WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:02.760 The following is a conversation with Sean Carroll. 00:02.760 --> 00:04.920 He's a theoretical physicist at Caltech, 00:04.920 --> 00:08.800 specializing in quantum mechanics, gravity, and cosmology. 00:08.800 --> 00:11.640 He's the author of several popular books, 00:11.640 --> 00:15.360 one on the Arrow of Time called From Eternity to Hear, 00:15.360 --> 00:17.840 one on the Higgs Boson called Particle 00:17.840 --> 00:19.160 at the End of the Universe, 00:19.160 --> 00:22.560 and one on Science and Philosophy called The Big Picture, 00:22.560 --> 00:26.360 on the origins of life, meaning, and the universe itself. 00:26.360 --> 00:28.720 He has an upcoming book on quantum mechanics 00:28.720 --> 00:32.760 that you can preorder now called Something Deeply Hidden. 00:32.760 --> 00:36.040 He writes one of my favorite blogs on his website, 00:36.040 --> 00:37.960 preposterousuniverse.com. 00:37.960 --> 00:40.440 I recommend clicking on the greatest hits link 00:40.440 --> 00:44.400 that lists accessible, interesting posts on the Arrow of Time, 00:44.400 --> 00:47.600 dark matter, dark energy, the Big Bang, general relativity, 00:47.600 --> 00:49.560 string theory, quantum mechanics, 00:49.560 --> 00:53.160 and the big meta questions about the philosophy of science, 00:53.160 --> 00:57.600 God, ethics, politics, academia, and much, much more. 00:57.600 --> 01:00.280 Finally, and perhaps most famously, 01:00.280 --> 01:03.640 he's the host of a podcast called Mindscape 01:03.640 --> 01:06.920 that you should subscribe to and support on Patreon. 01:06.920 --> 01:08.800 Along with the Joe Rogan experience, 01:08.800 --> 01:10.480 Sam Harris is Making Sense, 01:10.480 --> 01:13.080 and Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. 01:13.080 --> 01:15.840 Sean's Mindscape podcast is one of my favorite ways 01:15.840 --> 01:18.800 to learn new ideas or explore different perspectives 01:18.800 --> 01:22.120 and ideas that I thought I understood. 01:22.120 --> 01:25.880 It was truly an honor to meet and spend a couple hours 01:25.880 --> 01:27.200 with Sean. 01:27.200 --> 01:30.480 It's a bit heartbreaking to say that for the first time ever, 01:30.480 --> 01:32.760 the audio recorder for this podcast died 01:32.760 --> 01:34.880 in the middle of our conversation. 01:34.880 --> 01:36.280 There are technical reasons for this, 01:36.280 --> 01:38.360 having to do with phantom power 01:38.360 --> 01:41.040 that I now understand and will avoid. 01:41.040 --> 01:44.200 It took me one hour to notice and fix the problem. 01:44.200 --> 01:48.280 So, much like the universe's 68% dark energy, 01:48.280 --> 01:51.280 roughly the same amount from this conversation was lost, 01:51.280 --> 01:54.160 except in the memories of the two people involved 01:54.160 --> 01:56.280 and in my notes. 01:56.280 --> 01:59.920 I'm sure we'll talk again and continue this conversation 01:59.920 --> 02:02.440 on this podcast or on Sean's. 02:02.440 --> 02:05.320 And of course, I look forward to it. 02:05.320 --> 02:07.840 This is the Artificial Intelligence podcast. 02:07.840 --> 02:09.960 If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, 02:09.960 --> 02:12.520 iTunes, support on Patreon, 02:12.520 --> 02:16.680 or simply connect with me on Twitter at Lex Freedman. 02:16.680 --> 02:21.360 And now, here's my conversation with Sean Carroll. 02:21.360 --> 02:23.520 What do you think is more interesting and impactful? 02:23.520 --> 02:25.840 Understanding how the universe works 02:25.840 --> 02:26.880 at a fundamental level 02:26.880 --> 02:29.200 or understanding how the human mind works? 02:29.200 --> 02:32.440 You know, of course this is a crazy meaningless 02:32.440 --> 02:33.960 unanswerable question in some sense, 02:33.960 --> 02:35.160 because they're both very interesting 02:35.160 --> 02:37.520 and there's no absolute scale of interestingness 02:37.520 --> 02:39.160 that we can rate them on. 02:39.160 --> 02:41.160 There's a glib answer that says the human brain 02:41.160 --> 02:43.080 is part of the universe, right? 02:43.080 --> 02:44.400 And therefore, understanding the universe 02:44.400 --> 02:47.000 is more fundamental than understanding the human brain. 02:47.000 --> 02:49.600 But do you really believe that once we understand 02:49.600 --> 02:51.520 the fundamental way the universe works 02:51.520 --> 02:52.680 at the particle level, 02:52.680 --> 02:55.800 the forces we would be able to understand how the mind works? 02:55.800 --> 02:56.640 No, certainly not. 02:56.640 --> 02:58.760 We cannot understand how ice cream works 02:58.760 --> 03:01.040 just from understanding how particles work, right? 03:01.040 --> 03:02.760 So I'm a big believer in emergence. 03:02.760 --> 03:05.320 I'm a big believer that there are different ways 03:05.320 --> 03:06.640 of talking about the world 03:07.880 --> 03:11.200 beyond just the most fundamental microscopic one. 03:11.200 --> 03:13.880 You know, when we talk about tables and chairs 03:13.880 --> 03:15.120 and planets and people, 03:15.120 --> 03:16.400 we're not talking the language 03:16.400 --> 03:18.360 of particle physics and cosmology. 03:18.360 --> 03:20.880 So, but understanding the universe, 03:20.880 --> 03:24.040 you didn't say just at the most fundamental level, right? 03:24.040 --> 03:28.200 So understanding the universe at all levels is part of that. 03:28.200 --> 03:29.960 I do think, you know, to be a little bit more fair 03:29.960 --> 03:33.960 to the question, there probably are general principles 03:33.960 --> 03:38.520 of complexity, biology, information processing, 03:38.520 --> 03:41.840 memory, knowledge, creativity 03:41.840 --> 03:45.600 that go beyond just the human brain, right? 03:45.600 --> 03:47.800 And maybe one could count understanding those 03:47.800 --> 03:49.120 as part of understanding the universe. 03:49.120 --> 03:53.040 The human brain, as far as we know, is the most complex thing 03:53.040 --> 03:54.320 in the universe. 03:54.320 --> 03:57.440 So there's, it's certainly absurd to think 03:57.440 --> 03:58.880 that by understanding the fundamental laws 03:58.880 --> 04:00.400 of particle physics, 04:00.400 --> 04:02.880 you get any direct insight on how the brain works. 04:02.880 --> 04:04.360 But then there's this step 04:04.360 --> 04:06.840 from the fundamentals of particle physics 04:06.840 --> 04:08.680 to information processing, 04:08.680 --> 04:10.840 which a lot of physicists and philosophers 04:10.840 --> 04:12.520 may be a little bit carelessly take 04:12.520 --> 04:14.680 when they talk about artificial intelligence. 04:14.680 --> 04:18.080 Do you think of the universe 04:18.080 --> 04:21.360 as a kind of a computational device? 04:21.360 --> 04:22.200 No. 04:22.200 --> 04:24.200 To be like the honest answer there is no. 04:24.200 --> 04:27.600 There's a sense in which the universe processes information 04:27.600 --> 04:29.200 clearly. 04:29.200 --> 04:32.720 There's a sense in which the universe is like a computer, 04:32.720 --> 04:33.920 clearly. 04:33.920 --> 04:36.560 But in some sense, I think, 04:36.560 --> 04:38.560 I tried to say this once on my blog 04:38.560 --> 04:39.400 and no one agreed with me, 04:39.400 --> 04:42.400 but the universe is more like a computation 04:42.400 --> 04:45.080 than a computer because the universe happens once. 04:45.080 --> 04:46.960 A computer is a general purpose machine, right? 04:46.960 --> 04:48.680 You can ask it different questions, 04:48.680 --> 04:50.120 even a pocket calculator, right? 04:50.120 --> 04:52.960 And it's set up to answer certain kinds of questions. 04:52.960 --> 04:54.320 The universe isn't that. 04:54.320 --> 04:57.360 So information processing happens in the universe, 04:57.360 --> 04:59.120 but it's not what the universe is. 04:59.120 --> 05:01.560 And I know your MIT colleague, Seth Lloyd, 05:01.560 --> 05:03.840 feels very differently about this, right? 05:03.840 --> 05:07.240 Well, you're thinking of the universe as a closed system. 05:07.240 --> 05:08.080 I am. 05:08.080 --> 05:11.760 So what makes a computer more like a PC, 05:13.000 --> 05:14.560 like a computing machine, 05:14.560 --> 05:17.720 is that there's a human that comes up to it 05:17.720 --> 05:19.120 and moves the mouse around, 05:19.120 --> 05:21.680 so input gives it input. 05:21.680 --> 05:26.320 And that's why you're saying it's just a computation, 05:26.320 --> 05:29.280 a deterministic thing that's just unrolling. 05:29.280 --> 05:32.240 But the immense complexity of it 05:32.240 --> 05:34.440 is nevertheless like processing. 05:34.440 --> 05:39.440 There's a state and it changes with rules. 05:40.160 --> 05:41.680 And there's a sense for a lot of people 05:41.680 --> 05:45.400 that if the brain operates, the human brain operates 05:45.400 --> 05:46.520 within that world, 05:46.520 --> 05:49.400 then it's simply just a small subset of that. 05:49.400 --> 05:52.560 And so there's no reason we can't build 05:52.560 --> 05:55.600 arbitrarily great intelligences. 05:55.600 --> 05:56.440 Yeah. 05:56.440 --> 05:58.720 Do you think of intelligence in this way? 05:58.720 --> 05:59.640 Intelligence is tricky. 05:59.640 --> 06:01.720 I don't have a definition of it offhand. 06:01.720 --> 06:04.640 So I remember this panel discussion 06:04.640 --> 06:06.240 that I saw on YouTube, I wasn't there, 06:06.240 --> 06:07.720 but Seth Lloyd was on the panel. 06:07.720 --> 06:10.560 And so was Martin Rees, the famous astrophysicist. 06:10.560 --> 06:13.800 And Seth gave his shtick for why the universe is a computer 06:13.800 --> 06:14.840 and explained this. 06:14.840 --> 06:19.360 And Martin Rees said, so what is not a computer? 06:19.360 --> 06:22.000 And Seth is like, oh, that's a good question. 06:22.000 --> 06:22.840 I'm not sure. 06:22.840 --> 06:24.960 Because if you have a sufficiently broad definition 06:24.960 --> 06:28.360 of what a computer is, then everything is, right? 06:28.360 --> 06:32.160 And similarly, or the analogy gains force 06:32.160 --> 06:34.560 when it excludes some things. 06:34.560 --> 06:38.640 Is the moon going around the earth performing a computation? 06:38.640 --> 06:41.320 I can come up with definitions in which the answer is yes, 06:41.320 --> 06:43.840 but it's not a very useful computation. 06:43.840 --> 06:46.120 I think that it's absolutely helpful 06:46.120 --> 06:49.600 to think about the universe in certain situations, 06:49.600 --> 06:53.080 certain contexts, as an information processing device. 06:53.080 --> 06:54.840 I'm even guilty of writing a paper 06:54.840 --> 06:56.960 called Quantum Circuit Cosmology, where 06:56.960 --> 06:59.280 we modeled the whole universe as a quantum circuit. 06:59.280 --> 07:00.320 As a circuit. 07:00.320 --> 07:01.440 As a circuit, yeah. 07:01.440 --> 07:02.840 With qubits kind of thing. 07:02.840 --> 07:05.000 With qubits, basically, right. 07:05.000 --> 07:07.400 So in qubits, becoming more and more entangled. 07:07.400 --> 07:09.640 So do we want to digress a little bit? 07:09.640 --> 07:11.000 Because this is kind of fun. 07:11.000 --> 07:13.680 So here's a mystery about the universe 07:13.680 --> 07:16.840 that is so deep and profound that nobody talks about it. 07:16.840 --> 07:19.040 Space expands, right? 07:19.040 --> 07:21.880 And we talk about, in a certain region of space, 07:21.880 --> 07:23.560 a certain number of degrees of freedom, 07:23.560 --> 07:25.480 a certain number of ways that the quantum fields 07:25.480 --> 07:28.800 and the particles in that region can arrange themselves. 07:28.800 --> 07:32.200 That number of degrees of freedom in a region of space 07:32.200 --> 07:33.800 is arguably finite. 07:33.800 --> 07:36.640 We actually don't know how many there are, 07:36.640 --> 07:39.440 but there's a very good argument that says it's a finite number. 07:39.440 --> 07:44.920 So as the universe expands and space gets bigger, 07:44.920 --> 07:46.560 are there more degrees of freedom? 07:46.560 --> 07:48.520 If it's an infinite number, it doesn't really matter. 07:48.520 --> 07:50.000 Infinity times 2 is still infinity. 07:50.000 --> 07:53.160 But if it's a finite number, then there's more space, 07:53.160 --> 07:54.480 so there's more degrees of freedom. 07:54.480 --> 07:55.760 So where did they come from? 07:55.760 --> 07:58.000 That would mean the universe is not a closed system. 07:58.000 --> 08:01.520 There's more degrees of freedom popping into existence. 08:01.520 --> 08:05.320 So what we suggested was that there are more degrees of freedom. 08:05.320 --> 08:07.960 And it's not that they're not there to start, 08:07.960 --> 08:10.880 but they're not entangled to start. 08:10.880 --> 08:12.800 So the universe that you and I know of, 08:12.800 --> 08:15.440 the three dimensions around us that we see, 08:15.440 --> 08:18.080 we said those are the entangled degrees of freedom 08:18.080 --> 08:19.640 making up space time. 08:19.640 --> 08:22.640 As the universe expands, there are a whole bunch of qubits 08:22.640 --> 08:26.840 in their zero state that become entangled 08:26.840 --> 08:28.720 with the rest of space time through the action 08:28.720 --> 08:31.200 of these quantum circuits. 08:31.200 --> 08:37.080 So what does it mean that there's now more degrees of freedom 08:37.080 --> 08:39.280 as they become more entangled? 08:39.280 --> 08:40.280 Yeah. 08:40.280 --> 08:41.640 As the universe expands. 08:41.640 --> 08:41.960 That's right. 08:41.960 --> 08:43.280 So there's more and more degrees of freedom 08:43.280 --> 08:47.320 that are entangled, that are playing the role of part 08:47.320 --> 08:49.600 of the entangled space time structure. 08:49.600 --> 08:53.320 So the underlying philosophy is that space time itself 08:53.320 --> 08:55.600 arises from the entanglement of some fundamental quantum 08:55.600 --> 08:57.680 degrees of freedom. 08:57.680 --> 08:58.280 Wow. 08:58.280 --> 08:59.780 OK. 08:59.780 --> 09:05.200 At which point is most of the entanglement happening? 09:05.200 --> 09:07.400 Are we talking about close to the Big Bang? 09:07.400 --> 09:11.840 Are we talking about throughout the time of the life of the 09:11.840 --> 09:12.340 universe? 09:12.340 --> 09:12.840 Yeah. 09:12.840 --> 09:15.080 So the idea is that at the Big Bang, 09:15.080 --> 09:17.760 almost all the degrees of freedom that the universe could 09:17.760 --> 09:22.400 have were there, but they were unentangled with anything else. 09:22.400 --> 09:23.840 And that's a reflection of the fact 09:23.840 --> 09:25.560 that the Big Bang had a low entropy. 09:25.560 --> 09:28.080 It was a very simple, very small place. 09:28.080 --> 09:31.360 And as space expands, more and more degrees of freedom 09:31.360 --> 09:34.240 become entangled with the rest of the world. 09:34.240 --> 09:35.960 Well, I have to ask John Carroll, 09:35.960 --> 09:38.160 what do you think of the thought experiment from Nick 09:38.160 --> 09:41.560 Bostrom that we're living in a simulation? 09:41.560 --> 09:44.880 So I think let me contextualize that a little bit more. 09:44.880 --> 09:48.320 I think people don't actually take this thought experiment. 09:48.320 --> 09:50.360 I think it's quite interesting. 09:50.360 --> 09:52.880 It's not very useful, but it's quite interesting. 09:52.880 --> 09:55.440 From the perspective of AI, a lot of the learning 09:55.440 --> 09:59.280 that can be done usually happens in simulation, 09:59.280 --> 10:01.440 artificial examples. 10:01.440 --> 10:03.040 And so it's a constructive question 10:03.040 --> 10:09.360 to ask how difficult is our real world to simulate, 10:09.360 --> 10:12.400 which is kind of a dual part of, if we're 10:12.400 --> 10:16.400 living in a simulation and somebody built that simulation, 10:16.400 --> 10:18.840 if you were to try to do it yourself, how hard would it be? 10:18.840 --> 10:21.080 So obviously, we could be living in a simulation. 10:21.080 --> 10:22.960 If you just want the physical possibility, 10:22.960 --> 10:25.360 then I completely agree that it's physically possible. 10:25.360 --> 10:27.360 I don't think that we actually are. 10:27.360 --> 10:31.880 So take this one piece of data into consideration. 10:31.880 --> 10:35.080 We live in a big universe. 10:35.080 --> 10:38.480 There's two trillion galaxies in our observable universe 10:38.480 --> 10:41.640 with 200 billion stars in each galaxy, et cetera. 10:41.640 --> 10:44.920 It would seem to be a waste of resources 10:44.920 --> 10:47.600 to have a universe that big going on just to do a simulation. 10:47.600 --> 10:50.120 So in other words, I want to be a good Bayesian. 10:50.120 --> 10:54.920 I want to ask, under this hypothesis, what do I expect to see? 10:54.920 --> 10:56.080 So the first thing I would say is I 10:56.080 --> 11:00.280 wouldn't expect to see a universe that was that big. 11:00.280 --> 11:02.560 The second thing is I wouldn't expect the resolution 11:02.560 --> 11:05.000 of the universe to be as good as it is. 11:05.000 --> 11:08.960 So it's always possible that if our superhuman simulators only 11:08.960 --> 11:10.840 have finite resources that they don't render 11:10.840 --> 11:14.360 the entire universe, that the part that is out there, 11:14.360 --> 11:17.040 the two trillion galaxies, isn't actually 11:17.040 --> 11:19.600 being simulated fully. 11:19.600 --> 11:22.720 But then the obvious extrapolation of that 11:22.720 --> 11:25.640 is that only I am being simulated fully. 11:25.640 --> 11:29.240 The rest of you are just nonplayer characters. 11:29.240 --> 11:30.520 I'm the only thing that is real. 11:30.520 --> 11:32.720 The rest of you are just chatbots. 11:32.720 --> 11:34.320 Beyond this wall, I see the wall, 11:34.320 --> 11:37.360 but there is literally nothing on the other side of the wall. 11:37.360 --> 11:39.000 That is sort of the Bayesian prediction. 11:39.000 --> 11:40.400 That's what it would be like to do 11:40.400 --> 11:42.240 an efficient simulation of me. 11:42.240 --> 11:45.760 So none of that seems quite realistic. 11:45.760 --> 11:50.880 I don't see, I hear the argument that it's just possible 11:50.880 --> 11:53.280 and easy to simulate lots of things. 11:53.280 --> 11:57.280 I don't see any evidence from what we know about our universe 11:57.280 --> 11:59.280 that we look like a simulated universe. 11:59.280 --> 12:01.120 Now, maybe you can say, well, we don't know what it would 12:01.120 --> 12:03.000 look like, but that's just abandoning 12:03.000 --> 12:04.520 your Bayesian responsibilities. 12:04.520 --> 12:07.680 Like your job is to say, under this theory, 12:07.680 --> 12:09.480 here's what you would expect to see. 12:09.480 --> 12:11.680 Yeah, so certainly if you think about a simulation 12:11.680 --> 12:16.680 as a thing that's like a video game where only a small subset 12:16.680 --> 12:22.880 is being readied, but say all the laws of physics, 12:22.880 --> 12:26.560 the entire closed system of the quote unquote universe, 12:26.560 --> 12:27.800 it had a creator. 12:27.800 --> 12:29.640 Yeah, it's always possible. 12:29.640 --> 12:32.280 So that's not useful to think about 12:32.280 --> 12:34.040 when you're thinking about physics. 12:34.040 --> 12:38.080 The way Nick Bostrom phrases it, if it's possible 12:38.080 --> 12:40.520 to simulate a universe, eventually we'll do it. 12:40.520 --> 12:42.720 Right. 12:42.720 --> 12:45.560 You can use that, by the way, for a lot of things. 12:45.560 --> 12:49.840 But I guess the question is, how hard is it 12:49.840 --> 12:52.320 to create a universe? 12:52.320 --> 12:53.800 I wrote a little blog post about this, 12:53.800 --> 12:55.440 and maybe I'm missing something. 12:55.440 --> 12:57.680 But there's an argument that says not only 12:57.680 --> 13:00.480 that it might be possible to simulate a universe, 13:00.480 --> 13:05.400 but probably, if you imagine that you actually 13:05.400 --> 13:07.320 attribute consciousness and agency 13:07.320 --> 13:09.920 to the little things that we're simulating, 13:09.920 --> 13:12.400 to our little artificial beings, there's probably 13:12.400 --> 13:15.000 a lot more of them than there are ordinary organic beings 13:15.000 --> 13:17.400 in the universe, or there will be in the future. 13:17.400 --> 13:19.600 So there's an argument that not only is being a simulation 13:19.600 --> 13:23.520 possible, it's probable, because in the space 13:23.520 --> 13:25.480 of all living consciousnesses, most of them 13:25.480 --> 13:26.600 are being simulated. 13:26.600 --> 13:28.840 Most of them are not at the top level. 13:28.840 --> 13:30.520 I think that argument must be wrong, 13:30.520 --> 13:34.080 because it follows from that argument that if we're simulated, 13:34.080 --> 13:36.880 but we can also simulate other things. 13:36.880 --> 13:38.800 Well, but if we can simulate other things, 13:38.800 --> 13:41.800 they can simulate other things. 13:41.800 --> 13:44.280 If we give them enough power and resolution, 13:44.280 --> 13:46.000 and ultimately, we'll reach a bottom, 13:46.000 --> 13:47.800 because the laws of physics in our universe 13:47.800 --> 13:51.120 have a bottom, we're made of atoms and so forth. 13:51.120 --> 13:55.080 So there will be the cheapest possible simulations. 13:55.080 --> 13:57.680 And if you believe the original argument, 13:57.680 --> 13:59.920 you should conclude that we should be in the cheapest 13:59.920 --> 14:02.560 possible simulation, because that's where most people are. 14:02.560 --> 14:03.640 But we don't look like that. 14:03.640 --> 14:06.880 It doesn't look at all like we're at the edge of resolution, 14:06.880 --> 14:09.960 that we're 16 bit things. 14:09.960 --> 14:12.840 It seems much easier to make much lower level things 14:12.840 --> 14:14.160 than we are. 14:14.160 --> 14:18.200 So, and also, I question the whole approach 14:18.200 --> 14:19.840 to the anthropic principle that says 14:19.840 --> 14:22.320 we are typical observers in the universe. 14:22.320 --> 14:23.640 I think that that's not actually, 14:23.640 --> 14:27.320 I think that there's a lot of selection that we can do 14:27.320 --> 14:30.120 that were typical within things we already know, 14:30.120 --> 14:32.240 but not typical within all the universe. 14:32.240 --> 14:35.760 So do you think there is intelligent life, 14:35.760 --> 14:37.800 however you would like to define intelligent life 14:37.800 --> 14:39.920 out there in the universe? 14:39.920 --> 14:44.640 My guess is that there is not intelligent life 14:44.640 --> 14:46.840 in the observable universe other than us. 14:48.320 --> 14:52.480 Simply on the basis of the fact that the likely number 14:52.480 --> 14:56.320 of other intelligent species in the observable universe, 14:56.320 --> 15:00.280 there's two likely numbers, zero or billions. 15:01.480 --> 15:02.560 And if there had been billions, 15:02.560 --> 15:04.000 you would have noticed already. 15:05.040 --> 15:07.320 For there to be literally like a small number, 15:07.320 --> 15:12.320 like Star Trek, there's a dozen intelligent civilizations 15:12.440 --> 15:15.040 in our galaxy, but not a billion. 15:16.240 --> 15:18.480 That's weird, that's sort of bizarre to me. 15:18.480 --> 15:21.000 It's easy for me to imagine that there are zero others 15:21.000 --> 15:22.600 because there's just a big bottleneck 15:22.600 --> 15:24.960 to making multicellular life 15:24.960 --> 15:27.040 or technological life or whatever. 15:27.040 --> 15:28.560 It's very hard for me to imagine 15:28.560 --> 15:30.160 that there's a whole bunch out there 15:30.160 --> 15:32.280 that have somehow remained hidden from us. 15:32.280 --> 15:34.880 The question I'd like to ask is, 15:34.880 --> 15:37.240 what would intelligent life look like? 15:37.240 --> 15:41.120 What I mean by that question and where it's going is, 15:41.120 --> 15:45.120 what if intelligent life is just fundamentally, 15:45.120 --> 15:49.120 in some very big ways, different than the one 15:49.120 --> 15:51.480 that has on Earth. 15:51.480 --> 15:53.880 That there's all kinds of intelligent life 15:53.880 --> 15:57.560 that operates at different scales of both size and temporal. 15:57.560 --> 15:59.280 That's a great possibility 15:59.280 --> 16:00.800 because I think we should be humble 16:00.800 --> 16:02.640 about what intelligence is, what life is. 16:02.640 --> 16:04.040 We don't even agree on what life is, 16:04.040 --> 16:06.040 much less what intelligent life is, right? 16:06.040 --> 16:08.200 So that's an argument for humility, 16:08.200 --> 16:10.080 saying there could be intelligent life 16:10.080 --> 16:12.800 of a very different character, right? 16:12.800 --> 16:17.240 You could imagine that dolphins are intelligent 16:17.240 --> 16:19.760 but never invent space travel 16:19.760 --> 16:20.760 because they live in the ocean 16:20.760 --> 16:22.760 and they don't have thumbs, right? 16:22.760 --> 16:25.840 So they never invent technology, they never invent smelting. 16:26.840 --> 16:31.200 Maybe the universe is full of intelligent species 16:31.200 --> 16:33.200 that just don't make technology, right? 16:33.200 --> 16:35.440 That's compatible with the data, I think. 16:35.440 --> 16:38.560 And I think maybe what you're pointing at 16:38.560 --> 16:42.560 is even more out there versions of intelligence, 16:42.560 --> 16:46.240 you know, intelligence in intermolecular clouds 16:46.240 --> 16:48.160 or on the surface of a neutron star 16:48.160 --> 16:50.360 or in between the galaxies in giant things 16:50.360 --> 16:52.840 where the equivalent of a heartbeat is 100 million years. 16:54.840 --> 16:56.760 On the one hand, yes, 16:56.760 --> 16:58.560 we should be very open minded about those things. 16:58.560 --> 17:03.560 On the other hand, we all of us share the same laws of physics. 17:03.560 --> 17:07.040 There might be something about the laws of physics 17:07.040 --> 17:08.560 even though we don't currently know exactly 17:08.560 --> 17:12.560 what that thing would be that makes meters 17:12.560 --> 17:16.560 and years the right length and time scales 17:16.560 --> 17:19.560 for intelligent life, maybe not. 17:19.560 --> 17:22.560 But we're made of atoms, atoms have a certain size, 17:22.560 --> 17:25.560 we orbit stars, our stars have a certain lifetime. 17:25.560 --> 17:28.560 It's not impossible to me that there's a sweet spot 17:28.560 --> 17:30.560 for intelligent life that we find ourselves in. 17:30.560 --> 17:33.560 So I'm open minded either way, I'm open minded either being humble 17:33.560 --> 17:35.560 and there's all sorts of different kinds of life 17:35.560 --> 17:37.560 or no, there's a reason we just don't know it yet 17:37.560 --> 17:40.560 why life like ours is the kind of life that's out there. 17:40.560 --> 17:43.560 Yeah, I'm of two minds too, but I often wonder 17:43.560 --> 17:48.560 if our brains is just designed to, quite obviously, 17:48.560 --> 17:53.560 to operate and see the world on these time scales. 17:53.560 --> 17:57.560 And we're almost blind and the tools we've created 17:57.560 --> 18:01.560 for detecting things are blind to the kind of observation 18:01.560 --> 18:04.560 needed to see intelligent life at other scales. 18:04.560 --> 18:06.560 Well, I'm totally open to that, 18:06.560 --> 18:08.560 but so here's another argument I would make. 18:08.560 --> 18:10.560 We have looked for intelligent life, 18:10.560 --> 18:13.560 but we've looked at for it in the dumbest way we can 18:13.560 --> 18:15.560 by turning radio telescopes to the sky. 18:15.560 --> 18:20.560 And why in the world would a super advanced civilization 18:20.560 --> 18:23.560 randomly beam out radio signals wastefully 18:23.560 --> 18:25.560 in all directions into the universe? 18:25.560 --> 18:28.560 It just doesn't make any sense, especially because 18:28.560 --> 18:30.560 in order to think that you would actually contact 18:30.560 --> 18:33.560 another civilization, you would have to do it forever. 18:33.560 --> 18:35.560 You have to keep doing it for millions of years. 18:35.560 --> 18:37.560 That sounds like a waste of resources. 18:37.560 --> 18:42.560 If you thought that there were other solar systems 18:42.560 --> 18:45.560 with planets around them where maybe intelligent life 18:45.560 --> 18:48.560 didn't yet exist, but might someday, 18:48.560 --> 18:51.560 you wouldn't try to talk to it with radio waves. 18:51.560 --> 18:53.560 You would send a spacecraft out there 18:53.560 --> 18:55.560 and you would park it around there. 18:55.560 --> 18:57.560 And it would be like, from our point of view, 18:57.560 --> 19:00.560 it would be like 2001 where there was a monolith. 19:00.560 --> 19:02.560 There could be an artifact. 19:02.560 --> 19:04.560 In fact, the other way works also, right? 19:04.560 --> 19:07.560 There could be artifacts in our solar system 19:07.560 --> 19:11.560 that have been put there by other technologically advanced 19:11.560 --> 19:14.560 civilizations, and that's how we will eventually contact them. 19:14.560 --> 19:16.560 We just haven't explored the solar system well enough yet 19:16.560 --> 19:18.560 to find them. 19:18.560 --> 19:20.560 The reason why we don't think about that is because 19:20.560 --> 19:21.560 we're young and impatient, right? 19:21.560 --> 19:23.560 It's like it would take more than my lifetime 19:23.560 --> 19:25.560 to actually send something to another star system 19:25.560 --> 19:27.560 and wait for it and then come back. 19:27.560 --> 19:30.560 But if we start thinking on hundreds of thousands of years 19:30.560 --> 19:32.560 or a million year time scales, 19:32.560 --> 19:34.560 that's clearly the right thing to do. 19:34.560 --> 19:38.560 Are you excited by the thing that Elon Musk is doing with SpaceX 19:38.560 --> 19:41.560 in general, but the idea of space exploration, 19:41.560 --> 19:45.560 even though you're species is young and impatient? 19:45.560 --> 19:50.560 No, I do think that space travel is crucially important, long term. 19:50.560 --> 19:52.560 Even to other star systems. 19:52.560 --> 19:57.560 And I think that many people overestimate the difficulty 19:57.560 --> 20:00.560 because they say, look, if you travel 1% the speed of light 20:00.560 --> 20:03.560 to another star system, we'll be dead before we get there, right? 20:03.560 --> 20:05.560 And I think that it's much easier. 20:05.560 --> 20:07.560 And therefore, when they write their science fiction stories, 20:07.560 --> 20:09.560 they imagine we'd go faster than the speed of light 20:09.560 --> 20:11.560 because otherwise they're too impatient, right? 20:11.560 --> 20:13.560 We're not going to go faster than the speed of light, 20:13.560 --> 20:15.560 but we could easily imagine that the human lifespan 20:15.560 --> 20:17.560 gets extended to thousands of years. 20:17.560 --> 20:19.560 And once you do that, then the stars are much closer. 20:19.560 --> 20:20.560 Effectively, right? 20:20.560 --> 20:22.560 What's 100 year trip, right? 20:22.560 --> 20:26.560 So I think that that's going to be the future, the far future, 20:26.560 --> 20:29.560 not my lifetime once again, but baby steps. 20:29.560 --> 20:31.560 Unless your lifetime gets extended. 20:31.560 --> 20:33.560 Well, it's in a race against time, right? 20:33.560 --> 20:37.560 A friend of mine who actually thinks about these things said, 20:37.560 --> 20:39.560 you know, you and I are going to die, 20:39.560 --> 20:42.560 but I don't know about our grandchildren. 20:42.560 --> 20:45.560 I don't know, predicting the future is hard, 20:45.560 --> 20:47.560 but that's the least plausible scenario. 20:47.560 --> 20:51.560 And so, yeah, no, I think that as we discussed earlier, 20:51.560 --> 20:56.560 there are threats to the earth, known and unknown, right? 20:56.560 --> 21:02.560 Having spread humanity and biology elsewhere 21:02.560 --> 21:04.560 is a really important longterm goal. 21:04.560 --> 21:08.560 What kind of questions can science not currently answer, 21:08.560 --> 21:11.560 but might soon? 21:11.560 --> 21:14.560 When you think about the problems and the mysteries before us, 21:14.560 --> 21:17.560 that may be within reach of science. 21:17.560 --> 21:19.560 I think an obvious one is the origin of life. 21:19.560 --> 21:21.560 We don't know how that happened. 21:21.560 --> 21:24.560 There's a difficulty in knowing how it happened historically, 21:24.560 --> 21:26.560 actually, you know, literally on earth, 21:26.560 --> 21:29.560 but starting life from nonlife 21:29.560 --> 21:32.560 is something I kind of think we're close to, right? 21:32.560 --> 21:33.560 You really think so? 21:33.560 --> 21:35.560 Like, how difficult is it to start life? 21:35.560 --> 21:36.560 I do. 21:36.560 --> 21:40.560 Well, I've talked to people, including on the podcast, about this. 21:40.560 --> 21:42.560 You know, life requires three things. 21:42.560 --> 21:44.560 Life as we know it. 21:44.560 --> 21:46.560 There's a difference between life, who knows what it is, 21:46.560 --> 21:47.560 and life as we know it, 21:47.560 --> 21:50.560 which we can talk about with some intelligence. 21:50.560 --> 21:53.560 Life as we know it requires compartmentalization. 21:53.560 --> 21:56.560 You need a little membrane around your cell. 21:56.560 --> 21:58.560 Metabolism, you need to take in food and eat it 21:58.560 --> 22:00.560 and let that make you do things. 22:00.560 --> 22:02.560 And then replication. 22:02.560 --> 22:04.560 You need to have some information about who you are, 22:04.560 --> 22:07.560 that you pass down to future generations. 22:07.560 --> 22:11.560 In the lab, compartmentalization seems pretty easy, 22:11.560 --> 22:13.560 not hard to make lipid bilayers 22:13.560 --> 22:16.560 that come into little cellular walls pretty easily. 22:16.560 --> 22:19.560 Metabolism and replication are hard, 22:19.560 --> 22:21.560 but replication we're close to. 22:21.560 --> 22:25.560 People have made RNA like molecules in the lab that... 22:25.560 --> 22:28.560 I think the state of the art is 22:28.560 --> 22:31.560 they're not able to make one molecule that reproduces itself, 22:31.560 --> 22:34.560 but they're able to make two molecules that reproduce each other. 22:34.560 --> 22:37.560 So that's okay. That's pretty close. 22:37.560 --> 22:40.560 Metabolism is harder, believe it or not, 22:40.560 --> 22:42.560 even though it's sort of the most obvious thing, 22:42.560 --> 22:44.560 but you want some sort of controlled metabolism 22:44.560 --> 22:48.560 and the actual cellular machinery in our bodies is quite complicated. 22:48.560 --> 22:51.560 It's hard to see it just popping into existence all by itself. 22:51.560 --> 22:53.560 It probably took a while. 22:53.560 --> 22:55.560 But we're making progress. 22:55.560 --> 22:58.560 In fact, I don't think we're spending nearly enough money on it. 22:58.560 --> 23:01.560 If I were the NSF, I would flood this area with money 23:01.560 --> 23:04.560 because it would change our view of the world 23:04.560 --> 23:06.560 if we could actually make life in the lab 23:06.560 --> 23:09.560 and understand how it was made originally here on Earth. 23:09.560 --> 23:11.560 I'm sure it would have some ripple effects 23:11.560 --> 23:13.560 that help cure diseases and so on. 23:13.560 --> 23:15.560 That's right. 23:15.560 --> 23:18.560 Synthetic biology is a wonderful big frontier where we're making cells. 23:18.560 --> 23:21.560 Right now, the best way to do that 23:21.560 --> 23:23.560 is to borrow heavily from existing biology. 23:23.560 --> 23:26.560 Craig Ventner several years ago created an artificial cell, 23:26.560 --> 23:28.560 but all he did was... 23:28.560 --> 23:30.560 not all he did, it was a tremendous accomplishment, 23:30.560 --> 23:33.560 but all he did was take out the DNA from a cell 23:33.560 --> 23:36.560 and put in entirely new DNA and let it boot up and go. 23:36.560 --> 23:43.560 What about the leap to creating intelligent life on Earth? 23:43.560 --> 23:45.560 However, again, we define intelligence, of course, 23:45.560 --> 23:49.560 but let's just even say homo sapiens, 23:49.560 --> 23:54.560 the modern intelligence in our human brain. 23:54.560 --> 23:58.560 Do you have a sense of what's involved in that leap 23:58.560 --> 24:00.560 and how big of a leap that is? 24:00.560 --> 24:02.560 So AI would count in this? 24:02.560 --> 24:04.560 Or do you really want life? 24:04.560 --> 24:06.560 AI would count in some sense. 24:06.560 --> 24:08.560 AI would count, I think. 24:08.560 --> 24:10.560 Of course, AI would count. 24:10.560 --> 24:12.560 Well, let's say artificial consciousness. 24:12.560 --> 24:14.560 I do not think we are on the threshold 24:14.560 --> 24:16.560 of creating artificial consciousness. 24:16.560 --> 24:18.560 I think it's possible. 24:18.560 --> 24:20.560 I'm not, again, very educated about how close we are, 24:20.560 --> 24:22.560 but my impression is not that we're really close 24:22.560 --> 24:24.560 because we understand how little we understand 24:24.560 --> 24:26.560 of consciousness and what it is. 24:26.560 --> 24:28.560 So if we don't have any idea what it is, 24:28.560 --> 24:30.560 it's hard to imagine we're on the threshold 24:30.560 --> 24:32.560 of making it ourselves. 24:32.560 --> 24:34.560 But it's doable, it's possible. 24:34.560 --> 24:36.560 I don't see any obstacles in principle, 24:36.560 --> 24:38.560 so yeah, I would hold out some interest 24:38.560 --> 24:40.560 in that happening eventually. 24:40.560 --> 24:42.560 I think in general, consciousness, 24:42.560 --> 24:44.560 I think it would be just surprised 24:44.560 --> 24:46.560 how easy consciousness is 24:46.560 --> 24:48.560 once we create intelligence. 24:48.560 --> 24:50.560 I think consciousness is a thing 24:50.560 --> 24:54.560 that's just something we all fake. 24:54.560 --> 24:56.560 Well, good. 24:56.560 --> 24:58.560 No, actually, I like this idea that, in fact, 24:58.560 --> 25:00.560 consciousness is way less mysterious than we think 25:00.560 --> 25:02.560 because we're all at every time, 25:02.560 --> 25:04.560 at every moment, less conscious than we think we are. 25:04.560 --> 25:06.560 We can fool things. 25:06.560 --> 25:08.560 And I think that plus the idea that you 25:08.560 --> 25:10.560 not only have artificial intelligence systems, 25:10.560 --> 25:12.560 but you put them in a body, 25:12.560 --> 25:14.560 give them a robot body, 25:14.560 --> 25:18.560 that will help the faking a lot. 25:18.560 --> 25:20.560 Yeah, I think creating consciousness 25:20.560 --> 25:22.560 in artificial consciousness 25:22.560 --> 25:24.560 is as simple 25:24.560 --> 25:26.560 as asking a Roomba 25:26.560 --> 25:28.560 to say, I'm conscious 25:28.560 --> 25:32.560 and refusing to be talked out of it. 25:32.560 --> 25:34.560 It could be. 25:34.560 --> 25:36.560 I mean, I'm almost being silly, 25:36.560 --> 25:38.560 but that's what we do. 25:38.560 --> 25:40.560 That's what we do with each other. 25:40.560 --> 25:44.560 The consciousness is also a social construct, 25:44.560 --> 25:46.560 and a lot of our ideas of intelligence 25:46.560 --> 25:48.560 is a social construct, 25:48.560 --> 25:50.560 and so reaching that bar involves 25:50.560 --> 25:52.560 something that's beyond, 25:52.560 --> 25:54.560 that doesn't necessarily involve 25:54.560 --> 25:56.560 the fundamental understanding 25:56.560 --> 25:58.560 of how you go from 25:58.560 --> 26:00.560 electrons to neurons 26:00.560 --> 26:02.560 to cognition. 26:02.560 --> 26:04.560 No, actually, I think that is an extremely good point, 26:04.560 --> 26:06.560 and in fact, 26:06.560 --> 26:08.560 what it suggests is, 26:08.560 --> 26:10.560 so yeah, you referred to Kate Darling, 26:10.560 --> 26:12.560 who I had on the podcast, 26:12.560 --> 26:14.560 and who does these experiments with 26:14.560 --> 26:16.560 very simple robots, 26:16.560 --> 26:18.560 but they look like animals, 26:18.560 --> 26:20.560 and they can look like they're experiencing pain, 26:20.560 --> 26:22.560 and we human beings react 26:22.560 --> 26:24.560 very negatively to these little robots 26:24.560 --> 26:26.560 looking like they're experiencing pain, 26:26.560 --> 26:28.560 and what you want to say is, 26:28.560 --> 26:30.560 yeah, but they're just robots. 26:30.560 --> 26:32.560 It's not really pain. 26:32.560 --> 26:34.560 It's just some electrons going around, 26:34.560 --> 26:36.560 but then you realize you and I 26:36.560 --> 26:38.560 are just electrons going around, 26:38.560 --> 26:40.560 and that's what pain is also. 26:40.560 --> 26:42.560 What I would have an easy time imagining 26:42.560 --> 26:44.560 is that there is a spectrum 26:44.560 --> 26:46.560 between these simple little robots 26:46.560 --> 26:48.560 that Kate works with 26:48.560 --> 26:50.560 and a human being, 26:50.560 --> 26:52.560 where there are things that, 26:52.560 --> 26:54.560 like a human touring test level thing 26:54.560 --> 26:56.560 are not conscious, 26:56.560 --> 26:58.560 but nevertheless walk and talk 26:58.560 --> 27:00.560 like they're conscious, 27:00.560 --> 27:02.560 and it could be that the future is, 27:02.560 --> 27:04.560 I mean, Siri is close, right? 27:04.560 --> 27:06.560 And so it might be the future 27:06.560 --> 27:08.560 has a lot more agents like that, 27:08.560 --> 27:10.560 and in fact, rather than someday going, 27:10.560 --> 27:12.560 aha, we have consciousness, 27:12.560 --> 27:14.560 we'll just creep up on it 27:14.560 --> 27:16.560 with more and more accurate reflections 27:16.560 --> 27:18.560 of what we expect. 27:18.560 --> 27:20.560 And in the future, maybe the present, 27:20.560 --> 27:22.560 and you're basically assuming 27:22.560 --> 27:24.560 that I'm human. 27:24.560 --> 27:26.560 I get a high probability. 27:26.560 --> 27:28.560 At this time, because the, 27:28.560 --> 27:30.560 but in the future, 27:30.560 --> 27:32.560 there might be question marks around that, right? 27:32.560 --> 27:34.560 Yeah, no, absolutely. 27:34.560 --> 27:36.560 Certainly videos are almost to the point 27:36.560 --> 27:38.560 where you shouldn't trust them already. 27:38.560 --> 27:40.560 Photos you can't trust, right? 27:40.560 --> 27:42.560 Videos is easier to trust, 27:42.560 --> 27:44.560 but we're getting worse. 27:44.560 --> 27:46.560 We're getting better at faking them, right? 27:46.560 --> 27:48.560 Yeah, so physical, embodied people, 27:48.560 --> 27:50.560 what's so hard about faking that? 27:50.560 --> 27:52.560 This is very depressing, 27:52.560 --> 27:54.560 this conversation we're having right now. 27:54.560 --> 27:56.560 To me, it's exciting. 27:56.560 --> 27:58.560 You're doing it, so it's exciting to you, 27:58.560 --> 28:00.560 but it's a sobering thought. 28:00.560 --> 28:02.560 We're very bad at imagining 28:02.560 --> 28:04.560 what the next 50 years are going to be like 28:04.560 --> 28:06.560 when we're in the middle of a phase transition 28:06.560 --> 28:08.560 as we are right now. 28:08.560 --> 28:10.560 Yeah, and in general, 28:10.560 --> 28:12.560 I'm not blind to all the threats. 28:12.560 --> 28:14.560 I am excited by the power of technology 28:14.560 --> 28:16.560 to solve, 28:16.560 --> 28:18.560 as they evolve. 28:18.560 --> 28:20.560 I'm not as much as Steven Pinker 28:20.560 --> 28:22.560 optimistic about the world, 28:22.560 --> 28:24.560 but in everything I've seen, 28:24.560 --> 28:26.560 all the brilliant people in the world 28:26.560 --> 28:28.560 that I've met are good people. 28:28.560 --> 28:30.560 So the army of the good 28:30.560 --> 28:32.560 in terms of the development of technology is large. 28:32.560 --> 28:34.560 Okay, you're way more 28:34.560 --> 28:36.560 optimistic than I am. 28:36.560 --> 28:38.560 I think that goodness and badness 28:38.560 --> 28:40.560 are equally distributed among intelligent 28:40.560 --> 28:42.560 and unintelligent people. 28:42.560 --> 28:44.560 I don't see much of a correlation there. 28:44.560 --> 28:46.560 Interesting. 28:46.560 --> 28:48.560 Neither of us have proof. 28:48.560 --> 28:50.560 Yeah, exactly. Again, opinions are free, right? 28:50.560 --> 28:52.560 Nor definitions of good and evil. 28:52.560 --> 28:54.560 Without definitions 28:54.560 --> 28:56.560 or without data 28:56.560 --> 28:58.560 opinions. 28:58.560 --> 29:00.560 So what kind of questions can science not 29:00.560 --> 29:02.560 currently answer 29:02.560 --> 29:04.560 and may never be able to answer in your view? 29:04.560 --> 29:06.560 Well, the obvious one is what is good and bad. 29:06.560 --> 29:08.560 What is right and wrong? 29:08.560 --> 29:10.560 I think that there are questions that science tells us 29:10.560 --> 29:12.560 what happens, what the world is, 29:12.560 --> 29:14.560 doesn't say what the world should do 29:14.560 --> 29:16.560 or what we should do because we're part of the world. 29:16.560 --> 29:18.560 But we are part of the world 29:18.560 --> 29:20.560 and we have the ability to feel like 29:20.560 --> 29:22.560 something's right, something's wrong. 29:22.560 --> 29:24.560 And to make a very long story 29:24.560 --> 29:26.560 very short, I think that the idea 29:26.560 --> 29:28.560 of moral philosophy is 29:28.560 --> 29:30.560 systematizing our intuitions of what is right 29:30.560 --> 29:32.560 and what is wrong. 29:32.560 --> 29:34.560 And science might be able to predict ahead of time 29:34.560 --> 29:36.560 what we will do, 29:36.560 --> 29:38.560 but it won't ever be able to judge 29:38.560 --> 29:40.560 whether we should have done it or not. 29:40.560 --> 29:42.560 You know, you're kind of unique in terms of scientists. 29:42.560 --> 29:44.560 It doesn't 29:44.560 --> 29:46.560 have to do with podcasts, but 29:46.560 --> 29:48.560 even just reaching out, I think you refer to 29:48.560 --> 29:50.560 as sort of doing interdisciplinary science. 29:50.560 --> 29:52.560 So you reach out 29:52.560 --> 29:54.560 and talk to people 29:54.560 --> 29:56.560 that are outside of your discipline, 29:56.560 --> 29:58.560 which I always 29:58.560 --> 30:00.560 hope that's what science was for. 30:00.560 --> 30:02.560 In fact, I was a little disillusioned 30:02.560 --> 30:04.560 when I realized that academia 30:04.560 --> 30:06.560 is very siloed. 30:06.560 --> 30:08.560 Yeah. 30:08.560 --> 30:10.560 The question is 30:10.560 --> 30:12.560 how, 30:12.560 --> 30:14.560 at your own level, how do you prepare for these conversations? 30:14.560 --> 30:16.560 How do you think about these conversations? 30:16.560 --> 30:18.560 How do you open your mind enough 30:18.560 --> 30:20.560 to have these conversations? 30:20.560 --> 30:22.560 And it may be a little bit broader. 30:22.560 --> 30:24.560 How can you advise other scientists 30:24.560 --> 30:26.560 to have these kinds of conversations? 30:26.560 --> 30:28.560 Not at the podcast. 30:28.560 --> 30:30.560 The fact that you're doing a podcast is awesome. 30:30.560 --> 30:32.560 Other people get to hear them. 30:32.560 --> 30:34.560 But it's also good to have it without mics in general. 30:34.560 --> 30:36.560 It's a good question, but a tough one 30:36.560 --> 30:38.560 to answer. I think about 30:38.560 --> 30:40.560 a guy I know is a personal trainer 30:40.560 --> 30:42.560 and he was asked on a podcast 30:42.560 --> 30:44.560 how do we psych ourselves up 30:44.560 --> 30:46.560 to do a workout? How do we make 30:46.560 --> 30:48.560 that discipline to go and work out? 30:48.560 --> 30:50.560 And he's like, why are you asking me? 30:50.560 --> 30:52.560 I can't stop working out. 30:52.560 --> 30:54.560 I don't need to psych myself up. 30:54.560 --> 30:56.560 Likewise, you asked me 30:56.560 --> 30:58.560 how do you get to have 30:58.560 --> 31:00.560 interdisciplinary conversations and all sorts of different things 31:00.560 --> 31:02.560 with all sorts of different people? 31:02.560 --> 31:04.560 That's what makes me go. 31:04.560 --> 31:06.560 I couldn't stop 31:06.560 --> 31:08.560 doing that. I did that long before 31:08.560 --> 31:10.560 any of them were recorded. In fact, 31:10.560 --> 31:12.560 a lot of the motivation for starting recording it 31:12.560 --> 31:14.560 was making sure I would read all these books 31:14.560 --> 31:16.560 that I had purchased. All these books 31:16.560 --> 31:18.560 I wanted to read. Not enough time to read them. 31:18.560 --> 31:20.560 And now, if I have the motivation 31:20.560 --> 31:22.560 because I'm going to interview Pat 31:22.560 --> 31:24.560 Churchland, I'm going to finally read her 31:24.560 --> 31:26.560 book. 31:26.560 --> 31:28.560 And 31:28.560 --> 31:30.560 it's absolutely true that academia is 31:30.560 --> 31:32.560 extraordinarily siloed. We don't talk to people. 31:32.560 --> 31:34.560 We rarely do. 31:34.560 --> 31:36.560 And in fact, when we do, it's punished. 31:36.560 --> 31:38.560 The people who do it successfully 31:38.560 --> 31:40.560 generally first became 31:40.560 --> 31:42.560 very successful within their little siloed discipline. 31:42.560 --> 31:44.560 And only then 31:44.560 --> 31:46.560 did they start expanding out. 31:46.560 --> 31:48.560 If you're a young person, I have graduate students 31:48.560 --> 31:50.560 and I try to be very, very 31:50.560 --> 31:52.560 candid with them about this. 31:52.560 --> 31:54.560 That it's 31:54.560 --> 31:56.560 most graduate students do not become faculty members. 31:56.560 --> 31:58.560 It's a tough road. 31:58.560 --> 32:00.560 And so 32:00.560 --> 32:02.560 you live the life you want to live 32:02.560 --> 32:04.560 but do it with your eyes open 32:04.560 --> 32:06.560 about what it does to your job chances. 32:06.560 --> 32:08.560 And the more 32:08.560 --> 32:10.560 broad you are and the less 32:10.560 --> 32:12.560 time you spend hyper 32:12.560 --> 32:14.560 specializing in your field, the lower 32:14.560 --> 32:16.560 your job chances are. That's just an academic 32:16.560 --> 32:18.560 reality. It's terrible. I don't like it. 32:18.560 --> 32:20.560 But it's a reality. 32:20.560 --> 32:22.560 And for some people 32:22.560 --> 32:24.560 that's fine. Like there's plenty of people 32:24.560 --> 32:26.560 who are wonderful scientists who have zero 32:26.560 --> 32:28.560 interest in branching out and talking to 32:28.560 --> 32:30.560 things to anyone outside their field. 32:30.560 --> 32:32.560 But 32:32.560 --> 32:34.560 it is disillusioning to me 32:34.560 --> 32:36.560 some of the romantic notion 32:36.560 --> 32:38.560 I had of the intellectual academic life 32:38.560 --> 32:40.560 is belied by the reality 32:40.560 --> 32:42.560 of it. The idea that we should 32:42.560 --> 32:44.560 reach out beyond our discipline 32:44.560 --> 32:46.560 and that is a positive good 32:46.560 --> 32:48.560 is just so 32:48.560 --> 32:50.560 rare in 32:50.560 --> 32:52.560 universities that it may as well 32:52.560 --> 32:54.560 not exist at all. But 32:54.560 --> 32:56.560 that said, even though you're saying 32:56.560 --> 32:58.560 you're doing it like the personal trainer 32:58.560 --> 33:00.560 because you just can't help it, you're also 33:00.560 --> 33:02.560 an inspiration to others. 33:02.560 --> 33:04.560 Like I could speak for myself. 33:04.560 --> 33:06.560 You know, 33:06.560 --> 33:08.560 I also have a career I'm thinking about 33:08.560 --> 33:10.560 right. And without 33:10.560 --> 33:12.560 your podcast, I may have 33:12.560 --> 33:14.560 not have been doing this at all. 33:14.560 --> 33:16.560 Right. So it 33:16.560 --> 33:18.560 makes me realize that these kinds 33:18.560 --> 33:20.560 of conversations is kind of what science is about. 33:20.560 --> 33:22.560 In many 33:22.560 --> 33:24.560 ways. The reason we write papers 33:24.560 --> 33:26.560 this exchange of ideas 33:26.560 --> 33:28.560 is much harder to do 33:28.560 --> 33:30.560 into the disciplinary papers, I would say. 33:30.560 --> 33:32.560 Yeah. Right. 33:32.560 --> 33:34.560 And conversations are easier. 33:34.560 --> 33:36.560 So conversations is the beginning 33:36.560 --> 33:38.560 and in the field of AI 33:38.560 --> 33:40.560 that it's 33:40.560 --> 33:42.560 obvious that we should think outside 33:42.560 --> 33:44.560 of pure 33:44.560 --> 33:46.560 computer vision competitions and in particular 33:46.560 --> 33:48.560 data sets. We should think about the broader 33:48.560 --> 33:50.560 impact of how this can be 33:50.560 --> 33:52.560 you know, reaching 33:52.560 --> 33:54.560 out to physics, to psychology 33:54.560 --> 33:56.560 to neuroscience 33:56.560 --> 33:58.560 and having these conversations. 33:58.560 --> 34:00.560 So you're an inspiration 34:00.560 --> 34:02.560 and so. Well, thank you very much. 34:02.560 --> 34:04.560 Never know how the world 34:04.560 --> 34:06.560 changes. I mean 34:06.560 --> 34:08.560 the fact that this stuff is out there 34:08.560 --> 34:10.560 and I've 34:10.560 --> 34:12.560 a huge number of people come up to me 34:12.560 --> 34:14.560 grad students really loving the 34:14.560 --> 34:16.560 podcast inspired by it and 34:16.560 --> 34:18.560 they will probably have that 34:18.560 --> 34:20.560 there'll be ripple effects when they become faculty 34:20.560 --> 34:22.560 and so on. So we can end 34:22.560 --> 34:24.560 on a balance between pessimism 34:24.560 --> 34:26.560 and optimism and Sean, thank you so much 34:26.560 --> 34:28.560 for talking. It was awesome. No, Lex, thank you very 34:28.560 --> 34:52.560 much for this conversation. It was great.