Transcript for #2117 - Ray Kurzweil

This is he sir. Great to see you. I was thin Tony before I'm admiring your suspenders and you told me you have how many pairs of these things? Three of them. Yep.

Why do you like suspenders? Um... practicality thing.

I see. So it's just another style point.

I don't know. I would have not noticed. I only noticed because you were here. I'm not really a suspender-efficient auto. But the reason why I'm asking is because you're basically a technologist. I mean, you know a lot about technology when you think that suspenders are kind of outdated tech.

So the ones that you have, these are, right here, these are hand painted?

Interesting. Okay. So that's part of it. So you're wearing art. Exactly. Got it.

Yeah, that was one of your many inventions. That was the first one, yeah. So why did you go about doing that? What was your desire to create artificial intelligence music?

It wasn't as good then. What are the capabilities now? Because now they can use some pre-extraordinary things.

Well one of the main arguments against AI art comes from actual artists who are upset that with essentially they're doing is they're like you could say right draw a paint or create a painting the style of Frank for Zetta for instance and what it would be would be they would take all of for Zetta's work that he's ever done which is all documented on the internet and then you create an image that's representative of that. So you're essentially in one way or another. You're kind of taking from the art.

Which is the best image generated right now, Jamie?

Bid journey is incredibly impressive. Incredibly impressive graphics. I've seen some of the mid journey stuff. It's mind blowing. And it'll not quite as good. Not but boys. It's so much better than it was five years ago. That's what scary. Yeah.

And what would that look like if it, if it, if it can get to a certain point it will far exceed what human creativity is capable of?

Right. Well, that's already been proven, right, that they have invented moves. AI has invented moves that have now been implemented by humans. Right. In a very complex game that they never thought that AI was going to be able to be because it requires so much creativity.

That's it, 2029. That's just a few years away.

Yeah, I've heard that, but I think people are amending those. Is it because human beings have a very difficult time grasping the concept of exponential growth?

Is this chart available online so we can show people? Yeah, it's in the book, but is it available online? That chart where Jamie can pull it up and someone could see it. Just so the folks watching the podcast could see it too. But I could just hold it up to the camera.

You have it, okay, great. Jamie, you have it. Yeah, the calm is insane.

Because the implementation of solar panels and the like has the the function of it increased exponentially as well the function of because it whatever had understood was that there was a bottleneck in the technology as far as how much you could extract from the sun from those panels.

The person who told me that was Elon, and Elon was telling me that this is the reason why you can't have a fully solar powered electric car, because it's not capable of absorbing that much from the sun with a small panel like that. He said there's a physical limitation in the panel size.

The concept was, like, could you make a solar paneled car? A car that has solar panels on the roof, and would that be enough to power the car? And he said, no, he said it's just not really there yet.

You think so? Yeah, he seemed to doubt that. He thought that there's a limitation of the amount of energy you can get from the sun period, how much it gives out, and how much the solar panels can absorb.

Right, so you wouldn't just be able to drive indefinitely on solar power. Yeah, that was what he was saying. But you can obviously power a house, and especially if you have a roof, the Tesla has those solar power grooves now.

All renewable in 10 years. So what are they going to do with all these nuclear plants and coal power plants?

So in 10 years, you'll be able to power Los Angeles with sun and wind. Yes, really. I was not aware that we were anywhere near that kind of timeline.

So the exponential growth also of the grid? Because just to pull the amount of power that you would need to charge, you know, x amount of million, if everyone has an electric vehicle by 2035, let's say then, just the amount of change you would need on the grid would be pretty substantial.

Yeah. I wasn't aware. I had this impression that there was a problem with that, and especially in Los Angeles, they've actually asked people at certain times when it's not a charger.

Is the bottleneck battery technology and how closer they to solving some of these problems with like conflict minerals and the things that we need in order to power these batteries?

Wow. Most people don't think that. So you're thinking that based on this idea that people don't have a limit of the computation we grow like this.

We had a Sam Altman on one of the things that he and I were talking about was that AI figured out a way to lie, that they used AI to go through a capture system, and the AI told the system that it was vision impaired, which is not technically a lie, but it used it to bypass the RU or robot.

So AI hallucination. So they cannot be wrong.

Oh, wow. That's interesting.

Right. Like, in particular, like, say when it comes to exploration of the universe, if there's a certain amount of, I mean, vast amount of the universe we have not explored. So if it has to answer questions about that, it would come to the answer.

Hmm. That's interesting. But that would be a real problem if someone was counting on the AI to have a solution for something too soon. Right.

What about the idea that AI models are influenced by ideology? That AI models have been programmed with certain ideologies?

generally. When it comes to this idea that people enter information into a computer and then the computer relies on an ideology, do you anticipate that with artificial general intelligence that will be agnostic to ideology that will be able to reach a point where instead of deciding things based on social norms or whatever the culture is accepted currently that it would look at things more objectively and rationally.

So that's what's holding us back is data and storage.

That's a fun thing to say hallucinations in terms of artificial intelligence.

So for machines when they start testing medications with machines, how will they audit that? So the concept will be that you take into account biological variability, all the different factors that would lead to a person to have an adverse reaction to a certain compound, and then you program all the known data about how things interact with the body.

And then because I'm up with like a number of how many people will be adversely affected by something.

And then advocacy based on age.

But the question wouldn't be like who's in charge of that data and like how does that, how does it get resolved and what, if, if artificial intelligence is still prone to hallucinations and they start using those hallucinations to justify medications, I could be a bit of an issue, especially if it's controlled by a corporation that wants to make a lot of money.

So we'll have to come, there's going to have to be a point in time where we all decide that artificial intelligence has reached this place where we can trust it implicitly.

When you look at artificial intelligence, and you look at the expansion of it, and the ultimate place that it will eventually be, what do you see happening inside of our lifetime, like inside of 20 years? What kind of revolutionary changes on society with this half?

So by 2020-29, you'll be static.

Can I be a baby again?

Right. So you'll be able to go essentially go back and biological age, lengthening of the telomeres, changing the elasticity of the skin.

But overall, there'd be an expansion of the exact moment that most people die.

When I talked to you 10 years ago, you were telling me about this pretty extensive supplement routine that you're on.

No. Why do that, right?

You look good. You look good for 76, man. That's great. That's what's doing something.

And so your goal is to get to that point where they start doing the, you live a year, you stay static, and then eventually get back to youthfulness.

That's all right. Of course. Now pass that. This is for life extension, which is great. But what about how AI is going to change society?

The idea of us getting smarter sounds great. Great. It'd be great to be smarter.

Well, I think people have reservations always when it comes to great change. And this is probably the greatest change. The greatest change we've ever experienced in our lifetimes for sure has been the internet. And this will make that look like nothing. It'll change everything. And it seems inevitable. I understand that people are upset about it, but it just seems like what human beings were sort of designed to do.

And it's over here. It's on the screen. It should we make a lot more money, but things cost a lot more money too, right?

The constant dollars. The constant dollars in relation to the inflation.

So if you remember, it doesn't take into account inflation, correct? So it's not taking into account the rise of cost of things. No, it is taking into account.

I wonder if there's a similar chart about consumerism, just about material possessions. I wonder if like how much more we're purchasing and creating. I've always felt like that's one of the things that materialism is one of those instincts that human beings sort of look down upon and this aimless pursuit of buying things. But I feel like that motivates technology because The constant need for the newest greatest thing is one of the things that fuels the creation and innovation of new things.

You wouldn't have anything. You would have most things you've grown accustomed to.

That takes into account child mortality too though, right? But it's also injuries death. Some people did live long, like there's people that live back then, if nothing happened to you, you did live to be 80 like a normal person.

I mean, because most of us happen to people. Most people by the time you get to 80, you've had at least one hospital visit. Something's gone wrong. Broken arm, broken this, broken that.

But the human body was physically capable of doing it. Right.

That's the groundbreaking work today, right? They're treating disease or excuse me age as if it is a disease.

Why does it get older? Yeah, exactly. They're forced into it. The concept of artificial general intelligence scares a lot of people also because of Hollywood, right? Because the Terminator films and things along those lines, like, how far away are we do think from actual artificial humans or will we ever get there? Will we integrate before that takes place?

And there's probably some technologies down the pipe that are going to have a similar impact.

But are they going to create life?

What I think is that human beings are some sort of a biological caterpillar that makes a cocoon that gives birth to an electronic butterfly. I think we are creating a life form and that we're merely conduits for this thing and that all of our instincts and ego and emotions and all these things feed into it, materials and feeds into it. We keep buying and keep innovating. And technology keeps increasing exponentially. And eventually, it's going to be artificial intelligence. And artificial intelligence is going to create better artificial intelligence and a form of being that has no limitations in terms of what's capable of doing. And capable of traveling anywhere, but not having any biological limitations in terms of.

With an integration of technology. If we choose to go that route but that's the prediction that you have that we will go that route like a neural link type deal something along those lines that I don't see this competition

Well, there's an issue now with films. Tyler Perry owns and it was building an $800 million television studio and he'd stop production when he said, what is it called, Sora? Is that what's called Jamie? He stopped production when he saw the capabilities of AI to just for creating visuals, scenes, movies. There's one that's incredibly impressive. It's Tokyo. They're walking down the street of Tokyo in the winter. So it's snowing and they're walking down the street and you look at it, you know, this is insane. This looks like a film, see if you can find that film. Because it's incredible.

No. No, I don't want to get rid of the capability. But people do people that make movies. People that actually film things with cameras and use actors are going to be very upset. So this, this is all fake. which is insane, beautiful snowy Tokyo city is bustling the camera moves through the bustling city street, following several people enjoying the beautiful snowy weather and shopping at nearby stalls. Gorgeous to core petals are flying through the wind along with snowflakes. And this is what you get. I mean, this is insanely good. The variability, like just the way people are dressed, if you saw this somewhere else, look at this, a robot's life in a cyberpunk setting. If you saw this, You would say, oh, they filmed this, but just looking but they're able to do with animation and kids movies and things almost not.

So right there, the smoke looks a little uniform.

And you imagine what it was like five years ago, and then imagine what it's going to be like five years ago. Absolutely. And it's insane. We know one took in a consideration. The idea that kids are going to be cheating on their school papers using chat GPT, but my kids tell me that's a real problem in school now.

So no one saw that coming, no one saw this coming, and what we're at now is what chat GPD-4, right? 4.5, so what is it? Well, 4.5 is coming. 4.5 is coming. 5 is supposed to be the massive leap.

Right. It'll keep going. And it will also be able to make better versions of itself, correct?

Right. But if you scale that out a hundred years from now, what are you looking at? You're looking at a God.

I mean, so you're looking at a God in 50 years?

And then it will make better versions of that. So it will probably solve a lot of the problems that we have in terms of energy storage, data storage, data speeds, computation speeds, and also medications.

Wouldn't be better just rain, just download yourself into this beautiful electronic body. Why do you want to be biological?

What's this top someone like Donald Trump from just making 100,000 versions of himself? I give you can back someone up. Could you duplicate it? Couldn't you have three or four of them? Couldn't you have a bunch of them? Couldn't you live multiple lives? Yes. Would you be interacting with each other while you're living multiple lives? Having consultations about what is St. Louis Ray doing? Well, I don't know. Let's talk to San Francisco Ray. San Francisco Ray is talking to Florida Ray.

Do you think there'll be regulations on that? To stop people from making 100,000 versions of themselves at Operator City?

Sure, but we don't really with phones. Like with your phone, you could essentially, if you had the money, you could make use of many copies of that as you wanted.

And when you get to a certain point, we will be electronics.

Right. When you think about the concept of integration and technological integration, when do you think that will start taking place and what will be the initial usage of it? Like what will be the first versions and what would they provide?

And if you look at what they can do, I mean, I'm talking about physical integration with a human body, like a neural-length type thing.

So something that like sits on the outside of your head?

Right, and they're doing that, right? They had the first patient, the first patient that was, yeah, and apparently that person can move a cursor around our screen.

But it's not going to increase exponentially as well. Yes, absolutely. So how long do you think it'll be before it's implemented?

And when you say 2045, what is the source of that estimation?

So this is just following the current graph of progress. Yeah, exactly. So if you follow the current graph of progress and if you do understand the exponential growth, then what we're looking at in 2045 is inevitable. Right. Does that concern you at all or you excited about it? Do you think it's just a thing that is happening in your part of it and you're experiencing it?

Not necessarily, but what people do say is that technology is too invasive. And it's too much a part of my life, and I'd like to sort of have a bit of an electronic vacation and separate from it. And there's a lot of people that I know that have gone to.

Right, but I'm not saying stupid. I'm saying some people just like being a human, the way humans are now. Because one of the complications also comes with the integration of technology is what we're seeing now with people. Massive increases anxiety, from social media use, be manipulated by algorithms. The effect that it has on culture, misinformation, and disinformation, propaganda. There's so many different factors that are at play now that make people more anxious and more depressed statistically than ever.

Well, we certainly had more when the Mongols were invading. We certainly had more anxiety when we were worried constantly about war. But I think people have a very heightened level.

Right, but we could. We most certainly could with what's going on with Israel and Gaza, what's going on with Ukraine and Russia, but it's easily escalate.

Yeah, but if it escalates to a hot war where it's involving the entire world,

Do you remember those things that they tell kids to get under the desk?

We went under the desk and put out which is hilarious as if a desk is going to protect you from a nuclear bomb

Right. No, but AI applied to nuclear weapons makes them significantly more dangerous. And isn't one of the problems with AI is that AI will find a solution to a problem. So if you have AI running your military and AI says, what do you want me to do? And you say, well, I'd like to take over Taiwan and AI says, well, this is how to do it. And it just implements it with no morals. No thought of any sort of diplomacy or just force.

Sure, if it has some sort of autonomy. But if we get to the point where one superpower has AI, artificial general intelligence, the other one doesn't, how much of a significant advantage with that being?

Right. But my question was, if there's a race to achieve AGI, how close is this race? Is it neck and neck? Who's at the lead? And how much capital is being put into these companies that are at the lead? And whoever achieves it first, If that is under the control of a government, it's completely dependent upon what are the morals and ethics of that government, what was the constitution? What if it happens in China? What if it happens in Russia? What if it happens somewhere other than the United States? And even if it does happen in the United States, who's controlling it?

So do you think essentially the competition is pretty even in all the countries currently? And there's also probably S.B. and S.B. and S.B. and S.B. and S.B. and S.B. and S.B. and S.B. and S.B. and S.B. and S.B. and S.B.

Right, but China has a way of figuring out what we're doing and copying it. Pretty good at that.

Yeah. So do you have any concern whatsoever in the idea that AI gets in the hands of the wrong people? So when it first gets implemented, that's the big problem. Before it exists, before artificial general intelligence really exists, it doesn't, and then it does, and who hasn't. And then once it does, can that AGI stop other people from getting it? Can you programming it? program it to make sure you can use sabotage grids. Can you do whatever you can to take down the internet and these opposing places? Could you inject their computations with viruses? What could you do to stop other people from getting to where you're at if you have an infinitely superior intelligence?

I'm worried about it. What is your main worry? I'm worried about the implementation of artificial intelligence. What's your main worry?

And what do you think that could look like if the wrong people got to hold this technology?

Mutual is short destruction. But the thing is, would artificial general intelligence, but that would not happen. Right. It has not happened yet. But would artificial general intelligence in the control of the wrong people negate that mutually assured destruction that keeps people from doing things? Obviously, we did drop bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We did. We did indiscriminately kill who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people with those weapons. We did it. and if human beings were capable of doing it because no one else had it, if artificial general intelligence reaches that sentient level and is in control of the wrong people, what's to stop them from doing, there's no mutually assured destruction if you're the one who's got it. You're the only one who's got it. And you possibly, my concern is that whoever gets it could possibly stop it from being spread everywhere else and control it completely. And then you're looking at a completely dystopian world.

Yeah, that's why, because that's when I always want to get out of you guys, because there's so many people that are rightfully so, so high on this technology and the possibilities for enhancing our lives. But the concern that a lot of people have is that at what cost and what are we signing up for?

We can't do... What if you're denying yourself heaven? You're a thought of that possibility. I know that's a ridiculous abstract concept, but if heaven is real, if the idea of the afterlife is real, and it's the next level of existence, and you're constantly going through these cycles of life, what if you're stepping in artificially denying that? That's hard to imagine. It is hard to imagine, but so is life. So is the universe itself. So is the big game.

When you do that, have you thought about implementing some sort of a Sora type deal where you're talking to him?

Right, but I mean, basically, like looking at him like you're in a Zoom call with him.

It seems pretty feasible. It's certainly it could be something representative of what he looks based on photographs that you have, right?

That's true. In this dimension. My thought on that, people saying that I don't want to live past 90, it's like, okay, are you alive now? Do you like being alive now? What's the difference you now in 90? Is it just a number? Or is it deterioration of your physical body? In fact, how much effort have you put into mitigating the deterioration of your natural body so that you can enjoy life now?

That's what's interesting about the positive aspects of AI. Once we can manipulate human neurochemistry to the point where we figure out what is causing great depression, what is causing anxiety, what is causing a lot of these schizophrenic people.

People definitely had it for sure. But what if we get to a point where we can mitigate that with technology? Where we can say, this is what's going on. That's why we're continuing. Right. I was saying that's a good thing. That's a positive aspect of this technology. And think about also profoundly, think about how many people do take their lives and with this technology would not just live happily but also be productive. And also contribute to whatever society is doing.

I think what a lot of people are terrified of is that these people that are creating this technology. There's oversight, but it's oversight by people that don't necessarily understand it the way the people that are creating it. and they don't know what guardrails are in place. How safe is this? Especially when it's implemented with some sort of weapons technology, you know, or some sort of a military application, especially a military application that can be insanely profitable. and the motivations behind utilizing that are that profit and then then we do horrible things and somehow not justify it.

As long as it's a legitimate democracy, it's not controlled by money.

As long as it's a legitimate democracy, it's not controlled by the military, industrial complex, or the pharmaceutical industry, or whoever puts the people that are in elected places, who puts them in there? How do they get funded? And what do they represent once they get in there? are there for the will of the people, they're there for their own career, do they bypass the safety and the future of the people for their own personal gain, which we've seen politicians do. There's certain problems with every system that involves human beings. That's another thing that technology may be able to do. One of the things, if you think about the worst attributes of humans, whether it's war, you know, crime, some of the horrible things that human beings are capable of. Imagine that technology can find what causes those thoughts and behaviors in human beings and mitigate them. I've joked around about this, but if we came up with something that would elevate dopamine, just 300 percent worldwide. There would be no more war. It'd be over. Everybody would be loving everybody. We'd be interacting with each other. Well, that's the point of doing this. But there will also be no sad songs. Well, he needs some blues in your life. Need a little bit of that, too. Or do we? Maybe we don't. Maybe that's just a byproduct of our monkey minds. And that one day will surpass that. We get to this point of enlightenment. Enlightenment seems possible without technological innovation, but maybe not. I've never really met a truly enlightened person. I've had some people that are pretty close. But if you could get there with technology, if technology just completely elevated the human consciousness to the point where all of our conflicts come to race.

Well, I think some people don't think you're disappearing. I mean, there's a long, held thought in many cultures that this life is but one step. and that there is an afterlife and maybe that exists to comfort us because we deal with existential angst and the reality of our own inevitable demise or maybe it's a function of consciousness being something that we don't truly understand and what you are is a soul contained in a body and that we have a very primitive understanding of the existence of life itself and of the existence of everything.

I mean, if there's no evidence, right? But is it there's no evidence because we're not capable of determining it yet and understanding it? Or is it just because it doesn't exist? That's the real question. Is this it? Is this everything? Or is this merely a stage? And are we munking with that stage by interfering with the process of life and death?

I could see from your perspective. I don't see the evidence of it either, but it's a concept that is not. Look, just when you start talking to string theorists and they start talking about things existing and not existing at the same time, particles in superposition, like you're talking about magic. You're talking about something that's impossible to wrap your head around. even just the structure of an atom. Like, what was that? What's in there? Nothing. How much of it is space? The entire existence of everything in the universe seems preposterous. But it's all real. And we only have a limited grasp of understanding of what this is really all about and what process is a really in place. Right.

No. Well, they're scared. They're scared to die. It's a natural human instinct. That's what kept us alive for all these hundreds and millions of years.

Sure, but would they appreciate life if they knew it had no end? Would it be the same thing? Or would it be like a lottery winner just goes nuts and spends all their money and loses their marbles because they can't believe they can't die?

Sure, you can get an accident. Something can happen. You get injured. But if we get to a point where you have automated cars that significantly reduce the amount of automobile accidents.

That idea of, I mean, we don't really truly understand what consciousness is, correct? Right. So how would we be able to manipulate it or duplicate it to the point where you're putting it inside of some kind of a computation device?

So we'll create it in the form of an artificial version of everything that it is to be a human being.

In terms of emotions, love, excitement.

But will that be a person? I mean, or will be some sort of a zombie? What motivations would have? If you can take human consciousness and duplicate it, much like you could duplicate your phone. And you make this new thing. What does that thing feel like? Is that thing live in hell? Like, what does that? What does that experience like for that?

They certainly do, but would you want to be one? Are we different than that than that? Yeah, we're people. We check hands. I give you a hug. You pet my dog. You listen to music.

It's right. But what you want to, what you even care. The thing is like a lot of what gives us joy in life is biological motivations. There's human reward systems that are put in place that allow us to be part of who we are.

So if you get hit by a car and you die, there's another ray that just pops up. Oh, we got the backup ray. And the backup ray will have no feelings at all about having had died and come back to life.

Why wouldn't it? If we get to a certain, but if we figure out that if biological life is essentially some kind of technology, the universe is created, and we can manipulate that to the point where we understand it, we get it, we've optimized it, and then replicate it, physically replicated. Not just replicated in form of a computer, but actual physical being. Right, well that's where we're headed. Do you anticipate that people will be happy with whatever they have? If you decide, I don't like being five, six. I wish I was six, six. I don't like being a woman. I want to be a man. I don't want to be Asian. I want to be, you know, whatever. I want to be a black person.

We're not going to be limited by those kinds of right happens happen stance which is going to be very strange like what will human beings look like if you give people the ability to manipulate your physical form we do things now that we're impossible even ten years ago we certainly do but we don't change racist size sex gender height we don't we don't do all of it in the the radical increase in just your intelligence like what is that going to look like what kind of an interaction is it going to be between two human beings when you have a completely new form, you know, you're much different physically than you ever were when you were alive, you're taller, you're stronger, you're smarter, you're faster, you're basically not really a human anymore. You're a new thing.

Sure. Right. Over a course of hundreds of thousands of years. Well, that's gone for being Australia-Pithecus to what we are now.

Right. But if we can manipulate our physical form with no limitations, I mean, what are we going to have six arm people that can fly? Like, what is it going to look like?

I would discriminate against six arm people like a fly. That's the one area allow myself to give the prejudice to. Okay. No, I'm just curious as to how much time you've spent having owned people would be okay. Yeah, seven art people is cool because it's like, you know, maybe five on one side to any other. No, I just, I'm just curious as to like how much time you've spent thinking about what this could look like. And I just, I don't think it's going to be as simple as, you know, it's going to be Ray Kurzweil, but Ray Kurzweil as like a 30-year-old man, 50 years from now. I think it's probably going to be, you're going to be all kinds of different things. You could be kind of whatever you want. You could be a bird. I mean, what's the stop if we can get to manipulate the physical form and we can take consciousness and put it into a physical form.

Well, it's certainly an improvement in terms of the viability.

Sure, if you want to look at it in a binary fashion of positive and negative, but it's also going to be insanely strange. Like it's not going to be as simple as there'll be people that are living in 2016.

It'll just be life. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what I'm asking. Like when you think about the implementation of this technology to its fullest, what does the world look like? What does the world look like in 2069?

It's certainly interesting. It's certainly interesting. I'm just, I just wonder how much time you've spent thinking about what this world looks like with the full implementation of the kind of exponential growth of technology that would exist if we do make it to 1269.

And this is one artificial intelligence creature.

And how was she created?

Right, unless some insane freak of genetics.

Yeah, but she's the only one that has that. Yeah. All right. It doesn't give it to everybody. Which is, which is where it gets really weird. You have a cell phone. I have a cell phone. Pretty much everybody has one now. What happens when everybody gets the kind of technology we're discussing?

Perhaps, yeah. I mean, that's the best way of looking at it that we become a completely altruistic, positive, beneficial to each other.

Yes. Yeah, for sure. That's the benefit.

So overall, when you're looking at this, you just don't concentrate really on the negative possibilities.

Do you think that the experiences that we're having right now?

If you look at Stephen Pinker's work, right? Scale it from a few years ago to today. Things are generally always seem to be moving in a better direction.

So you feel it's a function of technology that we're moving in this direction. Absolutely.

When you think about the idea of life on earth and that this is happening and that we are on this journey to 2045 to the seniority, do you consider whether or not this is happening elsewhere in the universe or whether it's already happened?

Maybe we don't have the capability to actually see it. I mean, yes, as universities. What's the 13.7 billion years old or whatever it is?

Would we, if we were at the peak, if there is intelligent life in the universe, some form of that intelligent life has to be the most advanced. And what if we are underestimating our position in the universe that we are?

But maybe there's something that's like 10 years.

But we don't have the capability of observing the goings on of a planet 5,000 light years away. We can't see into their atmosphere. We can't look at high resolution video of activity on that planet.

If they were more advanced than us, maybe we would. But what if they're not? What if they're at the level that we're at? Well, that's what I'm saying. What if we're at the peak?

What if it gets to the point where artificial intelligence gets implemented and then that becomes the primary form of life and it doesn't have the desire to do anything in terms of like galactic engineering?

Like what things like we're doing, are we affecting the whole galaxy? No, not yet. Right, but what if it's like us, but it gets to the point where it becomes artificial intelligence, and then it doesn't have emotions, it doesn't have desires, it doesn't have ambitions.

Well, we'd have to program it into it, but it would probably decide that that's foolish, and that those things have caused all these problems. All the problems in human race, what's our number one issue? War. What does war call caused by, it's caused by ideologies, it's caused by acquisition of resources, that's why resources are not violence.

It's not the primary thing we motivated by, but it's existed in every single step of the way of human existence.

Right. Right. My point is that if artificial intelligence recognizes that the problem with human beings is these emotions and a lot of it is fueled by these desires, like the desire to expand, the desire to acquire things, the desire to

But if it gets to the point where artificial intelligence is no longer stimulated by mere human creations, creativity, all these different things, why would it even have the ambition to do any sort of galaxy, wide engineering? Why would it want to? Because it's based on us it is based on us until it decides it's not based on us anymore That's my point if it realized that like if we're based on a Very violent chimpanzee and we say you know what there's a lot of what we are because of our genetics that it really are a problem And this is what's causing all of our violence, all of our crime, all of our war. If we just step in and put a stop to all that, will we also put a stop to our main team that we're moving away from that? We are moving away from that. But that's just natural, right? That's natural with our understanding and our mitigations of these social problems.

As long as we're still we, But as soon as you become something different, why would it even have the desire to expand? If it was infinitely intelligent, why would it even want to physically go anywhere? Why would it want to? What's the reason for our motivation to expand? What is it? It's human. The same humans that were tribal creatures that Rome, the same humans that stole resources from neighboring villages. This is our genes, right? This is what made us that got us to this point. If we create a sentient artificial intelligence that's far superior to us and it can create its own version of artificial intelligence, the first thing it's going to engineer out is all these stupid emotions that get us in trouble. Well, if it just can create happiness and joy, just from programming, why would it create happiness and joy through the acquisition of other people's creativity, art, music, all those things, and then why would it have any ambition at all to travel? Why would it want to go anywhere?

Right. It is a problem because a lot of what we are and the things that we create is because of all these flaws that you would say. If you were programming us, you would say, well, what is the cause of all these issues with the plague human race?

Murder's a flaw. Is there any flaw?

It moves ahead. If it happens to you, it's a flaw. And it crime is a flaw. All these theft is a fraud, fraud. Those are flaws. If we could engineer those out. What would be the way that we do it? Well, one of the things we do, we get rid of what it is to be a person, because what it is is corrupt people that go down these terrible paths, they cause harm to other people, right?

No, I'm not. I'm saying that it's the root of these flaws, that greed and envy and lust and anger are the root. We'll talk about flaws. And we're back to that. I mean, as I think about myself now, it's when I have emotions that are positive emotions.

Hopefully.

I'm not even saying it's wrong. I'm not saying that it's going to go wrong. I just, I'm saying that if you wanted to program away some of the issues that human beings have in terms of what keeps us from working with each other universally all over the globe, what keeps us from these things?

Sure, but also not, you know, we're also like massive inequality. You've got people in the Congo, mining cobalt with sticks that powers your cell phones. There's a lot of real problems with society.

There's a lot of that though. There's a lot of that. And if you looked at greed and war and crime and all the problems with human beings, a lot of it has to do with these biological instincts, these instincts to control things, these built in genetic codes that we have that are from our ancestors.

Right. But when we get there, You think we will be a better version of a human being, and we will be able to experience all the good, the positive aspects of being human being, the art and creativity and all these different things.

No, it does seem that way to me. It does overall, but it's also like, you know, if you look at a graph of temperatures, it goes up, it goes down, it goes up, it goes down, but it's moving in a general direction.

Yeah. It could be the end of the human race, right? Or it could be the beginning of the next race of this new thing.

But what I'm getting at is like, what do you think life looks like if it's engineered? What do you think human life looks like if it's engineered by a far superior intelligence and what would it change about what it means to be a person?

Yes, but that's still being a human being. If you're implementing large-scale artificial intelligence, You're essentially a superhuman. You're a different thing. You're not what we are.

For now. But this is the thing. If you're engineering this artificial intelligence and you're engineering this with essentially a superior life form, It's going to look at it logically. It's going to look at the issues that human beings have logically and say, well, we don't need this. This is a problem. This is what we needed when we were primates and we're not that anymore. We're this new thing. We're going to like who cares what the movies like. It's just a thing that's tricking your body and pretending that it's involved in drama, but it's not really.

Now, I'm just making an assumption.

Well, the relationships should be all perfect eventually if we keep going in this general direction.

I mean, but if you get artificial intelligence, we're all reading each other's minds and everyone's working towards the same goal.

But can you do that as technology scales upward? If it continues to move, it's difficult like your phone. Anyone can listen to you on your phone.

Phone. You're definitely good. Yeah, if you have Pegasus, you can hack into your phone easily. Not hard at all. The new software that they have, all they need is your phone number. All they need is your phone number, and they can look at every text message you send, every email you send, they can look at your camera, they can turn on your microphone. Easy.

but it's definitely not built in your phone now. The security people that really understand the capabilities of intelligence agencies, they 100% can listen to your phone, 100% can turn on your camera, 100% can record your voice.

But from who? You can keep privacy from me because I don't have access to your device. But if I was working for an intelligence agency and I had access to a Pegasus program, I am in your device.

But the privacy that we have today is far less than the privacy that we had before we had phones.

How so? If you didn't have a phone, okay? And you were at home having a conversation, a sensitive conversation about maybe you didn't pay as much taxes as you should. There's no way anybody would hear that. But now, your phone hears that. If you have an Alexa in your home, your Alexa hears you say that. People have been charged with crimes because Alexa heard them committing murder.

But it's not just an imperfection, sort of built into the program itself, because that's what fuels the algorithm, as it has access to all of your data. It has access to all of your, what you're interested in, what you like, what you don't like. You can't opt out of it, especially you. You've got a Google phone. That thing is just a net scooping up information.

How do we do it?

Unless they don't want it to be built in there because there's an actual business model and not being built in there.

But you recognize the financial incentive and not doing that, right? Because that's what a company like Google, for instance. That's where they make the majority of their money is from data. Or a lot of their money, I should say.

It's not that he's private from some people, but not really private. It's only private until they want to listen. And now the capability of listening to your phone is super easy. Not really. No. With the Pegasus program, it's very easy.

Right. But I think it's a feature. I think part of the feature is that they want as much data from you and knowing about what you're doing, what you're talking about. If you're at a conversation with someone, then you see an ad for that thing on Google. That happens. Yes, but so something's going on where it's listening to your conversations. It's picking up on keywords. It's not picking up on everything. No, yeah. Well, it's not unless it wants to. Like I said, if they're using a program and intelligence program to gather information from your phone, it is. And then you're basically a little spy that you carry around with you, everywhere you go.

Maybe. But if we did, well, there are some phones that likes graphing. Do you know about that? You know about what people that they take a Google phone, and they put a different Linux-based operating system on it, makes it much more difficult to track, and there's multi-levels of protection. There's a bunch of phones that are being made that are security phones. But we lose access to apps. You lose access to a lot of the features that people rely on when it comes to phones, like for instance, like if you have GPS on your phone, As soon as you're using GPS, you're easy to find, right? So you lose that privacy. If they want to know where race phone is, they know exactly where race phone is. And that's where you are and you're with your phone. They've got you tracked everywhere you go complicated.

I think it's a major issue, but I don't think it's a major concern for most people. Right. But it's because they reap the benefits of it. Like the algorithm is specifically tailored.

Right. But you can't opt out of it unless you just decide to get a flip phone. But even if you do, they can figure out where you are, they triangulate you from cell phone towers.

Yeah, if people agree that the benefit of overcoming that outweighs the loss in the financial loss that you would have not having access to everybody's data and information.

It's possible, but it's also easy to hack. People can be reading your emails all the time and you should probably assume that they do.

But my point is, as this technology scales upward, when you have greater and greater computational power, and then you're also integrated with this technology, how does that keep whatever group is in charge from being able to essentially access the thing that is inside your head now? How do, how do, if you have a technology that's going to be upgraded and you're going to get new, you know, new software, it's going to keep improving as time goes on. What kind of privacy would be involved in that if you're literally having something that can get into your brain? And if most people can't get into your brain, can intelligence agencies get into your brain, can foreign governments get into your brain? Like what, what does that look like? I'm not looking at this as a negative. I'm just saying if you're just looking at this, it's just completely objectively. What are the possibilities that this could look like? I'm trying to paint a weird picture of what this could look like.

Sure. What do you think about the potential for a universal language? Do you think that one of the things that holds people back is, you know, the Rosetta Stone, the tower of battle? I think we can't really understand what all these other people are saying. We don't know how they think. If we can develop a universal worldwide language through this, Do you think it's feasible? I mean, all languages that we have were created.

That's what I'm saying. And we're doing that now with some like Google does that with translate and new Samsung phones do that in real time.

But do you think that the adoption of a universal language is pretty good? It's pretty good. But there's also context that's missing because there's different cultural, significant. There's different ways that people say things. There's gendered language and other nationalities use and other countries use and let's try to get that into the language translation as well. You can, but it's a little bit imperfect, right?

Right. But what a universal language be possible. If you're creating something, why would you need that? Because what we have all of our languages pretty flawed. Ultimately, I mean, we use it, but how many versions of your do we have, how many of our, there's a bunch of different weird things about language that's imperfect because it's old. It's like old technology. If we decided to make a better version of technology through art, excuse me, better version of language through artificial technology and say, listen, instead of trying to translate everything. Now that we're super powerful intelligent beings that are enhanced by artificial intelligence, let's create a better, more superior universally adopted language.

Yeah, I do. Yeah, I think that would change a lot. I mean, we'd lose all the amazing nuances of cultures, which I don't think is good for us as human beings, but we're not going to be human beings. So maybe it would be better if we could communicate exactly the way we prefer to.

For now, but when you're a mind reading eagle and you're flying around, are you really a human being anymore?

So that's just a new definition of what a human being is. What are your thoughts on simulation theory?

This is what I'm saying. If we can, and we're on our way to creating something that is indisernable from reality itself. I don't think we're that far away from that may decades away from having some sort of a virtual experience that's indisernable from regular reality.

Right. And those are far superior to what they were. I mean, I'm younger than you, but I can remember Paul. Remember Paul? It was groundbreaking. You could play a video game on your television. This is crazy.

Now you look at like the Unreal 5 engine. It's insane. how beautiful it is, and how incredible, and what the capabilities of that, that's kind of a simulation. Right, but as you expand that further, and you get to the point where you're actually in a simulation, and that your life is not this carbon-based biological life, feeling in texture that you think it is, whether you're really a part of this thing that's been created. This is where it gets real weird with like probability theory, right? because they think that if a simulation is possible, it's more likely, it's already happened.

In a way. Yeah. And if you were some sort of an alien life form, wouldn't that be the way you go instead of like taking physical metal crafts and shooting them off into space? wouldn't you sort of create artificial space, create artificial worlds, create something that exists in the sense that you experience it. Right. And it's indecernable to the person experiencing it.

Up to a point. Until it actually does all the same things that regular reality does, it just does it through technology and maybe that's what the universe is.

So the galaxy wide engineering is the main thing that you look at in the point where I don't see any evidence for life outside. Well, there's definitely no real evidence that we see other than these people that talk about UFOs, UAPs and pilots and all these people that say that there's this thing.

This is based on such a limited data, right? I mean, look at what limited data we just have of Mars. We have rover, rolling around, satellites, orbit. It's very limited data with something that's just one planet over. We don't really have the data to understand what's going on in our house.

Is it something that intrigues you or did you just look at it like there's no evidence so I'm not going to concentrate on that?

So over the next four years, five years, you think we're going to be able to far surpass the ability of human beings. We're going to be able to stop aging and then eventually reverse aging. And then 2045 comes along. What does that look like?

So it's just who knows. It's going to be wild.

Well, I'm very excited about it. Even though it's Gary, I know I ask a lot of tough questions about this because these are my own questions. This is like what bounces around time I own had.

Listen man, I'm glad you're out there. It's very important that people have access this kind of thinking and you dedicate your whole life to this. In this book, Ray Kurzweil, the Singularity is near when we merge with AI. It's available now. Did you do the audio version of it?

I want to hear it in your voice. It's your words. Yeah, that's what people say. Yeah, why don't you do it? You should do it. You know what you should do. Just get a AI to do it. Why waste all that time sitting around doing it?

Oh, 100%. Look, and they could take your voice from this podcast and do this book in an audio version. Easy. Do you know what they're doing now? It's Spotify. They're translating this podcast. They're going to translate it to German, French, and Spanish. And it's going to be like your voice and perfect Spanish.

Yeah. It's 100% you should do that. Okay. My friend Duncan does that all the time. He'll have friends, text friends, or send of voice messages, a fake voice message that's ridiculous. And they'll talk about how he's marrying his cat or something like that. It's just like just but he does it with AI and it sounds exactly like whoever that person is. Okay. So that's the, that's the solution. Yeah. Have AI read your, of course, you should have AI read your book. I can't believe we even would think of you sitting down for 40 hours or whatever it would take. Probably take more than that to read this whole book. And then if you mess up, you got to go back and start again.

Yeah. I've been, it's pretty close right now.

I bet I bet they don't you think they can do it Jamie? Yeah, I think they can do it right now. Listen, Ray, I appreciate you very much. Thank you very much for being here and thank you for this book. When is it available?

June, I've got a really copy gift. Yeah. Thanks, sir. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Bye, everybody.