 From the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, it's theCUBE, covering Coupa Inspire 2019. Brought to you by Coupa. Welcome to theCUBE from Coupa Inspire 19 at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. I'm Lisa Martin, and I'm very pleased and honored to be joined by Dr. Deepak Chopra, world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Dr. Chopra, what a pleasure to have you on theCUBE today. Wonderful to be with you. So here we are at a technology conference. I know you talk at a lot of different types of events. And if we look at technology these days, we can't get up without it, right? It's our alarm clock in the morning. We're listening to podcasts or radio.com as we're getting ready for work. It's an essential component of our lives, but it's also something that if you look on the other side, it's bombarding us constantly with opportunities to talk to this person or to buy this or that. As an expert in the human brain and consciousness, what are some of the observations that you've seen where we can really tie together technology to help us be more mindful? Well, first of all, you have to realize that technology is our creation. And in my opinion, technology is actually an aspect of human evolution. It's now happening as part of our revolution. It's also an aspect of cultural evolution. So when you say we are constantly bombarded by it, that implies a certain element of victimization by our own creation. So we don't need to do that. Technology is neutral. You can hack with it. You can mess up an election with it. You can cause destruction with it. You can increase inflammation in the body with it by sending somebody an emoticon that is upsetting to them. Or you can use technology to heal yourself and ultimately heal the ecosystem and the world. So personally, I am a big fan of technology. If you don't relate to technology, you will become irrelevant. That's a Darwinian principle. Either you adapt and use it or you're not relevant with it. That's a really interesting way of putting it. You're right. If you're not using it and adopting it and being receptive to the positive changes that it can bring in our lives, you will be irrelevant. What are some of your recommendations for people, everyday people, to be able to use it for just getting more centered rather than, I have to check my email. I have a text. I have to respond to my boss. So my personal activity every day is I have technology time. Morning and afternoon. I have relationship time. I have meditation time. I have healthy eating time. I have play time. I have recreation time. I have sleep time. So whenever you're doing something, you do it with full awareness, whether it's technology or speaking to another person. The most important activity in your life is what you're doing right now. The most important person in your life is the one in front of you right now. And the most important thing to do with technology is to be fully engaged only when you're doing it, not otherwise. And how do you... Schedule it. I love that. I love that you have all of these great times scheduled. And that part of me is wondering how much of this is psychological about actually controlling yourself. That's sort of common sense, but it's also in this day and age, one of the hardest things to do. Here we are at a conference about business spend management where Kupa is talking to their businesses and every industry about you need to have control over your budget, over your spend. It's sort of the same thing with technology. How do we actually use it to establish those schedules, establish that control that allows us to take advantage of it, but also allows us to sit back, relax and enjoy the now. So you know, I don't like the word control, honestly. Okay. My word for that is be aware. So be aware of yourself and be aware of the fact that everything that's happening to you in the world is a reflection of yourself. So if you find the world insane, then question your sanity. If you find the world melodramatic, hysterical, question your aspect of melodrama and hysteria. If you find the world centered, it's because you are centered. And so the most important thing is self-awareness, period. I like that. And you're right, that's a much more euphemistic word than control awareness. It's a more peaceful, I think more action taking word. So I've listened to you started a podcast series this year, Infinite Potential. So I know that you're not only using technology to continue reaching the folks who've been following you for many years, but now a new audience getting to tell stories in a different way. And I heard a two-part podcast series where you were talking about AI. And so one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is this Deepak thought. So how are you leveraging AI to share your daily reflections, reach a bigger audience and help us become more aware? So my personal interest all my life, as you mentioned, is well-being and personal transformation. I'm using deep learning, artificial intelligence, augmented immersive experiences, virtual reality, biological feedback, neuroplasticity, epigenetics, all as a means for well-being and personal transformation. So the future of well-being is very precise. It's very personalized because no two people react to the same stimulus, whether it's a diet or a compliment or an affront in the same way. Artificial intelligence can, if you want, help me know everything about you, everything, how your mind works, how your emotions work, how your body works and the relationship with that. So one of the things I'm examining right now is the two million genes in our body which are not human, which are microbial. It's called the microbiome. It's actually as significant as human genes in determining your state of well-being. By analyzing the microbiome through artificial intelligence and deep learning, you can tailor well-being interventions very personally and very predictably and, of course, requiring your participation. So you become your own healer or co-healer in a sense. Artificial intelligence for deep learning of gene expression, not just genes, because genes are not nouns, they are verbs. What are they doing? What are they up to right now? Are the genes that are responsible for healing active and are the genes that are responsible for inflammation or disease inactive? What most of your audience may not know is that only 5% of genetic mutations that give rise to disease are fully penetrant, which means only 5%, which means they guarantee the disease. If you have a Baraka gene for breast cancer, you're going to get breast cancer. For that, also new technologies like CRISPR, you'll be able to read the barcode of a gene, cut the harmful or delete the harmful gene, insert the healthy gene. And so that will solve that problem and it's happening very soon. It's in the works. But 95% of illness, even with the genetic mutations that predispose you to illness, are not predictable. They're dependent on your lifestyle. Now, it was in the past, you couldn't measure that. Today you can. You can measure sleep, you can measure dream sleep, deep sleep, you can measure exercise, you can measure heart rate variability, you can measure gene expression and you can digitize the whole thing. So with that, we have an amazing new frontier in medicine. The three-dimensional model of pharmaceuticals has very limited application only in acuteness. The future of treatment even will be through technology. So in five years, you go to a doctor's office, they might give you a VR session instead of writing a prescription. Well, and a lot of the advanced technologies are being utilized now in medicine, a doctor virtually through computers, exactly telemedicine, being able to treat more people faster. But it's like we're in the first minute of a marathon, right? Yeah, we are in the puberty. The puberty? Yeah, we're still, you know, puberty is a time of challenge and confusion. That's true. It is. And so we're in the adolescence of our use of technology. It'll mature. So when we look at all of the applications for the emerging technologies that you mentioned, there's so much good that can happen. We can become so much more aware of our own health and take, I don't want to say take control, I know you don't like that word, but take ownership of that. Influence, yeah. Influence, yes. If we look at some of the negative consequences of artificial intelligence, machine learning, I was fascinated by your podcast with Christopher Wiley. That's right. And how incredibly potent Cambridge Analytica was in changing the course of American history. And it could ruin democracy. Yes. So we need to have surveillance. We need to have, you know, codes for keeping it secure. Yes. So even these problems, by the way, can be solved by technology. They can. It's sort of a catch-22, isn't it? Right, yeah. But at the same time, here we are freely as just consumers. And one of the things that Koopa is talking about is making a purchasing decision, making fine management in business as easy as it is for us consumers, you know. You need something, you go on Amazon.com and there is click-to-buy. It shows up so quickly. You've forgotten what you ordered. It's like your birthday. That's right. So there are so many advantages at the same time. It's creating a lot of challenges within businesses. Well, this conversation is going to help solve those challenges because the more we have this conversation in social media, in education facilities, even in entertainment, we are writing a new story together. And that story is that narrative is so powerful. Yes. Absolutely. You're right, it's everything. But going back to your word, awareness, that's what so many, whatever the cause is, really needs to have is that consistent, it's not just saying it a few times here or there on different media, right? It's that consistent awareness. Consistent messaging. Yes. And in my mind, that messaging is one thing. It's been my mission statement for the last 35 years. We have to accelerate collective consciousness in the direction of a more peaceful, just, sustainable, healthier, and joyful world. We have to eliminate war. We have to eliminate eco-destruction. We have to eliminate climate change. We have the technology to do it. But now we need to harness the collective intelligence, the collective creativity, and the collective impulse for love and compassion through technology, and we'll do it. I like that. You sound very definitive. We will do it. First though, some of those naysayers who don't believe climate change is real, for example. How do you advise, whether it's a government organization, to be able to start looking at, use the technology, look at the data, start being receptive to the fact that change is happening, but we can harness the power of it for so many good applications. Yeah, what the naysayers, it's not worth arguing with them. And data helps, but scientific data never changed or brought a revolution. You need data, you need science, but you need collective emotional connection. If you don't have that, emotional and spiritual connection. If you don't see that the air is your breath. If you don't see that the rivers and waters in the ocean are your circulation. If you don't see that the earth is recycling as your body. If you don't see that what we call the environment is your extended body. You have a personal body and a universal body. And if you're not emotionally tied to that, then scientific data is not going to help. That's such an interesting concept because we just think, well, the data's there, it shows this, therefore it is. But you're saying we have to have an emotional connection to it. Data by itself, science by itself, facts by itself don't change the world. But when facts are tied to an emotional story, everything changes. So wrapping things up here, I know that you are working to create a AI version of Dr. Deepak Chopra that will live forever, that will be able to continue to inspire many generations to tell me about that. Yeah, I've been working on this. It's actually a stealth project, so I can't give details. But I've been working on this for more than a year now and where we are is I will soon have a version of myself, my mind twin, that'll know everything that I've ever said, but will also, through deep learning, continue to learn and will live for generations after I'm gone or perhaps eternally and will communicate with the world even when I'm physically not present and because it'll be learning as we go along and incorporating everything into my take on what is reality, what is fundamental reality, what is consciousness, it will be much smarter than I am. Wow, so you think that AI and consciousness are really going to be able to merge together to continue to evolve rather than you think about, oh, AI takes data from the past and the present to try to predict the future, but you see them as living symbiotically AI and consciousness? I do, but we have to be careful. AI will never have subjective consciousness. Okay, it'll never, it may replicate insight and intuition and creativity and even vision, but it won't be able to fall in love. That's good, I was a little worried about that. And it will not be able to address experientially what comes from meditation and other reflective inquiries that transcend human thought. So science is a system of thought, just like mythology, religion, philosophy, theology are systems of thought. No system of thought can actually access reality till you go to the source of thought which is consciousness. Dr. Deepak Chopra, what a pleasure to have you on theCUBE. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. I know you've got to get after your keynote, but it was very much a pleasure. Thank you, my pleasure. Excellent. For Dr. Deepak Chopra, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE from Koopa Inspire 19. Thanks for watching.