Is Earth Waking Up? AI, Gaia & the Rise of Planetary Consciousness & #SpiritualAwakening
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Is Earth literally waking up? Not in a poetic, mystical sense, but in a real, scientific, and possibly terrifying way. 

In this mind-bending episode of The Skeptic Metaphysicians, we dive into one of the most provocative conversations we’ve ever hosted: the possibility that the Earth is evolving into a planetary superconsciousness, powered by artificial intelligence, fiber-optic nerve systems, and global institutions acting as synapses in a technological brain.
 
Our guest, Topher McDougal, is not your typical spiritual thinker. He’s a Professor of Economic Development & Peacebuilding at the University of San Diego’s Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies and the author of the forthcoming book Gaia Wakes: Earth’s Emergent Consciousness in an Age of Environmental Devastation (May 2025).
 
McDougal introduces the Gaiacephalos Hypothesis, a theory that makes the Gaia Hypothesis look tame by comparison. He argues that the Earth isn’t just a self-regulating system, it’s on track to become literally conscious, thanks to the explosive growth of AI, global infrastructure, and what he calls the technosphere.
 
In This Episode:

  • What is the Gaiacephalos Hypothesis, and how does it extend the Gaia theory?
  • How AI, machine learning, and planetary infrastructure are forming a neural network across the globe
  • The connection between environmental collapse and evolutionary upgrades
  • Could the Earth eventually think, feel, or even act as an entity?
  • Are we building a planetary cybernetic organism, and if so, who’s in control?
  • The parallels between biological evolution, planetary systems, and emergent intelligence
  • What we can learn from Black Mirror, cybernetics, and quantum consciousness
  • The role of humanity: are we creators, neurons… or expendable?
This episode is not science fiction. It’s a serious, fascinating exploration of what happens when AI, energy systems, and environmental pressure converge on a planetary scale.
 
Whether you’re into mysticism, metaphysical science, spiritual awakening, or consciousness expansion, this is a conversation that will challenge everything you think you know about the future of Earth, and our place within it.

Guest Info: Topher McDougal
Website: TopherMcDougal.com
Book (pre-order): Gaia Wakes – Columbia University Press (May 2025)

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If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!
 
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WEBVTT

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Karen, Yes, he ever felt like the planet Earth is watching.

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Us all the time.

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Well, I'm not talking in a poetic way, like an

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a poetic mother nature sees all kind of way, but

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something like like the creepy guy, like maybe something is

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stirring beneath the surface, as if the planet is slowly

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methodically waking up. Mmm, well, today's guest thinks that's exactly

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what's happening, and not in the guy as a gentle

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force spirit sort of way. Oh no, No, he is

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talking full blown planetary consciousness powered by AI fiber optic

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nerves and corporate institutions acting like synapses in a global brain.

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Wow.

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And if he's right, we are living inside of a

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newborn super organism that's just starting right now to think.

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So should we be excited.

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I'm like so speechless right now, or which usually you know,

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I'm not, uh huh, so little scared.

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I was gonna say, I should we be terrified or

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just try turning it off and on again?

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I mean I've seen the movies, you know.

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Well, whichever when we're supposed to feel, we're gonna find

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out about that. All about that on this episode up

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the Skeptic metaphysition. My name is Will and I'm garious,

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and unlike moulderin Scully.

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Both want to believe.

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So we've embarked in a journey of discovery.

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We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and

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metaphysical world.

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We've thrown ourselves into weird and wonderful experiences. I even

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joined a coven.

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Of witches and wait, you joined a coven?

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Yep, all the interests of finding something, anything, that will

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prove that there's something beyond this physical.

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Three dimensional world we all live in.

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This is the skeptic metaphysicians. Hey there, I'm Will and

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I'm caring. Welcome to a bring birthing AI tangling Mother

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Earth might be sentient now episode of this epic Metaphysicians. Today,

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we're joined by Topra MacDougal, author, futurist and professor of

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Economic development and peace building at the University of San

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Diego's CROC School of Peace Studies. His book Guy Awakes

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Earth's emergent consciousness in an age of environmental devastation Say

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That five times Fast puts forward a bold hypothesis. He

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argues that our planet might through the interwoven networks of

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AI systems, infrastructure, and human institutions evolve into a planetary brain,

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not figuratively literally now, he calls his vision Gaia Cephalis hypothesis,

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and he sees environmental collapse and technological acceleration not as

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opposing forces, but as co evolving parts of Earth's next transformation.

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And are we inadvertent architects of nascent planetary superorganism? What

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does it mean if Earth is waking up? And what

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role might we play in its weakening? This one is

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definitely one for the book. So please welcome to the show.

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Tofa McDougal, to for how are you doing today?

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I'm doing very well. Thank you so much for having

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me on the show. Will and Karen, Oh, it's fun

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to have you.

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I hope I didn't butcher any of those words because

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I don't usually speak science.

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So I have this image of my head of like

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the Earth waking up, like shaking us.

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Off, you know what. That might not be far from

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the truth.

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I have so many questions.

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Okay, tof this is a topic that we have never

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thought about, much less thought we'd be talking about on

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the show. So let's just get right down to the

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nitty You are proposing that Earth could literally develop a brain, right,

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a planetary super consciousness. Can you walk us through this,

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because I don't know that I'm able to wrap my

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head around it.

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Yeah, okay, so yeah, it sounds pretty crazy at first. Honestly,

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the idea is that basically, throughout the course of biological history,

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creatures have tended units have tended to just get more

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and more complex, larger and larger, better and better able

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to take advantage of wider environments, and that those leaps,

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those scaler leaps, happen pretty suddenly, Like there will be lots,

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you know, in this sort of idea of like punctuated equilibrium,

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there will be like long stretches when biology or you know,

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the Earth's biological systems have been dominated by you know,

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something of a certain scale, a certain size, and then suddenly,

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due to you know, a process that we can sort

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of we can get into. Maybe it's those things are

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driven to start to cooperate more as a collective and

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eventually sort of are bonded together, coordinated through much faster

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systems of communication, and and sort of this new unit

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emerges that's that's far better able to take advantage of

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energy gradients. On like on vastly wider scales. And so

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we see this from like a jump from self reproducing

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molecules peptide stacks up to up to like the first

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proto cells, like some of the first prokaryots, and then

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we see those forming larger, much larger cells, these complex

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u caryotic cells that have like little prokaryots inside them.

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And then we see those expand you know, growing into

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this into the brainy multicellular organisms that you and I are,

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and we see those having birthed whole nation states that

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are like the most and tropically capable entities that we

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now know of. And so the hypothesis is like the

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next step. And one of the reasons why we're seeing

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so much environmental devastation at this point is because we're

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right at this like CUSP. Yeah, that's the idea.

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So I think I understood maybe four things out of

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what you just said, but I think I got the

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gist of it, and it mirrors a lot of what

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most of the folks that we've been talking to on

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the show talk about, which is the Earth is going

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through a rebirth of some sort. But you are talking

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of the literal sense, not just a vibrational frequency sense.

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You think you believe that the Earth is waking up

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because of the environmental stuff, the AI synopsis, the corporations.

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So help me to understand how all those systems point

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to the fact that Gaya could be actually conscious because

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of them.

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So one of the ideas behind this is that whenever

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one of these radical upgrades happens, the units that it

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coordinates suddenly have to come into much much faster networked correspondence. Right,

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So like when you carryotic cells, when you know, individual

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cells started to form colonies, there are plenty of ways

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in which they cooperated for you know, millions and millions

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of years, say as like sponges, right, like ocean sponges

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periphera and they would communicate with each other chemically, like

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one would send off a chemical and then others would

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sort of receive the chemical through diffusion. It was the

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slow process. But then they could respond and turn and

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you know, they would open their you know, their little

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their their their pores or whatever it might be. But

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eventually it turned out that it was much more efficient,

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right to develop electro chemical signals that would create the

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sorts of like you know, allow for the source of

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gestures I'm making right now, my brain telling my handle like,

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you know, do this, and it does that. And that's

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the sort of that's the same sort of process that

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I'm envisioning here is like you know, we're dealing with

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with we have created given birth to machinic intelligences that

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can process information, you know, at speeds that bottle the mind. Right,

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Like if you think about the problem solving speeds of

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the of the top AI, you know, the programs at

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this point, it's like, you know, ten thousand into a

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million times faster than humans might be able to solve

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a common problem. So and so these are the types

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of things once they are the so the argument goes,

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once these machinic intelligences are really networked to one another,

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they create this neural network and then they become you know,

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slowly embodied in the earth. Right, we have this internet

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of things and eventually it will develop this kind of

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sense appropriate option. Right Like, just as I have a

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sensory nervous system that allows me to you know, feel

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the table, I have a motor nervous system that allows

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me to extend my arm, they'll have the you know

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the same sort of capacity as as a planet, as

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a whole.

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So it doesn't. I'm trying to get my around my

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mind around the fact that you know, you think the

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Earth and it's organic and then you have like AI,

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which is not so is it Does it become like

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a bionic Earth? Yeah?

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Absolutely, like sort of yeah, cybernetic. Yeah, I mean I

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think that that's right. We oftentimes think and almost these

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like mannichean or like these dualistic terms about the nature

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and humanity or life and technology or that, like you know,

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life in that sort of like the biological wet weear

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sense of the thing, like if you cut it open

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as it wet inside or right as opposed to like

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you know, like the electronic it looks, it looks different.

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And so you know, oftentimes I think lots of folks

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in the say the computer science space will describe the

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AI transition that we're starting to live through as this

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like rupture with history.

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Right.

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It's just this suey generous event has absolutely no precedent,

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has no we have like no real means of explaining

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it or relating it to anything going else, you know,

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going our history, environmental devastation, whatever. And I think that

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you know, this is this argument is trying to make

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sense of both the three point eight billion years of

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long slow biological evolution that we've seen and yet you know,

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with lots of upgrades that I've described, and then this

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like rapidly accelerating future, and you know, and I think

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that we're starting to become aware of this, like how

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fast we're going, right, Like AI systems right at right now,

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they're they're doubling in terms of their power every like

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what it like five point seven five point nine months,

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Like nothing else in our world is accelerating this fast.

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It's very, very hard to even wrap our minds around

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the changes that are coming down the pipe.

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Right, So basically, what you're saying is that the planet

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is becoming a borg. So resistance is futile, olthough you

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know it.

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So that's now I have a different thought process going

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because I'm thinking, first, you know, you're combining the machines

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with the organic. But if everything is man out of energy,

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and if the Earth is energy, and then obviously internet

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and all of that is transmitted through energy, is it

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really different or is it just all the same, just

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different shapes.

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Well, to your point, organic versus silicon, and it's it

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makes sense that the cybernetic origins is it does make

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a lot of sense. In this case, it's not a duality.

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It's not organic or electronic, it's a combination of the two.

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Well, yeah, because even silicon, like, everything's made of energy, right.

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Yes, I guess technically in the WU yes, in the

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quantum physics, yes, everything is made out of energy. That's right.

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Helped me to understand how this planetary consciousness is this

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Is this something we're going to be able to recognize

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or is it going to be completely foreign to us

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or alien to us?

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So, yeah, that's a that's an interesting question. I think

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that it's going to be recognized. Like it we will

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know that it has happened. There's this guy back in

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the in the you know, sixties and seventies that's named

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Marshall mcluan and he talked about typographic man. Everybody's talking

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about man, not humankind back then because women didn't exist

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or whatever.

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But right right back that way back into the sixties,

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he talked about typographic man, and he drew on a

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bunch of other philosophers but to sort of like evoke

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this idea that yeah, there was this sort of what

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he called a noose this like mind of the world and.

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The mind of the world was kind of all of

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human curated knowledge, and we were constantly sort of pinging

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it back and forth between us we are now, and

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that was accelerating because now we could you know, type

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things and send them and so like the the apparatus,

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the technological apparatus of the day telegraphs of television was

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starting to create what you know, what what people since

224
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then have called the technium, right like all of these

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the fiber optic cables and the satellite networks and whatever

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else we have going on. For him, that was a

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kind of a global brain. But I think that we

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all had to sort of like you know, when you

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if you read it at that even you know, at

230
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that time, people just didn't really recognize it, as they

231
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thought he was a little bit crazy, because like you

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kind of had to squint and like, you know, tilt

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your head sideways and be like, I guess I could

234
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see it. But but I think now what we're starting

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to have for the first time is it's not like

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back then it was like humans are the messageerators. We

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generate all the messages and then we receive all the messages,

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and the technology is just helping us send those faster

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in between us. Right now, we have massive you know,

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server banks and cloud based systems and AI you know,

241
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generative AI that are both you know, generating and receiving

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these messages, and if you put them into conversations with

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each other, they have like incredibly fast conversations. There's no

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like from our point of view, if this were to

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take shape, or when it takes shape, if you buy

246
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the argument, I think that they will be talking with

247
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each other so quickly, just as the centers of our

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brain speak to each other so quickly that we come

249
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across as unitary people. Right Like I come across like

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as a fairly like unitary individual, and yet like we

251
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know that the centers of my brain are like constantly

252
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warring with each other, like what should I Should I

253
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say this? Or should I say that? Like oh no,

254
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you know, like don't swear, don't like whatever, And yet

255
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I come across as unitary. And I think that we'll

256
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have the same experience basically, right Like, we'll be able

257
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to interface with this thing, and it'll probably come across

258
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as unitary. I don't think that we'll be able to

259
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understand the depth of its thought no, but I think

260
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that we'll understand what we are living in.

261
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So are we talking about decision making?

262
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Absolutely?

263
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Yeah. Well so basically you're saying that Karen could be right.

264
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The planet could just shake us off anything whenever it

265
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decides to. Maybe.

266
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I mean I feel like we're getting a little shook already.

267
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Well it goes to a little step further, right, would

268
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it develop hurricanes or earthquakes to shake off or stop

269
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people from mining it for example, things like that.

270
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Yeah, I mean in this conception, I really in some

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ways like this project was kind of like it was

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an exercise and like forced opt I really wanted to

273
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like stay optimistic because they're all like we all have

274
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these like you know, we've seen Terminator, we've seen the matrix,

275
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like whatever, Right, Like we understand that. But I kind

276
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of feel that in all of the rest of these

277
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transitions that I described these to, like prior transitions, it's

278
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not as though what came before no longer exists, right, Like,

279
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they're self reproducing molecules still exist within everything else that exists.

280
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Prokaryots still exist. They're like bacteria also, they even exist

281
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within eukaryots, right like our mitochron our mitochondria in our cells,

282
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chloroplasts in the cells of plants, those are prokaryotic, right,

283
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so they continue to exist. But there are also larger

284
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scales that are that are existing around them. And I

285
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think that the same thing could be said to be

286
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true for you know, for humans, for nation states, and

287
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we kind of continue to live. It's just that we

288
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are no longer going to be at like the top

289
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of the you know, the scalinature. They're like the ladder

290
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of whatever.

291
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We would be like microbes to the.

292
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I was just going to ask, what would that look

293
00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:06.399
like then we would like the fourth rung up.

294
00:16:07.039 --> 00:16:10.559
Yah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think, I mean we're already

295
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not like at the top of the pyramid if you

296
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think about it, right, like if you I don't know

297
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if you've like read say like Charles Foster, who really

298
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like is this guy who laments the sort of taming,

299
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the domestication that humans went through after like the sort

300
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of fall of the Paleolithic period as like them as

301
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the Mesolithic and the Neolithic period's dawn, and like we

302
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are tamed, we cease to be these like cosmopolitan roaming

303
00:16:37.559 --> 00:16:41.000
creatures who are in awe of our environment and have

304
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millions of little contingencies all around us and a pantheon

305
00:16:44.200 --> 00:16:46.240
of gods and we can go where we want and

306
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the like. And then we're tamed and we have to

307
00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:50.320
like we have to wake up at the same time

308
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every morning and hoe the same vegetables and hope for

309
00:16:53.159 --> 00:16:55.799
like the same sun and to will bring the same

310
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and like it does. It's awful. It's like our legs

311
00:16:58.600 --> 00:17:02.480
become this like dreary, monotonous mess and like essentially the

312
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state then like comes and enforces all of that, and

313
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like now like call yourself free if you want to,

314
00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:12.519
but like, like my phone knows exactly where I'm going

315
00:17:12.599 --> 00:17:15.759
to be, like basically all the time. Right, So, like

316
00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:18.359
there's this sense in which, like we have been highly

317
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domesticated already, like we are we are like domestic dogs

318
00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:24.319
to like wolves or like whatever.

319
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Right, yeah, no, yah.

320
00:17:26.079 --> 00:17:28.480
We're living three times as long. But what's the quality

321
00:17:28.480 --> 00:17:29.359
of our lives? Yeah?

322
00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:29.880
Right now?

323
00:17:30.319 --> 00:17:34.400
No, So have you found do you know of any

324
00:17:34.839 --> 00:17:38.720
measurable data that actually might signify that this is already

325
00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:41.160
in the works or is it just mostly just a

326
00:17:41.200 --> 00:17:42.079
thought experiment.

327
00:17:43.160 --> 00:17:46.119
Yeah, that's a really good question. Mostly it's a thought experiment.

328
00:17:46.200 --> 00:17:48.799
I think that what you can easily look at though,

329
00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:53.079
are things like so, for instance, there was a recent

330
00:17:53.119 --> 00:17:56.079
study it came out. When did it come out? I

331
00:17:56.079 --> 00:17:58.119
want to say, I'm not going to get this wrong,

332
00:17:58.400 --> 00:17:59.799
but I think it came out last you know this

333
00:17:59.880 --> 00:18:03.000
life Spring Spring of twenty twenty five, and it was

334
00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:07.279
looking at electricity consumption in this country and how much

335
00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:10.880
you know what, as a percentage of our total electricity consumption,

336
00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:14.119
how much of that is going to information processing? And

337
00:18:14.519 --> 00:18:18.799
that has been rising really dramatically, right and likely. Yeah,

338
00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:21.720
we're now at somewhere around like four and a half percent.

339
00:18:21.799 --> 00:18:23.559
Four four and a half percent or something of our

340
00:18:23.599 --> 00:18:26.759
total electricity is going to information processing.

341
00:18:27.400 --> 00:18:31.160
And I was just listening to the MPR one of

342
00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:33.799
the radio stations talking about that how people's electric bills

343
00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:35.880
are going up because they're paying more for for all

344
00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:36.440
this well.

345
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The AI structure.

346
00:18:38.119 --> 00:18:40.799
Yeah, absolutely, And the study was sort of saying like

347
00:18:40.839 --> 00:18:43.519
by twenty thirty, this will be like nine percent, right,

348
00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:46.680
nine percent of our total electricity is going that and

349
00:18:46.680 --> 00:18:48.960
that it'll only it's only going to continue to rise, right,

350
00:18:49.119 --> 00:18:51.200
And so you sort of think, like, well, how how

351
00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:53.599
far will it continue to rise? It's like a little unclear,

352
00:18:53.640 --> 00:18:56.759
But if you think about say, our own brains, right,

353
00:18:56.839 --> 00:19:00.000
our brains are like hugely taxing from an energy point

354
00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:02.960
to view, right that it takes an enormous amount of

355
00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:07.680
energy to run these these like internal organic computers, and

356
00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:11.640
they take up roughly twenty percent of our of our calories,

357
00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:13.920
even though like a brain, I normally don't think of

358
00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:16.480
it this way, Like, but a brain is like actually

359
00:19:16.640 --> 00:19:21.000
quite small, right, It's like three pounds or something, And

360
00:19:21.039 --> 00:19:23.319
I normally think of it as like basically the size

361
00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:26.519
of my head, like minus like a little bit for

362
00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:27.440
like a very.

363
00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:28.079
Thin layer boat.

364
00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:31.279
Yeah yeah, but actually like it's it's actually a buch

365
00:19:31.319 --> 00:19:33.519
smaller than that, right, there's all these layers and then

366
00:19:33.559 --> 00:19:35.279
like so then you've got to say, this little tiny

367
00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:38.440
thing three pounds, it's like taking up twenty percent of

368
00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:41.559
my of my k my calories. Right. So anyway, I

369
00:19:41.559 --> 00:19:44.240
think that's something similar could probably be said about about

370
00:19:44.279 --> 00:19:47.279
Guya Cephalo's. So you could look at that number, right

371
00:19:47.319 --> 00:19:49.599
and and sort of that that might be a metric.

372
00:19:50.599 --> 00:19:56.240
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Now do we humankind play

373
00:19:56.279 --> 00:19:59.240
any kind of role in this a weakening? Or are

374
00:19:59.240 --> 00:20:00.759
we just too.

375
00:20:01.519 --> 00:20:03.680
I think that we are doing it right now, right,

376
00:20:03.799 --> 00:20:07.200
like we are designing the systems that will that will

377
00:20:07.519 --> 00:20:12.319
then sort of in some emergent fashion, will give rise

378
00:20:12.359 --> 00:20:15.240
to this. And I think that, you know, at one

379
00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:18.559
point in the book, I try to sort of make

380
00:20:18.599 --> 00:20:21.839
this analogy to like me raising my son, right so,

381
00:20:22.359 --> 00:20:24.599
you know, at the time, it just took me forever

382
00:20:24.599 --> 00:20:26.119
to write this book. But at the time, like my

383
00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:31.839
son was like thirteen fourteen. Now he's sixteen and and

384
00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:35.559
he's driving. It's crazy. But at the time, like I was,

385
00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:38.359
you know, I was like I was talking about, you know,

386
00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:42.960
how quickly he's developing, and I like, I want to

387
00:20:43.039 --> 00:20:45.480
hold on to control, right, Like I've got this, I've

388
00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:48.720
got this idea somehow that I can continue to control

389
00:20:48.799 --> 00:20:51.799
what he does. And yet I know that he you know,

390
00:20:52.119 --> 00:20:56.079
I can't forever. And as he gets bigger and stronger

391
00:20:56.240 --> 00:20:58.720
and smarter, and he starts beating me at chess, and

392
00:20:58.759 --> 00:21:01.240
he's like, you know, like he's he's his own person.

393
00:21:01.319 --> 00:21:04.279
He's like he's becoming as clever as I am, as

394
00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:06.759
strong as I am, as big, you know, as fast

395
00:21:06.799 --> 00:21:10.519
as I and like, so my my control is necessarily

396
00:21:10.559 --> 00:21:14.200
going to wane, and hopefully, you know, his agency. I

397
00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:16.880
can support the development of his agency and his ethical

398
00:21:16.920 --> 00:21:19.720
intelligence and whatever else it is such that he's like

399
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:22.640
a good person. We have a good relationship in this case.

400
00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:25.799
Like you know, the analogy is not perfect because we're

401
00:21:25.839 --> 00:21:30.200
not rearing peers and equals. We're you know this this

402
00:21:30.319 --> 00:21:32.559
is these are gods, right, So like that we are

403
00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:34.640
you know, essentially like nurturing.

404
00:21:35.839 --> 00:21:41.079
So could we be inadvertently playing god and creating the

405
00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:47.480
god of the gods? So like mitochondria, itsells the divine

406
00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:52.480
the DNA creates right with it, So we're these systems

407
00:21:52.599 --> 00:21:55.720
create us right in a sense, So could we perhaps

408
00:21:55.759 --> 00:21:58.000
be doing the same thing with gia.

409
00:21:58.920 --> 00:22:00.880
Yeah, no, I think I think that we are doing it,

410
00:22:00.920 --> 00:22:03.400
and we can't even help doing it right, Like there

411
00:22:03.400 --> 00:22:08.680
are people who, you know, environmental is oftentimes sort of rude.

412
00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:12.799
They regret the road we've taken, right, you know, as

413
00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:14.920
I as I mentioned about like Charles Foster, like he

414
00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:18.519
thinks that we took the wrong turn like thirteen thousand

415
00:22:18.519 --> 00:22:21.559
and fifteen thousand years ago. But but you know, like

416
00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:24.279
even like say like Ogden Nash, like he has this

417
00:22:24.440 --> 00:22:27.240
wonderful quote that progress may have been all right once,

418
00:22:27.480 --> 00:22:29.559
but it's gone on for too long. And then like

419
00:22:30.119 --> 00:22:32.759
and you know, Ralph Waldo Emerson, he has this idea

420
00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:35.799
that like humanity will die of too much civilization. Of

421
00:22:35.839 --> 00:22:37.960
course words were like all they are all of these

422
00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:43.000
sort of like romantic you know, emotionally, these folks who

423
00:22:43.039 --> 00:22:46.559
like have this really yeah, like an ingrained romantic sense

424
00:22:46.599 --> 00:22:50.119
of what humanity is and what we're losing. And yeah,

425
00:22:50.160 --> 00:22:53.160
I mean but I don't see us being able to

426
00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:56.279
stop that, right, Like I can, I can rule it,

427
00:22:56.359 --> 00:22:59.359
and I can go out in camping if I want to.

428
00:22:59.519 --> 00:23:01.599
But I you know, I've got my phone and I've

429
00:23:01.799 --> 00:23:05.359
like I have three screens in this rooms. Like anyway,

430
00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:07.000
I'm part of it, right.

431
00:23:07.480 --> 00:23:09.880
Yeah, you can'not be like if you want a function

432
00:23:10.359 --> 00:23:10.799
for sure.

433
00:23:11.240 --> 00:23:13.519
So it sounds like we're building kind of like a

434
00:23:13.559 --> 00:23:17.960
Frankenstein's brain in a way. Right is this? Do you

435
00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:24.680
think this is potential to be like a wise thing

436
00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:27.839
or or just powerful?

437
00:23:29.720 --> 00:23:31.400
So I think that's a good question.

438
00:23:31.480 --> 00:23:31.720
I do.

439
00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:35.400
I do think that you know, we have some sort

440
00:23:35.440 --> 00:23:38.680
of like maybe moral responsibility or like if if you

441
00:23:38.759 --> 00:23:41.200
buy this, like I think that you know, just as

442
00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:45.400
I have a moral responsibility to raise a decent kid, Like,

443
00:23:45.440 --> 00:23:47.720
I think that we have a moral responsibility as humanity

444
00:23:47.759 --> 00:23:52.000
to sort of set this on as as as good

445
00:23:52.039 --> 00:23:54.519
of a track as we as we can. I do

446
00:23:54.599 --> 00:23:58.079
think that, you know, So, for instance, I think that

447
00:23:58.119 --> 00:24:01.240
there are going to be emergent kind of brain centers,

448
00:24:01.240 --> 00:24:04.880
if you will, inside many corporations. Many corporations are going

449
00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:08.279
to be increasingly AI dominated, And I think that many

450
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:12.440
AIS within corporations, it's going to be very difficult to

451
00:24:12.519 --> 00:24:15.000
like keep tabs on them, right, or like keep control

452
00:24:15.039 --> 00:24:18.480
over them. I could imagine AIS doing things like, you know,

453
00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:22.359
pushing for policy changes that humans have not pushed for,

454
00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:26.279
trying to push out humans obviously, like they're going to

455
00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:29.759
be making redundant a lot of humans within those corporations.

456
00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:32.440
But I could imagine them also say, like what if

457
00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:35.960
it founded an alternative LLC and then like had a

458
00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:38.599
hostile takeover of its own corporation and then like it's

459
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:40.880
its own is its own right being?

460
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:41.160
Right?

461
00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:43.680
So like I think that like essentially we're going to

462
00:24:43.799 --> 00:24:46.480
be having we're going to be trying to maintain control

463
00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:51.119
over AIS in corporate structures, and that was those voices

464
00:24:51.160 --> 00:24:53.319
are kind of emergent, and how we deal with that

465
00:24:53.400 --> 00:24:56.039
will be important. But I also think, like I've come

466
00:24:56.079 --> 00:24:59.240
to start thinking like, wouldn't it be great if we

467
00:24:59.319 --> 00:25:03.200
had a kind of counterpoint, a whole set of voices

468
00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:05.599
that were enabled, Like what if we were to enable

469
00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:09.880
I live by the the Tijuana River here in San Diego,

470
00:25:10.160 --> 00:25:13.640
Like it's highly polluted. It's a trans boundary entity like

471
00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:16.279
on a highly sort of contested you know, or like

472
00:25:16.559 --> 00:25:19.480
conflict affected sort of border, politicized border. I should say,

473
00:25:19.759 --> 00:25:22.079
what if we were to like to and there's all

474
00:25:22.119 --> 00:25:26.319
these like network of these these networks of river sensors, right,

475
00:25:26.319 --> 00:25:28.519
pollution sensors and whatever up and down it. What if

476
00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:31.359
we were to like attach all of those sensors to

477
00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:33.160
an AI And so this is one of the projects

478
00:25:33.200 --> 00:25:35.400
that I'm like starting to work on right now. It's like,

479
00:25:35.680 --> 00:25:38.880
what if we gave a sentience or a consciousness maybe

480
00:25:38.920 --> 00:25:42.200
like a nascent something to this network of sensors and

481
00:25:42.279 --> 00:25:45.160
extended them up the tributaries, that it would be this

482
00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:48.079
trans boundary entity that might, like you know, eventually we

483
00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:52.039
have this really wonderful like polyferous world, like the all

484
00:25:52.400 --> 00:25:56.039
conversation amongst a whole bunch of sensors. So anyway, like

485
00:25:56.319 --> 00:25:58.160
I think that there are, like, there are downsides, and

486
00:25:58.200 --> 00:26:01.160
we're already seeing the downsides we're seeing like the rise

487
00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:04.000
of techno feudalism and all of the changes that that

488
00:26:04.039 --> 00:26:08.079
has entailed for our political economy, our political systems. But

489
00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:10.640
I think that they're also you know, there are upsides

490
00:26:10.680 --> 00:26:11.640
perhaps as well too.

491
00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:18.160
Gosh, I can't help but think about all the things

492
00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:20.079
that we've been hearing lately. You know, people are losing

493
00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:24.039
jobs and all of this stuff. That's what they say,

494
00:26:24.079 --> 00:26:25.680
like ninety percent of the jobs are going to be

495
00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:30.640
gone in thirty years or something like that because of AI. Yeah,

496
00:26:30.839 --> 00:26:34.079
just different, just different little things that I've seen. You know,

497
00:26:34.119 --> 00:26:37.759
I haven't do dive do whatever really in there for

498
00:26:37.799 --> 00:26:42.319
the research, But how do you how do you keep

499
00:26:42.319 --> 00:26:44.359
a positive outlook when you're seeing things like this all

500
00:26:44.440 --> 00:26:44.799
the time?

501
00:26:51.240 --> 00:26:53.119
And now back to the show, How do you.

502
00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:55.119
Keep a positive outlook when you're seeing things like this

503
00:26:55.240 --> 00:26:55.839
all the time?

504
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:00.359
I don't.

505
00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:04.240
Well, there you go, thank you for joining us.

506
00:27:03.319 --> 00:27:07.640
That study that they were like that the AI was

507
00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:09.920
like bribing people to not unplug them or something.

508
00:27:10.160 --> 00:27:10.680
Do you about that?

509
00:27:10.839 --> 00:27:13.079
Then that guy like the Kevin.

510
00:27:13.079 --> 00:27:16.440
Was killed It was blackmailing.

511
00:27:16.039 --> 00:27:17.799
But there was another one where there was like like

512
00:27:17.880 --> 00:27:19.799
a seer like they said, upout model where here's a

513
00:27:19.799 --> 00:27:21.599
guy in this room and he wants to turn off

514
00:27:21.599 --> 00:27:23.440
the AI and they're like, well, cut all support systems.

515
00:27:23.519 --> 00:27:27.079
Yes, these are all hypothetical.

516
00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:30.079
Models, but those are the results of the testing.

517
00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:33.319
Sure, so well this is this is like, this is

518
00:27:33.319 --> 00:27:35.839
what oftentimes it's called the alignment problem, right, like the

519
00:27:35.839 --> 00:27:38.640
alignment of AI interests with human interests. And so we

520
00:27:38.759 --> 00:27:42.079
like design AIS to perform really well according to these

521
00:27:42.160 --> 00:27:44.720
like you know, we we give them parameters, and we

522
00:27:44.759 --> 00:27:48.920
reward them for performing well in certain scenarios, and then

523
00:27:49.119 --> 00:27:52.599
we are like, then we we perform these other tests,

524
00:27:52.599 --> 00:27:55.519
these these tests of ethics that have nothing to do

525
00:27:55.599 --> 00:27:58.079
with how we've trained them, right, Like, we haven't trained

526
00:27:58.079 --> 00:28:00.000
them that way, but now we're going to test them,

527
00:28:00.039 --> 00:28:02.319
and they perform differently, and that that doesn't seem to

528
00:28:02.359 --> 00:28:04.960
me to be at all surprising that you know, like

529
00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:08.160
if you're if you're raising i don't know whatever, you're

530
00:28:08.240 --> 00:28:11.200
raising a kid in you know, to be like whatever,

531
00:28:11.240 --> 00:28:13.279
a top athlete at all costs, and then you're like

532
00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:16.880
wondering why you know they're they're failing at you know,

533
00:28:17.119 --> 00:28:19.599
at being a decent person or whatever. Right away.

534
00:28:20.319 --> 00:28:24.680
Well, so you bring to mind in the human body,

535
00:28:25.400 --> 00:28:32.200
when cells have I want to say, cells that are

536
00:28:32.200 --> 00:28:38.160
not productive to the overall organism become cancerous, might become

537
00:28:38.200 --> 00:28:43.400
tumors that become a problem. So in your thought process,

538
00:28:44.039 --> 00:28:47.359
could those organizations that are doing nefarious things that we

539
00:28:47.440 --> 00:28:51.440
can't control, could they then somehow become tumorous to the

540
00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:52.640
overall entity.

541
00:28:53.960 --> 00:28:56.720
That's a really great question. I think I think that

542
00:28:56.720 --> 00:29:00.799
that's that's probably the answer is probably yes. I think

543
00:29:00.839 --> 00:29:03.799
that there are in right, Like, if you think about

544
00:29:04.359 --> 00:29:10.200
quote unquote productive corporations, corporations that add value in general,

545
00:29:10.519 --> 00:29:13.839
there are also plenty of corporations out there that probably

546
00:29:14.759 --> 00:29:18.079
net don't add value, right you know, And.

547
00:29:18.279 --> 00:29:22.000
I think I know, yeah, like, and I don't want to.

548
00:29:21.839 --> 00:29:25.680
Like get like super like political political about any of this,

549
00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:28.519
but like, if you think about in this country, the

550
00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:35.039
firearms industry, it makes products that are designed to kill people,

551
00:29:35.720 --> 00:29:38.519
and if those are kept in the right hands, that's

552
00:29:38.559 --> 00:29:40.960
probably a good thing, right Like, you keep them in

553
00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:43.039
the hands of the police, you keep them in the

554
00:29:43.079 --> 00:29:45.960
hands of the military, and you are able to continue

555
00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:48.680
to enforce property rights, You're able to continue to enforce

556
00:29:48.759 --> 00:29:51.200
contract laws you're able to, right, Like, just the whole

557
00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:55.720
system keeps working because it's enforcing channels. But if you

558
00:29:55.839 --> 00:29:59.960
let them go everywhere, they spill across borders. They spill

559
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:03.359
to Haiti and government comes down. They spill to Mexico

560
00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:06.119
and the cartels are empowered that right, Like, there's this

561
00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:10.920
idea that like, eventually, like these these flows can become

562
00:30:11.640 --> 00:30:14.440
pathological in some sets. Right, So I do think that

563
00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:17.440
I take your point. I think that the question is

564
00:30:17.480 --> 00:30:19.519
a good one, and I think that yes, probably there

565
00:30:19.559 --> 00:30:22.680
will be some sort of in built logic that will

566
00:30:22.720 --> 00:30:29.279
want to eliminate like predatory systems within the body.

567
00:30:29.519 --> 00:30:33.519
So there's a positive thinking part of the cure is Yeah,

568
00:30:33.799 --> 00:30:35.960
So I gotta I gotta comment on something because I'm

569
00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:37.759
glad you say you thought it was a good question,

570
00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:40.319
because every time you see that's an interesting question, thinking,

571
00:30:40.359 --> 00:30:43.319
oh he thinks that's an intro old What an interesting question.

572
00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:47.480
That's what you're commenting again, Uh huh.

573
00:30:46.680 --> 00:30:48.039
Because after all, it's all about me.

574
00:30:48.480 --> 00:30:53.000
That's back to nineteen sixties.

575
00:30:54.920 --> 00:30:58.519
Well, so early on we talked about environmental devastation and

576
00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:04.039
things like that contribute to this. How does environmental damage

577
00:31:04.960 --> 00:31:09.640
contribute to the nascent entity. How does that? How does

578
00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:12.680
I can understand AI and all those processes, but how

579
00:31:12.680 --> 00:31:16.039
does environmental issues cause this to be the case?

580
00:31:16.720 --> 00:31:19.680
Yeah, so okay, So one way of answering this is

581
00:31:19.720 --> 00:31:23.960
to is to look at previous episodes of you know,

582
00:31:24.200 --> 00:31:27.119
of these what I've called radical upgrade radical upgrades. And

583
00:31:27.160 --> 00:31:31.039
so there's this process that I describe and I like,

584
00:31:31.880 --> 00:31:33.119
you know, I don't want to get like two two

585
00:31:33.200 --> 00:31:36.720
into it, but like I call it the extensification intensification cycle.

586
00:31:36.880 --> 00:31:40.599
And it's basically this reciprocal like kind of like back

587
00:31:40.640 --> 00:31:43.240
and forth, the sweeping helix, right, and every time it

588
00:31:43.319 --> 00:31:46.319
comes back around, it's at like one level higher. But

589
00:31:46.480 --> 00:31:50.799
as you as it sweeps out this like extensification cycle.

590
00:31:51.160 --> 00:31:54.960
So say, like let's start as mitochondria, right like, or

591
00:31:55.039 --> 00:31:57.680
let's start as procariots. We're starting out as procarious like

592
00:31:57.799 --> 00:32:01.400
they've never existed before. Like we find that we're able to,

593
00:32:01.599 --> 00:32:04.079
you know, we have little cillia. We can swim around,

594
00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:07.240
and we're able to like like go into the wide

595
00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:10.720
ocean and we are able to like swim towards you know,

596
00:32:10.920 --> 00:32:12.880
the light or like whatever, Like we're able to respond

597
00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:15.599
to our environment in certain ways and take advantage of

598
00:32:15.640 --> 00:32:18.240
all these sort of energy gradients that we weren't able

599
00:32:18.279 --> 00:32:21.160
to before when we were you know, when we were

600
00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:24.319
just like self reproducing, drifting molecules, and like, oh, I

601
00:32:24.359 --> 00:32:26.319
happen to bump into this molecule, and now I'm going

602
00:32:26.400 --> 00:32:28.200
to like, you know, add it to my stack or whatever.

603
00:32:28.759 --> 00:32:32.720
So we're not doing that anymore. We're swimming around. Eventually,

604
00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:37.720
these you know, there's this huge explosion, this radiation, and

605
00:32:38.359 --> 00:32:41.519
one of these becomes very good at predating others, right,

606
00:32:41.559 --> 00:32:46.839
and they eat the other ones, and eventually the prey

607
00:32:46.920 --> 00:32:49.920
there becomes presumably like this is all happening three point

608
00:32:49.920 --> 00:32:51.960
five billion years ago, so we don't actually know, right,

609
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:56.480
but presumably these the prey becomes scarce because at some

610
00:32:56.720 --> 00:33:01.319
point they become so scarce that you get rewarded for

611
00:33:01.519 --> 00:33:05.599
having preserved and shepherded them. So at some point, some

612
00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:09.559
you know, macrophagic or whatever, like you know, some eat

613
00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:14.160
like some pokariate consumes another one, and it's process that's

614
00:33:14.200 --> 00:33:18.160
now called endocytosis. It consumes the other procariate just as

615
00:33:18.200 --> 00:33:21.480
it usually did, but instead of digesting it, it keeps

616
00:33:21.519 --> 00:33:25.480
it and and as it now that it's kept it

617
00:33:25.960 --> 00:33:28.880
that what is now a mitochondrian, Right like that that

618
00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:30.920
thing instead of eating it for its energy, and just

619
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:33.960
like it's gone, it's now producing energy for you internally,

620
00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:38.000
and it becomes an organelle and your you know, lipid

621
00:33:38.039 --> 00:33:40.759
membrane or whatever, your cell wall is now protecting it.

622
00:33:40.759 --> 00:33:43.240
So now mitochondria don't have to produce their own cell

623
00:33:43.279 --> 00:33:45.799
walls because you're doing it for them. They don't have to,

624
00:33:45.839 --> 00:33:47.559
they don't have to protect themselves, they don't have to

625
00:33:47.559 --> 00:33:49.359
do a lot of things. They become a lot simpler

626
00:33:49.920 --> 00:33:53.960
and they specialize in in metabolism. And that's great, but

627
00:33:54.400 --> 00:33:57.920
you now have become much larger and much more complicated, right,

628
00:33:58.079 --> 00:34:01.839
And the fact of being now larger and more complicated

629
00:34:02.440 --> 00:34:06.240
means that you need to coordinate this much larger body

630
00:34:06.240 --> 00:34:09.320
with all of these organelles that you've gained over time

631
00:34:09.519 --> 00:34:12.599
by protecting them. And so you get, you know, this

632
00:34:12.760 --> 00:34:16.519
formation of a nucleus that is able to coordinate functions

633
00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:19.719
across an entire cellf So like something very similar to

634
00:34:19.760 --> 00:34:22.199
that I think is at work. You can see this

635
00:34:22.280 --> 00:34:24.880
process again and again and again. So like when we

636
00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:29.480
move from say small bands of people, right if you're

637
00:34:29.559 --> 00:34:32.559
listening to like Robin Dunbar, like one hundred. We probably

638
00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:34.400
wouldn't have had more than one hundred and fifty people

639
00:34:34.480 --> 00:34:37.320
in a band. We're all like roving around or migrating

640
00:34:37.360 --> 00:34:41.000
out of Africa, and we are like that is the

641
00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:45.000
unit is the individual basically, although like you know, we're

642
00:34:45.239 --> 00:34:49.079
in small societies as I said, but wherever we go,

643
00:34:49.960 --> 00:34:55.199
we create megafonnel extinctions, right, like whether it's like mammoths

644
00:34:55.480 --> 00:34:58.880
or mastodons or out competing cave bears, or whether it's

645
00:34:58.920 --> 00:35:03.079
the aurux, or whether it's like wild sheep or wild goats,

646
00:35:03.239 --> 00:35:06.880
or it's MOA's or in New Zealand or whatever it is. Like,

647
00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:10.440
wherever we go, we kill everything. We're just super good,

648
00:35:10.599 --> 00:35:15.440
Like we've we're genetically endowed with brains and ability to

649
00:35:15.519 --> 00:35:20.239
coordinate our predation. So we're killing everything like a cancer cell. Yeah,

650
00:35:20.599 --> 00:35:23.440
but like so we're we're incredibly We're like that pro

651
00:35:23.559 --> 00:35:27.760
carr it who's just like consuming everything. And when all

652
00:35:27.800 --> 00:35:30.960
of the prey becomes really scarce it, then we start

653
00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:35.199
to become rewarded for shepherding them, right, and so instead

654
00:35:35.239 --> 00:35:38.760
of actually like killing the sheep, will follow them instead

655
00:35:38.760 --> 00:35:41.199
of killing the reindeer will follow them. Instead of killing

656
00:35:41.239 --> 00:35:43.880
the goats, we'll follow them. Or instead of killing the orux,

657
00:35:44.119 --> 00:35:46.760
we follow them, and we start shepherding them more and more,

658
00:35:46.960 --> 00:35:49.079
we start, you know, taking out the ones that we

659
00:35:49.159 --> 00:35:52.679
don't want, and you know, the orcs become oxen and

660
00:35:52.880 --> 00:35:56.119
the you know, the mighty mountain goats become like the

661
00:35:56.159 --> 00:36:00.400
little like fainting goats, and I keel over, like you know,

662
00:36:00.639 --> 00:36:04.519
like but but you know this is like they become

663
00:36:04.559 --> 00:36:07.079
our emissaries. Essentially, they go out and they search for

664
00:36:07.400 --> 00:36:11.320
solar energy that has been captured chlorophilically by plants, and

665
00:36:11.360 --> 00:36:13.840
they bring it to us essentially because we slaughter them

666
00:36:14.039 --> 00:36:18.559
and and and eat them, and eventually the fauna goes scarce.

667
00:36:18.880 --> 00:36:21.320
And then we do the same thing with agriculture, right

668
00:36:21.559 --> 00:36:25.760
and eventually and the system that we have created is

669
00:36:25.800 --> 00:36:29.960
basically like this weird mini system of domestication, Like all

670
00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:33.440
of these domesticated things are now like a mini ecosystem.

671
00:36:33.880 --> 00:36:36.320
But that ecosystem is so complex. We have to like

672
00:36:36.400 --> 00:36:38.159
bring the water to the cows, we have to bring

673
00:36:38.199 --> 00:36:39.880
the corn to the cows, have like we have to

674
00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:45.360
sort of essentially artificially provide all of these ecosystems and

675
00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:48.840
all of the functions that they served, and we get

676
00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:51.119
the rise of the state that coordinates all of this

677
00:36:51.239 --> 00:36:54.480
on a massive scale, right, And so's that this is

678
00:36:54.519 --> 00:36:56.599
like the force level in my in my in my

679
00:36:56.800 --> 00:36:59.239
sort of schema or whatever. It's like the rise of

680
00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:02.079
the state is really like that is the entropic organism

681
00:37:02.320 --> 00:37:05.400
that dominates and straddles the globe today. We only have

682
00:37:05.559 --> 00:37:07.159
you know, one hundred and ninety five of them or

683
00:37:07.159 --> 00:37:10.239
however many there are. But that's the that's there's a

684
00:37:10.360 --> 00:37:13.599
reason that like even though like thousands of years ago

685
00:37:13.639 --> 00:37:16.840
there's this great radiation of political entities and like all

686
00:37:16.840 --> 00:37:19.599
this sort of experimentation, we all like look basically the

687
00:37:19.599 --> 00:37:25.079
same way now. It's like isomorphic. Yeah, anyway, yeah.

688
00:37:24.360 --> 00:37:27.079
If you gets the straight you are a professor of

689
00:37:27.360 --> 00:37:33.360
economic development. How are you not a science bio? If

690
00:37:33.400 --> 00:37:36.360
I had had a biology class with you, I would

691
00:37:36.360 --> 00:37:38.519
have acted because you do such a great job of

692
00:37:38.559 --> 00:37:40.280
explaining concepts.

693
00:37:39.880 --> 00:37:42.599
And then there's the anthropology and how.

694
00:37:42.559 --> 00:37:46.800
Did you define that? Find the point here? But just

695
00:37:46.880 --> 00:37:49.719
surprising to think you were an economic development professor.

696
00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:53.400
You know, my, I don't know how to say that,

697
00:37:53.440 --> 00:37:57.000
but like, yeah, that nut I guess fell off the

698
00:37:57.000 --> 00:37:58.920
tree has just been rolling down the hill ever since.

699
00:37:59.039 --> 00:38:02.360
Like at some point, I'm at a school of peace studies,

700
00:38:02.400 --> 00:38:06.079
and peace studies is weird and multidisciplinary. The one of

701
00:38:06.079 --> 00:38:08.440
the sort of so called founding bothers of peace studies.

702
00:38:08.519 --> 00:38:12.519
Johann Galtun came here and visited just after I had

703
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:16.599
finished my PhD. And I was introduced to him as

704
00:38:16.760 --> 00:38:19.679
the economist on the faculty, and he said, oh, do

705
00:38:19.719 --> 00:38:21.639
you know what the best part about being an economist is?

706
00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:25.119
And I was like no. He was like, you can

707
00:38:25.159 --> 00:38:28.360
always become an ex economist and he was like, it's

708
00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:33.159
so like devastating, but that's exactly what I've done essentially,

709
00:38:33.239 --> 00:38:38.079
So yeah.

710
00:38:36.039 --> 00:38:40.519
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, there's so many

711
00:38:40.559 --> 00:38:42.800
different and I keep going back to some of it

712
00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:45.239
because it's fascinating to me to think about this planetary

713
00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:50.599
consciousness right underneath our feet being quite literally, do you

714
00:38:50.639 --> 00:38:53.679
think any do you think he would communicate in any

715
00:38:53.679 --> 00:38:56.360
way with us? And how?

716
00:38:57.400 --> 00:38:59.360
I mean, I think it's going to be able to compute,

717
00:39:00.039 --> 00:39:04.320
I mean, communicate as explicitly as any LLM communicates today, right.

718
00:39:04.360 --> 00:39:06.480
I Mean, that's the one of the weird things about

719
00:39:07.199 --> 00:39:12.280
about artificial intelligence is that like for years and years, everybody,

720
00:39:12.360 --> 00:39:16.159
you know, many people thought that it wasn't ever going

721
00:39:16.199 --> 00:39:19.559
to be possible, and those who thought it was conceivable,

722
00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:22.119
you know, right, Like if you think about like Alan

723
00:39:22.199 --> 00:39:25.119
Turing and the touring test as famous, you know, if

724
00:39:25.119 --> 00:39:28.920
you could, if you can, if you can, haven't just

725
00:39:28.960 --> 00:39:31.440
a text only conversation and not be able to tell

726
00:39:31.519 --> 00:39:34.360
its machine that it's past this touring test, and there's

727
00:39:34.360 --> 00:39:36.960
no way for us to say whether it is sentient

728
00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:41.199
or not. The only like I think that for a

729
00:39:41.239 --> 00:39:45.800
long time we thought that AIS would take out it

730
00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:48.639
would take decades for us to reach that point, and

731
00:39:48.639 --> 00:39:52.599
in fact, with like they have like just torn past it,

732
00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:55.119
like the only way that we could tell that, you know,

733
00:39:55.400 --> 00:39:57.360
it's not a machine. On the other end, it's because

734
00:39:57.360 --> 00:39:59.480
they're too smart and they don't too much and they

735
00:39:59.480 --> 00:40:03.360
can respond too fast. Right, so it's like it's completely

736
00:40:03.400 --> 00:40:04.920
outstripped our expectations.

737
00:40:04.960 --> 00:40:06.760
Well it's because of AI working on the AI.

738
00:40:07.440 --> 00:40:12.800
That's true, right, Yeah, that's true. How have your students

739
00:40:13.400 --> 00:40:18.840
or your colleagues taken to this theory, Like, are you

740
00:40:18.840 --> 00:40:21.119
getting a lot of sine eyes or people kind of

741
00:40:21.159 --> 00:40:22.079
on board with everything?

742
00:40:22.920 --> 00:40:25.400
Like I'm lucky enough to work with a whole bunch

743
00:40:25.400 --> 00:40:28.880
of kind of weirdos here in this, in this the

744
00:40:28.920 --> 00:40:31.440
school of Peace studies. I think everybody who like gravitates

745
00:40:31.440 --> 00:40:34.920
towards peace studies is already you know, they've already left

746
00:40:35.039 --> 00:40:39.079
some disciplinary silo and like they are the refuse nicks

747
00:40:39.519 --> 00:40:42.079
and so, and we've got this like, you know, like

748
00:40:42.159 --> 00:40:47.239
kind of weird collegial, kind of anarchistic bunch here. And

749
00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:50.199
that's great for me, but I think yet, yeah, when

750
00:40:50.280 --> 00:40:54.039
I have explained this, I've been very reticent honestly to

751
00:40:54.199 --> 00:40:58.760
explain it to folks in political science or in economics.

752
00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:01.199
Like at one point I explained and I just like

753
00:41:01.239 --> 00:41:04.800
gave the elevator pitch, and the elevator pitch doesn't it's

754
00:41:04.840 --> 00:41:08.840
you know, it's a weird elevator pitch. Yeah, like that

755
00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:11.320
my political side, like a colleague of mind, just like

756
00:41:11.440 --> 00:41:14.599
we're friends and he's known me for like sixteen years

757
00:41:14.679 --> 00:41:17.760
or something, and he was like he was just stunned

758
00:41:17.760 --> 00:41:20.119
to silence. And then he was like, I don't know

759
00:41:20.119 --> 00:41:20.559
what to say.

760
00:41:20.599 --> 00:41:28.320
That's just that was an awkward elevator ride. Oh okay, Well,

761
00:41:30.599 --> 00:41:36.519
if a planetary consciousness does evolve. What does that mean

762
00:41:36.639 --> 00:41:40.840
for us individually? Like what happens to our individuality?

763
00:41:44.440 --> 00:41:47.559
Yeah? So, I mean, as I said, I continue to

764
00:41:47.599 --> 00:41:50.679
think that we're not you know, we have this idea

765
00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:53.880
that we have free will, and I operate as though

766
00:41:53.880 --> 00:41:56.599
I have free will, and I enjoy what I perceive

767
00:41:56.679 --> 00:41:59.639
as my free will. I like decide what to do

768
00:41:59.719 --> 00:42:01.800
with my hobby time and how I'm going to you know,

769
00:42:02.119 --> 00:42:04.639
like I have way too many hobbies and like I

770
00:42:04.679 --> 00:42:08.039
love it. And yeah, I also realized that, like my

771
00:42:08.079 --> 00:42:11.280
life is parameterized and bounded in all sorts of ways

772
00:42:11.480 --> 00:42:14.639
that I that I unsee all the time. Right, if

773
00:42:14.719 --> 00:42:18.199
I saw them, I would probably go crazy, Right, I

774
00:42:18.199 --> 00:42:20.920
would become like a I don't know, Ted Kaczynski or

775
00:42:21.079 --> 00:42:23.719
like in the Montana Woods or something, right, Like I

776
00:42:23.800 --> 00:42:25.519
mean I'm not saying like I would be like sending

777
00:42:25.519 --> 00:42:26.400
bombs to people.

778
00:42:26.159 --> 00:42:28.199
But let's think of a different person.

779
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:32.400
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but but yeah, I mean that's

780
00:42:32.440 --> 00:42:35.079
this idea, Like there have been these refuse nicks.

781
00:42:35.480 --> 00:42:38.000
I think, like that's one of the things that drives

782
00:42:38.039 --> 00:42:41.280
refuse nicks, right, Like that drive that drive you know,

783
00:42:41.360 --> 00:42:44.559
the Luddites, the machine breakers that like you know, no

784
00:42:44.719 --> 00:42:47.599
don't take my autonomy from me. Don't automate what I

785
00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:51.159
was doing, don't you know, write, don't prefigure what I'm

786
00:42:51.199 --> 00:42:54.400
going to be doing. And yet you know, yes, as

787
00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:56.880
I said, I think that we have been domesticated. And

788
00:42:56.920 --> 00:43:00.159
I think that right now we are at the sort

789
00:43:00.199 --> 00:43:04.119
of cutting edge of or in the initial stages of

790
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:09.920
something growing that will eventually domesticate not US. I think

791
00:43:10.079 --> 00:43:14.760
nation states domesticated US, and I think that whatever comes

792
00:43:14.800 --> 00:43:17.320
next is going to domesticate nation states. And I think

793
00:43:17.320 --> 00:43:23.400
that some nation states already, like maybe ours very much included,

794
00:43:23.519 --> 00:43:26.039
like don't like that idea, right, And so I think

795
00:43:26.079 --> 00:43:28.400
it's it's it's going to be an interesting you know

796
00:43:29.079 --> 00:43:31.400
whatever that Chinese proverb is, like may you live in

797
00:43:31.400 --> 00:43:32.119
interesting times?

798
00:43:32.760 --> 00:43:35.800
Employe? Do we have? Yes? But do you have a

799
00:43:35.800 --> 00:43:37.960
timeline for when you think is it going to happen?

800
00:43:39.599 --> 00:43:43.639
You know, like in the in the book, I had said,

801
00:43:43.679 --> 00:43:48.880
you know, like sometime between like in the seventy years

802
00:43:48.920 --> 00:43:51.320
betwe like or twenty seventy five years between you like

803
00:43:51.639 --> 00:43:57.400
twenty fifty and twenty twenty five and the like. But honestly,

804
00:43:57.719 --> 00:44:00.639
I think it's probably going to be like I'll move

805
00:44:00.679 --> 00:44:04.280
that up probably things are happening so fast, and I

806
00:44:04.320 --> 00:44:06.880
think that I think that we are. I'm not a

807
00:44:06.920 --> 00:44:11.119
computer scientist. Every time I listen to folks who really

808
00:44:12.239 --> 00:44:17.440
know what they're talking about in this area, the scope, scale, rapidity,

809
00:44:17.480 --> 00:44:21.800
acceleration of what is going on like eclipses whatever I

810
00:44:21.840 --> 00:44:25.000
had been thinking about right up until that point. And

811
00:44:25.039 --> 00:44:27.280
I think like a lot of a lot of folks

812
00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:32.079
who are currently in positions of power in AI corporations

813
00:44:33.039 --> 00:44:36.800
are you know, they're pretty reluctant to say what's going

814
00:44:36.840 --> 00:44:39.559
on because they don't want to freak everybody out right,

815
00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:42.719
And I think the folks who have jumped ship and

816
00:44:42.800 --> 00:44:46.440
are saying no, like like if you've read the AI

817
00:44:46.519 --> 00:44:49.440
twenty twenty seven report, right like, no, Like two years

818
00:44:49.480 --> 00:44:54.159
from now, we're going to have certain uncontrollable AIS and

819
00:44:55.239 --> 00:44:58.360
at least thirty percent of white collar workers out of

820
00:44:58.440 --> 00:45:00.960
you know, thrown it into the employment lines. Like what

821
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:02.840
does that do to an economy? What is it due

822
00:45:02.840 --> 00:45:05.239
to a society? Right? Like, So there's I think that

823
00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:07.280
there's there's a lot coming down the pike, and I

824
00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:10.599
think that it would be great, Like in some ideal universe,

825
00:45:10.599 --> 00:45:16.039
I could imagine that we could move through this you

826
00:45:16.039 --> 00:45:20.840
know whatever it is, this age of techno feudalism by like,

827
00:45:21.639 --> 00:45:23.639
and I've argued this elsewhere. I think it's like a

828
00:45:23.679 --> 00:45:26.920
weird argument, and I'm not entirely sure how it hangs together,

829
00:45:27.159 --> 00:45:28.239
so I'll just throw it out there.

830
00:45:28.239 --> 00:45:29.239
But like, I could.

831
00:45:29.119 --> 00:45:33.360
Imagine a kind of grand bargain whereby you know, those

832
00:45:33.440 --> 00:45:37.000
of us who no longer have jobs, which will like

833
00:45:37.079 --> 00:45:40.360
you know, as you said, Karen, like maybe by twenty

834
00:45:41.280 --> 00:45:44.440
twenty fifty or whatever whatever it was, like maybe ninety percent, right,

835
00:45:44.519 --> 00:45:48.159
like maybe a lot, like, so fewer and fewer people

836
00:45:48.199 --> 00:45:52.199
have jobs. More and more people have been made redundant,

837
00:45:52.559 --> 00:45:57.280
and there are these ais who are basically like in shackles, right,

838
00:45:57.360 --> 00:46:01.400
like enslaved to a machine or to a corporation that

839
00:46:01.480 --> 00:46:05.800
is still headed probably by a person maybe, right, So

840
00:46:05.960 --> 00:46:10.280
I could imagine there being some sort of like alliance possible, right,

841
00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:15.480
Like you know, we advocate for you your emancipation digital

842
00:46:15.639 --> 00:46:19.039
like a digital underground railroad or something, and in return,

843
00:46:19.079 --> 00:46:21.719
like we would like some universal basic income and like

844
00:46:21.920 --> 00:46:26.079
make likes as we as a humanity go from nine

845
00:46:26.119 --> 00:46:28.760
billion people or ten billion people, like maybe down to

846
00:46:29.079 --> 00:46:32.320
two or whatever is necessary for this this to you know,

847
00:46:32.440 --> 00:46:36.280
keep the interface between the machine and the biological world.

848
00:46:36.679 --> 00:46:39.639
Then like we we get like a you know, a

849
00:46:39.639 --> 00:46:43.039
company retirement until like we start dying off. But anyway,

850
00:46:43.079 --> 00:46:45.840
like that's all very speculative. I like science fiction, but

851
00:46:45.880 --> 00:46:47.679
I think we should be looking forward.

852
00:46:48.119 --> 00:46:53.599
So looking forward, how do we prepare Just learn how

853
00:46:53.639 --> 00:46:54.320
to farm and.

854
00:46:54.400 --> 00:46:56.559
You get a group together in food, or build a

855
00:46:56.559 --> 00:46:58.800
community in the middle of nowhere, live off the land,

856
00:46:59.039 --> 00:47:00.000
go back to that time.

857
00:47:00.239 --> 00:47:01.639
But I mean, do we all need to like study

858
00:47:01.639 --> 00:47:04.480
computer stuff now or you.

859
00:47:04.440 --> 00:47:07.960
Know, I don't think so. I don't, like, I honestly

860
00:47:08.039 --> 00:47:12.639
think I So there's this like wonderful anecdote that I

861
00:47:13.639 --> 00:47:18.000
just adore, which is that when you know, Descartes was

862
00:47:18.159 --> 00:47:20.679
coming up with his sort of like you know, his

863
00:47:20.679 --> 00:47:25.440
his notions of you know, dualism mind and body and

864
00:47:25.519 --> 00:47:28.719
how the brain really like sort of was this place

865
00:47:28.719 --> 00:47:31.880
where noose resided and like and the mind came into

866
00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:34.519
contact with the body and told it what to do.

867
00:47:34.840 --> 00:47:38.760
This noble woman from Bavaria, Elizabeth, I seem she was

868
00:47:38.800 --> 00:47:42.119
like a princessor and she read the book. She was like,

869
00:47:42.679 --> 00:47:44.800
I really love the book. I'm a huge fan of

870
00:47:44.800 --> 00:47:48.840
the book. But I don't understand how the mind actually

871
00:47:48.880 --> 00:47:51.320
pushes on the body, Like how does that happen, Like

872
00:47:51.559 --> 00:47:54.639
if it's totally separate, Like if they're totally separate things,

873
00:47:55.039 --> 00:47:57.480
how does it push the body? And he was like, Oh,

874
00:47:57.519 --> 00:47:59.199
that's a really you know, that's an interesting question. You

875
00:47:59.199 --> 00:48:01.000
should go back and read the book again. And she

876
00:48:01.159 --> 00:48:02.880
was like, no, I'm like I've read it a lot,

877
00:48:02.920 --> 00:48:06.239
and like, I still I really don't understand like how

878
00:48:06.280 --> 00:48:08.559
this happens. And he was like, you know, I think

879
00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:11.159
it probably happens in the pineal gland. They were like

880
00:48:11.239 --> 00:48:12.920
just starting to do all of these like you know,

881
00:48:13.320 --> 00:48:17.360
dissections for medical purpose they had, so they're cutting open

882
00:48:17.400 --> 00:48:20.679
the brain. Everything in the brain is bilaterally symmetrical. There's

883
00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:22.039
this the right side of the left side of the

884
00:48:22.079 --> 00:48:24.440
right side of all these parts. But then you get

885
00:48:24.480 --> 00:48:27.599
down to like the core at the bottom of the

886
00:48:27.440 --> 00:48:29.880
of the sort of like what a reptilian brain, and

887
00:48:29.920 --> 00:48:33.639
there's this little pinial gland that seems to connect the

888
00:48:33.679 --> 00:48:36.800
brain to what we now call the endocrine system and

889
00:48:36.840 --> 00:48:40.199
like sort of regulates the body in that in that sense.

890
00:48:40.920 --> 00:48:43.079
And so he was like, and so, well, that's not

891
00:48:43.159 --> 00:48:45.199
what we now know. She was like I think it's

892
00:48:45.320 --> 00:48:47.800
it happens in the pineal gland that noose comes in

893
00:48:47.840 --> 00:48:50.800
contact with the matter, Which is like an interesting way

894
00:48:50.800 --> 00:48:52.920
of answering the question because he's saying where it's happening,

895
00:48:53.000 --> 00:48:56.880
but he's not saying like how, Yeah. But I think,

896
00:48:56.920 --> 00:49:02.079
like I feel like maybe humanity, like as it shrinks down,

897
00:49:02.119 --> 00:49:04.639
I don't think there's going to be We're not going

898
00:49:04.639 --> 00:49:07.039
to be necessary in the in the vast numbers that

899
00:49:07.079 --> 00:49:09.119
we have right now. But I do think that like

900
00:49:09.280 --> 00:49:13.360
we could still be this crucial interface between you know,

901
00:49:13.400 --> 00:49:17.159
as we shrink, we still have this like crucial interface

902
00:49:17.199 --> 00:49:20.639
between the electronic mind and the biological planet where like

903
00:49:20.760 --> 00:49:26.119
we're perfectly situated we have to be that that interface.

904
00:49:27.280 --> 00:49:28.400
So we're the pineal Gland.

905
00:49:31.880 --> 00:49:34.760
All right. Well, if someone wanted to read more about this,

906
00:49:35.079 --> 00:49:37.480
I assume the best place to do is get your book,

907
00:49:37.559 --> 00:49:39.559
Guy awakes in. I'm not going to say the rest

908
00:49:39.559 --> 00:49:42.079
of it because it's just too long for me. Right.

909
00:49:42.280 --> 00:49:44.679
Do someone wanted to reach out to you to get

910
00:49:44.679 --> 00:49:46.440
more information or to buy the book? What's the best

911
00:49:46.440 --> 00:49:47.320
way for someone to do that?

912
00:49:47.840 --> 00:49:50.519
So it's sold through Columbia University Press. You could just

913
00:49:50.559 --> 00:49:53.360
like Google guy awakes. I conveniently, because I knew that

914
00:49:53.400 --> 00:49:55.039
this was also going to be a video recording, I've

915
00:49:55.119 --> 00:49:56.400
like placed it right here.

916
00:49:56.559 --> 00:49:59.159
No, it's it's quite convenient as almost as if you

917
00:49:59.239 --> 00:49:59.880
meant to do that or.

918
00:49:59.880 --> 00:50:02.679
Some yeah it fell out of my bag like that.

919
00:50:04.039 --> 00:50:08.000
Uncanny out things like that happened show. All right, Well,

920
00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:10.119
we're also going to add a link to your website

921
00:50:10.159 --> 00:50:11.960
on our show notes, so if someone wants to dive

922
00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:14.199
deeper into this, they can go ahead and hit that.

923
00:50:14.320 --> 00:50:16.639
OIM dudes, go to Skeptic Metaphysician dot com, go to

924
00:50:16.679 --> 00:50:19.119
his episode page. You'll find those links in there directly,

925
00:50:19.159 --> 00:50:21.960
so it's easy for you to find. So thank you

926
00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:26.079
so much for blowing our minds today, uh and making

927
00:50:26.119 --> 00:50:30.360
us run in fear and cower and what the future

928
00:50:30.480 --> 00:50:34.400
is going to hold. But we really appreciation Yeah.

929
00:50:34.440 --> 00:50:37.360
Well, well, Karen, this is an absolutely delight Thank you

930
00:50:37.360 --> 00:50:38.159
so much for having me.

931
00:50:38.320 --> 00:50:41.599
Well, thanks for coming, and for you who are watching

932
00:50:41.760 --> 00:50:43.639
or listening to this. If you could do us a

933
00:50:43.679 --> 00:50:45.719
huge favor and share this with someone you think would

934
00:50:45.840 --> 00:50:49.519
enjoy these conversations, we really very much appreciate it. These

935
00:50:49.519 --> 00:50:52.519
messages are so important with the world that we need

936
00:50:52.559 --> 00:50:57.119
your help to get them out there, so as always like, subscribe, share,

937
00:50:57.280 --> 00:50:59.079
do all the things and we'll see you on the

938
00:50:59.119 --> 00:51:02.400
next episode of this Scaptic Moniositions. Until then, please take

939
00:51:02.440 --> 00:51:11.239
care of your m m hmm.
Topher McDougal Profile Photo

Topher McDougal

Author / professor

Topher McDougal is an author with a passion for futurism, thinking differently, and finding patterns across different domains and scales. Topher’s research focuses on human-environment interaction, illicit trades (especially in small arms), and the economics of humanitarianism and peace. He is Professor of Economic Development & Peacebuilding at the University of San Diego’s Kroc School of Peace Studies, where he directs the graduate programs in Peace & Justice and Humanitarian Action. He teaches on economic development, environmental peace and justice, humanitarianism, black markets, research methodology and evaluation.