StarTalk Live: I, Robot (Part 2)

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Honeybee Robotics’ Stephen Gorevan focus on robots here on Earth, from steam pipe repairing robotic inchworms and Predator drones to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics and the practicality of cyborgs.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're live at the Bell House, StarTalk!

• 0:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've got one of the founders of Honeybee Robotics. Steven, welcome to StarTalk.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What I like most about Honeybee Robotics is that they're based in Manhattan. That's just cool. People think of Manhattan as Broadway and Wall Street. And you're rocking the universe in Manhattan.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 0:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eugene, who do you have over to your right?

• 0:52Speaker 01

  I have W. Kamau Bell and Jason Sudeikis.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The one and the only of each. So I just want to talk about robots closer to home. So you've developed robots, my crib sheet here says for Con Ed, for Coca-Cola.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Sellout.

• 1:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For Nike, what, why does Nike need a robot? Is it to put the shoes together?

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. I can't tell you that. I have a proprietary agreement on that one, but I can tell you the Con Edison robot.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  The Con Edison robot is a robot...

• 1:23Speaker 02

  I'd really like to hear about the Nike robot!

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. I would, they take my firstborn.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so Con Ed for people who are not residents of New York City is the electric company of New York City.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Consolidated Edison.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  And if you've seen movies of New York, there's steam rising through the streets. This is because that Con Edison controls something called a city steam system. And there is actually steam generated and sent through hundreds of miles of pipe under Manhattan and they heat skyscrapers. The Empire State Building is entirely heated with city steam. There are no boilers in it. There are no air conditioners. There are steam air conditioners in the Empire State Building and in the World Trade Center.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm sorry, I have no idea what that means.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  What is a steam?

• 2:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Steam air conditioner.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  I don't know how it works, but I know that the city's steam air conditioner...

• 2:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's weird, that you two guys don't know how that works. I feel like that calls into question everything else you've heard tonight.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  That steam leak that comes up through the streets.

• 2:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not buying none of this. Robots on Mars, I'm not buying any of this now. You can't explain an air conditioner.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know how it runs from steam. But the steam coming up through the streets is actually, there are leaks in the city steam system. So Con Edison hired us to seal those leaks. And this meant sending a robot through the pipes. And we developed an inchworm system that goes through the pipes and welds the leaks from the inside of the pipe. I think that makes up for not knowing how.

• 2:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, sure does.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're good with that?

• 2:48Speaker 04

  You built robots that go through our pipes and weld.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  He built an inchworm robot that crawls through the steam pipe and welds holes.

• 2:59Speaker 04

  So you're the greatest threat to the world. You cannot be stopped.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  When we were called upon to develop our concept for how to get to the ice pack in Europa, we used the Con Edison design as the baseline. For that inchworm robot, except for going sideways, we said we can use the same concept to drill down, to inchworm itself down into the ice pack. So is this autonomous, or are you telling it what to do? Well, almost all spacecraft and automation and robotics is what we would call supervised autonomy. You give it a sequence of commands. It has certain ability to, these robots have certain abilities. To achieve consciousness. Well, to make decisions.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  Does it ever go like, "Nah, I don't like that."

• 3:37Speaker 01

  To improvise. Well, just now, that's right. On Curiosity, just now, we've switched to an auto-nav system where Curiosity now is making some decisions. We don't dictate the path the rover has to go, inch by inch. It gets to make some of its own decisions. Like Peyton Manning. Yeah.

• 3:52Speaker 03

  They pause audibles, it's like, "No, I'm not going down there, you go down there." It's like, "I'm going this way."

• 3:57Speaker 01

  But we haven't really allowed our robots to be completely free yet because we're too, we're afraid that they're going.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  We've seen the movies, we know why.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, we know, we know the movie. Yeah.

• 4:07Speaker 04

  What? We don't want inchworms with lasers everywhere.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  So what'd you do for Coca-Cola? Well, there used to be a giant sign in Times Square that was imposed of...

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Until Superman 2.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Moving parts.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  I was gonna say that!

• 4:23Speaker 01

  It had five moving parts. It had a 70-foot straw. This was all mechanical devices. And these devices, some of them were 10 tons. And they moved 120 degrees. They would form Diet Coke, and then Coke. And the Coca-Cola bottle itself, that straw was in, was bigger than my first apartment in New York. It was huge.

• 4:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, that, well...

• 4:41Speaker 04

  Because you had an incredibly giant first apartment in New York.

• 4:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm trying to figure out here.

• 4:44Speaker 04

  That's an unusual analogy.

• 4:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To say something's bigger than a New York apartment, therefore it's huge, doesn't work.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Alright, well...

• 4:51Speaker 04

  But even a small apartment is a very big object, right?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  So we did signs for them. We did these robotic signs for them.

• 4:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's like, "Shut up."

• 4:59Speaker 04

  I thought it was a wonderful place.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  It's a dirty job, and somebody's gotta do it.

• 5:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I see here, you also work for the Navy.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  That you can talk about Nike.

• 5:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, you seem unreasonably upset by the word "Navy."

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Well, we work for DARPA.

• 5:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Defense Advanced Project Research Agency.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah, it's one of the golden projects, really. The robotics industry is to be able to take spacecraft that are orbiting the Earth, that are running out of fuel. We're talking about spacecraft that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and they become defunct simply because they're running out of station-keeping fuel.

• 5:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, just to clarify, satellites don't need fuel to orbit the Earth. Once they're in orbit, they're there. They need fuel to prevent the little bit of atmosphere that's up there from knocking them out of orbit.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Can we send fuel to them, or no?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Well, that's what we're talking about now. We've never done it before, but the holy grail, if you will, of space robotics people is to be able to get to these spacecraft and refuel them with a robotic spacecraft that can latch on to them, hook up a hose, and refuel them.

• 6:03Speaker 04

  Well, I wish you the best of luck with your plutonium hose.

• 6:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what is the, what kind of fuel is it?

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a...

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it like high-test?

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Hydrazine.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hydrazine, okay.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, mostly it's hydrazine. Nasty stuff. Very nasty stuff.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I get that it's fuel. That was the first...

• 6:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but I mean...

• 6:17Speaker 04

  But what is...

• 6:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hydrazine goes way back in the space program. It's one of the most reliable fuel sources that you can...

• 6:23Speaker 04

  But we don't use it a lot on Earth.

• 6:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because it's really nasty stuff.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  It's really nasty stuff.

• 6:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What does that mean, nasty stuff?

• 6:29Speaker 01

  What it means is highly, it's...

• 6:30Speaker 04

  Look, if you drank it, you'd feel dizzy!

• 6:36Speaker 03

  I hope.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  So that's a yes. It's very volatile, and I think it's highly carcinogenic, too.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, alright.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  But that's not what you were doing for the Navy. What were you doing for the Navy?

• 6:46Speaker 03

  Fighting Aquaman.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Well, for the Navy, we've done a number of things. We were making some sensors for the Navy. We were making some quick attachment points for... Just to clarify, when the Navy wants sensors, it's to shoot something down? That it sensed. I know, but these were for... Okay, I just want to make sure we're on the same page.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Again, Nike can't say a word about it. Can't say a word. Navy, yeah, we built things that'll shoot shit down, that's alright.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Well, a lot of robots in order to function well, they have to be able to switch hands. There aren't really any good, human-like hands on robots that we can reliably use now. So what we do is we switch out hands.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  That do different things?

• 7:29Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Like a hook and like a handy hand?

• 7:31Speaker 01

  So what we were doing for the Navy was that we were developing tools, essentially, that were sort of related to different hands.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  Is the hand movement the toughest? I mean, I know, like, I've never been a good artist, but people talk about trying to draw, you know, hands when they're very difficult. Is it as difficult to replicate in a robotic way as well?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Yes, and that's... in fact, it's stunningly difficult.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Something else, isn't it?

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Yes, it's something else. We're way far away from being able to do that well.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  Makes you really believe in evolution.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  The hand-eye coordination, we're a long way away.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  And in fact, robots in general don't act much more sophisticated than a three or four-year-old.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  All the three-year-olds I know are being taught fist bumping. Don't teach this robot fist bumping. Let's move past that as humans.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  But, a robot, though, could paint a car better than any person can.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah?

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Okay, alright, alright, yeah.

• 8:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bring out the car!

• 8:39Speaker 04

  Let's do that.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 8:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's painted cars versus a robot.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  Car paint wars, sounds great.

• 8:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is like, the modern... Who's the dude laying the railroad track?

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's the dude's name?

• 8:50Speaker 03

  Oh gosh, the man versus the machine.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  John Henry.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  John Henry, yeah?

• 8:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  John Henry, the steel driving, the steel driving man.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. He goes against machine, and I think he drops dead at the end, if I remember correctly.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  He does drop dead.

• 9:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  But I mean, if you wanna paint, you know, a person can paint a car very well, but a robot can do it with precision, and, and the next car comes along, it can repeat it, far better than any human could ever repeat it.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  So there are things that they can do better than we can.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  It would only do the same color over and over, whereas someone like Michelangelo.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  You want your car painted, don't go to a guy, go to my robot.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  He'll really do it again, over and over, well.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what about all the unmanned, the robotic aerial vehicles, including the Predator? You build stuff like that?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Um, no, we were not involved.

• 9:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, if you didn't, you would've just said no. But you said, uh, no. Don't Howard Stern him. No, I'm just trying to... You're Howard Stern him. Get inside his head here.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Well, we've been contacted by some drone people because of our ability to sample in the Mars environment with very low-power devices, and, and we've had all kinds of samples.

• 9:58Speaker 04

  What are some of your secrets?

• 10:01Speaker 01

  So, in fact, there was a time when we were contacted by drone people, they wanted us to see if we had any insight to how we could get to Saddam's bunker.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  We said, "Sorry, we couldn't help them."

• 10:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's not here anymore.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  We couldn't help him.

• 10:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What the cute robots!

• 10:18Speaker 01

  So the drone users are, sometimes they wanna look at, see if they can do some quick sampling on the ground, and that's my only involvement with drones.

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, how about robots that, like, do safety things? You know, lately we've been sending dogs into rubble to find people in earthquakes, but surely there are robotic things that could do that better, faster?

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Well, safety has always been the number-one driver to use robots. If you can save, putting people in harm's way, like at Chernobyl, there were robotic devices... That were put forth by people associated with Carnegie Mellon that were able to get into their nasty part of the accident. And to do some critical.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nasty meaning highly radioactive.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Highly radioactive, people would have died. The condensant pipe thing too, you can't get people, these pipes are, even when they turn them off, they're 100 degrees.

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And how about, is it a bomb or is it not?

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, these are big things now and NYPD bomb squad.

• 11:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do they cut the red wire or the blue wire?

• 11:08Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 11:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, don't send Bruce Willis.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Well, see, there's always usually a person though that's supervising these robots at this time. Again, it's kind of interesting to me that we haven't really let these robots free.

• 11:18Speaker 04

  So they're sort of, they're like Avatar-ish.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. They are.

• 11:22Speaker 04

  They are. It's a good example, people.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Do you think they, do you think that we should move to a place where robots are allowed to just do their thing? And not monitored by us? I have one of those in my house, the Roomba. The Roomba, yeah. It's great, it's the best invention. But I'm talking no on-off switch. Uh, I would let my Roomba just be around. Yeah. Yeah. Just would decide.

• 11:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But so Roomba is a robot?

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Roomba?

• 11:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm asking.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Yes, I think it is.

• 11:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Roomba vacuums your floor.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  Certainly more than Voyager, yeah.

• 11:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So do you own a Roomba?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  No. Oh, yes, I do.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  I never use it.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Isn't that the way, that you see it late night on TV, you buy yourself a robot, then it just sits there, you just hang your clothes on it?

• 12:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What about the robots that?

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Wait, I want to know what he, why he doesn't use his robot anymore? Why don't you use your Roomba?

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Because it has a dust volume thing that's the size of a peanut. You have to empty it every two minutes.

• 12:18Speaker 04

  Why don't you build a much bigger?

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Roomba can't handle this much.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  Can't you like hack into your Roomba and make it twice as powerful?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  I could, I suppose.

• 12:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, did you just?

• 12:29Speaker 04

  That's the answer I want.

• 12:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably, yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 04

  I'm the most qualified to do that.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  That is my trade, yeah.

• 12:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you hear what you just said?

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just want to clarify, you just said, this device that automatically vacuums my house, it's too much effort to change the dust container for it?

• 12:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what you just said?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 12:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ah, yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  It calls into question everything he said, doesn't it?

• 13:02Speaker 04

  He's trying to dig on an ice moon, leave him alone.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Can't explain air conditioning, doesn't use his Roomba, I don't know, everybody, I don't know.

• 13:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What about the robots that help people out who are like, don't relate to other people? You know, like autistic folks and stuff?

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 13:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hot source.

• 13:20Speaker 04

  Like an Asperger's robot that's like, social cucumber-ing?

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Eye contact too long!

• 13:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Warning!

• 13:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I mean, you, is that the future of robots as well?

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. Certainly there are groups selling robots that work as nurses and aides in hospitals. And this is for real.

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As nurses?

• 13:46Speaker 04

  What does it mean?

• 13:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the last place I'd think of putting, you know, putting a robot. I don't want a robot putting lotion on my body. I don't want that.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  Hey, why don't you give it a try?

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  That's the holy grail as far as I'm concerned.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Do you know how much time I spent lotioning myself that could be saved? If I had a robot lotioner?

• 14:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could do it, you could do it while you're on the internet.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Multi-pass.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  Beautiful.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get 40 minutes a day, actually.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  So much lotion has to be applied.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  Without, without knowing a ton about nurses, I'm not sure their primary thing is lotioning. I think, I think you're thinking about...

• 14:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm glad you've been so healthy all your life.

• 14:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:27Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 14:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You need more lotion on you?

• 14:28Speaker 04

  I know you need antibiotics, but first, the lotion.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  I am just nurse lotion, that's all I'm here to do. I'm just, I'm the nurse that applies the lotion.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  What kind of things do the nurse robots do?

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Well, it's more like a nurse's aide, I should have clarified. Bringing food.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  No, thank you for not clarifying, that was great for all of us.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Bringing food, bringing supplies, moving supplies back and forth through the hospital.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  And they have avoidant sensors, you know, to avoid people in the, so people don't run into them and so on.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  And basically, um...

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, so it doesn't run into people?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Well, I'm a robot guy, though.

• 15:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 15:02Speaker 04

  He's like, "The robots are alive, the people, they're crippled, whatever."

• 15:05Speaker 01

  I would be upset if my robot got hit by a person.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  The people are empty shells, the robots are very complicated.

• 15:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so, when I think of a famous robot, but we don't remember it as a robot, remember it as a computer, I think of Hal, in 2001. Hal controlled everything. So Hal was a computer robotic everything. And, do you see that happen? Do you see computers becoming conscious and then doing things that we'd otherwise do because they're conscious computers?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Well, you know, even in 2000...

• 15:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a cyborg, I guess, a cyborg.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Well, cyborg's part human, no?

• 15:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Would it have to be?

• 15:38Speaker 04

  If you're using the word "cyborg," I believe so.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  "Cyborg's a real word?"

• 15:44Speaker 04

  What's a real word?

• 15:46Speaker 03

  I thought, I didn't know, I just assumed it was a thing that, like villains in like a, you know, the movie. Cyborg's a real thing.

• 15:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let it be...

• 15:53Speaker 04

  Well, just some of a computer chip attached to a person with a claw hand.

• 15:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is there anything that you guys have made that you call a cyborg? That's what you're after.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what a cyborg is.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Not yet, it's...

• 16:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so he's right.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  I mean, Alan Turing was a famous, um, early computer genius.

• 16:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You've got people here.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  I love his test, his test for...

• 16:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Turing test?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  The Turing test was that if, you know, if you could sit at a keyboard and start a conversation and have a response on the screen, and if you could not tell whether or not it was a machine or a person, then you have, in fact, developed a thinking machine.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, and we've done that, yes?

• 16:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, it's intelligently interpreting your sentence.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so cyborgs, so what would be the first cyborg? What can you imagine it to be?

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Google glasses.

• 16:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it Terminator, is it, what is it? What does it look like? Is it part biological? And why distinguish between carbon-based and silicon-based? That's very carbon-based centric of you.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  He hasn't technically answered.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  I think the first cyborgs, I, you know, we have to think about drivers and, I mean, if you think in the military sense, I don't think that there's any reason for the military to develop anything but hardware robots. But, um...

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just saw it recently. Stephen Hawking said that perhaps we can download our minds into a computer. I don't know if anybody saw that. So that we could extend.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  I would say that would be uploading into a computer.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  That's how I would call that.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Well, it seems to me that the preservation of life and extension of life would be a natural consideration for cyborg development. I mean, we have artificial hearts, we have artificial other components.

• 17:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So forget your organs, it's your brain you care about. You get a machine that lives forever, put your brain in the machine, now you become the machine.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  And I think there'll be a driver for that, so yes, I think that would...

• 17:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A driving economic incentive.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  An economic driver, yes.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  You're saying that it's... How many years, like, do you think, 100, 200, 500, that I could... 1,000?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  No, much sooner.

• 17:55Speaker 04

  Oh, like 22? I don't know why...

• 17:57Speaker 01

  22?

• 17:58Speaker 04

  I don't know why I'm trying to get you to nail a year.

• 17:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, we've got people talking about the singularity.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  But I could...

• 18:01Speaker 03

  By the time you leave here this evening, Eugene.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  Where I could upload, there could be like a kind of quirky Jewish robot that was like... Well, it made a...

• 18:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, do you want to be buried, cremated, or uploaded? You get to... you get a choice.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  I think there are people alive today that will see things like this.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I put my brain in a machine, does the machine go to the Bahamas and then develop new memories? No, the machine is just stuck there. I continue to add to my memories and my loves and hates and quests. My brain, frozen at that moment, doesn't continue to explore, doesn't continue to live to feed.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  But you could play chess.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  It's a lifetime sport.

• 19:00Speaker 04

  Why is this robot that your brain's in not have a hard drive that can remember new stuff?

• 19:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I get on an airplane and go to the Bahamas.

• 19:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The computer doesn't.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  Why not? Is the computer bored?

• 19:09Speaker 04

  If you're putting your brain in a robot, why can't you imagine the next step that's maybe...

• 19:14Speaker 03

  Shipping it to the Bahamas.

• 19:15Speaker 04

  Yeah. There's no way a brain could remember Atlantis and all the water.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  A robot's gonna get stuck at the metal detector forever. It's never gonna make that flight.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Do you have anything else in your pockets?

• 19:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  See, you're not talking about loading your brain up into a machine that's static in there. You're talking about loading your brain into a robot that basically continues to live out your life.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  Come on, we're talking about putting brains in other people's bodies. People die, and then you put your brain in that body, and then you take over that body. Yes, that's where we're headed, right?

• 19:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You tell me I'm wrong, you son of a bitch, you tell me I'm wrong. No, no, no, here's what you do. Guys got secrets! Where's the new Jordans look like? What do you know?

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So here's what you do.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  He gets like this every time.

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Until we can fix the ailing body, there are these two diseases, horrific diseases, that we live with.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 20:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, one of them is-

• 20:07Speaker 03

  Racism and sexism.

• 20:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, one of them is Alzheimer's, where you lose your mind. The other is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS, the Lou Gehrig's disease, where you lose your body.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, if one day you can move a brain somewhere, if you can put it in a machine, why not put it in another body?

• 20:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now, the ALS victim has their brain live in the new body from the Alzheimer's.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  But maybe it would go into a machine before the, another body, why not?

• 20:39Speaker 04

  I would have fun being first in a machine and then being like, "Oh my god, I'm Bill Clinton!"

• 20:43Speaker 01

  You could stay out in all weather and things like that.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, for everyone who is about to die, you would build a machine and then they continue to live. The earth would be very crowded very quickly.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but when I was a kid, there was a myth that Walt Disney was frozen somewhere, and then he had to keep himself alive, right?

• 20:58Speaker 03

  It exists today, yeah.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  You gotta believe that there would be people that would want, when they were about to die, to at least keep their brain alive somewhere.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  So he's not, as far as we know. As far as you guys know, that's BS.

• 21:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would say if I had to pick, two people who might know would be these two.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  He is, he's in the basement of Aldi La.

• 21:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's your favorite robot movie?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Metropolis.

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's old school. Oh, wow.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  The Maria, the robot. It's the most beautiful robot I've ever seen by far.

• 21:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because she was actually human in the movie.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Well, there was a Maria, and then there was a robot that impersonated Maria.

• 21:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  And the robot, before she turned into Maria, was this beautiful... Have anybody seen this robot I'm talking about? No, I've never seen it. It's a beautiful design, Fritz Lang's design, and it's just...

• 21:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He gets hot for robots. This is what this is turning out here.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  I would imagine.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  I would, I would hope.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  It was very early in the robot age, and nothing surpassed it for me.

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. I'm a fan of Arnold in Terminator. That's a robot.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta contend with right there.

• 22:01Speaker 04

  Really, not Data. You're just Arnold, the murdering robot.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, R2-D2? No? That's a robot, yeah?

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's not my favorite.

• 22:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not what? What'd you say?

• 22:11Speaker 01

  It looks like one of those.

• 22:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What did I do, dude? No, seriously, what about R2-D2? Not a robot?

• 22:17Speaker 01

  No, it just looks like a garbage can.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it just beeps.

• 22:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  I think garbage cans were maybe made to look like it because it was such a big damn movie, right?

• 22:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Garbage cans with the round lid where you push them.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  Exactly. No, absolutely, yeah, yeah.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Isaac Asimov wrote a novel in 1941 called?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  I, Robot.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, Robot. Will Smith didn't write that? You sure? In it are Isaac Asimov's famous three laws of robotics.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I will read them. Law one: Robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Every robot movie ever made violates that premise.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  You're saying his laws don't translate to other movies?

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Law two: A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law. As in kill another human being. Right.

• 23:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You command it, but then it would violate the first law.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it can't do that. Third law: A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  Well, it's sad to say that they're not being held already.

• 23:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because predators shoot... Yeah, drones shoot missiles at strangers.

• 23:39Speaker 04

  Sorry to be the one to tell you.

• 23:44Speaker 04

  We have missile planes that kill our enemies.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  And on the ground, too, we're also developing incredible killer machines. Not me in particular, but um...

• 23:55Speaker 04

  We wouldn't judge you. We know it's complicated.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  So the idea is to keep our troops out of harm's way, but they're still keeping...

• 24:04Speaker 04

  But keep other people in super harm's way.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's one of the opening lines in the movie Patton, uttered by George C. Scott.

• 24:11Speaker 04

  Keep other people in super harm's way?

• 24:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Essentially. It was no one ever won a war by dying for his country. They won a war by making the other dumb son of a bitch die for his country. That's what drones do, basically. So these laws are just...

• 24:27Speaker 01

  They're outmoded already.

• 24:28Speaker 04

  Didn't work.

• 24:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, there it is, right.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  They're for the kind of robots you'd have at your house.

• 24:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what this complicates...

• 24:34Speaker 02

  One time my room will ran over my toes, so not even those are...

• 24:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To me, the most intriguing scenes in the movie iRobot, I don't know if this was in the book, was the robots, because they're acting under programming rules, and countless hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of lines of code. And you keep updating it, but you don't clean out the lines of code that were there before. So they're kind of dangling there. And if you have enough dangling lines of code, could dangling lines of code end up connecting and creating behavior that you did not intend from your original programming? And what they were saying was that robots started achieving consciousness because it was all the leftover fragments of stuff that was not intentionally programmed to do that. And that manifested itself as free will.

• 25:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I look at the wiring of the human brain and the entire billion-year evolutionary tracking that it has, there's baggage in our brains. And I'm wondering if it's all the baggage that gives us the illusion of free will, just as it occurred with the robots in that movie. And without it, can you possibly ever have robots achieving free will?

• 26:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now you sound like Kanye. You got a little...

• 26:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell me about free will in robots.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  Wait, it's unclear from your question if you believe that people have free will or not. But you answer your thing first.

• 26:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, consciousness. Consciousness.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  I get asked this all the time.

• 26:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry. Sorry to bore you. I literally used to get asked, "When do you tape Saturday Night Live?" So, deal with it, homie.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  No, I just personally, I don't think that this is something we're ever gonna let happen. I just don't.

• 26:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait. It's not that you let it happen, it's that it happens.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Oh, well, I also think that we won't let it happen too. I really think that we will be in control of this situation.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  Gosh, I think it could, man. I feel like we're like creating an entirely different race and that at some point, they will decide, "Hey, I'm not gonna work for you anymore. I got it from here." And we'll fight it, and there'll be a fight. I don't think I'll be around here to see it or watch it. I don't know.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Why do you just assume that it would get out of control?

• 27:00Speaker 03

  I just think that it all does, yeah, at some point. Like, or has the potential to. I mean, I'm encouraging us to, you know, check ourselves before we wreck ourselves, but what you're saying is like, at some point, if we go too far with it, it'll know better. And at that point, if it knows better, I say, "Go for it, robots."

• 27:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Allow me some summative thoughts, based on what we have.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  I think I just closed your show. I think we're all right.

• 27:24Speaker 04

  We'll let you both have summative thoughts and use the phrase "summative thoughts."

• 27:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here it is. In my read of history and human conduct, and the creativity of novelists, especially apocalyptic, dystopic novelists, what I've found is anytime there's a scientific advance that could benefit humanity, there's a novelist who creates a story about that advance and how it destroys humanity. And I look at all of the scientific advances that have come along, and at no time has any of those predictions made by those dystopic novelists come true about that technology. It has never happened at any time. So I think to myself, maybe we just love death, dying, and disaster in our storytelling,

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  because we're not getting enough of it in reality. So as we go forward scientifically, and we invent robots, I'm not given reason to worry that one day, the robot is gonna kill me. I agree with you, basically. And not with you.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  So you...

• 28:26Speaker 03

  Oh, no, no, no, I'm not saying it's gonna kill us. I'm just saying that it's gonna wanna be its own thing, and we gotta deal with that.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  So you don't...

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Not kill.

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It'll come of age.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then wander off.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Let me just say this: Waterworld, you're wrong.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  The only person that's ever heard that sentence was the executive that greenlit it.

• 28:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The big secret tonight is that Steven is actually a robot sent by his company.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  I knew it!

• 29:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We have a couple of minutes for Q and A, and so we didn't have time to put out microphones, but I'm gonna point to you if you have a question for any of us up here on the panel. Yes, sir. I'll repeat the question for the microphone.

• 29:12Speaker 05

  I heard the inchworm, the mole, it's Honeybee, how is nature gonna influence robots?

• 29:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, he heard about the inchworm inside the pipe, made by Honeybee. How does nature influence robots? You get some cues from nature?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, and in fact, the inchworm was very much on our minds when we developed that, and to give you another example, we were told to develop a spacecraft that had to perform an autonomous rendezvous and docking in deep space to go to a comet, and the problem was the two spacecraft couldn't get together with a great deal of precision. So, somebody told us at NASA, who was a very smart guy, said, "Think of nature." And so what we thought of was a spider web. And so he said, "If we can develop one spacecraft to have sort of a spider web deploy from it, it's not necessary to design the fly to get into spider's mouth, because all you have to do is get the flies caught somewhere on the web." And the two spacecraft, one spacecraft gets caught in the web, and the other spacecraft

• 30:08Speaker 01

  can pull, suck the web in, the two spacecraft dock, and there you have it. But that was, we were thinking of nature from the beginning. I was hoping you were gonna describe sex, but what you did is funny.

• 30:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another question. Yes, sir, right here.

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By what year can we expect The Pleasure Model and Blade Runner?

• 30:51Speaker 01

  You know, I get calls every year from Harrison Ford. "Wow, where's my robot lady?" "I'm Harrison." "I ordered it in 1982." That would be the biggest Kickstarter of all time.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  They're from the Las Vegas area code.

• 31:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how long? How long?

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Not long. It's already started. There are people that have sort of these things that are halfway measures.

• 31:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Halfway measures. Yeah, he's got...

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Halfway robots, if you will. But whoever does it... The bottom half, right?

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Just the shoulders.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Whoever makes a real sex robot, the first one is gonna be a rich person.

• 31:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The first trillionaire. Yes, right here.

• 31:42Speaker 06

  So if you're finding water in the rocks on Mars, isn't it true that the water you find on Mars is only about 3% to 5%, which is the same as the rocks that we find in the desert?

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I repeat the question. So she says, "If you're finding water on Mars in these rocks, it's only at a few percent level. That's the kind of water we find in our deserts, and we celebrate our deserts for their absence of water. So what gives here?"

• 32:04Speaker 01

  But by Martian standards, the water in the Mojave Desert is a lot of water. And this is a surprise, that we're seeing so much water in the rocks on Mars. And it's good news for when people go to Mars, because we need the water for fuel and to drink. And there's a lot more than we ever thought. And we could make it from those. Basically, you can take a ton of rocks and make some water. Yeah, and you can make fuel and heat and oxygen. Oxygen too. Yeah. No, I love oxygen.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With H2O. Yes. Yes, right here.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Robots ever make art? Ooh.

• 32:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, can robots ever make art?

• 32:39Speaker 03

  They do, they already do.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  I've worked with some of them.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Haven't you seen The Tonight Show?

• 32:45Speaker 03

  Aw, come on.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Thing!

• 32:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, fine art, robots in fine art, what do you get?

• 32:50Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 32:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not?

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Well, because, I mean, if you like things like box B minor mass, and you're saying if a robot is gonna achieve something like that, I just don't think it's possible.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, robots now beat us at chess and at Jeopardy. Isn't art just a few minutes behind that?

• 33:06Speaker 03

  No way.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  No. Art is very special, Neil, it's not all science. Jason mentioned Michelangelo before, I mean, come on.

• 33:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, is it not gonna happen because you don't want it to happen? Or is it not gonna happen because you don't think it can happen?

• 33:20Speaker 01

  I don't think it can happen.

• 33:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because a robot is not a human?

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Yes, this gives us our identity, the great works of art we have.

• 33:26Speaker 03

  I think it goes back to that thing you're talking about, about accumulating information, and then having it go through the prism that you've sort of developed as a human being, and then putting it out, that's art, basically, right? So if it doesn't accumulate that stuff, and doesn't interpret it...

• 33:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's got nothing to write art about.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, there you go.

• 33:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another question, yes, sir, right here.

• 33:41Speaker 07

  I'm developing robotics for future space missions, um, do you work with satellites on hand like presently, or do you plan like ten years?

• 33:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that question, because you, you wanna drill...

• 33:52Speaker 03

  I didn't hear it.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll tell it, you wanna drill through Europa on a mission that's ten or twenty years ahead, but you're only designing it based on any technology available today. So how nimble are you as you go forward to adopt whatever is new? Because the memory on Voyager 1 is 70K.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a lag.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  Spacecraft are generally using technology that we use here on Earth about...

• 34:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Five years.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Five to seven years ago. And the reason for that is...

• 34:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the time of launch.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  At the time of launch, and, and, and basically, this is related to computers mostly, is because it takes a long time to harden the technology that we have in, say, five or seven years ago, and make it withstand the radiation of space. It just takes a long time to do that. And, and not only that, but we have to vet everything for years to make sure they work.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Is there anything towards, when you say bringing fuel to these places, to put a few chips of RAM on there as well, and, you know, a couple of external hardware?

• 34:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We did that with the Hubble telescope.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 34:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hubble was a serviceable robot, basically.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  Upgradable.

• 34:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Robot telescope, and we sent astronauts up. The original one was not even a 286, it was like, something before the 286.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  And then they put like a flash drive in it, and we're like, "Good luck."

• 35:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they did that with Hubble, but because the astronauts could get to it.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you put something far away, that's not on your travel route, it's hosed, basically. Red shirt here, yes.

• 35:13Speaker 08

  You talked about robots that are smarter, or robots that are creative. Can you define intelligence in a way that we replicate it?

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What is intelligence? And how do you know if you're gonna make an intelligent robot? Is it just making the same decisions you would've, that you programmed it to? But then it's not really thinking for itself? But I think Watson was really thinking for itself. Would you call Watson intelligent? Watson, the computer that you all know.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  One jeopardy. Yeah, so I would call it intelligent, but I wouldn't call it near-human. You'd say it knew a lot of facts. Yeah, and it was intelligent.

• 35:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So then what is intelligence to you?

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I think that there are... Overrated. There are degrees of accumulated knowledge and organized ability. And I think, though, that when you get to be a human being, you get into the realm of art, and then you see the difference.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Am I crazy to... Watson is named after Dr. Watson?

• 36:03Speaker 01

  It's...

• 36:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, no, no, the founder, one of the founders...

• 36:05Speaker 01

  IBM.

• 36:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, James K. Watson. There's a Watson Research Center.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, I would've assumed it was Watson.

• 36:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Watson, like...

• 36:11Speaker 03

  The more famous one.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Not Watson, come here, I need...

• 36:13Speaker 03

  Only because I, you know, to call it Watson would actually be a humble move, because Watson, in Sherlock Holmes mythology, is, the audience's point of view, kind of the dummy in comparison. To call it Holmes would've been a jerk move, but...

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  But to call it after yourself is a different thing altogether.

• 36:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is all for this week's StarTalk. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you all. You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Give it up for the NSF.