In an Age of Techno-Pessimism, Here's the Science-Based Case for Optimism | Rob Marciano

On nuclear fusion, solid-state batteries, driverless cars, and other innovations — and why, for one cynical disaster reporter, meeting the scientists building them changed everything. Rob Marciano is the national weather correspondent for CBS News and a Cornell-trained scientist with more than 30 years in television news. A former co-host of Weekend Good Morning America at ABC News, he's also the co-author, alongside physicist James Trefil, of The Next Big Thing: Innovations for a Better, Smarter, Stronger Tomorrow https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/770112/the-next-big-thing-by-rob-marciano-james-trefil/. Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here https://app.danharris.com/membership Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

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

• 0:03Dan Harris?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. We're living in a time where people are, I think, quite legitimately, pretty pessimistic and anxious about the state of the world, specifically as it pertains to technology and specifically as it pertains to artificial intelligence, but not just artificial intelligence. So today, we're going to talk about how to be less pessimistic and anxious. In other words, we're going to hear the evidence-based, science-based case for actually being optimistic. And that case is going to be laid out for us by an old friend of mine, an old colleague as well. His name is Rob Marciano. Right now, he's the National Weather Correspondent

• 0:45Dan Harris?

  for CBS News. He's been in television news for more than 30 years. He's a Cornell-trained scientist. Before CBS, he worked with me at ABC News. We were co-hosts of Weekend Good Morning America, and we're also personal friends. And he's got a new book that he has co-written with a physicist named James Treffel, and the book is called The Next Big Thing: Innovations for a Better, Smarter, Stronger Tomorrow, The Optimist's Case about the Future of the Planet, coming up after this quick break with Rob Marciano. A few things before we hear from our sponsors. I've got exciting news. If you love this

• 1:28Dan Harris?

  show but do not love listening to the advertisements, a subscription to my app, 10% with Dan Harris, now includes a private, ad-free feed of the 10% Happier Podcast, available on whatever platform you choose, whether that's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or right inside the app itself. Plus, along with an ad-free listening experience, the app also gives you a growing library of meditations from world-class teachers, exclusive livestream events with me and many of our incredible instructors, and robust and supportive discussion threads where you can ask questions, share your struggles, and connect with our growing community. We've got a free 14-day trial. If you want to try before you buy, join the party. DanHarris.com. We'll be right back after this.

• 2:16Speaker 01

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• 2:47Dan Harris?

  Rob Marciano, welcome to the show.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  Hello, Dan Harris. Great to be here, my friend.

• 2:55Dan Harris?

  This is such a trip. Usually I see you over dinner or for 10 years I saw you on the set of Weekend Good Morning America and now you're on my podcast. It's like, how did this happen?

• 3:07Speaker 02

  I know. I don't even think during COVID, we did one of those drink-a-thons on Zoom. You know, this is our first virtual conversation. It's a little awkward.

• 3:17Dan Harris?

  All right. Well, first of all, congratulations on your new book or new-ish book.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 3:21Dan Harris?

  I find it really interesting because we live in, as you know, like people are so pessimistic these days, particularly about technology. So, and yet you've written this book as super optimistic. So what are, what are those of us who are pessimistic getting wrong here?

• 3:39Speaker 02

  You know me well, Dan, and as a science guy, I'm trained to be a skeptic and question things. My internal personality for a long time still is a bit of a cynic. You know, you still want to question things as an aging adult. You've seen enough to where you want to play devil's advocate. But a lot of my personality over the years has been a little bit pessimistic. So this, this, this evolution and epiphany with this book has certainly been a bit of a 180 and it's taken a lot of people by surprise, you included.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  But you know how it goes. I mean, you've been through evolutions in your, in your way of life and mentality. And this has been one for me. And it's been a joy to go through it. And, and much like your journey and speaking with to people about spirituality and enlightenment and like getting to meet the people who are the geniuses of our generation out there developing the latest and greatest technologies and innovations that are going to propel us into the future has been amazing to witness their joy and enthusiasm is nothing short

• 4:55Speaker 02

  of mind blowing and can't help you can't you can't help yourself but just to be drawn into that group. It's infusive. It's engaging and it's magnetic. So like so much that we have in life in the world around us, when you, when you meet the right people, they can, they can change your mind. And I grew a lot in writing this book, and it has made me more hopeful because with all the negativity that we have out there and all the conflict that we have, be it in international geopolitics or, or our national politics, you know, we're all going through this life together, one step at a time, one day at a time. And the

• 5:39Speaker 02

  journey forward, while after meeting the people that are developing these new ways is, is quite inspiring.

• 5:46Dan Harris?

  We'll get into the specifics, but there's the, just on a high level, there's the science, which is you find compelling, but it seems like actually meeting the people, the scientists, really kind of put you over the top?

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you think of the, the people that have developed things over the years, other than the Steve Jobs and Elon Musk of the worlds, who, just because the way our world has been and is the past couple of decades, every, everybody is front and center, you know, whether it's a man dressed in all black on stage whipping out this new device called iPhone, or Elon Musk doing his thing, everybody's out there in your face. But the Thomas Edisons of the worlds, the Nikola Tesla's of the world, you know, they're, It wasn't quite that way. You know, they may have had their own roadshow. You may have heard about them on a through a telegraph or some sort of newspaper, but the brilliant minds and innovators of the past have always been these guys that are behind the curtain,

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Wizard of Oz. And what our modern world allows us to, whether or not you go meet them in person, or you meet them like we're talking to you now, is you you get a feel for what these people are. And more importantly, you see that they're real people. You know, they're the same as you are as far as flesh and blood is concerned. And there is something that is inspiring about that. I mean, you know, yeah, yeah, there's these guys are smarter than me, no doubt about that. And I'm privileged to meet them. But we breathe the same air the same way. We put our pants on the same way. We put our shoes on the same way. They're just like me. And and that gives that feeling of inclusivity that I don't think we had decades

• 7:28Speaker 02

  past when we weren't as so together in every sort of medium.

• 7:33Dan Harris?

  So the book goes through four different areas. The fourth area is the one where I think most people are most anxious. That is information technology, namely AI. So we'll hold that for last, because I think that's where we'll want to spend the most time. But it starts with energy. And what's interesting to me is, is knowing you for so long, you have spent and continue to spend an enormous amount of time, like at the tip of the spear, when it comes to what's happening in our climate, like you're the guy standing out there like a dummy in the middle of the hurricanes. And I'm kidding, you're standing out there

• 8:15Dan Harris?

  quite bravely, honestly, showing us what's happening with these hurricanes and tornadoes, etc., etc. And so I and for my POV, there seems to be a very legitimate concern about what's happening with our climate. So what have you learned that has like put your mind at ease to at least some extent?

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Well, the climate crisis, if you will, is still alarming and it's still worrisome. And there's been an evolution of my thought process there over the past 20 years. I mean, when Al Gore came out in the early 2000s and showed the hockey stick as a meteorologist, who's trained to be a skeptic on the five day forecast, let alone the 50 year forecast. Me and my colleagues would kind of brush it off like saying, well, we'll see what happens. I mean, it's not, it can't, it can't quite happen that fast or be that catastrophic. And, and you know, 10 years, five, 10 years later, you started to see the impacts.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  And here we are, and it's been consistent in seeing the heavier rainfall and the catastrophic flooding that we're seeing, the extreme heat waves that we're seeing and the extreme fire behavior that we're seeing, the explosive hurricanes that we're seeing, and to some extent, the same thing for some of these winter storms. So it is having an impact and that is still alarming. Do I think it's the end of the world? No. I think not only do humans have the ability, amazing ability to adapt and evolve, but so does our planet.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  We do have the ability to slow things down. Will we be able to turn it around by 2050 like, you know, the United Nations hopes? Or by the end of this century? I wouldn't say turn it around, but we can, we certainly have the ability to slow things down. And when you see all the advances that we're making in so many other arenas, how can you not believe that, that we'll be able to get a hold of this climate crisis and the warming of our globe? And the number one way to do that is to, is to what? To limit our carbon dioxide. Now, the book doesn't, I'm not stumping, stumping the Bible here, and I'm not stumping

• 10:42Speaker 02

  on climate change constantly, but it does have an overarching theme in many of our our technology. Are inherently better for the climate and better for our environment. And who doesn't want that? So if we can be more efficient and we can be cleaner and and it and things can be cheaper and faster and smarter and smarter and stronger. I mean, that's a win, win, win, win, win for everybody. So it all comes together if we can stay, if we can stay on that path. But the number one, to answer your question, the number one way, as we all know, to try to slow down the warming of of our global temperatures and to and to slow down our climate change is to slow down our production of CO2.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  And we need electricity, we need power, we need, we need the energy and the the great majority of the energy and electricity that were produced across the globe is from coal, from oil and from natural gas. And those continue to belch CO2 into the atmosphere. So wind, solar, geothermal to an extent, and nuclear, really, that's going to propel us forward. And the most exciting thing that I got to witness and and explore while writing this book is nuclear fusion, which is different from fission, fission, which we've been doing

• 12:10Speaker 02

  since the 50s, basically, where you split an atom, fusion, you, you're trying to fuse the atom and that releases even more energy, like the energy of the surface of the sun. So, but it's also that much harder to do. It's been the elusive holy grail of of power generation forever. And there's a lot of scientists out there that still think, including my co author, that that we were probably never going to get there, at least not in our lifetime. So I'm not that quite pessimistic because I've, after talking to so many people that are working on this, that are so excited and optimistic, but we're, we're making strides. And I do think it will happen in our lifetime, at least on a small scale.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  And then eventually we'll have nuclear fusion and our kids will be and grandkids will will be living in a cleaner. A better place for it.

• 13:01Dan Harris?

  So that's the holy grail. It's debatable whether we'll get there in our lifetime and it really depends on the age of the listener, because some of our younger listeners may see it and you and I may not. However, and you kind of mentioned this, but maybe worth saying a little bit more. There are other things happening that other technological advances that bolstered your sense of optimism on this score.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  I'm a big proponent of nuclear and if it has to be nuclear fusion, the old school way, so be it. They're finding ways to make that a little bit cleaner, a little bit safer. As you know, the waste in those, coming out of those facilities is problematic.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  But if we bury it, bury it enough deep in the ground, we can kind of bide our time until we figure out the fusion process.

• 13:49Dan Harris?

  There's something in the book about tiny nuclear reactors. What's that about?

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Right now, there's billions of dollars being invested in nuclear fusion. And startup companies here in the US, that's the new space race, if you will. The gold rush is to get to nuclear fusion. And there, and a lot of these companies like, say, Microsoft, they're investing in it heavily because they want to be able to power their data centers and there are other things that they need a lot of electricity for. So the best way to do that is to have your own reactor on site. So having these mini reactors power maybe your campus of data centers and/or corporate offices.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  That's a lot more efficient than having to suck power off the grid. And then you can also feed the grid with some of the power that you're not using. So we're seeing companies develop those as well.

• 14:52Dan Harris?

  And just to come back to the nuclear waste part of all of this, that's where people start getting pretty nervous around nuclear power and people in our generation remember Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and things like that. What's the evidence-based pushback to the nervous, to the anxious from your POV?

• 15:14Speaker 02

  We haven't had a major accident. If you will, since, you know, Fukushima, which wasn't really their fault. So.

• 15:23Dan Harris?

  That was a tsunami.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, the tsunami got involved there. So the pushback is from consumers and citizens is that you, like you and I, we remember those, those accidents and, and those areas are still soiled and, and not livable. And so there's evidence, there's present day evidence that shows you that, yeah, this, this could be really bad. But we've, like everything else, we've gotten a lot better at it. The, the newer reactors that are, uh, coming online and even the ones that they're, they're blown off the dust on and, and bring you back online. They're updating with newer technologies, newer safety protocols and making, all in all, making them safer to, to be living around.

• 16:04Dan Harris?

  Okay. So that's energy. Uh, on a related note, there's electricity. Just, um, so that, so the first part of the book is energy. The second part of the book is, uh, electricity. We'll get to infrastructure and information. What's the difference in your mind between electricity and energy?

• 16:19Speaker 02

  So electric cars, uh, electric airplanes now we're seeing come online. But at some point in the future, we'll be driving our own aircraft around, uh, more than we will be our cars. And even if we do have cars, we're not going to be driving those either, right? It's not going to be long where they're, they're, they're going to be all driverless, which I think is amazing. As much as I like to drive once in a while, I don't know. Anybody likes to be stuck in traffic. Um, and the numbers bear witness to the fact that driverless cars are much safer than, than human driving.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Most like, like, most accidents are human caused. So if we can limit, eliminate the human, we're going to be safer on the roads and, and less accidents. So fewer, uh, traffic jams and a faster way to get to work, whether you go on the ground or via the air.

• 17:13Dan Harris?

  I tend on these issues of like the state of the world to be at least short to midterm, pretty pessimistic. But the one, one thing that I'm personally very optimistic about is driverless cars, uh, because the, it's just so much safer. What is, it would, when you think about, um, or when you report on a drone, air travel future, like not just airplane, but, uh, you know, going.

• 17:39Dan Harris?

  Going to and from the airport or going from the suburbs into the city on drones. How are we going to make that safe?

• 17:49Speaker 02

  Well, it's just like every other thing in the air. It's FAA, it's going to be FAA regulator. There's going to be highways in the sky. There's going to be air traffic controls and airspaces that you're allowed to be in and be out of. It is a regulatory headache, no doubt about it. But if we can figure out the additional planes and helicopters that we have in the sky every year because of the increased amount of money in this country and the increased amount of air travel, we'll be able to figure, we'll figure out what's out there, what's next. There's a lot of, there's a lot of airspace with the exception of New York City and the airspace here, which is extremely congested.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  There's a fair amount of airspace to be able to navigate around and, and the FAA and the air traffic controllers have the ability to do that. Now that said, that whole scheme, and I haven't, I haven't done any much reporting on this, but there is a future in which every aircraft that's out there will be tracked automatically, you know, autonomously and there'll be less human error in the air traffic control tower and more assistance by AI and the like to where air travel, at least colliding with somebody else, will be much safer too.

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• 21:10Dan Harris?

  Back here on the ground, there's a bunch of reporting in the book about some of the innovations and cool stuff happening with EVs, electric vehicles, like the range is now growing, like the batteries are getting larger. And then also there's this, all this stuff around regenerative braking. What's that about?

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Well, and if anybody watches Formula One, they know what that is. And what I love about auto racing is especially Formula One is you're seeing the future on your television or in person when you go to a race. The best, the newest technologies are being developed in Formula One because they have the money. So regenerative braking is something that they've, they've used in their hybrid race cards for the past several years now. And basically what it does, what it means is when, when you hit the brakes going into a corner just to slow down your car, that, that friction basically creates energy that

• 22:13Speaker 02

  charges your, the battery, much like an engine kind of keeps the alternator going in your gas powered car, which charges your battery when, when you hit the brakes in a turn or just to come to a full stop, that, that action, that conservation of energy can then gets transferred back into, into the battery.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  But the batteries are key. You mentioned the EVs and the range, right? Where we struggle in the EV market is the range. Nobody wants to run out of gas. Nobody wants to be stuck on the highway because their battery died. Or they don't want to have to wait an hour or two hours to find a charging station and then charge the battery, which takes a lot longer than putting gas in your car. The new battery that's going to take us to the next level in electric vehicles is solid-state batteries. And basically, it's the same concept as fluid batteries, except it's in the solid state. And so those batteries drain much slower. And therefore, your range will go twice as far in an EV vehicle.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  And they will charge twice as fast. So the big race amongst car manufacturers is who's going to find the solid-state battery of the future, because that's going to really make everybody buy an electric vehicle. And we're not far away from that. But once that happens, I think the combustible engine will begin to fade away.

• 23:47Dan Harris?

  That's interesting. One last question about electricity. You've done some reporting on smart homes, which is kind of like crazy to think about how our homes are going to change. What did you learn?

• 23:58Speaker 02

  Well, we're seeing that already, right? Just a matter of how much you want to dive into it. The Internet of Things, as we like to call it, which is not so fancy way of saying the Internet that's connected to the light bulb in this room or my refrigerator, which, not my refrigerator, but some of these newer refrigerators can sense when you're out of milk or when you're out of butter and tell you to go get some more milk. Or better yet, go online for you and order to have it delivered to your door. If you have a Ring camera or a Nest thermostat,

• 24:36Speaker 02

  It's not quite autonomous yet, right? And you can set it and you can say if the temperature falls to this number, then you can kick it kick in, but who wants to go through that sort of, we want the internet of things to kick in and so that we don't have to think about our thermostat where it senses what's the most efficient time of day to heat your home while you're there or not there. And so this internet of things is, uh, it's, it's gonna be a thing. It already is in it to a small extent, but it's gonna be a bigger thing. And it'll, like everything else that's new, it'll, it'll be great when it works and, and not so great and, you know, maddening when it doesn't. But we, we've been in that state of technology now for the past 30 or 40 years.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  So we're used to it.

• 25:22Dan Harris?

  I mean, I think all that stuff's really cool.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  That fancy house of yours, you must have some stuff that's automated like that. I mean, that you don't have to think.

• 25:28Dan Harris?

  I've got nothing. I've got nothing. We, we, this house was built in the seventies and, um, it's, uh, it is anything but smart. And maybe that's a reflection of its owners.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  You were going there. That's, that's very not true. Well, you, you do have the capability of, of figure out when, when you're out of milk and, and to go get some or order some up, so.

• 25:52Dan Harris?

  We're going with the internet of the sniff test, uh, on the milk, um, for now. All right, let's talk infrastructure. Why should we be? I'm, I'm just joking, I'm laughing for a second about how I think for two administrations or three administrations running, there's, uh, it, we've always been on the cusp of infrastructure week, uh, you know, where the White House is, is, you know, they're gonna roll out their big infrastructure thing and it never quite happens, although Biden maybe did some of it. You know, I think anybody who drives on the highways notices the sorry state of our infrastructure in many places in this country. What is this, the? What is the case for optimism in this regard?

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Well, when we think of infrastructure, use that term, it's not, we often think just like you, okay, well, the interstates, the bridges, the civic buildings and the sewer systems, that's, that's the infrastructure of our shared society. But the infrastructure of all the things that we, that we, the desk that I'm sitting on, the house that I, that, that's my home, how those things are built is infrastructure as well. And, and the exciting things that are happening on that front are going to take us to the future in a more efficient and economical way, while also creating less of a carbon footprint. Some things that are exciting are 3D printing. And we've all seen this, where computers, you know, 3D printing, whatever it is,

• 27:17Speaker 02

  anything as small as, you know, a glass to a home. These things, you can 3D print a home. You can put just about any sort of material in one of these 3D printers, big and small, and create whatever you want. And it doesn't have to be to scale. It can be bespoke. And so that efficiency right there is, is amazing and cost-saving. So 3D printing of, of homes and buildings, that's going, that's going to be huge and part of our infrastructure. So that's exciting, but that's really new. What I discovered also in this book, though, is what, what's old is, is new again and exciting right in front of our eyes. And that is the use of wood.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Now, you know, Dan, I'm, I'm a tree hugger. I love me some trees. And for years, I just cringed every time I saw a tree get cut down. I cringed every saw, every time I saw a, a piece of wood get wasted, even some chopsticks. I mean, that was like, when we're wasting, we're wasting wood. And what, what I learned in this book is our new use of what's called mass timber, which is basically taking blocks of, of wood and, and gluing them together and, and some cases, putting them together like Lego logs and building not just small homes, but Mid-range skyscrapers, mid-high rises, mid-rises.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  And doing that in a cost-effective way and doing it in a lower carbon footprint and one that's makes you feel good. When you go into a place that's wood-paneled, and I'm not talking about the ones from the seventies, but you know, a nice new log cabin or lodge in the mountains, you walk in and that those the pine paneling is just kind of surrounding you. It feels good. And there's a term for that in designing. It's called biophilic design. And it's based on the fact that before all these walls and windows that we live in now, we evolved in nature. We evolved outside.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  And so we naturally feel more at peace when we're inside, when it feels a little bit like the outside. That's why we like to have plants inside, maybe an aquarium inside, maybe just a little splash of wood here and there to give you that warmth of the outdoors brought in. So mass timber buildings, you see them going up, especially in these mid-sized cities, a feel-good in that way. They take half the time to build, if not less. They take much less of a footprint as far as the foundation is concerned because building with wood is much lighter.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  It has some flexibility as far as being seismic and it's environmentally better for us in that one, concrete and steel pump out a lot of CO2 to make. Both concrete and steel pump out 8% of the global CO2 emissions each. So that's 15, 16% right there. We can't get away from concrete and steel. It's still the building blocks, you know, the foundation of what we need, but we're getting better at it. I mean, we build now high-performance concrete, which is twice as strong and lasts twice as long. That's good. But using a combination of wood and concrete, I think is the future.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  And it has the ability to take the wood in these trees, use it for good.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  And capture that carbon. All right. So these trees throughout their lifetime, they're sucking in carbon dioxide. And when they either burn or die and decay, then they re-release that carbon back into the into the atmosphere. Whenever we build with wood, we're capturing that carbon. It's not going anywhere until it either accidentally burns or we get rid of it in some capacity. But it's going to be captured for decades, if not centuries. And we get to use it as as shelter. So mass timber. Let's give a shout out to that and keep an eye out on your local community. You'll see them going up. You'll you'll look and you'll see these skyscrapers go up and the columns are these massive wood columns.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  And I know what your next question is, well, won't these things burn down? They have the remarkable ability not to burn down because like these giant redwoods in these forests that endure forest fires, a building made of mass timber columns, which can be two, three, four feet wide, the outer area of that column, much like the bark of a tree, will get scorched. But the inner structure of it will remain intact. So yeah, they'll catch on fire like any other building because of the drywall, because of this and because of that. But they'll they're just as safe as a building made completely of steel, concrete or brick. It's pretty amazing.

• 32:23Dan Harris?

  Not long ago, my wife had an interior design dilemma. She's been researching a book for a while and in order to do the research, she's been ordering a lot of books that she is then reading. But then the question became, what do I do with all these books? She didn't want to throw them away or give them away because she wants to be able to refer to them for her research. So she found a great solution via one of our sponsors today, Wayfair. Through Wayfair, she got these really beautiful translucent bookshelves. They're not even waist high and she has lined her office with them and filled them with books. And the net effect is it looks quite beautiful. It's an elegant solution and that is what Wayfair can do for you.

• 33:06Dan Harris?

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• 33:43Speaker 06

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• 33:46Dan Harris?

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• 34:29Dan Harris?

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• 34:57Dan Harris?

  I do want to get to the fourth part of your book, the most controversial part, the part most of us are worrying about these days, which is information, specifically AI. I'm not telling you anything new. We're recording this at the tail end of commencement season. We'll be posting it in a few months, so I Apologize for what may seem like a temporal delay for listeners, but there are all these videos going around of anybody who mentions AI as a commencement speaker gets reflexively booed by the graduates. And, you know, I just think there's an enormous amount of anxiety about what's happening. Is this thing going to take our jobs? Is it going to destroy us? Where do you net out on this?

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Oh, I net out on the positive for sure. And in my job as a meteorologist is already being impacted by AI, but it's being impacted in a, in a positive way. It's making our forecasts more accurate.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  I understand the anxiety, no doubt about that, especially if you graduate with a four-year degree and you've studied coding or something that's tech-heavy and replaceable with AI. So I get the animosity and the anxiety with that. But like we talked about in the beginning of this podcast, we have the ability to evolve. You know, when the printing press came out, there was a backlash on that as well, that there would be the end of our society as we know it. So I think every, so many technologies over the, over the decades and centuries that have come out, there's been fear of the unknown. And, and isn't that the case with so much of what we're afraid of or what anxiety is all about?

• 36:35Speaker 02

  It's the fear of what's going to happen next, or the fear of what we don't understand. And I don't pretend to understand everything, but I understand a lot more now after writing this book to where I'm not as scared or anxious as I used to be about the future. And I want everybody to feel that way. I sleep a little bit better at night thinking that. And, and Dan, the, the vast majority of the experts that I talk to about AI and the future of where it's, where we're going with that.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  And should we be afraid not so much about the jobs disappearing, but about will the machine take over? Time and time again, the experts have told me, we are smart enough to build this incredible machine learning tool. We are smart enough to have an off switch. So I believe in that and I rest easily on that. That said, we do need to put guardrails on it like everything else and we need to keep it out of the bad actors because bad actors obviously can take it to a different level. So that's the only wild card out there that I believe that we should be nervous about, but it's just like everything else, every piece of weaponry that we've ever had in

• 37:57Speaker 02

  in our world, we've had to worry about it getting into bad hands. So that's a constant battle that that we're we're no stranger to. So this is just another another one of those instances where we've got something new and exciting that has infinite amount of positive aspects to it. But there's a few negative things that we just need to police and police heavily and we're gonna be fine. It's gonna it's gonna be great and we're gonna evolve and we're gonna embrace this thing and it's gonna make our lives easier and more efficient and more excited and we're gonna be able to do more of what we love to do, which is, I think, really, is be more with people. Because right now, you know, think about it, like, we the past 10, 20 years, we've we've gotten so tech

• 38:39Speaker 02

  heavy to where we're constantly looking at our our computers or on our handhelds. And we're getting things done, we're being more efficient, but we're not, you know, we're so engrossed in in our screen times, we're not that efficient. But if we can get an a genetic AI to do some of these tasks for us and get us away from the screens, then we can have these personal connections that we we used to be pretty good at a long time ago. So I see that happening, that that AI is going to take some of this mundane stuff that's not good for our mental health, that's not good for our interpersonal relationships and and take those tasks away from us and let us get back doing what we do best, which is being with people and enjoying the people around us and fostering those relationships

• 39:24Speaker 02

  and and being happier in our lives because of it.

• 39:28Dan Harris?

  You and I debate lots of things off camera over dinner. Let me just make the opposite case and you just just push back on me. I'll probably say some shit that you, given that you're regulated by the FCC and you work for journalistic association and I work for myself.

• 39:44Speaker 02

  I forgot to get the curse on this thing. You dropped an S-bomb. I forgot to get the curse.

• 39:50Dan Harris?

  Yeah, yeah, well, whatever you be you. You signed a morals clause in your CBS deal, so I don't know what you're able to get away with, but I I'll let my amygdala speak here on AI, which is one, we've got an arms race going on, an arms race going on among a bunch of companies here in the US and the UK. And

• 40:15Dan Harris?

  when I say you can, I'm thinking specifically of DeepMind, which is part of Google, but but so it's mostly the US. And I look at the folks running those companies and I, you know, don't

• 40:26Dan Harris?

  feel a lot of comfort there. I heard this term recently

• 40:31Dan Harris?

  in in describing our current tech overlords. Some people are calling them the nerd Reich, which is harsh and clever at the same time. So, one, I don't feel a lot of comfort when I look at the people running these companies. Two, I don't look at the White House and think, oh, yeah, there are some grownups here who understand this technology and are regulating it. Three, I think about the arms race among these companies and then also with China, and I worry about whether that's all going to spin out of control. Four, I worry about the fact that even if this all goes well and we solve the alignment problem, meaning like the the AI

• 41:13Dan Harris?

  doesn't, you know, have a plan to turn us all into paperclips. If we solve that problem, there's still going to be massive dislocation, and it may end up ultimately in 10, 20, 30 years with

• 41:27Dan Harris?

  a world of abundance and more human connection, but the the volume and intensity of change, I think, is likely to lead to a lot of instability, or I fear it will. Yeah, so I just threw a lot of stuff at you. Where am I wrong?

• 41:42Speaker 02

  Well, I didn't. I didn't think we were going to get into our typical dinner conversations here and debate about politics, but you bring up, but these are all fair points and and. Given what we've seen just in the past year and a half, um, there's, there's, it's easy to get nervous about just, just about everything and uh, the instability that we see right now. I don't have a good answer for you, Dan, um, other than to trust the process. And uh, even though it appears that there aren't as many adults in the room as, as we would, one would like. When we're talking about an arms race for AI, uh, there's a lot of brilliant people

• 42:25Speaker 02

  that are just outside of that room, um, that want to do good and want to make sure that, that our country uh, succeeds and that the, and that the morally good succeed as well, be it our government or the uh, technology companies and the head of those technology companies and maybe just as power, power hungry as some of our politicians, right? Um, uh, there's a, there's enough numbers of, of smart, powerful people in their own right, that I would hope would revolt against anybody that would, that would want to grab so much of the power and, and do bad with it. There's not many times, Dan, where I'm right and, and you're wrong. Uh, and I'm, I'm, I'm praying that's the case this time.

• 43:11Dan Harris?

  I mean, in some ways it's like, uh, it's, um, it's like, um, like, I don't know, neither of us knows, right? And your inclination, based on the facts, the data set you're looking at is, yeah, I, I, my inclination is I trust the process and my inclination, looking at the same data set is I'm worried. But it really is, nobody knows, and this is all just our gut, based on the information we're gathering and, and, and the nature of our own minds.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  I've, I've got a faction of friends that are full on tinfoil hat wearing fraternity, man. And I, and they've, I've got, I'm on their text threads, so I'm getting all, I'm getting bombarded with all sorts of stuff, uh, from, from that side of the spectrum. And, uh, and I've got friends that are making excellent, well thought out points like you are and being the devil's advocate. And, uh, and then I'm talking to the Scientists who, you know, one, one could argue that the scientists and the people that are building these amazing things, they're a little too busy to be, you know, bothered by what's going on in the geopolitical world or what's happening in Washington. They're focused on making this, this thing that's been their lifelong passion. And they want to see completed within their life.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  So it's possible that I've gotten a little bit drunk by talking to these amazingly smart people and, and all the exciting things that they're building. So I wouldn't pretend to know what's going to happen on a geopolitical scale. I just know what's happening on a innovative scale and, and it's wonderful and mind blowing. And it gives me a lot of hope.

• 44:45Dan Harris?

  Say more about the innovations. I know you've reported on like how AI is likely to impact healthcare, for example.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  Well, you know, so AI and computing. So one thing we haven't discussed yet is quantum mechanics and quantum computing, which, you know, and then you talk about the quantum realm. We starting to get into Marvel comics, but and it's on a, and quite frankly, it's, it's still hard for me to get my, my head around it because I, I grew up with your, your classical physics of the atom and the electron spinning around the nucleus and all that stuff. And quantum mechanics takes you into the subatomic realm where things are smaller than the atom. And they don't really move around in a circular orbit.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Things move around in waves and, and, and sometimes they can get entangled with each other. And there's, there's more of a gray area than there is a black and white. Instead of zeros and ones like you have in the digital computing and quantum computing. It's, it's more of a gray area. And so if we can figure that part out.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  That gets our computing power to grow exponentially. I mean, the amount of problems that quantum computers are going to be able to solve is absolutely mind blowing. And from breaking, from developing bespoke drugs based on your genetic code to curing cancer, that's all going to come about with the combination of our artificial intelligence and the use of, of quantum computers. So the, the AI is, is exploding now exponentially, obviously. And we had to, we had to get this bug out because it's hard. It's, it's going to soon beg for an update on the AI chapter. Things are moving so fast.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  I think all of us are seeing that. But next up is the quantum, quantum computing race. And when we get that figured out and we're getting better at it, we're operational on it, just not at scale. When we, we can become scale on quantum computing, we're going to solve a lot of the things that have been the bane of our existence and, and our health and our longevity is going to be one of them. So that's a whole nother topic of innovations that, I'm not a doctor, but the people that have, have told me about the science, science part of it and the, the problems we can solve, that's exciting, it's exciting on a, on a health and wellbeing level as well.

• 47:18Dan Harris?

  So in sum, when, when you think about the innovations that we're seeing in terms of energy, information, electricity and infrastructure, you as a dad, it just seems like you feel better about the state of the world that your, your kids are going to be, you know, living their life, in which your kids will be living their lives.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  I feel good about the future state of the world. I, I, I look around and I see all sorts of waste and nonsense that's, that's happening now. And, and we can't rest on our laurels as citizens and think, okay, well, these geniuses that are figuring out all these shortcuts is going to be our way to the future. We still all have to do our part and we still have to all be conservative. We can't go back to the cowboy economy of just wasting things away and being completely consumption driven.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  You know, turn off the lights when you leave the room, recycle when you can. Now, on a side note, recycling is frustrating to me, so frustrating to me because so little of what we think is being recycled is actually being recycled. So we, and that's, there's a myriad of levels of problems as to why that is. It's not because there's, there's mean people who want the environment to be dirty. It's just, it's, it's economic. It's, it's about the assembly line process. It's about the manpower. AI will help us in the recycling realm as well in eliminating the costs that are involved right now and physically separating things that need to be recycled and such.

• 48:59Speaker 02

  But our, but our use of plastics and our lack of being able to recycle plastics efficiently is frustrating to me right now. It will continue to be frustrating, I think, for the years to come until we figure out a way there. And I'd like to believe that brilliant minds are, are looking for a way to have, have our use of plastics and things that aren't great for the environment to get those recycled in a proper way. So I'm excited for the future. I'm optimistic for the future. I think we've got still a long way to go. This is not going to happen today. It's not going to happen tomorrow. It's, it may not happen in the next 10 years, but it's coming slowly but surely. But I think it's important for us all to do our part.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  And I can tell you this, Dan, because I know you're the enlightened one, and I still am striving for that, is that I still, even though I know that, that not everything that I put in that recycling bin is, is going to eventually get recycled, some of it will be thrown into a landfill for various reasons. It still makes me feel good. And it still makes me feel like I'm doing my part as a citizen to the world. And that makes me sleep better at night. And if we can all think that way and, and act that way, you know, it's going to get cleaner without us even having to rely on the geniuses that are working on new stuff.

• 50:22Dan Harris?

  One of the expressions that we use a lot in the show is action absorbs anxiety. And I think what you're describing with recycling definitely fits the bill. Before I let you go. Dr. Marciano, can you just remind everybody of the name of your book? And like, where else can we find you? CBS, for example?

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I'm now at CBS. As you know, we used to be at ABC together, but once you left, I didn't feel like there was a reason to be there. So I'm now at CBS doing my day job, which is as their meteorologist. So my, my expertise, if you will, is, is, is weather and sciences of the atmosphere. The name of the book is The Next Big Thing. You can see that poster my sister made, so I'm putting it to use back there. Innovations for a Better, Smarter and Stronger Tomorrow, published with Nat Geo. So what does that tell you? It's got pictures. You know, my friends know I'm not going to read or write a book that doesn't have pictures. So it's got pictures, it's got great illustrations.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  It's a how things work in everyday life, how they were developed by the brilliant minds of our past and what the brilliant minds of our, our present are doing to give us the next great innovations of the future. And it's, it's available at all your favorite local booksellers, including, including, of course, Amazon, which will get it to you in a hurry and time for birthdays, holidays, Father's Days, you name it. It's available to you and you don't have to read it all in one sitting. You know, it's one of those things you kind of go back to and, and just let hang around. And when you're curious about something, go into it. And curiosity is what drove me to write it. And I hope curiosity is what drives people to buy it and read it and engulf themselves

• 52:08Speaker 02

  into the wonders of science and engineering and all that's going to take us into the future.

• 52:14Dan Harris?

  Robert Marciano, the Martian of CBS News and, and author of The Next Big Thing, Innovations for a Better, Smarter, Stronger Tomorrow. My brother, great to see you. Thanks for doing this.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Great to be with you, Dan. Good to see you and I really appreciate it. Love you, brother.

• 52:32Dan Harris?

  Thank you so much to everybody who worked so hard to make this show. 10% Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. Also, one last thing before I let you go here. Starting Sunday, July 12th at 4:00 PM Eastern, the Summer Sunday Live Series premieres. Join legendary teacher Sharon Salzberg for an eight-week deep dive into the Buddha's Cookbook for Human Happiness: The Eightfold Path. You'll experience live meditation and Q and A only on the 10% with Dan Harris app.

• 53:15Dan Harris?

  Go to danharris.com to start your free trial today.

• 53:24Speaker 05

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