SGU Episode 904

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SGU Episode 904
November 5th 2022
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SGU 903                      SGU 905
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
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[ https://sguforums.org/index.php?BOARD=1.0 Forum Discussion]

Introduction

Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality. 00:12.840 Hello and welcome to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

00:12.840 --> 00:17.880 Today is Thursday, November 3rd, 2022, and this is your host, Stephen Novella.

00:17.880 --> 00:19.440 Joining me this week are Bob Novella,

00:19.440 --> 00:20.440 Hey everybody.

00:20.440 --> 00:21.440 Kara Santamaria,

00:21.440 --> 00:22.440 Howdy.

00:22.440 --> 00:23.440 Jay Novella,

00:23.440 --> 00:24.440 Hey guys.

00:24.440 --> 00:25.440 And Evan Bernstein.

00:25.440 --> 00:26.440 Good evening, everyone.

00:26.440 --> 00:27.440 How is everyone?

00:27.440 --> 00:29.480 Bob, how was your Halloween?

00:29.480 --> 00:31.000 It was really good.

00:31.000 --> 00:32.000 It was really good.

00:32.000 --> 00:33.560 I decorated the new house.

00:33.560 --> 00:40.080 It was a challenge, and I just actually finished because the party is November 5th, and most

00:40.080 --> 00:42.360 of you are coming.

00:42.360 --> 00:45.240 Those of you who aren't are sadly too far away.

00:45.240 --> 00:46.240 Sorry.

00:46.240 --> 00:48.080 Did you get a lot of kids at your new place?

00:48.080 --> 00:49.080 What's the traffic like?

00:49.080 --> 00:50.080 Did not.

00:50.080 --> 00:51.080 Did not.

00:51.080 --> 00:52.080 Got 16 little punks.

00:52.080 --> 00:53.080 That's a lot.

00:53.080 --> 00:55.600 They were, yeah, they were adorable, but 16.

00:55.600 --> 00:56.600 But it was fun.

00:56.600 --> 00:58.640 Liz and I, we sat on our porch swing.

00:58.640 --> 01:00.080 We had hot cider.

01:00.080 --> 01:02.600 I carved a pumpkin, listened to creepy music.

01:02.600 --> 01:04.400 It was, it was, it was adorable, fun.

01:04.400 --> 01:10.120 And then after that at six thirty, we went, we went in and watched scary movies all night.

01:10.120 --> 01:13.120 Is that, is 16, I don't know.

01:13.120 --> 01:15.880 Living in big cities, I feel like nobody comes to doors anymore.

01:15.880 --> 01:17.600 So 16 sounds like a lot to me.

01:17.600 --> 01:18.600 No, no, no.

01:18.600 --> 01:19.600 It's nothing.

01:19.600 --> 01:24.000 I mean, a lot I would say is 70 is a lot.

01:24.000 --> 01:25.000 I remember when it was a hundred.

01:25.000 --> 01:29.280 Yeah, no, Evan and I used to go around my neighborhood because it was better for trick

01:29.280 --> 01:30.280 or treating than his neighborhood.

01:30.280 --> 01:33.160 So he would bring his daughter over, right, Evan?

01:33.160 --> 01:37.160 And there were like dozens and dozens of groups of kids roaming the neighborhood.

01:37.160 --> 01:39.960 Oh, there easily had to be a hundred kids in that neighborhood, Steve.

01:39.960 --> 01:42.960 Yeah, but this year we only got three groups of kids.

01:42.960 --> 01:47.400 I wonder if it's the pandemic or is just the neighborhood aging out?

01:47.400 --> 01:48.400 You know?

01:48.400 --> 01:49.400 I think it's the neighborhood aging out.

01:49.400 --> 01:52.280 You're just a whole bunch of old fuddy-duddies in that neighborhood.

01:52.280 --> 01:55.000 Yeah, but you kind of think that new families would rotate in.

01:55.000 --> 01:56.920 I mean, it's not like it's remained static.

01:56.920 --> 02:01.880 No, but still, you know, like my daughters are now away, you know, either at college

02:01.880 --> 02:06.800 or moved out and all of their friends that they were going to school with in the neighborhood

02:06.800 --> 02:08.440 are also moved away.

02:08.440 --> 02:12.400 So it hasn't been a complete turnover of everyone in the neighborhood.

02:12.400 --> 02:16.680 So but I do wonder how much of a pandemic effect there is, like are just people not

02:16.680 --> 02:17.680 doing this anymore.

02:17.680 --> 02:19.360 But you can easily wear a mask.

02:19.360 --> 02:24.600 Now Halloween is still hugely popular in terms of money spent and activities and stuff.

02:24.600 --> 02:26.480 It's still a huge, huge holiday.

02:26.480 --> 02:29.740 Like second only to Christmas in terms of money spent.

02:29.740 --> 02:30.740 It's big.

02:30.740 --> 02:31.740 Well, Valentine's Day.

02:31.740 --> 02:32.740 What about Valentine's Day?

02:32.740 --> 02:36.320 What about going to live performances of skeptical podcasts?

02:36.320 --> 02:37.920 Ooh, that sounds like fun.

02:37.920 --> 02:39.560 Steve, we got something coming up.

02:39.560 --> 02:41.240 I don't know if you're aware of this.

02:41.240 --> 02:45.600 I don't know if you've even considered the fact that in a short number of weeks, like

02:45.600 --> 02:46.600 what are we talking about?

02:46.600 --> 02:53.160 We're talking about like six weeks, five and a half weeks in about five and a half weeks.

02:53.160 --> 02:55.040 We are going to be in Arizona.

02:55.040 --> 02:56.120 Boots on the ground.

02:56.120 --> 02:57.120 Four shows lined up.

02:57.120 --> 02:58.200 Five and a half weeks.

02:58.200 --> 03:02.800 And I think we need to talk a little bit about what this means for the people that are in

03:02.800 --> 03:07.820 and around Arizona, because this is, you know, we're flying the whole crew out.

03:07.820 --> 03:08.820 This is a big deal.

03:08.820 --> 03:09.820 I mean, even George.

03:09.820 --> 03:10.820 You know what?

03:10.820 --> 03:11.820 We got to bring George on here.

03:11.820 --> 03:14.640 I want George to tell everyone about all the stuff that's going to happen.

03:14.640 --> 03:16.040 OK, let's bring him on.

03:16.040 --> 03:17.040 George Rob?

03:17.040 --> 03:18.040 I'm sorry.

03:18.040 --> 03:23.040 I'm still just unwrapping my candy from the weekend.

03:23.040 --> 03:24.040 Sorry.

03:24.040 --> 03:25.040 Oh, God.

03:25.040 --> 03:26.040 Delicious.

03:26.040 --> 03:27.040 Hi, George.

03:27.040 --> 03:28.040 Hi, George.

03:28.040 --> 03:29.040 Hey, everybody.

03:29.040 --> 03:30.040 What's going on?

Annoucements: Private Show (3:30)

03:30.040 --> 03:33.560 You know, you know, it's the season now, boys and girl.

03:33.560 --> 03:35.600 It's the it's we're past Halloween.

03:35.600 --> 03:37.140 We're getting into Thanksgiving now.

03:37.140 --> 03:38.560 And what happens after Thanksgiving?

03:38.560 --> 03:44.120 It's the holiday season full on, full on, 100 percent holiday season, whatever holiday

03:44.120 --> 03:45.120 you may be celebrating.

03:45.120 --> 03:49.320 And you know what's one of the most difficult things to do during the holiday season, especially

03:49.320 --> 03:52.840 if you've like been in a relationship for a long time or maybe you're like you're brand

03:52.840 --> 03:57.040 new to a relationship and you don't you don't you're not comfortable, you're not familiar

03:57.040 --> 03:58.640 or you've done everything a thousand times.

03:58.640 --> 03:59.840 You can't think of something new.

03:59.840 --> 04:05.140 The hardest thing to do at the holidays is to get a really good news.

04:05.140 --> 04:08.360 It's really hard to get a really good gift for someone.

04:08.360 --> 04:09.740 And wouldn't you know it?

04:09.740 --> 04:16.220 We here at SGU Productions have a really, really great gift that you can you can not

04:16.220 --> 04:19.200 only give to someone you love, you can give it to yourself.

04:19.200 --> 04:21.160 The way the world is nowadays.

04:21.160 --> 04:22.440 Give yourself a gift.

04:22.440 --> 04:23.440 You deserve it.

04:23.440 --> 04:25.240 What else is there to look forward to?

04:25.240 --> 04:30.680 We are so excited because we have this Arizona trip going on and you can get yourself or

04:30.680 --> 04:35.480 a loved one an incredibly special, unique kind of gift.

04:35.480 --> 04:36.480 Am I right, everybody?

04:36.480 --> 04:37.480 Guys?

04:37.480 --> 04:38.480 All right.

04:38.480 --> 04:39.480 Absolutely.

04:39.480 --> 04:40.480 It's going to be super fun.

04:40.480 --> 04:41.480 That's for sure.

04:41.480 --> 04:45.280 This is going to be above and beyond any kind of private event thing that we've ever done

04:45.280 --> 04:46.280 before.

04:46.280 --> 04:47.760 We've got the extravaganza's.

04:47.760 --> 04:48.760 Those are booked.

04:48.760 --> 04:51.760 Those are those are happening, which that that's a fantastic gift.

04:51.760 --> 04:53.120 You can get that for yourself.

04:53.120 --> 04:54.500 You can get that for your kids.

04:54.500 --> 04:56.120 You can get that for a loved one.

04:56.120 --> 05:00.640 Maybe maybe you want this gift and your loved one doesn't listen to the podcast.

05:00.640 --> 05:04.240 Well, you play them just like this little section right now and you just look at them

05:04.240 --> 05:05.240 to go.

05:05.240 --> 05:06.240 Well, that's interesting.

05:06.240 --> 05:07.240 Hello.

05:07.240 --> 05:08.240 Hello.

05:08.240 --> 05:09.240 That's interesting.

05:09.240 --> 05:10.240 That's interesting.

05:10.240 --> 05:11.240 Sweetheart is interesting.

05:11.240 --> 05:14.920 And we and we live close to Arizona.

05:14.920 --> 05:16.800 We even live in Arizona.

05:16.800 --> 05:21.760 We are going to have these two special private events that I am I am right now formulating

05:21.760 --> 05:27.160 a series of games that are going to not only put the rogues through their paces, but they're

05:27.160 --> 05:30.540 going to involve the audience in a very special and unique way.

05:30.540 --> 05:33.080 This is going to be something that we've never done before.

05:33.080 --> 05:34.080 It's going to be kind of common.

05:34.080 --> 05:38.160 I don't want to give away too, too much because part of the fun is unwrapping the gift, you

05:38.160 --> 05:39.160 know.

05:39.160 --> 05:47.800 But imagine imagine sort of combining scavenger hunts along with trivia, along with opportunities

05:47.800 --> 05:51.880 to see the rogues be absolutely embarrassed.

05:51.880 --> 05:52.880 What else do you want?

05:52.880 --> 05:53.880 Right.

05:53.880 --> 05:58.160 What else could you possibly want during the holiday season in the middle of December in

05:58.160 --> 06:03.080 the desert other than to see maybe Bob being really embarrassed because he couldn't figure

06:03.080 --> 06:06.660 out an answer to something and he has to pay a penalty by, I don't know, maybe dancing

06:06.660 --> 06:11.640 the Macarena or just something I'm just spitballing here.

06:11.640 --> 06:14.280 I am formulating a bunch of relief.

06:14.280 --> 06:15.960 It's oh, it's so going to happen.

06:15.960 --> 06:16.960 It's so going to happen.

06:16.960 --> 06:18.240 It's going to be fantastic.

06:18.240 --> 06:22.360 Look, in all seriousness, this is going to be if you are a fan of the program, if you've

06:22.360 --> 06:27.400 never got an opportunity to see the rogues live, there's going to not only be a chance

06:27.400 --> 06:30.600 to have one on one time with all of the rogues.

06:30.600 --> 06:34.960 There's going to be a live show that we're recording a private live podcast.

06:34.960 --> 06:39.500 You get to see how the sausage is made, and in this instance, you want to see how the

06:39.500 --> 06:43.800 sausage is made because invariably, there's always stuff that doesn't quite make the

06:43.800 --> 06:44.800 show.

06:44.800 --> 06:45.800 All the juicy stuff.

06:45.800 --> 06:49.520 Maybe you wonder to yourself, all the juicy stuff, what doesn't make the show?

06:49.520 --> 06:50.520 What arguments?

06:50.520 --> 06:51.520 What little f-bombs?

06:51.520 --> 06:55.560 What little particular kinds of things might not make the final show?

06:55.560 --> 07:01.320 Well, you're going to have an inside viewer's look at this and to see what goes into the

07:01.320 --> 07:02.320 process.

07:02.320 --> 07:08.120 Let me tell you, as someone that's been on the inside and heard it all, it is so worth

07:08.120 --> 07:09.560 the price of admission sometimes.

07:09.560 --> 07:10.560 Let me tell you.

07:10.560 --> 07:15.240 There's going to be a two-hour-ish private recording thing, which is really fun, and

07:15.240 --> 07:20.100 then as if that's not enough, there'll be another hour and a half of just games and

07:20.100 --> 07:24.920 trivia and music and singing and scavenge hunting and singing.

07:24.920 --> 07:28.200 Again, Bob, probably dancing at some point.

07:28.200 --> 07:29.720 Maybe with a shirt on, maybe with a shirt off.

07:29.720 --> 07:30.720 I don't know.

07:30.720 --> 07:35.920 I'll show you how it works out, but it'll be amazing and so I cannot stress enough how

07:35.920 --> 07:39.600 you need to go to this program, go to these shows, go to the extravaganzas and get the

07:39.600 --> 07:40.600 private shows.

07:40.600 --> 07:41.600 Here's the thing.

07:41.600 --> 07:43.440 Here's the really cool thing.

07:43.440 --> 07:47.000 The private shows are always different, just like the extravaganzas.

07:47.000 --> 07:50.160 You can go to two extravaganzas in a row, and you'll have a very different time each

07:50.160 --> 07:55.320 time because there's so much improv involved in each night of the extravaganza.

07:55.320 --> 08:00.180 Every time we do that show, the funniest bit is something that's completely unscripted

08:00.180 --> 08:02.080 that takes all of us by surprise.

08:02.080 --> 08:03.080 Yeah, vacuum cleaner.

08:03.080 --> 08:04.080 100%.

08:04.080 --> 08:05.080 Vacuum cleaner.

08:05.080 --> 08:07.840 That happens like two or three times a show, all the time.

08:07.840 --> 08:12.120 Yeah, so you do that, but with the private show, with the private super... What are

08:12.120 --> 08:13.120 we calling this again?

08:13.120 --> 08:16.880 The private show plus because we're just lame at thinking of viewing the games, but it's

08:16.880 --> 08:19.360 a four-hour event, so I'm clear.

08:19.360 --> 08:24.320 The total thing is four hours, and it's made to have... In the middle, there's a private

08:24.320 --> 08:29.160 recording of the SGA, but the rest of it is designed to optimize intimate contact between

08:29.160 --> 08:30.520 the audience and the rogues.

08:30.520 --> 08:32.320 Yeah, so you want a photo with everybody?

08:32.320 --> 08:33.320 Done.

08:33.320 --> 08:34.320 You want an autograph?

08:34.320 --> 08:35.320 Done.

08:35.320 --> 08:36.320 You want to ask a question?

08:36.320 --> 08:37.320 Done.

08:37.320 --> 08:41.000 This is all stuff that you get to do plus, again, Bob dancing.

08:41.000 --> 08:45.160 I can't get past this idea of just... I'll take it easy.

08:45.160 --> 08:46.160 George, there may be prizes too.

08:46.160 --> 08:47.160 I'll dance with Kara.

08:47.160 --> 08:48.160 You didn't mention the prizes.

08:48.160 --> 08:49.160 Well, there's... Oh, gosh.

08:49.160 --> 08:53.800 Yeah, so not only will the games be happening, but as you're involved with the rogues and

08:53.800 --> 08:57.820 you're maybe on their team, maybe you're cheering them on, there will be prizes which

08:57.820 --> 09:03.120 will be giving out very exclusive, very fantastic, only limited to this kind of event, prizes

09:03.120 --> 09:05.840 that, again, maybe you want the prize signed.

09:05.840 --> 09:06.840 We can make that happen.

09:06.840 --> 09:08.200 What do we got going on?

09:08.200 --> 09:14.400 Shirts and books and buttons and kazoos and t-shirt cannons and all kinds of stuff is

09:14.400 --> 09:15.400 going to be happening.

09:15.400 --> 09:16.400 Yeah, we're giving away t-shirt cannons.

09:16.400 --> 09:17.400 It's insane.

09:17.400 --> 09:18.400 We're giving away... Yes, we're giving away 400 t-shirt cannons.

09:18.400 --> 09:19.400 It's going to be amazing.

09:19.400 --> 09:23.520 We had to... We wanted to know, hey, if we're going to give away t-shirts, somebody brought

09:23.520 --> 09:25.520 the idea that we should shoot them with a cannon.

09:25.520 --> 09:26.520 I looked it up.

09:26.520 --> 09:27.520 Those things are expensive.

09:27.520 --> 09:28.520 They're crazy.

09:28.520 --> 09:29.520 We're not going to be bringing the t-shirt cannon.

09:29.520 --> 09:34.280 We're not bringing the t-shirt cannon, but yeah, but we'll gladly throw something at you.

09:35.280 --> 09:36.280 We'll throw something at you.

09:36.280 --> 09:41.720 We'll lovingly lob something at you, which may be a t-shirt, maybe some kind of a prize,

09:41.720 --> 09:47.680 but it's all part of this four-hour monster event, which is just... It's going to be something that you'll remember for a very, very long time, and if you've been listening to the show for years or maybe you're brand new to the show, it'll be the kind of experience

09:56.400 --> 10:00.540 that will... It's funny how sometimes when people come to these programs that have never

10:00.540 --> 10:06.640 seen all of you live, how they're sometimes surprised at how you look, how you interact,

10:06.640 --> 10:11.600 who's tall, who's short, who's this, who's that, who's aged well, who's not aged so well.

10:12.600 --> 10:13.600 People always think I'm taller.

10:13.600 --> 10:14.600 I'm always amazed.

10:14.600 --> 10:15.600 We thought you'd be taller.

10:15.600 --> 10:16.600 I'm like, no, this is it.

10:16.600 --> 10:17.600 This is what you get.

10:17.600 --> 10:18.600 This is it.

10:18.600 --> 10:22.260 I'm sorry, but that's the kind of thing you get to experience at these private shows.

10:22.260 --> 10:27.480 We can't stress enough how excited we all are, and we can't stress enough how excited

10:27.480 --> 10:33.280 you will all be after having this monstrous four-hour private show plus event.

10:33.280 --> 10:35.120 Look, tickets are limited.

10:35.120 --> 10:37.160 That's the thing that we've got to press as well.

10:37.160 --> 10:41.920 Tickets are limited because we want it to be a relatively intimate kind of thing.

10:41.920 --> 10:45.180 We can't have four, five, 600 people at these things.

10:45.180 --> 10:48.120 It's got to be a smaller number of people so that we can have one-on-one time with all

10:48.120 --> 10:54.400 of you in various permutations, and we can throw a shirt at each one of you if you answer

10:54.400 --> 10:56.760 questions correctly or win prizes.

10:56.760 --> 10:58.080 It's going to be wonderful.

10:58.080 --> 10:59.080 It's going to be fantastic.

10:59.080 --> 11:00.080 What's the dates again there, Jay?

11:00.080 --> 11:04.240 Just give us the official dates.

11:04.240 --> 11:09.280 December 15th is the Phoenix Private Show Plus, so that's the live podcast recording.

11:09.280 --> 11:10.280 That's a Thursday.

11:10.280 --> 11:12.520 That's everything that George is just saying.

11:12.520 --> 11:19.080 On Friday night, we will be doing the Tucson extravaganza, then Saturday afternoon, we

11:19.080 --> 11:24.120 will be doing the Tucson Private Show Plus, and Saturday night, we will be back in Phoenix

11:24.120 --> 11:25.680 doing the extravaganza.

11:25.680 --> 11:29.520 It's a ping-ponging back and forth across the desert kind of weekend for us, which we

11:29.520 --> 11:31.440 are so excited.

11:31.440 --> 11:37.000 You have four opportunities if you live anywhere near Phoenix or Arizona or both of those to

11:37.000 --> 11:45.080 come to all four, or do one, or do two, or let's say three, or maybe even four, and have

11:45.080 --> 11:49.640 the time, have the SG-U-est time you could possibly have.

11:49.640 --> 11:50.640 Be full of SG-U-ness.

11:50.640 --> 11:51.640 It's full of SG-U-ness.

11:51.640 --> 11:56.880 While we're talking about it, George, the extravaganzas are going to be holiday-themed,

11:56.880 --> 12:00.480 and I guarantee you this will never happen again.

12:00.480 --> 12:05.800 That's the other cool thing, yeah, that we're making these special holiday-themed extravaganzas.

12:05.800 --> 12:10.640 The extravaganzas are always a great fun time, lots of games, lots of opportunities to watch

12:10.640 --> 12:16.960 the rogues try to improvise their way out of challenges that I provide for them, but

12:16.960 --> 12:20.360 because it's the middle of December, we're going to have lovely holiday-themed, which

12:20.360 --> 12:24.420 again, it's just going to put you in the mood, and it's the perfect present.

12:24.420 --> 12:25.680 It's the perfect present.

12:25.680 --> 12:30.900 Two weeks before Christmas, or whatever, 10 days before Christmas, like, here it is, sweetheart.

12:30.900 --> 12:33.240 Let's have a holiday extravaganza, and then guess what?

12:33.240 --> 12:36.680 I'm going to surprise you with a private show, plus we get to hang out with the rogues

12:36.680 --> 12:41.440 for another four hours tomorrow, where we did it yesterday and it was amazing.

12:41.440 --> 12:42.440 What's the site there?

12:42.440 --> 12:43.440 Where do they get the tickets, Jay?

12:43.440 --> 12:44.440 Tell them.

12:44.440 --> 12:49.040 They can go to theskepticsguide.org forward slash events for all four of these events.

12:49.040 --> 12:50.040 Do it.

12:50.040 --> 12:51.040 Do it.

12:51.040 --> 12:52.040 It's going to be great.

12:52.040 --> 12:53.040 We can't wait to see all of it.

12:53.040 --> 12:54.040 Thank you, George.

12:54.040 --> 12:55.040 Thanks for joining us.

12:55.040 --> 12:56.040 Thanks, George.

12:56.040 --> 12:57.040 I'm going to go back to my candy.

12:57.040 --> 12:58.040 Wait a minute.

12:58.040 --> 12:59.040 Where's my wrap?

12:59.040 --> 13:00.040 Don't overdo it.

13:00.040 --> 13:01.040 Don't overdo it.

13:01.040 --> 13:02.040 Paste yourself, George.

13:02.040 --> 13:03.040 Paste yourself.

13:03.040 --> 13:06.040 Well, I got to fit in my Santa outfit.

13:06.040 --> 13:07.040 Bye, everybody.

13:07.040 --> 13:08.040 Thanks, George.

13:08.040 --> 13:09.040 Bye.

Update from Ajia Moon (13:09)

13:09.040 --> 13:14.200 Well, that was fun to talk with George, but you know what, guys?

13:14.200 --> 13:19.160 We actually have another guest joining us for this episode.

13:19.160 --> 13:21.040 You guys may remember Ajia.

13:21.040 --> 13:23.840 Asia, you've been on the show a couple of times before.

13:23.840 --> 13:25.080 Thanks for joining us again.

13:25.080 --> 13:26.200 Thanks for having me back.

13:26.200 --> 13:29.360 So remind our listeners what you do.

13:29.360 --> 13:34.800 I've kind of gone to the moon and back since I spoke to you guys last.

13:34.800 --> 13:42.720 So I used to own a medical marijuana dispensary, and Canada changed the Cannabis Act in 2018,

13:42.720 --> 13:47.880 so we closed to work with the new laws in Canada.

13:47.880 --> 13:54.840 I also had to close my original magazine due to the new laws with advertising, and I spent

13:54.840 --> 14:00.200 a couple of years just watching the grass grow and figuring out what I would do next.

14:00.200 --> 14:05.920 I got bored of watching the grass grow, so I opened the magazine, and I'm back out there

14:05.920 --> 14:07.160 and doing my stuff.

14:07.160 --> 14:11.700 We had a huge event on Sunset Beach in Vancouver.

14:11.700 --> 14:17.680 We had a special guest, Mercurys, and Snack the Ripper, and Golden BSP join us on the

14:17.680 --> 14:19.720 beach for a free party.

14:19.720 --> 14:25.520 We had 1,500 people show up, and we're about to do the same thing again, but for $420 in

14:25.520 --> 14:26.520 Vancouver.

14:26.520 --> 14:31.320 Our artist lineup is crazy, and everyone gets to come for free yet again, and my magazine

14:31.320 --> 14:32.320 will be ready.

14:32.320 --> 14:33.320 Awesome.

14:33.320 --> 14:34.320 Cool.

14:34.320 --> 14:38.520 Well, you're a patron of the SGU, and we're glad to have you on the show this week.

14:38.520 --> 14:42.640 We're going to go through our news items, starting with a Quickie with Bob.

14:42.640 --> 14:43.640 All right.

14:43.640 --> 14:44.640 Thank you, Steve.

This Day in Skepticism ()

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Forgotten Superheroes of Science ()

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"5 to 10 Years" ()

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What's the Word? ()

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Your Number's Up ()

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Quickie with Bob: Matter in Neutron Star Collisions (14:44)

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14:44.640 --> 14:45.640 This is your Quickie with Bob.

14:45.640 --> 14:51.680 Hey, Eric, gird your loins, neutron stars are the second densest thing we know in the

14:51.680 --> 14:58.720 universe, being essentially, as its name implies, solid neutrons, but we don't know what even

14:58.720 --> 15:04.440 more exotic matter would appear when neutron stars collide, even though we can now directly

15:04.440 --> 15:07.640 detect the gravitational waves from such an event.

15:07.640 --> 15:09.800 What's happening on the neutron stars?

15:09.800 --> 15:12.640 What kind of weird things are created?

15:12.640 --> 15:17.480 A new model has been published in Physical Review X, which recently describes the use

15:17.480 --> 15:23.200 of nuclear physics models that have been extended, because those models cannot handle such high

15:23.200 --> 15:28.600 density events, but they've been extended to include a string theory technique.

15:28.600 --> 15:35.200 So doctors Demersic and Jarvinen said regarding this, our method uses a mathematical relationship

15:35.200 --> 15:40.180 found in string theory, namely the correspondence between five-dimensional black holes and strongly

15:40.180 --> 15:46.880 interacting matter to describe the phase transition between dense nuclear and quark matter.

15:46.880 --> 15:47.880 Five-dimensional black holes.

15:47.880 --> 15:49.400 I can picture that.

15:49.400 --> 15:54.400 Using this new model in computer simulations shows that not only what the gravitational

15:54.400 --> 15:59.000 waves would be like that were produced, but also that both hot and cold quark matter can

15:59.000 --> 16:01.880 be created by neutron star collisions.

16:01.880 --> 16:06.920 So next, obviously, is to compare this, that the model results to the real gravitational

16:06.920 --> 16:11.240 waves in the near future of colliding neutron stars, and I'm looking forward to it.

16:11.240 --> 16:14.640 This has been your Quickie with Bob, un-gird your loins, people, and I hope it was good

16:14.640 --> 16:15.640 for you, too.

16:15.640 --> 16:16.640 Thanks, Bob.

16:16.640 --> 16:17.640 That was quick.

16:17.640 --> 16:18.640 That went by very quickly.

16:18.640 --> 16:19.640 Yeah, yeah.

16:19.640 --> 16:20.640 It's called the Quickie.

16:20.640 --> 16:21.640 Very nice.

16:21.640 --> 16:22.640 Neutron stars are endlessly fascinating.

16:22.640 --> 16:23.640 They are.

16:23.640 --> 16:26.240 I'd rather see one up close than a black hole, actually.

16:26.240 --> 16:27.240 Yeah.

16:27.240 --> 16:28.240 Although not too close.

16:28.240 --> 16:29.240 Well, right.

16:29.240 --> 16:30.240 Closest.

16:30.240 --> 16:31.240 Yeah.

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Daylight Saving Time (16:31)

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16:31.240 --> 16:32.240 All right.

16:32.240 --> 16:36.120 So, guys, this weekend is the end of daylight saving time.

16:36.120 --> 16:37.120 Oh, boy.

16:37.120 --> 16:38.120 Yeah, that's right.

16:38.120 --> 16:41.400 Asia, do you guys have daylight saving time in Canada?

16:41.400 --> 16:44.120 We do, but it's different depending on where you are.

16:44.120 --> 16:45.120 Oh, yeah?

16:45.120 --> 16:46.120 That's crazy.

16:46.120 --> 16:49.960 Meaning not all the territories or states observe it, or?

16:49.960 --> 16:50.960 Or the time when you do it is different.

16:50.960 --> 16:51.960 We do switch at different times.

16:51.960 --> 16:52.960 Ah.

16:52.960 --> 16:53.960 Yeah.

16:53.960 --> 16:54.960 You switch at different times.

16:54.960 --> 16:57.960 That has to be not confusing at all.

16:57.960 --> 16:58.960 Right.

16:58.960 --> 17:02.520 We've been trying to get rid of daylight saving time for a couple of reasons.

17:02.520 --> 17:06.800 The big one is that nobody knows how to pronounce it, and they say daylight savings time.

17:06.800 --> 17:14.280 But, Evan, tell us what's the update on the efforts to get rid of it.

17:14.280 --> 17:15.280 Yeah.

17:15.280 --> 17:17.680 So the efforts to get rid of it has made the news, of course, this week.

17:17.680 --> 17:23.480 There's lots of stories out there right now as it approaches this coming Sunday.

17:23.480 --> 17:28.400 You know it's called summer time in the United Kingdom and much of Europe, so if you ever

17:28.400 --> 17:34.480 have someone's summer time, and for those of you who don't know, this is when you advance

17:34.480 --> 17:40.800 your clocks during the warmer months so that darkness falls at a later clock time.

17:40.800 --> 17:46.480 And usually it's one hour difference in most cases around the planet, and in the spring

17:46.480 --> 17:51.000 you spring forward, and in autumn or the fall you fall back.

17:51.000 --> 17:54.940 That's how you're supposed to remember exactly how it works.

17:54.940 --> 18:00.060 So as a result, you have one of your days in the spring, it's a 23 hour day, and then

18:00.060 --> 18:05.360 you get one coming up this coming Sunday, it's going to be a 25 hour day.

18:05.360 --> 18:09.400 And here in the United States it's been in place for quite a while now.

18:09.400 --> 18:14.360 It's pretty much since the 1960s we've been using it regularly.

18:14.360 --> 18:21.100 There have been a few times in which they've used it in the 70s for full for the entire

18:21.100 --> 18:22.100 year.

18:22.100 --> 18:26.640 It had to do with daylight savings, it had to do with energy consumption in the 70s when

18:26.640 --> 18:30.840 there was energy issues going on with oil.

18:30.840 --> 18:35.800 Since then pretty much it's been spring forward and fall back.

18:35.800 --> 18:36.900 Every year we do this.

18:36.900 --> 18:38.440 Now a couple updates on this.

18:38.440 --> 18:44.440 Number one, as Steve as you alluded to, where are we now in getting this thing fixed?

18:44.440 --> 18:48.000 And by fixed I mean rid of it.

18:48.000 --> 18:54.160 So we've got the U.S. Senate, which back in March of this year they passed legislation

18:54.160 --> 18:59.960 that would make daylight saving time permanent starting with 2023.

18:59.960 --> 19:05.320 So essentially once we move into daylight saving time that starts in March of 2023 we'd

19:05.320 --> 19:07.000 never come off of it at that point.

19:07.000 --> 19:08.000 That would be it.

19:08.000 --> 19:09.000 We'd be locked into that.

19:09.000 --> 19:10.560 It'd be permanent summertime.

19:10.560 --> 19:11.560 Yep.

19:11.560 --> 19:16.280 So the Senate has passed that and they passed it unanimously by the way, which is you know

19:16.280 --> 19:19.040 that's- That never happens.

19:19.040 --> 19:20.320 That almost never happens.

19:20.320 --> 19:21.640 It was by acclimation, right?

19:21.640 --> 19:24.240 I mean it's not like it was a formal vote.

19:24.240 --> 19:29.600 No it wasn't really a formal vote it was a voice vote but it does, it counts.

19:29.600 --> 19:31.000 So that's part of it.

19:31.000 --> 19:37.880 But in our system of government in order to get this law passed it has to pass both houses

19:37.880 --> 19:44.440 or both branches of the legislative branch, both chambers and the other is the House of

19:44.440 --> 19:45.440 Representatives.

19:45.440 --> 19:50.080 So over in the House of Representatives it's being held.

19:50.080 --> 19:55.560 Held at desk is the term and it's being held by a subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Consumer

19:55.560 --> 20:01.320 Protection and Commerce, which is a subcommittee under the Energy and Commerce Committee, House

20:01.320 --> 20:03.140 Resolution 69.

20:03.140 --> 20:08.780 Now they're saying that the reason that it's held up there is that they're not sure how

20:08.780 --> 20:11.560 to move forward with it, trying to figure it out.

20:11.560 --> 20:17.160 They agree it's a good idea to settle on something and make it permanent in some way.

20:17.160 --> 20:20.600 But they haven't found a consensus yet on the best way to do it.

20:20.600 --> 20:25.400 Do you lock into the daylight saving mode in which you get the extra hour of light in

20:25.400 --> 20:30.160 the evenings or are you going to go to standard time, are you going to lock in there, in which

20:30.160 --> 20:33.080 that extra hour of daylight will occur during the morning hours?

20:33.080 --> 20:38.440 See they are saying that we haven't been able- This is Frank Pallone who's the U.S. Representative

20:38.440 --> 20:41.500 and Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

20:41.500 --> 20:44.040 We haven't been able to find consensus in the House on this yet.

20:44.040 --> 20:47.760 There are a broad variety of opinions about whether to keep the status quo or to move

20:47.760 --> 20:50.760 to a permanent time and if so, what time that should be.

20:50.760 --> 20:54.580 We don't want to make a hasty change and then have it reversed several years later after

20:54.580 --> 20:59.400 public opinion turns against it, which is what happened when they tried it out in the

20:59.400 --> 21:00.400 70s.

21:00.400 --> 21:02.660 So he says those are the concerns there.

21:02.660 --> 21:07.360 So I don't know that we're really going to see anything solid on this, at least certainly

21:07.360 --> 21:12.760 not in time, I don't think in time for the 2023 year and I have no idea what that does

21:12.760 --> 21:15.880 to the Senate bill, if that means that has to go back and they have to revote on that,

21:15.880 --> 21:17.440 who the heck knows.

21:17.440 --> 21:24.720 But we've talked about this before on the show and we have some differing opinions kind

21:24.720 --> 21:28.220 of on this, at least we've expressed it in the past.

21:28.220 --> 21:31.280 By the way, here's Bob, this is for you.

21:31.280 --> 21:34.560 At two o'clock in the morning this coming Sunday, we're going to go back to one o'clock,

21:34.560 --> 21:35.560 right?

21:35.560 --> 21:36.560 That's how it works.

21:36.560 --> 21:38.480 On that Sunday, it goes back to one.

21:38.480 --> 21:43.020 That means we're going to have a pair of 1 a.m.s. at the same day, right?

21:43.020 --> 21:52.520 And that's 60 duplicate minutes, that's 3600 more seconds and five quadrillion, 600 trillion

21:52.520 --> 21:53.520 additional picoseconds.

21:53.520 --> 21:54.520 Ooh, nice.

21:54.520 --> 21:55.520 So Bob, that's for you.

21:55.520 --> 21:56.520 Well done, well done.

21:56.520 --> 21:57.520 Thank you.

21:57.520 --> 21:58.520 Thank you very much.

21:58.520 --> 22:02.320 And you know that, hey, those are precious picoseconds of life, if you ask me.

22:02.320 --> 22:03.320 Precious.

22:03.320 --> 22:07.980 If you think about it that way, during a person's life, if they happen to die during daylight

22:07.980 --> 22:11.920 saving, they're going to lose five quadrillion, 600 trillion picoseconds.

22:11.920 --> 22:15.000 So I don't think that's necessarily a trivial thing.

22:15.000 --> 22:18.420 Now there's some more news about daylight saving.

22:18.420 --> 22:22.000 There are some new studies that are out and they have to do, well, one has to do with

22:22.000 --> 22:25.280 sleep and the other has to do with accidents.

22:25.280 --> 22:26.840 Sleep interference is bad.

22:26.840 --> 22:32.920 Well, we all agree on that and I think there are many, many studies that have revealed

22:32.920 --> 22:37.200 this, and more studies have confirmed this.

22:37.200 --> 22:41.880 And you know, certainly children need lots of sleep and they are perhaps the worst at

22:41.880 --> 22:46.040 adapting to sudden changes in those kinds of routines, especially when it comes to sleep.

22:46.040 --> 22:51.500 Again, there have been studies published, more recently a 2019 study published in the

22:51.500 --> 22:52.640 Journal of Sleep.

22:52.640 --> 22:58.320 They found that changes in the clock usually result in a loss of sleep for kids and they

22:58.320 --> 23:02.800 have longer and greater disruptions happening among infants and young kids.

23:02.800 --> 23:06.020 So the younger you are, apparently the worse it is for you.

23:06.020 --> 23:08.400 It can affect children's sleep badly.

23:08.400 --> 23:13.640 In some cases, seven to 28 days they could take to adjust to that time change, a one

23:13.640 --> 23:19.860 hour time for a child could take up to almost a month for them to be able to adjust.

23:19.860 --> 23:21.860 So that's not trivial.

23:21.860 --> 23:26.680 And they say to help offset that, what you should do is in the days leading up to the

23:26.680 --> 23:31.680 change, you change everybody's bedtime accordingly to make that adjustment.

23:31.680 --> 23:32.960 And you do it by 30 minutes.

23:32.960 --> 23:34.360 You don't do it by the full hour.

23:34.360 --> 23:35.820 So it doesn't seem so severe.

23:35.820 --> 23:38.520 It's more of a gradual ease into it.

23:38.520 --> 23:42.840 But then there's this other study that came out just not too long ago.

23:42.840 --> 23:44.880 This was late August or early September.

23:44.880 --> 23:50.040 In PLOS One, this was reported, sleep loss leads to the withdrawal of human helping across

23:50.040 --> 23:54.680 individuals, across groups, and large scale societies.

23:54.680 --> 24:00.460 And they specifically reference daylight saving time as one of those reasons, especially at

24:00.460 --> 24:02.540 the large scale level.

24:02.540 --> 24:07.280 And of these studies, they said, we demonstrate that one hour of lost sleep opportunity inflicted

24:07.280 --> 24:12.640 by the transition to daylight saving time reduces real world altruistic helping through

24:12.640 --> 24:15.360 the act of donation giving.

24:15.360 --> 24:20.480 And they established it through the analysis of over three million charitable donations.

24:20.480 --> 24:25.760 The other studies that they did with this, it triggers the withdrawal of help from one

24:25.760 --> 24:27.520 individual to another.

24:27.520 --> 24:31.880 And the FMRI findings revealed that the withdrawal of human helping is associated with deactivation

24:31.880 --> 24:38.440 of key nodes within the social cognition brain network that facilitates willingness to help

24:38.440 --> 24:40.040 others.

24:40.040 --> 24:45.080 And they said it also at another study at a group level, the night to night reductions

24:45.080 --> 24:49.160 in sleep across several nights predict corresponding next day reductions in the choice to help

24:49.160 --> 24:52.120 others during day to day interactions.

24:52.120 --> 24:57.480 So yeah, they're saying that here we go, daylight saving time again.

24:57.480 --> 24:59.160 Ben Simon was the lead author on this.

24:59.160 --> 25:02.880 He says, this is actually the first study to show that there is an impact on people's

25:02.880 --> 25:07.240 generosity and pro social behavior following daylight saving time.

25:07.240 --> 25:11.400 It's just more evidence of the importance of sleep on people's behavior.

25:11.400 --> 25:14.760 Brain areas that are typically active when we think about what other people might want

25:14.760 --> 25:20.800 or need were significantly less active following a night of lost sleep directly tied in one

25:20.800 --> 25:22.080 of these studies to daylight saving.

25:22.080 --> 25:23.080 Yeah.

25:23.080 --> 25:24.720 So basically we're grumpy when we don't get enough sleep.

25:24.720 --> 25:25.720 Yeah.

25:25.720 --> 25:32.040 And less willing to help others, it puts us into a different state.

25:32.040 --> 25:33.040 Yeah, definitely.

25:33.040 --> 25:34.040 This is so complicated.

25:34.040 --> 25:36.680 So I don't think there's no consensus on this.

25:36.680 --> 25:41.200 About a third of people want to keep it the way it is, a third want permanent DSA and

25:41.200 --> 25:46.080 a third want permanent standard time, you know, it's a little bit more for the standard

25:46.080 --> 25:50.800 time, but it shifts from year to year, the survey, but it's basically a third, a third

25:50.800 --> 25:51.800 and a third.

25:51.800 --> 25:54.720 So that's why no matter what you do, someone's going to complain.

25:54.720 --> 25:58.040 You know, if we make a change, people are going to complain, just kind of ignore them.

25:58.040 --> 26:01.160 Just have to decide what the one's best and just go with it and let people complain until

26:01.160 --> 26:02.720 we all stop complaining about it.

26:02.720 --> 26:05.960 I think there's no question that changing is bad, right?

26:05.960 --> 26:11.920 Going back and forth between the two has its own problems, increased accidents, loss of

26:11.920 --> 26:13.080 sleep, et cetera.

26:13.080 --> 26:17.740 But the data on what's better, permanent daylight saving time or permanent standard time is

26:17.740 --> 26:21.600 mixed and it's just like, it's a pick your poison kind of thing.

26:21.600 --> 26:27.880 The sleep specialists all say that that standard time is better, that daylight because it matches

26:27.880 --> 26:31.920 the circadian rhythm to the light, you know, the sun cycle better.

26:31.920 --> 26:35.440 Depending on where you live, that doesn't necessarily apply.

26:35.440 --> 26:38.680 Of course, this depends, this is hugely, hugely regionally.

26:38.680 --> 26:44.520 And yeah, because I lived up in the Yukon for about six months and it goes from like

26:44.520 --> 26:51.760 12 to 12 to 10 to 14, all of a sudden you're in 22 hour days during the summer and then

26:51.760 --> 26:55.920 it just right into winter and it's really, yeah, I don't think, I don't think adjusting

26:55.920 --> 26:59.700 by an hour is going to do a whole lot for you in that situation.

26:59.700 --> 27:03.520 And that's, that's really the question though, right, Steve, like obviously the permanent,

27:03.520 --> 27:08.640 the permanentness, it might have some difference if it's an hour forward, an hour back, but

27:08.640 --> 27:10.440 isn't the main problem, the changing?

27:10.440 --> 27:11.440 Yeah.

27:11.440 --> 27:13.960 Well, as I said, the changing is definitely a problem.

27:13.960 --> 27:14.960 There's no question about that.

27:14.960 --> 27:15.960 Yeah.

27:15.960 --> 27:20.240 But if you get to which, which one should be permanent, it's a mixed bag.

27:20.240 --> 27:25.000 You know, it sounds like for the sleep scientist say you're better, you know, from a medical

27:25.000 --> 27:29.760 point of view, you're better off having standard time, but that assumes of course that we don't

27:29.760 --> 27:32.120 adjust our like school starting time.

27:32.120 --> 27:37.120 See, I think we should go to permanent DST and make school start an hour later.

27:37.120 --> 27:40.920 A lot of people already have flex time in terms of when they start their day, but you

27:40.920 --> 27:44.360 know, for work, but we could make that more standard.

27:44.360 --> 27:45.360 There's some interesting things.

27:45.360 --> 27:46.360 I just did a deep dive on this.

27:46.360 --> 27:47.500 Why I have all this loaded up.

27:47.500 --> 27:52.960 So one thing is, um, economically it's all better DST has advantages cause there's basically

27:52.960 --> 27:55.840 more economic activity happening in the early evening.

27:55.840 --> 27:59.000 Then that's why it's been extended like it used to be six months out of the year.

27:59.000 --> 28:03.360 Now in the U S now it's eight months out of the year because of the candy lobby for Halloween

28:03.360 --> 28:09.680 and the golf course lobby and you know, barbecue supplies, like all these things and those

28:09.680 --> 28:14.320 activities are increases with DST.

28:14.320 --> 28:21.280 The other thing is DST matches better with solar power and energy use.

28:21.280 --> 28:26.320 So if we, if we want to maximize solar power, DST is better.

28:26.320 --> 28:32.800 I just saw a study today that DST matches better with deer, um, which you might not

28:32.800 --> 28:34.200 think, Oh, who cares what the deer want.

28:34.200 --> 28:35.200 Right.

28:35.200 --> 28:42.680 But the studies showed that by going to permanent DST would reduce 36,550 deer deaths, 33 human

28:42.680 --> 28:50.360 deaths, 2054 human injuries, and $1.19 billion in costs from hitting deer on the roadways.

28:50.360 --> 28:56.280 Do you have something like the second most lethal animal in America or something like

28:56.280 --> 28:57.280 that?

28:57.280 --> 28:58.280 I don't know.

28:58.280 --> 28:59.280 I don't know about that statistically.

28:59.280 --> 29:00.280 I've hit three.

29:00.280 --> 29:01.280 I've hit one.

29:01.280 --> 29:02.280 Oh my gosh.

29:02.280 --> 29:03.280 No, I've never.

29:03.280 --> 29:04.280 I've yet to hit one.

29:04.280 --> 29:05.280 Thank goodness.

29:05.280 --> 29:08.920 It's incredible that we have that much data about what goes on in the world.

29:08.920 --> 29:12.920 You know, every one of these gets reported as a, as a, to insurance companies, right?

29:12.920 --> 29:15.200 That's probably why we have so much data on it.

29:15.200 --> 29:19.360 And the original reason, the original, we, this was a world war one time idea.

29:19.360 --> 29:23.000 Let's let's go to DS DST in order to save energy.

29:23.000 --> 29:28.640 It saves about 1% for lighting, but if you include a heating, it flips the other way.

29:28.640 --> 29:33.200 So it's, it's more of a mixed bag again, if you include total energy, not just energy

29:33.200 --> 29:34.660 for lighting.

29:34.660 --> 29:37.300 So you know, it's basically a mixed bag.

29:37.300 --> 29:42.320 We just should pick one so that we don't have to change, adjust to it if we need to and

29:42.320 --> 29:43.320 go on with our lives.

29:43.320 --> 29:44.320 Yeah.

29:44.320 --> 29:46.360 Universally, the change is what's the worst part of all.

29:46.360 --> 29:47.360 Yeah, exactly.

29:47.360 --> 29:48.360 You have to make the change.

29:48.360 --> 29:49.360 Okay.

29:49.360 --> 29:50.360 All right.

29:50.360 --> 29:51.360 Let's go on.

Humans Working With Robots (29:51)

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29:51.360 --> 29:54.800 Jay, are we getting close to having humans and robots working together?

29:54.800 --> 29:56.640 Steve, it's already happening.

29:56.640 --> 29:57.640 Is it?

29:57.640 --> 29:58.640 Oh yeah.

29:58.640 --> 30:03.080 There's, there's, there's lots of companies out there that have some type of automation

30:03.080 --> 30:05.220 robot doing some work.

30:05.220 --> 30:09.880 You know, what's happening is more and more industries are starting to utilize robots

30:09.880 --> 30:12.800 to do a huge variety of jobs.

30:12.800 --> 30:16.920 And you know, we have humans and robots, they they're working together.

30:16.920 --> 30:22.280 And if they work together correctly and if things are optimized, this can, can have a

30:22.280 --> 30:25.280 significant improvement on manufacturing processes.

30:25.280 --> 30:28.920 It could save time, it could save labor, it could save, you know, costs, everything.

30:28.920 --> 30:30.320 It's just a really good thing.

30:30.320 --> 30:35.520 And this of course means that more people are finding that they have to work alongside

30:35.520 --> 30:36.520 some type of robot.

30:36.520 --> 30:39.000 You know, it's, it's just starting to happen.

30:39.000 --> 30:44.180 Companies need to make sure that their workers can effectively work alongside robots of course.

30:44.180 --> 30:48.560 And ideally companies can help make the experience of working with robots positive for their

30:48.560 --> 30:49.560 workers.

30:49.560 --> 30:53.040 They don't want it to be like, you know, have this horrible negative experience that happens

30:53.040 --> 30:54.200 every day while they're at work.

30:54.200 --> 30:56.060 They want it to be as seamless as possible.

30:56.060 --> 30:57.060 They want it to be safe.

30:57.060 --> 31:01.640 There's lots of factors that they, you know, apply here, but a key factor is that humans

31:01.640 --> 31:05.840 need to develop trust for their robot coworkers.

31:05.840 --> 31:09.080 And if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

31:09.080 --> 31:14.920 You know, a human has to be able to accept what the machine is doing and be able to work

31:14.920 --> 31:15.920 alongside it.

31:15.920 --> 31:19.600 And a big factor in there is the idea that they have to have, simply have to have trust

31:19.600 --> 31:21.400 for the work that it's doing.

31:21.400 --> 31:27.320 And if companies can establish trust in robotic workers, the quality and safety can easily

31:27.320 --> 31:28.320 improve.

31:28.320 --> 31:32.200 So trust is actually critical for a shared human and robot workspace to actually function

31:32.200 --> 31:37.500 and, you know, in the first place, like there is already this issue of whether or not some

31:37.500 --> 31:41.680 companies that, you know, employees of companies have trust in the robotics that are happening

31:41.680 --> 31:42.680 there.

31:42.680 --> 31:48.060 So I think we should distinguish between robots that have been working in factories for decades

31:48.060 --> 31:54.000 now would be like, say, like car manufacturers where they've got a zone that you humans aren't

31:54.000 --> 31:55.000 allowed.

31:55.000 --> 31:56.000 We're not talking about that, right?

31:56.000 --> 32:00.000 We're talking about close proximity with no swinging arms that's going to take your head

32:00.000 --> 32:01.000 off.

32:01.000 --> 32:02.000 Yeah.

32:02.000 --> 32:03.000 I'll get into that, Bob.

32:03.000 --> 32:05.080 I'll get more into details about what kind of robot we're talking about.

32:05.080 --> 32:11.360 But in this study that I'm about to tell you about, there's a robot called the UR-10 collaborative

32:11.360 --> 32:12.360 robot.

32:12.360 --> 32:18.640 And it's essentially a robot arm that has five points of articulation that, you know,

32:18.640 --> 32:20.700 isn't that much bigger than a human arm.

32:20.700 --> 32:24.420 But it could just spin and do different, you know, it can move in many different ways.

32:24.420 --> 32:30.520 So in Human Factors, the Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, researchers

32:30.520 --> 32:35.820 at the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University are trying

32:35.820 --> 32:41.520 to figure out how human behavior is affected by robots and having them present in the workspace.

32:41.520 --> 32:46.760 So for example, when humans get fatigued, and this is counterintuitive to me, at least

32:46.760 --> 32:52.000 when humans get fatigued and or stressed out at work, they become more trusting of the

32:52.000 --> 32:54.240 robots they work alongside.

32:54.240 --> 32:56.200 And just think about that for a second.

32:56.200 --> 32:57.200 That's pretty interesting.

32:57.200 --> 32:58.200 Right.

32:58.200 --> 33:02.440 You know, when they get tired, well, we'll begin to trust the robots that are that are

33:02.440 --> 33:07.800 working alongside them more, you'd think maybe the opposite of that, but that's not the case.

33:07.800 --> 33:08.920 And look, I'm too tired.

33:08.920 --> 33:09.920 You do it.

33:09.920 --> 33:11.640 Yeah, maybe that's it.

33:11.640 --> 33:13.200 That's a simple explanation.

33:13.200 --> 33:19.720 So using functional near infrared spectroscopy on 16 test subjects, researchers looked at

33:19.720 --> 33:22.160 their brain activity during the test.

33:22.160 --> 33:28.080 And particularly they looked at brain activation, connectivity, subjective responses and performance

33:28.080 --> 33:30.120 were measured throughout this study.

33:30.120 --> 33:35.040 They were they were studying the brains of the test subjects to see what kind of responses

33:35.040 --> 33:40.480 that they were having to having the robotic worker work near them next to them with them.

33:40.480 --> 33:43.840 And most importantly, they did something really interesting.

33:43.840 --> 33:47.880 So they wanted to know how the test subjects, you know, how their trusting behaviors were

33:47.880 --> 33:51.800 affected as they interacted and worked with the UR-10 collaborative robot.

33:51.800 --> 33:55.240 Now, and like I said, this robot has five points of articulation, it could do a lot

33:55.240 --> 33:59.080 of really, really good, very precise types of movements.

33:59.080 --> 34:03.640 So what they did was they varied the robot's reliability and the robot's level of assistance

34:03.640 --> 34:04.640 during the test.

34:04.640 --> 34:10.080 Now, when I say the robot's reliability, the robots would make mistakes deliberately, right?

34:10.080 --> 34:14.880 The people, the researchers were deliberately having the robot's reliability go down and

34:14.880 --> 34:19.960 then they tested the test subjects to see what was going on in their brain.

34:19.960 --> 34:20.960 And check this out.

34:20.960 --> 34:26.440 Here's a quote from the study, significantly increased neural activation was observed in

34:26.440 --> 34:33.280 response to faulty robot behavior within the medial and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

34:33.280 --> 34:34.640 PFC.

34:34.640 --> 34:39.880 A similar trend was observed for the anterior PFC, primary motor cortex and primary visual

34:39.880 --> 34:41.040 cortex.

34:41.040 --> 34:45.680 Faulty robot behavior also resulted in reduced functional connectivity strengths throughout

34:45.680 --> 34:46.680 the brain.

34:46.680 --> 34:48.440 Steve, what did I just read?

34:48.440 --> 34:52.080 First of all, you know, this is an fMRI study, I'm assuming, right?

34:52.080 --> 34:58.240 I mean, you always got to take those with a grain of salt because there's a high noise,

34:58.240 --> 35:00.720 you know, factor in them.

35:00.720 --> 35:01.720 You know what I mean?

35:01.720 --> 35:03.760 It's like an average of an average.

35:03.760 --> 35:05.680 And they're also usually super low ends.

35:05.680 --> 35:06.680 Yeah.

35:06.680 --> 35:08.960 You're just looking at like a random, like a very, very small sampling.

35:08.960 --> 35:14.320 But if we assume that that's correct, they're just saying, oh yeah, these frontal lobe parts

35:14.320 --> 35:19.560 of the brain are, they're more active when the robot makes mistakes.

35:19.560 --> 35:21.840 Is that what, is that the bottom line?

35:21.840 --> 35:22.840 Yeah.

35:22.840 --> 35:27.920 So the researchers found that when the robot made an error, that the test subjects trust

35:27.920 --> 35:28.920 in the robot lowered.

35:28.920 --> 35:33.680 So when the test subject was in a lower state of trust for the robot coworker, parts of

35:33.680 --> 35:35.240 their brain began to work harder.

35:35.240 --> 35:36.880 And this is the part that I find fascinating.

35:36.880 --> 35:37.880 That makes sense, right?

35:37.880 --> 35:39.920 You know, like, okay, they have to pay attention more.

35:39.920 --> 35:43.080 Now they have to monitor what the robot's doing there.

35:43.080 --> 35:46.880 Part of trust, this does also, I think it's back to like when they're tired, they trust

35:46.880 --> 35:47.880 more.

35:47.880 --> 35:51.520 Lack of trust is a high mental energy state, right?

35:51.520 --> 35:55.720 And trust is like permission to like go to a lower mental energy state.

35:55.720 --> 35:57.120 I trust you're going to do this.

35:57.120 --> 35:58.660 I can relax.

35:58.660 --> 35:59.660 You don't trust somebody.

35:59.660 --> 36:00.660 You can't relax.

36:00.660 --> 36:02.120 You've got to be, you know, looking over their shoulder.

36:02.120 --> 36:05.220 So that makes basic sense, I guess.

36:05.220 --> 36:09.240 So as they like, let me give you a, for instance, they, they lower the accuracy of what the

36:09.240 --> 36:11.180 robot arm is doing.

36:11.180 --> 36:17.080 And what they found was this translated into more brain activity, which increased the test

36:17.080 --> 36:20.920 subjects workload because they began to compensate for the faulty robot.

36:20.920 --> 36:25.020 So again, you know, on the opposite side of this, when the robots performed well, these

36:25.020 --> 36:26.800 brain regions worked well together.

36:26.800 --> 36:32.800 So, you know, what we're seeing is that the test subjects were showing a fatigue.

36:32.800 --> 36:36.700 They were more fatigued and they were working at a higher level of stress when the robot

36:36.700 --> 36:38.520 wasn't working as efficiently.

36:38.520 --> 36:44.120 So it does have an emotional impact on human workers when and if the robots weren't working

36:44.120 --> 36:45.900 in an optimal way.

36:45.900 --> 36:50.480 So that might seem obvious, but it is something that they were able to prove.

36:50.480 --> 36:54.300 And because they're studying the brain and studying which parts of the brain are lighting

36:54.300 --> 37:00.400 up during these very specific moments, it gives them, it teaches them where to look

37:00.400 --> 37:04.260 in the future for more clues about a human response.

37:04.260 --> 37:08.240 And if you, if you think about it, you know, because so many people are going to be working

37:08.240 --> 37:13.280 with robots and interacting with robots and at some point even talking to robots, you

37:13.280 --> 37:18.760 know, this is a very early study, but we need to study human robot interaction in general.

37:18.760 --> 37:24.080 If you think about it, we need to optimize the way robots handle working with human beings

37:24.080 --> 37:28.120 in the way that we respond to the, to them working in our space.

37:28.120 --> 37:32.440 So it's a very complicated situation, but I find it to be really fascinating because

37:32.440 --> 37:37.960 we're right at the beginning guys of, of robots really starting to go into many different

37:37.960 --> 37:41.060 industries and, and you know, they're going to proliferate.

37:41.060 --> 37:43.320 They're going to, they're starting to show up everywhere.

37:43.320 --> 37:49.820 What I want to know though, Jay, is what's the difference between a robot coworker making

37:49.820 --> 37:52.720 an error and a human coworker making an error?

37:52.720 --> 37:53.720 Maybe it's the same.

37:53.720 --> 37:54.720 Yeah.

37:54.720 --> 37:55.720 They were, I agree.

37:55.720 --> 37:56.800 And they were, they studied that.

37:56.800 --> 38:01.400 They studied humans as well, like human and humans working together.

38:01.400 --> 38:03.400 And were they fine?

38:03.400 --> 38:07.360 Well, from what I read, it seemed to be very similar to the response to the robot.

38:07.360 --> 38:08.360 Yeah.

38:08.360 --> 38:12.880 So I was going to say the through line here might be that people react the same to working

38:12.880 --> 38:16.120 with a robot as they do with a human, right?

38:16.120 --> 38:20.760 And as far as at least that is concerned that they will trust a robot, but that trust will

38:20.760 --> 38:25.620 go down when the robot makes mistakes, just like you would read same way you would respond

38:25.620 --> 38:31.160 to a human coworker, which is what I think, you know, my take on the totality of this

38:31.160 --> 38:36.060 research is that, yeah, people will treat robots like people, you know, as long as they

38:36.060 --> 38:37.060 act like people.

38:37.060 --> 38:38.160 They'll be treated like people.

38:38.160 --> 38:40.120 The fact that they're a machine makes no difference.

38:40.120 --> 38:44.800 See, they did say that if you put googly eyes on the robot arm, that it could anger some

38:44.800 --> 38:45.800 people.

38:45.800 --> 38:46.800 Yeah.

38:46.800 --> 38:47.800 That could.

38:47.800 --> 38:48.800 Yeah.

38:48.800 --> 38:49.800 But how cool is this, guys?

38:49.800 --> 38:54.560 I mean, we are, we are studying people's brains to see how they react to working with a robot.

38:54.560 --> 38:55.560 I just love that.

38:55.560 --> 38:56.560 Yeah.

38:56.560 --> 39:01.720 I mean, there's, there's a lot of angles to this research, making robot faces be expressive,

39:01.720 --> 39:06.560 have emotion, you know, having softer robot parts so they could interact in human spaces

39:06.560 --> 39:07.560 more.

39:07.560 --> 39:11.720 So I think this is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle, you know, in terms of robots

39:11.720 --> 39:12.720 in human spaces.

39:12.720 --> 39:13.720 Right.

39:13.720 --> 39:14.720 Yeah.

39:14.720 --> 39:18.440 As Bob was saying, having hard robots on factory floors where people don't go, that's different.

39:18.440 --> 39:19.440 That's easy.

39:19.440 --> 39:20.440 We've been doing that for decades.

39:20.440 --> 39:24.160 But like having a robot in your house, that's a totally different kettle of fish.

39:24.160 --> 39:28.400 Well, just to make it perfectly clear, Steve, this was a collaboration workspace.

39:28.400 --> 39:31.920 Like they had to work together, like they had to, they were touching the same parts.

39:31.920 --> 39:35.720 They had to hand things off to each other and do, you know, some coordinated movements.

39:35.720 --> 39:36.720 Totally.

39:36.720 --> 39:37.720 Yeah.

39:37.720 --> 39:40.400 So that I could, I could really see how fatiguing that would be.

39:40.400 --> 39:45.240 Imagine, you know, you're working an eight hour shift and the robot is, is having problems

39:45.240 --> 39:46.560 over and over and over again.

39:46.560 --> 39:49.120 You'd get to the point where you want to pull your hair out, you know?

39:49.120 --> 39:50.120 Yeah.

39:50.120 --> 39:51.120 All right.

39:51.120 --> 39:52.120 Thanks, Jay.

Lottery Miracle (39:52)

• [link_URL TITLE]

39:52.120 --> 39:54.840 So guys, have you heard, Evan, you sent this to everybody, but you've read the article

39:54.840 --> 39:58.440 or heard about the lottery miracle that happened earlier this week.

39:58.440 --> 40:02.160 Well, there was a miracle or maybe it was last week.

40:02.160 --> 40:03.160 Yep.

40:03.160 --> 40:04.160 Yeah.

40:04.160 --> 40:08.080 So tell me what, tell me what logical fallacy this is.

40:08.080 --> 40:10.800 Here is the headline of the New York post.

40:10.800 --> 40:13.200 Now I know the New York post is a rag.

40:13.200 --> 40:19.040 You don't have to tell me a high quality, uh, journal Alexander Hamilton founded the

40:19.040 --> 40:20.040 New York post.

40:20.040 --> 40:21.200 What are you talking about?

40:21.200 --> 40:22.200 We love that.

40:22.200 --> 40:23.200 Whatever.

40:23.200 --> 40:26.120 But all of the local news had basically the same reporting, right?

40:26.120 --> 40:28.600 This was just the local news reported it this way.

40:28.600 --> 40:32.920 It hit the national news, but with all the local news reporting, this is the way it was

40:32.920 --> 40:33.920 reported.

40:33.920 --> 40:42.040 So here's the New York post headline, one in 331 billion chance, same New York lottery

40:42.040 --> 40:44.680 numbers drawn twice in one day.

40:44.680 --> 40:45.680 Oh, wow.

40:45.680 --> 40:46.680 You guys think about that.

40:46.680 --> 40:47.680 That happened.

40:47.680 --> 40:50.680 I've never heard of that.

40:50.680 --> 40:52.520 It did happen.

40:52.520 --> 40:56.040 What do you think about the one in 331 billion chance of that happening?

40:56.040 --> 40:57.040 That seems pretty remarkable.

40:57.040 --> 41:00.680 Well, I mean, how many, how many times, I mean, it's a law of large numbers, right?

41:00.680 --> 41:03.720 I mean, you have a lot of lottery numbers are being pulled.

41:03.720 --> 41:07.180 All the time, all over the country, although in many countries.

41:07.180 --> 41:12.680 So the chance is one place doing the same number twice is not as crazy as you might

41:12.680 --> 41:13.680 think.

41:13.680 --> 41:15.200 Do you think there are billions of lottery draws?

41:15.200 --> 41:16.200 No, there's not.

41:16.200 --> 41:20.840 And it is, you know, a hell of a coincidence if it happened and it's a five number system

41:20.840 --> 41:25.560 at one through, Oh, what's the 38, I think it's 39, it goes to 39.

41:25.560 --> 41:26.800 So numbers one through 39.

41:26.800 --> 41:31.200 So, well, here's the, all right, so it's actually not a big deal at all.

41:31.200 --> 41:34.440 And the 331 billion is wrong.

41:34.440 --> 41:35.720 It's straight up wrong.

41:35.720 --> 41:37.000 They lied to me.

41:37.000 --> 41:38.000 So all right.

41:38.000 --> 41:42.820 So as Evan says, a five number system, the chance of getting any particular sequence

41:42.820 --> 41:43.880 of numbers, right?

41:43.880 --> 41:52.300 So, or the chance of winning with a single ticket is one in 575,757, right?

41:52.300 --> 41:55.520 So the chance of drawing the same number twice in a row is what?

41:55.520 --> 41:56.520 It's the same.

41:56.520 --> 41:57.520 It's the same.

41:57.520 --> 42:03.560 So the chance of winning with a single ticket is one in 575,757, the first number could

42:03.560 --> 42:04.560 be anything.

42:04.560 --> 42:08.840 It's the chance of the second number matching the first number.

42:08.840 --> 42:09.840 That's it.

42:09.840 --> 42:11.080 That's the probability.

42:11.080 --> 42:15.400 So the 331 billion is calculating it for both numbers, right?

42:15.400 --> 42:21.120 You would have had to place a bet if you were, if you bet for both numbers ahead of time,

42:21.120 --> 42:25.800 that's the 331 billion, but just the fact that, so the other thing, right?

42:25.800 --> 42:26.800 So that's wrong.

42:26.800 --> 42:27.800 They're saying it was a one.

42:27.800 --> 42:34.120 They said, but experts told us, so experts took out their calculator, squared 575,757

42:34.120 --> 42:37.200 and came up with a number, but that's absolutely wrong.

42:37.200 --> 42:38.200 So what's the fallacy?

42:38.200 --> 42:45.740 Well, it's really the expert fallacy really obvious when you think about it, really obvious

42:45.740 --> 42:55.520 when you think about it, but the lottery fallacy, the lottery fallacy, that was another trick.

42:55.520 --> 43:00.920 First the New York Post, then Steve, I can't take this because they're calculating the

43:00.920 --> 43:06.880 odds of those numbers coming up rather than any numbers coming up, right?

43:06.880 --> 43:13.840 So but it's even a little worse than that because they're deciding on the pattern after

43:13.840 --> 43:14.840 the fact, right?

43:14.840 --> 43:16.600 So there's a sort of little bit of post hoc thing.

43:16.600 --> 43:21.660 So for example, would they have reported this if the numbers came up twice in a row, even

43:21.660 --> 43:23.600 if they weren't both in the same day?

43:23.600 --> 43:24.600 Of course they would.

43:24.600 --> 43:25.600 Right?

43:25.600 --> 43:30.840 The reason why we tend to see a lot of coincidences is because we are retrofitting, like we're

43:30.840 --> 43:33.800 deciding what the pattern is after we see it, right?

43:33.800 --> 43:34.800 We love pattern seeking.

43:34.800 --> 43:35.800 It's like we do it with dice.

43:35.800 --> 43:36.800 Yeah.

43:36.800 --> 43:37.800 What are the odds?

43:37.800 --> 43:38.800 I rolled a seven three times in a row.

43:38.800 --> 43:39.800 The same as the odds of rolling anything.

43:39.800 --> 43:40.800 Yeah, right.

43:40.800 --> 43:47.960 In this case, you could say, well, you know, it doesn't have to be two numbers coming up

43:47.960 --> 43:48.960 in the same day.

43:48.960 --> 43:51.320 It could just be two in a row.

43:51.320 --> 43:55.120 So this is a daily seven days a week, twice a day lottery.

43:55.120 --> 44:00.500 So it's literally 365 opportunities for this to happen every year.

44:00.500 --> 44:07.420 So in 10 years, in 10 years, the odds of this happening, one in 157.

44:07.420 --> 44:08.420 Not that big.

44:08.420 --> 44:09.420 No.

44:09.420 --> 44:12.040 One in 131 billion.

44:12.040 --> 44:14.040 It's really one in 157.

44:14.040 --> 44:18.880 If you consider like if this should happen once every, you know, whatever, a few decades.

44:18.880 --> 44:24.360 The other thing is there are 180 lotteries in the world, right?

44:24.360 --> 44:29.760 So out of those hundreds, this should happen every year or whatever, you know, exactly

44:29.760 --> 44:31.760 how many times those are those were repeated.

44:31.760 --> 44:34.700 But something like this should be happening on a regular basis.

44:34.700 --> 44:35.700 And guess what?

44:35.700 --> 44:36.700 It does.

44:36.700 --> 44:42.240 The first time this has happened in 2009, but the Bulgarian lottery turned out the same

44:42.240 --> 44:43.240 numbers in one week.

44:43.240 --> 44:44.240 Right.

44:44.240 --> 44:48.560 And that was considered to be too big a coincidence to have been happening.

44:48.560 --> 44:49.560 It's rigged.

44:49.560 --> 44:50.560 There's something wrong with the system.

44:50.560 --> 44:51.560 It should be happening.

44:51.560 --> 44:52.560 Oh, my God.

44:52.560 --> 44:53.560 All the time.

44:53.560 --> 44:56.880 You know, it would be extraordinary if it didn't happen.

44:56.880 --> 44:57.880 Right.

44:57.880 --> 44:58.880 Exactly.

44:58.880 --> 45:05.440 And if we extend it out to a week, if we do 14 sets of numbers, that's 91 possible comparisons

45:05.440 --> 45:07.920 out of that hundred and fifty seven.

45:07.920 --> 45:12.800 So it's basically a bit greater than 50 percent chance that you go that that would happen.

45:12.800 --> 45:14.880 So anyway, it's it should happen.

45:14.880 --> 45:15.880 Yeah.

45:15.880 --> 45:17.980 It's this kind of thing should be happening.

45:17.980 --> 45:21.980 But the fact that I mean, I know that, you know, whatever, again, the local news isn't

45:21.980 --> 45:22.980 going to get this right.

45:22.980 --> 45:27.240 You know, they're going to present it in the most sensational way possible.

45:27.240 --> 45:31.060 So somebody because somebody with a calculator is, by definition, an expert, right?

45:31.060 --> 45:34.640 Somebody multiplied those two numbers with three hundred thirty one billion.

45:34.640 --> 45:35.640 That was enough for them.

45:35.640 --> 45:38.600 They didn't have to think about it for two seconds.

45:38.600 --> 45:42.320 And then, you know, you see that that was their headline one in three hundred thirty

45:42.320 --> 45:43.320 one billion chance.

45:43.320 --> 45:45.780 But I knew that had to be wrong or had to be something wrong about that.

45:45.780 --> 45:47.640 But it was it was pretty quick to figure that out.

45:47.640 --> 45:53.120 And so that concept, you know, because I wrote about this and the people were talking about

45:53.120 --> 45:57.720 in the in the in the comments, every time this idea comes up, some people just have

45:57.720 --> 46:04.000 a hard time wrapping their brain around the basic concept of the lottery fallacy.

46:04.000 --> 46:08.320 It's like, yeah, but the chance of that person winning was still really low.

46:08.320 --> 46:11.080 It's like, yeah, but you're deciding that after the fact.

46:11.080 --> 46:15.080 I heard somebody in the comments had another great example.

46:15.080 --> 46:22.120 It's like hitting a golf ball into a fairway and the golf ball lands somewhere on the fairway.

46:22.120 --> 46:26.200 And let's say it hits one blade of grass dead center.

46:26.200 --> 46:31.280 That blade of grass must feel really special, right?

46:31.280 --> 46:35.580 But after the fact, you could say, yeah, what were the odds that that blade of grass was

46:35.580 --> 46:36.580 hit by that ball?

46:36.580 --> 46:37.840 It's astronomical.

46:37.840 --> 46:38.840 That's the sharpshooter fallacy.

46:38.840 --> 46:39.840 Yeah.

46:39.840 --> 46:43.360 But the drawing the circle after that is the similar.

46:43.360 --> 46:45.680 There are similar logical problems with that.

46:45.680 --> 46:46.680 Yeah.

46:46.680 --> 46:50.700 It would be like conclude like something miraculous must have happened because the probability

46:50.700 --> 46:54.440 of me hitting that blade of grass was so remote.

46:54.440 --> 46:56.760 But of course, yeah, of course, determine that after you hit it.

46:56.760 --> 47:00.600 But of course, the probability of hitting some blade of grass approaches one.

47:00.600 --> 47:01.600 Right.

47:01.600 --> 47:02.600 I mean, 100 percent.

47:02.600 --> 47:03.600 Yeah.

47:03.600 --> 47:04.600 Unless you get lost.

47:04.600 --> 47:05.600 Unless you're horrible at golf.

47:05.600 --> 47:06.600 Yeah.

47:06.600 --> 47:07.600 Or you land in a sand trap, I guess.

47:07.600 --> 47:10.920 You know, but if you're if you're driving on the fairway, I mean, let's say there's

47:10.920 --> 47:12.580 no sand traps in range.

47:12.580 --> 47:16.340 It's pretty close to 100 percent that you're going to hit some blade of grass.

47:16.340 --> 47:17.760 It's the same idea.

47:17.760 --> 47:18.880 It's the same idea.

47:18.880 --> 47:24.160 So anyway, but again, we talk about before, like somebody winning the lottery twice.

47:24.160 --> 47:28.040 It also happens on a regular basis and should happen on a regular basis.

47:28.040 --> 47:29.680 My grandmother won the lottery twice.

47:29.680 --> 47:30.680 I've never played.

47:30.680 --> 47:33.200 There you go.

47:33.200 --> 47:38.400 And they always reported as the probability of two individual tickets winning.

47:38.400 --> 47:42.720 I'd like to point out she probably spent more than what she won.

47:42.720 --> 47:44.080 I'm sure of that.

47:44.080 --> 47:51.280 Well, actually, I don't know how much she won the first and thirty eight thousand Canadian.

47:51.280 --> 47:54.680 And the second time was over two hundred thirty thousand.

47:54.680 --> 47:55.680 J.K.

47:55.680 --> 48:01.240 He gave me thirty bucks every day, like throughout my childhood, all the way up to a very nice.

48:01.240 --> 48:06.640 But it's a common myth that people who win the lottery fritter away their winnings.

48:06.640 --> 48:12.080 Usually people who win the lottery maintain their wealth long term and most of them invest

48:12.080 --> 48:13.080 it wisely.

48:13.080 --> 48:14.080 Right.

48:14.080 --> 48:17.840 I think what she meant is she spent more playing the lottery than she ever won.

48:17.840 --> 48:20.680 Yeah, she played every day.

48:20.680 --> 48:21.680 Yeah.

48:21.680 --> 48:22.680 Yeah.

48:22.680 --> 48:23.680 Lotteries have issues.

48:23.680 --> 48:24.680 It would be interesting to calculate that.

48:24.680 --> 48:26.080 You're better off.

48:26.080 --> 48:27.080 You are better off.

48:27.080 --> 48:30.400 Like let's say you're going to invest ten dollars a week in lottery tickets or twenty

48:30.400 --> 48:31.440 dollars a week in lottery tickets.

48:31.440 --> 48:34.160 Just put that money in an IRA every week.

48:34.160 --> 48:35.160 You'd be better off.

48:35.160 --> 48:36.160 Better off.

48:36.160 --> 48:37.160 All right.

Mechanical Neural Network (48:37)

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48:37.160 --> 48:41.000 Bob, what is this mechanical neural network that sounds suspicious?

48:41.000 --> 48:42.400 What is that?

48:42.400 --> 48:44.280 This kind of came out of nowhere.

48:44.280 --> 48:45.480 This is really fascinating.

48:45.480 --> 48:51.280 It's a new type of engineered material called the mechanical neural network that takes inspiration

48:51.280 --> 48:56.560 from artificial neural networks and machine learning to adapt and improve its ability

48:56.560 --> 49:00.280 to deal with unexpected forces and even change shape.

49:00.280 --> 49:04.520 So this is an interesting advance by UCLA mechanical engineers, and it's described

49:04.520 --> 49:08.960 in the journal Science Robotics, and it's called Mechanical Neural Networks, architected

49:08.960 --> 49:11.560 materials that learn behaviors.

49:11.560 --> 49:16.040 Now this new approach to material science, it reminds me of metamaterials, Steve, you

49:16.040 --> 49:21.120 might be reminded of as well, because metamaterials, we've talked about many times on the show,

49:21.120 --> 49:26.080 metamaterials have properties that derived essentially from its micro or nano structure

49:26.080 --> 49:28.280 instead of its chemical properties.

49:28.280 --> 49:32.120 It doesn't matter really what it's made of, it's just how it's organized.

49:32.120 --> 49:35.960 So this new type of material I'm talking about gets its properties from its design

49:35.960 --> 49:37.600 and its geometry.

49:37.600 --> 49:43.640 In this way, they often discuss how it's similar to Velcro and that it doesn't matter

49:43.640 --> 49:44.960 what the Velcro is made of.

49:44.960 --> 49:48.720 As long as it has those hooks and those loops, it's going to function no matter what it's

49:48.720 --> 49:49.720 made of.

49:49.720 --> 49:53.080 That will work because it's basically the hooks and the loops that are doing the work.

49:53.080 --> 49:57.960 So a mechanical neural network consists of beams that are organized in a sort of triangular

49:57.960 --> 50:03.760 lattice pattern that change length and stiffen when needed and can interact with other beams.

50:03.760 --> 50:06.480 That's one of the critical aspects to it.

50:06.480 --> 50:13.120 It's that connection between all these little beams that make it similar to neural networks.

50:13.120 --> 50:17.360 Now neural networks, we've described them as well on the show, neural networks build

50:17.360 --> 50:22.360 up deep learning algorithms by passing or not passing data from one node to a deeper

50:22.360 --> 50:24.440 node in the network.

50:24.440 --> 50:28.540 The strength of that connection is manipulated and it's called a weight.

50:28.540 --> 50:33.320 So mechanical neural networks, on the other hand, they tune the weighted connections between

50:33.320 --> 50:39.640 those beams in a similar way by making them stiffer or weaker depending on what they want

50:39.640 --> 50:42.500 to achieve in the environment and things like that.

50:42.500 --> 50:47.600 So that's how it's similar to the neural networks in artificial intelligence.

50:47.600 --> 50:53.360 The engineers say this, they say, we hypothesize that a mechanical lattice with physical nodes

50:53.360 --> 50:57.960 could be trained to take on certain mechanical properties by adjusting each connection's

50:57.960 --> 50:58.960 rigidity.

50:58.960 --> 51:03.280 The idea was to have the mechanical lattice be able to adopt and maintain new properties

51:03.280 --> 51:08.720 like taking on a new shape or changing directional strength and they finished here saying once

51:08.720 --> 51:13.360 the many connections are tuned to achieve a set of tasks, the material will continue

51:13.360 --> 51:15.360 to react in the desired way.

51:15.360 --> 51:20.400 The training is in a sense remembered in the structure of the material itself.

51:20.400 --> 51:22.600 So now they show that this idea actually works.

51:22.600 --> 51:28.760 They built a prototype, they actually about as big as a microwave, it's like a prototype

51:28.760 --> 51:33.940 lattice that they built that was actually able to learn and morph in specific ways when

51:33.940 --> 51:36.620 various forces were applied to it.

51:36.620 --> 51:40.500 So now in the future, they speculate that this could be used as say, for example, part

51:40.500 --> 51:46.660 of a plane wing that could adapt to unexpected things like say internal damage to the inside

51:46.660 --> 51:53.040 the wing itself or unusual or strong wind patterns that just were not expected.

51:53.040 --> 51:57.580 It could strengthen and weaken connections to maintain important attributes like directional

51:57.580 --> 51:59.660 strength because that's pretty much important.

51:59.660 --> 52:04.480 You want to be very strong, those wings need to be very strong in the direction of movement.

52:04.480 --> 52:09.800 So this thing could actually adapt and change so that it maintains that directional strength

52:09.800 --> 52:14.920 regardless of what's going on, whether there's even some weakening of the wings itself or

52:14.920 --> 52:21.360 if the connection to the body of the plane is being changed somehow, it could actually

52:21.360 --> 52:23.720 adapt to that kind of stuff.

52:23.720 --> 52:28.240 Then over time, the algorithm would actually maintain these new properties.

52:28.240 --> 52:32.880 So you could easily extrapolate this idea to buildings, earthquake protection, making

52:32.880 --> 52:38.640 the building stronger and adapting to earthquakes and many other things.

52:38.640 --> 52:44.440 So moving forward, the researchers hope to move from their essentially 2D prototype that

52:44.440 --> 52:49.080 they created to something with smaller components that's three dimensional.

52:49.080 --> 52:53.400 Regarding this, they say, the material my colleagues and I created is a proof of concept

52:53.400 --> 52:57.000 and shows the potential of mechanical neural networks.

52:57.000 --> 53:01.040 But to bring this idea into the real world will require figuring out how to make the

53:01.040 --> 53:06.520 individual pieces smaller and with precise properties of flex and tension.

53:06.520 --> 53:11.240 We hope new research in the manufacturing of materials at the micron scale will lead

53:11.240 --> 53:16.520 to advances that make powerful, smart mechanical neural networks with micron scale elements

53:16.520 --> 53:22.000 and dense three dimensional connections a ubiquitous reality in the near future.

53:22.000 --> 53:27.800 They even describe ideas to use this in armor to deflect shock waves and also using sound

53:27.800 --> 53:29.600 waves in acoustic imaging.

53:29.600 --> 53:31.680 So, yeah, this is fascinating.

53:31.680 --> 53:34.200 I'm really curious to see where this is going to go.

53:34.200 --> 53:38.920 Clearly, though, they need to be able to migrate this idea to the three dimensional scale because

53:38.920 --> 53:40.400 that's where the real power of this would come in.

53:40.400 --> 53:45.880 I'm not sure how much utility it would have in purely two dimensional applications.

53:45.880 --> 53:49.480 But also, and of course, it's got to get a lot smaller and they talk about that micron

53:49.480 --> 53:53.600 scale or even eventually potentially nano scale as well.

53:53.600 --> 53:58.940 Imagine, could you combine this idea with metamaterials, metamaterials with mechanical

53:58.940 --> 53:59.940 neural networks?

53:59.940 --> 54:00.940 What would that be like?

54:00.940 --> 54:07.180 In a way, this idea, it makes these systems more like a biology that could actually adapt

54:07.180 --> 54:11.160 and change to the environment like biology on Earth does.

54:11.160 --> 54:12.160 It's fascinating stuff.

54:12.160 --> 54:13.160 Yeah.

54:13.160 --> 54:14.160 Yeah.

54:14.160 --> 54:18.420 When we like research this, that's one of the this, you know, embodies a couple of themes

54:18.420 --> 54:21.640 that we sort of came up with in terms of future technology.

54:21.640 --> 54:27.200 One is that the distinction between biology and machines is going to get blurry as we

54:27.200 --> 54:28.200 go forward.

54:28.200 --> 54:32.880 You know, sure, biology will be you'll have more machine components and machines will

54:32.880 --> 54:34.400 act more like biology.

54:34.400 --> 54:36.300 This is an example of that.

54:36.300 --> 54:42.440 But also, like one of the real game changing advances for technology is new materials.

54:42.440 --> 54:46.000 We've said that before on the show, like material science is the thing that changes

54:46.000 --> 54:47.000 the game.

54:47.000 --> 54:48.000 Care's favorite discipline.

54:48.000 --> 54:49.000 Yeah.

54:49.000 --> 54:50.000 It really is.

54:50.000 --> 54:54.320 The stuff that you, a lot of the cutting edge stuff that you get is because of a material

54:54.320 --> 54:55.320 science breakthrough.

54:55.320 --> 54:56.320 Yeah.

54:56.320 --> 54:59.960 And it's so dramatic and we're seeing, you know, a lot of, we say that in the book, Steve,

54:59.960 --> 55:05.160 a lot of the materials that we use today very commonly have been around for centuries, if

55:05.160 --> 55:06.920 not millennia, right?

55:06.920 --> 55:09.160 But I think some of that's changing now.

55:09.160 --> 55:15.200 And you know, especially with, you know, automating the research and kind of like research building

55:15.200 --> 55:19.060 on research, you know, standing on the shoulders of giants, creating, you know, having these

55:19.060 --> 55:22.000 breakthroughs in material science, I think are just going to come faster.

55:22.000 --> 55:23.280 Yeah, I agree.

55:23.280 --> 55:27.080 Although I still think the stuff we've been using for thousands of years actually was

55:27.080 --> 55:29.120 still going to be around for a long time.

55:29.120 --> 55:30.120 Yeah.

55:30.120 --> 55:31.120 They'll be coexisting.

55:31.120 --> 55:32.120 They'll be coexisting.

55:32.120 --> 55:36.200 It's not going to do away with cement and concrete and wood, right?

55:36.200 --> 55:37.200 That's not going anywhere.

55:37.200 --> 55:38.200 Steel.

55:38.200 --> 55:39.200 Yeah.

55:39.200 --> 55:40.200 It's not going anywhere.

55:40.200 --> 55:41.200 All right.

55:41.200 --> 55:42.200 Thanks, Bob.

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