Alex Garland: Ex Machina, Devs, Annihilation, and the Poetry of Science | Lex Fridman Podcast #77

The following is a conversation with Alex Garland, writer and director of many imaginative and philosophical films. From the dreamlike exploration of human self-destruction in the movie Annihilation, to the deep questions of consciousness and intelligence raised in the movie Ex Machina, which to me, is one of the greatest movies on artificial intelligence ever made. I'm releasing this podcast to coincide with the release of his new series called Devs that will premiere this Thursday, March 5th on Hulu, as part of FX on Hulu. It explores many of the themes this very podcast is about, from quantum mechanics, to artificial life, to simulation, to the modern nature of power in the tech world. I got a chance to watch a preview and loved it. The acting is great. Nick Offerman, especially, is incredible in it. The cinematography is beautiful, and the philosophical and scientific ideas explored are profound. And for me, as an engineer and scientist, were just fun to see brought to life. For example, if you watch the trailer for the series carefully, you'll see there's a programmer with a Russian accent looking at a screen with Python-like code on it that appears to be using a library that interfaces with a quantum computer. This attention to technical detail on several levels is impressive, and one of the reasons I'm a big fan of how Alex weaves science and philosophy together in his work. Meeting Alex, for me, was unlikely, but it was life-changing in ways I may only be able to articulate in a few years. Just as meeting Spot Minnie of Boston Dynamics for the first time planted a seed of an idea in my mind, so did meeting Alex Garland. He's humble, curious, intelligent, and to me, an inspiration. Plus, he's just really a fun person to talk with about the biggest possible questions in our universe. This is the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it five stars on Apple Podcast, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter, @lexfridman, spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N. As usual, I'll do one or two minutes of ads now, and never any ads in the middle that can break the flow of the conversation. I hope that works for you and doesn't hurt the listening experience. This show is presented by Cash App, the number one finance app in the App Store. When you get it, use code LEXPODCAST. Cash App lets you send money to friends, buy Bitcoin, and invest in the stock market with as little as one dollar. Since Cash App allows you to buy Bitcoin, let me mention that cryptocurrency in the context of the history of money is fascinating. I recommend A Cent of Money as a great book on this history. Debits and credits on ledgers started 30,000 years ago. The US dollar was created about 200 years ago. And Bitcoin, the first decentralized cryptocurrency, was released just over 10 years ago. So given that history, cryptocurrency is still very much in its early days of development, but it still is aiming to, and just might, redefine the nature of money. So again, if you get Cash App from the App Store or Google Play, and use code LEXPODCAST, you'll get ten dollars, and Cash App will also donate ten dollars to FIRST, one of my favorite organizations that is helping advance robotics and STEM education for young people around the world. And now, here's my conversation with Alex Garland. You described the world inside the shimmer in the movie Annihilation as dreamlike, in that it's internally consistent but detached from reality. That leads me to ask, do you think... A philosophical question, I apologize. Do you think we might be living in a dream or in a simulation, like the kind that the shimmer creates? We human beings here today.