The following is a conversation with Michio Kaku.

He's a theoretical physicist, futurist, and professor at the City College of New York.

He's the author of many fascinating books that explore the nature of our reality and the future of our civilization.

They include Einstein's cosmos, physics of the impossible, future of the mind, parallel worlds, and his latest, the future of humanity, terraforming Mars, interstellar travel, immortality, and our destiny beyond Earth.

I think it's beautiful and important when a scientific mind can fearlessly explore through conversation subjects just outside of our understanding.

That to me is where artificial intelligence is today, just outside of our understanding, A place we have to reach for if we're to uncover the mysteries of the human mind and build human-level and superhuman-level AI systems that transform our world for the better.

This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.

If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it 5 stars on iTunes, support it on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter, Alex Friedman, spelled F-R-I-D-M-A-N.

And now, here's my conversation with Michio Kaku.

You've mentioned that we just might make contact with aliens or at least hear from them within this century.

Can you elaborate on your intuition behind that optimism?

Well, this is pure speculation, of course.

But given the fact that we've already identified 4,000 exoplanets orbiting other stars, and we have a census of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time.

We know that on average every single star on average has a planet going around it and about one-fifth or so of them have Earth-sized planets going around them.

We're talking about out of a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, we're talking about billions of potential Earth-sized planets.

And to believe that we're the only 1 is, I think, rather ridiculous, given the odds.

Within sight of the Hubble Space Telescope, there are about a hundred billion galaxies.

How many stars are there in the visible universe?

100 billion galaxies times 100 billion stars per galaxy, we're talking about a number beyond human imagination.

And to believe that we're the only ones, I think, is rather ridiculous.

So you've talked about different types of, type 01234, and 5, even, of the Kardashev scale, of the different kind of civilizations.

What do you think it takes, if it is indeed a ridiculous notion that we're alone in the universe, what do you think it takes to reach out, first to reach out through communication and connect?

Well, first of all, we have to understand the level of sophistication of an alien life form if we make contact with them.

I think in this century, we'll probably pick up signals, signals from an extraterrestrial civilization.

We'll pick up their I love Lucy and their leave it to beaver.

Just ordinary day-to-day transmissions that they emit.

And the first thing we wanna do is to A, decipher their language of course, but b, figure out at what level they are advanced on the Kardashev scale.

We rank things by 2 parameters, energy and information.

That's how we rank civilizations in outer space.

So a Type I civilization is capable of harnessing planetary power.

They control the weather, for example, earthquakes, volcanoes.

They can modify the course of geological events, sort of like Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers.

They use the entire energy output of a star, sort of like Star Trek.

The Federation of Planets have colonized the nearby stars.

So a Type II would be somewhat similar to Star Trek.

And Type 3 would be like Star Wars, a galactic civilization.

Now 1 day I was giving this talk in London at the planetarium there, and the little boy comes up to me and he says, Professor, you're wrong.

And I told him, look kid, there are planets, stars, and galaxies.

And he kept persisting and saying, no, there's type 4, the power of the continuum.

And I thought about it for a moment and I said to myself, is there an extra galactic source of energy, the continuum of Star Trek?

And the answer is yes, there could be a type 4, and that's dark energy.

of the energy of the universe is dark energy.

Dark matter represents maybe 23% or so, and we only represent

And so you begin to realize that yeah, they could be type 4, maybe even type 5.

So type 4, you're saying being able to harness sort of like dark energy, something that permeates the entire universe.

So be able to plug into the entire universe as a source of energy.

And dark energy is the energy of the Big Bang.

It's why the galaxies are being pushed apart.

The more nothing you have, the more dark energy that's repulsive.

And so the acceleration of the universe is accelerating because the more you have, the more you can have.

And that of course is by definition an exponential curve.

and that's the current state of the universe.

And then type 5, would that be able to seek energy sources somehow outside of our universe?

I'm a quantum physicist, and we quantum physicists don't believe that the Big Bang happened once.

That would violate the Heisenberg and Sergey principle.

And that means that there could be multiple bangs happening all the time.

Even as we speak today, universes are being created.

The inflationary universe is a quantum theory.

So there's a certain finite probability that universes are being created all the time.

And for me, this is actually rather aesthetically pleasing because I was raised as a Presbyterian, but my parents were Buddhists.

And there's 2 diametrically opposed ideas about the universe.

There's no beginning, there's no end, there's only timelessness.

But in Christianity, there is the instant when God said, let there be light.

So I've had these 2 mutually exclusive ideas in my head, and I now realize that it's possible to meld them into a single theory.

Either the universe had a beginning or it didn't, right?

Our universe had an instant where somebody might have said, let there be light.

But there are other bubble universes out there in a bubble bath of universes.

And that means that these universes are expanding into a dimension beyond our three-dimensional comprehension.

In other words, 11-dimensional hyperspace.

So nirvana would be this timeless 11-dimensional hyperspace where big bangs are happening all the time.

So we can now combine 2 mutually exclusive theories of creation.

And Stephen Hawking, for example, even in his last book, even said that this is an argument against the existence of God.

He said there is no God because there was not enough time for God to create the universe because the Big Bang happened in an instant of time.

Therefore there was no time available for him to create the universe.

But you see, the multiverse idea means that there was a time before time, and there are multiple times each bubble has its own time, And so it means that there could actually be a universe before the beginning of our universe.

So if you think of a bubble bath, when 2 bubbles collide, or when 2 bubbles fission to create a baby bubble, that's called the Big Bang.

So the Big Bang is nothing but the collision of universes or the budding of universes.

That's such a beautiful picture of our incredibly mysterious existence.

So is that humbling to you, exciting, the idea of multiverses?

I don't even know how to even begin to wrap my mind

exciting for me because what I do for a living is string theory.

I get paid by the city of New York to work on string theory.

And you see, string theory is a multiverse theory.

So people say, first of all, what is string theory?

String theory simply says that all the particles we see in nature, the electron, the proton, the quarks, what have you, are nothing but vibrations on a musical string, on a tiny, tiny little string.

Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the atomic bomb, was so frustrated in the 1950s with all these subatomic particles being created in our atom smashers that he announced.

He announced 1 day that the Nobel Prize in physics should go to the physicist who does not discover a new particle that year.

Well, today we think they're nothing but musical notes on these tiny little vibrating strings.

Physics is the harmonies you can write on vibrating strings.

Chemistry is the melodies you can play on these strings.

And then what is the mind of God that Albert Einstein so eloquently wrote about for the last 30 years of his life?

The mind of God would be cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.

What do you think is the mind of Einstein's God?

Do you think there's a why that we could untangle from this universe of strings?

Well, Steven Weinberg, winner of the Nobel Prize, once said that the more we learn about the universe, the more we learn that it's pointless.

I don't profess to understand the great secrets of the universe.

However, let me say 2 things about what the giants of physics have said about this question.

1 was the God of the Bible, the personal God, the God that answers prayers, walks on water, performs miracles, smites the Philistines.

That's the personal God that he didn't believe in.

He believed in the God of Spinoza, the God of order, simplicity, harmony, beauty.

The universe could have been messy, random, but it's gorgeous.

We can write down all the known laws of the universe.

On 1 sheet of paper, Einstein's equation is 1 inch long.

String theory is a lot longer, and so is the standard model.

But you could put all these equations on 1 sheet of paper It didn't have to be that way.

And so Einstein thought of himself as a young boy entering this huge library for the first time being overwhelmed by the Simplicity elegance and beauty of this library, but all he could do was read the first page of the first volume well that library is the universe with all sorts of mysterious magical things that we have yet to find.

Galileo said that the purpose of science, the purpose of science is to determine how the heavens go.

The purpose of religion is to determine how to go to heaven.

So in other words, science is about natural law and religion is about ethics, how to be a good person, how to go to heaven.

As long as we keep these 2 things apart, we're in great shape.

The problem occurs when people from the natural sciences begin to pontificate about ethics and people from religion begin to pontificate about natural law.

You think they're fundamentally distinct, morality and ethics and our idea of what is right and what is wrong, that's something that's outside the reach of string theory and physics.

If you talk to a squirrel about what is right and what is wrong, there's no reference frame for a squirrel.

And realize that aliens from outer space, if they ever come visit us, they'll try to talk to us like we talk to squirrels in the forest, but eventually we get bored talking to the squirrels because they don't talk back to us.

They come down to earth, they'll be curious about us to a degree, but after a while, they just get bored because we have nothing to offer them.

So our sense of right and wrong, what does that mean compared to a squirrel's sense of right and wrong?

Now, we of course do have an ethics that keeps civilizations in line, enriches our life, and makes civilization possible.

And I think that's a good thing, but it's not mandated by law of physics.

So if aliens do, alien species were to make contact, forgive me for staying on aliens for a bit longer, do you think they're more likely to be friendly, to befriend us, or to destroy us?

Well, I think for the most part, they'll pretty much ignore us.

If you were a deer in the forest, who do you fear the most?

Do you fear the hunter with his gigantic 16 gauge shotgun?

Or do you fear the guy with the briefcase and glasses?

Well, the guy with the briefcase could be a developer about to basically flatten the entire forest, destroying your livelihood.

So instinctively, you may be afraid of the hunter, but actually the problem with deers in the forest is that they should fear developers because developers look at deer as simply getting in the way.

If you read the book, the aliens did not have evil intentions toward homo sapiens.

So I think we have to realize that alien civilizations may view us quite differently than in science fiction novels.

However, I personally believe, and I cannot prove any of this, I personally believe that they're probably going to be peaceful because there's nothing that they want from our world.

No, gold is a useless metal for the most part.

It's silver, I mean, it's gold in color, but that only affects Homo sapiens.

Platinum-based elements, rare earths for their electronics.

But other than that, we have nothing to offer them.

People love Shakespeare and they love the arts and poetry, but outside of the Earth, they mean nothing.

I mean, when I write down an equation in string theory, I would hope that on the other side of the galaxy There's an alien writing down that very same equation in different notation But that alien on the other side of the galaxy Shakespeare poetry Hemingway, it would mean nothing to him or her or it.

When you think about entities that's out there, extraterrestrial, do you think they would naturally look something that even is recognizable to us as life Or would they be radically different?

We have the eyes of a hunter, stereo vision so we lock in on targets, and who is smarter, predator or prey?

They have their eyes to the front of their face, like lions, tigers, while rabbits have eyes to the side of their face.

They have to know how to hide, camouflage, sneak up, stealth, deceit.

So that's the first criterion, stereo eyesight of some sort.

The opposable thumb of some sort could be a claw or tentacle.

Hand-eye coordination is the way we manipulate the environment.

Because, you know, Mama Bear never tells Baby Bear to avoid the human hunter.

They never hand out information from 1 generation to the next.

So these are the 3 basic ingredients of intelligence.

Eye sight of some sort, an opposable thumb or tentacle or claw of some sort, and language.

I mean, the primates, they have a language.

Yeah, they may get up to maybe 20 words, but a baby learns a word a day, several words a day a baby learns, and a typical adult knows about almost 5,000 words.

While the maximum number of words that you can teach a gorilla in any language, including their own language, is about 20 or so.

And so we see the difference in intelligence.

So when we meet aliens from outer space, chances are they will have been descended from predators of some sort.

They'll have some way to manipulate the environment and communicate their knowledge to the next generation.

So functionally, that would be similar, that we would be able to recognize them?

Well, not necessarily, because I think even with homo sapiens, we are eventually going to perhaps become part cybernetic and genetically enhanced.

Already robots are getting smarter and smarter.

Right now robots have the intelligence of a cockroach.

But in the coming years, our robots will be as smart as a mouse, then maybe as smart as a rabbit.

If we're lucky, maybe as smart as a cat or a dog.

And by the end of the century, who knows for sure, our robots will be probably as smart as a monkey.

Now at that point, of course, they could be dangerous.

They may have a different agenda than us.

You see, dogs think that we are a dog, that We're the top dog.

That's why they whimper and follow us and lick us all the time.

And so I think that in the future, we'll have to put a chip in their brain to shut them off once our robots have murderous thoughts.

In 200 years, the robots will be smart enough to remove that fail-safe chip in their brain and then watch out.

At that point, I think rather than compete with our robots, we should merge with them.

So I think when we meet alien life from outer space, they may be genetically and cybernetically enhanced.

Genetically and cybernetically enhanced, wow.

In the near term and 200 years from now, how promising in the near term, in your view, is brain machine interfaces?

So starting to allow computers to talk directly to the brains, Elon Musk is working on that with Neuralink and there's other companies working on this idea.

Well, every technology has pluses and minuses.

I have a book, The Future of the Mind, where I detail some of these breakthroughs.

We can now record simple memories of mice and send these memories on the internet.

Eventually, we're going to do this with primates at Wake Forest University and also in Los Angeles.

And then after that, we'll have a memory chip for Alzheimer's patients.

We'll test it out in Alzheimer's patients because, of course, when Alzheimer's patients lose their memory, they wander.

They create all sorts of havoc, wandering around, oblivious to their surroundings.

They'll push the button and memories, memories will come flooding into their hippocampus and the chip, telling them where they live and who they are.

And so a memory chip is definitely in the cards.

And I think this will eventually affect human civilization.

Brain net is when we send emotions, feelings, sensations on the Internet and we will telepathically communicate with other humans this way.

Charlie Chaplin was very famous during the era of silent movies, but when the talkies came in, Nobody wanted to see Charlie Chaplin anymore because he never talked in the movies.

And so a whole generation of actors lost their job and a new series of actors came in.

Next, we're gonna have the movies replaced by RainNet because in the future, people will say, who wants to see a screen with images?

That's it, sound and image, that's called the movies.

In our entertainment industry, this multi-billion dollar industry is based on screens with moving images and sound.

But what happens when emotions, feelings, sensations, memories can be conveyed on the internet?

Human relations will change because you'll be able to empathize and feel the suffering of other people.

We'll be able to communicate telepathically.

Do you think, so you mentioned entertainment, but what kind of effect would it have on our personal relationships?

You realize that for most of human history, for over 90% of human history, We only knew maybe

That was everybody you knew in the universe was only maybe 50 or 100.

With the coming of towns, of course it expanded to a few thousand, with the coming of the telephone, all of a sudden you could reach thousands of people with a telephone, and now with the internet, you can reach the entire population of the planet Earth.

And so I think this is a normal progression.

And you think that kind of sort of connection to the rest of the world, and then adding sensations like being able to share telepathically emotions and so on, that would just further deepen our connection to our fellow humans.

In fact, I disagree with many scientists on this question.

Most scientists would say that technology is neutral.

A double-edged sword, 1 side of the sword can cut against people, The other side of the sword can cut against ignorance and disease.

I think technology does have a moral direction.

The internet spreads knowledge, awareness, And that creates empowerment.

When they begin to realize that they don't have to live that way, they don't have to suffer under a dictatorship, that there are other ways of living under freedom, then they begin to take things, take power.

And democracies do not war with other democracies.

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Michio Kaku: Future of Humans, Aliens, Space Travel & Physics | Lex Fridman Podcast #45