Want to understand string theory in 20 minutes? Listen to Brian Greene. The theoretical physicist has the handy knack of explaining the seemingly unexplainable, taking science out of its academic comfort-zone and into the general public.

As co-founder of the yearly World Science Festival, Greene is passionate about increasing public awareness of not just the important of science but also its power to inspire us. He speaks to WIRED about how AI might replace biological life on Earth, the post-truth twilight zone and the challenge of computing consciousness.

On the end-game for AI

It’s a tool. And we used to do all calculations with a pencil and paper, before that we did it scratching it out on tablets, but as technology progresses we have ever more powerful tools. It hasn’t replaced me. I would say the same thing about AI, it’s something that we can harness in order that we can do our jobs better. Is it the case that in the future AI may evolve to a place where our input becomes so nominal that we’re no longer really participating in the research? I can imagine that that may one day happen and I don’t necessarily think that would be a bad thing.


It would just mean our role, the biological brain’s role, would shift to something that it’s particularly adept at and allow this other system, if it’s accurate and creative which can certainly be the case, let it do what it can do. And I don’t feel in competition with these tools. I just consider them to be one more way to push progress forward.

What if every undertaking can ultimately be done better by, say, some fancy computer? That may be the next phase of evolution. It could be, and people recoil at it, but it could be that the biological version of intelligent life on planet Earth is a stepping stone. And if that stepping stone is such that in the far future we don’t have biological life as the predominate intelligent species on the planet, so be it.

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On computing consciousness

Is consciousness a computational process or is it more than that? Can you replicate consciousness in a computational environment, in a computer? Nobody knows the answer to that. There’s reason to believe that it might be true, there’s reason to believe it might not be true and it’s very hard to figure out whether or not you’ve even succeeded. I think that’s a huge area [of research].

If we do succeed in creating something that by any measure appears to be conscious within a computational arena, that would be a breathtaking moment, for some people a frightening moment, for others an exciting moment.


On the importance of science

We begin life as scientists. We lose kids at a certain stage in the educational system and science seems irrelevant, it seems intimidating, it feels like it’s not something that matters. And if you can catch kids before they make that turn, then science can be something that is not a subject any longer but rather a perspective and a way of life. And if science can become that kind of profoundly important part of one’s world view, starting at a young age, then you’ve made a difference.

I think there’s a general sense among a fraction of the American population that they’ve got the short end of the stick. That they’ve not got their fair share and I think that has translated via the Trump movement into a general blanket distrust of anything that the status quo says is the way things are, from vaccinations to issues of climate, and I think it’s grown into a general distrust of so-called experts. It’s an awful development and one that we scientists have to view as a critical charge of what we do, to ensure that this perspective doesn’t gain a greater hold on the American psyche.

On what he’d say to Donald Trump

It would be hard for me to hold back on trying to perhaps convey some scientific literacy. This the leader of the free world who doesn’t understand certain very, very basic things that a ten year old, a five year old, can understand. It just hasn’t sunk in or never was exposed to it. So one couldn’t help but have an urge to convey some real information. Whether that would be accepted or not is another story.


On the threat of post-truth political rhetoric

It’s fine to have partisan arguments about policy. How to respond to the scientific facts and the scientific truths, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what government is about, that’s what the art of negotiation is all about. But when the starting point is no longer something that everybody can agree on, when the facts are something that not everyone can agree on, that’s when you’re in a twilight zone domain.

It’s an unfamiliar place. Facts are supposed to be things that, it doesn’t matter who’s in favour of them, it doesn’t matter who wants them to be true. Facts are the things that transcend those wishes and desires. Denying certain fundamental facts and truths about the world is not okay. And that’s not a Democratic issue, that’s not a Republican issue, that’s a rational issue.

On science reaching out beyond academia

Until very recently I would never have a conversation that had anything in it that wasn’t pure science. I think many scientists have had a similar perspective. But since the election I’ve started to use social media, I never really used it before. And on a semi-regular basis the things that I say have to do with policy or politics or things of that sort. And I see the response. Many are supportive of that, many say, ‘Shut the fuck up, I follow you for science’. And I think that’s perhaps a silver lining of everything that’s happening, that scientists are taking a more active role.