Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / The Science Fiction Universe of SB Divya

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The Science Fiction Universe of SB Divya · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:08
Speaker 1: These days, we're all spending a lot of time with
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Speaker 1: our computers, our iPads, and our iPhones. I personally spend
0:17
Speaker 1: more than ten hours every day in front of my
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Speaker 1: trusty laptop. But here's a question. When you're done for
0:23
Speaker 1: the day and you close your computer, do you say
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Speaker 1: good night to it the way you might say good
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Speaker 1: night to a friend or a coworker, even though that
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Speaker 1: computer is doing so much work for you? I mean,
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Speaker 1: do you ever think about what it's like to be
0:37
Speaker 1: your laptop? If your laptop had more personality like Jarvis
0:42
Speaker 1: in Iron Man, would you treat it more like a person?
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Speaker 1: Would you care about how it felt even if you
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Speaker 1: could never actually know what it's like to be a laptop. Hi,
1:08
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I've spent a
1:11
Speaker 1: lot of time thinking about what it's like to be
1:13
Speaker 1: a particle, an alien, or even another person. And Welcome
1:17
Speaker 1: to the podcast Daniel and Jorge explain the Universe, in
1:22
Speaker 1: which we explore all of the ways of thinking and
1:25
Speaker 1: being in our universe, where we talk about what's going
1:28
Speaker 1: on in the hearts of black holes, to how long
1:30
Speaker 1: our son is going to live, to how volcanoes have
1:33
Speaker 1: formed the atmosphere of Earth. We talk about all the
1:36
Speaker 1: physics in the universe and try to make sure all
1:38
Speaker 1: of it makes sense to you, but we don't limit
1:41
Speaker 1: ourselves just to talking about this universe. In the podcast,
1:45
Speaker 1: we also like to talk about the process of science,
1:49
Speaker 1: the creative element, where we are imagining other possible universes
1:53
Speaker 1: that might be ours. Because here we are on the
1:56
Speaker 1: forefront of science, having understood some time the fraction of
2:01
Speaker 1: the mysteries of the universe, but knowing that many enormous
2:05
Speaker 1: discoveries lay ahead, hoping at least that there are grand
2:09
Speaker 1: revelations about the nature of the universe lying ahead of us,
2:12
Speaker 1: and a critical step to revealing those deep bits of
2:17
Speaker 1: knowledge is imagining them first. And since we don't know
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Speaker 1: which universe is ours, we have to hold in our
2:24
Speaker 1: minds several possible universes, sometimes an infinite set of possible
2:29
Speaker 1: universes which could be ours. And that's the job sometimes
2:33
Speaker 1: of theoretical physicists thinking about how the universe might or
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Speaker 1: might not work. But it's also the province of artists,
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Speaker 1: especially science fiction authors, who think about the possible nature
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Speaker 1: of the universe, the way it is, or the way
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Speaker 1: that it might be. And this is important not just
2:51
Speaker 1: for those of us who are curious about the deep
2:54
Speaker 1: nature of the universe, how it's built from its time,
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Speaker 1: the organizing principle, and how this incredible the complexity and
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Speaker 1: beauty emerges from the organization of those tiny little strings
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Speaker 1: or pixels or whatever it is that the foundation of
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Speaker 1: the nature of reality. But it's also important to think
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Speaker 1: about how to live in that universe, how our knowledge
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Speaker 1: of that physics and the technology that we build changes
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Speaker 1: our lives and changes how we treat each other. Who
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Speaker 1: is deserving of our respect, who earns rights, and who
3:27
Speaker 1: gets self determination. Think about, for example, how differently you
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Speaker 1: view the universe than somebody did who lived a hundred
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Speaker 1: years ago, or a thousand years ago or ten thousand
3:39
Speaker 1: years ago. They knew so much less about the nature
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Speaker 1: of our reality and our place in it. That surely
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Speaker 1: affected the way they lived, the way they thought of themselves,
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Speaker 1: and the way they treat each other. In the same way,
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Speaker 1: you might imagine somebody looking back on us in a
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Speaker 1: hundred years, in a thousand years, in ten thousand years
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Speaker 1: and thinking about our shocking ignorance about the basic nature
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Speaker 1: of the universe. After all, there are huge questions that
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Speaker 1: we still do not know the answer to. What is
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Speaker 1: space after all? Why does time only flow forwards? Why
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Speaker 1: is the universe continuing to expand and accelerate its expansion.
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Speaker 1: What happened to the beginning of the universe. These basic
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Speaker 1: questions should inform the context of our lives, and yet
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Speaker 1: we are totally clueless about their answers. And in a
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Speaker 1: hundred years or ten thousand years, people might, at least
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Speaker 1: I hope they will have some insight into the nature
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Speaker 1: of these questions, which will flesh out for them the
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Speaker 1: context of the human experience, what it means to be
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Speaker 1: human and what it means to be human in this universe.
4:45
Speaker 1: And those folks will look back at us, they will
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Speaker 1: wonder what it was like to be so ignorant, to
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Speaker 1: be as clueless as we are, and they might have
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Speaker 1: trouble understanding the choices that we make about how we
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Speaker 1: live our lives and how we treat each other, specific lee,
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Speaker 1: how we treat other beings which may or may not
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Speaker 1: be senttioned. That includes animals and includes artificial intelligence. So
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Speaker 1: today on the podcast, we're gonna be continuing a series
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Speaker 1: of conversations with science fiction authors about the universes they
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Speaker 1: created and what that means about our universe and how
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Speaker 1: to live in it. So today on the podcast the
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Speaker 1: Science Fiction Universe of S. B. Divia as me. Diva
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Speaker 1: is a geek. She is a nerd, just like me.
5:35
Speaker 1: She went to cal Tech the age of sixteen. She
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Speaker 1: is an expert in AI and in data science and
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Speaker 1: in neuroscience, and she has written a book called Machine Hood.
5:46
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating novel that explores what it's like to
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Speaker 1: be a machine and how society should treat machines and
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Speaker 1: how we formulate questions of respect and rights and sort
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Speaker 1: of the structure of society to accommodate different kind end
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Speaker 1: of sension beings. I read this book recently and I
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Speaker 1: thought it was very well written, beautifully crafted, with some
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Speaker 1: really good characters and a thrilling plot. It's sort of
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Speaker 1: cyberpunk and very exciting, and I totally recommend those of
6:13
Speaker 1: you who are interested in science fiction and seem to
6:15
Speaker 1: enjoy the same kinds of science fiction that I like
6:18
Speaker 1: to go out and pick it up. And so today
6:20
Speaker 1: we'll be digging into this book and I have a
6:22
Speaker 1: nice interview with the author at the end of the podcast.
6:26
Speaker 1: All right, so let's break it down. First. Let me
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Speaker 1: tell you what the book is about, and then I'll
6:30
Speaker 1: dig into the science of it a little bit, and
6:33
Speaker 1: then we'll talk to the author. So first, what is
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Speaker 1: this book. It's called Machine Hood, and it takes place
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Speaker 1: in sort of the near future, approximately fifty years from now,
6:44
Speaker 1: and it's on Earth. This is not a journey to
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Speaker 1: some other weird imagined universe. It takes place right here
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Speaker 1: in our universe, following our laws of physics, and it
6:53
Speaker 1: sort of extrapolates cleverly where we are now to what
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Speaker 1: the future might be like. And there's a few aspects
7:00
Speaker 1: that are really key to the structure of the novel
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Speaker 1: and the ideas that it fleshes out. And the first
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Speaker 1: one is, of course, artificial intelligence in the future. In
7:08
Speaker 1: her book, artificial intelligence is everywhere, but it's a sort
7:12
Speaker 1: of weak AI. It's the kind of AI that can't
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Speaker 1: answer your questions. It can help you with things, it
7:18
Speaker 1: can order things for you, it can analyze data and
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Speaker 1: summarize it for you in a way that humans can
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Speaker 1: make sense of, and that's already very, very powerful. But
7:27
Speaker 1: the distinction she makes in her book is that while
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Speaker 1: these AI are powerful and intelligent, they are not self aware.
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Speaker 1: They're not conscious, they're not sentient, they're not having a
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Speaker 1: first person subjective experience in the way that you are,
7:42
Speaker 1: I hope and the way that I know that I
7:44
Speaker 1: am like they cart was. So this is an important
7:48
Speaker 1: topic in her book, and the question really of the
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Speaker 1: book is can AI become self aware? Not just intelligent,
7:55
Speaker 1: not just effective, not just good at solving problems, but
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Speaker 1: can it actually have a first person experience? And if
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Speaker 1: it does, how should we treat it? What rights does
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Speaker 1: it deserve in that case? And will it be angry
8:09
Speaker 1: at the way that we've been treating it. So that's
8:12
Speaker 1: really the deepest sort of science angle to the book
8:15
Speaker 1: is extrampolining a onto the future and wondering how much
8:18
Speaker 1: further it can go and the impact on society. But
8:21
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other really cool near future tech.
8:25
Speaker 1: My favorite near future sci fi stories are the ones
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Speaker 1: where the author really has thought about where technology could go,
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Speaker 1: what might be possible. And I think this must be
8:35
Speaker 1: like really rich territory for you know, venture capitalists or
8:40
Speaker 1: researchers trying to think about what they should work on next.
8:43
Speaker 1: I mean, books like this are just loaded with clever
8:46
Speaker 1: ideas for what we should try to make. And in
8:49
Speaker 1: this book, the author has gone sort of beyond cyborg ism,
8:53
Speaker 1: where people are like strapping machines onto their bodies or
8:56
Speaker 1: replacing their arms with machines, and instead she sort of
9:00
Speaker 1: internalized this cyborder approach. Rather than replacing your body with
9:04
Speaker 1: a machine, you swallow these mini machines they call pills.
9:08
Speaker 1: And these things can make you stronger, or they can
9:11
Speaker 1: make you think faster, or they can help you recover
9:14
Speaker 1: from injuries much more quickly. And she's really worked this
9:17
Speaker 1: out in gory detail. You know, she has really microscopic
9:22
Speaker 1: understandings of how these things might work and what they
9:25
Speaker 1: would do to yourselves, and it's really quite plausible, frankly,
9:28
Speaker 1: and her background in the science and understanding the details
9:32
Speaker 1: really comes through. Something that's really cool in her novel
9:36
Speaker 1: also is that these things do not require like massive
9:40
Speaker 1: factories to build. You can download the instructions and print
9:43
Speaker 1: them at home in your kitchen. So you want to
9:47
Speaker 1: be smart for the afternoon, you print this flow pill
9:49
Speaker 1: and you'd swallow it and you're just much smarter for
9:52
Speaker 1: the whole afternoon. So it's really super fascinating. And then
9:55
Speaker 1: I think maybe the last major element of this future
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Speaker 1: society it makes it different from ours, is the omnipresence
10:03
Speaker 1: of surveillance. So she has cameras everywhere, these tiny little
10:08
Speaker 1: drones with cameras on them. They are literally everywhere. Every
10:12
Speaker 1: moment of your life could be filmed and streamed online,
10:16
Speaker 1: which means shockingly, of course, that there's basically no privacy couples,
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Speaker 1: intimate evenings, what you're doing in the bathroom, your afternoon
10:24
Speaker 1: on the couch, there could always be a micro drone
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Speaker 1: somewhere filming you. So there's this future society where life
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Speaker 1: is really very different, but not in a totally alien way.
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Speaker 1: When you read this book, you don't feel like, I
10:35
Speaker 1: don't recognize that society. Instead, you see echoes of our society.
10:39
Speaker 1: It's just taken an extrapolated and exaggerated for effect. So
10:43
Speaker 1: I think she can make some sort of social commentary
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Speaker 1: on what it's like to be human today and whether
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Speaker 1: we like the way it's going towards the future. So
10:52
Speaker 1: let me comment a little bit on the science of
10:55
Speaker 1: this story, like, is it robust, does it make sense?
10:57
Speaker 1: Has she taken some liberties over all? I was really impressed.
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Speaker 1: I think she has thought about this stuff deeply and clearly.
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Speaker 1: She knows what she's doing. She is not writing in
11:07
Speaker 1: an area where she's not an expert. She's a neuroscientist,
11:10
Speaker 1: she is a developer. She knows all about AI. So
11:13
Speaker 1: she has thought about this stuff very carefully. But there
11:16
Speaker 1: are some wrinkles here that are hard. You know, there
11:18
Speaker 1: are some questions here that science just doesn't know the
11:21
Speaker 1: answer to, especially the ones around sentience. We don't even
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Speaker 1: really know what it means when we talk about consciousness.
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Speaker 1: This is a question not necessarily of science, but of philosophy.
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Speaker 1: You know, they call it the hard question of consciousness
11:37
Speaker 1: is understanding how another being, an object that's just made
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Speaker 1: out of particles or tying little pieces can come together
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Speaker 1: to somehow have a first persons subjective experience. So, for
11:49
Speaker 1: those of you who are not into philosophy of science,
11:52
Speaker 1: this this concept of the philosophical zombie, that's an object
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Speaker 1: or a creature which acts sentiented act, it's like it's
12:00
Speaker 1: having a first person experience tells you that it is
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Speaker 1: but actually isn't. And the whole construction, the whole idea
12:07
Speaker 1: of this philosophical zombie is to make the point that
12:10
Speaker 1: there is no way to tell the difference. Right, a
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Speaker 1: real person who is actually having a first person experience
12:16
Speaker 1: who's in there or who's feeling these things, can't say
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Speaker 1: anything or do anything to convince you that they're having
12:23
Speaker 1: that experience that the philosophical zombie can't also do. So
12:27
Speaker 1: the point is that there's no way to know whether
12:30
Speaker 1: somebody really in there or not other than actually being
12:34
Speaker 1: in there. That's the foundation of this question. Also that
12:36
Speaker 1: in one of the most famous philosophy papers of all time,
12:39
Speaker 1: it's called what's it like to be a bat? And
12:42
Speaker 1: it's not a joke. It really is asking that question,
12:44
Speaker 1: and the answer is will never know, because we'll never
12:47
Speaker 1: be that bad. And the point is larger than that.
12:49
Speaker 1: It's that we'll never know what it's like to be
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Speaker 1: another person. So we have the ability to empathize with
12:54
Speaker 1: other folks, to understand to imagine what it might be
12:58
Speaker 1: like to be them, but we don't actually know what's
13:01
Speaker 1: in them. So there's this deep question of where consciousness
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Speaker 1: comes from. I mean, if my consciousness is somehow emergent
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Speaker 1: just from like the interactions of my particles coming together
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Speaker 1: in this complex structure we call human brain. Then surely
13:15
Speaker 1: that should also be possible for other people's brains, which
13:18
Speaker 1: means that it should be possible in theory for artificial
13:22
Speaker 1: brains that if you put together somehow a set of
13:26
Speaker 1: particles that operate the way a brain does, in principle,
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Speaker 1: it could also be self aware, not just hard working,
13:33
Speaker 1: not just smart, not just intelligent, but actually self aware,
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Speaker 1: capable of a real experience, capable maybe even of suffering,
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Speaker 1: of feeling joy, of feeling love, of feeling whatever the
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Speaker 1: first person experience is of that intelligence. It's connected to
13:51
Speaker 1: this other question you might imagine, like if you scan
13:54
Speaker 1: your brain and uploaded it to a computer that was
13:57
Speaker 1: able to simulate your brain, so I had exactly the
14:00
Speaker 1: same sort of information content as your brain, would that
14:03
Speaker 1: simulated version of your brain also be self aware? These
14:07
Speaker 1: are really deep questions we just don't know the answer to.
14:10
Speaker 1: Is consciousness embedded in the relationship between the objects and
14:14
Speaker 1: the information that's being passed around inside your brain or
14:17
Speaker 1: is it closely connected to the actual wet wear, like
14:21
Speaker 1: the brainy part of your brain, In which case, why
14:24
Speaker 1: is that and what is it about the brain that
14:26
Speaker 1: would make it so? And isn't it possible to reproduce
14:28
Speaker 1: it somehow in other materials. These are things we just
14:32
Speaker 1: don't know the answers to. People are sort of feeling
14:35
Speaker 1: their way around in the dark and trying to come
14:37
Speaker 1: up with ways to tackle these questions. So there's nothing
14:40
Speaker 1: in this book which is incorrect scientifically. It's just that
14:43
Speaker 1: it dives into a really difficult question philosophically that we
14:47
Speaker 1: might not ever be able to know the answer to scientifically. Remember,
14:52
Speaker 1: not every question you ask about the universe is a
14:55
Speaker 1: science question, because not every question can be answered scientifically.
14:59
Speaker 1: In order probe the question of consciousness, it might be
15:02
Speaker 1: required to step out of a conscious observer, or to
15:05
Speaker 1: move from one to the other to compare and contrast
15:07
Speaker 1: their experiences, which is not something that an observer can do.
15:11
Speaker 1: So it's not even clear to me whether this hard
15:14
Speaker 1: question of consciousness is a scientific one or will always
15:18
Speaker 1: be a philosophical one that we argue about forever. Now,
15:21
Speaker 1: the rest of the science in her book is really
15:24
Speaker 1: very robust. All of this near future tech is worked
15:27
Speaker 1: out in gory detail. There's a lot of really fascinating
15:30
Speaker 1: ideas in there that frankly, I think scientists and engineers
15:33
Speaker 1: and venture capital people should read and think about whether
15:36
Speaker 1: or not they want to get into that, whether or
15:37
Speaker 1: not it's a good idea. Something else I love about
15:39
Speaker 1: this book is that there are real scientists in it,
15:42
Speaker 1: scientists solving problems, scientists basing puzzles, having frustration, not always
15:48
Speaker 1: making progress, sometimes getting too sleepy. So she really knows
15:51
Speaker 1: what she's talking about. I think she's done a great
15:54
Speaker 1: job right in this book. It's compelling, it's got lots
15:56
Speaker 1: of great characters in it. And in a minute when
15:59
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk to her about how she wrote this book,
16:01
Speaker 1: what's important to her, and what she thinks about some
16:04
Speaker 1: of these deep questions of the nature of consciousness. But
16:07
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. All right, we're back
16:24
Speaker 1: and we are talking about the book Machine Hood by S. B. Devia,
16:28
Speaker 1: which has just come out recently, which I thoroughly enjoyed
16:32
Speaker 1: and recommend to you. The book is all about whether
16:35
Speaker 1: it's possible to have artificial intelligence that actually is self aware,
16:39
Speaker 1: and what that would mean for our society and how
16:42
Speaker 1: we should treat it. So, without further ado, here's my
16:45
Speaker 1: interview with the author. Alright, so thank you very much
16:49
Speaker 1: for joining me. It's my pleasure to introduce to our
16:52
Speaker 1: podcast as b Divia, author of Machine Hood, Say hello
16:56
Speaker 1: to all of our listeners. Hello everyone, very happy to
16:59
Speaker 1: be here. Well, thanks very much for joining us and
17:02
Speaker 1: for talking to us about your book. First, we have
17:05
Speaker 1: a set of questions that we ask every science fiction
17:07
Speaker 1: author to so to get them calibrated in our science
17:10
Speaker 1: fiction universe. We love to hear first about how you
17:13
Speaker 1: got into science fiction writing. I know you have quite
17:15
Speaker 1: a background in like actual science and engineering. Tell us
17:18
Speaker 1: about how that happened for you. I started reading science
17:22
Speaker 1: fiction when I was around the age of ten, and
17:26
Speaker 1: I did my first writing in my eighth grade English class,
17:30
Speaker 1: of all places, we had a little assignment in class
17:33
Speaker 1: to write something short and then swap it with a
17:36
Speaker 1: partner and critique each other's work. And of course, you know,
17:40
Speaker 1: what I wrote was a little snippet of science fiction,
17:44
Speaker 1: and my friend who read it turned to me and said,
17:46
Speaker 1: this is great, but this is not a complete story.
17:49
Speaker 1: You have to write more. And so that kind of
17:52
Speaker 1: put me on the path of enjoying the writing part
17:57
Speaker 1: of science fiction for several years through my teenage years.
18:02
Speaker 1: Then a little thing called Caltech happened to me as
18:06
Speaker 1: an undergraduate. It's called drinking from a fire hose for
18:09
Speaker 1: a reason. And so I put aside my fiction habits.
18:13
Speaker 1: I think the only thing I read while there was
18:16
Speaker 1: Analog magazine, and you know, looked forward to getting that
18:20
Speaker 1: in my school mailbox. That was my little treat. That's
18:23
Speaker 1: a very intense undergraduate experience, isn't It's a very small
18:26
Speaker 1: community of students. Yes, it was fabulous and awful all
18:30
Speaker 1: at the same time. I would do it again if
18:35
Speaker 1: I were sixteen again. I don't think I would do
18:38
Speaker 1: it again at this stage in my life. It was
18:41
Speaker 1: a lot. But you went to Caltech at sixteen. I did. Yeah.
18:44
Speaker 1: My my parents were all freaked out, but we had
18:47
Speaker 1: good family friends nearby to look after me. And yeah,
18:51
Speaker 1: I ended up moving between junior high and high school
18:55
Speaker 1: and skipped a grade because the high school I ended
18:58
Speaker 1: up at just didn't have enough stuff for me. I guess.
19:02
Speaker 1: So all that happened, and I put aside my writing
19:06
Speaker 1: and fiction for a very long time, figuring, you know,
19:09
Speaker 1: it was a nice dream. Maybe when I'm retired, like
19:12
Speaker 1: a focus on my engineering career first, that's where you know,
19:17
Speaker 1: I made my money, and then sort of in my
19:19
Speaker 1: mid thirties. I got way laid by a few factors,
19:23
Speaker 1: including a kid, losing a couple of friends to cancer,
19:26
Speaker 1: and it was all just kind of a big wake
19:28
Speaker 1: up call to maybe not defer my dream for twenty
19:33
Speaker 1: more years. And so I picked up the analog to
19:39
Speaker 1: a pen, which is the keyboard, and said, you know,
19:43
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to make a real go of
19:44
Speaker 1: it this time. I'm actually going to try to get
19:47
Speaker 1: something published, take a class, and really commit to myself
19:51
Speaker 1: to try to turn this into something real and not
19:55
Speaker 1: just a little side hobby. So I got very lucky.
20:00
Speaker 1: I published my first short story in two thousand and fourteen.
20:04
Speaker 1: I had a short novel come out from Towards dot
20:07
Speaker 1: com in two thousand and sixteen, and this past week,
20:12
Speaker 1: Machine Hood, my first novel, is out. Very excited to
20:15
Speaker 1: share that with the world. Well congrats. It's exciting for
20:18
Speaker 1: all those geeks out there to think that, you know,
20:21
Speaker 1: there are opportunities to get into science fiction writing even
20:23
Speaker 1: if you don't have a long background in literature. So
20:26
Speaker 1: that's always nice to hear people's stories. Yeah, for sure.
20:28
Speaker 1: So as a reader of science fiction, here's some questions
20:31
Speaker 1: for you by the science fiction genre is it your
20:33
Speaker 1: opinion that a Star Trek transporter kills you and recreates
20:38
Speaker 1: you somewhere else or actually transports your atoms? Like, is
20:43
Speaker 1: it really a transporter or is it a slaughter and
20:45
Speaker 1: recreation machine. I'm pretty sure the Star Trek transporter is
20:50
Speaker 1: a slaughter and recreation machine just by the way they
20:56
Speaker 1: show it. There's never like a particle being sent somewhere,
21:01
Speaker 1: which is kind of what you'd have to do, and
21:03
Speaker 1: you'd have to send it at warp speeds to get
21:05
Speaker 1: you know, that much material of that far. So yeah, vaporized, rebuilt.
21:11
Speaker 1: Very proud actually of Star Trek for taking that particular
21:15
Speaker 1: leap of faith, because I think it freaks a lot
21:17
Speaker 1: of people out. And I have had many wonderful philosophical
21:23
Speaker 1: arguments with my friends on whether it matters whether the
21:26
Speaker 1: thing that's recreated is you or really just a clone
21:30
Speaker 1: of you because it's a different set of atoms. Never
21:34
Speaker 1: mind that we are all exchanging atoms with our environment
21:37
Speaker 1: on a constant basis, and our bodies are renewing themselves continually,
21:43
Speaker 1: so you know, we are rebuilt every so many years.
21:47
Speaker 1: It's just happening very slowly. So then would you step
21:50
Speaker 1: into a transporter, being totally comfortable with having your body
21:54
Speaker 1: taken apart. You would do it. You would let the
21:56
Speaker 1: machine kill you and rebuild you. I would do it.
22:00
Speaker 1: I as long as the technology was safe and we
22:03
Speaker 1: had rebuilt other things. I wouldn't be an early adopter
22:07
Speaker 1: of it, okay, but once it was proven that I
22:10
Speaker 1: wasn't going to just die along the way and stay dead,
22:14
Speaker 1: I would absolutely step in. And I have no qualms. Well,
22:18
Speaker 1: it certainly would be convenient. Well, I'm a tourist. I
22:22
Speaker 1: like to travel, so the idea of having a teleporter
22:26
Speaker 1: or transporter make travel easier is just way too tempting.
22:30
Speaker 1: It's like I want to see the universe as much
22:33
Speaker 1: as possible. Totally agree. I love to be other places.
22:36
Speaker 1: I don't actually enjoy traveling, and so getting there without
22:39
Speaker 1: the traveling part, Wow, that'd be nice. Speaking of technological advancements,
22:43
Speaker 1: what other kind of technology do you see in science
22:46
Speaker 1: fiction that you'd like to actually have become a reality.
22:49
Speaker 1: If you could pick one thing from the science fiction
22:52
Speaker 1: universe and make it real from cannon, just one, that's tough.
22:57
Speaker 1: I think the most useful, at least initially, would probably
23:04
Speaker 1: be the answable the ability to communicate instantly across long distances,
23:11
Speaker 1: because once we have that communication channel available, we can
23:17
Speaker 1: do a lot more with it in terms of sending
23:19
Speaker 1: data back and forth, gathering that data, and you know,
23:23
Speaker 1: deploying ourselves further afield, even just within our solar system,
23:28
Speaker 1: and having more immediate control and interactivity with those environments.
23:34
Speaker 1: Because you want to drive the Mars rover in real time, yeah,
23:37
Speaker 1: think about it though. If we had a real time
23:40
Speaker 1: remote operable vehicle, we can directly interact with the controls,
23:46
Speaker 1: collect samples, you know, react to environmental changes. And that's
23:52
Speaker 1: a big struggle right now, right is that we've got
23:54
Speaker 1: to send robots. And our robots, you know, are very
23:57
Speaker 1: sophisticated by our current stand words, but they're still a
24:01
Speaker 1: long way from being truly sophisticated and autonomous. So the
24:05
Speaker 1: next best thing is human remote control. It's just that
24:09
Speaker 1: lag is killer, all right. Then, one more question before
24:12
Speaker 1: we dig into your novel. What's your personal answer to
24:15
Speaker 1: the Fermi paradox. Given the number of likely habitable worlds
24:20
Speaker 1: out there and the vastness of the universe, why haven't
24:22
Speaker 1: aliens visited us or contacted us the same exact actually
24:26
Speaker 1: reason that I like the answervill, which is it takes
24:30
Speaker 1: light time to travel across vast descisances, and even though
24:36
Speaker 1: there is probably plenty of life out there, much of
24:40
Speaker 1: it is not a advanced enough to send you know,
24:45
Speaker 1: extra solar communications and then be we've got to wait
24:48
Speaker 1: for that extra solar communication to show up. See, we
24:52
Speaker 1: have to recognize it amidst all the other signals we're
24:56
Speaker 1: dealing with, and d we have to then be able
25:00
Speaker 1: to capture it and interpret it. So that's a lot
25:02
Speaker 1: of steps that add decreasing you know, probability that we're
25:07
Speaker 1: actually going to get that communication. So given enough time,
25:11
Speaker 1: if humanity manages to last for millions of years and
25:16
Speaker 1: continues to build our technology, we probably will eventually find
25:22
Speaker 1: some signals. If we're lucky enough that some other life
25:25
Speaker 1: form is concurrently you know, across the span of light
25:31
Speaker 1: years in those delays, at that same level of technology
25:36
Speaker 1: sending something over, we'll get it. But the thing that
25:40
Speaker 1: science fiction love is that these things should be synchronous,
25:43
Speaker 1: that we can communicate back and forth. But of course
25:45
Speaker 1: it's going to be deeply asynchronous communication and for all
25:49
Speaker 1: we know, by the time our signal reaches them were
25:52
Speaker 1: extinct or vice versa. Right, So we're not gonna be
25:55
Speaker 1: swapping text messages with anyone anytime soon, even though that's
26:00
Speaker 1: what we all want. Not without your answer, will at
26:02
Speaker 1: least and imagine how long it would take to learn
26:05
Speaker 1: to decode their language. You know, if it takes twenty
26:08
Speaker 1: years between sending a question and getting an answer, it's
26:11
Speaker 1: hard enough to decode ancient human languages, you know, just
26:14
Speaker 1: a few thousand years old. So I hope we do
26:16
Speaker 1: get messages from aliens, but I'd be amazed if we
26:18
Speaker 1: ever understood them. All right, So then let's dive into
26:21
Speaker 1: your novel, which I read and very much enjoy. Congratulations.
26:24
Speaker 1: It's such a fascinating and complex but also very realistic story.
26:28
Speaker 1: You really feel the characters and they feel like they
26:30
Speaker 1: really live in that universe, which it was an accomplishment
26:33
Speaker 1: to me. Your book raises a lot of interesting and
26:35
Speaker 1: important questions about how technology changes the pattern of our life,
26:40
Speaker 1: how we treat each other, and who deserves what kind
26:43
Speaker 1: of treatment, what kind of rites? So what intrigues you
26:45
Speaker 1: about these themes? Why did you decide to write a
26:47
Speaker 1: book about these kinds of topics and create this kind
26:50
Speaker 1: of world for your characters. There's probably a few factors
26:54
Speaker 1: from going to dive into my personal psychology and unearthed
26:59
Speaker 1: what try as me to write these stories. I've always
27:02
Speaker 1: been fascinated by the philosophy of mind. One of the
27:09
Speaker 1: reasons I switched from being on the astrophysics track to
27:14
Speaker 1: the computational neuroscience track was that I felt like the brain,
27:21
Speaker 1: in some ways, especially in terms of mind, was more
27:25
Speaker 1: unknown than parts of our own universe, and it was
27:30
Speaker 1: equally interesting to kind of delve into those questions and ideas.
27:35
Speaker 1: And that intersected with my more practical engineering technology career,
27:40
Speaker 1: which was in pattern recognition, machine learning, and signal processing,
27:46
Speaker 1: and looking at, especially in the last five years, the
27:50
Speaker 1: conversations people have been having in Silicon Valley in terms
27:54
Speaker 1: of AI and automation and life, and then also drawing on,
28:02
Speaker 1: you know, the tropes of science fiction, both in terms
28:05
Speaker 1: of literature and film and its portrayal of artificial intelligence
28:12
Speaker 1: versus the reality of what we were actually developing in
28:16
Speaker 1: labs and at corporations. All of that kind of mashed
28:21
Speaker 1: up with general human history. The fact that you know,
28:26
Speaker 1: I come from India, which was colonized and I live
28:29
Speaker 1: in America, which has this history of slavery, and you know,
28:33
Speaker 1: the kind of the social factors of how we treat
28:36
Speaker 1: each other. I grew up vegetarian, how we treat animals,
28:41
Speaker 1: you know, climate change and how we treat the environment.
28:44
Speaker 1: I think all of these things kind of collided to
28:48
Speaker 1: form the themes of machine hood and really examining these
28:52
Speaker 1: questions of what makes something human sentient deserving of rights
28:59
Speaker 1: and detections. Thank you. These are really fascinating questions, difficult
29:03
Speaker 1: philosophically and scientifically. So what is your personal opinion. I mean,
29:07
Speaker 1: if we are able to create intelligent AI that's at
29:10
Speaker 1: the level of humanity, do you think it deserves the
29:12
Speaker 1: same rights? Like should it be illegal to turn it off?
29:16
Speaker 1: I think we have to separate intelligence from consciousness and sentience.
29:24
Speaker 1: Intelligence is actually easier in some ways to define because
29:29
Speaker 1: we can at least model capability and reactivity to stimuli,
29:36
Speaker 1: you know, the ability to solve problems and adapt to
29:39
Speaker 1: your environment. These are at least the hallmarks of machine
29:43
Speaker 1: intelligence right now. And you know, a large part of
29:47
Speaker 1: what we know about human beings, we can't necessarily quantify
29:50
Speaker 1: our intelligence levels. I don't buy into I Q stuff,
29:54
Speaker 1: but we can at least simulate it and recreate it
30:00
Speaker 1: in you know, digital and artificial formats sentience and consciousness. However,
30:06
Speaker 1: we don't have as good of a grasp on yet, right.
30:09
Speaker 1: Neuroscientists are still struggling with that. Philosophers are struggling with that,
30:15
Speaker 1: trying to just define what it means much less, you know,
30:18
Speaker 1: come up with models that are predictive and ways in
30:24
Speaker 1: which we can quantify it. So until we do that,
30:28
Speaker 1: I think the machines we build are going to be
30:31
Speaker 1: increasingly intelligent in that they will be capable of solving
30:36
Speaker 1: very complex problems. They'll be able to handle increasingly complex situations.
30:42
Speaker 1: But are they self aware enough to develop the desire
30:48
Speaker 1: for rights without us specifically coding that into them? I
30:53
Speaker 1: don't know. And then I think that raises a bigger
30:56
Speaker 1: ethical question of do we code it into them? And
31:00
Speaker 1: if so, you know, what are the ramifications of that, right, Like,
31:03
Speaker 1: why would we code that into them? And once we do,
31:05
Speaker 1: then I think, yeah, we do have some ethical obligations
31:08
Speaker 1: to treat them as if they were life, because they
31:11
Speaker 1: can't help it, especially if it's in their hardware like
31:15
Speaker 1: it is with us. Write the desire for survival, the
31:18
Speaker 1: desire for selfhood. So I do think we're gonna have
31:23
Speaker 1: to start tackling these questions, not maybe in the next
31:26
Speaker 1: few decades, but you know, within the next century or two,
31:30
Speaker 1: we're going to get to that level of complexity where
31:33
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't matter that they're not conscious in the
31:35
Speaker 1: way that we're conscious, that they behave in a manner
31:39
Speaker 1: sufficiently similar that the distinction doesn't matter anymore. And that's
31:44
Speaker 1: really the crux of machine hood. And I don't know
31:47
Speaker 1: if I personally have a strong answer yet. I really
31:51
Speaker 1: wrote the book to kind of explore the question in
31:54
Speaker 1: my own mind, and I can see myself being swayed
31:58
Speaker 1: in either direction to ending on the nuances. But ultimately,
32:04
Speaker 1: I think it's a reflection of ethics in terms of
32:09
Speaker 1: how we treat each other, and like said, how we
32:12
Speaker 1: treat the world around us. And if we can respect
32:17
Speaker 1: ourselves and other human beings, if we can respect our planet,
32:22
Speaker 1: then why shouldn't we also respect these intelligent machines that
32:28
Speaker 1: we're building. I was struck at some point early in
32:30
Speaker 1: the novel when one of your characters asks herselves the question,
32:34
Speaker 1: maybe the creation of consciousness is not possible, right, Like,
32:38
Speaker 1: maybe we can build systems that can solve hard problems
32:41
Speaker 1: and do things and be helpful as the week AI
32:44
Speaker 1: are in your novel, but are not actually conscious. But
32:47
Speaker 1: my question for you is, how do we know when
32:49
Speaker 1: you talk about a being that simulates the experience of
32:52
Speaker 1: being conscious, But when we always run into the problem
32:55
Speaker 1: of the philosophical zombie, something which seems to be conscious
32:58
Speaker 1: but we can't ever tell of it actually is. Me,
33:00
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're conscious, for example, what I
33:02
Speaker 1: take it onto faith? How do we know when our
33:05
Speaker 1: machines have reached that level? That really is the question.
33:09
Speaker 1: And I do think at some point, if we can
33:14
Speaker 1: figure out the underpinnings of our own consciousness, that's how
33:17
Speaker 1: we'll know. Right, if we can get to the biophysics
33:22
Speaker 1: of whatever consciousness is, how we have it ourselves? What
33:29
Speaker 1: gives us degrees of consciousness? Right? Not so much amongst humans,
33:33
Speaker 1: but when we look at you know, other animals, mammals
33:37
Speaker 1: all the way down to insects and then eventually plants,
33:40
Speaker 1: You know, what is it in life that brings forth
33:43
Speaker 1: consciousness at all these sort of varying degrees? Right? Obviously
33:47
Speaker 1: there is a spectrum or at least to me, it's
33:49
Speaker 1: obvious that there's a spectrum of consciousness, So that indicates
33:54
Speaker 1: to me that there is some underlying physical structure. I
33:57
Speaker 1: am fundamentally a physicalist. I don't believe in the soul.
34:01
Speaker 1: I don't believe in something, you know, beyond matter and energy.
34:07
Speaker 1: I am very intrigued by the idea of panpsychism that
34:11
Speaker 1: consciousness maybe is an inherent property of the matter and
34:16
Speaker 1: energy in our universe, and when it hits certain types
34:21
Speaker 1: of configurations, that's when we get the emergent property of
34:26
Speaker 1: what we experience as consciousness. And so if we can really,
34:32
Speaker 1: you know, get to the bottom of all that, get
34:34
Speaker 1: to the physics of all that, and understand it enough
34:37
Speaker 1: to model it and predict it that, Hey, if we
34:40
Speaker 1: build this it's going to behave like a beatle in
34:44
Speaker 1: terms of its level of consciousness, then I think we
34:49
Speaker 1: are on the path to knowing when the really complex
34:55
Speaker 1: intelligent machine has also developed consciousness, because then we can
34:59
Speaker 1: measure or it. And until then I'm gonna still go
35:05
Speaker 1: for Maybe it doesn't matter. It looks like a duck,
35:09
Speaker 1: it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck.
35:11
Speaker 1: Maybe we should just treat it like a duck, even
35:14
Speaker 1: if we don't see that it has duck DNA. At
35:18
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it gets defined by our
35:21
Speaker 1: interactions with the intelligent machine, just like our interactions with
35:28
Speaker 1: our air quality and you know, water quality and everything
35:34
Speaker 1: else that's inanimate that we still need to interact with
35:37
Speaker 1: in order to survive and live and pass through the world.
35:41
Speaker 1: If we're going to interact with these highly intelligent, sophisticated
35:45
Speaker 1: robots or pieces of software, then we're going to feel
35:51
Speaker 1: emotions about them. You know, our sentience and our own
35:55
Speaker 1: consciousness is going to have us react to them in
35:58
Speaker 1: specific ways. And that might be sufficient of a line
36:03
Speaker 1: to say that, Yeah, at this point, we need to
36:07
Speaker 1: give these intelligent machines some level of protection so that
36:12
Speaker 1: they're not exploited, because that then reflects on how we
36:16
Speaker 1: treat them and how we treat ourselves. Yeah, that's really insightful.
36:19
Speaker 1: It's a lot about our emotional response since we have
36:21
Speaker 1: no actual heart evidence of anybody else's consciousness. But speaking
36:25
Speaker 1: of you know, speaking like a duck and talking like
36:28
Speaker 1: a duck, let's think about how we treat ducks or
36:30
Speaker 1: other animals. Right, If you imagine that these animals are centered.
36:33
Speaker 1: The chickens and pigs are ascentioned and have emotions and experience.
36:37
Speaker 1: We don't treat them very well. We raise them in
36:39
Speaker 1: factories and slaughter them for food. There's a difference between
36:42
Speaker 1: what we understand intellectually to be the rights or the
36:45
Speaker 1: experience of a creature and how our society is constructed
36:48
Speaker 1: to respect those or not. As as you mentioned earlier,
36:52
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed in your novels a lot of those
36:54
Speaker 1: nuances for how society is built, sometimes on flawed premises.
36:58
Speaker 1: Do you think that would be a difficult transition for us,
37:00
Speaker 1: say we come to this emotional realization, do you think
37:02
Speaker 1: there will still be people who say, well, yes, maybe
37:05
Speaker 1: they feel something, but whatever, you know, they still don't
37:08
Speaker 1: deserve rights. For sure. That's definitely one of the points
37:11
Speaker 1: of the book is that when it benefits us to
37:15
Speaker 1: think that way, there will be a lot of people
37:18
Speaker 1: pushing to continue to think that way, and we have
37:20
Speaker 1: only to look at like you said, factory farming. You know,
37:24
Speaker 1: people know that animals are sentient. I don't think there's
37:29
Speaker 1: much of a question there at this point that they
37:31
Speaker 1: are at least somewhat self aware that there are certainly
37:36
Speaker 1: living creatures who feel pain, who feel emotions, who feel attachments,
37:40
Speaker 1: who can develop their own sorts of language and communications.
37:44
Speaker 1: Everything we learn about animals points to them being a
37:47
Speaker 1: lot more sophisticated than we often give them credit for. Similarly,
37:53
Speaker 1: if we can enslave the machines and use them for
37:56
Speaker 1: labor without having to give them time off, without having
38:01
Speaker 1: to compensate them in any way, we're going to do it.
38:04
Speaker 1: You know, it's to our benefit, right, So it's going
38:06
Speaker 1: to be a struggle to convince those who benefit from
38:11
Speaker 1: that to give that up, just like it was a
38:14
Speaker 1: struggle to give up slavery, right, just like it continues
38:18
Speaker 1: to be a struggle for a lot of people to
38:21
Speaker 1: acknowledge that life doesn't have to be a ZR sum game,
38:25
Speaker 1: that the only way they can gain is if somebody
38:27
Speaker 1: else loses. And I don't believe that to be the case,
38:31
Speaker 1: because we don't really live in that closed of a
38:34
Speaker 1: system at this point. I think we can all gain,
38:37
Speaker 1: and we've already shown that, so there's no reason we
38:39
Speaker 1: can't continue to expand that particular ethos in human society.
38:44
Speaker 1: It's just that it does go against a lot of
38:47
Speaker 1: people's human nature. I won't say everyone. I think there
38:50
Speaker 1: are you know, vast segments of society that are altruistic
38:56
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, that are willing to sacrifice
39:00
Speaker 1: immediate or personal gain for a larger good, whether it's
39:05
Speaker 1: family or society. So I think it comes down to
39:10
Speaker 1: what we cultivate, and I think we're seeing that shift already,
39:13
Speaker 1: right to plant based proteins. We've got beyond meat and
39:18
Speaker 1: impossible workers and all of these things, partly just for
39:22
Speaker 1: ecological and economic reasons, right, that pressure has gotten to
39:26
Speaker 1: the point where people are willing to trade off animal
39:30
Speaker 1: meat for plant based proteins. But also I think more
39:34
Speaker 1: people have become aware of these ethical quandaries, right, that
39:39
Speaker 1: many of these animals are not well treated for their
39:43
Speaker 1: entire lives, were pumping them full of hormones and chemicals,
39:46
Speaker 1: that maybe this is not the right way to move
39:51
Speaker 1: into our future. Well, I noticed in your book it's
39:54
Speaker 1: not just a question of how many rights we give
39:57
Speaker 1: the AI, but also the humans. In your book, you're
40:00
Speaker 1: always having a great time. I mean, their life is
40:03
Speaker 1: not very secure. They've work in these gig jobs, they
40:05
Speaker 1: have to modify their bodies and take you know, personal risks.
40:09
Speaker 1: They've essentially no privacy. It's not like a future that
40:11
Speaker 1: I would be excited to live in. Necessarily enjoyed reading
40:15
Speaker 1: the book, but I wouldn't want to be in it.
40:17
Speaker 1: So did you intend it to be dystopian? I didn't
40:19
Speaker 1: intend it to be any more dystopian than our lives today.
40:24
Speaker 1: I intended it to be, you know, a plausible extrapolation
40:29
Speaker 1: of trends that are happening. And granted, these are fairly
40:34
Speaker 1: linear projections of these trends, and you know, I'm sure
40:38
Speaker 1: there will be disruptions. I don't believe that this is
40:42
Speaker 1: going to be our future, but I wanted to examine
40:48
Speaker 1: these particular aspects of the present, which I think a
40:53
Speaker 1: lot of near science fiction future does. It's really not
40:57
Speaker 1: about the future. It's about what we're dealing with today,
41:01
Speaker 1: the concerns of today, and kind of projecting those forward
41:05
Speaker 1: that if we don't do anything about these trends, here's
41:10
Speaker 1: where we might end up. And if you don't like that,
41:14
Speaker 1: then now is the time to start making changes to
41:17
Speaker 1: ensure that that's not our future. I think true dystopian stories,
41:22
Speaker 1: you know, carry these sorts of trends to great extremes.
41:26
Speaker 1: That are implausible but are there. From a sort of
41:30
Speaker 1: polemical standpoint to illustrate a very specific point, I don't
41:38
Speaker 1: think the future and machine Hood is that bad. There
41:42
Speaker 1: are good things to balance out the negatives, and you know,
41:47
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people in the past several years
41:49
Speaker 1: who feel like we are currently inhabiting a dystopia and
41:54
Speaker 1: we're living through it. From that standpoint, yeah, I don't
41:58
Speaker 1: think the Machine had future is anymore dystopic than you know,
42:01
Speaker 1: the one that we're inhabiting. So if that's your feeling,
42:06
Speaker 1: then it's like, okay, look around you and think about
42:09
Speaker 1: where we've ended up today and how we've allowed ourselves
42:13
Speaker 1: to get here. Now, I had this feeling of like
42:15
Speaker 1: uber drivers driving late to the night, drinking red Bull constantly.
42:19
Speaker 1: Sort of definitely had that feeling. All right, this is
42:21
Speaker 1: a super fun conversation and I have lots more questions,
42:24
Speaker 1: but first let's take a quick break. All right, we're
42:40
Speaker 1: back from break and we are talking to the author
42:43
Speaker 1: sp Diva about her novel Machine Hood. I noticed on
42:46
Speaker 1: your website you have this line that says, I am
42:49
Speaker 1: currently mortal and full of squishy organs, but I hope
42:52
Speaker 1: to outlive that, and that made me wonder if you
42:54
Speaker 1: were like looking forward to embracing the sort of post
42:57
Speaker 1: biological future. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I am not afraid
43:03
Speaker 1: of immortality. There's a lot of things I want to do.
43:08
Speaker 1: I like to learn stuff, I like to dabble, and
43:12
Speaker 1: I love seeking new experiences and knowledge. So the greatest
43:18
Speaker 1: sorrow in my life is that I don't get to
43:20
Speaker 1: live to see the future, which is of course an
43:23
Speaker 1: impossible thing to do unless you're immortal, then you always
43:26
Speaker 1: get to live to see the future. And I also
43:29
Speaker 1: find that this argument that you know natural is best
43:34
Speaker 1: to be very flawed because natural has occurred by random
43:38
Speaker 1: chance and over long periods of natural selection. It's worked
43:44
Speaker 1: out pretty well, but it's not necessarily optimal. I'm enough
43:48
Speaker 1: of an engineer to kind of look at our physiological
43:52
Speaker 1: systems and go, yeah, but you know, we could tweak
43:55
Speaker 1: this and make it better. So from that standpoint, I
44:00
Speaker 1: would certainly like my artificial knees and elbows and back,
44:07
Speaker 1: you know, to be less painful in my old age,
44:10
Speaker 1: to avoid neuro degeneration, to have the brain of a
44:14
Speaker 1: twenty five year old forever, you know, at my peak
44:17
Speaker 1: performance of my frontal cortex and everything else, because why not,
44:23
Speaker 1: right if you could have it and it's not born
44:26
Speaker 1: so much from I want to be superhuman as again,
44:30
Speaker 1: I just want to be able to live life to
44:33
Speaker 1: my fullest as long as I possibly can, because I'm
44:36
Speaker 1: desperately curious about everything. Well, that's definitely something we understand
44:41
Speaker 1: on this podcast. We want to know the secrets to
44:43
Speaker 1: the universe, and we want to learn what scientists are
44:46
Speaker 1: going to learn in the next hundred five hundred thousand years.
44:48
Speaker 1: Let's dig into the details of that a little bit,
44:51
Speaker 1: if you don't mind. In your novel, the people take
44:54
Speaker 1: these pills you call them their zips and flows and
44:57
Speaker 1: buffs and jew ers that give you specific enhancement, and
45:00
Speaker 1: you really have worked them out in gory details, like
45:02
Speaker 1: what they actually do inside the body. What's the origin
45:05
Speaker 1: of these ideas? Are these like actual research projects you
45:07
Speaker 1: wanted to work on, Not necessarily that I wanted to
45:10
Speaker 1: work on, but things that I have seen poking around
45:14
Speaker 1: science news that I find utterly fascinating. And also I
45:19
Speaker 1: wanted to take one of the favorite aspects of science fiction,
45:24
Speaker 1: one that I myself wrote about in my novella run Time,
45:28
Speaker 1: which is the cyborg and the visualization of you know,
45:34
Speaker 1: a mechanized human being with like these big bulky exoskeletons
45:39
Speaker 1: and you know, hydraulics and gears and all the stuff
45:43
Speaker 1: that comes with mechanical systems, and turn that on its
45:49
Speaker 1: head and say, can we have a cyborg that looks
45:53
Speaker 1: human from the outside? Completely human? You have no idea.
45:58
Speaker 1: They're not superpowers, it's not magic, but it's that same
46:02
Speaker 1: biotechnology as ministerization, because honestly, who wants to wander around
46:08
Speaker 1: in a bunch of bulky exoskeleton gear? Right that's not
46:12
Speaker 1: very comfortable looking from what I can tell, you know,
46:16
Speaker 1: it makes it harder to fit into those airline seats.
46:18
Speaker 1: Just it's no good. Everyone can take a pill, you know,
46:22
Speaker 1: you's like tear the fabric. Things keep breaking. It seems
46:26
Speaker 1: terribly inconvenient to me. So on the other hand, you know,
46:30
Speaker 1: we have people in labs today developing micro machines that
46:34
Speaker 1: you can swallow, that will track through your colon, that
46:38
Speaker 1: can be externally controlled via magnetics, and that are also
46:44
Speaker 1: somewhat autonomous, right they you know, that's lovely like oregamy
46:48
Speaker 1: unfolding structures and right now, because it's a pill and
46:54
Speaker 1: it goes through your gut. That's kind of the only
46:56
Speaker 1: place where really able to use this, and it's still
47:00
Speaker 1: not being done in medicine, but I can see this
47:03
Speaker 1: technology moving forward, you know, in fifty years, to nanoscale
47:08
Speaker 1: things that can cross into your blood stream, that can
47:12
Speaker 1: cross your blood brain barrier, that can sit there and
47:16
Speaker 1: do really interesting things within your body, working in concert
47:22
Speaker 1: with your inherent biochemistry and physiological systems. Two. Then tweak
47:29
Speaker 1: little things that you know, can maybe like in the book,
47:34
Speaker 1: speed up clotting and healing of the skin, or you know,
47:38
Speaker 1: bypass nerve conduction for faster communications, maybe change the state
47:45
Speaker 1: of your brain so that you can focus your attention
47:48
Speaker 1: on something a little better. You know. Again, not superpowers,
47:52
Speaker 1: because I don't think that's very realistic, but enough that
47:56
Speaker 1: it's going to be beneficial, especially when we're trying to
47:59
Speaker 1: keep up with these highly intelligent systems that are working
48:02
Speaker 1: at you know, gig your hurts and terror hurts speeds,
48:05
Speaker 1: and are going to become increasingly complex going forward. And
48:10
Speaker 1: then I threw some capitalism in there, because a everyone's
48:14
Speaker 1: got to make money, right, like, nothing in life is free.
48:17
Speaker 1: So these pills because you have to take them, and
48:21
Speaker 1: they're small, and they're in your body, they're going to
48:24
Speaker 1: break down, they're going to be cleaned out by your
48:26
Speaker 1: own bodies garbage collection systems and flushed away. So you've
48:30
Speaker 1: got to keep taking more pills. And who doesn't want that,
48:33
Speaker 1: because that's a great way, you know, for the pill
48:35
Speaker 1: designers to make their money. Make money on the ink, right,
48:39
Speaker 1: not the printer. Yeah. Always. I worked for a medical
48:43
Speaker 1: device company where I learned that lesson. You know, the
48:46
Speaker 1: business model is always give away the razor charge for
48:49
Speaker 1: the blades, right, same thing with the printers. So same
48:53
Speaker 1: thing with this. You can print your smart pills at
48:56
Speaker 1: home in your kitchen, but you've got to keep downloading
48:59
Speaker 1: new design in every day or every week, and so
49:02
Speaker 1: that's what you're paying for, and the pills keep getting
49:05
Speaker 1: fleshed out of your system, so of course you're going
49:07
Speaker 1: to want the latest and greatest on a daily basis. Well,
49:10
Speaker 1: another thing I really enjoyed about your book was that
49:13
Speaker 1: you had real science puzzles in there. You get things
49:16
Speaker 1: going on that the characters didn't understand, and then they
49:18
Speaker 1: were using their science brain to try to unravel the mystery.
49:22
Speaker 1: And that's not something you see very often in science fiction.
49:26
Speaker 1: Usually it's here's a new technology, let's use it to
49:28
Speaker 1: kill people, or how's it change or society or whatever.
49:31
Speaker 1: But like the actual process of science, the detective mystery
49:34
Speaker 1: of false paths and frustration and limited resources, you know,
49:38
Speaker 1: the things that some of us actually live, you don't
49:40
Speaker 1: see that captured very often in science fiction. So, first
49:44
Speaker 1: of all, just kudos on capturing that. But sort of narratively,
49:47
Speaker 1: why did you want to show that in your story?
49:49
Speaker 1: Why did you decide to include like this actual scientific
49:52
Speaker 1: method as part of the story for your character. For
49:55
Speaker 1: exactly that reason, I do feel like in older science fiction,
50:02
Speaker 1: you know, from the forties and fifties especially, scientists were
50:06
Speaker 1: often the heroes or the protagonists and occasionally got to
50:11
Speaker 1: do actual science as part of the stories. The problem
50:16
Speaker 1: to me in those old science fiction stories is the
50:20
Speaker 1: scientists were very sort of cardboard cutout scientists. There wasn't
50:25
Speaker 1: a lot of character development or interesting plot development, and
50:29
Speaker 1: you know, that larger social aspect was usually completely ignored,
50:34
Speaker 1: all in favor of just the scientific discovery part. So
50:38
Speaker 1: I wanted to modernize that concept and bring it all
50:41
Speaker 1: together and have you know, the big picture as well
50:45
Speaker 1: as sort of this localized person who's trying to figure
50:49
Speaker 1: something out, and we do. I guess we have one
50:51
Speaker 1: good example that became you know, huge in pop culture,
50:54
Speaker 1: which was The Martian Right, And that was fantastic to
50:57
Speaker 1: see so many people actually like that because I read
51:01
Speaker 1: it and I was really surprised that, you know, it
51:03
Speaker 1: got as popular as it did, just considering the themes
51:07
Speaker 1: and what happens in that story. So I wanted to
51:10
Speaker 1: tell that particular aspect. And also that's again, I guess,
51:15
Speaker 1: a part of my own personality. While I'm an engineer
51:18
Speaker 1: by profession, I think I'm a scientist at heart, and
51:21
Speaker 1: that's kind of where I got my start. And I
51:25
Speaker 1: love this idea of teasing out puzzles, of debugging things.
51:29
Speaker 1: You know, we're really debugging the universe in a lot
51:31
Speaker 1: of ways, right, We're trying to understand how it works,
51:35
Speaker 1: how we broke it, and how we fix it. And
51:38
Speaker 1: so it was nice to kind of present that particular
51:41
Speaker 1: aspect as part of a science fiction narrative. Well, I
51:45
Speaker 1: really enjoyed seeing the scientists not just being nerds and
51:48
Speaker 1: white lab coats, So thank you very much for that.
51:50
Speaker 1: And then my last question is about the universe that
51:53
Speaker 1: you've constructed. You know, in a science fiction novel, you
51:56
Speaker 1: have the liberty to change the laws of physics or
51:59
Speaker 1: biology or whatever and create a different universe that follows
52:03
Speaker 1: different rules. It seemed to me in your book you
52:05
Speaker 1: really huge closely to what could be possible in our universe.
52:09
Speaker 1: Is that true first of all? And is that because
52:11
Speaker 1: you wanted to speak to issues in our society that
52:14
Speaker 1: were most relevant to like our actual world. It was
52:17
Speaker 1: definitely deliberate too, you know, hue to most of what
52:22
Speaker 1: we know about today in terms of our physical world.
52:26
Speaker 1: But I did it more because I think, genuinely, in
52:29
Speaker 1: the next seventy five years, were unlikely to find something
52:35
Speaker 1: radically groundbreaking, even as much as you know, quantum physics
52:39
Speaker 1: kind of turned classical mechanics on its head a hundred
52:43
Speaker 1: issue years ago and led to the transistor and the
52:46
Speaker 1: digital revolution. I decided not to take that particular path
52:53
Speaker 1: because I knew that whatever I put in there is
52:56
Speaker 1: probably not ever going to happen. I'm going to be
52:58
Speaker 1: making it up right, And the places that we're really
53:01
Speaker 1: poking at right now, I feel like that are the
53:03
Speaker 1: big questions, are more large scale stuff like dark matter
53:10
Speaker 1: where we're genuinely puzzled, and I think those are the
53:12
Speaker 1: puzzles were probably going to tease out in the next
53:16
Speaker 1: few decades. So the one I guess sort of kind
53:21
Speaker 1: of fun innovation I threw into machine hood that I
53:24
Speaker 1: don't know if it will happen is this idea of
53:27
Speaker 1: you know, tabletop genetics, thinking things like Crisper and saying
53:32
Speaker 1: that it's going to be, you know, the computer revolution
53:37
Speaker 1: of this century, that everybody's going to be able to
53:40
Speaker 1: do that in their household. And so that was really
53:43
Speaker 1: the only sort of leap I've taken where I'm not
53:47
Speaker 1: sure that's really going to happen for the rest of it.
53:50
Speaker 1: Especially with near term science fiction, I think it's always
53:54
Speaker 1: better to stick with what we know and build a
53:58
Speaker 1: plausible future than to radically redefine physics. That said, the
54:05
Speaker 1: next novel that I have been working on for the
54:08
Speaker 1: past year is that a thousand years in the future,
54:11
Speaker 1: and I have definitely invented some new physics for thou one,
54:15
Speaker 1: bringing in these ideas of dark matter and you know
54:19
Speaker 1: why the universe is accelerating and maybe there's something in
54:23
Speaker 1: our field theories that we are missing that. Okay, all right,
54:26
Speaker 1: I let me, you know, define a new particle and
54:29
Speaker 1: something that works on larger scales, and maybe we just
54:32
Speaker 1: didn't have the ability to sense it in But five
54:38
Speaker 1: years from now we'll have the appropriate technology to find
54:41
Speaker 1: those things and then harness those things. So I find
54:46
Speaker 1: it more comfortable to play with that, you know, on
54:48
Speaker 1: a longer time scale than in the next hundred or so,
54:53
Speaker 1: you know, hundred hundred and fifty years. Unless you turn
54:55
Speaker 1: into a cyborg, you probably won't be around for people
54:58
Speaker 1: to compare the factor to your fiction. Yeah, Sadly, I
55:01
Speaker 1: may or may not live long enough to find out. Well,
55:06
Speaker 1: thanks very much for taking the time to talk to
55:08
Speaker 1: us about the universe you created in Machine hood Tell
55:12
Speaker 1: our listeners about your next project and when we can
55:15
Speaker 1: expect to see something. The next project, unfortunately is still
55:18
Speaker 1: very in its nascent sort of stages, so I can't
55:21
Speaker 1: promise anything regarding it at this point. But I'm hard
55:26
Speaker 1: at work on this book and we'll see how it goes.
55:29
Speaker 1: Right now, a lot of my focus is just getting
55:32
Speaker 1: the word out about Machine Hoods. So tell your audience.
55:35
Speaker 1: If you read it and you like it, please tell
55:37
Speaker 1: your friends so there can be more books like it
55:40
Speaker 1: in the world. And if you want a little teaser,
55:43
Speaker 1: go to machine hood dot com. There's a little excerpt
55:46
Speaker 1: from the machine Hoods manifesto there, and you know, links
55:50
Speaker 1: to more good stuff. And yeah, it was my pleasure
55:53
Speaker 1: to be here and talk about this. I can talk
55:55
Speaker 1: about this stuff all day and speculate about science and
55:58
Speaker 1: technology fully for you know, many decades forward through my fiction.
56:04
Speaker 1: All right, Well, congrats again on the novel and thanks
56:06
Speaker 1: again for joining us. All right, so, thank you very
56:08
Speaker 1: much to the opto for coming on the show and
56:10
Speaker 1: answering all of my pesky questions about physics and consciousness
56:14
Speaker 1: and artificial intelligence. This is the kind of stuff that
56:17
Speaker 1: I love to think about. I really enjoy a novel
56:20
Speaker 1: that pushes me to the limits to make me think
56:22
Speaker 1: about what's possible, what our universe might be like, what
56:26
Speaker 1: our life might be like in this universe as we
56:29
Speaker 1: grow to become masters of the science and develop new
56:32
Speaker 1: technology that can really change what it means to be human.
56:35
Speaker 1: For me, that's the whole goal of science, is to
56:38
Speaker 1: push back on this boundary of ignorance and reveal the
56:41
Speaker 1: nature of the universe and change our relationship with the Cosmos.
56:45
Speaker 1: I'm frustrated by our ignorance of the nature of the
56:48
Speaker 1: universe we live in, and i feel like we're making
56:50
Speaker 1: ridiculous and silly decisions about how to live our life
56:53
Speaker 1: and how to explore the universe just because we are
56:55
Speaker 1: so ignorant. And so I'm desperate to see deep into
56:59
Speaker 1: the future and understand what we might learn and how
57:02
Speaker 1: we might live. And some of these science fiction novels
57:04
Speaker 1: are so fun because they give you a little bit
57:06
Speaker 1: of a taste of that. So thanks for tuning in
57:09
Speaker 1: to Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, where usually we
57:12
Speaker 1: explore our universe, but sometimes we take these detours into
57:15
Speaker 1: the world of science fiction. Thanks for tuning in and
57:18
Speaker 1: see you next time. Thanks for listening, and remember that
57:29
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of
57:31
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Or more podcast from my Heart Radio
57:35
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.