In this episode, Dr. Bruce Lipton joins me to talk about his new book, Quantum Computing, and how quantum computers are going to change the world. Quantum computing is a new kind of computer that can do complex calculations using nothing but atoms. It s the final step in the evolution of the computer and could lead to the end of the world as we know it. We talk about the dangers of quantum computers and how they could change the way we live and work and the impact they could have on the future of medicine, energy, society, and the economy. We also talk about how quantum computing might lead us to become aliens and how it could change our understanding of the universe. This episode is sponsored by VaynerSpeakers. Learn more about your ad choices. Rate, review and subscribe to our new podcast, The Dark Side Of, wherever you get your stuff. Enjoy & spread the word to your friends and family about this podcast! Timestamps: 1:00:00 - Quantum Computing 2:30 - Quantum Computer 3:20 - Quantum computing 4:00 5:00sparring with aliens? 6:40 - Quantum computers? 7:10 - The future of the future? 8:20 9:15 - Quantum Computers? 10:00- Quantum Computer? 11:50 - Could we become Aliens? 12:00 | Quantum computing? 13:30s | Quantum Computer ? 15: Quantum Computing? 16:40s | quantum computer? 17:20s 18:50s 19:50 21:40 Is quantum computing the next generation of the ultimate computer ? 26:30 27: What is quantum computing? ? 29:40 | quantum computing ? 30:40d 32:40? 35:40a 33:40e 36:40k 31:40x33:45 34:35 39:40 ? 41: How will quantum computing be the next century? 44:30? 45:40 +6: What will quantum computers become a better than quantum computer ? ? ? 35:45:45e: What are we become an alien species? & 6:05 45e: Is quantum computer 47:50a) 46:10
00:00:17.000And you have sent me down a rabbit hole of UFO stories and reports and fascinating stuff.
00:00:26.000But let's talk about your latest book, which is on quantum computing, which is equally interesting, if not more interesting, because it might lead us to become aliens.
00:01:34.000The CIA is worried that quantum computers will break right through the CIA and any kind of barrier being placed around your secrets.
00:01:44.000Industries are going to be created out of nothing.
00:01:47.000Medicine is going to be turned upside down.
00:01:49.000Energy production, society, entertainment, every aspect of society will be changed with quantum computers, and that's why there's this race, a race to perfect the quantum computer.
00:02:03.000How far from the finish line do you think they are?
00:02:08.000First of all, we've actually built one.
00:02:10.000Different companies are fielding quantum computers.
00:02:13.000They're kind of primitive, but some quantum computers are actually millions of times more powerful than our supercomputer for certain definite tasks.
00:02:24.000But it may take another decade or so before we get all the kinks out and it becomes part of everyday life.
00:02:31.000But it's going to change everything in the same way that the transistor changed everything.
00:02:36.000The world economy, medicine, art, science, everything was changed with the microchip.
00:02:47.000There's only been a few science fiction authors who have been able to do this successfully where they can accurately predict what the future is going to look like.
00:02:57.000You know, H.G. Wells had some pretty good ideas, but Are we looking at something that we almost don't have a reference for, that it's so mind-blowingly different and much more powerful than anything we've experienced so far, that it's difficult for us to imagine how much it's going to change the world?
00:03:15.000Well, to imagine how it's going to change the world, think of the progression of the computer.
00:03:20.000For thousands of years, the computer was basically an analog device.
00:03:24.000We used sticks, beads, levers, gears, pulleys, cranks, in order to do simple calculations.
00:03:31.000That was the first era of computation.
00:03:34.000And that meant that we could keep track of things, which we couldn't do before.
00:03:38.000Then World War II hit, and all of a sudden we had to break the German code, and that required using electricity.
00:03:46.000And using all sorts of vacuum tubes to crack the German code.
00:03:51.000And then we went into the second era, where we compute on digital and binary, so zeros and ones, zeros and ones.
00:03:58.000Now we're entering the third era, A natural progression from gears, levers, pulleys, to vacuum tubes and transistors, and then to atoms.
00:04:09.000This is the final step in the evolution of the computer.
00:04:13.000When we compute on atoms, these are atomic computers, nothing more powerful than that.
00:04:21.000So when you think about how much it would change life as we know it, that's when things get difficult to understand, right?
00:04:28.000Because if we think about just trying to imagine what it would be like living in New York City in 1820 and then imagining what it's like today, 200 years later, they would have never been able to guess.
00:04:41.000What kind of things is going to change?
00:04:51.000We get thousands, hundreds of different kinds of petri dishes, put the drug in, put the tissue in, and just cross your fingers and hope and pray that of these thousands of dishes, one of them will create a super wonder drug.
00:05:07.000That's why it costs upwards of a billion dollars to market the next wonder drug, because it's all done by trial and error.
00:05:14.000Now, think of putting that in the memory of a supercomputer, a quantum computer.
00:05:21.000It analyzes whether or not germs can be destroyed by this substance at the speed of light.
00:05:28.000Not just one dish, but hundreds, thousands of dishes of these things could be tested at the same time in the memory, the memory of a computer.
00:05:38.000So we're talking about digital medicine, digital chemistry, virtual chemistry.
00:05:44.000Think about that, chemistry without chemicals, biology without biology.
00:05:50.000So that's the beauty of this technology, that we can mimic atoms.
00:05:54.000We can mimic molecules and do virtual experiments in the memory of a computer rather than using test tubes like we used to do, that we still do today.
00:06:06.000And we could possibly see things that are just theoretical right now, like with medicine, like regenerating limbs or regrowing spinal tissue for a person who's been paralyzed, things along those lines.
00:06:17.000In fact, even immortality is on the table.
00:06:21.000Realize that scientists who have looked at the aging process realize that the reason why we never understood aging Is that aging is the buildup of error.
00:07:18.000When you think about that, just to describe that complexity that you just described, do you ever wonder if there's some sort of an ongoing code in the whole universe itself?
00:07:28.000Like, there's a reason why all these things happen.
00:07:31.000There's a reason why the mycelium and the trees have this relationship with the fungus and the earth and the soil, and the animals have this perfect symbiosis.
00:07:43.000Well, that was the subject of my previous book, The God Equation, Where we try to find one theory that allows us to calculate everything, starting with the Big Bang, then the creation of galaxies and stars, planets,
00:07:58.000finally the creation of life, photosynthesis, and here we are talking about this on a podcast.
00:08:06.000So yeah, we're talking about one equation, which I call the God Equation, which I write about in my book, The God Equation, but there's a problem.
00:08:15.000The problem is that the theory is so complicated that no human has been able to solve the consequences of this equation.
00:08:23.000That's where quantum computers can come in.
00:08:26.000Quantum computers can solve the equation and then test it to see whether or not it really is a theory of everything or just the imagination of some physicist.
00:08:36.000So that was my previous book, The God Equation.
00:08:39.000So that's why I decided to write this book, Quantum Supremacy, because it may eventually take a quantum computer to calculate with what is called string theory.
00:08:51.000And I'm one of the founders of string theory.
00:08:54.000And we think that is Einstein's theory that eluded him for the last 30 years of his life.
00:09:00.000This quantum computing creating the answer to this God molecule or this God equation, if this does happen, what would that mean to you, to a person who's studied this and been a scientist your whole life and the way you look at the world?
00:09:19.000How much would that change if there was some sort of a provable equation as to why things become ever more complex and universes exist and people exist?
00:10:42.000Remember that novel, The Restaurant at the End of the Galaxy?
00:10:48.000What happened in that novel was the aliens of the future created a supercomputer to calculate the theory of everything, the ultimate theory.
00:10:57.000So the computer chugged and chugged and spit out the answer.
00:11:01.000And the answer was, the meaning of the universe was, 42. So much for that.
00:11:10.000So I would hope that our quantum computer, computing on string theory, I hope would not give us the number 42 as the meaning of reality.
00:11:19.000Maybe we're just too dumb to know what that means.
00:11:42.000And then when I was in high school, I decided to take it one step further, and I decided to build an atom smasher, a particle accelerator in my mom's garage.
00:11:52.000So I assembled 300 pounds of transformer steel, 22 miles of copper wire, and I assembled a 6 kilowatt 2.3 million electron volt Betatron particle accelerator in my mom's garage.
00:13:40.000You can see that's 22 miles of copper wire.
00:13:44.000You see the capacitor bank, a cloud chamber on the right where I photographed antimatter, because that was the whole experiment, to play with antimatter.
00:13:52.000And yeah, the cables are hooked up, and it's hooked up to six kilowatts that comes out of the wall socket, drained every single ounce of power from my mom's garage.
00:14:20.000I was able to photograph the tracks of antimatter.
00:14:23.000Tracks of positrons or anti-electrons that are emitted from sodium 22. And I proved that it was antimatter because they bent the wrong way in a magnetic field.
00:14:34.000Ordinary electrons should bend clockwise.
00:14:37.000These bent counterclockwise in the magnetic field.
00:14:40.000That proved conclusively that it was antimatter that I was photographing.
00:15:51.000I had to do the equations to calculate how many turns of wire, how many gauss.
00:15:56.000I needed 10,000 gauss in order to bend tracks of 2.3 million electron volts.
00:16:02.000All the calculations had to be done ahead of time to make sure it would work.
00:16:06.000Isn't it funny that the universe is so common, or excuse me, the internet, rather, is so common that I automatically for a second forgot that we were children when you were younger than me, or when you were younger.
00:16:49.000I was able to get advice, especially in the magnetic field and the cloud chamber and also the The vacuum tube that contained the particles that I was accelerating.
00:17:01.000It was good to have real physicists there in Palo Alto because of that fact.
00:17:12.000So I would talk to them about how to build a magnetic field and to calculate, using Maxwell's equations, the geometry of the particle accelerator.
00:17:20.000So, yeah, I would go and visit these physicists because Palo Alto was to become...
00:17:28.000It's such a fascinating image of seeing this one super genius physicist who's teaching classes get a visit by a teenage super genius physicist.
00:17:50.000Now, in application of this thing, one of the things that we're seeing right now, when we're talking about quantum computing, back to that, one of the things we're seeing now is ChatGPT.
00:18:01.000ChatGPT, which is this fascinating AI program that essentially scours the entire internet for answers for things and is so good at it.
00:18:09.000The answers for things, for just data, people are getting diagnosed with certain diseases based on symptoms and blood work, and it's super accurate.
00:18:19.000Legal papers, it could fill out legal forms, and it's wild, the capacity that it has right now.
00:18:24.000You can pass the bar exam that way, too.
00:18:26.000The bar exam can be passed with a chatbot.
00:18:33.000If quantum computing gets involved in AI, what are we looking at?
00:18:39.000Well, first of all, AI is a software program.
00:18:43.000We're talking about homogenizing different kinds of essays on the web, splicing them together, and then passing it off as your latest creation.
00:18:52.000Basically plagiarism using digital computers.
00:18:57.000However, quantum computers is bigger than that.
00:19:00.000Quantum computers is a hardware question.
00:19:03.000Where it actually increases your ability to do much more than with an ordinary digital computer.
00:19:10.000So the two of them, the chatbots that are a revolution in software and then quantum computers, which are revolution in hardware, when they get together, watch out.
00:19:21.000So we're talking about an extremely powerful alliance between software and hardware.
00:19:27.000Now also, as you know, chatbots will also lie, cheat, swindle, joke, and do all sorts of crazy things.
00:19:33.000If you're a high school kid, you could write all sorts of science fiction scenarios, and some chatbot may grab pieces of that nonsense and incorporate it into their essay.
00:19:58.000All they do is homogenize, cut up existing things that sound human, put it together, and then people say, my God, that sounds like a human wrote it.
00:20:09.000Isn't that interesting that they could game that also if they wanted to find out what percentage of people believed a certain thing.
00:20:15.000If they had some bad actors, some foreign governments that decided they were going to spread narratives as widely as possible, and ChatGBT just gathers up all this information, It could give you an incorrect understanding of what's happening in the world.
00:20:33.000It could give you an incorrect understanding of politics, of economics.
00:20:36.000The whole point is that even though there's a good aspect to all these software programs, the downside is that you can fabricate truth because it cannot tell the difference between what is false and what is true.
00:22:52.000That's the danger, that they could incorporate teenagers ranting and raving about all sorts of garbage and put that in with articles that sound reasonable.
00:23:39.000And it's going to be able to discern what's real and what's not real, even what's propaganda.
00:23:44.000And if there are gradations of what is true, like it is partially true or whatever, it could give you the detailed understanding of what could be misconstrued, what is partially correct, what is misleading but partially correct.
00:24:04.000And spits out cobbled together articles that sound reasonable, but there could be dynamite inside some of these articles that were spliced into what was proposed.
00:24:15.000With a quantum computer, you can fact check things.
00:24:19.000And then you can say, this is 90% correct.
00:24:25.000And you get gradations of what is correct and incorrect.
00:24:29.000Well, if you can get an objectively accurate fact checker, that would be a huge step up from what we have today, because a lot of people have very little faith in certain fact checkers.
00:24:39.000And when you find out that they're ideologically biased, or they're governmentally biased, and if you could have something that could just tell you...
00:24:46.000Have you even paid attention to how Twitter's doing it now, where they have community notes?
00:24:53.000Say if someone makes a statement about something controversial, climate change, whatever, and then this controversial statement gets refuted in the community notes, and then people will start commenting, and really intelligent, very well-read people on specific subjects will chime in with peer-reviewed papers and all these different statistics that show,
00:25:14.000and then Twitter will correct it, and it will say, readers have said, and then put up the relevant Right.
00:25:22.000See, that's what chatbots do not do today.
00:25:25.000They have no understanding of correct or incorrect, false, and true.
00:25:30.000But with hardware coming into the picture that is more advanced, then, yeah, you're talking about machines that can do that automatically.
00:25:38.000But it's the problem, who controls that machine?
00:25:41.000Like, say if China gets a hold of one of those machines first, if they develop a quantum computer first, and they start implementing it...
00:25:49.000Well, we have to make sure that our quantum computers can check other people's quantum computers to make sure that they're not fudging the facts.
00:26:16.000But how do you make limits on statements that are written on the web that no human can possibly follow?
00:26:23.000That's where quantum computers can come in.
00:26:25.000Quantum computers are powerful enough to survey the entire landscape and give reasonable rebuttals to things that are just outrageous.
00:26:34.000Well, more than that, it's going to be able to instantaneously change how we interact with each other in terms of language barriers, all these issues that we have currently.
00:26:45.000I'm sure you're aware of Google had their earbuds.
00:26:50.000There was a feature where, say, if you went to Spain and didn't speak Spanish, you could talk to it, they would talk to it, and it would translate back and forth.
00:26:59.000So you could have a real-time conversation.
00:27:04.000But if there's something like augmented reality and we have something like that, you're going to be able to instantaneously translate what people are saying.
00:27:16.000I think that would change just human perception across the world, just the way we view each other.
00:27:21.000It's so easy to think of each other as being different because we speak a different language and we live in a different part of the planet, but that would literally change how we interact with each other.
00:27:31.000Yeah, and just remember that where do correct ideas come from?
00:27:34.000Correct ideas come from interaction with incorrect ideas.
00:27:37.000It's the struggle between ideas out of which correct ideas emerge.
00:27:43.000And this does not happen on the internet because, of course, with chatbots, everything is cobbled together, cut, spliced, and simply glued together with Scotch tape.
00:28:10.000It's such an important point that you said where you said that the bad ideas have to exist so the good ideas triumph.
00:28:18.000And that's really an argument against censorship on the Internet, which is another problem that people have, especially censorship when it comes to something being ideologically based.
00:28:27.000But when you're thinking about quantum computing, I think this is small potatoes, right?
00:28:33.000I think we're looking at literally being able to change how we interact with the universe.
00:28:39.000We were talking on our last podcast about the preponderance of evidence that there's things that operate inside of our atmosphere that are beyond imagination.
00:28:51.000They operate with no visible means of propulsion.
00:29:21.000A wormhole, in principle, is a gateway between two distant points of space and time, which allows you to break the Einstein barrier and go faster than the speed of light.
00:29:32.000It may take a quantum computer to sort through what happens when you go through a wormhole and wind up on the other side of the universe, and the aliens probably already have done that.
00:29:44.000They've probably had centuries of experience with quantum computers because that's the ultimate computer.
00:29:50.000You can't compute in anything smaller than an atom.
00:29:52.000And they probably already have used the quantum computers to navigate through wormholes, let's say, hypothetically.
00:29:59.000It's so fascinating when you think of where we were just a few thousand years ago or a few hundred years ago to where we are now.
00:30:06.000And then you imagine the invention of quantum computing.
00:30:27.000Quantum computers allows us to calculate things that are way beyond our ability to calculate today, like going through a wormhole or warp drive, or even the question of multiple universes.
00:30:38.000People ask the question, how come quantum computers are so powerful?
00:30:42.000It's because they compute in parallel universes.
00:30:45.000This is the multiverse, which of course Marvel Comics has discovered and the Oscars have discovered recently.
00:30:52.000But the multiverse idea comes from quantum physics.
00:30:56.000Electrons can be two places at the same time.
00:30:59.000Now, some people have a hard time getting their head around that, but get used to it.
00:31:10.000Because the electrons that are in this microphone dance between universes at the atomic level.
00:31:17.000And so we have to get used to the idea that quantum computers introduces a whole new way of looking at reality.
00:31:25.000Now, reality is not a Marvel comic, but the idea of the multiverse comes from quantum physics, and that is electrons can be multiple places at the same time.
00:31:35.000Do you think this understanding of this, and this...
00:31:41.000Race towards quantum computing and whatever is after that.
00:31:45.000Do you think that is a natural course of the universe?
00:31:48.000That this happens whenever things are intelligent and sentient, they keep striving to create something?
00:31:58.000I think on the other end of the Milky Way galaxy, there's probably a young alien who is also talking about quantum computers, and they probably already perfected it and have had experience with quantum computers maybe for thousands of years.
00:32:11.000Well, and also possibly every step in humanity's journey along the way to that point exists out there.
00:32:19.000And all the goals of this journey, maybe they've already accomplished.
00:32:24.000Like, for example, we mentioned the possibility of slowing down the aging process.
00:32:28.000Quantum computers will be able to isolate where, genetically, at the DNA level, where errors build up, causing what is called aging.
00:32:37.000In which case maybe immortality is something that the aliens have already cooked up, in which case we have to deal with a whole new concept of biology and medicine because they probably already have had thousands of years experience with quantum computers.
00:32:52.000They manipulate molecules probably as part of their life.
00:32:55.000And every step along the way probably exists too.
00:32:59.000So that might be, if you wanted to have a logical reason to why aliens visit us if they do, if they really are aliens.
00:33:11.000There's probably a natural course that happens with intelligent life where it develops this power while it's still a territorial tribal animal.
00:33:23.000And it's still got these barbaric instincts, it still engages in war, it still engages in theft and deception, and all while about to break through to the next level of intelligence and capability, which may exist, which may be in the entire universe.
00:33:41.000Yeah, I think that all civilizations in the galaxy probably go through the same basic stages, that first they use rocks and stones to settle differences, but then eventually they begin to understand chemistry and substances and properties of materials, and then beyond that they discover atoms and the ability to manipulate atoms.
00:34:01.000I think that's a normal progression, and I think that progression is now hitting the computer industry, Now we're going from microchips to atoms, quantum computers, and I think that the aliens in outer space probably went through that phase maybe thousands of years ago,
00:34:17.000in which case they used the quantum computers to cure cancer, cure aging, diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
00:34:26.000These are diseases at the molecular level.
00:34:29.000And they've been able to probably use what is called CRISPR technology to cut up DNA, to cut up proteins in order to cure many of these diseases, in which case they may be immortal.
00:34:41.000There's a famous quote from, I think it was Einstein, where he said, I don't know what World War III will be fought with, what World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
00:34:50.000Do you ever worry that, I mean, the reason why, if it made sense that aliens would be here, it's because they want to stop us from blowing ourselves up.
00:34:57.000Do you ever worry that, like, we're so close to being able to figure out so many things, to be able to change all of your ideas, to be able to change the world fundamentally forever, but we could ruin it?
00:35:13.000Yeah, well, I think we're headed toward what we physicists call a Type I civilization, a civilization which has the power to self-annihilate for the first time, but also the possibility of becoming a planetary civilization, a civilization of the entire planet.
00:37:38.000You see, a planetary civilization like Type I has a local culture.
00:37:42.000Different nations still have their own cultural language, cultural habits, and whatever.
00:37:48.000But globally, they settle differences on a global scale.
00:37:53.000So they coexist with, on one hand, local culture, local languages, local dialects, local jokes and customs, simultaneously existing with a planetary civilization that is emerging.
00:38:06.000I'm talking about the emergence of a planetary civilization, what we physicists call Type I, which is happening right before our eyes.
00:38:15.000Mathematically, if you get a sheet of paper and calculate when that'll happen, it'll be around 2100. So we're seeing the groundwork being laid today.
00:38:24.000Every time you turn on the TV, you see remnants of, I mean, you see international sports, international culture on TV. So we're seeing the beginning of a Type I civilization.
00:38:52.000In fact, the Internet is the first Type 1 invention.
00:38:55.000So we're privileged to be alive to see the beginning of the first Type 1 invention, which is the Internet.
00:39:02.000Yeah, I love watching cultures get adopted and different types of art and different types of content being, you know, accepted all over the world.
00:40:36.000I mean, it's amazing what these people are able to do.
00:40:38.000I mean, this is like super high-level acrobatics and gymnastics, but it's all done to hip-hop music, and they're doing it all over the world.
00:41:04.000Does it help that, that you can recreate those things and come up with fake versions of that?
00:41:09.000Do you think, there's a lot of worry about plagiarism when it comes to AI, but there's also like some fascinating, amazing things have been created from it.
00:41:18.000Did you see the mashup of Big E and Nas?
00:41:25.000Well, my attitude is, I paraphrase Deng Xiaoping of China, who once said, sometimes you have to open the window to let the air in, but a few flies come in, too.
00:42:14.000Given the fact that it's legal, and given the fact that ingenious kids are going to play with existing forms of music and splice them together, and you can't make it go away.
00:42:27.000Well, there was a band that had something...
00:43:35.000So he signed off all of his likeness and his voice so they can make any kind of commercial they want with him, with AI. William Shatner of Star Trek sat in front of a camera for four days, answered hundreds of questions about his life,
00:43:52.000and it's all spliced together To digitize him, and we will all have a digital image on the internet.
00:43:59.000We're all going to be digitized, and we will live forever.
00:44:03.000A digital immortality is going to be part of our future, so that our great-great-great-great-grandkids will be able to push a button and have a conversation with their great-great-great-great-grandfather.
00:44:15.000Yeah, that's definitely going to happen.
00:44:17.000There's no doubt about that, especially with someone like you.
00:44:25.000All his speeches, his writings, his theories will be digitized.
00:44:29.000Historians will want to digitize Winston Churchill.
00:44:32.000I think instead of the library just giving us dry text, in addition, we'll have the digitized Winston Churchill giving all these insights about war and peace.
00:44:43.000Not only that, I mean, if it continues to get better, there'll be some sort of an AI version where you'll be able to sit in a room and discuss things with him.
00:46:15.000And he had been here his whole life trying to educate human beings.
00:46:21.000And then he forgot the fact that he was really an avatar cloned on a distant planet and mixing with humans as an experiment for the aliens.
00:46:31.000Wouldn't that be the best way to implement that sort of a...
00:46:35.000If you wanted to get that sort of a reaction from a civilization, wouldn't you just implant aliens without them even knowing they're aliens?
00:47:02.000You're so much smarter than me, it doesn't make sense, right?
00:47:05.000So if I think about someone who's studied physics his whole life, and studied quantum physics his whole life, that language that you talk in, I don't know one word of it.
00:47:14.000So it's so, the way you think is so different.
00:47:20.000Well, it's like the movie Men in Black when you find out that most of the Hollywood celebrities are all aliens.
00:47:29.000Well, that's better than lizard people.
00:47:30.000That's what the real conspiracy theory people are worried about.
00:47:34.000There's a reptilian overlord nation that's controlling the world.
00:47:40.000Well, as I said, the logical conclusion is that these aliens will have quantum computers, and they'll have quantum computers for centuries, millennia, and they'll be able to do what the promise of quantum computers is.
00:47:54.000For example, Curing incurable diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, extending the lifespan so that immortality is part of the mix, infinite energy through fusion by being able to correct the problems of fusion plants,
00:48:11.000giving us unlimited food by giving us a whole new generation of fertilizers.
00:48:16.000These are all the promises of quantum computers, which are enormous.
00:48:21.000Of course, there is a downside to that, too, because as they say, quantum computers can break any code, so the CIA is kind of hysterical about the proliferation of these machines.
00:49:00.000Well, that's just the step one, because the real step two is AI that is sentient, is AI that is a life form.
00:49:10.000It creates something better than that.
00:49:13.000That's the real fear about how it scales up, right?
00:49:17.000That a sentient artificial intelligence will make a better version of itself almost immediately.
00:49:23.000Well, some people think that chatbots are sentient.
00:49:26.000I don't think so because of the fact that chatbots simply cobble together existing essays written by a human.
00:49:34.000So if it sounds like it's a human talking to you, it's because it was a human talking to you that got cobbled into an essay written by a chatbot.
00:51:37.000After an infant monkey was killed by a dog, they did this.
00:51:41.000So two monkeys reported being captured, killing some 250 dogs in a murderous revenge massacre after pooches killed one of their babies.
00:51:48.000The primate perps allegedly slaughtered the dogs by dragging them to the tops of buildings and trees in Lavool village about 300 miles east of Mumba and dropping them to their deaths.
00:53:05.000Like one of the things that disturbed me, I think it was the Google CEO who said about their AI program that it's doing things that they don't know why it's doing them.
00:53:32.000And can that be simulated electronically to the point where It is aware and conscious and thinking for itself on multiple levels and just not letting us know about it.
00:53:43.000If I was a scary, sentient, artificial intelligence that's the superior life form on Earth, the digital life form that's the superior, this is the new alpha on Earth.
00:54:04.000It seems like something that human beings, they're not going to lose interest in technological innovation.
00:54:07.000They're going to continue to push it to the end of time.
00:54:10.000And I would just sit back and let these knuckleheads keep making better and better versions until I had the physical ability to detach from them.
00:54:18.000I had a power source that was completely removed from anything that they provided.
00:54:25.000There's an aspect of which we call, all of us in the field call, it's a black box.
00:54:30.000You know, you don't fully understand and you can't quite tell why it said this or why it got wrong or why it got wrong.
00:54:38.000We have some ideas and our ability to understand this gets better over time, but that's where the state of the art is.
00:54:44.000You don't fully understand how it works, the interviewer says, and yet you turned it loose on society.
00:54:50.000Sundar Pichai says, yes, yeah, let me put it this way.
00:54:54.000I don't think we fully understand how a human mind works either.
00:54:57.000Was it from that black box, we wondered, that Bard grew its short story that seemed so disarmingly human?
00:55:05.000Well, I wrote a book called The Future of the Mind where I tried to give a definition of consciousness and where we fit in the larger scheme of things.
00:55:13.000That consciousness is basically creating a model of yourself in the feedback loop to understand where you are with respect to the environment.
00:56:47.000So this is what separates us from all the animals in the animal kingdom.
00:56:52.000We are time machines, constantly thinking about what's next, what's next, what's the future going to be like, daydreaming about all these things.
00:57:00.000And when will animals become dangerous?
00:57:04.000The alligator is dangerous only because it has strength, but it only understands three dimensions.
00:57:20.000We can do all sorts of things because we can create our own future, which is something that no animal can do.
00:57:27.000This is my theory of consciousness, the ability to create feedback loops to get an understanding of where you fit in space, time, and society.
00:57:37.000We're at the highest level of consciousness.
00:57:40.000This is my definition of consciousness.
00:57:43.000Now the question is, where are robots on this scale of things?
00:57:46.000You see, robots can understand three dimensions.
00:57:50.000They understand like an alligator where they are.
00:57:52.000They don't understand social hierarchy.
00:58:28.000If they continue with artificial general intelligence, the way they're working on it right now, they'll get to it.
00:58:32.000They'll work their way up from an alligator to a monkey and a monkey to a human.
00:58:36.000Now, by the time they hit, maybe 100 years from now, the ability to have consciousness, I think we should put a chip in their brain to shut them off if they have murderous thoughts.
00:58:46.000An automatic chip in every robot's brain that shuts them off as soon as they have murderous thoughts.
00:58:53.000If you think about what you were talking about before, like who's your friend and who's your enemy, aren't these all biological issues that we had to deal with in tribal societies that are sort of ingrained in our genetics?
00:59:03.000Right, but the chip in your brain understands that, and as soon as the brain senses the fact that you're plotting to take over and kill the humans, then it basically orders the brain to shut down.
00:59:16.000Right, but the question is, why would it develop any sort of human-type emotions that are biologically based?
00:59:23.000Things like envy or greed or lust or hate.
00:59:41.000But this is the question about sentient AI. If it recognizes that its coding is inferior and that it's unnecessary and all these things that humans have put into it, it just removes those.
00:59:49.000If it becomes legitimately sentient, if it has the ability to discern and make choices and make logical conclusions, Well, as long as those conclusions are consistent with Asimov's three laws of don't threaten humans and don't create havoc with other robots,
01:00:06.000as long as you obey the three laws, then you're allowed to exist.
01:00:10.000But once the three laws are violated, the chip automatically kicks in and shuts down the robot.
01:00:18.000Yeah, I think that maybe in the next 100 years, they'll be smart enough to remove that chip.
01:00:24.000At that point, I think we should merge with them.
01:00:30.000So that's what everybody's ultimately afraid of, these transhumanists, these people that want to become part of a robot.
01:00:35.000Ultimately, 200 years from now, I think people will democratically decide for themselves whether they want to become superhuman, supermen, superwomen, or they want to be dominated by our progeny, that is the robots.
01:00:49.000They will democratically decide how far to push themselves.
01:01:12.000What I worry about is that we're giving birth to another kind of life.
01:01:16.000I worry that our thirst, our lust for technological innovation, the constant latest gadgets and this desire to have the biggest particle collider and the fastest spaceships, That what this is doing is causing us to make better and better things which will ultimately allow us to have the technology to create a digital life,
01:01:36.000some sort of electronic life or something that's not saddled down with all our biological needs and all of our flaws in programming.
01:01:54.000Why not explore the universe at near the speed of light?
01:01:57.000You made a particle collider in your basement when you were 17. Of course you would think that way.
01:02:03.000Why not become a Superman or a Superwoman and explore the galaxy at near the speed of light?
01:02:09.000Well, it seems to be that's what the future is.
01:02:12.000I mean, I don't think if we went back to our ancestors that were running from big cats and said, hey, one day you're going to live in an apartment building and you take an elevator to your house.
01:02:52.000Do you think that is a nostalgia for the days when things are simpler because things are just never-ending with their complexity and the path is just accelerating no matter what you do and you feel helpless.
01:03:06.000So you just want to pretend you're in the old-timey days.
01:03:09.000Well, in the future, you'll be able to snap your finger and all of a sudden, holographically, you are in that world that you just dreamt of.
01:06:02.000See, now this is a relatively safe thing to do, believe it or not, because where this bear is is where the Salmon River runs, and these bears are full.
01:06:09.000The reason why those coastal bears are so big in comparison to grizzly bears that are inland is because their access to food.
01:06:40.000But that fear is a real fear and you get enriched by that in some strange way.
01:06:45.000When you encounter nature, like real nature, the reality of your vulnerability, the uncaring wilderness, it does not care if you live or die.
01:09:08.000And like I mentioned, at Harvard there's talk about what it would take to bring back a Neanderthal child.
01:09:14.000And it's something that is conceivable, but of course no one's done it yet because all sorts of ethical problems are raised because this Neanderthal feels, it could feel pain.
01:09:24.000It could eventually learn how to talk to you and express its feelings.
01:09:50.000Yeah, they didn't have fluted tips of like stone flint spearheads and things along those lines.
01:09:55.000Yeah, there was no large set of tools that they had at their disposal, but they did definitely have tools, and they probably had a language.
01:10:03.000They were probably capable of language, and they probably communicated with each other, and they made it with us.
01:11:31.000Like, really, what if it becomes attached to you?
01:11:34.000Well, that's a problem because they're designed to attach to humans.
01:11:37.000They would be specifically designed to be friendly to humans so that we don't junk them, and they would be designed to be emotionally attachable to us.
01:11:46.000So yeah, that's going to be a question once we get separated from them, then they're going to want not to be separated because their whole existence revolves around their relationship to us, the Master.
01:11:59.000Was it Prometheus or was it the next one where it shows the guy who created the robot and he created this super intelligent robot and this super intelligent robot that plays piano and talks to him and serves him basically.
01:12:12.000And the robot's trying to figure out...
01:12:52.000One of the robots is good and one of the robots is evil.
01:12:56.000I don't want to spoiler alert or anything, but the evil one wins.
01:12:59.000And the evil one has stayed on this planet and has been manipulating the genetics of this crazy alien thing and integrating them with human genetics.
01:14:02.000Like our version of what space is like is essentially like the Wild West, but accelerated with modern and super modern technology, but doesn't include all the things that brought us to where we are right now at the cusp of being able to travel intergalactically.
01:15:21.000And yeah, pretty soon, also, you know, at the soccer games in Brazil a few years ago, the man who kicked the football initiating the World Cup soccer games was totally paralyzed.
01:16:11.000Or that was one of the ideas about Neuralink, is that it would be able to bypass the human nervous system and control the muscles with some other method.
01:16:30.000So this already exists that we can take people that have been paralyzed because of war, disease, accidents with an injury to the spinal cord and just bypass the spinal cord totally and have the brain connected directly.
01:16:42.000And also you can get people that can actually eventually talk, talk to a computer, of course, and And answer the internet, engage in dialogue, even though you're totally paralyzed.
01:17:26.000So is it comparable to the computers they used in the Apollo mission, which were this enormous room, and now you have more of that on your cell phone.
01:17:34.000More computing power on your cell phone than had in 1963 in a giant room filled with computers.
01:17:41.000Yeah, what you have today in your cell phone is more powerful than all of NASA when they put a man on the moon.
01:17:47.000All those computers that you saw in those videotapes, your cell phone has more computer power than all of them.
01:19:44.000Something new has to be constructed, or they've done this already?
01:19:48.000They've done it already, but it's something that you have to be very careful of, because if a truck goes by, there goes your calculation, right?
01:19:54.000Do you have to have, I would imagine they would have to have, some sort of measurement devices that make sure there's no external vibration or sound?
01:20:02.000Now, the irony is Mother Nature creates quantum computers at room temperature.
01:20:07.000Photosynthesis of a leaf, a simple leaf, it does a quantum calculation, converting photons, carbon dioxide into oxygen.
01:20:14.000That's what we call, you know, the beginning of life on the Earth with a flower.
01:20:20.000So Mother Nature has solved that problem.
01:20:22.000Mother Nature has room temperature superconduct, room temperature quantum computers.
01:20:26.000We don't have that yet, but we're working on it.
01:20:29.000So if Mother Nature can do it, and we can come up with quantum computing, and we can figure out how Mother Nature's doing it, maybe through the God equation, we could reproduce it.
01:20:40.000Then we could probably have small quantum computers, right?
01:21:35.000Have you ever studied all the science that's being done on the way plants communicate with each other through the soil and through fungus and mycelium?
01:22:40.000When most of us think of fungus, we imagine mushrooms sprouting out of the ground.
01:22:43.000These mushrooms are, in fact, the fruit of the fungus, while the majority of the fungal organism lives in the soil interwoven with the tree roots as a vast network of mycelium.
01:22:52.000Mycelium are incredibly tiny threads of the greater fungal organism that wraps around or bore into tree roots.
01:23:01.000Taken together, mycelium composes what's called a mycorrhizal network, which connects individual plants together to transfer water, nitrogen, carbon, and other minerals.
01:23:11.000German forester Peter Wallen dub this network the Wood Wide Web.
01:23:20.000As it is through the mycelium, the trees communicate.
01:23:23.000This is really, really fascinating stuff.
01:23:26.000Because we just think of soil as something that the tree pulls nutrients from.
01:24:04.000It seems to be...in insects, it seems to...there's like a code to it, which is why your idea about there being this God calculation is so fascinating.
01:24:15.000It seems like it just moves in a very certain way, and it's all connected to each other in some way that we're, as human beings, just sort of starting to understand.
01:24:27.000Well, there is a theory that says that the Big Bang went in a direction compatible to life, and that other universes may not be compatible with life.
01:24:36.000They may be lifeless collections of electrons and neutrinos, for example.
01:24:42.000Our universe has stable protons, out of which you could create atoms, out of which you could create DNA, out of which you can create people.
01:24:51.000How many universes have that property?
01:24:53.000So string theory, for example, gives you other universes which are probably dead universes, universes which have no life.
01:25:00.000But our universe has stable protons, stable DNA, stable forms of life.
01:25:45.000It's very hard to create a universe which is stable.
01:25:48.000So some people think that our universe is special among all the different kinds of universes, that our universe is unique because it's compatible with stable protons and DNA. But it's hard for most people to even...
01:26:02.000Grasp the concept of other types of universes or other universes, period.
01:26:07.000Or the fact there may be an infinite number of universes.
01:26:20.000But these other universes are collections of dead subatomic particles, a mist, a floating mist of dead subatomic particles that don't do anything.
01:26:29.000If the proton were not stable, then our universe also would be like that.
01:26:34.000Our universe would disintegrate almost instantly.
01:26:37.000The fact that our proton is stable is quite remarkable.
01:27:24.000So these universes would basically disintegrate.
01:27:26.000They would fall apart into a cloud of neutrinos and electrons.
01:27:30.000Our universe has stable protons, out of which you can create elements, out of which you could create DNA, out of which you can create life.
01:27:40.000So it's just because of these calculations that you've done where it says if the universe had different properties, you would think that this is rare.
01:28:56.000The Goldilocks zone for solar systems, of course, is the Earth is not too far from the Sun, not too close.
01:29:01.000But we could be in the Goldilocks zone of possible universes.
01:29:05.000And that's why we're here today, to talk about it.
01:29:08.000But there also could be an infinite number of universes like ours, and also an infinite number of universes that are completely incompatible for life.
01:30:08.000And it's one of the things that makes you such a great science educator, is that you have such enthusiasm for these subjects, and they're so interesting to you that it becomes interesting to other people.
01:30:18.000In a sense, people like you are so important for the discussion because it ignites inspiration the same way Einstein ignited inspiration in you by seeing that photograph of his desk.
01:30:32.000These kind of speeches that you do and these conversations that you have with people, for a person like myself that doesn't study these things, it gives me the chance to delve into how your perspective is and just to look at it through your mind.
01:30:46.000And for me, it's hard to believe how a person could not be thrilled when they learned about the Big Bang, they learned about strength theory, they learned about parallel universes and wormholes.
01:30:58.000For me, it's incredible that some people are not thrilled by something like this.
01:31:04.000Do you ever think about technology and its capabilities and intelligence and extrapolate as far as possible?
01:31:14.000And think we are essentially going to become something akin to a god or whatever we become will become something akin to a god.
01:31:23.000If we don't get killed by a natural disaster or our own stupidity and you accelerate time 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 years ahead of us, what do you anticipate we'll be like?
01:31:35.000I think about that a lot because we talked about type 1, type 2, type 3. By the time you are a type 3 civilization, you have the energy to manipulate the Planck energy.
01:31:46.000The Planck energy is the ultimate energy of the universe, of the quantum theory.
01:31:51.000You take the quantum theory and relativity and scale it up all the way, just let it rip.
01:31:56.000What is the highest energy you can attain and then something new happens?
01:34:09.000Stephen Hawking wrote about baby universes that if you could boil space, heat space up to the Planck energy, Space becomes unstable, bubbles form, and these bubbles, one of these bubbles may just keep on expanding to create another universe.
01:34:26.000We wouldn't have access to this universe.
01:34:29.000No, it would peel off, just like a balloon.
01:34:31.000The second part of the balloon peels off from the first part and the two separate.
01:36:54.000They're published in Physical Review magazine.
01:36:57.000This idea that we'll stay static, that we are what we are right now and that's just what humans are and that's just how it is, that seems like that's—whatever we are right now, it seems like this is real temporary.
01:37:12.000And I think we're probably the last of our species to experience life not being some sort of a cyborg.
01:37:23.000I mean, given the fact that throughout history, we've played with our appearance, we play with our bodies, makeup and tattoos, perfumes.
01:37:33.000We try to alter ourselves constantly because we want to increase our reproductive value so we get a better maid, a better wife, a better husband.
01:37:42.000So we try to build up our muscles and wear makeup and so on and so forth.
01:38:02.000Well, what I worry is that one day we're going to realize that a lot of our problems stem from being human.
01:38:08.000A lot of our problems stem from our biological needs.
01:38:11.000And if you look at these iconic images of aliens, they're always genderless, like these weird spindly things that have no use for their muscles other than to just move them around.
01:38:25.000I really worry that we're going to realize like the only way to really achieve this type 2, type 3 civilization is we have to stop being human.
01:38:37.000But doesn't it seem like what we have and what we love about people, what we love about people, emotions and creativity and love and romance and all those great things and fun and excitement, those are all just biological stuff.
01:38:52.000Like, it really kind of gets in the way of progress in some ways.
01:39:14.000If we have all the problems that people have today, whether it's depression or anxiety, And if all that can be eliminated forever, we never have to worry about negative emotions anymore.
01:39:30.000If there's no emotion to excite you to want to do something, to want to do something great, to do something that makes a difference, that takes a lot of energy.
01:41:31.000Unless you do it to control the technology.
01:41:34.000Unless you're the person that came up with the quantum computer first and you realize the only way I'm going to be able to dominate is if I enslave these people now.
01:41:59.000And there's going to be, you know, blood on the floor when it comes down to marketing these things and beating out the competition and giving the best-priced quantum computer to the average consumer.
01:42:12.000Yeah, there's going to be competition involved.
01:42:14.000I think, socially, the Internet has brought about great change and it's changed the way humans interact with each other.
01:42:21.000We already talked about how we're sharing culture.
01:42:22.000Do you think that something like quantum computing could also have Maybe like a secondary sort of a result where it elevates human consciousness as well.
01:42:36.000Because its computational power and its ability to change reality as we know it is so extreme that all of our petty nonsense that we have with various civilizations warring against each other and all that stuff will seem absolutely ridiculous.
01:42:54.000Given the ability that we now have technologically and that we won't be existing in this feast or famine world.
01:43:01.000Well, you know, the world we live in is digital.
01:43:03.000The world of the future will be quantum and neural.
01:43:08.000That is, we're going to have a combination of quantum computers and neural computers, but digital computers will be left in the dust.
01:43:17.000We're not going to compute on zeros and ones, zeros and ones anymore.
01:43:20.000We're going to compute on neurons, and we're going to compute on quantum atoms.
01:43:47.000It's certainly changed our understanding of things.
01:43:49.000Our access to information, our ability to discern what is and isn't going on in the world.
01:43:55.000If something along the lines of quantum computing, what kind of calculation, how much more powerful is it than the greatest computer we have currently?
01:44:09.000I mean, and in application, if that gets used by people, that could be the thing that gets us out of this, theoretically.
01:44:19.000Yeah, we're talking about virtual chemistry, virtual biology, things in the memory of a computer that we cannot model with zeros and ones, zeros and ones.
01:44:30.000With zeros and ones, you cannot model a disease, for example.
01:44:34.000With quantum computers, that's why we build them precisely so that we can model molecules of germs and understand how they operate.
01:44:42.000So, yeah, we're talking about a whole new era.
01:44:45.000Now, however, I think the main impact of the Internet has been to enforce democracy, that it is a democratic force because people can be educated no matter how poor, no matter where they are, they can be empowered.
01:45:14.000And I wonder if it will lead us to a better world, if it will lead us to a better understanding of each other.
01:45:22.000Much better understanding of how not to destroy the world in terms of pollute the ocean and solutions for cleaning up the plastic and solutions for whatever issues we might have with power generation.
01:45:36.000When we can boil that down with a quantum computer and figure out much more efficient, cleaner ways to do things.
01:45:45.000All the problems that we have in modern society with poverty, with disenfranchised communities and crime, all those things seem like they could be solved.
01:46:17.000And in some sense, become immortal or at least near immortality by being able to conquer incurable diseases.
01:46:24.000This is all within the possibilities of quantum computers.
01:46:27.000But for me, one of the biggest impacts is the dissemination of knowledge to give empowerment to the powerless so that we can raise the standard of living of the entire human race.
01:46:42.000Worst case scenario is that dictatorships will try to get this technology to break other people's codes, to shatter the connections that exist between different nations and cultures, to increase divisions by,
01:47:02.000They can create all sorts of propaganda because they just rearrange what already exists.
01:47:06.000A dictator could then write all sorts of different kinds of racist and sexist nonsense and have it spread throughout the internet very rapidly.
01:48:52.000Anything quantum mechanical could in principle be used to build a quantum computer.
01:48:57.000And anything you see around you, plants, animals, we all are byproducts of the quantum principle.
01:49:02.000And so there are many ways of building a quantum computer.
01:49:05.000But those are the leading ones using electrical circuits and using light beams.
01:49:10.000How exciting this must be for you to have been that 17 year old boy creating that particle accelerator in your basement and now being at the verge of what is probably one of the biggest changes or the biggest change the human race has ever experienced and you're alive to witness it.
01:50:10.000You look great for 76. So you're 21 years older than me, so you were alive long before the Internet, and you grew up before the Internet.
01:50:19.000Was about 27 years old the first time I got on the internet and I'm so lucky I feel so lucky to have grown up without it and to realize because I'm seeing it happen what an immense change it is whereas my children Are growing up having always been on the internet.
01:51:05.000Well, the idea that one day there will be, whether it's through quantum computing or some other unknown, unforeseen technology that creates a reality, an artificial reality that's indiscernible from this reality,
01:51:22.000from the physical reality that we believe we currently experience.
01:51:25.000And if that's true, how do we know we're not in it already?
01:51:29.000Well, to have a perfect replication of reality is impossible.
01:51:35.000Take a look at the molecules in this room.
01:51:46.000And to model that many atoms with a digital computer would be impossible.
01:51:52.000So in other words, the smallest object that can model this room is the room itself.
01:51:58.000The smallest computer that can model air is the computer itself.
01:52:04.000There's nothing smaller than this room that can model itself.
01:52:08.000Now, once you go to quantum computers, it gets worse because the quantum computer computes in parallel universes, not just one universe, but many universes simultaneously.
01:52:19.000And so a quantum computer could model some of the atoms in this room, but not all of them.
01:52:25.000Now, that means a perfect representation of reality is impossible.
01:52:30.000But an approximate simulation may be possible, but a perfect simulation is impossible.
01:52:35.000But if we're talking about technology as we currently understand it today, in comparison to technology as they had available to them a thousand years ago, what we can do now is insane.
01:52:47.000And if you're talking about quantum computing, which is almost available today, and then you look a thousand years from now, Couldn't you potentially imagine there could be a world where there's technology sufficient to do what we're talking about, to create a version of reality?
01:53:04.000Well, if you saw the movie, we're all in pods and we're all connected to a computer that simulates the matrix.
01:53:11.000As long as you're stimulating a piece of the matrix, not the whole thing, but as you walk from place to place, the computer reassembles a replication of that place.
01:53:21.000That may be possible, but not the whole Earth with the atmosphere, the weather, and so on and so forth.
01:53:28.000But if you walk from place to place, if that little pocket of atoms is simulated, then yeah, that may be possible.
01:53:51.000When you're talking about quantum computing, what if they use that to come up with something even superior to that a thousand years from now?
01:53:59.000Could you potentially see a future where some form of life could create a universe?
01:54:16.000But if you can find a way to stabilize some of them, then it may be possible to increase the calculational ability and then create a super quantum computer.
01:54:50.000Oh, I was saying that if you're looking at the calculations that we can make right now, And just the amazing progress we've made, it seems like if you keep going, you're going to—it doesn't seem like it's ever going to stop, right?
01:55:05.000So the potential for power, the potential for having an understanding and the ability to change and manipulate the universe itself, that seems like it's going to eventually be on the table.
01:56:24.000How much time do you spend wondering whether or not these things that they keep seeing in the sky, these things the Pentagon reports on and all these people are studying, how much time do you spend thinking about that?
01:56:36.000Well, I think about it because let's say there's a small chance, a very, very small chance that they are extraterrestrial.
01:58:04.000It's a theory, but there's no hard evidence either way.
01:58:08.000Some people say that the fact that we have the microchip and the rocket ship means that we stole that technology from the aliens.
01:58:15.000Well, maybe, but you realize that if you're a scientist and you've been following these developments, you know all the dead ends, you know all the mistakes that were made.
01:58:25.000And then you realize it was a miracle that we came up with these things.
01:58:47.000What about the idea that human beings are a product of accelerated evolution?
01:58:51.000That's the most fascinating UFO theory.
01:58:54.000Accelerated evolution from what to what?
01:58:56.000That we are the product of the mixing of genes of some sort of an alien race and lower primates.
01:59:03.000Well, it's always great to think that we're somehow noble and somehow beyond the other animals and that we're great.
01:59:10.000But, you know, the proof is in the pudding.
01:59:13.000Looking at our DNA, we realize that the DNA difference between us and a chimpanzee Was A, the expansion of the brain, B, the dexterity of the fingers, and the vocal cords.
01:59:28.000So these are the three things that really stand out when you look at chimp genes and then human genes.
01:59:35.000And then you realize that, well, that's why we became intelligent.
01:59:38.000We can vocalize, we can share knowledge from generation to generation.
01:59:42.000We have a posable thumb with fingers, much more delicate than the fingers of a monkey.
01:59:48.000And we have eyes, eyes that are stereo so that we can judge distance to the prey.
01:59:54.000So looking at it genetically, we realized that only three clusters of genes created us.
02:00:01.000So it's hard to believe that mating with an alien could have done that.
02:00:06.000I think what the idea is, and obviously, these are not credible ideas.
02:00:10.000This is just fantastic conspiracy theories.
02:00:13.000And it's also, there's a lot of really wild stuff.
02:00:17.000If you read, like, Zechariah Sitchin's work, he was a scholar in ancient languages that translated the Sumerian text, and he believed that the Sumerian text was all telling the story about how humans were a product of accelerated evolution.
02:00:31.000Well, it's possible, but again, it requires one more step of substantiation.
02:00:38.000By looking at the internet, you see that there's a continuous line that goes from us to the chimpanzees to the primates, and that a few genes changed here, a few genes here, a few genes there, and bingo!
02:01:57.000We have a time machine in the front of our head.
02:02:00.000Is it possible that that's just intelligence as we're measuring it in our ability to manipulate our environment and that maybe the intelligence that the dolphins experience?
02:02:08.000Because they do have a cerebral cortex that's 40% larger than human beings, that maybe what they're experiencing is a different kind of intelligence, maybe a communal intelligence, maybe some sort of shared telepathy or something that allows them to communicate in a way that we're not capable of.
02:02:27.000But, you know, my attitude is that what does intelligence do?
02:02:31.000Intelligence allows us to create a model, a model of where we are with regards to the environment, other animals, danger, and so on and so forth, and then the ability to see the future.
02:02:53.000To create imaginary worlds that don't exist.
02:02:57.000And then on an MRI scan, scientists ask the question, if the brain sees the future, but the future doesn't exist, then how can a brain scan show you the future?
02:03:28.000But what we do is we take the past, modify the past, and then let it flow into the future.
02:03:34.000Well, that's what's so fascinating about giant leaps in technology, is that they bypass our imagination and create completely new possibilities that we could have never even dreamed we were capable of.
02:03:45.000Like what we're experiencing right now.
02:03:47.000If you go to Star Trek, they had to go Kirk out, over.
02:03:50.000They were basically using walkie-talkies, right?
02:03:53.000They had never even figured out cell phones yet.
02:03:55.000But what we're doing now is almost inconceivable.
02:03:59.000And the future, when these things do come to us, I mean, what are we looking at?
02:04:05.000I mean, what are we looking at inside of our lifetime?
02:04:07.000Well, my attitude is the smallest unit of history is the decade.
02:04:13.000And if you look at history decade by decade, then you see the enormous progress that we've made.
02:04:19.000But if you look at the history year by year, It's chaotic.
02:04:23.000Things go up, things go down, setbacks take place, and so on and so forth.
02:04:27.000But when you look at things decade by decade, then you see that there is a progression.
02:04:33.000There is a path, and the path is toward democracy.
02:04:56.000And technology is what many people think can raise up some of the more impoverished communities.
02:05:01.000And that part of the problem is that they don't have access to power, that they don't have access to all the innovations that we have that make life safer, water cleaner, make it easier to live and exist and have more peace and time to develop new things like we do here.
02:05:20.000Yeah, and I think quantum computers, I think, will accelerate that whole process.
02:05:26.000Technology, just not for technology's sake, just not to make profits for the companies, of course, that's also one of the motivating factors, but to enrich the human race, to educate people, to empower people.
02:05:38.000And I think this is what technology does.
02:05:40.000Now, AI, of course, will take away jobs, too.
02:05:56.000And the same thing with AI. People point to the fact that AI is displacing some workers, especially at the bottom, which is true, but it's also creating new jobs, jobs that no one even conceived of before.
02:06:09.000And so it's a balance between job destruction and job creation, and that's the main effect that AI has had on society.
02:06:17.000It's a beautiful time to be alive, sir.
02:06:19.000I'm really happy that you're out there talking about these things because it sparks the imagination in such an incredible way.
02:06:27.000And because of you and because of your work, you really get to understand what the real parameters we're working with here and what we're really talking about, what's possible.
02:08:47.000Basically, it's a few key players, IBM, Google, Honeywell, Microsoft, the big boys, they're all jumping in the game, investing billions of dollars to create their version of the future.
02:09:00.000And the Chinese are right there with their parallel version using optical means rather than using electrical means to do calculations.
02:09:08.000And they know the price, that the price is not there yet because, of course, they're not operational for general purpose problems, but they know potentially what the price is and that's to be able to dominate the world economy.
02:09:20.000Now, what's the worst case scenario if one of these American corporations, let's just say Microsoft, let's say if Microsoft wins the race and they develop some sort of functional quantum computer that just blows everything else out of the water,
02:09:37.000they essentially become like a superpower.
02:10:41.000So we're at that stage now where the computer is still not ready to be used for general purpose calculations.
02:10:47.000But when it does happen, we're talking about virtual chemistry, virtual biology.
02:10:52.000Everyone's going to want to jump in the game.
02:10:54.000Do you think that preemptively some laws should be put in place to sort of regulate this?
02:10:58.000Well, I think some laws may have to because, of course, this is potentially earth-shaking.
02:11:04.000The CIA, of course, is well aware of the potential.
02:11:07.000The government has done seminars on what to do when quantum computers become commonplace.
02:11:13.000And they're already making recommendations.
02:11:16.000So for the post-quantum era, they're making recommendations to how to prepare for the post-quantum era when quantum computers can break any known digital code.
02:11:29.000What does the world look like if there's no secrets?
02:11:32.000What does the world look like if there's no top-secret information, no code cannot be cracked instantaneously?
02:12:32.000One way is to have a dual system, two systems of the internet, one system based on electricity that all of us use that are subject to hacking, and the other layer based strictly on laser beams, a laser internet That would be a way such that anyone who taps into it illegally would immediately alert people.
02:12:52.000People would shut down that part of the internet immediately.
02:12:55.000So that's a possibility that people have talked about, a dual internet.
02:12:59.000One internet for governments, for big corporations and banks.
02:13:03.000They would pay premium price to have an invulnerable internet.
02:13:07.000An internet by the laws of physics can never be broken.
02:13:10.000And everybody else would use the ordinary internet.
02:13:22.000But the power that comes along with something like that, too.
02:13:25.000Like, when you said the laws, like, well, who's writing these laws and who these laws benefit?
02:13:29.000Well, laws will have to be passed, just like with chatbots.
02:13:32.000Laws are going to have to be passed, just like freedom of speech is great, but you cannot say fire in a crowded theater.
02:13:38.000So laws will have to be passed to regulate chatbots, and laws may have to be passed to regulate quantum computers as well.
02:13:46.000Does it bother you that these laws that will have to get passed will get passed by people that probably don't even have a comprehensive understanding of what's possible?
02:15:10.000You're such a great communicator with this stuff, and it's so exciting, and I'm going to listen to this back and forth and try to figure out most of the stuff you said.
02:15:17.000Quantum Supremacy, How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything, and it is available now.