WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Enters the Singularity 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios. 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:13.960 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.560 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:21.079 I Heart Radio and I love all things tech. That's 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.160 time for another tech Stuff classic episode where Lauren Voge, 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.960 Obama and I sat down back in February two thirteen. 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:34.440 This episode published February eleven, and we talked about the singularity. 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.040 The episode was titled tech Stuff Enters the Singularity. So 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:44.320 sit back and enjoy this discussion about a somewhat controversial 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:48.559 hypothesis of the future of humanity today. We wanted to 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:53.280 talk about the future. The future. Yeah, really, we're talking 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.840 about a kind of a science fiction future. We're talking 0:00:55.880 --> 0:01:00.960 about the singularity. And uh, long time listeners to tex Stuff, 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.120 and I'm talking about folks who listen way back before 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.640 we ever talked out at thirty minutes, let alone an hour. 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:10.440 May remember that we did an episode about how Ray 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.759 Kurtzwild works. And Ray Kurtzwill is a futurist and one 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.880 of the things he talks about extensively, particularly if you 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.520 corner him at a cocktail party, is the singularity. And 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.240 so we wanted to talk about what the singularity is, 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:25.679 what this idea, you know, we really wanted to kind 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:27.960 of dig down into it and why is this a 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:33.200 big deal? And how realistic is this vision of the future. Yeah, 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.120 because some people would take a little bit of uh, 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.160 would would argue with your concept of it being science fiction. 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.399 They take it extremely serious. Oh yeah, they say it's 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:45.759 science fact, science fact, it's science inevitability. Yeah. The time. 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.840 The term was actually coined by a mathematician, John von 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.200 Newman in the nineteen fifties. Um, but it was popularized 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:58.520 by a science fiction writer. Yeah, it's also Ah, there 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:00.680 are a lot of different concepts that are hied up together, 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.400 and it all depends on upon whom you ask what 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.080 it means by the singularity. For instance, there's some people 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:08.880 who when you hear the term the singularity, what they 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.560 say is, Okay, that's a time when we get to 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.880 the point where technological advances are coming so quickly that 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.000 it's impossible to have a meaningful conversation of what the 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:24.200 state of technology is because it changes changesseconds. So that's 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.280 one version, but most of the versions that that we're 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.520 familiar with that the futurists talk about incorporate an idea 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:36.920 of superhuman intelligence or the intelligence explosion, right, a kind 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.880 of combination of of human and technological development that just 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.120 dovetails into this gorgeous you know, space Baby from two 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.320 thousand one. Kind of that's an excellent way of putting it. 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:51.720 The documentary two thou one. Uh, I remember specifically when 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.640 the space baby looked at Earth. Okay, that documentary example 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:58.960 doesn't work at all. It usually does, but not this time, 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.160 not this time. S Space babies are a poor example 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:06.320 in this in this one instance. But but metaphorically speaking, yes, 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.160 you're right on track, because the intelligence explosion that was 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:14.560 a term introduced by someone known as Irving John Good, 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:16.600 or if you want to go with his birth name 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.040 is the door Jacub Gudak. I can see why he 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.080 changed it. Yeah he uh. He actually worked for a 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.920 while at Bletchley Park with another fellow who who made 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.000 sort of a name for himself in computer science, a 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.679 fellow named Alan Turing. Oh, I guess I've heard of him. Yeah, 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.400 Touring will come up in the discussion a little bit later, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.600 but but for right now, so Irving John Good just 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.440 just a little quick anecdote that I thought was amusing. 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:47.160 So Good was working with touring to try and help 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.000 break German codes. I mean that's what Bletchley Park was 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:55.560 all about, right, So Good apparently one day drew the 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.120 ire of touring when he decided to take a little 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.000 cat nap. But because he was tired, and he was. 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:06.080 It was Good's philosophy that being tired did not mean 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:07.960 that he meant that he was not going to work 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.240 at his best, and he might as well go ahead 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.360 and nap, exactly, take a nap, get refreshed, and then 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.200 tackle the problem again, and you're more likely to solve it. 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.560 Whereas touring was very much a workhorse, you know he 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:24.080 was he was no rest, no rest type it, so 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.320 touring when he discovered that Good had been napping, decided 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.000 that that this was the Good was not so good 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:34.720 um and and touring touring sort of treated him with disdain. 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:40.160 He began to essentially not speak to Good. Good meanwhile, 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.600 began to think about the letters that were being used 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:48.320 to in Enigma codes to code German messages, and he 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.839 began to think, one, if these letters are not completely random, 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.960 What if the Germans are relying on some letters more 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:58.120 frequently than others, and he began to look at frequency 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:00.440 of these letters being used. He made up a table 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:05.800 and mathematically analyzed the frequency that certain letters were used 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.760 and discovered that there was a bias, there was a pattern. Yeah, 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.159 so he said, well, with this bias, that means that 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.920 we can start to narrow down the possibilities of these codes. 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.200 And in fact, he was able to demonstrate that this 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.560 was a way to help break German codes, and Touring, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.160 when he saw Goods work, said the sworn I tried that, 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.400 but but clearly that showed that it worked well. And 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.880 then good and another point apparently went to sleep one 0:05:30.960 --> 0:05:33.760 day and they've been working on a code that they 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.520 just could not break. And while he was sleeping, he 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:41.359 dreamed that perhaps when the Germans were encoding this particular message, 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:43.840 they used the letters in reverse of the way they 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:46.240 were actually printed, and so he tried that when he 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:48.880 woke up, and it turned out he was right. And 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.440 so then his argument was Touring, I need to go 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.200 to bed. So yeah, yeah, what the moral of the 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.360 story here is that knaps are good and no one 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:01.120 should talk to you, right, yeah, that's how I live 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:05.400 my life. But yeah, so so Goods point. Anyway, he 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.520 came up with this term of the intelligence explosion, and 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.160 it was this this sort of idea that we're going 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:15.120 to reach a point where we are increasing either our 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:20.279 own intelligence or some sort of artificial intelligence so far 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.920 beyond what we are currently capable of understanding, that life 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:29.320 as we know it will change completely. And because it's 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.400 going to go beyond what we know right now, there's 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:34.320 no way to predict what our life will be like 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.839 because it's beyond our because it is it is by definition, 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.840 out of our comprehension. Yes, as the Scots would say, 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:46.680 it's beyond our ken are we going to be doing 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.000 accents this episode? That was a terrible one. I actually 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.640 regret doing it right now. I already knew I couldn't 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.480 do Scottish and yet there I went. Anyway, your trail 0:06:56.520 --> 0:07:00.679 placing again, So to kind of backtry a bit before 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:05.520 we really get into the whole singularity discussion. That was 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:10.560 just a brief overview. A good foundation to start from 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:15.560 is the concept of Moore's law. You know, originally Gordon Moore, who, 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:17.160 by the way, it was a co founder of a 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:21.600 little company called intel uh he he originally observed back 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.880 in nineteen sixty five in a paper that I'm going 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.559 to I'm gonna with this, but it was called something 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.400 like cramming more components onto integrated circuits something like that. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.800 That was that was actually cramming was definitely one of 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.680 the words used um and circuit probably was to Anyway, 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:41.720 he noticed that over the course of I think originally 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.400 it was twelve months, but today we consider it two years. Uh, 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:47.720 the eighteen to twenty four months, I think is the 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:51.360 official unofficial right right, right, Yeah, that that the number 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.360 of discrete components on a a square inch silicon wafer 0:07:55.680 --> 0:08:00.480 would double due to improvements in manufacturing and efficiency, so 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:05.560 that in effect, what this means to the layman is 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.640 that our electronics and particularly our computers get twice as 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.520 powerful every two years. So if you bought a computer 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.160 in and then bought another computer in two thousand, in theory, 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.679 the computer in two thousand would be twice as powerful 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:23.240 as the one from This is exponential growth. That's an 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:29.040 important component this idea of exponential growth. And it goes 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.160 without saying that if you continue on this path, if this, 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:37.800 if this continues indefinitely, then you know, you quickly get 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.920 to computers of almost unimaginable power just a decade out certainly, 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.560 although I mean I still don't really understand what a 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.000 gigabyte means because when when I first started using computers, 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:49.840 we were not counting in that. I mean, I mean 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:52.680 I was still impressed by kilobytes at the time. So yeah, Now, 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.600 I remember the first time I got a hard drive, 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.840 I think it had like two fifty megabyte hard drive, 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.560 and I thought, like, needs that much space? Now, grad 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.120 that's that's space we're talking about, not even processing time. Absolutely, 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.600 so yeah, it's it's it's one of those things where 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.360 the older you are, the more incredible today, is right, 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.720 because you start looking at computers and you think, I 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.200 remember when these things came out, and they were essentially 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:21.560 the equivalent of a of a really good desktop calculator. Right. So, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:26.200 but Moore's law states that this advance will continue indefinitely 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.800 until we hit some sort of fundamental obstacle that we 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.679 just cannot engineer our way around, right, you know, and 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:34.760 people that that's why it's it's kind of in contention 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.040 right now because people are saying that, well, there's there's 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.600 only so much physical space that you can fit onto 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.600 with with silicone. There's there's there's a physical limitation to 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:44.760 the material in which there's only so much you can 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:46.400 do about it, and so does more It's law still 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.600 apply if we're talking about other materials, and what's you know, right? 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:52.720 And and how small can you get before you start 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.520 to run into quantum effects that are impossible to work around? Uh? 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.680 And then do you change the geometry of a chip? 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.360 Do you go three dimensional instead of two dimensional? Wouldn't 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.000 that help? And you know, there are a lot of 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.680 engineers are working on this, and frankly, pretty much every 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:09.720 couple of years, someone says, all right, this is the 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.680 year Moore's law, and it's good, it's it's over, it's gone, 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.840 it's done with. Five years later, you're still going strong. 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.000 And then on the sixth year, someone else says, Moore's 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:21.120 Law is gonna end. It's a little bit of a 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.600 self fulfilling prophecy. I think that a lot of companies 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.440 attempt to keep it going, to keep it going, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.760 No one wants to be the ones to say, guys, 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.280 guess what, we can't keep up with Moore's law anymore. 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:35.920 No one wants to do that. So it is a 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.360 good motivator. Also, if I can footing out myself real quick. 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:40.640 I'm pretty sure that I just pronounced silicon is still 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:42.120 a cone, and I would like I would like to 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:43.440 stay for the record that I know that those are 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.160 two different substances. Okay, that's fair. Anyway, I was I 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:47.600 was going to ask you about it, but by the 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.120 time you you were finished talking, I thought, let's just 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:54.680 go Yeah, that's cool. It's all right if you knew 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.720 how many times I have used that particular pronunciation to 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:02.400 to hilarious results. So moving on with this, this whole 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:04.839 idea about Moore's law, I mean, the reason this plays 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.839 into the singularity is with the technological advances, you start 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:13.920 to be able to achieve pretty incredible things, and uh, 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:18.640 even within one generation of Moore's law, which kind of 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.840 a meaningless term. But let's say let's say you arbitrarily 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.200 pick a date and then two years from that date 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.840 you look and see what's possible with the new technology, 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.920 and getting to twice as much power however you wanted 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.360 to find it doesn't necessarily mean that you've only doubled 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:36.760 the amount of things you can do with that power. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:41.400 You may have limitless things you can do. So with 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.240 that idea. You're talking about being able to power through 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.640 problems way faster than you did before. And there's lots 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:52.160 of different ways of doing that. For example, UM, grid computing. 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.280 Grid computing is when you are linking computers together to 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.199 work on a problem all at once. Now, this works 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:03.079 really well with problems, parallel problems we call them. Uh. 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.160 These are problems where there are lots of potential solutions 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.920 and each computer essentially is working on one set of 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.800 potential solutions. And that way you have all these different 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.280 computers working on it at the same time. It reduces 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:19.040 the overall time it takes to solve that parallel problem. Uh. 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:21.680 And so UM, like if you've ever heard of anything 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:24.880 like folding at home or the set project, where you 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:29.000 could dedicate your computer's idle time. So the problem, the 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.960 idle processes, the processes that are not being used while 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:36.040 you're serving the web or writing how the singularity works, 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:41.200 or I don't know, uh, building a architectural program in 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:45.200 in in some sort of CAD application. Anything that you're 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.480 not using can be dedicated to one of these projects. 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:52.360 Same sort of idea that uh, you don't necessarily have 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:56.200 to build a supercomputer to solve complex problems if you 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.880 use a whole bunch of computers, whole bunch of small ones, 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:01.880 large had drunk lighter does this although they use very 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.600 nice advanced computers, but they do a lot of grid 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:08.480 computing as well. So, uh so, just using those kind 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.840 of models, we see that we're able to do much 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:16.480 more sophisticated things than we could otherwise if we were certainly. Yes, networks, 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.199 as it turns out, are pretty cool. Yeah, and networks 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.040 play a part in this idea of the singularity. Um. Actually, 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.199 I guess now is a good time. We'll we'll kind 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.240 of transition into Verner Vengees and I honestly, I don't 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:29.760 know how to say his last name. I say venge 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.680 and it could end up being VINGI. But I just 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.160 went with what you said. So that's great, that's fine. 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.280 What we'll say that Vench says everything is silicone. Uh 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:44.559 So Verner though he Verne, I call him vern He 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:50.040 He suggested four different potential pathways that humans could take, 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.679 or really that the world could take to arrive at 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:57.840 the technological singularity. Okay, what are they? The four ways 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:03.640 are we could develop a superhuman artificial intelligence. So computers 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:08.640 suddenly are able to think on a level that's analogous 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.120 to the way humans think and can do it better 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:16.360 than the right. Whether or not that means computers are conscious, 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:20.600 that's debatable. We'll get into that too. Computer networks could 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:24.920 somehow become self aware. That's number two. So yes, sky 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.280 net So like the grid computing we were just talking 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:32.680 about that, somehow using these grid computers, the network itself 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.080 having enough cycles and enough pathways and enough loops back around, 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.280 it starts going like, hey, I recognize this starts thinking 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.440 about like like like like thinking about IBM S Watson. 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:46.160 But it's distributed across a network. So computers you can 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:51.040 think of computers is all being super powerful neurons in 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.200 a brain, and that the network is actually neural pathways. 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.160 And it's definitely a science fiction e way of looking 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.040 at things. Doesn't mean it won't open, but stranger things, 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:03.960 my friends. It feels like a matrix kind of thing 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.240 to me. Then we have the idea that computer human 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:12.920 interfaces are so advanced and so intrinsically tied to who 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:17.800 we are, that humans themselves evolved beyond being human, we 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:21.960 become trans human. So this is an idea that we 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:25.160 almost merge with computers at least on some level via 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.360 kind of nanobot technology. You know, stuff stuff running through 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:32.120 our bloodstream, stuff in our yep. Or we have just 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:37.560 brain interfaces where our scientiousness, our consciousness is connected to 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.920 So so for example, we might have it where instead 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.080 of connecting to the Internet via some device like a 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.960 smartphone or a computer, yeah, it's right there in our 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.680 our meat brains, so that you know, you're sitting there 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:53.760 having a conversation with someone. Then you're like, oh, wait, 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.160 what movie was that guy in? Let me just look 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.880 up I am dB in my brain and then you 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.480 you know, depending on how good your connection is, which means, 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:05.520 by the way, if you are a journalist and you 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.360 attend C E S, you will automatically be dumber because 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.200 all the all the internet connectivity will be taken up 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:13.480 and so you'll be sitting there trying to ask good 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.120 questions and drool will come out of your mouth, which 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:18.320 to me is a typical C E S. I can 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.200 I can only assume that that wireless technology would advance 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.320 also at this point, but one can only hope fingers cross. 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.760 There are certain technologies that are not advancing at the 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.320 exponential rate of Moore's law, which is another problem we'll 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.200 talk about that. Uh. And then the fourth and final 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:37.000 method that Werner had suggested the world may go would 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.920 be that humans would advance so far in biological sciences 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:45.080 that that would allow us to engineer human intelligence so 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.120 that we could make ourselves as smart as we wanted 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.720 to be. This is sort of that Gattica future where 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.440 we've got all the another another great documentary, where we 0:16:54.440 --> 0:17:00.000 we engineer ourselves to be super smart. So those are 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.480 the four pathways artificial intelligence, computer networks to become self aware, 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.640 computer human interface has become really really awesome, or we 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.760 have biologically engineered human intelligence and uh. And all four 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.480 of these lead to a similar outcome, which is this 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:20.240 intelligence explosion. And this is the idea that some form 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:24.280 of superhuman intelligence is created, either artificially or within ourselves, 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:27.520 and that at that point we will no longer be 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.760 able to predict what our world will will be like, 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:36.200 because by definition, we will have a superhuman intelligent entity involved. 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.560 And because that's superhuman, it's beyond our ability to predict 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:45.160 which is you know which, which makes thought experience experiments 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:50.639 about it a little bit uh, philosophical. That's the kind 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.680 way of putting it, uh, pointless would be another way 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.040 of putting up like we could we could, you know, 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.919 sit there and and and spitball a whole bunch of 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.240 possible futures. But that's the thing, they're possible. We don't 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:04.880 know which one could come out. We don't even know 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.520 if these four pathways are inevitable. We have futurists who 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.360 truly believe that this is something that will happen at 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:15.320 some point. There are other people who are more skeptical, 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.639 but we'll talk about them in a bit. So one 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.320 of the outcomes that Werner was talking about, uh, and 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.800 it's it's a fairly popular one in futurist circles is 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:31.760 the idea of the robo apocalypse. Essentially, this is where 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:37.440 you've got the humans are bad, destroy all humans idea. Essentially, 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:41.240 the the ideas that humans would become extinct, either through 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:45.119 definition because we've evolved into something else or because whatever 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.680 the super human intelligence is it besides we are a problem. Yeah, 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:50.000 and a lot a lot of futures are a lot 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.280 more positive about that. They're they're more looking forward to 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.399 it than being scared of it. It's less of oh, no, 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.199 big scary robots are coming to take over society and 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.959 more of a the robots are coming to take oversus 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.520 society like free Day. Yeah exactly. Yeah, I don't have 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.720 to work anymore, and and I don't because robots are 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:10.400 are supplying all the things we need. There's no need 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.800 for anyone to work anymore. There's no need for money anymore, 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:15.879 because the only reason you need money is so you 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.119 can buy stuff. But if everything is free, then you 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.520 don't need you. So it becomes Star Trek and we 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:25.360 all know run around in jumpsuits and punch people. And 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.320 if you're Kirk, you make out a lot. I mean 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:33.879 a lot. That dude every week Becauson Ryker. If you 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.240 add them together, make one Kirk. And yes, in this 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.080 documentary series Star Trek, I don't know about Archer because 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:43.800 I never watched Enterprise, So you guys have to get 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:45.679 back to me on that. Yeah, sorry, sorry about that. That That. 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.320 It's also a gap in my personal understanding. Just took 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:50.680 one look at that decontamination chamber and said, yep, I'm 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:55.840 out um anyway. So that's that's Werner Avenge. It's he's 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.920 sort of popularized this idea, but he's there are other 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.159 people who have I think their names are synonymous with it. 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.520 Hey guys, it's robo Jonathan from here to interrupt, because 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:08.800 even in the future, we need to take a break 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:18.399 to thank our sponsors and now back to the show. 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.439 So Werner Venge again very much associated with the idea 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.600 of the singularity. But there's another name that comes up 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.760 all the time, Ray Kurtswile, Rate Kurtswile. And this is 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.960 a fellow who has been referred to in various circles 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:38.159 as as the Thomas Edison of modern technology or um 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.600 or or perhaps more colorfully, the Willy Wonka of technology. 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:43.320 That was by Jeff Duncan of Digital Trends, and I 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.480 just wanted to shout out because that was great, but 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.840 you get nothing. I shared a remix of Willy Wonka 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.440 earlier today and it's still playing through my head. We're fans, 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.480 we might be fans of the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka. 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:58.880 Every when everyone homework assignment, go watch that. It has 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.080 nothing to do with the singularity singularity at all. I 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:05.119 don't know there's some chocolate singularity in their chocolate singularity. 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:09.240 I want episode on that band. If I were better 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.200 at cover band names. I totally would have said something 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:13.480 witty right there. Yeah, all right, well, fair enough, we'll 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:18.240 say it's the Archies, Sugar Sugar, oh dear, Oh my goodness. Okay, 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:22.280 So Ray kurtswhile Ray Kurts, while Um is the kind 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.639 of cat who you know, when he was in high school, 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:28.000 Um invented a computer program. And this isn't in the 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:30.639 mid nineteen sixties, This isn't like last year or something. 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.680 In the mid nineteen sixties, created a computer program that 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.000 listened to classical music, found patterns in it, and then 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:40.199 created new classical music based on that. So its a 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:44.000 computer that composed classical music following the rules of classical 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.080 music that other composers had created. Yes, that's kind of cool. 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.200 That's just that's just something he did, you know. And yeah, 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:55.000 that's dudes got credentials. Yeah, it's He also kind of 0:21:55.040 --> 0:22:00.439 invented flatbed scanners, has done a whole bunch of stuff 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:06.320 in speech recognition, and uh, which that's interesting because well, 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:08.199 and we'll talk about that in a second. But but 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.800 one of Kurt's well's big points is that he thinks 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:15.199 that by and this all depends upon which interview you 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.520 read of Kurt Kurts well, but in various interviews he 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:21.879 said that essentially by twenty thirty we will reach a 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:26.000 point where we will be able to make an artificial brain. Well, 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.359 we'll we'll have reverse engineered the brain, and we'll be 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:33.280 able to create an artificial one. Uh. And there's a 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:37.639 lot of debate in in UH, in smarter circles than 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:40.600 the ones I move in. UH. That's not a that's 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:43.280 not a slap against my friends. They're pretty bright, but 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:47.840 none of us are neuro churologically gifted at that point. UM. 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.159 I include myself in that in that circle. So, but 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.640 there there's some very bright people who debate about this 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:56.840 point whether or not we'll be able by the year 0:22:56.880 --> 0:22:59.719 twenty thirty two reverse engineer the brain and design an 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:03.360 artificial one. And I think the debate is not so 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.679 much on whether or not will have the technological power 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:11.920 necessary to to uh simulate a brain. We can simulate 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:15.600 brains on a certain superficial level today. I mean hypothetically 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:17.959 we could connect enough computers that we could make it go. 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:21.800