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+WEBVTT
+
+00:00.000 --> 00:03.320
+ The following is a conversation with Eric Weinstein.
+
+00:03.320 --> 00:08.640
+ He's a mathematician, economist, physicist, and the managing director of Teal Capital.
+
+00:08.640 --> 00:14.280
+ He coined the term, and you can say, is the founder of the intellectual dark web,
+
+00:14.280 --> 00:19.680
+ which is a loosely assembled group of public intellectuals that include Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson,
+
+00:19.680 --> 00:24.760
+ Steven Pinker, Joe Rogan, Michael Shermer, and a few others.
+
+00:24.760 --> 00:30.160
+ This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast at MIT and beyond.
+
+00:30.160 --> 00:35.680
+ If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, iTunes, or simply connect with me on Twitter
+
+00:35.680 --> 00:39.280
+ at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D.
+
+00:39.280 --> 00:44.440
+ And now here's my conversation with Eric Weinstein.
+
+00:44.440 --> 00:46.240
+ Are you nervous about this?
+
+00:46.240 --> 00:47.120
+ Scared shitless.
+
+00:47.120 --> 00:47.760
+ Okay.
+
+00:47.760 --> 00:50.440
+ You must be crazy.
+
+00:50.440 --> 00:54.440
+ You mentioned Kung Fu Panda as one of your favorite movies.
+
+00:54.440 --> 00:57.920
+ It has the usual profound master student dynamic going on.
+
+00:57.920 --> 01:04.800
+ So who has been a teacher that significantly influenced the direction of your thinking and life's work?
+
+01:04.800 --> 01:08.520
+ So if you're the Kung Fu Panda, who was your Shifu?
+
+01:08.520 --> 01:12.040
+ Oh, that's interesting because I didn't see Shifu as being the teacher.
+
+01:12.040 --> 01:13.600
+ Who was the teacher?
+
+01:13.600 --> 01:16.400
+ Uwe, master Uwe, the turtle.
+
+01:16.400 --> 01:17.400
+ Oh, the turtle.
+
+01:17.400 --> 01:18.040
+ Right.
+
+01:18.040 --> 01:20.680
+ They only meet twice in the entire film.
+
+01:20.680 --> 01:24.960
+ And the first conversation sort of doesn't count.
+
+01:24.960 --> 01:33.120
+ So the magic of the film, in fact, its point is that the teaching that really matters is
+
+01:33.120 --> 01:38.400
+ transferred during a single conversation.
+
+01:38.400 --> 01:39.960
+ And it's very brief.
+
+01:39.960 --> 01:42.600
+ And so who played that role in my life?
+
+01:42.600 --> 01:52.800
+ I would say either my grandfather, Harry Rubin, and his wife, Sophie Rubin, my grandmother,
+
+01:52.800 --> 01:54.800
+ or Tom Larrer.
+
+01:54.800 --> 01:55.800
+ Tom Larrer?
+
+01:55.800 --> 01:56.800
+ Yeah.
+
+01:56.800 --> 01:58.200
+ In which way?
+
+01:58.200 --> 02:05.360
+ If you give a child Tom Larrer records, what you do is you destroy their ability to be
+
+02:05.360 --> 02:08.680
+ taken over by later malware.
+
+02:08.680 --> 02:17.480
+ And it's so irreverent, so witty, so clever, so obscene that it destroys the ability to
+
+02:17.480 --> 02:19.400
+ lead a normal life for many people.
+
+02:19.400 --> 02:27.080
+ So if I meet somebody who's usually really shifted from any kind of neurotypical presentation,
+
+02:27.080 --> 02:31.120
+ I'll often ask them, are you a Tom Larrer fan?
+
+02:31.120 --> 02:34.040
+ And the odds that they will respond are quite high.
+
+02:34.040 --> 02:38.320
+ Now, Tom Larrer is poisoning pigeons in the park, Tom Larrer?
+
+02:38.320 --> 02:39.320
+ That's very interesting.
+
+02:39.320 --> 02:44.160
+ There's a small number of Tom Larrer songs that broke into the general population.
+
+02:44.160 --> 02:49.200
+ Poisoning pigeons in the park, the element song, and perhaps the Vatican rag.
+
+02:49.200 --> 02:52.560
+ So when you meet somebody who knows those songs but doesn't know...
+
+02:52.560 --> 02:54.920
+ Oh, you're judging me right now, aren't you?
+
+02:54.920 --> 02:55.920
+ Harshly.
+
+02:55.920 --> 02:57.120
+ No, but you're a Russian.
+
+02:57.120 --> 03:02.000
+ So undoubtedly you know Nikolay Ivanovich Lubachevsky, that song.
+
+03:02.000 --> 03:06.400
+ So that was a song about plagiarism that was in fact plagiarized, which most people don't
+
+03:06.400 --> 03:13.360
+ know from Danny Kaye, where Danny Kaye did a song called Stanislavsky of the Musky Arts.
+
+03:13.360 --> 03:19.160
+ And so Tom Larrer did this brilliant job of plagiarizing a song about and making it about
+
+03:19.160 --> 03:24.920
+ plagiarism and then making it about this mathematician who worked in non Euclidean geometry.
+
+03:24.920 --> 03:27.600
+ That was like giving heroin to a child.
+
+03:27.600 --> 03:33.680
+ It was extremely addictive and eventually led me to a lot of different places, one of
+
+03:33.680 --> 03:36.640
+ which may have been a PhD in mathematics.
+
+03:36.640 --> 03:41.840
+ And he was also at least a lecturer in mathematics, I believe, at Harvard, something like that.
+
+03:41.840 --> 03:45.240
+ I just had dinner with him, in fact.
+
+03:45.240 --> 03:52.800
+ When my son turned 13, we didn't tell him, but his bar mitzvah present was dinner with
+
+03:52.800 --> 03:54.720
+ his hero Tom Larrer.
+
+03:54.720 --> 04:01.000
+ And Tom Larrer was 88 years old, sharp as a tack, irreverent and funny as hell.
+
+04:01.000 --> 04:05.880
+ And just, you know, there are very few people in this world that you have to meet while
+
+04:05.880 --> 04:07.040
+ they're still here.
+
+04:07.040 --> 04:09.440
+ And that was definitely one for our family.
+
+04:09.440 --> 04:16.680
+ So that wit is a reflection of intelligence in some kind of deep way, like where that
+
+04:16.680 --> 04:20.280
+ would be a good test of intelligence, whether you're a Tom Larrer fan.
+
+04:20.280 --> 04:27.560
+ So what do you think that is about wit, about that kind of humor, ability to see the absurdity
+
+04:27.560 --> 04:28.560
+ in existence?
+
+04:28.560 --> 04:33.560
+ Do you think that's connected to intelligence, or are we just two Jews on a mic that appreciate
+
+04:33.560 --> 04:34.560
+ that kind of humor?
+
+04:34.560 --> 04:37.560
+ No, I think that it's absolutely connected to intelligence.
+
+04:37.560 --> 04:40.160
+ So you can see it.
+
+04:40.160 --> 04:45.160
+ There's a place where Tom Larrer decides that he's going to lampoon Gilbert of Gilbert
+
+04:45.160 --> 04:49.560
+ and Sullivan, and he's going to outdo Gilbert with clever, meaningless wordplay.
+
+04:49.560 --> 04:55.560
+ And he has, forget the, well, let's see, he's doing Clementine as if Gilbert and Sullivan
+
+04:55.560 --> 04:56.560
+ wrote it.
+
+04:56.560 --> 05:00.560
+ That I missed her depress her young sister, name is to this Mr. Depester, she tried pestering
+
+05:00.560 --> 05:04.360
+ sisters of festering blister, you best to resist or say, I, the sister persisted, the
+
+05:04.360 --> 05:05.360
+ Mr. resisted.
+
+05:05.360 --> 05:07.880
+ I kissed her all loyalty slip when he said, when she said I could have her, her sisters
+
+05:07.880 --> 05:10.800
+ could ever must surely have turned in its crypt.
+
+05:10.800 --> 05:11.960
+ That's so dense.
+
+05:11.960 --> 05:18.680
+ It's so insane that that's clearly intelligence, because it's hard to construct something like
+
+05:18.680 --> 05:19.680
+ that.
+
+05:19.680 --> 05:26.440
+ If I look at my favorite Tom Larrer, Tom Larrer lyric, you know, there's a perfectly absurd
+
+05:26.440 --> 05:30.280
+ one, which is once all the Germans were warlike and mean, but that couldn't happen again.
+
+05:30.280 --> 05:34.720
+ We taught them a lesson in 1918, and they've hardly bothered us since then, right?
+
+05:34.720 --> 05:36.920
+ That is a different kind of intelligence.
+
+05:36.920 --> 05:41.760
+ You know, you're taking something that is so horrific, and you're, you're sort of making
+
+05:41.760 --> 05:47.760
+ it palatable and funny and demonstrating also just your humanity.
+
+05:47.760 --> 05:53.520
+ I mean, I think the thing that came through as, as Tom Larrer wrote all of these terrible,
+
+05:53.520 --> 05:59.320
+ horrible lines was just what a sensitive and beautiful soul he was who was channeling
+
+05:59.320 --> 06:02.920
+ pain through humor and through grace.
+
+06:02.920 --> 06:07.760
+ I've seen throughout Europe, throughout Russia, that same kind of humor emerged from the generation
+
+06:07.760 --> 06:09.240
+ of World War II.
+
+06:09.240 --> 06:14.640
+ It seemed like that humor is required to somehow deal with the pain and the suffering of that
+
+06:14.640 --> 06:16.640
+ war created.
+
+06:16.640 --> 06:19.680
+ You do need the environment to create the broad Slavic soul.
+
+06:19.680 --> 06:28.320
+ I don't think that many Americans really appreciate Russian humor.
+
+06:28.320 --> 06:34.080
+ How you had to joke during the time of, let's say, Article 58 under Stalin, you had to be
+
+06:34.080 --> 06:40.120
+ very, very careful, you know, that the concept of a Russian satirical magazine like Crocodile
+
+06:40.120 --> 06:41.440
+ doesn't make sense.
+
+06:41.440 --> 06:48.640
+ So you have this cross cultural problem that there are certain areas of human experience
+
+06:48.640 --> 06:51.360
+ that it would be better to know nothing about.
+
+06:51.360 --> 06:56.720
+ And quite unfortunately, Eastern Europe knows a great deal about them, which makes the,
+
+06:56.720 --> 07:02.960
+ you know, the songs of Vladimir Vysotsky so potent, the, you know, the prose of Pushkin,
+
+07:02.960 --> 07:08.960
+ whatever it is, you have to appreciate the depth of the Eastern European experience.
+
+07:08.960 --> 07:14.120
+ And I would think that perhaps Americans knew something like this around the time of the
+
+07:14.120 --> 07:24.240
+ Civil War or maybe, you know, under slavery in Jim Crow or even the harsh tyranny of the
+
+07:24.240 --> 07:29.200
+ coal and steel employers during the labor wars.
+
+07:29.200 --> 07:34.720
+ But in general, I would say it's hard for us to understand and imagine the collective
+
+07:34.720 --> 07:40.680
+ culture unless we have the system of selective pressures that, for example, Russians were
+
+07:40.680 --> 07:41.680
+ subjected to.
+
+07:41.680 --> 07:42.680
+ Yeah.
+
+07:42.680 --> 07:50.240
+ So if there is one good thing that comes out of war, it's literature, art, and humor,
+
+07:50.240 --> 07:51.240
+ music.
+
+07:51.240 --> 07:52.240
+ Oh, I don't think so.
+
+07:52.240 --> 07:57.200
+ I think almost everything is good about war except for death and destruction.
+
+07:57.200 --> 07:59.200
+ Right.
+
+07:59.200 --> 08:02.640
+ Without the death, it would bring the romance of it.
+
+08:02.640 --> 08:03.640
+ The whole thing is nice.
+
+08:03.640 --> 08:07.840
+ This is why we're always caught up in war and we have this very ambiguous relationship
+
+08:07.840 --> 08:15.800
+ to it is that it makes life real and pressing and meaningful and at an unacceptable price
+
+08:15.800 --> 08:17.800
+ and the price has never been higher.
+
+08:17.800 --> 08:22.840
+ So just jump into AI a little bit.
+
+08:22.840 --> 08:28.680
+ You, in one of the conversations you had or one of the videos, you described that one
+
+08:28.680 --> 08:34.440
+ of the things AI systems can't do and biological systems can self replicate in the physical
+
+08:34.440 --> 08:35.440
+ world.
+
+08:35.440 --> 08:37.360
+ Oh, no, no, no.
+
+08:37.360 --> 08:38.880
+ In the physical world.
+
+08:38.880 --> 08:43.520
+ Well, yes, the physical robots can self replicate.
+
+08:43.520 --> 08:49.560
+ But this is a very tricky point, which is that the only thing that we've been able to
+
+08:49.560 --> 08:57.400
+ create that's really complex that has an analog of our reproductive system is software.
+
+08:57.400 --> 09:04.040
+ But nevertheless, software replicates itself if we're speaking strictly for the replication
+
+09:04.040 --> 09:05.840
+ in this kind of digital space.
+
+09:05.840 --> 09:08.680
+ So let me just to begin, let me ask you a question.
+
+09:08.680 --> 09:15.080
+ Do you see a protective barrier or a gap between the physical world and the digital world?
+
+09:15.080 --> 09:16.560
+ Let's not call it digital.
+
+09:16.560 --> 09:20.880
+ Let's call it the logical world versus the physical world.
+
+09:20.880 --> 09:21.880
+ Why logical?
+
+09:21.880 --> 09:28.080
+ Well, because even though we had, let's say, Einstein's brain preserved, it was meaningless
+
+09:28.080 --> 09:33.720
+ to us as a physical object because we couldn't do anything with what was stored in it at
+
+09:33.720 --> 09:35.640
+ a logical level.
+
+09:35.640 --> 09:41.320
+ And so the idea that something may be stored logically and that it may be stored physically
+
+09:41.320 --> 09:45.400
+ are not necessarily, we don't always benefit from synonymizing.
+
+09:45.400 --> 09:51.040
+ I'm not suggesting that there isn't a material basis to the logical world, but that it does
+
+09:51.040 --> 09:58.240
+ warrant identification with a separate layer that need not invoke logic gates and zeros
+
+09:58.240 --> 09:59.680
+ and ones.
+
+09:59.680 --> 10:05.480
+ And so connecting those two worlds, the logical world and the physical world, or maybe just
+
+10:05.480 --> 10:09.880
+ connecting to the logical world inside our brain, Einstein's brain, you mentioned the
+
+10:09.880 --> 10:14.720
+ idea of out intelligence.
+
+10:14.720 --> 10:15.720
+ Artificial out intelligence.
+
+10:15.720 --> 10:16.720
+ Artificial out intelligence.
+
+10:16.720 --> 10:17.720
+ Yes.
+
+10:17.720 --> 10:25.640
+ The essay that John Brockman ever invited me to write that he refused to publish in Edge.
+
+10:25.640 --> 10:26.640
+ Why?
+
+10:26.640 --> 10:30.680
+ Well, maybe it wasn't, it wasn't well written, but I don't know.
+
+10:30.680 --> 10:36.840
+ The idea is quite compelling, it's quite unique and new, and for these from my view of a stance
+
+10:36.840 --> 10:39.000
+ point, maybe you can explain it.
+
+10:39.000 --> 10:40.000
+ Sure.
+
+10:40.000 --> 10:45.360
+ What I was thinking about is why it is that we're waiting to be terrified by artificial
+
+10:45.360 --> 10:53.640
+ general intelligence when in fact, artificial life is terrifying in and of itself and it's
+
+10:53.640 --> 10:54.640
+ already here.
+
+10:54.640 --> 11:00.280
+ So in order to have a system of selective pressures, you need three distinct elements.
+
+11:00.280 --> 11:04.400
+ You need variation within a population.
+
+11:04.400 --> 11:08.600
+ You need heritability and you need differential success.
+
+11:08.600 --> 11:15.960
+ So what's really unique, and I've made this point, I think, elsewhere, about software
+
+11:15.960 --> 11:19.400
+ is that if you think about what humans know how to build, that's impressive.
+
+11:19.400 --> 11:24.960
+ So I always take a car and I say, does it have an analog of each of the physical physiological
+
+11:24.960 --> 11:25.960
+ systems?
+
+11:25.960 --> 11:26.960
+ Does it have a skeletal structure?
+
+11:26.960 --> 11:27.960
+ That's its frame.
+
+11:27.960 --> 11:30.120
+ Does it have a neurological structure?
+
+11:30.120 --> 11:35.760
+ It has an onboard computer, it has a digestive system.
+
+11:35.760 --> 11:38.520
+ And one thing it doesn't have is a reproductive system.
+
+11:38.520 --> 11:46.640
+ But if you can call spawn on a process, effectively, you do have a reproductive system.
+
+11:46.640 --> 11:52.280
+ And that means that you can create something with variation, heritability, and differential
+
+11:52.280 --> 11:53.280
+ success.
+
+11:53.280 --> 12:01.440
+ Now, the next step in the chain of thinking was where do we see inanimate, nonintelligent
+
+12:01.440 --> 12:05.720
+ life, outwitting intelligent life?
+
+12:05.720 --> 12:11.520
+ And I have two favorite systems and I try to stay on them so that we don't get distracted.
+
+12:11.520 --> 12:18.040
+ One of which is the ophry's orchid subspecies or subclade, I don't know what to call it.
+
+12:18.040 --> 12:19.040
+ Is it a type of flower?
+
+12:19.040 --> 12:23.960
+ Yeah, it's a type of flower that mimics the female of a pollinator species in order to
+
+12:23.960 --> 12:30.720
+ dupe the males into engaging, it was called pseudo copulation with the fake female, which
+
+12:30.720 --> 12:34.040
+ is usually represented by the lowest petal.
+
+12:34.040 --> 12:37.360
+ And there's also a pheromone component to fool the males into thinking they have a mating
+
+12:37.360 --> 12:38.360
+ opportunity.
+
+12:38.360 --> 12:42.960
+ But the flower doesn't have to give up energy in the form of nectar as a lure because it's
+
+12:42.960 --> 12:45.320
+ tricking the males.
+
+12:45.320 --> 12:53.800
+ The other system is a particular species of muscle, lampacillus in the clear streams of
+
+12:53.800 --> 13:02.080
+ Missouri, and it fools bass into biting a fleshy lip that contain its young.
+
+13:02.080 --> 13:07.040
+ And when the bass see this fleshy lip, which looks exactly like a species of fish that
+
+13:07.040 --> 13:14.120
+ the bass like to eat, the young explode and clamp onto the gills and parasitize the bass
+
+13:14.120 --> 13:19.600
+ and also lose the bass to redistribute them as they eventually release.
+
+13:19.600 --> 13:30.480
+ Both of these systems, you have a highly intelligent dupe being fooled by a lower life form.
+
+13:30.480 --> 13:34.760
+ And what is sculpting these convincing lures?
+
+13:34.760 --> 13:41.560
+ It's the intelligence of previously duped targets for these strategies.
+
+13:41.560 --> 13:49.480
+ So when the target is smart enough to avoid the strategy, those weaker mimics fall off.
+
+13:49.480 --> 13:52.760
+ They have terminal lines and only the better ones survive.
+
+13:52.760 --> 14:00.840
+ So it's an arms race between the target species that is being parasitized, getting smarter
+
+14:00.840 --> 14:09.000
+ and this other less intelligent or non intelligent object getting as if smarter.
+
+14:09.000 --> 14:17.240
+ And so what you see is that artificial general intelligence is not needed to parasitize us.
+
+14:17.240 --> 14:22.120
+ It's simply sufficient for us to outwit ourselves.
+
+14:22.120 --> 14:27.400
+ So you could have a program, let's say, you know, one of these Nigerian scams that writes
+
+14:27.400 --> 14:36.240
+ letters and uses whoever sends it Bitcoin to figure out which aspects of the program should
+
+14:36.240 --> 14:38.920
+ be kept, which should be varied and thrown away.
+
+14:38.920 --> 14:43.320
+ And you don't need it to be in any way intelligent in order to have a really nightmarish scenario
+
+14:43.320 --> 14:46.720
+ of being parasitized by something that has no idea what it's doing.
+
+14:46.720 --> 14:49.400
+ So you phrased a few concepts really eloquently.
+
+14:49.400 --> 14:53.080
+ So let me try to, as a few directions, this goes.
+
+14:53.080 --> 14:58.640
+ So one, first of all, in the way we write software today, it's not common that we allow
+
+14:58.640 --> 15:05.200
+ it to self modify, but we do have that ability now, we have the ability, it's just not common.
+
+15:05.200 --> 15:06.200
+ It's not just common.
+
+15:06.200 --> 15:13.080
+ So, so your, your thought is that that is a serious worry.
+
+15:13.080 --> 15:18.480
+ If there becomes a self modifying code is available now.
+
+15:18.480 --> 15:21.160
+ So there's different types of self modification, right?
+
+15:21.160 --> 15:29.840
+ There's personalization, you know, your email app, your Gmail is self modifying to you after
+
+15:29.840 --> 15:32.400
+ you log in or whatever you can think of it that way.
+
+15:32.400 --> 15:39.560
+ But ultimately central all the information is centralized, but you're thinking of ideas
+
+15:39.560 --> 15:45.440
+ where you're completely self, this is a unique entity operating under selective pressures
+
+15:45.440 --> 15:46.440
+ and it changes.
+
+15:46.440 --> 15:52.480
+ Well, you just, if you think about the fact that our immune systems don't know what's
+
+15:52.480 --> 15:57.160
+ coming at them next, but they have a small set of spanning components.
+
+15:57.160 --> 16:05.360
+ And if it's, if it's a sufficiently expressive system in that any shape or binding region
+
+16:05.360 --> 16:12.680
+ can be approximated with, with the Lego that is present, then you can have confidence that
+
+16:12.680 --> 16:20.240
+ you don't need to know what's coming at you because the combinatorics are sufficient to
+
+16:20.240 --> 16:22.560
+ reach any configuration needed.
+
+16:22.560 --> 16:25.280
+ So that's a beautiful thing.
+
+16:25.280 --> 16:30.680
+ Well, terrifying thing to worry about because it's so within our reach.
+
+16:30.680 --> 16:34.120
+ Whatever I suggest these things, I do always have a concern as to whether or not I will
+
+16:34.120 --> 16:37.040
+ bring them into being by talking about them.
+
+16:37.040 --> 16:39.680
+ So there's this thing from open AI.
+
+16:39.680 --> 16:47.840
+ So next week to talk to the founder of open AI, this idea that their text generation,
+
+16:47.840 --> 16:53.560
+ the new, the new stuff they have for generating text is they didn't want to bring it.
+
+16:53.560 --> 16:58.960
+ They didn't want to release it because they're worried about the, I'm delighted to hear that,
+
+16:58.960 --> 17:00.640
+ but they're going to end up releasing.
+
+17:00.640 --> 17:01.640
+ Yes.
+
+17:01.640 --> 17:02.640
+ So that's the thing.
+
+17:02.640 --> 17:09.160
+ The thing about it, well, at least from my end, I'm more a proponent of technology preventing
+
+17:09.160 --> 17:16.520
+ tech, so further innovation preventing the detrimental effects of innovation.
+
+17:16.520 --> 17:22.320
+ Well, we're, we're sort of tumbling down a hill at accelerating speed.
+
+17:22.320 --> 17:25.560
+ So whether or not we're proponents or it doesn't, it doesn't really matter.
+
+17:25.560 --> 17:31.120
+ It may not matter, but I, well, I do feel that there are people who've held things back
+
+17:31.120 --> 17:35.360
+ and you know, died poorer than they might have otherwise been.
+
+17:35.360 --> 17:37.400
+ We don't even know their names.
+
+17:37.400 --> 17:43.720
+ I don't think that we should discount the idea that having the smartest people showing
+
+17:43.720 --> 17:50.720
+ off how smart they are by what they've developed may be a terminal process.
+
+17:50.720 --> 17:57.240
+ I'm very mindful in particular of a beautiful letter that Edward Teller of all people wrote
+
+17:57.240 --> 18:02.080
+ to Leo Zillard, whereas Zillard was trying to figure out how to control the use of atomic
+
+18:02.080 --> 18:08.040
+ weaponry at the end of World War II and Teller rather strangely, because many of us view him
+
+18:08.040 --> 18:15.200
+ as a monster, showed some very advanced moral thinking talking about the slim chance we
+
+18:15.200 --> 18:19.480
+ have for survival and that the only hope is to make war unthinkable.
+
+18:19.480 --> 18:24.920
+ I do think that not enough of us feel in our gut what it is we are playing with when we
+
+18:24.920 --> 18:29.760
+ are working on technical problems, and I would recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it a movie
+
+18:29.760 --> 18:37.640
+ called The Bridge on the River Kwai about, I believe, captured British POWs who just
+
+18:37.640 --> 18:43.200
+ in a desire to do a bridge well, end up over collaborating with their Japanese captors.
+
+18:43.200 --> 18:51.120
+ Well, now you're making me question the unrestricted open discussion of ideas in AI.
+
+18:51.120 --> 18:52.120
+ I'm not saying.
+
+18:52.120 --> 18:53.120
+ I know the answer.
+
+18:53.120 --> 18:57.800
+ I'm saying that I could make a decent case for either our need to talk about this and
+
+18:57.800 --> 19:02.640
+ to become technologically focused on containing it or our need to stop talking about this
+
+19:02.640 --> 19:08.640
+ and try to hope that the relatively small number of highly adept individuals who are
+
+19:08.640 --> 19:12.800
+ looking at these problems is small enough that we should, in fact, be talking about
+
+19:12.800 --> 19:13.800
+ how to contain them.
+
+19:13.800 --> 19:20.400
+ Well, the way ideas, the way innovation happens, what new ideas develop Newton with calculus,
+
+19:20.400 --> 19:27.920
+ whether if he was silent, the idea would emerge elsewhere, in the case of Newton, of course,
+
+19:27.920 --> 19:35.000
+ but in the case of AI, how small is the set of individuals out of which such ideas would
+
+19:35.000 --> 19:36.000
+ arise?
+
+19:36.000 --> 19:41.840
+ Well, the idea is that the researchers we know and those that we don't know who may
+
+19:41.840 --> 19:47.080
+ live in countries that don't wish us to know what level they're currently at are very disciplined
+
+19:47.080 --> 19:50.520
+ in keeping these things to themselves.
+
+19:50.520 --> 19:57.160
+ Of course, I will point out that there is a religious school in Kerala that developed
+
+19:57.160 --> 20:06.120
+ something very close to the calculus, certainly in terms of infinite series in, I guess, religious
+
+20:06.120 --> 20:10.440
+ prayer and rhyme and prose.
+
+20:10.440 --> 20:16.360
+ So it's not that Newton had any ability to hold that back, and I don't really believe
+
+20:16.360 --> 20:17.600
+ that we have an ability to hold it back.
+
+20:17.600 --> 20:23.040
+ I do think that we could change the proportion of the time we spend worrying about the effects
+
+20:23.040 --> 20:26.200
+ of what if we are successful, rather than simply trying to succeed and hope that we'll
+
+20:26.200 --> 20:28.080
+ be able to contain things later.
+
+20:28.080 --> 20:29.280
+ Beautifully put.
+
+20:29.280 --> 20:35.600
+ So on the idea of intelligence, what form, treading cautiously as we've agreed as we
+
+20:35.600 --> 20:38.080
+ tumbled down the hill, what form?
+
+20:38.080 --> 20:40.080
+ Can't stop ourselves, can't we?
+
+20:40.080 --> 20:41.080
+ We cannot.
+
+20:41.080 --> 20:43.520
+ What form do you see it taking?
+
+20:43.520 --> 20:52.040
+ So one example, Facebook, Google, do want to, I don't know a better word, you want to
+
+20:52.040 --> 20:59.560
+ influence users to behave a certain way, and so that's one kind of example of our intelligence
+
+20:59.560 --> 21:05.920
+ is systems perhaps modifying the behavior of these intelligent human beings in order
+
+21:05.920 --> 21:08.720
+ to sell more product of different kinds.
+
+21:08.720 --> 21:13.080
+ Do you see other examples of this actually emerging in?
+
+21:13.080 --> 21:19.280
+ Just take any parasitic system, make sure that there's some way in which there's differential
+
+21:19.280 --> 21:27.640
+ success, heritability, and variation, and those are the magic ingredients, and if you
+
+21:27.640 --> 21:32.040
+ really wanted to build a nightmare machine, make sure that the system that expresses the
+
+21:32.040 --> 21:40.120
+ variability has a spanning set so that it can learn to arbitrary levels by making it
+
+21:40.120 --> 21:41.920
+ sufficiently expressive.
+
+21:41.920 --> 21:43.240
+ That's your nightmare.
+
+21:43.240 --> 21:48.040
+ So it's your nightmare, but it could also be, it's a really powerful mechanism by which
+
+21:48.040 --> 21:52.360
+ to create, well, powerful systems.
+
+21:52.360 --> 21:59.120
+ So are you more worried about the negative direction that might go versus the positive?
+
+21:59.120 --> 22:05.120
+ So you said parasitic, but that doesn't necessarily need to be what the system converges towards.
+
+22:05.120 --> 22:07.120
+ It could be, what is it?
+
+22:07.120 --> 22:13.680
+ Well, parasitism, the dividing line between parasitism and symbiosis is not so clear.
+
+22:13.680 --> 22:15.040
+ That's what they tell me about marriage.
+
+22:15.040 --> 22:17.560
+ I'm still single, so I don't know.
+
+22:17.560 --> 22:28.200
+ Well, yeah, we can go into that too, but no, I think we have to appreciate, are you infected
+
+22:28.200 --> 22:30.440
+ by your own mitochondria?
+
+22:30.440 --> 22:32.440
+ Right.
+
+22:32.440 --> 22:34.440
+ Right?
+
+22:34.440 --> 22:35.440
+ Yeah.
+
+22:35.440 --> 22:42.560
+ So in marriage, you fear the loss of independence, but even though the American therapeutic community
+
+22:42.560 --> 22:47.400
+ may be very concerned about codependence, what's to say that codependence isn't what's
+
+22:47.400 --> 22:53.040
+ necessary to have a stable relationship in which to raise children who are maximally case
+
+22:53.040 --> 22:57.560
+ selected and require incredible amounts of care because you have to wait 13 years before
+
+22:57.560 --> 23:01.800
+ there's any reproductive payout, and most of us don't want our 13 year olds having kids.
+
+23:01.800 --> 23:08.920
+ That's a very tricky situation to analyze, and I would say that creditors and parasites
+
+23:08.920 --> 23:14.000
+ drive much of our evolution, and I don't know whether to be angry at them or thank them.
+
+23:14.000 --> 23:19.160
+ Well, ultimately, I mean, nobody knows the meaning of life or what even happiness is,
+
+23:19.160 --> 23:25.640
+ but there is some metrics that they didn't tell you, that's why all the poetry and books
+
+23:25.640 --> 23:31.760
+ are about, you know, there's some metrics under which you can kind of measure how good
+
+23:31.760 --> 23:35.040
+ it is that these AI systems are roaming about.
+
+23:35.040 --> 23:44.800
+ So you're more nervous about software than you are optimistic about ideas of self replicating
+
+23:44.800 --> 23:45.800
+ large stuff.
+
+23:45.800 --> 23:50.440
+ I don't think we've really felt where we are.
+
+23:50.440 --> 23:57.960
+ You know, occasionally we get a wake up, 9.11 was so anomalous compared to everything else
+
+23:57.960 --> 24:03.760
+ we've experienced on American soil that it came to us as a complete shock that that was
+
+24:03.760 --> 24:05.080
+ even a possibility.
+
+24:05.080 --> 24:11.640
+ What it really was, was a highly creative and determined R&D team deep in the bowels
+
+24:11.640 --> 24:18.200
+ of Afghanistan, showing us that we had certain exploits that we were open to that nobody
+
+24:18.200 --> 24:19.440
+ had chosen to express.
+
+24:19.440 --> 24:23.680
+ I can think of several of these things that I don't talk about publicly that just seem
+
+24:23.680 --> 24:32.120
+ to have to do with how relatively unimaginative those who wish to cause havoc and destruction
+
+24:32.120 --> 24:34.280
+ have been up until now.
+
+24:34.280 --> 24:44.280
+ The great mystery of our time of this particular little era is how remarkably stable we've been
+
+24:44.280 --> 24:51.880
+ since 1945 when we demonstrated the ability to use nuclear weapons in anger.
+
+24:51.880 --> 24:58.400
+ We don't know why things like that haven't happened since then.
+
+24:58.400 --> 25:04.120
+ We've had several close call, we've had mistakes, we've had brinksmanship.
+
+25:04.120 --> 25:10.800
+ What's now happened is that we've settled into a sense that, oh, it'll always be nothing.
+
+25:10.800 --> 25:19.880
+ It's been so long since something was at that level of danger that we've got a wrong
+
+25:19.880 --> 25:21.080
+ idea in our head.
+
+25:21.080 --> 25:25.480
+ That's why when I went on the Ben Shapiro show, I talked about the need to resume above
+
+25:25.480 --> 25:30.440
+ ground testing of nuclear devices because we have people whose developmental experience
+
+25:30.440 --> 25:37.600
+ suggests that when, let's say, Donald Trump and North Korea engage on Twitter, oh, it's
+
+25:37.600 --> 25:38.600
+ nothing.
+
+25:38.600 --> 25:39.600
+ It's just posturing.
+
+25:39.600 --> 25:41.800
+ Everybody's just in it for money.
+
+25:41.800 --> 25:48.400
+ There's a sense that people are in a video game mode, which has been the right call since
+
+25:48.400 --> 25:49.480
+ 1945.
+
+25:49.480 --> 25:51.320
+ We've been mostly in video game mode.
+
+25:51.320 --> 25:52.320
+ It's amazing.
+
+25:52.320 --> 25:57.120
+ So you're worried about a generation which has not seen any existential...
+
+25:57.120 --> 25:58.320
+ We've lived under it.
+
+25:58.320 --> 26:00.240
+ You see, you're younger.
+
+26:00.240 --> 26:05.840
+ I don't know if, again, you came from Moscow.
+
+26:05.840 --> 26:13.560
+ There was a TV show called The Day After that had a huge effect on a generation growing
+
+26:13.560 --> 26:21.040
+ up in the US, and it talked about what life would be like after a nuclear exchange.
+
+26:21.040 --> 26:27.480
+ We have not gone through an embodied experience collectively where we've thought about this,
+
+26:27.480 --> 26:32.800
+ and I think it's one of the most irresponsible things that the elders among us have done,
+
+26:32.800 --> 26:42.120
+ which is to provide this beautiful garden in which the thorns are cut off of the rose
+
+26:42.120 --> 26:47.840
+ bushes and all of the edges are rounded and sanded.
+
+26:47.840 --> 26:52.000
+ And so people have developed this totally unreal idea, which is everything is going
+
+26:52.000 --> 26:54.240
+ to be just fine.
+
+26:54.240 --> 27:01.760
+ And do I think that my leading concern is AGI or my leading concern is thermonuclear exchange
+
+27:01.760 --> 27:04.040
+ or gene drives or any one of these things?
+
+27:04.040 --> 27:11.800
+ I don't know, but I know that our time here in this very long experiment here is finite
+
+27:11.800 --> 27:17.040
+ because the toys that we've built are so impressive and the wisdom to accompany them
+
+27:17.040 --> 27:19.320
+ has not materialized.
+
+27:19.320 --> 27:25.280
+ And I think we actually got a wisdom uptick since 1945.
+
+27:25.280 --> 27:29.960
+ We had a lot of dangerous skilled players on the world stage who nevertheless, no matter
+
+27:29.960 --> 27:37.360
+ how bad they were, managed to not embroil us in something that we couldn't come back
+
+27:37.360 --> 27:38.360
+ from.
+
+27:38.360 --> 27:39.360
+ The Cold War.
+
+27:39.360 --> 27:40.360
+ Yeah.
+
+27:40.360 --> 27:47.600
+ And the distance from the Cold War, I'm very mindful of, there was a Russian tradition
+
+27:47.600 --> 27:56.240
+ actually of on your wedding day going to visit a memorial to those who gave their lives.
+
+27:56.240 --> 27:58.040
+ Can you imagine this?
+
+27:58.040 --> 28:03.800
+ Were you on the happiest day of your life, you go and you pay homage to the people who
+
+28:03.800 --> 28:08.960
+ fought and died in the Battle of Stalingrad?
+
+28:08.960 --> 28:13.400
+ I'm not a huge fan of communism, I gotta say, but there were a couple of things that
+
+28:13.400 --> 28:18.840
+ the Russians did that were really positive in the Soviet era.
+
+28:18.840 --> 28:25.040
+ And I think trying to let people know how serious life actually is, is the Russian model
+
+28:25.040 --> 28:28.640
+ of seriousness is better than the American model.
+
+28:28.640 --> 28:35.280
+ And maybe like you mentioned, there was a small echo of that after 911, but we wouldn't
+
+28:35.280 --> 28:36.280
+ let it form.
+
+28:36.280 --> 28:40.840
+ We talk about 911, but it's 912 that really moved the needle.
+
+28:40.840 --> 28:48.200
+ When we were all just there and nobody wanted to speak, we witnessed something super serious
+
+28:48.200 --> 28:59.240
+ and we didn't want to run to our computers and blast out our deep thoughts and our feelings.
+
+28:59.240 --> 29:03.920
+ And it was profound because we woke up briefly there.
+
+29:03.920 --> 29:08.960
+ I talk about the gated institutional narrative that sort of programs our lives.
+
+29:08.960 --> 29:15.240
+ I've seen it break three times in my life, one of which was the election of Donald Trump.
+
+29:15.240 --> 29:21.280
+ Another time was the fall of Lehman Brothers, when everybody who knew that Bear Stearns
+
+29:21.280 --> 29:27.360
+ wasn't that important knew that Lehman Brothers met AIG was next.
+
+29:27.360 --> 29:29.440
+ And the other one was 911.
+
+29:29.440 --> 29:35.240
+ And so if I'm 53 years old and I only remember three times that the global narrative was
+
+29:35.240 --> 29:43.480
+ really interrupted, that tells you how much we've been on top of developing events.
+
+29:43.480 --> 29:47.600
+ We had the Murrow Felt Federal Building explosion, but it didn't cause the narrative to break.
+
+29:47.600 --> 29:49.560
+ It wasn't profound enough.
+
+29:49.560 --> 29:58.840
+ Around 912, we started to wake up out of our slumber and the powers that be did not want
+
+29:58.840 --> 30:01.200
+ to coming together.
+
+30:01.200 --> 30:04.040
+ The admonition was go shopping.
+
+30:04.040 --> 30:07.840
+ The powers would be, what is that force as opposed to blaming individuals?
+
+30:07.840 --> 30:08.920
+ We don't know.
+
+30:08.920 --> 30:09.920
+ So whatever that...
+
+30:09.920 --> 30:14.160
+ Whatever that force is, there's a component of it that's emergent and there's a component
+
+30:14.160 --> 30:15.760
+ of it that's deliberate.
+
+30:15.760 --> 30:18.840
+ So give yourself a portfolio with two components.
+
+30:18.840 --> 30:23.920
+ Some amount of it is emergent, but some amount of it is also an understanding that if people
+
+30:23.920 --> 30:27.880
+ come together, they become an incredible force.
+
+30:27.880 --> 30:34.000
+ And what you're seeing right now, I think, is there are forces that are trying to come
+
+30:34.000 --> 30:40.760
+ together and there are forces that are trying to push things apart, and one of them is the
+
+30:40.760 --> 30:48.360
+ globalist narrative versus the national narrative, where to the globalist perspective, the nations
+
+30:48.360 --> 30:53.840
+ are bad things, in essence, that they're temporary, they're nationalistic, they're jingoistic.
+
+30:53.840 --> 30:58.680
+ It's all negative to people in the national, more in the nationality, and they're saying,
+
+30:58.680 --> 31:03.120
+ look, this is where I pay my taxes, this is where I do my army service, this is where
+
+31:03.120 --> 31:06.160
+ I have a vote, this is where I have a passport.
+
+31:06.160 --> 31:10.240
+ Who the hell are you to tell me that because you've moved into someplace that you can make
+
+31:10.240 --> 31:15.560
+ money globally, that you've chosen to abandon other people to whom you have a special and
+
+31:15.560 --> 31:16.560
+ elevated duty?
+
+31:16.560 --> 31:23.200
+ And I think that these competing narratives have been pushing towards the global perspective
+
+31:23.200 --> 31:27.920
+ from the elite, and a larger and larger number of disenfranchised people are saying, hey,
+
+31:27.920 --> 31:33.680
+ I actually live in a place and I have laws and I speak a language, I have a culture,
+
+31:33.680 --> 31:40.320
+ and who are you to tell me that because you can profit in some faraway land, that my obligations
+
+31:40.320 --> 31:43.280
+ to my fellow countrymen are so much diminished?
+
+31:43.280 --> 31:47.960
+ So these tensions between nations and so on, ultimately, you see being proud of your country
+
+31:47.960 --> 31:53.960
+ and so on, which creates potentially the kind of things that led to wars and so on, they
+
+31:53.960 --> 31:58.960
+ ultimately, it is human nature and it is good for us, for wake up calls of different kinds.
+
+31:58.960 --> 32:01.280
+ Well, I think that these are tensions.
+
+32:01.280 --> 32:06.640
+ And my point isn't, I mean, nationalism run amok is a nightmare.
+
+32:06.640 --> 32:09.960
+ And internationalism run amok is a nightmare.
+
+32:09.960 --> 32:17.440
+ And the problem is we're trying to push these pendulums to some place where they're somewhat
+
+32:17.440 --> 32:25.960
+ balanced, where we have a higher duty of care to those who share our laws and our citizenship,
+
+32:25.960 --> 32:30.920
+ but we don't forget our duties of care to the global system.
+
+32:30.920 --> 32:37.640
+ I would think this is elementary, but the problem that we're facing concerns the ability
+
+32:37.640 --> 32:45.520
+ for some to profit by abandoning their obligations to others within their system.
+
+32:45.520 --> 32:48.600
+ And that's what we've had for decades.
+
+32:48.600 --> 32:50.200
+ You mentioned nuclear weapons.
+
+32:50.200 --> 32:55.880
+ I was hoping to get answers from you, since one of the many things you've done is economics
+
+32:55.880 --> 33:00.520
+ and maybe you can understand human behavior and why the heck we haven't blown each other
+
+33:00.520 --> 33:01.520
+ up yet.
+
+33:01.520 --> 33:02.520
+ But okay.
+
+33:02.520 --> 33:03.520
+ So we'll get back to you.
+
+33:03.520 --> 33:04.520
+ I don't know the answer.
+
+33:04.520 --> 33:05.520
+ Yeah.
+
+33:05.520 --> 33:07.640
+ It's a fast, it's really important to say that we really don't know.
+
+33:07.640 --> 33:09.520
+ A mild uptick in wisdom.
+
+33:09.520 --> 33:10.840
+ A mild uptick in wisdom.
+
+33:10.840 --> 33:17.320
+ Well, Steven Pinko, who I've talked with, has a lot of really good ideas about why,
+
+33:17.320 --> 33:18.320
+ but nobody really knows.
+
+33:18.320 --> 33:20.320
+ I don't trust his optimism.
+
+33:20.320 --> 33:24.960
+ Listen, I'm Russian, so I never trust a guy who's that optimistic.
+
+33:24.960 --> 33:25.960
+ No, no, no.
+
+33:25.960 --> 33:31.280
+ It's just that you're talking about a guy who's looking at a system in which more and
+
+33:31.280 --> 33:37.760
+ more of the kinetic energy, like war, has been turned into potential energy, like unused
+
+33:37.760 --> 33:38.760
+ nuclear weapons.
+
+33:38.760 --> 33:39.760
+ Wow, beautifully put.
+
+33:39.760 --> 33:42.880
+ You know, now I'm looking at that system and I'm saying, okay, well, if you don't have
+
+33:42.880 --> 33:46.000
+ a potential energy term, then everything's just getting better and better.
+
+33:46.000 --> 33:47.000
+ Yeah.
+
+33:47.000 --> 33:48.000
+ Wow.
+
+33:48.000 --> 33:49.320
+ That's beautifully put.
+
+33:49.320 --> 33:50.320
+ Only physicists could.
+
+33:50.320 --> 33:51.320
+ Okay.
+
+33:51.320 --> 33:53.800
+ I'm not a physicist.
+
+33:53.800 --> 33:55.200
+ Is that a dirty word?
+
+33:55.200 --> 33:56.200
+ No.
+
+33:56.200 --> 33:57.200
+ No, I wish I were a physicist.
+
+33:57.200 --> 33:58.200
+ Me too.
+
+33:58.200 --> 33:59.200
+ My dad's a physicist.
+
+33:59.200 --> 34:02.880
+ I'm trying to live up that probably for the rest of my life.
+
+34:02.880 --> 34:04.520
+ He's probably going to listen to this too.
+
+34:04.520 --> 34:05.520
+ He did.
+
+34:05.520 --> 34:06.520
+ Yeah.
+
+34:06.520 --> 34:14.120
+ So, your friend, Sam Harris, worries a lot about the existential threat of AI, not in
+
+34:14.120 --> 34:16.640
+ the way that you've described, but in the more.
+
+34:16.640 --> 34:18.040
+ Well, he hangs out with Elon.
+
+34:18.040 --> 34:20.400
+ I don't know Elon.
+
+34:20.400 --> 34:30.720
+ So are you worried about that kind of, you know, about the, about either robotic systems
+
+34:30.720 --> 34:36.320
+ or traditionally defined AI systems, essentially becoming super intelligent, much more intelligent
+
+34:36.320 --> 34:38.680
+ than human beings and, uh, getting.
+
+34:38.680 --> 34:40.600
+ Well, they already are.
+
+34:40.600 --> 34:42.840
+ And they're not.
+
+34:42.840 --> 34:45.840
+ When seen as a collective, you mean?
+
+34:45.840 --> 34:53.120
+ Well, I mean, I can mean all sorts of things, but certainly many of the things that we thought
+
+34:53.120 --> 34:57.360
+ were peculiar to general intelligence or do not require general intelligence.
+
+34:57.360 --> 35:03.120
+ So that's been one of the big awakenings that you can write a pretty convincing sports
+
+35:03.120 --> 35:10.720
+ story from stats alone, uh, without needing to have watched the game.
+
+35:10.720 --> 35:14.000
+ So you know, is it possible to write lively prose about politics?
+
+35:14.000 --> 35:15.000
+ Yeah.
+
+35:15.000 --> 35:16.280
+ No, not yet.
+
+35:16.280 --> 35:20.640
+ So we, we're sort of all over the map.
+
+35:20.640 --> 35:24.000
+ One of the, one of the things about chess that I yield, there's a question I once asked
+
+35:24.000 --> 35:29.240
+ on Quora that didn't get a lot of response, which was, what is the greatest brilliancy
+
+35:29.240 --> 35:32.840
+ ever produced by a computer in a chess game, which was different than the question of what
+
+35:32.840 --> 35:35.520
+ is the greatest game ever played?
+
+35:35.520 --> 35:39.200
+ So if you think about brilliancies is what really animates many of us to think of chess
+
+35:39.200 --> 35:42.240
+ as an art form.
+
+35:42.240 --> 35:47.400
+ Those are those moves and combinations that just show such flair, panache and, and, and
+
+35:47.400 --> 35:48.400
+ soul.
+
+35:48.400 --> 35:50.480
+ Um, computers weren't really great at that.
+
+35:50.480 --> 35:52.720
+ They were great positional monsters.
+
+35:52.720 --> 35:57.120
+ And, you know, recently we, we've started seeing brilliancies.
+
+35:57.120 --> 35:58.120
+ And so.
+
+35:58.120 --> 36:03.000
+ The masters have identified with, with alpha zero, that things were quite brilliant.
+
+36:03.000 --> 36:04.000
+ Yeah.
+
+36:04.000 --> 36:07.680
+ So that's, that's, you know, that's an example of something we don't think that that's AGI,
+
+36:07.680 --> 36:13.120
+ but in a very restricted set, a set of rules like chess, you're starting to see poetry
+
+36:13.120 --> 36:16.040
+ of a high order.
+
+36:16.040 --> 36:21.240
+ And, and so I'm not, I don't like the idea that we're waiting for AGI.
+
+36:21.240 --> 36:29.160
+ AGI is sort of slowly infiltrating our lives in the same way that I don't think a worm
+
+36:29.160 --> 36:33.360
+ should be, you know, the C. elegans shouldn't be treated as non conscious because it only
+
+36:33.360 --> 36:34.360
+ has 300 neurons.
+
+36:34.360 --> 36:39.080
+ It maybe just has a very low level of consciousness because we don't understand what these things
+
+36:39.080 --> 36:40.840
+ mean as they scale up.
+
+36:40.840 --> 36:43.760
+ So am I worried about this general phenomena?
+
+36:43.760 --> 36:44.760
+ Sure.
+
+36:44.760 --> 36:48.240
+ But I think that one of the things that's happening is that a lot of us are fretting
+
+36:48.240 --> 36:53.600
+ about this in part because of human needs.
+
+36:53.600 --> 36:56.240
+ We've always been worried about the Gollum, right?
+
+36:56.240 --> 37:01.560
+ Well, the Gollum is the artificially created life, you know, it's like Frankenstein.
+
+37:01.560 --> 37:02.560
+ Yeah.
+
+37:02.560 --> 37:03.560
+ Sure.
+
+37:03.560 --> 37:08.800
+ It's a Jewish version and Frankenberg, Frankenstein.
+
+37:08.800 --> 37:09.800
+ Yeah.
+
+37:09.800 --> 37:10.800
+ That makes sense.
+
+37:10.800 --> 37:11.800
+ Sorry.
+
+37:11.800 --> 37:17.160
+ So the, but we've always been worried about creating something like this and it's getting
+
+37:17.160 --> 37:18.720
+ closer and closer.
+
+37:18.720 --> 37:25.920
+ And there are ways in which we have to realize that the whole thing is kind of, the whole
+
+37:25.920 --> 37:31.560
+ thing that we've experienced are the context of our lives is almost certainly coming to
+
+37:31.560 --> 37:32.560
+ an end.
+
+37:32.560 --> 37:39.040
+ And I don't mean to suggest that we won't survive, I don't know.
+
+37:39.040 --> 37:43.680
+ And I don't mean to suggest that it's coming tomorrow, it could be 300, 500 years.
+
+37:43.680 --> 37:49.600
+ But there's no plan that I'm aware of if we have three rocks that we could possibly inhabit
+
+37:49.600 --> 37:58.280
+ that are sensible within current technological dreams, the earth, the moon and Mars.
+
+37:58.280 --> 38:04.860
+ And we have a very competitive civilization that is still forced into violence to sort
+
+38:04.860 --> 38:06.920
+ out disputes that cannot be arbitrated.
+
+38:06.920 --> 38:12.960
+ It is not clear to me that we have a long term future until we get to the next stage,
+
+38:12.960 --> 38:18.160
+ which is to figure out whether or not the Einsteinian speed limit can be broken.
+
+38:18.160 --> 38:21.600
+ And that requires our source code.
+
+38:21.600 --> 38:25.720
+ Our source code, the stuff in our brains to figure out what do you mean by our source
+
+38:25.720 --> 38:26.720
+ code?
+
+38:26.720 --> 38:30.880
+ The source code of the context, whatever it is that produces the quarks, the electrons,
+
+38:30.880 --> 38:31.880
+ the neutrinos.
+
+38:31.880 --> 38:33.360
+ Oh, our source code.
+
+38:33.360 --> 38:34.360
+ I got it.
+
+38:34.360 --> 38:38.240
+ So this is the best stuff that's written in a higher level language.
+
+38:38.240 --> 38:39.240
+ Yeah.
+
+38:39.240 --> 38:40.240
+ Yeah.
+
+38:40.240 --> 38:41.240
+ That's right.
+
+38:41.240 --> 38:42.240
+ You're talking about the low level bits or lower.
+
+38:42.240 --> 38:46.600
+ That's what is currently keeping us here.
+
+38:46.600 --> 38:52.800
+ We can't even imagine, you know, we have harebrained schemes for staying within the
+
+38:52.800 --> 38:55.520
+ Einsteinian speed limit.
+
+38:55.520 --> 38:59.040
+ You know, maybe if we could just drug ourselves and go into a suspended state or we could
+
+38:59.040 --> 39:02.920
+ have multiple generations, I think all that stuff is pretty silly.
+
+39:02.920 --> 39:07.720
+ But I think it's also pretty silly to imagine that our wisdom is going to increase to the
+
+39:07.720 --> 39:10.880
+ point that we can have the toys we have.
+
+39:10.880 --> 39:14.120
+ And we're not going to use them for 500 years.
+
+39:14.120 --> 39:18.720
+ Speaking of Einstein, I had a profound breakthrough when I realized you're just one letter away
+
+39:18.720 --> 39:19.720
+ from the guy.
+
+39:19.720 --> 39:22.880
+ Yeah, but I'm also one letter away from Feinstein.
+
+39:22.880 --> 39:25.880
+ It's, well, you get to pick.
+
+39:25.880 --> 39:26.880
+ Okay.
+
+39:26.880 --> 39:32.680
+ So unified theory, you know, you've worked, you enjoy the beauty of geometry.
+
+39:32.680 --> 39:34.440
+ I don't actually know if you enjoy it.
+
+39:34.440 --> 39:36.000
+ You certainly are quite good at it.
+
+39:36.000 --> 39:37.000
+ I tremble before it.
+
+39:37.000 --> 39:39.000
+ Tremble before it.
+
+39:39.000 --> 39:42.200
+ If you're religious, that is one of the, I don't have to be religious.
+
+39:42.200 --> 39:43.200
+ It's just so beautiful.
+
+39:43.200 --> 39:44.200
+ You will tremble anyway.
+
+39:44.200 --> 39:50.960
+ I mean, I just read Einstein's biography and one of the ways, one of the things you've
+
+39:50.960 --> 39:59.160
+ done is try to explore a unified theory, talking about a 14 dimensional observers that has
+
+39:59.160 --> 40:02.800
+ the 4D space time continuum embedded in it.
+
+40:02.800 --> 40:09.600
+ I'm just curious how you think philosophically at a high level about something more than
+
+40:09.600 --> 40:12.000
+ four dimensions.
+
+40:12.000 --> 40:19.160
+ How do you try to, what does it make you feel talking in the mathematical world about dimensions
+
+40:19.160 --> 40:23.480
+ that are greater than the ones we can perceive?
+
+40:23.480 --> 40:26.640
+ Is there something that you take away that's more than just the math?
+
+40:26.640 --> 40:30.880
+ Well, first of all, stick out your tongue at me.
+
+40:30.880 --> 40:41.240
+ Okay, now on the front of that tongue, there was a sweet receptor and next to that were
+
+40:41.240 --> 40:46.600
+ salt receptors on two different sides, a little bit farther back, there were sour receptors
+
+40:46.600 --> 40:49.400
+ and you wouldn't show me the back of your tongue where your bitter receptor was.
+
+40:49.400 --> 40:51.280
+ Show the good side always.
+
+40:51.280 --> 40:58.080
+ Okay, but that was four dimensions of taste receptors, but you also had pain receptors
+
+40:58.080 --> 41:01.200
+ on that tongue and probably heat receptors on that tongue.
+
+41:01.200 --> 41:05.360
+ So let's assume that you had one of each, that would be six dimensions.
+
+41:05.360 --> 41:12.880
+ So when you eat something, you eat a slice of pizza and it's got some hot pepper on
+
+41:12.880 --> 41:17.720
+ it, maybe some jalapeno, you're having a six dimensional experience, dude.
+
+41:17.720 --> 41:24.400
+ Do you think we overemphasize the value of time as one of the dimensions or space?
+
+41:24.400 --> 41:28.160
+ Well, we certainly overemphasize the value of time because we like things to start and
+
+41:28.160 --> 41:30.720
+ end or we really don't like things to end, but they seem to.
+
+41:30.720 --> 41:36.840
+ Well, what if you flipped one of the spatial dimensions into being a temporal dimension
+
+41:36.840 --> 41:42.160
+ and you and I were to meet in New York City and say, well, where and when should we meet?
+
+41:42.160 --> 41:50.680
+ Say, how about I'll meet you on 36th and Lexington at two in the afternoon and 11 o clock in
+
+41:50.680 --> 41:53.280
+ the morning.
+
+41:53.280 --> 41:55.520
+ That would be very confusing.
+
+41:55.520 --> 41:59.320
+ Well, so it's convenient for us to think about time, you mean?
+
+41:59.320 --> 42:03.560
+ We happen to be in a delicious situation in which we have three dimensions of space and
+
+42:03.560 --> 42:07.920
+ one of time and they're woven together in this sort of strange fabric where we can trade
+
+42:07.920 --> 42:11.800
+ off a little space for a little time, but we still only have one dimension that is picked
+
+42:11.800 --> 42:13.440
+ out relative to the other three.
+
+42:13.440 --> 42:15.640
+ It's very much glad to snipe the pips.
+
+42:15.640 --> 42:17.960
+ So which one developed for who?
+
+42:17.960 --> 42:22.800
+ Do we develop for these dimensions or did the dimensions or were they always there and
+
+42:22.800 --> 42:23.800
+ it doesn't?
+
+42:23.800 --> 42:27.200
+ Well, do you imagine that there isn't a place where there are four temporal dimensions or
+
+42:27.200 --> 42:31.960
+ two and two of space and time or three of time and one of space and then would time not
+
+42:31.960 --> 42:33.920
+ be playing the role of space?
+
+42:33.920 --> 42:37.960
+ Why do you imagine that the sector that you're in is all that there is?
+
+42:37.960 --> 42:40.800
+ I certainly do not, but I can't imagine otherwise.
+
+42:40.800 --> 42:46.160
+ I mean, I haven't done ayahuasca or any of those drugs that I hope to one day, but instead
+
+42:46.160 --> 42:49.640
+ of doing ayahuasca, you could just head over to building two.
+
+42:49.640 --> 42:50.640
+ That's where the mathematicians are?
+
+42:50.640 --> 42:52.200
+ Yeah, that's where they hang.
+
+42:52.200 --> 42:53.200
+ Just to look at some geometry.
+
+42:53.200 --> 42:55.640
+ Well, just ask about pseudo Romanian geometry.
+
+42:55.640 --> 42:58.640
+ That's what you're interested in.
+
+42:58.640 --> 43:01.640
+ Or you could talk to a shaman and end up in Peru.
+
+43:01.640 --> 43:03.140
+ And then some extra money for that trip.
+
+43:03.140 --> 43:06.600
+ Yeah, but you won't be able to do any calculations if that's how you choose to go about it.
+
+43:06.600 --> 43:09.960
+ Well, a different kind of calculation.
+
+43:09.960 --> 43:14.000
+ One of my favorite people, Edward Frankel, Berkeley professor, author of Love and Math,
+
+43:14.000 --> 43:20.280
+ great title for a book, said that you were quite a remarkable intellect to come up with
+
+43:20.280 --> 43:25.360
+ such beautiful original ideas in terms of the unified theory and so on, but you were
+
+43:25.360 --> 43:28.240
+ working outside academia.
+
+43:28.240 --> 43:34.360
+ So one question in developing ideas that truly original, truly interesting, what's the difference
+
+43:34.360 --> 43:40.120
+ between inside academia and outside academia when it comes to developing such ideas?
+
+43:40.120 --> 43:43.240
+ Oh, it's a terrible choice, terrible choice.
+
+43:43.240 --> 43:55.200
+ So if you do it inside of academics, you are forced to constantly show great loyalty to
+
+43:55.200 --> 44:03.000
+ the consensus and you distinguish yourself with small, almost microscopic heresies to
+
+44:03.000 --> 44:10.520
+ make your reputation in general, and you have very competent people and brilliant people
+
+44:10.520 --> 44:17.720
+ who are working together, who are, who form very deep social networks and have a very
+
+44:17.720 --> 44:25.520
+ high level of behavior, at least within mathematics and at least technically within physics, theoretical
+
+44:25.520 --> 44:27.880
+ physics.
+
+44:27.880 --> 44:35.240
+ When you go outside, you meet lunatics and crazy people, madmen.
+
+44:35.240 --> 44:41.200
+ And these are people who do not usually subscribe to the consensus position and almost always
+
+44:41.200 --> 44:44.320
+ lose their way.
+
+44:44.320 --> 44:52.320
+ And the key question is, will progress likely come from someone who is miraculously managed
+
+44:52.320 --> 44:59.160
+ to stay within the system and is able to take on a larger amount of heresy that is sort of
+
+44:59.160 --> 45:07.840
+ unthinkable, in which case that will be fascinating, or is it more likely that somebody will maintain
+
+45:07.840 --> 45:15.760
+ a level of discipline from outside of academics and be able to make use of the freedom that
+
+45:15.760 --> 45:21.800
+ comes from not having to constantly affirm your loyalty to the consensus of your field?
+
+45:21.800 --> 45:28.440
+ So you've characterized in ways that academia in this particular sense is declining.
+
+45:28.440 --> 45:34.880
+ You posted the plot, the older population of the faculty is getting larger, the younger
+
+45:34.880 --> 45:37.240
+ is getting smaller and so on.
+
+45:37.240 --> 45:40.720
+ So what's, which direction of the two are you more hopeful about?
+
+45:40.720 --> 45:43.360
+ Well the baby boomers can't hang on forever.
+
+45:43.360 --> 45:46.440
+ Was it first of all in general, true, and second of all in academia?
+
+45:46.440 --> 45:53.000
+ But that's really what, what this time is about, is we didn't, we're used to like financial
+
+45:53.000 --> 45:57.160
+ bubbles that last a few years in length and then pop.
+
+45:57.160 --> 46:02.000
+ The baby boomer bubble is this really long lived thing.
+
+46:02.000 --> 46:07.960
+ And all of the ideology, all of the behavior patterns, the norms, you know, for example,
+
+46:07.960 --> 46:11.640
+ string theory is an almost entirely baby boomer phenomenon.
+
+46:11.640 --> 46:16.640
+ It was something that baby boomers were able to do because it required a very high level
+
+46:16.640 --> 46:20.600
+ of mathematical ability.
+
+46:20.600 --> 46:24.360
+ You don't think of string theory as an original idea?
+
+46:24.360 --> 46:29.920
+ Oh, I mean it was original to Veneziano, probably is older than the baby boomers.
+
+46:29.920 --> 46:32.800
+ And there are people who are younger than the baby boomers who are still doing string
+
+46:32.800 --> 46:33.800
+ theory.
+
+46:33.800 --> 46:37.920
+ And I'm not saying that nothing discovered within the large string theoretic complex
+
+46:37.920 --> 46:38.920
+ is wrong.
+
+46:38.920 --> 46:43.720
+ Quite the contrary, a lot of brilliant mathematics and a lot of the structure of physics was
+
+46:43.720 --> 46:46.960
+ elucidated by string theorists.
+
+46:46.960 --> 46:51.560
+ What do I think of the deliverable nature of this product that will not chip called
+
+46:51.560 --> 46:52.560
+ string theory?
+
+46:52.560 --> 46:57.560
+ I think that it is largely an affirmative action program for highly mathematically and
+
+46:57.560 --> 47:03.240
+ geometrically talented baby boomer physics physicists so that they can say that they're
+
+47:03.240 --> 47:10.480
+ working on something within the constraints of what they will say is quantum gravity.
+
+47:10.480 --> 47:14.640
+ Now there are other schemes, you know, there's like asymptotic safety.
+
+47:14.640 --> 47:17.080
+ There are other things that you could imagine doing.
+
+47:17.080 --> 47:26.800
+ I don't think much of any of the major programs, but to have inflicted this level of loyalty
+
+47:26.800 --> 47:27.800
+ through a shibboleth.
+
+47:27.800 --> 47:29.520
+ Well, surely you don't question X.
+
+47:29.520 --> 47:33.760
+ Well, I question almost everything in the string program and that's why I got out of
+
+47:33.760 --> 47:35.600
+ physics when you called me a physicist.
+
+47:35.600 --> 47:39.920
+ It was a great honor, but the reason I didn't become a physicist wasn't that I fell in
+
+47:39.920 --> 47:40.920
+ love with mathematics.
+
+47:40.920 --> 47:49.080
+ As I said, wow, in 1984, 1983, I saw the field going mad and I saw that mathematics, which
+
+47:49.080 --> 47:53.000
+ has all sorts of problems, was not going insane.
+
+47:53.000 --> 47:57.520
+ And so instead of studying things within physics, I thought it was much safer to study the same
+
+47:57.520 --> 47:59.200
+ objects within mathematics.
+
+47:59.200 --> 48:01.240
+ There's a huge price to pay for that.
+
+48:01.240 --> 48:06.960
+ You lose physical intuition, but the point is that it wasn't a North Korean reeducation
+
+48:06.960 --> 48:07.960
+ camp either.
+
+48:07.960 --> 48:16.400
+ Are you hopeful about cracking open Einstein unified theory in a way that has really, really
+
+48:16.400 --> 48:21.800
+ understanding whether this uniting everything together with quantum theory and so on?
+
+48:21.800 --> 48:28.320
+ I mean, I'm trying to play this role myself to do it to the extent of handing it over
+
+48:28.320 --> 48:35.280
+ to the more responsible, more professional, more competent community.
+
+48:35.280 --> 48:39.920
+ So I think that they're wrong about a great number of their belief structures.
+
+48:39.920 --> 48:45.280
+ But I do believe, I mean, I have a really profound love, hate relationship with this
+
+48:45.280 --> 48:46.280
+ group of people.
+
+48:46.280 --> 48:47.800
+ On the physics side.
+
+48:47.800 --> 48:48.800
+ Oh, yeah.
+
+48:48.800 --> 48:52.240
+ Because the mathematicians actually seem to be much more open minded and…
+
+48:52.240 --> 48:58.040
+ Well, they are, and they're open minded about anything that looks like great math, right?
+
+48:58.040 --> 49:01.800
+ They'll study something that isn't very important physics, but if it's beautiful mathematics,
+
+49:01.800 --> 49:06.200
+ then they'll have great intuition about these things.
+
+49:06.200 --> 49:10.880
+ As good as the mathematicians are, and I might even intellectually at some horsepower level
+
+49:10.880 --> 49:19.280
+ give them the edge, the theoretical physics community is bar none the most profound intellectual
+
+49:19.280 --> 49:22.040
+ community that we have ever created.
+
+49:22.040 --> 49:26.120
+ It is the number one, there's nobody in second place as far as I'm concerned.
+
+49:26.120 --> 49:30.520
+ In their spare time, in the spare time, they invented molecular biology.
+
+49:30.520 --> 49:33.160
+ What was the origin of molecular biology?
+
+49:33.160 --> 49:34.160
+ You're saying physics?
+
+49:34.160 --> 49:35.160
+ Well, something like Francis Crick.
+
+49:35.160 --> 49:39.200
+ I mean, a lot of the early molecular biologists were physicists.
+
+49:39.200 --> 49:40.200
+ Yeah.
+
+49:40.200 --> 49:42.760
+ I mean, you know, Schrodinger wrote, what is life?
+
+49:42.760 --> 49:44.400
+ That was highly inspirational.
+
+49:44.400 --> 49:53.320
+ I mean, you have to appreciate that there is no community like the basic research community
+
+49:53.320 --> 49:55.000
+ in theoretical physics.
+
+49:55.000 --> 49:59.360
+ And it's not something, I'm highly critical of these guys.
+
+49:59.360 --> 50:08.440
+ I think that they would just wasted the decades of time with a near religious devotion to
+
+50:08.440 --> 50:13.320
+ their misconception of where the problems were in physics.
+
+50:13.320 --> 50:20.040
+ But this has been the greatest intellectual collapse ever witnessed within academics.
+
+50:20.040 --> 50:22.320
+ You see it as a collapse or just a lull?
+
+50:22.320 --> 50:26.000
+ Oh, I'm terrified that we're about to lose the vitality.
+
+50:26.000 --> 50:29.320
+ We can't afford to pay these people.
+
+50:29.320 --> 50:33.440
+ We can't afford to give them an accelerator just to play with in case they find something
+
+50:33.440 --> 50:35.280
+ at the next energy level.
+
+50:35.280 --> 50:38.400
+ These people created our economy.
+
+50:38.400 --> 50:41.880
+ They gave us the Rad Lab and radar.
+
+50:41.880 --> 50:45.600
+ They gave us two atomic devices to end World War II.
+
+50:45.600 --> 50:51.680
+ They created the semiconductor and the transistor to power our economy through Moore's law.
+
+50:51.680 --> 50:56.680
+ As a positive externality of particle accelerators, they created the worldwide web.
+
+50:56.680 --> 51:02.440
+ And we have the insolence to say, why should we fund you with our taxpayer dollars?
+
+51:02.440 --> 51:03.440
+ No.
+
+51:03.440 --> 51:08.840
+ The question is, are you enjoying your physics dollars?
+
+51:08.840 --> 51:12.800
+ These guys signed the world's worst licensing agreement.
+
+51:12.800 --> 51:20.280
+ And if they simply charged for every time you used a transistor or a URL or enjoyed the
+
+51:20.280 --> 51:25.680
+ piece that they have provided during this period of time through the terrible weapons
+
+51:25.680 --> 51:31.000
+ that they developed or your communications devices, all of the things that power our
+
+51:31.000 --> 51:35.240
+ economy, I really think came out of physics, even to the extent the chemistry came out
+
+51:35.240 --> 51:38.040
+ of physics and molecular biology came out of physics.
+
+51:38.040 --> 51:42.760
+ So first of all, you have to know that I'm very critical of this community.
+
+51:42.760 --> 51:45.160
+ Second of all, it is our most important community.
+
+51:45.160 --> 51:46.160
+ We have neglected it.
+
+51:46.160 --> 51:47.640
+ We've abused it.
+
+51:47.640 --> 51:49.780
+ We don't take it seriously.
+
+51:49.780 --> 51:54.920
+ We don't even care to get them to rehab after a couple of generations of failure.
+
+51:54.920 --> 52:01.920
+ I think the youngest person to have really contributed to the standard model of theoretical
+
+52:01.920 --> 52:08.040
+ level was born in 1951, Frank Wilczek.
+
+52:08.040 --> 52:15.840
+ And almost nothing has happened in theoretical physics after 1973, 1974, that sent somebody
+
+52:15.840 --> 52:21.720
+ to Stockholm for theoretical development that predicted experiment.
+
+52:21.720 --> 52:24.840
+ So we have to understand that we are doing this to ourselves.
+
+52:24.840 --> 52:31.320
+ Now with that said, these guys have behaved abysmally, in my opinion, because they haven't
+
+52:31.320 --> 52:35.520
+ owned up to where they actually are, what problems they're really facing, how definite
+
+52:35.520 --> 52:37.360
+ they can actually be.
+
+52:37.360 --> 52:40.960
+ They haven't shared some of their most brilliant discoveries which are desperately needed in
+
+52:40.960 --> 52:45.880
+ other fields like gauge theory, which at least the mathematicians can share, which is an
+
+52:45.880 --> 52:50.520
+ upgrade of the differential calculus of Newton and Leibniz, and they haven't shared the importance
+
+52:50.520 --> 52:55.520
+ of renormalization theory, even though this should be standard operating procedure for
+
+52:55.520 --> 53:00.920
+ people across the sciences dealing with different layers and different levels of phenomena.
+
+53:00.920 --> 53:06.200
+ And by shared, you mean communicated in such a way that it disseminates throughout the
+
+53:06.200 --> 53:07.200
+ different sciences as well.
+
+53:07.200 --> 53:11.920
+ These guys are sitting, both theoretical physicists and mathematicians, are sitting on top of
+
+53:11.920 --> 53:15.160
+ a giant stockpile of intellectual gold.
+
+53:15.160 --> 53:19.720
+ They have so many things that have not been manifested anywhere.
+
+53:19.720 --> 53:25.240
+ I was just on Twitter, I think I mentioned the Habermann switch pitch that shows the
+
+53:25.240 --> 53:29.840
+ self duality of the tetrahedron realized as a linkage mechanism.
+
+53:29.840 --> 53:36.720
+ This is like a triviality, and it makes an amazing toy that's built to market, hopefully
+
+53:36.720 --> 53:38.680
+ a fortune for Chuck Habermann.
+
+53:38.680 --> 53:44.720
+ Well, you have no idea how much great stuff that these priests have in their monastery.
+
+53:44.720 --> 53:47.800
+ So it's truly a love and hate relationship for you.
+
+53:47.800 --> 53:49.840
+ Well, it sounds like it's more on the love side.
+
+53:49.840 --> 53:54.720
+ This building that we're in right here is the building in which I really put together
+
+53:54.720 --> 54:00.120
+ the conspiracy between the National Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation,
+
+54:00.120 --> 54:04.360
+ through the government university industry research roundtable, to destroy the bargaining
+
+54:04.360 --> 54:11.040
+ power of American academics using foreign labor on microfeet in the base.
+
+54:11.040 --> 54:13.240
+ Oh, yeah, that was done here in this building.
+
+54:13.240 --> 54:14.240
+ Isn't that weird?
+
+54:14.240 --> 54:18.120
+ I'm truly speaking with a revolutionary and a radical...
+
+54:18.120 --> 54:20.200
+ No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
+
+54:20.200 --> 54:25.200
+ At an intellectual level, I am absolutely garden variety.
+
+54:25.200 --> 54:27.640
+ I'm just straight down the middle.
+
+54:27.640 --> 54:34.800
+ The system that we are in, this university is functionally insane.
+
+54:34.800 --> 54:36.840
+ Harvard is functionally insane.
+
+54:36.840 --> 54:42.240
+ And we don't understand that when we get these things wrong, the financial crisis made
+
+54:42.240 --> 54:43.640
+ this very clear.
+
+54:43.640 --> 54:51.200
+ There was a long period where every grownup, everybody with a tie who spoke in baritone
+
+54:51.200 --> 54:58.080
+ tones with the right degree at the end of their name, was talking about how we banished
+
+54:58.080 --> 54:59.080
+ volatility.
+
+54:59.080 --> 55:01.080
+ We were in the Great Moderation.
+
+55:01.080 --> 55:04.160
+ Okay, they were all crazy.
+
+55:04.160 --> 55:05.160
+ And who was right?
+
+55:05.160 --> 55:08.520
+ It was like Nassim Taleb, Nouriel Rubini.
+
+55:08.520 --> 55:14.040
+ Now what happens is that they claimed that the market went crazy, but the market didn't
+
+55:14.040 --> 55:15.040
+ go crazy.
+
+55:15.040 --> 55:16.240
+ The market had been crazy.
+
+55:16.240 --> 55:18.600
+ And what happened is that it suddenly went sane.
+
+55:18.600 --> 55:21.680
+ Well, that's where we are with academics.
+
+55:21.680 --> 55:23.960
+ Academics right now is mad as a hatter.
+
+55:23.960 --> 55:25.520
+ And it's absolutely evident.
+
+55:25.520 --> 55:27.040
+ I can show you graph after graph.
+
+55:27.040 --> 55:28.520
+ I can show you the internal discussions.
+
+55:28.520 --> 55:31.000
+ I can show you the conspiracies.
+
+55:31.000 --> 55:36.040
+ Harvard's dealing with one right now over its admissions policies for people of color
+
+55:36.040 --> 55:38.360
+ who happen to come from Asia.
+
+55:38.360 --> 55:41.400
+ All of this madness is necessary to keep the game going.
+
+55:41.400 --> 55:46.440
+ What we're talking about, just while we're on the topic of revolutionaries, is we're
+
+55:46.440 --> 55:50.120
+ talking about the danger of an outbreak of sanity.
+
+55:50.120 --> 55:55.320
+ Yeah, you're the guy pointing out the elephant in the room here.
+
+55:55.320 --> 55:57.160
+ The elephant has no clothes.
+
+55:57.160 --> 55:59.560
+ Is that how that goes?
+
+55:59.560 --> 56:07.680
+ I was going to talk a little bit to Joe Rogan about this at the time.
+
+56:07.680 --> 56:13.400
+ I think you have some, just listening to you, you could probably speak really eloquently
+
+56:13.400 --> 56:16.560
+ to academia on the difference between the different fields.
+
+56:16.560 --> 56:21.680
+ So you think there's a difference between science, engineering, and then the humanities
+
+56:21.680 --> 56:25.800
+ in academia in terms of tolerance that they're willing to tolerate?
+
+56:25.800 --> 56:33.000
+ So from my perspective, I thought computer science and maybe engineering is more tolerant
+
+56:33.000 --> 56:36.560
+ to radical ideas, but that's perhaps innocent of me.
+
+56:36.560 --> 56:40.960
+ Because I always, all the battles going on now are a little bit more on the humanities
+
+56:40.960 --> 56:43.240
+ side than gender studies and so on.
+
+56:43.240 --> 56:48.520
+ Have you seen the American Mathematical Society's publication of an essay called Get Out the
+
+56:48.520 --> 56:49.520
+ Way?
+
+56:49.520 --> 56:50.520
+ I have not.
+
+56:50.520 --> 56:57.960
+ What's the idea is that white men who hold positions within universities and mathematics
+
+56:57.960 --> 57:04.000
+ should vacate their positions so that young black women can take over something like this?
+
+57:04.000 --> 57:07.240
+ That's in terms of diversity, which I also want to ask you about, but in terms of diversity
+
+57:07.240 --> 57:15.000
+ of strictly ideas, do you think, because you're basically saying physics as a community has
+
+57:15.000 --> 57:20.480
+ become a little bit intolerant to some degree to new radical ideas?
+
+57:20.480 --> 57:21.480
+ Or at least you said that.
+
+57:21.480 --> 57:27.120
+ Well, it's changed a little bit recently, which is that even string theory is now admitting,
+
+57:27.120 --> 57:32.960
+ okay, we don't, this doesn't look very promising in the short term.
+
+57:32.960 --> 57:39.760
+ So the question is what compiles if you want to take the computer science metaphor?
+
+57:39.760 --> 57:42.040
+ What will get you into a journal?
+
+57:42.040 --> 57:47.080
+ Will you spend your life trying to push some paper into a journal or will it be accepted
+
+57:47.080 --> 57:48.080
+ easily?
+
+57:48.080 --> 57:54.560
+ What do we know about the characteristics of the submitter and what gets taken up and
+
+57:54.560 --> 57:56.680
+ what does not?
+
+57:56.680 --> 58:01.680
+ All of these fields are experiencing pressure because no field is performing so brilliantly
+
+58:01.680 --> 58:11.320
+ well that it's revolutionizing our way of speaking and thinking in the ways in which
+
+58:11.320 --> 58:12.920
+ we've become accustomed.
+
+58:12.920 --> 58:19.360
+ But don't you think even in theoretical physics, a lot of times, even with theories like string
+
+58:19.360 --> 58:24.200
+ theory, you can speak to this, it does eventually lead to what are the ways that this theory
+
+58:24.200 --> 58:25.200
+ would be testable?
+
+58:25.200 --> 58:32.160
+ Ultimately, although look, there's this thing about Popper and the scientific method that's
+
+58:32.160 --> 58:36.360
+ a cancer and a disease in the minds of very smart people.
+
+58:36.360 --> 58:39.840
+ That's not really how most of the stuff gets worked out.
+
+58:39.840 --> 58:42.560
+ It's how it gets checked.
+
+58:42.560 --> 58:45.680
+ And there is a dialogue between theory and experiment.
+
+58:45.680 --> 58:57.240
+ But everybody should read Paul Dirac's 1963 scientific American article where it's very
+
+58:57.240 --> 58:58.240
+ interesting.
+
+58:58.240 --> 59:03.160
+ He talks about it as if it was about the Schrodinger equation and Schrodinger's failure to advance
+
+59:03.160 --> 59:06.320
+ his own work because of his failure to account for some phenomenon.
+
+59:06.320 --> 59:10.400
+ The key point is that if your theory is a slight bit off, it won't agree with experiment,
+
+59:10.400 --> 59:13.600
+ but it doesn't mean that the theory is actually wrong.
+
+59:13.600 --> 59:18.720
+ But Dirac could as easily have been talking about his own equation in which he predicted
+
+59:18.720 --> 59:22.440
+ that the electrons should have an antiparticle.
+
+59:22.440 --> 59:26.840
+ And since the only positively charged particle that was known at the time was the proton,
+
+59:26.840 --> 59:30.760
+ Heisenberg pointed out, well, shouldn't your antiparticle, the proton have the same mass
+
+59:30.760 --> 59:31.760
+ as the electron?
+
+59:31.760 --> 59:33.640
+ And doesn't that invalidate your theory?
+
+59:33.640 --> 59:39.400
+ So I think that Dirac was actually being potentially quite sneaky and talking about the fact that
+
+59:39.400 --> 59:43.960
+ he had been pushed off of his own theory to some extent by Heisenberg.
+
+59:43.960 --> 59:51.520
+ But look, we've fetishized the scientific method and popper and falsification because
+
+59:51.520 --> 59:55.580
+ it protects us from crazy ideas entering the field.
+
+59:55.580 --> 1:00:00.120
+ So it's a question of balancing type one and type two error, and we're pretty maxed
+
+1:00:00.120 --> 1:00:01.560
+ out in one direction.
+
+1:00:01.560 --> 1:00:08.280
+ The opposite of that, let me say what comforts me, biology or engineering, at the end of
+
+1:00:08.280 --> 1:00:10.760
+ the day, does the thing work?
+
+1:00:10.760 --> 1:00:11.760
+ Yeah.
+
+1:00:11.760 --> 1:00:14.760
+ You can test the crazies away.
+
+1:00:14.760 --> 1:00:19.520
+ The crazy, well, see, now you're saying, but some ideas are truly crazy and some are actually
+
+1:00:19.520 --> 1:00:20.520
+ correct.
+
+1:00:20.520 --> 1:00:24.000
+ So, well, there's pre correct, currently crazy.
+
+1:00:24.000 --> 1:00:25.000
+ Yeah.
+
+1:00:25.000 --> 1:00:26.000
+ Right.
+
+1:00:26.000 --> 1:00:31.520
+ And so you don't want to get rid of everybody who's pre correct and currently crazy.
+
+1:00:31.520 --> 1:00:37.480
+ The problem is, is that we don't have standards in general for trying to determine who has
+
+1:00:37.480 --> 1:00:43.840
+ to be put to the sword in terms of their career and who has to be protected as some sort of
+
+1:00:43.840 --> 1:00:47.920
+ giant time suck pain in the ass, who may change everything.
+
+1:00:47.920 --> 1:00:51.200
+ Do you think that's possible, creating a mechanism of those select?
+
+1:00:51.200 --> 1:00:55.200
+ Well, you're not going to like the answer, but here it comes.
+
+1:00:55.200 --> 1:00:59.400
+ It has to do with very human elements.
+
+1:00:59.400 --> 1:01:02.560
+ We're trying to do this at the level of like rules and fairness.
+
+1:01:02.560 --> 1:01:10.160
+ That's not going to work because the only thing that really understands this, you know,
+
+1:01:10.160 --> 1:01:16.120
+ read the, read the double helix, it's a book, oh, you have to read this book.
+
+1:01:16.120 --> 1:01:22.280
+ Not only did Jim Watson half discover this three dimensional structure DNA, he's also
+
+1:01:22.280 --> 1:01:28.640
+ one hell of a writer before he became an ass that, no, he, he's tried to destroy his
+
+1:01:28.640 --> 1:01:29.640
+ own reputation.
+
+1:01:29.640 --> 1:01:33.080
+ I knew about the ass, I didn't know about the good writer.
+
+1:01:33.080 --> 1:01:36.200
+ Jim Watson is one of the most important people now living.
+
+1:01:36.200 --> 1:01:44.840
+ And as I've said before, Jim Watson is too important a legacy to be left to Jim Watson.
+
+1:01:44.840 --> 1:01:49.480
+ That book tells you more about what actually moves the dial, right?
+
+1:01:49.480 --> 1:01:53.680
+ There's another story about him, which I don't, don't agree with, which is that he stole everything
+
+1:01:53.680 --> 1:01:54.680
+ from Rosalind Franklin.
+
+1:01:54.680 --> 1:01:59.560
+ I mean, the problems that he had with Rosalind Franklin are real, but we should actually
+
+1:01:59.560 --> 1:02:05.320
+ honor that tension in our history by delving into it rather than having a simple solution.
+
+1:02:05.320 --> 1:02:10.160
+ Jim Watson talks about Francis Crick being a pain in the ass that everybody secretly
+
+1:02:10.160 --> 1:02:12.840
+ knew was super brilliant.
+
+1:02:12.840 --> 1:02:19.240
+ And there's an encounter between Chargaff who came up with the, the equimolar relations
+
+1:02:19.240 --> 1:02:25.120
+ between the nucleotides who should have gotten the structure of DNA and Watson and Crick.
+
+1:02:25.120 --> 1:02:30.880
+ And you know, he talks about missing a shiver in the heartbeat of biology and stuff is so
+
+1:02:30.880 --> 1:02:36.440
+ gorgeous and just makes you tremble even thinking about it.
+
+1:02:36.440 --> 1:02:45.160
+ Look, we know very often who is to be feared and we need to fund the people that we fear.
+
+1:02:45.160 --> 1:02:49.720
+ The people who are wasting our time need to be excluded from the conversation.
+
+1:02:49.720 --> 1:02:55.000
+ You see, and you know, maybe we'll make some errors in both directions.
+
+1:02:55.000 --> 1:02:58.200
+ But we have known our own people.
+
+1:02:58.200 --> 1:03:02.480
+ We know the pains in the asses that might work out and we know the people who are really
+
+1:03:02.480 --> 1:03:06.760
+ just blowhards who really have very little to contribute most of the time.
+
+1:03:06.760 --> 1:03:10.160
+ It's not 100%, but you're not going to get there with rules.
+
+1:03:10.160 --> 1:03:11.160
+ Right.
+
+1:03:11.160 --> 1:03:12.720
+ It's using some kind of instinct.
+
+1:03:12.720 --> 1:03:18.840
+ I mean, to be honest, I'm going to make you roll your eyes for a second, but in the first
+
+1:03:18.840 --> 1:03:24.000
+ time I heard that there is a large community of people who believe the earth is flat actually
+
+1:03:24.000 --> 1:03:28.520
+ made me pause and ask myself the question, why would there be such a community?
+
+1:03:28.520 --> 1:03:30.280
+ Is it possible the earth is flat?
+
+1:03:30.280 --> 1:03:33.160
+ So I had to like, wait a minute.
+
+1:03:33.160 --> 1:03:37.640
+ I mean, then you go through a thinking process that I think is really healthy.
+
+1:03:37.640 --> 1:03:39.600
+ It ultimately ends up being a geometry thing.
+
+1:03:39.600 --> 1:03:45.240
+ I think it's an interesting thought experiment at the very least.
+
+1:03:45.240 --> 1:03:46.560
+ I do a different version of it.
+
+1:03:46.560 --> 1:03:48.440
+ I say, why is this community stable?
+
+1:03:48.440 --> 1:03:49.440
+ Yeah.
+
+1:03:49.440 --> 1:03:52.120
+ That's a good way to analyze it.
+
+1:03:52.120 --> 1:03:56.040
+ Something that whatever we've done has not erased the community.
+
+1:03:56.040 --> 1:04:00.680
+ So you know, they're taking a long shot bet that won't pan out, you know, maybe we just
+
+1:04:00.680 --> 1:04:04.600
+ haven't thought enough about the rationality of the square root of two and somebody brilliant
+
+1:04:04.600 --> 1:04:05.600
+ will figure it out.
+
+1:04:05.600 --> 1:04:11.520
+ Maybe we will eventually land one day on the surface of Jupiter and explore it, right?
+
+1:04:11.520 --> 1:04:14.240
+ These are crazy things that will never happen.
+
+1:04:14.240 --> 1:04:17.600
+ So much of social media operates by AI algorithms.
+
+1:04:17.600 --> 1:04:22.000
+ We talked about this a little bit, uh, recommending the content you see.
+
+1:04:22.000 --> 1:04:28.200
+ So on this idea of radical thought, how much should AI show you things you disagree with
+
+1:04:28.200 --> 1:04:34.440
+ on Twitter and so on in a Twitter word verse in the, in this question.
+
+1:04:34.440 --> 1:04:35.440
+ Yeah.
+
+1:04:35.440 --> 1:04:36.440
+ Yeah.
+
+1:04:36.440 --> 1:04:37.440
+ Cause you don't know the answer.
+
+1:04:37.440 --> 1:04:38.440
+ No.
+
+1:04:38.440 --> 1:04:39.440
+ No, no, no.
+
+1:04:39.440 --> 1:04:45.960
+ Look, we've been, they pushed out this cognitive Lego to us that will just lead to madness.
+
+1:04:45.960 --> 1:04:49.440
+ It's good to be challenged with things that you disagree with.
+
+1:04:49.440 --> 1:04:53.920
+ The answer is no, it's good to be challenged with interesting things with which you currently
+
+1:04:53.920 --> 1:04:56.640
+ disagree, but that might be true.
+
+1:04:56.640 --> 1:05:00.400
+ So I don't really care about whether or not I disagree with something or don't disagree.
+
+1:05:00.400 --> 1:05:05.480
+ I need to know why that particular disagreeable thing is being pushed out.
+
+1:05:05.480 --> 1:05:07.120
+ Is it because it's likely to be true?
+
+1:05:07.120 --> 1:05:09.880
+ Is it because, is there some reason?
+
+1:05:09.880 --> 1:05:14.400
+ Because I can write, I can write a computer generator, uh, to come up with an infinite
+
+1:05:14.400 --> 1:05:17.720
+ number of disagreeable statements that nobody needs to look at.
+
+1:05:17.720 --> 1:05:22.920
+ So please, before you push things at me that are disagreeable, tell me why.
+
+1:05:22.920 --> 1:05:26.200
+ There is an aspect in which that question is quite dumb, especially because it's being
+
+1:05:26.200 --> 1:05:34.120
+ used to, uh, almost, uh, uh, very generically by these different networks to say, well,
+
+1:05:34.120 --> 1:05:35.600
+ we're trying to work this out.
+
+1:05:35.600 --> 1:05:43.720
+ But you know, basically, uh, how much do you see the value of seeing things you don't like?
+
+1:05:43.720 --> 1:05:47.640
+ That you disagree with, because it's very difficult to know exactly what you articulated,
+
+1:05:47.640 --> 1:05:53.440
+ which is, uh, the stuff that's important for you to consider that you disagree with.
+
+1:05:53.440 --> 1:05:55.040
+ That's really hard to figure out.
+
+1:05:55.040 --> 1:05:57.240
+ The bottom line is the stuff you don't like.
+
+1:05:57.240 --> 1:06:03.040
+ If you're a, uh, uh, Hillary Clinton supporter, you may not want to, it might not make you
+
+1:06:03.040 --> 1:06:05.960
+ feel good to see anything about Donald Trump.
+
+1:06:05.960 --> 1:06:08.400
+ That's the only thing algorithms can really optimize for currently.
+
+1:06:08.400 --> 1:06:09.400
+ They really can't.
+
+1:06:09.400 --> 1:06:10.640
+ No, they can do better.
+
+1:06:10.640 --> 1:06:12.440
+ This is, we're, we're, we're, we think so.
+
+1:06:12.440 --> 1:06:21.640
+ No, we're engaged in some moronic back and forth where I have no idea why people who
+
+1:06:21.640 --> 1:06:27.560
+ are capable of building Google, Facebook, Twitter are having us in these incredibly
+
+1:06:27.560 --> 1:06:28.920
+ low level discussions.
+
+1:06:28.920 --> 1:06:31.200
+ Do they not know any smart people?
+
+1:06:31.200 --> 1:06:36.120
+ Do they not have the phone numbers of people who can elevate these discussions?
+
+1:06:36.120 --> 1:06:41.200
+ They do, but this, they're optimizing for a different thing and they're pushing those
+
+1:06:41.200 --> 1:06:42.400
+ people out of those rooms.
+
+1:06:42.400 --> 1:06:48.480
+ They're, they're optimizing for things we can't see and yes, profit is there.
+
+1:06:48.480 --> 1:06:54.640
+ Nobody, nobody's questioning that, but they're also optimizing for things like political
+
+1:06:54.640 --> 1:06:57.640
+ control or the fact that they're doing business in Pakistan.
+
+1:06:57.640 --> 1:07:01.120
+ And so they don't want to talk about all the things that they're going to be bending
+
+1:07:01.120 --> 1:07:03.360
+ to in Pakistan.
+
+1:07:03.360 --> 1:07:06.880
+ So we're, we're involved in a fake discussion.
+
+1:07:06.880 --> 1:07:07.960
+ You think so.
+
+1:07:07.960 --> 1:07:11.360
+ You think these conversations at that depth, they're happening inside Google.
+
+1:07:11.360 --> 1:07:15.840
+ You don't think they have some basic metrics under our user engagements.
+
+1:07:15.840 --> 1:07:18.320
+ You're having a fake conversation with us guys.
+
+1:07:18.320 --> 1:07:19.880
+ We know you're having a fake conversation.
+
+1:07:19.880 --> 1:07:23.720
+ I do not wish to be part of your fake conversation.
+
+1:07:23.720 --> 1:07:29.000
+ You know how to cool, you know, these units, you know, high availability like nobody's
+
+1:07:29.000 --> 1:07:30.000
+ business.
+
+1:07:30.000 --> 1:07:32.720
+ My Gmail never goes down almost.
+
+1:07:32.720 --> 1:07:38.400
+ See, you think just because they can do incredible work on the software side with infrastructure,
+
+1:07:38.400 --> 1:07:46.440
+ they can also deal with some of these difficult questions about human behavior, human understanding.
+
+1:07:46.440 --> 1:07:47.440
+ You're not.
+
+1:07:47.440 --> 1:07:53.560
+ I mean, I've seen the, I've seen the developers screens that people take shots of inside of
+
+1:07:53.560 --> 1:07:54.560
+ Google.
+
+1:07:54.560 --> 1:07:55.560
+ Yeah.
+
+1:07:55.560 --> 1:07:58.560
+ And I've heard stories inside of Facebook and Apple.
+
+1:07:58.560 --> 1:08:04.160
+ We're not, we're engaged, they're engaging us in the wrong conversations.
+
+1:08:04.160 --> 1:08:06.280
+ We're not at this low level.
+
+1:08:06.280 --> 1:08:08.320
+ Here's one of my favorite questions.
+
+1:08:08.320 --> 1:08:17.320
+ Why is every piece of hardware that I purchase in tech space equipped as a listening device?
+
+1:08:17.320 --> 1:08:19.800
+ Where's my physical shutter to cover my lens?
+
+1:08:19.800 --> 1:08:26.080
+ We had this in the 1970s, cameras that had lens caps, you know, how much would it cost
+
+1:08:26.080 --> 1:08:29.920
+ to have a security model, pay five extra bucks?
+
+1:08:29.920 --> 1:08:33.120
+ Why is my indicator light software controlled?
+
+1:08:33.120 --> 1:08:38.000
+ Why when my camera is on, do I not see that the light is on by putting it as something
+
+1:08:38.000 --> 1:08:39.800
+ that cannot be bypassed?
+
+1:08:39.800 --> 1:08:45.480
+ Why have you set up my, all of my devices at some difficulty to yourselves as listening
+
+1:08:45.480 --> 1:08:47.760
+ devices and we don't even talk about this?
+
+1:08:47.760 --> 1:08:50.880
+ This is, this thing is total fucking bullshit.
+
+1:08:50.880 --> 1:08:53.160
+ Well, I hope, wait, wait, wait.
+
+1:08:53.160 --> 1:08:55.400
+ These discussions are happening about privacy.
+
+1:08:55.400 --> 1:08:57.120
+ Is there a diff, more difficult than you're given?
+
+1:08:57.120 --> 1:08:58.320
+ It's not just privacy.
+
+1:08:58.320 --> 1:08:59.320
+ Yeah.
+
+1:08:59.320 --> 1:09:01.160
+ It's about social control.
+
+1:09:01.160 --> 1:09:03.680
+ We're talking about social control.
+
+1:09:03.680 --> 1:09:07.240
+ Why do I not have controls over my own levers?
+
+1:09:07.240 --> 1:09:11.800
+ I just have a really cute UI where I can switch, I can dial things or I can at least see what
+
+1:09:11.800 --> 1:09:13.440
+ the algorithms are.
+
+1:09:13.440 --> 1:09:17.480
+ You think that there is some deliberate choices being made here.
+
+1:09:17.480 --> 1:09:21.680
+ There is emergence and there is intention.
+
+1:09:21.680 --> 1:09:23.000
+ There are two dimensions.
+
+1:09:23.000 --> 1:09:26.480
+ The vector does not collapse onto either axis.
+
+1:09:26.480 --> 1:09:34.560
+ But the idea that anybody who suggests that intention is completely absent is a child.
+
+1:09:34.560 --> 1:09:39.520
+ It's really beautifully put and like many things you've said is going to make me think.
+
+1:09:39.520 --> 1:09:40.840
+ Can I turn this around slightly?
+
+1:09:40.840 --> 1:09:41.840
+ Yeah.
+
+1:09:41.840 --> 1:09:45.680
+ I sit down with you and you say that you're obsessed with my feed.
+
+1:09:45.680 --> 1:09:47.720
+ I don't even know what my feed is.
+
+1:09:47.720 --> 1:09:49.680
+ What are you seeing that I'm not?
+
+1:09:49.680 --> 1:09:54.840
+ I was obsessively looking through your feed on Twitter because it was really enjoyable
+
+1:09:54.840 --> 1:09:57.920
+ because it was the Tom Laird element, is the humor in it.
+
+1:09:57.920 --> 1:10:03.280
+ By the way, that feed is Eric R. Weinstein on Twitter, Eric R. Weinstein.
+
+1:10:03.280 --> 1:10:06.760
+ No, seriously, why?
+
+1:10:06.760 --> 1:10:10.200
+ Why did I find it enjoyable or what was I seeing?
+
+1:10:10.200 --> 1:10:11.200
+ What are you looking for?
+
+1:10:11.200 --> 1:10:13.040
+ Why are we doing this?
+
+1:10:13.040 --> 1:10:14.800
+ What is this podcast about?
+
+1:10:14.800 --> 1:10:16.480
+ I know you've got all these interesting people.
+
+1:10:16.480 --> 1:10:19.040
+ I'm just some guy who's sort of a podcast guest.
+
+1:10:19.040 --> 1:10:21.440
+ Sort of a podcast.
+
+1:10:21.440 --> 1:10:22.440
+ You're not even wearing a tie.
+
+1:10:22.440 --> 1:10:27.640
+ I mean, it's not even a serious interview.
+
+1:10:27.640 --> 1:10:33.680
+ I'm searching for meaning, for happiness, for a dopamine rush, so short term and long
+
+1:10:33.680 --> 1:10:34.680
+ term.
+
+1:10:34.680 --> 1:10:37.160
+ How are you finding your way to me?
+
+1:10:37.160 --> 1:10:41.440
+ I don't honestly know what I'm doing to reach you.
+
+1:10:41.440 --> 1:10:48.000
+ The representing ideas, which feel common sense to me and not many people are speaking,
+
+1:10:48.000 --> 1:10:54.680
+ so it's kind of like the intellectual dark web folks.
+
+1:10:54.680 --> 1:11:00.040
+ These folks, from Sam Harris to Jordan Peterson to yourself, are saying things where it's
+
+1:11:00.040 --> 1:11:05.440
+ like you're saying, look, there's an elephant, he's not wearing any clothes.
+
+1:11:05.440 --> 1:11:09.560
+ And I say, yeah, yeah, let's have more of that conversation.
+
+1:11:09.560 --> 1:11:10.920
+ That's how I'm finding it.
+
+1:11:10.920 --> 1:11:14.680
+ I'm desperate to try to change the conversation we're having.
+
+1:11:14.680 --> 1:11:17.360
+ I'm very worried we've got an election in 2020.
+
+1:11:17.360 --> 1:11:23.920
+ I don't think we can afford four more years of a misinterpreted message, which is what
+
+1:11:23.920 --> 1:11:25.760
+ Donald Trump was.
+
+1:11:25.760 --> 1:11:28.360
+ And I don't want the destruction of our institutions.
+
+1:11:28.360 --> 1:11:30.680
+ They all seem hell bent on destroying themselves.
+
+1:11:30.680 --> 1:11:34.880
+ So I'm trying to save theoretical physics, trying to save the New York Times, trying
+
+1:11:34.880 --> 1:11:38.280
+ to save our various processes.
+
+1:11:38.280 --> 1:11:44.480
+ And I think it feels delusional to me that this is falling to a tiny group of people
+
+1:11:44.480 --> 1:11:49.720
+ who are willing to speak out without getting so freaked out that everything they say will
+
+1:11:49.720 --> 1:11:52.800
+ be misinterpreted and that their lives will be ruined through the process.
+
+1:11:52.800 --> 1:11:57.560
+ I mean, I think we're in an absolutely bananas period of time and I don't believe it should
+
+1:11:57.560 --> 1:12:02.560
+ fall to such a tiny number of shoulders to shoulder this weight.
+
+1:12:02.560 --> 1:12:08.040
+ So I have to ask you on the capitalism side, you mentioned that technology is killing capitalism
+
+1:12:08.040 --> 1:12:15.240
+ or has effects that are unintended, well, not unintended, but not what economists would
+
+1:12:15.240 --> 1:12:18.760
+ predict or speak of capitalism creating.
+
+1:12:18.760 --> 1:12:23.560
+ I just want to talk to you about in general, the effect of even then artificial intelligence
+
+1:12:23.560 --> 1:12:29.000
+ or technology automation taking away jobs and these kinds of things and what you think
+
+1:12:29.000 --> 1:12:34.240
+ is the way to alleviate that, whether the Andrew Ang presidential candidate with universal
+
+1:12:34.240 --> 1:12:38.800
+ basic income, UBI, what are your thoughts there?
+
+1:12:38.800 --> 1:12:42.280
+ How do we fight off the negative effects of technology that
+
+1:12:42.280 --> 1:12:43.280
+ All right.
+
+1:12:43.280 --> 1:12:44.280
+ You're a software guy, right?
+
+1:12:44.280 --> 1:12:45.280
+ Yep.
+
+1:12:45.280 --> 1:12:48.880
+ A human being is a worker is an old idea.
+
+1:12:48.880 --> 1:12:49.880
+ Yes.
+
+1:12:49.880 --> 1:12:53.400
+ A human being has a worker is a different object, right?
+
+1:12:53.400 --> 1:12:54.400
+ Yes.
+
+1:12:54.400 --> 1:12:59.600
+ So if you think about object oriented programming as a paradigm, a human being has a worker
+
+1:12:59.600 --> 1:13:01.920
+ and a human being has a soul.
+
+1:13:01.920 --> 1:13:07.760
+ We're talking about the fact that for a period of time, the worker that a human being has
+
+1:13:07.760 --> 1:13:11.680
+ was in a position to feed the soul that a human being has.
+
+1:13:11.680 --> 1:13:18.280
+ However, we have two separate claims on the value in society.
+
+1:13:18.280 --> 1:13:22.600
+ One is as a worker and the other is as a soul and the soul needs sustenance.
+
+1:13:22.600 --> 1:13:23.600
+ It needs dignity.
+
+1:13:23.600 --> 1:13:24.600
+ It needs meaning.
+
+1:13:24.600 --> 1:13:27.480
+ It needs purpose.
+
+1:13:27.480 --> 1:13:34.680
+ As long as your means of support is not highly repetitive, I think you have a while to go
+
+1:13:34.680 --> 1:13:39.960
+ before you need to start worrying, but if what you do is highly repetitive and it's
+
+1:13:39.960 --> 1:13:46.040
+ not terribly generative, you are in the crosshairs of four loops and while loops.
+
+1:13:46.040 --> 1:13:48.160
+ And that's what computers excel at.
+
+1:13:48.160 --> 1:13:53.200
+ Repetitive behavior and when I say repetitive, I may mean things that have never happened
+
+1:13:53.200 --> 1:13:56.800
+ be through combinatorial possibilities, but as long as it has a looped characteristic
+
+1:13:56.800 --> 1:13:59.040
+ to it, you're in trouble.
+
+1:13:59.040 --> 1:14:07.200
+ We are seeing a massive push towards socialism because capitalists are slow to address the
+
+1:14:07.200 --> 1:14:10.800
+ fact that a worker may not be able to make claims.
+
+1:14:10.800 --> 1:14:17.960
+ A relatively undistinguished median member of our society still has needs to reproduce,
+
+1:14:17.960 --> 1:14:27.680
+ needs to dignity, and when capitalism abandons the median individual or the bottom tenth
+
+1:14:27.680 --> 1:14:32.720
+ or whatever it's going to do, it's flirting with revolution.
+
+1:14:32.720 --> 1:14:37.680
+ And what concerns me is that the capitalists aren't sufficiently capitalistic to understand
+
+1:14:37.680 --> 1:14:39.320
+ this.
+
+1:14:39.320 --> 1:14:45.160
+ You really want to court authoritarian control in our society because you can't see that
+
+1:14:45.160 --> 1:14:49.960
+ people may not be able to defend themselves in the marketplace because the marginal product
+
+1:14:49.960 --> 1:14:55.120
+ of their labor is too low to feed their dignity as a soul.
+
+1:14:55.120 --> 1:15:02.280
+ So my great concern is that our free society has to do with the fact that we are self organized.
+
+1:15:02.280 --> 1:15:06.360
+ I remember looking down from my office in Manhattan when Lehman Brothers collapsed
+
+1:15:06.360 --> 1:15:11.920
+ and thinking, who's going to tell all these people that they need to show up at work when
+
+1:15:11.920 --> 1:15:17.520
+ they don't have a financial system to incentivize them to show up at work?
+
+1:15:17.520 --> 1:15:22.040
+ So my complaint is, first of all, not with the socialists, but with the capitalists,
+
+1:15:22.040 --> 1:15:28.200
+ which is you guys are being idiots, you're courting revolution by continuing to harp
+
+1:15:28.200 --> 1:15:32.880
+ on the same old ideas that, well, try harder, bootstrap yourself.
+
+1:15:32.880 --> 1:15:36.400
+ Yeah, to an extent that works, to an extent.
+
+1:15:36.400 --> 1:15:41.040
+ But we are clearly headed into a place that there's nothing that ties together, our need
+
+1:15:41.040 --> 1:15:45.560
+ to contribute and our need to consume.
+
+1:15:45.560 --> 1:15:49.520
+ And that may not be provided by capitalism because it may have been a temporary phenomena.
+
+1:15:49.520 --> 1:15:55.480
+ So check out my article on anthropic capitalism and the new gimmick economy.
+
+1:15:55.480 --> 1:16:00.320
+ I think people are late getting the wake up call and we would be doing a better job saving
+
+1:16:00.320 --> 1:16:05.840
+ capitalism from itself because I don't want this done under authoritarian control.
+
+1:16:05.840 --> 1:16:11.080
+ And the more we insist that everybody who's not thriving in our society during their reproductive
+
+1:16:11.080 --> 1:16:17.240
+ years in order to have a family is failing at a personal level, I mean, what a disgusting
+
+1:16:17.240 --> 1:16:22.280
+ thing that we're saying, what a horrible message, who the hell have we become that we've so
+
+1:16:22.280 --> 1:16:27.360
+ bought into the Chicago model that we can't see the humanity that we're destroying in
+
+1:16:27.360 --> 1:16:28.360
+ that process.
+
+1:16:28.360 --> 1:16:32.160
+ And I hate the thought of communism, I really do.
+
+1:16:32.160 --> 1:16:37.240
+ My family has flirted with it decades past, it's a wrong bad idea, but we are going to
+
+1:16:37.240 --> 1:16:43.920
+ need to figure out how to make sure that those souls are nourished and respected and capitalism
+
+1:16:43.920 --> 1:16:44.920
+ better have an answer.
+
+1:16:44.920 --> 1:16:48.240
+ And I'm betting on capitalism, but I gotta tell you, I'm pretty disappointed with my
+
+1:16:48.240 --> 1:16:49.240
+ team.
+
+1:16:49.240 --> 1:16:55.280
+ So you're still on the capitalism team, you just, there's a theme here, radical, radical
+
+1:16:55.280 --> 1:16:56.280
+ capitalism.
+
+1:16:56.280 --> 1:17:02.040
+ I want, I think hyper capitalism is going to have to be coupled to hyper socialism.
+
+1:17:02.040 --> 1:17:07.580
+ You need to allow the most productive people to create wonders and you got to stop bogging
+
+1:17:07.580 --> 1:17:14.760
+ them down with all of these extra nice requirements, you know, nice is dead, good has a future.
+
+1:17:14.760 --> 1:17:20.400
+ This doesn't have a future because nice ends up with, with gulags, damn, that's a good
+
+1:17:20.400 --> 1:17:21.400
+ line.
+
+1:17:21.400 --> 1:17:22.400
+ Okay.
+
+1:17:22.400 --> 1:17:23.400
+ Last question.
+
+1:17:23.400 --> 1:17:30.520
+ You tweeted today, a simple, quite insightful equation saying, uh, imagine that every unit
+
+1:17:30.520 --> 1:17:35.760
+ F of fame you picked up as stalkers and H haters.
+
+1:17:35.760 --> 1:17:39.520
+ So I imagine S and H are dependent on your path to fame, perhaps a little bit.
+
+1:17:39.520 --> 1:17:42.680
+ Well, it's not a simple, I mean, people always take these things literally when you have
+
+1:17:42.680 --> 1:17:46.040
+ like 280 characters to explain yourself.
+
+1:17:46.040 --> 1:17:50.320
+ So you mean that that's not a mathematical, uh, no, there's no law.
+
+1:17:50.320 --> 1:17:51.320
+ Oh, okay.
+
+1:17:51.320 --> 1:17:52.320
+ All right.
+
+1:17:52.320 --> 1:17:55.400
+ I just said, I put the word imagine because I still have a mathematician's desire for
+
+1:17:55.400 --> 1:17:56.400
+ precision.
+
+1:17:56.400 --> 1:17:57.400
+ Yeah.
+
+1:17:57.400 --> 1:18:01.600
+ Imagine that this were true, but it was a beautiful way to imagine that there is a law that has
+
+1:18:01.600 --> 1:18:06.840
+ those variables in it and, uh, you've become quite famous these days.
+
+1:18:06.840 --> 1:18:12.600
+ So how do you yourself optimize that equation with the peculiar kind of fame that you have
+
+1:18:12.600 --> 1:18:13.720
+ gathered along the way?
+
+1:18:13.720 --> 1:18:14.720
+ I want to be kinder.
+
+1:18:14.720 --> 1:18:16.160
+ I want to be kinder to myself.
+
+1:18:16.160 --> 1:18:17.360
+ I want to be kinder to others.
+
+1:18:17.360 --> 1:18:23.000
+ I want to be able to have heart, compassion.
+
+1:18:23.000 --> 1:18:27.960
+ These things are really important and, uh, I have a pretty spectromy kind of approach
+
+1:18:27.960 --> 1:18:28.960
+ to analysis.
+
+1:18:28.960 --> 1:18:29.960
+ I'm quite literal.
+
+1:18:29.960 --> 1:18:32.880
+ I can go full rain man on you at any given moment.
+
+1:18:32.880 --> 1:18:33.880
+ No, I can't.
+
+1:18:33.880 --> 1:18:34.880
+ I can.
+
+1:18:34.880 --> 1:18:37.640
+ Uh, it's faculty of autism, if you like, and people are going to get angry because they
+
+1:18:37.640 --> 1:18:39.280
+ want autism to be respected.
+
+1:18:39.280 --> 1:18:46.920
+ But when you see me coding or you see me doing mathematics, I'm, you know, I speak with speech
+
+1:18:46.920 --> 1:18:47.920
+ apnea.
+
+1:18:47.920 --> 1:18:54.520
+ Uh, uh, uh, be right down to dinner, you know, we have to try to integrate ourselves and those
+
+1:18:54.520 --> 1:19:00.920
+ tensions between, you know, it's sort of back to us as a worker and us as a soul.
+
+1:19:00.920 --> 1:19:06.000
+ Many of us are optimizing one to the, at the expense of the other.
+
+1:19:06.000 --> 1:19:11.640
+ And I struggle with social media and I struggle with people making threats against our families
+
+1:19:11.640 --> 1:19:15.960
+ and I struggle with, um, just how much pain people are in.
+
+1:19:15.960 --> 1:19:21.960
+ And if there's one message I would like to push out there, um, you're responsible, everybody,
+
+1:19:21.960 --> 1:19:27.640
+ all of us, myself included with struggling, struggle, struggle mightily because you,
+
+1:19:27.640 --> 1:19:30.400
+ it's nobody else's job to do your struggle for you.
+
+1:19:30.400 --> 1:19:34.360
+ Now, with that said, if you're struggling and you're trying and you're trying to figure
+
+1:19:34.360 --> 1:19:38.160
+ out how to better yourself and where you've failed and where you've let down your family,
+
+1:19:38.160 --> 1:19:43.560
+ your friends, your workers, all this kind of stuff, give yourself a break.
+
+1:19:43.560 --> 1:19:48.880
+ You know, if, if, if it's not working out, I have a lifelong relationship with failure
+
+1:19:48.880 --> 1:19:49.880
+ and success.
+
+1:19:49.880 --> 1:19:56.320
+ There's been no period of my life where both haven't been present in one form or another.
+
+1:19:56.320 --> 1:20:00.720
+ And I do wish to say that a lot of times people think this is glamorous.
+
+1:20:00.720 --> 1:20:05.200
+ I'm about to go, you know, do a show with Sam Harris, people are going to listen in
+
+1:20:05.200 --> 1:20:07.360
+ on two guys having a conversation on stage.
+
+1:20:07.360 --> 1:20:08.360
+ It's completely crazy.
+
+1:20:08.360 --> 1:20:11.720
+ Well, I'm always trying to figure out how to make sure that those people get maximum
+
+1:20:11.720 --> 1:20:18.320
+ value and, uh, that's why I'm doing this podcast, you know, just give yourself a break.
+
+1:20:18.320 --> 1:20:20.560
+ You owe us, you owe us your struggle.
+
+1:20:20.560 --> 1:20:26.000
+ You don't owe your family or your coworkers or your lovers or your family members success.
+
+1:20:26.000 --> 1:20:30.680
+ Um, as long as you're in there and you're picking yourself up, recognize that this
+
+1:20:30.680 --> 1:20:37.040
+ this new situation with the economy that doesn't have the juice to sustain our institutions
+
+1:20:37.040 --> 1:20:41.760
+ has caused the people who've risen to the top of those institutions to get quite brutal
+
+1:20:41.760 --> 1:20:43.800
+ and cruel.
+
+1:20:43.800 --> 1:20:45.400
+ Everybody is lying at the moment.
+
+1:20:45.400 --> 1:20:47.440
+ Nobody's really a truth teller.
+
+1:20:47.440 --> 1:20:50.280
+ Um, try to keep your humanity about you.
+
+1:20:50.280 --> 1:20:55.200
+ Try to recognize that if you're failing, if things aren't where you want them to be and
+
+1:20:55.200 --> 1:20:57.680
+ you're struggling and you're trying to figure out what you're doing wrong, which you could
+
+1:20:57.680 --> 1:20:58.680
+ do.
+
+1:20:58.680 --> 1:21:01.360
+ It's not necessarily all your fault.
+
+1:21:01.360 --> 1:21:02.960
+ We are in a global situation.
+
+1:21:02.960 --> 1:21:08.640
+ I have not met the people who are honest, kind, good, successful.
+
+1:21:08.640 --> 1:21:12.040
+ Nobody that I've met is chick is checking all the boxes.
+
+1:21:12.040 --> 1:21:14.560
+ Uh, nobody's getting all 10s.
+
+1:21:14.560 --> 1:21:18.960
+ So I just think that's an important message that doesn't get pushed out enough.
+
+1:21:18.960 --> 1:21:24.040
+ Either people want to hold society responsible for their failures, which is not reasonable.
+
+1:21:24.040 --> 1:21:25.040
+ You have to struggle.
+
+1:21:25.040 --> 1:21:26.040
+ You have to try.
+
+1:21:26.040 --> 1:21:32.160
+ Or they want to say you're 100% responsible for your failures, which is total nonsense.
+
+1:21:32.160 --> 1:21:33.160
+ Beautifully put.
+
+1:21:33.160 --> 1:21:34.400
+ Eric, thank you so much for talking today.
+
+1:21:34.400 --> 1:21:56.360
+ Thanks for having me, buddy.
+