The core theme is the evolving role of human intelligence and creativity in an age of advanced AI, emphasizing the critical importance of developing uniquely human traits like empathy, critical thinking, and a desire to create value for others to navigate future challenges and ensure societal robustness.
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Soon after Chat GPT came out, I started
traveling around the country telling
people, "Oh no, there's this new thing
people are going to need to learn to be
more creative because that's the only
thing that the AI can't do." I don't say
that anymore because now I've seen that
the AI can actually come up with lots
and lots of ideas. Last year, the
International Math Olympiad problems,
four of them were solved by Google's
artificial intelligence. The
International Math Olympiad has six
questions and all six of the questions
are very very original. They are so
original that when the national coaches
meet, they all look at the problems and
they all try to make sure nothing too
similar to those problems has ever
appeared in any contest or anywhere in
the world before. The questions are
supposed to be really original. But
nevertheless, the artificial
intelligence was able to come up with
solutions to four out of six, which is
more than I can do. The creativity in
the AI can probably surpass what we can
do, too. The only unique thing about
human intelligence is that we hopefully
care that humans still exist.
I'm Po Shanlow. I'm a mathematician who
likes to solve real world problems. In
real life, I'm a math professor at
Carnegie Melon University, but I'm also
a social entrepreneur where I've been
running my own educational solution,
which tries to make the world a more
[Music]
in schools. One of the biggest places
where students are using AI to cheat on
This unfortunately could make a huge
problem for human civilization because
you just have to think what is that AI
anyway? It's a large language model. How
is that AI so good? It's because it's
good at language. It's good at looking
at the patterns of words that often
appear. If many kids lose this ability,
we'll get many kids who grow up and
aren't able to think logically. All
they're able to do is just take whatever
anyone else gives them. they'll just be
dependent. If you're already grown up
and you already have that skill and
you're using the AI to achieve that task
because that's for your job, great.
Okay, you're using it to do a job. But
if you're in school, why are you doing
that writing? It's not because the
writing you make is going to make money
directly. No, no, that writing is
actually part of your own learning.
Using AI to do your writing homework in
school is like saying, "I'm not going to
run a mile for exercise. I'm going to
drive my car one mile for exercise. How
much exercise you get? You get none.
You're going to grow up and you're not
going to be able to be as physically
fit. Similar thing here with mentally
fit. And just this observation that the
power of the large language model is the
L, the language. That's why we need to
really make sure that all of our kids,
if any, and if you're watching this and
you're students, this is why you need to
be really, really good with language for
the next generation. All of these skills
like reading and writing, communication,
logic, these are all going to be very
important because these are how you
develop a a good way to think. I was
explaining to people the reason why we
do this math is not because eventually
we have to do algebra, but the reason is
because eventually this just makes you
smarter. So you're able to go and think
through situations you haven't seen
before and figure them out. I interview
lots and lots of high school students
who want to work with me. And during the
interview, the way that I interview for
intelligence is I ask them questions,
usually math questions because those are
analytical. And I ask them questions
until it's very clear from their body
language that they have never seen this
question before. Because usually if
you're doing math questions and you've
seen it before, you have a certain look
of confidence in your eyes. But I wait
until it's really clear that they have
never seen this before. And then I want
to see how you think. Actually, because
you've never seen that question before,
the expectation is that you won't solve
it. And so then I start to give hints.
Those hints are usually ideas that they
wouldn't have encountered before in
school. And then I want to see how
quickly can you synthesize these new
hints, these new ways of thinking,
synthesize them into a solution for a
problem we have never seen before.
Actually, that's also creativity.
So that's one particular piece. But
going forward, I think that one of the
skills that people will really need is
that aspect of actually wanting to
create value and delight in other
people. Why do I say this? I say this
because for many, many years, humans
were the top species, the most capable
things on this planet. Soon it will not
be that case. Soon, you're going to have
to work together to survive. The only
way to get other people to want to team
up with you is for you to authentically
and deeply be a person who is motivated
by creating value in the other. If you
are not that way, you are a bad partner
and people will not want to go and team
with you. If they don't team with you,
you will die. You will lose opportunity
because eventually all of these kinds of
jobs you can use AIS to do. Then why
would anyone want to employ you? Why
would anyone want to have you as as
someone on their team? Presumably only
because they somehow felt like you are
going to create some value and they they
like that vibe. They like you. I think
what we really need is to get more and
more people who are figuring out what
the real problem to solve is. But
unfortunately sometimes when kids just
think about problems, they don't realize
that the way that you solve a problem is
through empathy and through relating to
other people. Why? because you can't
solve a problem unless you can visualize
it through their eyes. I do spend a
significant amount of my life working
towards the goal of being better at
simulating the world. I also use AI for
that. I think I'll give one exact
example. I was just in Nashville,
Tennessee last week and I just saw a
really I thought very very talented
singer in one of the bars there. Wow,
she's good. And I just got curious, how
hard is it to be able to get a
performing spot on Broadway in
Nashville. So I asked AI and I was
actually not just interested in AI tell
me about it. I I want to see the links,
you know, tell me more. What is the
background of this particular place here
she's performing at? Right. I I will
make my own conclusions based on
knowing. Oh, oh, oh, I see. So there's
all of these different people who would
want to do this thing, right? So if
you're one of the people who got picked
to do it at this prime time, oh, this
makes logical sense. See, I'm using the
AI to build the logic inside my brain
for understanding country music
performance. And why was I trying to
understand? Honestly, it's because these
days I also work with professional
entertainers. So, I'm also myself always
scouting. The big heart of this is I
wasn't using the AI to write the report
for me. I was using AI to make myself
better at that particular goal. Being
able to simulate the world is the
superpower that makes someone able to be
a successful entrepreneur. Simulating
the world allows you to imagine a
product or imagine a strategy and then
play it forward in your head. What would
A long time ago when I started with
education, I was actually just thinking
about how to help people do math
problems. Today when I think back to
that time, I think I was probably a
solution looking for a problem in the
sense that uh somehow I thought it would
be very important for people to be good
at math. But then things that happened
later in my life as I became the
national coach of the US Olympic math
team, I saw situations where there were
so many so clever, so capable people who
were still so depressed. And
furthermore, after they graduated from
high school, they even didn't really
know what to do next because they
thought that the point of life was to
find ways to prove you're better than
other people. That's when I realized we
actually will do much better if we think
about the philosophy to start with,
right? The philosophy in life should not
be how do I outdo everyone else? If you
do that, you will you'll probably never
be satisfied. But if your philosophy in
life is, hey, it is actually addictive
to make a bunch of other people happy.
Oh, now I can do it for five people. Oh,
now I can do it for 500 people. Oh, wow.
Now I can get thousand people to come to
this thing. The more that you do, the
more you want to do. And the fun part is
that correlates also with traditional
success. Then I realized, ah, I should
be trying to push this worldwide. And if
I don't do it, who will? with the things
I've done in my life, I now have an
opportunity to go and say, you know,
I've seen what happens if you go all the
way in pure competition. I've seen what
happens if you go all the way and just
practice problems to do the best on tests.
tests.
Actually, that's not the right target.
And I realized that because of my
background, I would be able to shift
mindsets. Then I said, okay, this is
what I have to do.
I am a math professor at Carnegie Melon
University. Uh the way I teach every
single one of my classes is that I just
go up to the chalkboard with a piece of
chalk and I write today we're going to
do this but I forgot exactly how to do
this. So I need all of you to suggest
ideas and then the whole class
experience becomes one where the
students are suggesting ideas and I'm
giving them feedback on their ideas. And
what I've been working on as a social
entrepreneur to make it possible for
everybody to be able to experience
education in this way is we run an
online program. It's called live.
We found a way to scale up the education
of critical thinking. You see the
limiting factor is to have enough
coaches to lead all of this critical
thinking and brainstorming. And we scale
it up by making a win-win situation by
just observing that uh one of the
greatest ages to learn critical thinking
is when you're 10 to 13 years old. And
it turns out that some of the best
people to lead 10 to 13year-old kids
into the joy of being thoughtful are
high school kids who are about 15 to 18
years old. But what I observed is that
there were plenty of kids who were 15 to
18 years old who were already very
clever academically, especially in math.
their limiting factor in life eventually
was not going to be their science,
technology, engineering or math. It
would be communication skills,
confidence, and the ability to win over
anybody and lead a team. So, I created a
program where we find kind and
mathematically clever high schoolers.
And then I hire professional comedians
and actors to teach them how to be
charismatic and how to be able to win
over anybody because if you can convince
anybody to love math, you can convince
anybody to do anything. And so this this
exchange, they're trained by the actors.
They coach math. Uh while they're
coaching math, we pay for an actor to
watch them for every hour that they're
coaching math. The actor gives them
real-time feedback to help them become
more enthusiastic, emphatic, and a more
winning personality. Win-win situation.
Now, the high schoolers directly
benefit, their life becomes much better.
In return, they're producing all of
these critical thinking classes for kids
all around the country. The architecture
of this is that it just connects people.
We are introducing kind and thoughtful
high school students to middle school
students to help them see, hey, you
could become these great people who are
having fun and also having a very
fulfilling life. But also the way we
execute the whole thing, the high
schoolers all teach in pairs that not
only makes the experience more fun for
the people who are learning math, but it
makes it so that these kind and really
mathematically clever people get to know
each other. because I don't know what
kind of challenges we're going to face
in the future. I think they're going to
be quite big and technology will make it
so that whatever the challenges we face
are, they're big. So, we also need to
have a big network of kind people who
are clever, who know each other, and who
have trust so that if there are some
civilization threatening challenges that
arise, well, then maybe there will be
some people who will stand up, work
together, and do something about it.
This is what I pay attention to as I
travel around the entire country and the
world. I'm actually thinking about the
robustness of human society. Whether or
not if there was some challenge that
faced the world due to technology, are
we as human civilization equipped to
rise up and face that challenge? To me,
The work I do is really focused on
building up autonomous human thinking.
That's why the core word I use for the
philosophy is thoughtful. I've watched
over many years as people are becoming
less and less interested in thinking. I
think that actually happened because
people found out that they can entertain
themselves with iPads and this
unfortunately makes people also not have
as much interest in concentrating and
thinking about something. AI could make
that much worse. The fun part of life is
having your own contribution to the life
that you live. Actually, I think that's
why people actually like creativity.
It's fun. People like to draw. People
like to put their own flavor. People
like to wear their own fashion. It
expresses themsel. This expression of
yourself, it would be lost if everything
you do is efficient but just reliant on
the AI which told you how to dress
today. That's why I want more and more
people to discover it's fun to think.
it's fun to have your own twist on
things, your own your own idea that you
inject inside. The other dangerous thing
that happens if people lose the ability
to to think and reason is that it makes
it far easier to deceive people. The
world is so complicated that if you look
at any situation in the world, sometimes
depending on how you tell the story of
what happened, you can say statements
that are all true which make you come up
with a different feeling. I think it's
really important for people to be
critical and to for people to be able to
understand what's really going on
because sometimes when someone's talking
to you, they have an agenda. Like I'll
be frank, I have an agenda. I'm trying
to build a more thoughtful world and I'm
going to be very very upfront with you
on that. Anyone who's watching this
video, I think it's really important
that we have as many people as possible
find out how much fun it is to delight
other people and to have the ability to
think and figure that out. That's my
agenda. But you see, everyone has an
agenda. And if you can't think for
yourself and you just listen to some
authority, what if that agenda is
actually to your detriment? You'll have
no way of knowing. The technology
revolution really made all of us start
to realize how much of an impact bias
has in the sense that whoever makes some
technology tool has some bias. What does
bias really mean? Well, I guess as a
mathematician, the way I would say it is
2 plus two is always four. That's right.
What's the point of life? Oh, I don't
know. Like, there's no clear definition.
What's the point of life? I think the
point of life is is to delight as many
other people as you can, but I know that
you might not necessarily agree, and
it's not a problem. I think it's it's
healthy that we may have different
starting points. The part that becomes
unhealthy is where there is only a very
short menu of options each of which is
followed by a huge number of people.
That's actually where bias comes in
because we just we just mentioned so far
in this in this video a couple of
different uh sources of AI providers,
right? We have we have Claude, we have
OpenAI, there's also Gemini. If you're
in China, there's Deepseek. There are
all of these, but that's relatively few.
If you think about it, that's that would
be sort of like saying, well, the world
has lots of different viewpoints. It has
five of them. Really? No. No. The world
has seven and a half billion different
viewpoints. There are 7 and 12 billion
people. One of the beautiful things about
about
I guess humanity is the fact that there
are so many different ideas all out
there. And let's be frank, some of the
ideas are bad. Some of the people are
unfortunately in prison because they
decided to kill someone else. Hopefully
we all understand that this are a bad
idea. But the point is there are lots of
different people who are trying
different kinds of ideas, lots of
different philosophies. And in this
great big marketplace of ideas that is
the world, we see some ideas come out
and the the variety also allows us to
have more creativity perhaps. And when I
look at the different AI tools, well,
it's actually well known that they have
certain biases. This is also why for me
when I try to get the news, I don't only
go to CNN.com. I also go to Fox News. I
tune my social media so that my X is all
tracking Republican uh right-leaning
viewpoints and my Facebook is all
tracking left-leaning viewpoints. And I
look at both of them every day because I
want to see what's going on. And my
expectation is yes, you're going to be
biased. You have a certain view on the
world and you think you're right. And
you're biased, too. You have a way of
thinking of the world. And my job as I
simulate the world is to try to figure
out where do you disagree? Ah, you
disagree perhaps on a few values of how
people should live their life. And then
that causes you to have different ways
of reporting on the story. I think it's
all the more important now that there's
AI out here which sounds like a very
convincing reasonable person. It's even
more important that people look at
things and say, "All right, is that
really the story?" Because I think that
the AI is going to be so good at looking
complete that you may think you have the
entire story on a controversial
I am an optimist, as you can probably
tell from the way I'm talking. I'm
optimistic because I can see that
thoughtful people stick together. I've
been working on my work with this whole
group of high school students and so on
for 3 years and I can just see there are
so many kids who are not kids anymore
who are growing up who are really clever
but so kind and they also know each
other. They make me optimistic about the
future. Not only the ones that I work
with but the fact that if I'm working
with these people that means there are
other people out there too. I'm
basically seeing with my own eyes the
power of what can be done if you bring
together people who have in common this
idea that they actually like people and
they want to make the world brighter.
See, one reason I'm building this whole
community of really kind and clever
people is because I'm also hoping to
eventually build a whole lot of social
entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneur is
someone who makes a conscious decision
to not necessarily become that rich.
You're doing it for a different purpose.
It's not because you want tons of money.
It's because what makes you happy is
seeing lots of delighted people. Social
entrepreneurship is hard. The hard part
is that sometimes at the beginning you
feel this is an important problem that
needs to be solved. Why won't people pay
me to do it? I need a donation or an
investment or something. That's how I
started off. Today when I do my social
entrepreneurship, I think very carefully
how much does that problem actually
cost? You know that if it's a problem,
there's a real cost. In fact, it should
be possible to make money. That word
entrepreneur hopefully also includes
something about sustainability through
business type form. A good social
enterprise should make a net profit on
every single person that they help.
Right? The problem that happens with
social entrepreneurship sometimes is
that people are doing something which
would be nice to solve, but they haven't
found a way to tie that together with
solving a problem that has real monetary
value that you can find someone to pay
for. You should hopefully be able to
figure out how it costs the world
something that the problem is there.
Aha. Now try to figure out who is paying
that cost right now and see if maybe
they would be interested in paying you
for you to go and solve that problem.
You just have to go and hunt around how
can I figure out how the positive that's
created on average is spread apart
across everyone who is playing and then
you also get a little bit too. That's
actually what we do. For example, we
provide all this education since we make
the best after school math classes for
middle school students who want
enrichment in the world. We have lots of
customers. They pay for it. So, we have
the profit. But because I'm a social
entrepreneur, we subsidize students from
different parts of the country and
different parts of the world. How come
nobody else ever thought of putting
professional actors to live coach high
school math stars who are kind while
they live stream math classes to middle
school kids? And that whole thing builds
an ecosystem that builds a more
thoughtful world that can hopefully help
to sustain our human civilization. It's
actually an obvious idea. There are
actors. There are math people. We can
all win. It took 11 years to really
build up to the stage that I am right
now. It took 8 years to come up with
that idea.
You can imagine how many other weird
ideas came about along the way. Anytime
I see any thing in the world or
something I need to do, I try to keep
coming up with a weird new way to do it.
For fun, I like to constantly be
thinking, is there another way? Is there
another way? Is there another way? When
I do this most of the time I come up
with a way and then the next question
becomes all right what could be wrong
with it. So I first generate like this I
want to generate new idea and after the
new ideas there I say now I want to
destroy the new idea. I want to shoot it
down. How could it possibly be wrong?
Because 99% of the ideas that I generate
that are new are fundamentally flawed.
But 1% are good. You have to just be
constantly for its own sake saying could
there be another way of doing this?
Could there be another way of doing
this? So this combination of generate
with excitement, destroy with lots and
lots of effort and then after a while
one diamond appears
then push it. [Music]
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