49 Future Now Show - Deep Fake Biden call, DNA Facial Recognition, 1K mile EV battery, Interview - Gingi Cia Medina update on green manufacturing   

- Thank you. - It's what time is that?
 (bell dings)
 (upbeat music)
 ♪ The future is coming on ♪
 ♪ It's coming on ♪
 ♪ It's coming on ♪
 Hey folks, well, it is coming on.
 Fast and Furious today.
 Finally, with some sunny weather up here
 in beautiful Boulder Creek.
 Been raining for days here.
 It's nice to have the break.
 And a little sun, because of our solar powered studio,
 it needs sun.
 And speaking of sun, we have Mrs. Future, AKA Sun.
 - That's right.
 Live and reporting for needy.
 - At the main console, and Bobby Wilder,
 our science correspondent in San Francisco,
 Bobby, are you there?
 - Yeah, I'm here too.
 - Yeah, I'm right.
 - So, we got a little bit of sun.
 It's coming through the clouds.
 I think it's gonna break up today.
 So, it's gonna be a good day.
 - Oh good, yeah, I think so.
 We've got a lot of interesting stories this week,
 including guests.
 We have Ginger Medina coming on in the second hour.
 - Yeah, you may remember Ginger from our trip
 across country.
 We stayed with Ginger on our way out
 and had a really great show about sustainable fabrics
 and all things future.
 (laughs)
 She's a very diverse, active person,
 and it's really exciting to spend time with her.
 - Healthy clothing, making anything out of anything.
 - Right.
 - And nature-based stuff, building sacredness
 into modern communities, scaling ancient ways
 into modern society.
 I could go on, but who knows what we're gonna talk about?
 This is the last time we were there,
 we almost got to experience bears.
 I've been a Donner-Doddler Lake.
 - Right.
 - Trauma was ours, through the taking.
 (laughs)
 So, that'll be in the second hour
 and possibly we'll have Siya on as well.
 It's his, Ginger's partner.
 But this time we've got some future news
 I'd like to really share with you folks
 that is some of its pretty significant breakthrough stuff.
 Starting with that Biden deep fake robo call
 that you might have heard this week.
 Remember that?
 - I do, yes.
 That was pretty convincing.
 - Audio deep fake and personating Biden.
 That's really got the attention of lawmakers and experts
 about the role of generative AI
 in spreading disinformation.
 - That's right.
 It's a big concern among world leaders.
 They wanna be the only ones in charge
 of spreading information,
 disk or otherwise.
 - Yeah, yeah.
 So, that's another example of how impersonation
 is gonna become pretty normal.
 'Cause we kinda saw that coming with Terminator 2.
 Remember when Sarah Connor was impersonated
 by the Terminator to lure her son into a trap?
 (laughs)
 - That's right.
 He could imitate anybody's voice and did.
 - All that stuff is real now.
 - Yeah.
 - And it's not just advanced terminators that can do it.
 It's like any of us have that kind of capability.
 - Well, any of us who are allowed.
 I mean, some of your articles today talk about who is
 and is not allowed to do verification using the AI tools.
 Not everybody's gonna have access.
 - No.
 - Right?
 - That's right.
 - What is that?
 - That's the water.
 You're up in the country here.
 That's the water pump as our guest take a shower.
 - Yeah, see, we're so future
 that we're actually retro.
 (laughs)
 - That should reduce it a little bit there.
 - Okay.
 - All right.
 So over the weekend, voters in New Hampshire and New England
 received a call from a voice that sounded exactly like Biden
 touting election malarkey and discouraging them to vote
 in the Tuesday primaries.
 Now, it's kind of interesting because how important is it
 for Democrats anyway to vote in the New Hampshire primaries?
 - Well, and it wasn't through a backstory about how Biden
 isn't on this ballot for some reason because of the status
 of New Hampshire needing to be the first primary and--
 - Yeah, there's a lot of stupid politics around the fact
 that he has to be a right in vote anyway.
 - And so, yeah, so people are taking advantage
 of the already existing confusion and trying to discourage
 people from doing the right in vote by putting out an ad
 in the AI voice of Joe Biden saying, "Hey, don't even go vote
 in the primary because I really need your vote
 when the real election comes along."
 And apparently this is a complete fake and is not sanctioned
 by Biden at all.
 And can you imagine how crazy it is to think of an anti-campaign
 to get the candidate himself to discourage people
 from voting from him?
 We're in just such crazy times.
 - And the call, it was first reported by NBC News.
 It was a spoofed to appear to have come from Kathy Sullivan,
 a former New Hampshire Democrat party chair,
 who leads a super PAC urging voters to write
 in Biden's name on their ballots.
 So everyone from the campaign have denied any involvement
 in doing this little--
 - They do not approve of this ad.
 - No, no, they do not.
 It's a sign of the times, really.
 - Well, and that's why even at Davo, they are saying
 that the biggest threat to the world this year is trust
 and generative AI creating false information.
 - Exactly.
 - Yeah, we just don't know how to find truth
 on the internet anymore.
 - So let's see if we can hear this call.
 Let's see if you can, if you hadn't heard it.
 - All right, you're up.
 - Yeah, this is the fake robocall Biden.
 - Do you know the value of voting democratic
 on our votes count?
 It's important that you say to your vote
 for the November election.
 We'll need your help in electing Democrats
 up and down the ticket.
 - Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans
 in their quest to elect Donald Trump again.
 Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.
 If you would like to be removed from future calls,
 please press two now.
 - There you go.
 - Back I do.
 (laughing)
 Victory for the Biden.
 - Isn't that well?
 - Yeah.
 - Yeah.
 (laughing)
 - So you heard it here folks.
 We've been paying attention to the potential
 for deep fakes.
 We're in this weird period between the invention
 of something that everybody is wanting,
 which is the knowledge navigator that allows the AIs
 to assist humans in granting our every wish.
 And the interim period where clever humans
 are using it to do deceitful things.
 - Yeah, so spreading disinformation is suppressed,
 voting and deliberately undermining free and fair elections.
 - Right.
 - My goodness.
 - But the AIs, they're just like little pets.
 They're only gonna do what we ask them to do.
 So what is wrong with these humans asking them
 to be so mean, malicious, dishonest?
 How is it that these human values are the ones
 that are being translated into the machine domain
 instead of the ones that really--
 - They're the early opportunists.
 - Three are the people.
 - Our civilization.
 - They're the early opportunists
 and people are been trying to figure out who did it.
 A lot of folks looked at a company called
 CVOCS, C-I-V-O-X, which is a company that creates AI voice bots
 for political campaigns.
 And they told Wired that it had nothing to do with this call.
 In the past, they had helped create a bot
 for presidential candidate Democrat,
 Shamim Daniels to contact voters
 and answer questions over the phone
 like an interactive avatar.
 So they said their company bars their clients
 from using unauthorized voices
 of creating deceitful calls.
 - Somebody violated the terms of service.
 - Yeah.
 - But can you catch them?
 - Yeah.
 - You know, professional liars are probably
 the best at avoiding detection.
 - Yeah.
 Did you hear that call, Bobby?
 - No.
 In fact, I couldn't even hear it on the back channel
 when you played it, so.
 - Oh, really?
 - Oh, yeah.
 Well, check the link on our links page.
 You'll be able to hear it.
 - Yes, I will.
 - Hopefully, our audience heard that.
 But even more, I guess you might say disturbing,
 was a piece that Gabrielle had sent in
 regarding how cops have used DNA
 to predict a suspect's face
 and try to run facial recognition on it.
 - Oh, and I just have to give kudos to Wired.
 I think Wired is such a trendsetter
 in terms of how to pay attention to this emerging world.
 And this article in Wired is all about an AI
 that is being used to combine DNA genetic feature prediction
 with AI that runs facial recognition
 and tries to match an address to a known face.
 And so these two things were not intended
 to be used together.
 And in fact, the company that creates
 the genetic prediction of the face
 specifically prohibits using these faces
 for facial recognition.
 - But that's not gonna stand.
 - There's no enforcement.
 There's no way all they can do is say,
 no, don't do it.
 But there's no way to stop people from doing it.
 - No, no.
 - And so of course, police are making the case
 that they're justified in doing it
 because they can solve cold cases and find criminals
 and identify burnt bodies.
 - How do you know that your DNA reflects
 how you actually look?
 - Yeah.
 - That is the question.
 And that is a very charged question
 because they've got a thousand examples from volunteers
 that are being used to generate the AI models
 and they've got 21,000 possible genotypes
 that are being used to project these features.
 And so it's the very early stages
 of using the AI to model real humans.
 - Yeah, parabond nanolabs.
 They say that they can confidently predict the color
 of your hair, eyes and skin,
 along with the amount of freckles that you have
 and the general shape of your face.
 - And some of these claims are very much disputed
 by their competitors and other people
 who are making predictive models.
 - Scientists are skeptical, or some of them are,
 about how feasible predicting the face shape is.
 - But when a company is a startup and is working in AI
 and submits a bid to law enforcement saying,
 hey, we will generate an AI model that you can use
 to take the DNA evidence in a crime scene
 and generate a potential face of the perpetrator.
 And so of course.
 - You have a face, you wanna run it
 through the facial recognition program
 and see what comes up.
 - Yeah, and I guess the people who funded this
 were hoping that the AIs would be able to tell the truth
 and they hadn't really learned yet
 that the AIs are incapable of knowing what's true
 from what's false.
 - At least at this point in history,
 we still have to develop truth models
 for the AIs to understand.
 - Yeah, what's true, what's hallucination, what's false.
 It's gonna require more awareness than ever.
 - Yeah, 'cause the AIs are basically very fast forgers
 who take whatever information they've been fed
 and then sort it into a digestible version
 and then spit it out.
 - You heard of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation?
 - Oh, of course.
 - Okay, they're a little concerned
 about our false positives.
 - Yeah, what do they have to say about it?
 - They told Wired that while they're sympathetic
 with detectives wanting to bring closure to the family
 in cold cases, the risks of misidentification
 are too great.
 - Yeah.
 - Quote, "I think it goes to show a complete misunderstanding
 about the high risk errors of facial recognition."
 Says Lynch from the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.
 "It's surprising to me that cops think this kind
 of technology will produce leads they can actually use."
 - Well, and yet when you go to the next paragraph
 and it talks about the fact that the models,
 the database that was used to test the accuracy
 of the facial recognition was able to correctly identify
 99% of the people in the database.
 - Yeah.
 - We don't really know why the accuracy was created
 and how much that correlates with the genetic model.
 There's a lot of unknowns making these statistical claims.
 - And there's also the claim according to this report
 that only 5% of the 196 FBI agents
 who have given access to facial recognition technology
 from outside vendors have completed any training
 on how to properly use these tools.
 - Isn't that interesting that there's like almost 200 FBI
 agents who've been given permission
 to use this facial recognition technology to find people
 that we know of.
 And 200 of them have been trained
 and anybody else using it isn't trained
 or doesn't have authorization and does it anyway.
 - Well, that'll change fast.
 That'll change fast.
 I mean, these tools are becoming more and more common.
 Place, that's the thing,
 that they're readily available tools.
 - Yeah, but we do have to come up with ways of grappling
 with the fact that the good intentions
 of people who wanna use this to benefit us
 are mixed in with the bad intentions of people
 who wanna use this to harm us, to benefit themselves.
 Let's say this, to selfishly exploit the power.
 - Well, yeah, everyone is gonna try to use it
 to their advantage, whether you're a criminal,
 a thief or a cop or a military.
 Everyone's gonna find uses for this technology.
 - Yes, but. - And that's the thing.
 We still need to be able to know that good
 is gonna prevail over evil.
 - Yeah, yeah, it's cool.
 - We need to teach the AIs to make sure
 that that's what happens.
 - You think they'll learn?
 It's, oh, the AIs, well, that was the case
 with the day the Earth stood still.
 Remember that film from 1951, I believe it was,
 that pointed out that their way of creating peace
 in the universe was by having a race of robots
 that would maintain the peace.
 And I guess the robots would know the difference
 between fake and real information.
 - Well, in a movie.
 - Yeah, in the movie, right.
 Yeah, in reality, it's what we're grappling with these days.
 - Yeah, in reality, it's up to us, folks.
 Nobody's coming to save us.
 Nobody's gonna show us the way.
 We are projecting our consciousness
 into a computerized, accelerating domain.
 And it's up to us to make sure that that power
 reflects the best in us, not the worst in us.
 - So.
 - We gotta somehow regenerate the same skills
 that we've used in the past
 so that we can feel secure about our existence.
 I know it's in there somewhere.
 We just have to figure it out.
 - Oh, yeah, thanks, Greg.
 Greg sent me a web cycle.
 This person does not exist.
 Every time you click on a face,
 it generates a new face, then it's a fake person.
 - Oh, great.
 That's good.
 Yeah, let's generate some fall guys
 and get away with murder.
 - Yeah, so I think opportunistic thieves
 will figure out how to create fake people
 that actually do the robbing for them.
 All right, proxy.
 - Can you give, oh, this is like Ocean's 11, right?
 You turn over the, you give the AI,
 the assignment of coming up with the perfect jewel hives.
 - Imagine we're playing a game
 where we're hitting Fort Knox.
 - Right, summarize every jewel hives movie
 and give me the best.
 - Back to gold finger, you know,
 and given today's technology, what can we do?
 Fake IDs, all the, of course, you know,
 the forging has always been around.
 You know, it's an ancient technology.
 I mean, it's just gonna get more sophisticated.
 Now, even in the Mondo days back in the 90s,
 we had a very famous article called
 "ATMs and the Rise of the Hacker Leisure Class."
 - I know, you guys at Mondo really identified with that one.
 - Well, we can see.
 - You guys were the Hacker Leisure class at the time, right?
 - Well, no, it was run on a shoestring budget at that magazine.
 It was really tight.
 Thanks for Linda Merman, who was able to keep it going
 for so long.
 - But yeah, it was a labor of love, mostly.
 But we did see the potential of how these tools could be abused.
 - Uh-huh, sure.
 - Not that we did it.
 - Right, well, I think just ending this article--
 - It could have been wired if we did, I'll tell you that.
 - The summary of this wired article is that basically
 that we can't really trust the modern facial recognition
 algorithms because they're neural networks,
 but they don't really know what criteria are used
 to identify a face.
 And so you're going to get unpredictable black box tools
 without reliable results.
 And he suggests this fellow is named Garvey,
 who works at the National Association of Criminal Defense
 Lawyers, and he tells wires, we should know this by now.
 Unreliable results, she says.
 - Yeah, but it is now, but they're going to get better.
 - Absolutely.
 - The more samples that they have, the better they'll get.
 It's just like the self-driving cars,
 where they-- more accidents that they learn from,
 the better they get.
 - Yeah, you remember the early days of robo calls
 where you would try and get a customer service agent
 at a company, and instead you would go into this maddening
 maze of stay on the line, dial this number,
 and you would never get to a person,
 and you would be circled around back and forth.
 Just like now, if you call dish networks,
 they've got people doing the same run around,
 and they've gone back to giving it to people.
 The AIs right now have this problem
 that a lot of people are giving them a lot of power,
 and that power is not responsive to human needs.
 It's just limited by a poor imagination,
 and the problem not fitting the solution.
 - Well, I would like facial recognition from all my videos.
 You've got thousands of videos.
 I'd like to be able to sort them through time.
 - Well, I thought you do use that somewhere.
 - No, no, you know what's interesting though,
 is that you can have a free facial recognition
 to Google Photos, Google Photos.
 It'll sort it by face by all images
 that might have a tree in them, or a house, or an ocean.
 It's really good at identifying fundamental things
 going on in your photographs, which is kind of cool.
 So that's already available.
 Greg just posted another aspect of this
 from the verge about how AI can mimic handwriting.
 (laughing)
 Signatures.
 Oh my, oh my.
 Yeah.
 We're gonna have some fun now.
 - DocuSign.
 What does DocuSign really guarantee?
 - Can AI's replicate bank accounts while they're at it?
 Redistribute the wealth.
 - There you go.
 - Or just create new wealth at a thin air.
 - Right.
 What happens when the virtual world is more real
 than our world, which becomes the simulation?
 (laughing)
 - What happens?
 Well, let's go do a commercial and think about that.
 - Okay.
 - Okay, Mrs. Future.
 - Sounds good to me.
 - All right, we'll be right back.
 - You're back.
 - Well, I suppose you're not surprised.
 People have been asking me,
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 Between diabetes testing and stroke
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 With monthlyfearx.com,
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 Thanks to monthlyfearx.com,
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 And did I mention that your meds
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 What's your family eating for dinner?
 Chef Ben here at the back nine grilling bar,
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 Family meals include a full rack of ribs,
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 Served with a full quart of baked beans,
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 Call and order your family's dinner
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 See you at the nine.
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 - All right, that brings back a few memories.
 (laughing)
 Yeah, that's good.
 - That's good.
 - That's good.
 - That's good.
 - Classic, yeah.
 - Okay, we got some battery news
 and Bobby's been researching this
 quite extensively this week.
 The first that came in was probably the most outrageous
 I've seen in a while about a Chinese developed nuclear
 battery that has a 50 year lifespan.
 (laughing)
 I think called the Beethoven BV100
 built with nickel 63 isotope
 and a diamond semiconductor material.
 I don't know about that.
 That sounds a little scary nuclear batteries.
 A little research showed that the idea
 was floated back in the '50s
 when nuclear was the cool new thing on the block.
 Bobby, what do you think?
 Is there any validity to this concept?
 - Well, it is considered low power.
 So you can't expect your EV cars being driven
 by nuclear power right yet.
 - Were you talking low power?
 - Are you talking about your phone?
 - It's low current.
 It doesn't even run phones at this point.
 They're talking about very small devices
 that have very low current.
 - An LED?
 - Like 0.25 watts.
 - Oh, man, that's--
 - It's very low wattage.
 - Yeah, yeah, that's pretty almost nothing.
 It reminds me of the ambient batteries
 where it just takes energy out of the air.
 Wow.
 - I guess the thing is that it's still a research project
 and they're fabricating things that are so small,
 but the idea is that they'll be able to scale them up
 and once they figure that out,
 these things will last for years.
 They wanna develop these batteries for things like robots
 and vehicles that never need to be charged.
 - Oh, wow.
 - Right.
 - Yeah, 100 micro watts, that's not a little--
 - Yeah, I guess they're using beta emitters,
 which are like your old TV sets that had vacuum tubes
 as a screen, beta emitters are electrons
 coming from the back of the tube
 and hitting the phosphorus on the screen
 and creating light that way.
 So these things are beta emitting radioactive isotopes
 that will last, they have a half-life of,
 it must be hundreds or thousands of years, half-life.
 So a 50-year batteries could be consistent
 with what they're saying.
 - How about the materials and something like that?
 Are they readily available?
 - They're taking a radioactive isotope of nickel.
 - Nickel.
 - So it's readily available,
 but they have to charge that nickel,
 you know, they have to bombard it with probably
 some neutrons or--
 - Make it radio added.
 - To where it's an isotope that starts emitting.
 - Yeah, they call it doping.
 - You have to dope it so that it starts emitting electricity.
 - Yeah, a little bit of energy must go into that process
 to get an operational.
 Yeah.
 - Okay, what's an interesting idea?
 Low power, but it's not gonna power our cars anytime soon.
 - Right.
 - Yeah.
 - Back to the other article that you sent us this week
 about the MIT batteries that is being licensed
 by Lamborghini is probably a little more within reach.
 - Yeah, exactly, exactly.
 Why don't we focus on that a little bit?
 That was kind of interesting.
 I think the electric Viking piece was quite interesting
 that went into that.
 It was about how MIT has revealed a new type of battery
 that they have licensed to Lamborghini
 that was like a thousand mile battery for the cars.
 - Yeah, it's a thousand mile as opposed to a thousand kilometers
 that these other batteries are claiming to--
 - Yeah, it's considerably longer in time.
 - Yeah.
 - What's interesting, the parent company of Lamborghini
 is actually Volkswagen and Lamborghini had invested
 in this technology and given MIT's lots of money for research
 and it was a big bet, but the bet looks like it's come through.
 This is the holy grail of batteries because it costs maybe
 between one third or one half the cost of existing lithium-ion
 batteries.
 - Oh, man, really?
 - Wow.
 - And it has almost twice the energy density.
 - Half the cost, quite the power.
 - Yeah, it's much lighter.
 - Lighter too.
 - And smaller packaging.
 - So that's how they can put in a regular car a battery
 that would drive 4,000 miles.
 - Fast charging too.
 - They're saying they can fully charge the battery
 in 10 minutes from zero to 10.
 - Wow, I guess you need a supercharger of some sort
 to do that though, but that's amazing.
 - Yeah, and what's good about this battery,
 Lamborghini is known for their muscle cars.
 They're very fast, right?
 And this thing can actually provide 3,000 horsepower
 electric engine.
 So it could go just imagine if you were sitting in the car.
 And I don't want to be in the car that could do this
 when it happens, but you could go zero to 60 in 1.2 seconds.
 - Oh, man, that sounds like it.
 - It's a rocket.
 - It could cause some unconsciousness.
 - It's crazy.
 - So the battery can do is it can throw out a tremendous amount
 of electricity in seconds, which other batteries
 they slowly give you the energy, and they can't give you
 all that energy in the next--
 - That sounds like a capacitor.
 - Wow.
 - Yeah.
 - Is it using less rare earth materials than current batteries?
 - In fact, what's very pricey about lithium-iron
 ternary batteries, regular batteries that we're accustomed to.
 - Yeah.
 - They have to use a rare earth cobalt.
 And there's all these issues about children mining in Africa,
 cobalt, right?
 - Yeah, cobalt, very, very dirty extraction process.
 - Not only that, it's very rare.
 So it doesn't require any cobalt.
 What they're using is something called TAQ.
 I can't even pronounce.
 It's a very long-- what it mimics is graphene.
 So it's a one-two-dimensional material that they use for the cathode.
 And traditionally, they were using something like graphene, maybe.
 But with that, it's very easy to make these-- they call it an organic battery,
 because these are just phosphorous and other components that are readily available.
 But it has the quality of a two-dimensional material like graphene.
 So electrons can pass through this very easily with not very much resistance.
 And these materials are readily available.
 They're very inexpensive.
 - Well, it's achieved.
 It makes sense that such an incredible battery would be pioneered at MIT.
 They have all the researchers and the resources to be able to develop
 state-of-the-art battery tech.
 But what is this about license to Lamborghini?
 I mean, it seems like a battery of this sort of something like Tesla or Rivia.
 - Yeah, somebody who has an electric car that they're trying to optimize.
 - Yeah, somebody who's doing master.
 Lamborghini does what they do, like $200,000 cars.
 I mean, how many cars are they going to make to do this?
 - Well, Lamborghini initially was funding the research at MIT originally.
 - They were funding the research.
 - Oh, I see.
 - They funded the research years ago.
 And it was kind of an off bet that they might come up with something,
 but they did at MIT.
 - Okay, so Lamborghini could source it out to other manufacturers or car manufacturers
 if they so desired.
 I guess they have one of the ownership of the patents, just in.
 I hope it gets out there, because this kind of stuff the world needs at this point.
 - Yes.
 The organic compound, gosh.
 - Well, organic means COOH, right?
 That's like the definition of organic chemistry is working with the carbon oxygen, hydrogen compounds.
 - That's right.
 - Yeah.
 - That's right.
 - And then, of course, everything that they can attach to.
 - They have the patents.
 It looks like they're planning to continue developing the materials,
 and they're possibly looking at even replacing lithium itself, which seems to be...
 - Sodium.
 - Or magnesium or other things that have the same valence.
 - Cheaper and more abundant, so does that mean you should invest in lithium mines?
 That there might be supplanted by sodium and magnesium?
 - Yeah, well, maybe sodium is less likely to dissolve into the polymers that they're using
 to isolate the charge, right?
 That seems to be the claim to fame.
 - I guess it's all about the timing.
 - Yeah, initially it's working with lithium, but they said later they can use the same cathodes
 and anodes and apply it to sodium or magnesium, which is even cheaper to make.
 So right now, they can produce it at about one half or one third the cost, but later it
 can even get cheaper if they use sodium.
 - Wow.
 I wonder what the time frame is and the production of this type of technology, this particular
 battery.
 What do you think?
 A couple of years out?
 - That's what they're hoping.
 They say it's very feasible, it's very easy to make, and it's easy to scale a parent.
 - Yeah, so we'll have to see.
 - It would be amazing if, say, by 2030 gasoline was obsolete and they were only using it to
 launch rockets and everything else was an electrical grid that was actually nourishing
 life on the planet.
 Just because they come up with the right chemical relationships and we stop doing things in
 ways that are toxic.
 - Well, if we get enough electricity, maybe we can use electricity to launch the rockets
 instead of rocket fuel.
 - Yeah, well, I guess I wonder what dynamics it seems.
 - 1.2 seconds.
 - It seemed to me that years ago when Elon Musk was pitching that we all cultivate sunshine
 and solar power because of how much wasted solar energy there is all over the planet
 and how we could use that for our surface needs.
 He was actually making the case that he needed all the gasoline because you need it for the
 lift to get out of the gravity well.
 I thought maybe it was just an early campaign to optimize and use electricity on the surface
 of the planet because that's sustainable until the sun goes out and then hydrocarbons we can
 mine and manufacture organically at a more sustainable rate instead of using it for everything.
 Just optimize it for fewer needs.
 - Fewer, yeah.
 - Well, which reminds me there are other avenues being explored in the battery race.
 And one of the other big horses in this race are what are called solid state batteries.
 Now, what can you tell me about them?
 - He's talking to you, Bobby.
 - Oh, it's almost like that to me.
 - I'm talking to you, Bobby.
 - Now, these batteries, instead of being two or three times the density, they're generally
 in the range of like 15 to 35%, sometimes 50% increase.
 In the market, they're considered pretty major increase in battery density, but they don't
 compare to the MIT battery that we just talked about.
 - So the funding could dry up on the solid states because of the breakthrough technology
 of MIT battery?
 - Well, they've been working on these batteries for quite a while.
 So they're ready to actually produce large factories in 2026.
 So they're a little closer to production.
 These will probably come out sooner than the MIT battery that we were talking about.
 Because they've been working on this, they have these gigafattories that are ready to
 go in 2026 and start producing these things.
 - Okay.
 - Yeah, I found a nice piece on this from Reuters on our links page talking about how
 six automakers, including Volkswagen, are developing a semi-solid state cell with no
 anode using lithium metal, a ceramic separator, and liquid electrolyte that would boost the
 EVs driving range from 350 miles to four to 500 miles.
 - Wow.
 - Yeah.
 - Pretty novel redesign.
 - Yeah, not bad.
 I mean, it's not a thousand mile battery, but it's better.
 500 miles is better than 350.
 - Mm-hmm, well, it sounds like it might deal with the issue of the fire, of the lithium
 catch and fire.
 - Yeah, that is an issue for sure.
 - By isolating it from the charge material.
 - But my understanding is one of the issues with the lithium batteries is that they don't
 work too well on cold weather.
 - Wow.
 - It might seem to Chicago just last week, but there's the Tesla superchargers not working
 hardly at all on the cars that were in double digit freezing weather in Chicago.
 - Oh, fair weather cars, huh?
 - Fair weather cars, yeah.
 - Fair weather vehicles.
 - It's minus 20, and your car won't charge.
 - You're supposed to drive your Tesla to the warm weather.
 - Yeah.
 - You're not supposed to stay in the cold.
 - But I'm wondering if the solid state batteries have that same issue going on.
 - Apparently, well, the solid state batteries, yeah.
 They don't have that cold problem that you're seeing.
 So a lot of these, like Tesla batteries, they have to be warmed up first before they'll
 be charged or you can damage the battery if you start charging them cold straight out.
 - Yeah, I remember when I lived in cold climates like in New York and Montreal, that a lot
 of folks had what they called an engine block warmer that would heat up your engine or
 your battery so that you would start in cold weather.
 You'd have to run a little line out into the car and if it was outside and that would
 make it go.
 So I imagine something like that would be necessary for the Tesla cars in cold weather
 climates where you just have a battery warmer for them.
 That's really the issue.
 So that doesn't seem like it's outside of our range of solving that problem.
 But they would need those at the supercharger centers, you know, or I think they have a
 whole procedure by which you have to condition your battery to be charged when it's cold.
 So these are temporary issues that I think will be solved, but we're in the midst of
 them now.
 - I think the solid state battery could solve some of these problems or really most of them.
 Was China's CATL company involved with this?
 - Yeah, they're working with Volkswagen.
 - Yeah.
 - So they're the world's largest EV battery producers in the world right now.
 So CATL.
 And they're coming out with both their sodium battery this year.
 They're also coming out with the lithium iron phosphate battery, the manganese, which
 is a better battery.
 - Better battery than...
 - And it has no possibility of exploding or catching on fire or anything like that when
 you add iron phosphate and manganese to the mix.
 - It makes it safer.
 - Yes.
 - Yeah, that's cool.
 - Yes, CATL, I think was it, South Korea with their LG energy solutions, polymer-based,
 according to this article, polymer and sulfide-based solid state batteries.
 - That would be safer.
 LG was known for even the fires at Moss Landing or Moss Beach where they had all the batteries
 there and they've cut on fire by you guys.
 - Oh, yeah.
 That was something.
 We had the solid state giant battery.
 - Yeah.
 - Those were LG batteries that cut on fire.
 But this LG battery they're talking about has sodium in it, so it doesn't catch on fire.
 So I think they learned their lesson.
 - What about the potential for creating batteries that would be good for electric aircraft?
 - Those require even higher density, right?
 That's the...
 - That's right.
 It sounds like if Lamborghini and MIT can get production, this is the holy grail of
 batteries because it's lightweight, high density.
 It will just knock out gas-fueled cards forever because you get such high density close to
 gasoline.
 - Yeah.
 That's the thing is that gasoline is still a very efficient bang for your buck technology.
 And the batteries are still lagging behind its capacity.
 However, this looks like it's getting close.
 - It is.
 If you follow the electric Viking guy from Australia, he's saying this totally just knocks
 out ice cars.
 There's no reason to buy an ice car if you've got this kind of battery in your car.
 - Well, I think I'm going to wait another year or two before I get an electric car.
 But it sounds like the batteries will be so much better that the longer you wait, the
 better it's going to be.
 I guess the other issue is how do you keep the grid robust enough to handle the increase
 of charging of electric vehicles on the grid?
 - Oh, we've seen models for that.
 I think it's very much what happened with gas stations in highways and roads is the more
 time goes by, the more people discover how to attach their own livelihood to supporting
 their local options.
 So they'll be charging stations, they'll be people putting their solar panels on their
 roof and then selling that power to the grid and then that grid power being an investment
 that helps fund the whole network of how people charge and how people move.
 - How they navigate through cities.
 Thanks to Dr. Herbert, Nick Herbert sent us a piece from Carne Driver that he was excited
 about on new Honda Moto Compacto, it's called.
 Back in the 80s, Honda had invented a foldable motorized vehicle that you could carry like
 a suitcase.
 - That is funny, it looks like a suitcase.
 It looks like your horseback riding a suitcase.
 - You're not just pulling the wheels in your suitcase, it's pulling you.
 - And you have a matching crash helmet that looks like it's out of the mod era.
 - Exactly, yeah, and it looks like the suitcase only this time holds batteries and power for
 your, for those little wheels.
 It's a little bigger wheels than the wheels you see on a suitcase.
 - Moto Compacto.
 - Yeah.
 And if you live in a big city, you really don't want to have to drive a car everywhere.
 I mean, you live in the city.
 - Bobby, wouldn't it be nice to have a smaller vehicle that you could just get around in?
 - Yeah, I do.
 We have a BMW i3 electric and it's perfect for the city because it's very small and what
 normal size car is, you can't find parking, right?
 But this one, it's about two thirds of size.
 - That fits in here.
 - And you can always find parking with this car.
 And it's a rocket.
 When you put it in performance mode and you step on the pedal, it throws you back in the
 seat and it's got a carbon fiber frame.
 So it's very lightweight, very strong, but very light.
 And I mean, off the line, any gas car, I'm off the line much faster than they are.
 - And you get used to that, right?
 - Yeah.
 - Yeah, I like that.
 That's the only time I've ever been beaten for my X3.
 Well, BMW X3 gets beaten by these electric cars, but other than that, I'm usually not
 left behind.
 So this Moto Compo scooter looks fascinating.
 I think they're trying to get it in at 40 pounds.
 You can carry a 40 pound suitcase.
 - Okay, that's the limit, right?
 50 pounds, 500 airplane?
 - That's right, 50 pounds.
 - So you can carry one of these.
 Check it in your luggage.
 You have a transportation when you get to wherever you're going.
 - Yeah, I bring you a nine pound car.
 - 42 pounds, it says, 42 pounds.
 - Oh, okay.
 I don't know, I think it needs scooter handles.
 - You think?
 - I think I'd rather stand and sit on that thing.
 It looks pretty uncomfortable.
 - Okay, well, anyway, that's a concept vehicle.
 - How about robots?
 Let's talk about making robots a reality.
 - That was from Bill Gates, believe it or not.
 Bill's excited about robots.
 Of course, it makes sense.
 He's a Silicon Valley original.
 People think he might be a robot.
 - Some say.
 - Others fear.
 - Okay.
 - We have a piece here about the companies that he is investing in.
 - Gates notes.
 - Gates notes from Gates Notes.
 And I thought that'd pass it on to you in case you wondered what Bill's been thinking
 about on cutting edge robotics today.
 - So he did some little notes to self about which startups are making robotics a reality.
 - Yeah.
 - Because these are some of the cutting edge robotics startups and labs that he's excited
 about.
 Probably he's invested in.
 - Yeah.
 - So he's got agility robotic.
 - Yeah, agility.
 That's an Oregon based company.
 They created Digit, which was the first human centric multipurpose robot made for logistics.
 Same size as a person designed to work with people, go where we go, operate in our workflows.
 But it's able to carry heavier loads, extend its arms to reach cells that we need ladders
 for.
 So it's a good assistant.
 And that's one of the arguments for having a robot that looks like a human because it
 will naturally--
 - It's like asking a tall person to get something on the top shelf for you.
 - Yeah.
 - And it's heavy so they won't drop it or hurt themselves.
 - Its arms would extend and pick things off and get smaller and bigger.
 Expansion capabilities, something that biology uses sparingly.
 - Okay.
 And you want to run through the list real quick and too many?
 - Yes.
 The other company he's into is called Tevel, T-E-V-E-L.
 It's for farmers.
 It's a Tel Aviv company.
 It's being able to have a flying autonomous robot that can scan tree canopies and pick
 ripe apples and stone fruits around the clock while simultaneously collecting comprehensive
 harvesting data in real time.
 - Crazy.
 - Tevel.
 - Drone harvesters.
 - Drone harvesters, right.
 - Drone harvesters, right.
 - Little robo bees, robo birds.
 - And then there's a Aptro-Nic.
 - Aptronic.
 - He asks, "What's more useful?
 Multiple robots that can each do one task over and over or one robot that can do many
 tasks and learn to do even more?"
 Well, guess what the answer is.
 A protec.
 It's an Austin Bay startup that can spin out human-centered robotics from the University
 of Texas.
 They're building general person humanized, another bipedal robot which can be programmed
 to do all kinds of stuff, just like humans, carrying boxes, household chores, maybe the
 dishes.
 Everyone's really focused on the dishes these days.
 And there's a lot of dishwashing robots lately running software from third-party companies.
 So if you have a software company and you like to route to programs, you can program
 for the robot.
 Aptronic, A-P-P-T-R-O-N-I-K.
 So those are some of the robots that are coming out.
 Now with any luck, we'll have our guest, Jinji Medina, coming on next.
 After you hear some news and some views from the Santa Cruz voice.
 Yeah, she's an entrepreneurial powerhouse who will be exploring some of the opportunities
 that are existing in this brave new world of ours.
 We'll be back after that.
 Bye.
 Okay, welcome back to the show.
 I just wanted to mention the material that MIT and Lamborghini are using.
 And it's kind of a long name.
 I'll try not to hack it up.
 It consists of many layers of this T-A-Q which is this Tetra amino benzo quinone.
 And it's an organic small molecule that contains three fused hexagonal rings.
 It looks like graphene.
 It is a two dimensional material.
 And that's the magic about this battery that nobody else has.
 Graphene, huh?
 It's an organic synthetic graphene-like material.
 Yeah.
 It's this amino benzo quinone.
 It has very readily available organic materials like the sun was saying.
 They have carbon and other components in it that are very common out there.
 So that's why the cost of this thing could be one third, the cost of regular lithium
 batteries.
 Yeah.
 One third.
 Oh my God.
 Yeah.
 It really is amazing how fast this is evolving.
 It really makes me not want to get a car for another couple of years.
 You know, these technologies work out.
 Oh, yeah.
 The longer you wait, the more you get.
 That's right.
 That's right.
 If I can get a thousand miles range, there goes range anxiety.
 It's gone.
 Yeah.
 I'm a happy camper.
 Yeah.
 I'm really good.
 Yeah.
 I can drive all day.
 Yeah.
 And if I can charge it in 10 minutes, geez.
 The future's so bright, you gotta wear shades.
 That's all within the next five years.
 My car is good for another few years.
 Yep.
 Yep.
 And the price of gas will go down because the demand for gas will be less because more
 people are buying electric cars, right?
 So there'll be more gas available.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 It's really nice when the price of electricity goes down instead of up to.
 Right.
 Yes.
 Yeah.
 What are we going to do about the electricity?
 How are we going to get enough electricity in your panels?
 You're going to buy more solar panels.
 Yeah.
 This is the way you're going to have to do it.
 And is the grid going to be able to run on panels?
 Will the grid run on panels?
 There's large solar panels, farms that are producing a large amount of electricity on
 the grid right now.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 So that's what matters to me because so much of the grid is powered by fossil fuels to
 generate electricity by fossil fuels to power the car seems like it's not solving the problem.
 The reason why so much of the grid is powered by fossil fuels is because most people only
 know how to plug it in.
 They don't know how to generate it.
 But that is going to change because I think one of the things that's going to happen as
 people do less in terms of jobs, they're going to invest more in things that save the money
 and things that make the money.
 And everybody's going to get smarter about putting their time and energy into things that
 give them a return on their investment.
 And one of the easiest things to do is become your own little neighborhood power generating
 station.
 You mean decentralized to the point of being in your home?
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 I think you can put panels on your roof as they get more efficient.
 Yeah.
 Solar panels are going to be the way that people put food on the table or put gas in their
 tank or whatever they need.
 Greg points out that hydrogen power is on the rise.
 Right.
 Well, hydrogen power may be on the rise, but it's not necessarily going to eclipse electricity
 because it's still very expensive and there's very few people pursuing it relative to the
 electric grid, the battery grid.
 Well, didn't NASA, weren't they really using hydrogen for the NASA fuel cells?
 The fuel cells, the whole fuel cell technology of generating electricity with hydrogen seem
 to make a lot of sense.
 Well, you know, I just wanted to write --
 Hydrogen being the most abundant element in the universe.
 So how I look for trends in the future that sort of predict, I looked at the Mr. Beast
 video that I think is just making the rounds.
 It's so entertaining and it tells you a lot about the future of cars, the future of batteries,
 the future of power and what I love about this video.
 So Mr. Beast is doing a contest now.
 He's a character on YouTube.
 He is such a character.
 He's a media personality.
 His latest post is --
 You'd like to give away money.
 Elon Musk posted something about how if he meets a sudden demise, then he's already chosen
 his successor.
 And Mr. Beast is making fun of him saying, "Hey, give it to me."
 And Elon's saying, "Okay."
 And Mr. Beast is saying, "Okay."
 And he's saying, "I'm going to take you back."
 So there's a lot of really entertaining reparté going on, sourced by Mr. Beast, who now claims
 he's going to be the next CEO of Twitter, if something happens to Elon, of course.
 But the thing that I thought was so interesting today is that he's doing a little 72-hour
 contest saying that he's going to give away $250,000, which is how much he made on his
 very first post of a Twitter video.
 His video on Twitter, which we looked at this morning, which I highly recommend people go
 to X, go to Mr. Beast, go to the media section and look at his first video.
 It is hilarious.
 It is all about testing out different vehicles from $1 cars to $100 million cars.
 And it is just amazing.
 And it just so happens that two of the cars that he tested out are Tesla cars.
 He tested out a truck and he tested out another autonomous car because he was testing out
 cars in different value levels.
 I just think it's a very interesting drama that's going on on Twitter right now.
 And Mr. Beast is basically testing his marketing prowess, and of course he's a major influencer
 for a long time, and he wanted to understand how much ad revenue a video could generate.
 So he posted the video on X, yes, on X, and then he posted a tweet saying that he was
 going to give away $25,000 to 10 random people, which of course that's how he's become so
 famous is he famously gives away money randomly.
 And he's giving away the proceeds of his advertising revenues from this video.
 So the whole thing is really just brilliant in my opinion.
 I think anybody who's interested in the future of X and the future of advertising and wants
 to see a great video, or even if you're just a fan of the beast, Mr. Beast, I think it's
 worth checking out.
 I'll put a link up in our links page for that.
 And there's still 48 hours to enter his contest if you're so inclined.
 If you want to be one of the random people who gets the proceeds of his advertising revenues,
 we'll be right back.
 Okay.
 And we're back.
 We went on a two month trip across the country.
 Some of you folks have been tracking our interviews last July last July and some of the first
 piercings we visited was Genji and Sia.
 And they came by today in our neck of the woods here in Boulder Creek.
 Last time we got together with them, we were talking about some big topics like healing
 is an undoing process, healthy clothing, making anything out of anything, a nature-based
 creations, building sacredness and modern community.
 I mean, we covered a lot of topics.
 Yeah, you know, fascinating people.
 And bears.
 There's so many interests to share.
 And bears.
 And some bear issues.
 And I met you guys last year.
 So welcome to the show with us.
 Thank you.
 And last time you were in our tree house and now we're in yours.
 Right.
 So what are the amazing things about you guys?
 When we were there, do you say you're engaged?
 Is that a good one?
 That's right.
 We brought the rock to show you last night.
 So step two.
 That's right.
 The rock is such a part of this process.
 It's so much fun.
 I would love it.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Didn't we also cover, sign our names into the table?
 We did.
 We immortalized the moment at the--
 The Alien Restaurant.
 The Little Alien Cafe.
 We're all ceremony.
 In Turkey.
 Yeah, yeah, that was fun.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 So what's been going on with you guys since we saw you last?
 Oh, man.
 Well, you know, just skim the top.
 Yeah.
 You go back to LA.
 You just tantalize people with great life community.
 Yeah, it's--
 What about entrepreneurial activities if you better--
 What else is possible is the question, really?
 Decided.
 Do a little bit of traveling and visit some new babies in our family.
 Oh, yeah?
 Mm-hmm.
 Between the two of us, we have three new ones.
 Three new babies.
 Actually, two just arrived yesterday.
 Oh, yes.
 So there's five now.
 There's five.
 What?
 You guys had twins arriving yesterday.
 So basically, like, well, we are all one community, right?
 So I've had a sister who is-- and not by blood.
 I'm actually two sisters, but I've literally on the same day have their children.
 So I have two new nephews that just arrived.
 Wow.
 The arrows are coming to my blood.
 Yeah, totally.
 My little Calvary.
 [LAUGHTER]
 We can mold and shape them into-- well, they're ready with starlights.
 Oh.
 Yeah.
 We just keep getting more, which has been the blessing.
 Are you involved with organic leather these days?
 Oh, yeah.
 I'm always involved with gathering materials organically.
 There's no--
 Yeah, tell us about equity's clothing.
 It's getting a facelift.
 Oh.
 It's getting a facelift because we are officially going to launch fully and do the global collection.
 Yeah, which is huge.
 It's not small.
 It's going through an international show.
 And we will be with-- the world dies on us.
 So it might be silent.
 You guys will be notified.
 I will happily give you the dates when they arrive.
 And we were waiting on a country to welcome us with open arms, to build our facilities,
 our factories for production and the like.
 So I cannot like that country just yet.
 But we're getting close.
 Yeah.
 Can you just remind people, since they haven't had a chance to--
 Oh, sure.
 -- ever since July, give them a little bit of the background of aquatism, what it all stands
 for.
 Oh, yeah, it's yours.
 So aquatists was birthed.
 I think it was painting a canvas at 7 AM, some random artist friend of mine's loft.
 And this word, and I looked it up, and it was everything that I was trying to express
 that was coming out of me.
 It was basically the need to just do things in alignment with nature.
 It was the source of things.
 It was the first-- aquatists was the elitist who were the knights to go and ride and fight
 the wars with the royalties.
 Yes, they were the affluent of the country.
 So in the Roman times, they-- all the men had to go and fight for war, wouldn't you?
 So they're no choice, right?
 But the aquatists were the affluent of the country.
 So they were the properly trained swordsmen and all the things.
 They had the nice gear and the horses and whatnot.
 So they rode with the king.
 That's us.
 We are the source.
 We aim to be from the source in nature, the source right, mother nature.
 So I don't really need to compete with her.
 I don't need to as well destroy her, actually work with her.
 And I don't take anything that's not given.
 So with that said, you mentioned organic leathers being-- they actually are leather.
 It's not microplastics and called, quote unquote, vegan leather.
 You know, the funniest thing is, just before we left here for your house, I got asked
 to align with a women's vegan conference.
 And I lost a belly laugh at loud.
 That's what's--
 Are you serving steak?
 Yeah.
 And I said, I don't know whether to be offended or to educate this one on naming her event
 completely incorrectly.
 So I'm sorry for giving you bad press right now, but I said vegan is just plastics.
 It's microplastics and you're killing my oceans for the more.
 So please, with that word.
 Unless you're talking about your diet.
 Yeah.
 No mistakes.
 Yeah.
 Microplastics.
 It's been an issue lately because it's been coming up in everything.
 Well, it does come up in everything.
 That's what it is.
 It's a microfiber that goes through the airwaves and the oceans and our drains and everything.
 Is there anything we can really do about it?
 You could stop making man-made products, yes.
 You could just stop the production of it.
 We need to stop trying to reinvent the wheel.
 Nature has everything we need is the point.
 That's why equitists, our principles are we do not use dyes, we don't use chemicals,
 we don't use any processes.
 So if somebody comes to the table and says, "Hey, I have an organic bamboo cotton," well,
 that negates the natural embodiment of any clean, natural, organic fabric anyway because
 you have to break that bamboo stock, that hard piece of wood down about 10,000 times
 with 10 million chemicals to get it to a soft piece of fabric.
 And that's what's normal today, right?
 That's what people are saying.
 They have this organic bamboo and I'm like, "Jesus Christ, stop saying that."
 I say, "You're just like murdered in my ears."
 The action behind that is actually murdering the planet.
 It's called greenwashing and it's just so prevalent.
 I realized the severity of it when I went to one of the first green conferences in Los
 Angeles for new sustainable textiles and the like and the head of sustainability at Leva
 in Strasquieu was on a video call.
 The video called her and to ask her questions about her new was they were doing and I was
 excited to hear what they were doing because actually I used to work with Leva.
 Really closely and I know first hand that Denim is one of the most wasteful of our water
 sources.
 They use a lot of water to make Denim and so I was stoked that they were taking steps
 and I stood up in the crowd as an onlooker and I asked her first hand.
 I said, "So what are your water processes like?"
 And she could not answer my question for the life where she goes, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
 we're doing that.
 Yeah, we're doing that.
 Yeah."
 What did you say?
 The water sources.
 The water processes.
 What are your water processes like?
 How do you use water in your production?
 How's that going?
 A lot of the production for clothes uses a lot of water.
 Of course, sure.
 Amongst other things.
 Yeah.
 Degradation of every sort of way and likewise, chemicals, microplastics being released into
 the air, off their emissions, the off that it's terrible.
 So it's real.
 Everybody is aware of it now, but to speak of it uneducatedly, it's just so dangerous.
 I've heard that effects are health.
 Oh, yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 If you see that.
 I mean, disease happens because we are so inundated with things that are false.
 So I mean, our body is natural.
 Nature is natural.
 You give something to your body that is not real.
 It has a hard time processing.
 It has a hard time making sense of it, breaking it down, right?
 Yeah.
 And then it's a very important thing to run through itself and be a part of you as the
 cycle of life.
 There's research to try to create microorganisms that eat microplastic.
 Oh, good.
 Really?
 Yeah.
 Who are those guys?
 We've done some stories on it.
 Yeah.
 And it's really their mushroom.
 It's a part of our strength.
 It's a mushroom.
 It's happy to digest those little hydrocarbons.
 Great.
 What mushroom does that?
 Ollie Murs.
 I don't know the names, but I--
 Oh, really?
 Well, you check that?
 I hear a lot.
 Again.
 You get a look.
 Yeah, you get a good--
 And the other thing is doing her thing.
 So, Sierra, are you involved with this company as well?
 She manages the whole operation.
 Oh, she's really the--
 Bless her.
 I think--
 I think-- I think of Sia as MacGyver.
 She just kind of never really tells you what she's up to, but she's a spotter.
 She figures out what things need to be fixed and moved around and relocated.
 She just does it.
 She's just like--
 Make sure the machine stays well-oiled.
 Yeah.
 [LAUGHTER]
 That sounds about right.
 Let's feed the scientists in the lab, and everything's going to keep working.
 [LAUGHTER]
 Yeah, that's right.
 Amongst other things.
 Anything outside of what myself and a five-year-old can do that she does.
 [LAUGHTER]
 I see.
 Which is everything else.
 That's a wide range.
 [LAUGHTER]
 Although, you have a pretty wide range, too.
 Yeah.
 Well, would you say you're a developing network of people to apply these more healthy approaches
 towards production of--
 Oh, absolutely.
 --I've done-- been doing so for over 20 years.
 Yeah.
 Looking forward to people like you, really, our community, people who are on the same path
 and doing it in their own way, and that way we can work together because it does take
 the village.
 There's no one person that can do it all.
 I mean, we've all exhausted ourself trying, let's be honest.
 So is this network global at this point?
 It is so very.
 Yes, I can't even keep track of all of you guys.
 You can't keep track of us.
 Yeah, it's so good.
 That's up to sea, I guess.
 Oh, yes, her job now.
 Thank God.
 In all different fields?
 Yes, thankfully, because I get to learn what exists outside of my little bubble of ideas
 or need or something.
 I'm generally being introduced to as the likes of new medicines or new laboratories
 or new developments.
 And I actually was just given access to a--
 Dun-dun-dun-nasa file.
 Nasa file.
 Yeah.
 I can link that I just have for the first time, gone access to what is an asset file officially.
 And it's a fabric that-- or material, I won't call it a fabric because I haven't made it
 a fabric yet.
 A material that--
 Yes, that it was developed.
 It was a concept.
 And it had only ever been made in a small batch, maybe three feet of it.
 It's entirety.
 But never utilized, never put into a piece.
 And I was working on this global collection that I spoke of in the beginning of our conversation.
 And I was stuck on a piece.
 So my collection, in essence, I made a outfit, a full outfit, for the world traveler, as I
 am and are we all.
 We go visit people in different climates and different places.
 And we don't have the freaking outfit to support us, right?
 So I made an outfit for every continent.
 I thought that was the quickest way to provide for everyone and if it's six-ing three.
 And I was stuck on the Africa outfit, in particular.
 My engineer, who is Ex-NASA and quite an impressive gentleman himself, Mr. Chris Patton,
 was building my facilities for my clean energy factory.
 He just dropped a bomb on me.
 He's like, well, you know, there's this thing I would like you to make me a piece from.
 And I'm just going to send you the file over.
 He's like, but you know, it's top secret and I was like, yeah, of course it is to you.
 Okay, for the secret part, get a little bit closer.
 Yeah.
 I sent me this file and it has NASA emblem on it and I'm like, should I be looking at
 this?
 He's like, well, yeah, I've given you access and it's a textile that has not been developed
 yet nor utilized or put into a product of any sort.
 And I have the ability to present it to the world for the first time.
 I mean, for me, that's just insane.
 The world won't possibly even quite know what it is they're looking at yet, which is really
 cool.
 So you guys are the first to hear about this thing coming into existence.
 Super human fabric.
 All right.
 Super human.
 Yeah, we'll keep our eyes peeled.
 It's too sealed.
 Yeah.
 When we have some dates, I'll come back and I'll sprinkle that upon you so the eyes can
 see this, what I'm speaking of now for themselves.
 Wonderful.
 I'm sure it has certain capabilities or certain features.
 There's properties that afford to see where to do things and be in places that believe
 a human couldn't safely be within or in their highest before ever.
 So it extends our range using natural ingredients.
 Using the elements, I will say.
 I will say.
 Yes.
 Oh boy.
 Yes, I think.
 I definitely will show the world how the elements get used.
 And in all of my developments, I do very carefully document my data.
 What I put on my label, I can show you proof of because green washing just needs to be
 out.
 You know what I mean?
 I like to deliver.
 That's why I like scientists.
 That's why I like e-types.
 So yes, collecting all of us from around the world that anyone wants to jump on board
 on these projects, please man, chime in.
 All right.
 We welcome collaboration.
 All right.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Little short commercial break and Santa Cruz voice is going to come into your homes.
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 So I'm off late night.
 I mean, what's new?
 And I'm pedaling away at my computer and I was just finishing touches on what I'm calling
 this global warrior collection.
 Hey, the first collection in full in this full capacity that I will share with the world
 and have equities be completely launched.
 Equities being one of the first official sustainable fashion brands in the world.
 We were studied at the likes of USC Business School and I recently won an award for my
 work, which is really cool.
 I thought that people were doing things well in the world and I kind of took my hands away
 and I was like, oh, good.
 We've started something and that's great now.
 We know the people with the more advanced laboratories can get to work and they can
 bring new things to light.
 And there were no textiles anywhere when I started that did not have a side 100% cotton.
 Yeah, well, just basic brass tacks.
 My earlier developments with a gentleman out of Australia came from their Canberra, really,
 which is their, it's the capital city of Australia.
 Australia, yeah.
 So I went there to meet a woman who called me and found me.
 People seem to find me, even though I live in a bit of a cave and I stay in my development
 room walls and I just kind of go at it like med scientists and figure things out.
 They find me.
 I don't know.
 I make a Twitter post and somebody is like a spore and I'll hear from someone, you know,
 and all of a sudden I'm a case study at USC Business School and likes, you know.
 You were a case study?
 Yeah, I was.
 I sat at a dinner table and somebody told me, she's like, oh my God, you're an equities.
 And I said, how do you know my brand?
 I haven't even fully launched it.
 I was on a boat called Summit.
 Summit is game changers and free thinkers and whatnot and you go away on this boat and
 everybody's doing something phenomenal to help the planet.
 Hey, a lot of connective going on.
 Oh, yeah.
 I mean, anyone you bump into there is just next level and you just drop into a portal
 of possibility.
 Wow.
 Yeah, it's not as cheap tickets to get onto that boat.
 Is it like a passenger?
 Yeah, yeah.
 It's a cruise ship that sets sail around the month of April every year.
 It's called Summit.
 My friends are the producers of this event and it's, I mean, you'll see it's like a day
 long of TED Talks and it'll be like Ted Turner on stage with like the Andreogacy or something
 and they're doing like these schools for under privileged children or whatnot, you know.
 And it's just, yeah.
 So you know, understand what people are doing and how it's, it's like my burning man.
 Yeah.
 Yeah, that's my party is like, let's get together with all the game changers and let's see what
 people are doing.
 I'm a doer.
 So yeah, I look forward to that and I go and I meet with these people.
 You go over a year then.
 I've been a couple of years.
 You don't need to, me in particular.
 You have to be invited?
 You do.
 Somebody just to nominate you because they know what you're doing.
 You're doing good work in the world and whatnot and they think that you should be part of this.
 You know, you should be involved with these people because these are your networks and
 you don't know they exist.
 They don't know you exist.
 So you guys should go support each other.
 Yeah, right.
 Yeah.
 Talk shop and take a weekend and go on this fancy boat.
 They had the Hoth on the boat and he gave a whole hour of breath work, which was phenomenal.
 So to win off the breathing techniques?
 Yeah.
 And I said, I said, Oh, Hoth, that's just yoga breath.
 And he goes, Shh.
 He's like, yeah, she's got it.
 He's like, Oh, they taught me that yoga.
 Yeah.
 To be here, it is.
 It's all the same.
 You know, we are all the same.
 We're all here helping the greater the thing so we can continue to exist, right?
 And thrive.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 And you said this is where you were running new stuff.
 I just NASA.
 Yes, I ran into a problem on my collection anyway, starting to sideline.
 And I got a call from who I call Batman, my engineer of my ex-NASA.
 He's sex NASA.
 And now he owns a company called at NASA.
 And now an asset wrote his white paper for his company.
 And he has clean energy solutions is what I will say.
 And he's building my factory for me, which is going to be the world's first completely
 clean energized facility for manufacturing goods.
 Wow.
 And I'm going to open the doors to for the likes of anyone and everyone because I just
 don't think that anyone is really up to the challenge of doing that for themselves.
 You know, the people who are already profitable in the fashion industry.
 They've got a good thing going.
 You know, that's why we have fast fashion.
 They produce people by and it is what it is that they're like.
 Let's face it.
 They don't have to think about a lot of things.
 Exactly.
 So instead of challenging them to undo their wheel, I'm just going to build it and hopefully
 they will come.
 Yeah.
 It's the thing.
 Yeah.
 I've just build the situation.
 One facility could power an entire country continent.
 In terms of product or?
 In terms of making anything.
 Making stuff.
 Yes, producing, manufacturing of all goods, clothing, house goods, you name it, anything.
 Even Bill Gates said it himself, the problem with climate change that people don't understand
 it, it was on Twitter, I think, or LinkedIn.
 It was on LinkedIn.
 Sorry.
 I read on LinkedIn.
 He said, the problem with climate change is the way we manufacture goods.
 And I went ding, ding, ding, thank you very much for somebody else saying what it is that
 I'm witnessing.
 But nobody's doing anything about it.
 Well, is that because it costs more to think this way?
 It costs more to undo what is already profitable and do it right.
 But good for me, I'm waiting to do it until I can do it correctly.
 I now found the people, aka like you guys, and my engineer Chris Patton, he calls me with
 this file and he's like, hey, you know, I really want you to make me this piece here.
 I sent you a file and he sends me a file and I open it and it has NASA's logo on it.
 And I'm like, can I be looking at this?
 Is this safe for me to look at?
 And I was like, do you have a, he's like, well, I've given you clearance, haven't I?
 He's like, open it.
 He's like, actually read it, call me back.
 So he's like that.
 He's like a professor and he wants me to read the material and then he tests me on it.
 If I can't speak about it correctly, then you won't put it in my hands and if I don't
 learn it and if I don't know it and I can't speak the science, then I'm not worthy.
 So I was like, oh, that's a lesson, it's 3am Chris.
 I'm like, he's like, read the file, call me back.
 So I did and I was stuck on this piece and I had made a piece for every continent because
 as I intend to put a facility in every continent and open the doors for whatever it is anyone
 wants to produce there, I was stuck on the Africa outfit in particular and I opened the
 file and I read it.
 He actually called me before I could call him and I was like, what do you want?
 I'm like, I'm busy reading your homework.
 He's like, he goes, well, you know, I just think that if we applied heat that you did
 it and I'm like, oh my God.
 And I was like, you just finished my collection for me.
 And he's like, what?
 And I was like, can you please just stop one up and me, man?
 I'm like, I know you're an engineer and all that and like you're an intellect.
 I said, but every time I have an idea, you finish it or you've already done it.
 And I said, now we're talking fabric.
 I'm like, now you're on my hood.
 And I was like, I'm territorial.
 So, you know, yeah, so he brought me a material that has never been made or produced by scientists
 of NASA.
 And it's in my hands now.
 And so I will bring it to the people.
 Yeah, we'll have some cool stuff that has never been utilized.
 It was a little interesting.
 I was like the high tech clothing that could wick off your sweat and feel better.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 I've developed a lot of things with a lot of people in my time.
 I was introduced to one of the world's top three textile developers in Australia.
 Like I said, in Canberra, that was when I wanted to have a hundred percent natural performance
 fabric because I was doing a lot of yoga then.
 And I realized that once I was in the studio and I was sweating, I saw the dye of a little
 lemon piece on my skin and I was livid.
 I was pissed.
 So I was like, oh my God, this is so dangerous.
 We are sucking in the poison and the chemicals from every angle.
 Yeah.
 That was not the beginning of my journey.
 That was like in the middle of it.
 Just more field in my fire.
 I got a lot of work to do.
 Were you consider yourself a mad scientist?
 Yeah.
 Probably.
 Probably.
 Yes.
 That's appropriate.
 Yeah.
 Is that true to see a mad scientist?
 Yes, definitely.
 And all the best ways.
 No, the best ways.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 I tend to not sleep much.
 Yeah.
 She's not around.
 I probably wouldn't eat much.
 Yeah.
 We were talking last night about the mushrooms and formulations and stuff.
 You seem to know a lot about the mushroom.
 I do.
 I do.
 Yeah.
 It was the most underused medicine.
 I thought planet Earth gave us.
 It was my personal opinion.
 And I was about 10 years ago.
 I had a conversation with my friend, 10-year-olds.
 Yeah.
 She's a doctor of every degree.
 She's an aerodologist even.
 And there are very few of those on the planet.
 If you know what that is.
 Aerodologist but the eye.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 It's just under a dozen of those in existence.
 She's one of them.
 She's just phenomenal.
 She's opened a clinic down on the south coast of Australia.
 And she called me the other day and offered me the head scientist position.
 And I said, "Tania."
 I said, "Thank you, honorably."
 I said, "But it had scientists.
 That's a huge second one.
 You come and set up the laboratory.
 And I want you to be the one to alchemize the medicines."
 And she's like, "You're the one that told me about the mushrooms 10 years ago."
 She's like, "Now everybody has mushrooms as their powders and this and that."
 And I said, "Well, nobody was even utilizing it.
 It was just we were ignoring it."
 And she's like, "Yeah, well, everyone has it now."
 She's like, "You in fashion and whatever you touch, Genji, you tend to start these
 things, these conversations, these trends."
 And they're right.
 She said, "I've watched you for over 10 years now."
 And she said, "You are what you are.
 You're a futurist because you see it before and then you make it so and you find the people
 to bring it to life."
 Yeah.
 So you bring together a lot of people yourself.
 Nothing.
 Yeah.
 Nothing will stop my ideas.
 Good Lord.
 Bless the misses.
 Yeah.
 Anything can stop her.
 Earthquake.
 I don't think even that was good.
 What's your vision of the future?
 What do you say?
 Oh, I think we'll be healthier.
 Yeah.
 I do.
 I think that we will be, yes, be able to be expressive more freely and we're still in
 time where women don't have rights.
 You see that traveling around the world?
 I got to do is open your mobile phone.
 I mean, let's start with the Gaza and what's going on over there.
 I mean, for their entire existence.
 I couldn't imagine what that's like and my heart is with those people every day.
 So I do these things because I see a better way for sure.
 And everyone should have the environment that supports that.
 Yeah.
 America is the land of the free.
 So thankfully, I was born in this time in the space and so I build a world that is possible
 of that.
 It's interesting so many folks, mostly men who see businesses going into the trenches,
 going into warfare.
 But it seems like do you think global business could be done with love?
 Oh, yeah.
 Absolutely.
 It's only when I see it.
 You just got to be who you are and the people that are doing it the other way.
 Good luck.
 Yeah.
 Two different worlds.
 Yeah.
 I mean, there's an inevitable wave of goodness that is coming.
 The dark is ruled for too long.
 And guess what?
 Everything's balanced, man.
 That's the way of life.
 That is the way of the quantum fields.
 That is the way of science that is factually.
 And I speak in data.
 In fact, I am a science geek.
 I just look like crazy artists.
 Well, you also, it's hard to determine whether you're white or red or yellow or black.
 You have this kind of global look.
 Yeah.
 No, I ask you what is your heritage?
 Two parts Native American, a Spaniard.
 Yeah.
 My family, Tariq, I just saw some of that.
 And we are from the ones that spoke like the Spanish French.
 What is it?
 Bastille or?
 Spanish French.
 It's oh man, my family's going to be so upset with me.
 Bask.
 Bask.
 Thank you very much.
 Yes, we were passed.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 And then I have Irish in me as well.
 Yeah.
 And so a couple of my cousins and Ensign Echlader actually are in Scotland.
 They left the Ireland for Scots.
 So you were pretty much a global thinker.
 And do you do?
 It's in my DNA.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Feel all the land and the ways.
 And that's why my indigenous of all lands came through and said, let's just do it.
 How the ancestors did it?
 No chemicals, no BS, no fluff, no additives.
 Because why?
 We have everything's here.
 So nature is my muse and I listen to her and when she colors, I color.
 You're in LA now?
 I'm everywhere, man.
 [laughter]
 Like I said, I recently accepted the position of head scientists at a laboratory in Australia.
 So yeah, the US soil will be seen in the last of me for the next couple months.
 Okay.
 Were you brought up in LA?
 Yes, born and raised, Los Angeles.
 Mm-hmm.
 Yeah, I'm a dinosaur.
 [laughter]
 That's what I'm saying.
 Like the tar pits.
 La Brea.
 Exactly.
 I just took the misters.
 I just took her.
 She's like, how do I see those tar pits?
 And now she's like, do they really?
 I said, yeah, they're still bubbling, man.
 She stole some sticks.
 Ooh, the heads of those museum are going to come.
 Come after you.
 We have some sticks with tar on the end because she wanted to put it in our archives with
 all the other cool stuff we collected around the world.
 So artifacts of the adventures.
 Yeah, still artifacts.
 I'm a bit of a magpie.
 I like collecting interesting things.
 Yeah.
 I haven't been to the La Brea tar pits, but I understand they're kind of interesting.
 Shame on you.
 I know.
 There's a museum as well.
 And we unfortunately couldn't go and look through it when we were there, but we're going to go
 back and spend some time and look at all of the fossils.
 Mm-hmm.
 Yeah.
 Right.
 The dinosaurs.
 Yeah.
 60 million years ago.
 Still here now.
 Facts.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 What's next for you guys?
 Is this factory going to happen in the next couple of years, do you think?
 The only thing stopping me and what has been stopping me for a while now is that the policy
 makers need to welcome a facility of that stature because I will change the entirety
 of the energy grids.
 And I mean, Southern California Edison will be not needed anymore and the likes are going
 to piss off a lot of people.
 So I've got to wait for the guys in charge to say, "We'd rather do it this way."
 This is the country that's going to do it this way.
 And the moment I see somebody walking that talk, that's my country.
 So we have a few invitations to come and see a few territories right now.
 And I have to go travel to those lands.
 And as soon as I feel the green light and my engineer gives me the thumbs up, we're
 going to land.
 Yeah.
 On that moon and we're going to start building.
 And as soon as I do, you guys will have a first update.
 All right.
 Yeah.
 That's great.
 Yeah.
 I'm looking forward to that.
 Thank you.
 Any ideas to where this factory might be?
 Yeah, does that still secret?
 Still under negotiation, huh?
 Yeah, really?
 Yeah, okay.
 I am, um, I have said enough.
 I already told you I have massive files.
 I like massive files.
 I have massive files.
 I'll give you a chance to go a little cosmic on us because as scientific and grounded and
 futurist and an amalgam of all things that are hardcore and real, I know you also have
 an incredible mystery to your method.
 And I would love to give you a chance to give people a little clue on how that works and
 how it could work for them and just what humans can be doing that maybe they've forgotten.
 Oh, man.
 You can do it all.
 From my studies in natural medicines and watching clinical trials and being a part of
 those and being invited by actual doctors of Eastern medicines and in ancient ways and
 seeing people that were bedridden walking.
 A woman that had never taken a step, get up and walk.
 You can do anything to my own mother who had cancer in six months to live, sticking around
 for another decade.
 There's not much you cannot do, mate.
 I wasn't, I handed the fashion sword of any sort and I didn't know that I was going to
 change an industry either.
 I didn't know that I was even interested in mathematics enough to call myself a scientist,
 but now I'm obsessed with how things come to be.
 And so challenge yourself, really, I don't care what a doctor has told you, I don't care
 what a parent might have even told you.
 We're all in our individual path and if you do not question what else is possible and
 you don't challenge yourself, then you don't want it bad enough is what I say.
 And it's not this lifetime, but it will be some lifetime yours.
 You will actualize and you will ascend to your highest vibration and I just intend to
 do it in this one.
 So you think our species will ascend as a group?
 As a collective, yes, I just don't know what timeframe as the, you know, at the same time
 as a collective, we can give the credit too.
 I think it's an evolution and that is what evolution is.
 There's never an end.
 It is always a...
 It's constant and a full moment.
 There's some people...
 Continuum.
 Yeah, there's various myths.
 Some people think that the Phoenix rising from the ashes today and that the new world
 is going to come from the ashes of the old.
 Everybody wants a final answer and there is none.
 There is none.
 There's none.
 No one mythology.
 A diagnosis is a diagnosis to me.
 That's pretty good.
 Yeah.
 All right.
 If people want to know more, where would you send them to you?
 We're being rebuilt.
 So when we are back up, it's www.equatest.ecu.us.co.uk or find us on Instagram and Facebook,
 Equatus Clothing.
 Equatus Clothing.
 That's right.
 Great.
 Well, thank you.
 Thank you.
 Thank you.
 Ginger Medina.
 Thank you, CS.
 Appreciate you being here.
 Thank you.
 Thank you.
 Thank you.
 Love you guys.
 Happy future.
 Thank you.
 Everybody.
 Thank you.
 We'll see you all later.
 Have a great week.
 All right.
 All right.
 All right.
 All right.
 All right.