Digital Disruption

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Geoff Nielson

I'm so excited to be talking to Taryn Southern, who is a leader in the AI space. And what's so cool about Taryn is she's not just a talker. She's a doer. She's been at the vanguard of using AI for things like, you know, film making music. She just knows the space so well and she's not afraid to get her hands dirty.

00;00;20;06 - 00;00;29;07

Geoff Nielson

So I really want to know her insights about what it's like to use these tools and how they can help us transform our lives.

00;00;29;10 - 00;00;48;21

Geoff Nielson

Hey everyone, this is digital disruption. I'm Jeff Nielsen, and today I'm here with here in southern. You know, one of the reasons I'm excited to talk to you today is, you know, I talk to a lot of kind of thought leaders in the emerging tech space. And and I absolutely consider you a thought leader in the space. But you're also, like, very much on the front lines when it comes to these technologies, right?

00;00;48;21 - 00;01;03;13

Geoff Nielson

Like you're you're a creator, you're trying this stuff out and you've been doing that for a long time. And so, you know, I wanted to ask you like what right now has you most excited in the tech space, you know, as someone who's actually applying this stuff?

00;01;03;16 - 00;01;28;24

Taryn Southern

That's a great question. So, you know, there's these moments in history or in time where something new comes on the scene and you step back and you're like, whoa, this just changes everything. And I, I suppose when ChatGPT came out with their large language model, that was one of those moments for me. But my first moments with I really started in 2016, 2017, in virtual reality.

00;01;28;24 - 00;01;54;22

Taryn Southern

But even before then, probably 2012, 2013. And so outside of the launch of ChatGPT, I don't think I've had any of those massive hair raising moments. And it's been a couple of years now since we've, we've been accustomed to that. I mean, I also work in the brain computer interface space, which is really sort of like the next, next of, combining the human brain with some of these emerging tools.

00;01;54;28 - 00;02;12;02

Taryn Southern

So I think, you know, my imagination takes me to places where we're combining all of these tools together, and it's not hard to see it. But I haven't really had that hair raising moment in the past year, year and a half, because I feel like I've been playing with all of this now for some time.

00;02;12;04 - 00;02;40;12

Geoff Nielson

That that that's completely fair. And, you know, I want to I'd love to talk about your imagination for a minute because that's, you know, as you start to look at some of these and especially, you know, the brain computing and I like, like it, it just really feels like it could take off in any direction. You know, do you have in, you know, in your mind's eye, like some potential use cases or even some, some potential spaces that you see as being like, you know, rife for, you know, for innovation here.

00;02;40;15 - 00;03;15;12

Taryn Southern

Totally. And I'm actually going to walk back what I just said. I did just remember a hair raising moment that I had six weeks ago, probably seven weeks ago. And it was when I saw the Optimus robots, Elon ride, launch party. And the robots were moving and engaging with other humans with such ease and like the way that they moved, the way that they were, conversationally speaking, it was really that combination moment of, oh, this is what happens when you combine the best of robotics with the best of technology and fuze it into one.

00;03;15;12 - 00;03;29;05

Taryn Southern

And I said to myself, every single person on the planet is going to have one of these or some version of this in their home by 2030. I don't see how it's possible. I mean, resources, not being a consumer.

00;03;29;05 - 00;03;31;16

Geoff Nielson

I love I love the, I love the prediction.

00;03;31;20 - 00;03;51;20

Taryn Southern

I love it because, you know, you think about this and he's already saying it'll be what the cost of a car 20 to 30 grand and you think about how, this will help the average person cook healthy meals, clean their house not once a week, but every single day. Pick up after the kids, maybe even babysit the kids.

00;03;51;20 - 00;04;18;09

Taryn Southern

I mean, we have to get to a level of trust with these machines if doing that. But, I mean, you talk about removing all the friction out of life, and all of a sudden everyone is living as though they're part of the 1% of the 1% with a personal assistant slash butler slash home chef. You know, nanny. And I mean, that really starts changing everything about the way that we do life when we have all of this extra time that's not spent on those kinds of things.

00;04;18;09 - 00;04;29;00

Taryn Southern

So that got me honestly really excited. Like, I know for me, if I had to choose between having a car and having an optimist robot that can do all those things, I would choose the Optimus robot every time, right?

00;04;29;00 - 00;04;48;19

Geoff Nielson

Well, and you know, what's really exciting about that to me is like one of the one of the critiques or I guess I call it like angst about AI is like, I feel like AI and especially like, you know, with the LMS is it really quickly jumped into taking over creative tasks, right? Like suddenly it can draw, it can write music.

00;04;48;21 - 00;05;04;28

Geoff Nielson

And, you know, people are saying like, hey, wait a minute. I thought that like, I was going to do the dishes so that I could be a musician, and suddenly it's writing the music and, you know, crap, I'm still doing the dishes. So, yeah, I mean, if we can, if we can solve the dishes problem, I mean, sign me up, right?

00;05;05;01 - 00;05;29;09

Taryn Southern

Agree, agree. And to your point on the AI taking over creative tasks, I mean, that's something I've been sort of trying to wrap my head around for a long time because as a creative, I never felt particularly threatened by these tools or concerns about them. Granted, my career has been one where I've always, I've always made major amendments based upon whatever technologies happening.

00;05;29;09 - 00;05;56;21

Taryn Southern

And so I've had it very flexible, fluid career, kind of built upon whatever news is happening in the world of tech. But, I think it'll make Buddhist out of a lot of us in some, in some form or fashion, this idea that instead of instead of basing our purpose and meaning around achievement and being special and being better, what if the meaning and purpose just comes from the act of doing and just enjoying the act of doing?

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Taryn Southern

Is it enough to just be able to play music, or do you have to be better than the AI? Right. And I think these are the kinds of questions that it'll ask from us, but I get really excited about the idea of spending more time on all of my creative endeavors, regardless of whether they and I can do it better.

00;06;12;08 - 00;06;24;04

Taryn Southern

And I'm probably going to be using and working with the AI on the creative endeavors and spending less time doing the dishes and honestly, folding laundry. That's the biggest one for me. I really would like to never fold another piece of laundry the rest of my life.

00;06;24;06 - 00;06;43;08

Geoff Nielson

That's. I can totally relate to that. So so I mean, on the creative side, Taryn, you know, you mentioned like, you're you're kind of calling B.S. on the like, you know, hey, AI is going to take this away from us. And like, you know, we can be creative and we can be creative there with AI. And I mean, you know, you've you've created music with AI.

00;06;43;08 - 00;07;05;20

Geoff Nielson

You've kind of been at the vanguard of some of this stuff. And, you know, just just kind of watching some of your videos, you seem to like exude this optimism in general about like, AI and technology. And so, you know, can you dig a little bit deeper, I guess, can you share a little bit more just about like how you view that unfolding for, I mean, maybe in two ways.

00;07;05;20 - 00;07;13;01

Geoff Nielson

One of them is for like creative souls, and the other one is for people who work in creative jobs.

00;07;13;03 - 00;07;39;04

Taryn Southern

The optimism is not a pretense. Like I really do feel so optimistic, I think. I think sometimes it's important for me to asterisk that with, of course there's concerns. Of course there are issues that need to be hashed out and discussed. I like an artist. I'm very concerned about compensation models and how we have people making a living ten years from now.

00;07;39;05 - 00;08;00;13

Taryn Southern

Yeah, so there are concerns. But all that being said, you know, I come from the world of cons early content creation, which was really all about it was this kind of movement towards DIY, creativity. You know, you, you had, the system that had been in place for so many years and like the television film industry being quote unquote, the system.

00;08;00;16 - 00;08;34;14

Taryn Southern

And it was a system of gatekeeping, and it was a system of segmentation where you would have single trade and you would excel at that trade, whether it was lighting or cinematography or acting or writing or directing, and very rarely did you see people move fluidly between these kinds of disciplines. Right? Not only that, but you had to have your agents be able to even get in front of, you know, the people who could greenlight a project, who could finance a project, I mean, a very challenging industry and one that tended to benefit people who were already on the inside.

00;08;34;16 - 00;09;02;11

Taryn Southern

And all of a sudden YouTube came around, came along, and it gave this platform and this opportunity for young creators to just experiment with all of the new technologies that were coming out. I mean, cameras, editing softwares, certain music generation softwares. A lot of that was happening simultaneously with, with YouTube becoming a platform of people realizing, oh, we have a way to tell stories, and we have a way for those stories to be seen.

00;09;02;11 - 00;09;38;16

Taryn Southern

Now, how do we tell those stories? Cheaper, faster or better? Because we don't have an option. We don't have any money, so we have to experiment. And so I think that, is a worldview that I've taken with me into the space of I, which is one of pure experimentation. And the reality is, if you are incredibly skilled at any one of these creative endeavors, whether it's drawing or animation or, you know, acting or music, I mean, it might be that using an AI tool actually is more challenging than just doing it yourself, because you have deep, deep expertise.

00;09;38;18 - 00;10;01;08

Taryn Southern

So in some ways, AI is not a shortcut and it's not an amplifier. And for those individuals, I think great. Like continue doing the thing that you excel at really deeply. And then what are the other ways that these other AI tools, outside of your expertise, that still sit in the creative space, will allow you to share your vision in new and novel ways that you didn't even consider.

00;10;01;08 - 00;10;27;07

Taryn Southern

So I'll give you an example of my AI album. Let's say I had decided not to use AI to make the music, because I was a really still musician, but I wanted to use AI to help me with these immersive virtual reality videos and the creation of that. Well, I could do that. And that might have been something that financially would have been a resource constraint for me in previous years, and I wouldn't have even considered allowing my audience or followers to have that kind of experience with my music.

00;10;27;09 - 00;11;00;07

Taryn Southern

So I kind of feel like for most artists, I usually represents one of a few things. It's either a substitute for, a skill that you kind of lack or you're limiting in. It's an amplifier or of, of a skill or talent that you're, that you already are good at, or it's allowing you to kind of combine artistic disciplines with an entirely new one, which allows you to reach new audiences and have, like, different types of formats where you can take your art and percentage different people.

00;11;00;10 - 00;11;02;21

Taryn Southern

So that's why I'm really excited about it. Yeah.

00;11;02;23 - 00;11;29;07

Geoff Nielson

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I mean, everything you presented there, Tara, and like, it's very much in your mind, it's like an and right. It's and and and I can do more. And you know, one of the things I've been thinking about and that, you know, I'm gently optimistic about and I'm, I'm curious on your take as well, is that, you know, whether you're an artist who's, you know, you need help in an adjacent discipline or even like whether whether you're that creative type or even whether you're an entrepreneur.

00;11;29;09 - 00;12;05;12

Geoff Nielson

Right. Like, it seems like having this toolkit that helps you, like, do one thing really well and get everything done around that. Like it almost. It almost reminds me of, like, it seems like in the last like 50 years or whatever. There's just been this explosion of these massive companies and yeah, these massive film studios. And anytime you're doing anything, you need to have a team of like 200 people supporting you and like with YouTube or with AI, now it gets back to like, and maybe it sounds silly, but like this, like age of, like, any one person can be a merchant, you know, like, like or like, you know, a bard or like,

00;12;05;12 - 00;12;21;28

Geoff Nielson

I don't know, I'm like, maybe going too far down, like the indie or something, but like, like, you can do something by yourself and you can, like, be your own kind of amplification. Are you seeing that, like, are people taking advantage of that? And do you think that that's like the future for the next ten years and beyond?

00;12;22;01 - 00;12;43;06

Taryn Southern

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think people who really have a clear vision in their mind for something they want to create and have a more multidisciplinary background are going to really excel at these tools. That and or people who have deep expertise, who are very interested in kind of collaborating with these tools to fill in the areas that they don't have.

00;12;43;06 - 00;13;08;28

Taryn Southern

I think it's sort of one or the other. And, and, you know, you see directors, people like Jaramillo, del Toro or, Quentin Tarantino were writing and directing their films. A lot of times they're acting in and they have a lot of these different skill sets, and they tend to create really amazing work because their vision is less tainted in many ways by this.

00;13;09;01 - 00;13;13;11

Taryn Southern

Dare I say, like over collaborative, over over collaboration.

00;13;13;12 - 00;13;13;29

Geoff Nielson

Too many cooks.

00;13;13;29 - 00;13;38;26

Taryn Southern

That's often too many cooks in the kitchen. That's often found in in Hollywood. And so I get really excited about what happens when you've got the, you know, 19 year old kid from Ireland who has this really cool story that would never get greenlit, by a traditional studio. Exactly. And now they have all the tools to be able to make it on their own and complete their entire mission from scratch.

00;13;39;00 - 00;13;52;09

Taryn Southern

I think that's super exciting. I think we'll finally see, some AI and anything. I think we'll see, like more creativity breaking out because it won't be constrained by the systems that has been in The Gatekeepers.

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Geoff Nielson

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, you talk about like, I love the vision of, yeah, the 19 year old kid from Ireland. And I don't know if that's specific or that's, you know, generic. But like I love that for the 19 year old. I love that for consumers of film. Do studios need to be worried like is this a winners and losers situation?

00;14;12;22 - 00;14;19;11

Geoff Nielson

And who are the people who are organizations I guess, that need to be on their toes in this kind of changing world?

00;14;19;14 - 00;14;41;12

Taryn Southern

I think studios should be very worried. I think anyone who's been an intermediary for a long period of time, yeah, who's sort of been responsible for the financing or like the middleman deals should be very concerned. And that's not just the case in Hollywood. I think that's the case across every industry is being disintermediated by these technologies.

00;14;41;15 - 00;14;58;02

Taryn Southern

And it's making everything cheaper and more easily accessible. So I don't know what the studios are going to do. I hope that they become really good at curating, because we are going to have a problem with noise as a result of making everything cheaper and faster, and will all of a sudden everyone is going to be making content.

00;14;58;02 - 00;15;15;08

Taryn Southern

A lot of that's going to be very bad. So who is it that has sort of the taste making abilities to curate the best content and deliver it in a way that is really appealing to large audiences. So maybe that'll be the streamers, maybe that'll be the studios. But someone's going to have to win at least that game.

00;15;15;10 - 00;15;35;17

Geoff Nielson

Yeah. Well that's that's really interesting because that like when you said that like someone has to be curating like, maybe depressingly like my mind went to like, oh, the algorithm, like the algorithm will tell us what to watch and what to like. And so, you know, what's what role do like these, you know, big tech kind of megacorp play playing all this.

00;15;35;17 - 00;15;59;09

Geoff Nielson

And I'm thinking about YouTube. Right. Because YouTube is like, you know this this sea changing platform for, you know, for video for content creation. And, and you know, it's only exploded, you know, since, you know, you were, you know, taking off on it, you know, years ago. But you know, our are the tech companies becoming too powerful here like is there I don't know.

00;15;59;09 - 00;16;07;02

Geoff Nielson

Is there a dystopian risk. What do you see the the changing role of, you know, the technology companies who like, own the platforms as here?

00;16;07;05 - 00;16;28;08

Taryn Southern

Yeah, it's such a complicated question and my answer will probably be a little vague. I think it's both. And I absolutely see the dystopian version of all this. We're already living in it, right? I mean, we're all addicted to our smartphones, and these social media apps that are designed to keep our attention for as long as possible.

00;16;28;10 - 00;16;47;16

Taryn Southern

The algorithm is creating a feedback loop around the types of content people want, and that is also informing what content creators are making. And in many ways, you're seeing this, I think sort of race to the bottom, both in content and in storytelling. Course, there's good stuff out there. I don't want to say everything is bad.

00;16;47;20 - 00;17;11;05

Taryn Southern

There are plenty of really inspiring creators doing amazing things, but there's also just, you know, there's there are now hundreds of thousands of creators dedicated to teaching other people how to grab attention. You know, how to get someone to click on your video and, and stay stay on you for longer than three seconds. And they're right there boiling this down into a science.

00;17;11;07 - 00;17;37;13

Taryn Southern

And so what we're doing is we're actually changing the way that our own brains take in content and information. We're making harder for people to read books, harder for people to even watch long form TV and film. Contact, because we're so used to the insanely fast colors and sounds and transitions and, you know, just nickname all the things to create ultimate stimulation.

00;17;37;16 - 00;18;05;10

Taryn Southern

So there is something incredibly dystopian about that and that, we're already in it. And then as we look to the future with AI and as you were saying, these algorithms that could essentially become the tastemakers that are choosing the content that are, will they just be appealing to our own worst instincts, or will they just be appealing to the little like dopamine devil on all of our shoulders that's just craving, you know, that's shock value or something.

00;18;05;10 - 00;18;28;12

Taryn Southern

You know, something that's not really ultimately good for us. And my hope is that, over the next few years, and I think we're starting to get there with all the conversation around kids and smartphones and the laws that are being passed and Jonathan Haidt spoke the anxious generation, I mean, like there is more and more awareness. We need to be able to have a system where we log on and we set goals for ourself with our smartphone.

00;18;28;14 - 00;18;52;14

Taryn Southern

And then it is through those goals that social media and algorithms are tailored according to our preferences. Because we're not like, you know, and so my goal would be, please do not serve me content that appeals to like these three base levels of my brain. I don't want I don't want it. My the person that cares about my long term health knows that it's bad for me.

00;18;52;17 - 00;18;59;24

Taryn Southern

So I want to be able to make those selections up front and then have the algorithm actually follow my instructions right.

00;18;59;27 - 00;19;21;10

Geoff Nielson

But in terms of how you execute that turn, you see, like the individual as being like in the middle of that, right. Like like the individual has to choose that versus it being like incumbent on technology, like incumbent on on like governments or regulations. It's in your world. It's like Taryn making the right choice is that is that fair?

00;19;21;11 - 00;19;44;20

Taryn Southern

I know that, I don't know that the tech I don't know that any of us trust the tech companies to do it or to do their. Yeah. They're not incentivized to they are incentivized to give us individual optionality because that, yeah, in a competitive landscape, you know, if if more and more people are saying we need that, and I do think that that will be a winning, solution for a lot of these platforms in terms of government.

00;19;44;20 - 00;19;54;05

Taryn Southern

I mean, do any of us really trust that the government understand anything about these technologies and how they actually regulate them? I don't know, Lisa.

00;19;54;08 - 00;20;14;12

Geoff Nielson

Yeah. I mean, I'm not I'm not I'm not going to touch that one like I don't I, I don't have anything to put up my hand and be like, yeah, you know, they're going to nail it and they're going to nail it. Now, it's completely fair. So, you know, looking looking out at the horizon, well, I guess where is this going?

00;20;14;12 - 00;20;41;03

Geoff Nielson

Do you have trust in, you know, us as individuals, like, do you think there's going to be a backlash against this? Like, are enough people going to say, I've had enough of this. I'm going to go, you know, read a book in a cabin in the woods. You know, or do we end up just kind of barreling toward this like, matrix style vision where we're just like, there's more and more technology locking us into this, you know, dopamine rush.

00;20;41;06 - 00;21;02;03

Taryn Southern

It's both. I think what we want to see both, a lot of the people that I am friends with who are deep in the AI worlds, AI artists, AI engineers, social media influencers who've been on content now, who've been making content now for 20 years. You know, like, we know what this is doing to our brains. Yeah.

00;21;02;04 - 00;21;21;06

Taryn Southern

And we're actively doing everything we can to get away from it. And it's it's even hard for us. Right? I think, just it's very telling when you look at social media executives, like Facebook VP's and our meta VP is, a lot of them do not allow their kids to have, you know, Instagram.

00;21;21;06 - 00;21;22;02

Geoff Nielson

Right?

00;21;22;04 - 00;21;52;10

Taryn Southern

These other social media profiles until they're of age and so in many ways, I, I kind of feel this is this is really dystopian, but I kind of feel that there's, I'm concerned that there will be a socioeconomic association with people who are actually able to sort of tune out, because it takes it like it takes a certain amount of almost like money and.

00;21;52;12 - 00;21;57;12

Taryn Southern

Like awareness and money to be able to prevent your children.

00;21;57;14 - 00;21;59;15

Geoff Nielson

It it's it becomes a privilege. Right?

00;21;59;15 - 00;22;19;04

Taryn Southern

Almost. It's a privilege. Yeah. Because you can afford a nanny who can, like, play physical games with your children and keep them actively busy while, you know the poor parent who's working 16 hour days, you know, the easiest thing is to give their kid a phone to keep them busy. Yeah. And that's certainly much cheaper than a babysitter.

00;22;19;04 - 00;22;46;29

Taryn Southern

I do fear that we're going to have some disparity there around it, the sort of grow up, addicted to their phones versus kids who are placed in these had special programs, so that they can have, you know, smart home less childhood. So that's one area of concern that I have. But I do think that there will be a push and more and more backlash against against these companies, against targeting of children.

00;22;47;02 - 00;23;06;16

Taryn Southern

I don't know how long it'll take for adults to figure out how bad this is for us. I mean, I think we all sort of know it. Yeah, but there's like being available for work 24 seven through the smartphone. What does this do to our minds and therefore our bodies over a 20, 30 year period? We're we're sort of the first generation to be finding that out.

00;23;06;16 - 00;23;34;03

Taryn Southern

I was watching a film, yesterday that took place in the 90s, and I was laughing so hard because it was like, the guy goes to the office and he gets his, like, two phone calls a day and he's like, handwriting out some letters. Oh my gosh. And I was feeling into that workday and feeling into how much less information and data you're taking and how much less stimulating it must have been.

00;23;34;03 - 00;23;48;11

Taryn Southern

And I felt my whole body felt lighter, like, wow, instead of thousands of emails, you know, you're just left with this two call. So funny. And it made me feel sad. It made me feel really sad and this existence that we will ever know.

00;23;48;13 - 00;24;15;11

Geoff Nielson

Yeah, yeah, and I, I like I can't help but reflect on the same thing. Right? Like I'm, you know, I'm physically in an office here today, but, you know, you like you and I like we're we're talking over like a laptop. It's virtual. And like, five years ago this just didn't happen the same way. And I feel like like we've gone down a path where we've normalized it to such a degree, where it's like, you know, there's there's like the meme or whatever about like, you know, enough bad screen for the day.

00;24;15;11 - 00;24;49;09

Geoff Nielson

Now I'm going to look at good screen, because like, it's just it's all screen time. It's one kind of screamed screen time or another. And, you know, it used to be that, yeah, you would go into a building with a bunch of people and you'd like, get up and walk around and talk to them. And like, we've convinced ourselves that, like, screens are somehow the same as a bunch of people in a room, you know, and I think it's like it's close enough that it gets the job done, but like, yeah, like to your point, like is the like rhythm for people getting faster and faster.

00;24;49;11 - 00;24;56;01

Geoff Nielson

And like, what impact does that have on our, you know, on our, on our individual and collective well-being.

00;24;56;03 - 00;25;10;00

Taryn Southern

I mean, do you ever feel sick when you have to go to your computer and turn it on. Because I do, yeah. Sometimes there are moments where I'm like, oh I just, I just don't want to open up the screen. I can't do it. I have a headache just thinking about it.

00;25;10;03 - 00;25;26;07

Geoff Nielson

Yeah. Well in and similar to that to like it, it sounds like it sounds silly, but I'll go into a physical meeting now with people like, I literally just mean myself and like four other people in a room and I'm like, this is the greatest. Like, it's just like, I'm like, so excited to be in a work meeting.

00;25;26;07 - 00;25;39;23

Geoff Nielson

And I'm like, I don't know myself. Five years ago would have been like, Jeff, what happened to you? Like, it's just like, I don't know, like things have changed so much that like, I looking back at that, it's like it's almost nostalgic in a way, right? Yeah.

00;25;39;25 - 00;26;01;18

Taryn Southern

Yeah. And yet, I don't know, it's so hard. I mean, there's so many things about the where we've been evolving that I'm so excited about too. So has. Yeah. It's just kind of hard, you know, whether the optimism is misplaced or appropriately cautious. Yeah. Yeah.

00;26;01;20 - 00;26;16;27

Geoff Nielson

So I want to, turn I want to, like, completely shift gears here because we haven't really touched on neurotic and, you know, neurotic, to be honest, is like, you know, talking to you is like, one of the things I'm most fascinated about that I'd love to kind of, like, pick your brain, to hear more about.

00;26;16;27 - 00;26;37;03

Geoff Nielson

Because I know you're like, you're you're talking to people in the space. You've got your own kind of background in it, you know, for kind of the the lay men and women who aren't up to speed on neurotic like, can you give us kind of the fly by, like, what is the state of neurotic, today that, you know, people may not be hearing about?

00;26;37;06 - 00;27;04;05

Taryn Southern

Totally. So I'll give just a little bit of background, so people understand kind of where I come from on this subject. So in 2016, I started, working to put together a documentary that chronicled the first ever patients receiving brain computer interfaces. At that time, there had really been no film done following these patients and the decision to undergo invasive brain surgery and what it meant to have a brain chip connecting you to a computer.

00;27;04;05 - 00;27;26;15

Taryn Southern

So that ended up being a four year project. The results is called I Am Human and it premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2019. And then following the release of that film, I ended up getting a job offer from one of the companies whose technology is featured in or used by several of the patients. And because it was Covid, I said, you know, why not?

00;27;26;15 - 00;27;51;02

Taryn Southern

Like, let's get this. This will be an interesting opportunity. And so I've been with that company. Black rovner is up now for four years. And, I'm really fortunate because they have their technology have been implanted in more patients than any other of the international tech companies combined, by a landslide. And I get to work with the patients that are implanted directly, almost every day.

00;27;51;02 - 00;28;32;10

Taryn Southern

It's amazing as awe inspiring. They've implanted more than 40 people, mostly with paralysis and ALS. Over the last two decades. And those individuals that have these brain computer interfaces, or BCI for short, essentially have the ability to do anything you and I can do with a computer just by thinking about it. So, they have these little implants called arrays that go into usually their motor cortex or their sensory cortex, and that enables them to operate a robotic arm or move a cursor across a computer screen or type simply by imagining themselves actually performing those motor actions.

00;28;32;12 - 00;29;08;04

Taryn Southern

So, it's it's it looks like magic when you're watching it. You're like, is that telekinesis? But no, it's just pure science and it's amazing. And it's also thanks to these advanced algorithms that were actually able to decode these very complex signals from the brain to turn it into something useful, for these individuals. So, I, I'm super excited by the work, you know, on the kind of bleeding edge of this, some of the patients are able to also receive tactile sensation through a robotic arm.

00;29;08;06 - 00;29;20;21

Taryn Southern

Vis-a-vis the two way information going back and forth between the implant and their brain. So there's a lot of really interesting kind of use cases that we may see with this technology in the next 5 to 10 years.

00;29;20;24 - 00;29;45;05

Geoff Nielson

And it's that that's like I'm just still processing that and like blown away by it because, I mean, you talk about telekinesis, but like it like it feels like magic, right? Like it feels like magic and like, I don't know, like it's it's like going from, like, all the, like, evils of social media to, like, letting people like, you know, feel again and live their lives is just like AI is just so powerful.

00;29;45;07 - 00;29;58;05

Geoff Nielson

Terran with brain computer interface. How close are we to, you know, kind of mass market adoption of this and this being available to, you know, anyone who's, you know, faced with paralysis or this kind of array of challenges.

00;29;58;07 - 00;30;22;24

Taryn Southern

So I'm hoping the FDA approval for people with paralysis or other similar, neurodegenerative diseases have the ability to get this within the next few years. I don't see any reason why that shouldn't be possible, given the the amount of safety and efficacy data that we've accumulated over two decades. But this is still a novel idea for a lot of people.

00;30;22;24 - 00;30;43;23

Taryn Southern

And obviously opening up your skull and going through invasive brain surgery is no small feat. So, I think, you know, could could be a couple of years it on the on the more conservative side. And it could be as early as this year. So I think we'll just have to see what happens. And I'm excited.

00;30;43;23 - 00;30;51;20

Taryn Southern

You know, I'm excited to, to see how we can really improve the lives of so many people that are afflicted with these disorders for.

00;30;51;20 - 00;31;16;12

Geoff Nielson

Absolutely. And it's. Yeah, it's just so, you know, so, so impactful and so meaningful. Is there like, do you think there's a ChatGPT ask moment coming in brain computer interface or was there already one and we weren't paying attention like between where we're at and, you know, kind of mass adoption. You know what what does that look like in your mind?

00;31;16;14 - 00;31;41;28

Taryn Southern

I've had my ChatGPT moments with pieces for many years now. I think when I started making my film, you know, I had a handful of them watching someone, watching someone feed themself, with their own arm and hand being stimulated with electrodes, vis-a-vis their brain patterns, you know, while their spinal cord is severed. I mean, that was just mind boggling.

00;31;42;00 - 00;32;03;03

Taryn Southern

That was absolutely mind boggling. And I thought, okay, it's one thing to be able to operate a robotic arm with just your thoughts. It's another thing to be thinking about moving and then, you know, having a device stimming 28 muscles in your arms and hand so that your thoughts can basically reconnect to the muscles without any direct connection line to feed yourself.

00;32;03;03 - 00;32;34;03

Taryn Southern

So yeah, I mean, that's just wild, watching some of our patients play video games and do a better job than someone who's able bodied and has, you know, has a quirky harmony and, watching a patient drive a vehicle, with just their thoughts, with patients that are painting that are creating art. I mean, it's like the scope of creativity is unlimited, because anything you can imagine doing with your brain is something that this BCI but enable for someone who's completely locked in.

00;32;34;05 - 00;32;58;22

Taryn Southern

I mean, I had another moment. This was just last month. I was up in San Francisco and visiting with one of the patients up there who's currently locked in with ALS, and this guy Casey. Who just an extraordinary human being, and he's a climate activist and has spent his whole life dedicated to, to trying, you know, doing these incredible campaigns for climate change.

00;32;58;22 - 00;33;35;02

Taryn Southern

And he still goes to work every single day with his BCI. He uses his BCI log in to type out campaign signs to strategize, you know, with his team members for this organization. And he's a locked in patient, like I was. I, you know, I was having a conversation with him, and there's a little bit of a delay between, you know, me asking him a question, and then the BCI translates his brain signals into a decoder that then goes into a voice box so that I can hear him speak.

00;33;35;04 - 00;33;38;22

Taryn Southern

You know, it's his voice that I think is really key to that sentence.

00;33;38;22 - 00;33;50;17

Geoff Nielson

Like, what a crazy sentence, right? Like, yeah. Oh, like the amount of things that have to work well along that chain to get there is just like, it's just mind boggling.

00;33;50;20 - 00;34;10;29

Taryn Southern

Yeah. It is. It really is. So, you know, I, I guess I have those hair raising moments all the time. It pieces and it's, it's not hard to imagine a world that, you know, 15, 20 years from now. This is a lot more commonplace. And it's possible that people are getting these kinds of implants, not just because they have paralysis, but because they have anxiety or treatment resistant depression.

00;34;10;29 - 00;34;33;22

Taryn Southern

And there's all kinds of different ways that we'll be able to interface with the brain, that, you know, we would never even conceive of now. And some of these things, of course, are not socially acceptable, and are more terrifying in theory than than exciting. But as someone who's always been a technologist, it's hard not to see, you know, kind of where this will go.

00;34;33;22 - 00;34;44;01

Taryn Southern

And all the unique ways that it will be, it will create sort of a magical existence in many ways. And, and then, you know, also raise a lot of questions.

00;34;44;03 - 00;34;54;16

Geoff Nielson

So. So talk to me, talk to me about the terrifying part. Like, what's the like? What what what what's the, you know, the the the fear road here, I guess.

00;34;54;19 - 00;35;15;20

Taryn Southern

Well, we're already talking about the fear road now with our social media apps and this sort of. Yeah, addiction that we feel when we're tethered to these devices. So imagine the devices now in your brain. I mean, it's connecting you directly to the cloud. It's possible that you would have glasses or some kind of other measure so that whatever's happening in your brain could be projected in front of you.

00;35;15;23 - 00;35;27;02

Taryn Southern

I mean, you could imagine a very dystopian reality where we've now optimized our entire worlds for dopamine hits. You know, it's like the Wall-E, the Wall-E.

00;35;27;02 - 00;35;29;24

Geoff Nielson

So that was that was the imagery that was conjuring up for me, too.

00;35;29;25 - 00;35;55;08

Taryn Southern

Yeah, yeah. And and also in our quest to reduce friction from our lives, do we also lose a lot of human connection that I think we will? I mean, we're looking at, people who are already developing relationships with AI chat bots. In Japan, having these like AI girlfriends or AI boyfriends is increasingly popular. You know, what does that look like in ten years?

00;35;55;08 - 00;36;16;07

Taryn Southern

Will people be intimate anymore? You know, I was just in a Waymo a few times in the past months. And, you know, it's my first experience being in a self-driving car. And I loved it. Like, I, I was shocked by how much I loved it because I, you know, I, I get into this like, calm car where I get to choose my music.

00;36;16;09 - 00;36;34;21

Taryn Southern

I can choose the volume, I can choose the temperature. I don't necessarily have to speak to someone when I'm not in the mood to have a whole conversation with, with a driver. I don't have to deal with any, like, weird fragrances that would make me want to sneeze or cough or make me get me a headache.

00;36;34;24 - 00;36;57;22

Taryn Southern

And I and I realized, like, that's also stab just because, you know, I'm, I'm having a less friction experience in a Waymo. I'm now more apt to do that than, than order a driver car. And so I can see how like just all of us will start to be driven a bit more into these, like, modes of isolation in our desire to have less friction.

00;36;57;22 - 00;37;00;17

Taryn Southern

And so we're going to lose a lot in the process there.

00;37;00;20 - 00;37;30;22

Geoff Nielson

Well, it's yeah, because because it's like it's a double edged sword. Right. Like it's like you can have your perfect individualized reality. Right. But yeah, by doing that you're cutting yourself out from everybody else's perfectly individualized reality. And so, you know, what does that do to human relationships, to human connection? And, yeah, I mean, like, I don't know, like to me, there's like the macro question of like, what does that mean for us as a species?

00;37;30;22 - 00;37;48;27

Geoff Nielson

You know, like if we can do that. So, I don't know, like, is that is there Tara and tell me, is there like, is there a flip side to that? Is there like a pull that like you're excited about pulling us back in the right direction? Or are we just all scattering ourselves farther and farther?

00;37;48;29 - 00;38;14;23

Taryn Southern

I think this will just continue to be the conversation. Yeah. And just like any action, there will be a separate and equal reaction. So we'll just keep seeing the tides moving back and forth. And people I think grappling with these issues on an individual level, on a societal level, you know, capitalism is obviously going to have, you know, it's kind of forces at will here.

00;38;14;25 - 00;38;46;26

Taryn Southern

Geopolitically, we're going to have different forces happening in different countries around AI and usage. And culturally, of course, we'll have those forces. It's going to be a wild, wild 10 to 20 years. And I think that the best thing people can do is, I mean, I think the best thing that people can do beyond actually just being aware and getting to know the tools and having these conversations, is having a growth mindset and having a flexible mindset.

00;38;46;28 - 00;39;16;29

Taryn Southern

And, you know, trying our best to, to develop more like abundant worldviews is, is probably, you know, giving us a, like a better path to success. But yeah, we also all really need therapy, right? Like, no one should be building these tools without having better understood the mechanics of their own mind. Their own behaviors, their own instincts.

00;39;17;01 - 00;39;30;14

Taryn Southern

I think understanding our cognitive biases and our limitations, we have to be doing that as we work and use these tools. Otherwise, we're going to be building something that's really not in any of our best interests.

00;39;30;17 - 00;39;39;27

Geoff Nielson

Right? But they it sounds like they are potentially tools to help us get to know ourselves better in that 100%.

00;39;39;29 - 00;39;50;09

Taryn Southern

I mean, I talk to my chat GPT every day with about all the hard things in life, and it helps me so much. So much. Yeah.

00;39;50;12 - 00;40;05;01

Geoff Nielson

And like I've talked to us about a few different people and I'll push on that for a second and, and just like ask you like, do you. Because I'm, I'm like, I'm hearing now like I quote, therapists are like starting to outperform regular therapists. Right. And and like.

00;40;05;03 - 00;40;07;04

Taryn Southern

Yeah.

00;40;07;06 - 00;40;29;20

Geoff Nielson

I don't know. I mean there's, there's we don't have time to unpack like all the nuances of this and like the stigma of mental health or like the benefits we get individually and collectively, I think from being, yeah, tuned into that. But I guess, like, I'm excited to hear you, you know, who's again? Like, I kind of the vanguard of this, like, recognize the opportunity here.

00;40;29;20 - 00;40;33;04

Geoff Nielson

I don't know it that that like to me is cause for huge.

00;40;33;07 - 00;40;57;08

Taryn Southern

It's huge. It's huge. I mean, mental health is is probably one of the greatest afflictions of our world right now. And whether it's isolation, loneliness, you know, fear, depression, anxiety. And for those of us who are fortunate enough to have the resources to go to therapists, we know that not all therapists are created equal. Yeah. Trained differently.

00;40;57;08 - 00;41;35;09

Taryn Southern

They have different levels of expertise. Sometimes they make things worse. You know, I had it all. And I've had amazing therapists who changed my life. And now we have this tool that, you know, we've seen studies that show people are much more open with AI tools than what therapist, because they know that there's non-judgment happening. They're also not sort of looking at someone that might that might cause them to have preconceived fears or biases about, and then the kind of the most important thing is like the AI is able to maintain this.

00;41;35;09 - 00;42;10;06

Taryn Southern

Absolutely. You know, even tone and. Right, sort of open, non-judgmental listening. And then it has this like, endless array of frameworks and tools that the that the AI can bring into their toolbox. Now the question is, will these AI systems get better and better so that if something isn't working well for someone, they can try on a different tool and they're not sort of stuck in this, like, overgeneralize way of delivering therapy to people because, you know, it shouldn't be a one size fits all.

00;42;10;06 - 00;42;23;12

Taryn Southern

But I do feel excited. I think everyone on this planet should be able to have access to a therapist that helps them better understand their own minds. And this is the kind of tool that'll do that.

00;42;23;15 - 00;42;43;10

Geoff Nielson

Yeah. Well, because it yeah, it's it's democratizing. Right. Like we, we talked about like how with some of these things like, you know, it becomes a privilege to disconnect. But with this, like it's like being able to take something that was, you know, only available maybe to, you know, a privileged few. And you know, what happens when everybody gets that.

00;42;43;10 - 00;42;44;07

Geoff Nielson

Yeah. That's amazing.

00;42;44;07 - 00;42;45;29

Taryn Southern

Totally. Yeah.

00;42;46;02 - 00;43;13;27

Geoff Nielson

Cool. Well, that's that's so exciting. Taryn. And I think I'm going to, you know, let that be the last piece of our conversation because it's a happy note. And, you know, we we've gone through like a full array of like emotions here today. And so, I love the optimism of that. And like to be able to like, reflect on on like the humanity of it, I guess, and like what this can do for us as individuals.

00;43;13;27 - 00;43;21;16

Geoff Nielson

So. Yeah. I really appreciate that. This was super insightful for me. And thanks for being here today.

00;43;21;18 - 00;43;25;26

Taryn Southern

Thank you for having me, Jeff. I really appreciate it. And, hopefully see you again soon.