Latest / Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel / Artificial Intelligence : The Good The Bad And The Unbelievable With Taryn Southern

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Artificial Intelligence : The Good The Bad And The Unbelievable With Taryn Southern · Miss Understood with Rachel Uchitel

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  Speaker 1: I remember being in a small town in Italy, struggling
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  Speaker 1: to real conversations in a new language today. Welcome back
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to Misunderstood. I'm your host, Rachel Yucatel. So last year,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I was at a conference in Las Vegas about AI.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: The guys who were featured on The Social Dilemma came
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: in to give two sides to the story about what
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: is misunderstood about AI. And there was a guy there,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: his name's Tristan Harris. He's now is the co-founder of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the Center for Humane Technology. And he was explaining in
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the film of The Social Dilemma about how social media
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: manipulates people, their views, their emotions, their behaviors, and how
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: it is absolutely addicting. He went on to really talk
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: about the dangers of AI in the future and how
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: we need to be aware. He was asking for people
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: to get on board and donate. And at the end
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of the conference, this was a very wealthy crowd, somebody
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: got up and donated a million dollar check to his center. for,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: you know, the understanding of AI. So I found that
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: like very eye-opening that there were people that were very
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: scared of what's going on in the future. On the
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: other hand, there was a guy that got up, I
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: talk about this in the episode, so I'm not going
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to get too much into it, but he talked about
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: some fascinating things in terms of language and breaking the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: codes between humans and animals being able to understand other
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: languages and why AI is such a positive thing. So
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: For a while, I've wanted to do an episode on this.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I think it's very misunderstood. It was brought to my
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: attention using chat GPT in my daughter's school. Some people
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: love it. Some people think it's dangerous and our kids
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: aren't going to learn. So I think there was a
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: lot to get into. But I've been wanting to get
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  Speaker 1: someone on the show to talk about artificial intelligence for
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a while, and I couldn't figure out the right angle.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out the right person. And then I
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: read an article that featured today's guest, Taryn Southern, and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: knew she was the perfect person. So Taryn started her
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: career in entertainment first as a singer, then as a
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: TV host and a personality, things that have really nothing
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to do with AI. But she got her first taste
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: of the positive side of AI all the way back
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: in 2018 when she created the very first solo pop album.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: composed using AI. I didn't even know that existed. She
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: later transitioned to a behind-the-camera role, directing and producing her
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: own documentary called I Am Human, which chronicled the journey
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: of three pioneers with implantable brain-computer interfaces, better known as BCIs.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: On the speaker circuit, Taryn talks on everything from BCIs,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: human and AI collaboration, to storytelling with emerging technologies. She
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: helps break down where AI is now and where it's going.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: You'll be amazed to hear about the medical marvels around
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the corner and how technology is way closer than we
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: think to us having airplanes that actually fly themselves. We
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: also discuss where AI can go wrong and how we
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: can get ahead of it before it gets ahead of us.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Our conversation with Taryn was Totally eye-opening. And one thing
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: is for sure, AI isn't going away. So we need
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to learn everything we can about it. This episode is
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the perfect place to start. So welcome my guest, Taryn Souther. Taryn,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me on misunderstood today.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: It's great to be here. Thank you.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: So for full disclosure, I wanted to let you know
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: and let the listeners know that I discovered you when
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I read a Vanity Fair article recently about somebody that
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: you used to date, a guy named Brian Johnson, who
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: was somebody that I had been following because I wanted
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to have him on the show. He's been spending $ 2
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: million a year on this quest for immortality and to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: reverse aging, which I found kind of fascinating. But then
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: as the story went on, There was some other details
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: that went along with it that had some controversy that
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: involved you. And as someone who's basically been through something
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: similar and reading about what happened, but also reading about you,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I felt like it was really important for me to
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: show people who you were because your resume and going
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole of you is so impressive that
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I don't want people to not understand who you were,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: quite frankly. So that's why it was really important for
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: me to sort of end that mission about understanding what
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: he's doing and really hear what you're doing because it's
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: so fascinating. And so I just wanted to let you
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: know that I wanted to let viewers know that because
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: if people know your name for anything else than who
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: you are and what you've done in the past and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: what you're doing now, then people will be very remiss
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: in knowing what you have to offer. So I thought
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: that was really important. Thank you so much. So, okay.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So you have done so much in your life. And
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: before I even get into what you're doing now, which
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: obviously is fascinating on so many levels, I want to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: talk about, you know, where you started off your career
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and your childhood kind of, because you always been a storyteller.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: You've always been someone that's been very creative. So can
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: you start off with like telling me what you were
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: like as a kid and kind of how you got
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: into putting yourself on the screen and in people's minds
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: as someone who was kind of an actress and a
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: musician and all these things that made you who you are?
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. Well, where did you grow up, by
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: the way, Rachel?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: I grew up in, well, I was born in Anchorage, Alaska,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: and I lived there till I was five. And then
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I moved to New York City with my mother.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a big shift.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: Well, I did not grow up in Alaska, but I
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: grew up in the second most remote place in the
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: United States, Wichita, Kansas. Growing up in Wichita, Kansas, there
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: wasn't a whole lot to do. I remember distinctly the
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: moment that my parents got internet as a kid and thinking,
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: I mean, my mind was blown. It was like this
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: window to the outside world opened up and you know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: unbeknownst to my parents, I spent a lot of time
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: in AOL chat rooms and couldn't believe that I was
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: talking to someone in Australia and I could hear about
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: what life in other places was like. And so I
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: think growing up, you know, most of my efforts in theater,
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: in journalism, in whatever it was that I was interested
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: in doing was really sort of my desire to see
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: more of the world and also like what was going
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: to be my ticket out of Kansas. Not that Kansas
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: isn't a great place to live and it was a
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: wonderful place to grow up, but I always knew that
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: I wanted to get out and see the world. So
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: for me, I think theater and music theater were the first,
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: were the first areas that I kind of locked into
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: as maybe this is my ticket out. Right. Right.
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  Speaker 1: And then So talk to us, though, about how you
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: got into this world of, you know, doing interviews and
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. Was that after you started doing your
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: own YouTube videos? Like, how did you get into all that? Actually,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: you weren't trained as a journalist or anything, right?
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: Well, I studied journalism in college. So I did American
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: Idol when I was 17 years old.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: And it was a harrowing experience that was really career
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: defining for me. Because I ended up forgetting my lyrics
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: in the semifinals to one of my songs.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I just stood.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: There like a deer in headlights with music playing in
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: the background. I ended up crying. Ryan Seacrest is consoling
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: me on the show. I'm 17. So, I mean, you
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: can't imagine a bigger dream bursting. And I went back
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: to college. It was my freshman year of college with
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: my tail between my legs and decided to never get
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: up on stage and perform again. and studied journalism and
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: decided I wanted to go into investigative journalism.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: That's what I really wanted to do.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: And I would spend my free time in Miami going
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: to junkets and interviewing people like The Rock, you know,
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: or whoever I could find that was coming down to
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: Miami for my reel. So once I got out of college,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: I had a reel. And that was actually the first
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: thing I started doing was television hosting or digital media hosting,
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: because at the time, no one wanted to do digital media.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: It was the bastard child of of the.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Projects yeah wait so i'm so curious about that were
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: you creating your reel by yourself like obviously you weren't
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: working for a network how were you jumping in front
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: of someone like the rock to get him to talk to.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: You university of miami television it was not an impressive
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: outlet but because miami was such a small town any
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: of the junkets we we tended to get.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: In there.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so I had a reel.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: And then by the time I graduated college early and
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: I came to Los Angeles and immediately started working, um,
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: as a host, mostly for red carpets.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Isn't it amazing that back in the day, it was
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: imperative that you had a reel. You had to show
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: people your, you know, your worth and what you've done
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and nowadays, it's just somebody can get on the internet
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and make up stuff and become an influencer. And they
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: literally don't even have to leave your bedroom. But it's funny,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: because I've heard you talk about, you know, the importance
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: of attention. It's just about getting attention. And, you know,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I guess none of that has changed over time. But,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's what we had to do to
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: get the credibility that's that seems to have changed over
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: all these years.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, I suppose in a weird way, there's it's
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: all posturing, but it's just done differently.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, I was I was a kid with very
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: little experience showing up to these junkets pretending like I'm
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: some professional host.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And that's how you end up actually cutting your teeth.
• 10:45
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  Speaker 1: them that we sent you. Exactly. Well, the reel was good.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen it and it looked very professional. So, um,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: some point in there, you get heavily involved into YouTube
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and creating content specifically. How did you come up with
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: your content? How did you, how were you able to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: stand out?
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: The first, well, so I was, um, I was actually
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: producing a show for direct TV at the time. And
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: it was a show where I was traveling the world
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: with two other girls meeting our MySpace friends. So it
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: was kind of considered one of the early, um, digital,
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: integrated shows. And so I was very interested in what
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: was happening online. And I don't know, I think it
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: was Lonely Girl 15, Jessica Rose, who later became a
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: good friend of mine, but she had become this overnight
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: sensation on YouTube. These videos of her, she was an
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: actress and people thought that the storyline they were watching was.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Real and it wasn't.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: And I found that really intriguing. And I remember just
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: kind of watching and sitting back and thinking, wow, that's amazing.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: I can barely get, I really at the time wanted
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: to act and I couldn't get auditions to act because
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: you had to have a separate agent, you know how
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: it goes. And so I thought, well, maybe I can
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: start putting out videos on YouTube. And a YouTube video
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: made by Obama Girl in 2007 or 2008 for the
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: primaries was, It went viral.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: It had millions of views on it. And I thought, huh,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I want to spoof it.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: I'm going to do the Hillary Clinton version.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do the I have a crush on
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Hillary video. So I did. And it went viral.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: And it got me a short-term job offer from, I
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: think it was Fox News at the time. But I
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: ended up going to MSNBC and CNN and being like
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: a political correspondent, sort of. through that video, which was
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: so wild. So I was like, okay, this is a
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: very powerful medium. This is a very powerful medium because
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: I don't know anything about politics and I do not
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: deserve to be on these shows.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: But if this is what, what this medium can do
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: for you, then maybe I should continue.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: So at what point did AI come into your you know, your,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: your mindset, your world, how did you find out about it?
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: How was it something that got you interested? I know
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: one of the first things you did was involving music, right?
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Is that how it first started for you?
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: So I, I basically, after I don't know, maybe seven,
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: eight years on YouTube. And for a while I was
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: just sort of doing it in my free time when
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: I wasn't working in TV and film. And then I
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: began taking it more seriously because there was actually, you
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: could actually really make money on it. And that's when
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: I started getting back into music and pursuing my love
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: of music after the horrific American.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Idol incident years earlier.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: And I found myself just playing with different tools as
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: often YouTubers do because they're trying to figure out how
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: can I make a video quickly. I have to put
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: out something every week. And on the music side, I'm
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: not a great composer. And so when I heard about
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: these new AI tools that would allow you to compose music,
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: I was intrigued immediately. So I started playing with them
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: and I was my, this was in 2016 and my
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: mind was blown.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: But what's the difference between what you're talking about and
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: like what I remember, like a Casio being, remember those
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: like synthesizers and you can press like bongos or I
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: don't know, you can add all those sorts of things.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And is it similar?
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: You know, it's different, but I also am not a
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: specialist in the, in the way of making music with Casio's,
• 17:18
  Speaker 6: but I think those are, those are more like looping
• 17:20
  Speaker 6: machines where you've got sort of a consistent beat and
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: you're looping.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: Whereas with any sort of artificial intelligence you know, every
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: output is unique to parameters that you are providing it.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: And so you're essentially directing the music but instead of,
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: you know, being an orchestra conductor or someone who's actually
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: writing out the music notes, you are verbally providing instruction.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: So I want a cinematic ballad in the style of
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: Mozart at 78 beats per minute in the key of C,
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: those kinds of instructions. And then there's a constant back
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: and forth. So for my first album, I mean, I
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: think for a lot of those songs, there were 80,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: 90 iterations. going back and forth before getting to a
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: version of the song that I was happy with.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So it's really a collaborative process. It's not like where
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: you're saying to this machine, do the writing, do the music,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: do everything. And I'll just sing it.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Going back and forth.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Yes. Highly, highly involved. Um, it's, it's, you're taking on
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: the role of an.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: Editor, really what you're doing. Like if you've ever edited
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: a YouTube video or, um, or a film or something
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: to that. And you know how different the final output
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: can be based on the choices that you make. And
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: that's exactly what you're doing here is working with AI.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: So you ended up having a couple albums and you
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: were on the news for it. You made headlines for
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: the fact that you were the first artist that collaborated
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: with AI, correct? Yeah.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And how, like, how was that? Was it playing on
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: the radio? Like, could we, you know, I've heard some
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: of the songs and they are really good. You know,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you made videos for them, whatever. So what was the
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: response from people listening to it?
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: I think, I mean, this was back in 2017 when
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: I released the first track, Break Free, and that track
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: ended up getting radio play, probably more because people were
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: just intrigued and disc jockeys were like, oh, how do.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: We feel about this whole AI music thing?
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: But this was, several years before the kind of AI
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: boom that we've seen reach public consciousness. So I think
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: people didn't really know how to think about it and
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: also what it meant to collaborate with AI.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: It takes a little bit of.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Sort of talking through it for people to understand what
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: that actually means.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: So you know, the response was very interesting.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: I think for the most part, people were curious and engaged,
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: but also very concerned about what this meant for the
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: future of music. And that was part of the reason
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: that I dove into the project. I love experimenting with
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: new technologies in part because it is a space where
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: there are no rules. You're kind of figuring out, you're
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: figuring everything out as you go. There's no handbook on
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: how to do it. And the end result is that
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: it poses a lot of interesting questions that we need
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: to be asking ourselves as creative society. So I'm openly
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: participating in those exact same questions.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Right, right. So, you know, it's so funny. I think
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: we think of AI as something that has to do
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: with sci-fi movies or robots or things that are like
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: not attainable. There are things that aren't real and, but
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: it's become, you know, apparent that AI is much more relatable.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: It's much more mundane and, you know, it is happening.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: It is at the forefront and it is here and
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: we have to figure out if it's good or or
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: bad and somewhere in there, you got more involved in it, right?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: As more of a filmmaker and you created a documentary
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: called I Am Human, which by the way is fascinating.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell you a funny story before you get
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: into what it is. My producer, Alison is part of
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: like a writing group. And just two days ago, this
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: is no joke. One of the writers came in and
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: was pitching her screenplay about something that was sort of
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: similar where somebody had something implanted in their brain and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: they were a different person and blah, blah, blah. And
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: people in the group started being like, I don't know,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: that's kind of unrealistic. I don't think anyone's going to
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: get it. And Alison's like, wait, wait, wait, we have
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: someone coming on our show.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: It's real.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: This is really happening. And everyone was like, see, you know,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the people that were pitching it were like, see, it's
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: not so far fetched, but like to the lay person,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: that's not in the world. that you now have been
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: working in and that you've seen, we don't really get
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: where this is going and how far this has already come.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And so I really want to talk about it. So
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: tell us about your documentary, how you got into it.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about what is on the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: forefront for AI.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: First of all, that's amazing.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: And that's exactly why I made the documentary, because anytime
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: I would talk to people about at large about neurotech,
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: they would just be like, there's no.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Way that that's actually real. Or they think it's many,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: many years down the road.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: And even now in 2024, almost in 2023, you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of people still assume that these
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: things are five, 10, 15 years out. You know, Elon
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: Musk started Neuralink and that's gotten a lot of attention
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: by way of his megaphone. but I think they're still
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: in earlier trials. So the general public doesn't realize that
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: there are actual humans that have been implanted with these
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: devices for the past 20 years. So the film followed
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: three patients, one who was blind, one with paralysis, and
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, and one with Parkinson's. We actually followed five,
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: but three ended up making the cut. And they're journeys
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: getting these implantable devices, brain computer interfaces is the formal
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: name that the device is referred to as. And essentially
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: these devices use artificial intelligence to decode neural activity. And
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: then with that neural activity, you can perform all kinds
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: of different functions. You can connect a brain to a computer.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: You can then.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Being a student is expensive. So here's something that won't
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: break the bank. A subscription to the Irish Times for.
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: Just € 5 a month.
• 23:50
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• 23:54
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• 23:57
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• 24:02
  Speaker 3: The ultimate student discount.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: You know, the BCI to mobilize like a robotic arm
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: or restore function in someone who's lost movement to restore sensation.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: It's remarkable. They're absolutely remarkable devices.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: So it's really interesting though, because I think most people,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and I think you said this in the documentary or
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: someone said it, that the brain is people's sense of self. And,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: you know, the question is kind of, you know, how
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: is this allowed? Where is the beginning and the end?
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: And how dangerous is it if somebody else is controlling
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: these things? What did you learn while making this documentary?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Ooh, I mean, these are big questions.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know, for each one of them,
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: there's a larger nuanced answer. I suppose, for the time being,
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: in order to get access to these devices, you have
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: to have a very serious, severe neurological disorder. You're part
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: of a clinical trial. There's all kinds of regulation around that.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: These are not readily available commercial devices. If you are
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: a patient, you can't just go to your doctor right
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: now and say, I want a BCI.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: You actually have to sign up for a trial.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: And so at the moment, we're talking about several dozen
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: people who've had these.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: This is not thousands. hundreds of thousands of people.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: Although actually Parkinson's patients, there are a lot of Parkinson's
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: patients that have them, but it's a slightly different device.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: So in terms of the kind of ethical progression of things,
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think what's very likely to happen, like
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: so many things that start out as medical treatments and
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: then become commercialized and then people start looking at, well,
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: what can this do for me?
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: What kind of other benefit can I get from this?
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: And we see this all over the place from, you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: plastic surgery, which initially started in the, what, 19, I think,
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: 40s or 50s as a response to soldiers who were
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: going off to war and coming back maimed. And now
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: it's completely been accepted by modern society as something that
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: people do for their benefit. And I think it's likely
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: that we'll see some kind of version of this with
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: BCIs where.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Able-bodied people might say, you know, this could give me
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: a leg up.
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: I might have a better memory or I might have,
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: faster cognition. And it's quite possible that that will end
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: up happening.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: It's sort of what we've seen time and again in society.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: And those are big questions that we should be talking
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: about now and figuring out how we want to deal
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: with it.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Of course. But for people that don't really know what
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: we're talking about yet, when you talk about these things
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that have been implanted into the brain. Can you share
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: what that actually is doing? Like for the person you
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: followed that was blind, right? You said there was somebody
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that was blind. Explain what that implant was doing for them.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: Sure. Well, I'll actually use the example of the patient
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: with paralysis first, because it's a little more simple. And
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: patients with paralysis tend to see the most benefit in
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: this current moment. So what's happening is we're implanting a
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: microelectrode array, which is like this tiny spiky looking, very,
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: very tiny spiky looking chip. And it goes into the
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: motor cortex of the brain and it decodes motor intention.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: So someone who once had the ability to move and
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: has lost that ability because of an accident, something like that,
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: they imagine themselves moving.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Their arm, their hand, whatever part of their body.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: And they, the algorithms are able to decode that intention
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: and then send that intention into a digital device so
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: that you can control, let's say a mouse or a
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: cursor on a screen, a video game. Now you can
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: type emails and do Photoshop, right? And it's all just
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: connecting the thought of, I wanna move these fingers into
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: the device. Now you can also take that digital information,
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: essentially you're converting brain activity or thoughts into a digital code.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: You can now take that digital code.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: You can also essentially send it back into the brain
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: or body. So some patients that have paralysis in some
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: of these trials have electrodes implanted in their arm and
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: hand that connect to the computer. So the computer can
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: send the digital code back to their arm and hand muscles,
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: allowing them to actually move.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: And it's in real time.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's, it looks like it looks like they're
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: actually moving their arm and hand seamlessly.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Wow. And are they getting the sensation that they're moving
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: it or it's just like they're imagining it?
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: They are imagining that they are moving it.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: And so because they're paralyzed, they're not getting the sensation
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: of moving.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: They can obviously visually see it.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: But if you have some electrodes can be implanted to
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: provide a sensation of tactile response. It's not going to
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: feel the same as when you were pre-paralysis, but it
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: will give you some kind of feedback so that you know,
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: for instance, if you're picking up a can or something,
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: you know how much pressure to apply based on the
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: tactile feedback.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: And I'm curious, so it's it's for people that have,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously previously been able to move their legs
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: and arms and have these thoughts because if somebody is
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: born without a limb, for whatever reason, they wouldn't know
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: what that feels like, right? So is it, it has
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: to come from the memory and from the memory of moving.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: So that's why it works so well in the motor
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: part of the brain, the sensory cortex part of the
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: brain is the one that's responsible for providing the feedback.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Back to the brain.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: So you would have had to have had some kind
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: of ability to have sensory information before.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: And the patients.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: With Parkinson's, it's primarily a motor related disease, you know,
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: with the tremors and the shaking. So that's why those
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: devices tend to work well for Parkinson's patients as well.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Meaning it helps them control the movements.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: It'll just turn it right off. They turn on the
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: device and done. No more, no more shakes.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Right, and what about for people that are blind or deaf?
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so the company that I work for is actually
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: working on an implant for deaf patients currently, because a
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: lot of patients with deafness actually don't qualify for a
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: cochlear implant because of the destruction of the ear canal,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: like more than 50%. So this would be really helpful
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: for them to circumvent that and go straight to the brain.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: In terms of the patients with blindness, that's a smaller
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: set of patients. There are a couple of companies working
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: on that. And it's essentially a sensor that goes in
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: the retina and is sensing light and able to supply
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: the brain with pixels. So you're basically seeing an image
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: from inside the brain. I mean, it's really hard to
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: even grok, but they're getting these very kind of fuzzy images,
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: but at least it's enough to allow them to be
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: able to move about the world, know if a car
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: is coming, if they're trying to cross the street. And
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: that resolution is going to get better and better just
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: as our internet resolution has gotten better over time.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Of course. And obviously they're using subjects that could see
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: in the past so they know what they're looking at?
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Has this been, is this something that can be used
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: on people who were born blind and don't even know
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: what vision is?
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: That's a great question.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: I'm sure they could because you could just, then they
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: could be trained to understand what it is that they're
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: seeing and how that maps to sensation. But I think
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: most of the patients who've had it done are patients
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: who previously had sight in part because that's why they
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: want to have their function restored.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And also they can give feedback on the difference, what
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: they're seeing.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: So what are some other things that eventually you think
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: this will be used for? I heard you talk about
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the fact that some people have been implanted to help
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: with opioid use or can this help with Alzheimer's one day?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: You're studying depression, treatment resistant depression.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: They're studying OCD or studying addiction to alcohol and opioids.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, a lot of these issues, you could say
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: they're biochemical. You can also say they're electrical. You can
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: kind of attack them from different ways. But, you know,
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: in some cases, you might look at a patient and say, well,
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: by giving them all of these drugs, we're sort of
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: carpet bombing the brain. And having all of these awful
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: side effects, if we target just the neurons at an
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: electrical level and get the same outcome, but without all
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: the pharmacological side effects, then that's a good thing. But
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: so we're still in the early stages. I have no
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: idea as a non-scientist, just BCI enthusiast and science communicator,
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: you know, kind of what the outcomes will be of
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: these studies. But I think that we'll see a lot
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: of really fascinating things in the next 10 years.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it. But, you know,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: this is kind of what they make these scary movies about, right?
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: So we... can see ourselves in the future getting implanted
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: with stuff in our brain just to help with something
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: as simple, you know, not being paralyzed. And when I
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: say simple, I shouldn't say it like that, but you know,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: as an opioid addiction. So I back to my other
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: question before, like, when do we think that this becomes
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: a problem that all of a sudden a hacker could
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: get in and change people's minds and where it can
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: affect things like an election, it can affect things like
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: overturning things or, you know, when does that get dangerous?
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: I mean, we already have a huge problem of being
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: able to decipher reality. I'm so scared about what's to
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: come this year with AI. And I work with these
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: tools every single day and I get so excited by
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: them and they give me so much wonder and awe
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: and they will absolutely be used for nefarious evil purposes.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: And it's really, really frightening.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: So I can see why anyone would be terrified about
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: the idea of implanting something in your brain that could
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: potentially be hacked. So at the moment, you know, these
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: are closed loop systems at universities and, and these, the
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: technology requires you to actually be inside a lab and
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: a patient has to actually be thinking about moving, moving
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: a part of their body to even decode the neural activity.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: So let's say a patient just has a thought about
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: what they're going to eat for dinner that night. Like
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: There's no access to that thought. There's no ability to
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: decode that thought. There's no ability to implant something in
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: the brain.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: Being a student is expensive. Rent, books, your morning coffee,
• 35:11
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• 35:17
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• 35:21
  Speaker 3: for just € 5 a month. Get every article, 165 years
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: of journalism, daily puzzles and exclusive newsletters. All for less
• 35:28
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• 35:31
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• 35:35
  Speaker 4: Outside of this sort of motor part of the body.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: That doesn't mean that there's not some potential as these
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: devices become more sophisticated and maybe are implanted in other
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: parts of the brain where these possibilities aren't real. But
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: right now, the limitations of the science just posit that
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: it's not actually possible to do the kinds of things
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: that we.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Imagine in sci-fi films.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: And also thoughts are a lot of our, we don't
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: really even understand how our thoughts are created. Like, there's
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: so many different neural networks in the brain that are
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: talking and communicating to each other that things like motor
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: and sensory are, we're sort of lucky that those are
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: taking place in highly specific areas of the brain that
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: can be targeted. Whereas like our general critical thinking and
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: all of that, it's, it's much tougher to determine how
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: that'll be affected by these technologies.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, are you scared? What do you think about it?
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think it's really interesting. I I've
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: been to a conference on it and it was about
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the negative and the positive. It was hosted by the
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: guys who did the social dilemma. And one of the
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: guys was talking about how dangerous it is. And he
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: was asking for donations and somebody that we were with
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: actually donated a million dollars that day to help him
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and his group, you know, combat what's going to happen
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: with AI and to really get the message out that
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: how dangerous it is. And he was showing examples of
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: how dangerous it could be, which gets me to something,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: you know, Netflix just put out a reality show. I
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: don't know if you're familiar with this and I'm going
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: to blank on the name because it was a European
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: reality show. And it was like five couples that were
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: split up and went into two different houses. And they were,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: it was to see whether or not they would cheat.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: And then they were presented with photos and videos of
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: their significant other cheating. And they were devastated watching this.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: And you're devastated. You're like, oh my God, this is terrible.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: And then they're posed with the question, is this your
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: significant other or is this AI? And they had created,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: some of it was fake, but the images that were
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: created looked exactly like them and the movements and everything.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: So it went on and on for two weeks or whatever.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: And you had to see these devastating videos and people
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: were sobbing, people are angry. And then they get put
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: together at the end And they have to decide if
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: they're significant or they're cheated or they didn't. And if
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: they believed the trust level. every one of the couples
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: broke up because they didn't believe it. And whether or not,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: you know, the host said, okay, well, it was just AI.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: It was completely fake. They said the other person would
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: get mad. Well, you didn't trust me. And, you know,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: and no one trusted each other. And the use of
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: AI was so good. You know, I remember hearing some
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: of the, the cast members saying, well, that's the way
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: he speaks. That's the way he holds me. That's the
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: way he would kiss me, you know? So I know
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: it's him and it wasn't, you know, so I found
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: that terrifying and, But the other thing that was presented
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: to us that was really good in this conference was
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: the use of communicating with animals. I'm a huge animal lover.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: And these guys were talking about the fact that they're
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: 12 months away from being able to decode humpback whale
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: conversations with each other. And then that we're probably nine
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: years away. I could be getting the years wrong, but
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: somewhere in a decade of speaking to dogs. And to me,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: that's amazing. I have three dogs. I want to speak
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: to my dog. You know, I want to be able
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: to type on the computer, like don't run out the
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: door because you could get hit by a car, you know, like,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: do you like this food? I'm serving you, you know, whatever.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: So I want to be able to have that in
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: my life. But the other stuff is really scary. And
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: the other stuff is scary on so many levels because
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: somebody can talk to you and you think you're talking
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: to someone and it's not them. And it could, you know, your,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: your identity can be hacked. Your accounts can be hacked,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. So that's my thought on the whole thing.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: It could be great. And it can be scary. Oh,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and the last thing, my daughter's 11 and she's in
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: sixth grade and she's in a technology class. And one
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: of their first assignments was to sign up for chat GPT.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: and do an assignment using chat GPT. And I remember
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: when that was kind of introduced into our heads, we
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: started to see news articles about it a year ago
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: and how scary that is for college students because what
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: are they learning if they could just have a computer
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: do it all for you? But then I found it
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: odd that they're teaching our 11-year-olds how to use it
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: and be prepared to use it in the future. So
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I don't really know what to think.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: I'm actually, you know, I take a slightly different tack
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: on the education side. I was actually going to applaud
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: your child's school only because, not that your concerns aren't founded, well-founded,
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: but most education systems, particularly a lot of public education systems,
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: you know, are going to lose the battle of behind
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: private education systems, if they don't adopt the technology and
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: teach students how to use it, how to use it safely,
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: how to use it properly, how to actually, you know,
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: use it as like a way to.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Elevate your work.
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: And if you want, you know, I don't know, I
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: think that there's pluses and minuses to it. But if
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: you want to prepare students for the future, it certainly
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: is a future where I don't think, you know, I
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: think chat GPT is here to stay in any amalgamations
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: of that is here to stay. And I have just
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: a lot of concerns about the widening gap between economically
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: disadvantaged kids and those who are more advantaged being taught
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: different things in their schools.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I definitely think you're right in that. And by
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: the way, chat GPT, I found it's phenomenal. It's so
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: much better than Google, right? It comes up with all
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: sorts of questions or thoughts or things that you can't
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: gain in one sitting because you actually have to, it
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: gives you the research on Google, but you have to
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: go into it and read it. In chat GPT, you
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: can ask a question and it does all the research
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: for you and contains it in one area. It's up
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: to you to know how to fact check and understand
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: a bigger picture and a broader picture, but it does
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: condense everything. And it gives you so much information that
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: you may have missed if you aren't a good researcher.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: But I remember the days of being in high school
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: and there were so many elements of writing a paper.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: You had to research it. You had to know how
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: to write English properly. You had to know how to
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: put it all together. You don't necessarily have to know
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: all those skills now. And I guess you don't really
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: need to use them. You don't need to learn it
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: if it's going to be done for us anyway and
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: helpful as long as the information is there. And you're right.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are a lot of kids or, you know,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: schools that are not giving enough information and it's so
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: much better to be given the opportunity to have a
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: leg up in it. So, I mean, I do find it,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the whole thing is fascinating, but, you know.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Are you- We're living in a large social experiment.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. But like, are you concerned that
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: like what these guys from the social dilemma said, they
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: took it to a new level, like that whole documentary
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: was more about the addiction to social media and the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: algorithms and how they're kind of the big brother of
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: following you. And that's a whole, you know, that's a
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: whole conversation on one side, but then to take it
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: to another level where it could take over what we're doing,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: take over jobs, take over people's brains, so to speak,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: like we were talking about, but in a way of like, oh,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: you know, ruling things and having a mind of its own.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: So people are no longer in charge. Like that was
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: where the conversation was going for them. Do you see
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: that as a fear?
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, I saw the talk that the guys from
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: Center for Humane Studies did on YouTube.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: I thought it was brilliant.
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: And I definitely think that there's a whole group of
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: Silicon Valley tech people who are not who are not
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: being cautious enough about how they develop these tools. And
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: they're sort of developing them in a black box. I mean,
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: I can't tell you how many AI engineers I've spoken
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: to who wake up incredibly excited and also terrified because
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: they don't really understand how these AI tools are thinking
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: and learning. And so imagine developing something without really understanding
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: how it's doing what it's doing. It's very hard to
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: see the future. It's very hard to see how this
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: could be manipulated. And they're trying to do their best
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: at putting all the safeguards in place. But I share
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: a lot of those sort of larger existential concerns.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: For the average person, the biggest, for just, you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: for the average person, I would say the biggest concern
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: in the next three years is will I take my job?
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: And quite frankly, the only path I see around that,
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: at least for now, is encouraging people to educate themselves
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: on how to use these tools. Because there's already a
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: huge job market opening up for anyone who has AI
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: skill sets. From prompting to engineering, just understanding how any
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: department and any company might integrate with these tools to
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: elevate the department.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: And so there's no doubt about it.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: It's going to change every aspect of our life and
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: business as we know it. The existential questions, which are
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: super important, I don't think we'll, I don't know how.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: We'll even, I don't know how we'll, I suppose, assess
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: how real they are for at least another few years.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: That's just my, my very narrow take. Yeah.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, do you see a world where airplanes will
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: fly themselves and you know, it would be that, you know?
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: And I do see a world where in the future
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: we will, I think we will look back on the
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: days where we were driving our own cars and think,
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: That was so barbaric.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: Like we had no idea when someone was drinking and
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: driving or if they hadn't slept all night. And if
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: you look at just all human auto accidents, it's human error.
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: And these machines, as scary as it might sound, if
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: they're much better at doing something safer, we're going to
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: end up choosing, I think we'll end up choosing those preferences.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know exactly what you're talking about, but
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: I then wonder if that goes a step further where then,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you know, you're in an airplane, these airplanes are flying
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: by themselves, but then there's no, you know, they have
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: a mind of their own. And if something gets corrupt
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: in it, that can also shut down everything as well
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: and be very dangerous.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: Being a student is expensive. Rent, books, your morning coffee,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: your mid-morning coffee, your I'm about to fall asleep in
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: the middle of a lecture coffee. So here's something that
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: won't break the bank. A subscription to the Irish Times
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: for just five euro a month. Get every article, 165
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: years of journalism, daily puzzles and exclusive newsletters, all for
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: less than the price of your daily coffee habit. The
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Irish Times for just five euro a month. The ultimate
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: student discount.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: But hopefully they can solve for that.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, right. Yeah, of course. But, you know, I have
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: a friend who's an investor in a company called Archer.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Are you familiar with Archer? A very interesting company that
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: he believes is going to be like the Uber for airplanes,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: you know, and where they already have made some and
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: are testing them. And I think FedEx uses them now
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: to take parts and body parts back and forth for
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: transplant stuff. But it's like, you know, a small six person,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: eight person, um, airplane that's not flown by a human
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: and goes up and down very quickly. And he was
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: talking about having it from New York to the Hamptons.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: And it's like an 18 minute flight. And you can
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: kind of type in your phone, like, Oh, you know,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I want to get an Archer and in a world
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: where it almost would be like the Jetsons.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: I love that. I want that now.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, well, it's created. It's a publicly traded company.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And the stuff that they show is so phenomenal. But also,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: you're kind of like, that isn't going to happen. And
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: he's like, no, Rachel, it is going to happen. So
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: we don't get it. Just like you're talking about these things,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: like with things being implanted in your brain, we just
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: don't imagine that it can happen. So what are some
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: things like, us as lay person, we probably don't even
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: realize that this is really gonna happen in the next
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: 10 years. But I know I've heard you talk about
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: some things and said to people in a room that
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: are aware of stuff, what do you see in 2030
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: that we're not aware of that can actually happen or 2035?
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: 2030 or 2035.
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: Okay, so we're talking about.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Six to 10 years from now.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think that, oh man, okay, I'll give
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: you something fun.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: I think will happen like a positive thing.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: We are getting so much better at being able to
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: track information about our bodies. The cost of diagnostics is
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: getting much cheaper. We're understanding more and more about how
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: the human brain works through not just implantable devices, but
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: non-invasive devices. um and i think we're going to have
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: this really uh i do think there will be a
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: whole new job economy that opens up for like a
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: kind of what would i call it it's like a
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: mix of a doctor and an experience engineer so every
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: thing that we interface with our visuals music um conversations
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: that we're having with friends like we'll be able to
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: essentially understand how that's impacting us physiologically and emotionally and mentally.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: That's really, it's sort of fascinating what we choose to
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: do with that information, but I do think people will
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: get really dialed in on the parts of their life
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: that are causing anxiety, that are causing depression. And my
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: hope is that we'll, we'll, put a lot more resources
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: into understanding like the causes of mental illness, not just,
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: just treating them, but really addressing like, what is it
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: about our current human society that's causing all of these
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: issues like cancer, et cetera. And, and kind of developing
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: tools and, and solutions for that.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: So.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Right. So I saw on your Instagram recently that you
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: said you're running fun AI experiments, building GPT for women
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: with breast cancer. Can you talk about that and talk
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: about your own experience with that?
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So in 2019, actually, right when I completed the film,
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: I am human. I was diagnosed with stage three breast
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: cancer and went into a full year of pretty aggressive
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: treatment for that chemo radiation.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Surgery, the whole nine yards and then some.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: And what was really fascinating to me was at the
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: time that I was diagnosed, I had five friends of friends,
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: all under the age.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Of 35, also diagnosed.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: And so we started a little chat group and, you know,
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: each of us had a different type of breast cancer.
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: There's many different types and there's different treatments. And there's
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: so many questions that you have that you cannot find
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: on Google or you know, you're better off going to
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: Reddit threads than you are the first, I don't know,
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: 10 pages of search results on Google. And it was
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: this group of girlfriends that we really helped each other
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: through treatment by way of our intense research minds. And
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: I wanted to be able to take sort of those
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: conversations and the things that you learn as a patient
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: and inject them into a knowledge base that can.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Be accessed by other patients in the future.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: So I'm I've been working on the Cancer 101 GPT,
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: which is a GPT designed by cancer survivors and addresses
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: all the questions that you really need answered during treatment,
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: particularly as a young woman, like, do I want a
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: cold cap to save my hair?
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: What are the pros and cons of that?
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: What are some of the unwanted or surprising side effects?
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: Things like that that you really can't find online. So
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: that's what I've been working on in my, in my
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: spare time.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: What I found really interesting is that you had the
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: wherewithal to freeze your eggs early on and do some
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: things that may have been really lifesaving for you early on.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about that? And, and, and what made
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: you do that?
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: So I froze my eggs actually several years before I
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: was diagnosed. I had no idea, obviously that cancer was
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: in my near future. And for me, it was just,
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: I think, a desire at the age of, I think
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: it was 30 when I froze them. So I was
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: aware that there was this biological clock and that, that
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: children were not in my near term future, but then
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: I wanted to be able to preserve that, that ability
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: and that, that choice. And I mean, thank goodness I
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: did it because when I was diagnosed, I was diagnosed
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: estrogen positive breast cancer, um, and highly aggressive it's HER2 positive.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: So very fast growing. And I don't think my doctors.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: Would have been super keen on me taking the time
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: to do a bunch of estrogen-based therapies in order to
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: freeze them again once I had these tumors in my
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: lymph nodes. So I was really, really lucky that I
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: had frozen my eggs a few years early. There were
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: some other things I had done like freezing.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: My stem cells and sequencing my entire DNA line.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: Um, and all of those things actually were really advantageous
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: for treatment because, and as we, as doctors and scientists
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: learn more about breast cancer, they are making treatments more personalized. Um,
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: 10 years ago, it was kind of like everyone got
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: the same treatment. Uh, and so a lot of these
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: things that I was doing were really, was really helpful
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: in getting me a and treatment faster and be like, uh,
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: more confident that the treatments that I was being given
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: for the particular cock chemo cocktail.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: Would actually work against my tumor type.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: Do you think that AI is going to have, you know,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: a big role in, you know, the lifespan of people
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: being able to detect cancer or any other diseases in
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: the future? You know, I don't know. Are you familiar
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: with them? I think it's called prenuvo.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Do you, do you think that's true? I mean, a
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: lot of people give it criticism, like it's not a
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: real thing, but it seems to have saved a lot
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: of people's lives so far.
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: I don't understand the criticism of it's not a real
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: thing because it's actually a real thing. You're going in,
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: you're getting a scan, and they're telling you whether or
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: not you have visual tumor cells in your body. You
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: have tiny, tiny clusters of tumor cells that might not
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: get picked up on an MRI, but that doesn't defeat
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: the purpose of knowing whether you have palpable tumors. I
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: think a lot of the scientific community, there are concerns
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: about these preventative scans for two big reasons, at least
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: as I have interpreted it. One is that these are
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: expensive scans. Most people can't afford them. And so what
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: are we sort of saying as a society that we
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: allow only the wealthy to be able to essentially prevent
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: these cancers or catch them really early when insurance companies
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: are not actually providing this to everyone.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: The second, second piece, which is actually just fascinating.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: And I, I, um, I would love to dive in
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: deeper to understanding this, but there are a lot of
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: studies that show that by increasing preventative scans, you're not
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: actually increasing lifespan. So you're increasing preventative scans in an area.
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: You might be catching cancers earlier, which does help with
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: mortality rate, but looking at the overall population, it's the
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: average of... the average age of death is the same,
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: whether there's preventative scans or not. It's a very strange,
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: like statistical sort of thing that a lot of these
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: doctors and scientists.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: Are aware of.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: So they're saying, well, then why should we be doing
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: these preventative scans that just cause anxiety and stress if
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: it's not making these massive population changes? I don't totally
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: understand how this works, but it's possible. It's possible that
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: we all get We know that we all have cancer
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: cells in our bodies. It's possible that we all at
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: different times in our life develop small tumors and that
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: maybe the body naturally fights it off. And so what
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: happens if you go and you get a preventative scan
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: and now all of a sudden you're doing chemo and
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: radiation and all these things, which we know are also
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: not great.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: It's just an interesting.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll be very interesting to see where it goes,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: where it is 5, 10, 15 years from now and
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: what it does for people's health. Where do you see,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know you've been around all of this
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: conversation about, you know, immortality and, you know, reducing people's,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: you know, aging process. What are your thoughts on that
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: and what you've seen and been around the research?
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: Well, I would say just as someone who, I mean,
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: I always thought I was a very healthy person. And
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: to go into a year of cancer treatment, you know,
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: being sick for an extended period of time certainly makes
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: you appreciate being healthy in a way that I had.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: Never truly appreciated.
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: And so for me, the idea of living a healthier
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: life for as long as possible is incredibly important. And
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: I would try to do as much as I could
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: to increase the odds that you know, my last 10
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: years on this earth are not spent in a nursing home.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: Hooked up to IVs.
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: Um, and so whatever I can do to, to, to
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: increase those odds, I am so into doing, and it's
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: why I love all of the biotech consumer health stuff
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: in terms of the whole living forever thing. I mean,
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: I think it's a really scary proposition to society that, uh, that.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Let's see if I can articulate this correctly.
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: We need, I mean, I think, first of all, I
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: just think life and death is a natural cycle, natural
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: cycle of cleansing of the earth. And I think we need,
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: we need death in part to ensure that, you know,
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: that ideas and belief systems and all of these things
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: are reset. You know, we see what happens when people
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: are in power for too long or when people are,
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: you know, become maniacal about certain things in their life.
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: And I'm not doing a good job of explaining this.
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: because I literally never articulated this in public. Just, I
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: think it's a really dangerous idea, this idea that, and
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: particularly if it's the only the wealthiest people, you know,
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: who are somehow living way beyond everyone else, we're going
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: to end up in a really scary society.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Do you see a world where, you know, there were,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: long time ago, people were only living until their thirties.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Now we're living into the seventies, eighties, some people into
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: their hundreds. Do you see a world where somewhat naturally,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: like we still are that people are living to 120, 140, 150.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's a possibility?
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: I think 120 for sure.
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 59:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: I bet there's kids walking around right now. That'll really
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: the whole population. It'll be regularly reaching 120. I think,
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: I think I don't know about 150.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Right, right. So I want to go back to a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: brain question for a second, because I am very curious
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: about this. If the brain is so powerful, how come
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: we can't like sit on the couch, close our eyes,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: and imagine we're doing 150,000 sit-ups and, you know, leg
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: raises or whatever to get fit? Like how, why isn't
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: that a thing?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: To do what? To just thinking about it to get fit?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, to really think about it, to make your muscles
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: flex that much. Do you know what I mean? Like,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: do you think that'll ever happen that we are able to,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: because you're talking about imagining, you know, you can lift
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: your arm and you can do art and you can
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: do all these things for motor skills. Will there ever
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: be a point where we can imagine we're getting fit
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: and we actually see a ripped stomach?
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: I feel like I read a funny study that was
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: on this very thing that demonstrated that when people actually
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: think about being fit, they get fit faster. Oh my gosh.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: But do you think that's like manifestation or is that real?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: No, I think it's actually, it was a well-done study.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: I don't remember what book I read it in, but
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: I remember thinking it.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: Wasn't just some fluff thing.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: And my guess is that it's similar to the placebo effect,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: which we know is a real effect, right? Where people
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: will take the sugar pill and they will have the
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: exact same outcomes as someone who's taking the real medication.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: So there is something very powerful that we still don't
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: yet understand about our brain's ability to give our body
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: instructions and do certain things. And I wouldn't be surprised
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: if some version of what you just said postulated becomes possible.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Well, I would hope that that becomes possible in my lifetime. So,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: because that would be very helpful in, you know, getting
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: fit as we get older.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: You're so fit.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, as you get older, it's harder to
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: get fit. So it'd be great if we're in our
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: eighties and all of a sudden we can, you know,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: feel like we're looking younger when we can't lift that much,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: you know, that would be cool.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: So how, by the way, how are you doing in your,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: in your fight with your, with cancer?
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 6: Thank you.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: I am.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: I just had a scan done. My four year scan
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: was done in December and it came back clear.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: So four years remission and five years is the really big,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: it's the big year they want you to get to.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: Reoccurrence rates are really high for my type, my particular
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: type of cancer.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: It's 25% in the first five years. So I'm almost
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: there to the big marker.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Good. I'm happy to hear that. And fingers are crossed
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: for you. So, all right. I know we've talked a
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: little bit about this, but like, I kind of just
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: want to like get to end this. What should we
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: as lay people be like looking forward to in the future?
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: Some of the things that we may not know of
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: that you're really excited about. It doesn't have to be
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: in the next 10 years, like what I asked you before,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: but what is something we can expect in the future that,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: that we may not know of?
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: It's so funny when people ask me that question, one
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: of the first examples I, I, give is the speaking
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: to your animals.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: So you've heard about this also.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 5: Oh yes.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: And there, there was another, uh, AI study done on
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: bats and they have already decoded bat language, which is amazing.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know they had a language.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: They have a little language. They can tell genders.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: They can, there's like very specific, interesting things about bat language. Um,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: But anyway, I do feel like that'll be sort of
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: a fun kind of a fun little treat for all
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: of us to finally be able to talk to our Yeah, but.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: It is so interesting because people say, you know, with,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: with animals, it's a lot of energy or, you know,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: this telepathic thought, but they have a language that can
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: be deciphered apparently. And I think that would be, that's
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: going to be so cool. I hope I am alive
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: for that to happen because I cannot wait for that.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: You know, and again, they say that that can also
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: be very dangerous because you can influence people. what animals
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: think or do. So there's a whole other side to it,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: but you know, I just want to tell my dogs,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I love them. So.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely. They will probably be excited to hear that
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: from you.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: So I'm excited about that. I, like I said, I
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: am genuinely excited about, um, a future where we have
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: more control over our mental health.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Um, and we also start being able to better see the.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: The parts of our manifested reality that are causing us
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: physical ailments, mental ailments, um, just connecting that tissue better.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: Um, and I, I think we're, we're getting there.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: So I'm, I'm really excited about those two aspects of
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: life from an entertainment perspective.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: I'm, I'm really excited about augmented.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: Reality and being able to like put on something that
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: allows me to interface with the world in new ways.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm not a screen person.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: I actually really dislike having my phone and having a
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: screen and notifications and all of those things.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: I just want that off.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: So I like the idea of being able to put
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: something on, not have a phone and then, you know,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: immediately take it.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: Off when I, when I want to take it off.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: Meaning like an Oculus or whatever these.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: Like glasses, glasses that would superimpose information on to the
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: world in a really, in a really kind of seamless
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: and integrated way. Yeah. I mean, like I'm terrible at
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: remembering people's names too. So if I go to a
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: party and I have my glasses on and their names
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: pop up and I'm like, Hey.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: Rachel, so good to see you.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's so cool. I never thought of that. Okay.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: I see what you mean. You know, I went to
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: a conference about a couple of months ago where they
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: were talking about, you know, training with what I'm talking about,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: like this Oculus camera for people that are going to
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: submarines and And to show them what it's like to
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: be in a small area and to, so it's a
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: whole new world of training or simulation for airlines or
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: whatever it is that people can step into, you know,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: this new realm of reality and actually learn a trait
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: or learn a job skill or whatever it is. So
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: it's not just to fun, you know, fun thing for
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: kids to play games and play, you know, do that
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. But it's really moving forward with the
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: whole training aspect, which I think is, shocking and phenomenal you.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: Know imagine learning to sew for the first time ever
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: with little bubbles popping up that that give an arrow
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: showing you where to put the fabric and how to
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: thread the needle I was just because I was thinking
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: about how horrible I was at sewing growing up I
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: actually got to play with the Facebook goggles a couple
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: of months ago and they had like a piano demo
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: and It was so much fun and I could see
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: why kids would love it. And it really is an
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: incredible education tool.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I love that too.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: So what can we expect for, from you in the
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: near future?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: More AI experiments.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 4: I'm doing, I try to do regular monthly creative experiments
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: on my Instagram and share those. And I'm working on
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: a musical right now using AI. So I'm collaborating with
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: my best friend and chat GPT and we are writing
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: a psychedelic musical.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: Oh my God. Very excited for that.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: Wow. I'm so excited for that.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: And where can people find out more information about all
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: the stuff that we were talking about?
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: AI, neurotech, all of that. Oh man. Just like generally.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: Or like the company you work for, talk about where
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: they can find your documentary, all that stuff.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, I guess you could follow me and then
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: there's links in my bio to all of these different things.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: I am human.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: I don't even know where it's available now. I think
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: it's on Amazon and iTunes and maybe Discovery Plus. But yeah,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: I share about all of these things quite frequently. So
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: that's probably the best place to find links to everything. Yep.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: And tell our listeners who aren't watching on YouTube where
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: they can find you on Instagram.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, Taryn Southern on Instagram.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: And your website?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: T-A-R-Y-N southern.com.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Taryn. I really wish you the best.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: I cannot wait to follow up with you and find
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: out all these exciting things you have in your future.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: So let's stay in touch.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I really appreciate it.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for and give us a five-star
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: rating and review. You can support the show by joining
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: our Patreon at patreon.com slash misunderstood with Rachel Uchitel. Do
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: you have ideas for the show or want to reach out?
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Email us at infomisunderstoodpodcast at gmail.com. That's spelled M-I-S-S understood.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much and I'll see you next time.
• 1:09:15
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