Microsoft AI chief thinks superintelligence is near, but won't take your job
Today I’m talking with Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI. This is a real burner of an episode. We covered everything from his approach to training new models to his criticisms of Anthropic talking about Claude as though it is conscious.
Of course, we also talked about Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI, how Mustafa is thinking about all the negative polling and political pushback around AI right now, and whether any of the consumer products are good enough to overcome it. Like I said, it’s a burner.
Read the full interview transcript on The Verge.
Links:
Microsoft and OpenAI broke up — now they’re ready to fight | The Verge
Microsoft Build 2026: The 7 biggest announcements | The Verge
Microsoft’s first advanced reasoning AI is here | The Verge
Microsoft’s new ‘superintelligence’ game plan is all about business | The Verge
Here’s how the new Microsoft and OpenAI deal breaks down | The Verge
Microsoft AI chief says 18 months until white-collar tasks automated by AI | FT
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Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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Could LLMs Be The Route To Superintelligence? — With Mustafa Suleyman
Mustafa Suleyman is the CEO of Microsoft AI and the head of the company’s new superintelligence team. Suleyman joins Big Technology to discuss Microsoft’s push toward “humanist superintelligence” and what changes after its latest OpenAI deal. Tune in to hear whether LLMs can get us there, how self-improving systems might work safely, and what power, data, and memory advancements mean for progress. We also cover Microsoft’s strategy shift to AI self-sufficiency, the economics of frontier models (including price pressure and commoditization), world-model and robotics questions, and the rise of personalized AI companions. Hit play for a candid, technical, and forward-looking conversation about where Microsoft—and AI—are headed next.
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These AI devices protect nature in real time | Juan M. Lavista Ferres
If we can put astronauts on the moon, conservationists shouldn't have to hike miles through dense forests to change the batteries on cameras, says Juan M. Lavista Ferres, chief data scientist at the AI for Good Lab. He introduces SPARROW, an open-source, solar-powered AI system that can analyze sounds and images to turn years of biodiversity monitoring into real-time insights, giving conservationists the tools they need to protect wildlife and critical ecosystems before it’s too late.
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Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman: Building AI Personality, OpenAI Relationship, Data Center Demand, AGI Timeline
Mustafa Suleyman is the CEO of Microsoft AI and a co-founder of DeepMind. He joins Big Technology to discuss Microsoft's strategy to build more personalized and emotionally intelligent AI companions. Tune in to hear how Microsoft is differentiating its AI offerings through personality design, memory features, and action capabilities that could transform our digital interactions. We also cover Microsoft's data center plans, its relationship with OpenAI, and predictions about when we might reach AGI. Hit play for a fascinating look at the future of human-AI relationships and what it means for work, technology, and society.
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Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman says conversational AI is the next web browser
Today, I’m talking with Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI. Mustafa is a fascinating character in the world of AI — he’s been in and out of some pivotal companies like DeepMind, which he cofounded, and Google. He landed at Microsoft through a unique not-quite-acquisition deal of his latest startup, Inflection AI.
As CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa now oversees all of its consumer AI products, including the Copilot app, Bing, and even the Edge browser and MSN — two core components of the web experience that feel like they’re radically changing in a world of AI. The company has also a unique relationship with OpenAI, one that’s grown more complicated of late. That’s a lot of Decoder bait, and we really get into it.
Links:
Google DeepMind co-founder joins Microsoft as CEO of its new AI division | The Verge
This is Big Tech’s playbook for swallowing the AI industry | Command Line
The new AI deal: buy everything but the company | NYT
Sam Altman lowers the bar for AGI | The Verge
OpenAI seeks to unlock investment by ditching ‘AGI’ clause with Microsoft | FT
Microsoft needs to win back trust | The Verge
Microsoft’s AI boss thinks it’s okay to steal content if it’s on the open web | The Verge
Read Microsoft’s optimistic memo about the future of AI companions | The Verge
Microsoft gives Copilot a voice and vision in its biggest redesign yet | The Verge
How Microsoft is thinking about the future of Copilot and AI hardware | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24078862
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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Is AI a new species? Microsoft’s Mustafa Suleyman thinks so
Artificial intelligence is a “new digital species,” says Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft AI’s CEO. For this episode, Mustafa joined Reid Hoffman on stage at the October 2024 Masters of Scale Summit. They discuss the risks and rewards of AI, and Mustafa explains why AI will change our experience of memory. Plus, why he thinks now is a great time to found and scale companies.
Synthetic voiceover of Reid Hoffman used in this episode was produced by Respeecher with full consent and permission.
Read Mustafa’s book: The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com
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Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman on AI “Friends”, OpenAI “Siblings” and Climate Change
Will AI “agents” soon be personalized teachers, doctors, companions and even check items off your to-do list on their own? “Agentic” is the latest buzzword in AI and Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman says moving beyond the text chatbot to a "smart friend” is the goal. The former co-founder of DeepMind, Suleyman helped grow Google’s AI division before launching another start-up, InflectionAI. Earlier this year, Microsoft paid $650 million for the licensing rights to Inflection, and brought Suleyman and most of his staff on board. Kara spoke to him at this year's Lesbians Who Tech conference about his strategy for integrating Copilot into Microsoft’s existing product suite; why he views OpenAI more like a sibling than a competitor; and why renewable energies (and a lot of cash) will be vital in meeting AI’s massive energy needs.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find Kara on Threads/Instagram @karaswisher
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What is an AI anyway? | Mustafa Suleyman
When it comes to artificial intelligence, what are we actually creating? Even those closest to its development are struggling to describe exactly where things are headed, says Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, one of the primary architects of the AI models many of us use today. He offers an honest and compelling new vision for the future of AI, proposing an unignorable metaphor — a new digital species — to focus attention on this extraordinary moment. (Followed by a Q&A with head of TED Chris Anderson)
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Conversations in Review: AI, Geopolitics, and Lifestyle Revelations
We’ve made it to our final episode of 2023! Please enjoy as we highlight a few of the blue flame thinkers who joined us on the pod this year.
Episodes in order of guest appearances:
Conversation with Mustafa Suleyman — The Proliferation of AI & the Next Wave of Technology
The Promises and Perils of Neurotechnology – with Nita Farahany
Behind the Scenes of SVB’s Collapse + A Vision for America — with Ro Khanna
The State of Play: Markets, Economy, and Ukraine & China’s Growing Power, US Diplomacy, and Ukraine’s Counteroffensive — with Ian Bremmer
Conversation with Fareed Zakaria — The Conflict in Israel and the State of Foreign Affairs
Capitalism, Private Equity, and the Seven Deadly Sins — with Stephen Dubner
The Psychology of Money — with Morgan Housel
Conversation with Jennifer B. Wallace — What to Do About Toxic Achievement Culture
How to Get Unstuck — with Adam Alter
Conversation with Jennifer Cohen — Building Healthy Habits and Staying Confident
Understanding AI’s Threats and Opportunities — with Mo Gawdat
Masculinity, Media, and How to Citizen – with Baratunde Thurston
Conversation with Simon Sinek — Finding Your Why, Feeling Stuck, and Building Strong Leaders
Scott closes by thanking YOU for supporting the Prof G Pod in 2023.
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AI + You | 5 ways to ethically build — and use — AI
In this installment of our series, AI + You, we dissect the ethical concerns that builders and users of AI must keep in focus. As the AI rollout continues at dizzying pace, we all have a part to play in ensuring human wellbeing is the bedrock principle. To guide you, host Reid Hoffman speaks with Stanford HAI’s Fei-Fei Li, Inflection’s Mustafa Suleyman, Adept’s David Luan and more AI pioneers. Rather than be intimidated by these ethical issues, we’ll leave you inspired to play a part in shaping a bright future in which humanity is elevated by AI.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/
Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
AI + You | 4 ways to scale your personal growth
In part two of our 3-part series on AI + You, we offer an actionable playbook on how AI can help us scale ourselves personally. Personal scale is all about broadening your skill set and strengthening your human relationships. To guide you, host Reid Hoffman speaks to Stanford HAI’s Fei-Fei Li, Inflection’s Mustafa Suleyman, tech-centric artist Holly Herndon and more AI pioneers. You’ll discover how AI can amplify your ability as a leader, coworker, collaborator and friend.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/
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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
AI + You | 5 steps for impactful experimentation
AI can be overwhelming. In this 3-part series, we offer business leaders an actionable playbook to best implement AI. Part one: To unleash AI’s true power of scale, you must dive headfirst into ongoing experimentation. To guide you, host Reid Hoffman speaks to Stanford HAI’s Fei-Fei Li, Inflection’s Mustafa Suleyman, Adept’s David Luan, and more AI pioneers. Their experiences with AI provide a perfect lens for any leader to better understand and navigate this new era, even in industries far from the leading edge of tech trailblazers. So channel your inner mad scientist and embrace this new revolutionary tool with us.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/
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Mustafa Suleyman: Empathy in AI
The buzz about AI focuses on how we can bolster our skills, knowledge and efficiency. But what role can AI play in enriching our lives as social beings with feelings, relationships and dreams?
In this special interview, Mustafa Suleyman and Reid Hoffman — co-founders of Inflection AI, and two of the leading AI minds today — sit down to discuss the human-centered ideals at the core of Mustafa's cutting-edge work. They offer a clear eyed, optimistic view on how AI will revolutionize our lives.
Mustafa discusses his early experiences with AI, his pioneering work with DeepMind and Google, and the ideals that were central in creating the AI Assistant, Pi. He also discusses how we should be actively creating the future that we want to see, as outlined in his recent book, The Coming Wave.
This interview is also the ideal primer for our upcoming miniseries "AI and You," in which Reid will talk with an array of AI leaders (including Mustafa) to explore how you can harness AI to scale your productivity, your business, and yourself, while staying safe in the process.
Register for our live October Strategy Session: https://mastersofscale.com/AI
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Mustafa Suleyman (on artificial intelligence)
Mustafa Suleyman (The Coming Wave) is an artificial intelligence researcher, co-founder of DeepMind, and author. Mustafa joins the Armchair Expert to discuss how he became interested in the concept of universal human rights, what deep learning is, and how machines can actually become creative. Mustafa and Dax talk about how close artificial intelligence is getting to matching the human brain, how people might feel about computers creating all content, and how AI might revolutionize the energy industry. Mustafa explains why the fear of government regulation exists, why people need to be involved in decisions about technological advancements, and how certain biases are corrected in AI programs.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Conversation with Mustafa Suleyman — The Proliferation of AI & the Next Wave of Technology
Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO and co-founder of Inflection AI, joins Scott to discuss his new book, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma.” We hear what to expect in the coming years and decades as AI gets smarter, why we’re not prepared for the coming wave of technology, and how Inflection AI wants to build the next version of a personal assistant.
Check out Mustafa’s book here.
Scott is officially back from vacation and he’s excited to be on the mic. He opens by telling us about his travels. And then explains why he thinks Ozempic is shaping up to be the biggest business story of the summer.
Algebra of Happiness: Friendship endures.
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Google DeepMind Co-founder: AI Could Release A Deadly Virus - It’s Getting More Threatening! Mustafa Suleyman
AI is going to change everything, but can we control AI or will AI control us?
In this new episode Steven sits down with AI pioneer and co-founder of DeepMind, Mustafa Suleyman CBE.
In 2010, Mustafa co-founded the British Artificial Intelligence company DeepMind. Four years later DeepMind was bought by Google, and Mustafa became its Head of Applied AI. Later in 2019, Mustafa left DeepMind to work for Google, and in 2022 he left Google to co-found the startup, Inflection AI. The goal of Inflection AI is to use AI in order to help humans speak with computers, and in 2023 they released ‘Pi’, a personal AI chatbot.
In this conversation Mustafa and Steven discuss topics, such as:
His strict religious childhood
Dropping out of Oxford University
Helped to found DeepMind
The core goal of DeepMind
How intelligence can be defined as information processing and prediction.
The history of previous groundbreaking technologies
How technological changes come in waves
AI's potential to advance civilisation
What the world will look like in 2050
How AI will develop alongside other technologies such as biotechnology
The race to create more powerful AI
Making AI a tool that works for humans
His aim of creating personal AI
The chances of AI getting out of control
The limitations of AI
How AI could be exploited by criminals
How we cannot have a short term mentality about AI
The responsibility of AI creators
His thoughts on the chances of containing AI
The problems to containing or slowing down AI
The need for a global containment policy on AI
Lessons from WW2 we can use in tackling AI
You can purchase Mustafa’s book, ‘The Coming Wave’, here: https://bit.ly/3Laizip
Follow Mustafa:
Twitter: https://bit.ly/45uFz3T
Follow me:
https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo
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#332 — Can We Contain Artificial Intelligence?
Sam Harris speaks with Mustafa Suleyman about his new book, "The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century's Greatest Dilemma." They discuss the progress in artificial intelligence made at his company DeepMind, the acquisition of DeepMind by Google, Atari DQN, AlphaGo, AlphaZero, AlphaFold, the invention of new knowledge, the risks of our making progress in AI, "superintelligence" as a distraction from more pressing problems, the inevitable spread of general-purpose technology, the nature of intelligence, productivity growth and labor disruptions, "the containment problem," the importance of scale, Moore's law, Inflection AI, open-source LLMs, changing the norms of work and leisure, the redistribution of value, introducing friction into the deployment of AI, regulatory capture, a misinformation apocalypse, digital watermarks, asymmetric threats, conflict and cooperation with China, supply-chain monopolies, and other topics.
If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.
Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That's why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life's most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.
Inflection AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman on building modern AI, DeepMind origins, and much more | E1794
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Today’s show:
Inflection AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman joins Jason to discuss DeepMind’s influence on AI (1:17), the hardware revolution (26:27), the foundation of Inflection AI (49:45), and much more!
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Time stamps:
(0:00) Inflection’s CEO Mustafa Suleyman joins Jason
(1:17) Life before DeepMind
(8:34) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://openphone.com/twist
(10:05) DeepMind’s origin story
(15:58) The pitch to Peter Thiel and feedback from early investors
(19:34) DeepMind’s first project
(24:59) Crowdbotics - Get a free scoping session for your next big app idea at crowdbotics.com/twist
(26:27) The hardware revolution and growth in computing
(30:15) DeepMind’s acquisition by Google and strategy for building an elite team
(34:14) Major achievements at Google
(37:49) Carta - Get 10% off your first SPV at https://carta.com/twist with promo code TWIST
(39:22) Google’s cautious approach to releasing an AI product
(44:59) Regulatory issues and fair compensation
(49:45) The foundation of Inflection AI
(59:50) The downsides of AI and Mustafa’s book, The Coming Wave
(1:08:58) Complacency in tech and Mustafa’s thoughts on remote work
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Follow Mustafa: https://twitter.com/mustafasuleyman
Check out Inflection AI: https://inflection.ai
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Inflection AI: Personalized and More "Woke" Than The “TruthGPT” Elon Might Make
After Kara and Nayeema debate the pros and cons of AI personal assistants vs. human personal assistants vs. fake personal assistants, we turn to Mustafa Suleyman, the man who co-founded DeepMind. Now, he and his co-founders Reid Hoffman and Karén Simonyan have started Inflection AI, a startup that creates “personal AIs,” and they're launching with a chatbot called Pi.
Kara talks to Mustafa about whether or not Pi is "woke," the conversion of Suleyman’s former colleague, Geoffrey Hinton, and — oh yes — AI’s potential to destroy humanity.
BTW, in lieu of personal AI, you can reach out to Kara and Nayeema for advice on your burning questions regarding your career, love, life or anything else. Call 1-888-KARA-PLZ and leave us a voicemail.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on Instagram. We’re @karaswisher and @nayeemaraza.
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Will Everyone Have a Personal AI? With Mustafa Suleyman, Founder of DeepMind and Inflection
Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and now co-founder and CEO of Inflection AI, joins Sarah and Elad to discuss how his interests in counseling, conflict resolution, and intelligence led him to start an AI lab that pioneered deep reinforcement learning, lead applied AI and policy efforts at Google, and more recently found Inflection and launch Pi.
Mustafa offers insights on the changing structure of the web, the pressure Google faces in the age of AI personalization, predictions for model architectures, how to measure emotional intelligence in AIs, and the thinking behind Pi: the AI companion that knows you, is aligned to your interests, and provides companionship.
Sarah and Elad also discuss Mustafa’s upcoming book, The Coming Wave (release September 12, 2023), which examines the political ramifications of AI and digital biology revolutions.
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Show Links:
Forbes - Startup From Reid Hoffman and Mustafa Suleyman Debuts ChatBot
Inflection.ai
Mustafa-Suleyman.ai
Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com
Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @mustafasuleymn
Show Notes:
[00:06] - From Conflict Resolution to AI Pioneering
[10:36] - Defining Intelligence
[15:32] - DeepMind's Journey and Breakthroughs
[24:45] - The Future of Personal AI Companionship
[33:22] - AI and the Future of Personalized Content
[41:49] - The Launch of Pi
[51:12] - Mustafa’s New Book The Coming Wave
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