The following is a conversation with Anne Drouin, writer, producer, director, and one of the most important and impactful communicators of science in our time. She co wrote the 1980 science documentary series Cosmos hosted by Carl Sagan, whom she married in 1981 and her love for whom, with the help of NASA, was recorded as brainwaves on a golden record along with other things our civilization has to offer and launched into space on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft that are now, 42 years later, still active, reaching out farther into deep space than any human made object ever has. This was a profound and beautiful decision Anne made as the creative director of NASA's Voyager Interstellar Message Project. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| Carl Sagan, Anne Drouin, and Cosmos have inspired millions of scientists and curious minds across several generations by revealing the magic, the power, the beauty of science. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| This is the Artificial Intelligence Podcast, if you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, give it 5 stars on Apple Podcast, support it on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman, spelled F R I D M A N. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| When you get it, use code LEX PODCAST. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| And now, here's my conversation with Anne Drouin. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| And so for me, especially in a civilization dependent on high technology and science, one that aspires to be democratic, it's critical that the public, as informed decision makers, understand the values and the methods and the rules of science. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| Love is seeing, unflinching the other and accepting with all your heart. And to me, knowing the universe as it is, or the little bit that we're able to understand at this point is the purest kind of love. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| And it's that voice whispering in our heads, you know, you might be wrong, which I think is not only it's really healthy because we're so imperfect, we're human, of course, but also, you know, love to me is the feeling that you always want to go deeper, get closer. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| It's always saying it's always finding that even smaller cosmos beneath. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| What is love? What is love is, is knowing, for me, love is, is knowing something deeply and still being completely gratified by it, you know, and wanting to know more. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| So it is, it is, it delivers the goods like nothing else, you know, it really, it delivers the goods because it's always, it's always self aware of its fallibility. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| And they don't dare to sort of dream or think of revolutionary ideas that others will call crazy in this particular moment. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| And the wonder, I think the reason Carl remains so beloved, well, I think there are many reasons, but at the root of it is the fact that his skepticism was never at the cost of his wonder and his wonder was never at the cost of his skepticism. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| For Carl, I don't think he ever felt that his skepticism cost him anything because again, it comes back to love. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| I think that's the tragedy of Western civilization is that it's, you know, when it's one of its greatest gifts has been science and yet at the same time, it believing that we are the children of a disappointed father, a tyrant who puts us in a maximum security prison and calls it paradise, who looks at us, who watches us every moment and hates us for being our human selves, you know? And then most of all, what is our great sin? It's partaking of the tree of knowledge, which is our greatest gift as humans. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| He lacked, you know, the kind of spiritual understanding that maybe, you know, his wife had and it's always in the end and they come around, but to me, that's a false dichotomy that we are, you know, to the extent that we are aware of our surroundings and understand them, which is what science makes it possible for us to do, we're even more alive. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| I'll never be able to really wrap my head around the reality of it, the truth of it. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| It discovered new moons. It discovered volcanoes on Io. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| And it's still active. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| And so we fired up its thrusters for the first time since 1987. |||||||| HIDDEN IN PREVIEW MODE ||||||| And it's the farthest spacecraft, it's the farthest human creation away from us today. Voyager 1.

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