Michio Kaku: What Would Aliens Look Like? | AI Podcast Clips
00:00:00.000 | - When you think about entities that's out there,
00:00:04.720 | extraterrestrial, do you think they would naturally look
00:00:09.720 | something that even is recognizable to us as life?
00:00:14.640 | Or would they be radically different?
00:00:17.200 | - Well, how did we become intelligent?
00:00:19.480 | Basically, three things made us intelligent.
00:00:22.800 | One is our eyesight, stereo eyesight.
00:00:25.960 | We have the eyes of a hunter.
00:00:27.800 | Stereo vision, so we lock in on targets.
00:00:30.880 | And who is smarter, predator or prey?
00:00:35.880 | Predators are smarter than prey.
00:00:38.200 | They have their eyes to the front of their face,
00:00:39.860 | like lions, tigers, while rabbits have eyes
00:00:44.080 | to the side of their face.
00:00:45.440 | Why is that?
00:00:46.480 | Hunters have to zero in on the target.
00:00:49.360 | They have to know how to ambush.
00:00:51.200 | They have to know how to hide, camouflage,
00:00:53.640 | sneak up, stealth, deceit.
00:00:56.800 | That takes a lot of intelligence.
00:00:58.600 | Rabbits, all they have to do is run.
00:01:01.860 | So that's the first criterion,
00:01:03.440 | stereo eyesight of some sort.
00:01:06.560 | Second is the thumb.
00:01:09.440 | The opposable thumb of some sort
00:01:11.280 | could be a claw or tentacle.
00:01:12.760 | So hand-eye coordination.
00:01:15.320 | Hand-eye coordination is the way
00:01:16.920 | we manipulate the environment.
00:01:19.480 | And then three, language.
00:01:21.720 | Because, you know, Mama Bear never tells Baby Bear
00:01:24.880 | to avoid the human hunter.
00:01:27.040 | Bears just learn by themselves.
00:01:29.040 | They never hand out information
00:01:30.720 | from one generation to the next.
00:01:32.920 | So these are the three basic ingredients of intelligence.
00:01:35.880 | Eyesight of some sort, an opposable thumb
00:01:39.640 | or tentacle or claw of some sort, and language.
00:01:43.300 | Now ask yourself a simple question.
00:01:45.740 | How many animals have all three?
00:01:49.080 | - Just us.
00:01:50.140 | - It's just us.
00:01:51.880 | I mean, the primates, they have a language.
00:01:54.680 | Yeah, they may get up to maybe 20 words,
00:01:57.400 | but a baby learns a word a day,
00:01:59.360 | several words a day a baby learns.
00:02:01.800 | And a typical adult knows about almost 5,000 words.
00:02:06.800 | While the maximum number of words
00:02:09.480 | that you can teach a gorilla in any language,
00:02:13.280 | including their own language, is about 20 or so.
00:02:16.360 | And so we see the difference in intelligence.
00:02:19.760 | So when we meet aliens from outer space,
00:02:22.240 | chances are they will have been descended
00:02:24.720 | from predators of some sort.
00:02:27.720 | They'll have some way to manipulate the environment
00:02:30.120 | and communicate their knowledge to the next generation.
00:02:33.660 | That's it, folks.
00:02:35.680 | - So functionally, that would be similar.
00:02:38.840 | We would be able to recognize them.
00:02:42.580 | - Well, not necessarily,
00:02:43.840 | because I think even with homo sapiens,
00:02:46.260 | we are eventually going to perhaps become part cybernetic
00:02:51.440 | and genetically enhanced.
00:02:53.320 | Already, robots are getting smarter and smarter.
00:02:58.200 | Right now, robots have the intelligence of a cockroach,
00:03:02.400 | but in the coming years,
00:03:03.960 | our robots will be as smart as a mouse,
00:03:07.160 | then maybe as smart as a rabbit.
00:03:09.520 | If we're lucky, maybe as smart as a cat or a dog.
00:03:13.880 | And by the end of this century, who knows for sure,
00:03:16.880 | our robots will be probably as smart as a monkey.
00:03:20.360 | Now at that point, of course, they could be dangerous.
00:03:23.640 | You see, monkeys are self-aware.
00:03:26.400 | They know they are monkeys.
00:03:29.960 | They may have a different agenda than us.
00:03:32.840 | While dogs, dogs are confused.
00:03:36.220 | You see, dogs think that we are a dog,
00:03:41.440 | that we're the top dog.
00:03:43.020 | They're the underdog.
00:03:44.160 | That's why they whimper and follow us
00:03:46.320 | and lick us all the time.
00:03:47.960 | We're the top dog.
00:03:49.600 | Monkeys have no illusion at all.
00:03:52.100 | They know we are not monkeys.
00:03:54.920 | And so I think that in the future,
00:03:56.600 | we'll have to put a chip in their brain to shut them off
00:03:59.600 | once our robots have murderous thoughts.
00:04:02.120 | But that's in a hundred years.
00:04:04.120 | In 200 years, the robots will be smart enough
00:04:08.180 | to remove that fail-safe chip in their brain
00:04:11.280 | and then watch out.
00:04:13.480 | At that point, I think rather than compete with our robots,
00:04:19.220 | we should merge with them.
00:04:20.520 | We should become part cybernetic.
00:04:23.420 | So I think when we meet alien life from outer space,
00:04:26.120 | they may be genetically and cybernetically enhanced.
00:04:31.120 | (upbeat music)
00:04:33.700 | (upbeat music)
00:04:36.280 | (upbeat music)
00:04:38.860 | (upbeat music)
00:04:41.440 | (upbeat music)
00:04:44.020 | (upbeat music)
00:04:46.600 | [BLANK_AUDIO]