The Exchanges

Q Do you think, do you see the need for interplanetary travel or would you focus on something else?

A Well, I, I'm a huge fan of science, and I'm a huge fan of exploring the solar system, and, ah, having both interstellar, intrasolar system and interstellar probes both. I think those are both ultimately fantastic things for us to do to explore the world, but it's vastly cheaper and easier, ah, to, and better to do it with machines than to do it with humans. Um, in terms of a need to, like, colonize, um, the solar system, I, I don't think, I think people believe that that's an imperative as a holdover from the ideas of the age of imperialism when we thought, oh yes, we have to go conquer and colonize the whole world. Um, Well, it did work. I mean, there, there were a whole variety of cultures that at different points in history went and colonized various parts of the world. Um, we're most familiar with the most recent ones, the ones that, for example, European countries did. That's how we got America. Um, you know, they, they went to South America, they, uh, had colonies in Africa and other places. But even earlier than that, The way humans got to Europe was they left Africa. But at this stage, you have to say, well, gee, if we really need to leave this planet, A, we must have screwed something up pretty badly. Some people say, well, that's why we should go to Mars, that we have a second home for humanity. Well, if you really had to do that, the moon is a lot closer, um, and has…

AI assessment note: “it's vastly cheaper and easier, ah, to, and better to do it with machines”

Q How do you think about the global cooperation that's also needed between nations? Because you, as one nation, can have an impact, but if another nation defects, and in some cases they would get an advantage from defecting in terms of cost of manufacturing, cost of energy.

A A huge advantage. So, uh, of course, People are jealous of other folks that don't do that, don't do the same thing. You know, we, ah, that's one of the problems with global warming or global climate is that it affects all of us. Um, I'm involved in a nuclear company, and for a while, we had a deal to build one of our brand new plants. We've invented a new type of nuclear plant that's way safer, and it's got lots of other benefits. We were going to build our first one in China, and there were lots of people in the U.S. that said, how dare you build it in China? Why would you let them have it? And I said, because we all share the same atmosphere.

AI assessment note: “We were going to build our first one in China... because we all share the same atmosphere.”

Q Where are we going wrong in taking care of this planet?

A Humans are not great at long-term things, ok? So, um, we all know that we should eat right and work out. Lots of us don't, and that's because the immediate gratification of, oh, I'm late for an interview this morning. I, I, I gotta leave. I, I don't have time to work out. That was me this morning. Or, wow, that donut looks really great, or there's an extra slice of pizza left. Man, we are such suckers for that. It's ridiculous. Which is why the, um, if you take the standards of the past, the average American is overweight. You know, what does it mean to be over if it's the average, if it's the majority? You know, it's a weird thing. Um, it, that's why we do a variety of self-destructive behaviors individually. As a society, we try to plan ahead a little more, and for some things we're able to do that, but if you take a problem like climate change, it's like the worst case situation. Um, I like to compare climate change to a, uh, uh, to ecological disasters. So in Spain, I don't know, 20 years ago, something like this, there was a flood. The flood washed over the banks of a river near where there was a gold mine. Gold mines use cyanide to help recover the gold from the dirt. So there's a cyanide spill into the river. And it killed like a quarter million fish which floated downriver and piled up in the city of Seville in Spain in August. Now you got a quarter million dead fish ro…

AI assessment note: “Humans are not great at long-term things, ok?”

Q So we have a long duration problem, so it's not right in front of us, we have no sort of sourceability to what's really causing the problem, or do we understand what's causing the problem?

A Well, I think, So there's another factor which is, Just jealousy and human nature. Um, yeah, I think we understand what's causing the problem. Uh, you know, the, it's a whole variety of things around modern life. Um, transportation, you know, fossil fuels are great for transportation. Um, there, uh, the density and the convenience of a liquid hydrocarbon fuel is just enormous. Um, So we're making burgers on electric vehicles, except today, most electric vehicles are filled up with fossil-derived electricity. If you drive a Tesla and you live in the East Coast of the United States, statistically speaking, you're hurting the climate, not helping it. Washington State, we can feel slightly more, slightly better about it because we have a mix of nuclear and hydro, so most of the power in Washington State is at least clean, so if you charge your Tesla up, that helps, but, um, anyway, here's the worst part of it. Humans will typically put stuff off and put stuff off and put stuff off, and then you panic. Now, we saw that with the pandemic, ok? I had been publicly saying that we had to worry about a, both a natural pandemic and or a bioterrorism thing. I've been saying that for 10 or 15 years. Other people have been saying it for longer than I had. Um, you know, in 1918, You had this horrible pandemic, you know, that killed, you know, three percent of the people, five percent of the pe…

AI assessment note: “yeah, I think we understand what's causing the problem.”

Q Plus it's, it, it, it's asymmetric, right? If you're a nation and you want to cause harm to another nation, you might not be able to afford tanks and missiles and all this other things, but you can do Cyber, you can do biological weapons, you can do other things.

A Yes, um, this will sound very strange, but thank God for nuclear weapons. In that, most, um, countries with ill intent Really, they, they, they see the United States or, uh, the Soviet, former Soviet Union, now Russia, as superpowers and nuclear weapons. They want a nuclear weapon, and it's really hard to make a nuclear weapon, and it's so hard that even though a few countries have gotten them, it's not like everybody has them, and it's cheaper, it's easy. Uh, bioterrorism is potentially worse than that because it's potentially much cheaper and much easier, and, uh, it's also much harder to control. Um, that whole thing makes it a way worse thing. So I think we'll see a bioterrorism event someday. You know, if just two years ago I had said there will be a war of conquest in Europe, you would have said I was a little nuts, right? It's like the EU is already one uniform thing. What is Switzerland going to attack? I mean, come on, there can't be an attack in Europe. And as we speak, there's a war of conquest going on in what is geographically Europe. You can say, ah, well, historically Ukraine wasn't Europe, but okay, it's right beside all these other places that, that are legally and treaty-wise part of Europe, and we don't know where that war is going to end. We don't know anything about it. So, unfortunately, It's too easy to think ill of people that will eventually prove you c…

AI assessment note: “bioterrorism is potentially worse than that because it's potentially much cheaper and much easier”

Q Yeah, it doesn't, I, they are safer, so it doesn't make sense, but then we have to answer all these societal questions about like, well, who's at fault of an autonomous car?

A Well, I mean, at the moment, autonomous cars aren't really autonomous, and they don't really do as good a job as a human driver does, ok? That's just straight up the case, where we are today, because there's too many random things that can happen on the road that the autonomous systems have a hard time doing. Um, But, over time that will change, and it wouldn't take very much of an improvement before they're better than we are. So now you're asking a really important societal question, which is, on the day when autonomous cars are actually better than humans at driving, will we accept them? And for lots of things, there has been pushback. You know, the, it's been true for a long time, uh, that, um, humans are the weakest part of a fighter jet.

AI assessment note: “you're asking a really important societal question, which is... will we accept them?”