WEBVTT - Work With Me On This 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:15.280 Forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:17.880 the podcast and looks at the future and says, let's 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.239 get together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think of all that 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.400 we could share. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren voc Obama, 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:25.880 and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we wanted to talk 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:32.040 about working together, really collaborating, you know, sharing, holding hands, 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.360 holding hand I'm against it, Lauren. Lauren's not with us 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:37.839 on this one, Joe. It's just me and you against Lauren. Well, 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.319 we can hold hands and she can't. We can, that's true. 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.200 She can only hold her own all right. So and 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:45.559 by the way, Lauren can hold her own anyway. So 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.840 we're going to talk about really collaboration and the sense 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:53.920 of how collaboration is contributing to innovation and invention. And 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:56.880 this is something that's interesting to me because, for one thing, 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.920 we tend to have this kind of concept in our 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:05.280 minds about inventions are the product of a soul inventor, 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.800 a man or woman who is working feverishly and all 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:14.039 in a laboratory and suddenly shouts out eureka, and there 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:17.840 and invention is is created out of thin air. But 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:20.480 that's not really how it tends to happen. Yeah, who's 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.760 the person who invented the light bulb? Well, you know, 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:27.880 the common answer is Thomas Edison, that Thomas Yison invented 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:34.959 the incandescent lightbulb, the filament lightbulb, and that's not actually accurate. 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:36.760 First of all, there were other people who are working 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:41.000 on incandescent light bulbs before Edison was. Secondly, Edison had 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:45.640 at his disposal a multitude of engineers who were working 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:50.440 on various projects projects, including the light bulb. He actually 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.160 took something that had already existed and made improvements upon 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.560 it so that it became something viable, something that the 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:01.000 average person could actually use, as opposed to something that 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:06.480 proved the principle was was sound but wasn't actually practical. Well, 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:11.200 surely Alexander Graham Bell is solely responsible for inventing the telephone, right, No, 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:15.200 not exactly. In fact, you could also argue that not 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.520 not only was Alexander Graham Bell working on something that 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:19.960 other people were also working on, some with him and 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.840 some independently, but or before him, he was he was 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.640 building on technologies that had already existed. This is the 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:29.960 same problem you have if you say, well, who invented 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.320 the television or who invented the radio? Because as it 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:36.040 turns out, these are actually very complicated stories. You could 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.320 easily say, oh, Marconi invented the radio. I'm sorry, I 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:44.720 meant Tesla, Tesla invented the radio. Sorry Internet, But no, 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.720 neither is actually true. It turns out that these are 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:52.600 inventions that came to us because of numerous engineers and 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:58.560 scientists working on basic scientific principles that led to the 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.920 development of these technolog Yeah. I think it's almost a 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:06.040 function of the way we like to hear stories. Sure 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.400 that that gives us this way of approaching the history 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.079 of invention. Um, it's the fact that we like single 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:18.600 characters responsible for actions anti hero Furthermore, I mean, you know, 0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:21.960 it's much more interesting if if Han solo invented the telephone, 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:23.920 then if you know, I don't know, all of the 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:28.919 Empire worked together on it, Han called first. So but 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.120 also not only that, but that we'd like to have 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:33.560 stories to have a beginning, middle, and end, right, we don't. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.839 We don't like stories that have this bleed over where 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.360 you don't really have a point that you can say 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.160 this is exactly where it started and here is where 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.120 it ended. It's just not the way that history actually works, 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:48.200 but it's the way our minds tend to try and 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:52.720 file information. Yeah. I think it's actually pretty rare, if 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:57.160 not completely impossible, um to look at history and find 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.120 an example of somebody who really invent did something in 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:06.920 a vacuum that they were just this person is solely responsible. Ironically, 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.560 the vacuum is a great example of that. I'm just kidding. 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.080 I couldn't take I had to had to take the vacuum. 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.160 I honestly do not know. I just had to jump 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:20.760 in on that one. D Yes, exactly. Why do you 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.440 think it's called run by a man called Hohover? I 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.839 think Richard James was the sole inventor of the slinky, 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.000 So if that makes you feel any better, although because 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.839 springs existed before the slinky completely, no, he didn't, but 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.120 he invented what what became the slinky. You know, he 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.240 took he took something that was being used in the 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.440 navy and made a toy out of it. Certainly, I 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.760 mean there's there's usually some kind of inception of concept 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.080 that people that that an inventor or a small team 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.719 of inventors will kind of clarify and and put out 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.480 there and go like this new thing tots works. Guys. 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.599 The point we're trying to make is that mostly inventions 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:02.160 that we are relying upon today are in fact the 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:06.080 result of collaborative efforts between many people. Even if it's 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.320 it could be a formal collaboration where people are actively 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.440 working together in order to achieve something specific, or it 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.320 could be informal in the sense that someone picks up 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.080 where another person left off and continues work that way. 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.960 But really collaboration is kind of the name of the game, 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.880 or it's it's certainly becoming that way, and especially given 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.120 that say things like the Internet are letting us collaborate 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.640 more deeply and across further spaces, more and more distant 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:39.080 spaces then previously it's it's becoming a much more rich 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.920 field now, Lauren, I understand that you actually looked into 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:47.160 some interesting statistics when it comes to patents that kind 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.240 of kind of illustrates this idea, right. Yeah. According to 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.960 a patent law blog, since the nineteen seventies, the average 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.920 number of inventors that's been listed on patents has crept 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.599 up from from about one point six in nineteen seventy 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.000 two about two point five in the year two thousand 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:06.600 UM and overall, the number of one inventor patents has 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:12.400 declined from again in about sixty down to about while 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.680 the number of three plus inventor patents has risen from 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:19.839 ten to up to about So. I mean, that's only 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.000 in the US, and it's a relatively small sliver of time, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:24.440 but I still think that it's it's it's an interesting trend. 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.640 It does illustrate what we're saying here. The number of 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:30.720 patents has also been going up also, Yeah, yeah, so 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:35.080 the the sheer number is definitely increased year over year. Uh. 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.839 And we're getting to a point now where entire industries 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:43.400 are becoming multidisciplinary, meaning that there are industries that depend 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:49.000 upon contributions from people who specialize in very different fields. Now, 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:52.120 this is also a fairly recent development if you look 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.320 at all of human history, right, I mean, if you 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.120 go back just a few if you go back a 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.880 few centuries, you can get to a point where it's 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.960 feasible for a human being to reach a point where 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.839 they have learned more or less the cutting edge of 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:12.000 of of human knowledge in a specific area, or even 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.360 across a couple of areas, if you go back far enough, 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.280 like let's say, we'll go to the ancient Greeks, who 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:23.120 were pretty smart guys. Right, you get back to right, thanks, Joe. Yes, 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.119 In fact, some of the ancient Greeks were pretty smart guys. 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.239 But you can get to you your point to someone 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:34.960 like uh, Socrates or Plato or Aristotle, someone especially like Aristotle. 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.360 Aristotle was the person who ends up inspiring things like 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:44.080 logic and biology as actual areas of study. At that time, 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:46.800 you can have someone who not only is a specialist 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.640 in a particular field, but actually has a body of 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.280 knowledge that spans all fields of human knowledge. At that time, 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.920 they're basically an expert on almost everything their culture knows. Right, 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.400 and then as the cultures get more complex, as our 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.640 body of knowledge grows, and those disciplines become deeper and 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:11.040 more rich, it becomes increasingly difficult to be the master 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.160 of multiple disciplines. And today we have disciplines that are 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:19.560 so incredibly vast and deep that even to be a 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.440 master of a single discipline is covers a lot of 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.560 different specializations within that. Right, you might not you might 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.120 not find someone. I doubt you could point to anyone, 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:34.280 anyone in the world who would be the leading expert 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:37.120 on medicine. That's just too big a field you're you're 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.320 talking about, you know, I mean, you could have a 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.560 leading expert in terms of just relative placement. Maybe this 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:44.920 person knows more than anybody else. I don't know how 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.240 you know who that person is, right, but you or 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.120 someone who's a really good spokesperson and or a really 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.480 good researcher. But I'm saying looking at the top level. Off, 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.600 if you got five specialists, right, you've got someone who 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:03.600 was each oncologist, right, you know, you get you get oncology, 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.840 you get you know, pediatrics, you get all of the 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.079 different fields of medicine, the major fields of medicine together, 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.080 and you get the leading expert in each of those, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.000 and then you take the person that you think is 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.839 the leading expert in medicine overall. I guarantee you those 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.920 those people who are specialists are going to have a deeper, 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:23.760 more nuanced, uh grasp of those fields than the you know, 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.360 jack of all trades approach. Right, So you're not going 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.640 to get someone who is the leading specialist or the 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:33.480 leading expert in a huge discipline who is going to 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.800 have that same level of knowledge as someone who is specializing. 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:42.480 So multidiscipline approach is really necessary. Even within a single discipline, 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.720 you have these little subdisciplines. So if you have something 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.760 as broad as as medicine obviously, and you want to 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:52.480 tackle something like cancer, you actually are probably gonna be 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:56.040 working with a couple of different specialists, not just an oncologist, 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:01.600 but others as well, who are leading giving their expertise 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.800 to research and development of treatments. Certainly, and beyond that 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.960 you need to start considering the other societal impact factors, 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:12.840 which is a little bit of an industry pint I 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:17.000 apologize for um that that are going to affect your research, 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.840 like the laws of getting a drug out to the public, 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.440 for example. Sure, yeah, I mean obviously there's lots of 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:28.840 things to practically consider beyond just the research side. Yeah. 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.680 And one thing that's, uh, that's a big deal in 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.160 medicine today is you can't just know about the body 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.839 when you become a doctor. These days, you're you can't 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.880 just know, well, here's anatomy, here's where this organ should be, 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.400 here the symptoms of this disease, because lots of the 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.920 treatments we have involved advanced knowledge of other fields. Say 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.520 you might need to know a little bit about physics 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.760 in order to give say a radiation treatment to a 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:01.000 cancer patient, and and more things about chemistry. Sure, also 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.680 lots of drug therapies. You you really have to consider 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.400 what comorbidities they're going to cover, you know, what other organs, 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.360 what other bodily systems, what other functions they're going to affect. Yeah, 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.000 and as we get to a world where we have 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:18.439 more and more personalized medicine, obviously, then you're talking about 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:22.600 specialists who can actually understand a particular patient's needs, not 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.679 just across an entire you know, we we have doctors 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.120 who specialize in specific diseases. Now, right, We've got people 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:35.400 who are specifically devoting they're all of their work to studying, understanding, 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.840 and fighting specific diseases. We're going to get to a 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:44.000 point where we have doctors who are very much focused 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:48.160 on specific patients, to the point where the treatments given 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:52.960 to a patient are of tailored to that specific person 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.400 their biochemistry based on their genetic code exactly. You're you're 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.120 talking about, you know, having a level of specialization that 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.720 is you know, it's it's unprecedented really, and medicine is 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.680 just one example. Obviously, there are other fields that require 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:13.120 this sort of multiple, multiple discipline approach, Like I mentioned nanotechnology, 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.920 that's a big one. So nanotechnology, you have computer scientists, 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.120 you have engineers, you have biologists, you have physicists, you 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.600 have chemists, you have lots of different disciplines that are 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:28.240 interested in trying to develop this field of nanotechnology for 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.960 multiple applications, not just for you know, the medical approach. Obviously, 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.640 that would be a big one. Again, fighting cancer, we've 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.480 talked about using nanotechnology to do that, using some sort 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.959 of nanodelivery system to deliver chemotherapy drugs to specific cells 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.400 so that you can minimize any sort of side effects 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.080 that the patient would suffer. But in order to do that, 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.600 you might wind up having a human biologist working together 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.599 with a material scientist working together with a laser specialist 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.240 working together with and so on and so forth. Exactly 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.720 a lot of different fields would go into that kind research. Yeah, 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.360 if you were to depend upon one discipline to just 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:07.880 take over that, then the the progress of that field 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:13.000 would crawl. But by leveraging the expertise of multiple disciplines 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.800 and sharing that research across the disciplines. Not only do 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:21.400 you progress the industry of nanotechnology forward, but you learn 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:23.760 so much along the way. You know, we've always said 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.760 on this show, even when you failed, you still learn. Well. 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.240 In this case, you're talking about multiple disciplines researching stuff 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:32.880 to find out how to make it possible, and learning 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.640 a lot along the way that can benefit the industry 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.480 and other industries in ways that we did not foresee 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.640 when we embarked upon that research. Absolutely, um I I 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.160 know that we just kind of tried to conversationally transition 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.120 away from the field of medicine. But in the field 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:53.640 of medicine, it's there's been really interesting developments like when um, 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.560 when AIDS in the nineteen eighties became a very serious, 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.440 very huge concern. I mean, we didn't we didn't know 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.079 anything about it. We It wasn't even until four that 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:09.480 we discovered the human human immune deficiency virus, and by 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:12.960 seven a c T had been approved for use by 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.600 the f d A. This was three years. This was 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:20.000 an incredible leap in uh in drug development and research. 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.960 Before then, it would have been pretty impossible to to 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.080 have seen a clinical trial of a new drug set 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.640 up against a placebo, in a in a in a 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.400 direct ratio or um or of a new drug set 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:38.520 up against any any previous UH treatment therapy. It's you know, 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.280 people came together because they realized that this was bigger 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:48.440 than the specific monetary advancement of any given company and 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.840 um and that example has been translated out. I mean, 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.320 big pharma companies are realizing that by trying to separate 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.360 out all of their research and development teams they are 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.120 they're wasting money and time, and that overall people can 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.520 really benefit, they can benefit from coming together like that. 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.560 There's a a group of like the ten biggest pharma 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:12.160 companies basically in the world right now are are going 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.200 in on a not for profit organization called Trance seller 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.640 a Biopharma, which is is trying to standardize the field 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:23.240 of clinical research and that could lead to amazing advancements. Sure, 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:29.080 and we we've also talked before about the artificial intelligence movement, 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:35.080 this idea of developing artificially intelligent UH constructs, whether robots 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:40.440 or computers or combination whatever. UH that actually that field 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.520 also involves multiple disciplines. You would think computer science obviously 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.400 would be one, but neuroscience is certainly one that has 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.480 looked into artificial intelligence, and I think it's really important too, 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:55.160 because I think there's some futurists out there who have 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:59.160 this concept that artificial intelligence in the in the sense 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.200 of having a a machine that is, and I don't 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.600 know how you would specifically define this, but as intelligent 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.720 as a person, so that they think like a person, 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:11.480 I think is the way that they usually try and 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.640 frame this. That a computer would think in the same 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.560 way that you and I would think that that will 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.000 be We're right right on the cusp of it, you know, 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:23.760 ten to twenty years away because because of the rate 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.440 of the of development as far as computer power goes. 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:31.360 But neurologists have often pointed out that it's not just 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.280 a question of computer power, that making a machine that 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.600 is powerful enough to mimic what a human can do 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.560 is not necessarily the real barrier there. It requires a 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.320 deeper understanding of how our brains work before we can 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.360 make a machine that can mimic brains work. And interestingly enough, 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.760 by trying to make that machine, I think we might 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:57.520 learn things about how our brain works we didn't know before. Right, Yeah, 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:02.000 we've already seen scientists set up and work with neuroscientists 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:07.320 to computer scientists neuroscientists working together to build virtual models 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:12.280 of neuron neurons and neural pathways, so you know, essentially 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.320 a model of like on a very tiny scale of 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.159 a human brain to see how things like memories form 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:23.440 and how uh these pathways activate during with certain stimuli. 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:29.600 Keeping in mind that the computer virtual models are absolutely 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.720 tiny compared to the average human brain, and the time 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:37.000 scale is much longer, so you have to really scale 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.080 things in a in a wacky way to see how 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.600 it works. But it shows progress toward that. And so 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:46.320 again it's a multidiscipline kind of field where if we 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:48.400 really want to push the industry forward, if we want 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.679 to push that whole area of study forward, it's going 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.080 to require more than just computer scientists sitting down and 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:58.840 writing some new code. So uh. In in the video 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.639 episode for this week brand New special episode where I 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.000 did not appear in my nebulous white environment where I 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.560 can control everything with just a wave of my hand 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:16.320 or a certain thought, it was actually kind of a Hey, 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:18.840 you've seen the episodes, Joe. I mean if I am 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.000 in that environment, I can make stuff happen. Did you 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.399 not see. I made myself fold up like oregamy. Do 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.280 not test me on this. But for this particular episode, 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:28.399 I shot it here in the office, which was, you know, 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.359 strange and unusual for me. But uh. It also is 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.040 one of the episodes of our second season of Forward Thinking, 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.520 which kind of interrupts our first season of Forward Thinking. 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.440 That's okay, because we're good. Yeah, we're a little will 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.120 wibbly wobbly. We were actually broadcasting from the future as 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.439 we speak. But anyway, that in that I had a 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:54.240 discussion with Chuck Goulash, senior executive engineer with Toyota's Collaborative 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.840 Safety Research Center, and Toyota is a partner of Forward Thinking, 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.200 so they were able to put us in touch with them. 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:03.320 The interesting thing I found about the c s r 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.240 C is that although Toyota was the company that that 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:12.560 put that into motion, the actual research is open to everyone. 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:17.640 So it's not like they are having this collaborative effort 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:20.879 among various institutions and then Toyota is hoarding all the 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.240 information and only only the that company will benefit. Anyone 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.840 can benefit from that information, including all the collaborators. So 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.040 you have medical facilities learning more about the human body 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.639 and trauma and and how to treat it and how 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.159 to prevent it. You have engineers learning how to design 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.560 vehicles in a better way that can be shared across 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.919 an entire industry. You have governments learning what sort of 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.280 industry standards should be put in place for the next 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.560 generation of vehicles that will apply again across the board 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:53.200 to all vehicles. Um. That I think is the really 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:57.000 exciting thing about collaboration, This idea that it's not in 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.960 an effort to get ahead of some one else, it's 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:12.600 in an effort to improve things across an entire swath, industry, industry, customers, whatever. Yeah, exactly, 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.680 it's it's this idea that through this work we can 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.840 improve conditions. That's what I find really exciting about it. 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.840 So honestly, at that at that stage, you know, it 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:24.639 doesn't matter to me who it was that put it 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.640 into motion. If it means that everyone benefits, would would 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:32.040 perhaps at some point someone who helped put it into 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:35.360 motions say I deserve more credit or more money than 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.680 these other people. I don't see how that would happen, 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.840 because you're talking about research information back. Yeah, this is 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.240 this is just research that people are going to use 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.199 to make improvements. So it's not not even in the 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:50.359 in that industry specifically, but I you know, I just 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:54.480 feel like that's a potential barrier to to collaboration, this 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.560 concept of ownership of of of a concept. There there 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.680 are some barriers to collaboratetion. I mean, there's there's one 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.080 where you're wondering who's in charge, right, who ultimately is 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.199 in charge? But if you're talking about research where you 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:11.520 have a specific goal in mind, but knowing that the 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.200 research is going to uncover information that's going to benefit 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:17.159 in ways that you can't even necessarily foresee when you 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.200 get into it means that even with just that one goal, 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.040 even if that one specific goal benefits a specific party 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:28.760 more than another, ultimately everyone benefits. So that ends up 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:31.040 being kind of a non factor in the long run. 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.840 But the other obstacle that you brought up earlier, Lauren, 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.399 when we were talking about this episode beforehand, was the 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.680 idea of getting so many people involved in something. How 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:43.840 do you keep that, how do you keep that under 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:46.200 a control so that you are actually making progress and 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:48.800 you're not having you know, people of getting each other 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.560 way too many biomedical researchers and the biomedical kitchen and 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:57.320 the laboratory. That's what yeah, And I think I think 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.600 in that case, what we really need is you need 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.240 to have for whatever research facility that you you know 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:07.399 you've built h that you have a specific focus, that 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:09.520 you have a specific goal in mind that everyone is 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.600 working toward. And again, knowing that you're going to generate 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:16.320 information outside of that that will be a benefit in 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.159 some way or another is fine. But to kind of 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.960 have that that that end goal in sight, I think 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.040 helps a lot. And and all obviously, in all of 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:30.399 these collaborative relationships that we're talking about, you usually have 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.920 some sort of team leader that is in charge, which 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.480 that also helps when you actually do have a hierarchy 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:38.760 there and it's not just a free for all of 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:41.040 you know, let's throw a bunch of brilliant people into 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:43.800 a room together, and surely something amazing is going to 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.399 come out of it. Uh. That amazing thing might end 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.800 up being the scientific version of the Thunderdome, which I 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:54.880 don't argue would be amazing but not necessarily productive. Eighteen 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:59.240 scientists enter, one scientist leaves aside for entertainment purposes. I 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:01.320 bet some I bet some those research scientists could build 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:04.720 some really interesting weapons. Oh yeah, no, I mean just 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:08.400 the robot Wars alone would be exciting. But uh no, 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:11.520 seriously though, that is one of those things that's interesting 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.040 is that I don't know how many well all of 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:17.560 us here obviously have worked collaboratively. We're doing it right now. 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:21.040 We're collaborating on a podcast, but we don't have any 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:25.000 relevant knowledge or now we're not we're not actually contributing 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:27.879 to society in any meaningful way, so the pressure is off. 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:32.520 But no, seriously, though, we've all had that experience of 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:35.880 learning to give and take and collaborate with each other 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:39.359 in order to have our end goal being producing and 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.280 entertaining and informative podcast. Well, one thing I have learned 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:47.080 about collaborating with different people is that collaboration itself involves 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:49.919 a kind of expertise, like that it's a skill that 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:54.240 can be developed. Sure, And I almost wonder if between 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:57.480 different scientific disciplines, if, like we were talking about earlier, 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:00.520 in the future, you see a continuing end of just 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:04.520 more and more specialization. The more we learn about these disciplines, 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:10.320 the narrower each expert's focus gets. If collaborative projects will 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:13.080