(lighthearted music)
- Telepathy and mind reading.
People say that some people have powers
to read people's minds,
but we scientists believe
that it may be possible
to read minds with computer technology.
We're now gonna go to Brown University
where this person here is paralyzed.
He had a stroke, he cannot move,
he cannot talk to his loved ones.
In Rhode Island, they put a chip in his brain,
shown at the upper left.
You can see the chip on the left with an MRI scan.
They connected the chip to a laptop computer.
After a few hours, he began to move the cursor on the screen
by looking at the laptop computer.
Now he can answer email,
he can surf the web,
he can do crossword puzzles,
he can do anything you can do on the web.
He can control the motions of a wheelchair.
In principle, he could drive a car.
And he is paralyzed.
This is how it's done.
A direct link between the human brain
and a laptop computer such that by looking at the screen,
just like riding a bicycle,
it's kinda painful, it takes several hours,
you begin the process of moving the screen by sheer thought.
And this is how it's done.
Now if you are a student taking a final exam,
in the future, this little thing will be microscopic,
you can surf the web while taking a final exam.
(laughing)
Wouldn't that be great?
And we can even begin to have an encyclopedia of thought.
When you tell the truth,
your brain lights up a little bit.
But when you tell a lie,
your brain lights up like a Christmas tree.
You have to know the truth,
you have to know the cover up of the truth,
and you have to know the consequences
of the cover up of a truth,
all of which takes a lot of mental power.
And that's why telling a lie takes a lot of work.
Okay, takes a lot of work.
And we can pick it up on an MRI scan right now.
Again, it's not foolproof,
however, it will go to court this year.
There was an insurance company who denied
the insurance claim of an individual
whose house burned down.
The insurance company said, you burned it down yourself.
The guy was so incensed, he sued the insurance company
and he said he will prove
that he did not burn down his house
by having his brain scanned in front of a judge.
So this is now gonna be a matter of the legal system.
In the future, we will never
be able to read thoughts totally.
There will always be uncertainties
because the brain is not really a computer.
Your brain has no windows,
your brain has no programming,
your brain has no software,
your brain his no Pentium chip.
So how does it work?
It's a neuro network, it's a learning machine.
That's what your brain is.
That's why it's so hard to read thoughts.
Your brain is not really a computer at all.
And in the future, you'll get
the internet in your contact lenses.
Wouldn't this be great taking a final exam?
You just stare out the window
and all the exam questions come right to you, right?
(laughing)
I mean, think about this,
chips are so tiny now, we put them in toys
and the toy becomes intelligent.
This is creating a problem for the English language.
A contradiction in terms, called smart Barbie dolls,
is a contradiction in terms.
Also, these things are so,
and by the way, another contradiction in terms
is Microsoft Works.
(laughing and applause)
That's also a contradiction in terms.
And in the future, these chips are so tiny
you can put them inside an aspirin pill.
I have a picture of an aspirin pill with a TV camera inside.
You swallow it, it takes a picture of your insides
as it goes down your stomach into your intestines.
This gives new meaning for the expression Intel Inside.
(laughing)
So now moving on.
Starships, UFOs, things from outer space.
So many times when you ask a scientist about UFOs
you get what is called the giggle factor.
They giggle at you because they say,
well, the distance between stars is so great
that how can an alien civilization
go thousands of light years,
it would simply take too long, therefore, ha, no UFOs.
Well, I don't know.
But all I know is that NASA is already looking
at the possibility of building starships.
Perhaps a hundred years, within a hundred years
we may have the first devices that go to the nearby stars.
In fact, NASA, I was part of the review committee for NASA,
and we reviewed several designs.
The designs that look best are, first, the solar sail.
The solar sail featured in Star Wars
allows you to inflate a gigantic aluminum
or fibrous membrane in space and it coasts,
coasts on light pressure.
On the moon you could have a battery of laser beams,
which then inflate the device
and the device sails, sails all the way to nearby stars.
One problem, however, is coming back.
(laughing)
Coming back is a problem.
But on on a one-way trip, it's great.
You can sail your way to the nearest star.
Another way is using nanoprobes.
We think that starships
have to be huge like the Enterprise.
But why not use nanotechnology.
Tiny little probes the size of a bread basket
or like the size of one of these things.
And where would you put it?
You would put it on a moon.
A moon because moons are stable, no rust, no erosion,
and any civilization advanced enough to colonize the galaxy,
they're not gonna send Captain Kirk and the Enterprise
to colonize the galaxy,
there are too many planets.
They would land on the moon.
The moon would build a factory,
a factory of a million copies of itself.
Which then fly off and land on more moons.
Each one builds a million more
copies of itself from the soil, then they shoot out.
Starting with one probe, you have a million.
Second generation, you have a million times a million.
Third generation, a million times a million
times a million.
And pretty soon you have a sphere,
a sphere of these probes expanding at the speed of light
colonizing the entire galaxy.
Now where have you seen this before?
Think about how you get a cold.
A virus is a molecule.
That's all it is.
You have ten trillion cells in your body,
but a virus lands on a cell,
hijacks the machinery and creates copies of itself.
Hundreds of copies which then infect other cells.
So starting with one virus, you have a hundred viruses,
then a hundred times a hundred,
a hundred times a hundred times a hundred,
and then you get a cold.
In two weeks.
That's the most efficient way to colonize the human body.
This is the most efficient way to colonize the galaxy.
Nanoprobes.
So NASA is looking at the possibility of creating needles,
tiny little needles, the size of a needle
with a computer inside.
And you launch millions of them.
Not one, they only cost a penny a piece.
Millions of them at a nearby star
hoping that a few of them will actually make it to the star.
This gives you a new way of exploring outer space,
and this, of course, is the movie 2001.
In other words, Kubrick,
Stanley Kubrick at the beginning of his movie
spent 10 minutes interviewing scientists
who then explained that the moon
is the ideal place to build a factory,
a factory which can make copies of itself,
scanning out to other moons,
making more copies of themselves.
But then Kubrick at the last minute
cut the first 10 minutes of his own film
and the film became super mystical.
But today, see the movie again,
it is the most realistic,
the most realistic encounter
with an extraterrestrial intelligence.
In other words, maybe they're already here.
They're on the moon.
And how long will it take
before we have an operating moon base
capable of detecting such a probe?
Maybe a hundred years.
So the movie 2001 had the date wrong,
it should've been 2100.
(lighthearted music)