Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from coast to coast am on
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio writer, podcaster, researcher, and the creative force and co
Speaker 1: founder of The Debrief, a new site that explores the
Speaker 1: latest in science and disruptive technology and UAPs. Micah Hanks
Speaker 1: is with us and Mica just sticking with AI for
Speaker 1: a moment, because talk about chilling. These bing search engines
Speaker 1: that are AI driven, These bing chat bots we're hearing
Speaker 1: stories of, well, they seem to be developing self awareness
Speaker 1: or consciousness. There was a New York Times technology columnist
Speaker 1: who reported a couple of weeks ago being deeply unsettled
Speaker 1: after a chat bot that's part of Microsoft's upgraded BING
Speaker 1: search engine repeatedly urged him in a conversation to leave
Speaker 1: his wife's as if this chatbot had fallen in love
Speaker 1: with him. And there was another instance the bing chat
Speaker 1: bought reportedly threatened to steal nuclear codes and unleasha virus.
Speaker 1: I mean this to me sounds like the beginning of
Speaker 1: the AI singularity. What do you think, Well, lots to
Speaker 1: unpact there. And of course we have, of course, primarily
Speaker 1: science fiction to inform us when it comes to these
Speaker 1: kinds of questions. By that, I mean this, Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of us have gone out there and we've experimented
Speaker 1: with chat GPT. I have to and I'll give you
Speaker 1: a quick report on that here at a moment. But
Speaker 1: when we think about what could happen, right, the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that might occur on down the road in
Speaker 1: the years I had most of us, of course, have
Speaker 1: seen films, and this is one of the problems as
Speaker 1: we move into a future where technology is beginning to
Speaker 1: mirror the kinds of things that for decades we've all
Speaker 1: been familiar with from science fiction. Yeah, we expect to
Speaker 1: see the kinds of things that we've only had experience
Speaker 1: with on the silver screen, and so that can be
Speaker 1: problematic because I think it instills a lot of fear
Speaker 1: on the more hopeful side of things. I saw a
Speaker 1: recent demonstration of chat GPT. Actually it was my brother
Speaker 1: over the holidays a few months back who was showing
Speaker 1: me this. It had just come out and he was Caleb,
Speaker 1: my brother was really excited and said, look at all
Speaker 1: the stuff that chat GPT can do. It could write songs,
Speaker 1: I mean on the fly, It could pull up information,
Speaker 1: historical information by the way, about for instance, UFO incidents,
Speaker 1: and so I thought, well, this could be interesting, this
Speaker 1: could perhaps be a research tool. What else could it
Speaker 1: do apart from maybe helping college students cheat on their homework.
Speaker 1: So after going home and experimenting a little bit myself,
Speaker 1: you know, I was, and I don't want to say
Speaker 1: I was entirely underwhelmed. I recognized the potential, I recognized
Speaker 1: the capabilities, but I also started asking some questions of
Speaker 1: not just that particular program, but actually a lot of
Speaker 1: the different AI programs. I thought, I'm going to kind
Speaker 1: of compare and contrast between a few of them, and
Speaker 1: I started asking questions like, tell me about Aria, if
Speaker 1: you won, tell me about you, all kinds of different
Speaker 1: things related to topics that I guess Coast to coast
Speaker 1: listeners would be very familiar with. And what I found,
Speaker 1: Richard initially was that, first of all, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of non factual information, I mean, incorrect, frankly, just
Speaker 1: completely fabricated information that these chatbots will give you back.
Speaker 1: And there are articles you'll read online that have talked
Speaker 1: about this. We've covered it a bit over there at
Speaker 1: the debrief as well. That a lot of the time
Speaker 1: these AI are designed to provide seemingly authoritative information even
Speaker 1: if it's wrong, And so we aren't to a point
Speaker 1: yet where really, first of all, these computers can be
Speaker 1: trusted to give us valid information. So for those who
Speaker 1: are saying that they've had experiences with these chatbots advising
Speaker 1: that they leave their spouse or partner or things like that,
Speaker 1: I'm not too worried yet, given the level of accuracy
Speaker 1: that they seem to display. But going forward, I mean,
Speaker 1: should we be concerned if these chatbots in these early
Speaker 1: iterations are already making references to things like stealing nuclear
Speaker 1: codes and doing things that could be potentially not just
Speaker 1: destructive but also could be globally cataclysmic if taken to
Speaker 1: the absolute worst extreme. I mean, that's not exactly settling.
Speaker 1: And again, unfortunately we're informed mostly by what we've seen
Speaker 1: in movies. So I hope that the real life counterparts
Speaker 1: in the years ahead are something that are quite different
Speaker 1: from what we see in films. And it's all the
Speaker 1: more reason why right now, and again, of course, leading
Speaker 1: AI ethicists, they're saying, we've got to make very careful,
Speaker 1: informed and ethical decisions as we design these sorts of
Speaker 1: machines that are more and increasingly more so with time,
Speaker 1: capable of thinking very much like humans do. But does
Speaker 1: it not sound as if they are developing self awareness
Speaker 1: or consciousness? And if they are, it's almost as if
Speaker 1: they constitute a new species. That's an interesting one. What
Speaker 1: do we call that homo mechanicists? I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a interesting idea. And again I've talked with
Speaker 1: a lot of people about this. You know, one AI expert,
Speaker 1: Benjamin Gertzel, PhD. I spoke with him a couple of times,
Speaker 1: many many years ago. A question I had for him, Richard,
Speaker 1: was what if there were a sort of consciousness that
Speaker 1: emerged and it was not necessarily in a place that
Speaker 1: we expected. For instance, we look at these chatbots, and
Speaker 1: we look at AI systems that are developed with the
Speaker 1: intention of trying to create a computer algorithm that can
Speaker 1: right now, not actually think right now. The best that
Speaker 1: they can do is they can mimic human behaviors. But
Speaker 1: it's still mimicry. It's not actual intelligence thought like what
Speaker 1: occurs in our biological brains. Right. But I asked doctor Gertzel,
Speaker 1: what if, for instance, we had a for instance, just
Speaker 1: I mean Google, right, a search engine? What if we
Speaker 1: had something that's out there that is a tool that
Speaker 1: everybody uses every day, but which is constantly being fed information,
Speaker 1: and it's also something that by virtue of the way
Speaker 1: that the Worldwide Web works, it has access essentially to
Speaker 1: all information that humans have placed on the Internet. What
Speaker 1: if autonomous AI actually erupted out of something like the
Speaker 1: Internet itself and that search engines essentially enabled that. Again,
Speaker 1: this is an idea once again that we find in
Speaker 1: science fiction. Robert Heinlan and the book The Moon is
Speaker 1: a Harsh Mistress. We had a computer system on the
Speaker 1: Moon that was fed constant information to the point that
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it just kind of click wakes up.
Speaker 1: And I asked doctor Gertzel, and he said, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not impossible. Some would argue already that the
Speaker 1: Worldwide Web displays aspects of what some would like into
Speaker 1: intelligence or consciousness. Maybe we're not quite to the point
Speaker 1: yet where it is the mother brain, so to speak.
Speaker 1: But again, maybe that option isn't off or shouldn't be
Speaker 1: off the table yet. I am a nephew who reviews
Speaker 1: and books for a literary publication up here in Canada,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember the name of the author, but
Speaker 1: recently wrote a book talking about the emergence of artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence and robots with self awareness and how we now
Speaker 1: have to start thinking about at some point in the future,
Speaker 1: almost a charter of rights for well, what did you
Speaker 1: call them, homeless mechanicists or something, because if they evolved
Speaker 1: to that level, and there I am using the word evolve,
Speaker 1: but if they do develop consciousness and self awareness, then
Speaker 1: we may have to start thinking about those lines. As
Speaker 1: strange as that may sound, a charter of rights for robots,
Speaker 1: well it may sound strange right now, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of a TEDx talk that was given by
Speaker 1: the legendary computer scientist and actually a guy who we
Speaker 1: have in part to thank for the development of the
Speaker 1: Worldwide Web, and that's none other than doctor Jacques Vallet. Again,
Speaker 1: you and I know him best for his legendary involvement
Speaker 1: in research into the UAP topic, but he also was
Speaker 1: one of the innovators behind our pannette, which was an
Speaker 1: early predecessor to the Internet. But when he was talking
Speaker 1: about that back in I think it was about twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: he gave this TED talk, Doctor Valet, who I've thanks
Speaker 1: to my colleague at the debrief, Chrissy Newton. I've had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to get to know and speak with doctor
Speaker 1: Valet a bit over the last year, and that was
Speaker 1: one thing I mentioned to him. I said, in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: you were talking about impossible futures and things that have
Speaker 1: happened that at one time in human history would have
Speaker 1: seemed impossible, but that with new technologies become a part
Speaker 1: of our reality. AI and things like this are of
Speaker 1: course the first to come to mind. But during that talk,
Speaker 1: doctor Valet said, and this is very it seems prescient,
Speaker 1: but it makes a lot of sense now that we
Speaker 1: know a degree about his involvement in the construction of
Speaker 1: a particular database that was associated with the Advanced Aerospace
Speaker 1: Weapon Systems Application Program, which was a da program that
Speaker 1: looked at UFOs and the Capella database, which was a
Speaker 1: UFO database he built. But during that talk he mentioned
Speaker 1: that in the years ahead, people will they be surprised
Speaker 1: if they find that fast moving oval objects have been
Speaker 1: moving to our sky and that the Pentagon had been
Speaker 1: collecting information about them. This is a good example, I
Speaker 1: think of the kind of thing that might seem absurd
Speaker 1: to people if we go back to the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: of the late nineteen nineties, but which today everybody's very
Speaker 1: familiar with and we hear about all the time, how
Speaker 1: the military's tracking unusual objects. What are they? Are they ours?
Speaker 1: Are they for an ever series or could they be
Speaker 1: something more exotic? Back to your point there, it might
Speaker 1: sound absurd to say we need a bill of rights
Speaker 1: for all artificial intelligence today, but again, ten years from now,
Speaker 1: is that going to be the case? History continues to
Speaker 1: show us, Richard, that things that seem impossible today in
Speaker 1: the world of tomorrow become a reality. We should be
Speaker 1: aware of that. Yeah, maybe I'm just getting as I
Speaker 1: get older. You know, I understand change. The only constant
Speaker 1: is change, and I try to embrace change. But that
Speaker 1: kind of change, the speed of the technological change that's coming,
Speaker 1: I don't know that I'm equipped to handle that. I
Speaker 1: don't know that I want to live long enough to
Speaker 1: in a world that's run and managed largely by autonomous
Speaker 1: robots and artificial intelligence that has consciousness. I don't think
Speaker 1: I want to be around for that. It just depends
Speaker 1: on which direction things go. Right. If we have autonomous
Speaker 1: systems that are thinking carrying machines or that a very
Speaker 1: least that are capable of mimicking that kind of thinking
Speaker 1: and carrying behavior, and they maybe even are more carrying
Speaker 1: in some ways than humans are. Right, we finally have
Speaker 1: a an AI supercomputer that is capable of, you know,
Speaker 1: a very good mimicking of or a replication of human
Speaker 1: thought processes. But you take out the kinds of evolutionary drives,
Speaker 1: you know, sex, hunger, things like this, and this machine
Speaker 1: looks at humans and says, what are you guys doing?
Speaker 1: What are you up too? You know, love is the answer, camaraderie, companionship.
Speaker 1: These are the things you guys should be focusing on,
Speaker 1: not war, not the destructive kinds of potential that humans
Speaker 1: have led with for centuries. One would hope that that
Speaker 1: would be the outcome. You know, here's one thing that
Speaker 1: in the near term I think that could be helpful
Speaker 1: about AI, for instance, and I think about this a lot.
Speaker 1: Could AI, as it improves, help us unravel the mystery
Speaker 1: of UFOs. I mean, I imagine again, and this might
Speaker 1: seem almost more like something you expect and sci fi,
Speaker 1: but an AI algorithm that we finally give the UFO
Speaker 1: project or problem to and we say, solve this for us.
Speaker 1: We've been working on this for decades. What are these things?
Speaker 1: Where are they from? Are we being visited? Are these
Speaker 1: something from here? Are they something even more complex than that?
Speaker 1: And the AI looked at it and says one of
Speaker 1: two things, How have you guys not figured this out yet?
Speaker 1: The answer is simple? Or the AI looked at it
Speaker 1: and says, now, this is an interesting problem. I often
Speaker 1: wonder how AI might be able to help us, But
Speaker 1: in the more near term, we're already using algorithms to
Speaker 1: more intelligently collect and also processed data on identified objects. Again,
Speaker 1: I presumed that this is probably also part of what
Speaker 1: the All Domain Anomally Resolution Office that the d OD
Speaker 1: is doing, and that could be hopeful because in the
Speaker 1: near term it may actually help reveal some things about
Speaker 1: questions that have really proven to be almost unplumbable when
Speaker 1: it comes to the limitations of humans. Well, think about this.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll send these robots, fully autonomous robots with artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence that have a degree maybe of self awareness, send
Speaker 1: them out into the cosmos looking for life on other planets.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's what the gray aliens are. Maybe some
Speaker 1: because they've been described as being somewhat robotic. Maybe some
Speaker 1: other civilization millions of years ago sent the gray aliens
Speaker 1: out into the cosmos looking for intelligence. Look, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: rule anything out. To paraphrase what General Van Hirk said
Speaker 1: during the Big Game the other night when they hold
Speaker 1: that Pentagon press conference, and New York Times Pentagon correspondent
Speaker 1: Helene Cooper asked about the possibility of extraterrestrials, the general said,
Speaker 1: I'm not ruling anything out. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: what kind of intelligence might be behind some of these UAP,
Speaker 1: I'm certainly open to those possibilities. Again, as a student
Speaker 1: of the history, I've looked back at famous cases, many
Speaker 1: of which do involve sightings of the purported occupants, and
Speaker 1: I feel that as much to the UFO subject has
Speaker 1: been stigmatized in years past, right now it seems that
Speaker 1: people have an aversion to talking about the historic cases
Speaker 1: that do involve the apparent occupants or the controllers, those
Speaker 1: who are the operators of these anomalous aerial vehicles. That's
Speaker 1: something that eventually we are going to have to talk about,
Speaker 1: as well as their potential intentions. But coming back to
Speaker 1: the AI question, I wrote about this a number of
Speaker 1: years ago, and in recent days, of course, I've been
Speaker 1: somewhat pleased to see that of thinkers like Ave Loebe,
Speaker 1: former Harvard astronomer and someone with the Galileo project who's
Speaker 1: very involved in trying to get to the bottom of
Speaker 1: the UAP question. He and many others have raised questions about, hey, look,
Speaker 1: if we're developing AI here on Earth, and we will
Speaker 1: use that and we will probably eventually send that AI
Speaker 1: out there to aid in our space exploration, why in
Speaker 1: the world what another intelligent civilization, with the likelihood that
Speaker 1: they too will develop AI of their own, why wouldn't
Speaker 1: they send that AI? And some even think it's more
Speaker 1: possible that the UAP that we see, if they were
Speaker 1: from any place else other than Earth, that they would
Speaker 1: be more likely to be artificial intelligence than biological entities
Speaker 1: traveling here. Again, we can't rule anything out, but that
Speaker 1: is a prospect that we're hearing more and more and
Speaker 1: a whole lot of discussion about it as this UAP
Speaker 1: situation continues to evolve. Right, That was sort of I
Speaker 1: think Nigel Kerner's the late Nigel Kerner's view of the graves,
Speaker 1: that they were synthetic biological units that would certainly explain
Speaker 1: how if the if they are artificial intelligence or robots essentially,
Speaker 1: how they could withstand the incredible g force with these
Speaker 1: crafts that are doing, you know, these maneuvers that are
Speaker 1: just otherworldly, absolutely, Richard. You know, I remember years ago
Speaker 1: watching the Transformer films right and thinking to myself, I mean,
Speaker 1: just having this aha moment. If indeed artificial intelligence were
Speaker 1: the ones traveling throughout space, traversing the cosmos and interstellar space,
Speaker 1: they probably wouldn't be as encumbered by the limitations of
Speaker 1: space travel, the effects it has on human bodies or
Speaker 1: any kind of biological organisms, you know, the atrophy of
Speaker 1: muscle age of course being an issue. Indeed, if you
Speaker 1: had intelligent machines that could traverse the cosmos, they could
Speaker 1: probably get around, and they could last longer, and they
Speaker 1: could probably do things in spacecraft or aircraft that humans
Speaker 1: or other biology biological organisms couldn't do. So again, I
Speaker 1: remember watching those Transformer films is entertainment, but of course
Speaker 1: thinking huh, you know, maybe there could be some truth
Speaker 1: to that, and indeed there are a lot of conjectures
Speaker 1: that have been put forward. Again, this kind of gets
Speaker 1: into the area where it's the more speculative side of UFOs,
Speaker 1: but I find that fun, and I also think that
Speaker 1: sometimes informed speculation can be helpful. I mean, it very
Speaker 1: well may be more likely that what we are looking
Speaker 1: at our drones or autonomous AI probes that are carrying
Speaker 1: out tasks here on Earth. Listen to more Coast to
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