Big Compute - AI: Hollywood vs Reality (Part 2)

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

Is the singularity really around the corner? And when it hits, will we be surrounded by task-fulfilling artificial intelligence beings like in the 2004 movie, iRobot, or will we be shipped across space in hibernation pods reminiscent of 2016’s Passengers? Or… something else? In this second half of our discussion around artificial intelligence, Jolie and Ernest explore common themes in AI movies from the 1990s to today, and compare them to predictions and ideas from OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman. One thing is sure -- AI is going to change the world. The question is, how are we going to prepare for it?

Truman Show was a good movie from the plot, but it was just, it's Ace Ventura running around in there is what it is. And I couldn't... I love that movie, not Ace Ventura. I love the Truman Show. Oh, I loved Ace Ventura. It was great. It was so stupid. It was stupid. Alrighty. Hi everyone, I'm Jolie Hales.

And I'm Ernest DeLeon. And welcome to the Big Compute Podcast. Here we celebrate innovation in a world of virtually unlimited compute, and we do it one important story at a time. We talk about the stories behind scientists and engineers who are embracing the power of high-performance computing to better the lives of all of us. From the products we use every day to the technology of tomorrow, computational engineering plays a direct role in making it all happen, whether people know it or not. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Big Compute Podcast. And before we get started, this is the continuation of the last episode.

So all about artificial intelligence in reality versus what's depicted in movies over basically the last century. Of course. And we know that Hollywood never takes license to embellish things. Oh, yeah. Basically, every AI movie we've talked about might as well have been a documentary. May as well. Scientifically backed, peer reviewed even. They built Colossus, supercomputer with a mind of its own. Then they had to fight it for the world. Yeah. So if none of this is making sense to you, that means you probably haven't listened to that episode yet. So now is a good time for you to do so. So you know what we're talking about. And for everyone else, as a refresher, in the last episode, we introduced Sam Altman. Thinking, understanding, intelligence, like that

really is what makes humans humans. And specifically, we shared a little about what he said at the Big Compute 20 conference. It is my pleasure to be here with you at Big Compute. And as a reminder, Sam is the CEO of OpenAI. So, you know, I'd say he knows a lot about this stuff. And we will be hearing more from him during this episode. And more importantly, we journeyed down a cinematic timeline of AI-related movies. We did indeed. We started with the movies Not Quite Human and Robocop. You have the right to remain silent.

Which means we still have a lot more movies to go through, given, I don't know about you, Ernest, but I was barely alive when those last movies came out. I was a small child, but I will tell you the 80s, I think, were the peak of just science fiction in general. But we have to leave the 80s behind in order to get through the rest of this list, which actually brings us to the 1990s. The first AI movie in the 1990s on my list is, I don't think we're going to be burning through this very quickly now, Star Trek Generations. Form 1, engage! From 1994, I don't know, Ernest, was that one of the Star Trek movies that you're a fan of? I'm literally a fan of all of them. Why do I even ask? Even the new ones, which I know people have problems with.

The mysterious ribbon of energy where past and future collide is unleashed i feel like i may have watched this with my dad growing up but i can't remember anything except i do remember william shatner because he was the rescue 911 guy i was out saving the galaxy when your grandfather was in diapers and i remember that the plot was something about them like thinking Captain Kirk is dead. And then online it says they had to collaborate with an unlikely ally in order to stop someone from destroying a neighboring star.

I don't know. Help me out here. That's the one thing about Star Trek. There's always an unlikely ally. Always of some kind. It's random. And is the AI tie with Star Trek always the like data sort of character? Yeah. Or the ship?

I would have to say if data is in there, that's more than likely the tie in. But also there is the ship. But for some reason, they're showing a picture here of Leonard Nimoy. I don't know. But I think it's safe to say there is AI in there somewhere. Ten seconds to warp core breach. Warp core breach for impact! And then after Star Trek came two movies in 1995 that I've never seen.

Johnny Mnemonic. Yes. Great movie. The year is 2021. It is no longer safe to transmit information. So it's about a data courier who has a secret stash of information implanted in his mind that will kill him if he can't retrieve it within 48 hours. I can carry nearly 80 gigs of data in my head. That looks hilariously terrible for me.

So perfect for you. It is a terrible movie. By the way, it stars Keanu Reeves. He's the data courier and they store the data in there like in a cybernetic implant in their brain. So if the data obviously is corrupt or has some kind of virus implanted in one of the cases, it could potentially kill them, right? Movie was, like I said,

by most accounts, it was a terrible movie, but I loved it. Of course you did. Everyone wants what is stored in Johnny's head. Double cheese anchovies? That same year, there was a movie called Ghost in the Shell, and it's actually an anime movie.

And apparently the story is that a cyber-enhanced woman fights terrorism by hacking into people's minds and controlling them, but then she finds out that her life was originally stolen to make her that way, so then she goes on this quest to punish the perpetrator so ghost in the shell is actually very popular obviously you mentioned it's anime it's been done in book form but they also did a remix recently i think with charlie's theron in it oh maybe next time you can design me better it looks like it's scarlett Johansson. They did not save your life. They stole it.

But yeah, it was excellent. Then in 1999, there was Bicentennial Man. By the year 2005, Every home will have an NDR 114. With Robin Williams, where a family's household appliance robot begins to experience emotions and creative thoughts. What the hell is going on? I am the proud owner of a central nervous system. You can feel. There's also another film a few people might have heard about before.

What is The Matrix? To me, I consider it a masterpiece. The series in general, but specifically the first movie. And again, Keanu Reeves stars. What do you need? Guns. Lots of guns. The humans gave birth to AI and then for whatever reason became afraid of the AI and decided

that they needed to turn it off. The AI realized it and attempted to stop them. And the largest power production at that point in time was solar. And so the humans found a way to essentially block out the sun. However, the machines were able to still function at a limited level. And so they quickly build alternative power sources, one of which is growing humans and using them as batteries essentially human beings are a disease you are a cancer of this planet and we are the cure and then as you go through the series you know you start to realize like the ai

is also in its own prison as a result of just the limitations of it having to exist in like a machine world right the machines are digging they're boring from the surface straight down to zion there is only one way to save our city neo it's one of those where like there is an obvious obvious solution here to kind of come to peace. It's like coexistence. But neither side trusts each other. And on top of that, you have an element of that AI that actually goes rogue, which is causing even more problems. And ironically, that turns out being the solution in the end because both the humans and the AI realize that the only way to stop the rogue AI is for them to team up with each other.

The program Smith has grown beyond your control. You cannot stop him. But I can. And if you fail, I won't. It's a very good series, but it's just so divisive. There's people who hate it to no end, and then people like me who love it because it's exploring so much of the human side of the AI story

as opposed to the AI side of the AI story. Interesting. You know, I've never seen The Matrix, which is kind of a sin. It really is. If story and character are your thing, this is an excellent series. You just have to understand that this was the mid to late 90s and the CG was limited. They bit off more than they could chew for that era. For that era.

But it's still great. So you're here to save the world. There's actually a new one coming out soon. What? To be going back to where it all started. Back to the Matrix. I've had dreams that weren't just dreams. All this talk about AI, I think it's obvious that AI needs a lot of data to learn algorithms and function and all of that, right?

But it's not just about data. But it turns out that the most impressive advances that we've had in the field of AI research, I think, have been more about massive compute than massive data. There it is, high-performance computing. Good old Sam. It turns out there's lots of data available on the internet. There's also this sort of, in some cases, this E equals MC squared equivalence between a lot of compute and a lot of compute and data, because you can use a lot of compute to generate a lot of data. So if you think about one of OpenAI's results from last year with Dota 2, we beat the best team in the world with no data whatsoever. The entire thing was the agents self-playing each other, exploring the environment, trying what worked, stopping what didn't, and sort of good RL algorithms to do that.

In case you aren't familiar with this story, Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle video game that OpenAI used basically as a research platform for general purpose AI systems. And it basically learned how to play the game by playing more than 10,000 years worth of games against itself, if that makes sense. The crowd enjoying the lineup that the humans have presented here to OpenAI as OpenAI will respond with a fifth pick, Lions.

It'll actually become a regular game of Dota. Oh, look at that. The percentage has just gone up in milliseconds. 80, 90, 95. He changed his mind three times in a fraction of a second. That's a lot of confidence. That was, wow. That's a lot of confidence. According to OpenAI's website, OpenAI 5, quote, demonstrated the ability to achieve expert-level performance,

learn human-AI cooperation, and operate at internet scale. Eventually, OpenAI 5 got so good at playing Dota 2 that it started kicking the butts of the top human players in the world. And game two will also go to OpenAI. playing Dota 2 that it started kicking the butts of the top human players in the world. And game two will also go to OpenAI. An accomplishment so major that even Bill Gates tweeted that it was this huge milestone in advancing artificial intelligence. And there's other cases like that as well, where we need very little data. We have a lot of compute to run a lot of simulations.

Now, for a lot of businesses, of course, it is important to have data. But for the field in general, I suspect data will be the least important of those three categories. I assume they must have needed a large amount of compute in order for the AI to play 10,000 years of games.

I would think so. I think it is true that Moore's Law is slowing down. People have all kinds of ideas about things they're going to do to keep it going. Maybe they work, maybe they don't. But the version of it that is important for AI, which is for AI specifically, how big can we make our biggest models? However we get there, you know, plugging a bunch of computers together, optical interconnects, whatever it takes to be able to sort of train these massive models, that has been growing about 8x per year for about eight years now.

And I think it's going to keep going like that for about five years. So again, at this point, I have this like narrow focus on this one thing that's really important to me. There's probably a lot of other things that are going to happen for compute. But the question is, are we going to have bigger and bigger computers to train neural networks on? And the answer is yes. And that's super exciting. And that brings us to the 21st century, when supercomputing really started to take off and AI started to lean out of sci-fi fantasy and more into reality. And with this technological transition came a new AI-related blockbuster just about every

year from this point out. And the first one was Steven Spielberg's AI, Artificial Intelligence, in 2001. At a time when man has become dependent on robots to satisfy our every need. Man made us better at what we do than was ever humanly possible. And we've kind of talked about how there seem to be a few different common plot paths for AI movies. Either they're about some AI robot or computer that turns evil and threatens the destruction of the world or something, or it's about some robot that learns to love alluding to

the idea that you don't have to be human to have value and this spielberg movie follows that second path being about a robotic boy programmed to love who then like embarks on a journey to discover where he truly belongs until you were born robots didn't dream robots didn't desire unless we told them what to want i did watch this movie when it came out. I remember thinking it was a little odd, but I was also younger. Maybe I would enjoy it more now or maybe I would hate it more. I'm not really sure. They made us too smart, too quick, and too many.

That's why they hate us. Yeah, and I remember watching it too, and the thing it kind of reminded me of was Pinocchio. Oh. Yeah, it was a good movie. Like that makes sense but like discovering like you know where you belong right because that was part of the theme in that story what is your name pinocchio i like that you said pinocchio because kind of like frankenstein which is about a creature that has value even though it's not human pinocchio really does it is kind of the family friendly version of that it is right that's an interesting comparison yeah and it tackles multiple themes

like there's also like the theme of why Geppetto made Pinocchio right and what he meant to him and so like there's a lot of themes rolled up in there but yeah I guess the default in this here is as opposed to being programmed right Jiminyiny cricket was his conscience right so yeah it's it's an interesting parallel i'm a real boy you're alive and you are a real boy and then in 2002 came minority report i'm placing you under arrest for the future murder of sarah marks which takes place in the year 2054 when police are apparently able to utilize like a psychic technology to arrest and convict murderers before they commit their crimes. We are arresting individuals who have broken no law. But they will.

And then there's a man, I think it was Tom Cruise if I remember right. You don't have to chase me. He's accused of a future murder of someone he has never met. I've never heard of him, but I'm supposed to kill him in less than 36 hours. Let me say, I have seen this movie. I have too. But I've only seen it one time and I don't remember hardly anything about it. Likewise.

So I guess we're moving on. Tells you how good of a movie it was, yeah. You tell me, who was it that set this up? I don't know. And then in the same year, so again in 2002, there was also Resident Evil. Right. You're all going to die down here. Kind of based on the video game, and that was about a deadly virus stemming from a genetics lab that starts turning people into zombies.

And then a commando team has like three hours to shut down the lab's supercomputer before the virus overruns Earth. Who's the Red Queen? State-of-the-art artificial intelligence this is another one where you know i watched it i was disappointed obviously because i've played all the games oh you've played the resident evils i can't handle them they're too scary yeah not the more recent ones but early on i did play them and yeah i was also less than thrilled but you know to be honest it's it's a video game movie like what do you really yeah what do you expect right it's like the masterpieces from street fighter and mortal combat right like

yeah you're not going in there looking for an award this is just like an action thing you want to see things get blown up and then you walk out happy that's how it works they have only three hours left before it begins infecting and mutating the whole human race. And then in 2004, there was the Will Smith movie that I did see, iRobot. We designed them to be trusted with our homes, with our way of life, with our world. But did we design them to be trusted? And that took place in the year 2035 so again another future projection which again not that far away from 2021 to be honest right and in that story there were highly intelligent robots that filled public service positions throughout the world

and then will smith plays this character called Detective Spooner. Oh, hell no. Who investigates what he believes to be a murder by one of these robots and it ends up uncovering a conspiracy that may lead to enslaving the human race. Murder's a new trick for a robot. Respond. I did not murder him! We're going to miss the good old days. What good old days? When people were killed by other people

so again another example of ai becoming evil dr lanning suggested robots might naturally evolve i was hoping to see you again detective think of me as your friend i do want to see this one again because i do remember enjoying it yeah i don't remember either i did see it and um you know i don't know what it is but i feel like like most movies Will Smith is in are just not good movies. So I don't think that's a reflection on him. Wait, wait, wait. What about the zombie one? What was the zombie one? I don't remember the name of it, but see, that tells you everything. I saw it, but I guess because I grew up with him in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Yes. I just cannot... Unsee that. Unsee that and take him seriously. I actually think Will Smith is a phenomenal performer. I think he's very real. So I'm able to kind of forget Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, you know, kind of like I can see Steve Carell in other roles aside from Michael in The Office.

I declare bankruptcy! Like I can see Steve Carell in other roles aside from Michael in The Office. I declare bankruptcy! Yeah, I agree. This is not a comment on his acting skill. I think he's a great actor. It's just that growing up with him in one context, I cannot. It's like Pee Wee Herman. You couldn't see him in anything else.

Exactly. And when Jim Carrey tried to do serious movies, it's like, I just can't. I can't do it. Oh, see, I am such a Truman Show fan. In case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night. Where are we? 2005. 2005, there's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Attention, people of Earth. I regret to inform you that in order to make way for the new hyperspace express route, your planet has been scheduled for demolition. Where a character named Arthur goes to outer space with his alien friend and tries to discover the meaning of life while he makes his way across the stars. What is this thing? It's the God.

It's got everything you need to know to survive in the universe. And the AI element in this movie is apparently a spoiler. So I guess go watch it if you're someone who cares. The story itself is great. And the line that I always love to use from the story is something like, farewell, good luck, and thanks for all the fish. And that's the message that the dolphins leave before they evacuate. I have no idea what you're talking about. And then in 2007, there was my favorite, but really the opposite of favorite because I was not a fan. Transformers. We're facing war against a technological civilization far superior to our own.

Where good robots and bad robots have a war on Earth and threaten total destruction of the planet. And I really could not say enough about how dumb I think the Transformer movies are. I think they're kind of cool to look at and there's some imaginative elements I can appreciate, but I'm just not a Michael Bay fan because from a substance perspective, let's just say no, not a lot there. It's a robot, you know, like a super advanced robot. It's probably Japanese. This one's really tough for me because I'm a huge fan of Transformers. Yeah, well, the original cartoon was great. Right.

I grew up with them as a kid and they used to teach a lot of like little lessons in their episodes. Like Optimus Prime was like the man. Whoever wrote his character, they knew exactly what a leader should be. Perhaps someday you'll see that there are more important things in life than revenge and they are ai right all of them because ai is kind of the wrong term these are sentient beings yeah these are like aliens right but they're machines from a human perspective so we call it exactly yeah unfortunately that was an excellent intellectual property that got ruined yeah and then he ruined ninja turtles which oh yes my you don't mess with my Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo.

And he did. He turned them into weird looking. Well, anyway, we don't need to go into that because they're not AI. Yep. Anyway, moving on to happier films. 2008, there was the Pixar film, which I am a fan of, WALL-E. WALL-E. WALL-E.

About a trash cleaner robot who develops a personality after 700 years of the same garbage cleaning tasks. And then he embarks on a great adventure when he meets a sleek scanning robot and the apparent love of his life. After all these years, he's developed one little glitch. What? A personality. Side note, there is an instrumental track in the score and it's only like a minute long. It's called Define Dancing, and it is just gorgeous. Yeah, WALL-E is a great movie.

You know, it's a children's movie, right? That's obvious. But there's always bigger themes and messages in Pixar films. Right, a lot of social commentary in there. And yeah, it was great to see it. I was pleasantly surprised by that movie. I know that guy. It's Wally. And then in 2009 came a movie called Moon, which I have not seen. Good morning, Sam. Do you want me to cut your hair?

Lunar Industries remains the number one provider of clean energy worldwide. Apparently, it's about a man who works like a three-year shift in a lunar mine. And then he starts having hallucinations and health problems. And then he meets what appears to be like a clone of himself. And then he has to solve the mystery of what's going on in like a short amount of time. And after reading about it, I'm not sure what the AI angle is in this movie. I think it's spoiler related which is why it was listed as an ai movie everywhere i read but i couldn't see how

but it does have to do with outer space so i'm sure there's some ai machine or spaceship or something yeah i've not seen the movie either but i'm gonna guess if they're listing it as under ai and the guy sees a clone of himself my guess is is that not only is the clone AI, he himself is AI. And they're just cycling through these AIs like they go into these mines and they eventually die. Again, I'm just making this up because I've not seen the movie. It's not a spoiler if we have no idea. Right. And if you think about it, I mean, a lot of these movies, like we were talking about, Not a spoiler if we have no idea. Right. You tell you this! Perhaps you're imagining things.

And if you think about it, I mean, a lot of these movies, like we were talking about, they take place at a specific time in the future, right? Where maybe robots are supposedly going to be the norm, which makes me think that all of us kind of believe that that's a realistic possibility. We just don't know when. Like, iRobot takes place in 2034. And I'm not quite sure we're going to see the wide adoption of robots by then. Kind of like we didn't have flying cars in 2015 that were forecasted in Back to the Future 2. But who knows? Maybe there will

be an AI boom. But I think more likely AI progress will continue to be gradual, at least until it hits a certain point. I think there are very rare occasional decisions where a small group of people tired at three in the morning in a conference room make a 55-45 call and it has a massive influence on the outcome of history. But those are extremely rare. Most of the time, it's squiggling around a curve that's going to go up and to the right and sort of unfold this technological future. And, you know, you get it a little bit wrong, you get a little bit right,

but eventually, like, progress continues. So in terms of those, like, few incredibly consequential decisions, like, everyone has got a story they love. The one I love is the Russian military officer are he should have pushed the button to launch. That's like a case where the world could have really gone the other way. And to be perfectly honest, I think a decision like that is bigger than all of, in terms of one hinge decision, any single decision tech companies usually make. And there will be times in the future, Sam says, where progress will run into obstacles. It's not just, oh, hey, we've got this AI thing, full speed ahead. Well, I think the technical barriers are still huge and it's a mistake to say they're not. We will squiggle

around the exponential curve of progress up and down and there will be moments in a down that could last months or years where people are like, the AI winter is here. And there will be periods that are difficult. There will be periods where we're walking in the wilderness. And at some point, people will be right. But people are so desperate to say, now it's going to stop working. And they have been. And when Sam says that people are quick to say AI is going to stop working, he's referring to the AI naysayers, the ones who don't believe that there actually is an AI revolution coming. Not just those who fear what will happen to their jobs, so maybe they're inclined to hope that AI isn't a reality,

but those who look at AI like many look at quantum computing. They're told it's going to change the world, but the only tangible evidence they have are pictures of like a sci-fi gold tubey contraption thing that looks like a jellyfish and not necessarily life changing innovation. Yeah, that's an interesting perspective because there are those who are naysayers. This is never going to happen. But there are plenty of us who are like, look, this is inevitable. And if you think about it logically, humans typically design and create things that mimic nature and life. We create robots that look like us. We create robots that resemble dogs, right?

Like what Boston Dynamics is doing. And it's because we're looking at nature and figuring out, like, how does this work? And then we figure it out. And I think the big holdback here is that we really don't understand well enough how the human brain operates. Maybe. But that time is going to come. And when that happens we will figure out how to replicate that exactly in like a machine in a machine that'd be crazy

and i think that's where the fear comes from people that if i were to travel back in time and take an iphone with me to 1776 and show it to our founding fathers they would die they would they would probably try to kill burn you at you at the stake. Exactly. Thinking I was some kind of a warlock or something, right? Because to them, it's magic, right? And so the same thing is going to happen again. So I agree with Sam. I think where he thinks this is going is inevitable. It's not a matter of if it's when.

And the prudent thing to do is to prepare for it. What I can say with certainty is the things that we know work are going to go a lot further. That's an exponential curve. The flood of talented people, if you go ask like any really smart 18-year-old studying computer science in college what they want to work on, very likely to say aye. And the flood of talent into the field is on an exponential. So that's two together. And Sam believes that this flood of talent will greatly move AI progress further.

I think there are things that will work better than we thought and worse than we thought, and we will hit some dark periods of stumbling blocks. But the biggest miracle of all is that we got an algorithm that can learn full stop. Truly, legitimately, we have an algorithm that can learn. And it seems to keep scaling with more compute. In my whole career, the central lesson has been that on scale, scale things up more than you think. And when people see a curve that's going like this, and it stops here, and they're asked to predict the next 10 years of progress, my default assumption is to sort of believe that the curve keeps going for a while, at least. And most people's default assumption seems to believe that it's going to

keep going on the same exponential for three more months and then perfectly flatline, which is sort of a weird framework. And I don't think what's going to happen. From supersonic jets to personalized medicine, industry leaders are turning to Rescale to power science and engineering breakthroughs. Rescale is a full-stack automation solution for hybrid cloud that helps IT and HPC leaders deliver intelligent computing as a service and enables the enterprise transformation to digital R&D. As a proud sponsor of the Big Compute podcast, Rescale would especially like to say thank you to all the scientists and engineers out there who are working to make a difference for all of us. Rescale, intelligent computing for digital R&D. Learn more at rescale.com slash BC podcast. And that brings us to the 2010s.

Is that what we call them? The 2010s? The 10s? Well, I'll say this. We've established that the 80s were the greatest decade and the 90s were pretty good. As far as I'm concerned, it just went downhill after that. So it's not even worth giving it a nickname. Not even worth it. The childhood of those born in the 2000s and 2010s, they got robbed.

I don't know how else to put it. During whatever this decade is called, the 2010 tens, the tens, I don't know. I'll begin with 2012's Robot and Frank. You have a problem. I'll write something. Hi, Frank. You have got to be kidding me. That thing is going to murder me in my sleep. Which is about an elderly jewel thief suffering from dementia who ends up introducing his robot like caretaker gift to a life of crime i have not seen that one that one looks clever to me i'm gonna get rid of all

the evidence frank my memory can be used against you don't you touch that robot frank get in frank and then in 2013 there was the movie called The Machine. Conscious machines are dangerous. This machine has the potential to be so much more than just a soldier. Where a man and woman fall in love while creating the world's first self-aware artificial intelligence. And then the military steals their technology to make an out of control robotic weapon. I've not seen that one either, but it sounds plausible. And then in that same year came the movie called Her.

Please wait as your operating system is initiated. Hello, I'm here. Hi. Which is basically sensitive guy falls for intelligent robot. No, never saw it. I saw in your emails that you'd gone through a breakup.

Well, you're kind of nosy. Then Transcendence was released in 2014 with Johnny Depp. Some scientists refer to this as the singularity. Professor, I call it transcendence. Where the world's top expert on artificial intelligence develops an insatiable quest for power as he works to create sentient machines. We can upload his consciousness. We can save him. Not seen that one either.

But also, I will tell you this. I don't think I could do Johnny Depp in a serious role. Really? After Captain Jack Sparrow or something? Exactly. Which I love, by the way. Yeah, he does phenomenal in that. He does phenomenal in that.

But then they took it too far and made like 20 sequels. I'm skeptical of predicting any future, which includes me. And then there's the movie I'm sure you've probably seen, Ernest, called Interstellar. Yes. That same year with Matthew McConaughey. It's an Indian surveillance drone. Where a team of researchers go through an outer space wormhole and across the galaxy to find a planet to be mankind's new home and they are joined by quadrilateral robots or something we're not meant to save the world

we're meant to leave it you know i actually have only seen parts of this movie i haven't seen the whole thing and i can't quite make sense of the plot any way that i read about it so it sounds like it might just be kind of one of those stories that goes a few different ways but i have seen that crying scene a bunch of times do you know what i'm talking about yes i know exactly what you're talking about because hilarious people on the internet are juxtaposing that clip with like all kinds of random stuff this might be a real good time for you to come back. That's a great movie if you've never seen it. But I will warn you, it's a cerebral movie. Yeah, I've heard that.

Yeah, if you're not ready for some mind bending, you're going to have a tough time in this movie. Yeah, that's why I haven't seen it. Eventually I'll get there, I think. It just sounds like I'm going to need to take a nap when I'm done watching it. We must reach far beyond our own lifespans. I think one thing that the technology industry gets wrong, and I myself am often guilty of this, is believing that technology solves all problems. That's Sam again stating what Hollywood has been teaching us for decades.

Sometimes technology can turn evil. Well, OK, maybe not evil, but it can definitely create additional challenges. I think technology creates a lot of problems, too. I believe it's net good for the world, but there's a balance sheet. Sam says the proof that technology doesn't solve every problem shows up in places where technology thrives. The current generation of young people is the first generation, if you believe the polling, which who knows in American history, to not think their lives are going to be better than their parents. So this has worked for 244

years or 40, and now it doesn't. And I think starting with why it doesn't is a great question to start with. I agree that technology doesn't solve all problems, 100. And I think starting with why it doesn't is a great question to start with. I agree that technology doesn't solve all problems, 100%. But I think the real issue isn't that people believe it solves all problems. It's that people don't understand the cost of solving the problem. And what I mean by that is often when you solve a problem, you create other problems. There's a cost involved and there's a tradeoff and people don't understand that. And that creates a negative perception that like, oh, technology fixes everything. problems. There's a cost involved and there's a trade-off and people don't understand that. And

that creates a negative perception that like, oh, technology fixes everything, but then they don't look at the cost they paid for it. And then later on when they have to reckon with that cost, they get a sour taste for the technology, not realizing that it's not the technology's fault. The technology is not sentient right now. It's inert. It's us that made the decision, right? So when someone is unhappy with it, we're unhappy with ourselves. That's really. It's us that made the decision. Right. So when someone is unhappy with it, we're unhappy with ourselves. That's really what it comes down to. Right. Like we didn't maybe anticipate what the problem was going to be early enough and then strive to solve it before it happened. Like sometimes you can't do that probably, but I think we could put more effort into it.

One thing that comes to mind in this same realm is there really is a lot of evidence that, for example, teenagers who spend a lot of time online or on social media end up struggling more with depression and anxiety and they're less social. And honestly, who can blame them? I mean, they're having to compare themselves to impractical images of perfection in a world of trolls when they're still trying to figure out who they are and their prefrontal cortexes aren't developed at all, you know, enough to handle that kind of stuff. And I just wish we would have anticipated that as the technology developed, that we would maybe stumble upon this problem instead of just handing every kid a smartphone with a full data plan. You know what I mean? I mean, that's a

little bit of a soapbox for me, but I think that's along the same lines of having social media has made it easier to communicate with people we don't live nearby. But then there has been this entire new world of issues that have come with it. And how do you anticipate something like that until you see the full effects? That is true. And, you know, I'll even kind of point out when I was a kid, fast forward to the Internet first coming into homes in the early to mid 90s. I had gotten a computer. I basically worked like all summer mowing lawns and stuff, saved up all this money and got like this cheap little computer. But it was able to connect to the Internet. And at the time, my parents had no idea how any of it to this day. They have no idea how how any of that works. And back then the Internet was a little bit dangerous because it

was brand new. There's all these like, was it like in the day of the chat room? Chat rooms, AOL, yes. And it's easy to get like addicted to it when you're 12 or whatever. Exactly. And they had no idea how any of it works. So there's no way they could have anticipated. And had I like gone down the wrong path with it instead of turning it into a career, it could have been devastating. Right now it's much more regulated and whatnot. But the point is, it's hard, right, for parents to, especially if they're not technologically savvy, to understand what this technology can do. I don't think even the companies that developed it understood what it could do.

No, I don't think so either. The psychological effects of social media on a teenage brain was not something that Facebook developers were thinking of when, you know, when Zuckerberg was coming up with the idea of Facebook. Right. I get it. I feel sorry, right, for a lot of these kids who had to grow up in this world where it was literally the Wild West and there was no one there to help them. And even they didn't realize what they were doing to themselves. Right. I'm hopeful that we can find ways to reverse any negative effects and help them to develop kind of a stronger sense of self that's more true. You know what I mean? If we haven't already failed them enough at this point.

Right. And along the same line of challenges and problems that technology can bring, I've also heard a lot about how AI is going to supposedly destroy cybersecurity. Because when you combine like quantum computing with AI, supposedly every password in existence will be figured out with the snap of a finger. And at Big Compute 20, Sam did acknowledge the threat AI could have on cybersecurity. I don't think in the next couple of years, but on a longer timeframe,

is the threat that advanced AI will pose to cybersecurity, I think is likely to be huge. Even without that, cybersecurity is difficult. So I think that's like a great problem to focus on. But he also said people like me are probably worrying about the wrong thing. People love to talk about quantum computing breaking encryption. And I think that is like not a thing to be super concerned about. I think the number of logical qubits that it takes to do that are far enough off that we'll know when they're getting close.

And I also think that we have plenty of time to transition to quantum resistant encryption. So that's good to know. How about you, Ernest? What are your general thoughts on AI and cybersecurity, given your background? Nothing is going to change. You don't think? No. And I'll tell you why. Having done cybersecurity for so long now, it is a constant rat race. It is whack-a-mole. It is one side edging out the other and then the other one edging out the other.

So the minute quantum computing gets applied to cryptography to decrypt, within weeks, if not days, they're going to apply quantum computing to cryptography to encrypt. So it's going to end up at a stalemate like it is now, right? Interesting. The premise that this is based on is that cybersecurity remains in a binary world while quantum computing allows malicious folks to move into a you know, a qubit driven world. And that's not how it's going to happen. Interesting.

OK, I'm picking up what you're throwing down. Now, don't get me wrong. There might be an intermediary phase where there's a little bit of chaos, right? Because one gets ahead of the other. Transition. Yeah, exactly. But like Star Wars preaches, right? There will always be balance with the force. Yeah.

Equilibrium will be reached no matter what. And Sam says that people may need to adapt their trust in new ways. Always be balanced with the force. Yeah. Equilibrium will be reached no matter what. And Sam says that people may need to adapt their trust in new ways, you know, as technology continues to progress. And I think the world had gotten used to over a period of time, Photoshopped images. And now people know not to trust them. But people do still trust text, press releases, news, whatever, for the most part. And a new thing that I think will happen is we're not that far away from entirely faked videos of world leaders saying whatever you want. People tend to trust that too. And I think the world needs time to adapt to that new reality.

He also has some ideas on how society might adapt. My guess is that someday, far in the future, when world leaders give an address, they cryptographically sign it. And we just get used to that, you know, all videos can be faked or they, you know, they only tweet it from their account or whatever, but there will somehow be verification. And I think the world needs time to adapt to that. And just as the world needs time to adapt to AI, we need time to get through the rest of these AI movies. So continuing into the 210s or whatever they're called, in 2014, there was automata? Autonomata? How do you say this? I think it's automata or automata.

A machine altering itself is a very complex concept. Self-repairing implies some idea of a conscience. The story of an insurance agent at a robotics company who discovers something that has profound consequences for the human race. You're just a machine. Just a machine? That's like saying that you're just a man. And then in 2015, there was Chappie. Yep.

Which sounds like a sort of reversed RoboCop movie to me. The deployment of the planet's first robotic police units became the focus of the world in 2016. Drop your weapons, you're under arrest. He takes place in a future world of mechanical police forces. And then one robotic cop is reprogrammed and then gains the ability to feel and think for himself which makes him a perceived danger to mankind a thinking robot could be the end of mankind i don't want to die i want to live yeah i saw it and i think it's actually aligned with robocop which is oh you know there's a fleet of mechanized police and they do what they're told he is reprogrammed gains the ability to feel and think for himself oh yeah that is kind of the same and the perceived danger is the fact that he no longer conforms gotcha and that's

really what robocop did too if you want to survive tepid you must fight and then in 2015 there was ex machina how do you feel about her her ai is beyond doubt no nothing analytical just how do And then in 2015 there was Ex Machina, where a computer programmer is chosen to determine the capabilities and consciousness of a beautiful robot woman who is apparently more self-aware than anyone ever imagined. Do you have a name? Ava. You've seen that one, haven't you, Ernest? It's actually one of the higher rated AI films that I found on Metacritic. Yes, I have seen it and it is excellent.

Kayla, you have to help me. And then in 2016, there was a movie called Passengers. You two look fine this evening. We're on a date. Very nice. It had Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, so some big stars in it. And apparently the story is the two of them wake up on a spaceship from what is supposed to be some sort of like hibernation sleep. And then they develop like a big fat love crush on each other, kind of Titanic style. And then AI related stuff happens where they have to save the lives of the other 5,000 sleeping spaceship passengers who are now in grave danger for some reason.

Do you know what's going on? Nobody else is awake. I think something went wrong with the hibernation pods. We woke up too soon. Nine years too soon. Yes, I saw this movie. It is a good movie, but I will tell you that this description doesn't do it justice. There's some messed up stuff that happens in this movie. Again, i don't want to ruin it for people who haven't seen it

because that this is fairly recent like five years ago right yeah the overall synopsis is correct but there's a lot more of the to the story between the two of them that's all i'm going to say and it's worth watching you say oh yeah it's worth watching overall and look i'm not going to say it should win awards or anything like that but this this doesn't do it justice. You really need to watch it. Something's wrong. Something big. And, I mean, I think it's interesting. We've talked about this, how in AI movies, almost all of them are about the coexistence of humans and AI machines and what that relationship is, like what that cohabitation is. Whether the humans are good and the AI machines are evil or vice versa, it seems like all of these movies explore the idea of this coexistence. And I don't know, maybe this

coexistence between AI and humans is so interesting to pop culture because it's really a mystery, right? It's something we're just exploring with our imaginations right now. We don't know exactly what a future with humans and AI is going to look like. We just know it's going to be different. And we keep moving forward, teaching machines how to navigate thought. I would say just more generally, generalized learning is exciting of many forms, you know, algorithms that can learn their own problems that can go off and explore the ability to learn a lot about one task and apply it to another task, the ability to pre-train these big models and then use them to solve other problems with their knowledge of the world. I think human intelligence is very near, is very close to this concept that you can take existing

information and thoughts and apply them quickly to new problems. And it's actually, I think it's very close to this concept that you can take existing information and thoughts and apply them quickly to new problems. And it's actually, I think it's remarkable how quickly humans can learn. It takes a long time to train up. Maybe it takes like 20 years to get pretty smart, but then you can learn a new thing very fast. And then you can apply that new knowledge that you're told once or a few times to solve a new problem in like three seconds. And the fact that we're beginning to see that happen with AI, I think is quite remarkable. And while we're not at a tipping point yet, Sam thinks we'll know when that point has come. I think when the system can start doing things like saying, you know, you asked question X, it seemed like you really meant Y.

Is that accurate? And being right most of the time, that to me will feel like a moment to start taking things really seriously. We will absolutely know when that point has come. It'll be obvious because robots will be attacking us. It will be blatantly obvious one way or the other, right? Like we will know when that point comes. We will know when all human beings are in prisons run by robots. It'll be obvious there was a tipping point somewhere along the way.

Yep. And then there's the debate on digital intelligence or a machine's ability to reason or solve problems in a way, I guess, versus digital consciousness, wherein a machine would be made self-aware. Although it's in debate just what that constitutes. You know, I think the world is in an unstable place. But given enough time, I think biological intelligence should always end up creating digital intelligence, which is likely to be superior in many ways. Whether or not we ever create digital consciousness is, I think, up for debate. But digital intelligence, given enough time, is for sure. And I think that just makes everything super different. I think humans are really good at a lot of things, but computers and AI turn out to be really good at a lot of

things as well. And my most optimistic hope for the future is that humans and AI or some sort of hybrid merged human and AI together is just sort of far more capable than either on their own. And that brings us to our final AI movies on my list, starting with a 2016 movie called Morgan. Morgan was our third attempt. Our little breakthrough. It's the next step in evolution. It's bioengineered with synthetic DNA. About a bioengineered child who goes ballistic and violently runs amok in a top secret facility. So again, AI robot that turns evil.

What if I recommended that you be terminated? We should end this. Answer me. What would you do? And then the 2017 movie Singularity. Eight billion people lost their lives. I am a survivor. But I am not alone.

Where a century after a supercomputer launched an all-out attack on humanity, there's these two teenagers who have to struggle to survive in the rubble of this ruined world in hopes of reaching a sanctuary where humans live without the fear of robots. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you want the machines to find us. So that one is more of a post-apocalyptic kind of story taking place after the machines have already turned evil and destroyed everything. I'll tell you this, right? Like, we are more likely to reach a post-apocalyptic situation by our own hand.

Than by, like, a bunch of robots. Having nothing to do with AI and robots. Just our own, what I like to call human stupidity. What you like to call. That is what's going to cause it faster than a robot or an AI. I would like to hope that we're all going to figure everything out and it's going to be roses and sunshine. And probably some gumdrops, even though gumdrops are very overrated. They're not that good.

Maybe Sour Patch Kids. I actually believe that long term we're actually going to merge, that we're going to become essentially bioengineered cyborgs. And that is how we are going to become multi-planetary and multi-galaxy species. You have been watching too much Star Trek. Yeah. It's hard for people to envision that. I get it.

Like no one wants to think about that, but I think it's one of those where we will birth the next evolutionary step of our species. And that's how it happens. Dude, that's like so crazy. I intend to be alive when this whole thing like starts off, but I would probably not be alive by the time it finishes. So all that matters to me is that I see it start and know that hey i did my part to get us down this road and then i hand it off to my probably at that point grandchildren and say you finish it let it begin so then in 2018 there were two more ai related movies worth mentioning upgrade would enable you to walk again. I call it STEM.

A computer chip that has the potential to change everything. Where a man given an artificial intelligence implant develops superhuman strength and agility, uses his skills to seek revenge on buggers who killed his wife. Help! I need your permission to operate independently. Permission granted! Thank you. And Tao.

Tao's one of the most advanced AIs in the world. Where a woman tries to hack a house's computer program after she becomes trapped inside. I have been instructed to inflict pain should you not comply with my commands. Ironically, I've never seen any of those. Yeah, I know. Me neither. And then there were two more movies to mention from 2019. The is i am mother why aren't there any more children mother there used to be where a teenage girl raised by a robot designed to repopulate earth ends up having to face their family bond when she receives some alarming news. Mother's not what you think. She's taken care of me my whole life.

You haven't seen what they've done. Not mother. I haven't seen it, but I'm just going to guess that the robot goes evil. Something. I haven't seen that one either. And then this made me laugh. Fast and Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw. Yes.

We're going to need the best trackers in the business. I'm what you call an ice cold can of whoop ass. Where a couple of people have to prevent a brilliant cybernetically enhanced

soldier with superhuman strength from destroying humanity. I'm trying to save the world which for the record will be my fourth time. They said a long time ago that The Fast and the Furious

was going to end with I don't know if it's nine or ten or it's coming to an end. However, they did this spinoff called Hobbs and Shaw. It never ends. And it's now turning into Mission Impossible is what I'm saying. But this Hobbs and Shaw thing is just, they're killing it.

They're just killing it. It is the next like Mission Impossible franchise. And it just started. So it's going to be great. Three shocks will kill a man. There we go. It's a bad guy speech. You had some of your big mouth, didn't you? Yeah, I thought it was a cool thing to say at the moment.

And then the final movie on my list came out in 2020 called Super Intelligence. Carol, I am a technological super intelligence. Where a powerful artificial intelligence being studies the most average person on Earth to decide whether it should enslave, save or destroy humanity. What does the AI want? My intention is to solidify my theory about humanity. If things don't go well, I'll destroy the planet just below it up. That's actually a bit of a unique take on the whole AI thing. I kind of like that idea. It sounds to me like it has promise, but then I looked up

the reviews and it didn't get very good reviews from critics or audiences. Click this might save the world. Don't click it now. I wasn't going to click it now. Why would I click it now? You just said... It looks like a pin. People click pins nervously. Okay, are we done? Ernest, you should see it and I'll stay home.

Yeah, I probably will watch it. And the only reason is because that plot is very similar to there's a recurring character that came out in Star Trek Next Generation called Q. And Q was omnipotent. And the first time they encounter him, it's exactly this. He essentially takes the leadership of the Enterprise and brings them into a court, a trial where he's putting all of humanity on trial to decide if they should all be eradicated takes the leadership of the Enterprise and brings them into a court, a trial, where he's putting all of humanity on trial to decide if they should all be eradicated

based on the history of humanity up to that point and what this crew does. So it's a very similar plot, but this happened in like one episode, not a movie. And we're back to Star Trek. We always end up in Star Trek. Well, that pretty much concludes the movie list that I found. We have reached the end, which, by the way, I have to say, this list is in no ways exhaustive.

There are obviously other movies related to AI that are floating around online message boards and stuff that I just couldn't get to. Movies like Android, Apocalypse, Robot Jocks, I guess, movies like android apocalypse robot jocks i guess dark star i saw ice pirates on some lists sleeper daryl and some would even say the age of ultron or aliens also belongs on the ai list and i think what it shows honestly is that society is clearly fascinated by the idea of artificial intelligence maybe because it has yet to reveal itself in its full form and full potential. We do know that it's on the way, at least, and that it's going to have a big impact. I think unsupervised learning and the ability to look at huge amounts of data and understand the underlying concepts, that's just going to really surprise us on a two-year time frame.

And it's going to do amazing things. As for Sam Altman, he's been speaking out lately about his recommendations to implement a public plan where AI would generate universal basic income for each person in the United States.

And while his ideas have their share of critics, others believe that we are nearing a moment in time where laying down this kind of framework will be necessary to benefit Americans in the future. So if you want to learn more about his ideas, he has written a blog at samaltman.com called Moore's Law for Everything, where he outlines his perspective.

And you can check it out directly there. And I'm not sure what my opinion is about it. All I can say is that it's going to be interesting to see where all of this goes. I imagine that in 10, 20 years, we could be living a very different technological experience. Yeah, that's an interesting thing, right? There's been a lot of talk about universal basic income recently. And I think... Yeah, with like Andrew Yang running for president and all that.

I don't think that that's the answer long term. But I think, again, this is just because I'm a Star Trek fan. Star Trek has it right they move into they move into what they call a post-economic society what what is that think about it currency just facilitates the barter or the transfer of goods in a situation where you can create anything you need from a replicator you no longer need to trade for things oh my gosh? The point is that currency becomes useless at a certain point, right? And there has to be a bridge between where we are now to that kind of a future. So yeah, again, I'm not an expert in that kind of stuff, but I can see where this makes sense from a transition standpoint into something that moves beyond our concept of

economics or what we have today. Man, there is so much to think about when it comes to AI. It just brings on so many different issues, challenges, benefits, questions. I mean, such an interesting topic to explore. This has been so much fun for me. My brain kind of hurts, even though we just talked about movies more than anything else. And that is going to do it for this episode of the Big Compute podcast. And if you want to watch Sam Altman's full Big Compute Q&A, his talk, or see pictures

and videos from today's episode, including the full list of AI related movies, you can visit the episode notes page on bigcompute.org. And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend about us and post a review on Apple Podcasts. I'm not going to say anything. And all that other stuff that every podcast asks you to do that you usually ignore. Well, at least I usually ignore it.

No, I shouldn't though, because karma. Yeah, so thanks for joining us, everyone. And always remember to practice 3-2-1 backup and MFA. And stay safe out there. Don't get attacked by any cyborg. I don't know. Don't let the evil AIs get you.