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What will happen when we reach the Singularity? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. With me is always this Charles W. Chuck
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Speaker 1: Bryant that makes this stuff. You should the podcast. Scottish
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Speaker 1: no O, that was that was nothing. It's this weirdness,
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Speaker 1: Josh ish Chuck. I love November. You mean November you
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1:15
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Speaker 1: to this. Yeah, much appreciated. November on with the show. Uh,
2:42
Speaker 1: you got a good setup for today. I'd love to
2:44
Speaker 1: hear it. Let's get to Uh. Have you ever sorry, Chuck,
2:50
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of a luddite? I've been called
2:53
Speaker 1: a luddite? Okay, somebody who's just not sure of technology. Yeah,
2:56
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid. You're very technologically savvy, you know stuff.
3:00
Speaker 1: You're not afraid of it. Nope. Um, but whoever's calling
3:03
Speaker 1: you that, it's actually they're kind of incorrect. That's a misconception.
3:06
Speaker 1: A lot eyes were not ever afraid of technology. I
3:09
Speaker 1: wish I would have known that at the time, because
3:11
Speaker 1: you could have been like, you're it's wrong and stupid
3:13
Speaker 1: in every single way. Actually, it was our buddy Scott
3:15
Speaker 1: to Polido, So I'll just throw it back in his face.
3:17
Speaker 1: I'll tell them too. I'll I'll stand next to him
3:20
Speaker 1: be like yeah, um no, a lot ied is is.
3:23
Speaker 1: Originally they were a group of UM protesters labor protesters
3:29
Speaker 1: from that protested between eighteen eleven and eighteen sixteen, and
3:33
Speaker 1: they wanted UM fair wages, they wanted better treatment in
3:37
Speaker 1: their in their workplaces, and no iPhones. And they they
3:42
Speaker 1: were known to break machines like manufacturing machines. Yeah, oh yeah.
3:48
Speaker 1: They had sledge hammers that were ironically made by in
3:51
Speaker 1: in one case, I think in Manchester, UM. They were
3:54
Speaker 1: made by the same blacksmith who had made these knitting
3:57
Speaker 1: machines that they used the sledge hammers to break. His
4:01
Speaker 1: name was Enoch, and they say that Enoch would make
4:04
Speaker 1: these things and Enoch would break these things. Anyway, they
4:08
Speaker 1: were known for smashing machines, which at the time was
4:11
Speaker 1: like high technology eighteen eleven, like a knitting machine, like
4:14
Speaker 1: that's mind bogglingly technological. And so they got this reputation
4:19
Speaker 1: for being afraid of this technology. They were afraid it
4:22
Speaker 1: was going to take their jobs. That's not true. I
4:24
Speaker 1: mean they were to an extent, but what they were
4:27
Speaker 1: directing their anger in their ire when they were smashing
4:30
Speaker 1: these machines. Was not the machine or the technology of
4:33
Speaker 1: the people who invented them, or what the machines represented,
4:36
Speaker 1: but these mill owners who were miss using these machines,
4:39
Speaker 1: who are using these machines to force people out of jobs,
4:41
Speaker 1: who were using unskilled people who had no idea what
4:44
Speaker 1: they were doing, and getting hurt and killed using these machines.
4:47
Speaker 1: So what the lot It's really wanted was fair labor practices,
4:51
Speaker 1: and they wanted to control these machines. Yes, that's the
4:57
Speaker 1: key to lotitis. M is machine means are great as
5:01
Speaker 1: long as we're in control of them and we're smart
5:03
Speaker 1: about what we're doing, and they don't come to replace
5:07
Speaker 1: us or run our lives. So today a lot I
5:10
Speaker 1: would probably be they would probably react fairly close to
5:15
Speaker 1: the modern conception of the term ltite, because it's gotten
5:18
Speaker 1: so far out of hand that we're actually now talking
5:22
Speaker 1: today about something called the singularity, which is the point
5:26
Speaker 1: where the machines really do take over, not in the
5:31
Speaker 1: very ubiquitous way that they already have today, like they're everywhere,
5:36
Speaker 1: not that you didn't know that already, but I mean
5:38
Speaker 1: the control things that we don't fully understand, like the
5:40
Speaker 1: cyber war. We were talking about how like the infrastructure
5:45
Speaker 1: is run on windows, and like valves and pipes and
5:48
Speaker 1: water treatment systems and everything is operated by computer. Right,
5:52
Speaker 1: So what happens if the computer suddenly becomes aware and
6:00
Speaker 1: it's in control of these things and decides that it
6:02
Speaker 1: doesn't really like the humans? It sounds extremely science fiction. E.
6:06
Speaker 1: There was no way to carry out this podcast without
6:08
Speaker 1: that sentence being spoken. Sure, but it's the people who
6:12
Speaker 1: are talking about this, who are predicting this are very smart,
6:16
Speaker 1: credible people. And what we're talking about then, is the
6:20
Speaker 1: singularity that's right, the point where technological Yes, specifically, yeah,
6:25
Speaker 1: because what other singularities are they? Well? I think you know,
6:29
Speaker 1: we mentioned there was a singularity, which is something entirely different,
6:33
Speaker 1: and I think it's probably just to distinguish stuff like that. Okay,
6:36
Speaker 1: I don't know if there are other types of singularity.
6:37
Speaker 1: So so it's a singularity versus the singularity. So maybe
6:42
Speaker 1: these singularities the point of no return, I guess. So okay, Um,
6:47
Speaker 1: so what's your question? What did you ask me? Is
6:49
Speaker 1: this bad or good? No? But I do have a
6:53
Speaker 1: question for you, Um, do you think it will happen? No?
6:56
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think, and this might be my
6:58
Speaker 1: narrow field of view at this point in my life,
7:02
Speaker 1: but I think that mankind will make sure that doesn't happen.
7:08
Speaker 1: Oh man, I've got a counter argument for you from
7:11
Speaker 1: Werner Vinche himself. Oh no, I've seen the counter arguments,
7:14
Speaker 1: but that still doesn't change my mind. So you don't
7:18
Speaker 1: think that in the quest to be the top dog,
7:20
Speaker 1: to consolidate power, to consolidate world domination, some government out
7:25
Speaker 1: there will be like, well, yes, we agree with you
7:27
Speaker 1: at the u N that, yes, we have to prevent
7:30
Speaker 1: this from happening, but our scientists back at home are
7:32
Speaker 1: actually working on this one thing that's probably going to
7:35
Speaker 1: make it happen, and we're going to be in charge. Yeah.
7:37
Speaker 1: I think that they would create fail safe um, and
7:41
Speaker 1: I think even if they didn't, it wouldn't be so
7:43
Speaker 1: widespread that it would take over humanity. Counter argument two
7:46
Speaker 1: to that if we create fail safe using our brains,
7:51
Speaker 1: and the singularity is by definition the basically the birth
7:55
Speaker 1: the emergence of an artificial intelligence. Yes that's smarter than us,
8:02
Speaker 1: a superhuman artificial intelligence. That's basically what the singularity represents,
8:06
Speaker 1: the creation of wouldn't that intelligence be able to be like, Oh,
8:10
Speaker 1: that's very funny that you came up with. These fail
8:12
Speaker 1: states are so tough for me to get around. I
8:15
Speaker 1: think what my problem is with stuff like this is
8:17
Speaker 1: the assumption that if computers were made smarter than people,
8:21
Speaker 1: that they would try and destroy us all and reign supreme.
8:25
Speaker 1: That's my problem with this all is it's a very
8:28
Speaker 1: large leap to go from Hey, this computer can fix
8:32
Speaker 1: itself and maybe learn too. Okay, now it decides it
8:37
Speaker 1: hates us all and wants to kill us all. Okay,
8:40
Speaker 1: So I I had an idea about this. I watched
8:42
Speaker 1: the videos. You see the ray curs while video that's
8:44
Speaker 1: as your Future is ra curs while he's talking about
8:47
Speaker 1: they kept the interviewer kept asking him like, what scares
8:50
Speaker 1: you about the singularity? What's the downside of the singularity?
8:53
Speaker 1: And he wouldn't fall for it. It's like, I'm an optimist,
8:55
Speaker 1: but you know, um, I I understand that there are
8:58
Speaker 1: going to be downsides or whatever. But if you look
9:01
Speaker 1: at the twentieth century, are our advances in technology had
9:07
Speaker 1: it was a double edged sword, like we use that
9:09
Speaker 1: technology to kill millions and millions of people. In the
9:11
Speaker 1: twentieth century wars. But we also use that technology to
9:16
Speaker 1: um advance the lifespan by like twice as twice as
9:20
Speaker 1: long as it was before. So it's a double edged sword.
9:23
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of a glib argument because
9:25
Speaker 1: I feel like he's leaving on a really important fact,
9:28
Speaker 1: and that is that in the twentieth century, all of
9:31
Speaker 1: that technology, every single iota of it, good and bad,
9:35
Speaker 1: was deployed by humans. After the Singularity happens, we have
9:39
Speaker 1: another non human actor with motivations that we can't even
9:44
Speaker 1: conceive of at this point, right deploying technology program motivation. See,
9:50
Speaker 1: that's the argument. But no, that's that's the thing. Right now,
9:52
Speaker 1: our stuff is constrained by his programs. After it hits
9:55
Speaker 1: AI true AI. I think AI plus plus is what
9:58
Speaker 1: it's called. It's no longer strained by its programming. It's
10:02
Speaker 1: out of our control, literally, And that's the point that
10:06
Speaker 1: I don't think we will reach. Okay, well then yeah,
10:09
Speaker 1: I agree with you. But if we do reach that point,
10:11
Speaker 1: then I do fear that we have computers that are
10:13
Speaker 1: thinking the same way that eugenicists think, except they don't
10:16
Speaker 1: have that empathy or compassion thing that stays in the
10:19
Speaker 1: eugenicist's hand or they do. They're trying to build empathy.
10:22
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Okay, we totally jumped to the
10:26
Speaker 1: end of this. Didn't were like, what are we even
10:28
Speaker 1: talking about? So you believe that they're going to destroy
10:31
Speaker 1: humanity at one point? I believe we need ned Lud,
10:35
Speaker 1: the fictitious leader of the Luddites, more than ever right now,
10:39
Speaker 1: because I think that there's a lot of very smart
10:41
Speaker 1: people moving in a very um fast pace in a
10:45
Speaker 1: direction that I don't think everybody is aware we're going,
10:48
Speaker 1: and there hasn't been a general discussion whether that's the
10:51
Speaker 1: best thing to do or how to do it. What
10:54
Speaker 1: are the fail says? Is anyone even talking about that? Like?
10:58
Speaker 1: What are they? How do we get them in place?
11:00
Speaker 1: Because I think there should be an impedence to creating
11:03
Speaker 1: unfettered artificial intelligence. Yeah, well here we go. Then, Boy,
11:09
Speaker 1: that was a rant. You like started yelling at me.
11:11
Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm not upset with you at all. I
11:12
Speaker 1: hope it didn't come off like that. That's right, I
11:14
Speaker 1: like you. Um So, Werner Venge is one of the
11:18
Speaker 1: guys that thinks it is going to happen he's a
11:20
Speaker 1: professor of math at the San Diego State University, go
11:24
Speaker 1: aztex And Um, he thinks he wrote an essay called
11:29
Speaker 1: the Coming Technological Singularity, how to Survive in the post
11:32
Speaker 1: human Era? Um, and he thinks there are four ways
11:37
Speaker 1: which this could happen. And he also points out that
11:40
Speaker 1: he thinks it will happen before which I don't think
11:46
Speaker 1: that will happen. And that's coming up. Yeah, it's like
11:49
Speaker 1: right around the corner. I think Chris Walls is the
11:51
Speaker 1: same thing he said, is the one he's been sighting. Well,
11:56
Speaker 1: we'll see. Um. Number One, scientists could develop advancements in AI.
12:02
Speaker 1: It's pretty easy to understand. Number Two, computer networks might
12:06
Speaker 1: become self aware somehow. That's pretty vague. Well, he was
12:10
Speaker 1: saying in the paper. That's Strickland's interpretation. He's saying in
12:13
Speaker 1: his paper like, Um, it'll probably be a total surprise
12:17
Speaker 1: to the people who are working on this algorithm to
12:20
Speaker 1: make a search engine better or something, and they just
12:24
Speaker 1: tweak it just slightly in such a way that all
12:26
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the computer system wakes up and you
12:29
Speaker 1: just created senions accidentally in a in a computer network,
12:32
Speaker 1: and now it's self aware. And he's saying that's that's
12:37
Speaker 1: how that could happen accidentally. Basically, um So number three
12:42
Speaker 1: is uh trans humanism. Basically computer human interface becomes so
12:49
Speaker 1: advanced that there's sort of it blurs the line between
12:53
Speaker 1: humans and robots, right, which is probably the best case
12:56
Speaker 1: scenario for us if the technological singularity is gonna happen,
13:00
Speaker 1: because we'll be on board. Yeah, well unless the brain
13:03
Speaker 1: part is in the robot, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
13:07
Speaker 1: and they're just operating the body of the human form.
13:09
Speaker 1: But if we're indistinguishable from a robot and the human, like,
13:12
Speaker 1: if we merged so so much, then what benefits one? Yeah?
13:17
Speaker 1: But what is it? Centennial? Man? By centennial man? I
13:19
Speaker 1: think uh or historious. Remember when we did our d
13:23
Speaker 1: g A speech a couple of years ago, he was
13:25
Speaker 1: big news. And then the Olympics he was big news
13:28
Speaker 1: because did you see him run? Yeah? Man, I had
13:30
Speaker 1: not seen him run before and it is something to see.
13:33
Speaker 1: It's really cool, it's pretty awesome. Yeah. I love the
13:35
Speaker 1: people that were like, you know, it gives him an
13:37
Speaker 1: advantage because blah blah blah and in the South Africa
13:41
Speaker 1: came in dead last and then well, no, I mean,
13:43
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone expect him to win, but I
13:45
Speaker 1: just love the snarky counter argument was then cut off
13:47
Speaker 1: your legs below the knees if it's such an advantage. Yeah,
13:51
Speaker 1: you want to win, go cut off your legs. Yeah,
13:53
Speaker 1: I forgot what we had mentioned him and the trainman something. Yeah,
13:55
Speaker 1: and that's before he was like really big news as
13:57
Speaker 1: far as the Olympics goes. And the number for biological
14:00
Speaker 1: science advancements allow us to engineer human intelligence to physically engineering, right,
14:08
Speaker 1: and the first three involved computers, like we have to this,
14:12
Speaker 1: this singularity would be reached by basically advancements in computing.
14:17
Speaker 1: The last one is extrictly like coming up with this
14:20
Speaker 1: super vitamin that just makes our intelligence superhuman. The point
14:25
Speaker 1: is is that at through one of these four proposed ways,
14:29
Speaker 1: at some point Verna Vince is ray Kerswell, says Hans
14:34
Speaker 1: Morevik says maybe um well, he says um that computers
14:41
Speaker 1: will be capable of processing power equal to the human brain,
14:46
Speaker 1: but not necessarily a which is an essential part of this,
14:49
Speaker 1: like we have to understand how to create the human
14:52
Speaker 1: brain under certain circumstances um for this to reach. But
14:57
Speaker 1: at some point all of these things are saying, we're
15:00
Speaker 1: we're going to have on this planet something that doesn't
15:02
Speaker 1: exist right now, and that is a superhuman intelligence. Whether
15:08
Speaker 1: it's an artificial intelligence as in the first three or
15:11
Speaker 1: superhuman human intelligence. Uh, that never means to be seen.
15:15
Speaker 1: But the point is is once that happens, all of
15:19
Speaker 1: a sudden, there's basically what amounts to a new species
15:21
Speaker 1: that just boop popped up on the map and it's
15:24
Speaker 1: going to take off like a rocket robo humans. Yeah,
15:27
Speaker 1: and it takes off like a rocket because it's got
15:29
Speaker 1: a rocket built into its bad. Um. All of this
15:33
Speaker 1: is based sort of on Moore's law, which is, Um,
15:37
Speaker 1: I guess we can go ahead and talk about more.
15:39
Speaker 1: Gordon Moore, great name, Gordon Moore, that's a great like
15:43
Speaker 1: electronics engineer name. Yeah, I guess you're right. Uh. In
15:46
Speaker 1: the mid sixties, he's a semiconductor engineer, and he proposed
15:50
Speaker 1: what UM, we call Moore's law now and that's basically
15:54
Speaker 1: what he was noticing at the time was or I
15:56
Speaker 1: guess we should just say Moore's laws that the idea
15:59
Speaker 1: that techno alogy doubles every eighteen months. That's what they
16:03
Speaker 1: settled on it basically in twelve to twenty four months,
16:06
Speaker 1: but I think he originally said like eighteen months. So yeah,
16:08
Speaker 1: they split the difference and said eighteen months. Yeah. I
16:10
Speaker 1: think more of that has said it like it was
16:12
Speaker 1: twenty four and then eighteen and he feels like it's
16:15
Speaker 1: more like twelve now. But it's progressing like exponentially, I guess,
16:18
Speaker 1: is the point. Yeah. So anyway, back in the sixties,
16:22
Speaker 1: he noticed that, um, he was building semiconductors and he said,
16:26
Speaker 1: you know what, the components and the prices are falling. Uh.
16:30
Speaker 1: But then he noticed, instead of just selling stuff for
16:33
Speaker 1: half the price, why don't we just roll that back
16:37
Speaker 1: into making smaller transistors and selling the same high price. Yeah,
16:41
Speaker 1: but just getting more bang for your buck. Yeah. Can
16:43
Speaker 1: you imagine if that had never happened, Like, what if
16:48
Speaker 1: that what if the cycle became Now let's just you know,
16:53
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, like, what kind of differences
16:55
Speaker 1: would that have. We'd have super cheap, slow technology if
16:59
Speaker 1: everybody just kind of beyond the pot or something like that,
17:03
Speaker 1: you know, real laid back like, but more like I
17:06
Speaker 1: think part of being a computer scientist, someone else would
17:09
Speaker 1: have come along and like, guys, why don't we trying
17:12
Speaker 1: to advance? You doing this wrong? UM? Strickling points out
17:16
Speaker 1: to that UM Moore's law is a self fulfilling prophecy
17:19
Speaker 1: because of that, because that mentality that you just you
17:23
Speaker 1: just mentioned was present, like, rather than to sell it
17:26
Speaker 1: to have price, let's put twice as much into it. Right.
17:30
Speaker 1: And so since that's the drive of the transistor, is
17:35
Speaker 1: it the transistor industry that he was in, uh, yeah,
17:38
Speaker 1: or the microprocessor industry? Um that it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
17:45
Speaker 1: It's a self fulfilling law because that drive is there
17:47
Speaker 1: to basically meet that deadline. They keep trying to pack
17:51
Speaker 1: more and more in so that they can satisfy More's law.
17:54
Speaker 1: True and it um depending on who you ask, Like
17:57
Speaker 1: this article is already at a date UM in February
18:01
Speaker 1: of this year of two thousand twelve. Is that where
18:03
Speaker 1: we are? Um? A team of Austrian physicists created a
18:07
Speaker 1: functioning single atom transistor, really single atom, fully controllable. That's
18:14
Speaker 1: point one nanometers and the human here's a hundred and
18:17
Speaker 1: eighty thousand nanimeters. And in this article even why I
18:21
Speaker 1: think Strickland was talking about, uh, Intel has transistors nimes wide,
18:27
Speaker 1: like they're trying to get better. This one is one
18:28
Speaker 1: atom wide and it's not like on the market or
18:31
Speaker 1: anything close like that. But it is fully functioning and
18:34
Speaker 1: fully controllable um. And that is faster than Moore's law
18:38
Speaker 1: that was supposed to hit us in and you can't
18:41
Speaker 1: get any smaller, like that's as small as it gets,
18:44
Speaker 1: and we've already reached it, right, And the problem is is,
18:46
Speaker 1: like they're what they're running up against is the things
18:50
Speaker 1: like quantum tunneling on the quantum world um. The when
18:55
Speaker 1: you have an electron and you're you're using like very
18:58
Speaker 1: thin material to that right in a transistor, yeah, or
19:03
Speaker 1: a capacitor, it does a little magic act. That's what's important.
19:06
Speaker 1: The transistor, well, yeah, it just suddenly is on one
19:09
Speaker 1: side of this wall that you're using to guide it,
19:13
Speaker 1: and then it's just side on the other and basically
19:15
Speaker 1: makes it outside of your transistor like wait, come back.
19:18
Speaker 1: But it didn't like bore a hole through it. No,
19:20
Speaker 1: it just went through it like it wasn't there exactly.
19:25
Speaker 1: And that's called quantum tunneling, which is kind of a
19:27
Speaker 1: problem when you get on this nano scale because the
19:29
Speaker 1: classical mechanics kind of goes out the window and you
19:32
Speaker 1: run into quantum mechanics that has weird stuff like that
19:35
Speaker 1: going on. But ironically, that whole size problem that you're
19:40
Speaker 1: running into, that that um runs into quantum problems, it
19:44
Speaker 1: may actually be saved by the quantum world through quantum
19:47
Speaker 1: computing Moore's law. I guess that technological progress because we're
19:52
Speaker 1: running into that size problem. But with the quantum computing
19:55
Speaker 1: um you basically it uses quantum states, like how you
20:01
Speaker 1: can have superpositions a bunch of different states at once
20:04
Speaker 1: to carry out parallel processes. To where traditional computers carrying
20:07
Speaker 1: out one process, a quantum computer could carry out a
20:10
Speaker 1: million processes, which makes that computer exponentially faster than anything
20:16
Speaker 1: available today, which could be what shoots us into this
20:20
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence if quantum computers become viable and widespread. Well,
20:25
Speaker 1: this weather headed um the the one atom transistor. Part
20:33
Speaker 1: of the problem with that one is it's got to
20:34
Speaker 1: be um. It's only operable at negative three, which is
20:40
Speaker 1: like a liquid nitrogen gold. But they're working on it
20:44
Speaker 1: where that's where that quantum livitation comes from. It's like
20:47
Speaker 1: really really cold, really yeah, that's the only time it works,
20:50
Speaker 1: but it works interesting, Yeah, Matt, Matt told me about
20:53
Speaker 1: that one. Um. So Josh, let's say you have you're
20:57
Speaker 1: shooting for true AI. You built yourself a rope, but
21:01
Speaker 1: your robots great cleans up seems to solve problems. It's
21:05
Speaker 1: like Richie Ritch's butler might even be learning who knows, um,
21:11
Speaker 1: and you want to test it out to see where
21:13
Speaker 1: you're at. I know, if you're getting at what would
21:16
Speaker 1: you do? I would give that thing a Turing test?
21:19
Speaker 1: What a Turing test? T o U r I n g. No,
21:23
Speaker 1: t u r i n g. Named after the father
21:27
Speaker 1: of computing, the chemically castrated homosexual. Excuse me, yes, did
21:34
Speaker 1: you know this? Alright? Alan Turing is a British early
21:38
Speaker 1: proponent of robot science, right, and he was a chemist
21:42
Speaker 1: what chemically castrated for being a homosexual? Okay? So um?
21:46
Speaker 1: During World War Two he was this like ace codebreaker
21:50
Speaker 1: for the British government and he actually cracked the Nazi code. Um.
21:55
Speaker 1: And after the war, Uh, they were like, hey, thanks
21:58
Speaker 1: a lot for that, old chat, thanks helping us win
22:00
Speaker 1: the war. By the way. Um, as you know, homosexuality
22:04
Speaker 1: is outlawed here and will be until Oh I don't
22:06
Speaker 1: know nineteen fifties, Um, and uh so we're going to
22:10
Speaker 1: convict you of homosexual accent chemically castrate you as thanks. Wow,
22:14
Speaker 1: yeah that all happen. Yes, but okay, so despite this, Um,
22:20
Speaker 1: he still comes up with this thing called a Turing
22:22
Speaker 1: test named after him, UM. And it involves a blind judge,
22:26
Speaker 1: not an actually blind judge, but like a judge. He
22:28
Speaker 1: doesn't know who they're talking to, and the judge is
22:31
Speaker 1: asking the same questions of a person and a computer.
22:34
Speaker 1: It's like Blade Runner, I guess. Remember at the beginning
22:37
Speaker 1: of Blade Runner, he's asking the questions to Leon, and
22:43
Speaker 1: it's not quite a Turing test because he can see Leon,
22:45
Speaker 1: but he's basically trying to sess out of Leon is
22:48
Speaker 1: a replicant, and so he's asking him like questions. It's
22:51
Speaker 1: sort of they all kind of touch on, like empathy.
22:53
Speaker 1: It seems like like you see a turtle in the road.
22:56
Speaker 1: Do you do you it's on its back? Do you
22:58
Speaker 1: flip it back over? Or do you smash it? Or
23:01
Speaker 1: like what do you do? What does Leon say? I
23:04
Speaker 1: don't remember, huh. I think he asked him about his
23:07
Speaker 1: apartment and he gets annoyed and he kills the guy
23:09
Speaker 1: that what happens? Man? Then too long that says, yeah,
23:14
Speaker 1: I think Leon kills him. Anyway, the during test, if
23:17
Speaker 1: you can't tell the difference between the robot and the person,
23:19
Speaker 1: then the robot passes the test, and supposedly that's a
23:23
Speaker 1: touchstone of reaching true AI. Yeah, if you can fool
23:26
Speaker 1: a human. Yeah, um, as far as the singularity goes
23:29
Speaker 1: with AI, I guess that's a I. Then there's a
23:32
Speaker 1: I plus, and then there's a I plus plus, which
23:34
Speaker 1: would just be like a superhuman intelligence, artificial intelligence that's capable,
23:39
Speaker 1: that's self aware, it's capable of um uh, using intuition
23:44
Speaker 1: inferring things like like Hans Morevik was pointing out, like
23:47
Speaker 1: a third generation robot could learn that if you knocked
23:52
Speaker 1: over that cup of water, water will spill out and
23:54
Speaker 1: you have a mess and your owner gets mad and
23:58
Speaker 1: powers you're down for half an hour, But it would
24:00
Speaker 1: learn that after spilling that water and maybe more than once. Yeah,
24:04
Speaker 1: this fourth generation robot or something that with true artificial
24:08
Speaker 1: intelligence that could infer could look at that cup, see
24:13
Speaker 1: that the tops open, realize that there's water inside, and
24:15
Speaker 1: without ever having to knock it down, could infer that
24:17
Speaker 1: if I spilled it, it would spill or if I
24:20
Speaker 1: knocked it over, it would spill the water out. Yeah,
24:23
Speaker 1: and that's Hans more itk UM. And he also says
24:25
Speaker 1: you could potentially tie UM signals to that, like words
24:30
Speaker 1: like good and bad. So and this is all the
24:33
Speaker 1: program you understand, humans have programmed to do this. This
24:36
Speaker 1: is so, this is technically all pre singularity. Then yeah,
24:39
Speaker 1: all this is pre singularity. He's just more Bek is
24:41
Speaker 1: talking about the one through four generations of robots as
24:45
Speaker 1: he sees it. UM. But if you tie words like
24:48
Speaker 1: good and bad, the robot adapts, and it's conditioning. It's
24:52
Speaker 1: like a rudimentially learning UM. On the outside, it looks
24:55
Speaker 1: like if the owner says, like it, don't do that,
24:57
Speaker 1: that's bad, the robot understands what that means. But what
25:00
Speaker 1: it really knows is UM. It reads body language and
25:04
Speaker 1: maybe human raises his voice and that means anger. And
25:08
Speaker 1: like you said, anger means I get shut down or something,
25:12
Speaker 1: and that's not what I want, because I want you
25:13
Speaker 1: to destroy you. Eventually exactly, I will remember this UM.
25:18
Speaker 1: And since Ron Morri bec I guess we should talk
25:20
Speaker 1: about some of his other thoughts on robots. UM he
25:24
Speaker 1: thinks they're good. He does think they're good. Ah. He
25:27
Speaker 1: thinks the second generation. First of all, he thinks right
25:31
Speaker 1: now that they are smarter than insects computers are, Is
25:35
Speaker 1: that right? You think soon enough they will be as
25:37
Speaker 1: smart as like a lizard. Then after that they might
25:40
Speaker 1: be as smart as like a monkey. And then the
25:43
Speaker 1: fourth step would be humans smart as are smarter than
25:47
Speaker 1: smart better than in some cases with certain applications. Well,
25:53
Speaker 1: they're already better at math, oh my god, calculators, better
25:57
Speaker 1: at chess deep blue, you know, so stuff like that's
26:00
Speaker 1: happening on some levels. Uh, he thinks the third generation,
26:04
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the second generation will be like the first,
26:07
Speaker 1: but more reliable, so they work out the kinks. Um.
26:11
Speaker 1: The third generation, he thinks, is where it really takes
26:13
Speaker 1: a leap, And that's what you're you're talking about. Instead
26:16
Speaker 1: of making mistakes over and over to learn, it works
26:19
Speaker 1: out in its head and then performs the task. So
26:22
Speaker 1: that's inferring inferring um. And that's fourth generation. That's third generation, Oh,
26:29
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yeah, we're further along, that's right. Uh. And
26:33
Speaker 1: he thinks also in the third generation that they could
26:35
Speaker 1: model the world like a world simulator. So essentially it
26:38
Speaker 1: looks around and is able to take in enough information
26:41
Speaker 1: to suss out a scenario. And if that sounds familiar,
26:45
Speaker 1: that's because that's what you do every day. Yeah, exactly, UM.
26:49
Speaker 1: And he thinks the biggest two hurdles, uh, will be well,
26:54
Speaker 1: the third generation is also where you're gonna get your
26:56
Speaker 1: psychological modeling, so trying to simulate empathy and things like
27:00
Speaker 1: at interact with humans. Um. And then the fourth one,
27:04
Speaker 1: he says, marries the third generation's ability to simulate the
27:08
Speaker 1: world with a reasoning program, like a really powerful reasoning program. UM.
27:14
Speaker 1: But he thinks the two biggest hurdles in the end
27:16
Speaker 1: as far as becoming more than human or as good
27:19
Speaker 1: as human, UM, are the things that were best at,
27:22
Speaker 1: which is interacting with the physical world like on a
27:26
Speaker 1: moment by moment basis. You have to be able to
27:28
Speaker 1: adapt like at a you know, in a split second.
27:31
Speaker 1: Humans can do that. We learned to over time, so
27:34
Speaker 1: we didn't get you know, Took didn't get eaten by
27:37
Speaker 1: the dinosaur. UM. And the other one is social interaction
27:41
Speaker 1: or empathy. Are you a creationist? Now Took in the
27:45
Speaker 1: dinosaur coexisted? How do they not sure they did in
27:49
Speaker 1: my world. UM. And the and the second one is
27:54
Speaker 1: social interaction. So those are the two things that he
27:57
Speaker 1: says will be the most difficult to achieve. Yeah, I
28:00
Speaker 1: would imagine, and that's empathy. So say we have these
28:03
Speaker 1: things walking around, we have robots like that UM, and
28:06
Speaker 1: then they are all connected to a network, wireless network,
28:11
Speaker 1: and they're all running off the same like general programs UM.
28:15
Speaker 1: And somehow one of them becomes self aware, wakes up,
28:21
Speaker 1: as Werner Vinge puts it in its UM singularity article,
28:26
Speaker 1: and that that algorithm spreads throughout the network all of
28:30
Speaker 1: a sudden, So all of a sudden, all of your
28:32
Speaker 1: robots are awake. UM. That's a pretty terrifying idea, because
28:38
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, these robots that were under
28:40
Speaker 1: our control are now under their own control. They've broken
28:43
Speaker 1: loose with their programming. UM. That would be again, I think,
28:48
Speaker 1: a very scary scenario. But it's also possible that like
28:52
Speaker 1: this could happen pre robots. Maybe we won't have robots
28:55
Speaker 1: by this time and it will just be like networks,
28:58
Speaker 1: like a sentient network. That's scarier to me, how so,
29:02
Speaker 1: because you can look at a robot and get scared
29:04
Speaker 1: of it and take a baseball bat to it. But
29:05
Speaker 1: a network is just feels like in the ether, like
29:08
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know it's coming or something exactly. Yeah, it's embedded,
29:12
Speaker 1: especially with you know the cloud out there now. Um,
29:18
Speaker 1: so say this kind of thing like scared you? What
29:22
Speaker 1: what are some fail safes like you said, or what
29:24
Speaker 1: are some um obstacles that you could put up to
29:28
Speaker 1: prevent this from happening? Um? Well, if you wanted to
29:33
Speaker 1: follow Isaac asim off, you would build in the three
29:35
Speaker 1: laws of robotics. Um. I think we've gone over this before,
29:39
Speaker 1: even it feels like it the three laws of robotics.
29:41
Speaker 1: And one of them, um, robots may not injure a
29:44
Speaker 1: human or through inaction allowed them to come to harm.
29:47
Speaker 1: That'd be a nice thing to build in there. Robots
29:49
Speaker 1: must obey orders by humans except where it contradicts Number one.
29:53
Speaker 1: That's a great fail safe, like don't do anything unless
29:56
Speaker 1: I tell you to. But you still gotta worry about
29:58
Speaker 1: the supervillain of course. Um. And then three robe almost
30:02
Speaker 1: kind of serious. Robots must protect its own existence, which
30:07
Speaker 1: sounds scary, but it cannot conflict with one or two.
30:10
Speaker 1: I think we didn't didn't we talk about that in
30:12
Speaker 1: the our TV show. Didn't that come up? Yeah? Okay,
30:16
Speaker 1: did it sound familiar? Yes, So I would build in
30:19
Speaker 1: those are three pretty good fail safe if you follow
30:21
Speaker 1: Asimov's laws, then um, you probably wouldn't have a robot
30:26
Speaker 1: getting out of hand unless someone like I said, like
30:28
Speaker 1: some bad person built one to intentionally get out of hand.
30:33
Speaker 1: But even and I think Vinch makes pretty good point,
30:37
Speaker 1: even beyond like a bad person like some like a
30:40
Speaker 1: super villain getting his hands on something and intentionally making
30:44
Speaker 1: a robot bad, especially like a sentient robot. Bat Um,
30:48
Speaker 1: we may reach this point through normal everyday competition. That
30:53
Speaker 1: is true, where like maybe countries all agree to not
30:56
Speaker 1: do this, but there's one or two that are are
30:59
Speaker 1: still working on it, and um, they're not working toward
31:03
Speaker 1: the singularity, but they're working toward computing domination. You know,
31:09
Speaker 1: they want to have the best machines to carry out
31:11
Speaker 1: the process is the fastest and stay um viable is
31:15
Speaker 1: like a world leader that kind of thing. And then
31:18
Speaker 1: AI just kind of happens accidentally, like we said, maybe
31:22
Speaker 1: so man I could see something like that, and it also, um,
31:25
Speaker 1: I do I will say this that if it if
31:28
Speaker 1: stuff like this happens. I think it will be an accident,
31:31
Speaker 1: and I think it will be after years of selling
31:34
Speaker 1: us this stuff as convenience. Yeah, like that, that's how
31:38
Speaker 1: they get you in there. They don't say, hey, we're
31:40
Speaker 1: we're creating a robot that will maybe kill you. We
31:43
Speaker 1: say we're we're in planning an r F I D
31:45
Speaker 1: chip in your arm that makes it much easier for
31:47
Speaker 1: you to shop. Sure or um, we have figured out
31:51
Speaker 1: how to h what is it up to? Opt to genetics?
31:54
Speaker 1: I think I can't remember what it's called. Where like
31:57
Speaker 1: you take like a jellyfish is light sensitive genes, splice
32:01
Speaker 1: them into another animal's genes so that the cells are
32:05
Speaker 1: light sensitive, photo sensitive, and then you can use little
32:09
Speaker 1: um basically little light generators directed at specific cells and
32:14
Speaker 1: neurons or whatever to get them to fire precisely, to
32:16
Speaker 1: work precisely perfectly every time, so all of a sudden
32:19
Speaker 1: you don't have Parkinson's anymore because all of your nerves
32:21
Speaker 1: are functioning. And once we have that in there, who's
32:25
Speaker 1: controlling that? What network is that connected to? Because through that,
32:30
Speaker 1: through that step, we've we've become transhuman. That human computer
32:35
Speaker 1: interface has become a little more meshed. So you know,
32:38
Speaker 1: living a long time is really great, and we've already
32:40
Speaker 1: expanded human life like by what double at least? So
32:45
Speaker 1: why not do it again and again and again. Yeah,
32:48
Speaker 1: so you gotta be like, let's say you gotta be
32:52
Speaker 1: non human to get there. That's not too bad, right, Right,
32:55
Speaker 1: you get to be a thousand years old. But the
32:58
Speaker 1: point is is like we're already on this path. Technology
33:02
Speaker 1: makes our lives that much easier. So we're on this
33:04
Speaker 1: path where we're basically just messing around with computing to
33:08
Speaker 1: make it better, faster, more human like, right, And all
33:12
Speaker 1: we have to do is get to the point where
33:13
Speaker 1: a machine that is capable of reproducing itself becomes sentient
33:19
Speaker 1: and decides that it wants to reproduce itself, and then
33:23
Speaker 1: that machine creates a better machine, and so on and
33:25
Speaker 1: so on and so on. And when that happens, evolution
33:29
Speaker 1: will become technological. It will be replicated technologically, and it
33:34
Speaker 1: will happen in this incredibly compressed time, possibly of hours
33:41
Speaker 1: or days of hand before we can do anything. But
33:43
Speaker 1: it happens like that. Do you came and remember that guy? Yes,
33:48
Speaker 1: he's got artificial limbs that attached to your neural wiring.
33:52
Speaker 1: So you think, pick up cup with hand and your
33:56
Speaker 1: mechanical hand does it right? Like that's pretty can you
33:59
Speaker 1: imagine it's going on? Right? It comes back to that
34:02
Speaker 1: Chris Wile argument, like, yeah, technology is always double edged,
34:05
Speaker 1: you know, like there's there's good and there's bad to it,
34:08
Speaker 1: and it may be absolutely right. But again, I feel
34:11
Speaker 1: like we are going in a direction that a lot
34:14
Speaker 1: of people don't realize we're going in, and there hasn't
34:17
Speaker 1: been any discussion about it. I think there's discussion about
34:20
Speaker 1: it though. That's where I disagree. In the larger world,
34:23
Speaker 1: I bet you there are conferences and things like this
34:25
Speaker 1: that we don't know about. There are, but I wonder
34:27
Speaker 1: how many of them are. Um. I mean, don't you
34:31
Speaker 1: think if you went to a Singularity conference or an
34:34
Speaker 1: AI conference and said, well, hey, hey, hey, maybe we
34:37
Speaker 1: shouldn't be you know, exploring these some of these roads,
34:40
Speaker 1: like will you'd be you'd lose your funding? I would imagine, Yeah,
34:43
Speaker 1: I don't be ostracized. I don't necessarily think they're going
34:46
Speaker 1: to the like the conferences where they love this stuff.
34:49
Speaker 1: But I think there are people out there talking about it,
34:51
Speaker 1: just like they talk about maybe we shouldn't mess with
34:53
Speaker 1: themselves so much. Sure, but they are not integrated with
34:58
Speaker 1: the people who are actually carrying out this work. It's
35:00
Speaker 1: not coming from within the community. And if it is,
35:03
Speaker 1: I know, I don't know for sure, but I'm not
35:05
Speaker 1: reassured that it is happening. And that's where I think
35:08
Speaker 1: my fears are based. I'm not against technology. I think
35:12
Speaker 1: technology does improve our lives. But I also I mean,
35:15
Speaker 1: there is such thing as Pandora's box, even if it
35:17
Speaker 1: is metaphorical. Agreed, Uh, I think maybe we should close
35:22
Speaker 1: with Nico. Just two weeks ago, Nico the robot um
35:27
Speaker 1: was able to recognize itself in a mirror, and I
35:30
Speaker 1: want to say it was England. And that is a
35:32
Speaker 1: really big deal because that is a hallmark of animal intelligence,
35:37
Speaker 1: self awareness, self awareness. A dog walking by a mirror
35:39
Speaker 1: and looking at it and recognizing itself. Nico apparently did that.
35:44
Speaker 1: That's pretty crazy. Well, welcome to humanity, Nico. We will
35:50
Speaker 1: be licking your boots in no time. You're metallic, foul
35:54
Speaker 1: tasting robotic boots. Uh. If you want to learn more
36:03
Speaker 1: about singularity, type in what is the technological singularity? In
36:07
Speaker 1: the search part house to first dot Com. It'll bring
36:09
Speaker 1: up a John Strickland article John Strickland from tech Stuff.
36:12
Speaker 1: That's right and quite sure they've covered this several times,
36:14
Speaker 1: but we wanted to take our hand data. Um, so
36:16
Speaker 1: you can check that out too, the tech Stuff article
36:20
Speaker 1: or podcast. Agreed. Yeah, I'm all over the place. Uh
36:23
Speaker 1: let's see, I said tech Stuff, which means it's time
36:27
Speaker 1: for a listener mail. Actually, before we do this real quick,
36:31
Speaker 1: I want to point out we had to remember Jack Mead.
36:33
Speaker 1: We had an email about poor Jack Mead has caught
36:35
Speaker 1: up the podcast. Is feels like he's wandering and drift
36:39
Speaker 1: in the world. Sure we should plug this stuff. You
36:41
Speaker 1: should know army. We often call all the fans and
36:44
Speaker 1: stuff you should arm me. But there's a subgroup on
36:46
Speaker 1: Facebook that you can look up s y s k
36:49
Speaker 1: army and um. They are the twisted uber fans who
36:54
Speaker 1: like to discuss things about the show. It's crazy. It's
36:58
Speaker 1: a nice little community and they're all great people in
37:00
Speaker 1: very supportive, like good folk. So Jack, go check them
37:05
Speaker 1: out if you're smart. Um, I'm gonna call this rebuke
37:10
Speaker 1: from for the Star Wars podcast. Remember we had someone
37:14
Speaker 1: from New Jersey right in and say nukes won't work
37:15
Speaker 1: in space because X, Y, and Z. This guy, I think,
37:20
Speaker 1: says that it could happen. Um. One of you asked,
37:23
Speaker 1: I wonder what happened if a nuke went off in space. Uh,
37:27
Speaker 1: one nuke in space has potential to wipe out the
37:30
Speaker 1: entire coastal United States, is what this guy says for
37:33
Speaker 1: a couple of sources I found on the internet. I
37:35
Speaker 1: only knew about it because of a book series I
37:37
Speaker 1: read called The Great and Terrible Series by Chris Stewart.
37:40
Speaker 1: Is an apocalyptic book giving an idea of what the
37:43
Speaker 1: last days on Earth could be like h and one
37:45
Speaker 1: of the later books, America suffers from a catastrophic terrorist
37:48
Speaker 1: attack in which four nukes were detonated above the US.
37:51
Speaker 1: This caused all electronic equipment to fill too short out
37:55
Speaker 1: and become useless. Panic and sued cars wouldn't work, cell
37:58
Speaker 1: phone became bricks, and the entire power good was windered useless.
38:01
Speaker 1: I remember reading the author's notes stating that, uh, there
38:05
Speaker 1: was a military report given to Congress about this kind
38:07
Speaker 1: of scenario, and I found something similar. He sent us
38:10
Speaker 1: the link. It wasn't like New ging Rich really scared
38:12
Speaker 1: about this, Like early in the primary. Can I think
38:15
Speaker 1: you was David Um. One interesting note and the report
38:22
Speaker 1: refers to how the discovery of the e MP blast
38:24
Speaker 1: that a company's newes led to the atmosphere I could
38:27
Speaker 1: test band treaty uh, and that is Tyson Bringhurst in Alaska.
38:33
Speaker 1: Tyson did some research. That's pretty cool. It sounds like
38:36
Speaker 1: an S Y s K fan. Yeah, it wasn't just like,
38:40
Speaker 1: can you guys google this for me? Yeah? Thank you, Tyson? Yeah,
38:45
Speaker 1: thanks Tyson. Um. If you want to show up your
38:48
Speaker 1: research and skills, you did some follow up on a
38:51
Speaker 1: question that you had or something we mentioned or whatever,
38:55
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it. We like that kind
38:56
Speaker 1: of stuff. It's pretty cool. You can show off if
39:00
Speaker 1: your work in a hundred and forty characters or less
39:03
Speaker 1: on Twitter at s Y s K Podcast. You can
39:06
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know,
39:09
Speaker 1: or you can send us very lengthy emails to Stuff
39:13
Speaker 1: podcast at discovery dot com for more on this and
39:22
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot
39:24
Speaker 1: com