From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We see math as code and code as math. The real magic, and the key transition, comes from combining AI, programming languages, and mathematics—bringing all three pillars together. What we envision is humans using informal reasoning and intuition as a powerful guide, with formal systems then verifying those ideas. That interplay across layers is, I think, the real magic of combining multiple levels of abstraction.
Many organisms have a pattern of temporal change and senescence that is reproducible and predictable for the species and gender — clearly with a huge genetic component. For example, the longevity of rats is 3.8 years while their 'cousins' the mole-rats live up to 30 years. These timings are probably optimized to fit with the ecology patterns of the species — predation, litter size, environmental variation, food abundance, etc.
Emotions are perception, but perception of the body itself. You see something scary like a bear, that triggers all kinds of physiological changes in your body. Your heart rate increases, your breath quickens, and the perception of those changes is the emotion. Emotion is another kind of controlled hallucination but geared to the interior of the body rather than the outside world.
Cooking is about precision, but it's also about understanding the science behind why ingredients behave the way they do. You can't innovate without understanding the fundamentals.
Asserting that one is healthy without being fit is a tough proposition. The hard truth is that a lack of fitness tends to correlate with subpar health, and this isn't a bold claim on my part – it's a conclusion that is well-supported by objective research.
Within each of us is a deep, complex network of capillaries, veins and arteries which extend a distance equivalent to more than 3 times the circumference of the Earth, and because our body has lost its conditioning to nature, our hearts have to pump 20-30 times a minute more than if we regularly exposed our body to cold water.
Interaction is paramount for cognitive development, enhancing intelligence through the growth of brain cells and the formation of new neurotransmitter connections. This concept of active engagement contrasts sharply with more passive forms of media consumption.
If there are no other complex biological systems in a galaxy like the Milky Way, then there's no meaning in that galaxy at all—so the galaxy is meaningless if there are no complex biological systems in it. We bring meaning to it.
Open-source evidence is essentially public information available to anyone and can be traced back to its original source. We've always maintained transparency in our methodologies and the step-by-step processes we employ.
I remember being on a spacewalk and had a few seconds to see a view that humans were not meant to see. It was like I was hearing from God. But then, I had to get back to work.
By measuring skulls from 400 years ago, you'll find that our ancestors had straight teeth, prognathic faces, and very wide jaws. Compare these to modern skulls, which show very slender, narrow faces and small jaws. It's all there, plainly evident, yet it seems as though nobody is really talking about this or acknowledging the rapid changes that have occurred over just a couple of hundred years.
In 2010, Alibaba started talking about itself as an ecosystem and it invited many of the world's top biologists to come and lecture on how plants, water and animals all interact – and how that could teach a business about how to interact with its' own marketplace.