Im after the innovations being brought to life behind these doors, in these buildings, and in this studio. Im heading out on a 400mile journey across new zealands north island from auckland to wellington, to find the most breathtaking inventions these kiwis have cooked up. This is the first one that will go up. The computer model has become conscious of something. Ashlee on this episode of hello world, we will check out a mad scientist, some rockets, and an ai baby that will either warm your hearts or leave you weeping over humanitys grim future. [dial up tone] ashlee Silicon Valley may be home to some of the biggest tech giants in the world, but it is being challenged like never before. Crazy tech geniuses have popped up all over the planet, making things that will blow your mind. My name is ashlee vance. Im an author and journalist, and im on a quest to find the most innovative tech creations. And meet the beautiful freaks behind them. Hello world. Ashlee oh, hello. Ashlee this is auckland, the home to 1. 5 million of new zealands 4. 5 million people. People living outside auckland tend to knock it as congested and hectic. Meanwhile, People Living in auckland celebrate the way of life it offers. Heres that gelato place everybody is trying to go to. Ashlee the city has a bustling food scene, a gorgeous harbor surrounded by fertile volcanic land, and those black sand beaches you saw earlier they are just a halfhour drive from downtown. Ashlee this next part is going to sound cheesy, but honest to god, it is true. Auckland is full of cheery, optimistic people. You feel good when you are here, like you can do stuff, big stuff, crazy stuff. Like, say, replicating human consciousness on the inside of a computer. It is our primary means of communication. But it has been untapped in terms of a humancomputer interface. How can i help you . If a computer can express itself to you in a humanlike way that is emotional, that is cognitive, thats when you start getting to sort of an interesting place. Ashlee going to see an ai baby. On a sunny afternoon. The fellow you meet next is a madman, in the best possible way. You will pull the muscles, which basically lower the brow. Ashlee he is mark sagar, a Computer Scientist at the university of auckland. Mark became famous for building superdetailed simulations of the human body, and ended up winning a couple oscars for his work on films like avatar and king kong. These days, mark is how to put this . Trying to reverseengineer the human brain. He has built a series of simulations around how the human face moves, our emotions, and how neurons fire. Mark we are trying to build a computer that has experiences, can imagine, and basically has its own existence, in a way. Now, what we are going to do is i am going to run baby x. What we are building here is a computer that can learn. So, this is baby. She is sort of looking at us and hearing us. If i make a loud noise, she can get a fright. This is what she can see. She can see my face here. So, she is not copying my smile. She is responding to me. And now, this is little babys first book. You can pick up the page and show her something. You have to get her attention. Ashlee hi, baby. Hi. What do you see . Whats this . Puppy. Ashlee very good. What is that baby . Apple. Mark just because you are in new zealand, you have to give her the word. Ashlee what do you see . Sheep. Ashlee very good, baby. Mark now, the longterm goal is can we create a computational model of consciousness . You go, ok, the computer model has just become conscious of something. Is there a thought or not . Now, all the facial expressions, everything is run by a neural net. So as we look around, im going to remove her face basically. This is what is driving in the background. What youre looking at now, these are all of the connections lighting up, as the baby is doing stuff. Ashlee this is a simulation of what would be happening in someones brain . Mark exactly. If youre going to make a character biological does going to behave naturally, then you have to use a natural model, so that is what is going on inside baby x. Now, we take this stuff and will now connect it to cognitive computer systems. So, you have got biological and Neural Networks connected to Artificial Intelligence portals, and the potential for that is enormous. That is where the future will probably be. Ashlee there is a term New Zealanders have for possessed inventortypes like mark. They are part of the countrys number eight wire culture. Like so many things here, the story of number eight wire goes back to the sheep. Farmers used to make their fences out of eight wire gauge metal. Then, they started to use the wire to fix any problem on the farm. Over time, a number eight wire mythology evolved to capture the cando spirit of People Living in a remote place and of a people who had to solve problems in any clever way they could. But while New Zealanders remained fond of the eight wire idea, there is an undeniable sense that the country is ready to level up. It is time to start inventing with more purpose and polish. The gritty garage workshop is giving way to this a pristine, madscientist lab that looks like it could be for sale in an apple store. Ashlee Sir Ray Avery embodies kiwi ingenuity. He is a prolific scientist and inventor. Sir avery, this is ashlee vance. He made a fortune in the pharmaceutical industry, and then decided to dedicate his life to helping the worlds poorest people, hence the sir. Sir avery right this way. Ashlee this is a cool house. I followed sir avery through a wardrobe door to his garage lab, where he creates his objects. I notice everything in the house is white. You are wearing white. Sir avery yeah, i have two dress shirts. I have black for winter and white for summer. The thing is i know i have 4795 days left to live. Ashlee how do you know that . Sir avery ive done the algorithm analysis of somebody my age born at my age in my time, how much chardonnay i drink, so i know what i would do with the next 10 years of my life. Failure is really just for people who are not prepared. You dont waste time on things that arent going to get you to where you need to go, things like clothes. Ashlee sir avery is well known for taking complicated medical devices and making them simple, cheap, and durable. Did you make this in here . Sir avery yeah, yeah. Ashlee this is your workshop lab. Sir avery yeah. Ashlee currently, he is working on this incubator. Sir avery it is almost like , you know, something that superman would be happy to be in, and the shape of it is much more about getting even air distribution than trying to make it look cool. Ashlee the life pod costs 2000 versus 40,000 for typical incubators. The hope is that it can save thousands of lives each year. Sir avery i will show you, this is really cool. This is pretty ugly. Ashlee he also has this giant block of frozen chicken slurry , as a way to amplify the nutritional value of trash meat. Sir avery after kentucky fried has taken all of their bits, the legs and the chest meat, they make it into this stuff. Ashlee yum, chicken slurry. I will have a spoonful of that later. Sir avery mixes the trash meat with, of all things, kiwi to break it down into the basic amino acids so the body can absorb it. It is aimed at helping malnourished children. Sir avery if you take that, you will get instant energy. You dont have to digest it. It will go straight across your gut. This will save millions and millions of kids lives. And einstein said the most elegant solution is always the most simplest. And kiwis have a very practical way of doing things. You take away the noise that you have often with things like Silicon Valley, and a bunch of guys in sheds with bits and pieces, they come up with stuff nobody else has thought of. Ashlee coming up, we will take a look at rockets. This is a dream come true. I have always wanted to be that. I think New Zealanders dont think big enough. They dont go out to the really big problems and the big billiondollar ideas. I started building rockets when i was at school. The very first rocket i built ended up being put on a bicycle. Ashlee most Rocket Companies are started by wealthy governments and billionaires. Rocket lab was started in 2007 by this maniac, peter beck. Peter is one of the most capable people on the planet. He never went to college, opting instead to hone his own engineering craft in the garage and machine shops. Peter i do not know why rockets make me so happy. [laughter] ashlee now, he wants to make it much easier and cheaper to put small satellites into space. Peter if you had a satellite on your lap right now, in one week, i could have it in orbit, moreover, i can have it in orbit at an order of magnitude with less cost than any other way of getting it there. Ashlee the first rocket launch will take place later this year. Wow, this is the first one that will go up . Peter yep. Ashlee commercial customers have already signed up, and there is a twoyear waiting list. How much are you going to charge per flight . Peter 4. 9 million. Ashlee ok, 4. 9 million might seem like a lot, but its actually a remarkable figure. And lift off of the falcon nine rocket and dragon. Ashlee the cheapest way to get to space today is on one of elon musks rockets from spacex. And that costs 60 million per trip. Rocket labs prices would open space to a whole new set of customers, including scientists and businesses, and in effect, democratize space. This is what the Aerospace World has dreamed of for decades. This is the second stage . Peter second stage, yeah. Ashlee you can lift it up. Peter yep. Ashlee you rolled your eyes a little bit at this eight wire thing, why is that . Peter if somebody says that rocket labs is a number eight wire company, they will be ordered off the site. They are gone. Because number eight wire is about patching stuff together to make it work. And that is not really what New Zealanders have evolved to. That is not what rocket lab is about. It is about high Tech Innovation and doing really clever things. Ashlee with launch day approaching, the pressure is on. Today, they are running an engine test at a site near the auckland airport. So the worstcase scenario peter it blows up. Ashlee and the best case . Peter it will shut down. Building a company is hard. Building a Rocket Company is near insane. Ashlee i hitched a ride with peter to the test site and arrived just in time for countdown. 3, 2, 1. Ashlee the engine test was successful, but there is still a ways to go. What does it feel like in your gut, that countdown clock . In the office . And everything . Peter i dont sleep much. That is probably the best answer to that question. Ashlee with a bit of luck, peter will maintain his sanity through 2017. That is when Rocket Lab Plans to start flying for paying customers. This is a tiny company of 100 people that will have bested entire nations and firmly put new zealands stamp on the world. That is not eight wire culture, that is just flatout amazing. Ashlee and with that, it is now time to leave auckland and journey to middle earth. We could have flown from auckland to wellington, and it would have taken an hour, but we wanted to be basted in hobbit vibes. We had to to see the land. Road trip. Ashlee dear laptop, new zealand is everything they said it would be. Plus, burgeros. They taste like pork rinds. Ashlee if aliens ever visit earth and wanted to see what it has to offer, their first visit would have to be new zealand. It is like a sampler platter of landscapes. Rolling hills, deserts, plains, tropical forests, whizzing by one after another. That is it for now. Thanks for listening, laptop. Love, ashlee. Ashlee three hours outside of auckland, we made a pitstop in a hot spring. Ashlee all of the signs leading into this place warn you that you will get meningitis if you stick your head under water. Im hoping that i live after this relaxing afternoon. Now, the more i learn about meningitis, the more afraid i am that i have the meningitis. You know, you come to new zealand, and it is all eight wire culture, you can send up rockets next thing you know, you dunk your head under water and you are dead. Us. Lucky for this mud is cool. Just reminds me of all the floating around in my brain. Ashlee coming up next on hello world, i steal Peter Jacksons camera and get sucked into virtual reality. Ashlee welcome to a rainy and famously windy wellington, new zealands capital city and home to a thriving film industry. Director Peter Jackson is the local boy made good. He famously made lord of the rings here, and then shot past being a onehit wonder. Peter has created an entire movie Industry Based around his Film Production company, weta. This is welliwood. It is just like hollywood, but without any of the glitz and glamour. Studio lots and soundstages are dull and unmarked. They are tucked into a quiet suburb, called miramar. Weta has started to expand into virtual reality, and i was invited to take a look at the ir first vr movie, a scene from the hobbit, where smaug wakes up from a nap. Smaug thief, i smell you. Ashlee you said it wasnt going to be frightening. Smaug thief, in the shadows. Ashlee that is crazy. Man, you feel like real emotions when you see it. That is the nice thing about vr. People get so much more Emotional Experience than from a video game or whatever. Thats why were on the Software Side to kind of enable these highend experiences. Ashlee next, the studio where they filmed lord of the rings. If you just want to grab that, we can have a look around. Ashlee where i got a crash course in motion capture filmmaking, using Peter Jacksons very own custommade camera. Which is not really a camera but more of a device to place the director in a virtual world. There is a screen on the top that shows a rough version of the final graphics, while dozens of sensors around the room record all of the cameras movements. What we have to do is yell action, do this stuff, and say cut, like any other film. Ashlee action. Inside, get inside. It is too late, you have to run to safety. Ashlee this tech brings a Human Element back to green screen filmmaking. It is more tactile. It makes the director actually feel like he is shooting the film again. Alright, cut. [laughter] really good sport. Thanks. Ashlee weta became an industry of its own, and after the success of lord of the rings, spawned startups that are there own miniweta. On my last stop, i went to one of these startups, 8i studios, a vr company that is recording people in three dimensions to bring them into virtual reality. The difference from looking at a video to seeing a hologram that looks just like the real thing is so powerful. Ashlee 8i is developing software that will bring vr to the masses. The day you can capture a loved one in virtual space is almost here. We will show you some experiences, where we captured humans with offtheshelf cameras. It feels like you are in the room with the person. Ashlee can i check it out . Sure. Alright, so you can see the room . Ashlee yes. Alright. Ashlee hello. So, we create a virtual environment, but then capture a very lifelike motion of the cloth and the Human Performance and we can compose those together. Ashlee so, you have been at weta, used to making these cgi fantastic creatures, but it would not work for a normal person. You dont want to drop a hollywood budget just to record your child experiencing their first steps. And as we saw that these headsets were coming along, there was no clear, efficient, cheap, scalable solution to capture reality and to author expenses at a scale, and pace that would create a similar content database for people to enjoy. Ashlee so, this is going to be like a movie. Oh, my god. That is crazy. Because i am sort of like afraid of heights. Ashlee oh [laughter] i mean i felt like i was going to walk off a cliff. That was really frightening. Although i was a bit skeptical, it was time to scan myself. So, i could meet the virtual ashlee. Which way do i look . Like this way . You dont have to look anywhere. You are captured from all angles. So, have fun. Ashlee and i just have to stay in a circle, pretty much. I was surrounded by 30 cameras, all perfectly spaced and measured. It was like an ocd paparazzi. I am ashlee vance, but im not really ashlee vance. I am a Digital Asset that is being made at 8i studios. And then in post, they put together all of the different angles to make a final 3d version of me. If you want to get very nerdy, this is called volumetric cinematography. Just for the nerds. Hands in pockets. Hands in pockets. My little virtual friend. Ashlee so, i get to see my virtual self today. You have seen yourself many times in 2d videos. Ashlee i think im going to be underwhelmed. I think im just going to see what i always look like in the mirror. I dont know why seeing a 3d version of yourself would be a big deal. I would much rather be chased by smaug. So, i just walk around . That is kind of strange. The detail is insane. I mean, you can see my whiskers, right . Yeah. Ashlee the cameras are that good . And we are looking to increase that resolution as well. Give yourself a smooch. [laughter] step into yourself. Ashlee oh, no. That is crazy. Whoa, i did not know where i was in the room. [laughter] ashlee so, i thought it would be really janky i mean, it is really lifelike. That was the Biggest Surprise for me. Do you think people are going to want vr to be human . Ashlee i have two boys and they grow up so quick and its like, aw, man, if you could just remember how they talked and their gestures and the funny things they said, that would be really cool. Ashlee here is the thing about new zealand. Its Economy Today depends on sheep, cows, and tourists. And everyone knows that needs to change. Technology is the countrys future. Thanks to Companies Like rocket lab and 8i, the change is already underway. Foreign investors have started to pour money into new zealand, and engineers are staying home, because there are good jobs to be had. If you are an outsider looking to come here, well, why not . The scenery is breathtaking, the weather is good, and the eight wire days have passed. New zealand is taking on some of the hardest problems in the industry. It is working on the technology of the absurd. Ashlee on the next episode of hello world, i go to sweden and hang out with moose hunters at the arctic circle, take over the countrys electrical grid, and eat cinnamon buns with spotifys daniel ek. Like it . Ashlee seems more wholesome than like a cinnabon. Yeah. Announcer from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Jeff glor good evening, i am filling in for charlie rose, who is traveling this evening. Legendary singersongwriter prince died in his home in chanhassen, minnesota. No cause of death has been given. Prince was a prodigy, a provocateur who forever changed the opposite landscape. He won seven Grammy Awards and had five number one songs. These include little red corvette, and when doves cry
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