Artificial Super Intelligence cannot be controlled, MIT physics professor Max Tegmark warns. It WILL take power if we create it. And meanwhile, Silicon Valley elites like Sam Altman are planning to merge man with machine - without consulting us first. Max joins Glenn Beck to discuss his efforts to end this insanity and convince the US and China to stop their race to ASI before it’s too late. And it revolves around a petition signed by a widely diverse group of people, from Glenn Beck to Yuval Noah Harari…
Sign the petition at https://superintelligence-statement.org/
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Welcome to the program, Max Tegmark. It is an honor to have you on. I've been a fan of yours for a very long time.
MAX: It's an honor for me to be here.
GLENN: So -- so, Max, I'm seeing the statement that you have put out. And let's just -- can we go through it.
Here it is. We called for the prohibition on the development of super intelligence, not lifted before there is broad scientific consensus, that -- that it would be done safely and controllably, and a strong public buy-in, that's the whole statement. Right?
MAX: That is.
GLENN: And what do you hope. Because I've seen who you have studying. Here's the first five signatories. You ready? Steve Wozniak. Sir Richard Branson. Steve Bannon. Glenn Beck. Susan Rice. Prince Harry. Yuval Harari, which is mind-boggling to me. You have all of these leaders from all walks of life. You have faith leaders.
And it runs the spectrum.
What is it that we all have in common here?
MAX: Yeah. And you also have the most cited scientist in the world, Yoshua Bengio and Stephen Hanson. They are like my Einstein and Oppenheimer of today, who developed much of this technology and pioneering work. Saying their own work. What these all have in common is hilarious to see people express confusion.
This is a bewilderingly diverse group of people. Why don't they agree on anything?
It's because they aren't human. This is a question about, do we want the future where machines work where you live?
Or a future, which is all about the machines.
GLENN: So can you stop super intelligence?
I mean, we've had a conversation on this. You know, Sam Altman believes he's creating God.
And that's a terrifying. And there's a lot of people in Silicon Valley, that want to meet God. Of their creation. How do you stop this? China is rushing towards it.
We're rushing towards it. How do you stop it?
MAX: Well, let's start by talking just a little bit more what Sam Altman and people -- what folks want. And that I -- you know, how we can solve it. It's very doable. You know, I was just listening this morning, at some of the early writing of Sam Altman before his media team started telling him to tone down the rhetoric a little bit. This is a direct quote from a blog he wrote, called The Merge. When he said, we will be the first species ever to design our own descendents. My guess is that we can already see the biological boot loader for digital intelligence, and then save into an evolutionary tree branch. How does that sound to you? For the future for our children. Or we can figure out what a successful merge looks like.
But he's arguing in his speech, that we should merge with machines. And, you know, the average person listening to us right now on this program. Who asked them if they want to merge with machines?
GLENN: Nobody.
MAX: Or if they want to merge with machines. I was just playing with my 2-year-old son Leo this morning. I find that basically from 1776 -- someone will force my son to merge with machines, whether that's him or his parents or anyone really having a say on this. It's completely nuts.
There are a bunch of dudes in San Francisco, who had too much Red Bull to drink, should make these decisions for the rest of us.
GLENN: For all of humanity.
MAX: Yes. Indeed.
GLENN: The -- the race though is on. So how do you stop it?
MAX: Well, first of all, the lobbyists from these companies, keeps trying to convince us that it's unstoppable. That's the number one thing in the book, right? If a big, powerful country invades another country, the first thing they are going to try to persuade, don't bother fighting. It's pointless. Right?
So we have to make these decisions, when the same people say, it's stun stoppable. Are actually -- many are working for the companies.
Second, let's just look at the logic, you know. The argument is, you can never stop a new technology that can give a lot of money and power.
Because that's historically false. You know, I could make so much money human cloning. If I could clone you, Glenn, and a bunch of other talented people.
And mess with your DNA. And tweak you. And sell your services. You know, we didn't feel that as a society. There was a big discussion about this in the '70s. And the consensus around the world was, we could lose control of our species, if we start messing with ourselves in that way. And it became so stigmatized. So it didn't happen.
GLENN: There is -- there is a guy -- wasn't there a guy who did it know. Wasn't there somebody in China?
MAX: There was a guy. Yes, actually. This is such a great thing that you bring up. People often say, well, if don't do it, China is going to do it. well, there was a dude in China who did it. And guess what the Chinese government did with him? They sent him to jail.
Because they thought human cloning was a really bad idea. And the Chinese government. The Chinese communist party, really liked control. So the idea that they're going to let some -- some oddball in China do something. To sort of lose control of the human species, doesn't land well there. Right?
So there is where the optimism comes. Your first question, how can we stop it?
Of course, the predominance between the US and China. But there actually are two races going on here. There's the dominant race. Economic dominance. Military dominance. Technological. Cultural dominance. And the way it narrates, is we're building tools that are controllable.
Where there's a second race, who can be the first to build super intelligence the way we lose control over. And it wipes out humanity, maybe.
That's a suicide race. The way the US or China will compete for -- for predominance. Possibly doing something that will take away the power from both countries. I think of it as really analogous to something that has already happened already. The Cold War of the Soviet Union.
There was the race for dominance. Economic military might. We Americans won that one.
And then there was the race to see who can put the most nuclear creators in the other country?
And both the Americans and the Soviets openly decided to not nuke each other. And not engage with that suicide race.
Why? Was it because Reagan is on the stage? And looked each other in the eye. And hugged each other. And promised to not nuke each other.
No. There was, in fact, a trust. But it also wasn't necessary. Because we knew. The Soviets knew that it was suicide.
We knew that they knew, and vice-versa.
And that's all it took to avoid the suicide race.
GLENN: And so the suicide, you're talking with ASI is if China gets it, China would know, we'll lose control over it.
They're control freaks. And we'll lose control of our own country. We won't be in control. ASI will be running everything. Right?
MAX: Yes! Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
GLENN: So how do you -- how do you deal then with people like Sam Altman?
I mean, I would imagine. I mean, because there will be people who have labs, and -- and compute time.
To be able to pursue this.
Can you -- can I catch those people before they go down that road? Is that even possible?
MAX: It certainly is possible.
You know, the question -- in the interest of these companies to make us think it's impossible, right?
So we shouldn't trust. But it's very possible.
Look, we do this with every other industry. Let's look at Biotech, for example. The industry that is now not doing human cloning, right? But they're -- they're doing fine, making a ton of money on other investments. Right?
And once upon a time, there were no regulations on biotechs. They could sell any medicine they wanted. In the supermarkets.
And the -- sometimes it's called tragedy. Sometimes it's called tragedy in China. Sometimes it's called a tragedy here. In the US, it was a town called Solidify (phonetic). You probably remember. Right?
It caused over 100,000 American babies to be born without arms or legs. And that triggered so much anger, that resulted in the political will to have biotech create safety standards. And now, it actually has a ban on selling unapproved medicine in the US. We can argue about how to make that system less efficient, more efficient.
GLENN: Right.
MAX: Stuff like that. But I don't know any scientist or people in biotech who wanted to abolish the FDA and legalize it. Right?
GLENN: Right.
MAX: And we have done the same thing with every other industry. Even if you -- if you visit one of these tech companies, and I go for lunch across the street. That restaurant, before they can sell their first sandwich, has to have a health inspector pitch in and show that they some basic safety standards, right?
Saying that AI companies should be the only companies in America, that don't have to meet any safety standards. It's really just asking for corporate welfare for AI companies.
GLENN: Okay. Okay. Hang on just a second. I want to take a one minute break. I want you to read this statement. They're asking for signatures. I have signed on to it.
There are plenty of people who I disagree on almost everything, that have signed on to it. There are plenty of people that are my friends, that have signed on to it. Really, really brilliant people. Faith leaders, et cetera, et cetera. We -- I think the reason why it's so diverse is because this -- this is it. This is the end of humanity, if we lose control of our technology.
It will become a master and not a tool. And I want you to go to futureoflife.org. Futureoflife.org.
Look for the super intelligence statement. It was just released a couple of hours ago. Superintelligencestatement.org.
You can go there and find it. Or at futureoflife.org. And sign it. And I want to ask -- I want to ask Max, what your signature means. And what -- what -- what is this going to be used for?
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(music)
So what is your goal with this statement, Max?
MAX: Yeah. For your listeners there. Future hyphenated statement. When you go and add your support, if you like.
The goal of this statement is to make publicly known, that if you are concerned about this, you are not crazy. You're not alone.
You have an incredible amount of support from leaders across the political spectrum here.
Up until now, a lot of people who have this horrible feeling, right? Are afraid of speaking up.
They -- a lot of people have told me this. Because they don't want to sound like Luddites. Fearmongers.
You know, now is the time to -- to speak up and say what you think.
Because this is -- this is -- this is, Glenn. You're so right.
You know, the reason we're seeing such remarkably broad people agreeing on this.
That's also what happened if we actually got invaded from aliens in space, just like you said from the beginning.
If some weird spaceship started showing up and started shooting at us.
Everybody --
GLENN: Right. Right.
MAX: And that's what happens now. That's fundamentally also why we can stop this. Almost nobody wants this.
We also just released a poll showing that less than 5 percent of Americans actually want a race -- a race to super intelligence.
That's less than one in 20 Americans. Right?
And yet, we're having this stuff shoved down our throat.
GLENN: Agreed.
Max, I can't thank you enough for this.
And all that you're doing.
We need to have more conversations, about artificial intelligence. Artificial super intelligence. General intelligence. The world is going to change. And millions of jobs are either going to change or be lost, and it depends on how we apply AI. It's not something to fear if you realize it is a tool and you are the master.
But too many people are just going to use this. Their brain is going to go soft. And they will let it take control of their lives.
And make their decisions. Et cetera. And then if it becomes general intelligence or super intelligence, you're a slave to it.
And it -- it has to stop. It has to stop.
So if you would like to sign this, I have signed it.
And I urge you to sign this.
It's a very simple statement. We call for a prohibition on the development of super intelligence. Not lifted before there's a broad scientific consensus that it will be done safely and controllably. And a strong public buy-in. That's all you're signing. And you can go to super intelligence-statement.org. I -- I found it at FutureofLife.org. And you can -- you'll find it there as well. You scroll down the page. But superintelligence-statement.org.
I urge you to sign it and to pass it on to somebody else. This is a conversation we must have.
MIT physics professor and author of Life 3.0, Max Tegmark. Great talking to you, Max.