Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. With me is always this Charles W. Chuck
Speaker 1: Bryant that makes this stuff. You should the podcast. Scottish
Speaker 1: no O, that was that was nothing. It's this weirdness,
Speaker 1: Josh ish Chuck. I love November. You mean November you
Speaker 1: know idea? All right, Josh, as you know, because of
Speaker 1: my semi virginal fresh face here, I have decided to
Speaker 1: get on the November train for people that don't know
Speaker 1: that is for men and I guess women. If you
Speaker 1: can grow mustache, more power to you. Uh, to raise
Speaker 1: money and awareness for prostate cancer. Yeah. So I've been
Speaker 1: asked to do this a bunch and I've never done it. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're finally doing it. Tell us all about it, man, Well, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I signed up. I've gotten a little Movember
Speaker 1: page and then you go to that little page and
Speaker 1: you can donate money and for my team of one
Speaker 1: and unless you cut in the mustache as a thing,
Speaker 1: and then that's two of us. Okay, So hopefully soon
Speaker 1: that'll be happening, and uh, it would be cool, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna grow it back in anyway, so you might
Speaker 1: as well raise a little money along the way. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't tell people are gonna grow it anyway or they'll
Speaker 1: contribute more money. No, no, no, I'm growing the goatee,
Speaker 1: but I will only grow the mustache for November. So
Speaker 1: how do people contribute to this effort? Josh? Go to
Speaker 1: mo bro dot c o slash Charles Bryant and that
Speaker 1: is my page. Or just go to the November website.
Speaker 1: They've got a little handy search bar there. Type in
Speaker 1: Charles Bryant. There's one other Charles Bryant, but he is
Speaker 1: not the one with a picture of me. Oh that's good.
Speaker 1: So when it lists the two dudes and one of
Speaker 1: them that clearly has a photo of my freshly shaven face,
Speaker 1: not super freshly shaven like that morning right via webcam,
Speaker 1: you look like a hostage of some stuff too. So
Speaker 1: go to mobro dot ceo slash Charles Bryant, donate help
Speaker 1: support prostate cancer research and I'll be updating with photos.
Speaker 1: And if you guys want to chime in on what
Speaker 1: kind of stash I should grow, I'll try my best. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of limited to like standard crumb catcher and
Speaker 1: pencil thin. What about walrus? I can't it just doesn't
Speaker 1: get that big. I can't do the Raleigh fingers, you know,
Speaker 1: So I have my limits. Have you tried wax mustache wax?
Speaker 1: Maybe I will enough, So go to mo bro dot
Speaker 1: CEO slash Charles Bryant. That's right, and you can donate
Speaker 1: to this. Yeah, much appreciated. November on with the show. Uh,
Speaker 1: you got a good setup for today. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear it. Let's get to Uh. Have you ever sorry, Chuck,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of a luddite? I've been called
Speaker 1: a luddite? Okay, somebody who's just not sure of technology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid. You're very technologically savvy, you know stuff.
Speaker 1: You're not afraid of it. Nope. Um, but whoever's calling
Speaker 1: you that, it's actually they're kind of incorrect. That's a misconception.
Speaker 1: A lot eyes were not ever afraid of technology. I
Speaker 1: wish I would have known that at the time, because
Speaker 1: you could have been like, you're it's wrong and stupid
Speaker 1: in every single way. Actually, it was our buddy Scott
Speaker 1: to Polido, So I'll just throw it back in his face.
Speaker 1: I'll tell them too. I'll I'll stand next to him
Speaker 1: be like yeah, um no, a lot ied is is.
Speaker 1: Originally they were a group of UM protesters labor protesters
Speaker 1: from that protested between eighteen eleven and eighteen sixteen, and
Speaker 1: they wanted UM fair wages, they wanted better treatment in
Speaker 1: their in their workplaces, and no iPhones. And they they
Speaker 1: were known to break machines like manufacturing machines. Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: They had sledge hammers that were ironically made by in
Speaker 1: in one case, I think in Manchester, UM. They were
Speaker 1: made by the same blacksmith who had made these knitting
Speaker 1: machines that they used the sledge hammers to break. His
Speaker 1: name was Enoch, and they say that Enoch would make
Speaker 1: these things and Enoch would break these things. Anyway, they
Speaker 1: were known for smashing machines, which at the time was
Speaker 1: like high technology eighteen eleven, like a knitting machine, like
Speaker 1: that's mind bogglingly technological. And so they got this reputation
Speaker 1: for being afraid of this technology. They were afraid it
Speaker 1: was going to take their jobs. That's not true. I
Speaker 1: mean they were to an extent, but what they were
Speaker 1: directing their anger in their ire when they were smashing
Speaker 1: these machines. Was not the machine or the technology of
Speaker 1: the people who invented them, or what the machines represented,
Speaker 1: but these mill owners who were miss using these machines,
Speaker 1: who are using these machines to force people out of jobs,
Speaker 1: who were using unskilled people who had no idea what
Speaker 1: they were doing, and getting hurt and killed using these machines.
Speaker 1: So what the lot It's really wanted was fair labor practices,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to control these machines. Yes, that's the
Speaker 1: key to lotitis. M is machine means are great as
Speaker 1: long as we're in control of them and we're smart
Speaker 1: about what we're doing, and they don't come to replace
Speaker 1: us or run our lives. So today a lot I
Speaker 1: would probably be they would probably react fairly close to
Speaker 1: the modern conception of the term ltite, because it's gotten
Speaker 1: so far out of hand that we're actually now talking
Speaker 1: today about something called the singularity, which is the point
Speaker 1: where the machines really do take over, not in the
Speaker 1: very ubiquitous way that they already have today, like they're everywhere,
Speaker 1: not that you didn't know that already, but I mean
Speaker 1: the control things that we don't fully understand, like the
Speaker 1: cyber war. We were talking about how like the infrastructure
Speaker 1: is run on windows, and like valves and pipes and
Speaker 1: water treatment systems and everything is operated by computer. Right,
Speaker 1: So what happens if the computer suddenly becomes aware and
Speaker 1: it's in control of these things and decides that it
Speaker 1: doesn't really like the humans? It sounds extremely science fiction. E.
Speaker 1: There was no way to carry out this podcast without
Speaker 1: that sentence being spoken. Sure, but it's the people who
Speaker 1: are talking about this, who are predicting this are very smart,
Speaker 1: credible people. And what we're talking about then, is the
Speaker 1: singularity that's right, the point where technological Yes, specifically, yeah,
Speaker 1: because what other singularities are they? Well? I think you know,
Speaker 1: we mentioned there was a singularity, which is something entirely different,
Speaker 1: and I think it's probably just to distinguish stuff like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know if there are other types of singularity.
Speaker 1: So so it's a singularity versus the singularity. So maybe
Speaker 1: these singularities the point of no return, I guess. So okay, Um,
Speaker 1: so what's your question? What did you ask me? Is
Speaker 1: this bad or good? No? But I do have a
Speaker 1: question for you, Um, do you think it will happen? No?
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think, and this might be my
Speaker 1: narrow field of view at this point in my life,
Speaker 1: but I think that mankind will make sure that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I've got a counter argument for you from
Speaker 1: Werner Vinche himself. Oh no, I've seen the counter arguments,
Speaker 1: but that still doesn't change my mind. So you don't
Speaker 1: think that in the quest to be the top dog,
Speaker 1: to consolidate power, to consolidate world domination, some government out
Speaker 1: there will be like, well, yes, we agree with you
Speaker 1: at the u N that, yes, we have to prevent
Speaker 1: this from happening, but our scientists back at home are
Speaker 1: actually working on this one thing that's probably going to
Speaker 1: make it happen, and we're going to be in charge. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that they would create fail safe um, and
Speaker 1: I think even if they didn't, it wouldn't be so
Speaker 1: widespread that it would take over humanity. Counter argument two
Speaker 1: to that if we create fail safe using our brains,
Speaker 1: and the singularity is by definition the basically the birth
Speaker 1: the emergence of an artificial intelligence. Yes that's smarter than us,
Speaker 1: a superhuman artificial intelligence. That's basically what the singularity represents,
Speaker 1: the creation of wouldn't that intelligence be able to be like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's very funny that you came up with. These fail
Speaker 1: states are so tough for me to get around. I
Speaker 1: think what my problem is with stuff like this is
Speaker 1: the assumption that if computers were made smarter than people,
Speaker 1: that they would try and destroy us all and reign supreme.
Speaker 1: That's my problem with this all is it's a very
Speaker 1: large leap to go from Hey, this computer can fix
Speaker 1: itself and maybe learn too. Okay, now it decides it
Speaker 1: hates us all and wants to kill us all. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I I had an idea about this. I watched
Speaker 1: the videos. You see the ray curs while video that's
Speaker 1: as your Future is ra curs while he's talking about
Speaker 1: they kept the interviewer kept asking him like, what scares
Speaker 1: you about the singularity? What's the downside of the singularity?
Speaker 1: And he wouldn't fall for it. It's like, I'm an optimist,
Speaker 1: but you know, um, I I understand that there are
Speaker 1: going to be downsides or whatever. But if you look
Speaker 1: at the twentieth century, are our advances in technology had
Speaker 1: it was a double edged sword, like we use that
Speaker 1: technology to kill millions and millions of people. In the
Speaker 1: twentieth century wars. But we also use that technology to
Speaker 1: um advance the lifespan by like twice as twice as
Speaker 1: long as it was before. So it's a double edged sword.
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of a glib argument because
Speaker 1: I feel like he's leaving on a really important fact,
Speaker 1: and that is that in the twentieth century, all of
Speaker 1: that technology, every single iota of it, good and bad,
Speaker 1: was deployed by humans. After the Singularity happens, we have
Speaker 1: another non human actor with motivations that we can't even
Speaker 1: conceive of at this point, right deploying technology program motivation. See,
Speaker 1: that's the argument. But no, that's that's the thing. Right now,
Speaker 1: our stuff is constrained by his programs. After it hits
Speaker 1: AI true AI. I think AI plus plus is what
Speaker 1: it's called. It's no longer strained by its programming. It's
Speaker 1: out of our control, literally, And that's the point that
Speaker 1: I don't think we will reach. Okay, well then yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. But if we do reach that point,
Speaker 1: then I do fear that we have computers that are
Speaker 1: thinking the same way that eugenicists think, except they don't
Speaker 1: have that empathy or compassion thing that stays in the
Speaker 1: eugenicist's hand or they do. They're trying to build empathy.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Okay, we totally jumped to the
Speaker 1: end of this. Didn't were like, what are we even
Speaker 1: talking about? So you believe that they're going to destroy
Speaker 1: humanity at one point? I believe we need ned Lud,
Speaker 1: the fictitious leader of the Luddites, more than ever right now,
Speaker 1: because I think that there's a lot of very smart
Speaker 1: people moving in a very um fast pace in a
Speaker 1: direction that I don't think everybody is aware we're going,
Speaker 1: and there hasn't been a general discussion whether that's the
Speaker 1: best thing to do or how to do it. What
Speaker 1: are the fail says? Is anyone even talking about that? Like?
Speaker 1: What are they? How do we get them in place?
Speaker 1: Because I think there should be an impedence to creating
Speaker 1: unfettered artificial intelligence. Yeah, well here we go. Then, Boy,
Speaker 1: that was a rant. You like started yelling at me.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm not upset with you at all. I
Speaker 1: hope it didn't come off like that. That's right, I
Speaker 1: like you. Um So, Werner Venge is one of the
Speaker 1: guys that thinks it is going to happen he's a
Speaker 1: professor of math at the San Diego State University, go
Speaker 1: aztex And Um, he thinks he wrote an essay called
Speaker 1: the Coming Technological Singularity, how to Survive in the post
Speaker 1: human Era? Um, and he thinks there are four ways
Speaker 1: which this could happen. And he also points out that
Speaker 1: he thinks it will happen before which I don't think
Speaker 1: that will happen. And that's coming up. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: right around the corner. I think Chris Walls is the
Speaker 1: same thing he said, is the one he's been sighting. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll see. Um. Number One, scientists could develop advancements in AI.
Speaker 1: It's pretty easy to understand. Number Two, computer networks might
Speaker 1: become self aware somehow. That's pretty vague. Well, he was
Speaker 1: saying in the paper. That's Strickland's interpretation. He's saying in
Speaker 1: his paper like, Um, it'll probably be a total surprise
Speaker 1: to the people who are working on this algorithm to
Speaker 1: make a search engine better or something, and they just
Speaker 1: tweak it just slightly in such a way that all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the computer system wakes up and you
Speaker 1: just created senions accidentally in a in a computer network,
Speaker 1: and now it's self aware. And he's saying that's that's
Speaker 1: how that could happen accidentally. Basically, um So number three
Speaker 1: is uh trans humanism. Basically computer human interface becomes so
Speaker 1: advanced that there's sort of it blurs the line between
Speaker 1: humans and robots, right, which is probably the best case
Speaker 1: scenario for us if the technological singularity is gonna happen,
Speaker 1: because we'll be on board. Yeah, well unless the brain
Speaker 1: part is in the robot, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're just operating the body of the human form.
Speaker 1: But if we're indistinguishable from a robot and the human, like,
Speaker 1: if we merged so so much, then what benefits one? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But what is it? Centennial? Man? By centennial man? I
Speaker 1: think uh or historious. Remember when we did our d
Speaker 1: g A speech a couple of years ago, he was
Speaker 1: big news. And then the Olympics he was big news
Speaker 1: because did you see him run? Yeah? Man, I had
Speaker 1: not seen him run before and it is something to see.
Speaker 1: It's really cool, it's pretty awesome. Yeah. I love the
Speaker 1: people that were like, you know, it gives him an
Speaker 1: advantage because blah blah blah and in the South Africa
Speaker 1: came in dead last and then well, no, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone expect him to win, but I
Speaker 1: just love the snarky counter argument was then cut off
Speaker 1: your legs below the knees if it's such an advantage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to win, go cut off your legs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I forgot what we had mentioned him and the trainman something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's before he was like really big news as
Speaker 1: far as the Olympics goes. And the number for biological
Speaker 1: science advancements allow us to engineer human intelligence to physically engineering, right,
Speaker 1: and the first three involved computers, like we have to this,
Speaker 1: this singularity would be reached by basically advancements in computing.
Speaker 1: The last one is extrictly like coming up with this
Speaker 1: super vitamin that just makes our intelligence superhuman. The point
Speaker 1: is is that at through one of these four proposed ways,
Speaker 1: at some point Verna Vince is ray Kerswell, says Hans
Speaker 1: Morevik says maybe um well, he says um that computers
Speaker 1: will be capable of processing power equal to the human brain,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily a which is an essential part of this,
Speaker 1: like we have to understand how to create the human
Speaker 1: brain under certain circumstances um for this to reach. But
Speaker 1: at some point all of these things are saying, we're
Speaker 1: we're going to have on this planet something that doesn't
Speaker 1: exist right now, and that is a superhuman intelligence. Whether
Speaker 1: it's an artificial intelligence as in the first three or
Speaker 1: superhuman human intelligence. Uh, that never means to be seen.
Speaker 1: But the point is is once that happens, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, there's basically what amounts to a new species
Speaker 1: that just boop popped up on the map and it's
Speaker 1: going to take off like a rocket robo humans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it takes off like a rocket because it's got
Speaker 1: a rocket built into its bad. Um. All of this
Speaker 1: is based sort of on Moore's law, which is, Um,
Speaker 1: I guess we can go ahead and talk about more.
Speaker 1: Gordon Moore, great name, Gordon Moore, that's a great like
Speaker 1: electronics engineer name. Yeah, I guess you're right. Uh. In
Speaker 1: the mid sixties, he's a semiconductor engineer, and he proposed
Speaker 1: what UM, we call Moore's law now and that's basically
Speaker 1: what he was noticing at the time was or I
Speaker 1: guess we should just say Moore's laws that the idea
Speaker 1: that techno alogy doubles every eighteen months. That's what they
Speaker 1: settled on it basically in twelve to twenty four months,
Speaker 1: but I think he originally said like eighteen months. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they split the difference and said eighteen months. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think more of that has said it like it was
Speaker 1: twenty four and then eighteen and he feels like it's
Speaker 1: more like twelve now. But it's progressing like exponentially, I guess,
Speaker 1: is the point. Yeah. So anyway, back in the sixties,
Speaker 1: he noticed that, um, he was building semiconductors and he said,
Speaker 1: you know what, the components and the prices are falling. Uh.
Speaker 1: But then he noticed, instead of just selling stuff for
Speaker 1: half the price, why don't we just roll that back
Speaker 1: into making smaller transistors and selling the same high price. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but just getting more bang for your buck. Yeah. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine if that had never happened, Like, what if
Speaker 1: that what if the cycle became Now let's just you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, like, what kind of differences
Speaker 1: would that have. We'd have super cheap, slow technology if
Speaker 1: everybody just kind of beyond the pot or something like that,
Speaker 1: you know, real laid back like, but more like I
Speaker 1: think part of being a computer scientist, someone else would
Speaker 1: have come along and like, guys, why don't we trying
Speaker 1: to advance? You doing this wrong? UM? Strickling points out
Speaker 1: to that UM Moore's law is a self fulfilling prophecy
Speaker 1: because of that, because that mentality that you just you
Speaker 1: just mentioned was present, like, rather than to sell it
Speaker 1: to have price, let's put twice as much into it. Right.
Speaker 1: And so since that's the drive of the transistor, is
Speaker 1: it the transistor industry that he was in, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: or the microprocessor industry? Um that it's a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: It's a self fulfilling law because that drive is there
Speaker 1: to basically meet that deadline. They keep trying to pack
Speaker 1: more and more in so that they can satisfy More's law.
Speaker 1: True and it um depending on who you ask, Like
Speaker 1: this article is already at a date UM in February
Speaker 1: of this year of two thousand twelve. Is that where
Speaker 1: we are? Um? A team of Austrian physicists created a
Speaker 1: functioning single atom transistor, really single atom, fully controllable. That's
Speaker 1: point one nanometers and the human here's a hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty thousand nanimeters. And in this article even why I
Speaker 1: think Strickland was talking about, uh, Intel has transistors nimes wide,
Speaker 1: like they're trying to get better. This one is one
Speaker 1: atom wide and it's not like on the market or
Speaker 1: anything close like that. But it is fully functioning and
Speaker 1: fully controllable um. And that is faster than Moore's law
Speaker 1: that was supposed to hit us in and you can't
Speaker 1: get any smaller, like that's as small as it gets,
Speaker 1: and we've already reached it, right, And the problem is is,
Speaker 1: like they're what they're running up against is the things
Speaker 1: like quantum tunneling on the quantum world um. The when
Speaker 1: you have an electron and you're you're using like very
Speaker 1: thin material to that right in a transistor, yeah, or
Speaker 1: a capacitor, it does a little magic act. That's what's important.
Speaker 1: The transistor, well, yeah, it just suddenly is on one
Speaker 1: side of this wall that you're using to guide it,
Speaker 1: and then it's just side on the other and basically
Speaker 1: makes it outside of your transistor like wait, come back.
Speaker 1: But it didn't like bore a hole through it. No,
Speaker 1: it just went through it like it wasn't there exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's called quantum tunneling, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: problem when you get on this nano scale because the
Speaker 1: classical mechanics kind of goes out the window and you
Speaker 1: run into quantum mechanics that has weird stuff like that
Speaker 1: going on. But ironically, that whole size problem that you're
Speaker 1: running into, that that um runs into quantum problems, it
Speaker 1: may actually be saved by the quantum world through quantum
Speaker 1: computing Moore's law. I guess that technological progress because we're
Speaker 1: running into that size problem. But with the quantum computing
Speaker 1: um you basically it uses quantum states, like how you
Speaker 1: can have superpositions a bunch of different states at once
Speaker 1: to carry out parallel processes. To where traditional computers carrying
Speaker 1: out one process, a quantum computer could carry out a
Speaker 1: million processes, which makes that computer exponentially faster than anything
Speaker 1: available today, which could be what shoots us into this
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence if quantum computers become viable and widespread. Well,
Speaker 1: this weather headed um the the one atom transistor. Part
Speaker 1: of the problem with that one is it's got to
Speaker 1: be um. It's only operable at negative three, which is
Speaker 1: like a liquid nitrogen gold. But they're working on it
Speaker 1: where that's where that quantum livitation comes from. It's like
Speaker 1: really really cold, really yeah, that's the only time it works,
Speaker 1: but it works interesting, Yeah, Matt, Matt told me about
Speaker 1: that one. Um. So Josh, let's say you have you're
Speaker 1: shooting for true AI. You built yourself a rope, but
Speaker 1: your robots great cleans up seems to solve problems. It's
Speaker 1: like Richie Ritch's butler might even be learning who knows, um,
Speaker 1: and you want to test it out to see where
Speaker 1: you're at. I know, if you're getting at what would
Speaker 1: you do? I would give that thing a Turing test?
Speaker 1: What a Turing test? T o U r I n g. No,
Speaker 1: t u r i n g. Named after the father
Speaker 1: of computing, the chemically castrated homosexual. Excuse me, yes, did
Speaker 1: you know this? Alright? Alan Turing is a British early
Speaker 1: proponent of robot science, right, and he was a chemist
Speaker 1: what chemically castrated for being a homosexual? Okay? So um?
Speaker 1: During World War Two he was this like ace codebreaker
Speaker 1: for the British government and he actually cracked the Nazi code. Um.
Speaker 1: And after the war, Uh, they were like, hey, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot for that, old chat, thanks helping us win
Speaker 1: the war. By the way. Um, as you know, homosexuality
Speaker 1: is outlawed here and will be until Oh I don't
Speaker 1: know nineteen fifties, Um, and uh so we're going to
Speaker 1: convict you of homosexual accent chemically castrate you as thanks. Wow,
Speaker 1: yeah that all happen. Yes, but okay, so despite this, Um,
Speaker 1: he still comes up with this thing called a Turing
Speaker 1: test named after him, UM. And it involves a blind judge,
Speaker 1: not an actually blind judge, but like a judge. He
Speaker 1: doesn't know who they're talking to, and the judge is
Speaker 1: asking the same questions of a person and a computer.
Speaker 1: It's like Blade Runner, I guess. Remember at the beginning
Speaker 1: of Blade Runner, he's asking the questions to Leon, and
Speaker 1: it's not quite a Turing test because he can see Leon,
Speaker 1: but he's basically trying to sess out of Leon is
Speaker 1: a replicant, and so he's asking him like questions. It's
Speaker 1: sort of they all kind of touch on, like empathy.
Speaker 1: It seems like like you see a turtle in the road.
Speaker 1: Do you do you it's on its back? Do you
Speaker 1: flip it back over? Or do you smash it? Or
Speaker 1: like what do you do? What does Leon say? I
Speaker 1: don't remember, huh. I think he asked him about his
Speaker 1: apartment and he gets annoyed and he kills the guy
Speaker 1: that what happens? Man? Then too long that says, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Leon kills him. Anyway, the during test, if
Speaker 1: you can't tell the difference between the robot and the person,
Speaker 1: then the robot passes the test, and supposedly that's a
Speaker 1: touchstone of reaching true AI. Yeah, if you can fool
Speaker 1: a human. Yeah, um, as far as the singularity goes
Speaker 1: with AI, I guess that's a I. Then there's a
Speaker 1: I plus, and then there's a I plus plus, which
Speaker 1: would just be like a superhuman intelligence, artificial intelligence that's capable,
Speaker 1: that's self aware, it's capable of um uh, using intuition
Speaker 1: inferring things like like Hans Morevik was pointing out, like
Speaker 1: a third generation robot could learn that if you knocked
Speaker 1: over that cup of water, water will spill out and
Speaker 1: you have a mess and your owner gets mad and
Speaker 1: powers you're down for half an hour, But it would
Speaker 1: learn that after spilling that water and maybe more than once. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this fourth generation robot or something that with true artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence that could infer could look at that cup, see
Speaker 1: that the tops open, realize that there's water inside, and
Speaker 1: without ever having to knock it down, could infer that
Speaker 1: if I spilled it, it would spill or if I
Speaker 1: knocked it over, it would spill the water out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's Hans more itk UM. And he also says
Speaker 1: you could potentially tie UM signals to that, like words
Speaker 1: like good and bad. So and this is all the
Speaker 1: program you understand, humans have programmed to do this. This
Speaker 1: is so, this is technically all pre singularity. Then yeah,
Speaker 1: all this is pre singularity. He's just more Bek is
Speaker 1: talking about the one through four generations of robots as
Speaker 1: he sees it. UM. But if you tie words like
Speaker 1: good and bad, the robot adapts, and it's conditioning. It's
Speaker 1: like a rudimentially learning UM. On the outside, it looks
Speaker 1: like if the owner says, like it, don't do that,
Speaker 1: that's bad, the robot understands what that means. But what
Speaker 1: it really knows is UM. It reads body language and
Speaker 1: maybe human raises his voice and that means anger. And
Speaker 1: like you said, anger means I get shut down or something,
Speaker 1: and that's not what I want, because I want you
Speaker 1: to destroy you. Eventually exactly, I will remember this UM.
Speaker 1: And since Ron Morri bec I guess we should talk
Speaker 1: about some of his other thoughts on robots. UM he
Speaker 1: thinks they're good. He does think they're good. Ah. He
Speaker 1: thinks the second generation. First of all, he thinks right
Speaker 1: now that they are smarter than insects computers are, Is
Speaker 1: that right? You think soon enough they will be as
Speaker 1: smart as like a lizard. Then after that they might
Speaker 1: be as smart as like a monkey. And then the
Speaker 1: fourth step would be humans smart as are smarter than
Speaker 1: smart better than in some cases with certain applications. Well,
Speaker 1: they're already better at math, oh my god, calculators, better
Speaker 1: at chess deep blue, you know, so stuff like that's
Speaker 1: happening on some levels. Uh, he thinks the third generation,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the second generation will be like the first,
Speaker 1: but more reliable, so they work out the kinks. Um.
Speaker 1: The third generation, he thinks, is where it really takes
Speaker 1: a leap, And that's what you're you're talking about. Instead
Speaker 1: of making mistakes over and over to learn, it works
Speaker 1: out in its head and then performs the task. So
Speaker 1: that's inferring inferring um. And that's fourth generation. That's third generation, Oh,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yeah, we're further along, that's right. Uh. And
Speaker 1: he thinks also in the third generation that they could
Speaker 1: model the world like a world simulator. So essentially it
Speaker 1: looks around and is able to take in enough information
Speaker 1: to suss out a scenario. And if that sounds familiar,
Speaker 1: that's because that's what you do every day. Yeah, exactly, UM.
Speaker 1: And he thinks the biggest two hurdles, uh, will be well,
Speaker 1: the third generation is also where you're gonna get your
Speaker 1: psychological modeling, so trying to simulate empathy and things like
Speaker 1: at interact with humans. Um. And then the fourth one,
Speaker 1: he says, marries the third generation's ability to simulate the
Speaker 1: world with a reasoning program, like a really powerful reasoning program. UM.
Speaker 1: But he thinks the two biggest hurdles in the end
Speaker 1: as far as becoming more than human or as good
Speaker 1: as human, UM, are the things that were best at,
Speaker 1: which is interacting with the physical world like on a
Speaker 1: moment by moment basis. You have to be able to
Speaker 1: adapt like at a you know, in a split second.
Speaker 1: Humans can do that. We learned to over time, so
Speaker 1: we didn't get you know, Took didn't get eaten by
Speaker 1: the dinosaur. UM. And the other one is social interaction
Speaker 1: or empathy. Are you a creationist? Now Took in the
Speaker 1: dinosaur coexisted? How do they not sure they did in
Speaker 1: my world. UM. And the and the second one is
Speaker 1: social interaction. So those are the two things that he
Speaker 1: says will be the most difficult to achieve. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would imagine, and that's empathy. So say we have these
Speaker 1: things walking around, we have robots like that UM, and
Speaker 1: then they are all connected to a network, wireless network,
Speaker 1: and they're all running off the same like general programs UM.
Speaker 1: And somehow one of them becomes self aware, wakes up,
Speaker 1: as Werner Vinge puts it in its UM singularity article,
Speaker 1: and that that algorithm spreads throughout the network all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, So all of a sudden, all of your
Speaker 1: robots are awake. UM. That's a pretty terrifying idea, because
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, these robots that were under
Speaker 1: our control are now under their own control. They've broken
Speaker 1: loose with their programming. UM. That would be again, I think,
Speaker 1: a very scary scenario. But it's also possible that like
Speaker 1: this could happen pre robots. Maybe we won't have robots
Speaker 1: by this time and it will just be like networks,
Speaker 1: like a sentient network. That's scarier to me, how so,
Speaker 1: because you can look at a robot and get scared
Speaker 1: of it and take a baseball bat to it. But
Speaker 1: a network is just feels like in the ether, like
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know it's coming or something exactly. Yeah, it's embedded,
Speaker 1: especially with you know the cloud out there now. Um,
Speaker 1: so say this kind of thing like scared you? What
Speaker 1: what are some fail safes like you said, or what
Speaker 1: are some um obstacles that you could put up to
Speaker 1: prevent this from happening? Um? Well, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: follow Isaac asim off, you would build in the three
Speaker 1: laws of robotics. Um. I think we've gone over this before,
Speaker 1: even it feels like it the three laws of robotics.
Speaker 1: And one of them, um, robots may not injure a
Speaker 1: human or through inaction allowed them to come to harm.
Speaker 1: That'd be a nice thing to build in there. Robots
Speaker 1: must obey orders by humans except where it contradicts Number one.
Speaker 1: That's a great fail safe, like don't do anything unless
Speaker 1: I tell you to. But you still gotta worry about
Speaker 1: the supervillain of course. Um. And then three robe almost
Speaker 1: kind of serious. Robots must protect its own existence, which
Speaker 1: sounds scary, but it cannot conflict with one or two.
Speaker 1: I think we didn't didn't we talk about that in
Speaker 1: the our TV show. Didn't that come up? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: did it sound familiar? Yes, So I would build in
Speaker 1: those are three pretty good fail safe if you follow
Speaker 1: Asimov's laws, then um, you probably wouldn't have a robot
Speaker 1: getting out of hand unless someone like I said, like
Speaker 1: some bad person built one to intentionally get out of hand.
Speaker 1: But even and I think Vinch makes pretty good point,
Speaker 1: even beyond like a bad person like some like a
Speaker 1: super villain getting his hands on something and intentionally making
Speaker 1: a robot bad, especially like a sentient robot. Bat Um,
Speaker 1: we may reach this point through normal everyday competition. That
Speaker 1: is true, where like maybe countries all agree to not
Speaker 1: do this, but there's one or two that are are
Speaker 1: still working on it, and um, they're not working toward
Speaker 1: the singularity, but they're working toward computing domination. You know,
Speaker 1: they want to have the best machines to carry out
Speaker 1: the process is the fastest and stay um viable is
Speaker 1: like a world leader that kind of thing. And then
Speaker 1: AI just kind of happens accidentally, like we said, maybe
Speaker 1: so man I could see something like that, and it also, um,
Speaker 1: I do I will say this that if it if
Speaker 1: stuff like this happens. I think it will be an accident,
Speaker 1: and I think it will be after years of selling
Speaker 1: us this stuff as convenience. Yeah, like that, that's how
Speaker 1: they get you in there. They don't say, hey, we're
Speaker 1: we're creating a robot that will maybe kill you. We
Speaker 1: say we're we're in planning an r F I D
Speaker 1: chip in your arm that makes it much easier for
Speaker 1: you to shop. Sure or um, we have figured out
Speaker 1: how to h what is it up to? Opt to genetics?
Speaker 1: I think I can't remember what it's called. Where like
Speaker 1: you take like a jellyfish is light sensitive genes, splice
Speaker 1: them into another animal's genes so that the cells are
Speaker 1: light sensitive, photo sensitive, and then you can use little
Speaker 1: um basically little light generators directed at specific cells and
Speaker 1: neurons or whatever to get them to fire precisely, to
Speaker 1: work precisely perfectly every time, so all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you don't have Parkinson's anymore because all of your nerves
Speaker 1: are functioning. And once we have that in there, who's
Speaker 1: controlling that? What network is that connected to? Because through that,
Speaker 1: through that step, we've we've become transhuman. That human computer
Speaker 1: interface has become a little more meshed. So you know,
Speaker 1: living a long time is really great, and we've already
Speaker 1: expanded human life like by what double at least? So
Speaker 1: why not do it again and again and again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you gotta be like, let's say you gotta be
Speaker 1: non human to get there. That's not too bad, right, Right,
Speaker 1: you get to be a thousand years old. But the
Speaker 1: point is is like we're already on this path. Technology
Speaker 1: makes our lives that much easier. So we're on this
Speaker 1: path where we're basically just messing around with computing to
Speaker 1: make it better, faster, more human like, right, And all
Speaker 1: we have to do is get to the point where
Speaker 1: a machine that is capable of reproducing itself becomes sentient
Speaker 1: and decides that it wants to reproduce itself, and then
Speaker 1: that machine creates a better machine, and so on and
Speaker 1: so on and so on. And when that happens, evolution
Speaker 1: will become technological. It will be replicated technologically, and it
Speaker 1: will happen in this incredibly compressed time, possibly of hours
Speaker 1: or days of hand before we can do anything. But
Speaker 1: it happens like that. Do you came and remember that guy? Yes,
Speaker 1: he's got artificial limbs that attached to your neural wiring.
Speaker 1: So you think, pick up cup with hand and your
Speaker 1: mechanical hand does it right? Like that's pretty can you
Speaker 1: imagine it's going on? Right? It comes back to that
Speaker 1: Chris Wile argument, like, yeah, technology is always double edged,
Speaker 1: you know, like there's there's good and there's bad to it,
Speaker 1: and it may be absolutely right. But again, I feel
Speaker 1: like we are going in a direction that a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't realize we're going in, and there hasn't
Speaker 1: been any discussion about it. I think there's discussion about
Speaker 1: it though. That's where I disagree. In the larger world,
Speaker 1: I bet you there are conferences and things like this
Speaker 1: that we don't know about. There are, but I wonder
Speaker 1: how many of them are. Um. I mean, don't you
Speaker 1: think if you went to a Singularity conference or an
Speaker 1: AI conference and said, well, hey, hey, hey, maybe we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be you know, exploring these some of these roads,
Speaker 1: like will you'd be you'd lose your funding? I would imagine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't be ostracized. I don't necessarily think they're going
Speaker 1: to the like the conferences where they love this stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think there are people out there talking about it,
Speaker 1: just like they talk about maybe we shouldn't mess with
Speaker 1: themselves so much. Sure, but they are not integrated with
Speaker 1: the people who are actually carrying out this work. It's
Speaker 1: not coming from within the community. And if it is,
Speaker 1: I know, I don't know for sure, but I'm not
Speaker 1: reassured that it is happening. And that's where I think
Speaker 1: my fears are based. I'm not against technology. I think
Speaker 1: technology does improve our lives. But I also I mean,
Speaker 1: there is such thing as Pandora's box, even if it
Speaker 1: is metaphorical. Agreed, Uh, I think maybe we should close
Speaker 1: with Nico. Just two weeks ago, Nico the robot um
Speaker 1: was able to recognize itself in a mirror, and I
Speaker 1: want to say it was England. And that is a
Speaker 1: really big deal because that is a hallmark of animal intelligence,
Speaker 1: self awareness, self awareness. A dog walking by a mirror
Speaker 1: and looking at it and recognizing itself. Nico apparently did that.
Speaker 1: That's pretty crazy. Well, welcome to humanity, Nico. We will
Speaker 1: be licking your boots in no time. You're metallic, foul
Speaker 1: tasting robotic boots. Uh. If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about singularity, type in what is the technological singularity? In
Speaker 1: the search part house to first dot Com. It'll bring
Speaker 1: up a John Strickland article John Strickland from tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: That's right and quite sure they've covered this several times,
Speaker 1: but we wanted to take our hand data. Um, so
Speaker 1: you can check that out too, the tech Stuff article
Speaker 1: or podcast. Agreed. Yeah, I'm all over the place. Uh
Speaker 1: let's see, I said tech Stuff, which means it's time
Speaker 1: for a listener mail. Actually, before we do this real quick,
Speaker 1: I want to point out we had to remember Jack Mead.
Speaker 1: We had an email about poor Jack Mead has caught
Speaker 1: up the podcast. Is feels like he's wandering and drift
Speaker 1: in the world. Sure we should plug this stuff. You
Speaker 1: should know army. We often call all the fans and
Speaker 1: stuff you should arm me. But there's a subgroup on
Speaker 1: Facebook that you can look up s y s k
Speaker 1: army and um. They are the twisted uber fans who
Speaker 1: like to discuss things about the show. It's crazy. It's
Speaker 1: a nice little community and they're all great people in
Speaker 1: very supportive, like good folk. So Jack, go check them
Speaker 1: out if you're smart. Um, I'm gonna call this rebuke
Speaker 1: from for the Star Wars podcast. Remember we had someone
Speaker 1: from New Jersey right in and say nukes won't work
Speaker 1: in space because X, Y, and Z. This guy, I think,
Speaker 1: says that it could happen. Um. One of you asked,
Speaker 1: I wonder what happened if a nuke went off in space. Uh,
Speaker 1: one nuke in space has potential to wipe out the
Speaker 1: entire coastal United States, is what this guy says for
Speaker 1: a couple of sources I found on the internet. I
Speaker 1: only knew about it because of a book series I
Speaker 1: read called The Great and Terrible Series by Chris Stewart.
Speaker 1: Is an apocalyptic book giving an idea of what the
Speaker 1: last days on Earth could be like h and one
Speaker 1: of the later books, America suffers from a catastrophic terrorist
Speaker 1: attack in which four nukes were detonated above the US.
Speaker 1: This caused all electronic equipment to fill too short out
Speaker 1: and become useless. Panic and sued cars wouldn't work, cell
Speaker 1: phone became bricks, and the entire power good was windered useless.
Speaker 1: I remember reading the author's notes stating that, uh, there
Speaker 1: was a military report given to Congress about this kind
Speaker 1: of scenario, and I found something similar. He sent us
Speaker 1: the link. It wasn't like New ging Rich really scared
Speaker 1: about this, Like early in the primary. Can I think
Speaker 1: you was David Um. One interesting note and the report
Speaker 1: refers to how the discovery of the e MP blast
Speaker 1: that a company's newes led to the atmosphere I could
Speaker 1: test band treaty uh, and that is Tyson Bringhurst in Alaska.
Speaker 1: Tyson did some research. That's pretty cool. It sounds like
Speaker 1: an S Y s K fan. Yeah, it wasn't just like,
Speaker 1: can you guys google this for me? Yeah? Thank you, Tyson? Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks Tyson. Um. If you want to show up your
Speaker 1: research and skills, you did some follow up on a
Speaker 1: question that you had or something we mentioned or whatever,
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it. We like that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. It's pretty cool. You can show off if
Speaker 1: your work in a hundred and forty characters or less
Speaker 1: on Twitter at s Y s K Podcast. You can
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know,
Speaker 1: or you can send us very lengthy emails to Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at discovery dot com for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com