Cleo Abram Answers The Web's Most Searched Questions

WIRED

Video journalist and creator of ‘Huge If True’ Cleo Abram visits WIRED to answer her most searched questions from Google. Is Cleo Abram a scientist? How often has she collaborated with MKBHD? Does Cleo Abram have a podcast? Why does she love quantum computing? What has Cleo Abram learned about AI and AI music? Does she have a dog? Cleo Abram answers all of these questions and more on the WIRED Autocomplete Interview.  Director: Justin Wolfson  Director of Photography: Charlie Jordan  Editor: Evan Allan Talent: Cleo Abram Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi Associate Producer: Brandon White  Production Manager: Peter Brunette Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark Talent Booker: Mica Medoff Camera Operator: Christopher Eustache Sound Mixer: Sean Paulsen Production Assistant: Sonia Butt Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen Assistant Editor: Andy Morell

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Cleo Abram, and this is the Wired Autocomplete Interview.

00:06Cleo Abram podcast? Oh, that's so cool. I don't have one.

00:14All right, what does Cleo Abram do? I'm a YouTuber. I make a show called Huge If True.

00:20It's a really optimistic show about technology and science and how we can use both of those

00:25things to make the world better. No, I'm a journalist, which means I get to talk to

00:31scientists all the time about the things that they know best and that they are most passionate

00:35about. And then my job is to try to better understand the context and explain how that

00:42science applies to people like you and me. It's my home base. It's my creative home.

00:48I've been on YouTube for maybe seven or eight years now and love what I do so, so much. All

00:55right, Cleo Abram, Boston Dynamics. I went to visit Boston Dynamics and got to meet and also

01:01shove their humanoid robot named Atlas, who has since been retired. They have a new humanoid

01:06robot now, which I would love to go meet. When I shoved this robot, it reacted almost like a human

01:12would in the sense that it stumbled backward on one of its legs and caught itself. The difference

01:17was that I was shoving it incredibly hard. I felt genuinely guilty about shoving this humanoid robot

01:23and it recovered beautifully every single time. I couldn't physically shove it over. And then

01:29actually, because I felt so guilty, I asked one of the Boston Dynamics engineers to shove me in

01:35the same way I had shoved Atlas. I didn't fall over, but I did stumble back quite a bit farther

01:39than Atlas did. I thought you said you were going to ask to give it a hug. I should have asked to

01:45give it a hug. I don't know if they would have allowed me to hug it next time. Cleo Abram and MKBHD,

01:51I've collaborated with Marques a couple of times. One episode on quantum computing, which was

01:57awesome. We got to go see IBM's quantum computer. It helps me better understand why the heck people

02:02are talking about quantum computing as a scary thing that's going to interrupt all encryption

02:07and we have to get ready for it, et cetera, et cetera. And also somehow it's going to help

02:11scientific progress. One of the answers to that question is that to model quantum dynamics,

02:16it may or may not be helpful to have a quantum computer. That's one area people are really

02:19excited about. So we went and we saw these quantum computers that look like the craziest chandeliers

02:24you've ever seen in your life. If there's ever an old quantum computer that no one ever wants

02:28anymore, I would love to hang it in my house. Cleo Abram AI. I'm real. I'm interested in AI.

02:34I think that there are lots of applications that could make people's lives better and lots that

02:39I'm concerned about. So for example, I did a story recently where I talked about AlphaFold.

02:44AlphaFold tries to better predict the shape of a protein by its amino acid basis, which is

02:49important because you can then create better medicines for people more quickly. On the flip

02:53side, I talk a lot about AI and the need to find the right balance between using it for good and

03:00confining its worst applications. For example, I made a video for Vox about deep fakes and the use

03:07of deep fakes on the Internet. I have made a video that I'm really proud of that tries to explore

03:13how AI is being used in music and what the implications might be for artists and musicians.

03:19AI music. I find this area totally fascinating. I have spoken with the CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek,

03:25about this at length. I think the general topic of AI music is obviously thorny and nuanced. If you

03:32get more and more specific, you start to see really interesting things in the way the technology

03:37actually works, the way that it's trained, the way that it might help or hurt musicians in the future.

03:43One of the things that I think is important for people to understand about AI music is

03:47the music industry actually has pretty detailed systems for how to treat things like sampling or

03:54referencing previous music and previous music tracks in existing songs. There's sort of a flow

04:00chart of whether you're specifically drawing from the actual recording of the song, which requires

04:07a certain kind of licensing fee, or you're drawing from the composition, which requires something

04:13else. And so the question of who gets paid based on what you were inspired by and what the end

04:18result is of your music has actually been, I won't say well answered because it's constantly being

04:23debated within the music industry, but there are lots and lots of rules for this. And so the

04:26interesting question that I've done a lot of research on and made videos about is how does AI

04:32music either fit into the already existing music system for paying artists and making sure that

04:37people can also be inspired by what they hear versus where does it actually break that system

04:42and where do we need new rules. Cleo Abrams CERN. I went to visit CERN recently. I got to see what's

04:48called the Large Hadron Collider, which is this enormous underground tunnel, basically, where they

04:53have a smaller tube that they send protons flying around in opposite directions and they speed them

05:00up faster and faster and faster. And then when they're going fast enough, they collide them

05:03together in these massive detectors so that they can better understand what kinds of particles were

05:09present close to the Big Bang and how did they relate to each other and how might we better

05:15understand the universe that we live in. This was a stretch for me because I had to try to understand

05:20particle physics and how the heck that would apply to my daily life, but it was so, so cool to

05:27see this enormous machine. That's fun. Okay. Cleo Abrams podcast. Oh, that's so cool. I don't have

05:37one. I didn't realize that this was a big search. Maybe now I'll start a podcast. I've been thinking

05:42about it because I do these long interviews with people, some of the most interesting people to me

05:48in the world, and I end up with like two hours of conversation, but then I only use maybe six or

05:53seven minutes in my videos because it's a pretty tightly crafted story. So I've been thinking about

05:57how to make those into a podcast, but I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet. Cleo Abrams

06:03Twitter. I mean, I do think Twitter is a really important place for discourse between people who

06:10have something to share. So whether that's a specific scientific area, I know artists that

06:15are sort of sharing things back and forth on Twitter. I'm a part of some specific communities

06:20that help each other do research. And so when I have a topic area in mind, I will very often go

06:26to Twitter and or X, what are we calling it now? And search for that topic and DM people who seem

06:31to be talking about that topic from a scientific perspective and try to better understand it.

06:36Cleo Abrams space suit. I tried on NASA's new space suit that they're planning to use to take

06:41the next humans to the moon. It was awesome. And it was really, really heavy. They didn't share

06:46exactly what the weight was. It was maybe 150 pounds, 160 pounds. I was actually hanging a

06:52little bit from straps on the ceiling to mimic what it would feel like if I were actually on

06:57the moon. I think the request from NASA to a company called Axiom Space, which built the

07:02actual space suits was that they needed to make a suit that could fit I think 90% of the American

07:08population, which is a big ask. And I believe that they succeeded. This space suit is very,

07:15very cool. Cleo Abram X-59. I went to see a supersonic plane. And the thing about supersonic

07:22planes is that we used to have them and now we don't. So the Concorde was very famous supersonic

07:26plane that used to take people on flights over water. And the reason why they could only go over

07:32water was supersonic planes are super loud. You might've heard of a sonic boom. The thing that I

07:37didn't fully understand before I began doing research into supersonic planes is that a

07:41supersonic boom doesn't just happen once. It's not a boom when they cross the sound barrier,

07:45it's a boom that happens the whole time over everywhere they fly over. So if there were

07:51supersonic planes going back and forth over us right now, we would hear sort of a car door

07:56slamming a little while away over and over and over again, that can get really annoying. And so

08:00the FAA banned the use of supersonic planes over land and a bunch of other countries did the same,

08:05which hurt the business of supersonic planes, which meant they were only flying over the ocean,

08:08which meant that eventually the Concorde shut down. The X-59 is a new plane that NASA is working on

08:14to try and see if we can bring back supersonic planes by making them quieter. If you look at

08:18this plane, it's very, very long and it's flat on the bottom. And what they're trying to do is send

08:23all of the sound waves up so that they go away from people on the ground who might hear them.

08:28Cleo Abrams, Apple Vision Pro. I made a video about it. I think the Apple Vision Pro is an

08:33interesting example of the path toward a future that I would love to see with VR and AR and the

08:40way that those technologies actually feel to you and me. What I was most excited about was AR or VR

08:47or any of these tools as the next step in the progression from telegram to telephone to phone

08:55telegram to telephone to FaceTime to feeling like you're actually in person with someone.

09:02Cleo Abrams, quantum computing. I love quantum computers. They're so crazy looking and so

09:06fascinating. When I was doing research on quantum computers, I spoke to a quantum physicist who gave

09:14me an analogy that I really, really love, which is I was thinking about quantum computers as a

09:18more powerful computer, but that's really not the way to think about it. It's not that we're

09:23going to have quantum iPhones in the near future. It's much more likely that scientists and

09:28researchers are going to use quantum computers to explore other areas. And the analogy that the

09:34physicist gave me was if you think about the progress up until this point of computers as

09:39making cars faster and faster, he said the better way to think about quantum computers is that they

09:44are not faster cars, they're boats. And so it allows us, hopefully, to explore other different

09:51areas. And there would be things that a normal computer is good for and things that a quantum

09:56computer is good for. For example, exploring the quantum physics that is at the core of most of the

10:03biological world. A quantum computer might be able to really help with that in ways that a normal

10:07computer might not. Cleo Abram Emmy. A show that I was part of on YouTube called Glad You Asked

10:14was nominated for an Emmy. I sat on a computer and looked at the ceremony. So this must have been

10:20during lockdowns. We didn't win. Cleo Abram dog. My dog is the best. His name is Thor. He's a

10:2810 pound, probably Australian shepherd. He's the cutest thing to ever exist. And I'm just,

10:34he's the best. That's all the boards. Those questions were great. A lot of them were about

10:40topics that we've covered on the show. I love the question about my dog because I could talk to you

10:44about him all the time. See you next time.

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