Beyond 2049: Kevin Kelly on AI, Uncertainty, and the Next 10,000 Days 与凯文·凯利畅聊《2049：未来10000天的可能》

[Music] Hi KK, thanks for taking your time to talk to Guancha. I'm honored to have

this chance to talk to you. I mean you are a living legend to many people and we know that you are cinema maverick at

wired a magazine you co-ounded in 1993 and you served as its executive director your author of multiple bells out of control the inevitable and

congratulations on launching your new book 2049 possibilities of next 10,000 days and this your first book I mean first Chinese book debuted in Chinese

without a combin English version and that means you have written it specifically for Chinese readers and thank you very much. So I dived into the

reading when I got hold of this book and I just found that it took me no effort to feel the charisma of your writing and

the spirit in it you know expansive and enthusiastic and also it filled me with questions. So before jumping to

questions. So before jumping to questions today, we would like to say a few words to Gwench's readers and audience.

Well, um thank you. The the privilege is mine being here. I appreciate your attention and everyone who's listening and watching your attention as well

because our attention is the most valuable and precious thing that we have. So, um, thank you for, uh, lending

have. So, um, thank you for, uh, lending me some of that right now and I hope, um, that I can be useful.

Thank you. You mentioned in your new book that in your 50 years of interacting with futurists, you learned that almost all predictions, including

yours, were wrong. But I found it differently. I mean, in 1999,

differently. I mean, in 1999, Stephen Spielberg hold up a bunch of futurists and a hotel on a beach and had you brainstorm what the year 204 will

look like in sufficient detail to film.

And it seems that the great director have made your ideas look pretty good because in 10 years time many publications gave high marks for the technological predictions in that film.

Still don't remember what that film was?

Yes, the film was Minority Report and of course there was a entire um crew of futurists, not just me, who were contributing to the world building,

who were making the world of 2050 for Spielberg. And um I learned a lot by

Spielberg. And um I learned a lot by working on that movie uh because generally we kind of wave our hands about things in general, but Spielberg

wanted very very specific questions. Uh

what do they eat in the morning for breakfast? What do the living room

breakfast? What do the living room couches look like? And so that kind of very very specific particulars was

thrilling to try and have to um invent or imagine and that was um something I learned from from that movie. H speaking

of um publication, speaking of predictions and the future, what made you you know to think about the future in the first

place and what would like to do with your recent books because it seems that most of them are about the future. Yes.

Um, my own journey with the future has been very long because I started off more of a hippie with not a great

interest in technology. Um, I think once the internet came along, I began to see the world in a slightly different

way. I didn't have the same negative

way. I didn't have the same negative feelings about the internet that I had with other technologies.

the internet seemed to be more human scale, more community-minded, which was things that I was interested in. And

then when it started to happen, it was very clear that the people who did the best were those who had been thinking about the

future, who were prepared for it. And I

wanted to be one of those people who was not going to be surprised by the future, but would have would be ready for it. And so I became

much more interested in trying to imagine where we were going, not so much to predict them, but to make sure that I wasn't surprised by what

happened.

It seems that you were very mentally prepared for the the birth of internet because it doesn't surprise you at all and in your latest book you mentioned

mirror world and is mirror world a updated version of internet and do you think that you know it will just enable people to do bad things more easily in

this mirror world? Yeah. So, um, very briefly, the mirror world is sort of like what some people call the metaverse.

Um, it entails digital twins. So the

idea is is that you have magic glasses, smart glasses that you put on that you see the real world, but you have an

overlay on top of it of a digital version of things which would allow you to sit in a room in your living room and

then you could have a avatar of a friend sitting in your living room next to you and that friend would seem to be really there Even if it wasn't exactly photo

realistic, if it wasn't exactly, but it would still feel emotionally, you would feel like your friend were sitting there. And that's

there. And that's expanded is the mirror world where we merge the digital world and the real world together.

And we have special magic glasses that allow us to see it. And um we can wear them for a long time and we can have digital screens in the real world that

move around. We can have training. We

move around. We can have training. We

can have friends avatars. We can have entire artificial worlds. All those can be mixed together in various degrees. Or

we could just see the real world and nothing else. And so this combination of

nothing else. And so this combination of the real and the virtual and the digital

together is where we're headed with um the glasses. And of course the Apple

the glasses. And of course the Apple Vision Pro is trying to do that. The

Meta, the Oculus is trying to do that.

XRE in China. There a lot of people trying to do it. And I think it's still decades away before

it works, but we can kind of see where it's going. And because we can see where

it's going. And because we can see where it's going, we should get ready for it.

H I think my questions sound a little bit um pessimistic. I mean, you are famous for your radical optimism and you wrote on your personal website k.org that the next two decades will be a

global bloom. um global bloom despite

global bloom. um global bloom despite the reading the news. And so we're going through this unpredictable 2025, you know, from this trade war which was like

a roller coaster to the non-stop hot wars in Europe and Middle East. Do you

still hold that belief? Yes, I do. I'm

more optimistic than before.

I want to say that we should not confuse optimism with what we might call utopianism

or polyaniism which means that there's no problems. We're not headed into a world where there's no problems. In fact, our problems are going to be bigger than before.

The reason why we can be optimistic is that our ability to solve problems is even bigger than the problems. And so

we're on a path to make new big problems and then solve new big problems with new technologies that will themselves make new big problems. So it goes on and on

and on and on and on. And the reason why that's good is that each cycle we get more choices. We have more opportunities.

We have more possibilities of what we can be, what we can do, how we can earn money, who we think of ourselves. We

just have more and more possible ways of being and creating and arming people too. But more choices. And that is what

too. But more choices. And that is what we get in the end from all this churn.

this this constant making things and making new problems and solving them and then making new problems. Yes, technology has opened up many doors

for us and brought a lot of uh possibilities and um you are often referred to as the spiritual godfather of the internet but you seem to be very

fascinated by a kind of a digital minimalism lifestyle.

Yeah. Yeah. I um

I think it's a good habit or at least I find a good habit for myself to try to keep things to a minimum and

I run a website called cool tools. I

have a newsletter called recommend. So I

try many many things but I only keep a few. I only um wind up saving a few of them because you kind of

have to focus and so um so I'm a believer in trying many things and a believer in then adopting only a few that you try. So you're kind of it's a

minimalist but it's also a way of optimizing as well. And I think um we shouldn't be any oblig we shouldn't

feel an obligation to use all technology because we don't have enough time. There

simply isn't. So

people shouldn't feel bad if they don't really want to use AI. That's okay.

But you have to understand what you're giving up if you do that. And so I think I preach that people try things

because also you can't really steer it unless you are using it. So if you give it up and don't use it, you don't get to

steer at all. You're out. You're

bypassed. So

that's fine. You should have that choice. I don't think you need to use

choice. I don't think you need to use everything. You don't have to use AI,

everything. You don't have to use AI, but if you don't use AI, you don't get to steer where it goes.

Will AI take up humans jobs? And this

question seems to be dominating online discussion. And in your book, this is

discussion. And in your book, this is section titled AI will not replace most jobs. So let's take editors and writers

jobs. So let's take editors and writers as an example. We see that AIGC is causing professional, you know, media professionals to lose their jobs and

leading some people to conclude that journalism and communication are track majors. As a seasoned editor and writer

majors. As a seasoned editor and writer yourself, yeah, what does AI mean to you? And where will AI take us? Right.

you? And where will AI take us? Right.

So there are several ways to try to answer this question and and I would say first of all you're you're you're right because um it's a great uncertainty meaning that some of the smartest people

on the planet today many of the smartest people who are working on AI have different different opinions about this.

Um so so there isn't a consensus even among the experts.

Um but we can say a couple things. We

can say let's look at the evidence so far. Let's look at what AI has done so

far. Let's look at what AI has done so far. And there the evidence is very very

far. And there the evidence is very very clear that almost nobody has been fired because of AI. There's been a very there have been a few people but statistically

it's nobody.

And so that's the evidence so far. The

question is going to be like well what happens in the future as it gets better.

But we want to start with the evidence.

And the evidence so far is that very very few people have lost their job to AI. The second bit of evidence that we

AI. The second bit of evidence that we have right now rather than just what we're imagining is um the people who are using it every day particularly writers

and editors.

What you realize is that once you start using it every day you realize right now if the technology never changed.

Nobody's going to lose your job writing um or editing especially editing and so um

it it's because because um it it the AIS so far the large language models are are very helpful in many aspects of writing

but they are not really capable of writing something that we want to read more of for a long time. They can do little bits here and there. They can be

helpful for this. And that's how the editors and writers who are professional are using it. They're all using it to help them, but they're not being

replaced by it. Mostly what it turns out is you your your task is different as a editor. You're managing

editor. You're managing these robots, these AIs to do different parts and you have a much more of a director

manager kind of a role.

Some of times they may they the AIS may generate some words that you can use but that's not very often and the same thing with images paintings you know there

there occasionally make something that you can use but most of the time it's something that you will work on yourself to make better to finish same thing is true about coding so what we're finding

out is is that there's two functions that we humans are retaining even as the AI AIS get pretty good at doing lots of things. And one of them is that um they

things. And one of them is that um they still can't do things that take a long-term attention span, things that are very

very complicated that have multiple steps. They're still incapable. Maybe

steps. They're still incapable. Maybe

someday they can do that, but right now they can't. So the human is sort of

they can't. So the human is sort of guiding them, managing in that. And then

the second function that humans are doing is that humans are taking responsibility for the work.

If an AI produces something and you don't like it or it isn't good or it's wrong, you I mean the AI there's no

consequences. You can't

consequences. You can't you can't do anything about it. But what

a human worker is telling the boss or the company is saying, I'm going to do this job and if it isn't right, I'll I'll make it right. I mean, I'm

responsible for the work. I as I as a human worker, I am going to guarantee that the work gets done. You can trust

me to get it done. There is no trust or responsibility in the AIS right now. If

they get something wrong, okay, you can say, "Hey, you got it wrong." and they might say, "Yeah, I guess I got it wrong." Haha. So, there's no

wrong." Haha. So, there's no responsibility or trust. And that's sort of what the worker, the human workers are bringing right now. They're bringing

responsibility, trust, and they're bringing management.

Okay. What about in 25 years from now?

We don't know.

But I suspect that this same trend will continue because we have no evidence

else for for something else. So

generally things take decades from when we first see them in research to when they come out in people's lives and we have no evidence so far

other than what we see right now. So I

think this is going to be the continued trend for decades because that's all we see right now. H interesting. Well,

speaking of education, according to the US White House website since 1979, the US Department of Education has spent over three trillion, but student achievement measured by standardized

test scores has not improved. And we see that the US government is weakening the education department by laying off and also you know crippling university by

cutting off funds. And um you once recounted that you had minimal education background you were a college drop out.

Yeah. So uh we couldn't help you know pounding on the question what makes university education worthwhile especially with the AI impact.

That's a great question. That's a great great question. Um, increasingly a lot

great question. Um, increasingly a lot of people are deciding that um, a university education is not worth the money. It's not that it's not worth it,

money. It's not that it's not worth it, but it's not worth how much it costs.

Um, and um, I am convinced that most high schoolers are probably learning more on YouTube than they are in high school.

Um, so so education is at a real crossroads. However, I mean there also

crossroads. However, I mean there also there's a couple other things we'd say.

There's a huge correlation between your education and college degree and your um your your uh success rate and your and

your happiness. And so it isn't as if

your happiness. And so it isn't as if education didn't matter. It's I think it's the education's changing and

people who go to college are basically learning in spite of college.

Um so AI promises I think and we see the evidence already happening

of a a greater diversity of learning methods a more personalized self-paced

ability to learn. uh learning spread beyond just the normal um subjects that we teach and also a different sited

criteria of what success looks like. I

think I'm not worried about the AI in classrooms because I think a lot of the work in classrooms was really not beneficial.

Um and it's very clear the AI is not going to go away. So you are going to have to learn how to use AI together. You and the AI are going to be

together. You and the AI are going to be producing things. And so you it's a

producing things. And so you it's a skill. I I ask anybody who uses AI on a

skill. I I ask anybody who uses AI on a daily basis and they will tell you it's a skill. Some people are much better at

a skill. Some people are much better at using the same AI as you might be because they've spent a thousand hours

working with it. And so

I I think what we're seeing is um there's no doubt that the current administration is

destroying or at least damaging um a lot of the foundational aspects of typical American success. It's very very

American success. It's very very self-damaging, very shortsighted.

But at the same time, there are changes happening technologically that are also um forcing people to rethink

how we spend our time in school.

And so um both of those forces are at work. So I I I think we can expect

work. So I I I think we can expect some changes in education system which has been very very resistance to change.

Uh the classroom looks very much like I was in a classroom 50 years ago and that's we can't say that about too many things that they haven't really changed

that much in 50 years. So I think I think we're going to see some changes in the educational system which I think are are needed.

Yes, we all hope that education system will play its part. I mean like um you are self-taught living legend but uh we still have to go to university and or

classroom to learn something you know from our season. You don't you don't you don't have to go to a classroom to learn something. you can go to YouTube and

something. you can go to YouTube and learn much faster. I I I again I think I I I think we have this idea that um

formal education is the way to success is the way to maximize your learning.

And I think that's what's going to change is that people will see that um or or maybe we'll expand the the concept

of what a school is to to include things like a teacher who may be working just

on Zoom. And so, um, I I don't know what

on Zoom. And so, um, I I don't know what that final form looks like, but it's very very clear to me that, um, most of

the young kids that I'm meeting, what they're really learning is not coming from what is being taught in school. So,

they don't really have to be in school.

My next question may sound a little bit cliche. Will AI accelerate or narrow the

cliche. Will AI accelerate or narrow the wealth gap between the rich and poor as well as the cognitive gap? Yeah. Um it's

a it's a fair question.

Um so far the evidence again we can look at it two ways. What is what can we imagine in the future and what's the evidence so far? We've had AI for let's

say five years. Has it has it been responsible for widening the gap? And it

has has not could it in the future?

It's greater than zero possibility, but I think it's very unlikely.

Um, it's very unlikely because AI actually is one of the fastest adopting technologies ever. And for many

people, it's free.

And so, um, the gap, if there's a gap, is going to be people's willingness to use it

versus those who decide to not use it.

Um and so and finally so far it looks like um AI is most helpful

not to it's most most helpful for those who who need the help the most.

It's it can make the biggest difference in the lowest performers if they're willing

to learn about it. So, so I think it has a potential to close that gap. Um,

and so that's what I would expect, but it's possible it could widen it, but so far the evidence is that it's going to close

it.

Hm. And we were talking about education and now I want to turn to the business world. Uh you we often compare the

world. Uh you we often compare the business world to a battlefield and you also wrote in your book that using the you uh thinking framework of AI and a

fog of war can help us more clearly understand the impact of AI on enterprise tactics and strategic thinking. On the other hand, AI also

thinking. On the other hand, AI also makes it easier to artificially create a fog of war and makes it more difficult to judge the long-term development in the future. I'm a bit confused here.

the future. I'm a bit confused here.

Could you please elaborate more on that?

I mean, if we compare a head of a company to the commander of a military force and how should they cooperate with AI?

So I so I don't I don't think AI introduced into the world um would give an advantage to to to

people. I don't think you can have an

people. I don't think you can have an advantage simply by having AI in involved. If both sides have AIs,

involved. If both sides have AIs, there'll still be conflict. And it

amplifies the the strengths of offense.

It amplifies the strength of defense. It

amplifies the ability to see clearly and amplifies the fog. So what it does is is is it amplifies everything.

So everything is louder, everything is bigger, everything is more dangerous, everything is safer. So So it's kind of like uh

it doesn't eliminate war um but it amplifies it. And so um

I think it it will change the nature of it and we're seeing that already with um Ukraine and Iran where you do most of

the fighting can happen in machines.

So you have increasingly autonomous machines are going to fight other autonomous machines and you know you have the drones fighting drones. That's

sort of like it sounds worse, but in some ways it's better because what you want is you don't want humans being killed either way. You want machines being destroyed

way. You want machines being destroyed and that would be so so maybe the future of war would be machines killing other machines. And

machines. And that to me would be progress if instead of killing humans, you just kill machines.

I think that is progress. It doesn't

necessarily take away the the conflict.

You could still have destruction. You

would still have inadvertent uh people being harmed, starvation, all those kinds of things, but at least you would eliminate

humans shooting other humans directly.

And so um the main thing the AI is doing is changing the is changing the the

instruments. It's changing the methods.

instruments. It's changing the methods.

It's changing the the way in which the war is fought. And I think overall it's better that way because we have machines

destroying other machines which is by far preferable to having humans kill humans.

Yes. You mentioned um you know AI enable people with instruments and methods but still people are taking control and they

are you know acting as a dominant role and you addressed on many occasions that direction is more important than destination. Focus on destination,

destination. Focus on destination, right? Sorry, focus on direction rather

right? Sorry, focus on direction rather than destination. But we also hear

than destination. But we also hear people saying that, you know, begin with the end in mind. And speaking of a corporate management or personal growth, do you think these two notions are in

conflict with each other?

Um, no. I I I I think um paying attention to your direction is both the best thing for a country, for a company

and for individual growth. Um you want to you want to remain flexible, adaptable, you want to remain able to change your

mind. You want to be able to shift your

mind. You want to be able to shift your priorities and be optimistic. you want

to re be able to remain true to your values and very adaptive for the strategy and tactics. And so, um, I

don't think there's a a conflict in in this way. I I think, um,

this way. I I think, um, if you get too focused on destinations, um, you can get stuck. You can get stuck

on a suboptimal place. You can get you can get stuck too

place. You can get you can get stuck too easily. You want to remain as flexible

easily. You want to remain as flexible particularly in a complicated fastmoving place like today's world.

Yes, speaking of a fastmoving world, we're facing a rising China and obviously the US feels insecure and you

addressed that the Trump phenomenon is a manifestation of this pain and a lack of confidence and you also compared San US relations to a marriage. Apparently,

this marriage is not going through very smoothly right now. And do you think it is possible, you know, for the couple to have a more harmonious relationship with with each other and how to restore that

trust?

Yeah, it's um it's a very serious um you know, it's a very serious situation

and um part of part I see Trump as a symptom

of um America's uncomfort unease at having to um

no longer be a soul superpower and um I think there are far more shocks ahead uh of this

um and e even without Trump's stupidity and clownishness and his um um lack of

ability there there was the Americans are still going to be um acting strangely

because we're not in for the past century or certainly for the past 70 years during

my lifetime um we haven't had to share power and the rising China is

requiring us to have a different view of ourselves as Americans and that's very very difficult to do um because baked

into our idea was the that the American way was the best way that we're number one that we're

forming the world in shaping it for others and all those things have to be challenged now all those things have to

be rethought and that's not easy so so I think um I think there's a lot that America has to change at the same time.

China is having to mature. It's having

to grow up. It's had very fast development.

It's moving very fast. It's growing very fast, but it's not really sure where it wants to go. It doesn't really have a clear idea of its role in the world and

what it's going to do with with its power. And so, um, it also is in a in a

power. And so, um, it also is in a in a moment of change. And so there's these two countries that got married very

young. And so they they're having to

young. And so they they're having to figure out how to uh how to get along and partner with each other. And so I I I think it's not going

other. And so I I I think it's not going to go away. I I I think this this challenge is is um it's not going to be solved even if Trump uh was to

disappear. Um and um you know there's

disappear. Um and um you know there's two sides to it. So uh um I can't really advise too much what China should do. I

can only talk about what America should do. And first of all uh you know let's go on the record to be very clear. I think this the tariffs are

very clear. I think this the tariffs are utterly stupid. They're they're they're

utterly stupid. They're they're they're harming mostly Americans, not China. The

embargos for chips is also very shortsighted. It just accelerates the

shortsighted. It just accelerates the speed at which China is going to develop their own worldclass chips. And so a lot of the things that America is doing is

is very shortsighted, very detrimental to ourselves and um not at all um what we should be

doing to um bring China together with us into the future.

Speaking of China, you came up with a vision of cool China and you think that the cool China will offer a lot of um good ARs and arts and games to the world

and could you please elaborate more on that? Uh what impressed you the most in

that? Uh what impressed you the most in your most trips to China? Yeah. So, so I think one of the one of the ways in which maybe some of

the trust and repair could happen is if Americans began to think of China as cool.

Um, if you ask a typical American right now, what are the three words you associate with China? None of them are cool.

And um I I've lived long enough to experience uh what happened with Japan

because when I was very young um you said Japan people had very very very negative ideas and associations with

Japan and among them was that they made crap. They made junk.

crap. They made junk.

Um and that um changed very very radically until now. Uh Japan is very cool from a lot of people. They make

cool stuff. They make great stuff. They

have cool culture. It's a cool place to visit. And so um so so that change

visit. And so um so so that change happened within my lifetime. So it's

very possible for for China to change its image at least among Americans. And

um I think if China continue to make worldass best of

stuff that everybody in the world wanted and was the very best. That's a huge step towards becoming cool.

And I think that's entirely entirely possible and within the grasp of of China even from today.

Throughout your lifetime, you have drawn and painted and photographed the 50 years of vanishing Asia. Why Asia?

H it's a good question cuz um there's uh and and first of all I define

Asia as very broadly between Turkey the whole continent Turkey and Japan Siberia in the north Indonesia Papa New Guinea in the south it's a lot it's onethird or

more maybe probably half of the people on the planet today alive are in Asia so so so it's a it's a very dense part of

the world. It's very rich in cultures

the world. It's very rich in cultures and there is a very high diversity of

um not just sort of traditional primitive traditions but also very a diversity of modern traditions as well. So, so, so it

was it was the fact that it was a continuous ancient past and very new future

that that combination was not that present in other parts of the world. So,

I was attracted to both its deep past and its very fast future as well as the incredible diversity

within Asia. Um

within Asia. Um and um it didn't hurt that while I was traveling was a very unique time in the

history of Asia where someone like me with very little money could travel very deeply where in the past it would have required a lot of

money and expeditions and sponsors. But

there was there was a moment where the ancient world was was accessible to a young person like me without very much money. And that enabled me to have this

money. And that enabled me to have this sort of time machine um immersion in in the old ways just before they started to disappear.

I just feel KK's brain has many facets.

And I learned from a podcast that when you play with AIGC tool, you still have three characters. One, Leonardo Dainci,

three characters. One, Leonardo Dainci, second Martin Luther, and third um Christopher Columbus. Why these three

Christopher Columbus. Why these three and what do they mean to you?

Yeah. So, so, so, so this was um a random observation that I noticed that the three men you just mentioned, the three

amazing geniuses, Christopher Columbus and Martin Luther, the beginning of the Protestant Revolution, and Leonard Dainci, were all alive at the same time

in Europe. So, I imagined a a a

in Europe. So, I imagined a a a fictional meeting where the three of them got together and had a they were stuck in the inn on

a snowy night and had a conversation, but then they became fast friends and they decided to collaborate. This is all fiction. So, I was imagining this

fiction. So, I was imagining this fictional world building based around this imaginary meeting which about three real people who lived together at the

same time. But as far as I know, they

same time. But as far as I know, they they never met in in real life. And so,

um, I was using AI to fill in all those details in great depth. Basically have writing

10 different books and a saga and a miniseries and Wikipedia articles about it and everything. Um, and the AI was I was

everything. Um, and the AI was I was working with the AI together and together we made this world

fictional world and the pleasure of it was so great. It was greater than reading about it. The pleasures of co-creating it were all that I needed. I

didn't even need to. I didn't care if anybody ever read it because I had so much pleasure in making it, co-making it. And I think this idea of an audience

it. And I think this idea of an audience of one where you're making something for yourself, something very, very elaborate. So I think people are going

elaborate. So I think people are going to make movies, featurelength movies all by themselves, working with AI to do all the characters and all the actors and

all the worlds, the music and everything in the way that JK Rowling kind of made one universe of Harry Potter. She

imagined it. I think individual boy and girl in their bedroom will do that and maybe they'll never show it to anybody. It will just be the pleasure.

anybody. It will just be the pleasure.

It's like a journal making a sketch, a notebook. Maybe they don't have to share

notebook. Maybe they don't have to share it. It was just the pleasure of making

it. It was just the pleasure of making it because it becomes so easy. So,

I think we're going to use these tools to be creative even if there isn't a large audience for them. And for many things, there will

them. And for many things, there will not be a larger audience. But that's

okay.

The audience of one is all we need.

Yes, I I myself also enjoy the pleasure of a co-working with AI, you know, producing things. But nowadays, it seems

producing things. But nowadays, it seems that I spend too much time, you know, consuming information, you know, like watching short videos. And when I watch these videos, I always hear, you know,

people saying, uh, cognition determines a person's level. But actually you put it before that as long as your identity is tied to your value rather than to your cognition, you can adapt more

quickly to change. How to understand that?

Yeah. What I was trying to say was um one of the traits you want to have as a human being in

2025 to 2040 the next 25 years is you want to be able to change your mind about things as the evidence comes in as you get more educated.

You want to be flexible. You want to be able to learn a new skill. you want to be able to um master a new technology because because there's going to be new stuff.

If you're graduating, if you're in school right now, the the occupation that you're going to have has no name, has not even been invented yet. All

right? It's very unlikely if you're in college that the job that you have in 10 years from now will even have a name.

So, you've got to you've got to be able you've got to be flexible. And part of that flexibility

is um the fact that that we often tend to create our identity based on our opinions about things

and then that means that you can't change your opinion because because you don't want to change your identity. It's

it's more powerful to have your identity on values that you don't change. The

eternal values, kindness, generosity, curiosity, have your identity on things that aren't ever going to change. Um, which gives

which release you and gives you much more permission to change your opinions about other things because your identity is not tied to your opinions.

Well, that sounds very philosophical.

It is.

You have written a lot of philosophical books uh like the one before what technology wants and you pointed out in that book that technology and life must

share certain fundamental attributes.

Mechanical systems are becoming more lifelike while living systems are becoming more mechanized. And Mr. John Ping who wrote a preface for that book

and who was also on our show a month ago a couple of months ago and he think highly of your views and he also believes that your conclusion stands in

sharp contrast phil to the philosophical meaning underlying industrialization you know which is based on the worldview of humanity concrete nature. Could you

please elaborate more on your views to make these machines work? They they more and more import the principles of how biological systems

work like immune systems or neuronets for the brain. So in order to make mechanical things more useful to us, we're making them more biological. And

we are indeed um also engineering biology you know genetic engineering and uh embryo

selection and all these things. So we

are also taking the mechanical principles and putting them into biological systems. So it's it's not just about humans per se. It's about the

fact that biology, the natural world and the technological world are not as different as they first appear because they actually

are governed by very similar rules and we can almost see them as see technology as a kind of life that came from the

natural world. It's kind of an

natural world. It's kind of an accelerated version of life.

So in that sense we are kind of like machines already and we are getting more mechanical in some ways. You know if you

if you re get laser surgery in your eyes or things like that that this is sort of like a mechanical thing. So I think we're headed in that direction. Again we

haven't arrived there but we're headed in that direction. And so um so so I think it's helpful to understand

that the technological realm that we've made is not in opposition to life and nature because it's actually derived

from nature. It's actually retains a lot

from nature. It's actually retains a lot of the same parts. And so that means that we can continue to try to make

technology and the things we make more and more lifelike so that it fits better with nature. So

it's not as harmful to nature as it can be or has been. So there's great opportunity, great potential to continue to make higher and more complicated

technology that is more suitable and compatible with life because it's not that far off to begin with. So So it is possible to make robots and mechanical

things and airplanes and solar that continue to become more green, more biological. So we have lots of room to

biological. So we have lots of room to do that. So that's so we should continue

do that. So that's so we should continue to do that and we shouldn't just refuse technology because we think that it's

against nature I it isn't. It's

fundamentally part of nature.

I mean you have been working with so many futurists. So is there any a bunch

many futurists. So is there any a bunch of people that you haven't worked with before but you want to work with them no matter it is in China or outside of China?

Unfortunately, I don't know enough of the Chinese futures. I would like to know more of them and meet them and talk to them. That's one of my goals right

to them. That's one of my goals right now is to try and um uh become better acquainted with Chinese

futurists. Um, as far as in in the US,

futurists. Um, as far as in in the US, um, I I've had the opportunity to to to at least have conversations with some of

the people who are, um, trying to think about ways in in creative think about

the future in creative ways. Um, so, um, my hope right now is I I've been trying to work with some Hollywood screenwriters because one of my hopes is

to is it's not enough to have futurists.

Nobody kind of really pays attention to futurist. Everybody watches Hollywood

futurist. Everybody watches Hollywood movies and that's the future that we think is coming. It's what we see on the

screen. So the real the real power is

screen. So the real the real power is getting movies made that have a more optimistic future because most of them are very dystopian

because that's how you influence people.

You know people don't read books that much anymore. They watch a lot of

much anymore. They watch a lot of movies. They watch YouTube. They watch

movies. They watch YouTube. They watch

Tik Tok. That's what is influencing them or their ideas about the future. So, so

that's really where where where my efforts are is is trying to take the ideas of an optimistic future and and

get it woven into more of the visual world of movies and videos because that's the way you influence and change people's idea about

what's the future could be.

Fascinating. Um, thank you Kevin for your continuous writing and you know by reading your book it just brings something in myself that I love so much and you know thank you for igniting

readers like me to vision the world that we want to live in you we want to live in and thank you for your time. You're

very very welcome. It's a real pleasure to be involved with this book. As I as you mentioned it's the first book that there is no English edition. It's only

in Chinese and I really hope that um the audience there will find it useful and helpful to them. And my goal

is to have everybody try and be as optimistic as you possibly can because that's really the only way we're going to make a really great future. We can't

do it inadvertently. We can't do it if we're pessimistic. We've got to imagine

we're pessimistic. We've got to imagine a world that you want to live in and then believe that we can make it. So

that's my goal. I hope that you enjoy the book. Thank you for having me. Thank

the book. Thank you for having me. Thank

you so much. You're welcome.

[Music]