1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:03,400
Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

2
00:00:03,680 --> 00:00:05,240
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and.

3
00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:07,600
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Coast to Coast. George Norriy with you,

4
00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:11,280
Speaker 2: Robert Sawyer with us. His latest book is called The Downloaded.

5
00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:13,640
Speaker 2: What are the chances of this becoming a movie?

6
00:00:13,760 --> 00:00:17,080
Speaker 3: Robert, Well, you know, we are really trying to do that.

7
00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:19,680
Speaker 3: I do have the film and TV rights to it,

8
00:00:19,720 --> 00:00:22,799
Speaker 3: and of course if Brendan Fraser would agree to start

9
00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:24,880
Speaker 3: in the movie, I think it'd be greenlit overnight.

10
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:25,520
Speaker 1: Oh my god.

11
00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:28,760
Speaker 3: Obviously start in the audiobook version. But my Hollywood agent

12
00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:30,680
Speaker 3: and I are hard at work trying to get this

13
00:00:30,720 --> 00:00:32,800
Speaker 3: set up. We both think it would make a really

14
00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:35,239
Speaker 3: fine feature film. And as you may recall, I had

15
00:00:35,240 --> 00:00:38,720
Speaker 3: a TV series on ABC a while ago, Flash Forward,

16
00:00:38,800 --> 00:00:41,360
Speaker 3: based on my novel of the same name. So you know,

17
00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:44,280
Speaker 3: it's always a long shot to get something made, but

18
00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:46,440
Speaker 3: I had something made in the past. We're hoping that

19
00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:48,600
Speaker 3: The Downloaded will become a movie as well.

20
00:00:48,680 --> 00:00:51,040
Speaker 2: Would Brendan become one of the Astronauts or one of

21
00:00:51,040 --> 00:00:52,360
Speaker 2: the games, he would.

22
00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:55,840
Speaker 3: Be the main prisoner actually is the character you played

23
00:00:55,840 --> 00:01:00,520
Speaker 3: the main ex convict in the audio version, and tumble

24
00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:02,680
Speaker 3: guy who made some bad decisions in life. It is

25
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:06,280
Speaker 3: trying to redeem himself. And you know, we all make mistakes.

26
00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:09,280
Speaker 3: His was more catastrophic than most of us have are

27
00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:12,120
Speaker 3: making our life. But he also trying to redeem himself,

28
00:01:12,160 --> 00:01:15,720
Speaker 3: and he did it with such heart, such an emotion.

29
00:01:16,400 --> 00:01:19,639
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes Brendan doesn't get the credit that he deserves.

30
00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:21,600
Speaker 3: I mean he does now that he's an Academy Award winner.

31
00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:23,840
Speaker 3: But we think of George of the Jungle, we think

32
00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:26,560
Speaker 3: of Encino Man, we think of the Mummy movies, and

33
00:01:26,600 --> 00:01:31,319
Speaker 3: we don't necessarily think of a subtle, complicated performance. But

34
00:01:31,400 --> 00:01:33,840
Speaker 3: he brought that very much to the audiobook version of

35
00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:35,000
Speaker 3: the Downloaded.

36
00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:39,120
Speaker 2: So the Book of Course has to do with an

37
00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:44,160
Speaker 2: incredible possibilities of science fiction in the future. How realistic

38
00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:45,160
Speaker 2: do you think that is?

39
00:01:45,920 --> 00:01:48,559
Speaker 3: I for me, now this isn't true for all science

40
00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:51,640
Speaker 3: fiction writers, but for me, it has to be realistic.

41
00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:55,360
Speaker 3: It has to be plausible. If it's not plausible, then

42
00:01:55,360 --> 00:01:59,040
Speaker 3: it's fantasy. It's not science fiction. And I think all

43
00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:01,800
Speaker 3: the things that I talk about in the Book of Course,

44
00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:05,600
Speaker 3: we've already mentioned the cryonic suspension, the freezing of bodies

45
00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:10,840
Speaker 3: for eventual thawing out reanimating of formerly dead people. Absolutely,

46
00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:14,000
Speaker 3: I think that technology is very near at hand. The

47
00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,359
Speaker 3: book also talks enormously about artificial intelligence, and I mean

48
00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:21,440
Speaker 3: that's galloping ahead, as you well know, George, where every

49
00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:25,400
Speaker 3: time we turn around there's some new breakthrough, new level

50
00:02:25,480 --> 00:02:29,359
Speaker 3: of sophistication in what AI can do. And so that

51
00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:32,400
Speaker 3: absolutely I think is also in the cards. And the

52
00:02:32,480 --> 00:02:36,120
Speaker 3: third technology in the downloaded is intertellar travel, not by

53
00:02:36,120 --> 00:02:38,200
Speaker 3: going faster than the speed of light with a Star

54
00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:41,160
Speaker 3: Trek style warp drive, but the kind of technology that

55
00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:44,360
Speaker 3: we have or will have very soon. We take a

56
00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:48,360
Speaker 3: long time to get to say proximate century close to

57
00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:51,600
Speaker 3: star other than the Sun to Earth, but that doesn't

58
00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,080
Speaker 3: mean we couldn't do it, and I suspect we will

59
00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:55,040
Speaker 3: do it this century.

60
00:02:55,480 --> 00:02:58,400
Speaker 2: Robert, we were talking about Larry Knivin, the great sci

61
00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:01,920
Speaker 2: fi writer, and Heat partnered up with the lady Jerry Pronell.

62
00:03:02,040 --> 00:03:03,240
Speaker 2: Did you know Jerry at all?

63
00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:07,200
Speaker 3: I knew Jerry very well. I was so sad when

64
00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:10,760
Speaker 3: Jerry passed. You know, we had differing politics, we had

65
00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:14,400
Speaker 3: differing personalities, but we were friends. And what a lesson

66
00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:16,760
Speaker 3: you know that you can have people on different ends

67
00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:20,840
Speaker 3: of the political spectrum, different different belief systems. That Jerry

68
00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:23,440
Speaker 3: was Roman Catholic and I'm, you know, a person of

69
00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:27,200
Speaker 3: no faith and still be friends that have civil debate.

70
00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:31,680
Speaker 3: I miss him, and I miss that whole ethos that

71
00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:33,960
Speaker 3: used to be so prevalent in the world and seems

72
00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:34,840
Speaker 3: so rare today.

73
00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:36,520
Speaker 2: He would have liked the download it.

74
00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:39,440
Speaker 3: I think he really would have. I think he would have.

75
00:03:39,520 --> 00:03:42,800
Speaker 3: He was, you know, and that pleases me because he

76
00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:45,840
Speaker 3: and Larry as mitched Larry him, Jerry Pronell. They wrote

77
00:03:45,880 --> 00:03:49,600
Speaker 3: what Robert A. Heinlein, the great dean of American science fiction, called,

78
00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:52,760
Speaker 3: you know, the finest science fiction novel he ever read,

79
00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:56,120
Speaker 3: The Moten God's Eye, a wonderful book, good people.

80
00:03:56,680 --> 00:03:59,680
Speaker 2: So without giving away the book, we don't want to

81
00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:03,640
Speaker 2: do that. Something happens at the end dramatically, doesn't it. Oh?

82
00:04:03,720 --> 00:04:06,880
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And you're always leading up to that. I mean,

83
00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:10,600
Speaker 3: you ask people to give of their time, and of

84
00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:12,800
Speaker 3: course they're buying the book some of their money, but

85
00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:15,600
Speaker 3: you're taking a portion of a person's life. If you're

86
00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:18,520
Speaker 3: an author and you have to give a payoff at

87
00:04:18,520 --> 00:04:20,800
Speaker 3: the end, you have to, you know, if they're going

88
00:04:20,839 --> 00:04:23,480
Speaker 3: to invest whatever number of hours it takes to read

89
00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:25,680
Speaker 3: the book or listen to it. If you listen to it,

90
00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:29,560
Speaker 3: it's about six hours in the audiobook version. I owe

91
00:04:29,560 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 3: it to you, any author owes it to you that

92
00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:35,080
Speaker 3: in the end there's a payoff that makes it worthwhile.

93
00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:37,520
Speaker 3: And I really do think it is there in the download.

94
00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:39,880
Speaker 3: And I tried very very hard to give people not

95
00:04:39,960 --> 00:04:41,919
Speaker 3: just value for your money, of course that's what we

96
00:04:41,960 --> 00:04:43,800
Speaker 3: all want to do for in some kind of business,

97
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,200
Speaker 3: but value for the time that we took out of

98
00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:50,120
Speaker 3: somebody's life to pursue whatever piece of art or creativity

99
00:04:50,160 --> 00:04:50,760
Speaker 3: we've created.

100
00:04:51,160 --> 00:04:53,880
Speaker 2: How realistic is the book based on the future.

101
00:04:54,760 --> 00:04:57,640
Speaker 3: I think it's very realistic. I, honest to God, believe

102
00:04:58,040 --> 00:05:03,240
Speaker 3: that artificial intelligence, truly self aware artificial intelligence, not just

103
00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:06,160
Speaker 3: chad GBT that throws back at you, you know, things

104
00:05:06,200 --> 00:05:08,680
Speaker 3: have scraped that other people have created on the web,

105
00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:12,440
Speaker 3: but true AI intelligence. Yes, I think that's very plausible,

106
00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:16,400
Speaker 3: very likely, and very near in the future. All the

107
00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:20,359
Speaker 3: other technology I talked about absolutely, yeah, I think there

108
00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:25,600
Speaker 3: were at such a threshold of new technologies and breakthroughs.

109
00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:27,719
Speaker 3: I'm going to be if I do make it to

110
00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:30,159
Speaker 3: be ninety nine years old. As we alluded to in

111
00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:34,159
Speaker 3: the earlier segment, I expect to see all of these technologies.

112
00:05:34,520 --> 00:05:38,279
Speaker 2: Robert Sara's website is linked up with Coast tocosdam dot com.

113
00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:40,520
Speaker 2: He was on with me about a year ago. We

114
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:44,000
Speaker 2: were talked about The Oppenheimer Alternative. Did you see that movie?

115
00:05:44,279 --> 00:05:47,159
Speaker 3: Of course I did, yeh three hours. I must say

116
00:05:47,320 --> 00:05:49,960
Speaker 3: I saw the movie and at the fay I endured it.

117
00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:52,720
Speaker 3: That was a long movie that could have been all

118
00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:55,080
Speaker 3: due respect to Chrisivern Nolan, the director, could have been

119
00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:59,039
Speaker 3: a shorter movie. But it was certainly you know, the

120
00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:03,880
Speaker 3: definitive date at least screen treatment of the Oppenheimer's story.

121
00:06:04,960 --> 00:06:07,320
Speaker 3: My novel, as you know, The Oppenheimer Alternative was an

122
00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:11,520
Speaker 3: alternate history novel that I wrote and published before it

123
00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:16,320
Speaker 3: was even announced that Christopher Nolan was making making his movie.

124
00:06:17,120 --> 00:06:20,400
Speaker 3: So it wasn't me cashing in. But his movie certainly

125
00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:22,400
Speaker 3: helped my book sales, so I can't complain.

126
00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:26,440
Speaker 2: And Oppenheimer had regrets.

127
00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:31,400
Speaker 3: Many regrets, you know. He was like many of our scientists.

128
00:06:31,760 --> 00:06:34,800
Speaker 3: He was given an interesting puzzle. He called it. It

129
00:06:34,839 --> 00:06:39,200
Speaker 3: was his favorite adjective sweet, A sweet problem in science.

130
00:06:39,520 --> 00:06:42,839
Speaker 3: You don't split the atom and make all kinds of

131
00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:46,279
Speaker 3: energy and big explosion. And he didn't even think about

132
00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:50,360
Speaker 3: the moral ramifications of what he was doing until after,

133
00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:53,120
Speaker 3: really after the dropping of the second atomic bomb, the

134
00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:56,600
Speaker 3: one that was dropped on Nagasaki. The first one, you know,

135
00:06:56,680 --> 00:06:58,680
Speaker 3: there were arguments pro and con about whether it was

136
00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:03,200
Speaker 3: necessary in order to end the war World War two.

137
00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:08,000
Speaker 3: But the second one he felt was overkilled, the first

138
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:12,120
Speaker 3: time that word had ever been used, overkill, excessive, and

139
00:07:12,560 --> 00:07:14,680
Speaker 3: that was when he started to have real regrets about

140
00:07:14,680 --> 00:07:15,760
Speaker 3: what he had made possible.

141
00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:19,200
Speaker 2: I think that Japanese should have surrendered though immediately after.

142
00:07:19,440 --> 00:07:22,520
Speaker 3: Well totally. But the problem was that, you know, the

143
00:07:22,560 --> 00:07:27,600
Speaker 3: telegraph lines were down, the radio stations in Hiroshima had

144
00:07:27,640 --> 00:07:31,880
Speaker 3: been destroyed. It takes days on foot or by. The

145
00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:35,800
Speaker 3: railways were broken to get to Tokyo, where the high

146
00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:39,920
Speaker 3: command was. We bombed them a second time, seventy two

147
00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:43,680
Speaker 3: hours after the first time. And today we think, of course,

148
00:07:43,880 --> 00:07:45,640
Speaker 3: I just go on social media, I'll just you know,

149
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:49,680
Speaker 3: tweet at President Biden and say, hey, surrender. He yeah,

150
00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:53,480
Speaker 3: girl's render. That kind of instantaneous communication just did not

151
00:07:53,640 --> 00:07:55,320
Speaker 3: exist in nineteen forty five.

152
00:07:56,240 --> 00:07:59,200
Speaker 2: Closer, though, you have your study in twenty fifty nine.

153
00:07:59,560 --> 00:07:59,840
Speaker 1: Yep.

154
00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:05,320
Speaker 2: How close are we to that kind of scenario? Oh?

155
00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:08,240
Speaker 3: I think you know, you play a game when you

156
00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:10,880
Speaker 3: pick a date for a science fiction novel, just like

157
00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:14,000
Speaker 3: as I mentioned earlier two thousand and one a space odyssey.

158
00:08:14,080 --> 00:08:16,320
Speaker 3: Well that they didn't turn out to be right. We

159
00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:18,880
Speaker 3: did not have a city on the Moon, we did

160
00:08:18,920 --> 00:08:24,640
Speaker 3: not have orbiting hotels, we did not have interplanetary crewe dimissions,

161
00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:28,800
Speaker 3: we didn't have true artificial intelligence, we didn't have critogonic suspension.

162
00:08:28,840 --> 00:08:30,520
Speaker 3: All of those things are in two thousand and one,

163
00:08:30,560 --> 00:08:33,280
Speaker 3: here just twenty three years later. Oops, they got the

164
00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:36,480
Speaker 3: date wrong. But we every time we miss one of

165
00:08:36,480 --> 00:08:40,160
Speaker 3: these predictions, we hone our ability. I don't mean just me,

166
00:08:40,280 --> 00:08:43,000
Speaker 3: but all of us who play this game of futurism

167
00:08:43,800 --> 00:08:46,840
Speaker 3: to get closer and closer to being accurate in just

168
00:08:46,920 --> 00:08:49,000
Speaker 3: how far down the road things are. And I think

169
00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:53,040
Speaker 3: twenty fifty nine is a very plausible date for the

170
00:08:53,120 --> 00:08:56,239
Speaker 3: technologies that I talk about in my novel That Downloaded.

171
00:08:56,679 --> 00:08:59,560
Speaker 2: I've always wondered if the terrorists from nine to eleven

172
00:09:00,280 --> 00:09:02,240
Speaker 2: pick that year based on the movie.

173
00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:06,520
Speaker 3: That's an interesting question, quite you know, I suspect they

174
00:09:06,559 --> 00:09:09,160
Speaker 3: simply did it as soon as they possibly could do it.

175
00:09:09,200 --> 00:09:13,520
Speaker 3: I don't think the subtleties of symbolism, well, symbolism for sure,

176
00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:16,160
Speaker 3: I mean going after the Pentagon, going after the World

177
00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:19,920
Speaker 3: Trade Center. Obviously they understood that level of symbolism. But

178
00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:23,840
Speaker 3: I don't think they were buying large, subtle, sophisticated thinkers.

179
00:09:23,880 --> 00:09:28,600
Speaker 3: They were thugs, and we still reel from the incredible

180
00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:31,760
Speaker 3: carnage that they wrought for no good reason.

181
00:09:32,240 --> 00:09:34,800
Speaker 2: We're going to take calls with Robert Sawyer next hour

182
00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:37,520
Speaker 2: here on coast to coast and jump in and check

183
00:09:37,559 --> 00:09:40,679
Speaker 2: in on artificial intelligence and give us your thoughts on that.

184
00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:44,839
Speaker 2: It seems to be growing by leaps and bounds.

185
00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:45,320
Speaker 1: AI.

186
00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:47,960
Speaker 2: Don't you feel out one hundred percent?

187
00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:50,719
Speaker 3: I was just talking to some of my writing colleagues

188
00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:53,040
Speaker 3: over the last couple of days. We're all very worried

189
00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:56,880
Speaker 3: about our jobs. George. You know, we write books and

190
00:09:56,920 --> 00:10:00,360
Speaker 3: it takes us months or sometimes years to write a book,

191
00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:03,320
Speaker 3: and an AI can crank out a book in minutes

192
00:10:03,440 --> 00:10:07,960
Speaker 3: or seconds. I, you know, very lucky.

193
00:10:08,400 --> 00:10:11,520
Speaker 2: Can I write it though, just as creatively as you could?

194
00:10:12,280 --> 00:10:12,360
Speaker 1: Not?

195
00:10:12,559 --> 00:10:16,040
Speaker 3: Today? It can't, but it can do it, can do

196
00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:18,480
Speaker 3: it as good as me in eighteen months from now,

197
00:10:19,280 --> 00:10:22,720
Speaker 3: maybe not thirty six months. I'm starting to worry. Seventy

198
00:10:22,720 --> 00:10:25,120
Speaker 3: two months from now, I suspect it we'll be able

199
00:10:25,160 --> 00:10:27,040
Speaker 3: to do it, not just better than me, but better

200
00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:29,440
Speaker 3: than William Shakespeare, better than the best writers ever in

201
00:10:29,520 --> 00:10:30,160
Speaker 3: human history.

202
00:10:30,760 --> 00:10:34,000
Speaker 2: Fascinating. How does it get to be able to do that?

203
00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:38,280
Speaker 3: Well? It has one advantage. You know, many writers go

204
00:10:38,360 --> 00:10:40,760
Speaker 3: to university and do a four year degree, say in

205
00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:44,360
Speaker 3: English literature, and during that four years they might read

206
00:10:44,440 --> 00:10:48,240
Speaker 3: fifty or sixty really good novels that have been, you know,

207
00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:51,520
Speaker 3: considered to be the most important ones. Maybe it's Smoby Dick,

208
00:10:51,559 --> 00:10:54,280
Speaker 3: maybe it's To Kill a Mockingbird, You name your favorites.

209
00:10:54,880 --> 00:10:58,600
Speaker 3: The AI has read everything. When it was revealed last

210
00:10:58,679 --> 00:11:01,839
Speaker 3: year what chat gpt he had scraped to use the

211
00:11:02,160 --> 00:11:07,160
Speaker 3: sources for, you know, its the ability to mimic human text,

212
00:11:07,679 --> 00:11:11,040
Speaker 3: twenty four out of twenty five of my novels were

213
00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:13,680
Speaker 3: in that group that they'd scraped. They've read it read

214
00:11:13,720 --> 00:11:16,920
Speaker 3: everything I ever wrote, everything, Stephen King every wrote, every

215
00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:19,760
Speaker 3: writer you never heard of, ever wrote. And you get

216
00:11:19,840 --> 00:11:22,040
Speaker 3: to be very good when you've got lots and lots

217
00:11:22,080 --> 00:11:25,199
Speaker 3: of examples of what's good and what's bad. The most

218
00:11:25,200 --> 00:11:29,600
Speaker 3: interesting thing in some ways is that Amazon owns not

219
00:11:29,760 --> 00:11:32,120
Speaker 3: just all the books that you know are on Kindle

220
00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:35,719
Speaker 3: and so forth, but owns all the reviews of all

221
00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:39,679
Speaker 3: those books. So the AI gets to look and say, oh, well,

222
00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:42,200
Speaker 3: people don't really like it when there's an ending that

223
00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:45,640
Speaker 3: it's just a dream. Oh the butler having done it,

224
00:11:45,760 --> 00:11:47,920
Speaker 3: that's a cliche. Well I better not do that, and

225
00:11:47,960 --> 00:11:50,600
Speaker 3: so on and so forth. It's got an enormous database

226
00:11:50,679 --> 00:11:54,320
Speaker 3: not just of what people have created, but what others

227
00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:58,720
Speaker 3: have done. Is the reactions to what people have created.

228
00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:03,760
Speaker 2: Bills today, Robert with my phone and oh yeah, and

229
00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:10,040
Speaker 2: I'm amazed at how that apparatus can remember your user

230
00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:14,640
Speaker 2: name and password for the various sites you go to

231
00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:18,839
Speaker 2: to pay bills or something like that. Right, Absolutely unbelievable,

232
00:12:19,480 --> 00:12:19,839
Speaker 2: and in.

233
00:12:19,840 --> 00:12:24,720
Speaker 3: Theory remember them securely. But yes, absolutely, it is astonishing

234
00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:27,400
Speaker 3: because you know, when I was in university, and I'm

235
00:12:27,440 --> 00:12:29,120
Speaker 3: sure when you were going to school and so forth,

236
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:33,280
Speaker 3: so much of it was memorization. You had to memorize,

237
00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:36,520
Speaker 3: you know, whether it was chemical formulas if you're saying chemistry,

238
00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:39,200
Speaker 3: or the capitals of the states, or the presidents or

239
00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:41,960
Speaker 3: whatever it was. We don't memorize anything anymore. We just

240
00:12:42,040 --> 00:12:46,480
Speaker 3: have to ask for the information. We have offloaded whole

241
00:12:46,559 --> 00:12:50,360
Speaker 3: parts of our intellectual process to machines, the biggest one

242
00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:54,920
Speaker 3: being are detailed memory. We no longer require one. We

243
00:12:55,040 --> 00:12:58,840
Speaker 3: simply ask and are given the information, and we hope

244
00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:02,040
Speaker 3: that the information and is accurate that is given to us.

245
00:13:02,520 --> 00:13:07,239
Speaker 2: The beginning of artificial intelligence, I think, occurred at electronic

246
00:13:07,320 --> 00:13:12,280
Speaker 2: cash machines cash registers, where young people no longer have

247
00:13:12,360 --> 00:13:16,160
Speaker 2: to do mathematics in their head. They let the machine

248
00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:16,480
Speaker 2: do it.

249
00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:22,280
Speaker 3: Absolutely yes. And it's interesting because I used to be

250
00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:25,760
Speaker 3: really good at mental math, and now I'm going to

251
00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:28,560
Speaker 3: have a practice of it because there's not much call

252
00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:30,720
Speaker 3: in my day to day life to work out, you know,

253
00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:33,080
Speaker 3: the percentage of a tip, or to add up a

254
00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:35,880
Speaker 3: series of numbers. And when I do it, and now

255
00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:38,680
Speaker 3: in my head, I actually double check it, and I

256
00:13:38,720 --> 00:13:41,079
Speaker 3: never used to it. I used to have confidence in

257
00:13:41,120 --> 00:13:44,600
Speaker 3: my basic, innate mathematical abilities that most human beings who

258
00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:47,079
Speaker 3: were you know, born in the let's say, pre internet

259
00:13:47,120 --> 00:13:50,959
Speaker 3: era had, And now we're saying I better just double

260
00:13:51,040 --> 00:13:54,560
Speaker 3: check that because I'm not in practice for what used

261
00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:57,119
Speaker 3: to be a fundamental basic human.

262
00:13:56,920 --> 00:14:00,880
Speaker 2: Skill without a calculator, without something like that, that kind

263
00:14:00,920 --> 00:14:05,800
Speaker 2: of device, how many young people today can do adding

264
00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:10,640
Speaker 2: and subtracting and division in their heads exactly.

265
00:14:10,679 --> 00:14:13,480
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I'm old enough, as I say

266
00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:16,000
Speaker 3: in an earlier segment here, I'm sixty four years old.

267
00:14:16,040 --> 00:14:21,440
Speaker 3: Now I'm old enough to remember when pocket calculators there

268
00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:23,840
Speaker 3: was the debate. It was when I was in grade

269
00:14:24,120 --> 00:14:27,760
Speaker 3: seven was when the debate was, well, well, we let

270
00:14:27,800 --> 00:14:30,920
Speaker 3: the students bring a calculator into math class.

271
00:14:30,960 --> 00:14:33,120
Speaker 2: Texas Instruments, Texas.

272
00:14:33,200 --> 00:14:35,760
Speaker 3: I had the Texas Instrument thirty five, the TI thirty

273
00:14:35,800 --> 00:14:39,680
Speaker 3: five exactly, with not an LCD screen but an LED screen,

274
00:14:39,720 --> 00:14:43,160
Speaker 3: the red glowing digits, and it took a nine volt battery,

275
00:14:43,200 --> 00:14:47,440
Speaker 3: but a wonderful machine. And ultimately where I was in Toronto, Canada,

276
00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:52,800
Speaker 3: the jurisdiction after jurisdiction came to the same conclusion that yeah,

277
00:14:52,920 --> 00:14:55,280
Speaker 3: students should be able to use calculators, because there was

278
00:14:55,320 --> 00:14:59,880
Speaker 3: no conceivable reality when those devices would not be available

279
00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:01,880
Speaker 3: to them. And the people who say, yeah, well what

280
00:15:01,920 --> 00:15:03,760
Speaker 3: happens when you know they run out of batteries, and

281
00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:07,920
Speaker 3: of course Texas Instruments and Cassio responded, will make them

282
00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:10,680
Speaker 3: solar powered, and you can buy a solar powered calculator,

283
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:14,840
Speaker 3: which means it'll run forever for five bucks at Staples

284
00:15:14,920 --> 00:15:16,400
Speaker 3: or any other office supply store.

285
00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:18,960
Speaker 2: That's so true, Robert Sawyer with us, We're going to

286
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:24,160
Speaker 2: take your calls next hour about science fiction, about artificial intelligence.

287
00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:26,960
Speaker 2: Jump on bout just how far can you think, Robert,

288
00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:33,040
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence will go. I mean, it's diagnosing diseases, it's

289
00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:37,240
Speaker 2: helping doctors. Like you say, it could be a writer

290
00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:39,280
Speaker 2: one day, it could be a talk show host.

291
00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:43,040
Speaker 3: Well, I fear for us both, George, I have to

292
00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:45,680
Speaker 3: say that. You know, we were talking about the fact

293
00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:48,800
Speaker 3: that Brendan Fraser narrates the audio version by the downloaded.

294
00:15:49,080 --> 00:15:52,800
Speaker 3: But right now I just saw an article from Bloomberg

295
00:15:53,240 --> 00:15:57,840
Speaker 3: that forty thousand audiobooks are available now on Audible that

296
00:15:57,880 --> 00:16:01,800
Speaker 3: are narrated by AI that aren't hited by so actors,

297
00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:04,120
Speaker 3: you sere losing their jobs. They're the first to go.

298
00:16:04,480 --> 00:16:09,160
Speaker 3: And I think what we need is solidarity talk show hosts, writers, actors,

299
00:16:09,240 --> 00:16:13,480
Speaker 3: visual artists. As a theatrical artists, you know, stage play artists,

300
00:16:13,520 --> 00:16:16,800
Speaker 3: all of us have to stick together and remind the

301
00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:21,240
Speaker 3: audience that art is supposed to be a human exercise,

302
00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:23,400
Speaker 3: not something that's machine generated.

303
00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:26,960
Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

304
00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:29,920
Speaker 1: one a m. Eastern, and go to Coast to coastam

305
00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:31,080
Speaker 1: dot com for more