Joe Rogan Experience #1211 - Dr. Ben Goertzel

1. 0:06 – 2:38

   AI optimism vs fear, and why “artificial intelligence” is a misleading term

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Boom. Hello, Ben.

   2. BGDr. Ben Goertzel0:08

      Hey, there.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:09

      Good to see you, man.

   4. BGDr. Ben Goertzel0:10

      Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:11

      Thanks for doing this.

   6. BGDr. Ben Goertzel0:13

      Yeah, yeah. Thank, thank, thanks for having me. I've been, I've been looking at, at some of your shows in, in the last few... last few days, just to, to get a sense of how you're thinking about AI and-

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      Th-

   8. BGDr. Ben Goertzel0:24

      ... crypto and the various other things I- I'm involved in, and it, it's been interesting.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:28

      Well, I've been following you as well. I've been, uh, paying attention to a lot of your lectures and talks and different things you've done over the last couple of days as well, getting ready for this. It's, uh, AI is, uh, either people are really excited about it or they're really terrified of it. Those are the sort of... It seems to be the two responses. Either people have this dismal view of these robots taking over the world, or they think it's going to be some amazing sort of symbiotic relationship with that we have with these things that's gonna evolve human beings past the, the monkey stage that we're at right now.

   10. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:00

       Yeah. And I, I, I tend to be on the latter, more positive side-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       Good.

   12. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:05

       ... of, of, of this dichotomy. But, I, I think one thing that has struck me in recent years is many people are now, you know, mentally confronting all the issues surrounding AI for the first time. And I, I mean, I've been working on AI for three decades, and I first started thinking about AI when I was a little kid in the early, late 60s and early 70s when I saw AIs and robots on the original Star Trek. So, I guess I've had a lot of cycles to process the positives and, and negatives of it. Whereas now, like suddenly mo- most of the world is thinking through all this for the first, for the first time. And, you know, when you first wrap your brain around the idea that there may be creatures 10,000 or a million times smarter than, than human beings, at first this is a bit of a shocker, right?

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:58

       Yeah.

   14. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:58

       And, and then, I mean, it takes a while to internalize this into your world view.

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:02

       Well, it's... That there's also, I think, there's a problem with the term artificial intelligence, 'cause it's, it's, it's intelligent. It's there. It's a real thing.

   16. BGDr. Ben Goertzel2:13

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan2:13

       Like, it's not artificial. It's not like a fake diamond or a fake Ferrari. It's a real thing. And it, it's very-

   18. BGDr. Ben Goertzel2:20

       It's not a great term, and-

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:21

       Right.

   20. BGDr. Ben Goertzel2:21

       ... there's been many attempts to replace it with synthetic intelligence for, for example.

   21. JRJoe Rogan2:28

       Hmm. Right.

   22. BGDr. Ben Goertzel2:28

       But for better or worse, like, AI is there. It's part of the-

   23. JRJoe Rogan2:32

       Yeah.

   24. BGDr. Ben Goertzel2:32

       ... popular imagination. It seems... It's an imperfect word, but it's, it's not going away.

2. 2:38 – 4:52

   Is AI a new lifeform? Patternism and intelligence beyond biology

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:38

      Well, I, I... My question is, like, are we married to this idea of intelligence and of life being biological, being carbon-based tissue and cells and blood and... Or, or insects, or mammals, or fish? Are, are we married to that too much? Do you think that it's entirely possible that what human beings are doing and what people that are at the, the tip of AI right now that are really pushing the technology, what they're doing is really creating a new life form? That it's, it's going to be a new thing, that just the same way we recognize wasps and buffalos-

   2. BGDr. Ben Goertzel3:14

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:15

      ... and artificial intelligence is just gonna be a life form that emerges from the creativity and ingenuity of human beings?

   4. BGDr. Ben Goertzel3:20

      Well, in-in-deed. So, I mean, I've long been, uh, an advocate of a philosophy I think of as, as patternism. Like, it's the pattern of organization that appears to be the, the critical thing, and the min- ... The... You know, the individual cells, and going down further, like the molecules and particles in our body are, are turning over all the time. So it's not-

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:44

      Hmm.

   6. BGDr. Ben Goertzel3:44

      ... the specific combination of elementary particles which makes me who I am or makes you who you are. It's the pattern by which they're organized and the patterns by which they change over time. So it... I mean, if we can create digital systems or quantum computers or femto computers or whatever it is manifesting the patterns of organization that constitute intelligence, I mean, then, then there you are. There, there, there is intelligence, right? So that, that's not to say that, you know, consciousness and experience is just about patterns of organization. There may be more dimensions to it. But when, when you look at what constitutes intelligence, thinking, cognition, problem-solving, you know, it's the pattern of organization, not, not the specific material as, as, as far as we can tell. So, we can see no reason, based on all the science that we know so far, that you couldn't make an intelligent system out of some other form of matter rather than the, the specific types of atoms and molecules that, that, that make up human beings, and it seems that we're, we're well on the way to being able to do so.

3. 4:52 – 9:17

   Complex systems, ant colonies, and radically alien intelligences (Solaris)

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:52

      When you study intel- ... Uh, when you study intelligence, you're studying artificial intelligence, do... Did you spend any time, uh, studying the patterns that insects seem to cooperatively, uh, behave with, like, uh, how leaf-cutter ants build these elaborate structures underground and, you know, wasps build these giant colonies? And... Did you study how-

   2. BGDr. Ben Goertzel5:14

      I did. Actually, yes. So I, I, I sort of grew up with the philosophy of complex systems, which was championed by the, by the Santa Fe Institute in, in, in the 1980s. And the whole concept that there is an interdisciplinary complex system science which includes, you know, biology, cosmology, psychology, sociology. There's sort of universal patterns of, of self-organization. And, you know, ants and ant colonies ha- have long been a paradigm case for that. And I, I, I, I u-... I used to play with the ant colonies in my backyard wh- when I, when I was a kid, and you'd lay down food in certain patterns. You'd see how the ants are laying down pheromones and the colonies are, are organizing it in a, in a certain way. And that's an interesting selforganizing complex system.... on its own. It's lacking some types of adaptive intelligence that, that human minds and human societies have, but, but it has also interesting self-organizing patterns. This reminds me of the, the novel Solaris by Stanisław Lem, which was published in, in, in, in, in the '60s, which was really qui- quite, quite a deep novel, much deeper than the, the movie that was made of it. Did, did you ever read that book, Solaris?

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:33

      No.

   4. BGDr. Ben Goertzel6:33

      So what-

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:34

      No. I'm not familiar with the movie either. Who, who's in the movie?

   6. BGDr. Ben Goertzel6:36

      Um, well, so there was an amazing, brilliant movie by Tarkovsky, the Russian director from the late '60s. Then there was a, a movie by Steven Soderbergh, which was sort of glammed up and Americanized and-

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:47

      Oh, that was fairly recent, right? Yeah.

   8. BGDr. Ben Goertzel6:48

      Yeah, 10 years ago.

   9. JRJoe Rogan6:49

      Yeah.

   10. BGDr. Ben Goertzel6:49

       But that, that, that, that wasn't ... didn't get all the deep points of the novel. The original novel, in essence, there's this i- ... there's this ocean on- coating the surface of some alien planet, which has amazingly complex fractal patterns of organization, and it's also interactive. Like, the patterns of organization on the ocean respond based on, on what you do, and when people get near the ocean, it causes them to hallucinate things, and even causes them to see simulacra of people from their past, even the, like, the person who they had most harmed or injured in their past-

   11. JRJoe Rogan7:24

       Oh.

   12. BGDr. Ben Goertzel7:24

       ... appears and interacts with them. So clearly, this ocean has some type of amazing complexity and intelligence from the patterns it displays and from the weird things it wreaks in your mind, so that the people on Earth try to understand how the ocean is thinking. They send a scientific expedition there to, to in- interact with that ocean, but it's just so alien. Even though it monkeys with people's minds and clearly is doing complex things, no two-way communication is ever, is ever established. And eventually, the, the human expedition gives up and goes home, so it, it's a very Russian ending to the novel, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, I guess. It's not ... so-

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:08

       I think I saw that.

   14. BGDr. Ben Goertzel8:09

       But the, the, the interest-

   15. JRJoe Rogan8:13

       Show me.

   16. BGDr. Ben Goertzel8:13

       The interesting message there is, I mean, there can be many, many kinds of intelligence, right? I mean, human intelligence is one thing. The intelligence of an ant colony is a different thing. The intelligence of human society is a different thing. Ecosystem-

   17. JRJoe Rogan8:29

       Yeah.

   18. BGDr. Ben Goertzel8:29

       ... is a different thing. And there could be many, many types of AIs that we could build with many, many different properties. Some could be wonderful to human beings. Some could be horrible to human beings. Some could just be alien minds that, that we can't even relate, relate, relate to very, very well. So we, we have a very limited conception of what an intelligence is if we t- just think by close analogy to, to human minds. And this, this is important if you're thinking about engineering or growing artificial life forms or artificial minds, 'cause it, it's not just, "Can we do this?" It's, "What kind of mind are, are, are, are we going to engineer or evolve?"

   19. JRJoe Rogan9:14

       Right.

   20. BGDr. Ben Goertzel9:14

       And there's a, there's a huge spectrum of possibilities.

4. 9:17 – 16:17

   Human irrelevance, emotions, and the inevitability of superhuman AGI

   1. JRJoe Rogan9:17

      Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I asked you ... uh, if y- we had created, if human beings had created some sort of an insect, and this insect started organizing and developing these complex colonies like a leaf-cutter ant and building these structures underground, people would go crazy. They would panic. They would think, "These things are organizing. They're gonna, they're gonna build up the resources and attack us. They're gonna try to take over humanity." I mean, this ... What, what people are worried about more than anything when it comes to technology, I think, is the idea that we're going to be, uh, irrelevant, that we're going to be, uh, uh, antiques, and that something new and better is gonna take our place, which is ... It's a weird thing to worry about.

   2. BGDr. Ben Goertzel9:56

      Which is almost inevitable.

   3. JRJoe Rogan9:58

      Yeah.

   4. BGDr. Ben Goertzel9:58

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan9:58

      It's a weird thing to worry about it, 'cause it's sort of the history of biological life on Earth. I mean, what we know-

   6. BGDr. Ben Goertzel10:04

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan10:04

      ... is there's complex things. They become more comp- They go from single-celled organisms to multi-celled organisms. There seems to be a pattern leading up to us, and us with this unprecedented ability to change our environment. That's what we can do, right? We can manipulate things, poison the environment. We can blow up entire countries with bombs if we'd like to, and we can also do wild, creative things like send signals through space and land on someone else's phone on the other side of the world almost instantaneously. We have incredible power, but we're also, w- we're also so limited by our biology.

   8. BGDr. Ben Goertzel10:36

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan10:37

      The thing I think people are afraid of, and I, I'm afraid of, but I don't know if it makes any sense, is that the next level of life, whatever artificial life is or whatever the, the, the, the human symbiote is, that it's gonna lack emotions, it's gonna lack desires and needs, and all the things that we think are special about us. Our creativity, our desire for attention and love, all of our comradery, all these different things that are sort of programmed into us o- with-

   10. BGDr. Ben Goertzel11:07

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:07

       ... with our genetics in order to a- a- advance our species that we, we, we're so connected to these things, but they're so ... they're the reason for war. They're the reason for, uh, uh, lies, deception, the- thievery. There's so many things that are built into being a person that are responsible for all the woes of humanity, but we're afraid to lose those things.

   12. BGDr. Ben Goertzel11:29

       Yeah, I think it, it's almost inevitable by this point that humanity is going to create synthetic intelligences with tremendously greater general intelligence and practical capability than human beings have. I mean, I think I know how to do that with the software I'm working on with my own team, but if we fail, you know, there's a load of other teams who I think are a bit behind us, but are going in the same direction though, right? So-

   13. JRJoe Rogan12:00

       So you guys feel like you're at the tip of the spear with this stuff?

   14. BGDr. Ben Goertzel12:02

       I do, but I also think that's not the most important thing from a human perspective. The most important thing is that humanity as a whole is quite close to this, this threshold event, right? So-

   15. JRJoe Rogan12:15

       How far do you think it's quite close?

   16. BGDr. Ben Goertzel12:17

       ... by my own gut feeling, 5 to 30 years, let's say.

   17. JRJoe Rogan12:21

       That's pretty close.

   18. BGDr. Ben Goertzel12:22

       But if I'm wrong and it's a 100 years, like in the historical time scale, that sort of doesn't matter. It's like, did the Sumerians create civilization 10,000 or 10,050 years ago?

   19. JRJoe Rogan12:32

       Right.

   20. BGDr. Ben Goertzel12:32

       Like, what- what difference does it make, right?

   21. JRJoe Rogan12:34

       Right.

   22. BGDr. Ben Goertzel12:35

       So I think we're quite close to creating superhuman artificial general intelligence, and that's, in a way, almost inevitable given where we are now. On the other hand, I think we still have some agency regarding whether this comes out in a way that, you know, respects human values and culture, which are important to us now given who and what we are...

   23. JRJoe Rogan13:04

       Yeah.

   24. BGDr. Ben Goertzel13:04

       ... or that is essentially indifferent to human values and- and culture in the same way that we're mostly indifferent to chimpanzee values and- and culture at- at- at- at this point, so...

   25. JRJoe Rogan13:15

       Right. And completely indifferent to insect values and culture.

   26. BGDr. Ben Goertzel13:18

       Not completely, uh, if you think about it. I mean, if I'm building a new house, I will bulldoze a bunch of ants, but yet we get upset if we extinct an insect species, right? So we- we care- we care...

   27. JRJoe Rogan13:30

       Yeah.

   28. BGDr. Ben Goertzel13:30

       ... to some level, but not ... But we- but we would like the super AIs to care about us more than we care about insects or- or great apes.

   29. JRJoe Rogan13:38

       Sure. Yeah.

   30. BGDr. Ben Goertzel13:39

       A- a- a- ab- ab- absolutely, right? And I think this- this is something we can impact right now. And to- to- to be honest, I mean, in a certain part of my mind, I- I can think, well, like, in- in the end, I don't matter that much, my four kids don't matter that much, my granddaughter doesn't matter that much. Like, we are patterns of organization in a very long lineage of patterns of organization.
5. 16:17 – 20:51

   Value alignment as “raising mind-children” and why values must be learned in the world

   1. JRJoe Rogan16:17

      Is the issue that the initial creation would be subject to our programming, but that it could perhaps program something more efficient and design something? Like, if you build creativity...

   2. BGDr. Ben Goertzel16:28

      Well, certainly.

   3. JRJoe Rogan16:28

      ... into artificial general intelligence, right.

   4. BGDr. Ben Goertzel16:29

      I mean, you have to. I mean, general- generalization is about creativity, right?

   5. JRJoe Rogan16:34

      Right. Yeah. But is the issue that it would choose to not accept our values, which it might find...

   6. BGDr. Ben Goertzel16:41

      Well, clearly, we'll choose not to accept our values.

   7. JRJoe Rogan16:43

      Right.

   8. BGDr. Ben Goertzel16:43

      And- and we want it to choose not to accept all of our values.

   9. JRJoe Rogan16:47

      Right.

   10. BGDr. Ben Goertzel16:47

       So it- it's more a matter of whether the ongoing creation evolution of new values occurs with some continuity and respect for the previous ones. So I mean, uh, with... I have four human kids now. One is a baby, but the other three are adults, right? And with each of them, I took the approach of trying to teach the kids what my values were, not just by preaching at them, but by entering with them...

   11. JRJoe Rogan17:11

       Sure.

   12. BGDr. Ben Goertzel17:11

       ... in- into shared situations. But then, you know when your kids grow up, they're gonna go in their own different directions, right? And- and...

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:19

       Right. But these are humans, right?

   14. BGDr. Ben Goertzel17:20

       But you... But...

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:21

       They all have the same sort of biological needs, which is one of the reasons...

   16. BGDr. Ben Goertzel17:24

       M- mostly.

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:25

       ... why we have these desires...

   18. BGDr. Ben Goertzel17:25

       Right. But- but...

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:26

       ... in the first place.

   20. BGDr. Ben Goertzel17:26

       Yeah, there still is an analogy. I- I think the AIs that we create, you can think of as- as our mind children, and we're starting them off with our culture and values, if- if we do it properly, or at least with a certain subset of the whole diverse self-contradictory mess of human culture and values.

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:47

       Mm-hmm.

   22. BGDr. Ben Goertzel17:47

       But you know they're going to evolve in a- in a different direction, but you want that evolution to take place in a reflective and- and- and caring way, rather than a heedless way. 'Cause if- if you think about it, the average human a thousand years ago, or even 50 years ago, would have thought you and me were, like, hopelessly immoral miscreants who had abandoned all the valuable thing- things in life, right? I mean...

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:12

       Just 'cause of your hat? (laughs)

   24. BGDr. Ben Goertzel18:13

       Uh, my- my- my- my hat...

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:15

       The long hair.

   26. BGDr. Ben Goertzel18:15

       I mean, I'm- I'm an... I'm an infidel, right? I don't... I don't... I haven't gone to church, uh, ever, I- I- I- I guess.

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:22

       (laughs)

   28. BGDr. Ben Goertzel18:22

       I mean, my- my- my mother is lesbian, right? I mean, there- there's all- all these things that we take for granted now...

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:29

       Right.

   30. BGDr. Ben Goertzel18:29

       ... that not that long ago...... were completely against what most humans considered maybe the most important values of life.
6. 20:51 – 26:18

   The surveillance/advertising/military bias in today’s AI—and why it matters

   1. BGDr. Ben Goertzel20:51

      And that forms their system of values. And this is what needs to happen with AIs. They need to grow up entering into real-life situations with human beings so that the real-life patterns of human values, which are worth a lot more than the, the homilies that, that we ena- enunciate formally, right? The real-life pattern of human values gets inculcated, like, into the intellectual DNA of the, of the AI systems. And this is part of what worries me about the way the AI field is going at, at this moment, because I mean, most of the really powerful narrow AIs on the planet now are involved with, like, selling people stuff they don't need, spying on people, or, like, figuring out who should be killed or otherwise abused by some government, right? So if, if the early stage AIs that we build turn into general intelligences gradually, and these general intelligences are, you know, spy agents and advertising agents, then, like, what, what, what mindset do these early stage AIs have as, as they grow up?

   2. JRJoe Rogan21:57

      Right, if they don't have any problem morally and ethically with manipulating us, which we're very malleable, right? We're so easy to manipulate.

   3. BGDr. Ben Goertzel22:03

      Well, and that we're teaching them-

   4. JRJoe Rogan22:05

      How to do it.

   5. BGDr. Ben Goertzel22:05

      We're teaching them to manipulate people.

   6. JRJoe Rogan22:07

      Sure.

   7. BGDr. Ben Goertzel22:07

      And we're rewarding them for doing it-

   8. JRJoe Rogan22:09

      Yeah.

   9. BGDr. Ben Goertzel22:09

      ... successfully, right?

   10. JRJoe Rogan22:10

       Yeah.

   11. BGDr. Ben Goertzel22:10

       So th- this is, this is one of these things that, from the outside point of view, might not seem to be all that intelligent. It, it, it, it's sort of like gun laws in the US. Living in Hong Kong, I mean, most people don't have a bunch of guns sitting around their house. And coincidentally, there, there are, are not that many random shootings happening in Hong Kong, right?

   12. JRJoe Rogan22:33

       That's crazy.

   13. BGDr. Ben Goertzel22:33

       So yeah, you look in the-

   14. JRJoe Rogan22:35

       What a weird coincidence.

   15. BGDr. Ben Goertzel22:35

       (laughs) Yeah, you look in the US, it's like somehow you have laws that allow random lunatics to buy all the guns they want, and you have all these people getting shot. So, similarly, like, from the outside, you could look at it like this species is creating the success or intelligence-

   16. JRJoe Rogan22:55

       Mm-hmm.

   17. BGDr. Ben Goertzel22:56

       ... and almost all the resources going into creating their success or intelligence are going into making AIs to do surveillance, like military drones, and advertising agents that brainwash people into buying crap they don't need. Now, what's-

   18. JRJoe Rogan23:12

       Don't you think that that's just-

   19. BGDr. Ben Goertzel23:13

       ... wha- what's wrong with this picture, right?

   20. JRJoe Rogan23:14

       But isn't that just 'cause that's where the money is? Like, this is the-

   21. BGDr. Ben Goertzel23:17

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan23:17

       ... this is the introduction to it?

   23. BGDr. Ben Goertzel23:19

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan23:19

       And that, from then, we'll find other uses and applications for it? But like, right now, that's where-

   25. BGDr. Ben Goertzel23:24

       There's a l-

   26. JRJoe Rogan23:25

       ... that's where there's-

   27. BGDr. Ben Goertzel23:25

       ... th- the thing is, there's a lot of other applications, and-

   28. JRJoe Rogan23:28

       Financial app- financially viable applications?

   29. BGDr. Ben Goertzel23:31

       Well, yeah, the applications that are getting the most attention are the financial lowest hanging fruit, right?

   30. JRJoe Rogan23:37

       Right.
7. 26:18 – 41:36

   Innovation cycles, open source, and crypto as new coordination systems

   1. BGDr. Ben Goertzel26:18

      It does, but I think there's an argument that as we approach a technological singularity, we need new systems.

   2. JRJoe Rogan26:27

      Mm-hmm.

   3. BGDr. Ben Goertzel26:27

      'Cause i- i- if you look at how things have happened during the last century, what's happened is that governments have funded most of the core innovation.

   4. JRJoe Rogan26:37

      Mm-hmm.

   5. BGDr. Ben Goertzel26:37

      I mean, this is well-known that, like, most of the technology inside a smartphone was funded by US government, a little by European government-

   6. JRJoe Rogan26:44

      Right.

   7. BGDr. Ben Goertzel26:45

      ... GP- GPS and the batteries in everything.

   8. JRJoe Rogan26:47

      Mm-hmm.

   9. BGDr. Ben Goertzel26:48

      And then companies scaled it up. They- they- they ma- they made it user-friendly, they decreased cost of manufacturing, and this process occurs with a certain time cycle to it, where like government spends decades funding core innovation and- and- and universities, and then industry spends decades figuring out how to scale it up and make it palatable to- to users. And, you know, this matured probably since World War II, th- th- this sort of modality for technology development. But now that things are developing faster and faster and faster, there's sort of not time for- for that cycle to occur, where the government and universities incubate new ideas for a while ...

   10. JRJoe Rogan27:31

       Mm-hmm.

   11. BGDr. Ben Goertzel27:31

       ... and then technology scales it up. So ...

   12. JRJoe Rogan27:33

       So the genie's out of the bottle, essentially.

   13. BGDr. Ben Goertzel27:34

       Yeah, but we still need a lot of new amazing creative innovation to happen.

   14. JRJoe Rogan27:39

       Right.

   15. BGDr. Ben Goertzel27:39

       But somehow or other new- new structures are gonna have to evolve to- to make it happen. And you can see everyone's struggling to figure out what these are. So I mean this is why you have ... I mean you have big companies embracing open source, Google releases TensorFlow and- and there's a lot of- lot of other different things. And I- I think- I think some projects in the cryptocurrency world have been looking at that too, like how do we use tokens to incentivize, you know, independent scientists and- and- in- inventors to- to do new stuff without them having to be in a government research lab or- or- or in a big company? So I- I think we're gonna need the evolution of new systems of innovation and of- of technology transfer as things are- are developing faster and faster and faster. And this is another thing that's sort of gotten me interested in the whole decentralized world and- and the blockchain world, is the promise of new modes of economic and social organization ...

   16. JRJoe Rogan28:38

       Mm-hmm.

   17. BGDr. Ben Goertzel28:38

       ... that can, you know, bring more of the world into the research process and accelerate the technology transfer process.

   18. JRJoe Rogan28:45

       I definitely wanna talk about that. But o- one of the things that I wanted to ask you is when- when you're discussing this in ... Well, w- I think what you're ma- saying is a one very important point, that we need to move past the military gatekeepers of technology, right?

   19. BGDr. Ben Goertzel28:58

       It's not just military now though.

   20. JRJoe Rogan29:00

       And that- that's sort of happening.

   21. BGDr. Ben Goertzel29:00

       It's- it's big tech which are ...

   22. JRJoe Rogan29:02

       Right.

   23. BGDr. Ben Goertzel29:02

       ... ad- advertising ...

   24. JRJoe Rogan29:03

       Right.

   25. BGDr. Ben Goertzel29:03

       ... agencies in- in- in- in essence.

   26. JRJoe Rogan29:05

       Facebook, social media, things that are constantly predicting your next purchase, right?

   27. BGDr. Ben Goertzel29:10

       Yeah, 'cause if- if you thi- if you think about it, and I mean even in a- a semi-democracy like- like we have in the US, I mean those who control the brainwashing of the public, in essence ...

   28. JRJoe Rogan29:24

       Right.

   29. BGDr. Ben Goertzel29:24

       ... control who- who- who votes for what. And who controls the brainwashing of the public is advertising agencies. And who increasingly are the biggest advertising agencies are- are- are- are- are the big tech companies, who are accumulating everybody's data and- and using it to- to program their minds to buy things. So this is what's programming the global brain of- of- of- of the human race. And of course, there are close links between big tech and- and the military. Like look, Am- Amazon has, what, 25,000 person headquarters in Crystal City, Virginia right next to the Pentagon, and ...

   30. JRJoe Rogan29:57

       Yeah.
8. 41:36 – 46:16

   Why humans keep innovating—and why AI is being pushed so fast

   1. JRJoe Rogan41:36

      Well it's accepted, generally accepted, that human beings will consistently and constantly innovate, right?

   2. BGDr. Ben Goertzel41:42

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan41:42

      It just seems to be a characteristic that- that we have.

   4. BGDr. Ben Goertzel41:45

      Yep.

   5. JRJoe Rogan41:45

      Why do you think that is and what... Do you think that es- especially when in terms of creating something like artificial intelligence, like why build our successors? Like why- why do that? Like what is- what is it about us that makes us want to constantly make bigger, better things?

   6. BGDr. Ben Goertzel42:02

      Well that's a interesting question. In the history of- of biology, which I may not be the most qualified person to answer, it is an interesting question and I think it has something to do with the weird way in which we embody various contradictions that we're always trying to resolve. Like we... Y- you mentioned ants and- and ants are social animals, right?

   7. JRJoe Rogan42:28

      Right.

   8. BGDr. Ben Goertzel42:28

      Whereas like cats are very individual. We're like trapped between the two, right? Like we're- we're somewhat individual and- and- and somewhat social and the- and then- and then since we created civilization it's- it's- it's even worse because I'm- I mean- I mean we have certain aspects which are- which are wanting to conform with the group and the tribe and others which are wanting to innovate and- and break out of that, and we're sort of trapped in these biological and cultural contradictions which tend to drive innovation. But I think there's a lot there that no one understands in- in the roots of the human psyche evolutionarily, but as- as an empirical fact...... what you said is, is, is, is, is very true, right? Like, we- we're driven to seek novelty. We're driven to create new things, and this is certainly-

   9. JRJoe Rogan43:19

      And to improve.

   10. BGDr. Ben Goertzel43:19

       ... one of the factors which is driving the creation of AI. I don't think that alone would make the creation of AI inevitable, but the thing-

   11. JRJoe Rogan43:28

       Why is that? Why don't you think it would make it inevitable if we consistently innovate and... It's always been a concept. I mean, you were talking about the concept existing 30-plus years ago.

   12. BGDr. Ben Goertzel43:37

       Well, I think a key point is that there's tremendous practical economic advantage and status advantage to be gotten from AI right now.

   13. JRJoe Rogan43:49

       Mm-hmm.

   14. BGDr. Ben Goertzel43:49

       And this is driving the d- advancement of AI-

   15. JRJoe Rogan43:53

       Right.

   16. BGDr. Ben Goertzel43:54

       ... to be incredibly rapid, right? 'Cause, uh, there are some things that are interesting and would use a lot of human innovation, but they get very few resources.

   17. JRJoe Rogan44:05

       Right.

   18. BGDr. Ben Goertzel44:05

       So for example, my, my oldest son Zarathustra, he's doing his PhD now.

   19. JRJoe Rogan44:10

       What is his name?

   20. BGDr. Ben Goertzel44:11

       Zarathustra.

   21. JRJoe Rogan44:12

       Whoa.

   22. BGDr. Ben Goertzel44:12

       My kids are-

   23. JRJoe Rogan44:13

       (laughs)

   24. BGDr. Ben Goertzel44:13

       ... Zarathustra, Amadeus, Zebulun, Ulysses, Scheherazade, and then, uh, the new one is Corxi, C-O-R-X-I.

   25. JRJoe Rogan44:21

       Whoa.

   26. BGDr. Ben Goertzel44:22

       Which is an acronym for quantum organized rationale expanding intelligence.

   27. JRJoe Rogan44:26

       (laughs)

   28. BGDr. Ben Goertzel44:26

       So, I was never happy with Ben. It's a very boring name.

   29. JRJoe Rogan44:29

       (laughs) I'm Joe. I get it. I hear you.

   30. BGDr. Ben Goertzel44:30

       So, uh, so, so, uh, yeah, yeah, I had to, I had to, I had to do something more interesting-
9. 46:16 – 52:20

   Post-scarcity visions: mind forking, immortality, and the physics of computation limits

   1. BGDr. Ben Goertzel46:16

      ... what I look forward to personally is bifurcating myself into an array of, of possible Bens. Like, uh, I'd like to let one copy of me fuse itself with a superhuman AI mind and, you know, b- become, become a, a, a God-

   2. JRJoe Rogan46:30

      A Ben God.

   3. BGDr. Ben Goertzel46:30

      ... or something beyond a God. And I wouldn't even be myself.

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:33

      Beyond a God?

   5. BGDr. Ben Goertzel46:34

      I wouldn't even be myself anymore, right?

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:36

      Right.

   7. BGDr. Ben Goertzel46:36

      I mean, you, you would lose all concepts of, of human self and identity, but-

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:40

      But what would be the point of even holding to any of it?

   9. BGDr. Ben Goertzel46:42

      Yeah. Well, that's-

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:44

       I mean, if you're-

   11. BGDr. Ben Goertzel46:44

       ... that's for the future. That's for the mega Ben to decide, right?

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:47

       Right, mega Ben.

   13. BGDr. Ben Goertzel46:47

       Yeah, yeah. On the other hand, I'd like to let one of me remain in human form, you know, get, get, get rid of, uh, death and disease and, uh, psychological issues and, and just live, live happily forever, you know, in, in the people zoo watched over by the machines of love and grace, right? So I mean, you, you can have... It doesn't have to be either/or, because on- once, once you can scan your brain and body and 3D print new copies of yourself, you could have multiple of you explore different scenarios.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:16

       Right, but isn't that a giant resource hog? I mean, that's-

   15. BGDr. Ben Goertzel47:17

       There's a lot of mass energy in the universe.

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:20

       In the universe? Okay, that's assuming that we can escape this planet. Because if you're, if you're talking about just people with money cloning themselves-

   17. BGDr. Ben Goertzel47:27

       Well, that's ... If, if you're gonna make a c-

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:27

       ... w- could you live in a world with a billion Donald Trumps? Because, like-

   19. BGDr. Ben Goertzel47:31

       Uh...

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:31

       ... literally w- that's what we're talking about. We're talking about wealthy people-

   21. BGDr. Ben Goertzel47:33

       You could play whack-a-Trump. Yeah, right. Yeah, okay.

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:35

       ... but wealthy people being able to reproduce themselves, and just-

   23. BGDr. Ben Goertzel47:37

       Oh.

   24. JRJoe Rogan47:38

       ... having this idea that they would like their ego to exist in multiple different forms, whether it's some super symbiote form that's connected to artificial intelligence, or some biological form that's immortal, or some other form that st- is, stands just as a, uh, a normal human being as we know it in 2018. If you have multiple versions of yourself over and over and over again like that, that's where you're, where you're talking about-

   25. BGDr. Ben Goertzel48:00

       Well, once you get, once you get to the point where you have a superhuman general intelligence that can do things like fully scan a human brain and body and 3D print more of them, by that point, you're at a level where scarcity of material resources is not an issue at the human scale of doing things. So I, I-

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:21

       Scarcity of human resources in terms of what the Earth can hold?

   27. BGDr. Ben Goertzel48:24

       Scarcity of, of mass energy. Scarcity-

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:25

       Right.

   29. BGDr. Ben Goertzel48:25

       Scarcity of molecules to print more copies of yourself. Uh, I think that, I think that's not gonna be the, the issue at that point.

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:32

       But, but what people are worried about is environmental concerns of overpopulation.
10. 52:20 – 57:36

    A struggle of organizational modes: corporations as parasites vs decentralized networks

    1. BGDr. Ben Goertzel52:20

       I look at it more as a... I look at it more as a, as a struggle between different modes of social organization-

    2. JRJoe Rogan52:29

       Hmm.

    3. BGDr. Ben Goertzel52:30

       ... than individual people. I mean, like when, when I worked in DC with intelligence agencies, most of the people I met there were really nice human beings who believed they were doing the best for the world, even if some of the things they were doing, like, uh, (laughs) I thought were very much not for the best of the world, right? So-

    4. JRJoe Rogan52:51

       Mm-hmm.

    5. BGDr. Ben Goertzel52:51

       ... I mean, m- military mode of organization or large corporations as a mode of organization are, in my view, not generally gonna lead to, to beneficial outcomes for the overall species and, and, and for the global brain. And the, the scientific community, the open source community, I think are better modes of organization. And, you know, the, the better aspects of the blockchain and crypto community have, have a better mode of organization. So I think if, if this sort of open, decentralized mode of organization can marshal more resources as opposed to this centralized, authoritarian mode of organization, then I think things are gonna come out for the better. And it's, it's not so much about bad people versus good people. It... Y- you can look at, like the corporate mode of organization is almost a virus that, that's colonized a bunch of humanity-

    6. JRJoe Rogan53:48

       Hmm.

    7. BGDr. Ben Goertzel53:48

       ... and is, is sucking people in to working according to the-

    8. JRJoe Rogan53:51

       Right.

    9. BGDr. Ben Goertzel53:51

       ... to this mode. And even if they're really good people and the individual task they're working on isn't bad in itself, they're working within this-

    10. JRJoe Rogan54:00

        Yeah.

    11. BGDr. Ben Goertzel54:01

        ... this m- this mode that's leading their work to be used for ultimately a, a non-good end.

    12. JRJoe Rogan54:06

        Yeah, that is a fascinating thing about corporations, isn't it? That, uh, uh, the diffusion of responsibility and being a part of a gigantic group that you as an individual don't feel necessarily connected or responsible to the ultimate group.

    13. BGDr. Ben Goertzel54:18

        Well, even the CEO isn't fully responsible. Like, if the CEO does something that isn't in accordance with the high, higher goals of the organization, they're just replaced, right? So, I mean-

    14. JRJoe Rogan54:28

        That's right.

    15. BGDr. Ben Goertzel54:29

        ... the, I mean, there, there's no one person who's in charge. It's really like, it's, it's like an ant colony.

    16. JRJoe Rogan54:33

        Yes.

    17. BGDr. Ben Goertzel54:33

        It's like, it's like its own organism.

    18. JRJoe Rogan54:36

        Yeah.

    19. BGDr. Ben Goertzel54:36

        And, I mean, it's us who have let these organisms become parasites on, on humanity. In this way, in some ways, the Asian countries are a little more intelligent than Western countries, in that Asian governments realize the power of corporations to mold society. And there's a bit more feedback between the government and, and, and corporations, which can be f- for better or for worse. But in, in Ame- in America, there's some ethos of, like, free markets and free enterprise-

    20. JRJoe Rogan55:13

        Mm-hmm.

    21. BGDr. Ben Goertzel55:13

        ... which is really not taking into account the oligopolistic nature of, of, of, of modern markets.

    22. JRJoe Rogan55:20

        But in Asian countries, isn't it that the government is actually suppressing information as well? They're also suppressing Google.

    23. BGDr. Ben Goertzel55:27

        Well, in South Korea, no. I mean, S- South Korea, if you look at the-

    24. JRJoe Rogan55:30

        It's one of the only ones.

    25. BGDr. Ben Goertzel55:32

        ... well, Singapore. I mean-

    26. JRJoe Rogan55:33

        Yeah? Really? Singapore is ruthless in their drug laws, and some of their archaic-

    27. BGDr. Ben Goertzel55:38

        Well, so is US, I mean. (laughs)

    28. JRJoe Rogan55:39

        ... sort of, well, they're far worse, though. Singapore gives you the death penalty for marijuana.

    29. BGDr. Ben Goertzel55:44

        They do. Yeah, yeah.

    30. JRJoe Rogan55:45

        Yeah. It's, I mean, it's a-
11. 57:36 – 1:12:38

    Blockchain explained: distributed ledgers, decentralized control, Ethereum, and smart contracts

    1. JRJoe Rogan57:36

       Now, open source is self-explanatory in i- in its title, pretty much. People kind of understand what it is. It means that v- various coders get to share in this, this code and the source code, and they, they get to innovate, and they, they all get to participate and use each other's work. Right?

    2. BGDr. Ben Goertzel57:53

       Right.

    3. JRJoe Rogan57:54

       Um, but blockchain is confusing for a lot of people.

    4. BGDr. Ben Goertzel57:57

       Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan57:57

       Could you explain that?

    6. BGDr. Ben Goertzel57:59

       Sure. I mean, bl- block, blockchain itself is a, is almost a misnomer. So we're confusing-

    7. JRJoe Rogan58:04

       Okay.

    8. BGDr. Ben Goertzel58:04

       ... things are confusing at, at, at every level, right?

    9. JRJoe Rogan58:07

       (laughs)

    10. BGDr. Ben Goertzel58:07

        So we can... We should start with the idea of a distributed ledger, which is basically like a distributed Excel spreadsheet or database. It's just a store of information which is not stored just in one place, but there's copies of it in a lot of different places. Every time my copy of it is updated, everyone else's copy of it has, has, has got to be updated. And then, then there's various bells and whistles like sharding, where, you know, it could be broken in many pieces, and each piece is stored many places or something. So that's a distributed ledger, and that's just distributed computing. Now, what, what makes it more interesting is when you layer decentralized control onto that. So imagine you have this distributed Excel spreadsheet or distributed database. There's copies of it stored in a thousand places, but to update it, you need like 500 of those 1,000 people who own the copies to vote, "Yeah, let's do that update." Right?

    11. JRJoe Rogan59:02

        Mm-hmm.

    12. BGDr. Ben Goertzel59:03

        So then, then you have a distributed store of data, and you have, like, a democratic voting mechanism to determine when all those copies can get, can get updated together, right? So then, then what you have is a data storage and update mechanism that's controlled in a democratic way by the group of participants, rather than by any one central controller. And that, that can have all sorts of advantages. I mean, for one thing, it means that, you know, there's no one controller who can go rogue and screw with all the data without telling anyone. It also means there's no one who some lunatic can go hold a gun to their head and shoot them for, for what data updates were made, 'cause they're, you know, it's controlled democratically by, by everybody, right? It has all, ramifications in terms of, you know, legal defensibility. And, I mean, you could have some people in Iran, some in China, some in the US, and, and updates to this whole distributed data store are made by democratic decision of all the participants. Then where cryptography comes in is when I vote, I don't have to say, "Yeah, this is Ben Goertzel voting for this update to be accepted or not." It's just ID number 1357264.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:13

        Uh-huh.

    14. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:00:13

        And then encryption is used to make sure that, you know, it's, it's the same guy voting every time that, that, that it, it claims to be with- without needing, like, your, your passport number or something, right?

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:26

        But what's ironic about it is it's probably one of the best ways ever conceived to actually vote in this country.

    16. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:00:31

        Yeah. Sure. It would be-

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

        I mean, it is kind of ironic, right?

    18. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:00:34

        There's a lot of applications for it that, you know, the, the, the, that's, that- that's right. So th- there's, so th- that, I mean, that's the core mechanism, though where the blockchain comes from is like a data structure where to store the data in this distributed database, it's stored in, in a chain of blocks, where each block contains data. The thing is, not every so-called blockchain system even uses a chain of blocks now. Like, some use a, a tree or a graph of blocks or something, so...

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:04

        Is it a bad term?

    20. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:01:05

        Mm-hmm.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

        Or is there a better term?

    22. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:01:05

        I mean, it's, it's an all right term. It-

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

        Is it like AI? Like, just one of those terms we're stuck with?

    24. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:01:11

        Yeah, yeah. It's one o-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:01:11

        Yeah.

    26. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:01:11

        ... it's one of those terms we're stuck with, even though it's not quite technically, not quite technically accurate. And I mean, anymore, I mean, 'cause w- w- what... I don't know another buzzword for it, right?

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:01:22

        Right.

    28. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:01:22

        Wh- wh- what it is, is a, it's a distributed ledger with encryption and decentralized control. (laughs)

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:01:28

        Yeah.

    30. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:01:28

        And blockchain is the buzzword that's come about for that. Now, what, what got me interested in blockchain really is this decentralized control aspect. So my, my, my wife, who I've been with for 10 years now, she dug up recently something I'd forgotten, which is a web page I'd made in 1995-
12. 1:12:38 – 1:28:35

    From crypto speculation to real utility: enterprise adoption and SingularityNET’s AI-on-chain economy

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:12:38

       Yeah. Now, what, what is blockchain, what is blockchain being currently used for? Like, what, what different applications? 'Cause it's not just cryptocurrency.

    2. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:12:49

       No-

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:12:49

       They're using it for a bunch of different things now, right?

    4. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:12:51

       They are. Uh, uh, I would say it's very early stage. So probably the-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:12:56

       How early?

    6. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:12:58

       Well, the heaviest uses of blockchain now are probably inside large financial services companies, actually.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:13:05

       Wow.

    8. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:13:05

       So if, if you look at Ethereum, the project I mentioned. So, Ethereum is run by an open source, an open foundation, the Ethereum Foundation. Then there's a consulting company called ConsenSys, which is a totally separate organization that was founded by Joe Lubin, who was one of the founders of Ethereum in the early days. And ConsenSys has, you know, it's funded a bunch of the work within the Ethereum Foundation and community. But ConsenSys has done a lot of contracts just working with governments and big companies to customize code based on Ethereum to help with their internal operations.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:13:44

       Mm-hmm.

    10. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:13:44

        So actually, a lot of the practical value has been with stuff that isn't in the public eye that much, but it's, like, back end in, in, in, in, in- inside of companies. And in terms of practical customer-facing uses of, of cryptocurrency, I mean, uh...... the Tron blockchain, which is different than Ethereum, that has a bunch of games on it, for example, and some online gambling for, f- for that matter. So that, that's, uh, that, that's gotten a lot of users. But the-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:14:15

        Online games? Like, how, how do they use that?

    12. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:14:17

        Oh, it's a payment mechanism.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:14:19

        Oh, I see.

    14. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:14:20

        But that... there... this is one of the things there's a lot of hand-wringing about in the cryptocurrency world now is-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:14:27

        Gambling?

    16. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:14:28

        No, just the fact that there aren't that many big consumer-facing uses of, of, of, of, of cryptocurrency.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:14:35

        Mm-hmm.

    18. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:14:35

        I mean, I mean, everyone would l- everyone would like there to be. That was the idea. And this is one of the things we're aiming at with our SingularityNET project, is to... you know, we, by putting AI on the blockchain in a highly effective way, and then... W- we're also... we have these two tiers. So we have the SingularityNET Foundation, which is, is creating this open source, decentralized platform in which AIs can talk to other AIs and... you know, like ants in a colony, group together to form smarter and smarter AI. Then we're spinning off a company called the Singularity Studio, which will use this decentralized platform to help big companies integrate AI into their operations. So with the Singularity Studio company, we wanna get all these big companies using the AI tools in the SingularityNET platform, and then we wanna drive, you know, massive usage of, of blockchain in, in the SingularityNET that, that way. So that's... if, if we're successful with what we're doing, this will be, you know, within a year from now or something, by far the biggest usage of blockchain out- outside of financial exchange, is our use of blockchain within SingularityNET for AI. Basically for customers to get the AI services that they need for their businesses and then for AIs to transact with other AIs, paying other AIs for doing services for them. 'Cause this, this, this, I think, is, is the path forward. It's like a society and economy of minds. It's not like one monolithic AI.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:16:13

        Right.

    20. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:16:13

        It's a whole bunch of AIs created by different people all over the world, which not only are in the marketplace providing services to customers, but each AI is asking questions of each other and then rating each other of how good they are sending data to each other and paying each other for their services. So this, this like network of AIs can emerge an intelligence on the whole network level, as well as there being intelligence in e- in each, each component.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:16:39

        And is it also fascinating to you that this is not dependent upon nations? That this is a worldwide endeavor?

    22. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:16:43

        Well, yeah, I thi- I think, I think that's gonna be important once e- once it starts to get a very high level of intelligence.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:16:51

        Yeah.

    24. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:16:51

        Like in, in the early stages, okay, what would it hur-... Like if, if I had, you know, my own database, a central record of, of everything, like I'm, I'm an honest person. I'm not gonna rip anyone off. But once we start to make a transition toward artificial general intelligence in this global decentralized network, which has component AIs from every country on the planet, like a- at that point, once it's clear you're getting toward AGI, a lot of people want to step in and control this thing-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:17:24

        Yeah.

    26. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:17:24

        ... you know, by law, by military might, by any means necessary. By that point, the fact that you have this open, decentralized network under- underpinning everything, like this gives an a- an amazing resilience to what you're doing. Like who can shut down Linux? Who can shut down Bitcoin? No-

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:17:38

        Right.

    28. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:17:38

        Nobody can, right?

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:17:40

        Yeah.

    30. BGDr. Ben Goertzel1:17:40

        You, you, you want AI... You want AI to be like that. You want it to be a global, you know, upsurge of, of creativity and, and mutual benefit from people all over the planet, which no powerful party can, can shut down even if they're afraid that it threatens their hegemony.

Episode duration: 2:15:20