Out of the Blue-ness with Wendy Liebman (Part 2)

Consciousness, comedy, and AI collide in a way we didn’t expect. The conversation continues with Wendy Liebman as we discuss the future of intelligence, from quantum consciousness theories and microtubules as memory storage to the provocative idea of the universe as a kind of eternal information system.

That spiritual curiosity quickly meets real-world stories and raises a common question: where does consciousness go, and what exactly is a memory? We follow that thread straight into AI, collective consciousness, and why modern tools feel like both progress and a test of our values. 

Wendy also shares how AI can function like a powerful research assistant, from training dogs to helping surface possible answers when experts cannot. Then we argue about the hot zone: AI use in art, music, design, and comedy. Is it a new brush, a new aesthetic, or a job-killer?

Transcript

Part Two Kickoff

SPEAKER_03 0:23

And now, part two of our conversation with Wendy Liebman. But I do feel very much strongly about um of love and I'm in favor of uh connection, I'm in favor of uh peace and harmony and and and right righteousness, you know. I I you know my I people say to me, I have friends that are agnostic, friends that are atheists, and friends that are total believing a higher power strongly. No, I'm I'm not sure where I am, but I think what I am for out of the blue, I am and I'm I want to learn, I I want to discover, and I'm hungry to understand what is this higher power, if there is one. And I think there is one because a lot of evidence has been coming out lately. These two uh I was speaking speaking to somebody, um very erudite guy, and he knows his stuff about physics, and there's these two people that had this theory a neurologist, a super famous uh neuroscientist, and uh and an anesthesiologist, and they did a talk, and they have this theory about the human brain being a quantum computer, and that there are these microtubules in the brain, they're so small. I mean micro tubules, they're small, and but they're all throughout your brain, and that's where our memories are stored. That's our little memory, our uh memory, you know, like our hard drive, I guess, whatever. And then it all gets stored in there, and then when a human, and then they said they went on to further say that the universe itself is a quantum computer, and that the only the and then they went one more step. This guy, this famous uh neuroscientist, um neurosurgeon or whatever he was from England. I'll send you the stuff. You can look it up. I love that. He said that um he said that he partially that this universal mind, this just universe of a mind of quantum computer, was eternal. Like it did not have a beginning or an end. It just a lot, it was eternal, immortal, he called it. And he said that they now they could they put it all together. They said, now we're saying that when the the guy that's the anesthyologist looks at brainwaves all day long, you know, because that's what they that's where they live, trying to track what he just wants to know where's the seat of consciousness in the human body and human brain. So he was saying that at the point of death, all that that make their memories in those microtubules don't go away because it's not in physics, matter cannot be it never can be destroyed, and it can only be transformed. And so he they were saying that that information goes into the great quantum computer of the universe.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Wow, right? So it's like AI a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Uh AI is like it. It AI is like it. AAI is sort of imitating it, right? I mean, I think we're getting close to understanding that's probably what AI is. It's sort of a um evolution of uh collective consciousness, yeah.

Near-Death Stories And What Persists

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Right, exactly. I have two, I have a couple of thoughts about that. That's so fascinating. Um, I would love to read that. I'll show you the stuff. I'll send you the little stuff. Okay, yeah. Um, so my husband has been listening to a lot of near-death experience, YouTube videos, accounts, and he said that sometimes a person will die on the operating table and then they'll be revived. But in the meantime, when they come back, they remember seeing the whole thing. They're above it, let's see the and not like knowing facts in a different room. And it's amazing stuff, yeah. And I believe that, I believe that I even saw it depicted in like some drama show that I was watching that the guy saw they thought he was dead, it was his children, and they were shitting on him and saying what a bad parent he was. And when he came back, he like realized he cut them out of the will basically. When he came back.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

That's why he came back.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Right, yeah, just because I wanted to talk about AI a little bit because I actually love AI, not to write jokes.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

No, well, you know, if it works, use it. What the hell is a tool? It's like Google for me.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

That's what it is, but is it has taught me how to train my dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Diagnosed a physical problem that I have that the best doctors in LA could not analyze.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

In fucking credible.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Because it's taken in all the knowledge that AI is accessible, accessible to, right? Right. And one doctor, two doctors, they don't.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

But I felt like when I said AI, I felt like maybe you didn't like AI. Oh no, not me. Okay.

When AI Collides With Art

SPEAKER_00 5:38

I totally push against it, I'll be honest. Okay. But I like it for those reasons. Like I've I've heard a I mean, I so I don't know if you know Stavros Halkias. He's he's a comedian. He's what he's one of my faves at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Oh, let me write that down.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah, Stavro, Stavbi Baby is his podcast. But anyway, he he brought up once, and it stuck with me that like AI should be doing these things that are like laborious, things that are like technical, things that um I guess are yeah, like are more robotic, and yet it's being used so much in the art space instead. And so it seems like it, I mean, I'm sure you've heard this too. It seems like it's sort of being used to take away opportunities for artists as opposed to taking away like manual labor and things that put people in danger that like I don't know. I will say I don't I don't love its use in art. I even push up against uh Big Vernon over here using it in his music, but I do understand that it is an incredibly powerful tool and using it for like to access information and to have it take all this information and like distill it into like sentences that feel like very easy to understand, like they feel human, it's artificial intelligence, you know, that is really powerful and cool. I don't think it could ever replace like the soul of an artist. And it's like we're saying it is the it is the uh like uh technological um microcosm of like the the universe of of the universe birthing humans that then tap into a collective unconsciousness. It feels like the tech version of that, which is still super fascinating and incredibly powerful. I just want us to use it for good and not use it for you know slop.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

You know, I gotta I gotta my opinion about this stuff is I think that a tool is a tool, and if you if the artist or the and engineer or the person building things that has tedious stuff, you use the tool. If you if the tool uses you, you're not doing anything. But if if you find a tool, I think that AI is no different than different pigments and different types of brushes that Michelangelo was using. That back in his day, the other artists were saying he's doing stuff that's not classically right, he has to do the way we do it with the old rag and uh and the certain stuff that we make red out of. He can't do that other stuff. That's too modern. And and then the in the church would be into uh using English to to to um uh with the the Bible. The Bible's first um was always in Latin. When it when they came out and when Martin Luther turned it into English, he was he was burned because that that was that AI at the time. English was like a universal language. It made the thing that was untouchable to the common people, the only priests and and the clergy could access. It made it so that anybody could. What's this what people complain about? AI? That a five-year-old can write a song. Well, why not? If that five-year-old has a good eye fucking deer, let him write it. You know what I mean? I mean, for my for my money, they're going no. For my money, he's not gonna, okay. No, I have a guy's gonna write it. It's not gonna be the five-year-old, okay. But I've seen prodigies. I had a show called All You Need Is Music about 15, 20 years ago, and we used to have a prodigy sign. We had this girl, Emily, who was uh eight or seven years old, and sit at the piano and blow your friggin' minds with what her fingers could do. I mean, she played these pieces from with 64th notes going, you know, and like what you know. That's a but you see, you hear it and you go, it's like hearing a parrot. You know, it's there's no feeling there, they don't know what they're actually doing. But do they though? Maybe they're born into this, into their body as a prodigy, and they actually do. So I don't know. So that's that's the mystery. Maybe that five-year-old who's able to master the tool of AI and write a really good song is special. But I don't think a five-year-old is going to do that. I really don't.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

I think it's like a five-year-old skateboard prodigy cannot use AI to become good at skateboarding, right? They need to develop the skill and like you know, use their human brain as like the the new sponge that it is to take in all this information, and then it's like a you know, it's a completely different thing. But I so I was gonna say it's a bit of a tangent here. I I agree with you in a lot of ways, like, and we can get we'll get this back to you, Wendy, because I I do want to hear what you think uh after hearing both our sides here.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Father son bed, yeah.

Dependence, Skill, And New Freedom

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, I mean, this is this is the tip of the iceberg with this conversation, obviously. But um I think like you're saying with like you know, people using new brushes or airbrush instead of paintbrushes, it's like, why would you use this new tool? It's not the classical thing. It's it reminds me of how um the flaws of a medium a few years later or like decades later or whatever become the aesthetic, become an aesthetic.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Like like a record that skips.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yes, yeah, or like the like the the crackle of a record, how we will artificially put that in. Like how an iPhone makes a it's like kids don't even know why it does that, but it it's it's become like the the um the essence of this time period, and then it becomes this like beautiful aesthetic. So I think that in a lot of ways AI can and will become an aesthetic. Like this type of like synthesized photograph is going to definitely be used by like super progressive artists, and it is being used, and even in the music, but it's not it's not what makes the art, it's it's like a relic of the human evolution with art. You know what I'm saying? Like it's part of it's part of the conversation we have with the soul of what makes art, but it's not the soul of the art, it's an aesthetic. I'd say I think using it for that is really cool.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

I'm gonna say one more thing, and then Lendy, you take over. No, that's I'm gonna say that the one thing that I think about AI, when you're using it to write anything, whether you're writing a uh uh a thesis or anything, your your idea has to be very powerful. If it isn't, you you're not writing it. And it won't, and when you read it back, you will not get that thingy. You you won't do it, and like use it for like Google. Like when I when I want to find something out, I really use it. Like I was trying to put a business plan together, and I was doing all the research. They said, wait a minute, let me ask AI. And I put in all the things I wanted to know about this business plan, what I needed, what I want to be, you know, every parameter I could think of, and it cranked out a viable business plan. And it was like I could have gone to a business specialist and he maybe would have done that, but I mean, I got it in a minute, but it took me took me an hour to accumulate all that information that I wanted. The work was there, but I don't think AI is is if you use it correctly, it's as a tool. I'm not afraid of it personally. I I think I I would I would only be afraid if I was gonna let it do the work. That to me, you know, I don't want to do it.

Comedy, Prompts, And What AI Misses

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Right. Somebody said to me the other day, it's like having a best friend who's a great editor. Because I've I've put in um letters, professional letters that I wanted to send to professionals, and it, as you said, distills what I want to say clearly, and it and it'll say, Do you want this more friendly or do you want this? And I don't know, I don't. I want it to be a business letter, and so I'm still directing it. I'm telling it I don't want it to be friendly, right? Um but you put all the information in there that you wanted, first of all, right now, but I will never have it write a joke for me. Now, at the beginning of the whole AI, uh another person put in my jokes and with my knowledge, and she said, write a Wendy Liebman joke. And it took my jokes and added stupid taglines that weren't funny that were that explained the joke in the most obvious way. I mean, that was the joke, and it explained it. Um, and uh, okay, so every day on Facebook or every other day, I do something called joke writing prompt.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

I always love it. I always I'm always responding to it.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, like I'll say, um, my husband uh doesn't like me to put myself down. That might be a prompt. And then I'll write three punchlines, something like he would rather do it, like you know, something, and then up to 250 people will write a punchline.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

What now what's different than that's just like AI, in my opinion, but it's people doing it, it's people doing it.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

But what I have found is if I put that prompt into AI, I can see that some people use what AI spits.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

They got it from AI and gave it a I've only asked it a few times just to see. I thought, like, these are great. So my point is AI has gotten funnier over the years.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

It learns humor.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

I guess so it's machine learning. The thing is learning so fast every every second of every day. It's learning.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

But I won't let it write a joke for me. But here's the thing Vernon's I will AI cannot perform my comedy. Like it it can't. No, and AI can't party. Not a good hang. Right. So I'm not worried about AI. I'm using it as a tool, but I see your reluctance. Um can I call you three? I see Little Vernon is what I went by. I see the reluctance because it's dehumanizing. I you mentioned earlier maybe you don't like that your dad is using it for music.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

I get inspired by it, but I don't use it. I if it if I can't, if it isn't if I don't get I I use it almost the same way you use um Pro Tools when I write a drum part and I play the drums on my keyboard. I mean, it's the same thing. I'll do it once and I'll say I'll press repeat and it'll play the whole drum part. But every everybody's doing that. That's been around since the Pro Tools came about, which was 25 years ago. Like auto-tune and auto-tune. I don't like auto-tune. I feel it affects the voice in a fair weird way, but people use it as actually an instrument now. I mean, they they cannot sing, and they just play a melody and they'll they talk the words and the auto-tune sings it for them. Oh that I and people are using that in public releases. I mean, but they can't perform it live. No, they they use auto tune live. Oh, you can use it. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Wait, wait, whatn't I do want to know what you were gonna say, Wendy, because you're well just that I want I want to be validated.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

No, but maybe maybe um a younger person yourself doesn't like the idea of a machine replacing art. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I mean that's definitely or not even a younger person, just you, a person doesn't like the fact that a machine is doing graphic design and kicking somebody out of their job because they don't need they can just get a logo from AI now. Yeah, you don't that you don't need a logo.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

There's like a yeah, there's a there's a lot of skills that go into a lot of these things. Like um to I could play devil's advocate about the whole process of like gathering information being like an important skill and then um distilling it yourself and create and having your unique voice put it together is still an important skill that will help you like communicate with people, are articulate things you're feeling that you don't know how to put words to. If if you're dependent on this thing to like think for you and do work for you, people people like down the line in their career will get editors, will like earn receptionists or secretaries that handle the the early phases of coming up with an idea or whatever. You know, they earn that by like putting in this work by studying. Like I was an English major, which is you know the top ten top three most pretentious majors. So obviously I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

My husband was.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

So you get it, he's probably a nerd and and corrects you all the time. Um, but it's like that process is so fun, and it's like it helps, it's helped me so much. Uh like the process of like learning how to write and like reading and learning how to like take in information and come up with you know a way to distill it, like we're saying. That's a that's such a fun process, and it's an important process to like develop like wit and intelligence in like life. So I just you know, I'm just weary of like the I think the dependence on it and the ways that it can, you know.

Collective Memory And The Podcast Family

SPEAKER_01 20:38

But your dad and I can maybe attest to this, like the same with driverless cars. So they're not prevalent, there are a few on the road, but by the time I won't be physically able to drive anymore, I feel like there will be a driverless car, and I'll be the beneficiary of that at the right time. Like, so in a similar way, your dad who doesn't remember that he asked or he asked somebody a certain question, the computer is remembering it for him. It's almost like you know, they say families have a collective memory. And um well, this one does, let me tell you. Yeah, and maybe the computer is the AI is just a member of the family now.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

Well, that's what the out of the blue family is right now. I'm telling you, we are the out of the blue family, and every single human being that's been on the out of the blue podcast is part of that family, and it's part of that collective conscious. I swear, no lie, that's the way I feel.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Um I will add, real quick, to devil's advocate myself, I understand. I do. understand that and I think that it's sort of like time the waves of like modern modern times will change it'll just it's just like an inevitable change like these like things are gonna change technology is gonna advance and so now we are sort of we have a tool to cover certain bases okay now we have freedom in a different way and this freedom is like like it's like if you don't have to drive your car but you are you have a two hour drive you have this freedom to do other stuff to like think to maybe create or something so it's like accepting I think I'm I am begrudgingly accepting the fact that things are changing and we have this this newfound freedom so where are you gonna focus it? Am I gonna scroll Instagram for three hours because I have the freedom to not have to draft that business email which is you know something I didn't even want to do anyway. But like you just it's just part of like the the new times like there's there is an there is now a a void of I guess attention. What are we where are we gonna fill that void with?

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah that's a good is it going to be good is it going to be negative I'm scared I mean could could AI like resolve the divisiveness in the country I mean that's what we we needed to help help bring people together.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

Exactly um like for good like let's just like my husband always used to say to my stepson who now works with ai at Google use your intelligence for good like don't blow up the library or I mean I just use that example because somebody in my high school don't become an anarchist don't be an anarchist with exactly don't be an anarchist but you know but be a good one I will I will say you know you remind people I I what I love about AI as far as when it helping me with things of uh that are tedious as far as putting them uh researching into something and do uh getting the information I grew up at the time where I spent hours I mean hours and hours in the Boston Public Library going from book to book from microfiche and and then I would maybe maybe write a paper out of that insane we all did that yeah can you imagine and I had to get a ride to the library I had to take car uh the the trolley actually get on the train ride the trolley and I'd spend the entire day at the Pops Public Library and I was a nerd definitely but I got a's in all my projects and I did a science project and I but I did all that research so I really appreciate the fact that I can get the research done quickly right it's the same I use the same criteria that I used when I walked into the Boston Public Library if I didn't know what I wanted to get put together that place was useless and the same thing with AI.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yeah I mean you could say the same for Google too I I am I think Google's a form of AI.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

It's like the evolution of intelligence um and knowledge it's the evolution of knowledge. I remember not 15 years ago having to get home because I needed to check email and I didn't have email on my phone because I didn't have a phone yet. So I was always not anxious but anticipatory of getting home to check my email and now it's at my fingertips all day and I don't know is that good but it's it's helped in a lot of it's that yeah it's I'm I'm so glad that life has evolved like this so far. I mean I was a secretary in Boston at Radc at Radcliffe um and at Houghton Mifflin and I remember saying to my boss wouldn't it be great if I could put your Rolodex on the computer somehow I mean because I would just have to like go through the paper Rolodex to find somebody's telephone number.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

And now it's like that was you that came up with that I came up with that thank you.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Now I I did invent something called the moose brush but you remain you reminded me of coming home I used to come home ride home quickly and as soon as I turn on the computer I'd sit there while I was doing the handshake making the sounds and as soon as it came on you've got mail I mean that's what I was I would be dreading what email did I get oh no you know I'm looking forward to or dreading it was always it was never the it's an you brought that up Mendy that's incredibly timely because now we have right here right at our fingertips and it's such a powerful what a powerful computer it is.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Can I bring can I just have another full circle moment you know I think that partly what I fear is the dystopian future of like Wally you never see that movie where where again this is an example of people forgetting to love people and instead loving the things in front of them even if it even if the technology has created the convenience it still becomes like the thing that you are loving. So I do think maybe I maybe I am you know I'm just kind of like there's a rebelliousness about it but it is hypocritical because you know I don't want to go through a a the Dewey decimal system to do a like write a two page paper yeah brothers the Dewey Decimal system oh my gosh oh my god but as long as there's like still this focus on the human connection throughout all of the technological advances I think we'll be totally okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

That's interesting because I used to go to the library the Rosin Public Library um I grew up in Michael Crichton's hometown and apparently he didn't like the Rosalind Public Library so he would go to the next town over Michael Crichton who wrote Andromeda Strain and anyway I know that I love those books by the way I would go to the Roslin Public Library and I met like a friend there that I still have so I have a human connection from there. Okay so where are we gonna get human connections from now?

SPEAKER_03 29:02

Comedy clubs music venues I think that's art art and AI will never replace live musicians right never a live singer a live drummer a live anything no way you can't replace it.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Speaking of which I saw Jeff my husband and I watched a documentary the other night about um Gordon Lightfoot and I was never not a fan but I was never like a fan and now I'm like and now I'm like in love with him and his music and uh check it out if I loved Gordon Lightfoot yeah it's a great documentary he's a it was a Canadian. Yes mistake yes uh yeah I used to love his music it was very um and the thing that I got one of the things that I got from it is that he he was 80 at the time he's since passed away at 84 but he was 80 at the time of the documentary and he seemed to have a sense of humor that he didn't have when he was an art like growing up and performing he really seemed to have a sense of humor about himself as he got older so I don't I don't that that would be a takeaway.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Yeah so we'll recommend our viewers and listeners yeah go check out some uh Gordon Lightfoot but what's it a biography on Netflix or something or yeah or Amazon Prime Amazon remember where where where I'm much taller what what was the what was your age taller on TV I'm taller on TV you gotta check if you since we're wrapping up this wonderful hour with um with our dear friend Wendy don't forget to go to Amazon and check out I'm taller on TV because she is looking down she's definitely tall I mean no question about it you could be on the Lakers uh but um it's the forced perspective with that background you know maybe maybe and yeah I don't know what it is we've had some really interesting full circles then this conversation we have yeah I'm gonna have to write some takeaways yes write some takeaways because we'll we're gonna talk again when once a year isn't enough I don't think we're gonna get you back again oh well I I can only come up with like some pithy um statement once a year. Well you did but the what was the one this year was a it was a good year is that out of the blue can mean two things.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Oh that's it out of the blues.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

That is that is so great that you intentionally are coming up with like a catchphrase for the entire year. That is a test a true testament to your non-AI intelligence.

Final Takeaways And How To Connect

SPEAKER_03 31:45

That was from my brain that's it from her I believe AI could never Wendy I so really Wendy thank you so much and loved talking to you so wonderful having this company very nice meeting you heard meeting you thank you so much Wendy for joining us and be as usual the pregenitor of the out of the blue family mama out of the blue that's so thank you so I've had such a great time yeah we did too I did too okay thank you Wendy thank you for any thank you for joining us out of the blue see you again soon out of the blue the podcast hosted by me Vernon West co-hosted by Vernon West the third edited by Joe Gallo music and logo by Vernon West III have an out of the blue story of your own you'd like to share reach us at info at out of the bluepodcast dot org subscribe to out of the blue on Apple Podcasts Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and on our website out of the bluepodcast dot org you can also check us out on Patreon for exclusive content