Orphan King - Wang Chuanfu of BYD

**Michael** (0:00)
All right, so welcome to meeting 61 of the Junto Club. We are three robotics PhDs who began this club during COVID, inspired by Benjamin Franklin's Junto Club from the 1700s, where he and his friends would talk about philosophy, politics, and news of the day as a means of improving themselves. And we take up this Junto Club in that same spirit, and discuss anything and everything that we think may improve us. So we're Matt, Michael, and Shu. And Shu normally kicks this thing off with a quote. So Shu, take it away.

**Shu** (0:43)
All right, sounds good. This is more like a reminder quote as well. So quote, the real problem is not whether machines think, but whether man do, or person do, be a skinner. Any thoughts?

**Michael** (1:02)
The question is not whether machines think, but whether man thinks.

**Shu** (1:07)
Yes, all women.

**Michael** (1:11)
Yes. Yeah, I mean, it is interesting. I mean, I feel like during our lunches, we had many conversations about that deep philosophical question of who we are, and what makes us us, and if you replace the component, parts of a person, is it still the same person, and all that fun stuff.
I mean, I do default to the zeros and ones, and we are electrical and chemical signals, and our intelligence and consciousness is emergent. But yeah, but I mean, I guess obviously that is something. So it is, I mean, we are here, so and we have some type of continuity for our lives. So I guess we do think.

**Shu** (2:14)
All right, you Matt.

**Matt** (2:15)
Mike gave a nice detailed, like, really considering the question of whether, you know, humans think, or we just rationalizing robots. I just think it's a singer, right? Like, I don't feel like it was a serious statement in the sense of like, it's really about thinking, I think it's just like kind of a singer making fun of people. Yeah.

**Michael** (2:38)
Yeah, I mean, yes. I mean, you could be like, yeah, humans are dumb, I mean, but yes, 95% of the population doesn't think that they just act.

**Shu** (2:49)
So, yeah, it could be, right? I mean, a BF Skinner is a, I think he was a psychology, like, behaviorist. So, I know robotics are, I mean, robotics take a lot of inspiration from his work as well. But yeah, I mean, he's just, I do like what Mike was going at the beginning, where we like, you know, going deep to the philosophical problem with like, whether man, man, human thinks. So, good mindset to start the podcast. But yeah, to me, I think, yes, is, I mean, I guess I like this one, is that it's a reminder for me is like, right now, especially in the age of AI, people always talk about, you know, worry about, what do you call that? Human intelligence, no, sorry, super intelligence and also, you know, ascension, whatever, what do you call, like, conscious AI, right? Taking over and stuff like that. I don't remember, I somehow in a turn escaping me.
Yeah, stuff like that, right? Like human, I became more intelligent than humans, right? But this is the real problem is that we, I mean, society even, I mean, media is always focused on that issue right now. But the main problem, as Kinna is saying, you know, it's like, you know, what do human think, you know? The real problem is not whether we worry about human. We should not worry about machines, but rather we should worry about whether the population or the human actually does not thinking, right? He's doing not thinking.

**Michael** (4:30)
Yeah, I mean, so if you want to interpret this as a joke, then I guess, like literally the opening of the standup I mentioned before this meeting started, my opening thing was like, clap it up if you're worried about AI and, you know, the audience claps. And then, so I'll just burn the joke, but like, because three people who watch this, or listen to this, are like, so then I say like, yeah, a lot of people are freaking out about AI, you know, becoming better than humans, or like smarter than humans, like, but I mean, have you met most humans? Like, you know, like very in the same vein, like.

**Shu** (5:12)
Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. So this is perfect.

**Matt** (5:16)
Yeah, you're ripping off BF Skinner.

**Michael** (5:18)
Yeah, I know. I, I, every good idea has been taken, so.

**Matt** (5:23)
That's fair.

**Shu** (5:23)
So how did everything go?

**Michael** (5:26)
I mean, actually, you know, I mean, yeah, they were, people were responsive to, I mean, like, honestly, I expect like, as someone, I guess, who works in AI, like, I sort of felt like someone might try to be like, no, I'm not afraid of it, but like pretty universally, like an audience of 80 to 100 people, like, they were legitimately like, all clad, like, you know, they were all into it. So like, in the sense of like all being concerned, like there were some people verbally said yes.