WEBVTT - Looking Back on the Future Part Two 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:07.480 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:15.320 Forward Thinking. Hey, then, welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:19.639 that looks the future. It says tomorrow Tomorrow, I love 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:24.599 you Tomorrow. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren, and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:26.400 And this is gonna be part two of a two 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:28.280 part episode that we had to split up because we 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.120 ended up talking for a long time. But last time, 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:33.199 what were we talking about? It? It was about our 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.479 favorite predictions of the future. Yeah, we talked about a 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.800 lot of very quaint French postcards from the turn of 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:46.760 the nineteenth century, been with bad wings, and we talked 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.520 about some driverless car technology, and then we talked about 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.520 how communications doesn't make you less of a jerk? Is 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:56.360 that what we talked about? Yeah, Well, we talked about 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.800 like telecommunications predictions that the idea of the the rhetoric 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:03.600 of the electrical sublime, the people who thought that, you know, 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.520 the telegraph and eventually the internet would just bring us 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.560 all together and make us connect and just be friendly. 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.280 We would friendly happy people. Only we can talk to 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.319 each other instantaneously. We'll bring about world peace and then 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.319 we'll all just click on that little button to buy 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.600 the world a coke. Yeah, and well, you guys aren't 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:22.520 alive in the seventies, so you have no idea what 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:24.760 I'm talking about. But we all know what by the 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.160 World of Coke is. Did you ever see those commercials? 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:29.160 Were they still around when you guys were kids? Also, 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.840 I don't know what you're talking you'd like to I'd 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:33.560 like to sing. I'd like to teach the world to 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.319 sing a perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.640 of coke and keep it company. I know the polar Bears, 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.200 the polar Bears, you know, cute little ones. Joe, just 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.400 talk about robots. Okay, So last time we talked about 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.320 one of the we reached picking picking a couple of 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.960 favorite predictions in the future, or at least the most illuminating. 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:54.720 I don't know if I could say I have favorites, 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.880 the ones that are spurring of good conversation, and so 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.400 we did. Why list telecommunications and all that? Now I 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:07.240 want to talk about robots. Uh So I was trying 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:09.640 to think what my other favorite prediction would be. And 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:11.600 I think that we we've talked about this on the 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.040 show before, but I have to come back to it 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:17.200 because I think it's so fruitful. Uh. And it's the 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:24.200 science fiction world embodied in Isaac Asimov's Robots stories and 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:30.200 essentially in Asimov's fictional future. Robots are very intelligent, powerful, 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:34.079 well integrated into society, performing all kinds of labor the 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:39.920 positronic brain, and to keep their behavior in check, they 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:45.400 all necessarily are bound by three fundamental laws of robotics. Right, 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:47.880 that's kind of like the I mean, we've seen tons 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.560 of different science fiction stories that build upon the same idea, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:52.960 like even things like RoboCop where he has all the 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:57.520 different directives that stems from this concept of the laws 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.960 of robotics. Yeah, and so the three law us basically 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.919 are a robot. First law, a robot may not injure 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.120 or harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.960 human being to come to harm. Obviously, robotup did not 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:15.000 have that one. Nope. The second one, a robot must 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.760 obey the orders given it by human beings, except where 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.200 such orders would conflict with the first law. So lo 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.359 as you couldn't tell robot, hey, I want you to 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.239 go and punch gim in the face, right, robot has 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:28.280 to do what you say unless you tell it to 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.960 hurt somebody. And then the third law, a robot must 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.440 protect its own existence as long as such protection does 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.040 not conflict with the first or second laws. And then 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.960 there was the zero with law that got added afterwards, 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.600 which is a robot may not harm humanity or through 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.040 an action, allow humanity to come to him, right, the 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:52.320 sort of the worldwide extension. And they also would sometimes 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.040 extend it's not just to humans, but to property as well, 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:57.640 so in other words like like you know, extended, saying 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:02.520 that a robot couldn't cause damage to property unless again 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.960 it violated a more important law like further up on 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.200 the list. Yeah, and so if you haven't read any 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:10.520 of these stories, I do recommend going back and reading 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.880 some of Asimov's robots stories because I think they're very entertaining, 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.799 their interesting, and they're usually pretty short and self contained. 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.719 Um but anyway, the dramatic conflict in many of these 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:28.800 stories comes from engineers and robopsychologists trying to solve problems 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.760 with robots, and the problems are created by the fact 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.640 that the robots are following the laws, but following them 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.240 in a way that leads to unforeseen problems. Uh So, 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:41.839 robots with these types of programming, can be caught in 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.360 sort of ethical loops or traps that prevent them from 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:50.000 doing something crucial or that allow them to do horrible 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.880 things by way of misunderstanding or misapplication of the laws. 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:55.880 So it's kind of similar, and I think I've made 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.640 this comparison in a previous episode of forward thinking. But 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:01.200 for for those of you out there who have ever 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.880 played Dungeons and Dragons, if you've ever encountered a scenario 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.000 where your character is granted a wish, you know that 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:14.680 any any experienced player will spend ages agonizing over the 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:18.480 exact wording of the wish, because dungeon masters the world 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.920 over have great joy in taking a wish and then 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:28.720 purposefully miss interpreting the wish so that a terrible thing happens. 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.599 So the classic one is make me a sandwich and 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.000 then boom, the character turns into a sandwich. Like that 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.240 would be That would be a very simple version of that. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.640 But you typically will get someone who has to try 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.040 and word out an incredibly convoluted wish in order to 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:47.960 avoid any potential misinterpretation or or abuse of their request. 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:51.000 The same sort of thing is is kind of underlying 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.680 some of these stories where it's not that a robot 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.680 is intentionally trying to find its way around its programming. 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.640 It's simply that in order for it to carry out 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.719 whatever task it's been given and follow these rules, something 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.560 doesn't go as people would expect it to. It's really 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:12.160 a cautionary tale about human error and hubris. Yes, definitely, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.400 and also just the idea of you know, any sort 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:20.080 of artificial intelligence that's sufficiently capable of being able to 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:25.400 to be autonomous or even semi autonomous, it's hard. Well, yeah, 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:29.160 that's exactly why I cited this. I cite this because 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:32.680 of the increasing interest in the future challenges presented by 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:37.839 AI and sophisticated mobile robotics. Um, but you're exactly right. 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.240 You know, the more a machine is in line with 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.440 what we think of as intelligence in the same way 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.920 we've use intelligence to refer to human intelligence, the more 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:52.640 their behavior and reasoning will become proportionally obscure to us. 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:58.000 Like things that act in intelligent ways are sometimes hard 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:02.640 to understand because intelligens is inherently complex. I've got a 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:07.320 very relevant example that happened very recently, which was that 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.880 you had some people working with a supercomputer over the 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.080 course of forty eight hours to create a mathematical proof 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.400 that had been proposed back in the eighties, or at 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:20.600 least someone has said, like, I need a proof to 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.160 prove this whether or not this particular mathematical problem as 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:28.280 possible or not possible. And the computer did it in 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:32.040 two days, and it took two hundred terabytes of storage 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:33.760 to store the proof. And I won't get into the 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:35.720 proof that would take forever for me to explain, but 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.880 the idea being that, uh, it was such a long 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:44.120 laborious process, even for a supercomputer working for forty eight hours, 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:49.240 essentially that for people it was pretty much a lost cause, right, 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.440 like like you almost have to uh use a different 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:57.600 supercomputer to verify the results because you couldn't employ humans 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.360 to go through all the steps. It would just take 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:02.640 way too long and it and it'd be too easy 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.440 to lose your place and make a human error and 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.200 then realize that, oh, well, we've got to have yet 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.840 another team check that the results here. And you started 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:13.920 getting to this idea what this was just to do 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.160 one mathematical proof and there's not a major downside to 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.920 humankind if it does something wrong, right, if if it 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.800 says that the proof shows that this particular mathematical question 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:30.640 is impossible, and it turns out it is possible. Big whoop. 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:35.679 But you might have similarly complex internal machinations in a 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.760 robot that is designed to open a door for people. 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.640 But the robot that's designed to open a door for 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.440 people could slam the door on people and kill them. 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:49.280 So you know, even well, maybe a robot that opens 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.440 doors for people wouldn't have to be all that intelligence. 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.120 I'll give the full general AI to the door opener. 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.200 You say it, But actually when I went to south 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:00.760 By Southwest, one of the panels I too. They talked 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.360 about how there was, uh this team that was trying 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.960 to develop a robot that could open different types of doors, 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.319 but it would take hours for the robot to figure 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.440 out what kind of door it was, and how three 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.560 types of doors. There's your problem, right right, I mean, 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:15.840 it's only got the one door. If you only got 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:17.840 one door, then you're fine. But but as we saw 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.680 also in the darker robotics challenge like opening doors and 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.719 walking through them, certainly the walking through them part, right, 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:25.840 So you know, you've got to find a way to 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.439 prevent robots from causing harm, and this causes we've got 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:31.959 to think about the AI control problem, and it's not 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.920 as easy as it sounds. And I think this is 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.520 very well predicted by Asimov's stories, which makes this one 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.360 of my favorite future predictions, because he starts with these 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.320 three laws that if you read them, they sound very 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.800 simple and they sound very air tight. It sounds like 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.560 they cover all the bases. But you you only have 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:53.880 to think a little bit further as Asimov did, and 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.600 start trying to apply them to unexpected malfunctions and use 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:00.640 case scenarios. Well, and it could you it also just 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.000 imagine where it's not even a malfunction. You could just 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.800 imagine where a robot would take no action, because it 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.559 turns out the robot is able to project all the 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.280 potential consequences of its actions and determined that some of 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:16.359 them may in fact cause some form of harm to someone, 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.880 and that it's not even that necessarily identified, right. It 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:24.080 may just be like, well, I took into account the 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.720 task you gave me, I plotted out all the variables, 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.320 and it turns out there's maybe a twenty seven percent 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:32.200 chance that this could hurt somebody's feelings. And because I 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.880 interpret that as being harm. I can't actually do what 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:36.880 you asked me to do, so I'm just gonna stand 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.800 here motionless, and you're gonna think I'm broken. The chaos 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.960 effective robotics like you've created a very expensive brick, and 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.280 that brick is just constantly thinking like well if I 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:50.000 opened this door, then yeah, it's it's a robot paralyzed 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:53.200 by self doubt. Essentially, because we so we're creating a 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:55.680 Douglas Adams character, would you would have to create a 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.679 threshold for the robot saying you have to be above 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:02.800 this percentage sure that this action is going to cause 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.520 some form of harm before you decide not to do 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.720 it right now. Now. Of course, the application of this 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.839 to the real world is all well, actually I was 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.840 going to say it's all assuming we ever create general 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.880 AI of any consequence, but actually I think it's not 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.240 even even if we don't. As a MOOV stories are 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.600 interesting for thinking about ethics as they apply to humans. Well, 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.480 it's also too, I would argue, it's interesting to apply 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:31.320 that even if you're talking about narrow definitions of AI, 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.800 there's still something to be said about it may not 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.319 be sentient, it may not be self aware, it may 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.800 not have general AI may not it may not be 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.679 walking around and interacting with us, but it could very 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:44.880 well still affect us in a in a pro in 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.760 profound ways and so thinking in this case, even for 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:52.600 something like narrow AI, I think it's important. It is 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.320 also important when it comes to just our thoughts about 0:11:55.720 --> 0:12:00.280 how humans behave I agree, but it's it's it's something 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.400 that a lot of people have been arguing we should 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:07.200 be talking about more anyway, with the state of AI 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.120 as it stands right now, which I think everyone would 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.520 say it falls easily into the category of week AI. Yeah. Well, 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:15.920 and we talked about autonomous cars in the last episode. 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:20.160 You start entering when you've gotten multi ton death machines 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:24.000 with combustible engines in them running around being controlled by 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.680 week AI. Uh, you have you have a potential future 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.400 rife with Charlie problems. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very good point. Yeah, 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:35.079 where you get to that situation where, uh, an action 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.319 must be taken and there is no clear action that 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:43.440 will prevent harm from some happening to someone, right, whether 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.600 it's yeah, which which someone you choose to cause harm? Right? 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:48.560 Would it be the person sitting in the past, your seat, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.000 would it be a person outside of the vehicle, would 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.559 be a person in another vehicle? Yeah, that whole thing exactly. Yeah, 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:56.200 I mean, and it also comes down to things that 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.760 are in conflict. In some of those stories were like 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.400 you have a very very low risk of a major 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:08.599 problem in conflict with a compelling need for something petty 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.800 as opposed you know, So like in a driverless car, 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.040 this might mean, Okay, should the car come to a 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.480 stop every time there is a point zero zero zero 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:22.000 zero one percent chance that doing so would prevent injury 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.160 to someone? I don't know. I mean, what if that 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.720 means it's coming to a stop all the time and 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.319 being really inconvenient. So in other words, like let's say 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.800 that it's um let's say that it's a car that 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:38.920 has predictive algorithms that can track motion of various entities 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:43.800 around the vehicle. Right, so pedestrians for example, knowing that 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.520 sometimes pedestrians will walk into the street not at a crosswalk, 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.280 so it's not a place where they're designated to cross. Well, 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.200 autonos cars will have to be able to deal with that, 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.000 have to be able to detect that a person has 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.640 stepped out into the street and stop. At what point 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:02.000 do you tell the car this is indica an indicator 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:03.600 that a person is going to walk out on the street, 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:05.960 as opposed to this is someone who's trying to step 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.600 around some dog do that's on the sidewalk, and they're 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:10.600 not actually gonna walk in the street, but their path 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.239 has diverted enough so that if they were to continue 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.160 on it, they would go out on the street. But 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.040 that's not what they're playing on doing. If the car 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:18.720 thinks you're gonna walk out on the street, then it's 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:22.560 gonna stop. So in that case, a really really sensitive 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.040 car might kill fewer people in the total, but it 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.200 will take you forever to get to You might be 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:35.200 stopping all the time. Another psychological science fiction example, there's 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.320 there's a movie called Robot and Frank that I think 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:40.720 I've brought up on the podcast before Frank Angel and 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.600 it's got somebody. I think you're right, Yeah, human of 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:46.520 some kind or another. I'm pretty sure you're right. I've 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:48.640 seen it on that. I've seen that it's on Netflix. 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.360 I have not watched it. It's it's cute, um, it's 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:53.160 it's it's it's a fun it's a fun film. It's 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.080 it's comedic and and and traumatic at the same time. 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.360 And and the basic storyline is is that this this 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:03.600 this elderly man who is a reformed criminal UM is 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:05.920 being placed in the care of a of a home 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.880 care robot and uh, and the robot can't keep this 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.080 dude happy. It's directive is to keep the dude happy? 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:20.560 Should the robot take him on heists hijinkson soon? So 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:22.680 you know, like like how like like at what point, 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.760 at what point does morality kick in? Yeah, how do 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:30.560 you prograb a robot to like not take dudes on heists? 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.400 Assuming that it shouldn't get similar to maybe it should 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:38.239 right starts starts also falling into the plot for Chappie 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:44.120 as well, You've got terrible. It's not great, but but 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.200 it falls into that that same sort of plot. The 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.840 idea of having a robot that is generally meant to 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:55.360 be kind of a positive influence and then bad people 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.080 or at least people with bad intentions get hold of 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.120 the robot and UM and and twist its sense of 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.520 morality because it doesn't have something immately programmed into it 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.320 so that like, hey, we we need to survive, so 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:09.760 in order for us to survive. We need to be 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.680 able to do these things which are technically crimes, and 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.520 then convince the robot to do those things. Um, Chappie 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.560 is is kind of a lot of people have compared 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.400 it to short circuit, the short circuit movies. I think 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:27.320 that's fair. It's not. It's not complimentary, but it's fair. 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.000 All right, Well, that about does it for me, Lauren. 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.520 Do you have some of you want to talk about? Yeah? 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.240 I also wanted to continue talking about speculative fiction because 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:41.280 that is where I tend to live, and in thinking 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:43.800 about this, I was finding it interesting that that a 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.520 lot of science fiction and speculative fiction, however you want 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.600 to say, it centers around those cautionary tales about technology 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:55.080 that we were talking a little bit about previously. Um, 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.080 you know the kind of plot line of like mankind 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:03.600 has created this amazing thing and it destroys him, possibly 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:08.600 from the inside out, don't we I'm sure? Yeah? Well, 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.160 I mean it's it's fun storytelling. But but take take 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.840 Ray Bradbury's work, for for example, UM, excellent work. UM. 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:20.920 Ray Bradbury kind of hated technology. His work frequently disdained 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.840 television and telecommunications in general. In his stories, those kind 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:29.040 of technologies made people placid and unthinking and isolated and 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.160 even cruel. And it's not just in stories. He kind 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.679 of held the same feelings in real life. There's a 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.840 great quote from him from an interview with The New 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.760 York Times in two thousand nine where he was talking 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.359 to them about the possibility of his work being put 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:48.080 into e book format and he said, it's it's great 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.560 all around. He said. Yahoo called me eight weeks ago. 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.040 They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo. 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.240 You know what, I told them, to hell with you, 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:00.560 to hell with you, and to hell with the Internet's 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.840 father science fiction, y'all, or like at least at least 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:08.160 one of the crachity uncles of this is a guy 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:11.800 who he didn't drive, he didn't fly on airplanes, um 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.119 and okay, like to be fair, he was born in 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:18.240 nineteen twenty and not everyone finds it easy or even 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:22.400 desirable to adapt to new technology. And that is fine. 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.159 It is not up to everyone to adapt to everything 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.840 that goes on in the world. Um. But but this 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.320 was this was a guy who envisioned like in air 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:34.880 communication headsets and also a t M S Yeah yeah, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:37.679 like earbuds and also self driving cars and also like 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.760 wall sized flat screen TVs and virtual reality. And he 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:43.720 did all of this in the nineteen fifties. Yeah, to 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:45.719 be fair, though he thought it was going to be terrible. 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:50.080 The future is going to have all this stuff. It's 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:54.879 gonna be awful. Yeah. In another interview, um, he said, 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:58.000 I don't try to describe the future. I try to 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.879 prevent it. Well, I mean and end time. Now in 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:03.520 some of the books, and some of the books you 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:05.159 can see what he's saying, Like like in some of 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.399 his books, you understand exactly what the point is that 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.400 he's getting at, like like fair Knefe or fifty one. 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:11.399 You know, you look, you read that book and you realize, like, 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:16.440 this is a book that's warning us about anti intellectualism. 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:22.240 It's warning us about turning to things like television as 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:26.879 a source for information and entertainment and issuing the idea 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:31.000 of books which apparently magically make you think while television 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.760 magically makes you not think. I think that's oversimplification, but 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:37.680 you see the route he was going. Yeah, Well, and 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.400 we and we still have the concept kicking around today 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:44.400 that digital communication makes you a colder and more more 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:48.159 isolated than person to person communication does, although that's a 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.480 little bit that's that's a little bit prejudiced in that 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.119 it's not taking into account people who are bad at 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.240 in person communication, who have, you know, whatever kind of 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.920 anxiety or or inability to get out of the house 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:03.680 or etcetera, etcetera. And so it also ignores the trend 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.680 of urbanization where you get to a point where, uh, 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.320 you weren't growing up in a small a lot most 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.520 people these days, I should say most people are not 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.920 growing up in a small community where everyone knows everyone else. 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.320 In communication is pretty easy because you already know everybody, 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.320 and I mean that's you can't really get around it. Uh. 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:24.159 And then you get into an urban environment where you 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.320 may have potentially millions of people around you. There's no 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.080 way for you to know everybody, and so the people 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.120 you know, the people with whom you form relationships may 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.960 not be people you encounter all that frequently, unless you're 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:40.200 just hanging out with the people you work with or whatever. Uh. 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:45.159 So technology has allowed them to maintain these relationships in 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.600 a way that they couldn't necessarily do without it. There 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:50.640 was actually a comic strip I wish I could remember 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:52.920 who it was that drew this, I just one of 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:54.399 those things that you pop that pops up on a 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.960 Facebook timeline and I saw, but it was commentary on 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:03.119 that very idea. It shows for people on like a 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:05.800 subway train and they all have their phones out, and 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.439 then there's like the one the one version of the 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.439 thing saying people today, you know, they want to be 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:13.359 on their phones. They don't take the time to bother, 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.359 to communicate with each other, it's terrible. And then there's 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.080 a flip side of it where it shows what each 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:20.440 person is supposedly typing on their phone, and it's all 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.080 things like like I'm gonna be home soon, I miss you. 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.800 Like it's actual messages of love and support to people 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.960 that are meaningful to them. Uh, it's not that they 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:31.879 don't have any care for the strangers around them, but 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:35.240 they are communicating. They're just communicating to people who aren't 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:37.640 in that space at that time. And say, it's kind 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:42.439 of judgmental to make that broad statement. You could argue 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.159 that there are trends that perhaps are changing some of 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:49.399 our cultural values, but to make a like a flat 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.800 statement saying, you know, people care less now because they 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.480 aren't talking to each other in public, I think that's 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:04.600 overly simplifying the matter personally. Joe Joe thinks so too. 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:09.119 I'm thinking, I mean, I get it. Where like the 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.600 idea that you are, you can there are people who 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:15.240 use technology as a shield from interacting with others. We 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.919 do it here at work. You put on headphones, and 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.080 that tells everybody, even if you're not listening to anything, 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.280 it tells everybody. Hey. The main move I'm thinking of 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.879