1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: You are a human being, and one day you will die. 2 00:00:05,400 --> 00:00:08,039 Speaker 1: But when you die, you can take comfort in the 3 00:00:08,080 --> 00:00:11,840 Speaker 1: knowledge that you're part of something larger than yourself. You're 4 00:00:11,880 --> 00:00:15,400 Speaker 1: a member of the human race, and as long as 5 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:18,759 Speaker 1: the human race continues, in some ways, you do too. 6 00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:24,279 Speaker 1: All of us, every living thing, are individual members in 7 00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:27,920 Speaker 1: a cycle of life and death that began four billion 8 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,280 Speaker 1: years ago when that first single living cell divided into two. 9 00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:36,920 Speaker 1: Two billion years after that, along came sex, and birth 10 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:39,959 Speaker 1: led to more sex, led to more birth, And as 11 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:43,199 Speaker 1: long as that cycle continues in a species, death can 12 00:00:43,240 --> 00:00:47,360 Speaker 1: happen in the background. It must happen. Really. It may 13 00:00:47,400 --> 00:00:50,080 Speaker 1: sound a little cruel, but in the bigger picture, the 14 00:00:50,159 --> 00:00:53,120 Speaker 1: death of one thing is kind of meaningless so long 15 00:00:53,159 --> 00:00:57,480 Speaker 1: as the species continues. Humans tend to divide life along 16 00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:01,120 Speaker 1: the borders between species, and for good reason. It's not 17 00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:04,600 Speaker 1: an arbitrary dividing line. A species is what makes the 18 00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:09,880 Speaker 1: difference between eating a meal and engaging and cannibalism. Across 19 00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:13,560 Speaker 1: the animal kingdom, individuals routinely do things that risk their 20 00:01:13,600 --> 00:01:16,800 Speaker 1: own life to save members of their species. You almost 21 00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:20,440 Speaker 1: never see that kind of behavior between different species. True, 22 00:01:20,440 --> 00:01:23,400 Speaker 1: there are plenty of examples of species where eating one's 23 00:01:23,440 --> 00:01:26,440 Speaker 1: own kind is an everyday act, and there are examples 24 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:30,560 Speaker 1: of adorable dogs adopting motherless lambs, But the chances are 25 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:33,600 Speaker 1: better than not that an animal will show preferential treatment 26 00:01:33,640 --> 00:01:38,440 Speaker 1: towards a member of its species over others. Most importantly, though, 27 00:01:38,680 --> 00:01:41,200 Speaker 1: any member of a species can combine their genes with 28 00:01:41,240 --> 00:01:44,360 Speaker 1: another member and come up with new and fascinating ways 29 00:01:44,400 --> 00:01:48,120 Speaker 1: to push the species further along the evolutionary path where 30 00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:52,800 Speaker 1: it's better able to grow and flourish. Homo sapiens, the 31 00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:56,320 Speaker 1: species that you, me and every human alive are members of, 32 00:01:56,720 --> 00:01:59,760 Speaker 1: means in Latin wise human, and it's a bit of 33 00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:02,639 Speaker 1: flattery since it is the name that we human beings 34 00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:06,240 Speaker 1: gave to ourselves. But here today, so far removed from 35 00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:09,359 Speaker 1: our ancient origins, it's easy to forget that the name 36 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:12,120 Speaker 1: is meant to distinguish us from other types of humans. 37 00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:15,720 Speaker 1: As recently as fifty thousand years ago, we shared this 38 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:19,160 Speaker 1: planet with no less than three other human species. In 39 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:21,240 Speaker 1: the same way you might walk about the Earth today 40 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:24,320 Speaker 1: and come upon a lion, one species of cat, and 41 00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:28,239 Speaker 1: tabby an entirely different species of cat. In the very 42 00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:30,679 Speaker 1: recent geological past, you would have been able to meet 43 00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:34,160 Speaker 1: with a Neanderthal in a French cave and a Denisovan 44 00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:37,559 Speaker 1: in Siberia, and had you wandered on down to Indonesia, 45 00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:40,000 Speaker 1: you would have been able to meet a tiny variety 46 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:45,360 Speaker 1: of human called Homo floresiensis, who stood four ft talls. Today, 47 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:48,480 Speaker 1: though there is only the one species of human us, 48 00:02:48,520 --> 00:02:52,320 Speaker 1: Homo sapiens. We can't say for certain, but we strongly 49 00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:55,200 Speaker 1: suspect that the ultimate reason why we are the only 50 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:59,680 Speaker 1: ones left is because of our intelligence. Perhaps the planet 51 00:02:59,720 --> 00:03:03,120 Speaker 1: was presented with a series of tricky environmental challenges and 52 00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:07,239 Speaker 1: we were the only ones intelligent enough to successfully negotiate them. 53 00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:10,480 Speaker 1: Maybe it was the universally devastating step in the great filter, 54 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:15,560 Speaker 1: or maybe that's not right at all. We've only recently 55 00:03:15,600 --> 00:03:19,720 Speaker 1: discovered that denis Ovans and Floresiensis existed, but we've known 56 00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:23,239 Speaker 1: about Neanderthals for some two hundred years now, and over 57 00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:25,639 Speaker 1: time we've come to realize that they weren't the dim 58 00:03:25,639 --> 00:03:29,000 Speaker 1: wits we initially took them for. We now know that 59 00:03:29,040 --> 00:03:31,840 Speaker 1: they used tools like us, and they may have mastered 60 00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:35,080 Speaker 1: fire as well, and Neanderthals might have been the earliest 61 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:38,560 Speaker 1: humans to bury their dead, which shows the capacity to 62 00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:42,720 Speaker 1: think about abstractions like an afterlife. Whether or not we 63 00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,120 Speaker 1: were the only human species with the capacity for abstract thought, 64 00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:48,960 Speaker 1: The one thing we can say for certain is that we, 65 00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:51,760 Speaker 1: Homo sapiens, are the only ones left on Earth. To 66 00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:55,240 Speaker 1: wonder at the immense responsibility we have to simply carry 67 00:03:55,240 --> 00:03:58,280 Speaker 1: on is the one single remaining species of our kind. 68 00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:03,840 Speaker 1: That responsibility to survive and thrive is big enough just 69 00:04:03,960 --> 00:04:06,920 Speaker 1: being the only human species left on Earth, but it 70 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:10,760 Speaker 1: grows to overwhelming proportions when you consider the idea that 71 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:13,400 Speaker 1: we could be the only intelligent life and the whole 72 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:17,960 Speaker 1: endless universe. The precariousness of our situation begins to sink. 73 00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:21,880 Speaker 1: In The family paradox appears to show that the entire 74 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,560 Speaker 1: future of intelligent life in the universe rests on the 75 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:31,919 Speaker 1: likelihood of us staying alive. The entire population of Homo 76 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,080 Speaker 1: floresiensis the species of tiny humans lived on a single 77 00:04:36,120 --> 00:04:40,720 Speaker 1: island called Flores in modern day Indonesia. They lived there 78 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:43,680 Speaker 1: for almost a hundred and fifty thousand years, and then 79 00:04:43,720 --> 00:04:48,039 Speaker 1: suddenly they disappeared. One current theory for their extinction is 80 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:51,159 Speaker 1: that a volcano erupted and killed them all off, which 81 00:04:51,160 --> 00:04:54,440 Speaker 1: would have been relatively easy, since the entire species dweled 82 00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:58,360 Speaker 1: only on that one island. We humans alive today call 83 00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:02,040 Speaker 1: our island Earth, and we have to wonder what our 84 00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:17,200 Speaker 1: volcano will be. Right now, there are about seven and 85 00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:20,440 Speaker 1: a half billion of us humans alive. Seven and a 86 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:23,320 Speaker 1: half billion is an enormous number, to be sure, but 87 00:05:23,400 --> 00:05:26,880 Speaker 1: it's a small fraction, tiny fraction of all the Homo 88 00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:29,800 Speaker 1: sapiens who have ever lived. In the fifty thousand years 89 00:05:29,800 --> 00:05:33,800 Speaker 1: since we emerged as modern humans early on and continuing 90 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:36,840 Speaker 1: for most of our species history, we had an extremely 91 00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:41,159 Speaker 1: short average life expectancy, somewhere around ten to twelve years. 92 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:44,679 Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that the average person died at age eleven. 93 00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:46,839 Speaker 1: It means that if you take all the people who 94 00:05:46,880 --> 00:05:49,920 Speaker 1: lived into old age and all the children who died 95 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:53,360 Speaker 1: in infancy or at birth, so many people died young 96 00:05:53,760 --> 00:05:56,240 Speaker 1: that the average age of death was dragged down all 97 00:05:56,279 --> 00:05:59,680 Speaker 1: the way into the tweens. Plenty of people lived into 98 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:02,720 Speaker 1: what we would consider old age. It's just that many, 99 00:06:02,760 --> 00:06:06,120 Speaker 1: many more didn't survive childhood. And this is how it 100 00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:10,279 Speaker 1: was for most of human history. That extremely high childhood 101 00:06:10,320 --> 00:06:13,600 Speaker 1: mortality rate was eventually overcome. Through the use of our 102 00:06:13,720 --> 00:06:17,640 Speaker 1: clever sapiens brains, we figured out things like germ theory 103 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:22,000 Speaker 1: and anatomy and nutrition, and all of them converged to 104 00:06:22,120 --> 00:06:24,520 Speaker 1: create a world that a child could be born into 105 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:28,080 Speaker 1: where they had a very good chance of surviving into adulthood. 106 00:06:29,040 --> 00:06:31,800 Speaker 1: We humans used our brains to help our species be 107 00:06:31,800 --> 00:06:35,720 Speaker 1: better able to survive, and as a result, our population 108 00:06:35,760 --> 00:06:39,760 Speaker 1: began to boom. Around two thousand years ago, there were 109 00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:43,640 Speaker 1: probably three hundred million people alive on Earth. About three 110 00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:46,520 Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years ago, the human population had grown 111 00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:50,440 Speaker 1: to five million. Thirty years from now we will hit 112 00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:53,760 Speaker 1: the ten billion mark, So in just three hundred and 113 00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:57,200 Speaker 1: fifty years we will have grown by nine billion, five 114 00:06:57,279 --> 00:07:02,360 Speaker 1: hundred million people. All told, you can count yourself as 115 00:07:02,400 --> 00:07:05,200 Speaker 1: one of the hundred and eight billion modern humans who 116 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:08,640 Speaker 1: have ever lived. An astronomical number, to be sure, But 117 00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:11,560 Speaker 1: the number of humans who have ever lived, as immense 118 00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:14,440 Speaker 1: as it is, is a drop in the bucket of 119 00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:18,280 Speaker 1: the number of humans who haven't lived yet. This is 120 00:07:18,360 --> 00:07:22,880 Speaker 1: philosopher Toby ord Our. Species Homo sapiens is about two 121 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:25,960 Speaker 1: hundred thousand years old UM, so that's about two thousand 122 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:29,040 Speaker 1: centuries that we've been around. If we could survive that 123 00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:32,640 Speaker 1: long again, uh, you know, we'd see two thousand centuries 124 00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:36,920 Speaker 1: of civilization. That's about twenty times longer than civilization has 125 00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:40,440 Speaker 1: been around so far, with just wondrous things being created 126 00:07:40,960 --> 00:07:43,840 Speaker 1: throughout that whole time that we can barely imagine. And 127 00:07:43,880 --> 00:07:48,640 Speaker 1: that's even with relatively little in the way of fancy 128 00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:52,880 Speaker 1: science fiction technological progress that we might imagine. Remember back 129 00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:55,440 Speaker 1: when we talked about the possibility that we don't see 130 00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:58,119 Speaker 1: alien life in the universe because they opted to stay 131 00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:01,560 Speaker 1: home instead, Let's say that we humans have that same 132 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:04,520 Speaker 1: type of home body nous in our far future, sticking 133 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:07,480 Speaker 1: around on Earth rather than spreading out into the rest 134 00:08:07,520 --> 00:08:10,600 Speaker 1: of the galaxy. So Earth remains the only planet where 135 00:08:10,600 --> 00:08:13,160 Speaker 1: you can find a human population. And let's say that 136 00:08:13,280 --> 00:08:16,760 Speaker 1: over the course of a billion years our population gradually 137 00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:19,920 Speaker 1: lowers and stabilizes, that one billion people alive on the 138 00:08:19,960 --> 00:08:23,600 Speaker 1: planet at any given time, And if our lifespans stick 139 00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:26,400 Speaker 1: around where it is today, then by a billion years 140 00:08:26,400 --> 00:08:30,120 Speaker 1: from now, an additional ten to the sixteenth power humans 141 00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:34,680 Speaker 1: will have been born. That's ten with fifteen zeros after it, 142 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:41,200 Speaker 1: ten quadrillion, a million, trillion future human lives hundred and 143 00:08:41,200 --> 00:08:45,120 Speaker 1: eight billion doesn't seem quite so big now. That ten 144 00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:48,319 Speaker 1: quadrillion number is a low end estimate. If we do 145 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:51,280 Speaker 1: nothing but continue to plot along as a species for 146 00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:53,960 Speaker 1: the next billion years, we could expect to reach it, 147 00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:57,360 Speaker 1: But we might also increase the number of future human 148 00:08:57,400 --> 00:09:00,960 Speaker 1: lives dramatically if we humans in a a as a species. 149 00:09:01,960 --> 00:09:04,480 Speaker 1: One of the ways that most futurists expect we will 150 00:09:04,520 --> 00:09:07,959 Speaker 1: innovate is by leaving our bodies behind and entering into 151 00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:12,079 Speaker 1: a digital world, becoming what's called a post biological species. 152 00:09:12,840 --> 00:09:15,200 Speaker 1: Imagine that we learned how to free the human mind 153 00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:18,679 Speaker 1: from its bonds to the neurons and dendrites and axons 154 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:22,520 Speaker 1: that make up the functioning human brain. No real reason 155 00:09:22,559 --> 00:09:24,880 Speaker 1: that the human mind should require our selves to think 156 00:09:24,920 --> 00:09:27,880 Speaker 1: and to experience. What if the human brain is just 157 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,840 Speaker 1: one of many ways to produce what we call consciousness. 158 00:09:31,480 --> 00:09:33,760 Speaker 1: What if there are other ways that could produce the 159 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:39,120 Speaker 1: same thoughts, the same experiences, but with hardware instead of squishy, soft, 160 00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:48,600 Speaker 1: extremely fragile material we call the brain. To understand how 161 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:51,560 Speaker 1: we could create consciousness inside a machine rather than a 162 00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:54,080 Speaker 1: human brain, you should know a little bit about the 163 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:59,160 Speaker 1: hard problem. First, Back in The Philosopher of the Mind, 164 00:09:59,280 --> 00:10:02,400 Speaker 1: David chaw Mers published a paper where he divided our 165 00:10:02,440 --> 00:10:06,360 Speaker 1: attempts to understand consciousness into the hard problem and the 166 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:11,440 Speaker 1: easy problem. The easy problem of consciousness is how it arises. How, 167 00:10:11,520 --> 00:10:14,319 Speaker 1: for example, light can enter the eye and be carried 168 00:10:14,360 --> 00:10:17,280 Speaker 1: along as an electrical impulse to the brain, where it's 169 00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:20,280 Speaker 1: analyzed and sorted into the image of a house plant. 170 00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:23,920 Speaker 1: We generally understand how the various parts involved in this 171 00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:27,280 Speaker 1: process work. We pretty much understand how the sights and 172 00:10:27,360 --> 00:10:30,960 Speaker 1: sounds of the external world are perceived by us. There's 173 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:33,920 Speaker 1: no mystery to it. So although we haven't worked out 174 00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:37,120 Speaker 1: every last detail of how consciousness arises from our brains, 175 00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:40,160 Speaker 1: in Chalmer's view, we were well enough along that we 176 00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:42,920 Speaker 1: basically had the easy problem licked already by the time 177 00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:47,000 Speaker 1: he wrote his essay. The hard problem is how we 178 00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:52,000 Speaker 1: subjectively experienced those sights and sounds. How all of those experiences, 179 00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:55,120 Speaker 1: moment to moment combine and create what we think of 180 00:10:55,360 --> 00:10:59,000 Speaker 1: as the experience of being human. Why is it that 181 00:10:59,120 --> 00:11:02,320 Speaker 1: rather than simply observing the house plant and deeming it 182 00:11:02,360 --> 00:11:06,000 Speaker 1: neither a threat nor food and simply disregard it, instead 183 00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:08,840 Speaker 1: you might be reminded of your dear sweet mother who 184 00:11:08,840 --> 00:11:12,040 Speaker 1: loved house plants, and maybe you'll also think about how 185 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:14,640 Speaker 1: perhaps a house plant might brighten up your own apartment 186 00:11:15,080 --> 00:11:17,199 Speaker 1: and maybe put you in a better mood because you've 187 00:11:17,240 --> 00:11:20,880 Speaker 1: been a little bit down lately. In other words, why 188 00:11:20,880 --> 00:11:23,560 Speaker 1: should we experience the inner life that we think of 189 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:27,360 Speaker 1: as ourselves? More to the point, where does this conscious 190 00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:30,960 Speaker 1: experience come from? We can point to the language processing 191 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:33,600 Speaker 1: parts of the brain to show how we humans understand 192 00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:36,200 Speaker 1: what the other person is saying when someone tells us 193 00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:38,920 Speaker 1: they love us, But we can't point to the part 194 00:11:38,920 --> 00:11:42,400 Speaker 1: of the brain that creates the incredibly rich experience those 195 00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:45,880 Speaker 1: words can arouse in us. That is the hard problem 196 00:11:45,920 --> 00:11:50,040 Speaker 1: of consciousness. To some people, we will never figure out. 197 00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:53,240 Speaker 1: The answer to the hard problem. Human conscious experience is 198 00:11:53,280 --> 00:11:57,400 Speaker 1: too ethereal to ever understand. To those on the other side, 199 00:11:57,760 --> 00:12:00,680 Speaker 1: we've already solved the hard problem. It's the same answer 200 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:03,800 Speaker 1: is the easy problem. All of those neurons and dendrites 201 00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:07,240 Speaker 1: and axons that are responsible for communicating and sorting and 202 00:12:07,360 --> 00:12:10,320 Speaker 1: storing the sensory input in our brains are also the 203 00:12:10,360 --> 00:12:13,960 Speaker 1: same parts that are responsible for creating our conscious experience. 204 00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:17,240 Speaker 1: We just haven't figured out how they do it quite yet. 205 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:21,000 Speaker 1: If that's true, and the hard problem really isn't a 206 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:23,960 Speaker 1: hard problem at all, there's a big implication in there. 207 00:12:24,679 --> 00:12:28,319 Speaker 1: If consciousness is just an emergent property of neural complexity, 208 00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:31,480 Speaker 1: like how tens of thousands of individual bees form a 209 00:12:31,559 --> 00:12:34,040 Speaker 1: high mind that is larger than the sum of its parts, 210 00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:38,000 Speaker 1: then we should be able to simulate consciousness by simulating 211 00:12:38,040 --> 00:12:43,040 Speaker 1: neural complexity. Maybe not today, maybe not anytime soon, but 212 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:46,520 Speaker 1: the point is it would be theoretically possible, and given 213 00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:50,320 Speaker 1: enough time in technological development, it's a pretty safe bet 214 00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:52,839 Speaker 1: that we will figure out how to do it. If 215 00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:55,880 Speaker 1: there is an organizing principle of life that takes hold 216 00:12:55,920 --> 00:12:59,600 Speaker 1: once molecules begin to take an organic form, then perhaps 217 00:12:59,640 --> 00:13:02,760 Speaker 1: the bio logical form. It's just one phase of evolution. 218 00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:08,120 Speaker 1: Perhaps post biology is just another stage. If or when 219 00:13:08,400 --> 00:13:11,640 Speaker 1: we become capable of uploading human minds on the computers, 220 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:17,080 Speaker 1: the number of future human lives will increase exponentially, and 221 00:13:17,120 --> 00:13:20,319 Speaker 1: those lives can be expected to be exponentially better than 222 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:23,319 Speaker 1: the average life of those of us alive today. If 223 00:13:23,360 --> 00:13:25,959 Speaker 1: we are the only intelligent life in the universe and 224 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:28,800 Speaker 1: That means that should we become capable of spreading out 225 00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:31,319 Speaker 1: in our galaxy and then eventually throughout the rest of 226 00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:34,400 Speaker 1: the universe, it will all be there for our taking. 227 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:38,040 Speaker 1: Though farther out we look in more detail, and the 228 00:13:38,120 --> 00:13:41,520 Speaker 1: more clearly we see there's nothing at all alive anywhere 229 00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:44,760 Speaker 1: in the universe, then it says we are really quite special. 230 00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:47,640 Speaker 1: Not only that we are special for having, you know, 231 00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:51,000 Speaker 1: created cars and televisions, we are just special for being 232 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:54,280 Speaker 1: on a planet that has life at all. Ah and 233 00:13:55,520 --> 00:13:58,559 Speaker 1: the universe will remain dead until the life on our 234 00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:03,720 Speaker 1: planet spreads. That was great filter theorist Robin Hanson. Once 235 00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:06,080 Speaker 1: we spread beyond Earth, we will reach one of the 236 00:14:06,160 --> 00:14:09,360 Speaker 1: largest milestones in the history of our species, in the 237 00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:12,760 Speaker 1: history of life. Really, we will no longer be earth bound. 238 00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:16,920 Speaker 1: We will have become a spacefaring species with an entire 239 00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:21,160 Speaker 1: universe to explore and use for whatever we want. All 240 00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:24,520 Speaker 1: of the resources material and energy in the universe that 241 00:14:24,560 --> 00:14:27,560 Speaker 1: we can reach before it inflates beyond our grasp is 242 00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:31,480 Speaker 1: there for our use in ours alone. This is what 243 00:14:31,600 --> 00:14:36,320 Speaker 1: an Oxford University philosopher named Nick Bostrom calls humanity's cosmic 244 00:14:36,400 --> 00:14:39,080 Speaker 1: endowment and The key thing about it is that it 245 00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:43,960 Speaker 1: looks like it's astronomically large. Every less scrap of accomplishment 246 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:46,640 Speaker 1: that we humans have managed to achieve in our relatively 247 00:14:46,680 --> 00:14:50,280 Speaker 1: short time here on Earth has been created with extremely 248 00:14:50,520 --> 00:14:53,960 Speaker 1: limited resources compared to what will be available to us 249 00:14:54,160 --> 00:14:57,160 Speaker 1: when we begin to spread out around the universe. If 250 00:14:57,160 --> 00:15:00,120 Speaker 1: things are the way they look that what we have 251 00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:04,360 Speaker 1: been able to play our hands on so far is 252 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:07,800 Speaker 1: a period of time maybe a thousand, ten thousand years 253 00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:11,640 Speaker 1: of human history and some hundred thousand years of prehistory. 254 00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:16,080 Speaker 1: That's kind of our species tenure so far, and we've 255 00:15:16,080 --> 00:15:19,880 Speaker 1: been confined to the surface of planet Earth, which is 256 00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:24,160 Speaker 1: this little crumb floating around in a huge style of 257 00:15:24,760 --> 00:15:29,640 Speaker 1: material and energy and resources. So it's one planet in 258 00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:33,440 Speaker 1: one solar system out of a hundred billion solar systems 259 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:36,200 Speaker 1: in this galaxy, which is it's so one of maybe 260 00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:39,640 Speaker 1: a hundred building galaxies that could be reached from our 261 00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:43,520 Speaker 1: starting point and then used for billions of years. So 262 00:15:43,640 --> 00:15:46,720 Speaker 1: if you add all of those orders of magnitude together, 263 00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:51,520 Speaker 1: you find that by some very large number, it dominates 264 00:15:51,640 --> 00:15:56,240 Speaker 1: what exists today or has existed through human history. What 265 00:15:56,360 --> 00:15:59,440 Speaker 1: will we do with all that stuff? I don't know, 266 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:03,120 Speaker 1: but it at least seems to me that protecting a 267 00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:07,200 Speaker 1: chance to do that is critically important. If, as a 268 00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:10,480 Speaker 1: great many philosophers throughout history have believed the point of 269 00:16:10,520 --> 00:16:13,640 Speaker 1: life is finding happiness, then we could use it to 270 00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:17,720 Speaker 1: pursue happiness on a massive scale. If you, for example, 271 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:22,160 Speaker 1: I think that happy people are our minds experiencing pleasure 272 00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:24,800 Speaker 1: or beauty or doing interesting things have value, then that 273 00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:27,360 Speaker 1: could just be a lot more like a lot more 274 00:16:27,400 --> 00:16:30,680 Speaker 1: of those in the future, a lot more like a 275 00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:34,920 Speaker 1: quadrillion more, and that number could grow exponentially higher if 276 00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:39,760 Speaker 1: or when we reach that point of post biology, like 277 00:16:39,840 --> 00:16:43,000 Speaker 1: any post biological civilization, we would place a pretty high 278 00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:46,840 Speaker 1: value on converting all of that into computing power. The 279 00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:50,480 Speaker 1: science fiction author Ray Bradberry once estimated that the energy 280 00:16:50,560 --> 00:16:53,120 Speaker 1: captured from a star could power tend to the forty 281 00:16:53,240 --> 00:16:57,800 Speaker 1: second computer operations per second. So Nick Bostrom took that 282 00:16:57,840 --> 00:17:01,520 Speaker 1: figure and he applied it to a post biological society 283 00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:03,880 Speaker 1: with access to all of the stars that we can 284 00:17:03,920 --> 00:17:06,840 Speaker 1: reach in the universe until they inflate forever out of 285 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:10,280 Speaker 1: our grasp. If the human brain makes in the neighborhood 286 00:17:10,280 --> 00:17:13,200 Speaker 1: of ten to the seventeenth operations per second to produce 287 00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:16,280 Speaker 1: our conscious experience, then it's a pretty fair bet that's 288 00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:19,480 Speaker 1: about how many computations per second we would require to 289 00:17:19,520 --> 00:17:23,960 Speaker 1: experience consciousness and digital form as well. So, considering those 290 00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:28,359 Speaker 1: numbers and more, Bostro included some other complex astronomical figures 291 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:31,720 Speaker 1: as well, he arrived at the low end estimate, the 292 00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:36,200 Speaker 1: low end of ten to the fifty second power future 293 00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:40,800 Speaker 1: human lives waiting to be lived expressed an American English 294 00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:44,600 Speaker 1: that is ten sex Deicilian lives. That's a real word. 295 00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:48,040 Speaker 1: A number is so astoundingly large it might be tried 296 00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:51,520 Speaker 1: to even mention that it is. And you could make 297 00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:55,119 Speaker 1: the case that in many ways, okay, essentially every way, 298 00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:58,200 Speaker 1: those humans in the far future will live better lives 299 00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:02,959 Speaker 1: than those of us alive today, because natural selection and 300 00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:07,480 Speaker 1: didn't design us to be happy, discontent other things. Being 301 00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:12,920 Speaker 1: equal is adaptive and fitness enhancing. And there's a transhumanist 302 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:15,240 Speaker 1: I very much hope that we're going to be able 303 00:18:15,280 --> 00:18:21,160 Speaker 1: to design a civilization based on to use a slogan, 304 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:27,200 Speaker 1: a triple ess, a civilization based on super intelligence, super happiness, 305 00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:32,160 Speaker 1: and super longevity. This is transhumanist philosopher David Pierce, who 306 00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:34,600 Speaker 1: is among the number of people who believe that humans 307 00:18:34,600 --> 00:18:38,080 Speaker 1: have a long and potentially bright future ahead of us. 308 00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:42,200 Speaker 1: Humans might use all of that power to simulate amazing 309 00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:45,320 Speaker 1: new experiences for ourselves that we haven't considered yet and 310 00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:48,679 Speaker 1: that would be utterly impossible in our physical reality. We 311 00:18:48,720 --> 00:18:52,640 Speaker 1: would be able to expand and edit our consciousness, our faculties, 312 00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:57,120 Speaker 1: our ability to empathize with others, for capability to experience emotion. 313 00:18:57,800 --> 00:19:00,400 Speaker 1: What we alive today might consider the high a state 314 00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:04,200 Speaker 1: of happiness, maybe the baseline happiness for all new humans 315 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:07,159 Speaker 1: born into a digital world, and so the humans of 316 00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:10,680 Speaker 1: the future would be blissed out all the time. Here's 317 00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:14,639 Speaker 1: an example one sees today the effects of a drug 318 00:19:14,720 --> 00:19:18,080 Speaker 1: like m d M A ecstasy or hug drug, in 319 00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:25,919 Speaker 1: which essentially people become loving, bonabo like warm, empathetic, jealousy, 320 00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:32,320 Speaker 1: resentment evaporate UH. For evolutionary reasons, people aren't like that 321 00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:38,199 Speaker 1: all the time. But with the use of UH some 322 00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:43,840 Speaker 1: genetic tweaking, it would be possible to create people trans humans, 323 00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:48,359 Speaker 1: post humans who who love each other in the way 324 00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:52,159 Speaker 1: that people fleetingly do today on the m d M A. 325 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:58,000 Speaker 1: Just how likely this scenario is. I don't know, but 326 00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:02,359 Speaker 1: in the long run it's so be feasible because we 327 00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:04,840 Speaker 1: live in a world where we must compete with one 328 00:20:04,840 --> 00:20:08,199 Speaker 1: another and other life on our planet for resources. What 329 00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:10,879 Speaker 1: the future might be like in a world where scarcity 330 00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:15,760 Speaker 1: doesn't exist is largely inconceivable to us. Suffice it to 331 00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:18,479 Speaker 1: say that life can be better than it is today 332 00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:22,880 Speaker 1: should we make it there. We can't forget the possibility 333 00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:26,240 Speaker 1: that between us and all of those countless future lives. 334 00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:37,600 Speaker 1: Since the Great Filter. Back in the summer of a 335 00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:41,120 Speaker 1: space probe launched by NASA called Viking one flew over 336 00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:44,920 Speaker 1: Mars if photographed the planet's surface for the first time 337 00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:49,040 Speaker 1: in human history, and prior to landing on July, Viking 338 00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:52,880 Speaker 1: one flew over the Sidonia region, a bumpy transition zone 339 00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:55,679 Speaker 1: between the planets, cratered north in the flat plains of 340 00:20:55,680 --> 00:20:59,119 Speaker 1: the South. Within those images that it's sent back to 341 00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:02,320 Speaker 1: its controllers at the Jet Propulsion Lab on Earth was 342 00:21:02,359 --> 00:21:06,280 Speaker 1: a particularly striking one. It showed what looked to be 343 00:21:06,359 --> 00:21:11,480 Speaker 1: a massive stone face wearing a ceremonial headdress. It looked 344 00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:14,080 Speaker 1: a lot like an ancient monument on the surface of Mars. 345 00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,040 Speaker 1: Is what it looked like It became one of the 346 00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:19,639 Speaker 1: more famous images in the world, the Face on Mars, 347 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:23,040 Speaker 1: and it stirred the imagination of earth bound humans about 348 00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:26,359 Speaker 1: a potential Martian pass where a great civilization once lived 349 00:21:26,359 --> 00:21:30,040 Speaker 1: and thrived. But when the Mars Global Surveyor flew over 350 00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:33,439 Speaker 1: the site with a far better camera than the Viking 351 00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:35,960 Speaker 1: one had on board, it was clear the Face on 352 00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:40,240 Speaker 1: Mars was just another mesa, shaped not by ancient Martian hands, 353 00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:44,080 Speaker 1: but by Martian wind and erosion. But what if that 354 00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,959 Speaker 1: image had confirmed the wildest speculations and we had mounted 355 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:53,160 Speaker 1: an expedition to Mars to investigate the governments of Canada, Japan, 356 00:21:53,359 --> 00:21:56,960 Speaker 1: and the United States, the three countries leading the International 357 00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:00,520 Speaker 1: Mars Expedition received a bundle of despat just from the 358 00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:06,000 Speaker 1: astronauts investigating the Mars anomaly. Today, newly discovered structures that 359 00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:10,399 Speaker 1: appear to be ceremonial halls and temples built from a 360 00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:14,760 Speaker 1: yet unidentified metal, further confirmed the one time presence of 361 00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:19,320 Speaker 1: an advanced civilization on the red planet. President Clinton was 362 00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:22,199 Speaker 1: in New York today to news like this would not 363 00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:24,720 Speaker 1: bode well for those of us living here on Earth. 364 00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:28,199 Speaker 1: As Nick Bostrom points out in an article, that ran 365 00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:31,160 Speaker 1: in Technology Review in two thousand and eight. If we 366 00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:34,440 Speaker 1: were to find evidence of other intelligent life elsewhere in 367 00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:38,480 Speaker 1: the universe, it would strongly suggest that the Great Filter 368 00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:42,440 Speaker 1: lies waiting ahead of us. News like that would tell 369 00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:45,280 Speaker 1: us that it's not so tough after all to get 370 00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:48,400 Speaker 1: past all the steps that led to us. Other life 371 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:52,000 Speaker 1: managed it too. We would learn that we are not 372 00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:55,840 Speaker 1: special and unique, and so the likelihood would be that 373 00:22:55,960 --> 00:22:59,320 Speaker 1: the Great Filter is not somewhere in our past, which 374 00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:03,520 Speaker 1: means that it must be somewhere in our future. Everything 375 00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:06,800 Speaker 1: we've ever imagined that could go wrong is a candidate 376 00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:10,600 Speaker 1: for a future filter. Uh. So, you know, take out 377 00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:15,440 Speaker 1: all of your favorite um disaster stories and fears and 378 00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:17,920 Speaker 1: add them all up, and it might be in there. 379 00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:20,600 Speaker 1: It might be something we haven't imagined. If it is 380 00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:23,200 Speaker 1: the case that the Great filters in our future, then 381 00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:25,240 Speaker 1: the reason that there is no intelligent life in the 382 00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:28,000 Speaker 1: universe other than us is because none of those who 383 00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,320 Speaker 1: came before us were able to make it through the 384 00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:34,359 Speaker 1: step that lies ahead. The more you learn about the 385 00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:36,840 Speaker 1: kind of risks we humans are beginning to take on, 386 00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:39,520 Speaker 1: the kind of make up the worst of those disaster 387 00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:43,760 Speaker 1: scenarios Robin Hanson mentioned the more convincing the idea that 388 00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:53,240 Speaker 1: we are now entering the great filter becomes m It's 389 00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:56,439 Speaker 1: probably about here that you should meet Nick Bostrom, he 390 00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:58,800 Speaker 1: chimed in earlier, but what I mean to say is 391 00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,280 Speaker 1: that you should know more about him, as his work 392 00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:05,840 Speaker 1: forms a lot of the basis of this series. In Oxford, England, 393 00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:09,440 Speaker 1: there is a university among the world's oldest, where people 394 00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:12,639 Speaker 1: have been teaching since at least ten nine, nearly a 395 00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:16,200 Speaker 1: thousand years, and housed in a three story tan brick 396 00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,760 Speaker 1: administration building called Little gate House is the Future of 397 00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:24,480 Speaker 1: Humanity Institute. The FHI was founded by Nick Bostrom, who, 398 00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:26,960 Speaker 1: as I said, is a philosopher, and it is a 399 00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:29,720 Speaker 1: center where people from a wide array of disciplines come 400 00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:33,320 Speaker 1: together to consider the ways that humanity could accidentally wipe 401 00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:35,919 Speaker 1: itself out in the near future, and also how to 402 00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:39,040 Speaker 1: prevent that, and also what we might do with ourselves 403 00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:41,760 Speaker 1: if we're able to negotiate the very tricky near future 404 00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:46,040 Speaker 1: and actually survive into the far future. A great many 405 00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:49,640 Speaker 1: of the ideas in this series came from those collaborations 406 00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:53,960 Speaker 1: that arose at f HI. What Nick Bostrom mostly thinks 407 00:24:53,960 --> 00:25:00,000 Speaker 1: about our existential risks. Existential risks are threats to life 408 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:04,920 Speaker 1: that have consequences so sweeping, so utterly catastrophic, that should 409 00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:07,320 Speaker 1: one of them befall us, it would spell the end 410 00:25:07,359 --> 00:25:11,200 Speaker 1: of humankind. No more humans, and if it turns out 411 00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:13,480 Speaker 1: that we are the only intelligent life in the universe, 412 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:18,520 Speaker 1: no more intelligent life anywhere at all. What makes existential 413 00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,880 Speaker 1: threats so dangerous, in addition to the catastrophe they bring, 414 00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:24,600 Speaker 1: is that they are unlike any other type of risk 415 00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:29,720 Speaker 1: we're used to encountering. With virtually every other type of 416 00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:33,359 Speaker 1: threat posed to humans, we can reasonably expect that enough 417 00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:35,840 Speaker 1: of us will be left alive to continue our species 418 00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:39,680 Speaker 1: should one befall us. Take a disastrous change in climate. 419 00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:43,080 Speaker 1: For example, imagine that a couple of decades from now, 420 00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,240 Speaker 1: we humans are caught totally off guard by a sudden 421 00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:49,400 Speaker 1: shift in the global climate far more pronounced and abrupt 422 00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:53,440 Speaker 1: than the warning signs were currently experiencing. A rapid rise 423 00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:57,000 Speaker 1: in sea levels drowns coastal towns around the world, sending 424 00:25:57,080 --> 00:25:59,879 Speaker 1: huge populations of people inland, which puts in a nor 425 00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:03,800 Speaker 1: restrain on the cities that absorb them. At the same time, 426 00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:07,040 Speaker 1: massive droughts and floods break out, and virtually every food 427 00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:11,240 Speaker 1: producing region of the world. The ecological collapse leads to 428 00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:16,600 Speaker 1: social collapse. Food supplies dwindle, water supplies become salty. An 429 00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,760 Speaker 1: untold number of people begin to die, more than ever 430 00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,359 Speaker 1: have in human history. Even more are killed in wars 431 00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:26,720 Speaker 1: that break out over the precious resources that remain. In 432 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:30,320 Speaker 1: just a handful of decades, the entire human race is 433 00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:33,919 Speaker 1: reduced from ten billion to just one hundred million people 434 00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:39,879 Speaker 1: living in scattered settlements across the globe. As categorically awful 435 00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,720 Speaker 1: as such an experience would be, it would not spell 436 00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:46,719 Speaker 1: the end of humans. Even with just one percent of 437 00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:50,280 Speaker 1: the population left alive. We could reasonably expect that a 438 00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:53,520 Speaker 1: hundred million people living across the world would be enough 439 00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:57,160 Speaker 1: to carry the human race along and eventually to rebuild. 440 00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,880 Speaker 1: To be sure, we would be set back substantially. All 441 00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:03,760 Speaker 1: of the progress that we had made as a global 442 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,359 Speaker 1: civilization would be pushed back thousands of years, almost to 443 00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:12,960 Speaker 1: square one. Almost. There's a substantial difference between the perhaps 444 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,800 Speaker 1: fateful series of events that led to the discovery of 445 00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:19,760 Speaker 1: something like smelting iron and carbon into steel and having 446 00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:23,080 Speaker 1: people who remember learning that if you add carbon to 447 00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:26,600 Speaker 1: iron you can make steel, or that there's such a 448 00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:29,560 Speaker 1: thing as coffee, or that you can make wine from grapes. 449 00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:32,720 Speaker 1: And if you spin a magnet inside a spool of 450 00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:36,000 Speaker 1: copper wire, you can generate an electrical current. And if 451 00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,439 Speaker 1: you pass steam through a turbine, you can use it 452 00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:40,560 Speaker 1: to spin that magnet, so you don't have to stand 453 00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,840 Speaker 1: there and do it yourself. The memories of all the 454 00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,160 Speaker 1: ideas and discoveries that accumulated to make up the general 455 00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,879 Speaker 1: knowledge base of the average human walking around on Earth 456 00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,960 Speaker 1: would remain and would provide an enormous advantage for those 457 00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:56,480 Speaker 1: left to rebuild compared to those who built in the 458 00:27:56,520 --> 00:28:00,800 Speaker 1: first place. Consider that it was perhaps only ten thousand 459 00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:04,840 Speaker 1: years ago that we began organizing ourselves into complex societies 460 00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,239 Speaker 1: for the first time. Those early settlements in cities like 461 00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:12,119 Speaker 1: cattle Hook in Turkey and Mesopotamia in Iraq that served 462 00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:16,960 Speaker 1: as the earliest attempts at communal living, agriculture, government, law, trade, 463 00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:19,840 Speaker 1: and everything else that forms the basis of modern civilization 464 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,680 Speaker 1: or only about ten thousand years old. So even being 465 00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:27,840 Speaker 1: set back to the beginning, even with humanity suddenly dead, 466 00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:31,040 Speaker 1: we could reasonably expect that people could get back to 467 00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,720 Speaker 1: roughly the point where we're at today within about ten millennia, 468 00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:37,800 Speaker 1: which sounds like a long time, but remember we're talking 469 00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:42,320 Speaker 1: about time on geological and cosmological scales. Ten thousand years 470 00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:48,480 Speaker 1: is a blink. Throughout our history, we humans have survived plagues, floods, droughts, 471 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,440 Speaker 1: supervolcano eruptions, just about anything Earth could throw at us, 472 00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:54,920 Speaker 1: and we've always had enough of us left after a 473 00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:59,600 Speaker 1: catastrophe to continue on for forward momentum to slow sometimes 474 00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,680 Speaker 1: but never to halt entirely, and those eons of experience 475 00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:06,760 Speaker 1: of disaster and recovery form the basis of how we 476 00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,840 Speaker 1: learn from the world, a process you may know as 477 00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:15,160 Speaker 1: trial and error. Imagine that you're a chemist working on 478 00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,840 Speaker 1: a new explosive. As this customary, you keep detailed notes 479 00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:21,080 Speaker 1: as you go along, and then one day you're in 480 00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:25,400 Speaker 1: the lab when boom, you blow yourself up. You are 481 00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,160 Speaker 1: in a great many pieces, but your notes are intact, 482 00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,960 Speaker 1: and so other chemists can come along, consult your notes, 483 00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:34,520 Speaker 1: find where you went wrong, and then try again with 484 00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:39,240 Speaker 1: a slightly different formula. This process can continue indefinitely as 485 00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:41,680 Speaker 1: long as it takes until we master this new explosive 486 00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:44,640 Speaker 1: so long as there are chemists who take good notes, 487 00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,160 Speaker 1: who are willing to risk blowing themselves up, and are 488 00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:51,800 Speaker 1: never all in the same lab at once. This process 489 00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:54,560 Speaker 1: of trial and error is so glaringly obvious that it 490 00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,960 Speaker 1: seems not even worth spelling out. But it is because 491 00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:00,200 Speaker 1: the process of trial and error is how we've gain 492 00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,560 Speaker 1: virtually all of human knowledge about the world to this point, 493 00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:08,720 Speaker 1: and understandably so, because it works. But trial and error 494 00:30:08,800 --> 00:30:12,720 Speaker 1: doesn't work with existential risks. When it comes to other risks, 495 00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:16,240 Speaker 1: humanity is very good, actually at learning from trial and error, 496 00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:20,000 Speaker 1: and we have some failures and we rebuild. This is 497 00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:23,240 Speaker 1: Toby Ord, you've met him previously. He's one of Nick 498 00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,920 Speaker 1: Bostrom's colleagues at the f HI, and he's literally writing 499 00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,040 Speaker 1: the book on existential risks. But when it comes to 500 00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:34,719 Speaker 1: existential risks, uh, failing even once means we've lost permanently 501 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:39,320 Speaker 1: our potential for the future. So we can't have any failures, 502 00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:41,560 Speaker 1: which means that we can't use our our most successful 503 00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,720 Speaker 1: way of learning, trial and error. What separates existential risks 504 00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,880 Speaker 1: from all other types of risks is the outcome, the 505 00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:53,360 Speaker 1: potential consequences of existential risks are so catastrophic that if 506 00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:56,200 Speaker 1: something goes wrong with them once, that's it for humanity. 507 00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,160 Speaker 1: With these types of risk, there isn't any one percent 508 00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:02,120 Speaker 1: of humanity to carry on. There are none of us. 509 00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:06,280 Speaker 1: There's no trial and error with existential risks. It's more 510 00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,680 Speaker 1: like trial and sudden nothingness. We can't go back to 511 00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:11,800 Speaker 1: the drawing board to figure out what went wrong and 512 00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:15,560 Speaker 1: try again. The drawing board will have been vaporized or 513 00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:17,480 Speaker 1: there won't be any people left to write on it. 514 00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:24,600 Speaker 1: And that's very different from many kinds of risk because, um, 515 00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:29,960 Speaker 1: first there's no redo. Um. If we accidentally trigger some 516 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:32,920 Speaker 1: sort of existential risk or are exposed to an existentially 517 00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:38,200 Speaker 1: destructive event, that sort of it for humanity. Um. But 518 00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,040 Speaker 1: beyond that, lots of the mechanisms that we used to 519 00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:45,320 Speaker 1: manage risks stop working. That was Sebastian Farquhar. He too 520 00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:47,960 Speaker 1: is a philosopher at Oxford, and he too is with 521 00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:52,720 Speaker 1: the f HI. Another name for existential risks is low probability, 522 00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:57,320 Speaker 1: high consequence risks. Fortunately, the possibility of a bad outcome 523 00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:02,200 Speaker 1: befalling us from any of these risks is the remote. Normally, 524 00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,560 Speaker 1: we wouldn't give them much thought, or any thought at all. 525 00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:09,280 Speaker 1: But these aren't normal risks. The potential bad outcome is 526 00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,240 Speaker 1: so great that even though they have an extremely tiny 527 00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,360 Speaker 1: chance of happening, they are still worth thinking about and 528 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:18,840 Speaker 1: trying to mitigate. And that is just what Nick Bostrom 529 00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:23,600 Speaker 1: in the Future of Humanity does. Back in two thousand twelve, 530 00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:27,280 Speaker 1: in a paper on existential risks, Nick Bostrom included a 531 00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:31,239 Speaker 1: handy graph for categorizing different types of risk. Along the 532 00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,640 Speaker 1: X axis, the horizontal one. I always have trouble remembering 533 00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:38,440 Speaker 1: that is the severity of a risk, how catastrophic its 534 00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:42,600 Speaker 1: outcome could be. Bostrom has ordered the severity from imperceptible 535 00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,600 Speaker 1: like losing a single hair off of your head, too 536 00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:50,000 Speaker 1: endurable like having your car stolen, to crushing like dying 537 00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:53,760 Speaker 1: in a car crash. All of those terrible events are 538 00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:56,680 Speaker 1: ones that happened to a single person, which is the 539 00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:00,560 Speaker 1: first category along the Y axis, the upward one, which 540 00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,880 Speaker 1: is the scope or how many people that the event affects. 541 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:08,480 Speaker 1: This category starts with personal and moves up to local, global, 542 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,800 Speaker 1: transgenerational affecting more than one generation of people, and pan 543 00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:17,800 Speaker 1: generational affecting every generation. From that point on, graphs are, 544 00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:20,000 Speaker 1: of course, a lot easier to take him when you 545 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:22,280 Speaker 1: see them rather than to hear about them. So let's 546 00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:24,560 Speaker 1: just say that the upshot of all this is that 547 00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:26,840 Speaker 1: you can take any event and plot it on the 548 00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,880 Speaker 1: graph to find if it qualifies as an existential risk. 549 00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:34,080 Speaker 1: So let's do that. Take the death of a local 550 00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,800 Speaker 1: baseball mascot. We'll go with the Richmond Flying Squirrels for 551 00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:41,520 Speaker 1: no reason whatsoever. Let's say that the team's mascot was 552 00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,640 Speaker 1: doing his thing up at the top of the bleachers 553 00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:46,120 Speaker 1: when he fell over the side all the way down 554 00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:49,440 Speaker 1: to the concrete below, dying instantly beside the ticket booth. 555 00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:52,640 Speaker 1: This would be a very sad day, not just for 556 00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,480 Speaker 1: the person who wore the flying squirrel costume, but also 557 00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:58,560 Speaker 1: for their family and maybe even a sizeable portion of 558 00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:01,760 Speaker 1: the Richmond, Virginia area. Yeah, so we can say that 559 00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:03,959 Speaker 1: this would be a local event since it affects more 560 00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,280 Speaker 1: than just one person or one family, but it definitely 561 00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:10,640 Speaker 1: doesn't affect humanity as a whole. And since the Flying 562 00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:13,279 Speaker 1: Squirrels family and residents of Richmond will be able to 563 00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:15,960 Speaker 1: carry on, then we can say that it will be 564 00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:20,040 Speaker 1: an endurable event. So the tragic accidental death of the 565 00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,880 Speaker 1: Richmond Flying Squirrels mascot would be a local, endurable event. 566 00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:27,560 Speaker 1: Let's up the stakes a little, shall we. How about 567 00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:32,360 Speaker 1: a global thermonuclear war. This would obviously be a global event, 568 00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,080 Speaker 1: and it would affect in some ways everyone alive at 569 00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:39,520 Speaker 1: the time, whether through fiery death or from radioactive fallout, 570 00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:43,120 Speaker 1: starvation during the nuclear winter, being forced out of one's 571 00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,440 Speaker 1: home to find a safer place to live. You can 572 00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:47,919 Speaker 1: make a pretty good bet that a global nuclear war 573 00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:51,560 Speaker 1: will affect everybody on the planet, and depending on how 574 00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:54,239 Speaker 1: bad the outcome was, the after effects it has on 575 00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:58,879 Speaker 1: society could continue on for some time, affecting multiple generations 576 00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:02,760 Speaker 1: of people. Perhaps it would be transgenerational in its scope, 577 00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,160 Speaker 1: but it would be pretty unlikely that it killed everyone 578 00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:09,040 Speaker 1: alive at the time and wiped humanity out of existence. 579 00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:12,920 Speaker 1: There would almost certainly be enough survivors to carry on, and, 580 00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:16,239 Speaker 1: as we saw with that climate change disaster scenario earlier, 581 00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:19,080 Speaker 1: they should eventually return back to where we were prior 582 00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:22,280 Speaker 1: to the nuclear war, and hopefully smart enough to avoid 583 00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:26,279 Speaker 1: doing it all over again once we got there. So 584 00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:29,319 Speaker 1: for humanity as a whole, a global nuclear war would 585 00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:33,560 Speaker 1: be a transgenerational endurable event. But if you follow the 586 00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:36,839 Speaker 1: scale this handy graph up into the right, you will 587 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:41,880 Speaker 1: find the point where existential risks live pan generational crushing events. 588 00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:47,480 Speaker 1: We don't make it through those, but those are exactly 589 00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,720 Speaker 1: what's coming down the pike right now. We are creating 590 00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:54,520 Speaker 1: new technology that poses risks to humankind in a form 591 00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:58,520 Speaker 1: we've never encountered before, a kind that dwarf global nuclear 592 00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:04,800 Speaker 1: war and climate change, and we are wholly unprepared for them. 593 00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:07,399 Speaker 1: My hope is that this series, in some small way, 594 00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:10,480 Speaker 1: will make us aware that we need to prepare. That 595 00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:14,480 Speaker 1: there is a safe path through the coming treacherousness, but 596 00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,520 Speaker 1: we have to plan for it now. If we can 597 00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,160 Speaker 1: make it through the process of mastering the new technology 598 00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:24,920 Speaker 1: that will define our world artificial intelligence, advances in biotechnology 599 00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:29,360 Speaker 1: and particle physics nanotechnology, we may secure a very bright 600 00:36:29,640 --> 00:36:32,960 Speaker 1: and very long history for humanity, reaching long into the 601 00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:38,120 Speaker 1: far future and spreading across the universe. Technology that poses 602 00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:41,080 Speaker 1: an existential risk to us now is the very same 603 00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,279 Speaker 1: that can prevent existential risks from befollowing us once we've 604 00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:49,160 Speaker 1: mastered them, a point called technological maturity. We're entering the 605 00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:53,760 Speaker 1: most precarious period now the point between where those unprecedentedly 606 00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,480 Speaker 1: dangerous technologies come into existence and where we have them 607 00:36:57,520 --> 00:37:01,799 Speaker 1: fully under control. Any time between those two points, one 608 00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:05,120 Speaker 1: single slip up, one single lab accident caused by one 609 00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:09,600 Speaker 1: single person, one single failure to plan, one single oversight, 610 00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:14,160 Speaker 1: could bring about the sudden, rapid demise of humankind forever. 611 00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,719 Speaker 1: Turning our back on our destiny won't help us. The 612 00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:22,200 Speaker 1: dye is already cast. Some self imposed return to the 613 00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,240 Speaker 1: Dark Ages won't reverse our momentum. In the great filter 614 00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:29,120 Speaker 1: that we will go through, it has become inevitable. Even 615 00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:32,200 Speaker 1: during the actual Dark Ages, that period of modern human 616 00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:36,440 Speaker 1: history where we supposedly stopped progressing intellectually, was filled with 617 00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:40,680 Speaker 1: pockets of people and entire cultures around the world still discovering, 618 00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:44,319 Speaker 1: still innovating. And so it would be as well if 619 00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,040 Speaker 1: we all foolishly banded together to try to halt the 620 00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:50,040 Speaker 1: progress of science for fear of the risks that poses. 621 00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:53,719 Speaker 1: We are not equipped to prevent science, and we would 622 00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:56,520 Speaker 1: not want to even if we could. It is science 623 00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,000 Speaker 1: that will expose us to these risks, but it is 624 00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:02,040 Speaker 1: also science will free us from them forever. On the 625 00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:06,160 Speaker 1: other side, and It's not just us who we have 626 00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:09,600 Speaker 1: to carry on for, it's the entire future of the 627 00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,920 Speaker 1: human race. We're carrying all of those tend to the 628 00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:17,279 Speaker 1: who knows what power future humans on our shoulders as 629 00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:20,120 Speaker 1: we walk this tight rope over ruination. The way to 630 00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:22,840 Speaker 1: ensure our survival is not to concentrate on what's ahead, 631 00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,160 Speaker 1: but instead to look down to plumb the void below. 632 00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:30,239 Speaker 1: The only chance we have of navigating existential risks is 633 00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:37,759 Speaker 1: to understand them. On the next episode of the End 634 00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:40,560 Speaker 1: of the World with Josh Clark, the sun will basically 635 00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:42,880 Speaker 1: fill up our entire sky. You look out the window 636 00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:47,000 Speaker 1: will just be a big, de seething mess of of star. 637 00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:51,680 Speaker 1: We've lived with natural existential risks since the dawn of humanity. 638 00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:54,480 Speaker 1: When bad things happen to Earth, they happen to us 639 00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:57,960 Speaker 1: as well, and that will be so as long as 640 00:38:58,000 --> 00:38:59,800 Speaker 1: we remain an earth bound species.