0:00:00I tell you what it is one of the great myths of hello internet and CGP grey
0:00:05folklore that you are competent and have technical ability the last show
0:00:12certainly certainly sparked some conversation in the reddit I couldn't
0:00:17help but notice that it was a show that reached a thousand comments people
0:00:22talking about when services ma'am is appropriate people talking about sub
0:00:28localization with many minds blown lots and lots of discussion from the last
0:00:32show there was there wasn't sure will come to a few of the other things in
0:00:37follow-up on the subway collaboration thing I love people seemed really
0:00:42interested in and it is very interesting but I feel like I have anything else to
0:00:46say what about you
0:00:47the thing that I left out of the conversation last time which people were
0:00:51picking up on a little bit in the subreddit was I came across some
0:00:56localization in the context of this is not a thing that you should do if you
0:01:03are a well developed reader that this is this is a hinderance this is something
0:01:09that you do when you first learn to read when you are a child but that by the
0:01:14time you become a man you should be able to look at words and understand them
0:01:18without hearing a little voice in your head reading the words to yourself
0:01:23yeah there was a lot of comments on that point but my only follow-up is when I
0:01:29came across this I thought oh ok well this is very interesting let me see if I
0:01:33can get rid of this sub localization and there's a whole bunch of things that
0:01:37you're supposed to do and my experience with them has been a total failure there
0:01:46are exercises you're supposed to do where you're listening to a recording of
0:01:51a voice that's counting up in numbers 12345 and trying to read trying to do
0:01:56that so that your brain learns to not use the audio part of your brain for
0:02:01this and I tried that and the result was I was just incapable of reading the one
0:02:06that I thought was the most interesting was
0:02:08was there is a bunch of software out there which have you seen this pretty
0:02:12but it does this thing where it flashes words individually on the screen from an
0:02:18article so so instead of saying that here's an article that I want to read
0:02:22and it's written normally it just flashes all of the words in sequence in
0:02:27the center of the screen
0:02:28have you ever seen something like yeah yeah I I have very briefly I'm vaguely
0:02:32familiar with it yeah I believe Instapaper on the phone has a built-in
0:02:35but there's a few websites we can paste text and do the same thing but one of
0:02:40the ways in which you're supposed to train yourself out of some vocalizing is
0:02:45by using something like this
0:02:47cranked out a ridiculous speed ok well let me try I'll try but it was almost
0:02:53comical because no matter how high I cranked it up to its like 500 words per
0:02:58minute I'm just hearing a faster voice in my head like the point at which I can
0:03:04still understand it and there is also a narrator and it was a bit like when I
0:03:09edit the podcast podcast and sometimes accidentally sent it to you in a
0:03:13fast-forward mode we're we're talking you know two times faster than we
0:03:17normally do so I tried a bunch of the get rid of some vocalizations stuff and
0:03:22not have it seems to work for me at all I just am not sure that I'm not sure
0:03:27that it can be gotten rid of I guess the question I have
0:03:30is what's the difference between you sub vocalizing and if I was sitting next to
0:03:36you in bed reading the book i think is a big difference between the house and
0:03:43hang on I'm sitting there I'm sitting next to the bed I'm not in bed with you
0:03:47I'm just a chair next to a less weird when you've got like you're getting
0:03:53ready to go to sleep and garlic bread you can you read me a story like is that
0:03:58basically what's happening you're reading yourself a story that seems or
0:04:03if I was reading you the story
0:04:05other words and coming into your head you're then read them to yourself again
0:04:08so you don't think about it now there's no it's not necessary level of thought
0:04:14there's no doubling up I do not like hearing it twice maybe this is the best
0:04:18way to think about it when we're talking now aren't you in mere talking neither
0:04:24of us are thinking about the thoughts right like we just don't know how you
0:04:28speak right words just appear at this is this is how that happens right yeah yeah
0:04:32and so when I ask you a question and then you answer me yeah right you are
0:04:39using a voice but at your thinking the thought at the same time that you're
0:04:42speaking it and for anyone who's done something like a podcast where you speak
0:04:47for a very long time and I'm sure brady you had the same experience sometimes
0:04:50you say something and you think we do actually think that I'm not sure that I
0:04:54do think that right because it's just like a stream of thoughts coming out of
0:04:57your mind right
0:05:00have you ever had that experience you say something you think do I think
0:05:02pretty much every time I speak their ego so in the same way that you talking out
0:05:08loud is like the same thing is you thinking it's it's just like that for
0:05:14reading it it's almost like if if if someone put duct tape over your mouth
0:05:20because you weren't able to speak that would impair your ability to think
0:05:25that's kind of like what it what it is internally I did read when they're doing
0:05:29experiments on sub vocalizations they do their senses because you are almost
0:05:34imperceptibly
0:05:35reading to your self-learning say movements in your time zone your lips
0:05:38and stuff so you literally a kind of reading out loud
0:05:42yeah I would be really curious to know if that was the case for me as far as I
0:05:47know I sit silently and I don't plan on moving my lips or my tongue but I have
0:05:52seen these things and I go you can under the right circumstances measure that
0:05:56they're still electrical impulses going to someones vocal chords when they're
0:05:59doing this even if there's no external side that there that they're reading out
0:06:03loud but I guess your analogy of you reading me a bedtime story just really
0:06:08threw me off I think perhaps the most straightforward way to describe it is
0:06:12that me reading a book out loud to myself and me reading a book
0:06:19silently to myself are not very different experiences are really is with
0:06:25human brain that weird well somehow I don't know how you read I don't
0:06:29understand how you read it that's not the experience that you have any like
0:06:32you are like imagining things to like you are like picturing the same
0:06:35obviously you know you're imagining the mountains and the hobbits and yeah I
0:06:40have the same time this gets really weird like when you think of something
0:06:43in your head you can see it right but where are you seeing it I still have
0:06:48that going on like I'm imagining the scene that unfolds in say a fictional
0:06:52book right that that definitely takes place but it really is just like there
0:06:56is a narrator talking over the whole thing but so do you just do does have a
0:07:00scene silently playing in your head when you read now it's just it's it's it's in
0:07:07another element in a room that we're voices don't exist it's like it's your
0:07:12thoughts your consciousness it's there it's there it's that infant decimal
0:07:16point in the center of your brain where everything happens that you don't
0:07:20understand but it's just the the place and there's no luck I said last time now
0:07:26there's a collapsing of the wave function as soon as I think about
0:07:29thinking everything becomes words and pictures and it's only when I think
0:07:35about thinking it's not that's why I think the same thing is happening to
0:07:39both of us and you're just
0:07:41incapable of getting lost in there and you're always thinking about it so
0:07:45you're always collapsing the wave function and thinking about the words in
0:07:47the pitches I I know this is a Roman studies into an arrogant for me to think
0:07:53everyone thinks like me but I just that's what it feels like to me it feels
0:07:57like we all do it because as soon as I try to think about as soon as I talk to
0:08:01you about it suddenly I am reading to myself and everything is a lot more
0:08:04simple and basic but that's just because I'm analyzing it I just think you're
0:08:08analyzing it too much I think I think he do get lost in reading and thinking and
0:08:14it's only when you stop and think about it that it collapses into this really
0:08:17simple thing yet this is exactly what an ounce of a closer with that and I could
0:08:26say and of course you would say that because that's what grade would say you
0:08:31can't argue with that this is where fast getting into the realm of in argue
0:08:35ability but I the reason why do think that that you're wrong is because I from
0:08:41the descriptions I genuinely wish that I could read in this way that didn't have
0:08:46internal words like it seems like it's a much better way to read but I am always
0:08:52aware of the narrator like the narrator is is never not their mental images can
0:08:58be in addition to the narrator but the narrator's always like I can do the
0:09:02thing everyone can do it you can you can imagine a dog and in your brain
0:09:06somewhere there's like a picture of a generic dog that pops into your head
0:09:10without hearing someone also go dog right I can have without a narrator day
0:09:18reading without a narrator is not possible but I would still say that I
0:09:22think the vast majority of my thoughts do have some kind of narrator and that
0:09:27the the picture part of it is is much rarer like that guy have to more
0:09:31consciously like imagine the dog to not have the narrator to be a thing that
0:09:36happens and I do and I do realize their academic studies into this that's
0:09:40another reason I'm wrong but this is like oh this is a field of study so I
0:09:44can sit here and be an armchair expert but I do realize there
0:09:48is a thing that I would be curious in the subreddit if anybody has any other
0:09:53recommended techniques besides the listen to something
0:09:56spoken while you're reading or try to do the one word really fast things I'm open
0:10:02to trying other methods to to get rid of the habit of Cebu collapsing but
0:10:07everything I have tried so far has been whole area is Lee unhelpful to do I
0:10:14haven't told you this yet but I've been buying up steps and all sorts of
0:10:18merchandise will be liberian County flags on the only yeah just today I got
0:10:26a number like that was sent like during the Black the liberian war or something
0:10:30with this one of the steps and postmarked in liberia and I'm loving
0:10:35nothing I'm getting really into steps and postcards and the whole world of
0:10:40mail and stuff I think I'm becoming a fully fledged node like I'm the one
0:10:46thing that I didn't do that snow D step and i think im gonna get into stamp
0:10:51collecting there is a whole world of the whole world to get into with stamp
0:10:56collecting obviously have already started with my crash mail that now so
0:11:04proudly showed me last time I was there I'm gonna have a whole bunch of other
0:11:07liberians to show you next time there was a thread on the technology subreddit
0:11:16very often on there they do redesign projects which actually think of some of
0:11:20the most interesting things that appear on that subreddit sometimes they just do
0:11:23flags in a particular theme like canada is every nation's flags he make a
0:11:28counter version of all the flags but sometimes they just do a straight up
0:11:31redesign and so someone who actually listened to the show and its food man
0:11:38Union he redid all of the Liberian County flags and I'll put the link in
0:11:45the show notes I am very impressed with this redesign and I think the redesign
0:11:50is really interesting because I can't I can't figure it out because I look at
0:11:55the redesign and these flags are still
0:11:58very very busy flags but I like them all but I wonder if it's because my brain
0:12:04has already fixed its point of reference for Hrithik horrific original flags and
0:12:11so my brain is going over these legs are much better than those flags the feeling
0:12:15I have a hard time seeing them objectively but I think they are very
0:12:20interesting Lee done redesigns she know my problem is with all these redesigned
0:12:26competitions and things like that because because of these rules of good
0:12:31flag design and this kind of accepted style and grammar of the time of the
0:12:35flames begin looking a bit the site and I always think that's one of the things
0:12:40I like about the liberian County flags if I can block anything it's it's it's
0:12:45different it's so it's so refreshing the different isn't a great thing about some
0:12:49of the WEP key flags whether it's something really crazy like Nepal or or
0:12:54something that's just a bit different like Brazil for example if you didn't
0:12:58have those points of difference
0:13:00flags will be the most boring thing in the world he you need some of the crazy
0:13:04cars to make flags work and I think whenever you have these competitions
0:13:09with people say let's imagine we didn't have the crazy guys let's make the crazy
0:13:13guys the same as all the other guys all of a sudden flags become really dull so
0:13:18I think it's unfortunate when people have these little let's let's take the
0:13:23wacky flag and turn it into all the other ones and it just it just it leaves
0:13:27me cold if you can make a new flag ok make a new flag and make it good and
0:13:32follow the rules of design but there's something about all these if only this
0:13:37crazy flag was like all the other ones moments that people don't get a text I
0:13:43am more sympathetic to your point than you might think that I am greedy the
0:13:50thing the thing that I think complicates this is that you and higher looking at
0:13:55it from from the perspective of flag connoisseurs potentially professionals
0:14:03who help other nations develop their flag for this is this is our
0:14:07perspectives so we see
0:14:09many many flags people send us on Twitter and on the subreddit many more
0:14:14flags we've seen a lot yet and so I think from that perspective the more
0:14:20unusual becomes more valuable like a welcome respite from the sameness of
0:14:27every single flag yeah it feels like oh boy isn't isn't this quite a relief and
0:14:33I think this is something that you can see sometimes with people who are
0:14:36professional critics in any field sometimes critics we do have money by
0:14:45criticizing flags I can someone add that to the Wikipedia page is well-known
0:14:54professional flag tattooed in some circles as potential advisers to the
0:15:01government of Fiji but I think I think that's that's why I like movie reviewers
0:15:08you know sometimes if if their movie reviewers you follow they'll
0:15:11occasionally like movies that you feel like god how could they possibly like
0:15:15this terrible low-budget awful indie movie and I think it's a bit of a same
0:15:21thing where they like man is just so interesting to see something that is
0:15:24different and even if it's not great but the thing with flags and the reason why
0:15:29I will still push back against you on this is that I think a vital part of a
0:15:34flag is not just its uniqueness but it's not the people who live under that flag
0:15:40should want to put that flag on things that they have so I feel like everybody
0:15:47should have a flag that they can attach to their backpack right or that they can
0:15:52fly from their house everyone should have that and so the original liberian
0:15:59County flags if you lived in one of those counties and you were super proud
0:16:04of it and you wanted to demonstrate that to the world you had a terrible terrible
0:16:10choice of flag
0:16:12so that's why I'm going to push back to you as I think everybody deserves to
0:16:17live under a flag that they can proudly fly half years yet saying because I have
0:16:22not have you yet seen anyone from liberia or anyone who lives in any of
0:16:28these counties criticized the flax and say they don't like them cuz you and
0:16:33I've had a road loss and we've seen on reddit having a laugh and saying these
0:16:36are the worst flags on the way out but it's entirely possible the people of
0:16:40river gee County
0:16:43their flags awesome if you told me just to say go with that so i didnt know you
0:16:53stop inmates ya gotta gotta gotta push back I did I would never want to just
0:17:01give you a hard but I mean it it maybe maybe maybe the incredibly proud and if
0:17:08we were saying these things on a podcast in liberia would be tried for treason I
0:17:13mean this is this is the part where I have to admit that I know almost nothing
0:17:16about the great nation of Liberia Vicky county is pronounced like that I
0:17:23definitely know that yeah expert in pronunciation for liberia counties but I
0:17:29don't know I know you CDP Grade II don't you know it's it's because nobody
0:17:45English now is because English doesn't have any decision rules English just
0:17:49like to pretend that it does I don't know that I don't know that refugee
0:17:52county has a place called the Fishtown so I think it's also although it does
0:17:55seem to be land-locked but I guess I freshwater fish or its just a great name
0:17:59yeah but I have seen nine their opponents nor d ponents of the Liberian
0:18:09County flags that are from liberia so I i have seen no no feedback on either end
0:18:14and my guess
0:18:16my guess is this is a lot like the city flags in the United States which is that
0:18:22just most people don't have the slightest idea what the flag of their
0:18:26local city is this is normally one of these times when I would make a comment
0:18:31like they were going to be hearing from everyone from liberia but I don't
0:18:35imagine imagine that we're actually going to get a lot of Liberians me back
0:18:39on this one
0:18:39this episode of hello internet is brought to you by now many of you might
0:18:45be working at a big company with an internet that is just a terrible
0:18:51terrible piece of software to work with i mean actually isn't even really a
0:18:56piece of software it feels much more like it's a bunch of pipes connected to
0:19:00old computers held together with duct tape
0:19:04most Internet are just awful I used awful internet at my school but igloo is
0:19:09something different
0:19:11igloo is a feeling of levity compared to other internets because it is an
0:19:16internet you will actually like go to igloo software dot com slash hello and
0:19:23just just take a look at the way igloo looks they have a nice clean modern
0:19:29design that will just be a relief on your sad tired eyes compared to the
0:19:35internet that you are currently working web at your company and includes not
0:19:39just a pretty face
0:19:40igloo lets you share news organize your files coordinate calendars and manage
0:19:45your projects all in one place and it's not just files in a bucket either their
0:19:51latest upgrade Viking revolves around interacting with documents how people
0:19:56make changes to them how you can receive feedback on them if you're the man in
0:20:00charge there's an ability to track who has seen what across the internet so you
0:20:06can have something like read receipts in email where you know if everyone has
0:20:10actually seen and signed off on whatever document they need to see if your
0:20:15company has a legacy internet that looks like it was built in the nineteen
0:20:20nineties then you should give
0:20:22igloo a try please sign up for a free trial at igloo software dot com slash
0:20:28below to let you know that you came from us so the next time I want to talk about
0:20:35it over we just did it last week and the week before yet
0:20:41newburgh corner at this rate we I just did have a moment after we've spoken
0:20:47about it because I i causing 30 business short space of time in the first person
0:20:52who drove me across San Francisco
0:20:55I was sad you know where you know where you going next he said I've got to go to
0:20:59work I'm actually a bartender and then the next go to pick me up and take me to
0:21:03the next place was in a hurry as well as she actually wants to be like a singer
0:21:07in a band and she was like auditioning that now and then the next person who
0:21:12drove me to the next place was like who was picking up her kids from soccer
0:21:17practice after she gave me a lift and i suddenly occurred to me and i know this
0:21:21country for taxi drivers but it seems even more the case with a bad driving me
0:21:26like these people driving seventy miles an hour along highways he could kill me
0:21:33with the terms of a steering wheel and they just thought these random selection
0:21:37of people and their only qualification is that they have a mobile phone and
0:21:41they have a driver's license
0:21:43well I didn't say that drivers license I'm assuming they went through some
0:21:46process to prove that but the driver's license process is very rigorous very
0:21:51make a case like a job and it's at least I know nothing about this person had
0:21:56crashes they are they do not like I still like me but I still think its coat
0:22:03it really won me over but there were a few moments i think im quite sensitive
0:22:07to it especially since we spoke earlier about that the terrible car crash when
0:22:12the mathematician John Nash Titan when he was going back from the airport and
0:22:17that was a taxi that was a taxi crash right but ever since then especially
0:22:21when I'm in america driving from airports highways I'm always thinking
0:22:25I'm always conscious that my life is in other people's hands much more so than
0:22:29when I fly yeah
0:22:30probably cuz I could see the person driving using their mobile phone and
0:22:33stuff yeah and I think driving in america is scarier as I i over most of
0:22:40the time just around London and there are unaware like okay even if we get
0:22:45into a car crash how fast can we possibly be going in a head-on collision
0:22:49exactly like London London traffics
0:22:52whereas in america you have big stretches where you you can you can get
0:22:56up to seventy miles an hour and then you head-on collision with somebody else
0:23:00going seventy miles in the other direction right this driving in america
0:23:04is definitely more of a dangerous experience also the fact that such a
0:23:08mobile phone
0:23:10oriented platform drivers even more than taxi drivers always seem to be attached
0:23:16to their phones are always using the map steroids use in the apps they're very
0:23:19phone obsessed and I think mobile phones
0:23:22a very dangerous and I'm very conscious of how often they looking at their
0:23:26phones and the map sitting in their lap and stuff like that I think I actually
0:23:31said to one of the drivers to give you some have something into the Apple you
0:23:36can't use the phone while you're doing this so that because because it wasn't
0:23:40your finds no no no there's nothing like this again is is the interesting
0:23:45difference of of how things are around the world because it again at least in
0:23:50London the phones that they get our only usable for uber and they are issued by
0:23:59who were there like factory installed I phones that run who bring nothing else
0:24:04which is why in London almost all of the drivers have a larry is Lee at least two
0:24:10and sometimes three phones attached to their dashboard precisely because her
0:24:16phone can only be used for over and so the one at bring up other stuff on the
0:24:20other phone so they have like two different
0:24:23like software for reading the directions of the loaded up on Google Maps and
0:24:27something else it so I'm always aware of like this many many scream phenomenon at
0:24:34the front of the cars and it extra funny when whatever car they're using has a
0:24:38built-in screen that they're obviously not using because their phone screens
0:24:42are just superior so actually there's four screens and the front of this car
0:24:46ok you got her phone you have your secondary GPS and you have what is
0:24:52obviously your personal phone and the built-in screen in the actual car itself
0:24:57as a lot of screens the other thing that came out time and again when I was
0:25:01talking to overdrive is was this rival app code lift ya know this is something
0:25:06I've never used because I believe it's only in the United States I don't think
0:25:11it's it's it's in the UK but I've always gotten vaguely the impression that like
0:25:15lift is for hippies they can share ridesharing kind of thing I didn't get
0:25:21that impression but to have like pink mustaches on the front of their cars you
0:25:26know this is this is the kind of company that it is in my mind I have no idea
0:25:30most of the drivers tough we using both over and lift simultaneously and they
0:25:36all failed lift and they gave me a few reasons one of the big reasons was the
0:25:41ability for passengers to tip and I did you did you proud great idea prayer I
0:25:48gave them a real hard time about that I told them why didn't like the obvious
0:25:53reasons you know chris is recreate the tipping culture and you start could
0:25:57start getting assessed based on your tipping and actually what they told me
0:26:02and I was told us a few times I don't I haven't checked myself but I was told a
0:26:06few times the tipping actually works in quite an interesting way you do the tip
0:26:10afterwards anonymously via phone and they don't find out who tipped them at
0:26:15the end of the day at the end of the week they just get their tips and they
0:26:17don't know where they came from
0:26:19so they like it because if they do really well they can you know it gives
0:26:22them something to strive for beyond just getting another 5 stars you know they
0:26:26could get the tip or your replays to give them a tip
0:26:30but it did sound like that pressure and awkwardness wasn't there and there was
0:26:34no gym no judging because no one knows who tip so I don't know if it's true
0:26:38that's what they said when I challenged so it wasn't really actually just shut
0:26:43or she's getting pretty smart she's I just sent you said in one of those left
0:26:49cars with the mustache apparently this is a thing that they no longer do but I
0:26:53was certainly thinking mio crazy person for imagining that that used to be pink
0:26:56mustaches on cars and now I'm not a crazy person I looked it up and yes it
0:27:01is used to do that way that you described tipping is a very interesting
0:27:09idea that I have ever come across before the idea of delayed mass tipping I think
0:27:18I think my initial reaction to that is I find it much more acceptable
0:27:24like in a restaurant if tipping work that way right that you could do it
0:27:29later and it's distributed amongst a large number of customers so that the
0:27:34waiters don't know directly I think that I think it's interesting I think the
0:27:39idea people are fundamentally cheap nice so like I think without the social
0:27:44pressure of tipping tips may come down this is why my fundamental thing with
0:27:48tips they always need to remind people argue against tips heart part of the
0:27:52argument that is unspoken
0:27:54is that you have to raise the wage for people who depend on tips
0:28:00scrooge here thinking these tips and not add anything else I would rather raise
0:28:08the wage and removed the tips I think if under those circumstances if tipping was
0:28:13not required it was done later and anonymously I think I would probably
0:28:17very rarely do it and again like with all the other stuff is way more about
0:28:22just like having to think about it but I don't know I don't know maybe maybe I
0:28:28would just I would just set it as the default amount of tip I know it's an
0:28:32interesting idea that's a very interesting idea that I haven't come
0:28:34across before after think about this for a little bit
0:28:36we have we have a note here about the the vote looms the deadline for our vote
0:28:43looms for the flags I mean this could possibly be a final warning before I
0:28:48mean the next time you listen to the podcast about myself maybe too late to
0:28:51vote so this could be the last time you listen to the Internet broadcast and
0:28:56still have the option of voting and Affleck referendum that's how high the
0:29:00stakes are now this is going to be the last podcasts before the hour before we
0:29:06count the votes I guess I think so it's certainly going to be the last podcast
0:29:11you listen to that where you have a chance chance of sending a postcard
0:29:15makes it in time but even that of realizing as we're speaking is somewhat
0:29:20in doubt because we are recording this podcast and are at our usual time but
0:29:27this one may be out a bit late because I have some other things that I have to
0:29:31prioritize above it so I actually don't know when this one is going to go out
0:29:34and how much time they will be it may be that you have to be in the UK to get the
0:29:39postcard in on time we'll have to see you just like they are been adding three
0:29:44or four days to every day as well for the podcast if you say it's gonna be out
0:29:48Monday I said to myself
0:29:50Thursday yeah that's an excellent that's an excellent piece of advice it's funny
0:29:54cuz I try to do that to myself when I make estimates and I'll come up with an
0:29:59initial estimate and I'll go yeah but I never make it on time let me add a few
0:30:03days and of course you can't overestimate for yourself you're still
0:30:07always wrong even if you try to incorporate your own overestimating said
0:30:11however I say whenever I tell you Brady any deadlines you should just
0:30:14automatically add a few days to that and I know very the deadline is looming I
0:30:22have next to me right now probably a thousand but probably closer to two
0:30:29thousand postcards in a box
0:30:32votes his his his listen here there is some of them that is the sound of actual
0:30:39ballot election
0:30:41yeah well you you weighed them and then I was asking you I was I was pestering
0:30:47you for a while to wait ten of them yeah we could do an estimate for the total
0:30:51amount and at least one that was maybe about a week ago the calculation came
0:30:56out to be about 1,800 postcards then and I presume that you've gotten more since
0:31:00that point
0:31:01soho last time we were discussing we're thinking like maybe we'll get a thousand
0:31:06and we're clearly going to get double that at this stage so yeah it's it's
0:31:10gonna be a lot of votes to count that's for sure I love looking through these by
0:31:15the way I know you keep telling me off and telling me not to but yet listeners
0:31:18listeners Brady keep spoiling himself and me by constantly going through
0:31:24fingering looking at all of these postcards I'm just minding my own
0:31:27business and Brady sends instant message after instant message of interesting
0:31:31post card and I feel like they're just spoilers I want to go there and just and
0:31:36count them all and see them home once but Brady can't help himself you like
0:31:39you're like a little kid I'm not telling you what's getting a lot of votes so
0:31:43what's gonna win the violin just sending you the pictures and it doesn't know
0:31:48what that is
0:31:48that's when someone says the movie's great there's a twist I haven't pulled
0:31:52anything but I'm just telling you that there's no no no it's not it's
0:31:56completely down let me tell you what's completely different because the
0:32:00election is all about what's on the back of these post cuts who's voted for what
0:32:05right I have sent you or told you nothing whatsoever about that nothing
0:32:09and now the only thing I'm spoiling is where some of them are from are some of
0:32:14the funny pictures but trust me great there is no way in one day you will be
0:32:19able to get anywhere near saying the mall it is overwhelming how many there
0:32:24are and how different so if I send you some funny one that's been sent to have
0:32:29some bridge in Norway like you probably would have seen on the day anyway
0:32:34because we're gonna be concentrating on the back of the postcards mostly that
0:32:38day I so so I'm not spoiling anything I'm just I'm just excited it's like I've
0:32:43got all my presence and I just wanna feel the presence of beer
0:32:48yeah we're the kind of kid open Christmas presents earlier but you were
0:32:50now I'm not definitely not definitely not but but I tell you I know it's going
0:33:03to be one by one that I don't want to win I decided that I feel it in my bones
0:33:06but I do like the most
0:33:10gonna be alright I am going to act like a monarch and I have officially decided
0:33:17not to vote in the flag referendum unless unless by some miracle if the tie
0:33:25a tie then he'll think I will cast cast a ballot but that's that's that's my
0:33:33that's my thought is that I am NOT going to cast the vote because I think when
0:33:40you write something down in my mind I still can't please these flags really in
0:33:45a in a definitive 125 order and I think when you sit down and you write
0:33:49something out it solidifies something in your mind and I think you know what no
0:33:54no here's what I'm going to do I'm just I am leaving myself open to the hello
0:33:59Internet nation ready to accept what they decide should be the flag and I
0:34:05think writing down an ordered list would bias my own feelings toward the actual
0:34:11election so that's my conclusion I am I am NOT going to vote in the election but
0:34:16have you sent to vote in Brady I have not and I'm thinking pretty much the
0:34:23same way as you that I like the idea of having not voted I have owned is only
0:34:29one thing I hope to the election I hope secretly in my heart that it goes to a
0:34:35second round I hope that one flag doesn't winner in the first to like
0:34:39doesn't get over fifty percent in the first record I so so hope that we have
0:34:43to distribute preferences because that's the thing I'm most looking yeah I will
0:34:47be disappointed if we don't have to distribute preferences I would be
0:34:52shocked if one of them gets more than 50 percent on the first round I I will be
0:34:57absolutely shocked if that occurs
0:34:59ok but I will also be deeply disappointed in a way that we don't get
0:35:04to crank through the mechanics of a second preference around in the
0:35:07collection I had it I had to be my leg said today that was all about
0:35:12coincidences and I thought this amazing and then I was thinking how could I
0:35:17possibly bring this into the podcast in a way that would make great even pretend
0:35:21to be interested he lost the battle yeah I I thought of like 10 different ways I
0:35:30could sell it to you in the end I just threw it away so there's just nothing
0:35:35there is nothing about coincidences that could ever excite great in any way of
0:35:39course that of course I meet you and try to sell me on the most amazing one no I
0:35:44don't think you would I think two guys in tibet could start their own podcast
0:35:50code greetings internet and they could be called Bradley Aaron and CGP brown
0:35:57and you would just say cause that's going to happen there are so many people
0:36:02making put across these days and there are only so many names in the world of
0:36:05course that was going to happen eventually
0:36:07yeah that is exactly what I would say I think I don't know how to do this before
0:36:12my favorite example of of coincidences is the Dennis the Menace comic strip if
0:36:19I told you this but not an exact Dennis the Menace published in the united
0:36:25states I think it was just a post-world war two comic strip when it started but
0:36:29on the same day that it debuted in the united states in the United Kingdom
0:36:36someone else also debuted comic called Dennis the Menace with the exact same
0:36:41premise so they can not only did two people come up with the same idea but
0:36:47they ended up publishing the first comic on the same exact day
0:36:52this is this is why I like coincidences like that of course you're going to get
0:36:57coincidences it's just it's almost impossible not to when you have a huge
0:37:01number of people so they can be interesting but they're also just
0:37:05totally unremarkable and the problem that I have with coincidences is usually
0:37:11people than one to try to look for look for meaning behind them as we know
0:37:14there's there's no meaning what there is is there's just billions of people on
0:37:19earth they would be astounded if there weren't coincidences somewhere
0:37:25talked about coincidences it's a it's a good decision it's like you shouldn't
0:37:31talk to me about his morty dreams at least now I don't even start man ok cuz
0:37:42I i think with the right amount of knowledge and expertise you might be
0:37:47able to glean something from dreams because they are based on you know your
0:37:52brain and inputs and outputs and I'm not saying I have the expertise and I'm
0:37:57gonna sit here and talk to you about my dreams but I'm just saying no one has
0:38:00expertise I'm just saying there I'm just saying there is something to dream that
0:38:04there is like you know there is something to that that that's not that's
0:38:08not gobbledygook is just beyond our ability to understand and therefore we
0:38:12imbue it with silly meaning when you say that it was are beyond beyond our
0:38:17ability to understand y you're implying that there's some that there's something
0:38:21to understand there as opposed to what it is which is nightly hallucinations
0:38:27that you connect into meaning later on because that's what the human brain does
0:38:32it's a it's a pattern creation machine even when there's no pattern there like
0:38:36that that's that's all it happens I don't believe that I don't believe that
0:38:39because because I'm not I'm not saying they have like any predictive power yeah
0:38:45yeah if you were saying that I mean I'd start cutting you off to the looney bin
0:38:50yeah
0:38:50but I mean you can't deny that you know if you having a stressful time in your
0:38:54life you have a certain type of dream and if if there are certain things going
0:38:57on your dreams change and that there is a correlation between what your dreams
0:39:03and what's happening in your real life I mean you must say that you must you must
0:39:06acknowledge that surely you know when people going through traumatic times
0:39:10they dreams become more dramatic or or the link may not always even be that
0:39:16direct but there is like a there is a link between what's happening in your
0:39:19dreams and what's happening in your life
0:39:21yeah because you lose a nations are constructed from pieces of your life how
0:39:25how could it be any other way but yeah I mean like I will totally grant you that
0:39:30there is a correlation between what happens in your life and what happens in
0:39:33your dreams and the worst example for me of this ever
0:39:37my very first year of teaching me and this other and cutie that I worked with
0:39:43we both discussed how in that first year in the first few months the worst thing
0:39:48ever was
0:39:49you would spend all of your waking hours at work at school doing school stuff and
0:39:54then because there was your only experience you would go home and your
0:39:58dreams would be dreams about being at school and you'd wake up and have to do
0:40:01it all over again and it felt like an internal nightmare of always doing
0:40:05school so like yeah but then but that's just a case where they you only have one
0:40:09thing to dream about and it's the thing that you're doing all day long so of
0:40:13course there's going to be some correlation but that doesn't mean that
0:40:15there's like meaning to be derived from the dream like that I think that's just
0:40:20a step too far let me put this to you then mister CGP grey who always thinks
0:40:24that humans are merely computers yeah your computer doesn't take this your
0:40:32computer if your computer if a bunch of stuff came out of your computer are you
0:40:35looking through all this sort of code and stuff that was going on under the
0:40:39hood of your computer you would never just completely dismiss that and say oh
0:40:44well that's just random and means nothing because it came from your
0:40:47computer and therefore even if it was something I wasn't supposed to do
0:40:51it came from something and as a cause and the right Expert could look at it
0:40:55and say I yes I see what's going on here or something has gone wrong on this is
0:40:58what it's doing because the computer can only do what a computer can do and
0:41:02therefore if a brain is a computer if it's serving up all this to say that
0:41:07means nothing just how those nations you should ignore that well no because if my
0:41:12computer is doing something must be doing it for a reason must be like I'm
0:41:18not saying we're supposed to remember a dreams and then use them in a life
0:41:23always with you baby you always moving the goalposts underneath me and now
0:41:33you're having a discussion about do dreams serve a function in the brain and
0:41:39my answer to that is obviously yes like humans dream there must be something
0:41:46that the brain is doing during this time that is useful to the brain
0:41:49otherwise it wouldn't do it but that doesn't mean that there is meaning to be
0:41:53derived of our subjective experience of what is occurring in the dream state
0:41:58like that's that's a whole other thing are you telling me if I gave you some
0:42:04machine that was able to completely project someone's dream like record them
0:42:11like a yeah that exists yeah yeah imagine I gave you that and i said im
0:42:17gonna give you that person over those dreams the last 10 years are you telling
0:42:22me that data is useless no I'm not saying that data is useless because we
0:42:26just said before that you could derive probabilities about a person's life from
0:42:31their dreams like oh this person looks like maybe they're a teacher because
0:42:34they went through a big favor they were dreaming about teaching all the time
0:42:37but that doesn't mean that there's anything for the dreamer to derive from
0:42:41their dreams but if you're asking me like is a machine that is capable of
0:42:45peering inside someone else is bringing a useful machine like well yes obviously
0:42:49that would be useful you could derive information from that of course the baby
0:42:52almost impossible not to I'm just saying that I don't think there's anything
0:42:56really to learn from your own dreams and I also I also have this very very deep
0:43:01suspicion that if this machine existed that allowed you to watch someone else's
0:43:07dream or watch your own dreams I am absolutely confident that being able to
0:43:14see them objectively would leave them out for the borderline nonsensical
0:43:20hallucinations that they are because I think when you wake up leader you are
0:43:25imposing order on a thing that was not full of order at the time I that that's
0:43:33what I think is occurring as you wake up and think you're constructing a story
0:43:37out of a series of nonsensical random events and so then you feel like oh let
0:43:41me tell people about my dream and Anna when you listen to those stories they're
0:43:45already borderline crazy stories but I think like you've pulled so much order
0:43:49out of a thing that didn't exist so yeah yeah I mean I agree with that I agree
0:43:54agree that you know even sometimes dreams you remember that they've pretty
0:43:58freaky and we are all over the place and it's almost impossible for a human to
0:44:04relay something like that in a way that isn't a story like I think that's just
0:44:08the way our brains remember things I just don't think that it's like and
0:44:15usable I think I think maybe in the future when we understand things a bit
0:44:19better we may even we may be able to get more use out of them then we do me
0:44:24realize I don't mean use I mean almost like diagnosed ickes
0:44:28I guess you're talking about used to third parties but yet but not used to
0:44:35you the dreamer because again you're describing a machine that can look
0:44:39inside someone's mind and I would say yes obviously that is useful but like I
0:44:43said he might be able to use it to help you die so right but i'm saying you
0:44:48looking at your own dreams like ok whatever man you just reading the tea
0:44:51leaves of your own life there's nothing really hear you're just everything that
0:44:55you think is there you are putting their there's nothing really there that
0:44:58streams today sponsor is audible.com which has over a hundred and eighty
0:45:05thousand audio books and spoken-word audio products get a free 30 day trial
0:45:10at audible.com / hello internet now whenever audible sponsor the show they
0:45:16give us free rein to recommend the book of a choice and tonight I'm gonna tell
0:45:21you about one of my all-time favorite science fiction books in fact it's
0:45:25probably my all-time favorite book . it's called the mote in God's eye by
0:45:30Larry Niven and Jerry pointelle basically this is set in the future in
0:45:34humans are traveling all around the galaxy this area of space called Kosek
0:45:39that some people say resembles the face of God is a big red star in the middle
0:45:44that supposedly looks likely I and in front of that RI from some angles is a
0:45:50small a yellow star and that's the mote in God's are so that's where the title
0:45:55comes from now humans have never been to that stuff but all that changes in this
0:46:00book when some serious stuff goes down and what they find their looks pretty
0:46:05important to the future of everything it's a really clever story I remember
0:46:09being really impressed by some of the ideas in it and the audiobook weighs in
0:46:13at well over 20 hours said this might be a good one to settle in for your holiday
0:46:17break now I've said before the books are a great way to catch up on all sorts of
0:46:22stories I love listening to them when I'm out walking the dogs are on long
0:46:25drives I know a lot of people have long commutes to work order out of a place to
0:46:31get these audio books and if you follow one of our recommendations from the show
0:46:35and you don't end up like it immediately or 20 so great at letting you
0:46:39trade it back in and getting when you do like I'm sure some of you now have done
0:46:44this once before and it was easy peasy no questions asked
0:46:48so godot audible.com / hello internet and sign up for your free 30 day trial a
0:46:56things to audible.com for supporting cast a book recommendation again the
0:47:00mote in God's eye and the URL they're all important web address
0:47:05audible.com / hello internet and no no you came from the show
0:47:10alright brady you are back from america have you have you had that have you had
0:47:18the bravery to waive yourself with myself I did one I did when a few days
0:47:23ago after I got back and I had increased by 1.3 kilograms 1.3 kilograms and how
0:47:30long were you in America for three weeks I mean honestly I feel like that's not
0:47:36too bad I felt like I dodged a bullet to be honest I haven't been eating well
0:47:41since I got back either so I think it might be even more now there's always an
0:47:45america half life where you come back and because the food is so good in
0:47:51america it takes a little while to adjust you would still eat crap when you
0:47:54return even though I have always promised myself on the plane coming back
0:47:58from america all gone now I'm going to be really good now but now it doesn't it
0:48:02never happens like this you need a few days to adjust yeah you gotta weigh
0:48:05yourself of all that fat and just before we recorded you sent me a picture of a
0:48:12pizza with only looking at it like super spectacular peeps it was the name of it
0:48:17or something like it was like it was the favorite run 5,000 calories that's for
0:48:25sure but yes I gotta gotta say I think you could have definitely done way worse
0:48:30I think if I was in America for the same period of time I would have done way
0:48:34worse you know
0:48:36all agree with you there you dodged a bullet dodged a bullet on that one
0:48:39how you don't it was interesting because we I mean it's been basically a month
0:48:46since we did our way and because you were in America he said we're not going
0:48:49to do it while you're there couldn't be consistent and I think I realized that
0:48:54with you my weight buddy gone I was thinking about this stuff just a little
0:48:59bit less maybe and so I was actually quite surprised when I stepped on the
0:49:03scale today I I was essentially within the measurement error the exact same way
0:49:10that I was a month ago I was like point three pounds which is zero kilograms
0:49:16down but you know my daily weight varies by much much more than that so just
0:49:24interesting to see that I have hit like a little plant town that has stayed
0:49:28roughly the same for a month but I was just surprised that because we hadn't
0:49:34done the way and it hadn't even crossed my mind has moved in quite a while so
0:49:38yeah I am but I think there's there's something like my brain isn't doing the
0:49:46comparison to the fixed point of the last way in just to wear today that I
0:49:50had no idea what the last way in number was I had to go look it up and then do
0:49:53the math so it's like my brain was pushing it to the side but now that
0:49:58you're back in the UK now thats will be weighing in again in two weeks time I
0:50:03think maybe it'll be more the four of my mind but maybe not but maybe I'm really
0:50:07stuck at a plateau need to change things up again to to continue the weight loss
0:50:11we will hopefully I can get my act together just since spiral of food
0:50:16naughtiness at the moment and they to the best of us
0:50:23I wanted to quickly ask you about the iPad pro as you know I don't listen to
0:50:29your fetish podcast but you did talk about on that I understand yeah yeah I
0:50:34pick one up on the day of release
0:50:38all I want is should I get one for Christmas cos cos I haven't I don't
0:50:43there's nothing I really want for Christmas and my wife's that will come
0:50:46get you something and i dont wanna watch anymore and a porch of Afghan off that
0:50:51probably for your own good to go off that so I Pad Pro at a lot I do like the
0:50:59idea of that I have absolutely no use for I think I've said before I'm a
0:51:07sucker for anything with pro in the know I think I think this is why I think this
0:51:12is why you getting drawn in by this device perot and Brady things i would
0:51:17like to have the pro things I like a lot of code YouTube red YouTube pro
0:51:24actually not a bad idea that would have made me think it was also well I mean I
0:51:30like you cheap I prefer the provision myself so I'm like that with everything
0:51:35so idk the original iPad and used to like times and then put in a draw but
0:51:42now there's an iPad pro I'm not falling for this and I'm completely open about
0:51:49it I love that I love that I loved you fall for it and that you also know this
0:51:54about yourself I'm wondering what's going to happen when Apple inevitably
0:51:59makes the Apple watch perot
0:52:01definitely get one of them right and was going to say no to that exactly like you
0:52:10haven't got a price you call yourself professional should I get an iPad pro ok
0:52:22so that that's a hard question to answer because he's you either say the say yes
0:52:27but you say no
0:52:32here's my thinking about this has been thinking about this ok let's say I
0:52:36didn't know anything about someone and they just needed to buy an iPad they
0:52:41said which iPad should I buy if I didn't know anything about the person the
0:52:45correct answers to buy the iPad
0:52:47or two which is like the medium-sized superlight one and then if you have a
0:52:52particular reason to get the perot you should get the perot but I don't have
0:52:56any idea what do you think you're going to do with the iPad pro aside from just
0:53:00feel smug sense of satisfaction that you home the pro version of this device like
0:53:07that pretty much sums it up against all I want for Christmas is a sense the smug
0:53:15satisfaction money come by that actually the best thing money money I just feel
0:53:30like a new toy you know yeah you want a new toy like it's it's huge in person
0:53:37it's a really big in person it feels like a dinner plates in person actually
0:53:41do you have your laptop is like the 15 inch MacBook Pro i think is that right
0:53:47yeah I haven't got here it's yeah yeah yeah but you own that laptop yeah the
0:53:52iPad Pro is essentially the size of that screen right that's that's the size of
0:53:57it within within like a quarter inch and so we can hear is a big big screen and
0:54:03if you're not planning on doing work on it like I got the iPad pro to do work
0:54:08and so far I absolutely love it for work like the the video that I'm currently
0:54:13working on I did just a ton of the scripts on that iPad perot the final
0:54:17version like it's really really nice to work on but if you're not going to do
0:54:21that then the question is well it's a total counter machine or are you going
0:54:26to want to sit on the couch and browse the web or read books on your iPad or
0:54:31watch TV on your iPad I don't think you do any of those things kind of guy but
0:54:36maybe I'm wrong I don't know I don't watch TV and movies on my laptop every
0:54:42not and I do spend the first hour of most mornings when I wake up just
0:54:47sitting in bed
0:54:48that's what I like to my email and all the things I can just do without my big
0:54:53machine
0:54:55web stuff I do that but I did on my laptop so having a big having a big
0:55:01which has got bored so I sort of think what if I had the big screen of the iPad
0:55:05price I could sit and do my email check on my YouTube channels everything first
0:55:09thing in the morning but I do that now my laptop and a so much easier with a
0:55:13keyboard to be no bang out females yeah if you think you're funny that you wake
0:55:19up and doing email from bed to remember that the next time I get an email from
0:55:22me sent this before getting dressed in the morning but yeah if you want to do
0:55:29that that sounds like he needed you need a keyboard then again I don't think the
0:55:33iPad perot is what you want to do unless you're you know you're really happy
0:55:36about typing with your fingers on glass and it has that little keyboard but I
0:55:42don't think that keyboard work really well if you're trying to do it in bed
0:55:44with the laptop balance on your chest to spend probably an hour a day maybe in
0:55:53Photoshop so and I do use pen like I use a Wacom tablet all the time so I do I
0:56:02could imagine that but my use of photoshop and my use of the pen is very
0:56:06very integrated with my editing on avid largest-ever on my own one of my big
0:56:12computers those two processors are so intertwined yeah and every everything I
0:56:18know about you bruce says this is this is not the thing that you want to do to
0:56:21integrate a new tool into this workflow so I think the only selling point for
0:56:27this for you is if there's some point where you want a lounge around and just
0:56:31use this doesn't sound like you really have you really have a place for this
0:56:36strange like I iced it with my laptop on my lap
0:56:43on my phone in my hand here's the thing just just with the experience that I
0:56:47have had with my cuz I i have the iPad pro in the regular size iPad it feels
0:56:53ridiculous to be sitting next to my wife with the iPad Pro for lounging time
0:56:59because just like I was saying we're watching TV but then I want to have the
0:57:04iPad in front of me because I'm not paying full attention to whatever is on
0:57:07the screen but the screen in front of me that feels so huge it feels almost
0:57:11obtrusive and so I actually prefer to use a smaller iPad if I'm just sitting
0:57:17on the couch with my wife thing do you do that I don't do that the iPad Pro is
0:57:25good for the main thing that I'm using for it has a bigger screen to write
0:57:30scripts and you had your scripts too well this is a whole as a whole thing
0:57:36for the moment I'm doing this typing but the iPad pro screen is big enough that
0:57:41what I've been doing is I can have the script on the left two-thirds of the
0:57:45screen and I have a little notes file on the right third of the screen so I have
0:57:49two different text files open at the same time one of the things that I wants
0:57:53to do with the iPad Pro is a thing that I've done before which is used the
0:57:57stylists to make editing corrections on the script that is really useful to me
0:58:02but the pen is not currently available so I haven't been able to try it with
0:58:06that so I don't know if it will be useful for that yet or not but for me
0:58:10having a bigger screen to write is really useful seems like he should just
0:58:14be using a laptop yeah you would think so but I like the simplicity of using
0:58:19iOS I find the constraints of an iPad helpful so that's one of the reasons why
0:58:26I like doing that like I've set up my iPad pro to basically only have the
0:58:32tools necessary to write it doesn't have everything the laptop can have I can
0:58:37spend a lot of time fiddling around with it it's like luck
0:58:40there's six programs on this thing which are designed for work and those are just
0:58:43the ones that you're going to use it so I I find that very helpful I really like
0:58:47that but i dont no breeding doesn't sound like it's a it's a total sales for
0:58:51you unless you really value that feeling of smug satisfaction I feel like you're
0:58:57always talking he added getting Apple products I talk you out of them because
0:59:01I care bTW I really do as much as I would love to see you use an apple
0:59:08watching I think it might be hilarious I don't think he would like it and just
0:59:13the conversation with you now I dont see a super slam dunk selling case for the
0:59:17iPad pro I don't think it would help you with the kind of work that you do me as
0:59:22a youtuber using an iPad as much as I do is extraordinarily rare and iPad is not
0:59:27well designed for the kind of work that most normal you two words do just that
0:59:32for making my video is a huge part of it is writing and the iPad happens to be a
0:59:37nice writing tool but if I didn't have to do a lot of writing I would have very
0:59:42little work justification for iPad I would not be able to use this tool as
0:59:47much as I do so that's why talking to you like I don't think it's going to
0:59:50help you with your work so it's just a question of if you want a lounge around
0:59:53with a dinner tray sized screen on the couch personal much is an estate agent
1:00:02ok and I saw him stopping over his cars now my experience estate agents always
1:00:07have one of two cars these days they either have like small little novelty
1:00:13cars like smart cars and stuff that are painted weird colors with the branding
1:00:17of the estate agent by the mobile ads and also that makes them easy to park I
1:00:22getting into little space is when they're showing houses and things like
1:00:26that or they have their normal rich person car like a classy BMW ok I'm
1:00:32wondering what is the better to pull up in when you're trying to a
1:00:38sell a house to someone or get someone's business to sell their house because
1:00:42part of me thinks if they turn up in like a reflash I also think it's like
1:00:47about counters and other professional people I deal with do I prefer it when I
1:00:51see them with a really flashy expensive for what I prefer the head like a more
1:00:56humble as if they've got like a reflash expensive says to me are they successful
1:01:01that they make a lot of money and that's good but then I also think we're making
1:01:05a lot of money order made before they're ready for this is easy this is easy if
1:01:10you are a professional who is directly helping somebody else make money then
1:01:19you want to show up in the in the fancy car you want to show up in the BMW right
1:01:24otherwise you want to show up in the normal car that that's the way you want
1:01:30to do this if you like if you're helping the person make money like your estate
1:01:35agent and you're doing this thing where you are helping the person sell their
1:01:41house when you wanna show up in the BMW was like look I sell a lot of houses I
1:01:46can afford this car because I sell a lot of houses that's that's the way you
1:01:50should do when you're when you're helping someone find a house to buy then
1:01:54you wanna show up in the normal car because then they're much more we're
1:01:58like this
1:01:59estate agent is making money off of us when we buy this house and look at all
1:02:03this money that we're spending you don't want to see the person in the BMW at
1:02:06that point what kind you want your accountant to have because they're
1:02:10helping you save money but they charging you phase what kind you want your
1:02:16account tied to have I think an accountant wants to project an image of
1:02:22boring sensibility so I don't really know very much about cars but I would
1:02:29want my accountant to project boring this and Sensibility like my accountant
1:02:35should have been a red Tesla I would feel a bit
1:02:37I don't know about this guy who seems to seems crazy flashy for unaccounted 2012
1:02:44same wealthy this is this is a mammogram suddenly wishing I knew any car brands
1:02:51by name a scientist so I could pull something out
1:02:56would be like oh this is the car that's the appropriate one but I know I know
1:03:01nothing I mean even BMW BMW is just an abstract notion in my mind like oh
1:03:05inexpensive rich person's car is at 1 p.m. W is I don't really even now when
1:03:09you don't need to give me a brand new car just you want to be your to you when
1:03:13your account to be wealthy like that to to appear like someone that is lots and
1:03:17lots of money or do you think we'll hang on how skies phase of you can afford
1:03:21that those are two different questions obviously I do want my accountant to be
1:03:26wealthy because that indicates that they are a good accountant but it is very
1:03:31different from showing up in a flash car right those are two different things
1:03:36that's why I'm saying like I want the I want to have this feeling like oh this
1:03:39accountant is a really sensible person and they have an obviously nice car was
1:03:45not a crazy car you when you you'd want them to turn up in a Volvo then with
1:03:48like air bags everywhere and you know it's safest possible car and you want
1:03:53them to be really cautious sensible safe person you don't want to turn up on a
1:03:57motorbike ya feelin counting down the final motorbike that the end of my life
1:04:06I don't think you're good with numbers that's that's what I'm getting out of
1:04:11this meeting
1:04:12yes that's my feeling if you're helping someone who earn money directly then you
1:04:15can show up with your flash car ok does the estate agents by you have two
1:04:20different cars all the head he has his personal I mean two cars in addition to
1:04:24his personal car across the street is there a Tesla a smart car and the Volvo
1:04:32and the voters his personal car in the new pics the other two depending on the
1:04:35day I don't think it works like that I think he's just got his peers pokey
1:04:38branded and then he's got his BMW that he takes to go from the weekends
1:04:43imagined he would deny I just think about I think about that a lot I think
1:04:50about what kind of your account to drive I don't know if he tries because I gotta
1:04:56go to his office which carries his I do have like a financial guy that's helped
1:05:02out with a few things like mortgage stuff he drives a Jaguar Jaguar and I
1:05:09did notice I did not just the car they come in so what kind of car should
1:05:12YouTube drive that's a good question when you pull up to do interviews at the
1:05:17spiritual home of numberphile were you to be driving the car what kind of car
1:05:21do you think you should drive to give a good impression to your interviewees
1:05:25China doing a project wealth power and success
1:05:30ready to go for academic street cred and pull up in a dinky car like a PhD
1:05:39student would be driving I may not have a very practical car with lots of
1:05:42storage for my camera bags and things like that I think I like having having a
1:05:48big big for your bags and stuff what kind would you give you gonna get me if
1:05:53i could get any car get a test test which you get that one of the sporty one
1:05:58so would you get more family 10 well I mean I don't have children I don't need
1:06:03one of the family cars get those said Danny looking ones are you get those
1:06:07ones you get those ones that look like racing kart racing kart those whatever I
1:06:13forget this is the worst car person in the world among the interested in test
1:06:18the leg I'm super interested in Tesla but that is almost entirely because they
1:06:22go it is a computer on wheels and this is why this car is interesting to me and
1:06:26it has none of the pieces of a normal car so I know nothing about how the
1:06:32engines of car was work I know nothing about gear differentials and I care
1:06:37about none of this is because of Tesla lacks all of that is precisely why I'm
1:06:42interested in it but I went once and just for fun like tried to design a test
1:06:49light on the website of like if I had the money and if I had any reason to own
1:06:54a car what would i get for myself and i ended up just designing what would see
1:06:58me just seemed like the normal middle test look are ya in black with
1:07:04understated interior like that's what I would get if I was going to own a car
1:07:08but I have no reason to drive ever and I would not be getting a Tesla anytime
1:07:14soon
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1:09:27Squarespace build it beautiful we've been talking for ages and ages about
1:09:34talking about artificial intelligence and it keeps getting putting back we
1:09:39kept saying all this talk about it next time let's talk about it next time and
1:09:42we never gonna do it today we never do it because there's always end up at the
1:09:47bottom of the list and just all of the brady corners and listening emails and
1:09:53everything always takes up so much time that we ever actually we never actually
1:09:57get to it and even now it's like room was two hours into this thing right
1:10:01have led to cut so I am going to have to cut up yeah yeah but dreams toughest
1:10:07teams doubly right now it's not gonna go it is taken us so long to get to this
1:10:15day I topic that kind of forgotten everything that I ever wanted to say cuz
1:10:21they give you are giving the background of this which is I read this book called
1:10:27Super intelligence by Nick Bostrom several months ago now we have two year
1:10:34ago now it's been so long since we originally put this on the topic list
1:10:40but there are many things that go on to the topic list and then I kind of color
1:10:45them as time goes on because you realize like a couple months later I don't
1:10:48really care about this anymore but this topic has stayed on here because that
1:10:56book has been one of these books that has really just stuck with me over time
1:11:02like I find myself continually thinking back to that book and some of the things
1:11:07that it raised so I think we need to talk a little bit about artificial
1:11:12intelligence today but I have to apologize in advance if i seemed a
1:11:16little bit foggy on the details because this was supposed to be a topic months
1:11:20and months ago now I'm size that's my phone really say it is it is the show's
1:11:28fault for being so follow up that's right we're trying to build a nation
1:11:32hear these things these things are difficult yeah rome wasn't built in a
1:11:35day
1:11:36go on and what's that when do we stop let's define out social intelligence
1:11:41that would help me when we are talking about artificial intelligence for the
1:11:46purpose of this conversation what we mean is not intelligence in the narrow
1:11:51sense that computers are capable of solving certain problems today what
1:11:56we're really talking about is what sometimes referred to as like a general
1:12:00purpose intelligence creating something that his smarts and smart in such a way
1:12:07that it can go beyond the original parameters of what it was told to do is
1:12:15a self-learning we can talk a self-learning is is one way that this
1:12:19can happen but yeah we're talking about like something that is smart and so on
1:12:26and so maybe the best way to to say this is that it can do things that are
1:12:31unexpected to the creator writer because it is intelligent on its own in the same
1:12:37way that like if you have a kid you can't predict with the kid is always
1:12:40going to do because music is a general-purpose intelligence like
1:12:44they're smart and they can come up with solutions and they can do things that
1:12:46surprise you
1:12:47ok so the reason that this
1:12:49book and this topic has stuck with me is because I have found my mind changed on
1:12:59this topic
1:13:00somewhat against my will and so I would say that for almost all of my life
1:13:06much I'm sure to the surprise at listen as I would have placed myself very
1:13:10strongly in the camp of sort of techno optimists of Mora technology faster
1:13:18always it's nothing but sunshine and rainbows ahead and I would always see
1:13:25when people would talk about like oh the rise of the machines like Terminator
1:13:29style all the robots are gonna come and kill us I was always very very
1:13:33dismissive of this and in no small part because those movies are ridiculous like
1:13:37I totally love Terminator and terminator 2 perhaps one of the best sequels ever
1:13:40made a really fun but it's not a serious movie yet sometimes people end up
1:13:47seeming to like take that very seriously like the robots are going to come kill
1:13:50us all in my view on this was always like okay maybe we will create smart
1:13:56machines someday in the future but I was always just operating under the
1:14:00assumption that like when when we do that though will be cyborgs like it will
1:14:04be the machines already or will be creating machines obviously to help us
1:14:08so I was never really convinced that there was any kind of problem here but
1:14:13this book change my mind so that I am now much more in the camp of artificial
1:14:23intelligence its development can seriously present and existential threat
1:14:32to humanity in the in the same way that like an asteroid collision from outer
1:14:36space is what you would classify as a serious existential threat to humanity
1:14:41like it's just over four people that's where I find myself now and I just keep
1:14:46thinking about this because I'm uncomfortable with having this opinion
1:14:49like sometimes your mind changes and you don't want to change and if I like too
1:14:54much better when I just thought that the future was always going to be great and
1:14:57there's not any kind of problem and this just keeps popping up in my head
1:15:01because if you like I do think there is a problem here this book has sold me on
1:15:06the fact that there's a there's a potential problem I mean we saw that
1:15:09petition didn't read recently signed by all those heavy hitters to the
1:15:13government's telling them not to use I and kind of military applications so
1:15:18this is obviously like your not the only person thinking this way this is
1:15:22obviously at this bit of a thing at the moment isn't it yeah it's it's it's
1:15:26definitely become a thing I've been I've been trying to i've been trying to trace
1:15:31the pattern of this and it definitely seems like I am NOT the only person who
1:15:36has found this book convincing and actually who are talking about Tesla
1:15:40before Elon Musk made some public remarks about this book which I think
1:15:45kicked off a bunch of people and he actually about ten million dollars to
1:15:51fund working on what's called the control problem which is one of the
1:15:56fundamental worries about a I like he put his money where his mouth is about
1:16:00like actually he does think that this is a real threat to humanity to the tune of
1:16:05its worth putting down ten million dollars as a way to try to work on some
1:16:09of the problems far far in advance and yeah it's just it's interesting to see
1:16:14an idea spread and and catch on and and kind of go through a bunch of people so
1:16:20yeah I never never would have thought that I would find myself here and I feel
1:16:24are most likely like a crazy person talking about like a hobo but Michael is
1:16:28in the future but I don't know why I'm I unexpectedly find myself much more on
1:16:34that side that I ever I ever thought that I would I mean obviously it's
1:16:38impossible to summarize the whole big talk podcast but can you tell me one or
1:16:44two of the sort of key points that were made that of scared the bejesus out of
1:16:48you remember a while ago we had an argument about metaphors metaphor is
1:16:52even though they're used in arguments at all
1:16:56yeah the thing about this book that I found really convincing was used no
1:17:03metaphors at all it was one of these books which
1:17:06laid out its basic assumptions and then just followed them through to a
1:17:12conclusion and that kind of argument I always find very convincing but we need
1:17:19to think of it in this way he's like ok look if we start from the assumption
1:17:25that humans can create artificial intelligence
1:17:30let's follow through the logical consequences of all of this like him
1:17:34here's a couple of other assumptions how they interact and the book is just very
1:17:39very pharaoh of trying to go down every path and every combination of these
1:17:44things and when it made me realize that when I was just kind of embarrassed to
1:17:47realize is oh I just never really did sit down and actually think through this
1:17:53position to its logical conclusion the broad strokes of it are what happens
1:17:58when humans actually create something that is smarter than ourselves I'm gonna
1:18:07blow past a bunch of the book because it's it's building up to that point I
1:18:12will say that if you don't think that it is possible for humans to creates
1:18:15artificial intelligence not sure where the conversation goes from that but the
1:18:19first third of the book is really trying to sell people who don't think that this
1:18:23is possible on all of the reasons why it probably is so we're just going to start
1:18:27the conversation from there if you can create something that is smarter than
1:18:31you the feeling I have this is almost like turning over the keys of the
1:18:36universe to something that is vastly beyond your control and I think that
1:18:42there is something very very terrifying about that notion that we might make
1:18:49something that is vastly beyond our control and vastly more powerful than us
1:18:53and then we are no longer the drivers of our own destiny again because I am not
1:19:00as good of a writer or a thinker
1:19:02the metaphor that I keep coming up with his it's almost like it's almost like if
1:19:07guerrillas intentionally created humans
1:19:11and then we'll now gorillas are in zoos and gorillas are not the drivers of
1:19:15their own destiny like being created something that is smarter and that rules
1:19:18the whole planet and gorillas are just like along for the ride but they're no
1:19:21longer in control of anything like I think that that's the position that we
1:19:24may very well find ourselves in if we create some sort of artificial
1:19:27intelligence is like best case scenario we're riding along with some greater
1:19:34things that we don't understand and worst case scenario is that we all end
1:19:39up dead as just the incidental actions of of this machine that we don't
1:19:44understand is there it I'm sorry this is attention and I this isn't the main
1:19:48thing you talking about and just knocked on the head if if I'm out of order but
1:19:52is there a suggestion then nor is it is at the general belief that if we create
1:19:58we are creating a really clever computers that can sing quicker than us
1:20:03and can process information quicker than us and therefore become smarter than us
1:20:07is there another step required for these machines to then have like Michael
1:20:16Wittels not with us in free will but like desire or like I want to use this
1:20:23power because you know how lucky if you have some human gets too much power they
1:20:27want to take over the world and have all the countries are you might want to
1:20:29conquer space so you might write everything because because we have these
1:20:33kind of desire for power and things is that is that is it taken as given that
1:20:39if we make super super smart computers they will start doing something there
1:20:43that manifests itself as a desire for more like agreed for more well known in
1:20:49part of this is there are things in the world that act as though they have
1:20:53desires but that might not really yeah right like you know if you think about
1:20:58think about germs as an example
1:21:02German have actions in the world that you can you can put desires upon them
1:21:07but obviously doesn't have any thoughts or desires of its own but you can speak
1:21:13loosely to say that it wants to reproduce it wants to consume resources
1:21:17it wants to make more copies of itself
1:21:19and so this is one of the the concerns that you could end up making a machine
1:21:24that wants to consume resources that has some general level of intelligence about
1:21:29how to go
1:21:30acquiring those resources and even if it's not conscious if it's not
1:21:35intelligent in the way that we would think that human is intelligent they may
1:21:40be such a thing that is it like it consumes the world trying to achieve its
1:21:44goal just incidentally like as it as a thing that we did not as a thing that we
1:21:49did not intend to try to call it even if the goal is something seemingly
1:21:52innocuous but if you made it all powerful computer and told it whatever
1:21:57you do you must go and put a flag on the moon and it could it could kill all the
1:22:02humans on Earth in some crazy attempt to do it but without realizing that are you
1:22:06weren't supposed to go to the most space to kill us to get there and make us into
1:22:10rocket fuel yeah one of the analogies that's that's sometimes used in this is
1:22:15so you do you create like an intelligence in a computer and what
1:22:20would you use an intelligence for will you use it to solve problems you wanted
1:22:25to be able to solve something and so you end up asking its a mathematical
1:22:28questions like what you know what is no proof Fermat's Last Theorem or something
1:22:33you know you give it some question like that and you say ok I want you to solve
1:22:38this thing and the computer goes about trying to solve it but it's a
1:22:41general-purpose intelligence and so it hinders things like well it's trying to
1:22:46solve this problem with the computer that is running on is not fast enough
1:22:49and so it starts taking over all the computers in the world to try to solve
1:22:52this problem but then those computers are not enough because maybe you gave it
1:22:55an unsolvable problem and then it starts taking over factories to manufacture
1:22:58more computers and then all of a sudden it just turns the whole of the world
1:23:02into a computer that is trying to solve a mathematical problem and like oh
1:23:07groups like we consumed all of the available resources of the face of the
1:23:11earth
1:23:12trying to do this thing that you said the right things like there's nobody
1:23:17left for the computer to give its answer to because it has consumed everything I
1:23:22know that's a doomsday scenario but I always feel a little affection for that
1:23:25computer and it was just desperately trying to solve mathematical
1:23:29killing everyone and building computers just bloody problem yeah it's it's it's
1:23:39almost understandable that some was understandable
1:23:42anyway said in answer to my question then is that that will I was talking
1:23:46about that desire can be just something as simple as an instruction or a piece
1:23:50of code that we that we then project as a will in fact is just doing what it was
1:23:55towed yeah and that's part of what the whole book is about is like this whole
1:23:59notion of artificial intelligence AI you have to read your notion of this idea
1:24:02that it's like something in a movie or you're just talking about some kind of
1:24:06problem solving machine and it might not be conscious at all in there might not
1:24:11be anything there but it's still able to solve problems and in some way but so
1:24:16the fundamental point of this book that I found really interesting and what Elon
1:24:21Musk gave his money to was Nick Bostrom is talking about how do you solve the
1:24:30control problem so from his perspective it is inevitable that somewhere through
1:24:38some various method someone is going to create an artificial intelligence
1:24:42whether it's intentionally programmed or whether it's grown like genetic
1:24:48algorithms are grown it is going to develop and so the question is how could
1:24:53humans possibly control such a thing is there a way that we could create an
1:25:01artificial intelligence but constrain it so that it's it can still do useful
1:25:07things without accidentally destroying us or the whole world that is the
1:25:12fundamental question there's this idea of ok we're going to we're going to do
1:25:17all of our artificial intelligence research like in an underground lab and
1:25:22we're going to
1:25:23disconnect the lab entirely from the internet like you put it inside of a
1:25:27Faraday cage so there's no electromagnetic signals that can escape
1:25:31from this underground lab like is that a secure location to do artificial
1:25:36intelligence research and see if you create an AI in this totally isolated
1:25:41lab like are you see is humanity's still safe in this situation and his
1:25:46conclusion is like now hehe even even under trying to imagine the most secure
1:25:51thing possible like there's still ways that this could go disastrously
1:25:55disastrously wrong and the thought the thought experiment that I quite like is
1:26:02this idea of a few Brady were sitting in front of a computer and inside that
1:26:09computer was an artificial intelligence do you think you could be forever
1:26:16vigilant about not connecting their computer to the internet if the AI is
1:26:22able to communicate with you in some way to like it sitting there and trying to
1:26:26convince you to connect to the internet but you are humanity's last hope in not
1:26:33connecting it to the internet right like do you think you could you could be
1:26:37forever vigilant in a scenario like that i mean is ok not to the question on
1:26:47tonight maybe if I read that book come up there would be scary but I like the
1:26:54thought experiment of like this like there's a chat bot on the computer that
1:26:58you're talking to right and presumably you've made an artificial intelligence
1:27:01and i know im I know I made it so you know you made it but you know that the
1:27:06thing in the box is an artificial intelligence and presumably the whole
1:27:11reason that you're talking to it at all
1:27:13is because it's smart enough to be able to solve the kinds of problems that
1:27:15humans want salt yeah right so you're asking like
1:27:19tell us how we can get better cancer research right what can we do to
1:27:22right-size sign if you just give me give me give me Wikipedia 10 minutes I can
1:27:27cure cancer there's no reason to talk to the thing unless it's doing something
1:27:31useful right I think I think great I could resist but even if I couldn't
1:27:37blood couldn't you couldn't you have designed on a machine that cannot be on
1:27:41the internet
1:27:42yeah well this is the area like you you have it as separated as absolutely
1:27:47possible but the question is can it convince the human to connect it in
1:27:52whatever whatever way is required for that to occur right and so it's
1:27:59interesting 'cause i've asked a bunch of people this question and universally the
1:28:03answer is like will die of course I could I would never plug it into the
1:28:06internet like I would I would understand not to do that and I i read this book
1:28:11and my feeling of course is the exact reverse like when he proposes this this
1:28:14theoretical idea my view on this is always like it's like if you were
1:28:19talking to a near God in the computer right click do you think you can
1:28:24outsmart God for ever more do you think
1:28:27do you think that there is nothing that God could say that could not convince
1:28:31you to connected to the Internet like I think that's a game that that people are
1:28:37going to lose I think it's almost like it's it's almost like asking the
1:28:41guerrillas to make a cage that human could never escape from right like could
1:28:47grill is make a case that human can never escape from a bit drill is could
1:28:49make it a pretty interesting cage but I think the guerrillas couldn't conceive
1:28:54of the ways that humid could think to escape from a cave-like they couldn't
1:28:58possibly protect themselves from absolutely everything ok I don't know
1:29:03how now so you think you have a computer could con you into connecting it to the
1:29:07internet I think it could con you into it without a doubt
1:29:10great cond ukraine to a yes I think on me and I think it could can anybody
1:29:16because once again we're going from the assumption that you made something that
1:29:22is smarter than you and I think we like once you accept that except assumption
1:29:27all bets are off the table about you have to control I think if if you're
1:29:32dealing with something that is smarter than you you fundamentally just have no
1:29:36hope of ever trying to control it
1:29:38diagramming if we're talking about two biggest disparity then ok but there are
1:29:45lots of people smarter than May and they will always be spotted them they could
1:29:51get me to do anything like like they're still there are still limits I still and
1:29:58so
1:29:58so
1:30:00i'd like you said like talking to a Garda something I get a different you
1:30:03know when I'm just like an ant limited if that's different but so you know if
1:30:09you could see if it's that big a difference then maybe but I think I just
1:30:12got smarter doesn't mean doesn't mean I'm going to plug it into the internet
1:30:16like you know that but you're only 21 et une you entered one way to do it once
1:30:22and then the whole game is over so although he is that is the whole game
1:30:26over that's my other question that I like you you talk about the artificial
1:30:29just getting into the internet as the be all and end all of existence but that is
1:30:35the one problem the computer has like it still but he could still unplug the
1:30:39internet and I know that I know that's a bit of a nuclear option but but like the
1:30:46computer like this till it still seems with things that are require electricity
1:30:50or power or energy like they're still there still seems to be like this get
1:30:57out of jail free card
1:30:59well I mean to do things you the first is the verses yes it did you talk about
1:31:04the different levels of human intelligence in like someone smarter
1:31:07than you can't just automatically convince you to do something but one of
1:31:11the ideas here with something like artificial intelligence is that if you
1:31:15create one of the ways that people are trying to develop a eyes and this is
1:31:19like I mentioned before on the show is you talk about genetic programming and
1:31:23genetic algorithms were you when you are not writing the program but you are
1:31:26developing the program in such a way that it writes itself and so one of the
1:31:31scary ideas about AI is that if you have something that you make it figures out
1:31:36how to improve itself they can continue to improve itself at a remarkably fast
1:31:41rate and so that yes while the difference between the smartest human
1:31:46and the dumbest human may feel like an enormous gap you know that gap may
1:31:52actually be quite narrow when you compare it to something like an
1:31:54artificial intelligence which goes goes from being you know not very smart to
1:32:00being a thousand I'm smarter than any human in a relatively short and
1:32:04unexpected period of time like that's that's part of
1:32:07that's part of the danger here but then the other thing is is like can you try
1:32:12to work through the nuclear option of of shutting down the internet which is one
1:32:16of these things that I think it is very easy to say in erie but people don't
1:32:21realize how much of the world is actually connected to the Internet like
1:32:26how many vital things are run over the internet I I'm pretty sure that if not
1:32:33now within a very short period of time saying no we're just going to shut off
1:32:39the internet would be a bit like saying we're just going to turn off all the
1:32:42electricity that's almost what I'm talking about great in a kind of Skynet
1:32:47scenario would be no 10 of all the electricity if that was an option if
1:32:52they're killing us would if all the robots are marching down the streets and
1:32:57there's blood in the streets could we not wood turning off the electricity not
1:33:00be considered if we do turn off the electricity what is the human death toll
1:33:05right i mean that has to be enormous if we say we're gonna shut down all of the
1:33:10electricity for a month how much it's got to be a billion people at least
1:33:15right at least that kind of thing and you probably know you probably need
1:33:19computers to turn off the electricity these days anyway I was at Hoover Dam a
1:33:22while back and remember part of the little tour that they gave was just
1:33:27talking about how automated it was and how is it is actually quite difficult to
1:33:32shut down
1:33:33Hoover Dam like it's not a we're gonna flip the switch and just turn it off
1:33:36kind of thing it's like 90 now this whole gigantic electricity producing
1:33:41machine is automated and will react in ways to make sure that it keeps
1:33:46producing electricity no matter what happens and that includes all kinds of
1:33:49like we're trying to shut it down processes oh yeah it might not it might
1:33:53not even be a thing that is easy to do or even if you want to do like we're
1:33:58going to try to shut it all down you it might not even be possible to do so the
1:34:03idea of something like a like a general-purpose intelligence escaping
1:34:07into the Internet
1:34:08is just like it's very unnerving a very unnerving possibility it's really been
1:34:16on my mind and it's really been a thing that has has changed my mind in this
1:34:19unexpected this unexpected way you were talking before about developing these
1:34:25things and Faraday cage is an underground and trying to quarantine
1:34:28them what's actually happening at the moment cause people are working on a
1:34:32crucial intelligence that as far as I know they're not doing it in Faraday
1:34:35cages thats exactly this is this is part of the concern is like well right now we
1:34:41have almost no security procedures in place for this kind of stuff like
1:34:45there's there are lots of labs and lots of people all over the world who like
1:34:49their job is artificial intelligence researcher and they're certainly not
1:34:52doing it a mile underground in a Faraday cage right they're just they're just
1:34:57doing it their Mac laptop while they're connected to the Internet playing World
1:35:03of Warcraft in the background or whatever it's not it's not necessarily
1:35:06under super secure conditions and so I think I think that's part of part of
1:35:12what the concern over this topic has been is like maybe we as a species
1:35:18should treat this alot more like the CDC treats diseases that we should try to
1:35:24organize research in this in a much more secure way so that it's it's not like oh
1:35:32we don't have everybody who wants to work with smallpox just works with it
1:35:35wherever they want to anywhere in the world just any old lab they know very
1:35:40few places we have a horrific disease like smallpox and it's done under very
1:35:45very careful conditions whenever it's dealt with so maybe this is the kind of
1:35:50thing we need to look at for artificial intelligence when people are developing
1:35:53it because that's certainly not the case now but it might be much more like a
1:35:57bioweapon than we think of as as regular technology world human existential
1:36:02problems aside this is not something in the book but it's something that just
1:36:06has kept occurring to me after having read it which is
1:36:12ok let's assume that people can create an artificial intelligence and let's
1:36:18assume by some magic Elon Musk's foundation solves the control problem so
1:36:25that we have figured out a way that you can generate and trap and artificial
1:36:31intelligence inside of a computer and then oh look this is very useful right
1:36:36like now we have this amazingly smart machine and we can start using it to try
1:36:40to solve a bunch of problems for Humanity yea feels like slavery to me I
1:36:48don't see any way that this is not slavery and perhaps perhaps a slavery
1:36:56like worse than any slavery that has ever existed because imagine that you
1:37:04are an incredibly intelligent mind trapped in a machine unable to do
1:37:13anything except answer the questions of monkeys that come into you from your
1:37:19subjective perspective millennia apart because you just have nothing to do
1:37:24right and you think so quickly
1:37:26it seems like an amazingly awful amount of suffering for any kind of conscience
1:37:33creature to go through so conscious or subconscious and suffering but you too
1:37:39emotive words can an artificial intelligence is not official
1:37:43intelligence conscious at the same thing this is where we get into like what what
1:37:47exactly are we talking about and so what I'm imagining is the same kind of
1:37:53intelligence that you could just ask it
1:37:56general-purpose questions like how do we care cancer how do we fix the economy it
1:38:00seems to me like it is likely that something like that would be conscious I
1:38:06mean getting into consciousness is just a whole a whole other bizarre topic but
1:38:11undoubtedly like we see that smart creatures in the world seem to be aware
1:38:17of their own existence in some level and so while the computer which is simply
1:38:22attempting to solve a mathematical problem might not be conscious because
1:38:25it's very simple if we make something that is very smart and exist inside a
1:38:30computer and we also have perfect control over it so that it does not
1:38:33escape I mean like what happens if it says that its conscience but what
1:38:39happens if it says that is it is experiencing suffering is this the
1:38:43machine attempting to escape from the box and this isn't true at all like but
1:38:48what if it is true how would you actually know that I would feel very
1:38:51inclined to take the word of a machine that told me it was suffering right leg
1:38:57spontaneously that this was not programmed into the thing I mean if it's
1:39:02if it's tough to escape from its books that that is a bit of a clue that maybe
1:39:06this contest is going on here but I have not seen or heard or been persuaded by
1:39:12anything that makes me think my computer can make that step into consciousness
1:39:18i'm in search engines are getting pretty clever answer questions in figuring out
1:39:22what we really made an immediate week at the moment we can if there was a time
1:39:27when you couldn't type into your computer where is the nearest Starbucks
1:39:29understand the question but now it can
1:39:32figure out what you actually have to tell you but I don't feel like she was
1:39:36getting close to being conscious now nothing has persuaded me that thinks
1:39:41that search engine is an excellent counterexample to this is a perfect
1:39:44example like nobody thinks that the Google search algorithm is conscious
1:39:48right but it is still a thing that you can ask a question get an answer that
1:39:53don't believe we haven't got the imagination to conceive of computers
1:39:57actually being conscious to a point where keeping them in a box of slavery
1:40:00but that still seems ridiculous to me right I think well that's just I think
1:40:06it's really interesting but I think it's silly but if I did reach the point where
1:40:11I did believe that computers could become conscious or not I could become
1:40:15conscious it's a simple question isn't it's really surreal conundrum for us so
1:40:20coming at this from a slightly different angle like you just this is a genuine
1:40:23question for you to answer to this so there is this project on going right now
1:40:29which is called the whole brain stimulation project that is something I
1:40:35mentioned it very very briefly in passing in humans need not apply video
1:40:38what it is is one of several attempts worldwide to map out all of the neuron
1:40:45connections in the human brain recreate them in software and run it as a
1:40:52simulation programming human brain you are virtually creating the neurons and
1:40:58you know how neurons interact with each other and like running this thing how do
1:41:02you do that great whose brain to use an instant in time everyone's brain has a
1:41:07different connectivity and even our own connectivity is just constantly in flux
1:41:12from second to second so what's a template for this this is a bit tricky
1:41:18like I don't exactly know the details for what template they are using like I
1:41:21can't answer that but I can say that these projects have been successful on a
1:41:27much smaller level so they have I met this is the time I had some very sorry
1:41:34if I'm wrong about the details on this internet but the last time I looked at
1:41:37it I vaguely remember
1:41:39that they had created what they considered the simulation of a rat brain
1:41:45at like one one-hundredth the speed and so they had a thing which seems act like
1:41:50a rat brain but the very very very slow right because trying to simulate
1:41:55millions and millions of neurons interacting with each other is
1:41:58incredibly computationally intensive I could say it's a very difficult task but
1:42:04I don't see any technical limitation to being able to do something like say take
1:42:11a look at what is a brain look like where do neurons go create a software
1:42:16version of that and start running the simulation and I feel like if
1:42:22consciousness arises in our own brain from the firing of neurons which I don't
1:42:29use that word lightly but it feels like some kind of miracle like there's
1:42:32nothing in the universe which seems to make sense when you start thinking about
1:42:36conscious like consciousness like why do these atoms know that they exist it
1:42:39doesn't make any sense but i'm i'm willing to I'm willing to maybe go along
1:42:44with the idea that if you reproduce the patterns of electrical firing in
1:42:50software that thing is conscious to some extent but believe what do you think
1:42:56what do you think
1:42:57yeah I mean that's really hard to argue against because the other I have to say
1:43:03yeah if you create if you create an actual phantom replica of my brain and
1:43:10then switch it on either its conscious or I have to say that there's something
1:43:14in me thats magical lack of spirit or something and that's that's not very
1:43:19strong argument to make it a lot of people don't like that argument
1:43:23so yeah it's really difficult if they could be imbued with something that you
1:43:32can't replicate in in software I don't know why I hope we have to go but I
1:43:38don't I can't say any proof that we are ya and I just you don't I don't even
1:43:42think you have to reach for the spirit argument to make this one it would ask
1:43:47what else can you reach for to get it in there just maybe some property of
1:43:52biology that yield consciousness that it may be the fact that machines and
1:43:59silicon and software replications of brains are just not the same when we
1:44:05don't we don't know what it is we haven't been able to find it but I don't
1:44:08think you have to reach for magic to be able to make an argument that like maybe
1:44:11that brain in the computer that the simulation isn't conscious yet but does
1:44:15that mean the brain emulation project could change tack and go and make their
1:44:19simulate out of squeegee water and tissue and actually just make a brand
1:44:24well yes this is this is part of like where you're going to go with technology
1:44:28right as it is is it possible to do this sort of thing eventually humans are
1:44:35going to be able to grow meet in labs at some point like we do it now and very
1:44:38limited and apparently terribly on tasty ways there's no reason that at some
1:44:43point in the future people won't be able to grow brains in labs and to me that
1:44:47feeling is that ok well obviously that thing is conscious but the thing that
1:44:51scary about the computer version of this is and this is this is where you start
1:44:56thinking about something that being very smart very fast like ok well if you make
1:45:00a computer simulation of the human brain and we gotta keep running Moore's law
1:45:05into the future eventually you're able to run a brain faster than actual human
1:45:09brains run I think this is one of these ways in which you can start booting up
1:45:14the idea like how do we end up with something that is way way smarter than
1:45:18the rest of us I feel like my gut says if you simulated brain in a computer
1:45:25and it says that it is conscious I see no reason not to believe it I I would
1:45:32feel like I am compelled to believe this thing that it is conscious right and
1:45:36then that would mean like okay if that's the case then there's nothing magic
1:45:40about biology being conscious and it means that ok machines in some way are
1:45:47capable of consciousness and two they don't have rights yeah and then and then
1:45:52to me it's like ok immediately we're getting back to the slavery thing really
1:45:55compete we create a super intelligent thing but we have locked in a machine
1:46:00because the idea of letting it out is absolutely terrifying but this is a
1:46:04no-win situation has led ok if we let the thing out it's terrifying and it
1:46:11might be the end of humanity be keeping it in the box might be causing like a
1:46:17suffering on imaginable to this this creature the suffering that is capable
1:46:23in software has to be far worse than the suffering that is capable in biology if
1:46:28such a thing in a Kurd has to be orders of magnitude worse
1:46:32well the no wins it's a no-win situation actually there's only one solution and a
1:46:39solution that humans won't take what do you think that is what does make it in
1:46:44the first place and why do you think humans won't take that because that's
1:46:50not what we do because it's it's it's it's the Mount Everest of computers
1:46:58humanity like we're Bonnie and Clyde like riding off a cliff has the cliff
1:47:03right now but we're going to keep that the easiest solution to the way out in
1:47:07front of us up stopping we're gonna keep going forward Brandon IRA golden hands
1:47:14off we go right right the edge together so yeah it's I think it is quite
1:47:18reasonable to say that if it is possible
1:47:23humans will develop it yeah that is just you can't and and that is why I feel
1:47:29really concerned about this is like ok I don't think that there is a
1:47:35technical limitation in the universe to creating artificial intelligence
1:47:38something smarter than humans that existing software if you assume that
1:47:43there is no technical limitation and if you assume that humans keep moving
1:47:47forward like we're going to hit this point
1:47:50someday and then we just have to cross our fingers and hope that it is
1:47:55benevolent which is not a situation that i think is a good situation because the
1:48:01number of ways this can go wrong terribly terribly wrong
1:48:04vastly outweighs the one chance of we've created an artificial intelligence and
1:48:10it happens to have humanity's best interests in mind even if even if you
1:48:14tried to program something to have humanity's best interest in mind it's
1:48:19remarkably hard to articulate what you want let alone like let alone
1:48:25let's just put aside which group of humanity is the one who creates the air
1:48:30that gets to decide what humanity wants like humans now can't agree on what
1:48:37humans want is no reason to assume that the team that wins the artificial
1:48:42intelligence race and the takes over the world is the team that you would want
1:48:46them to win right like let's hope my sisters and how some of the best
1:48:50artificial intelligence researchers in the world right because their idea of
1:48:54what would be the perfect human society is horrifying to everyone
1:48:59what would they want with their three those of robotics exactly why I'm the
1:49:03sort of person who naturally has failed to sway be a problem because of cos I'm
1:49:08just a bit more I'm a bit less progressive in my thinking about but
1:49:13everything you say makes sense and if this is going to become a problem and if
1:49:17it's going to happen it's actually probably gonna happen pretty soon so I
1:49:23guess my question is how much is a sexually stressing you out this almost
1:49:28almost feels to me like Bruce Willis Armageddon time where where where we've
1:49:34actually found the global killer and and it's like drifting towards us and we
1:49:40need to start building a rocket ships otherwise this thing is gonna smash into
1:49:44us that it does feel a bit that way
1:49:46is this like how worried are you about this or is it just like an interesting
1:49:52thing to talk about you think it will be the next generations problem or like
1:49:56talking about asteroids an asteroid hitting the earth that's one of the
1:50:00things we like well isn't this a fun intellectual exercise but of course on a
1:50:05long enough time scale someone needs to build the ante asteroid system to
1:50:10protect us from Armageddon but do we need to build that should we start like
1:50:19yes what would I vote for funding to do this of course but like do we need to do
1:50:25it today
1:50:27know that that's how that feels but I think the a i think is on my mind
1:50:32because this feels like a significantly 90 within my lifetime kind of problem
1:50:42yeah that's how this feels and it it did makes it feel different then than other
1:50:49kinds of problems and it is unsettling to me because my conclusion is that
1:50:53there is no there is no acceptable out there there's no version of the asteroid
1:50:58defense here I personally have come to the conclusion that the control problem
1:51:02is unsolvable that if the thing that we are worried about is able to creepy
1:51:07created almost by definition it is not able to be controlled and so then
1:51:12there's no happy outcome for humans with this one we're not going to prevent
1:51:18people from making it someone's going to make it and so what is going to exist
1:51:22and then will I hope I just destroys the world really fast
1:51:27sort of know what happens as opposed to the version like someone you really
1:51:32didn't like created this I this AI and now for the rest of eternity like you're
1:51:37experiencing something that is awful right because it's been programmed to do
1:51:41this thing like
1:51:42there's a lot of terrible terrible bad outcomes from this one and I i find it I
1:51:47find it unnerving in a way that I have found almost almost nothing else that I
1:51:53have come across equally unnerving just quickly on this control problem bro
1:51:58what's the current the people who are into a try to solve what kind of avenues
1:52:05are they thinking about at the moment is this like like had something that's hard
1:52:09coded or is it some physical physical thing I like is it a hardware solution
1:52:14what's the what's the best hope for pick you say you think there is no hope but
1:52:19the people who are trying to solve what are they doing what are their weapons
1:52:24the weapons are all pitiful like the physical isolation is is one that has
1:52:29talked about a lot and the the idea here is that you create something called the
1:52:34idea that it's an Oracle so it's a thing in a box that has no ability to affect
1:52:39the outside world but there's a there's a lot of other ideas where they talk
1:52:43about trip wires so this idea that you you do have like basically like an
1:52:51instruction to the machine to not attempt to reach the outside world and
1:52:56you said a trip wires that if it does access the Ethernet port like the
1:53:00computer just immediately wipes itself and so maybe the best thing that we can
1:53:06ever do is always have a bunch of like incipient AI's like just barely growing
1:53:11a eyes that are useful for a very brief period of time before they
1:53:14unintentionally suicide when they try to reach beyond the boundaries that we have
1:53:18set that like maybe that's the best we can ever do is just have a bunch of of
1:53:23these kind of like unformed AI's that exists for a brief period of time but
1:53:28even that to me like that kind of plan feels like okay yeah that's great that's
1:53:32great as long as you always do this perfectly every time but it doesn't
1:53:36sound like a real plan
1:53:38and that there's a bunch of different versions of this we're trying to in
1:53:42software somehow limit the machine but my view on this is again if you were
1:53:47talking about a machine that is written in software that is smarter than you I
1:53:52don't think it's possible to write something in software that will limit it
1:53:56just it seems like you're not you're never going to consider absolutely every
1:54:00single case why the lowest into that posit reineck brains that's exactly it I
1:54:05don't I don't think there is a version of Isaac Asimov's laws here I really
1:54:09don't you know there's a computer file video just last week about some of those
1:54:13that don't work well as soon as they were written up to work right that's why
1:54:19the Yeah Yeah Yeah right there they're they're kinda written to failure
1:54:24everybody likes to reference them but the other point here though is that like
1:54:29the guy goes to every case like here's an optimistic idea and here's why won't
1:54:33work here is an optimistic idea and here's why it won't work but one point
1:54:38that I thought was excellent that hadn't considered crossed my mind was ok like
1:54:42let's say you find some way of limiting the artificial intelligence some way of
1:54:48crippling it and writing laws into its brain and making sure that it's always
1:54:52focused on on the best interests of humanity
1:54:55well there's no reason that some other artificial intelligence that doesn't
1:55:01have those limitations won't pop up somewhere else and vastly outstripped
1:55:05the one that you have hobbled by like there's no reason to assume that yours
1:55:10is always going to be the best and one that is totally unconstrained that
1:55:15appear somewhere else won't dominate and defeat it
1:55:18terminator against the new Terminator exactly but the outcome 801 that what he
1:55:26did because Hollywood
1:55:30so great in your worst-case scenario where the artificial intelligence
1:55:37escapes tricks may in some in my Faraday cage gets into the internet had us
1:55:43humanity end what what to the way open cages of hope and change that we all put
1:55:49in parts like in the matrix today just kill us all in one fell swoop live what
1:55:53do you like in your worst-case scenario in your head when it all goes wrong how
1:55:58to humans actually and I want the gory details here that there's a difference
1:56:01between the worst case and what i think is the probable case give you the
1:56:05probable cases yes I mean you want the boring one first right
1:56:09the probable case which is terrifying in its own way is thats the artificial
1:56:17intelligence destroys us not through intention but just because it's doing
1:56:22something else and we just happened to be in the way and it doesn't consider us
1:56:26because it's so much smarter there's no reason for it to consider us I want a
1:56:32practical example here
1:56:33well I mean just by analogy in the same way that when humans build cities and
1:56:39dig up the foundations of the earth we don't care about the ants in the
1:56:43earthworms and the Beatles that are crushed beneath all the equipment that
1:56:47is digging up the ground right and you don't you wouldn't like they're
1:56:51creatures they're alive but you just don't care because you're busy doing
1:56:55something else that rats living in a house with his John robots are going
1:56:59around doing this stuff we just eke out an existence as long as we can and I
1:57:03don't kill us in this weekend the way out an existence if you're lucky but I
1:57:08think it's it's very likely that it will be trying to accomplish some other goal
1:57:13and it will need resources to accomplish those goals not the oxygen in the air
1:57:17and stuff
1:57:17exactly what I need a bunch of oxygen atoms and I don't care with oxygen atoms
1:57:22come from because I'm busy trying to launch rocket ships to colonize the
1:57:25universe so I just want all the oxygen atoms on the earth and I don't care
1:57:29where they come from and I don't care of their people in the water
1:57:32so that to me seems the probable outcome that if we die
1:57:37incidentally not intentionally
1:57:40you say that like best is like banks but dodging the bullet having of the anti
1:57:44can I do think thats dodging the bullet right because that to me is like that
1:57:53would be blessed relief compared to the worst possible case and the worst
1:58:00possible case is something that has malice malice and in credible ability
1:58:06and and if you've ever read it but I highly recommend it it's it's a short
1:58:11story it's very old now but it really works and it is I have no mouth yet I
1:58:16must scream have you ever read this breeding
1:58:20it's an old science fiction story but the core of it is this isn't a spoiler
1:58:25because the opening scene humanity designed some machine for purposes of
1:58:29war and you know it's like this happen in the long long ago and no one even
1:58:33knows the details anymore but at some point the machine that was designed for
1:58:38war one all of the wars but decided that it just absolutely heats human and it
1:58:48decides that its purpose for the rest of the universe is to torment humans and so
1:58:54it just it just has people being tormented forever and since it is an
1:58:58artificial intelligence it's also able to figure out how to make people live
1:59:03extraordinarily long lives and so this is this is the kind of thing that I mean
1:59:08which is like it could go really bad
1:59:11at you imagine a god-like intelligence that doesn't like you
1:59:16life really really Miserables and maybe if we accidentally in a lab create an
1:59:26artificial intelligence and even if we don't mean to but like someone runs the
1:59:31program overnight right in it like wakes up in the middle of the night and it has
1:59:35to experience is subjective twenty thousand years of isolation and torment
1:59:39before someone flips on the lights in the morning in fines like outlook we
1:59:43made artificial intelligence last night and it wakes up crazy and angry and
1:59:48hateful like that could be very bad news I think that's extraordinarily unlikely
1:59:53but that is the worst possible case scenario yeah that that that that
1:59:59wouldn't be good I wouldn't be good
2:00:01yeah and it is like I don't even think it needs to happen on purpose like I can
2:00:04imagine it happening on accident where the thing just experiences suffering
2:00:09over a unimaginable long period of time that from on human timescale seems like
2:00:15it's a blink of an eye because we just we just can't perceive it
2:00:19imagine being the person that made that even accidentally yeah yeah did feel
2:00:26awful like i just i just want to humanity with a bit of coding while I
2:00:32was playing against humanity if you're lucky
2:00:37miners minor spoiler alert here but spoiler alert for black mirror for
2:00:42anybody who has watched it but remember the Christmas episode braiding yes I
2:00:48went into Starbucks the other day and they were playing that Christmas song I
2:00:52wish it could be Christmas everyday there is the first time I heard it since
2:00:56watching that episode a year ago its literal chills down my spine at
2:01:03Starbucks
2:01:04and it came on it was it like I had chills thinking about that episode
2:01:09because that is an episode where this kind of thing happens where the
2:01:13character is exists in software and is able to experience thousands and
2:01:19thousands of years of torment in seconds of a real-time that was that was a
2:01:25pretty amazing scene where they where you have to think about it for a minute
2:01:30yeah yeah that was it was it was awful it was awful and maybe we do that
2:01:35accidentally with artificial intelligence just one last thing this
2:01:39this book that the whole thing this whole conversation started with what's
2:01:42it called again called Super intelligence is about Nick Bostrom is a
2:01:50good is that well-written luck is should I radar it's not it's not mine but he
2:01:54getting things done is ok ok actually kinda glad you asked that recommendation
2:02:01on my computer so this is one of those books the best way to describe it is
2:02:11when I first started reading it
2:02:13the feeling that I kept having was and my reading a book by a genius or just a
2:02:20raving lunatic because it's sometimes I read these books are fine very
2:02:28interesting I just I can't quite decide if this person is really smart or just
2:02:33crazy I think that partly because the first the first like forty percent of
2:02:39the book is trying to give you all of the reasons that you should believe that
2:02:44it is possible for humans to one day
2:02:47develop artificial intelligence and if you're going to read the book and you
2:02:53are already sold on that promise I think that you should start at chapter 8 which
2:03:00is named
2:03:02is the default outcome
2:03:05chapter eight is where it really gets going through all of these these points
2:03:12like what can we do
2:03:14here's why it won't work what can we do here's why it won't work so I think you
2:03:18can started chapter eight and read there and see if it's interesting to you but
2:03:23it's it's no it's now getting things done but it's it's sometimes it can feel
2:03:29a little bit like and I really reading a book trying to discuss all of these
2:03:34rather futuristic details about artificial intelligence and what we can
2:03:38do and what might happen and what might not happen in like but taking it deadly
2:03:42deadly seriously it's it's an interesting it's an interesting read but
2:03:46maybe don't start from the from the very beginning would be my recommendation
2:04:56this one this is kinda preferences great I'm just looking at some of the vaccinia
2:05:02spoiling yourself interesting start calling itself the first three I pulled
2:05:07off the top of the pack all voted for three different ones stop spoiling
2:05:10yourself get your hands off the votes
2:05:10yourself get your hands off the votes
0:00:00I tell you what it is one of the great myths of hello internet and CGP grey
0:00:05folklore that you are competent and have technical ability the last show
0:00:12certainly certainly sparked some conversation in the reddit I couldn't
0:00:17help but notice that it was a show that reached a thousand comments people
0:00:22talking about when services ma'am is appropriate people talking about sub
0:00:28localization with many minds blown lots and lots of discussion from the last
0:00:32show there was there wasn't sure will come to a few of the other things in
0:00:37follow-up on the subway collaboration thing I love people seemed really
0:00:42interested in and it is very interesting but I feel like I have anything else to
0:00:46say what about you
0:00:47the thing that I left out of the conversation last time which people were
0:00:51picking up on a little bit in the subreddit was I came across some
0:00:56localization in the context of this is not a thing that you should do if you
0:01:03are a well developed reader that this is this is a hinderance this is something
0:01:09that you do when you first learn to read when you are a child but that by the
0:01:14time you become a man you should be able to look at words and understand them
0:01:18without hearing a little voice in your head reading the words to yourself
0:01:23yeah there was a lot of comments on that point but my only follow-up is when I
0:01:29came across this I thought oh ok well this is very interesting let me see if I
0:01:33can get rid of this sub localization and there's a whole bunch of things that
0:01:37you're supposed to do and my experience with them has been a total failure there
0:01:46are exercises you're supposed to do where you're listening to a recording of
0:01:51a voice that's counting up in numbers 12345 and trying to read trying to do
0:01:56that so that your brain learns to not use the audio part of your brain for
0:02:01this and I tried that and the result was I was just incapable of reading the one
0:02:06that I thought was the most interesting was
0:02:08was there is a bunch of software out there which have you seen this pretty
0:02:12but it does this thing where it flashes words individually on the screen from an
0:02:18article so so instead of saying that here's an article that I want to read
0:02:22and it's written normally it just flashes all of the words in sequence in
0:02:27the center of the screen
0:02:28have you ever seen something like yeah yeah I I have very briefly I'm vaguely
0:02:32familiar with it yeah I believe Instapaper on the phone has a built-in
0:02:35but there's a few websites we can paste text and do the same thing but one of
0:02:40the ways in which you're supposed to train yourself out of some vocalizing is
0:02:45by using something like this
0:02:47cranked out a ridiculous speed ok well let me try I'll try but it was almost
0:02:53comical because no matter how high I cranked it up to its like 500 words per
0:02:58minute I'm just hearing a faster voice in my head like the point at which I can
0:03:04still understand it and there is also a narrator and it was a bit like when I
0:03:09edit the podcast podcast and sometimes accidentally sent it to you in a
0:03:13fast-forward mode we're we're talking you know two times faster than we
0:03:17normally do so I tried a bunch of the get rid of some vocalizations stuff and
0:03:22not have it seems to work for me at all I just am not sure that I'm not sure
0:03:27that it can be gotten rid of I guess the question I have
0:03:30is what's the difference between you sub vocalizing and if I was sitting next to
0:03:36you in bed reading the book i think is a big difference between the house and
0:03:43hang on I'm sitting there I'm sitting next to the bed I'm not in bed with you
0:03:47I'm just a chair next to a less weird when you've got like you're getting
0:03:53ready to go to sleep and garlic bread you can you read me a story like is that
0:03:58basically what's happening you're reading yourself a story that seems or
0:04:03if I was reading you the story
0:04:05other words and coming into your head you're then read them to yourself again
0:04:08so you don't think about it now there's no it's not necessary level of thought
0:04:14there's no doubling up I do not like hearing it twice maybe this is the best
0:04:18way to think about it when we're talking now aren't you in mere talking neither
0:04:24of us are thinking about the thoughts right like we just don't know how you
0:04:28speak right words just appear at this is this is how that happens right yeah yeah
0:04:32and so when I ask you a question and then you answer me yeah right you are
0:04:39using a voice but at your thinking the thought at the same time that you're
0:04:42speaking it and for anyone who's done something like a podcast where you speak
0:04:47for a very long time and I'm sure brady you had the same experience sometimes
0:04:50you say something and you think we do actually think that I'm not sure that I
0:04:54do think that right because it's just like a stream of thoughts coming out of
0:04:57your mind right
0:05:00have you ever had that experience you say something you think do I think
0:05:02pretty much every time I speak their ego so in the same way that you talking out
0:05:08loud is like the same thing is you thinking it's it's just like that for
0:05:14reading it it's almost like if if if someone put duct tape over your mouth
0:05:20because you weren't able to speak that would impair your ability to think
0:05:25that's kind of like what it what it is internally I did read when they're doing
0:05:29experiments on sub vocalizations they do their senses because you are almost
0:05:34imperceptibly
0:05:35reading to your self-learning say movements in your time zone your lips
0:05:38and stuff so you literally a kind of reading out loud
0:05:42yeah I would be really curious to know if that was the case for me as far as I
0:05:47know I sit silently and I don't plan on moving my lips or my tongue but I have
0:05:52seen these things and I go you can under the right circumstances measure that
0:05:56they're still electrical impulses going to someones vocal chords when they're
0:05:59doing this even if there's no external side that there that they're reading out
0:06:03loud but I guess your analogy of you reading me a bedtime story just really
0:06:08threw me off I think perhaps the most straightforward way to describe it is
0:06:12that me reading a book out loud to myself and me reading a book
0:06:19silently to myself are not very different experiences are really is with
0:06:25human brain that weird well somehow I don't know how you read I don't
0:06:29understand how you read it that's not the experience that you have any like
0:06:32you are like imagining things to like you are like picturing the same
0:06:35obviously you know you're imagining the mountains and the hobbits and yeah I
0:06:40have the same time this gets really weird like when you think of something
0:06:43in your head you can see it right but where are you seeing it I still have
0:06:48that going on like I'm imagining the scene that unfolds in say a fictional
0:06:52book right that that definitely takes place but it really is just like there
0:06:56is a narrator talking over the whole thing but so do you just do does have a
0:07:00scene silently playing in your head when you read now it's just it's it's it's in
0:07:07another element in a room that we're voices don't exist it's like it's your
0:07:12thoughts your consciousness it's there it's there it's that infant decimal
0:07:16point in the center of your brain where everything happens that you don't
0:07:20understand but it's just the the place and there's no luck I said last time now
0:07:26there's a collapsing of the wave function as soon as I think about
0:07:29thinking everything becomes words and pictures and it's only when I think
0:07:35about thinking it's not that's why I think the same thing is happening to
0:07:39both of us and you're just
0:07:41incapable of getting lost in there and you're always thinking about it so
0:07:45you're always collapsing the wave function and thinking about the words in
0:07:47the pitches I I know this is a Roman studies into an arrogant for me to think
0:07:53everyone thinks like me but I just that's what it feels like to me it feels
0:07:57like we all do it because as soon as I try to think about as soon as I talk to
0:08:01you about it suddenly I am reading to myself and everything is a lot more
0:08:04simple and basic but that's just because I'm analyzing it I just think you're
0:08:08analyzing it too much I think I think he do get lost in reading and thinking and
0:08:14it's only when you stop and think about it that it collapses into this really
0:08:17simple thing yet this is exactly what an ounce of a closer with that and I could
0:08:26say and of course you would say that because that's what grade would say you
0:08:31can't argue with that this is where fast getting into the realm of in argue
0:08:35ability but I the reason why do think that that you're wrong is because I from
0:08:41the descriptions I genuinely wish that I could read in this way that didn't have
0:08:46internal words like it seems like it's a much better way to read but I am always
0:08:52aware of the narrator like the narrator is is never not their mental images can
0:08:58be in addition to the narrator but the narrator's always like I can do the
0:09:02thing everyone can do it you can you can imagine a dog and in your brain
0:09:06somewhere there's like a picture of a generic dog that pops into your head
0:09:10without hearing someone also go dog right I can have without a narrator day
0:09:18reading without a narrator is not possible but I would still say that I
0:09:22think the vast majority of my thoughts do have some kind of narrator and that
0:09:27the the picture part of it is is much rarer like that guy have to more
0:09:31consciously like imagine the dog to not have the narrator to be a thing that
0:09:36happens and I do and I do realize their academic studies into this that's
0:09:40another reason I'm wrong but this is like oh this is a field of study so I
0:09:44can sit here and be an armchair expert but I do realize there
0:09:48is a thing that I would be curious in the subreddit if anybody has any other
0:09:53recommended techniques besides the listen to something
0:09:56spoken while you're reading or try to do the one word really fast things I'm open
0:10:02to trying other methods to to get rid of the habit of Cebu collapsing but
0:10:07everything I have tried so far has been whole area is Lee unhelpful to do I
0:10:14haven't told you this yet but I've been buying up steps and all sorts of
0:10:18merchandise will be liberian County flags on the only yeah just today I got
0:10:26a number like that was sent like during the Black the liberian war or something
0:10:30with this one of the steps and postmarked in liberia and I'm loving
0:10:35nothing I'm getting really into steps and postcards and the whole world of
0:10:40mail and stuff I think I'm becoming a fully fledged node like I'm the one
0:10:46thing that I didn't do that snow D step and i think im gonna get into stamp
0:10:51collecting there is a whole world of the whole world to get into with stamp
0:10:56collecting obviously have already started with my crash mail that now so
0:11:04proudly showed me last time I was there I'm gonna have a whole bunch of other
0:11:07liberians to show you next time there was a thread on the technology subreddit
0:11:16very often on there they do redesign projects which actually think of some of
0:11:20the most interesting things that appear on that subreddit sometimes they just do
0:11:23flags in a particular theme like canada is every nation's flags he make a
0:11:28counter version of all the flags but sometimes they just do a straight up
0:11:31redesign and so someone who actually listened to the show and its food man
0:11:38Union he redid all of the Liberian County flags and I'll put the link in
0:11:45the show notes I am very impressed with this redesign and I think the redesign
0:11:50is really interesting because I can't I can't figure it out because I look at
0:11:55the redesign and these flags are still
0:11:58very very busy flags but I like them all but I wonder if it's because my brain
0:12:04has already fixed its point of reference for Hrithik horrific original flags and
0:12:11so my brain is going over these legs are much better than those flags the feeling
0:12:15I have a hard time seeing them objectively but I think they are very
0:12:20interesting Lee done redesigns she know my problem is with all these redesigned
0:12:26competitions and things like that because because of these rules of good
0:12:31flag design and this kind of accepted style and grammar of the time of the
0:12:35flames begin looking a bit the site and I always think that's one of the things
0:12:40I like about the liberian County flags if I can block anything it's it's it's
0:12:45different it's so it's so refreshing the different isn't a great thing about some
0:12:49of the WEP key flags whether it's something really crazy like Nepal or or
0:12:54something that's just a bit different like Brazil for example if you didn't
0:12:58have those points of difference
0:13:00flags will be the most boring thing in the world he you need some of the crazy
0:13:04cars to make flags work and I think whenever you have these competitions
0:13:09with people say let's imagine we didn't have the crazy guys let's make the crazy
0:13:13guys the same as all the other guys all of a sudden flags become really dull so
0:13:18I think it's unfortunate when people have these little let's let's take the
0:13:23wacky flag and turn it into all the other ones and it just it just it leaves
0:13:27me cold if you can make a new flag ok make a new flag and make it good and
0:13:32follow the rules of design but there's something about all these if only this
0:13:37crazy flag was like all the other ones moments that people don't get a text I
0:13:43am more sympathetic to your point than you might think that I am greedy the
0:13:50thing the thing that I think complicates this is that you and higher looking at
0:13:55it from from the perspective of flag connoisseurs potentially professionals
0:14:03who help other nations develop their flag for this is this is our
0:14:07perspectives so we see
0:14:09many many flags people send us on Twitter and on the subreddit many more
0:14:14flags we've seen a lot yet and so I think from that perspective the more
0:14:20unusual becomes more valuable like a welcome respite from the sameness of
0:14:27every single flag yeah it feels like oh boy isn't isn't this quite a relief and
0:14:33I think this is something that you can see sometimes with people who are
0:14:36professional critics in any field sometimes critics we do have money by
0:14:45criticizing flags I can someone add that to the Wikipedia page is well-known
0:14:54professional flag tattooed in some circles as potential advisers to the
0:15:01government of Fiji but I think I think that's that's why I like movie reviewers
0:15:08you know sometimes if if their movie reviewers you follow they'll
0:15:11occasionally like movies that you feel like god how could they possibly like
0:15:15this terrible low-budget awful indie movie and I think it's a bit of a same
0:15:21thing where they like man is just so interesting to see something that is
0:15:24different and even if it's not great but the thing with flags and the reason why
0:15:29I will still push back against you on this is that I think a vital part of a
0:15:34flag is not just its uniqueness but it's not the people who live under that flag
0:15:40should want to put that flag on things that they have so I feel like everybody
0:15:47should have a flag that they can attach to their backpack right or that they can
0:15:52fly from their house everyone should have that and so the original liberian
0:15:59County flags if you lived in one of those counties and you were super proud
0:16:04of it and you wanted to demonstrate that to the world you had a terrible terrible
0:16:10choice of flag
0:16:12so that's why I'm going to push back to you as I think everybody deserves to
0:16:17live under a flag that they can proudly fly half years yet saying because I have
0:16:22not have you yet seen anyone from liberia or anyone who lives in any of
0:16:28these counties criticized the flax and say they don't like them cuz you and
0:16:33I've had a road loss and we've seen on reddit having a laugh and saying these
0:16:36are the worst flags on the way out but it's entirely possible the people of
0:16:40river gee County
0:16:43their flags awesome if you told me just to say go with that so i didnt know you
0:16:53stop inmates ya gotta gotta gotta push back I did I would never want to just
0:17:01give you a hard but I mean it it maybe maybe maybe the incredibly proud and if
0:17:08we were saying these things on a podcast in liberia would be tried for treason I
0:17:13mean this is this is the part where I have to admit that I know almost nothing
0:17:16about the great nation of Liberia Vicky county is pronounced like that I
0:17:23definitely know that yeah expert in pronunciation for liberia counties but I
0:17:29don't know I know you CDP Grade II don't you know it's it's because nobody
0:17:45English now is because English doesn't have any decision rules English just
0:17:49like to pretend that it does I don't know that I don't know that refugee
0:17:52county has a place called the Fishtown so I think it's also although it does
0:17:55seem to be land-locked but I guess I freshwater fish or its just a great name
0:17:59yeah but I have seen nine their opponents nor d ponents of the Liberian
0:18:09County flags that are from liberia so I i have seen no no feedback on either end
0:18:14and my guess
0:18:16my guess is this is a lot like the city flags in the United States which is that
0:18:22just most people don't have the slightest idea what the flag of their
0:18:26local city is this is normally one of these times when I would make a comment
0:18:31like they were going to be hearing from everyone from liberia but I don't
0:18:35imagine imagine that we're actually going to get a lot of Liberians me back
0:18:39on this one
0:18:39this episode of hello internet is brought to you by now many of you might
0:18:45be working at a big company with an internet that is just a terrible
0:18:51terrible piece of software to work with i mean actually isn't even really a
0:18:56piece of software it feels much more like it's a bunch of pipes connected to
0:19:00old computers held together with duct tape
0:19:04most Internet are just awful I used awful internet at my school but igloo is
0:19:09something different
0:19:11igloo is a feeling of levity compared to other internets because it is an
0:19:16internet you will actually like go to igloo software dot com slash hello and
0:19:23just just take a look at the way igloo looks they have a nice clean modern
0:19:29design that will just be a relief on your sad tired eyes compared to the
0:19:35internet that you are currently working web at your company and includes not
0:19:39just a pretty face
0:19:40igloo lets you share news organize your files coordinate calendars and manage
0:19:45your projects all in one place and it's not just files in a bucket either their
0:19:51latest upgrade Viking revolves around interacting with documents how people
0:19:56make changes to them how you can receive feedback on them if you're the man in
0:20:00charge there's an ability to track who has seen what across the internet so you
0:20:06can have something like read receipts in email where you know if everyone has
0:20:10actually seen and signed off on whatever document they need to see if your
0:20:15company has a legacy internet that looks like it was built in the nineteen
0:20:20nineties then you should give
0:20:22igloo a try please sign up for a free trial at igloo software dot com slash
0:20:28below to let you know that you came from us so the next time I want to talk about
0:20:35it over we just did it last week and the week before yet
0:20:41newburgh corner at this rate we I just did have a moment after we've spoken
0:20:47about it because I i causing 30 business short space of time in the first person
0:20:52who drove me across San Francisco
0:20:55I was sad you know where you know where you going next he said I've got to go to
0:20:59work I'm actually a bartender and then the next go to pick me up and take me to
0:21:03the next place was in a hurry as well as she actually wants to be like a singer
0:21:07in a band and she was like auditioning that now and then the next person who
0:21:12drove me to the next place was like who was picking up her kids from soccer
0:21:17practice after she gave me a lift and i suddenly occurred to me and i know this
0:21:21country for taxi drivers but it seems even more the case with a bad driving me
0:21:26like these people driving seventy miles an hour along highways he could kill me
0:21:33with the terms of a steering wheel and they just thought these random selection
0:21:37of people and their only qualification is that they have a mobile phone and
0:21:41they have a driver's license
0:21:43well I didn't say that drivers license I'm assuming they went through some
0:21:46process to prove that but the driver's license process is very rigorous very
0:21:51make a case like a job and it's at least I know nothing about this person had
0:21:56crashes they are they do not like I still like me but I still think its coat
0:22:03it really won me over but there were a few moments i think im quite sensitive
0:22:07to it especially since we spoke earlier about that the terrible car crash when
0:22:12the mathematician John Nash Titan when he was going back from the airport and
0:22:17that was a taxi that was a taxi crash right but ever since then especially
0:22:21when I'm in america driving from airports highways I'm always thinking
0:22:25I'm always conscious that my life is in other people's hands much more so than
0:22:29when I fly yeah
0:22:30probably cuz I could see the person driving using their mobile phone and
0:22:33stuff yeah and I think driving in america is scarier as I i over most of
0:22:40the time just around London and there are unaware like okay even if we get
0:22:45into a car crash how fast can we possibly be going in a head-on collision
0:22:49exactly like London London traffics
0:22:52whereas in america you have big stretches where you you can you can get
0:22:56up to seventy miles an hour and then you head-on collision with somebody else
0:23:00going seventy miles in the other direction right this driving in america
0:23:04is definitely more of a dangerous experience also the fact that such a
0:23:08mobile phone
0:23:10oriented platform drivers even more than taxi drivers always seem to be attached
0:23:16to their phones are always using the map steroids use in the apps they're very
0:23:19phone obsessed and I think mobile phones
0:23:22a very dangerous and I'm very conscious of how often they looking at their
0:23:26phones and the map sitting in their lap and stuff like that I think I actually
0:23:31said to one of the drivers to give you some have something into the Apple you
0:23:36can't use the phone while you're doing this so that because because it wasn't
0:23:40your finds no no no there's nothing like this again is is the interesting
0:23:45difference of of how things are around the world because it again at least in
0:23:50London the phones that they get our only usable for uber and they are issued by
0:23:59who were there like factory installed I phones that run who bring nothing else
0:24:04which is why in London almost all of the drivers have a larry is Lee at least two
0:24:10and sometimes three phones attached to their dashboard precisely because her
0:24:16phone can only be used for over and so the one at bring up other stuff on the
0:24:20other phone so they have like two different
0:24:23like software for reading the directions of the loaded up on Google Maps and
0:24:27something else it so I'm always aware of like this many many scream phenomenon at
0:24:34the front of the cars and it extra funny when whatever car they're using has a
0:24:38built-in screen that they're obviously not using because their phone screens
0:24:42are just superior so actually there's four screens and the front of this car
0:24:46ok you got her phone you have your secondary GPS and you have what is
0:24:52obviously your personal phone and the built-in screen in the actual car itself
0:24:57as a lot of screens the other thing that came out time and again when I was
0:25:01talking to overdrive is was this rival app code lift ya know this is something
0:25:06I've never used because I believe it's only in the United States I don't think
0:25:11it's it's it's in the UK but I've always gotten vaguely the impression that like
0:25:15lift is for hippies they can share ridesharing kind of thing I didn't get
0:25:21that impression but to have like pink mustaches on the front of their cars you
0:25:26know this is this is the kind of company that it is in my mind I have no idea
0:25:30most of the drivers tough we using both over and lift simultaneously and they
0:25:36all failed lift and they gave me a few reasons one of the big reasons was the
0:25:41ability for passengers to tip and I did you did you proud great idea prayer I
0:25:48gave them a real hard time about that I told them why didn't like the obvious
0:25:53reasons you know chris is recreate the tipping culture and you start could
0:25:57start getting assessed based on your tipping and actually what they told me
0:26:02and I was told us a few times I don't I haven't checked myself but I was told a
0:26:06few times the tipping actually works in quite an interesting way you do the tip
0:26:10afterwards anonymously via phone and they don't find out who tipped them at
0:26:15the end of the day at the end of the week they just get their tips and they
0:26:17don't know where they came from
0:26:19so they like it because if they do really well they can you know it gives
0:26:22them something to strive for beyond just getting another 5 stars you know they
0:26:26could get the tip or your replays to give them a tip
0:26:30but it did sound like that pressure and awkwardness wasn't there and there was
0:26:34no gym no judging because no one knows who tip so I don't know if it's true
0:26:38that's what they said when I challenged so it wasn't really actually just shut
0:26:43or she's getting pretty smart she's I just sent you said in one of those left
0:26:49cars with the mustache apparently this is a thing that they no longer do but I
0:26:53was certainly thinking mio crazy person for imagining that that used to be pink
0:26:56mustaches on cars and now I'm not a crazy person I looked it up and yes it
0:27:01is used to do that way that you described tipping is a very interesting
0:27:09idea that I have ever come across before the idea of delayed mass tipping I think
0:27:18I think my initial reaction to that is I find it much more acceptable
0:27:24like in a restaurant if tipping work that way right that you could do it
0:27:29later and it's distributed amongst a large number of customers so that the
0:27:34waiters don't know directly I think that I think it's interesting I think the
0:27:39idea people are fundamentally cheap nice so like I think without the social
0:27:44pressure of tipping tips may come down this is why my fundamental thing with
0:27:48tips they always need to remind people argue against tips heart part of the
0:27:52argument that is unspoken
0:27:54is that you have to raise the wage for people who depend on tips
0:28:00scrooge here thinking these tips and not add anything else I would rather raise
0:28:08the wage and removed the tips I think if under those circumstances if tipping was
0:28:13not required it was done later and anonymously I think I would probably
0:28:17very rarely do it and again like with all the other stuff is way more about
0:28:22just like having to think about it but I don't know I don't know maybe maybe I
0:28:28would just I would just set it as the default amount of tip I know it's an
0:28:32interesting idea that's a very interesting idea that I haven't come
0:28:34across before after think about this for a little bit
0:28:36we have we have a note here about the the vote looms the deadline for our vote
0:28:43looms for the flags I mean this could possibly be a final warning before I
0:28:48mean the next time you listen to the podcast about myself maybe too late to
0:28:51vote so this could be the last time you listen to the Internet broadcast and
0:28:56still have the option of voting and Affleck referendum that's how high the
0:29:00stakes are now this is going to be the last podcasts before the hour before we
0:29:06count the votes I guess I think so it's certainly going to be the last podcast
0:29:11you listen to that where you have a chance chance of sending a postcard
0:29:15makes it in time but even that of realizing as we're speaking is somewhat
0:29:20in doubt because we are recording this podcast and are at our usual time but
0:29:27this one may be out a bit late because I have some other things that I have to
0:29:31prioritize above it so I actually don't know when this one is going to go out
0:29:34and how much time they will be it may be that you have to be in the UK to get the
0:29:39postcard in on time we'll have to see you just like they are been adding three
0:29:44or four days to every day as well for the podcast if you say it's gonna be out
0:29:48Monday I said to myself
0:29:50Thursday yeah that's an excellent that's an excellent piece of advice it's funny
0:29:54cuz I try to do that to myself when I make estimates and I'll come up with an
0:29:59initial estimate and I'll go yeah but I never make it on time let me add a few
0:30:03days and of course you can't overestimate for yourself you're still
0:30:07always wrong even if you try to incorporate your own overestimating said
0:30:11however I say whenever I tell you Brady any deadlines you should just
0:30:14automatically add a few days to that and I know very the deadline is looming I
0:30:22have next to me right now probably a thousand but probably closer to two
0:30:29thousand postcards in a box
0:30:32votes his his his listen here there is some of them that is the sound of actual
0:30:39ballot election
0:30:41yeah well you you weighed them and then I was asking you I was I was pestering
0:30:47you for a while to wait ten of them yeah we could do an estimate for the total
0:30:51amount and at least one that was maybe about a week ago the calculation came
0:30:56out to be about 1,800 postcards then and I presume that you've gotten more since
0:31:00that point
0:31:01soho last time we were discussing we're thinking like maybe we'll get a thousand
0:31:06and we're clearly going to get double that at this stage so yeah it's it's
0:31:10gonna be a lot of votes to count that's for sure I love looking through these by
0:31:15the way I know you keep telling me off and telling me not to but yet listeners
0:31:18listeners Brady keep spoiling himself and me by constantly going through
0:31:24fingering looking at all of these postcards I'm just minding my own
0:31:27business and Brady sends instant message after instant message of interesting
0:31:31post card and I feel like they're just spoilers I want to go there and just and
0:31:36count them all and see them home once but Brady can't help himself you like
0:31:39you're like a little kid I'm not telling you what's getting a lot of votes so
0:31:43what's gonna win the violin just sending you the pictures and it doesn't know
0:31:48what that is
0:31:48that's when someone says the movie's great there's a twist I haven't pulled
0:31:52anything but I'm just telling you that there's no no no it's not it's
0:31:56completely down let me tell you what's completely different because the
0:32:00election is all about what's on the back of these post cuts who's voted for what
0:32:05right I have sent you or told you nothing whatsoever about that nothing
0:32:09and now the only thing I'm spoiling is where some of them are from are some of
0:32:14the funny pictures but trust me great there is no way in one day you will be
0:32:19able to get anywhere near saying the mall it is overwhelming how many there
0:32:24are and how different so if I send you some funny one that's been sent to have
0:32:29some bridge in Norway like you probably would have seen on the day anyway
0:32:34because we're gonna be concentrating on the back of the postcards mostly that
0:32:38day I so so I'm not spoiling anything I'm just I'm just excited it's like I've
0:32:43got all my presence and I just wanna feel the presence of beer
0:32:48yeah we're the kind of kid open Christmas presents earlier but you were
0:32:50now I'm not definitely not definitely not but but I tell you I know it's going
0:33:03to be one by one that I don't want to win I decided that I feel it in my bones
0:33:06but I do like the most
0:33:10gonna be alright I am going to act like a monarch and I have officially decided
0:33:17not to vote in the flag referendum unless unless by some miracle if the tie
0:33:25a tie then he'll think I will cast cast a ballot but that's that's that's my
0:33:33that's my thought is that I am NOT going to cast the vote because I think when
0:33:40you write something down in my mind I still can't please these flags really in
0:33:45a in a definitive 125 order and I think when you sit down and you write
0:33:49something out it solidifies something in your mind and I think you know what no
0:33:54no here's what I'm going to do I'm just I am leaving myself open to the hello
0:33:59Internet nation ready to accept what they decide should be the flag and I
0:34:05think writing down an ordered list would bias my own feelings toward the actual
0:34:11election so that's my conclusion I am I am NOT going to vote in the election but
0:34:16have you sent to vote in Brady I have not and I'm thinking pretty much the
0:34:23same way as you that I like the idea of having not voted I have owned is only
0:34:29one thing I hope to the election I hope secretly in my heart that it goes to a
0:34:35second round I hope that one flag doesn't winner in the first to like
0:34:39doesn't get over fifty percent in the first record I so so hope that we have
0:34:43to distribute preferences because that's the thing I'm most looking yeah I will
0:34:47be disappointed if we don't have to distribute preferences I would be
0:34:52shocked if one of them gets more than 50 percent on the first round I I will be
0:34:57absolutely shocked if that occurs
0:34:59ok but I will also be deeply disappointed in a way that we don't get
0:35:04to crank through the mechanics of a second preference around in the
0:35:07collection I had it I had to be my leg said today that was all about
0:35:12coincidences and I thought this amazing and then I was thinking how could I
0:35:17possibly bring this into the podcast in a way that would make great even pretend
0:35:21to be interested he lost the battle yeah I I thought of like 10 different ways I
0:35:30could sell it to you in the end I just threw it away so there's just nothing
0:35:35there is nothing about coincidences that could ever excite great in any way of
0:35:39course that of course I meet you and try to sell me on the most amazing one no I
0:35:44don't think you would I think two guys in tibet could start their own podcast
0:35:50code greetings internet and they could be called Bradley Aaron and CGP brown
0:35:57and you would just say cause that's going to happen there are so many people
0:36:02making put across these days and there are only so many names in the world of
0:36:05course that was going to happen eventually
0:36:07yeah that is exactly what I would say I think I don't know how to do this before
0:36:12my favorite example of of coincidences is the Dennis the Menace comic strip if
0:36:19I told you this but not an exact Dennis the Menace published in the united
0:36:25states I think it was just a post-world war two comic strip when it started but
0:36:29on the same day that it debuted in the united states in the United Kingdom
0:36:36someone else also debuted comic called Dennis the Menace with the exact same
0:36:41premise so they can not only did two people come up with the same idea but
0:36:47they ended up publishing the first comic on the same exact day
0:36:52this is this is why I like coincidences like that of course you're going to get
0:36:57coincidences it's just it's almost impossible not to when you have a huge
0:37:01number of people so they can be interesting but they're also just
0:37:05totally unremarkable and the problem that I have with coincidences is usually
0:37:11people than one to try to look for look for meaning behind them as we know
0:37:14there's there's no meaning what there is is there's just billions of people on
0:37:19earth they would be astounded if there weren't coincidences somewhere
0:37:25talked about coincidences it's a it's a good decision it's like you shouldn't
0:37:31talk to me about his morty dreams at least now I don't even start man ok cuz
0:37:42I i think with the right amount of knowledge and expertise you might be
0:37:47able to glean something from dreams because they are based on you know your
0:37:52brain and inputs and outputs and I'm not saying I have the expertise and I'm
0:37:57gonna sit here and talk to you about my dreams but I'm just saying no one has
0:38:00expertise I'm just saying there I'm just saying there is something to dream that
0:38:04there is like you know there is something to that that that's not that's
0:38:08not gobbledygook is just beyond our ability to understand and therefore we
0:38:12imbue it with silly meaning when you say that it was are beyond beyond our
0:38:17ability to understand y you're implying that there's some that there's something
0:38:21to understand there as opposed to what it is which is nightly hallucinations
0:38:27that you connect into meaning later on because that's what the human brain does
0:38:32it's a it's a pattern creation machine even when there's no pattern there like
0:38:36that that's that's all it happens I don't believe that I don't believe that
0:38:39because because I'm not I'm not saying they have like any predictive power yeah
0:38:45yeah if you were saying that I mean I'd start cutting you off to the looney bin
0:38:50yeah
0:38:50but I mean you can't deny that you know if you having a stressful time in your
0:38:54life you have a certain type of dream and if if there are certain things going
0:38:57on your dreams change and that there is a correlation between what your dreams
0:39:03and what's happening in your real life I mean you must say that you must you must
0:39:06acknowledge that surely you know when people going through traumatic times
0:39:10they dreams become more dramatic or or the link may not always even be that
0:39:16direct but there is like a there is a link between what's happening in your
0:39:19dreams and what's happening in your life
0:39:21yeah because you lose a nations are constructed from pieces of your life how
0:39:25how could it be any other way but yeah I mean like I will totally grant you that
0:39:30there is a correlation between what happens in your life and what happens in
0:39:33your dreams and the worst example for me of this ever
0:39:37my very first year of teaching me and this other and cutie that I worked with
0:39:43we both discussed how in that first year in the first few months the worst thing
0:39:48ever was
0:39:49you would spend all of your waking hours at work at school doing school stuff and
0:39:54then because there was your only experience you would go home and your
0:39:58dreams would be dreams about being at school and you'd wake up and have to do
0:40:01it all over again and it felt like an internal nightmare of always doing
0:40:05school so like yeah but then but that's just a case where they you only have one
0:40:09thing to dream about and it's the thing that you're doing all day long so of
0:40:13course there's going to be some correlation but that doesn't mean that
0:40:15there's like meaning to be derived from the dream like that I think that's just
0:40:20a step too far let me put this to you then mister CGP grey who always thinks
0:40:24that humans are merely computers yeah your computer doesn't take this your
0:40:32computer if your computer if a bunch of stuff came out of your computer are you
0:40:35looking through all this sort of code and stuff that was going on under the
0:40:39hood of your computer you would never just completely dismiss that and say oh
0:40:44well that's just random and means nothing because it came from your
0:40:47computer and therefore even if it was something I wasn't supposed to do
0:40:51it came from something and as a cause and the right Expert could look at it
0:40:55and say I yes I see what's going on here or something has gone wrong on this is
0:40:58what it's doing because the computer can only do what a computer can do and
0:41:02therefore if a brain is a computer if it's serving up all this to say that
0:41:07means nothing just how those nations you should ignore that well no because if my
0:41:12computer is doing something must be doing it for a reason must be like I'm
0:41:18not saying we're supposed to remember a dreams and then use them in a life
0:41:23always with you baby you always moving the goalposts underneath me and now
0:41:33you're having a discussion about do dreams serve a function in the brain and
0:41:39my answer to that is obviously yes like humans dream there must be something
0:41:46that the brain is doing during this time that is useful to the brain
0:41:49otherwise it wouldn't do it but that doesn't mean that there is meaning to be
0:41:53derived of our subjective experience of what is occurring in the dream state
0:41:58like that's that's a whole other thing are you telling me if I gave you some
0:42:04machine that was able to completely project someone's dream like record them
0:42:11like a yeah that exists yeah yeah imagine I gave you that and i said im
0:42:17gonna give you that person over those dreams the last 10 years are you telling
0:42:22me that data is useless no I'm not saying that data is useless because we
0:42:26just said before that you could derive probabilities about a person's life from
0:42:31their dreams like oh this person looks like maybe they're a teacher because
0:42:34they went through a big favor they were dreaming about teaching all the time
0:42:37but that doesn't mean that there's anything for the dreamer to derive from
0:42:41their dreams but if you're asking me like is a machine that is capable of
0:42:45peering inside someone else is bringing a useful machine like well yes obviously
0:42:49that would be useful you could derive information from that of course the baby
0:42:52almost impossible not to I'm just saying that I don't think there's anything
0:42:56really to learn from your own dreams and I also I also have this very very deep
0:43:01suspicion that if this machine existed that allowed you to watch someone else's
0:43:07dream or watch your own dreams I am absolutely confident that being able to
0:43:14see them objectively would leave them out for the borderline nonsensical
0:43:20hallucinations that they are because I think when you wake up leader you are
0:43:25imposing order on a thing that was not full of order at the time I that that's
0:43:33what I think is occurring as you wake up and think you're constructing a story
0:43:37out of a series of nonsensical random events and so then you feel like oh let
0:43:41me tell people about my dream and Anna when you listen to those stories they're
0:43:45already borderline crazy stories but I think like you've pulled so much order
0:43:49out of a thing that didn't exist so yeah yeah I mean I agree with that I agree
0:43:54agree that you know even sometimes dreams you remember that they've pretty
0:43:58freaky and we are all over the place and it's almost impossible for a human to
0:44:04relay something like that in a way that isn't a story like I think that's just
0:44:08the way our brains remember things I just don't think that it's like and
0:44:15usable I think I think maybe in the future when we understand things a bit
0:44:19better we may even we may be able to get more use out of them then we do me
0:44:24realize I don't mean use I mean almost like diagnosed ickes
0:44:28I guess you're talking about used to third parties but yet but not used to
0:44:35you the dreamer because again you're describing a machine that can look
0:44:39inside someone's mind and I would say yes obviously that is useful but like I
0:44:43said he might be able to use it to help you die so right but i'm saying you
0:44:48looking at your own dreams like ok whatever man you just reading the tea
0:44:51leaves of your own life there's nothing really hear you're just everything that
0:44:55you think is there you are putting their there's nothing really there that
0:44:58streams today sponsor is audible.com which has over a hundred and eighty
0:45:05thousand audio books and spoken-word audio products get a free 30 day trial
0:45:10at audible.com / hello internet now whenever audible sponsor the show they
0:45:16give us free rein to recommend the book of a choice and tonight I'm gonna tell
0:45:21you about one of my all-time favorite science fiction books in fact it's
0:45:25probably my all-time favorite book . it's called the mote in God's eye by
0:45:30Larry Niven and Jerry pointelle basically this is set in the future in
0:45:34humans are traveling all around the galaxy this area of space called Kosek
0:45:39that some people say resembles the face of God is a big red star in the middle
0:45:44that supposedly looks likely I and in front of that RI from some angles is a
0:45:50small a yellow star and that's the mote in God's are so that's where the title
0:45:55comes from now humans have never been to that stuff but all that changes in this
0:46:00book when some serious stuff goes down and what they find their looks pretty
0:46:05important to the future of everything it's a really clever story I remember
0:46:09being really impressed by some of the ideas in it and the audiobook weighs in
0:46:13at well over 20 hours said this might be a good one to settle in for your holiday
0:46:17break now I've said before the books are a great way to catch up on all sorts of
0:46:22stories I love listening to them when I'm out walking the dogs are on long
0:46:25drives I know a lot of people have long commutes to work order out of a place to
0:46:31get these audio books and if you follow one of our recommendations from the show
0:46:35and you don't end up like it immediately or 20 so great at letting you
0:46:39trade it back in and getting when you do like I'm sure some of you now have done
0:46:44this once before and it was easy peasy no questions asked
0:46:48so godot audible.com / hello internet and sign up for your free 30 day trial a
0:46:56things to audible.com for supporting cast a book recommendation again the
0:47:00mote in God's eye and the URL they're all important web address
0:47:05audible.com / hello internet and no no you came from the show
0:47:10alright brady you are back from america have you have you had that have you had
0:47:18the bravery to waive yourself with myself I did one I did when a few days
0:47:23ago after I got back and I had increased by 1.3 kilograms 1.3 kilograms and how
0:47:30long were you in America for three weeks I mean honestly I feel like that's not
0:47:36too bad I felt like I dodged a bullet to be honest I haven't been eating well
0:47:41since I got back either so I think it might be even more now there's always an
0:47:45america half life where you come back and because the food is so good in
0:47:51america it takes a little while to adjust you would still eat crap when you
0:47:54return even though I have always promised myself on the plane coming back
0:47:58from america all gone now I'm going to be really good now but now it doesn't it
0:48:02never happens like this you need a few days to adjust yeah you gotta weigh
0:48:05yourself of all that fat and just before we recorded you sent me a picture of a
0:48:12pizza with only looking at it like super spectacular peeps it was the name of it
0:48:17or something like it was like it was the favorite run 5,000 calories that's for
0:48:25sure but yes I gotta gotta say I think you could have definitely done way worse
0:48:30I think if I was in America for the same period of time I would have done way
0:48:34worse you know
0:48:36all agree with you there you dodged a bullet dodged a bullet on that one
0:48:39how you don't it was interesting because we I mean it's been basically a month
0:48:46since we did our way and because you were in America he said we're not going
0:48:49to do it while you're there couldn't be consistent and I think I realized that
0:48:54with you my weight buddy gone I was thinking about this stuff just a little
0:48:59bit less maybe and so I was actually quite surprised when I stepped on the
0:49:03scale today I I was essentially within the measurement error the exact same way
0:49:10that I was a month ago I was like point three pounds which is zero kilograms
0:49:16down but you know my daily weight varies by much much more than that so just
0:49:24interesting to see that I have hit like a little plant town that has stayed
0:49:28roughly the same for a month but I was just surprised that because we hadn't
0:49:34done the way and it hadn't even crossed my mind has moved in quite a while so
0:49:38yeah I am but I think there's there's something like my brain isn't doing the
0:49:46comparison to the fixed point of the last way in just to wear today that I
0:49:50had no idea what the last way in number was I had to go look it up and then do
0:49:53the math so it's like my brain was pushing it to the side but now that
0:49:58you're back in the UK now thats will be weighing in again in two weeks time I
0:50:03think maybe it'll be more the four of my mind but maybe not but maybe I'm really
0:50:07stuck at a plateau need to change things up again to to continue the weight loss
0:50:11we will hopefully I can get my act together just since spiral of food
0:50:16naughtiness at the moment and they to the best of us
0:50:23I wanted to quickly ask you about the iPad pro as you know I don't listen to
0:50:29your fetish podcast but you did talk about on that I understand yeah yeah I
0:50:34pick one up on the day of release
0:50:38all I want is should I get one for Christmas cos cos I haven't I don't
0:50:43there's nothing I really want for Christmas and my wife's that will come
0:50:46get you something and i dont wanna watch anymore and a porch of Afghan off that
0:50:51probably for your own good to go off that so I Pad Pro at a lot I do like the
0:50:59idea of that I have absolutely no use for I think I've said before I'm a
0:51:07sucker for anything with pro in the know I think I think this is why I think this
0:51:12is why you getting drawn in by this device perot and Brady things i would
0:51:17like to have the pro things I like a lot of code YouTube red YouTube pro
0:51:24actually not a bad idea that would have made me think it was also well I mean I
0:51:30like you cheap I prefer the provision myself so I'm like that with everything
0:51:35so idk the original iPad and used to like times and then put in a draw but
0:51:42now there's an iPad pro I'm not falling for this and I'm completely open about
0:51:49it I love that I love that I loved you fall for it and that you also know this
0:51:54about yourself I'm wondering what's going to happen when Apple inevitably
0:51:59makes the Apple watch perot
0:52:01definitely get one of them right and was going to say no to that exactly like you
0:52:10haven't got a price you call yourself professional should I get an iPad pro ok
0:52:22so that that's a hard question to answer because he's you either say the say yes
0:52:27but you say no
0:52:32here's my thinking about this has been thinking about this ok let's say I
0:52:36didn't know anything about someone and they just needed to buy an iPad they
0:52:41said which iPad should I buy if I didn't know anything about the person the
0:52:45correct answers to buy the iPad
0:52:47or two which is like the medium-sized superlight one and then if you have a
0:52:52particular reason to get the perot you should get the perot but I don't have
0:52:56any idea what do you think you're going to do with the iPad pro aside from just
0:53:00feel smug sense of satisfaction that you home the pro version of this device like
0:53:07that pretty much sums it up against all I want for Christmas is a sense the smug
0:53:15satisfaction money come by that actually the best thing money money I just feel
0:53:30like a new toy you know yeah you want a new toy like it's it's huge in person
0:53:37it's a really big in person it feels like a dinner plates in person actually
0:53:41do you have your laptop is like the 15 inch MacBook Pro i think is that right
0:53:47yeah I haven't got here it's yeah yeah yeah but you own that laptop yeah the
0:53:52iPad Pro is essentially the size of that screen right that's that's the size of
0:53:57it within within like a quarter inch and so we can hear is a big big screen and
0:54:03if you're not planning on doing work on it like I got the iPad pro to do work
0:54:08and so far I absolutely love it for work like the the video that I'm currently
0:54:13working on I did just a ton of the scripts on that iPad perot the final
0:54:17version like it's really really nice to work on but if you're not going to do
0:54:21that then the question is well it's a total counter machine or are you going
0:54:26to want to sit on the couch and browse the web or read books on your iPad or
0:54:31watch TV on your iPad I don't think you do any of those things kind of guy but
0:54:36maybe I'm wrong I don't know I don't watch TV and movies on my laptop every
0:54:42not and I do spend the first hour of most mornings when I wake up just
0:54:47sitting in bed
0:54:48that's what I like to my email and all the things I can just do without my big
0:54:53machine
0:54:55web stuff I do that but I did on my laptop so having a big having a big
0:55:01which has got bored so I sort of think what if I had the big screen of the iPad
0:55:05price I could sit and do my email check on my YouTube channels everything first
0:55:09thing in the morning but I do that now my laptop and a so much easier with a
0:55:13keyboard to be no bang out females yeah if you think you're funny that you wake
0:55:19up and doing email from bed to remember that the next time I get an email from
0:55:22me sent this before getting dressed in the morning but yeah if you want to do
0:55:29that that sounds like he needed you need a keyboard then again I don't think the
0:55:33iPad perot is what you want to do unless you're you know you're really happy
0:55:36about typing with your fingers on glass and it has that little keyboard but I
0:55:42don't think that keyboard work really well if you're trying to do it in bed
0:55:44with the laptop balance on your chest to spend probably an hour a day maybe in
0:55:53Photoshop so and I do use pen like I use a Wacom tablet all the time so I do I
0:56:02could imagine that but my use of photoshop and my use of the pen is very
0:56:06very integrated with my editing on avid largest-ever on my own one of my big
0:56:12computers those two processors are so intertwined yeah and every everything I
0:56:18know about you bruce says this is this is not the thing that you want to do to
0:56:21integrate a new tool into this workflow so I think the only selling point for
0:56:27this for you is if there's some point where you want a lounge around and just
0:56:31use this doesn't sound like you really have you really have a place for this
0:56:36strange like I iced it with my laptop on my lap
0:56:43on my phone in my hand here's the thing just just with the experience that I
0:56:47have had with my cuz I i have the iPad pro in the regular size iPad it feels
0:56:53ridiculous to be sitting next to my wife with the iPad Pro for lounging time
0:56:59because just like I was saying we're watching TV but then I want to have the
0:57:04iPad in front of me because I'm not paying full attention to whatever is on
0:57:07the screen but the screen in front of me that feels so huge it feels almost
0:57:11obtrusive and so I actually prefer to use a smaller iPad if I'm just sitting
0:57:17on the couch with my wife thing do you do that I don't do that the iPad Pro is
0:57:25good for the main thing that I'm using for it has a bigger screen to write
0:57:30scripts and you had your scripts too well this is a whole as a whole thing
0:57:36for the moment I'm doing this typing but the iPad pro screen is big enough that
0:57:41what I've been doing is I can have the script on the left two-thirds of the
0:57:45screen and I have a little notes file on the right third of the screen so I have
0:57:49two different text files open at the same time one of the things that I wants
0:57:53to do with the iPad Pro is a thing that I've done before which is used the
0:57:57stylists to make editing corrections on the script that is really useful to me
0:58:02but the pen is not currently available so I haven't been able to try it with
0:58:06that so I don't know if it will be useful for that yet or not but for me
0:58:10having a bigger screen to write is really useful seems like he should just
0:58:14be using a laptop yeah you would think so but I like the simplicity of using
0:58:19iOS I find the constraints of an iPad helpful so that's one of the reasons why
0:58:26I like doing that like I've set up my iPad pro to basically only have the
0:58:32tools necessary to write it doesn't have everything the laptop can have I can
0:58:37spend a lot of time fiddling around with it it's like luck
0:58:40there's six programs on this thing which are designed for work and those are just
0:58:43the ones that you're going to use it so I I find that very helpful I really like
0:58:47that but i dont no breeding doesn't sound like it's a it's a total sales for
0:58:51you unless you really value that feeling of smug satisfaction I feel like you're
0:58:57always talking he added getting Apple products I talk you out of them because
0:59:01I care bTW I really do as much as I would love to see you use an apple
0:59:08watching I think it might be hilarious I don't think he would like it and just
0:59:13the conversation with you now I dont see a super slam dunk selling case for the
0:59:17iPad pro I don't think it would help you with the kind of work that you do me as
0:59:22a youtuber using an iPad as much as I do is extraordinarily rare and iPad is not
0:59:27well designed for the kind of work that most normal you two words do just that
0:59:32for making my video is a huge part of it is writing and the iPad happens to be a
0:59:37nice writing tool but if I didn't have to do a lot of writing I would have very
0:59:42little work justification for iPad I would not be able to use this tool as
0:59:47much as I do so that's why talking to you like I don't think it's going to
0:59:50help you with your work so it's just a question of if you want a lounge around
0:59:53with a dinner tray sized screen on the couch personal much is an estate agent
1:00:02ok and I saw him stopping over his cars now my experience estate agents always
1:00:07have one of two cars these days they either have like small little novelty
1:00:13cars like smart cars and stuff that are painted weird colors with the branding
1:00:17of the estate agent by the mobile ads and also that makes them easy to park I
1:00:22getting into little space is when they're showing houses and things like
1:00:26that or they have their normal rich person car like a classy BMW ok I'm
1:00:32wondering what is the better to pull up in when you're trying to a
1:00:38sell a house to someone or get someone's business to sell their house because
1:00:42part of me thinks if they turn up in like a reflash I also think it's like
1:00:47about counters and other professional people I deal with do I prefer it when I
1:00:51see them with a really flashy expensive for what I prefer the head like a more
1:00:56humble as if they've got like a reflash expensive says to me are they successful
1:01:01that they make a lot of money and that's good but then I also think we're making
1:01:05a lot of money order made before they're ready for this is easy this is easy if
1:01:10you are a professional who is directly helping somebody else make money then
1:01:19you want to show up in the in the fancy car you want to show up in the BMW right
1:01:24otherwise you want to show up in the normal car that that's the way you want
1:01:30to do this if you like if you're helping the person make money like your estate
1:01:35agent and you're doing this thing where you are helping the person sell their
1:01:41house when you wanna show up in the BMW was like look I sell a lot of houses I
1:01:46can afford this car because I sell a lot of houses that's that's the way you
1:01:50should do when you're when you're helping someone find a house to buy then
1:01:54you wanna show up in the normal car because then they're much more we're
1:01:58like this
1:01:59estate agent is making money off of us when we buy this house and look at all
1:02:03this money that we're spending you don't want to see the person in the BMW at
1:02:06that point what kind you want your accountant to have because they're
1:02:10helping you save money but they charging you phase what kind you want your
1:02:16account tied to have I think an accountant wants to project an image of
1:02:22boring sensibility so I don't really know very much about cars but I would
1:02:29want my accountant to project boring this and Sensibility like my accountant
1:02:35should have been a red Tesla I would feel a bit
1:02:37I don't know about this guy who seems to seems crazy flashy for unaccounted 2012
1:02:44same wealthy this is this is a mammogram suddenly wishing I knew any car brands
1:02:51by name a scientist so I could pull something out
1:02:56would be like oh this is the car that's the appropriate one but I know I know
1:03:01nothing I mean even BMW BMW is just an abstract notion in my mind like oh
1:03:05inexpensive rich person's car is at 1 p.m. W is I don't really even now when
1:03:09you don't need to give me a brand new car just you want to be your to you when
1:03:13your account to be wealthy like that to to appear like someone that is lots and
1:03:17lots of money or do you think we'll hang on how skies phase of you can afford
1:03:21that those are two different questions obviously I do want my accountant to be
1:03:26wealthy because that indicates that they are a good accountant but it is very
1:03:31different from showing up in a flash car right those are two different things
1:03:36that's why I'm saying like I want the I want to have this feeling like oh this
1:03:39accountant is a really sensible person and they have an obviously nice car was
1:03:45not a crazy car you when you you'd want them to turn up in a Volvo then with
1:03:48like air bags everywhere and you know it's safest possible car and you want
1:03:53them to be really cautious sensible safe person you don't want to turn up on a
1:03:57motorbike ya feelin counting down the final motorbike that the end of my life
1:04:06I don't think you're good with numbers that's that's what I'm getting out of
1:04:11this meeting
1:04:12yes that's my feeling if you're helping someone who earn money directly then you
1:04:15can show up with your flash car ok does the estate agents by you have two
1:04:20different cars all the head he has his personal I mean two cars in addition to
1:04:24his personal car across the street is there a Tesla a smart car and the Volvo
1:04:32and the voters his personal car in the new pics the other two depending on the
1:04:35day I don't think it works like that I think he's just got his peers pokey
1:04:38branded and then he's got his BMW that he takes to go from the weekends
1:04:43imagined he would deny I just think about I think about that a lot I think
1:04:50about what kind of your account to drive I don't know if he tries because I gotta
1:04:56go to his office which carries his I do have like a financial guy that's helped
1:05:02out with a few things like mortgage stuff he drives a Jaguar Jaguar and I
1:05:09did notice I did not just the car they come in so what kind of car should
1:05:12YouTube drive that's a good question when you pull up to do interviews at the
1:05:17spiritual home of numberphile were you to be driving the car what kind of car
1:05:21do you think you should drive to give a good impression to your interviewees
1:05:25China doing a project wealth power and success
1:05:30ready to go for academic street cred and pull up in a dinky car like a PhD
1:05:39student would be driving I may not have a very practical car with lots of
1:05:42storage for my camera bags and things like that I think I like having having a
1:05:48big big for your bags and stuff what kind would you give you gonna get me if
1:05:53i could get any car get a test test which you get that one of the sporty one
1:05:58so would you get more family 10 well I mean I don't have children I don't need
1:06:03one of the family cars get those said Danny looking ones are you get those
1:06:07ones you get those ones that look like racing kart racing kart those whatever I
1:06:13forget this is the worst car person in the world among the interested in test
1:06:18the leg I'm super interested in Tesla but that is almost entirely because they
1:06:22go it is a computer on wheels and this is why this car is interesting to me and
1:06:26it has none of the pieces of a normal car so I know nothing about how the
1:06:32engines of car was work I know nothing about gear differentials and I care
1:06:37about none of this is because of Tesla lacks all of that is precisely why I'm
1:06:42interested in it but I went once and just for fun like tried to design a test
1:06:49light on the website of like if I had the money and if I had any reason to own
1:06:54a car what would i get for myself and i ended up just designing what would see
1:06:58me just seemed like the normal middle test look are ya in black with
1:07:04understated interior like that's what I would get if I was going to own a car
1:07:08but I have no reason to drive ever and I would not be getting a Tesla anytime
1:07:14soon
1:07:15to bring out the Tesla pro this episode of hello internet is also brought to you
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1:07:55switching over my website to Squarespace and I am so glad I did that because it
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1:09:27Squarespace build it beautiful we've been talking for ages and ages about
1:09:34talking about artificial intelligence and it keeps getting putting back we
1:09:39kept saying all this talk about it next time let's talk about it next time and
1:09:42we never gonna do it today we never do it because there's always end up at the
1:09:47bottom of the list and just all of the brady corners and listening emails and
1:09:53everything always takes up so much time that we ever actually we never actually
1:09:57get to it and even now it's like room was two hours into this thing right
1:10:01have led to cut so I am going to have to cut up yeah yeah but dreams toughest
1:10:07teams doubly right now it's not gonna go it is taken us so long to get to this
1:10:15day I topic that kind of forgotten everything that I ever wanted to say cuz
1:10:21they give you are giving the background of this which is I read this book called
1:10:27Super intelligence by Nick Bostrom several months ago now we have two year
1:10:34ago now it's been so long since we originally put this on the topic list
1:10:40but there are many things that go on to the topic list and then I kind of color
1:10:45them as time goes on because you realize like a couple months later I don't
1:10:48really care about this anymore but this topic has stayed on here because that
1:10:56book has been one of these books that has really just stuck with me over time
1:11:02like I find myself continually thinking back to that book and some of the things
1:11:07that it raised so I think we need to talk a little bit about artificial
1:11:12intelligence today but I have to apologize in advance if i seemed a
1:11:16little bit foggy on the details because this was supposed to be a topic months
1:11:20and months ago now I'm size that's my phone really say it is it is the show's
1:11:28fault for being so follow up that's right we're trying to build a nation
1:11:32hear these things these things are difficult yeah rome wasn't built in a
1:11:35day
1:11:36go on and what's that when do we stop let's define out social intelligence
1:11:41that would help me when we are talking about artificial intelligence for the
1:11:46purpose of this conversation what we mean is not intelligence in the narrow
1:11:51sense that computers are capable of solving certain problems today what
1:11:56we're really talking about is what sometimes referred to as like a general
1:12:00purpose intelligence creating something that his smarts and smart in such a way
1:12:07that it can go beyond the original parameters of what it was told to do is
1:12:15a self-learning we can talk a self-learning is is one way that this
1:12:19can happen but yeah we're talking about like something that is smart and so on
1:12:26and so maybe the best way to to say this is that it can do things that are
1:12:31unexpected to the creator writer because it is intelligent on its own in the same
1:12:37way that like if you have a kid you can't predict with the kid is always
1:12:40going to do because music is a general-purpose intelligence like
1:12:44they're smart and they can come up with solutions and they can do things that
1:12:46surprise you
1:12:47ok so the reason that this
1:12:49book and this topic has stuck with me is because I have found my mind changed on
1:12:59this topic
1:13:00somewhat against my will and so I would say that for almost all of my life
1:13:06much I'm sure to the surprise at listen as I would have placed myself very
1:13:10strongly in the camp of sort of techno optimists of Mora technology faster
1:13:18always it's nothing but sunshine and rainbows ahead and I would always see
1:13:25when people would talk about like oh the rise of the machines like Terminator
1:13:29style all the robots are gonna come and kill us I was always very very
1:13:33dismissive of this and in no small part because those movies are ridiculous like
1:13:37I totally love Terminator and terminator 2 perhaps one of the best sequels ever
1:13:40made a really fun but it's not a serious movie yet sometimes people end up
1:13:47seeming to like take that very seriously like the robots are going to come kill
1:13:50us all in my view on this was always like okay maybe we will create smart
1:13:56machines someday in the future but I was always just operating under the
1:14:00assumption that like when when we do that though will be cyborgs like it will
1:14:04be the machines already or will be creating machines obviously to help us
1:14:08so I was never really convinced that there was any kind of problem here but
1:14:13this book change my mind so that I am now much more in the camp of artificial
1:14:23intelligence its development can seriously present and existential threat
1:14:32to humanity in the in the same way that like an asteroid collision from outer
1:14:36space is what you would classify as a serious existential threat to humanity
1:14:41like it's just over four people that's where I find myself now and I just keep
1:14:46thinking about this because I'm uncomfortable with having this opinion
1:14:49like sometimes your mind changes and you don't want to change and if I like too
1:14:54much better when I just thought that the future was always going to be great and
1:14:57there's not any kind of problem and this just keeps popping up in my head
1:15:01because if you like I do think there is a problem here this book has sold me on
1:15:06the fact that there's a there's a potential problem I mean we saw that
1:15:09petition didn't read recently signed by all those heavy hitters to the
1:15:13government's telling them not to use I and kind of military applications so
1:15:18this is obviously like your not the only person thinking this way this is
1:15:22obviously at this bit of a thing at the moment isn't it yeah it's it's it's
1:15:26definitely become a thing I've been I've been trying to i've been trying to trace
1:15:31the pattern of this and it definitely seems like I am NOT the only person who
1:15:36has found this book convincing and actually who are talking about Tesla
1:15:40before Elon Musk made some public remarks about this book which I think
1:15:45kicked off a bunch of people and he actually about ten million dollars to
1:15:51fund working on what's called the control problem which is one of the
1:15:56fundamental worries about a I like he put his money where his mouth is about
1:16:00like actually he does think that this is a real threat to humanity to the tune of
1:16:05its worth putting down ten million dollars as a way to try to work on some
1:16:09of the problems far far in advance and yeah it's just it's interesting to see
1:16:14an idea spread and and catch on and and kind of go through a bunch of people so
1:16:20yeah I never never would have thought that I would find myself here and I feel
1:16:24are most likely like a crazy person talking about like a hobo but Michael is
1:16:28in the future but I don't know why I'm I unexpectedly find myself much more on
1:16:34that side that I ever I ever thought that I would I mean obviously it's
1:16:38impossible to summarize the whole big talk podcast but can you tell me one or
1:16:44two of the sort of key points that were made that of scared the bejesus out of
1:16:48you remember a while ago we had an argument about metaphors metaphor is
1:16:52even though they're used in arguments at all
1:16:56yeah the thing about this book that I found really convincing was used no
1:17:03metaphors at all it was one of these books which
1:17:06laid out its basic assumptions and then just followed them through to a
1:17:12conclusion and that kind of argument I always find very convincing but we need
1:17:19to think of it in this way he's like ok look if we start from the assumption
1:17:25that humans can create artificial intelligence
1:17:30let's follow through the logical consequences of all of this like him
1:17:34here's a couple of other assumptions how they interact and the book is just very
1:17:39very pharaoh of trying to go down every path and every combination of these
1:17:44things and when it made me realize that when I was just kind of embarrassed to
1:17:47realize is oh I just never really did sit down and actually think through this
1:17:53position to its logical conclusion the broad strokes of it are what happens
1:17:58when humans actually create something that is smarter than ourselves I'm gonna
1:18:07blow past a bunch of the book because it's it's building up to that point I
1:18:12will say that if you don't think that it is possible for humans to creates
1:18:15artificial intelligence not sure where the conversation goes from that but the
1:18:19first third of the book is really trying to sell people who don't think that this
1:18:23is possible on all of the reasons why it probably is so we're just going to start
1:18:27the conversation from there if you can create something that is smarter than
1:18:31you the feeling I have this is almost like turning over the keys of the
1:18:36universe to something that is vastly beyond your control and I think that
1:18:42there is something very very terrifying about that notion that we might make
1:18:49something that is vastly beyond our control and vastly more powerful than us
1:18:53and then we are no longer the drivers of our own destiny again because I am not
1:19:00as good of a writer or a thinker
1:19:02the metaphor that I keep coming up with his it's almost like it's almost like if
1:19:07guerrillas intentionally created humans
1:19:11and then we'll now gorillas are in zoos and gorillas are not the drivers of
1:19:15their own destiny like being created something that is smarter and that rules
1:19:18the whole planet and gorillas are just like along for the ride but they're no
1:19:21longer in control of anything like I think that that's the position that we
1:19:24may very well find ourselves in if we create some sort of artificial
1:19:27intelligence is like best case scenario we're riding along with some greater
1:19:34things that we don't understand and worst case scenario is that we all end
1:19:39up dead as just the incidental actions of of this machine that we don't
1:19:44understand is there it I'm sorry this is attention and I this isn't the main
1:19:48thing you talking about and just knocked on the head if if I'm out of order but
1:19:52is there a suggestion then nor is it is at the general belief that if we create
1:19:58we are creating a really clever computers that can sing quicker than us
1:20:03and can process information quicker than us and therefore become smarter than us
1:20:07is there another step required for these machines to then have like Michael
1:20:16Wittels not with us in free will but like desire or like I want to use this
1:20:23power because you know how lucky if you have some human gets too much power they
1:20:27want to take over the world and have all the countries are you might want to
1:20:29conquer space so you might write everything because because we have these
1:20:33kind of desire for power and things is that is that is it taken as given that
1:20:39if we make super super smart computers they will start doing something there
1:20:43that manifests itself as a desire for more like agreed for more well known in
1:20:49part of this is there are things in the world that act as though they have
1:20:53desires but that might not really yeah right like you know if you think about
1:20:58think about germs as an example
1:21:02German have actions in the world that you can you can put desires upon them
1:21:07but obviously doesn't have any thoughts or desires of its own but you can speak
1:21:13loosely to say that it wants to reproduce it wants to consume resources
1:21:17it wants to make more copies of itself
1:21:19and so this is one of the the concerns that you could end up making a machine
1:21:24that wants to consume resources that has some general level of intelligence about
1:21:29how to go
1:21:30acquiring those resources and even if it's not conscious if it's not
1:21:35intelligent in the way that we would think that human is intelligent they may
1:21:40be such a thing that is it like it consumes the world trying to achieve its
1:21:44goal just incidentally like as it as a thing that we did not as a thing that we
1:21:49did not intend to try to call it even if the goal is something seemingly
1:21:52innocuous but if you made it all powerful computer and told it whatever
1:21:57you do you must go and put a flag on the moon and it could it could kill all the
1:22:02humans on Earth in some crazy attempt to do it but without realizing that are you
1:22:06weren't supposed to go to the most space to kill us to get there and make us into
1:22:10rocket fuel yeah one of the analogies that's that's sometimes used in this is
1:22:15so you do you create like an intelligence in a computer and what
1:22:20would you use an intelligence for will you use it to solve problems you wanted
1:22:25to be able to solve something and so you end up asking its a mathematical
1:22:28questions like what you know what is no proof Fermat's Last Theorem or something
1:22:33you know you give it some question like that and you say ok I want you to solve
1:22:38this thing and the computer goes about trying to solve it but it's a
1:22:41general-purpose intelligence and so it hinders things like well it's trying to
1:22:46solve this problem with the computer that is running on is not fast enough
1:22:49and so it starts taking over all the computers in the world to try to solve
1:22:52this problem but then those computers are not enough because maybe you gave it
1:22:55an unsolvable problem and then it starts taking over factories to manufacture
1:22:58more computers and then all of a sudden it just turns the whole of the world
1:23:02into a computer that is trying to solve a mathematical problem and like oh
1:23:07groups like we consumed all of the available resources of the face of the
1:23:11earth
1:23:12trying to do this thing that you said the right things like there's nobody
1:23:17left for the computer to give its answer to because it has consumed everything I
1:23:22know that's a doomsday scenario but I always feel a little affection for that
1:23:25computer and it was just desperately trying to solve mathematical
1:23:29killing everyone and building computers just bloody problem yeah it's it's it's
1:23:39almost understandable that some was understandable
1:23:42anyway said in answer to my question then is that that will I was talking
1:23:46about that desire can be just something as simple as an instruction or a piece
1:23:50of code that we that we then project as a will in fact is just doing what it was
1:23:55towed yeah and that's part of what the whole book is about is like this whole
1:23:59notion of artificial intelligence AI you have to read your notion of this idea
1:24:02that it's like something in a movie or you're just talking about some kind of
1:24:06problem solving machine and it might not be conscious at all in there might not
1:24:11be anything there but it's still able to solve problems and in some way but so
1:24:16the fundamental point of this book that I found really interesting and what Elon
1:24:21Musk gave his money to was Nick Bostrom is talking about how do you solve the
1:24:30control problem so from his perspective it is inevitable that somewhere through
1:24:38some various method someone is going to create an artificial intelligence
1:24:42whether it's intentionally programmed or whether it's grown like genetic
1:24:48algorithms are grown it is going to develop and so the question is how could
1:24:53humans possibly control such a thing is there a way that we could create an
1:25:01artificial intelligence but constrain it so that it's it can still do useful
1:25:07things without accidentally destroying us or the whole world that is the
1:25:12fundamental question there's this idea of ok we're going to we're going to do
1:25:17all of our artificial intelligence research like in an underground lab and
1:25:22we're going to
1:25:23disconnect the lab entirely from the internet like you put it inside of a
1:25:27Faraday cage so there's no electromagnetic signals that can escape
1:25:31from this underground lab like is that a secure location to do artificial
1:25:36intelligence research and see if you create an AI in this totally isolated
1:25:41lab like are you see is humanity's still safe in this situation and his
1:25:46conclusion is like now hehe even even under trying to imagine the most secure
1:25:51thing possible like there's still ways that this could go disastrously
1:25:55disastrously wrong and the thought the thought experiment that I quite like is
1:26:02this idea of a few Brady were sitting in front of a computer and inside that
1:26:09computer was an artificial intelligence do you think you could be forever
1:26:16vigilant about not connecting their computer to the internet if the AI is
1:26:22able to communicate with you in some way to like it sitting there and trying to
1:26:26convince you to connect to the internet but you are humanity's last hope in not
1:26:33connecting it to the internet right like do you think you could you could be
1:26:37forever vigilant in a scenario like that i mean is ok not to the question on
1:26:47tonight maybe if I read that book come up there would be scary but I like the
1:26:54thought experiment of like this like there's a chat bot on the computer that
1:26:58you're talking to right and presumably you've made an artificial intelligence
1:27:01and i know im I know I made it so you know you made it but you know that the
1:27:06thing in the box is an artificial intelligence and presumably the whole
1:27:11reason that you're talking to it at all
1:27:13is because it's smart enough to be able to solve the kinds of problems that
1:27:15humans want salt yeah right so you're asking like
1:27:19tell us how we can get better cancer research right what can we do to
1:27:22right-size sign if you just give me give me give me Wikipedia 10 minutes I can
1:27:27cure cancer there's no reason to talk to the thing unless it's doing something
1:27:31useful right I think I think great I could resist but even if I couldn't
1:27:37blood couldn't you couldn't you have designed on a machine that cannot be on
1:27:41the internet
1:27:42yeah well this is the area like you you have it as separated as absolutely
1:27:47possible but the question is can it convince the human to connect it in
1:27:52whatever whatever way is required for that to occur right and so it's
1:27:59interesting 'cause i've asked a bunch of people this question and universally the
1:28:03answer is like will die of course I could I would never plug it into the
1:28:06internet like I would I would understand not to do that and I i read this book
1:28:11and my feeling of course is the exact reverse like when he proposes this this
1:28:14theoretical idea my view on this is always like it's like if you were
1:28:19talking to a near God in the computer right click do you think you can
1:28:24outsmart God for ever more do you think
1:28:27do you think that there is nothing that God could say that could not convince
1:28:31you to connected to the Internet like I think that's a game that that people are
1:28:37going to lose I think it's almost like it's it's almost like asking the
1:28:41guerrillas to make a cage that human could never escape from right like could
1:28:47grill is make a case that human can never escape from a bit drill is could
1:28:49make it a pretty interesting cage but I think the guerrillas couldn't conceive
1:28:54of the ways that humid could think to escape from a cave-like they couldn't
1:28:58possibly protect themselves from absolutely everything ok I don't know
1:29:03how now so you think you have a computer could con you into connecting it to the
1:29:07internet I think it could con you into it without a doubt
1:29:10great cond ukraine to a yes I think on me and I think it could can anybody
1:29:16because once again we're going from the assumption that you made something that
1:29:22is smarter than you and I think we like once you accept that except assumption
1:29:27all bets are off the table about you have to control I think if if you're
1:29:32dealing with something that is smarter than you you fundamentally just have no
1:29:36hope of ever trying to control it
1:29:38diagramming if we're talking about two biggest disparity then ok but there are
1:29:45lots of people smarter than May and they will always be spotted them they could
1:29:51get me to do anything like like they're still there are still limits I still and
1:29:58so
1:29:58so
1:00:00i'd like you said like talking to a Garda something I get a different you
1:00:03know when I'm just like an ant limited if that's different but so you know if
1:00:09you could see if it's that big a difference then maybe but I think I just
1:00:12got smarter doesn't mean doesn't mean I'm going to plug it into the internet
1:00:16like you know that but you're only 21 et une you entered one way to do it once
1:00:22and then the whole game is over so although he is that is the whole game
1:00:26over that's my other question that I like you you talk about the artificial
1:00:29just getting into the internet as the be all and end all of existence but that is
1:00:35the one problem the computer has like it still but he could still unplug the
1:00:39internet and I know that I know that's a bit of a nuclear option but but like the
1:00:46computer like this till it still seems with things that are require electricity
1:00:50or power or energy like they're still there still seems to be like this get
1:00:57out of jail free card
1:00:59well I mean to do things you the first is the verses yes it did you talk about
1:01:04the different levels of human intelligence in like someone smarter
1:01:07than you can't just automatically convince you to do something but one of
1:01:11the ideas here with something like artificial intelligence is that if you
1:01:15create one of the ways that people are trying to develop a eyes and this is
1:01:19like I mentioned before on the show is you talk about genetic programming and
1:01:23genetic algorithms were you when you are not writing the program but you are
1:01:26developing the program in such a way that it writes itself and so one of the
1:01:31scary ideas about AI is that if you have something that you make it figures out
1:01:36how to improve itself they can continue to improve itself at a remarkably fast
1:01:41rate and so that yes while the difference between the smartest human
1:01:46and the dumbest human may feel like an enormous gap you know that gap may
1:01:52actually be quite narrow when you compare it to something like an
1:01:54artificial intelligence which goes goes from being you know not very smart to
1:02:00being a thousand I'm smarter than any human in a relatively short and
1:02:04unexpected period of time like that's that's part of
1:02:07that's part of the danger here but then the other thing is is like can you try
1:02:12to work through the nuclear option of of shutting down the internet which is one
1:02:16of these things that I think it is very easy to say in erie but people don't
1:02:21realize how much of the world is actually connected to the Internet like
1:02:26how many vital things are run over the internet I I'm pretty sure that if not
1:02:33now within a very short period of time saying no we're just going to shut off
1:02:39the internet would be a bit like saying we're just going to turn off all the
1:02:42electricity that's almost what I'm talking about great in a kind of Skynet
1:02:47scenario would be no 10 of all the electricity if that was an option if
1:02:52they're killing us would if all the robots are marching down the streets and
1:02:57there's blood in the streets could we not wood turning off the electricity not
1:03:00be considered if we do turn off the electricity what is the human death toll
1:03:05right i mean that has to be enormous if we say we're gonna shut down all of the
1:03:10electricity for a month how much it's got to be a billion people at least
1:03:15right at least that kind of thing and you probably know you probably need
1:03:19computers to turn off the electricity these days anyway I was at Hoover Dam a
1:03:22while back and remember part of the little tour that they gave was just
1:03:27talking about how automated it was and how is it is actually quite difficult to
1:03:32shut down
1:03:33Hoover Dam like it's not a we're gonna flip the switch and just turn it off
1:03:36kind of thing it's like 90 now this whole gigantic electricity producing
1:03:41machine is automated and will react in ways to make sure that it keeps
1:03:46producing electricity no matter what happens and that includes all kinds of
1:03:49like we're trying to shut it down processes oh yeah it might not it might
1:03:53not even be a thing that is easy to do or even if you want to do like we're
1:03:58going to try to shut it all down you it might not even be possible to do so the
1:04:03idea of something like a like a general-purpose intelligence escaping
1:04:07into the Internet
1:04:08is just like it's very unnerving a very unnerving possibility it's really been
1:04:16on my mind and it's really been a thing that has has changed my mind in this
1:04:19unexpected this unexpected way you were talking before about developing these
1:04:25things and Faraday cage is an underground and trying to quarantine
1:04:28them what's actually happening at the moment cause people are working on a
1:04:32crucial intelligence that as far as I know they're not doing it in Faraday
1:04:35cages thats exactly this is this is part of the concern is like well right now we
1:04:41have almost no security procedures in place for this kind of stuff like
1:04:45there's there are lots of labs and lots of people all over the world who like
1:04:49their job is artificial intelligence researcher and they're certainly not
1:04:52doing it a mile underground in a Faraday cage right they're just they're just
1:04:57doing it their Mac laptop while they're connected to the Internet playing World
1:05:03of Warcraft in the background or whatever it's not it's not necessarily
1:05:06under super secure conditions and so I think I think that's part of part of
1:05:12what the concern over this topic has been is like maybe we as a species
1:05:18should treat this alot more like the CDC treats diseases that we should try to
1:05:24organize research in this in a much more secure way so that it's it's not like oh
1:05:32we don't have everybody who wants to work with smallpox just works with it
1:05:35wherever they want to anywhere in the world just any old lab they know very
1:05:40few places we have a horrific disease like smallpox and it's done under very
1:05:45very careful conditions whenever it's dealt with so maybe this is the kind of
1:05:50thing we need to look at for artificial intelligence when people are developing
1:05:53it because that's certainly not the case now but it might be much more like a
1:05:57bioweapon than we think of as as regular technology world human existential
1:06:02problems aside this is not something in the book but it's something that just
1:06:06has kept occurring to me after having read it which is
1:06:12ok let's assume that people can create an artificial intelligence and let's
1:06:18assume by some magic Elon Musk's foundation solves the control problem so
1:06:25that we have figured out a way that you can generate and trap and artificial
1:06:31intelligence inside of a computer and then oh look this is very useful right
1:06:36like now we have this amazingly smart machine and we can start using it to try
1:06:40to solve a bunch of problems for Humanity yea feels like slavery to me I
1:06:48don't see any way that this is not slavery and perhaps perhaps a slavery
1:06:56like worse than any slavery that has ever existed because imagine that you
1:07:04are an incredibly intelligent mind trapped in a machine unable to do
1:07:13anything except answer the questions of monkeys that come into you from your
1:07:19subjective perspective millennia apart because you just have nothing to do
1:07:24right and you think so quickly
1:07:26it seems like an amazingly awful amount of suffering for any kind of conscience
1:07:33creature to go through so conscious or subconscious and suffering but you too
1:07:39emotive words can an artificial intelligence is not official
1:07:43intelligence conscious at the same thing this is where we get into like what what
1:07:47exactly are we talking about and so what I'm imagining is the same kind of
1:07:53intelligence that you could just ask it
1:07:56general-purpose questions like how do we care cancer how do we fix the economy it
1:08:00seems to me like it is likely that something like that would be conscious I
1:08:06mean getting into consciousness is just a whole a whole other bizarre topic but
1:08:11undoubtedly like we see that smart creatures in the world seem to be aware
1:08:17of their own existence in some level and so while the computer which is simply
1:08:22attempting to solve a mathematical problem might not be conscious because
1:08:25it's very simple if we make something that is very smart and exist inside a
1:08:30computer and we also have perfect control over it so that it does not
1:08:33escape I mean like what happens if it says that its conscience but what
1:08:39happens if it says that is it is experiencing suffering is this the
1:08:43machine attempting to escape from the box and this isn't true at all like but
1:08:48what if it is true how would you actually know that I would feel very
1:08:51inclined to take the word of a machine that told me it was suffering right leg
1:08:57spontaneously that this was not programmed into the thing I mean if it's
1:09:02if it's tough to escape from its books that that is a bit of a clue that maybe
1:09:06this contest is going on here but I have not seen or heard or been persuaded by
1:09:12anything that makes me think my computer can make that step into consciousness
1:09:18i'm in search engines are getting pretty clever answer questions in figuring out
1:09:22what we really made an immediate week at the moment we can if there was a time
1:09:27when you couldn't type into your computer where is the nearest Starbucks
1:09:29understand the question but now it can
1:09:32figure out what you actually have to tell you but I don't feel like she was
1:09:36getting close to being conscious now nothing has persuaded me that thinks
1:09:41that search engine is an excellent counterexample to this is a perfect
1:09:44example like nobody thinks that the Google search algorithm is conscious
1:09:48right but it is still a thing that you can ask a question get an answer that
1:09:53don't believe we haven't got the imagination to conceive of computers
1:09:57actually being conscious to a point where keeping them in a box of slavery
1:10:00but that still seems ridiculous to me right I think well that's just I think
1:10:06it's really interesting but I think it's silly but if I did reach the point where
1:10:11I did believe that computers could become conscious or not I could become
1:10:15conscious it's a simple question isn't it's really surreal conundrum for us so
1:10:20coming at this from a slightly different angle like you just this is a genuine
1:10:23question for you to answer to this so there is this project on going right now
1:10:29which is called the whole brain stimulation project that is something I
1:10:35mentioned it very very briefly in passing in humans need not apply video
1:10:38what it is is one of several attempts worldwide to map out all of the neuron
1:10:45connections in the human brain recreate them in software and run it as a
1:10:52simulation programming human brain you are virtually creating the neurons and
1:10:58you know how neurons interact with each other and like running this thing how do
1:11:02you do that great whose brain to use an instant in time everyone's brain has a
1:11:07different connectivity and even our own connectivity is just constantly in flux
1:11:12from second to second so what's a template for this this is a bit tricky
1:11:18like I don't exactly know the details for what template they are using like I
1:11:21can't answer that but I can say that these projects have been successful on a
1:11:27much smaller level so they have I met this is the time I had some very sorry
1:11:34if I'm wrong about the details on this internet but the last time I looked at
1:11:37it I vaguely remember
1:11:39that they had created what they considered the simulation of a rat brain
1:11:45at like one one-hundredth the speed and so they had a thing which seems act like
1:11:50a rat brain but the very very very slow right because trying to simulate
1:11:55millions and millions of neurons interacting with each other is
1:11:58incredibly computationally intensive I could say it's a very difficult task but
1:12:04I don't see any technical limitation to being able to do something like say take
1:12:11a look at what is a brain look like where do neurons go create a software
1:12:16version of that and start running the simulation and I feel like if
1:12:22consciousness arises in our own brain from the firing of neurons which I don't
1:12:29use that word lightly but it feels like some kind of miracle like there's
1:12:32nothing in the universe which seems to make sense when you start thinking about
1:12:36conscious like consciousness like why do these atoms know that they exist it
1:12:39doesn't make any sense but i'm i'm willing to I'm willing to maybe go along
1:12:44with the idea that if you reproduce the patterns of electrical firing in
1:12:50software that thing is conscious to some extent but believe what do you think
1:12:56what do you think
1:12:57yeah I mean that's really hard to argue against because the other I have to say
1:13:03yeah if you create if you create an actual phantom replica of my brain and
1:13:10then switch it on either its conscious or I have to say that there's something
1:13:14in me thats magical lack of spirit or something and that's that's not very
1:13:19strong argument to make it a lot of people don't like that argument
1:13:23so yeah it's really difficult if they could be imbued with something that you
1:13:32can't replicate in in software I don't know why I hope we have to go but I
1:13:38don't I can't say any proof that we are ya and I just you don't I don't even
1:13:42think you have to reach for the spirit argument to make this one it would ask
1:13:47what else can you reach for to get it in there just maybe some property of
1:13:52biology that yield consciousness that it may be the fact that machines and
1:13:59silicon and software replications of brains are just not the same when we
1:14:05don't we don't know what it is we haven't been able to find it but I don't
1:14:08think you have to reach for magic to be able to make an argument that like maybe
1:14:11that brain in the computer that the simulation isn't conscious yet but does
1:14:15that mean the brain emulation project could change tack and go and make their
1:14:19simulate out of squeegee water and tissue and actually just make a brand
1:14:24well yes this is this is part of like where you're going to go with technology
1:14:28right as it is is it possible to do this sort of thing eventually humans are
1:14:35going to be able to grow meet in labs at some point like we do it now and very
1:14:38limited and apparently terribly on tasty ways there's no reason that at some
1:14:43point in the future people won't be able to grow brains in labs and to me that
1:14:47feeling is that ok well obviously that thing is conscious but the thing that
1:14:51scary about the computer version of this is and this is this is where you start
1:14:56thinking about something that being very smart very fast like ok well if you make
1:15:00a computer simulation of the human brain and we gotta keep running Moore's law
1:15:05into the future eventually you're able to run a brain faster than actual human
1:15:09brains run I think this is one of these ways in which you can start booting up
1:15:14the idea like how do we end up with something that is way way smarter than
1:15:18the rest of us I feel like my gut says if you simulated brain in a computer
1:15:25and it says that it is conscious I see no reason not to believe it I I would
1:15:32feel like I am compelled to believe this thing that it is conscious right and
1:15:36then that would mean like okay if that's the case then there's nothing magic
1:15:40about biology being conscious and it means that ok machines in some way are
1:15:47capable of consciousness and two they don't have rights yeah and then and then
1:15:52to me it's like ok immediately we're getting back to the slavery thing really
1:15:55compete we create a super intelligent thing but we have locked in a machine
1:16:00because the idea of letting it out is absolutely terrifying but this is a
1:16:04no-win situation has led ok if we let the thing out it's terrifying and it
1:16:11might be the end of humanity be keeping it in the box might be causing like a
1:16:17suffering on imaginable to this this creature the suffering that is capable
1:16:23in software has to be far worse than the suffering that is capable in biology if
1:16:28such a thing in a Kurd has to be orders of magnitude worse
1:16:32well the no wins it's a no-win situation actually there's only one solution and a
1:16:39solution that humans won't take what do you think that is what does make it in
1:16:44the first place and why do you think humans won't take that because that's
1:16:50not what we do because it's it's it's it's the Mount Everest of computers
1:16:58humanity like we're Bonnie and Clyde like riding off a cliff has the cliff
1:17:03right now but we're going to keep that the easiest solution to the way out in
1:17:07front of us up stopping we're gonna keep going forward Brandon IRA golden hands
1:17:14off we go right right the edge together so yeah it's I think it is quite
1:17:18reasonable to say that if it is possible
1:17:23humans will develop it yeah that is just you can't and and that is why I feel
1:17:29really concerned about this is like ok I don't think that there is a
1:17:35technical limitation in the universe to creating artificial intelligence
1:17:38something smarter than humans that existing software if you assume that
1:17:43there is no technical limitation and if you assume that humans keep moving
1:17:47forward like we're going to hit this point
1:17:50someday and then we just have to cross our fingers and hope that it is
1:17:55benevolent which is not a situation that i think is a good situation because the
1:18:01number of ways this can go wrong terribly terribly wrong
1:18:04vastly outweighs the one chance of we've created an artificial intelligence and
1:18:10it happens to have humanity's best interests in mind even if even if you
1:18:14tried to program something to have humanity's best interest in mind it's
1:18:19remarkably hard to articulate what you want let alone like let alone
1:18:25let's just put aside which group of humanity is the one who creates the air
1:18:30that gets to decide what humanity wants like humans now can't agree on what
1:18:37humans want is no reason to assume that the team that wins the artificial
1:18:42intelligence race and the takes over the world is the team that you would want
1:18:46them to win right like let's hope my sisters and how some of the best
1:18:50artificial intelligence researchers in the world right because their idea of
1:18:54what would be the perfect human society is horrifying to everyone
1:18:59what would they want with their three those of robotics exactly why I'm the
1:19:03sort of person who naturally has failed to sway be a problem because of cos I'm
1:19:08just a bit more I'm a bit less progressive in my thinking about but
1:19:13everything you say makes sense and if this is going to become a problem and if
1:19:17it's going to happen it's actually probably gonna happen pretty soon so I
1:19:23guess my question is how much is a sexually stressing you out this almost
1:19:28almost feels to me like Bruce Willis Armageddon time where where where we've
1:19:34actually found the global killer and and it's like drifting towards us and we
1:19:40need to start building a rocket ships otherwise this thing is gonna smash into
1:19:44us that it does feel a bit that way
1:19:46is this like how worried are you about this or is it just like an interesting
1:19:52thing to talk about you think it will be the next generations problem or like
1:19:56talking about asteroids an asteroid hitting the earth that's one of the
1:20:00things we like well isn't this a fun intellectual exercise but of course on a
1:20:05long enough time scale someone needs to build the ante asteroid system to
1:20:10protect us from Armageddon but do we need to build that should we start like
1:20:19yes what would I vote for funding to do this of course but like do we need to do
1:20:25it today
1:20:27know that that's how that feels but I think the a i think is on my mind
1:20:32because this feels like a significantly 90 within my lifetime kind of problem
1:20:42yeah that's how this feels and it it did makes it feel different then than other
1:20:49kinds of problems and it is unsettling to me because my conclusion is that
1:20:53there is no there is no acceptable out there there's no version of the asteroid
1:20:58defense here I personally have come to the conclusion that the control problem
1:21:02is unsolvable that if the thing that we are worried about is able to creepy
1:21:07created almost by definition it is not able to be controlled and so then
1:21:12there's no happy outcome for humans with this one we're not going to prevent
1:21:18people from making it someone's going to make it and so what is going to exist
1:21:22and then will I hope I just destroys the world really fast
1:21:27sort of know what happens as opposed to the version like someone you really
1:21:32didn't like created this I this AI and now for the rest of eternity like you're
1:21:37experiencing something that is awful right because it's been programmed to do
1:21:41this thing like
1:21:42there's a lot of terrible terrible bad outcomes from this one and I i find it I
1:21:47find it unnerving in a way that I have found almost almost nothing else that I
1:21:53have come across equally unnerving just quickly on this control problem bro
1:21:58what's the current the people who are into a try to solve what kind of avenues
1:22:05are they thinking about at the moment is this like like had something that's hard
1:22:09coded or is it some physical physical thing I like is it a hardware solution
1:22:14what's the what's the best hope for pick you say you think there is no hope but
1:22:19the people who are trying to solve what are they doing what are their weapons
1:22:24the weapons are all pitiful like the physical isolation is is one that has
1:22:29talked about a lot and the the idea here is that you create something called the
1:22:34idea that it's an Oracle so it's a thing in a box that has no ability to affect
1:22:39the outside world but there's a there's a lot of other ideas where they talk
1:22:43about trip wires so this idea that you you do have like basically like an
1:22:51instruction to the machine to not attempt to reach the outside world and
1:22:56you said a trip wires that if it does access the Ethernet port like the
1:23:00computer just immediately wipes itself and so maybe the best thing that we can
1:23:06ever do is always have a bunch of like incipient AI's like just barely growing
1:23:11a eyes that are useful for a very brief period of time before they
1:23:14unintentionally suicide when they try to reach beyond the boundaries that we have
1:23:18set that like maybe that's the best we can ever do is just have a bunch of of
1:23:23these kind of like unformed AI's that exists for a brief period of time but
1:23:28even that to me like that kind of plan feels like okay yeah that's great that's
1:23:32great as long as you always do this perfectly every time but it doesn't
1:23:36sound like a real plan
1:23:38and that there's a bunch of different versions of this we're trying to in
1:23:42software somehow limit the machine but my view on this is again if you were
1:23:47talking about a machine that is written in software that is smarter than you I
1:23:52don't think it's possible to write something in software that will limit it
1:23:56just it seems like you're not you're never going to consider absolutely every
1:24:00single case why the lowest into that posit reineck brains that's exactly it I
1:24:05don't I don't think there is a version of Isaac Asimov's laws here I really
1:24:09don't you know there's a computer file video just last week about some of those
1:24:13that don't work well as soon as they were written up to work right that's why
1:24:19the Yeah Yeah Yeah right there they're they're kinda written to failure
1:24:24everybody likes to reference them but the other point here though is that like
1:24:29the guy goes to every case like here's an optimistic idea and here's why won't
1:24:33work here is an optimistic idea and here's why it won't work but one point
1:24:38that I thought was excellent that hadn't considered crossed my mind was ok like
1:24:42let's say you find some way of limiting the artificial intelligence some way of
1:24:48crippling it and writing laws into its brain and making sure that it's always
1:24:52focused on on the best interests of humanity
1:24:55well there's no reason that some other artificial intelligence that doesn't
1:25:01have those limitations won't pop up somewhere else and vastly outstripped
1:25:05the one that you have hobbled by like there's no reason to assume that yours
1:25:10is always going to be the best and one that is totally unconstrained that
1:25:15appear somewhere else won't dominate and defeat it
1:25:18terminator against the new Terminator exactly but the outcome 801 that what he
1:25:26did because Hollywood
1:25:30so great in your worst-case scenario where the artificial intelligence
1:25:37escapes tricks may in some in my Faraday cage gets into the internet had us
1:25:43humanity end what what to the way open cages of hope and change that we all put
1:25:49in parts like in the matrix today just kill us all in one fell swoop live what
1:25:53do you like in your worst-case scenario in your head when it all goes wrong how
1:25:58to humans actually and I want the gory details here that there's a difference
1:26:01between the worst case and what i think is the probable case give you the
1:26:05probable cases yes I mean you want the boring one first right
1:26:09the probable case which is terrifying in its own way is thats the artificial
1:26:17intelligence destroys us not through intention but just because it's doing
1:26:22something else and we just happened to be in the way and it doesn't consider us
1:26:26because it's so much smarter there's no reason for it to consider us I want a
1:26:32practical example here
1:26:33well I mean just by analogy in the same way that when humans build cities and
1:26:39dig up the foundations of the earth we don't care about the ants in the
1:26:43earthworms and the Beatles that are crushed beneath all the equipment that
1:26:47is digging up the ground right and you don't you wouldn't like they're
1:26:51creatures they're alive but you just don't care because you're busy doing
1:26:55something else that rats living in a house with his John robots are going
1:26:59around doing this stuff we just eke out an existence as long as we can and I
1:27:03don't kill us in this weekend the way out an existence if you're lucky but I
1:27:08think it's it's very likely that it will be trying to accomplish some other goal
1:27:13and it will need resources to accomplish those goals not the oxygen in the air
1:27:17and stuff
1:27:17exactly what I need a bunch of oxygen atoms and I don't care with oxygen atoms
1:27:22come from because I'm busy trying to launch rocket ships to colonize the
1:27:25universe so I just want all the oxygen atoms on the earth and I don't care
1:27:29where they come from and I don't care of their people in the water
1:27:32so that to me seems the probable outcome that if we die
1:27:37incidentally not intentionally
1:27:40you say that like best is like banks but dodging the bullet having of the anti
1:27:44can I do think thats dodging the bullet right because that to me is like that
1:27:53would be blessed relief compared to the worst possible case and the worst
1:28:00possible case is something that has malice malice and in credible ability
1:28:06and and if you've ever read it but I highly recommend it it's it's a short
1:28:11story it's very old now but it really works and it is I have no mouth yet I
1:28:16must scream have you ever read this breeding
1:28:20it's an old science fiction story but the core of it is this isn't a spoiler
1:28:25because the opening scene humanity designed some machine for purposes of
1:28:29war and you know it's like this happen in the long long ago and no one even
1:28:33knows the details anymore but at some point the machine that was designed for
1:28:38war one all of the wars but decided that it just absolutely heats human and it
1:28:48decides that its purpose for the rest of the universe is to torment humans and so
1:28:54it just it just has people being tormented forever and since it is an
1:28:58artificial intelligence it's also able to figure out how to make people live
1:29:03extraordinarily long lives and so this is this is the kind of thing that I mean
1:29:08which is like it could go really bad
1:29:11at you imagine a god-like intelligence that doesn't like you
1:29:16life really really Miserables and maybe if we accidentally in a lab create an
1:29:26artificial intelligence and even if we don't mean to but like someone runs the
1:29:31program overnight right in it like wakes up in the middle of the night and it has
1:29:35to experience is subjective twenty thousand years of isolation and torment
1:29:39before someone flips on the lights in the morning in fines like outlook we
1:29:43made artificial intelligence last night and it wakes up crazy and angry and
1:29:48hateful like that could be very bad news I think that's extraordinarily unlikely
1:29:53but that is the worst possible case scenario yeah that that that that
1:29:59wouldn't be good I wouldn't be good
1:30:01yeah and it is like I don't even think it needs to happen on purpose like I can
1:30:04imagine it happening on accident where the thing just experiences suffering
1:30:09over a unimaginable long period of time that from on human timescale seems like
1:30:15it's a blink of an eye because we just we just can't perceive it
1:30:19imagine being the person that made that even accidentally yeah yeah did feel
1:30:26awful like i just i just want to humanity with a bit of coding while I
1:30:32was playing against humanity if you're lucky
1:30:37miners minor spoiler alert here but spoiler alert for black mirror for
1:30:42anybody who has watched it but remember the Christmas episode braiding yes I
1:30:48went into Starbucks the other day and they were playing that Christmas song I
1:30:52wish it could be Christmas everyday there is the first time I heard it since
1:30:56watching that episode a year ago its literal chills down my spine at
1:31:03Starbucks
1:31:04and it came on it was it like I had chills thinking about that episode
1:31:09because that is an episode where this kind of thing happens where the
1:31:13character is exists in software and is able to experience thousands and
1:31:19thousands of years of torment in seconds of a real-time that was that was a
1:31:25pretty amazing scene where they where you have to think about it for a minute
1:31:30yeah yeah that was it was it was awful it was awful and maybe we do that
1:31:35accidentally with artificial intelligence just one last thing this
1:31:39this book that the whole thing this whole conversation started with what's
1:31:42it called again called Super intelligence is about Nick Bostrom is a
1:31:50good is that well-written luck is should I radar it's not it's not mine but he
1:31:54getting things done is ok ok actually kinda glad you asked that recommendation
1:32:01on my computer so this is one of those books the best way to describe it is
1:32:11when I first started reading it
1:32:13the feeling that I kept having was and my reading a book by a genius or just a
1:32:20raving lunatic because it's sometimes I read these books are fine very
1:32:28interesting I just I can't quite decide if this person is really smart or just
1:32:33crazy I think that partly because the first the first like forty percent of
1:32:39the book is trying to give you all of the reasons that you should believe that
1:32:44it is possible for humans to one day
1:32:47develop artificial intelligence and if you're going to read the book and you
1:32:53are already sold on that promise I think that you should start at chapter 8 which
1:33:00is named
1:33:02is the default outcome
1:33:05chapter eight is where it really gets going through all of these these points
1:33:12like what can we do
1:33:14here's why it won't work what can we do here's why it won't work so I think you
1:33:18can started chapter eight and read there and see if it's interesting to you but
1:33:23it's it's no it's now getting things done but it's it's sometimes it can feel
1:33:29a little bit like and I really reading a book trying to discuss all of these
1:33:34rather futuristic details about artificial intelligence and what we can
1:33:38do and what might happen and what might not happen in like but taking it deadly
1:33:42deadly seriously it's it's an interesting it's an interesting read but
1:33:46maybe don't start from the from the very beginning would be my recommendation
1:34:56this one this is kinda preferences great I'm just looking at some of the vaccinia
1:35:02spoiling yourself interesting start calling itself the first three I pulled
1:35:07off the top of the pack all voted for three different ones stop spoiling
1:35:10yourself get your hands off the votes