Geo-Strategy #END: Psychohistory (The Science of Imagining the Future)

okay well this is it the end of the journey the final class so we've done a lot this year right last semester we did the great books The Iliad The Odyssey the Bible the Republic Divine Comedy this semester we did how SC the world is right the world is hopeless uh we're all going to die and and um in this final class I want this class to be about Hope and I want to show you um the future and the argument I want to leave leave you with uh the thing that I want you that I want you to remember is that um remember Dante in Divine Comedy said that the future is not what happens to you it's not something that you wait for the future is what you imagine and fight for the future is what you make happen there is a God but God gave us the ability to imagine and the capacity to love and it's these two things that will guide us and enable us to Build a Better World okay so that's a message M I want to give to you today the future is what we imagine not what not what we have to put up with so if we don't like the future if we don't like the way we live our lives then we can change that with our imagination and today I want to show you how so just to summarize what we did this semester um together we analyzed the world and we made certain predictions about the world right for example that Trump will be elected again in November and that he will declare war on Iran and this war in Iran will be a disaster for the United States and it will mean the end of the American Empire and it would lead to a multi-polar world which will mean endless war and the deaths of millions and billions of of people and because of climate change our world will eventually collapse at some point okay so this is an extremely hopeless an extremely Bleak and dark picture of the world but remember where there is Darkness there can also be light so in this final class I want to show you some hope and some light okay so this is what we call Psycho history and psycho history is the idea that the future can be predicted and if it can be predicted then it can be controlled and harnessed for the betterment of humanity okay so where does this idea come from psycho history in in the 1950s there was an American science fiction writer named Isaac Asimov and and he's probably the most famous science fiction writer okay if you happen to read science fiction he's really famous and he wrote A series called Foundation um and I think there's a TV series now based on Foundation books it's terrible but uh you can have a look at it and in the foundation books he introduces the idea of psycho history and so this book is set in the future like a million years from now where there is a Galactic Empire um so Humanity has colonized the entire Milky Way There are billions of planets and there's an Empire that brings peace to this uh to to this Milky Way but with all Empires it has to collapse and this will lead to 30,000 years of war violence uh barbarity um and the foundation proposes a new science called psycho history which is to mathematically map out human behavior over the course of a million years if you do that what you discover is that there are certain patterns to Human Society okay and if that's the case then you can predict the future if you can do that then you can manipulate the course of events to make a better future okay so this this is what they called psycho history and it's a science science fiction concept and a lot of people have been trying to make it into reality okay so there's this very um uh prominent historian his name is Peter uh turkin and he's one of the founders of something called Cleo Dynamics okay and Cleo uh is the goddess of History Dynamics just means movement okay so basically Cleo Dynamics is trying to figure out the mathematical movement of History he's trying to create um history as a mathematical model and when he did that there's certain interesting Trends and patterns that he discovered okay and one idea that he that he discovered is something called the over production of the elites okay over production of the elite and this concept explains why societies collapse now traditionally we've understood the collapse of societies as as having to do with maybe like too much debt or too much inequality or maybe climate change or War right what Peter turkin points out and it's a really interesting idea is the reason why Societies collaps in the end is you have too many Elites all right so let me explain the concept okay so um Society has many Elites right you have people like Jack ma right you have people like Jo Jae right movie stars uh you have famous milit generals okay um so over time Elites become more and more numerous right number of wealthy people go up the number of famous people go up uh the number of um entrepreneurs go up okay the problem though is they all want power right now wealth and fame are all infinite resources right but Power will always be a finite resource in fact it's what it's what we call a zero sum game so for example in this classroom there can only be one teacher right if we're all teachers there's no teacher so in society there can only be a few powerful people if everyone has a power no one has any power okay so what happens over time is that all these people who believe they should have power struggle for power and because there too many of them this internal struggle of the elites ultimately leads to social collapse okay so the most famous example is in China in Imperial China where you had the C system right people taking the uh Imperial examinations to become official problem is you have too many candidates not enough positions right and guess who ultimately gets upset with society and leads revolutions it's the kuu candidates who did not become officials and so they become angry and they lead revolutions to overthrow the society right so the most classic example of the um failed could candidate is hongran do you guys know who he is the leader of the typing Rebellion right why did he be why did he become a Christian why did he lead the Rebellion because he failed to C you okay so that's the idea of the over production of the elite and he discovered this principle using mathematically modeling of History okay he just compared different societies and um um try to figure out why they collapsed okay and what he discovered is well it's because um of the internal struggle among the different Elite groups okay and that's why the Roman Empire collaps as well okay does that make sense okay what I'm proposing to you is that we can actually go a step further than what Peter turkin is doing because we have something called now called AI okay artificial artificial intellig and we can harness the power of AI to create real cycle history which is the ability to not just analyze the past but to predict the future okay all right so let's first figure out what AI is okay so first I want us to understand what artificial intelligence is because um most of you think you know but you don't actually know okay so what is AI all right the AI the technical term is supervised machine learning okay that's the technical term AI is the popular term but supervised machine learning is the technical and correct term have you guys heard of this term supervised machine learning yes or no have you have any of you taken computer science okay this is called supervis machine learning okay so so what is this okay so um in computer programming you're taught to write the algorithm right and then the input you put in information it gives you the output okay and this is traditionally how computers work you write the algorithm the computer program you put in information and then there's an output right for example the algorithm could be like uh a plus b okay so you put in two numbers two two you get a four okay that's how computers work right now supervised machine learning is that I will turn the output into the input okay and the reason why I want to do that is that as a human being I myself uh may not be able to write the best algorithm so I want the computer to refine the algorithm for me to optimize it using um the output okay does that make sense all right so let's talk about a very specific example all right um so let's look at facial recognition technology right you go to the airport and you scan and they know who you are right you go to a supermarket you scan your phase and you pay right you're like wait how does that work okay so how this works is that there's a database okay about one billion people like everyone in China and now what I need to do is figure out how to differentiate the faces of everyone in China in this database okay does that make sense so what I do is for the phase I create a mathematical model based on topology okay does that make sense topology so I I turn everyone's face into a mathematical model okay which looks like something like this okay and you're like I don't know what this is okay it's you don't need to know what this is this is like super pop kit okay but all you need to know is that within this model there are different equations okay so for example it this model is trying to analyze the distance between your eyes okay and and how big your nose is all right does that make sense all right um and so once I create this mathemtical model I am now able to differentiate everyone in China does that make sense okay in fact this math this mathem modle is so precise that I can only look at your eyes and I know who you are okay because what I'm trying to do is match what your model with the with a model in the database all right but what what's important to remember is that if you're not in this database you can't be recognized okay do you understand all right now what I will show you is how this model is created so what happens is this all right what I do is I teach the computer how to create this database so I've have input I've output and then what I do is I create a working thesis or a working theory of what this model should look like okay does that make sense all right so it could be like this all right and then what I do is I put faces okay and the output should match what's in the database and if the model returns something that's different and I tell them this is wrong and what the computer then does is we find this model until it becomes this does that make sense okay so what this what all AI is is infinite iteration okay does that make sense all right okay so the problem with AI is I need to be able to solve three things and if I can solve three things then I can create an AI okay the first thing is that I need um clear metrics okay or clear Al puts okay doesn't make sense I need outputs that I can I can Define as a methal model okay so for example um if I'm an airline I'm use I'm going to use AI to maximize the amount of money I make on a flight right okay that's my output how much money can I make out of a flight I want to have the maximum amount of profit okay that's the first thing I need to solve second thing I need to solve then is data okay for input but the thing about data is that it has to be clean okay does that make sense it has to be a clean data okay so for example if I want to teach this AI to recognize different animals I need to give it different um data sets of different animals okay does that make sense I need to label my data but I can't tell I can't make an AI That's like this is the best ice cream in the world and the reason why is I can't find data on the best ice cream you understand because ice cream is the best ice cream is subjective so I cannot turn that into a data set okay does that make sense Okay the third thing I need to do is create a working algorithm structure do you understand okay computers can only refine and optimize the algorithm structure it cannot create it by itself okay so if I'm able to do all three things then I'm able to use AI to optimize um what I wanted to optimize okay all right any questions so far before I move on okay so what this means is that there are certain problems that I can solve using Ai and there are certain problems I cannot solve using AI okay so um what are easy problems that AI can solve right well for example facial recog facial recognition technology okay also translation software right I can create an optimal translation software also Rec recommendation engines right so if you watch a movie on Netflix it's recommends in another movie right okay now let me ask you this question can I ever solve self-driving cars can I ever solve S soft selfing driving cars self-driving cars can cars drive by them by themselves yes or no why why you ask Sally okay the answer is no why is the answer no okay the answer to no is whatever I do okay I cannot solve something call the The Edge case the edge case is if the car is on the road what could happen that would screw up my AI system you guys know why can't self-driving cars be solved why can't we have self driving cars in in on the roads what what what's a what's the edge case or the thing that I can never solve what is it excuse me yeah and what is not planned H they can plan for traffic what canot what what can they not not plan for and this is why we'll never have suff driving cars they can plan for accidents what what can they not plan for easily planned for traffic rules what can they not plan for okay guys The Edge case with self-d cars is if I as a human being intentionally want to crash into that car do you understand does that make sense to you guys every other situation I can plan for but in a situation where I'm the human being and I don't like sub driving cars because I'm a taxi driver and it's stealing my job right it's stealing my my life likelihood and I want to crash in that car there's no way for that AI to avoid the accident does that make sense okay you we listen listen AI is a scam okay it does not exist what exists is supervised machine learning okay what is supervised machine learning what I just told you okay that's it that's the extent of our technology it can it does not have self-awareness it can only do what the algorithm tells it to do and there's no way you can design an algorithm that plans for and prevents a human being who who who intentionally wants to crash into you okay does that make sense all right so AI in other words is an extremely limited tool okay so you think about actual application of of AI it's it's very Li lied you also look at self-driving cars now there are cars that have self-driving features but they are not 100% self-driving okay does that make sense in fact they tell you don't don't rely on the autopilot okay it's there to help you but don't sleep in the car okay right because um they don't have an a system in place to prevent people from crashing into them okay does that make sense all right so now that we know what AI is let's talk about how we can use AI to predict the future okay okay all right so basically what you need to do is three things right you need to be clear about the output you need to have clean data and you need to have a working algorithm okay does that make sense and so that's what I've been doing this semester okay so for example remember what we remember my predictions um the issue of Lobby Saudi Arabia and the American Empire uh basic basically the need to prot protect the petrol dollar will force America to go to war with Iran okay these are the push factors the problem is that there are no fact there no Force to counteract this okay so for example the military will be for this because they have shotgun all and they're are very confident they can win this war okay okay Iran itself wants this war because it wants revenge against America okay and then the president of the United States will be Donald Trump he wants this war in order to cement his position as president okay and so because of this we can predict that there'll be a war in Iran doesn't make sense okay now given this prediction what we can then do is use mathematical modeling and statistics to turn this into an an AI model okay does that make sense okay now we have the AI model now that we have the AI model what we need to do now is to refin it and the way we refined It Is by going back in history and looking at every single war that started okay doesn't make sense and so you take this model and you look at the different Wars okay so for example the 415 BCE uh invasion of Sicily by Athens uh you look at 1941 operation Barbarosa okay you have basically hundreds of wars that you can look at and then you take this model and then you test it using each of these wars and what will happen is that the model will begin to refine itself okay does that make sense so it BEC more and more refined okay but then that's one model for what causes War I also said that um Trump will become president right well then that's another model that you can use and once you start put up putting all these models together what eventually happens over time is you develop psycho history okay does this make sense guys all right so now the question then is is okay how would this ai ai model work or what are s of the ideas behind this model okay so we talk about Game Theory analysis A Lot all right the idea of Game Theory analysis is that okay guys there's really no good and evil okay there are different players in a game and they're all self-interested they all want to win this game so they're going to develop strategies that optimize their ability to win this game okay so you can use Game Theory analysis but then you can also develop new ideas that would help you uh better understand how the world works okay so um let's talk let's talk about certain ideas that have come up in this course all right so one thing I want to talk about is this week's European elections have you guys seen the news uh the elections to the European Parliament right and the results are pretty shocking because um it signals a clear shift to the right so for example um uh Mary Le Pen's party in France picked up a lot of votes uh the afd the alternative for Germany in Germany which is considered a right-wing organization almost um Neil Nazi has picked up a lot of votes as well the results were so dramatic that um Emanuel macron the president of France has called for an early election and it's possible in 3 months Time Mary leen's party will run and govern France okay so how do we explain this shift to the right and I want to explain three reasons okay the first reason is anti-migration okay so uh for the last 10 20 years there have been a lot of immigrants to Europe from Libya from Syria from Iraq Afghanistan Sudan Somalia okay these are mainly Muslim uh people who threaten the Christian uh social fabric of Europe okay and now Europeans are rebelling or revolting against that second thing that they don't like about Europe so far it's the idea of federalism okay or they can they can say bureaucratism but it's the idea that a foreign power Brussels mandates rules that they must follow so they think it's very anti-democratic okay um and the third thing that they Rebellion against is the idea of pan europeanism what the people of Europe are saying is there's no European identity guys there's a German identity there's a French identity Italian Spanish Portuguese but there's no European identity they're rebelling against the entire project of the EU in fact I would bet that in about five years time the entire EU would be dead okay okay why are they why are they opposed to uh pen uh europeanism because ultimately they believe that it's about destroying local identity it's about destroying local community it's about destroying my relationship with my neighbors and my friends and my relatives okay and my family does that make sense okay it's imposing a foreign identity on me and um proponents of of the European Union believe would argue that no this is just a secular liberal um idea okay the entire idea of the EU EU is that for hundred of years thousands of year years Europe has been at War why has Europe been at War tribalism right religion so the entire project of the EU is to get rid of the factors that lead to war local identity nationalism religion right and what the European voters are saying to the EU is um sorry we don't want secular liberalism because we want to be human okay what we strive for is not a abstract liberal idea we strive for structure meaning and purpose in our lives okay what we really strive for is a capacity to love create and learn okay and grow does that make sense that's what we are fundamentally as human beings and when you ask me to obey an abstract foreign entity that is very far from me then you are limiting or destroying the structure meaning and purpose in my life okay and so that's what's going on not just in Europe but throughout the world you think about brexit right you think think about the election of Donald Trump right all these things has to do with this fundamental human urge to have structure meaning and purpose in our lives okay have agency okay does that make sense guys all right any questions so far yeah Eric okay so Eric asked okay what is the source of all this and what Dante and Homer would say is the human heart okay the human heart this is just who we are and if we cannot fulfill our human heart we will Rebel we will destroy we will want to kill okay and so in other words one idea in this AI model is that there is a fundamental underlying structure to Human Society okay if Society conforms to the structure of the human heart this this Society will prosper for example Athens right the ancient Greeks that Society prospered the word we use was udonia right okay but if a society represses the human heart then ultimately the society will have to collapse at some point okay so that's another principle that we can use when developing this AI model the last idea that we can use um in developing this AI model is the idea of sity okay sity and the idea of cinity is as a society how willing are people um how how willing are people in following the rules it does that make sense so when you drive the car do people actually follow traffic rules when you're in the subway do people actually give up their seats for the elderly for children for pregnant women okay when you go to the park do people actually pick up garbage and throw it in the the garbage bin okay sity tells us that that there's uh cohesion and Trust in society that Society is resilient okay and that Society can grow okay or learn from its mistakes okay so societies that are that have high sity will do better in the long term in societies with low cinity and so societies with high secrity would include Japan and Germany right and socities with low secrity would include India and Brazil uh and China okay does that make sense all right so these are all of the ideas that we we've developed this semester or in this year that there's an underlying truth and meaning to human society and if we Embrace these truths then Society will prosper but if we try to deny these truths then eventually Society will have to collapse and we have to start over again okay does that make sense any any questions so far yeah Seline excuse me okay that's a great question okay um so one thing that was not supposed to happen um is the idea of mass Society okay Mass Society you can say that mass Society is a complete um what's the word I'm looking for deviation from human history okay we're not supposed to have we're not supposed to have mass society and mass Society is completed completely an accident a historical accident but when you have mass Society what happens is that you need an elite okay you need an elite but guess what guys uh the elite the people in charge they're not better than you and me okay do you understand um we we in this classroom could we could swap for the leadership of the world right and guys nothing would change you understand right so you have mass society and therefore you have to have an artificial Elite because you need people in control and because they're in control they need to now Main maintain the illusion of their power okay they need they need to create fictions for example maybe well I'm I went to Yale or Harvard and therefore I should be at the top or maybe have a higher IQ than you do or maybe you know my dad or my great great great great grandfather was King okay they had to create these fictions now what happens over time is that these fictions fall apart because they're not that confident okay and the most recent example is you look at the Global Management of the economy and you look at the Global Management of like covid okay you look at the Global Management of War it's pretty incompetent and so people sort of wake up and like wait a minute these guys don't really know what they're doing okay and now so now the elite is now forced to suppress us okay that's a lie they we have to use Force to to make us obedient okay and that's what what's happening today and so this repression can go on for a long time but to control us they must repress the human heart okay because it's in the human heart to want to question to be curious to um grow okay and if you think like the people in charge don't know what they're doing then you're sort of compelled to challenge them and so what they have to do is suppress the human heart and they do that by trying to get you to focus on buying things rather than thinking okay does does that make sense okay all right any more questions yes yes Alie yes yeah it has to turn it into a mathematical model okay you understand it h the human heart has to become like a model like facial recognition model okay does that make sense okay so um Sally's question is isn't it true that we're all individual and unique and isn't it true that over time we change okay and that's that's great point but what Homer and Dante would say that no no no no at the fundamental level okay we all have the same desires we're motivated by the same needs okay there's no one in this world that does not want structure meaning and purpose now the way you want to achieve this may be different okay but that's your underlying motivation and there's no person in this world that does not seek to have to to to achieve these three things like love create and grow as people okay that's when you achieve full happiness as a person when you feel that you're married to someone you love and you have children when you're doing a job that is creative and when you're constantly learning learning every day and growing every day okay when you achieve that these three things what do we call this when you achieve all three things what do we call this udonia right this is udonia this is what the Greeks meant by a happy and self-fulfilled life it does that make sense okay so there may be differences in uh needs and motivation but the fundamental at the fundamental level we're all human beings and we're all driven by the same fundamental needs okay does that make sense okay yeah yes okay so Sally asked the question like how do you con construct this um AI okay and so for this AI to be valid okay let me explain how we would actually Implement okay so for first of all you need at least 50 to 100 years to actually create this AI okay and the reason why is that for this AI to be valid you constantly need be you need to be testing it okay so what I've been doing this class is basically doing a self AI right where I have an anacal model and I have a prediction but guess what guys we won't know if my predictions are fully correct uh until like 50 years from now is that correct okay therefore I can't validate my analysis until until 50 years from now okay does that make sense okay and you need to be constantly doing this where you have to be constantly making these predictions and seeing if they're correct or not if they're not correct what you have to do is go and change um these predictions okay uh and an analysis okay does that make sense then what you have to do is you basically have to and and this is actually what's the most time consuming is you have to rewrite history okay do you understand because most of history is actually not correct okay so what you have to do is you have to take this model and look back at history and says according to AI model what actually happened uh in the pisan war what actually happened in World War I what actually happened uh during the tong Dynasty okay so you basically have to challenge the entire discipline of history and reconstruct a new history that you think is more Fally correct based on this AI okay so you have to do be doing the these two things at once okay making these predictions and seeing that you're correct but also going back to throughout history and seeing how history can be revamped or changed so it's so that it's more accurate okay does that make sense okay that's a project but now but now but then there's the technology because you actually need mathematicians and computer programmers and historians to collaborate together to build this AI right okay so I can tell you the how I would analyze the issue but then a mathematician has to turn this into a mathematical equation or a model okay because because computers only recognize like data and and numbers okay they don't they recognize ideas I can't talk to a computer I have to give a computer like a number or a equation or a model okay for it to calculate on okay do does that make sense all right so it's not an easy project okay but the argument is that if this project actually works it would change the fate of humanity forever because if there's one thing that you notice in this class it's like we tend to repeat the same mistakes right the question is like why do we do that it's because the history that we have have is complete it just is it's not true it can't be true okay there's things that we believe which if you just think about it can't be true okay and we did that like last semester when we talked about the rights of Christianity right you're tell me that this illiterate guy named Jesus was able to spread Christianity all by himself after he died I don't believe that okay I think a much easier explanation is that it became coopted by the Roman Empire in order to control the Empire right but if you were talk to a historian they would say you're just wrong okay so not only are you trying to predict the future but you're trying to also correct the past which is I think an even more difficult job right any more questions yeah Eric excuse me oh so Eric asked a great question will this Cy cycle history model encounter Edge case the answer is that's that's the best question okay that's a great question and the answer is yes what are edge cases do you guys know what are edge cases in in this model who what would be edge cases here in history okay it it's called great man Theory okay great man Theory and this is a problem meaning like okay we believe we argue that these underlying historical forces control Humanity right but now and then you have this great man come out of nowhere and he changes the course of human history forever okay the example is um before we had Homer right then we had Dante then we had Plato uh Jesus Julius Caesar Octavius ptin today okay we can't account for these people because by definition they're beyond history they can step outside of history and control history that's what great men are so how does your model account for that okay and the answer is you cannot so in Foundation okay the solution okay so there's a solution to this the solution is to create another organization okay remember that pych history it's an AI model it's it's basic a computer but as Eric points out you will always have Ed Edge cases you'll always have someone appear out of nowhere and if for for whatever reason he's able to May manipulate events to control and direct history in his favor okay so what you do to solve this problem is you create another organization okay and in I think aso's Foundation it's called the second Foundation okay the idea of the second Foundation is that you there is a computer there is the AI okay but behind the AI are a team of specialists who observe the AI who observe history and who correct the AI for edge cases okay does that make sense so if Putin appears and it's like okay well clearly I'm not accounting for Putin well then I change the equations in the AI to account for Putin okay so this team of experts sign second foundation will correct the AI right now what's interesting about SE second Foundation is that these people are telepaths okay telepaths meaning that they can read your mind not only can they read your mind but they can control your mind okay so and and that's another really interesting about psycho history like okay there's a promise that we can predict the future but there's also the promise that within our minds there are some special abilities that we might have the potential for but we never ever fully attempted to achieve okay does that make sense and is it possible in the future that telepaths will rise I think yes and the answer is that you can make the argument that these edge cases that Eric refers to these Great Men of the great men of history they're actually telepaths okay does it make sense they're actually t so someone like Putin why is Putin able to do what he does and you you can make the argument like he he h he has almost some telepathic abilities okay he can read other people's minds he can control other people's minds how else can you explain that someone who does not come from a special background right he's not of the Russian Elite but he's able to amass so much power all by himself in only a few decades so that today he's basically the Emperor of Russia and all Russia heeds his command Russia just moves the way that he wants it to move okay so you can make the argument that Putin is almost a telepath and is it possible that in the future we'll have more telepaths and we can over time harness the power of these telepaths to create the second foundation and to control psycho history possibly right okay because like how else we explain Great Men okay um you look at someone like Homer and Dante right the only explanation that you can have for hom and Dante is they were they had God giving gifts okay or maybe God was speaking to them or maybe they were just speaking for God right that's the only explanation that you can have for Homer and and Dante because they so clearly stepped out of history and directed history does that make sense okay but thanks for the question Eric okay so edge cases are great men who appear now and then and you cannot ever predict these people okay any questions okay just yeah yes yes elen oh that's a great question okay um okay how do you model love learn and create okay and the answer is that there has to be a certain amount of Aon e omy or agency in the lives of people does that make sense what we call freedom and liberty because if you have freedom and liberty then you're able to do what you want and what you want to do is love um create and and grow okay does that make sense so you need to model um agency and freedom into the structure okay the second thing is um social interaction okay in other words the more we're able to interact with each other the more we're willing to love create and grow because these Powers come from others right you can't love yourself you have to love someone else you can't create by yourself you have to create in a group okay you can't learn by yourself you have to learn you have to learn from others okay so you also have to model in um as much group interaction as possible okay and the last thing is you also have to model in the idea of compassion okay so the idea here is that um if I all put you on an island together okay and you must survive well you will become compassionate with each other because that's the only way to survive right but if I put you guys into a bank and I say to you that if you make a million dollars and I give I give you $2 million who whoever makes the most money I will give a Ferrari to you guess what guys you you you all hate each other you will all want to kill each other okay you understand so this model also has to factor compassion how compassionate is the society okay because if you have compassion then people are willing to work together if people are willing to work together then people have the greater capacity to love create and grow okay does that make sense actually guys we have all these theories it's just like no one's turning this into a meical model okay for society any more questions yeah um yeah so uh Eric asked the question is it POS possible to completely understand human behavior and motivation and um there are two different ways of looking at looking at the issue okay the first way is to use a social science approach okay so you look at economics psychology anthropology sociology right what what are they trying to do they're trying to um figure out mathematic Ally what drives us okay do you understand but there's another approach it's called the literature approach which is that we can actually quantify or explain human behavior okay but they are there are truths that can be expressed in literature okay does that make sense so think about the very first book we read the ilad right where Achilles has killed Hector and PR Prime wants a body back so Prime sneaks into Achilles tent and kisses his hand right that moment you can never mathematically express it you can only write about it but think about how much truth and power is in that one scene okay does does does does that make sense um Eric okay so I so again I think like someone like Homer and Dante like their mission is to express to us in the most beautiful way the human truths okay like what drives us and Donnie is very explicit he says that what drives us is love and the willingness to imagine okay that's who we are if we love we'll be more human if we imagine we'll be more human okay and and that's really the argument I make as well all right and that has to be the underlying truth of whatever AI model that you model you create okay all right any more questions yeah um okay so Seline asked great question okay well if it says that we want to love create and grow then why do we end up destroying ourselves and the answer is that love and hate are a are one force you understand if I can't love you I'm gonna hate you you understand okay guess what guys creation and destruction is one force as well if I can't create then I want to destroy why because my need for creation can't be satisfied does that make sense so a society that nurtures are willing to love and create and grow like the Greeks will flourish okay but eventually you reach a point where the elite have a mass power they've centralized and consolidate power and so they want to turn everyone else into basically a slave when you're a slave you can't love you can't create you can't learn you can't grow therefore you Rebel and you destroy the society okay does that make sense okay but again the fundamental human need are these three things but within each of these things is another force and if love can't express itself then hate will Express itself does does that make sense okay all right any more questions yeah so Sally asked a great question which is like who who would control this AI um and how can we ensure that this AI is not exploited uh by the elite in order to justify their corrupt corruption and cruelty okay um and the answer has to be um really the second Foundation okay basically a group of Scholars academics experts who dedicate themselves to this AI okay and this AI the the other thing is that it has to be open and transparent that's why it's so hard to build right it has to be open it has to be open and transparent okay if it's open and transparent then everyone has to agree that this AI is going to be used for good okay meaning that what this AI does is you can ask a different questions and it will give you different scenarios and we can all agree on which we want and therefore we can agree on what action to take Okay so this AI has to be part of a democratic system where everyone is involved otherwise as s points out it can only be abused okay can only be used to oppress others okay but the point of this AI is that um it gives us a platform as humans to agree on certain actions that we must stick together okay does that make sense so for example we can all agree that climate change is bad we can all agree that war is bad right but this AI will actually give us Solutions the to these problems because this AI can map out the future for us and AI will say well listen if um the United States intervenes in Ukraine then this will happen right United States attacks Iran then this will happen and that becomes a very powerful argument for correct and proper behavior okay does does that make sense all right but again um guys this is just conjecture okay and I I've already said this it's going to take at least 50 to 100 years to build this Ai and you will be up against tremendous opposition right historians ar aren ar going to like this the elite aren't going to like this right but at the same time we have to remember like guess what homer I'm pretty sure if Homer were uh living in a centralized Society the elite would be opposed to him okay because he was making fun of very uh famous Greeks like Achilles and law and EG man on right who was making fun of these guys well guess what when Homer was writing Society had collapsed right when Dante was writing Society had collapsed so if it is true if my predictions are correct and Society is approaching collapse then there should be a lot of space and leeway and flexibility to create this AI okay okay any more questions yeah uh that's a great question uh so if the won different people different nations want different outcomes and the answer is yeah like if you um are alive today if you're America you want America to be the Hedge ofon if you're Putin you want Russia to be the Hedon if you're China you want China to be the Hedge ofon right you want different outcomes so my argument is that um the structure of society today is not sustainable everything's going to collapse and we are going in transition from a population about 8 billion people to a population of 1 billion people and when you have 1 billion people and like there's no place to grow crops and uh pollution is everywhere and war is everywhere guess what happens humans are united in their goals which is basically how do we create a better civilization okay does it make sense when off has collapsed everyone's like how do we recreate civilization that's the goal but in a more Progressive more democratic and more prosperous way okay that's what I'm betting on but I don't know okay and again um if everyone's fighting over the AI this AI cannot be created okay because different people will want to this AI to be biased in a different way this AI can only work if it if it steps steps outside of history and steps outside of human interest okay if it's speaking for all Humanity rather than one nation or one group of people okay any more questions is this clear to you guys all right so um all right so this is the very end and I'll spend like five more minutes to talk about um this year okay so um this is the very first time I've taught both courses okay in the in the first semester we read the great books and um I was blown away by how much you guys enjoyed the great books and how how much you benefit from reading the uh great books okay and quite honestly I don't think anyone has tried this before um I know there are great books courses in University but not at the pace that we um had and certainly not at at the level of difficulty that we had okay so so you guys should be proud of yourself because the great books courses was very hard and um you enjoyed it um even today most of you really like the ilad right you guys still remember the Iliad and think very highly of okay um so so so that's very impressive so thank you this semester is also new course uh where we looked at geopolitics and um I'm I I'm also very impressed by how much you've grown as well in this course uh the way you guys think it's much more logical much more antical you guys are asking great questions okay so um thank you again because you don't have to work hard in this course but you chose to work hard and this is going to carry you very far um in life okay so um the course is um has come to an end and I will share with you um um why I teach this course okay because some as some of you know I do have a very prestigious education background as well as a care career background okay and I could have been what a lawyer I think a lawyer a rich lawyer a professor okay but instead I'm teaching High School in China right why why am I doing this it's because um I have three kids okay I have three three young kids uh my eldest is six my youngest is only about eight months okay and as a father you have to believe in a better world but not only do you have to believe in a better world you have to imine you to fight for it because um you have to leave behind a legacy for your children okay so why teach this course is to bring you a message of Hope okay like through your own imagination through your own hard work you can create a better world you don't have to sit back and just let the world happen you don't have to wait for the future you can make it happen and if you really work hard at it you can make the world a better place and I think like this year has proven to me that I can make the world a better place if I work hard because I've seen the growth in all of you okay so I hope we can stay in touch I hope that um you will tell me how you progress because I'm very confident that all of you will do very well in University and in life and maybe some point we can share this dream of psycho history you know I know it sounds very complicated it's very abstract but to make this work you need a lot of people working together okay it's something that's going to happen tomorrow but it's something that we might come back to later on in our lives okay so that's it thank you and and uh we'll stay in touch okay