Probing the Future - with Jacque Fresco - Venus Project director
What is the purpose of The Venus Project?
We designed the Venus Project in an attempt to deal
with the problems that are coming in our country, and all other countries.
With the advent of automation and machines what they call Artificial Intelligence,
human beings are going to be replaced by machines in every area.
Most people think that only the industrial worker on the production line who tightens bolts,
he will be replaced, but not me, I have a mind and intellect, they can't replace that.
Can machines surpass the performance of the designer?
Most large companies today have automatic voice machines installed
that understand your questions, and understand your answers.
And the machines are getting more and more sophisticated.
And somebody once posed the question, they said, well,
"Can the machine ever surpass the performance of the designer?"
They can't be more intelligent than the guy that designed it or the young lady that designed it.
Well, I know a little guy that designed a machine to pick up freight trains and empty them. He can't do that.
Machines always surpass the performance of the designer.
The designer in a Coke factory can't move bottles faster than machines can.
Who will be replaced by computers?
"Well, they will never replace me." They are always saying that.
We can replace anybody in any field.
Today those of you that are not familiar with it,
there are machines today that are already being designed, built and used experimentally
for brain surgery. All manipulated by machines.
Will computer simulations seem real?
What's happening in photography?
All of the cameras in the future will follow the actor, they will focus automatically.
You won't have a man behind the camera.
And most of the actors in the future will be phased out.
What they will do is photograph the head in all positions
with the lips moving in every which way,
and generate their own characters.
On television you will have announcers that do not exist.
They will be generated images in colour, the sweet old lady with the gray hair.
Everything will be simulated, and you will learn to love those actors.
And a person once said to me: "Well, surely, if I know the images are generated,
they are not real, I'm not going to respond."
Do you know how many people weep at Walt Disney's colour drawings?
What is wrong with society today?
We live in the past.
And our society is rapidly moving downhill. An increase in crime,
our educational system seems to be failing,
our ability to outproduce other nations seems to be slowing down.
We seem to be less innovative.
We used to be number one in new inventions in this country.
Today we are 18th and slipping behind. This is what worries me.
What worries me is the general direction our society is headed for.
The purpose of The Venus Project is to redesign our society,
not according to my wishes, but according to national need, to redesign our society so that it works.
So when new machine is coming into industry, instead of you're working 5 hours a day, you work two hours a day.
And you work 3 days a week for an increase in income.
That is how I want to use machines.
What are the advantages of a non-money based society?
In our present culture we operate as a monetary system.
We use money as a medium of exchange for work or services of any kind.
When you use a money system, it creates incentive, this is true,
but it also creates incentive for corruption and embezzlement,
whereas, in The Venus Project is a non money system.
Now, think about this. When we have a depression in any country of the world,
there are still automobiles and vacuum cleaners and houses, but people don't have the money to buy them.
The Earth is still in the same place. What happened?
Men designed a set of rules, and his rules operate.
But if you live according to natural law, and I'm not talking about men made law. Natural law.
If you eat food that's bad for you, you get sick, no matter what you believe.
If you don't get enough sleep, you collapse. That is natural law.
In Venus Project we uphold natural law mostly.
So people learn how to live most effectivelly.
The Venus Project is a non-monetary system, a resource-based economy.
We have enough resources today in America alone and the world
to build anything for anybody. There need not be street people, hungry people.
We have all the technology to supply more than the needs for everyone.
Fast. I'm not talking about 100 years from now.
It will take 10 years to change the surface of the Earth to a second Garden of Eden.
If we choose to do so.
How can a society function without money?
With the elimination of money, all the economic problems are gone.
No more robbery, no more crime.
Because the center of the city has an access place where you can go in and check out a camera,
or a chemistry set, or a microscope
without any fee, without filling out any forms, without going before any committee, you see what i mean?
It is available, just as the islands of the South Pacific were 60 years ago.
The natives pulled bananas off the trees, they ate them, they picked guava and coconuts.
And you couldn't sell a banana. And you couldn't sell sand or salt water, there was so much of it.
So much fish that no one bother each other, they never worked.
All they did is went on their canoes, went fishing, scuba diving, had fun.
And the Polynesians had no word for "work". Did you know that? Isn't that fantastic?
And I think we are headed that way. No word for "work".
You go back to school, art centers, music centers, cultural centers,
you travel, scuba dive, think, write books, produce films, or whatever the hell you want to do.
This is our aim. This is where we are going.
If we don't make these changes, it is going to be a catastrophic slow process of human suffering and misery,
possibly winding up with some kind of dictatorship, which I have a tremendous fear of.
So, The Venus Project is designed to attempt to avoid that kind of problem.
What will our homes look like?
And your home would be designed in a manner different than any process today.
You will be sitting in front of a hemisphere, if you are married, with your wife,
and you say: "I'd like a home of about 3000 or 4000 square feet".
And it would appear, kind of. I say: "No, no, slow, more curvilinear". And you get more curvilinear.
Then your wife says: "Don't you think that the kitchen is a little too neat?"
And the kitchen is moved while you are talking. It understands language.
And you will see a building appearing in front of you.
And then you see a balcony standing over lake, and your wife might say:
"Gee, what about another 3 feet on that balcony?" You know?
And it extends, and you say: "That's what I want". And you pull out a blueprint.
You see? No more "I'm an architect, I'll design a house for you". That is not for you.
In other words, this is real democracy. This is where you participate on the human level.
Now, of course, your children have a separate section in the house,
because the toilet bowl is too big for them.
They fall in it. They can't reach the sink.
The electrical outlets are dangerous, it's like you living with the bunch of giants.
So, the children sector, everything is reduced.
And it's changed as the children change.
If this isn't love, warm and humane.
A lot of people think that The Venus Project is a technical project of computers and scientific equipment.
No. All scientific and technical equipment to me is so many millions of tons of junk,
unless it enhances the lifes of people.
Do we have the ability to change our minds?
I want to tell you one thing about changing mind. No human being can really change their mind. Here's what happens:
farmers were walking around and say, "Those Wright brothers, they will never build no airplane", and then it flies over.
They say: "You know, ?Clay?, I changed my mind". They've been changed by events.
Most people today didn't believe they see ships going off to the distant planets, or man walking on the moon.
And when they do, what they say: "You know, I've changed my mind".
They've been changed, and that is quite different.
No one can open their head, and rearrange the way you think, and close it again.
You can't do that. We can't change our mind.
We can be better informed, we can acquire more information which causes us to undergo change.
What are the goals of the Venus Project?
We want to translate what all religions talk about
into a working process called The Venus Project.
It's not a technical dictatorship. It is not "1984", or "Brave New World".
It is instead using the best of science and human technology to reclaim the Earth,
to remove the radioactive materials we've dumped all over the place, and find the use for them.
To do research and development in improving human relations and human systems.
This is what The Venus Project is dedicated to. This is what it is about.