WEBVTT - The Monsters of the Future: Part 2 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.960 Forward Thinking. Hey, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the podcast 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:17.240 that looks at the future and says got your jolt 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.880 from my electrode. I'm Joe McCormick, I'm Lauren voc Obama, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.520 and our usual host John from Strickland is not with 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.160 us today. He is on vacation, but we have joining 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.960 us again for part two a special guest, co host, 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.400 Robert Lamb. Say hi Robert. Hey, Yeah, great to still 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:36.080 be here, and I guess I'll continue to be here 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.479 until we finished talking about monsters. Wonder do you want 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:42.120 to briefly introduce yourself again? Oh yeah, yeah, if you 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.080 missed miss b introduction on the last episode. I am 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.160 a co host of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.319 podcast and I blog It's Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.960 dot com. And we also do some videos here and there, um, 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.560 including the monster Science series that goes up on the 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.480 house Stuff Works YouTube page and uh and on stuff 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:01.680 to Blow your Mind dot com. And that's all about 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.760 unnatural creatures, monsters, the natural world of biology and science 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:09.360 and where those two kind of crossover and what we 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.560 can learn by comparing them. Yeah, it's furthermore stars, Mr 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.840 or doctor. I'm sorry Anton Jessup, who is who is 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:17.760 one of my favorite humans who has ever in the 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.280 respect dumped a lot of blood on me. So yeah, 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.440 that happened, and you know, and of course you helped 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.200 out with the most recent season if yeah, yeah, so 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.640 far you have to kind of look closely to see 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:35.600 the artifacts, but you are are resident oh VHS specter. 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:38.760 Yeah yeah, so so if you want to see me 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:41.560 being creepy in the background of some videos, then ah, 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:43.880 then I mean, that's not the only reason you should 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.280 watch them. They're they're very excellent in their own rights. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:47.920 As long as they watch them, I don't care if 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.120 you go there for that sole reason. Keep it on 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.920 you even, Alright, So I'm gonna be frank and admit 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:57.920 that we initially just planned to do one podcast with 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.040 Robert about the future of Monster but we got to 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.640 talking about monsters and realized we had way too much 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.040 to say about them. Yeah. Yeah, we have like ten 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.600 pages of notes here. Um, so we so we got 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.280 through about half of it last time. Um. And during 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.639 that last podcast, we covered what monsters are and what 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.320 they mean in our culture, and and a little bit 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.000 of the history of how we have I mean, not 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.000 the three of us sitting here, but humans in general 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:26.000 have explored their their fears and anxieties through monsters throughout 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.120 the ages. Right, So today we're actually going to speculate 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.959 a little bit about what the monsters of the future are, 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:36.120 what is going to terrify our our future generations. But 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:37.760 I think first we should do it just a real 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.480 quick refresher on what we talked about last time. And 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.240 I'd say the driving point of our last episode was 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.800 that monsters are not arbitrary, and they don't exist in 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.400 a vacuum. There are product of culture and especially of 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:56.080 social change and anxiety and of technology. Would you all 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:00.720 say this, right? Oh? Indeed? I mean they're symbolically powerful entities, 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.280 even if even if one is just creating a monster 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.639 on the fly for the World's Chiefest Tara film. Uh. 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:11.040 You know, with little or no philosophical intent, you're still 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.560 playing on traditions of monsters, monsters that have built up 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.720 in our in our varying cultures over the over thousands 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.080 of years, in folklore and myth and in in fiction, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:23.840 and uh, and here we are today still making them 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.320 up over and over again. Yeah. And so last time 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.680 we talked about the seven theses about the meaning of 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:35.160 monsters from the English professor Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, and what 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:37.440 were some of the more important to those. I think 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.520 one of them was the idea of the mixing of categories. 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.000 That a monster very often occurs at a boundary of classification. 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.760 It's a confusion or mixing of different classes that shouldn't 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.040 be together. And you see that all the time and monsters. 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.040 So you see the beast man, you know it's half 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.640 animal half human, or you see the living dead that 0:03:57.760 --> 0:03:59.920 crosses the boundary of life and death, or you see 0:03:59.920 --> 0:04:03.720 the human machine, uh, and all kinds of strange creatures 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.840 like this. We also mentioned the xenomorph. It seems part biological, 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.000 part mechanical. Y. It's like what orange Julius, right, is 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.160 it orange juice or is it milk? I know how 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:13.880 to treat orange juice. I know how to treat milk. 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.640 But that's unholy combination of the two throws me for 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.479 a loop. Together it is monster, right. And so because 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:24.279 we can't apply our usual categorical system of treatment to 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.480 these things, we don't know how to deal with them, 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:28.880 and they're frightening. One of the other things was that 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.599 the monster polices the borders of the possible. It's sort 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.440 of guards the boundaries right right. It is both a 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.320 transgressor it it's doing things that that we cannot do 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:45.320 as polite members of society. And it's furthermore punishing human transgressors. 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.320 It's saying stay on the path, like like, don't go 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.159 out into the woods, don't feed something after midnight, you know. 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.599 And yeah, it could be any kind of violation. It 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.839 could punish too much intellectual curiosity or physically going to 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.839 a place you're not supposed to go, crossing taboos, anything 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.680 like that. Very often, like ritual taboos. You know, you 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.720 do the wrong ritual and oh, here finds demon. One 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.279 of the other thess is that very often the monster 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.960 sort of represents the other, that it's difference embodied, and 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.800 that this can play a metaphorical relationship with others in society, 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.800 both the treatment of the other and the fear of 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.480 being the other. And then finally, I would say an 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.800 important one is that the monster has something to do 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:35.120 with desire. It's not just scary, but it's also attractive 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:39.760 because it's associated with the forbidden and the not allowed 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:42.800 that's probably the same thing as forbidden. Huh, it's a 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.680 it's a good rephrase. I like that idea as an 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.360 alternate harm movie title because I think the forbidden has 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:55.480 been taken, but the not allowed zone. Yeah, well, because 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.599 it's associated with that, it's also associated as with I 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.120 think we say said less time, the no no pleasures, 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:06.080 right exactly. And so there's a there's a desire associated 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.240 with the monster, and it's sort of a desire to 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.520 be the monster. Yeah, I mean, you see the I 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.120 was just thinking, you know, about the outsider monsters that 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.120 often kind of make you know, kind of make weapons 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.080 out of their their imperfections in their flaws. It's it's 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.240 kind of like, I'm the things that make me feel 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.240 weak and beat up and and outside of society, and 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.760 the monster becomes an elevation and uh, you know. So 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.080 so they're they're desirable characters from from a number of 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.920 different ways. Their freedom or there. I mean, I think 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:36.919 a lot of times it is about freedom, sure, sure, 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:39.080 And I think that especially starting with things like like 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.240 Buffy the Vampire Slayer and and getting into all of 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.920 the the youth culture monster television shows that are happening 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.480 right now. There's there's a whole lot of these monsters 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:52.120 being very sexy and in not a forbidden way, but 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.159 in a like like superpower kind of way. There's a 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.479 power in in having that freedom, right absolutely, Yeah, that's interesting. 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.080 And so one of the last things we talked about 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.279 in the last episode was we just looked a little 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:06.240 bit at the history of monster trends, and so we 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:10.400 looked at Frankenstein perhaps being a reaction to enlightenment science 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.320 and philosophy of fear that we were going too far 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:20.040 with intellectual curiosity and experimentation. Maybe Lovecraft representing a response 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.880 to new science in the early twentieth century, to relativity, 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.600 to UH, to of course the First World War, and 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.040 to quantum theory. We looked at the atomic age, where 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.320 we had all these giant mutated bugs and stuff that 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.880 are a reaction very much obviously to nuclear testing and 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.080 the power of the atom, the social upheavals of the 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.600 sixties and seventies and how they manifested in horror and 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.960 then finally this kind of e horror phase UH that 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.880 it's a direct response to the new technologies that were 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.560 coming that we have been coming out in this our 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.800 internet age, right, the angry ghost is in the telephone. 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.000 It's going to get you through the wires. The wires 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:01.400 will not save you. Okay, But now we want to 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.480 make the shift and talk about what we think the 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.320 future of monsters really will be. What what is the 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.760 scariest thing to the next generation in thirty or fifty years. 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.640 What will the horror movies be about? And I think 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.280 the place we got to start, because it's the most 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:24.080 obvious one is robots and artificial intelligence. Yes, definitely, artificial intelligence, 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.080 whether that's embodied in a robot body or separate in 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.200 some kind of machine the cloud. Yea, indeed, I mean 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.640 there are are technological children, right, and and so like 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.360 like actual children, they're they're terrifying because there there are 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.720 future We've put a certain amount into them, uh you know, 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.760 either either via nurture or nature. And then it's the 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.760 same way with with technology basically, and uh yeah, so 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.560 you can't help it. Have a have a bit of 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.320 apprehension about where it's going, right, And one of Gerome's 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.560 thesis is actually one of the ones we didn't just mentioned, 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.439 was the idea that monsters are very much our offspring. 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.840 There there are children, and much like our real children, 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.320 they sort of look back at us and ask why 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:05.920 they were created. They want to know. They want us 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.280 to give them a purpose and a lot We don't 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.760 necessarily have anything good to tell them sometimes, and so 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:14.520 this makes a lot of sense to me, is the 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.280 future of monsters. But I do want to raise a 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.080 strange objection that I think we can maybe rectify, which 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:26.080 is that robots killer robots, no matter how menacing they are, 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.120 aren't all that immediately scary to me for some reason. 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.520 So we've seen it a million times. Science fiction is 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.240 full of dangerous and threatening artificial intelligence. You've got how 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.040 in two thousand one, you've got sky Ned and the 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.040 Terminator series. You've got the big machine complex in the Matrix. 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.920 I guess it would be the Matrix. Uh, none of 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.000 this really frightens me, and so I want to make 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:51.720 a kind of distinction, And if you all want to 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:57.200 offer alternative terminology, please do. I this is probably not 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:58.640 the best way to phrase it, but I'm just trying 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.720 to explain an idea. There's a difference between a merely 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:08.560 conceivable monster and a plausible monster. So a conceivable monster 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.200 is basically any monster. Any monster you can picture in 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.679 place in a scenario, and and the evil artificial intelligence 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.840 would fit this, So it could be a terminator, could 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:22.040 be whatever. But by contrast, a plausible monster is not 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.920 necessarily one I find scientifically or physically plausible, but it 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:29.800 feels relevant to my life, so it actually scares me. 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.040 It follows me home from the theater. I might be 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.920 alone in my house at night and worry about this monster. 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.880 And one of the strange things is it almost sometimes 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.640 seems inversely related to the amount of plausibility of the monster. 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:48.160 For example, I don't personally believe in ghosts. I don't 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.320 think they exist, but ghosts are a very plausible monster 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.280 to me in my house at night, Yeah, there might 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:58.000 be a ghost there. I find terminators, at least in theory, 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.640 quite possible, as you could build a cybernetic creature that's 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:05.120 designed to kill. That idea doesn't really frighten me that much, 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.480 and I wonder why that is. Well, and this is 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.560 this will probably just be as much as a sort 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.600 of ambiguous way of looking at it, But it it 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.040 kind of comes down to to the question, um, is 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.280 there room in the shadows for this particular monster? You know, 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.840 it's kind of and not the necessarily the actual optical shadows, 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.079 but you know it is there is there enough mystery 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.960 in your life or in the world to accommodate, uh, 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.440 that creature at least at two in the morning, or 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:35.480 at least on that dark street or when you're walking 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:37.719 through the woods, and it's it's kind of hard to 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.720 nail down exactly you know which ones fit into that category? 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:44.000 Oh yeah, yeah, No. I do think that this fear 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:46.520 of of yours, and I think it's a pretty common 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:50.320 way of looking at different categories of horror movies goes 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.160 back to the fear of the unknown, which is one 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.280 of those very basic ones, um, because you can understand 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.000 basically how a terminator would be put together and how 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:03.120 a sufficient advanced artificial intelligence could totally go like a 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:05.880 global hannibal lector on all of us, because you know, 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.200 we all have those days, so we get it. Um. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.200 But but ghosts are are are that unknown factor, that 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.640 that thing that is in the shadows, especially if you 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.120 don't believe in them, because they're just completely inexplicable. That's 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:20.440 really interesting. I like that you'll both brought up the 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.360 shadows because that might be part of it. And I 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:27.280 wonder if as we move further down the road towards 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:33.560 cybernetics and towards artificial intelligence and really powerful, adaptable, all 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.320 purpose robotics, that's something like that actually would become scarier, 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:41.160 not just because it's more pervasive, but because there are 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:45.480 places in the shadows where it could plausibly hide. I mean, 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.560 if you imagine a world in which there is tons 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.440 of private research into artificial intelligence and robotics, you don't 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:56.000 know what that weird lab down the street is ting. Sure? Sure, 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.760 And as that kind of technology becomes more ubiquitous, I mean, 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:03.400 not that's not already bordering unubiquity given the I mean, 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:05.560 how many of us have cell phones in our pockets 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:09.000 or or fitness trackers on our risks or etcetera. Um, 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.480 I mean how many electronic devices do you own in 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.160 your home right now? Can you even count them? Um? 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.080 And when they're all speaking to each other, maybe that 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.560 will become or you know, like the more advance that 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.080 they've become, perhaps it will become more shadowy. The less 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:27.679 that the average consumer is able to understand about those objects. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.160 I mean at some point where we find ourselves in 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:34.040 our kitchen with our robotic kitchen robot. And it's not 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.520 so much the fear of the killer robot, but maybe 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:38.960 the fear of what if this killer robot catches some 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:43.000 sort of killer virus off of the ubiquitous Internet, you know, 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.480 I mean, yeah, the mystery becomes the inner psyche of 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.400 the robot. As the robot's mind becomes more and more 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.480 complex and difficult for us to understand, it becomes more 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:54.800 and more like an animal, like a human, like a 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:59.280 monster that might have strange motivations that you can't grapple. 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:01.560 What remind to be of a line in uh in 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.559 William Gibson's Neuromancer, where he uh, he makes the comparison 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:07.280 and one of the characters, of course makes a deal 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.040 essentially with a really powerful AI and uh and it's 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.280 of somebody comments that that essentially it's a deal with 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:18.200 the devil, and it's something that that was impossible for 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.560 for centuries and centuries. It was purely a human creation, 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.680 but then eventually technology came around and made it possible, 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.440 uh in reality. So I'm not sure how that where 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.360 that lays into it, because you can still, of course 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:34.240 be afraid of the of the devil in the night 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:36.400 you can be afraid of the ghost. Uh, that's just 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.760 outside of the shadow of your night light. But then 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.800 the idea of reaching a point technologically where we can 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:46.640 manifest those things in reality, Yeah, yeah, I can very 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.920 plausibly see that becoming the new the new ghost, and 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:55.800 also consciousness is is certainly mysterious. So definitely, and that 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:57.560 ties into the next point I want to make about 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.280 artificial intelligence, which is that this could relate to another 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.880 one of Cohen's theses. We talked about the idea that 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:08.640 sometimes the monster is a thing that is persecuted or 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:13.040 oppressed and looks back on us in judgment. And so 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:14.840 I want to bring up something we've talked about on 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.240 this podcast before, which is the idea of artificial intelligence 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:24.320 becoming sentient. I think we'll always be haunted by this question, right, 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:28.920 if you design something that seems to be intelligent according 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.760 to the the idea lingering behind the Turing test, you know, 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.920 Alan Turing's original question, should you basically have to assume 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.280 that this thing actually is sentient, that it possesses a 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:43.240 subjective experience, that it's something is happening inside the mind 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:47.400 of this computer you've created that's not just external it's 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:49.480 not just coming out to you. It's not just behavior. 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.320 There's such a thing as what it's like to be 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:56.320 this computer and you are now enslaving it. Yeah. Yeah. 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:58.560 It raises the question that once we have this fabulous 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.880 internet of things, like is my toaster really happy making toast? 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.200 Should I force it into toastitude? Well, I mean, we 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.920 have such a problem understanding human consciousness. So I mean 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.960 the mind body problem comes basically down to the situation 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.080 that you you look at the organic brain and you say, 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:14.200 all right, and I see how I see how it 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:15.800 works and see what's going on there, more or less. 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:17.840 And then you have the mind and you can look 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:19.520 at the mind and say, all right, I can sort 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:20.840 of see what's going on there. But then when you 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.040 try and compare the two, you say, well, this doesn't 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.480 match up with this. This does not seem like it's 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:27.120 not one to one, right, it's not a one to 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.960 one match. So if we can't even identify that that 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.360 connection with our own mind and brain, then what chance 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.000 do we have in looking at circuitry in the future 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.240 and saying, oh, well, that's consciousness right there. Because we 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:42.680 can't even really point to our own heads and say 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:44.800 that right, it's really hard. I mean, if you can't 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.400 find a piece of tissue in the brain, then you 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.920 could you realize is magic. Then what says a computer 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:56.720 can't accomplish that same subjective experience? It it's a little terrifying. 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:58.920 Oh yeah, yeah, no, no one, no one wants to 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.080 be that guy. So yeah, and and uh and it 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.359 is interesting in the in the way that it's you know, 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.800 it turns the camera back on ourselves too. You know, 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.479 it's like the fear of the other kind of becomes 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:18.280 the fear of of ourselves. Um one robot human conflict 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:22.000 that that I always think about in the in these situations. 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:26.200 Uh comes around to the book Doom, of course, where 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:30.000 you have in the backstory the whole um Butalerrian Jijihad, 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:34.360 where humans and machines had this you know, this big conflict. 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:37.719 And and I've read that that Frank Herbert's original thinking 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:41.800 along these lines was less this physical conflict between man 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:46.280 and machine, between humans and thinking machines, but but more 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:48.680 about what what does it do when we depend upon 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:50.959 all this technology, we depend on thinking machine, how does 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.560 it change the human experience? Do we end up thinking 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:57.879 more like machines? Um, which certainly gets into the whole. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.639 One of the key areas in the in in computers 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.919 and in human computer interaction is is you know, the 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.160 continual struggle to well, let's let's try and make make 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.280 it a situation where the machines are more human like 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.199 and I don't have to become more machine like to 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:17.920 use them. Yeah, let's actually talk about that, the concept 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:22.240 of of cybernetics and and those those actual combinations and 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.680 the horrific idea of of losing your humanity by being 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.560 by by willfully becoming part machine. Right. Well, there's the 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.679 very simple version of this, which is that you imagine 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.959 that we have cybernetics that increase our physical capabilities. That's 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.040 sort of you know, the brute force version. You have exoskeleton, 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.040 you have a robot arm. I'd take a robot arm. 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:47.520 I mean yeah, right, yeah, I think we did a 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:51.639 poll on the podcast before Robert off your arm to 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:53.479 get a stronger robot arm. I have to cut one 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:55.080 off to get a robot and just had a third 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:57.120 robot arm. No, you have to cut off your armor. 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.399 You can get a stronger robot arm. I'd have to 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.880 see a demo for really the younger me would say yes, 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.080 because it was very obsessed with robotic arms when I 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:07.680 as a kid, you know, because you'd see that scene 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.719 in terminators trying out in front of near But right, 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:14.200 but that's the simple version that we just don't think 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.520 about all that deeply. Okay, it's just augmenting physical capability 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.600 is sure, that's one thing cybernetics could do. But it 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.280 increasingly looks like cybernetics are going to have to involve 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.440 direct connections with the brain, which is now widely accepted 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:29.000 to be the seat of the self. As we were 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.320 just talking about in the in the last point. So 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.520 we've discussed on the podcast before how brain computer interfaces 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.120 allow all kinds of crazy stuff. We talked about how 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:42.080 monkeys can control computer cursors with their brains and I 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:43.840 don't know if you've read about this rather, but yeah, 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.440 so they don't need to use their hands at all. 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:48.320 They can just look at a computer screen with the 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.320 wire going into their head and move the cursor around. 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.720 The same thing has been done with allowing people suffering 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.000 from quadruplegia to be able to move a robot arm 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.879 to feed themselves with a brain implant. There was actually 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:04.919 just something I read about the other day. It was 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:09.120 published in Science Translational Medicine by sellers Ryan and Hawser, 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:12.560 and then reported in New Scientists and that they described 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.720 how just the other day, a non invasive brain computer 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.960 interface allowed a sixty eight year old man with locked 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.080 in syndrome. So that means he's aware, but he can't 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.399 use any of his muscles, uh, following a brain stem 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.679 stroke to spell out written messages to family members with 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:34.520 brain activity alone. So communicating through computers using only your brain. 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:36.520 And I think this is only going to continue and 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:40.959 get more efficient and more deeply involved biologically. Yeah, and 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.200 and it's and it's so wonderful for for people who 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.720 do have a traumatic brain injury or or traumatic bodily injury, 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.080 or who who otherwise need this kind of technology in 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:53.720 order to have a a quote unquote normal life. Oh 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.520 certainly right. I'm mentioning that in the in the context 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.480 of a monster podcast. I don't want to demonize technology, though, 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:04.200 absolutely super welcome news. Yeah, yeah, that is rad extremely red. 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:08.200 But what happens when brain computer interfaces or b c 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.359 i s get so good that healthy people want to 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:14.760 use them to browse the internet to communicate with domestic 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.840 robots to play video games. I mean, you can, we 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.800 can we assume that this will be done. Could self 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.840 modification in the coming cybernetics era lead to a resurgence 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.600 I thought about in the body horror genre, the kind 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:33.560 of stuff we saw from Cronenberg, like the fly Videodrome, 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.119 the brood, where the threat is not so much that 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.520 there's an external predator coming to get you, but there's 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:41.960 a loss of your sense of autonomy, a loss of 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.280 the sense of self, transformation of the self into this 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.919 non human and otherwise unrecognizable abomination. Yeah, you see this 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:52.680