The Tucker Carlson Show - Bryan Johnson

00:00:00.000 so it is the most basic truth of biology that the second you reach maturity you exit adolescence

00:00:17.280 and become an adult you start dying you degrade and then you expire this is called the aging

00:00:23.280 process and you maybe first start noticing it in your 40s long after it's already begun

00:00:28.080 because there are visible symptoms you get wrinkly and bald and if you can't stay away

00:00:32.160 from the pizza you get a little fat and that's kind of inevitable or we've been told it's inevitable

00:00:39.680 but a man called brian johnson has decided it's not necessarily inevitable he was a very large

00:00:46.080 figure in the tech world made a ton of dough and then started thinking about his body and the nature

00:00:52.160 of life and the future of human existence and has become pretty famous recently for saying that he

00:00:58.480 has in a way begun to reverse the aging process and maybe even cracked the code that limits the human

00:01:05.680 lifespan but watch him explain it's hard to believe tech millionaire brian johnson is 46 years

00:01:11.760 old but no matter his chronological age he's striving for the biological age of an 18 year old his team

00:01:19.280 of 30 doctors utilize all the latest tech the plan is rigorous at two million dollars a year a life like

00:01:27.200 this is out of reach for almost everyone and this is what i take on a daily basis of supplements it's

00:01:34.160 alphabetized and we have a year supply of everything we do he calls his all-encompassing protocol

00:01:39.360 project blueprint blueprint was born out of trying to fix my own problems but then taking care of my

00:01:43.520 family my kids and my parents my friends it's generated a steady churn of shock headlines he once

00:01:51.040 injected himself with his son's plasma it's part of his quest to live forever which he believes

00:01:56.560 may happen in our lifetime seems a little spooky but also interesting and we're doing this interview

00:02:03.120 because one of our smartest friends suggested i talked to this guy brian johnson he's genuinely

00:02:07.440 interesting and he seems to be he is the founder and ceo among other companies a company called

00:02:12.720 kernel that creates devices that can monitor brain activity and he joins us now on set brian great to

00:02:18.800 see you great to see you as well thanks for having me so i've got a bunch of different questions

00:02:22.000 some practical some philosophical let's start with the practical ones um you're how old are you

00:02:26.240 46 46 46 you don't look it i will say famously um so how as a practical matter what's your regimen

00:02:34.960 for slowing or reversing the aging process what we do is we measure every organ of my body my heart my

00:02:41.440 lungs my liver my pancreas my brain and we biologically age each organ so you say how old is the heart so

00:02:47.440 even though i'm 46 my heart is 37. my left ear is 64. my lung capacity is age 18. my cardiovascular capacity

00:02:55.600 is the top 1.5 of 18 year olds and so you need to know where your baseline is and so we've measured

00:03:01.200 my entire body i've become the most measured person in history and once you have all those numbers then

00:03:05.920 you can go to therapies and say can you slow the speed of aging and can you reverse the aging damage

00:03:11.120 that has happened and that's been the project for the past three years and you can you think you can yeah

00:03:15.920 for example i slowed my speed of aging so inside your body there's a clock with how fast you're aging

00:03:23.360 and that clock is determined by dna methylation i have reduced my speed of aging by the equivalent of

00:03:29.840 31 years so i now age uh in a more generalized way to say it 7.6 months for every 12 months that pass

00:03:38.800 okay so i get the remaining months for free which is i've slowed down my speed of aging so the damage

00:03:43.520 that accumulates in my body is much slower and so we've done this through diet and exercise and sleep

00:03:49.600 and a bunch of other therapies but yes we can quantifiably measure how fast my aging what are

00:03:55.680 the age uh age of my bio of my organs and then we can use therapies to go about it and so we do

00:04:00.640 everything according to science and data this is not me offering an opinion this is my entire body

00:04:05.520 on display for the world of what happens when you apply the world's best science into a body

00:04:09.920 so i'm assuming you quit smoking yeah i never started but you never started okay okay good

00:04:15.360 so that's like step one quits exactly right fine just to make sure we have that on the record

00:04:20.560 what specifically do you eat uh i have three meals a day so breakfast is broccoli cauliflower black

00:04:26.560 lentils garlic and ginger the next meal of the day is uh pea protein pomegranate juice macadamia nuts

00:04:33.360 walnuts flaxseed sunflower lecithin and the final meal of the day is berries nuts uh fruits okay um so

00:04:41.120 pizza and oreo is totally out yeah they are not in supply at the house so um why like if you could

00:04:47.920 narrow down the foods that actually do reduce your lifespan and the quality of your life would

00:04:52.000 be yeah we what we tried to do with the diet is we said if you take the frame that every calorie you

00:04:57.840 put into your body has to fight for its life what would that be and so we went through we referenced

00:05:02.800 all the scientific literature we said what has the best evidence and we put into my body then we measure

00:05:07.840 so if a given thing is supposed to do a thing in the body it stays and if it does it it stays if not

00:05:12.960 it's out and so what i told you is where every calorie is precisely designed and these are population

00:05:19.760 level studies this is not just me this is could be applicable to you as well yeah and so yeah we are

00:05:24.240 very particular about what goes into my body and not a single calorie goes in that's not backed by

00:05:28.960 science what are the ones you you definitely would not eat like period uh basically the standard american

00:05:35.200 diet yeah yeah it's bad it's really it's i knew it was bad like like we all know it's bad i didn't know

00:05:42.880 how bad like once you understand the biochemical processes of what happens in your body when you

00:05:48.480 eat these things it's awful like what i mean it increases your speed of aging like you've got this

00:05:54.000 clock and it's saying how fast are you going to how fast until disease develops or something goes

00:06:00.080 wrong and this clock just you know it will increase if you don't eat the right things if you eat the

00:06:04.800 right things it will slow down the wrong things speed it up let me just push you a little a little

00:06:09.600 more on this question so like what are the things you just would not put in your mouth specifically

00:06:13.440 um i pizza donuts junk food fast food processed food pizza is number one uh yeah i you know i don't

00:06:26.240 eat red meat uh i'm vegan but you know nothing against meat so people can add meat to their diet

00:06:32.400 but you know like red meat is not at the top of the things that makes the cut for science of wanting to

00:06:37.200 extend life interesting um how much time do you spend exercising uh one hour a day that's it yeah

00:06:44.400 what do you do uh cardiovascular weights and stretching so would it be fair to say that someone

00:06:51.280 who followed your diet and your exercise regimen would have similar effects to the ones you've enjoyed

00:06:57.040 yes so i've done this i've made my entire project open source it's for free for everybody i post my data

00:07:03.840 my recipes my processes my therapies everything is shared with everyone and so tens of thousands

00:07:09.920 of people around the world are doing this and they're seeing remarkable results so i've tried

00:07:13.360 to reduce what i do into very simple things that are affordable for everybody um those would not

00:07:19.040 include injecting yourself with your son's blood right that's right okay why'd you do that so it was 0.81

00:07:24.560 we were looking into therapy so the way we approached blueprint is we said so what human humans have

00:07:30.960 generated a lot of science over the past a couple decades and we said let's take all the science

00:07:35.920 let's rank them according to power laws of the best science ever done let's grade the evidence

00:07:40.400 then we'll see what we can apply from those into my body and plasma infusions were one that was

00:07:46.240 interesting and so i was looking at it myself and one day i was talking to my dad and he said i need

00:07:50.720 to tell you i had this really scary situation where he he's in the legal profession he said i wrote a brief

00:07:55.600 i walked away i came back and i saw that my words were a jumbled mess i was experiencing cognitive lapse

00:08:03.840 and i wasn't aware of it he's 71. he said i'm terrified of losing my mind yes and i said dad how

00:08:10.560 interesting that you bring this up because right now the team and i are talking about plasma infusions

00:08:15.440 and that some of the studies are looking at the effects on alzheimer's and parkinson's and other

00:08:20.640 kinds of things like that and so i said if you're interested i'm happy to give you a liter of my

00:08:25.200 plasma and then my 17 year old son was there and he's like hey if you guys are doing it i'm in right

00:08:29.760 great we'll make this a family affair and so my son sharing the plasma yeah so my son gave me a liter

00:08:34.560 of plasma i gave my dad a liter of plasma and the data showed that in me there was no effect that my

00:08:40.160 biomarkers didn't change but in my dad his speed of aging reduced by 25 years so he was aging at the

00:08:47.280 rate of a 71 year old and after the plasma infusion and continued for six months it lessened to a 45

00:08:53.840 year old so his clock dramatically slowed down interesting did he feel better he did and his

00:09:00.240 colleagues were saying what's up this is you're you're you're hot you're on fire why what's happening

00:09:05.840 and it was plasma from his son the only therapy that he did does it need to be a blood relative

00:09:10.960 no just blood typed okay so now we're getting into the theories about taking the blood of children

00:09:17.840 i mean so this is very common we do organ transplants we all donate blood like we've had

00:09:22.960 that experience in our life so it's just in a slightly different frame but it's very much a

00:09:27.520 part of well it's a recognizable frame and by the way i'm not endorsing any of this yeah but there is a

00:09:32.880 frame to use your word uh on the internet of like super rich tech billionaires living forever in the

00:09:39.040 blood of children yeah not an appeal not a super appealing frame i would say yeah this is that uh yeah and

00:09:45.360 we did it openly we made a video out of it we we made fun of it we made a meme out of it so yeah

00:09:51.360 we this is how we've done the entire project is everything's open sourced it's always discussed we

00:09:56.720 share all the data but yes it definitely feeds into many of the of the um there's a lot of theories

00:10:04.160 about what happens behind the scenes with rich people yeah and not all of them seem baseless i guess

00:10:08.720 that's a lot of people said is like well we finally got a glimpse so you're showing us what's

00:10:14.960 happening kind of like the tech oligarch taking the blood of children yeah i'm just yeah um interesting

00:10:22.720 so i wonder as i was reading about you the effect on you and your life like

00:10:28.000 what's it like to focus on your body that much yeah oh i love it it's uh there's one thing about

00:10:34.720 building a product like we oftentimes think of our as our work as our immortality what we produce

00:10:42.240 in our careers our reputation our accomplishments and when you think about it this way you are the

00:10:48.800 product you are your own best creation and so it's been energizing i've loved being consumed by it

00:10:56.320 i think that um yeah it's one of the happiest endeavors i've done in my life really i've taken

00:11:01.920 the opposite approach and i'm not claiming it's superior to yours um but i had my appendix swole

00:11:06.480 up and burst and i never and i had it of course taken out i never asked like what the appendix is

00:11:12.720 because i didn't really want to know i don't know what a spleen is like i've really made an effort to

00:11:16.960 not focus on those things because it seems like a lot of self-focus and it seems like a short trip

00:11:22.240 from there to say narcissism which is obviously death so are you worried about that uh my observation

00:11:29.840 really is philosophical i did this thought experiment where i was when i was 21 i came

00:11:35.440 back from ecuador i had i'd lived among extreme poverty for two years and i had this burning

00:11:40.400 on a mormon mission on a mormon mission yes and i had this burning desire to be useful to the world

00:11:46.160 i didn't know what or how and so i thought i'll make a whole bunch of money by age of 30 and then when

00:11:51.280 i'm 30 years old and have a whole bunch of money i'll decide what to do then and so i've been searching for

00:11:56.480 this mission my entire life and upon doing that i i had i organized dinners with my smartest friends

00:12:03.760 and i said let's imagine we're existing in 2050 and this was 2016 at the time and the world is amazing

00:12:10.400 what did we do in 2016 that would make that possible and then i listened very intently to

00:12:15.440 everybody's responses and then i put them in a box and i um i made a rule that i can't do anything

00:12:23.120 inside that box i have to do something outside that box and what nobody was working on was trying

00:12:29.360 to solve death that it was always inconceivable that you could try to legitimately conquer death

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00:14:22.160 and now okay so we're the philosophical part of this and my friend who recommended this interview said you

00:14:26.800 know he's really interesting on the the practical stuff the serum transfers and all that but he's

00:14:30.960 much more interesting on the philosophical questions and i think you will be so let me ask you grew up in

00:14:36.160 a world a mormon world um that believed and taught you that it had already solved the question of death 0.76

00:14:42.400 exactly through jesus exactly you no longer think that uh it would be helpful if there was some evidence

00:14:49.520 yeah okay um so you so you've abandoned that world view or at least you're agnostic i guess would be

00:14:58.240 the word on that world view right not to get too personal but i'm just interested because a lot of

00:15:01.840 people would say you know religious people christians would say well we've already solved death right 0.98

00:15:06.160 you know don't need to solve that it's solved um but there's also of course no evidence that eternal

00:15:12.720 life is possible in a corporal sense physical sense right because it's never been done so what gives you

00:15:20.000 faith that you can do it yeah if you look at the speed in which artificial intelligence is advancing

00:15:31.680 we are gaining new abilities we've never had before in every domain of society you pair that with our

00:15:37.920 ability that we now in this moment we can predictably design biology and the physical world atom by atom

00:15:47.040 you bring those things together for the first time in human history one can say with a straight face

00:15:54.560 that we may be able to go after death now i'm not saying we can i'm not saying it's guaranteed i'm

00:16:01.440 saying that it is rational and reasonable and supported by where the realities are today and so

00:16:09.440 with what i've been trying to do is to show a glimmer of hope that because what i'm really trying to do is

00:16:14.960 demonstrate age escape velocity that is so when one year of time passes i remain the same biological age

00:16:22.960 so we're never going to arrest aging altogether but if i let's say i age 0.4

00:16:28.880 and then i can reverse that 0.4 with therapies and stay the same age biologically right now

00:16:34.320 i'm 0.64 so i've already started at one and i'm all the way down to 0.64 if we keep on inching down

00:16:41.680 it might change everything you know it's it's one thing to have a philosophical conversation

00:16:46.960 it's another thing to say i can be youthful and have energy and feel great i think everybody wants that

00:16:52.320 uh 100 live long and prosper for sure and that seems like a virtuous goal and what you're doing

00:16:57.600 to that extent is virtuous i just wonder if as someone who grew up in a religious community

00:17:02.880 if part of you maybe deep inside fears that when you start to say things like we can defeat death

00:17:08.960 that you won't be smoked down by the god of the universe yeah for assuming yeah his role yeah

00:17:16.160 do you worry about that uh not in the least bit 0.99

00:17:22.880 never crossed you're either very brave or very foolish never crossed my mind really so when you

00:17:28.240 say i can defeat death aren't you saying i'm god um i'm saying that the universe speaks in irony

00:17:40.480 that's for sure and that the story we've told is that god created us and the actual story may be

00:17:50.080 that we are going to create god what kind of god this is the question we face the species i mean right

00:17:58.240 now we have organized society around capitalism we we strive to make money have power and wealth

00:18:06.080 we engage in warfare you know everyone's angling for their best interest and i'm suggesting that this

00:18:11.760 is not about me trying to live forever this is me trying to answer the most pressing question in existence

00:18:18.880 what do we do as a species now when death is inevitable you're going to have an answer like

00:18:24.640 well i'm going to live fast and die young or i'm going to conquer territories and be immortal for my

00:18:29.200 quest or i'm going to make up your your meaning of life game but if death is not inevitable we can

00:18:36.160 extend our lifespans to some unknown horizon the meaning making games we have the species all change

00:18:43.680 of course and that's what i'm suggesting where there this moment is that i mean there you know

00:18:49.360 many people through history have reached similar conclusions but not with similar technology exactly

00:18:53.760 those conclusions right so um or those outcomes but um you know history laughs at those people and

00:18:59.920 the story of history is men addled with hubris being humiliated yes uh and so i mean i would say there's

00:19:10.160 a great deal of evidence that you will be crushed and humiliated for saying that just based and i

00:19:16.320 hope i hope that's not the case of course but but everyone every other living person who's reached

00:19:21.200 the conclusion that you've reached has been crushed and humiliated in the end and we laugh at them so

00:19:25.360 what makes you different yeah i mean i think it's likely inevitable that i will die the most ironic death

00:19:32.800 yes that is guaranteed by the way that's the message of the new test i mean that's the sermon

00:19:39.600 on the mount it's it's it's the irony yes book yes you know the first will be last the meek shall

00:19:44.640 inherit the earth no you're so i will we agree on that i'll get hit by a bus or i will choke taking 0.95

00:19:50.880 a pill or you'll die of a broccoli od yeah exactly so it's guaranteed to happen so me aside uh i think 0.98

00:19:59.920 the okay now i like you i think that's just a wonderful thing to say right that that is wisdom

00:20:04.880 it it's guaranteed to happen and so hopefully this lives past me but i think if like if you

00:20:11.280 if you have another do another thought experiment with me let's imagine we're hanging out in the 25th

00:20:16.160 century we're listening to what they're saying about the early 21st century now in the same way

00:20:21.760 we look at the 15th century we compress that entire century into 10 things 15 things yes that's right

00:20:27.840 right right 99 of what happened then is just washed away of course we don't care it's just

00:20:33.040 there's no record of it either exactly yes and this moment the same is going to be true we have

00:20:37.760 more recording of course of our of our existence they did but we're still going to be compressed

00:20:42.080 in time and so 99 of what we do will be washed away there'll be a small fraction that actually

00:20:48.400 matters to future generations yes and so if you ask what they'll even know about or have any way of

00:20:53.120 knowing about or they'll care about yes that's right so if you pose that question from the 25th

00:20:56.800 century and so that really for me creates this clarity of thought like if you try to really

00:21:01.680 clear your head of all the noise happening now what do they say right now that we did as a species in

00:21:08.400 this moment that allowed intelligence to thrive in this part of the galaxy and this is what i would say

00:21:15.200 is this is when homo sapiens realized that they reached a technological threshold where the only objective

00:21:23.600 of existence was to continue to exist at the basic level so this is don't die

00:21:29.760 that when a when we're on the eve of giving birth to super intelligence and we have to ask all the basic

00:21:38.480 questions of our existence who are we why do we exist how do we operate in society do i have a job do i

00:21:44.480 don't like what are the answers to these basic questions and what i'm suggesting is our existence

00:21:50.480 is going to be compressed into one statement we can all say which is don't die and don't die is the

00:21:56.560 most played game by everybody on planet earth every second of every day we breathe every few seconds we

00:22:02.160 look both ways before we cross the street we throw out moldy food so don't die is played more than

00:22:07.200 capitalism don't die is played more than religion the most played game in existence and that's the thing we

00:22:11.520 can rally behind in this moment it's it's interesting though i mean the fact that you i think that's

00:22:16.960 partly true but the fact that you have to articulate it suggests it's not entirely true

00:22:21.200 in other words the way that people human beings differ from other animal species is not just language

00:22:26.320 and the imposable thumb it's that humans are the only animal that kill themselves they need to be

00:22:31.200 convinced that life is worth living yeah and i wonder what you make of that i don't have the answer to

00:22:35.680 that i don't know why but that does has always struck me as the main distinction between people and say

00:22:39.680 dogs or pigs or horses or any other animal why or monkeys for that yeah why why do people kill

00:22:45.040 themselves why do they need to be convinced not to die yeah we i mean in some way in some ways we're 1.00

00:22:54.240 brilliant in many ways we are idiotic and insane you're like i had this problem where i would overeat 0.99

00:23:01.200 every night at 7 p.m to deal with the stresses of the day i would eat too much food junk food i was 60 0.99

00:23:06.560 pounds heavier than i am now why did i do that why did i inflict this harm upon myself every

00:23:11.920 night and afterwards i'd say i'm changing tomorrow this is my last day no more but i did it anyways

00:23:18.640 i just couldn't stop myself from these self-destructive behaviors it's such a weird thing

00:23:23.040 and so now what i did is i but hold on what do you make of that i mean and every person has

00:23:27.040 experienced that whether it's drinking or sex or food is very very common in this country

00:23:30.960 um but why does that happen because it kind of puts a lie to the to use your term frame again

00:23:38.320 to the evolutionary biology frame that we use to explain human behavior yes right yes why do we act

00:23:44.480 against ourselves and is it us acting against ourselves or is it a force outside of ourselves

00:23:49.920 acting on us like so what's the answer agreed and we we treat planet earth the same way we treat our

00:23:55.040 own bodies of course we treat each other but why exactly i mean i understand look every evolutionary

00:24:00.800 biology common sense explains why i might hurt you yeah to steal your stuff exactly and to make it more

00:24:07.920 likely that you know my kids reproduce and my line continues i mean it's not hard it's wrong but it's

00:24:12.960 understandable why do i hurt myself in ways that don't bring me pleasure that are purely destructive

00:24:18.720 you can see what people believe in demons yeah i don't think you do believe in demons so what do you

00:24:23.440 believe what is that yeah i mean on this question there's probably many answers on why the solution

00:24:29.600 that i've come up with is i endeavor to build an algorithm that could take better care of me than

00:24:35.520 i can myself but you still have to follow it and you still right you have you have to want to build it

00:24:39.760 so but it you're alighting over and i am too i don't have the answer i don't want to pretend i do i think

00:24:45.040 they're clearly demonic forces they're evil spirits that are doing this to people that's my view is it

00:24:50.400 that's my view but so i've kind of explained it without any evidence at all noticing but it seems

00:24:57.600 to me that you have to explain it too like what is that how could we ever act knowingly act against

00:25:04.400 our own interest where do those compulsions come from you say they're biological what does that even

00:25:08.800 mean it doesn't mean anything what is the answer i don't know the answer i would suggest it's a flaw

00:25:16.320 yeah and i would suggest that this is what we will solve with our technology but it still requires

00:25:25.120 the decision which is a conscious decision that that's a good thing that's preferable to self

00:25:30.320 destruction yeah sometimes though like think about think of this like ozambic so let's just put a set

00:25:35.680 aside side effect profile let's set aside any of those questions if i can take a pill that turns off my

00:25:42.480 hunger i don't have to be fat anymore i'm in you know like well but if you're approaching i mean

00:25:49.280 that's a whole separate conversation um but if you're approaching it logically you you couldn't

00:25:54.240 turn off um the data of as you put the side effect profile like what's the downside that's part of the

00:26:00.320 calculation is it not yeah i mean let's assume the drug will get better we'll minimize side effects and

00:26:05.200 like in time but what i'm saying is all of us understand that these self-destructive behaviors

00:26:11.520 are not good why do why do we assume that like where's that moral framework come from there's no

00:26:18.400 god i don't i don't get that i mean even the basics like we just feel bad in the morning we feel cloudy

00:26:24.160 we feel grumpy we feel depressed we feel anxious and it's because we don't sleep well and we're stressed

00:26:28.880 and we eat terrible food and we don't exercise so like we don't do the positive things we know we feel

00:26:33.920 great when we do it and we do the bad things that make us feel bad continually so we all just know

00:26:38.000 intuitively that we do i'm not oh of course and we all feel that way i felt that way this morning

00:26:42.960 actually if i mentioned it um but i wonder if it's not reductionist to assume that they're all biological

00:26:49.600 in cause and sooth maybe there's a spiritual component maybe i'm not living my life the right way

00:26:55.360 maybe i have done wrong yeah and haven't repented of it i mean there are other potential causes no

00:27:00.960 agreed and this is what i'm suggesting that no matter where someone is coming from

00:27:05.600 whatever your origin the game to play as a species right now in this moment is don't die

00:27:12.240 right now we play capitalism and make money and earn i'm with you there that's obviously a hollow 0.95

00:27:17.280 stupid dead end and it's not actually even working so i mean it's not working by its by its own terms 0.94

00:27:23.520 it's not working right you don't have a middle class anymore so clearly that's not working right 0.99

00:27:26.960 i i couldn't agree with you i couldn't agree with your skepticism more when you conclude that like

00:27:32.800 the current program is yes absurd clearly it is we need a better way i'm just but i do think it's

00:27:38.960 like at the core of your assumptions is an unanswered question which is why is living better than dying

00:27:44.480 why do people seek to kill themselves what the hell is going on yeah yeah why yeah yeah i mean so um

00:27:52.880 i have gone through my life in a series of moments that has led me to distrust almost everything

00:28:02.240 including my mind so initially growing up in a religion wise wise i mean i i mean i grew up in a

00:28:08.480 religion and then i found out that that entire thing had been packaged in a way where it's like

00:28:12.720 we're good and everyone else is bad and then i went through a process of behavioral psychology where i

00:28:17.360 realized that i have all these shortcuts of hypocrisy and irrationality that i am a disaster as a human yes i'm

00:28:22.720 blind to my own behavior i went through it with authorities that i trusted in other ways and so

00:28:27.920 i don't know what to trust in reality outside of you know things that i find more stable like physics

00:28:34.960 and math and so if if i try to ground myself in reality of what can i trust my mind is very far down

00:28:43.920 the list yes things i trust i agree and so when i pose the question to myself of do i want to live or

00:28:48.800 do i want this or that i don't trust what i have to say ever and so i don't know are we really the

00:28:54.560 authority on what we want have we ever been accurate in making those guesses no so why would

00:29:01.520 and i have to say i i disagree i think very strongly with your conclusions but i so admire the way you're

00:29:07.680 reaching them because i think it's i mean the root of wisdom is knowing not to trust yourself i always say

00:29:12.720 to my kids that i know one guy i don't trust is me because because it's true yeah and so i really

00:29:19.120 admire your honesty you seem like you're coming at this as honestly as you possibly can but i

00:29:26.640 anyway whatever i have a lot of thoughts but um i don't mean to interrupt you so um you what would

00:29:32.960 happen if people lived forever yeah why would that be good i mean the accumulated sadness of life is hard

00:29:39.520 to take you talk to do you talk to old people at all i do yeah and so there is like ships in a harbor

00:29:45.520 barnacles yeah attach and the weight of that over time becomes immense yeah and you know memories

00:29:51.680 and there's just a lot in the human life that um is hard and again it accumulates and so

00:29:59.760 why would you want to extend that so imagine we travel back in time one million years yes and

00:30:06.080 we're hanging out with homo erectus yes they have an axe in their hand yes and we say where's shelter 1.00

00:30:12.000 where's food and where's danger we listen if we say now wax poetic on the future of our of the species

00:30:21.360 what is the future of intelligence we laugh they have nothing to say about computers

00:30:27.680 or the internet or that there's a microscopic world or how large the universe is they have no idea

00:30:33.920 and in this moment if we contemplate that we may be just as primitive as homo erectus 0.77

00:30:41.840 we think we are at the apex of intelligence is that true we're giving birth to super intelligence could

00:30:47.600 that intelligence relative to us make us caveman like in a similar fashion or more so and this is what

00:30:55.920 i'm saying in this moment it's a absolute invitation for humility that we may know nothing about existence

00:31:06.880 or very little or that what's coming our way may transform existence to ways we can't even fathom

00:31:12.400 that that's how significant that's how significant the change is going to be

00:31:17.520 in the coming years and decades it's unfathomable to us

00:31:31.040 so this is one of those interesting conversations i've had in a while because you're saying things

00:31:34.480 that i think are almost beautiful in their wisdom this is an invitation to humility yes all of life is

00:31:41.040 an invitation to humility that's the root of wisdom and the root of happiness but then your conclusion is

00:31:46.160 let's live forever no but no no the conclusion is don't die that's it that that is the sole

00:31:56.240 objective and so i want to live tomorrow i've got stuff going on tomorrow i'm excited about tomorrow

00:32:01.120 yeah so it's not to live forever it's this because we understand things on these short time frames and

00:32:07.360 you know humans will do things like a person doesn't want to die when walking across the street

00:32:12.880 but they'll smoke a cigarette while doing so i've done it yeah so we have these really weird

00:32:18.160 behaviors but we we don't want to die just not now yeah i just i wish and i'll stop with this but i just

00:32:25.040 wish we had a better handle on why we have those impulses i feel like it's very hard to proceed with

00:32:30.320 any assumption at all until we understand what just happened or why what's happening now why we're acting

00:32:34.400 the way that we are and if we don't have a consensus on why people hurt themselves

00:32:38.400 pretty hard to make any future plans at all based on human behavior i do wonder though if you if we

00:32:45.600 could actually look at a self-destruction score across time you know would our time and place

00:32:52.320 have a disproportionately high level because of how effective food companies are at a thickness there's

00:32:59.280 no question how good drug companies are making drugs and how you know social media that that we

00:33:03.840 basically are in this dystopic yes capture it's totally true of self-destruction it's a hundred

00:33:09.440 percent true of course i mean i'm only i'm not that much older than you are we both grew up in a

00:33:13.040 country that was nowhere near this self-destructive i mean you grew up in a mormon community in utah

00:33:16.960 not particularly self-destructive people actually right and i mean that's a high compliment

00:33:21.200 but the whole country was less self-destructive of course we respond to our circumstances our

00:33:25.680 environment and animals do too you cage them they kill each other i mean i get it yeah

00:33:30.240 but the impulse may be exacerbated in certain periods by the environment but the impulse is

00:33:37.360 constant through time yeah okay so let's ask this through another frame here's a thought experiment for

00:33:42.800 you so if you had access to an algorithm that could give you the best physical mental and spiritual health

00:33:52.000 of your life but in exchange for that you needed to follow the algorithm suggestions go to bed on time

00:33:58.080 when it said go to bed when it said eat what it said would you say yes or would you say no of course

00:34:04.160 i would say no i'm not getting bossed around by a machine sorry and i also don't think that any any

00:34:09.280 philosophy that doesn't include god can improve my spiritual health because like what does that even

00:34:12.800 mean what does that mean actually how can how can your spiritual health improve if you don't

00:34:17.680 acknowledge the supernatural yes i've been i've been holding dinners at my house for the past couple

00:34:22.720 years i get 10 to 12 people together and i pose this question and then we have a two and a half hour

00:34:29.520 dialogue about the future of existence and your response is perfect because you told me no way no

00:34:36.560 way you're doing it and you gave me a list of things i'm not letting the toaster oven boss me around

00:34:40.800 either it's not now so what's interesting is the next question i ask in this conversation is now imagine

00:34:46.640 the 21st century is observing our conversation right now and they observe your answers what do

00:34:53.120 they observe are the characteristics and morals and ethics of the early 21st century so it flips

00:34:58.800 people's mindset from the knee-jerk reaction of i hate this idea to being observational on what are

00:35:06.400 the characteristics of being human now and i do this because it is so hard to see time and place we look 0.98

00:35:13.360 at the 15th century right no i agree very clear and clean we're like oh they're idiots for this and 0.77

00:35:17.920 like maybe they were onto this but we have this blindness to ourselves in this moment yes and so 0.94

00:35:24.000 we have to do these thought experiments you have to tease yourself out very slowly people's responses

00:35:28.880 like they tell me they experience multiple existential crises in that dinner they did down they come back

00:35:35.840 up for air dip back down come back up it it's a really challenging experience because it challenges

00:35:41.520 everything you understand about existence do people keep accepting your dinner invitations i mean

00:35:46.960 that i'm going to eat at brian's house but have an existential crisis before the entree is served that's

00:35:51.600 a lot people say it's the one of if not the most consequential conversations of their entire life

00:36:01.680 well that doesn't surprise me actually because you you have one quality which i again really admire

00:36:06.560 which is your dedication to seeing things outside of your own the narrow tube that we all live in

00:36:12.640 yeah seeing the bigger picture and i love that i think it's so important and wonderful to hear it

00:36:18.400 you made a bunch of allusions to super intelligence presumably the ai we keep hearing about yeah and

00:36:24.960 since you're in that business and this is what you think about describe what that means exactly what is

00:36:30.480 what will ai mean how fast like in 10 years like specifically nobody knows what we do know is that

00:36:42.080 software can be programmed and mathematical functions can be organized to do things that we humans do and

00:36:50.000 they can do it much better and even do things that we humans can't do so um we've seen this where

00:36:55.440 they're getting i just took my first uh self-driving car ride in san francisco last week held it got

00:37:04.080 in entirely autonomous and that's a remarkable feat that is capable of driving a car it reads medical

00:37:11.280 imagery right it it um flies airplanes so we know algorithms are very good at doing many things

00:37:17.120 and they're getting better all the time and so what i'm observing is i'm saying that

00:37:22.320 ai is progressing at a at a speed that is impressive and maybe even unfathomable to how we can observe

00:37:29.920 it much faster that's right and it's doing these things that we humans do and it's going to increasingly

00:37:35.840 do those things and it will help us achieve our objectives so we're going to say yes to it

00:37:39.600 now when these algorithms become as good or better at being us than we are then it creates an invitation

00:37:46.240 to say who are we and that's what i'm saying is ai is going to create a series of existential crises for

00:37:53.760 the species it'd be basic ones like um do we trust our government who is in authority who verifies

00:38:02.160 identity all these basic things we've settled as society roughly it's going to call into question

00:38:08.400 everything in in at a speed that won't allow a cycle time to really fill it out and so we're going to

00:38:14.960 have this feeling of bewilderment where it's moving very fast we can't keep up how do we stop

00:38:19.840 ourselves from falling into anarchy now when that happened we happens we say what games we play as a

00:38:25.280 species what do we do and that's why i'm saying it's time to rally around this don't die concept

00:38:30.800 don't die individually don't kill each other don't kill the planet and align ai with don't die 0.65

00:38:36.000 that our singular objective is a species even though this sounds unimaginable right now like from our

00:38:41.680 vantage point that's like that's no way impossible you just look at the underlying characteristics of

00:38:46.960 how this is progressing to me it feels inevitable over some time frame is it two years to 10 years

00:38:52.560 to 20 50 i don't know but it's basically now i mean there's no question you're right if the

00:39:00.000 industrial revolution the steam-powered loom in england gave rise to marxism in the first and second world

00:39:06.720 wars and vietnam and korea and every other conflict for 100 years and the deaths of hundreds of millions

00:39:11.360 of people you know technological change yes causes displacement yes the fall of religions the fall of

00:39:20.240 empires the murder of millions so what way i do exactly right i couldn't agree more um i just

00:39:28.640 i just wonder like what does it mean to be a human being if you have no autonomy i'm an adult man what

00:39:39.360 does that mean it's not just a measure of my age it's a measure of my ability to make decisions about

00:39:46.240 what i want to do and what i think and how i live and how my family lives and so without that what is

00:39:51.200 the point of living yeah in other words i said i don't want to be bossed around by a machine which is

00:39:55.040 a pretty shallow answer but it's i i understand i didn't explain it because i don't fully understand

00:40:00.000 it yeah how i feel about it but something in my in my dog sense my gut level tells me i don't want to

00:40:06.720 live that life i'd rather be dead yeah does that make sense it absolutely does i absolutely empathize

00:40:12.720 with your reaction and so the thought experiment is to provoke that exact emotion it's meant to say

00:40:19.440 i hate this idea and here's all the reasons why yes and then once you get those on the table you can

00:40:24.960 then have some kind of detachment and say why do i think those things like what is this concept of

00:40:31.120 me making decisions let's just break that apart and that's why it takes two and a half hours to get

00:40:36.720 through this you need to hear other people's perspective i agree people need to say i hate

00:40:40.720 it some people say i love it and be like but hold tight like here's an example that you do already 0.92

00:40:45.680 that challenges your notion on this ability to make decisions you're like oh damn good point

00:40:50.000 so it it really takes time to work through your own beliefs and understandings because oftentimes

00:40:55.360 it's just packed so deep you can't get through it and we give each thought five seconds in our

00:41:01.440 modern society yes we can't get deep and so i understand your reaction and tucker if you come

00:41:06.080 to the dinner i promise you'll leave with a changed understanding of existence if this is not an easy

00:41:13.040 topic it really takes time to cycle through it to be open-minded to hear other people but um

00:41:19.360 everyone gets there like every single time everyone gets there um what do you serve is it all broccoli

00:41:26.560 i do serve blueprint food yeah so it's it's um the two dishes i told you about yeah well i'm getting

00:41:32.240 in and out before i come but whatever that's just me um so i said when when you asked like would

00:41:38.240 i be willing to follow the instructions of the algorithm and i blurted out without thinking about it

00:41:42.880 no yeah and then i admitted in the interest of honesty that i don't really have any reasons for

00:41:47.040 saying no other than my animal sense tells me no that's slavery you can't live like that you'd rather

00:41:53.200 be dead which is how i feel my that was my instinct speaking which i regard as a kind of co-equal

00:42:01.120 with my rational sense right i don't think it's just like some dumb impulse i think it's worth paying

00:42:07.360 attention to do you feel that way do you have instincts do you follow them do you attach meaning to

00:42:11.360 them i do um every time i engage in a thought i observe the first four to five thoughts my brain

00:42:21.760 has yes incorrect interesting they're usually almost almost almost always wrong and it's like there's a

00:42:28.480 bias attached to this one this one's coming out from a preconceived notion this one has you know like

00:42:32.720 some self-interest and so i i'm constantly trying to be aware of what's wrecking my ability to see

00:42:40.320 things clearly at all points in time and so um yeah i learned this i was chronically depressed for

00:42:47.360 a decade a decade a decade the decade that you were succeeding in business yeah that's right i was

00:42:53.200 building a startup i had three little babies i was trying to leave my religion i was in a challenging

00:42:57.920 relationship so it just all packed into a tight yeah and that's when i was overeating every night to

00:43:04.080 try to try to soothe my own what were you eating by the way my uh well we always had some sweets in

00:43:12.000 the house my partner had a sweet tooth and so it was always you know brownies or cookies or leftover cake

00:43:17.680 or so it was always like you know just one bite and then led to a second bite then tomorrow we'll work

00:43:25.120 out really hard and work off all the calories did that work it didn't i failed every single night

00:43:32.880 and i the only thing that gave me liberation is one night i was just desperate i mean i was so miserable

00:43:39.200 i hated myself i just i felt so ashamed that i couldn't stop this terrible

00:43:44.640 behavior i said evening brian you're fired you make my life miserable because in the morning i would

00:43:50.480 work out i would eat a really great breakfast all day i would be disciplined great and then

00:43:56.080 night time would come i would bathe the kids get them to bed tell them stories and then that moment

00:44:01.680 would come like the brownies you know just one bite of the brownies because this is like the mormon 1.00

00:44:08.080 version you know what i mean you're not like going to the crack house oh that's funny the whole stable 0.89

00:44:14.160 of hookers yeah you're eating the brownies yeah and so i i basically created a character of myself and 0.97

00:44:19.200 so i would say all right when i saw evening brian pull up and he'd give me all these really compelling 0.98

00:44:23.760 reasons like tonight's the last night you know like tomorrow morning we'll work out extra hard

00:44:28.720 and i'd say i'm sorry that's not going to happen so i fired him so 5 pm to 10 pm i remove my ability

00:44:34.880 to eat just like no matter what it doesn't matter what the occasion is you cannot eat food and so i

00:44:40.720 started playing with my different characters of brian dad brian work brian evening brian and i found it

00:44:46.720 really liberating that i'm not the behavior i'm not that actual practice and so this is what i

00:44:51.440 started doing blueprint as well if i could i construct an algorithm that actually improved

00:44:56.720 me because i spent all day building technology in my company braindrieve mo you would write the code

00:45:02.240 and the technology and improve it and then you'd improve it again and again version two version three

00:45:07.280 version four so all day my technology got better and every day i got worse and i couldn't fix my own

00:45:14.640 problems and it was such a weird juxtaposition where technology is improving radically and i'm

00:45:19.840 getting worse so it's like this difference and i thought this is wild that as a species we're so

00:45:25.920 focused on the improvement our technology and we are this self-destructive species in every regard

00:45:32.560 like what is happening well that's the question that's the unanswered the question that remains

00:45:38.320 unanswered and of course every religion answers it very neatly and sensibly i would say and every

00:45:44.160 religion always has and it does strike me if you're looking back into history that this is the only 0.99

00:45:50.000 period post-war post-world war ii where you've had a society at scale that assumes that there's nothing

00:45:55.440 beyond itself and so that raises a lot of questions but the first is like why did every previous

00:46:00.960 generation assume there was a god but we don't like were they all insane like where did that come

00:46:04.800 from you know if someone believes in god or not or an afterlife or not that's great like i don't

00:46:10.880 think i personally think everyone come together on this uh it's we already agree on don't die all of us

00:46:18.960 do so whether we have a story about what happens in the afterlife what it doesn't really matter what

00:46:24.160 we do agree upon right now is none of us want to die right now not in this moment so let's build

00:46:30.400 upon what we agree upon in this very second no i i don't know that we do agree actually because

00:46:36.000 there's no meaning without a power beyond ourself is there i mean there's only this sort of like

00:46:42.480 shallow silly or sets meaning that we attach to various things like sex or living longer or feeling

00:46:47.680 good or whatever but there's no meaning beyond our physical momentary experience whereas

00:46:52.800 a person who acknowledges a power beyond himself attaches ultimate moral meaning yeah two events

00:47:02.080 right so like you have a like no god no meaning or am i missing something it's like what's the point

00:47:08.640 yeah you know what i mean yeah i mean we

00:47:12.560 i guess i try to speak in the world um that i can operate practically and so your thought of meaning

00:47:25.520 is a biochemical process in your brain it's a thought you have it's a biochemical state you experience

00:47:30.880 whether it's love or whether it's meaning making or whether it's belief in death you're experiencing this

00:47:35.600 thing as a human we can engineer this with predictability we can engineer atoms and molecules

00:47:43.360 and organisms we can do this in the form of creating drugs today we do this in the way of creating you

00:47:48.480 know um various medicines we do this in creating implants like we're getting increasingly good at doing

00:47:54.160 this and so much of our reality is going to become increasingly engineered so we know and so we're heading down

00:48:01.920 this path where our digital reality our physical reality all realities now we have the source code

00:48:10.080 to do this and this is why i'm saying that if you take any preconceived notion about being human

00:48:15.920 any ideas we have about reality their representation of what we've been doing for thousands of years

00:48:21.840 some of that may carry over but maybe not and so i'm inviting the conversation to say

00:48:27.760 this moment is not like the previous moments right very very different but but here's here's the

00:48:34.720 practical um and i just want to restate i respect what you're saying and i think you seem really honest

00:48:40.320 and open-minded so this is in no way a slight but the but the core problem however is that in a moment of

00:48:46.960 technological change really revolution unimaginable everything you said sounds right to me

00:48:51.760 you need a framework by which or with the help of which you make important practical decisions we

00:48:59.280 used to call them moral decisions yes so if there's no acknowledged power beyond people

00:49:05.600 or only the power that we create through these machines and there are giant data centers um

00:49:11.440 then how can we say if i feel like killing you yeah because it pleases me right how can we oppose that

00:49:19.600 how can we say that's wrong we can't actually say that's wrong we can say it's inconvenient or it's

00:49:24.080 you know detracts from gdp or it's unhelpful but we can't say it's wrong yeah how could we

00:49:29.440 yep right i agree so we've we basically we've settled many of these questions today like if you

00:49:36.720 want to kill somebody and you actually do it there's consequences but why uh it's the way we've resolved

00:49:42.640 the moral and ethical question in our society on what basis agreed but we've solved it somehow we

00:49:47.440 haven't solved it it was just like the government has said you can't kill people right but by your

00:49:51.920 own description governments are going away clearly they are i don't even think they really exist now

00:49:56.640 what are countries it's meaningless right i agree of course so um so like some dude in a far away

00:50:02.960 city says i can't do that well says who yeah so i doesn't have any meaning at all except the extent

00:50:07.840 you can punish me because you feel like it and but but there's no way to say it is wrong or right

00:50:14.800 in an absolute sense there's no way to say anything is wrong or right in an absolute sense

00:50:18.080 yeah okay i agree uh what you're saying is um what i'm hearing you say is the technological

00:50:24.080 revolution or disruption opens up the space for these questions to be asked anew even though we

00:50:29.440 don't even know where it came from in the beginning no what i'm saying is we're gonna have a lot more

00:50:33.760 questions practical questions about how to proceed that need to be answered now yes and without any

00:50:42.160 authority above ourselves on what basis are we going to answer those i see okay okay this is what

00:50:47.120 i am proposing is that just like when america was founded yes it was this concept of hey the monarchy

00:50:54.480 has been doing its thing for quite some time not great we think we can do this really new weird thing

00:51:00.480 of democracy and vote people in we have these two representative bodies and half the people thought

00:51:05.760 that's insane half the body's like kind of cool let's try it so we chose democracy as a form of

00:51:10.480 governance that was supposedly better than the monarch and so in that moment we chose a new form of

00:51:16.720 governance in trying to do that now we've been trying to solve the thorny questions of democracy

00:51:23.360 for over 200 years in fact we fight about it every single day right but it's still this basic idea that

00:51:30.000 democracy was superior to monarchy and what i'm suggesting right now is we are walking into a new

00:51:37.440 phase of existence where we have to answer these questions anew and we don't know what the answer

00:51:44.560 is but the the foundational observation is don't die so don't die individually don't kill each other

00:51:50.320 don't kill the planet align ai with don't die after that we're going to spend the next unknown period of

00:51:55.680 time fighting about what it means to don't die but as a species if you take if you birth artificial

00:52:03.280 intelligence what do you use it for is it to become better at war do you become better at killing

00:52:17.280 look i couldn't agree with your conclusions more i mean i strongly agree with them i'm just wondering

00:52:21.360 about the basis upon which you reach them and so without god how can we say and why would we say

00:52:30.240 that life is better than death i mean the religious person the christian says life is better than death

00:52:34.800 because god creates life and only he can and by the way that's still true we could for all the

00:52:39.200 tinkering we do to life we can't create it there's no evidence we'll ever be able to create it so that's

00:52:44.160 might be a tell that we're not god right there um in my view but you can disagree but we still can't

00:52:49.520 create it and there's no evidence we'll ever be able to so the christian looks at this and says

00:52:52.960 life is better than death because life is god's creation but why would the the atheist accept that 0.99

00:53:00.320 is true on what basis life is better because i've got an awesome life some person might say i've got a

00:53:06.240 shitty life like death is better like i don't understand if there's no common agreement that there's

00:53:12.160 a force beyond ourselves why we would reach that conclusion yeah or yeah maybe reframed it's a person's

00:53:18.640 option to life that that they can choose whether they want to have that or not whereas right now

00:53:24.720 death is inevitable we don't get to choose we don't get to choose disease or death right okay

00:53:29.840 so it's the option two so in many ways i'm currently working to create a don't die nation state so if you

00:53:37.520 are if you're serious about not dying and this again not for immortality but just for the purpose of

00:53:43.840 we're at the dawn of a new era as a species and we're going to try to create some stable structure

00:53:50.000 for birthing super intelligence yes then you can walk into that and no government in the world is

00:53:56.320 helping its citizens not die really basic things like blood draws and therapies and medical care

00:54:03.360 it's very much treat the symptoms when they arise or when you're near end of life let's keep you alive for

00:54:08.720 some short duration time but otherwise we don't do a good job and so i'm trying to figure out

00:54:14.640 how to create a new societal structure that has the sole objective a nation state of helping its

00:54:20.320 citizens not die um well of course the first order of business would be to construct a military to defend

00:54:27.360 yourselves against people who wanted to kill you anyway because not everyone agrees uh that you should

00:54:33.200 get to live of course but yeah yeah so but let me ask you like maybe there's a shortcut to all this

00:54:39.440 and i i so admire your energy and your willingness to think about questions that most people don't

00:54:45.120 bother to think about but can feel are important yeah everything you've said i can feel it's important

00:54:49.360 like this is not nonsense what you're saying at all but why wouldn't it just be a lot easier to

00:54:57.680 blow up all the processing centers save ourselves like the massive

00:55:01.920 climate change inducing energy draw that ai really is if you're worried about the planet 0.78

00:55:05.920 we got to stop this crap immediately because we can't we can't generate the power for it

00:55:09.680 and arrest everyone who's getting rich imposing this revolution on the world like what that's a lot 0.99

00:55:16.080 easier yeah you could do that with in an afternoon with nuclear weapons and why wouldn't you if you

00:55:20.400 thought it would help us quote not yeah yeah i mean the the systems we have as a society today

00:55:27.520 enables those things are like the ability to create a corporation to make money to use that money to

00:55:35.600 acquire more power these are systems that humans have created it's how the world was sure and what

00:55:42.080 it was auschwitz i mean so so what i'm saying is that um ai is going to improve at a speed that's

00:55:50.720 going to challenge how these how these structures are i couldn't agree more and when that happens

00:55:56.720 there's going to be an opening there's going to be a power vacuum and we're not it's not going to be

00:56:01.840 very clear anymore who's in charge yes who has authority who can verify identity where can you keep

00:56:09.520 money is money secure yes all these basic questions of society and so what i'm suggesting is as a

00:56:15.920 species we increase our probability of surviving if we can rally around one thing that we can all agree

00:56:24.560 upon now that don't die if we disagree one layer above great i get it i totally get it but and i hate

00:56:32.000 to like reduce everything to the if you could kill baby hitler would you but it is sort of a question like

00:56:36.080 that because like you would not disagree if i said here's what we know we know that ai is likely to

00:56:43.200 spawn some improvements also certain to kill millions of people millions will die because

00:56:46.960 of this and there's any doubt about it the chaos alone right will cause that i'd bet my house on that

00:56:52.000 that's going to happen why let that happen want to just strangle this puppy in the crib like seriously 1.00

00:56:58.480 what why wouldn't you as a rich guy fund a bunch of saboteurs to blow up the data centers 0.99

00:57:02.800 and to take out the people pushing this crap and to try and end it go full unabomber like honestly 0.97

00:57:06.880 why couldn't you justify that it would be a question who what path do you think creates a higher 0.98

00:57:18.640 probability of survival do we think that technology or do we think we humans are a better path i mean for

00:57:27.760 example i look at my own self-destructive behaviors and not trusting myself do we really think that we

00:57:34.480 humans are trustworthy to chart a path where we survive ourselves i don't know i mean it's that's

00:57:41.920 it's of course hard to know potentially not for sure and i definitely don't trust myself as noted

00:57:46.960 but i have a soul and a machine doesn't and so that gives me kind of an advantage i would say a moral

00:57:51.840 advantage over the machine and therefore i'm a preferable father for example to my children

00:57:57.520 than my ipad would be yeah because i have a soul and the ipad doesn't and so but again just as a but

00:58:03.440 that's a theological distinction but as a practical matter like there's no way you can look into the

00:58:10.080 camera and say ai is not likely to kill millions of people because you know that it is the effect of

00:58:14.240 it will kill people for sure the displacement that you described the power vacuum you described the

00:58:18.720 chaos that you described correctly you're predicting that's all that's real in my view so millions will

00:58:24.000 die because of that so why wouldn't you just take your money and try to blow it up in the name of

00:58:31.680 saving millions i think the probabilities of our survival are higher with ai oh even though millions will die

00:58:42.080 uh i don't accept the premise you don't you really don't i really don't um uh you know like uh millions

00:58:50.080 are dying because of the food industry yeah millions are dying because of environmental toxins uh millions

00:58:56.240 are dying because uh it's certainly death is happening at a societal scale for a lot of things

00:59:03.200 that we humans are doing now sometimes it's not born of malice like we're just trying to improve i agree

00:59:07.200 i totally agree with everything you just yeah that's all true yeah but i think this is back to

00:59:11.440 your statement though tucker um so you actually think ai so i i think i've misread what you were

00:59:16.960 saying i thought you were saying this historically transformative thing is about to happen and we've

00:59:22.880 got to prepare ourselves for it and the implication would be that's a kind of bad and scary thing but

00:59:27.440 you're saying actually for all the displacement and suffering it's going to cause it's still better than

00:59:31.120 if we didn't have it exactly and i'm and i'm specifically i'm saying that when i listen to

00:59:36.560 what the world is saying so we're giving birth to the super intelligence what do we do the only

00:59:42.080 argument i've heard is universal basic income well that's that's just childish like that's it's not a

00:59:48.160 solution that we have that's the midwit solution that's the i'm running for president as the fake

00:59:52.480 smart tech guy maybe we should have ubi okay we have no plan we've given no thought i agree and we

00:59:59.440 don't even know we can't even uh fully comprehend how big of a problem this is and on what scale

01:00:04.880 and so what i'm trying to do is get out in front of this to say it's big it's serious and wait a

01:00:10.400 second you're contradicting yourself brian johnson you just said a minute ago you think it'll be an

01:00:15.360 improvement over what we currently have yes okay but then you're saying a sentence later that it's such

01:00:21.200 a huge problem that we need to like mobilize all forces to fix it it's a problem because it's going to

01:00:27.600 create chaos among humans yeah and humans in uncertain circumstances are very dangerous i

01:00:34.800 totally agree and so what i'm suggesting is if you are if we're trying to improve the likelihood that

01:00:40.960 we survive as a species that we do our children do their children do and i'm trying to say how do we

01:00:47.280 optimize that then yes but i still just want to go back to like why not save ourselves i mean there's

01:00:52.320 something sort of classically american or western or overfed too much money passive the society that

01:00:59.840 i live in and all of us live in we're just like well it's gonna happen it's like why doesn't somebody

01:01:05.280 stop it yeah why even go through all this drama these are just machines like let's go full luddite

01:01:12.000 and just take them out i'm serious and arrest these creepy people who are trying to impose this

01:01:17.120 dystopia on our yeah children so there's another way i understand what you're saying there's another

01:01:22.160 way to think about it though it doesn't include blowing up data centers and arresting these people

01:01:27.920 i mean okay so let's just say at what point in time have humans known all things so we walk back through

01:01:37.120 history and say what did humans know then um and what do we know now and there's been a track record of

01:01:44.880 we haven't known all things in fact we've known a very shallow set of things like even if you said

01:01:51.200 how big is reality a few hundred years ago you wouldn't be able to say oh there's a microscopic

01:01:56.240 world down to you know the nanoscale and beyond there's this big universe on this scale at this size

01:02:02.160 you you wouldn't say there's an electromagnetic world that's a trillion times bigger than what we can

01:02:07.040 see you wouldn't be able to say reality is like trillions of times bigger than what we experience

01:02:11.680 and so if you say what could our conscious experience be what could existence be

01:02:19.280 in a few decades it may be orders of magnitude larger than what we have now so i realize we come

01:02:25.680 at this now with this fear response we're saying we can pattern things that we've seen but going forward

01:02:32.160 we may be cavemen and have no idea what we're talking about

01:02:39.600 right i mean i think that's where we are now we don't have any idea what we're talking about we

01:02:44.320 can't anticipate the future we're limited in our foresight and our knowledge and particularly our

01:02:48.640 wisdom completely agree with all of that but the idea that harnessing the computing power of machines

01:02:56.720 will inform us to a greater degree ignores what just happened over the last 30 years where

01:03:01.040 everyone now has the encyclopedia britannica which as we used to call it in his pocket in the form of

01:03:06.080 an iphone where all human information is available and like people are way more ignorant than they were

01:03:09.680 30 years ago yeah and moreover the machine any machine we create will never be able to answer the

01:03:14.960 questions that actually matter like why is my wife mad at me or how that's not that no machine can ever

01:03:21.040 determine that and with certainty and or even explain like how does life begin so right well

01:03:27.920 i can ai answer can ai tell me why my wife is mad at me yes i mean you yeah come on you you give it

01:03:34.320 some time and you're going to get a readout of here's her hormone levels here's her biochemical state 1.00

01:03:39.920 this is her sleep score this is her diet here's her exercise protocol tucker given these variables

01:03:45.680 here's the best course of that that's the mechanistic answer that it create but but it

01:03:51.040 translates to tucker what would be nice is right words of encouragement and of softness and of

01:03:56.320 inquiring how how sure but again that's mecca i mean i guess i guess we're back to where we started

01:04:02.640 and i'll stop at this before i make reservations to come to your house for a broccoli dinner and

01:04:06.800 have five existential crises before the dessert there's no dessert right there's no dessert

01:04:10.880 uh i'll come anyway but anyway the point is this ignores an entire universe which may be the most

01:04:19.440 important universe which is the spiritual universe and every civilization that left any trace of itself

01:04:28.800 has believed in that universe but for the last 80 years we haven't and we're proceeding into the

01:04:33.600 future on the basis of no belief in that and it seems like you ignore like questions of right and wrong

01:04:39.040 of sin and virtue yeah of redemption like all those totally missing and that plays a role too it's

01:04:45.440 not just how much exercise did you get how many hours did you sleep what you eat feelings are not

01:04:50.880 just the result of biochemical processes they're the result of forces that yeah exist outside of us no

01:04:56.160 spiritual forces unseen forces i agree with you and this may be the most spectacular spiritual existence

01:05:03.600 in our history like this is absolutely like you and i have the same conscious experience of reality we may

01:05:09.440 have different ideas about reality but we experience it in a very similar way and what i'm suggesting is

01:05:14.720 the promise of this time and point is we may be on the cusp of the most spectacular existence in this

01:05:22.480 part of the galaxy we don't know that intelligent lives lives anywhere in the galaxy we can't find it

01:05:28.320 maybe it does maybe it doesn't we're the only life we can see and we're now giving birth to super

01:05:33.920 intelligence this moment may be the time to set aside our petty little things and say really it's us in

01:05:41.920 this moment and we get to experience a spiritual nature that is just mind-boggling this is our

01:05:47.600 moment well why is there any i'm so rooting for the future you describe i really am i just speaking

01:05:55.440 you said at the outset that you were no longer a believer because there's no evidence which i think

01:05:59.680 is a fair thing to say i just i disagree but i i respect your evidence-based standard okay um where's the

01:06:07.440 evidence that technology has ever brought people closer together has ever done anything but enable

01:06:14.320 people to be people which is to use it in part for good ends you know better food more food and evil

01:06:21.600 ends nuclear weapons yeah like i i just don't think that there's any evidence for what you're saying

01:06:27.440 yeah it's because humans have been playing the game die so it's not that technology has virtue or is

01:06:35.200 without virtue technology is neutral humans have used it for their purposes of war and power

01:06:42.720 acquisition and wealth what we've always been doing and that's what i'm suggesting that's what

01:06:48.000 we need to eliminate from society the causes of death and that includes warfare it includes fast food it

01:06:55.840 includes all the things we do to ourselves and to each other and the planet but until we can account

01:07:00.480 for why we do it to ourselves we're probably not going to change it but i think the most obvious

01:07:04.800 explanation is we're being acted on by demons who's and this is how every religion i'm aware

01:07:10.160 of has described it correctly in my opinion yeah acts on my demons whose goal is to destroy and kill

01:07:15.600 people and they're counterbalanced by god but if you don't agree with that then you need to substitute

01:07:22.640 another explanation in its place in order to proceed in the hope that we can change otherwise we're just in

01:07:28.720 this cycle with more powerful technology that allows us to do the same evil things but at a greater scale

01:07:34.320 i mean am i not a demon are you not a demon you don't you don't seem like one i'm my my demon

01:07:41.120 assessment abilities aren't great i mean like have have we correctly labeled ourselves angels or the

01:07:49.520 good guys and incorrectly labeled the demons the bad actors am i not the demon i i don't know i i guess

01:07:57.040 what i'm um i mean you know you know it's all in the definition but i guess the the core observation

01:08:03.280 remains the same which is people are subject to forces outside of themselves which are unseen

01:08:08.720 not all this is the product of sleep cycles or or carbon take or maybe it is i don't i don't see any

01:08:15.200 evidence of that because it's remained constant throughout all time that we're aware of this pattern

01:08:20.960 has never changed and it's existed in times when people are getting massive amounts of aerobic exercise

01:08:25.120 because they had to walk through the fields all day when they were eating no carbs and they were

01:08:29.120 hunter gatherers or whatever it's like it's always been true so like what's why what's your guess

01:08:37.760 well my certainty is that we are being acted on by spiritual forces that we cannot see

01:08:43.120 that there is a war going on all around us out of our sight not perceived by our senses most of the time

01:08:48.960 between good and evil yeah and and i'm that's hardly an original insight i'm with you so what you're

01:08:56.560 with me i'm with you what what i heard you say is there's more to reality than we can see yes there's

01:09:02.560 forces which we can identify and we should address those we're on the same page after the same thing

01:09:09.600 what are those forces yeah that's what i'm saying that's what we need to figure out that's the whole

01:09:13.600 objective of this endeavor is to identify what we cannot see and reconcile with and eliminate the

01:09:21.120 forces that deteriorate our life experience well in all this capacity spiritual physical all of it

01:09:31.680 we're saying the same thing after the same it's gonna take me a day to process that it does

01:09:37.440 brian johnson i will see you at dinner great thank you for that conversation i really appreciate it

01:09:43.600 what's going on

The Tucker Carlson Show - April 05, 2024

Bryan Johnson

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