1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Felix Hartmann, Hartmann Capital (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You know, I read something interesting as you’re talking about this idea of glasses and the augmentation of your experience.

The guy who’s the CEO of Scale AI—Meta has just invested a huge amount in that company—Alex, yes. He’s 27 years old, and he made a statement that he wants to delay having kids because he wants to wait for augmentation to become possible. He doesn’t want to disadvantage his kids by having them now, while we’re still preparing for augmentation.

How do you feel about that, since you’re working on brain-computer integration?

Felix Hartman: Yeah. I’ll first caveat by saying I think a lot of people jump to conclusions against him out of romanticism for the past.

I’m personally also in the embryo freezing process right now—we’re freezing, because I’m 30 and not quite ready to have children yet. I think there’s a lot more work I want to do before bringing children into the world.

I don’t know whether I’ll wait as long as he will until the technology is ready, but I do think technology is only getting better.

When it comes to the choice of whether or not to have invasive BCIs (brain-computer interfaces), I think the world will ultimately bifurcate between those that have them and those that don’t. And those who don’t will be passively disadvantaged.

We’ve already seen tests where foundational models can pass the LSAT, medical exams, and so on—AI is already outperforming, and it’s only getting better.

It’ll come down to a choice: do you upgrade to a 170 IQ or continue to be your natural self? Eventually, someone with a median IQ, when enhanced through tech, could outperform someone 10 points higher without it.

You can get philosophical about where this all leads—yes, it can feel like an infinite chase. But I believe that if we as a species could raise our collective IQ, we’d have fewer wars, less resource depletion, and we’d solve many of the big issues we face.

Does it make us less human? I don’t think so. I don’t think reading a book makes you less of yourself, either.

If anything, having a tighter integration of AI with our personality—what makes us us—will be better. Because I see worse outcomes happening without it.

Just look at today: if you get any kind of service email, it probably looks AI-generated. Not because anyone has a chip in their head, but because people have gotten lazy. They write an idea, copy-paste it into ChatGPT, ask it to improve it, and send it back out. We’ve all become bots, in a way.

If you play that out another three years, most people will be incapable of writing.

Sramana Mitra: Yes.

Felix Hartman: Most people will be incapable of forming proper critical thought. In the past, you had to think a problem through. Now people just ask ChatGPT, “What’s the solution?”

So ironically, even those who choose not to integrate may find their capabilities declining—unless they actively keep challenging themselves.

This segment is part 5 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Felix Hartmann, Hartmann Capital
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