Joshua will warn had a great line which is it is a mistake to understand new things too quickly we often do not understand them and get them very very wrong it's not only about the AI superpower countries it's not even about the edits the privileged people it's about everyone is all of those ordinary people who am I gonna leave and suffer from this huge change of time before you can make something either an aspiration
or a goal you first have to be able to conceive of it and I think that's why storytelling is so vital to help people to understand what's the technology and what's behind the technology never want to compete with AI with all this
accuracy of calculation I think that's not what humans are good at so we have to look back in our Humanity was the real advantage of human parts we're going from a period of mass production to mass customization so I think we need
a paradise shift not only on technology but also of the mindset on the consciousness [Music] well hello everyone it's Jim O'Shaughnessy with yet another infinite Loops I have been waiting to talk to today's guest author chupon author of one of my favorite books that I recommend all the time for people trying to get a handle on what is going on with artificial intelligence the name of the book is AI 2041 10 visions of our future
and and you've said too far on that by imagining our future through science fiction we can step actively in and shape it I could not agree more completely I think that we humans run on stories and I think yours are great welcome
thank you Jim thanks for having me to infinite group I couldn't like be more excited to share with you some of my ideas and of course have a deeper conversational Ai and what's going on right now so I I became actively involved uh in AI
when I invested in and became chairman of stability AI um and boy what a learning curve the really the the reason that I love your book is that it really inserts the human element of Storytelling and you're such a great writer uh You've
Won numerous awards for your writing um probably have have you been absolutely fascinated by science fiction in all of its forms for for all of your life yeah I mean like I'm a Sci-Fi fan since kid so I think back in the kindergarten
time um around the age I started to read um also see clouds arsenals and even like more ancient fine uh classic uh writers like HG Wells and uh Juvenile and because my dad he used to work in the uh ultrasonic Research Institute so they have a huge Library full of all this kind of books popular uh Popular Science and Technology books and the manuals you know that kind of things and he brought me to the library uh from time to time so I found some
books with science fiction out there and I'm totally dick into that world and it's so fascinating and I just love it and it became my thing I I am also a huge science fiction uh nerd uh you you mentioned Isaac Asimov and he said something that I thought was really interesting that I'd like your opinion on uh he said that basically it takes 60 years from the discovery of something until we see it in Practical use so you know it in the beginning of
your book that John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence in 1956 and wonder wonders 2016 things start to really eat up yep do you do would you mark the kind of uh third wave of AI as beginning around 2016 2017. I I'm not quite sure it was like third wave or fourth way because there's there were so many ups and downs back in the time right so I think yeah as um Amorous wall put it as like we human beings we always you know
a role assumption or new technology we um intended to overestimate the impact in the short term period of time but uh we underestimated the long-term uh inverts of the new technology so that's what humans being always
always do so I think uh oh Ai and for example back in the 50s 70s 80s all those experts scientists they have um speculation that EI might gonna emerge some kind of like uh General um intelligence can compare with human beings in like five to eight years
but all of those guess went wrong so basically we are heading to another Direction like neural network back in the day nobody think it it really works but somehow it works right so it's kind of um all this kind of thing reminds me of this unpredictable um and uncertainty of Technology it might and it's all life's cycle and sometimes it's quite random and because I think of the technology we're using albieto on course right back in the day
we have electric electricity cars we have like um um um the steam engine and the and and the inbus uh in busted engine uh that kind of things but somehow we pick up the most difficult one most unstable one because of Texas discovery
a lot of like gas a lot of oil under the ground so we the capital the society pick another alternative task towards the future so that's always reminds me in science fiction we always make brawl prediction about the future
as well yeah and uh path dependencies are are so important you the point about electric versus the discovery of oil and gas and then moving that way uh Joshua will warn had a great line which is it is a mistake to understand new things too quickly we often do not understand them and and get them very very wrong uh that's one of the reasons why I love your book because what you're really doing is offering 10 Visions exactly
right of potential outcomes and and we always want to add the caveat that you know when movies became popular that they didn't know what to do with it right they they thought well maybe we should film plays right because that's
what they knew and and I think that we humans also are optimized for fear of new things uh evolutionarily speaking that made a lot of sense when we were looking in a very dangerous Danger this world and maybe makes a little less
sense now you you mentioned that people often get regular people who are like not AI aficionados often get their views uh of a technology like artificial intelligence through science fiction through the news and through influential people and and one of the things you know that I completely share your assessment of is that the news is often very negative and and so one of the things that I think that is so important about your
book and your work is you don't pull punches as we're going to get to in a minute you have some stories in there that are pretty scary uh but one of the things that I love is for example the lead Story the the uh golden elephant uh
really it tells the story of a Mumbai family uh that gets insurance but the insurance is Guided by AI uh per song I'd love your view on why is it is it just our human nature that if it bleeds it leads and that's why the news is so
negative but also why did you mentioned H.G Wells right I I that type of Science Fiction you know Star Trek H.G Wells was I had a positive view of the future and now we seem to tip into kind of a dystopia uh and by the way I I love a lot of the dystopic uh science fiction too because it's fun but but I do think that it implants ideas in our minds that makes us unduly negative yeah I think um uh first of all I'm a track key as well so
um Spock uh was my Autumn favorite character um in sci-fi valora um and I always like sign on the books with uh beflo and prosper that's the best wish and I think why um right now people intended to um create more dystopian um stories and narratives Etc I think most of the reason is because uh we all been through the uh huge uh Devastation and Syria in 20th century um through two times of world war and of course the the collapse of Soviet Union
and all of those you know seems like at utopian uh hallucination has failed so I think it makes a utopian story so impossible to be plausible for the people to believe so I think that's why we turn away uh probably the positive future to a much more negative and Bleak and dark future kind of like imagination but I think that's why also why the news or the influential uh people on internet try to you know um scare people because it it definitely
attract more cleats and they create this kind of anxiety fomo and of course like um a very horror horror headlines and one day I actually check out one headline it's about like you know uh pla is gonna evoke a war against us uh
when I click in it's actually nothing there it was a fake one totally is blank so it it's so fascinating that you will get triggered but they by that kind of headline and you will intuitively you want to check in so I think that's
something deeply embedded in our human nature so it's it's kind of impossible you want to click in when people tell you okay you want a lottery or something because you know you you you you you wouldn't or you you didn't buy it or any
waste so it's kind of like Daydream of things you just don't believe it but with something bad people tell you it might gonna happen you would if you immediately you'll be attracted to it but on the AI I think that's definitely
um what I and Doctor types Lee were discussing all the time because we really trying so hard to create another kind of imagination of the future about AI because I think it's not only about the AI superpower countries it's not even about the IDS the privileged people it's about everyone is all of those ordinary people who am I gonna be and suffer from this huge change of time so I think the most important things like help help people
to understand what's the technology and what's behind the technology and also like as an individual how can we um proactively engage and and leverage the technology to updating ourselves like unlock the potential of the cell so I
think that's what's so important like you you never want to compete with AI with all this accuracy of calculation or like uh like like uh like collecting all the huge amount of data and do the analysis and making the decision based
on it I think that's not what humans are good at so we have to look back in our Humanity look at the essential essential part of our you know what's deep insights on Ancient time till now what's the real advantage of human parts and we have to emphasize that Parts like empathy and like uh it's addicts Sensations and also like human communication embodied experience leadership and of course your person personality is
also very important so I think not a lot of parents they realize what they've been uh what they are teaching their kids right now is actually useless so it is basically like back in the day when I was in school like in China you know the
educational system is always emphasized you have to remember things we have to uh uh you have to uh uh uh um how to say like you have to remember all the historical events all the days specific names etc etc but now we know
it is totally useless right you it's like on your fingertips you can use the search engine or you just directly ask GPT maybe it will give you the wrong answer but who cares right so it's kind of irrelevant right now so I think we
need like a men a paradise shift not only on technology but also on the mindset on the Consciousness so it's even more difficult as human being to shift their mindset right so I think why storytelling is so important because it
really does like changing People how they perceive and imagine the future yeah I think that before you can make something either an aspiration or a goal you first have to be able to conceive of it and imagine it and I think that's why
storytelling is so vital uh especially at this kind of uh juncture of History your comments about education are in my opinion bang on when I was so I'm 63 and when I was a kid having a good memory equaled being smart
and like now I think rather than trying to teach everyone what to think we need to teach them how to think and use these tools and and I emphasize that word tools right that we can use these as leverage both for good and bad as we're going to get into with a couple of the stories we're going to talk about uh but at the end of the day the the tool itself is neutral it is it is the human being using that tool that decides whether
they're going to use it for good or for ill but I want to jump right to one of your stories that is called twin sparrows because one of the use cases that I think I'm most excited about in AI is the educational opportunities
early can you can you give a little background for people who haven't read the book of the twin sparrows story and and then use and how you use it to illustrate the power that AI can bring to kind of one-to-one tutoring directly
to being modeled on learning from the student that they're tutoring sure um between sparrows is about like uh um twin Brothers um they become often and was put into a a orphanage and so uh South Korean so um by Dan um The Orphanage is kind of like it's one of the kind that they are deploying uh re Advantage Technologies such as Ai and digital twins XR to create this kind of um uh very customized AI companions um according to each kid's captors uh
learning curve uh Specialties emotional respondents etc etc to create this very unique individualized uh um um teacher partner Playmates friends you name it so basically they create a an environment for each kids so so I think
that could be a change a game changer for the future education and because right now we all know there that um it's all about the inequality of uh resource distribution especially on education industry right why people choose a
specific location of their house because it's close to certain schools and and their schools have resources about the teacher curriculums and everything and and infrastructures for sure but the problem is even you get into that kind of school get into the best class and you have the best teacher but somehow like maybe there's 50 students in the OnePlus room they all all different but still they're learning the same thing they're taking
the same exam they're having the teachers saying the same thing to them as well so I think this is definitely not equal right so it's not fair and in our imagination I think maybe in the future we can use this kind of technology to create uh absolute uh uh uh customized uh educational experience that means every kid it had the opportunity to uh fully unlock the potential um so it's learning uh based on the human feedback and is adjusting is
curriculum and and the response uh model it will change its time the way it speaks to you and of course it will uh use this kind of uh gamification basically to help you to learn something you might have interested in and I think this is so fascinating because when you're thinking um back in the time when I was in school so I think each is just um basically they they they were only look at or have all this food attention on the top students
right like all of maybe like top 10 students in the class they're giving them more uh homework to do they were even like send them with more more extra reading materials after class that kind of things happen and but it actually
exacerbates the the the the class and and and and and this kind of differentiation actually will cause a lot of I would say uh towards the kids because they think I'm not good enough um I don't deserve this kind of uh uh uh
better better uh attitude from the teacher for the parents or for other classmates so I think this is totally wrong and I think everyone every kid deserve be treated as equally as they could and I think of course this is another level we're talking about the uh oh a mobilization of social movement that means like you have to resisting a lot of things from the tradition of uh Schools teachers and maybe the whole educational system
because we try to put everyone on the hierarchy of pyramids that means if you are in their understand us you're smart and you will be put on the ladder and you climb up the ladder based on what they call um scores exam whatsoever but I think
that's not like it's not all right it's not um I think it means a lot of like different dimensions of evaluation evaluating a human potential right so because maybe some kids they're just good at saying they're just good at
storytelling they just do that dancing etc etc but somehow I I I'm kind of think especially in China they didn't was put on the right ladder so that means they don't have the chance to climb up the ladder so I think AI might change that
kind of future for everyone I I agree um and I I think your point about sort of the the one size fits all uh which was the educational standard not only in China but worldwide um is we're going from a period of mass
production to mass customization and one of the things that I'm so inspired by on the AI effects on potentially much better education for everyone not just kids uh is this idea that the AI can can train on the
individuals that they're working with right and some people are visual others are auditory as you know some people have artistic skills some people have scientific skills and I think that this one to one uh sort of peer-to-peer uh approach that
AI is going to be capable of is uh just dramatically an dramatic improvement over the the old style as you put it uh that reinforces you know these are the top 10 kids they're going to get all the attention and of course that's also a way that we train AIS right through reinforcement um and um one of the things that I thought was great about the story is even though they're twins their outcomes are very very different talk talk a little bit
about that yeah I mean like we're talking about light looking Brothers um one is uh gold gold uh golden Sparrow one is silver Sparrow so they are very different characters they have different Persona and and and different skill sets for sure and like the brother golden uh Sparrow is pretty outgoing very very uh socializing and and it was adopted by a very wealthy family and that tried to push him and guide him towards to like
uh investor the kind of business Elite and that's following the parents path so I think that's totally nothing wrong but the younger brother silver silver Sparrow was adopted by a very uh I would say eccentric uh artist and a family uh which was um like a non-binary um family and it's kind of um a little bit of on the spectrum of autism so it's like kind of shut down uh shut shut up to himself and like maybe he's living in his own world or
imagination and but he's actually quite talented uh artists with all this kind of New Media technology he he create a fascinating world with his skills and I think they're going Divergence in different directions and their
connection was cut off because of this you know social buyers and and you know the the the differentiation of classes but somehow a certain employee they feel this urgently need to reconnect with each other like a lineage like something and
Heritage in their blood and Gene and and somehow a I make it happen and and I think that's the magic part of the show sorry because it's a little bit off from the scientific narratives it's a little bit mysterious and it's more I'll say
spiritual so think about like how these twin brothers reconnect with the help of AI is kind of transcendental and and it's I couldn't expand it in a scientific and technological way but I'll say is how I imagine the future
technology is not only about like cutting off all these connections between individuals and of course the people with the nature but to reconnect all of those factors so so I think but Queen we're not 100 sure how to make it worse for now but I think that's my version of technology in the future yeah that's what I loved about the story you you you were very gifted at setting up the tension you know the one path with the brother in business
the other path with the brother in uh the Arts and yet I love how you bring in the Transcendence of the human right so I'm a huge believer in what is being called The Senator model of AI which is human plus AI right it's it's this unique combination which will be different for every human given their skill set given their interests given their talents and and I did love the the way that you resolve that at the end of the story where where the AI
actually brings them back together but that's also the human part right and and I love that that sort of kitten kin what's bread in the bone will out um it also makes me think of the first story the golden elephant which looks at a Mumbai family that is uh being sort of managed in their by their insurance company to do sort of uh certain things and avoid other things and you know it my immediate thought when I was reading that story was
so in in geek speak they they call it maximizing the objective function absolutely and uh you know prior uh maximizations of the objection uh objective function have been towards profit or Revenue but one of the things
is that doesn't have to be we can maximize the objective function for creativity War flourishing for our Artistic Endeavors but one of the things that I thought was very interesting in that story um that I want your opinion on uh the
the idea that this does AI identify invisible discrimination and then sort of reinforce it yes so yeah basically that the whole point of the story is about um think about the class system Back in the Day in India
of course it's it was a legally banned back in the 50s I guess but still it's um it's it exists uh in the hidden structure right so think about large language model basically is fed up with all these data set uh from the language so all these
texts across internet so what they learn what they pick up from our language is actually they can they can dig out they can review The Invisible buyers discrimination violence within our language even we couldn't recognize it our Consciousness level so I think that's what basically that's what happened here right so in the society even like a lower class um it was like the the you know the Discrimination was forbidden but still
the education the the the career market and and and the you know the consumption um Behavior even the social interaction all of those was uh uh cavity impact by this kind of a historical uh inequality so I think all of those uh left over uh
factors were still there but they would dig out they were emphasized they were enhanced by the Machine by the AI algorithm so I think that's what basically will happen right now and in the future if we don't do something to
correct the bias so not only in Mumbai in India but all around the world so basically that's what's happening in here as well and of course like in the job market like all this like uh resume scanning algorithm somehow it automatically they will um um they will reject the female application because they know they got less chance to get through the the human uh Parts like the the recruitment process so I think all of those buyers
was created by human being by ourselves but the problem is how we can recognize those virus and discrimination and how we can build up this hatching system to go against those uh negative externality and I think this is what
um all of those Engineers uh have to bear in mind because sometimes it feels to me like they only think in the in the very uh optimization way like all about objective functions all about efficiency you know all about the ROI but they
didn't really think about the human sector so I think that's why we need more you know different opinions here in the look we need humid in the loop I couldn't agree more and and what you bring up I think is really important because um you know if left left just on its own uh AI might be able to uncover a lot of hidden biases um and and things that we don't uh consciously think about right um and and yet they're there with the
examples that you give are are good examples and and I think the the power of the story is that you highlight this and you show okay look what can happen if we just approach this uh objectively in quotes uh and and it can end up
um actually intensifying these biases uh unintentionally so being aware that they're there and then it becomes incumbent upon us as you put it with the human in the loop to say whoa whoa wait a minute we certainly don't want the AI
uh emphasizing uh these these prejudices which are often come from nothing right they come from our tribal Heritage us for them and you know uh vilifying and making the other evil um you know seems like a a it's a big
part unfortunately of our human evolution and we certainly don't want this new form of Revolution Evolution to to emphasize those ancient enmities uh that people had for one another and and so I I think that uh the uh the story does a
great service is a great example of oh look what can go wrong let's see that we need to start thinking about how we set that right yeah I I another story that I was fascinated by because in my role at stability AI I I tried to sort of translate the uh the tech genius to uh normal interested Layman uh and and one of the things when I'm talking to people about AI that I consistently hear near the top of their concerns is the idea of
deep fakes and and you have a great story called God's Behind The Masks uh that concerns a deep fake of a Nigerian politician uh and we learn all about Gans which are uh generative adversarial networks going going at one another
um uh my view is that this is something we absolutely have to address and so so much so that uh I'm working with my colleagues at stability AI to create a uh a competition where we award a large cash prize for models that are
good at identifying deep fakes but I I have no Illusions about this uh as as soon as as soon as that model comes out they'll the the the Gans will use it to create better deep things so this is going to be an ongoing thing what are your thoughts about like what are your thoughts about the Deep fakes uh you know the idea of the potential for narrative collapse if there's so many of these uh videos fake stories going around what
do you think yeah like first of all I think um the story was written back in 2020 or 2021 so um back then me and Dr Keith Lee we think again will be the uh major you know um technology in the future of the Fate but um when it gets to 2020 when I started to use uh stable diffusion let me Journey out of those things and I thought to myself oh Doom they're not using again they use they're using diffusion model right so it's kind of you know
you never predict this kind of things uh in a very accurate way so I think this is what science fiction do all the time you know you you try to predict all the details so technology you always make it wrong but when you
metaphorically you want to capture the vibe the Zeitgeist of what's going on there you are you always make it bright because you know the Fate right now is the thing and you can not only use any journey to create this kind of hyper real
photo real you know hallucination but also uh application like Runway they can create this kind of video and even films in the future with AI so totally this one called um perfect your memories uh from Google is like a new feature that you can alter
you can erase you can basically change a lot of your pictures photos back in the day and and it feels 100 you couldn't tell you couldn't distinguish with the original ones with your bare eyes so somebody might feel
some Elder people might see it like oh is this really happen in the past or I just remember it raw so this kind of confusion actually creates a lot of deep vague phenomenon right now on internet or individuals like so I think it's kind
of scary frightening and yeah so I think what you've been doing is really important because we try to do something right now I think maybe is not one of uh efforts to be made because you know the technology is still evolving
and people come up with even more efficient uh model to to create this kind of the fake contents but I think what's what's more important is how we can persuade um like the law enforcement to put it in the framework to think about how we can
regulate all this kind of application uh so a higher level of uh uh I'll call institutionalization and we have to do something right like in the story we talk about the major websites uh video size they have to deploy this
kind of like anti-fake detector so that's what I think is a must in the future because there's nobody can tell you have to either like embedded some digital watermark on the content to help the system to recognize it and put a a a notification on the thing to help people to identify whether it's real or not and otherwise I think they'll be huge problem out there because people's minds are so easily being manipulated right so
from the election so all this kind of huge campaigns we can see that even by like analysis uh the cleats or through across Facebook they can tell your sexual orientation so yeah so so basically you have so many things so internet can be
um can be identified can be analysis can be collected can use to against yourself right so I think this is what we have to bear in mind like we have to help people to build up this turn up um preparation prepare for all of those
um Frozen in the to real but actually it's not so I think this is sometimes it feels like my parents they accepting all this kind of new things even faster than I do because they know nothing about it so they might think okay everyone else is using it so what's the harm and even the government they didn't say anything about it so that should be something safe but actually it's not so I think this is very educational and and and and
I think we as storytellers and influencers and all of those responsible media should have all of those message like repeat and repeat the deliver to the people like don't trust internet don't trust any kind of information even is from the
government it might be fake yeah which which is like talk about the horns of a dilemma right the the and and it gets us back to uh an innovation and and a tool right so when we discovered fire uh boy that was good
for Humanity uh it uh basically allowed us to cook our food and created the prefrontal cortex that we all have for reasoning and executive function but it also was incredibly dangerous and so in addition to fire then we had to invent fire departments fire uh men and women viral arms fire exits all of these things and these are iterative yeah in that like ooh we didn't think about that we better we better put that in place as
well so I think that one one of the things that I view as a challenge currently is you see that we've staked out what I think extreme ends of the spectrum so on on the one end of the uh techno optimism and Utopia like they're they're all saying oh boy AGI is right around the corner and in fact we'll have it in a year I don't happen to agree with that position uh but um so so you have them over here and then over here you have people like
advocating bombing GPU plants because of the potential however tiny risk uh that this could be an existential risk I think that if we could try to develop more realistic conversations about the benefits but also the problems like the look
it tried to say that this is all going to be great is foolish and that's you're hiding your head in the sand I think that but but also staking out these extreme positions don't help us Advance this tool to the point where we we could
uh through a better and more open conversations right about the potentials one of the things that I love about the book and why I recommend it so Ali is you you are very direct in your um balance as it were because another story something that like when I read it it was like oh man and and that was the story called Quantum genocide yeah and so one of the things I want to emphasize for our viewers and listeners here is you you are absolutely
um even-handed so to speak you you are not saying oh the future is going to be just perfect and and and AI is going to solve all of our problems uh the quantum uh genocide story is one in in which you talk about an
externality that that could happen talk a bit about that and then we'll maybe chat a bit about how we could solve for that yeah golden genocide is like that kind of pretty hotting style action Blockbuster and it's talking about a mad scientist
um a quantum physics who lost her fam who lost his family in the Mountain Fire and not Northern California basically having town so I I just yeah you know it happened before and it will happen again it's a tragic uh tragedy and he he kind of uh lost his mind and he wanted to take a Revenge towards the world and basically he used uh technology such as AI autonomous weapon drones uh manufacturing the whole Army of his own and turn against all
those like infrastructure and people it's not ordinary people but it leads people also called a serrationists who believed technology will do all good to human uh humankind and if it's kind of turning to um a little bit like a psychoanalysis uh afterwards so we're gonna dig into his trauma and we're gonna see how all these things interconnect all together and how he trying so hard to bring the whole civilization back in the time when
there's no internet there there's no uh connectivity so that's what he believed in and he think cut off all of this connection might bring back the balance of human and nature and I think this is one of the uh very strong uh um statement manifest Manifesto against an assertionism and I think a of course it's a metaphor but of course you can also see the valid part of it because we are actually doing the harms because all of those emissions
because AI definitely require a huge amount of electricity computation power and infrastructure and all of those will create even more carbon into the atmosphere and of course extraction so the nature resources
and I think this is what we have to think about it carefully you know otherwise it just like bring us on on this even unbalancing status um it's just like you walking on on the while is trying to you know there's so many things in your hands and
you try to play it all over and all over but somehow you just didn't realize you're walking on the wire is so did the abyss beneath and I think one thing we've been discussed is about like the non-human part of the data how we can make all of those other species even the environments uh were taking accounts when you try to build up build up a more in inclusive model is not only on human language and imageries and everything but also
other species like animals plants and even bald guy so I think this is something pretty new at the very starting point but I think this is the right direction we have to go because otherwise I think based on the ancient Chinese
philosophy Daoism is talking about the art of doing nothing is basically the best thing to do right so think about pandemic when trying so hard to you know knock down and control everything but basically nothing so so of course vaccination is
so important scientific development or medication and detection is so important but I mean there's certain way we have to follow we have to and me that we're just one of the many kinds of the species on this planet so when you create this kind of imbalance of the world so the nature will put it flip it over to you know to read balancing the the the the the the plate and I think yeah so so I think this is what I try to discuss in the story is
not only about the technology but also about the attitude towards the others yeah I'm a huge fan of taoism I've been reading the daddy thing uh since I was 18. and I'm finally beginning to understand some of its Concepts that we uh playing in uh here uh I is something I hadn't thought of I'm interested to hear you refer to it um and and as I was listening to you one of the things that occurred to me is that many of many of these problems
aren't necessarily due to the technology but they might be really due to we humans yes uh because uh you know uh the the despair that the scientists uh goes through and and then becomes this this a hardened uh desire to bring it all down right you you see these burn it all down you see these messages and of course that was the manifesto of uh Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber here in the states um the luddites before him who went and
destroyed all of the Machinery because they were afraid it does seem to me that um we we need to openly talk about um both sides of the human character right uh because I think that we humans are essentially uh emotional creatures
and and the emotion that rules us most often is fear specifically fear of the unknown but then it leads to things like the desire for Revenge the desire to misuse things and or blame some other thing uh for whatever Misfortune has
befallen us and so my particular and of course Dune the the whole Jihad against technology that's uh the entire dude is I love Dune and uh so it's been dealt with uh both in science fiction and and Other Stories but again it comes back to
the power in my mind at least the hour of stories to raise these questions right because one of the things that I really admire about you and your your AI partner in writing this book is you you are not afraid to say this could be a
really big problem and if we don't start thinking about it now we might get some ghastly surprises um kind of Shifting Gears um to the whole job front that's another area that I hear constantly from people who are you know um just they they're not AI aficionados but they one of the one of the first things after they worry about deep fakes they they go to is my job safe and and what I try to say is there are going to be a lot of jobs that
will be uh made obsolete made redundant by AI that doesn't mean that I think what one of the things that we do a bad job of is we're pretty good at saying oh well this is going to kill X right this is going to kill copywriting or this is
going to kill graphic design but yeah what we failed to do is imagine all of the jobs that will be created early through the new technology one of your stories the job savior is really interesting to me because you you
ultimately make the point that the three R's relearn recalibrate create a Renaissance where we can focus on you know what we humans do instinctively well right creativity compassion uh all of all of those types of things but what I wanted to ask you about in the story is this idea um that uh so so I changed my mind on universal basic income uh I I used to be opposed to it um and and now I'm in favor of it knowing all of the shortcomings right so
I I don't have like a panglossian view like oh it's gonna solve everything no well it'll it'll create additional problems and and that that is one of the central topics in in the story that the job Savior and the question I wanted to ask you was do you think that it's just a fundamental part of we human uh our nature human OS that we we need a mission so to speak we we need some form of job and and is it would it be okay to
give people like jobs that weren't real jobs yeah I mean like uh as David Graber put it like job right so job basically is a social and cultural construction uh in my opinion but purpose of living is that so I think
that's deeply embedded in the human nature so I think even all the religions is basically trying to solve this problem why we are living why we're existing so what's the purpose of all of those even like sufferings from pain um isolation
etc etc and sacrificing and I think people need the purpose for on on doing anything so I think in the story we we came to this kind of you know again is you utopic and also these topics it's like we try to think Beyond binary again this
is very diligent and always and basically is talking about you know all the contradictory and opposite size is actually interchangeable interconnected intertwining all together so I think yeah we talk about uh using
AI to uh uh we calibrate we learn re Renaissance for people to help them to uh reallocate their job in the society so I think is maybe in the future it's not about like how much like actual economic value it can uh create from your job but it's about
how this mental Wellness you know you can gain and also how this helps you to maintain and even like uplift your living status your your Human Condition and your your emotional uh uh embody embodied experience as a
human being in the in the family in a society in a community so I think that also very important and sometimes it's invaluable because you couldn't quality qualify it on certain numbers so I think that's the
um that's more even trickier because people might think okay this job make me suffer but I need need it so badly because it it it it it it pay me well but you know you never can do this kind of calculation or math because sometimes you feel like
maybe you're losing a huge a huge opportunity to discover yourself or other opportunities maybe you'll find your real uh in internal like passion on on actualize your dream to become a artist a writer or something because you you attract in this like well paid job like as a I don't know engineer financier whatsoever but I think what's so important is how we can um leverage this structuralize um Dynamic change on job market because
of the new technology merge and how we can create new jobs and help people to smoothly to another office I think that's more meaningful right because people oh now I got a chance to do what I really want to do so so that's the new all-new attitude towards this kind of change and maybe of course people might suffer um from this is like um it's not perfectly um Sue's emotionally solved all this kind of like any of transition but I think ultimately
if they really can relearn and recalibrate with themselves not only with the external expectation like all these you know people from the uh outside world they you might always want to compare with them um based on the social ladder and everything but you really look into yourself and and and and and realize that okay this is something really make me feel satisfied this is really fulfill myself and maybe it will help me to actualize myself on a
higher level so I think this is what I imagine in the future maybe technology such as AI can tell people to find out and I think that this is where totally Transcendent our whole society a whole civilization to the next level because if you imagine everyone can do something they really and huge passion in series season on doing and they must do a better way better job than their suffering as well whatsoever jaw so I think this
is ultimately it will like improve and uplifting the efficiency of the whole society for sure yeah I I think that's a really great point that you highlight so many people we we have cultural lag right and and people adopt attitudes that have
persisted for a long period of time at least in the west um you know my job equals me you know your job does not equal you right yes and and and so uh your your purpose is sometimes your job but many many times
it is not your job right yes your avocation and vocation can be two very very different things sort of see the idea that the tool of AI can be used to as you put it move us to the next level so to speak of of evolving but you know that's going to be messy and that's going to be scary and um the the idea again uh of of people contemplating it like it it it scares a lot of people but I I like the idea that you know the hedonic treadmill does not
have to be your fate yes and um the opportunities that Ai and other Innovations are going to make uh for us to maybe move up Maslow's hierarchy right and and allow more people to to to move up that hierarchy you also have a story that I that I really loved called Isle of Happiness uh happiness is such a uh challenging thing to think about I think because my view is that um happiness is a byproduct it it isn't something that can be sought directly
um and and now we're getting into um some of the more uh I wouldn't say esoteric ideas but talk a little bit about the story of the Isle of happiness because I I thought like my immediate um uh thought as I was reading it was oh man this would be this would be such a great movie wait yeah so our happiness is basically talking about a Russian very successful business tycoon it got so depressive and he tried everything he could um
so have all the fun times and and trying so hard not to kill himself but uh he got this mysterious invitation for the Middle East Country Qatar they built an artificial Island and they try to deploy everything on this island with AI and it can um
it tried to make you happy so basically that's the idea so he was like one of the few uh VIP guests who was got the first uh invitation to visit the island and he was trapped in this kind of um very drama and uh you know
uh uh um um a little bit of romantic and you know you know applications with the princess and but somehow he was turned into a refugee and he had to escape people out of this uh Ray um um scary kind of like I don't know cat and mouse uh chasing uh games and but ultimately he threw all this kind of like uh gamification he found that he regained his happiness or certain Bible so it's kind of uh I leave it in ambiguous
ending there because I want readers to have their own assumption and and have their own conclusion of what is happening is ready and this AI can really help us to you know to pursue uh happiness or certain level or just that kind of
rejection and uh any illusion so I think yeah it's a very subjective kind of feeling and what has happened is it could be like uh sorry to many many different dimensions and factors for sure and and here we're using uh like
bio markers and also this kind of micro expression recognition Technologies and and even like it can analysis of of all the parts and of your behavior reaction etc etc of course all linguistic level AI definitely can do a better job than
than human therapists and but all of those efforts could really lead to the result of being happier so that's a huge huge question mark here also to myself because I know yeah sometimes you if you're trying harder to get happy is
even push you away further for happiness that's how I feel it right so sometimes I think the simplest way is doing nothing just again back to the dial is a way so so and don't put it when you forget about everything you learn you get the ultimate happiness because you just forget about anything like troubles you all the time so that's what fascinating me like the the the the furthest tense maybe the shortest cut so so I think
that's how I understand it is is such a a very very very uh um how to put it like a very mysterious kind of thinking yeah we're just losing all of those kind of ancient philosophy in China in contemporary child so yeah yeah the the idea that uh desire is the cause of unhappiness attachments are the causes of unhappiness is sometimes very difficult for people to grasp um and and yet most of the greatest thinkers about those things have
delivered pretty similar messages uh that um you know be being attached to external things uh is is not a path to happiness for most um and and we kid ourselves in thinking that um you know if I achieve this material
thing then I will be happy uh I I think that that has been proven pretty conclusively not to be the case um and obviously again the the the fundamental nature of stories right showing that uh careful what you wish for uh because uh you you you might end
up getting something that you was well you thought you were wishing for it but but maybe not that the the vital story that I want to talk about dreaming of platitude um I I think that I personally think that we are moving from what has
dominated our species for all of our recorded history which is scarcity um and scarcity drives zero-sum behaviors uh it it drives all sorts of competitions that can turn uh deadly um and uh it builds the hierarchies that
you referenced earlier um you know uh what better way to maintain your position high on the hierarchy but to uh demonize and to somehow suggest that others are not worthy of that particular position and you know you see it encased in certain religions you see it encased in certain world philosophies uh certainly not taoism but in many many others um what do you think about the moving into a world of an abundance right what what
what do we replace money with what do we replace um all of those things in a world like again back to Star Trek live long and prosper remember the the replicators were you know I want English breakfast tea and Boop there it is
uh and and the talk a bit about the story because you come up with a very ingenious way that uh that money gets replaced yeah uh speaking of which I want to recommend another book that is called chickenomic is basically talking about
how um all this uh Star Trek uh economy that worked in the real world so I think this was a fascinating book to read and and in the dreaming of Planet 2 we are talking about a post scarcity uh society which with the green energy and and all this kind of uh social uh settings we um individuals we don't need to work to to make a living basically so you can get all this uh um materialistic uh satisfaction Supply from the government
but then come up with the problem with we've been talking about is about the purpose of living right so we kind of Imagine a new new uh kind of a currency and alternative digital currency email apparel uh social structure that means
this currency was attached to not the property in that fortune not to possessing the things but is about like all of those uh um psychological uh sociological and also spiritual demands of the hierarchy based on Maslow's
theory is like higher level of the uh demands like belonging and dignity and and maybe uh love and also contribution to the community self-actualization and maybe ultimately there will be Transcendence uh of yourself right so so but there's the highest hierarchy of all like it's almost like religious to me and and this kind of like currency actually is gonna incentive people and mobilize people to persuade what they really want to do so
a conscious level and and spiritual level and and of course they can with this currency they can basically trade with a lot of opportunity to fulfill themselves to to uh again like re-educate themselves and to uh self-actualize and and I think this is something it's quite idealistic to be honest I don't think this is would be happen in the near future foreseeable future and of course I I put it in Australia Brisbane because they have
abandonment of cleaning energy but when I talk to my friends from Australia none of them believe in this story because they they all told me like it no the government sucks there's no way it could happen in Australia so it's so
funny to remind me um the external you know imagination is so various with the in insiders like perspective right when people living in the society people really feel the thing people can see all those uh frustration and theory of food
um the others or maybe from themselves so I think this is I think this story reminds us the solution might not always only about the technology but also beyond the technology it's about the social construction it's about the
political system it's about the redistribution mechanism so it's how we decide everything we're running the world so but all all of those was built upon our belief or or consensus right our value system so those Foundation are even more
difficult to be challenged to be changed because out of the story of capitalism have been told like in the past centuries and all of those challenges had failed right so we didn't come up with anything new anything revolutionary and I think this is what we lack of here um as Storyteller we I always think that we imagine so many fascinating Technologies inventions etc etc other species but why couldn't we come up with some new
social system some new political system that might really can inspire people to make the change so I think we urgently need some voices here right for Economist and for maybe like sociologists and anthropologists so so give us something give us something new maybe upon the nature maybe it will I don't know mathematics maybe can help us to get rid of this old old trip track you know that's what we need new narratives new metaphor new meat maybe
yeah and I I think again that's why I love your book so much and why I recommend it to so many people who are interested in AI uh but also in how how we present and think about all of these things because I I personally am very
optimistic in a rational sense I I by that I mean I understand that there will be tons of problems uh and that we're gonna have to come up with solutions for those problems uh but but I like the aspirational nature of your your your
book and your closing story in that um you you've got to put those ideas out there for people to even begin contemplating them yeah and I and I think that uh I personally feel like I'm the luckiest person on the planet that I
get to be alive during this time because like wow um we we now are in a position to do so many interesting and um and it evolving as as a species things but of course we can also go the other way and we can use these Innovations in
these very powerful Technologies in a very destructive way and and so thus my my desire to highlight uh people and and great storytellers like yourself and and others because that's how people seem to really uh get get their minds switched on and and uh you know one of the things we've been working on is you know the the Netflix show Black Mirror we we held a competition called White mirror and we actually uh uh the author who won is
actually coming out with a huge series of uh inspiring stories uh or uh What uh what we can hopefully achieve with these new Innovations and and Technologies um listen I I love your book I loved uh having this opportunity to chat with you
about it um what's next for you what are you working on right now yeah um I'm the research scholar at um McMillan Center at Yale this year so I'm also working on my next novel um it's um the sequel to waste time my debut
novel so he's talking about climate change in Oceanic uh scenario and also it's about like human machine nature triangle like how to make it works right from the intelligence level but uh I mean in the previous six months so many things happened like all this chat to be thing yeah actually um it actually knocking us off like you have to rethink about how you describe and imagine the future of AI basically so that's what I've been struggling a
lot recently because you have to come up with something BL you know what's the narrative right now that's like you have to like one step or two step uh uh forwards uh from the reality that's how we think it might be science
fiction sci-fi enough or futuristic enough so I think yeah that's what so fascinating because our imagination is already in La bahrai for reality is so fast it's evolving like uh on a daily basis and we have to trying so hard to
catch up with it and I think that's what you put it like we're very lucky to living in this type right the time of change all I can experience maybe I think even like I I will not be surprised if I can see the end of humanity and I think that could be something of as a science fiction writer that could be really um you know it's very complicated feelings here I first of all I I'll say this is could be a very uh ethical lipstick
were to be seen but also you might feel that or maybe there's something new something novel emerge from all these ashes of the old world and that could be amazing and and I couldn't wait to see that um so happening and yeah so so I'm totally amazed amazing and of course the apocalyptic uh Vision uh you know they always joke that prostitution is the world's oldest profession no I think forecasting the end of humanity in the world is the
world's oldest profession uh so so we certainly uh have a long history of people telling us that the end is nigh and uh so far we we uh have have uh not uh succumbed to that particular outcome um one of the things that we do with all
of our guests at the end is uh we we tell you that we're going to wave a wand and make you the emperor of the world for one day but you can't put anyone in a re-education camp or you can't kill anybody but what you can do is we're
gonna give you a magic microphone and you can speak two things into that microphone that everyone in their morning wherever their morning is on the planet all eight billion people are gonna wake up and they're gonna think
that the two things that you suggested or incepted in them were their own ideas and they're going to immediately start acting on them what two things are you going to incept wow that's very cool just um wow I have to be very cautious about
this wish you know I'll say first um like doing at least one positive good thing to the others no matter that's human or other species today and two um reflecting on the thing you did yesterday and make progress oh I love that I love that I you you inserted a loop and and it is an infinite Loop well listen thank you so much I'm a huge admirer of your work um and uh can't wait to see what uh comes from you next thank you so much cheers