Roger Penrose is physicist, mathematician, and philosopher at University of Oxford. He has made fundamental contributions in many disciplines from the mathematical physics of general relativity and cosmology to the limitations of a computational view of consciousness. Support this podcast by signing up with these sponsors: – ExpressVPN at https://www.expressvpn.com/lexpod – Cash App – use code “LexPodcast” and download: – Cash App (App Store): https://apple.co/2sPrUHe – Cash App (Google Play): https://bit.ly/2MlvP5w EPISODE LINKS: Cycles of Time (book): https://amzn.to/39tXtpp The Emperor’s New Mind (book): https://amzn.to/2yfeVkD 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 03:51 – 2001: A Space Odyssey 09:43 – Consciousness and computation 23:45 – What does it mean to “understand” 31:37 – What’s missing in quantum mechanics? 40:09 – Whatever consciousness is, it’s not a computation 44:13 – Source of consciousness in the human brain 1:02:57 – Infinite cycles of big bangs 1:22:05 – Most beautiful idea in mathematics

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher at University of Oxford and the director of the Future of Humanity Institute. He has worked on fascinating and important ideas in existential risks, simulation hypothesis, human enhancement ethics, and the risks of superintelligent AI systems, including in his book Superintelligence. I can see talking to Nick multiple times on this podcast, many hours each time, but we have to start somewhere. Support this podcast by signing up with these sponsors: – Cash App – use code “LexPodcast” and download: – Cash App (App Store): https://apple.co/2sPrUHe – Cash App (Google Play): https://bit.ly/2MlvP5w EPISODE LINKS: Nick’s website: https://nickbostrom.com/ Future of Humanity Institute: – https://twitter.com/fhioxford – https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/ Books: – Superintelligence: https://amzn.to/2JckX83 Wikipedia: – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_indifference – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 02:48 – Simulation hypothesis and simulation argument 12:17 – Technologically mature civilizations 15:30 – Case 1: if something kills all possible civilizations 19:08 – Case 2: if we lose interest in creating simulations 22:03 – Consciousness 26:27 – Immersive worlds 28:50 – Experience machine 41:10 – Intelligence and consciousness 48:58 – Weighing probabilities of the simulation argument 1:01:43 – Elaborating on Joe Rogan conversation 1:05:53 – Doomsday argument and anthropic reasoning 1:23:02 – Elon Musk 1:25:26 – What’s outside the simulation? 1:29:52 – Superintelligence 1:47:27 – AGI utopia 1:52:41 – Meaning of life

Simon Sinek is an author of several books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, and his latest The Infinite Game. He is one of the best communicators of what it takes to be a good leader, to inspire, and to build businesses that solve big difficult challenges. Support this podcast by signing up with these sponsors: – MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/lex – Cash App – use code “LexPodcast” and download: – Cash App (App Store): https://apple.co/2sPrUHe – Cash App (Google Play): https://bit.ly/2MlvP5w EPISODE LINKS: Simon twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinek Simon facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek Simon website: https://simonsinek.com/ Books: – Infinite Game: https://amzn.to/2WxBH1i – Leaders Eat Last: https://amzn.to/2xf70Ds – Start with Why: https://amzn.to/2WxBH1i 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 0:00 – Introduction 3:50 – Meaning of life as an infinite game 10:13 – Optimism 13:30 – Mortality 17:52 – Hard work 26:38 – Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and leadership

Anca Dragan is a professor at Berkeley, working on human-robot interaction — algorithms that look beyond the robot’s function in isolation, and generate robot behavior that accounts for interaction and coordination with human beings. Support this podcast by supporting the sponsors and using the special code: – Download Cash App on the App Store or Google Play & use code “LexPodcast”  EPISODE LINKS: Anca’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ancadianadragan Anca’s Website: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~anca/ 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 02:26 – Interest in robotics 05:32 – Computer science 07:32 – Favorite robot 13:25 – How difficult is human-robot interaction? 32:01 – HRI application domains 34:24 – Optimizing the beliefs of humans 45:59 – Difficulty of driving when humans are involved 1:05:02 – Semi-autonomous driving 1:10:39 – How do we specify good rewards? 1:17:30 – Leaked information from human behavior 1:21:59 – Three laws of robotics 1:26:31 – Book recommendation 1:29:02 – If a doctor gave you 5 years to live… 1:32:48 – Small act of kindness 1:34:31 – Meaning of life

Vitalik Buterin is co-creator of Ethereum and ether, which is a cryptocurrency that is currently the second-largest digital currency after bitcoin. Ethereum has a lot of interesting technical ideas that are defining the future of blockchain technology, and Vitalik is one of the most brilliant people innovating this space today. Support this podcast by supporting the sponsors with a special code: – Get ExpressVPN at https://www.expressvpn.com/lexpod – Sign up to MasterClass at https://masterclass.com/lex EPISODE LINKS: Vitalik blog: https://vitalik.ca Ethereum whitepaper: http://bit.ly/3cVDTpj Casper FFG (paper): http://bit.ly/2U6j7dJ Quadratic funding (paper): http://bit.ly/3aUZ8Wd Bitcoin whitepaper: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf Mastering Ethereum (book): https://amzn.to/2xEjWmE 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 04:43 – Satoshi Nakamoto 08:40 – Anonymity 11:31 – Open source project leadership 13:04 – What is money? 30:02 – Blockchain and cryptocurrency basics 46:51 – Ethereum 59:23 – Proof of work 1:02:12 – Ethereum 2.0 1:13:09 – Beautiful ideas in Ethereum 1:16:59 – Future of cryptocurrency 1:22:06 – Cryptocurrency resources and people to follow 1:24:28 – Role of governments 1:27:27 – Meeting Putin 1:29:41 – Large number of cryptocurrencies 1:32:49 – Mortality

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist, co-inventor of loop quantum gravity, and a contributor of many interesting ideas to cosmology, quantum field theory, the foundations of quantum mechanics, theoretical biology, and the philosophy of science. He is the author of several books including one that critiques the state of physics and string theory called The Trouble with Physics, and his latest book, Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum. EPISODE LINKS: Books mentioned: – Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution by Lee Smolin: https://amzn.to/2TsF5c3 – The Trouble With Physics by Lee Smolin: https://amzn.to/2v1FMzy – Against Method by Paul Feyerabend: https://amzn.to/2VOPXCD 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it (App Store, Google Play), use code “LexPodcast”.  Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 03:03 – What is real? 05:03 – Scientific method and scientific progress 24:57 – Eric Weinstein and radical ideas in science 29:32 – Quantum mechanics and general relativity 47:24 – Sean Carroll and many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics 55:33 – Principles in science 57:24 – String theory

Ann Druyan is the writer, producer, director, and one of the most important and impactful communicators of science in our time. She co-wrote the 1980 science documentary series Cosmos hosted by Carl Sagan, whom she married in 1981, and her love for whom, with the help of NASA, was recorded as brain waves on a golden record along with other things our civilization has to offer and launched into space on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft that are now, 42 years later, still active, reaching out farther into deep space than any human-made object ever has. This was a profound and beautiful decision she made as a Creative Director of NASA’s Voyager Interstellar Message Project. In 2014, she went on to create the second season of Cosmos, called Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, and in 2020, the new third season called Cosmos: Possible Worlds, which is being released this upcoming Monday, March 9. It is hosted, once again, by the fun and brilliant Neil deGrasse Tyson. EPISODE LINKS: Cosmos Twitter: https://twitter.com/COSMOSonTV Cosmos Website: https://fox.tv/CosmosOnTV 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it (App Store, Google Play), use code “LexPodcast”.  Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 03:24 – Role of science in society 07:04 – Love and science 09:07 – Skepticism in science 14:15 – Voyager, Carl Sagan, and the Golden Record 36:41 – Cosmos 53:22 – Existential threats 1:00:36 – Origin of life 1:04:22 – Mortality

Alex Garland is a writer and director of many imaginative and philosophical films from the dreamlike exploration of human self-destruction in the movie Annihilation to the deep questions of consciousness and intelligence raised in the movie Ex Machina, which to me is one of the greatest movies on artificial intelligence ever made. I’m releasing this podcast to coincide with the release of his new series called Devs that will premiere this Thursday, March 5, on Hulu. EPISODE LINKS: Devs: https://hulu.tv/2x35HaH Annihilation: https://hulu.tv/3ai9Eqk Ex Machina: https://www.netflix.com/title/80023689 Alex IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0307497/ Alex Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Garland 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it (App Store, Google Play), use code “LexPodcast”.  Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 03:42 – Are we living in a dream? 07:15 – Aliens 12:34 – Science fiction: imagination becoming reality 17:29 – Artificial intelligence 22:40 – The new “Devs” series and the veneer of virtue in Silicon Valley 31:50 – Ex Machina and 2001: A Space Odyssey 44:58 – Lone genius 49:34 – Drawing inpiration from Elon Musk 51:24 – Space travel 54:03 – Free will 57:35 – Devs and the poetry of science 1:06:38 – What will you be remembered for?

John Hopfield is professor at Princeton, whose life’s work weaved beautifully through biology, chemistry, neuroscience, and physics. Most crucially, he saw the messy world of biology through the piercing eyes of a physicist. He is perhaps best known for his work on associate neural networks, now known as Hopfield networks that were one of the early ideas that catalyzed the development of the modern field of deep learning. EPISODE LINKS: Now What? article: http://bit.ly/3843LeU John wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hopfield Books mentioned: – Einstein’s Dreams: https://amzn.to/2PBa96X – Mind is Flat: https://amzn.to/2I3YB84 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it (App Store, Google Play), use code “LexPodcast”.  Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 02:35 – Difference between biological and artificial neural networks 08:49 – Adaptation 13:45 – Physics view of the mind 23:03 – Hopfield networks and associative memory 35:22 – Boltzmann machines 37:29 – Learning 39:53 – Consciousness 48:45 – Attractor networks and dynamical systems 53:14 – How do we build intelligent systems? 57:11 – Deep thinking as the way to arrive at breakthroughs 59:12 – Brain-computer interfaces 1:06:10 – Mortality 1:08:12 – Meaning of life

Marcus Hutter is a senior research scientist at DeepMind and professor at Australian National University. Throughout his career of research, including with Jürgen Schmidhuber and Shane Legg, he has proposed a lot of interesting ideas in and around the field of artificial general intelligence, including the development of the AIXI model which is a mathematical approach to AGI that incorporates ideas of Kolmogorov complexity, Solomonoff induction, and reinforcement learning. EPISODE LINKS: Hutter Prize: http://prize.hutter1.net Marcus web: http://www.hutter1.net Books mentioned: – Universal AI: https://amzn.to/2waIAuw – AI: A Modern Approach: https://amzn.to/3camxnY – Reinforcement Learning: https://amzn.to/2PoANj9 – Theory of Knowledge: https://amzn.to/3a6Vp7x 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, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon. This episode is presented by Cash App. Download it (App Store, Google Play), use code “LexPodcast”.  Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. OUTLINE: 00:00 – Introduction 03:32 – Universe as a computer 05:48 – Occam’s razor 09:26 – Solomonoff induction 15:05 – Kolmogorov complexity 20:06 – Cellular automata 26:03 – What is intelligence? 35:26 – AIXI – Universal Artificial Intelligence 1:05:24 – Where do rewards come from? 1:12:14 – Reward function for human existence 1:13:32 – Bounded rationality 1:16:07 – Approximation in AIXI 1:18:01 – Godel machines 1:21:51 – Consciousness 1:27:15 – AGI community 1:32:36 – Book recommendations 1:36:07 – Two moments to relive (past and future)