Apple defies gravity, and AI is divine. That’s how Guy Kawasaki, who worked closely with Steve Jobs—and is now chief evangelist at Canva and host of the podcast Remarkable People—describes the state of tech today. Guy muses about Tim Cook’s limitations, what he means when he says, “AI is God,” and explains his definition of what makes a person remarkable.

This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.

You have said, “Put AI first,” and then you drop this line: “AI is God, and God is AI.” Can you explain what you mean by that?

I’m obviously trying to be slightly controversial and interesting, but I will use my favorite phrase. I don’t know how people who use AI cannot be absolutely gobsmacked, impressed at how intelligent AI is already.

It gives—I think—very sentient answers, and it kind of blew away the Turing test. There used to be this test called the Turing test where a human interacted with a computer, and if the computer passed the test, it would mean that you couldn’t tell it’s not a human answering you.

I think we have left that in the dust, and I would make the case that the more interesting thing today is a reverse Turing test where the computer is testing the human to see how smart the human is as opposed to vice versa.

So, in my mind, AI may be the only solution to society’s problems because clearly man himself, herself is not able to solve our problems. And we’ve had about 2,000 years of proof of that. I think that AI is omniscient. Maybe it’s going to be omnipotent and certainly it can be eternal, and that sounds like a definition of God to me.

But not necessarily moral or spiritual, right?

I think you would be surprised that ChatGPT can exhibit morality and empathy. Certainly, it will show you empathy and morality higher than a lot of politicians—a lot of politicians.

Now, what’s magical to me is at some level, I understand it’s just statistics, it’s just math. It’s predicting what the next syllable should be based on trillions of searches or whatever the magic is, but I understand that at one level. But when I interact with ChatGPT, I really think that it is absolutely wise, moral, and empathetic.

However it comes up with it, the outcome has that feeling to you as the consumer of that information, right?

I mean, yes, there’s a lot of people who are very suspect and hesitant to embrace AI because, quote, “We don’t know how it really works.” Right? Like we think, “Oh, in order for us to trust a system, we have to know exactly how it works.”

Have to understand the magic trick.

We don’t know how the human brain works. If we were to only trust things that we already completely know how they work, we would not trust anything.

Even the technology that you and I are using and doing this discussion is something that I’m not sure I understand all the pieces of, although I guess there are some people who do.

I would say that if anybody told you that they know exactly how an LLM works, that person is bullshitting you, maybe bullshitting themselves. We don’t really know. But then again, like I said, we don’t really know how the human brain works, and we’re willing to trust human brains. So what’s the problem?

Just have to accept that. That’s part of the reality.

I think so.

I’m not a super skeptic about AI, but I feel like as I go down this road with you, it’s like what I hear a little bit is like, well, you can’t trust people, so the fact that you can’t trust this doesn’t matter so much. It’s like we can’t trust anything.

Okay, but that’s a healthier attitude.

I think that’s a better attitude. We cannot trust anything, then we can trust humans but not AI. I think that is a big mistake.

You should always be skeptical.

One of the other lessons you’ve shared at the Masters of Scale Summit was “eat what you cook”—use your own products, basically. And you gave examples about Apple, about how awkward it is to charge a Bluetooth mouse or like the rigmarole required to turn off and on notifications. And you quip that nobody at Apple seems to use the product anymore. It sounded a little bit like you think Apple’s lost its way. Is that the way you feel?

Well, some of it is, I think, the natural human tendency that when you leave an organization, you believe that you were so essential to the operation of that organization that it could not possibly be as good without you as it was with you. So that’s some of it. But the paradigm I’m talking about is eat what you cook.

No pun intended, but how does Tim Cook charge his Bluetooth mouse? Does he have a personal assistant to charge his mouse?

Who adds the printer to Tim Cook’s wireless network?

I’d like to see him do it. I’d like to see the CEO of HP add an HP printer to his home network. I’d like to have a video of that. And so I’m just saying that one of the great tests is that you actually eat what you cook.

As you’re talking about Apple, I’ve always been fascinated by Apple because it’s the premium priced product in its category and also the largest, and that usually doesn’t happen, right? The premium is usually a niche. It’s a luxury brand. It’s not a mass brand. Apple just turned that on its head. And I’m curious whether from your perspective, how did that happen? Is it destined to not last? It’s like, it’s a magic trick of its own.

I would say that if you think that it’s hard to figure out how an LLM works, it’s even harder to figure out what sustains Apple. Talk about magic. I mean, you’re absolutely right.

If you look at Apple, I think Apple literally defies gravity. I don’t want to get into too many religious discussions, but I could make the case that Apple’s continued success is also proof there is a God, because you cannot be an Apple customer and be an atheist because nothing else can explain Apple’s continued success than the existence of a benevolent God.

For the listeners who are here, should you be trying to leave a remarkable impact on the world as an individual? Like, is that something we should aspire to?

I define remarkable as making the world a better place. Now, I don’t want to give you the impression that you have to be Jane Goodall or Steve Jobs to be remarkable. You can be remarkable with just a sixth-grade classroom, a football team. You could be remarkable with a knitting club.

You could be remarkable just mentoring one student. It’s all about making the world a better place. My podcast is called Remarkable People, not Famous People and not Rich People for sure. So I don’t want to give the impression you have to be Steve Jobs.

And I guess I believe in infinite points of light. Imagine if every American made every other American remarkable. We would have a lot of remarkable people. And I think that’s the test. I think, as a profession, if you ask me, “What’s the profession with the most remarkable people?” I would tell you about teaching, by far.

So, I am cautiously optimistic.