The Deutsch Files I

We don't really have an agenda. There's no goal to the conversation, right? The closest we can come up with is just to have a spontaneous, free-flowing talk about anything you want to talk about. I think, obviously, you know how everyone thinks of your work now; it's becoming more well-known, and I know you're too modest to acknowledge that. But I would say that, at least for me, the most interesting piece, if it would come out, is just any wide-ranging, free-form thoughts that you have because of the understanding that you have of your various theories and your view of the world.

Maybe even just feel free to talk about how that has influenced your life, your outlook on life, how you think the world ought to be a little bit different or could be better, where we're headed. Just feel free to go very wide-ranging. It's really just about whatever we want to talk about.

Yeah, and I think I mentioned to you in a private chat that we had about the fact that we've had two conversations already. Some things have changed, and especially the Chat GPT stuff. Yeah, it's interesting that it is the most on top of everyone's mind thing right now, that that is the biggest thing that's happened.

Corre Tech, should we just dive into that? What's your latest thinking on AI, AGI, Chat GPT, superintelligence?

So two big things to say. One is that fundamentally my view is unchanged, my view about AI, AGI, and so on. But the other thing is I use Chat GPT all the time, many times a day, and it's incredibly useful. I'm still at the stage, even though I've had it since March, I'm still in the stage when I'm thinking, “Oh, doing so and so is too much. Oh, I could ask Chat GPT.” You know, I'm still in that stage when I'm discovering new uses for it.

I think many of them are things where I could use Google, but it would take too long to be worth it. Chat GPT is often very wrong; it often hallucinates or just is very sure about giving the wrong answer, and so you can't rely on it even slightly.

But stick with Chat GPT. But first, just as an aside, you're a big fan of hardcore science fiction. You like the good stuff. What is the good stuff, and what separates the good science fiction from the fantasy science fiction, the lazy science fiction?

Well, I think the best science fiction author currently is Greg Egan. Now, what is good about him? Well, so the formula for great science fiction is supposed to be: you invent a fictional piece of science, and then you explore the ramifications of it both in science and in society. He does that fantastically well. He puts an enormous amount of effort into getting the maths right, getting the physics right.

He had one book in a universe where the signature of spacetime is plus plus plus plus instead of plus plus plus minus. So that means that in a spaceship, you can travel around back in time and so on. How do you make that consistent? How do you avoid paradoxes? He did it brilliantly. Is he moving through multiverses? Through the multiverse? So he's touched on that several times.

You didn't mention the phrase "hard" to vary, but that's a signature that's definitely part of it. Because to be science fiction rather than fantasy fiction, there's got to be a world that is describing that makes sense, that has laws of physics, that has a society that makes sense. Or if you're describing aliens, the aliens have got to make sense. You've got to answer questions about why haven't we had first contact— the Fermi problem.

I think probably my second favorite sci-fi author is Neil Stevenson, who is fantastic, but in a different way. I mean, he also does phenomenal research; everything makes sense, you know, like that, but every book he writes is a different genre. I don't know how that's done. I mean, that just in itself blows my mind. Have you read Ted Chiang?

I've read two or three of his short stories, including the one where, what is it? There are these aliens, and you get sort of telepathy about time. Yeah, that's among my least favorites. That got turned into a movie called Arrival, and the story is called The Story of Your Life. But my favorite story of his is a story called Understand, and it’s...