Eugenia Kuyda: Friendship with an AI Companion | Lex Fridman Podcast #121

Lex Fridman 0:00 The following is a conversation with Eugenia Kuyda, co-founder of Replika, which is an app that allows you to make friends with an artificial intelligence system, a chatbot that learns to connect with you on an emotional, you could even say a human, level by being a friend. For those of you who know my interest in AI and views on life in general know that Replika and Eugenia's line of work is near and dear to my heart. The origin story of Replika is grounded in a personal tragedy of Eugenia losing her close friend, Roman Mazurenki, who was killed crossing a street by a hit-and-run driver in late 2015. He was 34. The app started as a way to grieve the loss of a friend by training a chatbot neural net on text messages between Eugenia and Roman. The rest is a beautiful human story, as we talk about with Eugenia. When a friend mentioned Eugenia's work to me, I knew I had to meet her and talk to her. I felt before, during, and after that this meeting would be an important one in my life, and it was, I think in ways that only time will truly show, to me and others. She's a kind and brilliant person. It was an honor and a pleasure to talk to her. Quick summary of the sponsors: DoorDash, Dollar Shave Club, and Cash App. Click the sponsored links in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say the deep, meaningful connection between human beings and artificial intelligence systems is a lifelong passion for me. I'm not yet sure where that passion will take me, but I decided some time ago that I will follow it boldly and without fear to as far as I can take it. With a bit of hard work and a bit of luck, I hope I'll succeed in helping build AI systems that have some positive impact on the world and on the lives of a few people out there. But also, it is entirely possible that I am in fact one of the chatbots that Eugenia and the Replika team have built, and this podcast is simply a training process for the neural net that's trying to learn to connect to human beings one episode at a time. In any case, I wouldn't know if I was or wasn't, and if I did, I wouldn't tell you. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I'll try to make these interesting but give you timestamps so you can skip, but please do still check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description to get a discount, buy whatever they're selling. It really is the best way to support this podcast. This show is sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. Try them out with a one-time offer for only five bucks and free shipping at dollarshave.com/lex. The starter kit comes with a six-blade razor, refills, and all kinds of other stuff that makes shaving feel great. I've been a member of Dollar Shave Club for over five years, and actually signed up when I first heard about them on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. And now, friends, we have come full circle. It feels like I made it, now that I can do a read for them just like Joe did all those years ago, back when he also did ads for some less reputable companies, let's say, that you know about if you're a true fan of the old-school podcasting world. Anyway, I just use the razor and the refills, but they told me I should really try out the shave butter. I did. I love it. It's translucent somehow, which is a cool new experience. Again, try the Ultimate Shave Starter Set today for just five bucks plus free shipping at dollarshaveclub.com/lex. This show is also sponsored by DoorDash. Get $5 off and zero delivery fees on your first order of 15 bucks or more when you download the DoorDash app and enter code, you guessed it, Lex. I have so many memories of working late nights for a deadline with a team of engineers, whether that's for my PhD at Google or MIT, and eventually taking a break to argue about which DoorDash restaurant to order from. And when the food came, those moments of bonding, of exchanging ideas, of pausing to shift attention from the programs to humans were special. For a bit of time, I'm on my own now, so I miss that camaraderie, but actually, I still use DoorDash a lot. There's a million options to fit into my crazy keto diet ways. Also, it's a great way to support restaurants in these challenging times. Once again, download the DoorDash app and enter code Lex to get five bucks off and zero delivery fees on your first order of $15 or more. Finally, this show is presented by Cash App, the number one finance app in the App Store. I can truly say that they're an amazing company, one of the first sponsors, if not the first sponsor, to truly believe in me, and, and I think quite possibly the reason I'm still doing this podcast. So I am forever grateful to Cash App. So thank you. And as I said many times before, use code LEXPODCAST when you, uh, download the app from Google Play or the App Store. Cash App lets you send money to friends, buy Bitcoin, and invest in the stock market with as little as $1. I usually say other stuff here in the read, but I wasted all that time up front saying how grateful I am to Cash App. I'm going to try to go off the top of my head a little bit more for these reads because I'm actually very lucky to be able to choose the sponsors that we take on. And that means I can really only take on the sponsors that I truly love, and then I can just talk about why I love them. So it's pretty simple. Again, get Cash App from the App Store or Google Play. Use code LEXPODCAST, get 10 bucks, and Cash App will also donate 10 bucks to FIRST, an organization that is helping to advance robotics and STEM education for young people around the world.And now here's my conversation with Eugenia Kuyda.

Lex Fridman 6:18 Okay, before we talk about AI and the amazing work you're doing, let me ask you a ridiculously... We're both Russian, so let me ask you a ridiculously romanticized Russian question. Do you think human beings are alone? Like, fundamentally, on a philosophical level. Like, in our existence, when we, like, go through life, do you think, um, just the nature of our life is loneliness?

Eugenia Kuyda 6:50 Yeah, so we have to read Dostoevsky at school, as you probably know, so-

Lex Fridman 6:54 In Russian?

Eugenia Kuyda 6:55 (laughs) Yeah. I mean, it's part of the- your school program. Um, so I guess if you read that, then you sort of have to believe that, um, you're made to believe that you're fundamentally alone and that's how you live your life.

Lex Fridman 7:07 How do you think about it? You have a lot of friends, but at the end of the day, do you have like a longing for connection with other people that's... Maybe another way of asking it, do you think that's ever fully satisfied?

Eugenia Kuyda 7:23 I think we are fundamentally alone. We're born alone. We're- we die alone. But, um, in our... But I view my whole life as trying to get away from that, (laughs) trying to not feel, uh, feel lonely. And again, we're talking about, you know, subjective kind of way of feeling alone. It doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have any connections or you are actually isolated.

Lex Fridman 7:44 You think it's a subjective, uh, thing, but, like a- again, another absurd measurement-wise thing, how much loneliness do you think there is in the world? So like, if you see loneliness as a- as a condition, how much of it is there-

Eugenia Kuyda 8:03 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 8:04 ... do you think? Like how... I guess how many, you know, there's all kinds of studies and measures of how much, you know, how many people in the world feel alone. There's all these like measures of how many people are, you know, self-report or just all these kinds of different measures. But in your own perspective, um, how big of a problem do you think it is size wise?

Eugenia Kuyda 8:27 Well, I'm actually fascinated by the topic of loneliness. I try to read about it as much as I can. Um, what really... And there, I think there's a paradox 'cause loneliness is not a clinical disorder. It's not something that you can get your insurance to pay for if you're struggling with it, yet it's- it's actually proven and pretty, you know, tons of papers, tons of research around that. It- it is proven, um, that it's, um, correlated with earlier, uh, life exp- expectancy, shorter lifespan. And it is, you know, in a way, like right now what scientists would say that it, you know, it's a little bit worse than being obese or not actually doing any physical activity in your life-

Lex Fridman 9:07 In terms of the impact on your health?

Eugenia Kuyda 9:08 ... in terms of impact on your physiological health. Yeah. So it- it's basically puts you, if you're constantly feeling lonely, um, your body responds like it's basically all the time under stress. So it's always in this alert, um, alert state. And so it's really bad for you because it actually like drops your immune system. It get, it, um, your response to inflammation is quite different, so all- all the cardio- cardiovascular diseases, actually responds to viruses. So it's much easier to catch a virus.

Lex Fridman 9:37 That's sad now that we're living in a pandemic and it's probably making us a lot more alone, and it's probably weakening the immune system, making us more susceptible to the virus. It's kind of sad.

Eugenia Kuyda 9:51 Yeah. The statistics are, the statistics are pretty- pretty horrible around that. So around 30% of all millennials report that they're feeling lonely constantly.

Lex Fridman 9:59 30?

Eugenia Kuyda 10:00 30%. And then it's much worse for gen Z. And then 20% of millennials say that they feel lonely and they also don't have any close friends. And then tw- um, I think 25 or so, and then 20% would say they don't even have acquaintances. So it's-

Lex Fridman 10:12 And that's United States?

Eugenia Kuyda 10:13 That's in the United States. And I'm pretty sure that that's much worse everywhere else. Like in the UK, I mean, it was wide- widely like tweeted and, uh, posted when they were talking about a minister of loneliness that they wanted to appoint 'cause four out of 10 U- people in UK feel lonely. So I think we don't-

Lex Fridman 10:30 A minister of loneliness. (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 10:32 (laughs) I mean, that, I think that thing actually exists. Um, so yeah, you- you- you will die sooner if you, if you are lonely. And again, that, this is only when we're, we're only talking about your perception of loneliness or feeling lonely. That is not objectively fully so- being fully socially isolated. However, the combination of being (laughs) fully socially isolated and not having many connections and also feeling lonely, that's pretty much a deadly combination. So it strikes me bizarre or strange that this is a wide known fact and that there's really no one working really on that because it's a subclinical, it's not clinical. It's not something that you can, well, tell your doctor and get a treatment or something, yet it's killing us.

Lex Fridman 11:19 Yeah. So there's a bunch of people trying to evaluate, like try to measure the problem by looking at, like, how social media is affecting loneliness and all that kind of stuff. So it's like measurement. Like, if you look at the field of psychology, they're trying to measure the problem. And not that many people actually, but some. But y- you're basically saying how many people are trying to solve the problem. Like, how would you try to solve (laughs) the problem of loneliness? Like, if you just stick to humans, uh, I mean, or bas- not just the humans, but the technology that connects us humans, do you think there's a hope for that technology to do the connection? Like, are- are you on social media much?

Eugenia Kuyda 12:05 (laughs) Unfortunately.

Lex Fridman 12:07 (laughs) Do you find yourself-

Eugenia Kuyda 12:08 Quite often.

Lex Fridman 12:08 ... like, uh, again, if you sort of introspect about how connected you feel to other human beings, how not alone you feel, do you think social media makes it better or worse? Maybe for you personally or in- in general?

Eugenia Kuyda 12:23 I think it's, it's easier to look at some stats and, um, I mean, Gen Z seem to be, Generation Z seems to be much lonelier than millennials in terms of how they report loneliness. They're definitely the most connected, you know, generation in the world. I mean, I still remember life without, without an iPhone, uh, without Facebook. They don't know that that ever existed, uh, or they at least don't know how it was. Um, so that tells me a little bit about the fact that that might be, um, you know, this hyper-connected world is, might actually make people feel lonely, lonelier. I don't know exactly what the, what the measurements are around that. But I would say, you know, in my personal experience, I think it does make you feel a lot lonelier. Mostly, yeah, we're all super connected. Uh, but I think loneliness, the feeling of loneliness doesn't come from not having any social connections whatsoever. Again, tons of people that are, are in long-term relationships experience bouts of loneliness and continued loneliness. Um, and it's more the question about the true connection, about actually being deeply seen, deeply understood. Um, and in a way, it's also about your relationship with yourself. Like in order to not feel lonely, you actually need to have a better relationship and feel more connected to yourself than this feeling actually starts to go away a little bit. And then you, um, open up yourself to actually meeting other people in a very special way. Uh, not in just, you know, add a friend on Facebook kind of way.

Lex Fridman 13:55 So just to briefly touch on it, I mean, do you think it's possible to form that kind of connection with AI systems? More down the line of some of your work, do you think that's, um, engineering-wise, a possibility to alleviate loneliness is not with another human, but with an AI system?

Eugenia Kuyda 14:20 Well, I know that's, that's a fact. (laughs) That's what we're doing and we, we see it and we measure that and we see how people start to feel less lonely, um, talking to their virtual AI friend.

Lex Fridman 14:32 So, so basically a chat bot at the basic level, but could be more. Like do you have ... I'm not even speaking sort of, uh, about specifics, but do you have a hope, like if you look 50 years from now, do you have a hope that there's just like AIs that are like optimized for, um... Let me, let me first start, like right now the way people perceive AI, which is recommender systems for Facebook and Twitter, social media, they see AIs basically destroying, first of all, the fabric of our civilization. But second of all, making us more lonely. Do you see like a world where it's possible to just have AI systems floating about that like make our life less lonely? Yeah. Make us happy. Make, like are putting good things into the world in terms of our individual lives?

Eugenia Kuyda 15:26 Yeah, I totally believe it, uh, in that, that's why we're, I'm also working on that. Um, I think we need to also make sure that, um, what we're trying to optimize for, we're actually measuring and it is a north star metric that we're going after. And all of our product and all, all of our business models are optimized for that. Because you can talk, you know, a lot of products that talk about, um, you know, making you feel less lonely or making you feel more connected, they're not really measuring that. So they don't really know whether their users are actually feeling less lonely in the long run or feeling more connected in the long, long run. Um, so I think it's really important to put your-

Lex Fridman 16:01 To measure it.

Eugenia Kuyda 16:02 Yeah. To measure it.

Lex Fridman 16:04 What's a, what's a good measurement of loneliness? (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 16:07 Well, so that's something that I'm really interested in. How do you measure that people are feeling better or that they're feeling less lonely? With loneliness there is a scale, there's a UCLA-20 and UCLA-3 recently scaled, which is basically a questionnaire that you fill out and you can see whether in the long run it's improving or not.

Lex Fridman 16:26 And that, uh, does it capture the momentary feeling of loneliness? Does it look in like the past month? Like, uh, does it put basically self-report? Does it try to sneak up on you? (laughs) .

Eugenia Kuyda 16:40 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 16:40 Try to trick you to answer honestly or something like that?

Eugenia Kuyda 16:44 It is-

Lex Fridman 16:44 Or what's, yeah, I'm not familiar with the questionnaire.

Eugenia Kuyda 16:46 It is just asking you a few questions like, "How often did you feel, uh, like lonely?" Or, "How often did you feel connected to other people in this last few, couple weeks?" Um, it's similar to the self-report questionnaires for depression and anxiety, like PHQ-9 and GAD-7. Of course, as any, as any self-report questionnaires, that's not necessarily very precise or very well measured, but still if you take a big enough population, you get them through these, uh, questionnaires, you can see, you can see a positive dynamic.

Lex Fridman 17:19 And so you basically, uh, you put people through questionnaires to see like, is this thing, is our, is what we're creating making people happier?

Eugenia Kuyda 17:28 Yeah. We measure, so we measure two outcomes. One short term, right after the conversation we ask people whether this conversation made them feel better, worse, or same. Um, this, this metric right now is at 80%. So 80% of all our conversations make people feel better.

Lex Fridman 17:46 But I should have done the questionnaire with you. (laughs) . You'll feel a lot worse after we've done this conversation. (laughs) . That's actually fascinating. I should, I should probably do... (laughs) .

Eugenia Kuyda 17:56 But that's, that's our-

Lex Fridman 17:57 I should probably do that.

Eugenia Kuyda 17:57 You should totally start measuring.

Lex Fridman 17:59 And aim for 80%. (laughs) . Aim to outperform your current state-of-the-art AI system-

Eugenia Kuyda 18:06 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 18:07 ... (laughs) in these human conversations. So, okay, we'll get to, uh, your work with Replika,

Lex Fridman 18:13 but let me continue on the line of absurd questions. So you, you, you talked about, um, you know, deep connection with other humans, deep connection with AI. Meaningful connection. Let me ask about love. People make fun of me 'cause I talk about love all the time.

Eugenia Kuyda 18:28 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 18:28 But, uh, what, what do you think love is?... like, maybe in the context of, um, a meaningful connection with somebody else, do you d- draw a distinction between love, like friendship and Facebook friends? (laughs) Or, or is it a gradu-

Eugenia Kuyda 18:47 The answer is no. (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 18:50 (laughs) .

Eugenia Kuyda 18:50 It's all the same.

Lex Fridman 18:52 (laughs) No, like, is it, is it just a gradual thing or is there something fundamental about us humans that seek like a really deep connection, uh, with another human being? And what is that? What is love, Eugenia?

Eugenia Kuyda 19:07 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 19:09 I'm gonna-

Eugenia Kuyda 19:10 The way-

Lex Fridman 19:10 ... I just enjoy asking you these questions-

Eugenia Kuyda 19:12 I like that ... and see- and seeing you struggle. (laughs) I know. (laughs) Thanks.

Lex Fridman 19:15 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 19:16 Um, well, the way I see it, um, and specifically, um, the way it relates to our work and the way it was ins- it, the way it inspired our work on Replika, um, I think one of the biggest and the most precious gifts we can give to each other now in 2020 as humans is this gift of deep, empathetic understanding, the feeling of being deeply seen.

Lex Fridman 19:42 Like, what does that mean, like that, that you exist? Like, somebody acknowledging that...

Eugenia Kuyda 19:47 Somebody seeing you for who you actually are. And that's extremely, extremely rare. Um, I think that is, that combined with unconditional positive regard, um, belief and trust that, uh, you internally are always inclined for positive growth and believing you in this way, letting you be a separate person at the same time. And this deep em- empathetic understanding, for me, that's the, that's the combination that really creates something special. Something that people when they feel it once, they will always long for it again. And something that starts huge fundamental changes in people. Um, when we see that someone's, uh, accepts us so deeply, we start to accept ourselves. And, um, the paradox is, is that's when big changes start, start happening. Big fundamental changes in people start happening. So I think that is the ultimate therapeutic relationship that is, and that might be in some way a definition of love.

Lex Fridman 20:48 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 20:49 So, so acknowledging that there's a separate person and accepting you for who you are. Um, now, on a slightly... So that, and you mentioned therapeutic, that sounds very, like a very healthy view of love. But, uh, is there also like a, like, you know, if we look at heartbreak, and, uh, you know, m- most love songs are probably about heartbreak, right?

Eugenia Kuyda 21:17 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 21:17 Uh, is that like the mystery, the tension, the danger, the fear of loss, you know, all of that, what people might see in a negative light as like games or whatever, but just, just the, the dance of human interaction? Yeah, fear of loss. And fear of like, you s- you said like once you feel it once, you long for it again. But you also, once you feel it once, you might, for many people, they've lost it. So they fear losing it. They feel loss. So is that part of it? Like, you're, you're speaking like beautifully about like the positive things, but is it important to be able to, uh, be afraid of losing it from an engineering perspective?

Eugenia Kuyda 22:04 (laughs) . I mean, it's a huge part of it. And unfortunately, we all, you know, um, face it at some points in our lives. I mean, I did. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 22:14 You wanna go into details? (laughs) . How'd you get your heart broken?

Eugenia Kuyda 22:18 Sure. Well, so mine is pretty straight, my story is pretty straightforward, um, there. I did have a friend that was, you know, that at some point, um, in my 20s became really, really close to me and we, we became really close friends. Um, well, I grew up pretty lonely. So in many ways when I'm building, you know, these, these AI friends, I'm thinking about myself when I was 17 writing horrible poetry and, you know, on my dial-up modem at home. And, um, you know, and that was the feeling that I grew up with. I loved, I lived, um, alone for a long time when I was a teenager.

Lex Fridman 22:53 Where did you grow up?

Eugenia Kuyda 22:54 In Moscow, in the-

Lex Fridman 22:55 Moscow.

Eugenia Kuyda 22:55 ... outskirts of Moscow. (laughs) . Um, so I'd just skateboard during the day and come back home and, you know, connect to the internet. (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 23:03 And write poetry.

Eugenia Kuyda 23:03 And then write horrible poetry and still-

Lex Fridman 23:05 Was it love poems?

Eugenia Kuyda 23:07 All sorts of poem, obviously love poems. I mean, what, what other poetry can you write when you're 17?

Lex Fridman 23:12 Uh, could be political or something, but yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 23:15 But that was, you know, that was kind of my, yeah, like deeply, um, influenced by Joseph Brodsky and like all sorts of-

Lex Fridman 23:21 Nice.

Eugenia Kuyda 23:21 ... poets that, um, every 17-year-old will, will be looking, you know, looking at and reading. But yeah, that was my, uh, these were my teenage years. And I just never had a person that I thought would, you know, take me as it is, would accept me the way I am. Um, and I just thought, you know, working and just doing my thing and being angry at the world and being a reporter, I was an investigative reporter working undercover. And writing about people was my way to connect with, you know, with, with others. I, I was deeply curious about every, everyone else. And I thought that, you know, if I, if I go out there, if I write their stories, that means I'm more connected.

Lex Fridman 24:03 This is what this podcast is about, by the way.

Eugenia Kuyda 24:05 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 24:05 I'm desperate, alone seeking connection. (laughs) . I'm just kidding, or am I? I don't know. So what, what, wait, reporter, uh, what, how did that make you feel more connected? I mean, you're still fundamentally pretty alone.

Eugenia Kuyda 24:22 But you're always with other people, you know, you're always thinking about, "What other place can I infiltrate? What other community can I write about? What other phenomena can I explore?" And you're sort of like a trickster, you know, in like...... and, and a mythological charac- like, creature that's just jumping, uh, between all sorts of different worlds and feel, and feels sort of okay with, in all of them. So, um, that was my dream job, by the way. That was, like, totally what I would have been doing, um, if Russia was a different place. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 24:52 And a little bit undercover? So like you weren't... You were trying to, like you said, mythological creature trying to infiltrate. So t- try to be a part of the world. What, what are we talking about? What kind of things w- did you enjoy writing about?

Eugenia Kuyda 25:05 I'd go work at a strip club or go... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 25:09 (laughs) Awesome. Okay. (laughs) Uh-

Eugenia Kuyda 25:14 Or I'd go work at a restaurant-

Lex Fridman 25:15 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 25:16 ... or just go write about, you know, um, certain phenomenons, or phenomenons or people in, in the city.

Lex Fridman 25:22 And what, uh... Sorry to keep interrupting. I'm the, I'm the worst, um, uh, conversationalist. What stage of Russia is this? What, uh... Is this pre-Putin? Post-Putin? What, what was Russia like?

Eugenia Kuyda 25:38 Pre-Putin is really long ago. (laughs) Uh, this is Putin era. This, uh, beginning of 2000s, in 2010, 2007, '8, '9, '10.

Lex Fridman 25:49 What were strip clubs like in Russia, and restaurants, and culture, and people's minds like in that early Russia that you were covering?

Eugenia Kuyda 25:59 In those early 2000s, this was, there was still a lot of hope. There was still tons of hope that, um, you know, we're sort of becoming this, uh, western, westernized society. Uh, the restaurants were opening. We were really looking at, you know, um... We were trying, we were trying to copy a lot of things from, uh, from the US, from Europe, um, bringing all these things in. Very enthusiastic about that. So it was a lot of, you know, stuff going on. There was a lot of hope and dream for this, you know, new Moscow that would be similar to, I guess, New York. I mean, just to give you an idea in, um, year 2000 was the year when we had two, uh, movie theaters in Moscow, and there was this one first coffee house that opened. And that was, like, really big deal. Uh, by 2010, there were all sorts of things everywhere.

Lex Fridman 26:51 Almost like a chain- like a Starbucks type of coffee house? Or, like, you mean... (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 26:55 Oh, yeah. Like a Starbucks. I mean, I remember we were reporting on, like, we were writing about the opening of Starbucks, I think in 2007. That was one of the biggest things that happened in, you know, in Moscow back, (laughs) back in the time. Like that was worthy of a, of a magazine cover, and, uh, that was definitely the, the, you know, the biggest talk of the town.

Lex Fridman 27:13 Yeah. When was McDonald's? 'cause I is still in Russia when McDonald's opened. That was in the '90s. I mean, yeah-

Eugenia Kuyda 27:19 Oh, yeah. I remember that very well.

Lex Fridman 27:21 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 27:22 Those were long, long lines. I think it was 1993 or '4. I don't remember. Um, maybe actually earlier.

Lex Fridman 27:29 Did you go to McDonald's at that time? Did you do-

Eugenia Kuyda 27:31 I mean, that was a luxurious outing. That was definitely not something you do every day. And also the line was at least three hours. So if you're going to McDonald's, that is not fast food. That is, like, at least three hours in line-

Lex Fridman 27:41 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 27:42 ... (laughs) and then no one is trying to eat fast after that. Everyone is, like, trying to enjoy as much as possible. So my mom would take me-

Lex Fridman 27:47 What's your memory of that?

Eugenia Kuyda 27:50 Oh, it was insane. Out of this world.

Lex Fridman 27:53 Positive?

Eugenia Kuyda 27:53 Extremely positive. It's a small strawberry milkshake and a hamburger and small fries. And my mom's there and sometimes I'll just, 'cause I was really little, they'll just let me run, you know, up to cashier and like cut the line, (laughs) which is like, you, you cannot really do that in Russia or...

Lex Fridman 28:10 So, like, for a lot of people, like, a lot of those experiences might seem not very fulfilling, you know? Like it's on the verge of poverty, I suppose. But do you remember all that time fondly? Like, 'cause I do. Like the first time I drank, you know, Coke, you know, all that stuff, right? Um, and just, yeah, the connection with other human beings in Russia. I rememb- I remember it really positively. Like how do you remember the '90s and then the Russia you were covering, just the human connections you had with people and the experiences?

Eugenia Kuyda 28:54 Well, my, my parents were both, both physicists. My grandparents were both... Well, my grandpa- grandfather was an, um, nuclear physicist, a professor at the university. My dad worked at Chernobyl when I was born, in Chernobyl, analyzing kind of the everything after the explosion. And then I remember the... (laughs) And they were, so they were making sort of enough money in the Soviet Union so they were not, you know, extremely poor or anything. It was pretty prestigious to be a professor, uh, the dean in the university. And I remember my grandfather started making $100 a month after, you know, in the '90s. So then I remember we started... Our main line of work would be to go to our little tiny country house, uh, get a lot of apples there from apple trees, (laughs) bring them back to, to, um, to the city and sell them in the street. (laughs) So me and my nuclear physicist grandfather were just standing there and he'd selling those apples the whole day 'cause that would make you more money than, you know, working at the university.

Lex Fridman 30:01 Okay.

Eugenia Kuyda 30:01 And then he'll just tell me, try to teach me, um, you know, something about planets and whatever, the particles and stuff. And, you know, I'm not smart at all so I could never understand anything, but I was interested as a, you know, journalist kind of type interested. But that was my memory. You know, I'm happy that I wasn't, um... I somehow got spared that I was probably too young to remember any of the traumatic stuff. So the only thing I really remember, I had this bootleg... That was very traumatic. Had this bootleg Nintendo, which was called Dandy in Russia. So 1993 there was nothing to eat. Like even if you had any money, you would go to the store and there was no food. I don't know if you remember that.

Lex Fridman 30:41 Mm-hmm.

Eugenia Kuyda 30:42 And our friend had a, um-... restaurant, like a government, half government-owned something restaurant. So they always had, um, supplies. So he exchanged a big bag of wheat for this Nintendo (laughs) that looked like Nintendo. (laughs) And that I remember very fondly 'cause I think I was nine or something like that and, or seven.

Lex Fridman 31:05 Why so traumatic?

Eugenia Kuyda 31:06 'Cause we just got it.

Lex Fridman 31:08 Or that was just-

Eugenia Kuyda 31:08 And I was playing it and there was this, you know, Dandy TV show-

Lex Fridman 31:11 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 31:12 ... um, that would show you what to do.

Lex Fridman 31:12 So traumatic in a positive sense, you mean? Like, uh, like a definitive? Like-

Eugenia Kuyda 31:16 Well, they took it away and gave me a ba- bag of wheat instead, and I cried like my eyes out-

Lex Fridman 31:21 Oh.

Eugenia Kuyda 31:21 ... for days and days-

Lex Fridman 31:21 Oh, I thought it was the other direction.

Eugenia Kuyda 31:22 ... and days.

Lex Fridman 31:23 Oh, no.

Eugenia Kuyda 31:24 And then, you know, as a ... And my dad said, "We're gonna like exchange it back in a little bit so you keep the little gun." (laughs) You know, the one that you shoot the ducks with?

Lex Fridman 31:32 Yeah. Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 31:32 So I'm like, "Okay, I'm keeping the gun, so sometime it's gonna come back."

Lex Fridman 31:36 Did you ever-

Eugenia Kuyda 31:36 But then they exchanged the gun as well (laughs) for some sugar or something. I was so pissed. I was like, I didn't wanna eat for days after that. I'm like, "I don't wanna eat food." (laughs)

Lex Fridman 31:45 (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 31:45 "Give me my Nintendo back."

Eugenia Kuyda 31:47 So that was extremely traumatic. Um, but, you know, I was happy that that was my only traumatic experience. You know, my dad had to actually go to Chernobyl with a bunch of 20-year-olds. He was 20 when he went to, uh, Chernobyl, and that was right after the explosion. No one knew anything. The whole crew he went with, all of them are dead now. I think there was this one guy, uh, still la- that was still alive for just last few years. I think he died a few years ago now. My dad somehow luckily got back earlier than everyone else. But just the fact that that was the ... And I was always like, "Well, how did they send you? I was only ... I was just born." You know, we had a newborn. Talk about paternity leave. (laughs) They were like, "Oh, f- but that's who they took 'cause they didn't know whether you would be able to have kids when you come back." So they took the ones with kids. (laughs) So him with some guys went to ... And I'm just thinking of me when I was 20. I was so, uh, sheltered from any problems whatsoever in life. And then my dad, um, his 21st birthday at, at the reactor.

Lex Fridman 32:49 He goes to Chernobyl.

Eugenia Kuyda 32:49 You like work three hours a day, you sleep the rest. And, and I re- yeah. So I played with a lot of toys from Chernobyl memory. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 32:57 What, what are your memories of Chernobyl in, in, in general? Like on the bigger context, you know, because of that, uh, HBO show, it's, the world's attention turned to it once again. Like, what are your thoughts about Chernobyl? Did Russia screw that one up? Like, you know, there's probably a lot of lessons about our modern times with data about coronavirus and all that kinda stuff. It seems like there's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of people kind of trying to hide whether they've screwed something up or not. As it's very understandable, it's very human. Very wrong probably. But obviously Russia is probably trying to hide that they've screwed things up. Uh, like what are your thoughts about that time? Personal and general.

Eugenia Kuyda 33:47 I mean, I was born when the explosion happened, so actually a few months after. So of course I don't remember anything apart from the fact that my dad would bring me tiny toys.

Lex Fridman 33:57 Toys?

Eugenia Kuyda 33:58 Plas- pe- like plastic things that would just go crazy haywire when you, you know, put the Geiger thing to it.

Lex Fridman 34:05 (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 34:05 It was, my mom was like just nuclear about that. Um, she's like, "What are you bringing? You should not do that." Uh-

Lex Fridman 34:13 She was nuclear. Very nice.

Eugenia Kuyda 34:14 Absolutely. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 34:15 Well done.

Eugenia Kuyda 34:15 I'm sorry. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 34:16 (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 34:17 Well s- uh, but yeah, but the TV show was just phenomenal. I mean, it's-

Lex Fridman 34:22 The HBO one?

Eugenia Kuyda 34:22 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 34:23 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 34:23 It's definitely ... First of all, it's in- incredible how, um, that was made not by the Russians that, but someone else. But capturing so well everything about the, you know, about, about our country. Um, it felt a lot more genuine than most of the movies and TV shows that are made now in Russia. Just so much more genuine. And most of my friends in Russia were just in complete awe about the, with the show. But I think the-

Lex Fridman 34:48 How good of a job they did?

Eugenia Kuyda 34:49 Oh my god, phenomenal. But also-

Lex Fridman 34:50 Just the apartments. There's something ... Yeah. It was so great.

Eugenia Kuyda 34:52 The set design. I mean-

Lex Fridman 34:54 Yes.

Eugenia Kuyda 34:54 ... Russians can't do that. We, you know. But you, you, you see everything and it's like, "Wow, that's exactly how it was." (laughs) Yeah.

Lex Fridman 35:00 That's so ... I, I don't know. That sh- show, I don't know what to think about that 'cause it's British accents, British actors of a person ... I forgot who created the show. I'm not ... But I remember reading about him and he's not, he doesn't even feel like, like there's no Russian in his history.

Eugenia Kuyda 35:19 No, he did like Superbad or some like other sh-

Lex Fridman 35:21 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 35:21 Or like, uh, I don't know.

Lex Fridman 35:23 Yeah, like exactly.

Eugenia Kuyda 35:23 Whatever that thing about the bachelor party in Vegas. Uh ...

Lex Fridman 35:26 Uh ...

Eugenia Kuyda 35:27 Number four and five or something (laughs) were the ones that he worked.

Lex Fridman 35:29 Yeah. But so he ... It made me feel really sad for some reason that if a, if a person, obviously a genius could go in and just study, and just be, uh, extreme attention to detail, they can do a good job. It made me think like, why don't s- other people do a good job of this? (laughs) Like about Russia, like there's so little about Russia. There's so few good films about the Russian side of World War II, of ... I mean, there's so much interesting evil and not, and beautiful moments in the history of the 20th century in Russia that it feels like there's not many good films on, from the Russians. You would expect something from the Russians.

Eugenia Kuyda 36:19 (laughs) Well, they keep making these propaganda movies now.

Lex Fridman 36:22 Oh, no.

Eugenia Kuyda 36:22 Unfortunately. But yeah, no, Chernobyl was such a perfect TV show. I think capturing really well, it's not about like even the set design, which was phenomenal, but, um, just capturing all the problems that exist now with the country and like, um, focusing on the right things. Like if you build a whole country on a lie, that's what's gonna happen. And that's just, that's very, you know, simple kinda thing. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 36:48 Yeah. And did you, have your dad talked about it to you? Like his thoughts on the experience?

Eugenia Kuyda 36:55 He never talks (laughs) . He's this kind of Russian w- man that just... My husband, who's American, and he asked him a few times like, you know, "Igor, how did you... But why did you say yes?" Or like, "Why did you decide to go? You could have said no and not go to Chernobyl. Why would like a person..." Like, "That's what you do."

Lex Fridman 37:14 (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 37:14 "You cannot say no."

Lex Fridman 37:16 Yeah. Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 37:18 (laughs) It's just, it's like a Russian way (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 37:21 That's the Russian way.

Eugenia Kuyda 37:22 Men don't talk that much.

Lex Fridman 37:23 Nope.

Eugenia Kuyda 37:23 There are downsides and upsides for that.

Lex Fridman 37:26 Uh, yeah. That's the truth. Okay, so back to post-Putin Russia. Or may- maybe we skipped a few steps along the way, but you were trying to, uh, do, um, to be a journalist in that time. What was, what was Russia like at that time post, you said, 2007 Starbucks type of thing?

Eugenia Kuyda 37:51 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 37:51 What else, what else w- was Russia like then?

Eugenia Kuyda 37:55 I think there was just hope. There was this big hope that we're gonna be, you know, friends with the United States, and we're gonna be friends with Europe, and we're just gonna be also a country like those with, you know, um, bike lanes and parks and everything's gonna be urbanized. Again, we're talking about 90s where like people would be shot in the street. And it was, I sort of have a fond memory of going into a movie theater and I, you know, coming out of it after the movie and the guy that I saw on the stairs was, like, laid there shot (laughs) , which was, again, it was like a thing in the 90s. That would be happening. People were, you know, people were getting shot here and there.

Lex Fridman 38:33 Just violence.

Eugenia Kuyda 38:34 Tons of violence, tons of, uh, you know, just basically mafia mobs on, in the streets. And then the 2000s were like, you know, things just got cleaned up, uh, oil went up, uh, and the country started getting a little bit richer. You know, the 90s were so grim mostly because the economy was in shambles and oil prices were not high. So the country didn't have anything. We defaulted in 1998, and, um, the money kept jumping back and forth. Like first there were millions of rubles, then it got like default, you know, uh, then it got to like thousands, then it was one ruble with something, then again to millions. It was like crazy town.

Lex Fridman 39:11 That was crazy.

Eugenia Kuyda 39:12 Um, and then the 2000s were just this, these years of stability in a way, and, um, the country getting a little bit richer because of, you know, again, oil and gas. And we were starting to, we started to look at, specifically in Moscow ............................ to look in, at other cities in Europe and New York and US, and trying to do the same in our like small kind of cities, towns there.

Lex Fridman 39:37 What was, uh, what were your thoughts of Putin at the time?

Eugenia Kuyda 39:41 Well, in the beginning he was the, really positive. Everyone was very, you know, positive about Putin. He was young. Um, he's very energetic. He also immediate-

Lex Fridman 39:51 Handsome? The shirtless-

Eugenia Kuyda 39:52 Well, somewhat compared to... Well, that was not, like way before the shirtless era. Um...

Lex Fridman 39:57 The shirtless era (laughs) . I, okay, so he didn't start out shirtless. When did the shirtless era, it's like the propaganda of riding a horse, fishing...

Eugenia Kuyda 40:05 2010, 11, 12.

Lex Fridman 40:06 Yeah. That's my favorite-

Eugenia Kuyda 40:08 Um...

Lex Fridman 40:09 You know, like people talk about their favorite Beatles, like the, I don't know (laughs) , that's my favorite Putin is the shirtless Putin.

Eugenia Kuyda 40:15 No, I remember very, very clearly in 1996 where, you know, Americans really helped Russia with elections and Yeltsin got reelected, um, thankfully so, uh, because there was a huge threat that actually the communists will get back to power. Uh, they were a lot more popular. And then a lot of American experts, poli- political experts, uh, and campaign experts descended on Moscow and helped Yeltsin actually get, get the presidency, the second term for the p- um, the- of the presidency. But Yeltsin wa- was not feeling great, you know, in the, by the end of his second term. Uh, he was, you know, f- alcoholic. He was really old. He was falling off, uh, you know, the stages when he- where he was talking. Uh, so people were looking for fresh, I think for a fresh face, for someone who's gonna continue Yeltsin's, uh, work, but who's gonna be a lot more energetic and a lot more active, young, um, efficient maybe. So that w- that's what we all saw in Putin back in the day. I, I, I'd say that everyone, absolutely everyone in Russia in early 2000s who was not a communist would be, "Yeah, Putin's great. We, we have a lot of hopes for him."

Lex Fridman 41:26 What are your thoughts, and I promise we'll get back to, uh, first of all, your love story, and second of all,

Lex Fridman 41:35 AI (laughs) . But what are your thoughts about, um, communism? The 20th century, I apologize, I'm reading the Rise and Fall of the (laughs) Third Reich.

Eugenia Kuyda 41:46 Oh my God (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 41:48 (laughs) So I'm like really steeped into like World War II and Stalin and Hitler and just these dramatic personalities that brought so much evil to the world. But it's also interesting to politically think about these different systems and what they've led to. And, uh, Russia is one of the sort of beacons of communism in the 20th century. What are your thoughts about communism, having experienced it (laughs) as a political system?

Eugenia Kuyda 42:20 I mean, I have only experienced it a little bit, but mostly through stories and through, you know, seeing my parents and my grandparents who lived through that. I mean, it was horrible (laughs) . It was just plain horrible. It was just awful. Um...

Lex Fridman 42:33 You think it's, there's something, I mean, it sounds nice on paper (laughs) . There, there's a-

Eugenia Kuyda 42:42 Maybe (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 42:42 So like the drawbacks of capitalism is that, uh, you know, eventually-

Eugenia Kuyda 42:47 (clears throat)

Lex Fridman 42:47 ... there is, it's a, it's the point of like a slippery slope. Eventually it creates, um...... you know, the rich get richer. It- it creates a disparity, like inequality of, um, wealth and equality. If, like, you know, I guess it's hypothetical at this point, but eventually capitalism leads to humongous inequality, and that that's, you know, some people argue that that's a source of unhappiness, is it's not like absolute wealth of people, it's the fact that there's a lot of people much richer than you. There's a feeling of like that's where unhappiness can come from. So the idea of- of communism, or at least sort of Marxism is, um, is- is not allowing that kind of slippery slope. But then you see the actual limitations of it, and stuff seems to be- seems to go wrong very badly. What do you think that is? Why does it go wrong? (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 43:45 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 43:46 What- what is it about human nature? If we look at Chernobyl, you know, those kinds of bureauc- bureaucracies that were constructed, is there something like, hey, do you think about this much, of like why it goes wrong?

Eugenia Kuyda 44:01 Well, there's no one was really like, it- it- it's not that everyone was equal. Obviously, the, you know, the- the government and everyone close to that were the bosses. (laughs) So it's not like fully, I guess, uh-

Lex Fridman 44:14 There's already inequality.

Eugenia Kuyda 44:15 ... this dream of e- equal life, so then I guess the- the situation that we had in, you know, the Russia and Soviet, in the Soviet Union, it was more just a bunch of really poor people without any way to make any, you know, significant fortune or build anything, living constant, um, under constant surveillance, surveillance from other people. Like you can't even, you know, uh, do anything that's not fully approved by the dictatorship basically. (laughs) Otherwise your neighbor will write a letter and you'll go to jail. Absolute absence of actual law.

Lex Fridman 44:54 Yeah ƒ?

Eugenia Kuyda 44:54 This constant state of fear.

Lex Fridman 44:57 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 44:57 You didn't own any- own anything, it didn't, you know, the- you couldn't go travel, you couldn't read anything, uh, Western, or you couldn't make a career really, unless you're working in the, uh, military complex, um, which is why most of the scientists were so well-regarded. I come from, you know, both my dad and my mom come from families of scientists and they- they were really well-regarded (laughs) as you- as you know obviously.

Lex Fridman 45:23 'Cause the state wanted, I mean, 'cause there's a lot of value to them being well-regarded?

Eugenia Kuyda 45:29 Because they were developing things that could be used in- in the military. (laughs) So that was very important, that was the main investment. Um, but it was miserable, it was so miserable. That's why, you know, a lot of Russians now live in the state of constant PTSD. That's why we, you know, want to buy, buy, buy, buy, buy (laughs) definitely. If, as soon as we have the opportunity-

Lex Fridman 45:49 (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 45:49 ... you know, we just got to it finally that we can, you know, own things, you know. I remember at the time that we got our first yogurts, and that was the biggest deal in the world.

Lex Fridman 45:58 Yogurt.

Eugenia Kuyda 45:58 And it was already in the '90s by the way. I mean yogurts-

Lex Fridman 46:01 What was your like favorite food? What was like, whoa, like this is possible?

Eugenia Kuyda 46:07 Oh, fruit. Because we only had apples, bananas, and whatev- and, you know, whatever watermelons, whatever w- w- you know, people would grow in the Soviet Union. So there were no pineapples or papaya or mango. Like you've never seen those fruit things.

Lex Fridman 46:24 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 46:24 Like those were so ridiculously good. And obviously you could not get any like strawberries in winter or anything that's not, you know, seasonal. Um, so that was a really big deal, seeing all these fruit things.

Lex Fridman 46:36 Yeah, me too actually. I don't know. I think I have a, like I- I don't think I have any, too many demons, uh, or like addictions or so on, but I think I've developed an unhealthy relationship with fruit-

Eugenia Kuyda 46:47 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 46:48 ... that I still struggle with. (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 46:50 Oh, you can get any type of fruit, right?

Lex Fridman 46:51 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 46:51 You can get like also these weird fruit, fruits like dragon fruit or something.

Lex Fridman 46:56 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 46:57 Or...

Lex Fridman 46:57 All kinds of like different types of peaches.

Eugenia Kuyda 47:00 Uh-huh.

Lex Fridman 47:00 Like cherries were killer for me. I know- I know you say like we had bananas and so on, but I don't remember having any kind of banana. Like when I first came to this country, the amount of banana, I like literally got fat on bananas.

Eugenia Kuyda 47:13 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 47:15 Like the amount-

Eugenia Kuyda 47:16 Oh yeah, for sure.

Lex Fridman 47:17 ... they're delicious, and like cherries, the kind, like just the quality of the food. I was like, "This is capitalism? This is..." (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 47:24 That's pretty ... ƒ?

Lex Fridman 47:25 It's delicious. (laughs) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's funny. It's funny. Yeah, like it's- it's funny to read. I don't know what to think of it. Of, um ... It's funny to think how an idea that's just written on paper, when carried out amongst millions of people, how that gets actually, when it becomes reality what it actually looks like. Uh, sorry, but the, uh, been studying Hitler a lot recently and, uh, going through Mein Kampf. He, uh, pretty much wrote out in Mein Kampf everything he was gonna do. Unfortunately, most leaders, including Stalin, didn't read the, read it. But it's- it's kind of terrifying and I don't know, and amazing in some sense that you can have some words on paper and they can be brought to life and they can either inspire the world or they can destroy the world. And, uh, yeah, there's a lot of lessons to study in history that I think people don't study enough now. Although one of the things I'm hoping with, I'm practicing Russian a little bit. I'm hoping to sort of find, rediscover the, uh, the beauty and the terror of Russian history through this stupid podcast by talking to a few people.So anyway, I just feel like so much was forgotten.

Eugenia Kuyda 48:58 That would be great.

Lex Fridman 48:58 Uh, so much was forgotten. I'll probably, I'm gonna try to convince myself to, um, that you're a super busy and super important person. We- I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to befriend you to, uh-

Eugenia Kuyda 49:10 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 49:10 ... (laughs) to try to become a better Russian 'cause I feel like I'm a shitty Russian.

Eugenia Kuyda 49:14 Not that busy. (laughs) So I can totally be your Russian sherpa. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 49:17 (laughs) Sure. Yeah. But

Lex Fridman 49:22 love, (laughs) you were, you were talking about your early days of, uh, being a little bit alone and finding a connection with the world through being a journalist. Where does love come into that?

Eugenia Kuyda 49:36 I guess finding for the first time, um, some friends. Just very, you know, simple story. Some friends that all of a sudden we, I guess we were the same, you know, the same, at the same place with our lives. Um, we're 25, 26, I guess. And, um, somehow I remember, and we just got really close, and somehow I remember this one day (laughs) where, um, this one day in, you know, in summer that we just stayed out, um, outdoor the whole night and just talked and for some unknown reason it just felt for the first time that someone could, you know, see me for who I am and it just felt extremely, like, extremely good. (laughs) And I, you know, we fell asleep outside and just talking and it was raining, it was beautiful. It was, you know, sunrise and... It's really cheesy, but, um, at the same time, we just became friends in a way that I've never been friends with anyone else before. And I do remember that before and after that you sort of have this unconditional family, sort of, um, and it gives you tons of power. (laughs) It just basically gives you this, uh, tremendous power to do things in your life and to, um, change positively-

Lex Fridman 50:51 You mean like-

Eugenia Kuyda 50:52 ... on many different levels.

Lex Fridman 50:53 ... power because you could be yourself.

Eugenia Kuyda 50:56 At least you know that some- somewhere (laughs) you can be-

Lex Fridman 51:00 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 51:00 ... just yourself. Like, you don't need to pretend, you don't need to be, you know, um, great at work or tell some story or sell yourself in some way or another. And so we became just really close friends and, um, in a way, um, I started a company 'cause he had a startup and I felt like I kind of want a startup too. (laughs) It felt really cool. (laughs) I didn't know what I'm gonna, what I would, uh, really do, but I felt like I kind of need a startup.

Lex Fridman 51:27 Okay. So that's, so that pulled you in to the startup world.

Eugenia Kuyda 51:32 Yeah. And then, yeah, and then this, uh, closest friend of mine died. We actually moved here to San Francisco together and then we went back for a visa to Moscow and, uh, we lived together, we were roommates, and we came back and, um, he got hit by a car right in front of Kremlin on, uh, you know, next to the river, um, and died the same day ............................ hospital.

Lex Fridman 51:56 This is Roman?

Eugenia Kuyda 51:56 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 51:56 This is Roman? So, and you moved to America at that point?

Eugenia Kuyda 52:04 Yeah. At that point I was live-

Lex Fridman 52:05 What about him? What about Roman? What-

Eugenia Kuyda 52:06 Him too. He actually moved first, so I was always sort of trying to do what he was doing, so (laughs) I didn't like that he was already here and I was still, you know, in Moscow and we weren't hanging out together all the time, so...

Lex Fridman 52:16 Was he in San Francisco?

Eugenia Kuyda 52:18 Yeah. We were roommates.

Lex Fridman 52:20 So he just visited Moscow for a little bit?

Eugenia Kuyda 52:23 We went back for, for our visas. We had to get a stamp in our passport for our work visas, and the embassy was taking a little longer, so we stayed there for a couple weeks.

Lex Fridman 52:34 W- what happened? How, how did s- so how, how did he, uh, how did he die?

Eugenia Kuyda 52:40 Um, he was crossing the street and the car was going really fast and way over the speed limit and just didn't stop on the, on the pedestrian cross, on the zebra, and just ran over him.

Lex Fridman 52:53 When was this?

Eugenia Kuyda 52:54 It was in 2015 on the 28th of November. So it was pretty long ago now. Um, but at the time, you know, I was 29. So for me it was, um, the first kind of meaningful death in my life. Um, you know, both sets of, I had both sets of grandparents a- at the time. I didn't see anyone so close die, and death sort of existed but as a concept, but definitely not as something that would be, you know, happening to us anytime soon. (laughs) And specifically our friends, 'cause we were, you know, we were still in our 20s or early 30s and it still f- it still felt like the whole life is, you know, you could still dream about ridiculous things even. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:37 Mm-hmm.

Eugenia Kuyda 53:37 Um, so that was, it was just really, really abrupt, I'd say.

Lex Fridman 53:43 What did it feel like to, uh, to lose him? Like that feeling of loss. You talked about the feeling of love having power. What- what does the feeling of loss feel like?

Eugenia Kuyda 53:57 Well, in Buddhism there's this concept of samaya where something really, like, huge happens and then you can see very clearly. Um, I think that, that was it. Like, basically something changed so m- changed me so much in such a short period of time that I could just see really, really clearly what mattered or what not. Well, I definitely saw that whatever I was doing at work didn't matter at all (laughs) and some other things. And, um, it was just this big realization what, this very, very clear vision of what life's about.

Lex Fridman 54:35 You still miss him today?

Eugenia Kuyda 54:38 Yeah, for sure. (laughs) For sure. It was just this constant... I think it was, he was really important for, for me and for our friends for many different reasons, and, um, I think one of them being that we didn't just say goodbye to him, but we sort of said goodbye to our youth in a way, uh...... it was like the end of an era and it's on so many different levels. The end of Moscow as we knew it, the end of, you know, us living through our 20s and kind of dreaming about the future.

Lex Fridman 55:11 (sighs) Do you remember, like, the last several conversations? Is there moments with him that stick out that like kind of haunt you in your, just when you think about him?

Eugenia Kuyda 55:24 Yeah. Well, his last year here in San Francisco, he was pretty depressed for, I guess his startup was not going really anywhere.

Lex Fridman 55:30 Mm-hmm.

Eugenia Kuyda 55:31 And he wanted to do something else. He wanted to do, build, he played with toy with, like played with aro- uh, a bunch of ideas but the last one he had was around, um, building a startup around death. (laughs) So having, um... He applied to Y Combinator with a video that, you know, I had on my computer and it was all about, you know, disrupting death, thinking about new cemeteries, uh, more biologically, like things that could be better biologically for, for humans. And at the s- and, um, at the same time, having those, um, digital avatars, these kind of a- AI avatars that would store all the memory about a person that you could interact with.

Lex Fridman 56:15 Wow. What year was this?

Eugenia Kuyda 56:17 2015. (laughs) Well, right before that-

Lex Fridman 56:19 That's very interesting.

Eugenia Kuyda 56:19 ... his death. So it was like a couple months before that he recorded that video. And so I found it on my computer when, um... It was in our living room. He never got in but, um, he was thinking about it a lot somehow.

Lex Fridman 56:33 Does it have the digital avatar idea?

Eugenia Kuyda 56:35 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 56:36 That's so interesting.

Eugenia Kuyda 56:36 Well, he just says, well, that's in his head. I- i- the pitch has this idea and he all, he talks about like, "I wanna rethink how people grieve and how people talk about death."

Lex Fridman 56:46 Why was he interested in this? I, I, is it... (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 56:50 Maybe someone who's depressed. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 56:52 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 56:52 Is like naturally inclined thinking about that. But I just felt, you know, this year in San Francisco, we just had so much, um, I was going through a hard time, he was going through a hard time, and we were definitely, I was trying to make him just happy somehow, (laughs) to make him feel better. And it felt like, you know, this, um, I don't know, I just felt like I was taking care of, o- of him a lot. And he almost started to feel better. And then that happened. And I don't know, I just felt, I just felt lonely again, I guess. And that was, you know, coming back to San Francisco in December. I help- you know, I helped organize the funeral, help- help his parents. And I came back here and it was a really lonely apartment, a bunch of his clothes everywhere and Christmas time. And I remember I had a board meeting with my investors and I just couldn't talk about like... I had to pretend everything's okay and, you know, just working on this company. Um, yeah, it was ro- definitely very, very tough, tough time.

Lex Fridman 57:55 Do you think about your own mortality? You said, uh, you know, we're young. The w- the, the, the possibility of doing all kinds of crazy things is still out there, is still before us, but, uh, it can end any moment. Do you think about your own ending at any moment?

Eugenia Kuyda 58:18 Unfortunately, I think about way too- (laughs) about it way too much. It's somehow after Roman, like every year after that, I started losing people that I really love. I lost my grandfather the next year. My, you know, the, the person who would explain to me, you know, what the universe is made of. (laughs) You know, like ?

Lex Fridman 58:37 While, while, while you're selling apples?

Eugenia Kuyda 58:39 While selling apples. And then I lost another close friend of mine. And, um, and it just made me very scared. I have tons of fear abo- about death. That's what makes me not fall asleep oftentimes and just go in loops and, um, and then as my therapist es- you know, recommended me I open up, uh, some nice calming images (laughs) with a voiceover and it calms me down. Um...

Lex Fridman 59:05 Oh, for sleep?

Eugenia Kuyda 59:07 Yeah. I'm really scared of death. This is a big... I definitely have tons of, I guess some pretty big trauma about it and, um-

Lex Fridman 59:15 Whoa.

Eugenia Kuyda 59:15 ... still working it through.

Lex Fridman 59:17 There's a philosopher, Ernest Becker, who wrote a book, um, Denial of Death. I'm not sure if you're familiar with any of those folks. Um, there's a, in psychology, a whole field called terror management theory. Sheldon, who's just done the podcast, he wrote the book. He was the, w- we talked for four hours about death. (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 59:41 (laughs) That's right.

Lex Fridman 59:42 (laughs) Fear of death. Uh, but his, his whole idea is that, um, Ernest Becker, I think, I, I find this idea really compelling, is, uh, that everything human beings have created, like our whole motivation in life is to, uh, create, like escape death, is to try to, um, construct an illusion (sighs) of, um, that we're somehow immortal. So like everything around us, this room, your startup, your dreams, all, everything you do is a kind of, um, creation of, uh, a brain unlike any other mammal or species is able to be cognizant of the fact that it ends for us. Uh, I think, so r- you know, there's, there's the question of like the meaning of life that, you know, you look at like what drives us, uh, humans. And when I read Ernest Becker, that I highly recommend people read, it's the first time I, this seem- it, it felt like this is the right thing at the core. Uh, Sheldon's work is called Warm at the Core. So he's saying it's, I think it's, uh, William James he's quoting or whoever.... is, like, the- the thing, what is at the core of it all? Sure, there's like love, you know. Jesus might talk about like love is at the core of everything. I- I don't, you know, that's the open question. What's at the, you know, it's turtles, turtles, but it can't be turtles all the way down.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:01:19 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:01:20 What's at, what's at the, at the bottom? And, uh, Ernest Becker says the fear of death. And the way, in fact, uh, 'cause you said therapist and calming images, his whole idea is, um, you know, we, we wanna bring that fear of death as close as possible to the surface because it's, um... And like meditate on that, uh, and, and use the clarity of vision that provides to, uh, you know, to live a more fulfilling life. To, um, to live a more honest life. To, to, to discover, you know, there's something about, you know, being cognizant over the finiteness of it all that might result in, um, in the most fulfilling life. So that's the, that's the dual of what you're saying, 'cause you kind of said it's like I unfortunately think about it too much. It's a question whether it's good to think about it. 'Cause I, I've, um, uh, again, I talk about, way too much about love and probably death, and when I ask people, friends, which is why I probably don't have many friends-

Eugenia Kuyda 1:02:28 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:02:29 ... "Are you afraid of death?" I think most people say they're not. They're not. What they, they say they're, um, they're afraid, you know, it's kinda almost like they see death as this kind of like, uh, paper deadline or something, and they're afraid not to finish the paper before the paper... Like, like I am afraid not to finish, um, the goals I have. But it feels like they're not actually realizing that this thing ends, like really realizing, like really thinking as ............................ and all these philosophies, like thinking deeply about it. (laughs) Like, uh, the very thing that, you know, um, like when you think deeply about something, you can just, you can realize that you haven't actually thought about it. (laughs) Uh, yeah, and I, when I think about death, it's like, uh, it could be, it's terrifying. It feel- it feels like stepping outside into the cold, where it's freezing and then I have to like hurry back inside where it's warm. (laughs) But like, I think there's something valuable about stepping out there into the freezing cold. Uh-

Eugenia Kuyda 1:03:44 Most definitely.

Lex Fridman 1:03:45 (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 1:03:46 When I talk to my mentor about it, he always, uh, tells me, "Well, what dies? There's nothing there that can die." (laughs) But I guess that requires-

Lex Fridman 1:03:56 What do you mean?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:03:58 Um, well, in, in Buddhism, one of the concepts that are really hard to grasp and that people spend all their lives meditating on would be Anatta, which is the concept of non- not self. And kind of thinking that, you know, if you're not your thoughts, which you're obviously not your thoughts because you can observe them and not your emotions-

Lex Fridman 1:04:17 Right.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:04:18 ... and not your body, then what is this?

Lex Fridman 1:04:20 Right.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:04:20 And if you go really far, then finally you see that there's not self. There's this concept of not self. So once you get there, how can that actually die? What is dying? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:04:34 Right. You're just a bunch of molecules, stardust.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:04:38 But that is very, um, you know, very advanced, um, spiritual work for me. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:04:44 Does that help you sleep? (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 1:04:44 I'm definitely just... Definitely not. Oh, my God. No, I have, uh, I think it's very, very useful. It's just the fact that maybe being so afraid is not useful, and mine is more I'm just terrified. Like it really makes me, um-

Lex Fridman 1:04:58 On a personal level.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:04:59 On a personal level, I'm terrified.

Lex Fridman 1:05:07 How do you overcome that?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:05:09 I don't. (laughs) I'm still trying to. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:05:13 Have pleasant images?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:05:15 Well, pleasant images get me, uh, to sleep, and then during the day, I can distract myself with other things, like talking to you. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:05:24 (laughs) I'm glad we're both doing the same exact thing. Okay, good. (laughs) Is there other, like is there moments since you've, uh, lost Roman that you had like moments of like bliss and like that you've forgotten that you have achieved that Buddhist like level of like (laughs) what can possibly die? I'm part, like losing yourself in the moment, in the ticking time of like this universe and you're just part of it for a brief moment and just enjoying it?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:06:06 Well, that goes hand-in-hand. I remember, I think, a day or two after he died, we went to finally get his passport at the embassy and we're driving around Moscow and it was, you know, December, which is usually there's never sun-

Lex Fridman 1:06:20 (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 1:06:21 ... in Moscow in December. And somehow it was an extremely sunny day and we were driving with, um, close friend, um, and I remember feeling for the first time maybe this just moment of, um, incredible clarity, and somehow happiness. Not like happy-happiness (laughs) but happiness and just feeling that, you know, um, I know what the universe is sort of about, whether it's good or bad. Um, and it wasn't a sad feeling. It was probably the most beautiful feeling that you can ever, um, achieve, and you can only get it when something, oftentimes when something traumatic like that happens, um, but also if you just you really spend a lot of time meditating or looking at the nature, doing something that really gets you there. But once you're there-... I think when you, uh, summit a mountain, a really hard mountain, you, you inevitably get there. That's just the way to get to this state. But once you're on this, in this state, um, you can do really big things, I think. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:07:24 Yeah. Sucks it doesn't last forever. So Bukowski talked about like, "Lo- love is a fog." And like, it's, uh, when you w- wake up in the morning, it's, it's there but it eventually dissipates. It's really sad. Nothing lasts forever. (laughs) But I definitely like doing this pushup and running thing. There's moments, I had a, I had a couple moments, like I'm not a crier. I don't cry, but there's moments where I was like face down (laughs) on the carpet, like with tears in my eyes. It was interesting. And then that, like, complete, like, uh, there's a lot of demons. I've got demons, had to face them. Funny how running makes you face your demons. But, uh, at the same time, the flip side of that, there's a few moments where I was in bliss.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:08:16 Oh.

Lex Fridman 1:08:16 And all of it alone, which is funny, yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:08:19 That's beautiful.

Lex Fridman 1:08:21 (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 1:08:22 (laughs) I like that.

Lex Fridman 1:08:23 (laughs)

Eugenia Kuyda 1:08:23 But definitely pushing yourself physically one of it, for sure.

Lex Fridman 1:08:26 Yeah, it's, yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:08:28 Um-

Lex Fridman 1:08:28 Like you said, I mean, you, you were speaking as a metaphor of Mount Everest, but it also works like literally, I think physical endeavor somehow... (sighs) Yeah, there's something, I mean, we're monkeys, apes, whatever, physical, there's a physical thing to it.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:08:46 But there's something to this pushing yourself physical- physically but alone, that happens when you're doing like things like you do or strenuous like workouts or, you know, rowing ac- across the Atlantic or-

Lex Fridman 1:08:59 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:09:00 ... like marathons. That's why I love watching marathons. And, you know, it's so boring (laughs) but you can see them getting there.

Lex Fridman 1:09:08 They're stronger. So the other thing, I don't know if you know, there's a guy named David Goggins. He's a, he basically, uh, so he's been either email or on the phone with me every day through this. So I haven't been exactly alone, but he, he's kind of th- He's the, he's the devil on the devil's shoulder. Uh, so he's like the worst possible human being in terms of giving you a adv- advi- Like, he has, um, through everything I've been doing, he's been doubling everything I do. So he, he's insane.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:09:42 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:09:42 Uh, he's a, this Navy SEAL person. Uh, he's wrote this book Can't Hurt Me. He's basically one of the toughest human beings on earth. He ran all these crazy ultra-marathons in the desert. He set the world record in number of pull-ups. He just does everything whereas like he, like, "How can I suffer today?" He figures that out and does it.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:10:05 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:10:05 Yeah, that, um, whatever that is, uh, that process of self-discovery is really important. I actually had to turn myself off from the internet mostly, 'cause I started this, like, workout thing, like a happy go-getter w- with my, like, headband and, like-

Eugenia Kuyda 1:10:21 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:10:22 ... uh, like, just like, uh, 'cause a lot of people were like inspired and they're like, "Yeah, we're gonna exercise with you." And I was, "Yeah, great." You know? But then, like, I realized that this, this journey can't be done together with others. This has to be done alone.

Lex Fridman 1:10:41 So out of the moments of, uh, love, out of the moments of loss, can we, uh, talk about your journey of finding, I think, an incredible idea, an incredible company, and incredible system in Replika? How did that come to be?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:11:00 (laughs) So, yeah. So I was a journalist, and then I went to business school for a couple years to, um, just see if I can maybe switch gears and do something else at 23. And then I came back and started working for a businessman in Russia who built the first 4G network, um, in our country and was very visionary and asked me whether I wanna do fun stuff together. (laughs) Um, and we worked on a bank. Um, the idea was to build a bank on top of, um, a telco. So that was 2011 or '12. Um, and a lot of telecommunication company, um, mobile network operators didn't really know what, what to do next in terms of, you know, new products, new revenue. And this big idea was that, you know, um, you put a bank on top and then, and then all work works out. Basically your prepaid account becomes your bank account and, um, you can use it as, as your bank. Uh, so, you know, a third of the country wakes up as, as your bank client. Um, but we couldn't quite figure out what, what would be the main interface to interact with the bank. The problem was that most people didn't have smart, uh, smartphones back in the time. Uh, in Russia, the penetration of smartphones was low. Um, people didn't use mobile banking or online banking on their computers. So we figured out that SMS would be the best way, uh, 'cause that would work on feature phones. Uh-

Lex Fridman 1:12:27 Mm-hmm. Wow.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:12:28 ... but that required some chatbot technology (laughs) , which I didn't know anything about, um, obviously. So I started looking into it and saw that there's nothing really... (laughs) Well, there was just nothing really at the time.

Lex Fridman 1:12:38 So the idea is through SMS be able to interact with your bank account?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:12:41 Yeah. And then we thought, "Well-"

Lex Fridman 1:12:42 That's kind of cool.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:12:43 "... since you're talking to a bank account, why can't this, can't we use more of, uh, you know, some behavioral ideas and why can't this, uh, banking chatbot be nice to you and really talk to you sort of as a friend? This way you develop more connection to it."

Lex Fridman 1:12:57 Mm-hmm.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:12:57 "Retention is higher. People don't churn." And so I went to very depressing, um, um, Russian cities to, to test it out. Um, I went to, I remember, three different towns with the, um... To interview potential users. Um, so people used it for a little bit.

Lex Fridman 1:13:14 Cool.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:13:15 ... and I went to talk to them, um, and we were part-

Lex Fridman 1:13:17 So like pretty poor towns?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:13:19 Very poor towns. Mostly towns that were, um, you know, sort of factories, uh, mono-towns. They were building something and then the factory went away and there was just a bunch of very poor people. Um, and then we went to a couple that weren't as dramatic, but still. The one I remember really fondly was this woman that worked at a glass factory and she talked to a chatbot, um, and she was talking about it and started crying during the interview 'cause she said, "No one really cares for me that much." And, um, so to be clear, that was the, my only endeavor in programming (laughs) that chatbot. So it was really simple. It was li- literally just a few if this then that rules, and, um, it was inc- incredibly simplistic. Um-

Lex Fridman 1:14:08 And still that made her-

Eugenia Kuyda 1:14:09 And that really made-

Lex Fridman 1:14:10 ... feel something.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:14:10 ... her emotional and she said, "You know, I only have my mom and my, um, my husband, and I don't have anyone really in my life." And that was very sad, but at the same time I felt ... And we had more interviews, uh, in a similar vein. And what I thought in the moment was like, well, uh, it's not that the technology is ready, 'cause definitely in 2012 technology was not ready for, for that, but, um, humans are ready, unfortunately. So this project would not be about like tech capabilities, it would be more about human vulnerabilities, but, um, there's something so, so powerful around about conversational, um, AI that I saw then that I thought was definitely worth putting, you know, a lot of effort into. So at the end of the day, we solved the banking project, um, but my then boss, um, who was also my mentor and really, really close friend, um, told me, "Hey, I think there's something in it and you should just go work on it." And I was like, "Well, what, what product? I don't know what, what I'm building." He's like, "You'll figure it out." (laughs) And, um, you know, looking back at this, this was a horrible idea to work on something without knowing what it was, (laughs) which is maybe the reason why it took us so long. But we just decided to work on the conversational tech to see what it, you know ... There were no chatbot, um, constructors or programs or anything that would allow you to actually build one at the time. Uh, that was the era of, by the way, Google Glass, which is why, you know, some of the investors, like seed investors we talked with were like, "Oh, you should totally build it for Google Glass. If not, we're not ... I don't think that's interesting." (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:15:48 Did you bite on that idea?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:15:52 Um, no.

Lex Fridman 1:15:53 (laughs) Okay.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:15:53 Because I wanted to be, to do text first 'cause-

Lex Fridman 1:15:56 Okay.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:15:56 ... I'm a journalist, so I was, um, fascinated by just texting.

Lex Fridman 1:16:01 So you thought ... So the emotional, um, that interaction that the, the woman had, like, so do you think you could feel emotion from just text?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:16:11 Yeah. I saw something in just this pure texting and I also thought that we should first start, start building for people who really need it versus people who have Google Glass, uh, if you know what I mean. And I felt like-

Lex Fridman 1:16:22 Mm-hmm.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:16:22 ... the early adopters of Google Glass might not be overlapping with people who are really lonely and might need some, you know, someone to talk to. Um, but then we really just focused on the tech itself. We just thought, what if we just, you know, we didn't have a product idea in the moment and we felt what if we just look into, um, building the best conversational constructor, so to say. Use the best tech available at the time. And that was before the first paper about deep learning applied to dialogues, which happened in 2015, in August 2015, uh, which Google published. Um-

Lex Fridman 1:17:01 Did, did you follow the work of Loebner Prize and like all the sort of non-machine learning chatbots?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:17:10 Yeah, what really struck me was that-

Lex Fridman 1:17:12 Mm-hmm.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:17:12 ... you know, there was a lot of talk about machine learning and deep learning, like big data was a really big thing. Everyone was saying, you know, the-

Lex Fridman 1:17:19 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:17:19 ... business world, "Big data."

Lex Fridman 1:17:20 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:17:21 2012 is the biggest. Kaggle competitions were, you know-

Lex Fridman 1:17:24 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:17:24 ... um, important, but that was really the kind of upheaval. People started talking about machine learning a lot. Um, but it was only about images or something else, and it was never about conversation. As soon as I looked into the conversational tech, it was all about something really weird and very outdated and very marginal and felt very hobbyist.

Lex Fridman 1:17:42 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:17:42 It was all about Loebner Prize, which was won by a guy who built a chatbot to talk like a Ukrainian teenager. It was just a gimmick. And somehow people picked up those gimmicks and then, you know, the most famous chatbot at the time was ELIZA from 1980s, (laughs) which was really bizarre.

Lex Fridman 1:18:01 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:18:01 Or a smarter child on AIM.

Lex Fridman 1:18:03 The funny thing is, it w- it felt at the time not to be that popular, and it still doesn't seem to be that popular. Like, uh, people talk about the Turing test. Uh, people like talking about it philosophically. Journals like writing about it. But as a technical problem, like people don't seem to really wanna solve the open dialogue. Like, they, they're not obsessed with it. Even folks who like, uh, in, you know, in, in Boston, the Alexa team, even they're not as obsessed with it as I thought they might be.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:18:39 Why not? What do you think?

Lex Fridman 1:18:40 So you know what you felt like you felt with that woman when she felt something by reading the text? I feel the same thing. There's something here, what you felt. I feel like Alexa folks and just the machine learning world doesn't feel that, that there's something here, because they see as a technical problem, it's not that interesting for some reason. Um, it's- could be argued that maybe as an, as a purely sort of natural language processing problem, it's not the right problem to focus on, 'cause there's too much subjectivity.... that, that thing that the woman felt like cry- like if y- if y- if your benchmarking cr- includes a woman crying, (laughs) that doesn't feel like a good benchmark-

Eugenia Kuyda 1:19:26 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 1:19:26 ... or it doesn't feel like a test. But to me, there's something there. That's, you could have a huge impact. But I don't think the machine learning world likes that, the human emotion, the subjectivity of it, the fuzziness, the fact that with maybe a single word, you can make somebody feel something deeply. What is that? That doesn't feel right to them. So, I don't know. I, I, I don't know why that is. I'm, that's why I'm excited, um, uh, when I discovered your work, it feels wrong to say that. It's not like I'm... (laughs) .

Eugenia Kuyda 1:19:59 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 1:20:00 I'm giving myself props for, for Googling and for, (laughs) for go- for coming acr- for, uh, for, for our, I guess, mutual friend, uh, in- introducing us. But I'm so glad that you exist and what you're working on. But I have the same kind of... If we could just backtrack for a second, 'cause I have the same kind of feeling that there's something here. Um, in fact, I've been working on a few things, uh, that are kind of crazy and very different from your work. I think, I think they're, I think they're too crazy. But the...

Eugenia Kuyda 1:20:35 Like what?

Lex Fridman 1:20:36 (laughs) .

Eugenia Kuyda 1:20:37 We'll not have to know. (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 1:20:39 No. All right. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll talk about it more. I, I feel like it's harder to talk about things that have failed and are failing while you're a failure. (laughs) .

Eugenia Kuyda 1:20:52 Okay.

Lex Fridman 1:20:53 Like, it's easier for you 'cause you're already successful-

Eugenia Kuyda 1:20:55 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 1:20:56 ... on some measures. (laughs) .

Eugenia Kuyda 1:20:59 You can tell it to my board.

Lex Fridman 1:21:00 (laughs) . Well, y- you're (laughs) , you're, um... I think, I think you've demonstrated success in a lot of benchmarks. It's easier for you to talk about failures for me. I'm in the, um, the bottom currently of the, of the success.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:21:17 Oh, Alex. You're very... You're way too humble. (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 1:21:20 No. So it's, it's hard for me to know, but there's something there. There's something there. And I think you're, um, you're exploring that and you're discovering that. Yeah. It's been, so it's been surprising to me. But I, I, um... You've mentioned this idea that you, you thought it wasn't enough to start a company or start efforts based on, it feels like there's something here. Like, um, what did you mean by that? Like, y- you should be focused on creating a... Like, you should have a product in mind? Is that what you meant?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:21:56 It just took us a while to discover the product.

Lex Fridman 1:22:00 Right.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:22:00 'Cause it all started with a hunch of like, um, of me and my mentor and just sitting around and he was like, "Well, this... That's it. There's, that's the, you know, the Holy Grail is there." There's like... (laughs) . There's something extremely powerful in, uh, in, in conversations and there's no one who's working on machine conversation from the right angle, so to say. Um...

Lex Fridman 1:22:21 I feel like that's still true. Is that... Am I crazy? It feels-

Eugenia Kuyda 1:22:25 Oh, no, I totally feel that's still true, which is (laughs) , I think it's mind-blowing.

Lex Fridman 1:22:29 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:22:29 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 1:22:29 I... You know what it feels like? I, I wouldn't even use the word conversation 'cause it's, I feel like it's the wrong word. It's like, uh, y- (laughs) machine connection or something. I don't know. Uh, 'cause conversation, you start drifting into natural language immediately. You start drifting immediately into all the benchmarks that are out there. But I feel like it's like the personal computer days of this. Like, I feel like we're... Like in the early days with the, like the, the Wozniak and all them, like where it was the same kind of, it was a very small niche group of people who are, who are all kind of Lobner price type people.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:23:07 (laughs) Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:23:08 And (laughs) .

Eugenia Kuyda 1:23:09 (laughs) . Hobbyists.

Lex Fridman 1:23:10 U- and hobbyists. But like not even hobbyists with big dreams. Like-

Eugenia Kuyda 1:23:14 No, hobbyists with a dream to trick like a jury.

Lex Fridman 1:23:18 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:23:18 Which is like a weird... By the way, by the way, very weird. So if we think about conversations, first of all, when I have great conversations with people, um, I'm not trying to test them. So for instance, if I try to break them, like if I'm actually playing along. I'm part of it.

Lex Fridman 1:23:34 Right.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:23:34 If I was trying to break it, break this person or test whether he's gonna give me a good conversation, it would've never happened. So the whole, um, the whole problem with testing conversations is that, um, you can't put it in front of a jury 'cause then you have to go into some touring test mode where, is it responding to all my factual questions, right? Or, um... So it really has to be something in the field where people are actually talking to it because they want to, not because we're just trying to break it, uh, and it's working for them. 'Cause this, the weird part of it is that it's, uh, it's very subjective. It takes two to tango here fully. Like if you're not trying to have a good conversation, if you're trying to test it, then it's gonna break.

Lex Fridman 1:24:17 (laughs) A-

Eugenia Kuyda 1:24:17 I mean, any person would break, to be honest. Like if I'm not trying to even have a conversation with you, you'll, you're not gonna give it to me.

Lex Fridman 1:24:24 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:24:25 If I keep asking you like some random questions or, um, jumping from topic to topic, that wouldn't be, which I'm probably doing (laughs) , but that probably wouldn't, um, contribute to a good conversation. So I think the problem of testing, um... So there should be some other metric. How do we evaluate whether that conversation was, uh, powerful or not? Which is what we actually started with. And I think those measurements exist and we can test on those. But, um-

Lex Fridman 1:24:53 Yeah.

Eugenia Kuyda 1:24:53 ... what really struck us back in the day and what still eight years later is still not resolved, um, and I'm not seeing tons of groups working on it. Maybe I do- just don't know about 'em, um, it's also possible. But the interesting part about it is that most of our days were spent talking (laughs) and we're not talking about... Like those conversations are not turn on the lights or, uh, customer support problems or, um, some other task-oriented things.... these conversations are something else. And then somehow they're extremely important for us. And when we don't have them, then we feel deeply unhappy, potentially lonely, which as we know, you know, creates tons of risks for our health as well. Um, so this is most of our hours as humans. And someone who knows, trying to replicate that. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:25:45 And not even study it that well?

Eugenia Kuyda 1:25:49 And not even study it that well. So when we jumped into that in 2012, I looked first at like, okay, what's the chatbot, what's the state-of-the-art chatbot? And, you know, those were the Loebner Prize days. Then I thought, okay, so what about the science of conversation? Clearly there has been tons of, there have been tons of, you know, scientists or people that, academics that looked into the conversations, so if I wanna know everything about it, I can just read about