Summary
In the latest episode of Dr. Pawd, Gustav Söderström, the Chief R&D Officer at Spotify, gave an intriguing interview. The conversation began with the recall of a fascinating experience in which Gustav imported Xiaomi Media Roborock S50 vacuum cleaner from China in 2017. This robotic vacuum cleaner mapped his entire house and went from one room to another without getting stuck even once! Impressed by its performance, Gustav bought one for every floor of his home.
When asked about his leadership style, Gustav shared that he is inspired by two leadership styles. The first is a "leading by doing" style that he learned during his military service in Sweden. It emphasizes that if you want your people to do something, you have to do it yourself. The second is a meritocratic Socratic debate style, where the best idea should win. Gustav's leadership style is based on Socratic debate.
Moving ahead, Gustav shared his opinion on the long-term value alignment problem between machines and humans. Although he believes it's crucial to solve this problem, it cannot be solved through an algorithm because humans also have the value alignment problem amongst themselves, hence making it challenging to agree on shared values. He thinks consciousness can be the most significant solution to this problem. He believes spreading consciousness through the galaxy, biological or silicon-wise, can be an admirable goal for humanity.
When asked about his interests outside his work, Gustav revealed that he loves learning about new things like machine learning, quantum computing, or blockchain and would continue doing what he's doing right now for free if necessary. If he wasn't working at Spotify, he would try to combine AI with climate change, the most high-impact and important thing to do. Gustav further shared that he loves writing and telling stories, so he'd find some way to write if he had to volunteer for the rest of his life.
The conversation concluded with Gustav revealing that the last book he read was "Girdle's Proof" by Ernest Nagle and James R. Whitman on met-mathematics that talks about two statements that cannot be proved. He also divulged that he thinks competitiveness is an overrated virtue and regrets stopping singing in the choir during his teenage years. Overall, the interview gave listeners a glimpse of Gustav's impressive leadership style, interests, and opinions on the future of humanity.
