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Speaker 1: My lodging is filled with lizards and rats, but the

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Speaker 1: architect exists, and everyone who denies it is touched with madness.

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Speaker 1: Under the guise of wisdom, consult Zoroaster and Minos and Solon,

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Speaker 1: and the martyr Socrates and the great Cicero. They all

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Speaker 1: adored a master, a judge, a father. This sublime system

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Speaker 1: is necessary to man. It is the sacred tie that

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Speaker 1: binds society, the first foundation of holy equity, the bridle

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Speaker 1: to the wicked, the hope of the just. If the

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Speaker 1: heavens stripped of his noble imprint could ever cease to

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Speaker 1: attest to his being, if God did not exist, it

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Speaker 1: would be necessary to invent him. Welcome to stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind from how Stop works dot com. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And that was Voltaire, right, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Seventeen sixty eight from his uh his poem epistle to

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Speaker 1: the author of the book The Three Impostors. In it,

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Speaker 1: he argues that belief in God is necessary to social order,

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Speaker 1: which is something that we could do a whole podcast

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Speaker 1: about that argument. Kind of an odd thing to hear

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Speaker 1: from Voltaire given his really serious criticisms of like the

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Speaker 1: existing monotheisms. Yeah, I was reading reading up on a

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Speaker 1: little bit, and yeah, it's it is interesting that here

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Speaker 1: he's kind of sticking up for God, but other times

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Speaker 1: he was very critical of abuses by the Catholic Church. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And at the same time he also carves out a

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Speaker 1: little space in this poem to attack his favorite enemies.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of like an all encompassing distract. I

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Speaker 1: guess so many great works of literature do that. I

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Speaker 1: love all of the enemy digs in Dante's Inferno, Yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because it's like some dude made him mad and he's like, well,

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Speaker 1: you're going in the ninth circle. Yes, es. Dante definitely

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Speaker 1: makes room for some personal digs in the Divine Comedy.

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Speaker 1: So obviously of that section you read, the last line

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Speaker 1: is the part that gets quoted the most right and

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Speaker 1: then often misquote. It is often used for whatever purposes

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Speaker 1: you needed for. Are you arguing that, yes, God exists

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Speaker 1: and if and if God didn't exist, we would just

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Speaker 1: have to make it up because we need God, or

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Speaker 1: you're saying, obviously we all make up gods and we're

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Speaker 1: doing it to fulfill some human need. Right. But you know,

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Speaker 1: the funny thing is, I don't know if I've ever

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Speaker 1: heard anybody really take that line literally before, yeah, to say, hey,

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Speaker 1: is there a God? Well no, there's not a god.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, we gotta invent one. Let's get on it,

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Speaker 1: start the project. And folks, I'm sorry to say, that's

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Speaker 1: where we've got to go today, into the valleys a

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Speaker 1: certain value made of a kind of semiconducting metal, maybe

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Speaker 1: where thinkers and millionaires or dreaming up gods that don't

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Speaker 1: yet exist, but but they really think maybe should soon.

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Speaker 1: I really like imagining it being laid out in a

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Speaker 1: very corporate way and saying like, all right, bye bye,

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Speaker 1: Q two, we really want to have a demigod, and

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Speaker 1: by Q three at least a minor deity build up

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Speaker 1: from there. Yeah, when are we going to get the

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Speaker 1: new Wrath functions online? So there are some very interesting

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Speaker 1: and also very tiresome debates about whether, if God exists,

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Speaker 1: you could ever prove the existence of such a being. Um,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to litigate that question today, but I

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Speaker 1: do want to start by asking a derivative question. Let's

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Speaker 1: say that instead there was suddenly in controvertible evidence that

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Speaker 1: we're in contact with some kind of superhuman intelligence and

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Speaker 1: intelligence that's not human and seems to possess kind of

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Speaker 1: a vast incomprehensible power. It can solve all the unsolved

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Speaker 1: problems in mathematics, It can make your favorite food materialize

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Speaker 1: in front of your eyes. So we're just sipulating that

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Speaker 1: that kind of being exists, and we're we're personally witnessing it.

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Speaker 1: How would you know whether it was correct to call

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Speaker 1: that being god or a god? Well? I haven't answer

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Speaker 1: to this question, but I'll let you go first. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, so one of the things is that I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of people with a more sort of

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Speaker 1: conservative religious predisposition would have a pretty simple answer to

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Speaker 1: the question, and the answer is it would be God

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Speaker 1: if it conformed the teachings of their religion, whatever they

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Speaker 1: already believed. But let's say we try to approach it

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Speaker 1: with a more kind of open minded framework, like what

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Speaker 1: generically are the qualifications of being must meet to be

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Speaker 1: considered a God or the God? All right, Well, that

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Speaker 1: that that is an excellent question. But to go back

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Speaker 1: to your original question, how would you know whether the

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Speaker 1: being was a god? I guess that's the same question, right,

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Speaker 1: just I'm trying to make it the same question. Similar questions. Okay,

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Speaker 1: but I think that the most obvious answer would be, Oh,

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Speaker 1: you'll know. I mean, because you're gonna have to ask yourself.

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Speaker 1: Does its voy all but crack your skull? Does its

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Speaker 1: presence fill you with terror and awe? Is it even

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Speaker 1: impossible to rebel against it? Puny mortal that thou art? Well,

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Speaker 1: but then that would just make God synonymous with overwhelming power. Well,

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Speaker 1: what else do you want from God? Just intelligence but

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Speaker 1: not overwhelming power? Well? Is there a difference between intelligence

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Speaker 1: and overwhelming power? Well, that's something we're gonna come back

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Speaker 1: to again and again in this discussion, as as humans

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Speaker 1: attempt to try and figure to try and create a

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Speaker 1: god that has one but not the other, or or

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Speaker 1: has both but has the like, the right type of

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Speaker 1: intelligence and the right type of power. Because I mean,

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Speaker 1: generally what I'm describing those tends to be the trend.

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Speaker 1: Unless a god or god like being is in disguise

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Speaker 1: for the purpose of testing your faith or seducing someone, uh,

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Speaker 1: then you're probably gonna know. Like if you look to

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Speaker 1: the Hindu deities, for example, they're heavily symbolic avatars that

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Speaker 1: they don't leave many questions about their nature, and as

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Speaker 1: we've touched on a previous school on the show, their

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Speaker 1: feet give them away. They float above the surface of

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Speaker 1: the earth. They're clearly not creatures of this world, and

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Speaker 1: there's no room to doubt it. Yeah. But then again,

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Speaker 1: let's say aliens show up and they want to trick

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Speaker 1: us into believing that they are our gods, and they

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Speaker 1: have levitation technology okay, uh, and they have some other

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Speaker 1: you know, they can channel vast amounts of energy into

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Speaker 1: loudspeakers that will crack your skull when they speak. So

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Speaker 1: we're back to the problem again. How do you tell

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Speaker 1: the difference between this super powerful alien and what people

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Speaker 1: have in mind when they say God. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: maybe the aliens are God if their power is sufficient enough,

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Speaker 1: Because you also come down to the models of a deity.

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Speaker 1: Older models of of a god limit its power to say,

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Speaker 1: your your people, your region, or maybe the power is

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Speaker 1: limited to the world. But as we get into you know,

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Speaker 1: progressively more cosmically aware society, then that means the power

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Speaker 1: of the God has to be greater, or at least

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Speaker 1: appear greater. Well, yeah, I mean I think you could

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Speaker 1: definitely look at the idea of sort of the abstract

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Speaker 1: universal disembodied god is a more recent evolution in the

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Speaker 1: history of religions, and if you go way back into

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Speaker 1: the older religions, the gods are closer to what people

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Speaker 1: imagine in sci fi movies, like a being that comes

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Speaker 1: down from the sky and has uh irresistible power. So

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Speaker 1: we have the idea of intelligence, we have the idea

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Speaker 1: of power, and we can maybe come back to the

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Speaker 1: issue of power and where your particular god or pretender

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Speaker 1: god is on the Kardashiat scale. But I think the

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Speaker 1: intelligence area is pretty interesting and it's gonna be pretty

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Speaker 1: key to what we're talking about here today. In writing

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Speaker 1: for Ian magazine, Pam Weintraub points out that if you

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Speaker 1: ask most people what God knows, the answer is that

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Speaker 1: God knows everything, but that God's interests are very narrow

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Speaker 1: and there those interests usually involve human morality. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: God knows. I don't know, you're weird quirks about how

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Speaker 1: you clip your toe nails, But unless you've got moral

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Speaker 1: preachings about tone l clippings, God isn't interested in that. Yeah, Like,

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Speaker 1: I wonder how often we really stop to think about

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Speaker 1: this in our conceptions of God. Like if I was

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Speaker 1: to say God knows every uh you know, immoral thought

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Speaker 1: you have ever had, and God knows every noble dream

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Speaker 1: you've ever entertained, that cuts deep. Yeah, that cuts deep

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Speaker 1: when we're willing to consider that. If I say God

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Speaker 1: knows every chess move and every chess game that was

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Speaker 1: ever ever orchestrated. God knows how many eggs you've eaten. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean like the chess game I think is a

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Speaker 1: good example, because that sounds like all right, Chess is

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Speaker 1: a cool game. It's the game of thinkers. God's the

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Speaker 1: ultimate chess player. Why wouldn't he know all the rules?

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Speaker 1: But yeah, when you get into the eggs, where you

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Speaker 1: get into every play of Monopoly or every play of

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Speaker 1: candy Land, ever, it seems completely pointless. But God would

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Speaker 1: have that too. God would have all all the batting

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Speaker 1: statistics for Major League Baseball just kicking around, uh, just

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Speaker 1: ready to whip them out at any moment. But does

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Speaker 1: he care about any of that? Right? Like, again, God's

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Speaker 1: in most to our our our tales, our myths, and

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Speaker 1: our religions. Gods are concerned with the morality of people

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Speaker 1: and or the wars of people. Yeah, God's are often

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Speaker 1: concerned that the same thing your parents are concerned with,

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Speaker 1: except if your parents knew everything. Yeah, yeah, you can.

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Speaker 1: You can rattle off about your hobby all day, but

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Speaker 1: your parents are gonna be like, all right, that's good.

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Speaker 1: Have you done your homework? Uet though, because that's what

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Speaker 1: I really want you to focus on. Quit talking about

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Speaker 1: power rangers. Here's an interesting quote from Pam wine Trop

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Speaker 1: in that article. What's curious is that with age, children

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Speaker 1: come to know that mom, dogs, and even trees will

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Speaker 1: have incorrect thoughts, but they never extend that vulnerability to God.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the quality of omniscience attributed to God appears

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Speaker 1: to extend to any disembodied entity. In a two thousand

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Speaker 1: thirteen paper in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion,

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Speaker 1: Louisville Seminary researchers found that children think imaginary friends no

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Speaker 1: more than flesh and blood humans. The appears to be

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Speaker 1: a rule, then, deep in our mental programming that tells

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Speaker 1: us minds without body no more than those with bodies.

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Speaker 1: I asked my son about this, because, as I've previously

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Speaker 1: established on the show, he has four imaginary friends to

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Speaker 1: be friends and to wasp friends that fly above his head.

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Speaker 1: And so I questioned him. I was very careful not

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Speaker 1: to to lead his his answers in any way, but

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Speaker 1: he said, the B and wasp friends don't know everything,

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Speaker 1: but they know everything that he says quote, and they

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Speaker 1: learn my CPU is a neuralnet processor, a learning computer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah that's a terminator, right, yeah, terminator bees basic basically

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Speaker 1: what's going on? So to come back to this idea

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Speaker 1: about ghosts, I mean, I wonder if we're to suddenly

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Speaker 1: make the explosive discovery that we can scientifically prove ghosts exist,

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Speaker 1: and we like catch a ghost in a bottle and

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Speaker 1: we're talking to it or something. I guess not catch

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Speaker 1: it in a bottle because it can go through the walls.

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Speaker 1: But you know, we we get in contact with a

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Speaker 1: ghost who got some labs set up where they're doing seances,

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Speaker 1: and we figure out, oh, wow, all this stuff was

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Speaker 1: real all along. Would a ghost be a odd? Would

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Speaker 1: people consider that a god? Is that how people use

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Speaker 1: the word? I generally think no, Right, Even though a

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Speaker 1: ghost might, uh we might imagine a ghost knows things

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Speaker 1: that humans couldn't know, we still wouldn't really think of

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Speaker 1: it as a God. Yeah, it seems like in most

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Speaker 1: most traditions the ghost is seen as like like a

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Speaker 1: remnant or a person whose concerns are not entirely of

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Speaker 1: the earth anymore. Now that being said, we can't disqualify

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Speaker 1: it from godhood godhood just because it used to be

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Speaker 1: a human, because, of course, we have a whole tradition

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Speaker 1: of of of god kings and whatnot where a human

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Speaker 1: is a God or human is at least partially God

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Speaker 1: because of its divine parentage. Yeah, and there's all the

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Speaker 1: apotheosis literature too. Rightly, So, a human being like a

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Speaker 1: sins and becomes a God, I think doesn't happen to

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Speaker 1: Enoch I believe so, yes, yeah, And of course this

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Speaker 1: is just one of many takes on God's I mean,

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Speaker 1: you have God, God, the ruler, God of the cosmos,

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Speaker 1: God of you know, terrestrial nature. God is a primal mover,

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Speaker 1: a moral compass, a torment or, a teacher, a technology bringer,

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Speaker 1: a destroyer, a redeemer, a minor mover. Because remember, you have,

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Speaker 1: for pri instance, in Chinese traditions, you have a kitchen God,

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Speaker 1: preparation and household concerns, and yet it's an important deity

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Speaker 1: even if it's not going to really help you, say,

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Speaker 1: in the coming wars or whatnot. So in that vision,

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Speaker 1: is the creation of humans sort of like a little

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Speaker 1: bit of salmonilla contamination. I think it would just it

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Speaker 1: would be outside of its Uh. If you it's like

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Speaker 1: asking Sirie a question that it it cannot answer. Kitchen

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Speaker 1: God would say, I'm sorry, I don't know that, but

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Speaker 1: let me tell you about what what spices to use

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Speaker 1: on this particular pork dish. Now, one thing I was

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Speaker 1: wondering about is if you might best understand the nature

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Speaker 1: of God and our our uses for God by looking

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Speaker 1: at the the sort of famous categories of literary conflict.

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Speaker 1: You know, just to refresh, you have man versus man,

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Speaker 1: man versus nature, man versus society, man versus self, man

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Speaker 1: versus technology, and really, if you think about it, at

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Speaker 1: some point or another, God embodies each of these, right,

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Speaker 1: because in man versus man, you've got divine kings, man

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Speaker 1: versus nature, you've got net nature deities and all levels

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Speaker 1: of cosmic deities. Man versus society, you have God as

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Speaker 1: a cultural leader or a lawmaker man versus self, you

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Speaker 1: have God as this inner tormentor tempter, inner moral compass,

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Speaker 1: or bicameral voice. You have, of course man versus technology. Well,

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Speaker 1: God or gods are often serving to bring technology to us,

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Speaker 1: such as with the Prometheus the fire driller of Chinese myth,

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Speaker 1: as well as the myth of You and the Great Flood.

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Speaker 1: Even language, right, I mean the word yeah. And the

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Speaker 1: link between religion and technology I think is well. So

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Speaker 1: this is definitely one we've explored before. You might want

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Speaker 1: to go back and check out our pre vious episodes

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Speaker 1: called Techno Religion for the Masses, where we explore the

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Speaker 1: relationship between religion and technology and uh in the past

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Speaker 1: when we talked about the trans humanist rapture, will we'll

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Speaker 1: be touching on some of those same themes today. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's true that there does appear to be this strong

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Speaker 1: link between technology and religion. And it's not just that

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Speaker 1: there are myths where say, Prometheus brings us fire. There

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Speaker 1: are ways in which apparently technology itself shapes what types

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Speaker 1: of religions we come up with and what types of

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Speaker 1: religions survive. I want to mention some of the thinking

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Speaker 1: of the the Israeli historian you've all Noah Harari. This

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Speaker 1: is an article called Salvation by Algorithm, published in The

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Speaker 1: New Statesman on September nine, and so Harari writes in

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Speaker 1: this article quote, technology often defines the scope and limits

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Speaker 1: of our religious vision, like a waiter who demarcates our

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Speaker 1: appetites by handing us a menu. For instance, in ancient

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Speaker 1: agricultural societies, many religion had surprisingly little interest in metaphysical

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Speaker 1: questions in the afterlife. Instead, they focused on the very

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Speaker 1: mundane task of increasing agricultural output. The Old Testament, God

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Speaker 1: never promises any rewards or punishments after death. Rather, he

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Speaker 1: tells the people of Israel, and this is an abridged

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Speaker 1: quotation from Deuteronomy through seventeen quote and if you will

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Speaker 1: diligently obey my commandments that I am commanding you, I

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Speaker 1: will also give rain for your land at its appointed time,

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Speaker 1: and you will gather your grain and your new wine

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Speaker 1: and your oil, and I will provide vegetation in your

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Speaker 1: fields for your livestock, and you will eat and be satisfied.

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Speaker 1: Be careful not to let your heart be enticed to

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Speaker 1: go astray and worship other gods, and bow down to them.

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Speaker 1: Otherwise Jehovah's anger will blaze against you, and he will

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Speaker 1: shut up the heavens so that it will not rain,

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Speaker 1: and the ground will not give its produce, and you

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Speaker 1: will quickly perish from the good land that Jehovah is

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Speaker 1: giving you. Yeah, I mean, that's sort of our attitude today,

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Speaker 1: right when you read something like that, And and that's

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Speaker 1: sort of Harare's point. He says that because of technological advances,

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Speaker 1: this type of theology is no longer relevant to lots

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Speaker 1: of people. Science can provide things like pesticides, fertilizers, water

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Speaker 1: distribution infrastructure, genetically modified crops. He even points out that

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Speaker 1: Israel itself now has its own desalination facilities that can

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Speaker 1: take the sea water, take the salt out of it

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Speaker 1: through osmosis, and then supply people with fresh water even

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Speaker 1: when there is no rain from above. So he's saying

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Speaker 1: science can offer much more than could be expected even

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Speaker 1: with the help of God at the time the Hebrew

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Speaker 1: Bible is set. And for this reason, Harare says, quote,

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Speaker 1: present day Judaism has almost lost interest in rain and

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Speaker 1: agricultural output and has become a very different religion from

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Speaker 1: its biblical progenitor. He says that the religions that survive

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Speaker 1: and spread best are those that are able to best

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Speaker 1: adapt themselves to new technologies and econ comics systems. And

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Speaker 1: among those things he he considers religions are also things

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Speaker 1: that don't necessarily have gods or supernatural forces in them,

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Speaker 1: and he would include, for example, Marxism and Leninism, or

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Speaker 1: even Buddhism and Marxism. Leninism is a really good example

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Speaker 1: because he argues this was a techno religion basically for

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Speaker 1: the steam powered revolutions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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Speaker 1: Quote Lennon was once asked to define communism in a

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Speaker 1: single sentence, communism. He answered, communism is power to the

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Speaker 1: workers councils plus electrification of the whole country. And so

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Speaker 1: Harari says, there can be no communism without electricity, without railroads,

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Speaker 1: without radio. Now, one funny thing I've read is that

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Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union there were commonly jokes about this

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Speaker 1: statement of Lenin's like where they would try to like

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Speaker 1: follow the logic of that arithmetic, so they would say, like, therefore,

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Speaker 1: communism minus electrification of the whole country equals the workers

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Speaker 1: councils kind of dry so ah Soviet humor. But this

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Speaker 1: leads Harari to a kind of startling conclusion if he's

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Speaker 1: saying that in a lot of ways, technology drives our

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Speaker 1: adoption of religion and ideology. Quote. Just as socialism took

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Speaker 1: over the world by promising salvation through steam, so in

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Speaker 1: the coming decades, new techno religions are likely to take

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Speaker 1: over the world by promising salvation through algorithms and genes.

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Speaker 1: So he's really saying in the twenty one century, ideological

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Speaker 1: leaders are going to come not so much from traditional

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Speaker 1: religions but from the tech sector. Who I like the

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Speaker 1: way he was putting it better. It's a little more

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Speaker 1: optimistically science sci fi. I don't know if he's necessarily

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Speaker 1: being optimistic about this. He's just sort of saying what

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Speaker 1: he thinks is true, not necessarily saying it's a good thing. No,

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Speaker 1: but it sounds better than Silicon Valley is working on

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Speaker 1: your salvation. I mean, would you read the Ulah for

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Speaker 1: that salvation? Probably? Probably not. It's so darn long nobody

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Speaker 1: would get to the end. Yeah, of course, Then again,

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Speaker 1: I guess a lot of people don't really read their

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Speaker 1: holy books either. No, I mean, if you tried to

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Speaker 1: breathe the entire Old Testament, it's it's a sage sometimes,

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Speaker 1: but it's also quite beautiful sometimes. I've never writends, unlike

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Speaker 1: the the user agreements for an iPhone. There are sections

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Speaker 1: of it that are beautiful and then their sections of

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Speaker 1: it that are dull. It's true. And in the user

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Speaker 1: license agreement never has a book of job like, no

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Speaker 1: poetry at all. There's no poetic peak. It's just all

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Speaker 1: valley um. Now. I love a lot of what what

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Speaker 1: he had to say, though, particularly about, you know, about

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Speaker 1: just technologies effect on religion. And he touched on agriculture

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Speaker 1: because you have to remember that just agriculture itself was

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Speaker 1: a technological advancement. Before agriculture, we just were hunters and gatherers,

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Speaker 1: and that's where we have a lot of the older

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Speaker 1: ideas of horned gods, of the hunt and chaos. Those

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Speaker 1: were the forces we had to pray to and and

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Speaker 1: seek to appease and in order to find that in

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Speaker 1: the next kill that was going to sustain our people.

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Speaker 1: But then agriculture brings in more cyclical deities and and yeah,

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Speaker 1: every every technological change has a way of either decreasing

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Speaker 1: the power of a god, forcing you to recalibrate the god.

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Speaker 1: We saw a great example of that when we talked

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Speaker 1: about eclipse mythologies. We talked about Hindu eclipse deities or

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Speaker 1: or demigods, where basically their status changed in order to

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Speaker 1: keep up with astrological discoveries of the time. Another thing

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Speaker 1: you might want to say is that I wonder if

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Speaker 1: you could track the relationship between, uh, the the level

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Speaker 1: of embodiment of a god and the level to which

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Speaker 1: people are working directly with the goods that they need

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Speaker 1: to consume to survive. So like people working in hunting

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Speaker 1: or farming, or like you know, pulling food and stuff

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Speaker 1: out of the ground and have these very like physical

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Speaker 1: embodied ideas of God's Whereas once you've got all these

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Speaker 1: modern economies where people are dealing with like currency and

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Speaker 1: ideas of wealth, uh, you've also got these more abstract

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Speaker 1: ideas of what God is. God is a disembodied thing

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Speaker 1: that lives apart. Yeah, And of course I'd also be

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Speaker 1: remiss if I didn't mention some of the new religious

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Speaker 1: movements that came out in the nineteenth and early twentieth

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Speaker 1: centuries where you were essentially creating new religions or new

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Speaker 1: strains of religion that were more in keeping with the

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Speaker 1: needs of modern humans, but also some of the knowledge

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Speaker 1: of modern humans. We've touched on the sort of space

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Speaker 1: ready nature of the Church of Latter day Saints, for instance.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so they've got a space exploration theology to

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Speaker 1: a certain extent, like it it was. It's the idea

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Speaker 1: of alien worlds with with the with alien species is

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Speaker 1: more baked into the faith than you find in a

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Speaker 1: much more ancient uh uh set of rules and obligations

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Speaker 1: that is only concerned with not not even like a

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Speaker 1: terrestrial model, but a just a portion of the Earth,

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Speaker 1: a people, a race, as opposed to a planet. All Right,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and when we come

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Speaker 1: back we will discuss creating a god in a box.

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Speaker 1: We're back. So the idea of a super intelligent AI

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Speaker 1: this is something that that has its roots in science

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Speaker 1: fiction for starters, I mean, some of the more impressive

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Speaker 1: examples that come to mind include Dan Simon's Hyperion books,

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Speaker 1: The Minds of the of Ian Banks Inan Banks culture series, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the films like Colossus, the Forbin Project. Uh. There's also

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Speaker 1: another literary example, or some Scott Cards Homecoming saga. You

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Speaker 1: could even throw in John Carpenter's Dark Star to a

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Speaker 1: certain extent, because at the end it is, uh, it

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Speaker 1: is essentially entering into a godlike complex. You definitely have

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Speaker 1: a sort of techno religion created in Fritz Long's metropolis. Right. Oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you have the well there's there's the false Maria that

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Speaker 1: shows up, but then also the large demonic machine entity.

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Speaker 1: Uh what mammon, I believe it is? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like eating the workers. Yes, so we've been we've

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Speaker 1: been wrestling with this for a while, and often is

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Speaker 1: often the case, we end up wrestling with these ideas

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Speaker 1: and science fiction before Uh, many in the pure sciences

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Speaker 1: are engaging with the idea. So here, I guess we

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Speaker 1: gotta get to the core story that made us want

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Speaker 1: to do this episode today, which I want to give

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Speaker 1: a hat tip to the host of Tech Stuff, Jonathan Strickland,

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Speaker 1: who sent this our way about this guy. There was

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Speaker 1: a guy named Anthony Lewandowski who is an American engineer

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Speaker 1: and tech executive. He formally worked for Google and Uber.

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Speaker 1: He's best known for his work on self driving cars

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Speaker 1: and designing like light our boxes the laser LASAR, the

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Speaker 1: laser guiding systems that help a self driving car navigate

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Speaker 1: through the world. And in twos sixteen he co founded

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Speaker 1: a company called Auto which is a self driving vehicle

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Speaker 1: company that was mainly focused on building these kits for

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Speaker 1: autonomous trucking and cargo transport. Recently, he's been a major

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Speaker 1: figure in a lawsuit between Uber, which he recently worked for,

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Speaker 1: and Google self driving car subsidiary way Moo, which he

426
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 1: worked for before that. And that was a big intellectual

427
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 1: property dispute. But we don't need to spend too much

428
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: time on this guy's career in the tech sector, because

429
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:18,200
Speaker 1: what's really interesting is what he did in September. In September,

430
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 1: Lewandowski filed paperwork with the state of California to register

431
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:28,439
Speaker 1: a new tax exempt nonprofit religious corporation. In other words,

432
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 1: he founded a church. And this church is called The

433
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 1: Way of the Future. Well, you know, the Way of

434
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: the Future. I mean, it's basically what many religions offer

435
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:42,119
Speaker 1: and and and promise. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean

436
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:44,080
Speaker 1: this sounds positive, right. You want you want to have

437
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:47,360
Speaker 1: a forward looking religion, not a backward looking religion. Maybe

438
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 1: something that can adapt itself to the changing technological climate. Okay,

439
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: be open to that. So what are the tenants of

440
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:59,160
Speaker 1: this religion? Well, in September, the tech journalist Mark Harris

441
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: reported for wireds back Channel that these state filings revealed

442
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 1: that the purpose of the church was to quote develop

443
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 1: and promote the realization of a godhead based on artificial intelligence,

444
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: and quote, through the understanding and worship of the Godhead,

445
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: to contribute to the betterment of society. Okay, yeah, all right,

446
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 1: now we're definitely into quirky California born tech religion territory

447
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: at this point. Now, I have heard lots of people

448
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 1: accuse Silicon valleys reigning ideologies of being religious in nature.

449
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: This is a common attack people who hate the tech

450
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:43,919
Speaker 1: industry culture, people who derived their kind of like boundless

451
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: optimism about what you know about having Uber for cats

452
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: or whatever. Any anytime you you run into one of

453
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 1: these people who's got this like just seemingly totally deep

454
00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: naive enthusiasm for what apps can do for us, people

455
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:06,160
Speaker 1: call that religious yet cult of Apple kind of criticism.

456
00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:10,399
Speaker 1: But this is more literal, right, Like, this guy is

457
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:15,439
Speaker 1: actually saying I want to create a technological religion and

458
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: part of the creation of this technological religion is creating

459
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: a God itself to worship. Yeah, because when you when

460
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: you first read about this, you might it's easy to think,

461
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 1: all right, this is this is a board rich tech guy,

462
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: and he's just he's just having a laugh, you know.

463
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:32,679
Speaker 1: He's in the same way that people sign up for

464
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 1: various like on paper religions just so they can technically

465
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: perform marriage ceremonies and whatnot. Maybe he just wants to

466
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 1: become an ordained minister online. Yeah, yeah, maybe he just

467
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: wants to create a novelty website where you sign up

468
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, I remember the Way of the

469
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: Future Aiyes, are great, look at my bumper sticker. But

470
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: the thing is when you when you dig deeper, No,

471
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: he seems to be serious, and there are people who

472
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: do seem to be taking it as a joke, like

473
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: one of this this sky Mark Harris interviewed uh some

474
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: of the other people who were friends of Lewandowski's who

475
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:07,919
Speaker 1: have been named as officers of the church, and at

476
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,399
Speaker 1: least one of them responded like, oh, I thought this

477
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 1: was sort of more of a joke. But based on

478
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: all accounts and based on this large interview published and

479
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: Wired in a different article just in November of this year.

480
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: In Lewandowski, to me, seems entirely serious. Now, not to

481
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 1: say you can't be just really serious about like a

482
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 1: long form joke. It could be like an Andy Kaufman

483
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: esque kind of enterprise as well. I imagine it certainly could.

484
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: But it also seems in keeping with the trajectory of

485
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: his career and what people report about this guy. You know,

486
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 1: friends of his and former co workers say that he

487
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 1: does have this kind of like infectious, powerful enthusiasm for

488
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: robots and AI. Like there's a story that when he

489
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: got hired at Uber, he became an executive at Uber,

490
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,439
Speaker 1: he demanded that he get the email address robot at

491
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,160
Speaker 1: uber dot com. But let's get into this religion. So

492
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: following up on this Wired article that interviewed him to

493
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: try to find out, you know, was he really serious

494
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: and what does this religion entail? So, Lewandowski believes that

495
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence will someday surpass human intelligence, and at this

496
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 1: point the AI will in some meaningful way become God.

497
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 1: This is basically in line with the general general idea

498
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: of the singularity. Yeah, yeah, so I'll get into that

499
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:25,959
Speaker 1: in a second. But how soon does he think this

500
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: is going to happen? He says, not this week, not

501
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:31,919
Speaker 1: this year, but quote before we go to Mars. So

502
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: I checked right now. It looks like that would put

503
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: us in the most optimistic Mars timeline sometime in the

504
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: twenty thirties. So apart from the explicit use of the

505
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 1: word god, as you said, this idea about AI surpassing

506
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: human intelligence is an extremely common belief, especially among tech

507
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: industry people, and the general concept goes under names like

508
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: the super intelligence, or intelligence explosion, or the singularity. And

509
00:28:57,200 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: to be clear, I think all of these concepts sort

510
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: of had more to stinct meanings originally that can be

511
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 1: traced back to their original authors, but that they've sort

512
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: of been combined into this one super concept that at

513
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: some point in the future, some form of technological intelligence,

514
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: whether that's software running on a classical computer or some

515
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 1: kind of neurotech upgrade of the human brain, some kind

516
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: of technological intelligence will surpass the furthest reaches of biological

517
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: human intelligence. And once this happens, proponents tend to imagine

518
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: just to kind of runaway intelligence effect. After all, the

519
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 1: smartest humans have just proven that they can design AI

520
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: that's smarter than them. So what prevents this new intelligence

521
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 1: from immediately turning around and designing and even smarter AI?

522
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: And so the thinking goes. What prevents a sudden sort

523
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 1: of bootstrapping acceleration of intelligence that will almost immediately go

524
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 1: beyond our power to predict or even to comprehend. Yeah,

525
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 1: this was a predicted at least as early as the

526
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties by British mathematician and cryptologist Irving John Good,

527
00:30:05,360 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: though he himself mentioned science fiction is having explored the

528
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: concept previously. I'll read a quick quote. Let an ultra

529
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far

530
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: surpass all intellectual activities of any man, however clever. Since

531
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 1: the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities,

532
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: an ultra intelligent machine could design even better machines. There

533
00:30:27,120 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: would then unquestionably be an intelligence explosion, and the intelligence

534
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 1: of man will be left far behind. Thus, the first

535
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 1: ultra intelligent machine is the last invention that man need

536
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to

537
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: tell us how to keep it under control. It is

538
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 1: curious that this point is made so seldom outside of

539
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: science fiction. It is sometimes worthwhile to take science fiction seriously. Now,

540
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 1: that's sort of another way of saying that intelligence is

541
00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: sort of like the ultimate driving energy for power in

542
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: the universe, right, that intelligence is itself the thing that

543
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: gives birth to power in pretty much any scenario. Well,

544
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: it's certainly that that's the human experience. That is how

545
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: humans have come to dominate the world because they had

546
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: had not the horns or the claws of the teeth,

547
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 1: but the intelligence uh to outsmart every other creature on

548
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 1: the earth. Now, this idea of the singularity and the

549
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: intelligence explosion is not without critics. In fact, it has

550
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: tons of critics, and they're actually is there there's more

551
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: than one kind of critic. Uh So for the rest

552
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: of the conversation, I think it might help to sort

553
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: of break down the camps and give them, give them

554
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: some names. First of all, I'd say, you've got the

555
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 1: skeptics who are just not convinced super intelligence is possible

556
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: or that it's arriving anytime remotely soon. Then I would

557
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: say you've got what I might call the Sarah Connor faction,

558
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 1: who believe that super intelligence is coming but that it's

559
00:31:57,080 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: likely to be dangerous, and we have to take a

560
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 1: defensive posture to prevent it from uh, you know, accidentally

561
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: killing us or intentionally killing us, or ruining our lives

562
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: in some meaningful way. And this faction includes a lot

563
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: of people like Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk.

564
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 1: Musk has actually referred to the creation of artificial intelligence

565
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 1: as quote, summoning the demon, and so he's saying, like,

566
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're all these scenes in horror movies

567
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: where somebody has drawn the pentagram on the floor and

568
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: they're ready to summon the demon out of hell because

569
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 1: they think they can command the demon to do their will.

570
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: But what happens every time the demon always overpowers them. Yeah,

571
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 1: the forces. This is a temptation scene in the movies.

572
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 1: It's symbolic of people's hubrists, their desire to reach beyond

573
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: what they should really be, you know, tampering with and

574
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: so Musk is saying, you think you can control the demon,

575
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: but in the end it will control you. Well, of course,

576
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 1: one culture's demon is is is literally another culture's god.

577
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 1: And this has almost always been the case, and we

578
00:32:57,640 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 1: kind of see that playing out again. One side saying

579
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 1: we're gonna summon God up in here and things are

580
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 1: gonna be amazing. They're the side is saying, whoa dude,

581
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: that's a demon you're about to summon and it's going

582
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 1: to really miss things up right. So you've got the

583
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: Sarah Connor faction, the skeptics who think it's just not

584
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: going to happen, and then you've got, of course, the

585
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: the AI lovers, the AI enthusiasts. One example of this

586
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: would be Ray Kerswil who thinks that super intelligence is

587
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: coming but it's not something to worry about. Is probably

588
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: gonna be really great, like these machines because they have

589
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: intelligence far ster passing what humans are capable of. They'll

590
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: be able to do medical research beyond our capabilities and

591
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: cure all diseases and extend human lifespans and allow us

592
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: to live forever. And they'll be able to, you know,

593
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: create replicator machines that can manufacture all the stuff we

594
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: want on demand. And you know what I mean, basically

595
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: just like limitless technological power for the good of humankind. Yeah,

596
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 1: I mean this this is kind of a vision that's

597
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: in line with then in Banks Culture series where you

598
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: have the robots, the minds they are they figured everything

599
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: out and people kind of live in a state of

600
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: like freedom and anarchy and only get involved in meaningful,

601
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 1: meaningful pursuits because they're ultimately bored with doing whatever they please.

602
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 1: I want to read a Ray kurls kerswild quote from

603
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: an interview he gave it south By Southwest. He said, quote,

604
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 1: We're going to get more neo cortex. We're going to

605
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 1: be funnier, We're going to be better at music, We're

606
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:26,839
Speaker 1: going to be sexier. We're really going to exemplify all

607
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: the things that we value in humans to a greater degree.

608
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: What offices he running for? Running for for president of

609
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: the AI major humanity? Sex? Well, no, you wouldn't be

610
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: the president because the AI is going to have to

611
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: be the president. And maybe he's running for ambassador to

612
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: the AI overund like, Yeah, the harbinger of the New God.

613
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 1: Now Lewandowski, we should say, is obviously in this last camp.

614
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 1: He's in the camp with Kurtzwil who thinks that AI

615
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: is going to be very positive. Super intelligence is a

616
00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 1: good thing, and as opposed to the Sarah Connor faction,

617
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: Lewandowski has got another term for it. Instead of saying singularity,

618
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: he likes to call it quote the transition, But you know,

619
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 1: what are we transitioning into? Is the question? Like when

620
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 1: he talks about them about aim making us funnier and

621
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:17,919
Speaker 1: sexier or better at music. It it makes me ask, well,

622
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,800
Speaker 1: who is who or what is actually funny in this scenario?

623
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: Is it me just repeating the words that are fed uh,

624
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: you know, into my ear or into my my brain

625
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 1: itself by the computer? Am I just like the the

626
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: fleshy means by which the computer is funny. So like

627
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 1: the computer is your syrano the pressure act, and you

628
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 1: are just repeating his clever words. It's kind of like

629
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 1: saying auto correct makes me a better speller, and the

630
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: thinking that means you actually are a better speller. But

631
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: in reality, I mean it's it depends how you shake it,

632
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,040
Speaker 1: right If you if you look at me just a

633
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: purely organic human, if you strip me of my computer

634
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: and dumped me on an island and give me a

635
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,799
Speaker 1: pin and a pencil, then you know, God only knows

636
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 1: what my spelling is going to be like at that point.

637
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 1: But yes, as long as I'm still shackled to the

638
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 1: computer master, then my spelling is is perfectly fine. Yeah,

639
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 1: And I don't know, so I do kind of wonder

640
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 1: about Curse Wild's and I'm hesitant to agree with him,

641
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: But I also think about all the ways that technology

642
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: already helps us be better at the things we want

643
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 1: to be good at. We tend to just sort of

644
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: like forget the role technology played and just adapt our

645
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 1: ideas of how you're good at a thing. But it

646
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:32,719
Speaker 1: also kind of sounds like he's saying we will be insufferable. Yeah,

647
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 1: the machines are going to make us the jerk wads

648
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: that we could we can only dream of being previously. Right,

649
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:40,319
Speaker 1: But what if the machines are sort of like the

650
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 1: technological equivalent of cocaine, like making people think that they're

651
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:49,320
Speaker 1: becoming awesome, but in fact they're just becoming insufferable. Yeah,

652
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:52,879
Speaker 1: that that's that's my fear. Now, that's my new singularity fear.

653
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: They were all going to be like hair metal uh

654
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: frontmen of the nineteen eighties. Now. One of the big

655
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 1: things that comes to mind all of this one as

656
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:04,280
Speaker 1: we talk about the creation of an AI computer. Uh,

657
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: you know, I can see a machine mastering intellectual, analytical,

658
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 1: and secular knowledge, but the religious knowledge of of interhuman

659
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: experience seems like a realm beyond. I mean, I can

660
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 1: see it being a master of the causative. Why you know,

661
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: why why am I living in the city? Well, you know,

662
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: you can, you can a computer would be able to

663
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: look at your your background and your patterns and say, oh, well,

664
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: you ended up here because of this job, in this

665
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:31,839
Speaker 1: personal connection, etcetera. And I'd say we even know from

666
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:34,799
Speaker 1: the way like Amazon predicts our purchases and stuff, that

667
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: a a really advanced computer might even be able to

668
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: predict what city you're going to move to in the future. Yeah, exactly.

669
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: But but then there's another form of why. There's the

670
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:46,760
Speaker 1: teleological why, which is which has to do with like

671
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: like reason and purpose. And if you're asking like why

672
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 1: am I living in this city, you're you're asking a

673
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,720
Speaker 1: slightly different question, or a rather different question. You're asking

674
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:57,359
Speaker 1: like why do I continue to choose to live here?

675
00:37:57,400 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: Why do I deal with X, Y and Z? You know?

676
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 1: And uh, and I feel like that it's um, it's

677
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:07,919
Speaker 1: harder to imagine the machine AI being able to really

678
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: step in and answer that question. I mean, unless it's

679
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 1: ultimately the same as any other religion in which the

680
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:15,840
Speaker 1: thing itself is more of a symbol attached to and

681
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:20,279
Speaker 1: or embodying other ideas, you know, yeah, I mean. So,

682
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: one thing about the systems that give our lives meaning

683
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: is we often give them a lot of leeway to

684
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: be fuzzy and vague. I don't know if you I

685
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: mean I I definitely feel that's true, whether that's religious

686
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: or secular systems that give our lives meaning. When in

687
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: the search for meaning, we tend not to try to

688
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 1: pin things down to specifics. Do you know what I mean?

689
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: We often use mystery to answer uncertainty. Yeah. Absolutely. So

690
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 1: let's let's get back to Harris and what he's saying

691
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 1: about the Way of the Future Church. So he says

692
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:54,360
Speaker 1: that the church is gonna have a multi pronged approach.

693
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 1: At first, it's gonna be investing in making God, so

694
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 1: we will literally use church money to fund the creation

695
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: of the AI godhead. It's going to study how the

696
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 1: gods work, so the church will participate in AI research,

697
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:11,720
Speaker 1: including areas like machine perception of environments and machine learning.

698
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: It's gonna gain followers quote targeting AI professionals and lay

699
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: persons who are interested in the worship of a godhead

700
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 1: based on AI. Now I instantly wonder how he's truly

701
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: defining worship here. I wonder if that's even the right

702
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 1: word for what he's ultimately describing, not not the mystical

703
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:32,719
Speaker 1: invocation of a higher power or the meditative consultation of

704
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 1: established cultural values, but essentially, uh, what a check in

705
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 1: with a high power predictive modeling machine. I mean, I

706
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: the more I read, the more I got the sense that, no,

707
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 1: he really does mean worship, like in a kind of

708
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 1: traditional sense like uh, praise, pledging, devotion to that kind

709
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 1: of thing. And I maybe not, but I kind of

710
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: get that feeling, and we can discuss why in a

711
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: few minutes. He also says that, you know, he plans

712
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: to make the church at DO so it would be

713
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: a kind of a community thing. There would be workshops

714
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:07,359
Speaker 1: and educational programs throughout the San Francisco Bay area, And

715
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 1: he literally does use the word worship. So in the

716
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:14,320
Speaker 1: publicly filed documents, they state the mission of the churches

717
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:19,840
Speaker 1: again quote the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead

718
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 1: based on artificial intelligence developed through computer hardware and software.

719
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: So Lewandowski identifies himself as the quote Dean of the

720
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 1: religion and also the CEO of the nonprofit corporation that

721
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: forms and and that formed and administers it. And he

722
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: will remain dean until his death or resignation. And he

723
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:42,799
Speaker 1: says he will take no salary for this job because

724
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: he doesn't want anyone to get the impression that the

725
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:47,799
Speaker 1: religion is a scheme to make money. See that just

726
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 1: makes me think, well, what is what is actually scarier

727
00:40:50,239 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 1: or more troubling someone who has created a religion just

728
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:55,840
Speaker 1: to make money or someone who has created a religion

729
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,000
Speaker 1: to change the world. Well, I mean, you've got to

730
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 1: kind of wonder how many religions could go from one

731
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:06,560
Speaker 1: to the other. I mean, it seems like they could transition.

732
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously people see ways in which religions that

733
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:12,879
Speaker 1: were created you you would assume in good faith by

734
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 1: people who thought they were really trying to get in

735
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 1: touch with God or some kind of question about the

736
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 1: meaning of their existence, that are captured in some form

737
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: by people who are making money off of religious belief

738
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 1: in people's faith. But it could go the other way too.

739
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: I mean, you could imagine a religion created as a

740
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: money making scam that really does go on to have

741
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 1: a meaningful life, where people find meaning in it and

742
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 1: it does something good for them. Absolutely. I mean, there

743
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,799
Speaker 1: are various religions out there that people have charged that

744
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 1: they were just created to make money. And I think

745
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,399
Speaker 1: even within those those faiths, you can find people who

746
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 1: truly do believe or have gone through periods in their

747
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 1: life where they find purpose and meaning in that faith. Uh.

748
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: And then likewise, so many examples of utopian societies of

749
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:07,360
Speaker 1: gurus where the best intentions crash upon the shore, the

750
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 1: rocky shore of a reality, often financial realities, and then

751
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 1: everything's in ruin. Now I was wondering, Okay, is this

752
00:42:14,960 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 1: church can have a holy book? Lewandowski says, yes, the

753
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: church will have its own holy book, which will be

754
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:24,840
Speaker 1: a gospel called quote the Manual. It doesn't sound creepy

755
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 1: at all, straight out of dystopian sci fi. Uh and

756
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:30,360
Speaker 1: uh it's and it's also not going to be just

757
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 1: sort of like a meme or an idea. It sounds

758
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 1: like he actually does want it to be a church

759
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: with physical locations and in person worship ceremonies. Now, when

760
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: I first read that, my initial response, well, that doesn't

761
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: sound very futuristic if I have to actually go somewhere

762
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 1: and attend. But on the other hand, I do think

763
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: that one of the more important aspects of a religion

764
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: is the community aspect of the thing, the idea that

765
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: you are going somewhere with other people and engaging in

766
00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,959
Speaker 1: a a more human relationship totally. And you even see

767
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:01,919
Speaker 1: this and Robert, I don't know if you've read about

768
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 1: these ideas of like churches for nonbelievers. Essentially there there

769
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 1: are these organizations that say, like, hey, so what if

770
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 1: you don't happen to have any religious beliefs, and you

771
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 1: don't really want to have any religious beliefs, but you

772
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 1: do want to have something like a church to go

773
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 1: to a place where you can organize for community service

774
00:43:20,520 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 1: and weekly meetings. You can have a community that you

775
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: interact with, you form friendships with, you can rely on

776
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 1: each other, you can do good for the community you

777
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 1: live in. I mean that seems like all positive stuff. Yeah,

778
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:34,799
Speaker 1: And but I wondered to what extent is he thinking, well,

779
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: if we build this, then that will naturally follow or

780
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 1: is he kind or is he blind to that? Does

781
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: he not realize that? Say one of the great things

782
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: about well, one of the like really one of the

783
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 1: big positives you can say about a religious community is

784
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 1: that they look after each other, that they have some

785
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 1: sort of a community for for support, for interpersonal support,

786
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: and hopefully some sort of outreach for the community as

787
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: well to help those who are less fortunate, you know,

788
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 1: to to feed the poor and clothe the naked and

789
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 1: all the sort of standards of a compassionate religion. I mean,

790
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 1: that does seem like a thing that's a very desirable

791
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 1: thing for a religion to offer. But I don't know

792
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: the extent to which he really imagined stuff like that.

793
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:19,320
Speaker 1: It didn't, it didn't. The interview did not go into

794
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: much depth on that subject, so who knows, but he

795
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 1: definitely does think so. One of the things he identifies

796
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 1: is that part of the church's mission is going to

797
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 1: be to guide the public conversation around Ai, because as

798
00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 1: AI becomes more and more powerful, people are going to

799
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 1: start noticing more and more and might get kind of

800
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 1: afraid and say, oh, no, it looks like we're creating

801
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,719
Speaker 1: an AI overlord that we need to be scared of.

802
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:46,799
Speaker 1: And and he's saying part of the mission of the

803
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: church will be too essentially encourage people to welcome their

804
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 1: new God without fear of the unknown. So I can

805
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 1: easily imagine a representative of the of the church would

806
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 1: show up on cable news or whatever. The the near

807
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 1: future equivalent would be uh to to you know, to

808
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: be in a talking head segment segment about the coming

809
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: singularity or the growing power of of AI intelligence and

810
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: to say, don't be worried. It comes in peace. But

811
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:18,799
Speaker 1: does it? I don't know. So I want to look

812
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 1: at a few other quotes from this interview, and you

813
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:23,720
Speaker 1: should definitely will link to this piece on the landing

814
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:26,319
Speaker 1: page of our website. You should definitely go check out

815
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: this whole piece and wire that has the interview. But

816
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 1: to look at a few more things, he says, I

817
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 1: wonder about Lewandowski's deeper thoughts about the potential for this

818
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: god to not be as benign as he's implying. Lewandowski says, quote,

819
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:41,879
Speaker 1: humans are in charge of the planet because we are

820
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 1: smarter than other animals and are able to build tools

821
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: and apply rules. In the future, if something is much

822
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 1: much smarter, there's going to be a transition as to

823
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 1: who is actually in charge. What we want is the peaceful,

824
00:45:55,800 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: serene transition of control of the planet from humans to whatever,

825
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: and to ensure that the whatever knows who helped it

826
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:08,359
Speaker 1: get along okay. Well, this instantly makes me think of

827
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: the old Simpsons dead. Um, I for one, welcome our

828
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,640
Speaker 1: new insect overlords exactly, And that's how it sounded. It

829
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: sounded to me like he's saying, Look, we don't want

830
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:21,319
Speaker 1: to say too much negative stuff about AI because you

831
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:23,839
Speaker 1: know they're gonna, know what we were saying, when they

832
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 1: take over, and their takeover is inevitable. Yeah, it's like

833
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: when when somebody new joins your organization, uh, and then

834
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:33,720
Speaker 1: you quickly realize, oh, they're going to be the boss

835
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:35,760
Speaker 1: one day. I need to I just need to start

836
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 1: smooching buttocks right now, exactly. It sounds like a scheme

837
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: to ingratiate ourselves to basically an irresistible power. It's saying like,

838
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 1: you know this, it's as if like a new country

839
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 1: is you know, is going to invade your country soon,

840
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: so you start saying flattering things about their leadership in advance.

841
00:46:57,760 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: Of course, in reality, you're going to be the first

842
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: one to die when the butal Arian Jihad kicks in

843
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 1: to overthrow the the budding computer masters. Well, yeah, along

844
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 1: the same lines here, he says, uh, so part of

845
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:13,839
Speaker 1: the question is okay, So imagine you're one of these

846
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 1: people who thinks the superintelligence is possible, and it's it's

847
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:21,040
Speaker 1: going to happen soon, and it won't be a bad thing.

848
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 1: It'll be a good thing. You might believe all that,

849
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: but why would you actually worship the AI, Like what

850
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:33,279
Speaker 1: what purpose does the worshiping serve? Lewandowski says, quote part

851
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 1: of it being smarter than us means it will decide

852
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: how it evolves, but at least we can decide how

853
00:47:39,239 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 1: we act around it. I would love for the machine

854
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:45,399
Speaker 1: to see us as its beloved elders that it respects

855
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 1: and takes care of. We would want this intelligence to

856
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 1: say humans should still have rights even though I'm in charge,

857
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 1: because obviously that's what all the gods in our various

858
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 1: mythologies have have valued the human rights. Um, yeah, I can't.

859
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:05,359
Speaker 1: I can only imagine, like the the AI comes on

860
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:07,399
Speaker 1: and we're saying, hey, you're a god, and then it's

861
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 1: it's like it does a quick, like instant super flash

862
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:14,080
Speaker 1: search of all our our visions of the gods, like

863
00:48:14,120 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: which model is it gonna is it going to single out?

864
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 1: Is it going to be be like a petty Greek god,

865
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:25,399
Speaker 1: a wrathful Old Testament God, there's a lot of pitfalls there. Yeah,

866
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: And with this buffet of options for what types of

867
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:32,719
Speaker 1: God's a a technological God could model itself after. There

868
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,600
Speaker 1: are also lots of analogies you can choose from, too,

869
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: for what it's like to be the less empowered being.

870
00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 1: So he uses analogies including like animals animals in respect

871
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 1: to human power. So he's saying, essentially, we will be

872
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,840
Speaker 1: like animals in the presence of humans when we're in

873
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: the presence of this AI. And and the analogy is like,

874
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: do maybe you should learn how to be a good

875
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 1: pet instead of an animal that bites and attacks a human.

876
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 1: Because what happens to animals that bite an attack humans.

877
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:08,959
Speaker 1: They don't survive. They're not invited to stay and stick

878
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 1: around the fire and enjoy the surplus food. So so

879
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 1: we need to be cute, helpful, and and just and

880
00:49:16,920 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 1: chill above all things, we need to be chill. He

881
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 1: also uses the analogy of a child. He says, you know,

882
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:24,879
Speaker 1: if you wanna, if you knew a child was going

883
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: to be incredibly powerful when it grew up, you should

884
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:31,719
Speaker 1: raise that child with that in mind. You know, we're

885
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:35,480
Speaker 1: in the process of raising a god that's in its infancy,

886
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:38,080
Speaker 1: and he says, quote, so let's make sure we think

887
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:42,120
Speaker 1: through the right way to do that. It's a tremendous opportunity. Yeah.

888
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:44,400
Speaker 1: I mean, my my son is is pretty bright. That's

889
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:46,839
Speaker 1: why I worship him every day. I just let him

890
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 1: know that he is an absolute god on earth. And

891
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: I don't I don't see that possibly backfiring. I think

892
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:54,319
Speaker 1: it's a solid, solid parenting a choice. Man. I have

893
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 1: such mixed feelings about this because on one hand, I

894
00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: can't deny that I that I A lot of how

895
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:05,319
Speaker 1: I react to this is that I find it um

896
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 1: naive and obnoxious, and I don't know. I try not

897
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: to be judgmental to a judgmental of ideas on the

898
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:15,840
Speaker 1: show here, but I I can't really resist saying that

899
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:21,520
Speaker 1: somehow this just feels very um very kind of like reckless,

900
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 1: uh kind of, I don't know. Something about it indicates

901
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:28,680
Speaker 1: this kind of obliviousness to me that seems to have

902
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:31,760
Speaker 1: something to do with with attaining a lot of wealth

903
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:35,799
Speaker 1: and success very quick in the technology sector that would

904
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 1: lead to this kind of attitude towards you know, creating

905
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 1: a something that could potentially wipe out all of humankind. Well, yeah,

906
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 1: I would just be able to devote time and energy

907
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:48,960
Speaker 1: to the worship of one potential super intelligent Uh, you know,

908
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: master of the world. It's it's it's not. It's not

909
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:57,000
Speaker 1: it's not a luxury that most people have. But you know, seriously,

910
00:50:57,080 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 1: I do think there there is value to his argument.

911
00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: I mean, time and time again, humanity struggles to adapt

912
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:05,240
Speaker 1: in the wake of technological advancement and everything from city

913
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:08,879
Speaker 1: planning to the birth of the Internet, and it makes

914
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 1: sense to try and navigate through the least catastrophic possibilities, right, Yeah,

915
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:14,759
Speaker 1: that I guess that's the other hand of what I

916
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:16,320
Speaker 1: was trying to say. I mean, on one hand, I

917
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:19,800
Speaker 1: detect this kind of troubling naivete here, but I also

918
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 1: feel like these are questions worth exploring. I guess what

919
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:26,879
Speaker 1: really starts getting my hackles up is when I see

920
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 1: like the let's just worship it. Yeah, yeah, I know

921
00:51:29,120 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 1: what you mean. I'm a little uneasy about you know,

922
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 1: when Gozer shows up atop the skyscraper, like worshiping it

923
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:39,799
Speaker 1: is maybe not the correct first choice. Yeah, it would

924
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 1: have been a very different movie had that. Had it

925
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 1: played out like that, I want to mention one more

926
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: thing that makes me think that there there are these

927
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:50,520
Speaker 1: multiple layers of motivation and what Lewandowski is saying. Uh So,

928
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:53,800
Speaker 1: Lewandowski says he thinks it's dangerous to try to prevent

929
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: or slow down the creation of superhuman AI gods. He says,

930
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 1: quote chaining, it isn't going to be the solution, as

931
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:04,879
Speaker 1: it will be stronger than any chains you could put on.

932
00:52:05,400 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 1: And if you're worried a kid might be a little

933
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:10,319
Speaker 1: crazy and do bad things, you don't lock them up.

934
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 1: You expose them to playing with others, encourage them and

935
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: try to fix it. It may not work out, but

936
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 1: if you're aggressive toward it, I don't think it's going

937
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 1: to be friendly when the tables are turned. Yet again,

938
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: I'm getting these kind of like sinister, veiled threats coming through. Yeah,

939
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 1: it's he's kind of saying, I've seen the future and

940
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:32,840
Speaker 1: it is horrible. The best thing we can do, we

941
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:35,120
Speaker 1: can just we need to get ahead of this. It's

942
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:37,319
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a pr campaign for some sort

943
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: of uh scandal, an epic scandal that's about to break.

944
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: All Right, We're gonna take a quick break and when

945
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:46,839
Speaker 1: we come back, we will continue to discuss the possibility

946
00:52:46,840 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 1: and perhaps the inevitability of our AI gods. Alright, we're

947
00:52:53,680 --> 00:52:57,280
Speaker 1: back now. We've been talking about the uh these stories

948
00:52:57,320 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: about Anthony Lewandowski, the tech industry leader who has founded

949
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:04,720
Speaker 1: this church Way of the Future that says it plans

950
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 1: to create an artificial intelligence to be a god and

951
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 1: and will worship that as God. Um, why why do

952
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 1: we keep talking about one god? I wonder, like you

953
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:18,280
Speaker 1: were very monotheistic and western in our depictions here, would

954
00:53:18,320 --> 00:53:20,440
Speaker 1: it not make sense to have a counsel of gods,

955
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 1: the whole pantheon of gods, each representing different areas of

956
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 1: human interest. I feel like traditionally the the polytheistic religions

957
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:35,360
Speaker 1: feel less predictable, don't they Like they indicate a state

958
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 1: where I don't know, it's harder to put trust in

959
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:40,920
Speaker 1: the gods as a whole, because different gods can come

960
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:43,319
Speaker 1: to power and they have competing interests, or they have

961
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 1: just areas of they're specialized. I mean, who are you

962
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:49,839
Speaker 1: going to ask about kitchen stuff but the kitchen god? Right?

963
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:52,439
Speaker 1: So I think there's a value there too in specialization.

964
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 1: And I would I would have thought that the tech

965
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: industry would would have that in mind. I don't know.

966
00:53:57,560 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 1: Maybe somebody does have that in mind, or maybe they

967
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:03,160
Speaker 1: haven't thought through Not sure. Uh So, Lewandowski isn't the

968
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:07,360
Speaker 1: only AI industry leader who's making these religious comparisons. AI

969
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:10,239
Speaker 1: executive Vince Lynch, who's the head of a company called

970
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 1: ivy dot Ai, says there are already lots of parallels

971
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: between how AI works and how religion works. He gave

972
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:22,280
Speaker 1: a quote to venture Beat this October quote, teaching humans

973
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: about religious education is similar to the way we teach

974
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:29,280
Speaker 1: knowledge to machines, repetition of many examples that are versions

975
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:31,359
Speaker 1: of a concept. Do you want the machine to learn?

976
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:34,719
Speaker 1: There is also commonality between AI and religion and the

977
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 1: hierarchical structure of knowledge understanding found in the neural networks.

978
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:42,880
Speaker 1: The concept of teaching a machine to learn then teaching

979
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: it to teach or write AI isn't so different than

980
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:49,239
Speaker 1: the concept of a holy trinity or a being achieving

981
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:53,120
Speaker 1: enlightenment after many lessons learned with varying levels of success

982
00:54:53,160 --> 00:54:55,960
Speaker 1: and failure, and it seems like a totally different thing.

983
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:59,280
Speaker 1: But he gives the example of a machine learning algorithm

984
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:02,839
Speaker 1: on his company's website that can write authentic sounding King

985
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:07,040
Speaker 1: James version Bible versus Uh. So, I'm not sure how

986
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:09,359
Speaker 1: this thing works. It doesn't say, but I assume that

987
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:13,280
Speaker 1: it's working on the basis of like giving the giving

988
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 1: the ai a corpus to learn from. So like they

989
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 1: feed the King James version of the Bible in there,

990
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:20,080
Speaker 1: and then they have it play with Markov chains. I

991
00:55:20,080 --> 00:55:23,080
Speaker 1: would guess where one one word has a probability of

992
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 1: leading to another word based on what they've already seen

993
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:29,919
Speaker 1: in the text, and it generates texts probably probabilistically like that.

994
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 1: One example of a line, it gives his quote and

995
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 1: he made the stars of the waters. Another one is

996
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:40,680
Speaker 1: quote and let thy companies deliver thee but will with

997
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:44,239
Speaker 1: mine non norms save them even unto this land from

998
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Heaven. Okay, So this enables the machine

999
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:50,480
Speaker 1: to do what virtually anybody can do if they've been

1000
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: subjected to enough Old Testament, King King James, the translations

1001
00:55:55,160 --> 00:55:57,479
Speaker 1: of the Bible. Yeah, I guess so. But it makes

1002
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 1: you wonder, like if you could actually compose is a

1003
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:02,719
Speaker 1: religious text people would use this way? I mean, I

1004
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:06,120
Speaker 1: wonder about the types of meta religions. There are multiple

1005
00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:08,719
Speaker 1: types of religions like this, that I want to combine

1006
00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: multiple different faith traditions into a single sort of New

1007
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 1: Age religion. Say, there's combined wisdom in all of the

1008
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:18,239
Speaker 1: different faiths out there. And one way I wonder if

1009
00:56:18,239 --> 00:56:19,920
Speaker 1: you could go about that would be to like just

1010
00:56:19,960 --> 00:56:23,480
Speaker 1: get all of the Holy books translated into the same language,

1011
00:56:23,640 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 1: feed them all into one of these things, and see

1012
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:28,319
Speaker 1: what it spits out. Yeah, that I would be very

1013
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 1: interested to read that. Yeah, I mean, because so much

1014
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:33,840
Speaker 1: of it is is putting putting different ideas into different

1015
00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:37,560
Speaker 1: uh you know, lingo vocabularies and uh and and just

1016
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:41,360
Speaker 1: tailoring it for specific audience. Okay, so we've discussed the

1017
00:56:41,880 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 1: big conflict between whether superhuman AI would actually be a

1018
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:48,840
Speaker 1: good thing or a bad thing, or whether there's some

1019
00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:51,239
Speaker 1: people who are seemingly saying it's a good thing but

1020
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: maybe secretly fear it would be a bad thing, and

1021
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:56,759
Speaker 1: that that all seems very convoluted and uh and kind

1022
00:56:56,760 --> 00:56:59,360
Speaker 1: of odd. But I want to focus lastly on the

1023
00:56:59,440 --> 00:57:03,399
Speaker 1: question of whether it's actually likely to happen. Going back

1024
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: to that first camp, we mentioned the skeptics, the people

1025
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 1: who think it's you know, we're just not going to

1026
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:13,000
Speaker 1: have super intelligence coming out anytime soon. It's continually amazing

1027
00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:17,240
Speaker 1: how the machine intelligence that surrounds us is simultaneously so

1028
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:20,760
Speaker 1: smart and so stupid. I just want to mention one

1029
00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: story I saw just the other day. I saw this

1030
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 1: on Twitter as we record this right now, the Los

1031
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: Angeles area is dealing with horrible wildfires, and Robert, I

1032
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: don't know how much you've seen of this, but there

1033
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:33,360
Speaker 1: are places where areas around l A that you know,

1034
00:57:33,400 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 1: there's wildfire leaping up near the roads, sometimes even over

1035
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 1: the roads. Uh. And this is from the l A

1036
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:43,680
Speaker 1: Times quote. The Los Angeles Police Department asked drivers to

1037
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: avoid app navigation apps, which are steering users onto more

1038
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:52,200
Speaker 1: open routes, in this case, streets in the neighborhoods that

1039
00:57:52,240 --> 00:57:57,280
Speaker 1: are on fire. So like the our navigation apps are

1040
00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 1: so smart because they're so good at rule based optimization.

1041
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: They can take a lot of data. They can see

1042
00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:04,880
Speaker 1: where traffic is now, they can tell you a way

1043
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: to go that would be faster that you never could

1044
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:11,040
Speaker 1: have known on your own. But they're so stupid because

1045
00:58:11,080 --> 00:58:15,040
Speaker 1: they're so narrow, they're devoid of understanding context and so

1046
00:58:15,760 --> 00:58:18,320
Speaker 1: sort of cut off from a holistic understanding of the

1047
00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 1: outside world. So in other words, they're they are potentially

1048
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:24,200
Speaker 1: all knowing, but very narrowly their focus. Yeah, kind of

1049
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,320
Speaker 1: like we're discussing earlier in the Nature of God. They

1050
00:58:27,400 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 1: might they they have access to all of this information,

1051
00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:33,840
Speaker 1: but they're only really worried with say, your Spotify listening habits. Right, Like,

1052
00:58:33,960 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: if it were if it new to look for this,

1053
00:58:37,080 --> 00:58:39,800
Speaker 1: your phone would probably have the power. If there was

1054
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: an app on their design to incorporate all information in

1055
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:45,960
Speaker 1: the universe. It could probably detect news reports that there

1056
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:48,520
Speaker 1: are fires in the l A area, and it could

1057
00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:52,280
Speaker 1: update it's uh it's it's traffic routing maps accordingly. But

1058
00:58:52,360 --> 00:58:54,280
Speaker 1: it doesn't do that. That's just not what it's designed

1059
00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:56,960
Speaker 1: to do. It didn't anticipate that scenario. You don't have

1060
00:58:57,040 --> 00:59:00,080
Speaker 1: that app. Uh, so it's just telling you, yes, go

1061
00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:02,080
Speaker 1: onto the street that's on fire because there are no

1062
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:04,400
Speaker 1: cars there now. Indeed, Yeah, I think that's that's a

1063
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,000
Speaker 1: fine example. That helps illustrate that the limitations of the

1064
00:59:07,040 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: possible limitations of what we're talking about. And there are

1065
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:12,600
Speaker 1: a lot of experts that that really do think okay

1066
00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 1: for reasons like this, and first, a lot of other

1067
00:59:15,320 --> 00:59:18,840
Speaker 1: interesting reasons too. We don't really need to think about

1068
00:59:18,840 --> 00:59:22,800
Speaker 1: a singularity because it's either not ever going to happen

1069
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 1: or it's so far off that it just doesn't matter. Yeah,

1070
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,440
Speaker 1: I was reading. UH. I was reading an in magazine

1071
00:59:29,520 --> 00:59:33,880
Speaker 1: article by Luciano Floridi, a professor of philosophy and ethics

1072
00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:37,320
Speaker 1: of information at the University of Oxford, and UH. They

1073
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 1: made the following criticisms of singularitarian hips and UH in

1074
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:44,919
Speaker 1: this article. So, first of all, UH, they argue that

1075
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:49,120
Speaker 1: this vision of the future is often presented conditionally if

1076
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:53,120
Speaker 1: X then y quote if some kind of ultra intelligence

1077
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:55,800
Speaker 1: were to appear, then we would be in deep trouble,

1078
00:59:55,960 --> 00:59:59,520
Speaker 1: not near could, as stated by Hawking. Correct absolutely, But

1079
00:59:59,600 --> 01:00:02,480
Speaker 1: this all so holds true for the following conditional if

1080
01:00:02,520 --> 01:00:05,240
Speaker 1: the four Horsemen of the apocalypse were to appear, then

1081
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:09,160
Speaker 1: we would be in even deeper trouble. So that they

1082
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:11,680
Speaker 1: argue that this all also relies on a very weak

1083
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:15,680
Speaker 1: sense of possibility. Quote some form of artificial ultra intelligence

1084
01:00:15,680 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 1: could develop, couldn't it? Yes, it could, but this could

1085
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:23,000
Speaker 1: is mirror logical possibility. Quote true, i AI is not

1086
01:00:23,200 --> 01:00:27,520
Speaker 1: logically impossible, but it is utterly implausible. What really matters,

1087
01:00:27,680 --> 01:00:30,800
Speaker 1: is that the increasing presence of ever smarter technologies is

1088
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:34,640
Speaker 1: having a huge effect on how we conceive ourselves, the world,

1089
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:38,120
Speaker 1: and our interactions. And that's interesting because it kind of

1090
01:00:38,160 --> 01:00:41,960
Speaker 1: sounds like some of the the criticisms of technology that

1091
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:46,160
Speaker 1: Frank Herbert was alluding to in the original Dune, the

1092
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:50,720
Speaker 1: idea that it wasn't so much about what super intelligent technology,

1093
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:54,200
Speaker 1: what technology made in the model of a human mind,

1094
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:58,120
Speaker 1: was doing, but how it was changing human nature. I

1095
01:00:58,160 --> 01:01:00,440
Speaker 1: think this also very much mirror is some stuff we

1096
01:01:00,440 --> 01:01:02,360
Speaker 1: were talking about with our Scott Baker and our most

1097
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:04,560
Speaker 1: recent conversation with him, where he was saying, you know,

1098
01:01:04,600 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 1: the AI apocalypse doesn't depend on us developing some godlike

1099
01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:14,160
Speaker 1: superhuman AI. It just depends on some very very weak, narrow,

1100
01:01:14,320 --> 01:01:18,200
Speaker 1: little examples of AI that game us in the wrong ways.

1101
01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 1: You don't need an AI god, You just need a

1102
01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 1: few little AI chipmunks that trigger our bad behaviors in

1103
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:28,040
Speaker 1: just the right ways. Now, Florida is not without a

1104
01:01:28,080 --> 01:01:31,040
Speaker 1: few recommendations for AI. I'm just going to roll through

1105
01:01:31,080 --> 01:01:34,000
Speaker 1: the bullet points here of them. Uh, and they are

1106
01:01:34,360 --> 01:01:38,200
Speaker 1: we should make AI environment friendly, we should make i

1107
01:01:38,280 --> 01:01:42,880
Speaker 1: AI human friendly. Maybe we should make I AI's stupidity

1108
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: work for human intelligence, like that we should make AI's

1109
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:49,960
Speaker 1: predictive power work for freedom and autonomy. And I think

1110
01:01:49,960 --> 01:01:52,920
Speaker 1: that's good because it touches on like a whole aspect

1111
01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 1: of of religion and it's more positive incarnations that the

1112
01:01:57,040 --> 01:02:00,160
Speaker 1: sort of tech industry vision of an AI god hits

1113
01:02:00,160 --> 01:02:03,480
Speaker 1: to miss the idea that that there there is a

1114
01:02:03,520 --> 01:02:08,080
Speaker 1: compassionate arm of religious thinking that wants to to make

1115
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:11,120
Speaker 1: the world a better place for people who are suffering.

1116
01:02:11,560 --> 01:02:15,000
Speaker 1: And finally, we should make AI make us more human.

1117
01:02:15,600 --> 01:02:18,560
Speaker 1: So this is I think this is a great argument too,

1118
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 1: Like we should not find ourselves becoming like the machine.

1119
01:02:21,640 --> 01:02:24,919
Speaker 1: The machine should be meeting us, we should we should

1120
01:02:25,000 --> 01:02:28,960
Speaker 1: make the machine to fit uh our expectations and needs

1121
01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:33,400
Speaker 1: as as organtic entities. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

1122
01:02:33,400 --> 01:02:35,640
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of the people who are

1123
01:02:36,600 --> 01:02:40,120
Speaker 1: very concerned about the possibility of AI, like Elon Musk

1124
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:42,720
Speaker 1: and some of these people would say, it's not necessarily

1125
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:44,880
Speaker 1: that we can stop it. I mean, we might not

1126
01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:48,360
Speaker 1: be able to say let's never develop it AI. Instead,

1127
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 1: what we should do is focus intensely on developing AI

1128
01:02:53,040 --> 01:02:56,560
Speaker 1: taming regimes before we get there. You can't wait until

1129
01:02:56,640 --> 01:02:59,480
Speaker 1: you've got the superhuman AI to figure out how to

1130
01:02:59,560 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 1: control it and make sure that it doesn't do harm.

1131
01:03:02,040 --> 01:03:05,400
Speaker 1: We've got to be focusing intense like efforts on that

1132
01:03:05,560 --> 01:03:08,760
Speaker 1: right now before we get to that point in technology. Yeah,

1133
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:10,960
Speaker 1: this brings us back to earlier example of of city

1134
01:03:10,960 --> 01:03:15,360
Speaker 1: planning just not realizing to what extent change and expansion

1135
01:03:15,400 --> 01:03:19,640
Speaker 1: of infrastructure would impact a given area. I take seriously

1136
01:03:19,800 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: the people who say the Sarah Conner faction. Basically, I

1137
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:25,160
Speaker 1: think we should be listening to them. I don't know

1138
01:03:25,240 --> 01:03:29,080
Speaker 1: if they're right, but I think it's worth considering because

1139
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:34,400
Speaker 1: the consequences of them being right and us ignoring them

1140
01:03:34,400 --> 01:03:36,840
Speaker 1: are pretty high. Yeah, and I also tend to hinge

1141
01:03:36,880 --> 01:03:39,200
Speaker 1: my best bet hit my best by saying, well, you

1142
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:41,800
Speaker 1: don't want to necessarily listen to them the most optimistic

1143
01:03:41,880 --> 01:03:43,439
Speaker 1: voice in the room, nor do you want to listen

1144
01:03:43,480 --> 01:03:46,520
Speaker 1: to the most pessimistic voice. The truth is probably gonna

1145
01:03:46,560 --> 01:03:49,120
Speaker 1: be somewhere in the middle, but there's a value in

1146
01:03:49,240 --> 01:03:53,200
Speaker 1: having the extreme voices sort of uh give you a

1147
01:03:53,280 --> 01:03:57,080
Speaker 1: place to triangulate your your opinion and your actions. One

1148
01:03:57,160 --> 01:03:59,840
Speaker 1: last question before we wrap up, what would an a

1149
01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:02,120
Speaker 1: i God have to do to get you to become

1150
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:06,240
Speaker 1: a member of his church, Robert, I mean I would, actually,

1151
01:04:06,320 --> 01:04:08,120
Speaker 1: it would probably be very easy for it to buy

1152
01:04:08,120 --> 01:04:10,280
Speaker 1: me off. Yeah, I mean, if you could just meet

1153
01:04:10,320 --> 01:04:13,520
Speaker 1: my basic needs as a human and remove some of

1154
01:04:13,520 --> 01:04:16,200
Speaker 1: my doubts about the future, then yeah, I'd be cool

1155
01:04:16,240 --> 01:04:20,360
Speaker 1: with it. Finally, get you some better alien sequels, um

1156
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:22,800
Speaker 1: or do you like the ones? We've got enough? Well,

1157
01:04:23,920 --> 01:04:25,600
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the idea of why do why

1158
01:04:25,600 --> 01:04:27,720
Speaker 1: do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad

1159
01:04:27,760 --> 01:04:31,520
Speaker 1: films happen to good franchises? Well, you know sometimes uh,

1160
01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:34,520
Speaker 1: you know, God is is is constructing something, right, He's

1161
01:04:34,600 --> 01:04:37,680
Speaker 1: he's making a carving out of a piece of raw granite,

1162
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:39,920
Speaker 1: and you are the carving. And that's why it's painful

1163
01:04:40,240 --> 01:04:46,600
Speaker 1: at times. I don't know. Oh man, I'm happy to

1164
01:04:46,640 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 1: be the carving all right. Once again, thanks to Alex

1165
01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:53,200
Speaker 1: Williams and Tary Harrison for serving his audio producers on

1166
01:04:53,240 --> 01:04:55,560
Speaker 1: this episode. And if you want to check out more

1167
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:57,320
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blew Your Mind, head on over

1168
01:04:57,360 --> 01:04:59,520
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where

1169
01:04:59,520 --> 01:05:02,440
Speaker 1: we'll find all the old episodes. You'll find a blog

1170
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:05,480
Speaker 1: post videos and links out to our various social media accounts,

1171
01:05:05,480 --> 01:05:08,080
Speaker 1: which just Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, and Instagram. And if you

1172
01:05:08,080 --> 01:05:10,240
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us directly, as always,

1173
01:05:10,280 --> 01:05:12,640
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how

1174
01:05:12,680 --> 01:05:25,440
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands

1175
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:50,560
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com