 Robust first computing is about computers, but it's also about people and society and how we get things done Today I want to talk about Santa Claus I'm calling this a just maybe video. It's speculation computational speculation About what seems to me a plausible idea. See what you make of it Now one thing I need to say up front I'm assuming that everybody is familiar with all this background material If you're a kid who's wondering what's up with Santa or what Santa has got lined up for you I need to tell you that I spoke to Santa this morning and he gave me a warning to pass on to you that Good kids who want presents Will stop watching this video right now, okay? Go-go From a computational point of view a lot of the history of life is about getting better at getting better Evolution over generations is just the beginning learning by trial and error You know can happen in a single lifetime learning by imitation is Extremely sophisticated you get to learn from someone else's successes and failures rather than make them yourself I mean in order to do that, you know You've got this light hitting your retina that you have to be able to parse as some guy's hand That's grabbing a stick that's poking an anthill Whatever it is and once you've got all that you have to be able to map from an image of their hand to your hand Grabbing a stick hill. It's incredibly sophisticated. You better believe we've got Special purpose hardware for that Hypothetical reasoning allows us to do that whole sort of thing inside our head Imagine holding a stick and poking an anthill Eventually we get to the idea of being a programmable machine It's a totally kick-ass move that is a large part of the reason that we're so successful on this planet and the key innovation is a programming language a way of mapping situations and actions into a Compact transmittable form that we can move from one of us to another one of us or plus some other species someday, maybe and Then they can interpret it they can take that language and execute it so that they get the benefit of Having that skill that knowledge whatever it is without having to learn it by any of the more primitive means So With that, I mean we could have some lone explorer who manages to survive something completely unimaginable But then their book comes out and everybody knows it so as kids Acquire language they become more programmable and there's a period in there when they're Very programmable. They will store and execute just about anything that you tell them You know if Someone says hello to you Then you should say hello Okay Having that kind of programmability Incredibly powerful and also risky don't want to tell them to jump off the staircase So how do you reduce the risk the number one source number one idea is Trusted sources, you know listen to the parents don't listen to strangers and this is essentially where we are We have manufactured computers today the ecosystem of manufactured computers. We've made them incredibly programmable. That's their strength They can accept programming and do anything that they're capable of doing But we use passwords Administrator rights, whatever it happens to be to identify the trusted sources and The state of computer security today the abysmal state of computer security is in large part because Trusted sources are not enough Relying solely on trusted sources is not enough What we need is the system itself to be able to judge so This comes up in Society people as well Just maybe The reason a reason for Santa Claus is to ease the pain of this ultimate betrayal Yes, the whole world forget the whole world your parents flat out lied to your face Over and over about this and now you're totally screwed You can't trust the source. You have to decide for yourself What makes sense and what doesn't In the moment of realization that could be agony But it's agency it's independence It's what makes the system robust and With Santa Claus tail It's not personal Everybody it's a shared lie And once you get it well, then you're part of it a little sister brother They're babies. Not you And of course They're all the presents. Thanks for watching