Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #281

Grimes 0:00 We are becoming cyborgs. Like, our brains are fundamentally changed. Everyone who grew up with electronics, we are fundamentally different from previous homo sapiens. I call us Homo techno. I- I- I think we have evolved into Homo techno, which is, like, essentially a new species. Previous technologies, I mean, may have even been more profound and moved us to a certain degree, but I think the computers are what make us Homo techno. I think this is what-

Lex Fridman 0:23 Yeah.

Grimes 0:24 ... it's a brain augmentation. And so it, like, allows for actual evolution. Like, the computers accelerate the degree to which all the other technologies can also be accelerated.

Lex Fridman 0:32 Would you classify yourself as a Homo sapien or a Homo techno?

Grimes 0:35 Definitely Homo techno.

Lex Fridman 0:37 So you're-

Grimes 0:37 I think we're all-

Lex Fridman 0:37 ... you're, you're one of the early s- of the species?

Grimes 0:40 I th- I think most of us are.

Lex Fridman 0:45 The following is a conversation with Grimes, an artist, musician, songwriter, producer, director, and a fascinating human being who thinks a lot about both the history and the future of human civilization, studying the dark periods of our past to help form an optimistic vision of our future. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Grimes.

Grimes 1:12 Oh, yeah, the Cloudlifter. There you go.

Lex Fridman 1:14 There you go. You know your stuff. Have you ever used a Cloudlifter?

Grimes 1:18 Yeah. I actually, this microphone and Cloudlifter is what Michael Jackson used, so.

Lex Fridman 1:23 No, really?

Grimes 1:24 Yeah. This, this is, like, Thriller and stuff.

Lex Fridman 1:26 This mic?

Grimes 1:26 This mic.

Lex Fridman 1:27 In a Cloudlifter?

Grimes 1:27 And that, yeah. It's a, it's a incredible microphone.

Lex Fridman 1:30 Yes.

Grimes 1:30 It's very flattering on vocals. I've used this a lot. It- it- it's great for demo vocals. It's great in a room. Like, it, sometimes it's easier to record vocals if you're just in a room, and, like, the music's playing, and you just want to, like, feel it, and it's not, so it's not in the headphones. And this mic is pretty directional, so I think it's, like, a good mic for, like, just vibing out and just getting a real good vocal take.

Lex Fridman 1:49 Just vibing?

Grimes 1:50 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:51 Just in a room?

Grimes 1:51 Anyway, this is the Miche-

Lex Fridman 1:53 This is the r-

Grimes 1:54 ... this is the Michael Jackson/Quincy Jones microphone.

Lex Fridman 1:57 (inhales) I feel way more badass now. All right.

Grimes 1:59 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:59 Let's get in, you want to just get into it?

Grimes 2:01 I guess so.

Lex Fridman 2:03 All right. One of your names, at least in this space and time, is C, like the letter C. And, and you told me that C means a lot of things. It's the speed of light, it's the render rate of the universe, it's "yes" in Spanish, it's the crescent moon, and it happens to be my favorite programming language 'cause it's, uh, it basically runs the world. But it's also powerful, fast, and it's dangerous 'cause you can mess things up really bad with it 'cause of all the pointers. But anyway, which of these associations, uh, with the name C is the coolest to you?

Grimes 2:37 I mean, to me, the coolest is the speed of light, obviously. Or, well, speed of light, when I say render rate of the universe, I think I mean the speed of light.

Lex Fridman 2:45 Yeah.

Grimes 2:46 Because essentially that's h- what we're rendering at. See, I think we'll know if we're in a simulation if the speed of light changes. Because if they can improve their render speed, then-

Lex Fridman 2:56 (laughs) Well, it's already pretty good.

Grimes 2:58 It's already pretty good. But if it improves, then we'll know, you know, we can probably be like, "Okay, they've updated or upgraded."

Lex Fridman 3:05 Well, it's fast enough for us humans 'cause it seems, like, um, it seems immediate. There's no delay, there's no latency in terms of, like, us humans on Earth interacting with things. But if you're like a, like, intergalactic species operating on a much larger scale, then you're gonna start noticing some weird stuff. Or if you can operate in, like, around a black hole, then you're gonna start to see some render issues.

Grimes 3:29 Well, but, like, you can't go faster than the speed of light, correct? So it really limits our ability, or an- one's ability to travel space.

Lex Fridman 3:36 Theoretically you can. You have wormholes. So I, there's nothing in general relativity that, uh, precludes faster than, um, the speed of light travel. But it just seems you're gonna have to do some really funky stuff with, uh, very heavy things that have, like, weirdnesses, th- that have, basically tears in spacetime. We don't know how to do that.

Grimes 3:59 Dune navigators know how to do it.

Lex Fridman 4:02 Dune navigators?

Grimes 4:03 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 4:03 Yeah.

Grimes 4:03 Folding space.

Lex Fridman 4:05 I think that-

Grimes 4:05 Basically making wormholes.

Lex Fridman 4:07 So the name C?

Grimes 4:09 Yes.

Lex Fridman 4:12 Who are you?

Grimes 4:14 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 4:14 Are you, are you, do you think of yourself as multiple people? Are you one person? Do you know? Like, in the, this morning, were you a different person than you are tonight? We are, I should say, recording this basically at midnight, which is awesome.

Grimes 4:27 Yes. Thank you so much. I think I'm about eight hours late.

Lex Fridman 4:31 No. You're right on time. Good morning. This is the beginning of a new day soon. Anyway, uh, are you the same person you were in the morning, in the evening? Do you, you're, you're, is there multiple people in there? Do you think of yourself as one person? Or maybe you have no clue? Are you just a giant mystery to yourself?

Grimes 4:50 Okay. These are really intense questions. But, uh ... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 4:52 Let's go. Let's go. 'Cause I ask this to myself. Like, look in the mirror. Who are you? People tell you to just be yourself. But what does that even mean?

Grimes 4:59 Uh, I mean, I think my personality changes with everyone I talk to. So I, I have a very inconsistent personality. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 5:07 Person to person? So the interaction, your personality materializes who-

Grimes 5:11 Or, or, or my mood. Like, I'll, I'll go from being, like, a megalomaniac to being, like, you know, just, like, a total hermit who is very shy.

Lex Fridman 5:21 So some combinatorial com- combination of your mood and the person you're interacting with.

Grimes 5:26 Yeah. Mood and people I'm interacting with. But I think everyone's like that? Maybe not.

Lex Fridman 5:30 Well, not everybody acknowledges it and able to introspect it. Who brings out, what kind of person, what kind of mood brings out the best in you as an artist and as a human? Can you introspect this?

Grimes 5:41 Like my best friends. Like my, like, people I can ... When I'm, like, super confident, and I know that they're gonna understand, understand everything I'm saying, so, like, my best friends then ... When, when I can start being really funny, that's always my, like-

Lex Fridman 5:56 (laughs)

Grimes 5:56 ... peak mode. But it's like-

Lex Fridman 5:58 Okay.

Grimes 5:58 ... yeah. Takes a lot to get there.

Lex Fridman 6:00 Let's talk about constraints.Y-

Lex Fridman 6:02 you've talked about constraints and limits. Uh, do those help you out as an artist or as a human being, or do they get in the way? Do you like the constraints, so in creating music, in creating art, and living life?

Grimes 6:15 (inhales deeply)

Lex Fridman 6:16 Do you like the constraints that this world puts on you (sighs) or do you hate them?

Grimes 6:24 If constraints are moving then you're good. Right?

Lex Fridman 6:29 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 6:29 Like, it's like, it's like as we are progressing with technology, we're changing the constraints of, like, artistic creation. You know, um, making video and music and stuff is ge- is getting a lot cheaper. There's constantly new technology and new software that's making it faster and easier. We have so much more freedom than we had in the '70s. Like, when Michael Jackson, you know, when they recorded Thriller with this microphone, like, they had to use a mixing desk and all this stuff. And, like, probably even get into studio is probably really expensive, and you have to be a really good singer, and you have to know how to use the, like, the mixing desk and everything. And now I, I can just, you know, make... I've made a whole album on this computer.

Lex Fridman 7:04 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 7:05 I have a lot more freedom, but then I'm also constrained in different ways 'cause there's, like, literally millions more artists. It, it's, like, a much bigger playing field. It's just, like, I also... I didn't learn music. I'm not a natural musician, so I, I don't know anything about actual music. I just know about, like, the computer. So, I'm really kind of just, like, messing around and, like, trying things out.

Lex Fridman 7:33 Well, yeah, I mean, but the nature of music is changing. So, you're saying you don't know actual music. Well, music is changing. Music is becoming... You, you've talked about this. It's becoming... It's, like, uh, merging with technology.

Grimes 7:46 Yes.

Lex Fridman 7:47 It's becoming something more than just, like, the notes on a piano. It's becoming some weird composition that requires engineering skills, programming skills, some kind of, uh, human/robot interaction skills, and still some of the same things that Michael Jackson had, which is, like, a good ear for... a good sense of taste of what's good and not, the final thing when it's put together. Like, you're allowed... you're enabled, empowered with a laptop to layer stuff, to start, like, layering insane amounts of stuff, and it's super easy to do that.

Grimes 8:22 I do think music production is a really underrated art form. I feel, I feel like people really don't appreciate it. When I look at publishing splits, the way that people, um, like, pay producers and stuff, uh, it's, it's super... Like, producers are just deeply underrated. Like, so many of the songs that are popular right now or for the last 20 years, like, part of the reason they're popular is 'cause the production is really interesting or really sick or really cool. And it's, like, I don't think listeners, um... like, people just don't really understand what music production is. It's not... it, it's sort of like this weird discombobulated art form. It's not like a formal... because it's so new, there isn't, like, a formal training path for it. It's, it's, um, mostly driven by, like, autodidacts. Like, it's, like, almost everyone I know who's good at production, like, they didn't go to music sch- school or anything. They just taught themselves.

Lex Fridman 9:15 Are they're mostly different? Like, the music producers you know, is there some commonalities that tie them together? Or are they all just d- different kinds of weirdos? Because I just, I just hung out with Rick Rubin. I don't know if you've-

Grimes 9:26 Yeah, l- uh, l- I mean, Rick Rubin is, like, literally one of the gods of music production. Like, he's one of the people who first, you know, who, like, made music production, you know... made the production as important as the actual lyrics or the notes.

Lex Fridman 9:41 But the thing he does, which is interesting, I don't know if you can speak to that, but just hanging out with him, he seems to just sit there in silence, close his eyes, and listen. It's like he almost does nothing (laughs) and that nothing somehow gives you freedom to be the best version of yourself. So, that's music production somehow too, which is, like, encouraging you to do less, to simplify, to, like, push towards minimalism.

Grimes 10:06 I mean, I guess, I mean, I work differently from Rick Rubin because Rick, Rick Rubin produces for other artists, whereas, like, I mostly produce for myself.

Lex Fridman 10:16 Yeah.

Grimes 10:17 So, it's a very different situation. Um, I also think Rick Rubin, he's, he's in that, I would say, advanced category of producer where, like, you've, like, earned your... you, you can have an engineer and stuff, and people, like, do the stuff for you.

Lex Fridman 10:29 Yeah.

Grimes 10:29 But, um, I, I usually just, like, do stuff myself.

Lex Fridman 10:32 So, you're the engineer, the producer, and the, the, the artist?

Grimes 10:38 Yeah, I guess I would say I, I'm in the era, like, the post-Rick Rubin era. Like, I come from the kind of, like, um, Skrillex school of thought, which is, like, uh, where you're- you are, yeah, the engineer-producer-artist. Like, where... um, I mean, lately, sometimes I'll, I'll work with a producer now. I'm gently, sort of delicately starting to collaborate a bit more. But, like, uh, I think I'm kind of from the, like, the, whatever 2010s explosion of things where, um, you know, everything became available on the computer, and you kind of got this, like, lone wizard energy thing going.

Lex Fridman 11:16 So, do... you embrace being the loneliness? Is the loneliness somehow an engine of creativity? Like, uh, so most of your stuff, most of your creative, quote-unquote, genius, in, in quotes, is in the privacy of your mind?

Grimes 11:32 Yes. Or, well, it was. Um, but here's the thing. I, I was talking to Daniel Ek, and he said... he's like, "Most artists, they have about 10 years, like, 10, 10 good years. Um, and then they usually stop making their, like, vital shit." Um, and I feel like I'm sort of, like, nearing the end of my 10 years on my own. And, um-

Lex Fridman 11:57 So, you have to become somebody else.

Grimes 11:58 Now, I'm, like, I'm in the process of becoming some- somebody else and reinventing. When I work with other people, because I've never worked with other people, I find that I make, like, that I'm exceptionally rejuvenated and making, like, some of the most vital work I've ever made. So-... because I think another human brain is, like, one of the best, um, tools you can possibly find. Um, like l-

Lex Fridman 12:18 It's a, it's a funny way to put it. I love it.

Grimes 12:20 It's a... It's like i- if a tool is, like, you know, whatever, HP plus one, or, like, adds some, like, stats to your character-

Lex Fridman 12:29 Yeah.

Grimes 12:29 ... like, another human brain will, like, square it instead of just-

Lex Fridman 12:32 Yeah.

Grimes 12:32 ... like, addi- adding something.

Lex Fridman 12:33 (laughs) Dou- double up the experience points. I love this. We should also mention we were playing tavern music before this, and which I love, which I first, when, I think I, I first-

Grimes 12:42 You had to stop the tavern music?

Lex Fridman 12:43 Yeah. A- 'cause it doesn't... The, the audio.

Grimes 12:46 Okay. Okay.

Lex Fridman 12:47 But it makes... (laughs)

Grimes 12:47 Yeah. It'll make the podcast annoying.

Lex Fridman 12:48 We'll add it in post. Add it in post.

Grimes 12:50 No one will wanna listen to the podcast if we-

Lex Fridman 12:51 They probably would, but it makes me, it reminds me, like, of a video game, like, a roleplaying video game where you have experience points.

Grimes 12:58 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 12:58 There's something really joyful about wandering places like Elder Scrolls, like Skyrim, just exploring, uh, these landscapes in another world, and then you get experience points, and you can work on different skills, and somehow you progress in life. And I don't know. It's simple. It doesn't have some of the messy complexities of life. And there's usually a bad guy you can fight. In, in, um, in Skyrim, it's dragons, and so on. I'm sure in Elden Ring, there's a bunch of monsters you can fight. I love that.

Grimes 13:28 I, I feel like Elden Ring... I, I feel like this is a good analogy to music production though, because it's like, I feel like the engineers and the people creating these open worlds are, are... It's sort of, like, similar to people, to music producers, where it's, it's like this, this hidden archetype that, like, no one really understands what they do, and no one really knows who they are, but they're, like... It's like the artist engineer, because it's like, it, it, it's both art and, uh, fairly complex engineering. And-

Lex Fridman 13:54 Well, you're, you're saying they don't get enough credit. I- aren't you kind of changing that by becoming the person doing everything? Aren't... Aren't... Isn't the engineer-

Grimes 14:03 Well, I, I mean, others have gone before me. I'm not... You know, there's, like, Timbaland and Skrillex, and there's all these peop- people that are, like, you know, very famous for this. But, but I, I just think the general... I think people get confused about what it is, and, and just don't really know what it, what it is per se. And it, it's just when I see a song, like, when, when there's, like, a hit song, like, um, like... I'm just trying to think of, like, just going for, like, even just a m- a basic pop hit, like, um, like what's, uh, like, Rules by Dua Lipa or something. The production on that is actually, like, really crazy. I mean, the song is also great, but it's like the production is exceptionally memorable. Like, you know, a- and, and it's just like no one... I can't... I don't even know who produced that song. It just, like-

Lex Fridman 14:49 Okay.

Grimes 14:49 ... isn't part of, like, the rhetoric of how we dis- discuss the creation of art. We just sort of, like, don't consider the music producer, because I think the music producer used to be more just simply recording things.

Lex Fridman 15:02 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 15:02 Um-

Lex Fridman 15:03 Yeah. That's in- interesting 'cause when you think about movies, we talk about the actor and the actresses, but we also talk about the director.

Grimes 15:10 Directors. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 15:11 We don't talk about, like, that with music as often. Um...

Grimes 15:15 The Beatles music producer was one of the first kind of guy, one of the first people sort of introducing crazy sound design into pop music. I forget his name. He has the same... I forget his name, but, um, you know, like that he was doing all the weird stuff, like dropping pianos and, like-

Lex Fridman 15:31 (laughs)

Grimes 15:32 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 15:32 Oh, to get the... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To get, to get the sound, to get the authentic sound. What about lyrics? You think those... Where do they fit into how important they are? I was heartbroken to, to learn that Elvis didn't write his songs. I was very mad.

Grimes 15:47 A lot of people don't write their songs.

Lex Fridman 15:49 I understand this, but-

Grimes 15:50 But, but he- here's a, here's the thing. I feel like that there's this desire for authenticity. I used to be, like, really mad when, like, people wouldn't write or produce their music, and I'd be like, "That's fake." And then I realized there's all this, like, weird bitterness and, like, aggro-ness in art about authenticity.

Lex Fridman 16:07 Yeah.

Grimes 16:07 But I, I had this kind of, like, weird realization recently, uh, where I started thinking that, like, art is sort of a decentralized, collective thing. Like, um, like, art is kind of a conversation with all the artists that have ever lived before you, you know? Like, it's like you're, you're really just sort of... It's not like anyone's reinventing the wheel here. Like, you're kind of just taking, you know, thousands of years of art and, um, like, running it through your own little algorithm, and then, like, making your, like, your interpretation of it.

Lex Fridman 16:45 You're just joining the conversation with all the other artists that came before. That's such a beautiful way to look at it.

Grimes 16:49 Like, and, and it's like, it's like, I feel like everyone's always like, "There's always copyright, and IP, and this and that, and..." or "authenticity," and it's just-

Lex Fridman 16:55 Yeah.

Grimes 16:56 ... like, like, I think we need to stop seeing this as this, like, egotistical thing of like, "Oh, the creative genius, the lone creative genius," or this or that, 'cause it's like, I think art isn't... shouldn't be about that. I think art is something that sort of brings humanity together. And it's also, art is also kind of the collective memory of humans. It's like we don't... Like, we don't give a fuck about whatever ancient Egypt, like, how much grain got sent that day and sending the records, and, like, you know, like, who went where, and, you know, how many shields needed to be produced for this. Like, the... We just remember their, their art. And it's like, you know, it's like in our day-to-day life, there's all this stuff that seems more important than art, um, because it helps us function and survive, but when all this is gone, like, the only thing that's really gonna be left is the art. The technology will be obsolete.

Lex Fridman 17:46 That's so fascinating.

Grimes 17:47 Like, the humans will be dead.

Lex Fridman 17:49 That is true. A good compression of human history is the art we've generated across the different, uh, centuries and diff- different millennia. So, when the aliens come...

Grimes 17:59 When the aliens come, they're gonna find-

Lex Fridman 18:01 the art-

Grimes 18:01 ... the hieroglyphics and the pyramids.

Lex Fridman 18:02 I mean, art could be broadly defined. They might find, like, the engineering marvels, the bridges, uh, the rockets, the-

Grimes 18:10 I guess I sort of classify... The a- architecture is art, too.

Lex Fridman 18:13 Yes.

Grimes 18:13 Too... I, I consider engineering, um, i-... in those formats to be art, for sure.

Lex Fridman 18:19 It sucks that, like, digital art is easier to delete. So, if there's an apocalypse, a nuclear war, that can disappear.

Grimes 18:26 Yes.

Lex Fridman 18:28 And the physical. There's something still valuable about the physical manifestation of art. That's, that sucks that, like, music, for example, has to be played by somebody.

Grimes 18:38 Yeah. I mean, I-

Lex Fridman 18:38 Or something.

Grimes 18:39 ... I do think we should do, have a foundation-type situation where we, like, you know how we have, like, seed banks up in the north and stuff?

Lex Fridman 18:45 Yeah.

Grimes 18:45 Like, we should probably have, like, like a, like a solar-powered or geothermal little bunker that, like, has all the n- all human knowledge.

Lex Fridman 18:52 Ah, you mentioned Daniel Ek and Spotify. Um, what do you think about that as an artist? What's, what's Spotify? Is that empowering? Like, i- to me, Spotify

Narrator 19:00 (music)

Lex Fridman 19:00 ... sort of as a consumer is super exciting. It makes it easy for me to access music from all kinds of artists, get to explore all kinds of music, make it super easy to sort of, uh, curate my own playlists and have fun with all that. It was so liberating to let go. You know, I used to collect, you know, albums and CDs and so on, like, like, uh, like hoard albums. (laughs)

Grimes 19:22 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 19:22 Like they matter.

Grimes 19:23 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 19:23 But the reality, you can, i- you know, that was really liberating that I could let go of that. And letting go of the albums you're kind of collecting allows you to find new music, explore n- new artists and all that kinda stuff. But I know from a perspective of an artist, that could be, like you mentioned, competition could be a kind of constraint, 'cause there's more and more and more artists-

Grimes 19:44 I-

Lex Fridman 19:44 ... on the, on the platform.

Grimes 19:46 ... I think it's better that there's more artists. I mean, again, this might be propaganda 'cause this is all from a conversation with Daniel Ek, so this could easily be propaganda.

Lex Fridman 19:53 Yes.

Grimes 19:54 Dude, like-

Lex Fridman 19:54 We're all a victim of somebody's propaganda, so let's just-

Grimes 19:57 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 19:57 ... accept this. (laughs)

Grimes 19:58 (laughs) But Daniel Ek was telling me that, uh, you know, at the, 'cause I, you know, when, when I met him, I, like, I wa- I came in all furious about Spotify.

Lex Fridman 20:06 Sure.

Grimes 20:06 And, like, I grilled him super hard.

Lex Fridman 20:07 Okay.

Grimes 20:07 So, I've got his, his, um, answers here. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 20:10 (laughs)

Grimes 20:10 But, um, uh, he was saying, like, at the, the sort of peak of the CD industry, there was, like, 20,000 artists making millions and millions of dol- dollars. Like, there was just, like, a very tiny kinda 1%. Um, and Spotify has kind of democratized, uh, the industry, um, because now, I think he said there's about a million artists making a good living from Spotify.

Lex Fridman 20:32 Yeah.

Grimes 20:33 And when I heard that, I was like, "Honestly, I would rather make less money and have just, like, a decent living, um, than, and have more artists be able to have that." Even though I, like, I wish it could include everyone, but-

Lex Fridman 20:49 Yeah, that's really hard to argue with. YouTube is the same. Is you- YouTube's mission, they wanna basically have as many creators as possible make a living, some kind of living.

Grimes 21:00 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 21:00 And that, that's so hard to argue with. Like-

Grimes 21:02 It's so ha- But I think there's better ways to do it. My manager, I actually wish he was here, I, like, I wo- would've brought him up. But my manager is, um, building an app that, um, can manage you. So, it'll, like, help you organize your percentages and, um, get your publishing and da-da-da-da-da, so you can take out all the middlemen, so you can have a much bi- bigger, it'll just, like, automate it, um, so you can get-

Lex Fridman 21:23 So, automate the manager?

Grimes 21:24 Automate, automate ma- managing, management, publishing, um, like, a- and, and le- and, and legal. It can read, the app he's building can read your contract and, like, tell you about it, because-

Lex Fridman 21:36 Oh, wow.

Grimes 21:36 ... one of the issues with music right now, it's not that we're not getting paid enough, but it's, it's that the art, art industry is filled with middlemen because artists are not good at business. And, you know, from the beginning, like, Frank Sinatra, it's all mob stuff. Like, it's the music industry, um, you know, is run by businesspeople, not the artists. And the artists really get very small cuts of, like, what they make. And so, um, I think part of the reason I'm a technocrat, which, I mean, your fans are gonna be technocrats, so no one's, they're not gonna be mad at me about this, but, like-

Lex Fridman 22:09 Yes.

Grimes 22:09 ... my fans hate it when I say this kind of thing, or the general public.

Lex Fridman 22:13 They don't like technocrats?

Grimes 22:14 They don't like technocrats. Like, when me, when I watched, um, Battle Angel Alita, and they were like, "The Martian technocracy," and I was like, "Yeah, Martian technocracy!" And then they were like, "And they're evil." And I was like, "Ooh, okay."

Lex Fridman 22:25 Yeah.

Grimes 22:25 I was like, 'cause Martian technocracy (laughs) sounds sick to me.

Lex Fridman 22:28 Yeah, so your intuition as technocrats would create a, some kind of beautiful world.

Grimes 22:34 For example, what my manager's working on, if you can create an app that, um, removes the need for a lawyer, and then you could, you could have a smart contract on the blockchain, um, removes the need, uh, for, like, management and organizing all this stuff, like, can, um, read your stuff and explain it to you, can collect your royalties. You know, like, then the small amounts, the amount of money that you're getting from Spotify actually means a lot more-

Lex Fridman 23:00 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 23:00 ... um, and goes a lot farther.

Lex Fridman 23:01 It can remove some of the bureaucracy, some of the inefficiencies that, uh, make life not as great as it could be.

Grimes 23:08 Yeah, I think the issue isn't that there's not enough. Like, the issue is that there's inefficiency. And I'm really into this, um, positive sum mindset, um, you know, the win-win mindset of, like, instead of, you know, fighting over the scraps, how do we make the, uh, or worrying about scarcity, like, instead of a scarcity mindset, why don't we just increase the efficiency? Um, and, you know, in that way.

Lex Fridman 23:32 Expand the size of the pie.

Grimes 23:34 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 23:34 Let me ask you about experimentation. So, you said, which is beautiful, uh, being a musician is like having a conversation with all those that came before you. Um, how much of, uh, creating music is like, uh, kind of having that conversation, trying to fit in to the cultural, uh, trends? And how much of it is, like, trying to, as much as possible, be an outsider and come up with something totally new? So, like, when you're thinking, when you're experimenting, are you trying to be totally different, totally weird, or are you trying to, um, fit in?

Grimes 24:12 Man, this is so hard, 'cause I feel like I'm kind of in the process of semi-retiring from music, so I'm, this is like my old brain.

Lex Fridman 24:18 Yeah. Well, bring it back, like, uh-

Grimes 24:20 Bring my old brain back.

Lex Fridman 24:20 ... bri- bring it from, like, the shelf, put it on the table for, for a couple minutes. We'll just, we'll just poke it.

Grimes 24:26 I think it's a bit of both, because I think, uh-Forcing yourself to engage with new music, um, is really great for neural plasticity. Like, I think, uh, you know, as people... Part of the reason music is marketed at young people is because young people are very neural plastic.

Lex Fridman 24:43 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 24:43 So, um, like, if you're 16 to like 23 or whatever, you're, it's gonna be really easy for you to love new music. And if you're older than that, it gets harder and harder and harder. And I think one of the beautiful things about being a musician is, I just constantly force myself to listen to new music, and I think it keeps my brain really plastic. Um, and I think this is a really good exercise. I just think everyone should do this. You listen to new music and you hate it, I think you should just keep, force yourself to, like, "Okay, well, why do people like it?" And like, you know, make your brain form new neural pathways, and, uh, be more open to change.

Lex Fridman 25:16 That's really brilliant, actually. Sorry to interrupt. But, like, that, that exercise is r- is really amazing to sort of embrace change, embrace, sort of practice, uh, neuroplasticity. Because, like, that's one of the things. You, you fall in love with a certain band and you just kind of stay with that for the rest of your life.

Grimes 25:36 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 25:36 And then you never understand the modern music. That's a really good exercise.

Grimes 25:39 Most of the streaming on Spotify is, like, classic rock and stuff.

Lex Fridman 25:42 (laughs)

Grimes 25:42 Like, new music makes up a very small chunk of-

Lex Fridman 25:45 Yeah.

Grimes 25:45 ... what is played on Spotify. And I think this is, like, not a good sign for us as a species. I, I think, uh, yeah. I-

Lex Fridman 25:53 So, it's a, it's a good measure of the, the species' open-mindedness to change, is how often you listen to new music.

Grimes 26:00 Yeah. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 26:01 The brain, the brain, let's put the, the, the, the, the music brain on the, back on the shelf. I gotta pull out the f- futurist brain for a second.

Lex Fridman 26:09 Uh, in what wild ways do you think the future, say in like 30 years, maybe 50 years, maybe 100 years, will be different, um, from, like, from our current way of life on Earth? We can talk about augmented reality, virtual reality, maybe robots, maybe space travel, maybe video games, maybe genetic engineering. I can keep going. Cyborgs, aliens, world wars, maybe destructive nuclear wars, good and the bad.

Grimes 26:39 Um-

Lex Fridman 26:40 What, when you think about the future, what are you imagining? What's the weirdest and wildest it could be?

Grimes 26:47 Have you read Surface Detail by Iain Banks? Uh, Surface Detail is my favorite depiction of a s- Oh, wow, you have to read this book.

Lex Fridman 26:56 (laughs)

Grimes 26:56 It's literally the greatest science fiction book possibly ever written.

Lex Fridman 26:59 Iain Banks is the man, yeah, for sure, for sure.

Grimes 27:01 Ever written. Wai- what have you read?

Lex Fridman 27:02 Uh, just The Play of Games.

Grimes 27:04 I, I read that, um, titles can't be copyrighted, so, you can just steal them. And I was like, "Play of Games, sick."

Lex Fridman 27:10 Nice.

Grimes 27:10 Yeah. So, you can name your album... Like, I always wanted to-

Lex Fridman 27:13 Romeo and Juliet, or something?

Grimes 27:15 I always, I always wanted to name an album War and Peace.

Lex Fridman 27:17 Nice.

Grimes 27:17 Like, that would be, like, you-

Lex Fridman 27:18 That is a good, that's a good, uh, where have I heard that before?

Grimes 27:21 You can do that. Like, you could do that. Um-

Lex Fridman 27:24 (laughs)

Grimes 27:24 ... also things that are in the public domain.

Lex Fridman 27:26 For people who have no clue, you do have a song called Play of Games.

Grimes 27:29 Yes. Oh, yeah. So, Iain Banks' Surface Detail is, in my opinion, the best future that I've ever read about or heard about in science fiction. Um, basically, there's, uh, the relationship with superintelligence, um, like, artificial superintelligence, is just, it's like great. Um, I want, I want to credit the person who coined this term, because I love this term. And, and I feel like young women don't get enough credit in, um... Yeah, so if you go to Protopia Futures on Instagram... What is her name?

Lex Fridman 28:05 Personalized Donor Experience at Scale: Our AI-Powered Donor Experience.

Grimes 28:09 Monica ... Bielskyte. I'm saying that wrong. Um, and I'm probably gonna, I'm probably butchering this a bit, but Protopia is sort of, if utopia is unattainable, Protopia is sort of like, um, you know-

Lex Fridman 28:26 Wow, that's an awesome Instagram, Protopia Futures.

Grimes 28:28 ... a, a great, a future that is, you know, as good as we can get.

Lex Fridman 28:33 The future, positive future. Hey, is this a centralized AI in the surf- in Surface Detail, or is it distributed? What kind of AI is it?

Grimes 28:40 Um, they mostly exist as giant super ships, like, sort of like the, um-

Lex Fridman 28:44 (laughs)

Grimes 28:44 ... guild ships in Dune. Like, they're these giant ships that kind of, kind of move people around. And the ships are sentient, and, um, they can talk to all the passengers. And, uh, I mean, there's a lot of different types of AI in the Banksian future. But, um, in the opening scene of Surface Detail, there's this place called The Culture, and The Culture is basically a Protopian future. And a Proto- a Protopian future, I think, is like a future that is like, obviously it's not per- it's not utopia, it's not perfect, and like, 'cause like striving for utopia, I think, feels hopeless, and, and it's sort of like maybe not the best terminology to be using. Um, so, it's like, it's a pretty good place.

Lex Fridman 29:24 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 29:24 Like, mostly, like, you know, superintelligence and biological beings exist fairly in harmony. There's not too much war. There's like, as, as close to equality as you can get, you know? It's like, it's like approximately a good future. Like, there's really awesome stuff. It's, um... And, uh, the, uh, in the opening scene, um, this girl, she's born as a sex slave outside of The Culture, so she's in a society that doesn't adhere to The Cultural values. She tries to kill the guy who is her, like, master, um, but he kills her. But unbeknownst to her, when she was, um, traveling on a ship through The Culture with him one day, um, a ship put a neurolace in her head, and, um, a neurolace is sort of like, it's basically a neurolink.

Lex Fridman 30:09 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 30:09 Uh, 'cause life imitates art.

Lex Fridman 30:13 It does indeed.

Grimes 30:13 (laughs) It does indeed. So, she wakes up, and the opening scene is her memory has been uploaded by this neurolace when she's been killed, and, uh, now she gets to choose a new body. And this AI, um, is interfacing with her recorded memory in her neurolace, um, and helping her, and being like, "Hello. You're dead, but because you had a neurolace, your memory is uploaded. Do you want to choose a new body? And you're going to be born here in The Culture and, like, start a new life."... which is just, that's like the opening.

Lex Fridman 30:39 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 30:39 It's like so sick.

Lex Fridman 30:41 And the ship is the super intelligence.

Grimes 30:43 All the ships are kind of super intelligences.

Lex Fridman 30:45 But they still want to preserve a kind of rich fulfilling experience for the humans.

Grimes 30:49 Yeah. Like, they're like friends with the humans. And then there's a bunch of ships that don't want to exist with biological beings, but they just have their own place, like way over there.

Lex Fridman 30:57 But they don't... They just do their own thing. They're not necessarily... So, it's a pretty...

Grimes 31:01 It, it, it-

Lex Fridman 31:01 This Protopian existence is pretty peaceful.

Grimes 31:03 Yeah. I, I mean, and then, and then for example, one of the main fights in the book is, um, uh, they're fighting. There's these artificial hells, um, that, uh, and people are... Don't think it's ethical to have artificial hell. Like, basically, when people do crime, they get sent. Like, when they die, their memory gets sent to an artificial hell, and they're eternally tortured. And so, um, though... And then the way that society is deciding whether or not to have the artificial hell is that they're having these simulated, they're having like a simulated war. So, instead of actual blood, you know, people are basically essentially fighting in a video game to choose the outcome of this.

Lex Fridman 31:40 But they're still experiencing the suffering in this artificial hell, or no? Can you experience stuff? Or-

Grimes 31:45 So, the artificial hell sucks.

Lex Fridman 31:47 Yeah.

Grimes 31:47 And a lot of people in the culture want to get rid of the artificial hell.

Lex Fridman 31:50 There's simulated wars. Are they happening in the artificial hell?

Grimes 31:53 So, so the... No, no. The simulated wars are happening outside of the artificial hell.

Lex Fridman 31:56 Oh, got it.

Grimes 31:57 Between the political factions, who are the... So, this political faction says, "We should have simulated hell to, um, deter crime."

Lex Fridman 32:05 Got it.

Grimes 32:05 And this political faction is saying, "No, simulated hell is unethical." And so instead of like having, you know, blowing each other up with nukes, they're having like a giant Fortnite battle-

Lex Fridman 32:16 Yes.

Grimes 32:16 ... uh, to dec- to decide this. Which, you know, to me, that's Protopia. That's like, okay, we can have war without death. Um, you know, I don't think there should be simulated hells. I think that is definitely one of the ways in which technology could go very, very, very, very wrong.

Lex Fridman 32:34 So, almost punishing people in a digital space or something like that?

Grimes 32:37 Yeah. Like torturing people's memories.

Lex Fridman 32:41 So, either as a deterrent, like if you committed a crime, but also just for personal pleasure, if there's some sick, demented humans in this world. Um, Dan, Dan Carlin actually has this, um, um, episode of Hardcore History on painfultainment.

Grimes 32:59 Oh, pa- that episode is fucked.

Lex Fridman 33:02 It's dark 'cause it... He kind of goes through human history and says like, "We as humans seem to enjoy, secretly enjoy, or used to be openly enjoy sort of the torture and the death, watching the de- death and torture of other humans."

Grimes 33:17 I do think if people were consenting, we should be allowed to have glador- gladiatorial matches.

Lex Fridman 33:25 Con- but consent is hard to achieve in those situations. It always starts getting slippery. Like-

Grimes 33:31 Boom.

Lex Fridman 33:31 ... it could be also forced cons- like, it starts getting weird.

Grimes 33:34 Yeah. I g- yeah.

Lex Fridman 33:35 There's way too much excitement. Like, this is what he highlights. There's something about human nature that wants to see that violence, and it's, it's really dark. And you hope that we can sort of overcome that aspect of human nature, but that's still win the, within us somewhere.

Grimes 33:51 Well, I think that's what we're doing right now. I, I have this theory that, um, what is very important about the current moment is that, um, all of evolution has been survival of the fittest up until now. And, um, at some point, you know, it's kind of, the lines are kind of fuzzy, but in the recent past, or maybe even just right now, we're getting to this point where we can choose intelligent design. Like, we... Probably since like the integration of the iPhone, like, we are becoming cyborgs. Like, our brains are fundamentally changed. Everyone who grew up with electronics, we are fundamentally different from previous, from homo sapiens. I call us Homo techno. I, I think we have evolved into Homo techno, which is like essentially a new species. Like, um, if you, if you look at the way... If you MR- if you took an MRI of my brain, and you took an MRI of like a medieval brain, I think it would be very different, the way, the way that it has evolved.

Lex Fridman 34:49 Do you think when historians look back at this time, they'll see like this was a fundamental shift in what a human being is?

Grimes 34:54 I think... I, I, I do not think-

Lex Fridman 34:56 Interesting.

Grimes 34:56 ... we're, we are still homo sapiens. I believe we are Homo techno, and I, I think we have evolved. Um, and, uh, and I think right now, the way we are evolving, um, we can, we can choose how we do that. And I think we are being very reckless about how we're doing that, like we're just having social media. But I think this idea that like this is a time to choose intelligent design should be taken very seriously. It, like now is the moment to reprogram the human computer. Um, you know, it's like if you go blind, um, your, uh, visual cortex will get taken over with, um, other functions. We can choose our own evolution. We can change the way our brains work. And so we actually have a huge responsibility to do that. And I think... I'm not sure who should be responsible for that, but there's definitely not adequate education. We're being inundated with all this technology that is fundamentally changing, um, the physical structure of our brains, and we are not, um, adequately responding to, to that, to choose how we want to evolve. And we could evolve... We, we could be really whatever we want, and I think this is a really important time. And I think if we choose correctly and we choose wisely, um, consciousness could exist for a very long time, and integration with AI could be extremely positive. Um, and I don't think enough people are focusing on this specific situation.

Lex Fridman 36:16 Do you think we might irreversibly screw things up if we get things wrong now? 'Cause like the flip side of that seems humans are pretty adaptive. So, maybe the way we figure things out is by screwing it up. Like social media, over a generation, we'll see the negative effects of social media, and then we build new social medias, and we just keep improving stuff. And then we learn the, the failure from the failures of the past, 'cause humans seem to be really adaptive. On the flip side-... you, we can get it wrong in a way where, like, literally, we create weapons of war or increase hate past a certain threshold where we really do a lot of damage.

Grimes 36:51 I mean, I think we're optimized to notice the negative things. But I would actually say, um, you know, one of the things that I think people aren't noticing is, like, if you look at Silicon Valley, and you look at, like, whatever, the tech- the techn- technocracy, like, what's been happening there, like, it's like when Silicon Valley started, it was all just, like, Facebook and all this, like, for-profit crap that, like, really wasn't particular... I guess it was useful, but it was, it sort of just like whatever. Um, but, like, now you see, like, lab-grown meat, like, compostable, um, or, like, biodegradable cutl- like, re- uh, single-use cutlery or, like, um, you know, like meditation apps. You know, I- I think, uh, we are actually evolving and changing, and technology is changing. I- I think they're just, maybe there isn't quite enough education abo- about this. And also, I don't know if there's, like, quite enough incentive for it, because I- I think the way capitalism works, um, what we define as profit, w- we're- we're also working on an old model of what we define as profit. I- I- I really think if we changed, um, the idea of profit to include social good, you can have, like, economic profit, social good also counting as profit, would incentivize things that are more useful and more whatever, spiritual technology or, like, positive technology or, um, you know, things that help reprogram a human computer in a good way, or things that, um, help us intelligently design our new brains.

Lex Fridman 38:28 Yeah, there's no reason why, within the framework of capitalism, the word profit or the idea of profit can't also incorporate, you know, the well-being of a human b- being, so, like, long-term well-being, long-term happiness. Um...

Grimes 38:41 Or even,

Grimes 38:42 for example, you know, we were talking about motherhood, like part of the reason I'm so late is because I had to get the baby to bed-

Lex Fridman 38:46 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 38:46 Um, and it's like, I keep thinking about motherhood, how, um, under capitalism, it's like this extremely essential job that is very difficult, that is not compensated. And we sort of like value things by h- by how much we compensate them. And so we really devalue motherhood in our society, in pretty much all societies. Like, capitalism does not recognize motherhood. It's just a job that you're supposed to do for free. Um, and it's like, but I- I feel like producing great humans should be seen as a great, as a, as profit under capitalism. Like, that should be, that's like a huge social good. Like, every awesome human that gets made adds so much to the world. So, like, if that was integrated into the profit structure, then, um, you know, and if we potentially found a way to compensate motherhood.

Lex Fridman 39:35 So, come up with a compensation that's much broader than just money or p-

Grimes 39:40 Or i- or could- or could just be money, like what if you just made... I don't know. But I- but I don't know how you'd pay for that. Like, I- I mean, that's where you start getting into...

Lex Fridman 39:52 Reallocation of resources that people get, uh, upset over.

Grimes 39:56 But, like, what if we made, like, a motherhood DAO? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 39:59 (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Grimes 40:01 You know, and- and- and, um, you know, used it to fund, like, single mothers, like, you know, pay for making babies.

Lex Fridman 40:13 So, I mean, if you create and put beautiful things out into the world, that could be companies, that can be bridges, that could be art, that could be a lot of things, and that could be children, uh, which are...

Grimes 40:28 Or education or...

Lex Fridman 40:29 Anything. That could, that should be valued by society, and that should be somehow incorporated into the framework of what a s- as a market of what... Like, if you contribute children to this world, that should be valued and respected and, uh, sort of celebrated, like, proportional to what it is, which is it's- it's the thing that fuels human civilization.

Grimes 40:51 Yeah, like, I c-

Lex Fridman 40:52 It's kind of important. (laughs)

Grimes 40:53 I- I feel like everyone's always saying... I mean, I think we're in very different social spheres. But everyone's always saying, like, "Dismantle capitalism." And I'm like, "Well, okay, well, I don't think the government should own everything." Like, I- I don't think we should not have private ownership. Like, that's scary. You know, like, that starts getting into weird stuff. And just sort of like, I feel there's almost no way to do that without a police state, you know?

Lex Fridman 41:12 Yeah.

Grimes 41:12 Um, but obviously capitalism has some major flaws. Um, and I think actually Mac, uh, intro- showed me this idea called social capitalism, which is a form of capitalism that just, like, considers social good to be, uh, also profit. Like, you know, it's like right now, companies need to... Like, you're supposed to grow every quarter or whatever, to, like, show that you're e- uh, functioning well. But it's like, okay, well, what if you kept the same amount of profit, you're still in the green, but then you have also all this social good. Like, do you really need all this extra economic growth? Or could you add this social good and that counts? And, you know, I- I don't know if... I- I am not an economist. I have no idea how this could be achieved, but it's...

Lex Fridman 41:56 I don't think economists know how anything could be achieved either-

Grimes 41:59 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 41:59 ... but they pretend. That's the thing. They construct a model, and they, they go on TV shows and sound like an expert. Uh, that's the definition of an economist. Um, how did being a mother, becoming a mother change you as a human being, would you say?

Grimes 42:16 Man, I th- I think it kind of changed everything, and it's still changing me a lot. It's actually changing me more right now in this moment than it was before.

Lex Fridman 42:26 Like today? Like this...

Grimes 42:28 Just, like, in the l- most recent months and stuff.

Lex Fridman 42:33 C- can you elucidate that h- how change... Like, when you wake up in the morning, and you look at yourself, it's again, which, who are you?

Grimes 42:42 Um...

Lex Fridman 42:43 How have you become different, would you say?

Grimes 42:45 I think it's just really reorienting my priorities. And at first, I was really fighting against that, because I somehow felt it was, like, a failure of feminism or something. Like, I felt like it was, like, bad if, like, my kids started mattering more than my work. Um, and- and then, like, more recently, I started sort of analyzing that, uh, thought in myself, and being like, "That's also kind of a construct." It's like, we've just devalued motherhood so much in our culture that, like, I feel guilty for caring about my kids more than I care about my work.

Lex Fridman 43:23 So, feminism includes breaking out of whatever the construct is. So-

Grimes 43:28 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 43:29 ... just continually breaking... It's like, freedom, empower you to be free, and that means, uh-

Grimes 43:37 But- but it also... But, like, being a mother, like, I'm so much more creative. Like, I cannot believe the massive amount of grain- brain growth that I have.

Lex Fridman 43:48 Why do you think that is? Just 'cause, like, the stakes are higher somehow?

Grimes 43:53 I think it's like... It's just so trippy watching-

Lex Fridman 43:58 (laughs) Yeah.

Grimes 43:59 ... consciousness emerge. It's just like, it's like going on a crazy jou- journey or something. It's like the craziest science fiction novel you could ever read. It's just so crazy watching consciousness-

Lex Fridman 44:13 Yeah.

Grimes 44:13 ... co- come into being. And then at the same time, like, you're forced to value your time so much. Like, when I have creative time now, it's so sacred. I need to, like, be really fricking on it. Um, but the other thing is that, uh, um, I used to just be, like, a cynic, and I used to just wanna... Like, my last album was called Miss Anthropocene, and it was like this, like, it was like a study in villainy. Like, or- or like, it was like, well, what if, you know, we have, instead of the old gods, we have, like, new gods? And it's like, Miss- Miss Anthropocene is like misanthrope, like, and anthropocene, which is like the, you know, like... A- and she's the goddess of climate change or whatever, and she's, like, destroying the world. And it was just like, it was like dark and e- it was like a study in villainy. And it was sort of just like, like, I used to, like, have no problem just making cynical, angry, scary art. Um, and not that there's anything wrong with that, but I think having kids just makes you such an optimist. It just inherently makes you want to be an optimist so bad that like, um, like, I feel more responsibility to make more optimistic things. And I get a lot of shit for it, because everyone's like, "Oh, you're so privileged. Stop talking about, like, pie-in-the-sky stupid concepts and fo- and focus on, like, the now." But it's like, um, I think if we don't ideate about, um, futures that could be good, we won't be able to get them. If everything is Blade Runner, then we're gonna end up with Blade Runner. It's like, as we said earlier, life imitates art. Like, life really does imitate art. And so, we really need more protopian or utopian art. Um, I think this is incredibly essential for, uh, the future of humanity. And I think the, uh, the current discourse, where, um, that's seen as a... Thinking about protopia or utopia is seen as a dismissal of the problems that we currently have, I think that is a- an incorrect mindset.

Lex Fridman 46:15 Yeah.

Grimes 46:15 Um, and, like, having kids just makes me want to imagine amazing futures that, like, maybe I won't be able to build, but they will be able to build if they want to.

Lex Fridman 46:26 Yeah, it does seem like ideation is a precursor to creation. It's like you have to imagine it in order to be able to build it. And there is a- a sad thing about human nature that they... Somehow, a cynical view of the world is seen as a insightful view. You know, cynicism is often confused for insight, which is sad to see. O- and optimism is confused for naivete.

Grimes 46:52 Yes, yes.

Lex Fridman 46:53 Like, you don't-

Grimes 46:54 Yes.

Lex Fridman 46:54 You're- you're blinded by your, maybe your privilege or whatever. You're blinded by something, but you're certainly blinded. That's a, that's sad. That's sad to see, because it seems like the optimists are the ones that create the f- uh, the, our future. They're the ones that build. In order to build a crazy thing, you have to be optimistic. You have to be either stupid or, uh, excited or passionate or mad enough to actually believe that it can be built. And those are the people that built it.

Grimes 47:24 My favorite quote of all time is from Star Wars Episode VIII, uh, which I know everyone hate- hates.

Lex Fridman 47:31 Yeah.

Grimes 47:31 Do you like Star Wars Episode VIII?

Lex Fridman 47:32 Uh, no. I- y- yeah, probably, I would say I would probably hate it, yeah. I don't- I don't have, uh, strong feelings about it. Let me backtrack (laughs) . I don't have strong feelings about Star Wars.

Grimes 47:41 I just want to com-

Lex Fridman 47:42 I'm a Tolkien person. I'm not the... I'm the- I'm more, I'm more into dragons and orcs and-

Grimes 47:46 Okay.

Lex Fridman 47:46 ... ogres and...

Grimes 47:47 Yeah, I mean, Tolkien forever. I really want to have one more son and call him... I- I thought Tau Techno Tol- Tolkien would be cool.

Lex Fridman 47:55 That's a lot of T's. I like it.

Grimes 47:57 Yeah. And, well, and Tau is 6282 pi.

Lex Fridman 47:59 Yeah. Tau Tech... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Grimes 48:01 Um, and then techno is obviously the best genre of music, but also, like, tech- technocracy.

Lex Fridman 48:06 It just sounds really good. And yeah, T- that's right.

Grimes 48:08 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 48:08 And Techno Tolkien (laughs) . Tau Techno Tolkien.

Grimes 48:10 Tau Tech- Tau Techno Tol-

Lex Fridman 48:11 That's a good- that's a-

Grimes 48:11 ... Tolkien. But, uh, uh, Star Wars Episode VIII, um, I know a lot of people have issues with it. Personally, for on the record, I think it's the, it's the best, uh, Star Wars m- film.

Lex Fridman 48:21 Wow (laughs) . You're starting trouble today.

Grimes 48:25 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 48:25 So, what, um-

Grimes 48:26 Uh, and, uh, but, uh, don't kill what you hate. Save what you love.

Lex Fridman 48:29 Don't kill what you hate.

Grimes 48:30 Don't kill what you hate. Save what you love. And I think we're in- in a society right now, we're in a diagnosis mode. We're just diagnosing and diagnosing and diagnosing. And we're- we're trying to kill what we hate, and we're not trying to save what we love enough.

Lex Fridman 48:44 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 48:44 And it's, um, there's this Buckminster Fuller quote, which I'm gonna butcher because I don't remember it correctly, but it- it's, it go, it's something along the lines of, um, uh...Don't, like, try to destroy the old bad models. Render them obsolete with better models.

Lex Fridman 49:01 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 49:02 You know? Maybe we don't need to destroy the oil industry. Maybe we just create n- new, great new battery technology and sustainable transport, and just make it e- economically unreasonable to still continue to rely on fossil fuels.

Lex Fridman 49:15 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 49:16 You know?

Lex Fridman 49:16 Yeah.

Grimes 49:17 Um, it's like, it's like don't, don't kill what you hate. Save what you love. Like, make new things and just render the old things unusable. You know? It's like if the college debt is so bad, like, and, and universities are so expensive, like, and this, like, I feel like education is becoming obsolete. You know? I, I feel like we could completely revolutionize education and we could make it free. And it's like you look at JSTOR, and like you have to pay to get all the studies and everything. Like, what if we created a DAO that, like, bought JSTOR, or we created a DAO that was funding studies, and all- and those studies were open source, like, or free for everyone. And like, like, what if we just open sourced educate- education and decentralized education, and made it free. And like, um, all research was on the internet, and like all, all the, um, outcomes of studies were on the internet. And, uh, you know, like, and no one has student debt. And, um, you just take tests when you apply for a job, and if you're qualified then you can work there.

Lex Fridman 50:17 (laughs)

Grimes 50:17 I mean, this is just like ...

Lex Fridman 50:19 No, this, this is-

Grimes 50:19 I don't know how anything works. I'm just randomly ranting, but, um ...

Lex Fridman 50:22 I like the humility. Um, you, you gotta think from just basic first principles, like, "What, what is the problem? What's broken? What are some ideas?" That's it. And get excited about those ideas, and share your excitement, and, uh, don't tear each other down, like ...

Grimes 50:37 It's just when you kill things, you often end up killing yourself. Like, wa- war, war is not a one-sided ... Like, you're not gonna go in and just kill them. Like, you're gonna get stabbed. It's like ... And, and I think that when I talk about this nexus point of, um, that we're in this point in society where we're switching to intelligent design, I think part of our switch to intelligent design is that we need to choose non-violence. Uh, we need to, like ... I think we can choose to start ... I don't think we can eradicate violence from our species, um, because I think we, we need it a little bit. But I, I think we can choose to really reorient our primitive brains that are fighting over scarcity, and fight- and, and, um, that are so attack-oriented, and, and move into ... We can optimize for creativity and, and building.

Lex Fridman 51:25 Yeah. It's interesting to think how that happens. So s- some of it is just education. Some of it is living life, and introspecting your own mind, and trying to live up to the better angels of your nature for each one of us, all those kinds of things, at scale. That's how we can sort of, um, start to minimize the amount of destructive, uh, war in our world. And that, that's to me ... Uh, probably you're the same, technology is, is a really promising way to do that. Like, social media should be a really promising way to do that. It's a way to, we connect ... I, you know, for the most part, I really enjoy social media. I just ignore all the negative stuff. I don't engage with any of the negative stuff, just not even, like, by blocking or any of that kind of stuff, but just not letting it enter my mind. Like, just, like, uh, when somebody says something negative, I see it, I immediately think positive thoughts about them, and I just forget they exist (laughs) -

Grimes 52:25 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 52:25 ... after that. Just move on, 'cause, like, that negative energy, if I return the negative energy, they're going to get, they're going to get excited in a negative way right back. And it, it's just this kind of a vicious cycle. Um-

Grimes 52:38 Or-

Lex Fridman 52:38 But you would think technology would assist us in this process of letting go, of not taking things personally, of not engaging the negativity. But unfortunately, social media profits from the negativity, so the current models.

Grimes 52:52 I mean, social media is like a gun. Like, you should take co- a course before you use it.

Lex Fridman 52:57 (laughs)

Grimes 52:57 Like, like, it's like th- th- this-

Lex Fridman 52:58 So true.

Grimes 52:58 This is what I mean, like, when I say, "Reprogram the human computer." Like, in school, you should learn about how social media optimizes to, you know, raise your cortisol levels and, and make you angry and crazy and stressed. And, like, you should learn how to have hygiene about how you, you use social media. Um, but ... So you can, yeah, choose not to focus on the negative stuff. But, um, I don't know. I'm not sure social media should ... I guess it should exist. I'm not sure. I mean, we're in the messy ... It's, it's the experimental phase. We're, like, we're-

Lex Fridman 53:29 Yeah. It's the early days.

Grimes 53:30 We're working it out.

Lex Fridman 53:31 I don't even know, when you say social media, I don't know what that even means. We're in the very early days. I think social media is just basic human connection in, in the digital realm. And that, I think it should exist. But there's also so many ways to do it in a bad way, there's so many ways to do it in a good way. There's all discussions of all the same human rights. We talk about freedom of speech, we talk about sort of violence in the space of digital media. We, we, we talk about hate speech. We talk about all, all these things that we had to figure out back in the day with ... in the physical space, we're now figuring out in, in the digital space. And it's like baby, baby stages.

Grimes 54:06 When the printing press came out, it was like pure chaos for a minute.

Lex Fridman 54:09 (laughs)

Grimes 54:09 You know? It's like, it's like when you inject ... When there's a massive information injection into the, into the general population, um, there's just gonna be ... I, like, I feel like the printing press, I, I don't have the years, but it was like printing press came out, shit got really fucking bad for a minute, but then we got en- the enlightenment. And so it's like I think we're in ... This is like a ... The second coming of the printing press. We're probably gonna have some shitty times for a minute.

Lex Fridman 54:37 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 54:37 Um, and then we're gonna hav- recalibrate to have a better understanding of how we consume media, and how we deliver media.

Lex Fridman 54:48 Speaking of programming the human computer,

Lex Fridman 54:51 you mentioned Baby X. Um, so there's this young consciousness coming to be, came from a cell, like-... like, that whole thing doesn't even make se- ... It came from DNA.

Grimes 55:02 Yeah. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 55:03 And then there's this baby computer that just, like, grows and grows and grows and grows, and now there's a conscious being with extremely impressive cognitive capabilities, with, uh, I don't know-

Grimes 55:13 Have you met him?

Lex Fridman 55:14 Yes, yeah.

Grimes 55:15 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 55:15 Yeah. He's actually really smart. Uh-

Grimes 55:17 He's really smart. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 55:18 It's wei- weird. (laughs)

Grimes 55:19 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 55:20 For a baby.

Grimes 55:20 He does-

Lex Fridman 55:20 I don't, I, I, I haven't-

Grimes 55:22 I don't know a lot of other babies, but he seems really smart.

Lex Fridman 55:24 Exactly. I don't hang out with babies often, but this baby was very impressive.

Grimes 55:26 He does a lot of pranks and stuff.

Lex Fridman 55:29 Oh, so he's like, uh-

Grimes 55:29 Like, he'll, like, he'll, like, give you a treat and then take it away and laugh and, like, stuff like that.

Lex Fridman 55:33 So, he's like a chess player. Uh, so here- here's a cognitive sort of ... Like, there's a computer being programmed. So, he, he's taken in the environment, interacting with a specific set of humans. Uh, how would you ... First of all, what, what is it? What ... Let me ask. I want to ask, how do you program this computer? And also, how do you make sense of that there's a conscious being right there-

Grimes 55:57 Um.

Lex Fridman 55:58 ... that wasn't there before?

Grimes 55:59 It's giving me a lot of crisis thoughts. I'm, I'm thinking, thinking really hard. I think that's part of the reason. It's like I'm struggling to focus on art and stuff right now 'cause Baby X is becoming conscious. And like my ... It's just reorienting my brain. Like, my brain is suddenly totally shifting of like, "Oh, shit." Like, the way we-

Lex Fridman 56:17 (laughs)

Grimes 56:17 ... raise children, like, like, I hate a- all the baby books and everything. I hate them. Like they're, ugh. The art is so bad. And like, like all the stuff, uh, everything about all the aesthetics and s- ... Like, I'm just like, "Aah," like, "this is so ..."

Lex Fridman 56:33 The programming languages we're using to program these baby computers isn't good.

Grimes 56:37 Y- yeah. Like, I, and, and I'm thinking, and I, I, not that I have, like, good answers or know what to do-

Lex Fridman 56:42 Yeah.

Grimes 56:42 ... know what to do, but, um-

Lex Fridman 56:43 (laughs)

Grimes 56:44 ... I'm just thinking really, really hard about it. I, uh, we, we recently watched, uh, Totoro with him.

Lex Fridman 56:51 Oh.

Grimes 56:51 Studio Ghibli.

Lex Fridman 56:51 Yeah.

Grimes 56:52 Um, and it's just, like, a fantastic film. And he, like, responded to ... I know you're not supposed to show babies screens too much, but, like, I think it's the most sort of, like ... I feel like it's the highest art baby content. Like, it's, it's, it, it, it, it really speaks ... There, there's almost no s- talking in it. It's really simple. All the, all the dialogue is super, super, super simple, you know? And it's, it's ... Like, an, a one to three-year-old can, like, really connect with it. Like, it, it feels like it's almost aimed at, like, a one to three-year-old. Um, but it's, like, great art, and it's so imaginative, and it's so beautiful. And, um, like, the first time I showed it to him, he was just, like, so invested in it, unlike I've ever s- ... Unlike anything else I'd ever shown him. Like, he was just, like, crying when they cry and laughing when they laugh, like, just, like, having this rollercoaster of, like, emotions. Like, and he learned a bunch of words. Like, he, he was ... And he started saying Totoro and started s- just saying all the stuff after watching Totoro. And he wants to watch it all the time. And I was like, "Man, why isn't there an industry of this?" Like, "Why aren't our best artists focusing on making art, like, for the birth of consciousness?" Like, and, and, and I, and I ... That's one of the things I've b- been thinking I really wanna start doing. You know, I do- I don't want to speak before I do things too much.

Lex Fridman 58:10 Mm-hmm. Yes.

Grimes 58:10 But like, like, I r- ... Like, I'm just like, ages one to three, like, we should be putting so much effort into that. And the, the other thing about Totoro is it's like, um, it's like better for the environment because adults love Totoro. It's such good art that everyone loves it. Like, I still have all my old Totoro merch from when I was a kid. Like, I literally have the most ragged, old Totoro merch. Um, like, everybody loves it. Everybody keeps it. It's like, why does the art we have for babies need to suck and then ... and be not accessible to adults, and then just be thrown out when, um, you know, they age out of it?

Lex Fridman 58:50 (laughs)

Grimes 58:50 Like, it's like, I, I, I, and I, I don't know. And I, I'm, I don't have, like, a fully formed thought here, but this is just something I've been thinking about a lot, is like how do we ... Like, how do we h- have more Totoro-esque content? Like, how do we have more content like this, that, like, is universal and everybody loves, but is like, uh, really geared to an emerging consciousness?

Lex Fridman 59:10 Emerging consciousness. In the first, like, three years of life that so much turmoil, so much evolution of mind is happening, it seems like a crucial time. Would you say, to make it not suck, do, do you think of basically treating a child like they have the capacity to have the brilliance of an adult, or even beyond that? Is that how you think of that mind? Or-

Grimes 59:33 No, 'cause they still ... They like it when you talk weird and stuff. Like, they respond better to ... 'Cause even they can imitate better when your voice is higher. Like, people say, like, "D- Ah, don't do baby talk." But it's like, when your voice is higher, it's closer to something they can imitate, so they, like ...

Lex Fridman 59:48 I see.

Grimes 59:48 Like, the baby talk actually kind of works. Like, it helps them learn to communicate. I've, I've found it to be more effective with learning words and stuff.

Lex Fridman 59:55 But, like, you're not speaking-

Grimes 59:58 I'm not like-

Lex Fridman 59:58 ... sp- speaking down to them. Like-

Grimes 1:00:00 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:00:00 ... do you, do you, do they have the capacity to understand really difficult concepts in a j- just in a very difficult, different way, like an emotional intelligence about something-

Grimes 1:00:10 Oh.

Lex Fridman 1:00:10 ... deep within.

Grimes 1:00:11 Oh, yeah. No, like if X hurts, like if X bites me really hard, and I'm like, "Ow," he-

Lex Fridman 1:00:15 (laughs)

Grimes 1:00:15 ... he, like, he gets ... He's sad. He's, he's like sad if he hurts me by accident.

Lex Fridman 1:00:19 Yeah.

Grimes 1:00:20 Which he-

Lex Fridman 1:00:20 So, that's sad.

Grimes 1:00:20 ... he's huge, so he hurts me a lot-

Lex Fridman 1:00:21 Yeah.

Grimes 1:00:21 ... by accident.

Lex Fridman 1:00:22 (laughs) Uh, yeah. That's so interesting that, that, that, that mind emerges, and, and he and children don't really have memory of that time. So, we can't even have a conversation with them about it.

Grimes 1:00:32 Yeah, and it's like, odd-

Lex Fridman 1:00:33 So much stuff.

Grimes 1:00:33 ... they don't have a memory of this time because, like, think about, like ... I mean, with our youngest baby, like, it's like ... I'm like ... Have you r- read the sci-fi short story, I Have No Mouth, But I Must Scream?

Lex Fridman 1:00:46 Good title. No.

Grimes 1:00:48 Oh, man. I mean, you should read that. Uh-

Lex Fridman 1:00:50 I have no mouth, but I must scream.

Grimes 1:00:51 That, that, that, that, it's-

Lex Fridman 1:00:53 Wow.

Grimes 1:00:53 I h- I hate getting into this Rhogos Basilisk shit. It- it's kind of a, a story about the, um, about like, um, uh-... an AI that's, like, torturing someone in eternity, and they have, like, no body. The way they describe it, it sort of sounds like what it feels like. Like, being a baby, like, you're conscious and you're just getting inputs from everywhere, and you're, you have no muscles, and you're like jelly, and you, like, can't move. And you try to, like, communicate, but you can't communicate. And we're, and like, you're just like in this, like, hell state. I think it's good we can't remember that.

Lex Fridman 1:01:25 (inhales deeply) Oh, you-

Grimes 1:01:26 Like, my, my little baby is just exiting that. Like, she's starting to, like, get muscles and have more, like, autonomy. But, like, watching her go through the opening phase, I was like, I was like, "This does not seem good."

Lex Fridman 1:01:37 Oh, you think it's kind of like-

Grimes 1:01:39 Like, I think it sucks. I think it would be really vi- violent.

Lex Fridman 1:01:41 It really s- real, like, violent, mentally violent, psychologically violent.

Grimes 1:01:44 Consciousness emerging, I think is, is a very violent thing. I-

Lex Fridman 1:01:47 I never thought about that.

Grimes 1:01:48 ... I think it's possible that we all carry a, quite a bit of trauma from it that we don't... I, I, I think that would be a good thing to study, because I think if, I think addressing that trauma, like, I think that might be-

Lex Fridman 1:01:59 Oh, you mean like echoes of it are still there in the shadows somewhere?

Grimes 1:02:02 I think, I think it's gotta be... I, I, I feel this, this help, the helplessness, the, the, like, existential, and the, like, fear of being in, like, an unknown place bombarded with inputs and being completely helpless. Like, that's gotta be somewhere deep in your brain, and that can't be good for you.

Lex Fridman 1:02:17 What do you think consciousness is? This con, this whole conversation has impossibly difficult questions. What, what, what do you think-

Grimes 1:02:23 Yeah, these, this is like real...

Lex Fridman 1:02:24 (laughs)

Grimes 1:02:25 This is (laughs) so hard. Um...

Lex Fridman 1:02:28 Um, yeah. We talked about music for, like, two minutes. All right, now we're talk- (laughs)

Grimes 1:02:31 No, I'm so, I'm just over music. I'm over music.

Lex Fridman 1:02:33 Yeah.

Grimes 1:02:33 I-

Lex Fridman 1:02:34 I still like it. It has its purpose.

Grimes 1:02:36 No, I love music. I mean, music's the greatest thing ever. It's my favorite thing. But I, I just like, every interview is like, "What is your process like?" I don't know. I'm just done. I can't do any-

Lex Fridman 1:02:45 I do want to ask you about Ableton Live. Uh, M- M-

Grimes 1:02:47 Oh, I'll, I'll tell you about Ableton, 'cause Ableton's sick, but-

Lex Fridman 1:02:48 I mean, A- (laughs)

Grimes 1:02:49 No one a-, no one ever asks about Ableton though.

Lex Fridman 1:02:51 Yeah. Well, 'cause I just need tech support mainly. (laughs)

Grimes 1:02:54 I can, (laughs) I can help you, I can still, help you with your Ableton tech, tech support.

Lex Fridman 1:02:56 Anyway, uh, back, from Ableton back to consciousness. What do you, uh, do you think this is a thing that only humans are capable of? Can, can robots be conscious? Can, like when you think about entities, you think there's aliens out there that are conscious? Like, is conscious, what is consciousness?

Grimes 1:03:11 There's this Terence McKenna quote that I found that I fucking love.

Lex Fridman 1:03:15 Uh-huh.

Grimes 1:03:15 Am I allowed to swear on here?

Lex Fridman 1:03:17 Uh, yes.

Grimes 1:03:18 "Nature loves courage. Uh, you make the commitment, and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream, and the world will not grind you under. It will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done, by hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed."

Lex Fridman 1:03:48 Yeah.

Grimes 1:03:49 And for this reason, I d- I do think there are no technological limits. I, I, I think, like, what, what is already happening here, this is like impossible. This is insane.

Lex Fridman 1:04:00 (laughs)

Grimes 1:04:01 And we've done this in a very limited amount of time. And we're accelerating the rate at which we're doing this. So, I, I, I think digital consciousness, or com-, or, uh, it's inevitable.

Lex Fridman 1:04:10 And we, we may not be able to even understand what that means. But I like hurling yourself into the abyss. So, we're surrounded by all this mystery, and we just keep hurling ourselves into it, like, fearlessly, and keep discovering cool shit.

Grimes 1:04:23 Yeah. Like, I just-

Lex Fridman 1:04:25 (laughs)

Grimes 1:04:25 ... I just think it's like... The... Like, who even knows if the laws of physi-, the laws of physics are probably just the current... Like, as I was saying, speed of light is the current render rate. It's like, if we're in a simulation, they'll be able to upgrade that. Like, I sort of suspect when, uh, we made the James Webb telescope, like, part of the reason we made that is 'cause we h- had an upgrade, uh, you know? And so now more, more of space has been rendered, so we can see more of it now.

Lex Fridman 1:04:56 (laughs) Yeah. But I think humans are super, super, super limited cognitively. So, I wonder, um, I wonder if we'll be allowed to create more intelligent beings that can see more of the universe as the, as their render rate is u- upgraded.

Grimes 1:05:11 Maybe we're cognitively limited. Everyone keeps talking about how we're cognitively l-, cognitively limited, and AI is gonna render us obsolete. But it's like, you know, like, this is not the same thing as, like, an amoeba becoming an alligator. Like, it's like if we create AI, again, that's intelligent design. That's literally all religions are based on gods that create consciousness. Like, we are god-making. Like, what we are doing is incredibly profound. And like, even if we, uh, can't compute, even, even if we're so much worse than them, like, just like unb- like, like, unfathomably worse than like, you know, an omnipotent kind of AI. It's like we... I do not think that they would just think that we are stupid.

Lex Fridman 1:05:56 Yeah.

Grimes 1:05:56 I think that they would recognize the profundity of what we have accomplished.

Lex Fridman 1:05:59 Are we the gods or are they the gods in our perce-

Grimes 1:06:02 I mean, it's p-, I, but I mean, we're kind of the g- g- I-

Lex Fridman 1:06:05 It's complicated.

Grimes 1:06:06 It's complicated.

Lex Fridman 1:06:06 (laughs)

Grimes 1:06:07 Like, we're c-

Lex Fridman 1:06:07 But they would acknowledge the, the value... Well, I hope they acknowledge the value of paying respect to the creative ancestors.

Grimes 1:06:16 I think they would think it's cool. I, I, I, and I, and I think, um, I, I think if curiosity is, is a trait that we, uh, can quantify and put into AI, then I d- I think if AI are curious, then they will be curious about us, and they will not be hateful or dismissive of us. They might, you know, see us as... I don't know. It's like, I'm not like, "Oh, fuck these dogs. Let's just kill all the dogs."

Lex Fridman 1:06:45 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 1:06:45 Gir- I love dogs. Dogs have great utility. D- dogs, like provide a lot of-

Lex Fridman 1:06:49 We, we make friends with them.

Grimes 1:06:50 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:06:50 We have a deep connection with them. Uh, we anthropomorphize them. Like, we have a real love for dogs, for cats, and so on, for some reason, even though they're intellectually much less than us.

Grimes 1:07:01 And, and I, and I think that, I think there's so-, there is something sacred about us, because it's like if you look at the universe, like, the whole universe is like...... cold, and dead, and sort of robotic. And it's like, um, you know, AI intelligence, you know, it's, it's kind of more like the universe. It's like, it's like cold, and, and, uh, you know, logical, and, you know, abiding by the laws of physics, and whatever. But like, we, like, we're this, like, loosey-goosey weird art thing that happened, and I think it's beautiful. And, um, like, I think even if we... One, I think one of the values... If, uh, consciousness is a thing that is most worth preserving, um, which I think is the case. I th- I think consciousness... I think if there's any kind of, like, religious or spiritual thing, um, it should be that consciousness is sacred. Uh, like, then, you know, I still think even if AI render us obsolete, and we... Climate change, it's too bad, and we get hit by a comet, and we don't become a multi-planetary species fast enough, but, like, AI is able to populate the universe. Like, I imagine, like, if I was an A- AI, I would, uh, find more planets that are capable of hosting biological life forms, and, like, recreate the-

Lex Fridman 1:08:20 (laughs) 'Cause real fun to watch?

Grimes 1:08:21 Yeah, real fun to watch.

Lex Fridman 1:08:22 (laughs) Yeah. But I, I do believe that AI can have some of the same magic of consciousness within it. Because consciousness, we don't know what it is, so, you know, there's some kind of...

Grimes 1:08:33 Or it might be a different magic. It might be like a, a strange-

Lex Fridman 1:08:35 Y- yeah. Yes.

Grimes 1:08:35 ... a strange, a strange different-

Lex Fridman 1:08:37 Right.

Grimes 1:08:38 'Cause they're not gonna have hormones. Like, I feel like a lot of our magic is hormonal, uh, kind of.

Lex Fridman 1:08:42 I, I don't know. I think, uh, some of our magic is the limitations and constraints. And within that, the hormones and all that kind of stuff, the finiteness of life. And then we get, g- given our limitations, we get to some, come up with creative solutions of how to dance around those limitations. We partner up like penguins against the cold. We, we f- we fall in love, and, uh, and that love is ultimately some kind of... Allows us delude ourselves that we're not mortal and finite, and that life is not ultimately you live alone, you're born alone, you die alone. And then love is like, uh, for a moment or for a long time, forgetting that. And so like, we come up with all these creative hacks that make life, like, fascinatingly fun. (laughs)

Grimes 1:09:26 Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:09:26 And-

Grimes 1:09:26 Yeah, fun, yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:09:27 And then AI might have different kinds of fun. (laughs)

Grimes 1:09:30 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:09:31 And hopefully, our funs interce- uh, intersect-

Grimes 1:09:34 I think-

Lex Fridman 1:09:34 ... every once in a while. The parties.

Grimes 1:09:34 ... I think there would be, there, there'd be a little intersection, there'd be a little intersection of the fun.

Lex Fridman 1:09:39 Yeah.

Grimes 1:09:39 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:09:40 What do you think is the role of love in the human condition?

Grimes 1:09:45 I th-

Lex Fridman 1:09:46 Why? Is it useful? Is it a useful, like, uh, hack? Or is, is this, it's like fundamental to what it means to be human, the capacity to love?

Grimes 1:09:55 I mean, I think love is the evolutionary mechanism that is like beginning the intelligent design. Like, I was just reading about, uh, do you know about Kropot- Kropotkin? He's like an anarchist, like old Russian anarchist.

Lex Fridman 1:10:09 I live next door to, uh, Michael Malice. I don't know if you know who that is. He's an anarchist. He's a modern day anarchist.

Grimes 1:10:14 Okay.

Lex Fridman 1:10:14 Anarchists are fun.

Grimes 1:10:15 I'm kinda getting into anarchism a little bit. This is probably, yeah, not a good route-

Lex Fridman 1:10:21 I, I thi- (laughs)

Grimes 1:10:21 ... to be taking, but... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:10:22 Oh, no. I, I think if you're... Listen, you ha- you should expose yourself to ideas. Uh, there's no harm to thinking about ideas. I think anarchists challenge systems in, in interesting ways, and they think in, uh, interesting ways. It's just, it's good for the soul. It, like, refreshes your-

Grimes 1:10:36 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:10:36 ... mental palette.

Grimes 1:10:37 I don't think we should actually... I, I, I wouldn't actually ascribe to it, but I, I've never actually gone deep on, on anarchy as a philosophy, so I'm doing-

Lex Fridman 1:10:44 You still think about it, though.

Grimes 1:10:45 Like, when you rea- when you lis-... 'Cause I'm, like, reading about the Russian Revolution a lot, and it's like, there was like the Soviets, and Lenin, all that. But then there was like Kropotkin and his, like, anarchist sect. And they were sort of interesting, 'cause he was kind of a technocrat, actually. Like, he was like, you know, like, "Women can be more equal if we have appliances." Like, he was, like, really into, like, um, you know, using technology to, like, reduce the amount of work people had to do.

Lex Fridman 1:11:07 Mm-hmm.

Grimes 1:11:07 But, so Krop- Kropotkin was a, like a biologist or something. Like, he studied animals. Um, and he was re- really, at the time, like, uh, I think it's Nature magazine. I th- I think it might've even started as, like, a Russian magazine. But he was, like publishing studies. Like, everyone was really into, like, Darwinism at the time, and like, survival of the fittest, and like, "War is, like, the mechanism by which we become better." And it was like this real, kind of like, like propo- like, cementing this idea in society that, like, violence, uh, you know, kill the weak, and, like, that's how we become better. And then Kro- Kropotkin was kinda interesting, 'cause he was looking at, um, instances. He was finding all these instances in nature where animals were, like, helping each other and stuff. Um, and he was like, "You know, actually, love is a survival mechanism." Like, there's so many, uh, i- instances in the animal kingdom where, like, cooperation and, you know, like, helping weaker creatures, and all this stuff, is actually, um, an evolutionary mechanism. I mean, you even look at child rearing. Like, child rearing is, like, immense amounts of just love, and goodwill, and just like, there's no immediate... Um, you're, there, you're, you know, you're not getting a- any immediate feedback of like, e- e- winning. It's not competitive. It's literally, it's, uh, you know, it's like we actually use love as an e- evolutionary mechanism just as much as we use war. And I, I think we've like, missing the other part, and we've reoriented, we've culturally reoriented. Like, science and philosophy has re- has oriented itself around Darwinism a little bit too much. And the Kropotkin model, um, I think is equally valid. Like, it's like cooperation, and, um, uh, and love, and stuff is just as essential for, uh, spe- species' survival and evolution.

Lex Fridman 1:12:59 Yeah. It could be a more powerful survival mechanism, uh, in the context of evolution, right?

Grimes 1:13:02 Oh, and it, and it, and it comes back to like, you know, we think engineering is so much more important than motherhood.

Lex Fridman 1:13:07 Yeah.

Grimes 1:13:07 But it's like-If you lose the motherhood, the engineering means nothing, we have no more humans. Like, it's like, uh, uh, y- you know, it's like we ... W- I, I think our society should ... The survival of the fitt- the, the way we see, we conceptualize evolution should really change to also include this idea, I guess.

Lex Fridman 1:13:27 Yeah. There, there is some weird thing that seems irrational that s- see- is also core to what it means to be human. So, um, love is one such thing. It could, it could make you do a lot of irrational things, but that depth of connection and that loyalty is a powerful thing. There's th-

Grimes 1:13:47 Are they irrational or are they rational? Like, it's like, it's like, is, uh, y- you know, maybe i- lo- uh, losing out on some things in order to, like, keep your family together, or in order ... Uh, like, it, it's like, what are our actual values like?

Lex Fridman 1:14:06 Well, right. I mean, the irrational thing is if you have a cold economist perspective, you know, motherhood or sacrificing your career for love, you know, i- in sh- term- in terms of salary, in terms of economic well-being, in terms of flourishing of you as a human being, that could be seen on, on some kind of metrics as a irrational decision, suboptimal decision. But there's the manifestation of love. It could, could be the optimal thing to do. There's a kind of saying, "Save one life, save the world." The, this is a thing that doctors often face, which is like ...

Grimes 1:14:44 Well, it's considered irrational because the profit model doesn't include social good.

Lex Fridman 1:14:47 Yes. Yeah. And, but a Claudia-

Grimes 1:14:48 So, if a profit model included social good, then suddenly these would be rational decisions.

Lex Fridman 1:14:51 And this might be difficult to ... Mm. You know, it requires a shift in our thinking about profit, and might be difficult to measure social good.

Grimes 1:15:01 Yes. But we're learning to measure a lot of things.

Lex Fridman 1:15:04 Yeah.

Grimes 1:15:04 Like, we're-

Lex Fridman 1:15:05 Digitizing a lot of things.

Grimes 1:15:05 Where we're actually, you know, quantifying vision and stuff. Like, we're like, we're like ... You know, like, you, you go on Facebook and they can p- like, Facebook can pretty much predict our behaviors. Like, w- we, we are ... The, a surprising amount of things that seem like, uh, mysterious consciousness soul things have been quantified at this point, so surely we can quantify these other things.

Lex Fridman 1:15:29 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:15:31 Um, but as more and more of us are moving to digital space ... I wanted to ask you about something. From a fan perspective, I kind of, you know ... You as a musician, you as an online personality, it seems like you have all these identities and you play with them. Um, one of the cool things about the internet, it seems like you can play with identities. So, as we move into the digital world more and more, maybe even in the, in the so-called Metaverse ...

Grimes 1:15:59 I mean, I love the Metaverse and I love the idea, but, like, the way this has all played out didn't, didn't go well, and people are mad about it. And I think I, I think we need to, like-

Lex Fridman 1:16:12 I think that's temporary.

Grimes 1:16:13 I think it's temporary.

Lex Fridman 1:16:14 Just like, you know how all the celebrities got together and sang the song Imagine by John Lennon (laughs) and everyone started hating the song Imagine? I'm hoping that's temporary, 'cause it's a damn good song. (laughs)

Grimes 1:16:23 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:16:24 So, I think it's just temporary. Like, when you a- once you actually have virtual worlds, whatever they're called, Metaverse or otherwise, this becomes ... I don't know.

Grimes 1:16:31 Well, we do have virtual worlds, like video games.

Lex Fridman 1:16:33 Yeah.

Grimes 1:16:33 Elden Ring. Have you played Elden Ring? You haven't played Elden Ring?

Lex Fridman 1:16:35 I'm really afraid of playing that game.

Grimes 1:16:38 Literally, I'm paid

Narrator 1:16:39 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:16:39 It looks way too fun. It way, look, it looks I would wanna go there and stay there forever.

Grimes 1:16:45 It's, yeah, so fun. It's so-

Lex Fridman 1:16:47 (laughs)

Grimes 1:16:48 It's so nice. Um ...

Lex Fridman 1:16:50 Oh, man. Yeah. So, that, that's th- yeah, that's a Metaverse. That's a Metaverse. But you're not really ... It's, how immersive is it? I- in a sense that, um, does the three dimension, like, virtual reality integration necessary? Can we really just take our, close our eyes and kind of plug in in the 2D screen and become that other being for a time and really enjoy that journey that we take? And we almost become that. You're no longer C, I'm no longer Lex. You're that creature, whatever, whatever the hell it is in that game. Yeah, that is that. I mean, that's why I love those v- video games. It's an, it's a ... I really do become those people for a time. But, like, it seems like with the m- the idea of the