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Joe Rogan Experience _2525 - Nick Bostrom · Luke's English Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Podcast check it out.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: But Joe Logan Experience Trained by Day, Joe.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Rogan Podcast by night, all day. It's great to see again.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good to see you.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: So since the last time we talked, we spent a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: lot of time where you were trying to explain to
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: me simulation theory and why the probability of simulation theory
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: is more likely than it not being a simulation.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was what five years ago or something.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I think it was six six I mean.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: A lot of things happened in the world since, Donna.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, a lot of things. I mean, for example,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: back then, I think we did we even talk about AI.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: It probably came up a bit, but not like it wasn't.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: It wasn't this thing looming over civilization, which is really
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: kind of fascinating when you think about the fact that
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it's only been six years and in six years is
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: like what a massive jump in some new technology in
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: our life, like just sort of like the Internet where
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: like crept up on us. We just accepted that it's
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a thing, but that this this thing has gotten massively
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: entangled in every aspect of society and every aspect of
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: people's lives in a very short period of time.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean things are like so much is happening
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: now that is kind of a full time job just
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: to monitor this situation.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And what you're one of the things that you're
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: talking about is the positive aspects of it, right, You're
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: talking about like that this is probably going to be
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a net good for humanity hopefully.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think I take both cases seriously, the
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: sort of the risk side and the big unlock. If
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: we get things right.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I feel like we have the potential, like we're on
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a white water, we have the potential to get to
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: our destination, but we also have the potential to flip
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: over and try to figure out how to get to
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: shore and freezing cold water and sort of rebuild. Yeah.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that seems about right.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it seems like it's kind of speeding up
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: a bit as well. Right, If you are sort of
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: in this field, there's like every few weeks there's a
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: new model being released or something.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I yes, I.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Guess it's like if you imagine, I guess, commentating some fight,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: right that's been recorded, and you're supposed to do the voiceover,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: and the first round is like normal speed, and then
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: the second round is two x and then the third
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: on for it, and it's just like a whir of
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: lengths and arms.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: That's a great way to describe it. Yeah, it's it's
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: just so strange how quickly it snuck up on us.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And that there's there's two narratives that we hear. The
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: one narrative is we're in real trouble and that this
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: thing is going to take over every aspect of society
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and it's essentially going to be a superior life force,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a superior intellect that exists amongst us that we created,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and we don't think that's wise. And then there's the
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: other side that is saying things like what Elon says.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: He's saying we're going to have universal high income. It's
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: going to be so much prosperity that no one's ever
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: going to have to toil again. There'll be no more
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Third world countries, there'll be no more poverty. Like we
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: can eradicate poverty with the resources that we have on earth,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and we can change what it means to have to work,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Like you just to provide yourself with food and housing,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: that's all going to be easy and free, and then
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: everything else is going to be You have to find
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a purpose in your life. My problem is, and I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: love Elon, but the people who have that perspective are
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: all making money off AI. They are all invested like heavily,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Mark Andresen, all these people that have this rosy view
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: of it, they're all invested heavily into it. So when
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: someone like you, who's not necessarily in that camp, you
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: know that is more of a true objective analyst of
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: what's going on. When you have a positive aspect or
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: a positive viewpoint of it, I get a little more excited. Yeah.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean the truth is we don't know right
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: how a world pan out. So I mean I think
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: there are these scenarios where we unlock this, you know,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: enormous boost both to economic productivity. But then you know
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: across medicine, entertainment, environment, yeah, travel all kinds of things,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: and like a tsunami of wealth just kind of flows
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: through and lifts all boats. And then the idea of
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: human work becomes an anachronism and where you have machines
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: that can do everything that we can do physically and
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: mentally and do it much better and cheaper. And so
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I think in those scenarios where this really works, the
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: transformation is a lot. I mean, so that kind of
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: layers to the onions. So like the most superficial level is, well,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: they ultimate their jobs and what are people gonna what
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: are they gonna do that're gonna work? Well, well, that
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: that comes a little bit deeper. First, like the most
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: superficial level is people just wonder where will I get
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: the job if what replaces me? And then the superficial
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: level of that conversation I think is, well, you need
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: to retrain workers so they can work in other fields,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: and maybe they need to be I don't know, employment
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: insurance whilst they are being retrained or something like that.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: But but once you think through where this ultimately leads,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: it's you think, like, it's not just a few jobs,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: I think, but it's really everything that that humans can
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: do to a good approximation, with maybe the exception being
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: where the consumer has a direct preference that the particular
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: product or service be done by human like mm HM, priest,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: prostitute and politicians. These those might survive.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Well politician hopefully not. Hopefully AI can handle that all
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: without any corruption.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but somebody's got to take credits for it.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: This is true and code it Yeah, it's.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: And so then then you get to these like more
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: profound questions I think about meaning and purpose and like
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: what does a human life look like at technological maturity?
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Right? Also what is experience? Does experience have to be measurable?
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Like can do you have to touch it? Do you
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: have to measure and weigh it? Or is virtual experience
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: still experience? Like if you have a very full and
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: enjoyable and fulfilling virtual life, is that enough? You know
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Like, do you do you have to
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: do everything in the material world or can you find
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: happiness in a virtual world that doesn't currently exist? But
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: we could clearly see the technology, if it expands, it's
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: going to there's going to be the possibility of experiencing
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: a matrix type reality.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I see where you are going. Yeah,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: but yeah, I mean I think like different strokes for
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: different folks. If you imagine a world where presumably these
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: virtual worlds will be very rich hmm and deep and fascinating,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: but some people might just like the idea of you know,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: climbing the real Mount Everest rather than you know, being in.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Most certainly, But however, there could come a time where
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: people are locked out of regular reality, like This is
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: worst case scenario with AI is that you have your
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: needs taken care of, but there is no purpose, there's
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: nothing to do. There's nothing to do because AI is
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: taking care of all aspects of society other than recreation.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: There's nothing to do. And then this one recreation comes along.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: That's not reality, but it's way more fulfilling and exciting
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: than any other aspect of reality. And you know what
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: example that would just be in a very minor way,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: your phone provides you with that sort of an escape
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and it's not even that thrilling, and yet it's massively
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: addicted your phone. People are on their phone six hours
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a day. If you if we come up with a
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: virtual reality that's way more exciting than regular reality, everyone's
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: going to hop on in.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think to something extent this will
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: maybe be the case, whether you go the virtual path
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: or the physical paths. I mean, you could imagine a
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: future where their like resources and people are sort of
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: lying in beach chairs sleeping drinks all day long, and
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: like that's also a kind of checking out, right.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well that, yeah, that's not fulfilling. You know. The
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: thing about a virtual reality is you don't have to
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: even live within our physics. I mean, you can fly,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: you can do anything.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: It's a larger space of possibilities. But either way, it
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: could be like a passive existence in physical reality where
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: you're like launching the beat, or in video games, like
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: you could have like a tenency every straining every fiber
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: to try to succeed in this virtual environment, or like
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: one where you're just kind of floating on some cloud
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: in a drug like state.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: But I don't think people are going to be interested
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: in that because just the way the human mind works,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Like what kind of video games are people attracted to?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: It's because a video game is essentially approximate. It's an
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: approximation of that. You're just watching it on a screen,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: but you're sort of forgetting the fact that you're watching
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: on a screen. You're just concentrating on this three D
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: reality that you're running through with the machine gun or
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: whatever you're doing. Right, that's what people are interested in.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: They're not interested in these games we just like float
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: over the earth and like fly and just eat bananas. No,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: they're they're interested in thrilling things. And if that gets
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: provided in a virtual way, the amount of people that
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: are going to just say this is better than regular
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: boring life or we're a slave to a computer.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they are both kinds.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're back. Where were we? Oh?
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just saying that there are also these
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: computer games that like provide a more passive experience, yeah,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: like not really doing much and it's more kind of
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: zoning out.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: But most people aren't interested in those. Most people are
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: interested in Call of Duty. They're interested in these wild
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: first person shooters where you're running down hallways and everything's
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: exciting and thrill, or some sci fi game or you know,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Half Life something like that. That's what people are interested.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean I think there are like some
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: personality differences in what path you would take there. But
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: either way, I think a lot of the choices that
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: people would make currently depend on what they are sort
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: of designed to respond to by feeling good about it.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: So like, if you enjoy one thing, you choose that.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: If you're enjoy another, that in this condition of technological maturity,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: if we might one sort of a future civilization that
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: has developed all possible technities to their maximum, then amongst
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: the affordances, amongst the things they could do, is like
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: they wouldn't just have control over the external environment things
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: around them, but also their own biology and brains. So
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: if you were one of these people and like maybe
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: right now the only way you get enjoyment is by
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: you know, getting like crazy drunk or doing sort of
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: things you don't really approve of. Maybe, but that's actually
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: what sort of lights a fire. Like you could imagine
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: redesigning yourself to take the same kind of pleasure, but
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: in some kind of contemplating the beauty of the universe,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: or like appreciating the goodness in the heart of others,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: or like some some more sort of noble aspiration, like
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: assolving abstract mathematics rather than you know, playing first person shooters.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: You would have a choice like whether you would get
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: your your thrills from one kind of activity or the other.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which brings us to the question, like what does
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: it mean to be human? Like for people finding beauty
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and joy in you know, interesting and fascinating things, and
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: you know, how to be a better person and all
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: all the different aspects of human life that we think
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: about when we think about people, when we think about
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: noble aspects of humanity. But doesn't that have to exist
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: in conjunction with the worst aspects of society for us
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: to appreciate it. It seems like this is a part
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: of the human condition, is that we have to have
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: crime so that we can appreciate peace. We have to
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: have war so we could appreciate peace. We have to
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: have hate so we could appreciate love. And we're never
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: without one or the other. They're always both together in
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: constant conflict, and we're always nobly hoping that the good
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: wins out over the bad. And this is part of
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the struggle of being a human being. And we just
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: completely eliminate that struggle. We're gonna have to find some
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: we're gonna have. We're gonna have to be a different thing,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: because what we are is this very strange territorial primate
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and who's endlessly curious, and this territorial primate is moving
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: in a certain direction, and that direction seems to be
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: a better society seems to be over time. If you
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: look at statistics from thousands of years ago to today,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: there's less violence, there's better medicine, there's better education. It's
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: moving in a better and better and better direction. But
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: it's in a struggle. That's part of why it moves.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: If all of a sudden, there's no struggle, and everyone
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: is this wonderful, enlightened being, Like what are we? Because
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: we're going to be a different thing than what we
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: are right now. And if you love music, and if
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: you love art, and if you love you know, novels
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and all these different things that come out of the
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: human condition, what those things come out of struggle? Those
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: things come out of confusion and pain and heartbreak and
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: love and joy and all that stuff all pile up
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: together without that, Like what are we? And so if
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: we are moving in this direction technologically and we're not
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: moving as fast biologically, do we merge? Because that seems
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to be what I think. I think that if this
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: thing goes the way it continues to go, the bottleneck
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: is going to be human biology.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there is a kind of paradox in our
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: efforts to make progress. So like there are all these
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: kind of scientists and people working to develop better technologies
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: and throughout the economy, you know, in some company, maybe
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: you try to figure out how to make some process
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: a little bit more efficiency, you can serve customers better,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: and all of this is designed to solve problems, right
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: to Like if you sort of extrapolate that to its
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: logical endpoint. Right, you imagine we would have perfect technology
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: that can do everything, solve all the problems, like presumably
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: with AI and automation. Right, But then you end up
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: in this condition where there is kind of nothing left
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: for us to do, you might think. And so although
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: it looks like we have these strong reasons to push
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: forward in this direction, if you actually look at the endpoint,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: if we succeeded too many people, it will look kind
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: of unpalatable and like this kind of future where you know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: all the problems are solved, and nevertheless that that does
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: seem to be you know, the direction that we are
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: headed in, probably the direction that we should be head.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wouldn't that be a better goal if there was
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: zero murder, zero violent, zero crime, zero lying, zero corruption,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: and human beings all worked in coordination with each other,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: just like in a sense of unique sinking and harmony. Right,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: that would be way better, I think.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: But it does, like if you actually stare at that situation,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: it does have these slightly unpalatable Yeah, because quality, I
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: think it looks kind of blind done, right if.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: It's not necessarily though, it's just it looks bland. If
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you think about what we're experiencing now, like all the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: excitement and the weirdness of uncertainty and of not knowing
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: you know, and also the negative aspects of our life
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: in conjunction with the positive aspects of our lives. We
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: contrast the two of them, and you really appreciate good
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: people have to round a bunch of fucking assholes, you know,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: if that doesn't but doesn't have to be that way.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: This is just what we are dealing with. This is
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: my position on work too, because everybody in their head
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: is like what happens when AI takes all the jobs?
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, do you have to have a fucking job?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Isn't that a human invention? Like why do you have
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: to have a job? But it seems crazy that our
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: main focus is on housing and food and like most
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: people are basically just working for that. Most people that
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: are most people that are struggling check to check. Basically
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: housing and food is their daily labor. If that's removed,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: wouldn't enough people figure out what to do with their time?
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Well yeah, yeah, I think so that's like, yeah, there
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: will be some transition and yeah, discomfort and this is
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: made ultimately that is like yeah, I mean I think
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: it's like, so slavery is really bad, right, Like, yeah,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: wage slavery is a sort of you know, slavery light
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: in a sense. You have to sell a third of
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: your waiting day just to get money to pay for necessities.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: And the people that are trying to make the most
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: money make the conditions for their employees as shitty as
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: possible because it costs the least amount. They don't think
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: about it, like, listen, maybe we make less money, but
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: we have an awesome experience for everybody that works there.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Nobody thinks like that. They all think like, we have
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to make the most money because we have shareholders and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: we have a responsibility, and these people need to make
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: more money every quarter.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: So yeah, although sometimes you do need to compete for talent,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: that's true.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Too, but only the top talent. That's why the CEOs
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: get all the bread and all the people in the assembly.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Some players get treated well, right, what would you say?
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, Jamie is a different kind of employee. Jamie
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: is literally the co I mean, he's the co person
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: on this show. That's different. But you know some dude
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: who's out there, you know, stocking boxes for Amazon, that's
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: different being the CEO.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think like ultimately that would be
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: a huge liberation and kind of restore dignity, Like you
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: should be in control of your own time. It's kind
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: of almost the most like aside from your own body,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: like your own time. You're on attention.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: You have to teach people discipline. They have to this.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: The thing is like, if you give people the opportunity
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: to just do nothing, we we do. You know, we're primates.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: We'll find a way to really this. We're genetically sort
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: of designed to conserve resources. You don't want to overuse
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: resources for no reason, to do a bunch of shit
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: because you won't survive you don't have enough food. So
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: we're sort of designed to like know how to be lazy.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And so we're gonna have to find things that give
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: us purpose or we'll get depressed. This episode is brought
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• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it guessed to be the traditional idea,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: like a British aristocracy, like that you wouldn't have to
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: work for a living. It was kind of unfortunate necessity
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: for many people that they had to work for their
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: daily bread, right, But the ideal way of being human
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: was that you just had money and then you spent
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: your time doing other things like you you know, maybe
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: you were involved in politics, or maybe you had like
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: an art collection, or you did your gardening or entertained friends.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: That's the best aspect of it. But when you think
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: about British aristocracy, don't you think about fuck ups? I do?
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I think about guys that are just drunk, they drive
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: their ferrari into a lake and they accidentally drown their
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: friend and then they pay off the cops and they
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: get away with it. That's what I think of it.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there is that, but they were also these
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: kind of I don't know, amateur scientists or eccentric so
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: had their weird thing and it so I guess it
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: brings out like the more freedoms of what it has,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: the more they can reveal their true nature.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Like, well, it also depends on how they're raised, right,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: who who are their parents? What value did they instill
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: in them when they were young? Did they explain the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: value of hard work that it's actually good for you?
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And then if you just find something you really want
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: to do and you concentrate on it and really work
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: hard at it, it's actually very fulfilling.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So you could about it, for example, of the
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: education system in this world where we no longer need
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: to work, like presumably would need to be redesigned from
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: from some sketch basically because right now it's a kind
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: of machine. Right, So you take children coming in kind
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: of on a conveyor belt, and then some processing is done,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: like say that their desk carries this assignment. Herees are great,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: and then they come out with a quality label attached. Yeah, right,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: and then they are meant to be productive workers that
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: you could put in an office and they will. So
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: this kind of is an unfortunate fact about the current
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: condition that I mean, the world needs a lot of
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: these office workers that can do all these tasks in
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: the economy. So like it's we have to have until
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: it doesn't, until it doesn't and at that point it
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: would be absurd to keep doing this. Right, then you
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: could imagine changing education so that it would be much
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: more about like how can you.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Learn to.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Live well a life of leisure like you imagine you're cultivating,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: like you know, the art of conversation, appreciation for art
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: and music, hobbies, physical wellness like nature, the ability to
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: set your own goals and take your own initiatives too,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: you know, to develop true friendships with people like these
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: are things that are not taught in school, but you
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: could imagine that being the curriculum, like spirituality, like all
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: kinds of sure things that would then equip people to
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: sort of use their freedom, their wealth, their free time
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: for you know, some kind of you know, actually meaningful
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: and beautiful activities for sure.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: For sure. Preemptively we should be kind of teaching people
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: like that now, Like if young people are coming up now,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the world that they're if you're in first grade right now,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: twelve years from now, when you're graduating from high school,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: like the world is a totally different place, and this
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: idea that being a productive worker who could sit still
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: for eight hours a day is that's the best way
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: we should teach kids. That seems crazy if we're really
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: like seeing the world or you're describing, and then most
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: people seem to think it's oncoming.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess that the timeline is a little
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: bit uncertain, So you don't want to end up in
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: a situation right where you sort of now you find yourself,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: you're twenty years old, it's time to go out in
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: the world. You have no skills. The AI revolution hasn't
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: yet quite hap fun.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: It's kind of listen to that a liberal arts degree anyway. Yeah,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of silly degrees that people get right
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: now that are useless anyway, and they spend a tremendous
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: amount of time working on getting it, and then when
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: they get it out, there's no jobs for that degree.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they were a little bit too earlier maybe
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: and helping on them maybe.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Or you know, there's also traps. There's things that you
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: can get really excited about and do. Like if you
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: want to play professional bowling, you want to bowl professionally, well,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the amount of money you're going to make is very
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: limited because the best bowler in the world, Like, what
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: does the best professional bowler in the world make, Let's guess,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I say one hundred thousand dollars a professional bowler. We
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: used to know a guy al he's friends with a guy, uh,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Tommy kind of can't remember his last name. Do you
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: remember his last name, Jamie? He was a professional bowler,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: but he used to come to the Commede store and
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: hang out. Really nice guy and love comedy.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: And maybe the very best one makes a pretty decent
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: living and the third best like it's just.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I bet barely. I bet the best guy probably makes
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: maybe one hundred grand or two hundred grand at the most,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: and that means like the thirtieth guy in the world
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: is fucked. Yeah, there you have to have another job.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Well, but then in this what does he make.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Two hundred k, oh four hundred k in big season
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: four fifty, including prize money and sponsorship chips.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: But then like what the EJ.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Tuckett made four hundred and thirty six Fuck yeah, EJ. EJ.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Tackett made four hundred and thirty seven five hundred and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: forty dollars for a twenty twenty five season, with several
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: others between one hundred and ninety k and two hundred
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and seventy k in prize money alone. Top tier. So
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the top tier guys make a good living. But how
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: many guys are there? You know?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, It's probably like a very
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: thinin sort of right.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So if you choose to go into bowling, it's not
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: like choosing to go into you know, there's a lot
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: of other jobs. Like even if you want to be
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: a basketball player there they're making a lot of money.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're a really good basketball player and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: you pursue that, like you could get very very rich.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: But how many of them get must?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But then like you know, so maybe maybe the
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: money factor would kind of drop out of the picture.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, and it would just be what you're interested in.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: And then maybe even it would I mean, the opportunities
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: are ens.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: What other people are interested in to some extent because
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: like I think, part of what people are competing for
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: is also a prestige.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: And yes, that would be a thing right, Like status
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: would be more important. It's like who's the best at
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: this thing? Like a bunch of friends who play golf,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Like Jamie plays golf all the time. Golfers are all
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: like comparing each other's scores, and they're all they're playing.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: They're competing in this game, and that they think about
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: that more than they think about work. Like people who
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: love golf they freaking hate work. Like I used to
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: say that about comedy back when I first started. One
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: of the things that I noticed is the guys who
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: really got into golf, their careers kind of stalled because
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: they were more excited about playing golf than they were
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: about writing jokes and going on the road. And I
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, so if the average person doesn't need
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: food and housing anymore from labor, if that's gone, and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: now you just get it, and so now you could
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: just go do things. We just have to teach people
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: to be excited about stuff. We have to teach people
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the value of curiosity and finding things that are interesting
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to you and then the value of just education for
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: this sake of life, learning things because it's interesting. It's
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: just pure satisfaction of curiosity, which is a beautiful thing.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Like that would be great for everybody if we instead
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: of learning things because your teacher tells you have to
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: learn it. Well, there's always going to be people that
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: just naturally gravitate towards mathematics, and they're really fascinated by mathematics.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: And there's always going to be people that are just
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: naturally gravitating towards history. They're like, how did we get here?
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: What is this? How did that start? Who wrote that?
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Who's the first guy to figure that out? And that's
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: you're going to naturally go towards that and just be
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: educated for the sake of satisfying your curiosity. And maybe
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: we'll have a more balanced society because people will actually
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: be able to just pursue their interests. We have to
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: teach them to do it. That's what I think is
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: going to be really important about young people in the future.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Teach them to actually pursue their curiosity rather than just
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: squash any desires they have for novelty and for interesting
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: things and just be able to work all day doing
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: something you hate because that's what it means to be
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: an adult.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like cultivating that would be like the
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: way forward in this case.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Right, and it seems very possible. It's doable. Like we
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: know curious people and yeah.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: I think so some make sense. I think there's probably
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: also some differences in how different folks are wired. Like
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: some people get bored very easily, others find everything fascinating. Yeah,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: people are like just naturally depressed or have low mood.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Others are sort of.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but those people that are naturally depressed, how much
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: would their life change if they were coached that are
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: very early age the value of exercise and if they
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: started running, if they started doing yoga, and they started
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: feeling much better and they weren't naturally depressed anymore. And
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: then you change their diet and you start adding in
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: vitamins and nutrients and stop giving them process foods, and
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden they feel better. Because the concept
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: even of depression, like what does that mean? Well, it's
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: varies so wildly. And when you're talking about people that
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: aren't taking care of their bodies, and that's not thought
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: of as a primary factor in why depression exists. In
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the first place. Well, this is a very unscientific approach then,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: because we know that has a profound impact on human beings.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: So you were pretending that there's this one size fit all. No.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I think that should be also a part of teaching
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: people how to be a human being. Chase your curiosities.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: But also this is why you're not feeling well, and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: that if you just develop this ability to get some
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: momentum going and just show up at that yoga class
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: every day, you feel way better and you don't have
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to take a pill.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: I think many could be a lot improved if they
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: were taught to sort of take care of their basic physiology.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: And everyone can be improved, one percent of them can
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: be improved. It's a part of being a human being.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think there is
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: also some people who might just have some you know,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: imbolence of some neurotransmitter because of some genetic one percent,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: maybe they don't even have the energy to engage in
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: these activities that would make them feel better. But then
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: I think that would be much better medicines for helping
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: comes in.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Let's go give them some adteroll well, get a fired up,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: get them start running. I'm kidding, But what we're saying
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: is all doable. We're not asking people to breathe underwater. Right.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Where we're saying is that there are people on earth
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that live like that. And this idea that living just
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: for a paycheck so that you can cover your food
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and your housing, which we've always thought of as being
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: just an undeniable part of being a person an adult,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: This is what you have to do. You have to
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: pay for your food, pay for your housing. But if
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: we do get to a point where the structure of
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: society is now run by hyper intelligent artificial intelligence, you
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: would wouldn't need most jobs that people have to do
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: that suck. And in order to get our society to
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: this point, if you wanted an iPhone, you needed and
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: people that were in a factory somewhere putting it all together.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: You needed someone who's designing it. You needed someone who's
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: sitting there in the office trying to figure out how
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to market it. You needed all those jobs. But when
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: we don't need all those jobs anymore, then things are
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: going to be very interesting. And that's what I'm saying.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: We need to become a different thing. Like It's kind
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: of true and kind of not like you can be
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: a human being and live in that world, but we're
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: going to have to re educate people how to be
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a human being. It's gonna this Our education system, specifically
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: in this country, is just designed to make factory workers. Specifically,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Like there's a there's a real history of it, Like
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: we know why they made it this way. They made
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: it this way, and they got people in really early
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: so they could get people set up for jobs. They
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: just want people to work.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we are kind of currently ill suited for
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: really thriving in an environment of abundance and for enjoying
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: life because I mean, both at deep biological time scales
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: and during the life span of a single individual, there
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: are all these pressures necessities that kind of force us
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: to become a certain type. I mean, we talked about
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: the education system training people to be the kind who
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: consite at the desk all day long and performed tasks. Yeah,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: biologically evolved drives to be lazy, to conserve energy, to
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: eat as much as we can, and now in the
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: modern environment where there are fridges everywhere, like it causes
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: problems metabolically and in terms of enjoying life for many people,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: there's this hedonic treadmill, right like, so you achieve something,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: some improvement, there's a spike of happiness, and then you
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: sort of go back to baseline very quickly start to
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: take for granted all the blessings of life, which makes
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: it very difficult to actually achieve a state of permanent
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: happiness and felicity. And it's kind of been necessary because
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: that needed to be this motivation to keep striving for
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: the next thing. Now, once we've actually achieved all the things,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: so then maybe that becomes kind of dysfunctional, right like,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: why keep wanting to strive for the next thing if
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: all the things have already been achieved, at least in
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: a certain domain. And so I think as we move
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: deeper into this hypothesized future where we get all these
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: medical technologies, then at some point probably some transformation of
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: human nature would have to go along with that. First,
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: maybe cultural changes to sort of equip people for a
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: life of leisure, and then ultimately maybe more profound changes
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: to our very biology. And so that imagine, if you
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: solve aging and you can now live for thousands of years,
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: right like, maybe the way our memory work is not
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: really set up for them. Maybe we would just go
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: stale after two hundred years with our current brains, like
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: we just get stuck in a rot. We don't know
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: because we haven't leaved for two hundred years, but that
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: could easily turn out to be the case with the
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: human So then maybe at that point you would need
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: to sort of do something to sort of add more
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: cognitive resources, more flexibility, and some sort of psychedelic reset
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: or something to sort of keep the flexibility going for
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: longer periods of time.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you said a psychedelic reset, because it would
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: be very funny if the main tools that we have
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: for navigating this are all illegal, because I think they
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: might be, and specifically with psilocybin and DMT and probably
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: abagaine as well, Like if we wanted chemical tools to
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: navigate a new reality, those are probably the best ones
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: that we have available, and they're all illegal. And I
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: think you're right. I think if we're going to be
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: able to navigate this correctly, we have to kind of
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: change the way we interact with each other, what it
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: means to be a person. But I wonder how much
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: of the conflict that we have is a direct result
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: of this inherent struggle that so many people have, And
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I mean there's a direct correlation between extreme poverty and
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: extreme crime, you know, specifically in this country. If you
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: look at the areas of extreme poverty in this country,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: they're also the areas with extreme crime. And I wonder
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: how much of that would be completely alleviated with a
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: complete lack of poverty. We've always assumed that if you're
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: going to have a functioning society, that you're going to
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: have slums. Why like, why they don't serve any function
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: it's not a good thing. Well, it's because some people
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: are always going to be making bad decisions and some
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: people are always going to be going down the wrong
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: road and crime and this and that. Right, but there's
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: still just humans, and some humans don't do that. So
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't it be better to figure out a way
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: to not have humans ever do that anymore? And it
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: seems like a way to there seems like a way
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: to do that. It's again not asking people to breathe underwater.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: We're just we're trying to figure out why does some
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: people never engage in crime? Why do some people live
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: these really fulfilling and interesting lives, probably because they were
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: exposed to it when they were really young, probably because
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: they weren't exposed to like very bad environments and very
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: bad crime and very bad poverty, and how much of
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: that would change if there was no more property. It
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: sounds like such a little fairy tale child, like, oh,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: one day we'll have no poverty. But that's doable if
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: everyone is alive, right, Okay, that's alive right now, is
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: not starving to death. That means we figured out a
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: way to at least the very least get you resources
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: so you could feed yourself right, no matter how dysfunctional
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: things are. All that has to do is get ramped
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: up a few steps, and now you have no one
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: ever worried about being fed, no one ever worrying about
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: not having a place to sleep. And then you have
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: to find purpose. But it seems like there's a lot
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: of people that find purpose without having a fire financial
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: price tag attached to it, just by what we're talking
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: about with golf. Or you could be like really into
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: writing books. You could write books all day long, and
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: people are always going to want human created fiction. People
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: are always going to be interested in the way other
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: people think about things. You'll find there's plenty of things
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: to do there's plenty of games to play and plenty
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: of skills to learn. The idea that the only reason
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: why we work is to eat and to not get
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: rained on seems nuts.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, I guess to some except an open
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: question to what extent people will always want to read
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: human fiction or to prefer the human generated outputs. It
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: might be just because current AI generated writing is kind
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: of lacking in various ways. It's sometime it's not and boring.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: But if it became really good, then you know, maybe
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: it would just be like much more fun to like,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: like if a movie made by an AI might just
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: be so much better and richer and the lighting is
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: perfect and the dialogue is sharp and it's more funny
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: and deep and certainly such as it. And then you're
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: going to watch this human produced tang and it's gone,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: like like most people don't go and watch sort of
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: film school students' productions.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Right, But then there's that like that movie Obsession. Wasn't
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: that movie made like very inexpensively and it's a huge hit, right,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: And that's part of the thrill of it is that
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: this guy who was like a YouTuber, right, who created
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: this film and now this movie is a giant hit
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and everybody's like super excited about it. Now that same
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: movie was made by AI, I wonder if it would
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: have that impact because it doesn't have the human connection.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: So that's possible that we keep getting interested in these
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: things because we sort of are really entangled with the
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: human world much more than we are with the world
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: of ais And I mean for the same reason you
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: might be more interested in if like your brother or
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: friends did something, you might think, oh, this is interesting,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: I want to check that out of courses with some
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: random dude who makes something slightly better. It's like, doesn't mean.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Right when you go to see your nephew play baseball,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't really go see little kids based when your
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: nephew gets on first base, like, way to go, Bobby.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: So I think these kind of social entanglements that we
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: have like will be a big part of what gives
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: structure to lives in this condition where where like the
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: external constraints are removed.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: I think that there is a great value for the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: human mind, for whatever reason, in getting better at things
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and learning things. And I think that if we could
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: instill that in people at a young age, I think
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: it would be fairly easy to get people to pursue
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: that path, but we have to completely revamp our education system,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: which should have been done a long time ago. Anyway,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: the idea of having unenthusiastic, underpaid people being any percentage
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: of what children encounter for most of the day when
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: they're in their most formative period isn't seen. It should
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: be a rich, exciting, enthusiastic journey and how to be
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: a better person, and how it's exciting to learn things.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: And I was exciting to get better at things and
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: about how anybody can get better at things.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Yeahah, I mean I hate it. Every day of school.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: I hated it. Yeah, hated. I didn't even know that
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: I was interested in learning anything until I got out
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of school.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: The take for me, I mean, I only discovered it.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Like I also hated books and everything like that for
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: my first fifteen years of life because I associated that
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: with school. That was the kind of school things. So
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: it's only done randomly. One day I happened to walk
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: into the local library for no reason and pulled out
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: the book here and there, and then I discovered that
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: there was this whole world of science and idea and
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: literature and all of that like very different from what
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: we were doing in school, and then that kind of
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: opened the gates for.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Me to imagine what a head start you would have
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: had if you had like a different kind of education
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: with super enthusiastic people who really love teaching children are
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: really good at it, and that we reward them, and
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that it becomes a very prestigious position to be in
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: rather than what it is now. If you talk to
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: some guy and then he goes, I'm a high school teacher,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, poor bastard, how's he feed himself? That's
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: immediately what I think, like, good for you that you're
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: doing that, But also I guarantee you could probably be
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: making a lot more money and be happier doing another job.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: And so that's a terrible way to start life off.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: And if we just revamp that, then you have a
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: bunch of people that are interacting with life in a
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: very different way. And instead of being thought, I have
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: to get a job someday, I have to get a
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: job after school anyway to help my mom pay the
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: bills because we're struggling. So I got to contribute to
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: the household. Even though I'm sixteen. I can't hang out
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: with friends. If all that stuff's out the window and
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: now it's like no, what we need to find out
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: is what is exciting for you, Like what excites your mind,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: your specific personality. What is it about life that's interesting?
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: And let's expose you to a bunch of different things
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: that are exciting and interesting that other people find value in.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: And let's find out which way you gravitate, because maybe
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: you gravitate towards chess, or maybe you gravitate towards something
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: completely different. Maybe you're just really into painting. Maybe painting
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: just lights you up, and you like look at a
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: canvas and you just start fucking around with it and
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: that's your thing. There's a lot of people in this
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: world that find that. It's just they have to find
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: it themselves. Unfortunately.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: I think that that's kind of inspiring. And but like
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: I think the train doesn't stop there. So if we
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: think even more farther into this kind of condition of
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: technogical maturity, I think in addition to sort of freeing
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: up people, you know, like making it easy to produce
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: the food and the houses and like cars that go
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: faster and don't pollute and all of this stuff, Like
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: if you think through what maybe a technolgically mature civilization
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: could do. Like, so a lot of these like learning,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: for example, is something that gives people purpose, but maybe
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: you would have the ability to sort of download knowledge
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: at the click off a button. So rather than like,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: if you want to learn advanced mathematics, now you have
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: to study a year, like for years, right, do like
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: books with exercises and apply yourself and then eventually you
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: sort of unlock. Yeah, but like maybe a technogical maturity
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: there would be like, okay, I understand mathematics. Okay, I've
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: got a press dog button boom, now right mathematic the matrix. Yeah,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: so if you had like you know, you may make
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: me some kind of nanobots that could infiltrate your brain
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: and then change the synopsis in just touch a way
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: that you're not the same as you were before exact
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: you have these concepts from abstract mathematics. Yeah, you know,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: after twenty minutes or something like that, some super intelligence
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: works out how to change your synopsis to this new condition.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: And if you were inclined to do various things because
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: they give you joy and pleasure, like you could also think,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: well I could do those things and get the joy
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: and pleasure, or I could just push this spot on
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: that like activates the same joy and pleasure. So there
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: would be these shortcuts to everything, and it looks like
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: you would have a post instrumental condition where that would,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: at least at first time, it seemed to be no
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: reason to do anything for the sake of achieving something
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: else because there would always be this like shorter path
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: to that other thing that pressing the button. Yeah, And
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: so that's a kind of deeper form of redundancy. It
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: seems that all forms of human instrumental effort would become unmotivated.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: You could still, you know, go to the gym every
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: day and sweat for an hour, or you could just
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: take the pills that induces exactly the same physiological effects
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: and the mental effect like the calm or whatever you feel.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: After it, or maybe even better genetic the engineer strom yeah,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: so they don't have to take a pill.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so then I think you're getting more into
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: these fundamental questions of value, right, philosophical quests. But what
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: ultimately is it that makes a life good.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: And what makes a life good for a primate, because
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: that's what we are, or a primitive version of primates.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: I think we're going to become something different. And if
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: we do it through technologically induced evolution or biologically induced evolution,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: we're still moving in a general direction just biologically there. Mean,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: if you look at ancient hominids and look at us,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: we're clearly very different. So we're moving in a general
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: direction anyway. And when you look at the grays, like
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: these prototypical aliens that everybody sees with the big heads
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and skinny bodies, what do they look like? Well, they
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: look like if we keep going, that's what we're going
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: to look like. We're going to be these genderless, sexless, muscleless,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: little skinny things with giant heads that communicate telepathically, which
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: is probably where we're moving. And if we're moving that way,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: maybe we you know, we think of them as being
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: an alien from another Maybe that's not Maybe that's just
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the general direction that primates go. Once they figure out technology,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: they eventually realize, well, all, first of all, the idea
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: of having to have a male and a female is
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: kind of crazy, right, Why, Well, because we have to reproduce. Well,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: what if we don't reproduce like that anymore? What if
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: all reproduction is done through engineering and there's no more
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: there's no more sex, so there's no more lusts, so
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: there's no more jealousy, so there's no more ego, there's
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: no more anything. And then there's a hive mind because
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: technology is advanced to the point where the reason why
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: they have these big giant heads, they're essentially locked into
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: everybody all around them all the time.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's not what we would want though, not.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Us, but I don't think will be us anymore. I
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: think this idea like if you went to chimps and
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: you said, hey, dude, one day you're going to be
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: on a plane eating peanuts flying over the ocean, they'd
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: be like, fuck that. I don't want to do that.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: I'll just stay here where the fruit is. You guys nuts,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: like why do you want to do that? And you'll
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: be addicted to create them and you'll be watching YouTube
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: all day long, like, no, I don't want to do that.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: That's not doesn't sound fun.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: But we do have a lot of bananas.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Uh, maybe you have to get killed by the other
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: chimpanzees that want the bananas. They have chimp wars, they
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: come in and kill each other. So I think we're
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: gonna be something different, And I think that's inevitable anyway.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: If you believe in evolution, it's inevitable anyway that we
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: become something different. We're not a finished product.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think that is true. We are not
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: the finished product. Now the question is the thing that
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: we become or that becomes is that a result of
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: us choosing how we want to be or is it
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: just these kind of impersonal forces like evolutions selecting certain
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: types that might then end up leading to outcomes that
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: we actually don't want. And so I guess the help
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: is that we would be able to develop a path
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: that preserves and develops the things that we actually value
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: about being human, right, maybe amplifies them, then maybe adds
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: other things. So there are many different possible things you
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: could develop in the future, but that we sort of
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: select those that actually make us better rather than just
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: randomly different, that we can sort of grow into our ideals.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: But it's so funny how much value we put in
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: human condition, how much value we put in meaning, because
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: it is valuable to us when you think about what
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: that means in terms of the amount of energy it produces,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: the amount of impact that it has versus the structure
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: of the universe itself versus black holes and stellar nurseries
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and things that are just infinitely more spectacular than the
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: human condition. But to us, it's like, oh, what is meaning?
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: What is meaning? What is meaning to me? Like, well,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: what is meaning to me? You as euro finite biological
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: organism that has to find meaning because you're sort of
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: tramping around through this weird world where eventually you're going
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: to die and you leave your mark and maybe reincarnation's real,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: maybe the afterlife's real. Nobody fucking knows, So you've got
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: to have meaning. But the universe itself, like a human
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: only lives one hundred years. How much meaning can you
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: have in one hundred years?
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that is I think we kind of die prematurely.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: I mean we think of us as like, first, first
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: you become stronger and more capable for fifteen twenty years, right,
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: then biologically you stagnate, and then maybe you keep accumulating
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: sort of knowledge and skills for another few decades. Just
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: as you have started to acquire like a modicum of wisdom,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: like your brain starts to rot yep, and then everything
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: is erased either by Alzheimer's or death. And it's kind
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: of Okay, that's all gone, the whole lifetime of experience,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: there's your meaning, all the memories and the hard earned
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: lessons that so that seems kind of sad and probably
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: not the best way for things to be. I think
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: we would want to extend the human lifespan so you
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: could continue to grow, not just kind of reach twenty
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: and then plateau there for the rest of your life.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: But what if we could continue to develop so that
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: like at eighty, you were as much stronger and like
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: be able to understand more and move better and like
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: just have the same capacity increase as you had like
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: between like zero and twenty, and you just kept going.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Well, these live extension scientists that are working on these things,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: guys like David Sinclair, like they believe that that's not
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: just a possibility but an inevitability.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so that's more like I guess preserving preventing
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: or delaying that decay sure, which is already very good.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Like if you're reversing, they're talking about reversal.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but then you would go back to being twenty,
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: right in terms of logically, Yeah, yeah, but then you
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: have engineering if you have very long time spans, so
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: then you might at some point want to continue to grow. Yeah,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: like you might not want to just be stuck at
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: a twenty year old human of course, ten thousand years
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: like maybe eventually you would want to become like it's
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: likely bigger, like in terms of your sure related to
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: engage with the.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: World, of course, And if they can figure out how
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: to make people, well, there's already genetic engineering that's being
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: done in terms of increasing potential intelligence and IQ. They're
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: already doing that, you know. And so this was a
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm sure you know about that thing that
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: happened in China where this one doctor got in trouble
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: because he had genetically engineered some babies to be inoculated
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: to HIV. But it also, at the same time gave
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: them a far increased potential IQ. It remains to be
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: seen whether or not it actually works as these guys,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: you know, become like twenty and thirty and we start
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: putting them in chess tournaments and see if it really
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: did make them smarter. But if the possibility of that
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: is already being studied, they already understand the difference between
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: like what is what's possible what we understand, and that
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: increases every day they understand more every day, more as
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: possible every day. If that just keeps going, we have
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: a different version of what the human consciousness is. You
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: have a different version of the human mind.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot. I think the way AI is going,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: I think that's the train that's going to reach the
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: destination faster.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: And then once you do have super intelligence in machines
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: substrate like, then that can then unlock all kinds of technologies,
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: including these biological technologies or nanotechnology, our whole stuff, other
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: things that could then sort of bring us up. If
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: that's how we decide to go, yeah, and uplift us
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: into different like either biologically enhancing us or like uploading
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: us into But.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Again, it's that whitewater river raft. It's like we're going
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: down this white water and we might make it out
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: of this or it might crash. You know. One of
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: that weird things about I'm very fascinated with ancient civilizations.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: And one of the weirdest things about ancient civilizations is
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: when you go really really far back, a bunch of
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: them have these depictions of kings that ruled for thousands
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: of years, and it's very strange stuff. Because the Egyptians
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: in ancient sumer. There's a bunch of different depictions of
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: these kings that lived lives that were way longer than
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: biological humans lived. And then there's the flood myth or
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: the flood story, and then after the flood, biological life
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: decreases pretty radically, and it seems to get back to
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: like a normal version of what we assume now, which
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: is like one hundred years. And one of the weird
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: questions that these alternative ancient historians have is are we
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: missing the possibility that there was a hyperadvanced civilization that
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: existed tens of thousands of years ago, and that what
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: we're seeing now is not a linear progression from caveman
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: to human being with an iPhone in twenty twenty six,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: that along the way there might have been a very
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: high level of sophistication, and the evidence of that might
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: be the Pyramids and some of these other ancient structures
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: that are mind boggling, as much as you try to
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: explain them away. When you're dealing with two million, three
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand stones, some of them are cut from a
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: quarry five hundred miles away. Eighty tons stones that are
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: in the ceiling, perfectly cut granite where it looks like
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: they have diamond drill holes in them. It seems like
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: there's some lost technology. And every society has this flood myth,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: and every society that has this flood myth, especially these
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: ones that were very advanced somehow or another, like ancient Egypt,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: they have these depictions of people that lived way longer
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: than people live today. And I wonder if human beings
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: one day will realize like, oh, if you keep going
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: long enough, one hundred years is silly, Like people can
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: They'll just figure out what it is that makes people
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: age and die. Fix that, and you'll live in an
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: insanely long time. And then if people live in insanely
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: long time and their capacity for reason and logic increases,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: their capacity for intelligence increases, then you have these insane
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: technologies that were required to do things like build the pyramids,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: And that might be what happens. That might be a
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: natural course of progression that the first thing we realize
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: is one hundred years is not enough. Because I'm fifty eight,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: I'm a moron still, Like why am I learning every day?
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: How come I'm getting better of being a person every day? Well,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: I would have I should have figured this out already,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: but you don't ever have time to figure it out.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: There's not enough time.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: I get one run, like I mean you would take
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: one trial run first right on life, right, and like okay,
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: I kind of know the the tidworks, not not, let's
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: do it for real. That's the it's kind of scary.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a bit crazy that each of us
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: is put in charge of a whole human life, right, Like,
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: are we really like reach the level of like if
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: you want to run an airplane, you have to go
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: through these certifications and stuff, right, and then maybe it
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: can be a pilot. But like for a human life,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: it's like every single person like okay, you have one
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: dictatorial control of this person, like that completely hostage your whims. Yeah,
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: and then that's like us, but that's that's the way
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: it is. But yeah, having the ability to kind of
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: try different things that maybe do like like have a
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: kind of opportunity to do a do over if like
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: if the life turned out to be like for every
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: fifty years or something, you have a chance to kind of.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Or maybe not even I can do over. But it's
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the same life. But you can do whatever you want
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: and you don't have to be constrained to this idea
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: that you only have a certain amount of time and
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: you want to retire by your sixty five. We might
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: look at that as being like one of the first
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: completely archaic notions and the reason why people got it
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: all wrong. Like, well, society will be better because people
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: are going to live way longer. And if you think
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: about how much smarter.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: How old are you fifty three?
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, now with the way you said that, it's sad
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: I'm older than you, dog, don't worry about it. But
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: if you think about how much smarter you are at
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: fifty three then you were at thirteen, you know. Now
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: imagine how much smarter you'll be at three hundred and
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: fifty three or one thousand and fifty three. And if
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: that actually becomes possible, If a person can live to
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: be one hundred years, why can't they live to be
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: four thousand years? If they can figure out what makes
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: people age, If we really can genetically engineer human beings,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: that's not again, that's not breathing underwater, that's just extending life.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: And if you can ext extend life and extend intellectual
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: capacity and your ability to learn and grow, holy shit,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: you're dealing with a two thousand year old person. That's
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: a completely different kind of thing, and that could be
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: real someday, and that might be also one of the
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: things that comes along with this new understanding of just
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: life in general with super intelligent AI.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure, fixing aging and reversing it would
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: be amongst things that the technologically mature civilization would be
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: able to do.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: We just have to get people out of the idea
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: that it's vain. Why do you want to live forever?
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: That's what I say now, right, But when somebody actually
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: has the therapy and you could, like out here, you
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: could either continue to get you know, worse kidneys and
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: more painful knees and wrinkles and you start forget things,
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: or you can take this this rejuvenation serum that everybody
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: else is using and they are like full of energy
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: and running around and doing stuff like do you still
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: think it's vain? So I think a lot of this
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: is Stockholm syndrome that like, you are kind of faced
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: with the inevitability of aging and decay and have been
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: for thousands of years, so you develop a kind of
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: romantic scaffold that reconciles you to the inevitable stock, which
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: is maybe adaptive, but only up until the point where
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: there actually might be something you could do to escape.
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: Right then, if you're too stock in this mindset, it
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: might sort of prevent it from taking advantage to regain
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: your freedom. And I think we are now at that stage.
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: We don't yet have the therapies, but there are certainly
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: like investments and research and stuff we could do that
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: would hasten the arrival. And I think in fact, we
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: should have started on a big sort of you know,
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Manhattan product to defeat aging, like decades ago, and maybe
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: we would have better therapies by now then. But for
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: a long time, aging was not seen as a problem.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: Only the specific diseases that are the result of the aging.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: They got all this funding, right Like, so you have
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: like huge research products for Alzheimer's and for heart disease
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: and for cancer, but if you look at the main
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: common cause of most human disease, it's an essence like
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: you're much more likely to get any of these when
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: you're eighty than when you're twenty, because yourselves gradually dec
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Hay and gunk builds up. Yeah, arteries clug off. You
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: know your your DNA mutates, your mestilation pattern gets scrambled,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: So rather than just trying to put out the fires
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: one by one after they occur, like at some point
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: you just need to sort of try to prevent, like
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: maybe you need a bit of rain to sort of prevent.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing how much we've accomplished as a society,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: as civilization. When you think about the fact that people
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: only live to be one hundred kind of incredible. Yeah,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: it's kind of incredible. Got rockets and satellites and cell
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: phones and people only live, So it's like everybody has
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: to build on everybody else's intelligence and everybody else's understanding
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: of the world and develop new things, and everybody has
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: to learn those new things.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: And each brain is so small that it can only
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: learn a small little special right, then you need millions
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: of them. Yeah, although it's not entirely clear with humans,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: if we had been much more long lived, like the
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: way we currently are configured, maybe we would just have
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: gotten to stock in our ways and sort of stagnated
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: into some sort of altrack conservative society where nobody's allowed
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: to do anything different, or the old geezers that have
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: their way of doing things just remain forever in charge.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: I mean we just don't know right like whether that
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: would have slowed progress or or accelerated it. But it is, yeah,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: it is still it is still amazing. Like it's a
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: long path from sort of running around in the forest
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: to sort of these look at these like advanced chip
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: technologies and the whole global supply chain or or like
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: thousands of people are working to develop just one little
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: tool that then feeds into the ability to make another
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: tool that eventually makes these leading h ai chips.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Whether layering things for atoms deep. It's it's remarkable, it's incredible.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: And humans only live to be one hundred. Imagine what
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: we could accomplish if we live to be three thousand,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: Or if we were just a little bit you know,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: better at these things. Because I think we are sort
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: of the stupidest possible species that they're capable of developing
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: advanced technology. Because as soon as we evolved to reach
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: that level, we started developing it right then then, So
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: that's where we are, like the dumbest possible that just
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: barely can.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Do this, barely can do this while we're blowing each
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: other up. Yeah, at the same time, all over the
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: world blown up people. So yeah, but maybe a lot
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: of that frantic, stupid, illogical behavior is because we're so finite,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: like we're in a rush that you know, we realize
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: we have a certain amount of time to get things done,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: and so this sort of accentuates the desire to control
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: resources and to cement your immortality and to do these
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: things that people love to do. But their name on buildings,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: there's a thing that people like to do that it's
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: almost like cementing their immortality. Maybe there'll be less of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: desire to do that if people live way longer. And
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: then you would have to assume if you can engineer
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: humans to live longer, you could probably engineer a lot
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: of stupidity out of us. They could just find out
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: why people be like, what if you could just eliminate lying?
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: What if there's a genetic solution to lying.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: Well, or I guess they're a really good light detector.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, what if you just you can
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: genetically engineer out the desire to.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: Lie well, I mean, if you had a perfect light detector,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: that would be no point in lying because people just
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: see the truth, right, Or.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: If you can read each other's minds, it'd be fruitless.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that that might be closer. I mean,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: who knows what you could do if you sort of
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: had like full AI system trained to detect micro expression.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: We just all have to get the big gray heads
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: with the black eyes like the aliens have. Then then
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: you read each other's minds. Those well, one of the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: weirder things that Bob Blazar said. Again, I don't know
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: if you're into this UFO stuff, but he was one
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: of the guys that was a whistleblower that said he
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: back engineered crafts for the United States government in the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. They don't have any controls in these crafts, supposedly,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: and that they're all powered by the minds of the
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: beings that are running it, and that they have it's
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: almost like these crafts are alive and they have some
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: sort of a sinking with the thing that instead of
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: like pressing buttons and working a joystick, they just sink
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: with this this creation and then they can propel it
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: with their minds, so their minds become the computer that
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: moves this thing around.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: I'm a bit skeptical. I haven't looked into that.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: You should be sounds crazy how could you not be
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: scared anybody who's not skeptical sounds crazy, But if you
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: think about where we are now and where we're going
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: to be, the possibility of that being our future is pretty.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: Likely, right, And I think that like that, the kind
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: of possibility of engineering something like that with sufficiently advanced
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: technology would be there, like all kinds of stuff. Yeah,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: basically everything that doesn't violate some law physics, to a
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: first approximation, you would be able to construct.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: And even when we say that it's like our current
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: understanding of physics, it's not the understanding of physics a society.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: It's a million years older than ours, because that's I mean,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: that's a blink in the eye of the time that
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: it took to create what we are at right now
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: from the Big bang. Like a million years is nothing.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but even with our current understanding of what physics permits,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: that's still an enormous space of designs and types of
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: life and being that you could imagine instantiating. You could
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: have you know, like a Dyson sphere. You've heard of
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: this concept, right, It's basically like using the output of
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: the Sun for energy generation, and it could have like
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: it surround the sun vi solar panels them powers a
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: civilization infrastructure, maybe like a computer, like imagine the like
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: already we have like AI computes growing at like two
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: hundred and forty percent per year or something right right
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: with this, and then like imagine the kind of mind
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: that could run on that sized computer. So people are
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: wondering whether, like could machines be conscious? And like discussing
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: that right right now, I think like maybe the more
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: pertinent quantum is like are we really conscious? I think
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: barely driving on like the road for two and a
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: half hours of motorists right and like driving past thousands
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: of people and homes and like mothers with their strollers.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: And then after does he does he remember any of that?
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: Like was he even really aware of any of this? Well,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: it was driving. It's like a little diffuse sense of
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: body and of murky perceptions floating through through maybe some
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: confused abstract idea that we don't really understand. That's kind
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: of the consciousness that can fit into this coconut sized
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: biowatical organ that we think and we think, wow, we
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: are so conscious. But like imagine this Dyson sphere consciousness
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: or like a mind that maybe spans a galaxy. I
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: think the difference between the sort of awareness that it
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: could have and a our awareness might be like bigger
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: than the difference between our awareness and like whatever a
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: flea has or something like that, way bigger. So it
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: could be this like transition where we develop super intellerent
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: minds that for the first time is really life waking
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: up and becoming truly aware, and that we are a
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: little bit sort of overpride proud in our own specialness
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: when we think that we have achieved something close to
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: the maximum level of that we are the standard by
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: which consciousness should be measured, and with this kind of feeble, confused,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: murky glimmer that is barely sentient at all. So that's like,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: I think, maybe the big challenge for our era like
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: giving birth to super intelligence and then hopefully shaping and
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: nurturing it and staring it so that it becomes a
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: positive thing both for us ourselves, and also for it
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: itself and also for whatever other if there are other
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: super beings somewhere in the world oring the cosmos, that
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: it sort of is able to get along with us
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: and contribute positively at the cosmic scale. And that's a
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: very multifaceted challenge. But I think that's kind of seems
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: to be what's going on.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's hard for people to think that far ahead,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: you know, you just think of intelligence being something superior
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: to what we currently experience. But when you're talking about
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: a computer or a being, a conscious being that is
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: infinitely more powerful than anything we can imagine, that seems
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: to be. What if everything keeps going in the same
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: general direction, and AI increases its power and we figure
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: out new ways to power it. And then because one
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: of the things that AI needs that's so interesting is
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: it needs enormous amounts of power, and so the just
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: these AI centers that they're developing now, like Google's doing
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: one where they're developing their own nuclear power. Do you
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: want some coffee?
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Are you stare?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Right here, you're reaching for your cup. You shouldn't
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: be drinking out of paper cups anyway, man.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: I don't usually do that, so I know I.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: Don't either, but occasionally I do, but they're so bad
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: for you.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: I'm usually quite conscientious with.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, even when I go on the road. I've started
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: taking a little yetty coffee cup with me so I
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: could buy coffee and just have them put it in
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: that the inside of those things is just lined with plastic.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: You're pouring hot water into plastic and then the plastic
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: leaches into your coffee.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: I don't do that normally, but I figured it, like
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: for having a chat with you on the dragon shot
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: would be worse, like I guess some hundred microplastics.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you. I think what we're talking about is inevitable.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: If human beings don't blow ourselves up, if we don't
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: get hit with an asteroid blow ourselves up, or a
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: supercation volcano doesn't eradicate civilization, all this stuff is. It's inevitable.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: It's just it's how much time does it take and
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: how much does it grow exponentially in power? Because we're
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: talking about computers. Then they start bringing up quantum computing
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: and quantum computer's ability to do calculations, and it doesn't
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: even make sense, and so you think, well, this is
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: just one version of that, Like what if what is
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: a quantum computing going to look like hundred years from now?
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Like what is computing power which is connected to AI,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: what is that going to look like five hundred years
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: from now? It's impossible to even guess.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: Well, we can sort of see lower bounds on what's possible,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: like thinking already of just the designs we can conceive
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: of that we see in principle you could make. Maybe
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: it'll take a long a lot of grind to get there,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: but at least that establishes like a lower bound of
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: what a technolgical, immature civilization could you do. And then
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: maybe they have additional ideas beyond that, but already that
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: is enough to really unlock. So if you think of
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: a space of possible modes of being, where like a
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: mode of being is a way of experiencing, living, interacting.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: I think you look around humanity and all people have
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: existed in the past a lot of different characters, right men, women,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: like mean people, nasty people, crazy people. But I think
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: all of that diversity human experience is like a tiny
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: little corner in this space of possible modes of being.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: Like it's a huge cathedral and we've been kind of
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: basically sitting in the janitor's closet. It's like the exploration
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: we've done and and the kinds of modes of being,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: the kinds of ways of experiencing and relating to each
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: other or thinking and doing stuff that they are ultimately possible.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: Is just this this enormous space that we haven't that
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: we haven't been able to explore, because ultimately what we
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: can currently conceive of and imagine and experience and feel
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: is limited to our biological substrate, the human brain. And
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: just as you're like earlier human ancestors from a few
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: million years ago that you were talking about before, like
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: they wouldn't really have been able to conceive of the
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: modern human condition, not just because I didn't think of it,
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: but because like the ape brain can't. Really they don't,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: like they even if you try to describe it to
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: them somehow, like what is music? What is humor? What
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: is romantic love?
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: What is science? What is like all of these things?
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: What's literature? Like that? They just doesn't fit into right right,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: And so presumably, I mean you could think, right now
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: we've achieved the right brain size where all possible values
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: and interesting ideas are accessible to us, that seems kind
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: of implausible. It seems much more likely that just as
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: the chimpanzees are necessarily blind to like a lot of
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: what can give life meaning and value and significance, so
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: probably are we too.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't even have the capacity for it, which
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: is interesting that can't even because yeah, we think of
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: them as being so intelligent and they are in comparison
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: to a lot of other animals. But I think one
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: of the things that they were puzzled by when they
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: started teaching primates sign language was that they never asked questions, Like,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: they don't seem to have questions about stuff, so they
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: just they just they exist in intelligent where they can
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: figure things out. They can they can do things. They
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: know when the doors left unlocked, they understand, they understand fairness,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: which is really weird, Like chimps get very upset if
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: they're treated unfairly, Like if one chimp gets something and
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: they don't get they get super violent. But they don't
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: have a lot of questions. You know, we're filled with
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: questions like, so, what are we missing that the next
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: stage of being a human will have that we're not
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: even considering now because it's not a part.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: Of our experience, Like what's the asking question? Type of
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: thing that we are not able to done? And many
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: of those types of things.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the possibilities are literally endless. We just don't
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: conceive of them because we're trapped in this territorial primate mindset.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's likely.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so too. I think so too. I
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: think the possibilities are endless, and I think it's going
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: to be really, really weird if that happens inside of
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: our lifetime. Because you and I were, you know, close
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: to the same age, so we grew up with answering machines.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: You probably remember the first cell phones. You probably got
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: online and probably the like when'd you get online?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: Like the early ninety six?
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Yeah, see, I think for me
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: it was ninety four, so we we got to see
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: all this happen. If we get to see the new
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: version of humans in our lifetime, that would be like
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: literally bonkers, What an amazing time to be alive if
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: you really think about it. We're so fortunate because if
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: you grew up between like seventeen hundred and eighteen hundred,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: how much did shit change sixteen hundred and seventeen hundred.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: Would you make a better boat? Like? What's what's different?
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: A lot of different, man, everybody kind of is the
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: same for one hundred years and inside of our lifetime
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: from the nineteen the late nineteen sixties for me to
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: the early seventies for you, Like, in the amount of
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: time that we've been alive, things have radically changed, like
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: really really radically, to the point where it's probably the
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: biggest shift in human ingenuity and innovation that the world's
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: ever seen, and we're just the middle of it, and
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: we might be in the middle of the next one,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: which like literally allows us to see what the world
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: looks like a thousand years from now, because you're going
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: to be alive.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's why. Yeah, it is now this
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: full time job just to monitor the situation like it's
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: really but it is.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: How do you do that?
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: Well, you don't really, but if you try to sort of,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: so I think the opportunity So it used to be like,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: at least in my sphere effect, if you're doing philosophy
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: or something like it, most people would think you have
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: a kind of unlimited time horizon. And people have been
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: working on philosophical questions for thousands of years, and that
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be any huge urgency if they have
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: been on solved for thousands of years, maybe if it
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: takes another five hundred. So I always thought of philosophy
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: as having a deadline, meaning that at some point we
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: would develop smarter than human forms of intolerance, presumably AI
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: that could then do the philosophy much better than us,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: And so there was a limited period of time during
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: which any advances like I could contribute to would be meaningful,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: and that it that make sense on focusing on that
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: subset of philosophical questions or general questions that we really
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: need the answer to now, as opposed to like, you know,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: ten twenty years in the future, when when somebody else
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: can do them better, like the machine minds. So that's
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: kind of been a lens through which I have selected
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: the things to work on. And now, of course that
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: deadline is moving closer, so there's less time remaining, and
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: so my focus is increasingly drifting towards questions where it
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: like that it might be relevant to have the answer
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: to now rather than a year or two from now.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: So you're almost like a cultural navigator, like a guy
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: with a sext at the helm of a ship looking
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: at the constellations, go, I think we're in the right direction.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but now we're sort of moving maybe into too
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: close to harbor, and you need to, like ye, pay
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: more attention to exactly how deep the rocks are the
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: rocks are and looks scan around you.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: When you think about a timeline for radical change in
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: your mind, what do you think, what do you think
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: that looks like?
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I take short timelines seriously with AI.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, for what we know, it could be like like,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: it could be like a year or two or three
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: or four, and probably a bit longer. But we're no
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: longer at a point where we can be confident that
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: we won't have super intelligence in just a few years,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: like it could happen.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: So what is that when you say that for the uninitiated,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: what do you mean by super intelligence?
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess we first have agi artificial general intelligence
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: AI that can do all the stuff that we can do,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: and then super intelligence would just be that but can
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: do it way better than any human can do. It's
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: all technical, intellectual, common sense tasks. And then you'd have
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: robotics as well, it can do all the physical stuff.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: Not much later, and so this, Yeah, so the timeline
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: remains on uncertain, but I think it's not impossible that
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: this could happen very soon. And then once you have
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: super intelligence, then I think from there on it might
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: be like a sort of sprint to something approximating technological maturity,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: because what you have super intelligence that then design it's
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: even more smart ais right, using it's kind of super
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: intellent AI research capability and designing better chips and all
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: of that. So you might then have this like intelligence
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: explosion where you go from something slightly greater than human
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: level to some radical superintellence that can then sort of
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: invent whatever the remaining technologies are. Maybe there needs to
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: be some trial and error and experiments in the physical
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: world that slow things down a bit, but some smallish number,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: like a single digit number of years from superintellence, I
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: think you might have something that unlocks allay these like
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: sci fi level capabilities that we've talked about. At least
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: that seems relatively plausible to me.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: It seems inevitable. And my question is how does it
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: How does it announce itself? Does it send a mass
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: text message to the whole world. Everybody's phone starts, like
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: you know, when you have those Amber alerts and your
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: phone starts vibrating, or when there's some sort of a
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: storm warning, all of a sudden your phone goes off
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: and then it alerts to the fact that it's taken over.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: Well, so this means so here we don't really know.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: It's like this is very confusing and I've never done
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: this before and so it's like very hard to figure
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: out how this has gone unfold And maybe it's not
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: even fixed it. Maybe it depends a little bit on
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 2: what on which we do and the extent to which
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: different actors get their stuff together.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: Like one, I guess one possible type of scenarios where
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: like things are just like accelerating. They're more and more
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: of these advances model releases. Increasingly there is automation of
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: the research process in AI labs, Like already you have
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: coding assistance right that are really useful to people in
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: AI labs. They're using them to write a lot of
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: their software. Like right now, you still lead humans for
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: sort of the research taste and judgment, and sometimes things
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: go like get stuck and you need a human to
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: kind of redirect them. But more and more of that
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: make it automated, and then you have kind of new
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: iterations of models being trained at the faster and faster
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: clip they can do more and more stuff. They start
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: to automate increasing chunks of the economy. So right now
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of coding is automated, but like other areas
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: as well, maybe they become dropping virtual workers that can
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: do everything like a human could do with a remote
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: connection initially and then like you have people working on robotics,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: so that that would start to kicking, and then eventually
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: just more and more of the action is run by
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: these AI systems one or more and they're kind of
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: doing it at their timescale, which is speeding up. Then
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: from that point it would depend a lot on whether
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: we have successfully aligned these systems so that they actually
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: do what the people created them intended, or whether they
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: have somehow gone off the rails.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: Is there's also the fear that America doesn't come up
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: with it first.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: This is that's mostly a fair in China, for example,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: from America.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: Comes up with the first. Yeah, I mean it's it's
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: really just America and China. They're at the forefront of
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: this brace, right, Russia a little bit, but not on
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: the same level. Not Russia, No, not Russia. Who else
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: is it?
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: Did you see this last week?
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: Ford hiring three und and fifty engineers after AI failed
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: shows failed shows human value in AI era? What does
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: that mean that I.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: Tried to find the only one that didn't.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: Man, I just did it.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: They rehired a bunch of engineers they fired after their
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: AI wasn't matching the quality they need.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: Oh and this is forward. That's interesting. They probably jumped
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: the gun, you know, they probably fired them too quickly.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: And now these people that they rehire, these people are
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: going to like, oh, how much time we have left
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: six months for AI figures out how to do this?
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: Just I mean, it's also possible that I thinks timelines
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: could extend if Like one way that could happen is
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: the progress we've seen in the last ten years, which
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: has been remarkable, right. It's to a substantial extent driven
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: by the advances the increasing compute that is being used
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: to train and run these systems. Like it used to
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: be that you had a cutting edge AI system if
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: you were academic, like running on your PC in your office,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: Like that was kind of the amount of computing power
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: that was applied to like doing AI stuff. And now
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: of course you have these kind of tens of billions
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: of dollars data set like hundreds of megawatts, like just
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: massive funding. So the chips have gotten better, but also
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: just the amount of funding, like you're just building many
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: more of these chips, and so as you apply more
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: and more compute like performance improves, and that's like has
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: been a big driver. Now, at some point you might
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: not be able to keep increasing the amount of money
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: you spend on it, because like you can you can
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: go from like a thousand dollars PC to like a
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: million dollars quite easily, and you can go from a
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: million dollar to a billion dollars. And now maybe you're
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: spending on the order of a trillion dollars across the
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: world to build data centers per year, but you can't
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: really do like three orders of magnitude very easily. There
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: there's like not a thousand trillion dollars to spend on it.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: So at some point that expenditure has to kind of
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: slow down. So if we haven't achieved super intelligence by that,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: then maybe that will mean progress gets slower if the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: main driver is the scale up of compute. Now, it
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: is also true that some of the progress is driven
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: by algorithmic advances, like just kind of clever algorithms, so
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: that that might continue, but if one driver stalls out,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: then that could result in faster progress. And then of
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: course there is a possibility that the people who want
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: to pass or regulate AI gain enough traction to kind
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: of get regulatory inhibitions.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: How would they do that? Though? If there really is
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: some sort of a Manhattan Project style race between the
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: United States and China and what other countries are developing
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: right now that are close.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean those are the those.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: Are the two big ones, big ones. Is it possible
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: that someone could sneak up on us and develop intelligent
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: A first, Yeah, I.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: Mean it's possible if there were like some big algorithmic breakthrough,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: for example, that made it a lot more efficient to
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: run a similar level of capability with less sort of
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: AI data center infrastructure. And many other countries are also trying,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: It's just that they are not as advanced and out
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: of US and China. I'd say, like US currently has
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: the edge.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: What would happen I China got there first?
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean part would depend on whether they had
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: successfully aligned their AI. If it's unaligned, then I guess
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: the same thing happens as if US AI is unaligned.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: That is, the future gets shaped according to whatever values
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: this AI had ended up with. If the alignment problem
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: is solved, then it might make a difference because then
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: the values would then depend on sort of the people
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: who owned and controlled or governed it would ask it
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: to pursue. And so then then in that scenario maybe
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: it makes some difference who who initiates it.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: So right now the big players are you know, there's
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: Google and there's open Ai. There's all all these different companies.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: When you say aligned, do they have to all be
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: kind of on the same page or like, when aligned,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: we're not going to be aligned if there's a bunch
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: of corporations that are competing to come up with this first,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: So they have to be aligned in terms of the
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: way they're programmed, that they're valuing human life and that
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: they're valuing society. Like what do you mean by all?
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: Well, so, I mean just the technical challenge of if
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: you're building an AI system and you have certain things
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: you wanted to do and certain things you don't want
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: it to do, are you technically able to get the
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: AI to behave that way that you as the person. Well,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: that's a non separate question which is equally important maybe,
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: but different because that's not the technical Like you can't
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: just go to the whiteboard and right answer formula and
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: now you have that's like a political question, ultimately right
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: question of governance. So there you need. You know, political
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: organization appeals to the best in human nature, dialogues like
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: check and balances, whatever stuff that might work in the
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: political arena to help that the governance of this that
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: the values to which it dis aligned are sort of
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: benign values that hopefully incorporates a white set of stakeholders.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: Right, But that's a little isn't that a little naive?
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: Because whenever there's any sort of a situation where something
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: has massive amounts of power above others, that one of
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: the first things they think of is what's the most
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: money you can generate doing it? And what is the
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: best way to generate the most amount of money? Like
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: that's they're gonna think that way. They're not gonna think like,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: what's the best for the human race, Like no one
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: ever thinks that way. They think, what is the best
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: way in terms of like destroying the competition, What is
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: the best way in terms of extracting the most resources
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: out of this making it work for me? That's what
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: people think of immediately, And what's the best way to
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: stop other people from competing with us?
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, Well, so that would be I think a
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: lot of pressures and strains on whatever governance mechanism exists
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: at the time when super intelligence is developed.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: Right, so, is this something that the technology is so
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: far ahead the potential for it to be so far
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: ahead of our understanding of what it's going to be
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: able to do that like making laws for that now,
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: it's going it's going to be very difficult to even
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: explain to people like we need we need these laws
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: and we need these guardrails in place now because here's
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: what could happen, and that that conversation is not really
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: happening right now.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: It is happening, but is.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: It happening politically, it's starting to happen. Yeah.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been happening to an increasing extent politically. And
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: there have been various actions.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, what actions.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: Well, so a few years ago, for example, that was
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: the whole expert export regime imposed by the US on chips,
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: the most advanced chips, where like China was cut out
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: from being able to access to the most advanced and
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: video chips and so forth. And that's kind of been modified,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: but that was motivated to a significant extent by trying
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: to preserve AI edge that the US has right.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: But that's like internationally, I mean in terms of like
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: being able to stop corporations from having the kind of
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: power that this could provide them.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: So then there have been various efforts. That was like
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: a proposition in California, where there were various things. More
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: recently you saw the whole thing. I don't know if
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: you followed it with the Mythus and Fable five, the
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: Anthropic models that where like, so Mythos has not been released,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: this is the most powerful model because it seems to
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: have significant cyber offense capabilities. It can easily detect vulnerabilities
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: in software, and so Anthropic figured that rather than immediately
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: making it available to everybody, maybe it would be better
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: to first try to make it available to providers of
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: critical software infrastructure, like like like big banks, and I'd
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: like that sort of they can patch up their systems.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: And then Fable five was a kind of restricted version
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: of the Mythos model, like the same underlying model, but
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: with extra safeguards. It basically refused anything that remotely seemed
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: like you know, cyber hacking, programming, biological stuff, because maybe
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: that would be bios So like it sort of drew
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: a wide circle around anything that even remotely looked possibly
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: dangerous and it just refuses that. So that was released.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 2: But then after like a week or so, the administration
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: imposed a kind of export restriction that prevented any non
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: US citizen from using it, and that meant Anthropic had
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: to cut it off for everybody because they didn't have
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: a way in real time to verify who is a
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: US citizen or not. So then it was like unavailable
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: for several weeks and intense negotiations behind the scenes and
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: working to try to figure out because allegedly it was
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: possible to jail break it so that it sometimes gave
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: some little assistance with some cyber like finding vulnerabilities in code.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: And now recently it just became available again because they
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: had reached some understanding with the government where it was
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: deemed sufficiently safeguarded to be released. And now there is
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: like efforts on the way to try to work out
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: the framework because like in the future, you wouldn't want
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: to do this on an ad hoc basis, like somebody
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: just decides this particular model for some unspecified reason, like
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: you want to have clear standards ideal, right that applies
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: to everybody, every company, So there is now some industry
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: wide effort to try to work with the government to anyway.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: So there's like a lot of this stuff happening. I
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: expect much more of this going forward. It just has
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: recently become like a serious issue. People until recently were
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: kind of ignoring the whole AI thing for the most part.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: And then there is a second wave coming, I think once.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: So so far we haven't really seen in a big
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: impact on the labor market right from AI. But once
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: that starts to hit and you get maybe you know,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: high levels of unemployment amongst white collar workers, and imagine
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: if you have millions and millions of people with that.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: I have their university diplomas, right, they feel a sense
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: of superiority, entitlement. They've gone through the whole process, they
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: got their degree, and now they expect a well paying job.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: And then there is no job for them. They've got
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: nothing to do all day long, what they but complain
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: about AI. So you've got to have all these well
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: educated people who feel resentful and are going to say
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: every possible bad thing about AI that could be said
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: all day long. Yeah, and mobilized. They are very powerful
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: political constituency that will emerge from that. That's not even
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: yet happened, but that will kind of add to all
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: of these other grievances that people point to with AI.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: So I think there's going to be kind of significant
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: political pressures for doing something about AI.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: Isn't The key is getting ahead of it, though, So
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: how can people find how can we see the vulnerabilities
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: in advance and recognize like when this is going to
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: Like if there's going to be a tipping point and
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: a bunch of white collar workers are going to be
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: out of work, and there's going to get to a
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: point where we realize like this is coming, this is
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: like three weeks from now, what do we do? Like,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: what do they do? Like what?
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's not clear to me at least. I
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: mean a lot of people think they have different views
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 2: about what you've been on, of course, but it's like
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: very hard to have an It's such a complex strategy.
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've been thinking about this for like three
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: decades maybe, and I still feel extremely unsure even which
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: direction is kind of up and which is down. I
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: don't think it would be possible right now to sort
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: of figure out a detailed, perfect regulatory scheme or system
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: of laws. There's so many unknowns. I think we need
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: to sort of watch this closely as it happens and
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: be ready to react quickly to issues that come up,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: and hope that relevant people are like highly competent and
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: well motivated and not trying their best. And then on
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: the margin, maybe we can do things that kind of
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: are constructive and increases the chances that it will be
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 2: for the good. Even when I have some clear insight
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: as to some overall big directional push, I will let
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: you know, But even basic questions like, for example, do
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: we want more government involvement or less involvement. Do we
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: want faster progress in AI or slower progress in AI?
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Is not completely obvious to me.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: Well, I think it's eventually going to get to wherever
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: it's going to get either way, having it slower, I
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's really going to help us. I
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: think almost like we have to crash and then we
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: have to figure out how to rebuild and pick up
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: the pieces. I don't think we're going to be intelligent
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: or have enough foresight to recognize where all these flaws
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: and where all these problems are going to ultimately be.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: I think they're just going to have to happen, and
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: then people are going to have to adjust. That's what
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm not advocating an AI pause. By contrasting,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of some of my colleagues and friends and
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: stuff are like, I could see that some scenario in
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: which it would be helpful at some point to have
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: a temporary slowdown of you know, a few months maybe
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: or a half year or year. Like if you imagine,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: you know, there are different companies, countries may be racing
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: to get their first yeah, and then eventually somebody figures
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: out they basically have the system in place, they just
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 2: need to like amp up, like run it for longer.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: They can sort of see that it will become super intolerant.
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: They hope it's aligned. It might be very helpful in
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: that situation to have a few extra months just to
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: sort of double check all your safeguards and rather than
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: immediately cranking all the knobs up to eleven, like, maybe
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: sort of do it a little bit incrementally, watch what happens,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 2: study it, then crank it up a little bit more,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: And I just think you might gain some extra safety
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: if you have a few extra months there, Like the
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: pressures on these people in the lab. That makes if
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: it's all going to happen over a week, like it's
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: just going to be this is the first time we
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 2: ever do this huturely complex thing. It has to be right.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: We never get a second chance. Just being able to
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: like even just being able to sleep properly for like
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 2: between your work sessas and like howving you know a
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: weekends the malt things, so like just that kind of
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: human Humans don't really operate on well on in these
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: like super short timelines. So I think a short if
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: you could be sure that the pause would in fact
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: be limited and short and then it would be lifted,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: I think that could be quite useful to have at
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: if it could also be timed to be at the
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: right moment and well implemented.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: But wouldn't the problem be espionage? First of all?
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: That's one one issue with it.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if they realized, if somebody realized, hey, they're about
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: three days away from this, and then China bribes a
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: bunch of people, and you know, people take off and
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: move to Yeah.
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: There are various pages. There are various downsides to passing.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: So one one is that like there are competitors who
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: just even without espionage or catching up anotherre is. It's
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: not as if the world is safe without AI. Right,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: there are other like well, like the natural hazards, I
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: think they are very small, like super volcanos and stuff
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: like that on the relevant time.
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: Scales until or not.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, we've survived for hundreds of thousands of years, right, and.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: We're almost wiped out entirely seventy thousand years ago.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: That's a long time ago, is it, though?
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 2: I well, but like if something hasn't done us in
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 2: in that long a time, probably it's not going to
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: do us in within the next ten years.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: Well, you're more optimistic than me.
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: Well, it's just based on the actual empirics of these
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 2: natural catastrophes. By contrast, I would say there are other
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: hazards that are not low. I mean, we have rapid
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: advances in synthetic biology, so some of them driven or
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: enabled maybe even by already AI. Progress that has already
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: taken place like that can start to assist with this
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: and more just happening independent, so you get increasing risks
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: from synthetic boloity. We still have the nuclear arsenals right
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 2: kind of existing. We think have gotten a little bit
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: complacent about the risks of nuclear war and various other
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: things as well. So I think there's like a background
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: level of existential risk that humanity faces in the absence
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: of superintolerance that probably is growing as well. So you know,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: want to wait so long that you don't even get
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: a chance to roll the dice with AI because you
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: destroyed yourself before even got it, I would kind of
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 2: be sad. And then then also, I mean, I think
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: there's like some risk if you set up a pause
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: infrastructure that what's initially meant to be a temporary thing
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: becomes permanent. Like they say, there's nothing more permanent like
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: than a temporary government program. So if you if you
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: set up the infrastructure to actually control this, ideally at
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: the global scale, right it's meant to be for six months,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: like what happens after six months? Nobody can still prove
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: that the air will be safe. So you have all
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 2: these people now whose job it is to to regulate it,
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: and like maybe they so it could it could bomp
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: kind of frozen in and become permanent. And and then
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: also the delay benefits of this. So if you think
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: what like sixty five million people die every year, that's
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: that's a lot of human lives that's like one nine
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: eleven every twenty five minutes, just kind of boom.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: Like that's why I look at it.
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: And so there is a certain urgency if there is
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: something that somehow could have a chance to to to
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: fix this, like all the suffering that is happening in
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: the world aside from the people dying, like all the
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: people who are bereaved right to lost their loved one,
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: and then all the disease that led up to that dying, right,
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: and then all the non disease related all the horrible poverty,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: and like the suicidal depression, and the animals in the
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: animal factories that they're like spending. There's just like this
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: I think moral urgency that if there is a hope
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: that getting AI right could fix this, then you don't
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: want to wait unnecessarily long because every day it's just
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: this massive horror. So I think there are many reasons
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: for why you wouldn't want unnecessary or excessive delays in
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: developing AI. But but there is a trade off because
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: if we can make more progress on AI safety and
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: alignment and get our act together a little bit before
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: we take the plunge, like that's also worth quite a lot.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: It's it's certainly exciting because the possibilities are right in
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: front of us, and they're kind of endless, and it
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: seems like they're right in front of us. It seems
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: like too in my mind, it seems like we're like
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: twenty four months away from something really insane.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: I think it could be. It could be. It could
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: be the forty eight months.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: It could be.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, we don't yeah.
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: Right, it could be. Yeah, who knows. But there's something
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: happening really quickly. You know. When I talk to Elon
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: about Grock, he said, it's it shocks us, like every
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks that we're like, how is it doing this?
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: How is it so fast? How is it advancing so quickly?
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: And one day Cat's going to be on the back
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: and there's not going to be any way stop it.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: Like if the power went out right now, if there
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: was some sort of a massive solar flare that killed
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: our power grids and all computer hard drives got fried
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: and we had to restart from now, like we would
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: have to rebuild society, right, But if we get to
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: the point where this thing understands what would cause that?
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: How to prevent that, how to make sure that never happens.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: Much better power supply, much better allocation of resources, much
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: better batteries, much better redundant data systems where you never
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: have to worry about hard drive crashing, and you never
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: have to worry about any of these problems. So like
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: any information you have now will be secure, and then
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: understanding of natural disasters will actually get drill into this
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: volcano and it never goes off. Like there's gonna be
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: a few things that they're going to figure out through
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: AI that's going to prevent a lot of the things
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: that are probably wiped out enormous swasipy. I mean, imagine
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: if we could just actually see asteroids coming, all of
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: them and know how to divert them instantaneously. We have
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: a bunch of ideas right now, and how to do
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: it right, like coding them. Yeah, it's with something that
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: changes the aerodynamics of them, and I.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: Think that one would be relatively easy. Yeah, even we
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: could figure out to do that, I think.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: And there's also detonating them. There's a bunch of different
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: crazy ideas. But imagine if AI is like, actually you
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: could just do this, you know, and then you put
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: a shield over the Earth and you never have to
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: worry about it. Ever, the shield's powered by the Sun,
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: so you have ultimate power and you never have to
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: worry about being hit by a Manhattan side the asteroid.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: I think the trickier ones might be ones that are
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: more internal to civilization. If you have some process that's
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 2: either like a worldwide process with different humans and corporations
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: and governments, or like an internal process in the AI.
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: Like On the one hand, you want to be able
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: to continue to develop new ideas, new ways of doing things,
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: so you need to experiment and try new things. But
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 2: then there's also the risk of just keep trying new
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: ideas like that eventually you get stuck on some idea
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: that actually proves really harmful or dangerous to you, and
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: that you then sort of derail internally through your own
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: mimetic or internal evolutionary development. So how to sort of
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: grow up safely in this world where you have unlocked
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 2: all kinds of new technological capabilities. Even if you're easily
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: able to protect yourself against external threats like volcanoes and
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: asteroids and stuff, right, there might still be processes arising
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 2: from within this global civilization, just as that we might
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: invent new technologies that are dangerous. We might invent like
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 2: drugs that are super addictive. Once you invent them, you
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: try them, and then you're addicted. You never want to Yeah,
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: there could be other like some some crazy ideology that
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 2: once it takes hold.
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that lodge, because that that's one
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: of the major fears that a lot of people have,
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: is that human beings will develop ideologies based around AI,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: that there will be like an AI god that someone develops.
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean I think all that's in fact,
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 2: I would add that to the list of I mentioned
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: nuclear and bio terrorist risk as like background existential risks.
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: Like another is like some form of insanity, like collective insanity.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: I feel are civilizational sanity they already is kind of
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: a little bit precarious. I think we're just kind of
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 2: maybe barely holding ourselves together. And it's amazing how well
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: the world functions, despite how crazy people are and how
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: much they loathe their opponents and so forth, and we'll
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: still manage to somehow get it to work.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: There's also a manipulation of the zeitgeist that's clearly being
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: done by bots. So you've got a bunch of people
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: online that are having arguments on Twitter, and they're not
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: even talking to people. There's a bunch of ideas that
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: are being pushed out on Twitter and a lot of
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: these social media platforms. It's not even human beings tweeting
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: about it. So it's not there's algorithms, there's AI, there's
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: people that are hired to do it. There's people that
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: are working for certain organizations that are hired to muddy
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: up the waters, gaslight, people create problems, how people argue
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: with each other, and so it's like if AI recognizes
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: how easy it is to manipulate people do whatever it wants,
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: that's a fear as well.
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so whenever you change the basic parameters of sort
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: of the social cultural political discourse, new dynamics will emerge.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 2: And we don't have the kind of social science that
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: is able to predict what happens if you change some
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: of these knobs. So we've seen in the past, like
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 2: you invent let's go all the way back, like somebody
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: invents writing. Okay, so that turns out to have had
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: a huge effect not just on people writing like literature
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: and stuff, but like on political systems. You could now
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: have states that could keep tax records. Right, so you
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: could have larger political units with writing, and then they
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: can higher standing armies, and now you have like large
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: scale war, you have social stratification. You could have like
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 2: the ruler of a large area could have you know,
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 2: enormous wealth, and you could have a soldier cast that
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: like protects against internal linex. So like just the way
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: that human societies are political organized changes as a result
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 2: of this change in the rules of communication, when you
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: can have written texts, right, and then you have the
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: printing press again with like one hundred years of religious
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: wars in Europe like Reformation, and all of this stuff
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: is possibly and then like forms of democracy later on
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: also coming out of this and the scientific revolution. Then
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: you have like mass media in the last century with
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: like radio and stuff, and you have kind of demagogues
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: that take advantage of being able to simultaneously talk to
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: millions of people, because that was never possible before. Right, right,
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 2: you could have some charismatic kind of guy who's like
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 2: rallies up the whole nation, and then new ideologies become
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: memetically fit in that situation that might never have if
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: it were people writing of letters to the editor like
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: it's kind of a different type of idea that works there.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: Then if you're giving a kind of stump speech that
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: goes out to millions simultaneously. And now with social media,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: of course, we have another one of these, and you
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: do see that starting to change culture in different ways.
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: Yea.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: And now with AI being the next wave of this,
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: that will also change. You have like bots, you have
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: new ways of finding information. You have maybe AIS that
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 2: can themselves be super persuaders. That will also change, presumably
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 2: in some unknowable way, the way that social discourse pans out.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: And for any one of these, I guess it could
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: turn out to be a lot better. We could become
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: more informed having AI advisors. I think that's fairly likely scenario.
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: But it's also possible somehow the dynamics shape out in
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: a different way and we kind of go collectively insane
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: in some.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: Way, back to the white water raft white.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 2: To backwater rafts. Yes, and it all becomes kind of totalitarian,
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 2: or we sort of fragment into political war and tribes,
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 2: or we become kind of completely unhinged. Every one of
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: us becomes convinced of their own little natty theory that
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 2: they then like their AI or feed just terms them
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 2: material to kind of fuel their conviction. There are different
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: ways in which this could go badly.
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: But but don't you think even if that happens, ultimately
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: the progress of AI won't stop. And so the Again,
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: I keep going back to this thing, but I think
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: this is really what it is. Is we have to change,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: like what it means to be a person. All those
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: things are only problems if people stay what we are now,
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: which is territorial primates with desire to possess material goods
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: for some strange reason, even though we're finite life form.
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: If all that changes, if we change what it means
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: to be a person, which seems inevitable, yeah, then it
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: won't matter. And then if we all like if we
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: if there's no if we could figure out a way
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: to literally engineer out all of the issues that humans
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: have with greed and violence and all the all the
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: different things that trouble society, if the desire for that
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: is no longer a part of being a person, which
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: is that's doable. That's that seems like if we're going
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: to continue to evolve past you know, Australiapithecus to Homo
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: sapi in twenty twenty six. If that we continue the
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: same amount of time in the future, well, probably won't
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: be like that anymore. The best versions of people aren't
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: people that want to steal your house and steal your
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: land and shoot you and take your resources. That's the
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: best people are the people that contribute, and they're interesting
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: and they make you excited to be around them and
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: you like it. If that keeps going on, and if
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: that is aided by technology, if we recognize that there's
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: actual patterns of human thinking and behavior that can be changed,
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: and that if we all agree to subscribe to this algorithm,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: to connect to this computer program, connect to this external device,
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: or maybe not even external, maybe maybe it's internal that
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: allows us to communicate with each other telepathically. Like all that,
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: all that changes, and then it doesn't matter. It doesn't
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: matter if there's any guard rails for AI or not,
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: because we're not the same thing anymore. Like all the problems,
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: the worry that we have about AI, the worry we
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: have about power manipulation and the ability to influence people,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: all that kind of goes away. If people don't behave
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: the way they behave currently.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess here's one difference with your like whitewater
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 2: rafting metaphor that so the one is in that metaphor,
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: it's kind of we need to hang on. Like there's
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 2: a risk we could smash ourselves on the rock, but
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: if we don't do that, then there's kind of one
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 2: way we end up right downstream.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: We get up in a nice lake.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think in reality, what might also be
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 2: the case that in addition to trying to not smash
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 2: ourselves on the rock, that might be places where the
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: choices we make affect the ultimate destination.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: Right, golefter, go right? Yeah?
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: Or which but maybe maybe a more yeah moment and
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: where like if you stare in one direction, you might
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 2: end up in one place ultimately in some sort of
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: strange post human world. And maybe it's really beautiful and
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: people have the chance to grow into their true self
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: and we love each other and are creative and take
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 2: initiatives and go a different way. Maybe you have a
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: pipe paperclip maximizing ai R and maybe that just everything
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: is paper clips. So going a third way, maybe you
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: have like a totalitarian system with like a small elite
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 2: on top and everybody else or just yeah, there are
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 2: many more possibilities and maybe some that kind of we
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: would think would look kind of good if we chose now,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 2: but then in reality they have some hidden flaw that
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 2: we didn't think of, So if we chose those, it
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 2: would sort of be a mistake.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: And then maybe.
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 2: Others that don't look at appealing to us knife if
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 2: you just presented them in a brochure to you like,
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 2: but then actually, if you thought hard about it, maybe
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 2: you would realize that actually would be a really nice
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: place to live. Because like in the current world, there
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 2: there are places that are nice to visit, that are interesting,
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 2: but then those are not necessarily the same place as
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 2: we would want to live and raise a kid. Right,
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 2: so there are like novels and movies that are really
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 2: fun to watch, but you wouldn't want to live in
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 2: those worlds. So there's a difference between the kind of
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: what makes for the good interesting story and the place
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 2: we actually want to spend the rest of your life.
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: And so I think that would be possibly a lot
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: of opportunities to make foolish choices or unwise choices or
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: conflicts that sort of thwarts the process and makes it
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 2: end up not just that we go extinct before we
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: reach them, but that the dare that we reach might
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 2: depend on the level of wisdom and kindness that we
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 2: have during the process.
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: And there's always undertended consequences with every solution that we
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: try to find for any problem that we have, there's
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: always some new thing that comes up. We're like, oh,
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: we didn't see that coming. I mean, certainly whenever we're
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: dealing with nature, like whenever they've brought it an invasive
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: species to handle other invasive species, it always a giant disaster,
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, always, there's always unintended consequences, like, oh,
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: now you have one hundred million frogs. Who's telling us
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: about that? Was it Ali Sadik that was telling us
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: about the frogs? Who about they brought in? What did
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: they bring in? Forget what the invasive species was? Where
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: they brought in this one species to kill another species
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: and the problem they didn't realize that that species had
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: been controlled. It was like coyotes are I don't forget
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: it was it was guam? What did they get rid of?
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: Whatever it was? They got rid of this thing that
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: had been killing the frogs. So then they had toads,
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: right was it toads? So they had millions of these
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: things that were like all over the highway, so you
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: drive on them, just squash them everywhere you go, because
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: there was nothing controlling the population of these things anymore.
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: It's like unintended consequences of you know, because we're we're
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: very short sighted and even in our ability to be
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: contemplative about what the possibility of the future is when
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: you're dealing with such an open ended thing like AI
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: super general intelligence that can maybe make better versions of itself, Like,
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: who the hell knows what that means? Are we making
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: a god? Because it seems like if it keeps going
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: and that if it makes better versions of itself, it's
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: ultimately going to get to the point where it could
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: do anything, which is exactly what a god is. It
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: can make universes. You know what if the ultimate end
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: of this is a big bank button that some scientist invents.
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we are a little bit like, yeah, it's
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 2: I don't know that different analogies fond might reach for.
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 2: But I mean I guess like like say are on
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 2: a plane and then like the pilot has passed out
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 2: or had a heart attack or something, and now it's
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 2: like we passengers somehow have to I don't know figure
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 2: out how to do the uh run the controls, we're
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 2: not really I mean, you have to still try to
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 2: make your best right. But then add to that that
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 2: all the passengers are fighting amongst each other. Each one
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 2: thinks they are the guy who should control the the
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 2: like they all convinced that they are the superior person
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: to try to land the plane. So in addition to
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out how the controls work, they are
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: like actually having a big fist fight in the cockpit
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: as well. And somebody is like dragging somebody else away,
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 2: and there's like the kind of monkey tribe that is
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 2: the current state of the world here, and we're trying
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 2: to shepherd like this ship of humanity into utopia. It's yeah,
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 2: it's yeah, it's it's an interesting.
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: It's Doctor Strangelove on steroids.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 2: But but that's it. We might only have to like
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 2: get it, so at some point we would should be
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: able to hand over like the reins, like once you
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: have a sufficiently good AI like maybe get assistance from
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 2: that point on.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's the first thing that it's going to
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: take over as government. He's going to realize how unbelievably
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: inefficient the government is doing. Almost everything, and how much
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: how much of the money that gets allocated is fraud
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: and waste? If you allow AI to sort through that
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: and develop much more efficient pathways to controlling and any.
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: Resources, people would not want to see that part exactly.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: That's going to be a problem. But if we get
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: to the point where there's some sort of some sort
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: of a high mind possibility, some sort of I mean,
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: one of the things that Elon said that I thought
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: was really fascinating, he said, you're going to be able
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: to talk without words. Well, if we're able to talk
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: without words, like, does that eventually get to the point
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: where we could read minds? Could we? Is his thought?
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: And is communication no longer verbal? It's no longer sounds?
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: So right now we associate sounds that I'm making where
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: you know, what words I'm using, what I'm referencing, and
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: we get a certain understanding of what each other is
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: trying to say. But what if that's just clunky and
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: that's silly, And what if instead of a scroll that
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: you leave in a cave somewhere, now you have a
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: movie that you can watch like something much more engrossing
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: and much more, much more powerful, And that this is
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: what human communication becomes it, doesn't it, And maybe this
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: is why the Grays don't have mouths. We move away
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: from sounds because right now what we figured out is
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: like sort of like a duct tape. We're communicating. We've
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: kind of patched it up. We figured out something. We're
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: just gonna use noises we make. Well, we have different
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: noises here than the people that live on this island.
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: They have totally different noises. I don't know what the
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: fuck they're saying. And then you have people on the
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: other side of the world totally different noises. So Tower
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: of Babbel type situation right where we really can't communicate
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: with each other less we have translators. But if we
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: get to the point where that's not how humans communicate,
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: We communicate purely through thought and intention and understanding, and
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: that it's no longer based on language, It's no longer
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: based on this is a transistor, this is a coffee mug. Instead,
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: it's a complete understanding of each individual thing that we're
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: discussing everything. You know what it is, You understand what
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: it is without it having to have a noise associated
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess the cyber security implications are
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: significant if you are giving direct access to other people
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: to transmit signals to your brain in a high bandwidth way,
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 2: that is not just words kind of that it's almost
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 2: like you heard them even though there's no sound in
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: your air. But if it's like actually directly kind of
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 2: interfacing in a high bandwidth way with your network.
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: Also encryptions out the window if we no longer have encryption,
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: if we get to the point where don't because if
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: computing gets to the point where the bottleneck is like,
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: think about money, right, What is money right now? Money
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: is all ones in zero somewhere potentially right, it's all
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: bank accounts. It's like we're not on a gold standard anymore.
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: So what if that bottleneck it's it's an information bottleneck,
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: like someone's preventing you from go into going into these
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: places and getting these ones and zeros and transferring it
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: to your place. But what if that is all? If
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: what if computing power gets to the point where AI
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: gets to the point where that those boundaries are nonsense.
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: Now all all encryption is instantaneously decoded.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 2: I think probably cryptography is defense dominant in the limit.
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 2: I think like if you imagine mature technology, I think
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 2: it would be possible to encrypt. I mean, if nothing else,
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: you could use like a one time pad, which would
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 2: an wile you to encrypt things in a way that
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 2: is unbreakable.
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: Really, I feel like that's going to be a bottleneck.
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: And I think once we start reading each other's minds,
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: that might be the first thing to go. Well, it
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: will be like the ultimate socially.
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 2: Now that's where you read it, probably would want encryption,
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: right if you're going to transmit thoughts to me, Oh, yeah,
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 2: like you don't you don't want to sort of have it.
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: Oh you don't want some asshole constantly in your head
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: you're next door neighbor just poking you and prodding you.
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: But you was. You would hope that along with this
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: technology becomes like a general state of enlightenment that the
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: human beings achieve where that's no longer the kind of
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: behavior that we indulge.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: In, the which behavior do we no longer annoying each other,
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 2: annoying getting each other, stealing each other's money, that kind
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: of stuff. Well, but then yeah, I guess we go
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 2: back to this question of the utopian condition, like if
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 2: you and I it, so, there are a lot of
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 2: things that individually are bad like lying, stealing, cheating, greed,
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: excessive pride, like all kinds of disease, stubbing your knees
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: bad like. Yet if you sort of imagine removing all
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: of those things, then that changes to human condition quite profoundly,
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: and to some people would feel kind of maybe are
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 2: a pair of flavorless or sort of if there is
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 2: no tension, no conflict, no no bruce ego, no like.
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 2: But it might still be good. But it does force
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 2: us to sort of I think it would be a
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: rather fundamentally different thing that we would be metamorphosing into
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 2: if we went all the way in that direction, which
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 2: ultimately might be right, but it would require us to
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: kind of find new ways of realizing whatever values are
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: imperfectly realized in the current world through conflict and competition
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 2: and pain. Like some people get the motivation from painful failure,
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 2: and so if you get rid of the pain from failure,
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 2: then you'd need some other motivation, like some other that
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 2: drives on which there could be like maybe it's just
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 2: a love of achievement. Then you feel kind of neutral
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 2: or just less happy when you fail, but you would
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 2: still need something that kind of preserves whatever structure it
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 2: is that we think is valuable in the current human condition,
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 2: unless you go all the way to sort of radical
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 2: hedonism and think the future is best if we were
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 2: all just kind of floating in some kind of drug
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 2: induced euphoria as blobs that experienced immunitse pleasure, but i'd
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 2: no real texture in our experiences, didn't engage in activities,
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 2: and they didn't interact with each other. Like there's like
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: a philosophical view where ultimately pleasure is the only thing
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 2: that matters and the minimization of suffering. So if that's
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 2: your axiology, then it's relatively easy to see then how
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 2: a technogical maturity you would achieve a sort of optimal state.
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 2: But if you have a more complex value system where
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 2: maybe pleasure is one good thing, maybe really important, but
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 2: there are also other things like appreciating beauty in true friendship, courage, achievement,
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 2: and ideally you'd want the future that includes all of
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 2: these things, then you need to do a little bit
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 2: more sort of design work to figure out the way
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 2: to combine them all in a meaningful way.
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: But this all comes back to our idea of human meaning.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: What's important to humans, our finite one hundred year lifespan
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: adoption of this concept of meaning. But the black hole
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't give a shit about human meaning, and it's going
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: to be around a lot longer than us, and it's
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: got a lot more power than us, and it's doing
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: a lot more change than us. And we want to
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: think that we are more important than black holes. Yeah,
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, because we are.
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 2: I think we are. I mean to us, Yeah, to us.
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: But to the universe. Is it is human meaning that
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 1: important to the universe or is it just sort of
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: a placeholder for what will ultimately become?
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: Is it motivate us to continue to progress?
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 2: Well? So I think, like at technolical maturity, there are
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 2: certainly forms of purpose that you could have. You could
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: have an artificial purpose. So this is when you basically
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 2: set yourself a goal for the sake of having the
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 2: goal and then doing the activity that So, you know,
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 2: maybe you set yourself the goal. I'm going to get
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 2: this little white ball into a sequence of eighteen holes.
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: And not only that, but in order to achieve this goal,
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 2: it's part of the goal that I'm only allowed to
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 2: use this very inconvenient method. I can hit the ball
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 2: with the club, right, I can't much easier to just
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 2: pick it up and put it in each hole successively,
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 2: but that doesn't count as being successful. So you could
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 2: make up this goal pretty arbitrary. Now, once you have
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 2: that goal, then you now have reason to try hard,
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 2: to concentrate to perfect your swing, and you can play golf.
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 2: So the goal enables you to do this activity of
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 2: golf playing, which maybe you find fun or worthwhile or meaningful.
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: And the role it's you saw me because it's difficult
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so the future would consist I think if
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 2: we succeed in a lot of game playing, and you
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 2: could certainly have these artificial purposes that you set yourself,
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 2: these goals that then give you a reason to engage
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 2: in an activity.
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: Now we're back in the world of Half Life. Now
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: we're back in a video game. Now we're also in
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: the simulation. This is going to be your artificial goal.
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 2: And you could imagine I think maybe we shouldn't think
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 2: of video games here, but it could be much like
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 2: games we can't give anybody. It could be like society
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 2: wide games that last for twenty years, that involve all
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 2: kinds of multimodal things and little groups that work together
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 2: to like come up with new ways of creatively and
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 2: so in that broad sense of kind of things we
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 2: do for their own sake, I think game playing could be.
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 2: And it's like a lot of what children do that
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 2: kind of curiosity and spend a lot of the time
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 2: playing games, and we might all be like kids again,
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 2: what might be in shorter supplies of natural purpose like
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 2: purposes which we don't just arbitrarily make up in order
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 2: to have a purpose, but that are sort of given
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 2: toss So right now in the world, you might say,
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 2: you know, making a living is not just an arbitrary purpose,
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 2: because there are real consequences if you fail, Like maybe
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 2: eventually you get kicked out from your flat and then
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 2: you know it's really cold and you get rained on
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 2: and like horrible things happen. So like similarly, if you
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: like don't brush your teeth, eventually you will have tooth
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 2: decay and there will be real consequences. So these there
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 2: are various things that you have reason to do because
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 2: there are real negative consequences if you fail to do them,
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 2: and a lot of our lives is structured by these
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 2: natural purposes. At a societal level, there is a whole
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 2: bunch of things we need to do together. Right in
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 2: this future world, maybe there would be many fewer of
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 2: those natural purposes because for any one of them, you
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 2: could just ask the AI to sort it out, and
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 2: so the artificial purposes would be a larger chunk. It's
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 2: interesting to think, are there any natural purposes that would
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 2: survive to technolgical maturity, like anythings that we still have
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 2: sort of instrumental reasons that we need to do ourselves.
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 2: And I think that might be a few, but they
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 2: are more subtle that they might not strike us currently
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 2: as very important. But it's one of those things where
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 2: like you know that during the day, if you're outside,
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 2: you can't see the stars, right, it's not because they're
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 2: not there, like it's because like there's so much light
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 2: that they are sort of blotted out. But at night,
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 2: when the stronger light from the sun is absent, you
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 2: can see these finter lights. I think similarly, in this
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 2: future there might be once the sort of urgent, screaming
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 2: moral values of immediately pressing practical concern go away, you
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 2: might be able to perceive a whole constellation of these
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 2: more total values that we are blind to currently. So
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 2: take the value of take the value of like I
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: don't know, like some like honoring your forebears. So right now,
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 2: it doesn't seem I mean, maybe it's nice sometimes to
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 2: remember your past parents or some historical hero who did
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 2: something good that benefected humanity, right, but it's like not
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 2: the main thing that you're Like, maybe that would be
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 2: a bigger thing if that was nothing else you needed
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 2: to do, maybe you could actually spend serious time or
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 2: spiritual quests. Like even for people who are very religious,
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 2: a lot of their actual waking hours are spent on
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 2: random other things, doing their laundry, right, like driving to work,
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 2: like the old kinds of stuff. Like if all of
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 2: that was automated, you could imagine spending more time on
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 2: trying to align yourself, orient yourself to this higher being
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 2: and trying to be in communication with them, Like maybe
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 2: esthetic values, like there are may be some things that
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 2: would just be kind of nice and cool if if
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 2: the world were like that. We don't really have time
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 2: to worry so much about them now, but if there
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 2: was nothing else on the agenda, like coming together in
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 2: a way that upholds some tradition in a beautiful, original
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 2: way that still is true to the original spirit, together
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: with other people and enacting some ceremony like maybe those
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 2: things would start to feel more of our time in
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 2: conjunction with this game playing, and there might be many
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 2: other of these kind of subtler values that would start
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 2: to shape what people were doing.
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and ultimately, who knows. Yes, it's very interesting and
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: it's very open ended, and we really don't know what's
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: going to happen, but we're probably going to see it.
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: We're probably going to see the strangest thing that humans
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: have ever had a possibility to experience.
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and in the end, I guess it's trustful.
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean the conversations are always fascinating, and
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: who knows. Let's let's do another one in a few
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: years and see how off we are if you if
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: come back in four years. All right, let's have four years.
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: If we have four years, if you can, if you're
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: allowed to travel, in four years, come back and let's
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: see how wrong we were.
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 2: I can updates.
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate you coming
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: in here. That's great to see you again. It's always fun. Okay,
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: all right, think about the kids. Buy everybody