Join host Tedd Huff, co-host Matt Vanhouten, and guest Theo Lau in a thought-provoking episode of UNCUT by Fintech Confidential, where we dive deep into the multifaceted world of Artificial Intelligence in Fintech. This episode covers a broad spectrum of topics, including the responsible use of AI, its impact on jobs, financial inclusion, and the ethical considerations surrounding technology.

Key Discussion Points:

1. Defining AI and Its Overuse: Understand AI beyond the hype as a technology grounded in mathematics and algorithms. Tedd leads the conversation on how language and terminology influence our perception of AI.
2. The Ethical Use of AI: Matt, Theo, and Tedd discuss the importance of accountability and addressing biases in AI development, emphasizing the need for responsible decision-making.
3. AI's Role in Financial Inclusion and Services: Explore how AI revolutionizes financial services, from enhancing customer support to improving risk assessment and lending practices. The guests highlight innovative FinTech products leveraging AI for better access to financial resources.
4. Government and AI Regulation: The trio delves into the necessity of government intervention in AI decision-making, aiming for a balance to avoid bias and ensure transparency.
5. The Potential of Web3 and Digital Identity: Theo sheds light on how Web3 and self-sovereign identity can democratize access to technology and data, offering a more equitable digital future.
6. Addressing the Digital Divide: Discussions extend to bridging the digital divide, ensuring affordable internet access, and the role of AI in education and learning.
7. The Future of AI in FinTech: The conversation concludes with insights into the future trends of generative AI in FinTech, highlighting the enduring importance of human interaction and relationship-building in the digital age.

Takeaways:

• AI, a powerful tool based on math, holds the potential to transform industries, including financial services, by automating tasks and providing insights.
• The responsible use of AI necessitates carefully considering ethical implications, biases, and the impact on society.
• Bridging the digital divide and ensuring equitable access to technology are critical for harnessing the full potential of AI.
• The future of AI in FinTech will likely focus on enhancing customer experiences, streamlining operations, and supporting personalized financial planning.

This episode with Tedd, Matt, and Theo offers a comprehensive overview of AI's current state and future possibilities in FinTech. By addressing AI's challenges and opportunities, we can navigate toward a more inclusive, efficient, and ethically responsible future in financial technology.

Also, watch the entire episode on YouTube

Links:

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Time Stamps:

AI Fundamentals and Perception

[00:03:00] Theodora Lau emphasizes AI as a mathematical tool with a rich history.

[00:04:11] Matt Vanhouten discusses the impact of terminology on our understanding of AI.

Societal Implications of AI

[00:07:02] Discussion on AI's decentralizing effects and societal impacts.

[00:30:57] Lau addresses the complexities and transformative potential of AI and big tech.

AI's Role in Natural and Financial Worlds

[00:10:26] AI's application in understanding plant communication.

[00:37:05] Lau explains AI's role in enabling microloans, showcasing financial inclusion.

Ethical Use and Future Impact of AI

[00:13:21] Lau reflects on AI for good, focusing on ethical usage for solving real-world problems.

[00:32:02] Lau and Vanhouten debate the nuanced future impacts of AI on work and life.

Work Dynamics and Financial Services Innovations

[00:34:38] Discussion on how AI reshapes work dynamics and extends careers.

[01:37:27] Vanhouten talks about AI's potential to improve financial services like sanction screening.

Bias, Ethics, and Regulation in AI

[00:41:12] Necessity of addressing AI biases, especially in financial decisioning, and the role of regulation.

[01:10:05] Importance of prompt engineering to mitigate biases and achieve useful AI outputs.

AI in Creativity, Research, and Representation

[01:02:46] Huff shares how AI enhances research and breaks conventional thought patterns.

[01:09:01] Lau highlights biases in AI-generated images, stressing the need for diversity.

AI's Practical Applications and Skepticism

[01:17:00] Vanhouten expresses skepticism about generative AI in payments, advocating for machine learning.

[01:32:15] Ethical considerations in AI's future, with a vision of enhancing human creativity.

Changing Perceptions of Value and Financial Planning

[01:34:57] Huff on how AI might change our perception of value and mediums of exchange.

[01:42:10] Lau discusses the need for adaptive financial planning tools for changing life stages.

AI's Future in FinTech and Society

[01:47:09] Reflections on generative AI's future role in FinTech, emphasizing personalized services and human interaction.

[01:35:59] Lau shares her vision of the future of money, focusing on access to essential resources as forms of value.

This is a Production of Diamond D3, Media

ABOUT:

Tedd Huff: Tedd Huff is the Founder of Volayre, a FinTech-focused management consulting firm, providing expertise in Banking-as-a-Service, Payment Facilitation, and a range of services for banks, merchants, and tech companies in areas like partnership strategy, product management, and digital asset transfer. He is also the Founder of DD3 Media & executive producer and host of Fintech Confidential, a DD3 media production.

Over the past 24 years, he has contributed to FinTech startups as an Advisory Board Member, Co-Founder, and Chief Experience Officer, providing strategic and tactical direction for Global Payments OpenEdge, Heartland Payments, Nuvei, and TSYS, among others, focusing on growth while delivering innovation, process improvements and user experience-driven value to simplify the complexity of payments.

DD3, Media: A multimedia creation, management, production & marketing firm delivering engaging content primarily serving Fintech and technology companies globally.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: of course is garbage and garbage

out is garbage in, garbage out.

I mean, as simple as that, right?

If your data that you use

is partially based on historical bias because of redlining, because

of everything that we have done that we thought was okay, and

now is manifesting itself in

present day 2023, of course it needs to be fixed.

And that was why CFPP came out couple of months ago and said.

Hold your horses for all of you guys using AI in your automated credit decisioning.

Make sure you can explain what you're doing if you are rejecting someone's

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Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential, Host: Welcome to Fintech Confidential, bringing

you the people, tech, and companies that change how you pay and get paid.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Welcome to another episode of FinTech

Confidentials Uncut, where we talk about subjects without any limitations,

without any restrictions, and truly share where we're thinking, what we're

thinking, and how we're thinking about these topics this week or this episode.

Geez, I've been on so many episodes this week, but on this episode we're gonna be

talking about artificial intelligence,

how it plays in FinTech, how it maybe shouldn't play in FinTech, and a handful

of the things that have been announced here recently, uh, around Nvidia.

Jamie Diamond from JP Morgan has made a few comments in the recent news,

and I'm gonna get the perspective from our guests now this week.

I did it again on this episode.

This is gonna be fun.

Um, on this episode, I have Theodore Lau.

She is an author.

She has her own consulting company.

She, she's been speaking all over the globe here recently.

And I think one of the big pieces that I'm looking forward to her

perspective is from her latest book around Web3 and the financial economy

and how that impacts everything.

She's gonna bring, bring a really unique perspective, and we brought

Matt Van Houten back to the show.

We've got him in here, and we'll love to see his perspective

because he keeps track very closely to what's going on in FinTech.

So the first question I want to ask everybody and, and we'll, we'll kick it

off with Theo, you're, you're the new one here, so we'll kick off with you.

Uh, the, the first question is how.

How do you define ai and do you feel that it might be a slightly overused acronym?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: How about I do it the other way around?

'cause I like to cause trouble.

AI is not magic.

Here you go.

That's

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : What?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I I said

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Oh, come on.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: magic.

Magic is illusion.

Um, and, and ai, ai, does a lot of interesting things.

I it's not, it's not magical.

It's math.

It, it's, it's math.

It's literally numbers.

Um, that's how I look at it.

And it's been around, it's been around for a long time.

It's been around even before the whole chat GPT hype that it brought about

like, what, more than a year ago now?

Uh, I think it was November last year.

So it is, it is really interesting technology.

Um, it can do a lot of really interesting things for how we live and how we work.

Um, I, I'm pretty sure this is like a very non-controversial comment.

Um, we haven't even touched the surface of what it can do.

So it's gonna be fun.

It's gonna be interesting.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Oh, Matt, what, where's, where's your perspec?

Give us a little bit of your perspective on, on the, on the whole AI piece

of it, and then I'll give mine.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Yeah.

Um, well first of all, I totally agree with everything Theo just said, but

I'm gonna, I'm gonna sort of come back around to, I think that the terminology

and how it sort of influences the way, like people in the public perceive

what is, is potentially actually there versus what's truly there.

And um, and I think there's a, you know, language in my view, you know,

creates our reality both in terms of how we understand the world and

in terms of how we, we convey a description of something that then allows

someone else to then Have their own.

So we, we create mutual understanding through language in large part, right?

That's not the only way, but it's one of the biggest, um, ways that we do that.

So whenever we start with a, a, a framework and we say

like, this is intelligence.

It's, it's already really a brand versus a description of what's,

what's underneath the hood.

You know, it's not intelligence.

Not yet.

Maybe there's, there's, and there's a lot of debate around, you know, perhaps

not ever, um, some really smart people think, yeah, we're gonna get to a, a

a period where technologies that are sort of similar to the underlying

structure of chat, GPT can be autonomous thinking entities.

And there's a lot of other really smart people that say it.

No, I mean, maybe it'll happen, but not with anything close to the

frameworks that we're working with now.

So I think, I think for one, it's just the, the key question I have is like, I.

are are we talking about like technology that can do something?

That's a tool, right?

So like, let's just talk about what, what is a technology that can solve

a problem and then what can it do?

And then separately, the more philosophical question of like, you know,

what is consciousness and, uh, you know, is this an independent being, you know,

? It's like, I, I think we're so far away from needing to actually answer the second

question given the, the, the, the truth of what the capabilities are right now.

That it, it starts to create a, a, a, like a new narrative that I think

coming back to Theodore's main point is being in large part fed by those

who are driving the early innovation in this space to, in my view, scare people

into, uh, creating oversight that they then write the rules around and can I.

Control, right?

So if you, if you tell everybody this thing is really scary, you need to

only have it be in trusted hands.

And my hands are the most trusted.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Oh yeah, that, that, that even

goes into the whole decentralized fear of decentralization.

Um, but we'll, we'll, we'll leave that one out for today's discussion.

You know, from my perspective, I, I I look at it from a.

We've had to simplify down the numerous things that have been going on from

pattern recognition, some sort of, um, automated learning, some human

directed or human decisions, movements and behaviors that go behind that.

And it was just easier to create this nice big bucket called artificial

intelligence because from my perspective, looking at it, the reason why people

feel comfortable calling it artificial intelligence is because it's mimicking

decisions that we have made in the past and regurgitating or presenting

information that already exists.

And for a lot of people that feels intelligent.

And it's more about a feeling than the reality.

So

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : like that, it's like that horse

that could, you know, tap codes in, in like the 1910s or twenties or

something and everyone's like, oh my God, this horse, it can communicate.

It's, uh, I, I can't remember who is doing a pt.

Barna maybe or so one of those side show type type of type of people.

You know, and it was very convincing.

A lot of people were fooled into thinking that this horse actually was

a sentient thinking being that could tell you its thoughts and stories

and, and then, you know, eventually it became clear what was really going on.

It was, you know, taking direction from somewhere else, you know?

And I think we, we want to believe in sentient, in, in

hosts other than human minds.

I mean, this is, this is, this is something that goes back, I

don't know, maybe forever, right?

Whether it's, you know, God, the, the idea of like a god, the idea of like

mythical, like spirits or the forest having, you know, uh, a mind, like

we want to know that there are other things in the universe that can think.

And so it's very attractive and doesn't, so it, it doesn't

take very much to then

convince people to say, yeah, that's thinking, you know.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Yeah, but I, I would chime in here.

I, I, I like what you just said, and it reminds me of something that Clara.

Theier, she loves to say algorithms of parents, right?

We, we often tend to forget that these things, they don't

exist in a va in a vacuum.

These things were created by humans.

What they do was dictated by how we program it, by what we teach it.

They don't just come into being.

Um, so we need to stress that part a little bit more.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Well, and it's funny you bring that up,

Matt, is um, I was at an event earlier this week where we were having a very

similar discussion to what we're having today, more around AI and what's truly

innovative and in different areas, and I.

I'm gonna ask you guys for your perspective on the FinTech piece,

but the part that I thought was interesting is that some of the scientists

that were there, data scientists and biological scientists talked about,

they're excited to use artificial intelligence to figure out how plants

talk to each other, how cells within the body can understand what's going on.

So they're, they're leveraging these models to really try and dive in

a little bit deeper into the why.

And I, the part that made it really interesting to me, especially based on

your comment, is that they're trying to give it a human persona every single time.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Mm-Hmm.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : And how many movies do we

have where animals are humans?

right.

Well, were there three launch this year that were really focused around

that, at least that I know of.

Heck, who knows how many more, but that's the other areas on how they're

looking at it from the FinTech side.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Do, do you

wait, so do you think that, do you think that's a problem in their,

so take for example, I think there, there's pre pre ai there's been a lot

of interesting research in, in the last several years that that does point to

some kind of an interaction happening.

Like between plants in between plants and humans.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Mm-Hmm.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : that, that, that we don't understand.

And, and I'm not gonna say it, it's sentient that's at play there, but

there's some kind of information exchange that's happening that goes

beyond what we can see and you know, what we know about like cell biology.

And so I, I wonder like, you know, I think exploring that further to me as a, as

a, as a goal is, is, is, is a good one.

The question I have is like do, because we've already

anthropomorphized AI and we're very,

uh, happy to continue to do that with whatever the object of our study is.

You know, I guess are we.

Are we bringing so much bias into just the framework for examining the question

that we're automatically kind of like skewing the, like, the likely results

to try to create an answer that says, well clearly this is speech, or this

is thought, or this is understanding.

Um, 'cause that's what you're looking for.

You know, you're, you're, you, you are, you, you think that's what it is

and you're gonna find it, you know.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Theodora, I saw your, your, the, the

gears turning in your head as, as he was talking through that, you know, this

is a kind of a topic that you brought up in your book really around how to.

Use it for good, not evil.

I'll use, I'm summarizing right.

It is like how to use it, how to use the, the Web3 direction and all

these new technologies for good.

Do you think maybe we're taking it too far?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Now, I think you're probably

referring, actually this is more in sync with my first book Beyond

Good, which was written during Covid.

Um, and in there that was when we were looking at technologies such as

longevity tech, ai, um, and what have you.

That has been around for a while and what companies are using them

to improve financial inclusion, um, and help, for example, small hole

farmers to get access to credit.

So those things I think is really interesting.

It has real world implications.

I like Matt, what you just said about the interaction or.

I relationship, I don't know, lack of better word, between plants

and, and people, because it reminds me of something that actually

I think my parents taught me.

This was little, somehow it stuck to my mind that they told me that

the plant respond to human presence.

If you have bamboos and you have greens in the house and you're

around, the plants will thrive.

If you ignore it, it just let it sit there in the corner by themselves.

You're never home.

It doesn't work well.

And and it's one of those, I used to call it ancient Chinese

secret, like things that just get passed down from generations.

But you're right.

I mean, the universe is, is ma mysterious and it works in mysterious way.

That sound like a lyric.

Um, but there are

a lot of things

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : probably is in some song somewhere.

Yeah.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Probably right.

I'm not, absolutely not well versed in the entertainment

area, but, but it probably is.

So it goes back to we have this amazing set of technologies, amazing

amount of resources, seemingly, um, endless at our disposal.

Then the question becomes, what are you gonna do it for?

What are you gonna use it for?

And who, who will have a voice at the table to decide what you will use it for?

And, and I think that's my worry.

I'm not worried about the technology itself.

I'm more worried about who will have to say so in saying this

is the direction we're going.

And it goes back a little bit to what Ted, you and Matt were talking about,

um, in, in terms of the evolution of the technology and, and all the

things that we are using it for.

Who is.

Who has the authority to set that and say, well, no, this is not a good direction.

Or, yes, we need to double down on this,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : You know, it's funny as you, you

mentioned that the plant and, and your parents teaching you that if you

just leave it in the corner and you don't pay attention to it, it dies.

I, I'm, I'm gonna hold a lot of truth in that.

'cause I bought this beautiful, beautiful plant that was.

A beautiful ficus.

It was designed and cre turned into a bonsai and I got busy with a whole bunch

of stuff and I mean, I still watered it, right, but like I watered it.

But then I came back from a trip and it was as if it just gave up.

It just as if it gave up.

And now I look at, and it's still sitting in that corner because

I feel bad that that happened.

But, you know, those are the types of things that we have to kind of think

through as, as we look at how are we gonna leverage this type of technology

and, you know, exchange of value, money or otherwise is, is something

everybody holds close because that's, that's how we live, that's how we.

Get and or give things.

That's, that's just how we we move forward in our daily lives.

I'm gonna jump into the FinTech side of the house.

We've talked about the philosophy piece of it, but let's dive into the FinTech.

You know, there's a, a handful of companies that are really diving

into the artificial intelligence side of the house, and that's

what their business is based on.

Uh, at one of the many layers in artificial intelligence, you know,

you've, you've got everything from your, your machine learning, you've

got your, your models and your your life piece of it, and then you

just continue to grow out from it.

Um.

And then you also, uh, sorry, you have the behavioral, I skipped a life

moment behavioral piece of it, and then we would get into the sentient

part that, that Matt had brought about.

But going back all the way down to the data analytics and the machine

learning piece of it, Theo, as we were talking before we got hit

the record button, it's not new.

It's been around a really long time, Matt, you and I have talked about that.

Um, but

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : My first experience working with Mach,

it was, it's, it's a combination of machine learning and pattern recognition.

To automate capturing information from financial documents

was in like 2002, 2003.

And it worked really well, like, um, and this was not simple, just like.

You know, uh, standardized font, kind of like being able to read

that, that that technology, that's like optical character recognition.

And then that moved into intelligent character recognition.

I think OCR is like from the sixties, maybe seventies, like long time magnetic

ink kind of predates both of those.

So the, uh, the

ability to take a magnetic signature from, from text, like, so we've been using

technology to take things that previously had to be like, looked at by a person.

Then transferred by either hand or some other mechanism from

one place to another place.

Like if you go back to the magnetic ink example, that's definitely

since at least sixties, right?

And then, and then it's progressively gotten, uh, as the, both the

imaging capabilities have improved.

So you actually have a better signal coming in now you have a high resolution

document, and then I can, I can examine all the bits on the, on the, on the map,

and I can now put those through software.

Um, the software then, you know, you, you can develop lots of different techniques

to, to try to like figure out, like, based on what I see in that, in that

map, how do I make sense out of this?

Right?

And, and, and yeah.

So that, that technology has been, it's been working fairly well and actually

doing a lot of, I would say good.

Right?

I mean, I think this is something I'd really love to get into is like,

you know, um, automating work that was being done by a person over time.

I feel is a good thing.

Um, however, sometimes it can be, it can be so fast in terms of the transition

where, where we like automation can replace human, um, labor so quickly that

there, that we, and we, and we don't do as, as is recognize the impact that

that has on real human lives and invest in ways to support everyone, right?

And so it's like we automate to save money for, like, this time I

was working at JP Morgan, right?

So JP Morgan's saving a bunch of money.

JP Morgan's customers are saving a bunch of money, but then employees who used to

do data capture don't have a job anymore.

And we, and then we, we say, well that's, they should, uh, they should

learn how to become software engineers.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : That's

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : not a very realistic, uh, transition.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : That Well, and that, that's one of

the pieces, you know, that I, when I was doing the research and really

diving into to kind of understand

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : why the bank, why some banks

have dove in headfirst.

Other banks are taking a wait and see approach.

You know, good old Jamie Diamond from JP Morgan made a comment that

he feels that it will eliminate jobs

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Mm-Hmm.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : and that it will reduce the workload of today

down to three and a half hours a week.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Well, I, I think for one he can

say with certainty, and I know this 'cause he's the CEO when I was there,

it already has eliminated jobs.

Right?

And it will continue to eliminate jobs.

I, to me this is like some of, some of the significance that we're placing on

a statement that a person makes today is mostly just because the popular kind of

like people just know about it, right?

But,

but the Theodore's point from early on, it, these.

These impacts have been happening for a very, very long time.

They're just accelerating.

And I think the question is now like, and now people can under, like, I

actually feel like this is one of those situations where, remember I was

saying the language creates reality and it helps us to each like really

kind of develop our own common understanding.

I think like wonky software type nerd folks already knew all this

stuff, but it was hard to convey to those who weren't in that world.

But then

once you can interact with this chatbot and then you suddenly see, oh my God, wow.

Right?

A lot of this stuff was possible.

Maybe not the generative side of things.

I, I think we sort of over overvalue what generative AI really can do

for, for, for real problem solving.

Um, but it gives people the idea of like, whoa, I didn't know this was possible.

Right?

And now they start thinking about what if, what if, what if in a way that wasn't

really happening quite as much before.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I almost, I almost wish.

That we would've been a little bit more thoughtful in rolling that out.

I, I think my biggest, one of my biggest gripe with how events

have unfolded the last 13 months is that, Hey, we have this thing.

Here you go.

Oh, oops.

It caused trouble.

Oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you.

Sterex, this is in beta.

Take it with a grain of salt.

All right.

You started a race and now everyone is dumping stuff out there and then

going back and say, oops, sorry.

I, I, I I love tech.

Don't get me wrong, my entire journey has been around tech

and I love toys.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : We're, we're, we're, we're all in.

We all have the, uh, the, the, the, the tech bug, I think.

Yeah.

We get

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: So, So, so, I, I love it.

But, but there is, to a certain extent, needs to have a little

bit of responsibility and accountability, and I don't see that.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Where do you think that

should be coming from?

Like who, whose job is it to hold whoever accountable for

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Oh, don't, don't get started on this one.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Oh boy.

Oh boy.

Oh boy.

Oh boy.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : See, I, I,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I

think, I think we need to, I need to poke on this one then.

Ted

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : I, that was a good poke.

It was a good poke.

I mean, realistically, I look at it as it should never be a government period.

Um, it.

it.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Who should it be, do you think?

People that have an inherent interest in getting a big pie, we

can trust them to come and say,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Yeah, I,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I'm gonna hold back.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : I think it should be,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: a rhetorical question, by the way,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : oh, okay.

, you stuck me with the rhetorical.

No, I, I mean, and I'll even go a little bit further.

Like I, I, the problem I have with governments making decisions on just

about anything is because it's based on limited understanding of unlimited, uh,

information, and they don't understand any potential side effects to restricting

the flow of things and or people.

So that's the piece that, that I say, I, I don't like the idea of our

governmental piece of playing in it.

I also don't.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : what, but what Ted, what if, what if

all they did was said, um, you, you need to disclose anytime you are interacting

with a customer through an artificially powered something persona, let's just say.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: So you don't end up with a Sports

Illustrated issue of fake profiles and

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Like, if you're gonna use it, you need

to, you need to, you need to disclose that it's this, it's ha it's here.

Right?

Like, uh, you are inter, the thing you're interacting with right now is not a

human being like, like num, like is that something that you think the government

should enforce as a requirement?

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : You make a good point.

Um,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: a spot.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : I know and

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : what uncut iss all about.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Exact Exactly.

You know, I, I mean.

If it is a general direction of something like that, that you should, you

should know, um, it should do no harm.

It should not cause any problems

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : But wait, so you would, you would, you

would not have a problem with that sort of

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : a gen, like the generality of that.

But that isn't what our, what governments do, though.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : So they did sometimes is right.

It's not, I, I agree that there's overstepping, but, but someone has

to decide if someone's going to put a rule in like that, right?

It won't be the platforms that are building these tools, right?

It will need to come

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : it'll never be the platforms.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : this is why Sam Altman and company, yeah.

they wanna go to DC and they wanna say it needs to be regulated and

these are the specific things that it should be regulated around which,

uh, surprise, surprise are likely to be favorable to open AI and Microsoft, right?

Like that's the sausage making process in reality.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Well, and that, that brings me into the

other question that I had is like, how.

How comfortable should we be or how are you guys looking at the

fact that you've got two major tech companies that are really driving

and there's a kind of a third one you can kind of sneak in there 'cause

they haven't been as public about it.

But you've got open eye AI slash Microsoft, you've

got Google that just

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I think, I think, I think

this is the thing we need.

We found out after everything played out last time around, it's Microsoft

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: They

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Open.

AI is not open.

AI is not an independent organization.

They're Microsoft's subsidiary in all, but you know, legal, legal, legal paperwork.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: So, who else other than Microsoft are you

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Amazon is where I was going.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : So wait, Microsoft, Microsoft,

Google Meta.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Amazon

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : You don't include meta.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Nah, they're, they are using

it as a self-serving piece.

They are not opening it up to be able to be used in multiple different areas,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : But none of them are.

Right.

That's, That's.

my point in saying that OpenAI and Microsoft is really Microsoft, you

know, it's, it's, it's being fed.

Microsoft's not putting 15 billion, 20 billion, whatever is ultimately gonna be

delivered to, to build that tech because they think it's good for humanity, right?

They may think it's good for humanity, but that's not why they write the check.

Right?

They write the check because it's good for Microsoft

and there's, and, and, and they want Sam Altman there because they think

he's good for what Microsoft wants open AI to do, which is publish more stuff

and go faster and like get this out.

So I, I do think it's important to just recognize they all have self-interest.

None of them are doing this from a position of the greater good.

Even if

they, even if as individuals, they may think that way as corporations.

They're not allowed to because of being

who they are.

Right?

They're capital constrained, public market driven entities that have

no choice but to keep growing.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Yeah.

And I think one of the things I really wanted to, was thinking more about

was I as a person can have a direct relationship with the language model

or multimodal model depending on which platforms you choose to use.

Whereas with meta, you get a user interface that's through their systems

and, and it doesn't really allow the building on top of, but more

the more interaction within meta.

At least that's been my

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : the, however, the, the, um, if

you look at what they did with chatbots in the, in the messenger.

Platform.

They opened their platform for brands to integrate with their APIs to

deliver conversational experiences between bots and users on the platform.

This is no different, right.

I think what they're doing is they're, they're in addition to that,

they're building their own persona that you can then, you know, have

as your friend It's like part of your, maybe you don't have any real

friends, you can at least have one.

You can you get your, your,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : wasn't that a wasn't that a movie?

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : It's been a couple movies.

Yeah.

usually.

Usually.

Yeah.

Lars.

Lars.

Is that one?

Lars and The Real Girl?

Is that the one you're thinking of?

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Yeah, those, yeah.

And then there's, uh, another one too, and I, I, I can't

remember what it was, but yeah,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know, I know.

The one.

I

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : the guy where he falls in

love with, with the aI bond

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Mm-Hmm.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : her.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Oh, so Theodore, we, we, we did, we,

we've been, we've been like going back and forth where, where do you

lie in all of this craziness that we're, we're talking about here.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: In terms of what

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Um,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I have

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : perspective thoughts, you know, what

have you seen around, like realistically, you know, you get to meet a lot of

people as you go and travel and, and do your, your, your speaking engagements.

Um, and, and I've actually been at a couple where, where you've,

you've talked about the subject, um, just trying to understand, are

these big conglomerates a concern?

Are they not a concern?

What are you, what are you, what are you hearing and feeling,

especially around the FinTech world.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: it, because if you think about it,

right, we, we look at artificial intelligence and a whole slew of

technology as something that can be very transformative to how we work and how we

earn a living and how we live, period.

It's going to change our lives.

If that's the case, and, and I'll go back to then who

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I'm sorry, just Theodore, could you,

could I pause on that for a second?

Do you believe that

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I do eventually.

Not right now.

I think eventually it will

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : you paint the picture for me

around how better technology allows me to not work as much

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Oh, I, I, didn't say

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : working more, um, working more

jobs and, uh, and, and delivering more value to the shareholders.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

See, see, see, this is what we're talking about.

You had a whole notion

of assuming the direction was going.

I didn't say we're gonna work less

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : you said it's gonna make our lives better.

So if I'm working the same amount.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: it would change

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Okay.

Maybe

I, I, I, maybe I need to listen better.

Okay.

Say, say, tell me again.

'cause I, I think I misheard.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: it's, it's quite all right.

That's what, that's what I tell my husband on a

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Uh,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: But it's, it's, it's, it would

change how we work and it would change how we earn a living.

So.

Let's say, for example, going, going back to the example that you guys

are talking about in banks, right?

The technology has replaced, the automation, has replaced some of the

things that we used to do manually.

And also now, if you overlay that with human longevity since early 19

hundreds and ta you probably heard this, we have earned and gained an

extra 30 years of healthy living.

Now, if you take a step back, look at me.

I just turned 50 last month.

My parents have been bugging me for the last year.

Why aren't you retired yet?

Context.

My mom retired when she was 49.

Um, like, yeah, no.

What am I gonna do for the next 50 years?

Sit at home, toddle with them.

First of all, I cannot afford it.

Second of all, no, that's boring.

Um, so just by this really small example and I look all around me.

We have changed how we work.

We have changed how long we work.

I was just reading a report earlier today that is talking about the fastest growing

group of people who are still working.

By the way, that's not a good news, are people that are older than 75, I would

say part of us, because they cannot afford

to stay living in a, you know, certain, um, standard, if you will.

They just can't afford it if, if you live an extra 20 some years longer.

So they have to stay working.

But technology also allow us to change how we work, right?

People are going to semi-retirement, not full retirement because now

you have access to tech that you can work remotely, for example.

So it has changed how we work.

That doesn't mean we're working less.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Is it,

I guess I'm curious if you think that, if you look at this future

that you're envisioning and what does it, how does it make you feel?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: How many drinks do you want?

Uh, I don't have

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : know, I did not prepare with

with adult beverages though.

Now I'm starting to feel like I should have.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I know.

I get my mimosa going.

It's still, it's still, uh, mid-morning in, uh, my time zone.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: it's two o'clock.

I can start my whiskey bottle, but it, it's, it, it's more, I think, I think

that is a really broad question that needs a little bit of unappealing.

'cause I think how we deal with it and

the impact of it on a lot of people in the United States, in the UK and Europe

is going to be very different than the impact of it for people in global South.

For people that are emerging economies.

I think that's where we don't do a good job because we

generalize things a lot.

So going back, for example, to the example, I think earlier we're

talking about AI and the ability, um, with Image sensing technology and

recognition and all of that to allow small hold farmers to get access to

microcredit that's been going on.

So for example, my bank in um, Asia, they have used a 3 1 0 model for micro lending.

Three minutes to assess your credit, one second to dispense

the credit zero human interaction.

And they do it because they have a huge database of data about you as a person

and about you as a small business owner.

So that's how they use to de-risk some of their lending decision.

And boom, here you go, you're farmer.

We have, um, the ability, you take a snapshot of the crops you're growing.

We know who you are.

We know what you're growing.

We validate that this is a growing crop.

This is how we assess the risk.

Here you go, $10 microloan.

Right?

So that has changed how people.

Earn a living, if you will, because now they have access to a little bit

of money to get farm equipment, to get fertilizers and et cetera, et cetera.

So that

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : who, who's who's, um, I guess who's

driving that in terms of like the, is it a profit motive primarily?

Is there.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: private

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : It's not, it's not always,

micro loans aren't necessarily the best business model.

So it's, uh, they

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: works for, for, it works for Ant.

My bank is part of Ant

and

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I see.

But is it purely, is it purely about like monetizing the loans or is it

because they've got this massive platform network play and then they just, they're

getting people deeper and deeper into the, the super, the super app experience

and now

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: App has been around for eight years.

Come on, we're just catching up to it.

Um,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : been around it for eight years?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: super App, super App has been in alive

and well in Asia since, I don't know,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Oh yeah.

Sup Super app is not coming to the US though.

So it's a very, it's a very, it's a very different sort of,

I'm just curious if their approach to kind of microlending, is it

actually about profit on lending or is it about, uh, ecosystem

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I think it can be both.

It doesn't have to be either or does it?

It can be both.

It

can be you are doing good while you're doing well.

I mean, that's the whole thing about the

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : So why, so, so that would suggest back

to Ted's point, um, it ride, right?

Like don't get in the

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: and they have been, no one is getting

in the middle of my bank, right?

But that tech is used for a very particular purpose.

Now, if you fast forward to where AI is and what people wanna use, this is

when governments start getting into the middle, like, oh, whoa, wait a minute.

What?

What exactly are you doing in here?

And we need to pay attention because the technology evolves and grow, right?

It doesn't stay static.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : is that, is, I guess, are you, are you

thinking that for an, in this example, should be supervised in the use of like

how they apply, like the decisioning logic for who gets a loan and who doesn't?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I know not so much so that, but more

so in what exactly are they doing?

And do some of the pots and pieces need to be broken up?

I think that's been very public.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Antitrust.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : What if there are biases in their

dataset that are favoring one group

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: What if there's always bias and data?

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : But I thought that was a

problem.

Isn't that a problem that we need to have help solving?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: you are asking Todd, you are asking me

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I don't know.

Ted.

Ted, what do you, what do you, what do you know about Ant Financial and whether

they need to be regulated because of their potential misuse of bias data?

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : I I don't think it's Ant

Financial, only Ant Financial.

I, I think it, it is across the board, whether you're a

financial institution lender, a non-financial institution lender.

Anybody that extends some sort of credit

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Mm-Hmm.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : has their own biases, but that

also goes into what they believe to be their risk tolerance.

That's why we have so many different options.

That's why there are so many options around the world to be

able to, to get lines of credit.

I mean, heck, I could go to my neighbor and ask them if

I can borrow a cup of sugar.

Their bias around that cup of sugar and whether or not they think that I'm a good

neighbor is gonna make that decision.

So even when you get into the machine learning and any sort of generative

ai, you're going to have those biases because the individual people that have

made the decisions on what they feel comfortable with for their organization

are gonna be baked right into it.

And so

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I agree,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: are humans.

That's

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : the us in the US at least, there are laws

as well that deal with the fair, uh, uh, you know, use of how you apply credit.

Right.

To, you know, there's a, there's a lot of information that that can be,

that has historically been used to

disqualify borrowers.

Right.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: is,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : That was, very much discriminatory.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: That still happens.

That's, that's not history.

It's still present day.

There are still people that do not get access to the credit that they need

because of the color of their skin.

Because of historical bias and data that still very much happens.

There are still people who aren't able to sell the houses the price they want

because of pictures that they have in the house that has not changed.

Come on,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I'm not saying, I'm not

saying the problem is solved.

I guess my, my, my question to the both of you is, should AI be subject to those same

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: of course is

garbage and garbage out is garbage in, garbage out.

I mean, as simple as that, right?

If your data that you use

is partially based on historical bias because of redlining, because

of everything that we have done that we thought was okay, and

now is manifesting itself in

present day 2023, of course it needs to be fixed.

And that was why CFPP came out couple of months ago and said.

Hold your horses for all of you guys using AI in your automated credit decisioning.

Make sure you can explain what you're doing if you are rejecting someone's loan

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Ted, you started off earlier by saying

you don't want the government anywhere close to making any decisions about the

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I think he had fine prints there,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : I, I, I still, I like, I really struggle

with, with when they get super granular.

That's, that's the biggest piece is that when you, when you get down to saying

you must do this, and it is down to, I.

A data level or a data field, or it is attached to something

that has additional ramifications to it without identifying it.

That's where I really, really struggle with that.

And

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: struggle because of government saying

yes, you can cannot do certain things?

Or is that your struggle?

Because the government may or may not have the right resources and the

people who know what they're doing to be able to set up those guidelines,

because that's two different things.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : yeah, I, I think mine is more around that

we are humans and we come become very biased very quickly, especially when

money and people and proximity effect starts to kick into effect as well.

And that increases the gap between understanding and

the knowledge that they have.

And that's the piece that I really, really struggle with governments and,

and I will go on record saying this.

I don't agree with lobbying.

That's a big piece that really, really bothers me.

The lobbyists should not be able to go in and do that.

And, and it's not just the us it's other places as well.

It really should, should Exactly.

But it should, it should come down to, they actually should have to talk

to the people in their communities, not listen to people that represent

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Special interests.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : represent their people.

Right.

It's like there's, there, it's gotten so far away and, and

there are countries where, where bribery is still alive and well.

And

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : still, it's, it's, it

happens everywhere, right?

It's just the extent to which it's endemic perhaps is, um, you know, could

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : that's, that's my

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : how widespread and how influential it's,

I mean, someone is getting removed from the House of Representatives in part

because of some of those accusations, um, that have kind of gotten, that

gotten to an extent where, you know, for the first time in a very long time,

there's, uh, action being taken, right?

So it still happens here.

And I agree with you on that front.

The one thing I would say though is that like, and this is, this is sort

of the thing, having worked for mega corporations and knowing the people who

work there, and I know they're not evil.

I know they're actually like really nice good people, human beings.

But they represent a set of interests that, that are, that are not human beings.

Right?

So this is the thing around like corporations are people.

That whole like Supreme Court decision that came out that like, has had huge imm

implications in lots of different areas.

But one of the things that I've noticed is like, it doesn't matter if you're

a good person working, if you're working for a public corporation.

The public corporation has a set of interests that, that

don't care about inherently

things that are maybe important to you as, as a person.

But one of the things that they, they will, they would do, and I know

this 'cause I also have friends that were on government relations, you

know, that worked in those jobs.

They really did see one of their key missions of, of informing lawmakers.

And you come to the point around they don't know enough.

Right?

And it's true.

How are they gonna learn?

In part

they've gotta learn from the industry.

They don't need to do what the industry tells them to do, but they.

You need to work with people who actually work in the industry to

know what the industry is doing.

You know?

So it's a, it's a tricky one.

It's very, very difficult to say, because we said there's no lobbyist, and that

means anyone that's not a, uh, elected member cannot have a conversation.

And you're not from my district.

Right.

I can't have a conversation to help inform you about the, you

know, understanding this technology and its implications better.

I, I think, I think it is a tricky situation, but, but

Not informing lawmakers, and you can call it lobbying.

I think that's generally what it would be referred to as, you know, it's, it's

it's like they do need to be educated.

Sometimes the only people who can educate them are the ones

who are working in the space.

A think tank doesn't necessarily have access to what's

really going on in business.

They're smart people, but you've all worked with people who are

not inside the companies, right?

They're consulting on the outside.

Perhaps.

Maybe, you know, a lot around the, the overall picture, but don't

really know about the, the nuts and bolts of what's happening inside.

And so if you gotta trust over time that, that lawmakers are doing their jobs, I

think there's not much faith in that.

And that's probably why you, you probably have these concerns, Ted.

I think we, I share them too.

I.

just don't know.

who else can do it.

I don't know what the alternative is.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : So, I mean, really the, the two places

that I've seen it not work is, um, especially when you, when you look at

all the regulatory that they try to put around credit cards and debit cards,

those, those, never work because there's always another loophole.

There's always something else.

Please

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : never work In terms of what outcome,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : well, the, the outcome that

they're hoping for is reduced costs

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : to

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : to the end consumer.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Mm-Hmm.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : That, that, that, that's a fool's errand because

they're always going, the corporations and the companies and the businesses

are always looking for additional ways to generate revenue and it, they will

always leverage any sort of regulatory piece that provides something to go

against in order to generate that revenue.

Then you look, look at a number of other areas when it really starts to come

into the investment side of the house.

You know, I'm, I may not be listed as.

As a person, I may not be listed as an accredited investor, but that doesn't

mean I don't understand the market.

That doesn't mean I don't understand the company in which I'm investing in.

It doesn't under mean any of that stuff.

But because I don't have a certain net worth, because I don't have a certain

background, because I don't have a certain thing, I can't invest in the

things that I want to invest in because they believe, because I don't have that

money, I don't know how money works.

And so like things like that

are really

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : excluding access.

Right?

Like it's like

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : exclusionary.

Yeah.

And I, I think that's

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : then it's put, it's putting a layer

in between that A small group of very wealthy folks can then kind of have a lot

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : wealth.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : control and yeah, they get to

participate in these markets that are closed off to the public.

Right.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : So that that's,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: me ask you this,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : go ahead.

The

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: So looking at what we have in here, here

loud and clear what you do not like.

What do you think about what the EU is doing with respect to data privacy and ai?

Because their approach is very different than

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Yeah, I, I mean, I, I, yeah, data privacy.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: doing is whacking or at

least it's helping Somewhat.

Like, I'll give you a quick example,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : if it's helping.

I think it makes people feel good.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: So was

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : isn't that what we're here for?

To feel good?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Aw, gr hug.

Um, but Apple, right?

Apple.

Yesterday they said they're gonna open up their tap to pay technology

to competitors in pot because they are under immense pressure from

the EU that we're gonna sue them.

So wouldn't you think that might be one sliver of hope that perhaps

regulation does do something?

A trick question,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : I don't, I don't think it's, I.

I don't think it's the right approach.

I think attacking individual companies is not the right approach, and

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : that, would that be an attack though?

I

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : it is

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: they're just

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : you s when you single out an individual

person or corporation about something you don't like that they're doing,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Mm-Hmm.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: but they're

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : an attack.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: customers.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : yeah.

They're hoovering up all the volume and they're charging the fee that

they get to decide what the price is.

There's no, there's no, there's no constraint in the market that can, that

can affect like what they choose to do.

Like they

' don't have a natural competitor, so it's either break them up, right.

Antitrust kind of steps in and actually have to like, break up the company or,

or they agree to these kinds of things,

right?

Like, I think it's like if you, if you, if you think a world that's

full of monopolies is a good place for us all to inhabit, then I

think that's the other extreme, right, is like, don't do anything.

Apple Google and these handful of companies, eventually they run everything.

Right?

And, and we don't, I don't think we want that either.

Right.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : But this brings me back into the whole idea

of, around my perspective and really how I look at the, the Web3 side of

the house is like, I really believe that . Providing the ability to be

self-sovereign and, and how I move my information myself and everything, and

making it distributed versus centralized within these organizations is really the,

the place that I think we can do the most good is, is to allow for that to happen

and not to restrict that from happening.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: So let

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : But, oh, sorry.

Go ahead.

The.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: oh, sorry.

I was gonna say, let me ask you a rhetorical question.

Let's say that is the ideal path to go forward.

What would you do with the big tech companies right now?

Are you going to, as a government, tell them, Hey, you know what?

What you're doing is not good?

Stop it.

Then.

That will be part of stopping in.

Now, to your point, if we're gonna let them go and do how

the free market dictates.

That's not gonna change either because they have all the resources.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Hmm.

Yeah.

And I, I think you, you, you touched on a piece that reminds me that I'm not

normal, I'm not like most people, um, uh, be, because I even remember back

looking at, really when I was learning about blockchain down to the, the bits

and bites level and figuring out how it works and the distribute distributed

ledger technology that it represents, and thinking about all the really cool stuff

you could do to trace and track things.

And it got like super down into the weeds.

And this is where I'm gonna bring it back to the artificial

intelligence discussion, right?

This is where I think that forms of AI can be really helpful because one of

the thoughts that I had was, it would be really, really cool that if I could see

where fractions of pennies go every time I pay my taxes, I wanna see everywhere

that it goes, every last 100th of a penny.

I wanna know where it goes and if I don't wanna fund it, I wanna

be able to say stop funding.

And to me, like giving that level of control and access

would be awesome for me, but.

Most people don't want to go that deep.

Most people want to say, here's what I believe at a really,

really high level, please tell me what I should or should not do.

And I think that's the place where we get really,

really dangerous areas.

Um, and that's kind of where we're at today.

At least that's how I feel with these big companies telling us

how we should or should not feel.

I have a similar feeling around religion, but we won't talk about that today.

We've already hit on politics.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I guess I, I guess Ted, what you're

describing is like, uh, it's a, it's a, it is definitely a very different

approach to organizing society, right.

Along those lines.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : me to be autonomous.

Just allow me to be autonomous.

It's all I ask.

Let

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : and, and some,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : they may.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : somewhere between then and now we

have, we have these giant companies that are becoming larger all the

time, and I mean, we can come back to the, the open ai, Microsoft.

Conversation for a second, right?

Microsoft's been exposed to plenty of its own antitrust issues.

Now, they, they, they own effectively, um, the leading developer of this

particular generation of AI capabilities.

And whether they wanna keep it open or not, keep it open or put it

inside binging, and that's it, right?

Like, uh, they're gonna be able to make that decision, you know, uh, absent

some kind of external, uh, either market force, there's only two options, right?

Market forces compel them, or the government compels them.

And if market forces are shaped by them while this is in its embryonic stages, and

then they influence government oversight.

I just see there's a, there's a, there's a path here where before it even has

a chance to really get out there and become like a competitive market.

It's already like captive.

And, and the four biggest tech companies have all the engineers, they have all

the ip, they have all the, they've set all the rules and then it's gonna be

like, okay, so their profits get bigger.

And the rest of things I, this is where I come back to what you

were saying, Theodore change Sure.

Like on, on some levels, but fundamentally, you know, as like who

we are as beings, as, as organisms, I do sometimes think we overstate how

much this stuff actually really changes us versus maybe shapes our thinking

of like what we see and experience, but doesn't really fundamentally

change things as much as I think we,

I.

Sometimes are concerned that it will.

So anyway, so I it's a long-winded statement.

Right.

But I think it's like, I, I, I think we need to have some oversight.

That'd be my position.

Some oversight I think is necessary.

And, and to pump the brakes kind of mentality I think is a good one.

Um, slow things down

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: And I think at,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : I'm like, pedal down, let's go.

go.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: dive right in.

I think at large we need to have a more coherent strategy on how we can

level out the playing field, right?

So, so a couple things.

Um, first and foremost, the people that have access to technology

that can take advantage of them as a sliver of the society.

What's gonna happen to the rest of the people?

What's gonna happen to the rest of the world that do not

have access to the technology?

And a lot, a lot of these tech is built based on Western languages,

is built based on what we know how we do things.

What about the global south?

What about people who don't use English as their language?

Right?

So are we thereby creating a larger divide?

If this is going to be our future, what are we going to do to change it?

That's the part when I say is going to change how we live and how we work

because it is increasing the divide of the haves and have nots.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : You know, it's funny that you not funny.

I shouldn't say it's funny.

It's not funny.

It's actually not funny at all.

But it's interesting that you've made that point.

'cause I constantly am hearing from the fan, fan people, fan boys and girls and

and non-binary folks that AI is going to.

Make things like, oh, this kid in the, you know, in urban Detroit who can't get

access to, you know, a calculus tutor.

They can have one now, right?

And, and the, the, the girl in Sudan, right, who just wishes that

she could learn whatever, right?

Like this is the, this is sort of the tech, the tech utopian fantasy

that, that kind of, I feel it covers over, it smooths over a lot of the,

maybe other, other implications.

And my, my feeling has been similar to yours, um, Theodore, which is

like, I, my, my expectation is that those who have access to the tech

will use it to their advantage.

And then, and then the gap will widen,

right?

I, I don't know, are we, are we in the extreme minority

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Mm-Hmm.

. Yeah.

We're, because every time when I say that, people look at me like, no

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I think it's democratizing

information, right?

They, they've bought into this, this, this sort of promise that

we are going to give the best thinking in the world to everyone.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Right.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : why is that not the case?

The English piece I think is really good.

So it's

just, I think it's even true within this English speaking world that

it's, that it's likely to have a a in, it's gonna increase that

disparity.

I'm curious, like

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: it, it's, it,

is.

I I think the other part is digital inclusion.

We are

not thinking enough about digital inclusion.

The entire world of the future that we have is built on having

access to affordable internet.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : mm-Hmm.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: internet.

A lot of people don't have internet access.

A lot of people cannot afford internet access.

And we're not just talking about rural, we're talking about urban, right.

So it costs money.

We tend to forget that I have a gig pipe in here, but I've

sometimes it's easy to forget.

It costs money to get

that and, and so is this increasing the divide?

Absolutely.

Hell yes.

Unless we can get to the point where we say, you know what?

This is the starting point.

We need to level up the playing field for everyone.

We will make sure that everyone on the planet have access to broadband internet,

and then we can start from there.

But of course, we'll not get there.

So.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I, I, I, I agree on that front for lots

of reasons, and I, and I think, so my, my added sort of perspective on this

particular subtopic is, is also that I think community and local culture

and the capability of, let's just say parents to be available because

they're making enough money that they can then also, like Guide their, their

children in terms of like learning.

Like it's, for me, it'd be way we'd get a bigger bang for our proverbial

buck if we invested in lifting up the conditions of working families.

Um, so that they could be more available to support their children than to say,

Hey, we're gonna give everybody, uh, fiber connection and free access to ai.

And then the bots will teach the kids and the parents can keep working three jobs.

Um,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I think we need both.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : and everything's gonna get better.

'cause the technology's giving them, uh, world class Stanford education

at home, which they won't use.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Right.

I, if you were in front of me, I would've given you a big hug.

Um, I, I can't

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Thank you.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I can't agree with you more.

Um, unfortunately, we do live in a society where if people are

poor, we blame them on being poor.

If people are poor health, we blame them on having poor health.

So

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Well, but this issue is, I think, going

to make that worse because now it'll be like, well, look, we gave you the ai,

like we gave you a free subscription.

Like what?

You can't, you can't learn differential equations.

Like

what's, I don't know, what else you want us to do?

Like what, what else can we do now?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: my middle school son, he tried

to use, uh, Chad GBT to help him debug his Python code.

He came back after a few days, he's like, this thing's not working.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I know.

Well, you know, you know what I saw last week was really fascinating.

Cheating is not up since the introduction of chat GPT, because

it's shit, it doesn't work.

It's garbage.

Like, have you ever, I, I know Ted, you and I have different

maybe opinions on this.

Um, I have almost never.

I've done, I've tried it hundreds of times.

Just, just 'cause right?

Like I've almost never found anything of value coming from that process that

I've, that I've been able to take into my actual life or work and, and, and make

it make what I would've done by myself without that system supporting me better.

In some cases it was worse 'cause I spent like an hour trying to get it to

do something and then it didn't get there and I didn't need to do it myself anyway.

Right.

So I, I, I also, that's the other piece of it.

I don't even think it's all that good.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Yeah, I, I, I definitely have

a difference opinion on that

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Oh,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : let's hear it.

Ted

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: do

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : yeah, I mean, just for, for me, um,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Wait.

Is this really you or is this like a

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : no, this is not an avatar.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Oh no, wait, I See,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Right.

Are there legs?

Are there legs there?

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : So.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I see a Microsoft logo showed

up in the upper corner of your

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Ah, crap.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : what's, what's going on?

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : I'm just kidding.

Oh my gosh.

No.

I mean, realistically, when, when I look at it, and it's not just Chad GBT,

there, there are a number of them that I leverage for, for different reasons.

And, and a lot of times it, it's not meant for me to create something

using it or to use what was created, let me word it that way.

It wasn't meant to use what was created.

What I've leveraged it for are to help me break the way that I'm looking at

something, or it's like, this is kind of the thought process that I had.

Does it make any sense?

And if you put something that doesn't make any sense in there and you ask it

to help you explain it, it's gonna tell you in one way or another, whether or

not you're making any sort of sense.

And so.

Leveraging it to do that, or, um, even doing a lot of the research

to, to talk to you all today to find and, and go through this.

I was able to traverse tons and tons of articles across the web,

pull them in, ask it to annotate and tell me which articles it came from.

Then tell me what the similarities were across the board.

Tell me what the differences were.

And so that gave me that piece of going, okay, well here are the external opinions.

I don't agree with that.

I agree with that.

That one doesn't make any sense at all.

So I'm just gonna put that as an outlier.

But like, and maybe that's just my personal bias too, right?

So really doing that to be able to get the information in and,

and not have to spend hours.

Clicking on every single article or reading it and taking a note

to what I, what I captured.

Like I can literally have it do a word for word scan of all of these things and tell

me how many of the same words were used.

And you'd be amazed at like how many people have just taken the same thing

and publish, republished it again.

But that has been huge, especially when I'm doing research on

projects and on information.

Is

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : in this case, it's stuff

you don't know very well.

Right.

And that's when it's been helpful.

If you know it,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : no.

Even, even, no, that's not true because I'm very familiar with this,

but I don't know how other people feel about it or what other people

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Well, that's, that's

the same thing, right?

'cause that would be like, you know, the topic, but maybe you're not familiar with.

Some aspect, right?

And this aspect in this case is opinion, right?

You wanna know like

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : External opinion.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Yeah.

Yeah.

So you wanna get a sense of like, what is, like, I know my view, I know

a lot about the topic, but I don't know the broad like perspective.

I so that, that's an interesting way to use a tool.

Never thought about trying that.

That's a,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : then also I know that I write

in a very specific way that

sometimes is extremely hard for other people to understand.

Uh, even myself sometimes.

So , I will ask it to dumb it down and then I'll get an understanding of like

how to bring the verbiage I've used down to a lower level and then I tweak

it in order to still feel like me.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Hmm.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could just know how to do that though?

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Yeah.

But that takes time of learning.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: But that's the fun part of it.

It's just like reading.

I, I, I think I, I

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : But I have more fun figuring out

the, the prompts to use to get it, to do what I want it to do

than I do actually doing the thing

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Hmm.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: okay.

I I get that.

I don't know.

I find joy in, in, in digging.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : I just love, I love our response to that.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I, I'm the weirdo who, who used

to pick up a thing of Britannica encyclopedia and read through it.

So this, this is me.

I find joy in flipping through, in serendipity learning.

Um, I.

I had never used that for, for, um, what I write.

'cause I always have a wonderful editor that's clean up my stuff.

Um, but, but I had

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : a human, A human, editor.

Yeah.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: human.

I like humans.

I'm like this old school dinosaur that I love humans.

Um, I had used that recently for, um, graphics and it has failed me ably.

Um, I

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Well, it's not meant to create the

gra so that's the other piece is that it's not meant to actually create

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I'll tell you

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : that, it's meant to give you inspiration because

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Oh God,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : a point where it cannot do that.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: it gave me inspiration

from a newsletter tomorrow.

That's what

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Uh,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: did.

Um,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : stay tuned.

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Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: oh yeah.

I, I asked it to, um, to, to, to create an image for me that depict

group of FinTech founders talking about predictions for the new year.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Mm-Hmm?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Do you wanna guess what they all look like?

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : white men in

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : No, not just that.

It's,

it's,

the hoodies in

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: oh, no, no hoodies.

It's all rode up.

Um, uh, shirts with beautiful jackets and beautiful hair.

Beautiful hair.

Every single one of them have beautiful hair,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : well, isn't that important,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: different tools,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Hey, them fighting words.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: same but it was, it was wild.

I'm like, really, really?

None of the founders I work with look like that, but Okay.

Um, so, yeah,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : but I think so.

So here's kind of where I go when we start talking about, I.

Language models and this level of the AI that we're talking about

right now is, is that piece of it?

Is it that we don't know how to ask the right questions?

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Are you talking about prompt engineering?

Is this, is this a, is this, is this like, are you blaming Theodore and

I for not being good at prompts?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Yeah,

we clearly don't know what the heck we're doing.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : No, but what, what I'm saying is like, is, is the,

are we not asking questions or asking the right questions or asking 'em in the right

way based upon the perspective of all the data that's out in the world today?

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : are, are you, but are you referring to

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: wouldn't get that.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Yeah.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: I shouldn't have to force it to

say, please make sure you have mixed gender in your graphic.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Isn't that interesting?

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : But you would be describing

what you wanted to have.

That's the piece you have to look at.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : No,

the default though, see the default would probably feel pretty okay

to somebody that looks like us.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: No,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : actually No, it actually doesn't.

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Only Ted.

Yeah.

Only maybe.

Only Ted

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: the hair.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Oh my gosh.

No.

But what, where I was going?

Is it,

it,

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : is why he likes AI so much.

I see what's going on now.

Every time he

comes back, it's like there's a picture of this beautifully quaffed

like, you know, tech savvy dude.

And High five.

High five.

Ted, I loved your essay.

I got, I got some tips for you,

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : Where I was going with that is, is like.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: Sorry

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : it it does, it will show the biases

that have been there for years.

By all means, it will always show the biases, because that's

what all of our content is.

If you look back at one of the very first generative AI bots that Microsoft tried

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Oh yeah.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : it, it immediately became

a white supremacist that that was full of hate speech like

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Well that one was self-learning

too though, right?

That

one.

That one I don't think started with a large language model.

It was more the people were like, this'll be fun.

We're gonna turn this thing into a monster.

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : But but what, but the thing is,

is that what they did was, was they, they gave it an information source

that was supposed to be diverse and information, and diverse in opinions

and diverse across the board, only to realize that . When it started looking

at the information, it wasn't diverse.

It wasn't that way.

The way it was being used is, was a completely different than the Perce.

The perception of how it was being used and what was there is

completely different than reality.

And this is where I go into talking about the prompt engineering

and asking the right questions.

Because where we are at today and the biases that play in and all of the

inequity that there is, that means that we have to ask the questions, the right

questions, and ask the questions the right way to be able to change the outcome.

Because if we don't ask the right questions in the right way, then

all we will get are more pictures of white dudes with great hair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, wearing hoodies and, and pushed up sleeves.

That's

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: me ask you, this is asking Amazon Alexa, is

the last presidential election stolen?

Is that a proper question to ask?

Because

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : That would not be of, that is

not a complete question though.

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: according to Amazon Alexa, which

for a while was pooling information from a particular website that might

not be a mainstream website, that asserted that indeed the last election

was stolen and it was full of fraud.

How should

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : But if you had asked the question

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: reword.

My prompt to get the proper information

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : you're getting the answer

you probably want, right?

If you're asking that question, you probably want

that answer, I would suspect.

Right?

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: or

Tedd Huff - Fintech Confidential : the biases that it has, based

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : It reinforce.

It would reinforce, yeah.

The, the question, the questioner's bias.

In that case,

Theodora Lau - Unconventional Ventures: so it,

right.

And, and, and it can go on and go on and, and nevermind that Amazon Alexa is

indeed a new site a lot of people rely on.

You can always say that is not the source, but you know what?

You pull it from a source.

So then my next question

Matt Vanhouten - Fintech Confidential : Yeah.

Nobody wants to sit there and listen to, to, um, uh, Alexa, go.