All language subtitles for Nobel Minds 2024 - English -generated)

warm welcome to the Royal Palace and the

badot library here you will find over

100,000 books a collection that used to

belong to previous kings and queens of

the House of badot offering a glimpse

into their history and

interests however today we're here to

listen to our esteemed Nobel laurates to

their insights their expertise and their

invaluable contributions to science and

economics once again a very warm welcome

to the Royal Palace in this program

we'll be looking at the potential and

pitfalls of artificial intelligence why

some countries are richer than others

and what a worm tells us about the

origins of life

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

your Royal Highness thank you for that

very warm welcome to your palace here in

Stockholm and uh Nobel laurates this is

the first time that some of you have

been brought together in discussion on

um television and we're also joined by

some of your family and friends as well

as students from here in Stockholm um

before we start let's just give them a

really big round of applause renewed

congratulations to all of

you I guess you're all getting very used

to the sound of Applause now aren't you

so tell me um how has winning the Nobel

Prize changed your life uh who shall I

start with

Gary well the level of attention is

something that's a

THX what it ever was for other Awards

it's you know the Nobel is a it's a

brand and it's 120 something years of

History to

completely uh mesmerizing Daron one of

the uh economists what about you how's

it changed your life I mean I'm here

well being in Stockholm for one week in

December that's a life-changing event

but I am amazingly grateful and happy

honored and I'll take it as it comes

your diary is going to be super full

from now on you're going to be running

around from lecture to lecture and guest

appearances so Professor Jeffrey Hinton

what about you um yeah it makes an

amazing change I get huge amounts of

email asking me to do things um I

luckily have an assistant who deals with

most of it um I get stopped for selfies

in the street which is um it's very

annoying but if it went away I'd be

disappointed but also you've been

teaching for many years at the

University of Toronto and you said after

you won the Nobel Prize They At Last

gave you an office yes they didn't think

I was worth an office before

that James um I've noticed that people

take what I say much more seriously I've

always proceeded on the assumption that

no one was ever actually listening to

anything I said so now I have to really

choose my words carefully yeah and does

that extend to your family members as

well or do they listen to what you say

now um I'd have to think about that

one David Baker uh well actually a

highlight has really been this week and

having all my my family and and

colleagues here it's been a great

celebration and um yeah I've had to give

up email which has been positive um and

I've learned to completely avoid selfies

so um but uh on the whole it's been very

exciting and you don't travel light do

you if I could put it that way just

remind me how many people have you come

with to Stockholm uh 185 I think that

must be a record I'm going to have to

check but I'm pretty sure that must be a

record well it's quite a party you're

going to have and uh sir Demis hassabis

um well of course it's been an honor of

a lifetime and um to tell you the truth

it hasn't really sunk in yet so uh maybe

I'll do that over the Christmas holidays

um but it's also you know an amazing

platform to talk about your subject more

widely and have to think about that

responsibility in the coming years mhm

okay let's turn now to the awards that

were made this year and let's start with

the physics prize and here's a brief

summary of the research behind that

prize this year's physics prize rewards

research that laid the foundations for

the development of AI enabling machine

learning with artificial neural networks

John hopfield created a structure that

can store and reconstruct information

Jeffrey Hinton built on his ideas and

made it possible to create completely

new content with the help of AI

so-called generative AI this opens up

numerous potential areas of use for

instance by providing techniques for

calculating and predicting the

properties of molecules and materials

their research has also prompted

extensive discussion of the ethics

around how the technology is developed

and used

so Jeffrey Hinton you actually wanted to

find out how the human brain works so

how does it work we still don't know

we've made lots of efforts to figure out

how the brain figures out how to change

the strength of connections between two

neurons we've learned a lot from these

big systems that we've built which is if

you could find any way to know whether

you should increase or decrease the

strength and then you just did did that

for all of the connections all 100

trillion connections and you just kept

doing that with lots of examples

slightly increasing or decreasing the

strength then you would get fantastic

systems like gb4 these big chatbots

learn thousands of times more than any

one person so they can compress all of

human knowledge into only a trillion

connections and we have a 100 trillion

connections and none of us know much but

that's but that's interesting he says

speak for yourself but anyway he does

know a lot actually but compared with

gbt so it make you you make it sound

though as if this is the best computer

and it's never been bettered we don't

quite know how it works and yet you also

say that artificial intelligence

artificial neuron networks could

outsmart humans oh I think we've been

bettered already if you look at gbd4 it

knows much more than any one person it's

like a not very good expert at

everything um so it's got much more

knowledge in far fewer connections and

we've been bettered in that sense do you

agree with that Miss well look I think

so I mean just going back to your

initial question um originally in with

with the with the field of AI there's a

lot of inspiration taken from

architectures of the brain including

neur networks and an algorithm called

reinforcement learning um then we've

gone into a kind of engineering phase

now where we're scaling these systems up

to massive size all of these large

Foundation models or language models uh

and there's many leading models now and

I think we'll we'll end up in the next

phase where we'll start using these AI

models to analyze our own brains and to

help with Neuroscience as one of the

sciences that AI helps with so actually

I think it's going of come sort of Full

Circle neurosciences sort of inspired

modern Ai and then AI will come back and

um help us I think understand what's

special about the brain will machine

intelligence outsmart humans I mean what

what kind of time frame are you talking

about are you saying it's already

happened so in terms of the amount of

knowledge you can have in one system

it's clearly already happened right GB

knows much more than any human yeah and

it it does make stuff up but it still

knows a lot yeah um in terms of the

timing I think all the leading experts I

know people like Demis um they believe

it's going to happen they believe these

machines are going to get smarter than

people at general intelligence and they

just differ in how long they think

that's going to take well we're going to

start being bossed around by machines

and robots is that what your suggestion

well that's the question um can you have

things more intelligent than you and you

still staying control once they're more

intelligent than us will they be the

bosses or will we still be the bosses

and what do you think I think we need to

do a lot of research right now on how we

Remain the bosses you didn't actually

answer that question dearis do you think

that machine intelligence could outsmart

outwits to the extent that actually they

start ruling the roost no well look I

think for now so I disagree with with

with with Jeff on the fact that today's

systems are still not that good they're

impressive they can talk to us and other

things they acquire a lot of knowledge

um but they're pretty weak at a lot of

things they're not very good at planning

yet or reasoning um or uh imagining and

you know creativity those kinds of

things but they they are going to get

better rapidly so it depends now on how

we design those systems and how we um

decide to sort of as a society deploy

those systems and build those systems

all right so we'll look at what we do

about it but gentlemen this is a very

big fundamental question Gary and then

you yeah I think you're overrating

humans in this so we make up a lot of

untruths as well and uh there's so many

examples of false ideas that get

propagated and and it's getting worse of

course with social networks so the

standards for AI to do well it is it's

pretty low you humanity is way

overrated right okay dve humans I I'll

I'll take a contrarian view here um you

know humans since the really the

beginning of civilization have have

created things that are um better at

them than in almost every domain you

know cars can go infinitely faster

planes can fly humans can't um you know

for a long time we've had computers that

can do calculations that humans can't do

um Demis has developed you know programs

that solve go and chess so we're very

comfortable I think with machines being

able to do things that we can't do chat

GP you know gp4 um has much more

knowledge than any human being I think

we just take this kind of thing in

stride I don't think we worry about

losing control so I guess that's the key

issue that we know that computers can do

a lot that we can't but it's question of

control I mean planes fly but it's the

human pilot who's in the cockpit

assisted by technology obviously and we

still drive cars yeah um what about you

two The Economist where do you stand on

this question I'll take the opposite

position to Gary I think humans are

incredibly underrated right

now human adaptability fluidity

creativity but also Community I think

humans are just amazing social animals

we learn as collectives and as

collectives we are able to do a huge

number of things in very quick

succession so I would worry about those

people controlling AI before AI itself

turning on us humankind's greatest enemy

is humankind the sort of do evils that

we see in Popular Science fic who think

they're doing good I wouldn't put those

past doing huge damage yeah I would

agree I mean as the tools get more

powerful I think the worry is not the

machines themselves but people using the

tools misinformation autonomous military

weapons all kinds of things humans have

a great track record of inventing things

you know that jeopardize the human race

such as nuclear weapons I mean just

think about how close we've been to

obliterating the planet with the Cuba

Cuban Missile Crisis

and you know so so we've done it already

we can do it again in a different form

or you know with a diff so so so I guess

I would I would like to ask Demis you

know I I I take the point of view

everyone's saying yes we need to

regulate we need to but who has the

incentive to do that I don't you know

like it's one thing to say that but but

I I suspect the politicians and the

governments they're just playing catchup

that you know the thing is moving faster

than they can get their hands on and who

in the private sector they just want to

make money and get this stuff out there

and so where where are the incentives to

actually do something about that yeah

well look I mean there's obviously the

reason that many of us are working on AI

is because we want to bring to bear all

of the incredible benefits that can

happen with AI from in medicine but also

productivity and so on but I agree with

you there is a going to be a kind of

coordination problem where um I think

there has to be some form of

international cooperation on these

issues I think we've got a few years to

get our act together on that and I think

leading researchers and leading um labs

in industry and Academia need to come

together to kind of demand that sort of

cooperation as we get closer to

artificial general intelligence um and

have more information about what that

might look like but I'm I'm I'm a big

believer in human Ingenuity and um as

David says you know we're unbelievably

adaptive as a species and you know look

at our modern technology we already use

today that we sort of seamlessly the

younger generation just seamlessly

adapts to and takes as a given and I

think that's also happened with these

chat Bots which you know 25 years ago we

would have been amazed those of us in

this in the area of AI if you were to

transport the Technologies back we have

today back then um and yet we've all um

Society seems to have sort of seamlessly

adapted to that as well Jeffrey Hinton

do you see that happening you've raised

the alarm Bells about humans becoming

subservient in a way to to machines um

do you think that there's enough of a

debate at an international level do we

need more Ethics in science to debate

these kind of issues do you see that

happening so to distinguish two kinds of

risks from AI one is relatively

shortterm and that's to do with Bad

actors and that's much more urgent um

that were that's going to be obvious

with lethal autonomous weapons which all

the big defense departments are

developing and they have no intention of

not doing it the European regulations on

AI say none of these regulations apply

to military uses of AI so they clearly

intend to go ahead with all that and

there's many other short-term risks like

cyber crime um generating bad path

fake videos surveillance all of those

short-term risks are very serious and we

need to take them seriously and it's

going to be very hard to get

collaboration on those then the

long-term risk that these things will

get more intelligent than us and they'll

be agents they'll act in the world and

they'll decide that they can achieve

their goals better which we gave them

the goals and they can achieve them

better if they just brush us aside and

get on with it um that particular risk

the existential threat is a place where

people will cooperate and that's because

because we're all in the same boat

nobody wants these AIS to take over from

people and so the Chinese Communist

party doesn't want AI to be in control

it wants the Chinese Communist party to

be in control you know for somebody

who's described as the Godfather of AI

you sound quite a bit down on it in so

many ways well it's potentially very

dangerous it's potentially very good and

potentially very dangerous and I you

know I think we should be making a huge

effort now into making sure we can get

the good aspects of of it without the

bad possibilities and it's not going to

happen automatically like he says well

we've got some students in the audience

here and I know that some of them want

to pose a question to you Lau prashan

yadava from the kth AI Society your

question please I'd like to know in what

ways AI can be put to use uh in bringing

truly democratic values and bringing

economic equalities to the

world so in what way can AI promote

democ Ry and equality in the world who's

going to answer that

one I can start off I mean I I think um

as we've discussed actually for most of

the conversation you I think powerful

Technologies in of themselves are um

kind of like neutral they could go good

or bad depending on what we as society

decide to do with them and I think AI is

just the latest example of that in that

case maybe it's going to be the most

powerful thing and most important that

we get right but it's also on the

optimistic end I think it's one of the

challenges it's the only challenge I can

think of that could be useful to address

the other challenges if we get it right

so um so that's the key um I don't know

you know democracy and other things

that's better out scope maybe it's for

the economist to talk about well I'll

I'll just say I think AI is an

informational tool and it would be most

useful and most uh enriching for us in

every respect if it's useful reliable

and enabling information for everybody

not just for somebody sitting at top to

manipulate others but enabling for

Citizens for example enabling for

workers of different skills to do their

tasks all of those are aspects of

democratization but we still have a long

way to go for that sort of tool to be

available in a widespread way and not be

manipulable let's go for another

question now from our audience Al karini

papasu from the Stockholm School of

Economics your question please uh hello

thank you uh my question regards how do

you think philosophy and science coexist

um we have a very deep need for more

philosophy and great endon perhaps

There's an opportunity for some new

great philosophers to appear um to help

us through the next phase of

technological development um in my view

that that is going to require depending

on your definition of philosophy um some

uh uh deep thinking and and wider

Thinking Beyond the technology itself

yeah absolutely I think actually one of

the things with the advances in AI

we will need to understand much better

what makes us conscious what makes us

human there might be some stumbling

blocks that will make us delve deeper

into some of these questions but even if

advances in AI are very fast we will

need to question our own existence and

what makes that more meaningful

certainly we need ethics but the kind of

philosophy we don't need I think is

philosophers talking about Consciousness

and sentience and subjective experience

I think understanding those is a

scientific problem and we'll be better

off without

philosophers anybody else on this no all

right thank you very much but let's turn

now to um some of the work that has

contributed to the award for the

chemistry prize this year for Demis

cabis David Baker along with John jumper

and let's just get a brief idea of the

research that led to the chemistry Nobel

Prize award

the ability to figure out quickly what

proteins look like and to create

proteins of your own has fundamentally

changed the development of chemistry

biology and medical science by creating

the AI program Alpha fold 2 this year's

chemistry laurates Demis hassabis and

John jumper have made it possible to

calculate the shape of proteins and

thereby understand how the building

block of life Life

Works the second half of this year's

award goes to David Baker for what's

been described as the almost impossible

feat of building entirely new kinds of

proteins useful not least for producing

what could block the SARS Cove 2 virus

making new proteins can simply open up

whole new

worlds so let's start with you David

Baker you've been applauded for creating

these new

proteins and actually you didn't even

want to become a scientist in the first

place so it's quite amazing that You'

now got this Nobel Prize but just tell

us what kind of um applications

implications do you think your work has

uh led to or could lead to yeah I think

following up on our previous discussion

um I think I can really talk about the

the really real power of AI to do good

so um some of the proteins in nature uh

solve all the problems that came up

during Evolution and we face all kinds

of new problems in the world today you

know we live longer so neur

neurodegenerative diseases are important

we heating up and pling the planet and

these are really existential problems

and uh now um you know maybe with

Evolution another 100 million years

proteins would evolve that would help

address these but with protein design we

can now design proteins to uh try and

deal with these today and so we're

designing proteins completely new

proteins to do things ranging from

breaking down plastic that's been

released into the environment to um uh

combating neurod degenerative disease

and and cancer and de sis of course

you're well known for being a co-founder

of Deep Mind the machine Learning

Company and uh I mean you're a

chess uh Champion you're a child prodigy

really um you know making video games

when you're only in your team so here

you are you've got a Nobel Prize under

your belt as well um but you've already

actually started using the research that

for which you were awarded the prize

along with John jumper that's right so

we we are with our own collaborations um

uh we've been uh working with uh

institutes like the drugs for neglected

diseases part of the who uh and uh

indeed because if you reduce the cost of

of understanding what these proteins do

you can go straight to drug design um

that can help uh with a lot of the

diseases that affect the poorer

countries of the world where big farmer

won't go because there isn't a return to

be made so but in fact it affects uh you

know a larger part of the of the world's

population so um I think these these

Technologies actually going back to our

earlier conversation will help a lot of

the poorer parts of the world by making

the cost of Discovery so much um so much

lower you know that it's within the

scope then of Nos and nonprofits anybody

else want to chip in on this I mean I

mean obviously I think this is just an

amazing opportunity for science anything

we can use to improve the scientific

process can have can have not

necessarily will have have can have

great benefits but that doesn't change

some of the tenor of the earlier

conversation great tools also still

create great risks Fritz harber you know

a Nobel Prize winner for work on which

we depend every day with uh synthetic

fertilizers you know also made chemical

weapons for the German Army in World War

one and directly causing the deaths of

hundreds of thousands of people so the

responsibility of scientist with

powerful tools is no

less we're seeing skepticism in all

sorts of positions of power now aren't

we um all over the world is is that

something that worries you that policy

makers don't perhaps understand the full

complexity of science be climate science

or or you know other difficult

issues well I would say it's also part

of our responsibility that we have to

work

harder in getting people to trust

science I think there is much greater

skepticism about

science and I don't know I don't think

anybody knows exactly why but it is part

of the general polarization but it's

also probably the way that we are not

properly communicating the uncertainties

in science the disagreements in science

what we are sure and what we are not

sure so I think we do have a lot more

responsibilities in building the

Public's trust in the knowledge that's

usable in order for that knowledge to be

seamlessly applicable to good things

Demis and then maybe Gary yeah yeah I

think um I I agree with that and uh I

think in the in just in the realm of AI

I feel like um one of the benefits of uh

the sort of chatbot era is AI is much

more than just chatbots you know it's

scientific tools and other things and

and but that it has brought it to the

Public's Consciousness and also made

governments more aware of it and sort of

brought it out of the realm of Science

Fiction and I think that's good because

I think in the last couple of years I've

seen a lot more convening of government

Civil Society um academic institutes to

discuss the broader uh issues beyond the

Technologies which I totally agree with

by the way including things like what

new institutes do we need how do do we

distribute the the benefits of this uh

uh widely um that's a societal problem

it's not a technal technological problem

and um we need to have a broad debate

about that and we've started seeing that

we've had a couple of um Global safety

Summits about a one in the UK one in

South Korea next one's in France um and

I think we need actually a higher

intensity and more rapid discussion

around those issues Gary do you want to

come in here yeah I the engine of

Western economies in terms of the

revolution in the last 50 years has been

technology and and uh science and

Silicon Valley and that sort of thing in

terms of and and um if you wanted to if

you're an enemy of the West you want to

destabilize that and so I think this

whole Social Network I don't trust

technology I don't trust any of the

Enterprises I don't think that's evolved

naturally I think that's been

manipulated by bad agents and uh we have

to be aware of that which bad agents I I

think it's Russia and Iran I I don't

think it's stupid to say that and uh

politics yeah they're not not looking in

our best interests I think there's other

bad agents too I probably the energy

industry would like you not to believe

in climate change just like the tobacco

industry knew very well that cigarettes

cause cancer but they hid that fact for

a long time you know if we cannot trust

the energy companies we cannot trust

pharmaceutical companies tobacco

companies can we trust the tech

companies which are extremely

concentrated and if AI is so important

what

about uh the power of tech companies I

don't know why ask me I don't work for a

tech so you have an objective opinion no

no but that's that's one aspect of the

risks of AI that we didn't talk

about okay well but just to take a more

positive point of view again I mean

despite the skepticism of about science

and certainly um you don't have to look

far in the US it should be pointed out

that it was the response to covid with

the MRNA vaccines was truly miraculous

it was a technology that really had not

been proven at at all and in very little

time because it was it was this thing

about having a common enemy and and a

threat um you know we were able to

mobilize very quickly try something

really completely new and bring it to

the point where it uh did a huge amount

of good so um uh so there there reasons

to be optimistic that were other threats

to appear that uh a lot of the silliness

would sort of filter out and um the

correct actions would be taken and the

Skeptics died okay well on that positive

not let's just pause there for a moment

and let's turn to the economics Nobel

Prize and let's see why the award was

made this

[Music]

year this year's prize in economics

touches on historical injustices and

cruelties as well as current events too

the question of how economic development

is connected to individual rights

equality and decent political

leaders when large parts of the world

were colonized by European powers their

approaches varied derone asoglu Simon

Johnson and James Robinson have shown

that Prosperity Rose in places where the

colonial authorities built functioning

social institutions rather than simply

exploiting the locals and their

resources but no growth or improvements

in lifestyle were created in societies

where democracy and legal certainties

were lacking

the laur's research also helps us

understand why this is the case and

could contribute to reducing income gaps

between

[Music]

nations so Daron when you're both

talking about the importance of

democratic institutions what kind of

Institutions are you talking

about the uh label that we Simon Jim and

I use as inclusive Institution ions

meaning institutions that distribute

political power and economic power and

opportunity broadly in society and that

requires certain political institutions

that provide voice to people so that

they can participate their views are

expressed and also constraints on the

exercise of that power so you just

talking about really the checks and

balances we see in you know set down in

constitutions like a an independent

legislature a free Judiciary freedom of

speech with you know a me the media

being able to operate as it absolutely

absolutely but that's not enough partly

because what you write in a constitution

is not going to get enforced unless

there is a general empowerment of the

people so Constitutions are sometimes

changed just like shirts and uh it

doesn't mean anything unless it becomes

enforced but you have also seen um

countries Prosper economically which

have been governed by fairly

authoritarian governments haven't you I

mean often we talk about Lee kuu in

Singapore or Mah Muhammad in Malaysia

for instance yeah I think that's not the

general pattern I mean so there are

examples like that of course but for

every example like that there's far more

examples of autocratic societies that

have not flourished economically you

know if if you can create inclusive

Economic Institutions even under a

politically kind of autocratic Society

you can flourish economically at least

transitorily you know that's what

happened in China you know starting in

the late 1970s it was the movement

towards a much more inclusive economy

giving people the right to make

decisions making them residual claimants

on their own efforts and you know so so

that that's what generated economic

growth but our our view is that you know

you can't sustain an economy like that

under a autocratic political system it

can be there for a transitory period but

it's not sustainable a lot of research

is based on countries which have been

colonized and um there's been a lot of

debate of course particularly in the

United Kingdom because of the historical

you know Great British Empire and um

whether it was good or bad for the

countries that were colonized

practically all of Africa but you say

that colonization often brought about a

reversal in economic fortunes of the

colonized people so just unpack for us

why you say that because it sounds like

you're saying colonization was bad for

the people I I think colonization was a

disaster AB absolutely but of course it

did create prosperous Societies in parts

of the world in North America and

australasia but for the indigenous

people it was a catastrophe you know

diseases wiped out 90% of the population

of the Americas people were exploited

they had their lands and livelihoods

destroyed their communities destroyed I

mean absolutely yes so so so I don't you

know so I don't think there's much to

about that in my view I think this

notion of reversal you know the Americas

is very clear in the Americas you know

at the time 5 you go back 500 years

where were the prosperous parts of the

Americas Central America the Central

Valley of Mexico andian the Inca Empire

you know the mexicas the valley of Waka

you know there you had you had writing

you had political complexity you had

economic organization sophistication

whatever the southern cone of Latin

America North America far behind

you know and then this gets completely

reversed during the colonial period and

the places that were relatively poor

then become relatively prosperous so

that's there you see the reversal in a

very clear way right I want to bring you

in Demis because your mother is

Singaporean or Singaporean born uh you

brought up in in Britain of course but

um what do you think when you hear about

this kind of thing about democracy and

prosperity and well it's very I mean

it's very interesting obviously I've

heard from my mother the sort of

economic miracle that leanu brought to

Singapore and he's re when you're

rightly revered for that I don't know

obviously this is not my area but it's

it's how do you how do you try and you

know how are these institutions going to

be built in the places where they aren't

um is there external is it going to be

external encouragement or it has to

happen internally or you know how is

that going to or you just have to be

lucky with finding the right leader like

like a Le oneu yeah I mean I think you

know the success stories are all they

all come from within people build the

institutions in their own context I mean

there are you know I think Lewan Yu is a

sort of fascinating person he's not the

only person in the world like that you

know you had seretti karma in in in in

Botswana you know you have other kind of

outstanding leaders but I think on

average you know the evidence suggests

autocratic regimes don't do as well as

Democratic ones and sure you know people

matter individuals matter having good

leader matter where' you find leanu you

know that's what was going to ask you so

then if it has to come from within you

know what so you're pointing out with

your great work like what the issues are

but how other than wait for for the

right you know Mandela or leanu to come

along which is very rare as you say what

else can be done to you know encourage

those institutions to be built yeah but

there's lots of Institutions are built

without famous leaders I think the track

record of external imposition of

Institutions is not very good there are

a few cases where you can point to but

uh but generally institutions are built

organically but there are influences out

there so one of the cases Jim already

hinted that Sama Botswana you know an

amazingly successful democracy in

subsaharan Africa an amazingly

successful country in terms of economic

growth uh very rapid growth on the whole

and it was all existing actually

pre-colonial institutions that were the

basis of more democratic but leadership

there mattered too so you need you need

a combination so I think facilitating

institution building domestically

providing tools for them and getting rid

of our hindrances often you know Western

and Russian powers or sometimes Chinese

Powers interfering in other Count's uh

domestic affairs is not conducive to

better institution building but at the

end of the day institutions are going to

be built bottom up okay so look a major

theme of this year's Nobel prizes has

been artificial intelligence so James

let me ask you then if you think

technology AI could help Africa develop

but Africa has not been benefiting from

all this technology I'm saying it it

could but to do that many things have to

change many things have to change

institutions have to change politics has

to change you know people's trusts all

sorts of things have to change and what

about the impact of technology AI for

instance on Democracy really I am

talking about the impact on jobs to what

extent there'll be displacement of human

activity and jobs by machines yeah I

mean I think that's a huge risk I

believe that humans would have a very

difficult time building their social

systems and communities if they become

majorly sidelined and they feel they

don't have dignity or use or a way to

contribute to the social good from your

perspective I mean there have been a lot

of advances in technology over the last

100 years have have any of them really

cause massive displacement of jobs I

mean already you know there's um a lot

of these Technologies are out there but

have they reduced the number of jobs

yeah yeah there it has happened it has

happened I mean the early phase of the

Industrial Revolution where it was all

lot about automation there were huge

displacements huge wage losses onethird

two you know people's wages within 20

years in real terms fell to for some

people to onethird of it what it was

that's just a tremendous yes but down

then in the end it became better so I

yes so in my view there will be a lot of

disruption like these other like the

Industrial Revolution

90 years it took 90 years I don't think

what we want to put up with but there

could be new classes of jobs I mean most

but those new classes of jobs they're

not automatic so there are like two ways

of thinking uh on this beyond the

artificial general intelligence one is

that you introduce these disruptive

Technologies and the system

automatically adjusts nobody needs to do

anything no policy maker no scientist

nor technologist the system will adjust

I think that just does is is

contradicted by history the way that it

works is that we all have to work in

order to make things better including

technologist so that we actually use the

scientific knowledge to create new tasks

more capabilities for humans rather than

just sidelining them I mean we've seen

used to talk about the lessons of

history but we saw with the printing

press Revolution people who were writing

books were put out of business but then

lots of new jobs were created through

publishing but look at the last 40 years

the US is an extreme case yeah

but roughly speaking I'm exaggerating a

little bit but about half of the US

population those who don't have college

degrees have had almost no growth in

their real incomes until about 2015 from

1980 so no new jobs of import were

created for them there were a lot of new

jobs in the 1990s and 2000s but they

were all for people with postgraduate

degrees and and and specialized

knowledge okay Jeff Hinton do you think

that this increase in product activity

essentially that will come with um

Automation and so on and so forth is is

a good thing for society well it ought

to be right I mean it's crazy we're

we're talking about um having a huge

increase in productivity so there's

going to be more goods and services for

everybody so everybody ought to be

better off but actually it's going to be

the other way around and it's because we

live in a capitalist society and so

what's going to happen is this huge

increase in productivity is going to

make much more money for the big

companies and the rich and it's going to

increase the gap between the rich and

the people who lose their jobs and as

soon as you increase that Gap you get

fertile ground for fascism and so it's

very scary that um we may be at a point

where we're just making things worse and

worse and it's crazy because we're doing

something that should help everybody and

obviously it will help in healthcare it

help in education but if the profits

just go to the rich that's going to make

Society worse so okay let's look at the

last award and that's the Nobel Prize

for medicine or physiology and this is

why it was awarded this

year our organs and tissues are made up

of many varied types of cells they all

have identical genetic material but

different

characteristics this year's medicine

laurates Gary riffkin and Victor Ambrose

have shown how a new form of Gene

regulation microrna is crucial in

ensuring that the different cells of

organisms such as muscles or nerve cells

get the functions they need it's already

known that abnormal levels of micro RNA

increase the risk of cancer but the

laurat research could lead to developing

new Diagnostics and treatments for

example it could map how microrna varies

in different diseases helping unlock

prognosis for the development of

diseases so Gary your research was based

on um looking at mutant strains of the

round worm um actually it should have

its own Nobel Prize shouldn't it It's

featured so much in research that's led

to Nobel prizes but um just tell us what

does your work with round worms tell us

about genetic mutations in humans doing

genetics is is a form of doing what

evolution has been doing for 4 billion

years the our planet is a genetic

experiment that's has been generating

diverse life from primitive life over

four billion years by inducing variation

to give you the tree of life that goes

you know to bats and to plants and to

bacteria and we do that on one organism

and the reason it works so well is that

Evolution has evolved a way to generate

diversity by mutating that's that's what

all around us you know when you see a a

green tree it's because

photosynthesis was developed two billion

years ago the reason we can breathe

oxygen is because photosynthesis evolved

and it wasn't there beforehand and so

what we're doing is that process and

that's why it works so well so the

reason uh the worm has gotten four Nobel

prizes is that and it's the worm that

got it so you know we we're just The

Operators uh is she behave with this

yeah yeah it's very tiny it's very tiny

it's a millimeter long it you know it

has 959 cells that's different from us

right our not every one of our cells

does not have a name you know it but

every cell in a worm has a name and that

attracted a kind of cohort of people who

like names names are important and we

we're thinking about well we can learn a

lot about how biology works by sort of

following cells what's their history

what do they become how much do they

talk to each other but we figure it out

by breaking it but it's I mean it's

extraordinary that a human has about

20,000 genes and a worm has 20,000 gen

that's why we really are too

self-important we're just not you know

humans are just not that great you know

we're we're fine I'm happy to be a human

I don't want to be a worm but you

know you know a bacteria has 4,000 genes

that's not very different from 20,000

I'm sorry right and you know people say

oh geez if you look for life on other

planets it's bacteria how boring you got

it all wrong folks bacteria are totally

awesome yeah yeah but so what you're

saying essentially is that mutations

obviously can be bad because they can

lead to sorts of genetic um illnesses

and so on but they're not always bad and

some are quite actually relatively

insignificant like you're color blind

aren't you for instance I mean that's a

genetic mutation it is and it's a

debilitating mutation for me be uh in

the days of black and white um

publishing I I was King things were fine

and then everything became color you

know it it I have to say so like uh our

little worm I'll go to a seminar and

people are presenting graphs with red

green and and I come out going gez that

was just complete horse what I didn't

and people said oh it was fantastic you

didn't see I wrote to Google Maps and

said you guys you do traffic is red and

green means things are F I can't see it

and you're losing 4% of the of the users

and it's the best

4% but I mean you actually want did not

respond you wanted to be an electrical

engineer originally did

well yes I did Electronics as a kid cuz

I loved electronics and I built kits uh

I built a shortwave radio with a $39 kit

made with vacuum tubes this is before

you know transistors but the resistors

have a color

code right and so and it tells you how

many ohms it is and that's how much

resistance it has and so I didn't know

it I didn't know I was color blind at

the time so I put it together and the

test for how well you are whether it's

going to work is you turn it on and if

it doesn't smoke that that's good and my

electronic assembly didn't pass the

smoke

test so um let's go for another question

now from our audience Jasmin kovitz what

do you want to ask Professor rkin was

micro RNA an unexpected Fant or was it a

part of your hypothesis while conducting

your research there no hypothesis on

that no no no no no it was a complete

surprise and I love

surprises and really you know that's the

beauty of doing genetics is that what

comes out is what teaches you right it's

and you know you do a mutagenesis you

get an animal that looks like what you

were looking for part of the search is

saying what am I going to look for

that's the the art of it how did your

research with Victor Ambrose's um go

down when you first published it in the

early 1990s it was in a little little

corner of biology this worm and there

was a sense when you would deliver a

paper to go to give a talk about it that

well it's a worm who cares you know and

it's a weird little animal until it we

discovered that it was in human genome

and then many other genomes and it's

been embraced and it what was

especially sort of empowering to it was

was it it intersected with RNA

interference which is an antiviral

response and people really care now of

course about antiviral responses of

course I mean how did you all find doing

your research I mean just listening to

what Gary is saying did you encounter

setbacks can you define particular

moments when your research really felt

that you you were on a winning streak

did people discourage you from what you

were doing all of the above

really I mean you know Academia is

really hard at some level you know you

work sometimes three years on a project

and then somebody anonymously destroys

it so that's very very difficult to get

used to so I do a lot of coaching with

my graduate students to get them ready

for that but on the other hand I found

Academia to be quite open-minded as well

you know when

Jim Simon Johnson and I for example

started doing our work you know I think

there was not much of the sort in

economics and people could have said no

this is not economics and some people

did and people could have said this is

crazy and some people did but there were

a lot of people who were open-minded

especially young researchers you know

they're hungry for new angles so I found

Academia to be quite open-minded as well

but a tough Place D Salis David I think

I think you've both said that research

in proteins is kind of seen as at the

time being on The Lunatic Fringe of uh

science um I mean how how did you cope

with that kind of perception that you

were doing something that was a bit out

there well I think when um when we

started trying to design proteins

everyone thought it was a crazy way to

try and solve hard problems the only

proteins we knew at the time were the

ones that came down through you know

through Evolution the ones in us and in

all living things so the idea that you

could make completely new ones and that

they could they could do new things was

was really seen as um you know Lunatic

Fringe as you said but um I think the

way you deal with that is you you work

on the problem and you make progress and

uh you know now it's gotten to the point

where um every other day there's another

company saying they're joining the

protein design Revolution and they're

going to be solving so you can go from

The Lunatic Fringe to the mainstream

faster than you might expect utterly

Vindicated weren't you I mean yeah it's

very right similar with you know I think

if you're fascinated enough and

passionate enough about the area you're

going to you know I was going to do it

no matter what you know and and actually

um I can't think of anything more

interesting to work on than than in the

nature of intelligence and and and

computation of you know computational

principles underpinning that and when we

started like Deep Mind in 2010 um nobody

was working on AI pretty much there was

some Yes except for very few people very

few fored people in in in in um in

Academia and uh and then now fast

forward 15 years which is not very much

time and obviously the whole world's

talking about it and certainly in

Industry no one was doing that in 2010

but we I we already foresaw um building

on you know the great work of people

like Professor Hinton that um uh this

would be one of the most consequential

transformative Technologies in the world

if it could be done and if it's that you

see something like that then it's worth

doing in its you know in of itself I

mean you Professor Hinton along with

your co-recipient of the physics Nobel

Prize professor John hopfield who is 91

a real Pioneer in this field of

Technology also I mean do does this what

you've just heard here resonate with you

that work that at one stage was seen as

being on The Lunatic Fringe and then

here you are years later

Vindicated uh yes so um people students

would apply to my department to work

with me and other professors in my

department would say oh if you work with

Hinton that's the end of your career

this stuff is

rubbish how did that make you feel I

mean did you still you luckily at the

time I didn't know about

it time I think for another question

from our audience and Mano dinakaran

from The kolinska Institute wants to ask

this what's your question thank you

Laurette um science is all about being

motivated when things don't go the way

we expect them to so what kept you all

motivated when things didn't go the way

you expected in times of hardship and

helped you adapt who'd like to pick it

up there that's that's the best bit that

when it doesn't when what you expected

to happen doesn't happen and then you

you really learn that's when you really

learn something I mean so that's the

best bit it's really crushing for the

first couple of days and then you then

you then then you like oh then oh now I

learned something that's like I didn't

understand that there is ascertainment

bias here cuz you have the people who've

gotten winning hands in the in the poker

game of life you

know right well gentlemen thanks to all

of you and renewed congratulations on

your Nobel prizes that saw from this

year's Nobel mindes from the Royal

Palace in Stockholm it's been a

privilege having this discussion with

you thank you to their Royal highnesses

the Crown Princess Victoria and Prince

Daniel for being with us of course

everybody else in the audience and you

also at home for watching from me Zay

abuwi and the rest of the Nobel Minds

team goodbye

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