[0:00] concept of AGI is a bunch of baloney.
[0:02] Humans are this magical species with all
[0:05] of these skills and capabilities that we
[0:07] don't fully understand ourselves.
[0:09] >> Jamie and Matel, thank you so much for
[0:11] joining us.
[0:11] >> I think we're going to have sex robots,
[0:14] robots doing things that humans want and
[0:17] that's going to be crazy in the
[0:19] beginning and normalized over time. I
[0:22] think people who are using AI and not
[0:24] clearly articulating how they are using
[0:26] AI are committing fraud. 100 years ago,
[0:28] the Italian futurists had this
[0:30] philosophy, forget the past. And it was
[0:33] not coincidental that Italian futurism
[0:36] morphed into fascism. The future is
[0:39] going to be wonderful. It's going to
[0:40] create all this prosperity. There's
[0:42] sometimes a J curve, if you will. Things
[0:44] go wrong for a couple of years. That
[0:45] could be a really big problem. How do we
[0:47] get past a potential dip?
[0:49] >> We don't have the option of turning this
[0:51] off. If we did, it would be a terrible
[0:54] idea. We need to make sure that this
[0:56] transition is happening with everybody
[0:58] but not to everybody.
[1:02] Before you skip forward, I invite you to
[1:04] become a member of the rational optimist
[1:06] society. It's completely free. All you
[1:09] need to do is go to rational
[1:11] optimistocciety.substack.com
[1:14] and enter your email address. You'll
[1:16] receive our weekly diary that details
[1:18] the most exciting companies in Frontier
[1:20] Technology today. So please enjoy this
[1:22] conversation with futurist founder and
[1:24] author Jamie Metsel.
[1:27] My guest today has spent 25 years where
[1:30] biology, geopolitics, and AI all
[1:33] intersect. Drafting policy at the
[1:36] Clinton White House, sitting on the
[1:37] WHO's committee on human genome editing,
[1:40] and writing books that defined how we
[1:43] talk about hacking our own DNA. He
[1:46] recently did something that nobody has
[1:48] done before. He published the first
[1:51] major non-fiction book to credit AI as a
[1:54] co-author, the AI ten commandments.
[1:57] Jamie Metsel, welcome to the Rational
[1:59] Optimist podcast. Thank you so much for
[2:01] joining us.
[2:02] >> Thank you so much, Stephen. It's really
[2:04] a pleasure and honor to be with you.
[2:05] >> Jamie, before we get to your book, I
[2:07] want to talk about you on this show.
[2:10] We're obsessed about how people get so
[2:13] much done, how people do these amazing
[2:15] feats of accomplishment. Uh, I think I
[2:18] believe you've done 60 marathons, a
[2:20] dozen iron mans, 40 odd ultramarathons.
[2:22] You have a PhD, you've written six
[2:25] books. How the hell did you get so much
[2:27] done? Seven books. How How the hell did
[2:28] you get so much done?
[2:30] >> Well, I could give you a long answer
[2:33] that would talk about efficiency and
[2:37] focus and really thinking about what you
[2:40] want to do before you get rolling uh
[2:42] doing it. Um, but that would all be
[2:44] wrong because I'm 57 years old and I
[2:49] think 50% of it uh is that I don't have
[2:51] any kids. And when I look at people who
[2:55] have kids, which is a magnificent thing
[2:57] to do, that seems to take so much time.
[3:00] I'm blown away by how people raise one
[3:03] kid, let alone two kids. And I've I've
[3:06] heard um that you have to feed them
[3:08] every single day without fail. Jenny, if
[3:12] my career goes horribly wrong, I'm going
[3:14] to blame it on my three kids.
[3:16] >> Yeah, 100%. You should tell them every
[3:19] single day. Do you know what I've
[3:21] sacrificed for you? But, you know, I
[3:24] think that you're every one of those
[3:26] kids is like writing a hundred books.
[3:29] Uh, every one of the kids that you're
[3:31] putting your ideas and your love and
[3:33] your care. Uh, it's really fantastic.
[3:36] And and congratulations to you for
[3:38] having three kids. I'm sure they're
[3:40] great kids and I am hoping that they are
[3:43] wild and crazy optimists on the
[3:47] realistic side of optimism. Um, look,
[3:49] this show is called the rational
[3:51] optimist. I I read your book. I thought
[3:54] it was fascinating. Obviously, AI is the
[3:56] biggest thing in the world happening
[3:58] right now. I want you to set the table
[4:01] for us. What does earned cleareyed
[4:03] optimism, cleareyed rational optimism
[4:06] about AI actually look like for you? On
[4:09] one hand, we need to imagine all of the
[4:13] areas where AI and the related supercon
[4:15] converging uh using the title of my book
[4:18] technologies can can lead us. And in
[4:20] that book, I talk about the really
[4:23] exciting future of healthcare,
[4:25] agriculture, energy, advanced materials,
[4:28] data storage. And it's really exciting.
[4:30] my own father after my late father after
[4:33] his cancer diagnosis, I kind of took
[4:36] over working with his oncologist and we
[4:38] had a a very unconventional
[4:41] treatment uh plan based on the
[4:43] principles that I was writing about at
[4:45] the time in in the book and he had a
[4:48] one-year life expectancy and we extended
[4:50] it to three and we filled that time with
[4:52] love and joy and meaning and happiness
[4:55] and I had a big feature in AARP magazine
[4:59] uh on this and an action plan for what
[5:01] everybody can do. So, we should be
[5:03] really excited and I think a lot of
[5:06] people now because there's been this
[5:07] quick turn against emotional turn
[5:10] against AI, I think people are are many
[5:13] people are are losing their connection
[5:15] to the idea, the possibility, the wonder
[5:18] of what these technologies can do. But
[5:22] at the same time, if we are just blinded
[5:24] optimism optimists, that's actually
[5:27] going to be quite dangerous. There's a
[5:29] reason why we have fear and anxiety and
[5:33] why evolution has preserved those very
[5:37] human emotions. If those were just
[5:39] wasted emotions, probably they would
[5:41] have been selected out over the course
[5:43] of billions of years. But our fears and
[5:45] our anxieties are our way of telling
[5:49] ourselves that actually if we don't take
[5:52] the right steps, if we don't do
[5:53] everything we can to optimize potential
[5:55] benefits and minimize potential harms,
[5:58] then our worst fears can be realized.
[6:00] The AI revolution could do a lot of
[6:03] harm. Whether that's in warfare or
[6:05] employment or in dehumanization
[6:09] or deskkillification of of humans, there
[6:12] are a lot of very dangerous downsides.
[6:14] And so being an optimism, an optimist
[6:17] and a a rational optimist, it requires
[6:20] imagining what's the best case scenario.
[6:23] And it requires imagining what's the
[6:26] worstc case scenario. And it imagines
[6:28] everybody on every level, whether it's
[6:30] the individual level or family level or
[6:32] corporate level, national,
[6:34] international, whatever, coming up with
[6:36] a a plan, a set of principles for here's
[6:39] how I'm going to optimize the stuff I
[6:41] want, and here's how I'm going to work
[6:43] to minimize and hopefully prevent most
[6:46] of the things that I that I don't want
[6:48] to see. And no one alone can win this
[6:51] battle, but together, what we can do is
[6:54] drive toward a better world. And if you
[6:56] if people doubt that, you can just look
[6:58] at our whole history. We've had massive
[7:01] downs and we've had huge abuses that
[7:03] have come very significantly connected
[7:06] to to technological innovations. But if
[7:09] you follow the Matt Ridley principle or
[7:12] the Steven Pinker principle and you look
[7:15] at things from a broader perspective,
[7:18] you can see that things are are getting
[7:20] better over time. But that doesn't mean
[7:23] there are big dips. The black plague was
[7:26] a big dip. World War II was a big dip.
[7:30] And so those big dips, even if things
[7:31] are getting better, they're not going to
[7:33] get better on their own. It's that's the
[7:35] hard work of being a rational, committed
[7:38] optimist.
[7:39] >> I've talked to people like you and I
[7:41] that are rational optimists about AI and
[7:43] they say, "Hey, the future's going to be
[7:46] wonderful. It's going to create all this
[7:47] prosperity, all these jobs." But there's
[7:49] a, as you said, there's there's
[7:51] sometimes a dip, a J curve, if you will,
[7:53] that things go wrong for a couple of
[7:55] years, and it seems like in this day and
[7:57] age, things going wrong for one or two
[8:00] or five years or 10 years, that could be
[8:02] a really, really big problem. So, how in
[8:05] your view do we do we mitigate that?
[8:07] Future could be awesome. It's going to
[8:08] create all this amazing stuff, but how
[8:10] do we how do we get past a potential
[8:12] dip? Yeah, I think it's a very very
[8:15] important question because there's the
[8:16] dip in the sense that we are going to
[8:19] have significant changes in employment
[8:21] with this uh this technological
[8:24] quantum leap as we have had in other
[8:27] technological quantum leaps. All of our
[8:29] ancestors were hunter gatherers and then
[8:32] more and more of them became farmers and
[8:34] then people left the farms uh through
[8:36] industrialization and did all of these
[8:38] other jobs. Uh but those things have
[8:41] happened very gradually. Uh this change
[8:44] is happening very quickly. I was just
[8:46] the other day speaking with a very close
[8:48] friend of mine who's a real estate
[8:50] developer and he has about 50,000 uh
[8:53] apartments. He owns the buildings and
[8:55] and rents them out. And he was he was
[8:57] saying that that this is going to mean
[8:59] that he just needs a smaller headcount.
[9:02] And exactly as you said, there will be
[9:06] other entire industries that we can't
[9:09] even imagine. I mean, you and I are
[9:10] having this conversation remotely as a
[9:14] result of magnificent technological
[9:17] revolutions that made nobody 20 years
[9:21] ago would have imagined podcasting as a
[9:23] thing, let alone remote video uh
[9:27] podcasting. And so there'll be whole
[9:29] other um industries and and we can begin
[9:33] imagining them and I do actually about
[9:35] uh world building. I I'm also a novelist
[9:38] and I just think that the the one of the
[9:40] next generations of novels will be kind
[9:44] of like video games where you'll have
[9:46] maybe great novelists and everybody gets
[9:48] one character and you build out a whole
[9:51] backstory and a set of responses and
[9:54] just the character uh of your the
[9:57] character of your character that goes
[10:00] into this worldbuing novel. And maybe
[10:03] there's a central theme like kind of
[10:05] like Grand Theft Auto. And then people
[10:08] who are the equivalent of the readers of
[10:10] novels can wander through those worlds
[10:14] as they maybe tell a story like like
[10:17] here in New York we have a a um a
[10:19] theatrical installation called Sleep No
[10:22] More where people wander through the
[10:25] theater. And so it's so we that's just
[10:28] one idea. there will be thousands uh
[10:31] millions of new kind of crazy ideas that
[10:34] now seem nuts that will just become so
[10:38] normal. And coming back to your question
[10:40] though, there is pain and will be pain
[10:44] in this transition. And even if the
[10:45] benefits are societal, that doesn't mean
[10:48] which is the same with every other
[10:50] transition that we've ever had that all
[10:52] of the the losses will be evenly
[10:56] distributed. And that's why I believe
[10:59] societies have a massive obligation. Uh
[11:03] some people saying everything I said
[11:06] would say that's why I believe in
[11:08] universal basic income. That's not where
[11:10] I where I head. I believe in universal
[11:12] basic services, health care and
[11:14] education and safe housing and safety
[11:17] and security and all of those those
[11:19] things. I I don't think universal basic
[11:22] income is uh is the answer. And I think
[11:25] governments need to invest through
[11:27] unemployment insurance, through
[11:30] retraining, uh through facilitation. And
[11:33] we talked about these new industries
[11:35] giving small grants to help get a
[11:38] thousand a million new ideas off of the
[11:40] ground. Some of which will work and some
[11:43] won't work. And and finally, what I'll
[11:45] say is because I'm a humanist, I do not
[11:49] believe I people talk about artificial
[11:51] general intelligence, AGI, which is a
[11:54] time when AI systems will be able to do
[11:57] everything that humans can do. I have a
[12:00] sevenletter response to that. AGI is BS.
[12:03] I think AGI, the concept of AGI is a
[12:06] bunch of baloney. uh that humans are
[12:09] this magical species with all of these
[12:12] skills and capabilities that we don't
[12:14] fully understand ourselves. And I think
[12:15] that we're going to find that while
[12:17] machines and AI systems can do some
[12:19] remarkable things, uh there'll be a lot
[12:23] of things that machines can't do. And it
[12:26] how wonderful to have as many humans as
[12:29] possible doing highest level premium
[12:33] human activities. But there are a lot of
[12:34] people who are for example truck drivers
[12:38] um or street cleaners um and those jobs
[12:40] are going to change. We'll still have
[12:42] humans uh but the jobs are going to
[12:44] change and and the more that we can
[12:46] facilitate in a kind and loving and
[12:50] gracious and helpful way this transition
[12:52] the better off we'll be. We don't have
[12:54] the option of turning this off. If we
[12:56] did, we it would be a terrible idea to
[12:59] do it, but we need to make sure that the
[13:02] this transition is as human centered as
[13:05] as possible, that it's happening with
[13:08] everybody, but not to everybody.
[13:10] >> My my friend Tyler Cowan likes to frame
[13:12] things as what rises in status versus
[13:14] falls in status or or rises in value
[13:16] versus falls in value, zoom out in seven
[13:19] years, zoom out in their 10 years. what
[13:22] skills, what industries do you think are
[13:24] irreducibly human? Um what what core
[13:28] values, what core tasks can AI never
[13:30] touch? Another way of framing this is I
[13:32] guess if if you had uh my three kids
[13:35] sitting in front of you right now, what
[13:36] would you tell them to to go do?
[13:38] >> And so what I would say is I think this
[13:40] is going to happen at the task level,
[13:42] not at the industry level. That in every
[13:45] industry there are going to be human
[13:47] functions and machine functions. And and
[13:50] what we're have going to have to do is
[13:52] to break down not just every industry,
[13:54] but every job, whatever job you have,
[13:57] let's say you can break it down into 10
[14:00] tasks that are the core tasks that you
[14:02] do for your job. And for every one of
[14:05] those tasks, you can put it on a
[14:07] spectrum. um on one side of the spectrum
[14:10] is 5 or 10 years from now entirely a
[14:13] machine function and another side of the
[14:15] spectrum is entirely a human function or
[14:18] else somewhere in between. If your job
[14:21] when you go through it, all of those 10
[14:23] tasks are on the machine side, that
[14:27] means that your job is probably going to
[14:29] go away. And for you, the best thing is
[14:32] starting now to think about about
[14:34] transition because the last thing that
[14:36] we want is humans functioning as second
[14:39] rate machines. But in many kinds of
[14:43] jobs, there are going to be some machine
[14:45] tasks and some human tasks. And so for
[14:48] the machine tasks, the mission is to
[14:51] say, well, how can we best have machines
[14:53] doing those tasks as quickly and well as
[14:56] possible and not betting the store all
[14:58] at once, but through a a bunch of
[15:00] discrete examples uh of using these
[15:03] systems to solve specific definable
[15:06] tasks? And how can we overindex on
[15:09] helping humans become the best possible
[15:12] humans? And if it's somewhere in
[15:13] between, thinking about that
[15:15] relationship between humans and uh and
[15:18] machines. And I I for one, I don't think
[15:21] collectively there's going to be a job
[15:24] apocalypse, but I do think there will be
[15:27] some pretty big jobs that will be
[15:30] significantly reduced in numbers. And so
[15:33] coming to your kids, what I would say is
[15:36] to really be always thinking and and
[15:38] they're lucky to have you as their
[15:40] father who is always thinking about well
[15:42] where are we heading? And so we have to
[15:45] live I I write non-fiction and I write
[15:47] science fiction. And the reason I write
[15:49] science fiction is that the world is
[15:52] changing so rapidly that in order to
[15:54] think realistically
[15:56] about what's coming, uh we have to think
[15:59] kind of like science fiction writers
[16:00] because our brains have evolved in in a
[16:04] very uh linear way, a very practical way
[16:07] which has served our survival uh for for
[16:11] basically ever. But now we need to be p
[16:14] somewhat practical but we need to really
[16:17] imagine what's coming and even if
[16:20] whatever your whatever your job is going
[16:22] from cook to janitor to CEO to author to
[16:27] futurist uh just we really need to think
[16:30] about what's coming and really
[16:33] importantly we need to think about how
[16:36] much we value everything up to this
[16:38] point. 100 years ago, the Italian
[16:40] futurists had this philosophy. Forget
[16:42] the past. This is all about the
[16:45] mechanized future. And it was not
[16:47] coincidental that Italian futurism
[16:49] morphed into fascism. We have this
[16:53] wonderful human tradition. Our cultural
[16:56] evolution over thousands of years,
[17:00] longer than thousands of uh of years is
[17:03] spectacular. uh and and the these AI
[17:06] systems aren't this isn't wisdom coming
[17:09] from Mars. This is the collection of our
[17:15] cultural inheritance of all of our
[17:17] culture. And so there's this othering of
[17:19] AI. And what we really need to do is
[17:21] invest in ourselves. And so for your
[17:23] kids, I give a lot of talks both to
[17:26] companies and to uh education leaders.
[17:29] And I say that part of the future
[17:32] involves being as literate as possible
[17:35] in technological innovation and what we
[17:38] can do and what it means. But another
[17:41] part of it is turning everything off.
[17:44] Every single person, whether you're a
[17:46] kid, an adult, a professional, has to
[17:50] have some part of your life totally
[17:52] separate from all technology where you
[17:55] are reconnecting
[17:57] with you as a human, with the people
[17:59] around you as a uh as a human. And this
[18:03] isn't some kind of old old-fashioned
[18:06] um idea. Uh, I think that there is so
[18:10] much in humans that if we allow
[18:12] ourselves to be so distracted by all of
[18:15] these technologies, we're going to
[18:18] actually become less. Not just less as
[18:20] humans, but less effective at building a
[18:24] kind of future that we'd all like to
[18:26] inhabit.
[18:27] >> Jimmy, I want to talk about your book,
[18:30] the the the AI ten commandments.
[18:32] Fascinating book. You put GPT5 on the
[18:35] cover as a co-author. I'd love you to
[18:38] take us inside the actual collaboration,
[18:40] how you wrote a book with AI would have
[18:43] this been possible with the original
[18:45] chat GPT. Tell me everything about the
[18:47] uh the process.
[18:48] >> Yeah, thank you so much for asking,
[18:50] Stephen. So, it all started in my Walden
[18:53] Pond uh in the sense that two uh summers
[18:57] ago, two years ago, I was invited to
[18:59] this magical place in upstate New York
[19:02] called the Shiitakqua Institution, which
[19:04] is like a whole city that comes to life
[19:06] for 10 weeks in the summer. And they
[19:09] have music school and theater and an
[19:12] opera. And there's a big very famous
[19:15] lecture series in their in their famous
[19:18] 6,000 person outdoor amphitheater where
[19:20] six US presidents have spoken. So two
[19:23] years ago I was invited to give the lead
[19:26] keynote speech for the summer on the
[19:28] future of AI. I did it. I got a 6,000
[19:31] person standing ovation. They invited me
[19:33] back for the next summer and they said
[19:35] speak about anything you want. And I
[19:38] just I thought a lot about it and what I
[19:40] decided was to connect my views on the
[19:43] future of AI and other technologies and
[19:45] the history of Shiakqua which is
[19:48] 150year-old institution. It started out
[19:51] as a place for Methodist Sunday school
[19:53] teachers but it grew into a center for
[19:55] religious pluralism. And so I wanted to
[19:58] give a talk on AI and spirituality.
[20:01] And I did my Walden pond. I just, you
[20:04] know, I I went to the park and I just
[20:06] really reflected without any technology
[20:10] on what I wanted to say and then I put
[20:13] my thoughts together into an outline for
[20:16] that talk and I gave the talk and the
[20:18] talk was extremely wellreceived and in
[20:20] it I talked about the the intimate
[20:22] connection between our technological
[20:25] innovations and all of our religious and
[20:28] spiritual traditions, what we call our
[20:30] our Abrahamic traditions, our world our
[20:32] world religions are all agricultural
[20:35] faiths deeply connected to agriculture.
[20:38] Protestantism is unimaginable
[20:41] separate from the the printing press. So
[20:44] we we have that is our history and it
[20:45] what I said in that talk is that it's
[20:47] inevitable that AI will have significant
[20:51] implications for our religious and and
[20:53] spiritual lives. And then the question
[20:55] is how? And I went through a lot of
[20:57] different uh examples. And then I went
[21:00] through the uh biblical ten commandments
[21:03] uh one by one as written. And and when
[21:06] you read them literally uh nobody would
[21:10] agree literally to almost all you know
[21:13] maybe eight of the of the ten
[21:16] commandments. It's like yeah you
[21:17] shouldn't murder or sure you shouldn't
[21:19] kill unless you're landing on the
[21:22] beaches in Normandy. and then you know
[21:24] kill for good reason because you're
[21:26] you're you're ending the the you're
[21:28] defeating the Nazis and ending the
[21:30] ending the Holocaust.
[21:31] it it's complicated. And so in that talk
[21:34] I talked about my process of going to
[21:38] then uh GBT4 and ask and I really
[21:41] thought a lot about this uh this prompt
[21:44] um was asking based on an assessment of
[21:49] the entirety of human recorded history
[21:51] and all of our different religious,
[21:53] spiritual, moral and ethical traditions,
[21:55] what are 10 principles that if followed
[21:58] by everyone would lead to the greatest
[22:00] amounts of peace, happiness and and
[22:02] flourishing and it gave these beautiful
[22:05] AI ten commandments based on on us not
[22:09] based on AI's independent wisdom and
[22:12] then there I had thousands of back and
[22:14] forths interrogations
[22:16] with AI with the AI saying well where's
[22:19] this coming from and we dug and it it
[22:21] was so beautiful because it was coming
[22:23] from all of our traditions and all of
[22:25] our traditions are all trying to do the
[22:27] same thing to live moral ethical lives
[22:30] to try to find a right balance balance
[22:32] between the individual and and communal
[22:34] needs. And there were but not just the
[22:38] ones that are more familiar, but also
[22:40] these more obscure uh traditions,
[22:43] indigenous traditions from Africa and
[22:45] the Americas and elsewhere and it was
[22:47] really beautiful. So I gave that talk
[22:50] and then as I was walking around the
[22:52] campus, it's mostly older people. The
[22:54] old people kind of attacked me and they
[22:56] said, "Give us the AI ten commandments.
[22:59] They are so beautiful. we want we want
[23:01] them. And uh so that was and I said, you
[23:04] know, I'm going to write a book. And so
[23:06] when I decided to write a book, I knew I
[23:09] had to write it differently because I
[23:11] was writing about in at least in this
[23:14] part with AI Ten Commandments, a
[23:16] collaboration with AI. I mean, I I have
[23:19] a PhD in history and I do a a ton of
[23:24] reading, but I don't know everything
[23:27] about every tradition in all of of the
[23:30] world. And and no human could. It's just
[23:32] it's beyond our our grasp. And so what I
[23:35] did is I went back to metaphorical
[23:37] Walden Pond and I uh put together the
[23:40] oldfashioned way a very detailed outline
[23:43] of the book on my own. And then I went
[23:45] through the outline and I said found
[23:48] specific areas where maybe there were a
[23:51] few paragraphs where I was summarizing a
[23:53] vast field of knowledge. And this is a
[23:56] real example. I had a thesis statement.
[23:58] AI has the potential to see us
[24:00] collectively kind of like we have when
[24:03] looking down from above at an ant
[24:05] colony. And so then I trained GBT4 and
[24:08] then five on my writing style by
[24:11] uploading a bunch of my favorite
[24:13] writing. And then I said I so I started
[24:16] writing the book. And when I would get
[24:17] to one of these sections where I wanted
[24:19] to have this kind of insert, I would say
[24:22] to GPT5, here's the thesis statement.
[24:26] Write me three paragraphs in my writing
[24:29] style making these five points. And it
[24:31] would give me something that would be no
[24:32] good. And then I'd say, "Not quite
[24:35] right. Make these five changes. And not
[24:37] quite right. Make these changes." So a
[24:39] bunch of back and forth. And then there
[24:40] would be something that the argument was
[24:42] pretty good, but the writing wouldn't be
[24:44] very good. And then I would take it out,
[24:46] put it into Microsoft Word. I do a full
[24:48] edit of those three paragraphs. Then I
[24:50] would put it back into GPT5 and say,
[24:53] "Well, how can how can I make these
[24:55] three paragraphs better?" And it might
[24:57] say, "You're using this word twice or
[25:00] this sentence is a runon or or
[25:02] whatever." So then there'd be a bunch of
[25:03] back and forth. And then when it was
[25:05] kind of good enough, I would put it in
[25:07] the text and I would keep going. And so
[25:09] that's how I did the first draft. Then I
[25:11] went through I cut 40% of everything
[25:15] because and then I pretty much rewrote
[25:20] the entire manuscript and that took a
[25:23] lot of time. Then I hired a phenomenal
[25:26] human editor and we did a very very deep
[25:30] frankly edits as as people who've
[25:32] written books know are very painful
[25:33] because you think well I'm almost done
[25:35] and you're not almost done and it just a
[25:38] huge edit because you know I'm I'm a
[25:41] novelist as I said I I want every word
[25:43] to count and so that was where the the
[25:47] book came from and then when I was
[25:50] deciding like the about the publishing
[25:53] I just thought, well, because of the
[25:56] nature of this collaboration, if I put
[25:59] my name alone on the cover, I feel like
[26:02] that would be fraud. If I had like a
[26:05] genius,
[26:07] probably spectrumy human who was my
[26:10] writing partner and we interacted in all
[26:12] of this way. Let's just say that this
[26:14] spectrum human had actually my my friend
[26:18] AJ Jacobs has in fact read the entire
[26:21] encyclopedia. But let's just say this
[26:23] spectrum human had read every book in
[26:26] the world. And um but if I had that kind
[26:29] of collaboration, I would of course put
[26:32] that person's name alongside mine on the
[26:34] cover of the book. So, it just felt like
[26:36] it would be fraudulent for me to to not
[26:40] put AI GB5 as my named co-author. Now
[26:44] it's I I'm actually running into some
[26:46] headwinds on this because the public has
[26:50] very rapidly in many ways turned against
[26:53] AI and people have a hard time
[26:56] differentiating what I've just described
[26:58] which I feel was very um creative and
[27:02] collaborative and additive um and
[27:05] something that I couldn't have done
[27:06] alone and the AI couldn't have done
[27:09] alone. So that way I think it's special
[27:10] and people have a hard time
[27:12] differentiating that and from your high
[27:14] school kid you know cheating on their
[27:17] essay by just printing out something
[27:19] from chat GPT. And so that's it's been a
[27:21] little bit of a challenge getting the
[27:23] word out. Everybody who reads it then
[27:25] they they get it. So that's it's been
[27:28] very interesting to navigate what nine
[27:30] months ago there was so much optimism
[27:32] and the idea of collaborating with AI on
[27:36] a book. the idea of using AI in a unique
[27:39] way to mine the entirety of human uh
[27:42] recorded history was exciting to people
[27:44] and just very very quickly the public
[27:47] mood has turned and there's so much fear
[27:49] and anxiety and I hope that this book
[27:51] can be a statement like well I'm not
[27:54] discounting your fears but let's look at
[27:56] what AI can do in you know in this area
[28:00] and in other areas
[28:02] >> having being you're you're already an
[28:04] accomplished writer and have been for
[28:06] for many many years. What advice would
[28:09] you have for someone who is riding with
[28:12] AI either themselves an accomplished
[28:14] rider or just starting off? Where is the
[28:16] line between what's right and what's
[28:19] wrong? Because you can you can obviously
[28:20] take this too far as well.
[28:22] >> Yeah.
[28:22] >> So what I would say is first start
[28:25] without AI. The first and most important
[28:28] thing is learn your voice. If you're
[28:31] collaborating with AI, if GBT5 is your
[28:33] voice, you have no voice because GBD5 is
[28:37] a and and all these AI systems are
[28:39] averagers. So, you have to know your
[28:42] voice. And I think there's a real danger
[28:45] uh for younger people now that they're
[28:47] not going to have the space to find out
[28:50] who they are intellectually, who they
[28:52] are, what their voice sounds like. uh in
[28:55] part because we have AI systems that can
[28:57] do things for us and in part because
[29:00] people have these digital systems on all
[29:03] the time that are just pinging your
[29:05] heads and just disrupting everything and
[29:08] not giving people that that space. So
[29:10] that's number number one. Number two is
[29:13] however you are using uh AI, I'm for
[29:18] radical transparency. I think people who
[29:20] are using AI and not clearly
[29:23] articulating how they are using AI in my
[29:26] view are are committing fraud. I think
[29:27] every scientific paper should now have a
[29:30] section on the bottom not necessarily
[29:33] saying I didn't use AI in any of this
[29:36] but saying here's exactly how I used um
[29:40] used AI but I have a novel coming out in
[29:43] February called Virtuosa
[29:46] which is about the intersection of AI
[29:47] robotics and classical music and in that
[29:51] novel one of the characters is a robot a
[29:54] a next next next generation robot that's
[29:57] able to do miraculous things with with
[30:00] music. And so in a novel, if I have a
[30:03] character that has that's doing
[30:05] something that I don't do, you I'll go
[30:07] if I write I'm writing about a beekeeper
[30:09] and I'm not a beekeeper, I'll go and
[30:11] I'll find some beekeepers and I'll spend
[30:13] time with them and I'll ask them about
[30:15] their lives and and maybe ask them role
[30:18] plays of what would they do in a certain
[30:21] situation. So that's what I did with
[30:24] this character. I uh I wrote up the
[30:26] character and then I entered this text
[30:29] into chat GPT saying this is background
[30:32] for your character. Now, let's do a role
[30:35] play and I'm going to ask you some
[30:38] questions and respond from the from the
[30:41] perspective of this character. And
[30:42] again, it wasn't I didn't use this for
[30:44] the novel. It was background to
[30:46] understand that character. And we had
[30:48] these wonderful conversations that that
[30:51] when the book comes out, I'm I'm going
[30:53] to post them all on my uh on my website.
[30:57] And I'm the first science fiction writer
[30:59] in all of history who when writing about
[31:01] a robot is able to have a sustained
[31:05] background conversation with a machine.
[31:08] And so I think that's pretty incredible.
[31:11] And and so that's why again I think that
[31:13] there's there's a lot of fraud that is
[31:15] happening now of people who are having
[31:18] AI do stuff and putting their name on it
[31:21] and there's a little window of time when
[31:23] you can get away with it. Uh but I think
[31:26] that the real the best use of AI is
[31:29] going to be one people using it to do
[31:32] great things. And I talked about my my
[31:35] late father's cancer. I mean that was
[31:37] AI. I don't have the ability to an
[31:39] analyze a whole human genome on my own.
[31:42] Nobody does. So we would expect doctors
[31:45] to be using and healthcare providers to
[31:47] be using AI tools to optimize outcomes.
[31:51] And so I think that's it's great, but we
[31:53] need to define what it is and what do we
[31:56] want? What's the role for humans and
[31:58] whether it's human health care providers
[32:01] or artists and other creatives or or or
[32:04] really anything. And then we need
[32:06] radical transparency. And so that was
[32:08] for me one of the reasons why I insisted
[32:10] having GBT5 as my named co-author is I'm
[32:13] a I wanted to be a pioneer in this kind
[32:18] of radical transparency.
[32:20] >> Of your 10 AI commandments, do you have
[32:23] a favorite?
[32:24] >> Oh, you know, I think probably the last
[32:26] one to live with awe, gratitude, and
[32:29] love because we are so small. uh the AI
[32:33] ten commandments. It's kind of like the
[32:35] Aremis 2 astronauts looking back on
[32:38] Earth and when they look back they just
[32:40] see this little ball of life in this
[32:42] dark empty mostly
[32:46] lifeless universe even if there is and I
[32:48] think there probably is life someplace
[32:50] else. And so there we should have like a
[32:53] level of awe of of just where we are.
[32:58] And and and I think that when we do that
[33:01] can kind of awe and love and and respect
[33:04] animate so many of the uh of the other
[33:08] things. And so um but you I to tell you
[33:11] the truth I kind of love them all. And
[33:14] every person who I have read side by
[33:17] side the as written biblical ten
[33:20] commandments and the AI ten
[33:22] commandments, I have yet to meet a
[33:25] single person who says at least when
[33:28] read literally the biblical ones make
[33:31] more sense than the AI ones. and and
[33:33] then to say, well, given that these AI
[33:36] ten commandments are drawn on from all
[33:38] of our traditions, it's kind of a a
[33:41] wonderful message that we're all part of
[33:43] this this same thing, not just the same
[33:46] humanity, but this same experiment of
[33:49] life in in, you know, 3.8 billion years
[33:52] on this planet that connects us to each
[33:55] other and and all of life. And I think
[33:57] that that perspective um is something
[34:00] that's really beautiful and inspiring.
[34:04] >> I love it. A week or so ago, Pope Leo
[34:06] released his fourth encyclical which is
[34:08] Magnifica Humanitus. Uh as I understood
[34:12] it, the premise was technology is never
[34:15] moral. It was in large part about AI. As
[34:19] I read your book, it was kind of making
[34:21] the opposite case of that. So, if you
[34:23] could sit down with Pope Leo, what's the
[34:25] one question you would want to ask him
[34:28] or the thing that you would want to tell
[34:30] him about?
[34:30] >> Yeah,
[34:31] >> it's great. And I I actually did a long
[34:34] blog post on the papal papal encyclical
[34:38] um which maybe you can can link to in
[34:40] the uh in the show notes. And I have
[34:43] spoken at the Vatican. Uh, and as a
[34:45] matter of fact, I had a I was supposed
[34:47] to meet with Pope Francis, but I had to
[34:50] fly home uh to my original home in
[34:53] Kansas City. Now I live in New York
[34:55] because my uh my then 83year-old
[34:59] mother was having her bach mitzvah. And
[35:01] so I had to choose it was between my
[35:03] mother and Pope Francis. And I I chose
[35:05] my mother. But if I would have the honor
[35:08] of sitting down with Pope Leo, what I
[35:10] would say is I really loved the
[35:12] encyclical. I really loved this
[35:15] aspiration which I fully share to say
[35:18] that these technological innovations
[35:21] must serve humanity. They must serve
[35:25] human values. And that's not going to
[35:27] happen on its own. It's going to happen
[35:30] with a level of consciousness, with a
[35:33] level of aspiration. uh because no
[35:35] technology comes with its own built-in
[35:37] value system. It's up to us to infuse
[35:41] our best values including our most
[35:43] ancient and cherished values into the
[35:46] technologies that we are creating. But I
[35:49] had a couple of critiques uh of that in
[35:53] the in spite of my extreme praise and
[35:56] that was I felt like there wasn't that
[35:58] much in the encyclical about the
[36:02] incredible positive story of AI and and
[36:05] related technologies about what it can
[36:09] do to in health care and making our
[36:12] agriculture more uh more efficient and
[36:15] productive so we can feed more people
[36:18] better uh with fewer inputs of land and
[36:22] energy and and fertilizer and other
[36:25] things and not to mention uh the
[36:27] terrible risk and and the terrible cost
[36:29] in suffering and pandemic threat and
[36:32] antibiotic resistance of industrial
[36:35] animal agriculture. So that was my my
[36:38] biggest thing was to say let's it's
[36:43] great to focus on the dangers and the
[36:45] values and I certainly agree with both
[36:47] but it felt a little bit unbalanced that
[36:51] it didn't say how exciting these are and
[36:55] that it is in my view and and I think
[36:57] even in the church's view it's it's all
[37:00] of our responsibility like if we had
[37:02] health care providers who were slowing
[37:05] down in treating cancer
[37:07] because AI happened to be a technology
[37:10] that was facilitating cancer care. I
[37:13] would see that as a harm. At the same
[37:16] time, you mentioned in your introduction
[37:18] of me that I was a member of the World
[37:20] Health Organization expert advisory
[37:22] committee on human genome editing. As a
[37:24] matter of fact, I was invited to the
[37:26] Vatican to talk about that and was
[37:28] invited to to uh write a a paper for the
[37:33] Pontipical Council of Culture which they
[37:35] which they published. And so that human
[37:38] genome editing was made possible through
[37:41] these revolutionary tools. And although
[37:44] it is my strong view that we will have
[37:48] genome edited human embryos that will
[37:50] become humans in the future and we will
[37:53] want to have it and it will be highly
[37:55] moral and ethical to do it. Particularly
[37:58] if we can change a 2-year life of
[38:01] somebody born with a terrible deadly
[38:03] genetic disorder into a 90 or 100year
[38:08] fully realized life of somebody who the
[38:10] same person who just doesn't have that
[38:13] that single harmful harmful mutation.
[38:19] But our conclusion of our committee was
[38:22] we're not ready for it now. And so that
[38:24] what happened in China in 2018 and 2019
[38:27] in my view was Nermberg style human
[38:30] experimentation and I'm against that.
[38:32] And so that's why I think there's this
[38:33] danger to feel like the question being
[38:36] asked is technology yes or no. And I
[38:40] think that's really the wrong question.
[38:41] The the question is technology how best?
[38:44] And we have different perspectives. The
[38:46] church is coming from one perspective.
[38:48] I'm not a Catholic. I'm a I'm like many
[38:51] others in in New York City. I'm a Jewish
[38:54] atheist with Buddhist leanings. And so,
[38:57] you know, I I you know, do I think that
[39:00] the very traditional dictates of
[39:03] Catholicism
[39:04] um are are going to be our our core
[39:08] guiding principles? No, I I do not. But
[39:10] do I think that there are values not
[39:13] just of the Catholic tradition but of
[39:15] all traditions that can contribute to
[39:19] letting our ethics guide our journey in
[39:21] into this very radical future? I think
[39:24] it's it's very important and that many
[39:26] traditions have that and many like the
[39:28] Catholic Church. I thought it was great
[39:30] that the pope um used this opportunity
[39:33] to sneak in an apology for the Catholic
[39:36] Church condoning slavery and
[39:39] colonialism. It was just a paragraph. It
[39:41] didn't have to be there, but it was
[39:43] clear that Pope Leo wanted to find a way
[39:46] to say that. And so I thought that was
[39:48] that was very positive. But I think that
[39:50] it's the important thing is balancing
[39:52] it. It's not if a mean this is rational
[39:55] optimism. It's not blind optimism. Blind
[39:58] optimism can actually be quite dangerous
[40:02] and blind pessimism, overwhelming
[40:04] pessimism in my in my view can be quite
[40:07] dangerous. But rational optimism,
[40:10] measured optimism, thoughtful optimism,
[40:13] I think that's what's required. And I do
[40:15] I do think actually that this encyclical
[40:17] was very very different uh from the the
[40:21] um Catholic Church treatment of
[40:23] Capernacus or Galileo or frankly even of
[40:26] stem cell research which I think the the
[40:29] Catholic Church is is getting wrong and
[40:31] I've been very public including at the
[40:33] Vatican saying that. Um, but I think
[40:36] it's very positive and I hope that it
[40:38] inspires people from other traditions
[40:41] and other backgrounds and other
[40:43] organizations to start putting out their
[40:45] principles. I thought that the the
[40:47] anthropic AI constitution was helpful.
[40:51] None of these things single-handedly are
[40:53] going to be transformative, but
[40:54] collectively I think they can be very uh
[40:57] constructive and and additive. You have
[40:59] a PhD in history. You also mentioned
[41:02] there's the seed of a panic around AI
[41:05] right now. There's a certain backlash
[41:07] against the building of data centers,
[41:09] what AI will do uh to jobs, all that
[41:12] stuff. As you think back through your
[41:14] knowledge of history, do you have a a
[41:18] favorite or a a panic from throughout
[41:20] history that most reminds you of what's
[41:23] happening with AI right now? You know,
[41:25] there is always a panic at every
[41:29] transition. I'm sure that there was a
[41:32] panic a million years ago when people
[41:34] started to control fire. I'm sure there
[41:36] was a panic uh 12,000 years ago with
[41:40] agriculture when life lives and and
[41:42] lifestyles
[41:44] started to change. Obviously, we're
[41:46] familiar with the with the lites uh with
[41:50] with industrialization. I don't know if
[41:52] I have a favorite, but I do think that
[41:55] all of these fears are actually founded
[41:59] that, you know, the people who were
[42:01] worried about giving up their hunter
[42:03] gathering nomadic lifestyles. I think
[42:06] that was a legitimate concern actually
[42:08] in for many thousands of years in
[42:11] agriculture. the people who were doing
[42:13] agriculture were were less healthy in
[42:16] many many ways than their hunter
[42:19] gatherer nomadic uh nomadic
[42:22] counterparts. There were a lot of people
[42:24] who were harmed by industrialization.
[42:28] But when we look back actually
[42:30] industrialization was really great. It's
[42:33] not coincidental that industrialization
[42:36] rose and slavery ended at roughly the
[42:40] same time because humans we had a lot of
[42:42] stuff that we wanted done and it
[42:45] required power and whether that was
[42:47] human power or animal power or machine
[42:50] power we still needed the power. So all
[42:54] of these these changes come with with
[42:58] upsides and downsides. you you mentioned
[43:00] in both super convergence and your new
[43:03] book the AI ten commandments how I how
[43:06] AI can help us do all these amazing
[43:08] things the AI opportunities if you will
[43:11] is there one specific breakthrough in
[43:14] healthcare in medicine in education that
[43:16] makes you really stand up and say wow
[43:19] that's going to it's going to change the
[43:20] world over the next 5 to 10 years yes so
[43:24] in every one of those areas but probably
[43:26] the one that I'm most excited about is
[43:29] education. Uh you and I, Stephen, have
[43:32] great educations. We come from places
[43:34] where there's a a lot of opportunity,
[43:36] but there's a whole lot of people who
[43:39] don't have great educations, who are in
[43:41] places where there isn't a lot of of
[43:43] opportunity. And that doesn't just suck
[43:46] for them. It sucks for us because we are
[43:49] beneficiaries of this cultural
[43:53] inheritance, this scientific
[43:55] inheritance, which is an inheritance of
[43:57] humanity. You and I are speaking now in
[44:00] English a language which we didn't
[44:03] invent but we have this wonderful
[44:05] language and has all these words that
[44:06] help us form our thoughts into these
[44:09] sharable forms. And so if and young
[44:13] people around the world now through
[44:16] smartphones which many many people have
[44:19] uh can access AI tutors along hopefully
[44:23] alongside wise human tutors and wise
[44:25] human elders who are helping guide and
[44:28] and instill values and morals and and
[44:31] ethics. I think we're going to unlock
[44:34] such amazing human potential that is
[44:38] going to benefit everybody and that so I
[44:42] just couldn't be more excited. And so
[44:44] for me the most exciting applications of
[44:48] all of these technologies are about
[44:51] helping the world's most vulnerable
[44:53] people. And so yes, I'm excited about
[44:55] the future of oncology. And yes, we're
[44:58] already making incredible innovations
[45:01] now with pancreatic cancer for example
[45:03] that people thought well that was a long
[45:05] a long way off. Alphafold is now in
[45:09] pretty much every country in the world.
[45:12] At last record there were something like
[45:14] two million labs had used it to advance
[45:18] their research. And that's incredibly
[45:19] exciting. But what I'm most excited
[45:21] about is all of these people in all of
[45:24] these poor places and slums and and
[45:28] remote poor agricultural communities.
[45:31] How many Einsteins and Mozarts and
[45:34] Beethovens are in those places? And so I
[45:38] think to unlock that that human
[45:40] potential
[45:41] >> is just an unbelievable gift not just to
[45:44] them but to all of us. I think these
[45:45] technologies if we work in that
[45:49] direction can can help make that happen.
[45:51] >> Jimmy, this has been a truly fascinating
[45:54] conversation. What I'd like to do is
[45:55] close the podcast with a quick lightning
[45:58] round, a game of overrated and
[46:00] underrated. So, what I'm going to do is
[46:02] I'm going to name 10 things that kind of
[46:05] fall within your wheelhouse and you can
[46:07] respond to each one of them. Overrated
[46:09] or underrated. Great.
[46:10] >> What for you?
[46:11] >> Uh, let's let's roll them.
[46:12] >> Okay. First one, AI agents
[46:16] underrated. It's going to be such an
[46:18] exciting thing. We're just at the
[46:20] beginning of what AI systems can do and
[46:22] people are talking about making hotel
[46:25] reservations, but there's so much that
[46:27] can happen in scientific research and
[46:29] and so many other areas. There will be
[46:31] downsides. Bad things will happen along
[46:33] the way, but I think they're underrated
[46:35] because I'm really excited about them.
[46:38] >> China's AI capabilities.
[46:40] >> I think it's underrated. I mean, China
[46:42] is really focused. Uh they've put a lot
[46:45] of energy into AI. They have a really
[46:48] smart smart people.
[46:51] They are not yet. China isn't yet at the
[46:54] level uh certainly of of the United
[46:56] States, but it's catching up pretty
[46:59] quickly and it's focused on on catching
[47:02] up. So, I think still underrated.
[47:04] >> In the same vein, open- source models.
[47:07] >> I think underrated. I mean, that's the
[47:09] big gamble. China is using the same
[47:13] strategy that Google used with Android
[47:17] to break the Apple monopoly. So they
[47:20] thought, well, we're not going to win
[47:21] the foundation model race, but we're
[47:23] going to use an open- source model. And
[47:26] frankly, they they were beneficiaries
[47:28] when Meta was also losing AI. They said,
[47:32] "We're going to go open source." So the
[47:34] second place person always goes open
[47:36] source. Uh and there's a a lot of
[47:39] opportunity. I I still believe in
[47:40] foundation models. I think, you know,
[47:42] our great companies are doing amazing
[47:45] things. Uh and I'm not saying that the
[47:47] future belongs to to open source. You
[47:51] know, people, you know, Apple did pretty
[47:53] well by creating a walled garden uh
[47:57] ecosystem. Um but I think there's a a
[48:00] long runway for open source
[48:03] >> human genetic enhancement.
[48:06] I think it again I this is this optimism
[48:09] I think it's underrated. No, I think
[48:10] it's underrated in the sense you people
[48:13] believe now that we're capable. People's
[48:16] like oh you should engineer your your
[48:19] kids to play chess or it's really
[48:22] complicated. We are at the very very
[48:24] early stages of this. We understand such
[48:28] a tiny fraction of the full complexity
[48:30] of human biology. And so um but this is
[48:34] a a fundamental technology. We're going
[48:38] to use it more and more in animal
[48:39] agriculture and plant agriculture and
[48:41] that's already happening. Multipplex
[48:44] edits will allow us to do more changes
[48:47] at once. Um, but our ignorance, our
[48:50] relative ignorance of what of genetics
[48:53] make it so that if we're doing a lot of
[48:55] changes, even if we correctly identify
[48:58] that making these changes in a human
[49:01] will lead toward these outcomes, we
[49:03] don't know nearly enough about what the
[49:06] potential downside risks because it's
[49:08] not like one gene is doing one thing.
[49:10] Uh, our bodies are very very complex and
[49:13] interactive and we we we don't know what
[49:15] we don't know, but we know that it's a
[49:17] lot. So I think that people are
[49:19] overestimating what's possible now. Uh
[49:22] but at this rate of innovation, I think
[49:24] exciting things will happen in in the
[49:26] future. But I but I do think that when
[49:29] when engineers and computer science
[49:32] people talk about engineering biology,
[49:35] they're thinking think thinking of it
[49:37] like an engineering task. But those of
[49:39] us who are enscconced in the biology
[49:41] world know just how complicated biology
[49:44] is and how how little we know. So, I
[49:47] think it's it's going to be slower than
[49:49] people anticipate, but I think
[49:51] fundamentally transformative over time.
[49:54] >> A Matt Ridley favorite of Amara's law on
[49:56] that one. Maybe
[49:57] >> Amara's law is you you overestimate the
[49:59] short term and underestimate long term.
[50:01] Yeah. Uh number five, humanoids.
[50:04] Humanoid robots.
[50:06] >> You know, I think um I seem to have just
[50:08] the same answer. So, I think humanoid
[50:10] robots are realistic. Humanoid robots
[50:13] are a bit far away, farther away than
[50:16] people seem uh people believe. But I
[50:19] think we're going to have huge advances.
[50:21] And my I mentioned my new novel Virtuosa
[50:24] is all about this and and it's what it
[50:26] feels like for humans when they
[50:28] experience a humanoid robot that doesn't
[50:30] look like a human, but it's a humanoid
[50:32] robot that can do magical things with
[50:34] classical music that is emotionally
[50:36] resonant for humans. And I do think I do
[50:39] believe that we are going to have AI
[50:42] systems that can write their own code,
[50:44] which is the case in my novel, that can
[50:46] imagine goals and work toward creating
[50:50] them. So I I I I think we're going to
[50:52] have humanoid robots. They probably
[50:54] aren't going to look like humans. I
[50:55] mean, we I have an amazing uh robot in
[50:58] my house. After dinner, I put my dishes
[51:00] inside of this robot and add soap and
[51:04] press a button. And so we we may have a
[51:06] bunch of um of robots that are
[51:10] structured for specific tasks, but we
[51:14] live in a world that is organized around
[51:16] our form. And so there there will be
[51:18] cases where we want to have humanoid
[51:20] robots. And I'll just say this as for
[51:23] anybody who's uh who's listened all the
[51:25] way in this in this podcast. Yeah. I I
[51:28] think we're going to have sex robots. I
[51:30] mean, we're going to have robots doing
[51:32] things that humans want, and that's
[51:36] going to be crazy in the beginning and
[51:38] normalized over time, like IVF and kind
[51:42] of everything else that we're scared of
[51:43] and then becomes normal.
[51:45] >> I'm going to end with two, Jamie. Yes.
[51:47] First one, data centers in space,
[51:51] >> you know, that I I don't I don't feel
[51:53] like I know enough to fully make a bet.
[51:56] I like the idea and there are good
[51:59] reasons to put data centers in space. It
[52:01] solves certainly one of the big problems
[52:04] of cooling and we can get a lot of data
[52:08] back and forth on on satellites. So in
[52:11] principle I'm excited about it. Um but
[52:15] it's one of those things where it's
[52:18] going to be harder. I mean when you're
[52:20] writing science fiction you can just
[52:22] imagine it's there. But when you're
[52:24] building the thing at scale and it needs
[52:27] to be cost effective that that's
[52:30] actually a big task. But I I think it it
[52:33] could work and ought to work and maybe
[52:34] not for everything but for certain tasks
[52:37] and I think it it will be positive.
[52:40] >> Last one which is very relevant to you
[52:43] writing books in the age of AI so
[52:47] important and so hard. I mean, I, as I
[52:50] said before, being a human, doing core
[52:55] human stuff is going to be more
[52:58] important than ever before. And our
[53:00] greatest artists who touch the core of
[53:03] their humanity and our humanity will be
[53:07] more important than ever before. And I
[53:09] think societies are going to have to
[53:11] really invest in making space for human
[53:15] artists being humans. We also need to
[53:18] make a space for human creators
[53:20] collaborating with technologies in new
[53:23] and innovative ways that will will blow
[53:25] our mind. But we really the the human
[53:28] artist, the human soul, human
[53:30] imagination, human uh creativity is so
[53:35] important in and of itself and for
[53:38] building the best possible future and
[53:42] for actually having technology that
[53:44] serves human needs. Jamie Medsel, thank
[53:47] you so much for taking the time to sit
[53:49] down with us. I want to give you a
[53:50] chance to tell everyone where they can
[53:52] find out more about your book, where
[53:53] they can buy the book, where they can
[53:55] follow all your work.
[53:56] >> Oh, thank you so much. Uh, so the
[53:58] easiest way to get everything is through
[53:59] my website, jammetzel.com.
[54:02] jamm.com.
[54:06] Don't put a second e in my last name.
[54:08] People have been trying it for years and
[54:10] it's wrong. Uh, and you can get the
[54:12] book. I mean, there's there's links on
[54:14] that site. You can get the books on on
[54:15] really anywhere, Amazon, your um your
[54:18] local bookstore. I have a newsletter, so
[54:20] if you go to my site, you can sign up
[54:22] for my free newsletter, and I'm happy to
[54:25] share my thoughts, such as they are,
[54:27] with with anyone who signs up.
[54:30] >> Jamie, thanks so much for your time, and
[54:31] I hope we can do it again soon.
[54:33] >> Thank you so much, Stephen. It's really
[54:34] been a pleasure.