StarTalk Radio - StarTalk All-Stars at NY Comic Con – The Science of Science Fiction

Episode Date: November 29, 2016

On 10/8/2016, the StarTalk All-Stars packed NY Comic Con to discuss the real science in science fiction. Now you can get your geek on with All-Stars hosts Charles Liu and Emily Rice, co-host Chuck Nice, and Phillip K. Dick Award nominated author PJ Manney.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

This is StarTalk. Welcome to StarTalk All-Stars Live at the New York Comic Con! What a pleasure it is to be here. Hello, I am Charles Liu, and it is my great pleasure to bring on our panelists and my co-host. Let's bring them on right now. My co-host, comedic co-host, longtime StarTalk awesome guy, Chuck Nice. Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy. Hey. Hey, everybody.

Now, Chuck, we've done a lot of StarTalk together, and it's been such a great pleasure all the time. Yes. And these folks need to know that as much a comedian and a celebrity and a star as this guy is, he also seriously knows his sci-fi. That would be a lie. No, I am a fan. I don't consider myself an

aficionado. I consider myself a fan and a true fan and I just love that society has finally caught up to my nerdiness because I had to hide it for so long.

That's right. That's right. That's right. You know, I'll never forget when Star Trek Next Generation came out. I was so excited about a new Star Trek, and I started having Next Generation parties with my nerdy little friends at my house. And so I was at a bar bartending, and a friend of mine who was coming to the party was at the bar.

He goes, dude, I'll see you at the Star Trek party. And everybody at the bar was like, what the fool? Family show, family show. Yes. OK, we have two wonderful guests on this episode. And let me introduce the first one, who happens also to be my colleague, a fellow astrophysicist, astrophysics professor at the College of Staten Island, the City University of New York. Please welcome Emily Rice.

Emily Rice. Thank you. Emily, thank you. Emily, thank you. It's like I get a superhero entrance. Absolutely. Which is pretty awesome. Thank you so much for coming today. The audience should know that you are a researcher in brown dwarfs and possibly exoplanets, if we want to extend that far in. If we could only tell the difference between the two of them, that would be really awesome. Well, probably if you got on one, you could probably

figure out the difference. And I would love to do that. Yeah. Fantastic. And I want you to also mention that you are involved with something called Startorialist and something called Astronomy on Tap. Please tell us a little bit. Yeah. So I essentially have no hobbies outside of my work, which is kind of embarrassing to admit. A big goal of all of us. That's okay, Emily. But they're still pretty fun. So I do two different things.

One of them is called Astronomy on Tap, which is basically what it sounds like. It's astronomy presentations. I don't like to call them lectures because that's boring. But it's astronomy in bars. Because why not, right? That's one way to promote science. That's for sure. Absolutely.

And to make scientists loosen up a little bit. Ain't no party like an astronomy party. But how do you organize an astronomy party? That's the tricky thing. Yeah. You plan it. Oh. Ah.

Oh, my God. She's here all it oh my god all week all week she made me feel like a cosby kid i was just like professional scientist amateur everything else uh and startorialist is my so astronomy on tap started in new york city and has now spread across the country, which is very fun. And Star-torialist is an astronomy-themed fashion blog. And so myself and a colleague, yeah, should I do a little bit of that? Is this part? Yeah. And tell them about this area right here.

What area of the cosmos would this be? A star-forming region. Ah, I see. Yes, wonderful. Thank you, Emily, for being here. And yeah, sure, let's give that a little applause. Why not? And it is my great pleasure to introduce our other guest, an author, a futurist, a writer for all kinds of great stuff, P.J. Manning. P.J. Manning, ladies and gentlemen.

Now, for those of you who remember Hercules, The Legendary Journeys, and Xena, The Warrior Princess. Woo! Yep. Now, you guest spotted as Gabrielle once or twice, is that right? No, but I was a member of the gladiatorial audience that really wanted Hercules to die. And your book, Revolution, which we will wave here, has just been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Awards for 2016.

Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, as many of the audience know, Philip K. Dick was a revolutionary, groundbreaking sci-fi author who wrote all kinds of things that have made it

to the present day in different formats. For example, his short story, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Became Blade Runner. That's right. We Can Remember It for You Wholesale became Total Recall. And The Man in the High Castle became The Man in the High Castle.

That's right. You know there was going to be a quiz? No, a pop quiz. That's what I love about Chuck Lu. Everywhere you go, it's a pop quiz. I'm sorry. Astronomy professors, we have a hard time not giving pop quiz. That's what I love about Chuck Lou. Everywhere you go, it's a pop quiz. I'm sorry. Astronomy professors, we have a hard time not giving pop quizzes. But nevertheless, PJ, tell us about this book and why it fits in so well with that tradition of sci-fi that Phil Dick

really pioneered and brought for us today. Well, this is a near-term techno-thriller. So, it's science fiction in the sense that I use real science to see what's happening with the future of brain-computer interfaces and other kinds of brain technologies. As you know, Phil K. Dick was all about reality. And I play a lot in my book with, if we start messing around with different ways of perception, if we start connecting ourselves directly to the internet, if we start altering our minds so that we can think smarter, faster, quote unquote better, what if we don't forget? What will that do to us? So because I deal a lot in the trippiness of the protagonist experiencing these things, I think that's kind of why the Phil K. Dick people were interested in the book because no one was trippier than Mr. Dick.

100% true. And tell us about Humanity Plus, of which you were the chairman, board of directors, is that right? I was on the board and the chair. Humanity Plus is an organization, an umbrella organization, that hopes to promote ideas of transhumanism. So the idea that humans, we're not the last step in evolution. I know I'm speaking to the choir in this kind of room. And looking forward to what are the ethical implications?

What do we need to worry about? What can we look forward to? What's actually possible? What's in research right now? And it's a place for people to discuss the ideas that come around the next step of humanity. And that's what I write about is what the next step of humanity is. It makes total sense to all of us here at New York Comic Con, right? The next step of humanity.

We could go the biological route, say X-Men, for example, mutants and so on. Mutants. Mutants. Or we could go the technology route. Cyborgs-Men, for example, mutants and so on. Mutants? Mutants. Or we could go the technology route. Cyborgs? Oh, yes. Okay. And it'll be both. It will be both. Mutant cyborgs.

Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah, what would happen if you took Cyborg from the Titans and mixed him with, say, Magneto of the X-Men? He would be stuck to the wall. He would never go anywhere. I can't move.

I am paralyzed. All right. But, you know, this is a very interesting point. And we'll bring up AI right now because, as you say, artificial intelligence may well represent a significant part of the next step of the evolution of humanity. Now, there's enhancing human intelligence in the form of AI, and then there's completely artificial intelligence, right? In the comics, how many of you are familiar with the Kree supreme intelligence?

Yeah, good guy, bad guy, maybe we'll see. But long ago when this Kree supreme intelligence was created was the idea that all the great minds of the kree civilization after they died were sort of dumped into this vat and somehow like joined together to create a gigantic ai all right and this ai of course has this weird shape in a vat i don't know why they need a vat anymore but it's still in a vat yeah brain in a vat right in a vat so vat. Right. Cree in a vat. So the Cree Supreme Intelligence is kind of a little crazy and kind of dangerous and scary and has more than once sought the destruction of Earth

or different parts of it, right? On the other hand, I think sometimes an AI of the Stephen Baxter, Arthur C. Clarke Time Odyssey series where AIs are created and actually there is a huge one that basically sacrifices itself to save humanity on Earth. That's the kind I like. Well, there's also WALL-E, right? The little tiny guy who saves

humanity also. There's both benevolent and evil, worried parts of the universe. Which one do you think we're going for, PJ? Both. Not hedging my bets either. which one do you think we're going for, PJ? Both. Yeah.

I'm not hedging my bets either. It really depends also on the kind of AI we're talking about. So, you know, we've got, we already live in a world of AI. Yes. Connect to the worldwide mind. We have, when you go on kayak.com, right?

You're using very narrow AI to find those flights. You're telling the AI what you want, and it has a goal to find you the flights. AI, in theory, if you keep on giving it a goal that can't turn around and bite us in the butt, should be fine. What if you like getting bitten in the butt should be fine. What if you like getting bitten in the butt? Oh, Chuck, you just told me a whole lot about you, baby. Family show. Family show. And you program kayak to bite you in the butt.

Now, that's a scary thing. That's my hotel. But to the larger question you're asking is you know for instance we have people who give us um warnings about ai we have stephen hawking and elon musk oh yeah um you know hawking's concern is in my personal opinion a little bit of a movie concern that somehow the people making ai will have absolutely no clue about what they're making. And it'll suddenly run away with itself. Like Ultron.

Right. Isn't that premised upon the fact that the AI itself becomes sentient in that it's self-aware? So now it becomes self-determining because it has awareness. But then you've got an issue of consciousness, right? I don't know about your consciousness, but sentience is actually quite difficult to achieve. And Elon Musk's concern is that... Elon Musk's concern is that he doesn't want bad actors making AI.

That's actually a slightly different concern. He's concerned that someone will consciously decide to create a bad AI. And that his big concern, and this is actually where my interest lies, is he understands. He's developing neural lace right now, which originally came from Ian Banks' Culture Series. So he's actually making it. And I write about it in my next book. It's a literal lace that lays between the membrane and your brain. And it interconnects, it creates a higher level of connectivity with the different parts of your brain. It's like a neural net booster.

Right. And it also allows outside connectivity as well. Neuro hair net. Neuro hair net. There you go. There you go. Now, another thing that Elon Musk is well known for is SpaceX, right? And he's trying to launch stuff up there in spacecraft, and he recently made a bold statement about wanting to send people to Mars over thousands and thousands of them over the next several decades. Now, Emily, your research has to do with things like exoplanets, nearby objects that we can't find. Your sense of Elon Musk, what is your take that whether or not that's science fiction or science fact, do you have any ideas of whether or not we could get to Mars in the next few

decades? Yeah, I have, from my very, very uninformed opinion, I think we can do it. Like, you know, if somebody's going to, the technology is there, we need the program, we need the money, we need the interest of people willing to go. And I don't think there's a shorthand of people willing to go to Mars. Do we dare? By applause, who would like to go to Mars? Go to fucking Mars. Yeah.

And there was actually. Very brave souls. I'll plug my thing again. So the first astronomy on tap that we did in Baltimore, one of our speakers was not actually a professional astronomer, but was one of the Mars One finalists. And that was a huge, she had made the round. She was on the Larry Wilmore show. I had seen her before. And it was just fascinating to see her, like, you know, talk about her career, talk about her family, and then be like, I want to go die on another planet.

And I thought it was really admirable. We're all going to die here, right? Unless we can do something about it. I'd rather live on another planet than die on another planet. But speaking of other planets, of course, because you're doing things that are dim and nearby and hard to find, obviously we're talking exoplanets right yeah and there was recent information that after 25 plus years of searching and possible

detections that were borderline here and there now uh astronomers in europe have now pretty certainly found some sort of planet orbiting the star closest to the sun tell us about that yeah oh this is super exciting so not only do we have some phenomenal places in the solar system that we should explore, but now I think we have the next place to go outside of the solar system. Has everybody heard about this planet? It's called Proxima b. Nice. So Proxima is actually the closest star to the sun. There's Alpha Centauri a and b, which are visible in the

night sky if you're in the southern hemisphere. And then Proxima happens to be this much lower mass star that's just, it's like orbiting the two others. The two other stars are more massive. They're more sun-like stars. And then Proxima B is orbiting them on a very, very wide orbit. And right now it happens to be closer to Earth than those other two stars are. And that's like, this is just mind-blowing to me that 20 years ago or so, we only had an inkling that there was even planets around other stars.

Any kind of sci-fi that involved that was just, you know, maybe it's true, we think it's true, but we had no direct evidence. And now there's thousands of planets that we know about, and one of them is right next door. It's been there but we had no direct evidence. And now there's thousands of planets that we know about, and one of them is right next door. It's been there the whole time. Is Proxima b, based on your scientific evaluation of the data that's come in so far,

actually habitable? Because news reports are suggesting, well, it might be in the Goldilocks zone, not too hot, not too cold, and whatever. But are there subtleties that aren't being expressed right now? There's a lot of stuff that goes into it. So I don't want to downplay anything because it is super duper incredibly exciting that we have a planet four light years away. Like this is something that we can talk to. All these other planets, you know, everybody always asks how far away they are.

They're hundreds, thousands of light years away. Communication is even difficult. And so, you know you know travel don't even think about it but this one is so close that there is a real possibility of you know communicating on some kind of normal time scale it's the target for the star shot yeah that's what it's called the the star shot of actually sending something to there within 10 years or something like that a spacecraft there um but so not only is it around not a star like the sun and a star that we

don't understand very well. It's an M dwarf star, which is the lowest mass type of star, very different from the sun. It's luckily the type of stars that I study and we don't understand them at all. So I like that for job security. If not for anything else.

Like the teenagers of stars. A little bit, yeah. Except that they also, they never become not teenagers. Right. The frustration. Oh, then they're like

the Chuck Nice of stars. It's a good thing and a bad thing because they also, like the sun is going to explode in five billion years. It's got a really limited lifetime happy thoughts but these stars that because they're so low mass they last forever right so they're actually a great like in sci-fi terms they're

a great way to think about developing a really complex civilization around another around another star because you don't have a time limit of the lifetime of that star so chuck yeah uh teenager forever dude this is true if you were able to live a billion years on this star that won't die for a trillion years is there something particular you would like to achieve under these circumstances no i'm I'm a teenager, dude. I don't know what I want to do. Stop harshing me, man. I'm going to make up my mind maybe when I'm 30, but I'll never be 30.

Well said, sir. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to take a short break right now, but more StarTalk All-Stars live from New York Comic Con when we come back. Come back. And we are back at StarTalk All-Stars,

live at the New York Comic Con. We have a wonderful crowd here today, and of course there are thousands of people out there. New York Comic Con exceeds, what, 100,000 attendees every year? It's an amazing group. Yeah, it is. Well more, well more.

150? Holy moly. It's like an auction. You guys beat San Diego. I think you did. Yeah, that's true. Oh, ho, ho, ho. Well. And, you know, the great thing about it is the kind of time and effort that people put in to, you know, the costuming.

And, you know, there's so much inventiveness and creativity on display here. It really is astonishing. And there's nothing better. I don't care what anyone says. There's nothing more inspiring. There is nothing more hopeful than seeing a fat guy in a flash outfit. That is awesome. Oh, well, speaking of awesome, all right, Chuck Nice, Emily Rice, PJ Manning.

PJ, your book and your sort of raison d'etre has a lot to do with the future and a positive vision of the future coming forward. In the next few years, maybe 10, 15, 20 at most, what do you see as one of the most promising and fascinating technological advances to benefit humanity that you will be watching with great interest? I don't write about it, but genomics. I'm really fascinated to see what's going to happen in an ethical way. This is the big key. Technology, swords and plowshares, guys. It's morally neutral. It's what we do with it. From the beginning of humanity to the future of humanity. So with genome alteration, we could do some incredible things to stop horrible diseases,

to create longevity, to create a happier humanity. But we got to do it right. Don't forget making a minotaur. humanity but we got to do it right don't forget making a minotaur i think my favorite uh comic version of genomic stuff are the inhumans right uh the the they expose their children their babies to the pteragon mists and then they wind up with very unusual and interesting mutations and it's only the royal family that gets it but anybody else who wants it and then over the decades of course people have messed with it a lot right and you mentioned this a little bit earlier the idea of pluses and minuses right and and good actors and bad actors using genomics is there a particular fear you have for using genomics in a bad way is in in the next

20 years not like far far future stuff, but what could we really do bad aside from, say, creating a super germ that kills 99.9% of us and turns the rest of us into zombies when we die? Right. Aside from the classic sci-fi runaway bug or runaway anything scenario, I think it's the, I'm actually afraid of the homogenization of humanity. of the homogenization of humanity. I'm afraid that people will think that there's a certain advantage that's preferable,

that everyone will start to want that. I'm really interested in the therapeutic value right now. I want to see diseases go away as much as possible. But when we start making the designer baby thing, while on one hand, you could argue that it's a moral necessity to create children who will not have the problems of the past, you could also argue that you don't want them to be created in a way that just gets rid of our differences. Now, Emily, this might resonate with you just a little bit, because as we all know, you have a star. My own designer baby.

Which is great. And what I want to ask you, sort of the same question. Let's go with PJ's idea first and this idea of designer babies from a very personal point of view as you're thinking about the next month or years to come. And then sort of your idea of what may be a technological advance or some sort of scientific advance in the next few years that might really move us forward in a way that's remarkable. I think looking at Comic-Con, it's kind of hard to imagine that we could ever homogenize humanity. I think this is my first Comic-Con. Oh, we have to give her a hand for that one. All right.

It is amazing. I have never, like, this, you know, I tend to dress like this kind of normally because of my fashion blog and stuff. And I have never felt so underdressed in my life. Which is just amazing. And also, like like the, yeah. What was the question? Technology. Yes, technology and children right now, but then 20 years from now,

what will your child be doing that we are, you know, like, I can't work this. Here, fix it for me. I can't even think about it. Your child will be like, like no this is easy look this is this is part of life you know i mean okay this is a little bit personal but also like i would not be pregnant if i were born 30 years ago because i had ivf okay and so that's like something that did not exist was not readily accessible in my parents generation and it's

something like if you you know you ask a handful of women, you're more likely to do it on the Upper East Side. But if you ask the pregnant women, one out of two are pregnant using IVF. And so it's actually a fairly commonplace thing, which is fantastic. And it's not quite designer babies. I think it's very, very ethical.

But it's fantastic to think about living in this time when so many things that just weren't possible a little while ago are now entirely possible and knows what's going to happen in the future. I remember as a child, the first in vitro fertilized children. It was a huge test tube baby. Yeah, it's actually like much. It was a tremendous moral issue. People were protesting some of these doctors saying, you know, you are creating Frankensteins and monsters and so forth.

And a decade later, decades later, PJ. But it's always the same argument. We've had the same argument about the natural order of things that you could actually just take out the technology. And we've had the same argument since the Middle Ages. Yeah. That's know excellent point so that's the thing that really matters now for me I

believe that in the next 10 to 20 years the thing that we will appreciate the most is actually space travel interstellar no absolutely not okay that's just not happening the Martian though yes I believe that Andy Weir and his techno knowledge and so forth is right there.

But for me, that opens up an interesting can of worms. Now, PJ, as an author, and you understand this, people like Andy Weir, they've got that technical knowledge that's showing sci-fi, as it very likely will be in the next couple of years. But then there are the the greats like ursula levine uh ursula was all psycho stuff and really understanding what happens to people as you go forward and then you have mixtures people like greg bear uh moving mars was one of the seminal uh sci-fi novels of my youth uh where you're talking about what happens if indeed people go colonize mars and and then they decide they don't want Mars in the solar system anymore. And what does that happen to society and so on?

From your perspective, I mean, can you see the same kind of psychological changes in humanity when we start going to the moon again and to Mars again on a regular basis? I think it's going to open up an enormous amount of possibility that we went to the moon and then we forgot about it. And it was a, you know, we had other fish to fry and recessions. If we had found gold on the moon, we would not have forgotten about it. We have that now.

We've got an asteroid space race right now. Mining asteroids. Asteroid mining. And that's actually going to happen, guys. That's not just, oh, you know, hypey articles and stuff. I have friends who are actually in the companies. They're developing the technologies. They're studying the asteroids.

And that's going to happen. So I do think we're going to start sending, if not people, certainly a lot of stuff going out into space. Very charismatic robots. No joke. I mean, how many people cried when, when Philae died and Rosetta, you guys know about the Rosetta comet mission.

Yeah. And Rosetta just crashed into the comet and the Philae lander, like kind of made it onto the comet. And that was heartbreaking. True. Rosetta tweeted out. It's been a pleasure folks. We put humanity in our machines, right?

And that's why, to me, when we explore the universe with robots, it counts. It really does. Absolutely counts. It counts. Chuck, give me a technological advance that you see in the next 10 to 20 years that you think will improve and revolutionize our lives? Well, in the next 10 to 20 years, I am, just like for you, I am looking forward to being able to get pregnant. Oh!

Whoa! That would be, yeah. Why not? You know what I mean? I just want to be able to say, not without my baby. You and Sally Field. Very, very fun. Yeah.

Cut in line at the bathroom. I'm sorry if I cut anybody in line for the bathroom, but I have that to look forward to. You have that to look forward to. No, I think that, quite frankly, we're already on the precipice with two things. So this device right here. Is that your tricorder? This is my tricorder. Thank you very much.

And it no longer flips. It used to flip. You mean like this transporter? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I can't believe you have a flip phone. Do me a favor. Just open that up and go, Kirk to Enterprise.

Kirk to Enterprise. Dude, that is stellar. So I believe that we are already on the precipice of some of the most astounding technological advances that will actually stem from this right here, combined with wearables, okay? And I'm talking about medical technology, where you will be able to monitor everything from your own insulin to talking to your doctor who will be in California because he's a specialist that will be able to treat you because you

are holding this in your hand while he is doing and making whatever diagnostic assessment that he must make. Or she. Or she. Sorry. Gotta be gender neutral. You are correct. Well said, Dr. Rice. Well said, doctor.

Not that kind of doctor. Astronomer, not a doctor, damn it. So I think that we're already there and that the changes that are coming about are going to be absolutely massive and astounding. astounding. And I also believe that we're going to have to change the way we run our world economy because along with these advancements, we are going to see a shift, tectonic shift in economies and economies of scale. If we do not get away from this mine, mine, gimme, gimme, gimme, gotta get more type of society, we are going to screw ourselves royally. Amen. What I love about Comic-Con is that when you bring the type of people who have this mentality that we have in this room together, we are looking beyond ourselves to a greater good and a greater future and in the hope of mankind.

And that, my friend, as corny as it may sound, is going to be the foundation for our advancement going forward. Well said, sir. Well done. Well said. Very nice. So it is now time for us to move to questions and answers. All of you who would like to ask a question about this wonderful panel on any topic, please come to the microphone. And we already have one right there. Go ahead. Yes, please. So my question is basically

about inequality and technological advancements. So a lot of what you've talked about as we know is only going to be available to the top whatever percent of people. So do you see this pushing the inequality gap to the point where we essentially people. So do you see this pushing the inequality gap to the point where we essentially kill off those

who are at the lower end? Or do you see technological advancements that appeal to the younger, or I guess like the less equal, like lower end spectrum? PJ, this is obviously in your strike zone. There are two schools of thought and they work simultaneously. And one thing you'll

always hear from me is I often say both answers because the world is complex and we live in paradoxes and there is no easy answer. Okay. So the cell phones are actually a perfect example of a top-down technology that now suffuses the entire globe. I remember when my dad had the brick in the 80s. Like, it was this giant thing, and no one had, you know, and you were so excited to find somebody else you could actually talk to, and it was ridiculous. Hello, mobile operator.

Hey. Right, right, exactly. Guess what? I'm calling you with a cell phone. Yeah. No, exactly. Guess what? I'm calling you with a cell phone. Yeah. No, really. So this is a perfect example of a technology that did, it needed the early adopters to pay ridiculously high prices or to eventually suffuse to a ubiquitous technological item. to the stuff that goes inside of us and is considered medical technology, I think we're going to have a harder time because of how our economics of medicine work. And there are going

to be things that you can only afford if you're very rich and medicine won't pay for yet, etc. So the possibility is there for an eventual ubiquity, but we have to fight for it if it's about human technologies. So that would be my answer is I do believe we're going to have to keep on top of our governments, our institutions,

and make sure that these technologies are not only available for the very rich. Nerds of the world, unite! Amen! You can say that for pretty much anything. And now we have Ash Ketchum, who's about to say something. No.

No. Can someone help with the mic? Gravity Falls. Oh, yes, that's right. Was Neil on Gravity Falls? Gravity Falls. Was I on Gravity Falls? Neil was, wasn't he? Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes,. Was Neil on Gravity Falls? Gravity Falls. Was I on Gravity Falls? Neil was, wasn't he?

Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, he sure was on Gravity Falls. We've got to give him some kind of shout out, right? That's true. StarTalk All-Stars with Ghost in the Rye. Not Pokemon. It's okay.

Gravity Falls. Yep, it's all good. Sometimes it's hard because, you know, got to catch them all. All right. Your question, sir. Yes. If there were to be an exoplanet or a planet that sustained life that we could communicate with and travel to, what would be the next step? Like after we got there, what would we do next?

Like after we found this planet that we can communicate with and that there's definitely life on, what would be the next step? Let's say we found Earth 2, right? How many of you remember the TV show Earth 2? Aired on Sunday nights at 7 p.m., right, on NBC? I liked it. It was great. A little on Sunday nights at 7 p.m., right? On NBC. I liked it. It was great.

A little kid called Ulysses. Yeah, it was lots. It eventually jumped the shark, but it was a cool idea for a few moments. Yeah. Emily, what do you think? What do we do next? What do we find? We're not there yet.

It's a lot of things that you said, but I like that you said all of the things. We have to find one that's, or maybe we don't need to find one that's Earth-like, honestly, but we have to find one with life on it, and we have to find one we can communicate with. And once we do, that's a lot of big steps to take, but once we do, oh my God, it's going to be a game changer. Throw all of our money at it. All of our money, all of our scientists, seriously. I cannot think of a bigger seismic shift

in our understanding of our place in the universe. And it's probably out there. That's the great thing. bigger seismic shift in our understanding of our place in the universe. We, we, and it's probably out there. That's the great thing. There are so many planets. There's such a diversity of life on earth.

There's just so many planets out there that there has to be life somewhere, but finding that and finding it at the same time as we are, the universe is 13.7 billion years old.'ve only been here for you know a flicker 10 10 years 100 years that we've been able to communicate and and space is also a problem we have to find something close by enough that we can communicate at the speed of light at a regular at a decent amount of time you know four years 10, back and forth for each message. And after that, just throw everything at it. If we do find something that close and that communicable, go for it. Everything. But first we have to make sure they're nothing like the Borg.

I don't know about that, Chuck. I actually think, you know, if you're a Borg, you're pretty happy. Your existence as you know, if you're a Borg, you're pretty happy. Your existence as you know it is coming. Am I allowed, am I permitted to say two things? Okay. Well, you know, look, we've got Mortal Kombat,

Booster Gold, The Squire of Gotho, Spider-Woman. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, real quick. I wanted to mention space elevators or what you want to call it i can't think of the name um the technology of space elevators yeah the those large like what? Not superstructures. There's been talk of

creating something involving like a tether. Oh yeah. Isn't that a space elevator? Let's talk about that. That is a space elevator. We have the station above. Go ahead.

Right. Like a mechanism that allows easier travel into space. I believe that a space elevator is about 50 years away. And the reason I say that is because you can't make something that's 22,000 miles long that can get all the way up into what is essentially geostationary orbit around the earth and have it not break ever because if it breaks 11,000 miles of cable landing on your house is no no no fun thank you very much for your question very cool very cool person thank you Very cool. Very cool. Moving on to the next person. Thank you. You know, maybe 20 years from now, we'll have microphone stands that just come up and down.

Automatically. So actually, going off the space elevator question. Yeah. Which brings me to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars strategy. Wonderful stuff. So I was wondering, do you think it would be possible to have an engineered ecology for terraforming that would actually be robust enough to be self-sustaining?

Terraforming. Emily, I think you're the one who can think about environments most effectively. I know that there are Martian thinkers who suggest that a thousand years would be a reasonable time length to ecoform or terraform mars but uh do you have any insight on whether or not it would be faster and then i mean we've got one example of how quickly we're terraforming something although

it's the it's kind of anti-terraforming uh yeah right so it can happen pretty quickly and i think like you know we've got to understand the one that we're on and what we're doing with it and be honest about what's happening and what's causing it. I think that, you know, the scientists know, and for some reason we don't want to believe that it's something that we've done ourselves or that it's as catastrophic as it actually is. And it's pretty damn bad. But, I mean, that bodes well for being able to do it to other planets

because exactly what we're doing to Earth right now is basically what we would have to do to Mars to make it habitable. Pump CO2 into the atmosphere, you know, warm it up a little bit. Shipping some cows over to Mars, Chuck, what do you think? Yes. Without a doubt. Yeah, try us to

Mars. Thank you for your question. Yes. Mortal Kombat Thundercat. Undercats. A lot going on here. All right Lionel, give it to us. So my question is going back to genetic alteration.

So assuming the technology was in place for interplanetary travel and extreme genetic alteration would be the most beneficial human enhancement to exist on other planets, and would it be ethical to breed it into our children? Wow. What do you think?

Dude, that is a great question. Excellent question. You know, just from a purely entertainment perspective, I would love to be able to genetically engineer it so that my hands are gigantic. That is the weirdest superpower ever. Yeah. That's the same power Donald Trump wants.

Can I take a guess? I want to guess, and knowing nothing about, I am absolutely like, even this stuff is a mystery to me still. But I want to guess that our biggest weakness is psychological. Oh. Oh, I wasn't going to go there. I was going to say, tell that to radiation. Thank you, Chuck. You took the wind right out of my sails.

So, PJ, you think? Radiation's definitely going to be a big issue. We already have a slight radiation issue when we're still within the Earth's, we're in orbit and we're still within the Earth's gravitational pull and our protective, somebody's actually an astrophysicist. The atmosphere from Cosmic. Right. So you're saying that.

When we're going to Mars, we don't have the production. There's no ozone. There's nothing. And I do worry about DNA degradation. So let's genetically engineer. You said enough people. Yeah. It's still random, right?

So it's like even flying, like going a little bit higher in the atmosphere, you get more. Exposure to radiation. Yeah, high energy radiation. So you're more likely to have genetic mutation. We're talking factors. But our astronauts, like having haven't, you know, the astronauts that have gone to the moon, like, haven't died of cancer. So far, so good, yes.

They're not there long enough. We're talking about Mars. We're talking, you know, eight months, 16 months. So we'll have to watch. There's, like, genetic studies, like, of the Kelly astronauts. Right, exactly. Twin studies that are being done and things like that to see what the long-term effects are.

So let's engineer, a space rat that is completely resistant to radiation poisoning and then splice those genes into us and then turn us into that, right? And we'll be out there and all good. Just a thought. the history of humanity and we see how many people have moved so far so long in small groups we're actually by nature as a species wanderers so i think we're going to do pretty fine as we get yeah there's going to be tensions there are going to be issues and etc and you want the people who are best suited to overcome those issues but i I do believe that it's much more going to be medical issues because we also have... It's very reassuring, actually.

I've never thought about it that way. I like that kind of longer-term perspective. Okay, let's get some more questions in. Thank you so much for your question. Thank you. Very nice. Hello. I'm John, and I have a question for Chuck specifically.

Oh, okay. So I've been listening to your entertainment comedy in various ways for a long time, since you were on the Radio Chick back when 92.3 was 3FM. Yes, sir. You go way back. Since we're on the topic of change today, I wanted to know what kind of meaning did comedy have in your life back then? How has it changed now that

you've kind of moved into the nerd sphere? And where do you think it's going to be five years from now? Ten years? To be honest, so I was always in the nerd sphere. I was just closeted. Welcome! It's nice to have you. It's just like I'm out and proud now.

And working with Dr. Tyson has allowed that to pretty much manifest itself. But no, comedy and comedians always, it always stems from one thing, and that is the deeper thought.

So how do I find a different perspective? And that's how you write and present comedy. It's always about everyone looks at things this way. How do I switch the view so that I can find humor in it? And that, I don't think, will change ever, to be honest. I don't care how old I get. And by the way, I'm 22.

Thank you for your question. Wonderful. All right. Yes. First off, thank you for correctly identifying me. Hey, Booster Gold, the man. Secondly, my question is regarding AI and robotic ethics and robopsychology. And what do you see in the future for that? Because even with the relatively rudimentary

ai's we have today we are witnessing emergent behaviors that could not have been predicted by simply sniffing through the line of code you have twitter bots that accidentally become nazis oh that's it that was a great example you know if if you're not familiar with it this was the microsoft uh bot that they chat bot that they created and they put it on Twitter and they wanted her to learn. And what she learned was to be an absolute neo-Nazi. A sexist, racist, everything horror show.

So, they quickly pulled it, but it was extraordinary to watch in virtually no time. So, yes, this was actually a perfect example of an experiment where they went, ooh wow, okay, that's not the direction to go in. There's so many different directions right now in terms of if you isolate the AI from the robotics in terms of people who are trying to engineer, let me figure out what human consciousness is and then I

can try to figure out AI. Then there are people who are just trying to figure out just natural language so the Turing test is enough for them as long as it can chat and they're good with that. And then you have people who are looking at AI from the neural net standpoint. It's actually learning to learn. So you've got all these different kinds of AIs. Everybody's working in a different sphere um it's a race like many technological races um in terms of robotics and don't you know you can laugh all you want but in terms of human style robotics the first thing you're going to see here and i don't know if i can actually say this on a family-friendly show sex bots yeah so no one's ever thought of that before. Yeah, well... But, you know, there's a reason why that industry leads in technologies as the wedge into technologies.

So I think we're going to see a lot of very... Oh, my gosh. So I think we're going to see the humanoid, the android, that's where we're going to start with androids um and then it then they'll become more and more useful there's got to be a demand for something right like we did the reason we went to the moon was because we wanted to beat the russians there like the reason we're going to develop ai is because we want to have sex with things right perfect sense in a perfect Like, as long as something good

comes out of it. Let's go back to the moon. By the way, I'm getting with that. That is such an awesome outfit that you could leave here and go to any disco in New York City.

They would lift the rope for you. All right. Thank you very much for your question. All credit to Blue Beetle for the costume. Chuck, we only have eight minutes.

Chuck, we have eight minutes. Yeah, we are running low on time. This is what I need to do. Okay, I want to get to as many questions as possible. We have to do at least one closeout of the show right now. And so we'll do that.

And then if all you all do need to go elsewhere because there are a lot of amazing things going on, don't feel like sad that you have to go. But then we're going to try to answer as many questions as possible for 1.15, when we actually are kicked out.

And if I may, right afterwards, I'm going to go out front here in the area. And anybody for StarTalk All Access, I'm going to be filming questions for Dr. Tyson. So if you want to ask a question, and then it will be played directly on the air. And so if you have a question that he won't, I won't answer it. Okay, just let you know. So we're going to do show outro number one right now.

But then stay if you want, go if you need. And then we will do more questions till the very last moment and then do show outro number two. Okay? Are we ready to do show outro number one? This has been an amazing fun time for us. Chuck, nice. Thank you so much for being the cohost as always.

Wonderful to work with you. Thank you, sir. Uh-huh. Uh, Dr. Emily Rice, my colleague,

my friend, thank you so much for bringing us the science of the sci-fi. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. And PJ, thank you so much as always. Make sure you get this book, PJ Manning, Revolution, nominated for the Bill K. Dick 2016 Award.

Thank you so much for bringing all your knowledge. Thank you so much. This has been StarTalk All-Stars Live at New York Comic Con. I'm Charles Liu. Thank you so much for being part of all of this wonderful fun. Enjoy the universe, everyone. See you later. Enjoy the Liu. Thank you so much for being part of all of this wonderful fun. Enjoy the universe, everyone. See you later. All right. Thank you. And yes, a Starfleet Academy alum. Yes. Which class? Definitely next generation.

So you graduated with Picard? No, he was ahead of me. He was ahead of me. He was ahead of you. Okay. Right. Yes, as you leave, ladies and gentlemen, please be a little bit quiet because we are still taping, but thank you so, so much.

Really. I wish we could get to everybody. Thank you. Okay. In the vein of Star Trek, you did mention that we probably would use all of our resources if we found life on another planet, but don't we have as a species

of responsibility to the prime directive we wouldn't want aliens of colonized dust or come to us in our infantile stage before we before we achieved any kind of species awareness and it just how responsible would it be ethically for us to go to another planet if there is life there and impose whatever form that life is. I mean, don't we have a responsibility to let it evolve on its own path until it at least achieves some level of consciousness?

I mean, it's more realistic to think about that in the solar system, even. And we've been really, really careful about that. And I mean, by us, I mean NASA. We probably haven't always, it's like as our technology advances, our kind of bar for protecting potential life in other places also gets higher.

And so there was a little bit of worry with one of the older Mars missions. Viking? Yeah, with the Viking mission, that we might have contaminated Viking before we sent it to Mars. And so any kind of life that might have been detected, it was, I forget exactly if it was something that we put there or something that we didn't calibrate well enough or something like that. But there's actually somebody whose job it is at NASA to make sure that things are as clean as possible and that things are as like least disruptive as possible, because that's the we don't want to get there. I'm sure that's a am I thinking of it from Futurama or something like that? Like the lander like switches the bug as it lands on the planet.

And it's like that's exactly what we don't want to do. And we also have to kind of keep an open mind for what life is. That's also the fantastic thing is that, you know, we can talk about life as we know it, which is one thing, and we can also talk about we don't even know what life potentially means. And so keeping our minds and our instruments open to detect something that might be living in a sense that's totally different from the way we live, I think is really important to keep track of.

And it's an ethical responsibility, yeah. Excellent. Thank you for your question. Our own prime directive. That's basically it. We got to adhere to it. Right. Yes.

Okay. Assuming and hoping for a very successful launch of the James Webb Telescope. Oh, yeah. Thank you. What are you hoping to find, and how do you think that will affect your research? Well, I'm a galaxies guy. So for me, theames webb space telescope which is the successor intellectually to the hubble

space telescope hopefully be launched in just a year or two yeah october 2018 mark it on your calendars i'm going on sabbatical that month the james webb space telescope will really allow us to look at the origins of galaxies the way they are. As many of you know, the sun is just one star amongst hundreds of billions within our own Milky Way galaxy, and yet there are billions of galaxies out in the universe too. So I'm looking at cosmological origins, our understanding of where our really big neighborhood came from to the present day. These are things that have never been seen before

and will not be seeable with anything less powerful than the James Webb Space Telescope. And I'm kind of interested in the other scales because with the James Webb Space Telescope, we'll be able to study the atmospheres of extrasolar planets much more than we ever have been before. So we know about these thousands of planets, but for the vast majority

of them, we're making very, very simple measurements, either just mass and then even a lower limit on mass or just a radius. And so if we're lucky enough to have both, we might be able to get a bulk density from basic physics, but we know nothing about its atmosphere. We might be able to get a little bit of composition from that bulk density, but the atmosphere is the important thing. I mean, think about the difference between Earth and Venus. They're very similar in terms of mass, very similar in terms of radius, hugely

different in terms of atmosphere. But with the James Webb Space Telescope, we'll be able to directly detect some exoplanet atmospheres. Still a very small number, but it's a huge step forward in our understanding of where to potentially search for life on other planets. Wonderful.

Thank you. One question. Yes. All, we are out of time, but all of you who are lined up for questions, I will not leave. I'll come out here. We'll be happy to answer questions as you come out, okay? Thank you so much. Let's do the second outro.

We are done for today. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. My co-host, Chuck Nice. Yes. My colleague, Dr. Emily Rice. Our friend and new much, ladies and gentlemen. My co-host Chuck Nice. My colleague Dr. Emily Rice. Our friend and new guy PJ Manny. This has been StarTalk Live at New York

Comic Con. StarTalk All-Stars Live at the New York Comic Con. Thank you all so much for coming here. Enjoy the universe everyone. This is StarTalk.