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Where do you I is it okay here? Yep. Close to my

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We we're already getting sound, so Okay. That's fine. And the only

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question is for the camera, it may be too big. No?

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No. No. It will be fine. It's okay? Or on the tie, would you

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prefer? No. I think there is better. It's better. Have it on the tie. It

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will make noise. On the shirt. Yep. Okay. Sounds great. As

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long as you are happy, I'm happy. We

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stick exactly to the questions that I've sent you. Only,

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upfront a little introduction. Oh, okay. I think you can

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introduce yourself. Right? You you've done that. Yeah. If you want me, I

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can, okay. So

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in terms of the questions, I mean, you can choose whatever you like.

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If you feel that you want to ask another follow-up question.

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I need to draw at least a slight, slight, curtains. Yeah.

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Too much light. But then you don't see the river.

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Well Is it okay if I sit

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here? Unfortunately, I only

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see a negative picture of you. Just like the outline.

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My camera doesn't work like that. It's sorry? Can you move a little

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bit over here to your right? Or we can close this curtain.

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Yeah. We could try. We could try. We can try.

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Yeah. As long as you don't need the river, it should be

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Yeah. But then do you have enough light or we need to turn on some

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light for you? That that one would be great. Yeah. That should

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totally do it. Yeah. The the other thing we can do in the post production,

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so we have enough light. We have enough sun from you.

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Okay. And so we can You think it's okay? How

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about the chair? Is it, sufficiently high? I'll

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adjust my camera. Don't worry about that. You can lower it.

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Yeah. Okay. Does that look

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good? I think so. I'll get a little bit

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closer. Did you change the height of this or no? No, no. Because that can

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also, we can change that also.

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I lost just one of the screws here in my tripod when I

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was traveling with the train here, so I always have to make sure it doesn't

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fall off the other side. But the the

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is it stable? It's okay. At least so, yeah. Just make

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sure that it's straight, because it looks a little tilted.

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Yeah, exactly. Better? Now it's better, I think.

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Yeah. You have a good eye for that. Well, you're a physicist, right?

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Now we also do have a recording.

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Looks good? Looks amazing.

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Okay. And now I'll send my piece. Hello. In terms

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of the light, is it good this way or you want it close, in this

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direction? A little bit more too too. Yeah. You can tilt it. Yeah.

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It's up I don't know how it looks. I

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can actually turn it around. You see here? Ah.

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But then there is some light on top of me. Where is that coming

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from? I think from the curtains, from the view, between the

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curtains. Because that doesn't look good, actually.

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Okay. So if we do that

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Okay. Maybe now it's better.

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Yeah. Now now it's better. Definitely. I'm okay. Excellent.

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Okay. Let me do one clap.

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That's the sign where I can synchronize it. Hello

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and welcome everybody to another episode of Stalowave. Io.

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Today, we are attending Curis 2024, and

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we just got an amazing interview guest, professor

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Alfi Loeb from Harvard University. Very welcome

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to Startuprate.l. Can you briefly introduce

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yourself? It's a great pleasure to join you. My name

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is Avi Loeb. Fundamentally, I'm a curious farm

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boy. I was born on a farm and was connected to

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nature since a young age and became a scientist

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so that I can answer questions about nature without

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needing to listen to the adults in the room telling me the answers,

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telling me their opinions. And I

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was chair of the astronomy department at Harvard for 9 years,

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the longest serving chair. I also served as the

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founding director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative, and I'm

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the current director of Harvard's Institute For Theory and

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Computation. I worked primarily on

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theoretical astrophysics, studies of black

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holes, the first stars in the universe, and most recently

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the search for extraterrestrial intelligence because we don't find it

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here on earth. That's already

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pretty exciting. Since you are a

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scientist, what do you believe are the most exciting

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future avenues for scientific research? Well,

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there are some fundamental questions that we don't have the answer to.

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I call these the known unknowns. In other

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words, these are things we know that we don't know.

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For example, what most of the matter in the universe is,

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85% of the matter is of a substance that

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we never identified, never detected. And

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so we are still in the dark, and it's called dark matter.

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There is also the substance that makes up the

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vacuum. You might think the vacuum is empty, but

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in fact not so. It turns out that there is some energy

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per unit volume and that is called dark

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energy. And we know that it exists because the universe is not just

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expanding, but, its expansion is accelerating

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over time. And, that means that there is a

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repulsive gravity pushing the universe apart.

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And the question is, what is the origin of this dark

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energy? Why is it there? Why isn't the vacuum

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completely empty, for example?

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And we also know that, if we go back in time, there

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was a beginning to the universe, the big bang,

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and we don't know what happened before the big bang. These

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are fundamental questions that we don't have answers to. We also

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don't know what happens inside the black hole.

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Where does the matter that falls into a black hole, where does it

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collect? Does it collect at the center or

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does it go somewhere else? Like water going down the

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sewer of our homes.

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So these are just some fundamental questions about the universe, but there

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are many more that I can mention.

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And I think the most fundamental in my mind is

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where did we come from? What was there before the Big Bang?

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And in particular, I'm curious to know whether the

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Big Bang was created artificially by a scientist.

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Because if we ever understand how to unify quantum mechanics and

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gravity, we might have quantum gravity engineers

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that would have the recipe for creating a baby

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universe in the laboratory. That are

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all very interesting avenues for future research.

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What emerging technologies do you think will have the

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greatest impact on scientific advancement in the next few years?

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Talking about the instruments you can use for research.

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Well, in terms of instruments, of course, the most

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important is computers, if you call it

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instruments. I mean, that improves our cognitive

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abilities, and artificial intelligence, machine learning

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are entering into the scientific study of large data

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sets and

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also going through data that the

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human brain is unable to

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process and that already starts

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entering physics and biology.

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But I see a great future ahead for artificial

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intelligence machine learning. There is an interesting

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question of whether those computer

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programs will be able to identify

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trends in data and figure out new laws of

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nature that we have never figured out before. So will they

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behave like scientists? And if they do, will

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I be out of a job? For the near

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future, I don't think so. I still think that

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at least many people complain that AI systems are hallucinating.

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I wouldn't hold that against them because I have a lot of summer

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interns that are hallucinating, but, they are

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not at the level where they can innovate, the way scientists,

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human scientists do, but perhaps in the future they will.

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And, I'm open minded about that. I think that will be the biggest breakthrough

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when science will be done,

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with, the aid of AI. And then the question is who to give the

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Nobel prize? It's already a good question right now

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because there

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was a

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major problem in biology that was resolved

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by AI. And, you know,

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the question is who should be rewarded for

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that.

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Now, maybe you remember, but it was

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what's the name of this British AI company that

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solved

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the structure of

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proteins. The protein folding problem, yeah. That

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was it. I mean, I can say it if you want.

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Protein folding, it was solved by,

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a company, an AI company in England.

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But I forgot the name of the company.

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Protein Folding.

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Here it says deep mind? Yes, deep mind. Exactly. Deep mind.

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So I can just say it and then you can. Yeah.

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For example, there is already a precedent of the DeepMind

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company being able to solve the

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protein folding challenge

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that was really very difficult to solve for

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human scientists, but this AI code

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that they developed went through so many configurations that it

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was able to figure out how

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proteins fold when they have very big

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molecules. So that's just one example where a major

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challenge in science was resolved by AI already.

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And, we're talking about research, research instruments,

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and of course everybody here is interested in startups who are listening to

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this. Where would you see the role in startups and how they

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can contribute? You've already hinted at AI. Do do you

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see a big potential there? Yeah. The most important

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thing about the innovation is that one should,

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take risks because very often the most important

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breakthroughs are not recognized ahead of time. Otherwise they would

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be accomplished quickly. And so you need to explore

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territories that are unknown and very often you

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fail. But you do that because there is a chance that you will be

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successful. And if you do you are successful, it would be a

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major advance. And so having startups is

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one way of exploring the land of the unknown,

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where, people with innovative ideas

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try to materialize them and make them real and,

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very often they fail. But it's part of the process

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of arriving at important breakthroughs. And that's

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why startups are so important. The same is true about

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the science. I do think that funding should be given, a small

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fraction of funding should be given to risky propositions that

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are not proven and, nevertheless, could

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change the landscape of scientific discovery.

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So startups play this role in the commercial sector where they

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explore opportunities and I'm

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very much in the view of letting many flowers bloom

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because you never know which would be the most beautiful flower ever

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seen. Mhmm. You kind of,

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hit already next 2 questions that I had on my list.

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We talked about startups and working together in scientific

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research. What are the main challenges that startups face when

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trying to contribute to scientific research?

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Surprisingly, there is a lot of conservatism

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in science, even though it's supposed to be

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open minded endeavor with blue sky

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research in the sense that it's not supposed to be applied.

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But what happens is that there is another

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factor that enters the calculation, and that's the human

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ego, which is very prominent in academia.

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And, on the one hand you have scientists who

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are driven by their ego to get honors, awards, recognition,

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and are building echo chambers around them of students and

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postdocs. But at the same time they are

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pushing back against the new ideas because they

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got their stature, their position, their status, their

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recognition based on past knowledge. And so when

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they see new knowledge emerging, for example, when they

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see anomalies, deviations, outliers

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from what is known, they often dismiss it or shove it under the

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rug or say the uncertainties are too big. They

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basically raise enough dust in the air to claim that they

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don't see anything new. And they do it because they

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protect their territory of past knowledge.

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And unfortunately that has the negative

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effect of suppressing innovation because when young people see

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that, they worry about their careers, their job

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opportunities, and and as a result, they don't take risks.

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They don't pay attention to anomalies. They don't explore

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ideas that deviate from what the senior established

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people already, announced as valid

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areas of research. And it gets to a point where the

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theoretical physics community, for example, has been working

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for 50 years on, how to unify

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quantum mechanics and gravity in the form of string theory, which

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is a theory that is mathematically

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very sophisticated, but has not been demonstrated

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to be true by any experiment. And doing that for

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50 years means that the entire community is

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basically driven by societal forces. What

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by some leaders that say this is interesting for us to

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explore without any experimental verification. We know from the history of

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science that you always need evidence to guide you and you may be going

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in the wrong direction. Nobody would have forecasted quantum mechanics to be

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real, unless experiments would lead us in that direction.

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We still don't understand quantum mechanics. So my point is that

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we really need to be humble, in physics and let

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experiments guide us. And we can have a lot of ideas,

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but at the same time we should allow

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them to be ruled out by experiments and then move on. And if experiments

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are not available, there is, we should let

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other ideas, appear. And

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that's not the case in theoretical physics at the moment. There is only one

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mainstream even though it didn't get support from data.

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And so I see that as driven

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by intellectual gymnastics, by people trying to show off, just

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show that they are smart by societal forces, not

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the raw curiosity about nature that is supposed to lead

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science. And it's not just in theoretical

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physics, it's in many other areas where,

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progress was suppressed. I mean, even when,

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Alfred Wegener realized in 1910

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that the continents perhaps were all

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together based on the fact

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that they match like a jigsaw puzzle. His theory was

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ridiculed by experts for decades and he died

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in the thirties thinking that it will never be

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accepted. But then in the 19 fifties, evidence about

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rocks and about vegetation confirmed it. That's a

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classic example where the progress was delayed by 40

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years. And the same is true in many other frontiers,

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where the correct ideas were simply ridiculed by

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experts that wanted to maintain their,

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intellectual turf. Mhmm. Talk about

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investments in research here. How important is investment in

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technology and science for the future of research? Technology,

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goes hand in hand with science because fundamental science,

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allows us to understand nature. And then once we understand

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nature we can use it for our

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purposes. And, the know how

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of how to use nature for what we want to accomplish comes

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from fundamental science and therefore technology always

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makes use of fundamental science and, that's

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why science and technology should be funded.

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Now technology is using what we know about science for

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the benefit of humanity. That's extremely important,

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because once, for example, we developed the

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computer after understanding how to make transistors,

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then, and that came from understanding quantum mechanics,

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you know, so everything is entangled, but the new technologies

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that were developed allow science to progress

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much more because those technologies can be used in

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sensors that are taking data,

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and they allow us to do computations, meaning processing

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of the data. So I think it's extremely important to support

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both fundamental science and technology

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because they progress hand in hand. The strange

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thing is that so much money was made in the

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commercial sector that you might find that innovation,

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actually happens more routinely in companies these days

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than in academia, or maybe they sort of go

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at similar levels in the case of

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quantum computers or in the case of AI,

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whereas it was supposed to be the responsibility

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of academia to really promote innovation

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much more than people who are aiming to make

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money. Talking about the

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impact on society, how do you envision new

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scientific advancements impacting everyday life and

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society as a whole? I think,

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science and technology is what makes us look like an

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intelligent civilization because if you read the news

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every day, you realize, you know, we are doing a lot of foolish

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things. We invest $2,400,000,000,000

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every year worldwide in military

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budgets, meaning in conflicts, in trying to kill each

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other. That makes very little sense.

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We engage routinely in zero sum games,

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conflicts over territories,

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whether, you know, these are just territories on the rock that was left

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over from the formation of the sun. It's a tiny real estate

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that we are focusing on. There is so much more real estate in

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interstellar space if we were to look up.

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And the intelligent thing to do is

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actually for us to work together, to collaborate, not to engage

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in conflicts because science is an infinite

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sum game. It's not a zero sum game. If we

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gain knowledge, everyone benefits from it.

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So what I argue for is science and technology

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are much better than politics, Because politics is

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very often a zero sum game, whereas science and technology

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are infinite sum games.

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Coming close to the end. Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

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What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs

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looking to enter the tech and science startup scene?

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My advice is follow your passion and do

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not do not listen to the adults in the room

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because the adults in the room first may not have

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good ideas about the future, and secondly,

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they may not understand how innovative your

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ideas are. And so take the future in

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your hands and shape it to be

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better than the past. And that is the approach of a

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kid that, is independent.

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And, you know, that's the approach that I like. Being

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62 years old, I'm still the kid that I was

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early on in my life, I realized

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that it's much better to do the right

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thing than to listen to people in the room telling you

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what is right to do. And I very much encourage

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young people to stay young in spirit and

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follow their passion and shape the world to be better because there is

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a lot of room for improvement.

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I would just need to

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start another video because there's a limit of 20 minutes per

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recording. Okay. We just go to the last question. Mhmm.

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Looking ahead, in your opinion, what will be the most significant

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scientific breakthrough in the next decade and how can

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startups position themselves to be part of it?

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In my mind, the most important development

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in the future would be artificial intelligence taking over our

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life.

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And perhaps augmenting human intelligence.

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If we have a way of connecting the human

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brain to a computer chip. I

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call it putting a chip on our shoulder. It's already being

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done, but in the future it might

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be even more common.

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And so the question is, what will it do? And

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artificial intelligence, at some point will have enough parameters

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to, have more capacity

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than the human brain. We have a 100,000,000,000

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neurons in our brain and about

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10,000 times more synapses that connect the neurons.

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And artificial intelligence systems as of

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now have somewhat less than that, but they grow in

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the number of neurons in the artificial neural networks.

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They grow exponentially with characteristic

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doubling time of less than a couple of years. And

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so within the next 10, 20 years, there

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is a good chance that AI systems will

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have more parameters than the human brain, than the number

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of synapses in the human brain. So at that point,

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phenomena that we attribute to humans such as,

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consciousness or free will, might

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be visible when we interact with those AI systems.

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The other thing is that, if you go to graveyards,

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what you see, the tradition, is putting a

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tombstone, above the grave of a

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person. And if you think about it, that's a very primitive approach.

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Basically, a stone on which you engrave in a

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few words what the person was about. And so the

398
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entire lifetime of a person is summarized in a few words. And there

399
00:25:49.235 --> 00:25:52.920
are 2 problems with that. 1 is that this message is static. The

400
00:25:52.920 --> 00:25:56.760
amount of information in it is not

401
00:25:56.760 --> 00:26:00.140
changing, and also that it's very little information.

402
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Now granted there were a 117,000,000,000

403
00:26:04.825 --> 00:26:08.125
people on earth in the last 10000000 years

404
00:26:08.640 --> 00:26:12.420
and information was not a priority. I mean, we know that because

405
00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:16.180
some traditions burn the bodies of dead people.

406
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And that is basically an act of destroying the genetic information

407
00:26:21.105 --> 00:26:24.625
about the person. So, for example, the new

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00:26:24.625 --> 00:26:28.180
horizons spacecraft that went to visit,

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Pluto included a small box with the ashes

410
00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:35.785
of Clyde Tombaugh, the person who discovered

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00:26:36.005 --> 00:26:39.545
Pluto. And if extraterrestrials were to find this box,

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they would really wonder about the barbaric

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00:26:43.365 --> 00:26:47.030
act of our civilization in destroying any

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information about the discoverer that it wants to commemorate.

415
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It there would be much more information in a hair

416
00:26:55.015 --> 00:26:58.615
taken from Tan Bao's body because it will have the DNA information

417
00:26:58.615 --> 00:27:02.395
there than in the box of ashes. So that was not an intelligent

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00:27:02.455 --> 00:27:06.170
thing to do, to put a box full of no information about the person

419
00:27:06.170 --> 00:27:09.790
you want to commemorate. But if you think about it,

420
00:27:09.930 --> 00:27:13.315
in the future, tombstones might be replaced

421
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by AI avatars, meaning, there will

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00:27:17.535 --> 00:27:21.139
be an AI system training on all the

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00:27:21.139 --> 00:27:24.840
digital information that we leave behind. Voice,

424
00:27:25.059 --> 00:27:28.905
text, videos, And once a person

425
00:27:28.905 --> 00:27:32.585
dies, this AI system could represent the

426
00:27:32.585 --> 00:27:36.320
person and imitate the person in interaction with

427
00:27:36.320 --> 00:27:40.160
living people. So in my mind, an AI avatar

428
00:27:40.160 --> 00:27:43.905
of this type would be much better than a tombstone to

429
00:27:43.905 --> 00:27:47.665
have over my grave. And in fact, there is a CEO of a

430
00:27:47.665 --> 00:27:51.490
startup that contacted me recently and

431
00:27:51.490 --> 00:27:55.270
asked if I'm allowing his new company

432
00:27:56.050 --> 00:27:59.765
to make a replica of me. And, of

433
00:27:59.765 --> 00:28:03.465
course, there are risks in allowing that, but I agreed

434
00:28:03.525 --> 00:28:07.070
because I see it as an AI avatar that

435
00:28:07.389 --> 00:28:11.149
if I'm asked in the future to participate in podcasts like

436
00:28:11.149 --> 00:28:14.909
this one, I could send my avatar to answer all the questions.

437
00:28:14.909 --> 00:28:18.755
If it's good enough, it will do a good job, And that would save

438
00:28:18.755 --> 00:28:22.595
me time. Especially if

439
00:28:22.595 --> 00:28:26.375
I die, this avatar would give a much better representation

440
00:28:27.029 --> 00:28:30.730
of my body of work than a tombstone.

441
00:28:32.710 --> 00:28:36.415
It was such a pleasure having you here. And the next time you send

442
00:28:36.415 --> 00:28:40.195
your avatar, I send my avatar, and then make a recording together. Okay?

443
00:28:41.295 --> 00:28:44.195
Thank you very much, professor Loeb. Thanks for having me.

444
00:28:46.640 --> 00:28:50.240
Tada. We're good. Okay. Excellent. Thank you very

445
00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:51.300
much. That went