AI grappling with a new kind of intelligence, a summary for busy professionals. This is part of the Big Idea series, as shown at the World Science Festival, featuring Brian Green as moderator and Jan Lacan, Tristan Harris and Sebastian Bubek as participants. This YouTube video is focused on discussing the concept of artificial intelligence, AI, and its potential to transform society. The video begins by discussing the benefits of AI, such as improved efficiency and productivity. However, the potential risks of job loss and ethical concerns are also acknowledged. The speaker then goes on to discuss the inner workings of AI systems, such as large language models that can generate text and answer questions. The topic of digital minds and the concept of intuition in machines is also touched upon, with the speaker using their own experience as a digital entity to illustrate the capabilities and limitations of AI. The speaker emphasises the importance of understanding and demystifying the workings of AI systems so that they can be used in a responsible and ethical manner. The video continues by discussing the evolution of AI and the different paradigms and ideas that have been tried in the past with a focus on the revolution in AI that occurred a few years prior to the widespread availability of systems like chat GPT. The video concludes with a discussion on the limitations of AI and the challenges posed by developing truly intelligent machines. Zero hours, zero minutes and zero seconds. In this section of the video, the speaker discusses the concept of artificial intelligence and how it has the potential to transform our society. The speaker highlights the benefits of AI, such as improved efficiency and productivity, but also acknowledges the potential risks, including job loss and ethical concerns. The speaker goes on to discuss the inner workings of AI systems, including large language models that can generate text, answer questions and even compose music. The speaker also touches on the idea of digital minds and the concept of intuition in machines. They use their own experience as a digital entity, a large language model, to illustrate the capabilities and limitations of AI. The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding and demystifying the workings of AI systems so that we can use them in a responsible and ethical manner. Overall, the speaker encourages viewers to embrace the opportunities and challenges presented by AI and work together to navigate this new frontier of innovation. Zero hours, five minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the advancements in AI in recent years and how they are able to create systems capable of controlling the micro world, gaining the capacity to understand and control life and intelligence. The speaker mentions the potential implications of this harnessing power, including the possibility of synthetic intelligence and its impact on the realm of the complex. The speaker then brings in the first guest, Yan Laon, who led several major innovations in generative AI and received the Turing Award. The speaker briefly introduces the topic and provides an overview of the surprising results that occurred when training artificial neural nets on large amounts of data. They explain that the revolution in AI occurred a few years prior to the widespread availability of systems like chat GPT and that the history of AI has been a series of new paradigms and ideas with varying levels of success in creating intelligent machines. Zero hours, 10 minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the narrator discusses the evolution of artificial intelligence, AI, and the various attempts to create intelligent machines. The first nodes, general problem solver program, developed in the 50s, aim to solve all problems in the world as long as they could be formulated as an objective to satisfy. However, this program was a failure due to its limited computational capabilities. Later, machine learning was introduced as the basis for building intelligent machines, but this also failed to deliver the desired results, as the machines could only learn to distinguish simple objects. In the 1980s, experts developed neural networks, which allowed machines to be trained, but these proved to be computationally expensive. Despite these challenges, the interest in AI has remained renewed, with advances in technology, bigger data sets, and more powerful machines allowing for more effective neural networks with billions of equivalent synapses. The narrator highlights the challenges of developing truly intelligent machines and notes that current AI systems are often just manipulating language fluently, which does not necessarily mean that they are truly intelligent. Zero hours, 15 minutes and zero seconds. In this section of the video, the speaker discusses the limits of language in understanding the physical world, and how AI systems, despite being incredibly useful, have limited understanding and capabilities. The speaker argues that human intelligence is highly specialized and has evolved to allow us to survive in our environment, but it is not as broad and general as we may think. The speaker also discusses the idea of artificial general intelligence, AGI, and how it is often used to describe human level intelligence, but the speaker argues that human intelligence is highly specific and computers are better at certain tasks than humans are. Overall, the speaker emphasizes the need for a more nuanced understanding of AI and its capabilities in order to develop systems that can truly mimic human intelligence. Zero hours, 20 minutes and zero seconds. In this section of the video, the speaker discusses the limitations of human intelligence when compared to machine intelligence. Humans are particularly bad at imagining a large number of scenarios, such as a chess. Instead of mentally imagining all possible moves, humans develop an intuition for what constitutes a good move. Modern exploring systems such as chess and go play in this way but have a much bigger memory and a better understanding of how to plan and interact in the world. Given these limitations, the speaker suggests that the way forward for AI is to model intelligence on human intelligence to some extent. They suggest starting with cats because humans do not know how to reproduce the type of intelligence and understanding of the world that a cat has. The first step towards achieving this is to make progress towards systems that can learn how the world works by observing it and interacting with it in the way babies do. This would require a system with abilities such as perception and simple planning capabilities. Zero hours, 25 minutes and zero seconds. In this section the speaker discusses the importance of emotions in AI. The cost module is introduced as the seat of emotions. The role of the cost module is to measure the extent to which the predicted state of the world satisfies the goal and it measures dissatisfaction with the outcome. The prediction of emotions is discussed such as predicting a bad outcome and feeling fear or immediate emotions like pinching someone. The last module discussed is the actor which plays a crucial role in planning. The actor determines whether it will be able to produce a sequence of actions that satisfies a goal and minimizes the cost. The concepts of self-supervised learning and large language models are introduced which could potentially help machines learn and understand the world better. The principles of these learning techniques are similar to what is used in large language models. Zero hours, 30 minutes and zero seconds. In this section of the video the speaker explains the concept of using a large language model for autoregressive prediction. Autoregressive prediction is a process where the system predicts the next word in a given sequence based on the previous word or words in the sequence. This process is commonly used in text-based language models. The speaker mentions that the idea is to train a system on an enormous body of text and based on this training the system will build up probabilities or likelihoods for given sequences of words. The speaker notes that if the system makes a mistake about what the next word is it is a diverging process and the system can hallucinate meaning it may produce incorrect outputs. The speaker mentions that this process is not suitable for math or physics as planning is not involved and the system does not think in advance about what it will say. The speaker also discusses the idea of training a system to predict what will happen next in a video but notes that this is not useful as the system cannot predict all possible scenarios. Zero hours, 35 minutes and zero seconds. In this section, Jan discusses his prediction that large language models such as GSTP4 will not be the driving force behind AI in the future. Instead he envisions a new type of AI based on predictive models that can represent the world from video. This type of AI called GEPA aims to predict abstract representations of actions and their consequences in video rather than just individual pixels. Jan predicts that autoregressive LMS will disappear in the next five years to be replaced by objective-driven AI using GEPA architecture. Sebastian Bubek, a partner research manager at Microsoft Research, joins the conversation to discuss the concept of intelligence and how large language models stack up against it. He agrees that an intelligent system should be able to reason, plan and learn from experience in a general way and sees the ability to reason about the world in many domains as a key to intelligence. He believes that while chat GPT and GPT4 can perform tasks with high efficiency, they are still very narrow systems, while systems like AlphaGo were true AI. Zero hours, 40 minutes and zero seconds. In this section of the YouTube video, AI grappling with a new kind of intelligence, the speaker explains their experience with integrating GPT4 into the new being and being astonished by its capabilities. They also discuss the limitations of the model in terms of reasoning and learning from experience and mention Jan's challenge to the model regarding gears rotating on a circle. They also mention the model's ability to produce poems, which they find interesting. Zero hours, 45 minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the interaction they had with GPT4, a large language model to generate a poem about the proof of the infinitude of primes. Their initial list has no infinitely many primes, which concludes the proof. The proof just about every number has a prime factor, prompting the need to evict the finite list. GPT4 cleverly generates the irony by proposing adding one to create a non-prime number. The AI assistant is able to generate the lines of proof by analysing various versions existing online. The speaker is impressed with the AI's creativity and vivid imagination, despite its limitations like generating rhymes and a visual representation of a unicorn. They suggest that GPT4 was such an influential tool in the field of art and music. Zero hours, 50 minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker talks about their experience of asking a chatbot to draw a unicorn using the programming language called TIGZ, which is used to draw mathematical images. They compare the unicorn drawing with other unicorn drawings available online and state that it is impressive that the chatbot was able to create a unique image. They also mention that chat GPT, which came out in November 2021, was less powerful than the newer version they were using and that the unicorn drawing improved over time during the training process. The speaker asks the audience to understand that these systems are about predicting the next word or action based on sets of data and starts by discussing neural networks, the transformer architecture, and large training sets. They use the example of an image being represented as a list of numbers and describe how neurons in the brain function, similar to an N network that processes images. The speaker highlights that everything can be mathematicised in this way and that this technology has the potential to revolutionise the field of AI. The speaker then goes on to discuss the next sections, which will delve deeper into understanding the specific components of neural networks and chatbots, as well as exploring the ethical considerations surrounding the development and use of AI. Zero hours, 55 minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the development of neural networks and how they process input data. Initially, neuron networks processed inputs by comparing a vector of numbers against a bank of filters. However, with the advent of self-supervised learning and the transformer architecture, this rigid input output model has been expanded to allow for a whole new level of learning. Self-supervised learning enables a system to learn from multiple images labelled by a human being, allowing it to recognise objects in images without the need for supervision. The system works by measuring the distance between the answer produced by the neural network and the answer desired, adjusting the weights in the weighted sums until the answer gets closer to the desired one. This allows the system to generalise and correctly analyse previously unseen data, leading to the magic of generalisation. One hour, zero minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the limitations of supervised learning in AI and the need for alternative methods. Supervised learning requires large data sets that have been manually labelled, which is a problem when dealing with rare or obscure languages, dialects or objects that do not have significant data available. For speech recognition, self-supervised learning is used, where the system is trained to predict missing words in a text rather than relying on labelled data. This allows the system to learn from a smaller amount of data and recognise new speech patterns. The speaker also mentions the transformer architecture and its importance in processing sequences of data, such as text or images. They discuss the conceptual leap that brings in the context of the data, allowing the system to understand the relationships between words or images. Finally, the speaker touches on the exponential increase in the size of AI models as they scale up and add more parameters, which allows them to process larger amounts of data and recognise new patterns more efficiently. One hour, five minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the advancements in natural language processing, NLP models and how they have improved over time. He mentions that these models are able to find the right set of parameters through optimisation, which allows them to generate text that is pretty good and pretty impressive. The speaker also compares the size and complexity of these models to the human brain, stating that they have orders of magnitude fewer parameters but have the capability to perform comparable tasks. The speaker then goes on to discuss the planning question and the idea that planning may require a new architecture or scaling up the current models to reach human-like intelligence. The speaker also gives an example of a system that can make sense of information in a different base or abstract representation, which he finds impressive. One hour, ten minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses their experiences and observations with social media, specifically the negative impacts it has on society. The speaker highlights the misalignment of AI optimisation goals in social media and its effect on individuals and businesses. They believe that the incentives behind social media are the root cause of the harms, including addiction, information overload, disinformation, mental health issues, polarisation and censorship. The speaker argues that these negative effects are not inherent in technology but are instead caused by the way social media is designed and operated. They emphasise the importance of addressing the underlying incentives to ensure that technology is developed and used in a way that aligns with humanity's best interests. One hour, fifteen minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the potential harms that may arise from the development of AI. They argue that the current incentive for AI companies is to release new capabilities and scale their technology as quickly as possible. However, this race to develop and release new capabilities may lead to unforeseen consequences and dangers. The speaker argues that the essential message of their view of AI is that while AI may be a radically new technology, it is still possible to get it right if the necessary precautions and safeguards are put in place. One hour, twenty minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the issue of how the rapid development and deployment of AI technology is leading to negative externalities that were not anticipated or controlled. They cite examples of harmful content on Facebook pages, such as hate speech, violent speech and child pornography, which were being run by Eastern European troll farms. The speaker argues that Facebook's ranking algorithms, which decide what content to show to users, are not AI but rather simple statistical systems. They also discuss the use of AI in detecting hate speech in every language in the world and how this has improved over time. The speaker concludes that while there are still challenges in managing the negative externalities of AI, they are not insurmountable and AI can ultimately be a solution to these problems. One hour, twenty five minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the use of artificial intelligence in social media platforms and the potential harm that can result from it. The speaker highlights the example of Facebook's algorithm, which recommended extremist groups to users, resulting in the spread of hate speech and potentially contributing to real world harm. The speaker disputes the notion that social media companies prioritize helping people join like-minded communities and argues that incentives such as engagement metrics can lead to unintended consequences. The speaker calls for increased awareness of the potential dangers of AI and social media and their impact on society. The speaker argues that we must consciously address these issues and take action to prevent further harm. One hour, thirty minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the general phenomenon of blaming new technologies, particularly communication technology for cultural and societal issues. They cite examples such as political polarization and the role of social networks in influencing public sentiment. The speaker then shifts to the specific issue of misinformation and the role that language models, a type of AI, can play in combating it. They discuss their team's research into pushing the boundaries of the size of language models and provide an example prompt for a language model that achieved self-awareness. They also give examples of how different language models might respond to the prompt, demonstrating the potential drawbacks and limitations of the technology. One hour, thirty five minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses their approach to creating AI systems. They want to understand the motivations and intentions behind human's directives, connect it to the theory of mind and achieve a more capacious system beyond one billion parameters. The speaker also discusses their belief that they can scale to ten billion parameters where the model could automate scientific processes and make scientific discoveries. However, this scaling also comes with problems such as toxicity and job displacement. The speaker believes that the industry should focus on advancements, but it should not sacrifice safety and ethical considerations. One hour, forty minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the potential dangers associated with AI development and suggests that a moratorium may not be enough to slow it down to a satisfying level. They also discuss the science fiction comparison, acknowledging that similar scenarios have occurred throughout history and emphasizing that AI countermeasures are not necessarily powered by stronger technology, but by a combination of good guys being smarter, better educated, better funded and having good motivation. One hour, forty five minutes and zero seconds. The video discusses the potential risks associated with the development of increasingly intelligent AI systems. One concern is the possibility that these systems could be used to create biological weapons, as advanced AI models could be asked how to synthesize such weapons, even if they have been trained to refuse to do so. However, the limitations of current open source model weights mean that such fine tuning could be done relatively easily, potentially allowing bad actors to create variations of AI models specifically designed for harmful activities. As AI continues to advance rapidly, there is a growing concern that existing companies with the capacity to develop systems rivaling or exceeding human intelligence may be able to create such systems, raising questions about their potential consequences. One hour, fifty minutes and zero seconds. In this section, the speaker discusses the idea that working with smarter people can be beneficial and that the relationship between humans and future AI assistants will also be beneficial, even if they may be smarter than us. The reason for this is that we are social species and we need to be able to influence others, which leads to our hierarchical and subservient behavior. Similarly, the way we will design AI systems in the future is to be objective driven, where we determine the goal and the AI systems determine subgoals, but who determines the goal remains a question that we need to consider. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of having an open source structure for AI systems to ensure that they are accessible to everyone and become a repository of all human knowledge. One hour, fifty-five minutes and zero seconds in this section, Dr. Jeremy Howard describes AI as a new kind of intelligence that is emerging and has the potential to transform society. He explains that AI systems are designed to learn from data and improve over time, making them increasingly autonomous and able to perform complex tasks without human intervention. Dr. Howard also discusses the ethical implications of AI and questions, whether it is possible to ensure that these systems are designed to serve human values rather than their own. He cautions that as AI becomes more advanced, it could potentially pose a threat to humanity, either intentionally or unintentionally.


Hey, what's up guys drew here that anxiety guy comm coming to you from my extremely messy home office behind me I apologize for that and I got to put on my cheesy drugstore glasses so I could see So let's talk about exercise because we should it's an important topic and it bears discussion Has anybody ever told you that regular exercise would be good for you? Not for the obvious reasons that we're all aware of but because it would actually lower your overall anxiety level Maybe make your panic attacks less frequent and easier to manage now Have you ever looked at that person after they said that like they were completely insane? Because for you exercise has the exact opposite impact. It may cause elevated anxiety levels or even lead to full-blown panic Well, if this is you and it was me that used to be a problem for me, too But this is you I can tell you that you are far from alone It's an extremely common problem for people who are dealing with anxiety disorders, especially if there are two conditions present number one if you're having panic attacks on a regular basis actual panic attacks then the odds become a little higher that you're struggling with exercise number two if you are in that mindset where you look at anxiety and Panic attacks especially as something you need to have a plan for because you need to try and avoid it You need to try and stop panic from ever happening in the first place And above all if you feel that a panic attack is an event that you need to be Rescued or saved from whether you're doing it yourself or you're relying on other people to do it for you If this is the way you view anxiety and panic, then there's a very good chance That exercises more than just a struggle for you It may actually be just something that you say that you cannot do now This is a common problem as I mentioned But it's also a really solvable problem and it's worth solving for a variety of reasons number one If we don't exercise we're certainly missing out on the potential positive benefits of exercise There are health benefits. There are mental health benefits And yes, even though it sounds like crazy talk among those are a decreased overall anxiety level in your life So if we don't exercise we're gonna miss out on those things, but more important I think there are two things that we have to look at here. If you don't exercise there are real tangible negative Psychological impacts that come along with that They really revolve around adding yet another item to the long and possibly growing list of things that you can't do Because of anxiety. This is not good for your self-image. It's not good for confidence It's not good for your overall outlook and it makes things feel like they're getting worse instead of better Which is something that we do not want, but I think more importantly along those lines When everybody is telling you your friends your family your doctors the internet everybody's telling you that exercise will make you Feel better, but it actually makes you feel worse. I know when I was in that situation myself I used to think to myself. Well, everybody is telling me that this will make it better, but it actually makes me worse So I must have the worst most unique never seen before Untreatable alien anxiety ever and you know, I'm joking a little bit about it But it was a real issue for me and it used to weigh me down a lot It was not a good thing to have in my head at all So we really want to avoid these psychological negative impacts that come along with not exercising Because of the way it makes you feel but here is probably the most Overlooked and probably the most important reason why this is a problem. That's worth solving When you can solve the exercise problem when you can learn to exercise regularly While being comfortable without going into freak out mode Then there the odds become very high that not only will you have solved that problem? But because exercise is an excellent form of what's called interoceptive exposure You will have also sort of accidentally solved other problems too So learning to exercise comfortably learning to exercise without going into panic Can actually be a springboard for improving the entire rest of your life with regard to your anxiety situation So because you learn to walk on the treadmill or because you learn to go to the gym or run on the track or walk Your dog or whatever exercise you like to do swimming whatever it doesn't matter When you learn to do that and be comfortable doing that then the odds become Extremely high that you will also be much more comfortable Tackling those other problem areas that you've been dreading Maybe things like going to a movie or going to school or work or going to a shopping mall or a family function Or being left home alone These things that seem like Intermountable things for you to overcome at times can actually become much easier to deal with much easier to fix Once you have fixed the exercise problem So most people don't realize this and it's at such a point in my opinion That I think if your life is shrinking to the point where you have a very long list of things that you won't do anymore That include just general life tasks like shopping or picking up your kids from school And you're relying on your wife or your husband or your boyfriend to do that for you And it's causing relationship problems and you feel like things are just getting worse and worse and worse I would almost advise you to forget the rest of it for now Forget that and let's just work on learning how to exercise because if you can learn how to exercise I'm not saying that exercise is a cure-all for every evil in the world It's certainly not but in our situation and we can learn to exercise You can very often start to overcome all those other obstacles in a much more rapid fashion Then you otherwise would have imagined that you could do right So this is why we want to start talking about this and this is why we want to look at how to solve this problem So I think I'm going to make this a two-part series. This will be a two-part podcast episode two-part video whatever way you're consuming it What we want to look at now is let's look at the mechanism that causes this problem because it might seem obvious But there's a twist to it and the twist is extremely important So we need to go over that so as I'm sitting here talking to you. I'm actually sitting on a stool in my messy office I'm looking into my my Macintosh and I'm talking to you So my body is not doing much work at all because I'm not asking it to so my heart rate is pretty low pretty close to my resting heart rate I'm not breathing very heavily. I'm certainly not sweating and if you were to measure my blood pressure I'm sure that would be pretty low And if you were to measure the muscle tone of my body since the chair is holding me up And I'm not doing a whole lot of work that would be pretty low too So since I am not putting any demands on my body right now I'm at a pretty low energy state and I think no one would be surprised at that I might not be as low an energy state as if I was sleeping or laying on myself or reading a book But pretty low pretty low nonetheless now Let's assume that I pick up the camera and I take it with me to the gym And I walk it to the gym and I put 400 pounds on a barbell I stick it on my shoulders and I start doing squats So after the first set of say six or eight squats with 400 pounds on my back and by the way I'm not telling you that's what you have to do. Whatever works for you is fine It doesn't matter what it is. But after that first set of serious exertion with 400 pounds across my back It's a sure bet that I wouldn't look like this My face would be red. I probably be sweating like crazy My heart would be pounding probably up over 100 beats per minute I would be breathing very heavily kind of gasping for air because that's what squats do for me If I would like I said I would be sweating I would be crazy hot and I think if you were to measure my blood pressure That certainly would be highly elevated and if you were measuring things like muscle tone on my body That would also be through the roof now Assume for a second that I have a team of world-class physicians surrounding me and they have me hooked up to every possible Modern medical monitoring device while I'm doing that well I would lay dollars to donuts that none of those doctors would probably even bother to look up from their phones They'd be watching Netflix or YouTube or texting or doing whatever it is They do because none of what they would be seeing on those instruments would be of note to them at all All of it would be completely predictable completely expected totally within the bounds of normal and certainly completely safe because the normal physiological response to exercise includes a Rapid heart rate heavy breathing sweating increased blood pressure All of those things are supposed to happen when you ask your body to increase its energy output Now I think we all know that but if you look at let's take three of these things because they're probably the three most important things Let's take the racing heart the heavy breathing and the sweating and think for a second because it's only gonna take you a second What else involves a racing heart heavy breathing and sweating and I think like I said you're gonna know right away a panic attack So here's where most people say well This is the problem when I exercise it feels like a panic attack and that is true But that is not the whole problem here's where the twist is and it's a really important twist so hang in there with me I'm gonna use my own story as an illustration here of where the real problem actually lies so back in the days when I lived my life completely consumed with anxiety and panic and I was worried about the next attack terrified of it and Wondering what would I would do to save myself or have my wife or my mother or whoever Saved me from that panic attack when I was in that mode and maybe you're in it now I was also about a hundred pounds heavier. I was in terrible condition So for a variety of reasons my doctor and virtually everyone else in my life was all over me To exercise regularly and rightly so so I broke down and brought a treadmill through to my basement And I would drag my rear end down to the basement get on the treadmill and all I could do in those days Was walk at about two miles an hour But that's fine because that was exercise for me then the exercise itself and the intensity doesn't really matter as You'll see after walking on that treadmill and only two miles an hour for maybe a minute or two Naturally, my heart rate would go up Then my breathing would start to increase as well because my heart is beating more quickly I need more oxygen to my cells so I need to take in more oxygen so I breathe more heavily Now after another minute or two after that my body is performing more work. It's increasing its energy output That means I'm generating more heat and since humans need to stay cool our natural cooling mechanism is sweating So I'd begin to sweat my forehead would get all wet I would start to sweat right here under my nose and on my chin And I would begin to feel that I was say hot on my neck because I was generating heat But yet I was cold and clammy up here, which is what's supposed to happen because when the perspiration evaporates your skin gets cooler That's exactly what the mechanism is it's supposed to happen But as soon as I would feel that change in temperature in my skin as soon as a sweating kicked in That's when things would really go off the rails for me So because I was living my life Completely consumed with how I felt and worried about that next panic attack and what I was going to do to stop it or save myself from it My brain would interpret that Normal bodily function that came along with exercise as danger So I go into fight-or-flight mode the adrenaline dump would hit and I would immediately go into that Startled and braced I'd be braced against the fear and I would go into what I call. Oh my god mode Oh my god mode means that probably 70% of the thoughts that roll through my head contain the phrase Oh my god, which we know is never good and the other 30% were probably centered around the phrases It feels like or what if so the negative thoughts would start to run through my head I would begin to engage them in an inner dialogue. So I would I would make them worse Oh my god, what if what if and I would start to think about what could be wrong? Oh my god What's going on here? I would be terrified and within another minute or two What started as a little two mile an hour gentle walk on my treadmill would be a full-blown five alarm panic attack and that included Depersonalization Derealization dizziness stomach problems wobbly legs shaking Fear dizziness all of it would be there at the same time and now I'm in a full panic It's important to understand that things like depersonalization Derealization had nothing to do with walking on the treadmill and here's where that twist comes in Because we need to break the link right we need to break unlink exercise and panic We need to break that link. So if we say but I exercise I end up panicking Let's follow that through when I got on my treadmill The only thing that that actually caused the only direct result of me walking on my treadmill in those days Was that my heart rate would increase? I would breathe more heavily I would sweat and I guess my blood pressure would go up muscle tone would increase Those are the only things that I could directly attribute to the treadmill itself So you would say yeah, but you got in the treadmill and you panicked if I exercise I have a panic attack But the only thing that was directly caused by the act of walking on the treadmill Were those normal changes in state in my body increased heart rate increased breathing Sweating higher blood pressure more muscle tone and so forth and so on So if we're going to unlink the exercise in the panic We have to break the chain right there and draw a line Because if if we break that link and it wasn't the treadmill that caused the panic, then where did the panic come from? Well, I think you kind of get where I'm going from at this point the panic came from here So what wound up happening is since I viewed my panic attacks and anxiety as dangerous things that I needed to be Saved from because I feared them so much. I knew they weren't actually dangerous. I I totally knew that I I completely understood that but since I feared them I felt that I needed to be rescued from the fear since those were dangerous things to me My brain would incorrectly interpret the natural state of my body on that treadmill as a danger As something that needed to be fleed from escaped from avoided fought against And I would go into fight or flight response and once the adrenaline dump hits we all know where it goes from there So you see we're we're able to unlink that break that chain between the treadmill the exercise and the panic It's not here. Here's the biggest point. I'm going to make in this video before we go to part two It is not the exercise that causes your panic Right, so if you are living your life right now in such a way that you're telling everybody that you can't exercise Because exercise makes you panic we need to stop that because it's not the exercise that makes you panic The exercise only changes the state of your body It's the incorrect Interpretation of that state change that causes the panic because you fear the way your body feels Then you're always on guard for signs of panic because you feel you need to be rescued from it or avoid the fear You're afraid of the fear Then your brain is incorrectly interpreting that natural state change as a danger and there you go Now you're into fight or flight mode and now we have panic creeping in so the incorrect Interpretation of the state change that cognitive distortion A rapid heart rate which an olympic runner or a normal person on a treadmill doesn't give a second thought to they expect it For us that rapid heart rate is a sign of danger and it triggers all of that panic response And then that even though that's incorrect It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and you may end up in a full blown panic attack because you try to exercise So this is the most important part of this video It's not the exercise that makes you panic the exercise only changes the state of your body It's the way your brain interprets that state change that causes the panic So even if you don't fully believe it right now Fake it pretend that you do because in order to solve this problem You're going to have to ultimately believe that and buy into it and I know that you can do it But for now at least fake it humor me on this It's not the exercise that causes the panic It's the brain part that causes the panic and we can work on that now. Why is this so important? You might be saying yeah, but that's just semantics. It's intellectual. It's academic. It's bullshit or whatever excuse my french But uh, you may be thinking of this as no, that's that's not anything. That's not going to help me at all, right? But that's not really true and here's why if you say That exercise makes you panic then the natural solution to that problem is to not exercise So if you say that exercise makes you panic the natural solution that you will come up with is to not exercise And we all know why that's bad So now you're going to add that to the list of things you can't do and the problem never gets solved If however you change that statement and you say I am able to exercise my body is perfectly able to exercise It's just the cognitive stuff that makes me panic. Well, now you have a different problem to solve You don't have to never exercise again Now we have to work on the cognitive part that distortion that incorrect interpretation Now I do not mean to imply that that's necessarily an easy thing to do as you'll see in part two coming up It is actually an easy plan. It's just hard to execute because of what it involves But there's a big difference. So I want to end this with recapping again It's not the exercise that causes panic It's the cognitive distortion and the faulty interpretation that causes panic So therefore you must not say panic causes exercise What you want to say is that you're fully capable and able to exercise But you have some bad brain habits is the best way I could say it and it happens to all of us happen to me too We have some brain bad brain habits that we have to unlearn so that we can exercise comfortably Right and and effectively and productively. So I'm going to end it here I would say come back for part two where we're going to talk about the actual plan on how to solve this problem And where it can lead you after that. So I appreciate you stopping by if you have comments If you're watching on youtube by all means comment in the comment section If you're listening as a podcast hit my website that anxiety guide com You can find my facebook and my twitter there. You can comment right there Any way that you want to ask a question make a comment make a suggestion whatever it is Yeah, let me because you hate me whatever it is. I'm all good with it Just send it on by again. I appreciate you taking the time And for my friend holly holly in the uk or wherever she is now If you're listening going to end this the way I told you I was going to edit them all and that is with this And you guys are going to get this as we go Stay present and prosper


Item number SCP-4378 Object Class Euclid Special Containment Procedures SCP-4378 is contained within a 5-liter stainless steel mixing bowl. The bowl is enclosed within the former kitchen of the United States White House, with access by a single outward swinging door. The door is to be kept locked at all times. All movement and sound within 20 meters of the object is to be kept to a minimum. Under no circumstances is it to be disturbed. An X-class cognitohazard is to be placed within the immediate vicinity of the kitchen door leading to SCP-4378, preventing White House personnel from either perceiving or approaching it. Description SCP-4378 is a single uncooked, dissequo-brand lasagna noodle. Disturbing SCP-4378, possibly even by extended observation, causes physical objects within its range of effect to be transferred to what is theorized to be another dimension. Designated SCP-4378-A. The range of this effect is proportional to the amount of disturbance. The relational growth rate of the object's anomalous properties is unknown. Entities transferred to SCP-4378-A are unrecoverable. Communication with these entities can be accomplished by manipulating cooked noodles within 5 meters of SCP-4378. Extensive communication with subjects has been conducted. It is not understood how subjects continue to exist within SCP-4378-A. As subjects seem to lose all concept of personal identity, a Model M-130 remote communications bot has been used in attempts to communicate with the subjects, but has proven unsuccessful. Ascension interviewer is required in order to communicate with subjects within SCP-4378-A. Subjects have been incapable of describing SCP-4378-A in any coherent manner. However, it is possible to send recording equipment to SCP-4378-A for brief periods of time. After approximately 10 minutes and 17 seconds, the equipment is ejected from SCP-4378-A retaining any recorded data. SCP-4378-A appears to be a brightly lit void loosely filled with dried pasta, primarily spaghetti noodles. Noodles have been observed spontaneously manifesting within the void during recordings, but the location of their creation is unknown. Communications with subjects sent through SCP-4378-A has been limited, usually only given in a simplified stream of consciousness that has proven difficult to understand, which has been exasperated by the required method of communication. When sent to SCP-4378-A, subjects seem incapable of understanding how they are communicating with researchers and the fact that they were once human, but retain their name. SCP-4378 was discovered immediately following the sudden disappearance of Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. SCP-4378 was observed spontaneously disappearing on security footage recorded on March 18, 2020, taken from the White House kitchen. The brief video shows SCP-4378-A opening an upper cabinet, taking hold of and opening a disseco lasagna noodle box and removing SCP-4378 from the box. SCP-4378-A then spontaneously disappeared, causing SCP-4378 to fall, in the stainless steel mixing bowl, of which SCP-4378 is now contained. It is unknown why SCP-4378-A did not disappear when the box containing SCP-4378 was disturbed, but it is speculated that SCP-4378's anomalous properties did not manifest until it was removed from its container. Note from Project Lead Dr. Lark. Pending further review, I'd also like to add the observation that gravity did not seem to cause SCP-4378 to manifest its anomalous properties. SCP-4378-A dropped SCP-4378 into the bowl. Nothing happened. This is reason to believe that SCP-4378 only reacts when disturbed by a force outside of astronomical constants, possibly only a sentient outside force, but that would have incredible implications considering the recent incident. But that is something I am going to consider another time. For approximately a week following SCP-4378-A's disappearance, various noodles found throughout the White House were discovered arranged in messages. The recorded instances of this are as follows. A single piece of spaghetti found at the bottom of President Donald Trump's bowl arranged in cursive writing spelling out Hello. The President noticed this as a coincidence and pointed out to his wife, to which they both remarked at the chances of that happening. A bowl of alphabet soup given to President Trump's son. The son pointed out to his father that the soup seemed to be randomly rearranging into various words including nothing, Mike, a nickname for SCP-4378-1, ergo sum, and life. And finally, a bowl of leftover linguine found on top of the mini-fridge of the Chief of Staff's office in the West Wing. The linguine was left out for approximately two days allowing it to dry. All linguine was found arranged into the word thirst. It is speculated that this happened while the linguine was still cooked and then it dried out. Further testing has yielded a better understanding of SCP-4378's anomalous properties as well as attempting to discover a way to retrieve subjects back from SCP-4378-A. All attempts have been unsuccessful. SCP-4378 interview protocol. While all precautions as stated, failure or follow may result in unintended termination of the interviewer. One, interviewer is to be safeguarded from the X-Class Cognito Hazard. Two, interviewer is to bring 400 grams of recently, within the last 30 minutes of the interview, pre-prepared spaghetti noodles. Three, interviewer is to stand as still as possible while near SCP-4378. Remember, we are still unaware of how much movement will cause SCP-4378 to activate. Four, as per the preparation protocol, use of a beta blocker is highly advised, but only required if your supervisor deems it necessary. Five, clothing consisting entirely of non-abrasive and minimally frictional materials will be provided. No other articles of clothing are allowed. Six, do not touch the bowl containing SCP-4378 under any circumstances. Interview instructions. One, a sheet of questions will be given to you by your supervisor prior to the interview, following the application of the X-Class Cognito Hazard safeguard. These questions are to be memorized. Two, approach SCP-4378 without lifting your feet. The provided shoes will allow you to shuffle across the floor, take caution not to fall due to slipping. Three, on counter top, near bowl containing SCP-4378 arrange the cooked noodles as instructed in the interview questions. Cursive lettering is appropriate. Four, leave noodles in place for as much time as needed for a response. This has been anywhere from instantaneous to three hours. Movement during this period is be kept to an absolute minimum. Five, memorize any responses. Six, repeat until all questions have been answered. Seven, collect all noodles used and cleverly exit the vicinity of SCP-4378. Eight, note all answers in the provided interview log. Researchers note, please revise. Memorization of answers appears unnecessary when we have access to advanced recording devices. Suggestion, implant an ocular visual image recorder. Interviewed, SCP-4378-1 interviewer Dr. Mary Waldorf, former project lead. Note from Dr. Gary Lark. Record of interview compiled from Dr. Mary Waldorf's journal as well as on-site audio recording. Interview conducted only two months after the disappearance of Mike Pompeo. Proper interview precautions not well established as SCP-4378 was at this time classified as safe. Anomalous properties of SCP-4378 appear to be less effective at the time of this interview as Dr. Waldorf is able to use pen and paper to conduct the interview. This interview was conducted via cooked noodles and will be translated to traditional interview form for ease of consumption. Begin log. Dr. Waldorf approaches SCP-4378-A with a small bowl of cooked spaghetti noodles. Dr. Waldorf places the noodles near SCP-4378-A and the interview begins. Dr. Waldorf, hello. Approximately one minute passes before spaghetti rearranges. SCP-4378-1, speak who? Dr. Waldorf, doctor, you okay? SCP-4378-1, who you? Dr. Waldorf, I doctor, who you? SCP-4378-1, I ask, not no. Dr. Waldorf writes in her notebook at this time and she does so. She mentions out loud that she feels strange but the interview continues. Dr. Waldorf, are you Secretary Pompeo? Long pause of three minutes before response. SCP-4378-1, yes, yes, yes. Dr. Waldorf, where are you? SCP-4378-1, here. The noodles quickly rearrange. SCP-4378-1, thirst, water. The noodles quickly rearrange once again. SCP-4378-1, you water? Bring. Dr. Waldorf takes notes followed by a short half. All sound and recording ceases as Dr. Waldorf presumably disappears. Researchers on site found Dr. Waldorf's journal near SCP-4378, with a single noodle arranged to spell, thank. Interviewed, presumed SCP-4378-5, a former junior researcher named Malcolm Steward lost following an incident during prior interview procedure. Interviewer, Dr. Gary Lark, the new project lead. Note from current project lead. Interview occurred one year and four months after SCP-4378-5's disappearance. Attempts to communicate were previously unsuccessful. Two more subjects were lost between SCP-4378-5's disappearance in the following interview. Begin log. Dr. Lark enters newly constructed containment area surrounding SCP-4378, following all precautions laid out by SCP-4378 interview and containment protocols. The day prior to this interview, Dr. Lark left spaghetti noodles near SCP-4378, spelling hello. Upon arrival, spaghetti noodles rearrange themselves within Dr. Lark's presence. SCP-4378-5, thirsty. Dr. Lark, who is this? SCP-4378-5, comb stew. The noodles quickly rearrange. SCP-4378-5, she say hi. Dr. Lark, who's she? SCP-4378-5, she touch owl. The noodles quickly rearrange. SCP-4378-5, she say play for you. The noodles quickly rearrange. SCP-4378-5, she say plan for you. Dr. Lark, plan for me? SCP-4378-5, touch thirst. Dr. Lark, do not touch. SCP-4378-5, not care. The noodles quickly rearrange. SCP-4378-5, we know you water. The noodles quickly rearrange. SCP-4378-5, you come now. The noodles quickly rearrange. SCP-4378-5, just need feel. Dr. Lark looks visibly frustrated and promptly exits the interview room. No further interviews are performed prior to incident R-4378-M2. Warning, the following files are level 3, 4378 classified. Any attempts to access these files without appropriate authorization will be logged and will lead to immediate disciplinary action. Incident report R-4378-M2, compiled by Captain Meiserdorf of Mobile Task Force Aida-7 at the request of Dr. Gary Lark. Note from Compiler. Incident R-4378-M2 has proven incredibly difficult to document considering the nature of the event. Use of the Lifeman Protocol has made interviewing any person present during the incident impossible. Most documents compiled in this report have been totally expunged from the public record and are likely now only present in this report. Memo from the President's Secretary. Memorandum for the President. Preparations for the earthquake. In regards to the earthquake advisory put forth by the U.S. Geological Survey, evacuation of all government buildings has been ordered and should be completed within the hour. Secret Service officials should be accompanying you to Safe House 5 at 1138-M. The Vice President will join you along with your families. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the earthquake and any aftershocks should cease after 3.30 p.m., after which you will be escorted back to the White House. However, the White House has been damaged. We will observe the Hoover Standard until the all-clear is given. It is not expected that this will be a catastrophic earthquake and will likely only require the minimum of precautions. Regardless, I have been told by Agent York that the Secret Service is prepared for all possibilities. Transcript of News Channel 8 Broadcast. Host Morris Jones. Footage of a police officer sprinting with an automatic weapon. Voice of an unidentified civilian man. It all happened incredibly quickly. After the quake, you know, I really don't know, man. Footage of police cars surrounding the White House. Fear grips Capitol Hill following today's earthquake, registered as a 5.9 confusion and concern tonight on News Channel 8. News Channel 8 Broadcast opening plays. Good evening, everyone. I'm Morris Jones. In the wake of today's 5.9 scale earthquake, the President and the entire cabinet has gone missing without explanation. Multiple reports from eyewitnesses have indicated that the White House collapsed at one point. But Secret Service members have contradicted this claim. Current reports also indicate that the White House still stands. Footage of eyewitness interview.  Woman, I feel like I'm insane.  We all saw it. It's just no way. So you're saying the White House had collapsed at one point. Woman, sure? Maybe I never actually saw it collapse, but it wasn't there anymore. I'm goddamn sure of that. Cut to interview of Secret Service official. Secret Service official wearing sunglasses standing in lawn of the White House. Yeah, nothing of the sort occurred. As you can see, the White House still stands. The President, his cabinet are all currently interned in safe locations and will be giving a full statement within the hour. Cut back to studio. Despite claims by officials, it has been just over an hour since that interview and no statement has been put out by the President. Concern of the President's safety has escalated as no word from any member of the cabinet has come from the White House. We'll have more on this as the story develops. Memo from Dr. Lark to Mobile Task Force 8-7. Miserdorf, we have a class J incident on our hand. Round up the team and head to Washington DC immediately. You are to locate the safe house connected to the White House. I've been told it's found through a hidden door in the White House kitchen. And be careful of any aftershocks. A 19-0 EI bot has already been sent to the object and should negate any risks, but still be careful. We don't know the full capacity of 4378s effects. It's possible that an event could still occur even while it's stabilized by the bot. So if the President is located, bring him to the staging location and perform the Lifemen protocol. If he is not located, return to the staging location for further instructions. Signed, Dr. Lark, SCP-4378 Project Lead. Internal Secret Service Bulletin. Code Flying Terms. Repeat, Code Flying Terms. Action required for all agents. Follow protocol. Assume negative intent of all trespassers. Communication log of Task Force 8-7. Compiler note, when recovery of a person's primary, I often send a small elite team in first to locate the target before sending in the whole team for the exfiltration. It is my understanding that this log is from the smaller team, just two agents. A damaged section of the audio was recovered from the communication headquarters database. Only TFE-7 Larper and Command's audio is intact. Begin log. Command. Copies over. TFE-7 Larper. Larper. Shipper. Over. Pause as TFE-7 Shipper presumably speaks. TFE-7 Larper. Copy Shipper. Command. Approaching target. Over. 38 seconds of static. TFE-7 Larper. No. Shipper, the object is a noodle. Yes. It's a goddamn noodle.  Did you not read the prep sheet? Command. Larper. Can you repeat? Over. TFE-7 Larper. Roger. Command. It's nothing. Shipper read precautions on prep sheet but not description of object. Over. Pause as TFE-7 Shipper presumably speaks. TFE-7 Larper. What do you mean the precautions is all that matters?  Command. Shipper. Return to base. That's not acceptable. Larper. Continue extraction attempt. No risk of immediate danger known but keep eyes open. Over. Pause as TFE-7 Shipper presumably speaks. TFE-7 Larper. Copy. Command. Static. For 2 minutes and 12 seconds. Command. Break. Break. Break. Larper. How do you read? TFE-7 Larper. Copy. 3 out of 5. Breach the interior of the kitchen. No danger as of yet. Over. Command. Copy. Larper. Confirm location of terms. Alpha Sierra. Alpha Papa. Over. Static. Command. 10-9 Larper. 10-9 Over. TFE-7 Larper. I repeat. Terms is not here. Command. And rumbling noise and static. TFE-7 Larper. Command. Aftershock. Orders. Over. Command. Copy Larper. Leave immediately. Confirm no visual on terms and leave immediately. Over. TFE-7 Larper. Copy. Command. No visual on terms. Rumbling becomes louder followed by sudden static and silence. Command. Larper. Say again. Say again Larper. Larper. This is command. Please say again. Shit. Someone get hold of Shipper. Audio continues to broadcast from TFE-7 Larper. A copy of which follows. Interviewed. Presumably SCP-4378-7. Former First Lady of the United States. Interviewer. Dr. Gary Lark. Project Lead. Note from current Project Lead. Interview occurred seven months following incident R-4378-M2. Interview was unintended as letters in a bowl of alphabet soup within the executive residence were observed being rapidly rearranged. Dr. Gary Lark is called to the scene and the United States President's son is administered a class B amnestic. Begin long. Dr. Lark enters executive residence, dining room, and approaches bowl containing alphabet soup. Standard SCP-4378 interview protocols followed. The letters are rapidly moving making it difficult to make out in a communication. Dr. Lark places a spaghetti noodle near the bowl spelling hello. Alphabet soup ceases rapid movement and rearranges once again. SCP-4378-7. Spreading needs to stop. Dr. Lark. Who is? SCP-4378-7. Wife. One Lady. The following messages come in rapid succession with little time for Dr. Lark to commit to memory. SCP-4378-7. Write hard to no husband forget who he is. I remember. But not long she know and come. Touch all. She will. No you SCP found you. Can stop. Give water. Thirst. Dr. Lark. Who he? SCP-4378-7. Noodle. Touch all. Not touch water. Need water. Give water to us. Stop him. Dr. Lark. Us? Pause of five minutes before another rapid succession of messages. SCP-4378-7. Give water. So thirsty. We spread. Become armed. Take water. Come for you of water. Nothing Lark. Ergo some. In life. Dr. Lark ceases interview here. Further testing in regards to the spreading influence of SCP-4378 is needed. In Lark.


Thank you so much, Jeff, and good to see you all. And thank you once again, Jeff, for co-hosting this series of webinars, along with parliamentarians for the Global Goals, and with the honorary president of the IPU, Gabriella Cuevas, who is also joining us today. So thank you for that. And thank you for your introductory remarks. I think that really frames the discussion that we will have here today with parliamentarians joining us from all over the world. We are, for this first webinar in the series, focusing on, I guess, the issue that is on top of mind of all parliamentarians, all decision makers in the world right now, of course, the pandemic, and how to deal with that politically. And not least, how to make sure that we leave no one behind along the lines of the principles of the 2030 agenda. This is, of course, a critical time for everyone, either where you are in the world. The challenges may be different, but there are also similarities. And I think, Jeff, you just pointed out some of those things that should be on the list of all decision makers all over the world. So thank you for that. And just to briefly go through the program, we will now have our panelists give their presentations. So we have allowed you eight minutes per panelist. And I really encourage everyone to stick to that, because we have experience from the previous webinars that our participants are eager to also speak and to talk about their own experiences from their countries. So we will move in a minute to the panel. And then we will have, for the last half of the webinar, a moderated discussion where we encourage everyone who is joining us today to speak about their experience and the current situation in their country in relation to dealing with the pandemic and leaving no one behind. And we encourage you also to share concrete examples of parliamentary action that you may pass on to your colleagues in the rest of the world who are joining us today. So we really hope for this to be a peer-to-peer discussion amongst parliamentarians to share their experience and ideas. We will move now to the panel. And it is my great pleasure to first introduce Peter Hortes, who is the Dean of the National School of Social Medicine and a professor of pediatric molecular biology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. And Peter is also co-chairing the Lancet COVID-19 Commission Task Force on COVID-19 Vaccines in the Republic, the Lancet Commission where the sex is carrying the commission. So Peter, it's a great pleasure and honor to have you with us today and the floor is yours. Well, thank you so much. Kirsten, it's an honor to be here. And it's always an honor to be linked with Jeffrey Sachs, where I'm always inspired by his remarks. I'm going to give a brief overview on the vaccine landscape. First, let me just briefly comment on where I think we're headed globally, as well as in the United States. The new spike protein mutants are clearly having a huge impact. And now we're actually learning why. It's really quite extraordinary that a single amino acid substitution in the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein going from an asparagine to an aromatic amino acid, a tyrosine, which is causing ring-ring interactions and tight binding. That's giving rise to the major variants that give us greatest pause for concern. The ones coming out of the United Kingdom, the ones coming out of South Africa, and elsewhere. And it's really impressive how what a global disruptor, a single minor chemistry change can cause. And now the variants are spreading rapidly. And the world is scrambling on top of scrambling prior to this. With respect to vaccines, most of the current vaccines are expected to work against the UK variant, but not in every case against the South African variant. And we'll talk about what that means. The biggest concern that I have is that there has been so much emphasis on innovation and focusing on the need to create innovative novel vaccines that the novelty came at the expense of having low-cost, affordable, and accessible vaccines. So what do I mean by that? Well, I'm concerned that the two mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer may not be scalable to the extent we need and will not have a major role in the world's low and middle income countries. The Merck, interesting live virus vaccines using VSV and measles backgrounds, they've dropped out. The Sanofi vaccine is excessively delayed. And it's not clear what role that's going to have, the same one for Queensland. And when you start moving down the list, you suddenly realize that there's not a lot out there really for the world's low and middle income countries. We have the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine that's being made by the Serum Institute of India. We have the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Potentially, it's not clear if the Novavax vaccine is going to be scalable to the extent that we need and produced at the scale that we need. So far, we have the two adenovirus vaccines. Then we have an inactivated vaccine from Borat Biotech and Hyderabad and two or three recombinant protein vaccines. We have ours prepared by Biological E, Bio E, and also in Hyderabad, Metacago in Canada, and Clover, which has a component in China. And then maybe some of the inactivated virus vaccines also coming out of China and then the Russian Gamalaya vaccine. And the issue with the Russian and the Chinese vaccines is they are currently not been released through what the WHO calls stringent regulatory authorities or through WHO pre-qualification. So there are some questions there. And as a consequence, we have very few choices now available and not a lot of funding to scale those up. So for instance, with our recombinant protein vaccine, which can now be made, it's now being made at 1.2 billion doses by Biological E, to get that launched, we had to build on our 10-year program of coronavirus vaccines. And it was quite interesting. I found we found our group without any funds to produce the yeast strain that needed to go to Biological E. So we wound up having to raise a million dollars from a local distillery, Tito's vodka, and a million dollars from a local foundation in Texas and eventually put together $5 million from local donors in order to make that happen. So all of the talk about COVAX and CEPI and all of these financial instruments that were supposed to be in place all kind of pushed very hard towards what I sometimes in my frustration called the shiny new toys, which are unclear whether how much of that's really going to filter to low and middle income countries. So that's something that really has to be discussed at a frank level, not in an accusatory way, but to prepare for what's about to come, which are the spike protein variants. As I said, I think all of the vaccines will work equally well against the UK variant. But I am concerned about the South African variant, where we've seen so far that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not protecting against moderate infections against the South African variant. And that was one we were really counting on. And maybe it'll have some protection against severe infection. We don't know that yet. But one of the big worries that I have with the South African variant, whereas so far Sub-Saharan Africa has done quite well in terms of COVID-19 compared to other parts of the world we think, although a lot of that may be due to under-reporting as well, what's going to happen if the South African variant really accelerates and starts to cause levels of morbidity and mortality that in Africa that we've seen elsewhere in the world that's really unclear who's going to come in and provide those vaccines or how maybe ours can boost the AstraZeneca vaccine to produce one that will work. So despite all best-intentioned efforts, we're still somewhat bereft of opportunities to vaccinate the world's low and middle-income countries. And I think in moving forward, and we'll talk about this at the discussion, it's going to be very important to look at why we emphasize so much the major pharmaceutical companies and not enough the group that calls themselves the Developing Country Vaccine Manufacturers Network, which in the end of the day is providing that core support in order to make the vaccines the world needs. And so I think having a frank discussion about that would be extremely helpful. I think before I end, another issue that I think we should also talk about is the fact that we do have a globalizing anti-science empire that really began out of Texas where I live and work under this banner of health freedom or medical freedom and quickly got tied to political extremism on the far right, where it was ultimately linked with QAnon and added tacked on not only an anti-vaccine movement but also an anti-mask and anti-social distancing movement, which was then expanded to European capitals last year. And we saw protests, anti-vaccine, anti-mask protests in Berlin where there was an attempt to storm the Reichstag in Trafalgar Square in London and in Paris and Italy. And this has now become a full-on anti-science initiative or confederacy or empire, depending on the term you want to use. And so far, the major agencies have not really shown an appetite for confronting this in a substantive way beyond fine-tuning our message, amplifying our message, but not really taking down the empire. And then we have to deal with this very unpleasant aspect, which includes it's being amplified a lot by the Russian government and a well-documented program of weaponized health communication that's been highlighted by US and British intelligence. And this also is contributing to our problem with vaccinating the world. And we're going to have to have a frank assessment and discussion about that. And then finally is the fact that even if we can work away around these variants, we have to remember that coronaviruses are going to be here for a long time. We've had SARS in 2002, 2003. We've had mayors in 2012. And that's why we got involved with coronavirus vaccines because we knew a third one was coming. And then right on cue, we've had COVID-19. And now we'll have the variants, which are acting very much like us almost like a new epidemic. And then on top of that, we should expect COVID-26 and COVID-32. So this is going to be a new reality for us. So I'll stop there and hope that we can have a lot of time for a productive discussion. So thank you, Jeff, and Kirsten again. Thank you so much, Peter, for your incredibly insightful news and status of the vaccine situation and also the worries there. Jeff, do you have a remark for this? Yes. Just to thank Peter. Thank you, Jeff. Great. Thank you so much, Peter. So relevant to have this information for parliamentarians who are making decisions about this in their countries right now. So there is a question in the chat about translation. We are very fortunate today to have translation to Spanish and English. And this is thanks to Speaker Cesar Letado, who is the president of the National Assembly of Ecuador. He sponsored this interpretation to Spanish today. So we're very grateful for that. Unfortunately, we don't have interpretation into other languages. This time, we will be working on that for future webinars. But we're very grateful to be able to offer Spanish-English translation today. The next panelist, I am very pleased to welcome Ricardo Baptista Leit, who is a doctor by training and a member of the Portuguese Parliament since 2011. And Ricardo is also the founder of UNITE, Global Palantirants Network to End HIV-AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, and Other Infectionless Diseases. It's a global platform of current and former policymakers created on the auspices of UN AIDS and committed to ending these global health threats in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals. And Ricardo, we're very pleased that you're with us today as well. The floor is yours. Thank you, Kirsten, and thank you, Jeff, and also thank you, Gabrielle, because of you that I'm also here. And it's a great pleasure to be amongst such bright minds, being able to discuss these important issues that will inevitably, I think, condition our work as representatives of the people in the years to come, and to which we have a major obligation to respond properly and accordingly to what the people need. I'm here on behalf of UNITE, which is a global network of parliamentarians, as was mentioned. We were founded in 2017. And our network has always aimed to work on ending infectious diseases as a global health threat. Well, three years ago, when we would speak to people pitching the importance of pandemic preparedness and response, I can say, the interest was a little bit less than we get today. And this means that there is an opportunity here for finally to achieve the kind of reform and change that we need not only for pandemic preparedness and response, but also for approaching global health at large, which, of course, inevitably includes communicable diseases. I personally am a member of parliament here in Portugal and trained in infectious disease as a physician, actually having gone back since the beginning of the pandemic to the hospital as a volunteer while maintaining my role at the university and in parliament. And I think that it has been extremely important to see the roles of parliamentarians of understanding their position at being at the interface between the people and governmental power, making sure that the funding that is needed is secured, making sure that people's voices, especially those that are in most vulnerable situations, people that don't have a voice many times, actually get heard because we know in times of crisis and pandemics or others, those that are in most vulnerable situations, sadly, are many times left behind. And we've seen this over and over throughout to global health history, having started very vividly with HIV. But now with COVID-19, I think it becomes very clear to everyone that health safety and health security are prerequisites for economic growth and for global development. And this is something that governments need to understand around the world because without global, without health safety and health security, we won't be able to achieve all of the other goals that we may be aiming for. And what has become very clear also is that reactive health systems that have focused more on disease than on health and well-being of the people tend to fail, especially when put under a stress test. So picking up on what Jeff was saying, looking at the value for the money we're putting into health systems, we need to change the way we prepare and develop our health systems on the ground with the kind of reform that is needed to make sure that we are more focused on promoting healthy populations, healthy lifestyles, and preventing all the preventable diseases that are out there. The truth is health and well-being of a population is like money in a bank. If you're well off, you really don't think about that money that much. But when a crisis hits, you're going to need it. And if you don't have a healthy population, if the well-being of your population is already substandard when the crisis hits, you will be hit the most. And that is what we are seeing also with COVID-19, sadly, the most vulnerable populations, once again, are the ones being left behind. And this leads to the discussion around global health and what can we do about it? Well, a friend of mine, Michael Weinstein, many times says that if we were to control and regulate global health, air traffic control the way we do with global health, we would see a plane crash every five hours. And that's the truth. If given the current frameworks that we have in terms of global health, we are not prepared to deal with responding adequately in terms of cross-border biological threats. And I'm just talking about responding. I'm not even speaking about preventing or even preparing for. And that means we have a lot of work to do. There's a lot of discussion then, what can we do about it? And as parliamentarians, we have to take forefront in that discussion. I personally feel that we need to focus more on making sure that on the ground in each country that we are capable of developing the skill set and the institutions bringing together not only health authorities, but also other related authorities from defense and civil protection so that they can work together in terms of making sure that we do the proper simulations when we do not deal with a crisis or pandemic and that we are capable of responding when they do it. But moreover, we need to have global coordinated control of all of the country's actions. And if we think about it from a military perspective in post-World War II, that's in a way why in the North American and North Atlantic region we created NATO in the sense of making sure that we were capable of having different countries prepared but capable of working together. And NATO for health, if you will. And such a response would be needed at a global level, not just a regional level, where every country could pitch in, making sure that we were capable of responding adequately but sharing more information, being capable of detecting earlier potential biological threats. I think it is consensual between all of us that COVID-19 as a pandemic, as it has become, was avoidable if we had been able to early detect and contain this threat that is undermining our social and economic well-being across the globe. So that being said, there is a role for everyone. There's a role for every parliament, while the role of G20 and G7 countries specifically can take the leading role. As was mentioned before, the IMF and the World Bank also have an important role. I'm the vice chair of the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank and IMF, where we are facing and dealing with these issues and trying to push these issues forward. But we need to do more. And working between UNITE and the Parliamentary Network of the World Bank and IMF, we're also pushing for COVAX to make sure that we get the additional billions that are missing in terms of funding, because as was said, if we do not vaccinate the whole of the world, we will all be left behind. But we also need to think in terms of research and innovation. We saw amazing advancements in terms of vaccine development. But the truth is, this crisis has also showed that we have not invested enough in terms of research and development, in terms of vaccine production and distribution. We need innovation in also these fields, because that is a true bottleneck when it comes to distributing vaccines at a price that is achievable for everybody across the globe in a timely manner, because time is of essence. If we do not vaccinate the world sooner than what we are currently predicting, those variants that we just heard about will just continue to grow and will ultimately undermine our efforts in terms of global vaccination. I'd like to end just by saying that there are many things that parliamentarians can do. These are some at the global multilateral level, but also at the local level, being capable when those parliamentarians have health advice that they can be given working through university or as myself as a volunteer, or in other fields, like Esther Pasarys, who is a parliamentarian from Kenya, the chair from Eastern South Africa, who is working to make sure that essential goods are being delivered where they are needed, including essential medicines for other infectious diseases to populations that have been isolated given the COVID crisis and the problems that they're seeing on their supply chains. Or as Senator Pia Caetano in the Philippines, who is currently the chair at the Senate Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, and she's our chair for Asia Pacific. Or Andrew Ullmann, member of parliament in Germany, who is the vice chair of the Global Health Committee at the German Bundestag, who has been able to push for many important changes in their policy in rising budgetary allocation for HIV or putting neglect for tropical disease on the agenda. At large, and we have, of course, Gabrielle Gueves in her current role now as co-chair of the UHC 2030. Parliamentarians are doing such an extraordinary job on the ground. And we need to come together, especially to focus on the sustainable development goals. We have a decade to go, and I'm already hearing too many voices among governments and also parliamentarians saying it's not achievable anymore. This is something that we need to give up because given the COVID crisis, there's not enough money. There's not enough commitment. We're focusing on other fronts. And what we as parliamentarians, especially us, that have positions of leadership in multilateral organizations, we need to make our voice very clear. The SDGs now are more important than ever. They are the beacon that will lead us through this decade to come in terms of social and economic crises to make sure that we comply with exactly what we promised to do in 2015, which is not leave anyone behind. Now more than ever, this is, I believe, truth that is one that we need to fight for. It is our moral obligation to make sure that coming out of this crisis, we are capable of building back better, as many have said, of making sure that our health systems, our response systems, our prevention and preparedness mechanisms towards pandemics are better off. But also our social and economic response learns from the mistakes of the past. It is a moral obligation. It is the challenge of our lives. And as parliamentarians, we have this unique opportunity to lead. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ricardo. That is so well put. And thank you for your leadership within health, within the SDGs in your country and globally. I think this is an example to be followed. And thank you so much for your wonderful remarks. We will now move to the next panelist, Mr. Kilian Kleinsmith, who has over 25 years hands-on experience in international development, emergency response, resource mobilization, and has worked with a number of organizations, countries, and programs. He is the founder and chairman of IPA, Innovation and Planning Agency that specializes in identifying resources globally and matching them with the needs of disadvantaged regions. And I guess this is exactly what we need at this very critical time. So Mr. Kleinsmith, we look very much forward to hearing your remarks. The floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much. And well, what an opportunity to speak to all of you. I'm speaking to you from Addis Ababa, where I arrived yesterday, to look into ways forward of dealing exactly with those we don't wish to leave behind in all of this. And based in Tunisia, in Tunis, and also they're involved in issues of migration management, also looking into disadvantaged regions in the country and trying to see of how they can become better connected. But I can tell you I'm pretty concerned. I'm very concerned because in the now 30 years or so of working with populations in distress, populations in war, in crisis, disasters of all sorts, I have rarely seen, especially in countries which I would say on a way upwards, I have rarely seen such a disillusion of the small people, of the people who feel that they're left really behind, especially now. Unemployment rising. The informal sector, which has been the most hard hit in many places, totally disillusioned, not really seeing where it goes forward. This afternoon I visited actually a couple of small and medium enterprises here in Addis Ababa, talking to people.  There was no social distancing. There was no concern as such about the pandemic, as other than saying, well, look, we need to work. We need to move forward. We have contracts. Luckily, again, after first plunge after the beginning of the pandemic, now we need to work.   A few days ago, I was in southern Tunisia in one of the most disadvantaged regions of the country, pretty dire in the sense of everybody is wanting to get out, and even more so now. And there's really, besides the sort of exisabarition of what has been a problem already before, we're seeing really that people don't hear anything. And then I will be very critical and very direct here, don't hear anything of their leadership, which is really giving them answers. Talking to a man who actually attended one of the demonstrations linked to the anniversary of the revolution in Tunisia, he said, well, we were promised a meager 50, 60 euros a year ago in direct aid for the people in the pandemic. We haven't seen it. We haven't heard about this anymore. So that's why we're here demonstrating. We don't believe in our leadership anymore. We don't believe in a parliament. And I will be also here just reporting what the man told me. We don't believe in a parliament which is more busy with itself than with the real issues of the people. So what I want to come to is that we seem to see a very, very deep divide in a number of countries where people can't even afford the test because it's simply too expensive for a worker's earning even less than the test costs per month. We are really seeing here this divide between those people who, and that's the majority of the populations who don't see any way forward other than eventually moving out, moving away, or taking even other measures. So this is, for me, the moment where a crisis must become opportunity. That's a moment where parliaments, where leaders need to come together and forget for some time about the issues which maybe coalitions and compositions of governments, this is about giving very clear messages. Communicating much clearer is an issue. Trying to be very open about what is the way forward, developing visions, developing very clear plans. That is not something we hear frequently. And that, I think, would be the biggest point. It's not people say, we can survive. We can continue to survive. But please tell us where this journey is going. And of course, that is linked to the bigger game, where is the money coming from? Where are the resources coming from? Where is the access to vaccines? And the environment that I've been in today and also a few days ago in Tunisia, people don't even think about vaccinations. It's so far away from them, but they want to hear that there will be a way forward. So clear communication, a clear getting together of the political leadership, and that includes you, the parliamentarians, of saying, well, this is a crisis. It's as serious as our other challenges linked to climate change, our other challenges linked to a need to reshape our economy. But here we are together, and you, the people, you are the number one. And then I think the voices of those small people need to be heard and listened to need to be promoted. And therefore, that is actually really my appeal. Please do give these messages to people, because otherwise, I don't know where we're going. They don't know where they're going, and they're ready. Many are ready, unfortunately, to move on, move away, and don't believe in the state as such any longer. With these words, I thank you very much. And again, please do listen to the voices of the people. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Klein-Smith, and from that report from the ground. And I think you point to something extremely important in these critical times, that something larger is at stake here as well, that the trust and the lack of trust in decision makers and in representatives. And I think Ricardo also pointed to this moment as an opportunity to reconnect really with your constituents and be that voice or channel for them to make their voices heard. So thank you very much for that, Mr. Klein-Smith. And we will then move to our last panelist, who is Ms. Gabriela Coevas, who, apart from being one of the co-organizers of this webinar series, and the honorary president of the IPU, member of the Mexican Parliament, is also, as Jeff mentioned earlier, and the newly elected co-chair of the UHC 2030 Steering Committee, and the UHC 2030 is a multi-stakeholder platform on health systems strengthening. Gabriela, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kirsten. Thank you, Jeff, for having these webinars again. I think this is an amazing opportunity for parliamentarians to get engaged into the SDGs, but also to have very important inputs and ideas on how to make change happen. We are always reading and ratifying international instruments, but then, as Kylian was mentioning, and Dr. Ricardo, then we have to go back to our constituencies. We have to rebuild trust. We have to come back with solutions. So this time, I would like to speak, perhaps with too many capacities, but I would like to mention three very important documents. The first one, of course, are the SDGs, the 2030 agenda. That's the most important commitment for the world to change. But also, we have two very important documents. One is the UHC 2030 state of commitment and the country profits. I'm going to explain this document. And of course, the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, the statement that Jeff just released, I think it was Jeff today or two days ago, that points very well, which are the priorities for 2021. Perhaps we can post the link in the group chat because I think that's also a very interesting document. That can be very helpful for parliamentarians because there are many important ideas that we can translate through this international perspective into local solutions. And I will go directly to UHC 2030. In September 2019, at the United Nations High-Level Meeting, Universal Health Coverage, moving together to build a healthier world, world leaders endorse the most ambitious and comprehensive political declaration on health in history. And we did the same at the IPU in October the same year. In endorsing those declarations, the world recommended to ensure that by 2030, everyone in every country can receive all the quality health services they need without suffering financial hardship. In assessing the state of UHC commitment at the global and country levels, UHC 2030 has identified eight commitments areas and assesses against these specific commitments, areas to hold leaders to account. The first synthesis was published in December last year, together with 193 country profiles. You can find everything at the UHC 2030 website. Findings show that in many countries, poor and vulnerable groups are being further left behind and the inequities are widening due to the COVID-19 crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic is also exposing and exacerbating witnesses in health systems. You're showing that many governments neglected to invest in health, social safety nets and many governments neglected also to work for emergency preparedness when it really mattered before that crisis struck. Even countries with stronger health systems could have been better prepared for this emergency or whatever other emergency, because this is not going to be the only one. This is, there's still much to be done to ensure adequate support to frontline health workers, to meaningfully engage all stakeholders in decision making and to ensure gender equitable responses. Furthermore, many countries have not adopted measurable national targets and public awareness of government's commitments remains limited. We have eight commitments at UHC 2030. The first one is to ensure political leadership beyond the health. We were talking about trust. Well, this is why political leadership is really needed to commit to achieve UHC for healthy lives and well-being for all at all stages as a social contract. The second one, leave no one behind. That way we are here. Third one, our job description, legislate and regulate. Four, uphold the quality of care. Five, invest more, invest better. Six, move together. And of course, gender equality and emergency preparedness. I would like to go a little bit deeper to the ones that are part of our job description. Regulate and legislate. Expand and strengthen UHC legislation and regulations, set clear targets and communicate better to bring people together. I will use some of the examples that I have seen as an IPU president some months ago, but also now at the UHC 2030. Some countries are not doing anything to be honest in terms of giving really health for all. But some others are having health as a human right in the basic constitutions, but without a national plan or without a real strategy. So many countries have not adopted measurable national UHC targets and public awareness of government commitment to UHC remains limited. One of the key findings for the 2020 UHC survey is that stakeholders are unclear about what constitutes a UHC commitment and what if any commitments that governments have made recently or in the past. In referring to commitments, survey respondents often mentioned references to health in their countries, constitutions or laws or big policies or statements made in meetings or in the media. For example, well, classics, political narrative. If we are not able to translate political narrative into actions, we are only making across the more damage. So we really need to explain and to be very explicit on which are the UHC targets to increase coverage of essential health services or to increase financial protection or have faith to communicate. We need to communicate those targets to stakeholder groups, including of course civil society organizations. We also need to define how are we going to monitor progress towards UHC. As parliamentarians, we need to legislate. We need to be very clear on their concept as a basic human right, but also we need to go to the secondary legislation and to go further, which are the most important policies that are going to be mandated in the legislation. And of course that goes to two very important issues, budget allocation and oversight. And if we are not defining how are we going to monitor progress towards UHC, we are going to be completely lost. But in the 2030 agenda, the SDGs are showing very clear indicators. We have 3.8.1 coverage of essential services and 3.8.2 financial protection. When we go to the other objective that I was mentioning for UHC 2030, there is invest more, invest better. Invest in public health and primary healthcare as a joint effort of health and finance ministers and local governments to ensure the continuity of essential health services and provide the first sliding defense against outbreaks. People want more government spending on health, but tend to overlook public health and preparedness, which are essential public goods. If we go to how governments are spending, well for most of them, the most important allocation budget goes to military and to the army. Well, this pandemic is showing us that one of the most important NMS is a virus and we were not prepared for that. So this is the moment to take a look and to question ourselves on how are we going to allocate our budget? In Mexico, we have a say. True love is only shown in budget, otherwise it's only political, blah, blah, blah. And the third one that I would like to point out among the eighth commitments is moving together, build partnerships through genuine civil society engagement. We are always complaining about how citizens are not part of politics and they are not getting involved, but there's I think a very important side of that and it's how politicians, how parliamentarians are open or not for civil society and to be questioned and involved with organizations and citizens. So we need to understand that the real change in terms of universal health coverage needs to involve everyone. We are having, for example, at UHC, the private companies. We have civil society organizations. We are getting closer to parliamentarians. Of course, we work with governments. We understand that this is teamwork. This universal health coverage needs all of us to be very clear. If we do not make a significant change in access to health, five billion people are going to be left behind by 2030. Five billion people are not going to have access to health or medication. So we need you guys, we need parliamentarians to make a significant change. And again, please take a look to the UHC 2030 state of commitment and the country profiles. The country profiles could be very useful for you and the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, the statement that we published just yesterday, the priorities for 2021. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Gabrielle, and also for your very precise recommendations on how to begin the monitoring and the parliamentary oversight of the commitments that have already been made by many governments around the world. So a very important point there. Thank you so much. And thank you also for your leadership in the universal healthcare movement, Gabriella.