my guest and give you a little... You know my guests, and we're going to be talking to David Scalzo, founder and managing partner of Kirenaga Partners. I hope I am pronouncing it correctly.

If you're wondering why we're gonna be talking to David Scalzo, it's because he's an investor in a company called Clearview AI, which is all over the news, front page of the New York Times, controversy everywhere. It's the app that allows law enforcement, at the moment law enforcement is using it, to take a picture of anybody. It could be a dead body, a John Doe, a person on the street that they've stopped, and it will tell you, tell the police, who it is. It will give the identification from just a photograph. Scary. We'll find out.

David, can you hear me?

I can hear you. Good morning. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. Good morning.

Now, am I correct that you're an investor in Clearview AI?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we're venture capitalists. The name of our firm is Kirenaga Partners, actually a Japanese name, Japanese term. But before we get started, I just want to say, you know, I'm an engineer by training. And when you're an engineer by training, you know there's two people in the world you have a man crush on. One is Elon Musk and the other Scott Adams. So you know, I really appreciate that I'm able to be here with you today.

Well, thank you. I did notice from your biography that you've got two degrees in engineering, engineering and then engineering management, and then you've got an MBA from a top school in the country. So you're sort of an example of what I talk about in terms of talent stack. You know, you've combined different skills together so that you've just got a greater view of the world, which brings us to Clearview AI. You put money into that. Your firm did. Tell us, well first describe what the app is doing today so that we can get a little bit of context here.

Absolutely. So there is an explosion of digital information out in the world. More and more people are connecting to the internet and everyone, or a lot of people, are posting information. It could be information on academic journals. It could be videos. It could be people doing TikToks. It could be philosophy, sports, religion, charity. Everything people are putting on. And some of the most powerful tools for humans to improve ourselves, to give happier, healthier lives, is using things like search engines like Google, for instance, to search for words and find where those certain keywords come up on the internet.

So what Clearview does is something very similar. You take a picture, a photo of a person, and then it directs you to links essentially all across the internet showing where that person shows up in various contexts. So it is, in short, it's a search engine for faces so that you can put in a face as identification.

Absolutely. Which is... Now let's talk about the social implications. But tell us where it's being used. How many people are using it? Who is using it? Who has access to it? Is it the public or is it just police force?

Yes, right now it's a startup. And whenever you do a startup, you know, startup 101, whether you're at Harvard, Northwestern, Stanford Business School, is you target a specific industry vertical, someone who is a super user. And where they're using it right now is law enforcement. So there's over a thousand independent law enforcement agencies. And so this is everything from the federal government, all the alphabet agencies, to state police departments, to county sheriffs who are elected directly by voters, to local municipal police officers. And there's independent decisions to use Clearview.

Now, is it limited to the United States?

Right now it is, but you know the technology is definitely powerful enough and broadly enough to be used elsewhere as well.

All right. So how about give us some use cases. Tell us what crimes are solved. Why do police like using this thing?

Well, if you think about a detective, any crime show you watch, what's the number one thing they want to do? They want to generate leads. Who are possible suspects? And then they want to track them down using their skills. And they use credit card data and cell phone data and all sorts of other information, fingerprints. So what Clearview does is it helps them generate leads more quickly.

So if you have a suspect in a human trafficking, child exploitation case, and you only have a photo of someone, you can use Clearview, clearview the photo, and then it will show where that person may be on the internet, whether they have a Twitter profile or a Facebook profile, or whether they're at some sort of basketball game. And that generates leads and ideas for the police officers and detectives.

Where it's exceptionally powerful is when you're working with gangs, whether they are terrorist networks, whether they're drug cartels, whether they're mob gangs. And where you may have an inkling of one person in the gang but you may not know the other five, six, seven people. And so if you take a group photo, then what you can do is identify the other people or at least give you some leads. And then of course our law enforcement will follow those leads and determine whether the person should be implicated or not.

All right. Leads are funds. How many cases have been solved? Tell us about any happy endings that we know about so far.

Well, the New York Times article specifies one where the Indiana State Police have really talked about where they busted a whole network of, unfortunately, individuals who were taking advantage of children. And so getting those people off the street is very good. There was another one in Florida that they talked about where a person had a certain type of tattoo and that tattoo was then being was able to be matched based on that. Those are some examples.

Now, what types of crimes are the ones that are most likely to be usefully solved?

Well, it's clearly the most vile crimes out there, right? It's the child exploitation, the human trafficking, the domestic violence, the drug cartels, terrorists. Those are the ones more likely to be solved. But it's also for shoplifting, petty thieves, assault, subway gropers is one where it's used a lot, where you have a grainy photo, someone that's pickpocketing on the subway. Those are different types of things where Clearview can be used.

All right. I'm watching the audience. The audience is going crazy in the comments because they want me to push you on the social risks. So let's talk about that. So accepting that I would imagine law enforcement would be drooling over this product because it allows them to identify somebody who may not want to identify themselves or it might be in a situation where you're not necessarily in a conversation with them. But they also can it be used to identify, let's say, a dead body that doesn't have identification? It would do that, right?

Oh, it could. It could be helpful in that. You know what? I've talked to paramedics and EMTs, people. And a lot of times what you have is someone who has had a heart attack or who's fallen ill and they're unconscious. And you who is this person? Do we have any context? And so to be used with paramedics would be great.

Well, what if somebody is... I just saw a question, a really good question go by in the comments. What if somebody was an undercover cop and the bad guys got this app? Could they find their undercover cops potentially?

Sure, absolutely. So there are, like every new technology, there's going to be the good and the bad.

Now people are asking, where did the data come from? Are you scraping only from public legal sources? Do you have secret sources? Where do you get your database of faces from?

So we've, you know, let's start out with what I talked about. There's an explosion of digital information that people are voluntarily putting up on the internet, right? And so there's millions of faces up there and people have public personas on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on TikTok, on Instagram. In addition to all the other places that information is put. For instance, almost every single corporation out there has a public-facing website that has the pictures of, for instance, all the lawyers in their firm or all the consultants in their firm or their leadership. So what we do is we index all that public information and then just connect the dots, essentially link it all together. So it is only public sources.

Now there are other things that are public sources and that the government wants to get out. Those informations are like the most wanted list where they, you know, we link that together. They have the Center for Child Exploitation and trafficking. We link those and we link those together. But it's all publicly available information that is helpful to everyone.

So I noticed that story that in New Jersey is that the New Jersey police department decided to not use it, to ban it. Is that, do I have that information right?

So there was a pronouncement by one of the AGs of something to that extent. But let's take a broader view. You know, there's autonomous vehicles that are taking photos. There's gonna be FedEx drones flying over our heads that are gonna be taking photos. The best thing we can do is get this technology out to everyone because what it does is it increases transparency. And when you increase transparency you increase trust with people. And when you have trust you increase the opportunity for meaningful relationships.

Now here's what's going on in New Jersey. And you know this is obviously very early so I don't want to sound too hyperbolic on how this happens. But let's say they ban this technology and they only allow government to use this. What's gonna happen is you're gonna have a two-class, you know, a Hunger Games type society where the politicians can live in security and the rest of us wander among thieves and exploiters. And so what will happen in New Jersey is more people will move to places where it's safer like North Carolina and Florida. And that is the dystopian future when it's actually banned. If we are to be free it creates a better society for all of us.

All right. Let me tell you my personal stake in this in the sense that as a semi-famous person my reality is that when I go in public people recognize me by face quite often, especially since I've been doing the live streaming. So pretty much everywhere I go there's gonna be somebody who recognizes me by face. But they also know, because I'm a public figure, they know something they read about me that could be bad, usually not true, something about my background, my education, my career. So I've lived in this world, you know, 20 years ahead of the rest of you for a long time.

And so you're probably wondering what would it be like if every time I went out in public, well you know we're going to assume that this technology creeps into the public because it's inevitable, wouldn't you say it's inevitable that the public will have this tool? While Peter Diamandis says there's going to be a billion internet-connected sensors in the next five years, which means we're going to know everything at any time in anywhere. And so it is inevitable that this digital information will be out there.

Yeah. So let's just complete the thought. So if you're wondering, those of you watching this, you're wondering about yourself, right? You're thinking, okay, what does this mean to me? You know, what would happen to me? How would it feel? What's life like if every time I went out anybody who saw my face could know also my biography? And the answer is that's my life. That's exactly my life. Every time I go outside people recognize me. I don't recognize them. And they know my whole biography and they can treat me differently if they choose to. I'm sure some people discriminate against me because they think, oh you said good things about the president that one time. You know, I've got to be mean to him. So I've lived in that world and I got to tell you it doesn't make much difference.

So here's the weird thing about it. If I could snap my fingers and change it and make all of my privacy come back, I don't know if I'd care. You know, but believe it or not if you had asked me would I choose this I probably would have said no, I want my privacy. Because everybody's first reaction, right? There's nobody who wants to give up privacy if you ask them. But nobody asked me. I just lost my privacy because of life choices and it didn't make any difference. I can tell you I go through life and it makes absolutely no difference.

Now if let's say I had a criminal record, would it make a difference to me if people I interacted with knew I had a criminal record but I had served my time, I'm clean with society? What do you say about that world where somebody who really has paid their debt, followed the rules, but now it's going to follow them around in a way that it couldn't just before? What about that person? What do you say to that?

Yes. So the question is whether information should be hidden from people and then the second part is whether it's relevant to decision making or being left alone. And so we're against discrimination. It's very simple. So we have laws in this country for instance that have statutes of limitations for instance.

Oh let me stop it right there. Nobody cares about the laws in the real world. People are going to react the way they react and they don't give a damn about the law. So you know people are either gonna kick you out of the restaurant or not or give bad service and dirty looks or not hire you. But they won't say it's because of your criminal record. Although what is the law in that? Is the current law that if you have a criminal record you have to disclose it or you can choose not to? What is the law on that?

Well I'm not an expert in here and it very much depends on context. Let's say you're applying for a job. If you're applying for a job can the employer ask that question? I don't know what the current laws on that.

Well David Koch and Charles Koch of Koch Industries very famously have an initiative called Ban the Box where they want to make it illegal for employers to ask that question because they want to encourage people who have had felonies or prison sentences and have reformed to be able to be on a level playing field and get hired based on their skills and initiative rather than being discriminated against because they have to disclose something that maybe was... What if their crime was let's say a sex crime? You know let's say they had raped somebody. Don't you think that the other... I'm putting this on you like you have to solve all of the world's moral and ethical dilemmas. But would the employees of that company have a right to know there's somebody who had a history of let's say sexual assault which is unique, it's not like anything else? Should they have a right to know that?

Hey Scott I'll just say these are very complex issues that a lot of people need to think about. But I'll put it this way. You know based on your writing that humans are biased, right? That we take information and we filter it through our own lens and decide how to interact. So the question is do we hide what people see and we try to manipulate their bias so they act a certain way or do you give them all the information, all the data points, so that they can have a better sense of how they want to make a decision? And we're of the belief that transparency is better for everyone than trying to manipulate people by hiding information.

So let me do what I always caution people to do, which is to show both sides. Because typically these conversations, when somebody's an advocate for one thing or the other, so they're just going to say the pros or just going to say the benefits. So if I can list the benefits it would be massive improvement, I mean really substantial improvement in law enforcement catching people who need to get caught. So that would be one benefit. Another benefit would be more information. People would simply have better, more information, deeper information about other people that could protect the people who get the information. It could be bad for the person whose privacy has been given up because they might want to hide some things until later. But certainly good for the person who is getting the information. That person has benefited at somebody else's expense.

But and you make this point which is fascinating and I'm trying to think throughout human history can anybody come up with an example where more transparency was worse? And I think the worst case scenario which you hinted at is that when somebody has full privacy and somebody does not, that that's your very worst situation. Especially if the people who have the privacy are the government and the people who do not are the citizens. That's horrible. But it's also just as bad if your neighbor knows everything about you but you don't know anything about your neighbor.

So this is the sort of tool that sort of just opens Pandora's box and allows all of us to know way too much about each other. And I've long predicted, I'm in writing, I have predicted this a number of times, that partial privacy is the worst situation where somebody has it that somebody doesn't. The best situation, which we may never get to, people will resist because it's just natural to resist it, is where we all know enough about each other that we no longer give a damn about each other's flaws. And I know that's hard. It's a hard concept to hold. Amen. But if you actually know a lot about another person and you know all their flaws and they know a lot about you and they also know your flaws and they still say, "Scott, you want to go to lunch?" I am so cool with that person. I'm as cool with that person as you could possibly be because I know you, you know me. If you're cool with me and I'm cool with you I'm gonna understand you're a human being. You know we've all messed up.

This is why in part why I have the 20-year rule and the 48-hour rule about forgiving people's past behaviors. I'm a real big proponent of judging people by who they are right now, not judging people by that thing they did that's this follows them around forever. And I feel like we all have to get to that place and this may force us there. Because if you think about it you wouldn't like anybody if you knew all of their mistakes. You wouldn't like anybody. You know it would be the end of friendships, the end of hiring, the end of marriage, everything. But if you all know that the other is just as flawed as you are, different flaws, but it just exposes your humanity. You say, huh, I think I'm okay with that.

And by the way, just tying everything back to President Trump because we do that, I think the fact that all of his, let's say his personal life peculiarities, some would say their flaws, are so known that we were kind of comfortable with them. There's some things about knowing people's flaws that allows you to get past them. It's the not knowing that can be kind of scary.

So given all that what is the biggest pushback? What do you think is the, what do you think society is going to gel around to say we don't... Because you know there's gonna be pushback. What do you think they're gonna focus on as the thing that's the big con of this?

Well I think the biggest complication is when people say the word privacy it's really split into two things: anonymity and autonomy. Or can you be hidden and can you be free? And those can be separated. Being hidden, maybe everyone knows everything about you but the most important thing is just leave me alone. And those are the, that's the complication. And that's where we work as a society in figuring out what the rules are about being hidden, which I think is being eliminated by technology, and being left alone, which I think as a government, as a society, we come together and figure out what the rules of engagement are.

You know we're always afraid of the unknown. And one of the things I like to point out is if you could rewind to 20 years ago and I said to any one of you how would you feel if you lost all of your privacy about where you go and what you buy, you know all of your transactions and all of your physical location, what if that was all knowable or known? How would you feel? And most people would say my god I could not live in that world. But we live in that world. We live in a world where all of our transactions, many of us have our DNA already on some database. I do. I've got my DNA in several databases I would think. And it doesn't really make much difference. I still wake up, drink my coffee, do my Periscope. And unless I'm committing a crime and somebody's looking for me it makes no difference.

So I think we're approaching a time when crime might just go away because we would give up so much privacy, not to every single person but at least to the government and law enforcement should they want to check. And I'm looking for the costs. You know I keep looking for the tragic societal cost of either me who has no privacy when I go outside, people know who I am, and the government knows everything I buy and everything. They can probably tell everything I browse. All that. And it doesn't seem to make any difference in my life. Now I don't know how unique that is I guess. But if I were involved in criminal activity it might make a pretty big difference. But I'm not. So I think for most of you you would be more afraid than you need to be. It's just natural to be afraid of the unknown and it's natural to be afraid of giving up any kind of privacy.

But what would you say is the most valid argument by the people who say hey there's some costs coming at us, some societal costs? What is their best argument on the other side? I like to ask this to see how unbiased you are.

Yeah I think the best argument is always about historical data. You know what happens if someone accused me of something I didn't do or was found innocent? What happens if it's a long time in the past? Is that information readily available? Should it be available? What friction is there? And then who controls the past, right? Who decides whether data can be erased or not shown and who decides what can be shown? And that is a very difficult question to answer. And there's a cost to doing it both ways. There's a cost to letting people see everything that happened in the past and there's a cost to allowing some group to manipulate the past about what can be shown. So there it's not an easy answer for that one.

So I'm seeing some good questions going by here in the comments. People are saying what if you're not a multi-millionaire? I assume that's directed at me, you know, and pointing out that I don't have as much to lose. So I would imagine if you were trying to get a foothold in life or get a job after some bad situation in the past that would be pretty devastating. But how do you see that evolving? Do you think there's some people who would just be totally left by the side of the road by this kind of technology? It's just nobody will interact with them because of something they did in the past.

So I have three teenagers and they upload hundreds of photos every week and they're interacting with hundreds of friends on Instagram and TikTok and Snap. And it's interesting that they realize most of the stuff is transitory and even dumb. And they do allow their friends to evolve and change positions and they're still friends with them. Kind of like what you said is that they can be authentic and vulnerable and out there without having long-term biases against these friends.

And the other thing that people need to understand is most people don't give a crap about you or all your flaws. They really don't. I mean I think we all like to have this huge ego that I am so important and that anyone knows that I did something wrong ten years ago they're gonna care. Most people don't care. And if someone does, find a different friend.

It's like, oh yeah, let me give you two other filters to look through. Certainly that's one of the most important things that people don't care about you so much. But let's say everybody knew that you were a furry. You know I'm just making this up. Let's say they do that you like to dress up in animal costumes. Sure. Now your neighbors would immediately say oh I don't know if I can let the kids come over there anymore because you like to dress up in animal costumes. But here's the thing people never think about. All the other people who dress up in animal costumes would also be able to identify you. And next thing you know your life is ten times better because you don't care too much about your neighbor who doesn't like your habit. You just met a hundred friends that you're hanging out with and they all have the same interests.

So the first thing is if you're the only person they know has some weird, you know, or let's say unusual, I'm not even going to call it weird, let's say non-standard practice, you can find all the other people like you and suddenly life's actually better not worse.

The second thing is I'm gonna give you this real-life example. My late stepson when he was I think he was 18 or so I got him one of the greatest jobs you could ever have which is a job at a DJ company. He was gonna be an apprentice to be a DJ. Kind of a