The Singularity Paradox: Philosophy, Business Innovation, and Future Technologies with Anders Indset

[00:00:02] So this one's a little different. Let's ponder some really big ideas. You know I like to do big ideas on the weekends. This one's even bigger. Anders Indset joins me. He is a business philosopher and we talk about how philosophy can be applied in business, what it means, and he gives some ideas on different ways to apply this to business models. Big picture bonus episode of the Business of Tech. Well, Anders, welcome to the show.

[00:00:31] Dave, happy to be with you. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:00:34] Now, I got to start with a headline because it's a really interesting positioning. You talk about the role of philosophy in business and position yourself as like a business philosopher. Tell me about how that thinking and the idea of applying philosophy here and questioning assumptions can lead to better outcomes.

[00:00:52] Dave, you say position, right? It was more a happy stance in terms of my uniting two passions of mine. I was a hardcore capitalist and I was very interested in philosophical contemplation. I read a lot about these thick German books from Hegel and Kant and Nietzsche and I love that. And as I started to invest in technology and dove into the business aspect of things and consulted with a lot of clients, I was very interested in the business aspect of things.

[00:01:22] And as I realized, I realized the leaders today have a lot of philosophical questions on their plate. Not only the ethical ones, but also the whole thing about progress. So various, we were taught what to think. Today, we have infinite access to free knowledge.

[00:01:39] So it's not about knowing what to think, but how to think. So I saw that 10 years ago and I said, why do you not unite those two, business and philosophy?

[00:01:52] So I defined the business philosopher, not so more of a positioning, but more of an endeavor, a curiosity to figure out what is the unification of business and philosophy. And as you both know, through the advancement of artificial general intelligence, or at least the AI that we have today, this is the challenge for most business owners, leaders and CXOs today. It's a lot of philosophy.

[00:02:19] Well, I agree with that because we're, and I might've couched this in the idea of we're dealing with a lot of ethical concerns and we have to have ethics and the application of the way we're going to apply this business to people.

[00:02:32] And I think philosophy is a nice, interesting way to encapsulate that. And one of the ideas that I wanted to ask you about was you've posed this idea of the singularity paradox and the way it can be thought of and then used to apply to the gap between humanity and artificial intelligence.

[00:02:50] Please say more. Give me a little bit of insight into what this is and how you think you should apply it.

[00:02:55] You're taking me on a dance, Dave. This is the sci-fi, the science, PHI philosophy dance that I very much like to do with my quantum physicist friends.

[00:03:07] So we are investing heavily in compute with an idea that this will lead to something called artificial general intelligence, a super intelligence, if you like.

[00:03:20] Eventually we might merge with it, but it challenges the essence of what it means to be a human being or a mensch as you would say in Germany and the wonderful word called lebendigkeit, the vitality of life in itself.

[00:03:35] And the essence of building these supercomputers or superhuman skills obviously leads to a machine that can do anything better than we can as individuals.

[00:03:50] So the collective sort of data of humanity is obviously better than the two of us, each as individuals.

[00:03:58] So we need to have like an intersection or some kind of interface to that technology.

[00:04:04] Otherwise we will come obsolete.

[00:04:05] So we are at a state where we are trying to create kind of sort of like a godlike technology, if you may, bliss, divinity and immortality out of the machine, the Deus Ex Machina, God out of the machine.

[00:04:21] So we as simple and complex, obviously, human beings are creating some kind of superior higher intelligence.

[00:04:31] And it's kind of sort of if you take a metaphor or a vision of you were to create your own dad.

[00:04:41] See, that would cause a lot of issues, right, in a practical sense.

[00:04:45] And this is what we're doing.

[00:04:47] We're taking the divine creationalism into some kind of humane creationism.

[00:04:53] And what I mean about the singularity paradox is that, you know, when we can have everything and we could, you know, have a perfect knowledge society where we have infinite access to knowledge directly stream into our brains, what happens?

[00:05:10] And I think we are at a stage where eventually it could lead to us having the same conversation and the lights would be on, but there is no one home to perceive them.

[00:05:21] So we could even overwrite what it means to be a human being.

[00:05:25] So that is like the philosophical, technological underpinning of that theory.

[00:05:31] But on a more practical note, the singularity paradox is also about tackling various paradoxes.

[00:05:39] So the existentialist philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, he wrote about the paradox.

[00:05:45] And the paradox, he said a thinker without a paradox is like a lover without passion.

[00:05:53] And that's like mediocre mediocrity, right?

[00:05:56] And I think that's the part of life that we have to understand, that having that friction or having that theory of progress or there is something that is not given, that we cannot explain.

[00:06:11] The journey of life becomes fundamental to what it means to be a human being.

[00:06:17] As long as we can experience progress, there is still hope.

[00:06:22] So this wonderful journey to nowhere that we call life needs to be filled with some kind of substance.

[00:06:29] And this is the underlying thinking of the singularity paradox.

[00:06:34] So when we can explain everything in a given world, an explained world, what would that really mean for us?

[00:06:42] And that is what we cope with.

[00:06:45] And we tackle that from a technological standpoint and even from quantum physics, saying that like maybe you should create robots or humanoids that behave like human beings, even have some kind of artificial human intelligence.

[00:07:00] Because we seem to get along.

[00:07:04] We are 8 billion.

[00:07:05] We have progress.

[00:07:06] The world is by no means perfect.

[00:07:09] But we have experienced a lot of good things.

[00:07:11] And maybe robots should have that underlying ethos of at the core, we're not born to kill each other and do all this bad stuff.

[00:07:22] So maybe that would be a good thing.

[00:07:24] So this is what we tackle in this book.

[00:07:26] But as you hear from my journey, it's much more complex than my last book, The Viking Code, which was about their leadership and high performance culture.

[00:07:35] So the singularity paradox is a fascinating development that I did with a quantum physicist friend of mine.

[00:07:42] And it's dancing at the outskirts of mind and matter, sci-fi.

[00:07:47] So I love thinking about it for the big ideas.

[00:07:49] And I would say like this is in my category of these are great conversations with a beer in front of us, right?

[00:07:54] Because pondering this to put it in framework is a very useful exercise to organize thought and to understand what our core values are and where we might directionally go.

[00:08:07] I'll push back a little bit and say I actually don't necessarily personally believe that the people that are working on this are purely targeting for that.

[00:08:15] I think they've couched it in those words in order to make the work that they're doing seem significantly more important than it is.

[00:08:22] It may be one step on so many journeys to that, but I think we are a lot further out than the people working on it would like us to think.

[00:08:32] And thinking that way, I'd like to actually ask you then is to help me a little bit take the value of that philosophical thought

[00:08:41] and what we can use it for in more tactical thinking as we're trying to make this useful for people.

[00:08:49] You're right to say like, hey, we're exploring the idea of augmented humans.

[00:08:54] It may not be the extreme version that you've thought out that may come, let's say, two years from now or 200 years from now.

[00:09:03] But in the next two months, we probably have to talk about the impact to people.

[00:09:08] How do you think about that usefulness of that framework applied tactically to helping people be effective?

[00:09:17] Yeah, no, that's a really good question, Dave.

[00:09:20] And I like you pushing back on that idea.

[00:09:23] But how did we create progress?

[00:09:27] We tapped into the unknown and we figured it out and we realized what did not work and we correct it.

[00:09:35] We put that on steroids and the optimization game that we've been on, just doing things for the sake of progress

[00:09:44] and trying to see if it works becomes a very risky model.

[00:09:48] We are at a time where it's not so much about is it possible?

[00:09:53] So you can imagine if it's kind of sort of – this was obviously tied back to Walt Disney,

[00:10:01] but it has nothing to do with Walt Disney.

[00:10:03] It was a marketing scheme from Epcot and way later.

[00:10:05] But if you can dream it, you can do it, right?

[00:10:08] And if everything that you can imagine can also be created,

[00:10:13] that kind of sort of puts us in a space of the unification of mythos and folklore and enlightenment.

[00:10:21] So anything you could put a tag on, you could build.

[00:10:24] And this is where we're heading.

[00:10:27] So it's not so much about is it doable?

[00:10:30] It's more about do we want to have it?

[00:10:33] What kind of future is worth striving for?

[00:10:36] And that comes with a high responsibility, not only in security, but also in the essence of how do we want to live together?

[00:10:43] So I think it's regardless if it's two years or 200 years, as long as there is progress and it's inevitable that these supercomputers moving into real and the area of quantum technologies,

[00:10:58] that these computers will be able to hack biology.

[00:11:02] We'll figure out what Stephen Hawking called the chemical scum, you know, our body, how that is.

[00:11:09] We will hack chemistry.

[00:11:11] We will take the elements of the periodic system and move that from 118 to 130 and even 140.

[00:11:19] We will have progress.

[00:11:22] And progress for the sake of progress puts our species in reaction mode.

[00:11:28] We test it out and we live on the consequences.

[00:11:31] And I think that's the difference to what you refer to, which is very much true.

[00:11:36] But this is why I argue we are in a different era of radical progress.

[00:11:43] Today, it's not about is it achievable, but do we want to have it?

[00:11:48] And what does that mean in a practical sense?

[00:11:50] That was your question.

[00:11:51] It means that we need much deeper understanding of the future that we want to envision.

[00:11:58] So, you know, anticipating future scenarios and say, okay, a future becomes more a verb than something that happens upon us,

[00:12:08] which requires a deeper understanding of the potentialities and the consequences of technology,

[00:12:15] alongside a philosophical foundation of what it means to get along and to live a life worth living.

[00:12:23] So, I'm always challenged on this to say your thesis and thoughts are radical.

[00:12:30] And I think they're really boring because I just follow the exponential curve that we've been on for 80 years.

[00:12:37] And I think it's much more needed today, also on a practical level, to think about what do you think is a plausible scenario in future?

[00:12:46] I think a very specific example.

[00:12:48] So, we look at batteries and electronic vehicles and the development and look at, you know,

[00:12:55] how are we going to cover all of this and the batteries are not good and so on and so forth.

[00:13:00] It's kind of sort of like looking at streaming Netflix early 2000, right?

[00:13:04] It's not, it's not, we're not there yet.

[00:13:06] But we know that next year or in five years, we will have batteries where we can plug our car into the house

[00:13:14] and it can serve our house with energy for six, seven days.

[00:13:17] So, in the US, you will have, I don't know, 40, 50 million energy centers

[00:13:23] and you will have almost infinite access to free energy.

[00:13:26] So, the marginal cost of energy will drop because we will have progress in solar,

[00:13:32] in battery storage, in distribution and so on and so forth.

[00:13:36] So, it becomes inevitable that this will be a different future.

[00:13:41] So, you can imagine Walmart having a lot of space, offering free energy to all the customers

[00:13:48] that come and buy groceries and you drive up there, have a supercharger, load your EV,

[00:13:54] drive back home, have free energy and you plug your house into the car.

[00:13:59] And you always, also today see in Idaho and Michigan and many of these states,

[00:14:03] you are starting to build induction streets where you load during your driving.

[00:14:08] So, these type of things is not, they're not science fiction.

[00:14:12] They are technology that we have today.

[00:14:15] So, the leader that does not see the anticipated future cannot foresee the business model of tomorrow,

[00:14:24] let alone a responsible future of how we want to live.

[00:14:28] So, I like you pushing back, but at the same time, I see the speed of change.

[00:14:34] And I see in the near future, like five to ten years, radical changes in labor, radical change in automation.

[00:14:43] 2025 will be the breakthrough year of AI agents, specialized, less energy, consumptive AI models

[00:14:53] that are very good at specific tasks, legal, health, whatever.

[00:14:57] And you will also see the rise of humanoid robots that are from the mechanics that we have seen with Boston Dynamics

[00:15:04] being united with artificial intelligence.

[00:15:07] So, you will have the rise of the humanoid robot in the factories, that robots will build robots,

[00:15:13] and you will have the rise of the humanoid robot in the private sphere.

[00:15:19] And that is 2025.

[00:15:20] It's not 2050 or 2100.

[00:15:25] So, I think this is something that we have to look at and then think about, you know,

[00:15:31] what do we want to have?

[00:15:32] And what are the implications?

[00:15:34] How do we want to live?

[00:15:35] And how can we prepare for that?

[00:15:36] Well, the reason I mean, you've hit on what I wanted to talk about,

[00:15:40] because I think one of the roles of those of us in technology is to help with advice to customers.

[00:15:44] And oftentimes, we have to dream very big in order to do that.

[00:15:49] Now, we might, generally, I think you and I would align directionally.

[00:15:53] I think we might differ on timeframes.

[00:15:56] You know, and, you know, my favorite comment to all of this is,

[00:16:00] it is very easy for two people like us to dream big.

[00:16:02] And then we have to be reminded of Janice in accounting, who's still struggling with her printer.

[00:16:07] Technology moves very fast.

[00:16:09] It does not move consistently across all of population at the same time.

[00:16:13] Often, the future is distributed at different lengths.

[00:16:16] But I want to pivot to sort of the last area, because you've done some thinking,

[00:16:20] particularly around how this delivery system is done with technology companies.

[00:16:26] And I'd like to get a little bit of that thinking of where you've been, you know,

[00:16:30] giving thought to the way that's changing.

[00:16:32] Yeah, I mean, I think what you say is obviously true.

[00:16:37] You have the Gardner hype cycle.

[00:16:39] But you don't want to miss the inflection point, you know, the hype point, you know.

[00:16:43] You could be disappointed because it takes longer.

[00:16:46] But then you see it with AI.

[00:16:48] You see it with cloud computing.

[00:16:49] You see it with everything throughout the technological space.

[00:16:52] You have the, you know, you have the euphoria.

[00:16:55] And then you have a disappointment.

[00:16:57] And all of a sudden, you have the inflection point of the exponentiality.

[00:17:00] And it just kicks through.

[00:17:01] So you want it from a business standpoint.

[00:17:03] You don't want to miss out on the business outcome.

[00:17:07] So decentralization of health is a thing.

[00:17:10] You know, we know more about what's going on in the streets of Kabul than in our own bodies.

[00:17:16] So nanobots and measuring devices will move from a reactive health system to a preactive health system.

[00:17:23] We take care of your body by having data.

[00:17:26] A toothbrush that can show you, you know, do one more back here.

[00:17:29] You have some things lying there.

[00:17:30] So you will not have to go to the dentist, right?

[00:17:32] These type of things are already there.

[00:17:35] The same will go for finance, decentralized finance.

[00:17:38] Now in the U.S., you will see a new administration.

[00:17:42] Fed and old economies will be torn apart.

[00:17:45] These are like trends that will happen.

[00:17:48] But your question in terms of like how this applies to the business.

[00:17:52] I've been writing about this lately.

[00:17:55] And I live in Germany.

[00:17:57] And Germany, as you know, has a lot of hidden champions.

[00:18:00] World market leaders, quality made in Germany.

[00:18:02] Perfect products that were exported to all the countries in the world.

[00:18:06] So you have the products.

[00:18:08] But today, world-class product is not a USP.

[00:18:10] It's a given.

[00:18:11] It's a commodity.

[00:18:12] So everything has to function.

[00:18:14] That's the expectation of the customer.

[00:18:16] So the product is not a differentiator.

[00:18:20] A culture can be what we cannot grasp.

[00:18:23] You know, the whole essence of dynamism of how you build an organization.

[00:18:26] But I think, and I've written recently about a new, I would say, a trifold or a triangle of modern organization consisting of three things.

[00:18:37] Number one, what you see with tech companies, successfully so, they incubate their own customers.

[00:18:45] So instead of milking the customer, you help the customer grow.

[00:18:49] You give them credits or vouchers.

[00:18:52] You know, additional services.

[00:18:55] Link them with other business partners.

[00:18:57] Help them grow so they can have more business with you.

[00:19:00] That's a new model in terms of incubating your own clients.

[00:19:04] The second one is almost everyone today is investing.

[00:19:08] The organizations invest.

[00:19:10] It might be your next product, your next partner.

[00:19:13] It might be a company, a startup that you buy.

[00:19:15] Or it might just solely be a technology that you're interested in to have an asset that you can exit and you can have some money.

[00:19:22] So you can compensate for difficult times.

[00:19:24] First, the investment strategy of an organization today seems to be in every segment in every industry.

[00:19:31] And the third one is, of course, you have a core product.

[00:19:34] But even a core product today is led by the dynamism of times.

[00:19:39] So the adaptability in the organization becomes the foundation of how to lead a successful organization.

[00:19:46] So it becomes much more of being a generalist than to be an expert.

[00:19:50] So you need that adaptability because we don't know what will be in 10 years.

[00:19:55] We don't know the jobs, the markets, anything.

[00:19:58] So the whole organization and every employee in the organization need to have a big toolbox of skills.

[00:20:06] So various, we went to train on elite universities or executive education on what we have to do, what to think.

[00:20:16] The new model of education is not what to think, but how to think.

[00:20:21] Because we have access to infinite knowledge.

[00:20:24] So we have to learn how to learn and equip ourselves with a broad, big toolbox so that we can become adaptable to new circumstances.

[00:20:34] So those three pillars, I think, is what makes for a new modern organization.

[00:20:39] And it's a very interesting way, I think, to look at how to reposition, how to do transformation and change in all the big buzzwords that we're using.

[00:20:47] Let's be practical about it.

[00:20:49] What is it that makes for a successful organization?

[00:20:52] I incubate my customers.

[00:20:53] I invest in companies.

[00:20:55] I have no idea, but I'm very good and I'm trained to be able to become a better investor.

[00:20:59] And I pivot on my product.

[00:21:01] I have a dynamism in my product strategy because of the people in the organization that are trained to adapt.

[00:21:08] That, to me, seems like a triangle or a trifold of a modern organization.

[00:21:13] Well, I'm going to leave it there because your first pillar, in particular, is a beautiful way of redefining investing in business outcomes.

[00:21:21] And I definitely want our listeners to take that one away.

[00:21:23] Andres Insight is renowned as the business philosopher and he's a deep tech investor and author recognized by Thinkers50 as a leading global thinker in technology and leadership.

[00:21:34] His upcoming book, The Viking Code, explores the secrets of Norwegian success and how values-based performance can transform both sports and business leadership.

[00:21:43] Andres, if people are interested in learning more, what's the best way for them to reach out?

[00:21:46] Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, occasionally some kind of social media, Instagram and so.

[00:21:51] But the best way would be to just read up on andresinsight.com.

[00:21:56] We have a lot of content coming.

[00:21:58] There are a lot of articles, both in the spec of leadership and technology and business.

[00:22:02] But also, we talked a lot about the sci-fi, the science philosophy.

[00:22:06] You can find everything on the website.

[00:22:08] So, if people are curious, you know, link up on LinkedIn or just visit the website to read.

[00:22:14] And The Viking Code is found under the Viking Code, viking-code.com.

[00:22:19] And the forthcoming book for next year, Singularity Paradox, is under singularityparadox.com.

[00:22:26] This has been fantastic.

[00:22:27] Thanks for joining me today.

[00:22:28] David, thank you so much for having me.

[00:22:32] Are you ready to get your brand in front of the tech leaders shaping the future of managed services?

[00:22:38] Here at The Business of Tech, we offer flexible sponsorship opportunities to meet your needs,

[00:22:43] whether it's live show sponsorship, podcast advertising, event promotion, or custom webinars.

[00:22:49] From affordable exposure options to exclusive sponsorships,

[00:22:53] our offerings are designed to fit businesses and vendors of all sizes looking to make an impact.

[00:22:59] Prices start at just $500 per month, making our packages a fraction of typical event sponsorship costs.

[00:23:08] Be a part of the conversation that matters to IT service providers worldwide.

[00:23:14] Join us at MSP Radio and amplify your message where it counts.

[00:23:18] Visit mspradio.com slash engage today to explore all the ways we can help you grow.

[00:23:28] The Business of Tech is written and produced by me, Dave Sobel, under ethics guidelines, posted at businessof.tech.

[00:23:35] If you like the content, please make sure to hit that like button and follow or subscribe.

[00:23:41] It's free and easy and the best way to support the show and help us grow.

[00:23:45] You can also check out our Patreon, where you can join the Business of Tech community at patreon.com slash mspradio,

[00:23:53] or buy our Why Do We Care merch at businessof.tech.

[00:23:58] Finally, if you're interested in advertising on this show, visit mspradio.com slash engage.

[00:24:05] Once again, thanks for listening to me, and I will talk to you again on our next episode of The Business of Tech.

[00:24:14] Part of the MSP Radio Network.

[00:24:17] Part of the MSP Radio Network.