Lee Cronin: Origin of Life, Aliens, Complexity, and Consciousness

Lex Fridman (01:23.600)

and we talk about life, the small things,

Lex Fridman (01:26.800)

and the big things.

Lex Fridman (01:28.240)

All of it gives me hope.

Lee Cronin (01:30.400)

People are just amazing.

Lex Fridman (01:32.360)

You are amazing.

Lee Cronin (01:34.040)

I ask for your support, wisdom, and patience

Lex Fridman (01:37.280)

as I keep going with this silly little podcast,

Lee Cronin (01:41.480)

including through some difficult conversations

Lex Fridman (01:45.760)

and hopefully many fascinating and fun ones too.

Lee Cronin (01:49.460)

This is the Lex Friedman podcast.

Lex Fridman (01:51.460)

To support it, please check out our sponsors

Lee Cronin (01:53.500)

in the description.

Lex Fridman (01:54.820)

And now, dear friends, here's Lee Cronin.

Lex Fridman (01:59.580)

How do you think life originated on Earth

Lex Fridman (02:02.780)

and what insights does that give us about life?

Lee Cronin (02:06.580)

If we go back to the origin of Earth

Lex Fridman (02:08.540)

and you think about maybe 4.7, 4.6, 4.5 billion years ago,

Lee Cronin (02:13.540)

the planet was quite hot.

Lex Fridman (02:14.780)

There was a limited number of minerals.

Lee Cronin (02:16.820)

There was some carbon, some water, and I think

Lex Fridman (02:20.020)

that maybe it's a really simple set of chemistry

Lee Cronin (02:22.340)

that we really don't understand.

Lex Fridman (02:25.300)

So that means you've got a finite number of elements

Lee Cronin (02:27.660)

that are going to react very simply with one another

Lex Fridman (02:31.260)

and out of that mess comes a cell.

Lex Fridman (02:33.220)

So literally sand turns into cells

Lex Fridman (02:35.940)

and it seems to happen quick.

Lex Fridman (02:38.020)

So what I think I can say with some degree of,

Lex Fridman (02:41.460)

I think not certainty, but curiosity,

Lee Cronin (02:43.940)

genuine curiosity is that life happened fast.

Lex Fridman (02:47.300)

Yeah, so when we say fast,

Lee Cronin (02:50.340)

this is a pretty surprising fact

Lex Fridman (02:53.060)

and maybe you can actually correct me and elaborate,

Lex Fridman (02:55.100)

but it seems like most, like 70 or 80% of the time

Lex Fridman (02:59.500)

that Earth has been around, there's been life on it,

Lee Cronin (03:01.460)

like some very significant percentage.

Lex Fridman (03:03.180)

So when you say fast, like the slow part

Lee Cronin (03:06.300)

is from single cell or from bacteria

Lex Fridman (03:09.660)

to something more complicated, organisms.

Lee Cronin (03:11.700)

It seems like most of the time that Earth has been around,

Lex Fridman (03:14.900)

it's been single cell or like very basic organisms,

Lee Cronin (03:18.940)

like a couple billion years.

Lex Fridman (03:20.460)

But yeah, you're right.

Lee Cronin (03:21.780)

That's really, I recently kind of revisited our history

Lex Fridman (03:26.180)

and saw this and I was just looking at the timeline.

Lex Fridman (03:30.180)

Wait a minute, like how did life just spring up so quickly?

Lex Fridman (03:33.780)

Like really quickly.

Lee Cronin (03:35.620)

That makes me think that it really wanted to.

Lex Fridman (03:38.900)

Like put another way, it's very easy for life to spring.

Lee Cronin (03:42.900)

Yeah, I agree, I think it's much more inevitable

Lex Fridman (03:45.900)

and I think I try to kind of, not provoke,

Lex Fridman (03:49.900)

but try and push chemists to think about,

Lex Fridman (03:51.900)

because chemists are central to this problem, right?

Lee Cronin (03:54.900)

Of understanding the origin of life on Earth, at least,

Lex Fridman (03:57.260)

because we're made of chemistry.

Lex Fridman (03:59.500)

But I wonder if the origin of life on a planet,

Lex Fridman (04:02.540)

or sorry, the emergence of life on the planet is as,

Lee Cronin (04:05.100)

common as the formation of a star.

Lex Fridman (04:08.100)

And if you start framing it in that way,

Lee Cronin (04:10.700)

it allows you to then look at the universe

Lex Fridman (04:12.220)

slightly differently, because,

Lex Fridman (04:14.300)

and we can get into this, I think, in quite some detail,

Lex Fridman (04:16.700)

but I think, to come back to your question,

Lee Cronin (04:19.500)

I have little idea of how life got started,

Lex Fridman (04:23.100)

but I know it was simple.

Lex Fridman (04:24.900)

And I know that the process of selection

Lex Fridman (04:27.700)

had to occur before the, by the end of the day,

Lee Cronin (04:31.700)

the selection had to occur before the biology

Lex Fridman (04:35.500)

was established, so that selection built the framework

Lee Cronin (04:39.780)

from which life kind of grew in complexity

Lex Fridman (04:43.500)

and capability and functionality and autonomy.

Lex Fridman (04:46.300)

And I think these are all really important words

Lex Fridman (04:48.300)

that we can unpack over the next while.

Lex Fridman (04:51.140)

Can you say all the words again?

Lex Fridman (04:53.100)

So you said selection, so natural selection,

Lee Cronin (04:57.940)

the original A, B testing.

Lex Fridman (04:59.820)

And so, and then complexity,

Lex Fridman (05:01.900)

and then the degree of autonomy and sophistication,

Lex Fridman (05:05.500)

because I think that people misunderstand what life is.

Lee Cronin (05:10.140)

Some people say that life is a cell,

Lex Fridman (05:12.020)

and some people that say that life is a virus

Lee Cronin (05:15.300)

or life is an on off switch.

Lex Fridman (05:19.820)

I don't think it's that,

Lee Cronin (05:21.020)

life is the universe developing a memory.

Lex Fridman (05:25.020)

And the laws of physics and the way,

Lee Cronin (05:27.500)

well, there are no laws of physics.

Lex Fridman (05:28.900)

It's just memory free stuff, right?

Lex Fridman (05:32.860)

So there's only a finite number of ways

Lex Fridman (05:34.460)

you can arrange the fundamental particles to do things.

Lee Cronin (05:38.580)

Life is the universe developing a memory.

Lex Fridman (05:43.420)

So it's like sewing a piece of art slowly,

Lex Fridman (05:49.340)

and then you can look back at it.

Lex Fridman (05:50.580)

So, so there's a stickiness to life.

Lee Cronin (05:56.580)

It's like universe doing stuff.

Lex Fridman (05:58.660)

And when you say memory, it's like there's a stickiness

Lee Cronin (06:01.820)

to a bunch of the stuff that's building together.

Lex Fridman (06:04.100)

So like you can, in a stable way,

Lee Cronin (06:07.220)

like trace back the complexity

Lex Fridman (06:10.660)

and that tells a coherent story.

Lee Cronin (06:13.060)

Yeah, and I think, yeah.

Lex Fridman (06:14.500)

Okay, that's, by the way, very poetic and beautiful.

Lee Cronin (06:19.540)

Life is the universe developing a memory.

Lex Fridman (06:24.180)

Okay, and then there's autonomy,

Lee Cronin (06:25.900)

you said complexity we'll talk about,

Lex Fridman (06:27.580)

but it's a really interesting idea

Lee Cronin (06:30.100)

that selection preceded biology.

Lex Fridman (06:33.540)

Yeah, I think.

Lex Fridman (06:35.060)

So first of all, what is chemistry?

Lex Fridman (06:38.420)

Like does sand still count as chemistry?

Lee Cronin (06:41.380)

Sure, I mean, as a chemist, a card carrying chemist,

Lex Fridman (06:43.980)

if I'm allowed a card, I don't know.

Lee Cronin (06:45.940)

Don't know what I am most days, actually.

Lex Fridman (06:46.780)

What is a card made of?

Lee Cronin (06:48.260)

That's what I'm thinking.

Lex Fridman (06:49.660)

What's the chemical composition of the card?

Lex Fridman (06:52.340)

So what is chemistry?

Lex Fridman (06:53.860)

Well, chemistry is the thing that happens

Lee Cronin (06:55.620)

when you bring electrons together and you form bonds.

Lex Fridman (06:58.340)

So bonds, well, I say to people

Lee Cronin (07:00.340)

when they talk about life elsewhere,

Lex Fridman (07:02.380)

and I just say, well, there's bonds, there's hope,

Lee Cronin (07:04.780)

because bonds allow you to get heterogeneity.

Lex Fridman (07:07.020)

They allow you to record those memories,

Lee Cronin (07:09.500)

or at least on Earth.

Lex Fridman (07:11.340)

You could imagine a Stanislav Lemtri world

Lee Cronin (07:15.580)

where you might have life emerging

Lex Fridman (07:17.220)

or intelligence emerging before life.

Lee Cronin (07:19.660)

That may be something like Solaris or something,

Lex Fridman (07:21.980)

but to get to selection,

Lee Cronin (07:25.200)

if you can form, if atoms can combine and form bonds,

Lex Fridman (07:28.540)

those bonds, those atoms can bond to different elements

Lex Fridman (07:32.500)

and those molecules will have different identities

Lex Fridman (07:35.620)

and interact with each other differently,

Lex Fridman (07:37.140)

and then you can start to have some degree of causation

Lex Fridman (07:39.940)

or interaction and then selection and then existence.

Lex Fridman (07:45.100)

And then you go up the kind of the path of complexity.

Lex Fridman (07:49.820)

And so at least on Earth, as we know it,

Lee Cronin (07:52.500)

there is a sufficient pool of available chemicals

Lex Fridman (07:56.380)

to start searching that combinatorial space of bonds.

Lee Cronin (08:01.460)

So, okay, this is a really interesting question.

Lex Fridman (08:03.820)

Let's lay it out.

Lex Fridman (08:04.780)

So bonds, almost like cards.

Lex Fridman (08:07.900)

We say there's bonds, there is life,

Lee Cronin (08:11.980)

there's intelligence, there's consciousness.

Lex Fridman (08:14.260)

And what you just made me realize is

Lee Cronin (08:18.060)

that those can emerge, let's put bonds aside,

Lex Fridman (08:24.620)

those can emerge in any order.

Lee Cronin (08:27.180)

That's really brilliant.

Lex Fridman (08:28.820)

So intelligence can come before life.

Lee Cronin (08:32.140)

It's like panpsychists believe that consciousness,

Lex Fridman (08:36.200)

I guess, comes before life and before intelligence.

Lex Fridman (08:41.620)

So consciousness permeates all matter,

Lex Fridman (08:43.900)

it's some kind of fabric of reality.

Lee Cronin (08:46.020)

Okay, so like within this framework,

Lex Fridman (08:47.940)

you can kind of arrange everything,

Lex Fridman (08:49.980)

but you need to have the bonds

Lex Fridman (08:53.900)

that precedes everything else.

Lee Cronin (08:55.340)

Oh, and the other thing is selection.

Lex Fridman (08:57.580)

So like the mechanism of selection, that could proceed.

Lex Fridman (09:02.460)

See, couldn't that proceed bonds too?

Lex Fridman (09:04.660)

Whatever the hell selection is.

Lex Fridman (09:05.740)

So I would say that there is an elegant order to it.

Lex Fridman (09:09.260)

Bonds allow selection, allows the emergence of life,

Lee Cronin (09:13.580)

allows the emergence of multicellularity

Lex Fridman (09:15.860)

and then more information processing,

Lee Cronin (09:18.300)

building state machines all the way up.

Lex Fridman (09:19.700)

However, you could imagine a situation if you had,

Lee Cronin (09:23.540)

I don't know, a neutron star or a sun

Lex Fridman (09:25.380)

or what a ferromagnetic loops interacting with one another

Lex Fridman (09:28.660)

and these oscillators building state machines

Lex Fridman (09:31.100)

and these state machines reading something

Lee Cronin (09:32.580)

out in the environment.

Lex Fridman (09:34.300)

Over time, these state machines would be able

Lee Cronin (09:36.460)

to literally record what happened in the past

Lex Fridman (09:39.340)

and sense what's going on in the present

Lex Fridman (09:41.560)

and imagine the future.

Lex Fridman (09:43.140)

However, I don't think it's ever gonna be

Lee Cronin (09:46.220)

within a human comprehension, that type of life.

Lex Fridman (09:49.900)

I wouldn't count it out because whenever you say,

Lee Cronin (09:53.220)

I know in science, whenever I say something's impossible,

Lex Fridman (09:55.900)

I then wake up the next day and say,

Lee Cronin (09:56.740)

no, that's actually wrong.

Lex Fridman (09:57.860)

I mean, there are some limits, of course.

Lee Cronin (10:00.540)

I don't see myself traveling fast and light anytime soon,

Lex Fridman (10:03.480)

but...

Lee Cronin (10:04.320)

Eric Weinstein says that's possible,

Lex Fridman (10:05.620)

so he will say you're wrong.

Lee Cronin (10:06.660)

Sure, but I'm an experimentalist as well,

Lex Fridman (10:08.700)

so one of my, I have two superpowers.

Lee Cronin (10:11.380)

My stupidity, and I don't mean that as a,

Lex Fridman (10:14.540)

I'm like absolutely completely witless,

Lex Fridman (10:16.620)

but I mean my ability to kind of just start again

Lex Fridman (10:19.000)

and ask the question and then do it with an experiment.

Lee Cronin (10:22.220)

I always wanted to be a theoretician growing up,

Lex Fridman (10:24.340)

but I just didn't have the intellectual capability,

Lex Fridman (10:27.140)

but I was able to think of experiments in my head

Lex Fridman (10:30.580)

I could then do in my lab or when I was a child outside

Lex Fridman (10:35.780)

and then those experiments in my head

Lex Fridman (10:37.820)

and then outside reinforced one another.

Lex Fridman (10:40.020)

So I think that's a very good way of kind of

Lex Fridman (10:42.500)

grounding the science, right?

Lee Cronin (10:44.340)

Well, that's a nice way to think about theoreticians

Lex Fridman (10:46.660)

is they're just people who run experiments in their head.

Lex Fridman (10:49.620)

I mean, that's exactly what Einstein did, right?

Lex Fridman (10:51.620)

But you were also capable of doing that in the head,

Lee Cronin (10:54.420)

in your head, inside your head and in the real world

Lex Fridman (10:57.000)

and the connection between the two

Lee Cronin (10:59.420)

is when you first discovered your superpower stupidity.

Lex Fridman (11:02.560)

I like it.

Lee Cronin (11:03.400)

Yes, there you go.

Lex Fridman (11:04.220)

What's the second superpower?

Lex Fridman (11:05.460)

Your accent or is that?

Lex Fridman (11:08.420)

Well, I don't know.

Lee Cronin (11:09.860)

I am genuinely curious.

Lex Fridman (11:11.580)

So I have, like everybody, ego problems,

Lex Fridman (11:15.020)

but my curiosity is bigger than my ego.

Lex Fridman (11:16.900)

So as long as that happens, I can cope.

Lee Cronin (11:20.340)

That's awesome.

Lex Fridman (11:21.260)

That is so powerful.

Lee Cronin (11:22.260)

You're just dropping some powerful lines.

Lex Fridman (11:23.940)

So curiosity is bigger than ego.

Lee Cronin (11:26.740)

That's something I have to think about

Lex Fridman (11:28.100)

because you always struggle about the role of ego in life

Lex Fridman (11:30.780)

and that's so nice to think about,

Lex Fridman (11:36.180)

don't think about the size of ego,

Lee Cronin (11:37.720)

the absolute size of ego.

Lex Fridman (11:38.900)

Think about the relative size of ego

Lee Cronin (11:40.780)

to the other horses pulling at you.

Lex Fridman (11:44.260)

If the curiosity one is bigger,

Lee Cronin (11:46.600)

then ego will do just fine and make you fun to talk to.

Lex Fridman (11:51.300)

Anyway, so those are the two superpowers.

Lex Fridman (11:53.620)

How do those connect to natural selection

Lex Fridman (11:55.300)

or selection and bonds and, I forgot already,

Lex Fridman (11:58.460)

life and consciousness?

Lex Fridman (11:59.960)

So we're going back to selection in the universe

Lex Fridman (12:02.060)

and origin of life on Earth.

Lex Fridman (12:03.820)

I mean, selection, I'm convinced that selection

Lee Cronin (12:07.780)

is a force in the universe.

Lex Fridman (12:09.500)

Not a fundamental force, but it is a directing force

Lee Cronin (12:14.460)

because existence, although existence appears

Lex Fridman (12:18.140)

to be the default, the existence of what,

Lex Fridman (12:21.100)

why does, and we can get to this later, I think,

Lex Fridman (12:24.340)

but it's amazing that discrete things exist

Lex Fridman (12:29.140)

and you see this cup.

Lex Fridman (12:31.000)

It's not the sexiest cup in the world,

Lex Fridman (12:33.740)

but it's pretty functional.

Lex Fridman (12:35.020)

This cup, the complexity of this cup

Lee Cronin (12:38.780)

isn't just in the object.

Lex Fridman (12:39.760)

It is literally the lineage of people making cups

Lex Fridman (12:42.180)

and recognizing that, seeing that in their head,

Lex Fridman (12:44.440)

making an abstraction of a cup,

Lex Fridman (12:45.720)

and then making a different one.

Lex Fridman (12:47.120)

So I wonder how many billions of cups

Lee Cronin (12:50.460)

have come before this one,

Lex Fridman (12:52.920)

and that's the process of selection and existence,

Lex Fridman (12:55.080)

and the only reason the cup is still used

Lex Fridman (12:56.620)

is quite useful.

Lee Cronin (12:57.460)

I like the handle.

Lex Fridman (12:58.300)

It's convenient, so I don't die.

Lee Cronin (12:59.780)

I keep hydration, and so I think we are missing

Lex Fridman (13:03.860)

something fundamental in the universe about selection,

Lex Fridman (13:07.060)

and I think what biology is is a selection amplifier,

Lex Fridman (13:12.580)

and that this is where autonomy comes in,

Lex Fridman (13:14.940)

and actually I think that how humanity is gonna,

Lex Fridman (13:17.300)

humans and autonomous robots,

Lee Cronin (13:20.420)

or whatever we're gonna call them in the future,

Lex Fridman (13:22.180)

will supercharge that even further.

Lex Fridman (13:24.620)

So selection is happening in the universe,

Lex Fridman (13:26.860)

but if you look in the asteroid belt,

Lee Cronin (13:28.780)

selection, if objects are being kicked in and out

Lex Fridman (13:31.580)

of the asteroid belt, those trajectories are quite complex.

Lee Cronin (13:35.060)

You don't really look at that as productive selection

Lex Fridman (13:37.060)

because it's not doing anything to improve its function,

Lex Fridman (13:40.020)

but is it?

Lex Fridman (13:40.860)

The asteroid belt has existed for some time,

Lex Fridman (13:43.680)

so there is some selection going on,

Lex Fridman (13:45.500)

but the functionality is somewhat limited.

Lee Cronin (13:49.480)

On Earth, at the formation of Earth,

Lex Fridman (13:53.400)

interaction of chemicals and molecules in the environment

Lee Cronin (13:56.840)

gave selection, and then things could happen,

Lex Fridman (13:59.300)

because you could think about, in chemistry,

Lee Cronin (14:01.780)

we could have an infinite number of reactions happen,

Lex Fridman (14:04.060)

but all the reactions that are allowed to happen

Lex Fridman (14:06.420)

don't happen, why?

Lex Fridman (14:07.300)

Because there are energy barriers.

Lex Fridman (14:08.860)

So there must be some things called catalysts out there,

Lex Fridman (14:12.060)

or there are bits of minerals that,

Lee Cronin (14:14.780)

when two molecules get together in that mineral,

Lex Fridman (14:17.020)

it lowers the energy barrier for the reaction,

Lex Fridman (14:19.180)

and so the reaction is promoted.

Lex Fridman (14:21.540)

So suddenly you get one reaction over another

Lee Cronin (14:24.420)

series of possibilities occurring

Lex Fridman (14:26.140)

that makes a particular molecule,

Lex Fridman (14:28.100)

and this keeps happening in steps,

Lex Fridman (14:30.020)

and before you know it,

Lee Cronin (14:31.620)

almost these waves as discrete reactions work together,

Lex Fridman (14:34.380)

and you start to build a machinery

Lee Cronin (14:38.060)

that is run by existence.

Lex Fridman (14:41.860)

So as you go forward in time,

Lee Cronin (14:44.940)

the fact that the molecules, the bonds are getting,

Lex Fridman (14:48.020)

there are more bonds in a molecule,

Lee Cronin (14:49.500)

there's more function,

Lex Fridman (14:50.900)

there's more capability for this molecule

Lee Cronin (14:52.460)

to interact with other molecules, to redirect them,

Lex Fridman (14:55.300)

it's like a series of little,

Lex Fridman (14:57.140)

and I don't want to use this term too much,

Lex Fridman (14:59.980)

but it's almost thinking about

Lee Cronin (15:01.620)

the simplest von Neumann constructor,

Lex Fridman (15:04.660)

that's the simplest molecule

Lee Cronin (15:05.980)

that could build a more complicated molecule

Lex Fridman (15:07.500)

to build a more complicated molecule,

Lex Fridman (15:09.100)

and before you know it,

Lex Fridman (15:09.980)

when that more complicated molecule

Lee Cronin (15:11.420)

can act on the causal chain that's produced itself

Lex Fridman (15:14.740)

and change it,

Lee Cronin (15:15.900)

suddenly you start to get towards some kind of autonomy,

Lex Fridman (15:18.460)

and that's where life, I think, emerges in earnest.

Lee Cronin (15:21.820)

Every single word in the past few paragraphs,

Lex Fridman (15:24.700)

let's break those apart,

Lex Fridman (15:26.100)

but who's von Neumann, what's a constructor,

Lex Fridman (15:30.900)

the closing of the loop that you're talking about,

Lee Cronin (15:35.900)

the molecule that starts becoming,

Lex Fridman (15:37.940)

I think you said like the smallest von Neumann constructor,

Lee Cronin (15:41.820)

the smallest, the minimal,

Lex Fridman (15:43.300)

so what do all those things mean,

Lex Fridman (15:45.420)

and what is, what are we supposed to imagine

Lex Fridman (15:47.980)

when we think about the smallest von Neumann constructor?

Lex Fridman (15:51.260)

So John von Neumann is a real hero,

Lex Fridman (15:54.220)

actually, not just me, but many people, I think,

Lee Cronin (15:56.060)

computer science and physics.

Lex Fridman (15:58.580)

He was an incredible intellect

Lee Cronin (16:01.500)

who probably solved a lot of the problems

Lex Fridman (16:03.020)

that we're working on today

Lex Fridman (16:04.140)

and just forgot to write them down.

Lex Fridman (16:05.540)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (16:06.540)

And I'm not sure if it's John von Neumann or Johnny,

Lex Fridman (16:09.460)

as I think his friends called him,

Lex Fridman (16:10.780)

but I think he was Hungarian, a mathematician,

Lex Fridman (16:14.820)

came to the US,

Lex Fridman (16:16.180)

and basically was involved in the Manhattan Project

Lex Fridman (16:19.620)

in developing computation

Lex Fridman (16:21.420)

and came up with all sorts of ideas,

Lex Fridman (16:24.300)

and I think he was one of the first people

Lee Cronin (16:25.700)

to come up with cellular automata.

Lex Fridman (16:27.980)

And, but he...

Lex Fridman (16:28.820)

Oh, really?

Lex Fridman (16:29.660)

I didn't know this little fact.

Lee Cronin (16:30.500)

I think so, I think so.

Lex Fridman (16:31.860)

And I think...

Lee Cronin (16:32.700)

Well, anyway, if he didn't come up with it,

Lex Fridman (16:34.860)

he probably did come up with it and didn't write it down.

Lee Cronin (16:37.260)

There was a couple of people who did at the same time,

Lex Fridman (16:38.820)

and then Conway obviously took it on,

Lex Fridman (16:40.140)

and then Wolfram loves CAs.

Lex Fridman (16:42.620)

There is his fabric of the universe.

Lex Fridman (16:44.740)

And what I think he imagined was that he wasn't satisfied,

Lex Fridman (16:48.340)

and this may be incorrect recollection,

Lex Fridman (16:51.380)

but a lot of what I say is gonna be kind of

Lex Fridman (16:55.060)

just way out of my...

Lee Cronin (16:56.140)

You're, Lee, you're just part of the universe

Lex Fridman (17:00.380)

creating its memory, designing...

Lee Cronin (17:02.300)

Exactly, yeah, rewriting history.

Lex Fridman (17:04.180)

Rewriting history.

Lee Cronin (17:05.020)

Exactly, imperfectly.

Lex Fridman (17:06.380)

So, but what I mean is I think he liked this idea

Lee Cronin (17:09.100)

of thinking about how could a Turing machine

Lex Fridman (17:14.300)

literally build itself without a Turing machine, right?

Lex Fridman (17:16.780)

It's like literally how did state machines emerge?

Lex Fridman (17:19.620)

And I think that von Neumann constructors,

Lee Cronin (17:21.660)

he wanted to conceive of a minimal thing,

Lex Fridman (17:24.780)

autonomous, that could build itself.

Lex Fridman (17:28.420)

And what would those rules look like in the world?

Lex Fridman (17:30.740)

And that's what a von Neumann kind of constructor

Lee Cronin (17:32.820)

looked like, like it's a minimal hypothetical object

Lex Fridman (17:35.500)

that could build itself, self replicate.

Lex Fridman (17:37.900)

And I'm really fascinated by that

Lex Fridman (17:41.340)

because I think that although it's probably not

Lee Cronin (17:45.100)

exactly what happened, it's a nice model

Lex Fridman (17:47.980)

because as chemists, if we could go back

Lee Cronin (17:49.540)

to the origin of life and think about

Lex Fridman (17:51.980)

what is a minimal machine that can get structured randomly?

Lex Fridman (17:55.980)

So like with no prime mover, with no architect,

Lex Fridman (18:01.260)

it assembles through just existence.

Lex Fridman (18:03.620)

So random stuff bumping in together

Lex Fridman (18:06.220)

and you make this first molecule.

Lex Fridman (18:07.860)

So you have molecule A and molecule A interacts

Lex Fridman (18:11.540)

with another random molecule B and they get together

Lex Fridman (18:14.100)

and they realize by working together

Lex Fridman (18:15.540)

they can make more of themselves,

Lex Fridman (18:17.620)

but then they realize they can mutate

Lex Fridman (18:19.580)

so they can make AB prime.

Lex Fridman (18:21.460)

So AB prime is different to AB

Lex Fridman (18:24.100)

and then AB prime can then act back

Lee Cronin (18:27.500)

where A and B are being created

Lex Fridman (18:29.700)

and slightly nudge that causal chain

Lex Fridman (18:32.980)

and make AB prime more evolvable or learn more.

Lex Fridman (18:38.820)

So that's the closing the loop part.

Lee Cronin (18:40.580)

Closing the loop part, got it.

Lex Fridman (18:42.060)

It feels like the mutation part is not that difficult.

Lee Cronin (18:46.940)

It feels like the difficult part

Lex Fridman (18:48.140)

is just creating a copy of yourself as step one.

Lee Cronin (18:50.900)

That seems like one of the greatest inventions

Lex Fridman (18:56.220)

in the history of the universe is the first molecule

Lee Cronin (19:00.580)

that figured out, holy shit, I can create a copy of myself.

Lex Fridman (19:04.660)

How hard is that?

Lee Cronin (19:06.980)

I think it's really, really easy.

Lex Fridman (19:09.780)

Okay, I did not expect that.

Lee Cronin (19:11.020)

I think it's really, really easy.

Lex Fridman (19:12.660)

Well, let's take a step back.

Lee Cronin (19:15.180)

I think replicating molecules are rare,

Lex Fridman (19:19.260)

but if you say, I think I was saying on,

Lee Cronin (19:22.060)

I probably got into trouble on Twitter the other day,

Lex Fridman (19:23.900)

so I was trying to work this.

Lee Cronin (19:24.940)

There's about more than 18 mils of water in there.

Lex Fridman (19:27.180)

So one mole of water, 6.022 times 10 to the 23 molecules.

Lee Cronin (19:31.700)

That's about the number of stars in universe, I think,

Lex Fridman (19:33.940)

of the order.

Lex Fridman (19:34.780)

So there's three universe worth, but between one and.

Lex Fridman (19:37.140)

Somebody corrected you on Twitter?

Lee Cronin (19:38.460)

Yeah, as if, I'm always being corrected.

Lex Fridman (19:40.860)

It's a great, but there's a lot of molecules in the water.

Lex Fridman (19:44.100)

And so there's a lot of, so although it's for you and me,

Lex Fridman (19:47.700)

really hard to conceive of,

Lee Cronin (19:49.540)

if existence is not the default for a long period of time,

Lex Fridman (19:55.220)

because what happens is the molecules get degraded.

Lex Fridman (19:57.820)

So much of the possibilities in the universe

Lex Fridman (1:00:00.920)

how similar would biology be?

Lee Cronin (1:00:02.600)

I would say that there would be broad similarities,

Lex Fridman (1:00:06.420)

but the emergence of mammals is not a given

Lee Cronin (1:00:09.120)

unless we're gonna throw an asteroid at each planet

Lex Fridman (1:00:11.520)

at each time and try and faithfully reproduce what happened.

Lee Cronin (1:00:15.760)

Then there's the other thing about

Lex Fridman (1:00:17.960)

when you go to another Earth like planet elsewhere,

Lee Cronin (1:00:20.440)

maybe there's a different ratio, particular elements,

Lex Fridman (1:00:22.920)

maybe the bombardment at the beginning of the planet

Lee Cronin (1:00:27.240)

was quicker or longer than Earth.

Lex Fridman (1:00:30.440)

And I just don't have enough information there.

Lex Fridman (1:00:32.800)

What I do know is that the complexity of the story of life

Lex Fridman (1:00:37.800)

on Earth gives us lots of scope for variation.

Lex Fridman (1:00:42.280)

And I just don't think it's a reasonable

Lex Fridman (1:00:44.540)

mathematical assumption to think that life on Earth

Lee Cronin (1:00:48.960)

that happened again would be same as what we have now.

Lex Fridman (1:00:51.560)

Okay, but you've also extended that to say

Lee Cronin (1:00:54.520)

that we might, as an explanation for the Fermi paradox,

Lex Fridman (1:00:58.440)

that that means we're not able to interact with them.

Lee Cronin (1:01:02.680)

Or that's an explanation for why we haven't at scale

Lex Fridman (1:01:06.680)

heard from aliens is they're different than us.

Lee Cronin (1:01:10.520)

We've only been looking for, say, 70, 80 years.

Lex Fridman (1:01:13.480)

So I think that the reason we have not found aliens yet

Lee Cronin (1:01:17.440)

is that we haven't worked out what life is.

Lex Fridman (1:01:20.000)

No, but the aliens have worked that out, surely.

Lee Cronin (1:01:25.840)

Statistically speaking, there must be a large number

Lex Fridman (1:01:29.360)

of aliens that are way ahead of us

Lee Cronin (1:01:31.800)

on this whole life question.

Lex Fridman (1:01:33.520)

Unless there's something about this stage

Lee Cronin (1:01:37.320)

of intellectual evolution that often quickly results

Lex Fridman (1:01:40.900)

in nuclear war and destroys itself.

Lee Cronin (1:01:42.560)

Like there's something in this process

Lex Fridman (1:01:48.120)

that eventually, I don't know, crystallizes the complexity

Lex Fridman (1:01:52.440)

and it stops, either dies or stops developing.

Lex Fridman (1:01:55.800)

But most likely, they already figured it out.

Lex Fridman (1:01:58.140)

And why aren't they contacting us?

Lex Fridman (1:01:59.840)

Is it some grad student somewhere?

Lex Fridman (1:02:03.320)

Wants to study a new green planet?

Lex Fridman (1:02:06.520)

Maybe they have.

Lee Cronin (1:02:07.840)

I mean, I don't have a coherent answer to your question,

Lex Fridman (1:02:12.160)

other than to say that if there are other aliens out there

Lex Fridman (1:02:15.480)

and they're far more advanced,

Lex Fridman (1:02:17.600)

they might be in contact with each other.

Lex Fridman (1:02:19.920)

And they might also, we might be at a point

Lex Fridman (1:02:22.480)

where what I'm saying quite critically

Lex Fridman (1:02:24.640)

is it takes two to talk, right?

Lex Fridman (1:02:26.840)

So the aliens might be there.

Lex Fridman (1:02:28.080)

But if we don't have the ability to recognize them

Lex Fridman (1:02:31.220)

and talk to them, then the aliens aren't going

Lee Cronin (1:02:33.680)

to want to talk to us.

Lex Fridman (1:02:36.080)

And I think that's a critical point

Lee Cronin (1:02:37.560)

that probably if that's a filter,

Lex Fridman (1:02:42.180)

there needs to be an ability for one

Lee Cronin (1:02:44.440)

to communicate with the other.

Lex Fridman (1:02:45.760)

And we need to know what life is before we do that.

Lex Fridman (1:02:48.240)

So we haven't qualified to even join the club

Lex Fridman (1:02:50.880)

to have a talk.

Lex Fridman (1:02:51.840)

Well, I think they still wanna teach us how to talk, right?

Lex Fridman (1:02:54.840)

But my worry is that, or I think they would wanna teach us

Lex Fridman (1:02:59.840)

how to talk like you do when you meet it.

Lex Fridman (1:03:04.360)

Like when you even meet, I was gonna say child,

Lex Fridman (1:03:07.960)

but that's a human species.

Lex Fridman (1:03:09.720)

I mean like ant.

Lee Cronin (1:03:12.620)

You want to try to communicate with them

Lex Fridman (1:03:15.640)

through whatever devices you can,

Lee Cronin (1:03:17.400)

given what an ant is like.

Lex Fridman (1:03:19.360)

I just, I worry mostly about that humans

Lee Cronin (1:03:21.880)

are just too close minded or don't have the right tools.

Lex Fridman (1:03:25.020)

No, I'm gonna push back on this quite significantly.

Lee Cronin (1:03:27.200)

I would say, because we don't understand what life is

Lex Fridman (1:03:30.640)

and because we don't understand

Lex Fridman (1:03:32.400)

how life emerged in the universe,

Lex Fridman (1:03:34.200)

we don't understand the physics

Lee Cronin (1:03:36.080)

that gave rise to life yet.

Lex Fridman (1:03:38.040)

That means our fundamental description,

Lee Cronin (1:03:40.640)

I'm way out of my pay grade, even further out.

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.320)

But I'll say it anyway,

Lee Cronin (1:03:44.160)

because I think it's a fun.

Lex Fridman (1:03:44.980)

You don't get paid much anyway, as you said earlier.

Lex Fridman (1:03:47.320)

So I would say that we,

Lex Fridman (1:03:50.960)

because we don't understand the universe yet,

Lee Cronin (1:03:52.920)

we do not understand how the universe spat out life.

Lex Fridman (1:03:56.040)

And we don't know what life is.

Lex Fridman (1:03:57.640)

And I think that until we understand that,

Lex Fridman (1:03:59.760)

it is gonna limit our ability to even,

Lee Cronin (1:04:02.840)

we don't qualify to talk to the aliens.

Lex Fridman (1:04:05.880)

So I'm gonna say that they might be there,

Lex Fridman (1:04:08.440)

but we just, I'm not gonna say that I believe

Lex Fridman (1:04:10.560)

in interdimensional aliens being present in this room.

Lee Cronin (1:04:12.440)

Yeah, but I think you're just being self critical,

Lex Fridman (1:04:14.800)

like we don't qualify.

Lee Cronin (1:04:15.840)

I think the fact that we don't qualify qualifies us.

Lex Fridman (1:04:19.320)

We're interesting in our innocence.

Lee Cronin (1:04:22.040)

No, I'm saying that because we don't understand

Lex Fridman (1:04:25.720)

causal chains and the way that information

Lee Cronin (1:04:27.720)

is propagated in the universe.

Lex Fridman (1:04:29.320)

And we don't understand what replication is yet.

Lex Fridman (1:04:31.160)

And we don't understand how life emerged.

Lex Fridman (1:04:35.120)

I think that we would not recognize aliens.

Lex Fridman (1:04:38.720)

And if someone doesn't recognize you,

Lex Fridman (1:04:43.200)

you wouldn't go and talk to it.

Lee Cronin (1:04:44.320)

You don't go and talk to ants.

Lex Fridman (1:04:46.680)

You don't go and talk to birds

Lex Fridman (1:04:48.240)

or maybe some birds you do, right?

Lex Fridman (1:04:49.760)

Cause you can, there's just enough cognition.

Lex Fridman (1:04:52.160)

So I'm saying because we don't have enough,

Lex Fridman (1:04:55.080)

our cognitive abilities are not yet where they need to be.

Lee Cronin (1:04:58.720)

We probably haven't been communicating with them.

Lex Fridman (1:05:00.200)

So you don't agree with the dating strategy

Lex Fridman (1:05:02.880)

of playing hard to get?

Lex Fridman (1:05:04.640)

Cause us humans, that seems to attract us.

Lee Cronin (1:05:07.400)

Within a species, that's fine.

Lex Fridman (1:05:09.240)

But I think we don't actually have abstraction.

Lee Cronin (1:05:11.660)

No, actually I think in this talk, in this conversation,

Lex Fridman (1:05:15.600)

you've helped me crystallize something

Lee Cronin (1:05:16.920)

that I think has been troubling me for a long time

Lex Fridman (1:05:19.240)

with the thermi paradox.

Lee Cronin (1:05:20.160)

I'm pretty sure that a reasonable avenue

Lex Fridman (1:05:23.840)

is to say that you would not go and talk to your cat

Lex Fridman (1:05:28.480)

about calculus, right?

Lex Fridman (1:05:31.160)

But I would still pet it.

Lee Cronin (1:05:32.280)

Sure, but I'm not talking about petting a cat.

Lex Fridman (1:05:34.280)

The analogy is that the aliens are not going to talk to us

Lee Cronin (1:05:37.160)

because we, and I'm using calculus as analogy

Lex Fridman (1:05:40.020)

for abstraction because we lack the layer,

Lee Cronin (1:05:44.280)

the fundamental layer of understanding what life is

Lex Fridman (1:05:47.400)

and what the universe is in our reality

Lee Cronin (1:05:50.280)

that it would be so counterproductive

Lex Fridman (1:05:52.840)

interacting with intelligent alien species

Lee Cronin (1:05:55.280)

that it would cause more angst for human race.

Lex Fridman (1:05:59.720)

They don't care.

Lee Cronin (1:06:00.780)

Okay, they gotta be self interested.

Lex Fridman (1:06:03.060)

So they'll probably, they more care about

Lex Fridman (1:06:05.240)

is it interesting for them?

Lex Fridman (1:06:06.880)

Maybe they, I mean, surely there's a way

Lee Cronin (1:06:10.680)

to pet the cat in this analogy

Lex Fridman (1:06:16.920)

because even if we lack complete understanding,

Lee Cronin (1:06:20.840)

it must be a very frustrating experience

Lex Fridman (1:06:23.160)

for other kinds of intelligence to communicate with us.

Lee Cronin (1:06:26.760)

Still, there must be a way to interact with us.

Lex Fridman (1:06:29.640)

Well.

Lee Cronin (1:06:30.480)

Like perturb the system in interesting ways

Lex Fridman (1:06:34.280)

to see what these creatures do.

Lee Cronin (1:06:35.820)

We might actually find the answer.

Lex Fridman (1:06:37.440)

I mean, again, out of my pay grade,

Lee Cronin (1:06:39.280)

in a simulation of the Earth,

Lex Fridman (1:06:42.560)

let's say a simulation where we allow

Lex Fridman (1:06:44.900)

an intelligent AI to emerge, right?

Lex Fridman (1:06:47.160)

And that AI, we then give it the objective

Lee Cronin (1:06:52.440)

is to be curious, interact with other intelligence

Lex Fridman (1:06:54.980)

in its universe.

Lex Fridman (1:06:56.200)

And then we might find the parameters required

Lex Fridman (1:07:00.900)

for that AI to walk with.

Lex Fridman (1:07:02.420)

And I think you'll find if the AI will not talk

Lex Fridman (1:07:05.320)

to other AIs that don't share the ability

Lee Cronin (1:07:08.780)

to abstract at the level of the AI

Lex Fridman (1:07:10.400)

because it's just a cat and are you gonna travel

Lex Fridman (1:07:13.280)

20 light years to go and pet a cat?

Lex Fridman (1:07:15.320)

So not because of the inability to do so,

Lex Fridman (1:07:19.200)

but because of like boredom.

Lex Fridman (1:07:20.840)

It's more interested, it will start talking to,

Lee Cronin (1:07:23.920)

it will spend most, it will spend a majority

Lex Fridman (1:07:28.040)

of its time talking to other AI systems

Lee Cronin (1:07:30.280)

that can at least somewhat understand

Lex Fridman (1:07:32.360)

and it's much more fun.

Lex Fridman (1:07:33.200)

It's a bit like, do we know that plants are conscious?

Lex Fridman (1:07:34.960)

Well, plants are unconscious in the way we typically think,

Lex Fridman (1:07:36.960)

but we don't talk to them.

Lex Fridman (1:07:37.800)

They could be, right?

Lee Cronin (1:07:38.640)

Yeah, but there's a lot of people on Earth

Lex Fridman (1:07:40.080)

who like gardening.

Lee Cronin (1:07:41.120)

There's always going to be a weird.

Lex Fridman (1:07:42.800)

They're not talking, they're just gardening.

Lee Cronin (1:07:44.160)

Okay, well, you're not romantic enough

Lex Fridman (1:07:46.240)

to see gardening as a way of communication

Lee Cronin (1:07:48.120)

between humans and plants.

Lex Fridman (1:07:48.960)

Oh, okay, you've got me there.

Lex Fridman (1:07:50.320)

But there's ways, there's always going to be

Lex Fridman (1:07:53.120)

the people who are curious.

Lex Fridman (1:07:55.000)

Jane Goodall who lives with the chimps, right?

Lex Fridman (1:07:58.520)

There's always going to be curious intelligent species

Lee Cronin (1:08:00.900)

that visit the weird Earth planet and try to interact.

Lex Fridman (1:08:06.520)

I mean, it's a, yeah, I think it's a super cool idea

Lee Cronin (1:08:10.360)

that you're expressing.

Lex Fridman (1:08:11.180)

I just kind of have a sense.

Lee Cronin (1:08:13.000)

Maybe it's a hope that there's always going to be

Lex Fridman (1:08:16.120)

a desire to interact even with those

Lee Cronin (1:08:18.160)

that can't possibly understand the depth

Lex Fridman (1:08:21.360)

of what you understand.

Lex Fridman (1:08:22.960)

So I'm with you, so I want to be as positive as you

Lex Fridman (1:08:25.680)

that aliens do exist and we will interact with them.

Lex Fridman (1:08:29.340)

What I'm trying to do is to give you

Lex Fridman (1:08:30.800)

a reasonable hypothesis why we haven't yet.

Lee Cronin (1:08:35.000)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:08:35.840)

And also something to strive for to be able to do that.

Lee Cronin (1:08:38.840)

I mean, you know, there is the other view

Lex Fridman (1:08:41.720)

that the universe is just too big

Lex Fridman (1:08:43.760)

and life is just too rare.

Lex Fridman (1:08:46.060)

But I want to come up with an alternative explanation

Lee Cronin (1:08:49.280)

which I think is reasonable and not being philosophically

Lex Fridman (1:08:53.200)

and scientifically thought out, which is this,

Lee Cronin (1:08:55.940)

if you can't actually communicate with the object,

Lex Fridman (1:08:59.220)

the thing competently, you don't even know it's there,

Lee Cronin (1:09:03.480)

then there's no point yet.

Lex Fridman (1:09:05.160)

See, I disagree with that, but I'm totally aligned

Lee Cronin (1:09:07.440)

with your hopeful vision, which is like,

Lex Fridman (1:09:09.040)

we need to understand the origin of life.

Lee Cronin (1:09:11.520)

It will help us engineer life.

Lex Fridman (1:09:13.440)

It will help us engineer intelligent life through perhaps

Lee Cronin (1:09:16.320)

on the computer side through simulation

Lex Fridman (1:09:18.560)

and explore all the ways that life emerges.

Lex Fridman (1:09:20.920)

And that will allow us to, I think the fundamental reason

Lex Fridman (1:09:24.120)

we don't see overwhelming amounts of life

Lee Cronin (1:09:27.160)

is I actually believe aliens,

Lex Fridman (1:09:31.160)

of course, these are all just kind of open minded beliefs.

Lee Cronin (1:09:35.760)

It's difficult to know for sure about any of this,

Lex Fridman (1:09:37.960)

but I think there's a lot of alien civilizations

Lee Cronin (1:09:40.920)

which are actively communicating with us and we're too dumb.

Lex Fridman (1:09:45.480)

We don't have the right tools to see it.

Lee Cronin (1:09:47.720)

That's what I'm saying.

Lex Fridman (1:09:48.560)

No, but maybe I misinterpreted you,

Lex Fridman (1:09:51.880)

but I interpreted you to say they kind of tried a few times

Lex Fridman (1:09:56.240)

and they're like, oh God.

Lee Cronin (1:09:57.520)

No, no, no, what I'm saying is we, so this goes two ways.

Lex Fridman (1:10:00.680)

Yeah, I agree with you.

Lee Cronin (1:10:01.780)

There could be information out there,

Lex Fridman (1:10:03.860)

but just put in such a way

Lee Cronin (1:10:05.000)

that we just don't understand it yet.

Lex Fridman (1:10:06.600)

Right.

Lex Fridman (1:10:07.440)

So sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Lex Fridman (1:10:09.260)

I mean, it's not just, I don't think we,

Lee Cronin (1:10:11.120)

I think we qualify as soon as we can decode their signal.

Lex Fridman (1:10:15.600)

Right, so when you say qualify, got it, got it.

Lex Fridman (1:10:17.880)

So you mean, we're just not smart enough,

Lex Fridman (1:10:19.680)

the word qualify was throwing me off.

Lex Fridman (1:10:21.320)

So we're not smart enough to do,

Lex Fridman (1:10:22.520)

it's like we just need to get smarter.

Lex Fridman (1:10:25.240)

And there's a lot of people who believe,

Lex Fridman (1:10:27.440)

let me get your opinion on this, about UFO sightings.

Lex Fridman (1:10:31.640)

So sightings of weird phenomena

Lex Fridman (1:10:36.640)

that, you know, what does UFO mean?

Lee Cronin (1:10:41.680)

It means it's a flying object

Lex Fridman (1:10:45.040)

and it's not identified clearly at the time of sighting.

Lee Cronin (1:10:50.440)

That's what UFO means.

Lex Fridman (1:10:51.800)

So it could be a physics phenomena,

Lee Cronin (1:10:53.760)

it could be ball lightning,

Lex Fridman (1:10:54.640)

it could be all kinds of fascinating.

Lee Cronin (1:10:56.440)

I was always fascinated with ball lightning as a,

Lex Fridman (1:11:00.420)

like the fact that there could be physical phenomena

Lee Cronin (1:11:03.160)

in this world that are observable by the human eye.

Lex Fridman (1:11:06.320)

Of course, all physical phenomena generally are fascinating

Lee Cronin (1:11:09.640)

that really smart people can't explain.

Lex Fridman (1:11:14.160)

I love that.

Lee Cronin (1:11:15.080)

Cause it's like, wait a minute,

Lex Fridman (1:11:16.560)

especially if you can replicate it,

Lex Fridman (1:11:18.560)

it's like, wait a minute, how does this happen?

Lex Fridman (1:11:20.160)

That's like the precursor to giant discoveries

Lee Cronin (1:11:23.600)

in chemistry and biology and physics and so on.

Lex Fridman (1:11:25.980)

But it sucks when those events are super rare, right?

Lee Cronin (1:11:29.560)

Physically, like ball lightning.

Lex Fridman (1:11:32.280)

So that's out there.

Lex Fridman (1:11:34.200)

And then of course that phenomena

Lex Fridman (1:11:36.440)

could have other interpretations

Lee Cronin (1:11:37.920)

that don't have to do with the physics of chemistry,

Lex Fridman (1:11:40.280)

the biology of earth.

Lee Cronin (1:11:42.200)

It could have to do

Lex Fridman (1:11:43.360)

with more extraterrestrial explanations

Lee Cronin (1:11:46.840)

that in large part, thanks to Hollywood and movies

Lex Fridman (1:11:50.480)

and all those kinds of things,

Lee Cronin (1:11:51.760)

captivates the imaginations of millions of people.

Lex Fridman (1:11:56.520)

But just because it's science fiction

Lee Cronin (1:11:58.640)

that captivates the imagination of people,

Lex Fridman (1:12:00.440)

it doesn't mean that some of those sightings,

Lee Cronin (1:12:03.520)

all it takes is one.

Lex Fridman (1:12:05.340)

One of those sightings is actually a sign

Lee Cronin (1:12:09.160)

that it's extraterrestrial intelligence,

Lex Fridman (1:12:11.960)

that it's object that's not of this particular world.

Lex Fridman (1:12:17.160)

Do you think there's a chance that that's the case?

Lex Fridman (1:12:18.960)

What do you make, especially the pilot sightings,

Lex Fridman (1:12:21.180)

what do you make of those?

Lex Fridman (1:12:23.920)

So I agree with there's a chance.

Lee Cronin (1:12:26.040)

There's always a chance.

Lex Fridman (1:12:26.860)

Any good scientist would have to,

Lee Cronin (1:12:29.400)

or observationist would have to,

Lex Fridman (1:12:31.200)

I want to see if aliens exist come to earth.

Lex Fridman (1:12:36.160)

What I know about the universe

Lex Fridman (1:12:37.880)

is I think it's unlikely right now

Lee Cronin (1:12:40.000)

that there are aliens visiting us, but not impossible.

Lex Fridman (1:12:44.520)

I think the releases, the dramatization

Lee Cronin (1:12:48.560)

that's been happening politically

Lex Fridman (1:12:49.880)

saying we're gonna release all this information,

Lee Cronin (1:12:51.640)

this classified information.

Lex Fridman (1:12:54.800)

I was kind of disappointed

Lee Cronin (1:12:55.880)

because it was just very poor material.

Lex Fridman (1:13:02.040)

And right now, the ability to capture high resolution video,

Lee Cronin (1:13:08.680)

everybody is carrying around

Lex Fridman (1:13:10.320)

with them an incredible video device now.

Lex Fridman (1:13:12.480)

And we haven't got more compelling data.

Lex Fridman (1:13:18.240)

And so that we've just seeing grainy pictures,

Lee Cronin (1:13:22.680)

a lot of hearsay, instrument kind of malfunctions

Lex Fridman (1:13:26.440)

and whatnot.

Lex Fridman (1:13:27.280)

And so I think on balance, I think it's extremely unlikely,

Lex Fridman (1:13:30.660)

but I think something really interesting is happening.

Lex Fridman (1:13:34.760)

And then also during the pandemic, right?

Lex Fridman (1:13:36.400)

We've all been locked down.

Lee Cronin (1:13:37.480)

We all want to have,

Lex Fridman (1:13:38.320)

we want to, our imaginations are running riot.

Lex Fridman (1:13:42.120)

And I think that the,

Lex Fridman (1:13:44.120)

I don't think that the information out there

Lee Cronin (1:13:46.280)

has convinced me there are any,

Lex Fridman (1:13:47.600)

anything interesting on the UFO side.

Lex Fridman (1:13:49.680)

But what it has made me very interested about

Lex Fridman (1:13:51.760)

is how humanity is opening up its mind to ponder aliens

Lex Fridman (1:13:57.520)

and the mystery of our universe.

Lex Fridman (1:14:00.480)

And so I don't want to dissuade people

Lee Cronin (1:14:02.720)

from having those thoughts and say, you're stupid

Lex Fridman (1:14:04.440)

and look at that, it's clearly incorrect.

Lee Cronin (1:14:06.140)

That's not right.

Lex Fridman (1:14:06.980)

That's not fair.

Lex Fridman (1:14:07.820)

What I would say is that I lack sufficient data,

Lex Fridman (1:14:10.880)

replicated observations to make me go,

Lee Cronin (1:14:14.080)

oh, I'm gonna take this seriously,

Lex Fridman (1:14:16.600)

but I'm really interested by the fact

Lee Cronin (1:14:18.260)

that there is this great deal of interest.

Lex Fridman (1:14:21.600)

And I think that it drives me

Lee Cronin (1:14:24.640)

to maybe want to make an artificial life form even more

Lex Fridman (1:14:28.600)

and to help NASA and the Air Force

Lex Fridman (1:14:31.520)

and whoever go and look for things even more,

Lex Fridman (1:14:33.280)

because I think humanity wants to know what's out there.

Lex Fridman (1:14:36.140)

There's this yearning, isn't there?

Lex Fridman (1:14:38.200)

Yeah, but I see, I almost,

Lee Cronin (1:14:43.800)

depending on the day, I sometimes agree with you,

Lex Fridman (1:14:45.440)

but with the thing you just said,

Lex Fridman (1:14:47.840)

but one of the disappointing things to me

Lex Fridman (1:14:52.680)

about the sightings, I still hold the belief

Lee Cronin (1:14:56.000)

that a nonzero number of them

Lex Fridman (1:15:02.520)

is an indication of something very interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:15:06.240)

So I don't side with the people who say

Lex Fridman (1:15:09.800)

everything can be explained

Lee Cronin (1:15:10.840)

with sensor artifacts kind of thing.

Lex Fridman (1:15:13.320)

Yeah, I agree with you.

Lee Cronin (1:15:14.280)

I didn't say that either.

Lex Fridman (1:15:15.160)

I would say I just don't have enough data.

Lex Fridman (1:15:17.360)

But the thing I want to push back on is the statement

Lex Fridman (1:15:20.840)

that everybody has a high definition camera.

Lee Cronin (1:15:23.420)

One of the disappointing things to me

Lex Fridman (1:15:24.960)

about the report that the government released,

Lex Fridman (1:15:27.000)

but in general, just having worked with government,

Lex Fridman (1:15:29.400)

having worked with people all over

Lee Cronin (1:15:32.840)

is how incompetent we are.

Lex Fridman (1:15:36.240)

Like if you look at the response to the pandemic,

Lex Fridman (1:15:38.800)

how incompetent we are in the face of great challenges

Lex Fridman (1:15:44.240)

without great leadership.

Lex Fridman (1:15:46.080)

How incompetent we are in the face

Lex Fridman (1:15:47.900)

of the great mysteries before us without great leadership.

Lex Fridman (1:15:51.680)

And I just think it's actually,

Lex Fridman (1:15:54.040)

the fact that there's a lot of high definition cameras

Lee Cronin (1:15:56.000)

is not enough to capture the full richness of weird,

Lex Fridman (1:16:01.640)

of the mysterious phenomena out there

Lee Cronin (1:16:03.880)

of which extraterrestrial intelligence visiting Earth

Lex Fridman (1:16:07.080)

could be one.

Lee Cronin (1:16:08.080)

I don't think we have,

Lex Fridman (1:16:09.400)

I don't think everybody having a smartphone

Lee Cronin (1:16:12.040)

in their pocket is enough.

Lex Fridman (1:16:14.880)

I think that allows for TikTok videos.

Lee Cronin (1:16:17.440)

I don't think it allows for the capture

Lex Fridman (1:16:19.920)

of even interesting, relatively rare human events.

Lee Cronin (1:16:23.800)

That's not that common.

Lex Fridman (1:16:25.400)

It's rare to have been the right moment in the right time

Lee Cronin (1:16:28.600)

to be able to capture the thing.

Lex Fridman (1:16:30.600)

I agree, I agree.

Lee Cronin (1:16:31.520)

Let me rephrase what I think on this.

Lex Fridman (1:16:33.960)

I haven't seen enough information.

Lee Cronin (1:16:35.760)

I haven't really actively sorted out.

Lex Fridman (1:16:37.400)

I must admit, but I'm with you

Lex Fridman (1:16:40.120)

and I love the idea of anomaly detection

Lex Fridman (1:16:42.560)

in chemistry in particular, right?

Lee Cronin (1:16:44.080)

I want to make anomalies, sorry,

Lex Fridman (1:16:45.800)

or not necessarily make anomalies.

Lee Cronin (1:16:47.720)

I want to understand an anomaly.

Lex Fridman (1:16:50.800)

Let me give you two from chemistry,

Lee Cronin (1:16:53.800)

which are really quite interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:16:56.680)

Phlogiston, going way back,

Lee Cronin (1:16:59.280)

where people said there's this thing called phlogiston.

Lex Fridman (1:17:02.080)

And for ages, the alchemists got really this kind of,

Lee Cronin (1:17:05.920)

that fire is the thing.

Lex Fridman (1:17:09.120)

That's one.

Lex Fridman (1:17:09.960)

And then we determined that phlogiston

Lex Fridman (1:17:11.200)

wasn't what we thought it is.

Lee Cronin (1:17:13.400)

Let's go to physics, the ether.

Lex Fridman (1:17:15.280)

The ether's a hard one

Lee Cronin (1:17:16.440)

because I think actually the ether might exist.

Lex Fridman (1:17:18.480)

And I'll tell you what I think the ether is later.

Lex Fridman (1:17:24.040)

Can you explain the ether?

Lex Fridman (1:17:25.080)

So as the vacuum,

Lex Fridman (1:17:26.160)

so the light traveling through the ether in the vacuum,

Lex Fridman (1:17:28.640)

there is some thing that we call the ether

Lee Cronin (1:17:30.720)

that basically mediates the movement of light, say.

Lex Fridman (1:17:34.400)

And I think that...

Lex Fridman (1:17:36.160)

And then the other one is cold fusion,

Lex Fridman (1:17:38.240)

which is more of a...

Lex Fridman (1:17:39.080)

So a few years ago,

Lex Fridman (1:17:40.340)

people observed that when they did some electrochemistry,

Lee Cronin (1:17:44.340)

when they were splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen,

Lex Fridman (1:17:48.260)

that you got more energy out than you put in.

Lex Fridman (1:17:50.660)

And people got excited

Lex Fridman (1:17:51.900)

and they thought that this was a nuclear reaction.

Lex Fridman (1:17:54.700)

And in the end, it was kind of discredited

Lex Fridman (1:17:57.980)

because you didn't detect neutrons and all this stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:17:59.900)

But I'm pretty sure...

Lex Fridman (1:18:02.980)

I'm a chemist.

Lex Fridman (1:18:03.820)

I'm telling you this on your podcast, but why not?

Lex Fridman (1:18:06.140)

I'm pretty sure there's interesting

Lee Cronin (1:18:07.380)

electrochemical phenomena

Lex Fridman (1:18:08.380)

that's not completely bottomed out yet,

Lee Cronin (1:18:09.900)

that there is something there.

Lex Fridman (1:18:11.460)

However, we lack the technology and the experimental design.

Lex Fridman (1:18:15.980)

So all I'm saying in your response about aliens

Lex Fridman (1:18:18.260)

is we lack the experimental design

Lee Cronin (1:18:20.420)

to really capture these anomalies.

Lex Fridman (1:18:22.500)

And we are encircling the planet

Lee Cronin (1:18:25.740)

with many more detection systems.

Lex Fridman (1:18:27.360)

We've got satellites everywhere.

Lex Fridman (1:18:28.980)

So there is, I do hope

Lex Fridman (1:18:30.660)

that we are gonna discover more anomalies.

Lex Fridman (1:18:32.300)

And remember that the solar system

Lex Fridman (1:18:35.540)

isn't just static in space,

Lee Cronin (1:18:37.020)

it's moving through the universe.

Lex Fridman (1:18:39.180)

So there's just more and more chance.

Lee Cronin (1:18:40.740)

I'm not what with Avi Loeb.

Lex Fridman (1:18:42.740)

He's generating all sorts of kind of a cult,

Lee Cronin (1:18:46.780)

I would say, with this, but I'm not against him.

Lex Fridman (1:18:50.500)

I think there is a finite chance

Lee Cronin (1:18:52.060)

if there are aliens in the universe

Lex Fridman (1:18:53.180)

that we're gonna happen upon them

Lee Cronin (1:18:54.780)

because we're moving through the universe.

Lex Fridman (1:18:56.260)

What's the nature of the following that Avi Loeb has?

Lee Cronin (1:18:59.780)

He's doubling down more and more and more

Lex Fridman (1:19:01.220)

and say there are aliens,

Lex Fridman (1:19:02.220)

interdimensional aliens and everything else, right?

Lex Fridman (1:19:04.460)

He's gone from space junk accelerating out of

Lee Cronin (1:19:06.860)

to interdimensional stuff in a very short space of time.

Lex Fridman (1:19:11.340)

I see.

Lee Cronin (1:19:12.180)

He's obviously bored.

Lex Fridman (1:19:15.020)

Or he wants to tap into the psyche and understand.

Lex Fridman (1:19:18.740)

And he's playfully kind of trying to interact

Lex Fridman (1:19:21.140)

with society and his peers to say,

Lee Cronin (1:19:22.880)

stop saying it's not possible.

Lex Fridman (1:19:26.540)

Which I agree with, we shouldn't do that.

Lex Fridman (1:19:28.540)

But we should frame it statistically

Lex Fridman (1:19:30.640)

in the same way we should frame everything

Lee Cronin (1:19:32.800)

as good scientists, statistically.

Lex Fridman (1:19:34.920)

Yeah, good scientists.

Lee Cronin (1:19:40.280)

Recently, the idea of good scientists is,

Lex Fridman (1:19:45.920)

I take quite skeptically.

Lee Cronin (1:19:47.760)

I've been listening to a lot of scientists

Lex Fridman (1:19:49.400)

tell me about what is good science.

Lee Cronin (1:19:52.680)

That makes me sad.

Lex Fridman (1:19:53.520)

Because you've been interviewing

Lex Fridman (1:19:54.440)

what I would consider a lot of really good scientists.

Lex Fridman (1:19:56.680)

No, that's true.

Lee Cronin (1:19:57.520)

A lot of great thinkers.

Lex Fridman (1:19:58.340)

But that's exactly right.

Lex Fridman (1:19:59.960)

And most of the people I talk to

Lex Fridman (1:20:01.360)

are incredible human beings.

Lex Fridman (1:20:03.520)

But there's a humility that's required.

Lex Fridman (1:20:05.840)

Science is not, science cannot be dogmatism.

Lee Cronin (1:20:10.000)

Sure, I agree.

Lex Fridman (1:20:11.000)

I mean, authority, like a PhD does not give you authority.

Lee Cronin (1:20:17.040)

A lifelong pursuit of a particular task

Lex Fridman (1:20:19.520)

does not give you authority.

Lee Cronin (1:20:21.000)

You're just as lost in clues as everybody else.

Lex Fridman (1:20:24.000)

But you're more curious and more stubborn.

Lex Fridman (1:20:27.280)

So that's a nice quality to have.

Lex Fridman (1:20:29.920)

But overall, just using the word science and statistics

Lee Cronin (1:20:37.280)

can often, as you know, kind of become a catalyst

Lex Fridman (1:20:43.440)

for dismissing new ideas, out of the box ideas, wild ideas,

Lee Cronin (1:20:49.700)

all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:20:50.540)

Well, yes and no.

Lee Cronin (1:20:52.200)

I think that, so I like to,

Lex Fridman (1:20:57.520)

some people find me extremely annoying in science

Lee Cronin (1:20:59.720)

because I'm basically, I'm quite rude and disruptive.

Lex Fridman (1:21:04.100)

Not in a rude, you know,

Lee Cronin (1:21:05.600)

some up to people and say they're ugly or stupid

Lex Fridman (1:21:07.480)

or anything like that.

Lee Cronin (1:21:08.320)

I just say, you know, you're wrong.

Lex Fridman (1:21:12.240)

Or why do you think this?

Lex Fridman (1:21:13.320)

And something, a gift I got given by society

Lex Fridman (1:21:16.880)

when I was very young,

Lee Cronin (1:21:17.720)

because I was in the learning difficulties class at school

Lex Fridman (1:21:20.640)

is I was told I was stupid.

Lex Fridman (1:21:22.760)

And so I know I'm stupid,

Lex Fridman (1:21:24.880)

but I always wanted to be smart, right?

Lee Cronin (1:21:26.920)

I remember going to school going,

Lex Fridman (1:21:29.040)

maybe today they're going to tell me

Lee Cronin (1:21:30.560)

I'm not as stupid as I was yesterday.

Lex Fridman (1:21:32.360)

And I was always disappointed, always.

Lex Fridman (1:21:34.440)

And so when I went into academia and everyone says,

Lex Fridman (1:21:36.640)

you're wrong, I was like, join the queue.

Lee Cronin (1:21:39.140)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:21:40.720)

Because it allowed me to walk through the wall.

Lex Fridman (1:21:43.460)

So I think that people like to always imagine science

Lex Fridman (1:21:46.200)

as a bit like living in a Japanese house,

Lee Cronin (1:21:48.120)

the paper walls, and everyone sits in their room.

Lex Fridman (1:21:52.000)

And I annoy people because I walk straight through the wall.

Lee Cronin (1:21:54.320)

Not because, why should I be a chemist

Lex Fridman (1:21:56.720)

and not a mathematician?

Lex Fridman (1:21:58.040)

Why should I be a mathematician and not a computer scientist?

Lex Fridman (1:22:00.440)

Because if the problem requires us

Lee Cronin (1:22:02.320)

to walk through those walls,

Lex Fridman (1:22:05.040)

but I like walking through the walls.

Lex Fridman (1:22:08.400)

But as long, then I have to put up,

Lex Fridman (1:22:11.160)

you know, I have to do good science.

Lee Cronin (1:22:12.440)

I have to win the people in those rooms

Lex Fridman (1:22:15.440)

across by good science,

Lee Cronin (1:22:17.240)

by taking their criticisms and addressing them head on.

Lex Fridman (1:22:21.000)

And I think we must do that.

Lex Fridman (1:22:22.440)

And I think that I try and do that in my own way.

Lex Fridman (1:22:25.240)

And I kind of love walking through the walls.

Lex Fridman (1:22:29.100)

And it gives me, it's difficult for me personally.

Lex Fridman (1:22:33.200)

It's quite painful,

Lex Fridman (1:22:35.100)

but it always leads to a deeper understanding

Lex Fridman (1:22:38.280)

of the people I'm with.

Lee Cronin (1:22:39.360)

In particular, you know, the arguments I have

Lex Fridman (1:22:41.040)

with all sorts of interesting minds,

Lee Cronin (1:22:43.400)

because I want to solve the problem,

Lex Fridman (1:22:45.840)

or I want to understand more about why I exist.

Lee Cronin (1:22:49.280)

You know, that's it really.

Lex Fridman (1:22:52.660)

And I think we have to not dismiss science

Lee Cronin (1:22:55.120)

on that basis.

Lex Fridman (1:22:55.960)

I think we can work with science.

Lee Cronin (1:22:58.240)

No, science is beautiful,

Lex Fridman (1:22:59.420)

but humans with egos and all those kinds of things

Lee Cronin (1:23:03.160)

can sometimes misuse good things,

Lex Fridman (1:23:08.720)

like social justice,

Lee Cronin (1:23:10.680)

like all ideas we're all aspire to misuse

Lex Fridman (1:23:14.200)

these beautiful ideas to manipulate people,

Lee Cronin (1:23:18.680)

to all those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (1:23:20.080)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (1:23:20.920)

And that's, there's assholes in every space

Lex Fridman (1:23:24.600)

and walk of life, including science.

Lee Cronin (1:23:26.600)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

Lex Fridman (1:23:27.440)

And those are no good.

Lex Fridman (1:23:28.800)

But yes, you're right.

Lex Fridman (1:23:29.800)

The scientific method has proven to be quite useful.

Lee Cronin (1:23:34.600)

That said, for difficult questions,

Lex Fridman (1:23:36.520)

for difficult explanations for rare phenomena,

Lee Cronin (1:23:42.960)

you have to walk cautiously.

Lex Fridman (1:23:47.320)

Because the scientific method,

Lee Cronin (1:23:50.200)

when you totally don't understand something,

Lex Fridman (1:23:53.200)

and it's rare, and you can't replicate it,

Lee Cronin (1:23:55.440)

doesn't quite apply.

Lex Fridman (1:23:57.080)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

Lee Cronin (1:23:58.420)

I agree with you.

Lex Fridman (1:23:59.260)

The challenge is to not dismiss the anomaly

Lee Cronin (1:24:02.080)

because you can't replicate it.

Lex Fridman (1:24:03.520)

I mean, we can talk about this.

Lee Cronin (1:24:05.220)

This is something I realized

Lex Fridman (1:24:06.480)

when we were developing assembly theory.

Lee Cronin (1:24:10.720)

People thinking that the track they're on

Lex Fridman (1:24:13.920)

is so dogmatic, but there is this thing that they see,

Lex Fridman (1:24:18.000)

but they don't see.

Lex Fridman (1:24:19.040)

And it takes a bit of time

Lex Fridman (1:24:20.240)

and you just have to keep reframing it.

Lex Fridman (1:24:21.740)

And my approach is to say, well, why can't this be right?

Lex Fridman (1:24:25.040)

Why must we accept that RNA is the only way into life?

Lex Fridman (1:24:29.480)

I mean, who said?

Lee Cronin (1:24:30.480)

Does RNA have a special class of information

Lex Fridman (1:24:35.800)

that's encoded in the universe?

Lex Fridman (1:24:37.160)

No, of course it doesn't, right?

Lex Fridman (1:24:38.600)

RNA is not a special molecule

Lee Cronin (1:24:41.080)

in the space of all the other molecules.

Lex Fridman (1:24:42.840)

But it's so elegant and simple

Lex Fridman (1:24:44.520)

and it works so well for the evolutionary process

Lex Fridman (1:24:46.680)

that we kind of use that as an intuition

Lee Cronin (1:24:48.600)

to explain that that must be the only way to have life.

Lex Fridman (1:24:51.440)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (1:24:53.320)

But you mentioned assembly theory.

Lex Fridman (1:24:55.160)

Well, first let me pause, bathroom break, needed?

Lee Cronin (1:24:57.680)

Yeah, let's take two minutes.

Lex Fridman (1:24:59.880)

We took a quick break and offline,

Lee Cronin (1:25:02.480)

you mentioned to me that you have a lab in your home.

Lex Fridman (1:25:08.320)

And then I said that you're basically Rick

Lee Cronin (1:25:10.640)

from Rick and Morty,

Lex Fridman (1:25:11.560)

which is something I've been thinking

Lee Cronin (1:25:13.640)

this whole conversation.

Lex Fridman (1:25:15.200)

And then you say that there's a glowing pickle

Lee Cronin (1:25:19.080)

that you used something involving cold plasma, I believe.

Lex Fridman (1:25:23.540)

I don't know, but can you explain

Lex Fridman (1:25:24.860)

the glowing pickle situation?

Lex Fridman (1:25:31.420)

And is there many, arbitrarily many versions of you

Lex Fridman (1:25:34.380)

in alternate dimensions that you're aware of?

Lex Fridman (1:25:37.380)

I tried to make an electrochemical memory at home

Lee Cronin (1:25:41.500)

using a pickle and the only way I could get

Lex Fridman (1:25:45.580)

any traction with it was actually by plugging it

Lee Cronin (1:25:49.140)

into a very high voltage alternating current

Lex Fridman (1:25:51.620)

and then putting in a couple of electrodes.

Lex Fridman (1:25:53.840)

But my kids weren't impressed.

Lex Fridman (1:25:54.980)

They're not impressed with anything I do,

Lee Cronin (1:25:56.580)

any experiments I do at home.

Lex Fridman (1:25:57.880)

I think it's quite funny.

Lex Fridman (1:25:58.900)

But you connected a pickle to some electrode.

Lex Fridman (1:26:01.300)

240 volts, yeah, AC.

Lex Fridman (1:26:03.460)

And then had a couple of electrodes on it.

Lex Fridman (1:26:04.860)

So what happens is a pickle,

Lee Cronin (1:26:07.700)

this is a classic thing you do.

Lex Fridman (1:26:09.820)

I mean, I shouldn't, pranks you do,

Lee Cronin (1:26:11.500)

you put a pickle into the mains

Lex Fridman (1:26:13.180)

and just leave it, run away and leave it.

Lex Fridman (1:26:15.180)

And what happens is it starts to decompose.

Lex Fridman (1:26:17.620)

It heats up and then explodes

Lee Cronin (1:26:19.060)

because the water turns to steam

Lex Fridman (1:26:20.980)

and it just violently explodes.

Lex Fridman (1:26:22.740)

But I wondered if I could cause the iron,

Lex Fridman (1:26:25.300)

sodium, potassium ions in the pickle to migrate.

Lex Fridman (1:26:27.420)

It'd been in a jar, right?

Lex Fridman (1:26:28.740)

So it'd been in a brine.

Lee Cronin (1:26:31.120)

That was, yeah, that was not my best experiment.

Lex Fridman (1:26:34.340)

So I've done far better experiments in my lab at home.

Lee Cronin (1:26:36.940)

At that time it was a failed experiment,

Lex Fridman (1:26:38.500)

but you never know, it could,

Lee Cronin (1:26:41.580)

every experiment is a successful experiment

Lex Fridman (1:26:44.580)

if you stick with it long enough.

Lee Cronin (1:26:46.020)

Well, I mean, I get, I got kicked out of my own lab

Lex Fridman (1:26:48.260)

by my research team many years ago and for good reason.

Lee Cronin (1:26:50.840)

I mean, my team is brilliant

Lex Fridman (1:26:51.900)

and I used to go and just break things.

Lex Fridman (1:26:53.820)

So what I do do at home

Lex Fridman (1:26:55.420)

is I have a kind of electronics workshop

Lex Fridman (1:26:58.780)

and I prototype experiments there.

Lex Fridman (1:27:01.380)

Then I try and then I try and suggest to my team sometimes,

Lee Cronin (1:27:05.260)

maybe we can try this thing.

Lex Fridman (1:27:07.180)

And they would just say, oh,

Lee Cronin (1:27:08.460)

wow, that's not gonna work because of this.

Lex Fridman (1:27:10.140)

And I'll say, aha, but actually I've tried

Lex Fridman (1:27:12.020)

and here's some code and here's some hardware.

Lex Fridman (1:27:14.100)

Can we have a go?

Lex Fridman (1:27:15.220)

So I'm doing that less and less now

Lex Fridman (1:27:17.460)

as I get even more busy, but that's quite fun

Lee Cronin (1:27:20.740)

because they feel that we're in the experiment together.

Lex Fridman (1:27:24.180)

You do, in fact, brilliantly, just like Rick

Lee Cronin (1:27:28.540)

from Rick and Morty, connect up chemistry with computation.

Lex Fridman (1:27:38.860)

And when we say chemistry,

Lee Cronin (1:27:40.140)

we don't mean the simulation of chemistry,

Lex Fridman (1:27:45.420)

a modeling of chemistry.

Lee Cronin (1:27:46.940)

We mean chemistry in the physical space

Lex Fridman (1:27:49.260)

as well as in the digital space, which is fascinating.

Lee Cronin (1:27:52.180)

We'll talk about that.

Lex Fridman (1:27:54.260)

But first you mentioned assembly theory.

Lex Fridman (1:27:56.020)

So we'll stick on theory in these big ideas.

Lex Fridman (1:28:00.780)

I would say revolutionary ideas,

Lee Cronin (1:28:03.020)

this intersection between mathematics and philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:28:07.280)

What is assembly theory?

Lex Fridman (1:28:09.140)

And generally speaking, how would we recognize life

Lex Fridman (1:28:13.660)

if we saw it?

Lex Fridman (1:28:15.300)

So assembly theory is a theory,

Lex Fridman (1:28:17.620)

goes back a few years now in my struggle

Lee Cronin (1:28:19.580)

for maybe almost 10 years

Lex Fridman (1:28:22.100)

when I was going to origin of life conferences

Lex Fridman (1:28:24.380)

and artificial life conferences,

Lex Fridman (1:28:25.780)

where I thought that everybody was dancing

Lee Cronin (1:28:28.260)

around the problem of what life is and what it does.

Lex Fridman (1:28:32.700)

But I'll tell you about what assembly theory is

Lee Cronin (1:28:34.420)

because I think it's easier.

Lex Fridman (1:28:35.820)

So assembly theory literally says if you take an object,

Lee Cronin (1:28:39.220)

any given object,

Lex Fridman (1:28:40.940)

and you are able to break the object into parts very gently.

Lex Fridman (1:28:43.860)

So just maybe let's say take a piece

Lex Fridman (1:28:46.380)

of very intricate Chinese porcelain

Lex Fridman (1:28:48.980)

and you tap it just with a hammer or the nail at some point,

Lex Fridman (1:28:52.220)

and it will fragment into many parts.

Lex Fridman (1:28:54.940)

And if that object is able to fragment into many,

Lex Fridman (1:28:57.860)

and you count those parts, the different parts,

Lex Fridman (1:29:00.500)

so they're unsymmetrical,

Lex Fridman (1:29:02.540)

assembly theory says the larger the number of parts,

Lee Cronin (1:29:07.180)

unsymmetrical parts that object has,

Lex Fridman (1:29:10.140)

the more likely it is that object has been created

Lee Cronin (1:29:12.500)

by an evolutionary or information process,

Lex Fridman (1:29:15.020)

especially if that object is not one off,

Lee Cronin (1:29:18.940)

you've got an abundance of them.

Lex Fridman (1:29:22.100)

And that's really important.

Lex Fridman (1:29:23.220)

So because what I'm literally saying about the abundance,

Lex Fridman (1:29:26.860)

if you have a one off object and you break it into parts

Lex Fridman (1:29:30.260)

and it has lots of parts,

Lex Fridman (1:29:32.180)

you'd say, well, that could be incredibly intricate

Lex Fridman (1:29:36.380)

and complex, but it could be just random.

Lex Fridman (1:29:39.940)

And I was troubled with this for years

Lee Cronin (1:29:41.740)

because I saw in reality that assembly theory works.

Lex Fridman (1:29:44.700)

But when I talked to very good

Lee Cronin (1:29:46.180)

computational complexity computation lists,

Lex Fridman (1:29:49.700)

algorithmic complexity people,

Lee Cronin (1:29:51.340)

they said, you haven't really done this properly.

Lex Fridman (1:29:53.820)

You haven't thought about it.

Lee Cronin (1:29:54.780)

It's like, this is the random problem.

Lex Fridman (1:29:57.660)

And so I kept working this up

Lee Cronin (1:29:59.980)

because I invented an assembly theory in chemistry,

Lex Fridman (1:30:03.100)

first of all, with molecules.

Lex Fridman (1:30:05.060)

And so the thought experiment was,

Lex Fridman (1:30:08.060)

how complex does a molecule need to be when I find it

Lee Cronin (1:30:11.460)

that it couldn't possibly have risen by chance,

Lex Fridman (1:30:13.460)

probabilistically.

Lex Fridman (1:30:15.180)

And if I found this molecule,

Lex Fridman (1:30:16.500)

able to detect it enough quantities in the same object,

Lee Cronin (1:30:18.940)

like a machine, like a mass spectrometer.

Lex Fridman (1:30:20.780)

So typically in a mass spectrometer,

Lee Cronin (1:30:22.100)

you weigh the molecules in electric field.

Lex Fridman (1:30:24.300)

You probably have to have all the order of 10,000

Lee Cronin (1:30:26.300)

identical molecules to get a signal.

Lex Fridman (1:30:28.460)

So 10,000 identical molecules that are complex.

Lex Fridman (1:30:32.820)

What is the chance of them occurring by chance?

Lex Fridman (1:30:36.660)

Well, we can do the math.

Lee Cronin (1:30:37.500)

Let's take a molecule like strychnine

Lex Fridman (1:30:39.220)

or, yeah, so strychnine is a good molecule actually to take

Lee Cronin (1:30:44.980)

or Viagra is a good molecule.

Lex Fridman (1:30:46.780)

I made jokes about Viagra because it's a complex molecule.

Lex Fridman (1:30:49.540)

And one of my friends said, yeah,

Lex Fridman (1:30:50.620)

if we find Viagra on Mars in detectable quantities,

Lee Cronin (1:30:53.300)

we know something is up.

Lex Fridman (1:30:54.620)

And yeah, but anyway, it's a complex molecule.

Lex Fridman (1:31:00.220)

So what you do is you take this molecule

Lex Fridman (1:31:01.660)

in the mass spectrometer and you hit it with some electrons

Lee Cronin (1:31:03.780)

or in electric field and it breaks apart.

Lex Fridman (1:31:06.220)

And if the larger the number of different parts,

Lee Cronin (1:31:09.940)

you know when it starts to get refreshed,

Lex Fridman (1:31:12.780)

my idea was that that molecule could not be created

Lee Cronin (1:31:15.020)

by chance, probabilistically.

Lex Fridman (1:31:17.180)

So that was where assembly theory was born

Lee Cronin (1:31:20.260)

in an experiment, in a mass spec experiment.

Lex Fridman (1:31:22.780)

And I was thinking about this

Lee Cronin (1:31:24.340)

because NASA is sending mass spectrometers to Mars,

Lex Fridman (1:31:26.940)

to Titan, it's gonna send them to Europa.

Lee Cronin (1:31:29.620)

There's gonna be a nuclear powered mass spectrometer

Lex Fridman (1:31:32.020)

going to Titan.

Lee Cronin (1:31:33.620)

I mean, this is the coolest experiment ever.

Lex Fridman (1:31:35.900)

They're not only sending a drone

Lee Cronin (1:31:37.260)

that's gonna fly around Titan,

Lex Fridman (1:31:38.460)

it's gonna be powered by a nuclear slug, a nuclear battery,

Lex Fridman (1:31:43.820)

and it's gonna have a mass spectrometer on it.

Lex Fridman (1:31:45.940)

Is this already launched?

Lee Cronin (1:31:47.180)

No, it's Dragonfly

Lex Fridman (1:31:49.300)

and it's gonna be launched in a few years.

Lee Cronin (1:31:50.900)

I think it got pushed a year because of the pandemic.

Lex Fridman (1:31:53.460)

So I think it's three or four years.

Lee Cronin (1:31:55.180)

Dragonfly, nuclear Dragonfly is going to fly to Titan

Lex Fridman (1:32:00.900)

and collect data about the composition

Lee Cronin (1:32:07.420)

of the various chemicals on Titan.

Lex Fridman (1:32:09.580)

Yeah, I'm trying to convince NASA.

Lee Cronin (1:32:11.340)

I don't know if I'll be able to convince

Lex Fridman (1:32:12.620)

the Dragonfly team that they should apply this approach,

Lex Fridman (1:32:16.980)

but they will get data.

Lex Fridman (1:32:18.020)

And depending on how good their mass spectrometer is.

Lex Fridman (1:32:20.820)

But I had this thought experiment anyway,

Lex Fridman (1:32:22.340)

and I did this thought experiment.

Lex Fridman (1:32:24.340)

And for me, it seemed to work.

Lex Fridman (1:32:26.620)

I turned the thought experiment into an algorithm

Lee Cronin (1:32:29.060)

in assembly theory.

Lex Fridman (1:32:30.060)

And I basically, assembly theory, if I take,

Lee Cronin (1:32:32.500)

let's just make it generic.

Lex Fridman (1:32:33.740)

And so let's just take the word abracadabra.

Lee Cronin (1:32:36.220)

Say, can I, if you find the word,

Lex Fridman (1:32:38.940)

so if you have a book with lots of words in it

Lex Fridman (1:32:41.140)

and you find abracadabra one off,

Lex Fridman (1:32:42.780)

and it's a rap book that's been written by,

Lee Cronin (1:32:45.500)

in a random way, set of monkeys in a room.

Lex Fridman (1:32:48.460)

And you're on typewriters.

Lex Fridman (1:32:50.500)

And you find one off abracadabra,

Lex Fridman (1:32:51.900)

no big deal.

Lex Fridman (1:32:52.740)

But if you find lots of recurrences of abracadabra,

Lex Fridman (1:32:55.900)

well, that means something weird is going on.

Lex Fridman (1:32:57.500)

But let's think about the assembly number of abracadabra.

Lex Fridman (1:33:00.460)

So abracadabra has a number of letters in it.

Lee Cronin (1:33:04.820)

You can break it down.

Lex Fridman (1:33:05.700)

So you just cut the letters up.

Lex Fridman (1:33:07.540)

But when you actually reassemble abracadabra,

Lex Fridman (1:33:09.660)

the minimum number of ways of organizing those letters.

Lex Fridman (1:33:12.460)

So you'd have an A, a B, and keep going up.

Lex Fridman (1:33:18.860)

When you cut abracadabra up into parts,

Lee Cronin (1:33:21.540)

you can put it together again in seven steps.

Lex Fridman (1:33:24.060)

So what does that mean?

Lee Cronin (1:33:24.900)

That means if you basically don't,

Lex Fridman (1:33:26.980)

you're allowed to reuse things

Lee Cronin (1:33:28.540)

you make in a chain at the beginning.

Lex Fridman (1:33:30.540)

That's the memory of the universe,

Lee Cronin (1:33:32.500)

the process that makes abracadabra.

Lex Fridman (1:33:35.020)

And because of that causal chain,

Lee Cronin (1:33:36.460)

you can then get to abracadabra

Lex Fridman (1:33:38.500)

quicker than the number of letters

Lee Cronin (1:33:40.460)

for having to specify only in seven.

Lex Fridman (1:33:43.180)

So if you take that to a molecule

Lex Fridman (1:33:44.620)

and you cut the molecule up into parts,

Lex Fridman (1:33:47.900)

and you can, on the causal chain,

Lex Fridman (1:33:49.820)

and you basically start with the atoms

Lex Fridman (1:33:51.460)

and then bonds, and then you randomly add on those parts

Lee Cronin (1:33:54.500)

to make the A, make the B, and keep going all the way up,

Lex Fridman (1:33:59.700)

I found that literally, assembly theory

Lee Cronin (1:34:01.580)

allows me to say how compressed a molecule is.

Lex Fridman (1:34:04.900)

So when there's some information in there.

Lex Fridman (1:34:07.820)

And I realized assembly theory

Lex Fridman (1:34:09.620)

isn't just confined to molecular space.

Lee Cronin (1:34:13.260)

It can apply to anything.

Lex Fridman (1:34:14.140)

But let me finish the molecular argument.

Lex Fridman (1:34:16.020)

So what I did is I had this theory.

Lex Fridman (1:34:18.660)

I, with one of my students, we wrote an algorithm.

Lee Cronin (1:34:22.660)

We basically took the 20 million molecules from a database

Lex Fridman (1:34:26.300)

and we just calculate their assembly number.

Lex Fridman (1:34:28.740)

And that's the index.

Lex Fridman (1:34:29.580)

Like basically, if I take a molecule

Lex Fridman (1:34:32.020)

and I cut it up into bonds,

Lex Fridman (1:34:33.900)

what is the minimum number of steps I need to take

Lex Fridman (1:34:36.620)

to reform that molecule from atoms?

Lex Fridman (1:34:39.700)

So reusability of previously formed things

Lee Cronin (1:34:42.580)

is somehow a fundamental part of what it is.

Lex Fridman (1:34:43.900)

Exactly, it's like a memory in the universe, right?

Lee Cronin (1:34:46.380)

I'm making lots of leaps here.

Lex Fridman (1:34:47.740)

Like, it's kind of weird.

Lee Cronin (1:34:48.820)

I'm saying, right, there's a process

Lex Fridman (1:34:50.060)

that can form the A and the B and the C, let's say.

Lex Fridman (1:34:53.380)

And then because we've formed A and B before,

Lex Fridman (1:34:56.300)

we can use A and B again with no extra cost except one unit.

Lex Fridman (1:35:00.060)

So that's the kind of what the chain of events.

Lex Fridman (1:35:02.540)

And that's how you think about memory here

Lee Cronin (1:35:04.260)

when you say the universe,

Lex Fridman (1:35:05.940)

when you talk about the universe

Lee Cronin (1:35:07.540)

or life is the universe creating memory.

Lex Fridman (1:35:11.860)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:35:12.860)

So we went through chemical space

Lex Fridman (1:35:15.220)

and we looked at the assembly numbers.

Lee Cronin (1:35:16.940)

We were able to classify it.

Lex Fridman (1:35:18.620)

So, okay, let's test it.

Lee Cronin (1:35:20.500)

Let's go.

Lex Fridman (1:35:21.580)

So we're able to take a whole bunch of molecules

Lex Fridman (1:35:23.980)

and assign an assembly index to them, okay?

Lex Fridman (1:35:27.500)

And it's just a function of the number of bonds

Lee Cronin (1:35:30.740)

in the molecule and how much symmetry.

Lex Fridman (1:35:32.380)

So literally assembly theory is a measure

Lee Cronin (1:35:34.820)

of how little symmetry a molecule has.

Lex Fridman (1:35:37.940)

And so the more asymmetry, the more information,

Lee Cronin (1:35:40.580)

the more weird it is,

Lex Fridman (1:35:41.420)

like a Jackson Pollock of some description.

Lex Fridman (1:35:44.420)

So I then went and did a load of experiments.

Lex Fridman (1:35:47.740)

And I basically took those molecules,

Lee Cronin (1:35:49.980)

I cut them up in the mass spec

Lex Fridman (1:35:51.340)

and measured the number of peaks

Lee Cronin (1:35:52.660)

without any knowledge of the molecule.

Lex Fridman (1:35:55.180)

And we found the assembly number,

Lee Cronin (1:35:57.220)

there was almost not quite a one to one correlation,

Lex Fridman (1:36:00.620)

but almost because not all bonds are equal.

Lee Cronin (1:36:02.740)

They have different energies.

Lex Fridman (1:36:03.940)

I then did this using two other spectroscopic techniques,

Lee Cronin (1:36:07.020)

NMR, nuclear magnetic resonance,

Lex Fridman (1:36:08.700)

which uses radio frequency to basically jangle the molecules

Lex Fridman (1:36:11.700)

and get a signature out.

Lex Fridman (1:36:13.100)

And I also used infrared.

Lex Fridman (1:36:15.060)

And infrared and NMR almost gave us a one to one correlation.

Lex Fridman (1:36:18.180)

So what am I saying?

Lee Cronin (1:36:19.540)

Saying by taking a molecule

Lex Fridman (1:36:21.780)

and doing either infrared or NMR or mass spec,

Lee Cronin (1:36:26.020)

I can work out how many parts there are in that molecule

Lex Fridman (1:36:30.060)

and then put it on a scale.

Lex Fridman (1:36:32.300)

And what we did in the next part of the work

Lex Fridman (1:36:35.580)

is we took molecules randomly from the environment,

Lee Cronin (1:36:39.140)

from outer space, from all around earth,

Lex Fridman (1:36:41.380)

from the sea, from Antarctica,

Lex Fridman (1:36:45.660)

and from fossils and so on.

Lex Fridman (1:36:47.500)

And even NASA, because they didn't believe us,

Lee Cronin (1:36:49.700)

blinded some samples.

Lex Fridman (1:36:51.540)

And we found that all these samples that came from biology

Lee Cronin (1:36:57.380)

produced molecules that had a very high assembly number

Lex Fridman (1:37:00.500)

above a threshold of about 15.

Lex Fridman (1:37:02.820)

So basically all the stuff that came

Lex Fridman (1:37:05.820)

from an ebiotic origin was low.

Lee Cronin (1:37:08.620)

There was no complexity there.

Lex Fridman (1:37:10.180)

So we suddenly realized that on earth at least,

Lee Cronin (1:37:12.620)

there is a cutoff that natural phenomena

Lex Fridman (1:37:16.140)

cannot produce molecules

Lee Cronin (1:37:17.620)

that need more than 15 steps to make them.

Lex Fridman (1:37:21.140)

So I realized that this is a way to make a scale of life,

Lee Cronin (1:37:25.260)

a scale of technology as well.

Lex Fridman (1:37:27.380)

And literally you could just go sniffing for molecules

Lee Cronin (1:37:30.460)

off earth, on Titan, on Mars.

Lex Fridman (1:37:33.340)

And when you find a molecule in the mass spectrometer

Lee Cronin (1:37:35.660)

that gives you more than 15 parts,

Lex Fridman (1:37:37.740)

you'll know pretty much for sure

Lee Cronin (1:37:40.660)

that it had to be produced by evolution.

Lex Fridman (1:37:43.220)

And this allowed me to come up with a general definition

Lee Cronin (1:37:45.380)

of life based on assembly theory,

Lex Fridman (1:37:47.340)

to say that if I find an object that has a large number

Lee Cronin (1:37:51.380)

of parts, say an iPhone or Boeing 747,

Lex Fridman (1:37:54.700)

or any complex object and I can find it in abundance

Lex Fridman (1:37:58.740)

and cut it up, I can tell you whether that has been produced

Lex Fridman (1:38:03.060)

by an informational process or not.

Lex Fridman (1:38:04.980)

And that's what assembly theory kind of does.

Lex Fridman (1:38:07.700)

But it goes a bit further.

Lee Cronin (1:38:09.820)

I then realized that this isn't just about life,

Lex Fridman (1:38:12.260)

it's about causation.

Lex Fridman (1:38:14.300)

So actually it tells you about

Lex Fridman (1:38:15.860)

whether it's a causal structure.

Lex Fridman (1:38:17.380)

So now I can look at objects in the universe,

Lex Fridman (1:38:19.020)

say that again, this cup and say, right,

Lee Cronin (1:38:20.780)

I'm gonna look at how many independent parts it has.

Lex Fridman (1:38:23.740)

So that's the assembly number.

Lex Fridman (1:38:25.540)

I'll then look at the abundance, how many cups?

Lex Fridman (1:38:28.020)

There are two on this table,

Lee Cronin (1:38:28.940)

maybe there's a few more you got stashed away.

Lex Fridman (1:38:31.140)

So assembly is a function of the complexity of the object

Lee Cronin (1:38:37.220)

times the number of copy numbers of that object

Lex Fridman (1:38:39.380)

or a function of the copy number normalized.

Lex Fridman (1:38:41.900)

So I realized there's a new quantity in the universe.

Lex Fridman (1:38:45.100)

You have energy, entropy, and assembly.

Lex Fridman (1:38:49.140)

So assembly, the way we should think about that

Lex Fridman (1:38:51.220)

is how much reusability there is.

Lee Cronin (1:38:55.220)

Because reusability is like,

Lex Fridman (1:38:57.860)

can you play devil's advocate to this?

Lex Fridman (1:38:59.700)

So could this just be a nice tertiary signal

Lex Fridman (1:39:08.060)

for living organisms?

Lee Cronin (1:39:10.340)

Like some kind of distant signal that's,

Lex Fridman (1:39:13.420)

yeah, this is a nice property,

Lex Fridman (1:39:15.140)

but it's not capturing something fundamental.

Lex Fridman (1:39:17.740)

Or do you think reusability is something fundamental

Lex Fridman (1:39:20.260)

to life and complex organisms?

Lex Fridman (1:39:22.580)

I think reusability is fundamental in the universe,

Lee Cronin (1:39:25.620)

not just for life and complex organisms.

Lex Fridman (1:39:27.660)

It's about causation.

Lex Fridman (1:39:29.420)

So I think assembly tells you if you find objects,

Lex Fridman (1:39:32.860)

cause you can do this with trajectories as well.

Lee Cronin (1:39:35.300)

You think about it,

Lex Fridman (1:39:36.380)

that the fact there are objects in the universe on earth

Lee Cronin (1:39:41.820)

is weird.

Lex Fridman (1:39:43.820)

You think about it,

Lee Cronin (1:39:44.660)

we should just have a combinatorial explosion of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:39:47.500)

The fact that not everything exists is really weird.

Lee Cronin (1:39:53.620)

Now then.

Lex Fridman (1:39:54.460)

And then as I'm looking at two mugs and two water bottles

Lex Fridman (1:39:59.100)

and the things that exist kind of are similar

Lex Fridman (1:40:04.660)

and multiply in copies of each other.

Lex Fridman (1:40:08.100)

So I would say that assembly allows you to do something

Lex Fridman (1:40:10.780)

that statistical mechanics and people looking at entropy

Lee Cronin (1:40:14.220)

have got stuck with for a while.

Lex Fridman (1:40:16.940)

So I'm making, it's pretty bold.

Lee Cronin (1:40:18.420)

I mean, I'm writing a paper with Sarah Walker

Lex Fridman (1:40:20.380)

on this at the moment.

Lex Fridman (1:40:21.940)

And we're realizing,

Lex Fridman (1:40:23.260)

we don't want to get ahead of ourselves

Lee Cronin (1:40:24.340)

because I think that there's lots of ways where this is,

Lex Fridman (1:40:27.580)

you know, it's a really interesting idea.

Lee Cronin (1:40:30.500)

It works for molecules and it appears to work

Lex Fridman (1:40:33.420)

for any objects produced by causation.

Lee Cronin (1:40:35.540)

Cause you can take a motor car,

Lex Fridman (1:40:36.420)

you can look at the assembly of the motor car,

Lee Cronin (1:40:37.620)

look at a book, look at the assembly of the book.

Lex Fridman (1:40:39.740)

Assembly theory tells you

Lee Cronin (1:40:41.100)

there's a way of compressing and reusing.

Lex Fridman (1:40:43.940)

And so when people, I talk to information theorists,

Lee Cronin (1:40:46.740)

they say, oh, this is just logical depth.

Lex Fridman (1:40:48.780)

I say, it is like logical depth,

Lex Fridman (1:40:51.300)

but it's experimentally measurable.

Lex Fridman (1:40:53.940)

They say, oh, it's a bit like Komogolov complexity.

Lex Fridman (1:40:55.700)

And so, but it's computable.

Lex Fridman (1:40:59.020)

And now, okay, it's not infinitely computable,

Lex Fridman (1:41:00.540)

gets MP hard very quickly, right?

Lex Fridman (1:41:02.300)

It's very hard problem when you could get,

Lex Fridman (1:41:04.140)

but it's a computable enough,

Lex Fridman (1:41:06.220)

you could tractable enough to be able to tell

Lee Cronin (1:41:08.180)

the difference between a molecule

Lex Fridman (1:41:09.220)

that's been formed by the random background

Lex Fridman (1:41:11.100)

and by causation.

Lex Fridman (1:41:13.580)

And I think that that's really interesting

Lee Cronin (1:41:16.540)

because until now there's no way

Lex Fridman (1:41:19.060)

of measuring complexity objectively.

Lee Cronin (1:41:21.020)

Complexity has required algorithmic comparisons

Lex Fridman (1:41:26.220)

and programs and human beings to label things.

Lee Cronin (1:41:30.500)

Assembly is label free.

Lex Fridman (1:41:32.620)

Well, not entirely.

Lee Cronin (1:41:34.180)

We can talk about what that means in a minute.

Lex Fridman (1:41:37.020)

Okay, my brain has been broken a couple of times here.

Lee Cronin (1:41:42.020)

I'm sorry I explained it really badly.

Lex Fridman (1:41:43.460)

No, it was very well explained.

Lee Cronin (1:41:45.020)

It was just fascinating.

Lex Fridman (1:41:45.940)

And it's, my brain is broken into pieces

Lex Fridman (1:41:50.380)

and I'm trying to assemble it.

Lex Fridman (1:41:53.180)

So MP hard.

Lex Fridman (1:41:55.500)

So when you have a molecule,

Lex Fridman (1:41:58.300)

you're trying to figure out, okay,

Lee Cronin (1:42:01.020)

if we were to reuse parts of this molecule,

Lex Fridman (1:42:03.780)

which parts can we reuse as an optimization problem,

Lex Fridman (1:42:10.140)

and be hard to figure out the minimum amount

Lex Fridman (1:42:13.500)

of reused components that will create this molecule.

Lex Fridman (1:42:18.140)

And it becomes difficult when you start

Lex Fridman (1:42:19.660)

to look at a huge, huge molecules, arbitrarily large.

Lee Cronin (1:42:23.700)

Cause I'm also like mapping this.

Lex Fridman (1:42:25.100)

Can I think about this in complexity generally,

Lee Cronin (1:42:28.740)

like looking at a cellular automata system

Lex Fridman (1:42:30.780)

and saying like, what's the,

Lee Cronin (1:42:33.020)

can this be used as a measure of complexity

Lex Fridman (1:42:35.580)

for like a arbitrarily complicated system?

Lee Cronin (1:42:38.740)

Yeah, I think it can.

Lex Fridman (1:42:40.380)

It can.

Lex Fridman (1:42:41.220)

And I think that the question is, and what's the benefit?

Lex Fridman (1:42:43.860)

Cause there's plenty of, I mean,

Lee Cronin (1:42:46.540)

in computer science and mathematics and in physics,

Lex Fridman (1:42:48.540)

people have been really seriously studying complexity

Lee Cronin (1:42:51.540)

for a long time.

Lex Fridman (1:42:53.180)

And I think there's a really interesting problems

Lee Cronin (1:42:55.100)

of where we course grade and we lose information.

Lex Fridman (1:42:58.540)

And all assembly theory does really,

Lee Cronin (1:43:00.100)

assembly theory just explains weak emergence.

Lex Fridman (1:43:03.180)

And so what assembly theory says, look,

Lee Cronin (1:43:05.980)

going from the atoms that interact,

Lex Fridman (1:43:08.900)

those first replicators that build one another,

Lee Cronin (1:43:12.020)

assembly at the minimal level just tells you evidence

Lex Fridman (1:43:14.900)

that there's been replication and selection.

Lex Fridman (1:43:17.860)

And I think the more selected something is,

Lex Fridman (1:43:20.380)

the higher the assembly.

Lex Fridman (1:43:22.460)

And so we were able to start to know

Lex Fridman (1:43:25.540)

how to look for selection in the universe.

Lee Cronin (1:43:27.100)

If you go to the moon,

Lex Fridman (1:43:28.380)

there's nothing a very high assembly on the moon

Lee Cronin (1:43:30.100)

except the human artifacts we've left there.

Lex Fridman (1:43:32.900)

So again, let's go back to the sandbox.

Lee Cronin (1:43:36.020)

In assembly theory says,

Lex Fridman (1:43:37.820)

if all the sand grains could stick together,

Lee Cronin (1:43:40.020)

that's the infinite combinatorial explosion

Lex Fridman (1:43:42.540)

in the universe, that should be the default.

Lee Cronin (1:43:44.740)

We don't have that.

Lex Fridman (1:43:45.900)

Now let's assemble sand grains together

Lex Fridman (1:43:48.580)

and do them in every possible way.

Lex Fridman (1:43:51.060)

So we have a series of minimal operations

Lee Cronin (1:43:54.700)

that can move the sand together.

Lex Fridman (1:43:56.180)

But all that doesn't exist either.

Lee Cronin (1:43:57.860)

Now, because we have specific memory where we say,

Lex Fridman (1:43:59.900)

well, we're gonna put three sand grains in line

Lee Cronin (1:44:01.780)

or four and make a cross or a triangle

Lex Fridman (1:44:03.900)

or something unsymmetrical.

Lex Fridman (1:44:05.420)

And once we've made the triangle

Lex Fridman (1:44:06.620)

and the unsymmetrical thing, we remember that,

Lee Cronin (1:44:08.380)

we can use it again, cause on that causal chain.

Lex Fridman (1:44:10.900)

So what assembly theory allows you to do

Lee Cronin (1:44:12.420)

is go to the actual object that you exist,

Lex Fridman (1:44:14.620)

you find in space.

Lex Fridman (1:44:16.060)

And actually the way you get there is by disassembling.

Lex Fridman (1:44:18.980)

It's disassembly theory works by disassembling objects

Lee Cronin (1:44:23.340)

you have and understanding the steps to create them.

Lex Fridman (1:44:27.660)

And it works for molecules beautifully

Lee Cronin (1:44:30.140)

cause you just break bonds.

Lex Fridman (1:44:31.740)

But like you said, it's very difficult.

Lee Cronin (1:44:33.860)

It's a difficult problem to figure out

Lex Fridman (1:44:35.580)

how to break them apart.

Lee Cronin (1:44:36.580)

For molecules, it's easy.

Lex Fridman (1:44:37.580)

If you just keep low enough in molecular weight space,

Lee Cronin (1:44:40.780)

it's good enough.

Lex Fridman (1:44:41.700)

So it's a complete theory.

Lee Cronin (1:44:43.820)

When we start to think about objects,

Lex Fridman (1:44:45.300)

we can start to assign,

Lee Cronin (1:44:46.940)

we can start to think about things at different levels,

Lex Fridman (1:44:49.020)

different atoms, what you assign as your atom.

Lex Fridman (1:44:51.540)

So in a molecule, the atom, this is really confusing

Lex Fridman (1:44:54.620)

cause the word atom, I mean smallest breakable part.

Lex Fridman (1:44:57.260)

So in a molecule, the atom is the bond

Lex Fridman (1:44:59.700)

cause you break bonds, not atoms, right?

Lex Fridman (1:45:02.420)

So in a car, the atom might be, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (1:45:06.100)

a small amount of iron or the smallest reusable part,

Lee Cronin (1:45:09.780)

a rivet, a piece of plastic or something.

Lex Fridman (1:45:13.460)

So you gotta be really careful.

Lee Cronin (1:45:14.740)

In a microprocessor, the atoms might be transistors.

Lex Fridman (1:45:18.460)

And so the amount of assembly that something has

Lee Cronin (1:45:23.580)

is a function, you have to look at the atom level.

Lex Fridman (1:45:26.620)

What are your parts?

Lex Fridman (1:45:28.180)

What are you counting?

Lex Fridman (1:45:29.020)

That's one of the things you get to choose.

Lex Fridman (1:45:30.780)

What is, at what scale is the atom?

Lex Fridman (1:45:32.740)

What is the minimal thing?

Lee Cronin (1:45:34.740)

I mean, there's a huge amounts of trade offs

Lex Fridman (1:45:36.740)

in when you approach a system and try to analyze.

Lee Cronin (1:45:39.700)

Like if you approach Earth,

Lex Fridman (1:45:41.340)

you're an alien civilization trying to study Earth,

Lex Fridman (1:45:43.820)

what is the atom for trying to measure

Lex Fridman (1:45:45.740)

the complexity of life?

Lex Fridman (1:45:48.380)

Is it, are humans the atoms?

Lex Fridman (1:45:50.540)

I would say to start with, you just use molecules.

Lee Cronin (1:45:53.500)

I can say for sure, if there are molecules

Lex Fridman (1:45:56.020)

of sufficient complexity on Earth,

Lee Cronin (1:45:58.220)

then I know that life has made them.

Lex Fridman (1:45:59.820)

And then go further and show technology.

Lee Cronin (1:46:01.380)

There are molecules that exist on Earth

Lex Fridman (1:46:03.860)

that are not possible even by biology.

Lee Cronin (1:46:06.020)

You needed technology

Lex Fridman (1:46:07.180)

and you needed microprocessors to get there.

Lex Fridman (1:46:09.700)

So that's really cool.

Lex Fridman (1:46:11.420)

And that there's a correlation between that,

Lee Cronin (1:46:14.620)

between the coolness of that and assembly number,

Lex Fridman (1:46:18.580)

whatever the measure.

Lex Fridman (1:46:19.700)

What's the, what would you call the measure?

Lex Fridman (1:46:21.580)

Assembly index.

Lee Cronin (1:46:22.500)

Yeah, assembly index.

Lex Fridman (1:46:23.340)

So there are three kind of fundamental

Lee Cronin (1:46:25.660)

kind of labels we have.

Lex Fridman (1:46:26.700)

So there's the quantity of assembly

Lex Fridman (1:46:28.900)

and the assembly, so if you have a box,

Lex Fridman (1:46:31.140)

let's just have a box of molecules.

Lex Fridman (1:46:32.540)

So I'm gonna have my box.

Lex Fridman (1:46:34.220)

We count the number of identical molecules

Lex Fridman (1:46:36.540)

and then we chop each molecule up

Lex Fridman (1:46:37.980)

in an individual molecule class

Lex Fridman (1:46:40.500)

and calculate the assembly number.

Lex Fridman (1:46:42.260)

So basically you then have a function

Lee Cronin (1:46:45.740)

that sums over all the molecules for each assembly

Lex Fridman (1:46:49.420)

and then you divide through.

Lex Fridman (1:46:50.620)

So you make it divide through

Lex Fridman (1:46:52.340)

by the number of molecules.

Lex Fridman (1:46:54.220)

So that's the assembly index for the box?

Lex Fridman (1:46:56.180)

So that will tell you the amount of assembly in the box.

Lex Fridman (1:46:58.620)

So basically the assembly equation we come up with

Lex Fridman (1:47:01.020)

is like basically the sum of e to the power

Lee Cronin (1:47:04.980)

of the assembly index for molecule i

Lex Fridman (1:47:07.420)

times the number of copies of the molecule i

Lex Fridman (1:47:10.540)

and then you normalize.

Lex Fridman (1:47:11.460)

So you sum them all up and then normalize.

Lex Fridman (1:47:13.380)

So some boxes are gonna be more assembled than others.

Lex Fridman (1:47:16.380)

Yeah, that's what they tell me.

Lex Fridman (1:47:17.700)

So if you were to look at me as a box,

Lex Fridman (1:47:19.900)

so say I'm a box, am I assembling my parts?

Lee Cronin (1:47:23.820)

In terms of like, how do you know,

Lex Fridman (1:47:25.620)

what's my assembly index?

Lex Fridman (1:47:27.020)

So I've been gentle.

Lex Fridman (1:47:28.740)

So let's just, we'll talk about the molecules in you.

Lex Fridman (1:47:30.940)

So let's just take a pile of sand the same way as you

Lex Fridman (1:47:34.540)

and I would take you and just cut up all the molecules.

Lee Cronin (1:47:40.140)

I mean, and look at the number of copies

Lex Fridman (1:47:42.580)

and assembly number.

Lex Fridman (1:47:43.900)

So in sand, let's say there's probably gonna be

Lex Fridman (1:47:46.020)

nothing more than assembly number of two or three,

Lex Fridman (1:47:48.340)

but there might be trillions and trillions of sand grains.

Lex Fridman (1:47:51.980)

In your body, there might be,

Lee Cronin (1:47:53.860)

the assembly number is gonna be higher,

Lex Fridman (1:47:56.180)

but there might not be as quite as many copies

Lee Cronin (1:47:58.340)

because the molecular weight is higher.

Lex Fridman (1:48:01.220)

So you do wanna average it out.

Lee Cronin (1:48:03.020)

You can average, you do average it.

Lex Fridman (1:48:04.340)

I'm not defined by the most impressive molecules.

Lee Cronin (1:48:07.140)

No, no, you're an average in your volume.

Lex Fridman (1:48:08.700)

Well, I mean, we're just working this out,

Lex Fridman (1:48:10.500)

but what's really cool is you're gonna have

Lex Fridman (1:48:13.500)

a really high assembly.

Lee Cronin (1:48:15.140)

The sand will have a very low assembly.

Lex Fridman (1:48:16.700)

Your causal power is much higher.

Lee Cronin (1:48:19.500)

You get to make decisions, you're alive, you're aspiring.

Lex Fridman (1:48:22.940)

Assembly says something about causal power in the universe.

Lex Fridman (1:48:26.580)

And that's not supposed to exist

Lex Fridman (1:48:28.860)

because physicists don't accept

Lee Cronin (1:48:30.580)

that causation exists at the bottom.

Lex Fridman (1:48:33.140)

So I understand at the chemical level

Lex Fridman (1:48:34.580)

why the assembly causes causation.

Lex Fridman (1:48:37.660)

Why is it causation?

Lee Cronin (1:48:38.580)

Because it's capturing the memory.

Lex Fridman (1:48:40.940)

Exactly.

Lee Cronin (1:48:41.780)

Capturing memory, but there's not an action to it.

Lex Fridman (1:48:45.660)

So I'm trying to see how it leads to life.

Lee Cronin (1:48:51.380)

Well, it's what life does.

Lex Fridman (1:48:52.980)

So I think it's, we don't know.

Lee Cronin (1:48:55.620)

So. Yeah, that's a good question.

Lex Fridman (1:48:57.300)

What is life versus what does life do?

Lee Cronin (1:49:00.100)

Yeah, so that's, this is the definition of life.

Lex Fridman (1:49:02.460)

The only definition we need, right?

Lee Cronin (1:49:04.460)

The assembly index.

Lex Fridman (1:49:05.300)

It's basically that life is able to create objects

Lee Cronin (1:49:09.900)

in abundance that are so complex,

Lex Fridman (1:49:14.020)

the assembly number is so high,

Lee Cronin (1:49:15.700)

they can't possibly be formed in an environment

Lex Fridman (1:49:18.700)

where there's just random interactions.

Lee Cronin (1:49:20.300)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:49:21.140)

So suddenly you can put life on a scale.

Lex Fridman (1:49:24.860)

And then life doesn't exist actually in that camp.

Lex Fridman (1:49:27.860)

It's just how evolved you are.

Lex Fridman (1:49:30.300)

And you as an object,

Lex Fridman (1:49:33.100)

because you have incredible causal power,

Lee Cronin (1:49:35.660)

you could go and, you can go and, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:49:39.660)

launch rockets or build cars or create drugs,

Lee Cronin (1:49:43.660)

or, you know, you can do so many things.

Lex Fridman (1:49:46.340)

You can build stuff, build more artifacts

Lee Cronin (1:49:49.020)

that show that you have had causal power.

Lex Fridman (1:49:52.340)

And that causal power was this kind of a lineage.

Lex Fridman (1:49:55.340)

And I think that over time,

Lex Fridman (1:49:57.860)

I've been realizing that physics as a discipline

Lee Cronin (1:50:02.580)

has a number of problems associated with it.

Lex Fridman (1:50:04.900)

Me as a chemist, it's kind of interesting

Lee Cronin (1:50:07.300)

that assembly theory, and I'm really, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:50:10.340)

I want to maintain some credibility in the physicists eyes,

Lex Fridman (1:50:13.460)

but I have to push them because they,

Lex Fridman (1:50:15.260)

physics is a really good discipline.

Lee Cronin (1:50:17.980)

It's reduced the number,

Lex Fridman (1:50:20.060)

physics is about reducing the belief system,

Lex Fridman (1:50:22.260)

but they're down to some things in their belief system,

Lex Fridman (1:50:24.740)

which is kind of really makes me kind of grumpy.

Lee Cronin (1:50:27.780)

Number one is requiring order

Lex Fridman (1:50:29.620)

at the beginning of the universe magically.

Lee Cronin (1:50:31.020)

We don't need that.

Lex Fridman (1:50:32.220)

The second is the second law.

Lee Cronin (1:50:34.020)

Well, we don't actually need that.

Lex Fridman (1:50:36.740)

And I...

Lee Cronin (1:50:37.580)

This is blasphemous.

Lex Fridman (1:50:39.180)

Well, in a minute, I'll recover my career in a second.

Lee Cronin (1:50:42.260)

Although I think the good,

Lex Fridman (1:50:43.380)

the only good thing about being the regis chair

Lee Cronin (1:50:45.140)

means I think there has to be an act of parliament to fire me.

Lex Fridman (1:50:47.860)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (1:50:48.700)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:50:49.540)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (1:50:50.380)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:50:51.220)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:50:52.060)

But you can always go to Lee's Twitter and protest.

Lex Fridman (1:50:56.700)

And I think the third thing is that,

Lex Fridman (1:50:58.620)

so we've got, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:50:59.460)

we've got the order at the beginning.

Lee Cronin (1:51:02.540)

Second law.

Lex Fridman (1:51:03.380)

The second law and the fact that causation is emergent,

Lex Fridman (1:51:06.780)

right?

Lex Fridman (1:51:07.620)

And that time is emergent.

Lee Cronin (1:51:09.060)

John Carroll just turned off this program.

Lex Fridman (1:51:12.180)

I think he believes that it's emergent.

Lex Fridman (1:51:13.860)

So causation is not...

Lex Fridman (1:51:15.700)

That's clearly incorrect

Lee Cronin (1:51:17.860)

because we wouldn't exist otherwise.

Lex Fridman (1:51:19.620)

So physicists have kind of got confused about time.

Lee Cronin (1:51:23.460)

Time is a real thing.

Lex Fridman (1:51:25.580)

Well, I mean, so look,

Lee Cronin (1:51:29.460)

I'm very happy with the current description

Lex Fridman (1:51:31.140)

of the universe as physics give me,

Lex Fridman (1:51:32.700)

because I can do a lot of stuff, right?

Lex Fridman (1:51:33.980)

I can go to the moon with Newtonian physics, I think,

Lex Fridman (1:51:36.540)

and I can understand the orbit of Mercury with relativity.

Lex Fridman (1:51:41.060)

And so, and I can build transistors

Lex Fridman (1:51:42.900)

with quantum mechanics, right?

Lex Fridman (1:51:43.940)

And I can do all this stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:51:45.740)

So I'm not saying the physics is wrong.

Lex Fridman (1:51:47.260)

I'm just saying, if we say that time is fundamental,

Lee Cronin (1:51:50.460)

i.e. time is nonnegotiable, there's a global clock,

Lex Fridman (1:51:52.940)

I don't need to require

Lee Cronin (1:51:56.620)

that there's order been magically made in the past

Lex Fridman (1:51:59.700)

because that asymmetry is built into the way the universe is.

Lex Fridman (1:52:05.460)

So if time is fundamental,

Lex Fridman (1:52:06.940)

I mean, you've been referring to this kind of

Lee Cronin (1:52:11.140)

an interesting formulation of that is memory.

Lex Fridman (1:52:13.900)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:52:14.740)

So time is hard to like put a finger on,

Lex Fridman (1:52:18.940)

like what the hell are we talking about?

Lee Cronin (1:52:20.580)

Well, it's just the direction,

Lex Fridman (1:52:21.740)

but memory is a construction,

Lee Cronin (1:52:24.620)

especially when you have like,

Lex Fridman (1:52:26.660)

think about these local pockets of complexity,

Lee Cronin (1:52:28.980)

these nonzero assembly index entities

Lex Fridman (1:52:34.020)

that's being constructed and they remember.

Lee Cronin (1:52:37.260)

Never forget molecules.

Lex Fridman (1:52:39.140)

But remember, the thing is I invented assembly theory.

Lee Cronin (1:52:42.940)

I'll tell you how I invented it.

Lex Fridman (1:52:44.420)

When I was a kid, I mean, the thing is,

Lee Cronin (1:52:46.140)

I keep making fun of myself to my research group.

Lex Fridman (1:52:48.300)

I've only ever had one idea.

Lee Cronin (1:52:49.620)

I keep exploring that idea over the 40 years or so

Lex Fridman (1:52:52.500)

since I had the idea.

Lee Cronin (1:52:53.740)

I used to be a...

Lex Fridman (1:52:54.580)

Well, aren't you the idea that the universe had?

Lex Fridman (1:52:56.460)

So it's very kind of hierarchical.

Lex Fridman (1:52:58.500)

Anyway, go ahead.

Lee Cronin (1:52:59.340)

I'm sorry.

Lex Fridman (1:53:00.180)

That's very poetic.

Lee Cronin (1:53:02.100)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:53:02.940)

So I think I came up with assembly theory

Lee Cronin (1:53:04.820)

with the following idea.

Lex Fridman (1:53:06.100)

When I was a kid, I was obsessed about survival kits.

Lex Fridman (1:53:09.540)

What is the minimum stuff I would need

Lex Fridman (1:53:12.460)

to basically replicate my reality?

Lex Fridman (1:53:14.020)

And I love computers and I love technology

Lex Fridman (1:53:17.060)

or what technology is gonna become.

Lex Fridman (1:53:18.340)

So I imagined that I would have

Lex Fridman (1:53:20.380)

basically this really big truck full of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:53:22.860)

And I thought, well, can I delete some of that stuff out?

Lex Fridman (1:53:25.500)

Can I have a blueprint?

Lex Fridman (1:53:26.500)

And then in the end, I kept making this smaller.

Lex Fridman (1:53:29.500)

I got to maybe a half a truck and then to a suitcase.

Lex Fridman (1:53:32.220)

And then I went, okay, well, screw it.

Lex Fridman (1:53:33.980)

I wanna carry my entire technology in my pocket.

Lex Fridman (1:53:37.580)

How do I do it?

Lex Fridman (1:53:38.620)

And I'm not gonna launch into Steve Jobs and iPlayer.

Lee Cronin (1:53:43.180)

I came up with a matchbox survival kit.

Lex Fridman (1:53:45.940)

In that matchbox survival kit,

Lee Cronin (1:53:47.260)

I would have the minimum stuff

Lex Fridman (1:53:48.540)

that would allow me to interact the environment,

Lee Cronin (1:53:50.540)

to build my shelter, to build a fishing rod,

Lex Fridman (1:53:54.260)

to build a water purification system.

Lex Fridman (1:53:57.300)

And it's kind of like, so what did I use in my box

Lex Fridman (1:53:59.460)

to assemble in the environment,

Lex Fridman (1:54:01.620)

to assemble, to assemble, to assemble?

Lex Fridman (1:54:04.260)

And I realized I could make a causal chain

Lee Cronin (1:54:07.060)

in my survival kit.

Lex Fridman (1:54:08.180)

So I guess that's probably why I've been obsessed

Lee Cronin (1:54:10.220)

with assembly theory for so long.

Lex Fridman (1:54:11.980)

And I was just pre configured to find it somewhere.

Lex Fridman (1:54:17.580)

And when I saw it in molecules,

Lex Fridman (1:54:19.420)

I realized that the causal structure that we say emerges

Lex Fridman (1:54:24.340)

and the physics kind of gets really stuck

Lex Fridman (1:54:27.100)

because they're saying that time,

Lee Cronin (1:54:28.580)

you can go backwards in time.

Lex Fridman (1:54:29.740)

I mean, how do we let physicists get away

Lee Cronin (1:54:32.140)

with the notion that we can go back in time

Lex Fridman (1:54:34.340)

and meet ourselves?

Lee Cronin (1:54:35.180)

I mean, that's clearly a very hard thing

Lex Fridman (1:54:40.180)

to allow, physicists would not let other sciences

Lex Fridman (1:54:45.580)

get away with that kind of heresy, right?

Lex Fridman (1:54:49.100)

So why are physicists allowed to get away with it?

Lee Cronin (1:54:50.620)

Let's, let's.

Lex Fridman (1:54:51.460)

So first of all, to push back, to play devil's advocate,

Lee Cronin (1:54:54.260)

you are clearly married to the idea of memory.

Lex Fridman (1:54:58.300)

You see in this, again, from Rick and Morty way,

Lee Cronin (1:55:02.220)

you see, you have these deep dreams of the universe

Lex Fridman (1:55:06.380)

that is writing the story through its memories,

Lee Cronin (1:55:08.900)

through its chemical compounds

Lex Fridman (1:55:10.860)

that are just building at top of each other.

Lex Fridman (1:55:12.460)

And then they find useful components they can reuse.

Lex Fridman (1:55:16.020)

And then the reused components create systems

Lee Cronin (1:55:19.780)

that themselves are then reused

Lex Fridman (1:55:21.820)

and all in this way, construct things.

Lex Fridman (1:55:24.060)

But when you think of that as memory,

Lex Fridman (1:55:27.860)

it seems like quite sad that you can walk that back.

Lex Fridman (1:55:31.940)

But at the same time, it feels like that memory,

Lex Fridman (1:55:34.860)

you can walk in both directions on that memory

Lee Cronin (1:55:37.060)

in terms of time.

Lex Fridman (1:55:38.020)

You could walk in both directions,

Lex Fridman (1:55:39.580)

but I don't think that that makes any sense

Lex Fridman (1:55:42.060)

because the problem that I have with time being reversible

Lee Cronin (1:55:50.060)

is that, I mean, I'm just a, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:55:53.460)

I'm a dumb experimental chemist, right?

Lex Fridman (1:55:55.220)

So I love burning stuff, burning stuff and building stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:55:58.940)

But when I think of reversible phenomena,

Lee Cronin (1:56:01.220)

I imagine in my head,

Lex Fridman (1:56:02.260)

I have to actually manufacture some time.

Lee Cronin (1:56:05.260)

I have to borrow time from the universe to do that.

Lex Fridman (1:56:08.180)

I can't, when anyone says,

Lee Cronin (1:56:10.100)

let's imagine that we can go back in time or reversibility,

Lex Fridman (1:56:13.180)

you can't do that.

Lee Cronin (1:56:14.020)

You can't step out of time.

Lex Fridman (1:56:15.220)

Time is nonnegotiable, it's happening.

Lee Cronin (1:56:17.060)

No, but see, you're assuming that time is fundamental,

Lex Fridman (1:56:20.540)

which most of us do when we go day to day,

Lex Fridman (1:56:23.780)

but it takes a leap of wild imagination

Lex Fridman (1:56:27.300)

to think that time is emergent.

Lee Cronin (1:56:29.780)

No, time is not emergent.

Lex Fridman (1:56:30.980)

Yeah, I mean, this is an argument we can have,

Lex Fridman (1:56:32.940)

but I believe I can come up with an experiment.

Lex Fridman (1:56:35.940)

An experiment that proves

Lee Cronin (1:56:37.180)

that time cannot possibly be emergent.

Lex Fridman (1:56:38.780)

An experiment that shows how assembly theory

Lee Cronin (1:56:43.300)

kind of is the way that the universe produces selection

Lex Fridman (1:56:48.180)

and that selection gives rise to life.

Lex Fridman (1:56:50.700)

And also to say, well, hang on,

Lex Fridman (1:56:53.420)

we could allow ourselves to have a theory

Lee Cronin (1:56:55.340)

that requires us to have these statements to be possible.

Lex Fridman (1:56:59.220)

Like we need to have order in the past,

Lee Cronin (1:57:03.140)

or we can use the past hypothesis,

Lex Fridman (1:57:06.220)

which is order in the past, but as well, okay.

Lex Fridman (1:57:10.980)

And we have to have an arrow of time.

Lex Fridman (1:57:12.820)

We have to require that entropy increases.

Lex Fridman (1:57:16.500)

And we have to say, and then we can say, look,

Lex Fridman (1:57:17.980)

the universe is completely closed and there's no novelty

Lee Cronin (1:57:21.700)

or that novelty is predetermined.

Lex Fridman (1:57:23.940)

What I'm saying is very, very important

Lee Cronin (1:57:26.420)

that time is fundamental, which means,

Lex Fridman (1:57:28.660)

if you think about it,

Lee Cronin (1:57:30.060)

the universe becomes more and more novel each step.

Lex Fridman (1:57:32.660)

It generates there's more states

Lee Cronin (1:57:33.940)

in the next step than it was before.

Lex Fridman (1:57:35.860)

So that means bigger search.

Lex Fridman (1:57:37.580)

So what I'm saying is that the universe

Lex Fridman (1:57:39.460)

wasn't capable of consciousness at day one,

Lee Cronin (1:57:43.220)

actually, because it didn't have enough states.

Lex Fridman (1:57:45.780)

But today the universe is, so it's like how?

Lee Cronin (1:57:48.780)

All right, all right, hold on a second.

Lex Fridman (1:57:51.580)

Now we've pissed off the panpsychist too, okay.

Lee Cronin (1:57:55.700)

No, this is brilliant, sorry.

Lex Fridman (1:57:57.580)

Part of me is just joking, having fun with this thing,

Lex Fridman (1:58:00.220)

but because you're saying a lot of brilliant stuff

Lex Fridman (1:58:02.500)

and I'm trying to slow it down before my brain explodes.

Lee Cronin (1:58:05.660)

So, because I want to break apart

Lex Fridman (1:58:08.100)

some of the fascinating things you're saying.

Lex Fridman (1:58:10.340)

So novelty, novelty is increasing in the universe

Lex Fridman (1:58:14.700)

because the number of states is increasing.

Lex Fridman (1:58:16.980)

What do you mean by states?

Lex Fridman (1:58:18.460)

So I think the physicists almost got everything right.

Lee Cronin (1:58:20.780)

I can't fault them at all.

Lex Fridman (1:58:22.940)

I just think there's a little bit of dogma.

Lee Cronin (1:58:24.460)

I'm just trying to play devil's advocate.

Lex Fridman (1:58:25.820)

I'm very happy to be entirely wrong on this, right?

Lee Cronin (1:58:28.780)

I'm not right on many things at all,

Lex Fridman (1:58:31.060)

but if I can make less assumptions

Lee Cronin (1:58:34.060)

about the universe with this,

Lex Fridman (1:58:35.940)

then potentially that's a more powerful way

Lee Cronin (1:58:38.100)

of looking at things.

Lex Fridman (1:58:39.740)

If you think of time as fundamental,

Lee Cronin (1:58:41.820)

you can make less assumptions overall.

Lex Fridman (1:58:43.460)

Exactly, if time is fundamental,

Lee Cronin (1:58:45.740)

I don't need to add on a magical second law

Lex Fridman (1:58:48.020)

because the second law comes out of the fact

Lee Cronin (1:58:49.500)

the universe is actually, there's more states available.

Lex Fridman (1:58:52.700)

I mean, we might even be able to do weird things

Lee Cronin (1:58:54.580)

like dark energy in the universe

Lex Fridman (1:58:55.900)

might actually just be time, right?

Lee Cronin (1:58:58.660)

Yeah, but then you have to still have to explain

Lex Fridman (1:59:00.940)

why time is fundamental,

Lee Cronin (1:59:02.540)

because I can give you one explanation

Lex Fridman (1:59:04.460)

that's simpler than time and say God.

Lee Cronin (1:59:07.020)

You know, like just because it's simple

Lex Fridman (1:59:08.700)

doesn't mean it's, okay, you still have to explain God

Lex Fridman (1:59:12.620)

and you still have to explain time.

Lex Fridman (1:59:14.220)

Like why is it fundamental?

Lex Fridman (1:59:15.580)

So let's just say existence is default,

Lex Fridman (1:59:18.020)

which means time is the default.

Lex Fridman (1:59:19.580)

So how did you go from the existence

Lex Fridman (1:59:22.020)

of the time to the default? Well, we exist, right?

Lex Fridman (1:59:24.940)

So let's just be very.

Lex Fridman (1:59:26.980)

We're yet to talk about what exist means.

Lee Cronin (1:59:28.940)

All right, let's go all the way back.

Lex Fridman (1:59:30.340)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Lee Cronin (1:59:31.180)

I think it's very poetic and beautiful

Lex Fridman (1:59:32.540)

what you're weaving into this.

Lee Cronin (1:59:34.180)

I don't think this conversation is even about the assembly,

Lex Fridman (1:59:38.180)

which is fascinating and we'll keep mentioning it

Lee Cronin (1:59:41.100)

in the index on this idea,

Lex Fridman (1:59:42.980)

that I don't think is necessarily connected to time.

Lee Cronin (1:59:46.940)

Oh, I think it is deeply connected.

Lex Fridman (1:59:49.180)

I can't explain it yet.

Lex Fridman (1:59:50.260)

So you don't think everything you've said

Lex Fridman (1:59:52.580)

about assembly theory and assembly index

Lex Fridman (1:59:56.100)

can still be correct even if time is emergent?

Lex Fridman (1:59:58.620)

So yeah, right now, assembly theory appears to work.

Lee Cronin (20:00.060)

are just broken back into atoms.

Lex Fridman (20:01.860)

So you have this kind of destruction of the molecules

Lee Cronin (20:06.020)

for our chemical reactions.

Lex Fridman (20:07.700)

So you only need one or two molecules

Lee Cronin (20:09.980)

to become good at copying themselves

Lex Fridman (20:12.260)

for them suddenly to then take resources in the pool

Lex Fridman (20:15.060)

and start to grow.

Lex Fridman (20:16.380)

And so then replication actually over time,

Lee Cronin (20:18.940)

when you have bonds, I think is much simpler, much easier.

Lex Fridman (20:23.020)

And I even found this in my lab years ago.

Lee Cronin (20:25.540)

I had one of the reasons I started doing inorganic chemistry

Lex Fridman (20:29.460)

and making rust, making a bit of rust based on

Lee Cronin (20:32.500)

a thing called molybdenum, molybdenum oxide

Lex Fridman (20:35.020)

is this molybdenum oxide, very simple.

Lex Fridman (20:38.620)

But when you add acid to it and some electrons,

Lex Fridman (20:40.940)

they make these molecules you just cannot possibly imagine

Lee Cronin (20:44.700)

would be constructed big, gigantic wheels

Lex Fridman (20:46.980)

of 154 molybdenum atoms in a wheel

Lee Cronin (20:50.180)

or I cost a dodecahedron 132 molybdenum atoms

Lex Fridman (20:54.380)

all in the same pot.

Lex Fridman (20:55.460)

And I realized when I,

Lex Fridman (20:56.940)

and I just finished experiments two years ago,

Lee Cronin (20:58.780)

I've just published a couple of papers on this,

Lex Fridman (21:00.940)

that they're actually, there is a random small molecule

Lee Cronin (21:05.100)

with 12 atoms in it that can form randomly,

Lex Fridman (21:07.860)

but it happens to template its own production.

Lex Fridman (21:10.860)

And then by chance, it templates the ring,

Lex Fridman (21:14.060)

just an accident, just like just an absolute accident.

Lex Fridman (21:17.300)

And that ring also helps make the small 12 mer.

Lex Fridman (21:21.980)

And so you have what's called an autocatalytic set

Lee Cronin (21:25.500)

where A makes B and B helps make A and vice versa.

Lex Fridman (21:32.860)

And you then make this loop.

Lex Fridman (21:34.580)

So it's a bit like these, they all work in synergy

Lex Fridman (21:39.580)

to make this chain of events that grow.

Lex Fridman (21:43.500)

And it doesn't take a very sophisticated model

Lex Fridman (21:46.620)

to show that if you have these objects are competing

Lex Fridman (21:50.540)

and then collaborating to help one another build,

Lex Fridman (21:53.300)

they just grow out of the mess.

Lex Fridman (21:55.020)

And although they seem improbable,

Lex Fridman (21:56.980)

they are improbable, in fact, impossible in one step.

Lee Cronin (22:01.580)

There's multiple steps.

Lex Fridman (22:02.820)

This is when the blind people look

Lee Cronin (22:04.300)

at the blind watchmaker argument

Lex Fridman (22:06.660)

and you talk about how could a watch spontaneously emerge?

Lee Cronin (22:10.820)

Well, it doesn't.

Lex Fridman (22:11.740)

It's a lineage of watches and cruder devices

Lee Cronin (22:14.500)

that are bootstrapped onto one another.

Lex Fridman (22:19.140)

Right, so it's very improbable,

Lex Fridman (22:23.220)

but once you get that little discovery

Lex Fridman (22:25.380)

like with the wheel and fire,

Lee Cronin (22:29.540)

it just explodes because it's so successful, it explodes.

Lex Fridman (22:34.540)

It explodes, it's basically selection.

Lex Fridman (22:37.780)

So this templating mechanism that allows you

Lex Fridman (22:40.500)

to have a little like blueprint for yourself,

Lex Fridman (22:43.460)

how you go through different procedures

Lex Fridman (22:45.100)

is to build copies of yourself.

Lex Fridman (22:49.500)

So in chemistry somehow it's possible to imagine

Lex Fridman (22:52.940)

that that kind of thing is easy to spring up.

Lee Cronin (22:57.020)

In more complex organisms, it feels like a different thing

Lex Fridman (22:59.820)

and much more complicated.

Lee Cronin (23:00.860)

Like we're having like multiple abstractions

Lex Fridman (23:04.340)

of the birds and the bees conversation here,

Lex Fridman (23:06.820)

but with human, I'm sorry, with complex organisms,

Lex Fridman (23:10.220)

it feels like difficult to have reproduction to,

Lee Cronin (23:15.940)

that's gonna get clipped out.

Lex Fridman (23:17.140)

I'm gonna make fun of that.

Lee Cronin (23:18.540)

It's difficult to develop this idea

Lex Fridman (23:23.860)

of making copies of yourself or no.

Lee Cronin (23:26.860)

Because that seems like a magical idea for life to,

Lex Fridman (23:30.260)

but wow, that feels like very necessary

Lee Cronin (23:35.500)

for what selection is, for what evolution is.

Lex Fridman (23:37.700)

But then if selection precedes all of this,

Lee Cronin (23:40.620)

then maybe these are just like echoes

Lex Fridman (23:43.420)

of the selecting mechanism at different scales.

Lee Cronin (23:47.340)

Yeah, that's exactly it.

Lex Fridman (23:48.420)

So selection is the default in the universe if you want to.

Lex Fridman (23:52.020)

And what happens is that life,

Lex Fridman (23:54.780)

the solution that life has got on earth,

Lee Cronin (23:57.660)

life on earth, biology on earth is unique to earth.

Lex Fridman (24:01.300)

We can talk about that.

Lex Fridman (24:03.220)

And that was really hard fought for,

Lex Fridman (24:05.740)

but that is a solution that works on earth,

Lee Cronin (24:08.660)

the ribosome, the fundamental machine

Lex Fridman (24:10.620)

that is responsible for every cell on earth

Lee Cronin (24:15.180)

of whatever, wherever it is in the kingdom of life.

Lex Fridman (24:18.500)

That is an incredibly complex object,

Lex Fridman (24:21.180)

but it was evolved over time

Lex Fridman (24:22.900)

and it wasn't involved in a vacuum.

Lex Fridman (24:24.620)

And I think that once we understand that selection

Lex Fridman (24:27.980)

can occur without the ribosome,

Lex Fridman (24:32.700)

but what the ribosome does,

Lex Fridman (24:34.180)

it's a phase transition in replication.

Lex Fridman (24:37.220)

And I think that that, and also technology

Lex Fridman (24:39.100)

that is probably much easier to get to than we think.

Lex Fridman (24:45.780)

Why do you put the ribosome as a central part

Lex Fridman (24:50.820)

of living organisms on earth?

Lee Cronin (24:52.380)

It basically is a combination

Lex Fridman (24:53.700)

of two different polymer systems, so RNA and peptides.

Lex Fridman (24:57.260)

So the RNA world, if you like,

Lex Fridman (24:59.500)

gets transmitted and builds proteins

Lex Fridman (25:02.420)

and the proteins are responsible for all the catalysis.

Lex Fridman (25:05.220)

The majority of the catalysis goes on in the cell.

Lee Cronin (25:07.300)

No ribosome, no proteins, no decoding, no evolution.

Lex Fridman (25:11.460)

So ribosome is looking at the action.

Lee Cronin (25:14.340)

You don't put like the RNA itself as the critical thing,

Lex Fridman (25:17.780)

like information, you put action as the most important thing.

Lee Cronin (25:20.780)

I think the actual molecules

Lex Fridman (25:22.420)

that we have in biology right now are entirely contingent

Lee Cronin (25:24.780)

on the history of life on earth.

Lex Fridman (25:27.340)

There are so many possible solutions.

Lex Fridman (25:29.020)

And this is where chemistry got itself into,

Lex Fridman (25:31.140)

origin of life chemistry gets itself into a bit of a trap.

Lee Cronin (25:33.460)

Yeah, let me interrupt you there.

Lex Fridman (25:35.260)

You've tweeted, you're gonna get,

Lex Fridman (25:36.580)

I'm gonna cite your tweets like it's Shakespeare, okay?

Lex Fridman (25:40.520)

It's surprising you haven't gotten canceled on Twitter yet.

Lee Cronin (25:43.740)

Your brilliance once again saves you.

Lex Fridman (25:46.660)

I'm just kidding.

Lee Cronin (25:49.020)

You like to have a little bit of fun on Twitter.

Lex Fridman (25:51.300)

You've tweeted that quote,

Lee Cronin (25:52.780)

origin of life research is a scam.

Lex Fridman (25:56.860)

So if this is Shakespeare, can we analyze this word?

Lex Fridman (26:00.180)

Why is the origin of life research a scam?

Lex Fridman (26:02.300)

Aren't you kind of doing origin of life research?

Lee Cronin (26:06.760)

Okay, it was tongue in cheek, but yeah,

Lex Fridman (26:08.180)

I think, and I meant it as tongue in cheek.

Lee Cronin (26:12.460)

I'm not doing the origin of life research.

Lex Fridman (26:14.460)

I'm trying to make artificial life.

Lex Fridman (26:16.820)

And I also want to bound the likelihood

Lex Fridman (26:19.700)

of the origin of life on earth,

Lex Fridman (26:21.340)

but more importantly to find origin of life elsewhere.

Lex Fridman (26:23.820)

But let me directly address the tweet.

Lee Cronin (26:26.020)

There are many, many good chemists out there

Lex Fridman (26:27.920)

doing origin of life research, but I want to nudge them.

Lex Fridman (26:31.500)

And I think they're brilliant.

Lex Fridman (26:32.340)

Like there's no question the chemistry they are doing,

Lee Cronin (26:36.620)

the motivation is great.

Lex Fridman (26:38.780)

So what I meant by that tweet is saying

Lee Cronin (26:40.580)

that maybe they're making assumptions about saying,

Lex Fridman (26:43.000)

if only I could make this particular type of molecule,

Lee Cronin (26:47.440)

say this RNA molecule or this phosphodiester

Lex Fridman (26:52.100)

or this other molecule,

Lee Cronin (26:54.140)

it's gonna somehow unlock the origin of life.

Lex Fridman (26:57.820)

And I think that origin of life has been looking at this

Lee Cronin (27:00.580)

for a very long time.

Lex Fridman (27:01.980)

And whilst I think it's brilliant to work out

Lex Fridman (27:05.700)

how you can get to those molecules,

Lex Fridman (27:08.220)

I think that chemistry and chemists doing origin of life

Lee Cronin (27:11.420)

could be nudged into doing something even more profound.

Lex Fridman (27:15.940)

And so the argument I'm making,

Lee Cronin (27:18.460)

it's a bit like right now,

Lex Fridman (27:20.260)

let's say, I don't know, the first Tesla

Lee Cronin (27:22.940)

that makes its way to, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (27:25.820)

into a new country in the world.

Lee Cronin (27:27.060)

Let's say there's a country X

Lex Fridman (27:29.660)

that has never had a Tesla before

Lex Fridman (27:31.180)

and they get the Tesla.

Lex Fridman (27:32.100)

Russia.

Lex Fridman (27:32.940)

And they take the Tesla,

Lex Fridman (27:34.260)

and what they do is they take the Tesla apart

Lex Fridman (27:35.660)

and say, we want to find the origin of cars in the universe

Lex Fridman (27:38.420)

and say, okay, how did this form and how did this form?

Lex Fridman (27:41.140)

And they just randomly keep making

Lex Fridman (27:42.620)

till they make the door, they make the wheel,

Lee Cronin (27:44.360)

they make the steering column and all this stuff.

Lex Fridman (27:46.220)

And they say, well, that's the route.

Lee Cronin (27:48.140)

That's the way cars emerged on earth.

Lex Fridman (27:50.440)

But actually we know that there's a causal chain of cars

Lee Cronin (27:53.340)

going right back to Henry Ford and the horse and carriage.

Lex Fridman (27:56.100)

And before that, maybe, you know,

Lee Cronin (27:58.820)

where people were using wheels.

Lex Fridman (28:00.340)

And I think that obsession with the identities

Lee Cronin (28:04.340)

that we see in biology right now

Lex Fridman (28:06.140)

are giving us a false sense of security

Lee Cronin (28:09.260)

about what we're looking for.

Lex Fridman (28:10.960)

And I think that origin of life chemistry is in danger

Lee Cronin (28:17.000)

of not making the progress that it deserves

Lex Fridman (28:20.740)

because the chemists are doing this.

Lee Cronin (28:22.780)

The field is exploding right now.

Lex Fridman (28:24.260)

There's amazing people out there, young and old doing this.

Lex Fridman (28:27.540)

And there's deservedly so more money going in.

Lex Fridman (28:30.340)

You know, I used to complain

Lee Cronin (28:31.860)

there's more money being spent searching for the Higgs boson

Lex Fridman (28:34.100)

that we know exists than the origin of life.

Lex Fridman (28:36.300)

You know, why is that?

Lex Fridman (28:37.460)

The origin, we understand the origin of life.

Lee Cronin (28:39.780)

We're gonna actually work out what life is.

Lex Fridman (28:42.000)

And we're gonna be at a bound,

Lee Cronin (28:43.180)

the likelihood of finding life elsewhere in the universe.

Lex Fridman (28:45.680)

And most important for us,

Lee Cronin (28:47.020)

we are gonna know or have a good idea

Lex Fridman (28:49.500)

of what the future of humanity looks like.

Lee Cronin (28:51.700)

You know, we need to understand

Lex Fridman (28:53.420)

that although we're precious,

Lee Cronin (28:54.960)

we're not the only life forms in the universe.

Lex Fridman (28:57.140)

Or that's my very strong impression.

Lee Cronin (28:58.700)

I have no data for that.

Lex Fridman (29:00.100)

It's just right now a belief.

Lex Fridman (29:02.180)

And I want to turn that belief

Lex Fridman (29:03.380)

into a more than a belief by experimentation.

Lex Fridman (29:07.180)

But coming back to the scam,

Lex Fridman (29:09.480)

the scam is if we just make this RNA,

Lee Cronin (29:11.660)

we've got this fluke event, we know how that's simple.

Lex Fridman (29:17.540)

Let's make this phosphodiester,

Lee Cronin (29:19.180)

or let's make ATP or ADP.

Lex Fridman (29:21.220)

We've got that part nailed.

Lee Cronin (29:22.420)

Let's now make this other molecule, another molecule.

Lex Fridman (29:24.420)

And how many molecules are gonna be enough?

Lex Fridman (29:26.460)

And then the reason I say this

Lex Fridman (29:28.380)

is when you go back to Craig Venter,

Lee Cronin (29:30.580)

when he invented his life form, Cyndia,

Lex Fridman (29:35.340)

this micro, this minimal plasmid,

Lee Cronin (29:38.180)

it's a myoplasma, something, I don't know the name of it,

Lex Fridman (29:43.180)

but he made this wonderful cell

Lex Fridman (29:45.580)

and said, I've invented life.

Lex Fridman (29:48.360)

Not quite.

Lee Cronin (29:49.220)

He facsimileed the genome from this entity

Lex Fridman (29:52.700)

and made it in the lab, all the DNA,

Lex Fridman (29:55.660)

but he didn't make the cell.

Lex Fridman (29:56.940)

He had to take an existing cell

Lee Cronin (2:00:01.660)

I appear to be able to measure objects of high assembly

Lex Fridman (2:00:04.860)

in a mass spectrometer and look at their abundance

Lex Fridman (2:00:06.660)

and you know, all that's fine, right?

Lex Fridman (2:00:08.180)

It's a nice, if nothing else, it's a nice way

Lee Cronin (2:00:10.540)

of looking at how molecules can compress things.

Lex Fridman (2:00:14.420)

Now, am I saying that a time has to be fundamental,

Lex Fridman (2:00:17.180)

not emergent for assembly theory to work?

Lex Fridman (2:00:18.740)

No, I think I'm saying that the universe,

Lee Cronin (2:00:23.300)

it appears that the universe has many different ways

Lex Fridman (2:00:25.700)

of using time.

Lee Cronin (2:00:26.540)

You could have three different types of time.

Lex Fridman (2:00:28.340)

You could just have time that's,

Lee Cronin (2:00:29.980)

the way I would think of it,

Lex Fridman (2:00:30.820)

if you want to hold onto emergent time,

Lee Cronin (2:00:33.300)

I think that's fine, let's do that for a second.

Lex Fridman (2:00:35.580)

Hold onto emergent time

Lex Fridman (2:00:37.460)

and the universe is just doing its thing.

Lex Fridman (2:00:39.580)

Then assembly time only exists when the universe

Lee Cronin (2:00:41.980)

starts to write memories through bonds.

Lex Fridman (2:00:43.780)

So let's just say there's rocks running around,

Lee Cronin (2:00:45.660)

you know, when the bond happens and selection starts,

Lex Fridman (2:00:49.340)

suddenly there are, the universe is remembering cause

Lee Cronin (2:00:54.580)

in the past and those structures will have effects

Lex Fridman (2:00:57.140)

in the future.

Lex Fridman (2:00:57.980)

So suddenly a new type of time emerges at that point,

Lex Fridman (2:01:00.740)

which has a direction.

Lex Fridman (2:01:02.340)

And I think Sean Carroll at this point

Lex Fridman (2:01:04.220)

might even turn the podcast back on and go,

Lee Cronin (2:01:06.540)

okay, I can deal with that, that's fine.

Lex Fridman (2:01:08.820)

But I'm just basically trying to condense the conversation,

Lee Cronin (2:01:10.940)

say, hey, let's just have time fundamental

Lex Fridman (2:01:13.060)

and see how that screws with people's minds.

Lex Fridman (2:01:14.940)

Why?

Lex Fridman (2:01:15.780)

You're triggering people by saying fundamental.

Lex Fridman (2:01:17.700)

Why not?

Lex Fridman (2:01:18.540)

Well, you just say, like, let's say.

Lex Fridman (2:01:19.860)

Why am I, look, I'm walking through the wall.

Lex Fridman (2:01:21.700)

Why should I grow up in a world where time,

Lee Cronin (2:01:26.980)

I don't go back in time.

Lex Fridman (2:01:28.060)

I don't meet myself in the past.

Lee Cronin (2:01:30.740)

There are no one, there are no aliens coming

Lex Fridman (2:01:32.780)

from the future, right?

Lee Cronin (2:01:34.580)

You know, it's just like.

Lex Fridman (2:01:35.420)

No, no, no, but that's not, no, no, no, hold on a second.

Lee Cronin (2:01:38.660)

That's like saying we're talking about biology

Lex Fridman (2:01:41.780)

or like evolutionary psychology

Lex Fridman (2:01:44.140)

and you're saying, okay, let's just assume

Lex Fridman (2:01:46.260)

that clothing is fundamental.

Lee Cronin (2:01:48.540)

People wearing clothes is fundamental.

Lex Fridman (2:01:50.380)

It's like, no, no, no, wait a minute.

Lee Cronin (2:01:52.340)

You can't, like, I think you're gonna get in a lot of trouble

Lex Fridman (2:01:55.700)

if you assume time is fundamental.

Lex Fridman (2:01:57.620)

Why?

Lex Fridman (2:01:58.460)

Give me one reason why I'm getting into trouble

Lee Cronin (2:02:00.060)

with time being fundamental.

Lex Fridman (2:02:01.340)

Because you might not understand

Lee Cronin (2:02:04.340)

the origins of this memory that might be deeper.

Lex Fridman (2:02:08.100)

Like this memory, that could be a thing

Lee Cronin (2:02:11.180)

that's explaining the construction of these

Lex Fridman (2:02:14.860)

higher complexities better than just saying

Lee Cronin (2:02:19.260)

it's a search, it's chemicals doing a search

Lex Fridman (2:02:23.740)

for reusable structures that they can like

Lee Cronin (2:02:30.060)

then use as bricks to build a house.

Lex Fridman (2:02:32.700)

Okay, so I accept that.

Lex Fridman (2:02:34.420)

So let's go back a second because it's a kind of,

Lex Fridman (2:02:37.900)

I wanted to drop the time bomb at this part

Lee Cronin (2:02:40.700)

because I think we can carry on discussing it

Lex Fridman (2:02:42.180)

for many, many, many, many, many days, many months.

Lex Fridman (2:02:46.700)

But I'm happy to accept that it might be wrong.

Lex Fridman (2:02:50.900)

But what I would like to do is imagine a universe

Lee Cronin (2:02:53.820)

where time is fundamental and time is emergent

Lex Fridman (2:02:56.580)

and ask, let's just then talk about causation

Lee Cronin (2:03:00.340)

because physicists require that causation.

Lex Fridman (2:03:02.900)

So this is where I'm gonna go.

Lee Cronin (2:03:04.420)

Causation emerges and it doesn't exist at the micro scale.

Lex Fridman (2:03:08.420)

Well, that clearly is wrong

Lee Cronin (2:03:09.900)

because if causation has to emerge at the macro scale,

Lex Fridman (2:03:12.220)

life cannot emerge.

Lex Fridman (2:03:13.660)

So how does life emerge?

Lex Fridman (2:03:15.180)

Life requires molecules to bump into each other,

Lee Cronin (2:03:17.940)

produce replicators, those replicators

Lex Fridman (2:03:20.580)

need to produce polymers.

Lee Cronin (2:03:21.860)

There needs to be cause and effect at the molecular level.

Lex Fridman (2:03:24.620)

There needs to be an agardic, non agardic

Lee Cronin (2:03:26.540)

to an agardic transition at some point.

Lex Fridman (2:03:29.620)

And those replicators have consequence,

Lee Cronin (2:03:35.260)

material consequence in the universe.

Lex Fridman (2:03:37.500)

Physicists just say, oh, you know what?

Lee Cronin (2:03:39.700)

I'm gonna have a bunch of particles in a box.

Lex Fridman (2:03:42.460)

I'm gonna think about it in a Newtonian way

Lex Fridman (2:03:44.820)

and a quantum way and I'll add on an arrow of time

Lex Fridman (2:03:48.020)

so I can label things

Lex Fridman (2:03:50.140)

and causation will happen magically later.

Lex Fridman (2:03:51.820)

Well, how?

Lee Cronin (2:03:52.660)

Explain causation and they can't.

Lex Fridman (2:03:55.780)

The only way I can reconcile causation

Lee Cronin (2:03:58.540)

is having a fundamental time

Lex Fridman (2:04:00.620)

because this allows me to have a deterministic universe

Lee Cronin (2:04:03.260)

that creates novelty.

Lex Fridman (2:04:05.500)

And there's so many things to unpack here

Lex Fridman (2:04:08.300)

but let's go back to the point.

Lex Fridman (2:04:09.780)

You said, can assembly theory work with emergent time?

Lee Cronin (2:04:12.580)

Sure it can, but it doesn't give me a deep satisfaction

Lex Fridman (2:04:16.540)

about how causation and assembly gives rise

Lee Cronin (2:04:21.060)

to these objects that move through time and space.

Lex Fridman (2:04:24.620)

And again, what am I saying to bring it back?

Lee Cronin (2:04:27.180)

I can say without fear, take this water bottle

Lex Fridman (2:04:31.260)

and look at this water bottle

Lex Fridman (2:04:32.100)

and look at the features on it.

Lex Fridman (2:04:32.940)

There's writing, you've got a load of them.

Lee Cronin (2:04:35.780)

I know that causal structures gave rise to this.

Lex Fridman (2:04:38.620)

In fact, I'm not looking at just one water bottle here.

Lee Cronin (2:04:40.860)

I'm looking at every water bottle

Lex Fridman (2:04:42.180)

that's ever been conceived of by humanity.

Lee Cronin (2:04:44.540)

This here is a special object.

Lex Fridman (2:04:46.980)

In fact, Leibniz knew this.

Lee Cronin (2:04:48.700)

Leibniz who was at the same time of Newton,

Lex Fridman (2:04:52.060)

he kind of got stuck.

Lee Cronin (2:04:53.220)

I think Leibniz actually invented assembly theory.

Lex Fridman (2:04:56.020)

He gave soul, the soul that you see in objects

Lee Cronin (2:04:58.660)

wasn't the mystical soul, it is assembly.

Lex Fridman (2:05:01.100)

It is the fact there's been a history of objects related

Lex Fridman (2:05:03.980)

and without the object in the past,

Lex Fridman (2:05:06.780)

this object wouldn't exist.

Lee Cronin (2:05:08.380)

There is a lineage and there is conserved structures,

Lex Fridman (2:05:12.660)

causal structures have given rise to those.

Lee Cronin (2:05:17.060)

Fair enough.

Lex Fridman (2:05:17.900)

And you're saying it's just a simpler view

Lee Cronin (2:05:20.340)

if time is fundamental.

Lex Fridman (2:05:23.300)

And it shakes the physicist's cage a bit, right?

Lee Cronin (2:05:25.700)

Because I'm gonna say, but I think that.

Lex Fridman (2:05:29.100)

I just enjoy the fact that physicists are in cages.

Lee Cronin (2:05:32.500)

I think that, I mean, I would say that, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:05:35.580)

Lee Smolin, I don't want to speak for Lee.

Lee Cronin (2:05:37.940)

I mean, I'm talking to Lee about this.

Lex Fridman (2:05:39.940)

I think Lee also is an agreement

Lee Cronin (2:05:41.820)

that time has to be fundamental,

Lex Fridman (2:05:43.740)

but I think he goes further.

Lee Cronin (2:05:45.180)

You know, even in space,

Lex Fridman (2:05:46.860)

I don't think you can go back to the same place in space.

Lee Cronin (2:05:49.940)

I've been to Austin a few times now.

Lex Fridman (2:05:51.340)

This is my, I think third time I've been to Austin.

Lex Fridman (2:05:54.100)

Is Austin in the same place?

Lex Fridman (2:05:55.420)

No, the solar system is moving through space.

Lee Cronin (2:05:59.740)

I'm not back in the same space.

Lex Fridman (2:06:01.900)

Locally I am.

Lee Cronin (2:06:03.860)

Every event in the universe is unique.

Lex Fridman (2:06:07.780)

In space.

Lex Fridman (2:06:08.780)

And time.

Lex Fridman (2:06:09.620)

And time.

Lee Cronin (2:06:10.580)

Doesn't mean we can't go back though.

Lex Fridman (2:06:13.220)

I mean, you know, let's just, you know,

Lee Cronin (2:06:17.220)

rest this conversation, which was beautiful,

Lex Fridman (2:06:20.860)

with a quote from the Rolling Stones

Lee Cronin (2:06:22.540)

that you can't always get what you want,

Lex Fridman (2:06:25.220)

which is you want time to be fundamental,

Lex Fridman (2:06:27.780)

but if you try, you'll get what you need,

Lex Fridman (2:06:30.060)

which is assembly theory.

Lee Cronin (2:06:32.120)

Okay, let me ask you about,

Lex Fridman (2:06:34.300)

continue talking about complexity,

Lex Fridman (2:06:36.700)

and to clarify with this beautiful theory of yours

Lex Fridman (2:06:42.140)

that you're developing,

Lex Fridman (2:06:43.660)

and I'm sure we'll continue developing

Lex Fridman (2:06:45.300)

both in the lab and in theory.

Lee Cronin (2:06:49.720)

Yeah, it can't be said enough,

Lex Fridman (2:06:52.220)

just the ideas you're playing with in your head are just,

Lex Fridman (2:06:56.020)

and we've been talking about are just beautiful.

Lex Fridman (2:06:58.100)

So if we talk about complexity a little bit more generally,

Lee Cronin (2:07:02.540)

maybe in an admiring romantic way,

Lex Fridman (2:07:05.700)

how does complexity emerge from simple rules?

Lee Cronin (2:07:09.180)

The why, the how.

Lex Fridman (2:07:11.260)

Okay, the nice algorithm of assembly is there.

Lee Cronin (2:07:14.980)

I would say that the problem I have right now is,

Lex Fridman (2:07:17.420)

I mean, you're right, we can, about time as well.

Lee Cronin (2:07:20.280)

The problem is I have this hammer called assembly,

Lex Fridman (2:07:22.580)

and everything I see is a nail.

Lex Fridman (2:07:24.500)

So now let's just apply it to all sorts of things.

Lex Fridman (2:07:27.460)

We take the Bernard instability.

Lee Cronin (2:07:28.900)

The Bernard instability is you have oil,

Lex Fridman (2:07:32.300)

if you heat up oil, let's say on a frying pan,

Lee Cronin (2:07:35.120)

when you get convection, you get honeycomb patterns.

Lex Fridman (2:07:37.480)

Take the formation of snowflakes, right?

Lee Cronin (2:07:40.580)

Take the emergence of a tropical storm,

Lex Fridman (2:07:45.760)

or the storm on Jupiter.

Lee Cronin (2:07:47.580)

When people say, let's talk about complexity in general,

Lex Fridman (2:07:50.100)

what they're saying is,

Lee Cronin (2:07:51.600)

let's take this collection of objects

Lex Fridman (2:07:54.400)

that are correlated in some way,

Lex Fridman (2:07:56.880)

and try and work out how many moving parts there are,

Lex Fridman (2:08:00.300)

how this got, how this exists.

Lex Fridman (2:08:02.940)

So what people have been doing for a very long time

Lex Fridman (2:08:04.820)

is taking complexity and counting what they've lost,

Lee Cronin (2:08:09.300)

calculating the entropy.

Lex Fridman (2:08:11.140)

And the reason why I'm pushing very hard on assembly

Lee Cronin (2:08:13.900)

is entropy tells you how much you've lost.

Lex Fridman (2:08:16.380)

It doesn't tell you the microstates are gone.

Lex Fridman (2:08:18.800)

But if you embrace the bottom up with assembly,

Lex Fridman (2:08:21.740)

those states, and you then understand the causal chain

Lee Cronin (2:08:26.340)

that gives rise to the emergence.

Lex Fridman (2:08:28.740)

So what I think assembly will help us do

Lee Cronin (2:08:31.500)

is understand weak emergence at the very least,

Lex Fridman (2:08:34.340)

and maybe allow us to crack open complexity in a new way.

Lex Fridman (2:08:39.720)

And I've been fascinated with complexity theory

Lex Fridman (2:08:42.780)

for many years.

Lee Cronin (2:08:43.580)

I mean, as soon as I could,

Lex Fridman (2:08:46.680)

I learned of the Mandelbrot set,

Lex Fridman (2:08:48.500)

and I could just type it up in my computer and run it,

Lex Fridman (2:08:52.660)

and just show it and see it kind of unfold.

Lee Cronin (2:08:55.800)

It was just this kind of,

Lex Fridman (2:08:58.820)

this mathematical reality that existed in front of me,

Lee Cronin (2:09:01.440)

I just found incredible.

Lex Fridman (2:09:03.980)

But then I realized that actually we were cheating.

Lee Cronin (2:09:07.100)

We're putting in the boundary conditions all the time.

Lex Fridman (2:09:09.500)

We're putting in information.

Lex Fridman (2:09:11.500)

And so when people talk to me

Lex Fridman (2:09:13.620)

about the complexity of things,

Lex Fridman (2:09:16.060)

I say, but relative what, how do you measure them?

Lex Fridman (2:09:18.700)

So my attempt, my small attempt, naive attempt,

Lee Cronin (2:09:23.540)

because there's many greater minds than mine

Lex Fridman (2:09:25.420)

on the planet right now thinking about this properly.

Lex Fridman (2:09:27.500)

And you've had some of them on the podcast, right?

Lex Fridman (2:09:29.860)

Just absolutely fantastic.

Lex Fridman (2:09:33.100)

But I'm wondering if we might be able to reformat

Lex Fridman (2:09:35.620)

the way we would explore algorithmic complexity

Lee Cronin (2:09:39.880)

using assembly.

Lex Fridman (2:09:41.100)

What's the minimum number of constraints we need

Lex Fridman (2:09:45.260)

in our system for this to unfold?

Lex Fridman (2:09:47.860)

So whether it's like, if you take some particles

Lex Fridman (2:09:50.860)

and put them in a box,

Lex Fridman (2:09:52.620)

at a certain box size, you get quasi crystallinity

Lex Fridman (2:09:55.420)

coming out, right?

Lex Fridman (2:09:57.100)

But that quite, that emergence, it's not magic.

Lee Cronin (2:10:00.540)

It must come from the boundary conditions you put in.

Lex Fridman (2:10:03.780)

So all I'm saying is a lot of the complexity that we see

Lee Cronin (2:10:07.100)

is a direct read of the constraints we put in,

Lex Fridman (2:10:10.240)

but we just don't understand.

Lex Fridman (2:10:11.980)

So as I said earlier to the poor origin of life chemists,

Lex Fridman (2:10:14.620)

you know, origin of life is a scam.

Lee Cronin (2:10:17.340)

I would say lots of the complexity calculation theory

Lex Fridman (2:10:20.220)

is a bit of a scam

Lee Cronin (2:10:21.660)

because we put the constraints in,

Lex Fridman (2:10:22.900)

but we don't count them correctly.

Lex Fridman (2:10:25.260)

And I'm wondering if...

Lex Fridman (2:10:26.140)

Oh, you're thinking and starting to drop

Lee Cronin (2:10:28.340)

as assembly theory, assembly index

Lex Fridman (2:10:31.780)

is a way to count to the constraints.

Lee Cronin (2:10:33.300)

Yes, that's it.

Lex Fridman (2:10:34.140)

That's all it is.

Lex Fridman (2:10:35.020)

So assembly theory doesn't do,

Lex Fridman (2:10:36.780)

doesn't lower any of the importance of complexity theory,

Lex Fridman (2:10:40.060)

but it allows us to go across domains

Lex Fridman (2:10:42.180)

and start to compare things,

Lee Cronin (2:10:44.460)

compare the complexity of a molecule,

Lex Fridman (2:10:46.220)

of a microprocessor, of the text you've writing,

Lee Cronin (2:10:49.700)

of the music you may compose.

Lex Fridman (2:10:53.460)

You've tweeted, quote,

Lee Cronin (2:10:55.220)

"'Assembly theory explains why Nietzsche understood

Lex Fridman (2:10:58.340)

we had limited freedom rather than radical freedom.'

Lex Fridman (2:11:01.900)

So we've applied assembly theory

Lex Fridman (2:11:03.460)

to cellular automata in life and chemistry.

Lex Fridman (2:11:07.380)

What does Nietzsche have to do with assembly theory?

Lex Fridman (2:11:09.580)

Oh, that gets me into free will and everything.

Lex Fridman (2:11:13.140)

So let me say that again.

Lex Fridman (2:11:14.540)

Assembly theory explains why Nietzsche understood

Lee Cronin (2:11:16.620)

we had limited freedom rather than radical freedom.

Lex Fridman (2:11:20.380)

Limited freedom, I suppose, is referring to the fact

Lex Fridman (2:11:23.460)

that there's constraints or what is radical freedom?

Lex Fridman (2:11:28.780)

What is freedom?

Lex Fridman (2:11:30.180)

So Sartre was like believed in absolute freedom

Lex Fridman (2:11:34.340)

and that he could do whatever he wanted in his imagination.

Lex Fridman (2:11:38.620)

And Nietzsche understood that his freedom

Lex Fridman (2:11:41.800)

was somewhat more limited.

Lex Fridman (2:11:44.100)

And it kind of takes me back to this computer game

Lex Fridman (2:11:46.180)

that I played when I was 10.

Lex Fridman (2:11:47.940)

So I think it's called Dragon's Lair.

Lex Fridman (2:11:49.980)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:11:51.780)

Do you know Dragon's Lair?

Lex Fridman (2:11:52.620)

I think I know Dragon's Lair, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:11:54.140)

Dragon's Lair, I knew I was being conned, right?

Lex Fridman (2:11:56.440)

Dragon's Lair, when you play the game,

Lee Cronin (2:11:57.820)

you're lucky that you grew up

Lex Fridman (2:11:59.060)

in a basically procedurally generated world.

Lee Cronin (2:12:01.580)

That was RPG a little bit.

Lex Fridman (2:12:03.200)

No, it's like, is it turn based play?

Lex Fridman (2:12:05.660)

Was it?

Lex Fridman (2:12:06.500)

No.

Lee Cronin (2:12:07.320)

It was a role playing game.

Lex Fridman (2:12:08.160)

Role playing.

Lex Fridman (2:12:09.000)

But really good graphics and one of the first laser disks.

Lex Fridman (2:12:11.660)

And when you actually flick the stick,

Lee Cronin (2:12:13.580)

you took, it's like it was like a graphical adventure game

Lex Fridman (2:12:16.580)

with animation.

Lee Cronin (2:12:17.980)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:12:18.820)

And when I played this game, I really, you know,

Lee Cronin (2:12:19.980)

you could get through the game in 12 minutes

Lex Fridman (2:12:22.060)

if you knew what you were doing without making mistakes,

Lee Cronin (2:12:23.900)

just play the disk, play the disk, play a disk.

Lex Fridman (2:12:25.700)

So it was just about timing.

Lex Fridman (2:12:27.460)

And actually it was a complete fraud

Lex Fridman (2:12:29.640)

because all the animation has been prerecorded on the disk.

Lee Cronin (2:12:33.660)

It's like the Black Mirror, the first interactive

Lex Fridman (2:12:36.100)

where they had all the, you know,

Lee Cronin (2:12:37.460)

several million kind of permutations of the movie

Lex Fridman (2:12:41.440)

that you could select on Netflix.

Lee Cronin (2:12:42.780)

I've forgotten the name of it.

Lex Fridman (2:12:44.700)

So this was exactly that in the laser disk.

Lex Fridman (2:12:47.660)

So you basically go left, go right, fight the yoga,

Lex Fridman (2:12:50.820)

slay the dragon.

Lex Fridman (2:12:52.060)

And when you flick the joystick at the right time,

Lex Fridman (2:12:53.860)

it just goes to the next animation to play.

Lee Cronin (2:12:55.860)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:12:56.700)

It's not really generating it.

Lee Cronin (2:12:57.540)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:12:58.380)

And I played that game and I knew I was being had.

Lee Cronin (2:13:01.460)

So.

Lex Fridman (2:13:02.300)

Oh, okay.

Lee Cronin (2:13:03.120)

I see, I see.

Lex Fridman (2:13:03.960)

So to you, Dragon Lair is the first time you realized

Lee Cronin (2:13:07.300)

that free will is an illusion.

Lex Fridman (2:13:09.380)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:13:10.220)

And why does assembly theory give you hints

Lex Fridman (2:13:14.980)

about free will, whether it's an illusion or not?

Lee Cronin (2:13:17.140)

Yeah, so no, so not tightly.

Lex Fridman (2:13:18.840)

If I do think I have some will and I think I am an agent

Lex Fridman (2:13:22.700)

and I think I can interact and I can play around

Lex Fridman (2:13:24.860)

with the model I have of the world

Lex Fridman (2:13:27.100)

and the cost functions, right?

Lex Fridman (2:13:28.280)

And I can hack my own cost functions,

Lee Cronin (2:13:30.260)

which means I have a little bit of free will.

Lex Fridman (2:13:32.340)

But as much as I want to do stuff in the universe,

Lee Cronin (2:13:35.180)

I don't think I could suddenly say,

Lex Fridman (2:13:37.340)

I mean, actually this is ridiculous.

Lex Fridman (2:13:38.540)

Cause now I say I could try and do it, right?

Lex Fridman (2:13:39.900)

Like I'm suddenly give up everything

Lex Fridman (2:13:41.180)

and become a rapper tomorrow, right?

Lex Fridman (2:13:44.140)

Maybe I could try that,

Lex Fridman (2:13:45.860)

but I don't have sufficient agency

Lex Fridman (2:13:48.660)

to make that necessarily happen.

Lee Cronin (2:13:50.020)

I'm on a trajectory.

Lex Fridman (2:13:51.440)

So when in Dragon's Lair,

Lee Cronin (2:13:52.340)

I know that I have some trajectories that I can play with

Lex Fridman (2:13:56.500)

where Sartre realized he thought

Lee Cronin (2:13:58.900)

that he had no assembly, no memory.

Lex Fridman (2:14:00.740)

He could just leap across and do everything.

Lex Fridman (2:14:03.380)

And Nietzsche said, okay, I realize I don't have

Lex Fridman (2:14:06.820)

full freedom, but I have some freedom.

Lex Fridman (2:14:09.300)

And the assembly theory basically says that,

Lex Fridman (2:14:11.300)

it says, if you have these constraints in your past,

Lee Cronin (2:14:14.180)

they limit what you were able to do in the future,

Lex Fridman (2:14:16.420)

but you can use them to do amazing things.

Lee Cronin (2:14:19.300)

Let's say I'm a poppy plant and I'm creating some opiates.

Lex Fridman (2:14:23.860)

Opiates are really interesting molecules.

Lee Cronin (2:14:25.780)

I mean, they're obviously great for medicine,

Lex Fridman (2:14:27.900)

cause great problems in society.

Lex Fridman (2:14:29.740)

But let's imagine we fast forward a billion years,

Lex Fridman (2:14:33.420)

what will the opioids look like in a billion years?

Lee Cronin (2:14:37.780)

Well, we can guess because we can see

Lex Fridman (2:14:39.320)

how those proteins will evolve

Lex Fridman (2:14:41.300)

and we can see how the secondary metabolites will change.

Lex Fridman (2:14:44.900)

But they can't go radical.

Lee Cronin (2:14:46.460)

They can't suddenly become, I don't know,

Lex Fridman (2:14:48.580)

like a molecule that you find in an OLED in a display.

Lee Cronin (2:14:52.260)

They will have some,

Lex Fridman (2:14:53.300)

they will be limited by the causal chain that produced them.

Lex Fridman (2:14:56.940)

And that's what I'm getting at,

Lex Fridman (2:14:58.020)

saying we are unpredictably predictable

Lee Cronin (2:15:03.540)

or predictably unpredictable within a constraint

Lex Fridman (2:15:07.520)

on the trajectory we're on.

Lee Cronin (2:15:08.860)

Yeah, so the predictably part

Lex Fridman (2:15:10.120)

is the constraints of the trajectory

Lex Fridman (2:15:12.460)

and the unpredictable part is the part

Lex Fridman (2:15:14.820)

that you still haven't really clarified

Lee Cronin (2:15:16.620)

the origin of the little bit of freedom.

Lex Fridman (2:15:19.980)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:15:20.820)

So you're just arguing,

Lex Fridman (2:15:22.500)

you're basically saying that radical freedom is impossible.

Lee Cronin (2:15:26.720)

You're really operating in a world of constraints

Lex Fridman (2:15:29.080)

that are constrained by the memory of the trajectory

Lee Cronin (2:15:31.760)

of the chemistry that led to who you are.

Lex Fridman (2:15:33.740)

Okay, but even just a tiny bit of freedom,

Lee Cronin (2:15:39.020)

even if everything, if everywhere you are in cages,

Lex Fridman (2:15:45.940)

if you can move around in that cage a little bit,

Lee Cronin (2:15:49.340)

you're free.

Lex Fridman (2:15:50.580)

I agree.

Lex Fridman (2:15:51.420)

And so the question is in assembly theory,

Lex Fridman (2:15:55.740)

if we're thinking about free will,

Lex Fridman (2:15:57.500)

where does the little bit of freedom come from?

Lex Fridman (2:15:59.720)

What is the eye that can decide to be a rapper?

Lex Fridman (2:16:03.700)

What, why, what is that?

Lex Fridman (2:16:06.940)

That's a cute little trick we've convinced each other of

Lex Fridman (2:16:10.440)

so we can do fun tricks at parties

Lex Fridman (2:16:13.460)

or is there something fundamental

Lex Fridman (2:16:15.320)

that allows us to feel free, to be free?

Lex Fridman (2:16:18.860)

I think that that's the question that I wanna answer.

Lee Cronin (2:16:21.860)

I know you wanna answer it and I think it's so profound.

Lex Fridman (2:16:25.820)

Let me have a go at it.

Lee Cronin (2:16:27.140)

I would say that I don't take the stance of Sam Harris

Lex Fridman (2:16:30.260)

because I think Sam Harris, when he said,

Lee Cronin (2:16:31.780)

the way he says it is almost,

Lex Fridman (2:16:33.180)

it's really interesting.

Lee Cronin (2:16:34.020)

I'd love to talk to him about it.

Lex Fridman (2:16:35.020)

Sam Harris almost thinks himself out of existence, right?

Lex Fridman (2:16:37.660)

Because, do you know what I mean?

Lex Fridman (2:16:40.620)

Yeah, well, I mean, he has different views

Lee Cronin (2:16:43.540)

on consciousness versus free will.

Lex Fridman (2:16:45.340)

I think he saves himself with consciousness.

Lee Cronin (2:16:47.380)

He thinks himself out of existence with free will.

Lex Fridman (2:16:49.980)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman (2:16:50.900)

So I mean, there's no point, right?

Lex Fridman (2:16:53.260)

So I...

Lee Cronin (2:16:54.080)

He's a leaf floating on a river.

Lex Fridman (2:16:55.820)

Yeah, I think that he, I don't know,

Lee Cronin (2:17:00.820)

I'd love to ask him whether he really believes that

Lex Fridman (2:17:03.580)

and then we could play some games.

Lee Cronin (2:17:04.620)

Oh, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:17:05.460)

No, no, I then would say,

Lee Cronin (2:17:06.380)

I'll get him to play a game of cards with me

Lex Fridman (2:17:08.900)

and I'll work out the conditions on which he says no,

Lex Fridman (2:17:11.580)

and then I'll get him to the conditions he says yes,

Lex Fridman (2:17:13.420)

and then I'll trap him in his logical inconsistency

Lee Cronin (2:17:15.620)

with that argument.

Lex Fridman (2:17:17.180)

Because at some point when he loses enough money

Lee Cronin (2:17:19.980)

or the prospect of losing enough money,

Lex Fridman (2:17:23.220)

there's a way of basically mapping out a series of...

Lex Fridman (2:17:26.900)

So what will is about, let's not call it free will,

Lex Fridman (2:17:30.740)

but what will is about is to have a series of decisions

Lee Cronin (2:17:34.540)

equally weighted in front of you.

Lex Fridman (2:17:36.820)

And those decisions aren't necessarily energy minimization.

Lee Cronin (2:17:39.620)

Those decisions are a function of the model

Lex Fridman (2:17:43.220)

you've made in your mind, you're in your simulation.

Lex Fridman (2:17:45.940)

And the way you've interacted in reality

Lex Fridman (2:17:48.740)

and also other interactions you're having

Lee Cronin (2:17:52.100)

with other individuals and happenstance.

Lex Fridman (2:17:55.260)

And I think that there's a little bit of delay in time.

Lex Fridman (2:18:00.260)

So I think what you're able to do is say,

Lex Fridman (2:18:03.800)

well, I'm gonna do the counterfactual.

Lee Cronin (2:18:06.640)

I've done all of them.

Lex Fridman (2:18:08.160)

And I'm gonna go this way.

Lex Fridman (2:18:10.760)

And you probably don't know why.

Lex Fridman (2:18:12.060)

I think free will is actually very complex interaction

Lee Cronin (2:18:14.800)

between your unconscious and your conscious brain.

Lex Fridman (2:18:18.760)

And I think the reason why we're arguing about it

Lee Cronin (2:18:20.760)

is so interesting in that we just,

Lex Fridman (2:18:23.800)

some people outsource their free will

Lee Cronin (2:18:26.960)

to their unconscious brain.

Lex Fridman (2:18:28.800)

And some people try and overthink

Lee Cronin (2:18:31.160)

the free will and the conscious brain.

Lex Fridman (2:18:33.080)

I would say that Sam Harris has realized

Lee Cronin (2:18:35.440)

his conscious brain doesn't have free will,

Lex Fridman (2:18:36.880)

but his unconscious brain does.

Lex Fridman (2:18:38.600)

That's my guess, right?

Lex Fridman (2:18:39.640)

And that he can't have access to the unconscious brain.

Lee Cronin (2:18:42.040)

Yeah, and that's kind of annoying.

Lex Fridman (2:18:43.640)

And so he's just, he's going to, through meditation,

Lee Cronin (2:18:46.380)

come to acceptance with that fact.

Lex Fridman (2:18:48.020)

Yeah, it's just maybe okay.

Lex Fridman (2:18:50.480)

But I do think that I have the ability to make decisions

Lex Fridman (2:18:55.000)

and I like my decisions.

Lee Cronin (2:18:56.000)

In fact, I mean, this is an argument I have

Lex Fridman (2:18:58.520)

with some people that some days I feel

Lee Cronin (2:19:02.320)

I have no free will and it's just an illusion.

Lex Fridman (2:19:04.800)

And this is one, and it makes me more radical,

Lee Cronin (2:19:06.640)

if you like, you know, that I get to explore

Lex Fridman (2:19:10.580)

more of the state space.

Lex Fridman (2:19:11.600)

And I'm like, I'm going to try and affect the world now.

Lex Fridman (2:19:13.640)

I'm really going to ask the question

Lee Cronin (2:19:15.240)

that maybe I dare not ask or do the thing I dare not do.

Lex Fridman (2:19:19.680)

And that allows me to kind of explore more.

Lee Cronin (2:19:21.800)

It's funny that if you truly accept

Lex Fridman (2:19:25.520)

that there's no free will, that is a kind of radical freedom.

Lee Cronin (2:19:31.680)

It's funny, but you're, because the little bit

Lex Fridman (2:19:36.440)

of the illusion under that framework that you have

Lee Cronin (2:19:40.000)

that you can make choices, if choice is just an illusion

Lex Fridman (2:19:43.960)

of psychology, you can do whatever the hell you want.

Lee Cronin (2:19:46.800)

That's the.

Lex Fridman (2:19:47.640)

But we don't, do we?

Lex Fridman (2:19:48.840)

And I think.

Lex Fridman (2:19:49.680)

But because you don't truly accept

Lee Cronin (2:19:51.520)

that you think that there's like, you think there's a choice

Lex Fridman (2:19:56.840)

which is why you don't just do whatever the hell you want.

Lee Cronin (2:20:00.960)

Like you feel like there's some responsibility

Lex Fridman (2:20:03.000)

for making the wrong choice, which is why you don't do it.

Lex Fridman (2:20:05.560)

But if you truly accept that the choice

Lex Fridman (2:20:07.480)

has already been made, then you can go,

Lee Cronin (2:20:12.040)

I don't know what is the most radical thing.

Lex Fridman (2:20:16.000)

I mean, but yeah, I don't, I wonder what,

Lex Fridman (2:20:19.800)

what am I preventing myself from doing

Lex Fridman (2:20:21.840)

that I would really want to do?

Lee Cronin (2:20:24.680)

Probably like humor stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:20:26.120)

Like I would love to, if I could like save a game,

Lee Cronin (2:20:31.720)

do the thing and then reload it later,

Lex Fridman (2:20:34.520)

like do undo, it probably would be humor.

Lee Cronin (2:20:37.080)

Just to do something like super hilarious.

Lex Fridman (2:20:42.440)

That's super embarrassing.

Lex Fridman (2:20:43.840)

And then just go, I mean, it's basically just fun.

Lex Fridman (2:20:46.640)

I would add more fun to the world.

Lee Cronin (2:20:47.960)

I mean, I sometimes do that as I've, you know,

Lex Fridman (2:20:51.120)

I sometimes I try and mess up my reality in unusual ways

Lee Cronin (2:20:56.360)

by just doing things because I'm bored, but not bored.

Lex Fridman (2:20:59.320)

I'm not expressing this very well.

Lee Cronin (2:21:00.600)

I think that this is a really interesting problem

Lex Fridman (2:21:02.520)

that perhaps the hard sciences don't really understand

Lee Cronin (2:21:05.560)

that they are responsible for

Lex Fridman (2:21:06.640)

because the question about how life emerged

Lex Fridman (2:21:09.480)

and how intelligence emerges and consciousness and free will

Lex Fridman (2:21:12.280)

they're all ultimately boiling down

Lee Cronin (2:21:14.480)

to some of the same mechanics.

Lex Fridman (2:21:15.720)

I think, my feeling is that they are the same problem

Lee Cronin (2:21:19.280)

again and again and again.

Lex Fridman (2:21:20.920)

The transition from a, you know, a boring world

Lee Cronin (2:21:24.760)

or a world in which there is no selection.

Lex Fridman (2:21:26.800)

So I wonder if free will has something to do

Lee Cronin (2:21:28.560)

with selection and models.

Lex Fridman (2:21:29.840)

And also the models you're generating in the brain

Lex Fridman (2:21:32.520)

and also your, the amount of memory,

Lex Fridman (2:21:34.160)

your working memory have available at any one time

Lee Cronin (2:21:35.960)

to generate counterfactuals.

Lex Fridman (2:21:37.480)

Well, that's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (2:21:38.320)

So like the decision making process is a kind of selection

Lex Fridman (2:21:42.120)

and that could be just another,

Lee Cronin (2:21:43.760)

yet another manifestation of the selection mechanism

Lex Fridman (2:21:48.200)

that's pervasive throughout the universe.

Lee Cronin (2:21:50.320)

Okay, that's fascinating to think about.

Lex Fridman (2:21:54.760)

Yeah, there's not some kind of fundamental,

Lee Cronin (2:21:56.960)

it's own thing or something like that.

Lex Fridman (2:21:59.280)

That is just yet another example of selection.

Lee Cronin (2:22:01.960)

Yeah, and in the universe that's intrinsically open,

Lex Fridman (2:22:06.280)

you want to do that because you generate novelty.

Lee Cronin (2:22:08.640)

You mentioned something about,

Lex Fridman (2:22:10.680)

do cellular automata exist outside the human mind

Lex Fridman (2:22:13.920)

in our little offline conversation?

Lex Fridman (2:22:17.000)

Why is that an interesting question?

Lex Fridman (2:22:18.760)

So cellular automata, complexity,

Lex Fridman (2:22:22.400)

what's the relationship between complexity

Lex Fridman (2:22:24.280)

and the human mind and trees falling in the forest?

Lex Fridman (2:22:28.880)

Infrastructure, so the CA,

Lex Fridman (2:22:30.520)

so when John von Neumann and Conway and Feynman

Lex Fridman (2:22:34.000)

were doing CA, it was doing on paper.

Lee Cronin (2:22:35.800)

CA is cellular automata.

Lex Fridman (2:22:37.200)

Just drawing them on paper.

Lex Fridman (2:22:38.880)

How awesome is that, that they were doing cellular automata

Lex Fridman (2:22:41.520)

on paper and then they were doing it on a computer

Lee Cronin (2:22:44.520)

that takes like forever to print out anything and program.

Lex Fridman (2:22:48.760)

Sure.

Lee Cronin (2:22:49.600)

People are now with the TikTok,

Lex Fridman (2:22:51.000)

kids these days with the TikTok don't understand

Lex Fridman (2:22:54.400)

how amazing it is to just play with cellular automata,

Lex Fridman (2:22:57.080)

arbitrarily changing the rules as you want,

Lee Cronin (2:23:00.000)

the initial conditions,

Lex Fridman (2:23:00.960)

and see the beautiful patterns emerge,

Lee Cronin (2:23:04.040)

sing with fractals, all of that.

Lex Fridman (2:23:06.200)

You've just given me a brilliant idea.

Lee Cronin (2:23:07.560)

I wonder if there's a TikTok account that's just dedicated

Lex Fridman (2:23:09.520)

to putting out CA rules and if there isn't,

Lee Cronin (2:23:11.280)

we should make one.

Lex Fridman (2:23:12.600)

100% and that will get.

Lex Fridman (2:23:14.960)

So we have millions of views.

Lex Fridman (2:23:16.640)

Millions, yes.

Lee Cronin (2:23:17.720)

No, it'll get dozens.

Lex Fridman (2:23:20.240)

We'll just have it running.

Lex Fridman (2:23:21.440)

So look, I kind of, I love CAs.

Lex Fridman (2:23:29.280)

Yeah, no.

Lee Cronin (2:23:30.120)

We just have to make one.

Lex Fridman (2:23:32.000)

I actually, a few years ago,

Lee Cronin (2:23:34.120)

I made some robots that talk to each other,

Lex Fridman (2:23:36.120)

chemical robots that played the game of Hex,

Lee Cronin (2:23:40.000)

invented by John Nash, by doing chemistry.

Lex Fridman (2:23:42.920)

And they communicated via Twitter,

Lee Cronin (2:23:44.920)

which were experiments they were doing.

Lex Fridman (2:23:46.520)

And they had a lookup table of experiments

Lex Fridman (2:23:49.760)

and robot one said, I'm doing experiment 10.

Lex Fridman (2:23:51.680)

And the other robot, okay, I'll do experiment one then.

Lex Fridman (2:23:53.680)

And they communicated via Twitter.

Lex Fridman (2:23:55.760)

Publicly or DMs?

Lee Cronin (2:23:57.280)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:23:58.680)

Can you maybe quickly explain what the game of Hex is?

Lee Cronin (2:24:01.400)

Yes, so it's basically a hexagonal board

Lex Fridman (2:24:04.280)

and you try and basically you color each element

Lee Cronin (2:24:07.440)

on the board of each hexagon

Lex Fridman (2:24:08.840)

and you try and get from one side to the other

Lex Fridman (2:24:10.640)

and the other one tries to block you.

Lex Fridman (2:24:12.440)

How are they connected?

Lex Fridman (2:24:13.840)

So what are the robots?

Lex Fridman (2:24:14.680)

So it's a chemical.

Lee Cronin (2:24:16.720)

Yeah, let's go back.

Lex Fridman (2:24:17.560)

So there are two robots.

Lee Cronin (2:24:18.880)

Each robot was doing dye chemistry.

Lex Fridman (2:24:20.640)

So making RGB, red, green, blue, red, green, blue,

Lee Cronin (2:24:23.040)

red, green, blue.

Lex Fridman (2:24:24.160)

And they could just choose from experiments

Lee Cronin (2:24:26.200)

to do red, green, blue.

Lex Fridman (2:24:28.480)

Initially I said to my group,

Lee Cronin (2:24:29.480)

we need to make two chemical robots that play chess.

Lex Fridman (2:24:31.520)

And my group were like, that's too hard.

Lee Cronin (2:24:33.440)

No, go away.

Lex Fridman (2:24:35.320)

But anyway, so we had the robot.

Lee Cronin (2:24:36.760)

By the way, people listening to this should probably know

Lex Fridman (2:24:42.080)

that Lee Cronin is an amazing group of brilliant people.

Lee Cronin (2:24:46.920)

He's exceptionally well published.

Lex Fridman (2:24:48.800)

He's written a huge number of amazing papers.

Lee Cronin (2:24:52.200)

Whenever he calls himself stupid

Lex Fridman (2:24:55.680)

and is a sign of humility,

Lex Fridman (2:24:57.920)

and I deeply respect that and appreciate it.

Lex Fridman (2:25:00.240)

So people listening to this should know

Lee Cronin (2:25:01.960)

this is a world class scientist

Lex Fridman (2:25:04.320)

who doesn't take himself seriously,

Lee Cronin (2:25:05.640)

which I really appreciate and love.

Lex Fridman (2:25:07.800)

Anywho, talking about serious science,

Lee Cronin (2:25:11.720)

we're back to your group rejecting your idea

Lex Fridman (2:25:16.000)

of chemical robots playing chess via dyes.

Lex Fridman (2:25:22.760)

So you went to a simpler game of Hex.

Lex Fridman (2:25:24.560)

Okay, so what else?

Lee Cronin (2:25:26.320)

The team that did it were brilliant.

Lex Fridman (2:25:27.640)

I think they still have PTSD from doing it.

Lee Cronin (2:25:31.480)

Cause I said, this is a workshop.

Lex Fridman (2:25:32.600)

What I'd often do is I have about 60 people on my team.

Lex Fridman (2:25:36.760)

And occasionally before lockdown,

Lex Fridman (2:25:38.240)

I would say, I'm a bit bored.

Lee Cronin (2:25:40.000)

We're gonna have a workshop on something.

Lex Fridman (2:25:41.640)

Who wants to come?

Lex Fridman (2:25:42.640)

And then basically about 20 people turn up to my office

Lex Fridman (2:25:44.800)

and I say, we're gonna do this mad thing.

Lex Fridman (2:25:46.680)

And then it would just self organize.

Lex Fridman (2:25:49.360)

And some of them would be like, no, I'm not doing this.

Lex Fridman (2:25:51.120)

And then you get left with the happy dozen.

Lex Fridman (2:25:54.520)

And what we did is we built this robot

Lex Fridman (2:25:56.080)

and doing dye chemistry is really easy.

Lex Fridman (2:25:57.800)

You can just take two molecules,

Lee Cronin (2:25:59.040)

react them together and change color.

Lex Fridman (2:26:00.880)

And what I wanted to do is have a palette

Lee Cronin (2:26:03.040)

of different molecules.

Lex Fridman (2:26:04.520)

You can react combinatorially and get different colors.

Lex Fridman (2:26:07.000)

So you've got two robots.

Lex Fridman (2:26:08.040)

And I went, wouldn't it be cool

Lee Cronin (2:26:09.440)

if the robots basically shared

Lex Fridman (2:26:12.040)

the same list of reactions to do.

Lex Fridman (2:26:14.120)

And they said, oh, and because of,

Lex Fridman (2:26:15.680)

then you could do a kind of multi core chemistry.

Lee Cronin (2:26:18.720)

Like they weren't,

Lex Fridman (2:26:19.560)

so you'd have two chemical reactions going on at once

Lex Fridman (2:26:21.880)

and they could basically outsource the problem.

Lex Fridman (2:26:23.720)

But they're sharing the same tape.

Lee Cronin (2:26:25.280)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (2:26:26.120)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (2:26:26.960)

So robot one would say, I'm gonna do,

Lex Fridman (2:26:27.800)

I'm gonna do experiment one.

Lex Fridman (2:26:28.920)

And the other robot says, I'll do experiment 100.

Lex Fridman (2:26:30.840)

And then they could cross it off.

Lex Fridman (2:26:32.840)

But I wanted to make it.

Lex Fridman (2:26:33.680)

That's brilliant, by the way.

Lee Cronin (2:26:34.760)

I wanted to make.

Lex Fridman (2:26:35.600)

That is genius.

Lee Cronin (2:26:36.440)

Sorry.

Lex Fridman (2:26:37.280)

Well, I wanted to make it groovier.

Lex Fridman (2:26:38.280)

And I said, look, let's have them competing to make,

Lex Fridman (2:26:41.960)

so they're playing a game of hex.

Lex Fridman (2:26:43.680)

And so when the robot does an experiment

Lex Fridman (2:26:46.400)

and the more blue the dye,

Lee Cronin (2:26:48.440)

the more it gets the higher chance it gets

Lex Fridman (2:26:51.160)

to make the move it wants on the hex board.

Lex Fridman (2:26:53.440)

So if it gets a red color is like,

Lex Fridman (2:26:55.320)

it gets down weighted in the other robot.

Lex Fridman (2:26:57.520)

And so what the robots could do is they play,

Lex Fridman (2:26:59.400)

each player move.

Lex Fridman (2:27:01.000)

And cause the fitness function or the optimization function

Lex Fridman (2:27:03.880)

was to make the color blue,

Lee Cronin (2:27:05.280)

they started to invent reactions

Lex Fridman (2:27:09.240)

we didn't, weren't on the list.

Lex Fridman (2:27:11.080)

And they did this by not cleaning

Lex Fridman (2:27:13.120)

because we made cleaning optional.

Lex Fridman (2:27:14.720)

So when one robot realized if it didn't clean its pipes,

Lex Fridman (2:27:17.400)

it could get blue more quickly.

Lee Cronin (2:27:18.800)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:27:19.640)

And the other robot realized that.

Lex Fridman (2:27:20.480)

So it was like getting dirty as well.

Lex Fridman (2:27:21.680)

And they, they.

Lee Cronin (2:27:22.520)

Unintended consequences of super intelligence.

Lex Fridman (2:27:26.320)

Okay.

Lee Cronin (2:27:27.240)

But.

Lex Fridman (2:27:28.080)

That was the game.

Lex Fridman (2:27:28.920)

And we.

Lex Fridman (2:27:29.740)

Communicating through Twitter though.

Lee Cronin (2:27:30.580)

They were, they were doing it through Twitter

Lex Fridman (2:27:31.760)

and Twitter bland them a couple of times.

Lee Cronin (2:27:33.280)

I said, come on, you've got a couple of robots

Lex Fridman (2:27:34.760)

doing chemistry.

Lee Cronin (2:27:35.600)

It's really cool.

Lex Fridman (2:27:36.420)

Stop banning them.

Lee Cronin (2:27:37.260)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:27:38.100)

But in the end they had, we had to take them off Twitter

Lex Fridman (2:27:39.400)

and they just communicated via a server.

Lex Fridman (2:27:41.160)

Cause it was just, there were people saying,

Lee Cronin (2:27:43.080)

you can still find it.

Lex Fridman (2:27:43.920)

Cronin lab one and Cronin lab two on Twitter.

Lex Fridman (2:27:46.680)

And it was like, make move, wait, you know, mix A and B,

Lex Fridman (2:27:49.920)

wait 10 seconds.

Lee Cronin (2:27:51.360)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:27:52.200)

Answer blue, you know.

Lee Cronin (2:27:53.360)

I really find it super compelling

Lex Fridman (2:27:56.060)

that you would have a chemical entity

Lee Cronin (2:28:00.680)

that's communicating with the world.

Lex Fridman (2:28:03.120)

That was one of the things I want to do

Lex Fridman (2:28:04.200)

with my origin of life reaction, right?

Lex Fridman (2:28:05.900)

Is basically have a, have a reactor.

Lee Cronin (2:28:10.160)

That's basically just randomly enumerating

Lex Fridman (2:28:12.000)

for chemical space and have some kind of cycle

Lex Fridman (2:28:14.760)

and then read out what the molecules reading out

Lex Fridman (2:28:17.220)

using a mass spectrometer and then convert that to text

Lex Fridman (2:28:20.820)

and publish it on Twitter and then wait until it says

Lex Fridman (2:28:23.560)

I'm alive.

Lee Cronin (2:28:24.400)

I reckon that would get, I reckon that,

Lex Fridman (2:28:27.120)

that Twitter account would get a lot of followers.

Lee Cronin (2:28:28.880)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:28:29.720)

And I'm still trying to convince my group

Lee Cronin (2:28:30.560)

that we should just make an origin of life Twitter account.

Lex Fridman (2:28:32.720)

Where it's going blue and it's like, hello, testing.

Lee Cronin (2:28:36.000)

I'm here.

Lex Fridman (2:28:37.360)

Well, I'll share it.

Lee Cronin (2:28:38.300)

I like it.

Lex Fridman (2:28:39.140)

I particularly enjoy this idea

Lee Cronin (2:28:42.960)

of a non human entity communicating with the world

Lex Fridman (2:28:46.680)

via human designed social network.

Lee Cronin (2:28:48.880)

It's quite a, quite a beautiful idea.

Lex Fridman (2:28:55.240)

How we were talking about CA's existing

Lee Cronin (2:28:59.200)

outside the human mind.

Lex Fridman (2:29:00.240)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:29:01.080)

So I really admire Stephen Wolfram.

Lex Fridman (2:29:02.600)

I think he's a genius, clearly a genius

Lex Fridman (2:29:05.400)

and trapped in is actually,

Lex Fridman (2:29:06.400)

it's like a problem with being so smart

Lex Fridman (2:29:08.280)

is you get trapped in your own mind, right?

Lex Fridman (2:29:11.560)

And I've, I tried to actually,

Lee Cronin (2:29:13.400)

I tried to convince Stephen that assembly theory

Lex Fridman (2:29:15.200)

wasn't nonsense.

Lee Cronin (2:29:16.040)

He was like, no, it's just nonsense.

Lex Fridman (2:29:17.840)

I was a little bit sad by that.

Lex Fridman (2:29:18.800)

So nonsense applied,

Lex Fridman (2:29:20.080)

even if it applied to the simplest construct

Lee Cronin (2:29:22.760)

of a one dimensional cellular automata, for example.

Lex Fridman (2:29:25.040)

Yeah, yeah.

Lee Cronin (2:29:25.880)

Well, I mean, actually,

Lex Fridman (2:29:26.700)

maybe I'm doing myself a bit too down.

Lee Cronin (2:29:28.320)

It was just as a theory was coming through

Lex Fridman (2:29:30.960)

and I didn't really know how to explain it,

Lex Fridman (2:29:33.200)

but we are going to use assembly theory

Lex Fridman (2:29:35.040)

and CA's in cellular automata,

Lex Fridman (2:29:36.640)

but I wanted to,

Lex Fridman (2:29:38.640)

what I was really curious about is why people marvel.

Lee Cronin (2:29:42.640)

I mean, you marvel CA's and their complexity.

Lex Fridman (2:29:44.520)

And I said, well, hang on that complexity is baked in

Lee Cronin (2:29:47.160)

because if you play the game of life in a CA,

Lex Fridman (2:29:50.480)

you have to run it on a computer.

Lee Cronin (2:29:52.680)

You have to have a,

Lex Fridman (2:29:53.900)

you have to do a number of operations,

Lee Cronin (2:29:55.660)

put in the boundary conditions.

Lex Fridman (2:29:57.200)

So is it surprising that you get this structure out?

Lex Fridman (2:29:59.840)

Is it manufactured by the boundary conditions?

Lex Fridman (2:30:02.880)

And it is interesting because I think

Lee Cronin (2:30:06.240)

a cellular automata running them

Lex Fridman (2:30:10.540)

is teaching me something about

Lex Fridman (2:30:11.840)

what real numbers are and aren't.

Lex Fridman (2:30:14.040)

I haven't quite got there yet.

Lee Cronin (2:30:15.140)

I was playing on the airplane coming over.

Lex Fridman (2:30:16.800)

I'm just realized,

Lee Cronin (2:30:17.640)

I have no idea what real numbers are really.

Lex Fridman (2:30:20.080)

And I was like, well,

Lee Cronin (2:30:20.920)

I do actually have some notion of what real numbers are.

Lex Fridman (2:30:24.200)

And I think thinking about real numbers as functions

Lee Cronin (2:30:28.840)

rather than numbers is more appropriate.

Lex Fridman (2:30:30.880)

And then if you then apply that to CA's,

Lee Cronin (2:30:33.600)

then you're saying, well, actually,

Lex Fridman (2:30:36.160)

why am I seeing this complexity in this rule?

Lee Cronin (2:30:39.960)

Is it, you know, is it,

Lex Fridman (2:30:42.640)

you've got this deterministic system

Lex Fridman (2:30:44.720)

and yet you get this incredible structure coming out.

Lex Fridman (2:30:48.080)

Well, isn't that what you'd get with any real number

Lee Cronin (2:30:51.360)

as you apply it as a function

Lex Fridman (2:30:54.320)

and you're trying to read it out to an arbitrary position?

Lex Fridman (2:30:58.520)

And I wonder if CA's are just helping me,

Lex Fridman (2:31:00.280)

well, my misunderstanding of CA's

Lee Cronin (2:31:02.360)

might be helping me understand them

Lex Fridman (2:31:03.600)

in terms of real numbers.

Lee Cronin (2:31:04.420)

I don't know what you think.

Lex Fridman (2:31:05.260)

Yeah, well, the functions,

Lex Fridman (2:31:07.440)

but the devil's in the function.

Lex Fridman (2:31:11.880)

It's like, which is the function

Lee Cronin (2:31:13.440)

that's generating your real number.

Lex Fridman (2:31:16.840)

Like that, it seems like it's very important

Lee Cronin (2:31:20.800)

the specific algorithm of that function

Lex Fridman (2:31:22.720)

because some lead to something super trivial,

Lee Cronin (2:31:25.160)

some lead to something that's all chaotic

Lex Fridman (2:31:27.280)

and some lead to things that are just walked

Lee Cronin (2:31:30.880)

that fine line of complexity and structure.

Lex Fridman (2:31:35.400)

I think we agree.

Lex Fridman (2:31:36.240)

So let's take it back a second.

Lex Fridman (2:31:37.200)

So take the logistic map or something, logistic equation,

Lee Cronin (2:31:40.800)

where you have this equation,

Lex Fridman (2:31:42.400)

which is you don't know what's gonna happen at n plus one,

Lex Fridman (2:31:46.560)

but once you've done n plus one, you know full time,

Lex Fridman (2:31:48.920)

you can't predict it.

Lee Cronin (2:31:50.400)

For me, CA's and logistic equation feel similar.

Lex Fridman (2:31:53.640)

And I think what's incredibly interesting

Lex Fridman (2:31:57.400)

and I share your kind of wonder at running a CA,

Lex Fridman (2:32:03.840)

but also I'm saying, well,

Lex Fridman (2:32:05.080)

what is it about the boundary conditions

Lex Fridman (2:32:06.640)

and the way I'm running that calculation?

Lex Fridman (2:32:08.600)

So in my group, with my team,

Lex Fridman (2:32:10.200)

we actually made a chemical CA.

Lee Cronin (2:32:12.080)

We made Game of Life.

Lex Fridman (2:32:13.080)

We actually made a physical grid.

Lee Cronin (2:32:15.120)

I haven't been able to publish this paper.

Lex Fridman (2:32:16.440)

It's been trapped in purgatory for a long time,

Lex Fridman (2:32:18.880)

but it might be about.

Lex Fridman (2:32:19.720)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (2:32:20.560)

You wrote it up as a paper,

Lex Fridman (2:32:21.400)

how to do a chemical formulation of the Game of Life,

Lee Cronin (2:32:23.080)

which is played.

Lex Fridman (2:32:23.920)

We made a chemical computer and little cells.

Lex Fridman (2:32:25.800)

And I was playing Game of Life.

Lex Fridman (2:32:26.960)

With the BZ reactions,

Lee Cronin (2:32:28.280)

each cell would pulse on and off, on and off, on and off.

Lex Fridman (2:32:31.280)

We have little stirrer bars and we have little gates.

Lex Fridman (2:32:34.280)

And we actually played Conway's Game of Life in there.

Lex Fridman (2:32:37.280)

And we got structures in that.

Lee Cronin (2:32:38.880)

We got structures in that game from the chemistry

Lex Fridman (2:32:41.920)

that you wouldn't expect from the actual CA.

Lex Fridman (2:32:44.320)

So that was kind of cool in that.

Lex Fridman (2:32:46.520)

Cause they're interacting outside of the cells more.

Lex Fridman (2:32:50.440)

So what's happening is you're getting noise.

Lex Fridman (2:32:52.200)

So the thing is that you've got this BZ reaction

Lee Cronin (2:32:55.400)

that gives on off, on off, on off,

Lex Fridman (2:32:56.920)

but there's also a wake

Lex Fridman (2:32:58.800)

and those wakes constructively interfere

Lex Fridman (2:33:00.960)

or in such a non trivial way that's non deterministic.

Lex Fridman (2:33:07.760)

And the non determinism in the system

Lex Fridman (2:33:11.040)

gives very rich dynamics.

Lex Fridman (2:33:12.720)

And I was wondering if I could physically

Lex Fridman (2:33:14.000)

make a chemical computer with this CA

Lee Cronin (2:33:18.120)

that gives me something different.

Lex Fridman (2:33:20.160)

I can't get in a silicon representation of a CA

Lee Cronin (2:33:25.400)

where all the states are clean.

Lex Fridman (2:33:27.080)

Cause you don't have the noise trailing

Lee Cronin (2:33:29.440)

into the next round.

Lex Fridman (2:33:30.680)

You just have the state.

Lex Fridman (2:33:32.080)

So the paper in particular,

Lex Fridman (2:33:33.760)

so that's just a beautiful idea to use a chemical computer

Lee Cronin (2:33:37.040)

to construct the cellular automaton,

Lex Fridman (2:33:39.280)

the famous one of game of life.

Lex Fridman (2:33:41.280)

But it's also interesting.

Lex Fridman (2:33:42.320)

And it's a really interesting scientific question

Lee Cronin (2:33:45.800)

of whether some kind of random perturbations

Lex Fridman (2:33:48.360)

or some source of randomness

Lee Cronin (2:33:51.080)

can have a significant constructive effect

Lex Fridman (2:33:58.960)

on the complexity of the system.

Lex Fridman (2:34:00.320)

And indeed, I mean, whether it's random

Lex Fridman (2:34:03.120)

or just non deterministic

Lex Fridman (2:34:04.720)

and can we bake in that non determinism at the beginning?

Lex Fridman (2:34:08.920)

I wonder what is the,

Lee Cronin (2:34:10.560)

I'm trying to think of what is the encoding space.

Lex Fridman (2:34:12.480)

The encoding space is pretty big.

Lee Cronin (2:34:14.280)

We have 49 stirrups of 49 cells,

Lex Fridman (2:34:19.120)

49 chem bits all connected to one another

Lex Fridman (2:34:22.000)

and like an analog computer,

Lex Fridman (2:34:23.720)

but being read out discreetly as the BZ reaction.

Lex Fridman (2:34:27.000)

So just to say the BZ reaction is a chemical oscillator.

Lex Fridman (2:34:30.280)

And what happened in each cell

Lee Cronin (2:34:31.440)

is it goes between red and blue.

Lex Fridman (2:34:33.080)

So two Russians discovered it,

Lee Cronin (2:34:34.960)

Belouzov and Sapkinsky.

Lex Fridman (2:34:36.400)

I think Belouzov first proposed it

Lex Fridman (2:34:38.440)

and everyone said, you're crazy.

Lex Fridman (2:34:39.520)

It breaks the second law.

Lex Fridman (2:34:40.720)

And Sapkinsky said, no, it doesn't break the second law.

Lex Fridman (2:34:42.760)

It's consuming a fuel.

Lex Fridman (2:34:45.240)

And so, and then, and it's like,

Lex Fridman (2:34:47.560)

there's a lot of chemistry hidden

Lee Cronin (2:34:50.360)

in the Russian literature actually,

Lex Fridman (2:34:52.440)

because Russians just wrote it in Russian.

Lee Cronin (2:34:54.760)

They didn't publish it in English speaking journals.

Lex Fridman (2:34:56.600)

It's heartbreaking actually.

Lex Fridman (2:34:57.560)

Well, it's sad and it's great that it's there, right?

Lex Fridman (2:35:01.720)

It's not lost.

Lee Cronin (2:35:02.560)

I'm sure we will find a way of translating it properly.

Lex Fridman (2:35:05.120)

Well, the silver lining slash greater sadness

Lee Cronin (2:35:08.800)

of all of this is there's probably ideas

Lex Fridman (2:35:11.200)

in English speaking.

Lee Cronin (2:35:12.880)

Like there's ideas in certain disciplines

Lex Fridman (2:35:16.080)

that if discovered by other disciplines

Lee Cronin (2:35:20.120)

would crack open some of the biggest mysteries

Lex Fridman (2:35:22.400)

in those disciplines.

Lee Cronin (2:35:23.600)

Like computer science, for example,

Lex Fridman (2:35:26.360)

is trying to solve problems

Lee Cronin (2:35:30.120)

like nobody else has ever tried to solve problems.

Lex Fridman (2:35:32.840)

As if it's not already been all addressed

Lee Cronin (2:35:35.520)

in cognitive science and psychology,

Lex Fridman (2:35:37.280)

in mathematics, in physics,

Lee Cronin (2:35:39.800)

in just whatever you want to, economics even.

Lex Fridman (2:35:42.840)

But if you look into that literature,

Lee Cronin (2:35:44.680)

you might be able to discover some beautiful ideas.

Lex Fridman (2:35:47.600)

Obviously Russian is an interesting case of that.

Lee Cronin (2:35:51.160)

It's because there's a loss in translation,

Lex Fridman (2:35:53.480)

but you said there's a source of fuel, a source of energy.

Lee Cronin (2:35:57.400)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:35:58.240)

So the BZ reaction, you have an acid in there

Lee Cronin (2:36:00.960)

called malonic acid.

Lex Fridman (2:36:02.480)

And what happens is it's basically like a battery

Lee Cronin (2:36:07.280)

that powers it and it loses CO2.

Lex Fridman (2:36:09.600)

So decarboxylates, it's just a chemical reaction.

Lex Fridman (2:36:12.000)

What that means we have to do is continuously feed

Lex Fridman (2:36:14.440)

or we just keep the BZ reaction going

Lee Cronin (2:36:16.520)

in a long enough time.

Lex Fridman (2:36:18.120)

So it's like it's reversible in time.

Lex Fridman (2:36:22.640)

But only like, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:36:23.960)

But only like, but it's fascinating.

Lee Cronin (2:36:26.360)

I mean, the team that did it,

Lex Fridman (2:36:27.640)

I'm really proud of their persistence.

Lee Cronin (2:36:29.640)

We made a chemical computer and it can solve

Lex Fridman (2:36:33.840)

little problems.

Lee Cronin (2:36:34.680)

It can solve traveling salesman problems actually.

Lex Fridman (2:36:36.320)

Nice.

Lex Fridman (2:36:37.760)

But like I say, it's.

Lex Fridman (2:36:38.600)

But not any faster than a regular computer.

Lex Fridman (2:36:41.000)

Is there something you can do?

Lex Fridman (2:36:43.120)

Maybe, I'm not sure.

Lee Cronin (2:36:46.160)

I think we can come up with a way of solving problems,

Lex Fridman (2:36:49.720)

also really complex, hard ones,

Lee Cronin (2:36:54.160)

because it's an analog computer and we can,

Lex Fridman (2:36:56.200)

it can energy minimize really quickly.

Lee Cronin (2:36:59.640)

It doesn't have to basically go through every element

Lex Fridman (2:37:01.360)

in the matrix, like flip it, it just reads out.

Lex Fridman (2:37:05.440)

So we could actually do Monte Carlo

Lex Fridman (2:37:07.920)

by just shaking the box.

Lee Cronin (2:37:10.640)

It's literally a box shaker.

Lex Fridman (2:37:12.960)

You don't actually have to encode the shaking of the box

Lee Cronin (2:37:14.920)

in a silicon memory and then just shuffle everything around.

Lex Fridman (2:37:17.480)

Yeah, and you can.

Lee Cronin (2:37:18.320)

It's analog, it's natural.

Lex Fridman (2:37:19.680)

So it's an organic computer.

Lee Cronin (2:37:23.440)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:37:24.280)

So I was playing around with this

Lex Fridman (2:37:25.920)

and I was kind of annoying some of my colleagues

Lex Fridman (2:37:27.480)

and wondering if we could get to chemical supremacy

Lee Cronin (2:37:29.840)

like quantum supremacy.

Lex Fridman (2:37:31.480)

And I kind of calculated how big the grid has to be

Lex Fridman (2:37:36.000)

so we can actually start to solve problems faster

Lex Fridman (2:37:38.280)

than a silicon computer.

Lex Fridman (2:37:40.040)

But I'm not willing to state how that is yet

Lex Fridman (2:37:43.320)

because I'm probably wrong.

Lee Cronin (2:37:44.760)

It's not that it's any top secret thing

Lex Fridman (2:37:46.960)

is I want, I think I can make a chemical computer

Lee Cronin (2:37:49.440)

that can solve optimization problems faster

Lex Fridman (2:37:51.840)

than the silicon computer.

Lee Cronin (2:37:54.160)

That's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (2:37:55.560)

But then you're unsure how big that has to be.

Lee Cronin (2:37:57.840)

Yeah, I think, I mean.

Lex Fridman (2:37:58.680)

It might be a big box, hard to shake.

Lee Cronin (2:38:00.760)

It might be exactly a big box, hard to shake

Lex Fridman (2:38:03.000)

and basically a bit sloppy.

Lee Cronin (2:38:05.120)

Did we answer the question about

Lex Fridman (2:38:08.160)

do cellular atomic exists outside the mind?

Lee Cronin (2:38:11.240)

We didn't, but I would posit that they don't.

Lex Fridman (2:38:14.560)

And I, but I think minds can, well.

Lex Fridman (2:38:17.720)

So the mind is fundamental.

Lex Fridman (2:38:19.600)

What's the, why?

Lee Cronin (2:38:21.280)

Well, I mean, sorry, let's go back.

Lex Fridman (2:38:23.200)

So as a physical phenomena, do CAs exist

Lex Fridman (2:38:26.280)

in physical reality, right?

Lex Fridman (2:38:28.520)

I would say they probably don't exist

Lee Cronin (2:38:30.840)

outside the human mind, but now we've constructed them.

Lex Fridman (2:38:33.000)

They exist in computer memories.

Lee Cronin (2:38:34.720)

They exist in my lab.

Lex Fridman (2:38:35.760)

They exist on paper.

Lex Fridman (2:38:37.000)

So they are, they emerge from the human mind.

Lex Fridman (2:38:40.720)

I'm just interested in, because Stephen Wolfram likes CAs,

Lee Cronin (2:38:43.920)

a lot of people like CAs and likes to think of them

Lex Fridman (2:38:46.360)

as minimal computational elements.

Lee Cronin (2:38:49.400)

I'm just saying, well, do they exist in reality

Lex Fridman (2:38:52.040)

or are they a representation of a simple machine

Lex Fridman (2:38:54.320)

that's just very elegant to implement?

Lex Fridman (2:38:57.560)

So it's a platonic question, I guess.

Lee Cronin (2:38:59.240)

I mean, it's, there's initial conditions.

Lex Fridman (2:39:03.160)

There's a memory in the system.

Lee Cronin (2:39:05.320)

There are simple rules that dictate

Lex Fridman (2:39:07.360)

the evolution of the system.

Lex Fridman (2:39:09.080)

So what exists?

Lex Fridman (2:39:10.960)

The idea, the rules, the.

Lee Cronin (2:39:12.800)

Yeah, people are using CAs as models

Lex Fridman (2:39:15.360)

for things in reality to say, hey, look,

Lee Cronin (2:39:18.640)

you can do this thing in a CA.

Lex Fridman (2:39:21.640)

And my, when I see this, I'm saying, oh, that's cool.

Lex Fridman (2:39:24.520)

But what does that tell me about reality?

Lex Fridman (2:39:26.080)

Where's the CA in space?

Lee Cronin (2:39:27.560)

Oh, I see.

Lex Fridman (2:39:28.400)

Well, right.

Lee Cronin (2:39:29.240)

It's a mathematical object.

Lex Fridman (2:39:30.520)

So for people who don't know cellular automata,

Lee Cronin (2:39:33.000)

there's usually a grid, whether it's one dimensional,

Lex Fridman (2:39:35.560)

two dimensional, or three dimensional.

Lex Fridman (2:39:36.960)

And it evolves by simple local rules,

Lex Fridman (2:39:39.400)

like you die or are born if the neighbors are alive or dead.

Lex Fridman (2:39:44.400)

And it turns out if you have,

Lex Fridman (2:39:46.760)

with certain kinds of initial conditions

Lex Fridman (2:39:51.760)

and with certain kinds of very simple rules,

Lex Fridman (2:39:53.440)

you can create like arbitrarily complex

Lex Fridman (2:39:56.720)

and beautiful systems.

Lex Fridman (2:39:57.680)

And to me, whether drugs are involved or not,

Lee Cronin (2:40:03.760)

I can sit back for hours and enjoy the mystery of it,

Lex Fridman (2:40:09.600)

how such complexity can emerge as it gives me almost like,

Lee Cronin (2:40:14.600)

you know, people talk about religious experiences.

Lex Fridman (2:40:17.360)

It gives me a sense that you get to have a glimpse

Lee Cronin (2:40:23.480)

at the origin of this whole thing.

Lex Fridman (2:40:26.880)

Whatever is creating this complexity from such simplicity

Lee Cronin (2:40:33.800)

is the very thing that brought my mind to life,

Lex Fridman (2:40:38.080)

this me, the human, our human civilization.

Lex Fridman (2:40:42.960)

And yes, those constructs are pretty trivial.

Lex Fridman (2:40:49.040)

I mean, that's part of their magic

Lee Cronin (2:40:50.760)

is even in this trivial framework,

Lex Fridman (2:40:54.320)

you could see the emergence,

Lee Cronin (2:40:56.520)

or especially in this trivial framework,

Lex Fridman (2:40:58.840)

you could see the emergence of complexity from simplicity.

Lee Cronin (2:41:01.840)

I guess what Lee, you're saying is that this is not,

Lex Fridman (2:41:05.920)

you know, this is highly unlike systems

Lee Cronin (2:41:10.920)

we see in the physical world,

Lex Fridman (2:41:13.040)

even though they probably carry some of the same magic,

Lee Cronin (2:41:17.280)

like mechanistically, that's all.

Lex Fridman (2:41:19.240)

I mean, I'm saying that the operating system

Lee Cronin (2:41:22.360)

that a CA has to exist on is quite complex.

Lex Fridman (2:41:26.080)

And so I wonder if you're getting the complexity

Lee Cronin (2:41:28.880)

out of the CA from the boundary conditions

Lex Fridman (2:41:30.480)

of the operating system, the underlying digital computer.

Lee Cronin (2:41:33.520)

Oh, wow, those are some strong words against CAs then.

Lex Fridman (2:41:36.800)

I didn't realize. Not against.

Lee Cronin (2:41:37.720)

I mean, I'm in love with CAs as well.

Lex Fridman (2:41:40.640)

I'm just saying they aren't as trivial as people think.

Lee Cronin (2:41:44.520)

They are incredible.

Lex Fridman (2:41:45.880)

To get to that richness,

Lee Cronin (2:41:47.200)

you have to iterate billions of times,

Lex Fridman (2:41:51.000)

and you need a display, and you need a math coprocessor,

Lex Fridman (2:41:54.960)

and you need a von Neumann machine

Lex Fridman (2:41:57.720)

based on a Turing machine

Lee Cronin (2:41:59.040)

of digital error correction and states.

Lex Fridman (2:42:01.600)

Wow, to think that for the simplicity of a grid,

Lee Cronin (2:42:05.800)

you're basically saying a grid is not simple.

Lex Fridman (2:42:08.840)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (2:42:09.800)

It requires incredible complexity to bring a grid to life.

Lex Fridman (2:42:12.800)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (2:42:15.280)

Yeah, that's it.

Lex Fridman (2:42:16.120)

Well, then what is simple?

Lee Cronin (2:42:17.400)

That's all I wanted to say.

Lex Fridman (2:42:18.440)

I agree with you with the wonder of CAs, I just think.

Lex Fridman (2:42:20.480)

But remember, we take so much for granted

Lex Fridman (2:42:22.960)

what the CA is resting on.

Lee Cronin (2:42:24.800)

Because von Neumann and Feynman weren't showing,

Lex Fridman (2:42:28.360)

weren't seeing these elaborate structures.

Lee Cronin (2:42:30.000)

They could not get that far.

Lex Fridman (2:42:33.240)

Yeah, but that's the limitation of their mind.

Lee Cronin (2:42:34.960)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman (2:42:35.800)

The limitation of their pencil.

Lex Fridman (2:42:37.440)

But I think the question is

Lex Fridman (2:42:40.680)

whether the essential elements of the cellular automata

Lee Cronin (2:42:47.280)

is present without all the complexities

Lex Fridman (2:42:50.880)

required to build a computer.

Lex Fridman (2:42:52.440)

And my intuition, the reason I find it incredible

Lex Fridman (2:42:56.080)

is that, yeah, my intuition is yes.

Lee Cronin (2:42:58.320)

It might look different.

Lex Fridman (2:43:00.840)

There might not be a grid like structure,

Lex Fridman (2:43:05.120)

but local interactions operating under simple rules

Lex Fridman (2:43:09.720)

and resulting in multi hierarchical complex structures

Lee Cronin (2:43:14.560)

feels like a thing that doesn't require a computer.

Lex Fridman (2:43:17.920)

I agree, but coming back to von Neumann and Feynman

Lex Fridman (2:43:21.000)

and Wolfram, their minds, the non trivial minds

Lex Fridman (2:43:24.840)

to create those architectures and do it

Lex Fridman (2:43:26.560)

and to put on those state transitions.

Lex Fridman (2:43:30.720)

And I think that's something

Lee Cronin (2:43:32.080)

that's really incredibly interesting

Lex Fridman (2:43:34.520)

that is understanding how the human mind

Lee Cronin (2:43:38.080)

builds those state transition machines.

Lex Fridman (2:43:41.640)

I could see how deeply in love

Lee Cronin (2:43:43.360)

with the idea of memory you are.

Lex Fridman (2:43:45.040)

So it's like how much of E equals MC squared

Lee Cronin (2:43:51.800)

is more than an equation.

Lex Fridman (2:43:53.840)

It has Albert Einstein in it.

Lee Cronin (2:43:57.680)

You're saying you can't just say this is a,

Lex Fridman (2:44:00.400)

like the equations of physics are a really good

Lee Cronin (2:44:06.360)

simple capture of a physical phenomenon.

Lex Fridman (2:44:10.080)

It is also, that equation has the memory of the humans.

Lee Cronin (2:44:15.000)

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:44:18.680)

But I don't, I don't know if you're implying this.

Lee Cronin (2:44:21.440)

I don't, that's a beautiful idea,

Lex Fridman (2:44:25.080)

but I don't know if I'm comfortable

Lee Cronin (2:44:27.120)

with that sort of diminishing the power of that equation.

Lex Fridman (2:44:31.040)

No, no, it enhances it.

Lee Cronin (2:44:31.880)

Because it's built on the shoulders, it enhances it.

Lex Fridman (2:44:33.600)

I think it enhances it, it's not,

Lee Cronin (2:44:35.200)

that equation is a minimal compressed representation

Lex Fridman (2:44:38.080)

of reality, right?

Lee Cronin (2:44:39.360)

We can use machine learning or Max Tegmark's AI Feynman

Lex Fridman (2:44:43.440)

to find lots of solutions for gravity,

Lex Fridman (2:44:45.080)

but isn't it wonderful that the laws that we do find

Lex Fridman (2:44:47.320)

are the maximally compressed representations?

Lee Cronin (2:44:50.920)

Yeah, but that representation, you can now give it as,

Lex Fridman (2:44:54.520)

I guess the universe has the memory of Einstein

Lee Cronin (2:44:56.600)

with that representation.

Lex Fridman (2:44:58.320)

But then you can now give it as a gift for free.

Lee Cronin (2:45:00.880)

Yeah, yeah, it's low memory.

Lex Fridman (2:45:01.720)

To other alien civilizations.

Lee Cronin (2:45:02.960)

Einstein had to go through a lot of pain to get there,

Lex Fridman (2:45:03.800)

but it's low memory.

Lee Cronin (2:45:04.880)

So, I say that physics and chemistry and biology

Lex Fridman (2:45:07.280)

are the same discipline.

Lee Cronin (2:45:08.720)

They're just physics, laws in physics.

Lex Fridman (2:45:11.760)

There's no such thing as a law in physics.

Lee Cronin (2:45:13.320)

It's just low memory stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:45:15.560)

Because you've got low memory stuff,

Lee Cronin (2:45:16.920)

you can, things reoccur quickly.

Lex Fridman (2:45:19.800)

As you can get, build in more memory,

Lee Cronin (2:45:21.280)

you get to chemistry, so things become more contingent.

Lex Fridman (2:45:24.000)

When you get to biology, more contingent still,

Lex Fridman (2:45:26.160)

and then technology.

Lex Fridman (2:45:27.400)

So, the more memory you need,

Lee Cronin (2:45:28.800)

the more your laws are local.

Lex Fridman (2:45:31.480)

That's all I'm saying.

Lex Fridman (2:45:32.640)

And the less memory, the more the laws are universal,

Lex Fridman (2:45:35.480)

because they're not laws.

Lee Cronin (2:45:36.320)

They are just low memory states.

Lex Fridman (2:45:40.040)

We have to talk about a thing you've kind of mentioned

Lee Cronin (2:45:44.040)

already a bunch of times,

Lex Fridman (2:45:45.360)

but doing computation through chemistry,

Lee Cronin (2:45:49.640)

chemical based computation.

Lex Fridman (2:45:51.840)

I've seen you refer to it as in a sexy title

Lee Cronin (2:45:56.840)

of Kemputation, Kemputation.

Lex Fridman (2:46:00.920)

So, what is computation?

Lex Fridman (2:46:02.640)

What is chemical based computation?

Lex Fridman (2:46:06.200)

Okay, so Kemputation is a name I gave

Lee Cronin (2:46:09.680)

to the process of building a state machine

Lex Fridman (2:46:12.960)

to make any molecule physically in the lab.

Lex Fridman (2:46:15.880)

And so, as a chemist, chemists make molecules by hand.

Lex Fridman (2:46:19.440)

And they're quite hard.

Lee Cronin (2:46:22.880)

The chemists have a lot of tacit knowledge,

Lex Fridman (2:46:25.280)

a lot of ambiguity.

Lee Cronin (2:46:26.840)

It's not possible to go uniformly to the literature

Lex Fridman (2:46:29.720)

and read a recipe to make a molecule,

Lex Fridman (2:46:32.440)

and then go and make it in the lab every time.

Lex Fridman (2:46:35.400)

Some recipes are better than others,

Lex Fridman (2:46:37.440)

but they all assume some knowledge.

Lex Fridman (2:46:43.080)

And it's not universal what that is.

Lee Cronin (2:46:44.880)

Like, so it's carried from human to human.

Lex Fridman (2:46:49.640)

Some of that implicit knowledge.

Lex Fridman (2:46:51.120)

And you're saying, can we remove the human

Lex Fridman (2:46:52.600)

from the patient?

Lex Fridman (2:46:53.440)

Can we like a program?

Lex Fridman (2:46:55.160)

Okay, well, by the way, what is a state machine?

Lex Fridman (2:46:58.640)

So a state machine is a, I suppose,

Lex Fridman (2:47:01.840)

a object either abstract or mechanical

Lee Cronin (2:47:05.760)

where you can do a unit operation on it

Lex Fridman (2:47:10.560)

and flick it from one state to another.

Lex Fridman (2:47:12.280)

So a turnstile would be a good example of a state machine.

Lex Fridman (2:47:15.960)

There's some kinds of states

Lex Fridman (2:47:17.400)

and some kind of transitions between states.

Lex Fridman (2:47:19.680)

And it's very formal in nature

Lee Cronin (2:47:23.640)

in terms of like it's precise,

Lex Fridman (2:47:25.040)

how you're doing those transitions.

Lee Cronin (2:47:25.880)

Yes, you can mathematically precisely

Lex Fridman (2:47:28.120)

describe a state machine.

Lee Cronin (2:47:29.440)

So, I mean, a very simple Boolean gates

Lex Fridman (2:47:33.160)

are a very good way of building

Lee Cronin (2:47:35.440)

kind of logic based state machines.

Lex Fridman (2:47:38.360)

Obviously a Turing machine,

Lee Cronin (2:47:39.920)

the concept of a Turing machine

Lex Fridman (2:47:41.440)

where you have a tape and a read head

Lex Fridman (2:47:43.520)

and a series of rules in a table

Lex Fridman (2:47:46.200)

and you would basically look at what's on the tape.

Lex Fridman (2:47:49.400)

And if you're shifting the tape from left to right,

Lex Fridman (2:47:51.600)

and if you see a zero or one,

Lee Cronin (2:47:53.480)

you look in your lookup table and say,

Lex Fridman (2:47:54.960)

right, I've seen a zero and a one.

Lee Cronin (2:47:57.440)

I then do, I then respond to that.

Lex Fridman (2:48:01.680)

So in the turnstile would be,

Lee Cronin (2:48:03.720)

is there a human being pushing the turnstile

Lex Fridman (2:48:06.680)

in direction clockwise?

Lee Cronin (2:48:09.280)

If yes, I will open, let them go.

Lex Fridman (2:48:11.360)

If it's anticlockwise, no.

Lex Fridman (2:48:12.960)

So yeah, so a state machine has some labels

Lex Fridman (2:48:15.120)

and a transition diagram.

Lex Fridman (2:48:17.920)

So you're looking to come up with a chemical computer

Lex Fridman (2:48:22.120)

to form state machines to create molecules,

Lex Fridman (2:48:25.560)

or what's the chicken and the egg?

Lex Fridman (2:48:29.320)

So computation is not a chemical computer

Lee Cronin (2:48:31.480)

because we talked a few moments

Lex Fridman (2:48:32.360)

about actually doing computations with chemicals.

Lex Fridman (2:48:35.280)

What I'm now saying is I want to use state machines

Lex Fridman (2:48:37.520)

to transform chemicals.

Lex Fridman (2:48:39.680)

And so build chemicals programmatically.

Lex Fridman (2:48:42.680)

Yeah, I mean, I get in trouble saying this.

Lee Cronin (2:48:44.480)

I said to my group, oh, I shouldn't say it

Lex Fridman (2:48:47.000)

because it's, but I said, look, we should make the crack bot.

Lex Fridman (2:48:49.600)

Is it in the crack robot?

Lex Fridman (2:48:51.200)

The robot that makes crack.

Lex Fridman (2:48:52.040)

The crack bot?

Lex Fridman (2:48:52.880)

Oh, oh, oh, oh, crack bot.

Lee Cronin (2:48:55.240)

The robot that makes crack,

Lex Fridman (2:48:56.440)

but maybe we should scrub this from, but.

Lee Cronin (2:49:00.600)

Or, well, so maybe you can educate me

Lex Fridman (2:49:03.120)

on breaking bad with like math, right?

Lee Cronin (2:49:06.160)

Yeah, so in breaking bad.

Lex Fridman (2:49:07.600)

You want to make basically some kind of mix

Lee Cronin (2:49:12.080)

of ex machina and breaking bad.

Lex Fridman (2:49:15.400)

No, I don't.

Lee Cronin (2:49:16.240)

I don't.

Lex Fridman (2:49:17.080)

For the record, I don't, but I said.

Lee Cronin (2:49:17.920)

No, you don't.

Lex Fridman (2:49:18.760)

I said, that's what I'm going to do

Lee Cronin (2:49:19.880)

once you release the papers.

Lex Fridman (2:49:23.880)

I shaved my head and I'm going to live a life of crime.

Lee Cronin (2:49:28.920)

Anyway, I'm sorry.

Lex Fridman (2:49:29.760)

No, no.

Lex Fridman (2:49:30.600)

So yeah, let's get back to, so indeed,

Lex Fridman (2:49:33.280)

it is about making drugs, but importantly,

Lee Cronin (2:49:35.320)

making important drugs, so let's.

Lex Fridman (2:49:38.320)

All drugs matter.

Lee Cronin (2:49:39.840)

Yeah, but let's go back.

Lex Fridman (2:49:41.480)

So the basic thesis is chemistry is very analog.

Lee Cronin (2:49:46.040)

There is no state machine.

Lex Fridman (2:49:48.880)

And I wandered into the, through the paper walls

Lee Cronin (2:49:52.800)

in the Japanese house a few years ago and said,

Lex Fridman (2:49:55.000)

okay, hey, organic chemist, why are you doing this analog?

Lee Cronin (2:49:58.120)

They said, well, chemistry is really hard.

Lex Fridman (2:50:00.400)

You can't automate it, it's impossible.

Lex Fridman (2:50:03.320)

I said, but is it impossible?

Lex Fridman (2:50:05.360)

They said, yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:50:06.200)

And they said, you know, I got the impression

Lex Fridman (2:50:07.680)

they were saying it's magic.

Lex Fridman (2:50:09.560)

And so when people tell me things are magic,

Lex Fridman (2:50:12.800)

it's like, no, no, they can't be magic.

Lee Cronin (2:50:14.120)

Right, so let's break this down.

Lex Fridman (2:50:15.680)

And so what I did is I went to my group one day

Lee Cronin (2:50:19.560)

about eight years ago and said, hey guys,

Lex Fridman (2:50:21.680)

I've written this new programming language for you.

Lex Fridman (2:50:24.400)

And so everything is clear.

Lex Fridman (2:50:26.680)

And you know, you have to, you're not allowed to

Lee Cronin (2:50:28.480)

just wander around the lab willy nilly.

Lex Fridman (2:50:30.080)

You have to pick up things in order,

Lee Cronin (2:50:31.480)

go to the balance of the right time and all this stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:50:34.280)

And they looked at me as if I was insane

Lex Fridman (2:50:36.000)

and basically kicked me out of the lab and said,

Lex Fridman (2:50:37.480)

no, don't do that, we're not doing that.

Lex Fridman (2:50:39.560)

And I said, okay.

Lex Fridman (2:50:40.400)

So I went back the next day and said,

Lee Cronin (2:50:43.160)

I'm gonna find some money so we can make cool robots

Lex Fridman (2:50:45.760)

do chemical reactions.

Lex Fridman (2:50:46.800)

And everyone went, that's cool.

Lex Fridman (2:50:48.920)

And so in that process.

Lee Cronin (2:50:51.600)

The first we tried to convert the humans to become robots

Lex Fridman (2:50:54.160)

and next you agree you might as well just create the robots.

Lee Cronin (2:50:57.320)

Yes, but so in that, the formalization process.

Lex Fridman (2:51:00.160)

Yeah, so what I did is I said, look, chemical,

Lee Cronin (2:51:02.640)

to make a molecule, you need to do four things abstractly.

Lex Fridman (2:51:04.960)

I want to make a chemical Turing machine.

Lee Cronin (2:51:07.040)

Cause a Turing machine, you think about this,

Lex Fridman (2:51:08.800)

imagine a Turing machine.

Lee Cronin (2:51:10.080)

Turing machine is the ultimate abstraction of a computation

Lex Fridman (2:51:14.600)

because it's been shown by Turing and others

Lee Cronin (2:51:17.960)

that basically a universal Turing machine

Lex Fridman (2:51:19.960)

should be able to do all computations that you can imagine.

Lee Cronin (2:51:23.080)

It's like, wow, why don't I think of a Turing machine

Lex Fridman (2:51:25.680)

for chemistry?

Lee Cronin (2:51:26.520)

Let's think of a magic robot that can make any molecule.

Lex Fridman (2:51:29.760)

Let's think about that for a second.

Lee Cronin (2:51:31.560)

Okay, great.

Lex Fridman (2:51:32.480)

How do we then implement it?

Lex Fridman (2:51:33.560)

And I think it's right.

Lex Fridman (2:51:34.400)

So what is the abstraction?

Lex Fridman (2:51:35.760)

So to make any molecule, you have to do a reaction.

Lex Fridman (2:51:39.280)

So you have to put reagents together, do a reaction

Lee Cronin (2:51:41.480)

in a flask typically.

Lex Fridman (2:51:43.880)

Then you're after the reaction,

Lee Cronin (2:51:44.960)

you have to stop the reactions.

Lex Fridman (2:51:45.960)

You do what's called a workup.

Lex Fridman (2:51:47.400)

So whatever, cool it down, add some liquid to it, extract.

Lex Fridman (2:51:51.600)

So then after you do the workup, you separate.

Lex Fridman (2:51:53.560)

So you then remove the molecules, separate them all out.

Lex Fridman (2:51:55.920)

And then the final step is purification.

Lex Fridman (2:51:58.160)

So reaction, workup, separate, purify.

Lex Fridman (2:52:01.720)

So this is basically exactly like a Turing machine

Lee Cronin (2:52:05.880)

where you have your tape, you have your tape head,

Lex Fridman (2:52:08.280)

you have some rules, and then you run it.

Lex Fridman (2:52:10.360)

So I thought, cool.

Lex Fridman (2:52:11.760)

I went to all the chemists and said, look,

Lee Cronin (2:52:13.240)

chemistry isn't that hard.

Lex Fridman (2:52:15.320)

Reaction, workup, separation, purification.

Lee Cronin (2:52:18.360)

Do that in cycles, forever, for any molecule,

Lex Fridman (2:52:20.960)

all the chemistry, done.

Lex Fridman (2:52:23.160)

And they said, chemistry is that hard.

Lex Fridman (2:52:26.200)

I said, but just in principle.

Lex Fridman (2:52:28.240)

And I got a few very enlightened people to say,

Lex Fridman (2:52:30.520)

yeah, okay, in principle, but it ain't gonna work.

Lex Fridman (2:52:33.160)

And this was in about 2013, 2014.

Lex Fridman (2:52:36.600)

And I found myself going to an architecture conference

Lee Cronin (2:52:39.840)

almost by accident.

Lex Fridman (2:52:40.840)

It's like, why am I at this random conference

Lex Fridman (2:52:42.720)

on architecture?

Lex Fridman (2:52:44.400)

And that was because I published a paper

Lee Cronin (2:52:45.920)

on inorganic architecture.

Lex Fridman (2:52:47.840)

And they said, come to architecture conference.

Lex Fridman (2:52:49.440)

But the inorganic architecture is nano architecture.

Lex Fridman (2:52:51.720)

It's not, and I went, okay.

Lex Fridman (2:52:53.160)

And then I found these guys at the conference,

Lex Fridman (2:52:54.880)

3D printing ping pong balls and shapes.

Lex Fridman (2:52:57.400)

And this is through it.

Lex Fridman (2:52:58.240)

3D printing was cool.

Lex Fridman (2:52:59.080)

And I was like, this is ridiculous.

Lex Fridman (2:53:00.440)

Why are you 3D printing ping pong balls?

Lex Fridman (2:53:01.880)

And I gave them a whole load of abuse

Lex Fridman (2:53:03.400)

like I normally do when I first meet people,

Lex Fridman (2:53:05.320)

how to win friends and influence people.

Lex Fridman (2:53:07.240)

And then I was like, oh my God, you guys are geniuses.

Lex Fridman (2:53:10.240)

And so I got from, they were a bit confused

Lex Fridman (2:53:12.000)

because I was calling them idiots

Lex Fridman (2:53:13.080)

and then call them geniuses.

Lex Fridman (2:53:14.120)

It's like, will you come to my lab

Lex Fridman (2:53:16.120)

and we're gonna build a robot to do chemistry

Lex Fridman (2:53:18.240)

with a 3D printer.

Lex Fridman (2:53:19.080)

And I said, oh, that's cool, all right.

Lex Fridman (2:53:20.960)

So I had them come to the lab

Lex Fridman (2:53:22.320)

and we started to 3D print test tubes.

Lex Fridman (2:53:24.000)

So you imagine, you know, 3D print a bottle

Lex Fridman (2:53:26.760)

and then use the same gantry to basically,

Lex Fridman (2:53:30.560)

rather than to squirt out a plastic out of a nozzle,

Lee Cronin (2:53:34.160)

have a little syringe and jet chemicals in.

Lex Fridman (2:53:36.400)

So we had the 3D printer that could simultaneously

Lee Cronin (2:53:38.720)

print the test tube and then put chemicals

Lex Fridman (2:53:40.560)

into the test tube.

Lex Fridman (2:53:42.080)

And then.

Lex Fridman (2:53:42.920)

Wow, so it's really end to end.

Lee Cronin (2:53:44.480)

Yeah, I was like, that would be cool

Lex Fridman (2:53:45.600)

because they've got G code to do it all.

Lex Fridman (2:53:47.080)

And I was like, that's cool.

Lex Fridman (2:53:48.760)

So I got my group doing this and I developed it a bit

Lex Fridman (2:53:50.800)

and I realized that we could take those unit operations.

Lex Fridman (2:53:54.600)

And we built a whole bunch of pumps and valves.

Lex Fridman (2:53:57.160)

And I realized that I could basically take the literature

Lex Fridman (2:54:00.840)

and I made the first version of the computer in 2016, 17.

Lee Cronin (2:54:05.920)

I made some architectural decisions.

Lex Fridman (2:54:07.520)

So I designed the pumps and valves in my group.

Lee Cronin (2:54:09.400)

I did all the electronics in my group.

Lex Fridman (2:54:10.760)

They were brilliant.

Lee Cronin (2:54:12.320)

I cannot pay tribute to my group enough in doing this.

Lex Fridman (2:54:15.880)

They were just brilliant.

Lex Fridman (2:54:16.720)

And there were some poor souls there that said,

Lex Fridman (2:54:18.400)

Lee, why are you making us design electronics?

Lee Cronin (2:54:21.320)

I'm like, well, because I don't understand it.

Lex Fridman (2:54:24.280)

They're like, so you're making us design stuff

Lee Cronin (2:54:26.040)

because you don't understand.

Lex Fridman (2:54:26.880)

It's like, yeah, it's like, but can we not just buy some?

Lee Cronin (2:54:29.680)

I said, well, we can, but then I don't understand

Lex Fridman (2:54:31.560)

how to, you know, what bus they're gonna use

Lex Fridman (2:54:34.520)

and there's serial ports and all this stuff.

Lex Fridman (2:54:36.040)

I just wanted, and I made, I came up with a decision

Lee Cronin (2:54:39.040)

to design a bunch of pumps and valves

Lex Fridman (2:54:41.120)

and use power of the ethernet.

Lex Fridman (2:54:42.600)

So they've got one cable for power and data,

Lex Fridman (2:54:45.360)

plug them all in, plug them all into a router

Lex Fridman (2:54:48.080)

and then I made the state machine.

Lex Fridman (2:54:51.360)

And there was a couple of cool things I did.

Lee Cronin (2:54:53.680)

Oh, they did actually.

Lex Fridman (2:54:55.760)

We got the abstraction.

Lex Fridman (2:54:57.160)

So reaction, workup, separation, purification.

Lex Fridman (2:55:02.600)

And then I made the decision to do it in batch.

Lee Cronin (2:55:06.080)

Now it's in batch.

Lex Fridman (2:55:07.880)

All chemistry had been digitized before apparently,

Lex Fridman (2:55:10.640)

and once it's been done, but everyone been doing it in flow

Lex Fridman (2:55:13.960)

and flow is continuous and there are infinities everywhere

Lex Fridman (2:55:16.240)

and you have to just, and I realized

Lex Fridman (2:55:19.040)

that I could actually make a state machine

Lee Cronin (2:55:20.640)

where I basically put stuff in the reactor,

Lex Fridman (2:55:24.860)

turn it up from one state to another state,

Lee Cronin (2:55:26.900)

stop it and just read it out.

Lex Fridman (2:55:28.380)

And okay, and I was kind of bitching

Lee Cronin (2:55:30.680)

at electrical engineers saying, you have it easy.

Lex Fridman (2:55:32.360)

You don't have to clean out the electrons, you know.

Lee Cronin (2:55:34.760)

Electrons don't leave a big mess.

Lex Fridman (2:55:36.380)

They leave some EM waste.

Lex Fridman (2:55:37.900)

But in my state machine I built in cleaning.

Lex Fridman (2:55:39.760)

So it's like, we do all the operation

Lex Fridman (2:55:41.600)

and then it cleans the backbone and then can do it again.

Lex Fridman (2:55:43.320)

So there's no, so what we managed to do

Lee Cronin (2:55:46.020)

over a couple of years is develop the hardware,

Lex Fridman (2:55:49.280)

develop the state machine.

Lex Fridman (2:55:50.720)

And we encoded three molecules.

Lex Fridman (2:55:52.140)

We did three, the first three, we did nitole,

Lee Cronin (2:55:54.120)

a sleeping drug, rafinamide, antiseizure and Viagra.

Lex Fridman (2:55:57.160)

You know, and I could make jokes on the paper.

Lee Cronin (2:55:59.560)

It's a hard problem, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Lex Fridman (2:56:02.120)

That's very good.

Lex Fridman (2:56:04.320)

And then in the next one, what we did is said, okay,

Lex Fridman (2:56:06.440)

my poor organic chemist said, look, Lee,

Lee Cronin (2:56:09.520)

we've worked with you this long.

Lex Fridman (2:56:11.220)

We've made a robot that looks like

Lee Cronin (2:56:12.880)

it's gonna take our jobs away.

Lex Fridman (2:56:14.660)

And not just take our jobs away, what we love in the lab,

Lex Fridman (2:56:19.040)

but now we have to become programmers.

Lex Fridman (2:56:20.800)

But we're not even good programmers.

Lee Cronin (2:56:22.000)

We just have to spend ages writing lines of code

Lex Fridman (2:56:25.060)

that are boring and it's not as elegant.

Lee Cronin (2:56:27.440)

I went, you're right.

Lex Fridman (2:56:28.840)

So then, but I knew because I had this abstraction

Lex Fridman (2:56:32.720)

and I knew that there was language,

Lex Fridman (2:56:34.960)

I could suddenly develop a state machine

Lee Cronin (2:56:36.520)

that would interpret the language,

Lex Fridman (2:56:37.680)

which was lossy and ambiguous and populate my abstraction.

Lex Fridman (2:56:42.080)

So I built a chemical programming language

Lex Fridman (2:56:44.320)

that is actually gonna be recursively enumerable.

Lee Cronin (2:56:46.960)

It's gonna be a Turing complete language actually,

Lex Fridman (2:56:48.580)

which is kind of cool, which means it's formally verifiable.

Lex Fridman (2:56:51.500)

So where we are now is we can now read the literature

Lex Fridman (2:56:55.280)

using a bit of natural language processing.

Lee Cronin (2:56:56.880)

It's not the best.

Lex Fridman (2:56:57.720)

There are many other groups have done a better job,

Lex Fridman (2:56:59.520)

but we can use that language reading

Lex Fridman (2:57:01.240)

to populate the state machine and basically add, subtract.

Lee Cronin (2:57:05.860)

We got about a number of primitives that we,

Lex Fridman (2:57:09.440)

basically program loops that we dovetail together

Lex Fridman (2:57:14.320)

and we can make any molecule with it.

Lex Fridman (2:57:15.780)

Okay, so that's the kind of program synthesis.

Lex Fridman (2:57:18.240)

So you start at like literally,

Lex Fridman (2:57:19.920)

you're talking about like a paper,

Lee Cronin (2:57:21.800)

like a scientific paper that's being read.

Lex Fridman (2:57:25.400)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:57:26.240)

So natural language processing,

Lex Fridman (2:57:27.080)

extracting some kind of details about chemical reactions

Lex Fridman (2:57:33.320)

and the chemical molecules and compounds involved.

Lex Fridman (2:57:38.320)

And then that, in GPT terms,

Lee Cronin (2:57:43.960)

serves as a prompt for the program synthesis

Lex Fridman (2:57:47.600)

that's kind of trivial right now.

Lee Cronin (2:57:49.280)

There you have a bunch of different like for loops

Lex Fridman (2:57:51.240)

and so on that creates a program in this chemical language

Lee Cronin (2:57:56.080)

that can then be interpreted by the chemical computer,

Lex Fridman (2:58:00.160)

the computer.

Lee Cronin (2:58:01.720)

Yeah, computer, that's the word.

Lex Fridman (2:58:03.280)

Computer, yeah.

Lee Cronin (2:58:05.600)

Everything sounds better in your British accent,

Lex Fridman (2:58:07.840)

but it's, I love it.

Lex Fridman (2:58:09.280)

So the, into the computer and that's able to then

Lex Fridman (2:58:12.780)

basically be a 3D printer for these, for molecules.

Lee Cronin (2:58:17.120)

Yeah, I wouldn't call it a 3D printer.

Lex Fridman (2:58:18.440)

I would call it a universal chemical reaction system

Lee Cronin (2:58:21.040)

because 3D printing gives the wrong impression, but yeah.

Lex Fridman (2:58:23.460)

And it purifies.

Lex Fridman (2:58:25.200)

And the nice thing is that that code now that we call it,

Lex Fridman (2:58:28.680)

the KyDL code is really interesting because now,

Lex Fridman (2:58:34.520)

so computation, what is computation?

Lex Fridman (2:58:36.240)

Computation is what computing is to mathematics, I think.

Lee Cronin (2:58:41.320)

Computation is the process of taking chemical code

Lex Fridman (2:58:44.680)

and some input reagents and making the same molecule,

Lee Cronin (2:58:47.800)

making the molecule reproducibly every time without fail.

Lex Fridman (2:58:52.160)

What is computation?

Lee Cronin (2:58:53.320)

It's the process of using a program

Lex Fridman (2:58:55.520)

to take some input conditions

Lex Fridman (2:58:57.720)

and give you an output same every time, right, reliably.

Lex Fridman (2:59:02.220)

So the problem is, now maybe you can push back

Lex Fridman (2:59:05.640)

and correct me on this.

Lex Fridman (2:59:07.480)

So I know biology is messy.

Lex Fridman (2:59:09.940)

My question is how messy is chemistry?

Lex Fridman (2:59:12.380)

So the, if we use the analogy of a computer,

Lee Cronin (2:59:15.640)

it's easier to make computation in a computer very precise,

Lex Fridman (2:59:21.920)

that it's repeatable and makes errors almost never.

Lee Cronin (2:59:26.200)

If it does the exact same way over and over

Lex Fridman (2:59:28.440)

and over and over.

Lex Fridman (2:59:29.520)

What about chemistry?

Lex Fridman (2:59:30.560)

Is there messiness in the whole thing?

Lex Fridman (2:59:32.680)

Can that be somehow leveraged?

Lex Fridman (2:59:33.920)

Can that be controlled?

Lee Cronin (2:59:34.760)

Can it be that removed,

Lex Fridman (2:59:36.200)

do we wanna remove it from the system?

Lee Cronin (2:59:38.280)

Oh, yes and no, right.

Lex Fridman (2:59:39.680)

Is there messiness?

Lee Cronin (2:59:42.680)

There is messiness because chemistry is like,

Lex Fridman (2:59:45.000)

you're doing reactions on billions of molecules

Lex Fridman (2:59:49.240)

and they don't always work,

Lex Fridman (2:59:50.200)

but you've got purification there.

Lex Fridman (2:59:52.100)

And so what we found is at the beginning,

Lex Fridman (2:59:54.480)

everyone said it can't work.

Lee Cronin (2:59:55.940)

It's gonna be too messy.

Lex Fridman (2:59:56.840)

It will just fail.

Lex Fridman (2:59:58.040)

And I said, but you managed to get chemistry

Lex Fridman (30:00.000)

that has a causal chain going all the way back to Luca.

Lex Fridman (30:02.680)

And he showed when he took out the gene,

Lex Fridman (30:05.320)

the genes and put in his genes, synthesized,

Lee Cronin (30:08.260)

the cell could boot up.

Lex Fridman (30:09.840)

But it's remarkable that he could not make a cell

Lee Cronin (30:11.940)

from scratch.

Lex Fridman (30:12.900)

And even now today, synthetic biologists

Lee Cronin (30:15.120)

cannot make a cell from scratch

Lex Fridman (30:17.300)

because there's some contingent information embodied

Lee Cronin (30:20.920)

outside the genome in the cell.

Lex Fridman (30:23.780)

And that is just incredible.

Lex Fridman (30:26.140)

So there's lots of layers to the scam.

Lex Fridman (30:29.940)

Well, let me then ask the question,

Lex Fridman (30:32.940)

how can we create life in the lab from scratch?

Lex Fridman (30:37.200)

What have been the most promising attempts

Lex Fridman (30:39.420)

at creating life in the lab from scratch?

Lex Fridman (30:41.860)

Has anyone actually been able to do it?

Lex Fridman (30:44.220)

Do you think anyone will be able to do it

Lex Fridman (30:46.340)

in the near future if they haven't already?

Lee Cronin (30:50.420)

Yeah, I think that nobody has made life

Lex Fridman (30:53.660)

in the lab from scratch.

Lee Cronin (30:54.740)

Lots of people would argue that they have made progress.

Lex Fridman (30:57.380)

So Craig Venter, I think the synthesis

Lee Cronin (30:59.300)

of a synthetic genome milestone in human achievement.

Lex Fridman (31:03.580)

Brilliant.

Lee Cronin (31:04.420)

Yeah, can we just walk back and say,

Lex Fridman (31:06.340)

what would you say from your perspective,

Lee Cronin (31:09.740)

one of the world experts in exactly this area,

Lex Fridman (31:12.960)

what does it mean to create life from scratch

Lee Cronin (31:15.100)

where if you sit back, whether you do it

Lex Fridman (31:17.260)

or somebody else does it, it's like,

Lee Cronin (31:20.040)

damn, this is, we just created life.

Lex Fridman (31:24.580)

Well, I can tell you what I would expect,

Lee Cronin (31:27.580)

I would like to be able to do,

Lex Fridman (31:30.220)

is to go from sand to cells in my lab and...

Lex Fridman (31:37.540)

Can you explain what sand is?

Lex Fridman (31:39.060)

Yeah, just inorganic stuff, like basically just,

Lex Fridman (31:42.780)

so sand is just silicon oxide with some other ions in it,

Lex Fridman (31:47.220)

maybe some inorganic carbon, some carbonates,

Lee Cronin (31:50.980)

just basically clearly dead stuff

Lex Fridman (31:52.980)

that you could just grind rocks into sand.

Lex Fridman (31:55.580)

And it would be what, in a kind of vacuum

Lex Fridman (31:57.940)

so they could remove anything else

Lee Cronin (31:59.580)

that could possibly be like a shadow of life

Lex Fridman (32:05.220)

that can assist in the chemical.

Lee Cronin (32:06.340)

You could do that, you could insist and say,

Lex Fridman (32:07.940)

look, I'm gonna take, and not just inorganic,

Lee Cronin (32:09.940)

I want some more, I wanna cheat and have some organic,

Lex Fridman (32:12.580)

but I want inorganic organic,

Lex Fridman (32:13.900)

and I'll explain the play on words in a moment.

Lex Fridman (32:16.100)

So I would like to basically put into a world,

Lee Cronin (32:19.420)

let's say a completely synthetic world, if you like,

Lex Fridman (32:23.220)

a closed world, put some inorganic materials

Lex Fridman (32:26.700)

and just literally add some energy in some form,

Lex Fridman (32:30.020)

be it lightning or heat, UV light,

Lex Fridman (32:33.660)

and run this thing in cycles over time

Lex Fridman (32:37.180)

and let it solve the search problem.

Lex Fridman (32:38.620)

So I see the origin of life as a search problem

Lex Fridman (32:41.140)

in chemical space.

Lex Fridman (32:42.700)

And then I would wait, literally wait for a life form

Lex Fridman (32:45.580)

to crawl out of the test tube.

Lee Cronin (32:46.580)

That's a joke I tell my group.

Lex Fridman (32:48.100)

Literally wait for a very, don't worry,

Lee Cronin (32:51.620)

it's gonna be very feeble,

Lex Fridman (32:52.540)

it's not gonna take over the world.

Lee Cronin (32:54.700)

There's ways of ethically containing it.

Lex Fridman (32:56.020)

Famous last words.

Lee Cronin (32:58.220)

Indeed, indeed, indeed, but I.

Lex Fridman (33:01.380)

You know this is being recorded, right?

Lee Cronin (33:03.220)

It'll make you, it will not make you look good

Lex Fridman (33:05.660)

once it crawls out of the lab

Lex Fridman (33:07.620)

and destroys all of human civilization, but yes.

Lex Fridman (33:09.940)

But there is very good,

Lee Cronin (33:11.060)

there is a very good things you can do to prevent that.

Lex Fridman (33:13.460)

For instance, if you put stuff in your world,

Lee Cronin (33:15.580)

which isn't earth abundant,

Lex Fridman (33:17.460)

so let's say we make life based on molybdenum

Lex Fridman (33:20.420)

and it escapes, it would die immediately

Lex Fridman (33:21.940)

because there's not enough molybdenum in the environment.

Lex Fridman (33:23.460)

So we can put in, we can do responsible life.

Lex Fridman (33:26.700)

Or as I fantasize with my research group on our away day

Lee Cronin (33:29.900)

that would go in, it's, you know,

Lex Fridman (33:31.500)

I think it's actually morally if we don't find,

Lee Cronin (33:36.060)

until humanity finds life in the universe,

Lex Fridman (33:38.020)

this is going on a tangent,

Lee Cronin (33:39.260)

it's our moral obligation to make origin of life bombs,

Lex Fridman (33:42.020)

identify dead planets and bomb them

Lee Cronin (33:43.820)

with our origin of life machines and make them alive.

Lex Fridman (33:46.580)

I think it is our moral obligation to do that.

Lee Cronin (33:50.260)

Some people might argue with me about that,

Lex Fridman (33:51.780)

but I think that we need more life in the universe.

Lex Fridman (33:54.420)

And then we kind of forget we did it

Lex Fridman (33:58.140)

and then come back and then.

Lex Fridman (34:00.860)

So where did you come from?

Lex Fridman (34:02.260)

But coming back to the, what I'd expect.

Lex Fridman (34:04.020)

So I just say. Father, are you back?

Lex Fridman (34:06.820)

I think this is once again, a Rick and Morty episode.

Lee Cronin (34:09.220)

It's definitely all Rick and Morty all the way down.

Lex Fridman (34:11.940)

So we, I imagine we have this pristine experiment

Lex Fridman (34:15.540)

and everything is, you know, sanitized

Lex Fridman (34:18.100)

and we put in inorganic materials

Lex Fridman (34:20.060)

and we have cycles with them,

Lex Fridman (34:22.220)

day, night cycles, up, down, whatever.

Lex Fridman (34:24.500)

And we look for evidence of replication

Lex Fridman (34:27.260)

and evolution over time.

Lex Fridman (34:28.660)

And that's what the experiment should be.

Lex Fridman (34:30.580)

Now, are there people doing this in the world right now?

Lee Cronin (34:32.460)

There are a couple of,

Lex Fridman (34:33.780)

there's some really good groups doing this.

Lee Cronin (34:35.780)

There's some really interesting scientists

Lex Fridman (34:37.180)

doing this around the world.

Lee Cronin (34:38.740)

They're kind of perhaps too much associated with the scam.

Lex Fridman (34:44.540)

So, and so they're using molecules

Lee Cronin (34:48.500)

that are already, were already invented by biology.

Lex Fridman (34:50.860)

So there's a bit of replication built in,

Lex Fridman (34:54.100)

but I still think the work that is doing,

Lex Fridman (34:55.780)

they're doing is amazing.

Lex Fridman (34:57.660)

But I would like people to be a bit freer and say,

Lex Fridman (35:00.180)

let's just basically shake a load of sand in a box

Lex Fridman (35:03.500)

and wait for life to come out

Lex Fridman (35:04.580)

because that's what happened on earth.

Lex Fridman (35:06.300)

And so that we have to understand that.

Lex Fridman (35:08.020)

Now, how would I know I've been successful?

Lee Cronin (35:10.140)

Well, because I'm not obsessing

Lex Fridman (35:11.900)

with what molecules are in life now,

Lee Cronin (35:15.060)

I would wager a vast quantity of money.

Lex Fridman (35:19.820)

I'm not very rich, so just be a few dollars,

Lex Fridman (35:21.900)

but for me, the solution space will be different.

Lex Fridman (35:27.180)

So the genetic material will be not RNA.

Lee Cronin (35:31.020)

The proteins will not be what we think.

Lex Fridman (35:33.580)

The solutions will be just completely different.

Lex Fridman (35:36.140)

And it might be, and it will be very feeble

Lex Fridman (35:37.740)

because that's the other thing we should be able to show

Lee Cronin (35:40.860)

fairly robustly that even if I did make

Lex Fridman (35:43.780)

or someone did make a new life form in the lab,

Lee Cronin (35:46.060)

it would be so poor that it's not gonna leap out.

Lex Fridman (35:50.020)

It is the fear about making a lethal life form

Lee Cronin (35:56.020)

in the lab from scratch is similar to us imagining

Lex Fridman (36:00.620)

that we're gonna make the terminator

Lee Cronin (36:02.500)

at Boston Dynamics tomorrow.

Lex Fridman (36:04.460)

Simply not, and the problem is

Lee Cronin (36:07.140)

we don't communicate that properly.

Lex Fridman (36:08.420)

I know you yourself very, you explain this very well.

Lee Cronin (36:12.820)

There is not the AI catastrophe coming.

Lex Fridman (36:15.980)

We're very far away from that.

Lee Cronin (36:16.940)

That doesn't mean we should ignore it.

Lex Fridman (36:18.380)

Same with the origin of life catastrophe.

Lee Cronin (36:19.980)

It's not coming anytime soon.

Lex Fridman (36:21.860)

We shouldn't ignore it, but we shouldn't let that fear

Lee Cronin (36:24.820)

stop us from doing those experiments.

Lex Fridman (36:26.500)

But this is a much, much longer discussion

Lee Cronin (36:28.460)

because there's a lot of details there.

Lex Fridman (36:29.820)

I would say there is potential for catastrophic events

Lee Cronin (36:33.580)

to happen in much dumber ways.

Lex Fridman (36:36.980)

In AI space, there's a lot of ways to create,

Lee Cronin (36:40.020)

like social networks are creating a kind

Lex Fridman (36:43.140)

of accelerated set of events

Lee Cronin (36:46.300)

that we might not be able to control.

Lex Fridman (36:48.340)

The social network virality in the digital space

Lee Cronin (36:53.260)

can create mass movements of ideas that can then,

Lex Fridman (36:58.820)

if times are tough, create military conflict

Lex Fridman (37:01.980)

and all those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (37:02.980)

But that's not super intelligent AI.

Lee Cronin (37:05.660)

That's an interesting at scale application of AI.

Lex Fridman (37:09.740)

If you look at viruses, viruses are pretty dumb,

Lex Fridman (37:13.300)

but at scale, their application is pretty detrimental.

Lex Fridman (37:16.780)

And so origin of life, much like all the kind of virology,

Lee Cronin (37:25.220)

the very contentious word of gain of function research

Lex Fridman (37:28.540)

and virology, sort of like research on viruses,

Lee Cronin (37:33.420)

messing with them genetically,

Lex Fridman (37:36.100)

that can create a lot of problems if not done well.

Lex Fridman (37:38.980)

So we have to be very cautious.

Lex Fridman (37:41.820)

So there's a kind of,

Lee Cronin (37:43.260)

whenever you're ultra cautious about stuff in AI

Lex Fridman (37:47.100)

or in virology and biology,

Lee Cronin (37:50.740)

it borders on cynicism, I would say,

Lex Fridman (37:53.420)

where it's like everything we do is going to turn out

Lee Cronin (37:56.740)

to be destructive and terrible.

Lex Fridman (37:58.660)

So I'm just going to sit here and do nothing.

Lee Cronin (38:00.980)

Okay, that's a possible solution except for the fact

Lex Fridman (38:04.660)

that somebody is going to do it.

Lee Cronin (38:06.380)

It's science and technology progresses.

Lex Fridman (38:10.500)

So we have to do it in an ethical way, in a good way,

Lee Cronin (38:14.780)

considering in a transparent way, in an open way,

Lex Fridman (38:18.980)

considering all the possible positive trajectories

Lee Cronin (38:23.780)

that could be taken and making sure as much as possible

Lex Fridman (38:26.380)

that we walk those trajectories.

Lex Fridman (38:28.260)

So yeah, I don't think Terminator is coming,

Lex Fridman (38:31.100)

but a totally unexpected version of Terminator

Lee Cronin (38:35.220)

may be around the corner.

Lex Fridman (38:36.500)

Might be here already.

Lee Cronin (38:37.340)

Yeah, so I agree with that.

Lex Fridman (38:38.980)

And so going back to the origin of life discussion,

Lee Cronin (38:41.460)

I think that in synthetic biology right now,

Lex Fridman (38:44.500)

we have to be very careful about how we edit genomes

Lex Fridman (38:49.060)

and edit synthetic biology to do things.

Lex Fridman (38:51.460)

So that's kind of, that's where things might go wrong

Lee Cronin (38:53.900)

in the same way as Twitter turning ourselves

Lex Fridman (38:56.300)

into kind of strange scale effects.

Lee Cronin (38:59.460)

I would love origin of life research

Lex Fridman (39:01.780)

or artificial life research to get to the point

Lee Cronin (39:04.580)

where we have those worries,

Lex Fridman (39:06.820)

because that's why I think we're just so far away from that.

Lee Cronin (39:08.820)

We are just, you know, right now,

Lex Fridman (39:10.700)

I think there are two really important angles.

Lee Cronin (39:13.100)

There is the origin of life people,

Lex Fridman (39:15.860)

researchers who are faithfully working on this

Lex Fridman (39:18.780)

and trying to make those molecules,

Lex Fridman (39:20.540)

the scan molecules I talked about.

Lex Fridman (39:22.740)

And then there are people on the creationist side

Lex Fridman (39:24.860)

who are saying, look,

Lee Cronin (39:25.700)

the fact you can't make these molecules

Lex Fridman (39:26.940)

and you can't make a cell means that evolution isn't true

Lex Fridman (39:29.940)

and all this other stuff.

Lex Fridman (39:30.780)

Gotcha.

Lee Cronin (39:31.620)

Yeah, and so, and I find that really frustrating

Lex Fridman (39:34.180)

because actually the origin of life research

Lex Fridman (39:35.900)

is all working in good faith, right?

Lex Fridman (39:37.820)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (39:38.660)

And so what I'm trying to do

Lex Fridman (39:40.100)

is give origin of life research

Lee Cronin (39:41.860)

a little bit more of an open context.

Lex Fridman (39:47.180)

And one of the things I think is important,

Lee Cronin (39:49.420)

I really want to make a new life form in my lifetime.

Lex Fridman (39:52.300)

I really want to prove that life is a general phenomena,

Lee Cronin (39:56.060)

a bit like gravity in the universe,

Lex Fridman (39:58.140)

because I think that's gonna be really important

Lee Cronin (39:59.940)

for humanity's global psychological state,

Lex Fridman (3:00:00.000)

to work in the lab.

Lex Fridman (3:00:00.840)

Are you magic?

Lex Fridman (3:00:01.660)

Are you doing something?

Lex Fridman (3:00:02.640)

So I would say, now go back to the first ever computer

Lex Fridman (3:00:05.920)

or the ENIAC, 5 million soldered joints,

Lee Cronin (3:00:09.480)

400,000 valves that are exploding all the time.

Lex Fridman (3:00:12.760)

Was that, would you have gone, okay, that's messy.

Lex Fridman (3:00:16.360)

So we've got the,

Lex Fridman (3:00:18.520)

have we got the equivalent of the ENIAC in my lab?

Lee Cronin (3:00:21.060)

We've got 15 computers in the lab now.

Lex Fridman (3:00:23.540)

And they, are they unreliable?

Lee Cronin (3:00:24.920)

Yeah, they fall apart here and there,

Lex Fridman (3:00:26.940)

but are they getting better really quickly?

Lee Cronin (3:00:29.540)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:00:30.380)

Are they now able to reliably make more,

Lee Cronin (3:00:32.280)

are we at the point in the lab

Lex Fridman (3:00:33.320)

where there are some molecules

Lee Cronin (3:00:34.780)

we would rather make on the computer

Lex Fridman (3:00:37.400)

than have a human being make?

Lee Cronin (3:00:38.520)

Yeah, we've just done,

Lex Fridman (3:00:39.780)

we've just made a anti influenza molecule

Lex Fridman (3:00:44.000)

and some antivirals,

Lex Fridman (3:00:46.400)

six steps on the computer that would take a human being

Lee Cronin (3:00:49.720)

about one week to make Arbidol of continuous labor.

Lex Fridman (3:00:54.840)

And all they do now is load up the reagents,

Lee Cronin (3:00:56.160)

press go button and just go away and drink coffee.

Lex Fridman (3:00:58.240)

Wow, so this, I mean, and this is, you're saying

Lee Cronin (3:01:02.520)

this computer is just the early days.

Lex Fridman (3:01:04.320)

And so like some of the criticism just have to do

Lee Cronin (3:01:06.840)

with the early days.

Lex Fridman (3:01:08.000)

And yes, I would say this,

Lee Cronin (3:01:09.400)

something like this is quite impossible.

Lex Fridman (3:01:15.520)

So the fact that you're doing this is incredible.

Lee Cronin (3:01:18.120)

Not impossible, of course, but extremely difficult.

Lex Fridman (3:01:20.760)

It did seem really difficult.

Lex Fridman (3:01:22.960)

And I do keep pinching myself when I go in the lab.

Lex Fridman (3:01:25.080)

I was like, is it working?

Lee Cronin (3:01:25.920)

Like, yep.

Lex Fridman (3:01:26.740)

And it's not, you know, it does clog, it does stop.

Lee Cronin (3:01:30.480)

You got to clean, this is great.

Lex Fridman (3:01:32.120)

It's, you know, but it's getting more reliable

Lee Cronin (3:01:35.120)

because I made some, we just made design decisions

Lex Fridman (3:01:38.000)

and said, we are not going to abandon the abstraction.

Lee Cronin (3:01:40.540)

Think about it.

Lex Fridman (3:01:41.380)

If the von Neumann implementation was abandoned,

Lee Cronin (3:01:45.920)

I mean, think about what we do to semiconductors

Lex Fridman (3:01:47.820)

to really constrain them to what we do to silicon

Lee Cronin (3:01:51.720)

in a fab lab, we take computation for granted.

Lex Fridman (3:01:55.400)

Silicon is not in its natural state.

Lee Cronin (3:01:57.640)

We are doping the hell out of it.

Lex Fridman (3:01:59.040)

It's incredible what they're able to accomplish

Lex Fridman (3:02:00.880)

and achieve that reliability at the scale they do.

Lex Fridman (3:02:03.660)

Like you said, that's after Moore's law, what we have now.

Lex Fridman (3:02:07.600)

And where we, you know, how it started, you know,

Lex Fridman (3:02:13.200)

now we're here.

Lee Cronin (3:02:14.040)

We started at the bottom, now we're here.

Lex Fridman (3:02:15.480)

We have only have 20 million molecules.

Lee Cronin (3:02:17.080)

Well, say 20 million molecules in one database,

Lex Fridman (3:02:19.600)

maybe a few hundred million

Lee Cronin (3:02:21.280)

in all the pharmaceutical companies.

Lex Fridman (3:02:23.440)

And those few hundred million molecules are responsible

Lee Cronin (3:02:26.680)

for all the drugs that we've had in humanity,

Lex Fridman (3:02:28.600)

except, you know, biologics for the last 50 years.

Lee Cronin (3:02:32.320)

Now imagine what happens when a drug goes out of print,

Lex Fridman (3:02:35.500)

goes out of print because there's only a finite number

Lee Cronin (3:02:37.440)

of manufacturing facilities in the world

Lex Fridman (3:02:38.760)

that make these drugs.

Lee Cronin (3:02:39.600)

It goes out of print.

Lex Fridman (3:02:40.440)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:02:41.280)

Isn't that computer?

Lex Fridman (3:02:42.120)

This is a printing press, but for chemistry.

Lee Cronin (3:02:44.080)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:02:45.120)

And not only that, we can protect the KyDL

Lex Fridman (3:02:47.480)

so we can stop bad actors doing it.

Lex Fridman (3:02:49.120)

We can encrypt them and we can give people license.

Lee Cronin (3:02:51.520)

KyDL, that's the name, sorry to interrupt,

Lex Fridman (3:02:53.640)

is the name of the programming language?

Lee Cronin (3:02:54.480)

Yeah, the KyDL is the name of the programming language

Lex Fridman (3:02:56.720)

and the code we give the chemicals.

Lex Fridman (3:02:58.520)

So Ky, as in, you know, just for,

Lex Fridman (3:03:01.960)

it's actually like an XML format,

Lex Fridman (3:03:04.120)

but I've now taken it from script

Lex Fridman (3:03:06.480)

to a fully expressible programming language

Lex Fridman (3:03:10.200)

so we can do dynamics and there's for loops in there

Lex Fridman (3:03:12.680)

and conditional statements.

Lee Cronin (3:03:13.840)

Right, but the structure, it started out as like an XML

Lex Fridman (3:03:18.800)

type of thing.

Lee Cronin (3:03:19.640)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:03:20.460)

And also, the chemist doesn't need to program in KyDL.

Lee Cronin (3:03:22.360)

They can just go to the software and type in add A to B,

Lex Fridman (3:03:25.160)

reflux, do what they would normally do,

Lex Fridman (3:03:27.180)

and it just converts it to KyDL

Lex Fridman (3:03:28.480)

and they have a linter to check it and error correct.

Lex Fridman (3:03:30.520)

So how do you, you know, not with ASCII,

Lex Fridman (3:03:34.320)

but because it's a Greek letter,

Lex Fridman (3:03:36.480)

how do you go with, how do you spell it

Lex Fridman (3:03:39.720)

just using the English alphabet?

Lex Fridman (3:03:42.280)

We just, XDL?

Lex Fridman (3:03:43.680)

XDL, but all we use, we put in Ky.

Lex Fridman (3:03:46.000)

And it was named by one of my students

Lex Fridman (3:03:47.560)

and one of my postdocs many years ago

Lex Fridman (3:03:49.920)

and I quite liked it.

Lex Fridman (3:03:50.960)

It's like, it's important, I think,

Lee Cronin (3:03:53.520)

when the team are contributing to such big ideas,

Lex Fridman (3:03:55.640)

cause there's their ideas as well.

Lee Cronin (3:03:57.520)

I try not to just rename, I didn't call it Cronon

Lex Fridman (3:04:00.520)

or anything that, cause they keep saying, you know,

Lee Cronin (3:04:03.000)

is the chemistry, when they're putting stuff

Lex Fridman (3:04:07.380)

in the computer, one of my students said,

Lex Fridman (3:04:08.880)

we're asking now, is it Cronon complete?

Lex Fridman (3:04:10.640)

And I was like, what does that mean?

Lex Fridman (3:04:11.480)

I said, well, can we make it on the damn machine?

Lex Fridman (3:04:13.880)

And I was like, oh, is that a compliment or a majority?

Lex Fridman (3:04:18.440)

But they're like, well, it might be both.

Lex Fridman (3:04:21.680)

Yeah, so you tweeted, quote,

Lex Fridman (3:04:24.600)

why does chemistry need a universal programming language,

Lex Fridman (3:04:27.440)

question mark?

Lee Cronin (3:04:29.640)

For all the reasons you can think of.

Lex Fridman (3:04:31.840)

Reliability, interoperability, collaboration,

Lee Cronin (3:04:35.740)

remove ambiguity, lower cost, increase safety,

Lex Fridman (3:04:39.120)

open up discovery, molecular customization,

Lex Fridman (3:04:42.360)

and publication of executable chemical code.

Lex Fridman (3:04:46.300)

Which is fascinating, by the way.

Lee Cronin (3:04:49.140)

Just publish code.

Lex Fridman (3:04:51.980)

And can you maybe elaborate a little bit more

Lee Cronin (3:04:56.260)

about this CHI DL, what does the universal language

Lex Fridman (3:04:59.480)

of chemistry look like?

Lee Cronin (3:05:01.480)

A Cronon complete language.

Lex Fridman (3:05:04.820)

It's a Turing complete language, really.

Lee Cronin (3:05:07.380)

But, so what it has, it has a series of operators in it,

Lex Fridman (3:05:11.040)

like add, heat, stir.

Lex Fridman (3:05:14.040)

So there's a bunch of unit operations.

Lex Fridman (3:05:17.960)

And all it is, really, is just,

Lee Cronin (3:05:19.560)

it's with chemical engineers,

Lex Fridman (3:05:21.880)

when I talked about this,

Lee Cronin (3:05:22.720)

that you've just rediscovered chemical engineering.

Lex Fridman (3:05:26.000)

And I said, well, yeah, I know.

Lee Cronin (3:05:27.760)

I said, well, that's trivial.

Lex Fridman (3:05:30.120)

I said, well, not really.

Lee Cronin (3:05:31.840)

Well, yes, it is trivial, and that's why it's good,

Lex Fridman (3:05:33.680)

because not only have we rediscovered chemical engineering,

Lee Cronin (3:05:36.840)

we've made it implementable on the universal hardware

Lex Fridman (3:05:38.940)

that doesn't cost very much money.

Lex Fridman (3:05:40.720)

And so the CHI DL has a series of statements.

Lex Fridman (3:05:43.960)

Like define the reactor.

Lex Fridman (3:05:46.160)

So defines the reagents.

Lex Fridman (3:05:49.320)

So they're all labels, so you assign them.

Lex Fridman (3:05:52.160)

And what I also implemented at the beginning is,

Lex Fridman (3:05:55.440)

because I give all the hardware IP address,

Lee Cronin (3:05:57.980)

you put it on a graph.

Lex Fridman (3:05:59.400)

And so what it does is like the graph is equivalent

Lee Cronin (3:06:02.280)

to the processor firmware, the processor code.

Lex Fridman (3:06:06.600)

So when you take your CHI DL,

Lex Fridman (3:06:08.600)

and you go to run it on your computer,

Lex Fridman (3:06:10.160)

you can run it on any compatible hardware

Lex Fridman (3:06:12.040)

in any configuration, it says, what does your graph look like?

Lex Fridman (3:06:14.840)

As long as I can solve the problem on the graph

Lee Cronin (3:06:17.000)

with these unit operations,

Lex Fridman (3:06:17.840)

and you have the resources available, it can compile.

Lee Cronin (3:06:20.360)

Chem piles.

Lex Fridman (3:06:21.680)

Ah ha.

Lee Cronin (3:06:22.520)

Ha ha ha.

Lex Fridman (3:06:23.360)

Ha ha ha.

Lee Cronin (3:06:24.200)

Oh.

Lex Fridman (3:06:25.640)

All right, we can carry on for years.

Lex Fridman (3:06:27.080)

But it is really, it's chempilation.

Lex Fridman (3:06:29.080)

Chempilation, yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:06:29.920)

And what it now does is it says, okay,

Lex Fridman (3:06:32.740)

the problem we have before is it was possible

Lee Cronin (3:06:35.440)

to do robotics for chemistry,

Lex Fridman (3:06:37.800)

but the robots were really expensive.

Lee Cronin (3:06:39.440)

They were unique.

Lex Fridman (3:06:40.600)

They were vendor locked.

Lex Fridman (3:06:42.800)

And what I want to do is to make sure

Lex Fridman (3:06:44.520)

that every chemist in the world can get access

Lee Cronin (3:06:46.880)

to machinery like this at virtually no cost,

Lex Fridman (3:06:49.960)

because it makes it safer.

Lee Cronin (3:06:51.800)

It makes it more reliable.

Lex Fridman (3:06:53.720)

And then if you go to the literature

Lex Fridman (3:06:55.280)

and you find a molecule that could potentially cure cancer,

Lex Fridman (3:06:58.360)

and let's say the molecule that could potentially

Lee Cronin (3:06:59.840)

cure cancer takes you three years to repeat,

Lex Fridman (3:07:03.000)

and maybe a student finishes their PhD in the time

Lex Fridman (3:07:06.560)

and they never get it back.

Lex Fridman (3:07:07.920)

So that it's really hard to kind of get all the way

Lee Cronin (3:07:12.720)

to that molecule, and it limits the ability

Lex Fridman (3:07:14.480)

of humanity to build on it.

Lee Cronin (3:07:16.400)

If they just download the code and can execute it,

Lex Fridman (3:07:19.000)

it turns, I would say the electronic laboratory notebook

Lee Cronin (3:07:22.680)

in chemistry is a data cemetery,

Lex Fridman (3:07:26.440)

because no one will ever reproduce it.

Lee Cronin (3:07:28.560)

For now, the data cemetery is a Jupiter notebook

Lex Fridman (3:07:30.900)

and you can just execute it.

Lee Cronin (3:07:31.740)

A notebook and people can play with it,

Lex Fridman (3:07:33.600)

the access to it.

Lee Cronin (3:07:34.640)

Reversion it.

Lex Fridman (3:07:35.480)

Orders of magnitude is increased.

Lee Cronin (3:07:37.680)

We'll talk about the, so as with all technologies,

Lex Fridman (3:07:41.480)

I think there's way more exciting possibilities,

Lex Fridman (3:07:43.800)

but there are also terrifying possibilities,

Lex Fridman (3:07:45.660)

and we'll talk about all of them.

Lex Fridman (3:07:47.400)

But let me just kind of linger on the machine learning

Lex Fridman (3:07:50.920)

side of this.

Lex Fridman (3:07:51.760)

So you're describing programming,

Lex Fridman (3:07:53.480)

but it's a language, I don't know if you've heard

Lee Cronin (3:07:57.480)

about OpenAI Codex, which is.

Lex Fridman (3:07:59.400)

Yeah, I'm playing with it.

Lee Cronin (3:08:00.600)

You're playing, of course you are.

Lex Fridman (3:08:02.560)

Yeah, you really are Rick from Rick and Morty.

Lee Cronin (3:08:07.960)

This is great.

Lex Fridman (3:08:08.800)

Okay, except philosophically deep.

Lee Cronin (3:08:12.160)

I mean, he is, I guess, kind of philosophically deep too.

Lex Fridman (3:08:14.980)

So for people who don't know, GPT, GPT3,

Lee Cronin (3:08:18.540)

that's a language model that can do natural language

Lex Fridman (3:08:21.560)

generation, so you can give it a prompt

Lex Fridman (3:08:23.920)

and it can complete the rest of it.

Lex Fridman (3:08:26.440)

But it turns out that that kind of prompt,

Lee Cronin (3:08:28.920)

it's not just completes the rest of it,

Lex Fridman (3:08:30.760)

it's generating like novel sounding text,

Lex Fridman (3:08:36.440)

and then you can apply that to generation

Lex Fridman (3:08:38.280)

of other kinds of stuff.

Lex Fridman (3:08:40.700)

So these kinds of transformer based language models

Lex Fridman (3:08:43.920)

are really good at forming deep representations

Lee Cronin (3:08:49.720)

of a particular space, like a medium, like language.

Lex Fridman (3:08:54.440)

So you can then apply it to specific subset of language

Lee Cronin (3:08:56.900)

like programming, so you can have it learn

Lex Fridman (3:09:00.840)

the representation of the Python programming language

Lex Fridman (3:09:03.200)

and use it to then generate syntactically

Lex Fridman (3:09:06.560)

and semantically correct programs.

Lex Fridman (3:09:10.440)

So you can start to make progress on one of the hardest

Lex Fridman (3:09:13.000)

problems in computer science, which is program synthesis.

Lex Fridman (3:09:16.080)

How do you write programs that accomplish different tasks?

Lex Fridman (3:09:19.640)

So what OpenAI Codex does is it to generate

Lee Cronin (3:09:24.640)

those programs based on a prompt of some kind.

Lex Fridman (3:09:28.700)

Usually you can do a natural language prompt,

Lex Fridman (3:09:30.780)

so basically as you do when you program,

Lex Fridman (3:09:32.780)

you write some comment which serves the basic documentation

Lee Cronin (3:09:37.940)

of the inputs and the outputs and the function

Lex Fridman (3:09:40.100)

of the particular set of code and it's able

Lee Cronin (3:09:41.660)

to generate that.

Lex Fridman (3:09:43.300)

Point being is you can generate programs

Lee Cronin (3:09:46.740)

using machine learning, using neural networks.

Lex Fridman (3:09:49.660)

Those programs operate on the boring old computer.

Lex Fridman (3:09:56.980)

Can you generate programs that operate,

Lex Fridman (3:09:59.580)

this gotta be a clever version of programs for this,

Lex Fridman (3:10:01.700)

but can you write programs that operate on a computer?

Lex Fridman (3:10:06.460)

Yep, there's actually software out there right now

Lee Cronin (3:10:08.780)

you can go and do it.

Lex Fridman (3:10:10.340)

Really?

Lee Cronin (3:10:11.180)

Yeah, yeah, it's a heuristic, it's rule based,

Lex Fridman (3:10:14.300)

but we have, what we've done, inspired by Codex actually,

Lee Cronin (3:10:20.340)

is over the summer I ran a little workshop.

Lex Fridman (3:10:23.540)

Some of my groups got this inspired idea

Lee Cronin (3:10:25.140)

that we should get a load of students

Lex Fridman (3:10:28.060)

and ask them to manually collect data,

Lee Cronin (3:10:30.660)

to label chemical procedures into Kydy L.

Lex Fridman (3:10:35.220)

And we have a cool synth reader.

Lex Fridman (3:10:38.820)

So there's a bunch of people doing this right now,

Lex Fridman (3:10:41.940)

but they're doing it without abstraction.

Lex Fridman (3:10:46.120)

And because we have an abstraction

Lex Fridman (3:10:47.460)

that's implementable in the hardware,

Lee Cronin (3:10:50.260)

we've developed basically a chemical analog of Codex.

Lex Fridman (3:10:54.900)

When you say, sorry to interrupt,

Lex Fridman (3:10:56.900)

when you say abstraction in the hardware, what do you mean?

Lex Fridman (3:10:59.900)

So right now, a lot of people doing machine learning

Lex Fridman (3:11:01.800)

and reading chemistry and saying,

Lex Fridman (3:11:04.480)

oh, you've got all these operations,

Lee Cronin (3:11:05.980)

add, shake, whatever, heat.

Lex Fridman (3:11:07.840)

But because they don't have a uniform,

Lee Cronin (3:11:11.260)

I mean, it's a couple of groups doing it,

Lex Fridman (3:11:12.820)

competitors actually, and they're good, very good.

Lex Fridman (3:11:15.660)

But they can't run that code automatically.

Lex Fridman (3:11:20.500)

They are losing meaning.

Lex Fridman (3:11:24.800)

And the really important thing that you have to do

Lex Fridman (3:11:28.300)

is generate context.

Lex Fridman (3:11:29.980)

And so what we've learned to do with our abstraction

Lex Fridman (3:11:32.780)

is make sure we can pull the context out of the text.

Lex Fridman (3:11:36.380)

And so can we take a chemical procedure

Lex Fridman (3:11:40.500)

and read it and generate our executable code?

Lee Cronin (3:11:42.840)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (3:11:43.960)

What's the hardest part about that whole pipeline

Lee Cronin (3:11:45.980)

from the initial text, interpreting the initial text

Lex Fridman (3:11:48.300)

of a paper, extracting the meaningful context

Lex Fridman (3:11:52.240)

and the meaningful chemical information

Lex Fridman (3:11:54.380)

to then generating the program

Lex Fridman (3:11:56.780)

to then running that program in the hardware?

Lex Fridman (3:12:00.300)

What's the hardest part about that pipeline

Lex Fridman (3:12:02.340)

as we look towards a universal Turing computer?

Lex Fridman (3:12:05.780)

So the hardest thing with the pipeline

Lee Cronin (3:12:10.580)

is that the software, the model gets confused

Lex Fridman (3:12:16.500)

between some meanings, right?

Lex Fridman (3:12:18.300)

So if, you know, chemists are very good at inventing words

Lex Fridman (3:12:21.700)

that aren't broken down.

Lex Fridman (3:12:22.840)

So I would, the classic word that you would use

Lex Fridman (3:12:25.960)

for boiling something is called reflux.

Lex Fridman (3:12:28.200)

So reflux is, you would have a solvent

Lex Fridman (3:12:31.020)

in a round bottom flask, at reflux it would be boiling,

Lee Cronin (3:12:33.720)

going up the reflux condenser and coming down.

Lex Fridman (3:12:35.980)

But that term reflux to reflux could be changed, you know,

Lee Cronin (3:12:40.180)

to people often make up words, new words,

Lex Fridman (3:12:44.300)

and then the software can fall over.

Lex Fridman (3:12:47.340)

But what we've been able to do is a bit like in Python

Lex Fridman (3:12:50.940)

or any programming language is identify

Lee Cronin (3:12:53.380)

when things aren't matched.

Lex Fridman (3:12:55.100)

So you present the code and you say, this isn't matched.

Lee Cronin (3:12:57.340)

You may want to think about this.

Lex Fridman (3:12:58.540)

And then the user goes and says, oh, I mean reflux

Lex Fridman (3:13:01.100)

and just ticks a box and collects it.

Lex Fridman (3:13:02.660)

So what the Codex or the Chemex does in this case

Lee Cronin (3:13:08.520)

is it just, it suggests the first go

Lex Fridman (3:13:12.500)

and then the chemist goes in and corrects it.

Lex Fridman (3:13:14.100)

And I really want the chemist to correct it

Lex Fridman (3:13:16.220)

because it's not safe, I believe, for it to allow AI

Lee Cronin (3:13:21.980)

to just read literature and generate code at this stage.

Lex Fridman (3:13:25.060)

Because now you're having actual, by the way, Chemex,

Lee Cronin (3:13:28.540)

nice, nice name, so you are unlike, which is fascinating.

Lex Fridman (3:13:38.920)

It's that we live in a fascinating moment in human history.

Lex Fridman (3:13:42.340)

But yes, you're literally connecting AI

Lex Fridman (3:13:47.020)

to some physical and like it's building something

Lee Cronin (3:13:52.140)

in the physical realm, especially in the space

Lex Fridman (3:13:55.180)

of chemistry that operates sort of invisibly.

Lee Cronin (3:14:02.660)

Yeah, yeah, I would say that's right.

Lex Fridman (3:14:05.500)

And it's really important to understand

Lex Fridman (3:14:07.420)

those labeling schemes, right?

Lex Fridman (3:14:09.280)

And one of the things I was never,

Lee Cronin (3:14:11.340)

I was always worried about the beginning

Lex Fridman (3:14:12.700)

that the abstraction was gonna fall over.

Lex Fridman (3:14:15.260)

And the way we did it was just by brute force to start with.

Lex Fridman (3:14:18.340)

We just kept reading the literature and saying,

Lex Fridman (3:14:19.880)

is there anything new?

Lex Fridman (3:14:20.720)

Can we add a new rule in?

Lex Fridman (3:14:21.740)

And actually our KyDL language expanded, exploded.

Lex Fridman (3:14:25.380)

There was so many extra things we had to keep adding.

Lex Fridman (3:14:28.140)

And then I realized the primitives still were maintained

Lex Fridman (3:14:31.140)

and I could break them down again.

Lex Fridman (3:14:32.640)

So it's pretty good.

Lex Fridman (3:14:35.100)

I mean, there are problems.

Lee Cronin (3:14:36.120)

There are problems of interpreting any big sentence

Lex Fridman (3:14:38.500)

and turning it into an actionable code.

Lex Fridman (3:14:40.700)

And in Codex, it's not without its problems.

Lex Fridman (3:14:42.300)

You can crash it quite easily, right?

Lee Cronin (3:14:44.080)

You can generate nonsense.

Lex Fridman (3:14:45.540)

But boy, it's interesting.

Lex Fridman (3:14:47.680)

I would love to learn to program now using Codex, right?

Lex Fridman (3:14:52.780)

Just hacking around, right?

Lex Fridman (3:14:54.180)

And I wonder if chemists in the future will learn

Lex Fridman (3:14:55.940)

to do chemistry by just hacking around with the system

Lex Fridman (3:15:01.220)

and writing different things.

Lex Fridman (3:15:02.140)

Because the key thing that we're doing with the chemistry

Lee Cronin (3:15:04.300)

is that where a lot of mathematical chemistry went wrong

Lex Fridman (3:15:07.220)

is people, and I think Wolfram does this in Mathematica,

Lee Cronin (3:15:11.540)

he assumes that chemistry is a reaction where atom A

Lex Fridman (3:15:15.660)

or molecule A reacts with molecule B

Lee Cronin (3:15:17.460)

to give molecule C.

Lex Fridman (3:15:18.300)

That's not what chemistry is.

Lee Cronin (3:15:20.460)

Chemistry is take some molecule,

Lex Fridman (3:15:23.100)

take a liquid or a solid, mix it up and heat it

Lex Fridman (3:15:27.740)

and then extract it.

Lex Fridman (3:15:29.380)

So the programming language is actually with respect

Lee Cronin (3:15:32.540)

to the process operations.

Lex Fridman (3:15:35.380)

And if you flick in process space,

Lee Cronin (3:15:37.800)

not in chemical graph space, you unlock everything

Lex Fridman (3:15:41.500)

because there's only a finite number of processes

Lee Cronin (3:15:43.220)

you need to do in chemistry.

Lex Fridman (3:15:45.180)

And that's reassuring.

Lex Fridman (3:15:47.220)

And so we're in the middle of it, it's really exciting.

Lex Fridman (3:15:51.620)

It's not the be all and the end all.

Lex Fridman (3:15:53.620)

And there is like I say, errors that can creep in.

Lex Fridman (3:15:55.800)

One day we might be able to do it without human interaction

Lex Fridman (3:15:58.620)

and you simulate it.

Lex Fridman (3:15:59.460)

And you'll know enough about the simulation

Lee Cronin (3:16:01.500)

that the lab won't catch fire.

Lex Fridman (3:16:05.420)

But there are so many safety issues right now

Lee Cronin (3:16:07.060)

that we've got to really be very careful,

Lex Fridman (3:16:09.740)

protecting the user, protecting the environment,

Lee Cronin (3:16:11.940)

protecting misuse.

Lex Fridman (3:16:13.040)

I mean, there's lots to discuss

Lee Cronin (3:16:14.880)

if you want to go down that route

Lex Fridman (3:16:16.100)

because it's very, very interesting.

Lee Cronin (3:16:17.620)

You don't want Novichoks being made

Lex Fridman (3:16:20.620)

or explosives being made or recreational drugs being made.

Lex Fridman (3:16:26.340)

But how do you stop a molecular biologist making a drug

Lex Fridman (3:16:30.380)

that's gonna be important for them looking

Lee Cronin (3:16:32.100)

at their particular assay

Lex Fridman (3:16:35.260)

on a bad actor trying to make methamphetamine?

Lee Cronin (3:16:38.940)

I saw how you looked at me when you said bad actor,

Lex Fridman (3:16:41.100)

but that's exactly what I'm gonna do.

Lee Cronin (3:16:42.940)

I'm trying to get the details of this so I can be first.

Lex Fridman (3:16:45.460)

Don't worry, we can protect you from yourself.

Lee Cronin (3:16:47.460)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (3:16:50.180)

I'm not sure that's true, but that statement gives me hope.

Lee Cronin (3:16:54.060)

Does this ultimately excite you about the future

Lex Fridman (3:17:00.660)

or does it terrify you?

Lex Fridman (3:17:01.980)

So let's, we mentioned that time is fundamental.

Lex Fridman (3:17:07.120)

It seems like you're at the cutting edge of progress

Lee Cronin (3:17:12.120)

that will have to happen, that will happen,

Lex Fridman (3:17:15.760)

that there's no stopping it.

Lex Fridman (3:17:18.640)

And I, as we've been talking about,

Lex Fridman (3:17:20.800)

I see obviously a huge number of exciting possibilities.

Lex Fridman (3:17:24.640)

So whenever you automate these kinds of things,

Lex Fridman (3:17:29.280)

just the world opens up.

Lee Cronin (3:17:31.400)

It's like programming itself and the computer,

Lex Fridman (3:17:34.600)

regular computer, has created innumerable applications.

Lee Cronin (3:17:39.520)

It made the world better in so many dimensions.

Lex Fridman (3:17:43.600)

And it created, of course, a lot of negative things

Lee Cronin (3:17:45.960)

that we, for some reason, like to focus on

Lex Fridman (3:17:48.960)

using that very technology to tweet about it.

Lex Fridman (3:17:52.400)

But I think it made a much better world,

Lex Fridman (3:17:55.500)

but it created a lot of new dangers.

Lex Fridman (3:17:57.600)

So maybe you can speak to when you have,

Lex Fridman (3:18:02.600)

when you kind of stand at the end of the road

Lee Cronin (3:18:07.600)

for building a really solid, reliable, universal computer.

Lex Fridman (3:18:14.480)

What are the possibilities that are positive?

Lex Fridman (3:18:16.400)

What are the possibilities that are negative?

Lex Fridman (3:18:18.120)

How can we minimize the chance of the negative?

Lee Cronin (3:18:21.080)

Yeah, that's a really good question.

Lex Fridman (3:18:22.460)

So there's so many positive things,

Lee Cronin (3:18:23.960)

from drug discovery, from supply chain stress,

Lex Fridman (3:18:28.760)

for basically enabling chemists

Lex Fridman (3:18:30.680)

to basically build more productive in the lab, right?

Lex Fridman (3:18:32.600)

Where this is, the computer's not gonna replace the chemist.

Lex Fridman (3:18:35.320)

There's gonna be a Moore's law of molecules, right?

Lex Fridman (3:18:37.400)

There's gonna be so many more molecules we can design,

Lex Fridman (3:18:39.760)

so many more diseases we can cure.

Lex Fridman (3:18:41.560)

So chemists in the lab as researchers,

Lee Cronin (3:18:43.420)

that's better for science.

Lex Fridman (3:18:44.740)

So they can build a bunch of,

Lee Cronin (3:18:47.920)

like they could do science at a much more accelerated pace.

Lex Fridman (3:18:50.400)

So it's not just the development of drugs,

Lee Cronin (3:18:51.960)

it's actually like doing the basic understanding

Lex Fridman (3:18:54.300)

and the science of drugs.

Lex Fridman (3:18:55.200)

And the personalization, the cost of drugs right now,

Lex Fridman (3:18:57.760)

we're all living longer, we're all having more and more,

Lee Cronin (3:19:00.360)

we know more about our genomic development,

Lex Fridman (3:19:02.320)

we know about our predetermination,

Lex Fridman (3:19:05.000)

and we might be able to,

Lex Fridman (3:19:06.440)

one dream I've got is like,

Lee Cronin (3:19:07.920)

imagine you can work at your genome assistant

Lex Fridman (3:19:11.880)

tells you you're gonna get cancer in seven years time,

Lex Fridman (3:19:14.600)

and you have your personal computer

Lex Fridman (3:19:16.800)

that cooks up the right molecule just for you to cure it,

Lex Fridman (3:19:20.060)

right?

Lex Fridman (3:19:20.900)

That's a really positive idea.

Lee Cronin (3:19:22.480)

The other thing is when drugs,

Lex Fridman (3:19:25.240)

so right now I think it's absolutely outrageous

Lee Cronin (3:19:28.640)

that not all of humanity has access to medicine.

Lex Fridman (3:19:33.140)

And I think the computer

Lee Cronin (3:19:34.780)

might be able to change that fundamentally

Lex Fridman (3:19:36.020)

because it will disrupt the way things are manufactured.

Lex Fridman (3:19:38.960)

So let's stop thinking about manufacturing

Lex Fridman (3:19:40.860)

in different factories.

Lee Cronin (3:19:41.900)

Let's say that computers,

Lex Fridman (3:19:44.420)

clinical grade computers or drug grade computers

Lee Cronin (3:19:47.040)

will be in facilities all around the world,

Lex Fridman (3:19:49.760)

and they can make things on demand

Lee Cronin (3:19:52.720)

as a function of the cost.

Lex Fridman (3:19:54.440)

Maybe people won't be able to afford

Lee Cronin (3:19:55.640)

the latest and greatest patent,

Lex Fridman (3:19:57.200)

but maybe they'll be able to get the next best thing

Lex Fridman (3:20:00.160)

and will basically democratize,

Lex Fridman (3:20:02.800)

make available drugs to everybody that they need.

Lex Fridman (3:20:06.640)

And there's lots of really interesting things there.

Lex Fridman (3:20:10.560)

So I think that's gonna happen.

Lee Cronin (3:20:12.520)

I think that now let's take the negative.

Lex Fridman (3:20:16.980)

Before we do that,

Lee Cronin (3:20:18.260)

let's imagine what happened,

Lex Fridman (3:20:19.480)

go back to a really tragic accident a few years ago,

Lee Cronin (3:20:21.920)

well not accident,

Lex Fridman (3:20:23.000)

an act of murder by that pilot on the,

Lee Cronin (3:20:26.080)

I think it was Eurowings or Swisswings.

Lex Fridman (3:20:28.360)

But what he did is plane took off,

Lee Cronin (3:20:30.700)

he waited till his pilot went to the toilet,

Lex Fridman (3:20:33.500)

he was a co pilot,

Lee Cronin (3:20:34.340)

he locked the door and then set the autopilot

Lex Fridman (3:20:39.180)

above the Alps,

Lee Cronin (3:20:40.020)

he set the altimeter or the descend height to zero.

Lex Fridman (3:20:44.200)

So the computer just took the plane into the Alps.

Lee Cronin (3:20:48.100)

Now, I mean, that was such a tragedy

Lex Fridman (3:20:51.500)

that obviously the guy was mentally ill,

Lex Fridman (3:20:53.180)

but it wasn't just a tragedy for him,

Lex Fridman (3:20:55.100)

it was for all the people on board.

Lex Fridman (3:20:57.060)

But what if, and I was inspired by this

Lex Fridman (3:20:58.940)

and my thinking, what can I do to anticipate

Lex Fridman (3:21:03.140)

problems like this in the computer?

Lex Fridman (3:21:05.260)

Had the software,

Lex Fridman (3:21:06.900)

and I'm sure Boeing and Airbus will be thinking,

Lex Fridman (3:21:09.300)

oh, maybe I can give the computer

Lee Cronin (3:21:11.260)

a bit more situational awareness.

Lex Fridman (3:21:12.660)

So whenever one tries to drop the height of the plane

Lex Fridman (3:21:15.660)

and it knows it's above the Alps,

Lex Fridman (3:21:16.860)

we'll just say, oh no, computer says no,

Lee Cronin (3:21:18.460)

we're not letting you do that.

Lex Fridman (3:21:20.540)

Of course, he would have been able to find another way,

Lee Cronin (3:21:22.240)

maybe fly it until it runs out of fuel or something,

Lex Fridman (3:21:24.260)

but you know.

Lee Cronin (3:21:25.340)

Keep anticipating all the large number of trajectories

Lex Fridman (3:21:28.820)

that can go negative,

Lee Cronin (3:21:29.660)

all those kinds of running into the Alps

Lex Fridman (3:21:31.420)

and try to at least make it easy

Lee Cronin (3:21:35.700)

for the engineers to build systems that are protecting us.

Lex Fridman (3:21:38.500)

Yeah, and let's just think,

Lex Fridman (3:21:40.460)

what in the computer world right now with Kydeals,

Lex Fridman (3:21:43.020)

let's just not think about what I'm doing right now.

Lex Fridman (3:21:45.020)

What I'm doing right now is it's completely open, right?

Lex Fridman (3:21:47.100)

Everyone's gonna know Kydeals and be playing with them,

Lee Cronin (3:21:48.980)

making them more easier and easier and easier.

Lex Fridman (3:21:51.340)

But what we're gonna start to do,

Lee Cronin (3:21:53.020)

it makes sense to encrypt the Kydeals in such a way,

Lex Fridman (3:21:59.060)

let's say you work for a pharmaceutical company

Lex Fridman (3:22:01.180)

and you have a license to make given molecule,

Lex Fridman (3:22:03.580)

well, you get issued with a license

Lee Cronin (3:22:05.220)

by the FDA or your local authority

Lex Fridman (3:22:07.460)

and they'll say, right, your license to do it,

Lee Cronin (3:22:08.940)

here it is, it's encrypted and the Kydeal gets run.

Lex Fridman (3:22:12.380)

So you have a license for that instance of use, easy to do.

Lee Cronin (3:22:15.460)

Computer science has already solved the problem.

Lex Fridman (3:22:17.620)

So the fact that we all trust online banking, right,

Lee Cronin (3:22:21.260)

the right now, then we can secure it.

Lex Fridman (3:22:23.100)

I'm 100% sure we can secure the computer.

Lex Fridman (3:22:26.580)

And because of the way we have a many,

Lex Fridman (3:22:28.620)

it's like the same mapping problem that you,

Lee Cronin (3:22:32.700)

to actually reverse engineer a Kydeal

Lex Fridman (3:22:34.460)

will be as hard as reverse engineering the encryption key,

Lee Cronin (3:22:38.740)

brute force, it will be cheaper

Lex Fridman (3:22:41.260)

to just actually buy the regulated medicine.

Lex Fridman (3:22:44.420)

And actually people aren't gonna want to then

Lex Fridman (3:22:46.900)

make their own fake pharmaceuticals

Lee Cronin (3:22:49.380)

because it'll be so cheap to do it.

Lex Fridman (3:22:51.380)

We'll drop the cost of access to drugs.

Lex Fridman (3:22:53.700)

Now what will happen?

Lex Fridman (3:22:54.780)

Recreational drugs.

Lee Cronin (3:22:56.180)

People will start saying,

Lex Fridman (3:22:57.020)

well, I want access to recreational drugs.

Lee Cronin (3:22:59.700)

Well, it's gonna be up to,

Lex Fridman (3:23:01.220)

it's gonna accelerate that social discussion

Lee Cronin (3:23:03.940)

that's happening in the US and Canada and UK,

Lex Fridman (3:23:06.340)

everywhere, right?

Lee Cronin (3:23:07.180)

Because cost goes down, access goes up.

Lex Fridman (3:23:10.340)

Giving cannabis THC to some people who've got epilepsy

Lee Cronin (3:23:13.780)

isn't literally, forgive the term, a no brainer

Lex Fridman (3:23:16.540)

because these poor people go from seizures like every day

Lee Cronin (3:23:19.660)

to maybe seizures just once every few months.

Lex Fridman (3:23:22.500)

That's an interesting idea to try to minimize the chance

Lee Cronin (3:23:25.460)

that it can get into like the hands of individuals

Lex Fridman (3:23:29.020)

like terrorists or people that want to do harm.

Lee Cronin (3:23:32.940)

Now with that kind of thing,

Lex Fridman (3:23:35.700)

you're putting a lot of power in the hands of governments,

Lee Cronin (3:23:39.180)

in the hands of institutions.

Lex Fridman (3:23:40.500)

And so then emerge the kind of natural criticism

Lee Cronin (3:23:44.140)

you might have of governments that can sometimes use these

Lex Fridman (3:23:47.420)

for ill, use them as weapons of war,

Lee Cronin (3:23:50.940)

not tools of betterment.

Lex Fridman (3:23:54.700)

So, and sometimes not just war against other nations,

Lex Fridman (3:23:59.580)

but war against its own people

Lex Fridman (3:24:01.540)

as it has been done throughout history.

Lee Cronin (3:24:04.540)

Well, I'm thinking, so there's another way of doing it,

Lex Fridman (3:24:06.220)

a decentralized peer to peer version

Lee Cronin (3:24:09.260)

where, and what you have to do,

Lex Fridman (3:24:11.220)

I'm not saying you should adopt a blockchain,

Lex Fridman (3:24:13.060)

but there is a way of maybe taking Kydeals

Lex Fridman (3:24:14.940)

and put them in blockchain.

Lee Cronin (3:24:16.220)

Here's an idea, let's just say,

Lex Fridman (3:24:17.780)

the way we're doing it in my lab right now

Lee Cronin (3:24:18.820)

is we go to the literature,

Lex Fridman (3:24:20.420)

we take a recipe to make a molecule,

Lee Cronin (3:24:23.140)

convert that to Kydeal and diligently make it in the robot

Lex Fridman (3:24:27.180)

and validate it.

Lee Cronin (3:24:28.180)

We, that, so we, I would call mining proof of work,

Lex Fridman (3:24:31.740)

proof of synthesis, right?

Lee Cronin (3:24:34.060)

Proof of the synthesis.

Lex Fridman (3:24:35.060)

Yeah, yeah, but this is cool because suddenly

Lee Cronin (3:24:37.820)

when you actually synthesize it,

Lex Fridman (3:24:38.980)

you can get the analytical data,

Lex Fridman (3:24:40.180)

but there's also a fingerprint in there

Lex Fridman (3:24:41.540)

of the impurities that get carried across

Lee Cronin (3:24:43.660)

because you can never make one, something 100% pure.

Lex Fridman (3:24:46.420)

That fingerprint will allow you to secure your Kydeal.

Lex Fridman (3:24:49.700)

So what you do is encrypt those two things.

Lex Fridman (3:24:51.500)

So suddenly you can have people out there mining

Lex Fridman (3:24:54.140)

and what you could do perhaps is do the type of thing,

Lex Fridman (3:24:58.060)

we need to basically look at the way that contact tracing

Lee Cronin (3:25:01.660)

should have been done in COVID

Lex Fridman (3:25:03.220)

where people are given the information.

Lex Fridman (3:25:05.500)

So you have just been in contact with someone COVID,

Lex Fridman (3:25:07.940)

you choose, I'm not telling you to stay at home,

Lex Fridman (3:25:10.540)

you choose, right?

Lex Fridman (3:25:12.260)

So now if we could imagine a similar thing,

Lee Cronin (3:25:14.260)

like, you know, you have got access to these chemicals,

Lex Fridman (3:25:17.460)

they will have these effects,

Lee Cronin (3:25:18.500)

you choose and publicize it,

Lex Fridman (3:25:20.940)

or maybe it's out somewhere, I don't know.

Lee Cronin (3:25:22.660)

I'm not a policymaker on this.

Lex Fridman (3:25:25.260)

And what my job here is

Lee Cronin (3:25:26.820)

to not just make the technology possible,

Lex Fridman (3:25:29.220)

but to have as open as a discussion as possible

Lee Cronin (3:25:31.940)

with people to say, hey,

Lex Fridman (3:25:33.380)

can we stop childhood mortality with this technology?

Lex Fridman (3:25:36.900)

And do those benefits outweigh the one off

Lex Fridman (3:25:40.300)

where people might use it for terrorism

Lex Fridman (3:25:42.420)

or people might use it for recreational drugs?

Lex Fridman (3:25:45.380)

Chemify, which is the name of the entity

Lee Cronin (3:25:47.340)

that will make this happen,

Lex Fridman (3:25:48.540)

I think we have some social responsibilities as an entity

Lee Cronin (3:25:51.660)

to make sure that we're not enabling people

Lex Fridman (3:25:53.340)

to manufacture personal drugs, weapons at will.

Lex Fridman (3:25:56.740)

And what we have to do is have a discussion with society,

Lex Fridman (3:25:59.620)

with the people that invest in this,

Lee Cronin (3:26:01.260)

with people that are gonna pay for this,

Lex Fridman (3:26:03.660)

to say, well, do you wanna live longer?

Lex Fridman (3:26:05.820)

And do you wanna be healthier?

Lex Fridman (3:26:07.500)

And are you willing to accept some of the risks?

Lex Fridman (3:26:09.620)

And I think that's a discussion to have.

Lex Fridman (3:26:11.780)

So by the way, when you say personal drugs,

Lex Fridman (3:26:14.540)

do you mean the illegal ones?

Lex Fridman (3:26:16.220)

Or do you have a concern of just putting the manufacturer

Lee Cronin (3:26:19.820)

of any kind of illegal drugs

Lex Fridman (3:26:22.260)

in the hands of regular people?

Lee Cronin (3:26:25.940)

Cause they might, like dose matters.

Lex Fridman (3:26:28.100)

They might take way too much.

Lee Cronin (3:26:29.900)

I mean, I would say, to be honest,

Lex Fridman (3:26:31.980)

the chances of computers being,

Lee Cronin (3:26:34.060)

well, shouldn't always never.

Lex Fridman (3:26:35.700)

So the fact I can now say this means

Lex Fridman (3:26:37.540)

it's totally gonna come true, right?

Lex Fridman (3:26:39.220)

And I'm going to do it.

Lee Cronin (3:26:40.900)

I cannot imagine that computers will be

Lex Fridman (3:26:43.300)

in people's houses anytime soon,

Lex Fridman (3:26:45.420)

but they might be at the local pharmacy, right?

Lex Fridman (3:26:48.540)

And if you've got a drug manufacturing facility

Lee Cronin (3:26:51.140)

in every town, then you just go

Lex Fridman (3:26:53.580)

and they give you a prescription.

Lee Cronin (3:26:54.700)

They do it in such a way, they format it

Lex Fridman (3:26:56.260)

so that you don't have to take 10 pills every day.

Lee Cronin (3:26:59.380)

You get one manufactured for you

Lex Fridman (3:27:01.940)

that has all the materials you need

Lex Fridman (3:27:03.580)

and the right distribution.

Lex Fridman (3:27:04.980)

Got it.

Lex Fridman (3:27:05.820)

But you mentioned recreational drugs.

Lex Fridman (3:27:07.300)

And the reason I mention it,

Lee Cronin (3:27:09.220)

cause I know people are going to speak up on this.

Lex Fridman (3:27:12.020)

If the drug is legal, there's to me,

Lee Cronin (3:27:14.820)

no reason why you can't manufacture it for recreation.

Lex Fridman (3:27:18.780)

I mean, you can do it right now.

Lex Fridman (3:27:19.620)

What do you have against fun, Lee?

Lex Fridman (3:27:22.580)

I have, so I mean, I'm a chemistry professor

Lee Cronin (3:27:26.180)

in a university who's an entrepreneur as well.

Lex Fridman (3:27:29.420)

I just think I need to be as responsible

Lee Cronin (3:27:31.780)

as I can in the discussion.

Lex Fridman (3:27:33.020)

Sure, no, sure, sure.

Lex Fridman (3:27:35.140)

But I know, so let me be the one that says

Lex Fridman (3:27:37.540)

like there's nothing, cause you have said

Lee Cronin (3:27:40.180)

recreational drugs and like terrorism in the same sentence.

Lex Fridman (3:27:44.340)

I think let's make sure we draw a line

Lee Cronin (3:27:47.980)

that there's real dangers to the world

Lex Fridman (3:27:50.740)

of terrorists of bio warfare.

Lex Fridman (3:27:53.380)

And then there's a little bit of weed.

Lex Fridman (3:27:55.820)

So I haven't, I mean, I think it's up to the society

Lee Cronin (3:27:59.980)

to tell his governments what it wants,

Lex Fridman (3:28:03.020)

what's acceptable, right?

Lex Fridman (3:28:04.740)

And if it becomes, let's say that THCs

Lex Fridman (3:28:07.820)

become heavily acceptable and that you can modify them.

Lex Fridman (3:28:12.860)

So let's say there's, let's say it's like blood type.

Lex Fridman (3:28:15.620)

There's a particular type of THC

Lee Cronin (3:28:17.380)

that you tolerate better than I do.

Lex Fridman (3:28:20.340)

Then why not have a machine that makes the one you like?

Lex Fridman (3:28:23.540)

And then, and why not?

Lex Fridman (3:28:24.380)

It's the perfect brownie.

Lee Cronin (3:28:26.020)

Yeah, and I think that that's fine.

Lex Fridman (3:28:29.620)

But I'm, we're so far away from that.

Lex Fridman (3:28:32.140)

I can barely get the thing to work in the lab, right?

Lex Fridman (3:28:34.500)

And I mean, it's reliability and all this other stuff,

Lex Fridman (3:28:36.780)

but what I think is gonna happen in the short term,

Lex Fridman (3:28:39.100)

it's gonna turbocharge molecular discovery reliability

Lex Fridman (3:28:43.980)

and that will change the world.

Lex Fridman (3:28:45.500)

That's super exciting.

Lee Cronin (3:28:46.980)

You have a draft of a paper titled

Lex Fridman (3:28:49.340)

Autonomous Intelligent Exploration,

Lee Cronin (3:28:50.900)

Discovery and Optimization of Nanomaterials.

Lex Fridman (3:28:53.780)

So we are talking about

Lee Cronin (3:28:55.820)

automating engineering of nanomaterials.

Lex Fridman (3:28:58.820)

How hard is this problem?

Lex Fridman (3:29:01.100)

And as we continue down this thread of the positives

Lex Fridman (3:29:04.860)

and the worrisome,

Lex Fridman (3:29:06.780)

what are the things we should be excited about?

Lex Fridman (3:29:09.660)

And what are the things we should be terrified about?

Lex Fridman (3:29:12.300)

And how do we minimize the chance

Lex Fridman (3:29:13.940)

of the terrifying consequences?

Lex Fridman (3:29:18.060)

So in this robot, the robot does all the heavy lifting.

Lex Fridman (3:29:21.380)

So the robot basically is an embodied AI.

Lee Cronin (3:29:24.460)

I really like AI in a domain specific way.

Lex Fridman (3:29:29.460)

One of the, as you should say at this point,

Lee Cronin (3:29:31.460)

there was an attempt in the 60s,

Lex Fridman (3:29:34.260)

Joshua Leidenberg and some really important people

Lee Cronin (3:29:37.300)

did this that made an AI to try and guess

Lex Fridman (3:29:40.180)

if organic molecules and the mass spectrometer

Lee Cronin (3:29:42.260)

were alien or not.

Lex Fridman (3:29:43.700)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (3:29:44.740)

And they failed because they didn't have assembly theory.

Lex Fridman (3:29:47.660)

I see.

Lex Fridman (3:29:48.820)

And when I, and I, and that.

Lex Fridman (3:29:49.660)

Wait, what does assembly theory

Lex Fridman (3:29:51.380)

give you about alien versus human life?

Lex Fridman (3:29:53.540)

Well, no, it just, it tells you about unknown,

Lee Cronin (3:29:55.660)

the degree of unknowns.

Lex Fridman (3:29:56.540)

You can fingerprint stuff.

Lee Cronin (3:29:57.500)

They weren't looking at,

Lex Fridman (3:29:58.860)

they were trying to basically just look at the corpus

Lee Cronin (3:30:01.260)

of complex organic molecules.

Lex Fridman (3:30:04.060)

So when I was a bit down about assembly theory,

Lee Cronin (3:30:06.300)

cause I couldn't convince referees

Lex Fridman (3:30:08.180)

and couldn't convince computational people

Lee Cronin (3:30:11.980)

interested in computational complexity,

Lex Fridman (3:30:14.540)

I was really quite depressed about it.

Lex Fridman (3:30:16.300)

And I mean, I've been working with Sarah Walker's team

Lex Fridman (3:30:20.140)

and I think she, you know,

Lee Cronin (3:30:21.220)

I think she also invented an assembly theory somewhere.

Lex Fridman (3:30:23.620)

We can talk about it later.

Lee Cronin (3:30:25.180)

When I found the AI not working for the dendrial project,

Lex Fridman (3:30:30.980)

I suddenly realized I wasn't totally insane.

Lee Cronin (3:30:34.700)

Coming back to this nano robot.

Lex Fridman (3:30:37.220)

So what it does is it basically, like a computer,

Lex Fridman (3:30:40.020)

but now what it does is it squirts a liquid

Lex Fridman (3:30:42.980)

with gold in it in a test tube

Lex Fridman (3:30:45.420)

and it adds some reducing agents,

Lex Fridman (3:30:49.660)

so some electrons to make the gold

Lee Cronin (3:30:51.620)

turn into a nanoparticle.

Lex Fridman (3:30:53.260)

Now, when gold becomes a nanoparticle,

Lee Cronin (3:30:54.820)

it gets a characteristic color, a plasmon.

Lex Fridman (3:30:56.780)

So it's a bit like if you look at the sheen

Lee Cronin (3:30:58.700)

on the gold wedding ring or gold bar or something,

Lex Fridman (3:31:01.220)

those are the ways that conducting electrons

Lee Cronin (3:31:03.580)

basically reflect light.

Lex Fridman (3:31:05.780)

What we did is we randomly squirt the gold,

Lee Cronin (3:31:08.540)

the gold particle and the reducing agent

Lex Fridman (3:31:10.380)

and then we measure the UV, we measure the color.

Lex Fridman (3:31:13.460)

And so what we do is we've got, the robot has a mind.

Lex Fridman (3:31:16.820)

So it has a mind where in a simulation,

Lee Cronin (3:31:20.300)

it randomly generates nanoparticles and the plasmon,

Lex Fridman (3:31:23.820)

the color that comes out, randomly imagines in its head.

Lee Cronin (3:31:27.300)

It then with the others,

Lex Fridman (3:31:28.340)

that's the imaginary side of the robot.

Lee Cronin (3:31:29.820)

In the physical side of the robot,

Lex Fridman (3:31:30.860)

it squirts in the chemicals and looks at the color

Lex Fridman (3:31:34.620)

and it uses a genetic algorithm

Lex Fridman (3:31:36.380)

and a map elite actually on it.

Lex Fridman (3:31:38.660)

And it goes around in cycles and refines

Lex Fridman (3:31:43.180)

the color to the objective.

Lee Cronin (3:31:45.340)

Now we use two different points.

Lex Fridman (3:31:46.740)

We have an exploration and an optimization.

Lee Cronin (3:31:50.300)

They're two different.

Lex Fridman (3:31:51.140)

So the exploration just says, just do random stuff

Lex Fridman (3:31:54.420)

and see how many different things you can get.

Lex Fridman (3:31:55.940)

And when you get different things,

Lee Cronin (3:31:57.460)

try and optimize and make the peak sharper, sharper, sharper.

Lex Fridman (3:32:00.740)

And what it does after a number of cycles

Lee Cronin (3:32:03.180)

is it physically takes a sample

Lex Fridman (3:32:05.380)

of the optimized nanomaterial,

Lee Cronin (3:32:07.820)

resets all of the round bottom flasks, cleans them

Lex Fridman (3:32:10.980)

and puts the seed, physical seed back in.

Lex Fridman (3:32:14.620)

And then what this robot is able to do

Lex Fridman (3:32:16.220)

is search a space of 10 to the 23 possible reactions

Lee Cronin (3:32:20.580)

in just a thousand experiments in three days.

Lex Fridman (3:32:24.180)

And it makes five generations of nanoparticles

Lee Cronin (3:32:26.540)

which get nicer and nicer in terms of shape

Lex Fridman (3:32:28.580)

and color and definition.

Lex Fridman (3:32:30.140)

And then at the end, it outputs a Kydl code.

Lex Fridman (3:32:33.100)

That could then be.

Lee Cronin (3:32:34.020)

Wow, it's doing the search for programs

Lex Fridman (3:32:38.220)

in the physical space.

Lex Fridman (3:32:39.700)

So it's doing a kind of reinforcement learning.

Lex Fridman (3:32:42.620)

Yeah, yeah, in the physical space.

Lee Cronin (3:32:44.180)

With the exploration and the optimization.

Lex Fridman (3:32:46.580)

And that Kydl will work on any computer

Lee Cronin (3:32:48.740)

or any qualified hardware.

Lex Fridman (3:32:49.580)

So now that's it.

Lee Cronin (3:32:50.940)

That's now that's a general piece of code

Lex Fridman (3:32:53.220)

that can replicate somewhat maybe perfectly

Lex Fridman (3:32:57.940)

what it created.

Lex Fridman (3:32:58.980)

That's amazing.

Lee Cronin (3:32:59.820)

That's incredible.

Lex Fridman (3:33:00.660)

But the nanoparticles themselves are done.

Lee Cronin (3:33:02.220)

The robot has all the thinking.

Lex Fridman (3:33:03.580)

So we don't try and imply any self replication

Lee Cronin (3:33:06.660)

or try and get the particles to make themselves.

Lex Fridman (3:33:09.740)

Although it would be cool to try.

Lee Cronin (3:33:11.540)

So, well, there you go.

Lex Fridman (3:33:13.060)

That's, those are famous last words

Lee Cronin (3:33:14.980)

for the end of human civilization.

Lex Fridman (3:33:16.820)

Would be cool to try.

Lex Fridman (3:33:17.900)

So is it possible to create molecules

Lex Fridman (3:33:21.420)

that start approaching this question

Lee Cronin (3:33:24.820)

that we started this conversation,

Lex Fridman (3:33:26.580)

which is the origin of life.

Lee Cronin (3:33:29.540)

To start to create molecules that have lifelike qualities.

Lex Fridman (3:33:33.980)

So have the replication, have like complex,

Lee Cronin (3:33:37.740)

start to create complex organisms.

Lex Fridman (3:33:40.140)

So we have done this with the oxides.

Lee Cronin (3:33:42.020)

I talked about earlier with the moxides

Lex Fridman (3:33:43.900)

and the rings and the bulls.

Lex Fridman (3:33:45.740)

And the problem is that, well, they do,

Lex Fridman (3:33:49.300)

they auto catalytically enhance one another.

Lex Fridman (3:33:52.020)

So they would, I guess you would call it self replication.

Lex Fridman (3:33:55.780)

But because there's limited function and mutation,

Lee Cronin (3:34:01.900)

they're pretty dumb.

Lex Fridman (3:34:02.740)

So they don't do very much.

Lex Fridman (3:34:04.540)

So I think the prospect of us being able to engineer

Lex Fridman (3:34:10.340)

a nano material life form in the short term,

Lee Cronin (3:34:13.700)

like I said earlier,

Lex Fridman (3:34:14.780)

my aim is to do this, of course.

Lee Cronin (3:34:16.420)

I mean, on one hand, I'm saying it's impossible.

Lex Fridman (3:34:18.460)

On the other hand, I'm saying I'm doing it.

Lex Fridman (3:34:19.540)

So which is it, Lee?

Lex Fridman (3:34:20.380)

It's like, well, I think we can do it,

Lex Fridman (3:34:23.700)

but only in the robot.

Lex Fridman (3:34:24.940)

So the causal chain that's gonna allow it is in the robot.

Lee Cronin (3:34:27.500)

These particles, if they do start to self replicate,

Lex Fridman (3:34:30.020)

the system's gonna be so fragile

Lee Cronin (3:34:32.300)

that I don't think anything dangerous will come out.

Lex Fridman (3:34:35.940)

It doesn't mean we shouldn't treat them

Lee Cronin (3:34:38.220)

as potentially, I mean, I don't want to scare people

Lex Fridman (3:34:42.260)

like gain of function.

Lee Cronin (3:34:43.220)

We're gonna produce stuff that comes out.

Lex Fridman (3:34:45.140)

Our number one kill switch is that we always try

Lee Cronin (3:34:48.060)

to search a space of objects

Lex Fridman (3:34:52.460)

that don't exist in the environment.

Lex Fridman (3:34:55.820)

So even if something got out, it just would die immediately.

Lex Fridman (3:34:58.540)

It's like making a silicon life form or something.

Lee Cronin (3:35:02.100)

Which is the opposite of oftentimes

Lex Fridman (3:35:04.340)

gain of function research is focused on

Lex Fridman (3:35:06.420)

how do you get a dangerous thing

Lex Fridman (3:35:09.340)

to be closer to something that works with humans?

Lee Cronin (3:35:11.700)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:35:12.540)

To have it jump to humans.

Lex Fridman (3:35:13.460)

So that's the one good mode to operate on

Lex Fridman (3:35:16.860)

is always try to operate on chemical entities

Lee Cronin (3:35:22.100)

that are very different than the kind of chemical environment

Lex Fridman (3:35:25.220)

that humans operate in.

Lee Cronin (3:35:26.300)

Yeah, and also, I mean, I'll say something dramatic,

Lex Fridman (3:35:29.580)

which may not be true.

Lex Fridman (3:35:33.260)

So I should be careful.

Lex Fridman (3:35:35.140)

If let's say we did discover a new living system

Lex Fridman (3:35:39.100)

but it was made out of a shadow biosphere

Lex Fridman (3:35:42.860)

and we just released it in the environment,

Lex Fridman (3:35:44.540)

who cares?

Lex Fridman (3:35:45.380)

It's gonna use different stuff.

Lee Cronin (3:35:48.260)

Yeah, it'll just live.

Lex Fridman (3:35:50.380)

Just live, yeah.

Lee Cronin (3:35:51.620)

I found one of my biggest fantasies

Lex Fridman (3:35:53.820)

is actually is like a planet

Lee Cronin (3:35:55.780)

that's basically half in the sun,

Lex Fridman (3:35:57.260)

it doesn't rotate, right?

Lex Fridman (3:35:59.100)

And you have two different origins of life on that planet

Lex Fridman (3:36:03.300)

and they don't share the same chemistry.

Lee Cronin (3:36:05.140)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:36:05.980)

And then the only way time they recognize each other

Lee Cronin (3:36:08.100)

is when they become intelligent, they go,

Lex Fridman (3:36:09.660)

well, what's that moving?

Lee Cronin (3:36:10.660)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:36:12.460)

So they co evolve and that's fascinating.

Lee Cronin (3:36:14.780)

I mean, so one fascinating thing to do

Lex Fridman (3:36:17.500)

is exactly what you were saying, which is a life bomb,

Lee Cronin (3:36:20.820)

which is like try to focus on atmospheres

Lex Fridman (3:36:25.940)

or chemical conditions of other planets

Lex Fridman (3:36:29.740)

and try within this kind of exploration optimization system

Lex Fridman (3:36:34.740)

try to discover life forms that can work in those conditions

Lex Fridman (3:36:40.380)

and then you send those life forms over there

Lex Fridman (3:36:43.060)

and see what kind of stuff they build up.

Lee Cronin (3:36:44.860)

Like you can do like a large scale,

Lex Fridman (3:36:47.260)

it's kind of a safe physical environment

Lee Cronin (3:36:50.300)

to do large scale experiments, it's another planet.

Lex Fridman (3:36:53.180)

Yeah, so look, I'm gonna say something quite contentious.

Lee Cronin (3:36:55.780)

I mean, Elon wants to go to Mars,

Lex Fridman (3:36:57.580)

I think it's brilliant wants to go to Mars,

Lex Fridman (3:36:59.020)

but I would counter that and say,

Lex Fridman (3:37:01.060)

is Elon just obsessed with getting humanity?

Lex Fridman (3:37:03.620)

Or Earth, or what about just technology?

Lex Fridman (3:37:06.740)

So if we do technology, so Elon either needs

Lee Cronin (3:37:09.500)

to take a computer to Mars

Lex Fridman (3:37:10.540)

because he needs to manufacture drugs on demand,

Lee Cronin (3:37:12.860)

because zero cost payload and all that stuff is just code.

Lex Fridman (3:37:16.140)

Or what we do is we actually say, hang on,

Lee Cronin (3:37:18.860)

it's quite hard for humans to survive on Mars.

Lex Fridman (3:37:21.220)

Why don't we write a series of origin of life algorithms

Lex Fridman (3:37:24.180)

where we embed our culture in it?

Lex Fridman (3:37:26.220)

It's a very Ridley spot Prometheus,

Lee Cronin (3:37:28.860)

which is a terrible film by the way, but anyway.

Lex Fridman (3:37:31.380)

And dump it on Mars and just terraform Mars.

Lex Fridman (3:37:37.300)

And what we do is we evolve life on Mars

Lex Fridman (3:37:39.660)

that is suited to life on Mars,

Lee Cronin (3:37:42.180)

rather than brute forcing human life on Mars.

Lex Fridman (3:37:44.660)

So one of the questions is, what is human culture?

Lex Fridman (3:37:48.580)

What are the things you encode?

Lex Fridman (3:37:50.180)

Some of it is knowledge, some of it is information.

Lex Fridman (3:37:52.660)

But the thing that Elon talks about,

Lex Fridman (3:37:55.220)

the thing I think about, I think you think about as well

Lee Cronin (3:37:58.700)

is some of the more unique aspects of what makes us human,

Lex Fridman (3:38:06.460)

which is our particular kind of consciousness.

Lex Fridman (3:38:09.820)

So he talks about the flame of human consciousness.

Lex Fridman (3:38:13.260)

That's one of the questions is,

Lex Fridman (3:38:15.180)

can we instill consciousness into other beings?

Lex Fridman (3:38:22.180)

Because that's a sad thought that whatever this thing

Lee Cronin (3:38:26.940)

inside our minds, that hopes and dreams and fears

Lex Fridman (3:38:30.100)

and loves can all die.

Lee Cronin (3:38:33.940)

Yeah, but I think you already know

Lex Fridman (3:38:35.300)

the answer to that question.

Lee Cronin (3:38:37.540)

I have a robot lawnmower at home.

Lex Fridman (3:38:40.180)

My kids call it CC, cool car.

Lee Cronin (3:38:42.380)

It's a robo mower.

Lex Fridman (3:38:44.740)

And the way it works, it has an electric field

Lee Cronin (3:38:47.060)

around the perimeter and it just tell it the area.

Lex Fridman (3:38:49.940)

And it goes out and goes from its base station,

Lee Cronin (3:38:52.860)

just mows a bit.

Lex Fridman (3:38:54.220)

Gets to the perimeter, detects perimeter,

Lee Cronin (3:38:55.980)

then chooses a random angle, rotates around and goes on.

Lex Fridman (3:38:58.900)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (3:39:00.420)

My kids call it cool cutter.

Lex Fridman (3:39:02.020)

It's a she.

Lee Cronin (3:39:02.860)

I don't know why it's a she.

Lex Fridman (3:39:03.820)

They just, when they were like quite young,

Lee Cronin (3:39:05.420)

they called it, I don't want to be sexist there.

Lex Fridman (3:39:08.420)

It could be a he, but they liked.

Lex Fridman (3:39:11.860)

They gendered the lawnmower?

Lex Fridman (3:39:13.180)

They gendered the lawnmower.

Lee Cronin (3:39:14.140)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (3:39:14.980)

Yeah, why not?

Lex Fridman (3:39:15.820)

But I was thinking this lawnmower,

Lex Fridman (3:39:17.820)

if you apply integrated information theory to lawnmower,

Lee Cronin (3:39:20.540)

the lawnmower is conscious.

Lex Fridman (3:39:22.660)

Now, integrated information theory is,

Lee Cronin (3:39:26.420)

people say it's a flawed way of measuring consciousness,

Lex Fridman (3:39:28.220)

but I don't think it is.

Lee Cronin (3:39:29.060)

I think assembly theory actually measures consciousness

Lex Fridman (3:39:32.060)

in the same way.

Lee Cronin (3:39:33.220)

Consciousness is something that is generated

Lex Fridman (3:39:35.900)

over a population of objects, of humans.

Lee Cronin (3:39:38.820)

Consciousness didn't suddenly spring in.

Lex Fridman (3:39:40.980)

Our consciousness has evolved together, right?

Lee Cronin (3:39:43.180)

The fact we're here and the robots we leave behind,

Lex Fridman (3:39:45.980)

they will have some of that.

Lex Fridman (3:39:47.180)

So we won't lose it all.

Lex Fridman (3:39:49.100)

Sure, consciousness requires

Lee Cronin (3:39:50.900)

that we have many models being generated.

Lex Fridman (3:39:52.860)

It's not just one domain specific AI, right?

Lee Cronin (3:39:55.180)

I think the way to create consciousness,

Lex Fridman (3:39:57.420)

I'm going to say unashamedly,

Lee Cronin (3:39:58.660)

the best way to make a consciousness is in a chemical system

Lex Fridman (3:40:02.820)

because you just have access to many more states.

Lex Fridman (3:40:05.300)

And the problem right now,

Lex Fridman (3:40:06.260)

we're making silicon consciousness

Lee Cronin (3:40:08.580)

because you just don't have enough states.

Lex Fridman (3:40:10.860)

So there are more possible states,

Lee Cronin (3:40:12.740)

or sorry, there are more possible configurations possible

Lex Fridman (3:40:14.980)

in your brain than there are atoms in the universe.

Lex Fridman (3:40:17.940)

And you can switch between them.

Lex Fridman (3:40:20.500)

You can't do that on a core I10.

Lee Cronin (3:40:22.780)

It's got 10 billion, 12 billion, 14 billion transistors,

Lex Fridman (3:40:25.300)

but you can't reconfigure them as dynamically.

Lee Cronin (3:40:28.340)

Well, you've shared this intuition a few times already

Lex Fridman (3:40:31.420)

that the larger number of states

Lee Cronin (3:40:34.660)

somehow correlates to greater possibility of life,

Lex Fridman (3:40:38.420)

but it's also possible the constraints are essential here.

Lee Cronin (3:40:42.380)

Yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:40:43.420)

I mean, but coming back to the,

Lee Cronin (3:40:45.620)

you worry that something's lost.

Lex Fridman (3:40:46.820)

I agree, but I think that we will get to an AGI,

Lex Fridman (3:40:53.780)

but I wonder if it's not,

Lex Fridman (3:40:56.220)

it can't be separate from human,

Lee Cronin (3:40:58.300)

it can't be separate from human consciousness

Lex Fridman (3:41:00.100)

because the causal chain that produced it came from humans.

Lex Fridman (3:41:03.060)

So what I kind of try and suggest heavily

Lex Fridman (3:41:06.380)

to people worry about the existential threat of AI saying,

Lee Cronin (3:41:11.540)

I mean, you put it much more elegantly earlier,

Lex Fridman (3:41:13.460)

like we should worry about algorithms on, dumb algorithms

Lex Fridman (3:41:16.820)

written by human beings on Twitter driving us insane, right?

Lex Fridman (3:41:21.140)

And doing acting in odd ways.

Lee Cronin (3:41:23.260)

Yeah, I think intelligence,

Lex Fridman (3:41:24.940)

this is what I have been in eloquent

Lee Cronin (3:41:27.100)

in trying to describe it partially

Lex Fridman (3:41:30.620)

because I try not to think too deeply through this stuff

Lee Cronin (3:41:34.940)

because then you become a philosopher.

Lex Fridman (3:41:36.260)

I still aspire to actually building a bunch of stuff.

Lex Fridman (3:41:40.460)

But my sense is super intelligence leads

Lex Fridman (3:41:44.580)

to deep integration to human society.

Lex Fridman (3:41:48.780)

So like intelligence is strongly correlated.

Lex Fridman (3:41:51.980)

Like intelligence, the way we conceive of intelligence

Lee Cronin (3:41:56.980)

materializes as a thing that becomes a fun entity

Lex Fridman (3:42:03.300)

to have at a party and with humans.

Lex Fridman (3:42:06.420)

So like it's a mix of wit, intelligence, humor,

Lex Fridman (3:42:09.980)

like intelligence, like knowledge,

Lee Cronin (3:42:11.740)

ability to do reasoning and so on,

Lex Fridman (3:42:14.340)

but also humor, emotional intelligence,

Lee Cronin (3:42:17.980)

ability to love, to dream, to share those dreams,

Lex Fridman (3:42:23.460)

to play the game of human civilization,

Lee Cronin (3:42:28.060)

the push and pull, the whole dance of it,

Lex Fridman (3:42:30.100)

the whole dance of life.

Lex Fridman (3:42:31.380)

And I think that kind of super intelligent being

Lex Fridman (3:42:35.420)

is not the thing that worries me.

Lee Cronin (3:42:38.140)

I think that ultimately will enrich life.

Lex Fridman (3:42:41.140)

It's again, the dumb algorithms,

Lee Cronin (3:42:43.060)

the dumb algorithms that scale in the hands of people

Lex Fridman (3:42:46.620)

that are too, don't study history,

Lee Cronin (3:42:48.860)

that don't study human psychology and human nature,

Lex Fridman (3:42:51.820)

just applying too broadly for selfish near term interests.

Lee Cronin (3:42:57.020)

That's the biggest danger.

Lex Fridman (3:42:58.500)

Yeah, I think it's not a new danger, right?

Lee Cronin (3:43:01.420)

I now know how I should use Twitter

Lex Fridman (3:43:04.660)

and how I shouldn't use Twitter, right?

Lee Cronin (3:43:07.500)

I like to provoke people into thinking.

Lex Fridman (3:43:09.620)

I don't want to provoke people into outrage.

Lee Cronin (3:43:11.580)

It's not fun.

Lex Fridman (3:43:12.420)

It's not a good thing for humans to do, right?

Lex Fridman (3:43:14.620)

And I think that when you get people into outrage,

Lex Fridman (3:43:16.740)

they take sides and taking sides is really bad.

Lex Fridman (3:43:20.060)

But I think that we're all beginning to see this.

Lex Fridman (3:43:22.100)

And I think that actually I'm very optimistic

Lee Cronin (3:43:24.820)

about how things will evolve because, you know,

Lex Fridman (3:43:28.580)

I wonder how much productivity has Twitter

Lex Fridman (3:43:32.020)

and social media taken out of humanity?

Lex Fridman (3:43:33.820)

Because how many now, I mean,

Lex Fridman (3:43:36.620)

so the good thing about Twitter is it gives power,

Lex Fridman (3:43:38.980)

so it gives voice to minorities, right?

Lex Fridman (3:43:41.300)

And that's good to some degree.

Lex Fridman (3:43:44.220)

But I wonder how much voice does it give

Lee Cronin (3:43:47.460)

to all sorts of other problems

Lex Fridman (3:43:52.460)

that don't need this emerge?

Lee Cronin (3:43:54.300)

By the way, when you say minorities,

Lex Fridman (3:43:55.820)

I think, or at least if I were to agree with you,

Lex Fridman (3:44:00.020)

what I would say is minorities broadly defined

Lex Fridman (3:44:02.380)

in these small groups of people that it magnifies

Lee Cronin (3:44:09.580)

the concerns of the small versus the big.

Lex Fridman (3:44:12.900)

That is good to some degree.

Lex Fridman (3:44:15.660)

But I think, I mean, I have to be careful

Lex Fridman (3:44:17.980)

because I think I have a very,

Lex Fridman (3:44:20.940)

I mean, I think that the world isn't that broken, right?

Lex Fridman (3:44:23.420)

I think the world is pretty cool place.

Lee Cronin (3:44:25.100)

I think academia is really great.

Lex Fridman (3:44:26.980)

I think climate change presents

Lee Cronin (3:44:29.980)

a really interesting problem for humanity

Lex Fridman (3:44:32.380)

that we will solve.

Lee Cronin (3:44:33.500)

I like how you said it.

Lex Fridman (3:44:34.340)

It's a pretty cool problem for civilization.

Lee Cronin (3:44:37.540)

It's a big one.

Lex Fridman (3:44:38.460)

Well, it's a bunch of it.

Lee Cronin (3:44:39.300)

There's a bunch of really, really big problems

Lex Fridman (3:44:42.620)

that if solved can significantly improve

Lee Cronin (3:44:45.940)

the quality of life or learn.

Lex Fridman (3:44:47.540)

That ultimately is what we're trying to do,

Lee Cronin (3:44:49.580)

improve how awesome life is

Lex Fridman (3:44:51.700)

for the maximum number of people.

Lee Cronin (3:44:53.420)

Yeah, and I think that the coming back to consciousness,

Lex Fridman (3:44:56.620)

I don't think the universe is doomed to heat death, right?

Lee Cronin (3:45:00.300)

It's one of the optimists.

Lex Fridman (3:45:01.460)

That's why I want to kind of nudge you

Lee Cronin (3:45:03.300)

into thinking that time is fundamental

Lex Fridman (3:45:04.740)

because if time is fundamental,

Lee Cronin (3:45:05.860)

then suddenly you don't have to give it back.

Lex Fridman (3:45:09.180)

The universe just constructs stuff.

Lex Fridman (3:45:11.460)

And what we see around us in our construction,

Lex Fridman (3:45:13.260)

I know everyone's worried about how fragile civilization is.

Lex Fridman (3:45:16.060)

And I mean, look at the fundamentals.

Lex Fridman (3:45:17.740)

We're good until the sun expands, right?

Lee Cronin (3:45:22.020)

We've got quite a lot of resource on earth.

Lex Fridman (3:45:23.780)

We're trying to be quite cooperative.

Lee Cronin (3:45:25.700)

Humans are nice to each other

Lex Fridman (3:45:27.780)

when they're not under enormous stress.

Lex Fridman (3:45:31.860)

But coming back to the consciousness thing,

Lex Fridman (3:45:33.780)

are we going to send human beings to Mars

Lex Fridman (3:45:36.620)

or conscious robots to Mars?

Lex Fridman (3:45:38.420)

Or are we gonna send some hybrid?

Lex Fridman (3:45:40.460)

And I don't know the answer to that question right now.

Lex Fridman (3:45:43.340)

I guess, you know,

Lee Cronin (3:45:44.660)

Elon is gonna have a pretty good go at getting there.

Lex Fridman (3:45:46.500)

I'm not sure whether,

Lee Cronin (3:45:49.740)

I have my doubts, but I'm not qualified.

Lex Fridman (3:45:52.980)

I'm sure people have their doubts that computation works,

Lex Fridman (3:45:56.700)

but I've got it working.

Lex Fridman (3:45:58.260)

And I, you know.

Lex Fridman (3:45:59.300)

And most of the cool technologies we have today

Lex Fridman (3:46:03.660)

and take for granted,

Lee Cronin (3:46:05.740)

like the airplane, a aforementioned airplane,

Lex Fridman (3:46:08.540)

were things that people doubted.

Lee Cronin (3:46:11.260)

Like majority of people doubted

Lex Fridman (3:46:13.060)

before they came to life and they come to life.

Lex Fridman (3:46:16.100)

And speaking of hybrid AI and humans,

Lex Fridman (3:46:19.140)

it's fascinating to think about all the different ways

Lee Cronin (3:46:21.500)

that hybridization, that merger can happen.

Lex Fridman (3:46:25.060)

I mean, we have, currently have the smartphone,

Lex Fridman (3:46:27.300)

so there's already a hybrid,

Lex Fridman (3:46:28.500)

but there's all kinds of ways that hybrid happens.

Lex Fridman (3:46:31.420)

How we and other technology play together,

Lex Fridman (3:46:34.380)

like a computer, how that changes

Lee Cronin (3:46:37.460)

the fabric of human civilization is like wide open.

Lex Fridman (3:46:40.740)

Who knows?

Lex Fridman (3:46:41.620)

Who knows?

Lex Fridman (3:46:42.540)

If you remove,

Lee Cronin (3:46:46.060)

if you remove cancer,

Lex Fridman (3:46:47.740)

if you remove major diseases from humanity,

Lee Cronin (3:46:53.980)

there's going to be a bunch of consequences

Lex Fridman (3:46:55.620)

we're not anticipating.

Lee Cronin (3:46:57.140)

Many of them positive, but many of them negative.

Lex Fridman (3:47:01.100)

Many of them, most of them, at least I hope,

Lee Cronin (3:47:04.100)

are weird and wonderful and fun

Lex Fridman (3:47:06.580)

in ways that are totally unexpected.

Lex Fridman (3:47:08.740)

And we sitting on a porch with a bottle of Jack Daniels

Lex Fridman (3:47:11.780)

and a rocker will say,

Lee Cronin (3:47:13.620)

kids these days don't appreciate

Lex Fridman (3:47:15.220)

how hard we had it back in the day.

Lee Cronin (3:47:17.180)

I gotta ask you, speaking of nudging,

Lex Fridman (3:47:21.260)

you and Joscha Bach nudge each other on Twitter quite a bit

Lee Cronin (3:47:25.860)

in wonderful intellectual debates.

Lex Fridman (3:47:29.380)

And of course, for people who don't know Joscha Bach,

Lee Cronin (3:47:31.340)

he's this brilliant guy.

Lex Fridman (3:47:32.300)

He's been on the podcast a couple times.

Lee Cronin (3:47:35.260)

You tweeted, or he tweeted,

Lex Fridman (3:47:38.780)

Joscha Bach, everyone should follow him as well.

Lee Cronin (3:47:41.100)

You should definitely follow Mr. Lee Cronin, Dr. Lee Cronin.

Lex Fridman (3:47:44.420)

He tweeted, dinner with Lee Cronin.

Lee Cronin (3:47:48.140)

We discussed that while we can translate

Lex Fridman (3:47:50.860)

every working model of existence into a Turing machine,

Lee Cronin (3:47:54.420)

the structure of the universe might be given

Lex Fridman (3:47:56.780)

by weeks of nonexistence in a pattern generated

Lee Cronin (3:47:59.660)

by all possible automata, which exist by default.

Lex Fridman (3:48:05.780)

And then he followed on saying face to face is the best.

Lex Fridman (3:48:09.900)

So the dinner was face to face.

Lex Fridman (3:48:12.140)

What is Joscha talking about in weeks, quote,

Lee Cronin (3:48:16.460)

weeks of nonexistence in a pattern generated

Lex Fridman (3:48:19.820)

by all possible automata, which exist by default.

Lex Fridman (3:48:25.460)

So automata exist by default, apparently.

Lex Fridman (3:48:29.820)

And then there's weeks of nonexistence.

Lex Fridman (3:48:31.740)

What the hell is nonexistence in the universe?

Lex Fridman (3:48:34.900)

That's, and also in another conversation,

Lee Cronin (3:48:39.340)

you tweeted it's state machines all the way down,

Lex Fridman (3:48:44.460)

which presumably is the origin story of this discussion.

Lex Fridman (3:48:47.820)

And then Joscha said, again, nudging, nudging,

Lex Fridman (3:48:53.220)

nudging slash trolling, Joscha said,

Lee Cronin (3:48:56.460)

you've seen the light, welcome friend.

Lex Fridman (3:48:59.260)

Many foundational physicists effectively believe

Lee Cronin (3:49:01.660)

in some form of hyper computation.

Lex Fridman (3:49:04.420)

Lee is coming around to this idea.

Lex Fridman (3:49:07.060)

And then you said, I think there are notable differences.

Lex Fridman (3:49:10.220)

First, I think the universe does not have to be a computer.

Lee Cronin (3:49:13.100)

Second, I want to understand how the universe emerges,

Lex Fridman (3:49:16.820)

constructors that build computers.

Lex Fridman (3:49:18.460)

And third is that there is something below church touring.

Lex Fridman (3:49:24.980)

Okay, what the heck is this dinner conversation about?

Lee Cronin (3:49:30.780)

Maybe put another way, maybe zooming out a little bit.

Lex Fridman (3:49:34.700)

Are there interesting agreements or disagreements

Lee Cronin (3:49:37.020)

between you and Joscha Bach that can elucidate

Lex Fridman (3:49:41.540)

some of the other topics we've been talking about?

Lee Cronin (3:49:44.060)

Yeah, so Jascha has an incredible mind

Lex Fridman (3:49:46.100)

and he has, he's so well read

Lex Fridman (3:49:49.940)

and uses language really elegantly.

Lex Fridman (3:49:53.300)

It bamboozles me at times.

Lex Fridman (3:49:54.820)

So I'm, so often I'm using, I'm describing concepts

Lex Fridman (3:49:59.340)

in a way that I built from the ground up.

Lex Fridman (3:50:03.140)

And so we misunderstand each other a lot.

Lex Fridman (3:50:05.300)

And he's floating in the clouds, is that what you're saying?

Lee Cronin (3:50:08.180)

Something like, not quite, but I think,

Lex Fridman (3:50:09.780)

so this concept of a Turing machine.

Lex Fridman (3:50:11.620)

So a Turing machine, Turing machines, I would argue,

Lex Fridman (3:50:15.420)

and I think this is not, the Turing machine,

Lee Cronin (3:50:18.500)

the universe is not a Turing machine.

Lex Fridman (3:50:21.020)

Biology is not even a Turing machine, right?

Lex Fridman (3:50:23.220)

And because Turing machines don't evolve, right?

Lex Fridman (3:50:25.620)

There is this problem

Lee Cronin (3:50:27.020)

that people see Turing machines everywhere,

Lex Fridman (3:50:28.620)

but isn't it interesting the universe gave rise to biology

Lee Cronin (3:50:31.580)

that gave rise to intelligence,

Lex Fridman (3:50:32.820)

that gave rise to Alan Turing,

Lee Cronin (3:50:34.420)

who invented the abstraction of the Turing machine

Lex Fridman (3:50:37.060)

and allowed us to digitize.

Lex Fridman (3:50:39.580)

And so I've been looking for the mystery

Lex Fridman (3:50:43.340)

at the origin of life, the origin of intelligence

Lex Fridman (3:50:45.500)

and the origin of this.

Lex Fridman (3:50:46.420)

And I, when I discussed with Yasha,

Lee Cronin (3:50:48.340)

I think Yasha, he was saying, well, the universe,

Lex Fridman (3:50:51.300)

of course the universe is a Turing machine.

Lee Cronin (3:50:53.300)

Of course there's a hyper computer there.

Lex Fridman (3:50:56.260)

And I think we got kind of trapped in our words and terms

Lee Cronin (3:50:59.860)

because of course it's possible for a Turing machine

Lex Fridman (3:51:02.220)

or computers to exist in the universe.

Lee Cronin (3:51:04.180)

We have them.

Lex Fridman (3:51:05.460)

But what I'm trying to understand is

Lex Fridman (3:51:07.740)

where did the transition of continuous discrete occur?

Lex Fridman (3:51:11.340)

And I've been, and this is because of my general foolishness

Lee Cronin (3:51:14.900)

of understanding the continuous.

Lex Fridman (3:51:19.500)

But I guess what I'm trying to say is

Lee Cronin (3:51:23.540)

there were constructors before there were abstractors

Lex Fridman (3:51:26.740)

because how did the universe abstract itself into existence?

Lex Fridman (3:51:31.500)

And it goes back to earlier saying,

Lex Fridman (3:51:32.780)

could the universe of intelligence have come first?

Lex Fridman (3:51:35.220)

What's a constructor, what's an abstractor?

Lex Fridman (3:51:37.260)

So the abstractor is the ability of say,

Lee Cronin (3:51:40.580)

of Alan Turing and Gödel and Church

Lex Fridman (3:51:45.100)

to think about the mathematical universe and to label things.

Lex Fridman (3:51:50.740)

And then from those labels to come up with a set of axioms

Lex Fridman (3:51:54.460)

with those labels and to basically understand

Lee Cronin (3:51:57.620)

the universe mathematically and say, okay,

Lex Fridman (3:51:59.580)

I can label things.

Lex Fridman (3:52:01.180)

Where did the labeler come from?

Lex Fridman (3:52:03.140)

Where is the prime labeler?

Lee Cronin (3:52:04.700)

Even if the universe is not a Turing computer,

Lex Fridman (3:52:12.060)

does that negate the possibility

Lex Fridman (3:52:14.060)

that a Turing computer can simulate the universe?

Lex Fridman (3:52:16.740)

Just because the abstraction was formed at a later time,

Lee Cronin (3:52:20.980)

does that mean that abstraction,

Lex Fridman (3:52:22.660)

this is to our cellular automata conversation.

Lee Cronin (3:52:25.260)

You were taking away some of the magic

Lex Fridman (3:52:26.660)

from the cellular automata because very intelligent

Lee Cronin (3:52:29.380)

biological systems came up with that cellular automata.

Lex Fridman (3:52:32.380)

Well, this is where the existence is the default, right?

Lee Cronin (3:52:34.380)

Is it, does the fact that we exist

Lex Fridman (3:52:36.260)

and we can come up with a Turing machine,

Lee Cronin (3:52:38.100)

does that mean the universe has to be

Lex Fridman (3:52:40.100)

a Turing machine as well?

Lex Fridman (3:52:41.980)

But can it be a Turing machine though?

Lex Fridman (3:52:44.020)

That's a, so the has to be and the can it be.

Lex Fridman (3:52:46.900)

Can it be?

Lex Fridman (3:52:47.860)

Sure.

Lee Cronin (3:52:50.300)

I don't know, I don't understand

Lex Fridman (3:52:52.460)

if it has to be or not, can it be?

Lex Fridman (3:52:54.780)

But can the universe have Turing machines in it?

Lex Fridman (3:52:57.980)

Sure, they exist now.

Lee Cronin (3:53:01.020)

I'm wondering though, maybe,

Lex Fridman (3:53:04.340)

and this is where things get really hairy,

Lee Cronin (3:53:07.460)

is I think the universe maybe in the past

Lex Fridman (3:53:09.420)

did not have the computational power that it has now.

Lee Cronin (3:53:17.900)

This is almost like a law of physics kind of,

Lex Fridman (3:53:21.540)

so the computational power is not,

Lee Cronin (3:53:24.300)

you can get some free lunch.

Lex Fridman (3:53:28.660)

Yeah, I mean, the fact that we now,

Lee Cronin (3:53:30.620)

we sit here in this period in time

Lex Fridman (3:53:32.300)

and we can imagine all these robots

Lex Fridman (3:53:33.940)

and all these machines and we built them.

Lex Fridman (3:53:36.020)

And so we can easily imagine going back in time

Lee Cronin (3:53:38.260)

that the universe was capable of having them,

Lex Fridman (3:53:39.740)

but I don't think it can.

Lex Fridman (3:53:41.900)

So the universe may have been a lot dumber computationally.

Lex Fridman (3:53:45.220)

And I think that's why,

Lee Cronin (3:53:46.780)

I don't want to go back to the time discussion,

Lex Fridman (3:53:48.500)

but I think it has some relationship with it.

Lee Cronin (3:53:50.740)

The universe is basically smarter now than it used to be

Lex Fridman (3:53:53.420)

and it's going to continue getting smarter over time

Lee Cronin (3:53:57.020)

because of novelty, generation,

Lex Fridman (3:53:59.380)

and the ability to create objects

Lee Cronin (3:54:00.940)

within objects within objects.

Lex Fridman (3:54:02.420)

You know, there's a, perhaps it's grounded in physics,

Lee Cronin (3:54:05.220)

there's this intuition of conservation.

Lex Fridman (3:54:07.900)

Yeah. That stuff is conserved.

Lee Cronin (3:54:09.180)

Like you're not, you've always had all,

Lex Fridman (3:54:12.420)

everything, you're just rearranging books

Lee Cronin (3:54:15.220)

on the bookshelf through time.

Lex Fridman (3:54:18.500)

So, okay. But you're saying like

Lee Cronin (3:54:19.940)

new books are being written.

Lex Fridman (3:54:21.660)

Which laws do you want to break?

Lee Cronin (3:54:22.980)

At the origin of the big bang,

Lex Fridman (3:54:25.900)

you had to break the second law

Lee Cronin (3:54:27.340)

because we got order for free.

Lex Fridman (3:54:28.500)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (3:54:29.540)

Well, what I'm telling you now

Lex Fridman (3:54:30.380)

is that the energy isn't conserved in the universe.

Lee Cronin (3:54:33.420)

Oh, it's the second law. Okay. I got you.

Lex Fridman (3:54:35.460)

So because, but not in a mad way.

Lee Cronin (3:54:38.020)

Okay. So computation potentially is not conserved,

Lex Fridman (3:54:44.660)

which is a fascinating idea.

Lee Cronin (3:54:46.460)

Intelligence is not conserved.

Lex Fridman (3:54:49.220)

Complexity is not conserved.

Lee Cronin (3:54:54.660)

I suppose that's deeply connected

Lex Fridman (3:54:57.420)

to time being fundamental.

Lee Cronin (3:55:01.180)

The natural consequence of that

Lex Fridman (3:55:03.180)

is if time is fundamental

Lex Fridman (3:55:05.300)

and the universe is inflating in time, if you like,

Lex Fridman (3:55:09.660)

then there are one or two conservation laws

Lee Cronin (3:55:11.860)

that we need to have a look at.

Lex Fridman (3:55:14.060)

And I wonder if that means the total energy

Lee Cronin (3:55:16.220)

of the universe is actually increasing over time.

Lex Fridman (3:55:18.980)

And this may be completely ludicrous,

Lex Fridman (3:55:21.100)

but we do have all this dark energy.

Lex Fridman (3:55:25.260)

We have some anomalies, let's say,

Lee Cronin (3:55:28.060)

dark matter and dark energy.

Lex Fridman (3:55:29.380)

If we don't add them in,

Lee Cronin (3:55:30.980)

galaxies, so dark matter, I think doesn't hold.

Lex Fridman (3:55:35.420)

You need to hold the galaxies together

Lex Fridman (3:55:36.980)

and there's some other observational issues.

Lex Fridman (3:55:38.900)

Could dark energy just be time?

Lex Fridman (3:55:42.140)

So figuring out what dark energy is

Lex Fridman (3:55:44.500)

might give us some deep clues

Lee Cronin (3:55:47.180)

about this, not just time, but the consequences of time.

Lex Fridman (3:55:53.140)

So it could be that, I mean,

Lee Cronin (3:55:55.300)

I'm not saying there's perpetual motions allowed

Lex Fridman (3:55:57.220)

and it's free lunch, but I'm saying

Lee Cronin (3:55:59.100)

if the universe is intrinsically asymmetric

Lex Fridman (3:56:02.860)

and it appears to be, and it's generating novelty

Lex Fridman (3:56:07.580)

and it appears to, couldn't that just be mechanistically

Lex Fridman (3:56:11.380)

how reality works?

Lex Fridman (3:56:13.500)

And therefore I don't really like this idea that the,

Lex Fridman (3:56:18.700)

so I want to live in a deterministic universe

Lex Fridman (3:56:21.940)

that is undetermined, right?

Lex Fridman (3:56:25.180)

The only way I can do that is if time is fundamental.

Lee Cronin (3:56:28.580)

Because otherwise it's all the rest of us,

Lex Fridman (3:56:30.340)

it's just sleight of hand because the physicists will say,

Lee Cronin (3:56:33.340)

yes, everything's deterministic.

Lex Fridman (3:56:35.340)

Newtonian mechanics is deterministic.

Lee Cronin (3:56:38.540)

Quantum mechanics is deterministic.

Lex Fridman (3:56:40.540)

Let's take the Everettian view.

Lex Fridman (3:56:42.460)

And then basically we can just draw out

Lex Fridman (3:56:44.060)

this massive universe branching, but it closes again

Lex Fridman (3:56:46.980)

and we get it all back.

Lex Fridman (3:56:48.020)

And don't worry, your feeling of free will is effective.

Lex Fridman (3:56:51.980)

But what the physicists are actually saying

Lex Fridman (3:56:53.540)

is the entire future is mapped out.

Lex Fridman (3:56:55.500)

And that is clearly problematical.

Lex Fridman (3:57:00.060)

And clearly.

Lee Cronin (3:57:03.780)

That's not so clear.

Lex Fridman (3:57:05.100)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (3:57:05.940)

It's just problematic.

Lex Fridman (3:57:07.860)

Well, yeah, yeah, so it's.

Lee Cronin (3:57:10.300)

Because that maybe is just the way it is.

Lex Fridman (3:57:12.100)

It's problematic to you, a particular creature

Lee Cronin (3:57:14.260)

along this timeline.

Lex Fridman (3:57:15.100)

I want to reduce the number of beliefs

Lee Cronin (3:57:16.540)

I need to understand the universe.

Lex Fridman (3:57:18.540)

So if time is fundamental, I don't need

Lee Cronin (3:57:21.260)

to have magic order at the beginning,

Lex Fridman (3:57:24.020)

and I don't need a second law.

Lex Fridman (3:57:25.620)

But you do need the magical belief

Lex Fridman (3:57:27.420)

that time is fundamental.

Lee Cronin (3:57:28.820)

Well, I need the observation that I'm seeing

Lex Fridman (3:57:32.220)

to be just how it is all the way down.

Lex Fridman (3:57:34.420)

But the Earth also looks flat

Lex Fridman (3:57:37.220)

if you agree with your observation.

Lex Fridman (3:57:40.820)

So we can't necessarily trust our observation.

Lex Fridman (3:57:43.460)

I know the Earth isn't flat

Lee Cronin (3:57:44.620)

because I can send a satellite into space.

Lex Fridman (3:57:46.340)

No, but now you see, now you're using the tools

Lee Cronin (3:57:49.020)

of science and the technology of science.

Lex Fridman (3:57:51.260)

But I'm saying I'm going to do experiments

Lee Cronin (3:57:53.180)

that start to show.

Lex Fridman (3:57:55.100)

I mean, I think that it's worth.

Lex Fridman (3:57:57.380)

So if you can't, so if I cannot do an experiment

Lex Fridman (3:58:01.020)

or a thought experiment that will test this assumption,

Lee Cronin (3:58:04.620)

then the assumption is without merit really in the end.

Lex Fridman (3:58:07.740)

You know, that's fine.

Lee Cronin (3:58:09.500)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (3:58:10.340)

That's a beautiful ideal you hold yourself to.

Lee Cronin (3:58:12.300)

That's given that you think deeply in a philosophical way,

Lex Fridman (3:58:18.740)

you think about some of these really important issues

Lex Fridman (3:58:21.820)

and you have theoretical frameworks like assembly theory.

Lex Fridman (3:58:27.140)

It's really nice that you're always grounded

Lee Cronin (3:58:29.980)

with experiment.

Lex Fridman (3:58:31.340)

That's all I have.

Lee Cronin (3:58:32.180)

That's so refreshing.

Lex Fridman (3:58:33.260)

That's so beautifully refreshing.

Lee Cronin (3:58:35.300)

Now that we're holding you to the grounded

Lex Fridman (3:58:39.380)

in an experiment to the harsh truth of reality,

Lee Cronin (3:58:42.300)

let me ask the big ridiculous question.

Lex Fridman (3:58:45.220)

What is the meaning of this whole thing?

Lex Fridman (3:58:47.420)

What's the meaning of life?

Lex Fridman (3:58:48.980)

Why?

Lee Cronin (3:58:49.940)

This time is fundamental.

Lex Fridman (3:58:52.660)

It's marching forward.

Lex Fridman (3:58:54.900)

And along this long timeline come along a bunch

Lex Fridman (3:58:58.900)

of descendants of apes that have come up

Lee Cronin (3:59:03.460)

with cellular automata and computers and now computers.

Lex Fridman (3:59:07.500)

Why?

Lee Cronin (3:59:09.780)

I have so many different answers to this question.

Lex Fridman (3:59:11.820)

It depends on what day.

Lee Cronin (3:59:13.820)

I would say that given the way of the conversation

Lex Fridman (3:59:16.060)

we had today, I'd say the meaning,

Lee Cronin (3:59:18.500)

well, we make our own meaning.

Lex Fridman (3:59:19.900)

I think that's fine.

Lex Fridman (3:59:20.940)

But I think the universe wants to explore

Lex Fridman (3:59:24.700)

every possible configuration that it's allowed us

Lee Cronin (3:59:27.420)

to explore.

Lex Fridman (3:59:28.620)

And this goes back to the kind of question

Lee Cronin (3:59:30.420)

that you were asking about Yasha and the existence

Lex Fridman (3:59:33.300)

and non existence of things, right?

Lex Fridman (3:59:35.220)

So if the universe is a Turing machine is churning

Lex Fridman (3:59:37.540)

through a lot of states and you think about

Lee Cronin (3:59:41.020)

combinatorial theory before assembly theory,

Lex Fridman (3:59:43.100)

so everything is possible.

Lex Fridman (3:59:45.260)

What Yasha and I were saying is, well,

Lex Fridman (3:59:48.020)

not everything is possible.

Lee Cronin (3:59:49.860)

We don't see the combinatorial explosion.

Lex Fridman (3:59:52.020)

We see something else.

Lex Fridman (3:59:53.740)

And what we see is evidence of memory.

Lex Fridman (3:59:57.740)

So there clearly seems to be some interference

Lee Cronin (40:04.900)

meaning going forward.

Lex Fridman (40:06.300)

That's beautifully put.

Lex Fridman (40:09.100)

So one, it will help us understand ourselves.

Lex Fridman (40:12.500)

So that's useful for science,

Lex Fridman (40:14.220)

but two, it gives us a kind of hope,

Lex Fridman (40:17.660)

if not an awe at all the huge amounts

Lee Cronin (40:23.980)

of alien civilizations that are out there.

Lex Fridman (40:26.380)

If you can build life and understand

Lee Cronin (40:29.140)

just how easy it is to build life,

Lex Fridman (40:31.900)

then that's just as good, if not much better,

Lee Cronin (40:35.540)

than discovering life on another planet.

Lex Fridman (40:38.300)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (40:39.140)

It's, I mean, it's cheaper.

Lex Fridman (40:41.620)

It's much cheaper and much easier

Lex Fridman (40:44.460)

and probably much more conclusive

Lex Fridman (40:47.460)

because once you're able to create life,

Lee Cronin (40:50.020)

like you said, it's a search problem

Lex Fridman (40:52.260)

that there's probably a lot of different ways to do it.

Lee Cronin (40:55.740)

Once you create the, once you find the first solution,

Lex Fridman (40:58.940)

you probably have all the right methodology

Lee Cronin (41:00.620)

for finding all kinds of other solutions.

Lex Fridman (41:02.660)

Yeah, and wouldn't it be great

Lex Fridman (41:03.740)

if we could find a solution?

Lex Fridman (41:04.860)

I mean, it's probably a bit late for,

Lee Cronin (41:07.580)

I mean, I worry about climate change,

Lex Fridman (41:09.060)

but I'm not that worried about climate change,

Lex Fridman (41:10.660)

and I think one day you could think about,

Lex Fridman (41:13.420)

could we engineer a new type of life form

Lee Cronin (41:15.140)

that could basically, and I don't want to do this,

Lex Fridman (41:17.900)

and I don't think we should do this necessarily,

Lex Fridman (41:19.460)

but it's a good thought experiment

Lex Fridman (41:21.180)

that would perhaps take CO2 out of the atmosphere

Lee Cronin (41:23.620)

or an intermediate life form, so it's not quite alive.

Lex Fridman (41:26.060)

It's almost like an add on

Lee Cronin (41:28.180)

that we can, with a time dependent add on,

Lex Fridman (41:32.180)

you could give to say cyanobacteria in the ocean

Lee Cronin (41:35.060)

or to maybe to wheat and say, right,

Lex Fridman (41:37.460)

we're just gonna, we're gonna fix a bit more CO2,

Lex Fridman (41:40.300)

and we're gonna work out how much we need to fix

Lex Fridman (41:42.020)

to basically save the climate,

Lex Fridman (41:44.580)

and we're gonna use evolutionary principles

Lex Fridman (41:47.620)

to basically get there.

Lex Fridman (41:49.500)

What worries me is that biology has had a few billion years

Lex Fridman (41:51.900)

to find a solution for CO2 fixation,

Lee Cronin (41:54.300)

hasn't really done, it's not,

Lex Fridman (41:57.060)

the solution isn't brilliant for our needs,

Lex Fridman (41:58.900)

but biology wasn't thinking about our needs.

Lex Fridman (42:00.780)

Biology was thinking about biology's needs,

Lex Fridman (42:03.180)

but I think if we can do, as you say,

Lex Fridman (42:05.180)

make life in the lab, then suddenly we don't need

Lee Cronin (42:08.460)

to go to everywhere and conclusively prove it.

Lex Fridman (42:10.940)

I think we make life in the lab.

Lee Cronin (42:12.420)

We look at the extent of life in the solar system.

Lex Fridman (42:14.300)

How far did Earth life get?

Lee Cronin (42:16.460)

Probably we're all Martians.

Lex Fridman (42:17.780)

Probably life got going on Mars.

Lee Cronin (42:19.260)

The chemistry on Mars seeded Earth.

Lex Fridman (42:21.220)

That might have been a legitimate way

Lee Cronin (42:22.940)

to kind of truncate the surface.

Lex Fridman (42:25.540)

But in the outer solar system,

Lee Cronin (42:26.580)

we might have completely different life forms

Lex Fridman (42:28.340)

on Enceladus, on Europa, and Titan.

Lex Fridman (42:32.060)

And that would be a cool thing, because.

Lex Fridman (42:33.380)

Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Lee Cronin (42:36.380)

Did you just say that you think, in terms of likelihood,

Lex Fridman (42:40.340)

life started on Mars, like statistically speaking,

Lex Fridman (42:43.620)

life started on Mars and seeded Earth?

Lex Fridman (42:45.860)

It could be possible, because life was,

Lex Fridman (42:48.380)

so Mars was habitable for the type of life

Lex Fridman (42:50.980)

that we have right now, type of chemistry before Earth.

Lex Fridman (42:53.900)

So it seems to me that Mars got searching,

Lex Fridman (42:57.020)

doing chemistry, like, and.

Lee Cronin (42:59.580)

It started way before.

Lex Fridman (43:00.820)

Yeah, and so they had a few more replicators

Lex Fridman (43:03.060)

and some other stuff.

Lex Fridman (43:04.220)

And if those replicators got ejected from Mars

Lex Fridman (43:06.340)

and landed on Earth, and Earth was like,

Lex Fridman (43:09.220)

I don't need to start again.

Lee Cronin (43:10.340)

Right.

Lex Fridman (43:11.580)

Thanks for that.

Lex Fridman (43:12.420)

And then it just carried on.

Lex Fridman (43:13.300)

So I'm not going, I think we will find evidence

Lee Cronin (43:16.540)

of life on Mars, either life we put there by mistake,

Lex Fridman (43:20.060)

contamination, or actually life,

Lee Cronin (43:22.220)

the earliest remnants of life.

Lex Fridman (43:24.500)

And that would be really exciting.

Lee Cronin (43:26.020)

It's a really good reason to go there.

Lex Fridman (43:28.100)

But I think it's more unlikely,

Lee Cronin (43:29.580)

because the gravitational situation in the solar system,

Lex Fridman (43:31.620)

if we find life in the outer solar system.

Lee Cronin (43:33.660)

Titan and all that, that would be its own thing.

Lex Fridman (43:35.860)

Exactly.

Lee Cronin (43:36.700)

Wow, that would be so cool.

Lex Fridman (43:37.940)

If we go to Mars and we find life that looks

Lee Cronin (43:40.820)

a hell of a lot similar to Earth life,

Lex Fridman (43:43.020)

and then we go to Titan and all those weird moons

Lee Cronin (43:46.780)

with the ices and the volcanoes and all that kind of stuff,

Lex Fridman (43:49.060)

and then we find there something that looks,

Lee Cronin (43:52.500)

I don't know, way weirder.

Lex Fridman (43:54.860)

Yeah.

Lee Cronin (43:55.700)

Some other, some non RNA type of situation.

Lex Fridman (43:57.660)

But we might find almost life,

Lee Cronin (43:59.580)

like in the prebiotic chemical space.

Lex Fridman (44:01.900)

And I think there are four types of exoplanets

Lex Fridman (44:03.660)

we need to look for, right?

Lex Fridman (44:04.540)

Because when JWST goes up and touch wood,

Lee Cronin (44:07.220)

it goes up and everything's fine.

Lex Fridman (44:09.140)

When we look at a star, well, we know statistically,

Lee Cronin (44:12.020)

most stars have planets around them.

Lex Fridman (44:13.420)

What type of planet are they?

Lex Fridman (44:14.680)

Are they going to be dead?

Lex Fridman (44:16.380)

Are they going to be just a prebiotic origin of life coming?

Lex Fridman (44:20.620)

So are they going to be technological?

Lex Fridman (44:23.460)

So with intelligence on them, and will they have died?

Lee Cronin (44:27.260)

So, you know, had life on them, but gone.

Lex Fridman (44:30.580)

Those are the four states of the boat.

Lex Fridman (44:32.220)

And suddenly, it's a bit like I want to classify planets

Lex Fridman (44:34.940)

the way we classify stars.

Lee Cronin (44:36.980)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (44:37.820)

And I think that, in terms of their,

Lee Cronin (44:39.660)

rather than having this, oh, we've found methane,

Lex Fridman (44:42.700)

there's evidence of life.

Lee Cronin (44:43.540)

We found oxygen, that's the evidence of life.

Lex Fridman (44:45.300)

We found whatever molecule marker.

Lex Fridman (44:47.900)

And start to then frame things a little bit more.

Lex Fridman (44:51.620)

As those four states.

Lee Cronin (44:52.980)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (44:53.820)

Which, by the way, you're just saying four,

Lex Fridman (44:55.140)

but there could be, before the dead,

Lex Fridman (44:58.760)

there could be other states

Lee Cronin (45:00.100)

that we humans can even conceive of.

Lex Fridman (45:01.780)

Yeah, yeah, just prebiotic, almost alive,

Lee Cronin (45:04.580)

got the possibility to come alive.

Lex Fridman (45:06.300)

I think.

Lex Fridman (45:07.140)

But there could be a post technological.

Lex Fridman (45:08.780)

Like, whatever we think of as technology,

Lee Cronin (45:12.060)

that could be a, like, pre conscious,

Lex Fridman (45:17.860)

like, where we all meld into one super intelligent conscious,

Lee Cronin (45:20.980)

or some weird thing that naturally happens over time.

Lex Fridman (45:23.860)

Yeah, yeah.

Lee Cronin (45:24.700)

I mean, I think that all bets are on that.

Lex Fridman (45:26.740)

The metaverse.

Lee Cronin (45:28.100)

Yeah, we are.

Lex Fridman (45:29.740)

We join into a virtual metaverse and start creating,

Lee Cronin (45:33.940)

which is kind of an interesting idea,

Lex Fridman (45:35.380)

almost arbitrary number of copies of each other,

Lee Cronin (45:38.480)

much more quickly, so we can mess with different ideas.

Lex Fridman (45:41.940)

Like, I can create a thousand copies of Lex,

Lee Cronin (45:45.420)

like, every possible version of Lex,

Lex Fridman (45:48.060)

and then just see, like,

Lex Fridman (45:49.620)

and then I just have them, like, argue with each other,

Lex Fridman (45:52.300)

and, like, until, like, in the space of ideas

Lex Fridman (45:54.860)

and see who wins out.

Lex Fridman (45:56.340)

How could that possibly go wrong?

Lex Fridman (45:58.060)

But anyway, there's, especially in this digital space

Lex Fridman (46:01.620)

where you could start exploring with AIs mixed in,

Lee Cronin (46:04.520)

you could start engineering arbitrary intelligences,

Lex Fridman (46:07.460)

you can start playing in the space of ideas,

Lee Cronin (46:10.100)

which might move us into a world that looks very different

Lex Fridman (46:13.900)

than a biological world.

Lee Cronin (46:15.020)

Like, our current world, the technology,

Lex Fridman (46:17.600)

is still very much tied to our biology.

Lee Cronin (46:20.960)

It's, we might move past that completely.

Lex Fridman (46:23.540)

Oh, definitely, we definitely will.

Lee Cronin (46:25.260)

We definitely, but that could be another phase then.

Lex Fridman (46:27.340)

Sure.

Lee Cronin (46:28.180)

Because then you, yeah.

Lex Fridman (46:29.000)

But I did say technological, so I think I agree with you.

Lee Cronin (46:30.780)

I think, so you can have, let's get this right.

Lex Fridman (46:32.540)

So, dead world, no prospect of alive.

Lee Cronin (46:36.500)

Prebiotic world, life emerging.

Lex Fridman (46:38.920)

Living and technological.

Lex Fridman (46:40.900)

And you probably, and the dead one,

Lex Fridman (46:42.180)

you probably won't be able to tell

Lee Cronin (46:43.060)

between the dead never being alive and the dead one,

Lex Fridman (46:46.020)

maybe you've got some artifacts and maybe there's five.

Lee Cronin (46:48.000)

There's probably not more than five.

Lex Fridman (46:50.400)

And I think the technological one could allow,

Lee Cronin (46:53.060)

could have life on it still,

Lex Fridman (46:54.300)

but it might just have exceeded.

Lee Cronin (46:56.340)

Because, you know, one way that life might survive on Earth

Lex Fridman (46:58.820)

is if we can work out how to deal with the coming,

Lee Cronin (47:01.780)

the real climate change that comes when the sun expands.

Lex Fridman (47:05.480)

It might be a way to survive that, you know, but yeah.

Lee Cronin (47:10.420)

I think that we need to start thinking statistically

Lex Fridman (47:12.420)

when it comes to looking for life in the universe.

Lee Cronin (47:15.240)

Let me ask you then, sort of statistically,

Lex Fridman (47:20.660)

how many alien civilizations are out there

Lex Fridman (47:23.860)

in those four phases that you're talking about?

Lex Fridman (47:26.500)

When you look up to the stars

Lex Fridman (47:28.580)

and you're sipping on some wine

Lex Fridman (47:30.820)

and talking to other people with British accents

Lee Cronin (47:35.340)

about something intelligent and intellectual, I'm sure.

Lex Fridman (47:39.860)

Do you think there's a lot of alien civilizations

Lex Fridman (47:42.740)

looking back at us and wondering the same?

Lex Fridman (47:45.700)

My romantic view of the universe

Lee Cronin (47:48.540)

is really taking loans from my logical self.

Lex Fridman (47:52.240)

So what I'm saying is I have no doubt, I have no idea.

Lex Fridman (47:55.500)

But having said that, there is no reason to suppose

Lex Fridman (48:01.520)

that life is as hard as we first thought it was.

Lex Fridman (48:04.820)

And so if we just take Earth as a marker,

Lex Fridman (48:08.780)

and if I think that life is a much more general phenomena

Lee Cronin (48:12.220)

than just our biology,

Lex Fridman (48:13.300)

then I think the universe is full of life.

Lex Fridman (48:16.700)

And the reason for the Fermi paradox

Lex Fridman (48:18.860)

is not that they're not out there,

Lee Cronin (48:22.220)

it's just that we can't interact with the other life forms

Lex Fridman (48:24.960)

because they're so different.

Lex Fridman (48:27.020)

And I'm not saying that they're necessarily like

Lex Fridman (48:28.980)

hasn't depicted in Arrival or other, you know,

Lee Cronin (48:31.780)

I'm just saying that perhaps

Lex Fridman (48:36.760)

there are very few universal facts in the universe

Lex Fridman (48:40.120)

and maybe our technologies are quite divergent.

Lex Fridman (48:47.440)

And so I think that it's very hard to know

Lex Fridman (48:49.760)

how we're gonna interact with alien life.

Lex Fridman (48:51.640)

You think there's a lot of kinds of life that's possible.

Lee Cronin (48:54.120)

I guess that was the intuition you provided

Lex Fridman (48:57.360)

that the way biology itself,

Lex Fridman (49:02.400)

but even this particular kinds of biology

Lex Fridman (49:04.680)

that we have on Earth is something that is just one sample

Lee Cronin (49:11.560)

of nearly infinite number of other possible,

Lex Fridman (49:15.560)

complex, autonomous, self replicating type of things

Lee Cronin (49:19.320)

that could be possible.

Lex Fridman (49:20.680)

And so we're almost unable to see

Lex Fridman (49:24.320)

the alternative versions of us, huh?

Lex Fridman (49:28.480)

I mean, we'll still be able to detect them,

Lee Cronin (49:31.840)

we'll still be able to interact with them,

Lex Fridman (49:33.840)

we'll still be able to like which,

Lex Fridman (49:36.840)

what's exactly is lost in translation?

Lex Fridman (49:39.260)

Why can't we see them?

Lex Fridman (49:41.280)

Why can't we talk to them?

Lex Fridman (49:42.720)

Because I too have a sense,

Lee Cronin (49:47.840)

you put it way more poetically,

Lex Fridman (49:49.760)

but it seems both statistically

Lex Fridman (49:54.880)

and sort of romantically,

Lex Fridman (49:58.600)

it feels like the universe should be teeming with life,

Lee Cronin (4:00:00.500)

between the combinatorial explosion of things

Lex Fridman (4:00:04.140)

and what the universe allows.

Lex Fridman (4:00:06.140)

And it's like this kind of constructive,

Lex Fridman (4:00:08.220)

destructive interference.

Lex Fridman (4:00:10.660)

So maybe the universe is not just about,

Lex Fridman (4:00:14.900)

it is assembling objects in space and time.

Lex Fridman (4:00:18.220)

And those objects are able to search more space and time.

Lex Fridman (4:00:22.140)

And the universe is just infinitely creative.

Lex Fridman (4:00:24.260)

And I guess I'm searching for why the universe

Lex Fridman (4:00:27.300)

is infinitely creative.

Lee Cronin (4:00:28.380)

It is infinitely creative.

Lex Fridman (4:00:29.460)

And maybe the meaning is just simply to make

Lee Cronin (4:00:31.380)

as many objects, create as many things as possible.

Lex Fridman (4:00:34.780)

And I see a future of the universe that doesn't result

Lee Cronin (4:00:37.180)

in the heat death of the universe.

Lex Fridman (4:00:38.700)

The universe is gonna extract every ounce

Lee Cronin (4:00:41.940)

of creativity it can out of it,

Lex Fridman (4:00:43.820)

because that's what we see on Earth, right?

Lex Fridman (4:00:45.860)

And if you think that almost like intelligence

Lex Fridman (4:00:49.020)

is not conserved, that maybe creativity isn't either.

Lee Cronin (4:00:52.340)

Maybe like it's an infinite well.

Lex Fridman (4:00:56.980)

So like creativity is ultimately tied to novelty.

Lee Cronin (4:01:00.420)

You're coming up with cool new configurations of things,

Lex Fridman (4:01:03.660)

and maybe that just can continue indefinitely.

Lex Fridman (4:01:06.300)

And this human species that was created along the way

Lex Fridman (4:01:09.900)

is probably just one method,

Lee Cronin (4:01:13.340)

like that's able to ask the universe about itself.

Lex Fridman (4:01:16.580)

It's just one way to explore creativity.

Lee Cronin (4:01:19.460)

Maybe there's other meta levels on top of that.

Lex Fridman (4:01:22.660)

Like obviously, as a collective intelligence

Lee Cronin (4:01:24.860)

will create organisms, maybe there'll be organisms

Lex Fridman (4:01:27.940)

that ask themselves questions about themselves

Lee Cronin (4:01:33.500)

in a deeper, bigger picture way than we humans do.

Lex Fridman (4:01:38.180)

First to ask questions about the humans,

Lex Fridman (4:01:39.780)

and then construct some kind of hybrid systems

Lex Fridman (4:01:42.900)

that ask themselves about the collective aspect.

Lee Cronin (4:01:45.500)

Just like some weird stacking

Lex Fridman (4:01:47.080)

that we can't even imagine yet.

Lex Fridman (4:01:49.060)

And that stacking, I mean, I have discussed this stacking

Lex Fridman (4:01:51.060)

a lot with Sarah Walker, who's a professor of physics

Lex Fridman (4:01:54.060)

and astrobiology at ASU.

Lex Fridman (4:01:57.420)

And we argue about how creative the universe is gonna be,

Lex Fridman (4:02:02.060)

and is it as deterministic as all that?

Lex Fridman (4:02:03.860)

Because I think she's more of a free will thinker,

Lex Fridman (4:02:07.620)

and I'm of a less free will thinker,

Lex Fridman (4:02:10.080)

but I think we're beginning to converge

Lex Fridman (4:02:12.220)

and understanding that.

Lex Fridman (4:02:13.980)

Because there's simply a missing understanding.

Lee Cronin (4:02:15.980)

Right now, we don't understand how the universe,

Lex Fridman (4:02:19.020)

we don't know what rules the universe has

Lee Cronin (4:02:21.340)

to allow the universe to contemplate itself.

Lex Fridman (4:02:23.460)

So asking the meaning of it

Lee Cronin (4:02:25.140)

before we even know what those rules are

Lex Fridman (4:02:27.340)

is premature, but my guess is that it's not meaningless,

Lex Fridman (4:02:30.660)

and it isn't just about that.

Lex Fridman (4:02:32.060)

And there are three levels of meanings.

Lee Cronin (4:02:33.880)

Obviously, the universe wants us to do stuff.

Lex Fridman (4:02:35.820)

We're interacting with each other,

Lex Fridman (4:02:36.900)

so we create meaning in our own society

Lex Fridman (4:02:38.540)

and our own interactions with humanity.

Lex Fridman (4:02:41.220)

But I do think there is something else going on.

Lex Fridman (4:02:44.460)

But because reality is so weird,

Lee Cronin (4:02:47.660)

we're just scratching at that.

Lex Fridman (4:02:49.980)

And I think that we have to make the experiments better.

Lex Fridman (4:02:52.960)

And we have to perhaps join across,

Lex Fridman (4:02:56.580)

not just for the computation lists.

Lex Fridman (4:02:58.620)

And what I tried to do with Yashua is meet him halfway,

Lex Fridman (4:03:01.140)

say, well, what happens if I become a computation list?

Lex Fridman (4:03:03.220)

What do I gain?

Lex Fridman (4:03:04.260)

A lot, it turns out,

Lee Cronin (4:03:05.660)

because I can make Turing machines in the universe.

Lex Fridman (4:03:08.180)

Because on the one hand, I'm making computers

Lee Cronin (4:03:09.860)

which are state machines inspired by Turing.

Lex Fridman (4:03:12.020)

On the other hand, I'm saying they can't exist.

Lee Cronin (4:03:14.580)

Well, clearly, I can't have my cake and eat it,

Lex Fridman (4:03:16.940)

so there's something weird going on there.

Lex Fridman (4:03:18.960)

So then, did the universe have to make a continuous

Lex Fridman (4:03:21.280)

to a discrete transition, or is the universe just discrete?

Lee Cronin (4:03:23.820)

It's probably just discrete.

Lex Fridman (4:03:25.380)

So if it's just discrete, then there are,

Lee Cronin (4:03:27.500)

I will then give Yashua his Turing like property

Lex Fridman (4:03:31.260)

in the universe.

Lex Fridman (4:03:32.100)

But maybe there's something else below it,

Lex Fridman (4:03:33.620)

which is the constructor that constructs a Turing machine

Lee Cronin (4:03:36.660)

that then constructs, you know,

Lex Fridman (4:03:38.700)

it's a bit like you generate a computing system

Lee Cronin (4:03:42.920)

that then is able to build an abstraction

Lex Fridman (4:03:44.620)

that then recognizes it can make a generalizable abstraction

Lee Cronin (4:03:48.520)

because human beings with mathematics

Lex Fridman (4:03:50.780)

have been able to go on and build physical computers.

Lee Cronin (4:03:55.200)

If that makes any sense.

Lex Fridman (4:03:57.060)

And I think that's the meaning.

Lee Cronin (4:03:58.100)

I think that's, you know, as far as we can,

Lex Fridman (4:04:00.820)

the meaning will be further elucidated

Lee Cronin (4:04:02.400)

with further experiments.

Lex Fridman (4:04:06.780)

Well, you mentioned Sarah.

Lee Cronin (4:04:08.420)

I think you and Sarah Walker

Lex Fridman (4:04:11.420)

are just these fascinating human beings.

Lee Cronin (4:04:14.460)

I'm really fortunate to have the opportunity

Lex Fridman (4:04:18.540)

to be in your presence, to study your work,

Lee Cronin (4:04:20.140)

to follow along with your work.

Lex Fridman (4:04:21.660)

I'm a big fan.

Lee Cronin (4:04:23.720)

Like I told you offline,

Lex Fridman (4:04:25.600)

I hope we get a chance to talk again

Lee Cronin (4:04:27.400)

with perhaps just the two of us,

Lex Fridman (4:04:29.900)

but also with Sarah.

Lee Cronin (4:04:30.840)

That's a fascinating dynamic for people who haven't heard.

Lex Fridman (4:04:35.340)

I suppose on Clubhouse is where I heard you guys talk,

Lex Fridman (4:04:38.240)

but you have an incredible dynamic.

Lex Fridman (4:04:39.940)

And I also can't wait to hear you and Yashua talk.

Lex Fridman (4:04:43.220)

So I think if there's some point in this predetermined

Lex Fridman (4:04:48.180)

or yet to be determined future where the three of us,

Lee Cronin (4:04:54.140)

you and Sarah, or the four of us with Yashua

Lex Fridman (4:04:56.620)

could meet and talk would be a beautiful future.

Lex Fridman (4:04:59.340)

And I look forward to most futures,

Lex Fridman (4:05:02.140)

but I look forward to that one in particular.

Lee Cronin (4:05:04.620)

Lee, thank you so much

Lex Fridman (4:05:06.100)

for spending your valuable time with me today.

Lee Cronin (4:05:08.300)

Thanks, Lex.

Lex Fridman (4:05:09.120)

It's been a pleasure.

Lee Cronin (4:05:10.660)

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Lee Cronin.

Lex Fridman (4:05:13.620)

To support this podcast,

Lee Cronin (4:05:15.120)

please check out our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (4:05:18.120)

And now let me leave you with some words

Lee Cronin (4:05:20.420)

from the math scientist, Rick Sanchez

Lex Fridman (4:05:22.460)

of Rick and Morty fame.

Lee Cronin (4:05:25.140)

To live is to risk it all.

Lex Fridman (4:05:28.460)

Otherwise you're just an inert chunk

Lee Cronin (4:05:31.860)

of randomly assembled molecules

Lex Fridman (4:05:34.240)

drifting wherever the universe blows you.

Lee Cronin (4:05:36.880)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Lex Fridman (50:02.040)

like super intelligent life.

Lex Fridman (50:04.460)

And I just, I sit there and the Fermi paradox is very,

Lex Fridman (50:10.840)

it's felt very distinctly by me

Lee Cronin (50:12.880)

when I look up at the stars because it's like,

Lex Fridman (50:15.720)

it's the same way I feel when I'm driving

Lee Cronin (50:18.480)

through New Jersey and listening to Bruce Springsteen

Lex Fridman (50:20.560)

and feel quite sad.

Lee Cronin (50:23.160)

It's like Lucy Kay talks about pulling off

Lex Fridman (50:25.040)

to the side of the road and just weeping a little bit.

Lee Cronin (50:27.700)

I'm almost like wondering like,

Lex Fridman (50:31.180)

hey, why aren't you talking to us?

Lee Cronin (50:33.800)

It feels lonely, it feels lonely

Lex Fridman (50:35.600)

because it feels like they're out there.

Lee Cronin (50:38.240)

I think that there are a number of answers to that.

Lex Fridman (50:40.120)

I think the Fermi paradox is perhaps based

Lee Cronin (50:42.520)

on the assumption that if life did emerge in the universe,

Lex Fridman (50:47.240)

it would be similar to our life

Lex Fridman (50:49.160)

and there's only one solution.

Lex Fridman (50:50.920)

And I think that what we've got to start to do

Lee Cronin (50:52.800)

is go out and look for selection detection

Lex Fridman (50:56.120)

rather than an evolution detection,

Lee Cronin (50:58.320)

rather than life detection.

Lex Fridman (51:01.380)

And I think that once we start to do that,

Lee Cronin (51:03.440)

we might start to see really interesting things.

Lex Fridman (51:07.000)

And we haven't been doing this for very long

Lex Fridman (51:10.200)

and we are living in an expanding universe

Lex Fridman (51:12.640)

and that makes the problem a little bit harder.

Lee Cronin (51:15.680)

Everybody's always leaving distance wise.

Lex Fridman (51:19.820)

I'm very optimistic that we will,

Lee Cronin (51:22.880)

well, I don't know, there are two movies that came out

Lex Fridman (51:25.800)

within six months of one another,

Lee Cronin (51:27.720)

Ad Astra and Cosmos.

Lex Fridman (51:30.200)

Ad Astra, the very expensive blockbuster

Lee Cronin (51:32.880)

with Brad Pitt in it and saying there is no life

Lex Fridman (51:35.880)

and it's all, we've got to,

Lee Cronin (51:37.220)

life on Earth has more pressures than Cosmos,

Lex Fridman (51:39.080)

which is a UK production,

Lee Cronin (51:40.360)

which basically aliens came and visited Earth one day

Lex Fridman (51:42.920)

and they were discovered in the UK, right?

Lee Cronin (51:45.120)

It was quite, it's a fun film.

Lex Fridman (51:48.440)

But I really loved those two films.

Lex Fridman (51:50.420)

And at the same time, those films,

Lex Fridman (51:53.560)

at the time those films were coming out,

Lee Cronin (51:54.760)

I was working on a paper, a life detection paper,

Lex Fridman (51:58.520)

and I found it was so hard to publish this paper

Lex Fridman (52:02.020)

and it was almost as depressed,

Lex Fridman (52:03.680)

I got so depressed trying to get this science out there

Lee Cronin (52:06.500)

that I felt the depression of the film in Ad Astra,

Lex Fridman (52:11.320)

like life, there's no life elsewhere in the universe.

Lee Cronin (52:14.720)

And, but I'm incredibly optimistic

Lex Fridman (52:17.400)

that I think we will find life in the universe,

Lee Cronin (52:19.320)

firm evidence of life,

Lex Fridman (52:21.040)

and it will have to start on Earth,

Lee Cronin (52:22.440)

making life on Earth and surprising us.

Lex Fridman (52:24.360)

We have to surprise ourselves

Lex Fridman (52:25.680)

and make non biological life on Earth.

Lex Fridman (52:28.440)

And then people say, well, you made this life on Earth,

Lee Cronin (52:31.400)

therefore it's, you're part of the causal chain of that.

Lex Fridman (52:34.380)

And that might be true,

Lex Fridman (52:35.600)

but if I can show how I'm able to do it

Lex Fridman (52:38.920)

with very little cheating

Lee Cronin (52:40.800)

or very little information inputs,

Lex Fridman (52:42.380)

just creating like a model planet.

Lee Cronin (52:44.660)

Some description and watching it, watching life emerge,

Lex Fridman (52:48.520)

then I think that we will be even to persuade

Lee Cronin (52:51.140)

even the hardest critic that it's possible.

Lex Fridman (52:55.080)

Now, with regards to the Fermi paradox,

Lee Cronin (52:57.660)

I think that we might crush that with the JWST.

Lex Fridman (53:01.400)

It's basically, if I recall correctly,

Lee Cronin (53:03.120)

the mirror is about 10 times the size of the Hubble

Lex Fridman (53:06.440)

that we're gonna be able to do spectroscopy,

Lee Cronin (53:09.020)

look at colors of exoplanets, I think, not brilliantly,

Lex Fridman (53:12.680)

but we'll be able to start to classify them.

Lex Fridman (53:15.280)

And we'll start to get a real feel

Lex Fridman (53:18.860)

for what's going on in the universe on these exoplanets.

Lee Cronin (53:21.400)

Cause it's only in the last few decades, I think,

Lex Fridman (53:25.200)

maybe even last decade that we even

Lee Cronin (53:30.320)

came to recognize that exoplanets even are common.

Lex Fridman (53:33.880)

And I think that that gives us a lot of optimism

Lee Cronin (53:36.160)

that life is gonna be out there.

Lex Fridman (53:38.660)

But I think we have to start framing,

Lee Cronin (53:40.560)

we have to start preparing the fact

Lex Fridman (53:44.040)

that biology is only one solution.

Lee Cronin (53:46.920)

I can tell you with confidence that biology on Earth

Lex Fridman (53:50.640)

does not exist anywhere else in the universe.

Lee Cronin (53:52.620)

We are absolutely unique.

Lex Fridman (53:54.680)

Well, okay, I love the confidence,

Lex Fridman (53:56.840)

but where does that confidence come from?

Lex Fridman (54:02.400)

Chemistry, like how many options does chemistry really have?

Lee Cronin (54:07.640)

Many, that's the point.

Lex Fridman (54:08.880)

And the thing is, this is where the origin of life scam

Lee Cronin (54:11.160)

comes in, is that people don't quite count,

Lex Fridman (54:15.140)

they don't count the numbers.

Lex Fridman (54:16.240)

So if biology as you find on Earth is common everywhere,

Lex Fridman (54:19.980)

then there's something really weird going on

Lee Cronin (54:21.600)

that basically written in the quantum mechanics,

Lex Fridman (54:23.940)

there's some kind of these bonds must form over these bonds

Lex Fridman (54:26.680)

and this catalyst must form over this catalyst

Lex Fridman (54:28.280)

when they're all quite equal.

Lee Cronin (54:30.160)

Life is contingent.

Lex Fridman (54:31.840)

The origin of life on Earth was contingent

Lee Cronin (54:34.560)

upon the chemistry available at the origin of life on Earth.

Lex Fridman (54:38.600)

So that means if we want to find other Earth like worlds,

Lee Cronin (54:43.360)

we look for the same kind of rocky world.

Lex Fridman (54:45.120)

We might look in the same zone as Earth

Lex Fridman (54:47.840)

and we might expect reasonably

Lex Fridman (54:50.320)

to find biological like stuff going on.

Lee Cronin (54:53.840)

That would be a reasonable hypothesis,

Lex Fridman (54:55.540)

but it won't be the same, it can't be.

Lee Cronin (54:57.360)

It's like saying, I don't believe in magic.

Lex Fridman (55:00.480)

That's why I'm sure.

Lee Cronin (55:02.520)

I just don't believe in magic.

Lex Fridman (55:03.680)

I believe in statistics and I can do experiments.

Lex Fridman (55:06.000)

And so I won't get the same, exactly the same sequence

Lex Fridman (55:09.680)

of events, I'll get something different.

Lex Fridman (55:11.440)

And so there is TikTok elsewhere in the universe,

Lex Fridman (55:14.400)

but it's not the same as our TikTok, right?

Lee Cronin (55:16.600)

That's what I mean.

Lex Fridman (55:17.840)

Which aspect of it is not the same?

Lex Fridman (55:20.160)

Well, I just think, so what is TikTok?

Lex Fridman (55:23.480)

TikTok is a social media where people upload videos, right?

Lee Cronin (55:27.040)

Of silly videos.

Lex Fridman (55:28.100)

So I guess there might be.

Lee Cronin (55:29.440)

Well, there's humor, there's attention,

Lex Fridman (55:31.000)

there's the ability to process,

Lee Cronin (55:33.080)

there's ability for intelligent organisms

Lex Fridman (55:35.480)

to collaborate on ideas and find human ideas

Lex Fridman (55:38.640)

and play with those ideas, make them viral, memes.

Lex Fridman (55:43.760)

Humor seems to be kind of fundamental

Lee Cronin (55:45.400)

to the human experience.

Lex Fridman (55:46.600)

And I think that that's a really interesting question

Lex Fridman (55:48.820)

we can ask, is humor a fundamental thing in the universe?

Lex Fridman (55:52.360)

I think maybe it will be, right?

Lee Cronin (55:53.640)

In terms of, you think about in a game theoretic sense,

Lex Fridman (55:56.800)

humor, the emergence of humor serves a role

Lee Cronin (56:00.440)

in our game engine.

Lex Fridman (56:01.640)

And so if selection is fundamental in the universe,

Lex Fridman (56:05.000)

so is humor.

Lex Fridman (56:06.920)

Well, I actually don't know exactly

Lex Fridman (56:10.280)

what role humor serves.

Lex Fridman (56:12.520)

Maybe it's like, from a chemical perspective,

Lee Cronin (56:15.320)

it's like a catalyst for,

Lex Fridman (56:20.320)

I guess it's for several purposes.

Lee Cronin (56:21.480)

One is the catalyst for spreading ideas on the internet.

Lex Fridman (56:23.720)

That's modern humor.

Lex Fridman (56:25.480)

But humor is also a good way to deal

Lex Fridman (56:28.220)

with the difficulty of life.

Lee Cronin (56:30.800)

It's a kind of valve, release valve for suffering.

Lex Fridman (56:35.560)

Throughout human history, life has been really hard.

Lex Fridman (56:39.080)

And for the people that I've known in my life

Lex Fridman (56:41.200)

who've lived through some really difficult things,

Lee Cronin (56:44.780)

humor is part of how they deal with that.

Lex Fridman (56:47.400)

It's usually dark humor.

Lex Fridman (56:49.320)

But yeah, it's interesting.

Lex Fridman (56:51.480)

I don't know exactly what's the more mathematically

Lee Cronin (56:56.040)

general way to formulate what the hell is humor.

Lex Fridman (56:58.840)

What humor does it serve?

Lex Fridman (57:01.040)

But I still, we're kind of joking here,

Lex Fridman (57:03.800)

but it's a counterintuitive idea to me

Lee Cronin (57:09.800)

to think that life elsewhere in the universe

Lex Fridman (57:14.640)

is very different than life on Earth.

Lex Fridman (57:17.440)

And also, like all of each instantiation of life

Lex Fridman (57:23.400)

is likely very different from each other.

Lee Cronin (57:26.000)

Yeah, like maybe there's a few clusters of similar life,

Lex Fridman (57:30.480)

but it's much more likely is what you're saying.

Lee Cronin (57:34.160)

To me, it's a kind of novel thought.

Lex Fridman (57:36.180)

I'm not sure what to do with it.

Lex Fridman (57:37.520)

But you're saying that it's more common

Lex Fridman (57:40.360)

to be a weird outcast in the full spectrum of life

Lee Cronin (57:44.860)

than it is to be in some usual cluster.

Lex Fridman (57:48.140)

So every instantiation of a kind of chemistry

Lee Cronin (57:51.520)

that results in complexity that's autonomous

Lex Fridman (57:53.440)

and self replicating however the hell you define life,

Lee Cronin (57:56.880)

that is going to be very different every time.

Lex Fridman (57:59.700)

I don't know.

Lee Cronin (58:01.400)

It feels like a selection is a fundamental

Lex Fridman (58:04.960)

kind of directed force in the universe.

Lee Cronin (58:07.940)

Won't selection result in a few pockets

Lex Fridman (58:11.520)

of interesting complexities?

Lee Cronin (58:13.440)

I mean, yeah, if we ran Earth over again,

Lex Fridman (58:19.960)

over and over and over,

Lee Cronin (58:20.880)

you're saying it's going to come up with,

Lex Fridman (58:23.080)

there's not going to be elephants every time?

Lee Cronin (58:26.000)

Yeah, I don't think so.

Lex Fridman (58:27.480)

I think that there will be similarities.

Lex Fridman (58:30.520)

And I think we don't know enough

Lex Fridman (58:32.260)

about how selection globally works.

Lex Fridman (58:37.880)

But it might be that the emergence of elephants

Lex Fridman (58:42.080)

was wired into the history of Earth in some way,

Lee Cronin (58:44.400)

like the gravitational force, how evolution was going,

Lex Fridman (58:47.920)

Cambrian explosions, blah, blah, blah,

Lee Cronin (58:49.360)

the emergence of mammals.

Lex Fridman (58:50.760)

But I just don't know enough about the contingency,

Lee Cronin (58:53.720)

the variability.

Lex Fridman (58:54.920)

All I do know is you count the number of bits

Lee Cronin (58:57.260)

of information required to make an elephant

Lex Fridman (59:00.600)

and think about the causal chain

Lee Cronin (59:03.600)

that provide the lineage of elephants

Lex Fridman (59:05.700)

going all the way back to Luca,

Lee Cronin (59:07.760)

there's a huge scope for divergence.

Lex Fridman (59:10.360)

Yeah, but just like you said, with chemistry and selection,

Lee Cronin (59:15.040)

the things that result in self replicating chemistry

Lex Fridman (59:22.840)

and self replicating organisms,

Lee Cronin (59:26.520)

those are extremely unlikely, as you're saying.

Lex Fridman (59:30.520)

But once they're successful, they multiply.

Lex Fridman (59:33.100)

So it might be a tiny subset of all things

Lex Fridman (59:37.640)

that are possible in the universe, chemically speaking,

Lee Cronin (59:40.080)

it might be a very tiny subset

Lex Fridman (59:41.800)

is actually successful at creating elephants.

Lee Cronin (59:44.600)

Or elephant like or slash human like creatures.

Lex Fridman (59:48.040)

Well, there's two different questions here.

Lee Cronin (59:48.880)

The first one, if we were to reset Earth and to start again.

Lex Fridman (59:52.920)

The different phases, sorry to keep interrupting.

Lee Cronin (59:54.920)

Yeah, no, if we restart Earth and start again,

Lex Fridman (59:56.880)

say we could go back to the beginning

Lex Fridman (59:58.600)

and do the experiment or have a number of Earths,