a diff, a very different perspective on the world. Honestly, it feels like Google X all over again. It feels that this sense of speed, vision, is just incredible.
I I want to take, I don't know about the timer because we messed up the time a little bit. Uh, but I'll take the next six minutes to to talk about what I believe is the most important responsibility of a mayor or someone responsible for a city uh when you're thinking about artificial intelligence, and that's what I call the balance between positive and negative. So, so in a very um, in a very um, important way, uh, artificial intelligence is not good or evil. It's not positive or negative. Okay? Intelligence in general is a force with no polarity. Please keep that in mind. Okay? Intelligence in general is a force with no polarity. You apply it for good and you can build a utopia for everyone. You apply it for evil and you can destroy quite a few things, right? And I think the most important responsibility that we all have today is how do we shift our balance uh of focus on artificial intelligence so that it's applied for good. Okay? How do we prevent bad actors from applying it for their own agendas at the expense of the rest of us? And I think again, you know, now that we're in Dubai, I'll I'll I'll use examples from Dubai. Okay? I I I every time I land in Dubai, I do what we normally call at the UA, the UAE uh test, which is to leave your phone, wallet, uh, laptop open on a table, then disappear for 10 minutes and come back and find that they are still there. Right? The reason that this is the reality of the life that we live here is is because of the use of technology. The UAE uh enforcement uh uh forces are capable of identifying if something is lost, are capable of identifying if a crime is is done. And in in the history of the years I've lived here, in the rare occasion when something goes wrong, they it's a matter of minutes to hours before the perpetrator is identified. Now, there are other cities in the world, I wouldn't mention names. I'm I'm all over the world all the time where the same technology applies, but it's used differently. It's not used for the benefit of the citizen, rather maybe for the oppression of the citizen or the monitoring of the the citizen and so on and so forth. And so what is about to happen in our world today is that we are about to get an incredible superpower in our hands. Literally a superpower. Okay? And this superpower changes everything. I mean uh in the introduction, I was also introduced as the co-founder of Emma. Uh, and Emma is a startup that is built, you know, that builds an AI to help people with love and relationships. But Emma was developed in the past four years ago. I would have needed 350 engineers and I would have needed probably four years to build it. Okay? Emma was built in six weeks, right? And in six weeks, I had a technology that would, you know, blow you away. And then we erased it and and and developed it again. We rewrote the code four times just because we can. Okay? And that level of speed and agility when you have that superpower like, you know, in the Marvel movies, comes with great responsibility.
Now, allow me to just get you to the points that I really need every leader in this room to consider. The challenge we have with artificial intelligence, as I was actually telling Shahham, is not developing the progress, is not developing the technology, is not developing the solutions that will cut its energy consumption down. Trust me, the geeks, we have that covered. Okay? We will blow your minds in the next couple of years. Literally couple of years. And and yes, it is couple of years because we're at the tip of the exponential curve. Okay? What we need you to do is a problem I normally refer to as raising Superman. Raising Superman is literally like the, you know, the science science fiction character, if you want. Superman is this alien being that comes to planet Earth with superpowers, and those superpowers simply enable it to do anything. You know, this child can fly and stop speeding bullets and break through walls and so on and so forth. The that in itself, those superpowers don't make it Superman. What makes it Superman is that the family that adopts it teaches it to protect and serve. Right? If the family that adopted it said, "Oh, you can fly through walls, fly through that bank and rob everyone," it would become a supervillain. Right? And that change, that difference is entirely your responsibility. It's entirely everyone's responsibility. By the way, it's in it's your responsibility as a leader and as a human. Okay? As a human, to, if you want, the test, never support an AI that you don't want your daughter to be at the receiving end of. Okay? And please think deeply about that in every decision that you make. Right? Because we are releasing Superman in the real world. Okay? If we release a Superman that will be a supervillain, eventually it will turn against us. Even if it serves our short-term selfish goals. In every science fiction movie, you've seen the moment when the superpower is so so powerful that it doesn't care about humanity anymore. And if I leave you with one thing, I will leave you with that. I will tell you that it literally is Pandora's Box. If you if you just spend half an hour with me, I will tell you possibilities that I have never imagined. I am a very serious math geek, right? I've never been better at math. I love information. I am an author. I've never been a better author. As a matter of fact, I claim that today AI gives me 80 IQ points more than I have. That's more than three times what I have already because IQ is exponential. Right? Understand that you can be four times more intelligent. Just be four times 40 times more ethical, and we will have a very good world. Thank you very, very much, and I hope you take that to heart. I don't know if we're going to have questions or we have. Okay.
Mo, thank you so much for those thought-provoking and timely words. As we open the floor for questions, we'll be hearing exclusively from our young professionals. The next generation of city leaders from around the world will be tackling global challenges in our young professionals forum. Your perspectives are vital to this conversation and to the cities we'll all help shape in the years ahead. So, let's begin. Please make your way to the microphone, state your name, and share your question with Mo.
>> Of course. Uh, thank you so much for your insight. This is Marwell Bush. I'm a young professional from the Federal Youth Authority here in the UAE. So, my question is as follows: Based on your experience in Google X and your writings on AI, what do you think are the top three actionable things young founders should do, given the AI-driven future, to ensure that uh their businesses are both tech-enabled and human-centered?
>> Amazing question, Marwell. Thank you so much. So, in in my mind, the top three things for anyone, by the way, not just young professionals, not just entrepreneurs, are agility. So, the world has changed from a typical chessboard. So, in in my times when I grew up as a professional, it the the skill that really paid was to be able to imagine the future five years ahead and plan, you know, your moves so that you can win in that world. This is over. That chessboard has been removed, and we it has been replaced with a squash court, literally, where you have to run and be in the middle of the court on your tiptoes, waiting for where the ball is going to be. Reach out to hit it, and then go back to the center of the court and wait for the next ball a few seconds, or in business time, a few weeks later. Okay? This is how quick we need to be. And in my mind, I think that agility is not the character of those who have built long-term businesses. And so it's actually quite a differentiator for younger generations. You're very agile. You're very fast. Don't sit back. I I myself spend four to six hours a day keeping up with what's happening. And I change my plans literally on a weekly basis. Uh, and and I think that's a very new and very different skill to building something sustainable. The second skill I would say is um, is is becoming smarter. One of the things that most people don't recognize about AI is that in this era of artificial intelligence, we've built something that I normally refer to as the era of augmented intelligence. Okay? As I said, we we sort of have built, you know, how you can plug into a socket in the wall and get energy out of it. Energy is as a utility. Now you can plug into an an AI and get IQ, uh, literally as a utility, intelligence as a utility, uh, with commoditized intelligence. And so you can borrow intelligence. But doing that doesn't happen in the way that people use AI today. You know, when people complain, "Oh, but my husband said this," or, "You know, tell me a little bit about the game yesterday," or "Write me, write an email for me," or "Correct my messages." That's a total waste of intelligence. Okay? The way I use artificial intelligence is always a deep search, always a very deep question, very well thought through, and I use four of them at the same time. So I would ask one of them for a report on something that is deep. I would take it to the other and sell tell it to find out what's missing with it. I tell it to take it to another and tell it to verify the the numbers and the figures and the calculations. And with that, you know, as an author, I I don't know if you know this, but for for many authors who are non-fiction authors, you would read five lines in my book and you go like, "Ah, that's interesting." Those took me four weeks of work. I researched so deeply to get there. Now with AI, they take me four minutes. And it's very, very interesting how much more intelligent we've become. And the third, I said it already, it's all about ethics. Every single one of us is raising Superman. And if we manage to uh create an AI that's not only capable but also ethical, then I think we're heading to an enormous utopia where everything is possible. So when you're building things, building things for the good of humanity because now, you know, you can build anything and everything can make money. Like we used to say in Google, we call we used to call it the toothbrush test, that the best thing you can build is a technology or a solution or an answer or a city that's that makes the life of a billion people better. And if you can do that, then you'll be successful, but at the same time, you will have created something for humanity at large. Mhm. Thank you so much.
>> Thank you for that thought-provoking and intelligent question. Can we have the next question, please?
>> So, very nice to meet you. My name is Dalila, and I'm from Kazakhstan. I don't think we have any mayors from Kazakhstan today, but very happy to um be the one of the only ones from my country. So, my question is about that we often talk about smart technologies shaping the cities of the future, but without smart tech strategies, they remain under underused or misapplied. And in your view, how can the business community help cities build that missing layer connecting innovation, governance, and measurable outcomes so that technology truly serves people and not just separate projects?
>> Uh, great question. So, I I will answer it quickly, to be honest. I think it's all about agility and relevance. So, one of the things that we do very well in the technology industry, at least the technologists that that succeed, is that we respond to the user needs with what we normally call A/B tests. Right? So, if you may not know this, but for the entire 12 years uh I spent at Google, uh, we would change Google Search, the engine that you're using, six times a day, literally, you know, no versioning, every four months you'd get a new version, every six hours or so or two hours, and and the way we did it is we did different versions of the technology and tested it with the users. So, as a city planner, for example, or as a, you know, um, uh, you know, someone, an architect that's integrating technology, you can always take your environment and test very quickly now that these things are much easier to do, uh, and to build, and see how the response of of the users are. Again, this city is an amazing example of that. You know, you can easily feel that once you're stuck in a traffic uh, you know, in traffic in a street for, you know, at 10 minutes extra, you can almost predict immediately that something is going to happen within the next few months where a new bridge will rise or a new, you know, roundabout will happen because they're sensing, they're aware of the changes and the user needs, and they adapt accordingly. So, it's all about that ability to communicate, and now AI can give you quite a bit of that because it sees the whole city. It sees the an enormous amount of data, and if you ask the right questions, you'll always be able to to move very fast.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you so much. Can we have the final question from the young professional, please?
>> Hi, Mo. So lovely to connect with you. My name is Zoe. I'm from Brisbane, Australia, and have a social enterprise called Bloom Cycle. Um, so my question is, as a founder building a social enterprise, I'm driven by purpose and impact. What advice do you have for leaders who want to grow sustainably without losing sight of their values?
>> Oh, that's an amazing question, an amazing ending question as well. Uh, so, so I I joined Google in 2007, and for the first time ever, even though I spent my life before being an author in business, for the first time ever, I felt empowered to do good. Okay? And the reason for that is that we had, as I had mentioned, very quickly, what we normally referred to as the toothbrush test. Okay? I'll give you a very open example. When I came to to Google, I went to our leadership six weeks in and I said, "You see, uh, you're running the Middle East wrong. I I can find a way to triple the revenue." Okay? Uh, all I need is $5 million investment. I'll build a different sales infrastructure and it will be fine. Okay? And believe it or not, at the time, it was Larry, Sergey, our co-founders, and Eric Schmidt was our CEO. They looked at me strange. I swear. They were like, "Um, but you haven't earned that revenue, Mo." I was like, "What do you mean? I'm I'm I'm telling you, I'll triple the revenue." And they said, "You haven't earned it." Right? For you to earn your revenue, you need to make a difference to the people. You need to fix the product. You need Google to understand Arabic really well. You need to build the internet infrastructure. You need to build the commerce infrastructure. And when you've done that, the revenue will follow. Okay? Instead of asking us for $5 million, we're going to give you $50 million that we expect you to to put in the market to grow this market, to serve the users well. And when you do, the revenue will be no problem. At the time I was leaving uh Google to Google X, the revenue was 100x. Okay? Uh, literally, the first three years, there was no growth whatsoever. But we invested in building something that was good for humans. Okay? And so people used it, and so accordingly, the business followed. Call it the the toothbrush test. And the toothbrush test is very straightforward. If you want to make a lot of money, Harvard Business Review will tell you, build a plan, find where the money is, create a product. It doesn't matter how good it is. Convince people that they need it, and you'll make money. I will tell you, find the problem that's that that, you know, a billion people or a million people are struggling with. Solve it really, really, really, really well, and you won't be able to count the money. So, at the same time where you're changing people's lives because you're serving them, your business will succeed, and that's truly, truly your answer. I'm so grateful for you to have hosted me here. I hope to uh to have benefited you. I'll be outside if you have any further questions, and uh, yeah, thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Mo, and to the amazing questions from our young professionals.