[David] But the most important, we gotta talk about technology. Allen. AI, Anthropic, even a- all three of the leaders. Altman, the Anthropic guys, and then even Elon Musk saying we must start managing our AI. This could get out of control- Yeah … and if not already.
[Allen] I’ll tell you what, great discussion today and I’m gonna use my content next week, but I wanna talk about what the topic you just brought up. And there’s… A- it was funny because today, I typically go through everything. I go through HousingWire, National Mortgage News. I go through other online sources, The Crismon Report a lot, and I look at everything going on and- before I joined the pre-podcast call today, David, I was already like, I always talk about all the vendors and everything the vendors are doing. It’s just getting monotonous. Everybody’s leveraging AI. Everyone’s finding a different way to say that they’re doing the pre-underwrite audit, or everyone’s finding a way to say they’re interrogating documents and everyone’s doing the same darn thing. So it’s all great, by the way. I love what everyone’s doing, but I didn’t wanna talk about that today. And then you said to me, “Hey, can we talk a little bit today about what’s going on in the market with Anthropic and AI and the speed of AI and all that?” So I wanna bring that up. But I do wanna mention one thing which is really interesting. I found this over the weekend, and it ties into exactly what we’re talking about here. Elon Musk is going to have SpaceX, and actually I should re- reframe that. SpaceX AI is going to live stream the creation of an entire company built from scratch using nothing but Grok bots. So- Wow … the automation of building a company and all the things you can do with a Grok bot is gonna be live streamed. In addition to that where things really start to get just crazy is there’s going to be everyone’s thought about, can an idea that you want to build turn into technology that you can use, right? And I just said a moment ago that vendors, everybody’s doing the same darn thing, right? Everyone’s focusing on the same thing. And I’m framing it differently than how I was gonna frame it today, but I saw a TV commercial for Instacart, and if you are building technology and you’re vibe coding, okay? That’s a whole nother topic we could talk about another week, David and everyone that’s vibe coding and the compliance and the fact that we need to maybe slow down that thought we’ll talk about that. But if you’re trying to vibe code something and you’re running at something and you’re successful and you’ve got the smart people and you’re happy, that’s great. Get the coding done, all that. But let me say this one thing. Instacart went out, instead of saying that we have AI and being able to build your shopping cart and deliver your food faster, they said, “No, if you think of an idea of something you’re hungry for, tell us what it is and we’ll build your shopping list based on the things you need, and we’ll have it delivered in 30 minutes.” What a great, and I’m gonna beep the swear word right there, use of AI to be different, create a new category. I guarantee you that Uber Eats and everyone else, David, is gonna start saying the same darn thing. So- Yeah … with that being said I know you wanted to talk a little bit about Anthropic. I know we’re tight on time today, but I’m gonna turn it back over to you to ask the question that you wanted to bring up.
[David] The… I think first of all, the… Is it even realistic to talk to entrepreneurs and tell them, “We’re gonna idle back our innovation because we’re concerned where this is all going”? I’m going hey, you three here in the US may want to do that, but I don’t think China’s slowing down, and honestly, I don’t think anyone of those three are gonna slow down, ’cause they’ll make a public statement, because it’s gonna appease the regulators that we are self-regulating, you don’t have to worry about it. And then they’re gonna shut off the microphone and the lights, turn to their group and say, “I’ll deny ever saying this, but go out and innovate like hell, ’cause I don’t want any of these other ones to get ahead of us by being stupid and not innovating out.” Yeah. It’s at… We’re in a free market. Free markets have a way of… you can’t slow this stuff down. It’s what’s coming is coming, is my opinion. That’s what I want to hear
[Allen] Oh it’s coming. And by the way, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei- Yeah … he went on air on CNN and said, we gotta slow this thing down.” Now he said that one of the, issues with that is we’re in a race with China, and China’s gonna get ahead of us if we slow it down. There’s a giant political debate. I’ll save you all the details for the moment, but you wanna know who agreed? This is where things get funny. He agreed Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, endorsed the call within hours saying, “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.” And he said OpenAI would open itself to external evaluators. His framing was development should be slower than it otherwise could be. And then who’s gonna live stream, the gentleman that’s gonna live stream SpaceX AI’s building a company with nothing but bots Mr. Elon Musk himself reposted, Yeah … Amodei’s quote and said simply, “Dario is right.” And then Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, the researcher whose work underpins modern AI and who left Google in 2023 so he could speak freely about whatever he wants and its most importantly the risks of AI he said that Amodei’s warning was very sensible, and backed the call publicly. So everybody is agreeing that we have to slow the pace. No one’s saying how and in what way. It’s like saying we need to save money in our bank account, but no one’s… we could just say it and never save money. So there’s a lot of conversation about this, David. There was regulation that was taken out of a bill that Trump had to put it at the state level, and it’s gonna be on the pres- everyone in the presidential debate coming up is gonna be talking about it. There’s a lot of conversation, there’s a lot of compliance, a lot of risk. And the rise of the bots is upon us. So I said that all kinda quick just because of timing today, but it is a big topic.
[David] The bots are upon us. Wow. Allen, that’s good. It’s true. The bots are upon us. Where have we gone-
[Allen] Yeah, by the way, if you want your own bot, reach out to me. Yeah. I’m botting people.
[David] You’re botting it. And you’re- You’re enabling it, Allen. You’re a part of the problem. You’re enabling all this. That’s right. Yeah, I love it too. Sensei’s an amazing product. Thank you. Everyone’s wondering how they can make it work, get ahold of Sensei, Allen. So that’s a shameless plug for Allen’s new company. Folks, that is good stuff. Good conversation today. Thank you all very much.
Allen Pollack
, Chief Operating Officer, Tech Consultant
Allen Pollack, a Mortgage & Financial Services Technology Advisor, is a subject matter expert in the mortgage origination process along with software product management and software development.
In today’s financial services push to all things Digital, Allen has been helping lenders and financial services solution providers align their digital transformation and technology strategies by removing the human element of risk, and automating processes that drive efficiencies and margins into profits.
Over the course of his career, Allen has co-created and developed technology business models that have birthed highly successful, innovative solutions and companies.
Allen co-founded and served as CTO of New York Loan Exchange (NYLX), a loan product eligibility and pricing engine (PPE) that made an immediate impact on the industry, scaling the company quickly and forming partnerships with multiple mortgage and financial lending companies. In 2012, Allen was a co-founder of a merger between NYLX and Aklero Risk Analytics that created LoanLogics, A Mortgage Loan Quality and Performance Analytics company. Allen served as CTO where he continued to bring new and innovative product solutions to the market that made a significant impact to mortgage lenders that reduced risk, scaled business channels, and grew profits in a very competitive and highly regulated market.
Allen is also is mortgage and finance technology contributor on a weekly live industry podcast, Lykken on Lending, and is launching a new podcast soon to be released, TechStack Radio, dedicated to technology and innovation in Financial Services.