Dr. Michio Kaku is one of the most renowned figures in science and the world today. He is a theoretical physicist, bestselling author, acclaimed public speaker, futurist, and popularizer of science, he co-founded “String Field Theory” and continues Einstein’s quest to unite the fundamental forces of nature into a single grand unified “Theory of Everything.”
Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair in Theoretical Physics at City University New York, graduating summa cum laude from Harvard with a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. He has written numerous New York Times bestselling books including The Future of Humanity, The Future of the Mind, Physics of the Future, and Physics of the Impossible.
Kaku’s latest bestselling book The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything explores the history of unification theories from Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation through Quantum Mechanics and The Standard Model of Particle Physics — culminating in his own landmark contributions to the most cutting-edge ideas in theoretical physics.
Moderator Alex Klokus is a Founder and Managing Partner at the SALT Fund. Alex is a serial entrepreneur who built and sold both the media company Futurism and the sleep and wellness business Gravity.
PRESENTED BY
MODERATOR
SPEAKER
Dr. Michio Kaku
Henry Semat Chair in Theoretical Physics
City University of New York
Alex Klokus
Founder & Managing Partner
The SALT Fund
TIMESTAMPS
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Alex Klokus: (00:07)
Hello. Thank you all for coming here today. It's going to be tough to top Paris Hilton, but if anyone can do it, I think Dr. Kaku can. Seriously, I think we can do it.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (00:25)
[inaudible 00:00:25].
Alex Klokus: (00:26)
He is better looking. I'd like to take one second quickly to thank the SALT team. If you can imagine this entire event is put on by a full-time team of less than five people. Less than five people does all of this. There's two people in particular, a Mr. Joel [Alito 00:00:52], and then Mr. John [Darcy 00:00:54], who are responsible for everything you see here. So please.
Alex Klokus: (01:02)
Okay. Dr. Kaku, we've got a great conversation in front of us. The objective for this conversation, we've got about 40 minutes or so, we want to visualize the future at two key times. The first is 2050, about 30 years from now. And the second we're just going to go even further because the weirder, the better, we're going to go to 2121, so 100 years from now. We want to get granular, we want to get specific and Dr. Kaku, we want to make some bold predictions. Are you ready?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (01:34)
Let her rip.
Alex Klokus: (01:35)
All right. So let's start with 2050, 30 years from now. And this is extremely consequential I think for most of us in the audience, because we will be living then. We will be alive, we will be inhabiting this world, this reality and things are going to look extremely, extremely different. Dr. Kaku when we visualize this future, what do you think are going to be the main drivers of change for us in 2050?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (02:03)
Well, to get the most accurate description of the future, I've interviewed over 300 of the world's top scientists for the Discovery Channel, BBC Television, the Science Channel. And I asked them the key question, the question of all questions. I asked them the question, is there intelligent life on the earth? Well, I was watching the soap operas last night and I've come to the conclusion, nope, no intelligent life on this planet. But take a look at the big picture, take a look at humanity just a few hundred years ago. Throughout human history, people lived in poverty, disease, war, average life expectancy for most of human civilization was 30 years of age. You were born, you got married, had kids, and then you died. Life was a bitch. But then something happened. Something magical happened 200 years ago. What was that? You talk to a politician and a politician would say, "Where does wealth come from? Taxes. That's where wealth comes from, taxes."
Dr. Michio Kaku: (03:28)
But if you tax Peter to pay Paul, that is zero sum game. You don't get anywhere. You talk to an economist, where does wealth come from? And the economists would say, "Printing money. That's how you make money." But if you print money, you're simply borrowing against the next generation. I say, all wealth comes from science and technology. Because around 1800, we physicists worked out what is called thermodynamics, the laws of heat. From that we created the heat engine, the locomotive, the factory, the industrial revolution based on oil and coal, great wealth was created. In fact, that's where the Rockefeller fortune comes from.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (04:22)
The great Rockefeller fortune, which helped to create New York city as we know it, came from when we physicists worked out thermodynamics. Then we physicists worked out electricity and magnetism, and that gave us dynamos, television, radio, electronics, and that created wealth. General Electric, utilities, Westinghouse, tremendous wealth. Then we physicists worked out the quantum theory and that gave us the laser, the transistor, the computer, the internet, and that created Apple computers, created IBM. That was the third grade revolution.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (05:07)
Here's the question for all of you today. What is the fourth wave of wealth generation and what is the fifth wave of wealth generation? That's what we're going to talk about today. I say the fourth wave of wealth generation, the great fortunes that don't even exist yet, the fourth wave is physics at the molecular level. Meaning artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology, and the Rockefellers of that era haven't been created yet. We're witnessing the creation of the next generation of wealth with artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. And that, let me go even farther to the fifth wave. The fifth wave is simply a gleam in the eye of a physicist.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (06:10)
The fifth wave of wealth generation is going to be first of all, fusion power, which gives us unlimited energy from seawater. Second, quantum computers. Because one day Silicon Valley will become a rust belt, because the age of Silicon is slowly coming to an end. We are now witnessing the slowing down of Moore's law. And the third component of the fifth wave is BrainNet. What will replace the digital internet? What will replace the digital internet is the neural BrainNet. We already can read memories in a mind, we can extract pictures out of the living brain. In the future, you will telepathically control the world around you, and we are laying the groundwork for that today. Machine brain interface with enormous implications for the future. In other words, digital immortality could become a consequence, living forever. Anyway, these are just some of the glimpses we are seeing now. Physics at the atomic level, the fifth wave, which will dominate wealth generation toward the middle to late part of this century.
Alex Klokus: (07:44)
There is no better way to get everyone here to perk up and say the next generation of wealth. So I think you really nailed that. And this is a finance conference, so we're all listening. And I had some questions here, but let's just ignore those and let's keep going into this. This is way better. So we're in 2050, okay. We talked about nanotechnology, we talked about biotechnology, we talk about artificial intelligence. Help us visualize what this world looks like. So we're here in this conference center in 2050, 30 years from now, there are drones in the skies. Are there people on Mars? Did Elon Musk get one million people on Mars by 2050?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (08:23)
Well, Elon Musk is a great Pathfinder and a great prophet in terms of setting a vision, a vision for the future. Because well, the dinosaurs did not have a space program. The dinosaurs did not have Elon Musk, that's why there're no dinosaurs here today because they had no space program. We are here today, we do have a space program, so we have a shot at it. But you have to realize that it's going to take time before we can colonize Mars. I think we should do it as plan B. We need an insurance policy. It is a law of physics that the earth will one day be destroyed. One day, everything we love about this planet will be gone. In five billion years, the sun will eat up the earth. In a 50 million time period, a gigantic asteroid could wipe out humanity like it wiped out the dinosaurs.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (09:28)
On a 10,000 year timeframe, another ice age. This place was covered with half a mile of ice 10,000 years ago. This room was under a half a mile of ice 10,000 years ago, we are living between glaciations. And then on a scale of a few hundred years, we have to worry about city busters, meteors from the sky that could land down and wipe out Moscow or Washington or something like that. And then at a scale of decades, we have to worry about nuclear proliferation, the next pandemic and global warming. So it is a law of physics that at some point we may have to leave the earth, but my attitude is there's no rush. We don't have to leave the earth immediately, but it does mean that we should think about an escape clause. Plan B on Mars.
Alex Klokus: (10:17)
Plan B on Mars, and in 2050, maybe Elon gets people there. Do you think that we, earth will be even more consequentially impacted by climate change?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (10:29)
Yes and no. The bad news is that all the indicators show that the earth is heating up. Glaciation is receding, average temperatures are increasing, summer is a week longer than normal, winters are a week shorter than normal. Farmers know that the weather has already changed for the growing season. For all these reasons, we know the atmosphere is changing, but there's an ace in the hall. The ace in the hole is two things. First fusion power. The joke is that every 20 years we physicists say, "We will have fusion in 20 years." 20 years comes and oops, there's no fusion power. But we're very close to attaining breakeven now, in France and in California, and you've read the headlines. We are very close now to hitting break even with fusion power. And where does hydrogen come from? Seawater. Seawater is a source of hydrogen.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (11:30)
Does a fusion reactor melt down? No, it doesn't melt down. How much nuclear waste does it create? Almost none. Helium is the nuclear waste from a fusion reactor, and helium is commercially valuable, you can sell helium. So that's an ace in the hole. Another possibility is quantum computers, which can initiate the solar age. Now we've been talking about the solar age for decades.
Alex Klokus: (11:57)
And for people that don't know, can you explain what that is?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (12:00)
The solar age is when we have solar power from the sun and the wind to replace oil and coal on the earth.
Alex Klokus: (12:08)
Got it.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (12:09)
It never came. Why? Why aren't we in the middle of a solar age, celebrating the sun not worrying about global warming? Everybody forgets, it's the battery. The battery is the weak link. We think that everything obeys Moore's law, that computer power doubles every 18 months. We think everything obeys Moore's law. Nope, batteries do not obey Moore's law. We need a super battery. And where is the super battery going to come from, we think from quantum computers. Quantum computers can model quantum processes. Batteries... There's no digitization of a battery. It's a chemical reaction, it's hit or miss. It's done by hard luck, hard work in a laboratory by some nameless person in a chemical laboratory, it's sheer luck getting a super battery. But with a quantum computer, we can roll the dice and perhaps create a super battery, when the sun doesn't shine and the winds don't blow. So two technologies could save us from global warming, fusion power, and quantum computers.
Alex Klokus: (13:21)
So super battery created by quantum computer? Okay.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (13:24)
Right.
Alex Klokus: (13:25)
2050, hopefully. I'm curious, do you think that there are any existential risks that will prevent us, us as in humanity, from making it to 2050? It sounds like climate change, no, not an existential risk. Asteroid. Is an astroid and existential risk, do you believe by 2050?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (13:45)
Well, we monitor these things in outer space, except down to the size of a football field. Things smaller than a football field, we don't monitor that well, but anything bigger than that, we do monitor. But there's always a chance that an object smaller than a football field or a comet that goes behind the sun catches us off guard. That's always possible.
Alex Klokus: (14:06)
So it's possible.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (14:07)
Possible. [crosstalk 00:14:07].
Alex Klokus: (14:07)
... to be wiped out by 2050 by asteroid?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (14:09)
Right.
Alex Klokus: (14:10)
What do you think about this general AI, super intelligent AI? Elon Musk talks about this a lot, the idea that we will create an artificial intelligence that is conscious, that starts to take over. If we look around, AI has already proliferated throughout our society. Perhaps one can argue, it's already running the show, although it's not conscious. Do you think that that is an existential risk for humanity in the next 30 years by 2050?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (14:42)
I think maybe the next 100 years. How smart is a robot today? We've been brainwashed by Hollywood. Hollywood seems tell us that [Shorts and Egor 00:14:52] and the Terminator robots are around the corner. Our most advanced robot today, how intelligent is our most advanced military robot? Our most advanced robot compared to an animal would be a cockroach, a stupid cockroach, a retarded, stupid cockroach. You put a cockroach in a forest, it looks for food, looks for a mate, finds shelter. You take our most advanced military robot and put it in the forest, and what does it do, falls over and can't even get up again. But eventually there'll be as smart as a mouse. Eventually they will be as smart as a rat, then a rabbit, then a dog or a cat, and by the late 21st century, perhaps as smart as a monkey. Now, why is that dangerous? Because monkeys know they are not human. Now, dogs are confused.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (15:56)
You see dogs think that we are a dog. We're the top dog, and they're the underdog and that's why they slobber all over us because we're the leader of the pack. They're pack animals. Now cats are not. Cats are solitary hunters. You cannot fool a cat, a cat knows that we are not a cat, but a dog is confused. Now, monkeys do not get confused. Monkeys know they are monkeys. So when a robot becomes as intelligent as a monkey, perhaps by 2100, we should put a chip in their brain to shut them off, if they have murderous thoughts.
Alex Klokus: (16:32)
Yeah. I like that. So you think humans, we, us, need to merge with machine. We have to become one.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (16:42)
Yeah. I think beyond 2100, robots will be so smart, they'll remove that chip. They will redesign their own brains, such that the fail safe chip is removed, and then what are we going to do? They're conscious, they can set their own goals, at that point I think we should merge with them. And that process is a slow process, but I think it's already starting. Humans have been altering ourselves ever since day one. Makeup, tattoos, [sorins 00:17:13]. Sorins are an extension of the hand. We've been altering our body ever since we came out of the forest.
Alex Klokus: (17:19)
Yeah. I love that. There's a phrase called [Homo Evolutis 00:17:24], the idea that we have entered a new species, we've now taken control of our own evolution. And it sounds very much like what you're talking about here. And again, I guess we go to Elon. Elon's got Neurolink. He seems to be spot on with your predictions. He is trying to put chips in our brains and it sounds like we've got a ticking clock. We've got about 80 years to become one.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (17:47)
One benefit of this is digital immortality. Digital, not biological, that's also coming. But digital immortality means we will digitize ourselves, our credit card transactions, our Instagram photographs, our memoirs. Everything will be digitized and you'll live forever. I would love to talk to Einstein, that's coming. Some person who will eventually digitize Einstein, all his thoughts, all his feelings. Winston Churchill, presidents, they'll all be digitized in the future. And we will become immortal in the sense that we'll talk to our great, great, great, great, great grandkids and our great, great, great, great, grandkids will be able to talk to us, because we'll live forever.
Alex Klokus: (18:34)
And so when you say a mortal, maybe let's drill down on that for a second. I think there is one form of being immortal. Let's say we take all of Einstein's notes, we upload it to an AI. It speaks to us like Einstein, it looks perhaps like Einstein. Okay, that's great. But it's not conscious, it is not thinking new unique thoughts, it is not aware of itself. When you say digital immortality, are you saying that we will be able to take our consciousness, Me Alex, you Dr. Kaku and upload that to a computer?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (19:06)
Yeah, I think so. I think it's [crosstalk 00:19:08].
Alex Klokus: (19:07)
By 2050?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (19:09)
Around 2050, we'll have a reasonable approximation of who we are. We'll talk to George Washington or everything known about the guy and have a great time. And also by the way, what are we going to do with this digitize personality? I say we should put all this digitized information on the laser beam and shoot it to the moon. In one second, you will be on the moon, in 15 minutes, you'll be on Mars. Four years, you'll be on the nearest star. You will be able to explore the universe at the speed of light with your digitized consciousness on a laser beam shooting at the speed of light throughout the galaxy. So I think that... and in fact, on the moon, we'll have a mainframe computer on the moon, which downloads your consciousness and puts your consciousness into an avatar.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (20:02)
And this avatar will roam Mars, roam the moon and explore the universe. In other words, a digitized version of ourselves will conquer the universe. No problems with radiation, no problems with accidents, no problems or the weightlessness, nothing, pure light. Our consciousness will colonize the galaxy at the speed of light. And in fact, I'll stick my neck out. Everything I've said so far is well within the laws of physics. I think this already exists.
Alex Klokus: (20:35)
Okay.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (20:36)
I think in outer space there's a highway. A laser highway carrying the souls of digitized aliens, and we, humans are so stupid we don't even know that it's there.
Alex Klokus: (20:49)
Yeah, okay so-
Dr. Michio Kaku: (20:50)
Right next to us, there could be a laser highway of digitized alien souls. And we are so primitive of their technology that we don't even know about it.
Alex Klokus: (21:01)
So you've hit on something that I'm obsessed with, which is aliens. Let's just keep going. Let's keep going. Should we clap? Let's clap. Better than Paris Hilton? Better than Paris Hilton, a little bit. I love this. Okay. So aliens, a highway. You're saying there is a highway in the universe of digital remains of other intelligent life in the universe.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (21:26)
That's right.
Alex Klokus: (21:27)
And you believe this?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (21:28)
I say it's something that we have to seriously think about. And by the way, some people email me claim that I'm all washed up because the aliens are not there. They claimed that the aliens are here on the earth and they visit us. And they know that because they've been kidnapped, they've been on the flying saucers. Well, I have a word of advice. The next time you are kidnapped by a flying saucer for God's sake, steal something. There's no law of physics that puts you in jail for stealing from an extra terrestrial civilization, it's perfectly legal to steal from an alien. And you'll have proof, an alien chip, an alien hammer. That ends the debate right there.
Alex Klokus: (22:15)
But in all seriousness, and I think we'll all go home, we'll remember that note. Next time we're abducted, we'll steal something. But the Pentagon has come out, they have come out, they have said, "Hey, there is some weird going on. We don't know what it is. We've got video footage, we've got camera footage." They released an 80 page report that concluded, there were 120 incidents that cannot be explained. Have you seen the videos?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (22:42)
Yeah, I've seen all of them.
Alex Klokus: (22:43)
You've seen all of them?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (22:43)
Yeah.
Alex Klokus: (22:44)
What do you think?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (22:45)
Well, before this military report came out, it was hearsay. Now we have the gold standard. The gold standard is multiple sightings by multiple modes. Meaning not one person, but several, not just radar, but infrared sensors, optical sensors, eye witness accounts, all with one sighting using multiple individuals, multiple modes of detection. Now we have it. We physicists have analyzed frame by frame those 120 videotapes, frame by frame. And we now realize that these objects, whatever they are can travel between mark five and mark 20, 20 times the speed of sound zipping across the ocean, zipping across the planes. And when they zigzag, they create G-forces of several hundred, enough to crush the bones of any living creature that we know of inside a flying saucer. They can descend 80,000 feet within a matter of a few seconds, all of this on videotape, incredible.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (23:54)
And then these things dive into the ocean. They can actually go into the ocean and there's a videotape showing all these things. Now the military for the first time in history has now admitted, quote, "They're not one of ours." They never admitted that before. They hinted maybe it's a stealth bomber, maybe it's some kind of hush-hush project. Nope, "Not one of ours."
Alex Klokus: (24:17)
And that's unbelievable. I think that is not only unbelievable, it is unbelievably consequential. That would reshape society, it would allow us to reimagine our role in the universe, but we're not talking about it. We're all sitting here, we're at a finance conference, we're talking about the markets, we're talking about crypto, NFTs, all these other things, but this is more consequential. So why are we not talking about it? You Dr. Kaku, you are a very well-respected esteemed leader in this space, right here you are saying, "Hi, hello, something is happening. This is consequential. It seems like it could be aliens." But then that's it. Everybody goes home, we live our lives. Why are we not talking about this more? And then if you were to speculate and I promise we will not hold you to this, what do you think it is?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (25:11)
Well, first of all, we don't yet have a smoking gun. We have these suggestive videotapes. The military is saying, maybe they're Chinese, maybe they're Russian, I don't think so. But the Russians do have hypersonic drones. We are working on hypersonic drones. Hypersonic drones can duplicate some of these maneuvers, but the military admits that no, "These are more advanced than any of the hypersonic drones that we are developing in our laboratory." But we don't have the smoking gun. We don't have an alien ship, we don't have an alien hammer, an alien paperclip.
Alex Klokus: (25:45)
Do you think the government has that?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (25:47)
Well, they haven't led onto it. We can't rule it out that maybe they've been able to retrieve something from a crashed flying saucer, but I haven't seen any evidence.
Alex Klokus: (25:57)
You have not seen.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (25:58)
I'm not seeing any... I've talked to my friends and they have not seen any either.
Alex Klokus: (26:02)
Got it. But if you were to go out on a limb here and just speculate, you think that what we're seeing in these videos is some other form of intelligent species from somewhere else in the universe?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (26:16)
Well, it can't be ruled out. Now we physicist believe it or not have actually written about civilizations that are millions of years, more advanced than us. We scan the galaxy, we realized there's a hundred billion stars in the galaxy, on average, every single star has a planet going around it. I repeat on average, every single star you see at night has a planet going around it. How many of them have liquid water oceans? Maybe 10, 20%. So the galaxy is teeming with these life forms, and we physicists have categorized their level of advancement. A type one civilization is planetary, like Buck Rogers, they control the weather. They control volcanoes, earthquakes, anything planetary, they control, like Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. Then there's type two, which is stellar. They have the power of a star, they roam a piece of the galaxy like Star Trek. The Federation of planets would be a type two civilization, harnessing solar power. Then there's type three. Type three is galactic. They roam the galactic space lanes like Star Wars. Star Wars would be a type three civilization. Now on this scale, what are we?
Alex Klokus: (27:35)
We're type zero.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (27:38)
We're type zero.
Alex Klokus: (27:39)
Oh my God.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (27:40)
We don't even rate on the scale. We get our energy from dead plants, oil and coal.
Alex Klokus: (27:46)
By 2050, will we get to level one?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (27:48)
Well, by 2100, if you just do the math, by 2100, we should be a type one civilization. For example, what is the internet? Why is it so magical? The internet is the first type one system to fall into our century. It's a type one technology, it's planetary. The internet is the first planetary technology that we have. That's the glimpse of what's going to happen around 2100. Everything's going to be planetary after 2100. You'll communicate, your friendships, your relationships will all be planetary.
Alex Klokus: (28:23)
Planetary relationships. [crosstalk 00:28:25].
Dr. Michio Kaku: (28:25)
Yeah. And what language will they speak? Well already the two dominant languages on the internet are English and Mandarin, Chinese. What about type one sports? Soccer and the Olympics, the beginning of a planetary sports. What is Chanel? What is Gucci? The beginning of a type one culture. What is [crosstalk 00:28:44].
Alex Klokus: (28:43)
Wait. Chanel and Gucci are type one culture?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (28:45)
Yeah. The beginnings.
Alex Klokus: (28:46)
The beginnings. Okay.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (28:48)
Right. What is Rock and Roll? The beginning of type one music. You see what I'm saying? We're seeing the beginning of a type one culture and the engineer is spearheading that because it's a type one technology, monetary.
Alex Klokus: (29:03)
Just so maybe we can all recap, understand, there's a lot that was said in the last 10 minutes. So you believe there is a universal digital highway in the universe that has remains of other intelligent extraterrestrial life, maybe they're sending data back all across the universe. Okay, that's happening. Now, there is some seemingly intelligent species that is coming to earth and they are evaluating us, they are looking at us, they are watching us-
Dr. Michio Kaku: (29:33)
And laughing.
Alex Klokus: (29:34)
... and laughing. They're perhaps laughing at us, but we must be important enough for them to watch us. There's got to be something... There may not be a lot of things going on here, but there's got to be something important for them to watch us.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (29:49)
Well, this is where we physicists argue with each other because we don't know, there's no hard data. Some people think they maybe it's like an interplanetary zoo, that we are the zoo animals and they are like the zookeeper, and they just come and watch us. Another possibility is when you go walking on a country road and you see a bunch of ants on the road, do you go down to the road and tell the ants, "I bring you trinkets, I bring you beads, I give you nuclear energy, take me to your aunt queen." Or maybe you step on a few of them? Well, if these aliens are entomologists, alien entomologists, they will consider us to be the aunts. In which case they would like to play with us a little bit, but after a while, they would probably lose interest.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (30:37)
If you were in a forest and you meet a squirrel, do you try to talk to the squirrel? Well, initially, yeah. But after a while you get bored because the squirrel doesn't talk back to you, the squirrel has nothing to offer you. So I think initially an alien civilization would be curious about us, but after a while they just get bored. They'll say, "What, soap operas again, turn the channel."
Alex Klokus: (31:00)
There was a great quote about this, I think from someone named Chris [Melanie 00:31:05], I believe he was at the Pentagon. He's leading a lot of this research initiative. And he said, "Hey, if we imagine, let's say we extrapolate out and we're now in 2100, we humans are exploring the universe. How would we do that? Well, what we would do is we would send an unmanned drone. They would go, they'd travel for X amount of time, many, many decades, if not centuries, until they reached their target planet. The drone would then observe, it would take a map of the planet. It would then go hide, maybe under an ocean, like what we're seeing. And then every, so often, every 20 years it would pop out, it would map everything and then it would send that data back, and it would go back into hiding." That sounds a little bit like maybe what we're seeing here. It seems like logically it checks out.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (31:48)
However, that's type one. Let's talk about type three now.
Alex Klokus: (31:52)
Okay.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (31:52)
Type three is when you have galactic power, the power of a black hole. At that point, Einstein's equations begin to break down and you enter the realm of what I do for a living, string theory. String theory is the theory of everything. The theory before the big bang, the theory that would answer the question, is time travel possible? What happened before creation? Are there gateways to other dimensions? Is there a multiverse of universes? All these questions are far beyond Einstein's theory, but well within what I do for a living, string theory. String theory is for type three, a type three civilization is galactic. At that point, space and time could become unstable. If space and time become unstable, they may be able to break the light barrier. In which case they don't have to wait thousands of years to reach the stars, they simply create a gateway.
Alex Klokus: (32:45)
And how would we break the light barrier? Can you help us visualize and Imagine that?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (32:49)
Well, if I have a black hole... Already, we know that black holes exist, we photograph them, we study them now. But at the center of a black hole, there could be a gateway, like Alice's looking glass. Think of the looking glass of Alice. Alice sticks her hand through the looking glass and her hand winds up in Wonderland. So two universes are stuck back to back through the looking glass, and what is the looking glass, a black hole. So you need fantastic amounts of energy, like type three, before you can begin to play with hyper velocity rockets that can go faster than the speed of light. Again, this is still conjectural, we don't know for sure. String theory has not been verified.
Alex Klokus: (33:35)
Do you think it will be verified by, let's go further 2100? Do you think string theory will be verified?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (33:40)
Yeah, I think so.
Alex Klokus: (33:41)
You think so?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (33:42)
Already the next generation of Adams Smashers are the Japanese, the Chinese and the Europeans are proposing the next generation beyond the large Hadron Collider. But personally, I think that it's a math problem. Somebody who's smart enough will solve the string equations and be able to answer it once and for all, whether this is the theory of everything, the theory of the black hole, the theory of the big bang.
Alex Klokus: (34:06)
And you said somebody, what about something?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (34:09)
Or something, or somebody? If I do a TV interview, I tell people out there, that maybe one of you in the audience will discover the theory of everything.
Alex Klokus: (34:18)
This is the finest conference [crosstalk 00:34:19].
Dr. Michio Kaku: (34:21)
And if you ever find the theory of everything, tell me first, we'll split the money and the Nobel prize, you and me.
Alex Klokus: (34:31)
And so I'm curious, when you think about stage three, we are stage zero. There's another, I guess, group of thought or school of thought, which says, "Hey, maybe we're just living in a simulation. Maybe this is a simulation." There is another species, they have developed compute. They have developed their own digital world. They're now simulating their own realities. Many of them, millions of them, billions of them, trillions of them. And we are not the ultimate or the original reality. It's turtles all the way down, as they say. I know Elon Musk talks about this quite a bit, is that what you believe?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (35:11)
No. This theory says that we all live in the matrix. Somebody just hit the play button and here we are. We're nothing but a CD ROM, and somebody has to play button. First of all, why would any super being want to duplicate our life forever on a PC or a super PC? Second of all, even if you were to model the weather, just model the weather, it turns out that the number of molecules is trillions upon trillions and to model each atom would exhaust the power of any computer. The smallest object, which can simulate the weather is the weather itself.
Alex Klokus: (35:55)
That is a great line, I love that. The smallest... What did you say, the smallest what?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (35:59)
The smallest object-
Alex Klokus: (36:00)
The smallest object.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (36:01)
... that can simulate the weather is the weather itself.
Alex Klokus: (36:06)
And so when we think about the things that we simulate in our digital world, let's use maybe an example, like the Sims. Okay, are you familiar with the Sims?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (36:15)
No, but go on.
Alex Klokus: (36:15)
Okay. It's a game where you just simulate these little guys and they do basic things, like use the bathroom and talk to each other. So let's say you're talking about the smallest system that can simulate the weather is the weather. But I feel like we can simulate a lot of things in our computer, you're saying we can't simulate the weather?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (36:31)
Yeah. Because the weather has too many molecules, each molecule going in a different way. When we do something like Sim city, we're taking shortcuts, tremendous shortcuts, and as a consequence, the model we make is not realistic. To get a realistic simulation of this room, would exhaust the power of any known computer for billions and billions of years.
Alex Klokus: (36:56)
Yeah. When you say that, just so we understand, you're saying that because there's nuance. There are little things that happen in this room, there's a lot of unique actors. I can put my foot over here, I can put my foot over here, but that is not consequential, it doesn't impact the outcome of this entire experience. But you can take shortcuts. We can simulate this talk, maybe 95% of the time, it goes really well, 5% of the time you don't like me and this whole thing sucks.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (37:20)
That is possible. Some people say that maybe the simulation is not perfect. So that in this corner of the room, there's a ragged hole because the computer program hasn't fixed up that hole.
Alex Klokus: (37:32)
Yeah, it's like a glitch when you're playing-
Dr. Michio Kaku: (37:32)
A glitch.
Alex Klokus: (37:32)
... a video game, it's not loaded.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (37:34)
Right.
Alex Klokus: (37:34)
Yeah.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (37:35)
So a simulation that is not realistic but 99% realistic, that's possible. How would you test it? You would test it by looking for rips, tears and inconsistencies in the fabric of reality. So if all of a sudden a hole erupts here, a tear, it's because ah, the computer program didn't fix that hole correctly.
Alex Klokus: (37:55)
And do we have any evidence of that at all-
Dr. Michio Kaku: (37:57)
No.
Alex Klokus: (37:57)
... that you're aware of? No.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (37:58)
No. We see no evidence of a rip reality.
Alex Klokus: (38:01)
Okay.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (38:01)
If you ever find one, tell me first.
Alex Klokus: (38:05)
Okay. So I think we're approaching the end here just to summarize, and then we'll end with one parting question. So 2050, we have probably some people on Mars, Elon's going to push us there. Climate change is going to be consequential, but it is not an existential risk. We will have some form of digital longevity, maybe some meaningful extension of biological age, may be in there as well. And then by 2100 things are getting extremely weird. We are talking about taking our consciousness, uploading it and shooting it via laser all across the universe, and then reanimating as avatars across every... by 2100, 80 years from now. Maybe if we're lucky enough, we'll see that. We will do that?
Dr. Michio Kaku: (38:54)
That's right. That our consciousness will explore the universe. We'll download our consciousness on the moon into an avatar, and we are now Superman. Superman, Superwomen on the Moon, Mars exploring the universe at the speed of light, downloading our consciousness into avatars. And who knows, maybe some of you are an avatar that has been downloaded from outer space visiting us right now.
Alex Klokus: (39:17)
Yeah. If anyone is an avatar, Anthony Scaramucci is the avatar, for sure. He's amazing, he's unbelievable. And then there's aliens everywhere. There's aliens perhaps here, there's aliens in the universe out there.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (39:31)
Let me say that, if our grandparents could suddenly see us, what would our great-great-grandparents think about us? They would consider us to be magicians and sorcerers, able to conjure up images and things that can fly and go into space. So our great-grand ancestors will consider us to be sorcerers. When we talk to our great, great grandkids, how will we view them? We will view them to be gods. And what do gods do? Gods have the power of life and death, they have the power over their environment. That's where we're headed. We are headed to become gods. The gods that we used to worship, we will become the gods that we used to worship, power over life and death.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (40:26)
For example, take a look at cancer. We now know that cancer is not one disease, but thousands of smaller diseases that are genetic. We'll simply live with it like a common cold. We'll never cure cancer, but it's not going to kill people. We don't worry about the common cold because we can stop it, but we don't cure it. Same thing with cancer. So in other words, our descendants will have the power over disease. If they can't conquer it, we'll simply live with it. And they'll have the power to change our environment at will.
Alex Klokus: (40:58)
I love that.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (40:58)
That's the power of a God.
Alex Klokus: (41:00)
So the parting takeaway is that, as long as we don't blow ourselves up, we as in humanity, we will become gods.
Dr. Michio Kaku: (41:12)
That's right.
Alex Klokus: (41:13)
Okay. Dr. Kaku, thank you so much. I love it. Thank you all. This was a lot of fun. I hope you stay and enjoy the rest of the conference.