An evening with Steve Kerr & Sam Altman
It had its rough patches, but not a bad way to spend a Monday night
This week I had the pleasure of taking in a conversation with Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
I had hoped to attend the discussion in-person but as is the nature of being a dad with two young kids, a virtual session via Zoom was far more convenient.
On a side note, paying 20-ish dollars to watch a ticketed live event via Zoom feels like a good deal to me. Sure, it’s great to give free access to things like this whenever possible, but a nominal fee for those of us who can’t get out on a Monday night but will happily watch a full-screen Zoom session with our feet up is much appreciated!
The Zoom platform gave the event early pandemic vibes. The production quality was stellar but there was certainly a voyeuristic feeling as the event was clearly tailored to the theater packed with Dubs fans and tech nerds. Oddly, the organizers decided to make the chatroom available for the duration of the event. Plenty of the attendees kept their cameras on, and a few had to be reminded to mute their audio. It was a chaotic but mostly positive, fun environment.
What about the discussion itself? Honestly, it felt like a somewhat peculiar pairing of guests and moderator. Manny Yekutiel of “Manny’s” SF fame was admittedly not a sports fan. He seemed to know very little about Kerr’s resume and even gave Steve some blank stares when he mentioned names like Rafael Nadal and Bjorn Borg. Kerr handled it as gracefully as he could but there were moments where you had to assume he was asking himself “who is this guy interviewing me and why am I here?”
I imagine that Altman was the draw for much of the audience. The enigmatic AI CEO has become perhaps the most prominent villain in the “tech is ruining SF” narrative. He seemed somewhat distant and hardly made eye contact with Yekutiel, who he claimed to be “a long time friend”.
It’s worth noting that the event kicked off with some fireworks as a man rushed the stage just as the guests settled into their seats. I could hear the word “subpoena” come through the Zoom broadcast but assumed it was a rogue demonstrator. While researching a bit more about the incident, it does appear that Altman may have technically been served a proper subpoena by California law whether any of the audience realized it or not. TBD on that for another day, but it’s worth mentioning here as it may end up being the most noteworthy story of the night.
Altman has a character to play and he does it well. He talked about the potential negative impacts of AI on society. He didn’t sugarcoat anything. I was taken aback once or twice when he described specific instances where AI could or would be used for harm. Sure, I guess it’s possible that someone uses ChatGPT to concoct the next super-virus, how worried should we be about that?
I did appreciate the discussion the men shared about the future of work. While AI has been at the front and center of the argument for technology stealing work from humans, Altman had a more long-term approach. He argued that most of our jobs would be unrecognizable to humans from 500 years ago. And there is a great chance that we wouldn’t be able to wrap our heads around the workforce 500 years from now. We can’t predict the jobs of the future, change is inevitable whether you deem it positive or negative.
Most of the memorable insights unsurprisingly came from the mouth of the Warriors coach. I loved his anecdote about joy being one of the core values of his team. One way they act on that value is by inviting the players’ children and families into the locker room area (sounds like they have a separate family room near the locker room but don’t quote me on the layout of the bowels of the Chase Center). Win or lose, the players find joy after the game seeing children running around being children. It’s a beautiful image, I sincerely believed Kerr when he said those post-game interactions were the highlight of his week. I’d also highly recommend checking out the video below where Kerr goes deeper into his philosophy of culture and vibe with former Warriors GM Bob Myers.
While I do know that quantifiable performance data is key to running a team in the modern NBA, I appreciated the description of the sophisticated technology used by the Warriors to track every movement of every player during practice sessions. Kerr also had a pretty insightful question for Altman about how soon he thinks NBA coaches will be relying on real-time AI usage during gameplay. At what point of the 3rd quarter would ChatGPT suggest Kerr give Steph Curry a rest? Sure, there are currently some analytics to help a coach’s intuition, but there will likely be a day when NBA games feel more like a simulation when coaches and players rely on AI to inform small changes throughout the game.
Overall, I’m really glad I tuned into the event even if it wasn’t without its flaws. I do wish there was a bit more chemistry between the men on stage, they still had their breakthrough moments. I’d also say that they short-changed the promise in the event description about discussing the future of San Francisco. The last awkwardly-phrased question offered up a softball where both guests talked about never imagining living anywhere else. That may be true, but it didn’t really tackle the current problems in SF or the long-term vision for how these two immensely powerful men could shape our fair city.
Kudos to Manny for attempting this difficult dance with two titans of their respective industries. Both men had much more important things they could have been doing on a Monday night. So while it could have run a little bit more smoothly, it’d have to be considered a net positive event.
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