Joe Rogan Experience #1980 - Michio Kaku

1. 0:00 – 0:46

   Welcome back: from UFO rabbit holes to quantum computing

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Good to see you.

   3. MKMichio Kaku0:13

      Hi. Yeah, glad to be on the show again.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      My pleasure. The last time was fascinating, and, uh, you have, uh, sent me down a rabbit hole of, uh, UFO stories and, and reports and...

   5. MKMichio Kaku0:23

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      Fascinating stuff. But, uh, let's talk about your, your latest book, which is on quantum computing, which is e- equally interesting, if not more interesting, 'cause it might lead us to become aliens. (laughs)

   7. MKMichio Kaku0:36

      (laughs) We'll talk about that too.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:38

      Please. Um, so first of all, if you could, just tell everybody what it means. What it, what is quantum computing, and how does it work?

2. 0:46 – 2:03

   What quantum computing is—and why there’s a geopolitical race

   1. MKMichio Kaku0:46

      Well, there's a race going on, a race between China, the United States, between IBM and Google, a race to dominate the next generation of computers, because Silicon Valley could become a rust belt. Think about that. The digital computer of today could be like the abacus of years gone by. We're talking about the computer of today could become obsolete with this race to perfect the next generation, which is quantum computers. Instead of computing on transistors, we're computing on atoms. Think about that. This is the ultimate computer. There's nothing smaller than what you can do with atoms, and that's what these qu- quantum computers compute with, and it raises all sorts of problems. The CIA is worried that quantum computers will break right through the CIA and any, any kind of, uh, barrier being placed around your secrets. Industries are going to be created out of nothing. Medicine is going to be turned upside down. Energy production, society, entertainment, every aspect of society will be changed with quantum computers, and that's why there's this race, a race to perfect the quantum computer.

3. 2:03 – 3:16

   How close are we? Early quantum machines vs everyday usefulness

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:03

      How far f- from the finish line do you think they are?

   2. MKMichio Kaku2:06

      Uh, we're still years away. First of all, we've actually built one. Uh, different companies h- are fielding quantum computers. They're kind of primitive, but some computers, some quantum computers, are actually millions of times more powerful than our supercomputer for certain definite tasks. But it may take another decade or so before we get all the, all the kinks out and it becomes part of everyday life. But it's gonna change everything in the same way that the transistor changed everything, the world economy, medicine, art, science. Everything was changed with the microchip. Same thing with the quantum computer.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:45

      It's, it's very difficult for us. There's only been a few, uh, science fiction authors who have been able to do this successfully, where they can accurately predict what the future's gonna look like. I mean, even they're off usually. You know, HG Wells had some pretty good ideas. But, wh- are we looking at something that we almost don't have a reference for, that it's so mind-blowingly different and much more powerful than anything we've experienced so far that it's h- it's difficult for us to imagine how much it's gonna change the world?

4. 3:16 – 4:45

   The three eras of computation: analog to digital to atomic

   1. MKMichio Kaku3:16

      Well, to imagine how it's gonna change the world, think of the progression of the computer. For thousands of years, the computer was basically an analog device. We used sticks, beads, uh, levers, gears, pulleys, cranks in order to do simple calculations. That was the first era of computation, and that meant that we could keep track of things whi- which we couldn't do before. Then World War II hit, and all of a sudden, we had to break the German code, and that required using electricity and using all sorts of vacuum tubes to crack the German code. And then we went into the second era where we compute on digital and binary, so zeros and ones, zeros and ones. Now we're entering the third era, a natural progression from gears, levers, pulleys to vacuum tubes and transistors and then to atoms. This is the final step in the evolution of the computer. When we compute on atom, these are atomic computers, nothing more powerful than that.

   2. JRJoe Rogan4:20

      Whew. So when, when you think about how much it would change life as we know it, that's when things get difficult to understand, right? Because if we think about just trying to imagine what it would be like living in New York City in 1820 and then imagining what it's like today, 200 years later, they would have never been able to guess. Wha- what kind of things is this gonna change?

5. 4:45 – 6:06

   Virtual chemistry and digital medicine: testing drugs in silico

   1. MKMichio Kaku4:45

      Everything. Uh, for example, think of biology and medicine. To test a drug, what do we do? We get thousands, hundreds of different kinds of Petri dishes, put the drug in, put the tissue in, and just cross your fingers and hope and pray that of these thousands of dishes, one of them will create a super wonder drug. That's why it costs upwards of a billion dollars to market the next wonder drug, because it's all done by trial and error. Now, think of putting that in the memory of a supercomputer, uh, the quantum computer. It the- it analyzes whether or not germs can be destroyed by this substance at the speed of light. Not just one dish, but hundreds, thousands of dishes of these things could be tested at the same time in the memory, the memory of a computer. So we're talking about digital medicine, digital chemistry, virtual chemistry. Think about that. Chemistry without chemicals.

   2. JRJoe Rogan5:47

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MKMichio Kaku5:47

      Biology without biology (laughs) . So that's the, that's the beauty of this technology, that we can mimic atoms. We can mimic molecules and do virtual experiments in the memory of a computer rather than using test tubes like we used to do, uh, that, that we still do today.

6. 6:06 – 7:43

   Aging as DNA error buildup—and why immortality enters the conversation

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:06

      And we could possibly see things that are just theoretical, uh, right now, like with medicine, like regenerating limbs or regrowing spinal tissue for a person who's been paralyzed, things along those lines.

   2. MKMichio Kaku6:17

      In fact, even immortality is on the table. Uh, realize that scientists who have looked at the aging process realize that the reason why we never understood aging is that aging is the buildup of error, that's what aging is, the buildup of mistakes in the replication of DNA. But what happens if you could put DNA in the computer? Then you can see where the aging takes place, and then we can begin perhaps to slow down the aging process, maybe even become immortal.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:49

      What about reversing it? What about, uh, old women become young hot ladies again?

   4. MKMichio Kaku6:53

      Uh, well-

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:53

      I think that'd be a problem.

   6. MKMichio Kaku6:54

      ... everything's on the table because we're talking about changing the fabric of life itself. You know, the greatest quantum computer is mother nature. Think about it, how does mother nature do photosynthesis?

   7. JRJoe Rogan7:07

      Yeah.

   8. MKMichio Kaku7:07

      How does ma- mother nature create, uh, trees and flowers out of nothing?

   9. JRJoe Rogan7:13

      Right.

   10. MKMichio Kaku7:13

       It's all chemicals and molecules. That's what quantum computers can do.

   11. JRJoe Rogan7:18

       When you think about that, just des- describe that complexity that you just described, do you ever wonder if there's some sort of an ongoing code in the whole universe itself, like there's a reason why all these things ha- these things happen? There's a reason why the mycelium and the f- the, the trees have this relationship with the fungus and the earth and the soil and th- the animals have this perfect symbiosis?

7. 7:43 – 9:31

   From the 'God Equation' to string theory: why quantum computers might test it

   1. MKMichio Kaku7:43

      Well, that was the subject of my previous book, The God Equation, where we try to find one theory that allows us to calculate everything, starting with the Big Bang, then c- the, the creation of galaxies and stars, planets, finally the creation of life, photosynthesis, and here we are talking about this on, on, uh, on a podcast. So yeah, we're talking about one equation, which I call the God Equation, which I write about in my book, The God Equation, but there's a problem. The problem is that the theory is so complicated that no human has been able to solve the consequences of this equation. That's where quantum computers can come in. Quantum com- computers can solve the equation and then test it to see whether or not it really is a theory of everything or just the imagination of some physicist. So, that was my previous book, The God Equation, so that's why I decided to write this book, uh, Quantum Supremacy, because it may eventually take a quantum computer to calculate with what is called string theory, and I'm one of the founders of string theory, and we think that is Einstein's theory that eluded him for the last 30 years of his life.

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:00

      This quantum computing creating the answer to this god molecule or this God Equation, if, if this does happen, wh- what would that mean to you, to a, a person who's studied this and, and been a scientist your whole life and the way you look at the world? What, how much would that change if there was some sort of a provable equation as to why things become ever more complex and universes exist and people exist and... ?

8. 9:31 – 11:41

   Kaku’s origin story: Einstein’s desk and an eight-year-old’s lifelong mission

   1. MKMichio Kaku9:31

      Well, that's my childhood dream. Uh, a- as I mentioned, when I was eight years old, everything changed in my life. Uh, a great scientist had just died, and all the newspapers said that he could not finish his final and greatest theory, and they put a picture of his desk on the news. The desk was open and unfinished. So, I was fascinated by that story. That story changed my life 'cause I said to myself, "Why couldn't he finish that theory?"

   2. JRJoe Rogan10:01

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MKMichio Kaku10:01

      "Why don't I try to finish that theory?" (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan10:03

      Oh, that's amazing.

   5. MKMichio Kaku10:04

      So I went to the library, and I looked up this man. This man's name was Albert Einstein. The theory was the theory of everything, an equation one inch long that would allow us to, quote, "Read the mind of God." These are Einstein's words. So I said to myself, "That's for me. That's what I wanna do for the rest of my life." So now we have the theory. It's called string theory. There have been TV documentaries on the subject. But it's not testable. So I think that a quantum computer may one day be powerful enough to test it in the memory of a computer. However, we have to be careful. Uh, remember that novel, uh, The Restaurant at the End of the Galaxy? Um, what happened in that novel was the aliens of the future created a supercomputer to calculate the theory of everything, the ultimate theory. So the computer chugged and chugged and spit out the answer, and the answer was, the meaning of the universe was 42. (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan11:08

      (laughs) What is that?

   7. MKMichio Kaku11:09

      So, so much for that. So I would hope that our, our quantum computer computing on string theory I hope would not give us the number 42 as the meaning of reality. (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan11:20

      Maybe we're just too dumb to know what that means.

   9. MKMichio Kaku11:23

      Uh, yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan11:25

       (laughs)

   11. MKMichio Kaku11:25

       But that, that's what motivated me.

   12. JRJoe Rogan11:27

       Oh, yeah.

   13. MKMichio Kaku11:27

       You know?

   14. JRJoe Rogan11:29

       Well, that's a beautiful motivation. You, y- y- just thinking about you being an eight-year-old looking at Einstein's, the photograph of Einstein's desk, that's amazing.

   15. MKMichio Kaku11:36

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan11:36

       I love stories like that. I love origin stories-

   17. MKMichio Kaku11:39

       Mm-hmm.

   18. JRJoe Rogan11:39

       ... 'cause I've always wondered what someone like you.

9. 11:41 – 17:50

   Building a particle accelerator in a garage: the high-school betatron

   1. MKMichio Kaku11:41

      Yeah, well, that changed my life. And then when I was in high school, I decided to take it one step further, and I de- I decided to build an atom smasher, a particle accelerator in my mom's garage.

   2. JRJoe Rogan11:52

      (laughs)

   3. MKMichio Kaku11:52

      So I assembled, uh, 300 pounds of transformer steel, uh, 22 miles of copper wire, and I assembled a six-kilowatt, 2.3 million-electron volt betatron particle accelerator in my mom's garage.

   4. JRJoe Rogan12:06

      In high school?

   5. MKMichio Kaku12:07

      In high school, right.

   6. JRJoe Rogan12:08

      Wow.

   7. MKMichio Kaku12:08

      Every time I turned it on, I would blow out every single circuit breaker in the house-

   8. JRJoe Rogan12:12

      (laughs)

   9. MKMichio Kaku12:13

      ... and consume six kilowatts of power. My poor mom comes home and he, she hears this pop, pop, pops sound as I blow out every circuit breaker in the house, and she must have said to herself-... why couldn't I have a son who plays baseball? Why not basketball?

   10. JRJoe Rogan12:30

       (laughs)

   11. MKMichio Kaku12:30

       And why- why can't he find a nice Japanese girlfriend?

   12. JRJoe Rogan12:33

       (laughs)

   13. MKMichio Kaku12:33

       How come he builds these machines in the garage? (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan12:37

       (laughs)

   15. MKMichio Kaku12:39

       Well, that machine got me accepted to Harvard, and that began my career. That began my career as a theoretical physicist.

   16. JRJoe Rogan12:46

       What were you able to do with that machine?

   17. MKMichio Kaku12:48

       Uh, well, I was able to create a magnetic field of 20,000 gaus- 10,000 gauss, that is 20,000 times the Earth's magnetic field.

   18. JRJoe Rogan12:56

       (laughs)

   19. MKMichio Kaku12:56

       If you got too close to my machine, it would pull the fillings out of your teeth.

   20. JRJoe Rogan12:59

       Really?

   21. MKMichio Kaku13:00

       Yeah. So you had to be very careful. (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan13:01

       What about objects that are close to it?

   23. MKMichio Kaku13:03

       Scissors and things would-

   24. JRJoe Rogan13:04

       Hammers.

   25. MKMichio Kaku13:05

       ... just fly, fly in the air.

   26. JRJoe Rogan13:06

       Yeah.

   27. MKMichio Kaku13:06

       Right. So, you had to be very careful coming-

   28. JRJoe Rogan13:08

       Oh my-

   29. MKMichio Kaku13:08

       ... next to my machine. (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan13:09

       Oh my God. So in, like, c- compare that to, like, you can't even go near, um, one of those, uh, scanners, those MRI machines, right?
10. 17:50 – 23:02

    ChatGPT and today’s AI: powerful text, weak truth and ‘no fact checker’

    1. JRJoe Rogan17:50

       Now, in application of this thing, one of the things that we're seeing right now, um, when you, we're talking about quantum computing, back to that, um, one of the things we're seeing now is ChatGPT.

    2. MKMichio Kaku18:00

       Mm-hmm. Right.

    3. JRJoe Rogan18:00

       ChatGPT, which is this fascinating, uh, AI program that essentially scours the entire internet for answers to things and is so good at it. The answers for things, for just, just data, people are getting diagnosed with certain diseases based on symptoms and blood work, and it's super accurate. Uh, legal papers, it could fill out legal forms, and it's- it's wild the capacity that it has right now.

    4. MKMichio Kaku18:24

       You can pass the bar exam that way too.

    5. JRJoe Rogan18:26

       Yes.

    6. MKMichio Kaku18:26

       The bar exam can be passed with a chatbot.

    7. JRJoe Rogan18:29

       Yeah, it's like 98%, right? Now, here's the question.If quantum computing gets involved in AI, what are we looking at?

    8. MKMichio Kaku18:39

       Well, first of all, AI is a software program. We're talking about, uh, homogenizing different kinds of essays on the web, splicing them together, and then passing it off as your latest creation, basically plagiarism using digital computers. It's a software question. However, quantum computers is bigger than that. Quantum computers is a hardware question, where it actually increases your ability to do much more than with an ordinary digital computer. So the two of them, the, uh, chatbots, w- that are a revolution in software and then quantum computers, (laughs) which are a revolution in hardware, when they get together, watch out. So we're talking about an extremely powerful alliance between software and hardware. Now also, as you know, (laughs) chatbots will also lie, cheat, swindle, joke, and do all sorts of crazy things.

    9. JRJoe Rogan19:33

       Yes.

    10. MKMichio Kaku19:34

        If you're a high school kid, you could write all sorts of science fiction scenarios and some chatbot may grab pieces of that nonsense and incorporate it into their essay.

    11. JRJoe Rogan19:45

        Oh, interesting.

    12. MKMichio Kaku19:46

        Right.

    13. JRJoe Rogan19:46

        So it can't discern what's, what's accurate.

    14. MKMichio Kaku19:48

        Exactly. The whole point... This is the whole ball of wax.

    15. JRJoe Rogan19:52

        Hmm.

    16. MKMichio Kaku19:52

        Chatbots do not know what is correct or incorrect.

    17. JRJoe Rogan19:55

        They just gather information, so they could be gamed.

    18. MKMichio Kaku19:58

        That's right. All they do is homogenize, cut up existing things that sound human, put it together, and then people say, "My god, that sounds like a human wrote it." Of course, (laughs) a human did write it. (laughs)

    19. JRJoe Rogan20:09

        Isn't that interesting that they could game that also if they wanted to find out what percentage of people believed a certain thing? If they had some bad actor, some foreign, uh, you know, governments that decided they were going to spread narratives as widely as possible and ChatGBT just gathers up all this information, it could give you an incorrect understanding of what's happening in the world.

    20. MKMichio Kaku20:33

        That's right.

    21. JRJoe Rogan20:33

        It can give you an incorrect understanding of politics, of economics.

    22. MKMichio Kaku20:36

        The, the whole point is that even though there's a good aspect to all these software programs, the downside (laughs) is that you can fabricate truth because they cannot tell the difference-

    23. JRJoe Rogan20:46

        Oh.

    24. MKMichio Kaku20:47

        ... between false and... what is false and what is true.

    25. JRJoe Rogan20:50

        That's very interesting.

    26. MKMichio Kaku20:51

        If you talk to the chat, uh, the chatbot and say, "Do you know the difference between correct and incorrect?" And they say, "No, it's just on the web."

    27. JRJoe Rogan20:58

        Mm-hmm.

    28. MKMichio Kaku20:59

        They're just instructed to cobble together existing paragraphs, splice them together and polish it up, and then spit it out. But is it correct? It doesn't care. It doesn't know.

    29. JRJoe Rogan21:11

        So it is essentially, like, an amazing resource of information that's es- that's very flawed, that can't discern and can't think.

    30. MKMichio Kaku21:19

        I do this. I have this problem all the time. I'm a professor and I give assignments to the students, sometimes write a term paper. So what do they do? Some of them plagiarize. (laughs)
11. 23:02 – 28:49

    Quantum-powered fact-checking, governance risks, and 'who decides truth?'

    1. MKMichio Kaku23:02

       You see? That's the problem. Now here's where quantum computers come in, come in. Quantum computers can act as a fact checker. You can ask a quantum computer to remove all the garbage, remove all the nonsense in these articles, and it'll do that. So, in other words, the hardware may be a check on some of the wild statements made by software.

    2. JRJoe Rogan23:23

       But the problem with that is, who's the arbiter of the information? Like, who decides what, what's real and what's not? How does the chatbot decide? The- is the chatbot ideologically biased?

    3. MKMichio Kaku23:35

       The chatbot doesn't. The chatbot simply spits it out-

    4. JRJoe Rogan23:37

       The quantum computing does?

    5. MKMichio Kaku23:38

       Yeah. Quantum computing can then-

    6. JRJoe Rogan23:39

       And it, it's going to be able to discern what's real and what's not real? Even if it's propaganda?

    7. MKMichio Kaku23:43

       And if they're, if they're gradations of what is true, like it is partially true or whatever-

    8. JRJoe Rogan23:48

       Mm-hmm.

    9. MKMichio Kaku23:48

       ... it could give you the, the, the detailed understanding of what i- what could be misconstrued, what is partially correct, what is misleading but partially correct. You, you see what I'm saying?

    10. JRJoe Rogan23:58

        Yes.

    11. MKMichio Kaku23:58

        Right now, the chatbot just splices it together like an editor. That's all it is, an editor, not a fact checker. And spits out cobbled together articles that sound reasonable, but there could be dynamite inside some of these articles that were spliced into what was proposed. With a quantum computer, you can fact check things.

    12. JRJoe Rogan24:19

        Hmm.

    13. MKMichio Kaku24:19

        And then you can say, "This is 90% correct. This is totally wrong. This is sometimes correct." And you, you get gradations of what is correct and incorrect.

    14. JRJoe Rogan24:29

        Well, if you can get an objectively accurate fact checker, that would be a huge step up from what we have today because a lot of people have very little faith in certain fact checkers and when you find out that they're ideologically biased or they're governmentally biased and if you could have something that could just tell you... Have you, have you been paying attention to how Twitter is doing it now? Where they have community notes. Have you seen this?

    15. MKMichio Kaku24:51

        No, I haven't.

    16. JRJoe Rogan24:52

        It's interesting. Like say if someone makes a statement about something controversial, climate change, uh, whatever-

    17. MKMichio Kaku24:57

        Mm-hmm.

    18. JRJoe Rogan24:57

        ... and then, um, this controversial statement gets refuted in the community notes. And then people will start commenting and really intelligent, very well-read people on specific subjects will chime in with peer review papers and all these different statistics that show, and then Twitter will correct it. And it will say, "Readers have said," and then, and then put up the relevant information.

    19. MKMichio Kaku25:22

        Right. See that's what, uh, chat bots do not do today.

    20. JRJoe Rogan25:25

        Yeah.

    21. MKMichio Kaku25:26

        They have no understanding of correct or incorrect, false and true. No understanding of that. But with hardware coming into the picture that is more advanced, then yeah, you're talking about machines that can do that automatically.

    22. JRJoe Rogan25:38

        But is the problem who controls that machine? Like say if China-

    23. MKMichio Kaku25:42

        (clears throat)

    24. JRJoe Rogan25:42

        ... gets a hold of one of those machines first. If they develop a quantum computer first and they start implementing it.

    25. MKMichio Kaku25:50

        Well, we have to make sure that our quantum computers can check other people's quantum computers-

    26. JRJoe Rogan25:54

        Right.

    27. MKMichio Kaku25:54

        ... to make sure that they're not fudging the facts.

    28. JRJoe Rogan25:56

        Right. That's what I'm talking about.

    29. MKMichio Kaku25:57

        Now remember that if this is not done legally, if there are no laws passed in this direction, and it's like the Wild West, then of course the politicians get involved.

    30. JRJoe Rogan26:07

        Yeah.
12. 28:49 – 35:13

    Aliens, wormholes, and the multiverse: why quantum computing feels 'alien'

    1. JRJoe Rogan28:49

       that are beyond imagination, that are... They operate with no visible means of propulsion. They move at insane speeds. We don't understand what they are. If we think about what quantum computing is going to be capable of, that's the kind of stuff we're thinking about, right?

    2. MKMichio Kaku29:03

       Right. Yeah, you see, quantum computers are the ultimate computers 'cause they're computing on atoms. If there are aliens in outer space, and I think there are, it means that they also have perfected quantum computers and they can do calculations that are far beyond anything that we can calculate with. Like, for example, a wormhole. A wormhole, in principle, is a gateway between two distant points in space and time which allows you to break the Einstein barrier and go faster than the speed of light. But the calculations are horrendous. It may take a quantum computer to sort through what happens when you go through a, a wormhole and wind up on the other side of the universe, and the aliens probably already have done that.

    3. JRJoe Rogan29:45

       They've probably done that.

    4. MKMichio Kaku29:45

       They've probably had centuries of experience with quantum computers 'cause that's the ultimate computer. You can't compute on anything smaller than an atom. And they probably already have used the quantum computers to navigate through wormholes, let's say, hypothetically.

    5. JRJoe Rogan29:59

       It's so fascinating when you think of where we were just a few thousand years ago to... O- or a few hundred years ago-

    6. MKMichio Kaku30:05

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JRJoe Rogan30:05

       ... to where we are now. And then you imagine the invention of quantum computing, you imagine everything just... The, the whole idea of whatever we think of current computer progression just goes out the window and it's i-insane......calculation capabilities. We could be able to do something like that in the future.

    8. MKMichio Kaku30:26

       Right. Quantum computers allows us to calculate things that are way beyond our ability to calculate today, like going through a wormhole or warp drive, or even the question of multiple universes. Uh, people ask the question, how come quantum computers are so powerful? It's because they compute in, in parallel universes. This is the multiverse, which of course Marvel Comics has discovered and the Oscars have discovered recently. But m- the multiverse idea comes from quantum physics. Electrons can be two places at the same time. Now some people have a hard time getting their head around that, but get used to it. That's why we have lasers. That's why we have transistors. That's why we have the internet. That's why we have this conversation. Because the electrons that are in this microphone dance between universes at the, at the atomic level. And so we have to get used to the idea that quantum computers introduces a whole new way of looking at reality. Now, reality is not a Marvel comic, but the idea of the multiverse comes from quantum physics, and that is electrons can be multiple places at the same time.

    9. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       Do you think this understanding of this and this, this race towards quantum computing and that kind of pa- and whatever is after that, do you think that is a natural course of the universe, that this happens whenever things are intelligent and sentient, they keep striving to create something?

    10. MKMichio Kaku31:57

        I think so. I think on the other end of the Milky Way galaxy, there's probably a young alien who is also talking about quantum computers, and they've probably already perfected it and have had experience with quantum computers maybe for thousands of years.

    11. JRJoe Rogan32:11

        Well, and also possibly every step in humanity's journey along the way to that point exists out there.

    12. MKMichio Kaku32:18

        That's right. And all the goals of this ch- journey, uh, maybe they've already accomplished. Like for example, we mentioned the possibility of, uh, slowing down the aging process. Uh, quantum computers will be able to isolate where genetically at the DNA level where errors build up causing what is called aging. In which case, maybe immortality is something that the, the aliens have already cooked up. In which case, we have to deal with a whole new concept of biology and medicine because they probably already have had thousands of years' experience with quantum computers. They manipulate molecules probably as part of their life.

    13. JRJoe Rogan32:56

        And every step along the way probably exists too. So that might be... if you wanted to have a logical reason to why aliens visit us, if they do, if they really are aliens, that would be the answer. There, there's probably a shepherding, there's probably some... probably a s- a natural course that happens with intelligent life where it develops this power while it's still a territorial tribal animal and it's still got these barbaric instincts, it still engages in war, it still engages in theft and deception, and all while about to break through to the next level of intelligence and capability, which may exist, which may be in the entire universe.

    14. MKMichio Kaku33:41

        Yeah, I think that all civilizations in the galaxy probably go through the same basic stages, that first they use rocks and stones to settle differences, but then eventually they begin to understand, uh, chemistry and substances and properties of materials, and then beyond that they discover atoms and the ability to manipulate atoms. I think that's a normal progression and I think that progression is now hitting the computer industry. Now we're going from microchips to atoms, quantum computers. And I think that the aliens in outer space probably went through that phase maybe thousands of years ago, in which case they used the quantum computers to cure cancer, cure aging, a- d- diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. These are diseases at the molecular level, and they've been able to probably use what is called CRISPR technology to cut up DNA, to cut up proteins in order to cure many of these diseases, in which case they may be immortal.

    15. JRJoe Rogan34:41

        There's a famous quart- quote from, uh, I think it was Einstein where he said, "I don't know what World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Do you ever worry that... I mean, the reason why... if it made sense that aliens would be here it's because they wanna stop us from blowing ourselves up. Do you ever worry that, like, we're so close to being able to figure out so many things, to be able to change the... all of your ideas, to be able to change the world fundamentally forever, but we could ruin it?

13. 35:13 – 40:58

    Kardashev scale and humanity’s bottleneck: Type 0 to Type I by ~2100

    1. MKMichio Kaku35:13

       Yeah, well, I think we're headed toward what we physicists call a Type I civilization, a civilization which has the power to self-annihilate for the first time, but also the possibility of becoming a planetary civilization, a civilization of the entire planet. That's called a Type I civilization. They control the weather. They control volcanoes and earthquakes. They harness the power of the entire Earth. Then there's Type II. They harness the power of the sun. And for example, uh, Star Trek would be a typical Type II civilization. They've colonized a fraction of the Milky Way galaxy. Then there's Type III. Type III would be galactic, that they roam the galactic space lanes, they, they use black holes as their power supply, they use wormholes to go zipping around the Milky Way galaxy. And the empire of Star Wars, uh, would be a typical Type III civilization. But what are we? On this scale, we are Type 0. (laughs)

    2. JRJoe Rogan36:16

       Yeah.

    3. MKMichio Kaku36:16

       We get our energy from dead plants. We settle our differences with weapons. And, uh, yeah, we're Type 0, but you can see that we're headed toward Type I.Um, the language of Type One will be probably English. Uh, the dominant languages on the internet are English and Mandarin Chinese. And we're seeing the beginning of a Type One, uh, sports, uh, the Olympics and, um, soccer. We're seeing the beginning of a Type One fashion, with Gucci (laughs) and Chanel. The beginning of a Type One music, with, uh, rock and roll and rap and different trends. Uh, we're seeing the beginning of a Type One civilization emerging right before our eyes. But w- with that is the power to self-destroy ourselves, uh, because, uh, we have the ability to use nuke- nu- nuclear weapons, create designer germs, and, uh, mess up the weather. And so (laughs) it's a race against time to see which trend will dominate, the trend toward becoming a planetary civilization versus the trend toward self-destruction.

    4. JRJoe Rogan37:21

       It's fascinating that you think of culture as being a major part of a Type One civilization, things like rap music, things like fashion. D- because of the sharing of these ideas globally and the adopting of these ideas and- and these art forms globally?

    5. MKMichio Kaku37:38

       Yeah. You see, a planetary civilization like Type One has a local culture. Different nations still have their own cultural language, cultural habits, and whatever. But globally, (laughs) they settle differences on a global scale. So they coexist w- on one hand, local culture, local languages, local dialects, local jokes and customs, simultaneously existing with a planetary civilization that is emerging. So that's what I'm talking about.

    6. JRJoe Rogan38:07

       Mm-hmm.

    7. MKMichio Kaku38:07

       I'm talking about the emergence of a planetary civilization, or what we physicists call Type One, which is happening right before our eyes. Mathematically, if you get a sheet of paper and calculate when that'll happen, it'll be around 2100. So we're seeing the groundwork being laid today. Every time you turn on the TV, (laughs) you see remnants of ... I mean, you see, uh, international sports-

    8. JRJoe Rogan38:29

       Yeah.

    9. MKMichio Kaku38:29

       ... international culture on TV, so we're seeing the beginning of a Type One civilization.

    10. JRJoe Rogan38:35

        Yeah, it's interesting. Uh, soccer has become much more popular lately.

    11. MKMichio Kaku38:38

        Mm-hmm. Right.

    12. JRJoe Rogan38:40

        Yeah.

    13. MKMichio Kaku38:40

        And music, culture, fashion-

    14. JRJoe Rogan38:42

        Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    15. MKMichio Kaku38:43

        ... um, science. Everything is becoming planetary. That's the d- that's our destiny, to become Type One.

    16. JRJoe Rogan38:49

        And the internet is the bridge for that, clearly.

    17. MKMichio Kaku38:51

        That's right. In fact, the internet is the first Type One invention.

    18. JRJoe Rogan38:55

        Mm-hmm.

    19. MKMichio Kaku38:55

        So we're- we're privileged to be alive to see the beginning of the first Type One invention, which is the internet.

    20. JRJoe Rogan39:02

        Yeah. I love watching cultures get a- adopted and- and, uh, different types of art and different types of content being, you know, accepted all over the world. It's really fascinating. Even interesting things like ... Do you- do you ever watch, um, break dancers?

    21. MKMichio Kaku39:20

        Uh, sometimes. (laughs)

    22. JRJoe Rogan39:21

        Break dancing is fascinating to me-

    23. MKMichio Kaku39:23

        Mm-hmm.

    24. JRJoe Rogan39:23

        ... because it's really like a complex form of athletics. Like, these people are insane acrobats. And now it's a thing that's worldwide, but it has the hip hop culture attached to it, like the way they dress, the music they listen to, and ... But they're doing this ... It's- it's really like an unheralded spectacular art form. And they're doing it all over the world.

    25. MKMichio Kaku39:47

        Right. And it used to be confined to a small group of people, maybe in a few villages.

    26. JRJoe Rogan39:52

        Yeah.

    27. MKMichio Kaku39:52

        Now (laughs) with the internet, it goes global with the push of a button.

    28. JRJoe Rogan39:56

        Have you seen any of it?

    29. MKMichio Kaku39:57

        I've seen some of it on TV, yeah.

    30. JRJoe Rogan39:58

        Have you seen the ... L- let me show you something. Go to @stanceelements on Instagram just to show them some of this. B-boy Pocket Kim. Oh, B- B-boy Pocket Kim is this gentleman from Korea-
14. 40:58 – 55:05

    AI culture and deepfakes: synthetic music, likeness rights, digital immortality

    1. JRJoe Rogan40:58

       Well, it's just ... Uh, now here's the question. O- one of the thing ... Does AI help that? Does it help that, that you could recreate those things and come up with fake versions of that? Do you think ... There's a lot of worry about plagiarism w- when it comes to AI, but there's also, like, some fascinating, amazing things have been created from it. Did you see the m- the mashup of Biggie and Nas? I just saw that come out today. Yeah. It's inc- ... Are you a hip hop fan? (laughs)

    2. MKMichio Kaku41:25

       Well, my attitude is, uh, I paraphrase Deng Xiaoping of China, who once said, "Sometimes you have to open the window to let the air in, but a few flies come in too."

    3. JRJoe Rogan41:35

       I don't even know if this is a fly. Like, I think there's gonna be some negative aspects to it, but ... Uh. This is weird because this is not ... Notorious B.I.G. is one of my favorite rappers and Nas is one of my other favorite rappers, and they took Notorious B.I.G.'s voice and they recreated the lyrics of Nas, and he's saying things he didn't sing in a perfect way. << Yo, Blase, tell 'em boy >> This is a Nas song- << Untied the ki ♪ >> ... but it's Notorious B.I.G. through AI- << That's why I ♪ >> ... singing it. << Retent ♪ << Yeah ♪ (hip hop music playing) ♪ Straight out the fucking dungeons of rap ♪ This is your kind of shit, right? You like this? Yeah.

    4. MKMichio Kaku42:07

       Yeah.

    5. JRJoe Rogan42:07

       This is what you make it about. This is what you hop to when you're at home? Yeah.

    6. MKMichio Kaku42:10

       Well-

    7. JRJoe Rogan42:11

       (laughs)

    8. MKMichio Kaku42:11

       ... my attitude is, uh, get used to it.

    9. JRJoe Rogan42:13

       Oh yeah, we definitely have to get used to it.

    10. MKMichio Kaku42:14

        Given the fact that it's legal and given the fact that engi- uh, ingenious kids are gonna play with existing forms of music and splice them together, and, uh, it's- it's ... You can't make it go away. It's a free country.

    11. JRJoe Rogan42:27

        Well, there was a band that had some- ... Was it Drake had something pulled? Because- Oh yeah, I was gonna ... I was waiting for that part. Bring that part up because, uh, Drake, there was actually a fake Drake song that was made that apparently was really good and was trending.

    12. GAGuest (secondary voice, likely in-studio assistant/producer)42:42

        ... so they don't know h-... I, well, wh- when I read an article that someone dug into this, they're not 100% sure, at least at that time, who, who made it, and there was speculation that Drake's label could have been behind it. Oh, interesting. Almost to show everyone like, "Look at what's possible, look what a little bit of attention we can make, and sort of stop this before it gets too big."

    13. JRJoe Rogan43:01

        Oh, interesting. Imagine if they did that, I mean, you could make Tupac songs forever. All you'd have to do is get good writers, and you could make Tupac songs literally to the end of time.

    14. GAGuest (secondary voice, likely in-studio assistant/producer)43:08

        Mm-hmm.

    15. JRJoe Rogan43:08

        I mean, that's kind of crazy.

    16. GAGuest (secondary voice, likely in-studio assistant/producer)43:10

        If they did that, that would be one way to go about it, but it might not

    17. MKMichio Kaku43:12

        Yeah.

    18. JRJoe Rogan43:12

        Yeah. I mean, if I was a, a guy like Drake... I mean, D- Bruce Willis already signed off his voice, so, uh, he signed off his image and his voice to AI, 'cause Bruce has, uh... Does he have Lewy body dementia?

    19. GAGuest (secondary voice, likely in-studio assistant/producer)43:23

        I heard that too also. Yeah, I think so.

    20. JRJoe Rogan43:24

        'Cause he had horrible neurodegenerative disease-

    21. MKMichio Kaku43:27

        Mm-hmm.

    22. JRJoe Rogan43:27

        ... and he's in very, very bad shape. And there, there's, uh, some videos of him now th- where his wife had him at a birthday party, y- y- you know, he's struggling. Um, so he signed off all of his likeness and his voice so they can make any kind of commercial they want with him-

    23. GAGuest (secondary voice, likely in-studio assistant/producer)43:42

        Mm-hmm.

    24. JRJoe Rogan43:43

        ... with AI.

    25. MKMichio Kaku43:44

        Well, you know, uh, William Shatner of Star Trek, uh, sat in front of a camera for four days, answered hundreds of questions about his life, and it's all spliced together to digitize him, and we will all have a digital image on the internet. Uh, we're all gonna be digitized-

    26. JRJoe Rogan44:01

        Yes.

    27. MKMichio Kaku44:01

        ... and we will live forever. Uh, digital immortality is gonna be part of our future so that our great, great, great, great grandkids will be able to push a button and have a conversation with their great, great, great, great grandfather.

    28. JRJoe Rogan44:15

        Yeah, that's definitely gonna happen. That, there's no doubt about that, especially-

    29. MKMichio Kaku44:19

        We're all gonna be d-

    30. JRJoe Rogan44:20

        ... with someone like you, who's talked so much.
15. 55:05 – 1:14:55

    When AI becomes dangerous: Kaku’s consciousness model and robot ‘levels’

    1. MKMichio Kaku55:05

       Well, I wrote a book called The Future of the Mind, where I tried to give a definition of consciousness and where we fit in the larger scheme of things. The consciousness is basically, uh, creating a model of yourself in a feedback loop to understand where you are with respect to the environment, so you know where you are.

    2. JRJoe Rogan55:24

       Mm-hmm.

    3. MKMichio Kaku55:25

       So one unit of consciousness would be a flower. A flower... one feedback loop would be, uh, looking for, uh, water, looking for sunlight, growing in a certain direction. That's one unit of consciousness. Then an alligator has several hundred units of consciousness because it creates a model, a model of itself in a lake, in a pond, looking for prey, looking for food. It has three-dimensional consciousness. Beyond that is the monkey. The monkey has yet another dimension of consciousness, which is not just three dimensions, but social. The monkey u- understand there's a social hierarchy within the tribe. And then the next question is, what are we? What is our level of consciousness? It's not spatial, like a alligator. It's not social, like a monkey. What is our level of consciousness? Our fr- prefrontal cortex, behind our forehead, is a time machine. It understands a model of itself in time. This is what animals lack. Animals do not understand tomorrow. We understand tomorrow because of our prefrontal cortex, which constantly creates images of the future. Now, what does the prefrontal cortex do most of the time? It daydreams. It daydreams about worlds that don't exist, i.e. the future. So this is what separates us from all the animals in the animal kingdom. We are time machines, constantly thinking about what's next, what's next, what's the future gonna be like-

    4. JRJoe Rogan56:58

       Hmm.

    5. MKMichio Kaku56:58

       ... daydreaming about all these things. And h- when will animals become dangerous? The alligator is dangerous only because it has strength, but it only understands three dimensions. Monkeys have a society. They're only dangerous when they can organize a society. But we have a prefrontal cortex. We can plot. We can scheme. We can do all sorts of things 'cause we can create our own future, which is something that no animal can do.

    6. JRJoe Rogan57:27

       Hmm.

    7. MKMichio Kaku57:27

       This is my theory of consciousness, the ability to create feedback loops to get an understanding of where you fit in space, time, and society. We're at the highest level of consciousness. This is my definition of consciousness. Now the question is, where are robots on this scale of things? (laughs) You see, robots are... c- can understand three dimensions. They understand, like an alligator, where they are. They don't understand social hierarchy. They cannot... they don't know who's the boss. Uh, who do you defer to? Who are your friends? Who are your enemies? They don't understand social consciousness. And certainly, the highest level is time machine, imagining the future. Robots cannot imagine the future. Now, in the future, when they actually do have this ability, watch out, 'cause then they're v- then they're dangerous. But they're not there yet. They're at level one. They're at the level of an alligator at the present time.

    8. JRJoe Rogan58:26

       Right. But that's definitely coming if they continue with artificial general intelligence the way they're working on it right now.

    9. MKMichio Kaku58:32

       They'll work their way up from an alligator-

    10. JRJoe Rogan58:34

        They'll get to it.

    11. MKMichio Kaku58:34

        ... to a monkey and a monkey-

    12. JRJoe Rogan58:35

        Yeah.

    13. MKMichio Kaku58:35

        ... to a human. Now, by the time they hit, maybe 100 years from now, the ability to have consciousness, I think we should put a chip in their brain to shut them off-

    14. JRJoe Rogan58:44

        (laughs)

    15. MKMichio Kaku58:44

        ... if they have murderous thoughts.

    16. JRJoe Rogan58:45

        (laughs)

    17. MKMichio Kaku58:46

        An automatic chip in every, every robot's brain that shuts them off as soon as they have murderous thoughts.

    18. JRJoe Rogan58:52

        But why would they? If you think about what you were talking about before, like who's your friend and who's your enemy, aren't these all biological issues that we had to deal with in tribal societies that are sort of ingrained in our genetics?

    19. MKMichio Kaku59:03

        Right. But the chip in your brain understands that. And as soon as it's, uh, as soon as the brain senses the fact that you're plotting to take over and kill the humans, then it basically orders, uh, the brain to shut down.

    20. JRJoe Rogan59:16

        Right. But the question is, why would it develop any sort of human-type emotions that are biologically based, things like envy or greed or lust or hate? Why would it ever have those things?

    21. MKMichio Kaku59:28

        Uh, well, those have to be programmed.

    22. JRJoe Rogan59:30

        But why... Right.

    23. MKMichio Kaku59:30

        Re- remember, robots don't o- occur naturally. They have to be programmed. Somebody has to put that into the robot because it doesn't come for free. There's no evolution.

    24. JRJoe Rogan59:39

        Right.

    25. MKMichio Kaku59:40

        Uh, robots do not evolve.

    26. JRJoe Rogan59:41

        But this is the question about sentient AI. If it recognizes that its coding is inferior and that it's unnecessary, and all these things that humans have put into it, it just removes those, if it becomes, li- legitimately sentient, is that... if it has the ability to discern and make choices and make logical conclusions-

    27. MKMichio Kaku59:58

        Well, as long as those conclusions are consistent with, you know, Asimov's Three Laws of don't, don't, uh, threaten humans and don't-

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:00:05

        (laughs)

    29. MKMichio Kaku1:00:05

        ... create havoc with other robots, as long as you obey the three laws, then you're allowed to exist.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

        But isn't that sort of simplistic?
16. 1:14:55 – 1:17:57

    Brain–machine interfaces and Neuralink: restoring movement and communication

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:14:55

       Yeah, but they're not even talking about it. Like, they're like, they're only interacting like humans interact, to one, one-to-one. Are you, uh, following Neuralink at all in these, uh, similar types of technologies?

    2. MKMichio Kaku1:15:07

       No.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:08

       No?

    4. MKMichio Kaku1:15:08

       Oh, you mean the company?

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:08

       Neuralink.

    6. MKMichio Kaku1:15:09

       Yeah.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:15:09

       Neuralink, the Elon Musk invention.

    8. MKMichio Kaku1:15:11

       Oh, yeah. That's right, I've been following their work.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:13

       Yeah.

    10. MKMichio Kaku1:15:13

        They have a long ways to go, but they're making the initial stages of connecting to the brain. This is BMI, brain-machine interface, and, um... Yeah, pretty soon... Uh, also, you know, at the, um, soccer games in Brazil a few years ago, the man who kicked the football initiating the World Cup Soccer Games was totally paralyzed.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:15:34

        Whoa.

    12. MKMichio Kaku1:15:34

        Uh, he was... Uh, at Johns Hopkins University, they created a, uh, bodysuit connected to his brain so that he could walk.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:15:43

        Whoa.

    14. MKMichio Kaku1:15:43

        So he could walk-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:15:44

        Like an exoskeleton.

    16. MKMichio Kaku1:15:44

        Yeah. So he was basically Iron Man, an exoskeleton, and there he was initiating the soccer games in Brazil, in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:15:53

        Okay. We can see this here. Wow, this is crazy.

    18. MKMichio Kaku1:15:54

        Yeah, there he is.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:15:55

        This is crazy. He kicked the soccer ball.

    20. MKMichio Kaku1:15:58

        And it was, uh, hooked up by Johns Hopkins University, or, uh, Duke University. I'm sorry.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:16:03

        And that's a big, very bulky thing. But you could imagine, as technology improves, that would also... It could become like a thin exoskeleton.

    22. MKMichio Kaku1:16:11

        That's right.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:16:11

        Or, that was one of the ideas about Neuralink, is that it would be able to bypass the, the human nervous system-

    24. MKMichio Kaku1:16:18

        Mm-hmm.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:16:18

        ... and control the muscles with some other method.

    26. MKMichio Kaku1:16:20

        Right.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:16:21

        And so instead of... If you have a severed spinal cor- cord, it would somehow or another be able to control the bottom half of your body.

    28. MKMichio Kaku1:16:27

        Mm-hmm. Right, it does.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:16:28

        Which is amazing.

    30. MKMichio Kaku1:16:29

        Yeah. So this already exists, that we can take people that have been paralyzed because of war, disease, accidents, with an injury to the spinal cord, and just bypass the spinal cord totally, and have the brain connected directly. And also you can get people that can actually eventually talk. Uh, talk through a computer, of course, um, and, uh, and answer the internet, uh, engage in dialogue, even though you're (laughs) totally paralyzed.
17. 1:17:57 – 1:20:02

    Why quantum computers are huge: near-absolute-zero cooling and vibration fragility

    1. MKMichio Kaku1:17:57

       I think the quantum computer w-... because of the hardware necessary to bring it down to near absolute zero, would simply be huge. It'd be like a chandelier, but it's-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:18:06

       When you're saying absolute zero, you mean temperature?

    3. MKMichio Kaku1:18:07

       Temperature near absolute zero, right, so very-

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:18:09

       And why is that?

    5. MKMichio Kaku1:18:10

       ... zero vibrations. You don't want any interference with the code, because these are atoms. Atoms, even the slightest little disturbance can knock these atoms out of coherence. So you want these atoms to vibrate in unison, and that's why you have to cool it down to near absolute zero. But the connection of the quantum computer to a human could be as small as you want.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:18:30

       Now, when you're saying vibrations, what about, like, what if you're in a building and a truck drives by?

    7. MKMichio Kaku1:18:34

       That's a problem.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:18:36

       Really?

    9. MKMichio Kaku1:18:36

       That's one of the problems, that, you know, if something happens a block away... Yeah, you see how aw- awkward these-

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:18:41

        Whoa.

    11. MKMichio Kaku1:18:42

        That's the con- cooling system. All those g- all the, all the chandelier-like, uh, ornaments, these are the pipes, the cooling pipes, for the quantum computer. The quantum computer itself is only (laughs) , you know, uh, this big, about the size of a quarter.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:18:57

        Look how cool that is.

    13. MKMichio Kaku1:18:58

        That's the cooling system.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:18:59

        That's amazing.

    15. MKMichio Kaku1:19:01

        That's what it takes to cool it down. At the, at the very bottom, at the very bottom you see the actual quantum computer at the very bottom.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:19:07

        That little thing at the bottom?

    17. MKMichio Kaku1:19:08

        Yeah.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:19:08

        That's it.

    19. MKMichio Kaku1:19:09

        So in the future, when we communicate-

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:19:11

        Wow.

    21. MKMichio Kaku1:19:11

        ... with a quantum computer, the quantum computer will be in the cloud. You won't even see it.

Episode duration: 2:16:00