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Coming up on Radiolab. All people

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This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow. Later

0:27

in the hour, the connection between warmer

0:29

temperatures and home run slugging,

0:32

yes, and a hopeful video game

0:34

about climate change. But first,

0:37

last week I was having this deja

0:39

vu. I was recalling a time way

0:41

back in 1975 when

0:44

scientists called a halt to their research

0:46

to discuss the possible consequences

0:48

of what they were doing. And back then

0:51

it was the shiny new tool of genetic

0:53

engineering recombinant

0:54

DNA that

0:56

caused Paul Berg and Maxine Singer

0:59

to organize a meeting of scientists to

1:01

draw voluntary guidelines to

1:03

ensure the safety of recombinant DNA

1:05

technology. It was called the Asilomar

1:08

Conference. Well, I was having those deja

1:10

vu thoughts last week when I learned of

1:12

another group of scientists releasing

1:14

an open letter warning of hazards

1:17

of a current tool called artificial

1:19

intelligence. It sounded all

1:22

too familiar and it stated, quote,

1:24

we call on all AI labs

1:26

to immediately pause for at least six

1:29

months the training of AI systems

1:32

more powerful than GPT-4

1:35

and called for researchers to jointly develop

1:37

and implement a set of shared safety

1:40

protocols governing the use of

1:42

AI. The letter was signed by a collection

1:44

of technologists and computer researchers,

1:47

including big names like Apple co-founders

1:49

Steve Wozniak and Tesla's Elon

1:52

Musk.

1:52

But others called the letter just another

1:54

round of hype over the AI field.

1:57

Joining me to talk about that is Dr. Stuart...

2:00

Russell. He's a professor of computer science

2:02

at Berkeley, director of the Kavli

2:04

Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public, and

2:06

co-author of one of the leading AI

2:08

textbooks. And he's a signatory

2:11

to the open letter I just mentioned. Welcome

2:13

to Science Friday.

2:15

Thank you, Ira. It's nice to be with you. Okay.

2:17

As I say, you're a signatory to this letter.

2:19

Why did you sign it? Why do you think a pause

2:22

is needed? In my view, the

2:24

AI systems that are currently being

2:27

developed and the ones that have been released recently

2:29

based on a technology called large

2:31

language models,

2:32

represent a type of technology that

2:35

is intrinsically very

2:38

difficult to understand

2:41

and very difficult to guarantee that

2:43

it's going to behave in a safe

2:45

way. So in a very

2:48

immediate sense, it presents risks,

2:51

not the sort of apocalyptic risks

2:54

of taking over the world and extinguishing

2:56

the human race, But real risks,

2:58

for example, last week in Belgium, a

3:01

man was reported to have committed

3:03

suicide directly as

3:05

a result of his relationship with

3:07

one of these chatbots, which was actually

3:10

advising him and as it were holding

3:12

his hand

3:13

while he was in the process

3:15

of committing suicide. The reason

3:18

why these systems are

3:20

very hard to provide any guarantees

3:22

for is that they are enormous black

3:25

boxes.

3:26

Can you sum up for me in 2500

3:28

words or less how these systems

3:30

work? So a large language model

3:33

is something that very simply predicts

3:35

the next word given the

3:37

sequence of preceding words in

3:40

a text or in a conversation.

3:42

And so you can use that for an interactive

3:44

conversation. If you put in a question,

3:46

then it will start generating words that

3:49

look like

3:49

an answer. And how do you make

3:52

them? You start with a blank slate of

3:54

about a trillion parameters in

3:56

an enormous what's called neural network.

3:59

you do about a billion trillion

4:02

random modifications of

4:04

those parameters to try

4:07

to get that network to become very good

4:09

at predicting the next word from a training

4:12

set

4:12

that is maybe 20 trillion

4:15

words, which is roughly comparable

4:18

to all the books that the human

4:20

race has ever written in the history

4:22

of of civilization. So that

4:24

system, when you interact

4:27

with it, displays remarkable

4:29

abilities. And I don't want to

4:32

disparage it in the sense that it can provide

4:35

lots of benefits for users

4:37

for companies. But it's

4:40

a black box. We do not understand

4:42

anything about how it works.

4:44

And the only way we have to

4:47

get it to behave itself, for example, not

4:49

to advise people on how

4:51

to commit suicide is to

4:53

essentially say bad dog or

4:56

good dog. And that's the process

4:58

that OpenAI, the creators of GPT-4

5:01

went through to

5:02

try to get it to behave itself.

5:06

They just hired a lot of people who would engage

5:08

in lots of conversations and every time it did

5:10

something they don't like, they would say bad

5:13

dog. And if it produced a good answer,

5:15

they would say good dog. And then

5:17

hopefully the system would adapt its parameters to

5:20

produce bad behavior less often. And they

5:22

proudly announced

5:23

that in terms of these forbidden

5:26

things like advising people to

5:28

commit suicide,

5:29

telling people how to make chemical weapons, giving

5:32

unlicensed medical advice, that

5:35

it was 29% better than the previous iteration of

5:39

their system. But 29%

5:41

better is still a very

5:43

long way from perfect because they have

5:45

actually no control over it. So

5:47

we're simply asking that

5:49

before you get to deploy a system

5:53

that's going to affect the lives of

5:55

millions or even billions of people. you

5:58

take sensible precautions.

6:00

to make sure that it doesn't present

6:02

undue risks and that it remains

6:05

within predictable guidelines and

6:08

so on. So that's the real reason behind

6:10

this request for a moratorium.

6:12

I think there are longer term issues

6:15

at stake here, not from the present

6:17

systems, but from future

6:19

generations of AI systems that may be

6:21

much more powerful still,

6:23

and they present correspondingly much

6:25

greater risks. Well, do they, these

6:28

future systems, present the

6:30

risk that Stephen Hawking was talking about

6:32

in 2014 when he said the development

6:34

of full artificial intelligence

6:36

could spell the end of the human race?

6:39

Theoretically, we don't

6:41

know when that type of

6:43

system, which we call sometimes artificial

6:46

super intelligence, we don't know when that's

6:48

going to arrive.

6:49

But if it does arrive within

6:52

our current approach to how we

6:54

build AI systems, in particularly these

6:56

black boxes, we would have no

6:58

way of ensuring that it's

7:00

safe in the sense that its behavior

7:03

is actually aligned with what the humans want

7:05

the future to be like. And then you're basically

7:08

setting up a chess match between us

7:11

and a system that's actually much

7:13

more intelligent than us and has

7:16

already thought of every possible countermeasure

7:18

we could try.

7:19

And so that's, in a real sense, the

7:22

loss of human control over the

7:24

future. So that's the

7:26

risk that Stephen Hawking is talking about. I

7:28

want to emphasize the current systems

7:31

do not present that risk, as far

7:33

as we know, to the extent that we understand

7:35

them at all, which is not very much. We

7:37

think they have

7:39

some fundamental limitations on their ability

7:42

to plan their future

7:44

activities. But at the rate

7:46

of progress we're seeing in AI, We

7:48

need actually to develop

7:51

methods

7:52

to ensure that when we build systems

7:54

that are more powerful than us, we

7:57

somehow retain power over

7:59

them. forever. If

8:02

that sounds like a difficult problem, it's

8:04

because it's a difficult problem. Well,

8:07

practically speaking then, what

8:09

do you expect people to do who

8:11

are in AI research? Is the horse

8:14

already out of the barn and are people willing

8:16

to listen to the signers of this letter

8:18

and pause? Or is it doesn't

8:21

take a lot of fancy lab equipment

8:23

like it did with genetic engineering to

8:25

move ahead? So I think this is a great

8:28

question. And your example of the of

8:30

the genetic engineers is

8:32

a really good one. And so Paul

8:34

Berg, who was one of the organizers

8:37

of that 1975 workshop in 2008, he wrote a retrospective. And

8:42

the last paragraph says there's

8:44

one lesson from Asilomar,

8:46

which is where they had the workshop, a lesson for

8:49

all of mankind.

8:50

And basically once commercial

8:53

interests start to dominate the conversation,

8:56

it will simply be too late. It's

8:58

all about the money. It's all about the money.

9:01

And often people's thinking

9:04

and decision making becomes very distorted

9:07

when we're in that situation. There's an old

9:09

saying, you can't get someone to understand

9:11

something if their livelihood

9:14

depends on not understanding it.

9:16

And I think there's a little bit of that going on here. In

9:20

the past, some of the principles such as

9:22

Sam Altman, the co-founder of

9:24

OpenAI, you You know, STEM has said

9:27

that there may come a point when governments

9:29

need to intervene and impose constraints

9:33

and basically

9:35

not release further systems until

9:37

they meet

9:38

certain kinds of safety properties. And

9:40

the petition is simply saying, well, maybe

9:42

this is that time. It's also

9:44

worth noting that the OECD, which is,

9:47

you know, an international

9:49

organization that all the advanced Western

9:52

economies are members of have issued

9:54

AI guidelines, called the OECD

9:56

AI

9:57

principles that have been ratified by

10:00

all the member states

10:01

that very explicitly say that AI

10:04

systems have to be robust and

10:06

predictable and you have to show that they don't

10:08

present an undue risk

10:10

before you can deploy them. So arguably

10:13

all the major governments have already supported

10:16

the petition that we are making. You

10:18

know, in genetic engineering, there are

10:20

all these ethical guidelines, but

10:22

there are still people who want to clone

10:25

a baby. Is there a way to protect

10:27

against a rogue AI researcher

10:29

who wants to ignore ethical

10:31

guidelines?

10:33

That's a tough, I mean, the rogue

10:35

thing, I think we have to work with

10:37

the hardware manufacturers because they're

10:39

the bottleneck, right? And there's only

10:41

a handful and they've already

10:43

agreed in the past, for example, with digital

10:46

rights management, that was a global

10:50

operation to get the hardware manufacturers

10:52

to implement digital rights.

10:54

So, I think it's not impossible

10:57

that we could get safety mechanisms built

10:59

into hardware where they just will refuse

11:02

to run programs that are not certifiably

11:04

safe.

11:05

So where does your mind take you from here? Are

11:07

you hopeful about the AI future

11:10

or more fearful than hopeful? I mean,

11:12

you gotta have a little bit of both there, right? So

11:14

I think I'm sort of naturally an optimist

11:16

and I've been working for about 10

11:18

years now. I want to try to understand how do

11:20

we retain power over systems more powerful

11:23

than ourselves, right? That's what

11:25

I call a control problem.

11:26

And I think there's a feasible path to solving that

11:29

problem. Then we've got to convince everyone

11:31

to adopt that approach so that unsafe

11:34

systems are not created.

11:37

And then we've got to make sure that somehow no

11:40

one, either deliberately or

11:42

accidentally creates an unsafe system and

11:45

unleashes it on the world. So there's a lot to do, but

11:48

I'm cautiously optimistic.

11:50

Am I thinking that

11:53

I had better hurry up? we had better hurry up in nailing

11:56

down these solutions and getting them into

11:59

the policy process. I

12:01

think, yes, I think my

12:03

estimate of when we'll have powerful

12:06

AI systems that could present a

12:09

major control risk has moved

12:11

closer to the present than

12:14

it was a few years ago. Well,

12:16

from your mouth to AI's ears, Dr.

12:18

Russell. Thanks a lot, Ira. It's been nice talking to

12:20

you. Dr. Stuart Russell, professor

12:22

of computer science at Berkeley. He's

12:24

director of the Kavli Center for Ethics Science

12:27

and the Public there. and he's the author of

12:29

the book, Human Compatible, Artificial

12:32

Intelligence and the Problem of

12:34

Control. Thanks again for joining us today. Thank

12:36

you. Bye-bye.

12:37

After the break, a look at the crew for the upcoming

12:40

Artemis mission to orbit the moon. Stay

12:42

with us.

12:44

Support for Science Friday also

12:46

comes from Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic

12:49

initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt.

12:52

As a Science

12:52

Friday listener, I think it's fair to assume that

12:54

you are a person who is curious about

12:57

pretty much everything. So I have a podcast

12:59

recommendation for you. I'm Steven

13:02

Dubner, the host of the podcast, Freakonomics

13:04

Radio. Every week we hear from

13:07

scholars, thinkers, and doers

13:09

as we tackle big questions like,

13:11

why is the banana in danger and

13:13

can it be saved? And has

13:16

disgust gone from keeping us safe

13:18

to getting in our way? So

13:21

give us a try. Listen to Free economics

13:23

radio wherever you get your podcasts.

13:26

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. This

13:29

week, NASA announced the four-person

13:32

crew of the Artemis 2 mission. That's

13:34

a mission to send astronauts to circle

13:36

the moon. There's three firsts

13:39

in the group. First woman, first

13:41

person of color, first Canadian

13:43

to travel to the moon. And while

13:45

these Artemis 2 astronauts will not

13:48

actually set foot on lunar soil, It's

13:50

an important milestone for NASA's first

13:53

moon mission since Apollo. Think

13:55

Apollo 8 v 2.0.

13:56

Joining

13:59

me now to

14:00

talk more about this week's announcement and the

14:02

future of the Artemis mission

14:04

is my guest, Swapna Krishna, host

14:06

of the PBS digital series, Far

14:08

Out. She's based in Philadelphia,

14:10

PA. Hey, welcome to Science Friday.

14:13

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. You're

14:16

welcome. NASA really pulled

14:18

out all of the stops this week announcing

14:21

the crew for Artemis 2, even making a video

14:24

trailer, we might call it, of the

14:26

crew, which looks and sounds like a Hollywood

14:28

movie trailer. Let's listen to that. I'm

14:31

Christina Cook. I'm

14:33

the mission specialist. I'm Jeremy Hanson. I'm

14:37

a mission specialist. I'm Victor Glover.

14:41

I'm the pilot. I'm Reed

14:44

Wiseman. I'm the commander for the Artemis 2 mission

14:46

to the moon. To the moon. To

14:49

the moon. Wow,

14:52

that is to the moon swap. Is it not? It

14:56

is. It is. It's absolutely hilarious.

14:59

I love it. I love the pomp and circumstance

15:01

around these things. So like personally, I love

15:03

it, but it's also so earnest

15:05

and so cheesy and it just makes me, it

15:07

makes me laugh. Who is it aimed at? I

15:10

think it's aimed at kids. I think it really

15:13

is like it'll get anybody pumped up.

15:15

This is the Hollywood treatment, as you mentioned,

15:17

of

15:18

astronauts in the movies that we've

15:20

seen this bombastic music,

15:23

you know, the stepping out of the shadows. I

15:25

showed it to my

15:26

four-year-old and he said, Mama,

15:29

these are heroes. And I was like,

15:31

okay, yeah, I see that. Yeah, I mean, this

15:33

is a generation that's just seen robots

15:35

going to different places, Mars,

15:37

the moon, things like that. And

15:39

not people, like I did,

15:42

my generation. I grew up loving

15:44

space, but we didn't get this.

15:46

So it's about the younger generation,

15:48

sure, but for us,

15:51

it's always exciting to send people to space regardless

15:53

of where they're going. But it was

15:56

very much, you know, why aren't we doing

15:58

this? Why aren't we going further out? been

16:00

to the moon. Why are we not

16:03

there now? And so it's exciting for

16:05

me to see this as well.

16:06

Let's talk more about the makeup of

16:08

this four person crew.

16:11

Who are they? We've got Jeremy Hansen,

16:13

who's a rookie. He's our Canadian astronaut

16:15

on this mission. Christina Koch,

16:18

who I believe she has the record

16:20

for the longest duration

16:23

single space flight by a woman because

16:26

of her stint on the ISS. She's a mission specialist,

16:28

as is Jeremy Hansen. We have Victor

16:30

Glover, who's going to be the first person

16:32

of color. And he was

16:34

the pilot for Crew 1, so very

16:37

experienced. And then Reid Weissman is

16:39

the commander of the mission, also

16:41

very

16:42

experienced. And he was the chief of the astronaut office

16:44

before my speculation

16:47

is he resigned because he wanted

16:49

this flight. So there

16:52

were a lot of questions. Why do you resigned.

16:54

And I think now we know.

16:56

You know, I look at the diversity,

16:58

and I think that's what NASA is aiming for,

17:01

right? A diverse crew

17:03

to land or at least be the first

17:06

people to circle the moon.

17:09

And I'm thinking that, wait,

17:11

you know, to be clear, NASA deployed

17:13

diverse crews to the space shuttle for what, 30

17:16

years? And now it's,

17:18

you know, isn't it almost an everyday

17:21

thing, an everyday occurrence?

17:23

I think it absolutely is for,

17:26

you know, going to the ISS, going to low

17:28

Earth orbit, but we've only ever had white men

17:31

go to the moon. I think it's good that we're paying

17:33

attention to it. I think a lot of people are a little

17:35

cynical about like, well, this should have already happened. But

17:38

yeah, we haven't been in the moon in 50 years. I am glad they're making

17:40

explicit that

17:41

this will be the

17:44

first woman, the first person of color. And

17:46

that's been a part of the Artemis program ever since

17:48

the former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine kind of

17:51

pulled together this

17:52

program from, you know, what

17:55

was left after it had

17:57

been gutted over and over again.

17:58

Let's talk about the mi-

18:00

as I say, it's not actually

18:02

landing on the moon. What is

18:04

the purpose? The

18:05

purpose is basically to test the hardware

18:07

and the software. We've been to the moon,

18:10

of course, but as

18:12

much as I wish, you know, the bombastic trailer

18:14

makes it feel like a movie, but it's not a movie.

18:17

You can't just like boost Apollo 11 from the National Air

18:19

and Space Museum, stick it on

18:21

top of a rocket and go back to the moon. Like

18:23

it's all new hardware, all new software. So

18:25

we need to test it. And before we can land on the

18:27

moon, we need to test how it does

18:29

in orbit. We did that a little bit with the first

18:31

mission, Artemis 1, which

18:33

took off in November, but now

18:35

this is the first crewed mission of the program. So what they're

18:38

going to do is take off and do a

18:40

lot of testing of the hardware and software

18:42

in low Earth orbit and high Earth orbit,

18:44

and then around the moon and back. And you

18:46

know, we're always testing how space

18:48

affects people, right, with the radiation,

18:51

the time in space.

18:53

Basically, because of the radiation

18:55

trapped around the Earth, thanks to the Van

18:58

Allen belts. We don't

19:00

have a ton of data on what

19:02

happens on longer duration space

19:05

flights to the moon and back. All we have

19:07

are those Apollo flights. So what this

19:09

will do is it's going to test what kind

19:11

of radiation these astronauts are exposed

19:14

to outside of, you know, the

19:17

Earth's magnetic field, what

19:19

will happen to them when they pass through the Van Allen belts,

19:21

and how safe is it to send astronauts

19:23

on these long distance and duration space missions.

19:26

We don't know.

19:26

Yeah. And we're also recreating

19:29

the iconic Apollo 8

19:31

mission, which went around the moon. And Bill

19:33

Anders took that

19:35

iconic Earthrise photo of

19:37

the Earth, right, peeking up behind

19:39

the moon. Are we going to have a moment like that, you think,

19:42

on this mission?

19:43

100%. We are definitely going to have a

19:45

moment like that. I think there wasn't as much

19:47

awareness, especially the early days of Apollo,

19:50

there wasn't as much awareness of how important

19:52

photography was Earthrise was actually

19:54

an afterthought by Bill Anders. They saw

19:56

this view and were like, Oh, we probably should take

19:59

a picture. I'm sure some somebody

20:00

will be assigned

20:01

to take a picture and to take many pictures

20:04

as we come back around from the far side

20:06

of the moon as this mission does. The images

20:09

are so important. The science is important. The

20:11

text is important. But in terms of communication,

20:13

you cannot beat someone who has a busy

20:15

day, who doesn't feel like they have time to sit down and read an

20:18

article about the mission, but they can get captured

20:20

by a photo. Not that we have all this anticipation

20:23

that we know what day we're

20:25

talking about for this launch.

20:27

We don't even know what year we're talking

20:30

about yet. The mission

20:32

is currently scheduled for no earlier than November 2024.

20:36

That is probably unlikely. You

20:38

know, 2025 is likely, I think, for this

20:41

mission. Delays are part of the game

20:43

when you're talking about space and, you

20:45

know, SLS did have a lot of problems

20:48

for Artemis 1's launch. There's

20:51

a lot of stuff to work through and because this is going

20:53

to be the first mission that humans are

20:55

on, there's going to be even more to work through.

20:57

But hopefully,

20:57

they'll have figured out a lot of these propulsion issues

21:00

before the rocket is even rolled out. And

21:02

that's a big difference also between the Apollo

21:04

mission. I mean, it took only seven months

21:07

between circling the moon in what, December,

21:09

and

21:10

then they landed on the moon

21:12

back in July. And that bingo,

21:15

it wasn't years after that. Why such a

21:17

big delay here?

21:19

It's really simple, and it's money.

21:22

It's basically, there's just not enough funding

21:24

to get done what they want to get done to To save

21:26

money, SLS's engines were literally

21:29

ripped out of the space shuttles. Those RS-25

21:31

engines

21:32

were taken from the space shuttles and put onto SLS

21:35

in an effort to save money, but it

21:37

has actually

21:38

been the biggest

21:41

cost, one of the biggest cost overruns in NASA

21:43

history. It's always about the money,

21:45

isn't it? Yeah. Would any of the

21:47

astronauts in Artemis 2, the folks who

21:50

are going on this mission, be

21:51

beyond the mission that follows and actually

21:54

step foot

21:55

on the lunar surface?

21:57

Not in the mission that follows, just

22:00

because NASA doesn't assign astronauts

22:02

to back-to-back missions. It's likely that the Artemis

22:05

III astronauts will be assigned in training

22:07

by the time that Artemis II takes off. But

22:10

so no, not the next mission, but it could

22:13

absolutely be a subsequent mission. I would not surprise

22:15

to see somebody like Christina Koch or Victor Glover

22:18

assigned as a commander of a future mission.

22:20

Yeah, yeah.

22:21

We always hear that the eventual goal

22:24

here in these moon missions is a

22:26

stepping stone to go to Mars,

22:29

right? How close are we

22:31

really to that space mission

22:33

to Mars?

22:34

The short answer is we are not close. As

22:37

much as we would like for it to happen fast, we need

22:39

to get used to working and living in lunar orbit

22:42

and on the lunar surface

22:44

before we can move on to Mars. Artemis

22:46

IV, which is 2030 at this point, is

22:49

around putting lunar gateway

22:52

in orbit of the moon, which is

22:54

a lunar space station. It's gonna be like

22:56

the ISS, but in lunar orbit.

22:59

That's gonna be the hub for the Mars missions, but that has to be

23:01

assembled first. So if we're not talking about

23:03

assembling Lunar Gateway until 2030

23:06

and then completing, you know,

23:09

five to 10 years to complete that,

23:12

then we can go to Mars. And you know, so

23:14

it's gonna be a while is

23:16

the short answer. Well, we'll all look forward

23:19

to this swap down and you'll keep

23:21

coming back and talk about it. Will you please? I

23:23

will, yes. A human space flight,

23:25

it makes my heart flutter. So I'm so excited

23:28

about this. Very exciting.

23:30

And I hope everybody who's watching it, this generation

23:33

will be as excited as I was and all the

23:35

other folks when

23:38

we finally got somebody to land on the moon in 1969. Swapta

23:41

Krishna, host of the PBS digital

23:43

series, Far Out. Thank you for taking

23:45

time to be with us today.

23:47

Thank you.

23:51

Thank you. Yes,

24:05

the baseball season is in full swing

24:08

and you know I love baseball. And

24:10

the new rules imposed this year are aimed

24:13

at making the game even more enjoyable.

24:16

But Mother Nature may be imparting

24:18

a bit of her own rulemaking. Research

24:20

published this week in the Bulletin of the

24:22

American Meteorological Society says

24:25

that climate change, specifically

24:27

global warming, may make the

24:29

weather more favorable for home

24:31

runs

24:33

and it may favor some teams

24:35

over others. Joining me is Christopher

24:38

Callahan. He's a PhD candidate in geography

24:40

at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire

24:43

and lead author on that report. Welcome

24:45

to Science Friday. Hi,

24:46

thank you very much for having me. You're

24:48

welcome. Okay, so how does warming make for

24:51

more home runs? Well, when

24:53

temperatures go up, the air is

24:55

less dense. This is a basic physical

24:57

mechanism that we know about. And we know

24:59

that when the air is less dense, there's

25:02

less air resistance. So it's easier for a ball

25:04

to fly through it. And so a batted ball

25:06

will simply carry farther and is more likely

25:08

to be a home run.

25:09

And how big of an effect are we talking about

25:11

here? At present, the effect is relatively

25:14

small. We can link climate change

25:16

to about 500 home runs over

25:19

the last 10 years, which is only about 1%

25:21

of the number of home runs in

25:23

total that were hit in Major League Baseball. That

25:26

being said, if we move into

25:28

the future and keep emitting greenhouse gases

25:30

substantially, this effect could get much

25:32

larger. And we could be talking about hundreds

25:34

more home runs per year later in this

25:37

century.

25:38

Wow, we need an asterisk, you know, in

25:40

the pre-climate change days?

25:43

Yeah, maybe. A new type

25:45

of asterisk. Can

25:47

you actually compare a hit in two different

25:50

ballparks? Well,

25:51

there's so many things that are different between ballparks.

25:53

We know that they have different dimensions, they're at

25:56

different elevations, the teams

25:58

are different, if it's two different teams.

26:00

And so it is difficult for us

26:02

to say that any two individual

26:04

hits are comparable, but we have enough

26:06

data over the course of the last 60 or 70

26:09

years on nearly every baseball

26:11

game, including the home runs and the temperature

26:13

in that game. And so we can make these sort of general

26:16

claims about average changes

26:18

in home runs due to climate change independent

26:21

of any particular hit in any particular ballpark.

26:24

Can you actually put a number on it? I mean, how many

26:26

hits per every degree of temperature? Yeah,

26:29

so we found that for

26:31

every one degree Celsius increase in

26:33

temperature, there's about a 1.9%

26:36

increase in the number of home runs in that

26:38

game. Wow. Now, there's only two or three

26:41

home runs in any given game on average. And

26:43

so that effect is not all that large

26:45

from the perspective of any one game. But

26:48

once you start thinking about climate change over the last

26:50

several decades across many

26:52

ballparks and many years, and then moving into

26:54

the future, the numbers can start accumulating.

26:57

This is Science Friday from WNYC

26:59

Studios.

27:01

You know, a lot of research papers are

27:03

statistical. They look at the statistics

27:05

of stuff on the extrapolate.

27:07

Are you looking at actual hits by

27:09

actual batters in your work?

27:11

We are. I mean, we are using the statistics

27:14

of those actual hits. So we have data

27:16

on the number of home runs in each game,

27:19

the temperature of that game. And then we also

27:21

use data on individual batted balls

27:23

from the more recent era when we have this data

27:26

from the stack cast system of high resolution,

27:28

high speed cameras in each ballpark.

27:30

And so we can use data

27:33

on actual hits by actual batters

27:35

and say, when a temperature is warmer, those

27:37

hits go farther. And we can observe that using real

27:39

data. Can you factor in any other changes,

27:41

perhaps differences in the ball, you

27:44

hear people talking about some years

27:46

the ball is juiced, or they think there's

27:48

something wrong with it. Can you factor that in?

27:50

Absolutely. So we do our best to control

27:53

for those other factors. We know that there are

27:55

changes in the construction of the ball over time.

27:57

We also know that different ballparks have different

27:59

dimensions. dimensions and different climates and different

28:01

elevations. And so we can factor

28:04

out those other things and say, what

28:06

is the influence of temperature independent

28:08

of those other things? Now, to be clear,

28:11

because we find that temperature has not

28:13

been the single thing driving increases

28:16

in home runs recently, it is still very

28:18

valid to say that much of the home run

28:20

surge might be due to, for example,

28:23

a juice ball. And so our results should not

28:25

be taken to disprove that theory.

28:27

It's just an additional thing on top of that.

28:29

So, are there teams or ballparks

28:32

where this would be most significant? So

28:34

we find moving into the future, there's

28:37

going to be an increase in home runs due to climate

28:39

change. But as you said, it's going to be different in different

28:41

places. And the things that shape

28:43

how different that effect is, aside

28:46

from simply how much global warming there is

28:48

in each individual place, is do

28:51

these ballparks have domes on them that insulate

28:53

them from ambient conditions? And

28:55

are they playing games in the middle

28:57

of the day or in the evening?

28:59

So for example, Wrigley Field, which is

29:01

walking distance from where I grew up in

29:03

Chicago,

29:05

is going to see the highest

29:07

increase in home runs in the future. The reason

29:09

for that is because it's open air, so it

29:11

doesn't have a dome that insulates it from the

29:13

ambient weather conditions. And most

29:15

of its games are played during the day when it's hottest

29:18

rather than in the milder evening conditions.

29:20

Wow.

29:21

Are you ready to go make book

29:23

on that? I am not.

29:25

So

29:28

luckily Red Sox versus Yankees should have similar

29:30

effects. We'll see, potentially.

29:35

This is great. It looks to me like you're obviously

29:37

a Chicago Cubs fan,

29:40

correct? Absolutely.

29:41

Did you get into this line

29:44

of reasoning and line of research because

29:46

you're a baseball fan? Yeah, I did.

29:48

I definitely would not have been motivated to think about

29:50

it if I was not already thinking about

29:53

baseball on my spare time. I

29:55

knew that people had hypothesized

29:58

about this sort of link between. temperature

30:00

and air density in home runs. And

30:02

I'm interested enough in baseball that I decided, well,

30:04

I'd like to go see if that effect is actually there

30:06

in the large scale data that we can use. And

30:09

so that's what motivated me to go do it.

30:11

Well, in a season where they're looking for more

30:13

base hits than home runs, we'll

30:15

take your advice and keep an eye out on

30:17

it. Thank you for taking time to be with us today.

30:20

Thank you very much for having me.

30:22

Christopher Callahan, PhD candidate

30:24

in geography at Dartmouth College in Hanover,

30:27

New Hampshire.

30:28

After the break, speaking of climate, a

30:30

new video game that lets you take on climate

30:33

change with a hopeful outlook.

30:35

We wanted to try and make something that

30:37

was inspired by the

30:39

genre of building games, but instead

30:42

of building a city, we're building

30:44

nature instead.

30:45

Stay with us.

30:47

Support for Science Friday also comes

30:50

from Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic

30:52

initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt.

30:56

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow.

30:58

Now if you follow our video games, you'll recall

31:01

we've been covering how game developers

31:03

are responding to climate change in their

31:05

games. Some are a little dystopian,

31:08

you could say. Others are a

31:10

bit more hopeful. Producer

31:13

Dee Pidderschmidt is here with me to play one

31:15

that I hear falls into the latter

31:17

camp, hopefully.

31:18

Hi Dee. Hey Ira. Tell

31:20

me about this game. Yeah, so it's

31:23

called Terranil. Have you ever played games

31:25

like Roller Coaster Tycoon or city skylines

31:28

or civilization, anything like that? Yes, where

31:30

you build stuff up, right? You start with

31:32

zero and you build like a city or something. Exactly,

31:35

you kind of have this like God-like view of

31:37

a huge area of land and like, maybe we're

31:39

growing crops to start a town, which

31:41

leads to chopping down trees to build buildings, which

31:43

could lead to like building factories or something like that.

31:46

And eventually you have this kind of like satisfying machine

31:48

loop kind of running. I wish I were that

31:50

good at it. Yeah, but yes, I know what you

31:53

mean, yes. So Terra-Nil is

31:55

kind of the reverse of that. So you start with a barren wasteland

31:57

that you assume has kind of been like ravaged by climate change.

32:00

and it's just like dirt and some rocks and polluted

32:02

stuff. But your whole goal is to restore

32:05

it to a thriving natural ecosystem. And

32:07

then the other part of your goal is just to

32:09

straight up leave when you're done. Remove any

32:12

trace that you were ever there, no human presence. Wow,

32:15

it's like camping in the forest, right? Yeah,

32:17

leave it better than you found it. Yeah, exactly.

32:20

So you have the game pulled up on your end, right?

32:22

I have it up. Okay, so I'm gonna press the

32:24

button, says new restoration. It's

32:28

just a barren land with a tree

32:30

and one leaf that just blew

32:32

off. Wow, that's very sad

32:34

looking, like the face of Mars here.

32:36

Yeah, that's not a good sign.

32:38

Oh, it's now starting. It's providing

32:40

me electricity. Tap to select

32:42

the turbine. And it's blowing. I

32:44

see the wind is turning the blades. Yay. A

32:48

toxin scrubber. It says it's cleaning

32:50

the soil. Wow, I see there are green

32:53

patches there now. Here we go. So

32:55

that's kind of the vibe. I love it. Yeah. So

32:57

I talked to the lead designer of Terrenel.

32:59

His name is Sam Alfred to just talk about

33:01

how the game came together, what sort

33:04

of scientific research they had to do for it. And

33:06

I started by asking him how the idea

33:08

for it came about. So we wanted

33:10

to try and make something that was inspired

33:13

by the genre of building games,

33:15

but instead of building a city, we're

33:18

building nature instead. So starting

33:20

with this barren wasteland and you're bringing life

33:22

back to it. That's where it all began. Yeah,

33:25

so it's working within the city builder genre.

33:28

Can

33:28

you describe how those games

33:30

have traditionally been designed and played and

33:32

maybe what was like frustrating to you about those games?

33:35

So typically everything, particularly

33:37

the natural world in a building game is

33:39

important for what value

33:41

can be extracted from it. Like forests

33:44

are valuable insofar as you can

33:46

chop down the trees, so you get the lumber,

33:48

so you can build industry or rocks

33:50

are valuable, so you can build castles or

33:53

is valuable so you can run your factory.

33:56

And Terinul makes the argument,

33:59

not overtly, but through its design

34:02

that nature and the natural world

34:04

is intrinsically valuable, that it

34:07

has its own value rather

34:09

than value from what you

34:11

can gain from it. So there's not a lot of that feeling

34:14

in the builder genre. It's very much

34:16

a kind of numbers go up style

34:19

of game, where you start with

34:21

a village and you want to turn it into a town, and

34:24

then you want to turn it into a city, and

34:26

in order to do that, the environment is

34:28

just a tool. It's just a tool. And we wanted

34:30

to instead try and make a game where the environment

34:32

was not the tool, the environment was at the forefront

34:35

of the player's mind when they were playing the game.

34:37

In the moment of my gameplay, you are constructing

34:40

wind turbines or toxin scrubbers or irrigators,

34:43

water pumps. And it's like this very relaxed,

34:47

slow paced, meditative and restorative.

34:50

Yeah. What kind of scientific research

34:52

did you and the team do for

34:54

the game? So our studio

34:57

is based in Cape Town in South Africa.

35:00

And I've always had a deep love of

35:02

the environment and of nature. I spend my childhood

35:04

hiking all over the country. And in

35:06

Cape Town, there is this incredible

35:09

biome of wildflowers called

35:11

fainbos that only grows in the

35:13

Western Cape around Cape Town. And

35:16

it also has this incredible property that

35:18

require fire to germinate. They

35:20

need to be burned in order to release

35:23

their seeds. And what this does

35:25

is it means

35:25

that all the grass and the scrub in the bushes

35:28

that might have been competing for resources

35:30

are no longer there. And the seeds can grow

35:32

in the nutritious apps that's left behind after

35:35

the fire. So the first major

35:38

update we did was taking this inspiration

35:40

from Fain Boss and putting this controlled

35:43

burn fire mechanic into the game.

35:46

That was the first real

35:49

idea that, hey, maybe we can look

35:51

at the natural world and find some

35:53

incredible examples of ideas

35:55

that people don't usually put in video games.

35:58

Yeah, actually when I first used the controlled

36:00

burn mechanic. I just love that controlled

36:02

burn as a mechanic exists at all in

36:05

a game, but I ended up

36:07

almost burning my entire pot

36:10

of land. That happens more often than you

36:12

think. Yeah, and

36:14

I definitely had to hit the undo button after

36:16

that. I was like, oh my god, no. But when

36:18

you and the team were trying to think of different methods of restoring

36:21

the land, were you ever like, oh, we need some

36:23

way to do X to the land and

36:25

And actually this real world method would

36:27

be like a perfect verb for the player

36:30

to take. Yeah, there are a couple

36:32

of other really good examples from the game.

36:34

We looked to five broad categories

36:37

and I think 16 subcategories

36:39

of biome classification on Earth. And

36:41

we thought, wouldn't it be really cool if we could

36:43

make one level for each of the overarching

36:46

classifications? And so the

36:48

approach to the game's development became, okay,

36:51

we're going to make our tropical region now. Let's

36:53

do some research about what kind of

36:55

plants

36:55

grow there, what kind of biomes

36:58

could you find. And so one of the elements

37:00

you have to restore in the tropical area is coral reefs.

37:02

Coral reef destruction and coral

37:04

bleaching is a real big problem in

37:07

our oceans today with sea temperatures

37:09

rising and shipping, things like

37:11

that. Coral reefs are getting destroyed all

37:13

over the place. So we did

37:15

some research into how coral

37:17

restoration projects work in the real world and

37:20

found some really interesting stuff there. So

37:23

coral restoration projects often happen

37:25

on land first in coral nurseries

37:28

where there are these pools of

37:30

ocean water that have steel

37:33

frames in them and coral

37:35

apparently grows really well on steel.

37:38

In the case of a coral nursery, the steel

37:40

frame is used as like a skeleton

37:42

for a new coral reef and existing coral

37:45

is taken and then through a process

37:47

called micro-fracturing is spread

37:49

out over the frame and adhered to

37:52

the frame all over the place and that increased

37:54

surface area of the the coral means

37:56

that the coral growth is sped up significantly.

37:59

And then once that.

38:00

coral is mature, it can be dropped

38:02

into the ocean just as is.

38:05

And over time, the coral will come to completely

38:07

overgrow the frame and just use it as

38:09

a backbone. And natural coral reefs do

38:11

this too with rock. But in this way,

38:13

we can sort of speed up the process of coral

38:16

reef growth. So in Terra Mill, we have

38:18

a coral laboratory that you construct

38:20

on the land in the tropical region. And

38:23

then you use a monorail network

38:25

that's an important part of the

38:27

challenge of that particular level to

38:30

move that coral core

38:32

into the ocean to then grow a reef.

38:35

Yeah, you know, before I started

38:38

playing this game, you know, I was kind of like, okay,

38:40

it's gonna be about climate change in some ways. And

38:43

I think I was kind of subconsciously

38:46

preparing myself for it to be like kind of heavy,

38:49

but instead the overwhelming emotion I got

38:51

when I was playing it was like, oh, wow, like all

38:54

of this restoring our ecosystems, focusing

38:56

on balance, actively making the

38:58

environment better around you. It

39:00

didn't only feel really good, like in the short

39:03

term kind of like, rewarding dopamine

39:05

hit that strategy builder games are like

39:07

really good at, but also big picture, like feeling

39:09

optimistic about action we can positively

39:12

take about our future with climate change. Like

39:14

there is this massive task ahead of us, but

39:16

this game really gave me a firm sense of like, oh

39:19

yeah, like we can do this, it's gonna be a lot of work,

39:21

but we can change our perspective about

39:23

the work that'll be involved with combating the climate

39:25

crisis And how much of that

39:27

did you and the team have in mind while you were

39:29

making the game? Well, I mean, it's

39:33

really nice to hear that because this idea

39:35

of climate positivity to combat

39:37

climate apathy is very core

39:40

to what we were trying to do with the game. We're very

39:42

much of the belief that the things we

39:44

consume as a culture, the media,

39:46

but also the cultural preconceptions

39:49

and cultural beliefs are kind of like a self-fulfilling

39:52

prophecy where if Every game

39:54

ever made is just about dystopian

39:57

futures and cyberpunk cities. then

39:59

it

39:59

feels

40:00

almost inevitable that we'll end up

40:02

there. At one point in the development of the

40:04

game, we did have many discussions

40:06

about whether or not we should include what

40:08

happened to cause us to get to

40:10

this point. But in the end, we

40:12

decided to include none of that because it's not a game

40:15

about browbeating the player with these

40:17

all the things that went wrong. It's a game about imagining

40:19

a better future. So yeah, that's

40:21

really nice to hear. That's exactly what we're going for. You

40:25

talked before about like, you and the team

40:27

didn't want to make Terranil be like infinitely

40:30

replayable, which is something a lot of other developers

40:32

try to do with their games. Can you talk

40:34

about the impulse behind that? Yeah, so

40:37

quite early on in the game's design, we realized

40:39

that if this was going to be a game about balance

40:42

of ecosystems in a level of Terranil,

40:44

you have to have wetlands and forests and

40:46

fainbos all in the same landscape.

40:49

Creating too much of one means that

40:51

you can't use that space for another. And

40:53

so it's very much part of the game's identity

40:56

to be about balance. Being finite

40:59

is kind of a natural extension

41:01

of that idea. If we

41:04

just gave you the option to just, I

41:06

don't know, buy more land, because

41:08

you grew too many trees, now you

41:10

need some wetlands, it would kind of undercut

41:13

the philosophical idea we're going

41:15

for that more important than

41:18

growth is balance. It's a game where

41:20

at most the level will take you two

41:22

hours or something like that, as opposed

41:24

to being able to build the same

41:27

city for 100 hours. And the fact

41:29

that you can't just keep playing it forever, that

41:31

balance is the ultimate goal. Infinite

41:34

growth is not the goal. And this is, again,

41:36

about the environment, but it's also a little bit

41:38

of a statement about society and

41:41

some of the problems inherent in the way

41:43

we view economic growth and the value

41:45

we put on your quarterly returns. They've got

41:47

to be bigger this quarter than they were last quarter.

41:50

Sustainability doesn't come into it. Yeah. What

41:53

role do you think games serve

41:55

in the context of climate change and climate

41:57

action?

41:58

I think games can be this

42:01

incredible window into what

42:03

is possible.

42:04

Games are things people do for

42:06

fun, generally speaking. They're a recreational

42:09

activity, and therefore, they're a really great

42:11

vehicle for getting people to think about

42:13

things differently because they're relaxing.

42:16

They're not being forced to engage

42:18

with something. They're choosing to engage with it, right?

42:21

So you can use your video game to

42:23

let people know that there

42:25

are things that exist that maybe they

42:27

hadn't heard of before and makes themselves,

42:30

huh,

42:31

I'm going to look this up. I'm going to find out more about

42:33

it, and maybe even go a step further

42:35

and be inspired to do something else in the

42:37

real world. And I think games have a unique

42:39

opportunity in that respect, because unlike

42:42

a film, when you're playing a game, you're

42:44

playing the game. You're

42:46

not just receiving it. You are taking

42:48

the actions. And so if we

42:50

as game developers can help players take

42:52

interesting actions, let them

42:55

think and learn in different ways. It's

42:57

a hugely powerful medium. Mm-hmm. I

42:59

think that's a great place to end it. Thank you for taking

43:02

the time, Sam, and thanks for the game. Cool.

43:04

Thanks so much for having me.

43:07

Sam Alfred is the lead designer of Terranil,

43:10

developed by the Studio FreeLives. Terranil

43:12

is playable through Steam on PC and

43:15

Netflix games on iOS and Android. And

43:17

if you want to check out the trailer for the game,

43:20

yes, head over to our website, sciencefriday.com

43:24

Next,

43:30

an exercise pool for tiny

43:32

worms. Yes, all in the name

43:34

of science. Here's the backstory. A

43:37

team of researchers at CU Boulder

43:39

are trying to help treat people with Parkinson's

43:42

and other neurodegenerative diseases.

43:44

That is no small feat. And

43:47

to do that, they're turning to trusted collaborators,

43:50

C. elegans. These are tiny worms

43:52

just one millimeter long and they

43:54

are often used to study human health. You've

43:57

heard us talk about them before. question

44:00

is, does exercise affect

44:02

brain health? The method is

44:04

putting a bunch of these worms in an exercise

44:07

class. And I'm not talking about weights,

44:10

but in the water in a tiny pool

44:12

nicknamed Jim on a Chip.

44:15

Here to coach us through the new study is

44:17

Dr. Jowita Badra, researcher

44:20

at the University of Colorado Boulder.

44:22

Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks

44:24

for having me. That

44:26

was nice to have you. Okay, before

44:29

we take a swim in the worm gym, what

44:31

can C. elegans tell us about the human

44:34

brain? What do you hope to see here?

44:36

So, C. elegans is a simple organism.

44:39

However, one third of its body

44:41

cells are neurons. So we see about 300

44:44

neurons in C. elegans.

44:47

And it's very easy to visualize under

44:49

microscope. Another reason we use it is

44:51

because it's very fast. it actually reaches

44:54

its adulthood within three days.

44:56

So it gives us an excellent tool to

44:59

study any age-related diseases

45:02

because you know you don't have to wait for

45:05

months to look at them.

45:06

So how does a gym on a chip

45:08

work? What's the concept here? Okay,

45:11

so you can think of these as small

45:14

swimming pools for the worm. We

45:16

use electrodes to generate

45:19

wave on the surface of the

45:21

chamber, which creates

45:24

this whirlpool. So the worms

45:27

needs to constantly fight

45:29

against this whirlpool. In this way,

45:31

you can actually control the intensity

45:34

of exercise.

45:34

Wow. You know, years ago, we talked

45:36

about a shrimp on a treadmill, but never a worm

45:39

in a pool. And

45:41

so as they're swimming, as they're exercising

45:44

against the tide, so to speak, against the

45:46

whirlpool, what are you looking for?

45:48

The worms that we used for this

45:51

particular study are

45:53

a good model for Parkinson's disease. So

45:55

these worms actually have human

45:58

alpha-synuclein. expression. So human

46:01

alpha-cyanuclein forms these aggregates

46:03

that are called Lewy bodies, and

46:06

that can cause neuronal loss

46:09

in humans. And we can see the

46:11

same phenotype in worms

46:13

as well. Well,

46:14

can you tell if the exercise

46:16

does prevent the, you know, the

46:19

neurodegeneration?

46:20

Yes, actually it does. So with

46:23

only five minutes of exercise for

46:26

two days, we have seen a significant

46:29

loss of neurons, specifically

46:32

the dopaminergic neurons in these worms.

46:34

We know this in humans, that exercise

46:36

is good for us, right? You're discovering

46:39

that exercise is good for neurotransmitters

46:41

and good for keeping your brain healthy.

46:44

At least in the worms, can we apply this to people?

46:47

The reason for our study is this

46:49

video that came up in, I think, CNN on some

46:52

other news channel from Cleveland Clinic,

46:54

Dr. Alberts did some experiments.

46:57

So one of his patients is a Parkinson's

46:59

patient, and he went for

47:01

tandem bike riding with

47:04

him. And after that, the

47:06

tremors in his hands almost

47:08

disappeared. So this kind of told

47:11

us, like, okay, so exercise

47:13

intensity is important because tandem

47:16

biking is an assisted exercise. Our

47:19

main goal was to find

47:21

out what is the optimum intensity

47:24

and duration of exercise. to be

47:26

found is that there

47:28

is a sweet spot.

47:30

Too little exercise does not help. And

47:32

too much exercise also does not

47:35

help.

47:35

It's just this optimum intensity

47:38

that causes the maximum benefits

47:41

in response to neuronal loss

47:43

that be observed in these worms.

47:45

Wow, can you translate that to people

47:48

where that sweet spot is? Now,

47:50

it's hard to translate that in

47:53

people. And that's okay.

47:55

Parkinson's disease is an age-dependent

47:58

disease. mostly it affects people. who

48:00

are above 60 years old. And

48:03

it causes these tremors, and then

48:05

there are a problem in movements

48:07

which makes it more difficult to

48:10

exercise. Our goal

48:12

is actually to use this device for

48:14

drug screening. We are looking

48:17

at the markers that gets

48:19

changed due to this perfect

48:22

optimum intensity of exercise. Once

48:24

we get those, we are gonna do a drug screen

48:26

to look, identify the targets.

48:29

and see if these drugs

48:32

can maybe completely replace

48:34

exercise altogether or maybe

48:37

enhance the benefits

48:39

of exercise. Hope to have you back

48:41

when you've gotten more results. I

48:43

hope so too. Thank you very much. You're

48:46

welcome. Dr. Jowita Bhadra is a researcher

48:48

at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

48:51

We'll see you next week.

48:52

I'm Ira Flatow.