Grimes: Music, AI, and the Future of Humanity

Lex Fridman (01:08.960)

And now, dear friends, here's Grimes.

Grimes (01:12.840)

Oh yeah, the cloud lifter, there you go.

Lex Fridman (01:14.480)

There you go.

Grimes (01:15.300)

You know your stuff.

Lex Fridman (01:16.440)

Have you ever used a cloud lifter?

Grimes (01:18.240)

Yeah, I actually, this microphone cloud lifter

Lex Fridman (01:20.980)

is what Michael Jackson used, so.

Lex Fridman (01:23.440)

No, really?

Lex Fridman (01:24.420)

Yeah, this is like Thriller and stuff.

Lex Fridman (01:26.000)

This mic and a cloud lifter?

Lex Fridman (01:28.160)

Yeah, it's a incredible microphone.

Grimes (01:30.620)

It's very flattering on vocals.

Lex Fridman (01:32.040)

I've used this a lot.

Grimes (01:33.600)

It's great for demo vocals.

Lex Fridman (01:34.720)

It's great in a room.

Grimes (01:36.640)

Sometimes it's easier to record vocals

Lex Fridman (01:38.280)

if you're just in a room and the music's playing

Lex Fridman (01:40.600)

and you just wanna feel it so it's not in the headphones.

Lex Fridman (01:43.040)

And this mic is pretty directional,

Lex Fridman (01:44.700)

so I think it's a good mic for just vibing out

Lex Fridman (01:47.740)

and just getting a real good vocal take.

Grimes (01:49.840)

Just vibing, just in a room.

Lex Fridman (01:51.860)

Anyway, this is the Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones

Grimes (01:55.920)

microphone.

Lex Fridman (01:57.000)

I feel way more badass now.

Lex Fridman (01:58.800)

All right, you wanna just get into it?

Lex Fridman (02:01.760)

I guess so.

Grimes (02:03.040)

All right, one of your names, at least in this space

Lex Fridman (02:05.720)

and time, is C, like the letter C.

Lex Fridman (02:08.320)

And you told me that C means a lot of things.

Lex Fridman (02:11.280)

It's the speed of light.

Grimes (02:12.640)

It's the render rate of the universe.

Lex Fridman (02:14.700)

It's yes in Spanish.

Grimes (02:16.120)

It's the crescent moon.

Lex Fridman (02:17.660)

And it happens to be my favorite programming language

Grimes (02:21.140)

because it basically runs the world,

Lex Fridman (02:24.140)

but it's also powerful, fast, and it's dangerous

Grimes (02:28.200)

because you can mess things up really bad with it

Lex Fridman (02:30.000)

because of all the pointers.

Lex Fridman (02:31.160)

But anyway, which of these associations

Lex Fridman (02:33.960)

will the name C is the coolest to you?

Grimes (02:37.760)

I mean, to me, the coolest is the speed of light,

Lex Fridman (02:40.700)

obviously, or the speed of light.

Grimes (02:42.720)

When I say render rate of the universe,

Lex Fridman (02:44.400)

I think I mean the speed of light

Grimes (02:46.280)

because essentially that's what we're rendering at.

Lex Fridman (02:49.120)

See, I think we'll know if we're in a simulation

Grimes (02:52.200)

if the speed of light changes

Lex Fridman (02:53.740)

because if they can improve their render speed, then.

Grimes (02:57.280)

Well, it's already pretty good.

Lex Fridman (02:58.480)

It's already pretty good, but if it improves,

Grimes (03:01.040)

then we'll know, we can probably be like,

Lex Fridman (03:03.880)

okay, they've updated or upgraded.

Grimes (03:05.360)

Well, it's fast enough for us humans

Lex Fridman (03:06.800)

because it seems immediate.

Grimes (03:10.960)

There's no delay, there's no latency

Lex Fridman (03:13.360)

in terms of us humans on Earth interacting with things.

Lex Fridman (03:16.240)

But if you're like intergalactic species

Lex Fridman (03:20.000)

operating on a much larger scale,

Grimes (03:21.440)

then you're gonna start noticing some weird stuff.

Lex Fridman (03:23.840)

Or if you can operate in like around a black hole,

Grimes (03:27.340)

then you're gonna start to see some render issues.

Lex Fridman (03:29.680)

You can't go faster than the speed of light, correct?

Lex Fridman (03:32.680)

So it really limits our ability

Lex Fridman (03:34.520)

or one's ability to travel space.

Grimes (03:36.680)

Theoretically, you can, you have wormholes.

Lex Fridman (03:38.920)

So there's nothing in general relativity

Grimes (03:41.880)

that precludes faster than the speed of light travel.

Lex Fridman (03:48.280)

But it just seems you're gonna have to do

Grimes (03:49.840)

some really funky stuff with very heavy things

Lex Fridman (03:54.000)

that have like weirdnesses,

Grimes (03:56.080)

that have basically terrors in space time.

Lex Fridman (03:58.600)

We don't know how to do that.

Lex Fridman (03:59.740)

Do navigators know how to do it?

Lex Fridman (04:01.860)

Do navigators? Yeah.

Grimes (04:03.800)

Folding space, basically making wormholes.

Lex Fridman (04:07.000)

So the name C. Yes.

Lex Fridman (04:11.880)

Who are you?

Lex Fridman (04:14.800)

Do you think of yourself as multiple people?

Lex Fridman (04:16.960)

Are you one person?

Lex Fridman (04:18.280)

Do you know, like in this morning,

Lex Fridman (04:20.860)

were you a different person than you are tonight?

Lex Fridman (04:23.560)

We are, I should say, recording this basically at midnight,

Grimes (04:27.080)

which is awesome. Yes, thank you so much.

Lex Fridman (04:29.600)

I think I'm about eight hours late.

Grimes (04:31.640)

No, you're right on time.

Lex Fridman (04:33.960)

Good morning.

Grimes (04:34.800)

This is the beginning of a new day soon.

Lex Fridman (04:37.200)

Anyway, are you the same person

Lex Fridman (04:39.480)

you were in the morning and the evening?

Lex Fridman (04:43.040)

Is there multiple people in there?

Lex Fridman (04:44.320)

Do you think of yourself as one person?

Lex Fridman (04:46.240)

Or maybe you have no clue?

Lex Fridman (04:47.480)

Or are you just a giant mystery to yourself?

Lex Fridman (04:50.160)

Okay, these are really intense questions, but.

Grimes (04:52.480)

Let's go, let's go.

Lex Fridman (04:53.320)

Because I asked this myself, like look in the mirror,

Lex Fridman (04:55.320)

who are you?

Lex Fridman (04:56.320)

People tell you to just be yourself,

Lex Fridman (04:57.960)

but what does that even mean?

Lex Fridman (04:59.240)

I mean, I think my personality changes

Grimes (05:01.520)

with everyone I talk to.

Lex Fridman (05:02.960)

So I have a very inconsistent personality.

Grimes (05:06.600)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (05:07.440)

Person to person, so the interaction,

Grimes (05:08.960)

your personality materializes.

Lex Fridman (05:11.480)

Or my mood.

Grimes (05:12.320)

Like I'll go from being like a megalomaniac

Lex Fridman (05:16.120)

to being like, you know, just like a total hermit

Grimes (05:19.920)

who is very shy.

Lex Fridman (05:21.400)

So some combinatorial combination of your mood

Lex Fridman (05:24.560)

and the person you're interacting with.

Lex Fridman (05:26.280)

Yeah, mood and people I'm interacting with.

Lex Fridman (05:28.080)

But I think everyone's like that.

Lex Fridman (05:29.720)

Maybe not.

Grimes (05:30.880)

Well, not everybody acknowledges it

Lex Fridman (05:32.560)

and able to introspect it.

Grimes (05:34.000)

Who brings out, what kind of person,

Lex Fridman (05:35.800)

what kind of mood brings out the best in you?

Grimes (05:38.120)

As an artist and as a human.

Lex Fridman (05:40.840)

Can you introspect this?

Grimes (05:41.840)

Like my best friends, like people I can,

Lex Fridman (05:45.200)

when I'm like super confident

Lex Fridman (05:47.480)

and I know that they're gonna understand

Lex Fridman (05:50.280)

everything I'm saying, so like my best friends,

Grimes (05:52.160)

then when I can start being really funny,

Lex Fridman (05:55.360)

that's always my like peak mode.

Lex Fridman (05:57.640)

But it's like, yeah, takes a lot to get there.

Lex Fridman (06:00.120)

Let's talk about constraints.

Grimes (06:02.320)

You've talked about constraints and limits.

Lex Fridman (06:06.960)

Do those help you out as an artist or as a human being?

Lex Fridman (06:09.560)

Or do they get in the way?

Lex Fridman (06:10.760)

Do you like the constraints?

Lex Fridman (06:11.880)

So in creating music, in creating art, in living life,

Lex Fridman (06:16.760)

do you like the constraints that this world puts on you?

Lex Fridman (06:21.840)

Or do you hate them?

Lex Fridman (06:24.720)

If constraints are moving, then you're good, right?

Grimes (06:29.720)

Like it's like as we are progressing with technology,

Lex Fridman (06:32.040)

we're changing the constraints of like artistic creation.

Grimes (06:34.800)

You know, making video and music and stuff

Lex Fridman (06:38.440)

is getting a lot cheaper.

Grimes (06:39.720)

There's constantly new technology and new software

Lex Fridman (06:42.080)

that's making it faster and easier.

Grimes (06:44.000)

We have so much more freedom than we had in the 70s.

Lex Fridman (06:46.680)

Like when Michael Jackson, you know,

Grimes (06:48.640)

when they recorded Thriller with this microphone,

Lex Fridman (06:51.440)

like they had to use a mixing desk and all this stuff.

Lex Fridman (06:54.000)

And like probably even get in a studio,

Lex Fridman (06:55.600)

it's probably really expensive

Lex Fridman (06:56.560)

and you have to be a really good singer

Lex Fridman (06:57.600)

and you have to know how to use

Grimes (06:59.080)

like the mixing desk and everything.

Lex Fridman (07:00.520)

And now I can just, you know,

Grimes (07:02.480)

make I've made a whole album on this computer.

Lex Fridman (07:05.240)

I have a lot more freedom,

Lex Fridman (07:06.760)

but then I'm also constrained in different ways

Lex Fridman (07:10.280)

because there's like literally millions more artists.

Grimes (07:13.720)

It's like a much bigger playing field.

Lex Fridman (07:15.720)

It's just like, I also, I didn't learn music.

Grimes (07:18.680)

I'm not a natural musician.

Lex Fridman (07:20.240)

So I don't know anything about actual music.

Grimes (07:22.640)

I just know about like the computer.

Lex Fridman (07:24.800)

So I'm really kind of just like messing around

Lex Fridman (07:30.520)

and like trying things out.

Lex Fridman (07:33.280)

Well, yeah, I mean, but the nature of music is changing.

Lex Fridman (07:35.760)

So you're saying you don't know actual music,

Lex Fridman (07:37.320)

what music is changing.

Grimes (07:39.260)

Music is becoming, you've talked about this,

Lex Fridman (07:41.920)

is becoming, it's like merging with technology.

Grimes (07:46.640)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (07:47.680)

It's becoming something more than just like

Grimes (07:51.400)

the notes on a piano.

Lex Fridman (07:53.000)

It's becoming some weird composition

Grimes (07:54.960)

that requires engineering skills, programming skills,

Lex Fridman (07:59.440)

some kind of human robot interaction skills,

Lex Fridman (08:03.440)

and still some of the same things that Michael Jackson had,

Lex Fridman (08:05.680)

which is like a good ear for a good sense of taste

Grimes (08:08.480)

of what's good and not the final thing

Lex Fridman (08:10.360)

when it's put together.

Grimes (08:11.520)

Like you're allowed, you're enabled, empowered

Lex Fridman (08:14.920)

with a laptop to layer stuff,

Grimes (08:17.200)

to start like layering insane amounts of stuff.

Lex Fridman (08:20.280)

And it's super easy to do that.

Grimes (08:22.280)

I do think music production is a really underrated art form.

Lex Fridman (08:25.000)

I feel like people really don't appreciate it.

Grimes (08:26.700)

When I look at publishing splits,

Lex Fridman (08:27.960)

the way that people like pay producers and stuff,

Grimes (08:32.240)

it's super, producers are just deeply underrated.

Lex Fridman (08:35.560)

Like so many of the songs that are popular right now

Grimes (08:39.160)

or for the last 20 years,

Lex Fridman (08:40.920)

like part of the reason they're popular

Grimes (08:42.240)

is because the production is really interesting

Lex Fridman (08:44.000)

or really sick or really cool.

Lex Fridman (08:45.640)

And it's like, I don't think listeners,

Lex Fridman (08:50.920)

like people just don't really understand

Lex Fridman (08:52.520)

what music production is.

Lex Fridman (08:54.640)

It's not, it's sort of like this weird,

Grimes (08:57.680)

discombobulated art form.

Lex Fridman (08:59.360)

It's not like a formal, because it's so new,

Grimes (09:01.380)

there isn't like a formal training path for it.

Lex Fridman (09:06.880)

It's mostly driven by like autodidacts.

Grimes (09:10.200)

Like it's like almost everyone I know

Lex Fridman (09:11.280)

who's good at production,

Grimes (09:12.200)

like they didn't go to music school or anything.

Lex Fridman (09:13.760)

They just taught themselves.

Lex Fridman (09:15.080)

Are they're mostly different?

Lex Fridman (09:16.040)

Like the music producers, you know,

Grimes (09:18.400)

is there some commonalities that time together

Lex Fridman (09:21.320)

or are they all just different kinds of weirdos?

Grimes (09:23.580)

Cause I just, I just hung out with Rick Rubin.

Lex Fridman (09:25.440)

I don't know if you've.

Grimes (09:26.280)

Yeah, I mean, Rick Rubin is like literally

Lex Fridman (09:29.760)

one of the gods of music production.

Grimes (09:31.200)

Like he's one of the people who first,

Lex Fridman (09:33.780)

you know, who like made music production,

Grimes (09:36.320)

you know, made the production as important

Lex Fridman (09:39.360)

as the actual lyrics or the notes.

Lex Fridman (09:41.600)

But the thing he does, which is interesting,

Lex Fridman (09:43.560)

I don't know if you can speak to that,

Lex Fridman (09:45.520)

but just hanging out with him,

Lex Fridman (09:46.760)

he seems to just sit there in silence,

Grimes (09:48.520)

close his eyes and listen.

Lex Fridman (09:50.800)

It's like, he almost does nothing.

Lex Fridman (09:53.640)

And that nothing somehow gives you freedom

Lex Fridman (09:55.880)

to be the best version of yourself.

Lex Fridman (09:58.160)

So that's music production somehow too,

Lex Fridman (10:00.060)

which is like encouraging you to do less,

Grimes (10:02.680)

to simplify, to like push towards minimalism.

Lex Fridman (10:06.900)

I mean, I guess, I mean,

Grimes (10:09.600)

I work differently from Rick Rubin

Lex Fridman (10:11.600)

cause Rick Rubin produces for other artists,

Grimes (10:14.160)

whereas like I mostly produce for myself.

Lex Fridman (10:17.080)

So it's a very different situation.

Grimes (10:19.240)

I also think Rick Rubin, he's in that,

Lex Fridman (10:21.760)

I would say advanced category of producer

Grimes (10:23.600)

where like you've like earned your,

Lex Fridman (10:26.600)

you can have an engineer and stuff

Lex Fridman (10:27.960)

and people like do the stuff for you.

Lex Fridman (10:29.840)

But I usually just like do stuff myself.

Lex Fridman (10:32.400)

So you're the engineer, the producer and the artist.

Lex Fridman (10:38.080)

Yeah, I guess I would say I'm in the era,

Grimes (10:39.880)

like the post Rick Rubin era.

Lex Fridman (10:41.280)

Like I come from the kind of like

Grimes (10:44.320)

Skrillex school of thought,

Lex Fridman (10:47.040)

which is like where you are.

Grimes (10:49.240)

Yeah, the engineer, producer, artist.

Lex Fridman (10:51.040)

Like where, I mean lately,

Grimes (10:53.760)

sometimes I'll work with a producer now.

Lex Fridman (10:55.560)

I'm gently sort of delicately starting

Grimes (10:59.120)

to collaborate a bit more,

Lex Fridman (10:59.960)

but like I think I'm kind of from the,

Grimes (11:02.800)

like the whatever 2010s explosion of things

Lex Fridman (11:07.120)

where everything became available on the computer

Lex Fridman (11:11.920)

and you kind of got this like lone wizard energy thing going.

Lex Fridman (11:16.680)

So you embraced being the loneliness.

Lex Fridman (11:19.680)

Is the loneliness somehow an engine of creativity?

Lex Fridman (11:22.440)

Like, so most of your stuff,

Grimes (11:24.560)

most of your creative quote unquote genius in quotes

Lex Fridman (11:28.640)

is in the privacy of your mind.

Grimes (11:32.160)

Yes, well, it was,

Lex Fridman (11:36.680)

but here's the thing.

Grimes (11:39.060)

I was talking to Daniel Eck and he said,

Lex Fridman (11:40.840)

he's like most artists, they have about 10 years,

Grimes (11:43.400)

like 10 good years.

Lex Fridman (11:45.160)

And then they usually stop making their like vital shit.

Lex Fridman (11:49.880)

And I feel like I'm sort of like nearing the end

Lex Fridman (11:53.360)

of my 10 years on my own.

Lex Fridman (11:56.540)

So you have to become somebody else.

Lex Fridman (11:58.640)

Now I'm like, I'm in the process

Grimes (11:59.840)

of becoming somebody else and reinventing.

Lex Fridman (12:01.720)

When I work with other people,

Grimes (12:02.840)

because I've never worked with other people,

Lex Fridman (12:04.180)

I find that I make like, that I'm exceptionally rejuvenated

Lex Fridman (12:08.380)

and making like some of the most vital work I've ever made.

Lex Fridman (12:10.980)

So, because I think another human brain

Grimes (12:13.840)

is like one of the best tools you can possibly find.

Lex Fridman (12:17.560)

Like.

Grimes (12:18.400)

It's a funny way to put it, I love it.

Lex Fridman (12:20.560)

It's like if a tool is like, you know,

Grimes (12:23.340)

whatever HP plus one or like adds some like stats

Lex Fridman (12:27.320)

to your character, like another human brain

Grimes (12:30.760)

will like square it instead of just like adding something.

Lex Fridman (12:34.240)

Double up the experience points, I love this.

Grimes (12:36.320)

We should also mention we're playing Tavern music

Lex Fridman (12:38.280)

before this and which I love, which I first,

Grimes (12:41.600)

I think I first.

Lex Fridman (12:42.440)

You had to stop the Tavern music.

Grimes (12:43.760)

Yeah, because it doesn't, the audio.

Lex Fridman (12:46.380)

Okay, okay.

Lex Fridman (12:47.220)

But it makes.

Lex Fridman (12:48.040)

Yeah, it'll make the podcast annoying.

Grimes (12:48.880)

Add it in post, add it in post.

Lex Fridman (12:50.040)

No one will want to listen to the podcast.

Grimes (12:51.560)

They probably would, but it makes me,

Lex Fridman (12:53.400)

it reminds me like of a video game,

Grimes (12:55.480)

like a role playing video game

Lex Fridman (12:56.760)

where you have experience points.

Grimes (12:58.400)

There's something really joyful about wandering places

Lex Fridman (13:03.440)

like Elder Scrolls, like Skyrim,

Grimes (13:06.480)

just exploring these landscapes in another world

Lex Fridman (13:10.500)

and then you get experience points

Lex Fridman (13:12.000)

and you can work on different skills

Lex Fridman (13:14.000)

and somehow you progress in life.

Grimes (13:16.160)

I don't know, it's simple.

Lex Fridman (13:17.600)

It doesn't have some of the messy complexities of life

Lex Fridman (13:19.960)

and there's usually a bad guy you can fight in Skyrim.

Lex Fridman (13:23.960)

It's dragons and so on.

Grimes (13:25.560)

I'm sure in Elden Ring,

Lex Fridman (13:26.460)

there's a bunch of monsters you can fight.

Grimes (13:28.240)

I love that.

Lex Fridman (13:29.080)

I feel like Elden Ring,

Grimes (13:29.960)

I feel like this is a good analogy

Lex Fridman (13:31.440)

to music production though

Grimes (13:32.360)

because it's like, I feel like the engineers

Lex Fridman (13:34.400)

and the people creating these open worlds are,

Grimes (13:36.600)

it's sort of like similar to people, to music producers

Lex Fridman (13:39.660)

where it's like this hidden archetype

Grimes (13:42.720)

that like no one really understands what they do

Lex Fridman (13:44.600)

and no one really knows who they are,

Lex Fridman (13:46.160)

but they're like, it's like the artist engineer

Lex Fridman (13:49.300)

because it's like, it's both art

Lex Fridman (13:51.760)

and fairly complex engineering.

Lex Fridman (13:54.840)

Well, you're saying they don't get enough credit.

Grimes (13:57.200)

Aren't you kind of changing that

Lex Fridman (13:58.600)

by becoming the person doing everything?

Lex Fridman (14:01.320)

Aren't you, isn't the engineer?

Lex Fridman (14:03.680)

Well, I mean, others have gone before me.

Grimes (14:05.440)

I'm not, you know, there's like Timbaland and Skrillex

Lex Fridman (14:07.800)

and there's all these people that are like,

Grimes (14:10.360)

you know, very famous for this,

Lex Fridman (14:12.040)

but I just think the general,

Grimes (14:13.920)

I think people get confused about what it is

Lex Fridman (14:15.920)

and just don't really know what it is per se

Lex Fridman (14:19.200)

and it's just when I see a song,

Lex Fridman (14:20.480)

like when there's like a hit song,

Grimes (14:22.280)

like I'm just trying to think of like,

Lex Fridman (14:27.520)

just going for like even just a basic pop hit,

Lex Fridman (14:29.860)

like, what's it?

Lex Fridman (14:33.120)

Like Rules by Dua Lipa or something.

Grimes (14:36.100)

The production on that is actually like really crazy.

Lex Fridman (14:39.220)

I mean, the song is also great,

Lex Fridman (14:40.560)

but it's like the production is exceptionally memorable.

Lex Fridman (14:43.360)

Like, you know, and it's just like no one,

Grimes (14:47.200)

I can't, I don't even know who produced that song.

Lex Fridman (14:49.180)

It's just like, isn't part of like the rhetoric

Grimes (14:50.680)

of how we just discuss the creation of art.

Lex Fridman (14:53.420)

We just sort of like don't consider the music producer

Grimes (14:57.200)

because I think the music producer used to be more

Lex Fridman (15:00.320)

just simply recording things.

Grimes (15:03.700)

Yeah, that's interesting

Lex Fridman (15:04.640)

because when you think about movies,

Grimes (15:06.000)

we talk about the actor and the actresses,

Lex Fridman (15:08.600)

but we also talk about the directors.

Grimes (15:11.520)

We don't talk about like that with the music as often.

Lex Fridman (15:15.760)

The Beatles music producer

Grimes (15:17.360)

was one of the first kind of guy,

Lex Fridman (15:19.880)

one of the first people sort of introducing

Grimes (15:21.220)

crazy sound design into pop music.

Lex Fridman (15:22.640)

I forget his name.

Grimes (15:24.160)

He has the same, I forget his name,

Lex Fridman (15:25.860)

but you know, like he was doing all the weird stuff

Grimes (15:29.180)

like dropping pianos and like, yeah.

Lex Fridman (15:32.420)

Oh, to get the, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Grimes (15:33.480)

to get the sound, to get the authentic sound.

Lex Fridman (15:36.580)

What about lyrics?

Grimes (15:38.100)

You think those, where did they fit

Lex Fridman (15:40.960)

into how important they are?

Grimes (15:42.960)

I was heartbroken to learn

Lex Fridman (15:44.860)

that Elvis didn't write his songs.

Grimes (15:46.800)

I was very mad.

Lex Fridman (15:47.880)

A lot of people don't write their songs.

Grimes (15:49.480)

I understand this, but.

Lex Fridman (15:50.820)

But here's the thing.

Grimes (15:52.200)

I feel like there's this desire for authenticity.

Lex Fridman (15:54.880)

I used to be like really mad

Grimes (15:56.140)

when like people wouldn't write or produce their music

Lex Fridman (15:58.000)

and I'd be like, that's fake.

Lex Fridman (15:59.280)

And then I realized there's all this like weird bitterness

Lex Fridman (16:04.520)

and like agronus in art about authenticity.

Lex Fridman (16:07.760)

But I had this kind of like weird realization recently

Lex Fridman (16:12.200)

where I started thinking that like art

Grimes (16:14.960)

is sort of a decentralized collective thing.

Lex Fridman (16:20.220)

Like art is kind of a conversation

Grimes (16:25.300)

with all the artists that have ever lived before you.

Lex Fridman (16:28.560)

You know, like it's like, you're really just sort of,

Grimes (16:31.080)

it's not like anyone's reinventing the wheel here.

Lex Fridman (16:33.520)

Like you're kind of just taking, you know,

Grimes (16:36.620)

thousands of years of art

Lex Fridman (16:38.200)

and like running it through your own little algorithm

Lex Fridman (16:41.700)

and then like making your interpretation of it.

Lex Fridman (16:45.040)

You just joined the conversation

Grimes (16:46.240)

with all the other artists that came before.

Lex Fridman (16:47.560)

It's just a beautiful way to look at it.

Grimes (16:49.580)

Like, and it's like, I feel like everyone's always like,

Lex Fridman (16:51.540)

there's all this copyright and IP and this and that

Grimes (16:54.120)

or authenticity.

Lex Fridman (16:55.160)

And it's just like, I think we need to stop seeing this

Grimes (16:59.220)

as this like egotistical thing of like,

Lex Fridman (17:01.580)

oh, the creative genius, the lone creative genius

Grimes (17:04.180)

or this or that.

Lex Fridman (17:05.020)

Because it's like, I think art shouldn't be about that.

Grimes (17:08.760)

I think art is something that sort of

Lex Fridman (17:10.360)

brings humanity together.

Lex Fridman (17:12.040)

And it's also, art is also kind of the collective memory

Lex Fridman (17:14.080)

of humans.

Grimes (17:14.920)

It's like, we don't give a fuck about

Lex Fridman (17:18.720)

whatever ancient Egypt,

Grimes (17:20.280)

like how much grain got sent that day

Lex Fridman (17:22.760)

and sending the records and like, you know,

Grimes (17:24.920)

like who went where and, you know,

Lex Fridman (17:27.600)

how many shields needed to be produced for this.

Grimes (17:29.640)

Like we just remember their art.

Lex Fridman (17:32.240)

And it's like, you know, it's like in our day to day life,

Grimes (17:34.840)

there's all this stuff that seems more important than art

Lex Fridman (17:38.080)

because it helps us function and survive.

Lex Fridman (17:40.200)

But when all this is gone,

Lex Fridman (17:41.840)

like the only thing that's really gonna be left is the art.

Grimes (17:45.040)

The technology will be obsolete.

Lex Fridman (17:46.800)

That's so fascinating.

Grimes (17:47.640)

Like the humans will be dead.

Lex Fridman (17:49.080)

That is true.

Grimes (17:49.920)

A good compression of human history

Lex Fridman (17:52.520)

is the art we've generated across the different centuries,

Grimes (17:56.200)

the different millennia.

Lex Fridman (17:57.800)

So when the aliens come.

Grimes (17:59.900)

When the aliens come,

Lex Fridman (18:00.740)

they're gonna find the hieroglyphics and the pyramids.

Grimes (18:02.740)

I mean, art could be broadly defined.

Lex Fridman (18:04.360)

They might find like the engineering marvels,

Grimes (18:06.240)

the bridges, the rockets, the.

Lex Fridman (18:09.860)

I guess I sort of classify though.

Grimes (18:11.480)

Architecture is art too.

Lex Fridman (18:13.580)

I consider engineering in those formats to be art, for sure.

Grimes (18:19.360)

It sucks that like digital art is easier to delete.

Lex Fridman (18:23.200)

So if there's an apocalypse, a nuclear war,

Grimes (18:25.800)

that can disappear.

Lex Fridman (18:26.880)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (18:28.080)

And the physical.

Lex Fridman (18:28.920)

There's something still valuable

Grimes (18:30.000)

about the physical manifestation of art.

Lex Fridman (18:32.360)

That sucks that like music, for example,

Grimes (18:35.580)

has to be played by somebody.

Lex Fridman (18:37.940)

Yeah, I do think we should have a foundation type situation

Grimes (18:41.640)

where we like, you know how we have like seed banks

Lex Fridman (18:44.120)

up in the north and stuff?

Grimes (18:45.520)

Like we should probably have like a solar powered

Lex Fridman (18:48.000)

or geothermal little bunker

Grimes (18:49.760)

that like has all human knowledge.

Lex Fridman (18:52.360)

You mentioned Daniel Ek and Spotify.

Lex Fridman (18:55.240)

What do you think about that as an artist?

Lex Fridman (18:56.960)

What's Spotify?

Lex Fridman (18:58.280)

Is that empowering?

Lex Fridman (19:00.000)

To me, Spotify as a consumer is super exciting.

Grimes (19:02.560)

It makes it easy for me to access music

Lex Fridman (19:04.960)

from all kinds of artists,

Grimes (19:06.600)

get to explore all kinds of music,

Lex Fridman (19:08.420)

make it super easy to sort of curate my own playlist

Lex Fridman (19:12.280)

and have fun with all that.

Lex Fridman (19:13.960)

It was so liberating to let go.

Grimes (19:16.040)

You know, I used to collect, you know,

Lex Fridman (19:17.560)

albums and CDs and so on, like horde albums.

Grimes (19:22.120)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (19:22.960)

Like they matter.

Lex Fridman (19:23.780)

But the reality you could, you know,

Lex Fridman (19:25.640)

that was really liberating that I could let go of that.

Lex Fridman (19:28.080)

And letting go of the albums you're kind of collecting

Lex Fridman (19:32.160)

allows you to find new music,

Grimes (19:33.600)

exploring new artists and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (19:36.200)

But I know from a perspective of an artist that could be,

Grimes (19:38.360)

like you mentioned,

Lex Fridman (19:39.200)

competition could be a kind of constraint

Grimes (19:42.000)

because there's more and more and more artists

Lex Fridman (19:44.640)

on the platform.

Grimes (19:46.040)

I think it's better that there's more artists.

Lex Fridman (19:47.880)

I mean, again, this might be propaganda

Grimes (19:49.800)

because this is all from a conversation with Daniel Ek.

Lex Fridman (19:51.680)

So this could easily be propaganda.

Grimes (19:54.040)

We're all a victim of somebody's propaganda.

Lex Fridman (19:56.720)

So let's just accept this.

Lex Fridman (19:58.960)

But Daniel Ek was telling me that, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:00:03.100)

to understand really difficult concepts

Grimes (1:00:05.900)

just in a very different way,

Lex Fridman (1:00:07.700)

like an emotional intelligence

Lex Fridman (1:00:09.080)

about something deep within?

Lex Fridman (1:00:11.500)

Oh yeah, no, like if X hurts,

Grimes (1:00:13.060)

like if X bites me really hard and I'm like, ow,

Lex Fridman (1:00:15.700)

like he gets, he's sad.

Grimes (1:00:17.300)

He's like sad if he hurts me by accident.

Lex Fridman (1:00:19.740)

Yeah.

Grimes (1:00:20.580)

Which he's huge, so he hurts me a lot by accident.

Lex Fridman (1:00:22.540)

Yeah, that's so interesting that that mind emerges

Lex Fridman (1:00:26.860)

and he and children don't really have memory of that time.

Lex Fridman (1:00:31.100)

So we can't even have a conversation with them about it.

Grimes (1:00:32.940)

Yeah, I just thank God they don't have a memory

Lex Fridman (1:00:34.380)

of this time because like, think about like,

Grimes (1:00:37.380)

I mean with our youngest baby,

Lex Fridman (1:00:39.620)

like it's like, I'm like, have you read

Lex Fridman (1:00:42.080)

the sci fi short story, I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream?

Lex Fridman (1:00:46.660)

Good title, no.

Grimes (1:00:47.980)

Oh man, I mean, you should read that.

Lex Fridman (1:00:49.920)

I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream.

Grimes (1:00:53.220)

I hate getting into this Rocco's Basilisk shit.

Lex Fridman (1:00:55.460)

It's kind of a story about the,

Grimes (1:00:57.660)

about like an AI that's like torturing someone in eternity

Lex Fridman (1:01:03.820)

and they have like no body.

Grimes (1:01:05.540)

The way they describe it,

Lex Fridman (1:01:07.380)

it sort of sounds like what it feels like,

Grimes (1:01:09.200)

like being a baby, like you're conscious

Lex Fridman (1:01:11.340)

and you're just getting inputs from everywhere

Lex Fridman (1:01:13.420)

and you have no muscles and you're like jelly

Lex Fridman (1:01:15.220)

and you like can't move and you try to like communicate,

Lex Fridman (1:01:17.540)

but you can't communicate and we're,

Lex Fridman (1:01:18.940)

and like, you're just like in this like hell state.

Grimes (1:01:22.580)

I think it's good we can't remember that.

Lex Fridman (1:01:25.180)

Like my little baby is just exiting that,

Grimes (1:01:27.620)

like she's starting to like get muscles

Lex Fridman (1:01:29.100)

and have more like autonomy,

Lex Fridman (1:01:30.700)

but like watching her go through the opening phase,

Lex Fridman (1:01:34.160)

I was like, I was like, this does not seem good.

Grimes (1:01:37.700)

Oh, you think it's kind of like.

Lex Fridman (1:01:39.180)

Like I think it sucks.

Grimes (1:01:40.300)

I think it might be really violent.

Lex Fridman (1:01:41.780)

Like violent, mentally violent, psychologically violent.

Grimes (1:01:44.700)

Consciousness emerging, I think is a very violent thing.

Lex Fridman (1:01:47.460)

I never thought about that.

Grimes (1:01:48.300)

I think it's possible that we all carry

Lex Fridman (1:01:49.900)

quite a bit of trauma from it that we don't,

Grimes (1:01:52.000)

I think that would be a good thing to study

Lex Fridman (1:01:54.380)

because I think if, I think addressing that trauma,

Grimes (1:01:58.540)

like, I think that might be.

Lex Fridman (1:01:59.740)

Oh, you mean like echoes of it

Grimes (1:02:00.900)

are still there in the shadows somewhere.

Lex Fridman (1:02:01.740)

I think it's gotta be, I feel this, this help,

Grimes (1:02:04.220)

the helplessness, the like existential

Lex Fridman (1:02:06.940)

and that like fear of being in like an unknown place

Grimes (1:02:10.540)

bombarded with inputs and being completely helpless,

Lex Fridman (1:02:13.460)

like that's gotta be somewhere deep in your brain

Lex Fridman (1:02:15.680)

and that can't be good for you.

Lex Fridman (1:02:17.420)

What do you think consciousness is?

Grimes (1:02:19.500)

This whole conversation

Lex Fridman (1:02:20.980)

has impossibly difficult questions.

Lex Fridman (1:02:22.500)

What do you think it is?

Lex Fridman (1:02:23.340)

Debbie said this is like so hard.

Grimes (1:02:28.460)

Yeah, we talked about music for like two minutes.

Lex Fridman (1:02:30.700)

All right.

Grimes (1:02:31.540)

No, I'm so, I'm just over music.

Lex Fridman (1:02:32.700)

I'm over music.

Grimes (1:02:33.540)

Yeah, I still like it.

Lex Fridman (1:02:35.420)

It has its purpose.

Grimes (1:02:36.240)

No, I love music.

Lex Fridman (1:02:37.080)

I mean, music's the greatest thing ever.

Grimes (1:02:38.080)

It's my favorite thing.

Lex Fridman (1:02:38.920)

But I just like every interview is like,

Lex Fridman (1:02:42.340)

what is your process?

Lex Fridman (1:02:43.600)

Like, I don't know.

Grimes (1:02:44.440)

I'm just done.

Lex Fridman (1:02:45.260)

I can't do anything.

Grimes (1:02:46.100)

I do want to ask you about Able to Live.

Lex Fridman (1:02:46.940)

Oh, I'll tell you about Ableton

Grimes (1:02:47.780)

because Ableton's sick.

Lex Fridman (1:02:49.420)

No one has ever asked about Ableton though.

Grimes (1:02:51.700)

Yeah, well, because I just need tech support mainly.

Lex Fridman (1:02:54.260)

I can help you.

Grimes (1:02:55.100)

I can help you with your Ableton tech.

Lex Fridman (1:02:56.620)

Anyway, from Ableton back to consciousness.

Lex Fridman (1:02:58.940)

What do you, do you think this is a thing

Lex Fridman (1:03:00.620)

that only humans are capable of?

Lex Fridman (1:03:03.300)

Can robots be conscious?

Lex Fridman (1:03:05.380)

Can, like when you think about entities,

Lex Fridman (1:03:08.220)

you think there's aliens out there that are conscious?

Lex Fridman (1:03:10.220)

Like is conscious, what is consciousness?

Grimes (1:03:11.540)

There's this Terrence McKenna quote

Lex Fridman (1:03:13.300)

that I've found that I fucking love.

Lex Fridman (1:03:15.900)

Am I allowed to swear on here?

Lex Fridman (1:03:17.540)

Yes.

Grimes (1:03:18.360)

Nature loves courage.

Lex Fridman (1:03:21.140)

You make the commitment and nature will respond

Grimes (1:03:23.460)

to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles.

Lex Fridman (1:03:26.580)

Dream the impossible dream

Lex Fridman (1:03:28.060)

and the world will not grind you under.

Lex Fridman (1:03:29.920)

It will lift you up.

Grimes (1:03:31.120)

This is the trick.

Lex Fridman (1:03:32.380)

This is what all these teachers and philosophers

Grimes (1:03:35.160)

who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold,

Lex Fridman (1:03:38.400)

this is what they understood.

Grimes (1:03:40.100)

This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall.

Lex Fridman (1:03:42.860)

This is how magic is done.

Grimes (1:03:44.700)

By hurling yourself into the abyss

Lex Fridman (1:03:46.420)

and discovering it's a feather bed.

Grimes (1:03:48.620)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:03:49.920)

And for this reason,

Grimes (1:03:50.760)

I do think there are no technological limits.

Lex Fridman (1:03:55.400)

I think like what is already happening here,

Grimes (1:03:58.700)

this is like impossible.

Lex Fridman (1:03:59.880)

This is insane.

Lex Fridman (1:04:01.060)

And we've done this in a very limited amount of time.

Lex Fridman (1:04:03.340)

And we're accelerating the rate at which we're doing this.

Lex Fridman (1:04:05.900)

So I think digital consciousness, it's inevitable.

Lex Fridman (1:04:10.220)

And we may not be able to even understand what that means,

Lex Fridman (1:04:13.300)

but I like hurling yourself into the abyss.

Lex Fridman (1:04:15.780)

So we're surrounded by all this mystery

Lex Fridman (1:04:17.460)

and we just keep hurling ourselves into it,

Lex Fridman (1:04:19.780)

like fearlessly and keep discovering cool shit.

Grimes (1:04:22.940)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:04:23.900)

Like, I just think it's like,

Grimes (1:04:31.340)

like who even knows if the laws of physics,

Lex Fridman (1:04:32.980)

the laws of physics are probably just the current,

Grimes (1:04:35.580)

like as I was saying,

Lex Fridman (1:04:36.420)

speed of light is the current render rate.

Grimes (1:04:37.900)

It's like, if we're in a simulation,

Lex Fridman (1:04:40.220)

they'll be able to upgrade that.

Grimes (1:04:41.220)

Like I sort of suspect when we made the James Webb telescope,

Lex Fridman (1:04:45.660)

like part of the reason we made that

Lex Fridman (1:04:46.780)

is because we had an upgrade, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:04:50.180)

And so now more of space has been rendered

Lex Fridman (1:04:53.640)

so we can see more of it now.

Lex Fridman (1:04:56.740)

Yeah, but I think humans are super, super,

Grimes (1:04:58.860)

super limited cognitively.

Lex Fridman (1:05:00.420)

So I wonder if we'll be allowed to create

Grimes (1:05:04.740)

more intelligent beings that can see more of the universe

Lex Fridman (1:05:08.100)

as their render rate is upgraded.

Grimes (1:05:11.160)

Maybe we're cognitively limited.

Lex Fridman (1:05:12.660)

Everyone keeps talking about how we're cognitively limited

Lex Fridman (1:05:15.300)

and AI is gonna render us obsolete,

Lex Fridman (1:05:17.140)

but it's like, you know,

Grimes (1:05:20.340)

like this is not the same thing

Lex Fridman (1:05:21.800)

as like an amoeba becoming an alligator.

Grimes (1:05:26.020)

Like, it's like, if we create AI,

Lex Fridman (1:05:28.300)

again, that's intelligent design.

Grimes (1:05:29.820)

That's literally all religions are based on gods

Lex Fridman (1:05:33.160)

that create consciousness.

Grimes (1:05:34.460)

Like we are God making.

Lex Fridman (1:05:35.700)

Like what we are doing is incredibly profound.

Lex Fridman (1:05:37.860)

And like, even if we can't compute,

Lex Fridman (1:05:41.620)

even if we're so much worse than them,

Grimes (1:05:44.740)

like just like unfathomably worse than like,

Lex Fridman (1:05:49.460)

you know, an omnipotent kind of AI,

Grimes (1:05:51.980)

it's like we, I do not think that they would just think

Lex Fridman (1:05:55.300)

that we are stupid.

Grimes (1:05:56.420)

I think that they would recognize the profundity

Lex Fridman (1:05:58.420)

of what we have accomplished.

Lex Fridman (1:05:59.740)

Are we the gods or are they the gods in our personality?

Lex Fridman (1:06:02.700)

I mean, we're kind of the guy.

Grimes (1:06:05.460)

It's complicated.

Lex Fridman (1:06:06.300)

It's complicated.

Grimes (1:06:07.540)

Like we're.

Lex Fridman (1:06:08.380)

But they would acknowledge the value.

Grimes (1:06:11.540)

Well, I hope they acknowledge the value

Lex Fridman (1:06:13.540)

of paying respect to the creative ancestors.

Grimes (1:06:16.140)

I think they would think it's cool.

Lex Fridman (1:06:17.940)

I think if curiosity is a trait

Grimes (1:06:23.940)

that we can quantify and put into AI,

Lex Fridman (1:06:29.340)

then I think if AI are curious,

Grimes (1:06:31.740)

then they will be curious about us

Lex Fridman (1:06:33.620)

and they will not be hateful or dismissive of us.

Grimes (1:06:37.660)

They might, you know, see us as, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:06:41.060)

It's like, I'm not like, oh, fuck these dogs.

Grimes (1:06:43.580)

Let's just kill all the dogs.

Lex Fridman (1:06:45.500)

I love dogs.

Grimes (1:06:46.340)

Dogs have great utility.

Lex Fridman (1:06:47.660)

Dogs like provide a lot of.

Grimes (1:06:49.060)

We make friends with them.

Lex Fridman (1:06:50.460)

We have a deep connection with them.

Grimes (1:06:53.520)

We anthropomorphize them.

Lex Fridman (1:06:55.380)

Like we have a real love for dogs, for cats and so on

Grimes (1:06:58.860)

for some reason, even though they're intellectually

Lex Fridman (1:07:00.660)

much less than us.

Lex Fridman (1:07:01.500)

And I think there is something sacred about us

Lex Fridman (1:07:03.980)

because it's like, if you look at the universe,

Grimes (1:07:05.700)

like the whole universe is like cold and dead

Lex Fridman (1:07:09.020)

and sort of robotic.

Lex Fridman (1:07:09.980)

And it's like, you know, AI intelligence,

Lex Fridman (1:07:15.620)

you know, it's kind of more like the universe.

Grimes (1:07:18.980)

It's like cold and you know, logical

Lex Fridman (1:07:24.620)

and you know, abiding by the laws of physics and whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:07:28.780)

But like, we're this like loosey goosey,

Lex Fridman (1:07:31.980)

weird art thing that happened.

Lex Fridman (1:07:33.580)

And I think it's beautiful.

Lex Fridman (1:07:34.940)

And like, I think even if we, I think one of the values,

Grimes (1:07:40.300)

if consciousness is a thing that is most worth preserving,

Lex Fridman (1:07:47.180)

which I think is the case, I think consciousness,

Grimes (1:07:49.340)

I think if there's any kind of like religious

Lex Fridman (1:07:50.700)

or spiritual thing, it should be that consciousness

Grimes (1:07:54.860)

is sacred.

Lex Fridman (1:07:55.700)

Like, then, you know, I still think even if AI

Grimes (1:08:01.580)

render us obsolete and we, climate change, it's too bad

Lex Fridman (1:08:05.820)

and we get hit by a comet and we don't become

Grimes (1:08:07.420)

a multi planetary species fast enough,

Lex Fridman (1:08:09.500)

but like AI is able to populate the universe.

Grimes (1:08:12.300)

Like I imagine, like if I was an AI,

Lex Fridman (1:08:14.260)

I would find more planets that are capable

Grimes (1:08:17.860)

of hosting biological life forms and like recreate them.

Lex Fridman (1:08:20.660)

Because we're fun to watch.

Grimes (1:08:21.820)

Yeah, we're fun to watch.

Lex Fridman (1:08:23.340)

Yeah, but I do believe that AI can have some of the same

Grimes (1:08:26.140)

magic of consciousness within it.

Lex Fridman (1:08:29.900)

Because consciousness, we don't know what it is.

Grimes (1:08:31.420)

So, you know, there's some kind of.

Lex Fridman (1:08:33.020)

Or it might be a different magic.

Grimes (1:08:34.140)

It might be like a strange, a strange, different.

Lex Fridman (1:08:37.500)

Right.

Grimes (1:08:38.340)

Because they're not gonna have hormones.

Lex Fridman (1:08:39.340)

Like I feel like a lot of our magic is hormonal kind of.

Grimes (1:08:42.620)

I don't know, I think some of our magic

Lex Fridman (1:08:44.500)

is the limitations, the constraints.

Lex Fridman (1:08:46.500)

And within that, the hormones and all that kind of stuff,

Lex Fridman (1:08:48.780)

the finiteness of life, and then we get given

Grimes (1:08:51.460)

our limitations, we get to come up with creative solutions

Lex Fridman (1:08:54.740)

of how to dance around those limitations.

Grimes (1:08:56.780)

We partner up like penguins against the cold.

Lex Fridman (1:08:59.420)

We fall in love, and then love is ultimately

Grimes (1:09:03.340)

some kind of, allows us to delude ourselves

Lex Fridman (1:09:06.060)

that we're not mortal and finite,

Lex Fridman (1:09:08.500)

and that life is not ultimately, you live alone,

Lex Fridman (1:09:11.620)

you're born alone, you die alone.

Lex Fridman (1:09:13.780)

And then love is like for a moment

Lex Fridman (1:09:15.540)

or for a long time, forgetting that.

Lex Fridman (1:09:17.540)

And so we come up with all these creative hacks

Lex Fridman (1:09:20.340)

that make life like fascinatingly fun.

Grimes (1:09:25.980)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, fun, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:09:27.740)

And then AI might have different kinds of fun.

Grimes (1:09:30.260)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:09:31.300)

And hopefully our funs intersect once in a while.

Grimes (1:09:34.900)

I think there would be a little intersection

Lex Fridman (1:09:38.580)

of the fun.

Grimes (1:09:39.420)

Yeah. Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:09:40.420)

What do you think is the role of love

Lex Fridman (1:09:42.820)

in the human condition?

Lex Fridman (1:09:45.500)

I think.

Lex Fridman (1:09:46.500)

Why, is it useful?

Lex Fridman (1:09:47.620)

Is it useful like a hack, or is this like fundamental

Lex Fridman (1:09:51.540)

to what it means to be human, the capacity to love?

Lex Fridman (1:09:54.940)

I mean, I think love is the evolutionary mechanism

Grimes (1:09:58.100)

that is like beginning the intelligent design.

Lex Fridman (1:10:00.580)

Like I was just reading about,

Lex Fridman (1:10:04.140)

do you know about Kropotkin?

Lex Fridman (1:10:06.180)

He's like an anarchist, like old Russian anarchist.

Grimes (1:10:08.940)

I live next door to Michael Malice.

Lex Fridman (1:10:11.540)

I don't know if you know who that is.

Grimes (1:10:12.380)

He's an anarchist.

Lex Fridman (1:10:13.300)

He's a modern day anarchist.

Grimes (1:10:14.540)

Okay. Anarchists are fun.

Lex Fridman (1:10:15.780)

I'm kind of getting into anarchism a little bit.

Grimes (1:10:17.940)

This is probably not a good route to be taking, but.

Lex Fridman (1:10:22.380)

Oh no, I think if you're,

Grimes (1:10:23.900)

listen, you should expose yourself to ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:10:26.180)

There's no harm to thinking about ideas.

Grimes (1:10:28.540)

I think anarchists challenge systems in interesting ways,

Lex Fridman (1:10:32.460)

and they think in interesting ways.

Grimes (1:10:34.180)

It's just as good for the soul.

Lex Fridman (1:10:35.340)

It's like refreshes your mental palette.

Grimes (1:10:37.300)

I don't think we should actually,

Lex Fridman (1:10:38.940)

I wouldn't actually ascribe to it,

Lex Fridman (1:10:40.620)

but I've never actually gone deep on anarchy

Lex Fridman (1:10:42.900)

as a philosophy, so I'm doing.

Grimes (1:10:44.540)

You should still think about it though.

Lex Fridman (1:10:45.380)

When you read, when you listen,

Grimes (1:10:46.500)

because I'm reading about the Russian Revolution a lot,

Lex Fridman (1:10:48.300)

and there was the Soviets and Lenin and all that,

Lex Fridman (1:10:51.180)

but then there was Kropotkin and his anarchist sect,

Lex Fridman (1:10:53.700)

and they were sort of interesting

Grimes (1:10:54.820)

because he was kind of a technocrat actually.

Lex Fridman (1:10:57.140)

He was like, women can be more equal if we have appliances.

Grimes (1:11:01.220)

He was really into using technology

Lex Fridman (1:11:04.940)

to reduce the amount of work people had to do.

Lex Fridman (1:11:07.740)

But so Kropotkin was a biologist or something.

Lex Fridman (1:11:11.700)

He studied animals.

Lex Fridman (1:11:13.380)

And he was really at the time like,

Lex Fridman (1:11:17.180)

I think it's Nature magazine.

Grimes (1:11:20.660)

I think it might've even started as a Russian magazine,

Lex Fridman (1:11:22.660)

but he was publishing studies.

Grimes (1:11:23.860)

Everyone was really into Darwinism at the time

Lex Fridman (1:11:26.020)

and survival of the fittest,

Lex Fridman (1:11:27.060)

and war is the mechanism by which we become better.

Lex Fridman (1:11:30.380)

And it was this real cementing this idea in society

Grimes (1:11:36.500)

that violence kill the weak,

Lex Fridman (1:11:39.900)

and that's how we become better.

Lex Fridman (1:11:41.340)

And then Kropotkin was kind of interesting

Lex Fridman (1:11:43.060)

because he was looking at instances,

Grimes (1:11:45.580)

he was finding all these instances in nature

Lex Fridman (1:11:47.420)

where animals were like helping each other and stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:11:49.500)

And he was like, actually love is a survival mechanism.

Lex Fridman (1:11:53.540)

Like there's so many instances in the animal kingdom

Grimes (1:11:58.620)

where like cooperation and like helping weaker creatures

Lex Fridman (1:12:03.140)

and all this stuff is actually an evolutionary mechanism.

Grimes (1:12:06.100)

I mean, you even look at child rearing.

Lex Fridman (1:12:08.020)

Like child rearing is like immense amounts

Grimes (1:12:12.380)

of just love and goodwill.

Lex Fridman (1:12:14.420)

And just like, there's no immediate,

Grimes (1:12:20.060)

you're not getting any immediate feedback of like winning.

Lex Fridman (1:12:24.860)

It's not competitive.

Grimes (1:12:26.180)

It's literally, it's like we actually use love

Lex Fridman (1:12:28.500)

as an evolutionary mechanism just as much as we use war.

Lex Fridman (1:12:30.980)

And I think we've like missing the other part

Lex Fridman (1:12:34.020)

and we've reoriented, we've culturally reoriented

Grimes (1:12:37.300)

like science and philosophy has oriented itself

Lex Fridman (1:12:41.820)

around Darwinism a little bit too much.

Lex Fridman (1:12:43.980)

And the Kropotkin model, I think is equally valid.

Lex Fridman (1:12:48.500)

Like it's like cooperation and love and stuff

Grimes (1:12:54.340)

is just as essential for species survival and evolution.

Lex Fridman (1:12:58.900)

It should be a more powerful survival mechanism

Grimes (1:13:01.380)

in the context of evolution.

Lex Fridman (1:13:02.700)

And it comes back to like,

Grimes (1:13:04.500)

we think engineering is so much more important

Lex Fridman (1:13:06.660)

than motherhood, but it's like,

Grimes (1:13:08.820)

if you lose the motherhood, the engineering means nothing.

Lex Fridman (1:13:10.700)

We have no more humans.

Grimes (1:13:12.020)

It's like, I think our society should,

Lex Fridman (1:13:18.740)

the survival of the, the way we see,

Grimes (1:13:21.300)

we conceptualize evolution should really change

Lex Fridman (1:13:24.500)

to also include this idea, I guess.

Grimes (1:13:27.020)

Yeah, there's some weird thing that seems irrational

Lex Fridman (1:13:32.460)

that is also core to what it means to be human.

Lex Fridman (1:13:37.260)

So love is one such thing.

Lex Fridman (1:13:40.420)

They could make you do a lot of irrational things,

Lex Fridman (1:13:42.980)

but that depth of connection and that loyalty

Lex Fridman (1:13:46.100)

is a powerful thing.

Lex Fridman (1:13:47.300)

Are they irrational or are they rational?

Lex Fridman (1:13:49.260)

Like, it's like, is, you know, maybe losing out

Grimes (1:13:57.100)

on some things in order to like keep your family together

Lex Fridman (1:14:00.900)

or in order, like, it's like, what are our actual values?

Grimes (1:14:06.260)

Well, right, I mean, the rational thing is

Lex Fridman (1:14:08.780)

if you have a cold economist perspective,

Grimes (1:14:11.340)

you know, motherhood or sacrificing your career for love,

Lex Fridman (1:14:16.020)

you know, in terms of salary, in terms of economic wellbeing,

Grimes (1:14:20.620)

in terms of flourishing of you as a human being,

Lex Fridman (1:14:22.740)

that could be seen on some kind of metrics

Grimes (1:14:25.900)

as a irrational decision, suboptimal decision,

Lex Fridman (1:14:28.580)

but there's the manifestation of love

Grimes (1:14:34.220)

could be the optimal thing to do.

Lex Fridman (1:14:36.780)

There's a kind of saying, save one life, save the world.

Grimes (1:14:41.140)

That's the thing that doctors often face, which is like.

Lex Fridman (1:14:44.100)

Well, it's considered irrational

Grimes (1:14:45.140)

because the profit model doesn't include social good.

Lex Fridman (1:14:47.460)

Yes, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:14:48.580)

So if a profit model includes social good,

Lex Fridman (1:14:50.420)

then suddenly these would be rational decisions.

Grimes (1:14:52.220)

Might be difficult to, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:14:54.420)

it requires a shift in our thinking about profit

Lex Fridman (1:14:57.620)

and might be difficult to measure social good.

Lex Fridman (1:15:00.980)

Yes, but we're learning to measure a lot of things.

Grimes (1:15:04.500)

Yeah, digitizing a lot of things.

Lex Fridman (1:15:05.580)

Where we're actually, you know, quantifying vision and stuff.

Grimes (1:15:10.580)

Like we're like, you know, like you go on Facebook

Lex Fridman (1:15:14.580)

and they can, like Facebook can pretty much predict

Grimes (1:15:16.980)

our behaviors.

Lex Fridman (1:15:17.820)

Like we're, a surprising amount of things

Grimes (1:15:20.660)

that seem like mysterious consciousness soul things

Lex Fridman (1:15:25.900)

have been quantified at this point.

Lex Fridman (1:15:27.540)

So surely we can quantify these other things.

Lex Fridman (1:15:29.700)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:15:31.460)

But as more and more of us are moving the digital space,

Lex Fridman (1:15:34.220)

I wanted to ask you about something.

Grimes (1:15:35.860)

From a fan perspective, I kind of, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:15:40.220)

you as a musician, you as an online personality,

Grimes (1:15:43.580)

it seems like you have all these identities

Lex Fridman (1:15:45.500)

and you play with them.

Grimes (1:15:48.940)

One of the cool things about the internet,

Lex Fridman (1:15:51.140)

it seems like you can play with identities.

Lex Fridman (1:15:53.340)

So as we move into the digital world more and more,

Lex Fridman (1:15:56.100)

maybe even in the so called metaverse.

Grimes (1:15:59.180)

I mean, I love the metaverse and I love the idea,

Lex Fridman (1:16:01.220)

but like the way this has all played out didn't go well

Lex Fridman (1:16:09.980)

and people are mad about it.

Lex Fridman (1:16:11.020)

And I think we need to like.

Grimes (1:16:12.460)

I think that's temporary.

Lex Fridman (1:16:13.460)

I think it's temporary.

Grimes (1:16:14.500)

Just like, you know how all the celebrities got together

Lex Fridman (1:16:16.780)

and sang the song Imagine by Jeff Leonard

Lex Fridman (1:16:19.100)

and everyone started hating the song Imagine.

Lex Fridman (1:16:20.940)

I'm hoping that's temporary

Grimes (1:16:22.060)

because it's a damn good song.

Lex Fridman (1:16:24.380)

So I think it's just temporary.

Grimes (1:16:25.500)

Like once you actually have virtual worlds,

Lex Fridman (1:16:27.820)

whatever they're called metaverse or otherwise,

Grimes (1:16:29.940)

it becomes, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:16:31.420)

Well, we do have virtual worlds.

Grimes (1:16:32.500)

Like video games, Elden Ring.

Lex Fridman (1:16:34.460)

Have you played Elden Ring?

Lex Fridman (1:16:35.300)

You haven't played Elden Ring?

Lex Fridman (1:16:36.140)

I'm really afraid of playing that game.

Grimes (1:16:38.580)

Literally amazed.

Lex Fridman (1:16:39.420)

It looks way too fun.

Grimes (1:16:40.780)

It looks I would wanna go there and stay there forever.

Lex Fridman (1:16:45.020)

It's yeah, so fun.

Grimes (1:16:47.020)

It's so nice.

Lex Fridman (1:16:50.500)

Oh man, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:16:52.180)

So that's the, yeah, that's a metaverse.

Lex Fridman (1:16:54.500)

That's a metaverse, but you're not really,

Lex Fridman (1:16:57.460)

how immersive is it in the sense that,

Lex Fridman (1:17:02.820)

does the three dimension

Lex Fridman (1:17:03.940)

like virtual reality integration necessary?

Lex Fridman (1:17:06.060)

Can we really just take our, close our eyes

Lex Fridman (1:17:08.780)

and kind of plug in in the 2D screen

Lex Fridman (1:17:13.060)

and become that other being for time

Lex Fridman (1:17:15.780)

and really enjoy that journey that we take?

Lex Fridman (1:17:17.940)

And we almost become that.

Grimes (1:17:19.660)

You're no longer C, I'm no longer Lex,

Lex Fridman (1:17:22.100)

you're that creature, whatever the hell it is in that game.

Grimes (1:17:25.340)

Yeah, that is that.

Lex Fridman (1:17:26.180)

I mean, that's why I love those video games.

Grimes (1:17:29.220)

I really do become those people for a time.

Lex Fridman (1:17:33.100)

But like, it seems like with the idea of the metaverse,

Grimes (1:17:36.180)

the idea of the digital space,

Lex Fridman (1:17:37.900)

well, even on Twitter,

Grimes (1:17:39.500)

you get a chance to be somebody for prolonged periods of time

Lex Fridman (1:17:42.580)

like across a lifespan.

Grimes (1:17:44.540)

You know, you have a Twitter account for years, for decades

Lex Fridman (1:17:47.620)

and you're that person.

Grimes (1:17:48.460)

I don't know if that's a good thing.

Lex Fridman (1:17:49.660)

I feel very tormented by it.

Grimes (1:17:52.660)

By Twitter specifically.

Lex Fridman (1:17:54.300)

By social media representation of you.

Grimes (1:17:57.580)

I feel like the public perception of me

Lex Fridman (1:17:59.100)

has gotten so distorted that I find it kind of disturbing.

Grimes (1:18:04.420)

It's one of the things that's disincentivizing me

Lex Fridman (1:18:06.300)

from like wanting to keep making art

Grimes (1:18:07.900)

because I'm just like,

Lex Fridman (1:18:11.060)

I've completely lost control of the narrative.

Lex Fridman (1:18:13.740)

And the narrative is, some of it is my own stupidity,

Lex Fridman (1:18:16.820)

but a lot, like some of it has just been like hijacked

Grimes (1:18:19.260)

by forces far beyond my control.

Lex Fridman (1:18:23.100)

I kind of got in over my head in things.

Grimes (1:18:25.580)

Like I'm just a random Indian musician,

Lex Fridman (1:18:27.300)

but I just got like dragged into geopolitical matters

Lex Fridman (1:18:31.900)

and like financial, like the stock market and shit.

Lex Fridman (1:18:35.100)

And so it's just like, it's just,

Grimes (1:18:36.300)

there are very powerful people

Lex Fridman (1:18:37.700)

who have at various points in time

Grimes (1:18:39.660)

had very vested interest in making me seem insane

Lex Fridman (1:18:43.700)

and I can't fucking fight that.

Lex Fridman (1:18:45.620)

And I just like,

Lex Fridman (1:18:48.820)

people really want their celebrity figures

Grimes (1:18:50.780)

to like be consistent and stay the same.

Lex Fridman (1:18:53.860)

And like people have a lot of like emotional investment

Grimes (1:18:55.820)

in certain things.

Lex Fridman (1:18:56.660)

And like, first of all,

Grimes (1:18:59.700)

like I'm like artificially more famous than I should be.

Lex Fridman (1:19:03.700)

Isn't everybody who's famous artificially famous?

Grimes (1:19:06.620)

No, but like I should be like a weird niche indie thing.

Lex Fridman (1:19:11.340)

And I make pretty challenging,

Grimes (1:19:13.380)

I do challenging weird fucking shit a lot.

Lex Fridman (1:19:16.300)

And I accidentally by proxy got like foisted

Grimes (1:19:22.420)

into sort of like weird celebrity culture,

Lex Fridman (1:19:24.420)

but like I cannot be media trained.

Grimes (1:19:27.300)

They have put me through so many hours of media training.

Lex Fridman (1:19:29.820)

I would love to see BF fly in that wall.

Grimes (1:19:32.540)

I can't do, like when I do,

Lex Fridman (1:19:34.420)

I try so hard and I like learn this thing and I like got it.

Lex Fridman (1:19:37.420)

And I'm like, I got it, I got it, I got it.

Lex Fridman (1:19:38.740)

But I just can't stop saying,

Grimes (1:19:40.540)

like my mouth just says things like,

Lex Fridman (1:19:42.940)

and it's just like, and I just do, I just do things.

Grimes (1:19:45.340)

I just do crazy things.

Lex Fridman (1:19:46.580)

Like I'm, I just, I need to do crazy things.

Lex Fridman (1:19:50.740)

And it's just, I should not be,

Lex Fridman (1:19:53.100)

it's too jarring for people

Lex Fridman (1:19:56.580)

and the contradictory stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:19:59.700)

And then all the by association, like, you know,

Grimes (1:20:05.220)

it's like I'm in a very weird position and my public image,

Lex Fridman (1:20:09.900)

the avatar of me is now this totally crazy thing

Grimes (1:20:14.900)

that is so lost from my control.

Lex Fridman (1:20:16.580)

So you feel the burden of the avatar having to be static.

Lex Fridman (1:20:19.140)

So the avatar on Twitter or the avatar on Instagram

Lex Fridman (1:20:22.260)

on these social platforms is as a burden.

Grimes (1:20:26.740)

It becomes like, cause like people don't want to accept

Lex Fridman (1:20:30.340)

a changing avatar, a chaotic avatar.

Grimes (1:20:32.580)

Avatar is a stupid shit sometimes.

Lex Fridman (1:20:34.820)

They think the avatar is morally wrong

Grimes (1:20:36.460)

or they think the avatar, and maybe it has been,

Lex Fridman (1:20:39.540)

and like I question it all the time.

Grimes (1:20:41.100)

Like, I'm like, like, I don't know if everyone's right

Lex Fridman (1:20:46.300)

and I'm wrong.

Grimes (1:20:47.140)

I don't know, like, but you know, a lot of times

Lex Fridman (1:20:50.100)

people ascribe intentions to things,

Grimes (1:20:51.740)

the worst possible intentions.

Lex Fridman (1:20:53.660)

At this point, people think I'm, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:20:57.300)

but which is fine.

Lex Fridman (1:20:58.140)

All kinds of words, yes.

Grimes (1:20:58.980)

Yes, and it's fine.

Lex Fridman (1:21:00.460)

I'm not complaining about it, but I'm just,

Grimes (1:21:02.820)

it's a curiosity to me that we live these double, triple,

Lex Fridman (1:21:07.900)

quadruple lives and I have this other life

Grimes (1:21:10.340)

that is like more people know my other life

Lex Fridman (1:21:13.900)

than my real life, which is interesting.

Grimes (1:21:16.340)

Probably, I mean, you too, I guess, probably.

Lex Fridman (1:21:18.220)

Yeah, but I have the luxury.

Lex Fridman (1:21:20.100)

So we have all different, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:21:23.100)

like I don't know what I'm doing.

Grimes (1:21:25.140)

There is an avatar and you're mediating

Lex Fridman (1:21:27.820)

who you are through that avatar.

Grimes (1:21:29.940)

I have the nice luxury, not the luxury,

Lex Fridman (1:21:34.340)

maybe by intention of not trying really hard

Grimes (1:21:38.060)

to make sure there's no difference between the avatar

Lex Fridman (1:21:41.460)

and the private person.

Lex Fridman (1:21:44.020)

Do you wear a suit all the time?

Lex Fridman (1:21:45.620)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:21:46.620)

You do wear a suit?

Lex Fridman (1:21:47.740)

Not all the time.

Grimes (1:21:48.940)

Recently, because I get recognized a lot,

Lex Fridman (1:21:51.540)

I have to not wear the suit to hide.

Grimes (1:21:53.420)

I'm such an introvert, I'm such a social anxiety

Lex Fridman (1:21:55.820)

and all that kind of stuff, so I have to hide away.

Grimes (1:21:57.660)

I love wearing a suit because it makes me feel

Lex Fridman (1:22:00.580)

like I'm taking the moment seriously.

Grimes (1:22:02.380)

Like I'm, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:22:04.340)

It makes me feel like a weirdo in the best possible way.

Grimes (1:22:06.980)

Suits feel great, every time I wear a suit,

Lex Fridman (1:22:08.500)

I'm like, I don't know why I'm not doing this more.

Grimes (1:22:10.780)

Fashion in general, if you're doing it for yourself,

Lex Fridman (1:22:15.300)

I don't know, it's a really awesome thing.

Lex Fridman (1:22:18.660)

But yeah, I think there is definitely a painful way

Lex Fridman (1:22:24.620)

to use social media and an empowering way.

Lex Fridman (1:22:27.380)

And I don't know if any of us know which is which.

Lex Fridman (1:22:32.620)

So we're trying to figure that out.

Grimes (1:22:33.940)

Some people, I think Doja Cat is incredible at it.

Lex Fridman (1:22:36.780)

Incredible, like just masterful.

Grimes (1:22:39.540)

I don't know if you like follow that.

Lex Fridman (1:22:41.860)

So okay, so not taking anything seriously,

Grimes (1:22:44.780)

joking, absurd, humor, that kind of thing.

Lex Fridman (1:22:47.420)

I think Doja Cat might be like

Grimes (1:22:48.540)

the greatest living comedian right now.

Lex Fridman (1:22:52.080)

Like I'm more entertained by Doja Cat

Grimes (1:22:53.580)

than actual comedians.

Lex Fridman (1:22:56.220)

Like she's really fucking funny on the internet.

Grimes (1:22:58.900)

She's just great at social media.

Lex Fridman (1:23:00.220)

It's just, you know.

Grimes (1:23:02.220)

Yeah, the nature of humor, like humor on social media

Lex Fridman (1:23:05.500)

is also a beautiful thing, the absurdity.

Grimes (1:23:08.940)

The absurdity.

Lex Fridman (1:23:09.780)

And memes, like I just wanna like take a moment.

Grimes (1:23:12.700)

I love, like when we're talking about art

Lex Fridman (1:23:14.580)

and credit and authenticity, I love that there's this,

Grimes (1:23:18.180)

I mean now memes are like, they're no longer,

Lex Fridman (1:23:21.840)

like memes aren't like new,

Lex Fridman (1:23:23.640)

but it's still this emergent art form

Lex Fridman (1:23:25.580)

that is completely egoless and anonymous

Lex Fridman (1:23:27.720)

and we just don't know who made any of it.

Lex Fridman (1:23:29.480)

And it's like the forefront of comedy

Lex Fridman (1:23:32.560)

and it's just totally anonymous

Lex Fridman (1:23:35.420)

and it just feels really beautiful.

Grimes (1:23:36.620)

It just feels like this beautiful

Lex Fridman (1:23:38.380)

collective human art project

Grimes (1:23:43.260)

that's like this like decentralized comedy thing

Lex Fridman (1:23:46.420)

that just makes memes add so much to my day

Lex Fridman (1:23:48.860)

and many people's days.

Lex Fridman (1:23:49.860)

And it's just like, I don't know.

Grimes (1:23:52.120)

I don't think people ever,

Lex Fridman (1:23:54.860)

I don't think we stop enough

Lex Fridman (1:23:56.020)

and just appreciate how sick it is that memes exist.

Lex Fridman (1:23:59.860)

Because also making a whole brand new art form

Grimes (1:24:02.420)

in like the modern era that's like didn't exist before.

Lex Fridman (1:24:07.060)

Like, I mean they sort of existed,

Lex Fridman (1:24:08.520)

but the way that they exist now as like this like,

Lex Fridman (1:24:11.860)

you know, like me and my friends,

Grimes (1:24:13.240)

like we joke that we go like mining for memes

Lex Fridman (1:24:16.320)

or farming for memes, like a video game

Lex Fridman (1:24:18.620)

and like meme dealers and like whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:24:21.100)

Like it's, you know, it's this whole,

Grimes (1:24:22.740)

memes are this whole like new comedic language.

Lex Fridman (1:24:27.920)

Well, it's this art form.

Grimes (1:24:29.260)

The interesting thing about it is that

Lex Fridman (1:24:31.260)

lame people seem to not be good at memes.

Grimes (1:24:35.380)

Like corporate can't infiltrate memes.

Lex Fridman (1:24:38.180)

Yeah, they really can't.

Grimes (1:24:39.860)

They try, they could try.

Lex Fridman (1:24:41.460)

But it's like, it's weird cause like.

Grimes (1:24:43.340)

They try so hard and every once in a while,

Lex Fridman (1:24:45.560)

I'm like fine, like you got a good one.

Grimes (1:24:48.660)

I think I've seen like one or two good ones,

Lex Fridman (1:24:51.420)

but like, yeah, they really can't.

Grimes (1:24:53.340)

Cause they're even, corporate is infiltrating web three.

Lex Fridman (1:24:55.500)

It's making me really sad,

Lex Fridman (1:24:57.140)

but they can't infiltrate the memes.

Lex Fridman (1:24:58.660)

And I think there's something really beautiful about that.

Grimes (1:25:00.100)

That gives power, that's why Dogecoin is powerful.

Lex Fridman (1:25:03.580)

It's like, all right, I'm gonna F you

Grimes (1:25:05.880)

to sort of anybody who's trying to centralize,

Lex Fridman (1:25:08.820)

is trying to control the rich people

Grimes (1:25:10.420)

that are trying to roll in and control this,

Lex Fridman (1:25:12.720)

control the narrative.

Grimes (1:25:14.220)

Wow, I hadn't thought about that, but.

Lex Fridman (1:25:17.220)

How would you fix Twitter?

Lex Fridman (1:25:18.520)

How would you fix social media for your own?

Lex Fridman (1:25:21.680)

Like you're an optimist, you're a positive person.

Grimes (1:25:25.220)

There's a bit of a cynicism that you have currently

Lex Fridman (1:25:27.500)

about this particular little slice of humanity.

Grimes (1:25:30.700)

I tend to think Twitter could be beautiful.

Lex Fridman (1:25:32.700)

I'm not that cynical about it.

Grimes (1:25:34.060)

I'm not that cynical about it.

Lex Fridman (1:25:35.140)

I actually refuse to be a cynic on principle.

Grimes (1:25:37.700)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:25:38.540)

I was just briefly expressing some personal pathos.

Grimes (1:25:41.140)

Personal stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:25:42.140)

It was just some personal pathos, but like, like.

Grimes (1:25:45.900)

Just to vent a little bit, just to speak.

Lex Fridman (1:25:48.060)

I don't have cancer, I love my family.

Grimes (1:25:50.860)

I have a good life.

Lex Fridman (1:25:51.980)

That is, if that is my biggest,

Grimes (1:25:55.380)

one of my biggest problems.

Lex Fridman (1:25:56.220)

Then it's a good life.

Grimes (1:25:57.180)

Yeah, you know, that was a brief,

Lex Fridman (1:25:59.860)

although I do think there are a lot of issues with Twitter

Grimes (1:26:01.380)

just in terms of like the public mental health,

Lex Fridman (1:26:03.180)

but due to my proximity to the current dramas,

Grimes (1:26:10.500)

I honestly feel that I should not have opinions about this

Lex Fridman (1:26:13.820)

because I think

Grimes (1:26:17.820)

that if Elon ends up getting Twitter,

Lex Fridman (1:26:28.380)

that is a, being the arbiter of truth or public discussion,

Grimes (1:26:33.180)

that is a responsibility.

Lex Fridman (1:26:36.260)

I do not, I am not qualified to be responsible for that.

Lex Fridman (1:26:41.260)

And I do not want to say something

Lex Fridman (1:26:45.260)

that might like dismantle democracy.

Lex Fridman (1:26:48.340)

And so I just like, actually,

Lex Fridman (1:26:49.780)

I actually think I should not have opinions about this

Grimes (1:26:52.140)

because I truly am not,

Lex Fridman (1:26:55.100)

I don't want to have the wrong opinion about this.

Lex Fridman (1:26:56.740)

And I think I'm too close to the actual situation

Lex Fridman (1:27:00.180)

wherein I should not have, I have thoughts in my brain,

Lex Fridman (1:27:04.300)

but I think I am scared by my proximity to this situation.

Lex Fridman (1:27:09.620)

Isn't that crazy that a few words that you could say

Lex Fridman (1:27:14.620)

could change world affairs and hurt people?

Lex Fridman (1:27:18.780)

I mean, that's the nature of celebrity at a certain point

Grimes (1:27:22.980)

that you have to be, you have to a little bit, a little bit,

Lex Fridman (1:27:27.140)

not so much that it destroys you or puts too much constraints,

Lex Fridman (1:27:30.540)

but you have to a little bit think about

Lex Fridman (1:27:32.620)

the impact of your words.

Grimes (1:27:33.940)

I mean, we as humans, you talk to somebody at a bar,

Lex Fridman (1:27:36.660)

you have to think about the impact of your words.

Grimes (1:27:39.100)

Like you can say positive things,

Lex Fridman (1:27:40.340)

you can say negative things,

Grimes (1:27:41.500)

you can affect the direction of one life.

Lex Fridman (1:27:43.340)

But on social media, your words can affect

Grimes (1:27:45.260)

the direction of many lives.

Lex Fridman (1:27:48.060)

That's crazy.

Grimes (1:27:48.900)

It's a crazy world to live in.

Lex Fridman (1:27:50.420)

It's worthwhile to consider that responsibility,

Grimes (1:27:52.980)

take it seriously.

Lex Fridman (1:27:54.100)

Sometimes just like you did choose kind of silence,

Grimes (1:28:00.740)

choose sort of respectful.

Lex Fridman (1:28:03.580)

Like I do have a lot of thoughts on the matter.

Grimes (1:28:05.260)

I'm just, I don't, if my thoughts are wrong,

Lex Fridman (1:28:10.100)

this is one situation where the stakes are high.

Grimes (1:28:12.820)

You mentioned a while back that you were in a cult

Lex Fridman (1:28:15.740)

that's centered around bureaucracy,

Lex Fridman (1:28:17.260)

so you can't really do anything

Lex Fridman (1:28:18.460)

because it involves a lot of paperwork.

Lex Fridman (1:28:20.460)

And I really love a cult that's just like Kafkaesque.

Lex Fridman (1:28:24.700)

Yes.

Grimes (1:28:25.740)

Just like.

Lex Fridman (1:28:26.580)

I mean, it was like a joke, but it was.

Grimes (1:28:27.660)

I know, but I love this idea.

Lex Fridman (1:28:29.300)

The Holy Rain Empire.

Grimes (1:28:30.420)

Yeah, it was just like a Kafkaesque pro bureaucracy cult.

Lex Fridman (1:28:34.860)

But I feel like that's what human civilization is,

Grimes (1:28:36.820)

is that, because when you said that, I was like,

Lex Fridman (1:28:38.500)

oh, that is kind of what humanity is,

Grimes (1:28:40.620)

is this bureaucracy cult.

Lex Fridman (1:28:41.660)

I do, yeah, I have this theory.

Grimes (1:28:45.620)

I really think that we really,

Lex Fridman (1:28:50.700)

bureaucracy is starting to kill us.

Lex Fridman (1:28:53.580)

And I think like we need to reorient laws and stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:28:59.540)

Like, I think we just need sunset clauses on everything.

Grimes (1:29:01.940)

Like, I think the rate of change in culture

Lex Fridman (1:29:04.580)

is happening so fast and the rate of change in technology

Lex Fridman (1:29:06.660)

and everything is happening so fast.

Lex Fridman (1:29:07.900)

It's like, when you see these hearings

Grimes (1:29:10.780)

about like social media and Cambridge Analytica

Lex Fridman (1:29:15.820)

and everyone talking, it's like, even from that point,

Lex Fridman (1:29:19.180)

so much technological change has happened

Lex Fridman (1:29:21.380)

from like those hearings.

Lex Fridman (1:29:22.740)

And it's just like, we're trying to make all these laws now

Lex Fridman (1:29:24.860)

about AI and stuff.

Grimes (1:29:25.940)

I feel like we should be updating things

Lex Fridman (1:29:27.380)

like every five years.

Lex Fridman (1:29:28.380)

And like one of the big issues in our society right now

Lex Fridman (1:29:30.140)

is we're just getting bogged down by laws

Lex Fridman (1:29:32.260)

and it's making it very hard to change things

Lex Fridman (1:29:37.020)

and develop things.

Grimes (1:29:37.860)

In Austin, I don't wanna speak on this too much,

Lex Fridman (1:29:41.500)

but like one of my friends is working on a housing bill

Grimes (1:29:43.220)

in Austin to try to like prevent

Lex Fridman (1:29:45.020)

like a San Francisco situation from happening here

Grimes (1:29:47.180)

because obviously we're getting a little mini San Francisco

Lex Fridman (1:29:49.940)

here, like housing prices are skyrocketing,

Grimes (1:29:52.140)

it's causing massive gentrification.

Lex Fridman (1:29:54.740)

This is really bad for anyone who's not super rich.

Grimes (1:29:59.180)

Like, there's so much bureaucracy.

Lex Fridman (1:30:00.860)

Part of the reason this is happening

Grimes (1:30:01.900)

is because you need all these permits to build.

Lex Fridman (1:30:04.020)

It takes like years to get permits to like build anything.

Grimes (1:30:06.460)

It's so hard to build and so there's very limited housing

Lex Fridman (1:30:09.100)

and there's a massive influx of people.

Lex Fridman (1:30:10.900)

And it's just like, you know, this is a microcosm

Lex Fridman (1:30:13.460)

of like problems that are happening all over the world

Grimes (1:30:15.540)

where it's just like, we're dealing with laws

Lex Fridman (1:30:18.780)

that are like 10, 20, 30, 40, 100, 200 years old

Lex Fridman (1:30:22.340)

and they are no longer relevant

Lex Fridman (1:30:24.100)

and it's just slowing everything down

Lex Fridman (1:30:25.660)

and causing massive social pain.

Lex Fridman (1:30:29.100)

Yeah, but it's like, it's also makes me sad

Grimes (1:30:32.820)

when I see politicians talk about technology

Lex Fridman (1:30:35.740)

and when they don't really get it.

Lex Fridman (1:30:38.420)

But most importantly, they lack curiosity

Lex Fridman (1:30:41.140)

and like that like inspired excitement

Grimes (1:30:44.780)

about like how stuff works and all that stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:30:46.580)

They're just like, they see,

Grimes (1:30:47.780)

they have a very cynical view of technology.

Lex Fridman (1:30:50.140)

It's like tech companies are just trying to do evil

Grimes (1:30:52.180)

on the world from their perspective

Lex Fridman (1:30:53.540)

and they have no curiosity about like

Lex Fridman (1:30:55.860)

how recommender systems work or how AI systems work,

Lex Fridman (1:30:59.820)

natural language processing, how robotics works,

Lex Fridman (1:31:02.700)

how computer vision works, you know.

Lex Fridman (1:31:05.860)

They always take the most cynical possible interpretation

Grimes (1:31:08.660)

of what technology would be used

Lex Fridman (1:31:09.860)

and we should definitely be concerned about that

Lex Fridman (1:31:11.660)

but if you're constantly worried about that

Lex Fridman (1:31:13.780)

and you're regulating based on that,

Grimes (1:31:15.020)

you're just going to slow down all the innovation.

Lex Fridman (1:31:16.980)

I do think a huge priority right now

Grimes (1:31:19.420)

is undoing the bad energy

Lex Fridman (1:31:25.740)

surrounding the emergence of Silicon Valley.

Grimes (1:31:28.060)

Like I think that like a lot of things

Lex Fridman (1:31:30.020)

were very irresponsible during that time

Lex Fridman (1:31:31.820)

and you know, like even just this current whole thing

Lex Fridman (1:31:36.140)

with Twitter and everything,

Grimes (1:31:36.980)

it's like there has been a lot of negative outcomes

Lex Fridman (1:31:39.980)

from the sort of technocracy boom

Lex Fridman (1:31:44.260)

but one of the things that's happening

Lex Fridman (1:31:46.060)

is that like it's alienating people

Grimes (1:31:49.100)

from wanting to care about technology

Lex Fridman (1:31:52.340)

and I actually think technology is probably

Grimes (1:31:56.020)

some of the better, probably the best.

Lex Fridman (1:31:58.900)

I think we can fix a lot of our problems

Grimes (1:32:01.620)

more easily with technology

Lex Fridman (1:32:03.220)

than with you know, fighting the powers that be

Grimes (1:32:07.100)

as a you know, not to go back to the Star Wars quote

Lex Fridman (1:32:09.700)

or the Buckminster Fuller quote.

Grimes (1:32:11.300)

Let's go to some dark questions.

Lex Fridman (1:32:14.700)

If we may for time, what is the darkest place

Lex Fridman (1:32:17.860)

you've ever gone in your mind?

Lex Fridman (1:32:20.220)

Is there a time, a period of time, a moment

Lex Fridman (1:32:23.860)

that you remember that was difficult for you?

Lex Fridman (1:32:29.580)

I mean, when I was 18,

Grimes (1:32:30.460)

my best friend died of a heroin overdose

Lex Fridman (1:32:33.460)

and it was like my,

Lex Fridman (1:32:38.300)

and then shortly after that,

Lex Fridman (1:32:39.780)

one of my other best friends committed suicide

Lex Fridman (1:32:44.700)

and that sort of like coming into adulthood,

Lex Fridman (1:32:48.620)

dealing with two of the most important people in my life

Grimes (1:32:51.140)

dying in extremely disturbing violent ways

Lex Fridman (1:32:53.140)

was a lot.

Grimes (1:32:55.860)

That was a lot.

Lex Fridman (1:32:56.700)

Do you miss them?

Grimes (1:32:58.340)

Yeah, definitely miss them.

Lex Fridman (1:32:59.860)

Did that make you think about your own life?

Lex Fridman (1:33:02.660)

About the finiteness of your own life?

Lex Fridman (1:33:04.860)

The places your mind can go?

Grimes (1:33:08.100)

Did you ever in the distance, far away

Lex Fridman (1:33:10.860)

contemplate just your own death?

Lex Fridman (1:33:15.380)

Or maybe even taking your own life?

Lex Fridman (1:33:17.220)

Oh never, oh no.

Grimes (1:33:18.660)

I'm so, I love my life.

Lex Fridman (1:33:20.380)

I cannot fathom suicide.

Grimes (1:33:23.060)

I'm so scared of death.

Lex Fridman (1:33:24.100)

I haven't, I'm too scared of death.

Grimes (1:33:25.980)

My manager, my manager's like the most Zen guy.

Lex Fridman (1:33:28.740)

My manager's always like, you need to accept death.

Grimes (1:33:31.060)

You need to accept death.

Lex Fridman (1:33:32.060)

And I'm like, look, I can do your meditation.

Grimes (1:33:34.180)

I can do the meditation, but I cannot accept death.

Lex Fridman (1:33:37.300)

I like, I will fight, I'm terrified of death.

Grimes (1:33:40.340)

I will like fight.

Lex Fridman (1:33:42.740)

Although I actually think death is important.

Grimes (1:33:45.060)

I recently went to this meeting about immortality

Lex Fridman (1:33:50.020)

and in the process of.

Lex Fridman (1:33:51.500)

That's the actual topic of the meeting?

Lex Fridman (1:33:53.300)

I'm sorry.

Grimes (1:33:54.140)

No, no, it was this girl.

Lex Fridman (1:33:54.980)

It was a bunch of people working on like anti aging stuff.

Grimes (1:33:58.940)

It was like some like seminary thing about it.

Lex Fridman (1:34:01.980)

And I went in really excited.

Lex Fridman (1:34:03.300)

I was like, yeah, like, okay, like, what do you got?

Lex Fridman (1:34:05.180)

Like, how can I live for 500 years or a thousand years?

Lex Fridman (1:34:07.860)

And then like over the course of the meeting,

Lex Fridman (1:34:10.620)

like it was sort of like, right.

Grimes (1:34:11.940)

It was like two or three days

Lex Fridman (1:34:13.140)

after the Russian invasion started.

Lex Fridman (1:34:14.580)

And I was like, man, like, what if Putin was immortal?

Lex Fridman (1:34:17.300)

Like, what if I'm like, man, maybe immortality,

Grimes (1:34:20.900)

is not good.

Lex Fridman (1:34:23.620)

I mean, like if you get into the later Dune stuff,

Grimes (1:34:25.740)

the immortals cause a lot of problem.

Lex Fridman (1:34:29.020)

Cause as we were talking about earlier with the music

Lex Fridman (1:34:30.980)

and like brains calcify, like good people

Lex Fridman (1:34:34.740)

could become immortal, but bad people could become immortal.

Lex Fridman (1:34:36.900)

But I also think even the best people power corrupts

Lex Fridman (1:34:43.340)

and power alienates you from like the common human experience

Grimes (1:34:46.740)

and.

Lex Fridman (1:34:47.580)

Right, so the people that get more and more powerful.

Grimes (1:34:49.100)

Even the best people who like, whose brains are amazing,

Lex Fridman (1:34:52.220)

like I think death might be important.

Grimes (1:34:54.780)

I think death is part of, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:34:57.380)

like I think with AI one thing we might want to consider,

Grimes (1:35:01.020)

I don't know, when I talk about AI,

Lex Fridman (1:35:02.420)

I'm such not an expert and probably everyone has

Grimes (1:35:04.540)

all these ideas and they're already figured out.

Lex Fridman (1:35:06.220)

But when I was talking.

Grimes (1:35:07.060)

Nobody is an expert in anything.

Lex Fridman (1:35:08.540)

See, okay, go ahead.

Lex Fridman (1:35:09.900)

But when I.

Lex Fridman (1:35:10.740)

You were talking about.

Grimes (1:35:11.580)

Yeah, but I like, it's just like,

Lex Fridman (1:35:13.180)

I think some kind of pruning.

Lex Fridman (1:35:16.100)

But it's a tricky thing because if there's too much

Lex Fridman (1:35:20.140)

of a focus on youth culture, then you don't have the wisdom.

Lex Fridman (1:35:25.460)

So I feel like we're in a tricky,

Lex Fridman (1:35:27.740)

we're in a tricky moment right now in society

Grimes (1:35:30.300)

where it's like, we've really perfected living

Lex Fridman (1:35:32.460)

for a long time.

Lex Fridman (1:35:33.300)

So there's all these really like old people

Lex Fridman (1:35:35.780)

who are like really voting against the wellbeing

Lex Fridman (1:35:39.540)

of the young people, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:35:41.540)

And like, it's like there shouldn't be all this student dead

Lex Fridman (1:35:45.180)

and we need like healthcare, like universal healthcare

Lex Fridman (1:35:48.540)

and like just voting against like best interests.

Lex Fridman (1:35:52.460)

But then you have all these young people

Lex Fridman (1:35:53.660)

that don't have the wisdom that are like,

Grimes (1:35:55.980)

yeah, we need communism and stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:35:57.620)

And it's just like, like literally I got canceled

Grimes (1:36:00.740)

at one point for, I ironically used a Stalin quote

Lex Fridman (1:36:04.980)

in my high school yearbook, but it was actually like a diss

Grimes (1:36:08.420)

against my high school.

Lex Fridman (1:36:09.620)

I saw that.

Grimes (1:36:10.460)

Yeah, and people were like, you used to be a Stalinist

Lex Fridman (1:36:13.180)

and now you're a class traitor and it's like,

Grimes (1:36:15.860)

it's like, oh man, just like, please Google Stalin.

Lex Fridman (1:36:19.260)

Please Google Stalin.

Grimes (1:36:20.500)

Like, you know.

Lex Fridman (1:36:21.340)

Ignoring the lessons of history, yes.

Lex Fridman (1:36:23.980)

And it's like, we're in this really weird middle ground

Lex Fridman (1:36:26.100)

where it's like, we are not finding the happy medium

Grimes (1:36:31.220)

between wisdom and fresh ideas

Lex Fridman (1:36:34.700)

and they're fighting each other.

Lex Fridman (1:36:35.900)

And it's like, like really, like what we need is like

Lex Fridman (1:36:40.900)

the fresh ideas and the wisdom to be like collaborating.

Lex Fridman (1:36:43.860)

And it's like.

Lex Fridman (1:36:45.140)

What the fighting in a way is the searching

Grimes (1:36:47.300)

for the happy medium.

Lex Fridman (1:36:48.500)

And in a way, maybe we are finding the happy medium.

Grimes (1:36:51.020)

Maybe that's what the happy medium looks like.

Lex Fridman (1:36:52.940)

And for AI systems, there has to be,

Grimes (1:36:54.980)

it's, you know, you have the reinforcement learning,

Lex Fridman (1:36:57.140)

you have the dance between exploration and exploitation,

Grimes (1:37:00.340)

sort of doing crazy stuff to see if there's something better

Lex Fridman (1:37:03.380)

than what you think is the optimal

Lex Fridman (1:37:05.420)

and then doing the optimal thing

Lex Fridman (1:37:06.620)

and dancing back and forth from that.

Grimes (1:37:08.620)

You would, Stuart Russell, I don't know if you know that,

Lex Fridman (1:37:10.660)

is AI guy with, thinks about sort of

Lex Fridman (1:37:15.820)

how to control super intelligent AI systems.

Lex Fridman (1:37:18.580)

And his idea is that we should inject uncertainty

Lex Fridman (1:37:21.500)

and sort of humility into AI systems that they never,

Lex Fridman (1:37:24.980)

as they get wiser and wiser and wiser and more intelligent,

Grimes (1:37:28.100)

they're never really sure.

Lex Fridman (1:37:30.020)

They always doubt themselves.

Lex Fridman (1:37:31.620)

And in some sense, when you think of young people,

Lex Fridman (1:37:34.340)

that's a mechanism for doubt.

Grimes (1:37:36.300)

It's like, it's how society doubts

Lex Fridman (1:37:38.860)

whether the thing it has converged towards

Grimes (1:37:40.860)

is the right answer.

Lex Fridman (1:37:41.940)

So the voices of the young people

Grimes (1:37:44.860)

is a society asking itself a question.

Lex Fridman (1:37:48.140)

The way I've been doing stuff for the past 50 years,

Grimes (1:37:51.100)

maybe it's the wrong way.

Lex Fridman (1:37:52.460)

And so you can have all of that within one AI system.

Grimes (1:37:55.340)

I also think, though, that we need to,

Lex Fridman (1:37:57.460)

I mean, actually, that's actually really interesting

Lex Fridman (1:37:59.900)

and really cool.

Lex Fridman (1:38:01.820)

But I also think there's a fine balance of,

Grimes (1:38:04.500)

I think we maybe also overvalue the idea

Lex Fridman (1:38:09.500)

that the old systems are always bad.

Lex Fridman (1:38:11.180)

And I think there are things that we are perfecting

Lex Fridman (1:38:14.140)

and we might be accidentally overthrowing things

Grimes (1:38:16.780)

that we actually have gotten to a good point.

Lex Fridman (1:38:19.060)

Just because we value disruption so much

Lex Fridman (1:38:22.180)

and we value fighting against the generations

Lex Fridman (1:38:24.780)

before us so much that there's also an aspect of,

Grimes (1:38:29.980)

sometimes we're taking two steps forward, one step back

Lex Fridman (1:38:32.100)

because, okay, maybe we kind of did solve this thing

Lex Fridman (1:38:36.300)

and now we're like fucking it up, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:38:38.500)

And so I think there's like a middle ground there too.

Grimes (1:38:44.300)

Yeah, we're in search of that happy medium.

Lex Fridman (1:38:46.700)

Let me ask you a bunch of crazy questions, okay?

Grimes (1:38:49.780)

All right.

Lex Fridman (1:38:50.900)

You can answer in a short way or in a long way.

Lex Fridman (1:38:53.340)

What's the scariest thing you've ever done?

Lex Fridman (1:38:55.700)

These questions are gonna be ridiculous.

Grimes (1:38:57.780)

Something tiny or something big.

Lex Fridman (1:39:00.780)

Something big, skydiving or touring your first record,

Grimes (1:39:09.860)

going on this podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:39:12.100)

I've had two crazy brushes, like really scary brushes

Grimes (1:39:14.740)

with death where I randomly got away on scay.

Lex Fridman (1:39:16.980)

I don't know if I should talk about those on here.

Grimes (1:39:19.180)

Well, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:39:20.020)

I think I might be the luckiest person alive though.

Grimes (1:39:22.820)

Like this might be too dark for a podcast though.

Lex Fridman (1:39:25.980)

I feel like, I don't know if this is like good content

Grimes (1:39:27.820)

for a podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:39:28.700)

I don't know what is good content.

Grimes (1:39:30.220)

It might hijack.

Lex Fridman (1:39:31.580)

Here's a safer one.

Grimes (1:39:32.420)

I mean, having a baby really scared me.

Lex Fridman (1:39:36.740)

Before.

Grimes (1:39:37.580)

Just the birth process.

Lex Fridman (1:39:38.900)

Surgery, like just having a baby is really scary.

Lex Fridman (1:39:45.940)

So just like the medical aspect of it,

Lex Fridman (1:39:47.540)

not the responsibility.

Lex Fridman (1:39:49.300)

Were you ready for the responsibility?

Lex Fridman (1:39:51.300)

Did you, were you ready to be a mother?

Grimes (1:39:53.980)

All the beautiful things that comes with motherhood

Lex Fridman (1:39:56.260)

that you were talking about.

Lex Fridman (1:39:57.580)

All the changes and all that, were you ready for that?

Lex Fridman (1:40:01.060)

Or did you feel ready for that?

Grimes (1:40:02.980)

No, I think it took about nine months

Lex Fridman (1:40:05.340)

to start getting ready for it.

Lex Fridman (1:40:06.580)

And I'm still getting more ready for it

Lex Fridman (1:40:08.380)

because now you keep realizing more things

Grimes (1:40:12.980)

as they start getting.

Lex Fridman (1:40:14.220)

As the consciousness grows.

Lex Fridman (1:40:16.420)

And stuff you didn't notice with the first one,

Lex Fridman (1:40:18.380)

now that you've seen the first one older,

Grimes (1:40:19.700)

you're noticing it more.

Lex Fridman (1:40:21.720)

Like the sort of like existential horror

Grimes (1:40:24.420)

of coming into consciousness with Baby Y

Lex Fridman (1:40:28.340)

or Baby Sailor Mars or whatever.

Grimes (1:40:30.220)

She has like so many names at this point

Lex Fridman (1:40:31.500)

that it's, we really need to probably settle on one.

Grimes (1:40:36.140)

If you could be someone else for a day,

Lex Fridman (1:40:38.340)

someone alive today, but somebody you haven't met yet,

Lex Fridman (1:40:41.820)

who would you be?

Lex Fridman (1:40:42.660)

Would I be modeling their brain state

Lex Fridman (1:40:44.240)

or would I just be in their body?

Lex Fridman (1:40:46.400)

You can choose the degree

Grimes (1:40:48.380)

to which you're modeling their brain state.

Lex Fridman (1:40:50.580)

Cause you can still take a third person perspective

Lex Fridman (1:40:54.300)

and realize, you have to realize that you're.

Lex Fridman (1:40:56.620)

Can they be alive or can it be dead?

Grimes (1:41:00.540)

No, oh.

Lex Fridman (1:41:02.780)

They would be brought back to life, right?

Grimes (1:41:04.420)

If they're dead.

Lex Fridman (1:41:05.260)

Yeah, you can bring people back.

Grimes (1:41:07.100)

Definitely Hitler or Stalin.

Lex Fridman (1:41:09.260)

I wanna understand evil.

Grimes (1:41:12.060)

You would need to, oh, to experience what it feels like.

Lex Fridman (1:41:15.020)

I wanna be in their brain feeling what they feel.

Grimes (1:41:18.220)

I might change you forever returning from that.

Lex Fridman (1:41:20.860)

Yes, but I think it would also help me understand

Lex Fridman (1:41:22.940)

how to prevent it and fix it.

Lex Fridman (1:41:25.380)

That might be one of those things,

Grimes (1:41:26.580)

once you experience it, it'll be a burden to know it.

Lex Fridman (1:41:29.940)

Cause you won't be able to transfer that.

Grimes (1:41:30.780)

Yeah, but a lot of things are burdens.

Lex Fridman (1:41:33.820)

But it's a useful burden.

Lex Fridman (1:41:34.780)

But it's a useful burden, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:41:36.580)

That for sure, I wanna understand evil

Lex Fridman (1:41:39.260)

and psychopathy and that.

Lex Fridman (1:41:42.020)

I have all these fake Twitter accounts

Grimes (1:41:43.340)

where I go into different algorithmic bubbles

Lex Fridman (1:41:45.580)

to try to understand.

Grimes (1:41:47.380)

I'll keep getting in fights with people

Lex Fridman (1:41:48.740)

and realize we're not actually fighting.

Grimes (1:41:50.660)

I think we used to exist in a monoculture

Lex Fridman (1:41:53.180)

before social media and stuff.

Grimes (1:41:54.860)

We kinda all got fed the same thing.

Lex Fridman (1:41:56.460)

So we were all speaking the same cultural language.

Lex Fridman (1:41:58.700)

But I think recently, one of the things

Lex Fridman (1:42:00.140)

that we aren't diagnosing properly enough with social media

Grimes (1:42:03.100)

is that there's different dialects.

Lex Fridman (1:42:05.500)

There's so many different dialects of Chinese.

Grimes (1:42:06.900)

There are now becoming different dialects of English.

Lex Fridman (1:42:09.580)

I am realizing there are people

Grimes (1:42:11.780)

who are saying the exact same things,

Lex Fridman (1:42:13.540)

but they're using completely different verbiage.

Lex Fridman (1:42:15.980)

And we're punishing each other

Lex Fridman (1:42:17.340)

for not using the correct verbiage.

Lex Fridman (1:42:18.900)

And we're completely misunderstanding.

Lex Fridman (1:42:20.620)

People are just misunderstanding

Lex Fridman (1:42:22.020)

what the other people are saying.

Lex Fridman (1:42:23.580)

And I just got in a fight with a friend

Grimes (1:42:27.460)

about anarchism and communism and shit for two hours.

Lex Fridman (1:42:33.020)

And then by the end of a conversation,

Lex Fridman (1:42:34.700)

and then she'd say something, and I'm like,

Lex Fridman (1:42:35.940)

but that's literally what I'm saying.

Lex Fridman (1:42:37.620)

And she was like, what?

Lex Fridman (1:42:39.340)

And then I was like, fuck, we've different,

Grimes (1:42:40.900)

I'm like, our English, the way we are understanding

Lex Fridman (1:42:44.820)

terminology is like drastically, like our algorithm bubbles

Grimes (1:42:50.580)

are creating mini dialects.

Lex Fridman (1:42:53.380)

Of how language is interpreted, how language is used.

Grimes (1:42:55.900)

That's so fascinating.

Lex Fridman (1:42:56.860)

And so we're like having these arguments

Grimes (1:42:59.220)

that we do not need to be having.

Lex Fridman (1:43:00.980)

And there's polarization that's happening

Grimes (1:43:02.380)

that doesn't need to be happening

Lex Fridman (1:43:03.420)

because we've got these like algorithmically created

Grimes (1:43:08.620)

dialects occurring.

Lex Fridman (1:43:09.820)

Plus on top of that, there's also different parts

Grimes (1:43:11.980)

of the world that speak different languages.

Lex Fridman (1:43:13.460)

So there's literally lost in translation

Grimes (1:43:16.220)

kind of communication.

Lex Fridman (1:43:17.820)

I happen to know the Russian language

Lex Fridman (1:43:19.780)

and just know how different it is.

Lex Fridman (1:43:22.420)

Then the English language.

Lex Fridman (1:43:23.900)

And I just wonder how much is lost in a little bit of.

Lex Fridman (1:43:27.660)

Man, I actually, cause I have a question for you.

Grimes (1:43:28.980)

I have a song coming out tomorrow

Lex Fridman (1:43:30.260)

with I Speak Who Are A Russian Band.

Lex Fridman (1:43:31.900)

And I speak a little bit of Russian

Lex Fridman (1:43:33.700)

and I was looking at the title

Lex Fridman (1:43:35.380)

and the title in English doesn't match

Lex Fridman (1:43:37.300)

the title in Russian.

Grimes (1:43:38.220)

I'm curious about this.

Lex Fridman (1:43:39.140)

Cause look, it says the title in English is Last Day.

Lex Fridman (1:43:42.940)

And then the title in Russian is New Day.

Lex Fridman (1:43:45.580)

My pronunciation sucks.

Grimes (1:43:47.540)

New Day.

Lex Fridman (1:43:48.780)

Like what?

Grimes (1:43:49.620)

Like a new day.

Lex Fridman (1:43:50.460)

A new day.

Grimes (1:43:51.300)

Yeah, new day, new day.

Lex Fridman (1:43:52.140)

Like it's two different meanings.

Grimes (1:43:53.340)

Yeah, new day, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:43:57.220)

Yeah, yeah, new day.

Grimes (1:43:58.500)

New day, but last day.

Lex Fridman (1:44:01.340)

New day.

Lex Fridman (1:44:02.260)

So last day would be the last day.

Lex Fridman (1:44:04.220)

Yeah.

Grimes (1:44:05.060)

Maybe they.

Lex Fridman (1:44:05.900)

Or maybe the title includes both the Russian

Lex Fridman (1:44:07.580)

and it's for.

Lex Fridman (1:44:09.060)

Maybe.

Grimes (1:44:09.900)

Maybe it's for bilingual.

Lex Fridman (1:44:10.740)

But to be honest, Novodin sounds better than

Grimes (1:44:13.220)

just musically.

Lex Fridman (1:44:15.140)

Like Novodin is new day.

Grimes (1:44:17.780)

That's the current one.

Lex Fridman (1:44:18.780)

And Posledniy Den is the last day.

Grimes (1:44:23.460)

I think Novodin.

Lex Fridman (1:44:25.420)

I don't like Novodin.

Lex Fridman (1:44:26.660)

But the meaning is so different.

Lex Fridman (1:44:30.180)

That's kind of awesome actually though.

Grimes (1:44:31.660)

There's an explicit sort of contrast like that.

Lex Fridman (1:44:35.820)

If everyone on earth disappeared

Lex Fridman (1:44:38.340)

and it was just you left, what would your day look like?

Lex Fridman (1:44:44.060)

Like what would you do?

Grimes (1:44:45.220)

Everybody's dead.

Lex Fridman (1:44:46.780)

As far as you.

Lex Fridman (1:44:47.620)

Are there corpses there?

Lex Fridman (1:44:52.500)

Well seriously, it's a big.

Grimes (1:44:53.340)

Let me think through this.

Lex Fridman (1:44:54.780)

It's a big difference if there's just like birds singing

Grimes (1:44:56.940)

versus if there's like corpses littering the street.

Lex Fridman (1:44:58.940)

Yeah, there's corpses everywhere, I'm sorry.

Grimes (1:45:01.860)

It's, and you don't actually know what happened

Lex Fridman (1:45:05.060)

and you don't know why you survived.

Lex Fridman (1:45:07.540)

And you don't even know if there's others out there.

Lex Fridman (1:45:10.420)

But it seems clear that it's all gone.

Lex Fridman (1:45:13.580)

What would you do?

Lex Fridman (1:45:15.220)

What would I do?

Grimes (1:45:17.300)

Listen, I'm somebody who really enjoys the moment,

Lex Fridman (1:45:19.580)

enjoys life.

Grimes (1:45:20.420)

I would just go on like enjoying the inanimate objects.

Lex Fridman (1:45:26.380)

I would just look for food, basic survival.

Lex Fridman (1:45:30.580)

But most of it is just, listen, when I just,

Lex Fridman (1:45:33.500)

I take walks and I look outside and I'm just happy

Grimes (1:45:36.860)

that we get to exist on this planet,

Lex Fridman (1:45:39.660)

to be able to breathe air.

Grimes (1:45:41.980)

It's just all beautiful.

Lex Fridman (1:45:43.060)

It's full of colors, all of this kind of stuff.

Grimes (1:45:44.820)

Just, there's so many things about life,

Lex Fridman (1:45:48.180)

your own life, conscious life that's fucking awesome.

Lex Fridman (1:45:50.780)

So I would just enjoy that.

Lex Fridman (1:45:54.220)

But also maybe after a few weeks,

Grimes (1:45:56.860)

the engineer would start coming out,

Lex Fridman (1:45:58.460)

like wanna build some things.

Grimes (1:46:01.580)

Maybe there's always hope searching for another human.

Lex Fridman (1:46:05.660)

Maybe.

Grimes (1:46:06.500)

Probably searching for another human.

Lex Fridman (1:46:09.340)

Probably trying to get to a TV or radio station

Lex Fridman (1:46:13.100)

and broadcast something.

Lex Fridman (1:46:18.340)

That's interesting, I didn't think about that.

Lex Fridman (1:46:19.860)

So like really maximize your ability

Lex Fridman (1:46:23.460)

to connect with others.

Grimes (1:46:24.500)

Yeah, like probably try to find another person.

Lex Fridman (1:46:29.220)

Would you be excited to see,

Lex Fridman (1:46:31.500)

to meet another person or terrified?

Lex Fridman (1:46:33.380)

Because, you know.

Grimes (1:46:34.900)

I'd be excited.

Lex Fridman (1:46:35.740)

No matter what.

Grimes (1:46:36.580)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:46:38.220)

Being alone for the last however long of my life

Grimes (1:46:42.180)

would be really bad.

Lex Fridman (1:46:43.580)

That's the one instance I might,

Grimes (1:46:46.100)

I don't think I'd kill myself,

Lex Fridman (1:46:47.220)

but I might kill myself if I had to.

Lex Fridman (1:46:48.740)

So you love people.

Lex Fridman (1:46:50.140)

You love connection to other humans.

Grimes (1:46:51.900)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:46:52.740)

I kinda hate people too, but yeah.

Grimes (1:46:54.500)

That's a love hate relationship.

Lex Fridman (1:46:56.420)

Yeah.

Grimes (1:46:57.260)

I feel like we'd have a bunch of weird

Lex Fridman (1:46:58.380)

Nietzsche questions and stuff though.

Grimes (1:47:00.540)

Oh yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:47:01.380)

Like I wonder, cause I'm like, when podcast,

Grimes (1:47:02.980)

I'm like, is this interesting for people

Lex Fridman (1:47:04.340)

to just have like, or I don't know,

Grimes (1:47:06.500)

maybe people do like this.

Lex Fridman (1:47:08.380)

When I listen to podcasts, I'm into like the lore,

Grimes (1:47:10.460)

like the hard lore.

Lex Fridman (1:47:11.900)

Like I just love like Dan Carlin.

Grimes (1:47:13.380)

I'm like, give me the facts.

Lex Fridman (1:47:14.500)

Just like, like the facts into my bloodstream.

Lex Fridman (1:47:18.740)

But you also don't know,

Lex Fridman (1:47:20.700)

like you're a fascinating mind to explore.

Lex Fridman (1:47:23.300)

So you don't realize as you're talking about stuff,

Lex Fridman (1:47:26.340)

the stuff you've taken for granted

Grimes (1:47:28.420)

is actually unique and fascinating.

Lex Fridman (1:47:30.420)

The way you think.

Grimes (1:47:32.060)

Not always what, like the way you reason through things

Lex Fridman (1:47:35.780)

is the fascinating thing to listen to.

Grimes (1:47:39.420)

Because people kind of see, oh,

Lex Fridman (1:47:41.060)

there's other humans that think differently,

Grimes (1:47:43.420)

that explore thoughts differently.

Lex Fridman (1:47:45.380)

That's the cool, that's also cool.

Lex Fridman (1:47:47.540)

So yeah, Dan Carlin retelling of history.

Lex Fridman (1:47:50.180)

By the way, his retelling of history is very,

Grimes (1:47:54.820)

I think what's exciting is not the history,

Lex Fridman (1:47:57.060)

is his way of thinking about history.

Grimes (1:48:00.340)

No, I think Dan Carlin is one of the people,

Lex Fridman (1:48:02.700)

like when, Dan Carlin is one of the people

Grimes (1:48:04.380)

that really started getting me excited

Lex Fridman (1:48:06.140)

about like revolutionizing education.

Grimes (1:48:08.900)

Because like Dan Carlin instilled,

Lex Fridman (1:48:12.700)

I already like really liked history,

Lex Fridman (1:48:14.380)

but he instilled like an obsessive love of history in me

Lex Fridman (1:48:18.940)

to the point where like now I'm fucking reading,

Grimes (1:48:21.260)

like going to bed, reading like part four

Lex Fridman (1:48:24.940)

of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or whatever.

Grimes (1:48:26.740)

Like I got like dense ass history,

Lex Fridman (1:48:28.740)

but like he like opened that door

Grimes (1:48:31.300)

that like made me want to be a scholar of that topic.

Lex Fridman (1:48:34.300)

Like it's like, I feel like he's such a good teacher.

Grimes (1:48:37.740)

He just like, you know, and it sort of made me feel like

Lex Fridman (1:48:42.260)

one of the things we could do with education

Grimes (1:48:44.060)

is like find like the world's great,

Lex Fridman (1:48:46.540)

the teachers that like create passion for the topic

Grimes (1:48:49.780)

because autodidactricism,

Lex Fridman (1:48:53.580)

I don't know how to say that properly,

Lex Fridman (1:48:55.140)

but like self teaching is like much faster

Lex Fridman (1:48:57.900)

than being lectured to.

Grimes (1:48:59.460)

Like it's much more efficient

Lex Fridman (1:49:00.660)

to sort of like be able to teach yourself

Lex Fridman (1:49:02.300)

and then ask a teacher questions

Lex Fridman (1:49:03.700)

when you don't know what's up.

Lex Fridman (1:49:04.860)

But like, you know, that's why it's like

Lex Fridman (1:49:07.380)

in university and stuff,

Grimes (1:49:08.380)

like you can learn so much more material so much faster

Lex Fridman (1:49:11.060)

because you're doing a lot of the learning on your own

Lex Fridman (1:49:13.340)

and you're going to the teachers for when you get stuck.

Lex Fridman (1:49:15.620)

But like these teachers that can inspire passion

Grimes (1:49:18.980)

for a topic, I think that is one of the most invaluable

Lex Fridman (1:49:21.660)

skills in our whole species.

Grimes (1:49:23.180)

Like, because if you can do that, then you,

Lex Fridman (1:49:26.460)

it's like AI, like AI is going to teach itself

Lex Fridman (1:49:30.420)

so much more efficiently than we can teach it.

Lex Fridman (1:49:31.820)

We just needed to get it to the point

Grimes (1:49:32.900)

where it can teach itself.

Lex Fridman (1:49:34.340)

And then.

Lex Fridman (1:49:35.180)

It finds the motivation to do so, right?

Lex Fridman (1:49:37.500)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:49:38.340)

So like you inspire it to do so.

Lex Fridman (1:49:39.580)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:49:40.420)

And then it could teach itself.

Lex Fridman (1:49:42.660)

What do you make of the fact,

Grimes (1:49:44.540)

you mentioned Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Lex Fridman (1:49:46.340)

I just.

Lex Fridman (1:49:47.180)

Have you read that?

Lex Fridman (1:49:48.000)

Yeah, I read it twice.

Lex Fridman (1:49:48.840)

You read it twice?

Lex Fridman (1:49:49.680)

Yes.

Grimes (1:49:50.500)

Okay, so no one even knows what it is.

Lex Fridman (1:49:51.620)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:49:52.460)

And I'm like, wait, I thought this was like

Lex Fridman (1:49:53.300)

a super poppin book.

Grimes (1:49:54.820)

Super pop.

Lex Fridman (1:49:55.660)

Yeah, I'm not like that, I'm not that far in it.

Lex Fridman (1:49:58.460)

But it is, it's so interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:50:00.260)

Yeah, it's written by a person that was there,

Grimes (1:50:03.500)

which is very important to kind of.

Lex Fridman (1:50:05.860)

You know, you start being like,

Lex Fridman (1:50:06.980)

how could this possibly happen?

Lex Fridman (1:50:08.420)

And then when you read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,

Grimes (1:50:10.020)

it's like, people tried really hard for this to not happen.

Lex Fridman (1:50:14.020)

People tried, they almost reinstated a monarchy

Grimes (1:50:15.940)

at one point to try to stop this from happening.

Lex Fridman (1:50:17.940)

Like they almost like abandoned democracy

Grimes (1:50:21.060)

to try to get this to not happen.

Lex Fridman (1:50:22.700)

At least the way it makes me feel

Grimes (1:50:24.780)

is that there's a bunch of small moments

Lex Fridman (1:50:28.180)

on which history can turn.

Grimes (1:50:30.100)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:50:30.940)

It's like small meetings.

Grimes (1:50:32.260)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:50:33.100)

Human interactions.

Lex Fridman (1:50:34.220)

And it's both terrifying and inspiring

Lex Fridman (1:50:36.900)

because it's like, even just attempts

Grimes (1:50:41.940)

at assassinating Hitler, like time and time again failed.

Lex Fridman (1:50:47.340)

And they were so close.

Lex Fridman (1:50:48.180)

Was it like Operation Valkyrie?

Lex Fridman (1:50:49.820)

Such a good.

Lex Fridman (1:50:51.700)

And then there's also the role of,

Lex Fridman (1:50:55.100)

that's a really heavy burden,

Grimes (1:50:56.500)

which is from a geopolitical perspective,

Lex Fridman (1:50:59.060)

the role of leaders to see evil

Grimes (1:51:00.820)

before it truly becomes evil,

Lex Fridman (1:51:02.500)

to anticipate it, to stand up to evil.

Grimes (1:51:05.460)

Because evil is actually pretty rare in this world

Lex Fridman (1:51:08.140)

at a scale that Hitler was.

Grimes (1:51:09.380)

We tend to, you know, in the modern discourse

Lex Fridman (1:51:12.020)

kind of call people evil too quickly.

Grimes (1:51:14.020)

If you look at ancient history,

Lex Fridman (1:51:17.380)

like there was a ton of Hitlers.

Grimes (1:51:18.860)

I actually think it's more the norm than,

Lex Fridman (1:51:22.660)

like again, going back to like my

Grimes (1:51:24.420)

sort of intelligent design theory,

Lex Fridman (1:51:25.900)

I think one of the things we've been successfully doing

Grimes (1:51:28.380)

in our slow move from survival of the fittest

Lex Fridman (1:51:31.340)

to intelligent design is we've kind of been eradicating,

Grimes (1:51:37.700)

like if you look at like ancient Assyria and stuff,

Lex Fridman (1:51:40.060)

like that shit was like brutal

Lex Fridman (1:51:42.460)

and just like the heads on the, like brutal,

Lex Fridman (1:51:45.860)

like Genghis Khan just like genocide after genocide

Grimes (1:51:48.460)

was like throwing plague bodies over the walls

Lex Fridman (1:51:51.100)

and decimating whole cities

Grimes (1:51:52.660)

or like the Muslim conquests of like Damascus and shit.

Lex Fridman (1:51:55.820)

Just like people, cities used to get leveled

Grimes (1:51:58.780)

all the fucking time.

Lex Fridman (1:52:00.060)

Okay, get into the Bronze Age collapse.

Grimes (1:52:02.460)

It's basically, there was like almost

Lex Fridman (1:52:05.140)

like Roman level like society.

Grimes (1:52:07.940)

Like there was like all over the world,

Lex Fridman (1:52:09.420)

like global trade, like everything was awesome

Grimes (1:52:11.820)

through a mix of, I think a bit of climate change

Lex Fridman (1:52:13.820)

and then the development of iron

Grimes (1:52:16.020)

because basically bronze could only come

Lex Fridman (1:52:17.420)

from this, the way to make bronze,

Grimes (1:52:19.540)

like everything had to be funneled

Lex Fridman (1:52:20.700)

through this one Iranian mine.

Lex Fridman (1:52:23.340)

And so it's like, there was just this one supply chain

Lex Fridman (1:52:26.740)

and this is one of the things

Grimes (1:52:27.580)

that makes me worried about supply chains

Lex Fridman (1:52:29.140)

and why I think we need to be so thoughtful about,

Grimes (1:52:31.580)

I think our biggest issue with society right now,

Lex Fridman (1:52:34.500)

like the thing that is most likely to go wrong

Grimes (1:52:36.460)

is probably supply chain collapse,

Lex Fridman (1:52:38.860)

because war, climate change, whatever,

Grimes (1:52:40.140)

like anything that causes supply chain collapse,

Lex Fridman (1:52:41.860)

our population is too big to handle that.

Lex Fridman (1:52:44.260)

And like the thing that seems to cause Dark Ages

Lex Fridman (1:52:46.300)

is mass supply chain collapse.

Lex Fridman (1:52:48.020)

But the Bronze Age collapse happened like,

Lex Fridman (1:52:52.860)

it was sort of like this ancient collapse

Grimes (1:52:55.380)

that happened where like literally like ancient Egypt,

Lex Fridman (1:52:59.340)

all these cities, everything just got like decimated,

Grimes (1:53:01.740)

destroyed, abandoned cities, like hundreds of them.

Lex Fridman (1:53:04.500)

There was like a flourishing society,

Grimes (1:53:05.980)

like we were almost coming to modernity

Lex Fridman (1:53:07.420)

and everything got leveled.

Lex Fridman (1:53:08.500)

And they had this mini Dark Ages,

Lex Fridman (1:53:10.060)

but it was just like, there's so little writing

Grimes (1:53:12.140)

or recording from that time that like,

Lex Fridman (1:53:13.700)

there isn't a lot of information

Grimes (1:53:14.820)

about the Bronze Age collapse,

Lex Fridman (1:53:16.300)

but it was basically equivalent to like medieval,

Grimes (1:53:18.780)

the medieval Dark Ages.

Lex Fridman (1:53:21.220)

But it just happened, I don't know the years,

Lex Fridman (1:53:23.620)

but like thousands of years earlier.

Lex Fridman (1:53:26.500)

And then we sort of like recovered

Grimes (1:53:28.660)

from the Bronze Age collapse,

Lex Fridman (1:53:30.780)

empire reemerged, writing and trade

Lex Fridman (1:53:33.820)

and everything reemerged.

Lex Fridman (1:53:36.660)

And then we of course had the more contemporary Dark Ages.

Lex Fridman (1:53:40.900)

And then over time, we've designed mechanism

Lex Fridman (1:53:43.140)

to lessen and lessen the capability

Grimes (1:53:46.420)

for the destructive power centers to emerge.

Lex Fridman (1:53:50.540)

There's more recording about the more contemporary Dark Ages.

Lex Fridman (1:53:54.260)

So I think we have like a better understanding

Lex Fridman (1:53:55.660)

of how to avoid it,

Lex Fridman (1:53:56.500)

but I still think we're at high risk for it.

Lex Fridman (1:53:58.140)

I think that's one of the big risks right now.

Lex Fridman (1:54:00.660)

So the natural state of being for humans

Lex Fridman (1:54:03.260)

is for there to be a lot of Hitlers,

Grimes (1:54:04.940)

which has gotten really good

Lex Fridman (1:54:06.780)

at making it hard for them to emerge.

Grimes (1:54:09.980)

We've gotten better at collaboration

Lex Fridman (1:54:12.700)

and resisting the power,

Grimes (1:54:14.820)

like authoritarians to come to power.

Lex Fridman (1:54:16.860)

We're trying to go country by country,

Grimes (1:54:18.580)

like we're moving past this.

Lex Fridman (1:54:19.900)

We're kind of like slowly incrementally,

Grimes (1:54:21.500)

like moving towards like not scary old school war stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:54:29.180)

And I think seeing it happen in some of the countries

Grimes (1:54:32.180)

that at least nominally are like

Lex Fridman (1:54:35.140)

supposed to have moved past that,

Grimes (1:54:36.740)

that's scary because it reminds us that it can happen

Lex Fridman (1:54:39.780)

like in the places that have moved supposedly,

Grimes (1:54:44.980)

as hopefully moved past that.

Lex Fridman (1:54:47.060)

And possibly at a civilization level,

Grimes (1:54:49.420)

like you said, supply chain collapse

Lex Fridman (1:54:51.660)

might make people resource constraint,

Grimes (1:54:54.300)

might make people desperate, angry, hateful, violent,

Lex Fridman (1:54:59.980)

and drag us right back in.

Grimes (1:55:01.500)

I mean, supply chain collapse is how,

Lex Fridman (1:55:03.980)

like the ultimate thing that caused the Middle Ages

Grimes (1:55:06.260)

was supply chain collapse.

Lex Fridman (1:55:08.260)

It's like people, because people were reliant

Grimes (1:55:11.020)

on a certain level of technology,

Lex Fridman (1:55:12.380)

like people, like you look at like Britain,

Grimes (1:55:14.140)

like they had glass, like people had aqueducts,

Lex Fridman (1:55:17.540)

people had like indoor heating and cooling

Lex Fridman (1:55:20.420)

and like running water and like buy food

Lex Fridman (1:55:23.380)

from all over the world and trade and markets.

Grimes (1:55:26.020)

Like people didn't know how to hunt and forage and gather.

Lex Fridman (1:55:28.580)

And so we're in a similar situation.

Grimes (1:55:29.820)

We are not educated enough to survive without technology.

Lex Fridman (1:55:33.740)

So if we have a supply chain collapse

Grimes (1:55:35.380)

that like limits our access to technology,

Lex Fridman (1:55:38.340)

there will be like massive starvation and violence

Lex Fridman (1:55:41.300)

and displacement and war.

Lex Fridman (1:55:43.100)

Like, you know, it's like, yeah.

Grimes (1:55:47.260)

In my opinion, it's like the primary marker

Lex Fridman (1:55:49.060)

of like what a dark age is.

Grimes (1:55:52.700)

Well, technology is kind of enabling us

Lex Fridman (1:55:54.380)

to be more resilient in terms of supply chain,

Grimes (1:55:57.180)

in terms of, to all the different catastrophic events

Lex Fridman (1:56:00.820)

that happened to us.

Grimes (1:56:02.060)

Although the pandemic has kind of challenged

Lex Fridman (1:56:03.900)

our preparedness for the catastrophic.

Lex Fridman (1:56:07.660)

What do you think is the coolest invention

Lex Fridman (1:56:09.220)

humans come up with?

Grimes (1:56:11.100)

The wheel, fire, cooking meat.

Lex Fridman (1:56:14.580)

Computers. Computers.

Lex Fridman (1:56:16.980)

Freaking computers. Internet or computers?

Lex Fridman (1:56:18.900)

Which one?

Lex Fridman (1:56:19.740)

What do you think the?

Lex Fridman (1:56:20.560)

Previous technologies, I mean,

Grimes (1:56:22.420)

may have even been more profound

Lex Fridman (1:56:23.680)

and moved us to a certain degree,

Lex Fridman (1:56:24.740)

but I think the computers are what make us homo tech now.

Lex Fridman (1:56:27.340)

I think this is what, it's a brain augmentation.

Lex Fridman (1:56:30.760)

And so it like allows for actual evolution.

Lex Fridman (1:56:33.820)

Like the computers accelerate the degree

Grimes (1:56:35.460)

to which all the other technologies can also be accelerated.

Lex Fridman (1:56:38.660)

Would you classify yourself as a homo sapien

Lex Fridman (1:56:40.700)

or a homo techno?

Lex Fridman (1:56:41.580)

Definitely homo techno.

Lex Fridman (1:56:43.040)

So you're one of the earliest of the species.

Lex Fridman (1:56:46.940)

I think most of us are.

Grimes (1:56:49.200)

Like, as I said, like, I think if you

Lex Fridman (1:56:53.780)

like looked at brain scans of us versus humans

Grimes (1:56:58.740)

a hundred years ago, it would look very different.

Lex Fridman (1:57:00.920)

I think we are physiologically different.

Grimes (1:57:03.740)

Just even the interaction with the devices

Lex Fridman (1:57:05.580)

has changed our brains.

Grimes (1:57:06.700)

Well, and if you look at,

Lex Fridman (1:57:08.580)

a lot of studies are coming out to show that like,

Grimes (1:57:11.220)

there's a degree of inherited memory.

Lex Fridman (1:57:13.100)

So some of these physiological changes in theory

Grimes (1:57:15.360)

should be, we should be passing them on.

Lex Fridman (1:57:18.020)

So like that's, you know, that's not like a,

Grimes (1:57:21.660)

an instance of physiological change

Lex Fridman (1:57:23.180)

that's gonna fizzle out.

Grimes (1:57:24.140)

In theory, that should progress like to our offspring.

Lex Fridman (1:57:29.060)

Speaking of offspring,

Lex Fridman (1:57:30.420)

what advice would you give to a young person,

Lex Fridman (1:57:33.180)

like in high school,

Grimes (1:57:35.660)

whether there be an artist, a creative, an engineer,

Lex Fridman (1:57:43.140)

any kind of career path, or maybe just life in general,

Lex Fridman (1:57:46.300)

how they can live a life they can be proud of?

Lex Fridman (1:57:48.700)

I think one of my big thoughts,

Lex Fridman (1:57:50.800)

and like, especially now having kids,

Lex Fridman (1:57:53.180)

is that I don't think we spend enough time

Grimes (1:57:55.460)

teaching creativity.

Lex Fridman (1:57:56.820)

And I think creativity is a muscle like other things.

Lex Fridman (1:57:59.300)

And there's a lot of emphasis on, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:58:01.740)

learn how to play the piano.

Lex Fridman (1:58:02.860)

And then you can write a song

Lex Fridman (1:58:04.020)

or like learn the technical stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:58:05.460)

And then you can do a thing.

Lex Fridman (1:58:07.020)

But I think it's, like, I have a friend

Grimes (1:58:10.460)

who's like world's greatest guitar player,

Lex Fridman (1:58:13.700)

like, you know, amazing sort of like producer,

Grimes (1:58:15.740)

works with other people, but he's really sort of like,

Lex Fridman (1:58:18.940)

you know, he like engineers and records things

Lex Fridman (1:58:20.680)

and like does solos,

Lex Fridman (1:58:21.740)

but he doesn't really like make his own music.

Lex Fridman (1:58:23.480)

And I was talking to him and I was like,

Lex Fridman (1:58:26.060)

dude, you're so talented at music.

Lex Fridman (1:58:27.340)

Like, why don't you make music or whatever?

Lex Fridman (1:58:28.860)

And he was like, cause I got, I'm too old.

Grimes (1:58:32.100)

I never learned the creative muscle.

Lex Fridman (1:58:34.180)

And it's like, you know, it's embarrassing.

Grimes (1:58:36.660)

It's like learning the creative muscle

Lex Fridman (1:58:39.220)

takes a lot of failure.

Lex Fridman (1:58:40.760)

And it also sort of,

Lex Fridman (1:58:44.220)

if when you're being creative,

Grimes (1:58:46.880)

you know, you're throwing paint at a wall

Lex Fridman (1:58:48.140)

and a lot of stuff will fail.

Lex Fridman (1:58:49.460)

So like part of it is like a tolerance

Lex Fridman (1:58:51.180)

for failure and humiliation.

Lex Fridman (1:58:53.020)

And that's somehow that's easier to develop

Lex Fridman (1:58:54.900)

when you're young or be persist through it

Grimes (1:58:57.380)

when you're young.

Lex Fridman (1:58:58.220)

Everything is easier to develop when you're young.

Grimes (1:59:02.540)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:59:03.380)

And the younger, the better.

Grimes (1:59:04.780)

It could destroy you.

Lex Fridman (1:59:05.620)

I mean, that's the shitty thing about creativity.

Grimes (1:59:08.460)

If, you know, failure could destroy you

Lex Fridman (1:59:11.260)

if you're not careful, but that's a risk worth taking.

Lex Fridman (1:59:13.420)

But also, but at a young age,

Lex Fridman (1:59:15.020)

developing a tolerance to failure is good.

Grimes (1:59:17.820)

I fail all the time.

Lex Fridman (1:59:19.900)

Like I do stupid shit all the time.

Grimes (1:59:22.380)

Like in public, in private, I get canceled for,

Lex Fridman (1:59:24.860)

I've make all kinds of mistakes,

Lex Fridman (1:59:27.060)

but I just like am very resilient about making mistakes.

Lex Fridman (1:59:30.540)

And so then like I do a lot of things

Grimes (1:59:32.980)

that like other people wouldn't do.

Lex Fridman (1:59:34.180)

And like, I think my greatest asset is my creativity.

Lex Fridman (1:59:37.540)

And I like, I think pain, like tolerance to failure

Lex Fridman (1:59:39.840)

is just a super essential thing

Grimes (1:59:43.380)

that should be taught before other things.

Lex Fridman (1:59:45.420)

Brilliant advice.

Grimes (1:59:46.340)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:59:47.420)

I wish everybody encouraged sort of failure more

Grimes (1:59:51.540)

as opposed to kind of.

Lex Fridman (1:59:52.380)

Cause we like punish failure.

Grimes (1:59:53.460)

We're like, no, like when we were teaching kids,

Lex Fridman (1:59:55.340)

we're like, no, that's wrong.

Grimes (1:59:56.380)

Like that's, you know, like X keeps like will be like wrong.

Lex Fridman (20:01.000)

at the, because I, you know, when I met him,

Grimes (20:03.680)

I came in all furious about Spotify

Lex Fridman (20:06.440)

and like I grilled him super hard.

Lex Fridman (20:07.760)

So I've got his answers here.

Lex Fridman (20:10.640)

But he was saying like at the sort of peak

Grimes (20:13.520)

of the CD industry,

Lex Fridman (20:15.240)

there was like 20,000 artists making millions

Lex Fridman (20:18.280)

and millions of dollars.

Lex Fridman (20:19.520)

Like there was just like a very tiny kind of 1%.

Lex Fridman (20:22.840)

And Spotify has kind of democratized the industry

Lex Fridman (20:27.400)

because now I think he said there's about a million artists

Grimes (20:30.320)

making a good living from Spotify.

Lex Fridman (20:33.120)

And when I heard that, I was like, honestly,

Grimes (20:36.920)

I would rather make less money

Lex Fridman (20:38.840)

and have just like a decent living

Lex Fridman (20:43.720)

and have more artists be able to have that,

Lex Fridman (20:46.560)

even though I like, I wish it could include everyone, but.

Grimes (20:49.320)

Yeah, that's really hard to argue with.

Lex Fridman (20:50.760)

YouTube is the same.

Grimes (20:52.280)

It's YouTube's mission.

Lex Fridman (20:54.120)

They want to basically have as many creators as possible

Lex Fridman (20:58.280)

and make a living, some kind of living.

Lex Fridman (21:00.720)

And that's so hard to argue with.

Grimes (21:02.720)

It's so hard.

Lex Fridman (21:03.560)

But I think there's better ways to do it.

Grimes (21:04.480)

My manager, I actually wish he was here.

Lex Fridman (21:06.520)

Like I would have brought him up.

Grimes (21:07.840)

My manager is building an app that can manage you.

Lex Fridman (21:13.800)

So it'll like help you organize your percentages

Lex Fridman (21:16.520)

and get your publishing and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

Lex Fridman (21:18.840)

So you can take out all the middlemen

Lex Fridman (21:19.960)

so you can have a much bigger,

Lex Fridman (21:21.360)

it'll just like automate it.

Lex Fridman (21:23.000)

So you can get.

Lex Fridman (21:23.840)

So automate the manager?

Grimes (21:24.680)

Automate management, publishing,

Lex Fridman (21:28.040)

and legal, it can read,

Grimes (21:32.440)

the app he's building can read your contract

Lex Fridman (21:34.080)

and like tell you about it.

Grimes (21:35.640)

Because one of the issues with music right now,

Lex Fridman (21:38.280)

it's not that we're not getting paid enough,

Lex Fridman (21:39.800)

but it's that the art industry is filled with middlemen

Lex Fridman (21:44.960)

because artists are not good at business.

Lex Fridman (21:47.760)

And from the beginning, like Frank Sinatra,

Lex Fridman (21:50.400)

it's all mob stuff.

Grimes (21:51.640)

Like it's the music industry is run by business people,

Lex Fridman (21:56.640)

not the artists and the artists really get very small cuts

Grimes (21:59.480)

of like what they make.

Lex Fridman (22:00.400)

And so I think part of the reason I'm a technocrat,

Grimes (22:04.720)

which I mean, your fans are gonna be technocrats.

Lex Fridman (22:07.040)

So no one's, they're not gonna be mad at me about this,

Lex Fridman (22:09.240)

but like my fans hate it when I say this kind of thing

Lex Fridman (22:12.160)

or the general public.

Grimes (22:13.000)

They don't like technocrats.

Lex Fridman (22:14.160)

They don't like technocrats.

Grimes (22:15.600)

Like when I watched Battle Angel Alita

Lex Fridman (22:18.720)

and they were like the Martian technocracy

Lex Fridman (22:20.360)

and I was like, yeah, Martian technocracy.

Lex Fridman (22:22.000)

And then they were like, and they're evil.

Lex Fridman (22:23.520)

And I was like, oh, okay.

Lex Fridman (22:25.560)

I was like, cause Martian technocracy sounds sick to me.

Grimes (22:28.760)

Yeah, so your intuition as technocrats

Lex Fridman (22:31.920)

would create some kind of beautiful world.

Grimes (22:34.200)

For example, what my manager's working on,

Lex Fridman (22:36.040)

if you can create an app that removes the need for a lawyer

Lex Fridman (22:39.880)

and then you could have smart contracts on the blockchain,

Lex Fridman (22:43.360)

removes the need for like management

Lex Fridman (22:46.800)

and organizing all this stuff,

Lex Fridman (22:48.000)

like can read your stuff and explain it to you,

Grimes (22:50.920)

can collect your royalties, you know,

Lex Fridman (22:54.200)

like then the small amounts,

Grimes (22:56.960)

the amount of money that you're getting from Spotify

Lex Fridman (22:58.680)

actually means a lot more and goes a lot farther.

Grimes (23:01.760)

It can remove some of the bureaucracy,

Lex Fridman (23:03.120)

some of the inefficiencies that make life

Grimes (23:06.360)

not as great as it could be.

Lex Fridman (23:08.200)

Yeah, I think the issue isn't that there's not enough.

Grimes (23:10.840)

Like the issue is that there's inefficiency

Lex Fridman (23:12.680)

and I'm really into this positive sum mindset,

Grimes (23:18.640)

you know, the win, win mindset of like,

Lex Fridman (23:20.840)

instead of, you know, fighting over the scraps,

Lex Fridman (23:23.520)

how do we make the, or worrying about scarcity,

Lex Fridman (23:26.520)

like instead of a scarcity mindset,

Lex Fridman (23:27.800)

why don't we just increase the efficiency

Lex Fridman (23:30.080)

and, you know, in that way.

Grimes (23:32.360)

Expand the size of the pie.

Lex Fridman (23:34.400)

Let me ask you about experimentation.

Lex Fridman (23:36.560)

So you said, which is beautiful,

Lex Fridman (23:40.480)

being a musician is like having a conversation

Grimes (23:42.760)

with all those that came before you.

Lex Fridman (23:45.440)

How much of creating music is like

Grimes (23:51.200)

kind of having that conversation,

Lex Fridman (23:53.040)

trying to fit into the cultural trends

Lex Fridman (23:57.200)

and how much of it is like trying to,

Lex Fridman (23:59.320)

as much as possible, be an outsider

Lex Fridman (24:00.840)

and come up with something totally new.

Lex Fridman (24:02.600)

It's like when you're thinking,

Grimes (24:04.440)

when you're experimenting,

Lex Fridman (24:05.640)

are you trying to be totally different, totally weird?

Lex Fridman (24:08.680)

Are you trying to fit in?

Lex Fridman (24:12.120)

Man, this is so hard because I feel like I'm

Grimes (24:14.640)

kind of in the process of semi retiring from music,

Lex Fridman (24:16.880)

so this is like my old brain.

Grimes (24:18.720)

Yeah, bring it from like the shelf,

Lex Fridman (24:22.040)

put it on the table for a couple minutes,

Grimes (24:24.440)

we'll just poke it.

Lex Fridman (24:26.280)

I think it's a bit of both

Grimes (24:27.240)

because I think forcing yourself to engage with new music

Lex Fridman (24:32.400)

is really great for neuroplasticity.

Grimes (24:35.000)

Like I think, you know, as people,

Lex Fridman (24:39.480)

part of the reason music is marketed at young people

Grimes (24:41.640)

is because young people are very neuroplastic.

Lex Fridman (24:43.360)

So like if you're 16 to like 23 or whatever,

Grimes (24:48.200)

it's gonna be really easy for you to love new music.

Lex Fridman (24:50.840)

And if you're older than that,

Grimes (24:52.280)

it gets harder and harder and harder.

Lex Fridman (24:53.760)

And I think one of the beautiful things

Grimes (24:54.960)

about being a musician is I just constantly force myself

Lex Fridman (24:57.880)

to listen to new music

Lex Fridman (24:58.760)

and I think it keeps my brain really plastic.

Lex Fridman (25:01.000)

And I think this is a really good exercise.

Grimes (25:02.760)

I just think everyone should do this.

Lex Fridman (25:04.280)

You listen to new music and you hate it,

Grimes (25:05.600)

I think you should just keep, force yourself to like,

Lex Fridman (25:08.600)

okay, well why do people like it?

Lex Fridman (25:09.920)

And like, you know, make your brain form new neural pathways

Lex Fridman (25:14.640)

and be more open to change.

Grimes (25:16.880)

That's really brilliant actually.

Lex Fridman (25:18.280)

Sorry to interrupt, but like that exercise

Grimes (25:21.520)

is really amazing to sort of embrace change,

Lex Fridman (25:27.480)

embrace sort of practice neuroplasticity.

Grimes (25:31.600)

Because like that's one of the things,

Lex Fridman (25:33.160)

you fall in love with a certain band

Lex Fridman (25:34.360)

and you just kind of stay with that for the rest of your life

Lex Fridman (25:36.760)

and then you never understand the modern music.

Grimes (25:38.400)

That's a really good exercise.

Lex Fridman (25:39.240)

Most of the streaming on Spotify

Grimes (25:40.640)

is like classic rock and stuff.

Lex Fridman (25:42.440)

Like new music makes up a very small chunk

Grimes (25:44.800)

of what is played on Spotify.

Lex Fridman (25:46.840)

And I think this is like not a good sign for us as a species.

Grimes (25:50.120)

I think, yeah.

Lex Fridman (25:52.880)

So it's a good measure of the species open mindedness

Grimes (25:57.720)

to change is how often you listen to new music.

Lex Fridman (26:01.120)

The brain, let's put the music brain back on the shelf.

Grimes (26:05.160)

I gotta pull out the futurist brain for a second.

Lex Fridman (26:09.680)

In what wild ways do you think the future,

Grimes (26:12.280)

say in like 30 years, maybe 50 years,

Lex Fridman (26:14.960)

maybe a hundred years will be different

Lex Fridman (26:19.280)

from our current way of life on earth?

Lex Fridman (26:22.120)

We can talk about augmented reality, virtual reality,

Grimes (26:25.400)

maybe robots, maybe space travel, maybe video games,

Lex Fridman (26:30.800)

maybe genetic engineering.

Grimes (26:32.520)

I can keep going.

Lex Fridman (26:33.360)

Cyborgs, aliens, world wars,

Grimes (26:36.240)

maybe destructive nuclear wars, good and bad.

Lex Fridman (26:39.840)

When you think about the future, what are you imagining?

Lex Fridman (26:43.520)

What's the weirdest and the wildest it could be?

Lex Fridman (26:47.640)

Have you read Surface Detail by Iain Banks?

Grimes (26:51.480)

Surface Detail is my favorite depiction of a,

Lex Fridman (26:54.800)

oh wow, you have to read this book.

Grimes (26:56.520)

It's literally the greatest science fiction book

Lex Fridman (26:58.680)

possibly ever written.

Grimes (26:59.520)

Iain Banks is the man, yeah, for sure.

Lex Fridman (27:01.560)

What have you read?

Grimes (27:03.200)

Just the Player of Games.

Lex Fridman (27:04.520)

I read that titles can't be copyrighted

Lex Fridman (27:07.320)

so you can just steal them.

Lex Fridman (27:08.280)

And I was like, Player of Games, sick.

Grimes (27:09.920)

Nice.

Lex Fridman (27:10.760)

Yeah, so you can name your album.

Grimes (27:12.760)

Like I always wanted to.

Lex Fridman (27:13.600)

Romeo and Juliet or something.

Grimes (27:15.000)

I always wanted to name an album War and Peace.

Lex Fridman (27:17.080)

Nice.

Grimes (27:17.920)

Like that would be, like you.

Lex Fridman (27:18.760)

That is a good, that's a good,

Lex Fridman (27:20.440)

where have I heard that before?

Lex Fridman (27:21.600)

You can do that, like you could do that.

Grimes (27:24.280)

Also things that are in the public domain.

Lex Fridman (27:26.040)

For people who have no clue,

Grimes (27:27.160)

you do have a song called Player of Games.

Lex Fridman (27:29.680)

Yes, oh yeah.

Lex Fridman (27:30.680)

So Iain Banks, Surface Detail is in my opinion

Lex Fridman (27:33.840)

the best future that I've ever read about

Grimes (27:37.200)

or heard about in science fiction.

Lex Fridman (27:39.540)

Basically there's the relationship with super intelligence,

Grimes (27:44.600)

like artificial super intelligence is just, it's like great.

Lex Fridman (27:50.400)

I want to credit the person who coined this term

Grimes (27:53.040)

because I love this term.

Lex Fridman (27:55.240)

And I feel like young women don't get enough credit in.

Grimes (28:00.160)

Yeah, so if you go to Protopia Futures on Instagram,

Lex Fridman (28:03.920)

what is her name?

Grimes (28:05.480)

Personalized donor experience at scale,

Lex Fridman (28:07.240)

our AI power donor experience.

Grimes (28:08.920)

Monica Bealskite, I'm saying that wrong.

Lex Fridman (28:15.360)

And I'm probably gonna, I'm probably butchering this a bit,

Lex Fridman (28:17.680)

but Protopia is sort of, if utopia is unattainable,

Lex Fridman (28:21.580)

Protopia is sort of like, you know.

Grimes (28:26.000)

Wow, that's an awesome Instagram, Protopia Futures.

Lex Fridman (28:28.640)

A great, a future that is, you know, as good as we can get.

Grimes (28:33.480)

The future, positive future.

Lex Fridman (28:34.720)

AI, is this a centralized AI in Surface Detail

Lex Fridman (28:38.360)

or is it distributed?

Lex Fridman (28:39.280)

What kind of AI is it?

Grimes (28:40.560)

They mostly exist as giant super ships,

Lex Fridman (28:42.800)

like sort of like the guild ships in Dune.

Grimes (28:45.800)

Like they're these giant ships that kind of move people

Lex Fridman (28:47.960)

around and the ships are sentient

Lex Fridman (28:49.480)

and they can talk to all the passengers.

Lex Fridman (28:52.240)

And I mean, there's a lot of different types of AI

Grimes (28:56.400)

in the Banksyan future,

Lex Fridman (28:58.320)

but in the opening scene of Surface Detail,

Grimes (29:01.080)

there's this place called the Culture

Lex Fridman (29:02.320)

and the Culture is basically a Protopian future.

Lex Fridman (29:04.440)

And a Protopian future, I think,

Lex Fridman (29:07.320)

is like a future that is like,

Grimes (29:09.760)

obviously it's not utopia, it's not perfect.

Lex Fridman (29:12.400)

And like, cause like striving for utopia,

Grimes (29:14.000)

I think feels hopeless and it's sort of like,

Lex Fridman (29:16.960)

maybe not the best terminology to be using.

Lex Fridman (29:20.380)

So it's like, it's a pretty good place.

Lex Fridman (29:23.960)

Like mostly like, you know,

Grimes (29:27.660)

super intelligence and biological beings

Lex Fridman (29:29.860)

exist fairly in harmony.

Grimes (29:31.880)

There's not too much war.

Lex Fridman (29:33.120)

There's like as close to equality as you can get,

Grimes (29:35.680)

you know, it's like approximately a good future.

Lex Fridman (29:38.680)

Like there's really awesome stuff.

Grimes (29:40.160)

It's, and in the opening scene,

Lex Fridman (29:45.600)

this girl, she's born as a sex slave outside of the culture.

Lex Fridman (29:49.520)

So she's in a society that doesn't adhere

Lex Fridman (29:51.200)

to the cultural values.

Grimes (29:52.620)

She tries to kill the guy who is her like master,

Lex Fridman (29:56.680)

but he kills her, but unbeknownst to her,

Grimes (29:59.040)

when she was traveling on a ship through the culture

Lex Fridman (2:00:04.380)

Like he'll say like crazy things.

Grimes (2:00:05.760)

Like X keeps being like, like bubble car, bubble car.

Lex Fridman (2:00:09.740)

And I'm like, and you know, I'm like, what's a bubble car?

Grimes (2:00:14.160)

Like, but like, it doesn't like,

Lex Fridman (2:00:15.860)

but I don't want to be like, no, you're wrong.

Grimes (2:00:17.420)

I'm like, you're thinking of weird, crazy shit.

Lex Fridman (2:00:20.340)

Like, I don't know what a bubble car is, but like.

Grimes (2:00:22.260)

It's creating worlds

Lex Fridman (2:00:23.460)

and they might be internally consistent.

Lex Fridman (2:00:25.180)

And through that, you might discover something fundamental

Lex Fridman (2:00:27.420)

about this world.

Grimes (2:00:28.260)

Yeah, or he'll like rewrite songs,

Lex Fridman (2:00:29.740)

like with words that he prefers.

Lex Fridman (2:00:32.140)

So like, instead of baby shark, he says baby car.

Lex Fridman (2:00:35.500)

It's like.

Grimes (2:00:36.340)

Maybe he's onto something.

Lex Fridman (2:00:41.100)

Let me ask the big, ridiculous question.

Grimes (2:00:42.740)

We were kind of dancing around it,

Lex Fridman (2:00:44.100)

but what do you think is the meaning

Grimes (2:00:47.180)

of this whole thing we have here of human civilization,

Lex Fridman (2:00:52.140)

of life on earth, but in general, just life?

Lex Fridman (2:00:55.060)

What's the meaning of life?

Lex Fridman (2:00:57.340)

C.

Lex Fridman (2:00:58.180)

Have you, did you read Nova Scene yet?

Lex Fridman (2:01:02.540)

By James Lovelock?

Grimes (2:01:03.700)

You're doing a lot of really good book recommendations here.

Lex Fridman (2:01:06.340)

I haven't even finished this,

Lex Fridman (2:01:07.560)

so I'm a huge fraud yet again.

Lex Fridman (2:01:10.260)

But like really early in the book,

Grimes (2:01:12.620)

he says this amazing thing.

Lex Fridman (2:01:14.500)

Like, I feel like everyone's so sad and cynical.

Grimes (2:01:16.500)

Like everyone's like the Fermi paradox and everyone.

Lex Fridman (2:01:18.700)

I just keep hearing people being like, fuck,

Lex Fridman (2:01:20.500)

what if we're alone?

Lex Fridman (2:01:21.340)

Like, oh no, ah, like, ah, ah.

Lex Fridman (2:01:23.620)

And I'm like, okay, but like, wait,

Lex Fridman (2:01:25.100)

what if this is the beginning?

Grimes (2:01:26.780)

Like in Nova Scene, he says,

Lex Fridman (2:01:30.140)

this is not gonna be a correct,

Grimes (2:01:31.380)

I can't like memorize quotes,

Lex Fridman (2:01:32.580)

but he says something like,

Lex Fridman (2:01:36.260)

what if our consciousness, like right now,

Lex Fridman (2:01:39.980)

like this is the universe waking up?

Grimes (2:01:43.380)

Like what if instead of discovering the universe,

Lex Fridman (2:01:45.500)

this is the universe,

Grimes (2:01:47.460)

like this is the evolution

Lex Fridman (2:01:49.460)

of the literal universe herself.

Grimes (2:01:51.620)

Like we are not separate from the universe.

Lex Fridman (2:01:53.140)

Like this is the universe waking up.

Grimes (2:01:54.620)

This is the universe seeing herself for the first time.

Lex Fridman (2:01:57.400)

Like this is.

Grimes (2:01:59.140)

The universe becoming conscious.

Lex Fridman (2:02:00.820)

The first time we were a part of that.

Grimes (2:02:02.340)

Yeah, cause it's like,

Lex Fridman (2:02:03.180)

we aren't separate from the universe.

Grimes (2:02:05.620)

Like this could be like an incredibly sacred moment

Lex Fridman (2:02:08.780)

and maybe like social media and all this things,

Grimes (2:02:10.980)

the stuff where we're all getting connected together.

Lex Fridman (2:02:13.300)

Like maybe these are the neurons connecting

Grimes (2:02:16.940)

of the like collective super intelligence that is,

Lex Fridman (2:02:22.100)

Waking up.

Grimes (2:02:22.940)

The, yeah, like, you know, it's like,

Lex Fridman (2:02:25.420)

maybe instead of something cynical

Grimes (2:02:27.100)

or maybe if there's something to discover,

Lex Fridman (2:02:29.180)

like maybe this is just, you know,

Grimes (2:02:31.540)

we're a blast assist of like some incredible

Lex Fridman (2:02:35.980)

kind of consciousness or being.

Lex Fridman (2:02:39.420)

And just like in the first three years of life

Lex Fridman (2:02:41.220)

or for human children,

Grimes (2:02:42.820)

we'll forget about all the suffering

Lex Fridman (2:02:44.340)

that we're going through now.

Grimes (2:02:45.460)

I think we'll probably forget about this.

Lex Fridman (2:02:46.620)

I mean, probably, you know, artificial intelligence

Grimes (2:02:50.440)

will eventually render us obsolete.

Lex Fridman (2:02:52.700)

I don't think they'll do it in a malicious way,

Lex Fridman (2:02:55.380)

but I think probably we are very weak.

Lex Fridman (2:02:57.760)

The sun is expanding.

Grimes (2:02:58.880)

Like, I don't know, like, hopefully we can get to Mars,

Lex Fridman (2:03:01.660)

but like, we're pretty vulnerable.

Lex Fridman (2:03:04.100)

And I, you know, like,

Lex Fridman (2:03:06.780)

I think we can coexist for a long time with AI

Lex Fridman (2:03:09.100)

and we can also probably make ourselves less vulnerable,

Lex Fridman (2:03:11.460)

but, you know, I just think

Grimes (2:03:15.700)

consciousness, sentience, self awareness,

Lex Fridman (2:03:18.400)

like, I think this might be the single greatest

Grimes (2:03:21.940)

like moment in evolution ever.

Lex Fridman (2:03:24.980)

And like, maybe this is, you know,

Grimes (2:03:29.300)

the big, like the true beginning of life.

Lex Fridman (2:03:32.580)

And we're just, we're the blue green algae

Grimes (2:03:34.700)

or we're like the single celled organisms

Lex Fridman (2:03:36.980)

of something amazing.

Grimes (2:03:38.460)

The universe awakens and this is it.

Lex Fridman (2:03:40.900)

Yeah.

Grimes (2:03:42.620)

Well, see, you're an incredible person.

Lex Fridman (2:03:45.300)

You're a fascinating mind.

Grimes (2:03:47.500)

You should definitely do, your friend Liv mentioned

Lex Fridman (2:03:50.500)

that you guys were thinking of maybe talking.

Grimes (2:03:52.260)

I would love it if you explored your mind

Lex Fridman (2:03:55.340)

in this kind of media more and more

Grimes (2:03:56.700)

by doing a podcast with her or just in any kind of way.

Lex Fridman (2:03:59.660)

So you're an awesome person.

Grimes (2:04:01.780)

It's an honor to know you.

Lex Fridman (2:04:03.380)

It's an honor to get to sit down with you late at night,

Grimes (2:04:05.820)

which is like surreal.

Lex Fridman (2:04:08.360)

And I really enjoyed it.

Grimes (2:04:09.200)

Thank you for talking today.

Lex Fridman (2:04:10.140)

Yeah, no, I mean, huge honor.

Grimes (2:04:11.700)

I feel very underqualified to be here, but I'm a big fan.

Lex Fridman (2:04:13.640)

I've been listening to the podcast a lot and yeah,

Grimes (2:04:15.940)

me and Liv would appreciate any advice and help

Lex Fridman (2:04:18.260)

and we're definitely gonna do that.

Lex Fridman (2:04:19.220)

So yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:04:21.380)

Anytime.

Grimes (2:04:22.220)

Thank you.

Lex Fridman (2:04:23.040)

Cool, thank you.

Grimes (2:04:24.420)

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Grimes.

Lex Fridman (2:04:26.980)

To support this podcast,

Grimes (2:04:28.220)

please check out our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (2:04:31.060)

And now let me leave you with some words from Oscar Wilde.

Grimes (2:04:34.660)

Yes, I'm a dreamer.

Lex Fridman (2:04:36.940)

For a dreamer is one who can only find her way by moonlight

Lex Fridman (2:04:41.340)

and her punishment is that she sees the dawn

Lex Fridman (2:04:44.260)

before the rest of the world.

Grimes (2:04:46.580)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you

Lex Fridman (2:04:49.020)

next time.

Grimes (30:01.360)

with him one day, a ship put a neural lace

Lex Fridman (30:05.160)

in her head and neural lace is sort of like,

Grimes (30:08.480)

it's basically a Neuralink because life imitates art.

Lex Fridman (30:13.040)

It does indeed.

Grimes (30:14.160)

It does indeed.

Lex Fridman (30:15.000)

So she wakes up and the opening scene is her memory

Grimes (30:17.320)

has been uploaded by this neural lace

Lex Fridman (30:19.040)

when she has been killed.

Lex Fridman (30:20.000)

And now she gets to choose a new body.

Lex Fridman (30:22.640)

And this AI is interfacing with her recorded memory

Grimes (30:26.900)

in her neural lace and helping her and being like,

Lex Fridman (30:29.900)

hello, you're dead.

Lex Fridman (30:31.320)

But because you had a neural lace, your memory's uploaded.

Lex Fridman (30:33.740)

Do you want to choose a new body?

Lex Fridman (30:34.980)

And you're going to be born here in the culture

Lex Fridman (30:36.440)

and like start a new life, which is just,

Grimes (30:38.600)

that's like the opening.

Lex Fridman (30:39.920)

It's like so sick.

Lex Fridman (30:41.400)

And the ship is the super intelligence.

Lex Fridman (30:43.640)

All the ships are kind of super intelligence.

Lex Fridman (30:45.120)

But they still want to preserve a kind of rich,

Lex Fridman (30:47.720)

fulfilling experience for the humans.

Grimes (30:49.680)

Yeah, like they're like friends with the humans.

Lex Fridman (30:51.000)

And then there's a bunch of ships that don't want to exist

Grimes (30:53.560)

with biological beings, but they just have their own place

Lex Fridman (30:56.000)

like way over there.

Lex Fridman (30:57.080)

But they don't, they just do their own thing.

Lex Fridman (30:58.900)

They're not necessarily.

Lex Fridman (31:00.320)

So it's a pretty, this protopian existence is pretty peaceful.

Lex Fridman (31:03.640)

Yeah, I mean, and then, for example,

Grimes (31:05.860)

one of the main fights in the book is they're fighting,

Lex Fridman (31:10.200)

there's these artificial hells that,

Lex Fridman (31:13.820)

and people don't think it's ethical to have artificial hell.

Lex Fridman (31:17.600)

Like basically when people do crime, they get sent,

Grimes (31:19.520)

like when they die, their memory gets sent

Lex Fridman (31:21.140)

to an artificial hell and they're eternally tortured.

Lex Fridman (31:23.480)

And so, and then the way that society is deciding

Lex Fridman (31:27.660)

whether or not to have the artificial hell

Grimes (31:29.280)

is that they're having these simulated,

Lex Fridman (31:31.900)

they're having like a simulated war.

Lex Fridman (31:33.200)

So instead of actual blood, you know,

Lex Fridman (31:36.000)

people are basically essentially fighting in a video game

Grimes (31:38.520)

to choose the outcome of this.

Lex Fridman (31:40.080)

But they're still experiencing the suffering

Lex Fridman (31:42.760)

in this artificial hell or no?

Lex Fridman (31:44.520)

Can you experience stuff or?

Lex Fridman (31:45.760)

So the artificial hell sucks.

Lex Fridman (31:47.200)

And a lot of people in the culture want to get rid

Grimes (31:48.800)

of the artificial hell.

Lex Fridman (31:49.920)

There's a simulated wars,

Lex Fridman (31:51.280)

are they happening in the artificial hell?

Lex Fridman (31:53.320)

So no, the simulated wars are happening

Grimes (31:55.520)

outside of the artificial hell,

Lex Fridman (31:57.080)

between the political factions who are,

Lex Fridman (31:59.960)

so this political faction says we should have simulated hell

Lex Fridman (32:02.880)

to deter crime.

Lex Fridman (32:05.000)

And this political faction is saying,

Lex Fridman (32:06.960)

no, simulated hell is unethical.

Lex Fridman (32:08.920)

And so instead of like having, you know,

Lex Fridman (32:11.700)

blowing each other up with nukes,

Grimes (32:13.120)

they're having like a giant Fortnite battle

Lex Fridman (32:17.160)

to decide this, which, you know, to me that's protopia.

Grimes (32:21.680)

That's like, okay, we can have war without death.

Lex Fridman (32:25.640)

You know, I don't think there should be simulated hells.

Grimes (32:27.440)

I think that is definitely one of the ways

Lex Fridman (32:29.800)

in which technology could go very, very, very, very wrong.

Lex Fridman (32:34.280)

So almost punishing people in a digital space

Lex Fridman (32:37.120)

or something like that.

Grimes (32:37.960)

Yeah, like torturing people's memories.

Lex Fridman (32:41.680)

So either as a deterrent, like if you committed a crime,

Lex Fridman (32:44.760)

but also just for personal pleasure,

Lex Fridman (32:46.560)

if there's some sick, demented humans in this world.

Grimes (32:50.520)

Dan Carlin actually has this

Lex Fridman (32:55.040)

episode of Hardcore History on painful attainment.

Grimes (32:59.440)

Oh, that episode is fucked.

Lex Fridman (33:02.280)

It's dark, because he kind of goes through human history

Lex Fridman (33:05.360)

and says like, we as humans seem to enjoy,

Lex Fridman (33:08.800)

secretly enjoy or used to be openly enjoy

Grimes (33:12.120)

sort of the torture and the death,

Lex Fridman (33:14.400)

watching the death and torture of other humans.

Grimes (33:17.720)

I do think if people were consenting,

Lex Fridman (33:21.720)

we should be allowed to have gladiatorial matches.

Lex Fridman (33:26.240)

But consent is hard to achieve in those situations.

Lex Fridman (33:28.560)

It always starts getting slippery.

Grimes (33:31.080)

Like it could be also forced consent,

Lex Fridman (33:32.760)

like it starts getting weird.

Grimes (33:35.280)

There's way too much excitement.

Lex Fridman (33:37.360)

Like this is what he highlights.

Grimes (33:38.620)

There's something about human nature

Lex Fridman (33:40.520)

that wants to see that violence.

Lex Fridman (33:42.280)

And it's really dark.

Lex Fridman (33:44.280)

And you hope that we can sort of overcome

Grimes (33:47.160)

that aspect of human nature,

Lex Fridman (33:48.840)

but that's still within us somewhere.

Grimes (33:51.280)

Well, I think that's what we're doing right now.

Lex Fridman (33:53.240)

I have this theory that what is very important

Grimes (33:56.400)

about the current moment is that all of evolution

Lex Fridman (34:00.880)

has been survival of the fittest up until now.

Lex Fridman (34:03.400)

And at some point, the lines are kind of fuzzy,

Lex Fridman (34:07.260)

but in the recent past, or maybe even just right now,

Grimes (34:12.080)

we're getting to this point

Lex Fridman (34:14.400)

where we can choose intelligent design.

Grimes (34:19.440)

Like we probably since like the integration of the iPhone,

Lex Fridman (34:23.440)

like we are becoming cyborgs.

Grimes (34:24.820)

Like our brains are fundamentally changed.

Lex Fridman (34:27.680)

Everyone who grew up with electronics,

Grimes (34:29.380)

we are fundamentally different from previous,

Lex Fridman (34:32.520)

from homo sapiens.

Grimes (34:33.440)

I call us homo techno.

Lex Fridman (34:34.680)

I think we have evolved into homo techno,

Grimes (34:36.840)

which is like essentially a new species.

Lex Fridman (34:39.380)

Like if you look at the way,

Grimes (34:41.380)

if you took an MRI of my brain

Lex Fridman (34:43.400)

and you took an MRI of like a medieval brain,

Grimes (34:46.600)

I think it would be very different

Lex Fridman (34:48.160)

the way that it has evolved.

Lex Fridman (34:49.960)

Do you think when historians look back at this time,

Lex Fridman (34:52.000)

they'll see like this was a fundamental shift

Lex Fridman (34:54.040)

to what a human being is?

Lex Fridman (34:54.880)

I think, I do not think we are still homo sapiens.

Grimes (34:58.040)

I believe we are homo techno.

Lex Fridman (34:59.520)

And I think we have evolved.

Lex Fridman (35:04.400)

And I think right now, the way we are evolving,

Lex Fridman (35:07.380)

we can choose how we do that.

Lex Fridman (35:09.080)

And I think we are being very reckless

Lex Fridman (35:10.680)

about how we're doing that.

Grimes (35:11.800)

Like we're just having social media,

Lex Fridman (35:13.020)

but I think this idea that like this is a time

Grimes (35:16.320)

to choose intelligent design should be taken very seriously.

Lex Fridman (35:19.600)

It like now is the moment to reprogram the human computer.

Grimes (35:24.200)

It's like, if you go blind,

Lex Fridman (35:27.260)

your visual cortex will get taken over

Grimes (35:29.920)

with other functions.

Lex Fridman (35:32.000)

We can choose our own evolution.

Grimes (35:35.160)

We can change the way our brains work.

Lex Fridman (35:37.160)

And so we actually have a huge responsibility to do that.

Lex Fridman (35:39.920)

And I think I'm not sure who should be responsible for that,

Lex Fridman (35:42.880)

but there's definitely not adequate education.

Grimes (35:45.200)

We're being inundated with all this technology

Lex Fridman (35:46.940)

that is fundamentally changing

Grimes (35:49.020)

the physical structure of our brains.

Lex Fridman (35:50.900)

And we are not adequately responding to that

Grimes (35:55.920)

to choose how we wanna evolve.

Lex Fridman (35:57.460)

And we could evolve, we could be really whatever we want.

Lex Fridman (36:00.600)

And I think this is a really important time.

Lex Fridman (36:03.040)

And I think if we choose correctly and we choose wisely,

Grimes (36:06.440)

consciousness could exist for a very long time

Lex Fridman (36:09.720)

and integration with AI could be extremely positive.

Lex Fridman (36:12.720)

And I don't think enough people are focusing

Lex Fridman (36:14.400)

on this specific situation.

Lex Fridman (36:16.360)

Do you think we might irreversibly screw things up

Lex Fridman (36:19.160)

if we get things wrong now?

Grimes (36:20.000)

Because the flip side of that,

Lex Fridman (36:21.640)

it seems humans are pretty adaptive.

Lex Fridman (36:23.200)

So maybe the way we figure things out

Lex Fridman (36:25.960)

is by screwing it up, like social media.

Grimes (36:28.080)

Over a generation, we'll see the negative effects

Lex Fridman (36:30.600)

of social media, and then we build new social medias,

Lex Fridman (36:33.080)

and we just keep improving stuff.

Lex Fridman (36:34.960)

And then we learn from the failures of the past.

Grimes (36:37.680)

Because humans seem to be really adaptive.

Lex Fridman (36:39.920)

On the flip side, we can get it wrong in a way

Grimes (36:43.020)

where literally we create weapons of war

Lex Fridman (36:46.400)

or increase hate.

Grimes (36:48.360)

Past a certain threshold, we really do a lot of damage.

Lex Fridman (36:51.840)

I mean, I think we're optimized

Grimes (36:53.700)

to notice the negative things.

Lex Fridman (36:55.680)

But I would actually say one of the things

Grimes (37:00.120)

that I think people aren't noticing

Lex Fridman (37:02.140)

is if you look at Silicon Valley

Lex Fridman (37:03.520)

and you look at the technocracy,

Lex Fridman (37:06.600)

like what's been happening there.

Grimes (37:09.000)

When Silicon Valley started, it was all just Facebook

Lex Fridman (37:11.460)

and all this for profit crap

Grimes (37:14.040)

that really wasn't particular.

Lex Fridman (37:16.920)

I guess it was useful, but it's sort of just whatever.

Lex Fridman (37:22.200)

But now you see lab grown meat, compostable,

Lex Fridman (37:26.680)

or biodegradable, single use cutlery,

Grimes (37:30.200)

or meditation apps.

Lex Fridman (37:33.120)

I think we are actually evolving and changing,

Lex Fridman (37:38.400)

and technology is changing.

Lex Fridman (37:39.600)

I think there just maybe there isn't

Grimes (37:43.840)

quite enough education about this.

Lex Fridman (37:48.140)

And also, I don't know if there's quite enough incentive

Grimes (37:52.240)

for it because I think the way capitalism works,

Lex Fridman (37:56.600)

what we define as profit,

Grimes (37:58.480)

we're also working on an old model

Lex Fridman (38:00.400)

of what we define as profit.

Grimes (38:01.540)

I really think if we changed the idea of profit

Lex Fridman (38:06.400)

to include social good,

Grimes (38:08.200)

you can have economic profit,

Lex Fridman (38:09.840)

social good also counting as profit

Grimes (38:12.580)

would incentivize things that are more useful

Lex Fridman (38:15.100)

and more whatever spiritual technology

Grimes (38:16.960)

or positive technology or things that help reprogram

Lex Fridman (38:21.280)

a human computer in a good way

Grimes (38:22.920)

or things that help us intelligently design our new brains.

Lex Fridman (38:28.280)

Yeah, there's no reason why within the framework

Grimes (38:30.480)

of capitalism, the word profit or the idea of profit

Lex Fridman (38:33.800)

can't also incorporate the well being of a human being.

Lex Fridman (38:37.360)

So like long term well being, long term happiness.

Lex Fridman (38:41.440)

Or even for example, we were talking about motherhood,

Grimes (38:43.840)

like part of the reason I'm so late

Lex Fridman (38:44.840)

is because I had to get the baby to bed.

Lex Fridman (38:47.400)

And it's like, I keep thinking about motherhood,

Lex Fridman (38:48.880)

how under capitalism, it's like this extremely essential job

Grimes (38:53.680)

that is very difficult that is not compensated.

Lex Fridman (38:56.440)

And we sort of like value things

Grimes (38:58.420)

by how much we compensate them.

Lex Fridman (39:01.880)

And so we really devalue motherhood in our society

Lex Fridman (39:04.880)

and pretty much all societies.

Lex Fridman (39:06.080)

Like capitalism does not recognize motherhood.

Grimes (39:08.160)

It's just a job that you're supposed to do for free.

Lex Fridman (39:11.120)

And it's like, but I feel like producing great humans

Grimes (39:15.360)

should be seen as a great, as profit under capitalism.

Lex Fridman (39:19.440)

Like that should be, that's like a huge social good.

Grimes (39:21.480)

Like every awesome human that gets made

Lex Fridman (39:24.160)

adds so much to the world.

Lex Fridman (39:25.600)

So like if that was integrated into the profit structure,

Lex Fridman (39:29.840)

then, you know, and if we potentially found a way

Grimes (39:34.240)

to compensate motherhood.

Lex Fridman (39:35.640)

So come up with a compensation

Grimes (39:37.920)

that's much broader than just money or.

Lex Fridman (39:40.640)

Or it could just be money.

Grimes (39:42.040)

Like, what if you just made, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (39:45.520)

but I don't know how you'd pay for that.

Grimes (39:46.640)

Like, I mean, that's where you start getting into.

Lex Fridman (39:52.000)

Reallocation of resources that people get upset over.

Lex Fridman (39:56.360)

Well, like what if we made like a motherhood Dow?

Lex Fridman (39:58.480)

Yeah, yeah.

Grimes (40:01.320)

And, you know, used it to fund like single mothers,

Lex Fridman (40:07.680)

like, you know, pay for making babies.

Grimes (40:13.640)

So, I mean, if you create and put beautiful things

Lex Fridman (40:17.360)

onto the world, that could be companies,

Grimes (40:19.760)

that can be bridges, that could be art,

Lex Fridman (40:22.640)

that could be a lot of things,

Lex Fridman (40:24.280)

and that could be children, which are.

Lex Fridman (40:28.080)

Or education or.

Grimes (40:29.320)

Anything, that should be valued by society,

Lex Fridman (40:32.380)

and that should be somehow incorporated into the framework

Grimes (40:35.160)

of what, as a market, of what.

Lex Fridman (40:38.480)

Like, if you contribute children to this world,

Grimes (40:40.560)

that should be valued and respected

Lex Fridman (40:42.440)

and sort of celebrated, like, proportional to what it is,

Grimes (40:48.000)

which is, it's the thing that fuels human civilization.

Lex Fridman (40:51.560)

Yeah, like I. It's kind of important.

Grimes (40:53.000)

I feel like everyone's always saying,

Lex Fridman (40:54.600)

I mean, I think we're in very different social spheres,

Lex Fridman (40:56.520)

but everyone's always saying, like, dismantle capitalism.

Lex Fridman (40:58.880)

And I'm like, well, okay, well,

Grimes (40:59.840)

I don't think the government should own everything.

Lex Fridman (41:02.120)

Like, I don't think we should not have private ownership.

Grimes (41:04.200)

Like, that's scary.

Lex Fridman (41:05.360)

You know, like that starts getting into weird stuff

Lex Fridman (41:07.320)

and just sort of like,

Lex Fridman (41:08.920)

I feel there's almost no way to do that

Lex Fridman (41:10.080)

without a police state, you know?

Lex Fridman (41:13.520)

But obviously, capitalism has some major flaws.

Lex Fridman (41:16.980)

And I think actually Mac showed me this idea

Lex Fridman (41:20.360)

called social capitalism, which is a form of capitalism

Grimes (41:23.480)

that just like considers social good to be also profit.

Lex Fridman (41:28.480)

Like, you know, it's like, right now companies need to,

Grimes (41:31.560)

like, you're supposed to grow every quarter or whatever

Lex Fridman (41:34.560)

to like show that you're functioning well,

Lex Fridman (41:38.700)

but it's like, okay, well,

Lex Fridman (41:39.920)

what if you kept the same amount of profit?

Grimes (41:42.920)

You're still in the green,

Lex Fridman (41:43.920)

but then you have also all this social good.

Grimes (41:45.600)

Like, do you really need all this extra economic growth

Lex Fridman (41:47.560)

or could you add this social good and that counts?

Grimes (41:49.520)

And, you know, I don't know if, I am not an economist.

Lex Fridman (41:54.000)

I have no idea how this could be achieved, but.

Grimes (41:56.360)

I don't think economists know how anything

Lex Fridman (41:58.720)

could be achieved either, but they pretend.

Grimes (42:00.320)

It's the thing, they construct a model

Lex Fridman (42:02.280)

and they go on TV shows and sound like an expert.

Grimes (42:06.160)

That's the definition of economist.

Lex Fridman (42:08.540)

How did being a mother, becoming a mother

Lex Fridman (42:12.260)

change you as a human being, would you say?

Lex Fridman (42:16.160)

Man, I think it kind of changed everything

Lex Fridman (42:21.000)

and it's still changing me a lot.

Lex Fridman (42:22.380)

It's actually changing me more right now in this moment

Grimes (42:24.880)

than it was before.

Lex Fridman (42:26.400)

Like today, like this?

Grimes (42:28.520)

Just like in the most recent months and stuff.

Lex Fridman (42:33.480)

Can you elucidate that, how change,

Grimes (42:37.640)

like when you wake up in the morning

Lex Fridman (42:39.360)

and you look at yourself, it's again, which, who are you?

Lex Fridman (42:42.920)

How have you become different, would you say?

Lex Fridman (42:45.520)

I think it's just really reorienting my priorities.

Lex Fridman (42:50.680)

And at first I was really fighting against that

Lex Fridman (42:53.400)

because I somehow felt it was like a failure

Grimes (42:55.560)

of feminism or something.

Lex Fridman (42:56.680)

Like I felt like it was like bad

Grimes (42:59.840)

if like my kids started mattering more than my work.

Lex Fridman (43:05.720)

And then like more recently I started sort of analyzing

Grimes (43:08.960)

that thought in myself and being like,

Lex Fridman (43:12.240)

that's also kind of a construct.

Grimes (43:13.920)

It's like, we've just devalued motherhood so much

Lex Fridman (43:16.280)

in our culture that like, I feel guilty for caring

Grimes (43:21.280)

about my kids more than I care about my work.

Lex Fridman (43:23.320)

So feminism includes breaking out

Grimes (43:25.800)

of whatever the construct is.

Lex Fridman (43:28.360)

So just continually breaking,

Grimes (43:30.900)

it's like freedom empower you to be free.

Lex Fridman (43:34.640)

And that means...

Lex Fridman (43:37.560)

But it also, but like being a mother,

Lex Fridman (43:40.040)

like I'm so much more creative.

Grimes (43:41.840)

Like I cannot believe the massive amount

Lex Fridman (43:45.880)

of brain growth that I am.

Lex Fridman (43:48.440)

Why do you think that is?

Lex Fridman (43:49.280)

Just cause like the stakes are higher somehow?

Grimes (43:51.940)

I think it's like, it's just so trippy

Lex Fridman (43:58.020)

watching consciousness emerge.

Grimes (44:00.800)

It's just like, it's like going on a crazy journey

Lex Fridman (44:06.860)

or something.

Grimes (44:07.700)

It's like the craziest science fiction novel

Lex Fridman (44:10.220)

you could ever read.

Grimes (44:11.060)

It's just so crazy watching consciousness come into being.

Lex Fridman (44:15.100)

And then at the same time,

Grimes (44:16.540)

like you're forced to value your time so much.

Lex Fridman (44:21.140)

Like when I have creative time now, it's so sacred.

Grimes (44:23.520)

I need to like be really fricking on it.

Lex Fridman (44:29.380)

But the other thing is that I used to just be like a cynic

Lex Fridman (44:34.680)

and I used to just wanna...

Lex Fridman (44:35.520)

Like my last album was called Miss Anthropocene

Lex Fridman (44:38.060)

and it was like this like, it was like a study in villainy

Lex Fridman (44:42.620)

or like it was like, well, what if we have,

Grimes (44:44.980)

instead of the old gods, we have like new gods

Lex Fridman (44:46.820)

and it's like Miss Anthropocene is like misanthrope

Grimes (44:49.700)

like and Anthropocene, which is like the, you know,

Lex Fridman (44:53.100)

like and she's the goddess of climate change or whatever.

Lex Fridman (44:55.780)

And she's like destroying the world.

Lex Fridman (44:56.980)

And it was just like, it was like dark

Lex Fridman (44:59.660)

and it was like a study in villainy.

Lex Fridman (45:01.380)

And it was sort of just like,

Grimes (45:02.700)

like I used to like have no problem just making cynical,

Lex Fridman (45:06.820)

angry, scary art.

Lex Fridman (45:08.980)

And not that there's anything wrong with that,

Lex Fridman (45:11.100)

but I think having kids just makes you such an optimist.

Grimes (45:13.580)

It just inherently makes you wanna be an optimist so bad

Lex Fridman (45:16.940)

that like I feel more responsibility

Grimes (45:20.380)

to make more optimistic things.

Lex Fridman (45:23.820)

And I get a lot of shit for it

Grimes (45:25.720)

because everyone's like, oh, you're so privileged.

Lex Fridman (45:28.500)

Stop talking about like pie in the sky,

Grimes (45:30.260)

stupid concepts and focus on like the now.

Lex Fridman (45:32.700)

But it's like, I think if we don't ideate

Grimes (45:36.500)

about futures that could be good,

Lex Fridman (45:40.520)

we won't be able to get them.

Grimes (45:41.540)

If everything is Blade Runner,

Lex Fridman (45:42.780)

then we're gonna end up with Blade Runner.

Grimes (45:44.260)

It's like, as we said earlier, life imitates art.

Lex Fridman (45:47.300)

Like life really does imitate art.

Lex Fridman (45:49.740)

And so we really need more protopian or utopian art.

Lex Fridman (45:53.960)

I think this is incredibly essential

Grimes (45:56.060)

for the future of humanity.

Lex Fridman (45:58.060)

And I think the current discourse

Grimes (46:00.380)

where that's seen as a thinking about protopia or utopia

Lex Fridman (46:09.660)

is seen as a dismissal of the problems

Grimes (46:11.580)

that we currently have.

Lex Fridman (46:12.420)

I think that is an incorrect mindset.

Lex Fridman (46:16.160)

And like having kids just makes me wanna imagine

Lex Fridman (46:20.180)

amazing futures that like maybe I won't be able to build,

Lex Fridman (46:24.420)

but they will be able to build if they want to.

Lex Fridman (46:26.900)

Yeah, it does seem like ideation

Grimes (46:28.300)

is a precursor to creation.

Lex Fridman (46:30.220)

So you have to imagine it in order to be able to build it.

Lex Fridman (46:33.820)

And there is a sad thing about human nature

Lex Fridman (46:36.700)

that somehow a cynical view of the world

Grimes (46:40.740)

is seen as a insightful view.

Lex Fridman (46:44.060)

You know, cynicism is often confused for insight,

Grimes (46:46.980)

which is sad to see.

Lex Fridman (46:48.900)

And optimism is confused for naivete.

Grimes (46:52.620)

Yes, yes.

Lex Fridman (46:53.460)

Like you don't, you're blinded by your,

Grimes (46:57.700)

maybe your privilege or whatever.

Lex Fridman (46:59.320)

You're blinded by something, but you're certainly blinded.

Grimes (47:02.020)

That's sad, that's sad to see

Lex Fridman (47:04.560)

because it seems like the optimists

Grimes (47:06.020)

are the ones that create our future.

Lex Fridman (47:10.260)

They're the ones that build.

Grimes (47:11.900)

In order to build the crazy thing,

Lex Fridman (47:13.560)

you have to be optimistic.

Grimes (47:14.740)

You have to be either stupid or excited or passionate

Lex Fridman (47:19.220)

or mad enough to actually believe that it can be built.

Lex Fridman (47:22.740)

And those are the people that built it.

Lex Fridman (47:24.200)

My favorite quote of all time is from Star Wars, Episode 8,

Grimes (47:29.020)

which I know everyone hates.

Lex Fridman (47:30.940)

Do you like Star Wars, Episode 8?

Grimes (47:32.420)

No, yeah, probably I would say I would probably hate it, yeah.

Lex Fridman (47:36.820)

I don't have strong feelings about it.

Grimes (47:38.940)

Let me backtrack.

Lex Fridman (47:39.780)

I don't have strong feelings about Star Wars.

Grimes (47:41.500)

I'm a Tolkien person.

Lex Fridman (47:43.040)

I'm more into dragons and orcs and ogres.

Grimes (47:47.860)

Yeah, I mean, Tolkien forever.

Lex Fridman (47:49.620)

I really want to have one more son and call him,

Grimes (47:51.780)

I thought Tao Tecno Tolkien would be cool.

Lex Fridman (47:55.260)

It's a lot of T's, I like it.

Grimes (47:56.940)

Yeah, and well, and Tao is six, two, eight, two pi.

Lex Fridman (47:59.260)

Yeah, Tao Tecno, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (48:01.740)

And then techno is obviously the best genre of music,

Lex Fridman (48:04.780)

but also like technocracy.

Grimes (48:06.260)

It just sounds really good.

Lex Fridman (48:07.100)

Yeah, that's right, and techno Tolkien, Tao Tecno Tolkien.

Grimes (48:11.260)

That's a good, that's it.

Lex Fridman (48:12.100)

Tao Tecno Tolkien, but Star Wars, Episode 8,

Grimes (48:15.980)

I know a lot of people have issues with it.

Lex Fridman (48:17.260)

Personally, on the record,

Grimes (48:18.720)

I think it's the best Star Wars film.

Lex Fridman (48:24.100)

You're starting trouble today.

Grimes (48:25.180)

Yeah, but don't kill what you hate, save what you love.

Lex Fridman (48:29.260)

Don't kill what you hate.

Grimes (48:30.460)

Don't kill what you hate, save what you love.

Lex Fridman (48:32.340)

And I think we're, in society right now,

Grimes (48:34.980)

we're in a diagnosis mode.

Lex Fridman (48:36.580)

We're just diagnosing and diagnosing and diagnosing,

Lex Fridman (48:39.140)

and we're trying to kill what we hate,

Lex Fridman (48:41.660)

and we're not trying to save what we love enough.

Lex Fridman (48:44.220)

And there's this Buckminster Fuller quote,

Lex Fridman (48:46.260)

which I'm gonna butcher,

Grimes (48:47.140)

because I don't remember it correctly,

Lex Fridman (48:48.220)

but it's something along the lines of,

Grimes (48:52.580)

don't try to destroy the old bad models,

Lex Fridman (48:58.340)

render them obsolete with better models.

Grimes (49:03.100)

Maybe we don't need to destroy the oil industry.

Lex Fridman (49:05.620)

Maybe we just create a great new battery technology

Lex Fridman (49:08.940)

and sustainable transport,

Lex Fridman (49:10.340)

and just make it economically unreasonable

Grimes (49:13.140)

to still continue to rely on fossil fuels.

Lex Fridman (49:17.100)

It's like, don't kill what you hate, save what you love.

Grimes (49:20.180)

Make new things and just render the old things unusable.

Lex Fridman (49:24.460)

It's like if the college debt is so bad,

Lex Fridman (49:29.060)

and universities are so expensive,

Lex Fridman (49:31.500)

and I feel like education is becoming obsolete.

Grimes (49:35.700)

I feel like we could completely revolutionize education,

Lex Fridman (49:38.460)

and we could make it free.

Lex Fridman (49:39.380)

And it's like, you look at JSTOR,

Lex Fridman (49:40.420)

and you have to pay to get all the studies and everything.

Lex Fridman (49:43.460)

What if we created a DAO that bought JSTOR,

Lex Fridman (49:46.520)

or we created a DAO that was funding studies,

Lex Fridman (49:48.460)

and those studies were open source, or free for everyone.

Lex Fridman (49:51.880)

And what if we just open sourced education

Lex Fridman (49:55.100)

and decentralized education and made it free,

Lex Fridman (49:56.980)

and all research was on the internet,

Lex Fridman (50:00.900)

and all the outcomes of studies were on the internet,

Lex Fridman (50:05.220)

and no one has student debt,

Lex Fridman (50:10.060)

and you just take tests when you apply for a job,

Lex Fridman (50:14.220)

and if you're qualified, then you can work there.

Grimes (50:18.060)

This is just like, I don't know how anything works.

Lex Fridman (50:20.500)

I'm just randomly ranting, but.

Grimes (50:22.700)

I like the humility.

Lex Fridman (50:24.920)

You gotta think from just basic first principles.

Lex Fridman (50:27.780)

What is the problem?

Lex Fridman (50:28.900)

What's broken?

Lex Fridman (50:29.740)

What are some ideas?

Lex Fridman (50:30.740)

That's it.

Lex Fridman (50:31.580)

And get excited about those ideas,

Lex Fridman (50:33.100)

and share your excitement,

Lex Fridman (50:34.660)

and don't tear each other down.

Lex Fridman (50:37.100)

It's just when you kill things,

Grimes (50:38.140)

you often end up killing yourself.

Lex Fridman (50:40.140)

Like war is not a one sided,

Grimes (50:43.380)

like you're not gonna go in and just kill them,

Lex Fridman (50:45.060)

like you're gonna get stabbed.

Grimes (50:46.900)

It's like, and I think when I talk about this nexus point

Lex Fridman (50:50.380)

of that we're in this point in society

Grimes (50:53.320)

where we're switching to intelligent design,

Lex Fridman (50:55.140)

I think part of our switch to intelligent design

Grimes (50:57.220)

is that we need to choose nonviolence.

Lex Fridman (50:59.480)

And we need to, like, I think we can choose to start,

Grimes (51:04.300)

I don't think we can eradicate violence from our species,

Lex Fridman (51:07.380)

because I think we need it a little bit,

Lex Fridman (51:10.540)

but I think we can choose

Lex Fridman (51:12.100)

to really reorient our primitive brains

Grimes (51:14.900)

that are fighting over scarcity,

Lex Fridman (51:16.300)

and that are so attack oriented,

Lex Fridman (51:20.620)

and move into, we can optimize for creativity and building.

Lex Fridman (51:25.420)

Yeah, it's interesting to think how that happens,

Lex Fridman (51:27.220)

so some of it is just education,

Lex Fridman (51:29.580)

some of it is living life and introspecting your own mind,

Lex Fridman (51:34.100)

and trying to live up to the better angels of your nature

Lex Fridman (51:37.780)

for each one of us, all those kinds of things at scale.

Grimes (51:41.800)

That's how we can sort of start to minimize

Lex Fridman (51:44.580)

the amount of destructive war in our world,

Lex Fridman (51:48.160)

and that's, to me, probably you're the same,

Lex Fridman (51:51.100)

technology is a really promising way to do that.

Grimes (51:55.220)

Like, social media should be a really promising way

Lex Fridman (51:57.700)

to do that, it's a way we connect.

Grimes (52:00.060)

I, you know, for the most part,

Lex Fridman (52:01.540)

I really enjoy social media.

Grimes (52:03.260)

I just know all the negative stuff.

Lex Fridman (52:05.180)

I don't engage with any of the negative stuff.

Grimes (52:07.540)

Just not even, like, by blocking

Lex Fridman (52:10.300)

or any of that kind of stuff,

Lex Fridman (52:11.400)

but just not letting it enter my mind.

Lex Fridman (52:14.740)

Like, just, like, when somebody says something negative,

Grimes (52:18.500)

I see it, I immediately think positive thoughts about them,

Lex Fridman (52:23.260)

and I just forget they exist after that.

Grimes (52:26.260)

Just move on, because, like, that negative energy,

Lex Fridman (52:28.640)

if I return the negative energy,

Grimes (52:30.300)

they're going to get excited in a negative way right back,

Lex Fridman (52:34.260)

and it's just this kind of vicious cycle.

Lex Fridman (52:38.420)

But you would think technology would assist us

Lex Fridman (52:40.540)

in this process of letting go,

Grimes (52:42.860)

of not taking things personally,

Lex Fridman (52:44.720)

of not engaging in the negativity,

Lex Fridman (52:46.380)

but unfortunately, social media profits from the negativity,

Lex Fridman (52:50.260)

so the current models.

Grimes (52:52.020)

I mean, social media is like a gun.

Lex Fridman (52:53.420)

Like, you should take a course before you use it.

Grimes (52:57.260)

Like, it's like, this is what I mean,

Lex Fridman (52:59.380)

like, when I say reprogram the human computer.

Grimes (53:01.100)

Like, in school, you should learn

Lex Fridman (53:03.100)

about how social media optimizes

Grimes (53:05.060)

to, you know, raise your cortisol levels

Lex Fridman (53:07.140)

and make you angry and crazy and stressed,

Grimes (53:09.220)

and, like, you should learn how to have hygiene

Lex Fridman (53:12.580)

about how you use social media.

Grimes (53:16.740)

But, so you can, yeah,

Lex Fridman (53:18.420)

choose not to focus on the negative stuff, but I don't know.

Grimes (53:22.380)

I'm not sure social media should,

Lex Fridman (53:24.580)

I guess it should exist.

Grimes (53:25.700)

I'm not sure.

Lex Fridman (53:27.420)

I mean, we're in the messy, it's the experimental phase.

Grimes (53:29.420)

Like, we're working it out.

Lex Fridman (53:30.260)

Yeah, it's the early days.

Grimes (53:31.080)

I don't even know, when you say social media,

Lex Fridman (53:32.700)

I don't know what that even means.

Grimes (53:33.820)

We're in the very early days.

Lex Fridman (53:35.020)

I think social media is just basic human connection

Grimes (53:37.780)

in the digital realm, and that, I think it should exist,

Lex Fridman (53:41.940)

but there's so many ways to do it in a bad way.

Grimes (53:43.940)

There's so many ways to do it in a good way.

Lex Fridman (53:45.900)

There's all discussions of all the same human rights.

Grimes (53:48.100)

We talk about freedom of speech.

Lex Fridman (53:49.900)

We talk about sort of violence

Grimes (53:52.260)

in the space of digital media.

Lex Fridman (53:54.040)

We talk about hate speech.

Grimes (53:56.180)

We talk about all these things that we had to figure out

Lex Fridman (53:59.020)

back in the day in the physical space.

Grimes (54:01.260)

We're now figuring out in the digital space,

Lex Fridman (54:03.620)

and it's like baby stages.

Grimes (54:06.500)

When the printing press came out,

Lex Fridman (54:07.820)

it was like pure chaos for a minute, you know?

Grimes (54:10.180)

It's like when you inject,

Lex Fridman (54:12.340)

when there's a massive information injection

Grimes (54:14.300)

into the general population, there's just gonna be,

Lex Fridman (54:20.620)

I feel like the printing press, I don't have the years,

Lex Fridman (54:23.480)

but it was like printing press came out,

Lex Fridman (54:24.980)

shit got really fucking bad for a minute,

Lex Fridman (54:27.160)

but then we got the enlightenment.

Lex Fridman (54:29.180)

And so it's like, I think we're in,

Grimes (54:30.980)

this is like the second coming of the printing press.

Lex Fridman (54:34.780)

We're probably gonna have some shitty times for a minute,

Lex Fridman (54:37.760)

and then we're gonna have recalibrate

Lex Fridman (54:40.660)

to have a better understanding of how we consume media

Lex Fridman (54:44.660)

and how we deliver media.

Lex Fridman (54:47.940)

Speaking of programming the human computer,

Grimes (54:50.920)

you mentioned Baby X.

Lex Fridman (54:52.940)

So there's this young consciousness coming to be,

Grimes (54:56.980)

came from a cell.

Lex Fridman (54:58.340)

Like that whole thing doesn't even make sense.

Grimes (55:01.180)

It came from DNA.

Lex Fridman (55:02.380)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (55:03.220)

And then there's this baby computer

Lex Fridman (55:04.660)

that just like grows and grows and grows and grows,

Lex Fridman (55:06.780)

and now there's a conscious being

Lex Fridman (55:08.440)

with extremely impressive cognitive capabilities with,

Lex Fridman (55:13.780)

Have you met him?

Lex Fridman (55:14.620)

Yes, yeah.

Grimes (55:15.460)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (55:16.280)

He's actually really smart.

Grimes (55:17.120)

He's really smart.

Lex Fridman (55:17.960)

Yeah.

Grimes (55:18.780)

He's weird.

Lex Fridman (55:19.620)

Yeah.

Grimes (55:20.460)

Or a baby.

Lex Fridman (55:21.280)

He does.

Grimes (55:22.120)

I don't, I haven't.

Lex Fridman (55:22.960)

I don't know a lot of other babies,

Lex Fridman (55:23.780)

but he seems to be smart.

Lex Fridman (55:24.620)

Zach, I don't hang out with babies often,

Lex Fridman (55:25.460)

but this baby was very impressive.

Lex Fridman (55:26.860)

He does a lot of pranks and stuff.

Grimes (55:28.940)

Oh, so he's like.

Lex Fridman (55:29.780)

Like he'll like give you a treat

Lex Fridman (55:31.140)

and then take it away and laugh and like stuff like that.

Lex Fridman (55:33.580)

So he's like a chess player.

Lex Fridman (55:35.340)

So here's a cognitive sort of,

Lex Fridman (55:39.820)

there's a computer being programmed.

Lex Fridman (55:41.620)

So he's taking in the environment,

Lex Fridman (55:43.180)

interacting with a specific set of humans.

Lex Fridman (55:45.900)

How would you, first of all, what is it?

Lex Fridman (55:48.900)

What, let me ask.

Lex Fridman (55:50.420)

I want to ask how do you program this computer?

Lex Fridman (55:53.220)

And also how do you make sense of that

Grimes (55:55.580)

there's a conscious being right there

Lex Fridman (55:58.100)

that wasn't there before?

Grimes (55:59.260)

It's giving me a lot of crisis thoughts.

Lex Fridman (56:01.460)

I'm thinking really hard.

Grimes (56:02.700)

I think that's part of the reason

Lex Fridman (56:03.700)

it's like, I'm struggling to focus on

Grimes (56:06.100)

art and stuff right now.

Lex Fridman (56:07.140)

Cause baby X is becoming conscious

Lex Fridman (56:09.620)

and like my it's just reorienting my brain.

Lex Fridman (56:12.580)

Like my brain is suddenly totally shifting of like,

Grimes (56:14.700)

oh shit, like the way we raise children.

Lex Fridman (56:18.220)

Like, I hate all the baby books and everything.

Grimes (56:21.980)

I hate them.

Lex Fridman (56:22.820)

Like they're, oh, the art is so bad.

Lex Fridman (56:24.320)

And like all this stuff, everything about all the aesthetics.

Lex Fridman (56:29.060)

And like, I'm just like, ah, like this is so.

Grimes (56:32.300)

The programming languages we're using

Lex Fridman (56:35.060)

to program these baby computers isn't good.

Grimes (56:37.220)

Yeah, like I'm thinking, and I,

Lex Fridman (56:39.980)

not that I have like good answers

Grimes (56:41.340)

or know what to do, but I'm just thinking really,

Lex Fridman (56:46.020)

really hard about it.

Grimes (56:46.860)

I, we recently watched Totoro with him, Studio Ghibli.

Lex Fridman (56:52.860)

And it's just like a fantastic film.

Lex Fridman (56:56.100)

And he like responded to,

Lex Fridman (56:57.500)

I know you're not supposed to show baby screens too much,

Lex Fridman (56:59.460)

but like, I think it's the most sort of like,

Lex Fridman (57:04.260)

I feel like it's the highest art baby content.

Grimes (57:06.940)

Like it really speaks, there's almost no talking in it.

Lex Fridman (57:12.020)

It's really simple.

Grimes (57:13.060)

Although all the dialogue is super, super, super simple,

Lex Fridman (57:16.020)

you know, and it's like a one to three year old

Grimes (57:19.620)

can like really connect with it.

Lex Fridman (57:21.020)

Like it feels like it's almost aimed

Grimes (57:22.480)

at like a one to three year old,

Lex Fridman (57:24.600)

but it's like great art and it's so imaginative

Lex Fridman (57:27.620)

and it's so beautiful.

Lex Fridman (57:28.700)

And like the first time I showed it to him,

Grimes (57:31.660)

he was just like so invested in it,

Lex Fridman (57:33.580)

unlike I've ever, unlike anything else

Grimes (57:35.740)

I'd ever shown him.

Lex Fridman (57:36.740)

Like he was just like crying when they cry

Lex Fridman (57:38.500)

and laughing when they laugh,

Lex Fridman (57:39.580)

like just like having this roller coaster of like emotions,

Grimes (57:42.520)

like, and he learned a bunch of words.

Lex Fridman (57:44.020)

Like he was, and he started saying Totoro

Lex Fridman (57:46.020)

and started just saying all this stuff

Lex Fridman (57:48.560)

after watching Totoro,

Lex Fridman (57:49.860)

and he wants to watch it all the time.

Lex Fridman (57:52.020)

And I was like, man, why isn't there an industry of this?

Grimes (57:55.460)

Like why aren't our best artists focusing on making art

Lex Fridman (57:59.980)

like for the birth of consciousness?

Grimes (58:04.180)

Like, and that's one of the things I've been thinking

Lex Fridman (58:07.080)

I really wanna start doing.

Grimes (58:08.380)

You know, I don't wanna speak before I do things too much,

Lex Fridman (58:10.380)

but like, I'm just like ages one to three,

Grimes (58:15.220)

like we should be putting so much effort into that.

Lex Fridman (58:18.680)

And the other thing about Totoro is it's like,

Grimes (58:21.020)

it's like better for the environment

Lex Fridman (58:22.380)

because adults love Totoro.

Grimes (58:23.860)

It's such good art that everyone loves it.

Lex Fridman (58:25.580)

Like I still have all my old Totoro merch

Grimes (58:27.380)

from when I was a kid.

Lex Fridman (58:28.660)

Like I literally have the most ragged old Totoro merch.

Grimes (58:33.960)

Like everybody loves it, everybody keeps it.

Lex Fridman (58:35.780)

It's like, why does the art we have for babies

Grimes (58:40.900)

need to suck and be not accessible to adults

Lex Fridman (58:45.300)

and then just be thrown out when, you know,

Lex Fridman (58:49.100)

they age out of it?

Lex Fridman (58:50.300)

Like, it's like, I don't know.

Grimes (58:53.180)

I don't have like a fully formed thought here,

Lex Fridman (58:54.740)

but this is just something I've been thinking about a lot

Grimes (58:56.220)

is like, how do we like,

Lex Fridman (58:58.660)

how do we have more Totoroesque content?

Grimes (59:01.180)

Like how do we have more content like this

Lex Fridman (59:02.500)

that like is universal and everybody loves,

Lex Fridman (59:05.100)

but is like really geared to an emerging consciousness?

Lex Fridman (59:10.160)

Emerging consciousness in the first like three years of life

Grimes (59:13.100)

that so much turmoil,

Lex Fridman (59:14.260)

so much evolution of mind is happening.

Grimes (59:16.540)

It seems like a crucial time.

Lex Fridman (59:18.020)

Would you say to make it not suck,

Lex Fridman (59:21.820)

do you think of basically treating a child

Lex Fridman (59:26.580)

like they have the capacity to have the brilliance

Lex Fridman (59:28.980)

of an adult or even beyond that?

Lex Fridman (59:30.760)

Is that how you think of that mind or?

Grimes (59:33.420)

No, cause they still,

Lex Fridman (59:35.080)

they like it when you talk weird and stuff.

Grimes (59:37.900)

Like they respond better to,

Lex Fridman (59:39.660)

cause even they can imitate better

Grimes (59:41.040)

when your voice is higher.

Lex Fridman (59:42.100)

Like people say like, oh, don't do baby talk.

Lex Fridman (59:44.020)

But it's like, when your voice is higher,

Lex Fridman (59:45.380)

it's closer to something they can imitate.

Lex Fridman (59:47.340)

So they like, like the baby talk actually kind of works.

Lex Fridman (59:50.520)

Like it helps them learn to communicate.

Grimes (59:52.100)

I've found it to be more effective

Lex Fridman (59:53.360)

with learning words and stuff.

Lex Fridman (59:55.300)

But like, you're not speaking down to them.

Lex Fridman (59:59.980)

Like do they have the capacity