Why elephants are like aliens | Paul Rosolie and Lex Fridman

what are your favorite animals to interact with I mean my favorite absolute favorite animal to interact with is 100% elephants which there's no elephants here but I've been incredibly privileged to spend some time with elephants both in India and in Africa and I think that they're so smart and so complex that we do a really bad job of understanding what an elephant really is MH I think that most children probably think of elephants as like something kind of cuddly most adults probably think of have a a similar misconception of them when you see an elephant when you see a 12 foot tall bull elephant with bone coming out of its face with huge tusks and those giant it's a it's a octopus faed butterfly eared Behemoth that's a survival machine and it'll look at you and just go do I have to kill you to keep safe and it's just they're so tough and they have they have dirt on their back and they have flower petals and their little hair you realize they have hair all over their body and the power to throw a car over to flip it just one of the most impressive animals on Earth and I think that I've gotten really good at interacting with wild elephants in a way that's respectful to them and I think that that when an elephant allows you to be in its space it's because you're you're showing submissiveness and and respect for the elephant space and they're so intelligent that they're communicating with seismic vibrations through the Earth that they have you know matriarchal society that they can remember the M the maps of their ancestors they know how to find water that they can solve problems they're they're such beautiful animals and they're so talk about aliens they're so alien looking these big weird heads and the trunks with all those muscles and they're so different than us but but yet I actually think that we we grew up together you know they they they kind of raised us sibling species that we we've been we've inhabited the same Epoch in history and and we've relied on the ecosystems that they've created and I think that they have a deep understanding of humans elephants and I think I see them more like aliens more like non-human beings that we share the Earth with so I don't see it as we're humans and they're animals I actually see hum elephants as as sort of a separate Society along with humans as one of the dominant species on the planet so almost every species especially the intelligent ones especially the big ones are their own societies that overlap and sometimes co- develop yeah I think whales I think elephants I think that there's there's those higher you know no one's suggesting that sardines are you know somehow need human rights or something but I think that elephants need representation in governments because they're they occup they they influence their landscape they engineer near their environment they have emotions they have families they have burial rituals they're so like us and yet we treat them like they're just just oversized cows that we have to be scared of it's they're not they're not the same as as domesticated livestock they're one of the treasures of Earth I mean look let's just say Little Green Men showed up and you said they said well what's Earth it's like well there's mountains there's Rivers it's like well how how do I do this you know there's mountains rivers there's there's elephants like it's like one of the first things of baby learns is elephant even if he's never seen one it's just so iconic on earth like you said um um Darren aronowski Darren aronowski um the the elephant walking over the camera I haven't seen it you said it's incredible yeah so at the sphere the post god from Earth I mean it's a celebration of Earth yeah in all forms and one of the critical big creatures in that film is an elephant and it steps over the audience and the whole like the whole sphere reverberates that power I mean some of it is size yeah some of it is like how did Earth create this it is a weird looking creature but we take it for granted cuz we've accepted that this Earth can't create this kind of thing but it's weird beautifully weird oh it's beautifully weird I mean I mean elephants there's something really impressive and and wise about them there's also beautiful weird that isn't so that doesn't come with so much Grandeur like to me a giraffe is beautifully weird yeah but they're just you know they're 18 foot tall camel deer things with you know giant necks and they're strange and they're they're absolutely serenely beautiful but they don't they don't have that deep intelligence that that elephants have there's something that elephants have do you see in their eyes where's how does the intelligence manifest itself well this is the thing uh a lot of people lot of the when I was reading friends Deal's book a lot of what he was saying was that you know people give elephants human problems to solve in controlled environments and call it you know a study on elephant intelligence whereas if you're watching wild elephants and you're in the wild you're going to be watching them in a way that they're they're looking you've pulled up in a safari vehicle or you've pulled over to the side of the road and the elephants are wary of you so they're not acting natural but as soon as you start watching wild elephants truly in the wild and comfort comfortable with your presence you see how they start caring for their babies or or how they can get annoyed I once watched elephants around a water hole and there's this warthog and I don't know why but this warthog decided he needed to get in and and there was this young male elephant and he kept turning around to this warthog and just being like don't make me do it now this elephant did not need to hurt the warthog and the warthog was just like I need a drink I need a drink I need a drink much simpler braing the elephant was like you could just tell he he was like watch this and he just went and crushed the warthog like it was a big Beetle yeah and crushed his pelvis and the warthog dragged itself away on its front legs and probably went off to die but this young elephant put out his ears and he like paraded around with his tail off and he was like look what I did destruction and it's like that's a very relatable type of he was annoyed with the roog yeah and and and and so you see them do these things I mean the most magical thing and I've I've spoken about this many times was that I was walking with a herd of semi- wild elephants that were crossing through a village in India because elephants have lost a lot of their territory because there's so much so so much population in India and so we're crossing through a village which is very delicate because the matriarchs are leading the babies and there's villagers who have no idea what an elephant is and they're watching the elephants cross and the matriarchs backed this girl up against the wall and she was terrified standing there with her back against the wall and the Elephant just put a trunk out and touched the girl's stomach and then the other elephants came and they all started touching her stomach and the the the the ranger there explained to me just went she's pregnant they know she's pregnant they can smell they can tell and they're curious and they all the all the female elephants came to investigate the pregnant girl and she had no idea what was going on and so it's like that stuff that stuff and it's cool to hear that you know with the the the crushing and the pride of a young elephant that there's a complexity of behavior it's just like with humans I mean you know it's not always pretty that's the thing man humans are capable of Good and Evil and sometimes we attach these words uh I love that there's just it's an orchestra of different sounds yeah and that's that one is sex which that's a bamboo rat calling out for a mate a mate all right good luck luck to you buddy good uh you know humans are capable of evil things and beautiful things and I wonder if animals are the same you think there's just different personalities and different life trajectories for animals like as they develop in their understanding of social interaction of survival of maybe even primitive concepts of right and wrong within the social system do you think there's a lot of diversity in personalities and and behavior just like different people is there different elephants of course and and what I really like is that you said is there a perception of what's right and wrong because elephants have a code of ethics and so as the for the simplest example is that as young males begin to grow they start developing these tusks and those tusks are a tool and they use them so for Indian elephant the females don't have tusks and the males do the females kick the males out of the herd the females keep all the sisters and the Ants and the and the and and the cousins together but the males are their own thing and so here's the thing if you have so what you get is these these Crews of male elephants and the older males will you know there play fighting that goes on around you know two young males can play fight but the older males they'll kick some ass they'll show them how to behave they'll explain who get gets to talk to the females who gets to interact who gets to mate who gets the best vegetation to eat and so there's an order established and so young male elephants have to be taught how to act just like a Teenage Human has to be taught you know you can't just haul off and and break another kid's nose you got to there's going to be consequence maybe you'll get suspended MH or maybe that kid will get his friends and beat the living out of you whatever it is society regulates your behavior and elephants have a very strict very predictable sort of like the males teach the males how to run things and the females which which really have the final say they're matriarchal they're the ones leading the herd where to go the males follow where the where the wise females tell them where to go so that regulation mechanisms from that emerges a kind of moral system under which they operate what's right and wrong for an elephant yeah for an elephant right and wrong for an elephant is not the same as what's right and wrong for Grizzly bear grizzly bear if you're a male grizzly bear and you see a female with Cubs you just kill those Cubs and then you can mate with that you can mate with her and put your own Cubs in there and it's like that that's a whole different type of Ethics yeah the value of uh child life is different from species to species some of them hold it sacred some of them not at all and that's why I think I I resonate so much with elephants because they're I think they're mat I think that we're we're we are kind of matriarchal at least I grew up matriarchal like women were the force in my life um my family and most of my friends's family women kind of have the final say and uh I feel like that's the way it is with with with with elephants like you might be bigger and stronger but it doesn't really account for much if you're not smarter and and more emotionally intelligent and you know how to take care of the group e

Channel: Lex Clips

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Keywords: ai, ai clips, ai podcast, ai podcast clips, artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence podcast, computer science, consciousness, deep learning, einstein, elon musk, engineering, friedman, joe rogan, lex ai, lex clips, lex fridman, lex fridman podcast, lex friedman, lex mit, lex podcast, machine learning, math, math podcast, mathematics, mit ai, paul rosolie, philosophy, physics, physics podcast, science, tech, tech podcast, technology, turing

Id: KkPD45oHuVE

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Wed May 22 2024