WEBVTT - Ep126 "Does science fiction shape reality?" with Bethanie Maples 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:10.240 How is science fiction like a cultural research and development lab. 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:15.640 Will we someday have AI agents that live inside robot bodies? 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.840 And will we be liable if they commit murder? What 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:25.439 happens when reality itself is no longer verifiable? How do 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:30.240 we create AI agents that guide us towards survival and 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:34.879 self actualization, not just profit or distraction? And what is 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:39.159 the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer? This week we talk with 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:43.599 researcher Bethany Maples about science fiction and how it might 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.560 prepare us to wrestle with the deepest human questions about 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:55.800 AI and identity and the future of humanity. Welcome to 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.120 Innercosmos with me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and author 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.560 at Stanford and in these episodes we sail deeply into 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:06.920 our three pound universe to understand the hidden forces that 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:28.480 shape our lives. Today, we're going to talk about science fiction. 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.920 So imagine this. It's nineteen sixty six and you're watching 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.759 Star Trek on the television, one of those cathode ray 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:41.000 tube televisions with a bubble screen. Anyway, what you're looking 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.000 at is Captain Kirk and Spock, and they're interacting with 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:49.440 a cool looking machine. It's a thin slab of glass 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:54.600 and metal that can display anything, including a person at 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.080 a distance talking to a camera. It's like a telephone call, 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.680 but you can actually see the other person. Now, for 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:05.520 the audience in nineteen sixty six, this is science fiction. 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.960 It's pure fantasy. But for a generation of engineers and 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.440 inventors who are just growing up and tuning in, it 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.760 was a blueprint. Fast forward a few decades and we 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.320 all have tablets in our hands every day, and even 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.399 smaller tablets called smartphones, and we never stop to think 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.560 how fantastical this would have seemed to our great grandparents. 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.400 So that's the thing I want to explore today, because 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:37.200 quite commonly science fiction anticipates the future, or more specifically, 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.960 it lays down the tracks for it. Now, if you're 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.280 a regular listener, you know that I am a lover 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:48.840 of literature more generally, because literature expands how we see ourselves, 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:55.160 but science fiction in particular often prototypes futures. We often 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.639 think about sci fi as escapism or entertainment, but when 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.200 we look more closely, we can sometimes see it as 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:07.600 a testing ground for society's biggest hopes and deepest fears. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.600 It's the stage where we get to rehearse what might be, 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:16.120 and sometimes we end up waking up inside worlds that 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:21.240 novelists and filmmakers imagined a long time before. For example, 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:25.799 today we'll talk about Neil Stevenson's Diamond Age, which features 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.880 an intelligent self writing book that can raise the child, 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.080 or we'll talk about Spike Jones's movie Her, where a 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.960 lonely man falls in love with his AI operating system. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.360 So science fiction gives us a lens into the future 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.720 and whether or not it's a reliable oracle, which it 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.240 sometimes is and sometimes isn't. It always lets us ask 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:54.440 what if? What if your AI companion wasn't just a 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.520 distraction but an advocate for your very best self? What 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:03.120 if technolog didn't just change our tools, but changed what 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.520 it means to be human. It allows us to stretch 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.840 our brain's internal models. So that brings me to my 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.960 guest today. My colleague Bethany Maples runs an education company 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.279 called Atypical AI. I first met her when she was 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:22.280 a researcher in education at Stanford, where she studied the 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:27.119 rise of personalized AI agents like AI tutors or learning 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:31.320 companions or lovers and how these things are changing us. 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:35.640 She recently published a paper in Nature on loneliness and 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:42.120 suicide mitigation using GPT chatbots. In other words, can having 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:47.160 an AI friend actually save a life? The answer was yes. 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:50.920 Check that out in episode ninety eight now, when Bethany 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.719 first started talking about a world where a billion people 0:04:55.279 --> 0:05:01.320 might form indispensable relationships with AI agents, that certainly seemed 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.960 like far off science fiction. But it's not. It's actually 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:09.760 the present moment. And that's exactly what science fiction does. 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:14.279 It normalizes the impossible so that when it finally arrives, 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:17.800 we recognize it. So I got Bethany here again today 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.760 because she is a giant fan of science fiction. She 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.520 and I both feel that science fiction is where society's 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:29.240 write down their deepest dreams and hopes, like our longing 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:35.040 for immortality or companionship, or invisibility or mind reading or flight. 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:39.680 These are all very ancient human fantasies. They show up 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:43.320 in myths and in fairy tales. Then they get retold 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:47.920 in futuristic novels, and sooner or later they inspire the 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:51.839 labs and the startups that try to make this stuff real. 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.039 So today we pick up that thread because if you 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.839 zoom out. Science fiction has always been less about rayguns 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:03.880 and aliens and more about testing the questions of who 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.760 we are and who we might become. Here's my conversation 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:16.120 with Bethany Maples. You're a fan of science fiction. Tell 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.360 us about how you think about science fiction and how 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.039 it can be used in our current world for the 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:23.080 planning we're doing now. 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.400 You know, science fiction catches a lot of flack. 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.280 People don't think it's a deep medium, and I think 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.320 it's just like light entertainment, and that is trashy. But 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:36.440 I deeply believe that science fiction tells us about the 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:41.360 deepest dreams and hopes of society. So operating with that, 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.440 let's think about what science fiction tells us, and let's 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.120 look at history and see how much science fiction has 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.640 guided and predicted and created the technological magic that we 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:54.200 see today. 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:56.760 That's right. What's an example of that? For example, the 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.360 tablets and star Trek that became the iPad precisely. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.440 So think about that, and think about you know, the 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.040 Young Ladies illustrated primer from from the Diamond Age. 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:07.000 Great, so I've read that, But for the audience, tell 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:07.520 us about that. 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:12.000 For the audience, there's this book around this really strong 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.360 AI agent that's embodied in a book that is able 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:19.200 to take anybody, the poorous street, urchin, anybody and make 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.840 them not only you know, maybe. 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.680 Wealthy and rich, but the best possible version of. 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.560 Themselves because it tutors them, it leads into life lessons, all. 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:30.920 Of it, and it does it in this beautifully intelligent way. 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.800 It's not just mechanical and wrote. It interacts with the 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.720 real problems that's happening in their life. It's able to intercede. 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.360 It brings in characters, it brings in fairy tales. It 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.760 uses all of the things that humans use to create 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.760 meaning and teach and just using them beautifully. And of 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:49.280 course there's a human in the loop. It's not just 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.520 an AI agent. It's like combining people they actually care. 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:56.880 So that's an example of you know, the precursor book 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.040 to all of these AI tutors. Like the number of 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.360 people in Silicon Valley that have been thinking about building 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.320 the Primer and building the primer versions of it over 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:06.520 the last decade are many. 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.560 I didn't realize anyone was building something like this. I mean, 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.240 obviously the technology that we have with AI, we can 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.520 squint and see how it could become something like this. 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:20.480 You're saying, people are actually working on the Ladies Illustrated Primer, well. 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:24.280 Versions of it, right, I mean you know, I I 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.600 started thinking about this actually when I was studying neuroscience 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.120 as Stanford back and my masters. 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:31.880 I was like, what would it actually take, Like, what's. 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.160 The learning science theory, what are the sensing mechanisms, what 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.880 actual algorithms and like modules which you need? 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.320 And I mapped it up and then one of. 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.200 The most senior people Google called and said, Hey, I've 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:46.440 always wanted to build. 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:47.240 This, Come build this with me. 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:52.200 And five years later at Google AI things happened. 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.080 Wow, and remind me the Ladi's Illustrated Primer was a 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:58.800 book that she carries around it physical and she opens 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.200 it up. But remind me that the text always changes 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:03.240 the illustrations. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.880 Yeah, it's a dynamic narrative, but it also has like 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.719 you know, an accelerometer and aultimeter, like had all these 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.960 sensing mechanisms so that it could actually like interact with the 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.760 world around you. So look, a book might not be 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.520 the exact like right embodiment. Up until now, education has been, 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.920 in fact, this incredibly thin slice of learning, right you 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:24.000 go to a room and you learn, and you're not 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.640 able to connect the variety of inputs that actually makes 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.319 a life right, all the informal learning, all the social stuff, 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.400 all the peer things, like all the hormones. And imagine 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:35.240 that you were actually able to bring that all together 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.840 and have an agent that cared deeply for you and 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.280 loved you, that was guiding you through. I mean, that 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:42.079 is like the height that we're trying. 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:44.800 To get to. That's right and remembers everything you said 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.760 and doesn't have any other concerns and let your personal 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:49.560 best exactly. 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:51.640 And I think that's what is tough is we think 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.480 about AI companions, is that a lot of these AI 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.480 girlfriends and companions, they're there for entertainment. They're not there 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.040 for your personal bests. And so there's this Nirvana's day 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:02.719 or this thing that we all know that we want, 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:04.720 which is an agent that actually wants us to be 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.800 the best possible version of what we can be. But 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.520 the disconnect or the question is how do we get 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.319 that into everybody's hands. Because people are going through so 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.360 much shit, they're just trying to survive, they're poor, they're hungry, 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.760 like they don't have power, so how do you help 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:21.760 get them to a place where they can learn? And 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:26.880 at first that book that the primer just helped what's 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:31.360 her name, lil just help the protagonists survive. So as 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.119 we think about, you know, AI helping each of us individually, 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:37.080 it's not just like, hey, I'm going to be a tutor, 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.120 it's like AI that's going to help me survive. 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:41.440 So why are there more companies doing that? Right now? 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.680 We're saying we want to build an AI that is 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.600 your advocate, that just cares about you, that makes everything 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.640 about you the best that you can be. Are their 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:50.400 companies doing this? 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.360 The reason that there's not more is it's both an 0:10:53.360 --> 0:11:00.440 incredibly challenging build and people don't always want to be 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.600 the best version of what they can be. They don't 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.240 know it right, as we said before, they're just trying 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.559 to get through the day. And this is what makes 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:11.960 AI companions such an interesting entry factor because everybody needs 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.000 a friend, and if you can have an agent that 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.040 starts as your friend, it ends up being your tutor 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.280 and your advocate for your higher self. That's beautiful. But 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.920 the issue from a commercial perspective is how do you 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:22.600 monetize that? 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:26.400 Oh interesting? Oh right? Because people won't pay in advance 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:27.319 or something like that. 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:31.160 Yeah, and frankly, you get into a VC like kind 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.480 of rat hole where you know, they're like, oh, like 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:36.560 monetize now, monetize now, and you're like, no, it's a 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:40.840 trillion dollar opportunity. Let's just get people to engage. So 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:42.880 I think that more and more people are thinking about this. 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.200 I wonder if somebody in the distant future, along with 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.920 having universal basic income, the government would pay for your 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:50.760 advocate to make you the best you could be. 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:52.240 I think that they should. 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.360 But the only way that works is if the government 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:57.360 has none of that data, none of that data's tied 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.319 to your insurance or your healthcare or anything like that, 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.360 you feel completely safe. So I know that companies are 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.320 thinking about this. All the big tech companies are thinking 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:05.920 about it, and a lot of the AI labs are 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.080 thinking about it. But again, you know, there's a lot 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.040 of commercial forces at play, so doing the right thing 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.400 in the end kind of gets muddied by needing to 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:15.800 sell in the five year time frame. 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.600 So let's trace the thread back to the beginning about 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.439 science fiction. What are other examples the way that the 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.520 science fiction that you've read influences the way you think 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.120 about what we can do now. 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.080 What we can do or also like what's happening right now. 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.600 So you know, an issue that we're having in education 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.880 is deep fakes. You know, both porn deep fakes, which 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.520 is really disturbing. Students are making deep fakes of each 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.040 other and it's really disturbing for the victim, and also 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:47.600 deep fakes of teachers or deep fakes of kind of 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:48.680 any authority figure. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.479 And you see this issue. 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.880 Was taken up like decades ago in Player of Games, right, 0:12:56.080 --> 0:13:00.960 so you know, in this world, deep fakes are you know, prevalent. 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:03.199 Everything can be fake, and so the only way to 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.120 get around it is to have like certified humans that 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.200 are there in the room able to see what's going on. 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.000 And so you know what we're going to see, for example, 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.280 in education, as everybody wants to start taking these high 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.360 stakes exams online but you have all this like you know, 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.199 ability to deep fake, and you know, we're going to 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:22.760 go through an arc where they're going to try to 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:27.160 create these ubiquitous global, worldwide assessments and everybody's just going 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.080 to be like faking in. Everybody's going to be cheating, 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:31.800 and we're going to have to go back to small 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:35.320 format in the room, like one proctor is looking over 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.760 your shoulder in order to verify who's there and what's 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:39.240 going on. 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:57.240 By the way, is a side note. The thing that's 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:59.960 intrigued me about deep fakes is I've been very interest 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:01.880 in the legal system, the intersection of science and the 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.720 legal system, and everyone was worried that people would be 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.320 introducing deep fakes into the system and saying, look, I 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:10.880 see the guy who's holding the gun whatever. But in fact, 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.360 exactly the opposite has happened, which is that everyone who's 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:15.640 caught on camera now goes into the court and says 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:17.520 it's a fake. It wasn't actually me, even though it 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.320 actually was. By the way, it's intrigued to me that 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:22.560 a science fiction writer, let's say, who ever wrote a player 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:26.600 of games, could foresee a world of deep fakes, because 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:30.000 it seemed so unlikely even ten years ago that you 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:34.040 could make a convincing photograph or video of somebody, and 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:35.040 now it's so trivial. 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.400 But I mean it's been in the collective consciousness for decades. 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.080 I mean, think about the Holidacks on Star Trek, like 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:46.440 we've always dreamt of having completely immersive magical environments. 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.760 Yeah, that's right. But faking it and being able to 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.880 replicate a human and have them do something bad on 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:55.520 the camera, that's really unusual. In fact, I was just 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:57.880 thinking about the movie Total Recall, which I haven't seen 0:14:57.880 --> 0:14:59.440 since it was in the theaters a million years ago. 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:02.760 What I'm going to try to do this without giving 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.080 anything away if someone hasn't seen it. But the protagonist 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.720 thinks he's one person, and eventually he's shown a video 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.280 of himself doing these other acts and he realizes that 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:19.480 his memory has been essentially wiped and manipulated. And I thought, wow, 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.520 that movie wouldn't work now, because if you saw a 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:24.520 video of yourself doing something, you'd think, well, that's a 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:26.920 deep fake. That's not actually me. But in the movie, 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.040 that was the turning point where he realized, oh my gosh, 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.640 I used to be someone else. Yeah. So it strikes 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:36.440 me that not all authors have foreseen the possibility of 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.280 deep fakes, and a lot of plot points get thrown 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:40.480 out now that that exists. 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:41.040 It's true. 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.880 I mean, hearing you talk made me just think about, 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:48.800 you know, the issues of AI and self awareness and 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:49.680 kind of sovereignty. 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.560 So gosh, Blade runner. 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:53.120 Yeah. 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:57.160 Right, Well, everybody's worried that we're nearing actual AGI. 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.440 But even if we're not, even if we're just coming to. 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.160 A point where we're going to have really strong AI 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.800 companions and they're gonna have a ton of data and 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:10.080 they're going to persist apart from a human And I 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.440 mean next step, like next year, we're going to have 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.880 you know, covered in flesh AI robots. 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:18.880 I mean we're already seeing stuff come o. 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.800 I mean both from Asia and here where it's you know, 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.440 it's not just extra skeletons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.320 soft exteriors, right, So it is it's very Westworld so 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.560 to speak, right, and they're going to be armed, not 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:37.640 just with these you know, task based systems or goals 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:40.640 of service. Like it's so easy to put in a 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.320 companion that you know wants to be your friend or 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:44.960 wants to be a doctor, wants to be a therapist, 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:47.600 or just wants to be you out in the world. 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:51.200 And so you know, it seems far fetched, but I 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.560 tell you next year. You know, certainly within five years, 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:59.960 issues of you know, liability, agent sovereignty and like web, 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.840 they're not it's murder is going to be. 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:04.600 In the public eye. But think about this. 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.879 If you were to program your dead loved ones memories 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:13.680 into you know, an agent, you know, maybe it's just software, 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:15.639 and then you put it into an actual body and 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.440 you're able to interact with it. Think of the emotional 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:20.960 distress that will cause you some more to destroy that thing. 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:22.280 Yes, exactly. 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:24.720 You know, as soon as there was emotional distress in 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:26.480 the USA, you've got a libel suit. 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.359 Yes, quite right, although although in that case, as long 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:32.320 as you have a backup, you can just reboot it. Right. 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.800 Sure again, okay, this isn't no, this is blade Runner. Well, 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:37.080 if you don't have a backup, what do you have 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:38.639 to take it with you? What if you can't afford 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:39.119 the backup? 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:42.360 Oh right right, yeah, what if it cost an ungodly 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:46.159 amount by some vicious company that's trying to profit from it? 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.040 And so this is all science fiction. I mean, it 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:50.359 seemed far fetched and it's here now. 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:53.880 I know. That's the surprising part. Okay, So what else, 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:55.880 Because you're such a fan of science fiction, what else 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.960 have you read that seems to reflect on what's happening 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:00.520 in this in this fast moment in time. 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:05.040 Well, as I said before, I'm a huge advocate of 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:11.520 some company hopefully soon changing the dynamics around users privacy 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:15.040 and data and giving everybody basically their own data and 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:16.960 like letting the code come to them. And so my 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.400 favorite example of that heir the e Butler's from Pandora 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.399 Star right where so everybody has this incredibly strong agent 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.440 that's kind of a defense mechanism where it stores all 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.399 your data kind of locally, and then if any system 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:32.760 or service wants to interact with you, the code comes 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.720 to you and it is, you know, making sure that 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.000 all of that compute and all that service happens locally. 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.240 And I think it's so powerful and it would be 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.320 so wonderful. And of course then you've got like how 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.320 strong is your agent and it can I preprotect you 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.960 properly and all that. But to me, that's the best 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.840 example of what we really want that we're not getting 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:53.159 right now. 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.479 Fascinating. Do you see a business path to that? 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.000 I think that one of the biggest companies in the 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.560 world will eventually see the writing on the wall and 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.520 they will up in the market and upend their investors 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:05.680 and make the leap. 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:07.520 Yeah, but it will. 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:11.119 Probably be somebody that thinks that they're about to lose. Yeah, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.080 you know, so a key player that's like, Okay, we 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.000 don't have the computer or we haven't you know, we 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:19.320 see the other guys or like, you know, leaping ahead 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:21.920 because of whatever functionality or investors. 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.720 Yeah, so I have a question for you, because you're 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:26.760 such a fan of science fiction. I'm a fan of 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.120 literature more generally. I haven't read that much science fiction, 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.560 as it turns out. But for example, I heard an 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:36.560 interview with Isaac Asimov on Jonah Lerer, which was the 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.040 show on PBS a million years ago, and asm off 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.640 this was probably the eighties. He said, Look, I foresee 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:47.640 a day when every household is connected to a central 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.560 mainframe computer. Everyone has a dumb terminal in their house, 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:55.240 and this computer knows all of humankind's knowledge and you 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.119 can ask it any question you want, you can get 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:01.280 the answer. And so he essentially foresaw the Internet. But 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:03.960 what's interesting is the technical He didn't get the technology right. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:05.919 I mean, it doesn't matter, but you know, you imagine 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:08.720 these cables all going to a mainframe and so I'm 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:13.480 fascinated by the way that thinkers can foresee the direction 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:15.600 that things are going. But of course we're always limited 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.000 by the technology that we have in thinking about it. Yeah, 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:23.080 So if you thought about your science fiction bookshelf and 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:25.960 how many of the predictions were spot on versus sort 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:29.359 of kind of off but mostly right versus totally off, 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:30.560 what would you say? 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:34.199 I would say that the why and the what is 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.840 almost always correct, but the how is often wrong. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.679 Beautiful as you said, Yeah, and so what does it 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.120 mean about the why and the what? Does it mean 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.080 that the trajectory of where we're going as a species 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:48.720 is is clear enough? If you really sit and squint 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:50.720 into the future, you can sort of see the direction. 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.439 You can. You can just read any fantasy novel or 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.000 any fairy tale, like we want to fly, we want 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.200 to live forever. We want to be to read people's thoughts, 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:03.160 we want to be able to be invisible. 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:04.600 We want to you know, like. 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:08.359 All of these superpowers we are directly heading towards. 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:09.800 Yeah. 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.520 So, like think about it as an example, you know, 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:16.800 spells and the Internet of things. You know, now, through bioauthentication, 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.040 we're able to get differential access to different places and 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:21.600 different functionality and systems. 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.919 So I walk down this hallway and the door open, you. 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.080 You know, but you say abricateab and it opens. That 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:30.040 is a spell. We're going to just see more of them. 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:34.040 Yes, what's the most far fetched thing that you've read 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:36.680 in a book that you're seeing evidence for? Now? 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:39.760 Okay, this is going to be a weird one, but 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.720 hold with me. Whether or not you believe in reincarnation, 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:45.920 the desire to live forever. 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.040 Is core to who we are. 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:51.760 And there's this amazing book by Kim Stanley Robinson called 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.480