WEBVTT - What are the Most Incredible Technologies Coming Soon(-ish)? 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.800 Guess what will what's that mango? So I know everyone 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:05.560 loves to make that joke, like it's two thousand eighteen. 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:10.080 Where's my jet pack? Like everyone was promised a jet pack? Yeah, 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:14.520 where's my flying car? I'm still curious where exactly. But 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:16.759 the stuff I want is the stuff we were actually 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:19.120 reported on. I mean, in the last fifteen years, we've 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.000 talked about things like contact lenses you wear at night 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:24.080 that would adjust your eyes so that you take them 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:26.479 out in the mornings and have perfect vision through the day, 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:30.360 which is cool, right, Or I remember writing about peanut 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:32.680 butter and jelly slices so you can just slap those 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:35.600 on bread for faster sandwiches. I mean, I was with you. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:37.600 I'm not sure about the peanut butter thing. I feel 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.480 like spreading peanut butter on bread doesn't take that much 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.280 time or effort, I know, but I can't outsource that 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:46.400 job to my kids. Plus, you know, when I'm rushing 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:47.720 out in the morning, so I don't want to leave 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.080 like a dirty butter knife in the sink, which I 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.159 realized is I'm saying it is like a very minor gripe. 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.600 But that's the kind of future I want to live 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.040 in I mean, that's my favorite part about a P. 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:00.600 B and J is actually licking the peanut butter off 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.560 the knife after that. But anyway, I actually looked up 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.680 these newspaper predictions for the future for this episode, and 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.720 there's this article from I think it was nineteen hundred 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:12.520 in the Boston Globe, and the author makes all these 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:17.360 predictions about the year two thousand, no pollution, moving sidewalks, 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.720 and for some reason he thinks there will be an 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.680 AM and PM newspaper, which I mean, I guess there 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.160 is if you consider the round the clock reporting on 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.600 the Internet. But the thing I loved about it was 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.320 that he refused to make any predictions about the weather 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.040 because he assumed that, you know, a hundred years from then, 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.920 it would still be impossible to predict. Speaking of genius, 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.400 we've actually got Zach Weener Smith on the program today. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.640 He's the co author of the book Soon Ish, and 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.800 it's basically the super fun textbook of the future. It's 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.120 almost more a guide to the hurdles will face, plus 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.040 a status check on how things like asteroid mining or 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.560 nuclear powered toasters are coming along. And I'm already doing 0:01:56.600 --> 0:02:00.160 too much talking. Let's get him on the line. M 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.480 Hey there, podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:24.360 Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:27.519 friend man guest Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.640 playing with his doc Brown bobble Head. I didn't know 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:32.919 Tristan was a Back to the Future fan. Well, apparently 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.760 he only likes the first and the third one, so 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:37.840 so do not talk to him about Back to the 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.920 Future Part two. He gets really emotional. But but that's 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.040 our pal and producer Tristan McNeil. Now I want to 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.839 jump right into this interview. Today we've got a very 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.880 special guest, the super funny cartoonist and the co author 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.000 of the book soon Ish ten Emerging Technologies that will 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.880 improve and or ruin Everything, Zach Wiener Smith. Welcome to 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.560 Part Time Genius. Than now, Zach, we should mentioned up 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:02.280 front that this is a book that you wrote with 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.440 your super smart wife, Kelly, who's a professor at RICE. 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:07.400 Can can you remind us what she what she does 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.880 at Rice? Her research pertains to parasites that manipulate host behavior. 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:13.920 So if your audience is familiar with any of this, 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.600 they probably heard of toxoplasmosis, which perhaps manipulates a lot 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.639 of human behavior cats right in cat litter. Yes, yeah, precisely, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.080 lots of us have it. Um. I actually don't know idea, 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.920 I probably do. I group with cats. But yeah, so 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.480 so they're they're never of claims about it, like it 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.320 reduces reaction time, which you can kind of understand if 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:35.440 if you wanted to have if you were the parasite 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.160 and you were trying to make a mouse get etn 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.160 my cat. Uh, it makes mice less averse to the 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.680 small cat urine. Um. There, there's some there's some studies. Uh, 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:46.760 Kelly knows this stuff better than I do, but minderstaining 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:48.920 from talking to her is there's some studies that try 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.280 to correlate the stuff to humans, and they're very tantalizing. 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:55.760 But obviously you're you're not allowed to like get a 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.440 hundred humans and then put parasites in them and see 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:05.560 what changes. Meanwhile, Kelly's at work right now doing exactly that. Yeah, 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.480 we don't talk about that. So this book soon is 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.360 is so fun and funny, and especially the nota Benet 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.640 sections which are just so great. But can you tell 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:19.200 us why you chose to write a book about the 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.040 future and why you concentrated on the ten subject areas 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.200 that you did. Sure. Um, so we were kind of 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:28.320 just interested in future stuff. And also we we both 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:30.560 had this thing where we're sort of generally interested in 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:34.039 space travel and realize we know really nothing about it. 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.400 The tent technologies in particular, we got into sort of 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.080 a process of cutting away. We actually started with a 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.840 list of fifty and some got cut because they turned 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:44.760 out to just not really exist. We thought maybe it 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.600 was a thing, and it's not a thing. Uh so 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.479 we we have to give an example of that. Like 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:51.800 we we thought, hey, what is anyone working on like 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.240 perfected economic forecasting or something like that, Like, is there's 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.080 gonna be some future like you know, super computer devices. 0:04:58.120 --> 0:04:59.880 I mean there are things that kind of do related 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.640 suff but no one's trying to sort of forecast like 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.360 the weather gets forecast, right. So Yeah, it was sort 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:06.120 of willing away to stuff that we thought we could 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.719 do properly in five to ten thousand words and which 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.680 was interesting, and also stuff that we thought maybe people 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:14.200 hadn't heard about. Um that's not true every chapter, but 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.520 stuff like programmable matter I think most people have not 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:19.880 heard of, Um, maybe synthetic biology most people have not 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:21.160 heard of it, and I think probably most of the 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.800 like cheap access to space technology stuff is not the 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:26.320 exception of a couple of things is probably not on 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.520 people's radar. Yeah, and we we definitely want to ask 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.120 you about a few of those things. I will say 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.000 one of our favorite sections was the note on the 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:35.320 End for humanity and you know and why you and 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.680 Kelly are are pessimistic about betting on humans if robots 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.400 ever revolt. So can you tell us a little bit 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.800 about promobod and guyas specifically? Sure? Problem about we kind 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.000 of just throwing for a cute seas this is this 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.200 Russian robot or maybe maybe sort of set the table. 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.200 Is this Russian robot designed to assist people like to 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.120 assist the elderly. So the idea is basically elder care. 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:58.600 There are a lot of people who want to do it. 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:00.160 It's not well paid work. It would be really nice 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:01.520 if you could have a machine to do a lot 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.160 of the basic tasks of elder care. Uh. And so 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:07.320 there's this robot a Russian company is working on called 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:09.400 promo Butt. I think I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong, 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:15.680 but anyway, it uh tried to escape from the facility 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:17.919 we're working apparently twice and one time it escaped and 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:22.200 like died in traffic, which I presumably wasn't like a 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:27.440 choicebody who knows, Um, guy is this robot made by 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.560 Serena Booth who's was doing an undergraduate thesis at Harvard. 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.120 And the basic deal on Guya is it's just a 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:36.320 dumb remote control robot and she would secretly control it 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:38.680 so to an onlooker would look like, you know, for 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.159 all you know, it was like a startup autonomous robot 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:45.440 deal because it's it's Boston after all. And uh, the 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.280 robot would go up to students near their dorm rooms 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:49.880 or their dorms and say, well, you let me into 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.640 the building, which which is a big no no. It's 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:54.919 especially big no no and on Harvard because Harvard is 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.080 you know, the world famous, so they're like lots of 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:00.000 looky loose and weirdos trying to get into buildings. Uh. 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.080 And actually, so to speak fortuitously, around the time of 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.839 the experiment, there apparently been bomb threats. Um and so 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:08.720 I forget that the numbers are in the book, but 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:10.840 it's something like twenty percent of students will let people 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.360 in which is, you know, not not a high number. 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:15.320 I remember it's harvardson so they're supposed to be ultra 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.280 genius is um And and furthermore, if you're trying to 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.960 cause some trouble and you only have to try five times, uh, 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.880 you know, that's not great odds. But but they're the 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.560 really interesting thing that there are a number of permutations 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.040 of this, and there's a different set of experiments by 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.640 another researcher, but the really the one we were really 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.320 interested in was she didn't experiment where all she did 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.280 was load the robot with cookies, like she just got 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:39.640 a box of cookies to put them on top, and 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:41.880 the rowbout what compeist didn't say, I'm here delivering cookies, 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:43.600 will you let me in? And it's shot up to 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.120 the exact numbers in the book, but it's something like 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.800 three quarters of students would let that robot in. Um. So, 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:52.120 I mean it's sort of a funny experiment, um. But 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.280 but there is a sort of serious side to it, 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.800 which is the way we like to say in talks 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.200 we've given on this is essentially, if you look at 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:01.640 movies we humans make about what it would take to 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.480 fool us into obeying the robots. The robots always have 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:09.040 to really put out right, like build an exoskeleton with 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:10.800 like stem cells or I don't know what, Like the 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.400 terminator looks exactly like a human except for it's got 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.480 a metal endoskeleton and this and that, Like they bulot 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.160 a tea one thousand like this a possible complicated robot 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.160 just to like look kind of human. It just turns 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:25.679 out we'll we'll like opening a trash can with cookies. Yeah, yeah, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.640 and so so it is. It is kind of I 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.400 don't know, I suppose ominous um or I think you 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.400 think about it hard. PUD should cause you to rethink 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:38.839 your relationship to machines a bit like yeah, and well 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.360 and cookies. It is kind of analogous to something like um. 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:43.680 I think a lot of us have been rethinking our 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.360 relationship with Facebook, right, which is kind of the same deal. 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.160 It's giving us something cool, which is the sort of 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.840 proverbial cookies, and in exchange, it's taking something or I know, 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.920 for example, like I used to second guess my GPS, 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:57.920 and I discovered literally every time I did that, I 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.199 was wrong. The machine is always right, and so now 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.599 I will obey the GPS, even if it appears to 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.160 be doing something stupid to me, I've completely gotten rid 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:09.600 of my my like regard for self. As it as 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:14.240 it pertains to mapping, it is a little ominous. I mean, 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:16.760 you don't even have deposit sentient machines to be scared. 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.560 It could be just some bad actor. Well, let's let's 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.240 let's talk a little bit about the positive applications because 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:28.320 imagine it sticking with robots and programmable matter. I'm really 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.240 fascinated by the benefits in medicine and then also in 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:33.439 the home that you talked about. Could you explain a 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.959 little bit about to our listeners. So the basic idea 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.160 with programm will matter is something like, you know, the 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.679 neat thing about a computer is a computer is not 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.640 just one machine. It's potentially infinite machines. You computer does 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:45.559 almost everything for you. That's why your phone can be 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:50.319 a radio and a clock and well phone to it occasionally. Um. 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:52.720 And the idea with programmable matter is to be able 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:54.840 to do that sort of thing but with stuff. So 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.160 it's like if you had a sort of object that 0:09:57.200 --> 0:09:58.720 could be a cup, or it could be a phone, 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:00.280 or it could be anything else. And the the way 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:01.960 we like to describe it is it's like having the 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:03.959 T one thousand, only it's not trying to kill you. 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:06.079 So obviously that level of stuff that sort of like 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.600 shimmering good that turns into whatever, that's really far off 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.920 if it's even possible. But there are lots of intermediate versions. 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.160 And so one idea is what's called Oregonmy robots. And 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.400 so if you think about it in terms of universality, 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:19.800 Oregonmy is basically this thing where you take a piece 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:21.360 of paper and the piece of paper can be almost 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.960 infinite things. It might be literally infinite the math on 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.440 it um, but it's something like infinite. Right. You can 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:28.360 get many different shapes out of one thing, and many 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:30.360 of them could be useful. And so one idea is 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.760 you could um do Oregonmy robots that do stuff in 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:36.199 the body. Right. Um. So, the the the really cool 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:37.880 version of this that we were interested in was done 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:39.800 by a woman named Danielle Rouse, or done by her 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.160 lab at M I. T. And the basic idea was 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.840 you have a pilly swallow in the pill. The pills 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.400 made of ice, but in it is this little um 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.680 it's actually piece of sausage casing with some wiring in 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.360 it so that it can fold along preprogrammed axis. Uh. 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.800 And you swallow it, it it melts. Well, it's in your gut. 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.240 And now there's this little machine that you can manipulate 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.440 remotely that can fold the different configurations. Uh and and 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:04.480 you know, it's sort of like future optimal version. It's 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:06.559 it's completely self powered and could do all sorts of 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:08.400 cool stuff. In this version, it's it's I think we're 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.400 out controlled by like a magnet you have outside the body. 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:13.640 But anyway, the reason why would you want this? Why 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.320 would why do you want an orgony robot in your guts? It? Well, 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.679 it turns out in America thirty of us every year 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.440 swallow a watch battery. Which thing gets lodged in our guts? 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:26.960 And I I hasten to add that's just the people 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:31.160 who a report and and who'd be didn't pass it naturally. 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.040 So there's like a like a shockinglar high number of 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.800 people swallowing watch batteries. I don't know why. Presumably most 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:38.440 of them are children, but I we didn't get that 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.679 set um so. Uh So, But to the idea is 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:44.280 you just have a slow machine that walks in kind 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.199 of grabs the battery and then the whole thing passes 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.760 right out as nature intended. This one's about the size 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.720 of a postage stamp. You can imagine ones that are 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.520 much more mentorized. Um and why that would be exciting 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.320 or something like this. So you know, if you have 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.000 a headache, it's not like your whole body hurts, but 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.880 you take a pill, it lowers the inflammation your whole body. Right, So, 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:04.720 so aspirin is good whether you have like a banged 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.680 up knee or a headache or what have you. Ideally, 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:09.800 and be nice if you could get machines to deliver 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:12.960 the medicine to a specific location. And you know, an 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:14.679 aspirin it's not a big deal. But if you imagine 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.520 like really toxic like chemo medication, it would be really 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:20.600 nice if you could dose only the necessary areas. UM. 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.079 So that's a sort of very futuristic application of this 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.480 sort of thing. Um it could be really interesting. I 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.480 think you asked about programmable homes. I I'm trying to 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:31.000 remember what they think. There are a couple of different 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:32.440 versions of that we talked about. I think the thing 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.400 I was fascinated moths about was just that because I 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.079 lived in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and the fact 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:41.160 that you know, your whole room could transform so quickly 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.480 or and French and assembly, un assemble and like that. 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.080 That's all just amazing to me. Yeah, it's funny because 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.600 so pregimal matter we call it that. It actually goes 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.320 under a lot of different names. But but yeah, so 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.839 there's a lot more sort of you know, macro stuff. 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.480 It's really interesting. Um, there's there's a group we talked 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.760 about called room bots and rombots. Basically, these cube like 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.400 things about the size of a baseball. Uh, it's sort 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.319 of a cross between a cube and a circle, so 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:06.520 can sort of roll around and and then it's just 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.480 that and then it has a little sensing ability and 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.160 it can doc with other versions of itself and it's needs. 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:13.680 Then they can self assemble into like chairs or tables 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.120 or whatever. So if you're really wanted to be you know, 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.160 Swedish about your your room, you could just have a 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:21.400 pile of these robots in the corner and you could say, 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.920 assemble into like my kitchen set up or whatever whenever 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:25.680 you need. Of course, they're very slow right now, but 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.439 you can imagine a future right where it doesn't take 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:30.800 you know, ten hours. I don remember if we put 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.600 this in the book, but actually people worked on systems 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:36.120 of room buts that mate with each other to produce 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:42.120 like um terrifying Yeah right, it's like implementing genetic algorithms 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:47.520 in the real world. Dogs everywhere shivering the promise. It's 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.200 really slow. And again I don't remember mentioned this this 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.160 in the book, but there's one group that actually did 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.520 basically like machine breading via a three D printer. If 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.320 that makes sense that you have two machines the quote 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.320 unquote agree to mate in whatever sense machines do that, 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:01.960 and then you have a three D printer sort of 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.840 print the outcome. Uh. And what it was funny is, 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:06.720 for whatever reason, the group decided to have the robots 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:08.840 kind of rubb on each other. But they were like 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:13.840 completely needlessly. Uh. I don't know. It just gets lonely 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.760 working on these projects. I think these people are kind 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:22.440 of fulfilling other needs. But the speaking of multiple robots 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.520 of it. What about these robotics swarms and robots that 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.920 work in teams. Can you talk a little bit about 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.720 the applications there? Yeah, robot swarms, So we talked about 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:33.600 them in two contexts. Is robot swarm is what it 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:35.720 sounds like. It's a swarm of robots, and you might 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:37.680 ask yourself, why why would I want that instead of 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.960 one robot or one large robot. So there are a 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.160 couple of contexts where might be valuable. One is suppose 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.120 you UM have some kind of disaster areas, so there's 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.800 like a nuclear accident, or there's just a lot of 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:50.720 rubbles something where you wouldn't want to send people in. 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.520 UM with a store of robots, you can have a 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:55.840 lot of small cameras sort of going all over the 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.240 place to explore an area. And also if one breaks, 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.280 it's less of a big deal. Yeah. In addition, UM, 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:03.480 you can design them. There's some groups that work on this. 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:05.520 You can design them so they can do stuff with 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.360 each other, so they can their modular So you know, 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.600 there's one group we looked at where they had this 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:12.720 this clever trick where I suppose you have You can 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:14.720 imagine a little tiny robot about the size of your 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:16.800 fist that's rolling around and it comes across a chasm 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.240 it can't cross on its own. It then signals like 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:21.320 five other of the same robot to dock with it 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.160 to form a sort of train and now it can 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.400 go over or for example, of it has to cross 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:29.000 like on a narrow passage, you can configure so that 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.960 it has the sort of robot equivalent of holding two 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.320 arms out to the sides. Uh and so it can 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:36.120 balance the stuff like that. So you can imagine it 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.000 was some fairly simple algorithms that can navigate all sorts 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.160 of terrain more effectively. The other context in which we 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.920 talked about robot sworms is we have trapped on what's 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.120 called robotic construction, which is again what it sounds like, 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.800 it's machines sort of taking over the work of construction 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.280 workers or even extending it. The opposite of a swarm 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:53.800 would be this this one idea, which is to have 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:55.960 a sort of giant gantry, like basically a huge three 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.200 D printer that kind of prints out a house, which 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.400 is cool, but like might be limb to say, if 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:01.880 you wanted to build in New York. That's a little 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.320 tough to do. A robot swarm would be building upward, 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:06.160 kind of like termites do. Right, So you have like 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.600 a lot of little robots delivering small amounts of material 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:11.920 um and and sort of coordinating with each other. Uh. 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.200 And so there would be sort of an interesting different 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:18.000 way to do it. Um like like pretty revolutionary for 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.440 better end worse. Um. But but to me that that 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:22.600 seems kind of like plausible because the idea that is 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.040 is essentially what might happen is like a semi shows 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.080 up and it's loaded with you know, a thousand or 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.840 whatever little robots, and they come out and they slowly 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.080 assemble your house, kind of like a team of ants. 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:35.160 Um And again it has the same virtue of if 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:37.800 one breaks or something screwy, it doesn't matter. So it's 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:39.920 just like an ant colony. One dies, it's no big deal. 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:42.280 And they can do this trick of building up structures. 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:44.160 They're very simple. They're not ready for prime time. They 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.280 can't put in things like plumbing, etcetera. But it's really 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.280 cool to see it done. They can build structures and 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.240 they can even climb up the structures to add more concrete. 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.240 It's a really cool potential future paradigm for construction. Wow, 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:55.640 I kind of want to see this. There are there 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.960 videos of this. They totally are. If you have a 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.120 good section in the about construction chapter about swarm robotics. 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.359 There are a bunch of different ways it might go down. 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:06.760 If this is the paradigm we choose that there's there's 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:08.800 also two reasons that it might not work. You know, 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:10.520 we talked about a guy named Justin Warfel who was 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.000 sort of a friend of ours now who works he 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.080 studies termites to kind of see how they do it. 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:18.080 Because the neat thing with termites is no particular termite 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.760 knows what the structure is supposed to. Like the new 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.200 Blueprint system, they have some sort of algorithm they're running 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.440 um or or however you want to say it, um 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.360 and and so it's sort of fascinating that I learned 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:31.520 a new word. I don't remember if we put it 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:33.359 in the book, but the word of stigmer g, which 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.200 is embedding information in an environment, which is really interesting 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:37.760 because you say, how to termites do this? Well, one 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:39.960 thing they can do is they can leave a chemical 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:41.880 trail that says something like don't go here or don't 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:43.720 build here. Um, I don't actually know what. You know, 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.639 literally every termite chemical trail does. But they can leave 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:48.520 chemical trails. And it's interesting because they don't even know 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:50.360 I have to know what the trail does, right, They're 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:52.879 just acting out part of this process of building. It's 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.280 sort of fascinating. Now there's so much more we want 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.399 to ask you about, from the future of poco sticks 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.520 to the important of breathing through both your nostril. But 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:02.440 before we get to that, let's take a quick break. 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.000 So I want to switch gears a little bit and 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.399 and talk a little bit about travel to space, because 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.520 you know that this week we watched the SpaceX launch 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:24.240 and one of the things you talk about in your 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.520 book is why cheap travel to space will be important. Um, 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:29.760 can you talk a little bit about why that is 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.720 and what's the real hindrance right now? And also can 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.160