The following is a conversation with Michio Kaku. He's a theoretical physicist, futurist, and professor at the City College of New York. He's the author of many fascinating books that explore the nature of our reality and the future of our civilization. They include Einstein's Cosmos, Physics of the Impossible, Future of the Mind, Parallel Worlds, and his latest, The Future of Humanity, Terraforming Mars Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth. I think it's beautiful and important when a scientific mind can fearlessly explore through conversation subjects just outside of our understanding. That, to me, is where artificial intelligence is today, just outside of our understanding, a place we have to reach for if we're to uncover the mysteries of the human mind and build human level and superhuman level AI systems that transform our world for the better. This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N. And now, here's my conversation with Michio Kaku. You've mentioned that we just might make contact with aliens or at least hear from them within this century. Can you elaborate on your intuition behind that optimism? Well, this is pure speculation, of course. Of course. Given the fact that we've already identified 4,000 exoplanets orbiting other stars, and we have a census of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time, we know that on average, every single star, on average, has a planet going around it, and about one fifth or so of them have Earth sized planets going around them. So just do the math. We're talking about out of 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, we're talking about billions of potential Earth sized planets. And to believe that we're the only one is, I think, rather ridiculous, given the odds. And how many galaxies are there? Within sight of the Hubble Space Telescope, there are about 100 billion galaxies. So do the math. How many stars are there in the visible universe? 100 billion galaxies, times 100 billion stars per galaxy. We're talking about a number beyond human imagination. And to believe that we're the only ones, I think, is rather ridiculous. So you've talked about different types of, type zero, one, two, three, four, and five, even, of the Kardashev scale of the different kind of civilizations. What do you think it takes, if it is indeed a ridiculous notion that we're alone in the universe, what do you think it takes to reach out? First, to reach out through communication and connect. Well, first of all, we have to understand the level of sophistication of an alien life form if we make contact with them. I think in this century, we'll probably pick up signals, signals from an extraterrestrial civilization. We'll pick up there, I love Lucy, and there, leave it to Beaver. Just ordinary day to day transmissions that they emit. And the first thing we wanna do is to A, decipher their language, of course, but B, figure out at what level they are advanced on the Kardashev scale. I'm a physicist. We rank things by two parameters, energy and information. That's how we rank black holes. That's how we rank stars. That's how we rank civilizations in outer space. So a type one civilization is capable of harnessing planetary power. They control the weather, for example, earthquakes, volcanoes. They can modify the course of geological events, sort of like Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. Type two would be stellar. They play with stars, entire stars. They use the entire energy output of a star, sort of like Star Trek. The Federation of Planets have colonized the nearby stars. So a type two would be somewhat similar to Star Trek. Type three would be galactic. They roam the galactic space lanes. And type three would be like Star Wars, a galactic civilization. Now, one day I was giving this talk in London at the planetarium there, and the little boy comes up to me and he says, professor, you're wrong. You're wrong, there's type four. And I told him, look, kid, there are planets, stars, and galaxies. That's it, folks. And he kept persisting and saying, no, there's type four, the power of the continuum. And I thought about it for a moment. And I said to myself, is there an extra galactic source of energy, the continuum of Star Trek? And the answer is yes, there could be a type four. And that's dark energy. We now know that 73% of the energy of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter represents maybe 23% or so, and we only represent 4%. We're the oddballs. And so you begin to realize that, yeah, there could be type four, maybe even type five. So type four, you're saying being able to harness sort of like dark energy, something that permeates the entire universe. So be able to plug into the entire universe as a source of energy. That's right. And dark energy is the energy of the Big Bang. It's why the galaxies are being pushed apart. It's the energy of nothing. The more nothing you have, the more dark energy that's repulsive. And so the acceleration of the universe is accelerating because the more you have, the more you can have. And that, of course, is by definition an exponential curve. It's called a de Sitter expansion, and that's the current state of the universe. And then type five, would that be able to seek energy sources somehow outside of our universe? And how crazy is that idea? Yeah, type five will be the multiverse. Multiverse, okay. I'm a quantum physicist, and we quantum physicists don't believe that the Big Bang happened once. That would violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. And that means that there could be multiple bangs happening all the time. Even as we speak today, universes are being created, and that fits the data. The inflationary universe is a quantum theory. So there's a certain finite probability that universes are being created all the time. And for me, this is actually rather aesthetically pleasing because I was raised as a Presbyterian, but my parents were Buddhists. And there's two diametrically opposed ideas about the universe. In Buddhism, there's only nirvana. There's no beginning, there's no end, there's only timelessness. But in Christianity, there is the instant when God said, let there be light. In other words, an instant of creation. So I've had these two mutually exclusive ideas in my head, and I now realize that it's possible to meld them into a single theory. Either the universe had a beginning or it didn't, right? Wrong. You see, our universe had a beginning. Our universe had an instant where somebody might have said, let there be light. But there are other bubble universes out there in a bubble bath of universes. And that means that these universes are expanding into a dimension beyond our three dimensional comprehension. In other words, hyperspace. In other words, 11 dimensional hyperspace. So nirvana would be this timeless 11 dimensional hyperspace where big bangs are happening all the time. So we can now combine two mutually exclusive theories of creation. And Stephen Hawking, for example, even in his last book, even said that this is an argument against the existence of God. He said there is no God because there was not enough time for God to create the universe because the big bang happened in an instant of time. Therefore, there was no time available for him to create the universe. But you see, the multiverse idea means that there was a time before time. And there are multiple times, each bubble has its own time. And so it means that there could actually be a universe before the beginning of our universe. So if you think of a bubble bath, when two bubbles collide, or when two bubbles fission to create a baby bubble, that's called the big bang. So the big bang is nothing but the collision of universes or the budding of universes. That's such a beautiful picture of our incredibly mysterious existence. So is that humbling to you? Exciting, the idea of multiverses? I don't even know how to even begin to wrap my mind around it. It's exciting for me because what I do for a living is string theory. That's my day job. I get paid by the city of New York to work on string theory. And you see, string theory is a multiverse theory. So people say, first of all, what is string theory? String theory simply says that all the particles we see in nature, the electron, the proton, the quarks, what have you, are nothing but vibrations on a musical string, on a tiny, tiny little string. You know, G. Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the atomic bomb, was so frustrated in the 1950s with all these subatomic particles being created in our atom smashers that he announced, he announced one day that the Nobel Prize in physics should go to the physicist who does not discover a new particle that year. Well, today we think they're nothing but musical notes on these tiny little vibrating strings. So what is physics? Physics is the harmonies you can write on vibrating strings. What is chemistry? Chemistry is the melodies you can play on these strings. What is the universe? The universe is a symphony of strings. And then what is the mind of God that Albert Einstein so eloquently wrote about for the last 30 years of his life? The mind of God would be cosmic music, resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. So beautifully put. What do you think is the mind of Einstein's God? Do you think there's a why that we could untangle from this universe of strings? Why are we here? What is the meaning of it all? Well, Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize, once said that the more we learn about the universe, the more we learn that it's pointless. Well, I don't know. I don't profess to understand the great secrets of the universe. However, let me say two things about what the giants of physics have said about this question. Einstein believed in two types of God. One was the God of the Bible, the personal God, the God that answers prayers, walks on waters, performs miracles, smites the Philistines. That's the personal God that he didn't believe in. He believed in the God of Spinoza, the God of order, simplicity, harmony, beauty. The universe could have been ugly. The universe could have been messy, random, but it's gorgeous. You realize that on a single sheet of paper, we can write down all the known laws of the universe. It's amazing, on one sheet of paper, Einstein's equation is one inch long, string theory is a lot longer, and so it's a standard model, but you could put all these equations on one sheet of paper. It didn't have to be that way. It could have been messy. And so, Einstein thought of himself as a young boy entering this huge library for the first time, being overwhelmed by the simplicity, elegance, and beauty of this library, but all he could do was read the first page of the first volume. Well, that library is the universe, with all sorts of mysterious, magical things that we have yet to find. And then Galileo was asked about this. Galileo said that the purpose of science, the purpose of science is to determine how the heavens go. The purpose of religion is to determine how to go to heaven. So in other words, science is about natural law, and religion is about ethics, how to be a good person, how to go to heaven. As long as we keep these two things apart, we're in great shape. The problem occurs when people from the natural sciences begin to pontificate about ethics, and people from religion begin to pontificate about natural law. That's where we get into big trouble. You think they're fundamentally distinct, morality and ethics and our idea of what is right and what is wrong. That's something that's outside the reach of string theory and physics. That's right. If you talk to a squirrel about what is right and what is wrong, there's no reference frame for a squirrel, and realize that aliens from outer space, if they ever come visit us, they'll try to talk to us like we talk to squirrels in the forest, but eventually we get bored talking to the squirrels because they don't talk back to us. Same thing with aliens from outer space. They come down to earth, they'll be curious about us to a degree, but after a while they just get bored because we have nothing to offer them. So our sense of right and wrong, what does that mean compared to a squirrel's sense of right and wrong? Now we of course do have an ethics that keeps civilizations in line, enriches our life and makes civilization possible. And I think that's a good thing, but it's not mandated by a law of physics. So if aliens do, alien species were to make contact, forgive me for staying on aliens for a bit longer. Do you think they're more likely to be friendly, to befriend us or to destroy us? Well, I think for the most part, they'll pretty much ignore us. If you're a deer in the forest, who do you fear the most? Do you fear the hunter with his gigantic 16 gauge shotgun? Or do you fear the guy with a briefcase and glasses? Well, the guy with the briefcase could be a developer about to basically flatten the entire forest, destroying your livelihood. So instinctively you may be afraid of the hunter, but actually the problem with deers in the forest is that they should fear developers because developers look at deer as simply getting in the way. I mean, in War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, the aliens did not hate us. If you read the book, the aliens did not have evil intentions toward homo sapiens. No, we were in the way. So I think we have to realize that alien civilizations may view us quite differently than in science fiction novels. However, I personally believe, and I cannot prove any of this, I personally believe that they're probably gonna be peaceful because there's nothing that they want from our world. I mean, what are they gonna take us? What are they gonna take us for, gold? No, gold is a useless metal for the most part. It's silver, I mean, it's gold in color, but that only affects homo sapiens. Squirrels don't care about gold. And so gold is a rather useless element. Rare earths maybe, platinum based elements, rare earths for the electronics, yeah, maybe. But other than that, we have nothing to offer them. I mean, think about it for a moment. People love Shakespeare and they love the arts and poetry, but outside of the earth, they mean nothing, absolutely nothing. I mean, when I write down an equation in string theory, I would hope that on the other side of the galaxy, there's an alien writing down that very same equation in different notation, but that alien on the other side of the galaxy, Shakespeare, poetry, Hemingway, it would mean nothing to him or her or it. When you think about entities that's out there, extraterrestrial, do you think they would naturally look something that even is recognizable to us as life? Or would they be radically different? Well, how did we become intelligent? Basically three things made us intelligent. One is our eyesight, stereo eyesight. We have the eyes of a hunter, stereo vision so we lock in on targets. And who is smarter, predator or prey? Predators are smarter than prey. They have their eyes at the front of their face, like lions, tigers, while rabbits have eyes to the side of their face. Why is that? Hunters have to zero in on the target. They have to know how to ambush. They have to know how to hide, camouflage, sneak up, stealth, deceit. That takes a lot of intelligence. Rabbits, all they have to do is run. So that's the first criterion, stereo eyesight of some sort. Second is the thumb. The opposable thumb of some sort could be a claw or a tentacle. So hand eye coordination. Hand eye coordination is the way we manipulate the environment. And then three, language. Because mama bear never tells baby bear to avoid the human hunter. Bears just learn by themselves. They never hand out information from one generation to the next. So these are the three basic ingredients of intelligence. Eyesight of some sort, an opposable thumb or tentacle or claw of some sort, and language. Now ask yourself a simple question. How many animals have all three? Just us. It's just us. I mean, the primates, they have a language, yeah, they may get up to maybe 20 words, but a baby learns a word a day, several words a day a baby learns. And a typical adult knows about almost 5,000 words. While the maximum number of words that you can teach a gorilla in any language, including their own language, is about 20 or so. And so we see the difference in intelligence. So when we meet aliens from outer space, chances are they will have been descended from predators of some sort. They'll have some way to manipulate the environment and communicate their knowledge to the next generation. That's it, folks. So functionally, that would be similar. That would, we would be able to recognize them. Well, not necessarily, because I think even with Homo sapiens, we are eventually going to perhaps become part cybernetic and genetically enhanced. Already, robots are getting smarter and smarter. Right now, robots have the intelligence of a cockroach. But in the coming years, our robots will be as smart as a mouse, then maybe as smart as a rabbit. If we're lucky, maybe as smart as a cat or a dog. And by the end of the century, who knows for sure, our robots will be probably as smart as a monkey. Now, at that point, of course, they could be dangerous. You see, monkeys are self aware. They know they are monkeys. They may have a different agenda than us. While dogs, dogs are confused. You see, dogs think that we are a dog, that we're the top dog. They're the underdog. That's why they whimper and follow us and lick us all the time. We're the top dog. Monkeys have no illusion at all. They know we are not monkeys. And so I think that in the future, we'll have to put a chip in their brain to shut them off once our robots have murderous thoughts. But that's in a hundred years. In 200 years, the robots will be smart enough to remove that fail safe chip in their brain and then watch out. At that point, I think rather than compete with our robots, we should merge with them. We should become part cybernetic. So I think when we meet alien life from outer space, they may be genetically and cybernetically enhanced. Genetically and cybernetically enhanced. Wow, so let's talk about that full range. In the near term and 200 years from now, how promising in the near term in your view is brain machine interfaces? So starting to allow computers to talk directly to the brains, Elon Musk is working on that with Neuralink and there's other companies working on this idea. Do you see promise there? Do you see hope for near term impact? Well, every technology has pluses and minuses. Already we can record memories. I have a book, The Future of the Mind, where I detail some of these breakthroughs. We can now record simple memories of mice and send these memories on the internet. Eventually, we're gonna do this with primates at Wake Forest University and also in Los Angeles. And then after that, we'll have a memory chip for Alzheimer's patients. We'll test it out in Alzheimer's patients because of course, when Alzheimer's patients lose their memory, they wander. They create all sorts of havoc, wandering around, oblivious to their surroundings and they'll have a chip. They'll push the button and memories, memories will come flooding into their hippocampus and the chip telling them where they live and who they are. And so a memory chip is definitely in the cards. And I think this will eventually affect human civilization. What is the future of the internet? The future of the internet is brain net. Brain net is when we send emotions, feelings, sensations on the internet. And we will telepathically communicate with other humans this way. This is gonna affect everything. Look at entertainment. Remember the silent movies? Charlie Chaplin was very famous during the era of silent movies. But when the talkies came in, nobody wanted to see Charlie Chaplin anymore because he never talked in the movies. And so a whole generation of actors lost their job and a new series of actors came in. Next, we're gonna have the movies replaced by brain net because in the future, people will say, who wants to see a screen with images? That's it. Sound and image, that's called the movies. In our entertainment industry, this multi billion dollar industry is based on screens with moving images and sound. But what happens when emotions, feelings, sensations, memories can be conveyed on the internet? It's gonna change everything. Human relations will change because you'll be able to empathize and feel the suffering of other people. We'll be able to communicate telepathically. And this is coming. You described brain net and future of the mind. This is an interesting concept. Do you think, so you mentioned entertainment, but what kind of effect would it have on our personal relationships? Hopefully it will deepen it. You realize that for most of human history, for over 90% of human history, we only knew maybe 20, 100 people. That's it, folks. That was your tribe. That was everybody you knew in the universe was only maybe 50 or 100. With the coming of towns, of course it expanded to a few thousand. With the coming of the telephone, all of a sudden you could reach thousands of people with a telephone. And now with the internet, you can reach the entire population of the planet Earth. And so I think this is a normal progression. And you think that kind of sort of connection to the rest of the world, and then adding sensations like being able to share telepathically emotions and so on that would just further deepen our connection to our fellow humans. That's right. In fact, I disagree with many scientists on this question. Most scientists would say that technology is neutral. A double edged sword, one side of the sword can cut against people. The other side of the sword can cut against ignorance and disease. I disagree. I think technology does have a moral direction. Look at the internet. The internet spreads knowledge, awareness, and that creates empowerment. People act on knowledge. When they begin to realize that they don't have to live that way, they don't have to suffer under a dictatorship, that there are other ways of living under freedom, then they begin to take things, take power. And that spreads democracy. And democracies do not war with other democracies. I'm a scientist. I believe in data. So let's take a sheet of paper and write down every single war you had to learn since you were in elementary school. Every single war, hundreds of them. Kings, queens, emperors, dictators. All these wars were between kings, queens, emperors, and dictators. Never between two major democracies. And so I think with the spread of this technology and which would accelerate with the coming of brain net, it means that, well, we will still have wars. Wars, of course, is politics by other means, but they'll be less intense and less frequent. Do you have worries of longer term existential risk from technology, from AI? So I think that's a wonderful vision of a future where war is a distant memory, but now there's another agent. There's somebody else that's able to create conflict, that's able to create harm, AI systems. So do you have worry about such AI systems? Well, yes, that is an existential risk, but again, I think an existential risk, not for this century. I think our grandkids are gonna have to confront this question as robots gradually approach the intelligence of a dog, a cat, and finally that of a monkey. However, I think we will digitize ourselves as well. Not only are we gonna merge with our technology, we'll also digitize our personality, our memories, our feelings. You realize during the Middle Ages, there was something called dualism. Dualism meant that the soul was separate from the body. When the body died, the soul went to heaven. That's dualism. Then in the 20th century, neuroscience came in and said, bah, humbug. Every time we look at the brain, it's just neurons. That's it, folks, period, end of story. Bunch of neurons firing. Now we're going back to dualism. Now we realize that we can digitize human memories, feelings, sensations, and create a digital copy of ourselves, and that's called the Connectome Project. Billions of dollars are now being spent to do not just the genome project of sequencing the genes of our body, but the Connectome Project, which is to map the entire connections of the human brain. And even before then, already in Silicon Valley, today, at this very moment, you can contact Silicon Valley companies that are willing to digitize your relatives because some people want to talk to their parents. There are unresolved issues with their parents, and one day, yes, firms will digitize people, and you'll be able to talk to them a reasonable facsimile. We leave a digital trail. Our ancestors did not. Our ancestors were lucky if they had one line, just one line in a church book, saying the date they were baptized and the date they died. That's it. That was their entire digital memory. I mean, their entire digital existence summarized in just a few letters of the alphabet, a whole life. Now we digitize everything. Every time you sneeze, you digitize it. You put it on the internet. And so I think that we are gonna digitize ourselves and give us digital immortality. We'll not only have biologic genetic immortality of some sort, but also digital immortality. And what are we gonna do with it? I think we should send it into outer space. If you digitize the human brain and put it on a laser beam and shoot it to the moon, you're on the moon in one second. Shoot it to Mars, you're on Mars in 20 minutes. Shoot it to Pluto, you're on Pluto in eight hours. Think about it for a moment. You can have breakfast in New York and for a morning snack, vacation on the moon, then zap your way to Mars by noontime, journey through the asteroid belt of the afternoon, and then come back for dinner in New York at night. All in a day's work at the speed of light. Now, this means that you don't need booster rockets. You don't need weightlessness problems. You don't need to worry about meteorites. And what's on the moon? On the moon, there is a mainframe that downloads your laser beam's information. And where does it download the information into? An avatar. Now, what does that avatar look like? Anything you want. Think about it for a moment. You could be Superman, Superwoman, on the moon, on Mars, traveling throughout the universe at the speed of light, downloading your personality into any vehicle you want. Now, let me stick my neck out. So far, everything I've been saying is well within the laws of physics. Well within the laws of physics. Now, let me go outside the laws of physics again. Here we go. I think this already exists. I think outside the Earth, there could be a super highway a laser highway of laser porting with billions of souls of aliens zapping their way across the galaxy. Now, let me ask you a question. Are we smart enough to determine whether such a thing exists or not? No, this could exist right outside the orbit of the planet Earth. And we're too stupid in our technology to even prove it or disprove it. We would need the aliens on this laser super highway to help us out, to send us a human interpretable signal. I mean, it ultimately boils down to the language of communication, but that's an exciting possibility that actually the sky is filled with aliens. The aliens could already be here. And we're just so oblivious that we're too stupid to know it. See, they don't have to be in alien form with little green men. They can be in any form they want in an avatar of their creation. Well, in fact, they could very well be. They can even look like us. Exactly. We'd never know. One of us could be an alien. You know, in the zoo, did you know that we sometimes have zookeepers that imitate animals? We create a fake animal and we put it in so that the animal is not afraid of this fake animal. And of course, these animals brains, their brain is about as big as a walnut. They accept these dummies as if they were real. So an alien civilization in outer space would say, oh yeah, human brains are so tiny. We could put a dummy on their world, an avatar, and they'd never know it. That would be an entertaining thing to watch from the alien perspective. So you kind of implied that with a digital form of our being, but also biologically, do you think one day technology will allow individual human beings to become immortal besides just through the ability to digitize our essence? Yeah, I think that artificial intelligence will give us the key to genetic immortality. You see, in the coming decades, everyone's gonna have their gene sequence. We'll have billions of genomes of old people, billions of genomes of young people. And what are we gonna do with it? We're gonna run it through an AI machine, which has pattern recognition, to look for the age genes. In other words, the fountain of youth that emperors, kings, and queens lusted over. The fountain of youth will be found by artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence will identify where these age genes are located. First of all, what is aging? We now know what aging is. Aging is the buildup of errors. That's all aging is, the buildup of genetic errors. This means that cells eventually become slower, sluggish, they go into senescence, and they die. In fact, that's why we die. We die because of the buildup of mistakes in our genome, in our cellular activity. But you see, in the future, we'll be able to fix those genes with CRISPR type technologies, and perhaps even live forever. So let me ask you a question. Where does aging take place in a car? Given a car, where does aging take place? Well, it's obvious, the engine, right? A, that's where you have a lot of moving parts. B, that's where you have combustion. Well, where in the cell do we have combustion? The mitochondria. We now know where aging takes place. And if we cure many of the mistakes that build up in the mitochondria of the cell, we could become immortal. Let me ask you, if you yourself could become immortal, would you? Damn straight. No, I think about it for a while, because of course, it depends on how you become immortal. You know, there's a famous myth of Tithonus. It turns out that years ago, in the Greek mythology, there was the saga of Tithonus and Aurora. Aurora was the goddess of the dawn, and she fell in love with a mortal, a human called Tithonus. And so Aurora begged Zeus to grant her the gift of immortality to give to her lover. So Zeus took pity on Aurora and made Tithonus immortal. But you see, Aurora made a mistake, a huge mistake. She asked for immortality, but she forgot to ask for eternal youth. So poor Tithonus got older and older and older every year, decrepit, a bag of bones, but he could never die. Never die. Quality of life is important. So I think immortality is a great idea, as long as you also have immortal youth as well. Now, I personally believe, and I cannot prove this, but I personally believe that our grandkids may have the option of reaching the age of 30 and then stopping. They may like being age 30, because you have wisdom, you have all the benefits of age and maturity, and you still live forever with a healthy body. Our descendants may like being 30 for several centuries. Is there an aspect of human existence that is meaningful only because we're mortal? Well, every waking moment, we don't think about it this way, but every waking moment, actually, we are aware of our death and our mortality. Think about it for a moment. When you go to college, you realize that you are in a period of time where soon you will reach middle age and have a career. And after that, you'll retire and then you'll die. And so even as a youth, even as a child, without even thinking about it, you are aware of your own death, because it sets limits to your lifespan. I gotta graduate from high school. I gotta graduate from college. Why? Because you're gonna die. Because unless you graduate from high school, unless you graduate from college, you're not gonna enter old age with enough money to retire and then die. And so, yeah, people think about it unconsciously, because it affects every aspect of your being. The fact that you go to high school, college, get married, have kids, there's a clock, a clock ticking even without your permission. It gives a sense of urgency. Do you yourself, I mean, there's so much excitement and passion in the way you talk about physics and the way you talk about technology in the future. Do you yourself meditate on your own mortality? Do you think about this clock that's ticking? Well, I try not to, because it then begins to affect your behavior. You begin to alter your behavior to match your expectation of when you're gonna die. So let's talk about youth, and then let's talk about death, okay? When I interview scientists on radio, I often ask them, what made the difference? How old were you? What changed your life? And they always say more or less the same thing. No, these are Nobel Prize winners, directors of major laboratories, very distinguished scientists. They always say, when I was 10, when I was 10, something happened. It was a visit to the planetarium. It was a telescope. For Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize, it was the chemistry kit. For Heinz Pagels, it was a visit to the planetarium. For Isidor Rabi, it was a book about the planets. For Albert Einstein, it was a compass. Something happened, which gives them this existential shock. Because you see, before the age of 10, everything is mommy and daddy, mommy and dad. That's your universe, mommy and daddy. Around the age of 10, you begin to wonder, what's beyond mommy and daddy? And that's when you have this epiphany, when you realize, oh my God, there's a universe out there, a universe of discovery. And that sensation stays with you for the rest of your life. You still remember that shock that you felt gazing at the universe. And then you hit the greatest destroyer of scientists known to science. The greatest destroyer of scientists known to science is junior high school. When you hit junior high school, folks, it's all over. It's all over. Because in junior high school, people say, hey, stupid. I mean, you like that nerdy stuff. And your friends shun you. All of a sudden, people think you're a weirdo. And scientists made boring. Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winner, when he was a child, his father would take him into the forest. And the father would teach him everything about birds, why they're shaped the way they are, their wings, the coloration, the shape of their beak, everything about birds. So one day, a bully comes up to the future Nobel Prize winner and says, hey, Dick, what's the name of that bird over there? Well, he didn't know. He knew everything about that bird except its name. So he said, I don't know. And then the bully said, what's the matter, Dick? You stupid or something? And then in that instant, he got it. He got it. He realized that for most people, science is giving names to birds. That's what science is. You know lots of names of obscure things. Hey, people say, you're smart. You're smart. You know all the names of the dinosaurs. You know all the names of the plants. No, that's not science at all. Science is about principles, concepts, physical pictures. That's what science is all about. My favorite quote from Einstein is that, unless you can explain the theory to a child, the theory is probably worthless. Meaning that all great theories are not big words. All great theories are simple concepts, principles, basic physical pictures. Relativity is all about clocks, meter sticks, rocket ships and locomotives. Newton's laws of gravity are all about balls and spinning wheels and things like that. That's what physics and science is all about, not memorizing things. And that stays with you for the rest of your life. So even in old age, I've noticed that these scientists, when they sit back, they still remember. They still remember that flush, that flush of excitement they felt with that first telescope, that first moment when they encountered the universe. That keeps them going. That keeps them going. By the way, I should point out that when I was eight, something happened to me as well. When I was eight years old, it was in all the papers that a great scientist had just died. And they put a picture of his desk on the front page. That's it, just a simple picture of the front page of the newspapers of his desk. That desk had a book on it, which was opened. And the caption said more or less, this is the unfinished manuscript from the greatest scientists of our time. So I said to myself, well, why couldn't he finish it? What's so hard that you can't finish it if you're a great scientist? It's a homework problem, right? You go home, you solve it, or you ask your mom, why couldn't he solve it? So to me, this was a murder mystery. This was greater than any adventure story. I had to know why the greatest scientists of our time couldn't finish something. And then over the years, I found out the guy had a name, Albert Einstein, and that book was The Theory of Everything. It was unfinished. Well, today I can read that book. I can see all the dead ends and false starts that he made. And I began to realize that he lost his way because he didn't have a physical picture to guide him on the third try. On the first try, he talked about clocks and lightning bolts and meter sticks, and that gave us special relativity, which gave us the atomic bomb. The second great picture was gravity with balls rolling on curved surfaces. And that gave us the Big Bang, creation of the universe, black holes. On the third try, he missed it. He had no picture at all to guide him. In fact, there's a quote I have where he said, I'm still looking. I'm still looking for that picture. He never found it. Well, today we think that picture is strength theory. The strength theory can unify gravity and this mysterious thing that Einstein didn't like, which is quantum mechanics, or couldn't quite pin down and make sense of. That's right. Mother nature has two hands, a left hand and a right hand. The left hand is a theory of the small. The right hand is a theory of the big. The theory of the small is the quantum theory, the theory of atoms and quarks. The theory of the big is relativity, the theory of black holes, big bangs. The problem is the left hand does not talk to the right hand. They hate each other. The left hand is based on discrete particles. The right hand is based on smooth surfaces. How do you put these two things together into a single theory? They hate each other. The greatest minds of our time, the greatest minds of our time worked on this problem and failed. Today, the only theory that has survived every challenge so far is string theory. That doesn't mean string theory is correct. It could very well be wrong, but right now it's the only game in town. Some people come up to me and say, ''Professor, I don't believe in string theory. Give me an alternative.'' And I tell them there is none. Get used to it. It's the best theory we got. It's the only theory we have. It's the only theory we have. Do you see, you know, the strings kind of inspire a view, as did atoms and particles and quarks, but especially strings inspire a view of a universe as a kind of information processing system, as a computer of sorts. Do you see the universe in this way? No. Some people think, in fact, the whole universe is a computer of some sort. And they believe that perhaps everything, therefore, is a simulation. Yes. I don't think so. I don't think that there is a super video game where we are nothing but puppets dancing on the screen and somebody hit the play button and here we are talking about simulations. No. Even Newtonian mechanics says that the weather, the simple weather is so complicated with trillions upon trillions of atoms that it cannot be simulated in a finite amount of time. In other words, the smallest object which can describe the weather and simulate the weather is the weather itself. The smallest object that can simulate a human is the human itself. And if you had quantum mechanics, it becomes almost impossible to simulate it with a conventional computer. This quantum mechanics deals with all possible universes, parallel universes, a multiverse of universes. And so the calculation just spirals out of control. Now, so far, there's only one way where you might be able to argue that the universe is a simulation. And this is still being debated by quantum physicists. It turns out that if you throw the encyclopedia into a black hole, the information is not lost. Eventually it winds up on the surface of the black hole. Now, the surface of the black hole is finite. In fact, you can calculate the maximum amount of information you can store in a black hole. It's a finite number. It's a calculable number, believe it or not. Now, if the universe were made out of black holes, which is the maximum universe you can conceive of, each universe, each black hole has a finite amount of information. Therefore, ergo, da da! Ergo, the total amount of information in a universe is finite. This is mind boggling. This, I consider mind boggling, that all possible universes are countable and all possible universes can be summarized in a number, a number you can write on a sheet of paper, all possible universes, and it's a finite number. Now, it's huge. It's a number beyond human imagination. It's a number based on what is called a Planck length, but it's a number. And so if a computer could ever simulate that number, then the universe would be a simulation. So theoretically, because the amount of information is finite, well, there necessarily must be able to exist a computer. It's just, from an engineering perspective, maybe impossible to build. Yes, no computer can build a universe capable of simulating the entire universe, except the universe itself. So that's your intuition, that our universe is very efficient, and so there's no shortcuts. Right, two reasons why I believe the universe is not a simulation. First, the calculational numbers are just incredible. No finite Turing machine can simulate the universe. And second, why would any super intelligent being simulate humans? If you think about it, most humans are kind of stupid. I mean, we do all sorts of crazy, stupid things, right? And we call it art, we call it humor. We call it human civilization. So why should an advanced civilization go through all that effort just to simulate Saturday Night Live? Well, that's a funny idea, but it's also, do you think it's possible that the act of creation cannot anticipate humans? You simply set the initial conditions and set a bunch of physical laws, and just for the fun of it, see what happens. You launch the thing, so you're not necessarily simulating everything. You're not simulating every little bit in the sense that you could predict what's going to happen, but you set the initial conditions, set the laws, and see what kind of fun stuff happens. Well, in some sense, that's how life got started. In the 1950s, Stanley did what is called the Miller experiment. He put a bunch of hydrogen gas, methane, toxic gases with liquid and a spark in a small glass beaker. And then he just walked away for a few weeks, came back a few weeks later, and bingo. Out of nothing and chaos came amino acids. If he had left it there for a few years, he might have gotten protein, protein molecules for free. That's probably how life got started, as a accident. And if he had left it there for perhaps a few million years, DNA might have formed in that beaker. And so we think that, yeah, DNA, life, all that could have been an accident if you wait long enough. And remember, our universe is roughly 13.8 billion years old. That's plenty of time for lots of random things to happen, including life itself. Yeah, we could be just a beautiful little random moment. And there could be an infinite number of those throughout the history of the universe, many creatures like us. We perhaps are not the epitome of what the universe is created for. Thank God. Let's hope not. Just look around. Yeah. Look to your left, look to your right. When do you think the first human will step foot on Mars? I think it's a good chance in the 2030s that we will be on Mars. In fact, there's no physics reason why we can't do it. It's an engineering problem. It's a very difficult and dangerous engineering problem, but it is an engineering problem. And in my book, Future of Humanity, I even speculate beyond that, that by the end of this century, we'll probably have the first starships. The first starships will not look like the Enterprise at all. They'll probably be small computer chips that are fired by laser beams with parachutes. And like what Stephen Hawking advocated, the Breakthrough Starshot program could send ships to the nearby stars, traveling at 20% the speed of light, reaching Alpha Centauri in about 20 years time. Beyond that, we should have fusion power. Fusion power is, in some sense, one of the ultimate sources of energy, but it's unstable. And we don't have fusion power today. Now, why is that? First of all, stars form almost for free. You get a bunch of gas large enough, it becomes a star. I mean, you don't even have to do anything to it, and it becomes a star. Why is fusion so difficult to put on the Earth? Because in outer space, stars are monopoles. They are pole, single poles that are spherically symmetric. And it's very easy to get spherically symmetric configurations of gas to compress into a star. It just happens naturally all by itself. The problem is magnetism is bipolar. You have a North Pole and a South Pole. And it's like trying to squeeze a long balloon. Take a long balloon and try to squeeze it. You squeeze one side, it bulges out the other side. Well, that's the problem with fusion machines. We use magnetism with a North Pole and a South Pole to squeeze gas, and all sorts of anomalies and horrible configurations can take place because we're not squeezing something uniformly like in a star. Stars, in some sense, are for free. Fusion on the Earth is very difficult. But I think it's inevitable. And it'll eventually give us unlimited power from seawater. So seawater will be the ultimate source of energy for the planet Earth. Why? What's the intuition there? Because we'll extract hydrogen from seawater, burn hydrogen in a fusion reactor to give us unlimited energy without the meltdown, without the nuclear waste. Why do we have meltdowns? We have meltdowns because in the fusion reactors, every time you split the uranium atom, you get nuclear waste. Tons of it. 30 tons of nuclear waste per reactor per year. And it's hot. It's hot for thousands, millions of years. That's why we have meltdowns. But you see, the waste product of a fusion reactor is helium gas. Helium gas is actually commercially valuable. You can make money selling helium gas. And so the waste product of a fusion reactor is helium, not nuclear waste that we find in a commercial fission plant. And that controlling, mastering and controlling fusion allows us to, converts us into a type one, I guess, civilization, right? Yeah, probably the backbone of a type one civilization will be fusion power. We, by the way, are type zero. We don't even rate on this scale. We get our energy from dead plants, for God's sake, oil and coal. But we are about 100 years from being type one. Get a calculator. In fact, Carl Sagan calculated that we are about 0.7, fairly close to a 1.0. For example, what is the internet? The internet is the beginning of the first type one technology to enter into our century. The first planetary technology is the internet. What is the language of type one? On the internet already, English and Mandarin Chinese are the most dominant languages on the internet. And what about the culture? We're seeing a type one sports, soccer, the Olympics, a type one music, youth culture, rock and roll, rap music, type one fashion, Gucci, Chanel, a type one economy, the European Union, NAFTA, what have you. So we're beginning to see the beginnings of a type one culture in a type one civilization. And inevitably, it will spread beyond this planet. So you talked about sending at 20% the speed of light on a chip into Alpha Centauri. But in a slightly nearer term, what do you think about the idea when we still have to send our biological bodies the colonization of planets, colonization of Mars? Do you see us becoming a two planet species ever or anytime soon? Well, just remember the dinosaurs did not have a space program. And that's why they're not here today. How come there are no dinosaurs in this room today? Because they didn't have a space program. We do have a space program, which means that we have an insurance policy. Now, I don't think we should bankrupt the Earth or deplete the Earth to go to Mars. That's too expensive and not practical. But we need a settlement, a settlement on Mars in case something bad happens to the planet Earth. And that means we have to terraform Mars. Now, to terraform Mars, if we could raise the temperature of Mars by six degrees, six degrees, then the polar ice caps begin to melt, releasing water vapor. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. It causes even more melting of the ice caps. So it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. It feeds on itself. It becomes autocatalytic. And so once you hit six degrees, rising of the temperature on Mars by six degrees, it takes off. And we melt the polar ice caps. And liquid water once again flows in the rivers, the canals, the channels, and the oceans of Mars. Mars once had an ocean, we think, about the size of the United States. And so that is a possibility. Now, how do we get there? How do we raise the temperature of Mars by six degrees? Elon Musk would like to detonate hydrogen warheads on the polar ice caps. Well, I'm not sure about that. Because we don't know that much about the effects of detonating hydrogen warheads to melt the polar ice caps. And who wants to glow in the dark at night reading the newspaper? So I think there are other ways to do it with solar satellites. You can have satellites orbiting Mars that beam sunlight onto the polar ice caps, melting the polar ice caps. Mars has plenty of water. It's just frozen. I think you paint an inspiring and a wonderful picture of the future. I think you've inspired and educated thousands, if not millions. Michio, it's been an honor. Thank you so much for talking today. My pleasure.

Michio Kaku: Future of Humans, Aliens, Space Travel & Physics | Lex Fridman Podcast #45


The following is a conversation with Gary Kasparov. He's considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time. From 1986 until his retirement in 2005, he dominated the chess world, ranking world number one for most of those 19 years. While he has many historical matches against human chess players, in the long arc of history he may be remembered for his match against the machine, IBM's Deep Blue. His initial victories and eventual loss to Deep Blue captivated the imagination of the world, of what role artificial intelligence systems may play in our civilization's future. That excitement inspired an entire generation of AI researchers, including myself, to get into the field. Gary is also a pro democracy political thinker and leader, a fearless human rights activist, and author of several books, including How Life Imitates Chess, which is a book on strategy and decision making, Winter is Coming, which is a book articulating his opposition to the Putin regime, and Deep Thinking, which is a book on the role of both artificial intelligence and human intelligence in defining our future. This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it five stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N. And now, here's my conversation with Gary Kasparov. As perhaps the greatest chess player of all time, when you look introspectively at your psychology throughout your career, what was the bigger motivator, the love of winning or the hatred of losing? Tough question. Have to confess I never heard it before, which is again, congratulations. It's quite an accomplishment. Losing was always painful. For me, it was almost like a physical pain because I knew that if I lost the game, it's just because I made a mistake. So I always believed that the result of the game had to be decided by the quality of my play. Okay, you may say it sounds arrogant, but it helped me to move forward because I always knew that there was room for improvement. So it's the... Was there the fear of the mistake? Actually, fear of mistake guarantees mistakes. And the difference between top players at the very top is that it's the ability to make a decision without predictable consequences. You don't know what's happening. It's just intuitively. I can go this way or that way. And there are always hesitations. People are like, you are just at the crossroad. You can go right, you can go left, you can go straight. You can turn and go back. And the consequences are just very uncertain. Yes, you have certain ideas what happens on the right or on the left or on just if you go straight, but it's not enough to make well calculated choice. And when you play chess at the very top, it's about your inner strength. So I can make this decision. I will stand firm and I'm not going to waste my time because I have full confidence that I will go through. Going back to your original question is, I would say neither. It's just, it's love for winning, hate for losing. There were important elements, psychological elements, but the key element, I would say the driving force was always my passion for making a difference. It's just, I can move forward and I can always, I can always enjoy not just playing, but creating something new. Creating something new. How do you think about that? It's just finding new ideas in the openings, some original plan in the middle game. It's actually, that helped me to make the transition from the game of chess where I was on the very top to another life where I knew I would not be number one. I would not be necessarily on the top, but I could still be very active and productive by my ability to make a difference, by influencing people, say joining the democratic movement in Russia or talking to people about human machine relations. There's so many things where I knew my influence may not be as decisive as in chess, but still strong enough to help people to make their choices. So you can still create something new that makes a difference in the world outside of chess. But wait, you've kind of painted a beautiful picture of your motivations in chess to create something new, to look for those moments of some brilliant new ideas. But were you haunted by something? See, you make it seem like to be at the level you're at, you can get away without having demons, without having fears, without being driven by some of the darker forces. I mean, you sound almost religious. The darker forces, spiritual demons. I mean, do you have a call for a priest? That's what I'm dressing as. Now, just let's go back to these crucial chess moments where I had to make big decisions. As I said, it was all about my belief from very early days that I can make all the difference by playing well or by making mistakes. So yes, I always had an opponent across the chess board, opposite me. But no matter how strong the opponent was, whether it just was ordinary player or another world champion like Anatoly Karpov, having all respect for my opponent, I still believe that it's up to me to make the difference. And I knew I was not invincible. I made mistakes. I made some blunders. And with age, I made more blunders. So I knew it. But it's still, it's very much for me to be decisive factor in the game. I mean, even now, look, I just, my latest chess experience was horrible. I mean, I played Caruana, Fabi Caruana, this number two, number two, number three player in the world these days. We played this 960 with the Fischer, so called Fischer random chess, reshuffling pieces. Yeah, I lost very badly, but it's because I made mistakes. I mean, I had so many winning positions. I mean, 15 years ago, I would have crushed him. So, and it's, you know, while I lost, I was not so much upset. I mean, I know, as I said in the interview, I can fight any opponent, but not my biological clock. So it's fighting time is always a losing proposition. But even today at age 56, you know, I knew that, you know, I could play great game. I couldn't finish it because I didn't have enough energy or just, you know, I couldn't have the same level of concentration. But, you know, in number of games where I completely outplayed one of the top players in the world, I mean, gave me a certain amount of pleasure. That is, even today, I haven't lost my touch. Not the same, you know. Okay, the jaws are not as strong and the teeth are not as sharp, but I could get to him just, you know, almost, you know, on the ropes. Still got it. Still got it. And it's, you know, and it's, I think it's, my wife said it well. I mean, she said, look, Gary, it's somehow, it's not just fighting your biological clock. It's just, you know, maybe it's a signal because, you know, the goddess of chess, since you spoke great about demons. The goddess of chess, Keisha, maybe she didn't want you to win because, you know, if you could beat number two, number three player in the world, I mean, that's one of the top players who just recently played World Championship match. If you could beat him, that would be really bad for the game of chess. But just, what people will say, oh, look, the game of chess, you know, it's not making any progress. The game is just, you know, it's totally devalued because, look, the guy coming out of retirement, you know, just, you know, winning games, maybe that was good for chess, not good for you. But it's, look, I've been following your logic. We should always look for, you know, demons, you know, superior forces and other things that could, you know, if not dominate our lives, but somehow, you know, play a significant role in the outcome. Yeah, so the goddess of chess had to send a message. Yeah, that's okay. So Gary, you should do something else. Time. Now for a question that you have heard before, but give me a chance. You've dominated the chess world for 20 years, even still got it. Is there a moment, you said, you always look to create something new. Is there games or moments where you're especially proud of in terms of your brilliance of a new creative move? You've talked about Mikhail Tal as somebody who was aggressive and creative chess player in your own game. Look, you mentioned Mikhail Tal. It's very aggressive, very sharp player, famous for his combinations and sacrifices, even called magician from Riga, so for his very unique style. But any world champion, you know, it's, yeah, was a creator. Some of them were so flamboyant and flash like Tal. Some of them were no just, you know, less discerned at the chess board like Tigran Petrosian, but every world champion, every top player brought something into the game of chess. And each contribution was priceless because it's not just about sacrifices. Of course, amateurs, they enjoy, you know, the brilliant games where pieces being sacrificed. It's all just, you know, it's all piece of hanging. And it's all of a sudden, you know, being material down, a rook down, or just, you know, queen down. The weaker side delivers the final blow on just, you know, mating opponent's king. But there are other kinds of beauty. I mean, it's a slow positional maneuvering, you know, looking for weaknesses and just, and gradually, you know, strangling your opponent and eventually delivering sort of a positional masterpiece. So I think I made more difference in the game of chess than I could have imagined when I started playing. And the reason I thought it was time for me to leave was just, I mean, I knew that I was not, I was not, no longer the position to bring the same kind of contribution, the same kind of new knowledge into the game. So, and going back, I could immediately look at my games against Anatoly Karpov. It's not just I won the match in 1985 and became a world champion at age 22, but there were at least two games in that match. Of course, the last one, game 24, that was decisive game of the match, I won and became world champion. But also the way I won, it was a very sharp game and I found a unique maneuver that was absolutely new and it became some sort of just a typical now, though just when the move was made, was made on the board and put on display, a lot of people thought it was ugly. And another game, game 16 in the match where I just also managed to outplay Karpov completely with black pieces, just paralyzing his entire army in its own camp. Technically or psychologically, or was that a mix of both in game 16? Yeah, I think it was a big blow to Karpov. I think it was a big psychological victory for a number of reasons. One, the score was equal at the time and the world champion by the rules could retain his title in case of a tie. So we still have, before game 16, we have nine games to go. And also it was some sort of a bluff because neither me nor Karpov saw the refutation of this opening idea. And I think it says for Karpov, it was double blow because not that he lost the game, I should triple blow. He lost the game, it was a brilliant game and I played impeccably after just this opening bluff. And then they discovered that it was a bluff. So it's the, again, I didn't know, I was not bluffing. So that's why it happens very often. Some ideas could be refuted. And it's just, what I found out, and this is again, going back to your spiritual theme is that you could spend a lot of time working. And when I say you could, it's in the 80s, in the 90s. It doesn't happen these days because everybody has a computer. You could immediately see if it works or it doesn't work. Machine shows your refutation in a split of a second. But many of the analysis in the 80s or in the 90s, they were not perfect simply because we're humans and just you analyze the game, you look for some fresh ideas. And then just it happens that there was something that you missed because the level of the concentration at the chess board is different from when you analyze the game, just moving the pieces around. And, but somehow if you spend a lot of time at the chess board preparing, so in your studies with your coaches, hours and hours and hours, and nothing of what you found could, had materialized on the chess board. Somehow these hours help, I don't know why, always helped you. It's as if the amount of work you did could be transformed into some sort of spiritual energy that helped you to come up with other great ideas during the board. Again, even if there was no direct connection between your preparation and your victory in the game, there was always some sort of invisible connection between the amount of work you did, your dedication to actually, and your passion to discover new ideas, and your ability during the game at the chess board, when the clock was ticking, we still had ticking clock, not digital clock at the time. So to come up with some brilliance. And I also can mention many games from the 90s. So it's the, obviously all amateurs would pick up my game against Veselin Topalov in 1999 and V. Konzai. Again, because it was a brilliant game, the Black King traveled from its own camp to into White's camp across the entire board. It doesn't happen often, trust me, as you know, in the games with professional players, top professional players. So that's why visually it was one of the most impressive victories. But I could bring to your attention many other games that were not so impressive for amateurs, not so beautiful, just because it's sacrifice is always beautiful, you sacrifice pieces. And then eventually you have very few resources left and you use them just to crush your opponent basically. You have to make the king because you have almost nothing left at your disposal. But up to the very end, again, less and less, but still up to the very end, I always had games with some sort of interesting ideas and games that gave me great satisfaction. But I think it's what happened from 2005 up to these days was also a very big accomplishment since I had to find myself to sort of relocate myself. Yeah, rechannel the creative energies. Exactly, and to find something where I feel comfortable, even confident that my participation still makes the difference. Beautifully put. So let me ask perhaps a silly question, but sticking on chest for just a little longer. Where do you put Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion in the list of all time greats? In terms of style, moments of brilliance, consistency. It's a tricky question. The moment you start ranking world champions. Yeah, you lose something? I think it's not fair because any new generation knows much more about the game than the previous one. So when people say, oh, Gary was the greatest, Fischer was the greatest, Magnus was the greatest, it disregard the fact that the great players of the past, whether it was Alaskia, Capoplank, Alokian, I mean, they knew so little about chess by today's standards. I mean, today, just any kid that spent a few years with his or her chess computer knows much more about the game simply just because you have access to this information. And it has been discovered generation after generation. We added more and more knowledge to the game of chess. It's about the gap between the world champion and the rest of the field. So it's the, now, if you look at the gap, then probably Fischer could be on top, but very short period of time. Then you should also add a time factor. I was on top, not as big as Fischer, but much longer. So, and also, unlike Fischer, I succeeded in beating next generation. Here's the question. Let's see if you still got the fire, speaking of the next generation, because you did succeed beating the next generation. It's close. Okay, Anand, Short, Anand, the sheer of, Kramnik is already 12 years younger. So that's the next. But still yet, I competed with them and I just, I beat most of them. And I was still dominant when I left at age of 41. So back to Magnus. Magnus, I mean, consistency is phenomenal. The reason Magnus is on top, and it seems unbeatable today, Magnus is a lethal combination of Fischer and Karpov, which is very, it's very unusual because Fischer's style was very dynamic, just fighting to the last point, just using every resource available. Karpov was very different. It's just an unparalleled ability to use every piece with a maximum effect. Just its minimal resources always produce maximum effect. So now imagine that you merge these two styles. So it's like, you know, it's squeezing every stone for a drop of water, but doing it, you know, just, you know, for 50, 60, 70, 80 moves. I mean, Magnus could go on as long as Fischer with all his passion and energy. And at the same time being as meticulous and deadly as Karpov by just, you know, using every little advantage. So, and he has good, you know, very good health. It's important. I mean, physical conditions are, by the way, very important. So a lot of people don't recognize it. Their latest study shows that chess players burn thousands of calories during the game. So that puts him on the top of this field of the world champions. But again, it's the discussion that is, I saw recently on the internet, whether Garry Kasparov of his peak, let's say late eighties, could beat Magnus Carlsen today. I mean, it's certainly irrelevant because Garry Kasparov in 1989, okay, has played great chess, but still I knew very little about chess compared to Magnus Carlsen in 2019, who by the way, learned from me as well. So that's why, yeah. I'm extremely cautious in making any judgment that involves, you know, time gaps. You ask, you know, soccer fans. So who is your favorite? Pele, Maradona, or Messi? Yeah. Yeah, who's your favorite? Messi. Messi. Yeah, why? Because? Maybe Maradona, maybe. Not because you're younger, but that's simple. Your instinctive answer is correct because you saw, you didn't see Maradona in action. I saw all of them in action. So that's why, but since, you know, when I was, you know, just following it, you know, just Pele and Maradona, they were just, you know, they were big stars and it's, Messi's already just, I was gradually losing interest in just other things. So I remember Pele in 1970, the final match Brazil Italy. So that's the first World Cup soccer I watched. So that's the, and actually my answer when I just, when I just, you know, because I was asked this question as well. So I say that it's just, while it's impossible to make a choice, I would still probably go with Maradona for simple reason. The Brazilian team in 1970 could have won without Pele. It was absolutely great. Still could have won, maybe, but it is, Argentinian team in 1986 without Maradona would not be in the final. So this is, and Messi, he still hasn't won a title. You could argue for that for an hour, but you could say, if you ask Maradona, if you look in his eyes, especially, let's say Gary Kasparov in 1989, he would have said, I was sure as hell would beat Magnus Carlsen. Just simply because. The confidence, the fire. Simply because, again, they saw me in action. So this, again, it's the age factor that's important. Definitely with the passion and energy and being equipped with all modern ideas. But again, then you make, you know, a very just important assumption that you could empower Gary Kasparov in 1989 with all ideas that have been accumulated over 30 years. That would not be Gary Kasparov. That would be someone else. Because again, I belong to 1989. I was way ahead of the field. And I beat Karpov several times in the World Championship matches. And I crossed 2800, which, by the way, if you look at the, in the rating, which is just, even today, so this is the rating that I retire. So it's still, you know, it's just, it's a top two, three. So that's Caruana and Ding. It's about the same rating now. And I crossed 2800 in 1990. Well, just you look at the inflation. When I crossed 2800 in 1990, there was only one player in 2700 category, and not only Karpov. Now we had more than 50. So just, when you see this, so if you add inflation, so I think my 2851, it could probably, could be more valuable as Magnus 2882, which was his highest rating. But anyway, again, too many hypotheticals. You're lost to IBM Deep Blue in 1997. In my eyes, that is one of the most seminal moments in the history. Again, I apologize for being romanticizing the notion, but in the history of our civilization, because humans, as the civilizations, for centuries saw chess as, you know, the peak of what man can accomplish of intellectual mastery, right? And that moment when a machine could beat a human being was inspiring to just an entire, anyone who cares about science, innovation, an entire generation of AI researchers. And yet, to you that loss, at least if reading your face, was, seemed like a tragedy, extremely painful. Like you said, physically painful. Why? When you look back at your psychology of that loss, why was it so painful? Were you not able to see the seminal nature of that moment? Or was that exactly why it was that painful? As I already said, losing was painful, physically painful. And the match I lost in 1997 was not the first match I lost to a machine. It was the first match I lost, period. Yeah. That's... Oh, wow. So... Oh, wow. Yeah, it's... Right. Yeah, that makes all the difference to me. Yes. First time I lost, it's just... Now, I lost, and the reason I was so angry that I just, you know, I had suspicions that my loss was not just a result of my bad play. Yes. So though I played quite poorly, you know, just when you started looking at the games today, I made tons of mistakes. But, you know, I had all reasons to believe that, you know, there were other factors that had nothing to do with the game of chess. And that's why I was angry. But look, it was 22 years ago. It's water under the bridge. We can analyze this match, and this is with everything you said. I agree with probably one exception, is that considering chess, you know, as the sort of, as a pinnacle of intellectual activities, was our mistake. Because, you know, we just thought, oh, it's a game of the highest intellect, and it's just, you know, you have to be so, you know, intelligent, and you could see things that, you know, the ordinary mortals could not see. It's a game, and all machines had to do with this game is just to make fewer mistakes, not to solve the game. Because the game cannot be solved. I mean, according to Kovalevich Shannon, the number of legal moves is 10 to the 46th power. Too many zeros, so just for any computer to finish the job, you know, in next few billion years. But it doesn't have to. It's all about making fewer mistakes. And I think that's the, this match, this match actually, and what's happened afterwards with other games, with Go, with Shoggy, with video games. It's a demonstration that machines will always be humans in what I call closed systems. The moment you build a closed system, no matter how the system's called, chess, Go, Shoggy, Dota, machines will prevail simply because they will bring down a number of mistakes. Machines don't have to solve it, they just have to, the way they outplay us, it's not by just being more intelligent, it's just by doing something else, but eventually it's just, it's capitalizing on our mistakes. When you look at the chess machines ratings today, and compare this to Magnus Carlsen, it's the same as comparing Ferrari to Usain Bolt. It's the, the gap is, I mean, by chess standards, is insane, 34, 3500 to 2800, 2850 on Magnus. It's like difference between Magnus and an ordinary player from an open international tournament. It's not because machine understanding is better than Magnus Carlsen, but simply because it's steady. Machine has steady hand. And I think that is what we, we, we, we have to learn from 1997 experience, and from further encounters with computers, and sort of the current state of affairs with AlphaZero, beating other machines. The idea that we can compete with computers in so called intellectual fields, it was wrong from the very beginning. It's just, it's, by the way, the 1997 match was not the first victory of machines over AlphaZero. Or grandmasters. Or grandmasters. No, actually it's, I played against first decent chess computers from late, from late 80s. So I played with the prototype of Deep Blue called Deep Thought in 1989, two rapid chess games in New York, I won handily to both games. We played against new chess engines like Fritz, and other programs. And then it's the, it was Israeli program Junior that appeared in 1995. Yeah, so there were, there were several programs. I, you know, I lost few games in Blitz. I lost one match against the computer chess engine 1994 rapid chess. So I lost one game to Deep Blue in 1996 match, the man, the match I won. Some people, you know, tend to forget about it that I won the first match. Yes. But it's, it's, we, we made a very important psychological mistake thinking that the reason we lost Blitz matches, five, five minutes games. The reason we lost some of the rapid chess matches, 25 minutes chess. Because we didn't have enough time. If you play a longer match, we will not make the same mistakes. Nonsense. So this, yeah, we had more time, but we still make mistakes. And machine also has more time. And machines, machine will always, you know, will always be steady and consistent compared to humans instabilities and inconsistencies. And today we are at the point where yes, nobody talks about, you know, humans playing as machines. Now machines can offer handicap to top players and still, you know, will, will, will be favored. I think we're just learning that it's, it's, it's no longer human versus machines. It's about human working with machines. That's what I recognized in 1998, just after leaking my wounds and spending one year in just, you know, ruminating so the, so what's happened in this match. And I knew that though we still could play against the machines. I had two more matches in, in 2003, playing both Deep Fritz and Deep Junior. Both matches ended as a tie. Though these machines were not weaker, at least actually probably stronger than Deep Blue. And by the way, today chess app on your mobile phone is probably stronger than Deep Blue. I'm not speaking about chess engines that are so much superior. And by the way, when you analyze games we played against Deep Blue in 1997 on your chess engine, they'll be laughing. So this is, and it's also shows that's how chess changed because chess commentators, they look at some of our games like game four, game five, brilliant idea. Now you ask Stockfish, you ask Houdini, you ask Commodore, all the leading chess engines. Within 30 seconds, they will show you how many mistakes both Gary and Deep Blue made in the game that was trumpeted as the, as a great chess match in 1997. Well, okay. So you've made an interesting, if you can untangle that comment. So now in retrospect, it was a mistake to see chess as the peak of human intellect. Nevertheless, that was done for centuries. So by the way, in Europe, because you know, you move to the far East, they will go, they had show games. But games, games. Again, some of the games like, you know, board games. Yes. Yeah, I agree. So if I push back a little bit, so now you say that, okay, but it was a mistake to see chess as the epitome and now, and then now there's other things maybe like language, that conversation, like some of the things that in your view is still way out of reach of computers, but inside humans. Do you think, can you talk about what those things might be? And do you think just like chess, they might fall? Soon with the same set of approaches, if you look at AlphaZero, the same kind of learning approaches as the machines grow in size. No, no, it's not about growing in size. It's about, again, it's about understanding the difference between closed system and open ended system. So you think that key difference, so the board games are closed in terms of the rule set, the actions, the state space, everything is just constrained. You think once you open it, the machines are lost? Not lost, but again, the effectiveness is very different because machine does not understand the moment it's reaching territory of diminishing returns. It's the, to put it in a different way, machine doesn't know how to ask right questions. It can ask questions, but it will never tell you which questions are relevant. So there's the, it's like about the, it's the, it's a direction. So these, it's, I think it's in human machine relations, we have to consider, so our role and people, many people feel uncomfortable that this, the territory that belongs to us is shrinking. I'm saying, so what, you know, this is, eventually we'll belong to the last few decimal points, but it's like having, so a very powerful gun, that's, and all you can do there is slightly, you know, alter direction of the bullet. Maybe, you know, 0.1 degree of this angle, but that means a mile away, 10 meters of target. So that's, we have to recognize that is a certain unique human qualities that machines in a foreseeable future will not be able to reproduce. And the effectiveness of this cooperation, collaboration depends on our understanding what exactly we can bring into the game. So the greatest danger is when we try to interfere with machine superior knowledge. So that's why I always say that sometimes you'd rather have, by reading these pictures in radiology, you may probably prefer an experienced nurse than rather than having top professor, because she will not try to interfere with machines understanding. So it's very important to know that if machines knows how to do better things in 95%, 96% of territory, we should not touch it because it's happened. It's like in chess, recognize they do it better. See where we can make the difference. You mentioned AlphaZero, I mean, AlphaZero is, it's actually a first step into what you may call AI, because everything that's being called AI today, it's just, it's one or another variation of what Claude Shannon characterized as a brute force. It's a type A machine, whether it's Deep Blue, whether it's Watson, and all these modern technologies that are being trumpeted as AI, it's still brute force. It's the, all they do, it's they do optimization. It's this, they are, you know, they keep, you know, improving the way to process human generated data. Now, AlphaZero is the first step towards, you know, machine produced knowledge. Which is, by the way, it's quite ironic that the first company that championed that was IBM. Oh, it's in backgammon. Interesting, in backgammon. Yes, you should look at IBM, it's a newer gammon. It's the scientist called Cesaro. He's still working at IBM. They had it in the early 90s. It's the program that played, you know, the AlphaZero type, so just trying to come up with own strategies. But because of success of Deep Blue, this project had been not abandoned, but just, you know, it was put on hold. And now we just, you know, it's, you know, everybody talks about this, the machines generated knowledge, so as revolutionary. And it is, but there's still, you know, many open ended questions. Yes, AlphaZero generates its own data. Many ideas that AlphaZero generated in chess were quite intriguing. So I looked at these games with, not just with interest, but with, you know, it was quite exciting to learn how machine could actually, you know, juggle all the pieces and just play positions with a broken material balance, sacrificing material, always being ahead of other programs, you know, one or two moves ahead by foreseeing the consequences, not overcalculating because machines, other machines were at least as powerful in calculating, but it's having this unique knowledge based on discovered patterns after playing 60 million games. Almost something that feels like intuition. Exactly, but there's one problem. Yeah. Now, the simple question, if AlphaZero faces superior point, let's say another powerful computer accompanied by a human who could help just to discover certain problems, because I already, I look at many AlphaZero games. I visited their lab, you know, spoke to Demis Hassabis and his team, and I know there's certain weaknesses there. Now, if these weaknesses are exposed, the question is how many games will it take for AlphaZero to correct it? The answer is hundreds of thousands. Even if it keeps losing, it can, it's just because the whole system is based. So it's now, imagine so this is, you can have a human by just making a few tweaks. So humans are still more flexible. And as long as we recognize what is our role, where we can play sort of, so the most valuable part in this collaboration. So it's, it will help us to understand what are the next steps in human machine collaboration. Beautifully put. So let's talk about the thing that machines certainly don't know how to do yet, which is morality. Machines and morality. It's another question that, you know, just it's being asked all the time these days. And I think it's another phantom that is haunting a general public because it's just being fed with this, you know, illusions is that how can we avoid machines, you know, having bias, being prejudiced? You cannot, because it's like looking in the mirror and complaining about what you see. If you have certain bias in the society, machine will just follow it. It's just, it's, you know, you look at the mirror, you don't like what you see there. You can, you know, you can break it. You can try to distort it. Or you can try to actually change something. Just by yourself. By yourself, yes. So it's very important to understand is that you cannot expect machines to improve the ills of our society. And moreover machines will simply, you know, just, you know, amplify it. Yes. Yeah. But the thing is people are more comfortable with other people doing injustice, with being biased. We're not comfortable with machines having the same kind of bias. So that's an interesting standard that we place on machines. With autonomous vehicles, they have to be much safer. With automated systems. Of course they're much safer. Statistically, they're much safer than. It's not of course. Why would, it's not of course. It's not given. Autonomous vehicles, you have to work really hard to make them safer. I think it just, it goes without saying is the outcome of this, I would call it competition with comparison is very clear. But the problem is not about being, you know, safer. It's the 40,000 people or so every year died in car accidents in the United States. And it's statistics. One accident with autonomous vehicle and it's front page of a newspaper. Yes. So it's, again, it's about psychology. So it's while people, you know, kill each other in car accidents because they make mistakes, they make more mistakes. For me, it's not a question. Of course we make more mistakes because we're human. Yes, machines are old. And by the way, no machine will ever reach 100% perfection. That's another important fake story that is being fed to the public. If machine doesn't reach 100% performance, it's not safe. No, all you can ask any computer, whether it's, you know, playing chess or doing the stock market calculations or driving your autonomous vehicle, it's to make fewer mistakes. And yes, I know it's not, you know, it's not easy for us to accept because ah, if, you know, if you have two humans, you know, colliding in their cars, okay, it's like, if one of these cars is autonomous vehicle, and by the way, even if it's humans fault, terrible. How could you allow a machine to run without a driver at the wheel? So, you know, let's linger that for a second, that double standard, the way you felt with your first loss against Deep Blue, were you treating the machine differently than you would have a human? Or, so what do you think about that difference between the way we see machines and humans? No, it's the, at that time, you know, for me it was a match. And that's why I was angry because I believed that the match was not, you know, fairly organized. So it's, definitely there were unfair advantages for IBM and I wanted to play another match, like a rubber match. So your anger or displeasure was aimed more like at the humans behind IBM versus the actual pure algorithm. Absolutely, look, I knew at the time, and by the way, I was, objectively speaking, I was stronger at that time. So that probably added to my anger because I knew I could beat the machine. Yeah. Yeah, so that's, and that's the, and as I lost, and I knew I was not well prepared. So because they, I have to give them credit. They did some good work from 1996 and I, but I still could beat the machine. So I made too many mistakes. Also, this is the whole, it's this, the publicity around the match. So I underestimated the effect, you know, just it's, and being called the, you know, the brain's last stand, you know, okay, no pressure. Okay, well, let me ask. So I was born also in the Soviet Union. What lessons do you draw from the rise and fall of the Soviet Union in the 20th century? When you just look at this nation that is now pushing forward into what Russia is, if you look at the long arc of history of the 20th century, what do we take away? What do we take away from that? I think the lesson of history is clear. Undemocratic systems, totalitarian regimes, systems that are based on controlling their citizens and just every aspect of their life, not offering opportunities to, for private initiative, central planning systems, they're doomed. They just, you know, they cannot be driving force for innovation, so they, in the history timeline, I mean, they could cause certain, you know, distortion of the concept of progress. They, by the way, they may call themselves progressive, but we know that the damage that they caused to humanity is just, it's yet to be measured. But at the end of the day, they fail. They fail, and the end of the Cold War was a great triumph of the free world. It's not that the free world is perfect. It's very important to recognize the fact that, I always like to mention, you know, one of my favorite books, The Lord of the Rings, that there's no absolute good, but there is an absolute evil. Good, you know, comes in many forms, but we all, you know, it's being humans or being even, you know, humans from fairy tales or just some sort of mythical creatures. It's the, you can always find spots on the songs. So this is conducting war and just, and fighting for justice. There are always things that, you know, can be easily criticized. And human history is the, is a never ending quest for perfection. But we know that there is absolute evil. We know it's, for me, it's no clear, it's, I mean, nobody argues about Hitler being absolute evil, but I think it's very important to recognize Stalin was absolute evil. Communism caused more damage than any other ideology in the 20th century. And unfortunately, while we all know that fascism was condemned, but there was no Nuremberg for communism. And that's why we could see, you know, still the successors of Stalin are feeling far more comfortable. And Putin is one of them. You highlight a few interesting connections actually between Stalin and Hitler. I mean, in terms of the adjusting or clarifying the history of World War II, which is very interesting. Of course, we don't have time. So let me ask. You can ask, you know, I just recently delivered a speech in Toronto at 80th anniversary of Molotov Ribbentrop Pact. It's something that I believe, you know, just, you know, has, must be taught in the schools that the World War II had been started by two dictators by signing these criminal treaty, collusion of two tyrants in August 1939 that led to the beginning of the World War II. And the fact is that eventually Stalin had no choice but to join allies because Hitler attacked him. So it just doesn't, you know, eliminate the fact that Stalin helped Hitler to start World War II. And he was one of the beneficiaries at early stage by annexing a part of Eastern Europe. And as a result of the World War II, he annexed almost entire Eastern Europe. And for many Eastern European nations, the end of the World War II was the beginning of communist occupation. So Putin, you've talked about as a man who stands between Russia and democracy, essentially today. You've been a strong opponent and critic of Putin. Let me ask again, how much does fear enter your mind and heart? So in 2007, there's this interesting comment from Oleg Kalugin, KGB general. He said that I do not talk details. People who knew them are all dead now because they were vocal. I'm quiet. There's only one man who's vocal and he may be in trouble. World Chess champion Kasparov. He has been very outspoken in his attacks on Putin. And I believe he's probably next on the list. So clearly your life has been and perhaps continues to be in danger. How do you think about having the views you have, the ideas you have, being in opposition as you are in this kind of context when your life could be in danger? That's the reason I live in New York. So it was not my first choice, but I knew I had to leave Russia at one point. And among other places, New York is the safest. Is it safe? No. It's the, I know what happened, what is happening with many of Putin's enemies. But at the end of the day, I mean, what can I do? I could be very proactive by trying to change things I can influence. But here are a few facts. I cannot stop doing what I've been doing for a long time. It's the right thing to do. I grew up with my family teaching me sort of the wisdom of Soviet dissidents, do what you must and so be. I could try to be cautious by not traveling to certain places where my security could be at risk. There are so many invitations to speak at different locations in the world. And I have to say that many countries are just now are not destinations that I can afford to travel. My mother still lives in Moscow. I meet her a few times a year. She was devastated when I had to leave Russia because since my father died in 1971, so she was 33 and she dedicated her entire life to her only son. But she recognized in just a year or so since I left Russia that it was the only chance for me to continue my normal life. So just to, I mean, to be relatively safe and to do what she taught me to do to make the difference. Do you think you will ever return to Russia or let me ask a different way? When? Even sooner than many people think because I think Putin's regime is facing unsurmountable difficulties. And again, I read enough historical books to know that dictatorships, they end suddenly. It's just on Sunday, dictator feels comfortable. He believes he's popular on Monday morning, he's bust. The good news and bad news. I mean, the bad news is that I don't know when and how Putin rule ends. The good news, he also doesn't know. Okay, well put. Let me ask a question that seems to preoccupy the American mind from the perspective of Russia. One, did Russia interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, government sanction and future? Two, will Russia interfere in the 2020 U.S. election? And what does that interference look like? It's very old. We had such an intelligent conversation. And you are ruining everything by asking such a stupid question. It's insulting for my intellect. Of course they did interfere. Of course they did absolutely everything to elect Trump. I mean, they said it many times. It is just, you know, I met enough KGB colonels in my life to tell you that, you know, just the way Putin looks at Trump, this is the way. Look, and I don't have to hear what he says, what Trump says, it just is, I don't need to go through congressional investigations. The way Putin looks at Trump is the way the KGB officers looked at the assets. It's just, and following to 2020, of course they will do absolutely everything to help Trump to survive. Because I think the damage that Trump's reelections could cause to America and to the free world, it's just, it's beyond one's imagination. I think basically if Trump is reelected, he will ruin NATO, because he's already heading in this direction, but now he's just, he's still limited by the reelection hurdles. If he's still in the office after November, 2020, okay, January, 2021, I don't want to think about it. My problem is not just Trump, because Trump is basically, it's a symptom. But the problem is that I don't see, it's just, it's the, in American political horizon, politicians who could take on Trump for all damage that he's doing for the free world. Not just things that has happened that went wrong in America. So there's the, it seems to me that the campaign, political campaign on the Democratic side is fixed on certain important, but still secondary issues. Because when you have the foundation of the republic in jeopardy, I mean, you cannot talk about healthcare. I mean, I understand how important it is, but it's still secondary because the entire framework of American political life is at risk. And you have Vladimir Putin just, it's having, fortunately, free hands by attacking America and other free countries. And by the way, we have so much evidence about Russian interference in Brexit, in elections in almost every European country. And thinking that they will be shy of attacking America in 2020, now with Trump in the office, yeah. I think it's, yeah, it definitely diminishes the intellectual quality of our conversation. I do what I can. Last question. If you can go back, just look at the entirety of your life, you accomplished more than most humans will ever do. If you could go back and relive a single moment in your life, what would that moment be? There are moments in my life when I think about what could be done differently, but. No, experience happiness and joy and pride. Just a touch once again. I know, I know, but it's the, it's the, I made many mistakes in my life. So I just, it's the, I know that at the end of the day, it's, I believe in the butterfly effect. So it's the, it's the, I knew moments where I could, now if I'm there at that point in 89 and 93, you pick up a year, I could improve my actions by not doing this stupid thing. But then how do you know that I will have all other accomplishments? I just, I'm, I'm afraid that, you know, we just have to just follow this, if you may call wisdom before is gump, you know, it's the life is this, you know, it's, this is, it's a box of, of, of, of chocolate and you don't know what's inside, but you have to go one by one. So it's the, I'm, I'm happy with who I am and where I am today. And I am very proud, not only with my chess accomplishments, but that I made this transition. And since I left chess, you know, I built my own reputation that had some influence on the game of chess, but not, it's not, you know, directly derived from, from, from the game. I'm grateful for my wife. So help me to build this life. We actually married in 2005. It was my third marriage. That's why I said I'd made mistakes in my life. But, and by the way, I'm close with two kids from my previous marriages. So that's, that's the, I'm, you know, I managed to sort of to balance my life and, and here in, I live in New York. So we have our two kids born here in New York. It's, it's new life and it's, you know, it's, it's busy. Sometimes I wish I could, you know, I could limit my engagement in many other things that are still, you know, taking time and energy, but life is exciting. And as long as I can feel that I have energy, I have strengths, I have passion to make the difference, I'm happy. I think that's a beautiful moment to end on. Gary, thank you very much for talking today. Thank you.

Garry Kasparov: Chess, Deep Blue, AI, and Putin | Lex Fridman Podcast #46