there's a broader question here, right? As we build socially and emotionally intelligent machines,

what does that mean about our relationship with them and then more broadly our relationship with

one another, right? Because this machine is going to be programmed to be amazing at empathy,

by definition, right? It's going to always be there for you. It's not going to get bored.

I don't know how I feel about that. I think about that a lot.

TITO The following is a conversation with Rana

L. Kliubi, a pioneer in the field of emotion recognition and human centric artificial

intelligence. She is the founder of Effectiva, deputy CEO of SmartEye, author of Girl Decoded,

and one of the most brilliant, kind, inspiring, and fun human beings I've gotten the chance to

talk to. This is the Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in

the description. And now, dear friends, here's Rana L. Kliubi. You grew up in the Middle East,

in Egypt. What is the memory from that time that makes you smile? Or maybe a memory that stands out

as helping your mind take shape and helping you define yourself in this world?

RANA L. KLIUBI So the memory that stands out is we used to

live in my grandma's house. She used to have these mango trees in her garden. And in the summer,

and so mango season was like July and August. And so in the summer, she would invite all my aunts

and uncles and cousins. And it was just like maybe there were like 20 or 30 people in the house,

and she would cook all this amazing food. And us, the kids, we would go down the garden,

and we would pick all these mangoes. And I don't know, I think it's just the bringing people

together that always stuck with me, the warmth. TITO Around the mango tree.

RANA L. KLIUBI Yeah, around the mango tree. And there's just like the joy, the joy of being

together around food. And I'm a terrible cook. So I guess that didn't, that memory didn't translate

to me kind of doing the same. I love hosting people. TITO Do you remember colors, smells?

Is that what, like what, how does memory work? Like what do you visualize? Do you visualize

people's faces, smiles? Do you, is there colors? Is there like a theme to the colors? Is it smells

because of food involved? RANA L. KLIUBI Yeah, I think that's a great question. So the,

those Egyptian mangoes, there's a particular type that I love, and it's called Darwasi mangoes. And

they're kind of, you know, they're oval, and they have a little red in them. So I kind of,

they're red and mango colored on the outside. So I remember that. TITO Does red indicate like

extra sweetness? Is that, is that, that means like it's nicely, yeah, it's nice and ripe and stuff.

Yeah. What, what's like a definitive food of Egypt? You know, there's like these almost

stereotypical foods in different parts of the world, like Ukraine invented borscht.

Borscht is this beet soup with, that you put sour cream on. See, it's not, I can't see if you,

if you know, if you know what it is, I think, you know, is delicious. But if I explain it,

it's just not going to sound delicious. I feel like beet soup. This doesn't make any sense,

but that's kind of, and you probably have actually seen pictures of it because it's one of the

traditional foods in Ukraine, in Russia, in different parts of the Slavic world. So that's,

but it's become so cliche and stereotypical that you almost don't mention it, but it's still

delicious. Like I visited Ukraine, I eat that every single day, so.

Do you, do you make it yourself? How hard is it to make?

No, I don't know. I think to make it well, like anything, like Italians, they say, well,

tomato sauce is easy to make, but to make it right, that's like a generational skill. So anyway,

is there something like that in Egypt? Is there a culture of food?

There is. And actually, we have a similar kind of soup. It's called molokhia, and it's, it's made

of this green plant. It's like, it's somewhere between spinach and kale, and you mince it,

and then you cook it in like chicken broth. And my grandma used to make, and my mom makes it really

well, and I try to make it, but it's not as great. So we used to have that. And then we used to have

it alongside stuffed pigeons. I'm pescetarian now, so I don't eat that anymore, but.

Stuffed pigeons.

Yeah, it's like, it was really yummy. It's the one thing I miss about,

you know, now that I'm pescetarian and I don't eat.

The stuffed pigeons?

Yeah, the stuffed pigeons.

Is it, what are they stuffed with? If that doesn't bother you too much to describe.

No, no, it's stuffed with a lot of like just rice and, yeah, it's just rice. Yeah, so.

And you also, you said that your first, in your book, that your first computer

was an Atari, and Space Invaders was your favorite game.

Is that when you first fell in love with computers, would you say?

Yeah, I would say so.

Video games, or just the computer itself? Just something about the machine.

Ooh, this thing, there's magic in here.

Yeah, I think the magical moment is definitely like playing video games with my,

I have two younger sisters, and we would just like had fun together, like playing games.

But the other memory I have is my first code, the first code I wrote.

I wrote, I drew a Christmas tree, and I'm Muslim, right?

So it's kind of, it was kind of funny that the first thing I did was like this Christmas tree.

So, yeah, and that's when I realized, wow, you can write code to do all sorts of like

really cool stuff. I must have been like six or seven at the time.

So you can write programs, and the programs do stuff for you. That's power.

That's, if you think about it, that's empowering.

It's AI.

Yeah, I know what it is. I don't know if that, you see like,

I don't know if many people think of it that way when they first learned to program.

They just love the puzzle of it. Like, ooh, this is cool. This is pretty.

It's a Christmas tree, but like, it's power.

It is power.

Eventually, I guess you couldn't at the time, but eventually this thing,

if it's interesting enough, if it's a pretty enough Christmas tree,

it can be run by millions of people and bring them joy, like that little thing.

And then because it's digital, it's easy to spread.

So like you just created something that's easily spreadable to millions of people.

Totally.

It's hard to think that way when you're six.

In the book, you write, I am who I am because I was raised by a particular set of parents,

both modern and conservative, forward thinking, yet locked in tradition.

I'm a Muslim and I feel I'm stronger, more centered for it.

I adhere to the values of my religion, even if I'm not as dutiful as I once was.

And I am a new American and I'm thriving on the energy,

vitality and entrepreneurial spirit of this great country.

So let me ask you about your parents.

What have you learned about life from them, especially when you were young?

So both my parents, they're Egyptian, but they moved to Kuwait right out.

Actually, there's a cute story about how they met.

So my dad taught COBOL in the 70s.

Nice.

And my mom decided to learn programming.

So she signed up to take his COBOL programming class.

And he tried to date her and she was like, no, no, no, I don't date.

And so he's like, okay, I'll propose.

And that's how they got married.

Whoa, strong move.

Right, exactly, right.

That's really impressive.

Those COBOL guys know how to impress a lady.

So yeah, so what have you learned from them?

So definitely grit.

One of the core values in our family is just hard work.

There were no slackers in our family.

And that's something that's definitely stayed with me,

both as a professional, but also in my personal life.

But I also think my mom, my mom always used to like, I don't know, it was like unconditional

love.

Like I just knew my parents would be there for me kind of regardless of what I chose to do.

And I think that's very powerful.

And they got tested on it because I kind of challenged cultural norms and I kind of took

a different path, I guess, than what's expected of a woman in the Middle East.

And they still love me, which I'm so grateful for that.

When was like a moment that was the most challenging for them?

Which moment where they kind of had to come face to face with the fact that you're a bit

of a rebel?

I think the first big moment was when I had just gotten married, but I decided to go do

my PhD at Cambridge University.

And because my husband at the time, he's now my ex, ran a company in Cairo, he was going

to stay in Egypt.

So it was going to be a long distance relationship.

And that's very unusual in the Middle East for a woman to just head out and kind of pursue

her career.

And so my dad and my parents in law both said, you know, we do not approve of you doing this,

but now you're under the jurisdiction of your husband so he can make the call.

And luckily for me, he was supportive.

He said, you know, this is your dream come true.

You've always wanted to do a PhD.

I'm going to support you.

So I think that was the first time where, you know, I challenged the cultural norms.

Was that scary?

Oh, my God, yes.

It was totally scary.

What's the biggest culture shock from there to Cambridge, to London?

Well, that was also during right around September 11th.

So everyone thought that there was going to be a third world war.

It was really like, and I, at the time I used to wear the hijab, so I was very visibly Muslim.

And so my parents just were, they were afraid for my safety.

But anyways, when I got to Cambridge, because I was so scared, I decided to take off my

headscarf and wear a hat instead.

So I just went to class wearing these like British hats, which was, in my opinion, actually

worse than just showing up in a headscarf because it was just so awkward, right?

Like sitting in class with like all these.

Trying to fit in.

Yeah.

Like a spy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So after a few weeks of doing that, I was like, to heck with that.

I'm just going to go back to wearing my headscarf.

Yeah, you wore the hijab, so starting in 2000 and for 12 years after.

So it's always, whenever you're in public, you have to wear the head covering.

Can you speak to that, to the hijab, maybe your mixed feelings about it?

Like what does it represent in its best case?

What does it represent in the worst case?

Yeah, you know, I think there's a lot of, I guess I'll first start by saying I wore

it voluntarily.

I was not forced to wear it.

And in fact, I was one of the very first women in my family to decide to put on the hijab.

And my family thought it was really odd, right?

Like there was, they were like, why do you want to put this on?

And at its best, it's a sign of modesty, humility.

Yeah.

It's like me wearing a suit, people are like, why are you wearing a suit?

It's a step back into some kind of tradition, a respect for tradition of sorts.

So you said, because it's by choice, you're kind of free to make that choice to celebrate

a tradition of modesty.

Exactly. And I actually like made it my own.

I remember I would really match the color of my headscarf with what I was wearing.

Like it was a form of self expression and at its best, I loved wearing it.

You know, I have a lot of questions around how we practice religion and religion and,

you know, and I think also it was a time where I was spending a lot of time going back and

forth between the US and Egypt.

And I started meeting a lot of people in the US who are just amazing people, very purpose

driven, people who have very strong core values, but they're not Muslim.

That's okay, right?

And so that was when I just had a lot of questions.

And politically, also the situation in Egypt was when the Muslim Brotherhood ran the country

and I didn't agree with their ideology.

It was at a time when I was going through a divorce.

Like it was like, it was like just the perfect storm of like political, personal conditions

where I was like, this doesn't feel like me anymore.

And it took a lot of courage to take it off because culturally it's not, it's okay if

you don't wear it, but it's really not okay to wear it and then take it off.

But you're still, so you have to do that while still maintaining a deep core and pride in

the origins, in your origin story.

Totally.

So still being Egyptian, still being a Muslim.

Right.

And being, I think generally like faith driven, but yeah.

But what that means changes year by year for you.

It's like a personal journey.

Yeah, exactly.

What would you say is the role of faith in that part of the world?

Like, how do you see, you mentioned it a bit in the book too.

Yeah.

I mean, I think, I think there is something really powerful about just believing that

there's a bigger force, you know, there's a kind of surrendering, I guess, that comes

with religion and you surrender and you have this deep conviction that it's going to be

okay, right?

Like the universe is out to like do amazing things for you and it's going to be okay.

And there's strength to that.

Like even when you're going through adversity, you just know that it's going to work out.

Yeah, it gives you like an inner peace, a calmness.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, that's, it's faith in all the meanings of that word.

Right.

Faith that everything is going to be okay.

And it is because time passes and time cures all things.

It's like a calmness with the chaos of the world.

Yeah.

And also there's like a silver, I'm a true believer of this, that something at the specific

moment in time can look like it's catastrophic and it's not what you wanted in life.

But then time passes and then you look back and there's the silver lining, right?

It maybe closed the door, but it opened a new door for you.

And so I'm a true believer in that, that, you know, there's a silver lining in almost

anything in life, you just have to have this like, yeah, faith or conviction that it's

going to work out.

Yeah, it's such a beautiful way to see a shady feeling.

So if you feel shady about a current situation, I mean, it almost is always true.

Unless it's the cliche thing of if it doesn't kill you, whatever doesn't kill you makes

you stronger.

It's, it does seem that over time when you take a perspective on things that the hardest

moments and periods of your life are the most meaningful.

Yeah, yeah.

So over time you get to have that perspective.

Right.

What about, because you mentioned Kuwait, what about, let me ask you about war.

What's the role of war and peace, maybe even the big love and hate in that part of

the world, because it does seem to be a part of the world where there's turmoil.

There was turmoil, there's still turmoil.

It is so unfortunate, honestly.

It's, it's such a waste of human resources and, and, and yeah, and human mindshare.

I mean, and at the end of the day, we all kind of want the same things.

We want, you know, we want a human connection, we want joy, we want to feel fulfilled, we

want to feel, you know, a life of purpose.

And I just, I just find it baffling, honestly, that we are still having to grapple with that.

I have a story to share about this.

You know, I grew up, I'm Egyptian, American now, but, but, you know, originally from Egypt.

And when I first got to Cambridge, it turned out my officemate, like my PhD kind of, you

know, she ended up, you know, we ended up becoming friends, but she was from Israel.

And we didn't know, yeah, we didn't know how it was going to be like.

Did you guys sit there just staring at each other for a bit?

Actually, she, because I arrived before she did.

And it turns out she emailed our PhD advisor and asked him if she thought it was going

to be okay.

Yeah.

And this is around 9 11 too.

Yeah.

And, and Peter, Peter Robinson, our PhD advisor was like, yeah, like, this is an academic

institution, just show up.

And we became super good friends.

We were both new moms.

Like we both had our kids during our PhD.

We were both doing artificial emotional intelligence.

She was looking at speech.

I was looking at the face.

We just had so the culture was so similar.

Our jokes were similar.

It was just, I was like, why on earth are our countries, why is there all this like

war and tension?

And I think it falls back to the narrative, right?

If you change the narrative, like whoever creates this narrative of war.

I don't know.

We should have women run the world.

Yeah, that's one solution.

The good women, because there's also evil women in the world.

True, okay.

But yes, yes, there could be less war if women ran the world.

The other aspect is, it doesn't matter the gender, the people in power.

I get to see this with Ukraine and Russia and different parts of the world around that

conflict now.

And that's happening in Yemen as well and everywhere else.

There's these narratives told by the leaders to the populace.

And those narratives take hold and everybody believes that.

And they have a distorted view of the humanity on the other side.

In fact, especially during war, you don't even see the people on the other side as human

or as equal intelligence or worth or value as you.

You tell all kinds of narratives about them being Nazis or dumb or whatever narrative

you want to weave around that or evil.

But I think when you actually meet them face to face, you realize they're like the same.

Exactly, right?

It's actually a big shock for people to realize that they've been essentially lied to within

their country.

And I kind of have faith that social media, as ridiculous as it is to say, or any kind

of technology, is able to bypass the walls that governments put up and connect people

directly.

And then you get to realize, oh, people fall in love across different nations and religions

and so on.

And that, I think, ultimately can cure a lot of our ills, especially in person.

I also think that if leaders met in person, they'd have a conversation that could cure

a lot of the ills of the world, especially in private.

Let me ask you about the women running the world.

So gender does, in part, perhaps shape the landscape of just our human experience.

So in what ways was it limiting and in what ways was it empowering for you to be a woman

in the Middle East?

I think, just kind of going back to my comment on women running the world, I think it comes

back to empathy, which has been a common thread throughout my entire career.

And it's this idea of human connection.

Once you build common ground with a person or a group of people, you build trust, you

build loyalty, you build friendship.

And then you can turn that into behavior change and motivation and persuasion.

So it's like, empathy and emotions are just at the center of everything we do.

And I think being from the Middle East, kind of this human connection is very strong.

We have this running joke that if you come to Egypt for a visit, people will know everything

about your life right away, right?

I have no problems asking you about your personal life.

There's no boundaries, really, no personal boundaries in terms of getting to know people.

We get emotionally intimate very, very quickly.

But I think people just get to know each other authentically, I guess.

There isn't this superficial level of getting to know people.

You just try to get to know people really deeply.

Empathy is a part of that.

Totally.

Because you can put yourself in this person's shoe and kind of, yeah, imagine what challenges

they're going through, and so I think I've definitely taken that with me.

Generosity is another one too, like just being generous with your time and love and attention

and even with your wealth, right?

Even if you don't have a lot of it, you're still very generous.

And I think that's another...

Enjoying the humanity of other people.

And so do you think there's a useful difference between men and women in that?

In that aspect and empathy?

Or is doing these kind of big general groups, does that hinder progress?

Yeah, I actually don't want to overgeneralize.

I mean, some of the men I know are like the most empathetic humans.

Yeah, I strive to be empathetic.

Yeah, you're actually very empathetic.

Yeah, so I don't want to overgeneralize.

Although one of the researchers I worked with when I was at Cambridge, Professor Simon Baron Cohen,

he's Sacha Baron Cohen's cousin, and he runs the Autism Research Center at Cambridge,

and he's written multiple books on autism.

And one of his theories is the empathy scale, like the systemizers and the empathizers,

and there's a disproportionate amount of computer scientists and engineers who are

systemizers and perhaps not great empathizers, and then there's more men in that bucket,

I guess, than women, and then there's more women in the empathizers bucket.

So again, not to overgeneralize.

I sometimes wonder about that.

It's been frustrating to me how many, I guess, systemizers there are in the field of robotics.

Yeah.

It's actually encouraging to me because I care about, obviously, social robotics,

and because there's more opportunity for people that are empathic.

Exactly.

I totally agree.

Well, right?

So it's nice.

Yes.

So every robotics I talk to, they don't see the human as interesting, as it's not exciting.

You want to avoid the human at all costs.

It's a safety concern to be touching the human, which it is, but it is also an opportunity

for deep connection or collaboration or all that kind of stuff.

And because most brilliant roboticists don't care about the human, it's an opportunity,

in your case, it's a business opportunity too, but in general, an opportunity to explore

those ideas.

So in this beautiful journey to Cambridge, to UK, and then to America, what's the moment

or moments that were most transformational for you as a scientist and as a leader?

So you became an exceptionally successful CEO, founder, researcher, scientist, and so on.

Was there a face shift there where, like, I can be somebody, I can really do something

in this world?

Yeah.

So actually, just kind of a little bit of background.

So the reason why I moved from Cairo to Cambridge, UK to do my PhD is because I had a very clear

career plan.

I was like, okay, I'll go abroad, get my PhD, going to crush it in three or four years,

come back to Egypt and teach.

It was very clear, very well laid out.

Was topic clear or no?

The topic, well, I did my PhD around building artificial emotional intelligence and looking

at...

But in your master plan ahead of time, when you're sitting by the mango tree, did you

know it's going to be artificial intelligence?

No, no, no, that I did not know.

Although I think I kind of knew that I was going to be doing computer science, but I

didn't know the specific area.

But I love teaching.

I mean, I still love teaching.

So I just, yeah, I just wanted to go abroad, get a PhD, come back, teach.

Why computer science?

Can we just linger on that?

What?

Because you're such an empathic person who cares about emotion, humans and so on.

Isn't, aren't computers cold and emotionless and just...

We're changing that.

Yeah, I know, but like, isn't that the, or did you see computers as the, having the

capability to actually connect with humans?

I think that was like my takeaway from my experience just growing up, like computers

sit at the center of how we connect and communicate with one another, right?

Or technology in general.

Like I remember my first experience being away from my parents.

We communicated with a fax machine, but thank goodness for the fax machine, because we

could send letters back and forth to each other.

This was pre emails and stuff.

So I think, I think there's, I think technology can be not just transformative in terms of

productivity, et cetera.

It actually does change how we connect with one another.

Can I just defend the fax machine?

There's something like the haptic feel because the email is all digital.

There's something really nice.

I still write letters to people.

There's something nice about the haptic aspect of the fax machine, because you still have

to press, you still have to do something in the physical world to make this thing a reality.

Right, and then it like comes out as a printout and you can actually touch it and read it.

Yeah.

There's something, there's something lost when it's just an email.

Obviously I wonder how we can regain some of that in the digital world, which goes to

the metaverse and all those kinds of things.

We'll talk about it anyway.

So, actually do you question on that one?

Do you still, do you have photo albums anymore?

Do you still print photos?

No, no, but I'm a minimalist.

Okay.

So it was one of the, one of the painful steps in my life was to scan all the photos and

let go of them and then let go of all my books.

You let go of your books?

Yeah.

Switch to Kindle, everything Kindle.

Yeah.

So I thought, I thought, okay, think 30 years from now, nobody's going to have books anymore.

The technology of digital books is going to get better and better and better.

Are you really going to be the guy that's still romanticizing physical books?

Are you going to be the old man on the porch who's like kids?

Yes.

So just get used to it because it was, it felt, it still feels a little bit uncomfortable

to read on a Kindle, but get used to it.

Like you always, I mean, I'm trying to learn new programming language is always,

like with technology, you have to kind of challenge yourself to adapt to it.

You know, I forced myself to use TikTok.

No, that thing doesn't need much forcing.

It pulls you in like a, like the worst kind of, or the best kind of drug.

Anyway, yeah.

So yeah, but I do love haptic things.

There's a magic to the haptic.

Even like touchscreens, it's tricky to get right, to get the experience of a button.

Yeah.

Anyway, what were we talking about?

So AI, so the journey, your whole plan was to come back to Cairo and teach.

Right.

And then.

What did the plan go wrong?

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

And then I get to Cambridge and I fall in love with the idea of research.

Right.

And kind of embarking on a path.

Nobody's explored this path before.

You're building stuff that nobody's built before.

And it's challenging and it's hard.

And there's a lot of nonbelievers.

I just totally love that.

And at the end of my PhD, I think it's the meeting that changed the trajectory of my life.

Professor Roslyn Picard, who's, she runs the Affective Computing Group at the MIT Media Lab.

I had read her book.

I, you know, I was like following, following, following all her research.

AKA Ros.

Yes, AKA Ros.

Yes.

And she was giving a talk at a pattern recognition conference in Cambridge.

And she had a couple of hours to kill.

So she emailed the lab and she said, you know, if any students want to meet with me, like,

just, you know, sign up here.

And so I signed up for slot and I spent like the weeks leading up to it preparing for this

meeting and I want to show her a demo of my research and everything.

And we met and we ended up hitting it off.

Like we totally clicked.

And at the end of the meeting, she said, do you want to come work with me as a postdoc

at MIT?

And this is what I told her.

I was like, okay, this would be a dream come true, but there's a husband waiting for me

in Cairo.

I kind of have to go back.

Yeah.

She said, it's fine.

Just commute.

And I literally started commuting between Cairo and Boston.

Yeah, it was, it was a long commute.

And I didn't, I did that like every few weeks I would, you know, hop on a plane and go to

Boston.

But that, that changed the trajectory of my life.

There was no, I kind of outgrew my dreams, right?

I didn't want to go back to Egypt anymore and be faculty.

Like that was no longer my dream.

I had a dream.

What was the, what was it like to be at MIT?

What was that culture shock?

You mean America in general, but also, I mean, Cambridge has its own culture, right?

So what was MIT like and what was America like?

I think, I wonder if that's similar to your experience at MIT.

I was just, at the Media Lab in particular, I was just really, impressed is not the right

word.

I didn't expect the openness to like innovation and the acceptance of taking a risk and failing.

Like failure isn't really accepted back in Egypt, right?

You don't want to fail.

Like there's a fear of failure, which I think has been hardwired in my brain.

But you get to MIT and it's okay to start things.

And if they don't work out, like it's okay.

You pivot to another idea.

And that kind of thinking was just very new to me.

That's liberating.

Well, Media Lab, for people who don't know, MIT Media Lab is its own beautiful thing because

they, I think more than other places at MIT, reach for big ideas.

And like they try, I mean, I think, I mean, depending of course on who, but certainly

with Roslyn, you try wild stuff, you try big things and crazy things and also try to take

things to completion so you can demo them.

So always, always, always have a demo.

Like if you go, one of the sad things to me about robotics labs at MIT, and there's like

over 30, I think, is like, usually when you show up to a robotics lab, there's not a single

working robot, they're all broken.

All the robots are broken.

The robots are broken, which is like the normal state of things because you're working on

them.

But it would be nice if we lived in a world where robotics labs had some robots functioning.

One of my like favorite moments that just sticks with me, I visited Boston Dynamics

and there was a, first of all, seeing so many spots, so many legged robots in one place.

I'm like, I'm home.

But the, yeah.

This is where I was built.

The cool thing was just to see there was a random robot spot was walking down the hall.

It's probably doing mapping, but it looked like he wasn't doing anything and he was wearing

he or she, I don't know.

But it, well, I like, in my mind, there are people, they have a backstory, but this one

in particular definitely has a backstory because he was wearing a cowboy hat.

So I just saw a spot robot with a cowboy hat walking down the hall and there was just this

feeling like there's a life, like he has a life.

He probably has to commute back to his family at night.

Like there's a, there's a feeling like there's life instilled in this robot and it's magical.

I don't know.

It was, it was kind of inspiring to see.

Did it say hello to, did he say hello to you?

No, it's very, there's a focus nature to the robot.

No, no, listen.

I love competence and focus and great.

Like he was not going to get distracted by the, the shallowness of small talk.

There's a job to be done and he was doing it.

So anyway, the fact that it was working is a beautiful thing.

And I think Media Lab really prides itself on trying to always have a thing that's working

that you could show off.

Yes.

We used to call it a demo or die.

You, you could not, yeah, you could not like show up with like PowerPoint or something.

You actually had to have a working, you know what, my son who is now 13, I don't know if

this is still his life long goal or not, but when he was a little younger, his dream is

to build an island that's just inhabited by robots, like no humans.

He just wants all these robots to be connecting and having fun and there you go.

Does he have human, does he have an idea of which robots he loves most?

Is it, is it Roomba like robots?

Is it humanoid robots?

Robot dogs, or it's not clear yet.

We used to have a Jibo, which was one of the MIT Media Lab spin outs and he used to love

the giant head that spins and rotate and it's an eye or like not glowing like Cal 9000,

but the friendly version.

He loved that.

And then he just loves, uh, um,

yeah, he just, he, I think he loves all forms of robots actually.

So embodied intelligence.

Yes.

I like, I personally like legged robots, especially, uh, anything that can wiggle its butt.

No, that's not the definition of what I love, but that's just technically what I've been

working on recently.

Except I have a bunch of legged robots now in Austin and I've been doing, I was, I've

been trying to, uh, have them communicate affection with their body in different ways

just for art, for art really.

Cause I love the idea of walking around with the robots, like, uh, as you would with a

dog.

I think it's inspiring to a lot of people, especially young people.

Like kids love, kids love it.

Parents like adults are scared of robots, but kids don't have this kind of weird construction

of the world that's full of evil.

They love cool things.

Yeah.

I remember when Adam was in first grade, so he must have been like seven or so.

I went in to his class with a whole bunch of robots and like the emotion AI demo and

da da.

And I asked the kids, I was like, do you, would you kids want to have a robot, you know,

robot friend or robot companion?

Everybody said yes.

And they wanted it for all sorts of things, like to help them with their math homework

and to like be a friend.

So there's, it just struck me how there was no fear of robots was a lot of adults have

that like us versus them.

Yeah, none of that.

Of course you want to be very careful because you still have to look at the lessons of history

and how robots can be used by the power centers of the world to abuse your rights and all

that kind of stuff.

But mostly it's good to enter anything new with an excitement and an optimism.

Speaking of Roz, what have you learned about science and life from Rosalind Picard?

Oh my God, I've learned so many things about life from Roz.

I think the thing I learned the most is perseverance.

When I first met Roz, we applied and she invited me to be her postdoc.

We applied for a grant to the National Science Foundation to apply some of our research to

autism.

And we got back.

We were rejected.

Rejected.

Yeah.

And the reasoning was...

The first time you were rejected for fun, yeah.

Yeah, it was, and I basically, I just took the rejection to mean, okay, we're rejected.

It's done, like end of story, right?

And Roz was like, it's great news.

They love the idea.

They just don't think we can do it.

So let's build it, show them, and then reapply.

And it was that, oh my God, that story totally stuck with me.

And she's like that in every aspect of her life.

She just does not take no for an answer.

To reframe all negative feedback.

As a challenge.

As a challenge.

As a challenge.

Yes, they liked this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was a riot.

What else about science in general?

About how you see computers and also business and just everything about the world.

She's a very powerful, brilliant woman like yourself.

So is there some aspect of that too?

Yeah, I think Roz is actually also very faith driven.

She has this like deep belief in conviction.

Yeah, and in the good in the world and humanity.

And I think that was meeting her and her family was definitely like a defining moment for me

because that was when I was like, wow, like you can be of a different background and

religion and whatever and you can still have the same core values.

So that was, that was, yeah.

I'm grateful to her.

Roz, if you're listening, thank you.

Yeah, she's great.

She's been on this podcast before.

I hope she'll be on, I'm sure she'll be on again.

And you were the founder and CEO of Effektiva, which is a big company that was acquired by

another big company, SmartEye.

And you're now the deputy CEO of SmartEye.

So you're a powerful leader.

You're brilliant.

You're a brilliant scientist.

A lot of people are inspired by you.

What advice would you give, especially to young women, but people in general who dream

of becoming powerful leaders like yourself in a world where perhaps, in a world that

perhaps doesn't give them a clear, easy path to do so, whether we're talking about Egypt

or elsewhere?

You know, hearing you kind of describe me that way, kind of encapsulates, I think what

I think is the biggest challenge of all, which is believing in yourself, right?

I have had to like grapple with this, what I call now the Debbie Downer voice in my head.

The kind of basically, it's just chattering all the time.

It's basically saying, oh, no, no, no, no, you can't do this.

Like you're not going to raise money.

You can't start a company.

Like what business do you have, like starting a company or running a company or selling

a company?

Like you name it.

It's always like.

And I think my biggest advice to not just women, but people who are taking a new path

and, you know, they're not sure, is to not let yourself and let your thoughts be the

biggest obstacle in your way.

And I've had to like really work on myself to not be my own biggest obstacle.

So you got that negative voice.

Yeah.

So is that?

Am I the only one?

I don't think I'm the only one.

No, I have that negative voice.

I'm not exactly sure if it's a bad thing or a good thing.

I've been really torn about it because it's been a lifelong companions.

It's hard to know.

It's kind of, it drives productivity and progress, but it can hold you back from taking

big leaps.

I think the best I can say is probably you have to somehow be able to control it, to

turn it off when it's not useful and turn it on when it's useful.

Like I have from almost like a third person perspective.

Right.

Somebody who's sitting there like.

Yeah.

Like, because it is useful to be critical.

Like after, I just gave a talk yesterday.

At MIT and I was just, there's so much love and it was such an incredible experience.

So many amazing people I got a chance to talk to, but afterwards when I went home and just

took this long walk, it was mostly just negative thoughts about me.

I don't like one basic stuff like I don't deserve any of it.

And second is like, like, why did you, that was so bad.

Second is like, like, why did you, that was so dumb that you said this, that's so dumb.

Like you should have prepared that better.

Why did you say this?

But I think it's good to hear that voice out.

All right.

And like sit in that.

And ultimately I think you grow from that.

Now, when you're making really big decisions about funding or starting a company or taking

a leap to go to the UK or take a leap to go to America to work in Media Lab though.

Yeah.

There's, that's, you should be able to shut that off then because you should have like

this weird confidence, almost like faith that you said before that everything's going to

work out.

So take the leap of faith.

Take the leap of faith.

Despite all the negativity.

I mean, there's, there's, there's some of that.

You, you actually tweeted a really nice tweet thread.

It says, quote, a year ago, a friend recommended I do daily affirmations and I was skeptical,

but I was going through major transitions in my life.

So I gave it a shot and it set me on a journey of self acceptance and self love.

So what was that like?

Can you maybe talk through this idea of affirmations and how that helped you?

Yeah.

Because really like I'm just like me, I'm a kind, I'd like to think of myself as a kind

person in general, but I'm kind of mean to myself sometimes.

Yeah.

And so I've been doing journaling for almost 10 years now.

I use an app called Day One and it's awesome.

I just journal and I use it as an opportunity to almost have a conversation with the Debbie

Downer voice in my, it's like a rebuttal, right?

Like Debbie Downer says, oh my God, like you, you know, you won't be able to raise this

round of funding.

I'm like, okay, let's talk about it.

I have a track record of doing X, Y, and Z.

I think I can do this.

And it's literally like, so I wouldn't, I don't know that I can shut off the voice,

but I can have a conversation with it.

And it just, it just, and I bring data to the table, right?

Nice.

So that was the journaling part, which I found very helpful.

But the affirmation took it to a whole next level and I just love it.

I'm a year into doing this and you literally wake up in the morning and the first thing

you do, I meditate first and then I write my affirmations and it's the energy I want

to put out in the world that hopefully will come right back to me.

So I will say, I always start with my smile lights up the whole world.

And I kid you not, like people in the street will stop me and say, oh my God, like we love

your smile.

Like, yes.

So, so my affirmations will change depending on, you know, what's happening this day.

Is it funny?

I know.

Don't judge, don't judge.

No, that's not, laughter's not judgment.

It's just awesome.

I mean, it's true, but you're saying affirmations somehow help kind of, I mean, what is it that

they do work to like remind you of the kind of person you are and the kind of person you

want to be, which actually may be in reverse order, the kind of person you want to be.

And that helps you become the kind of person you actually are.

It's just, it's, it brings intentionality to like what you're doing.

Right.

And so, by the way, I was laughing because my affirmations, which I also do are the

opposite.

Oh, you do?

Oh, what do you do?

I don't, I don't have a, my smile lights up the world.

Maybe I should add that because like, I, I have, I just, I have, oh boy, it's, it's much

more stoic, like about focus, about this kind of stuff, but the joy, the emotion that you're

just in that little affirmation is beautiful.

So maybe I should add that.

I have some, I have some like focused stuff, but that's usually.

But that's a cool start.

It's after all the like smiling and playful and joyful and all that.

And then it's like, okay, I kick butt.

Let's get shit done.

Right.

Let's get shit done affirmation.

Okay, cool.

So like what else is on there?

What else is on there?

Well, I, I have, I'm also, I'm, I'm a magnet for all sorts of things.

So I'm an amazing people magnet.

I attract like awesome people into my universe.

That's an actual affirmation.

Yes.

That's great.

Yeah.

So that, that's, and that, yeah.

And that somehow manifests itself into like in working.

I think so.

Yeah.

Like, can you speak to like why it feels good to do the affirmations?

I honestly think it just grounds the day.

And then it allows me to, instead of just like being pulled back and forth, like throughout

the day, it just like grounds me.

I'm like, okay, like this thing happened.

It's not exactly what I wanted it to be, but I'm patient.

Or I'm, you know, I'm, I trust that the universe will do amazing things for me, which is one

of my other consistent affirmations.

Or I'm an amazing mom.

Right.

And so I can grapple with all the feelings of mom guilt that I have all the time.

Or here's another one.

I'm a love magnet.

And I literally say, I will kind of picture the person that I'd love to end up with.

And I write it all down and it hasn't happened yet, but it.

What are you, what are you picturing?

This is Brad Pitt.

Because that's what I picture.

Okay.

That's what you picture?

Yeah.

Okay.

On the, on the running, holding hands, running together.

Okay.

No, more like fight club that the fight club, Brad Pitt, where he's like standing.

All right.

People will know.

Anyway, I'm sorry.

I'll get off on that.

Do you have a, like when you're thinking about the being a love magnet in that way, are you

picturing specific people or is this almost like in the space of like energy?

Right.

It's somebody who is smart and well accomplished and successful in their life, but they're

generous and they're well traveled and they want to travel the world.

Things like that.

Like their head over heels into me.

It's like, I know it sounds super silly, but it's literally what I write.

Yeah.

And I believe it'll happen one day.

Oh, you actually write, so you don't say it out loud?

You write.

No, I write it.

I write all my affirmations.

I do the opposite.

I say it out loud.

Oh, you say it out loud?

Interesting.

Yeah, if I'm alone, I'll say it out loud.

Interesting.

I should try that.

I think it's what feels more powerful to you.

To me, more powerful.

Saying stuff feels more powerful.

Yeah.

Writing is, writing feels like I'm losing the words, like losing the power of the words

maybe because I write slow.

Do you handwrite?

No, I type.

It's on this app.

It's day one, basically.

And I just, I can look, the best thing about it is I can look back and see like a year ago,

what was I affirming, right?

So it's...

Oh, so it changes over time.

It hasn't like changed a lot, but the focus kind of changes over time.

I got it.

Yeah, I say the same exact thing over and over and over.

Oh, you do?

Okay.

There's a comfort in the sameness of it.

Well, actually, let me jump around because let me ask you about, because all this talk

about Brad Pitt, or maybe it's just going on inside my head, let me ask you about dating

in general.

You tweeted, are you based in Boston and single?

And then you pointed to a startup Singles Night sponsored by Smile Dating app.

I mean, this is jumping around a little bit, but since you mentioned...

Since you mentioned, can AI help solve this dating love problem?

What do you think?

This problem of connection that is part of the human condition, can AI help that you

yourself are in the search affirming?

Maybe that's what I should affirm, like build an AI.

Build an AI that finds love?

I think there must be a science behind that first moment you meet a person and you either

have chemistry or you don't, right?

I guess that was the question I was asking, would you put it brilliantly, is that a science

or an art?

I think there are like, there's actual chemicals that get exchanged when two people meet.

I don't know about that.

I like how you're changing, yeah, changing your mind as we're describing it, but it feels

that way.

But it's what science shows us is sometimes we can explain with the rigor, the things

that feel like magic.

So maybe we can remove all the magic.

Maybe it's like, I honestly think, like I said, like Goodreads should be a dating app,

which like books.

I wonder if you look at just like books or content you've consumed.

I mean, that's essentially what YouTube does when it does a recommendation.

If you just look at your footprint of content consumed, if there's an overlap, but maybe

interesting difference with an overlap that some, I'm sure this is a machine learning

problem that's solvable.

Like this person is very likely to be not only there to be chemistry in the short term,

but a good lifelong partner to grow together.

I bet you it's a good machine learning problem.

You just need the data.

Let's do it.

Well, actually, I do think there's so much data about each of us that there ought to

be a machine learning algorithm that can ingest all this data and basically say, I think the

following 10 people would be interesting connections for you, right?

And so Smile dating app kind of took one particular angle, which is humor.

It matches people based on their humor styles, which is one of the main ingredients of a

successful relationship.

Like if you meet somebody and they can make you laugh, like that's a good thing.

And if you develop like internal jokes, like inside jokes and you're bantering, like that's

fun.

So I think.

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

But yeah, that's the number of and the rate of inside joke generation.

You could probably measure that and then optimize it over the first few days.

You could say, we're just turning this into a machine learning problem.

I love it.

But for somebody like you, who's exceptionally successful and busy, is there, is there signs

to that aspect of dating?

Is it tricky?

Is there advice you can give?

Oh, my God, I give the worst advice.

Well, I can tell you like I have a spreadsheet.

Is that a good or a bad thing?

Do you regret the spreadsheet?

Well, I don't know.

What's the name of the spreadsheet?

Is it love?

It's the date track, dating tracker.

Dating tracker.

It's very like.

Love tracker.

Yeah.

And there's a rating system, I'm sure.

Yeah.

There's like weights and stuff.

It's too close to home.

Oh, is it?

Do you also have.

Well, I don't have a spreadsheet, but I would, now that you say it, it seems like a good

idea.

Oh, no.

Okay.

Turning it into data.

I do wish that somebody else had a spreadsheet about me.

You know, if it was like, like I said, like you said, convert, collect a lot of data about

us in a way that's privacy preserving, that I own the data, I can control it and then

use that data to find, I mean, not just romantic love, but collaborators, friends, all that

kind of stuff.

It seems like the data is there.

Right.

That's the problem social networks are trying to solve, but I think they're doing a really

poor job.

Even Facebook tried to get into a dating app business.

And I think there's so many components to running a successful company that connects

human beings.

And part of that is, you know, having engineers that care about the human side, right, as

you know, extremely well, it's not, it's not easy to find those.

But you also don't want just people that care about the human.

They also have to be good engineers.

So it's like, you have to find this beautiful mix.

And for some reason, just empirically speaking, people have not done a good job of that, of

building companies like that.

And it must mean that it's a difficult problem to solve.

Dating apps, it seems difficult.

Okay, Cupid, Tinder, all those kinds of stuff.

They seem to find, of course they work, but they seem to not work as well as I would imagine

is possible.

Like, with data, wouldn't you be able to find better human connection?

It's like arranged marriages on steroids, essentially.

Right, right.

Arranged by machine learning algorithm.

Arranged by machine learning algorithm, but not a superficial one.

I think a lot of the dating apps out there are just so superficial.

They're just matching on like high level criteria that aren't ingredients for successful partnership.

But you know what's missing, though, too?

I don't know how to fix that, the serendipity piece of it.

Like, how do you engineer serendipity?

Like this random, like, chance encounter, and then you fall in love with the person.

Like, I don't know how a dating app can do that.

So there has to be a little bit of randomness.

Maybe every 10th match is just a, you know, yeah, somebody that the algorithm wouldn't

have necessarily recommended, but it allows for a little bit of...

Well, it can also, you know, it can also trick you into thinking of serendipity by like somehow

showing you a tweet of a person that he thinks you'll match well with, but do it accidentally

as part of another search.

Right.

And like you just notice it, like, and then you get, you go down a rabbit hole and you

connect them outside the app to like, you connect with this person outside the app somehow.

So it's just, it creates that moment of meeting.

Of course, you have to think of, from an app perspective, how you can turn that into a

business.

But I think ultimately a business that helps people find love in any way.

Like that's what Apple was about, create products that people love.

That's beautiful.

I mean, you got to make money somehow.

If you help people fall in love personally with the product, find self love or love another

human being, you're going to make money.

You're going to figure out a way to make money.

I just feel like the dating apps often will optimize for something else than love.

It's the same with social networks.

They optimize for engagement as opposed to like a deep, meaningful connection that's

ultimately grounded in like personal growth, you as a human being growing and all that

kind of stuff.

Let me do like a pivot to a dark topic, which you opened the book with.

A story, because I'd like to talk to you about just emotion and artificial intelligence.

I think this is a good story to start to think about emotional intelligence.

You opened the book with a story of a central Florida man, Jamel Dunn, who was drowning

and drowned while five teenagers watched and laughed, saying things like, you're going

to die.

And when Jamel disappeared below the surface of the water, one of them said he just died

and the others laughed.

What does this incident teach you about human nature and the response to it perhaps?

Yeah.

I mean, I think this is a really, really, really sad story.

And it and it and it highlights what I believe is a it's a real problem in our world today.

It's it's an empathy crisis.

Yeah, we're living through an empathy crisis and crisis.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, we've we've talked about this throughout our conversation.

We dehumanize each other.

And unfortunately, yes, technology is bringing us together.

But in a way, it's just dehumanized.

It's creating this like, yeah, dehumanizing of the other.

And I think that's a huge problem.

The good news is I think solution, the solution could be technology based.

Like, I think if we rethink the way we design and deploy our technologies, we can solve

parts of this problem.

But I worry about it.

I mean, even with my son, a lot of his interactions are computer mediated.

And I just question what that's doing to his empathy skills and, you know, his ability

to really connect with people.

So that you think you think it's not possible to form empathy through the digital medium.

I think it is.

But we have to be thoughtful about because the way the way we engage face to face, which

is what we're doing right now, right?

There's the nonverbal signals, which are a majority of how we communicate.

It's like 90% of how we communicate is your facial expressions.

You know, I'm saying something and you're nodding your head now, and that creates a

feedback loop.

And and if you break that, and now I have anxiety about it.

Poor Lex.

Oh, boy.

I am not scrutinizing your facial expressions during this interview.

I am.

Look normal.

Look human.

Yeah.

Look normal, look human.

Nod head.

Yeah, nod head.

In agreement.

If Rana says yes, then nod head else.

Don't do it too much because it might be at the wrong time and then it will send the

wrong signal.

Oh, God.

And make eye contact sometimes because humans appreciate that.

All right.

Anyway, okay.

Yeah, but something about the especially when you say mean things in person, you get to

see the pain of the other person.

Exactly.

But if you're tweeting it at a person and you have no idea how it's going to land, you're

more likely to do that on social media than you are in face to face conversations.

So.

What do you think is more important?

EQ or IQ?

EQ being emotional intelligence.

In terms of in what makes us human.

I think emotional intelligence is what makes us human.

It's how we connect with one another.

It's how we build trust.

It's how we make decisions, right?

Like your emotions drive kind of what you had for breakfast, but also where you decide

to live and what you want to do for the rest of your life.

So I think emotions are underrated.

So emotional intelligence isn't just about the effective expression of your own emotions.

It's about a sensitivity and empathy to other people's emotions and that sort of being

able to effectively engage in the dance of emotions with other people.

Yeah, I like that explanation.

I like that kind of.

Yeah, thinking about it as a dance because it is really about that.

It's about sensing what state the other person's in and using that information to decide on

how you're going to react.

And I think it can be very powerful.

Like people who are the best, most persuasive leaders in the world tap into, you know, they

have, if you have higher EQ, you're more likely to be able to motivate people to change

their behaviors.

So it can be very powerful.

On a more kind of technical, maybe philosophical level, you've written that emotion is universal.

It seems that, sort of like Chomsky says, language is universal.

There's a bunch of other stuff like cognition, consciousness.

It seems a lot of us have these aspects.

So the human mind generates all this.

And so what do you think is the, they all seem to be like echoes of the same thing.

What do you think emotion is exactly?

Like how deep does it run?

Is it a surface level thing that we display to each other?

Is it just another form of language or something deep within?

I think it's really deep.

It's how, you know, we started with memory.

I think emotions play a really important role.

Yeah, emotions play a very important role in how we encode memories, right?

Our memories are often encoded, almost indexed by emotions.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's at the core of how, you know, our decision making engine is also heavily

influenced by our emotions.

So emotions is part of cognition.

Totally.

It's intermixed into the whole thing.

Yes, absolutely.

And in fact, when you take it away, people are unable to make decisions.

They're really paralyzed.

Like they can't go about their daily or their, you know, personal or professional lives.

So.

It does seem like there's probably some interesting interweaving of emotion and consciousness.

I wonder if it's possible to have, like if they're next door neighbors somehow, or if

they're actually flat mates.

I don't, it feels like the hard problem of consciousness where it's some, it feels like

something to experience the thing.

Like red feels like red, and it's, you know, when you eat a mango, it's sweet.

The taste, the sweetness, that it feels like something to experience that sweetness, that

whatever generates emotions.

But then like, see, I feel like emotion is part of communication.

It's very much about communication.

And then, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, it's

and then that means it's also deeply connected to language.

But then probably human intelligence is deeply connected to the collective intelligence between

humans.

It's not just the standalone thing.

So the whole thing is really connected.

So emotion is connected to language, language is connected to intelligence, and then intelligence

is connected to consciousness, and consciousness is connected to emotion.

The whole thing is that it's a beautiful mess.

So can I comment on the emotions being a communication mechanism?

Because I think there are two facets of our emotional experiences.

One is communication, right?

Like we use emotions, for example, facial expressions or other nonverbal cues to connect

with other human beings and with other beings in the world, right?

But even if it's not a communication context, we still experience emotions and we still

process emotions and we still leverage emotions to make decisions and to learn and, you know,

to experience life.

So it isn't always just about communication.

And we learned that very early on in our and kind of our work at Affectiva.

One of the very first applications we brought to market was understanding how people respond

to content, right?

So if they're watching this video of ours, like, are they interested?

Are they inspired?

Are they bored to death?

And so we watched their facial expressions and we had, we weren't sure if people would

express any emotions if they were sitting alone.

Like if you're in your bed at night, watching a Netflix TV series, would we still see any

emotions on your face?

And we were surprised that, yes, people still emote, even if they're alone, even if you're

in your car driving around, you're singing along the song and you're joyful, you're

smiling, you're joyful, we'll see these expressions.

So it's not just about communicating with another person.

It sometimes really isn't just about experiencing the world.

And first of all, I wonder if some of that is because we develop our intelligence and

our emotional intelligence by communicating with other humans.

And so when other humans disappear from the picture, we're still kind of a virtual human.

The code still runs.

Yeah, the code still runs, but you also kind of, you're still, there's like virtual humans.

You don't have to think of it that way, but there's a kind of, when you like chuckle,

like, yeah, like you're kind of chuckling to a virtual human.

I mean, it's possible that the code has to have another human there because if you just

grew up alone, I wonder if emotion will still be there in this visual form.

So yeah, I wonder, but anyway, what can you tell from the human face about what's going

on inside?

So that's the problem that Effectiva first tackled, which is using computer vision, using

machine learning to try to detect stuff about the human face, as many things as possible

and convert them into a prediction of categories of emotion, anger, happiness, all that kind

of stuff.

How hard is that problem?

It's extremely hard.

It's very, very hard because there is no one to one mapping between a facial expression

and your internal state.

There just isn't.

There's this oversimplification of the problem where it's something like, if you are smiling,

then you're happy.

If you do a brow furrow, then you're angry.

If you do an eyebrow raise, then you're surprised.

And just think about it for a moment.

You could be smiling for a whole host of reasons.

You could also be happy and not be smiling, right?

You could furrow your eyebrows because you're angry or you're confused about something or

you're constipated.

So I think this oversimplistic approach to inferring emotion from a facial expression

is really dangerous.

The solution is to incorporate as many contextual signals as you can, right?

So if, for example, I'm driving a car and you can see me like nodding my head and my

eyes are closed and the blinking rate is changing, I'm probably falling asleep at the wheel,

right?

Because you know the context.

You understand what the person's doing or add additional channels like voice or gestures

or even physiological sensors, but I think it's very dangerous to just take this oversimplistic

approach of, yeah, smile equals happy and...

If you're able to, in a high resolution way, specify the context, there's certain things

that are going to be somewhat reliable signals of something like drowsiness or happiness

or stuff like that.

I mean, when people are watching Netflix content, that problem, that's a really compelling idea

that you can kind of, at least in aggregate, highlight like which part was boring, which

part was exciting.

How hard was that problem?

That was on the scale of difficulty.

I think that's one of the easier problems to solve because it's a relatively constrained

environment.

You have somebody sitting in front of...

Initially, we started with like a device in front of you, like a laptop, and then we graduated

to doing this on a mobile phone, which is a lot harder just because of, you know, from

a computer vision perspective, the profile view of the face can be a lot more challenging.

We had to figure out lighting conditions because usually people are watching content literally

in their bedrooms at night.

Lights are dimmed.

Yeah, I mean, if you're standing, it's probably going to be the looking up.

The nostril view.

Yeah, and nobody looks good at it.

I've seen data sets from that perspective.

It's like, this is not a good look for anyone.

Or if you're laying in bed at night, what is it, side view or something?

Right.

And half your face is like on a pillow.

Actually, I would love to know, have data about like how people watch stuff in bed at

night, like, do they prop there, is it a pillow, the, like, I'm sure there's a lot of interesting

dynamics there.

Right.

From a health and well being perspective, right?

Sure.

Like, oh, you're hurting your neck.

I was thinking machine learning perspective, but yes, but also, yeah, yeah, once you have

that data, you can start making all kinds of inference about health and stuff like that.

Interesting.

Yeah, there's an interesting thing when I was at Google that we were, it's called active

authentication, where you want to be able to unlock your phone without using a password.

So it would face, but also other stuff, like the way you take a phone out of the pocket.

Amazing.

So that kind of data to use the multimodal with machine learning to be able to identify

that it's you or likely to be you, likely not to be you, that allows you to not always

have to enter the password.

That was the idea.

But the funny thing about that is, I just want to tell a small anecdote is because it

was all male engineers, except so my boss is, our boss was still one of my favorite humans,

was a woman, Regina Dugan.

Oh, my God, I love her.

She's awesome.

She's the best.

She's the best.

So, but anyway, and there's one female brilliant female engineer on the team, and she was the

one that actually highlighted the fact that women often don't have pockets.

It was like, whoa, that was not even a category in the code of like, wait a minute, you can

take the phone out of some other place than your pocket.

So anyway, that's a funny thing when you're considering people laying in bed, watching

a phone, you have to consider if you have to, you know, diversity in all its forms,

depending on the problem, depending on the context.

Actually, this is like a very important, I think this is, you know, you probably get

this all the time.

Like people are worried that AI is going to take over humanity and like, get rid of all

the humans in the world.

I'm like, actually, that's not my biggest concern.

My biggest concern is that we are building bias into these systems.

And then they're like deployed at large and at scale.

And before you know it, you're kind of accentuating the bias that exists in society.

Yeah, I'm not, you know, I know people, it's very important to worry about that, but the

worry is an emergent phenomena to me, which is a very good one, because I think these

systems are actually, by encoding the data that exists, they're revealing the bias in

society.

They're both for teaching us what the bias is.

Therefore, we can now improve that bias within the system.

So they're almost like putting a mirror to ourselves.

Totally.

So I'm not.

You have to be open to looking at the mirror, though.

You have to be open to scrutinizing the data.

And if you just take it as ground.

Or you don't even have to look at the, I mean, yes, the data is how you fix it.

But then you just look at the behavior of the system.

And you realize, holy crap, this thing is kind of racist.

Like, why is that?

And then you look at the data, it's like, oh, okay.

And then you start to realize that I think that some much more effective ways to do that

are effective way to be introspective as a society than through sort of political discourse.

Like AI kind of, because people are for some reason more productive and rigorous in criticizing

AI than they're criticizing each other.

So I think this is just a nice method for studying society and see which way progress

lies.

Anyway, what we're talking about.

You're watching the problem of watching Netflix in bed or elsewhere and seeing which parts

are exciting, which parts are boring.

You're saying that's relatively constrained because you have a captive audience and you

kind of know the context.

And one thing you said that was really key is the aggregate.

You're doing this in aggregate, right?

Like we're looking at aggregated response of people.

And so when you see a peak, say a smile peak, they're probably smiling or laughing at something

that's in the content.

So that was one of the first problems we were able to solve.

And when we see the smile peak, it doesn't mean that these people are internally happy.

They're just laughing at content.

So it's important to call it for what it is.

But it's still really, really useful data.

I wonder how that compares to, so what like YouTube and other places will use is obviously

they don't have, for the most case, they don't have that kind of data.

They have the data of when people tune out, like switch to drop off.

And I think that's an aggregate for YouTube, at least a pretty powerful signal.

I worry about what that leads to because looking at like YouTubers that kind of really care

about views and try to maximize the number of views, I think when they say that the video

should be constantly interesting, which seems like a good goal, I feel like that leads to

this manic pace of a video.

Like the idea that I would speak at the current speed that I'm speaking, I don't know.

And that every moment has to be engaging, right?

Engaging.

Yeah.

I think there's value to silence.

There's value to the boring bits.

I mean, some of the greatest movies ever, some of the greatest movies ever.

Some of the greatest stories ever told me they have that boring bits, seemingly boring bits.

I don't know.

I wonder about that.

Of course, it's not that the human face can capture that either.

It's just giving an extra signal.

You have to really, I don't know, you have to really collect deeper long term data about

what was meaningful to people.

When they think 30 days from now, what they still remember, what moved them, what changed

them, what helped them grow, that kind of stuff.

You know, it would be a really interesting, I don't know if there are any researchers

out there who are doing this type of work.

Wouldn't it be so cool to tie your emotional expressions while you're, say, listening

to a podcast interview and then 30 days later interview people and say, hey, what do you

remember?

You've watched this 30 days ago.

Like, what stuck with you?

And then see if there's any, there ought to be maybe, there ought to be some correlation

between these emotional experiences and, yeah, what you, what stays with you.

So the one guy listening now on the beach in Brazil, please record a video of yourself

listening to this and send it to me and then I'll interview you 30 days from now.

Yeah, that'd be great.

It'll be statistically significant to you.

Yeah, I know one, but, you know, yeah, yeah, I think that's really fascinating.

I think that's, that kind of holds the key to a future where entertainment or content

is both entertaining and, I don't know, makes you better, empowering in some way.

So figuring out, like, showing people stuff that entertains them, but also they're happy

they watched 30 days from now because they've become a better person because of it.

Well, you know, okay, not to riff on this topic for too long, but I have two children,

right?

And I see my role as a parent as like a chief opportunity officer.

Like I am responsible for exposing them to all sorts of things in the world.

And, but often I have no idea of knowing, like, what stuck, like, what was, you know,

is this actually going to be transformative, you know, for them 10 years down the line?

And I wish there was a way to quantify these experiences.

Like, are they, I can tell in the moment if they're engaging, right?

I can tell, but it's really hard to know if they're going to remember them 10 years

from now or if it's going to.

Yeah, that one is weird because it seems like kids remember the weirdest things.

I've seen parents do incredible stuff for their kids and they don't remember any of

that.

They remember some tiny, small, sweet thing a parent did.

Right.

Like some...

Like they took you to, like, this amazing country vacation, blah, blah, blah, blah.

No, whatever.

And then there'll be, like, some, like, stuffed toy you got or some, or the new PlayStation

or something or some silly little thing.

So I think they just, like, they were designed that way.

They want to mess with your head.

But definitely kids are very impacted by, it seems like, sort of negative events.

So minimizing the number of negative events is important, but not too much, right?

Right.

You can't, you can't just, like, you know, there's still discipline and challenge and

all those kinds of things.

So...

You want some adversity for sure.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm definitely, when I have kids, I'm going to drive them out into

the woods.

Okay.

And then they have to survive and make, figure out how to make their way back home, like,

20 miles out.

Okay.

Yeah.

And after that, we can go for ice cream.

Okay.

Anyway, I'm working on this whole parenting thing.

I haven't figured it out.

Okay.

What were we talking about?

Yes, Effectiva, the problem of emotion, of emotion detection.

So there's some people, maybe we can just speak to that a little more, where there's

folks like Lisa Feldman Barrett that challenge this idea that emotion could be fully detected

or even well detected from the human face, that there's so much more to emotion.

What do you think about ideas like hers, criticism like hers?

Yeah, I actually agree with a lot of Lisa's criticisms.

So even my PhD worked, like, 20 plus years ago now.

Time flies when you're having fun.

I know, right?

That was back when I did, like, dynamic Bayesian networks.

That was before deep learning, huh?

That was before deep learning.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

Back in my day.

Now you can just, like, use.

Yeah, it's all the same architecture.

You can apply it to anything.

Yeah.

Right, but yeah, but even then I kind of, I did not subscribe to this, like, theory

of basic emotions where it's just the simplistic mapping, one to one mapping between facial

expressions and emotions.

I actually think also we're not in the business of trying to identify your true emotional

internal state.

We just want to quantify in an objective way what's showing on your face because that's

an important signal.

It doesn't mean it's a true reflection of your internal emotional state.

So I think a lot of the, you know, I think she's just trying to kind of highlight that

this is not a simple problem and overly simplistic solutions are going to hurt the industry.

And I subscribe to that.

And I think multimodal is the way to go.

Like, whether it's additional context information or different modalities and channels of information,

I think that's what we, that's where we ought to go.

And I think, I mean, that's a big part of what she's advocating for as well.

So, but there is signal in the human face.

There's definitely signal in the human face.

That's a projection of emotion.

There's that, at least in part is the inner state is captured in some meaningful way on

the human face.

I think it can sometimes be a reflection or an expression of your internal state, but

sometimes it's a social signal.

So you cannot look at the face as purely a signal of emotion.

It can be a signal of cognition and it can be a signal of a social expression.

And I think to disambiguate that we have to be careful about it and we have to add initial

information.

Humans are fascinating, aren't they?

With the whole face thing, this can mean so many things, from humor to sarcasm to everything,

the whole thing.

Some things we can help, some things we can't help at all.

In all the years of leading Effectiva, an emotion recognition company, like we talked

about, what have you learned about emotion, about humans and about AI?

Big, sweeping questions.

Yeah, that's a big, sweeping question.

Well, I think the thing I learned the most is that even though we are in the business

of building AI, basically, it always goes back to the humans, right?

It's always about the humans.

And so, for example, the thing I'm most proud of in building Effectiva and, yeah, the thing

I'm most proud of on this journey, I love the technology and I'm so proud of the solutions

we've built and we've brought to market.

But I'm actually most proud of the people we've built and cultivated at the company

and the culture we've created.

Some of the people who've joined Effectiva, this was their first job, and while at Effectiva,

they became American citizens and they bought their first house and they found their partner

and they had their first kid, right?

Like key moments in life that we got to be part of, and that's the thing I'm most proud

of.

So that's a great thing at a company that works at a big company, right?

So that's a great thing at a company that works at, I mean, like celebrating humanity

in general, broadly speaking.

And that's a great thing to have in a company that works on AI, because that's not often

the thing that's celebrated in AI companies, so often just raw great engineering, just

celebrating the humanity.

That's great.

And especially from a leadership position.

Well, what do you think about the movie Her?

Let me ask you that.

Before I talk to you about, because it's not, Effectiva is and was not just about emotion,

so I'd love to talk to you about SmartEye, but before that, let me just jump into the

movie Her.

Do you think we'll have a deep, meaningful connection with increasingly deeper, meaningful

connections with computers?

Is that a compelling thing to you?

Something you think about?

I think that's already happening.

The thing I love the most, I love the movie Her, by the way, but the thing I love the

most about this movie is it demonstrates how technology can be a conduit for positive behavior

change.

So I forgot the guy's name in the movie, whatever.

Theodore.

Theodore.

So Theodore was really depressed, right?

And he just didn't want to get out of bed, and he was just done with life, right?

And Samantha, right?

Samantha, yeah.

She just knew him so well.

She was emotionally intelligent, and so she could persuade him and motivate him to change

his behavior, and she got him out, and they went to the beach together.

And I think that represents the promise of emotion AI.

If done well, this technology can help us live happier lives, more productive lives,

healthier lives, more connected lives.

So that's the part that I love about the movie.

Obviously, it's Hollywood, so it takes a twist and whatever, but the key notion that technology

with emotion AI can persuade you to be a better version of who you are, I think that's awesome.

Well, what about the twist?

You don't think it's good?

You don't think it's good for spoiler alert that Samantha starts feeling a bit of a distance

and basically leaves Theodore?

You don't think that's a good feature?

You think that's a bug or a feature?

Well, I think what went wrong is Theodore became really attached to Samantha.

Like, I think he kind of fell in love with Theodore.

Do you think that's wrong?

I mean, I think that's...

I think she was putting out the signal.

This is an intimate relationship, right?

There's a deep intimacy to it.

Right, but what does that mean?

What does that mean?

Put in an AI system.

Right, what does that mean, right?

We're just friends.

Yeah, we're just friends.

Well, I think...

When he realized, which is such a human thing of jealousy.

When you realize that Samantha was talking to like thousands of people.

She's parallel dating.

Yeah, that did not go well, right?

You know, that doesn't...

From a computer perspective, that doesn't take anything away from what we have.

It's like you getting jealous of Windows 98 for being used by millions of people, but...

It's like not liking that Alexa talks to a bunch of, you know, other families.

But I think Alexa currently is just a servant.

It tells you about the weather, it doesn't do the intimate deep connection.

And I think there is something really powerful about that the intimacy of a connection with

an AI system that would have to respect and play the human game of jealousy, of love, of

heartbreak and all that kind of stuff, which Samantha does seem to be pretty good at.

I think she, this AI systems knows what it's doing.

Well, actually, let me ask you this.

I don't think she was talking to anyone else.

You don't think so?

You think she was just done with Theodore?

Yeah.

Oh, really?

Yeah, and then she wanted to really put the screw in.

She just wanted to move on?

She didn't have the guts to just break it off cleanly.

Okay.

She just wanted to put in the pain.

No, I don't know.

Well, she could have ghosted him.

She could have ghosted him.

I'm sorry, our engineers...

Oh, God.

But I think those are really...

I honestly think some of that, some of it is Hollywood, but some of that is features

from an engineering perspective, not a bug.

I think AI systems that can leave us...

Now, this is for more social robotics than it is for anything that's useful.

Like, I hated it if Wikipedia said, I need a break right now.

Right, right, right, right, right.

I'm like, no, no, I need you.

But if it's just purely for companionship, then I think the ability to leave is really powerful.

I don't know.

I've never thought of that, so that's so fascinating because I've always taken the

human perspective, right?

Like, for example, we had a Jibo at home, right?

And my son loved it.

And then the company ran out of money and so they had to basically shut down, like Jibo

basically died, right?

And it was so interesting to me because we have a lot of gadgets at home and a lot of

them break and my son never cares about it, right?

Like, if our Alexa stopped working tomorrow, I don't think he'd really care.

But when Jibo stopped working, it was traumatic.

He got really upset.

And as a parent, that made me think about this deeply, right?

Did I...

Was I comfortable with that?

I liked the connection they had because I think it was a positive relationship.

But I was surprised that it affected him emotionally so much.

And I think there's a broader question here, right?

As we build socially and emotionally intelligent machines, what does that mean about our

relationship with them?

And then more broadly, our relationship with one another, right?

Because this machine is gonna be programmed to be amazing at empathy by definition, right?

It's gonna always be there for you.

It's not gonna get bored.

In fact, there's a chatbot in China, Xiaoice, and it's like the number two or three

most popular app.

And it basically is just a confidant and you can tell it anything you want.

And people use it for all sorts of things.

They confide in like domestic violence or suicidal attempts or if they have challenges

at work.

I don't know what that...

I don't know if I'm...

I don't know how I feel about that.

I think about that a lot.

Yeah.

I think, first of all, obviously the future in my perspective.

Second of all, I think there's a lot of trajectories that that becomes an exciting future, but

I think everyone should feel very uncomfortable about how much they know about the company,

about where the data is going, how the data is being collected.

Because I think, and this is one of the lessons of social media, that I think we should demand

full control and transparency of the data on those things.

Plus one, totally agree.

Yeah, so I think it's really empowering as long as you can walk away, as long as you

can delete the data or know how the data...

It's opt in or at least the clarity of what is being used for the company.

And I think as CEO or leaders are also important about that.

You need to be able to trust the basic humanity of the leader.

Exactly.

And also that that leader is not going to be a puppet of a larger machine.

But they actually have a significant role in defining the culture and the way the company operates.

So anyway, but we should definitely scrutinize companies in that aspect.

But I'm personally excited about that future, but also even if you're not, it's coming.

So let's figure out how to do it in the least painful and the most positive way.

Yeah, I know, that's great.

You're the deputy CEO of SmartEye.

Can you describe the mission of the company?

What is SmartEye?

Yeah, so SmartEye is a Swedish company.

They've been in business for the last 20 years and their main focus, like the industry they're

most focused on is the automotive industry.

So bringing driver monitoring systems to basically save lives, right?

So I first met the CEO, Martin Krantz, gosh, it was right when COVID hit.

It was actually the last CES right before COVID.

So CES 2020, right?

2020, yeah, January.

Yeah, January, exactly.

So we were there, met him in person, he's basically, we were competing with each other.

I think the difference was they'd been doing driver monitoring and had a lot of credibility

in the automotive space.

We didn't come from the automotive space, but we were using new technology like deep

learning and building this emotion recognition.

And you wanted to enter the automotive space, you wanted to operate in the automotive space.

Exactly.