Oppenheimer offers lessons on technologies' 'unintended consequences': Full Christopher Nolan

first person I want to bring out here uh the writer and director of this movie Christopher Nolan [Applause] we have the author of the book that this movie was based off that's called American uh Prometheus Kai bird one of the honorary chairs of this event a Nobel Prize winner and one of the people that taught Christopher physics here uh from Caltech Dr Kip Thorne thank you the current director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory who is sitting in the job Mr Oppenheimer Dr Oppenheimer sat in Dr Tom Mason [Applause] and we have the other tutor of physics for Mr Nolan here whose books uh Christopher tells me uh are just fantastic uh another honorary agent a world-renowned theoretical physicist Dr Carlo rivelli of ex-marsee foreign [Applause] Christopher thinks he's going to get the first question but he's not guy gets the first question it's his book you get to be the first critic here how did he do how did it come port with your portrayal how did it how do you feel as if the character you wrote about and researched and how did he portray him well I first want to say that I just wish Marty Sherwin was here my co-author on the book who would have been blown away it was you know Marty worked on this book for 25 years and uh when we learn from Christopher that he was doing this uh it was it was welcome news but we were skeptical I have to say why what because it's a it's hated so uh and then I had a meeting with Christopher and he explained what he was doing I came back and reported to Marty and uh reassured him that I thought that this was actually something special real and then he died two weeks later but he would have been just overwhelmed and pleased with what you've done it's a brilliant artistic creation and it's faithful to the book thank you that that's what I wanted to hear because that's what I want to do I was going to say I assume you did too there's nothing I love more as somebody who consumes a book than to sit there and watch the movie and criticize it um so Christopher why did you feel this movie needed to be made there was a great story you talked about your own kids and they were they were going why do we have to worry about nuclear weapons anymore this was before the for Russia invaded Ukraine uh and then your response was well this is why I have to make the movie yeah and and sadly with everything that's happening in the world right now no one's asking that question anymore um but to me you know there were two answers to that you know you know one is maybe that's a reason to make make the film um but the other is that the story itself uh particularly as found in in American Prometheus the story of Robert oppenheimer's life and obviously in particular his relationship the Manhattan Project but it's entirely involves some of the most dramatic elements that I've ever encountered in in any body's story fictional or or real and so for me everything really was about wanting to dive into his head you know really try and live his experience with him and in that way you know I want to talk to everybody Kelly and everyone involved with the film is you know we're trying to keep people in his point of view and in that way achieve understanding rather than judgment and the hope is that by achieving that and going through the story that way you sort of leave the film with some unsettling questions and some some troubling issues I mean I I right before you probably heard me say and I said you know it's okay I think if you feel this anxiety I felt a ton of anxiety uh after watching the film and as I shared with you the same anxiety I go home from work every day with about our current political situation our current state of our democracy I felt that after watching this movie and I assume that's exactly what you want yeah I mean I think the the idea of of addressing this story firstly a simple dramatic experience um it's it's a tricky word to use with the movie to say entertainment but the thing about Cinema the thing about a dramatic film as opposed to a documentary um is it's about engagement and it's about trying to give the audience an experience my feeling was that the experience of his life the experience of of what these events were and trying to understand trying to feel what it must have been like to be in these incredibly paradoxical situations would lead you to a place where you realize that we have tremendously troubling questions left at the end of it and the film does not pretend to offer any easy answers I mean the reality is as a filmmaker I don't have to offer the answers I just get to ask the most interesting questions um and but I do think there's tremendous value in that if it can resonate with the audience you know after they've seen it Tom Mason you run Los Alamos now I'm curious the Los Alamos scenes in the movie how familiar did it feel what's what's there today that would be familiar to us if we showed up there well I actually recognized a few faces in some of the scenes because there was a period in March where a large number of my staff were on vacation working as extras on the film but good you know Los Alamos in Northern New Mexico is a very special place uh I mean it's it's a dramatic place for dramatic events and and I think you saw some of that in the in the in the scenery in the film um and you know there's um the audience may not be aware of it but certainly Christopher is a lot of the buildings that were used Oppenheimer house is the same Oppenheimer house remarkably although it was sold after the war it was essentially unchanged and the woman who owned it passed away a couple years ago Fuller Lodge uh you know is is there there's actually a Manhattan Project National Historic Park and uh so it was it was for me fascinating to see these historic sites come alive uh you know and come come alive in a way where you know these are images that I I know you know I see them every day and pre before I was at Los Alamos I was in Oak Ridge and you know the story of the birth of those institutions is really important to all the people who work there and that's something that you could see really see reflected both in the in the scenery and the faces of the people who inhabited the space well it gives the most knowledgeable extras we've ever had this this scene where opinion comes in the back of of the meeting yeah and I was saying to the the extras not really thinking about where they were from you know well if you could all be arguing about you know the shift in geopolitical tension you know the use of the bomb is it going to be used against Germany but now we're talking about Japan could you just you know start shouting out you know whatever and normally you know you're saying to a group it's sort of rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb you know and we're hearing the most precise if you do this yeah and it's very uh and some very passionate about it I mean they really really got into it and and the truth is it was wonderful because it put us all on our toes same with the GSE meeting we had a couple of guys at that table who they knew a lot about what we were talking about and you know it gave you confidence because you had people there who knew I knew what you were doing um but it kept you on your toes as well well I was just going to say grade him on the on the science Kip and and Carlo um how's your student here how did he do with the physics uh Kip Thorne I think he did superbly well yes he always does I I worked with him very closely on Interstellar and uh among all the people I worked with in Hollywood he understands more science I think Having learned it by browsing the web than anybody else except Anne Hathaway [Laughter] Carla what would you like to add on that because portraying science and and making it you know compelling it's you know not easy I mean I we were talking about I mean the the marbles I guess they were marbles or stones or whatever showing the progress I mean that was a great obviously a great uh use there what did you think how did he how did he do in the science fair well actually um you just saw the movie and I'm still under the the the spell of the movie so first thing I think um Christopher I think you did a masterpiece I'm I'm strongly um affected by the movies I think it's wonderful um Chuck allow me to say that I think everybody should see this movie because uh not only because it's fantastic but because the what what it raises the kind of questions that it raises are not just about the 40s and about General issues about morality of scientists and things like that their questions they're burning questions today um the the the they don't say clock that um that uh is supposed to estimate the risk of nuclear catastrophe has never been closer to to McKnight so we are in a situation in which the kind of concerns um that Oppenheimer was expressing and in this confused way uh our our concerns today and I think this is what the movie brings out so strongly and open eyewear who keeps saying International cooperation it's the only way out uh seems to me a message that at least we should discuss more and more in a situation in which it seems that all the countries are going the opposite direction instead of looking for international cooperation um so much of international politics is about prevailing against one other being leading the world to being the one the the winning one against the other and the risk of a catastrophe is is enormous so I think the intensity of the movies also because uh um because it touches a real risk which is which is which is now and this image is in which um upename himself sees his friend being sort of burned alive I think she'll talk to all of that and make us think and that's why I think we should all see this movie let me just add one thing about the science it's not just simply the science itself but this scientific process that Chris has captured so beautifully the the central issue that it comes out in the in your book and then in the movie very strongly of of the contrast between the security system that needs compartmentalization and doing the science and doing the science successfully and doing the science quickly which requires openness it requires that people working on different aspects of the problem communicate about what they're working on because what this person is doing in that area will influence what happens with this person in this area and if you if you have a cardinalization you're dead you're able to take far far longer and this comes out very nicely in the movie It's it and that in some ways understanding that is in some ways more important than understanding the science that understanding the scientific process and how it works talk about I mean you you portrayed that what what was the hardest part of portraying the science what was your biggest challenge and what and and what how did you think was the best way to attack it well uh the hardest part was you know I visited the institute for vote study in Princeton to see about filming there and indeed they did very generously let us film that in Einstein's office and the real that you know they would walk by um but the the then director Robert Digraph another brilliant physicist who could sit on this panel and uh you he very generously gave me some of his time to talk about okay quantum physics to talk about the these things the Revolutionary nature of what oppenheim was visualizing because I wanted to jump in his head and and see these things and feel them to have some kind of almost threat to them that he's always having visions put it that way in order to make it clear to the audience the Revolutionary an almost magical nature of this shift from classical physics into to quantum physics and and in talking to to Robert he made it he said well of course one of the things that scientists at the time found alienating about this shift is you can no longer visualize the atom not to a filmmaker is about to try and film me yeah they're just going to say you get visualize it then it's a visual medium exactly so what do I do so he he generously gave me a couple hours he was sat there and talked about it and in the end you know I mean talking it through with him we sort of realized that the advantage the cinema has is I mean eisenstein referred to it in in editing many years ago is shot a plus shot B gives you thought C so you know it could be more the thought could be more than the sum of its parts the the whole and so I went to Andrew Jackson my visual effects supervisor of several films um showed him very early on and said okay we want to do these things without computer Graphics we want to have a thread of imagery sort of starting with these very first sort of Visions this sense of you know what these guys were doing is they were looking into dull matter seeing energy seeing energy that could ultimately be released in the destructive power of the atomic bomb and we wanted a kind of set of experimental visuals that could create this thread of what I kept referring to as sort of scintillating or vibrating energy that could mirror his own nervous State as well but also show you the the quantum physics as it manifests itself ultimately in the destructive power of the bomb speaking of the destructive power of the bomb you I I don't know why I expect Maybe maybe others did too I expected to see Carnage and there is imagery in fact I had to my son came with me to the screening and he was asking about that I said that's don't you remember the charred shadow that he walked through and all that I was explaining this to him but you didn't hit us over the head with it yeah that was clearly a choice why I think really as a filmmaker you you can't be overly conscious about why you you choose to do things you have to run on instinct to a degree but my feeling the feeling for me as a filmmaker was very strongly that to depart from oppenheimer's experience would betray the terms of the storytelling and so we saw so much more we know so much more than he did at the time discovering from Kai's book that he learned about the bombings of Hiroshima Nagasaki on the radio the same as the rest of the world that to me was a shock this is very intentional with this movie that this is most of the movie and and is is his point of view yeah and then when you're in black and white it's in strauss's point of view yeah yeah very very sort of rigidly with the color sequences everything everything is his experience or my interpretation of his experience because as I keep keep reminding everyone it's not a documentary it is an interpretation you know that's that's my job um and so I wanted to would you classify it as docudrama no I I think you're strong I think it's it's narrative dramatic filmmaking I think that whilst I do think the film is perhaps more accurate than some people might think you know coming to Fresh because there are sort of extraordinary things I mean to take one example you know when you read American Prometheus and you learn that you know his tutor at chem Patrick blackhead who's the guy played by James Darcy who he tries to poison right he later on is the first physicist to really write questioning America's motives and dropping a bomb on Japan now no screenwriter would invent that it's far too seemingly fanciful right but that's the truth and and the film is full of those things and so a lot of the things you know with Kitty Opera is testifying right you know that's from the transcript well I was just going to say having so much I mean that transcript you're handed yeah I mean thousand Pages imagine not having things no and I never would have taken the project on without Kai and Monty's incredible work I mean that that gave you sort of confidence um but yes to come back to the the choices of what to portray or not you know to me it's really about staying in his head there's also I would say a recurring Motif a minute you know deal too much in spoilers for people who haven't seen the film if people are writing about it but there's a lot to do with what he won't look at but my favorite with him closing his eyes my favorite retort though that you said about that you were worried about spoilers and then you said well there's Google right this all happened it's not like you know no don't tell anybody there's two bombs it's strange it's a strange thing to to say to talk about spoilers but of course and that's why it's it's not a drama I mean not a documentary or doctor drama because it's the way in which you know you receive the story that hopefully creates suspense hopefully creates surprise hi Heimer was he ever happy he doesn't I mean I I don't I didn't see a happy man in this movie ever well he's very intense and Killian Murphy plays him oh just very intensely it's it's an amazing performance and Robert Downey Jr too I think his performance and the dynamic between the two and I mean you've you've just captured that in the movie and I I want to make a point that Christopher I was stunned to realize that Christopher had done his own research with regard to the testimony at the end of the movie about the the mysterious scientist X who testifies against straws yeah uh Hill Chris Hill uh you found that and I that's the Rami Malek and Marty and I uh write a little bit about the straws hearing and how he went down to defeat but we didn't bother to look at the test the confirmation transcript and Christopher did anyway it's it's uh it's I think an amazing performance and captures the did he ever find peace But to answer your question yeah was he ever happy you know he was happy when he was on Horseback in New Mexico he was happy when he was sailing in the Caribbean in the same in Saint John where he spent you know he retreated that's where he sort of exiled too right he's self-exiled to Saint John after that summer of 1954. he took his family on a sailing trip and then he fell in love with Saint John and bought a piece of property down there right on the beach and built a very Spartan cabin and uh and he well he was happy there but you're right it's a sort of he's a he's a tortured Soul he's a tortured Soul he is do you think we'll keep re-examining Oppenheimer as we as as nuclear as as our as our understanding of quantum physics continues as our Taming of the atom continues is our ability if we ever get to we're always what 30 years away from being 30 years away with cold fusion right all those things will we continue to relitigate his legacy I I hope so um I mean when I talked to the leading researchers of the field of AI right now for example they literally refer to this right now as their Oppenheimer moment they're looking to his story to say okay what are the responsibilities for scientists developing new technologies that may have unintended consequences do you think silicon Valley's thinking that right now do you think they understand this is an Oppenheimer moment they I mean they say that they do um and that's that's helpful that at least it's in the conversation um you know and I and I hope that that thought process will continue I mean I think I'm not saying it up and I'm a story offers any easy answers to to those questions but at least can serve as a cautionary tale it at least could show you know where some of those responsibilities lie and have people take a take a breath and think okay you know what are what is the accountability of you know I think you're just also going to jump start a conversation about the role of scientists and the need for us as a society drenched in technology and science to have scientists as public intellectuals do we feel as if the McCarthy era just sort of do you feel like you're you've crossed a couple of generations here in the scientific community did you do you feel like scientists sort of from the generation older than you felt that chill what happened to Oppenheimer and they were like all right maybe I won't get into the political space I think that some of them did some didn't uh I think that I was much influences through my father who uh he dealt with McCarthyism as a a chair of a faculty in Utah at the time when we had a governor who was dictating the Board of Trustees fire faculty for the left-wing uh tendency he went through this speaking out and he had to stand up for them he was as chair of the faculty so I went through this in my own family through him um then I went on and what I saw another aspect of this which is quite interesting I spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union I had collaborations with uh with Yahoo Paris who with Andre sakharov was regarded as the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb right and the and if you asked your Russian colleagues why did you build the bomb for Stalin Stalin was obviously such a such a terror such a terror and the struggles they had were similar to what Oppenheimer had but I think more extreme in some ways right College go ahead Thomas say you know the even though Oppenheimer was was only in Los Alamos for two and a half years roughly you know what he brought to the position is still with us today in terms of the culture of the laboratory and the commitment to free and open debate you know within the walls even though we're still doing sensitive work and also you know the importance of bringing the best technical advice and we recognize that there needs to be a lot of I I recognize there needs to be a lot of voices in those discussions um but one of the voices does need to be you know what is the science the last thing you want to have is have a consequential policy debate based on a faulty understanding of the science I'm curious what you thought of the line if you remember it when Oppenheimer when I think it was one of the colleagues operations you're not a scientist anymore you're a politician do you feel like a politician running Los Alamos or a scientist still so I did my research on Neutron scattering and if I bumped into a neutron in the hall now I probably wouldn't recognize it um you know that's the that's the role right my job is to enable the science of others to protect them from all these external factors that might distract them to make the case for the resources they need and to speak truth to power even when it's uncomfortable Carlo do you think we'll see more scientists speak out or do you I mean look there was a chill post covet look what happened look at what has happened to Anthony fauci right look at what happened I mean there are a lot of parallels between fauci and Oppenheimer right now I I hope there will be more scientists speaking speaking out a lot of great physicists of American physicists are hearing the audience um let me make this comment um having weapons of mass destruction or having living in this planet humankind thinking just about building things to kill one another and trying to dominate one another is obviously Madness and stupidity uh but humans are not always so so mad and there have been a lot of moments in in history uh think about think just about the the treaties about limiting nuclear weapons that the Soviet Union and the United States were able to negotiate in the moment of the uh for the in the hardest moment of the cold war with a huge ideological clash and ideological difference nevertheless um reasonable people in power could you know decide to sit down and at that point scientists in a particular physicists played a big role that's what keep was referring to there was a communication between American and Russian scientists which was both culturally and also directly uh important for and I think that's what should happen today I mean the scientists for for scientists for for our world uh you know the Russians of friends the Chinese are friends right and I think that what we should learn and tell the politicians stop this madness of just trying to a lot of the physics are the same in China as they are in the United States as they are in Russia physics the same but it's more it's more it's also um you know one thing one of the beautiful things we see in the movie It's the openness of some scientists I mean first of all I I loved seeing Oppenheimer uh getting engaged with the West Westland with Elliot with uh with uh with a modern pictures this this openness and with politics I mean the science is not close thing it's uh it's something that talks with the rest of the culture and should talk with the less those culture it should contribute but ultimately the decisions are not the scientists ultimately decision in society is politics and that's where we need to calm down the current tension and the disasters I think let's talk about Christopher if I could get you to do two screenings right I'd have you do one screening to the US Congress what would you hope they would take away from this I think more than anything coming out of making the film and as it starts to go out to the world um I realized that that we talked about this earlier our relationship with the fear of nuclear weapons Ebbs and flows with the geopolitical situation and it shouldn't because of the threat is constant and and very often when you look back at history some of the closest moments of nuclear disaster have actually been in times of relative calm geopolitically so even though situation in Ukraine kind of puts it more into before people's minds the truth is nuclear weapons are extraordinarily dangerous thing to have lying around the house and it is not something we should ever forget about and it's not something we should take lightly and one of the things that frightens me the most about you know you talk about coming home from work with anxiety but when I hear in the media reasonable people talking about nuclear weapons man as if this distinction can be made and can be made via first politics politicians and media sort of warming us up to the idea that perhaps there's a certain size of nuclear weapon that would be acceptable as opposed to the larger ones it's kind of like the word clean call very much Clean Coal tactical nukes I don't think they exist well and part of the but part of the fascination about oppenheimer's as you dig in on this story one of the things he did you talk about things I had to leave out of the film that are in Kai's book and everything one of the things that he did he was not naive he did not get crushed by the system out of naivety he was incredibly sophisticated and he started talking about tactical weapons bring the battle back to the battlefield because he wanted to play the army off against the Air Force essentially he wanted to temper the threat of these giant genocidal h-bombs that the Air Force wanted to have in the air 24 7. but you know his father he kept you had it I think he reiterated a few times in the movie and it's held true where his belief was well if we use it once it'll mean they won't use it again so far that's been true so it's interesting if you there's a book um by Hariri one of the 21 lessons for the 21st century and one of the things he talks about is if you look at all of recorded and only partially recorded human history for most of that period of time 15 of the population died from violence from our conflict since 1945 it's been single digit percentages so oppenheimer's and boer's dream that war would end did not come to pass obviously but as horrific as the concept of mutual assure destruction is it has acted as a restraint and if you have so far so far so fingers crossed but if you ask what role is nuclear deterrence playing right now in the Ukraine it is containing the conflict now it's scary because we don't know whether or not it's going to hold but then again you know what also nuclear deterrence is done it's deterred how much we help it is deterred our ability to help Ukraine more absolutely and there's bit but you know why no fly zone because you've got to enforce it but I would say we have seen what happens when Wars spread across borders in Europe right we saw it in 1939 we saw it in 1914. so you know one of my predecessors um uh I think it was Norris Bradbury said the role of nuclear weapons is to force world leaders to think of other solutions to their problems let me one more screening I want you to have which is in Silicon Valley and what do you want those guys to take away from this film I I think what I would want them to take away is the concept of accountability um not to to sideline the conversation to the labor disputes going on in Hollywood right now but a lot of it when they're talking about things like AI when we we talk about these issues they're all ultimately boiling at the same thing which is when you innovate with technology you have to maintain accountability and the rise of companies over the last 15 years Who band The about the word words like algorithm not knowing what they mean in any kind of meaningful mathematical sense these guys all know what an algorithm is what it does people in my business talking about it they just don't want to take responsibility for whatever that algorithm does and apply to AI that's a terrifying possibility terrifying not least because as AI systems go into the defense infrastructure ultimately they'll be in charge of nuclear weapons and if we allow people to say that that's a separate entity from the person who's wielding programming putting that AI into use then we're doing it has to be about accountability we have to hold people accountable for what they do with the tools that they have to begin of this stuff you didn't use any CGI and I wonder are you going to pledge to not use CGI going forward you don't want to be involved in generative AI I mean are there certain things you won't do no not at all um and I think the ai's already a very powerful tool in in our business as far as visual effects go um the the interesting thing as you as you said is computer Graphics to me they're a touch anadine they're very versatile but they tend to lack threat uh of course now they're seeming threatening in other ways but but as far as your actual use of them and as a filmmaker you're trying to gauge you know what colors are in your paint box what techniques are you going to use what's the feeling and so in an earlier film at the end of one of my films there's a nuclear explosion and darknet Rises it's meant to feel like it's far away enough that it's not going to affect you and whatever it's you're actually meant to have a sense of okay we've got away with at the end we did that with CG it was beautifully ran did my team you know incredible research but coming to portray the Trinity test and obviously we're here you know leading up the anniversary of the trilogy test tomorrow but it was it was like okay this this has to feel dangerous this has to feel beautiful and terrifying and equal measure yeah and real world imagery real world things I think they they have that that bite well I think beautiful and terrified it's a pretty good uh we should put on a movie poster because it was beautiful and it was terrifying congratulations thank you I think we made that as done thank you very much and what a panel thank you guys thanks for watching our YouTube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the NBC News app

Channel: NBC News

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Keywords: dc, election, government, meet the press, mtp, politics, washington, washington d.c.

Id: 3JEYCYQaDcM

Length: 35min 4sec (2104 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 16 2023