Exploring the Kardashev Scale and Extraterrestrial Communication

Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist, futurist, and professor at the City College of New York. He is the author of many fascinating books on the nature of our reality and the future of our civilization. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline with timestamps for this episode (on some players you can click on the timestamp to jump to that point in the episode):

00:00 – Introduction
01:14 – Contact with Aliens in the 21st century
06:36 – Multiverse and Nirvana
09:46 – String Theory
11:07 – Einstein’s God
15:01 – Would aliens hurt us?
17:34 – What would aliens look like?
22:13 – Brain-machine interfaces
27:35 – Existential risk from AI
30:22 – Digital immortality
34:02 – Biological immortality
37:42 – Does mortality give meaning?
43:42 – String theory
47:16 – Universe as a computer and a simulation
53:16 – First human on Mars