today I want to talk about how far is
too far
pushing the limits of science and
technology so first of all I want to
just tell you this something that
happened to me a few weeks ago so a
couple weeks ago I had to give a TED
audition and doing that that edition I
decided that I want to speak about
simply put science is science so that’s
obviously a very large topic okay so and
that requires stacks of graphs hours of
research and long hours of pondering
pages pages and pages of this deep
thought process and analyzing and all
that
so naturally I put it off until the last
night then well long story short I made
it but barely
and I told myself never again never
again would I allow myself to
procrastinate in such a manner on
something as important as this and when
my teachers came up to me and told me no
Beall you want you to try a game we’re
gonna have a rehearsal for you and we’re
gonna let you try it one more time just
modify your speech tweak it a bit here
and go up another drop so I immediately
went home set pen to paper and wrote
nothing for two weeks so I know but what
happened why did I just revert back to
that white why was I repeat my mistake
why did I suddenly go back on
procrastinating even though I promised
except I would not do so well why was I
literate technically I’ll tell you what
I was really doing I was reverting from
order okay of writing a simple speech to
chaos of putting it off after all that
is chaos and and science we call chaos
entropy but you know what isn’t chaotic
science
science isn’t chaotic at all see it’s
not like we can blame science for all
the chaos it’s caused in the world it’s
unlike science actually called skills
sunlight science caused any Wars
tragedies or problems that’s us e equals
MC square didn’t annihilate two entire
cities along with the quarter of a
million people that was us so science
isn’t evil it’s just a tool it’s a tool
through which we exert our will on
shaping the world around us but at the
same time it’s something that also
doesn’t possess sentiments doesn’t it
what this possess sentiments humans but
then what’s artificial possess a
sentence ai ai is something that we’ve
been fixated on for the past couple of
years now we are really obsessed with
perfecting AI and you know what
basically AI represents to most of us
it’s human perfectibility right it’s
getting the job done so well with
minimum loss on anything
there’s no sacrifices when it comes to
AI but there is one
it’s sacrificing human values it’s
sacrificing human emotions and feelings
see when we talk about methods of
perfect ability human perfection or
which many of us think as basically
utopia we think of I’ll at least I think
of genetic engineering I think of any
biological enhancements and basically
you know what you get when you put all
of these together you get the utopian
human you get the superhuman and the
superhuman exists only in utopia and now
that kind of makes sense because ever
since the Stone Age we’ve been using
science to develop
tools to help make our lives better so
that then our needs are satisfied so
that then we reach something called
utopia where there’s no conflicts
there’s peace and most of all we get
everything we want without losing on
anything we don’t want to lose so how
far are we actually willing to push to
achieve this how far are you willing to
achieve everything you’ve ever want
desired and that’s where my speech
actually comes to a point I’m gonna talk
about a specific computer called monkey
back and it’s ready it’s a computer not
just any computer it is the
supercomputer of supercomputers and it
lives in a book of Isaac Isaac and Isaac
Asimov is called as a father of science
fiction okay not just science anytime
soon though
it’s the father of mechanical science
fiction analytical science fiction
basically anything to do with something
that’s not possible now but it makes
sense that it can be achieved it’s just
how we can achieve it right now so let
me get back to multi pack multi back has
the calculating power of many hundreds
of thousands of billions machines all in
one okay and then taking Dera day a data
from men all the resources around the
world it can calculate pretty much
anything and and I say anything I mean
the future science enabled us to beta
machine which can end predict the future
now here’s the tricky part in the future
we have good things and bad things
leaving aside the things
bad things include crimes terrorist
attacks on deaths natural disasters
that’s a dozen natural disasters okay
it’s good we can if you can find out
when they happen how they happen we
complete the renders but then one of our
crimes what if I said for example you at
the back what if I said the SU what if I
said that multipack just told me right
now that tomorrow you are about to steal
two candies two candy bars from the kid
next to you okay and this is proven on
the data and you you’re not you’re like
okay what and then tomorrow you actually
happens I even though you never really
expected that oh I was I’m actually
gonna steal these any good okay so that
means you’re about to commit a crime and
I know you’re about to commit the crime
what’s the natural reaction I stopped
you so then is it right that I stopped
you before you committed the crime
should I wait for you to commit the
crime
what happens if it goes from simply
stealing two candy bars – let’s say
revenge on someone who betrayed you and
that revenge comes in the form of
stabbing them shooting them in other
words murder then do I wait for you to
actually attempt to attack him is that
right
why don’t I just stop you right now when
that is you haven’t done anything wrong
have you in that case all you’ve done is
just you’ve been you’ve had the high
chance of committing something bad but
you haven’t done it I’m arresting you
for something you haven’t done but
you’re likely to it’s very confusing to
get our minds around but that’s exactly
what science has for us let’s let’s try
something else instead of multipack
let’s talk about cybernetics evil robot
monkeys let’s say the monkeys which are
currently test subjects in Mensa in many
labs as we know are given mechanical
arms mechanical hearts okay and
obviously these things have an advantage
over our hearts they’re obviously way
more efficient okay
and we put these monkeys back in the
cage
along with their fellow primates who are
not enhanced do you know what happens
not only this monkey who was
cybernetically enhanced is suddenly not
a part of his community he has just been
rejected by everyone he’s considered a
freak and he has just been now he’s an
outcast even though he is by far
superior to all of them
he’s an outcome now do the same thing to
humans but instead of just doing it
voluntarily let’s say we did it to
someone who has no limbs let’s say we
did it someone who has Alzheimer’s and
we perform some kind of surgery on them
or whatever that produces a visible mark
on them that tells that they have been
worked upon and then in doing so not
only we have been made them better we’ve
made them superior to us but we accept
them again I mean think about a
community already right now we literally
cannot help just seeing a room of people
and then immediately just suddenly
classifying them like that and along
with that we associate labels we
associate values and we associate
policies we don’t even know anything we
just immediately based on appearance I
mean like I could say black and white
and then immediately you’re gonna think
okay right black I can immediately
assume a lot of value for that and then
you suddenly throw in okay now we have
normal you have brain freak and then you
have the muscle guy who has been who has
not lifted a single weight in his life
but he’s as jacked up as you are and he
could probably throw you across the room
but just because he’s superior doesn’t
mean he’s any better than is it so
that’s something else we can’t decide on
that let’s try something else though
let’s talk about not just us let’s talk
about a machine that can talk but a
machine that can reveal the past so
far-fetched is it it’s possible there
are there are trays everything leaves
the face let me put it like that
everything leaves a trace when I move
her hand like this I leave
air currents and those can be detected
and someone with proper instruments and
readings can tell that I just moved my
hand like this they can cancel
everything so that means I can calculate
the pass yes yes I can calculate the
past it’s at all
when does the past start if I have a
machine that can find out about the past
immediately reveal anything anywhere in
the world that happened in the bus when
is the first actually suffer BAM it just
happened right now you see that oh it
okay so one second ago was the first
meaning is also the present is it not I
could technically go onto my machine and
find out exactly what my coworkers are
doing one second ago which equally does
also basically the present I mean why
get technical is the present think about
the implications if that machine became
a commercial became available for
commercial use heck it doesn’t even have
to be commercial give it to the
government imagine what happens then
they will know everything about you you
will not have any privacy even though
we’d make amazing amazing discoveries
about the past we’d learn exactly what
happened dinosaurs we know we know
everything about our own genome but we
don’t know how it came this machine to
solve that we could find out what our
origins are by the same time we can find
out what our partners doing behind our
backs
see we our society they have Secretariat
on the malice on the minutes the police
oh we also have news
so before I conclude my speech I won’t
just talk about one last thing if we are
going to move into the future we are
gonna have to evolve we are gonna have
to adapt who knows
at one point we’ll be travelling out
into the Stars and we’ll be conquering
galaxies we’ll find other life forms
right what are we gonna do when we meet
them are we just gonna stand there and
shake their hand and say hi why why
would we stop there once to say we
harvest what they have what’s to say we
I mean come on think
mix this let’s think about something
like I’m bringing back you to order
sleeping in that backyard before we go
out there to fulfill our beliefs we need
resources so we have the earth resources
no one really cares about the earth
right now because we just need those
resources for ourselves as long as I
desire satisfied good good so we harvest
resources from there imagine a
population goes up more resources more
population more resources now imagine
one day they are no more resources but
there’s our population so we look at the
Sun let me say right let’s take over the
Sun will harvest all the sun’s energy go
on a few million years you become a
specific civilization which is solid
harvesting multiple suns just to satisfy
your own needs and one day you find out
when we look back and our fast probably
using this machine we find out that if
we had just realized that if we want to
so selfish if we had realized that if we
had just stuck to the order if we hadn’t
gone into entropy and created so much
chaos if we had just realized that we
didn’t have to strain that entire Sun
for our own benefit we would have been
much better off helping each other we
would have been much better off if they
just focus on making not just our lives
better but other people
see when we say when I say how far is
too far I mean there is a limit and then
there’s a time when we have to decide
whether we cross that limit or not thank you