Whitney Cummings: Comedy, Robotics, Neurology, and Love
心理与人性AI 与机器学习生物与进化音乐与艺术技术与编程
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🎙️ 完整对话（1944 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Whitney Cummings.
Lex Fridman (00:03.640)
She's a standup comedian, actor, producer, writer, director,
Lex Fridman (00:07.240)
and recently, finally, the host of her very own podcast
Lex Fridman (00:11.280)
called Good For You.
Lex Fridman (00:12.920)
Her most recent Netflix special called Can I Touch It?
Whitney Cummings (00:15.920)
features in part a robot she affectionately named
Lex Fridman (00:19.160)
Bearclaw that is designed to be visually a replica of Whitney.
Whitney Cummings (00:23.420)
It's exciting for me to see one of my favorite comedians
Lex Fridman (00:26.000)
explore the social aspects of robotics and AI in our society.
Whitney Cummings (00:30.720)
She also has some fascinating ideas
Lex Fridman (00:32.920)
about human behavior, psychology, and neurology,
Whitney Cummings (00:36.000)
some of which she explores in her book
Lex Fridman (00:37.800)
called I'm Fine and Other Lies.
Whitney Cummings (00:41.240)
It was truly a pleasure to meet Whitney
Lex Fridman (00:43.320)
and have this conversation with her
Lex Fridman (00:45.200)
and even to continue it through text afterwards.
Lex Fridman (00:47.920)
Every once in a while, late at night,
Whitney Cummings (00:50.160)
I'll be programming over a cup of coffee
Lex Fridman (00:52.360)
and will get a text from Whitney saying something hilarious
Whitney Cummings (00:55.760)
or weirder yet, sending a video of Brian Callan
Lex Fridman (00:58.960)
saying something hilarious.
Whitney Cummings (01:00.960)
That's when I know the universe has a sense of humor
Lex Fridman (01:03.880)
and it gifted me with one hell of an amazing journey.
Whitney Cummings (01:07.400)
Then I put the phone down and go back to programming
Lex Fridman (01:10.320)
with a stupid, joyful smile on my face.
Whitney Cummings (01:13.400)
If you enjoy this conversation,
Lex Fridman (01:14.960)
listen to Whitney's podcast, Good For You,
Lex Fridman (01:17.200)
and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Lex Fridman (01:19.840)
This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast.
Whitney Cummings (01:22.640)
If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube,
Lex Fridman (01:24.840)
give it five stars on Apple Podcasts,
Whitney Cummings (01:26.800)
support on Patreon, or simply connect with me on Twitter
Lex Fridman (01:30.160)
at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N.
Whitney Cummings (01:34.040)
This show is presented by Cash App,
Lex Fridman (01:35.840)
the number one finance app in the App Store.
Whitney Cummings (01:38.280)
They regularly support Whitney's Good For You podcast
Lex Fridman (01:40.480)
as well.
Whitney Cummings (01:41.440)
I personally use Cash App to send money to friends,
Lex Fridman (01:43.920)
but you can also use it to buy, sell,
Lex Fridman (01:45.680)
and deposit Bitcoin in just seconds.
Lex Fridman (01:47.960)
Cash App also has a new investing feature.
Whitney Cummings (01:50.680)
You can buy fractions of a stock, say $1 worth,
Lex Fridman (01:53.480)
no matter what the stock price is.
Whitney Cummings (01:55.760)
Broker services are provided by Cash App Investing,
Lex Fridman (01:58.560)
subsidiary of Square, and member SIPC.
Whitney Cummings (02:02.000)
I'm excited to be working with Cash App
Lex Fridman (02:04.120)
to support one of my favorite organizations called First,
Whitney Cummings (02:07.160)
best known for their FIRST Robotics and Lego competitions.
Lex Fridman (02:10.400)
They educate and inspire hundreds of thousands of students
Whitney Cummings (02:13.800)
in over 110 countries,
Lex Fridman (02:16.000)
and have a perfect rating on Charity Navigator,
Whitney Cummings (02:18.680)
which means the donated money
Lex Fridman (02:19.960)
is used to maximum effectiveness.
Whitney Cummings (02:22.360)
When you get Cash App from the App Store or Google Play,
Lex Fridman (02:25.240)
and use code LEXPODCAST, you'll get $10,
Lex Fridman (02:28.920)
and Cash App will also donate $10 to FIRST,
Lex Fridman (02:32.080)
which again, is an organization that I've personally seen
Whitney Cummings (02:35.240)
inspire girls and boys to dream
Lex Fridman (02:37.360)
of engineering a better world.
Whitney Cummings (02:40.440)
This podcast is supported by ZipRecruiter.
Lex Fridman (02:43.040)
Hiring great people is hard,
Lex Fridman (02:45.200)
and to me is the most important element
Lex Fridman (02:47.280)
of a successful mission driven team.
Whitney Cummings (02:50.080)
I've been fortunate to be a part of,
Lex Fridman (02:52.080)
and to lead several great engineering teams.
Whitney Cummings (02:54.680)
The hiring I've done in the past
Lex Fridman (02:56.640)
was mostly through tools that we built ourselves,
Lex Fridman (02:59.360)
but reinventing the wheel was painful.
Lex Fridman (03:02.360)
ZipRecruiter is a tool that's already available for you.
Whitney Cummings (03:05.200)
It seeks to make hiring simple, fast, and smart.
Lex Fridman (03:08.960)
For example, Codable cofounder Gretchen Huebner
Whitney Cummings (03:11.920)
used ZipRecruiter to find a new game artist
Lex Fridman (03:14.360)
to join her education tech company.
Whitney Cummings (03:16.680)
By using ZipRecruiter screening questions
Lex Fridman (03:18.800)
to filter candidates, Gretchen found it easier
Whitney Cummings (03:21.560)
to focus on the best candidates,
Lex Fridman (03:23.040)
and finally hiring the perfect person for the role
Whitney Cummings (03:26.400)
in less than two weeks from start to finish.
Lex Fridman (03:29.400)
ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.
Whitney Cummings (03:32.480)
See why ZipRecruiter is effective
Lex Fridman (03:34.120)
for businesses of all sizes by signing up as I did
Whitney Cummings (03:37.520)
for free at ziprecruiter.com slash lexpod.
Lex Fridman (03:41.520)
That's ziprecruiter.com slash lexpod.
Lex Fridman (03:45.320)
And now, here's my conversation with Whitney Cummings.
Lex Fridman (03:51.560)
I have trouble making eye contact, as you can tell.
Whitney Cummings (03:53.720)
Me too.
Lex Fridman (03:54.560)
Did you know that I had to work on making eye contact
Lex Fridman (03:56.920)
because I used to look here?
Lex Fridman (03:58.840)
Do you see what I'm doing?
Whitney Cummings (03:59.680)
That helps, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (04:00.500)
Do you want me to do that?
Whitney Cummings (04:01.760)
Well, I'll do this way, I'll cheat the camera.
Lex Fridman (04:03.560)
But I used to do this, and finally people,
Whitney Cummings (04:05.720)
like I'd be on dates and guys would be like,
Lex Fridman (04:07.380)
are you looking at my hair?
Whitney Cummings (04:08.220)
Like they get, it would make people really insecure
Lex Fridman (04:10.860)
because I didn't really get a lot of eye contact as a kid.
Whitney Cummings (04:13.160)
It's one to three years.
Lex Fridman (04:14.720)
Did you not get a lot of eye contact as a kid?
Whitney Cummings (04:16.440)
I don't know.
Lex Fridman (04:17.280)
I haven't done the soul searching.
Whitney Cummings (04:19.560)
Right.
Lex Fridman (04:20.760)
So, but there's definitely some psychological issues.
Whitney Cummings (04:24.200)
Makes you uncomfortable.
Lex Fridman (04:25.520)
Yeah, for some reason when I connect eyes,
Whitney Cummings (04:27.880)
I start to think, I assume that you're judging me.
Lex Fridman (04:31.800)
Oh, well, I am.
Whitney Cummings (04:33.320)
That's why you assume that.
Lex Fridman (04:34.440)
Yeah.
Whitney Cummings (04:35.280)
We all are.
Lex Fridman (04:36.100)
All right.
Whitney Cummings (04:36.940)
This is perfect.
Lex Fridman (04:37.760)
The podcast would be me and you both
Whitney Cummings (04:38.600)
staring at the table on the whole time.
Lex Fridman (04:42.400)
Do you think robots are the future?
Whitney Cummings (04:44.200)
Ones with human level intelligence
Lex Fridman (04:45.960)
will be female, male, genderless,
Lex Fridman (04:49.480)
or another gender we have not yet created as a society?
Lex Fridman (04:53.220)
You're the expert at this.
Whitney Cummings (04:55.220)
Well, I'm gonna ask you.
Lex Fridman (04:56.060)
You know the answer.
Whitney Cummings (04:57.320)
I'm gonna ask you questions
Lex Fridman (04:58.680)
that maybe nobody knows the answer to.
Whitney Cummings (05:00.920)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (05:01.960)
And then I just want you to hypothesize
Whitney Cummings (05:04.080)
as a imaginative author, director, comedian.
Lex Fridman (05:10.960)
Can we just be very clear
Whitney Cummings (05:12.120)
that you know a ton about this
Lex Fridman (05:14.200)
and I know nothing about this,
Lex Fridman (05:15.780)
but I have thought a lot about
Lex Fridman (05:19.600)
what I think robots can fix in our society.
Lex Fridman (05:22.840)
And I mean, I'm a comedian.
Lex Fridman (05:24.400)
It's my job to study human nature,
Whitney Cummings (05:27.520)
to make jokes about human nature
Lex Fridman (05:28.860)
and to sometimes play devil's advocate.
Lex Fridman (05:31.080)
And I just see such a tremendous negativity around robots
Lex Fridman (05:35.160)
or at least the idea of robots that it was like,
Whitney Cummings (05:38.040)
oh, I'm just gonna take the opposite side for fun,
Lex Fridman (05:40.660)
for jokes and then I was like,
Whitney Cummings (05:43.400)
oh no, I really agree in this devil's advocate argument.
Lex Fridman (05:45.920)
So please correct me when I'm wrong about this stuff.
Lex Fridman (05:49.400)
So first of all, there's no right and wrong
Lex Fridman (05:51.780)
because we're all,
Whitney Cummings (05:53.840)
I think most of the people working on robotics
Lex Fridman (05:55.920)
are really not actually even thinking
Whitney Cummings (05:57.580)
about some of the big picture things
Lex Fridman (06:00.040)
that you've been exploring.
Lex Fridman (06:01.280)
In fact, your robot, what's her name by the way?
Lex Fridman (06:04.600)
Bearclaw.
Whitney Cummings (06:05.440)
We'll go with Bearclaw.
Lex Fridman (06:06.280)
What's the genesis of that name by the way?
Whitney Cummings (06:11.720)
Bearclaw was, I got, I don't even remember the joke
Lex Fridman (06:15.000)
cause I black out after I shoot specials,
Lex Fridman (06:16.680)
but I was writing something about like the pet names
Lex Fridman (06:19.200)
that men call women, like cupcake, sweetie, honey,
Whitney Cummings (06:22.960)
you know, like we're always named after desserts
Lex Fridman (06:26.560)
or something and I was just writing a joke about,
Whitney Cummings (06:29.920)
if you wanna call us a dessert,
Lex Fridman (06:31.000)
at least pick like a cool dessert, you know,
Whitney Cummings (06:33.200)
like Bearclaw, like something cool.
Lex Fridman (06:35.680)
So I ended up calling her Bearclaw.
Lex Fridman (06:38.240)
So do you think the future robots
Lex Fridman (06:42.280)
of greater and greater intelligence
Lex Fridman (06:44.440)
would like to make them female, male?
Lex Fridman (06:46.520)
Would we like to assign them gender
Whitney Cummings (06:48.560)
or would we like to move away from gender
Lex Fridman (06:50.800)
and say something more ambiguous?
Lex Fridman (06:54.000)
I think it depends on their purpose, you know?
Lex Fridman (06:56.360)
I feel like if it's a sex robot,
Lex Fridman (06:59.920)
people prefer certain genders, you know?
Lex Fridman (07:01.900)
And I also, you know, when I went down and explored the robot
Whitney Cummings (07:05.840)
factory, I was asking about the type of people
Lex Fridman (07:07.680)
that bought sex robots.
Lex Fridman (07:09.240)
And I was very surprised at the answer
Lex Fridman (07:12.200)
because of course the stereotype
Whitney Cummings (07:14.160)
was it's gonna be a bunch of perverts.
Lex Fridman (07:15.320)
It ended up being a lot of people that were handicapped,
Whitney Cummings (07:18.580)
a lot of people with erectile dysfunction
Lex Fridman (07:20.520)
and a lot of people that were exploring their sexuality.
Whitney Cummings (07:23.880)
A lot of people that thought they were gay,
Lex Fridman (07:25.920)
but weren't sure, but didn't wanna take the risk
Whitney Cummings (07:28.120)
of trying on someone that could reject them
Lex Fridman (07:31.660)
and being embarrassed or they were closeted
Whitney Cummings (07:33.880)
or in a city where maybe that's, you know,
Lex Fridman (07:36.320)
taboo and stigmatized, you know?
Lex Fridman (07:37.920)
So I think that a gendered sex robot
Lex Fridman (07:40.560)
that would serve an important purpose
Whitney Cummings (07:42.340)
for someone trying to explore their sexuality.
Lex Fridman (07:44.160)
Am I into men?
Whitney Cummings (07:45.000)
Let me try on this thing first.
Lex Fridman (07:46.160)
Am I into women?
Whitney Cummings (07:47.000)
Let me try on this thing first.
Lex Fridman (07:48.220)
So I think gendered robots would be important for that.
Lex Fridman (07:51.200)
But I think genderless robots in terms of
Lex Fridman (07:53.760)
emotional support robots, babysitters,
Whitney Cummings (07:56.520)
I'm fine for a genderless babysitter
Lex Fridman (07:58.720)
with my husband in the house.
Whitney Cummings (08:00.100)
You know, there are places that I think
Lex Fridman (08:02.080)
that genderless makes a lot of sense,
Lex Fridman (08:04.640)
but obviously not in the sex area.
Lex Fridman (08:07.560)
What do you mean with your husband in the house?
Lex Fridman (08:09.920)
What does that have to do with the gender of the robot?
Lex Fridman (08:11.800)
Right, I mean, I don't have a husband,
Lex Fridman (08:13.040)
but hypothetically speaking,
Lex Fridman (08:14.340)
I think every woman's worst nightmare
Whitney Cummings (08:15.720)
is like the hot babysitter.
Lex Fridman (08:17.240)
You know what I mean?
Lex Fridman (08:19.280)
So I think that there is a time and place,
Lex Fridman (08:21.700)
I think, for genderless, you know, teachers, doctors,
Whitney Cummings (08:25.360)
all that kind of, it would be very awkward
Lex Fridman (08:27.280)
if the first robotic doctor was a guy
Whitney Cummings (08:29.700)
or the first robotic nurse was a woman.
Lex Fridman (08:32.600)
You know, it's sort of, that stuff is still loaded.
Whitney Cummings (08:36.100)
I think that genderless could just take
Lex Fridman (08:38.440)
the unnecessary drama out of it
Lex Fridman (08:43.900)
and possibility to sexualize them
Lex Fridman (08:46.000)
or be triggered by any of that stuff.
Lex Fridman (08:49.520)
So there's two components to this, to Bearclaw.
Lex Fridman (08:52.800)
So one is the voice and the talking and so on,
Lex Fridman (08:55.040)
and then there's the visual appearance.
Lex Fridman (08:56.360)
So on the topic of gender and genderless,
Whitney Cummings (08:59.580)
in your experience, what has been the value
Lex Fridman (09:03.160)
of the physical appearance?
Lex Fridman (09:04.900)
So has it added much to the depth of the interaction?
Lex Fridman (09:08.980)
I mean, mine's kind of an extenuating circumstance
Whitney Cummings (09:11.200)
because she is supposed to look exactly like me.
Lex Fridman (09:13.540)
I mean, I spent six months getting my face molded
Lex Fridman (09:15.980)
and having, you know, the idea was I was exploring
Lex Fridman (09:19.440)
the concept of can robots replace us?
Whitney Cummings (09:21.220)
Because that's the big fear,
Lex Fridman (09:22.480)
but also the big dream in a lot of ways.
Lex Fridman (09:24.240)
And I wanted to dig into that area because, you know,
Lex Fridman (09:28.200)
for a lot of people, it's like,
Whitney Cummings (09:29.920)
they're gonna take our jobs and they're gonna replace us.
Lex Fridman (09:32.080)
Legitimate fear, but then a lot of women I know are like,
Whitney Cummings (09:34.360)
I would love for a robot to replace me every now and then
Lex Fridman (09:36.960)
so it can go to baby showers for me
Lex Fridman (09:38.880)
and it can pick up my kids at school
Lex Fridman (09:40.180)
and it can cook dinner and whatever.
Lex Fridman (09:42.480)
So I just think that was an interesting place to explore.
Lex Fridman (09:45.200)
So her looking like me was a big part of it.
Whitney Cummings (09:47.040)
Now her looking like me just adds
Lex Fridman (09:49.080)
an unnecessary level of insecurity
Whitney Cummings (09:51.360)
because I got her a year ago
Lex Fridman (09:53.520)
and she already looks younger than me.
Lex Fridman (09:54.680)
So that's a weird problem.
Lex Fridman (09:57.640)
But I think that her looking human was the idea.
Lex Fridman (10:00.680)
And I think that where we are now,
Lex Fridman (10:03.080)
please correct me if I'm wrong,
Whitney Cummings (10:04.800)
a human robot resembling an actual human you know
Lex Fridman (10:09.860)
is going to feel more realistic than some generic face.
Whitney Cummings (10:13.760)
Well, you're saying that robots that have some familiarity
Lex Fridman (10:19.120)
like look similar to somebody that you actually know
Lex Fridman (10:22.480)
you'll be able to form a deeper connection with?
Lex Fridman (10:24.560)
That was the question. I think so on some level, right?
Whitney Cummings (10:26.000)
That's an open question.
Lex Fridman (10:26.960)
I don't, you know, it's an interesting.
Whitney Cummings (10:30.240)
Or the opposite, because then you know me
Lex Fridman (10:32.080)
and you're like, well, I know this isn't real
Whitney Cummings (10:33.360)
because you're right here.
Lex Fridman (10:34.560)
So maybe it does the opposite.
Whitney Cummings (10:36.280)
We have a very keen eye for human faces
Lex Fridman (10:39.240)
and they're able to detect strangeness
Whitney Cummings (10:41.840)
especially that one has to do with people
Lex Fridman (10:44.360)
whose faces we've seen a lot of.
Lex Fridman (10:46.400)
So I tend to be a bigger fan
Lex Fridman (10:48.880)
of moving away completely from faces.
Lex Fridman (10:52.840)
Of recognizable faces?
Lex Fridman (10:54.200)
No, just human faces at all.
Whitney Cummings (10:56.000)
In general, because I think that's where things get dicey.
Lex Fridman (10:58.280)
And one thing I will say is
Whitney Cummings (11:00.440)
I think my robot is more realistic than other robots
Lex Fridman (11:03.040)
not necessarily because you have seen me
Lex Fridman (11:05.160)
and then you see her and you go, oh, they're so similar
Lex Fridman (11:07.600)
but also because human faces are flawed and asymmetrical.
Lex Fridman (11:11.120)
And sometimes we forget when we're making things
Lex Fridman (11:13.440)
that are supposed to look human,
Whitney Cummings (11:14.400)
we make them too symmetrical
Lex Fridman (11:16.000)
and that's what makes them stop looking human.
Lex Fridman (11:17.960)
So because they mold in my asymmetrical face,
Lex Fridman (11:20.520)
she just, even if someone didn't know who I was
Whitney Cummings (11:22.860)
I think she'd look more realistic than most generic ones
Lex Fridman (11:26.560)
that didn't have some kind of flaws.
Whitney Cummings (11:28.880)
Got it.
Lex Fridman (11:29.720)
Because they start looking creepy
Whitney Cummings (11:30.760)
when they're too symmetrical because human beings aren't.
Lex Fridman (11:33.240)
Yeah, the flaws is what it means to be human.
Lex Fridman (11:35.720)
So visually as well.
Lex Fridman (11:37.720)
But I'm just a fan of the idea
Whitney Cummings (11:39.400)
of letting humans use a little bit more imagination.
Lex Fridman (11:43.280)
So just hearing the voice is enough for us humans
Whitney Cummings (11:47.560)
to then start imagining the visual appearance
Lex Fridman (11:50.280)
that goes along with that voice.
Lex Fridman (11:52.020)
And you don't necessarily need to work too hard
Lex Fridman (11:54.480)
on creating the actual visual appearance.
Lex Fridman (11:56.920)
So there's some value to that.
Lex Fridman (11:59.120)
When you step into the stare of actually building a robot
Whitney Cummings (12:03.360)
that looks like Bear Claws,
Lex Fridman (12:04.400)
such a long road of facial expressions
Whitney Cummings (12:07.680)
of sort of making everything smiling, winking,
Lex Fridman (12:13.120)
rolling in the eyes, all that kind of stuff.
Whitney Cummings (12:14.900)
It gets really, really tricky.
Lex Fridman (12:16.520)
It gets tricky and I think I'm, again, I'm a comedian.
Whitney Cummings (12:19.160)
Like I'm obsessed with what makes us human
Lex Fridman (12:21.800)
and our human nature and the nasty side of human nature
Whitney Cummings (12:25.440)
tends to be where I've ended up
Lex Fridman (12:27.560)
exploring over and over again.
Lex Fridman (12:28.800)
And I was just mostly fascinated by people's reaction.
Lex Fridman (12:32.620)
So it's my job to get the biggest reaction
Whitney Cummings (12:34.520)
from a group of strangers, the loudest possible reaction.
Lex Fridman (12:37.460)
And I just had this instinct
Whitney Cummings (12:39.880)
just when I started building her
Lex Fridman (12:41.640)
and people going, ah, ah, and people scream.
Lex Fridman (12:44.560)
And I mean, I would bring her out on stage
Lex Fridman (12:46.020)
and people would scream.
Lex Fridman (12:48.080)
And I just, to me, that was the next level of entertainment.
Lex Fridman (12:51.520)
Getting a laugh, I've done that, I know how to do that.
Whitney Cummings (12:53.520)
I think comedians were always trying to figure out
Lex Fridman (12:54.940)
what the next level is and comedy's evolving so much.
Lex Fridman (12:57.280)
And Jordan Peele had just done
Lex Fridman (12:59.880)
these genius comedy horror movies,
Whitney Cummings (13:01.760)
which feel like the next level of comedy to me.
Lex Fridman (13:04.480)
And this sort of funny horror of a robot
Whitney Cummings (13:10.040)
was fascinating to me.
Lex Fridman (13:11.680)
But I think the thing that I got the most obsessed with
Whitney Cummings (13:15.520)
was people being freaked out and scared of her.
Lex Fridman (13:18.200)
And I started digging around with pathogen avoidance
Lex Fridman (13:21.640)
and the idea that we've essentially evolved
Lex Fridman (13:24.040)
to be repelled by anything that looks human,
Lex Fridman (13:27.120)
but is off a little bit.
Lex Fridman (13:28.880)
Anything that could be sick or diseased or dead,
Whitney Cummings (13:32.100)
essentially, is our reptilian brain's way
Lex Fridman (13:33.940)
to get us to not try to have sex with it, basically.
Lex Fridman (13:38.660)
So I got really fascinated by how freaked out and scared.
Lex Fridman (13:41.880)
I mean, I would see grown men get upset.
Whitney Cummings (13:44.360)
They'd get that thing away from me,
Lex Fridman (13:45.360)
look, I don't like that, like people would get angry.
Lex Fridman (13:47.880)
And it was like, you know what this is, you know?
Lex Fridman (13:50.840)
But the sort of like, you know, amygdala getting activated
Whitney Cummings (13:55.160)
by something that to me is just a fun toy
Lex Fridman (13:58.560)
said a lot about our history as a species
Lex Fridman (14:02.080)
and what got us into trouble thousands of years ago.
Lex Fridman (14:04.720)
So it's that, it's the deep down stuff
Whitney Cummings (14:07.280)
that's in our genetics, but also is it just,
Lex Fridman (14:10.080)
are people freaked out by the fact that there's a robot?
Lex Fridman (14:13.080)
So it's not just the appearance,
Lex Fridman (14:14.840)
but there's an artificial human.
Whitney Cummings (14:17.860)
Anything people, I think, and I'm just also fascinated
Lex Fridman (14:21.280)
by the blind spots humans have.
Lex Fridman (14:23.040)
So the idea that you're afraid of that,
Lex Fridman (14:24.760)
I mean, how many robots have killed people?
Lex Fridman (14:27.200)
How many humans have died at the hands of other humans?
Lex Fridman (14:29.800)
Yeah, a few more. Millions?
Lex Fridman (14:31.400)
Hundreds of millions?
Lex Fridman (14:32.880)
Yet we're scared of that?
Lex Fridman (14:34.560)
And we'll go to the grocery store
Lex Fridman (14:36.080)
and be around a bunch of humans
Whitney Cummings (14:37.200)
who statistically the chances are much higher
Lex Fridman (14:39.520)
that you're gonna get killed by humans.
Lex Fridman (14:40.700)
So I'm just fascinated by without judgment
Lex Fridman (14:43.600)
how irrational we are as a species.
Whitney Cummings (14:47.840)
The word is the exponential.
Lex Fridman (14:49.280)
So it's, you know, you can say the same thing
Whitney Cummings (14:51.400)
about nuclear weapons before we dropped
Lex Fridman (14:54.160)
on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Lex Fridman (14:55.760)
So the worry that people have is the exponential growth.
Lex Fridman (14:59.400)
So it's like, oh, it's fun and games right now,
Lex Fridman (15:03.680)
but you know, overnight,
Lex Fridman (15:07.160)
especially if a robot provides value to society,
Whitney Cummings (15:10.000)
we'll put one in every home
Lex Fridman (15:11.680)
and then all of a sudden lose track
Whitney Cummings (15:13.840)
of the actual large scale impact it has on society.
Lex Fridman (15:17.280)
And then all of a sudden gain greater and greater control
Whitney Cummings (15:20.280)
to where we'll all be, you know,
Lex Fridman (15:22.540)
affect our political system
Lex Fridman (15:23.920)
and then affect our decision.
Lex Fridman (15:25.760)
Didn't robots already ruin our political system?
Lex Fridman (15:27.720)
Didn't that just already happen?
Lex Fridman (15:28.720)
Which ones? Oh, Russia hacking.
Lex Fridman (15:30.800)
No offense, but hasn't that already happened?
Lex Fridman (15:35.000)
I mean, that was like an algorithm
Whitney Cummings (15:36.440)
of negative things being clicked on more.
Lex Fridman (15:39.320)
We'd like to tell stories
Lex Fridman (15:40.760)
and like to demonize certain people.
Lex Fridman (15:43.640)
I think nobody understands our current political system
Whitney Cummings (15:46.840)
or discourse on Twitter, the Twitter mobs.
Lex Fridman (15:49.680)
Nobody has a sense, not Twitter, not Facebook,
Whitney Cummings (15:52.560)
the people running it.
Lex Fridman (15:53.400)
Nobody understands the impact of these algorithms.
Whitney Cummings (15:55.360)
They're trying their best.
Lex Fridman (15:56.880)
Despite what people think,
Whitney Cummings (15:57.940)
they're not like a bunch of lefties
Lex Fridman (16:00.200)
trying to make sure that Hillary Clinton gets elected.
Whitney Cummings (16:03.240)
It's more that it's an incredibly complex system
Lex Fridman (16:06.840)
that we don't, and that's the worry.
Whitney Cummings (16:08.860)
It's so complex and moves so fast
Lex Fridman (16:11.440)
that nobody will be able to stop it once it happens.
Lex Fridman (16:15.760)
And let me ask a question.
Lex Fridman (16:16.920)
This is a very savage question.
Lex Fridman (16:19.440)
Which is, is this just the next stage of evolution?
Lex Fridman (16:23.840)
As humans, when people will die, yes.
Lex Fridman (16:26.080)
I mean, that's always happened, you know?
Lex Fridman (16:28.200)
Is this just taking emotion out of it?
Lex Fridman (16:30.320)
Is this basically the next stage of survival of the fittest?
Lex Fridman (16:34.960)
Yeah, you have to think of organisms.
Lex Fridman (16:37.760)
You know, what does it mean to be a living organism?
Lex Fridman (16:41.360)
Like, is a smartphone part of your living organism, or?
Whitney Cummings (16:46.760)
We're in relationships with our phones.
Lex Fridman (16:49.680)
Yeah.
Whitney Cummings (16:50.520)
We have sex through them, with them.
Lex Fridman (16:52.880)
What's the difference between with them and through them?
Lex Fridman (16:54.440)
But it also expands your cognitive abilities,
Lex Fridman (16:57.080)
expands your memory, knowledge, and so on.
Lex Fridman (16:59.060)
So you're a much smarter person
Lex Fridman (17:00.640)
because you have a smartphone in your hand.
Lex Fridman (17:02.600)
But as soon as it's out of my hand,
Lex Fridman (17:04.780)
we've got big problems,
Whitney Cummings (17:06.120)
because we've become sort of so morphed with them.
Lex Fridman (17:08.360)
Well, there's a symbiotic relationship.
Lex Fridman (17:09.960)
And that's what, so Elon Musk, the neural link,
Lex Fridman (17:12.520)
is working on trying to increase the bandwidth
Whitney Cummings (17:16.640)
of communication between computers and your brain.
Lex Fridman (17:19.320)
And so further and further expand our ability
Whitney Cummings (17:22.800)
as human beings to sort of leverage machines.
Lex Fridman (17:26.300)
And maybe that's the future,
Whitney Cummings (17:28.220)
the next evolutionary step.
Lex Fridman (17:30.480)
It could be also that, yes, we'll give birth,
Whitney Cummings (17:33.920)
just like we give birth to human children right now,
Lex Fridman (17:36.520)
we'll give birth to AI and they'll replace us.
Whitney Cummings (17:38.960)
I think it's a really interesting possibility.
Lex Fridman (17:42.200)
I'm gonna play devil's advocate.
Whitney Cummings (17:44.080)
I just think that the fear of robots is wildly classist.
Lex Fridman (17:48.320)
Because, I mean, Facebook,
Whitney Cummings (17:50.120)
like it's easy for us to say they're taking their data.
Lex Fridman (17:51.960)
Okay, well, a lot of people
Whitney Cummings (17:53.560)
that get employment off of Facebook,
Lex Fridman (17:55.720)
they are able to get income off of Facebook.
Whitney Cummings (17:58.220)
They don't care if you take their phone numbers
Lex Fridman (17:59.800)
and their emails and their data, as long as it's free.
Whitney Cummings (18:01.920)
They don't wanna have to pay $5 a month for Facebook.
Lex Fridman (18:03.900)
Facebook is a wildly democratic thing.
Whitney Cummings (18:05.800)
Forget about the election and all that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (18:08.240)
A lot of technology making people's lives easier,
Whitney Cummings (18:12.480)
I find that most elite people are more scared
Lex Fridman (18:17.100)
than lower income people.
Whitney Cummings (18:18.800)
So, and women for the most part.
Lex Fridman (18:21.180)
So the idea of something that's stronger than us
Lex Fridman (18:23.940)
and that might eventually kill us,
Lex Fridman (18:25.160)
like women are used to that.
Whitney Cummings (18:26.560)
Like that's not, I see a lot of like really rich men
Lex Fridman (18:29.980)
being like, the robots are gonna kill us.
Lex Fridman (18:31.240)
We're like, what's another thing that's gonna kill us?
Lex Fridman (18:33.800)
I tend to see like, oh,
Whitney Cummings (18:35.480)
something can walk me to my car at night.
Lex Fridman (18:37.160)
Like something can help me cook dinner or something.
Whitney Cummings (18:39.880)
For people in underprivileged countries
Lex Fridman (18:43.020)
who can't afford eye surgery, like in a robot,
Whitney Cummings (18:45.360)
can we send a robot to underprivileged places
Lex Fridman (18:48.840)
to do surgery where they can't?
Whitney Cummings (18:50.680)
I work with this organization called Operation Smile
Lex Fridman (18:53.560)
where they do cleft palate surgeries.
Lex Fridman (18:55.660)
And there's a lot of places
Lex Fridman (18:56.500)
that can't do a very simple surgery
Whitney Cummings (18:59.160)
because they can't afford doctors and medical care.
Lex Fridman (19:01.080)
And such.
Lex Fridman (19:01.920)
So I just see, and this can be completely naive
Lex Fridman (19:04.840)
and should be completely wrong,
Lex Fridman (19:05.840)
but I feel like a lot of people are going like,
Lex Fridman (19:08.780)
the robots are gonna destroy us.
Whitney Cummings (19:09.920)
Humans, we're destroying ourselves.
Lex Fridman (19:11.640)
We're self destructing.
Whitney Cummings (19:12.840)
Robots to me are the only hope
Lex Fridman (19:14.320)
to clean up all the messes that we've created.
Whitney Cummings (19:15.960)
Even when we go try to clean up pollution in the ocean,
Lex Fridman (19:18.240)
we make it worse because of the oil that the tankers use.
Whitney Cummings (19:21.720)
Like, it's like, to me, robots are the only solution.
Lex Fridman (19:25.400)
Firefighters are heroes, but they're limited
Whitney Cummings (19:27.880)
in how many times they can run into a fire.
Lex Fridman (19:30.180)
So there's just something interesting to me.
Whitney Cummings (19:32.360)
I'm not hearing a lot of like,
Lex Fridman (19:34.360)
lower income, more vulnerable populations
Whitney Cummings (19:38.080)
talking about robots.
Lex Fridman (19:39.920)
Maybe you can speak to it a little bit more.
Whitney Cummings (19:42.000)
There's an idea, I think you've expressed it.
Lex Fridman (19:44.100)
I've heard, actually a few female writers
Lex Fridman (19:48.240)
and roboticists have talked to express this idea
Lex Fridman (19:51.480)
that exactly you just said, which is,
Whitney Cummings (19:55.760)
it just seems that being afraid of existential threats
Lex Fridman (1:00:00.320)
what's my rank?
Whitney Cummings (1:00:01.160)
What's my, and especially if we're following people,
Lex Fridman (1:00:02.960)
I think the, the big, the interesting thing,
Whitney Cummings (1:00:05.160)
I think I maybe be able to say about this
Lex Fridman (1:00:07.800)
besides my speech impediment is that I did start muting
Whitney Cummings (1:00:12.120)
people that rank wildly higher than me
Lex Fridman (1:00:16.120)
because it is just stressful on the brain
Whitney Cummings (1:00:19.000)
to constantly look at people
Lex Fridman (1:00:21.040)
that are incredibly successful.
Lex Fridman (1:00:23.040)
So you keep feeling bad about yourself.
Lex Fridman (1:00:25.000)
You know, I think that that is like cutting
Whitney Cummings (1:00:27.280)
to a certain extent.
Lex Fridman (1:00:28.600)
Just like, look at me looking at all these people
Whitney Cummings (1:00:30.920)
that have so much more money than me
Lex Fridman (1:00:32.040)
and so much more success than me.
Whitney Cummings (1:00:33.760)
It's making me feel like a failure,
Lex Fridman (1:00:35.840)
even though I don't think I'm a failure,
Lex Fridman (1:00:37.600)
but it's easy to frame it so that I can feel that way.
Lex Fridman (1:00:41.880)
Yeah, that's really interesting,
Whitney Cummings (1:00:43.280)
especially if they're close to,
Lex Fridman (1:00:45.080)
like if they're other comedians or something like that,
Whitney Cummings (1:00:46.880)
or whatever.
Lex Fridman (1:00:48.080)
That's, it's really disappointing to me.
Whitney Cummings (1:00:50.440)
I do the same thing as well.
Lex Fridman (1:00:51.720)
So other successful people that are really close
Whitney Cummings (1:00:53.560)
to what I do, it, I don't know,
Lex Fridman (1:00:56.360)
I wish I could just admire.
Whitney Cummings (1:00:58.200)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:00:59.040)
And for it not to be a distraction, but.
Lex Fridman (1:01:01.360)
But that's why you are where you are
Lex Fridman (1:01:02.440)
because you don't just admire your competitive
Lex Fridman (1:01:04.320)
and you want to win.
Lex Fridman (1:01:05.240)
So it's also the same thing that bums you out
Whitney Cummings (1:01:07.480)
when you look at this as the same reason
Lex Fridman (1:01:08.800)
you are where you are.
Lex Fridman (1:01:09.640)
So that's why I think it's so important
Lex Fridman (1:01:11.480)
to learn about neurology and addiction
Whitney Cummings (1:01:12.800)
because you're able to go like,
Lex Fridman (1:01:14.080)
oh, this same instinct.
Lex Fridman (1:01:15.680)
So I'm very sensitive.
Lex Fridman (1:01:17.120)
And I, and I sometimes don't like that about myself,
Lex Fridman (1:01:19.480)
but I'm like, well, that's the reason I'm able to
Lex Fridman (1:01:21.640)
write good standup.
Lex Fridman (1:01:22.480)
And that's the reason, and that's the reason
Lex Fridman (1:01:23.720)
I'm able to be sensitive to feedback
Lex Fridman (1:01:25.680)
and go, that joke should have been better.
Lex Fridman (1:01:26.920)
I can make that better.
Lex Fridman (1:01:28.040)
So it's the kind of thing where it's like,
Lex Fridman (1:01:29.480)
you have to be really sensitive in your work.
Lex Fridman (1:01:31.240)
And the second you leave,
Lex Fridman (1:01:32.320)
you got to be able to turn it off.
Whitney Cummings (1:01:33.560)
It's about developing the muscle,
Lex Fridman (1:01:34.840)
being able to know when to let it be a superpower
Lex Fridman (1:01:38.360)
and when it's going to hold you back and be an obstacle.
Lex Fridman (1:01:41.240)
So I try to not be in that black and white of like,
Whitney Cummings (1:01:44.320)
you know, being competitive is bad
Lex Fridman (1:01:45.800)
or being jealous of someone just to go like,
Whitney Cummings (1:01:47.720)
oh, there's that thing that makes me really successful
Lex Fridman (1:01:50.240)
in a lot of other ways,
Lex Fridman (1:01:51.440)
but right now it's making me feel bad.
Lex Fridman (1:01:53.280)
Well, I'm kind of looking to you
Whitney Cummings (1:01:54.960)
because you're basically a celebrity,
Lex Fridman (1:01:58.200)
a famous sort of world class comedian.
Lex Fridman (1:02:01.240)
And so I feel like you're the right person
Lex Fridman (1:02:03.120)
to be one of the key people to define
Whitney Cummings (1:02:06.120)
what's the healthy path forward with social media.
Lex Fridman (1:02:08.960)
So I, because we're all trying to figure it out now
Lex Fridman (1:02:12.800)
and it's, I'm curious to see where it evolves.
Lex Fridman (1:02:16.360)
I think you're at the center of that.
Lex Fridman (1:02:17.960)
So like, you know, there's, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:02:20.400)
trying to leave Twitter and then come back and see,
Lex Fridman (1:02:22.800)
can I do this in a healthy way?
Lex Fridman (1:02:24.080)
I mean, you have to keep trying, exploring.
Whitney Cummings (1:02:25.760)
You have to know because it's being, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:02:28.160)
I have a couple answers.
Whitney Cummings (1:02:29.760)
I think, you know, I hire a company
Lex Fridman (1:02:31.600)
to do some of my social media for me, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:02:33.920)
So it's also being able to go, okay,
Lex Fridman (1:02:36.280)
I make a certain amount of money by doing this,
Lex Fridman (1:02:38.360)
but now let me be a good business person
Lex Fridman (1:02:40.360)
and say, I'm gonna pay you this amount to run this for me.
Lex Fridman (1:02:42.960)
So I'm not 24 seven in the weeds hashtagging and responding.
Lex Fridman (1:02:45.920)
And just, it's a lot to take on.
Whitney Cummings (1:02:47.280)
It's a lot of energy to take on.
Lex Fridman (1:02:48.800)
But at the same time, part of what I think
Whitney Cummings (1:02:51.280)
makes me successful on social media if I am,
Lex Fridman (1:02:53.480)
is that people know I'm actually doing it
Lex Fridman (1:02:55.280)
and that I am an engaging and I'm responding
Lex Fridman (1:02:57.200)
and developing a personal relationship
Whitney Cummings (1:02:59.600)
with complete strangers.
Lex Fridman (1:03:01.080)
So I think, you know, figuring out that balance
Lex Fridman (1:03:04.000)
and really approaching it as a business, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:03:06.160)
that's what I try to do.
Whitney Cummings (1:03:07.280)
It's not dating, it's not,
Lex Fridman (1:03:09.480)
I try to just be really objective about,
Whitney Cummings (1:03:11.200)
okay, here's what's working, here's what's not working.
Lex Fridman (1:03:13.400)
And in terms of taking the break from Twitter,
Whitney Cummings (1:03:15.880)
this is a really savage take,
Lex Fridman (1:03:17.640)
but because I don't talk about my politics publicly,
Whitney Cummings (1:03:21.720)
being on Twitter right after the last election
Lex Fridman (1:03:26.040)
was not gonna be beneficial
Whitney Cummings (1:03:27.880)
because there was gonna be, you had to take a side.
Lex Fridman (1:03:30.280)
You had to be political in order to get
Whitney Cummings (1:03:32.360)
any kind of retweets or likes.
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.400)
And I just wasn't interested in doing that
Whitney Cummings (1:03:37.280)
because you were gonna lose as many people
Lex Fridman (1:03:38.720)
as you were gonna gain
Lex Fridman (1:03:39.560)
and it was gonna all come clean in the wash.
Lex Fridman (1:03:40.840)
So I was just like, the best thing I can do
Lex Fridman (1:03:42.760)
for me business wise is to just abstain, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:03:47.840)
And you know, the robot, I joke about her replacing me,
Lex Fridman (1:03:52.240)
but she does do half of my social media, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:03:55.760)
Because I don't want people to get sick of me.
Whitney Cummings (1:03:57.960)
I don't want to be redundant.
Lex Fridman (1:03:59.840)
There are times when I don't have the time or the energy
Whitney Cummings (1:04:02.440)
to make a funny video,
Lex Fridman (1:04:03.360)
but I know she's gonna be compelling and interesting
Lex Fridman (1:04:06.160)
and that's something that you can't see every day, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:04:08.520)
Of course, the humor comes from your,
Whitney Cummings (1:04:11.920)
I mean, the cleverness, the wit, the humor comes from you
Lex Fridman (1:04:15.240)
when you film the robot.
Whitney Cummings (1:04:16.440)
That's kind of the trick of it.
Lex Fridman (1:04:17.880)
I mean, the robot is not quite there
Whitney Cummings (1:04:21.000)
to do anything funny.
Lex Fridman (1:04:23.440)
The absurdity is revealed through the filmmaker in that case
Whitney Cummings (1:04:26.680)
or whoever is interacting,
Lex Fridman (1:04:27.840)
not through the actual robot, you know, being who she is.
Whitney Cummings (1:04:33.520)
Let me sort of, love.
Lex Fridman (1:04:37.080)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:04:37.920)
How difficult.
Lex Fridman (1:04:39.600)
What is it?
Lex Fridman (1:04:40.760)
What is it?
Lex Fridman (1:04:43.120)
Well, first, an engineering question.
Whitney Cummings (1:04:45.080)
I know, I know, you're not an engineer,
Lex Fridman (1:04:48.080)
but how difficult do you think is it to build an AI system
Whitney Cummings (1:04:52.160)
that you can have a deep, fulfilling,
Lex Fridman (1:04:54.280)
monogamous relationship with?
Whitney Cummings (1:04:56.480)
Sort of replace the human to human relationships
Lex Fridman (1:04:59.880)
that we value?
Lex Fridman (1:05:01.680)
I think anyone can fall in love with anything, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:05:04.840)
Like, how often have you looked back at someone?
Whitney Cummings (1:05:08.360)
Like, I ran into someone the other day
Lex Fridman (1:05:11.320)
that I was in love with and I was like,
Whitney Cummings (1:05:12.720)
hey, it was like, there was nothing there.
Lex Fridman (1:05:16.360)
There was nothing there.
Whitney Cummings (1:05:17.880)
Like, do you, you know, like, where you're able to go like,
Lex Fridman (1:05:19.800)
oh, that was weird, oh, right, you know?
Whitney Cummings (1:05:23.720)
I were able.
Lex Fridman (1:05:25.080)
You mean from a distant past or something like that?
Whitney Cummings (1:05:27.160)
Yeah, when you're able to go like,
Lex Fridman (1:05:28.720)
I can't believe we had an incredible connection
Lex Fridman (1:05:31.440)
and now it's just, I do think that people will be in love
Lex Fridman (1:05:35.560)
with robots probably even more deeply with humans
Whitney Cummings (1:05:39.800)
because it's like when people mourn their animals,
Lex Fridman (1:05:42.520)
when their animals die, they're always,
Whitney Cummings (1:05:45.000)
it's sometimes harder than mourning a human
Lex Fridman (1:05:47.760)
because you can't go, well, he was kind of an asshole,
Lex Fridman (1:05:50.360)
but like, he didn't pick me up from school.
Lex Fridman (1:05:52.000)
You know, it's like, you're able to get out
Whitney Cummings (1:05:53.360)
of your grief a little bit.
Lex Fridman (1:05:54.280)
You're able to kind of be, oh, he was kind of judgmental
Whitney Cummings (1:05:57.400)
or she was kind of, you know, with a robot,
Lex Fridman (1:06:00.320)
there's something so pure about an innocent and impish
Lex Fridman (1:06:03.640)
and childlike about it that I think it probably
Lex Fridman (1:06:07.560)
will be much more conducive to a narcissistic love
Whitney Cummings (1:06:11.080)
for sure at that, but it's not like, well, he cheated on,
Lex Fridman (1:06:15.280)
she can't cheat, she can't leave you, she can't, you know?
Whitney Cummings (1:06:17.960)
Well, if Bearclaw leaves your life
Lex Fridman (1:06:21.560)
and maybe a new version or somebody else will enter,
Lex Fridman (1:06:25.640)
will you miss Bearclaw?
Lex Fridman (1:06:27.960)
For guys that have these sex robots,
Whitney Cummings (1:06:30.680)
they're building a nursing home for the bodies
Lex Fridman (1:06:34.380)
that are now resting
Whitney Cummings (1:06:36.320)
because they don't want to part with the bodies
Lex Fridman (1:06:37.940)
because they have such an intense emotional connection
Whitney Cummings (1:06:39.720)
to it.
Lex Fridman (1:06:40.840)
I mean, it's kind of like a car club a little bit,
Whitney Cummings (1:06:42.840)
you know, like it's, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:06:45.000)
but I'm not saying this is right.
Whitney Cummings (1:06:47.380)
I'm not saying it's cool, it's weird, it's creepy,
Lex Fridman (1:06:50.020)
but we do anthropomorphize things with faces
Lex Fridman (1:06:53.820)
and we do develop emotional connections to things.
Lex Fridman (1:06:56.640)
I mean, there's certain, have you ever tried to like throw,
Whitney Cummings (1:06:59.320)
I can't even throw away my teddy bear
Lex Fridman (1:07:00.800)
from when I was a kid.
Whitney Cummings (1:07:01.800)
It's a piece of trash and it's upstairs.
Lex Fridman (1:07:04.340)
Like, it's just like, why can't I throw that away?
Whitney Cummings (1:07:06.660)
It's bizarre, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:07:08.200)
and there's something kind of beautiful about that.
Whitney Cummings (1:07:10.120)
There's something, it gives me hope in humans
Lex Fridman (1:07:13.120)
because I see humans do such horrific things all the time
Lex Fridman (1:07:15.720)
and maybe I'm too, I see too much of it, frankly,
Lex Fridman (1:07:18.340)
but there's something kind of beautiful
Whitney Cummings (1:07:20.240)
about the way we're able to have emotional connections
Lex Fridman (1:07:24.360)
to objects, which, you know, a lot of,
Lex Fridman (1:07:29.200)
I mean, it's kind of specifically, I think, Western, right?
Lex Fridman (1:07:32.160)
That we don't see objects as having souls,
Whitney Cummings (1:07:34.880)
like that's kind of specifically us,
Lex Fridman (1:07:36.800)
but I don't think it's so much
Whitney Cummings (1:07:39.720)
that we're objectifying humans with these sex robots.
Lex Fridman (1:07:43.420)
We're kind of humanizing objects, right?
Lex Fridman (1:07:45.680)
So there's something kind of fascinating
Lex Fridman (1:07:47.080)
in our ability to do that
Whitney Cummings (1:07:48.160)
because a lot of us don't humanize humans.
Lex Fridman (1:07:50.080)
So it's just a weird little place to play in
Lex Fridman (1:07:52.880)
and I think a lot of people, I mean,
Lex Fridman (1:07:54.980)
a lot of people will be marrying these things is my guess.
Lex Fridman (1:07:57.760)
So you've asked the question, let me ask it of you.
Lex Fridman (1:08:00.640)
So what is love?
Whitney Cummings (1:08:02.880)
You have a bit of a brilliant definition of love
Lex Fridman (1:08:05.720)
as being willing to die for someone
Whitney Cummings (1:08:07.840)
who you yourself want to kill.
Lex Fridman (1:08:10.600)
So that's kind of fun.
Whitney Cummings (1:08:12.240)
First of all, that's brilliant.
Lex Fridman (1:08:14.920)
That's a really good definition.
Whitney Cummings (1:08:16.480)
I think it'll stick with me for a long time.
Lex Fridman (1:08:18.280)
This is how little of a romantic I am.
Whitney Cummings (1:08:19.840)
A plane went by when you said that
Lex Fridman (1:08:21.400)
and my brain is like, you're gonna need to rerecord that.
Lex Fridman (1:08:24.960)
And I want you to get into post
Lex Fridman (1:08:26.400)
and then not be able to use that.
Lex Fridman (1:08:31.120)
And I'm a romantic as I...
Lex Fridman (1:08:32.400)
Don't mean to ruin the moment.
Whitney Cummings (1:08:33.600)
Actually, I can not be conscious of the fact
Lex Fridman (1:08:35.640)
that I heard the plane and it made me feel like
Lex Fridman (1:08:38.240)
how amazing it is that we live in a world of planes.
Lex Fridman (1:08:41.200)
And I just went, why haven't we fucking evolved past planes
Lex Fridman (1:08:47.040)
and why can't they make them quieter?
Lex Fridman (1:08:49.080)
Yeah.
Whitney Cummings (1:08:50.480)
Well, yes.
Lex Fridman (1:08:53.200)
My definition of love?
Lex Fridman (1:08:54.440)
What, yeah, what's your sort of the more serious note?
Lex Fridman (1:08:57.800)
Consistently producing dopamine for a long time.
Whitney Cummings (1:09:01.400)
Consistent output of oxytocin with the same person.
Lex Fridman (1:09:06.080)
Dopamine is a positive thing.
Lex Fridman (1:09:08.240)
What about the negative?
Lex Fridman (1:09:09.520)
What about the fear and the insecurity, the longing,
Lex Fridman (1:09:14.880)
anger, all that kind of stuff?
Lex Fridman (1:09:16.520)
I think that's part of love.
Whitney Cummings (1:09:17.840)
I think that love brings out the best in you,
Lex Fridman (1:09:22.000)
but it also, if you don't get angry and upset,
Whitney Cummings (1:09:24.040)
it's, I don't know, I think that that's part of it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:26.880)
I think we have this idea that love has to be like really
Whitney Cummings (1:09:29.720)
placid or something.
Lex Fridman (1:09:31.920)
I only saw stormy relationships growing up,
Lex Fridman (1:09:34.160)
so I don't have a judgment
Lex Fridman (1:09:36.920)
on how a relationship should look,
Lex Fridman (1:09:38.600)
but I do think that this idea that love has to be eternal
Lex Fridman (1:09:45.240)
is really destructive, is really destructive
Lex Fridman (1:09:48.800)
and self defeating and a big source of stress for people.
Lex Fridman (1:09:53.680)
I mean, I'm still figuring out love.
Whitney Cummings (1:09:55.640)
I think we all kind of are,
Lex Fridman (1:09:57.280)
but I do kind of stand by that definition.
Lex Fridman (1:10:01.280)
And I think that, I think for me,
Lex Fridman (1:10:03.600)
love is like just being able to be authentic with somebody.
Whitney Cummings (1:10:06.280)
It's very simple, I know,
Lex Fridman (1:10:07.800)
but I think for me it's about not feeling pressure
Whitney Cummings (1:10:10.120)
to have to perform or impress somebody,
Lex Fridman (1:10:11.960)
just feeling truly like accepted unconditionally by someone.
Whitney Cummings (1:10:16.560)
Although I do believe love should be conditional.
Lex Fridman (1:10:19.160)
That might be a hot take.
Whitney Cummings (1:10:22.880)
I think everything should be conditional.
Lex Fridman (1:10:24.280)
I think if someone's behavior,
Whitney Cummings (1:10:27.080)
I don't think love should just be like,
Lex Fridman (1:10:28.880)
I'm in love with you, now behave however you want forever.
Whitney Cummings (1:10:30.960)
This is unconditional.
Lex Fridman (1:10:31.880)
I think love is a daily action.
Whitney Cummings (1:10:35.320)
It's not something you just like get tenure on
Lex Fridman (1:10:38.120)
and then get to behave however you want
Whitney Cummings (1:10:40.000)
because we said I love you 10 years ago.
Lex Fridman (1:10:41.880)
It's a daily, it's a verb.
Whitney Cummings (1:10:44.560)
Well, there's some things that are,
Lex Fridman (1:10:46.120)
you see, if you explicitly make it clear
Whitney Cummings (1:10:49.080)
that it's conditional,
Lex Fridman (1:10:50.400)
it takes away some of the magic of it.
Lex Fridman (1:10:52.520)
So there's certain stories we tell ourselves
Lex Fridman (1:10:55.360)
that we don't want to make explicit about love.
Whitney Cummings (1:10:57.200)
I don't know, maybe that's the wrong way to think of it.
Lex Fridman (1:10:59.160)
Maybe you want to be explicit in relationships.
Whitney Cummings (1:11:02.640)
I also think love is a business decision.
Lex Fridman (1:11:04.640)
Like I do in a good way.
Whitney Cummings (1:11:08.000)
Like I think that love is not just
Lex Fridman (1:11:11.160)
when you're across from somebody.
Lex Fridman (1:11:12.600)
It's when I go to work, can I focus?
Lex Fridman (1:11:15.720)
Am I worried about you?
Lex Fridman (1:11:16.560)
Am I stressed out about you?
Lex Fridman (1:11:18.040)
You're not responding to me.
Whitney Cummings (1:11:19.400)
You're not reliable.
Lex Fridman (1:11:20.440)
Like I think that being in a relationship,
Whitney Cummings (1:11:23.200)
the kind of love that I would want
Lex Fridman (1:11:24.280)
is the kind of relationship where when we're not together,
Whitney Cummings (1:11:26.920)
it's not draining me, causing me stress, making me worry,
Lex Fridman (1:11:30.600)
and sometimes passion, that word, we get murky about it.
Lex Fridman (1:11:36.480)
But I think it's also like,
Lex Fridman (1:11:37.320)
I can be the best version of myself
Whitney Cummings (1:11:38.560)
when the person's not around.
Lex Fridman (1:11:40.080)
And I don't have to feel abandoned or scared
Whitney Cummings (1:11:42.680)
or any of these kinds of other things.
Lex Fridman (1:11:43.960)
So it's like love, for me, I think it's a Flaubert quote
Lex Fridman (1:11:48.800)
and I'm going to butcher it.
Lex Fridman (1:11:49.800)
But I think it's like, be boring in your personal life
Lex Fridman (1:11:53.320)
so you can be violent and take risks
Lex Fridman (1:11:54.800)
in your professional life.
Lex Fridman (1:11:55.760)
Is that it?
Lex Fridman (1:11:56.600)
I got it wrong.
Whitney Cummings (1:11:57.480)
Something like that.
Lex Fridman (1:11:58.320)
But I do think that it's being able to align values
Whitney Cummings (1:12:01.280)
in a way to where you can also thrive
Lex Fridman (1:12:02.960)
outside of the relationship.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:04.600)
Some of the most successful people I know
Lex Fridman (1:12:06.160)
are those sort of happily married and have kids and so on.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:10.040)
It's always funny.
Lex Fridman (1:12:10.880)
It can be boring.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:11.800)
Boring's okay.
Lex Fridman (1:12:13.160)
Boring is serenity.
Lex Fridman (1:12:14.400)
And it's funny how those elements
Lex Fridman (1:12:16.440)
actually make you much more productive.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:18.320)
I don't understand the.
Lex Fridman (1:12:19.640)
I don't think relationships should drain you
Lex Fridman (1:12:21.080)
and take away energy that you could be using
Lex Fridman (1:12:23.360)
to create things that generate pride.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:25.720)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:12:26.560)
Have you said your relationship of love yet?
Lex Fridman (1:12:28.600)
Have you said your definition of love?
Lex Fridman (1:12:31.360)
My definition of love?
Whitney Cummings (1:12:33.480)
No, I did not say it.
Lex Fridman (1:12:35.520)
We're out of time.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:36.680)
No.
Lex Fridman (1:12:39.120)
When you have a podcast, maybe you can invite me on.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:41.760)
Oh no, I already did.
Lex Fridman (1:12:42.600)
You're doing it.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:44.000)
We've already talked about this.
Lex Fridman (1:12:46.360)
And because I also have codependency, I have to say yes.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:49.440)
No, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:12:50.280)
No, I know, I'm trapping you.
Whitney Cummings (1:12:52.240)
You owe me now.
Lex Fridman (1:12:53.080)
Actually, I wondered whether when I asked
Whitney Cummings (1:12:58.240)
if we could talk today, after sort of doing more research
Lex Fridman (1:13:01.680)
and reading some of your book, I started to wonder,
Lex Fridman (1:13:04.600)
did you just feel pressured to say yes?
Lex Fridman (1:13:07.000)
Yes, of course.
Whitney Cummings (1:13:09.320)
Good.
Lex Fridman (1:13:10.160)
But I'm a fan of yours, too.
Whitney Cummings (1:13:11.000)
Okay, awesome.
Lex Fridman (1:13:11.840)
No, I actually, because I am codependent,
Lex Fridman (1:13:13.360)
but I'm in recovery for codependence,
Lex Fridman (1:13:14.880)
so I actually do, I don't do anything I don't wanna do.
Whitney Cummings (1:13:17.600)
You really, you go out of your way to say no.
Lex Fridman (1:13:20.360)
What's that?
Whitney Cummings (1:13:21.200)
I say no all the time.
Lex Fridman (1:13:22.680)
Good.
Whitney Cummings (1:13:23.520)
I'm trying to learn that as well.
Lex Fridman (1:13:24.360)
I moved this a couple, remember,
Whitney Cummings (1:13:25.200)
I moved it from one to two.
Lex Fridman (1:13:26.040)
Yeah, yeah.
Whitney Cummings (1:13:26.880)
Just to, yeah, just to.
Lex Fridman (1:13:27.960)
Yeah, just to let you know.
Whitney Cummings (1:13:28.800)
I love it.
Lex Fridman (1:13:29.640)
How recovered I am, and I'm not codependent.
Lex Fridman (1:13:31.920)
But I don't do anything I don't wanna do.
Lex Fridman (1:13:34.600)
Yeah, you're ahead of me on that.
Whitney Cummings (1:13:35.920)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (1:13:36.880)
So do you.
Whitney Cummings (1:13:37.720)
You're like, I don't even wanna be here.
Lex Fridman (1:13:38.560)
Do you think about your mortality?
Whitney Cummings (1:13:43.400)
Yes, it is a big part of how I was able
Lex Fridman (1:13:46.920)
to sort of like kickstart my codependence recovery.
Whitney Cummings (1:13:49.040)
My dad passed a couple years ago,
Lex Fridman (1:13:50.400)
and when you have someone close to you in your life die,
Whitney Cummings (1:13:53.040)
everything gets real clear,
Lex Fridman (1:13:55.320)
in terms of how we're a speck of dust
Whitney Cummings (1:13:57.720)
who's only here for a certain amount of time.
Lex Fridman (1:14:00.800)
What do you think is the meaning of it all?
Whitney Cummings (1:14:02.320)
Like what the speck of dust,
Lex Fridman (1:14:05.160)
what's maybe in your own life, what's the goal,
Lex Fridman (1:14:09.480)
the purpose of your existence?
Lex Fridman (1:14:13.280)
Is there one?
Whitney Cummings (1:14:15.200)
Well, you're exceptionally ambitious.
Lex Fridman (1:14:17.280)
You've created some incredible things
Whitney Cummings (1:14:19.080)
in different disciplines.
Lex Fridman (1:14:21.600)
Yeah, we're all just managing our terror
Whitney Cummings (1:14:23.520)
because we know we're gonna die.
Lex Fridman (1:14:24.520)
So we create and build all these things
Lex Fridman (1:14:26.320)
and rituals and religions and robots
Lex Fridman (1:14:29.440)
and whatever we need to do to just distract ourselves
Whitney Cummings (1:14:31.760)
from imminent rotting, we're rotting.
Lex Fridman (1:14:36.160)
We're all dying.
Lex Fridman (1:14:37.120)
And I got very into terror management theory
Lex Fridman (1:14:42.520)
when my dad died and it resonated, it helped me.
Lex Fridman (1:14:45.120)
And everyone's got their own religion
Lex Fridman (1:14:46.560)
or sense of purpose or thing that distracts them
Whitney Cummings (1:14:50.280)
from the horrors of being human.
Lex Fridman (1:14:54.640)
What's the terror management theory?
Whitney Cummings (1:14:56.080)
Terror management is basically the idea
Lex Fridman (1:14:57.360)
that since we're the only animal
Whitney Cummings (1:14:58.640)
that knows they're gonna die,
Lex Fridman (1:15:00.360)
we have to basically distract ourselves
Whitney Cummings (1:15:03.480)
with awards and achievements and games and whatever,
Lex Fridman (1:15:09.600)
just in order to distract ourselves
Whitney Cummings (1:15:11.920)
from the terror we would feel if we really processed
Lex Fridman (1:15:14.560)
the fact that we could not only, we are gonna die,
Lex Fridman (1:15:16.920)
but also could die at any minute
Lex Fridman (1:15:18.440)
because we're only superficially
Whitney Cummings (1:15:19.800)
at the top of the food chain.
Lex Fridman (1:15:22.640)
And technically we're at the top of the food chain
Whitney Cummings (1:15:26.160)
if we have houses and guns and stuff machines,
Lex Fridman (1:15:29.320)
but if me and a lion are in the woods together,
Whitney Cummings (1:15:32.400)
most things could kill us.
Lex Fridman (1:15:33.800)
I mean, a bee can kill some people,
Whitney Cummings (1:15:35.400)
like something this big can kill a lot of humans.
Lex Fridman (1:15:38.640)
So it's basically just to manage the terror
Whitney Cummings (1:15:41.480)
that we all would feel if we were able
Lex Fridman (1:15:43.040)
to really be awake.
Lex Fridman (1:15:45.200)
Cause we're mostly zombies, right?
Lex Fridman (1:15:46.840)
Job, school, religion, go to sleep, drink, football,
Whitney Cummings (1:15:51.520)
relationship, dopamine, love, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:15:54.480)
we're kind of just like trudging along
Whitney Cummings (1:15:57.000)
like zombies for the most part.
Lex Fridman (1:15:58.480)
And then I think.
Whitney Cummings (1:15:59.800)
That fear of death adds some motivation.
Lex Fridman (1:16:02.360)
Yes.
Whitney Cummings (1:16:03.440)
Well, I think I speak for a lot of people
Lex Fridman (1:16:06.080)
in saying that I can't wait to see
Lex Fridman (1:16:08.240)
what your terror creates in the next few years.
Lex Fridman (1:16:13.640)
I'm a huge fan.
Whitney Cummings (1:16:14.840)
Whitney, thank you so much for talking today.
Lex Fridman (1:16:16.560)
Thanks.
Whitney Cummings (1:16:18.840)
Thanks for listening to this conversation
Lex Fridman (1:16:20.480)
with Whitney Cummings.
Lex Fridman (1:16:21.880)
And thank you to our presenting sponsor, Cash App.
Lex Fridman (1:16:24.680)
Download it and use code LexPodcast.
Whitney Cummings (1:16:27.400)
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Lex Fridman (1:16:30.160)
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Whitney Cummings (1:16:33.120)
of thousands of young minds to learn
Lex Fridman (1:16:35.480)
and to dream of engineering our future.
Whitney Cummings (1:16:38.000)
If you enjoy this podcast, subscribe on YouTube,
Lex Fridman (1:16:40.800)
give it five stars on Apple Podcast,
Whitney Cummings (1:16:42.720)
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Lex Fridman (1:16:46.080)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Whitney Cummings (20:01.680)
of artificial intelligence is a male issue.
Lex Fridman (20:06.240)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (20:07.280)
And I wonder what that is.
Lex Fridman (20:09.720)
If it, because men have, in certain positions,
Whitney Cummings (20:13.680)
like you said, it's also a classist issue.
Lex Fridman (20:15.640)
They haven't been humbled by life,
Lex Fridman (20:17.400)
and so you always look for the biggest problems
Lex Fridman (20:20.680)
to take on around you.
Whitney Cummings (20:22.380)
It's a champagne problem to be afraid of robots.
Lex Fridman (20:24.200)
Most people don't have health insurance.
Whitney Cummings (20:26.440)
They're afraid they're not gonna be able
Lex Fridman (20:27.520)
to feed their kids.
Whitney Cummings (20:28.360)
They can't afford a tutor for their kids.
Lex Fridman (20:30.000)
I mean, I just think of the way I grew up,
Lex Fridman (20:32.400)
and I had a mother who worked two jobs, had kids.
Lex Fridman (20:36.160)
We couldn't afford an SAT tutor.
Whitney Cummings (20:38.600)
The idea of a robot coming in,
Lex Fridman (20:40.040)
being able to tutor your kids,
Whitney Cummings (20:41.080)
being able to provide childcare for your kids,
Lex Fridman (20:43.540)
being able to come in with cameras for eyes
Lex Fridman (20:45.540)
and make sure surveillance.
Lex Fridman (20:48.320)
I'm very pro surveillance because I've had security problems
Lex Fridman (20:52.280)
and I've been, we're generally in a little more danger
Lex Fridman (20:55.760)
than you guys are.
Lex Fridman (20:56.600)
So I think that robots are a little less scary to us
Lex Fridman (20:58.640)
because we can see them maybe as like free assistance,
Whitney Cummings (21:01.240)
help and protection.
Lex Fridman (21:03.440)
And then there's sort of another element for me personally,
Whitney Cummings (21:06.840)
which is maybe more of a female problem.
Lex Fridman (21:08.800)
I don't know.
Whitney Cummings (21:09.640)
I'm just gonna make a generalization, happy to be wrong.
Lex Fridman (21:13.040)
But the emotional sort of component of robots
Lex Fridman (21:18.040)
and what they can provide in terms of, you know,
Lex Fridman (21:22.760)
I think there's a lot of people that don't have microphones
Whitney Cummings (21:25.640)
that I just recently kind of stumbled upon
Lex Fridman (21:28.580)
in doing all my research on the sex robots
Whitney Cummings (21:30.920)
for my standup special, which just,
Lex Fridman (21:32.400)
there's a lot of very shy people that aren't good at dating.
Whitney Cummings (21:35.840)
There's a lot of people who are scared of human beings
Lex Fridman (21:37.880)
who have personality disorders
Whitney Cummings (21:40.500)
or grow up in alcoholic homes or struggle with addiction
Lex Fridman (21:43.080)
or whatever it is where a robot can solve
Whitney Cummings (21:45.720)
an emotional problem.
Lex Fridman (21:46.920)
And so we're largely having this conversation
Whitney Cummings (21:49.800)
about like rich guys that are emotionally healthy
Lex Fridman (21:53.600)
and how scared of robots they are.
Whitney Cummings (21:55.560)
We're forgetting about like a huge part of the population
Lex Fridman (21:58.560)
who maybe isn't as charming and effervescent
Lex Fridman (22:01.600)
and solvent as, you know, people like you and Elon Musk
Lex Fridman (22:05.400)
who these robots could solve very real problems
Whitney Cummings (22:09.240)
in their life, emotional or financial.
Lex Fridman (22:11.260)
Well, that's a, in general, a really interesting idea
Whitney Cummings (22:13.480)
that most people in the world don't have a voice.
Lex Fridman (22:16.700)
It's a, you've talked about it,
Whitney Cummings (22:18.200)
sort of even the people on Twitter
Lex Fridman (22:19.960)
who are driving the conversation.
Whitney Cummings (22:22.800)
You said comments, people who leave comments
Lex Fridman (22:25.400)
represent a very tiny percent of the population
Lex Fridman (22:28.240)
and they're the ones they, you know,
Lex Fridman (22:30.700)
we tend to think they speak for the population,
Lex Fridman (22:33.280)
but it's very possible on many topics they don't at all.
Lex Fridman (22:37.280)
And look, I, and I'm sure there's gotta be
Whitney Cummings (22:39.240)
some kind of legal, you know, sort of structure in place
Lex Fridman (22:43.940)
for when the robots happen.
Whitney Cummings (22:45.280)
You know way more about this than I do,
Lex Fridman (22:46.640)
but you know, for me to just go, the robots are bad,
Whitney Cummings (22:49.760)
that's a wild generalization that I feel like
Lex Fridman (22:51.680)
is really inhumane in some way.
Whitney Cummings (22:54.080)
You know, just after the research I've done,
Lex Fridman (22:56.520)
like you're gonna tell me that a man whose wife died
Whitney Cummings (22:59.280)
suddenly and he feels guilty moving on with a human woman
Lex Fridman (23:02.960)
or can't get over the grief,
Lex Fridman (23:04.280)
he can't have a sex robot in his own house?
Lex Fridman (23:06.940)
Why not?
Lex Fridman (23:07.840)
Who cares?
Lex Fridman (23:08.820)
Why do you care?
Whitney Cummings (23:09.980)
Well, there's a interesting aspect of human nature.
Lex Fridman (23:12.720)
So, you know, we tend to as a civilization
Whitney Cummings (23:16.820)
to create a group that's the other in all kinds of ways.
Lex Fridman (23:19.920)
Right.
Lex Fridman (23:20.760)
And so you work with animals too,
Lex Fridman (23:23.520)
you're especially sensitive to the suffering of animals.
Whitney Cummings (23:26.760)
Let me kind of ask, what's your,
Lex Fridman (23:29.400)
do you think we'll abuse robots in the future?
Lex Fridman (23:33.920)
Do you think some of the darker aspects
Lex Fridman (23:35.920)
of human nature will come out?
Whitney Cummings (23:37.960)
I think some people will,
Lex Fridman (23:39.200)
but if we design them properly, the people that do it,
Whitney Cummings (23:43.000)
we can put it on a record and we can put them in jail.
Lex Fridman (23:46.920)
We can find sociopaths more easily, you know, like.
Lex Fridman (23:49.520)
But why is that a sociopathic thing to harm a robot?
Lex Fridman (23:53.200)
I think, look, I don't know enough about the consciousness
Lex Fridman (23:56.240)
and stuff as you do.
Lex Fridman (23:57.920)
I guess it would have to be when they're conscious,
Lex Fridman (23:59.840)
but it is, you know, the part of the brain
Lex Fridman (24:02.840)
that is responsible for compassion,
Whitney Cummings (24:04.400)
the frontal lobe or whatever,
Lex Fridman (24:05.240)
like people that abuse animals also abuse humans
Lex Fridman (24:08.160)
and commit other kinds of crimes.
Lex Fridman (24:09.440)
Like that's, it's all the same part of the brain.
Whitney Cummings (24:11.080)
No one abuses animals and then it's like,
Lex Fridman (24:13.440)
awesome to women and children
Lex Fridman (24:15.520)
and awesome to underprivileged, you know, minorities.
Lex Fridman (24:18.600)
Like it's all, so, you know,
Whitney Cummings (24:20.480)
we've been working really hard to put a database together
Lex Fridman (24:23.000)
of all the people that have abused animals.
Lex Fridman (24:24.720)
So when they commit another crime, you go, okay, this is,
Lex Fridman (24:27.320)
you know, it's all the same stuff.
Lex Fridman (24:29.320)
And I think people probably think I'm nuts
Lex Fridman (24:32.360)
for a lot of the animal work I do,
Lex Fridman (24:34.760)
but because when animal abuse is present,
Lex Fridman (24:37.040)
another crime is always present,
Lex Fridman (24:38.880)
but the animal abuse is the most socially acceptable.
Lex Fridman (24:40.880)
You can kick a dog and there's nothing people can do,
Lex Fridman (24:43.920)
but then what they're doing behind closed doors,
Lex Fridman (24:46.560)
you can't see.
Lex Fridman (24:47.400)
So there's always something else going on,
Lex Fridman (24:48.880)
which is why I never feel compunction about it.
Lex Fridman (24:50.680)
But I do think we'll start seeing the same thing with robots.
Lex Fridman (24:54.360)
The person that kicks the,
Whitney Cummings (24:55.520)
I felt compassion when the kicking the dog robot
Lex Fridman (24:59.720)
really pissed me off.
Whitney Cummings (25:00.760)
I know that they're just trying to get the stability right
Lex Fridman (25:04.080)
and all that.
Lex Fridman (25:05.200)
But I do think there will come a time
Lex Fridman (25:07.320)
where that will be a great way to be able to figure out
Whitney Cummings (25:10.680)
if somebody has like, you know, antisocial behaviors.
Lex Fridman (25:15.480)
You kind of mentioned surveillance.
Whitney Cummings (25:18.040)
It's also a really interesting idea of yours
Lex Fridman (25:20.000)
that you just said, you know,
Whitney Cummings (25:21.520)
a lot of people seem to be really uncomfortable
Lex Fridman (25:23.400)
with surveillance.
Whitney Cummings (25:24.240)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (25:25.160)
And you just said that, you know what,
Whitney Cummings (25:27.200)
for me, you know, there's positives for surveillance.
Lex Fridman (25:31.160)
I think people behave better
Whitney Cummings (25:32.160)
when they know they're being watched.
Lex Fridman (25:33.280)
And I know this is a very unpopular opinion.
Whitney Cummings (25:36.000)
I'm talking about it on stage right now.
Lex Fridman (25:38.080)
We behave better when we know we're being watched.
Whitney Cummings (25:40.320)
You and I had a very different conversation
Lex Fridman (25:41.920)
before we were recording.
Whitney Cummings (25:43.160)
If we behave different, you sit up
Lex Fridman (25:46.040)
and you are in your best behavior.
Lex Fridman (25:47.520)
And I'm trying to sound eloquent
Lex Fridman (25:49.320)
and I'm trying to not hurt anyone's feelings.
Lex Fridman (25:51.120)
And I mean, I have a camera right there.
Lex Fridman (25:52.840)
I'm behaving totally different
Whitney Cummings (25:54.640)
than when we first started talking.
Lex Fridman (25:56.200)
You know, when you know there's a camera,
Whitney Cummings (25:58.520)
you behave differently.
Lex Fridman (25:59.360)
I mean, there's cameras all over LA at stoplights
Lex Fridman (26:02.680)
so that people don't run stoplights,
Lex Fridman (26:04.000)
but there's not even film in it.
Whitney Cummings (26:05.800)
They don't even use them anymore, but it works.
Lex Fridman (26:07.960)
It works.
Lex Fridman (26:08.800)
Right?
Lex Fridman (26:09.640)
And I'm, you know, working on this thing
Whitney Cummings (26:10.680)
in stand about surveillance.
Lex Fridman (26:11.920)
It's like, that's why we embed in Santa Claus.
Whitney Cummings (26:14.200)
You know, it's the Santa Claus
Lex Fridman (26:15.520)
is the first surveillance basically.
Whitney Cummings (26:17.760)
All we had to say to kids is he's making a list
Lex Fridman (26:20.360)
and he's watching you and they behave better.
Whitney Cummings (26:22.880)
That's brilliant.
Lex Fridman (26:23.720)
You know, so I do think that there are benefits
Whitney Cummings (26:26.080)
to surveillance.
Lex Fridman (26:27.360)
You know, I think we all do sketchy things in private
Lex Fridman (26:30.880)
and we all have watched weird porn
Lex Fridman (26:33.240)
or Googled weird things.
Lex Fridman (26:34.400)
And we don't want people to know about it,
Lex Fridman (26:37.000)
our secret lives.
Lex Fridman (26:37.880)
So I do think that obviously there's,
Lex Fridman (26:40.160)
we should be able to have a modicum of privacy,
Lex Fridman (26:42.800)
but I tend to think that people
Lex Fridman (26:44.600)
that are the most negative about surveillance
Whitney Cummings (26:47.480)
have the most secrets.
Lex Fridman (26:48.320)
The most to hide.
Whitney Cummings (26:49.160)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (26:50.480)
Well, you should,
Lex Fridman (26:52.280)
you're saying you're doing bits on it now?
Lex Fridman (26:54.480)
Well, I'm just talking in general about,
Whitney Cummings (26:56.640)
you know, privacy and surveillance
Lex Fridman (26:58.360)
and how paranoid we're kind of becoming
Lex Fridman (27:00.240)
and how, you know, I mean, it's just wild to me
Lex Fridman (27:03.600)
that people are like, our emails are gonna leak
Lex Fridman (27:05.880)
and they're taking our phone numbers.
Lex Fridman (27:07.160)
Like there used to be a book full of phone numbers
Lex Fridman (27:11.440)
and addresses that were, they just throw it at your door.
Lex Fridman (27:15.520)
And we all had a book of everyone's numbers.
Whitney Cummings (27:18.040)
You know, this is a very new thing.
Lex Fridman (27:20.320)
And, you know, I know our amygdala is designed
Whitney Cummings (27:22.360)
to compound sort of threats
Lex Fridman (27:24.680)
and, you know, there's stories about,
Lex Fridman (27:27.360)
and I think we all just glom on in a very, you know,
Lex Fridman (27:30.720)
tribal way of like, yeah, they're taking our data.
Whitney Cummings (27:32.440)
Like, we don't even know what that means,
Lex Fridman (27:33.720)
but we're like, well, yeah, they, they, you know?
Lex Fridman (27:38.080)
So I just think that someone's like, okay, well, so what?
Lex Fridman (27:40.200)
They're gonna sell your data?
Lex Fridman (27:41.320)
Who cares?
Lex Fridman (27:42.160)
Why do you care?
Whitney Cummings (27:43.200)
First of all, that bit will kill in China.
Lex Fridman (27:47.320)
So, and I say that sort of only a little bit joking
Whitney Cummings (27:51.080)
because a lot of people in China, including the citizens,
Lex Fridman (27:55.200)
despite what people in the West think of as abuse,
Whitney Cummings (27:59.640)
are actually in support of the idea of surveillance.
Lex Fridman (28:03.360)
Sort of, they're not in support of the abuse of surveillance,
Lex Fridman (28:06.480)
but they're, they like, I mean,
Lex Fridman (28:08.160)
the idea of surveillance is kind of like
Whitney Cummings (28:11.360)
the idea of government, like you said,
Lex Fridman (28:14.160)
we behave differently.
Lex Fridman (28:15.920)
And in a way, it's almost like why we like sports.
Lex Fridman (28:18.520)
There's rules.
Lex Fridman (28:19.960)
And within the constraints of the rules,
Lex Fridman (28:22.400)
this is a more stable society.
Lex Fridman (28:25.040)
And they make good arguments about success,
Lex Fridman (28:28.120)
being able to build successful companies,
Whitney Cummings (28:30.440)
being able to build successful social lives
Lex Fridman (28:32.800)
around a fabric that's more stable.
Whitney Cummings (28:34.560)
When you have a surveillance, it keeps the criminals away,
Lex Fridman (28:37.040)
keeps abusive animals, whatever the values of the society,
Whitney Cummings (28:41.880)
with surveillance, you can enforce those values better.
Lex Fridman (28:44.800)
And here's what I will say.
Whitney Cummings (28:45.920)
There's a lot of unethical things happening
Lex Fridman (28:47.720)
with surveillance.
Whitney Cummings (28:48.560)
Like I feel the need to really make that very clear.
Lex Fridman (28:52.080)
I mean, the fact that Google is like collecting
Whitney Cummings (28:54.080)
if people's hands start moving on the mouse
Lex Fridman (28:55.960)
to find out if they're getting Parkinson's
Lex Fridman (28:58.440)
and then their insurance goes up,
Lex Fridman (29:00.080)
like that is completely unethical and wrong.
Lex Fridman (29:02.200)
And I think stuff like that,
Lex Fridman (29:03.360)
we have to really be careful around.
Lex Fridman (29:05.880)
So the idea of using our data to raise our insurance rates
Lex Fridman (29:08.640)
or, you know, I heard that they're looking,
Whitney Cummings (29:10.800)
they can sort of predict if you're gonna have depression
Lex Fridman (29:13.320)
based on your selfies by detecting micro muscles
Whitney Cummings (29:16.080)
in your face, you know, all that kind of stuff,
Lex Fridman (29:18.240)
that is a nightmare, not okay.
Lex Fridman (29:20.040)
But I think, you know, we have to delineate
Lex Fridman (29:22.360)
what's a real threat and what's getting spam
Whitney Cummings (29:25.160)
in your email box.
Lex Fridman (29:26.000)
That's not what to spend your time and energy on.
Whitney Cummings (29:28.600)
Focus on the fact that every time you buy cigarettes,
Lex Fridman (29:31.080)
your insurance is going up without you knowing about it.
Whitney Cummings (29:35.240)
On the topic of animals too,
Lex Fridman (29:36.920)
can we just linger on a little bit?
Whitney Cummings (29:38.360)
Like, what do you think,
Lex Fridman (29:41.320)
what does this say about our society
Whitney Cummings (29:43.360)
of the society wide abuse of animals
Lex Fridman (29:46.000)
that we see in general, sort of factory farming,
Whitney Cummings (29:48.640)
just in general, just the way we treat animals
Lex Fridman (29:50.640)
of different categories, like what do you think of that?
Lex Fridman (29:57.440)
What does a better world look like?
Lex Fridman (29:59.680)
What should people think about it in general?
Whitney Cummings (30:03.640)
I think the most interesting thing
Lex Fridman (30:06.480)
I can probably say around this that's the least emotional,
Whitney Cummings (30:09.520)
cause I'm actually a very non emotional animal person
Lex Fridman (30:11.880)
because it's, I think everyone's an animal person.
Whitney Cummings (30:14.080)
It's just a matter of if it's yours
Lex Fridman (30:15.880)
or if you've been conditioned to go numb, you know.
Whitney Cummings (30:19.600)
I think it's really a testament to what as a species
Lex Fridman (30:22.280)
we are able to be in denial about,
Whitney Cummings (30:24.560)
mass denial and mass delusion,
Lex Fridman (30:26.280)
and how we're able to dehumanize and debase groups,
Whitney Cummings (30:31.640)
you know, World War II,
Lex Fridman (30:34.320)
in a way in order to conform
Lex Fridman (30:36.800)
and find protection in the conforming.
Lex Fridman (30:38.880)
So we are also a species who used to go to coliseums
Lex Fridman (30:43.840)
and watch elephants and tigers fight to the death.
Lex Fridman (30:47.520)
We used to watch human beings be pulled apart
Lex Fridman (30:50.280)
and that wasn't that long ago.
Lex Fridman (30:53.080)
We're also a species who had slaves
Lex Fridman (30:56.880)
and it was socially acceptable by a lot of people.
Lex Fridman (30:59.040)
People didn't see anything wrong with it.
Lex Fridman (31:00.160)
So we're a species that is able to go numb
Lex Fridman (31:02.680)
and that is able to dehumanize very quickly
Lex Fridman (31:05.960)
and make it the norm.
Lex Fridman (31:08.120)
Child labor wasn't that long ago.
Whitney Cummings (31:10.800)
The idea that now we look back and go,
Lex Fridman (31:12.720)
oh yeah, kids were losing fingers in factories making shoes.
Whitney Cummings (31:17.200)
Like someone had to come in and make that, you know.
Lex Fridman (31:20.160)
So I think it just says a lot about the fact that,
Whitney Cummings (31:23.200)
you know, we are animals and we are self serving
Lex Fridman (31:25.320)
and one of the most successful,
Whitney Cummings (31:27.280)
the most successful species
Lex Fridman (31:29.200)
because we are able to debase and degrade
Lex Fridman (31:33.160)
and essentially exploit anything that benefits us.
Lex Fridman (31:36.840)
I think the pendulum is gonna swing as being late.
Lex Fridman (31:39.880)
Which way?
Lex Fridman (31:40.720)
Like, I think we're Rome now, kind of.
Whitney Cummings (31:42.800)
I think we're on the verge of collapse
Lex Fridman (31:44.960)
because we are dopamine receptors.
Whitney Cummings (31:47.240)
Like we are just, I think we're all kind of addicts
Lex Fridman (31:49.560)
when it comes to this stuff.
Whitney Cummings (31:50.520)
Like we don't know when to stop.
Lex Fridman (31:53.360)
It's always the buffet.
Whitney Cummings (31:54.480)
Like we're, the thing that used to keep us alive,
Lex Fridman (31:56.600)
which is killing animals and eating them,
Whitney Cummings (31:58.360)
now killing animals and eating them
Lex Fridman (31:59.720)
is what's killing us in a way.
Lex Fridman (32:01.200)
So it's like, we just can't,
Lex Fridman (32:02.840)
we don't know when to call it and we don't,
Whitney Cummings (32:04.920)
moderation is not really something
Lex Fridman (32:06.560)
that humans have evolved to have yet.
Lex Fridman (32:10.040)
So I think it's really just a flaw in our wiring.
Lex Fridman (32:13.640)
Do you think we'll look back at this time
Lex Fridman (32:15.280)
as our society is being deeply unethical?
Lex Fridman (32:19.440)
Yeah, yeah, I think we'll be embarrassed.
Lex Fridman (32:22.280)
Which are the worst parts right now going on?
Lex Fridman (32:24.880)
Is it? In terms of animal?
Whitney Cummings (32:26.160)
Well, I think. No, in terms of anything.
Lex Fridman (32:27.800)
What's the unethical thing?
Whitney Cummings (32:29.160)
If we, and it's very hard just to take a step out of it,
Lex Fridman (32:32.040)
but you just said we used to watch, you know,
Whitney Cummings (32:37.360)
there's been a lot of cruelty throughout history.
Lex Fridman (32:40.440)
What's the cruelty going on now?
Whitney Cummings (32:42.160)
I think it's gonna be pigs.
Lex Fridman (32:44.200)
I think it's gonna be, I mean,
Whitney Cummings (32:45.520)
pigs are one of the most emotionally intelligent animals
Lex Fridman (32:48.680)
and they have the intelligence of like a three year old.
Lex Fridman (32:51.680)
And I think we'll look back and be really,
Lex Fridman (32:54.320)
they use tools.
Whitney Cummings (32:55.160)
I mean, I think we have this narrative
Lex Fridman (32:58.440)
that they're pigs and they're pigs
Lex Fridman (32:59.760)
and they're disgusting and they're dirty
Lex Fridman (33:01.880)
and they're bacon is so good.
Whitney Cummings (33:02.880)
I think that we'll look back one day
Lex Fridman (33:04.240)
and be really embarrassed about that.
Lex Fridman (33:06.640)
Is this for just the, what's it called?
Lex Fridman (33:09.280)
The factory farming?
Lex Fridman (33:10.360)
So basically mass.
Lex Fridman (33:11.680)
Because we don't see it.
Whitney Cummings (33:12.520)
If you saw, I mean, we do have,
Lex Fridman (33:14.520)
I mean, this is probably an evolutionary advantage.
Whitney Cummings (33:17.600)
We do have the ability to completely
Lex Fridman (33:20.400)
pretend something's not,
Whitney Cummings (33:21.520)
something that is so horrific that it overwhelms us
Lex Fridman (33:24.040)
and we're able to essentially deny that it's happening.
Whitney Cummings (33:27.560)
I think if people were to see what goes on
Lex Fridman (33:29.280)
in factory farming,
Lex Fridman (33:30.480)
and also we're really to take in how bad it is for us,
Lex Fridman (33:35.360)
you know, we're hurting ourselves first and foremost
Whitney Cummings (33:37.160)
with what we eat,
Lex Fridman (33:38.440)
but that's also a very elitist argument, you know?
Whitney Cummings (33:41.280)
It's a luxury to be able to complain about meat.
Lex Fridman (33:44.600)
It's a luxury to be able to not eat meat, you know?
Whitney Cummings (33:47.160)
There's very few people because of, you know,
Lex Fridman (33:49.960)
how the corporations have set up meat being cheap.
Whitney Cummings (33:53.360)
You know, it's $2 to buy a Big Mac,
Lex Fridman (33:55.320)
it's $10 to buy a healthy meal.
Whitney Cummings (33:57.640)
You know, that's, I think a lot of people
Lex Fridman (34:00.000)
don't have the luxury to even think that way.
Lex Fridman (34:02.280)
But I do think that animals in captivity,
Lex Fridman (34:04.240)
I think we're gonna look back
Lex Fridman (34:05.080)
and be pretty grossed out about mammals in captivity,
Lex Fridman (34:07.880)
whales, dolphins.
Whitney Cummings (34:08.800)
I mean, that's already starting to dismantle, circuses,
Lex Fridman (34:12.240)
we're gonna be pretty embarrassed about.
Lex Fridman (34:14.020)
But I think it's really more a testament to,
Lex Fridman (34:17.160)
you know, there's just such a ability to go like,
Whitney Cummings (34:22.080)
that thing is different than me and we're better.
Lex Fridman (34:25.560)
It's the ego, I mean, it's just,
Whitney Cummings (34:26.800)
we have the species with the biggest ego ultimately.
Lex Fridman (34:29.200)
Well, that's what I think,
Whitney Cummings (34:30.720)
that's my hope for robots is they'll,
Lex Fridman (34:32.520)
you mentioned consciousness before,
Whitney Cummings (34:34.240)
nobody knows what consciousness is,
Lex Fridman (34:37.640)
but I'm hoping robots will help us empathize
Lex Fridman (34:42.200)
and understand that there's other creatures
Lex Fridman (34:47.840)
besides ourselves that can suffer,
Whitney Cummings (34:50.320)
that can experience the world
Lex Fridman (34:54.800)
and that we can torture by our actions.
Lex Fridman (34:57.680)
And robots can explicitly teach us that,
Lex Fridman (34:59.880)
I think better than animals can.
Whitney Cummings (35:01.480)
I have never seen such compassion
Lex Fridman (35:06.480)
from a lot of people in my life
Whitney Cummings (35:10.840)
toward any human, animal, child,
Lex Fridman (35:13.640)
as I have a lot of people
Whitney Cummings (35:15.000)
in the way they interact with the robot.
Lex Fridman (35:16.600)
Because I think there's something of,
Whitney Cummings (35:19.760)
I mean, I was on the robot owner's chat boards
Lex Fridman (35:23.520)
for a good eight months.
Lex Fridman (35:25.920)
And the main emotional benefit is
Lex Fridman (35:28.120)
she's never gonna cheat on you,
Whitney Cummings (35:30.360)
she's never gonna hurt you,
Lex Fridman (35:31.920)
she's never gonna lie to you,
Whitney Cummings (35:33.120)
she doesn't judge you.
Lex Fridman (35:34.760)
I think that robots help people,
Lex Fridman (35:38.480)
and this is part of the work I do with animals,
Lex Fridman (35:40.640)
like I do equine therapy and train dogs and stuff,
Whitney Cummings (35:42.760)
because there is this safe space to be authentic.
Lex Fridman (35:46.280)
With this being that doesn't care
Lex Fridman (35:47.960)
what you do for a living,
Lex Fridman (35:48.800)
doesn't care how much money you have,
Whitney Cummings (35:50.160)
doesn't care who you're dating,
Lex Fridman (35:51.280)
doesn't care what you look like,
Whitney Cummings (35:52.200)
doesn't care if you have cellulite, whatever,
Lex Fridman (35:54.320)
you feel safe to be able to truly be present
Whitney Cummings (35:57.720)
without being defensive and worrying about eye contact
Lex Fridman (35:59.920)
and being triggered by needing to be perfect
Lex Fridman (36:02.680)
and fear of judgment and all that.
Lex Fridman (36:04.840)
And robots really can't judge you yet,
Lex Fridman (36:08.240)
but they can't judge you,
Lex Fridman (36:09.320)
and I think it really puts people at ease
Lex Fridman (36:13.480)
and at their most authentic.
Lex Fridman (36:16.360)
Do you think you can have a deep connection
Whitney Cummings (36:18.720)
with a robot that's not judging,
Lex Fridman (36:21.920)
or do you think you can really have a relationship
Lex Fridman (36:25.440)
with a robot or a human being that's a safe space?
Lex Fridman (36:30.000)
Or is attention, mystery, danger
Lex Fridman (36:33.480)
necessary for a deep connection?
Lex Fridman (36:35.960)
I'm gonna speak for myself and say that
Whitney Cummings (36:38.600)
I grew up in an alcoholic home,
Lex Fridman (36:40.120)
I identify as a codependent,
Whitney Cummings (36:41.440)
talked about this stuff before,
Lex Fridman (36:43.280)
but for me it's very hard to be in a relationship
Whitney Cummings (36:45.360)
with a human being without feeling like
Lex Fridman (36:47.600)
I need to perform in some way or deliver in some way,
Lex Fridman (36:50.760)
and I don't know if that's just the people
Lex Fridman (36:51.920)
I've been in a relationship with or me or my brokenness,
Lex Fridman (36:56.520)
but I do think, this is gonna sound really
Lex Fridman (37:01.960)
negative and pessimistic,
Lex Fridman (37:04.160)
but I do think a lot of our relationships are projection
Lex Fridman (37:07.200)
and a lot of our relationships are performance,
Lex Fridman (37:09.600)
and I don't think I really understood that
Lex Fridman (37:12.280)
until I worked with horses.
Lex Fridman (37:15.280)
And most communication with human is nonverbal, right?
Lex Fridman (37:18.080)
I can say like, I love you,
Lex Fridman (37:19.920)
but you don't think I love you, right?
Lex Fridman (37:22.000)
Whereas with animals it's very direct.
Whitney Cummings (37:24.280)
It's all physical, it's all energy.
Lex Fridman (37:26.840)
I feel like that with robots too.
Whitney Cummings (37:28.520)
It feels very,
Lex Fridman (37:32.760)
how I say something doesn't matter.
Whitney Cummings (37:35.280)
My inflection doesn't really matter.
Lex Fridman (37:36.920)
And you thinking that my tone is disrespectful,
Whitney Cummings (37:40.280)
like you're not filtering it through all
Lex Fridman (37:42.160)
of the bad relationships you've been in,
Whitney Cummings (37:43.800)
you're not filtering it through
Lex Fridman (37:44.840)
the way your mom talked to you,
Whitney Cummings (37:45.880)
you're not getting triggered.
Lex Fridman (37:47.760)
I find that for the most part,
Whitney Cummings (37:49.400)
people don't always receive things
Lex Fridman (37:51.000)
the way that you intend them to or the way intended,
Lex Fridman (37:53.680)
and that makes relationships really murky.
Lex Fridman (37:56.120)
So the relationships with animals
Lex Fridman (37:57.480)
and relationship with the robots is they are now,
Lex Fridman (38:00.680)
you kind of implied that that's more healthy.
Lex Fridman (38:05.240)
Can you have a healthy relationship with other humans?
Lex Fridman (38:08.080)
Or not healthy, I don't like that word,
Lex Fridman (38:10.120)
but shouldn't it be, you've talked about codependency,
Lex Fridman (38:14.440)
maybe you can talk about what is codependency,
Lex Fridman (38:16.640)
but is that, is the challenges of that,
Lex Fridman (38:21.640)
the complexity of that necessary for passion,
Lex Fridman (38:24.520)
for love between humans?
Lex Fridman (38:27.160)
That's right, you love passion.
Whitney Cummings (38:29.360)
That's a good thing.
Lex Fridman (38:31.880)
I thought this would be a safe space.
Whitney Cummings (38:33.840)
I got trolled by Rogan for hours on this.
Lex Fridman (38:39.920)
Look, I am not anti passion.
Whitney Cummings (38:42.560)
I think that I've just maybe been around long enough
Lex Fridman (38:45.240)
to know that sometimes it's ephemeral
Lex Fridman (38:48.200)
and that passion is a mixture of a lot of different things,
Lex Fridman (38:55.360)
adrenaline, which turns into dopamine, cortisol,
Whitney Cummings (38:57.640)
it's a lot of neurochemicals, it's a lot of projection,
Lex Fridman (39:01.160)
it's a lot of what we've seen in movies,
Whitney Cummings (39:03.200)
it's a lot of, you know, I identify as an addict.
Lex Fridman (39:06.160)
So for me, sometimes passion is like,
Whitney Cummings (39:08.520)
uh oh, this could be bad.
Lex Fridman (39:10.120)
And I think we've been so conditioned to believe
Whitney Cummings (39:11.520)
that passion means like your soulmates,
Lex Fridman (39:13.080)
and I mean, how many times have you had
Whitney Cummings (39:14.280)
a passionate connection with someone
Lex Fridman (39:15.600)
and then it was a total train wreck?
Whitney Cummings (39:18.920)
The train wreck is interesting.
Lex Fridman (39:19.760)
How many times exactly?
Whitney Cummings (39:21.080)
Exactly.
Lex Fridman (39:21.920)
What's a train wreck?
Whitney Cummings (39:22.760)
You just did a lot of math in your head
Lex Fridman (39:24.400)
in that little moment.
Whitney Cummings (39:25.320)
Counting.
Lex Fridman (39:26.480)
I mean, what's a train wreck?
Whitney Cummings (39:28.560)
What's a, why is obsession,
Lex Fridman (39:31.480)
so you described this codependency
Lex Fridman (39:33.600)
and sort of the idea of attachment,
Lex Fridman (39:37.400)
over attachment to people who don't deserve
Whitney Cummings (39:40.240)
that kind of attachment as somehow a bad thing
Lex Fridman (39:45.040)
and I think our society says it's a bad thing.
Whitney Cummings (39:47.720)
It probably is a bad thing.
Lex Fridman (39:49.600)
Like a delicious burger is a bad thing.
Whitney Cummings (39:52.560)
I don't know, but.
Lex Fridman (39:53.400)
Right, oh, that's a good point.
Whitney Cummings (39:54.280)
I think that you're pointing out something really fascinating
Lex Fridman (39:56.120)
which is like passion, if you go into it knowing
Whitney Cummings (39:59.320)
this is like pizza where it's gonna be delicious
Lex Fridman (40:01.160)
for two hours and then I don't have to have it again
Whitney Cummings (40:03.040)
for three, if you can have a choice in the passion,
Lex Fridman (40:06.360)
I define passion as something that is relatively unmanageable
Lex Fridman (40:09.520)
and something you can't control or stop and start
Lex Fridman (40:12.200)
with your own volition.
Lex Fridman (40:13.720)
So maybe we're operating under different definitions.
Lex Fridman (40:16.320)
If passion is something that like, you know,
Whitney Cummings (40:18.840)
ruins your real marriages and screws up
Lex Fridman (40:22.160)
your professional life and becomes this thing
Whitney Cummings (40:24.280)
that you're not in control of and becomes addictive,
Lex Fridman (40:28.600)
I think that's the difference is,
Lex Fridman (40:30.560)
is it a choice or is it not a choice?
Lex Fridman (40:32.560)
And if it is a choice, then passion's great.
Lex Fridman (40:35.120)
But if it's something that like consumes you
Lex Fridman (40:37.360)
and makes you start making bad decisions
Lex Fridman (40:39.360)
and clouds your frontal lobe
Lex Fridman (40:41.160)
and is just all about dopamine
Lex Fridman (40:44.040)
and not really about the person
Lex Fridman (40:46.160)
and more about the neurochemical,
Whitney Cummings (40:47.800)
we call it sort of the drug, the internal drug cabinet.
Lex Fridman (40:50.760)
If it's all just, you're on drugs, that's different,
Whitney Cummings (40:52.960)
you know, cause sometimes you're just on drugs.
Lex Fridman (40:54.960)
Okay, so there's a philosophical question here.
Lex Fridman (40:58.440)
So would you rather, and it's interesting for a comedian,
Lex Fridman (41:03.320)
brilliant comedian to speak so eloquently
Whitney Cummings (41:07.520)
about a balanced life.
Lex Fridman (41:09.480)
I kind of argue against this point.
Whitney Cummings (41:12.040)
There's such an obsession of creating
Lex Fridman (41:13.520)
this healthy lifestyle now, psychologically speaking.
Whitney Cummings (41:18.080)
You know, I'm a fan of the idea that you sort of fly high
Lex Fridman (41:22.040)
and you crash and die at 27 is also a possible life.
Lex Fridman (41:26.480)
And it's not one we should judge
Lex Fridman (41:27.960)
because I think there's moments of greatness.
Whitney Cummings (41:30.680)
I talked to Olympic athletes
Lex Fridman (41:32.120)
where some of their greatest moments
Whitney Cummings (41:34.280)
are achieved in their early 20s.
Lex Fridman (41:36.560)
And the rest of their life is in the kind of fog
Whitney Cummings (41:39.840)
of almost of a depression because they can never.
Lex Fridman (41:41.920)
Because they're based on their physical prowess, right?
Whitney Cummings (41:44.240)
Physical prowess and they'll never,
Lex Fridman (41:46.400)
so that, so they're watching their physical prowess fade
Lex Fridman (41:50.200)
and they'll never achieve the kind of height,
Lex Fridman (41:54.680)
not just physical, of just emotion, of.
Whitney Cummings (41:58.240)
Well, the max number of neurochemicals.
Lex Fridman (42:01.760)
And you also put your money on the wrong horse.
Whitney Cummings (42:04.680)
That's where I would just go like,
Lex Fridman (42:06.360)
oh yeah, if you're doing a job where you peak at 22,
Whitney Cummings (42:10.120)
the rest of your life is gonna be hard.
Lex Fridman (42:12.320)
That idea is considering the notion
Whitney Cummings (42:15.120)
that you wanna optimize some kind of,
Lex Fridman (42:17.480)
but we're all gonna die soon.
Lex Fridman (42:19.280)
What?
Lex Fridman (42:21.840)
Now you tell me.
Whitney Cummings (42:23.280)
I've immortalized myself, so I'm gonna be fine.
Lex Fridman (42:26.800)
See, you're almost like,
Lex Fridman (42:28.240)
how many Oscar winning movies can I direct
Lex Fridman (42:32.160)
by the time I'm 100?
Lex Fridman (42:34.040)
How many this and that?
Lex Fridman (42:35.800)
But you know, there's a night, you know,
Whitney Cummings (42:38.080)
it's all, life is short, relatively speaking.
Lex Fridman (42:41.200)
I know, but it can also come in different ways.
Whitney Cummings (42:42.600)
You go, life is short, play hard,
Lex Fridman (42:45.120)
fall in love as much as you can, run into walls.
Whitney Cummings (42:47.640)
I would also go, life is short,
Lex Fridman (42:49.400)
don't deplete yourself on things that aren't sustainable
Lex Fridman (42:53.760)
and that you can't keep, you know?
Lex Fridman (42:56.560)
So I think everyone gets dopamine from different places.
Whitney Cummings (42:59.720)
Everyone has meaning from different places.
Lex Fridman (43:01.720)
I look at the fleeting passionate relationships
Whitney Cummings (43:04.520)
I've had in the past and I don't like,
Lex Fridman (43:06.800)
I don't have pride in that.
Whitney Cummings (43:07.880)
I think that you have to decide what, you know,
Lex Fridman (43:10.400)
helps you sleep at night.
Whitney Cummings (43:11.240)
For me, it's pride and feeling like I behave
Lex Fridman (43:13.480)
with grace and integrity.
Whitney Cummings (43:14.480)
That's just me personally.
Lex Fridman (43:16.040)
Everyone can go like, yeah,
Whitney Cummings (43:17.640)
I slept with all the hot chicks in Italy I could
Lex Fridman (43:20.960)
and I, you know, did all the whatever,
Whitney Cummings (43:23.440)
like whatever you value,
Lex Fridman (43:25.040)
we're allowed to value different things.
Whitney Cummings (43:26.560)
Yeah, we're talking about Brian Callan.
Lex Fridman (43:28.040)
Brian Callan has lived his life to the fullest,
Whitney Cummings (43:32.560)
to say the least.
Lex Fridman (43:33.560)
But I think that it's just for me personally,
Whitney Cummings (43:36.360)
I, and this could be like my workaholism
Lex Fridman (43:38.800)
or my achievementism,
Whitney Cummings (43:41.520)
I, if I don't have something to show for something,
Lex Fridman (43:45.200)
I feel like it's a waste of time or some kind of loss.
Whitney Cummings (43:50.240)
I'm in a 12 step program and the third step would say,
Lex Fridman (43:52.560)
there's no such thing as waste of time
Lex Fridman (43:54.080)
and everything happens exactly as it should
Lex Fridman (43:56.800)
and whatever, that's a way to just sort of keep us sane
Lex Fridman (43:59.440)
so we don't grieve too much and beat ourselves up
Lex Fridman (44:01.800)
over past mistakes, there's no such thing as mistakes,
Whitney Cummings (44:04.600)
dah, dah, dah.
Lex Fridman (44:05.720)
But I think passion is, I think it's so life affirming
Lex Fridman (44:10.600)
and one of the few things that maybe people like us
Lex Fridman (44:13.000)
makes us feel awake and seen
Lex Fridman (44:14.840)
and we just have such a high threshold for adrenaline.
Lex Fridman (44:20.480)
You know, I mean, you are a fighter, right?
Whitney Cummings (44:22.720)
Yeah, okay, so yeah,
Lex Fridman (44:24.000)
so you have a very high tolerance for adrenaline
Lex Fridman (44:28.680)
and I think that Olympic athletes,
Lex Fridman (44:30.360)
the amount of adrenaline they get from performing,
Whitney Cummings (44:33.600)
it's very hard to follow that.
Lex Fridman (44:34.680)
It's like when guys come back from the military
Lex Fridman (44:36.480)
and they have depression.
Lex Fridman (44:38.080)
It's like, do you miss bullets flying at you?
Whitney Cummings (44:40.600)
Yeah, kind of because of that adrenaline
Lex Fridman (44:42.760)
which turned into dopamine and the camaraderie.
Whitney Cummings (44:45.040)
I mean, there's people that speak much better
Lex Fridman (44:46.480)
about this than I do.
Lex Fridman (44:48.360)
But I just, I'm obsessed with neurology
Lex Fridman (44:50.680)
and I'm just obsessed with sort of the lies we tell ourselves
Whitney Cummings (44:54.080)
in order to justify getting neurochemicals.
Lex Fridman (44:57.040)
You've done actually quite, done a lot of thinking
Lex Fridman (45:00.320)
and talking about neurology
Lex Fridman (45:01.880)
and just kind of look at human behavior
Whitney Cummings (45:04.160)
through the lens of looking at how our actually,
Lex Fridman (45:07.800)
chemically our brain works.
Lex Fridman (45:09.120)
So what, first of all,
Lex Fridman (45:10.880)
why did you connect with that idea and what have you,
Lex Fridman (45:15.360)
how has your view of the world changed
Lex Fridman (45:17.520)
by considering the brain is just a machine?
Whitney Cummings (45:22.400)
You know, I know it probably sounds really nihilistic
Lex Fridman (45:24.520)
but for me, it's very liberating to know a lot
Whitney Cummings (45:27.480)
about neurochemicals because you don't have to,
Lex Fridman (45:30.040)
it's like the same thing with like critics,
Whitney Cummings (45:32.480)
like critical reviews.
Lex Fridman (45:33.880)
If you believe the good,
Whitney Cummings (45:34.720)
you have to believe the bad kind of thing.
Lex Fridman (45:36.080)
Like, you know, if you believe that your bad choices
Whitney Cummings (45:38.880)
were because of your moral integrity or whatever,
Lex Fridman (45:43.720)
you have to believe your good ones.
Whitney Cummings (45:44.720)
I just think there's something really liberating
Lex Fridman (45:46.280)
and going like, oh, that was just adrenaline.
Whitney Cummings (45:48.040)
I just said that thing
Lex Fridman (45:48.880)
because I was adrenalized and I was scared
Lex Fridman (45:50.680)
and my amygdala was activated
Lex Fridman (45:52.080)
and that's why I said you're an asshole and get out.
Lex Fridman (45:54.360)
And that's, you know, I think,
Lex Fridman (45:55.880)
I just think it's important to delineate what's nature
Lex Fridman (45:57.960)
and what's nurture, what is your choice
Lex Fridman (45:59.840)
and what is just your brain trying to keep you safe.
Whitney Cummings (46:02.000)
I think we forget that even though we have security systems
Lex Fridman (46:04.520)
and homes and locks on our doors,
Whitney Cummings (46:06.360)
that our brain for the most part
Lex Fridman (46:07.520)
is just trying to keep us safe all the time.
Whitney Cummings (46:09.200)
It's why we hold grudges, it's why we get angry,
Lex Fridman (46:11.320)
it's why we get road rage, it's why we do a lot of things.
Lex Fridman (46:14.720)
And it's also, when I started learning about neurology,
Lex Fridman (46:17.240)
I started having so much more compassion for other people.
Whitney Cummings (46:19.640)
You know, if someone yelled at me being like,
Lex Fridman (46:21.520)
fuck you on the road, I'd be like,
Whitney Cummings (46:22.920)
okay, he's producing adrenaline right now
Lex Fridman (46:24.600)
because we're all going 65 miles an hour
Lex Fridman (46:27.680)
and our brains aren't really designed
Lex Fridman (46:30.200)
for this type of stress and he's scared.
Whitney Cummings (46:33.280)
He was scared, you know, so that really helped me
Lex Fridman (46:35.320)
to have more love for people in my everyday life
Whitney Cummings (46:38.360)
instead of being in fight or flight mode.
Lex Fridman (46:41.000)
But the, I think more interesting answer to your question
Whitney Cummings (46:44.160)
is that I've had migraines my whole life.
Lex Fridman (46:45.720)
Like I've suffered with really intense migraines,
Whitney Cummings (46:49.000)
ocular migraines, ones where my arm would go numb
Lex Fridman (46:52.360)
and I just started having to go to so many doctors
Whitney Cummings (46:55.000)
to learn about it and I started, you know,
Lex Fridman (46:58.360)
learning that we don't really know that much.
Whitney Cummings (47:00.680)
We know a lot, but it's wild to go into
Lex Fridman (47:03.520)
one of the best neurologists in the world
Whitney Cummings (47:04.840)
who's like, yeah, we don't know.
Lex Fridman (47:05.680)
We don't know. We don't know.
Lex Fridman (47:07.320)
And that fascinated me.
Lex Fridman (47:08.160)
Except one of the worst pains you can probably have,
Whitney Cummings (47:10.720)
all that stuff, and we don't know the source.
Lex Fridman (47:13.280)
We don't know the source
Lex Fridman (47:14.320)
and there is something really fascinating
Lex Fridman (47:16.400)
about when your left arm starts going numb
Lex Fridman (47:19.480)
and you start not being able to see
Lex Fridman (47:21.000)
out of the left side of both your eyes.
Lex Fridman (47:22.840)
And I remember when the migraines get really bad,
Lex Fridman (47:25.360)
it's like a mini stroke almost
Lex Fridman (47:26.880)
and you're able to see words on a page,
Lex Fridman (47:29.880)
but I can't read them.
Whitney Cummings (47:31.240)
They just look like symbols to me.
Lex Fridman (47:33.080)
So there's something just really fascinating to me
Whitney Cummings (47:35.000)
about your brain just being able to stop functioning.
Lex Fridman (47:38.280)
And I, so I just wanted to learn about it, study about it.
Whitney Cummings (47:41.640)
I did all these weird alternative treatments.
Lex Fridman (47:43.360)
I got this piercing in here that actually works.
Whitney Cummings (47:45.880)
I've tried everything.
Lex Fridman (47:47.000)
And then both of my parents had strokes.
Lex Fridman (47:49.200)
So when both of my parents had strokes,
Lex Fridman (47:51.040)
I became sort of the person who had to decide
Lex Fridman (47:54.160)
what was gonna happen with their recovery,
Lex Fridman (47:56.640)
which is just a wild thing to have to deal with it.
Whitney Cummings (47:59.120)
You know, 28 years old when it happened.
Lex Fridman (48:02.120)
And I started spending basically all day, every day in ICUs
Whitney Cummings (48:05.840)
with neurologists learning about what happened
Lex Fridman (48:08.200)
to my dad's brain and why he can't move his left arm,
Lex Fridman (48:11.120)
but he can move his right leg,
Lex Fridman (48:12.520)
but he can't see out of the, you know.
Lex Fridman (48:14.200)
And then my mom had another stroke
Lex Fridman (48:17.000)
in a different part of the brain.
Lex Fridman (48:18.040)
So I started having to learn
Lex Fridman (48:19.640)
what parts of the brain did what,
Lex Fridman (48:21.480)
and so that I wouldn't take their behavior so personally,
Lex Fridman (48:23.840)
and so that I would be able to manage my expectations
Whitney Cummings (48:25.960)
in terms of their recovery.
Lex Fridman (48:27.400)
So my mom, because it affected a lot of her frontal lobe,
Whitney Cummings (48:31.240)
changed a lot as a person.
Lex Fridman (48:33.080)
She was way more emotional.
Whitney Cummings (48:34.560)
She was way more micromanaged.
Lex Fridman (48:35.760)
She was forgetting certain things.
Lex Fridman (48:36.960)
So it broke my heart less when I was able to know,
Lex Fridman (48:40.320)
oh yeah, well, the stroke hit this part of the brain,
Lex Fridman (48:42.080)
and that's the one that's responsible for short term memory,
Lex Fridman (48:44.200)
and that's responsible for long term memory, da da da.
Lex Fridman (48:46.840)
And then my brother just got something
Lex Fridman (48:48.680)
called viral encephalitis,
Whitney Cummings (48:50.520)
which is an infection inside the brain.
Lex Fridman (48:53.280)
So it was kind of wild that I was able to go,
Whitney Cummings (48:56.280)
oh, I know exactly what's happening here,
Lex Fridman (48:57.640)
and I know, you know, so.
Lex Fridman (48:59.760)
So that's allows you to have some more compassion
Lex Fridman (49:02.440)
for the struggles that people have,
Lex Fridman (49:04.440)
but does it take away some of the magic
Lex Fridman (49:06.560)
for some of the, from the,
Lex Fridman (49:08.800)
some of the more positive experiences of life?
Lex Fridman (49:10.920)
Sometimes.
Whitney Cummings (49:11.920)
Sometimes, and I don't, I'm such a control addict
Lex Fridman (49:15.320)
that, you know, I think our biggest,
Whitney Cummings (49:18.120)
someone like me,
Lex Fridman (49:19.360)
my biggest dream is to know why someone's doing it.
Whitney Cummings (49:21.000)
That's what standup is.
Lex Fridman (49:22.240)
It's just trying to figure out why,
Whitney Cummings (49:23.440)
or that's what writing is.
Lex Fridman (49:24.280)
That's what acting is.
Whitney Cummings (49:25.120)
That's what performing is.
Lex Fridman (49:25.960)
It's trying to figure out why someone would do something.
Whitney Cummings (49:27.440)
As an actor, you get a piece of, you know, material,
Lex Fridman (49:30.040)
and you go, this person, why would he say that?
Lex Fridman (49:32.120)
Why would he, she pick up that cup?
Lex Fridman (49:33.760)
Why would she walk over here?
Whitney Cummings (49:35.040)
It's really why, why, why, why.
Lex Fridman (49:36.560)
So I think neurology is,
Whitney Cummings (49:38.000)
if you're trying to figure out human motives
Lex Fridman (49:40.320)
and why people do what they do,
Whitney Cummings (49:41.520)
it'd be crazy not to understand how neurochemicals motivate us.
Lex Fridman (49:46.080)
I also have a lot of addiction in my family
Lex Fridman (49:48.080)
and hardcore drug addiction and mental illness.
Lex Fridman (49:51.480)
And in order to cope with it,
Whitney Cummings (49:53.720)
you really have to understand that borderline personality
Lex Fridman (49:55.640)
disorder, schizophrenia, and drug addiction.
Lex Fridman (49:58.360)
So I have a lot of people I love
Lex Fridman (50:00.640)
that suffer from drug addiction and alcoholism.
Lex Fridman (50:02.840)
And the first thing they started teaching you
Lex Fridman (50:04.760)
is it's not a choice.
Whitney Cummings (50:05.880)
These people's dopamine receptors
Lex Fridman (50:07.360)
don't hold dopamine the same ways yours do.
Whitney Cummings (50:09.640)
Their frontal lobe is underdeveloped, like, you know,
Lex Fridman (50:13.200)
and that really helped me to navigate dealing,
Whitney Cummings (50:17.160)
loving people that were addicted to substances.
Lex Fridman (50:20.240)
I want to be careful with this question, but how much?
Lex Fridman (50:24.240)
Money do you have?
Lex Fridman (50:25.320)
How much?
Lex Fridman (50:26.160)
Can I borrow $10?
Lex Fridman (50:28.920)
Okay, no, is how much control,
Lex Fridman (50:33.920)
how much, despite the chemical imbalances
Lex Fridman (50:39.760)
or the biological limitations
Whitney Cummings (50:42.920)
that each of our individual brains have,
Lex Fridman (50:44.520)
how much mind over matter is there?
Lex Fridman (50:47.080)
So through things that I've known people
Lex Fridman (50:51.160)
with clinical depression,
Lex Fridman (50:53.200)
and so it's always a touchy subject
Lex Fridman (50:55.560)
to say how much they can really help it.
Whitney Cummings (50:57.680)
Very.
Lex Fridman (50:59.680)
What can you, yeah, what can you,
Whitney Cummings (51:01.680)
because you've talked about codependency,
Lex Fridman (51:03.520)
you talked about issues that you struggle through,
Lex Fridman (51:07.400)
and nevertheless, you choose to take a journey
Lex Fridman (51:09.880)
of healing and so on, so that's your choice,
Whitney Cummings (51:12.840)
that's your actions.
Lex Fridman (51:14.240)
So how much can you do to help fight the limitations
Lex Fridman (51:17.720)
of the neurochemicals in your brain?
Lex Fridman (51:20.040)
That's such an interesting question,
Lex Fridman (51:21.800)
and I don't think I'm at all qualified to answer,
Lex Fridman (51:23.440)
but I'll say what I do know.
Lex Fridman (51:25.560)
And really quick, just the definition of codependency,
Lex Fridman (51:28.200)
I think a lot of people think of codependency
Whitney Cummings (51:29.920)
as like two people that can't stop hanging out, you know,
Lex Fridman (51:33.120)
or like, you know, that's not totally off,
Lex Fridman (51:36.640)
but I think for the most part,
Lex Fridman (51:38.280)
my favorite definition of codependency
Whitney Cummings (51:39.960)
is the inability to tolerate the discomfort of others.
Lex Fridman (51:42.880)
You grow up in an alcoholic home,
Whitney Cummings (51:44.040)
you grow up around mental illness,
Lex Fridman (51:45.200)
you grow up in chaos,
Whitney Cummings (51:46.480)
you have a parent that's a narcissist,
Lex Fridman (51:48.280)
you basically are wired to just people please,
Whitney Cummings (51:51.520)
worry about others, be perfect, walk on eggshells,
Lex Fridman (51:54.720)
shape shift to accommodate other people.
Lex Fridman (51:56.680)
So codependence is a very active wiring issue
Lex Fridman (52:01.680)
that, you know, doesn't just affect
Whitney Cummings (52:04.400)
your romantic relationships, it affects you being a boss,
Lex Fridman (52:06.920)
it affects you in the world.
Whitney Cummings (52:09.480)
Online, you know, you get one negative comment
Lex Fridman (52:11.920)
and it throws you for two weeks.
Whitney Cummings (52:14.080)
You know, it also is linked to eating disorders
Lex Fridman (52:16.080)
and other kinds of addiction.
Lex Fridman (52:17.040)
So it's a very big thing,
Lex Fridman (52:20.120)
and I think a lot of people sometimes only think
Whitney Cummings (52:21.920)
that it's in a romantic relationship,
Lex Fridman (52:23.400)
so I always feel the need to say that.
Lex Fridman (52:25.840)
And also one of the reasons I love the idea of robots
Lex Fridman (52:28.000)
so much because you don't have to walk on eggshells
Whitney Cummings (52:30.320)
around them, you don't have to worry
Lex Fridman (52:31.480)
they're gonna get mad at you yet,
Lex Fridman (52:33.240)
but there's no, codependents are hypersensitive
Lex Fridman (52:36.840)
to the needs and moods of others,
Lex Fridman (52:39.480)
and it's very exhausting, it's depleting.
Lex Fridman (52:42.080)
Just one conversation about where we're gonna go to dinner
Lex Fridman (52:45.360)
is like, do you wanna go get Chinese food?
Lex Fridman (52:47.200)
We just had Chinese food.
Lex Fridman (52:48.360)
Well, wait, are you mad?
Lex Fridman (52:50.080)
Well, no, I didn't mean to,
Lex Fridman (52:50.920)
and it's just like that codependents live in this,
Lex Fridman (52:54.880)
everything means something,
Lex Fridman (52:56.560)
and humans can be very emotionally exhausting.
Lex Fridman (53:00.080)
Why did you look at me that way?
Lex Fridman (53:01.120)
What are you thinking about?
Lex Fridman (53:01.960)
What was that?
Lex Fridman (53:02.800)
Why'd you check your phone?
Lex Fridman (53:03.640)
It's a hypersensitivity that can be
Whitney Cummings (53:06.320)
incredibly time consuming,
Lex Fridman (53:07.880)
which is why I love the idea of robots just subbing in.
Whitney Cummings (53:10.720)
Even, I've had a hard time running TV shows and stuff
Lex Fridman (53:13.800)
because even asking someone to do something,
Whitney Cummings (53:15.320)
I don't wanna come off like a bitch,
Lex Fridman (53:16.520)
I'm very concerned about what other people think of me,
Lex Fridman (53:18.640)
how I'm perceived, which is why I think robots
Lex Fridman (53:21.600)
will be very beneficial for codependents.
Whitney Cummings (53:23.840)
By the way, just a real quick tangent,
Lex Fridman (53:25.600)
that skill or flaw, whatever you wanna call it,
Whitney Cummings (53:29.120)
is actually really useful for if you ever do
Lex Fridman (53:32.080)
start your own podcast for interviewing,
Whitney Cummings (53:34.600)
because you're now kind of obsessed
Lex Fridman (53:36.440)
about the mindset of others,
Lex Fridman (53:39.200)
and it makes you a good sort of listener and talker with.
Lex Fridman (53:43.520)
So I think, what's her name from NPR?
Whitney Cummings (53:48.240)
Terry Gross.
Lex Fridman (53:49.080)
Terry Gross talked about having that.
Whitney Cummings (53:50.920)
So.
Lex Fridman (53:51.760)
I don't feel like she has that at all.
Lex Fridman (53:53.440)
What?
Lex Fridman (53:54.280)
She worries about other people's feelings?
Whitney Cummings (53:56.800)
Yeah, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (53:57.640)
Oh, I don't get that at all.
Whitney Cummings (53:59.560)
I mean, you have to put yourself in the mind
Lex Fridman (54:01.160)
of the person you're speaking with.
Whitney Cummings (54:03.320)
Oh, I see, just in terms of, yeah,
Lex Fridman (54:05.120)
I am starting a podcast,
Lex Fridman (54:06.120)
and the reason I haven't is because I'm codependent
Lex Fridman (54:08.320)
and I'm too worried it's not gonna be perfect.
Lex Fridman (54:10.320)
So a big codependent adage is perfectionism
Lex Fridman (54:14.240)
leads to procrastination, which leads to paralysis.
Lex Fridman (54:16.360)
So how do you, sorry to take a million changes,
Lex Fridman (54:18.320)
how do you survive on social media?
Lex Fridman (54:19.640)
Is the exception the evidence?
Lex Fridman (54:20.960)
Is the exception the evidence?
Lex Fridman (54:21.800)
Is the exception the evidence?
Lex Fridman (54:22.640)
To survive on social media, is the exception active?
Lex Fridman (54:25.160)
But by the way, I took you on a tangent
Lex Fridman (54:26.560)
and didn't answer your last question
Whitney Cummings (54:27.800)
about how much we can control.
Lex Fridman (54:29.920)
How much, yeah, we'll return it, or maybe not.
Whitney Cummings (54:32.920)
The answer is we can't.
Lex Fridman (54:33.760)
Now as a codependent, I'm, okay, good.
Whitney Cummings (54:36.240)
We can, but, but, you know,
Lex Fridman (54:38.160)
one of the things that I'm fascinated by is,
Whitney Cummings (54:39.880)
you know, the first thing you learn
Lex Fridman (54:40.960)
when you go into 12 step programs or addiction recovery
Whitney Cummings (54:43.520)
or any of this is, you know,
Lex Fridman (54:45.200)
genetics loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger.
Lex Fridman (54:47.840)
And there's certain parts of your genetics
Lex Fridman (54:50.520)
you cannot control.
Whitney Cummings (54:51.560)
I come from a lot of alcoholism.
Lex Fridman (54:54.240)
I come from, you know, a lot of mental illness.
Whitney Cummings (54:59.880)
There's certain things I cannot control
Lex Fridman (55:01.680)
and a lot of things that maybe we don't even know yet
Lex Fridman (55:04.000)
what we can and can't
Lex Fridman (55:04.840)
because of how little we actually know about the brain.
Lex Fridman (55:06.720)
But we also talk about the warrior spirit.
Lex Fridman (55:08.600)
And there are some people that have that warrior spirit
Lex Fridman (55:12.080)
and we don't necessarily know what that engine is,
Lex Fridman (55:15.280)
whether it's you get dopamine from succeeding
Whitney Cummings (55:18.000)
or achieving or martyring yourself
Lex Fridman (55:21.160)
or the attention you get from growing.
Lex Fridman (55:24.920)
So a lot of people are like,
Lex Fridman (55:25.800)
oh, this person can edify themselves and overcome,
Lex Fridman (55:29.080)
but if you're getting attention from improving yourself,
Lex Fridman (55:32.280)
you're gonna keep wanting to do that.
Lex Fridman (55:34.520)
So that is something that helps a lot of,
Lex Fridman (55:37.200)
in terms of changing your brain.
Whitney Cummings (55:38.560)
If you talk about changing your brain to people
Lex Fridman (55:40.400)
and talk about what you're doing to overcome set obstacles,
Whitney Cummings (55:42.880)
you're gonna get more attention from them,
Lex Fridman (55:44.560)
which is gonna fire off your reward system
Lex Fridman (55:46.800)
and then you're gonna keep doing it.
Lex Fridman (55:48.400)
Yeah, so you can leverage that momentum.
Lex Fridman (55:50.280)
So this is why in any 12 step program,
Lex Fridman (55:52.640)
you go into a room and you talk about your progress
Whitney Cummings (55:55.120)
because then everyone claps for you.
Lex Fridman (55:57.080)
And then you're more motivated to keep going.
Lex Fridman (55:58.760)
So that's why we say you're only as sick
Lex Fridman (56:00.160)
as the secrets you keep,
Whitney Cummings (56:01.200)
because if you keep things secret,
Lex Fridman (56:03.640)
there's no one guiding you to go in a certain direction.
Lex Fridman (56:06.080)
It's based on, right?
Lex Fridman (56:07.080)
We're sort of designed to get approval from the tribe
Whitney Cummings (56:10.360)
or from a group of people
Lex Fridman (56:11.600)
because our brain translates it to safety.
Whitney Cummings (56:14.600)
So, you know.
Lex Fridman (56:15.440)
And in that case, the tribe is a positive one
Whitney Cummings (56:17.640)
that helps you go in a positive direction.
Lex Fridman (56:19.520)
So that's why it's so important to go into a room
Lex Fridman (56:21.240)
and also say, hey, I wanted to use drugs today.
Lex Fridman (56:25.080)
And people go, hmm.
Whitney Cummings (56:26.440)
They go, me too.
Lex Fridman (56:27.440)
And you feel less alone
Lex Fridman (56:28.600)
and you feel less like you're, you know,
Lex Fridman (56:30.400)
have been castigated from the pack or whatever.
Lex Fridman (56:32.760)
And then you say, and you get a chip
Lex Fridman (56:35.080)
when you haven't drank for 30 days or 60 days or whatever.
Whitney Cummings (56:37.600)
You get little rewards.
Lex Fridman (56:38.640)
So talking about a pack that's not at all healthy or good,
Lex Fridman (56:43.240)
but in fact is often toxic, social media.
Lex Fridman (56:46.280)
So you're one of my favorite people
Whitney Cummings (56:47.680)
on Twitter and Instagram to sort of just both the comedy
Lex Fridman (56:52.440)
and the insight and just fun.
Lex Fridman (56:54.440)
How do you prevent social media
Lex Fridman (56:55.760)
from destroying your mental health?
Whitney Cummings (56:57.240)
I haven't.
Lex Fridman (56:59.560)
I haven't.
Lex Fridman (57:00.440)
It's the next big epidemic, isn't it?
Lex Fridman (57:05.720)
I don't think I have.
Whitney Cummings (57:06.600)
I don't think.
Lex Fridman (57:08.680)
Is moderation the answer?
Whitney Cummings (57:10.760)
Maybe, but you can do a lot of damage in a moderate way.
Lex Fridman (57:14.360)
I mean, I guess, again, it depends on your goals, you know?
Lex Fridman (57:17.120)
And I think for me, the way that my addiction
Lex Fridman (57:20.840)
to social media, I'm happy to call it an addiction.
Whitney Cummings (57:23.080)
I mean, and I define it as an addiction
Lex Fridman (57:24.960)
because it stops being a choice.
Whitney Cummings (57:26.280)
There are times I just reach over and I'm like, that was.
Lex Fridman (57:29.240)
Yeah, that was weird.
Whitney Cummings (57:30.080)
That was weird.
Lex Fridman (57:31.320)
I'll be driving sometimes and I'll be like, oh my God,
Lex Fridman (57:33.640)
my arm just went to my phone, you know?
Lex Fridman (57:36.800)
I can put it down.
Whitney Cummings (57:37.800)
I can take time away from it, but when I do, I get antsy.
Lex Fridman (57:41.400)
I get restless, irritable, and discontent.
Lex Fridman (57:43.400)
I mean, that's kind of the definition, isn't it?
Lex Fridman (57:45.880)
So I think by no means do I have a healthy relationship
Whitney Cummings (57:49.840)
with social media.
Lex Fridman (57:50.680)
I'm sure there's a way to,
Lex Fridman (57:51.560)
but I think I'm especially a weirdo in this space
Lex Fridman (57:54.800)
because it's easy to conflate.
Lex Fridman (57:56.960)
Is this work?
Lex Fridman (57:58.080)
Is this not?
Lex Fridman (57:58.920)
I can always say that it's for work, you know?
Lex Fridman (58:01.960)
But I mean, don't you get the same kind of thing
Lex Fridman (58:04.160)
as you get from when a room full of people laugh at your jokes?
Lex Fridman (58:08.080)
Because I mean, I see, especially the way you do Twitter,
Whitney Cummings (58:11.200)
it's an extension of your comedy in a way.
Lex Fridman (58:13.680)
So I took a big break from Twitter though,
Whitney Cummings (58:16.000)
a really big break.
Lex Fridman (58:16.840)
I took like six months off or something for a while
Whitney Cummings (58:19.160)
because it was just like,
Lex Fridman (58:20.520)
it seemed like it was all kind of politics
Lex Fridman (58:22.280)
and it was just a little bit,
Lex Fridman (58:23.280)
it wasn't giving me dopamine
Whitney Cummings (58:25.000)
because there was like this weird, a lot of feedback.
Lex Fridman (58:28.320)
So I had to take a break from it and then go back to it
Whitney Cummings (58:30.760)
because I felt like I didn't have a healthy relationship.
Lex Fridman (58:33.520)
Have you ever tried the, I don't know if I believe him,
Lex Fridman (58:36.160)
but Joe Rogan seems to not read comments.
Lex Fridman (58:39.480)
Have you, and he's one of the only people at the scale,
Whitney Cummings (58:42.560)
like at your level who at least claims not to read.
Lex Fridman (58:47.880)
So like, cause you and him swim in this space
Whitney Cummings (58:51.800)
of tense ideas that get the toxic folks riled up.
Lex Fridman (58:58.720)
I think Rogan, I don't, I don't know.
Whitney Cummings (59:01.080)
I don't, I think he probably looks at YouTube,
Lex Fridman (59:05.360)
like the likes and the, you know, I think if some things,
Whitney Cummings (59:08.240)
if he doesn't know, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (59:10.240)
I'm sure he would tell the truth, you know,
Whitney Cummings (59:13.800)
I'm sure he's got people that look at them
Lex Fridman (59:15.840)
and it's like disgusted, great.
Whitney Cummings (59:17.280)
Or I don't, you know, like, I'm sure he gets it.
Lex Fridman (59:20.320)
You know, I can't picture him like in the weeds on.
Whitney Cummings (59:23.240)
No, for sure.
Lex Fridman (59:24.080)
I mean, he's honestly actually saying that I just,
Whitney Cummings (59:26.280)
it's, it's, it's admirable.
Lex Fridman (59:28.720)
We're addicted to feedback.
Whitney Cummings (59:29.680)
Yeah, we're addicted to feedback.
Lex Fridman (59:30.560)
I mean, you know, look,
Whitney Cummings (59:31.960)
like I think that our brain is designed to get intel
Lex Fridman (59:36.040)
on how we're perceived so that we know where we stand,
Lex Fridman (59:39.560)
right?
Lex Fridman (59:40.400)
That's our whole deal, right?
Whitney Cummings (59:41.280)
As humans, we want to know where we stand.
Lex Fridman (59:43.040)
We walk in a room and we go,
Lex Fridman (59:44.200)
who's the most powerful person in here?
Lex Fridman (59:45.520)
I got to talk to them and get in their good graces.
Lex Fridman (59:47.520)
It's just, we're designed to rank ourselves, right?
Lex Fridman (59:49.840)
And constantly know our rank and social media
Whitney Cummings (59:52.840)
because of you can't figure out your rank
Lex Fridman (59:55.880)
with 500 million people.
Whitney Cummings (59:58.120)
It's possible, you know, so our brain is like,
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