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Language: en
there's no reason to think that the
ocean ends just beyond your Horizon and
likewise there's no reason to think that
the aftermath of our big bang um ends
just at the boundary of what we can see
indeed there are quite strong arguments
um that it probably goes on about 100
times further it may even go on so much
further that uh all comori are
replicated and uh there's another set of
people like us sitting in in a room like
this
the following is a conversation with
Lord Martin reee ameritus professor of
cosmology and astrophysics at Cambridge
University and co-founder of the center
for the study of existential risk this
is the Lex Freedman podcast to support
it please check out our sponsors in the
description and now dear friends here's
Martin
reys in your 2020 Scientific American
article you write that quote today we
know that the universe is far bigger and
Stranger than anyone suspected so what
do you think are the strangest maybe the
most beautiful or maybe even the most
terrifying things lurking out there in
the cosmos well of course we're still
groping for any detailed understanding
of the remote parts of the universe but
of course what we've leared in the last
few decades is really two things first
we've understood that the Universe Had
An Origin about 13.8 billion years ago
in a so-called big bang a hot Den state
whose very Beginnings are still shrouded
in mystery and also we've learned more
about the extreme things in it black
holes neutron stars explosions of
various kinds and one of the most
potentially exciting discoveries in the
last 20 years mainly in the last 10 has
been the realization that most of the
stars in the sky are orbited by resu of
planets just as the sun is orbited by
the Earth the other familiar planets and
this of course makes the night sky far
more interesting what you see up there
aren't just points of light but they're
plany systems and that raises the
question could there be life out there
and so that is an exciting problem for
the 21st century so when you see all
those lights out there you immediately
imagine all the planetary worlds that
are around them and they potentially
have all kinds of different lives living
organisms life for forms or his that we
don't know at all we know that these
planets are there we know that they have
masses and um orbits rather like the
planets of our solar system but we don't
know at all if there's any life on any
of them I mean it's entirely logically
possible that life is unique to this
earth doesn't exist anywhere on the
other hand uh it could be that the
origin of life is something which
happens routinely given conditions like
the young Earth in which case there
could be literally billions of places in
our galaxy where some sort of biosphere
has evolved and settling um where the
truth lies between those two extremes is
a challenge for the coming decades so
certainly we're either lucky to be here
or very very very lucky to be here I
guess that's the difference uh where do
you fall your own estimate your own
guess on this question are we alone in
the universe do you think I think it
would be foolish to give any firm
estimate because we just don't know and
that's just a example of how we are
depending on greater observations and
also incidentally in the case of Life
we've got to take account of the fact
that uh as I always say to my scientific
colleagues biology is a much harder
subject than physics and most of the um
Universe we know about could be
understood by physics but uh we've got
to remember that even the smallest
living organism an insect is far more
complicated with layer on complexity uh
than uh the most complicated star or
Galaxy you know that's the funny thing
of about physics and biology the dream
of physicist in the 20th century and
maybe this century is to discover the
theory of everything and there's a sense
by that once you discover that theory
you will understand everything if we
unlock the mysteries of how the universe
works would we be able to understand how
life emerges from that fabric of the
universe that we understand I think the
phrase Theory of Everything is very
misleading because it's used to describe
a theory which unifies the um three laws
of microphysics electrity magnetism and
the weak interaction with gravity so
it's important step forward for particle
physicists but the lack of such a theory
doesn't hold up any other scientists
anyone doing biology or most of physics
is not held up at all through not
understanding subnuclear physics they're
held up because they're dealing with
things that are very
complicated and that's especially true
of anything biological so what's holding
up biologists is not a lack of a
so-called Theory of Everything uh it's
the inability to understand things which
are very complicated what do you think
we'll understand first how the Universe
works or how the human body works deeply
like from a fundamental deep level well
I think um perhap we can come back to it
later that there are only limited
prospects of ever being able to
understand with un AG's human brains the
most fundamental theories linking
together all the forces of nature I
think that may be a limitation of the
human brains um but I also uh think that
um we can perhaps aided by computer
simulations um understand a bit more of
the complexity of nature but uh even
understanding a simple organism from the
atom up is very very difficult and I
think extreme
reductionists have a very misleading
perception they tend to think that um in
a sense we're all solutions of thring
equation Etc um but that isn't the way
we'll ever understand anything uh it may
be true that we our reductions in the
sense if we believe that that's the case
we don't believe in any special life
force in living things but nonetheless
no one thinks that we can understand a
living thing by solving sh's equation to
take an example which isn't as
complicated lots of people study the
flow of fluids like water why waves
break why flows go turbulent things like
that this is a serious branch of Applied
Mathematics and engineering and in doing
this have concepts of viscosity
turbulence and things like that now you
can understand quite a lot about how
water behaves and how waves break in
terms of those Concepts but the fact
that any breaking wave is a solution of
tring's equation for 10 of 30
particles even if you could solve that
which you clearly can't would not give
you any insight so the important thing
is that every science has its own
reducible
Concepts in which you get the best
explanation uh so it may be in chemistry
it's things like veence um in biology
the concept in cell biology um and in
the ecology there are Concepts like
imprinting Etc and in Psychology there
are other Concepts so in a sense The
Sciences are like a tall building where
you have basic physics the most
fundamental then the rest of physics
then chemistry then cell biology Etc all
the way up to the I guess Economist in
the penthouse and all that um and we
have that um and that's true in a sense
but it's not true that it's like a
building in that it's made unstable by
an unstable base because if you're
chemist biologist or Economist you're
facing challenging problems but they're
not made any worse
by uncertainty about subnuclear
physics and at every level just because
you understand the rules of the game or
have a some understanding of the rules
of the game doesn't uh mean you know
what kind of beautiful things that game
creates right so if you're interested in
um birds and how they fly uh then things
like uh um
imprinting the baby on the mother and
all that and uh things like that are
what you need to understand um you
couldn't even in principle solve this
vertical equation how an albatross
wanders for thousands of miles of the
Southern Ocean and comes back and then
coughs up food for its young uh that
that's something we can understand in a
sense and uh predict the behavior but
it's not because we can solve it on the
atomic scale you mentioned that there
might be some fundamental limitation to
the human brain yes that limits our
ability to understand understand some
aspect of how the universe works that's
really interesting that's sad actually
if if if to the degree it's true it's
sad so what do you mean by that I would
simply say that just as um a monkey
can't understand quantum theory even
Newtonian physics um there's no
particular reason why the human brain
should have evolved to be well matched
to understanding a deepest aspect of
reality and I suspect that there may be
aspects that we not even aware of and
couldn't really fully comprehend um but
as an intermediate step towards that one
thing which I think is very interesting
possibility is the extent to which AI
can help us I mean I think uh if you
take the example of uh So-Cal theories
of everything one of which is string
theory um String Theory involves very
complicated geometry and structures in
dimensions and it's certainly in my view
on the cards
that the
physics of 10
Dimensions they very complicated
geometry um may be too hard for a human
being to work through but could be
worked through by an AI um with the
advantage of the huge processing power
which enables them to learn World
Championship chest within a few hours
just by watching games so there's every
reason to expect that these um
machines could help us to solve these
problems and of course if that's the way
we came to understand where the string
theory was right um it would be in a
sense frustrating because you wouldn't
get the sort of aha Insight which is the
greatest satisfaction from doing science
but on the other hand if um a machine
CHS away a 10-dimensional geometry
figuring out all the possible origami in
wound up in extra Dimensions if it comes
out at the end
spews out the correct mass of the
electron the fact that there are three
kinds of neutrinos something like that
you would know that there was some truth
in the theory and so we may have a
theory which we come to trust because it
does predict things that we can observe
and check but we may never really
understand the full workings of it to
the extent that we do more or less
understand um how um most phenomena can
be explained in a f Way of course in
case of quantum theory many people would
say understandably there's still some
Mysteries you don't quite understand why
it works but there could be deeper
Mysteries when we get to these unified
theories where there's a big gap between
um what a computer can print out for us
at the end and what we can actually
grasp and think through in our heads
yeah it's interesting that the idea that
there could be things a computer could
tell us that is
true and maybe you can even help us
understand why it's true a little bit y
But ultimately it's still a long journey
to really deeply understand the wise of
it uh yes and that's the limitation of
our brain we we can try to sneak up to
it in different ways given the
limitations of our brain have you I've
gotten a chance to spend the day a deep
mind talk to Demis habis his big dream
is to apply AI to the questions of
science certainly to the questions of
physics have you gotten a chance to
interact with them well I know him quite
well I've uh he's one of my heroes
certainly and and I remember I'm sure he
would say the same and I remember the
the first time I met him he said that he
was like me he wanted to understand the
universe but he thought the best thing
to do was to try and develop Ai and then
with the help of AI he'd stand more
chance of understanding the universe
yeah and I think he's right about that
so and of course um although we're
familiar with the way his computers
played go and chess um he's already made
contribution to science through uh uh
understanding protein folding better
than the best human chemists and so
already he's on the path to showing ways
in which computers have the power to
learn and do things by having ability to
analyze enormous samples in a short time
uh to do better than humans and so um I
think he would resonate for what I've
just said that it may be that uh in
these other fundamental questions the
computers will play a crucial role yeah
and there also doing uh quantum
mechanical simulation of electrons
they're doing uh control of uh high
temperature plasma Fusion reactors yes
that's a new thing which is very
interesting they can suppress the
instabilities in these toac um better
than any other way yeah and it just the
march of progress by AIS and science is
is is making uh big strides do you think
an AI system will win a Nobel Prize in
the century what do you think
and does that make you sad if I can
digress and put in a plug for my next
book yes it has a chapter saying why
Nobel prizes do more harm than good yes
so on a quite separate subject I I think
Nobel prizes do great of damage to the
perception of the way science is done of
course if you ask who or what deserves
the credit for any scientific discovery
it maybe often someone has an idea a
team of people who work a big experiment
Etc
um and of course it's the quality of the
equipment which is um crucial and
certainly in the subjects I do in
astronomy um the huge advances we've had
uh come not from us being more
intelligent than Aristotle was but
through us having far far better uh data
um from powerful telescopes on the
ground and in space and also
incidentally uh we benefited hugely in
astronomy uh from um Compu simulations
because um if you
are a subatomic physicist then of course
you crash together the particles in a
big accelerator like the one at CERN and
see what happens but um I can't crash
together to galaxies or two stars and
see what happens but in the virtal world
of a computer one can do simulations
like that and the power of computers is
such that these simulations uh can um
yield um a phenomena and insights which
we wouldn't have guessed beforehand and
the way we can feel we're making
progress in trying to understand some of
these phenomena why galaxies have the
size and shape they do and all that is
because we can do simulations um
tweaking different initial conditions
and seeing which gives the best fit to
what we actually observe and so that's a
way in which we've made progress in
using computers and incidentally uh we
also now need them to analyze data
because one thinks of astronomy as being
traditionally rather data poor subjects
but the um European satellite called
Gaia has just put on line the um speeds
and colors and properties of nearly two
billion stars in the Milky Way and which
you can do fantastic analysis of and
that of course could not be done at all
without just the number crcy capacit
computers and the the new methods of
machine learning actually love of raw
data the kind that astronomy provides
organized structured raw data yeah well
indeed because the reason they really
have a benefit over us is that they can
learn and think so much faster that's
how they can learn to play chess and go
that's how they can learn to diagnose
lung cancer better than a radiologist
because they can look at 100,000 scans
in a in a few days whereas no human
radiologist sees that many in a lifetime
well
there's still magic to the human
intelligence to the intuition to the
common sense reasoning uh well we hope
so for now what what what is the new
book that you mentioned the book I me
it's called if science is to save us
it's coming out in September um and it's
on the um well the big challenges of
science um you um climate dealing with
the bio bios safety and dealing with
cyber safety and also it's got chapters
on the um way science is organized
universities andies Etc and and the the
ethics of Science and
um and perhaps the limit and the limits
yes yeah well let me actually just
stroll around the the beautiful and the
strange of the universe uh over 20 years
ago you hypothesized that we would solve
the mystery of dark matter by now so
unfortunately we didn't quite yet MH
uh first what is dark matter and why has
it been so tough to figure out well I
mean we we learned that galaxies and
other large scale structures which are
moving around but uh um preventive
flying apart by G by gravity um would be
flying apart if they only contain the
stuff we see if everything in them was
shining and to understand how Galax is
formed and why they do remain confined
the same size uh one has to infer that
is about five times as much stuff
producing gravitational forces than the
total amount of stuff in the gas and
stars that we see and that stuff is
called Dark Matter um that's his leading
name it's not dark it's just transparent
Etc um and the uh most likely
interpretation is that it's a swarm of
uh microscopic particles which have no
electric charge and the very small
crosssections are hitting each other and
hitting anything else so they swarm
around and we we can detect their
Collective effects and when we do
computer simulations of how galaxies
form and evolve and how they emerge from
The Big Bang then uh we get a nice
consistent picture if we put
in five times as much mass in the form
of these mysterious dark particles and
for instance it works better if we think
they're non- interacting particles than
if you think they're a gas which would
have shock waves and things so we know
something about the properties of these
but we don't know what they are and um
the disappointment compared to my guess
20 years ago um is that particles
answering this description have not yet
been found it was thought that the big
accelerator the lar handro collider at
Ser which is the world's biggest might
have found a new class of particles
which would have been the obvious
candidates and it hasn't and uh um some
people say well Dark Matter can't be
there Etc but what I would argue is that
there's a huge amount of parameter space
that hasn't been explored um there are
other kinds of particles called Axion
which behave slightly differently which
are a good candidate um and um there's a
factor of 10 power of 10 between the
heaviest particles that could be created
by the large hydron cider and the
heaviest particles which on theoretical
grounds could exist without turning into
black holes so there's a huge amount of
possible particles which could be out
there as remnants of the Big Bang but
which we wouldn't be able to te so
easily so um the fact that we've got new
constraints on what the Dark Matter
could be doesn't diminish my belief that
it's there in the form of particles
because we've only explored a small
fraction of parameter space so there's
this search you're
literally upon unintended are searching
in the dark here in this giant parameter
space of possible particles you're
searching for I mean there could be all
kinds of
particles could be and there's some
which may be very very hard to detect
but I think we can hope for um some new
theoretical ideas because um one point
which perhaps you'd like to discuss more
is about the very early stage of the Big
Bang um and uh the situation now is that
we have a outlined picture for How the
Universe has evolved um from the time
when was expanding in just a
nanc well up to the present and we could
do that because after
nanc the physics of the material is in
the same range that we can test in the
lab after a nanc the particle is moving
around like those in the L hat collider
if you wait for for one second they're
rather like in the centers of the
hottest stars and nuclear reactions
produce hydrogen helium Etc which fit
today so so we can with confidence
extrapolate back to when the universe
was a n second old inde I think we can
do it with as much confidence as
anything a geologist tells you about the
early history of the earth and that's
huge progress in the last 50 years but
any progress puts in sharper Focus uh
new Mysteries and of course the new
mystes in this context are why is the
universe expand the way it is why does
it contain this mixture of atoms and
dark matter and radiation and why does
it have the properties which allow
Galaxy to form being fairly smooth but
not completely smooth and the answer to
those questions are generally believed
to lie in a much much earlier stage of
the universe when conditions were much
more extreme and therefore far beyond
the stage when we had the foot told in
experiments very theoretical and so um
we don't have a convincing Theory we
just have ideas until we have something
like string theory or some other Clues
to the ultra early Universe uh that's
going to remain speculative so um
there's a big gap and to say how big the
Gap is um if we take the observable
universe out to bit more than 10 billion
life years um then when the universe was
a nanc old that would have been squeezed
down to the size of of our solar system
or compressed into that that volume but
the times we're talking about when the
Key properties of the universe were
first imprinted were times when that
entire universe was squeezed down to the
size of a tennis ball or baseball if you
prefer and to emerge from something
microscopic so it's a huge extrapolation
and it's not surprising that since it's
so far from our experimental range of
detectability uh we are still groping
for
ideas but you think first Theory will
reach into that place and then
experiment will perhaps one day catch up
well I think simulation in a sense it's
combination I think what what we hope
for is that um uh there'll be a theory
which applies to the early universe but
which also has consequences which we can
test in our present day Universe um like
um discovering why neutros exist or
things like that and that's the thing
which as I mentioned we may perhaps need
a bit of AI to help us to calculate but
but I think um the the hope would be
that we will have a theory which applies
under the very very extreme early stages
of the universe but which gains
credibility and gains confidence because
it also manages to account for otherwise
unexplained features of um the low
energy world and what people call a
standard model of particle physics where
there lots of undetermined numbers so it
may help with that so we're dancing
between physics and philosophy a little
bit but what do you
think what do you think happened before
the Big Bang so this seems this feels
like something that's out of the reach
of science it's out of the reach of
present science because science develops
and as the front is Advance uh then new
problems come into Focus that couldn't
even been postulated before I mean if I
think of my own career when I was a
student the evidence for the Big Bang
was pretty weak whereas now it's
extremely strong um but we are now
thinking about the reason why the
universe is the way it is and all that
um so uh I I would put all these things
we've just mentioned in the category of
speculative science um and I don't see a
bicationic um but of course to answer
your question
if we do want to understand the very
early Universe then we've got to realize
that it may involve even more
counterintuitive Concepts than quantum
theory does because it's a condition
even further away from everyday world
than quantum theory is and remember our
lives our brains evolved um and haven't
changed much since an Our Ancestors roam
the African Savannah and looked at the
everyday World um and uh it's rather
amazing that we've been able to make
some sense of the quantum microw world
and of the cosmos but uh uh there may be
some things which are Beyond us and
certainly as you implied there are
things that we don't yet understand at
all and of course one concept we might
have to jettison is the idea of three
dimensions of space and time just
ticking away there lots of ideas I mean
I think stepen Hawking had an idea that
talking about what's what hasn't before
the big bang it's like asking what
happens if you go north from the North
Pole you know it somehow closes off
that's just one idea um I don't like
that idea but that's a possible one um
and uh and so we just don't know um
what's happened at the very beginning of
the Big Bang were there many Big Bangs
rather than one Etc um and those are
issues which um we may be able to get
some foothold on from some new Theory um
but even then um we won't be able to
directly test the theories but I think
um it's a heresy to think you have to be
able to test every prediction of a
theory let me give another example um we
take seriously what Einstein's theory
says about the inside of black holes
even though we can't observe them
because that theory has been Vindicated
in many other places in cosmology and
black holes gravitational waves and all
those things um likewise if we had a a
theory which um explains some things
about the early history of our big bang
in the present Universe then we would
take
seriously the inference if it predicted
many Big Bangs not one even though we
can't predict the other ones so the
example is that we can take seriously a
prediction if it's the consequence of a
theory that we believe on other grounds
we don't need to be able to uh detect
another big bang in order to take it
seriously it may not be a proof but it's
a good indication that uh this is the
direction where the truth lies yeah if
the theory is gained confidence in other
ways yes what do you sense do you think
there's other universes besides our
own those are sort of well- defined
theories which make assumptions about
the physics at the relevant time and
this time incidentally is 10 the^ 36
seconds um or earlier than that so this
tiny sliver of time and um the some
theories uh famous One du to Andre
lindai um the Russian cosmologist now at
Stanford called Eternal inflation um
which did predict um an eternal
production of new Big Bangs as it were
and uh that's based on specific
assumptions about the physics but those
assumptions of course are just
hypotheses which aren't Vindicated
but there are other theories which only
predict one big bang so I think uh we
should be open-minded and not dogmatic
about these these options until we do
understand the relevant physics but
there are these different scenarios of
very different ideas about about this
but I think all of them have the feature
that physical reality is a lot more
extensive than what we can see through
our telescope I think even the most
conservative astronomers would say that
because
we can see out with our telescopes to a
sort of horizon which is
about depending on how you measure it
maybe 15 billion light years away or
something like that but that Horizon of
our observations is no more physical
reality than the Horizon around you if
you're in the
ocean and look looking out at your
horizon there's no reason to think that
the ocean ends just beyond your Horizon
and likewise there's no reason to think
that the aftermath of our big bang um
ends just at the boundary of what we can
see indeed they're quite strong
arguments um that it probably goes on
about 100 times further it may even go
on so much further that uh all
combinatorial are replicated and uh
there's another set of people like us
sitting in in a room like this every
possible combination of yeah that that
could
happen that's not logically impossible
um but but I think I think many people
would accept that it does go on um and
contain um probably a million times as
much stuff as what we can see within the
Horizon the reason for that incidentally
is that if we look as far as we can in
One Direction and in the opposite
direction then the conditions don't
differ by more than one pass in 100
thousand so that means that if we're
part of some finite structure the
gradient across the part we can see is
very small and so that suggests that it
probably does go on a lot further and
the best estimates say it must go at
least 20 times
further is that exciting or terrifying
to you just the spans of it all the wide
everything that lies Beyond the
Horizon that that example doesn't even
hold for Earth so it goes way way
farther and on top of that just to take
your metaphor further with the on the
ocean yeah while we're on top of this
ocean not only can we not see beyond on
the horizon we also don't know much
about the depth of the ocean that's
right nor the actual mechanism of
observation that's in our head yes no I
think the r and is all those points you
make yes yes but but I think um uh even
even the solar system is pretty vast by
human standards and so uh I don't think
the perception of this utterly vast
Cosmos um need have any
deeper impact on us than just realizing
that we are very small on the scale of
the external
world yeah it's humbling though it's
it's humbling in uh depending where your
ego is it's humbling in well if you
start very unhumble indeed it may make a
difference but for most of us I don't
think it make much much difference and
uh well there's a more general question
of course about uh um whether um the
human race as such is something which is
very special or if on the other hand um
it's just one of many
such species elsewhere in the universe
or indeed existing at different times in
our
universe it to me it feels uh almost
obvious that the Universe should be full
of alien life perhaps dead alien
civilizations but just the the vastness
of space
and yes it just feels wrong to think of
Earth as somehow special it sure as heck
doesn't look that special when you the
more we learn the less special it seems
well I mean I don't agree with that as
far as life is concerned because uh
remember that we don't understand how
life began here on Earth yes we don't
understand although we know that in
evolution from simple life to complex
life we don't understand uh what caused
the transition
between complex chemistry and the first
um replicating metabolizing entity we
call alive yes that's a mystery um and
uh serious physicists are now and
chemists are now thinking about it but
we we don't know so we therefore can't
say was it a rare fluke yeah which would
not have happened anywhere else or was
it something which uh involves a process
would have happened in any other planet
where conditions were like they were on
the young Earth um so we can't say that
now um I think well many of us would
indeed bet that probably some kind of
Life exists elsewhere but even if um you
accept that then um there many
contingencies going from simple life to
um uh present day life and and some
biologists like Stephen J Gould thought
that if you reran Evolution you'd end up
with something quite different and maybe
nothing with intelligent species so the
contingencies in evolution um May
militate against the emergence of
intelligence even if life gets started
in lots of places so I think these are
still completely open questions and
that's why it's such an exciting time
now that we are starting to be able to
address these I mean I mentioned the uh
the fact that the origin of life is a
question that we may be able to
understand um and serious people are
working on it it used to be put in the
sort of twoo difficult box everyone knew
was important but they didn't know how
to tackle it or what exp expon to do but
it's not like that now and um that's
partly because of clever experiments but
I think most importantly because um we
are aware that we can look for life in
other places other places in our solar
system and of course on the exoplanets
around other stars and uh within 10 or
20 years I think two things could happen
which would be really really important
we might with the next big T scope be
able to image some of the earthlike
planets around other stars image like
get a picture well actually let me
caveat that it take 50 years to get a
resolved image but but but but actually
detect the light because now of course
these exoplant are detected by their
effect on the parent star they either
cause their parent star to dim slightly
when they Transit across in front of it
and so we see the dips or their
gravitational the pole makes the star
wobble a bit so so most of the the 5,000
plus planets that have been found around
other stars they've been found
indirectly by their effect yes in one of
those two ways on the par you can still
do a pretty good job of estimating size
all those kinds of things size and the
size and the mass you can estimate um
but uh um but detecting the the actual
light from one of these EXO planets
hasn't really been done yet except one
of two very very very bright big planet
so maybe like James Webb Telescope would
be well James web may do this but even
better will be the European groundbased
telescope called unimaginative the
extremely large telescope which has a 39
M diameter mirror 39 M mic of 800 sheet
of glass and that will collect enough
light from one of these exoplanets
around a nearby star um to be able to um
separate out its light from that of the
star which is a millions of times
brighter and get the spectrum of the
planet and see if it's got oxygen or
chlorophyll and things in it so that
that that will come um J James web may
may make some some steps there um but I
think we can look forward to learning
quite a bit um in the next 20 years
because I like to say um supposing that
aliens looking at the solar system then
they'd see the Sun as an ordinary star
they'd see the Earth as in Carl sega's
eyes phrase a pale blue dot lying very
close in the sky to its star our sun and
much much much fainter but if they could
observe that dot they could learn quite
a bit they could perhaps get the spect
of the light and find the atmosphere
they'd find the shade of blue is
slightly different depending on whether
the Pacific Ocean or the land mass of
Asia was facing them so they could infer
the length of the day and the oceans and
continents and maybe something about the
seasons and the climate and uh that's
the kind of calculation calculation and
inference we might be able to draw
within the next 10 or 20 years about
other exoplanets and um and evidence of
some sort of biosphere on one of them
would of course be crucial and it would
rule out the uh still logical
possibility that life is unique but
there's another way in which this may
happen in the next 20 years people think
there could be something swimming under
the ice of Europa and Enceladus and
probes are being sent to maybe not quite
go under the ice but detect the spray
coming coming out to see if there's
evidence for Organics in that and if we
found any evidence for an origin of life
that happened in either of those places
that would immediately be important
because if life has originated twice
independently in one planed system the
solar system that would tell us straight
away it wasn't a rare accident and must
have happened billions of times in the
Galaxy at the moment we can't rule out
it being unique and incidentally if we
found life on Mars then that would still
be ambiguous because uh um people have
realized that this early life could have
got from Mars to Earth or vice versa on
meteorites so um if you found life on
Mars then some Skeptics could still say
if it's a single origin um but I think
but europa's far that's far enough away
statistically so so that's why that
would be especially it's always the
Skeptics that ruin a good party but but
we need them of course we need them at
the party we need some Skeptics at the
party um but boy would that be so
exciting to find life on one of the
moons yeah because it
means that just be any kind of
vegetation or life um the question of
the um aliens of Science Fiction is a
different matter intelligent aliens yeah
but if if you have a good indication
that there's life elsewhere in the solar
system that means life is
everywhere Y and that y That's I don't
know if that's terrifying or what that
is because if life is everywhere why is
intelligent life not everywhere why I
mean you've talked about that most
likely alien civilizations if they are
out there they would likely be far ahead
of us the ones that would actually
communicate with us yes and
that um again one of those things that
is both exciting and terrifying you
you've mentioned that they're likely not
to be of biological nature well I think
that's important of course again it's a
speculation but uh uh in speculating
about um intelligent life and I I take
the search seriously in fact I chair the
uh committee that the um Russian
American investor Yuri Milner supports
looking for intelligent life he's
putting 10 million dollars a year into
better equipment and getting time on
telescopes to do this and so I think
it's worthwhile even though I I don't
hold my breath for Success it's it's
very exciting but but that does lead me
to wonder what might be detected and um
I think well we don't know we've got to
be open minded about anything we have no
idea what it will be and so any
anomalous object or even some strange
shiny object in the solar system or
anything we've got to keep our eyes open
for but I think um if we ask what about
a um Planet like the Earth where
Evolution had taken more of the same
track then as you say it wouldn't be
synchronized um if it had lagged behind
then of course it would not have got to
Advanced life uh but it may have had a
Stars it may have formed on a planet
around an older star okay but then let's
ask what we would see um it's taken
nearly four billion years from the first
life to us and we've now got this
technological
civilization which uh um could make
itself detectable um to any alien live
aliens out there um but I think most
people would say that this civilization
of Flesh and Blood creatures in the
collective civilization may not last
more than a few hundred years more I
think that the that people may some
people would say it it it will um kill
itself off um but I'm more optimistic
and I would say that um what we're going
to have in future is um no longer the
slow darwinian selection but we're going
to have what I call secular intell
design which will be um humans designing
um uh their progeny to be better adapted
to where they are and uh if they go to
Mars or some somewhere they're badly
adapted they want to adapt a lot and so
uh they will adapt um but there may be
some limits to what could be done with
flesh and blood and so they may become
largely electronic um download their
brains and have and be electronic
entities and if they're
electronic then what's important is that
they're near
Immortal and also they won't necessarily
want to be on a planet with an
atmosphere or gravity they may go off
into the blue yonder and they and if
they're near Immortal they won't be
daunted by Interstellar travel taking a
long time and so um uh if if we looked
at what would happen on the earth in the
next millions of years then there may be
these electronic entities which have
been sent out and are now far away from
the Earth but still sort of burping away
in some in some fashion to be detected
um and so uh this um this therefore
leads me to think that um if there was
another planet which had evolved like
the Earth and was ahead of us uh it
wouldn't be synchronized so we wouldn't
see a flesh and blood civilization but
we would see these electronic progeny as
it were um and and then this raes
another question because um there's the
famous argument against there being um
lots of aliens out there which is that
they would um come and invade us and eat
us or something like that you know
that's a common idea U so fairy is
attributed to have been the first to say
um and I think there's a um es scape
Clause to that because these um entities
yeah would be say they evolve by secular
andt design designed by their
predecessors and then designed by us um
and uh um whereas darwinian selection
requires two things it requires
aggression and
intelligence this future intelligence
design um May favor intelligence because
that's what they were designed for but
it may not favor aggression and so these
future entities they they may be um
sitting Deep Thoughts thinking Deep
Thoughts um and and not being a tall
expansionist so they could be out there
yeah and we can't refute their existence
in the way the fair Paradox is supposed
to refute their existence because these
would not be aggressive or expansionist
well maybe Evolution requires
competition not aggression and I wonder
if competition can take forms that are
non- expansionary so you can still have
fun competing yeah in the space of ideas
which maybe primarily the philosophers
perhaps
yeah in in a way right it's a it's an
intellectual exercise versus a sort of
violent exercise so what does this
civilization on Mars look like so do you
think we would more and more you know
maybe start with some genetic
modification and then move to basically
cyborgs increasing integration of
electronic systems computational systems
into our bodies and brains this is a
theme of um uh my other new book out
this year which is called the end of
astronauts and end of asona co-written
with my um uh old friend and colleague
from Berkeley Don Goldsmith and uh it's
really about um the the role of human
space flight versus sort of robotic
space flight and um just to summarize
what it says um it argues that the um
practical case for sending humans into
space is getting getting weaker all the
time as robots get better more capable
robots 50 years ago couldn't do anything
very much but now they could assemble
big structures on space or on in space
or on the moon and they could probably
do exploration well present ones uh on
Mars um can't actually um do the geology
but future AI will be able to do the
geology and already they can dig on Mars
and so if you want to do exploration of
Mars and of course even more of um encel
or Europa where you could never send
humans we depend on
robots and they're far far cheaper
because to send a human to Mars requires
feeding them for 200 days on the journey
there and bringing them back and neither
of those are necessary for robots so the
Practical case for humans is getting
very very weak and if humans go it's
only as an adventure really and so the
line in our book is that um
uh human space flight should not be
pursued by nasau or Public Funding
agencies um because it has no practical
purpose but also because it's specially
expensive if they do it because they
would have to be risk averse in
launching civilians into
space I can illustrate that by noting
that the shuttle
was launched 135 times and it had two
spectacular failures which each kill the
seven people in the crew um and uh it
had been mistakenly presented as safe
for civilians and there was a woman
school teacher killed in one of them it
was a big National trauma and they tried
to make it safer still um
but if you launch into space just the
kind of people prepared to accept that
sort of risk and of course test p and
people who go hangliding and go to the
South Pole Etc are prepared to accept a
2% risk at least for a big challenge
then of course you do it more cheaply
and that's why um uh I think um human
space f should be left to the
billionaires um and their sponsors um
because then the taxpayers aren't paying
and they can launch simply those people
who are prepared to accept
risks space adventure not space tourism
yeah and and we should cheer them on um
and um as regards where they would
go then um lowth orbit I suspect can be
done quite cheaply in future but going
to Mars which is very very expensive and
dangerous for humans um the only people
who would go would be um these um
adventurers um
maybe on one way trip like some of the
early polish explorers and mellan and
people like that you know and we would
share them on um and I expect and I very
much hope that by the end of a century
there will be a small community of such
people on
Mars um living very uncomfortably far
less comfortably than at the South Pole
or the bottom of the ocean or top of
Everest but they will be there uh um and
they won't have certain ticket um but
they they'll be there um
incidentally I think it's a dangerous
delusion to think as uh Elon Musk has
said that we can have mass
immigration from the Earth to Mars to
escape the Earth's problems um it's a
dangerous illusion because it's far
easier to deal with climate change on
Earth than to terraform Mars to make it
properly habitable to humans so there's
no Planet be for a risk averse people
but for these crazy adventurers uh then
you could imagine that they would be
trying to live on Mars as um as great
pioneers and by the end of the century
then there will be huge advances
compared to the present in two things
first in in the understanding genetics
so as to genetically redesign one's
Offspring and secondly to use cybor
techniques to um implant some something
in our brain or indeed think about
downloading Etc and those techniques
will will one hopes be heavily regulated
on Earth on
credentials and ethical grounds and of
course we are pretty well adapted to the
Earth so we don't have the incentive to
do these things in the way they were
there so um our argument is that um
it'll be those crazy Pioneers on Mars
using all these scientific advances
which will be controlled here away from
The Regulators they will transition into
a new posthuman species MH and so um if
they do that and if they transition into
something which is electronic eventually
because there may be some limits to the
capacity of Flesh and Blood brains
anyways um then um those electronic
entities um may not want to stay on a
planet like Mars they may want to go go
away and so they'll be the precursors of
the future um evolution of life and
Intelligence coming from the earth um
and of course there's one point which
perhaps astronomers are more aware of
than most people most people are aware
that we are the outcome of four billion
years of
evolution most of them nonetheless
probably think that we humans are
somehow the
culmination the top of the
tree but yes no astronomers can believe
that because astronomers know that the
Earth is 4 and a half billion years
old the sun's been shining for length of
time but the sun has got six billion
years more to go before it flares up and
engulfs the inner planet so the sun is
less than halfway through his life um
and the expanding Universe goes on far
longer still maybe forever and I quote
Woody Allen who said eternity is very
long especially towards the end so uh so
we shouldn't think of ourselves as maybe
even a halfway stage in the emergence of
cosmic complexity and so these entities
who are
post cursors they will go beyond the
solar system and of course even if
there's nothing else out there already
then they could uh populate the the rest
of the the Galaxy and maybe eventually
meet the others who are out there
expanding as well yeah expanding and
populating with
expanded uh capacity for life and
intelligence all those kinds of things
well they might um but um uh again all
better off because can't see what they'd
be like um they won't they won't be uh
um green green men and women with eyes
on stalks you know they' be something
quite different um we we just don't know
um but there is an interesting question
actually which comes up when I've
sometimes spoken to audiences about this
topic but the question of Consciousness
and self-awareness because you going
back to philosophical questions I mean
it's whether an electronic
robot would uh be a zombie or would it
be conscious and self aware and um um I
think there's no way of answering this
empirically um and um some people think
that Consciousness and self-awareness is
an emerging property in any sufficiently
complicated Network that they would be
others say well maybe it's something
special to the flesh and blood that
we're made of we don't know um and in a
sense this may not matter um to the way
people things behave because we they
could be zombies and still behave as
though they were intelligent but uh I
remember after one of my talks someone
came up and said wouldn't it be
sad if these future entities which were
the main intelligence in the universe um
had no self-awareness so there was
nothing which could appreciate the
Wonder and mystery of the universe and
the beauty of the universe in the way
that we do um and so it does perhaps
affect one's perspective of whether you
welcome or deploy for this possible
future scenario depending whether you
think the the future posthuman entities
are conscious and have an aesthetic
sense or whether they're just zombies
and uh of course you have to be humble
to realize that self-awareness may not
be the highest form of
being that humans have a very strong ego
and a very strong sense of identity like
personal identity connected to this
particular brain yeah yeah uh it's not
so obvious to me that that is somehow
the the highest
achievement of a life form that maybe
this kind of you think something
Collective would be it's possible that
uh well I think from an alien
perspective when you look at Earth it's
not so obvious to me that individual
humans are the atoms of intelligence it
could be the entire organism together
the collective intelligence and so we
humans think of ourselves as individuals
we dress up we Wear Ties and suits and
we give each other prizes but in
reality the intelligence the things we
create that are beautiful emerges from
our interaction with each other and that
may be where the intelligence is ideas
jumping from one person to another over
Generations yes but we have experiences
where we uh can appreciate yes Beauty
and wonder and all that and uh uh a
zombie may not have those
experiences yeah or it may have a very
different we have a very black and white
harsh description of Z like a
philosophical zombie zombie that could
be just a very different way to
experience
uh and you know in terms of the
explorers that colonized
Mars I um I mean there there's several
things I want to mention one
it's just at a high level to me that's
one of the most inspiring things humans
can do is reach out into the unknown
that's in the space of ideas in the
space of science but also the Explorers
yes no I agree with that and and that
inspires people here on Earth more uh I
mean it did in their you know when going
to the moon or going out to space in the
20th century that inspired a generation
of scientists I think that
also could be used to inspire a
generation of new scientists in the 21st
century by reaching out towards Mars so
in that sense I think what Elon Musk and
others are doing is actually quite
inspiring it's not no I agree it's not a
recreational thing it's actually has a
deep humanitarian purpose of really
inspiring the world and then on the
other one to push back on your thought
you know I don't think Elon
says we want to escape Earth's problems
it's more that we should allocate some
small percentage of resources to have a
backup
plan and because yes you yourself have
spoken about and written about all the
ways we clever humans could destroy
ourselves yes and I'm not sure it does
seem when you look at the long Arc of
human history it seems almost obvious
that we need to become a multiplanetary
species over a period if we are to
survive many
centuries it seems
that as we get clever and clever with
the ways we can destroy ourselves Earth
is going to become less and less
safe um so in that sense this is one of
the things you know people talk about
climate change and then we need to
respond to climate change and that's a
long-term investment we need to make but
it's not really longterm it's a a span
of decades
I think what Elon is doing is a really
long-term investment we should be
working on multiplanetary colonization
now if we were to have it ready five
centuries from now and so taking those
early steps and then also there's
something happens when you're when you
go into the unknown and do this really
difficult thing you discover something
very new you discover something about
robotics or materials engineering or
nutrition or Neuroscience or human
relations or political systems that
actually work well with humans you
discover all those things and so it's
it's worthy effort to go out there and
uh try to become
cyborgs yeah no I agree with that I
think the only different point I'd make
is that
um this is going to be very
expensive if it's done in a risk averse
way and that's why I think we should be
grateful to uh the billionaires if
they're going to sort of foster um uh
these opportunities uh for uh thrill
seeking uh Risk Takers who we can all
admire yeah but anyway I should push
back on the billionaires because there's
sometimes a negative connotation to the
word billionaire it's not a billionaire
it's a company versus government because
governments are billionaires and
trillionaires yeah it's not it's not the
wealth it's the the
capitalist uh imperative so uh which I
think
deserves a lot more praise than people
are giving it I'm I'm troubled by the
sort of criticism like it's billionaires
playing with toys for their own pleasure
I think what some of these companies
like SpaceX and blue origin are doing is
some of the most
inspiring engineering and even
scientific work ever done in human
history no no I agree I think the people
whove made the greatest
are people who've really been Mega
benefactors I mean I think you know some
of them some of them yeah yes some of
them but but but those who who' founded
um Google and all that and and even
Amazon they they their beneficiaries
they're in a quite different category in
my view from those who just Shuffle
around money um or or or or or um or
crypto coins and things like that who
are now you're really talking trash yes
but but but but but I think if they use
their money in these ways that's fine
but but I think um it's true that the
far more money is owned by us
collectively as taxpayers but I think
the fact is that in a democracy um there
be big resistance to exposing human
beings to very high risks if in a sense
we share responsibility for it yeah I
don't know that's that's the reason I
think it could be done much more cheaply
by by by these private funders that's an
interesting hypothesis but I have to
push back it I don't know if it's
obvious why NASA spends so much money
and takes such a long
time to develop the things he was doing
so before Elam musk came along because I
would love I would love to live in a
world where government actually uses
taxpayer money to get some of the best
engineers and scientists in the world
and actually work across governments
Russia China United States the European
Union together to do these these big
project it's strange that Elon is able
to do this much cheaper much faster it
could have to be do with risk aversion
you're right but I I think it's it's
it's the um it's that it's that he had
all the um the whole assembly within
this one building as it were rather than
depending on a supply chain um but I
think it's also uh that he um had a
Silicon Valley culture and had younger
people whereas um the the big Aerospace
company companies Boeing and locked
Martin um they had people who were left
over from the Apollo program in some
cases and and and so they weren't quite
quite so Lively and indeed um quite
apart from the controversial issues of
the future of human space flight um in
terms of the uh next generation of big
Rockets then the one that musk is going
to launch for the first time this year
um the huge one um is going to be far
far cheaper than the one that NASA has
been working on U at the same time um
and that's because it will have a
reusable first stage and it's going to
be be great it can launch over a 100
tons into Earth orbit and inent that's
going to be make it feasible to do
things that I used to think were crazy
like having solar energy from space
that's no longer so crazy if you can do
that um and also for science because um
its nose cone could contain within it
something uh as big as the entire
unfurled James web telescope mirror and
therefore you could have a big telescope
much more cheaply if you can launch it
all in one piece and so it's going to be
hugely beneficial to science and to any
practical use of space to have these
cheaper rockets that are far more
completely reusable than any was NASA
had so I think mosks are a tremendous
service to the space exploration and the
h space technology through these Rockets
certainly plus it's some big sexy rocket
it's just great engineering of course
yeah it's like looking at a beautiful
big bridge that humans are capable us
descendants of apes are capable to do
something so Majestic yes and also the
way they land coming down on this bar
that's amazing it's both controls
engineering it's um increasing sort of
intelligence in these Rockets but also
great propulsion
materials uh entrepreneurship and it
just inspires it just inspires so many
people no I'm entirely with you on
that so would it be exciting to you to
see a human being step foot on Mars in
your lifetime yes I think it's unlikely
in my lifetime since I I'm so ancient
but uh but I think this this Century
it's going to happen and I think that
that will indeed be exciting and the I
hope there will be a small community by
the end of a century but as as I say I
think they they may go with oneway
tickets or accepting the risk of a of a
of of no return and so they've got to be
people like that and uh I still think
it's going to be hard to persuade the
public to send people when you say
straight out that they may never come
back um but uh of course the Apollo
Astronauts they took a high risk and in
fact in in my um previous book I I quote
the speech that been written for Nixon
to be read out if Neil Armstrong got
stuck on the moon and and it was um
written by one of his um his advisers um
and very eloquent speech you know about
um how they would have come to a noble
end Etc um but of course there was a
genuine risk at that time um but of but
that may have been accepted but um
clearly the crashing of the sh shuttle
were not acceptable to the American
public even when they were told that
this was only a 2% risk given how often
they launched it and so so that's what
leads me to think that um it's got to be
left to the kind of um people who are
prepared to take these risks and and I
think um think of American Avengers
there a guy called Steve foset who was a
um Aviator did all kinds of crazy things
you know and and then a guy who fell um
supersonically um with with the
parachute from very altitude all these
people we all cheer them on they extend
the bounds of humanity um but uh I don't
think the public will be so happy to
fund
them and I mean I disagree with that I
think if we change the narrative we
should change the story you think so I
think I think there's a lot of
people because the the the the public is
happy to
fund uh folks in other domains that take
bold giant risks first of all military
for example military in military
obviously yes yes um I think this is in
the name of science especially if it's
sold correctly I sure a would go up
there with a risk with I would I would
take a 40% chance risk of death for
something that's can I would I might
want to be even older than I am
now but then I would go I guess what I'm
trying to communicate is there's all
there's a lot of people on Earth that's
the nice feature and I'm sure there's
going to be a significant percentage or
some percentage of people that are they
take on the risk for the
adventure so and I I particularly love
that that risk of Adventure when taking
on inspires people and just the ripple
effect it has across the generation
especially among the young minds is uh
perhaps immeasurable but you're thinking
um that sending
humans should be something we do less
and less sending humans to space that it
should be primarily an effort the the
work of space exploration should be done
primarily by robots well I think it it
can be done much more cheaply obviously
on on Mars and uh no one's thinking of
sending humans to Enceladus or Europa
the outer planets um and uh uh and the
point is we'll have much better robots
because um uh to take an example um You'
seen these pictures of um uh
the moons of Saturn and the picture of
Pluto and the comet taken by probes and
Cassini spent 13 years going around
Saturn and its moons after seven year vo
and those are all based on 199
technology and if you think of how
smartphones have advanced in the 20
years since then do think how much
better one could do instrumenting some
very small sophisticated probe and could
send dozens of them to explore the outer
planets and that's the way to do that
because no one thinks you could send
humans that far um and but I would apply
the same argument to to Mars and if you
want to assemble big structures like um
for instance radio astronomers would
like to have a big radio telescope on
The Far Side of the Moon so it's away
from the uh Earth's um background
artificial radio waves um and uh that
could be done by assembling it using
robots without people so on the moon and
on Mars um I think everything that's
useful can be done by machines much more
cheap than by
humans do you know the movie 2001 of
Space Odyssey of course yes you must be
too young to have SE that when he came
out obviously H yeah I remember see when
it came out you saw it when he came out
yeah years ago 60 when was it 60 uh it
was in the 60s yeah that's right still a
classic it's still
probably for me the greatest AI movie
ever made yes yes I agree one of the
great space movies ever made yes so well
let me ask you a philosophical question
since we're talking about robots
exploring space do you think H
9000 is good or bad so for people who
haven't
watched this computer system makes a
decision to uh uh basically prioritize
the mission that the ship is on over the
humans that are part yes of the mission
um do you think Hal is good or evil if
you ask probably in that context it was
probably good but I think you're raising
what is of course very much uh active
issue in everyday life about the extent
to which we should um entrust any
important decision uh to machine and
there again I'm very worried because I I
think um if you are recommended for an
operation or not given Paro from prison
or even denied credit by your bank you
feel you should be entitled to an
explanation it's not enough to be told
that the machine has a more reliable
record um on the whole and humans have
of making these decisions you think you
should be given reasons you could
understand and and that's why I think uh
the present societal Trend to um uh take
away the humans and leave us um in the
hands of decisions that we can't contest
uh is a very dangerous one I think we've
got to be very careful of the extent to
which AI which can handle lots of
information actually makes the decisions
without oversight and I think um we can
use them as a supplement but to take the
case of um uh radiology and cancer um I
mean it's true that the rad radiologist
hasn't seen as many uh X-rays of cancer
lungs as the machine so the machine
could certainly help but you want the
human to make the final decision and I
think that's true in most of of these
instances but if we turn a bit to the
shortterm concerns with the robotics I
think the big worry of course is the uh
effect it has on um people's
self-respect and their labor market and
I think um my solution would be that we
should um arrange to tax more heavily
than big International conglomerates
which uh use the robots um and um use
that tax to uh
fund decently paid dignified
posts of the kind where being a human
being is important above all carers for
old people teachers assistance for young
gers in public parks and things like
that and if the people who are now
working in mind-numbing jobs in Amazon
warehouses or in telephone call
centers are automated but those same
people are given jobs where being a
human is an asset um then that's a Plus+
situation and so that's way I think that
we should benefit from these these
Technologies um take over the Mind
numbing jobs um and uh you use machines
to make them more efficient but um
enable um the people so displaced to do
jobs where we do want a human being I
mean most people when they're when
they're old um they rich people if they
have the choice they want human carers
and all that don't they they may want
robots to help with some things empty
the bed pans and things like that but
but but they they want real people and
uh uh and certainly in this country I
think even worse in America um the the
care of old people is completely
inadequate and it needs just more human
beings to help them cope with everyday
life and look after them when they're
sick and um uh and so um that seems to
me the way in which the money raised in
tax from these big companies should be
deployed so that's in the short term but
if you actually just look the fact that
is where we are today to long-term
future in 100 years it does seem that
there is some significant
chance that the human species is coming
to an end in
its pure biological form there's going
to be greater and greater integration
through genetic modification than cyborg
type of creatures and so you have to
think all right well we're going to have
to get from here to there and that
process is going to be painful and uh
that you know how there's so many
different trajectories that take us from
one place to another it does seem that
we need to deeply respect humanness and
Humanity basic human rights human
welfare like happiness and all that kind
of stuff no absolutely and then that's
why I think we ought to try and slow
down the application of these human
enhancement techniques and Cyborg
techniques for humans for just that
reason I mean uh that's why I want to
lead into the people on Mars let them do
it but but for just that reason but
there are people too okay people on Mars
are people too I I tend to you know but
they are very poorly adapted to where
they are right that's why they need this
modification whereas we're adapted to to
the Earth quite well so we don't need
these modifications we're we're happy to
be humans living in in the environment
where our ancestors lived so we don't
have the same
same motive so I think there's a
difference but I agree we we don't want
drastic changes probably in in our our
lifestyle um and that indeed is a worry
because some things are changing so fast
um but I think um I'd like to inject a
note of caution um if you think of the
way uh progress in one technology goes
um it goes in a sort of spur it goes up
very fast and then it levels off um let
me give you two examples well one we've
had already human space flight um at the
time of the Apollo program which was
only 12 years after Sputnik 1 um I I was
alive then and I thought it would only
be 10 or 20 years further before the
were footprint Mars but as we know for
reasons we could all understand um that
was and Still Remains the high point of
human space exploration um that's
because it was funded for reason of
superp power rivalry at huge public
expense
um but uh let me give you another case
um civil aviation um if you think of the
change between 1919 when that was oock
and Brown's first transatlantic fight to
1979 the First Flight of the jumbo jet
was a big change but it's more than 50
years since 1969 and we still have jumbo
jet more or less the same so that's an
example of something which developed
fast and over and to take another
analogy um we've had huge developments
in uh mobile phones but uh I suspect the
ibone the iPhone 24 may not be too
different from the iPhone 13 and you
know they they uh develop but then they
saturate and then maybe some new
innovation takes over in stimulating
economic growth yeah so it's that uh we
have to be cautious about being too
optimistic and we have to be cautious
about being too cynical I think that is
the optimistic is begging the question I
mean do do we want this R rapid change
right so first of all there's some
degree to which technological
advancement is is something is a force
that can't be stopped and so the
question is about directing it versus
stopping it or slow it can be sort of
slopped or slow well take human space
flight there could be have been uh
footprints on Mars if if America had
gone on spending 4% of the federal
budget on the project after yes Apollo
the reason so there were very good
reasons but um and we could we could
have had supersonic flight but Concord
came and went during the 50 years during
which but the reason it didn't progress
is not because we realize it's not good
for Human Society the reason it didn't
progress is because it it couldn't make
uh sort of from a capitalist perspective
it couldn't make uh there there was no
short-term or long-term way for it to
make money so for M but is but that's
the same mistake it's not good for
society I don't think everything that
makes money is good for society and
everything that doesn't make money is
bad for society right that's a that's a
difficult that's a difficult thing we're
always contending with when we look at
social networks it's not obvious even
though they make a tremendous amount of
money that they're good for society
especially how they're currently
implemented with advertisement and
engagement maximization so that's the
constant struggle of oh you know I agree
with you many Innovations are damaging
yes yeah yes uh well but I would have
thought that supersonic flight was uh
something that would benefit only a tiny
Elite sure huge expense and
environmental damage that was obviously
something which they're very glad not to
have in my opinion yeah but perhaps
there was a way to do it where it could
benefit the general populace if you were
to think about airplanes wouldn't you
think that in the early days airplanes
would have been seen as something that
can surely only benefit 1% at most of
the population as opposed to a much
larger percentage there there's there's
another aspect of capital a system
that's able to drive down cost once you
get the thing kind of going so the you
know we get together maybe with taxpayer
money and get the thing going at first
and once it gets going companies step up
and drive down the cost and actually
make it so that uh blue collar folks can
actually start using the stuff sometimes
that does happen that's good yeah so
it's that's again the the double- edge
sword of uh human civilization that some
technology hurts us some benefits us and
we don't know ahead of time we could
just do our best and there's a gap
between what could be done and
what we collectively decide to
do yes in in the term you could push
forward some developments um faster than
do let me ask you in your book on the
future prospects for
Humanity you imagine a time machine that
allows you to send a tweet length
message to scientists in the past like
to Newton yes um what tweet would you
send it's an interesting thought
experiment what message would you send
to Newton about what we know today well
I think he'd love to know that there
were planet around other stars um he
he'd like to know that uh that would
really blow his mind he everything was
made of atoms uh he'd like to know that
if he looked a bit more carefully
through his
prisms um uh and uh looked at light not
just from the Sun but
from from some Flames he might get the
idea that uh different substances
emitted light of different different
colors and he might have been twigged to
discover some things that had to wait
two or 3 hundred
years could have given him those Clues I
think it's kind of kind of it's
fascinating to think to look back at how
little he understood people at that time
understood about our
world yes and and certainly about the
cosmos because of course well if we
think about astronomy um then until
about
1850 um U astronomy was a matter of um
um uh the positions of how the stars and
the planets moved around Etc of course
that goes back a long way but Newton
understood why the planets moved around
in ellipses but uh he didn't understand
um why the solar system was all in a
plane what we call the ecliptic and uh
he didn't understand it no one did till
the mid 19th century what the stars are
made of I mean they we thought they made
of some fifth Essence not earth a and
water like everything else you know um
and it was only after 1850 when um
people did use prisms more precisely to
get to get Spectra that they realized
that the the sun was made of the same
stuff as the earth and the needed the
stars were and uh it wasn't until um
1930 that people knew about nuclear
energy and knew what kept the sun
shining for for so long so it was quite
late that some of these key ideas came
in you know which would completely
transform newon views and of course the
entire scale of the Solus of the G
Galaxy and than the rest of the Universe
imagine came later what he would have
thought about the Big Bang or even just
general relativity gravity just just him
and Einstein talking for for a couple
weeks yeah would he be able to make
sense of SpaceTime and the curvature of
SpaceTime and well I think given a quick
course I mean he was sort of uh if one
looks back he he was really a unique
intellect in a way you know and uh uh he
said that he thought better than
everything everyone else by thinking on
things continually and thinking very
deep thoughts and um so he he was a
utterly remarkable intellect obviously
but of course scientists aren't all like
that I think it's very one thing
interesting me having spent a life among
scientists is what a variety of uh
mindsets and mental Styles they have yes
um and um um well just to
contrast Newton and Darwin um
Darwin uh said uh and he probably
correct that he that he thought he just
had a um as much sort of Common Sense
and reasoning power as the average
lawyer and that's probably true because
his his ability was to sort of collect
data and think through things deeply um
that's a quite different kind of
thinking from what was involved in in
Newton or someone doing abstract
mathematics I think in the 20th Century
the
coolest well there's the theory but from
a astronomy perspective black holes is
one of the
most fascinating entities to have been
through Theory and through experiment to
have emerged from obviously I agree it's
an amazing story that uh um well of
course what's interesting is Einstein's
reaction because of course although as
you know we now accept this is one of
the most REM predictions of Einstein's
theory he never took it seriously even
believed it yeah um although it was a
consequence of uh solution of his
equations which someone discovered just
a year after his theory SW Shield um but
he he never took it seriously and others
did um but then of course um uh well
this is something that I've been
involved in actually find any evidence
for black holes and that's come in the
last 50 years and um so now there's
pretty compelling evidence that they
exist um as the remnants of stars or big
ones in the centers of galaxies and we
we understand uh what's the what's going
on we have ideas vaguely on how how they
form and of course uh gravitation waves
have been detected and that's an amazing
piece of technology ligo is one of the
most incredible engineering efforts of
all time that's an example where the
engineers deserve the most of the credit
because the Precision is well as they
said it's like measuring the thickness
of a hair at the distance of alpha centu
yeah it's incredible 10us 21 so maybe
actually if we step back what are black
holes what do we humans understand about
black holes and what's
still unknown Einstein's theory extended
by people like Roger Penrose tells us
that um black holes are in a sense
rather simple things basically because
they are um um Solutions of Einstein's
equation
um and the thing that was shown in the
1960s by Roger Penrose in particular um
and by a few other people was that um a
black hole when it forms and settles
down is defined just by two quantities
its mass and its spin so they're
actually very standardized objects it's
amazing that objects as standardized as
that um can be so big and can lur in the
vessel solar system and so that's the
situation for a ready formed black ho
but the way they form obviously is very
messy and complicated um and uh uh one
of the things that I've worked on a lot
is um what the phenomena are which are
best attributed to black holes and what
they lead to them and all that and um uh
which can you explain to that so what
what what are the different phenomena
the Leo black ho let's let's talk about
it this is so so cool so yes okay okay
well I mean I think one thing that only
became understood really in the 1950s I
suppose and Beyond was um uh how Stars
evolve differently depending on how
heavy they are yeah this the sun um
Burns H into helium and then when it's
run out of that it contracts to be a
white dwarf and we know how long that
will take take about 10 billion years
altogether for its lifetime um but big
stars burn up their fuel more quickly
and more interesting because when
they've turned hydrogen to helium they
then get even hotter so they can fuse
helium into carbon and go up the
periodic table and then they eventually
explode when they have an En crisis and
they blow out that process material
which as a digression is crucially
important because um all the atoms
inside our bodies were synthesized
inside a star a star that lived and died
more than 5 billion years ago before
Asos formed and so we each have inside
us
atoms made in thousands of different
stars all over the Milky Way and that's
an amazing idea and my predecessor Fred
Hy in 1946 was the first person to
suggest that idea and that's been born
out that's a wonderful idea um so um
that's how massive stars explode and
they leave
behind something which is very exotic
and of two kinds one possibility of
neutron star and these were first
discovered in
1967 68 um these are Stars a bit heavier
than the sun uh which are compressed to
an amazing density so the whole mass of
more than the Sun's mass is in something
about 10 miles
across so um they're extraordinary dense
the Exotic physics um
and they they've be they've been studied
in immense detail and they've been real
Laboratories because the good thing
about astronomy apart from exploring
what's out there is to use the fact that
the cosmos has provided us with a lab
with far more extreme conditions than we
could ever simulate and so we learn lots
of basic physics from looking at these
objects um and that's been true Neutron
but for black holes that's even more
true because the um uh bigger stars um
when they collapse they leave something
behind in the center which is too big to
be a stable by two or four neutron star
becomes a black hole and we know that
there are lots of black holes weighing
about 10 up to 50 times as much as the
sun which are the remnants of of stars
they were detected first 50 years ago
when a black hole was orbiting around
another star and grabbing material from
the other star which swirled into it and
gave us x-ray so the x-rays astronomers
found these um uh objects orbiting
around an ordinary star and emitting
x-ray radiation very intensely varying
on a very short time scale so something
very small and dense was giving that
radiation that was the first evidence
for black holes um but then the other
thing that happened was realizing that
there was a different class of monster
black holes in the centers of
galaxies and um these are respon for
what's called quazars which is when um
something in the center of a galaxy is
grabbing some fuel and outshines all the
100 billion stars or so in the rest of
the Galaxy giant beam yeah light and in
many cases it's be it's a be it's a beam
is that that's got to be the most epic
thing the universe produces is quazars
um well it's a it's a debate of what's
most epic but qu quazars maybe or maybe
gam burst or something but but they they
are remarkable and they were a mystery
for a long time and they're one of the
things I worked on in my younger days so
even though they're so bright they're
still a mystery and but you can only see
I think they're less of a mystery now I
think we do understand basically what's
going on how how were quers discovered
well they were discovered when
astronomers found things that looked
like stars and that they were small
enough to be a point like not resolved
by a telescope but uh uh out sha an
entire galaxy yeah and uh that's
suspicious yes but um but then they they
realized that what they
were they were um uh object which you
now know are black holes and they were
um black holes were capturing gas and
that gas was getting very hot but it was
producing um far more energy than all
the stars added together and it was the
energy of the uh black hole that was um
lighting up all the gas in the Galaxy so
you've got a spectrum of it there so so
this was something which was realized
from the 1970s onwards um and and uh as
you say the other thing we've learned is
that they often do produce these Jets
squirting out um which could be detected
in in all wave bands so um picture black
hole generating Jets of light at the
center of most galaxies right do we know
do we have a sense if every galaxy has
one of these big big boys well black
holes most Galaxies have big black holes
they vary in size the one in our
galactic center do we know much about
ours we do yes we um we know um it
weighs about as much as 4 Million
Suns Which is less than some which are
several billion in other galaxies um and
but we know this um one our Center isn't
very bright or conspicuous and that's
because not much is falling into it at
the moment if if a black hole is
isolated then of course it doesn't
radiate it only all that radiates is gas
swirling into it which is very hot or
has magnetic it's only radiating the
thing it's murdering or consuming
however you put it yeah that's right and
so so um it's thought that our galaxy
may have been bright bright at sometime
in the past but now and that's when the
black hole formed or grew um but but now
it's uh not um capturing very much gas
and so it's it's rather it's rather
faint and only detected indirectly and
by fairly we radio Mission and uh and so
I think the answer to your question is
that
um we suspect that most Galaxies have a
black hole in them so that means at some
stage in their lives or maybe one or
more stages they went through a phase of
being like a quazar where that black
hole um captured gas and became very
very bright but for the rest of the the
lives the black holes are fairly
quiescent because there's not much gas
falling into them and so this universe
of ours is sprinkled a bunch of galaxies
and giant black holes
with like very large number of
stars uh orbiting these black holes and
then planets orbiting likely it seems
like planets orbiting almost every one
of those
stars and just this beautiful Universe
of ours what happens when galaxies
Collide when these two big black holes
Collide is that is well um what would
happen is that uh well and I should say
that um this is going to happen near us
one day but not for four billion years
because the Andromeda galaxy which is
the biggest galaxy near to us which is
about nearly three million life years
away which is Big disc Galaxy with the
black hole his Hub rather like our Milky
Way and um that's uh um in Falling
Towards us because they're both in a
common gravitational potential well and
um that will collide with our galaxy in
about 4 billion years but it'll be it'll
be maybe it'll be less a collision and
more of a dance because there'll be like
a swirling situation swirling but
eventually there'll be to be a merger
they'll go through each other and then
merge in fact uh um the nice movies to
be made of this you know computer
simulations and it it'll go through um
and um and then um the
there's a black hole in the sense of
Ander and our galaxy and the Galax the
black holes will uh settle towards the
center yes then they will orbit around
each other very fast and then they will
eventually merge and that'll produce a
big burst of gravitational waves yes um
a very big burst that an alien
civilization with a Lego leg detector
will be able to detect yes well in fact
well but we can detect these with
um they lower frequencies than the ways
that have been detected by ligo so
there's a space aerometer which can
detect these they're about it's about
one cycle per hour rather than about 100
cycles per second the ones detected um
but that that would happen but um uh
thinking back to what will happen in
four billion years to any of our
descendants they'll be okay because the
um the two disc galaxies will merge it
end up as a sort of amorphous ellip IAL
Galaxy but um the Stars won't be much
closer together they are now it it'll
still be just twice as many stars in the
structure almost as big and so um the
chance of another star colliding with
our sun would still be very
small because there's actually a lot of
space between indeed stars and planets
and yes the chance of a star getting
close enough to affect our Solar
System's orbit is small and it won't
change that very much so you could be
reassured a heck of a Starry Sky though
what would that look like well it won't
make much difference even to that
actually it'll just be um wouldn't that
look kind of beautiful when you're
swirling or is oh cuz it's swirling so
slowly yeah but they're far away so be
be twice as many stars in the sky yeah
and but the pattern
changes pattern will change a bit and uh
there won't be the Milky Way because the
Milky Way uh across the sky is because
we are looking in the disc of our galaxy
and uh you lose that
because the um the dis will be so
disrupted and uh it'll be a more sort of
spherical distribution and of course
many Gs are like that um and that's
probably because they have been through
merges of this kind if we survive 4
billion years we would likely be able to
survive beyond that oh
yeah what what's the other thing on the
horizon for humans uh in terms of the
sun burning out all those kinds of
interesting
cosmological threats to our civilization
well I think on the cosmological time
scale because it won't be humans because
something even Evolutions go no faster
than darwinian and I would argue it will
be faster than darwinian in the future
uh then um we're thinking about six
billion years before the Sun dies so any
entities watching the death of the sun
if they're still around they be
different much as we are from slime mold
or something you know and far more
different still if they become
electronic so on that time scale we just
can't predict anything but I think going
back to um uh to to the human time scale
um then um we've talked about whether
there'll be people on Mars by the end of
a century and uh even in these long
perspectives then indeed this century is
very special because it may see the
transition between purely Flesh and
Blood entities to those which are sort
of cyborgs and that'll be a an important
transition in um um in in biology and
complexity in this Century but of course
the other importance and this has been
the theme of A couple of my older books
is that um this is the first century
when one species namely our species has
the future of the planet in his hands
and that's because of uh um two types of
uh concerns one is that there are more
of us where more demanding of energy and
resources and therefore we are for the
first time uh changing the whole planet
through um um climate change loss of
biodiversity and all those issues this
has never happened in the past because
haven't been enough humans hav't been
much in so this is a um an effect that's
obviously is high on everyone's agenda
now and rightly so because um we've got
to ensure that we leave a Heritage that
isn't eroded or damaged to Future
Generations
um and so so that's one class of threats
but there's
another thing that worries me perhaps
more than many people seem to worry and
that's the uh threat of misuse of
technology and so this is particularly
because um
Technologies Empower even small groups
of of uh malevolent people or indeed in
careless people to create some effect
which could cas globally and um um to
take an example um a uh a dangerous
pathogen or pandemic um I mean my worst
nightmare is that um there could be um
some small group that uh can engineer a
virus to make it more varant or more
transmissible than a natural virus this
is soal gain of function experiments
which were done on the flu virus 10
years ago and can be done for others um
and of of course we now know from
covid-19 uh that um uh our world is so
interconnected that a disaster in one
part of the world can't be confined to
that part and was spread globally so
it's possible for a few dissidents with
expertise in biotech could create a
global catastrophe of that kind and also
I think um uh we need to worry about Bay
large scale disruption by cyber attacks
in fact um I quote in one of my books a
2012 report from the uh American
Pentagon uh about the um possibility of
a state level Cyber attack on the
electricity Grid in the eastern United
States which is it could happen and it
says at at the end of this chapter that
this would Merit a nuclear respon MH
it's a pretty scary possibility that was
10 years ago and I think now what would
have needed a state actor then
could be done perhaps by a small group
empowered by Ai and so there's obviously
been a um an arms raised between the uh
um the Cyber criminals and the cyber
security people not clear which side is
winning but the main point is that as we
become more dependent on more Integrated
Systems then uh we get more vulnerable
and uh um and so we have the knowledge
then the misuse of that knowledge
becomes um uh more and more of a threat
and and i' say bio and cyber are the two
biggest concerns um and uh if we depend
too much on AI and complex systems then
um just breakdowns it may be that they
they break down and um um even if it's
innocent breakdown then it may pretty
hard to mend it and just think how much
worse the pandemic would have been if
we'd lost the internet in the middle of
it we be depended more than ever for
communication and everything else on on
on the internet and zooms and all that
um and if that that had broken down that
would have made things far worse and
those are the kinds of threats that we I
think need to be more energized and
politicians need to be more energized um
to uh minimize and um one of the things
I've been doing the last year um through
being a member of our part of our
Parliament is sort of a um I help to
instigate a committee to think more on
better preparedness for um extreme
technological risks and things like that
so they're a big concern in my my mind
that uh we've got to make sure that we
um can benefit from these um uh advances
um but safely because um the stakes are
getting higher you the benefits are
getting great as we know huge benefits
from from computers but but also huge
downsides as well and one of the things
this war in Ukraine has shown
of the most terrifying things outside of
the humanitarian
crisis is that at least for me I
realized that the human capacity to
initiate nuclear
war is greater than I thought I thought
the lessons of the past have been
learned it seems that we hang on the
brink of nuclear war with this conflict
like every single day we just just one
mistake or bad actor or the actual
leaders of the particular Nations
launching a nuclear strike and all hell
broke breaks loose so then adding to
that picture cyber attacks and so on
that can lead to to confusion and chaos
and then out of that
confusion um calculations are made such
that uh a nuclear launch is
a nuclear weapon is launched and it's
and then you're talking about I I mean I
don't the directs probably 60
70% of humans on Earth are dead
instantly and then the
rest I mean it's uh basically 99% of the
human population is wiped out in the
period of well it years that bad be
devastating for civilization of course
and of course you're quite right that
this could happen very quickly
um because of uh
um information coming in and there's a
there's hardly enough time for human um
collected and careful thought and there
have been uh recorded cases of false
alarms there several where um where
they've been suspected um attacks from
the other side and uh um fortunately
they've been realized to be false alarm
soon enough but but this could happen
and there's a new class of threats
actually which in in our Center in
Cambridge people are thinking about
which is that um um the uh Commander
control system of the nuclear weapons
and the submarine Fleet and all that um
is now more automated and uh could be
subject to cyber attacks and that's a
new threat which didn't exist 30 years
ago and so um I think indeed it it's
it's we're in a sort of scary world I
think um and uh it's because things
happen faster and human beings aren't in
such direct and immediate control
because so much is delegated to machines
um and also because the world is so much
more
interconnected uh than uh some um local
event can Cascade globally in a way it
never could in the past and much faster
yeah it's a double Ed sword because the
inter
interconnectedness brings um
um brings a higher quality of life
across a lot of metrics yeah it can do
but of course there again I mean if you
think of Supply chains where we get
stuff from around the world then um one
lesson we've leared is that there's a
trade-off between resilience and
efficiency and is resilient uh to have
um an inventory in stock and to depend
on local supplies where it's more
efficient to have um long Supply chains
but the
risk there is that a a break in one Link
in one
chain can screw up car production this
has already happened in the pandemic so
so there's a tradeoff and there are
other examples I mean for instance the
other thing we learned was that uh uh it
may be efficient to have 95% of your
hospital intensive care beds occupied
all the time which has been the UK
situation whereas to do what the Germans
do and always keep 20% of them free for
an emergency is really a sensible
precaution and so I think um we've
probably learned a lot of lessons from
covid-19 and they would include um
rebalancing the tradeoff between
resilience um and
efficiency boy the the fact that co9 a
pandemic that could have been a lot a
lot worse brought the world to its knees
anyway it could be far worse in terms of
its fatality rate or something fality
rate so the fact that that I I mean it
revealed so many flaws in our human
institutions yeah yeah and then I I
think you I'm rather pessimistic because
um uh I do worry about the uh the B bad
actor or the small group who can produce
catastrophe um and um uh if you imagine
someone with access to the kind of
equipment it's available in University
Labs or industrial labs and they could
create some dangerous p pen um then even
one such person is too many and how can
we stop that because uh it's true that
you can uh have regulations I mean
academies are having meetings Etc about
how to regulate these new biological
experiments Etc make them safe but even
if you have all these regulations then
enforcing
regulations is yeah pretty hopeless we
can't enforce the tax laws globally we
can't enforce the drug laws globally
and so similarly we can't readily
enforce the um laws against people doing
these dangerous experiments even if all
all the governments say they should be
prohibited and so my my line on this is
that uh all nations are going to face a
big trade-off between three things we
value um
Freedom security and
privacy and I think uh um different
nations will uh make that choice
differently um the Chinese would give up
privacy and have more certainly more
security if not more Liberty um but I
think uh um in in our countries um I
think we're going to have to give up
more
privacy in the same way that's a really
interesting tradeoff um but there's also
something about human nature here where
I personally believe that all humans are
capable of Good and Evil and there's
some aspect to which we can fight this
by
encouraging people incentivizing people
towards uh the better angels of their
nature so uh in order for a small group
of people to create to engineer deadly
pathogens you have to have
people that for whatever trajectory took
them in life wanting to do that kind of
thing and if we can aggress
ly work on a world that sort of sees the
beauty in everybody and
encourages the flourishing of everybody
in terms of mental health in terms of
meaning in terms of all those kinds of
things that's one way to fight the
development of um uh of weapons that can
lead to atrocities yes and I completely
agree with that and to reduce the reason
why people feel embittered yes um um but
of course we've got a long way to go to
do that because uh if you look at the
present World um nearly everyone in
Africa has reason to feel imited because
um their economic development is lagging
behind most of the rest of the world and
the prospect of getting out of the
poverty trap is uh is rather Bleak
especially if the population grows
because for instance um they can't
develop like Eastern tigers by Cheap
manufacturing because robots are taking
that over uh so that they were naturally
feel embittered um uh by the inequality
and of course um what we need to have is
some sort of mega version of the
Marshall Plan that helped Europe in the
post World War II era um to enable
Africa to develop that would be um not
just an altruistic thing for Europe to
do but in our own interest because
otherwise um uh those in Africa will
feel massively disaffected um and indeed
um it's a manifest ation of the
excessive inequalities the fact that the
2,000 richest people in the world have
enough money to double the income of the
bottom billion and uh that's um you know
an indictment of the ethics of the world
and this is where I've I my friend
Steven Pinker and I have had some
contact we wrote joint articles on bio
threats and all that um but um um he
writes these books being very optimistic
about quoting figures about how uh um
life expectancy has gone up infant
morality has gone down literacy has gone
up and all those things and he's quite
right about that um and so he says the
world's getting getting better and do
you disagree with your friend Steph
Pinker well I mean I I agree with those
facts okay but but I think he misses our
he misses our part of the picture um
because um there's a new class of of FRS
which uh um hang over us now which
didn't hang over us in the past and I
would also question whether we have
collectively improved our ethics at all
because um uh let's think back to the
Middle Ages it's true that as Pinker
says the average person was uh in a more
miserable State than they are today on
average um for all the reasons he
quantifies that's that's fine um but in
the Middle Ages there wasn't very much
that could have been done to
improve people's lot in life because of
lack of knowledge and lack of science
Etc and so the gap between the way the
world was which is pretty miserable and
the way the world could have been which
wasn't that much better was fairly
narrow whereas now the gap between the
way the world is and the way the world
could be is far far
wider and therefore I think we are
ethically um more uh um at fault uh in
allowing this Gap to get wider than it
was in medieval times and so I I would
very much question and dispute the idea
that we are ethically um in advance of
our predecessors that's a lot of
interesting hypotheses in there and I
don't there it's a it's a fascinating
question of how much is the size of that
gap between the way the world is in the
way the world could be is a reflection
of our ethics or maybe sometimes it's
just a reflection of a very large number
of people uh like maybe it's a a
technical challenge too it's not just
well of our political systems systems
like how many and we're trying to figure
this thing out like there's 20th century
tried this thing that sounded really
good on paper of collective the
communism type of things and it's like
turned out at least the way it was done
there that leads to atrocities and the
suffering and the murder of tens of
millions of people okay so that didn't
work let's try democracy and that seems
to have a lot of flaws but it seems to
be the best thing we got so far so we're
trying to figure this out out as our
Technologies become more and more
powerful have the capacity to do a lot
of good to the world but also
unfortunately have the capacity to
destroy the entirety of the human
civilization and I think it's social
media generally uh which uh um makes it
harder to get a a sort of moderate
consensus because in the old days when
people got their news filtered through
responsible journalists in this country
the BBC and they made newspapers Etc and
they would muffled the crazy extremes
whereas now of course um they're on the
internet and if you click on them you
get to this still more extreme and so I
think we are seeing a sort of dangerous
polarization which I think is going to
make all countries harder to govern and
that something we find pessimistic about
so to push back it is true that
brilliant people like you highlighting
the limitations of social media is
making you realize the the stakes and
the failings of social media
but at the same time they're revealing
the division it's not like they're
creating it they're revealing it in part
and so that puts a lot of uh that puts
the responsibility in into the hands of
social media and the opportunity in the
hands of social media to alleviate some
of that division so it could in the long
Arc of human history result so bringing
some of those uh divisions and the anger
and the hatred to the surface so that we
can talk about it and as opposed to uh
disproportionately promoting it actually
just surfacing it so we can get over
well you're assuming that the uh the fat
cats are more public spirited than the
politicians and I'm not sure about that
I think there's a lot of money to be
made in being publicly spirited I think
there's a lot of money to be made in
increasing the amount of love in the
world despite the sort of public
perception that all the social media
companies heads are interested in doing
as making
money I
think that may be true but I just
personally believe people being
happy is a hell of a good business model
and so making as many people happy
helping them flourish in a long-term way
that's a lot of way to make people
that's a good way to make well I think
on the other I think guilt and shame are
good motives to make you behave better
in the future okay so that's my my
experience
in the political perspective certainly
certainly is the case but it does make
sense now that we can destroy ourselves
with nuclear weapons with engineered
pandemics and so on that the aliens
would show up that like if I was the um
you know had a leadership
position maybe as a scientist or
otherwise in an alien civilization and I
would come upon Earth I would try to
watch from a
distance to not interfere yeah and I
would start
interfering when these life forms start
becoming quite that have the capacity to
be
destructive and so I mean it's it is an
interesting question when people talk
about uos sightings on all those kinds
of things that at least these are benign
aliens you're thinking benign yes I mean
they benign almost curious almost
um partially as with all curiosity
partially selfish to try to observe is
there something interesting about this
particular evolutionary
system because I'm sure even to aliens
Earth is a curiosity y but it's in this
very special stage you know speci
perhaps centy is very special among the
45 million centuries the Earth
experienced already so it is a very
special time where they should be
specially interested but um I think
going back to the um the politics um the
other problem is uh
getting people who have short-term
concerns to care about the long term by
the long term I now mean just looking 30
30 years or so ahead you I know people
who've been scientific advisers to
governments and things and they may make
these points but of course they don't
have much traction because as we know
very well any politician has an urgent
agenda of very worrying things to deal
with and so um they aren't going to
prioritize these issues which are um
longer longer term andless immediate and
don't just concern their constituency
they concern dist parts of the world um
and so I think I think um what what we
have to do is to um
um uh enlist charismatic
individuals to convert the public
because if the if the politicians know
the public care about something
climate change as an example um then
then uh they they will make decisions
which um uh take cognizance of that um
and I think for that to happen uh then
we do need some um public individuals
who are respected by everyone um and to
have a high profile and in the climate
context I I would say that I mentioned
four very desperate people who've had
such a big effect in the last few years
one is Pope Francis the other's David
atenor the other's Bill Gates and the
other's greater thorberg and those four
people have certainly had a big shift in
public opinion um and uh uh and even
change the rhetoric of business although
how deep that is I don't know and so but
but politicians um can't let these
issues drop down off the agenda um if if
there's a public clamor and it needs
people like that to keep the public
climate going to push back a little bit
so those four are very interesting and I
have deep respect for them they have
except David Andor uh David Andor is
really I mean everybody loves him I mean
I can't say but the you know with Bill
Gates and Greta there's that that also
has created a lot of division oh sure
yeah yeah and this is a big problem so
it's not just charismatic I I put that
responsibility actually on the
scientific community and Pope does too
yeah yep uh and the politicians so we
need the charismatic leaders and they're
rare yeah yeah when you look at human
history those are the ones that make a
difference those are the ones
that um not deride they they Inspire the
populace to think long term the JFK we
do we go to the moon in this decade not
because it's easy but because it is hard
there's no discuss
about like um shortterm political gains
or any of that kind of stuff uh in in
the vision of going to the Moon yeah or
going to Mars or taking on gigantic uh
uh projects or taking on world hunger or
taking on climate change or uh the
education system all those things that
require long-term significant investment
that that requires but it's hard to find
those people and and incidentally I
think another problem is
which is a downside of social media is
that um uh of younger people I know um
the number who would contemplate a
political career has gone down because
of the the pressures on them and their
family from social media um it's a hell
of a job now um and so I think we are
all losers because the quality of people
who choose that uh path is
um is is really dropping and as we see
by the quality of those who are in these
composition that said I think uh the
Silver Lining there is the quality of
the competition actually is inspiring
because it's it's it shows to you that
there's a dire need of leaders which I
think would be inspiring to young people
to step into the fold I mean great
leaders are not afraid of a little bit
of a little bit of uh fire on social
media so if you have you have a
20-year-old kid now 25-year-old kid is
seeing how the world respond responded
to the pandemic seeing the geopolitical
division over the war in Ukraine seeing
the Brewing war between the west and
China we need great leaders and there's
a hunger for them and the time will come
when when when they step up I I I I
believe that but also to add to your
list of four he doesn't get enough
credit I've been defending him in this
conversation Elon Musk in terms of the
fight in climate change
uh but he also has led to a lot of
division but we we need more David en
yeah no no I mean I'm a fan I'm
definitely I mean I've heard him
described as a 21st century Brunell for
his Innovation and that that's true but
uh um whe whether he's a an ethical
inspiration I don't know yeah he has a a
lot of fun on Twitter well let me ask
you to put on your wise Sage hat what
advice would you give to young people
today maybe they're teenagers in high
school maybe early
college uh what advice would you give to
a career or have a life they can be
proud of yes well I'd be very diffident
really um about offering any any wisdom
but uh I think I think they they should
they should realize that um um the
choices they make at that time are um
important and um from experience of I've
had with many friends um many people
don't realize that opportunities open
until it's too late they somehow think
that some opportunities are only open to
a few privileged people and they don't
even try and and they could succeed um
but um if I focus on people working in
um some profession I know about like
science I would say
pick an area to work in where new things
are
happening uh where uh you can uh do
something that the old guys never had a
chance to think about um don't go into a
field that's fairly stagnant because
then um there won't be much to do or
you'll be trying to tackle the problems
that the old guys got stuck on and so I
think in science um I can give people
good advice that they should um pick a
subject where there are exciting new
developments and also of course
something which uh suits their style
because even within science which is
just one profession um there's a big
range of style between the sort of
solitary thinker the person who does
field work the person who works in a big
team Etc and whether you like Computing
or mathematical thought Etc so pick some
subject that suits your style and where
things are happening fast um and uh be
prepared to be flexible that's what what
I'd say really keep your eyes open for
the opportunity throughout like you said
go to a new field go to a field where
new cool stuff is happening just keep
your eyes open yes that's pudus but I
think most of us and I include myself in
this didn't realize this sort of thing
is too
late yeah I think this applies Way
Beyond science
um what do you make of this finiteness
of our life do you think about death do
you think about mortality do you think
about your mortality and are you afraid
of death well I mean I'm not afraid
because I I think I'm lucky I feel lucky
to have L as long as I have um and uh
and to have been fairly Lucky in um in
my life in many respects compared to to
most people so I feel very fortunate um
uh this reminds me of this current uh um
emphasis on uh living much longer than
these So-Cal alos Laboratories um which
have been set up by billionaires um
there's one in San Francisco one in uh
La Hoya I think and one in Cambridge and
uh that they're funded by um these guys
who when young wanted to be rich and now
they're rich they want to be young again
they won't find that quite so easy and
do we want this I don't know if if there
was um some Elite that was able to live
much longer than others that would be a
really fundamental kind of inequality
and um I think um
if it happened to everyone then that
might be an improvement it's not so
obvious um but uh uh I think um for my
my part I think to have lived as as long
as most people um and had a fortunate
life is all I can expect and a lot to be
grateful
for those are all platitudes well I am
incredibly honored that you sit down
with me today I thank you so much for
life
of exploring some of the deepest
mysteries of our universe and um of our
humanity and thinking about our future
with existential risks that are before
us um it's it's a huge honor Martin that
you sit with me and I really enjoyed it
and well thank you Lex I thought we
couldn't go on for as long as this but
we could have gone on much longer I
think exactly thank you so much thank
you for listening to this conversation
with Martin reee to support this podcast
please check out our sponsors in the
description and now let me leave you
with some words from Martin Ree himself
I'd like to widen people's awareness of
the tremendous time span lying ahead for
our planet and for life itself most
educated people are aware that were the
outcome of nearly 4 billion years of
darwinian selection but many tend to
think that humans are somehow the
culmination our son however is less than
halfway through its lifespan it will not
be humans who watch the sun's demise 6
billion years from now any creatures
that then exist will be as different
from us as we are from bacteria or
amoeba thank you for listening and hope
to see you next time