AGI Is BS | Jamie Metzl's AI Prediction

[00:00] concept of AGI is a bunch of baloney.

[00:02] Humans are this magical species with all

[00:05] of these skills and capabilities that we

[00:07] don't fully understand ourselves.

[00:09] >> Jamie and Matel, thank you so much for

[00:11] joining us.

[00:11] >> I think we're going to have sex robots,

[00:14] robots doing things that humans want and

[00:17] that's going to be crazy in the

[00:19] beginning and normalized over time. I

[00:22] think people who are using AI and not

[00:24] clearly articulating how they are using

[00:26] AI are committing fraud. 100 years ago,

[00:28] the Italian futurists had this

[00:30] philosophy, forget the past. And it was

[00:33] not coincidental that Italian futurism

[00:36] morphed into fascism. The future is

[00:39] going to be wonderful. It's going to

[00:40] create all this prosperity. There's

[00:42] sometimes a J curve, if you will. Things

[00:44] go wrong for a couple of years. That

[00:45] could be a really big problem. How do we

[00:47] get past a potential dip?

[00:49] >> We don't have the option of turning this

[00:51] off. If we did, it would be a terrible

[00:54] idea. We need to make sure that this

[00:56] transition is happening with everybody

[00:58] but not to everybody.

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[01:20] Technology today. So please enjoy this

[01:22] conversation with futurist founder and

[01:24] author Jamie Metsel.

[01:27] My guest today has spent 25 years where

[01:30] biology, geopolitics, and AI all

[01:33] intersect. Drafting policy at the

[01:36] Clinton White House, sitting on the

[01:37] WHO's committee on human genome editing,

[01:40] and writing books that defined how we

[01:43] talk about hacking our own DNA. He

[01:46] recently did something that nobody has

[01:48] done before. He published the first

[01:51] major non-fiction book to credit AI as a

[01:54] co-author, the AI ten commandments.

[01:57] Jamie Metsel, welcome to the Rational

[01:59] Optimist podcast. Thank you so much for

[02:01] joining us.

[02:02] >> Thank you so much, Stephen. It's really

[02:04] a pleasure and honor to be with you.

[02:05] >> Jamie, before we get to your book, I

[02:07] want to talk about you on this show.

[02:10] We're obsessed about how people get so

[02:13] much done, how people do these amazing

[02:15] feats of accomplishment. Uh, I think I

[02:18] believe you've done 60 marathons, a

[02:20] dozen iron mans, 40 odd ultramarathons.

[02:22] You have a PhD, you've written six

[02:25] books. How the hell did you get so much

[02:27] done? Seven books. How How the hell did

[02:28] you get so much done?

[02:30] >> Well, I could give you a long answer

[02:33] that would talk about efficiency and

[02:37] focus and really thinking about what you

[02:40] want to do before you get rolling uh

[02:42] doing it. Um, but that would all be

[02:44] wrong because I'm 57 years old and I

[02:49] think 50% of it uh is that I don't have

[02:51] any kids. And when I look at people who

[02:55] have kids, which is a magnificent thing

[02:57] to do, that seems to take so much time.

[03:00] I'm blown away by how people raise one

[03:03] kid, let alone two kids. And I've I've

[03:06] heard um that you have to feed them

[03:08] every single day without fail. Jenny, if

[03:12] my career goes horribly wrong, I'm going

[03:14] to blame it on my three kids.

[03:16] >> Yeah, 100%. You should tell them every

[03:19] single day. Do you know what I've

[03:21] sacrificed for you? But, you know, I

[03:24] think that you're every one of those

[03:26] kids is like writing a hundred books.

[03:29] Uh, every one of the kids that you're

[03:31] putting your ideas and your love and

[03:33] your care. Uh, it's really fantastic.

[03:36] And and congratulations to you for

[03:38] having three kids. I'm sure they're

[03:40] great kids and I am hoping that they are

[03:43] wild and crazy optimists on the

[03:47] realistic side of optimism. Um, look,

[03:49] this show is called the rational

[03:51] optimist. I I read your book. I thought

[03:54] it was fascinating. Obviously, AI is the

[03:56] biggest thing in the world happening

[03:58] right now. I want you to set the table

[04:01] for us. What does earned cleareyed

[04:03] optimism, cleareyed rational optimism

[04:06] about AI actually look like for you? On

[04:09] one hand, we need to imagine all of the

[04:13] areas where AI and the related supercon

[04:15] converging uh using the title of my book

[04:18] technologies can can lead us. And in

[04:20] that book, I talk about the really

[04:23] exciting future of healthcare,

[04:25] agriculture, energy, advanced materials,

[04:28] data storage. And it's really exciting.

[04:30] my own father after my late father after

[04:33] his cancer diagnosis, I kind of took

[04:36] over working with his oncologist and we

[04:38] had a a very unconventional

[04:41] treatment uh plan based on the

[04:43] principles that I was writing about at

[04:45] the time in in the book and he had a

[04:48] one-year life expectancy and we extended

[04:50] it to three and we filled that time with

[04:52] love and joy and meaning and happiness

[04:55] and I had a big feature in AARP magazine

[04:59] uh on this and an action plan for what

[05:01] everybody can do. So, we should be

[05:03] really excited and I think a lot of

[05:06] people now because there's been this

[05:07] quick turn against emotional turn

[05:10] against AI, I think people are are many

[05:13] people are are losing their connection

[05:15] to the idea, the possibility, the wonder

[05:18] of what these technologies can do. But

[05:22] at the same time, if we are just blinded

[05:24] optimism optimists, that's actually

[05:27] going to be quite dangerous. There's a

[05:29] reason why we have fear and anxiety and

[05:33] why evolution has preserved those very

[05:37] human emotions. If those were just

[05:39] wasted emotions, probably they would

[05:41] have been selected out over the course

[05:43] of billions of years. But our fears and

[05:45] our anxieties are our way of telling

[05:49] ourselves that actually if we don't take

[05:52] the right steps, if we don't do

[05:53] everything we can to optimize potential

[05:55] benefits and minimize potential harms,

[05:58] then our worst fears can be realized.

[06:00] The AI revolution could do a lot of

[06:03] harm. Whether that's in warfare or

[06:05] employment or in dehumanization

[06:09] or deskkillification of of humans, there

[06:12] are a lot of very dangerous downsides.

[06:14] And so being an optimism, an optimist

[06:17] and a a rational optimist, it requires

[06:20] imagining what's the best case scenario.

[06:23] And it requires imagining what's the

[06:26] worstc case scenario. And it imagines

[06:28] everybody on every level, whether it's

[06:30] the individual level or family level or

[06:32] corporate level, national,

[06:34] international, whatever, coming up with

[06:36] a a plan, a set of principles for here's

[06:39] how I'm going to optimize the stuff I

[06:41] want, and here's how I'm going to work

[06:43] to minimize and hopefully prevent most

[06:46] of the things that I that I don't want

[06:48] to see. And no one alone can win this

[06:51] battle, but together, what we can do is

[06:54] drive toward a better world. And if you

[06:56] if people doubt that, you can just look

[06:58] at our whole history. We've had massive

[07:01] downs and we've had huge abuses that

[07:03] have come very significantly connected

[07:06] to to technological innovations. But if

[07:09] you follow the Matt Ridley principle or

[07:12] the Steven Pinker principle and you look

[07:15] at things from a broader perspective,

[07:18] you can see that things are are getting

[07:20] better over time. But that doesn't mean

[07:23] there are big dips. The black plague was

[07:26] a big dip. World War II was a big dip.

[07:30] And so those big dips, even if things

[07:31] are getting better, they're not going to

[07:33] get better on their own. It's that's the

[07:35] hard work of being a rational, committed

[07:38] optimist.

[07:39] >> I've talked to people like you and I

[07:41] that are rational optimists about AI and

[07:43] they say, "Hey, the future's going to be

[07:46] wonderful. It's going to create all this

[07:47] prosperity, all these jobs." But there's

[07:49] a, as you said, there's there's

[07:51] sometimes a dip, a J curve, if you will,

[07:53] that things go wrong for a couple of

[07:55] years, and it seems like in this day and

[07:57] age, things going wrong for one or two

[08:00] or five years or 10 years, that could be

[08:02] a really, really big problem. So, how in

[08:05] your view do we do we mitigate that?

[08:07] Future could be awesome. It's going to

[08:08] create all this amazing stuff, but how

[08:10] do we how do we get past a potential

[08:12] dip? Yeah, I think it's a very very

[08:15] important question because there's the

[08:16] dip in the sense that we are going to

[08:19] have significant changes in employment

[08:21] with this uh this technological

[08:24] quantum leap as we have had in other

[08:27] technological quantum leaps. All of our

[08:29] ancestors were hunter gatherers and then

[08:32] more and more of them became farmers and

[08:34] then people left the farms uh through

[08:36] industrialization and did all of these

[08:38] other jobs. Uh but those things have

[08:41] happened very gradually. Uh this change

[08:44] is happening very quickly. I was just

[08:46] the other day speaking with a very close

[08:48] friend of mine who's a real estate

[08:50] developer and he has about 50,000 uh

[08:53] apartments. He owns the buildings and

[08:55] and rents them out. And he was he was

[08:57] saying that that this is going to mean

[08:59] that he just needs a smaller headcount.

[09:02] And exactly as you said, there will be

[09:06] other entire industries that we can't

[09:09] even imagine. I mean, you and I are

[09:10] having this conversation remotely as a

[09:14] result of magnificent technological

[09:17] revolutions that made nobody 20 years

[09:21] ago would have imagined podcasting as a

[09:23] thing, let alone remote video uh

[09:27] podcasting. And so there'll be whole

[09:29] other um industries and and we can begin

[09:33] imagining them and I do actually about

[09:35] uh world building. I I'm also a novelist

[09:38] and I just think that the the one of the

[09:40] next generations of novels will be kind

[09:44] of like video games where you'll have

[09:46] maybe great novelists and everybody gets

[09:48] one character and you build out a whole

[09:51] backstory and a set of responses and

[09:54] just the character uh of your the

[09:57] 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.