0:04

Sleepwalkers is a production of my heart radio

0:06

and unusual productions. Every

0:11

day I go to work, I use my car. Every

0:13

tag I talked to somebody is more than a few more feet

0:15

away. I use my phone, so I'm using

0:18

certain technologies that extend

0:20

me beyond my physical normal range. Yes,

0:22

so maybe I'm a cyborg. That

0:26

Sebastian Throne speaking. He found

0:29

a Google X and he's appeared on Sleepwalkers

0:31

a few times. As far as we know, he's

0:33

not a cyborg. If summer took

0:36

all technology away from me, like refrigeration

0:38

and everything, would I not survive? I

0:41

have no clue. I good, I'm in catching deer here my

0:43

neighborhood. But yes, I would be pretty

0:45

miserable. You said something which I found

0:48

quite interesting. You said, I would love

0:50

to directly interface my brain to all

0:52

the computers in the world, so I could be truly

0:55

superhuman. I would know everything, every

0:57

name, every phone number. If there was a

0:59

button you could press to do that right

1:01

now, would you have any hesitation pressing

1:03

it? I would press it in a microsecond.

1:07

Why I make sure the product of data.

1:10

I went to college, I read probably

1:12

four or five books in the time, and

1:14

I build a scientific career on the shoulders of others.

1:16

That data empowered me to who I am.

1:19

If you took that data away from me and said, Sebastian,

1:21

I'm going to put you into the China in the seventies, you're gonna

1:23

work in the field, I would be less

1:25

as Sebastian than I am today, because I

1:27

would probably know how to plow a field. But that was

1:30

pretty much it. To Sebastian's

1:32

regret, there's been a hard limit on how

1:34

much data he can actually consume his

1:36

hardware. His physical body has

1:39

held him back. Unfortunately,

1:41

the human I owe the input out with the

1:44

ears and eyes and smell and so on, voice

1:46

are still very inefficient. If I

1:48

could accelerate the reading

1:50

of all the books into my brain, oh my god, that

1:52

would be so awesome. We

1:55

talked in the last episode about brain computer interfaces

1:57

in the medical world, helping disabled pay

2:00

ss like Jan Sherman move prosthetic

2:02

limbs with their minds. Today, we

2:04

look at trans humanism becoming

2:07

cyborks. What happens when

2:09

we merge with computers not just to restore

2:11

function, but to upgrade and enhance

2:13

ourselves. And as we head into this

2:15

new future, who might get left

2:17

behind. I musoloshin

2:20

this is Sleepwalkers. So

2:34

Carrot Sebastian was talking about cyborgs

2:37

and whether we're already cy walks because

2:39

we're so reliant on our technology, our cars,

2:41

and especially our phones, which

2:43

become kind of like a second brain, albeit

2:46

a very distracting one. Yeah. I think what he was

2:48

saying that if technology is required

2:50

to keep us alive, that merger

2:52

between humans and machines has already happened.

2:55

We're already that's right. But let's be real,

2:57

that's not really what people think about when they

2:59

hear the word cyborgs. They think about

3:01

more extreme cases like Sebastian having

3:03

his brain directly connected to all the information

3:06

in the world ever, you know, and there are already

3:08

some people working on that. There's this guy named Elon

3:10

Musk that you might have heard of, and he

3:13

actually one of his new companies is called

3:15

Neuralink, and he's trying to do is

3:18

create a mesh that can be inserted

3:20

in the brain that connects the brain to

3:23

a computer. And I think part of

3:25

his goal is to make humans

3:28

competitive enough to take on machines

3:32

if and when they out smart us. Well, this idea

3:34

of humans and machines merging

3:36

to create something superior is

3:38

a great interest throughout Silicon Valley, and

3:41

one person who kind of wrote the book on this transhumanism

3:44

is you have al No Harari. He is a historian

3:47

and a futurist and the author of Homodaeus,

3:50

a book that explores the future of our humanity,

3:53

and his writing is a major source of inspiration, not

3:55

just in Silicon Valley but for this podcast. So

3:57

I was rather excited when he agreed to have a conversation

3:59

with us. Every generation

4:01

in history thinks that they are on the

4:04

verge of the apocalypse, and

4:06

usually they are wrong. But as

4:08

a story and I have the sense that we are on the

4:10

verge of the most important revolution

4:13

since the very beginning of life. You've

4:18

all believes that right now we're actually looking

4:20

at the end of history as we know it, the

4:22

dawning of a new era. Something

4:25

has changed. I wanted

4:27

to know what we're

4:29

really deciphering, the underlying

4:32

rules of the game of life and

4:35

now acquiring the ability to change

4:37

these rules. I mean, previously, the

4:40

expectations of the apocalypse were

4:42

directed outwards towards

4:44

the gods, towards some external

4:46

entity that will come and intervene

4:49

and change everything. Now we

4:52

don't expect an external entity to

4:54

do it. We expect ourselves

4:56

to do it. And when you look

4:59

really calm only and objectively at

5:01

the advances that science

5:03

has been making, it doesn't

5:06

sound so far fetched as

5:08

you've all would have it. We no longer look to the heavens

5:10

or answers, because we ourselves are becoming

5:13

gods, and as technology improves,

5:15

we're getting better and better at finding answers

5:17

by looking inwards. Literally. One

5:21

of the biggest misunderstandings about the whole

5:23

AI revolution is that many people

5:25

see it as a revolution coming

5:28

out of computer science, but

5:30

actually it comes equally

5:33

from the life sciences, from biology,

5:35

from brain science. It's not enough

5:38

that computers are becoming smarter. It's

5:41

also essential that we view

5:44

humans as algorithms.

5:47

If our feelings are not the product

5:50

of some kind of extremely complicated

5:52

algorithm in the brain, then

5:54

no matter how smart computers

5:57

will become, many things won't happen. If

6:00

something like self driving cars to

6:02

navigate a street full of pedestrians,

6:05

the car must be able to understand

6:07

human behavior and human feelings.

6:10

And if you think that human feelings are

6:13

the result of some spiritual

6:16

soul or something which can never

6:18

be deciphered. Then you can't

6:21

have self driving cars. In

6:23

order to create so many of the technologies

6:25

we talk about on Sleepwalkers, from self

6:28

driving cars to targeted ads to parole

6:30

algorithms, we have to assume that human

6:33

behavior can be modeled, that our habits,

6:35

routines, even our personalities could

6:38

be expressed as mathematical formulas.

6:41

But even if you don't take things that far. Uv

6:44

OL's key point about the transformative

6:46

potential of combining computer science

6:48

and biology is shared by people

6:50

in the business of building the future. You

6:53

may remember Arthur Provoca from earlier

6:55

in the season Arthur round the Defense

6:57

Advanced Research Projects Agency Dark.

7:00

But we're living in a time in

7:02

which the biological sciences

7:04

are converging with

7:07

information technology. The

7:09

DARPER We are always looking for these

7:12

areas where we see these seeds

7:14

of technological surprise, and today I

7:16

think this intersection of biology

7:18

with technology is one of the most

7:20

fertile seed beds for surprise.

7:23

And when these advances are coming from the ability

7:26

to autobiology with computer science,

7:28

it may be hard for us to predict what surprises

7:31

might bloom. You've always argued

7:33

that advances in AI and gene editing

7:36

will lead to new forms of life. We

7:39

are now gaining the ability to break

7:41

or bend or change the rules of life.

7:43

We are about to create the first inorganic

7:46

life forms after four billion years

7:48

of evolution. We can't really

7:50

imagine how the new entities

7:53

would look like because even the wildest

7:55

dreams are still subject to natural

7:58

selection and organic biochemistry. So

8:02

according to you of our Cara, it's rather

8:04

difficult to say what might come next because

8:07

it's somehow out of our frame of reference. It's almost

8:09

like saying what aliens look like. And

8:11

I know if you ever watched movies, but in movies, aliens

8:14

and cyborgs tend to look remarkably

8:16

consistent. I actually watched

8:18

Men in Black last week, and it is alien

8:21

central casting. You know, a lot

8:23

of representations of cyborgs

8:25

tend to have this element of cliche. You know, there's a pitiable

8:27

robot, the robot that's hell by love. You

8:30

can think of Wally c three p O,

8:32

the tin Man from the Wizard of Us. The Wizard

8:34

was my favorite movie. It's kind of a fantasy film. We've

8:37

actually talked about real life people who may

8:39

meet the qualification of cyborg. Already

8:42

on this show, we spoke about Jan Sherman

8:44

in the last episode using a robotic arm

8:47

with her mind, but the research didn't

8:49

actually end there. In a subsequent experiment,

8:52

Jan flew a simulated plane with our

8:54

brain waves. Remember this research

8:56

was being funded by Darper and it raised

8:58

big questions for Arthur Prabba Car who was

9:00

running the agency at the time, about the ethics

9:03

of transhumanism. When

9:05

Jan went from moving

9:08

a prosthetic limb to controlling

9:10

a flight simulator, that was the moment

9:13

that it became visible that

9:15

these technologies that allow you to restore

9:17

function by harnessing motor control

9:20

signals also mean that

9:22

now we have a way for a human brain

9:25

to engage with the world in a

9:27

completely different modality. It

9:30

was a very eye opening moment. I think for

9:32

all of us, what did you feel in that moment?

9:34

It's creepy, it's powerful.

9:37

It makes you realize that

9:40

as hard as the technology

9:42

is, it might be the easiest part of figuring

9:45

out how we harness these capabilities

9:48

for good in the future. As

9:52

we've said, this technology remains firmly

9:54

in research labs at least for now.

9:57

Andy Schwartz is the neurobiologist at

9:59

the Universe. You have Pittsburgh who led the project

10:01

with Jan and he's very clear

10:03

that his mission was to restore function, not

10:06

enhance it. The idea was,

10:08

can we help paralyze people coming back

10:11

from war zones regain function?

10:13

So I think that was very good motivation

10:16

for the kind of research we are doing. And despite

10:18

the huge potential of Andy's research, he's

10:20

quick to point out that the brain computer interface

10:23

he built is much less efficient than our

10:25

existing connection to the world. At

10:27

present, our bodies are the best we've got right

10:30

now. If you wanted to control the computer

10:32

with brain activity, it would be ten times

10:34

slower. That would be if you were typing with

10:37

your own fingers. Things move

10:39

so fast that we've gotten accustomed to the

10:41

idea that if you see it once, it's just going

10:43

to become pervasive. That's actually

10:46

not true of a medically invasive

10:49

procedure that involves putting implants

10:51

on the surface of the brain. We're

10:54

going to need all of that time to figure

10:56

out what we were we want to go with these technologies.

11:00

So it's a perfect moment to ask where

11:03

do we want to go? For

11:05

many in Silicon Valley, the principle of a more

11:07

direct interface between humans and computers

11:10

is enticing. But here's Sebastian

11:12

again. At this point, I

11:15

don't think customers would love having

11:17

surgery to get an implant in their brain just

11:19

to be lived smarter. But there

11:21

are other ways to approach the problem. You

11:24

may remember Google Glass. Sebastian

11:26

lad that project when he ran Google X, and

11:28

in fact, when I first met him in twenty twelve,

11:31

he was wearing a pair we bet Google

11:33

glass because I wanted a camera

11:35

right next to your eye, and I wanted to speak of right next

11:38

to your ear, so the computer could perceive

11:40

the same sensation, the same stuff you see

11:42

every day. I think these technologies

11:45

become closer and closer to us. When

11:48

I first met Sebastian, he was wearing

11:51

these weird Google glasses carra It

11:53

kind of looked like a cyborg, and he

11:55

told me that these glasses might solve the problem

11:57

of people constantly having to look down at their

12:00

ownes because the information could be at eye

12:02

level. But that really hasn't

12:04

solved the problem of tech neck.

12:07

Technic women and men are now getting

12:09

this like very you know, unsavory

12:12

under neck, fatally from looking

12:14

down at their phones. Yeah, and then there's turtle

12:16

posture, which is people hunting forward because

12:18

they're sitting at their computers so much so we don't

12:20

know if these are going to have an impact

12:23

on us evolutionarily speaking, but I imagine

12:25

they might. Or thumbs if you think about

12:27

it, well, our bodies are already being changed by

12:29

our interaction with our phones. Absolutely.

12:32

There's actually really quickly, there's this fake

12:34

video that was going around called Lookout, where

12:36

this guy invented a product where

12:39

your phone basically had the same camera it does,

12:41

except it would face out, so you never

12:43

had to look away from your phone. You could just look

12:45

at your life through your phone, which is essentially

12:47

what everybody is already doing well, And that was kind

12:49

of the insight behind Good Last was what

12:52

if you could overlay kind of augmented

12:54

reality over what you saw And

12:57

there's something very promising cool about it, but

12:59

it wasn't mostly viable because you had to

13:01

wear something on your face that made it like a

13:03

cyborg. But for consumers and the

13:05

benefits of a computer at that proximity

13:09

just weren't enough to make up for the inconvenience

13:11

of wearing something on their face. There

13:13

is one group of people who are willing to put up with

13:15

inconvenient technology. You know, people like Jan

13:17

who had her skull opens that she could

13:19

move an arm again. Right as Andy said,

13:22

this wasn't about letting her fly planes

13:24

with her mind. It was about restoring function.

13:27

When we come back after the break, we look at a

13:29

much less invasive technology that hopes

13:31

to be as miraculous as Jan Sherman's

13:33

robotic arm. Okay,

13:41

let me do you want to test to test it with the

13:43

tambourine or whatever. Okay, that's

13:57

Noise Toka. He's an award winning

14:00

Italian blues guitarist who lives in New York. When

14:02

Noi came to play for Julian and I in the studio

14:04

earlier this year, he asked that I need

14:06

him at the bus stop. I

14:09

went to Berkeley College of Music in Boston

14:11

to study jazz guitar performance and

14:13

Noise the real deal. Well he was at Berkeley.

14:15

He was given the Jimmy Hendricks Award for being

14:18

the school's leading guitarist, as well as the Billboard

14:20

magazine and owed scholarship. And

14:22

now he plays a consistent roster of shows around

14:25

New York. But he's

14:27

working to reach a digital fan base as well. Every

14:29

day Noi posts a video to help build his audience.

14:32

This is how I found him. What

14:34

you wouldn't know just listening to this podcast is

14:36

that no Way also happens to be blind. I

14:39

was born three months early, so they

14:41

put me in the colbator, but there was too much oxygen

14:44

in his infancy. Noi suffered from

14:46

retinopathy of prematurity known

14:48

as r o P. He needed surgery

14:51

to reattach his retinas and now he has

14:53

very limited vision, totally

14:56

blind, like blind.

14:58

Technically, I guess it's called light and shades

15:01

or something. I mean, I can see colors, I can

15:03

read really large print only out of one

15:05

eye, but my vision field is small,

15:07

so I still use the k and I still read brail. This

15:10

is why no I asked me to pick him up at the bus stop.

15:12

Getting to and from new destinations is

15:15

a huge pain in the ass. But here's

15:17

the thing. There are some companies that are trying to fill

15:19

the gap and make smart glasses for

15:21

people with visual impairments. Their

15:23

hope is that with the right technology, blindness

15:26

could become a thing of the past. When

15:29

we were researching for this podcast, Julian came

15:31

across a new technology company. Yeah,

15:33

after a few months, I had a pretty AI focused search

15:36

history, right, so my Instagram ad started

15:38

to reflect that, which is convenient, you know, AI

15:41

helping us make a podcast about AI. Yeah,

15:43

super consider it, right, So I

15:45

got an ad for east Site presented itself

15:47

and east Side build themselves as creators of the

15:50

world's most advanced site enhancing

15:52

glasses for the visually impaired and

15:54

medical tech can be pretty expensive, but

15:57

the sites recently lowered their prices from

16:00

hundred dollars for appair of these glasses

16:02

down to fifty what do

16:04

they call that? A price slash? All

16:06

Hans glasses must go. So

16:09

it's still pretty steep, but east Side as payment

16:11

plans and health insurance can help people out as

16:13

well. Yeah, but even so, I

16:15

mean I'd rather spend money on guitars, you

16:18

know, like that's what I do in my life. Like, why

16:20

would I spend money on something that is

16:22

still so experimental? Still No,

16:25

I was curious to test out east Sides technology,

16:27

so I reached out, explained noise condition

16:30

and we got an appointment. Yeah,

16:33

don't do anything crazy when you put them on to

16:37

start jumping around like a crazy person. Yes,

16:41

if it doesn't work, just make it up. I'm

16:45

I'm doing. The

16:47

east Side glasses basically look like Cyclops

16:50

from X Men, except without the blinding

16:52

laser beam that shoots out from them. The

16:54

glasses capture high quality video with a

16:57

camera above your nose, and then project

16:59

the video to a high definition screen in

17:01

front of each eye. The footage is enhanced

17:04

by software designed especially for people

17:06

with vision impairment. You can also zoom,

17:09

change focus, and do things like boost contrast

17:11

or go to gray scale. And east Side

17:14

rep named Nigel helped No. I get fitted with a pair,

17:16

but it can be a little hard to get used to. I

17:20

mean, I am trying to see. Isn't

17:22

it like right here where I should be looking like?

17:25

Yes, it's it's it should be right in front

17:27

of your people. Um, yeah, it's a little it's

17:29

a little high. Let me see if I can just

17:31

adjust that. Yeah, there you go. That's better?

17:33

Is better? Yeah? That

17:36

seems like I get more details out of things,

17:38

but I don't really know what I'm looking at. Nigel

17:40

also asked, no way to identify me. Let's

17:43

let's see if you can recognize characters.

17:47

I see, I see it. Do you know what I

17:49

look like? No, I like, do you have a sense of what I look

17:51

like? I mean from what I saw when I was close

17:53

to you, like have like light hair, like the light

17:55

brown or something like that. That's right, And

17:57

uh yeah, I mean it's cool. I

18:00

just don't know, you know, we have to see how

18:02

useful it would actually be, Like, I mean, I

18:04

don't think I would use it to recognize people like there, because I

18:06

would have no way of I don't know what

18:08

anybody his face looks like anyway,

18:11

you know, because he has

18:13

been blind for his entire life. Nobody

18:15

doesn't have a point of reference for the details

18:17

in people's faces. Imagine that

18:19

you have no idea what any of the people

18:21

in your life really look like. You

18:24

learn to identify them in other ways, like their

18:26

voices. So no is

18:28

ambivalent about the prospect of seeing people

18:30

clearly, but he would like it

18:33

to be easier to get around. Recognizing

18:35

people's faces would not be one of my priorities,

18:38

but reading where the bus stop is or when

18:40

it's coming will be a priority. I

18:42

mean, it's cool, it's interesting. I would just have to see how

18:45

it actually practically will be because I mean here's

18:47

the thing, Like, when you're outside, it's not that you

18:49

have time to stop and figure stuff out, especially

18:51

when you're walking on the sidewalks of New York.

18:53

Like, I'd rather just use blind Square. Nobody

18:56

first told me about blind Square when I picked him up

18:58

from the bus. He just the most popular

19:01

iOS navigation app for blind people. It

19:03

describes the environment you're in, the intersection

19:06

you're crossing, and announces points of interest,

19:09

all using GPS noise.

19:11

Point in mentioning blind Squared to Nigel

19:13

is that it is a tool that he can work with within

19:16

his set of limitations. Now, he spent

19:18

his whole life navigating the world one way,

19:21

his way, and east Site would actually change

19:23

that, maybe more than he would want. I've

19:26

never really seen a subway map anyway, so I

19:28

would have to get a hang of how it works

19:30

first, and then because

19:32

your brain needs to recognize it and then know what it's looking,

19:36

that's hard for human beings to comprehend.

19:38

I think, yeah, it's like imagining a new

19:40

color, right. Yeah,

19:43

So Julian east site worked, but it wasn't

19:46

perfect for no Way, And I think

19:48

it's important to know that east is actually really a

19:50

cool technology, whether or not, it worked for him.

19:52

Nigel mentioned that many elderly people who suffer

19:55

from macular degeneration losing their sight

19:57

due to old age, have been able to see their grandchildren

19:59

for the first time, which is really cool. I mean

20:01

it does restore site for a lot of people who have seen before.

20:04

Noways said, the sacrifices he makes to get around

20:06

to his gigs as a blind person aren't so

20:08

bad, but there is one part of

20:11

his career that's less easy to navigate. Like

20:13

many musicians, no Way uses his social

20:16

media channels as his primary way of connecting

20:18

to his current fans and hopefully reaching

20:20

future ones. The problem is it's

20:23

pretty hard to reach your fans on Instagram

20:25

if you're blind. Instagram needs to listen

20:28

to me right now. Uh No, Basically

20:30

the issue is this editing

20:33

videos and putting the part

20:35

that you want is not accessible on Instagram.

20:37

You know, thankfully the Apple app is accessible.

20:40

So I edited on the iPhone app because there

20:43

is like sliders and he tells you like current positions

20:45

zero seconds of like two minutes and thirty seconds,

20:47

and so basically you slide with your finger up and down.

20:50

If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be able to post on Instagram.

20:52

I would only be able to post the first minute, which

20:54

is not what I always want to post. On the songs, sometimes

20:56

I post some other part, you know. But

20:59

Instagram has implemented the app because you know,

21:01

black people aren't supposed to be on Instagram. I've

21:06

never thought about this. Digital technology

21:08

is almost exclusively visual. I

21:10

don't think about how easy it is for

21:13

me to use an iPhone every day. I just use it.

21:15

And when you have these technologies like iPhones

21:18

being designed by people in Silicon Valley who fit

21:20

pretty healthily within the norm, it's not really

21:22

doing no way any favors. And when

21:24

we focus on the next big thing in tech, we can

21:26

leap frog past uses for

21:29

these existing technologies. So we say, okay,

21:31

well, when you're starting next big unicorn, we want

21:33

to do these miraculous, gigantic

21:35

ideas. But you don't think about subway maps. You don't think

21:37

about things like blind Square unless you

21:39

actually need that app. And I think

21:41

it's we're not anti technology

21:44

or anti unicorn. Those things are important,

21:47

you know. No, I actually said something really funny, which is

21:49

that like he would love a self driving car. Of course

21:51

he would so we all benefit

21:53

from these moonshot innovations,

21:56

but it's really important I think that

21:59

everyone thinks about who is

22:01

forgotten. When we innovate too

22:03

quickly, we don't all benefit in the

22:05

same ways. We

22:12

began this episode debating what defines

22:14

a cyborg and asking how close

22:17

we are to being transhuman. These

22:19

are important philosophical questions, and

22:21

they may even become practical questions in our

22:23

lifetime. But as we

22:25

wrestle with them, it's important to remember that

22:28

a huge number of people still don't

22:30

have access to technologies that most of us take

22:32

for granted to expand our horizons

22:34

and what we can do. There are billions

22:36

of people in the world who don't have smartphones,

22:39

and millions of people in the US, like Noah,

22:42

who can't take full advantage of them. Briany

22:45

Cole is tackling this problem head on. After

22:48

working at Microsoft, she founded The Future of

22:50

Sex, and as part of her work, she

22:52

produces sex tech hackathons around

22:54

the world. I

22:56

think it's so important is because no one's talking

22:59

about it. We all got here

23:01

by having sex sexual identities

23:03

so core to who we are, and

23:06

the concentration of people innovating

23:08

in this field is quite small. So

23:11

Carol, I was a bit nervous to talk about sex

23:13

in this episode because I don't want people

23:15

just think we're being sensational for the sake of it.

23:18

But it is an area where we can see the tangible

23:21

consequences of what happens when one group

23:23

designs for the rest. Like with No

23:25

Way, I don't think it's sensational at all.

23:28

It's like with Gillian and episode one, when

23:30

people programming ads for Facebook do

23:32

not understand different outcomes for

23:34

pregnancy. They don't

23:36

know that an outcome for pregnancy could be

23:39

still birth, and that's how Gillian's ads

23:41

were making her life worse because of people

23:43

programming them a man by and large, By

23:45

and large, now it takes these edgu cases

23:47

like Gillian being haunted by targeted ads

23:50

for us to notice that more of from than

23:52

not. We don't have a counter factual. We can't make

23:54

a comparison to a version of technology

23:57

that wasn't built by Silicon Value. And

23:59

that is exactly why Briany

24:01

Cole organizes events to design

24:04

new sex tech. While

24:06

hackathon sound really geeky and typically

24:09

you're going to attract just people involved

24:12

in technology, we're really careful in

24:14

structuring the hackason, inviting other

24:17

people in from other classes,

24:19

from other ethnicities, from other genders

24:21

to allow us to build different sorts of products.

24:24

What was the surprise that we didn't

24:26

design for was people with disabilities

24:29

that showed up. And with these new

24:31

groups of people came new kinds

24:33

of products. One team came

24:36

up with a voice activated vibrator for

24:38

people in wheelchairs. Another

24:40

team in Singapore, a deaf man

24:43

a blind man built a sex

24:45

intimacy education platform about

24:47

bringing a woman back to their

24:50

dorm room and really not knowing how to read

24:52

intimacy ques because they've never been taught.

24:55

These people just showed up on my thank

24:57

you um. We feel invisible

25:01

technology very quickly becomes part of

25:03

our homeostasis. We take for granted

25:05

the fact that we have a supercomputer as our constant

25:08

companion, and that we can summon the entire

25:10

corpus of human knowledge with the flick of a

25:12

finger. But as we

25:14

constantly focus on the next frontier, what's

25:17

new, it's easy to forget that many

25:19

people don't get to share in the fruits

25:21

of what we've already built. Other

25:23

populations that also resonate with the hackathon's

25:26

people in remote areas or rural

25:28

populations that have trouble finding a mate,

25:31

and of course women, which

25:34

is predominantly who turns up to these hackathons.

25:37

It's people that typically don't have access

25:40

to this providing input into

25:42

how we build it. Briani's

25:45

hackathons allow people who feel invisible

25:47

to create products directly for themselves, people

25:50

who may even be invisible on the campuses

25:53

of Silicon Valley. For Briany,

25:55

access begins at the design phase

25:57

and including new voices can create new

26:00

products and technological surprises

26:02

that otherwise might not exist. So perhaps

26:05

our hackathons could serve as a model for

26:07

tech innovation. More broadly, I think where

26:09

I'd most like to see it go is too sort

26:11

of the trickle down effect across the world

26:13

in terms of how that technology reaches other

26:15

populations because it is so concentrated

26:18

in these like Silicon Valley types.

26:21

It's the access that I'm more excited

26:24

about. We actually have incredible

26:26

technology available to us, and yet

26:29

the US is right now are so clunky,

26:31

you know, and we're we just need to figure

26:34

out how we're going to use it and who we're going to invite

26:36

in Briani paints

26:38

the picture of a world whether benefits of god

26:40

like technology spread to all people. But

26:43

as we've talked about before on Sleepwalkers, there's

26:46

a very real possibility that technology will

26:48

be co opted by the rich and powerful. So

26:50

we have to ask who gets to become a cyborg?

26:53

And what if the new gods don't

26:55

want to share their divinity? Here's

26:58

you all again, m One disturbing

27:01

thought is that there is no us,

27:04

There is no we. Different groups

27:06

of humans have a very different future,

27:08

and they should prepare themselves in a different

27:10

way. It could lead to the creation

27:13

of a new cost system with immense

27:16

differences in wealth and power, much

27:18

greater than we ever saw before in history. It

27:21

could even lead to a speciation,

27:23

Homo sapiens splitting into

27:26

different species with

27:28

different capabilities. So the

27:31

descendants of Elon

27:33

Musk will be a different specie

27:36

then the descendants of people

27:38

who are now living in some Favella in

27:40

some Paolo. So it's a big question

27:42

always what is the future of humanity?

27:45

What should we do? What is our future?

27:48

What is the future of our humanity? What

27:51

we sleepwalking towards. It's tempting

27:53

to look for the dramatic ways technology is

27:55

changing us. Might we be able

27:58

to physically merge with computers? Will

28:00

computer vision help the blind, sea or the

28:02

marginalized experience intimacy?

28:05

They're big questions, but there's one that's

28:07

even more urgent. How is

28:09

the AI revolution already changing

28:11

the way we think about and perceive the world.

28:14

What are the algorithms we interact with every

28:16

day doing to us, and how

28:18

are they changing our society? More

28:21

on those questions with you all know a Harrari. When

28:23

we come back, until

28:35

I was twenty one, I didn't know I was gay.

28:38

And I look back at the time when

28:40

I was I don't know, fifteen or seventeen,

28:43

and I just can't understand how I missed

28:45

it. I mean, it should have been so obvious,

28:48

But the fact is I didn't know an extremely

28:51

important thing about myself, which

28:54

an AI could have discovered within

28:56

you know, like two minutes. For you all

28:58

know a Harari, AI could have made

29:00

a big difference to his early life, and

29:02

that got him thinking. When we talk about

29:04

AI, we tend to greatly exaggerate

29:07

the potential abilities, but at the same

29:10

time we also tend to exaggerate

29:12

the abilities of humans. People

29:15

say that AI is

29:17

not going to take over our lives because

29:20

it's very imperfect and it won't

29:22

be able to know us perfectly. But

29:25

what people forget is that humans

29:27

often have a very poor understanding

29:30

of themselves, of the desires,

29:33

of their emotions, of their

29:35

mental states. For AI to

29:38

take over your life, it doesn't

29:41

need to know you perfectly. It just

29:43

needs to know you better than you know

29:45

yourself. And that's not very difficult

29:48

because we often don't know the most important

29:51

things about ourselves. So let's

29:53

say you could turn back the clock to being fifteen,

29:55

would you have wanted to live

29:57

in a world where there was sufficiently sensors

30:00

to monitor your eyes, your eye

30:02

movement, you're breathing, you know, while you're

30:04

going about your daily life, and then to interpret

30:07

that and say to you you've all, more

30:10

likely than not you're gay. That's a very

30:12

good question, which will become very

30:14

practical questions in a few

30:16

years. And the way that I

30:19

grew up and developed it would

30:21

have been a very bad idea.

30:24

I wouldn't like to receive this

30:26

kind of insight from form

30:28

a machine. I'm not sure how I

30:31

would have dealt with it when I

30:33

was fifteen, you know, in Israel, in the nineteen eighties,

30:36

and maybe proudly it was, you know, a defense

30:38

mechanism in the future to it. It depends

30:40

where you live. Brunei has

30:42

instituted a death penalty for gay

30:45

people, at least for people engaged in homosexual

30:47

sex. So if I'm a teenager

30:49

in brune I, I don't want to be told

30:51

by the computer that I'm gay, because

30:54

the computer will then be able to tell that to

30:56

the police and to the authorities as well. Looking

30:59

to the future, say ten twenty years,

31:02

the danger is if I still don't know that

31:04

I'm gay, but the government and

31:06

Coca Cola and and Amazon

31:08

and Google they already know it. I'm at

31:10

a huge disadvantage. So

31:13

it could be something as frightening as

31:15

the secret police coming and taking

31:17

me to a concentration camp. But

31:20

it could also be something like Coca

31:22

Cola knowing that I'm gay, they

31:24

want to sell me a new drink, and they

31:27

choose the advertisement with the

31:29

shirtless guy and not the advertisement

31:32

with the girl in the beginning, and next day

31:34

morning I go and I buy this soft drink

31:37

and I don't even know why, and

31:39

they have this huge advantage over me

31:41

and can manipulate me in all kinds of ways.

31:44

What you've all suggests is that once we

31:46

become reducible to data, we

31:48

become predictable to algorithms, and

31:51

once we're predictable, we can be manipulated.

31:55

We talked in the last episode about how AI

31:57

is helping us decode life's fundamental

32:00

histories brain waves, health

32:02

outcomes based on genetics, time

32:04

of death. But the next frontier

32:06

could be our very behavior is

32:09

off the again. We have

32:11

tools to evaluate vast

32:13

volumes of data that we have previously

32:15

collected or that we've always collected. We

32:18

have new sources of data. Think

32:20

about everything from fitbits

32:23

and those kinds of measurements that you

32:25

can make on individuals, to the volume

32:27

of data that people are spewing

32:30

out into the online environment every

32:32

day. The implications of spewing

32:35

this data onto the internet is where we began

32:37

the series. And knowing that your data

32:39

is being used to build an accurate model of

32:41

you make if you pause about putting it

32:43

out there. But it's a combination of

32:45

that data with advances in AI that's

32:48

allowing us to start to see into the

32:50

future. Data plus that

32:52

deep knowledge now allows

32:54

you to form hypotheses

32:57

and to design experiments that allow

32:59

us now to start a journey of building

33:02

better models of these complex systems.

33:05

This is at the core of the revolution

33:07

that we're seeing. But I think the next

33:09

wave, after starting to understand

33:12

biology, is about a transformation

33:14

in the social sciences. Of course,

33:17

in some ways, that transformation in the social

33:19

sciences is already here. It's

33:22

what you' I was talking about in terms of computers

33:24

that understand us better than we understand ourselves.

33:27

And we've already seen the real world consequences

33:30

altering the course of history with Cambridge

33:32

Analytica, Brexit and the six

33:35

presidential election. But

33:37

Uvou believes that was just the beginning,

33:40

and this revolution in biology and computer

33:42

science will shake the very foundations

33:45

of how we live. The

33:48

ideology of humanism basically

33:50

says that the human experience

33:53

is the ultimate source of

33:55

authority and meaning in the

33:57

universe. If you look at polity,

34:00

then if originally political authority

34:02

came from the gods, now political

34:05

authority comes from humanity. The

34:07

idea is that the voter is always right.

34:10

You look at economics, they're the motto.

34:12

The slogan is the customer is always

34:14

right. If the customers want something,

34:17

then, however, irrational and illogical

34:20

it is, this is what the

34:22

entire system is geared to provide.

34:25

And you have the same idea in ethics,

34:28

Why is it wrong to murder? Not

34:30

because some God said so, but

34:33

because it hurts other people?

34:35

So we already view yourself in this sense

34:38

as kind of divine entities that

34:40

provide meaning and authority to

34:43

the world. The big question is what happens

34:46

once some algorithm can

34:48

decipher and manipulate human

34:51

feelings and experiences, then they can

34:53

no longer be the source of authority

34:55

if it's so easy to hackn manipulate

34:58

them. And this is part of the crisis

35:00

which we are already beginning to see today.

35:04

This crisis is the intersection, the

35:06

culmination of many of the ideas

35:08

that we've spoken about on this first season of

35:10

Sleepwalkers, and it's why it's so urgently

35:13

important not to ignore the changes

35:15

going on around us and to wake up

35:18

if we refuse to see it. If

35:20

we just hold on to this liberal

35:23

belief that humans

35:26

are free agents, we have free

35:28

will, nobody will ever be able

35:30

to understand me, nobody will ever be

35:33

able to manipulate me. If

35:35

you really believe that, then you

35:37

are not open to the danger and

35:40

you won't be able to reinvent

35:42

the system in a better way. Not

35:44

everyone agrees that we've reached the point you've

35:46

all describes. According

35:49

to Arthie, there's a world of mystery that

35:51

we've barely begun to penetrate. I

35:53

think we are so far from

35:56

having a full understanding

36:00

of any of these systems. The fact

36:02

that we are making this rapid accelerated

36:05

progress, I think sometimes leads

36:07

to a hyperbolic sense

36:10

that we're going to know everything and it'll all get reduced

36:12

to a bunch of algorithms. And I don't think

36:14

we're anywhere near that. And I'm not even sure

36:16

that's the endpoint, not the end point

36:18

in a sense that that will never happen, or there maybe an

36:20

endpoint beyond that. My own view

36:23

is that what it means to be

36:25

human is so much richer than

36:27

these mechanistic components that we're

36:29

talking about. You know, if you said to me,

36:32

when do you think we will fully map and be able

36:34

to predict behavioral systems, my answer

36:36

might be never. The incredible

36:39

depth of these systems, how messy

36:41

and organic they are, means we've got a

36:43

long way to go before we've understood everything.

36:46

The uniqueness of our humanity lives to fight another

36:48

day. But as you've

36:50

out said, the AI to profoundly influence

36:53

us, it doesn't need a perfect understanding.

36:56

It just needs to know a little bit more than

36:58

we do, and that's become reality.

37:01

So what should we do on the individual

37:03

level. It's more urgent

37:05

than ever to get to know yourself better

37:08

because you have competition. Once

37:11

there is somebody out there, a system out

37:14

or an algorithm out there that knows you better

37:16

than you know yourself, the game is up.

37:19

You can do something about it, not just

37:21

by beholding data, but above

37:24

all by improving your

37:26

own understanding of yourself. The

37:28

better you understand yourself, the more

37:30

difficult it is to manipulate. You know

37:34

thyself. You have our references

37:36

the ancient Greek maxim and last

37:39

episodes to Dartha called our attention

37:41

to the Hippocratic oath in the midst

37:43

of the incredible upheavals of modernity,

37:46

with being urged to remember the wisdom of the ancients.

37:49

But how do we get to know ourselves better?

37:52

I meditate, some people go to therapy.

37:54

Whatever works for you, do it,

37:57

and do it quickly. Get to know

37:59

yourself better, because this is your best

38:01

protection against being hacked. If

38:04

you're an engineer, then one

38:06

of the best things you can do for humanity is

38:08

build AI sidekicks that

38:12

serve individuals and not corporations

38:15

or governments. AI systems that

38:17

yes, they monitor you and they analyze

38:20

you, and they hack you, but they serve

38:22

you. They reveal that what they

38:24

find to you, and they work

38:27

like an antivirus, just like your computer

38:29

has an antivirus, so your brain

38:31

also needs an antivirus. And

38:34

uh and and this is something that that a I can

38:36

do for us to protect us against

38:38

other malevolent Aiyes. Of

38:40

course, one of the problems we've talked about on the series

38:43

is that the vast majority of talented engineers

38:46

work for the very corporations Val says

38:48

we need to be protected from. But

38:50

there is something compelling about using technology

38:53

as a tool to protect ourselves from other

38:55

technology. And brianie

38:58

Cole also sees avenues for technology you

39:00

to help us get to know ourselves better. We

39:02

can explore in virtual worlds without

39:05

shame. It's pushing us

39:07

to reveal ourselves, even

39:09

things we didn't even know about ourselves. If

39:12

we think about, Wow, this dark

39:14

and wacky world of sexuality that we

39:16

haven't even explored ourselves because

39:18

we've been too afraid of what we

39:20

might discover. You put technology

39:23

in there where you're suddenly able to create any

39:25

world that you want, These totally

39:28

fantastical edges of

39:30

our minds that we can go to thanks

39:32

to technology. And according

39:35

to Briany, this is not just about seeking

39:37

thrills. Our sexuality is actually

39:39

driven by something much more profound, the

39:42

core of our humanity. We want to connect, we

39:44

want to belong, we want to feel

39:46

like we're part of something that's

39:49

sort of like the core part of that right down to

39:51

our sexuality. What is the future

39:53

of sex? The answer has nothing to

39:55

do with technology, and it always

39:57

has to do with being human. We

40:00

can take great strides personally to get

40:02

to know ourselves better, but we also

40:04

have to recognize the limits of what we can achieve

40:06

as individuals. To create

40:09

a technological future that is fair and positive,

40:11

we need governance and policy. Here's

40:14

you again. We need to regulate

40:16

things like the ownership of data and

40:19

the immense power the divine powers

40:21

of creation, of being able

40:23

to engineer and create life. This this should

40:25

be a major political issue of

40:28

who owns these kinds of abilities.

40:31

This is not something you can do by yourself.

40:34

So here that my best recommendation

40:37

is join an organization. Fifty

40:39

people in an organization

40:41

can do far, far more than five

40:44

hundred individual activists.

40:47

So whatever cause

40:49

seems to you the most important, join

40:52

a relevant organization and do

40:55

it this week. The

40:59

AI revolution isn't far off in the future,

41:01

Kara, as Uval says, is here

41:03

with us, and we have this personal and political

41:05

responsibility to make sure that the future

41:08

is a future we want to live in. Yeah,

41:10

I think that's actually a good place to leave Season

41:12

one of Sleepwalkers, don't they're breaking

41:14

my heart? Ye. It's been incredible to hear you

41:17

say, Karma, Kara. But

41:21

also it's been incredible to report on you know, to meet

41:23

people like no Way and Gillian brock Hell

41:26

or Glenn Rodriguez, and to understand

41:28

how this new technology is affecting people's

41:31

lives. It's been a real privilege to hear those

41:33

stories and also to get access

41:35

to some of the people who are building the technologies

41:37

we live by, people like Yasmine Green

41:39

at Google's Jigsaw, Nathaniel Gleitscher,

41:42

Facebook's head of cybersecurity, and

41:44

Ben Singleton director of Analytics at the

41:46

NYPD. We got to hear firsthand

41:48

what these leaders in the world of technology is

41:51

thinking about and how hard they wrestle

41:53

with the ethics of their creations. And there's so many

41:55

more areas that AI is transforming and

41:57

that we're going to look at in season two of

42:00

things like money and climate change

42:02

and some of the problems that I've noticed even

42:04

since we started doing this podcast, like

42:06

what happens if your boss is an algorithm. Well,

42:09

that's why we're doing a season two of Sleepwalkers,

42:11

So please join us. And in the meantime, we'll

42:13

be keeping our Instagram, Twitter and website

42:15

updated. That's at Sleepwalker's

42:18

Podcast on Instagram and at Sleepwalker's

42:20

Pod on Twitter. And if you have any

42:22

stories, suggestions or criticisms,

42:25

send us an email at Sleepwalkers Press

42:27

at I heart media dot com. That Sleepwalker's

42:30

p R E s s at iHeart media dot

42:32

com. Well, that's all from us. I'm

42:34

Ozveloshin and we'll see you next time. Sleepwalkers

42:49

is a production of I Heart Radio and Unusual

42:51

Productions. For the latest AI

42:54

news, live interviews, and behind the scenes

42:56

footage. Find us on Instagram at

42:58

Sleepwalker's podcast at Sleepwalkers

43:00

podcast dot com. Special

43:03

thanks this episode to the Forward, the digital

43:05

news and culture website and Jonathan

43:08

and Cody from the SEO Agency make it all

43:10

work here in New York City. And thanks to Noise

43:12

So Hard That's s O. C h A for his

43:14

involvement in this episode. If you'd like to hear

43:16

more of Noise Music, you can find him on Facebook,

43:19

YouTube, and Instagram at Simple blues

43:21

Boy. Thanks also to Allen Ullman, author

43:23

of Life in Code, and Gary Marcus of

43:25

Robust dot Ai, who gave generous interviews

43:27

which helped shape off thinking for this series. Sleepwalkers

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is hosted by me Ozveloshin and co hosted

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by me Kara Price, with produced by Julian

43:37

Weller, with help from Jacopo Penzo and Taylor

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Shakoyne. Mixing by Tristan McNeil

43:42

and Julian Weller. Our story editor is

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Matthew Riddle. Recording assistance this episode

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from Joe and Luna and Sabrina Boden.

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Sleepwalkers is executive produced by me

43:51

Ozveloshin and mangesh Hat Tigetter.

43:54

For more podcasts from my Art Radio, visit the I

43:56

Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or

43:58

wherever you listen to your favorite show, simly

44:00

for the wing of they would be for the DA