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welcome to checkpoint real talk a podcast for security folks who want less
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fud and more Fu in each episode we'll have light-hearted conversations about
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security people processes and Technology as we react to how they're portrayed in
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film and TV we'll bring in experts from inside and outside checkpoint to break it down what was accurate what wasn't
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and what can you apply to real world cyber events on today's episode post see it
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yes aorr checkpoint Global ciso Pete nicoletti founder of ethical hacker
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Ralph eia cyber security leader Jason R and president sncus Advisory Group clay
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mberg react to the 1995 movie Ghost in the Shell hi good morning good afternoon and
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welcome to checkpoint real talk we are super excited today because we're going
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to be talking about a movie that I've just heard over and over again the world of anime all my friends keep telling me
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you got to do this show so guess what we're doing Ghost in the Shell today
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we've got Pete from checkpoint joining us he was the one that was Ring everyone around for this and by the way welcome
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Jason clay Ralph to the show guys welcome to checkpoint real talk thank you glad to be
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here really that that's how you're going to say hello to me fired up to be here
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there you thank you for that energy yeah all right no you guys I seriously I
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really appreciate it and I know Ralph apparently you're like logging in from Germany so gut KN is that what it is
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that that that is correct ah beautiful well I'm sorry if I
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mispronounced it but uh guys before we get started why did you pick Ghost in
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the Shell that answer's got to go directly to Jason yeah yeah I apparently this is one of the only movies that has
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ever made Jason cry probably probably the series more than the movie but yeah I think I'll be
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the one to take the risk here of uh being a cliche and go with the anime here but this one I chose because not
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only does it have a thematic uh thread of AI and AI becoming sensient but in
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this universe humans have started augmenting themselves as well and the more they replace themselves with
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machine parts they start to question their own Humanity as they start kind of meeting AI in the middle it's very preent I mean if you if
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you watch the 95 version which Jason insisted that is the the version to
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watch not the new ones with the hot models and not the made over ones with
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3D anime but the real anime it's this is before Blade Runner you know this is
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before uh a lot of other movies and there's all kinds of things that come
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from this movie it's it's the Genesis of a lot of cool science fiction yeah
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indeed indeed right okay I did not know that that's a fact so okay so I did not
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know that you guys and I feel like such the like funny host on this one because it is a true reaction for me um so wait
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this came and predated Blade Runner seriously I thought blade was like in the 80s let's see about that that's a
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good question Matrix it definitely I mean the opening scene uh with the characters and the is
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is Matrix and this is this predates matx definitely predates neural um yeah
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the original Blade Runner sorry go ahead off yeah definitely definitely the original bra render was in 82
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um and um I believe the Matrix was in '99
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right um so it definitely predates The Matrix and what it definitely predates is neuralink and open AI so this was
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kind of touching on those subjects before they were even a thing yes oh
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yeah okay oh okay so uh I think a late
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late 80s late 80s the first ghost in N shelle series came out okay so this this
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was a TV show first right a cartoon show first or I'm sorry anime was it a book first and then they made it into a
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series or was it series it was based on the magga of who
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okay right it was a book or it was a comic series yeah okay woo I am feeling
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so not cool right now thanks guys all right so okay so the premise of it am I
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well you got a you got the ultimate nerd squad on so we better know this yeah please educate me and I'm I assure you
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the Audi is probably wondering like okay because here's the thing when we first talked about this and I sent over clips
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from the movie the most recent was Scarlet Johansson and all of you guys were like wrong movie and I was like oh
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man I think I just stepped on like a okay why why why this version versus the
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the Scarlett Johansson version I can probably take that one too that and I hate to be that guy but that is just the
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real dumb down the new stuff is just dumbed down made to be visual candy and Mass Appeal everybody completely lost
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the theme of AI completely lost a lot of stuff it was just borrowed from pieces of the series as well as the movie and
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just just for movie effects and to kind of Dum it down it's it's missing it yeah
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they took the deep thoughts out they you know the original one has these
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long you know solo you know paragraph after paragraph
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monologues yeah and and the new one it's all like Jason says it's all Visual and they drop out all the social commentary
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and the and what the these augmented people are actually feeling and that's
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really what you know you start hearing what these augmented cyborgs are really thinking
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are they dreaming is it real and then the characters pop up that you know they
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don't even know that they were their brains were taken over and and forced to do things against their will all of that
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doesn't show up in the next version so it's really the original one if you want to if you want to go deep and have the
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Deep Thoughts that's the one all right and and to add a little bit to that as
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well is this is one of the first uh anime films ever to very skillfully
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blend what they will call traditional drawn animation with computerized
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imagery um in fact the wallpaper behind me is from Ghost in the Shell and and
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the the original and again they were blending this uh these techniques for the first time in anime where uh
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traditionally drawn animation was being used with something that was computer generated it's good to know Clay I
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thought I saw you like about to say something yeah in the in the first series right the first with the first
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movie um you know they get into a lot more detail as as Pete was mentioning you know get into more detail about when
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your when memories are digitized and when when you have you know memories which can be implanted
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you know Jason mentioned neuralink you know when you begin to augment your memories and augment your your your hit
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your your capacity for thought with outside digitized memories now you enter
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a realm where they can be manipulated so they could become artificial are they are those memories real what makes a
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memory you know real or or how can you validate that how can you tell the difference how do you know if your your
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own memories are real and now that's one of the themes in the original Ghost in the Shell it wasn't just an action You
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Know Drama it was it was about the fact that you know the lines are have become blurred between human uh you know
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humanity and these cyborgs as well as what's you know what's real versus
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what's you know fiction and that's struggle yeah the opening scene where
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the woman is actually created in a vat of embryotic fluid
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and then she wakes up in an apartment and she has memories and she
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goes to work I mean it's it predates like we said Matrix but as as clay and
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Jason and and Ralphie are pointing out people don't know what what memory is real and what's not what's been wiped
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and what's been implanted and you know they even talk about they complain about that the
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police say hey we don't to have a fix for that yet I don't know if you guys remember seeing that section but if your
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if your brain is really fudged up we don't we really can't fix that so you're
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sorry your brain is Jell-O and we can't help you we can't get your old memories back yeah you're stuck with the ones
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that the hacker gave you basically I mean a good a good example of that in
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something that we uh have seen in in culturally uh discussing today is sort
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of the man the Mandela effect so many of us remember certain things and we can all swear by it but
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supposedly it never was that way so what was it a glitch uh is it the ghost in
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the show okay well hey okay I I like to say the Multiverse is cross streamed I have a running Theory I should probably
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get my tin foil hat uh that the pandemic I think we cross multiverses because everything just seems just slightly off
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ever since but um well guys we can talk about this theoretically but I think why don't we review a clip and let's let's
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go dig a little bit deeper you guys open to that all right let's do
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this hey what's on your mind that robot did we seem similar to you of course not
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no I don't mean physically just what then well I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our
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Origins sometimes I suspect I'm not who I think I am like maybe I died a long time ago and somebody took my brain and
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stuck it in this body maybe there never was a real me in the first place and I'm completely synthetic like that thing you've got human brain
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cells in that titanium shell of yours you're treated like other humans so stop with the angst but that's just it that's
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the only thing that makes me feel human the way I'm treated I mean who knows what's inside our heads have you ever
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seen your own brain it sounds to me like you're doubting your own ghost what if a cyberbrain could possibly generate its
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own ghost create a soul all by itself and if it did just what would be The Importance of Being Human then ooh
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W that's the question isn't it this is screaming Turing test you know you can't
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tell your even she can't tell if she's uh you know she's actually partially
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human entirely human or purely cyborg right and the thing you have to understand here is that the Ghost in the
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Shell is referring to the fact that especially with the main character the major there she is mostly Android at
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this point the only thing that's left of her humanity is a small part of her brain that they call the goat that's
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where the conscious comes that's the only thing they haven't been able to replace if they replace that part you stop being you so that's the ghost and
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then everything around that is the shell so she is mostly shell and just a little bit of ghost so she's questioning her
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own Humanity at that point I think this is this is a you know obviously the
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metaphor for you know Soul right we have our soul and you know I like to one of the ways I would explain is that we're
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made you know we just like computers is we have hardware and that's that's the shell uh and then there's some software
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in there which is part of that software is is the soul right um and that's what
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this is talking about here and the way that that was explained was very interesting one one of the lines that really would stick out to me is that
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just because you're being treated like a human does that make you human um and
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that was one of the weird things about this this you know 52 second clip is when she says that that I thought that
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was very interesting and even if you if you watch the original Japanese anime in translated that's still the way it's
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translated interesting o we never question our uh Humanity do we as humans we just
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don't question where we come from which is when I watched Westworld which is another another show I want to review um
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you know do you guys ever think about like you know do you ever question what's going on ghost in your showell
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it's usually after a lot of drinking and then hanging around with
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people like friends like this yes we do question our our Humanity yeah
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I think right now it's pretty pretty given we're we're okay with our Humanity
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the question is though I mean it's like my grandma has a pacemaker technically a cyborg now but that's such a small piece
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you know no one thinks twice about that but where's the Gray Line start pushing you know once we're 90% cyborg once
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we're once our brain starts being replaced in part by machine then what
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yeah I met a a girl um at a conference uh we were in Ravine
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Croatia uh and her her talk was about augmentation of her body using uh
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technology and she had uh basically seismic sensors in her feet that that
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she had put in and we were having um uh we were having lunch near the water and
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she said I can feel the water I can feel the water in my feet you know and we're sitting you know maybe 40 ft from
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literally the you know the the water and she was saying yeah I can feel when the when when the when the waves hit the the
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concrete and I thought well that's real interesting and then I asked her why why did you do this you know I mean I I
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really quite don't understand what what you're doing I said she had a very interesting answer she said it was very
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much to her like a tattoo if you're able to modify the way your body looks uh why can't you modify
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the way your body works in some way oo and I thought that was uh an interesting
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response and unexpected okay reminds me of a girlfriend who's absolutely obsessed
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with like her phone like anyone that could be more addicted to the phone outside of me it was her and she said if
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there was an ability to implant it into her like arm what a head or whatever she's like sign me up I'm in for it and
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I remember asking her I'm like dude that's kind of trippy don't you think like you're don't you think you're
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adding some components to your brain and she's like no because the convenience of it it's just be easier for my life and
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I'm like okay so well she'd be the first in line to be a a cyborg
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mesh so something else from this this first scene is is her struggle with uh
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her identity and defining what her soul is right you know what is natively her
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which is you know the the ghost portion as Jason mentioned and then what is the shell what's been wrapped around which
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is the Mandela effect that Ralph you referred to before and what's really kind of interesting societally uh now is
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to the extent that that we create our own Echo Chambers via social media which
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create our own Mandela effect that we want right so we almost wrap ourselves
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and interpret our environment on purpose in a way that helps us to assimilate
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memories and assimilate our environment and everything that's happening in a construct that we are creating ourselves
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so it's a there's a direct parallel between G and n shelle and what we're living today and who' have thought like
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something that like would would have that much of a profound effect today I mean it's what
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20 plus tell tell me 30 20 plus years old science fiction turns into science fact
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yeah oh okay well indeed and something and something else is when
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we talk a lot a lot about you know nit we talk a lot about the you know Turing you know Turing test and so forth but in
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the scene she's almost performing her own Turing test that she can't discern
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herself right so you know very soon if not not now you know at this point in
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time we're we're going to have ai that is able to be somewhat or at least to
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seemingly sent right although you know they're not they're not fully sentient uh but we're
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going to have have a a uh an AI which is able to ask these questions of itself or
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of us and we're not going to be able to discern it from from another um independent autonomous living human
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being that's a really good point I think that we'll have the AI solving Turing
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tests before they actually reach AI we're I think we're too easy to trick I I'm inclined to believe that during both
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Turing and azimov are flipping over in their graves right now because the AI engines and and
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AI combined with robots are absolutely going to break the three rules of Robotics and and like you guys are
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saying trick touring trick the touring test so it's we're we're at that uh at
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that envelope right now oh my gosh for the past you know what eight years we've had you know chat Bots taking over um
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you know the public space you you know at first it was it was it was uh not
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being used commercially but now we have a number of of you know customer service Bots that are being used that are can
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carry a dialogue with you they have access to your histories um they can
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they can reference things that you've done on their platforms or purchased um it's it's incredible the the the the
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flexibility that these Bots have it's through years of of training and now
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they're commercialized and they're they're you know wides available wide widespread manner so I've got a good one
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for you I'm sending meeting Bots to my meetings when I'm double booked and the
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meeting bot takes notes for me tells me who had the smartest ideas and and it comes out with awesome
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information right the question I have is what happens if everybody sends a meeting by what gets done in the
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I think we should try that maybe I triple dog dare all of you to do that and and by the way I gotta say there's a
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lot of companies that just live by meetings and I don't know why but they're like their calendars are always booked on meetings I don't know anyone
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actually executing on anything but there's there's companies that just love to meet with each other so let's let's
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shift gears a little bit here because I mean The Importance of Being Human I think that that I think that we could
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just make that an episode all by itself but we do want to dig a little bit more into Ghost in the Shell here I think
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this is a fascinating moving so are you guys cool if I move us along to clip number
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two yeah absolutely all right oh yeah it's no use arresting me I'm not talking
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to any goddamn cops talk and just what are you going to talk
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about you don't even know your own name you stupid H can you remember your mother's name or
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what she looks like or how about about where you were born don't you have any
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happy childhood memories do you even know who you are it's kind of
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[Music] harsh nope ghost Haack humans are so
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pathetic it's a shame and this poor bastard's been hacked pretty
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badly okay first off just from a
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social like human interaction those are rather rough questions to ask someone to
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try to help them understand their Humanity or lack thereof um so help me
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understand uh why why were they going after this particular individual is he a
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good guy bad guy or they're just trying to wake up these robot machine half human half things like what's the
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premise of this scene well I mean this guy was just a
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guy and unfortunately he got caught up and hacked so this starts touching on
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once you start augmenting your own brain and start augmenting your own memory then you're subject to security right
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and it's just like we were talking about someone's friend before that's all about Body Mods and that's great and for a
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first while it's probably going to be air gapped and everything will be fine but once you hook up to the net and
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you're susceptible to being hacked now you can someone can write false memories in there and if they can write false
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memories in there they can pretty much manipulate you into doing anything feeling anything so this guy was just a
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guy who was unfortunately hacked and manipulated into doing some dirty work for
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somebody oh yeah and the the interesting thing too that that's uh very relative to the real world is that you know he if
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you watch this movie you'll see that he's actually sort of the third guy down line right there was a guy a pickup
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truck guy who was doing a piece of it there's a you you know there's there's the police people there's there's a few
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different things going on that ultimately they're getting down to this guy who's really they were just trying
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to trace um the person who was doing it and they trace it down to this guy and he's hacked right so very much like in
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the real world um to some degree is how do you know you're not hacked right how do you know your device is not hacked
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your computer your network isn't hacked right because if you know don't even know to look for it then how would you
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know right um something to what Jason said um which was very a few years back
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uh while living in La I was part of a thing called uh well still involved with something called the science and
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Entertainment Exchange which is part of the National Academy of Sciences in DC and what they did is they took three
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filmmakers and three scientists and paired them together to come up with a project um and they fi financed these
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little projects to them be shown at the at an event at the LA Film Festival and the project that I ended up working on
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uh after speaking to this documentary film director really he wasn't even a scripted film director but um he talked
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about many things but one of the things he mentioned was that because he came from the docky world was that uh among
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the many different discussions we had was that he had a lady who wanted to have a reality show made about her
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because she said that she had an implant and that she was controlled by this implant
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and um we went with that story because actually implants do exist right um in
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fact they're they're currently used for things like PTSD and C soldiers and so on and so forth so we knew there was
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already research there and already ongo things so we could take it and then sort of say well in the near future and what
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he went with was that this woman ended up basically killing the CEO uh of a
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company and in the near future was uh you know water was a big thing and this was the company who controlled water
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right um and you know the majority of it happens in interrogation and she just
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basically says and the concept we came up with was that she could not control
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her body but she could still see what she was doing but had no control over
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what she was doing right and in the end uh as she starts to say too much she
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kills herself right um so you know the interesting part about that was that at
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the end of it I met a guy there was an Afterparty and this older gentleman came
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up to me with his wife and said you know really enjoyed your presentation because we all had to do a presentation I did
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one on implants and the potential of hacking implants and then the movie played this 8 Minute uh scripted short
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film um and I said oh thank you very much he said I'm the founder of the
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science and Entertainment Exchange and I said oh great because I have some questions for you why I don't quite
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understand what the science and Entertainment Exchange is and uh the what he said was really
25:06
not what I expected he said well you see in the 1980s uh my daughter had a debilitating disease and there was no
25:13
cure for it what what does that have to do well you see I had I was able to afford the
25:19
best doctors and scientists but uh there was nothing that could be done other than stem cell research and at the time
25:25
the US government had banned stem cell research so um I tried to put everybody in
25:31
contact to make the connections with Washington but no one would ever actually answer their phone calls but
25:37
you know whose phone call they would answer I said who he said mine and I said why would they answer your phone
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call and not the scientist he said because I directed the movie Airplane and most of us here know what
25:49
that movie is so I said no way dude you directed the movie Airplane and he's like yes and my point was that Hollywood
25:58
has more power than even science does to Pete nicolle's Point earlier that science fiction becomes science fact
26:05
what he said to me was people think that art imitates life but that's not what it
26:12
is life is imitating art and we can put and make anything up in science fiction
26:19
and then and then he stops and says what was your favorite TV show growing up and I said Star Trek and he said and then
26:26
it's kids like you who take you know the communications device and ultimately
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turn it into a cell phone so we Inspire we create the future in art and then
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life follows it um and that was a very interesting thing to to really have to
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think about because if anything with regards to all of this AI talk on whether it's good bad or anything I've
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always said that you know AI for the most part to me is just another layer another level of automation until we
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start talking about this whole idea of sentient of being sentient right so uh
27:04
what was interesting to me is that the danger of the things that we think could happen the idea of a world like uh you
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know the Matrix or the Terminator uh doesn't exist because you know for any
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it won't exist for any other reason than us making it so in some way so that's
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what we have to be careful with not that it itself will make itself so it's that we are going to cuz at the end of the
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day you know we can automate anything but the question is always why sometimes there's no reason to automate and or to
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use technology in certain things um and then there's many reasons too so I think
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that's what we have to be careful with is is really our decision- making not so much the technology itself Ralph you're
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you're you're you're so on point and and we're seeing like in this past clip just
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the the fact if if you can override like imagine neuralink let's take a step back
28:01
imagine neuralink neuralink uh last last year uh Elon Musk in you know shared a
28:07
recent you know study where they're able to take individuals that were um
28:12
paraplegic and able to bypass those damaged um damaged vertebrae in order to
28:19
um you know I think they're doing using primates primate studies right now in order to um allow them to have use of
28:27
their limbs which are otherwise cut off from the brain so now we see this this
28:32
introduction of a technology that can allow us to to to utilize our limbs that
28:40
otherwise would be um inoperable and you combine that technology with what Boston
28:46
Dynamics and Saros right the Saros Guardian all these uh the military
28:52
exoskeletons like it's it's only a matter of time before those can be hacked and as you just described in in
28:58
that uh with the the the the interview that that um you were referring to you
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know you you'll be able to see your body do things that you are not actually in command of we are not far off from that
29:11
these are these These are studies that are happening right now in Laboratories that uh I I mean within 10 years I can
29:18
imagine that we're going to see this um you know in the field in the real world you know the the the also to tie this
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all together with what Ralph just said and and uh you just said Clay is so
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there's you know we talk about the benevolence and the and the goodness of some of these you know clear implants
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and and you know other good things that are we're connecting to but here's the
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problem we we're trying to put together legal Frameworks to control Ai and control you know the FDA tries to
29:49
control who can do this but here's the thing criminals don't give a give a crap about these laws and these guidance and
29:56
how AI is being used so one of the things that we have to focus on is
30:03
making sure that we have countermeasures and a good understanding of how the criminals are going to leverage this
30:09
what could be great technology and super helpful to humans but the bad guys don't
30:15
have those guidelines and they're financially motivated or politically motivated and they're going to do very
30:22
very bad things with these cool Technologies and they're already starting to do it we're starting to see
30:27
it with you know voice Fates and and having money stolen or whether it be
30:32
targeted fishing based on AI Chachi PT creation so it's the the the cats out of
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the bag here folks I absolutely agree so let me ask you guys this because you
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know hacking a human like when we think of hacking and let's be honest right like this is a future State movie right
30:52
this is assumption this is like in the future that you know their sentient robots cataclysmic change in our society
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um but let's talk about today right you guys bring up some really good points
31:05
right as long as you've got a device that's connected over IP somewhere it tackable right so to me it
31:12
was like you know the whole concept when we were talking about internet of things you know I remember jokingly I was at a
31:17
a house party at a friend's house and I just said on my way walking down the hallway I just said they were playing
31:24
some like and I'm going to say it some C crappy country song and I walked through
31:29
to the bathroom and I'm like oh my God change the music put on some 9inch nails and I go to the bathroom I come back and
31:36
I'm standing there like meeting up someone in the hallway and I'm hearing 9-in Nails playing but it's not from the
31:42
big radio or it's not from the stereo they're still playing that crappy country song that I was oh it's like
31:48
Achy Breaky Heart you guys it wasn't a good one and I'm like oh my God why do I hear N9 in Nails I really thought I had a ghost in my head it turned out on
31:57
their thermostat it it heard me say turn on 9in nails and it started playing 9in
32:05
Nails uh from this tiny little speaker thing it was the craziest thing so no I
32:11
didn't hack into it but it does make me feel like if we can help people
32:16
understand you can hack a little thing like that it shouldn't be farfetched to think
32:22
you can you could do that to a robot that's also half human well I can think about all the different iot devices
32:28
we're we're about to hit a ratio of 100 to one 100 iot devices for every human
32:36
and you know not to plug checkpoint too much but that's a risk that we are really looking at very carefully with
32:43
our new code and trying to prevent that kind of nonsense from happening because hacked iot devices create huge dos
32:51
networks they create all kinds of craziness so uh this you know we're
32:56
talking about this this movie but there's so much around it that uh leads
33:03
to risks and issues that uh we're just barely getting our arms around well I
33:08
mean technically we're being hacked already so if you've ever seen documentaries like the social dilemma
33:15
you'll start to realize we have our own cognitive blind spots you know magicians have been exploiting those for years but
33:21
now the algorithms are starting to exploit those so it's slippery slope you know once we start augmenting ourselves
33:28
and having machines mixed in doesn't change anything where people are going to start hacking us I mean AB I'm I'm in
33:35
the social media business side of the and I'm also my background is you know 20 years in Tech um I can tell you
33:42
behavior is driven by the human need for social media that's already drived by
33:47
algorithms whether we can like pleasy social media algorithms it's yes uh I
33:53
would like to give a shout out to Michelle LAX she actually texted me she goes girl you better re if you haven't seen social dilemma you need to so
33:59
thanks Jason for bringing that up uh it's true I think you know do we need a robot takeover for us to get hacked as
34:06
humans I don't think so is that what social engineering is all about just conversing with us and all of a sudden
34:11
changing our you know behavior in some ways I mean one one could argue that you
34:18
know to some degree it'll uh it can make things more secure cuz we sure are
34:24
hackable now uh the wet wear is I mean the kind of numbers that we've seen uh
34:31
just explode over the last 2 or three years when it comes to scams online you
34:37
know it used to be that you know we'd say and Pete knows this is you know the number one method of social engineering
34:43
is what on the phone because you can sound like someone but they don't get to see you or any of that kind of thing
34:48
right um well guess what now it doesn't even need to be on the phone they don't even need to hear you in fact it doesn't
34:53
even need to be a real person uh you can actually have all of this uh scripted
34:59
and done and and and and and with AI even learn how to manipulate in full
35:04
people um so I mean the the we've always said that the weakest link in in all of
35:10
this is the wetwear it is us uh the humans this keeps you know what this
35:16
goes back to exactly what we were saying about the technology just being agnostic right it's how we use the technology if
35:22
we're already using the technology to hack ourselves with it then how much is going to be to blame on the AI once we
35:28
once it's around it's just going to pick up where we left off yep
35:33
yep and and I something really really interesting uh in terms of wet
35:39
wear uh you know we're all familiar with crisper and the the progress in using
35:45
crisper to you know to to solve different Ty of genetic diseases and so forth um but you know Jennifer Duda Dr
35:52
Jennifer Duda who's uh one of the principal scientists and biochemists right behind crisper you know her her
35:59
most recent foray into um the human gut biome and you know trying to take on
36:06
some of the challenges that we have related to our our you know our um our own biochemistry and the fact that you
36:12
can make fund small but fundamental changes in your gut biome that could you
36:18
know resolve a number of of psychological issues not just uh just
36:24
not not just fundamental um gut chemistry but you know the creation of hormones the creation of of proteins and
36:31
so forth all from the gut biome and these are you know this is this is a a technology which can be consumed orally
36:38
you know in the future and we could you know you could you know completely
36:44
modify in an individual's perception based upon just the just the basic
36:50
microbes in their body so we're you know we're we're so close to these things and
36:56
I mean we live in we live in a world now once again once again South Park predicted that if you ever saw the
37:04
biome between the latest AI vers you know the AI one that just came out of South Park and the one on the gut
37:11
biome South Park is way ahead of time I mean I'm I'm like once again it's life
37:17
imitating art right exactly I'm like I'm queen of hangry okay like I can be controlled by chemicals of food if I'm
37:25
hungry I don't care what anyone says like you feed me I'm a much nicer person to the person that fed me I I mean 100%
37:32
I can be trained so uh that's really funny okay so guys I think we could keep talking all day long on this and so
37:39
here's the deal we we can and we will I highly recommend everyone raise your hand who's gonna go go home now and
37:45
watch uh Ghost in the Shell uh one more time just because we talked about it or maybe for the first
37:52
time always so everyone in the audience guys I really appreciate guys support definitely like let us know your
37:59
thoughts um so here's where we're at on a scale of 1 to 10 I like to ask this question on a scale of 1 to 10 of uh the
38:07
reality of this or how potentially real is this uh what would you guys rate it so Pete you first scale of 1 to 10 how
38:14
real is this I'm a very pessimistic person when it comes to AI because I've seen and
38:22
I've done it and I know how it's corrupting humans already and we know
38:27
the government's way ahead of of what we're doing the Chinese are doing things their Chinese model just took over chat
38:34
GPT is the most eant efficient model I I think the the uh the point where
38:43
AI is aware of itself and combines with a robot that can fix itself Allah
38:49
Terminator is within just a couple years I'm very pessimistic oh that's an
38:54
aggressive stance sir that's almost you're almost taunting us for another uh conversation I can I feel
39:01
you on that I see I see what you're doing clay what do you think scale of one to
39:07
10 well I'm I'm following Pete's lead on this one um I I I strong I I feel
39:13
there's a lot that we don't know and I think that there's there's nation states and and state actors that are well
39:19
funded and probably already working in this direction um if you've watched Boston Dynamic robots and you know and
39:27
Atlas you understand like how how far and how advanced that they are just from a physical
39:33
perspective I I I couldn't give you a timeline but I think this is absolutely within the realm of possibility um
39:39
within my lifetime all right Ralph I mean it's hard to disagree with
39:46
that um but I don't think I mean I'm I'm more optimistic for the technology than
39:51
I am for the humans I think this is a human problem again how we use it so
39:57
uh I'm not so you know I'm more optimistic on the things we can do with this uh but I'm very pessimistic on what
40:04
we are going to do with this and that that's the concern because like when Pete said uh you know and and defining
40:10
that term criminal uh you know criminal doesn't mean illegal and so we have to be
40:16
careful with the criminality at a Humanity level of the use of of this
40:22
type of Technology right so uh the biggest of which is if if we all think
40:27
it's about making money and there's certainly lots of ways to make money and in fact give the machines the reason to
40:35
or the the power to teach us how to make money um better uh without being illegal
40:42
and that that that's that's actually scary right um to not cross certain
40:48
legal lines because back to what Pete said you know companies can be following all the rules and so on and so forth uh
40:54
but most of the companies and most most of the you know it's always years behind
41:00
the technology and in this case we're not talking a couple of years we're talking dozens of years behind what the
41:07
technology can do now so um but again I want to be optimistic but there's
41:12
certainly a you know growing concern because of the the choices we make I
41:19
like it I I I I I I see Pete's face like shaking on there all right Jason what do
41:24
you think yeah totally and that's I think one of the things that I love so much about
41:30
this movie is how plausible it really is right I'm probably a lot more pessimistic on timelines I think we're
41:35
going to have a lot of really good machine learning systems that are going to really spark some good debates on
41:41
whether it's reached intelligence or not and we're going to have those for a long time probably um but I think by the time
41:47
we actually achieve true AI we're going to have augmented ourself to some
41:53
certain degree as well so again life will start imitating you know Ghost in the Shell it'll be closer to the reality
41:59
than we think okay so guys don't think I did not notice neither not any of you
42:05
guys gave me a number between one and 10 of how plausible it is but that's
42:12
okay no I love it um so not never seeing this show before and and the the whole
42:18
series I'm definitely now intrigued you guys have sold me I'm going to check it out um for those that haven't seen it by
42:23
all means please check it out and for those that are you know following on right now we'd love your feedback how
42:29
realistic do you think ghost and shell what's the timeline it's not a question of if it's just when it sounds like guys
42:35
is that more or less an accurate statement for real yeah accurate okay
42:41
well on that note it's been such a fun time chatting with you guys I know we didn't go through all our Clips I guess
42:47
we might have to do part two or something but uh I definitely appreciate your time so thank you Pete thank you
42:53
Jason thank you clay and thank you Ralph and Ralph go to bed cuz I know it's really late for you um that I think
43:00
we'll wrap it up for another episode of checkpoint real talk see you soon guys
43:07
thanks that's a wrap on today's episode of checkpoint real talk if you like this
43:12
video hit that subscribe button and some of those other buttons to show us your appreciation and if you want to learn
43:18
more or have any questions please let us know in the comments we'll see you next time for another episode of checkpoint
43:26
real [Music]
43:31
talk
welcome to checkpoint real talk a podcast for security folks who want less
0:06
fud and more Fu in each episode we'll have light-hearted conversations about
0:13
security people processes and Technology as we react to how they're portrayed in
0:19
film and TV we'll bring in experts from inside and outside checkpoint to break it down what was accurate what wasn't
0:28
and what can you apply to real world cyber events on today's episode post see it
0:34
yes aorr checkpoint Global ciso Pete nicoletti founder of ethical hacker
0:39
Ralph eia cyber security leader Jason R and president sncus Advisory Group clay
0:46
mberg react to the 1995 movie Ghost in the Shell hi good morning good afternoon and
0:53
welcome to checkpoint real talk we are super excited today because we're going
0:59
to be talking about a movie that I've just heard over and over again the world of anime all my friends keep telling me
1:05
you got to do this show so guess what we're doing Ghost in the Shell today
1:10
we've got Pete from checkpoint joining us he was the one that was Ring everyone around for this and by the way welcome
1:18
Jason clay Ralph to the show guys welcome to checkpoint real talk thank you glad to be
1:26
here really that that's how you're going to say hello to me fired up to be here
1:31
there you thank you for that energy yeah all right no you guys I seriously I
1:37
really appreciate it and I know Ralph apparently you're like logging in from Germany so gut KN is that what it is
1:45
that that that is correct ah beautiful well I'm sorry if I
1:50
mispronounced it but uh guys before we get started why did you pick Ghost in
1:56
the Shell that answer's got to go directly to Jason yeah yeah I apparently this is one of the only movies that has
2:03
ever made Jason cry probably probably the series more than the movie but yeah I think I'll be
2:09
the one to take the risk here of uh being a cliche and go with the anime here but this one I chose because not
2:17
only does it have a thematic uh thread of AI and AI becoming sensient but in
2:24
this universe humans have started augmenting themselves as well and the more they replace themselves with
2:29
machine parts they start to question their own Humanity as they start kind of meeting AI in the middle it's very preent I mean if you if
2:38
you watch the 95 version which Jason insisted that is the the version to
2:45
watch not the new ones with the hot models and not the made over ones with
2:51
3D anime but the real anime it's this is before Blade Runner you know this is
2:58
before uh a lot of other movies and there's all kinds of things that come
3:04
from this movie it's it's the Genesis of a lot of cool science fiction yeah
3:10
indeed indeed right okay I did not know that that's a fact so okay so I did not
3:19
know that you guys and I feel like such the like funny host on this one because it is a true reaction for me um so wait
3:27
this came and predated Blade Runner seriously I thought blade was like in the 80s let's see about that that's a
3:32
good question Matrix it definitely I mean the opening scene uh with the characters and the is
3:41
is Matrix and this is this predates matx definitely predates neural um yeah
3:49
the original Blade Runner sorry go ahead off yeah definitely definitely the original bra render was in 82
3:57
um and um I believe the Matrix was in '99
4:02
right um so it definitely predates The Matrix and what it definitely predates is neuralink and open AI so this was
4:10
kind of touching on those subjects before they were even a thing yes oh
4:15
yeah okay oh okay so uh I think a late
4:21
late 80s late 80s the first ghost in N shelle series came out okay so this this
4:27
was a TV show first right a cartoon show first or I'm sorry anime was it a book first and then they made it into a
4:33
series or was it series it was based on the magga of who
4:39
okay right it was a book or it was a comic series yeah okay woo I am feeling
4:46
so not cool right now thanks guys all right so okay so the premise of it am I
4:51
well you got a you got the ultimate nerd squad on so we better know this yeah please educate me and I'm I assure you
4:59
the Audi is probably wondering like okay because here's the thing when we first talked about this and I sent over clips
5:06
from the movie the most recent was Scarlet Johansson and all of you guys were like wrong movie and I was like oh
5:12
man I think I just stepped on like a okay why why why this version versus the
5:18
the Scarlett Johansson version I can probably take that one too that and I hate to be that guy but that is just the
5:24
real dumb down the new stuff is just dumbed down made to be visual candy and Mass Appeal everybody completely lost
5:31
the theme of AI completely lost a lot of stuff it was just borrowed from pieces of the series as well as the movie and
5:37
just just for movie effects and to kind of Dum it down it's it's missing it yeah
5:42
they took the deep thoughts out they you know the original one has these
5:49
long you know solo you know paragraph after paragraph
5:55
monologues yeah and and the new one it's all like Jason says it's all Visual and they drop out all the social commentary
6:03
and the and what the these augmented people are actually feeling and that's
6:09
really what you know you start hearing what these augmented cyborgs are really thinking
6:16
are they dreaming is it real and then the characters pop up that you know they
6:21
don't even know that they were their brains were taken over and and forced to do things against their will all of that
6:29
doesn't show up in the next version so it's really the original one if you want to if you want to go deep and have the
6:35
Deep Thoughts that's the one all right and and to add a little bit to that as
6:41
well is this is one of the first uh anime films ever to very skillfully
6:47
blend what they will call traditional drawn animation with computerized
6:52
imagery um in fact the wallpaper behind me is from Ghost in the Shell and and
6:59
the the original and again they were blending this uh these techniques for the first time in anime where uh
7:06
traditionally drawn animation was being used with something that was computer generated it's good to know Clay I
7:11
thought I saw you like about to say something yeah in the in the first series right the first with the first
7:18
movie um you know they get into a lot more detail as as Pete was mentioning you know get into more detail about when
7:25
your when memories are digitized and when when you have you know memories which can be implanted
7:32
you know Jason mentioned neuralink you know when you begin to augment your memories and augment your your your hit
7:38
your your capacity for thought with outside digitized memories now you enter
7:45
a realm where they can be manipulated so they could become artificial are they are those memories real what makes a
7:51
memory you know real or or how can you validate that how can you tell the difference how do you know if your your
7:57
own memories are real and now that's one of the themes in the original Ghost in the Shell it wasn't just an action You
8:04
Know Drama it was it was about the fact that you know the lines are have become blurred between human uh you know
8:11
humanity and these cyborgs as well as what's you know what's real versus
8:16
what's you know fiction and that's struggle yeah the opening scene where
8:23
the woman is actually created in a vat of embryotic fluid
8:30
and then she wakes up in an apartment and she has memories and she
8:36
goes to work I mean it's it predates like we said Matrix but as as clay and
8:43
Jason and and Ralphie are pointing out people don't know what what memory is real and what's not what's been wiped
8:50
and what's been implanted and you know they even talk about they complain about that the
8:55
police say hey we don't to have a fix for that yet I don't know if you guys remember seeing that section but if your
9:02
if your brain is really fudged up we don't we really can't fix that so you're
9:09
sorry your brain is Jell-O and we can't help you we can't get your old memories back yeah you're stuck with the ones
9:15
that the hacker gave you basically I mean a good a good example of that in
9:21
something that we uh have seen in in culturally uh discussing today is sort
9:28
of the man the Mandela effect so many of us remember certain things and we can all swear by it but
9:35
supposedly it never was that way so what was it a glitch uh is it the ghost in
9:40
the show okay well hey okay I I like to say the Multiverse is cross streamed I have a running Theory I should probably
9:47
get my tin foil hat uh that the pandemic I think we cross multiverses because everything just seems just slightly off
9:53
ever since but um well guys we can talk about this theoretically but I think why don't we review a clip and let's let's
10:00
go dig a little bit deeper you guys open to that all right let's do
10:07
this hey what's on your mind that robot did we seem similar to you of course not
10:13
no I don't mean physically just what then well I guess cyborgs like myself have a tendency to be paranoid about our
10:21
Origins sometimes I suspect I'm not who I think I am like maybe I died a long time ago and somebody took my brain and
10:28
stuck it in this body maybe there never was a real me in the first place and I'm completely synthetic like that thing you've got human brain
10:34
cells in that titanium shell of yours you're treated like other humans so stop with the angst but that's just it that's
10:40
the only thing that makes me feel human the way I'm treated I mean who knows what's inside our heads have you ever
10:45
seen your own brain it sounds to me like you're doubting your own ghost what if a cyberbrain could possibly generate its
10:51
own ghost create a soul all by itself and if it did just what would be The Importance of Being Human then ooh
11:01
W that's the question isn't it this is screaming Turing test you know you can't
11:06
tell your even she can't tell if she's uh you know she's actually partially
11:12
human entirely human or purely cyborg right and the thing you have to understand here is that the Ghost in the
11:17
Shell is referring to the fact that especially with the main character the major there she is mostly Android at
11:24
this point the only thing that's left of her humanity is a small part of her brain that they call the goat that's
11:29
where the conscious comes that's the only thing they haven't been able to replace if they replace that part you stop being you so that's the ghost and
11:36
then everything around that is the shell so she is mostly shell and just a little bit of ghost so she's questioning her
11:42
own Humanity at that point I think this is this is a you know obviously the
11:48
metaphor for you know Soul right we have our soul and you know I like to one of the ways I would explain is that we're
11:55
made you know we just like computers is we have hardware and that's that's the shell uh and then there's some software
12:01
in there which is part of that software is is the soul right um and that's what
12:07
this is talking about here and the way that that was explained was very interesting one one of the lines that really would stick out to me is that
12:14
just because you're being treated like a human does that make you human um and
12:19
that was one of the weird things about this this you know 52 second clip is when she says that that I thought that
12:26
was very interesting and even if you if you watch the original Japanese anime in translated that's still the way it's
12:32
translated interesting o we never question our uh Humanity do we as humans we just
12:39
don't question where we come from which is when I watched Westworld which is another another show I want to review um
12:47
you know do you guys ever think about like you know do you ever question what's going on ghost in your showell
12:54
it's usually after a lot of drinking and then hanging around with
13:00
people like friends like this yes we do question our our Humanity yeah
13:06
I think right now it's pretty pretty given we're we're okay with our Humanity
13:11
the question is though I mean it's like my grandma has a pacemaker technically a cyborg now but that's such a small piece
13:17
you know no one thinks twice about that but where's the Gray Line start pushing you know once we're 90% cyborg once
13:25
we're once our brain starts being replaced in part by machine then what
13:30
yeah I met a a girl um at a conference uh we were in Ravine
13:37
Croatia uh and her her talk was about augmentation of her body using uh
13:43
technology and she had uh basically seismic sensors in her feet that that
13:48
she had put in and we were having um uh we were having lunch near the water and
13:54
she said I can feel the water I can feel the water in my feet you know and we're sitting you know maybe 40 ft from
14:03
literally the you know the the water and she was saying yeah I can feel when the when when the when the waves hit the the
14:10
concrete and I thought well that's real interesting and then I asked her why why did you do this you know I mean I I
14:17
really quite don't understand what what you're doing I said she had a very interesting answer she said it was very
14:23
much to her like a tattoo if you're able to modify the way your body looks uh why can't you modify
14:31
the way your body works in some way oo and I thought that was uh an interesting
14:36
response and unexpected okay reminds me of a girlfriend who's absolutely obsessed
14:43
with like her phone like anyone that could be more addicted to the phone outside of me it was her and she said if
14:49
there was an ability to implant it into her like arm what a head or whatever she's like sign me up I'm in for it and
14:56
I remember asking her I'm like dude that's kind of trippy don't you think like you're don't you think you're
15:02
adding some components to your brain and she's like no because the convenience of it it's just be easier for my life and
15:08
I'm like okay so well she'd be the first in line to be a a cyborg
15:16
mesh so something else from this this first scene is is her struggle with uh
15:22
her identity and defining what her soul is right you know what is natively her
15:29
which is you know the the ghost portion as Jason mentioned and then what is the shell what's been wrapped around which
15:34
is the Mandela effect that Ralph you referred to before and what's really kind of interesting societally uh now is
15:43
to the extent that that we create our own Echo Chambers via social media which
15:48
create our own Mandela effect that we want right so we almost wrap ourselves
15:55
and interpret our environment on purpose in a way that helps us to assimilate
16:00
memories and assimilate our environment and everything that's happening in a construct that we are creating ourselves
16:07
so it's a there's a direct parallel between G and n shelle and what we're living today and who' have thought like
16:13
something that like would would have that much of a profound effect today I mean it's what
16:19
20 plus tell tell me 30 20 plus years old science fiction turns into science fact
16:26
yeah oh okay well indeed and something and something else is when
16:32
we talk a lot a lot about you know nit we talk a lot about the you know Turing you know Turing test and so forth but in
16:38
the scene she's almost performing her own Turing test that she can't discern
16:44
herself right so you know very soon if not not now you know at this point in
16:50
time we're we're going to have ai that is able to be somewhat or at least to
16:57
seemingly sent right although you know they're not they're not fully sentient uh but we're
17:03
going to have have a a uh an AI which is able to ask these questions of itself or
17:11
of us and we're not going to be able to discern it from from another um independent autonomous living human
17:16
being that's a really good point I think that we'll have the AI solving Turing
17:21
tests before they actually reach AI we're I think we're too easy to trick I I'm inclined to believe that during both
17:29
Turing and azimov are flipping over in their graves right now because the AI engines and and
17:38
AI combined with robots are absolutely going to break the three rules of Robotics and and like you guys are
17:46
saying trick touring trick the touring test so it's we're we're at that uh at
17:53
that envelope right now oh my gosh for the past you know what eight years we've had you know chat Bots taking over um
18:01
you know the public space you you know at first it was it was it was uh not
18:07
being used commercially but now we have a number of of you know customer service Bots that are being used that are can
18:13
carry a dialogue with you they have access to your histories um they can
18:18
they can reference things that you've done on their platforms or purchased um it's it's incredible the the the the
18:25
flexibility that these Bots have it's through years of of training and now
18:31
they're commercialized and they're they're you know wides available wide widespread manner so I've got a good one
18:37
for you I'm sending meeting Bots to my meetings when I'm double booked and the
18:43
meeting bot takes notes for me tells me who had the smartest ideas and and it comes out with awesome
18:51
information right the question I have is what happens if everybody sends a meeting by what gets done in the
18:59
I think we should try that maybe I triple dog dare all of you to do that and and by the way I gotta say there's a
19:05
lot of companies that just live by meetings and I don't know why but they're like their calendars are always booked on meetings I don't know anyone
19:12
actually executing on anything but there's there's companies that just love to meet with each other so let's let's
19:18
shift gears a little bit here because I mean The Importance of Being Human I think that that I think that we could
19:23
just make that an episode all by itself but we do want to dig a little bit more into Ghost in the Shell here I think
19:30
this is a fascinating moving so are you guys cool if I move us along to clip number
19:36
two yeah absolutely all right oh yeah it's no use arresting me I'm not talking
19:41
to any goddamn cops talk and just what are you going to talk
19:48
about you don't even know your own name you stupid H can you remember your mother's name or
19:56
what she looks like or how about about where you were born don't you have any
20:01
happy childhood memories do you even know who you are it's kind of
20:07
[Music] harsh nope ghost Haack humans are so
20:13
pathetic it's a shame and this poor bastard's been hacked pretty
20:19
badly okay first off just from a
20:24
social like human interaction those are rather rough questions to ask someone to
20:30
try to help them understand their Humanity or lack thereof um so help me
20:36
understand uh why why were they going after this particular individual is he a
20:42
good guy bad guy or they're just trying to wake up these robot machine half human half things like what's the
20:48
premise of this scene well I mean this guy was just a
20:54
guy and unfortunately he got caught up and hacked so this starts touching on
21:01
once you start augmenting your own brain and start augmenting your own memory then you're subject to security right
21:08
and it's just like we were talking about someone's friend before that's all about Body Mods and that's great and for a
21:14
first while it's probably going to be air gapped and everything will be fine but once you hook up to the net and
21:21
you're susceptible to being hacked now you can someone can write false memories in there and if they can write false
21:28
memories in there they can pretty much manipulate you into doing anything feeling anything so this guy was just a
21:34
guy who was unfortunately hacked and manipulated into doing some dirty work for
21:40
somebody oh yeah and the the interesting thing too that that's uh very relative to the real world is that you know he if
21:47
you watch this movie you'll see that he's actually sort of the third guy down line right there was a guy a pickup
21:55
truck guy who was doing a piece of it there's a you you know there's there's the police people there's there's a few
22:01
different things going on that ultimately they're getting down to this guy who's really they were just trying
22:06
to trace um the person who was doing it and they trace it down to this guy and he's hacked right so very much like in
22:13
the real world um to some degree is how do you know you're not hacked right how do you know your device is not hacked
22:19
your computer your network isn't hacked right because if you know don't even know to look for it then how would you
22:26
know right um something to what Jason said um which was very a few years back
22:34
uh while living in La I was part of a thing called uh well still involved with something called the science and
22:39
Entertainment Exchange which is part of the National Academy of Sciences in DC and what they did is they took three
22:45
filmmakers and three scientists and paired them together to come up with a project um and they fi financed these
22:53
little projects to them be shown at the at an event at the LA Film Festival and the project that I ended up working on
23:01
uh after speaking to this documentary film director really he wasn't even a scripted film director but um he talked
23:08
about many things but one of the things he mentioned was that because he came from the docky world was that uh among
23:15
the many different discussions we had was that he had a lady who wanted to have a reality show made about her
23:23
because she said that she had an implant and that she was controlled by this implant
23:29
and um we went with that story because actually implants do exist right um in
23:36
fact they're they're currently used for things like PTSD and C soldiers and so on and so forth so we knew there was
23:42
already research there and already ongo things so we could take it and then sort of say well in the near future and what
23:48
he went with was that this woman ended up basically killing the CEO uh of a
23:54
company and in the near future was uh you know water was a big thing and this was the company who controlled water
24:00
right um and you know the majority of it happens in interrogation and she just
24:07
basically says and the concept we came up with was that she could not control
24:12
her body but she could still see what she was doing but had no control over
24:17
what she was doing right and in the end uh as she starts to say too much she
24:23
kills herself right um so you know the interesting part about that was that at
24:28
the end of it I met a guy there was an Afterparty and this older gentleman came
24:33
up to me with his wife and said you know really enjoyed your presentation because we all had to do a presentation I did
24:39
one on implants and the potential of hacking implants and then the movie played this 8 Minute uh scripted short
24:47
film um and I said oh thank you very much he said I'm the founder of the
24:52
science and Entertainment Exchange and I said oh great because I have some questions for you why I don't quite
24:58
understand what the science and Entertainment Exchange is and uh the what he said was really
25:06
not what I expected he said well you see in the 1980s uh my daughter had a debilitating disease and there was no
25:13
cure for it what what does that have to do well you see I had I was able to afford the
25:19
best doctors and scientists but uh there was nothing that could be done other than stem cell research and at the time
25:25
the US government had banned stem cell research so um I tried to put everybody in
25:31
contact to make the connections with Washington but no one would ever actually answer their phone calls but
25:37
you know whose phone call they would answer I said who he said mine and I said why would they answer your phone
25:43
call and not the scientist he said because I directed the movie Airplane and most of us here know what
25:49
that movie is so I said no way dude you directed the movie Airplane and he's like yes and my point was that Hollywood
25:58
has more power than even science does to Pete nicolle's Point earlier that science fiction becomes science fact
26:05
what he said to me was people think that art imitates life but that's not what it
26:12
is life is imitating art and we can put and make anything up in science fiction
26:19
and then and then he stops and says what was your favorite TV show growing up and I said Star Trek and he said and then
26:26
it's kids like you who take you know the communications device and ultimately
26:31
turn it into a cell phone so we Inspire we create the future in art and then
26:39
life follows it um and that was a very interesting thing to to really have to
26:44
think about because if anything with regards to all of this AI talk on whether it's good bad or anything I've
26:51
always said that you know AI for the most part to me is just another layer another level of automation until we
26:58
start talking about this whole idea of sentient of being sentient right so uh
27:04
what was interesting to me is that the danger of the things that we think could happen the idea of a world like uh you
27:12
know the Matrix or the Terminator uh doesn't exist because you know for any
27:17
it won't exist for any other reason than us making it so in some way so that's
27:22
what we have to be careful with not that it itself will make itself so it's that we are going to cuz at the end of the
27:30
day you know we can automate anything but the question is always why sometimes there's no reason to automate and or to
27:37
use technology in certain things um and then there's many reasons too so I think
27:42
that's what we have to be careful with is is really our decision- making not so much the technology itself Ralph you're
27:49
you're you're you're so on point and and we're seeing like in this past clip just
27:56
the the fact if if you can override like imagine neuralink let's take a step back
28:01
imagine neuralink neuralink uh last last year uh Elon Musk in you know shared a
28:07
recent you know study where they're able to take individuals that were um
28:12
paraplegic and able to bypass those damaged um damaged vertebrae in order to
28:19
um you know I think they're doing using primates primate studies right now in order to um allow them to have use of
28:27
their limbs which are otherwise cut off from the brain so now we see this this
28:32
introduction of a technology that can allow us to to to utilize our limbs that
28:40
otherwise would be um inoperable and you combine that technology with what Boston
28:46
Dynamics and Saros right the Saros Guardian all these uh the military
28:52
exoskeletons like it's it's only a matter of time before those can be hacked and as you just described in in
28:58
that uh with the the the the interview that that um you were referring to you
29:04
know you you'll be able to see your body do things that you are not actually in command of we are not far off from that
29:11
these are these These are studies that are happening right now in Laboratories that uh I I mean within 10 years I can
29:18
imagine that we're going to see this um you know in the field in the real world you know the the the also to tie this
29:25
all together with what Ralph just said and and uh you just said Clay is so
29:30
there's you know we talk about the benevolence and the and the goodness of some of these you know clear implants
29:37
and and you know other good things that are we're connecting to but here's the
29:42
problem we we're trying to put together legal Frameworks to control Ai and control you know the FDA tries to
29:49
control who can do this but here's the thing criminals don't give a give a crap about these laws and these guidance and
29:56
how AI is being used so one of the things that we have to focus on is
30:03
making sure that we have countermeasures and a good understanding of how the criminals are going to leverage this
30:09
what could be great technology and super helpful to humans but the bad guys don't
30:15
have those guidelines and they're financially motivated or politically motivated and they're going to do very
30:22
very bad things with these cool Technologies and they're already starting to do it we're starting to see
30:27
it with you know voice Fates and and having money stolen or whether it be
30:32
targeted fishing based on AI Chachi PT creation so it's the the the cats out of
30:40
the bag here folks I absolutely agree so let me ask you guys this because you
30:46
know hacking a human like when we think of hacking and let's be honest right like this is a future State movie right
30:52
this is assumption this is like in the future that you know their sentient robots cataclysmic change in our society
31:00
um but let's talk about today right you guys bring up some really good points
31:05
right as long as you've got a device that's connected over IP somewhere it tackable right so to me it
31:12
was like you know the whole concept when we were talking about internet of things you know I remember jokingly I was at a
31:17
a house party at a friend's house and I just said on my way walking down the hallway I just said they were playing
31:24
some like and I'm going to say it some C crappy country song and I walked through
31:29
to the bathroom and I'm like oh my God change the music put on some 9inch nails and I go to the bathroom I come back and
31:36
I'm standing there like meeting up someone in the hallway and I'm hearing 9-in Nails playing but it's not from the
31:42
big radio or it's not from the stereo they're still playing that crappy country song that I was oh it's like
31:48
Achy Breaky Heart you guys it wasn't a good one and I'm like oh my God why do I hear N9 in Nails I really thought I had a ghost in my head it turned out on
31:57
their thermostat it it heard me say turn on 9in nails and it started playing 9in
32:05
Nails uh from this tiny little speaker thing it was the craziest thing so no I
32:11
didn't hack into it but it does make me feel like if we can help people
32:16
understand you can hack a little thing like that it shouldn't be farfetched to think
32:22
you can you could do that to a robot that's also half human well I can think about all the different iot devices
32:28
we're we're about to hit a ratio of 100 to one 100 iot devices for every human
32:36
and you know not to plug checkpoint too much but that's a risk that we are really looking at very carefully with
32:43
our new code and trying to prevent that kind of nonsense from happening because hacked iot devices create huge dos
32:51
networks they create all kinds of craziness so uh this you know we're
32:56
talking about this this movie but there's so much around it that uh leads
33:03
to risks and issues that uh we're just barely getting our arms around well I
33:08
mean technically we're being hacked already so if you've ever seen documentaries like the social dilemma
33:15
you'll start to realize we have our own cognitive blind spots you know magicians have been exploiting those for years but
33:21
now the algorithms are starting to exploit those so it's slippery slope you know once we start augmenting ourselves
33:28
and having machines mixed in doesn't change anything where people are going to start hacking us I mean AB I'm I'm in
33:35
the social media business side of the and I'm also my background is you know 20 years in Tech um I can tell you
33:42
behavior is driven by the human need for social media that's already drived by
33:47
algorithms whether we can like pleasy social media algorithms it's yes uh I
33:53
would like to give a shout out to Michelle LAX she actually texted me she goes girl you better re if you haven't seen social dilemma you need to so
33:59
thanks Jason for bringing that up uh it's true I think you know do we need a robot takeover for us to get hacked as
34:06
humans I don't think so is that what social engineering is all about just conversing with us and all of a sudden
34:11
changing our you know behavior in some ways I mean one one could argue that you
34:18
know to some degree it'll uh it can make things more secure cuz we sure are
34:24
hackable now uh the wet wear is I mean the kind of numbers that we've seen uh
34:31
just explode over the last 2 or three years when it comes to scams online you
34:37
know it used to be that you know we'd say and Pete knows this is you know the number one method of social engineering
34:43
is what on the phone because you can sound like someone but they don't get to see you or any of that kind of thing
34:48
right um well guess what now it doesn't even need to be on the phone they don't even need to hear you in fact it doesn't
34:53
even need to be a real person uh you can actually have all of this uh scripted
34:59
and done and and and and and with AI even learn how to manipulate in full
35:04
people um so I mean the the we've always said that the weakest link in in all of
35:10
this is the wetwear it is us uh the humans this keeps you know what this
35:16
goes back to exactly what we were saying about the technology just being agnostic right it's how we use the technology if
35:22
we're already using the technology to hack ourselves with it then how much is going to be to blame on the AI once we
35:28
once it's around it's just going to pick up where we left off yep
35:33
yep and and I something really really interesting uh in terms of wet
35:39
wear uh you know we're all familiar with crisper and the the progress in using
35:45
crisper to you know to to solve different Ty of genetic diseases and so forth um but you know Jennifer Duda Dr
35:52
Jennifer Duda who's uh one of the principal scientists and biochemists right behind crisper you know her her
35:59
most recent foray into um the human gut biome and you know trying to take on
36:06
some of the challenges that we have related to our our you know our um our own biochemistry and the fact that you
36:12
can make fund small but fundamental changes in your gut biome that could you
36:18
know resolve a number of of psychological issues not just uh just
36:24
not not just fundamental um gut chemistry but you know the creation of hormones the creation of of proteins and
36:31
so forth all from the gut biome and these are you know this is this is a a technology which can be consumed orally
36:38
you know in the future and we could you know you could you know completely
36:44
modify in an individual's perception based upon just the just the basic
36:50
microbes in their body so we're you know we're we're so close to these things and
36:56
I mean we live in we live in a world now once again once again South Park predicted that if you ever saw the
37:04
biome between the latest AI vers you know the AI one that just came out of South Park and the one on the gut
37:11
biome South Park is way ahead of time I mean I'm I'm like once again it's life
37:17
imitating art right exactly I'm like I'm queen of hangry okay like I can be controlled by chemicals of food if I'm
37:25
hungry I don't care what anyone says like you feed me I'm a much nicer person to the person that fed me I I mean 100%
37:32
I can be trained so uh that's really funny okay so guys I think we could keep talking all day long on this and so
37:39
here's the deal we we can and we will I highly recommend everyone raise your hand who's gonna go go home now and
37:45
watch uh Ghost in the Shell uh one more time just because we talked about it or maybe for the first
37:52
time always so everyone in the audience guys I really appreciate guys support definitely like let us know your
37:59
thoughts um so here's where we're at on a scale of 1 to 10 I like to ask this question on a scale of 1 to 10 of uh the
38:07
reality of this or how potentially real is this uh what would you guys rate it so Pete you first scale of 1 to 10 how
38:14
real is this I'm a very pessimistic person when it comes to AI because I've seen and
38:22
I've done it and I know how it's corrupting humans already and we know
38:27
the government's way ahead of of what we're doing the Chinese are doing things their Chinese model just took over chat
38:34
GPT is the most eant efficient model I I think the the uh the point where
38:43
AI is aware of itself and combines with a robot that can fix itself Allah
38:49
Terminator is within just a couple years I'm very pessimistic oh that's an
38:54
aggressive stance sir that's almost you're almost taunting us for another uh conversation I can I feel
39:01
you on that I see I see what you're doing clay what do you think scale of one to
39:07
10 well I'm I'm following Pete's lead on this one um I I I strong I I feel
39:13
there's a lot that we don't know and I think that there's there's nation states and and state actors that are well
39:19
funded and probably already working in this direction um if you've watched Boston Dynamic robots and you know and
39:27
Atlas you understand like how how far and how advanced that they are just from a physical
39:33
perspective I I I couldn't give you a timeline but I think this is absolutely within the realm of possibility um
39:39
within my lifetime all right Ralph I mean it's hard to disagree with
39:46
that um but I don't think I mean I'm I'm more optimistic for the technology than
39:51
I am for the humans I think this is a human problem again how we use it so
39:57
uh I'm not so you know I'm more optimistic on the things we can do with this uh but I'm very pessimistic on what
40:04
we are going to do with this and that that's the concern because like when Pete said uh you know and and defining
40:10
that term criminal uh you know criminal doesn't mean illegal and so we have to be
40:16
careful with the criminality at a Humanity level of the use of of this
40:22
type of Technology right so uh the biggest of which is if if we all think
40:27
it's about making money and there's certainly lots of ways to make money and in fact give the machines the reason to
40:35
or the the power to teach us how to make money um better uh without being illegal
40:42
and that that that's that's actually scary right um to not cross certain
40:48
legal lines because back to what Pete said you know companies can be following all the rules and so on and so forth uh
40:54
but most of the companies and most most of the you know it's always years behind
41:00
the technology and in this case we're not talking a couple of years we're talking dozens of years behind what the
41:07
technology can do now so um but again I want to be optimistic but there's
41:12
certainly a you know growing concern because of the the choices we make I
41:19
like it I I I I I I see Pete's face like shaking on there all right Jason what do
41:24
you think yeah totally and that's I think one of the things that I love so much about
41:30
this movie is how plausible it really is right I'm probably a lot more pessimistic on timelines I think we're
41:35
going to have a lot of really good machine learning systems that are going to really spark some good debates on
41:41
whether it's reached intelligence or not and we're going to have those for a long time probably um but I think by the time
41:47
we actually achieve true AI we're going to have augmented ourself to some
41:53
certain degree as well so again life will start imitating you know Ghost in the Shell it'll be closer to the reality
41:59
than we think okay so guys don't think I did not notice neither not any of you
42:05
guys gave me a number between one and 10 of how plausible it is but that's
42:12
okay no I love it um so not never seeing this show before and and the the whole
42:18
series I'm definitely now intrigued you guys have sold me I'm going to check it out um for those that haven't seen it by
42:23
all means please check it out and for those that are you know following on right now we'd love your feedback how
42:29
realistic do you think ghost and shell what's the timeline it's not a question of if it's just when it sounds like guys
42:35
is that more or less an accurate statement for real yeah accurate okay
42:41
well on that note it's been such a fun time chatting with you guys I know we didn't go through all our Clips I guess
42:47
we might have to do part two or something but uh I definitely appreciate your time so thank you Pete thank you
42:53
Jason thank you clay and thank you Ralph and Ralph go to bed cuz I know it's really late for you um that I think
43:00
we'll wrap it up for another episode of checkpoint real talk see you soon guys
43:07
thanks that's a wrap on today's episode of checkpoint real talk if you like this
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