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Speaker 1

04:00:00

My reasoning is if I wanted to stay alive, okay, so if the thing is, if I wasn't going back to Earth and the job was to stay alive, if I could be as surprising as possible, they'd keep me around like a pet, right? Petly, on the alien's principle. So

Speaker 2

04:00:12

you'd be okay being a pet?

Speaker 1

04:00:14

Well, no, but I mean.

Speaker 2

04:00:16

The last human that survives would just be a pet to the aliens.

Speaker 1

04:00:19

I don't know, but I mean, I think that might be fun because then I might get some feedback from their curiosity. But yeah.

Speaker 2

04:00:26

Let me ask you this question. Given our conversation has a very different meaning, not a more profound meaning perhaps, but would you rather lose all of your old memories or never be able to make new ones?

Speaker 1

04:00:42

I would have to lose all my old memories.

Speaker 2

04:00:47

Again, it's the novelty. What about you, Sarah?

Speaker 3

04:00:52

I'm the same because I don't think, like it's about the future experience, right? And in some sense, like you were saying earlier, most of our lived experience is actually in our memories. So if you can't generate new memories, it's like you're not alive anymore.

Speaker 2

04:01:06

That's it, yeah. What comforts you on bad days? When you look at human civilization, when you look at your own life, what gives you hope, what makes you feel good about what we're doing, about life at the small scale of you as a human and at the big scale of us as a human civilization, maybe the big scale of the universe?

Speaker 3

04:01:29

Children, my kids, but I also mean that in like a grand sense of like, not a grand, but like future minds in some sense. So for me, like the most bleak movie ever, people worry about apocalyptic things like AI existential risk and climate change was children of men. The whole premise of the movie was there can be no children born on the entire planet.

Speaker 3

04:01:50

And the youngest person on the planet is like 18 years old or something. Like can you imagine a world without children? It's just, it's harrowing. That's the scariest thing.

Speaker 3

04:02:00

So I think what gives me hope is always youth and the hope of children and the possibilities of the future they see. And they grow up in a completely different reality than adults do. And I think we have a hard time seeing what their reality actually looks like but I think I think most of the time it's super interesting.

Speaker 2

04:02:23

Yeah they have dreams, they have imagination, they have this kind of excitement. Yeah. So it's so cool, so fun to watch and yeah you feel like you're almost getting in the way of all that imagination.

Speaker 2

04:02:38

What about you, Lee? What gives you hope?

Speaker 1

04:02:41

So when I go back to my eight-year-old self, the thing that I dreamed of as my eight-year-old self was this world in which technology became programmable and there was internet and I get information and I would expand my consciousness by just, just, you know, getting access to everything that was going on. And this happened in my lifetime. I mean, really do have that.

Speaker 1

04:03:02

I mean, okay, there's some bad things, you know, there's TikTok, everyone just, or whatever, all the bad things about social media. But I think, I mean, I can't quite believe my luck being born now, it's so amazing.

Speaker 2

04:03:18

Being able to program reality in some way.

Speaker 1

04:03:20

Yeah, and the thing that I really find fascinating about human beings is just how ingenious they are. Whether it's from my kids, my research group, my peers, other companies, just how ingenious everyone is. And I'm pretty sure humanity has a very, or our causal chain in which humanity is a vital part in the future is gonna have a lot of fun.

Speaker 1

04:03:46

And I'm just, yeah, it's just mind-blowing just to watch. And you know, so humans are ingenious and I hope to help them be more ingenious if I can.

Speaker 2

04:03:56

Well, what gives me hope, what makes me feel good on bad days is the existence of wild minds like yours, novelty generators, assembly structures that generate novelty and do so beautifully. And then tweet about it. Sarah, I really, really enjoy talking to you.

Speaker 2

04:04:15

I enjoy following you, I'm a huge fan. Sarah Lee, I hope to talk to you many times in the future, maybe with Yosha Bach, you're just incredible people. Thank you for everything you do, you're awesome. Thank you for talking today,

Speaker 3

04:04:26

I really, really appreciate it.

Speaker 1

04:04:27

Yeah, brilliant to be here.

Speaker 2

04:04:30

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Sarah Walker and Lee Cronin. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. Now, let me leave you with some words from Arthur C.

Speaker 2

04:04:39

Clarke. 2 possibilities exist. Either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

Speaker 2

04:04:52

And let me, if I may, add to that by saying that both possibilities, at least to me, are both terrifying and exciting. And keeping these 2 feelings in my heart is a fun way to explore, to wander, to think, and to live. Always a little bit on the edge of madness. Thank you for listening.

Speaker 2

04:05:11

I hope to see you