Max Tegmark: Life 3.0 | Lex Fridman Podcast #1

1. 0:00 – 5:44

   Are we alone? Fermi paradox, probability estimates, and cosmic responsibility

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      As part of MIT Course 6.099, Artificial General Intelligence, I've gotten a chance to sit down with Max Tegmark. He is a professor here at MIT. He's a physicist, spent a large part of his career studying the mysteries of our cosmological universe, but he's also studied and delved into the beneficial possibilities and the existential risks of artificial intelligence. Amongst many other things, he's the co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, author of two books, both of which I highly recommend. First, Our Mathematical Universe. Second is Life 3.0. He's truly an out-of-the-box thinker, and a fun personality, so I really enjoyed talking to him. If you'd like to see more of these videos in the future, please subscribe and also click the little bell icon to make sure you don't miss any videos. Also, Twitter, LinkedIn, agi.mit.edu if you wanna watch other lectures or conversations like this one. Better yet, go read Max's book, Life 3.0. Chapter 7 on goals is my favorite. It's really where philosophy and engineering come together, and it opens with a quote by Dostoevsky, "The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for." Lastly, I believe that every failure rewards us with an opportunity to learn. In that sense, I've been very fortunate to fail in so many new and exciting ways, and, uh, this conversation was no different. I've learned about something called radio frequency interference, RFI. Look it up. Apparently, music and conversations from local radio stations can bleed into the audio that you're recording in such a way that it almost completely ruins that audio. It's an exceptionally difficult sound source to remove. So, I've gotten the opportunity to learn how to avoid RFI in the future during recording sessions. I've also gotten the opportunity to learn how to use Adobe Audition and iZotope RX 6 to do some noise, some audio repair. Of course, this is an exceptionally difficult noise to remove. I am an engineer. I'm not an audio engineer, neither is anybody else in our group, but we did our best. Nevertheless, I thank you for your patience, and I hope you're still able to enjoy this conversation. Do you think there's intelligent life out there in the universe? Let's open up with an easy question.

   2. MTMax Tegmark2:33

      I have a minority view here, actually. When I give public lectures, I often ask for a show of hands, who thinks there's intelligent life out there somewhere else, and almost everyone puts their hand up and when I ask why, they'll be like, "Oh, there's so many galaxies out there, there's gotta be." But, I'm a nu- numbers nerd, right? So, when you look more carefully at it, it's not so clear at all. Th- the, when we talk about our universe, first of all, we don't mean all of space. We actually mean, I don't know, you can throw me the universe if you want, it's behind you there.

   3. LFLex Fridman3:06

      (laughs)

   4. MTMax Tegmark3:07

      It's, we simply mean the spherical region of space from which light has had time to reach us so far during the 14.8 billion year, 13.8 billion years since our Big Bang. There's more space here, but this is what we call a universe, because that's all we have access to.

   5. LFLex Fridman3:23

      Mm-hmm.

   6. MTMax Tegmark3:24

      So, is there intelligent life here that's gotten to the point of building telescopes and, and computers? My guess is no, actually. Uh, the probability-

   7. LFLex Fridman3:35

      Interesting.

   8. MTMax Tegmark3:35

      ... of it happening on any given planet is some number, we don't know what it is, and, um, what we do know is that, uh, the number can't be super high, 'cause there's over a billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, many, uh, which are billions of years older than Earth. And, um, aside from some, um, UFO believers-

   9. LFLex Fridman4:00

      (laughs)

   10. MTMax Tegmark4:00

       ... you know, there isn't much evidence that any super advanced civilization has come here at all. And so, that's the famous Fermi paradox, right? And, and then if you, if you work the numbers, what you find is that, um, if- if you have no clue what the probability is of getting life on a given planet, so it could be 10 to the -10, 10 to the -20, or 10 to the -2, or any power of 10 is sort of equally likely if you wanna be really open-minded.

   11. LFLex Fridman4:25

       Mm-hmm.

   12. MTMax Tegmark4:25

       That translates into it being equally likely that our nearest neighbor is 10 to the 16 meters away, 10 to the 17 meters away, 10 to the 18. You know, by the time you get much less than, than 10 to the 16 already, we, we pretty much know there is nothing else that close. (clears throat) And when you get beyond-

   13. LFLex Fridman4:47

       Because they would've discovered us.

   14. MTMax Tegmark4:48

       They, yeah, they would've been discovered us long ago or if they're really close, we would've probably noted some engineering projects that they're doing.

   15. LFLex Fridman4:54

       Yeah.

   16. MTMax Tegmark4:54

       And if it's beyond 10 to the 26 meters, that's already outside of here.

   17. LFLex Fridman4:59

       Yeah.

   18. MTMax Tegmark4:59

       So, so my guess is actually that there, we are the only life in here that's gotten to the point of, uh, building advanced tech, which I think is, is very, um, puts a lot of responsibility on our shoulders to not screw up, you know? I, I think-

   19. LFLex Fridman5:15

       Absolutely.

   20. MTMax Tegmark5:16

       ... people who take for granted that it's okay for us to screw up, have an accidental nuclear war or go extinct somehow because there's a sort of Star Trek-like situation out there where some other life forms are gonna come and bail us out, and it doesn't matter, so I, I think they're lulling us into a false sense of security.

   21. LFLex Fridman5:33

       Right.

   22. MTMax Tegmark5:33

       I think it's much more prudent to say, you know, "Let's be really grateful for this amazing opportunity we've had," and, uh, make the best of it, just in case it is down to us.

2. 5:44 – 7:21

   The Great Filter: where the roadblock to cosmic civilization might be

   1. LFLex Fridman5:44

      So from a physics perspective, do you think intelligent life, so it's unique from a sort of statistical view of the size of the universe, but from the basic matter of the universe, how difficult is it for intelligent life to come about, the kind of advanced tech building life?... are, i- is implied in your statement that it's really difficult-

   2. MTMax Tegmark6:05

      Mm-hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman6:05

      ... to create something like a human species?

   4. MTMax Tegmark6:07

      Well, I th- I think what we know is that going from no life to having life that can do our k- level of tech, there is some sort of, to going beyond that and actually settling a whole universe with life, there is some road, major roadblock there, which is some Great Filter, as, um, it's sometimes called. Which, whi- which is tough to get through. It's either... That r- that roadblock is either bef- behind us or in front of us.

   5. LFLex Fridman6:38

      Right.

   6. MTMax Tegmark6:38

      I'm hoping very much that it's behind us. I'm, I'm super excited every time we get a new, uh, report from NASA saying they failed to find any life on Mars.

   7. LFLex Fridman6:48

      Mm.

   8. MTMax Tegmark6:48

      My guess, awesome.

   9. LFLex Fridman6:50

      (laughs)

   10. MTMax Tegmark6:50

       Because that suggests that the hard part, maybe wa- maybe it was getting the first ribosome, or, or some-

   11. LFLex Fridman6:54

       Yeah.

   12. MTMax Tegmark6:54

       ... some very low level kind of stepping stone, so that we're home free. 'Cause if that's true, then the future is really only limited by our own imagination. It would be much suckier if it turns out that this level of life is kind of a dime a dozen.

   13. LFLex Fridman7:10

       Mm-hmm.

   14. MTMax Tegmark7:11

       But maybe there is some other problem, like as soon as, uh, civilization gets advanced technology, within a hundred years, they get into some stupid fight with themselves. And poof!

   15. LFLex Fridman7:19

       Yep.

   16. MTMax Tegmark7:19

       You know, th- that would be a bummer.

3. 7:21 – 9:26

   From cosmology to mind: two ‘universes’ and a physicist’s lens on intelligence

   1. LFLex Fridman7:21

      Yeah. So, you've explored the mysteries of the univ- the cosmological universe, the one that's s- between us today. Uh, I think you've also begun to explore the other universe, which is sort of the mystery, the mysterious universe of the mind, of intelligence, of intelligent life. So, is there a common thread between your interests and the way you think about space and intelligence?

   2. MTMax Tegmark7:48

      Oh, yeah. Whe- when I was a teenager, I, uh, I was al- already very fascinated by the biggest questions. And I felt that the two biggest que- mysteries of all in science were our universe out there-

   3. LFLex Fridman8:02

      Mm-hmm.

   4. MTMax Tegmark8:02

      ... and our universe in here.

   5. LFLex Fridman8:04

      Yeah.

   6. MTMax Tegmark8:05

      So it's quite natural, after having spent a quarter of a century, uh, s- on my career, thinking a lot about this one, that I'm now indulging in the luxury of, of, uh, doing research on this one. It's just so cool. I feel the time is ripe now, for, uh, trans- directly deepening our understanding of this.

   7. LFLex Fridman8:25

      To start exploring this one?

   8. MTMax Tegmark8:26

      Yeah, 'cause I think, I think a lot of people view intelligence as something mysterious-

   9. LFLex Fridman8:32

      Right.

   10. MTMax Tegmark8:32

       ... that can only exist in biological organisms like us.

   11. LFLex Fridman8:35

       Mm-hmm.

   12. MTMax Tegmark8:36

       And therefore dismiss all talk about artificial general intelligence as, as science fiction.

   13. LFLex Fridman8:40

       Mm-hmm.

   14. MTMax Tegmark8:41

       But from my perspective as a physicist, you know, I am a blob of, of quarks and electrons-

   15. LFLex Fridman8:45

       Mm-hmm.

   16. MTMax Tegmark8:46

       ... moving around in a certain pattern and processing information in certain ways. And this is also a blob of quarks and electrons.

   17. LFLex Fridman8:52

       Mm-hmm.

   18. MTMax Tegmark8:53

       I am not smarter than the water bottle because I'm made of different kind of quarks.

   19. LFLex Fridman8:57

       Right.

   20. MTMax Tegmark8:58

       I'm made of up quarks and down quarks, exact same kind as this.

   21. LFLex Fridman9:01

       Mm-hmm.

   22. MTMax Tegmark9:02

       It's a... There's no secret sauce, I think, in me. It's, it's all about the p- the pattern of the information processing. And this means that there's no law in physics saying that we, that we can't create technology-

   23. LFLex Fridman9:15

       Mm-hmm.

   24. MTMax Tegmark9:15

       ... which can he- help us by being incredibly intelligent, and help us crack mysteries that we couldn't. In other words, I think we've really only seen the tip of, of the intelligence iceberg so far.

4. 9:26 – 13:18

   Perceptronium and the physics of consciousness: what makes information processing ‘feel like something’

   1. LFLex Fridman9:26

      Yeah, so the perceptronium.

   2. MTMax Tegmark9:30

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman9:31

      Uh, so you cur- coined this amazing term, uh, it's a hypothetical state of matter. Sort of thinking from a physics perspective, what is the kind of matter that can help, as you're saying, uh, subjective experience emerge, consciousness emerge. So, how do you think about consciousness from this physics perspective?

   4. MTMax Tegmark9:50

      Very good question. So, uh, again, um, you know, I think many people have underestimated our ability to make progress on this, by convincing themselves it's hopeless, because somehow we're missing some ingredient that we need, or some new consciousness particle or whatever. I, I happen to think that we're not missing anything, and, (laughs) and that it's al- not... The interesting thing about the consciousness that gives us this amazing subjective experience of colors and sounds and emotions and so on, is rather something at the higher level about the patterns of information processing. And that's why I, that's why I, um, like to think about this idea of perceptronium. W- what does it mean for an arbitrary physical system to be conscious, in, in terms of, uh, what its particles are doing, or, or, or its information is doing? I don't think... I don't, I hate carbon chauvinism, you know-

   5. LFLex Fridman10:49

      Right.

   6. MTMax Tegmark10:49

      ... this attitude you have to be made of carbon atoms to be smart or, or conscious. Um-

   7. LFLex Fridman10:54

      So something about the information processing-

   8. MTMax Tegmark10:56

      Yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman10:56

      ... that this kind of matter performs.

   10. MTMax Tegmark10:58

       Yeah. And, you know, you can see I have my favorite equations here describing various fundamental aspects of the world. I feel that... I think one day, maybe someone who's watching this will come up with the equations that, that information processing has to satisfy to be conscious. I, I'm quite convinced there is big discovery to be made there, uh, 'cause, let's face it, some infor- we know that some information processing is conscious, 'cause we are-

   11. LFLex Fridman11:24

       Yeah.

   12. MTMax Tegmark11:24

       ... conscious. But we also know that a lot of information processing is not conscious. Like most of the information processing happening in your brain right now-

   13. LFLex Fridman11:31

       Mm-hmm.

   14. MTMax Tegmark11:32

       ... is not conscious. There are like 10 megabytes per second coming in, even just through your visual system, and you're not conscious about your heartbeat regulation, or, or most things.

   15. LFLex Fridman11:41

       Right.

   16. MTMax Tegmark11:42

       Or even, even, and like if, if I just ask you to like read what it says here, you look at it, and then, oh, now you know what it said. But you're not aware of how the computation actually happened.

   17. LFLex Fridman11:50

       Right.

   18. MTMax Tegmark11:51

       You're like the, your consciousness is like the CEO that got an email at the end with the, with the final answer-

   19. LFLex Fridman11:56

       Yeah.

   20. MTMax Tegmark11:57

       So, uh, what is it that makes a difference? I, I think that's a m- both a great science mystery, we're actually studying it a little bit in my lab here at MIT-... uh, but I also think it's just a really urgent question to answer. For starters, I mean, if you're an emergency room doctor and you have an unresponsive patient coming in, wouldn't it be great if in addition to having a CT scanner, you ha- you had a consciousness scanner-

   21. LFLex Fridman12:24

       Mm-hmm.

   22. MTMax Tegmark12:25

       ... that could figure out whether this person is actually having locked-in syndrome-

   23. LFLex Fridman12:30

       Right.

   24. MTMax Tegmark12:31

       ... or is actually comatose? Uh, and in the future, imagine if we build robots or other machine that we can have really good conversations with. It's, I think, it's ve- it's most very likely to happen, right? Wouldn't you wanna know, like, if your home helper robot is actually ex- experiencing anything or just like a zombie? I mean, s- w- would you prefer... What would you prefer? Would you prefer that it's actually unconscious so that you don't have to feel guilty about switching it off or giving it boring chores? Or what wo- what would you prefer?

   25. LFLex Fridman13:02

       Well, the... certainly, w- would, we would prefer... I would prefer the appearance of consciousness.

   26. MTMax Tegmark13:09

       Mm-hmm.

   27. LFLex Fridman13:09

       But the question is whether the appearance of consciousness is different than consci- consciousness itself. And, uh, sort of-

   28. MTMax Tegmark13:16

       Yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman13:16

       ... to a- ask that as a question-

   30. MTMax Tegmark13:17

       Yeah.

5. 13:18 – 15:21

   Do we need to solve consciousness to build AGI? Competing camps and moral stakes

   1. LFLex Fridman13:18

      ... do you think we need to, you know, understand what consciousness is, solve the hard problem of consciousness in order to build something, uh, like an, an AGI system?

   2. MTMax Tegmark13:28

      No.

   3. LFLex Fridman13:29

      No.

   4. MTMax Tegmark13:29

      I don't think that. Uh, I think we, we will, uh, probably be able to build things even if we don't answer that question. But if we wanna make sure that what happens is a good thing, we better solve it first.

   5. LFLex Fridman13:40

      Right.

   6. MTMax Tegmark13:41

      Uh, so it, it's a wonderful controversy you're raising there. There... where you have, um, basically three points of view about the hard problem. So, there are two different points of view that both conclude that the hard problem of consciousness is BS. You have... on one hand, you have some people like Daniel Dennett-

   7. LFLex Fridman13:59

      Mm-hmm.

   8. MTMax Tegmark13:59

      ... who say, uh, that this is, our consciousness is just BS because consciousness is the same thing as intelligence.

   9. LFLex Fridman14:04

      Mm-hmm.

   10. MTMax Tegmark14:05

       There's no difference. So anything which acts conscious is conscious just like, like we are.

   11. LFLex Fridman14:12

       (clears throat)

   12. MTMax Tegmark14:13

       And then there are also a lot of people including many top AI researchers I know who say, "Oh, consciousness is just bullshit," because of course, machines can never be conscious.

   13. LFLex Fridman14:22

       Right.

   14. MTMax Tegmark14:22

       They're always gonna s- gonna be zombies. You never have to feel guilty about how you treat them. And then there's a third group of people, eh, w- including Giulio Tononi, for example, an- and, and another, um, Christof Koch and a number of others, I would put myself also in this middle camp, who say that actually some information processing is conscious and some is not.

   15. LFLex Fridman14:43

       Mm-hmm.

   16. MTMax Tegmark14:44

       So let's find the equation which can be used to determine which it is. And I think we've just been a little bit lazy kind of running away from this problem for a long time, eh. It's been almost taboo to even mention the C word-

   17. LFLex Fridman14:57

       Right. (laughs)

   18. MTMax Tegmark14:58

       ... in a lot of circles because... but, but we should stop making excuses. This is a science question, uh, and we c- and I, uh... there are, there are ways we can even test, test any theory that makes predictions for this. And, uh, coming back to this helper robot, I mean, so you said you'd want your helper robot to certainly act conscious and treat you, like, and, and have conversations with you and stuff?

   19. LFLex Fridman15:21

       I think so, yeah.

6. 15:21 – 18:01

   Why subjective experience matters: anesthesia thought experiment and moral caution

   1. MTMax Tegmark15:21

      But wouldn't you... would you feel, would you feel a little bit creeped out if you realize that it was just, like, glossed up tape recorder, you know, the words "Just zombie." And was faking emotion? Would you prefer that it actually had an experience? Or, or, or would you prefer that it's actually not experiencing anything so you, you feel... you don't have to feel guilty about what you do to it? What would you prefer?

   2. LFLex Fridman15:41

      It's such a, it, it's such a difficult question because, uh, you know, it's like when you're in a relationship and you say, "Well, I love you," and the other person says, "I love you back." It's like asking, "Well, do they really love you back or are they just saying they love you back?" Uh-

   3. MTMax Tegmark15:55

      (laughs)

   4. LFLex Fridman15:55

      ... do you... don't you really want them to actually love you?

   5. MTMax Tegmark15:58

      (laughs)

   6. LFLex Fridman15:58

      I... it's hard to... it's, it's hard to (laughs) really know the difference between, uh, everything seeming like there's consciousness present, there's intelligence present, there's a- affection, passion, love and, and it, it actually being there. I'm not sure. Do you ha-

   7. MTMax Tegmark16:17

      But like the mass gen-

   8. LFLex Fridman16:18

      Do you, do-

   9. MTMax Tegmark16:18

      Can I ask you a question about this?

   10. LFLex Fridman16:19

       Yes.

   11. MTMax Tegmark16:19

       Like, to make it a bit more pointed? So Mass General Hospital is right across the river, right?

   12. LFLex Fridman16:22

       Yes.

   13. MTMax Tegmark16:23

       Suppose, suppose you're going in for a medical procedure and they're like, "You know, uh, for, for anesthesia what we're gonna do is we're gonna give you muscle relaxants so you won't be able to move, uh, and you're gonna feel excruciating pain during the whole surgery, but you won't be able to do anything about it. But then we're gonna give you this drug that erases your memory of it."

   14. LFLex Fridman16:40

       Mm-hmm.

   15. MTMax Tegmark16:42

       Would you be cool about that?

   16. LFLex Fridman16:44

       Hm.

   17. MTMax Tegmark16:45

       Or what, what's the difference that you're conscious about it or not if, if, if there's no behavioral change, right?

   18. LFLex Fridman16:51

       Right. That's a really in- that's a really clear way to put it. That's... yeah. It feels like in that sense experiencing it is a va- a valuable quality, so actually being able to have subjective experiences, (laughs) at least in that case, is, is valuable.

   19. MTMax Tegmark17:09

       And I think we humans have a little bit of a bad track record also of making these self-serving arguments that other entities aren't conscious. You know, people-

   20. LFLex Fridman17:18

       Right.

   21. MTMax Tegmark17:18

       ... often say, "Oh, these animals can't feel pain."

   22. LFLex Fridman17:20

       Right.

   23. MTMax Tegmark17:21

       It's okay to boil lobsters because we asked them if it hurt and they didn't say anything, and, and now there was just a paper out saying lobsters did, do feel pain when you boil them-

   24. LFLex Fridman17:29

       Yeah.

   25. MTMax Tegmark17:29

       ... and they're banning it in Switzerland. And, and, uh, and we did this with slaves too often and said, "Oh, they don't mind." Uh. (laughs) And they don't maybe ha- or aren't conscious or women don't have souls or whatever.

   26. LFLex Fridman17:41

       Right.

   27. MTMax Tegmark17:41

       So, I'm a little bit nervous when I (laughs) hear people just take as an axiom that machines can't have experience ever. I think this is just a really fascinating science question is what it is.

   28. LFLex Fridman17:52

       Yeah.

   29. MTMax Tegmark17:52

       Let's research it and try to figure out what it is that makes the difference between unconscious intelligent behavior and, and conscious intelligent behavior.

7. 18:01 – 21:07

   Embodiment, selfhood, and evolution: AGI minds may be very unlike us

   1. LFLex Fridman18:01

      So in terms of... so if you think of a Boston Dynamics humanoid robot being sort of, uh, with a broom being pushed around-... the, it's starts, it's, it starts pushing on this consciousness question, so let me ask: do you think an AGI system, like a few neuroscientists believe, um, needs to have a physical embodiment? Needs to have a body or something like a body?

   2. MTMax Tegmark18:25

      No. I don't think so. You mean, to ha- to have a conscious experience?

   3. LFLex Fridman18:30

      To have consciousness.

   4. MTMax Tegmark18:33

      I do think it helps a lot to have a physical embodiment to learn the kind of things about the world that are important to us humans, for sure. But I don't think the physical embodiment is necessary after you've learned it to just have the experience. Think about when you're dreaming, right?

   5. LFLex Fridman18:50

      Mm-hmm.

   6. MTMax Tegmark18:51

      Your eyes are closed, you're not getting any sensory input. You're not behaving or moving in any way, but there's still an experience there, right?

   7. LFLex Fridman18:57

      Mm-hmm.

   8. MTMax Tegmark18:59

      And so clearly the experience that you have when you see something cool in your dreams isn't coming from your eyes. It's just the information processing itself in your brain, which is that experience, right?

   9. LFLex Fridman19:11

      But, uh, I, if I put it another way, I'll say because it comes from neuroscience, is: the reason you wanna have a body and a physical, something like a ph- physical, like a, you know, a physical system, is because you want to be able to preserve something. In order to have a self, uh, you could argue, would... you, you'd need to have some kind of embodiment of self to want to preserve.

   10. MTMax Tegmark19:38

       Well, now we're getting a little bit anthropomorphic, anthro- into anthropomorphizing things ... m- m- maybe-

   11. LFLex Fridman19:45

       I see.

   12. MTMax Tegmark19:45

       ... talking about self-preservation instincts. I mean, we are evolved organisms, right?

   13. LFLex Fridman19:49

       Right.

   14. MTMax Tegmark19:50

       So Darwinian evolution endowed us and other involve- evolved organism with a self-preservation instinct 'cause those that didn't have those (laughs) self-preservation genes are cleaned out of the gene pool.

   15. LFLex Fridman20:01

       Right.

   16. MTMax Tegmark20:02

       Right? Um, but if you build an artificial general intelligence, the mind space that you can design is much, much larger than just a specific subset of, of minds that can evolve, that have-

   17. LFLex Fridman20:13

       Mm-hmm.

   18. MTMax Tegmark20:14

       So they, so an AGI mind doesn't necessarily have to have any self-preservation instinct, and it also doesn't necessarily have to be so individualistic as us. Like, imagine if you could just... first of all, or we're also very afraid of death, you know?

   19. LFLex Fridman20:28

       Yeah.

   20. MTMax Tegmark20:28

       Suppose you could back yourself up every five minutes-

   21. LFLex Fridman20:30

       (laughs)

   22. MTMax Tegmark20:31

       ... and then your airplane is about to crash. You're like, "Shucks, I'm just, I'm t- I'm gonna lose the last five minutes of experiences since my last cloud backup."

   23. LFLex Fridman20:38

       You're right.

   24. MTMax Tegmark20:39

       "Dang!" You know? It's not as big a deal. Where if, if we could just copy experiences between our minds easily like we, which we could easily do if we were silicon-based, right, then, uh, maybe we would feel a little bit more like a hive mind actually. Uh, that maybe it's the... so, so there's a, so we don't think we should take for granted at all that AGI will have to have any of those sort of competitive, I-sa alpha male instincts.

   25. LFLex Fridman21:07

       Right.

8. 21:07 – 24:01

   Instrumental goals and AI risk: why self-preservation and resource-seeking emerge

   1. MTMax Tegmark21:07

      On the other hand, you know, this is really interesting because I think some people go too far and say, "Of course, we don't have to have any concerns either that advanced AI will have those instincts because we can build anything we want." That there's, there's a very nice set of arguments going back to Steve Omohundro and Nick Bostrom and others just pointing out that when we build machines, we normally build them with some kind of goal, you know?

   2. LFLex Fridman21:34

      Mm-hmm.

   3. MTMax Tegmark21:34

      Win this chess game, drive this car safely, or whatever. And as soon as you put in a goal into machine, eh, especially if it's a kind of open-ended goal and the machine is very intelligent, it'll break that down into a bunch of sub-goals.

   4. LFLex Fridman21:46

      Mm-hmm.

   5. MTMax Tegmark21:48

      And, um, one of those goals will almost always be self-preservation 'cause if it breaks or dies in the process, it's not gonna accomplish the goal, right? Like-

   6. LFLex Fridman21:56

      Right.

   7. MTMax Tegmark21:56

      ... suppose you just build a little, you have a little robot and you tell it to go down to Star Market here and, and, and get you some food, make you, cook you an Italian dinner, you know, and then someone mugs it and tries to break it on the way.

   8. LFLex Fridman22:08

      Mm-hmm.

   9. MTMax Tegmark22:09

      That robot has an incentive to def- to not get destroyed and defend itself or run away because otherwise, it's gonna fail in cooking you dinner. It- it's not afraid of death, but it really wants to complete the dinner cooking goal, so it will have a self-preservation instinct that-

   10. LFLex Fridman22:24

       Yeah, continue being a functional agent in the world somehow.

   11. MTMax Tegmark22:27

       Yeah, e- and, and, uh, and similarly if you give a, any kind of more ambitious goal to an AGI, it's very likely they'll wanna acquire more resources so it can do that better.

   12. LFLex Fridman22:39

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MTMax Tegmark22:39

       And it's exactly th- from those sort of sub-goals that we might not have intended that, that some of the concerns about AGI safety come.

   14. LFLex Fridman22:46

       Mm-hmm.

   15. MTMax Tegmark22:47

       You give it some goal which seems completely harmless and then before you realize it, it's also trying to do these other things which you didn't want it to do, and it's mo- maybe smarter than us. (laughs) So, it's fascinating.

   16. LFLex Fridman23:00

       So, and let me pause just because, um, I am, uh, in a very kind of human-centric way see fear of death as a valuable motivator.

   17. MTMax Tegmark23:10

       Mm-hmm. Uh-huh.

   18. LFLex Fridman23:11

       Um, so you don't think... uh, s- do you think that's an artifact of evolution, so that's the kind of mind space evolution created, that we're sort of almost obsessed about self-preservation-

   19. MTMax Tegmark23:23

       Yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman23:23

       ... on some kind of genetic level? You don't think that's necessary to be r- afraid of death? So not just a, a kind of sub-goal of self-preservation just so you can keep doing the thing, but more, uh, fundamentally sort of have the finite thing, like, "This ends for you at some point."

   21. MTMax Tegmark23:43

       Interesting. Do, do I think it's necessary for what precisely?

   22. LFLex Fridman23:47

       For intelligence, but also for consciousness. So for those, for both. Do you think really, like, a finite death and the fear of it is important?

9. 24:01 – 31:31

   Defining intelligence and ‘human-level’: spectrum of goals and the real tipping point

   1. MTMax Tegmark24:01

      So, before I can answer wh- w- before we can agree on whether it's necessary for intelligence or for consciousness, we should be clear on how we define those two words 'cause-

   2. LFLex Fridman24:10

      Sure.

   3. MTMax Tegmark24:10

      ... a lot of really smart people define them in very different ways.

   4. LFLex Fridman24:12

      Right.

   5. MTMax Tegmark24:13

      I was in this, on this panel a-... and with AI experts, and they couldn't, they couldn't agree on how to define intelligence even. So, I, I, I define intelligence simply as the ability to accomplish complex goals. I like your broad definition, because again, I don't wanna be a carbon chauvinist.

   6. LFLex Fridman24:29

      Right.

   7. MTMax Tegmark24:30

      And, uh, in that case, no, it cer- cer- certainly doesn't require fear of death. I w- I would say AlphaGo or AlphaZero is quite intelligent.

   8. LFLex Fridman24:40

      Right.

   9. MTMax Tegmark24:40

      I don't think AlphaZero has any fear of being turned off, because it doesn't understand the concept of, of it, even. And, u- and similarly, consciousness, I mean, you, you could certainly imagine, um, ex- v- very simple kind of experience if, if, if, I mean, if certain plants have any kind of experience, I don't think they're very afraid-

   10. LFLex Fridman24:58

       (laughs)

   11. MTMax Tegmark24:58

       ... of dying 'cause there's nothing they can do about it anyway much, so, so there wasn't that much value in... But mo- more seriously, I, I think, uh, if you ask not just about being conscious but maybe having, uh, what you would, we, we would, we might call an exciting life-

   12. LFLex Fridman25:15

       Right.

   13. MTMax Tegmark25:15

       ... where you feel passion and-

   14. LFLex Fridman25:16

       That's a good-

   15. MTMax Tegmark25:16

       ... and, and really appreciate the, the things. Maybe there, somehow, maybe there perhaps it does help having a, having that backdrop that, hey, it's finite, you know? Let- let's, let's make the most of this. Let's live to the fullest.

   16. LFLex Fridman25:31

       So-

   17. MTMax Tegmark25:31

       I mean, if you, if y- if you knew you were gonna just live forever, do you feel or think you would change your...

   18. LFLex Fridman25:37

       Yeah, I mean, in some perspective, it, it would be an incredibly boring life, living forever. So, in the sort of loose, subjective terms that you said of something exciting and something in this that other humans would understand, I think, is, yeah, it seems that the f- the finiteness of it is important.

   19. MTMax Tegmark25:57

       Well, the good news I have for you then is, based on what we understand about cosmology, (laughs) everything is, in our universe, is pro- ultimately probably finite. Although, although-

   20. LFLex Fridman26:08

       Big Crunch or bi- uh, or big, uh, what's the expa- the infinite expansion?

   21. MTMax Tegmark26:11

       Yeah, we could have a Big Chill or a-

   22. LFLex Fridman26:13

       Big Chill.

   23. MTMax Tegmark26:13

       ... Big Crunch or a Big Rip or Death, s- the Big Snap or Death Bubbles.

   24. LFLex Fridman26:18

       (laughs)

   25. MTMax Tegmark26:18

       All of them are more than a billion years away, so it, we, we should, we certainly have vastly more time than our ancestors thought. But, uh, still, still pretty hard to squeeze in an infinite number of compute cycles, even though there are some loophole that just might be possible. But I, I think I... You know, some people like to say that you should live as if you're about to, you're gonna die in five years or so-

   26. LFLex Fridman26:46

       Mm-hmm.

   27. MTMax Tegmark26:46

       ... and that's sort of optimal. Maybe we... It's a good assumption. We should build our civilization as if (laughs) it's all finite to be on the safe side.

   28. LFLex Fridman26:55

       Right, exactly. Uh, so y- you mentioned in, in defining intelligence as, uh, the ability to solve complex goals, so where would you draw a line, how would you try to define human-level intelligence and-

   29. MTMax Tegmark27:08

       Mm.

   30. LFLex Fridman27:09

       ... superhuman-level intelligence?
10. 31:31 – 42:50

    Creativity, ‘aha’ moments, and human vanity: creativity as part of intelligence

    1. LFLex Fridman31:31

       ... start and s- start easy, first of all. Uh, so you have a lot of cool equations. Let me ask, what's your favorite equation, first of all? You, I know they're all like your children, but like-

    2. MTMax Tegmark31:41

       That one.

    3. LFLex Fridman31:41

       (laughs) Which one is that?

    4. MTMax Tegmark31:43

       This is the Schrodinger Equation.

    5. LFLex Fridman31:45

       Okay, sure.

    6. MTMax Tegmark31:45

       It's the master key of quantum mechanics of the micro world. So this, with this equation, we can calculate everything to do with atoms and molecules and all the way up to...

    7. LFLex Fridman31:56

       (laughs)

    8. MTMax Tegmark31:58

       ... stuff.

    9. LFLex Fridman31:58

       Yeah, so okay. So quantum mechanics is certainly a, a beautiful, mysterious formulation of our world. So I'd like to sort of ask you, uh, just as an example, it perhaps doesn't have the same beauty as physics does, but in mathematics, uh, abstract, the Andrew Wiles who proved the Fermat's Last Theorem-

    10. MTMax Tegmark32:18

        Yeah.

    11. LFLex Fridman32:19

        So uh, he, I just saw this recently, and it, it kinda caught my eye a little bit. This is 358 years after it was c- it was conjectured. So this very simple formulation, everybody tried to prove it. Everybody failed. And so here's this guy, comes along, and eventually, f- uh, it proves it, and then, then fails to prove it, and then proves it again in '94, and he said like, the moment when everything connected into place, uh, in an interview said, "It was so indescribably beautiful," that moment when he finally realized the connecting piece, uh, of two c- conjectures. He said, "It was so indescribably beautiful. It was so simple and so elegant. I couldn't understand how I'd missed it, and I just stared at it in this disbelief for 20 minutes."

    12. MTMax Tegmark33:02

        (laughs)

    13. LFLex Fridman33:02

        "Then, then during the day, I walked around the department, and I'd keeping, keep coming back to my desk, looking to see if it was still there. It was still there. I couldn't contain myself. I was so excited. It was the most important moment of my working life. Nothing I ever do again will mean as much." So that particular moment, and, and it kinda made me think of-

    14. MTMax Tegmark33:22

        Beautiful.

    15. LFLex Fridman33:23

        ... what would it take... And I think you p- we have all been there at small levels. Um, maybe, let me ask, have you had a moment like that in your life, where you just had an idea that's like, "I, wow, yes"?

    16. MTMax Tegmark33:40

        I wouldn't mention myself in, uh, in the same breath as Andrew Wiles-

    17. LFLex Fridman33:43

        (laughs)

    18. MTMax Tegmark33:43

        ... but I, I've certainly had a number of, of aha moments wh- when I just realize something very cool about physics, just has completely made my head explode. In fact, some of my favorite discoveries I made late- I later realized that they had been discovered earlier-

    19. LFLex Fridman34:00

        Mm. Right.

    20. MTMax Tegmark34:01

        ... by someone who sometimes got quite famous for it. So I, I, and it's too late for me to even publish it, but that doesn't diminish in any way-

    21. LFLex Fridman34:07

        The moment.

    22. MTMax Tegmark34:07

        ... you know, the emotional experience you have when you realize it, like-

    23. LFLex Fridman34:10

        Yeah.

    24. MTMax Tegmark34:10

        ... "Wow."

    25. LFLex Fridman34:11

        Yeah. So what would it take in that, that moment, that wow, that was yours in that moment, so what do you think it takes for an intelligent system, an AGI system, an AI system, to have a moment like that? Like-

    26. MTMax Tegmark34:25

        It's a tricky question, 'cause there're actually two parts to it, right? One of them is, can it accomplish that proof? Can it prove-

    27. LFLex Fridman34:34

        Yeah.

    28. MTMax Tegmark34:34

        ... that you can never write A to the n plus B to the n equals three to the, uh, equals z-

    29. LFLex Fridman34:41

        z to the n, yeah.

    30. MTMax Tegmark34:42

        ... to the n for all integers when et cetera, et cetera, when, when n is bigger than two? That, that's simply in the question about intelligence. Can you build machines that are that intelligent? And I, I think by the time we get a machine that can independently come up with that level of proofs, probably quite close to AGI. Uh, the s- second question is a question about consciousness, of w- when will we, w- will, will and, how likely is it that such a machine would actually have any experience at all, as opposed to just being like a zombie? And would we expect it to have some sort of emotional response to this? Uh, or anything a- at all akin to human emotion, where, you know, when it accomplishes its machine goal, it, it, it, uh, views it as somehow something very positive and-
11. 42:50 – 49:24

    Alignment over ‘evil’: rhinos, trust, and the hard problem of encoding values

    1. MTMax Tegmark42:50

       S- because their goals were aligned with our goals.

    2. LFLex Fridman42:53

       Yeah.

    3. MTMax Tegmark42:53

       And that, I think, is really the number one key issue we have to solve if we-

    4. LFLex Fridman43:00

       Value align.

    5. MTMax Tegmark43:00

       ... value align, the value alignment problem, exactly, 'cause people who see too many Hollywood movies with, with lousy science fiction, uh, plot lines, they worry about the wrong thing, right? They worry about some machine suddenly turning evil. It's not malice that we sh- that's the iss- the pro- the concern, it's competence, right? By definition, intelligence makes you, makes you very competent. If you have a, a more intelligent Go playing machine, computer playing against a less intelligent one, and, and when we define intelligence as a c- ability to accomplish Go winning, right?

    6. LFLex Fridman43:37

       Mm-hmm.

    7. MTMax Tegmark43:38

       It's gonna be the more intelligent one that wins.

    8. LFLex Fridman43:40

       Right.

    9. MTMax Tegmark43:40

       And if you have a human, and then you have, um, an AGI that's more intelligent in all ways, and they have different goals, guess who's gonna get their way, right? So I was just reading about, I was just reading about this, um, particular rhinoceros-

    10. LFLex Fridman43:56

        (laughs)

    11. MTMax Tegmark43:56

        ... species that was driven extinct just a few years ago.

    12. LFLex Fridman43:59

        Yes.

    13. MTMax Tegmark43:59

        You know, a bummer. I was looking at this cute picture of a mommy rhinoceros with its, its child, you know? And why did we humans drive it to extinction? Wasn't because we were evil rhino haters-

    14. LFLex Fridman44:11

        Right.

    15. MTMax Tegmark44:12

        ... as a whole. It was just because we, our goals weren't aligned with those of the rhinoceros, and it didn't work out so well for the rhinoceros 'cause we were more intelligent, right?

    16. LFLex Fridman44:19

        Mm-hmm.

    17. MTMax Tegmark44:19

        So I, I think it's just so important that if we ever do build AGI, before we unleash anything, we have to make sure that it, it learns to understand our goals, uh, that it adopts our goals, and that it retains those goals. Mm-hmm.

    18. LFLex Fridman44:38

        So the cool, interesting problem there is being able... us as human beings trying to formulate our values. So, you know, you can think of the United States Constitution as a, uh, as a way that people sat down, at the time, a bunch of white men, but-

    19. MTMax Tegmark44:56

        Yeah.

    20. LFLex Fridman44:56

        ... which is a good example I should, w- that we should say.

    21. MTMax Tegmark44:59

        Yeah.

    22. LFLex Fridman44:59

        Uh, they formulated the goals for this country, and a lot of people agree that those goals actually held up pretty well. And it's an interesting formulation of values and failed miserably in other ways. So, for the value alignment problem-

    23. MTMax Tegmark45:12

        Yeah.

    24. LFLex Fridman45:12

        ... and the solution to it, we have to be able to put on paper, uh, or in, in, uh, in a program human values.

    25. MTMax Tegmark45:20

        Yeah.

    26. LFLex Fridman45:20

        How difficult do you think that is?

    27. MTMax Tegmark45:22

        Very. But i- i- it's so important. We really have to give it our best. And it's difficult for two separate reasons. There's the technical value alignment problem of figuring out just how to make machines understand our goals, adopt them, and retain them, and then there's this c- the separate part of it, the philosophical part, whose values anyway? And since we, it's not like we have any great consensus on this planet on values, a- a- how, what mechanism should we create then to aggregate and decide, okay, what's a good compromise?

    28. LFLex Fridman45:55

        Right.

    29. MTMax Tegmark45:56

        Uh, that second discussion can't just be left to tech nerds like myself, right?

    30. LFLex Fridman46:01

        That's right.
12. 49:24 – 1:21:38

    Explainability, verifiability, and why deep learning works (plus quantum computing and the long-term vision)

    1. LFLex Fridman49:24

       Great. So, but, um, that also means describing these things and describing it to a machine, so one thing... We had a few conversations with Stephen Wolfram. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Stephen Wolfram.

    2. MTMax Tegmark49:37

       Oh, yeah. I know him quite well. Yeah.

    3. LFLex Fridman49:38

       So, he is, you know, he play, uh, you know, works with a bunch of things but, you know, cellular automata, these simple computable things, these computation systems. And he kinda mentioned that, you know, we probably have already, within these systems, already something that's AGI, w- uh, meaning like, we just don't know it because we can't talk to it. So, uh, if, if you give me this, uh, chance to try, (laughs) to try to at least form a question outta this, is, I think, uh, it's an interesting idea to th- think that we can have intelligent systems but we don't know how to describe something to them and they can't communicate with us. I know you're doing a little bit of work in explainable AI, trying to get AI to explain itself.

    4. MTMax Tegmark50:22

       Mm-hmm.

    5. LFLex Fridman50:23

       So, what are your thoughts of natural language processing or some kind of other communication? How, how does the AI explain something to us? How do we explain something to it, to machines? Or are you thinking of it differently?

    6. MTMax Tegmark50:35

       So, there are two separate parts to your question there, the...

    7. LFLex Fridman50:40

       (laughs)

    8. MTMax Tegmark50:40

       One of them has to do with communication, which is super interesting and I'll get-

    9. LFLex Fridman50:43

       Right.

    10. MTMax Tegmark50:43

        ... to that in a sec. The, the, the other is whether we already have AGI but we just haven't noticed it yet.

    11. LFLex Fridman50:49

        (laughs) Right.

    12. MTMax Tegmark50:49

        Um, there I beg to differ. I, I don't think there's anything in any cellular automaton or anything, or the internet itself or whatever, that has artificial general intelligence in that it can really do exactly everything we humans can do better.

    13. LFLex Fridman51:07

        Right.

    14. MTMax Tegmark51:07

        I, I think the day, uh, the day that happens, (laughs) when that happens, we will very soon notice. We'll probably notice even before, uh, because it, in a very, very big way. Uh, but the, for the, for the second part though-

    15. LFLex Fridman51:18

        Wait. Can I ask, can, can I, can I-

    16. MTMax Tegmark51:20

        Yeah.

    17. LFLex Fridman51:20

        ... answer this? Sorry. So, uh, the, 'cause you, you have this beautiful way to formulating consciousness as, uh, uh, uh, as, um, you know, as information processing, and you can think of intelligence as information processing, and there's... You can think of the entire universe as these particles and these systems roaming around that have this information processing power. You, you don't, you don't think there is something with the power to process information in the way that we human beings do that's out there that, um, that needs to be sort of connected to? It seems a little bit philosophical perhaps, but there's something compelling to the idea that the power is already there, would you-

    18. MTMax Tegmark52:02

        Yeah.

    19. LFLex Fridman52:02

        ... it's, the, the focus should be more on the ex- on being able to communicate with it.

    20. MTMax Tegmark52:06

        Hmm. Well, I agree that the... In some, in a certain sense, the hardware processing power is, is already out there 'cause our universe itself can think of it as being a computer already, right? It's constantly computing what water waves, how it's evolved, the water waves in the River Charles and how to move the air molecules around, and-

    21. LFLex Fridman52:28

        Right.

    22. MTMax Tegmark52:28

        ... Seth Lloyd has pointed out, my colleague here, that, uh, you can even in a very rigorous way think of our entire universe as just being a quantum computer.

    23. LFLex Fridman52:35

        Mm-hmm.

    24. MTMax Tegmark52:35

        It's pretty clear that our universe supports this amazing processing power because you can even, it... Within this physics computer that we live in, right, we can even build actual laptops and stuff. So, clearly, the power is there. It's just that most of the compute power that nature has, it's, in my opinion, kinda wasting on boring stuff like simulating yet another ocean wave somewhere where no one is-

    25. LFLex Fridman52:57

        Right.

    26. MTMax Tegmark52:58

        ... even looking, right? So, in a sense, what, what life does, what we are doing when we build computers is we're rechanneling all this compute that nature is doing anyway-

    27. LFLex Fridman53:07

        Right.

    28. MTMax Tegmark53:07

        ... into doing things that are more interesting than just yet another ocean wave, you know?

    29. LFLex Fridman53:11

        Yeah.

    30. MTMax Tegmark53:11

        And let, let's do something cool here. Uh, so the raw hardware power is there, uh, for sure, but, and, and, and even just, like, computing what's gonna happen for the next five seconds in this water ball-

Episode duration: 1:22:57