Peter Diamandis On XPRIZE, Bitcoin, AI And The Future Of Humanity

Credits: Anna Tutova(Founder AI Crypto Minds) with Peter Diamandis(Founder XPRIZE Foundation).

In this interview withPeter Diamandis, visionary futurist, serial entrepreneur, best known, as Founder of the XPRIZE Foundation, co-Founder and executive chairman of Singularity University, named by Fortune as one of the "World’s 50 Greatest Leaders", we delved into the inspiration behind the renowned XPRIZE initiative. Peter reflects on his frustration with the limited avenues for private space exploration in the early ’90s, leading to the creation of XPRIZE to incentivize groundbreaking endeavors. Over the years, XPRIZE has evolved to address grand challenges across various fields, from space and ocean exploration to education and healthcare. Peter emphasizes the importance of incentivizing entrepreneurs to tackle ambitious endeavors and shift focus from mundane pursuits to transformative innovations. The conversation delves into Peter’s vision for extending the healthy human lifespan and explores his thoughts on emerging technologies, including blockchain and AI. Peter discusses his beliefs in Bitcoin as a transformative force and its potential to empower individuals.

Anna Tutova: Your main baby is probably XPRIZE. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind it?

Peter Diamandis: Yeah, so the XPRIZE began really from my personal frustration of wanting to get to space. And I realized that unless you are a government astronaut (this is back in the early nineties) your chance of becoming an astronaut was very low. And so, I read thatLindbergh in 1927 crossed the Atlantic to win a prize and said: «I’m going to create a prize for private spaceflight». And it worked. It took a decade to go from the original idea to being one, but it kicked off the commercial spaceflight industry, suborbital flights and then created the regulatory regime and attracted people to the field. And since then, we’ve launched about $300 million of XPRIZEs, prizes to map the ocean floor, to pull water out of the atmosphere of CO2, for teaching kids in the middle of no place reading, writing and arithmetic without adults, without schools. We just launched XPRIZE to detect and put out wildfires autonomously.

We launched over half a $1 billion of prizes, including the $100M Carbon Removal XPRIZE, funded by Elon Musk and Musk Foundation (awarded in 2025) and the $101M Healthspan XPRIZE (announced 2023). So, it’s really about incentivizing entrepreneurs to try and take on bigger moonshots.

One of my missions is: can I incentivize people to think bigger?

I don’t want people to build another photo sharing app. Go and cure one of a disease, go and transform food, water, energy, health care, education, because you can.

Anna: What are other issues you see, which you’d like to address and make another competition for XPRIZE?

I’m looking at XPRIZEs in areas like happiness. Can we build technology to detect when we are happy, and can we run experiments to maximize happiness? I’m looking at XPRIZEs for earthquake prediction, XPRIZEs for detecting asteroids and deflecting them.

There’s a multitude of grand challenges. One of my AI XPRIZEs, I’m excited about, that we’re developing is: can you build a system that can allow you to reliably communicate two ways with animals.

We look at prizes in food and water, and healthcare and education, in space exploration and ocean exploration. What is an area that isn’t moving fast enough, where a prize would incentivize people? One of the big areas I’m focused on is extending the healthy human lifespan.

Anna:

On your Twitter, youput the question: «What will you create, where will you explore, and how will you spend your time if you are able to add an additional 40 healthy years to your life?». So, the same question to you: what will you do with those years?

Peter: I have two 14-year-old boys, so watching them and supporting them in their life is fun. I’d love to see where we go in space next. I’d love to see us on the Moon, space colonies. I’d love to go to the Moon and start a city there.

But beyond that, I’m excited about just the breakthroughs that are occurring. The whole realm of brain computer interface, the potential for us to connect ourselves and upload ourselves into the cloud. This is a future that all our greatest dreams are, science fiction novels will all materialize.

Anna: And as well you

, that you’re quite a believer in Bitcoin and that it can empower people and change their lives for better. So, can you elaborate more your views on Bitcoin and when did you first discover it and first start investing?

Peter: Bitcoin I first learned around 2010 and I wish I had started investing back then. I started investing probably in 2014. I run a program for entrepreneurs and CEOs called«Abundance 360». I mentor 500 CEOs throughout the year. In 2014 I gave everybody some Bitcoin, I had a Bitcoin ATM machine and gave everybody a wallet with probably a half a Bitcoin.

Anna: Why did you decide to make such an incentive?

Peter: I just wanted them to learn about it. People learn about things that they have.

My crypto portfolio has, probably 80% Bitcoin and 20% Ethereum. And I think it’s a mechanism by which it’s a stabilizing factor. I believe it’s a form of energy that’s immutable and transmittable. For all the reasons that fiat money is so unstable and so challenging, Bitcoin solves all of those.

I talk about theSix Ds of Exponentials, when you digitize something in the beginning, it’s deceptive and it becomes disruptive and it demonetizes, dematerializes and democratizes. Bitcoin very much fits that model. It’s digitized money.

Anna: At which stage are we now?

Peter: We’re definitelygoing from deceptive to disruptive. We’re starting to see adoption by institutions. And it’s not a matter of if, it’s only a matter of when.

I’ve been constantly, not at the level of my fraternity brother,Michael Saylor at Strategy, but consistently investing in it.

Anna: Did you invest into any other altcoins besides Ethereum?

Peter:

I did for a while. I don`t do now. I’m investing more in my companies. I have a few different venture funds.Bold Capital Partners is about 550 million of capital investing in exponential technologies and biotech. And then we have a Bold longevity growth fund to invest in the later stage. And then a venture in AI Venture studio. So, I have plenty of startup exposure.

Anna: Do you think there is an intersection between AI and blockchain?

Peter: Of course. One of the things that we’re going to use blockchain for is validation of content. The challenges AI is so incredibly good at falsifying or reinventing reality. How do we know whether something is absolutely real and unmodified? And I think blockchain will play an incredibly important role there.

Anna: Do you invest into quantum technologies?

Peter: Some of the companies I’m invested in through my venture fund, like intellectual medicine, which is an AI generated molecule for drug development. They have a quantum tech division because we’re all quantum systems as humans. And so, quantum chemistry, quantum computation is going to help us understand how molecules interact with each other and on cell surfaces.

I’m also an investor in a SPAC that took a quantum company calledD-Wave public in 2022.

Anna: And talking about AI, do you think that AI can ever be conscious?

Peter: I do. I think we’re going to see artificial intelligence develop, what we believe is consciousness. I think true human and superhuman intelligence is not a matter of if, It’s a matter of when. I think we’re giving birth to a new species on this planet.

Anna: So, what’s your prediction? When will we see AGI(artificial general intelligence)?

Peter: I believe what my business partner, Ray Kurzweil,has said, which is by 2029. I think it’s anywhere from now through 2029 is a good bet. If we went back ten years with Chat GPT and GPT-4, people would say: it’s passed theTuring test and it’s real. It’s just that it’s happened in such a slow fashion that we have adopted it and accepted it. And it’s just what we call AI now. Anything that we have for a long time, like a dishwasher is a robot, but we call it a dishwasher.

Anna: What AI tools do you use personally on an everyday basis, and what AI solutions do you wish to exist?

Peter: I’m using the same tools, whether they’re from Google, or OpenAI, or Stability AI.

I think the tech that’s coming that I’m working on is really AI to help us take massive health data sets and make predictions about what’s going on in your body. And to take all of these data and to help personalize your medicines and supplements, what you eat, what you do.

Anna: So, for you the most exciting use case or application is healthcare, biotech?

Peter: Healthcare and education are the two industries that deserve to be disrupted and reinvented, and I think AI is going to be doing that.

Anna: In what way education? Do you think that in future everybody will just talk with an AI teacher and there won’t be human teachers?

Peter: I think AI is going to enable us each to have personalized education at a level that is impossible today and that our AI educators will know our favorite sports colors, language skills, what we know and what we don’t know. Be with us to educate us 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

I think we’re going to see an integration of AI and VR to create virtualized learning experiences, that are magical and learning becomes experiential. And the next step is going to be connecting my brain to the AI, where I’m able to just think and Google and be able to really increase my cognitive capacity. These are insane ideas that are all going to happen, and the speed at which they’re developing is massively accelerating.

Anna:

And doesn’t it sound scary for you that we may be totally controlled by AI, by machines, which will know all of our preferences and our lives will somehow depend on AI?

I don’t think so. The question is: are we going to lose our free will or are we going to increase our abilities? I think we’re heading towards augmented intelligence as the terminology versus artificial intelligence. For me, it’s an exciting time to be alive. Playing and having fun and trying to really uplift humanity.

Anna: And how do you see the future of AI, will it make people lazier, or will it improve their productivity? Because many people will rely on AI, for example, AI will change a lot of jobs, a lot of creative jobs as well. So many people just rely on it and don’t want to do anything. And there will be a separate class of people, who will be interested in new technologies and broken up innovations.

Peter: The answer is: I don’t know. And I am an optimist. I think that there will be those people, who become lazier and those who dream bigger. But it’s no different than mechanical or automation. Did cars and electricity make us lazier? Or did it just enable us to do more wide and varied things? I think people would say we’re busier today than we’ve ever been, but yet you could imagine if you went back a hundred years ago and you said you’re going to have automotive cars that you sell, you’re not working anymore, you’re going to have, tractors that plow the fields and you’re going to have electricity that vacuums and cleans your dishes. Oh my God, you’re going to be lazy. You’re going to be sitting around and vacationing all day long. But that doesn’t happen. We create more and varied things for us to do and we up level the things that we can do. So, I think that is in fact the more life scenario. The human spirit doesn’t like being lazy. It likes going after bigger and higher function challenges.

Benzinga Disclaimer: This article is from an unpaid external contributor. It does not represent Benzinga’s reporting and has not been edited for content or accuracy.