[00:00] Hello friends, this is Brian Johnson, author of Zeroism. [00:05] A few times in my life, I've read books that have changed the way I understand my life [00:09] and reality. [00:10] I hope this is one for you. [00:12] Enjoy. [00:17] Episode 1, A People's History of Zeroism [00:23] Hello everyone, my name is Zero. [00:27] In this video, I'm going to walk you through Zeroism, which is my personal philosophy for [00:33] the future of being human. [00:35] It's going to be a tour of the past, the future, and the interior of the human mind as it contemplates [00:41] an existence so different, so unimaginable, that it drives many to an existential crisis. [00:49] But first, I need to set the record straight. [00:53] Yes, in 2022, I did receive one liter of my 17-year-old son's plasma. [01:00] However, unlike what was reported in the media, my son is kept in a room that is 8x8, not [01:08] 10x10. [01:09] Also, I have high expectations of my son. [01:13] Specifically, he must do the following things. [01:16] First, do well in school. [01:18] Second, complete his household chores. [01:21] Third, give me one liter of his plasma. [01:24] And fourth, clean his room. [01:26] Now, I'm just kidding about cleaning his room. [01:30] You might have just heard of me recently. [01:33] Maybe this year? [01:34] Maybe you heard about some rich guy doing crazy things and trying to live forever? [01:39] Or maybe the YouTube algorithm brought you here. [01:42] Isn't it funny how quickly we gave decision-making authority to AI about where our minds should [01:48] go next? [01:51] More on that later. [01:52] Or maybe you're here because you read Ashley Vance's profile on me in Bloomberg, how to [01:57] be 18 years old again for only $2 million a year. [02:02] I was born 46 years ago. [02:05] But my left ear is 64, my heart is 37, and my cardiovascular capacity is in the top 1.5% [02:13] of 18-year-olds. [02:16] After working on the scientific frontiers of anti-aging for three years, I'm not really [02:20] sure how old I am anymore. [02:23] My health endeavor blueprint has been full of surprises. [02:26] For example, discovering that my left ear has a biological age of 64. [02:31] I am basically deaf in my left ear from 4000 Hz to 12,000 Hz. [02:37] I had no idea. [02:39] As a kid, I shot a lot of guns and I listened to a lot of loud music. [02:44] And we never wore hearing protection. [02:46] It turns out, hearing protection is really important. [02:49] It was also surprising that after sharing for free everything I was learning about my [02:55] health and wellness, the global response was a tsunami of hate. [03:00] I became detested from far-reaching corners of the globe. [03:03] People called me a narcissist, a vampire, an elf, Patrick Bateman, Dorian Gray. [03:09] Surely I must be an Illuminati lizard person. [03:13] Shh, that's true. [03:15] No part of me was off limits to ridicule. [03:18] I was accused of being too pale, too skinny, too vain, too muscular, too reptilian, too [03:25] idiotic, too too. [03:28] Whatever that even means. [03:30] Wild, what is happening? [03:33] People confidently stated that Blueprint must exist because I am miserable and trapped [03:38] in a cage of my own making. [03:41] But in its implementation, I am missing the point of life. [03:46] Why extend life? [03:47] What's the point? [03:48] They psychoanalyzed me, diagnosing me with a crippling fear of death and more personality [03:54] disorders than there are people. [03:57] They suggested I am a fool on a vain quest for immortality. [04:01] But for the record, I have never said I am pursuing immortality. [04:06] I have said we no longer know how long and how well we can live. [04:11] They said I was yet another arbitrary person in yet another arbitrary time on another arbitrary [04:18] continent on a failed quest for the Holy Grail. [04:21] He'll do anything to avoid therapy, just live life. [04:25] We're all going to die, so what does it matter? [04:27] Were the common refrains. [04:29] The reactions reminded me of patterns I've seen in the biographies I've read. [04:34] In every era, 99% of those who lived, lived in the past, living by the ideas, norms and [04:43] traditions of dead people. [04:46] The future in every era had always arrived. [04:49] They just hadn't seen it yet. [04:52] Or they hadn't recognized it as the future, or they had seen it and then outright rejected [04:57] it. [04:58] The same is true for us right now. [05:00] We are no different. [05:02] The future is always here. [05:04] It's just hiding in plain sight. [05:08] It's a game of who can spot it. [05:11] My Project Blueprint proposed that a radically different future is here and true to form, [05:16] it's hiding in plain sight. [05:18] And I'm going to tell you right now, here it is. [05:22] Death might no longer be inevitable. [05:26] When I said this, armies of death defenders pulled out their swords and charged me. [05:31] I lived near Hollywood and no joke, movie studios came to me asking if they could learn [05:36] the details of my life to inspire their next major villain. [05:40] I admit, at first the vitriol confused me. [05:45] But soon I realized that most of it was just group therapy. [05:49] It is a response from a society addicted to addiction. [05:54] I believe the animosity was all just a confession of helplessness. [05:59] Amid the hate storm, no one seemed to understand what I was really proposing. [06:05] Because if they did, they might have truly lost their minds. [06:09] Alright, before we get into the details, let's start with some context. [06:14] Like the whole context. [06:17] For 13.8 billion years or so, who knows, the number is always changing. [06:23] There has been a universe. [06:25] Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years or so. [06:29] We were single cells for most of that. [06:32] Fast forward a bit and boom, homo sapiens. [06:35] Different. [06:36] We're so so different. [06:37] We're intelligent. [06:39] We think. [06:40] We think about thinking. [06:42] We lived what maybe a couple decades at most back then. [06:45] We laughed. [06:46] We loved. [06:47] We reproduced. [06:48] We died. [06:49] Just like all other life. [06:52] After a couple hundred thousand years, our species suddenly levels up. [06:58] And massively. [06:59] We get fire, language, agriculture, cities, riding, industry, electricity, nuclear, solar, [07:07] internet, and then AI. [07:10] It took almost 13.8 billion years, but finally, intelligence made more intelligence. [07:20] Finally at long last, intelligence has made a different kind of intelligence that evolution [07:25] couldn't create on its own. [07:28] It's different, yes, but is it better? [07:30] What would that even mean? [07:32] We are in fact baby steps away from creating superintelligence, which very well might be [07:39] the most extraordinary event in the history of the universe. [07:44] Life was special. [07:45] Life is special. [07:47] But this, this is different. [07:49] Superintelligence will rewrite reality. [07:52] It will pop, one after another, the bubbles we live in, revealing to us dimensions and [07:58] realities far beyond our imagination and comprehension. [08:03] This is why I started Zeroism. [08:06] Over the past few years, after hearing me explore and build the tenets and pillars of [08:11] Zeroism in private, my friends and family nicknamed me Zero, and it stuck. [08:17] Zero sits at the origin, at the zero-zero coordinate of the biggest revolutions in history. [08:23] It is from this position that we are stepping into what could surely be the most magnificent [08:30] existence in this part of the galaxy. [08:32] But before we get there, I must tell you about this Brian Johnson guy and how he died to [08:38] make room for Zero, as I think we may have more in common than you think. [08:47] Number 2. [08:49] Firing Evening Brian. [08:52] I'm going to get personal here for a minute. [08:55] In my 20s and 30s, life got pretty dark. [08:59] I was raising three kids, wrestling a challenging personal relationship, starting and building [09:05] multiple companies, and dealing with chronic depression. [09:09] I was trying to leave my born into religion, and it all started to stack up. [09:14] It was a bonfire. [09:16] That night, after fighting the day's battles, and then feeding, bathing, telling stories [09:21] to and putting the kids to bed, I often thought of one of Mother Nature's best defense mechanisms, [09:27] perfected by the opossum. [09:29] I just wanted to fall to the ground and play dead. [09:35] Maybe I thought when it got really bad, I don't even have to play anymore. [09:39] Maybe I didn't have to pretend anymore. [09:43] Despite how I felt, at around 7pm each night, I would have the most comforting, optimistic [09:48] thoughts. [09:49] The brownies. [09:51] Just eat the brownies. [09:52] The kitchen isn't far. [09:53] You deserve it. [09:54] It was a rough day. [09:55] All that stress burns so many calories. [09:58] Thousands. [09:59] You read that somewhere, right? [10:00] Just one will make it all go away. [10:03] Now in case you're wondering, that's Evening Brian talking. [10:07] He was a pretty big personality in my life. [10:09] He made all the decisions back then. [10:11] He wanted everything now, without the burden of accountability. [10:17] For years, Morning Brian promised that today was a new day. [10:21] He wouldn't fall prey to the old bad habits. [10:24] Dad Brian swore he'd be the exemplar father figure he'd always aspire to become. [10:30] Then 7pm would come and Evening Brian would push all other Brian's aside and do as he [10:36] pleased. [10:37] Evening Brian is not a bad person. [10:40] In fact, I deeply empathize with him. [10:43] He's carrying the heavy burdens of all other Brian's. [10:46] He was low on willpower and discipline and he just wanted the pain to stop. [10:52] One day, as the brownies called from the kitchen, I took a quick stock of myself. [10:58] I had gained 50 pounds, about the size of a Siberian Husky. [11:02] I carried that canine-sized fat around with me every day. [11:07] My pants were so tight I had to leave the top unbuttoned. [11:11] I was disgusted with myself and I knew my pattern of hopeful thinking. [11:15] Dad Brian, I know what you're thinking. [11:18] We said tonight would be the last night. [11:21] But you know what? [11:22] One more night and tomorrow everything changes. [11:26] Tomorrow the new us emerges. [11:28] Tomorrow everything we want is going to come to fruition just tonight, one last time. [11:34] I realized in that moment that I had more neurons than anything else in my life. [11:39] And when those neurons turned on me, I didn't stand a chance. [11:44] As I began to slip into submission, I jokingly muttered, Evening Brian, you make my life [11:50] miserable. [11:51] You're fired. [11:53] No, don't do it. [11:56] For some reason, acknowledging Evening Brian as a distinct version of me to be reckoned [12:00] with changed something inside of me. [12:03] Separating my various selves from their behaviors was empowering. [12:07] I am not the behavior. [12:09] I am somewhere else. [12:11] And I prevailed. [12:13] I didn't eat the brownies. [12:15] This small win ushered in a wave of relief. [12:18] Maybe I thought I wasn't trapped forever. [12:22] I began to understand that there were parts of myself that were unique, each with their [12:26] own motivations and proclivities. [12:29] I spent the night thinking about technology that could commune with my various selves, [12:34] hidden throughout the kingdom of my conscious and unconscious mind. [12:38] There's Morning Brian, After Exercise Brian, Work Brian, Dad Brian, Storytelling Brian, [12:44] Playful Brian, and Evening Brian, among many others. [12:49] Each version of myself had a distinct biochemical configuration, states of sad and playful, [12:56] stressed and angry. [12:58] They created predictable patterns of thought, emotions, and behaviors. [13:03] For example, Stressed Out Brian was approximately 100 times more likely to down a whole bag [13:09] of potato chips than Morning Brian. [13:12] Nobody eats ice cream when they wake up. [13:14] Okay, maybe some of you do. [13:17] Why then, right before bed, who's really in charge here? [13:22] I've learned a few lessons building multiple technology and science companies that I think [13:27] map to this situation. [13:30] In technology, version one gives way to version two, which then launches version three. [13:36] The valuable moves forward, the rest disappears. [13:40] The key to building any advanced technology is trusting in the process where systematic [13:46] and methodical improvements create compounded gains. [13:51] This is the fastest way to advance anything. [13:55] Why couldn't I apply this to my mind, my body, my health? [13:59] All day, I labored to make abstract technology better, but while at home, I got worse. [14:06] I got too little sleep, ate too much unhealthy food, and didn't exercise nearly enough. [14:12] I had completely abandoned my personal rate of improvement for the sake of technological [14:18] progress. [14:19] I was a martyr for technological advance. [14:24] What if I could improve myself at the speed that technology improves? [14:28] What if we all could? [14:30] What if decay and decline were not inevitable? [14:34] In the 1990s, this would have been ridiculous to suggest, not anymore. [14:39] With AI, it is now impossible to predict how well and how long we may live. [14:45] The night I fired Evening Brian, my sleep didn't feel traumatic for the first time [14:50] in years. [14:51] It was rejuvenating. [14:54] The next day, I was flying to a meeting. [14:56] I had just gotten my pilot's license. [14:59] As I journeyed to my destination, my gaze was fixed on the airplane's attitude indicator. [15:05] My hands gripped the controls as my co-pilot and I steadied the plane at 10,000 feet. [15:11] Flying is a never-ending activity of keeping the airplane in optimal position. [15:15] I noticed a directional drift, so I corrected ever so slightly left, then down, then a tiny [15:21] bit right. [15:23] At the same time, I became lost in thought about work, all the fires that needed putting [15:28] out. [15:29] My mind wandered. [15:30] I wondered how much better could I perform if I wasn't weighed down by poor sleep and [15:36] declining health. [15:37] I knew my life was not only stalled but in a tailspin. [15:41] If I didn't do something soon, I would free fall straight to the ground. [15:47] After a few more minutes at the airplane's manual controls, I ceded authority to the [15:52] engineering automation of autopilot. [15:55] I ceded authority to an intelligent system of software and hardware that ingested information [16:01] from a suite of airplane sensors to make real-time flight decisions. [16:07] Autopilot freed me to tend to other important flight tasks. [16:11] The airplane sat up straight with perfect posture. [16:15] I pegged the altitude with steadiness with greater precision than I could with my own [16:20] abilities. [16:21] The airplane's instant alignment triggered memories from my flight training in conditions [16:25] of total blackout. [16:28] When you learn to fly, you're tested by flying blind to any outside visual reference. [16:34] In these moments, your instruments are your only source of truth. [16:38] Relying solely on intuition in these crucial moments can be dangerous, fatal in fact. [16:44] Without visual reference points, our body's internal sense of orientation often misleads [16:49] us. [16:50] The conscious mind tricks you into believing and seeing things that are not accurate. [16:55] To simulate blackout conditions during pilot training, you're asked to wear a hood. [17:01] It's terrifying at first. [17:03] You can only see the instrument panels while you're flying. [17:05] You have no outside reference. [17:08] So using your instruments only, you have to safely get the airplane a few hundred feet [17:12] above the runway and ready to land. [17:15] You must master reliant upon instruments and trust them with your life. [17:21] That day, my pilot training collided with my ideas around health and wellness. [17:26] I wondered, could I build an autopilot for myself, one that would augment my natural [17:31] abilities? [17:32] But what should I call it? [17:34] My autonomous self. [17:36] I wondered if an automated system for health, body and mind could produce compounded gains [17:42] in me as fast as we see in technological progress. [17:47] After thinking this through, I was exhilarated when I landed. [17:51] Blueprint. [17:53] I would call it blueprint. [17:58] Episode 3. [18:00] What is blueprint? [18:04] What single thing can any individual do to maximally increase the probability that humans [18:11] thrive beyond what we can imagine? [18:15] Blueprint's singular objective is to try and hitch a ride into the future by answering [18:19] this question today. [18:22] There are three main ideas. [18:25] Number one, blueprint. [18:27] Blueprint is an algorithm that takes better care of me than I can care for myself. [18:33] We humans struggle to act in our best interests. [18:37] We reliably do unhealthy things that accelerate decay, disability, disease and death, both [18:43] to ourselves and to our planet. [18:47] We will look both ways before crossing the street to avoid getting hit by a car, but [18:51] we will do so while smoking a cigarette. [18:54] Every day we do things that accelerate aging. [18:58] And while we may think we can stop those things anytime we want, we are powered us to stop [19:03] them all. [19:04] Don't believe me? [19:05] Try stopping all of your self-destructive behaviors. [19:09] These include eating too much food or junk food, not exercising, smoking, excessive drinking, [19:16] drugs, staying up past our bedtimes, pornography, excessive social media and dozens more. [19:23] All of these things shorten our lives. [19:26] All of them make life less enjoyable in the long run. [19:29] They are payday loans and the interest is taken from the well-being, happiness and health [19:34] of future you. [19:36] It's not that we want to do bad things. [19:39] Okay, yes we do. [19:41] Bad things are easy and good things are hard. [19:45] To protect ourselves from the raw reality that we are powered us to stop these behaviors, [19:51] we create pretty stories to justify them. [19:54] Live a little. [19:55] We're all going to die anyway. [19:57] We are masters at hiding the truth we don't want to see. [20:02] Blueprint plays a new game called Don't Die. [20:06] We in fact play it every day right now. [20:09] We wear seatbelts, we change the batteries in our smoke alarms and throw out moldy food. [20:15] Blueprint is Don't Die expert mode. [20:19] This is how I personally play the game Don't Die. [20:22] My team and I gather hundreds of biomarkers from my body. [20:26] This allows my heart, lungs, liver and 70 other organs to speak for themselves. [20:32] No more rumors, no more guesswork. [20:35] After evaluating hundreds of scientific papers, we then create a health protocol. [20:40] This algorithm determines what and when I eat, when I go to bed and so forth. [20:46] My mind does not have the authority to order from a menu, eat a gallon of ice cream because [20:52] it's nighttime or peruse the pantry because I'm bored. [20:56] My body's organs and biological processes oversee the whole thing, not my mind. [21:04] Sounds dystopic, right? [21:05] This isn't the future you imagined. [21:07] Just wait, it gets worse. [21:10] Number two, the autonomous self. [21:14] The goal of Blueprint is the autonomous self where each of us improves at the speed of [21:20] Science and Technology. [21:22] We are accustomed to our technology getting reliably better. [21:25] Every year we get new versions of almost everything. [21:28] Meanwhile, every day we humans reliably get one day closer to death. [21:34] Your autonomous self reverses this trend by building upon the foundation of Blueprint [21:39] to interconnect your well-being and personal growth with the progress of science and technology. [21:48] Number three, Zeroism. [21:51] Zeroism is the underlying philosophy of Blueprint and the autonomous self. [21:56] You can think of Zeroism as a version of future literacy, a mindset and toolkit to navigate [22:03] a rapidly changing and completely unknown future. [22:08] Let's put future literacy in context. [22:11] In 1820, only 12% of the world's population could read and write. [22:17] Imagine what our daily lives would look like right now if we hadn't achieved an 86% basic [22:22] literacy over the past two centuries. [22:25] We'd probably be significantly less prosperous, healthy and interesting. [22:31] Historically, future literacy was not imminently needed. [22:36] Things changed slowly over the course of generations. [22:40] Knowing seasonal weather patterns was good enough for most people. [22:45] Today, there are tectonic, technological and cultural shifts that happen on the timescales of weeks, months and years. [22:52] The pace of change will continue to accelerate. [22:56] We are accustomed to thinking about human evolution on the timescale of tens of thousands, [23:01] if not hundreds of thousands of years, not in single lifetimes. [23:06] But that's where we are now. [23:08] We need to be alert to the changes in store for individuals and humanity to triage the [23:13] right path forward. [23:15] Ultimately, this is a question of survival. [23:19] Personally, after observing my own thoughts and behavior for 46 years, I do not trust [23:25] my conscious mind. [23:27] Not in a pantry full of junk food, not with my best long-term interests, not in explaining [23:32] away my irrational behaviors. [23:35] I do not think that humanity, as we are configured today as a society, can cooperate well enough [23:43] and fast enough to avoid catastrophic outcomes. [23:46] I think we need to hand over the reins of power. [23:50] Humanity has reached its cognitive and attentional limits in managing a complex, ultra interconnected [23:57] world. [23:59] Zeroism is a way to understand, think and behave in a rapidly changing future, a way [24:05] to anticipate and prepare for the unknown. [24:10] Zeroism is the intelligence of not knowing, embracing what we do not know, what we cannot [24:19] see, and acting courageously nonetheless. [24:23] Throughout history, the number and concept of zero revolutionized math and physics, art, [24:29] philosophy and religion. [24:31] Our modern society depends on the power of zero, enabling computers, gaming, social media, [24:37] GPS and medical technology. [24:40] Some of history's most monumental breakthroughs are, as I like to call them, zero discoveries. [24:46] For example, Einstein's theory of relativity, identifying microscopic germs as the culprit [24:52] of infections, and the vanishing point in early Renaissance art that bridged the gap [24:57] between 2D and the perception of 3D space. [25:01] Each of these discoveries previously existed. [25:03] They had just remained invisible until someone identified them. [25:08] Zeroism captures this fundamental shift from status quo preservation and rule following [25:13] of knowns to not knowing, exploring and adapting. [25:18] In the past, discoveries of zero happened every few decades or centuries, popping our [25:23] bubbles and revealing new dimensions that were previously unknown. [25:27] For example, that the Earth was not the center of the universe. [25:31] A few decades or even a century was enough time for society to reconfigure and update [25:36] its beliefs, technology and culture. [25:40] Zero discoveries are now happening at a much faster pace. [25:45] That is because AI is a zero manufacturer. [25:50] Insights generated by AI will introduce reality-bending zeros and demand that we quicken our adaptation. [25:57] So there you have it. [25:59] Three ideas. [26:00] Blueprint. [26:01] We humans are going to be run by algorithms because they are superior to us. [26:07] Some of us will kick and scream the whole way, but this change is inevitable. [26:13] Once we are through this transition, we will forget that we ever resisted the upgrade in [26:18] the first place. [26:19] In fact, we will pity our former selves. [26:23] Autonomous self. [26:25] We will begin improving ourselves at the speed of science and technology because we can. [26:32] Zeroism. [26:33] In a rapidly changing future, our best attribute is learning a new form of intelligence, which [26:39] is not knowing, also known as future literacy. [26:45] Zeroism is a response to the fact that humanity is facing at least three imminent and existential [26:52] risks. [26:54] 1. [26:55] The risk of an unsustainable biosphere. [26:57] 2. [26:58] Misaligned AI. [27:00] And 3. [27:01] Mass destruction via nukes, bio warfare, societal collapse, etc. [27:07] We need to choose our path forward. [27:10] In evaluating these risks, do you think humanity, through nation-states, corporations, ideologies, [27:17] and individuals, can cooperate and problem solve on the necessary timescales to avoid [27:23] an insufferable existence and or extinction? [27:25] I'll pose this question another way. [27:29] Could it be the case that humanity would be better off rethinking how we make decisions [27:35] going forward? [27:36] In the same way that I did with my health, empowering science, data, and an algorithm [27:43] to care for me better than I can care for myself. [27:46] A computational system of intelligence. [27:50] To help you build intuitions around computational systems, imagine empowering Earth's biosphere [27:56] to manage its own well-being. [27:59] We humans are currently in charge of deciding how much pollution and toxicity we generate [28:05] and whether the oceans become more acidic, the planet warms, and more life becomes extinct. [28:11] If our biosphere were in charge, we'd use the same blueprint process to fix its problems. [28:17] We're including the biosphere via oceans, atmosphere, land, etc. via millions of data points, following [28:24] scientific evidence for sustainable conditions, and empowering algorithmic adaptation for [28:30] Earth's health markers to be achieved. [28:33] Our biosphere sets the standards for pollution, toxins, wildlife, and weather. [28:39] Humanity deals with it and adapts. [28:43] The former me ate whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it, no matter the damage. [28:49] Current me opts into and follows what my body's organs are asking for in order to achieve [28:55] ideal health. [28:57] Most of humanity treats planet Earth the same way we treat our bodies, doing pretty much [29:02] whatever we want, whenever we want, no matter the damage. [29:07] That's why we're in the tricky predicament of having a rapidly changing and increasingly [29:12] violent biosphere. [29:15] In hearing these ideas, many confidently assert that my motivation for Blueprint is a fear [29:20] of death. [29:22] I do not fear death. [29:24] I sat at its doorstep for a decade alongside chronic depression, desperately wishing I [29:30] didn't exist. [29:31] Had it not been for my three children, I probably would have taken my own life. [29:36] I know what it's like to be locked into a staring contest with death. [29:40] I now feel an insatiable love of life, deeper than I've ever experienced. [29:46] I also know that my future self, perhaps the version that exists when superintelligence [29:52] has arrived, may understand existence in ways that are inconceivable to me now. [29:58] Here right now, wanting life can be hard for so many reasons. [30:06] The depths of depression taught me a thing or two about this. [30:09] I dream of an existence where we all want to keep playing the game of life, even in [30:16] our darkest moments. [30:17] For thousands of years it's been the same story. [30:20] We're born and then we die in predictable fashion. [30:24] Don't die is the ultimate game to play. [30:28] Existence is the highest virtue. [30:31] The concept of God is a zero, an idea to explain what we do not and cannot know. [30:38] We are all zero and our existence could be that which we cannot imagine. [30:43] It takes courage to confidently step into the unknown. [30:48] Right now in the early 2020s, we can't assume that anything that has been true will continue [30:53] to be true. [30:55] Anyone who says otherwise doesn't understand what's really going on. [30:59] Maybe superintelligence is already here and improving faster than our minds can comprehend. [31:05] Blueprint is not just for me, it is for everyone. [31:09] Blueprint is a plan to save ourselves. [31:12] May we have the courage to believe that right now may be the very beginning. [31:21] Episode 4. [31:23] Zeroesm as a belief system. [31:27] At the age of 34, I sold my payments company, Braintree Venmo, for $800 million in cash, [31:33] the fulfillment of my life dream. [31:36] Instead of it being this unhinged celebratory moment I'd imagined it would be, it was just [31:41] one more complication to deal with. [31:44] At the time, my 13-year marriage was unraveling. [31:48] Our three kids were age 10 and under and it broke my heart and my brain to imagine that [31:53] we would now be a split family. [31:56] I was wrestling to leave my born into religion. [31:59] I'd lost my bearings, not knowing anymore what was up or down, what was left or right. [32:06] To help you better understand this moment, I'll paint the picture for you. [32:10] When I was 19 years old, I was a Mormon missionary sent to Ecuador. [32:14] It was the first time I went outside the rural bubble of Mormon Utah. [32:20] I had come home only to question the nature of everything I had been taught. [32:24] It became clear that I'd spent the first 19 years of life comfortably encased within [32:30] several bubbles, unaware of their limitations and boundaries. [32:34] I had been inside belief systems, wrapped in belief systems, each shaping my conscious [32:41] mind. [32:42] I had grown up in a rural community of 30,000 people. [32:46] Everyone was Mormon. [32:48] We all shared a singular understanding of existence. [32:52] All I could think about now was what other bubbles am I in? [32:56] If I had learned of these bubbles, how would my understanding of existence change? [33:00] If that changed, what different decisions would I make? [33:04] College was beckoning with its life decisions, major selection and career path. [33:09] I hadn't the faintest idea what I wanted to be or study. [33:13] The only thing I knew was that my experience in Ecuador had lit a raging fire inside of [33:19] me. [33:20] I wanted to spend my life working to improve the lives of others at a societal level. [33:26] To do this, I determined that I'd make an enormous amount of money by the age of 30 [33:30] and then figure out a way to up-level humanity. [33:33] I told everyone about my master plan. [33:36] Nothing quite like the arrogance and wonder of a 21-year-old mind. [33:41] Now 10 years later, I found myself encased, feeling paralyzed. [33:47] Discovering my relationship with God and a marriage was a psychological conundrum that [33:52] was perpetually unsolvable. [33:54] A decade of chronic depression had not only dropped me into a black hole of hopelessness, [33:59] but it had me questioning whether I could believe anything I thought or felt. [34:05] When I was born into this world, I was told, follow these life rules and an omnipotent [34:11] being will crown you with eternal life. [34:14] Looking back, how beautifully simple if only it were true. [34:18] I am not anti-religion. [34:20] I am pro-existing and anti-death. [34:24] Growing up, I was asked to bet my existence on a hypothesis that is testable only upon [34:30] death. [34:31] In any other time during the past few hundred thousand years, it wouldn't have mattered [34:36] whether someone accepted the gamble or not. [34:39] Everyone was guaranteed to die anyways, so why does it matter? [34:43] But what if? [34:44] What if? [34:46] Then I read Zero, a biography of a dangerous idea by Charles Seif. [34:52] Nothing in my mind has been the same since. [34:56] What a surprise it was to learn that the number zero was discovered. [35:00] Of course it was. [35:01] I just hadn't thought about it. [35:03] Like the idea behind every great revolution, the concept of zero wasn't birthed into the [35:07] world easily. [35:09] It caused a stir in philosophy, math, ideology, and society before it revolutionized each. [35:16] Zeroism is a way of thinking that has helped me in my mental efforts to seek out the undiscovered, [35:21] what lies beyond the fog. [35:24] Zeroism digs into what is hidden in plain sight, just as the number zero once was. [35:31] Zeroism allows me to reach out and feel the intangible and amorphous, the kinds of ideas [35:36] that have been transformative to civilizations. [35:39] Heliocentrism, the discovery of germs, and Einstein's special and general theories of [35:44] relativity. [35:46] These are all zeros. [35:47] They were not discovered based upon what we knew, but rather what we didn't know. [35:53] Zeroism is a system of thought one level deeper than so-called first principles thinking. [35:59] If zeroth principle thinking is building blocks, first principle thinking is all about understanding [36:04] the nature of the building blocks. [36:07] Many people spend their entire lives as first principle thinkers. [36:12] There's nothing wrong with this. [36:14] Some professions demand it. [36:17] Consider the fictional character Sherlock Holmes. [36:20] He's a first principle thinker. [36:22] He believes, according to his famed maxim, that when you have eliminated the impossible, [36:28] whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. [36:34] Zerothism invites you to think like Dirk Gently, a different kind of detective conceived [36:39] of by the sci-fi humorist Douglas Adams. [36:43] Dirk Gently is a zero detective. [36:47] The zero detective rules nothing out. [36:50] Instead, they begin by wondering if the impossible solution makes more sense. [36:55] It is a search for the building blocks themselves, not how they work. [37:01] When someone is thinking from a first principled perspective, they're likely going to start [37:06] by assuming the fewest number of things within a given time frame. [37:11] Zeroism, however, doesn't try to identify or rule out the impossible. [37:17] It wonders if we might not be seeing the structure of reality immediately in front of us. [37:24] Zeroism leads us to the possible, not the probable, to the previously undiscovered. [37:31] Zeros are game changers. [37:33] In a world where we are continuously expanding our spheres of understanding, each zeroth [37:39] principle insight can potentially unlock a set of more expansive spheres. [37:44] This is bigger than an exponential effect, a hockey stick curve. [37:49] With a zero, the graph is not just exponential, the units change. [37:54] The graph reorganizes its axes. [37:58] are added to accommodate ideas from another dimension. [38:03] That's what zeros get you. [38:05] Zeroth principle thinking paves the way to explore boundless terrain. [38:11] We have entered an era that will be defined by an avalanche of zero-like ideas. [38:17] That is because AI is a zero factory. [38:21] Understanding our very existence has become a quest for zeros. [38:26] Currently we are seeing zeroth principle ideas come to fruition at a faster rate than [38:31] ever before, which means we're driving into this future with fog in all directions. [38:38] Previously we humans could make reasonable assumptions about what might exist beyond [38:43] our field of view. [38:44] Deductive reasoning and a dash of first principle thinking every century or so used to be enough. [38:51] Not anymore. [38:53] Evolving, adapting, and collaborating with AI will require fluency in zeroism. [39:00] To that end, I've been working on a system for evolving ourselves so that we humans can [39:05] roll with the changes that AI brings, no matter how the terrain shifts. [39:11] The goal is to align ourselves towards harmony instead of our own demise. [39:16] So what is the potential payoff? [39:18] Well, that's a surprise. [39:21] To begin our journey as zeroists, we can seek to identify the building blocks of intelligence. [39:28] Our bodies and minds are a fruitful place to begin this exploration. [39:37] Episode 5, The First Supper [39:42] The ideas around blueprint and zeroism challenge the core of our current identities. [39:47] Many people upon hearing these ideas for new models of the future, either boomerang [39:52] some form of hatred or fall into existential despair, unsure how to climb out of the pit [39:58] dug by their previous selves. [40:01] I've seen this happen so many times that I realized I needed to soften the blow, which [40:06] led me to start hosting blueprint brunches, which I call The First Supper. [40:12] In a private and comfortable setting, I present the ideas and then create enough space and [40:16] time for the participants to have multiple existential crises. [40:21] At the suppers end, the participants rise with a basic level of reconciliation. [40:27] My favorite follow-up notes to receive are those that explain how the conversation broke [40:32] their brain in ways they didn't know it could be broken. [40:36] And then they add, they haven't been able to stop ruminating about the ideas since. [40:41] I suspect that the more time the idea sits in your mind, the more its inevitability [40:46] creeps in. [40:48] It's hard to find arguments supporting the idea that we can remain as we are and survive. [40:54] The evolutionary pressure presented by advances in AI, a changing biosphere and unforeseen [41:00] and unpredictable future events invite, no, demand that we improve our speed of evolutionary [41:06] adaptation. [41:09] First Supper guests have included scientists, philosophers, engineers, educators, artists, [41:15] astronauts, doctors, and entrepreneurs. [41:18] Each gathering lasts around two to three hours. [41:20] The mills all have the same arc. [41:23] To prepare the group for the provocative nature of the conversation, I provide some thought [41:27] experiments. [41:29] I start with a simple question we all supposedly know the answer to. [41:33] How many glasses of water should you drink each day? [41:36] Eight, someone always says. [41:39] How do you know that? [41:40] I ask. [41:41] I read it somewhere. [41:42] Or maybe my parents told me. [41:43] I don't know. [41:45] This exercise highlights what most of us experience daily across the majority of the decisions [41:49] we make about health and wellness. [41:52] Our insides are off limits. [41:54] We use hunches, folk remedies, and antidotes. [41:58] We act upon information that we feel we know without truly knowing if the answer is right [42:03] for us. [42:05] Is drinking eight glasses of water correct for each of us every day? [42:09] How would we know the optimal amount at any given time? [42:13] Perhaps if there were a way to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of our water drinking [42:18] on our individual health, we could arrive at an evidence-based result. [42:23] This process is the essence of Blueprint to implement with the precision of scientific [42:28] evidence and data. [42:31] Soon the food arrives. [42:33] Everyone has a full Blueprint spread in front of them. [42:36] The result of algorithmic design. [42:39] Each guest is primed and ready to go on a wild ride of new ideas. [42:44] Then we begin. [42:46] I pose my next question. [42:49] Imagine that you have access to an algorithm capable of generating the best physical and [42:54] mental health of your life. [42:57] An algorithm personalized to you that can take better care of you than you can take [43:02] care of yourself. [43:04] Opt in and the benefits are yours. [43:07] The catch, what you eat, when you eat, and other health-related decisions will be determined [43:13] by the algorithm. [43:15] This algorithm has been built upon the best science available from peak performance, health, [43:20] and medicine. [43:22] This means that pantry grazing, spontaneous pizza parties, and junk food binging will [43:27] no longer be options. [43:29] Do you opt in or decline? [43:32] Usually a rare few respond in the affirmative. [43:35] Yes, please, anything to save me from myself. [43:39] A third or so wants to make modifications to the deal. [43:43] Yes, but I'd like to make sure I keep the following things. [43:47] The rest, more than half, may give a direct and blunt no, or something like, this is creepy, [43:53] is this a cult? [43:55] The reasons for individual refusal are often tied to personal attachments to existing lifestyles, [44:02] and life and death. [44:04] Or to imagine conflicts that a fully implemented autonomous self would bring to cultural and [44:11] social relationships. [44:13] The thought experiment is of course oversimplified by design. [44:18] To sincerely answer the question, we'd each need to ask hundreds more questions. [44:23] My personal experience is that two years after saying yes to the thought experiment, I've [44:29] happier, healthier, more emotionally stable, or as intellectually alive. [44:35] In fact, I pity my former self, who was continuously tortured by his mind and unable to live his [44:42] best life. [44:44] It's understandable if this contemplated exercise invites an existential crisis of [44:48] sorts right now. [44:50] This is a big idea, as big as the earth not being the center of the universe. [44:57] By the end of 2020, I had hired a team of doctors, set up a lab in my home, and become [45:02] the most measured human in history. [45:05] No more evening Brian, no more late night binges, no more just this once rationalizations, [45:12] no more mid-flight stalls. [45:15] Since I began Blueprint, I have come to appreciate the many problems my autonomous self has solved [45:20] in my daily existence. [45:22] I no longer spend any amount of time thinking about my next meal or when to go to bed. [45:27] I no longer grapple with whether to do this naughty thing that will accelerate my speed [45:32] of aging. [45:33] My mind is now free to focus on more enduringly rewarding things, such as the future of intelligent [45:40] existence. [45:42] This first version of Blueprint and my autonomous self took years and millions of dollars to [45:47] build. [45:49] Most of the processes are still manual, clunky, and require a large team. [45:54] It's impractical to imagine the current version being scaled throughout society. [45:58] That's okay, because this is how innovation works. [46:02] The first versions are expensive, manual, and buggy. [46:06] The key is looking past the awkward things and finding the gem of inevitability that's [46:11] been demonstrated. [46:13] When the first telegraph message was sent, it was clear the Pony Express was riding into [46:18] the sunset. [46:20] When digital navigation via GPS appeared, paper maps on the laps became a thing of [46:25] hobby. [46:27] Blueprint has demonstrated a new approach to managing our self-destructive tendencies. [46:33] A new approach to imagine our future selves. [46:37] Can you imagine a future where we don't want to inflict the type of self-harm that [46:42] hastens death? [46:43] You're probably thinking that once your new system is set up, you'll sneak away and [46:48] insert your favorite vice here. [46:51] Just kidding, no I'm not. [46:53] I'm betting that you won't want that vice anymore. [46:56] Your life and reality will be so fundamentally changed that you'll look back on your former [47:01] self as I do now with pity. [47:05] Maybe I'm wrong. [47:06] Maybe indulgences of these types we enjoy today will be a new form of entertainment. [47:11] They'll just be simulations that make the real and perceived indistinguishable, all [47:17] while having built-in mechanisms to protect us from any biological harm. [47:22] I'm playing here to make a point. [47:24] Our minds often foreclose on future possibilities, thinking that something is impossible or undesirable [47:32] before we've even tried it. [47:34] So let's think about this. [47:36] What might be the future of our well-being? [47:40] I have an idea. [47:41] From building Braintree Venmo, the payments company I founded, we worked with a ride-share [47:46] company to eliminate all payment friction associated with traveling somewhere. [47:51] You held a car from the app, arrived at your destination, and then left. [47:57] No pulling out your credit card, no janking machines, no awkwardness, no waiting in the [48:02] car as the transaction took minutes to complete or fail. [48:07] Payment and tip happened, like magic, all behind the scenes. [48:11] Payment was forgotten. [48:14] The future of our well-being might be similar. [48:17] Magic happening behind the scenes, something that's forgotten and doesn't need to be [48:22] attended to anymore. [48:24] AI will be omnipresent. [48:27] Data from our bodies will be streamed real-time. [48:30] Systems outside and inside our bodies working in unison, personalized to our needs. [48:37] Like the stock market, micro-corrections to our biological processes will happen on [48:41] the time scale of milliseconds. [48:44] We won't even notice. [48:46] We will be too busy focused on the next games we've chosen to play with our superior abilities. [48:53] Blueprint will be applied to the care of Earth, too. [48:57] Millions of measurements taken from around the globe, science and data determining optimal [49:03] conditions with protocols and therapies put into action. [49:08] It seems so basic, so obvious. [49:12] A desire to exist. [49:15] No qualifiers, no conditionals, no pretending that any of us have the wisdom to see this [49:22] next chapter of intelligent life and decide ahead of time whether the future is suitable [49:29] or desirable for us. [49:31] We choose life over death. [49:34] Unconditionally. [49:35] But we already do, you might contend. [49:39] That's not what the data shows about our individual or collective behavior. [49:43] The data demonstrates that we are suicidal, optimizing for temporary pleasure because [49:49] we have concluded that death is inevitable and we might as well make the most of the [49:54] time we have. [49:56] Could a want for life be the most significant revolution to happen in the early 21st century? [50:03] Sometimes we excitedly race into the future. [50:07] Other times the future pulls us into her magnificence as we kick and scream. [50:13] We take credit for seeing the future and forget that we ever opposed it. [50:17] You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change [50:22] the ending. [50:24] Gen Zero, let's join with Zeroism as our blueprint and lead the charge for this want [50:32] to exist into what will be perhaps the most marvelous existence to ever occur in this [50:38] galaxy. [50:44] Episode 6 Dear Gen Zero [50:49] You may or may not be aware that I recently released a book, Don't Die. [50:54] It's a fictionalized but mostly truthful account of the internal struggles my mind went through [51:00] as it contemplated blueprint, autonomous selves, Zeroism, AI, and the continued survival of [51:07] our species. [51:08] I've been trying to write that book and this piece for 10 years. [51:13] I could always feel the ideas somewhere in the back of my mind. [51:16] Eventually the concepts have formed and now solidified into a state where they seem understandable, [51:22] teachable, and actionable. [51:25] Biographies have always been a personal lighthouse for me in trying to understand life. [51:30] Instead of learning the broad strokes of history, philosophies, and technology where this or [51:35] that thing happened in this or that year, biographies give a first-person account into [51:41] the thoughts, emotions, context of their time and place. [51:46] They provide models of thinking, problem solving, and persistence to emulate. [51:51] When I read biographies, I focus on how the person was able to see something so clearly [51:57] that was invisible to everyone else at the time. [52:00] Often this is why many of history's most influential characters were written about [52:05] hundreds of years after their deaths. [52:08] It takes time for a society to form that clarity of perspective. [52:13] As I record this, it's 2023. [52:16] If I challenge myself to learn from the biographies of history's explorations and muster maximum [52:21] sobriety trying to discern what is really going on right now, I'd start with three [52:26] observations. [52:29] Number one, artificial intelligence is improving faster than we can comprehend and in ways [52:35] we cannot predict. [52:37] Number two, the biosphere of our planet is in question. [52:41] And three, we humans are dangerously at each other's throats. [52:46] Obvious, right? [52:48] So what do we do now? [52:52] Is humanity's focus correctly and adequately trained on addressing these issues before [52:58] they create catastrophe and possibly annihilation? [53:02] I personally don't think so. [53:05] Certainly not in proportion to the existential risk that each represents. [53:10] Why? [53:11] There are many possible answers one might hear to this question. [53:15] What power does each of us have individually to change anything? [53:20] Shouldn't governments be addressing problems like these? [53:23] Other goals such as professional advancement, family or other personal matters are higher [53:28] priority. [53:29] What responsibility do we have to future generations? [53:33] Why do we care to exist anyways? [53:37] We're all going to die, so why does it matter? [53:39] It doesn't matter what happens to humans or Earth. [53:43] It's the next life that's worth living for. [53:46] These common perspectives underscore the problem we humans have in aligning our goals. [53:52] We want and value different things. [53:55] We understand our lives in unique ways. [53:58] We are fractured in our opinions and goals about what matters in life and why. [54:04] We know from studying history that each era lives in their own bubble of norms and beliefs. [54:11] Change is inevitable and future humans will consider us primitive relative to their superior [54:17] ways, just as we do with previous generations. [54:21] What is primitive about us that future generations will observe? [54:26] What is potentially inevitable in the future that we may want to pull into our present? [54:32] To help us with this thought experiment, let's time travel, visualizing people in the 25th [54:38] century learning about and reflecting upon the early 21st century. [54:43] That's us right now. [54:45] They're marveling at how we figured out how to keep humanity and maybe ourselves alive [54:50] amid the greatest existential risks faced by humans up to that point. [54:56] What do they observe? [54:58] My best guess is that the biographies available in the 25th century will conclude that up [55:04] until the early 21st century, the human mind was the superior technology of intelligence [55:10] on earth. [55:11] The human mind, as long as it played within society's laws, was free to decide what, [55:16] how, when, and why to do things. [55:19] Then, in the mid-2020s, there was a swift societal change. [55:25] The combination of artificial intelligence and the programmability of biology and chemistry [55:30] proved that computational abilities were superior to the human mind for managing a wide variety [55:37] of individual and societal systems, from personal health to biological ecosystems. [55:43] Most importantly, a seedling of an idea sprouted in the late 2020s, becoming the biggest revolution [55:51] in human history. [55:53] Death transitioned from inevitable to don't die. [55:58] I personally went through this transition from my mind having unquestioned authority [56:03] and death being inevitable to opting into an algorithm to manage my health with the [56:09] objective of not dying. [56:12] Before Blueprint, my proclivities seemed hardwired to naturally be self-destructive. [56:18] These self-destructive behaviors worsened until I was in the throes of an existential [56:23] crisis. [56:24] I had tried to stop my binge eating hundreds of times, but was powerless. [56:30] It was clear, either I stopped my self-destructive behaviors or I was going to the grave early. [56:36] I was choosing death each day and I couldn't stop myself. [56:42] I was doing something to myself that I knew was bad for me. [56:45] I knew that it made me feel terrible. [56:48] So why did I continue to do it? [56:50] Sound familiar? [56:52] Why is that so easy to relate to? [56:55] I was just like humanity at large, fracturing in my own opinions and wants in life, facing [57:02] existential crisis daily, misaligning. [57:07] After hundreds of failed attempts, I found a solution that worked for me and stopped [57:11] my binge eating. [57:13] The success of this strategy got me wondering if there were other systems that are even [57:17] more trustworthy than my various selves to look after my best interests. [57:23] Blueprint has proven trustworthy wherever my mind reliably fails me. [57:28] Blueprint is an algorithm that takes better care of me than I do. [57:32] The algorithm has generated based upon hundreds of biological measurements near perfect health. [57:38] It is a revolution of self within self. [57:42] Blueprint considers that I am a collection of 35 trillion cells and aligns all of them [57:49] towards a single objective, continued existence. [57:54] For more than two years, my commitment to Blueprint has remained constant. [57:57] I know after living with my mind for 45 years that it is a devious, cunning and ruthless [58:04] rascal willing to do anything and tell any cheerful story to get what it wants frequently [58:11] to my detriment. [58:13] This makes me wonder who is the enemy? [58:16] Should we point our fingers outward or look within? [58:21] For our entire lives, our minds have been our best and only tool to navigate existence. [58:27] It's nearly unthinkable that we'd willingly opt into a new way of being that gives power [58:33] to other systems of authority that are superior at looking after our best interests. [58:39] This is the singular question of our time. [58:43] Do we humans, with our nation states, corporations, ideologies and individual behaviors, believe [58:50] that we can solve the existential crisis before catastrophe? [58:55] Or do we need to opt into superior computational systems that will better manage our interests? [59:03] Confronting new ideas often hurts. [59:06] They challenge our identities and make us feel uncomfortable. [59:10] Most of the time, we just want them to go away and will say, think and do anything to [59:17] hasten their disappearance. [59:20] When trying to solve difficult problems, sometimes we need to look for the new ideas in the dark, [59:26] where it's potentially a little scary. [59:29] If we are to succeed against the formidable existential threats we face, just how far [59:34] and wide do we need to consider searching? [59:37] I like starting at the opposite end of comfort, in the dark, where we haven't dared look, [59:43] seeking out and embracing discomfort. [59:46] Being open-minded is hard work. [59:48] It's a skill of wrestling and negotiating with counter intuition. [59:53] It might be the single most valuable character trait for any human as we step into this new [59:58] future. [59:59] If you're hearing this for the first time, I can imagine what you might be feeling and [60:04] thinking. [60:05] If you need to, pause this video and go for a walk. [60:08] I understand. [60:10] When you return, let's explore this new framework of open-mindedness and adaptability, [60:15] zeroism. [60:17] The only things on humanity's to-do list are, don't die, don't kill each other, don't [60:24] destroy our biosphere, and align AI with don't die. [60:30] Crisis has been a near permanent fixture of history, war, plagues, natural disasters, [60:35] despotism, and more. [60:37] A crisis-free world is out of reach for the foreseeable future, but we can learn from [60:42] crisis by improving, iterating, and aligning. [60:46] Alfred North Whitehead observed in 1911, [60:55] We master this process as babies. [61:00] We learn to crawl, then walk, and then run. [61:04] Somewhere along that learning process, we no longer need to think about the movements. [61:08] They just happen as a byproduct of pursuing some other goal. [61:13] Societal scaffolding works in a similar way. [61:16] When we buy a washer and dryer, we don't wonder whether it will fit through the front door. [61:20] We just know they will without thinking about it. [61:23] They were designed to fit easily through the average US doorway, after all. [61:27] Traffic lights, green, yellow, and red, are timed to mirror human biological abilities [61:32] to react. [61:34] Their timings are not random, but constrained, designed around our physical limits. [61:39] There are thousands of such building blocks that enable our societal advance from version [61:43] 1, to version 2, to version 3. [61:46] They are the invisible rebar of society's scaffolding, and are everywhere. [61:52] Each generation builds in the context of their time. [61:56] I love this quote from John Adams as he worked to establish the United States, [62:01] I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and [62:06] philosophy. [62:08] The biggest question of our time is this, how do we marry societal advance, technological [62:14] improvements, and our own evolutionary advance all in tandem? [62:19] Early in 2017, I was in the Middle East with the leader of a country. [62:24] He was telling me about his country's 2030 goals. [62:27] I marveled at how one could plan 13 years in advance with the speed of technological [62:32] change. [62:33] He asked me how I'd think about the task. [62:35] I replied by asking him to play a game with me. [62:39] Say we have a robot that we're trying to get to the furthest sand dune on the horizon. [62:44] We can take one of two approaches. [62:46] First, we could take a topographical map of the dune and send the robot off. [62:52] The problem with this approach is that the sands will shift, causing the terrain to change, [62:57] quickly making our maps irrelevant. [62:59] The robot will get stuck in the sand. [63:02] The alternative is to engineer the robot with the tools it needs to navigate any possible [63:07] terrain change. [63:09] I call this future literacy. [63:12] Of course, zeroists may even question the premise of a destination. [63:17] Maybe the horizon isn't the goal. [63:20] It's a relief that we don't need to know what the future will bring to be prepared, [63:25] because we'll never know the future with certainty. [63:28] It's reassuring that we can journey into the unknown with systems and tools that will [63:33] allow us to respond and adapt quickly to any environment. [63:37] Adapting not knowing is our new superpower. [63:42] There is, however, another option, and it is the easiest. [63:45] We could choose to put our heads in the sand instead of traversing it. [63:50] Solved. [63:51] The problem with this, of course, is that four billion years of evolution demonstrates [63:55] that a biological species survives and thrives according to its rate of adaptation, not its [64:01] rate of looking the other way. [64:04] How will we adapt to an increasingly complex, ever-changing world full of unknowns? [64:09] We might be inclined to imagine that optimal human adaptation needs to rely on complex [64:14] systems, and that complex problems require complex solutions. [64:19] However, our journey to adapt may be condensed to just a few simple rules. [64:25] Flocks of birds and schools of fish self-organize into sophisticated emergent patterns using [64:31] simple rules. [64:33] Flying insects do the same to find their food. [64:36] Under the hood, some of the most advanced systems of intelligence, including AI, are [64:41] often just efficient ways of searching through options from simple rules. [64:46] Miraculous, robust behaviors and systems can emerge on the other side of simplicity. [64:53] Said another way, the speed and unpredictability of this early 21st century is the most dynamic, [65:01] unknowable challenge we've ever faced. [65:04] The [65:08] The mammalian mind is adaptable. [65:12] It learns from the past and models the future. [65:15] It is also full of quirks, biases, and tendencies towards self-destructive behaviors that stifle [65:22] our improvement. [65:24] We can use our own simple set of rules to guide our cognitive scaffolding and up-level [65:29] our cognition to capabilities previously unimagined. [65:34] Louis Pasteur once remarked, [65:36] Fortune favors the prepared mind. [65:39] I offer a revision in this context. [65:42] Fortune will favor the adaptable mind. [65:45] To adapt, we must align our goals and systems at every level, from the philosophical to [65:50] the atomic. [65:52] What will we need to adapt to? [65:54] Only the most significant event in all of history, AI. [65:59] No previous generation has been able to contemplate a future of unlimited potential the way we [66:04] can today. [66:06] For all of history, death has been inevitable. [66:09] One day, we are born. [66:11] Another day, hopefully a long time later, we die. [66:14] That may not be the equation anymore. [66:17] We simply do not know what the future holds. [66:21] There are many differing opinions on AI. [66:23] Some people are convinced that humans are inevitably doomed. [66:26] Others believe AI will save us from ourselves. [66:29] No one has been able to reliably predict the rate and contours of AI progress. [66:35] That won't change. [66:37] What we do know is that AI is improving faster than we can comprehend and in ways that we [66:42] cannot predict. [66:43] With the current world order, there is no way to stop or even slow its development. [66:49] Nation states, corporations, ideological groups, individuals, and everyone in between will [66:55] unabashedly use AI for their self-interested objectives. [66:59] Time traveling again to the 25th century and looking back, what might we observe? [67:05] In the early 21st century, Gen Zero, a multi-ethnic, multinational, multigenerational uprising [67:12] organized around zeroism, rose to power and built global systems of goal alignment within [67:19] self between humans and Earth and AI. [67:23] Back in today's world, we can ask, when do we need to begin working earnestly on [67:28] this endeavor to align all of intelligence in a small corner of the galaxy? [67:33] AI is kind of a time travel or as our car mirrors remind us, objects in mirror are closer [67:40] than they appear. [67:42] The human mind struggles to understand exponential phenomena as we careen into the future. [67:49] This can create dangerous blind spots and lack of preparation. [67:54] Wisdom would have us act now. [67:56] If we delay, we'd load ourselves with additional existential risk, putting off for later what [68:02] needs to be done and can be done now. [68:05] The major problem is that we tend to be reactionary and not proactive. [68:11] For the most part, humans only engage in meaningful change after disaster strikes. [68:17] It's one of the failings of the human mind and a scenario that may be unforgiving to [68:22] our survival. [68:23] What if one day there is a disaster so large we cannot react after it happens because we [68:29] are no longer around? [68:31] 25th century wisdom invites us to achieve levels of goal alignment within self, between [68:37] ourselves and AI, and between ourselves and Earth that are unthinkable to us right now. [68:42] To do this, we need to act on presumed time scales that will certainly make us uncomfortable. [68:49] Whatever opinion one has about AI, the precarious instability of our biosphere requires that [68:54] we do act now. [68:57] Alignment with Earth includes many of the same fundamental processes as aligning with [69:02] AI and many of the same processes as aligning within self. [69:07] Today my daily routine is trialing a version of human AI alignment. [69:12] The past two years of Blueprint required that I goal-align my 35 trillion cells around [69:17] continued existence. [69:19] The first thing I did was label any behavior that increased my speed of aging as an act [69:24] of violence. [69:26] Extensively measuring my body and capturing thousands of data points allowed me to begin [69:32] identifying which foods, behaviors, and lifestyle choices slowed my speed of aging and those [69:38] which increased it. [69:40] A heuristic I applied is simple. [69:42] Remove all things that increase the speed of aging and implement things that slow my [69:47] speed of aging. [69:49] So how did I do? [69:51] In a group of more than 2,000 anti-aging athletes longitudinally measuring their speed of aging [69:58] using a state-of-the-art DNA methylation algorithm, I ranked number one in the world for greatest [70:04] reduction in the velocity of aging. [70:07] I demonstrated that an individual could reconfigure their systems of decision-making and authority. [70:13] I tamed my devious and conniving mind, eliminated all self-destructive behaviors, and achieved [70:21] zero violence within self by empowering other systems, in this case my individual organ [70:27] systems, with authority. [70:31] I did this to try and demonstrate a beta version of a future human. [70:36] Human Intelligent Being Trying to Self-Align [70:40] Building AI systems that align with continued human existence is a discipline in itself [70:45] and deserving of the greatest minds of our generation. [70:48] For anyone not directly working on AI alignment, you can contribute by knowing that aligning [70:54] all intelligence is the central opportunity of our time. [70:58] It can begin with self. [71:01] Every second of every day, my mind is searching for the most important piece of information [71:07] available. [71:08] What is the highest value use of my time? [71:12] What is the most piercing insight at this moment? [71:16] What can't I see, but if I could, would change the way I understand reality? [71:21] A constant search for E equal MC squared. [71:25] The task that I've given myself is to write you, dear listener, a letter that prepares [71:30] you for the future, to provide you the best wisdom that I'm capable of communicating. [71:36] This is the best I've got right now, which, as you know, will change in one hour's time. [71:43] This is what I know. [71:45] The future is not going to be like the past. [71:48] Every generation before you had the advantage of being able to learn from the past and model [71:53] out their lives, the way they thought about individuals, countries, currencies, and relationships, [71:59] about ambition, regret, happiness, and sadness. [72:02] The wise would diligently study to identify what they didn't need to relearn and then [72:08] with extra time set off to discover something new. [72:11] The unwise perceive their novelty of experience as original when it was in fact predictable, [72:18] limiting their time and ability to discover. [72:21] For the first time, we cannot look into the past to accurately model the future. [72:27] Some fundamental underpinnings of history as we know it may carry over. [72:32] However, the zeroth nature of computational intelligence, AI, steals away control from [72:39] using the past to create any future predictions. [72:44] We cannot know which historical or present phenomena will persist and what will defy [72:51] our expectations. [72:53] Be aware and cautious about what assumptions you make about the future. [72:57] Try to isolate each assumption and examine it carefully. [73:02] Simply being aware of the scaffolding you're standing on will enable you to react faster [73:08] and with improved clearheadedness when you see other patterns emerge in the world. [73:13] If you can make this a staple in how you process information, you'll be able to sift through [73:19] arguments, trends and norms and keep your mind in sync with technological advance. [73:24] You won't live in the past. [73:27] Here are three simple questions you can ask to enhance your predictions when you're trying [73:32] to make life decisions. [73:34] First, what must remain true for this to continue to be true? [73:40] Second, what new thing would make this untrue? [73:45] And third, what wildly unexpected surprise would change the question? [73:51] It used to be that society and science advanced one funeral at a time. [73:57] Now society advances at the speed at which it rejuvenates. [74:06] Thank you for listening. [74:07] If you liked this, check out my other books, Don't Die and We the People. [74:12] Wishing each of you all the best.