Original subtitles

the jurgen experience fundamentally

well let's talk about what you can talk

about to what neural link is because the

last time you were here

you really couldn't discuss it and then

there was a

i guess a press release or something

that sort of outlined yeah

that that happened quite a bit after the

last time you were here so what exactly

is it how do you do what what happens if

someone

ultimately does get a neural link

installed what will take place

well for version one of the device it

would be um

it basically implanted in your skull so

uh but it would be so

flush with your skull so you're

basically

take out a chunk of skull replace put

the neurologic device

in there um you put the

the electrode you'd insert the electrode

threads very carefully into

the brain and uh and then you

you know stitch it up and um and you

wouldn't even know that somebody has it

um and then and and so then it it can

interface basically anywhere

in anywhere in your brain so it could be

something that

uh you know helps cure say uh eyesight

like give you

returns your eyesight even if you've

like lost your optic nerve type of thing

uh really yeah yeah absolutely hearing

obviously um i mean pretty much anything

that where that it could in principle

fix almost anything that is wrong with

the brain and it

could it could restore uh

limb functionality so if you've got a

interface into the motor cortex

and then an implant that's say

that's like a microcontroller

near muscle groups you could then create

a

sort of a neural shunt that restores

somebody who's a quadriplegic to full

functionality

like they can walk around be normal

whoa yeah so maybe slightly better

slightly better over time yes you mean

with future iterations

like the you know six million dollar man

although these days that would that

doesn't that's pretty much yeah

yeah six billion dollars so

the the whole would be small how big

would the hole be that you have to drill

and then replace with this piece there's

only one hole

well um yeah the device we're working on

right now is

about it's about an inch in diameter

and your skull is pretty thick by the

way so skulls are mine is

for sure it might actually literally be

um

i mean if you're a big if you're a big

guy your skull is actually

fairly thick um skulls like it's like

seven to 14 millimeters

um so that's probably a couple inches a

half inch you know

half inch thick skull ish so

um yeah yeah so that that's a fair bit

of like our our

we got quite a coconut gun on there it's

not it's not like some eggshell

oh yeah i believe you um so the

yeah you basically implant the device uh

and so you would be like a one inch

square

or one inch in diameter yeah like so an

inch circle like a circular

yeah i think like a like a smart watch

or something like that

okay yeah okay so you take this one-inch

diameter

like ice fishing right you ever go ice

fishing um no but i'd like to

it's great yeah it's really fun so you

basically take an auger

and you you drill through the surface of

the ice

yeah and you create a small hole and you

can dunk your line in there so this is

like that you're ice fishing on the top

of your skull

and then you cork it yeah and you

replace that

um say one inch diameter piece of skull

with the

this neural link device um and that has

a battery and a

and a bluetooth and a inductive charger

um and then you and and now then you've

also got to insert the electrodes uh so

the electrodes are very carefully

inserted

uh with our with a robot that we

developed

uh that's very carefully putting in the

electrodes and avoiding

you know and any veins or arteries uh so

it's

you know doesn't create trauma so

through this one-inch diameter

device electrodes be inserted and they

will find their way

like tiny wires basically tiny wires and

they'll find their way to specific areas

of the brain to stimulate

no you literally put them where they're

supposed to go oh

okay yeah how long will these wires be

uh i mean they usually go in like you

know

depending on where it is like you know

two or three millimeters so they just

find the spots

yeah wow um and then um

yeah then you put the device in and that

that

gets that that replaces the little piece

of skull that was taken out

and then you you stitch up the

hole and and then you just have it look

like a little scar

and that's it well this would be

replaceable or reversible yes like if

someone can't

take it anymore i'm too smart i can't

take it yeah you can totally check it

out

and what is the besides restoring limb

function

and eyesight and hearing which are all

amazing is there any cognitive benefits

that you anticipate from something like

this

uh yeah i mean you could for sure um

uh i mean basically

it's a generalized um

sort of uh

think for for fixing any kind of brain

injury in principle like if you or if

you've got like like severe epilepsy or

something like that it could it could

just it could just

sort of stop the epilepsy from occurring

like it could detect it in real time

and then fire a counter pulse and stop

the epilepsy

um if um

i mean there's a whole range of brain

injuries like if somebody gets a stroke

they could lose the ability to speak

that that'll that could also be fixed so

if you've got like stroke damage or if

you lose say you know muscle control

over part of your face or something like

that

i think and then when you get old you

tend to

if you get like you know alzheimer's or

something like that

then you lose memory and this could help

you with

you know restoring your memory that kind

of thing restoring memory and what what

is happening

that's allowing it to do that like the

wires these

small wires yeah stimulating these areas

of the brain and then

is it that the areas of the brain are

they're they're losing

some sort of electrical force like what

it what is happening yeah

yeah so it's like it's like i think it's

like a bunch of circuits and there's

some

like circuits that are broken and we can

like

uh fix those circuits substitute for

those

circuits and so a specific frequency

will go through this

yeah specific in that would

is the process figuring out how much or

how little has to be

how much these areas of the brain have

to be juiced up

yeah i mean there's still a lot of work

to do so when i say

you know we got a shot at probably

putting it in in a

person in you know within a year i think

that that's

that's what that's exactly what i mean i

think we have a chance of putting input

into one end

having them having them be healthy and

and restoring some functionality that

they've lost the fear is

that eventually you're gonna have to cut

the whole top of someone's head off

and put a new top with a whole bunch of

wires

if you want to get you know the real

turbocharged

version the p100d

of brain stimulation

i mean ultimately if you if you want to

go with full ai

symbiosis you'll probably

want to do something like that symbiosis

is a scary word when it comes to ai

it's optional would hope so

yeah it's just i mean once you enjoy

the dr manhattan lifestyle once you once

you become a god

seems very very unlikely you're going to

want to go back to being stupid again

i mean you literally could fundamentally

change the way

human beings interface with each other

yes

yes you wouldn't need to talk

[Laughter]

i'm so scared of that but so excited

about it at the same time is that weird

yeah i mean the i think this is one of

the paths to

um

you know like think like what like ai is

getting better and better

um so now let's assume it's sort of like

a benign ai scenario

uh even in a benign scenario we're kind

of left behind

you know we're we're not we're not along

for the ride um we're just too dumb

right so so how do you go along for the

ride

um yeah so you can't beat them join them

so um and we're already

we're already a cyborg to some degree

right because you've got your phone

you've got your laptop glasses yeah yeah

electronic devices and

um i mean today if your phone if you if

you don't bring your phone along it's

like you have mussing limb syndrome

that's like you know feels like

something's really really missing

so we're already partly

part you know partly a cyborg or an ai

symbiote essentially

um it's just that the data rate

to the electronics is slow so

especially output like you're just going

with your thumbs

i don't know like what's your data rate

maybe

optimistically 100 bits per second

that's being generous

um and now the computer can

communicate at like you know 100 100

terabits

you know so so certainly

you know gigabits are a trivial at this

point

so this this is like you know

basically you can your computer could do

a mill do things a million

times faster or

at a certain point it's like talk they

as like talking to a tree

okay this is boring you talk to a tree

it's very not very entertaining um so

um so if you if you can solve the the

data rate

issue and you're especially output but

input two

then you can improve the symbiosis that

is already occurring

between mana machine so you you can

improve it

in what when you said you won't have to

talk to each other anymore

we used to joke around about that i i've

joked around about that a million times

in this podcast that one day in the

future there's going to come a time

where you can read each other's minds

and well you'll be able to interface

with each other in some sort of a

non-verbal

non-physical way where you will transfer

data back and forth to each other

without having to actually use your

mouth

yeah make noises exactly so when you

like what happens when you when like

let's say you've got some complex idea

that you're trying to convey to somebody

else

and how do you do that well your brain

spends a lot of effort

compressing a complex concept

into words and there's a there's a lot

a lot of loss information loss that

occurs when

compressing a complex concept into words

and then you say those words those words

are then interpreted then they're

decompressed by the person

who is listening and they they will at

best

get a very incomplete understanding of

what you're trying to convey it's very

difficult to convey a complex concept

with precision

because you've got compression

decompression you may not even have

heard all the words

correctly and so communication is

difficult

you know what we have here is a failure

to communicate

to coolant luke yes and there's a great

movie yeah

there's an interpretation factor too

like you can

choose to interpret certain

series of words in in different ways and

they're dependent upon tone

dependent upon social cues even facial

expressions

sarcasm there's a lot of variables

sarcasm is difficult

yes yeah and so

one of the things that i i've said is

like that

there could be potentially a universal

language

that's created through computers that

particularly young

kids would pick up very quickly like my

kids do

tick tock and all this jazz and i don't

know what they're doing they just know

how to do it

and they know how to do it really

quickly like they learn really quickly

and they show me how to edit things and

yeah it's if you taught a child from

first grade on

how to use some new universal language i

mean essentially like a rosetta stone

and something that's done with that

interprets

your thoughts and you can convey your

thoughts with

no room for interpretation with clear

very clear that where you know what a

person's saying

and you can tell them what you're saying

and there's no need for noises

no need for mouth noises no need for

these sort of accepted ways that we've

uh sort of evolved to make sounds that

we all agree we through our cultural

dictionary and

right we agree or certainly we could

bypass all that yeah we could still do

it for

for sentimental reasons right like

campfires

yeah exactly i don't need campfires i

don't need to roast marshmallows it's

kind of fun

right so yeah um

yeah i think you would in principle you

would be able to

communicate

very quickly and with far

more precision uh ideas

uh and and language would

i'm not sure what would happen to

language but you could probably

within a situation like this that you

would be able to just look kind of like

the matrix you you want to speak a

different language no problem

right that's why it was downloaded the

program

right so at least for the first

iterations

first few iterations we'll just be able

to use like i know that google has

uh their some of their pixel buds

have the ability to interpret languages

in real time

sure yeah you can hear it and they'll

it'll play things back to you and

whatever language you choose

so to be something along those lines

yeah for the first few iterations well

the first few iterations are

i mean what i'm talking about is like in

the limit over time you know

with a lot of development um the first

few iterations

really in the first few versions all

we're going to be trying to do is solve

brain injuries um so so it's like don't

don't don't worry that it's not going to

sneak up on you

this this will take a while how many

years

before you don't have to talk

if the if if the development

continues to accelerate then

maybe like five years five to ten years

that's quick

that's really quick that's the best case

scenario no talking anymore

in five years best case scenario but i'm

10

10 years more like it i've always

speculated that aliens could potentially

be us

in the future because if you look at

like the size of their heads

and the fact that they have very little

muscle and then they don't use their

mouth anymore there's tiny little

i mean the archetypal alien that you see

in like closing counters are the third

kind

they they're like if you went from like

uh

australopithecus or ancient homicide

to us what's the difference less hair

less muscle

bigger head and then just keep going a

thousand a million whatever you or

five years whatever whatever happens

when neurolink

goes on online and then we slowly

start to adapt to this new way

of being where we don't use our muscles

anymore

we have this gigantic head we can talk

without words

you could also save state

and save state save state like save your

brain state like like a saved game in a

video game

whoa like like if you want to swap from

windows 95 well i play a little better

than that but yeah i think we are

windows 95 right now

from a future perspective probably um

but

yeah i mean you you could uh save state

um and restore that state into a

biological being if you

if you wanted to in the future in

principle it's like nothing like from a

physics standpoint that prevents us

now you'd be a little different but then

you're also a little different when you

wake up in the morning from yesterday

and you're a little different

in fact if you say like you five years

ago versus you today is

quite a big difference yes um so you'd

be substantially you i mean you'd be

you'd certainly think you're you but the

idea of saving

yourself and then transforming

that into some sort of a biological

state like you could hang out with 30

year old you

i mean the possibilities are endless um

that's so weird i mean these things

think like how your phone can

you can record videos on your phone like

there's no way you could remember

a video right as accurately as your

phone or a camera you know could

so uh now if you've got like it

you know some some you know version 10

euro link or whatever and far in the

future

you could you could remember you could

recall everything

but just like it's a movie concluding

all

the entire sensory experience emotions

everything

everything everything and play it back

and you should edit it edit it yeah

so you can change your past you could

change

what do you think was your past yeah

well so if you had like a tremendous

thing

right now it could be a replayed memory

it could be yeah it may be what's the

odds

of this being a replayed memory if you

had a guess

it's more than 50

there's no way to assign a probability

with accuracy here right

but roughly

if you just had a just gut instinct

well i don't have a neural link in my

brain so i'd say right now zero percent

but at the point at which you do have a

neural link then it rises above zero

percent

the idea that we're experiencing some

sort of a preserved memory

is uh even though it's still the same

it's not comforting

right for some reason when we people

talk about

simulation theory they talk about the

potential for this currently being a

simulation

it even though your life might be

wonderful you might be

in love you might love your career you

might have

great friends but it's not comforting

to know that this experience somehow or

another doesn't exist in a material form

that you can knock on

it feels real feels real but but if it's

not but

the idea that it's not is for some

strange reason

disconcerting well yeah i'm sure it

should be disconcerting because then if

this is not real what is

right but but the you know there's that

old sort of um thought experiment of

like

how do you know you're not a brain in a

vat you know

i mean now here's the thing you are a

brain an event then that fat is your

skull

yes and everything you see feel here

everything all your senses are

electrical signals

everything everything

is an electrical signal to up to a brain

in a vat with a bacterial skull

and all your hormones all your

neurotransmitters all these things are

drugs adrenaline's a drug dopamine's a

drug

you're a drug factory you're constantly

changing your state with love and

oxytocin

and and beauty sure changes your state

great music

changes your state absolutely

and yet here's another sort of

interesting idea which is

um because you say like where did

consciousness arise

well assuming you believe the belief

in physics which appears to be true um

then you know we the universe started

off as basically quarks and leptons and

it quickly became hydrogen and of helium

lithium like basically elements the

periodic table but it was

like mostly hydrogen basically um

and then and then over a long period of

time

uh you know 13.8 billion years later

that hydrogen became sentient

so where along the way

did conju where is the consciousness

what's the line of consciousness and not

consciousness

right between hydrogen and here right

when do we call it

when do we call it consciousness i was

watching a video today that we played on

a podcast earlier of a monkey

riding a motorcycle down the street

jumps off the motorcycle and tries to

steal a baby

yeah so that one they went is that

monkey conscious it seems like it is it

seems like it had a plan

it was riding a fucking motorcycle and

then jumped off the motorcycle to try to

steal a baby

it seems pretty the one that just strike

baby down the street pretty far

yeah yeah seems pretty conscious

right there's definitely some degree of

consciousness there

yeah it's not like it's not a worm it

seems to be on another level

yeah and it's going to keep going and

that that's the real

concern when when people think about the

potential

future versions of human beings

especially when you

consider symbiotic relationship to

artificial intelligence it will be

unrecognizable

that one day we'll be so far removed

from what this is we'll look back on

this

the way we look back now on you know

simple simple organisms that we evolved

from

and then it won't be that far in the

future that we do have this

this view back well i hope consciousness

propagates into the future and it gets

more

more sophisticated and complex and and

that it

understands the questions to ask about

the universe

do you think that's the case as a human

being as yourself you're clearly

trying to make conscious decisions to be

a better version of you

right this is the idea of like getting

rid of your possessions and realizing

that

you're trying to like i don't like this

i will try to improve this

i will try to do a better version of the

way i interface with reality

that this is always the way things are

if you're if you're

moving in a some sort of a direction

where you're trying to improve things

you're always going to move into this

new place where you look back in the old

place and go i was doing it wrong back

then

so this is an accelerated version of

that a super accelerated version of that

i mean you don't always improve but you

can aspire to improve

you can aspire to be less wrong yeah

this is like

i think a good the tools of physics are

very powerful like

just assume you're wrong and you're

asking your goal to be less wrong

i don't think you're gonna if you

succeed every day and being less wrong

but

you know if you're gonna succeed in

being less wrong

most of the time you're doing great

that's a great way of putting aspire to

be less wrong

but then when you know people look back

at nostalgia about simpler times

there's that too it's very romantic and

exciting to look back on

campfires but you can still have a

campfire yes

yeah but will you appreciate it when

you're a super nerd when you're

connected to the grid

and you have some uh skull cap in place

of the top of your head

and it's interfacing with the inner

international language

that the rest of the universe now enjoys

communication with people

and we're yeah sure i think so

yeah i like empires

you