WEBVTT

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Chris Anderson: So I guess
what we're going to do is

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we're going to talk about your life,

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and using some pictures
that you shared with me.

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And I think we should start
right here with this one.

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Okay, now who is this?

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Martine Rothblatt: This is me
with our oldest son Eli.

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He was about age five.

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This is taken in Nigeria

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right after having taken
the Washington, D.C. bar exam.

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CA: Okay. But this doesn't
really look like a Martine.

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MR: Right. That was myself as a male,
the way I was brought up.

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Before I transitioned from male
to female and Martin to Martine.

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CA: You were brought up Martin Rothblatt.

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MR: Correct.

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CA: And about a year after this picture,
you married a beautiful woman.

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Was this love at first sight?
What happened there?

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MR: It was love at the first sight.

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I saw Bina at a discotheque
in Los Angeles,

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and we later began living together,

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but the moment I saw her,
I saw just an aura of energy around her.

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I asked her to dance.

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She said she saw an aura
of energy around me.

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I was a single male parent.
She was a single female parent.

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We showed each other
our kids' pictures,

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and we've been happily married
for a third of a century now.

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(Applause)

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CA: And at the time, you were
kind of this hotshot entrepreneur,

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working with satellites.

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I think you had two successful companies,

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and then you started
addressing this problem

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of how could you use satellites
to revolutionize radio.

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Tell us about that.

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MR: Right. I always
loved space technology,

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and satellites, to me, are sort of
like the canoes that our ancestors

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first pushed out into the water.

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So it was exciting for me
to be part of the navigation

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of the oceans of the sky,

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and as I developed different types
of satellite communication systems,

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the main thing I did was to launch
bigger and more powerful satellites,

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the consequence of which
was that the receiving antennas

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could be smaller and smaller,

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and after going through
direct television broadcasting,

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I had the idea that if we could make
a more powerful satellite,

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the receiving dish could be so small

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that it would just be a section
of a parabolic dish,

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a flat little plate embedded
into the roof of an automobile,

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and it would be possible to have
nationwide satellite radio,

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and that's Sirius XM today.

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CA: Wow. So who here has used Sirius?

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(Applause)

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MR: Thank you for
your monthly subscriptions.

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(Laughter)

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CA: So that succeeded despite
all predictions at the time.

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It was a huge commercial success,

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but soon after this, in the early 1990s,

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there was this big transition in your life
and you became Martine.

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MR: Correct.
CA: So tell me, how did that happen?

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MR: It happened in consultation with Bina
and our four beautiful children,

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and I discussed with each of them

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that I felt my soul was always female,
and as a woman,

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but I was afraid people would
laugh at me if I expressed it,

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so I always kept it bottled up

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and just showed my male side.

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And each of them
had a different take on this.

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Bina said, "I love your soul,

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and whether the outside
is Martin and Martine,

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it doesn't it matter to me,
I love your soul."

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My son said, "If you become a woman,
will you still be my father?"

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And I said, "Yes,
I'll always be your father,

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and I'm still his father today."

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My youngest daughter did an absolutely
brilliant five-year-old thing.

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She told people, "I love my dad
and she loves me."

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So she had no problem
with a gender blending whatsoever.

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CA: And a couple years after this,
you published this book:

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"The Apartheid of Sex."

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What was your thesis in this book?

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MR: My thesis in this book is that there
are seven billion people in the world,

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and actually, seven billion unique ways
to express one's gender.

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And while people may have
the genitals of a male or a female,

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the genitals don't determine your gender

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or even really your sexual identity.

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That's just a matter of anatomy

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and reproductive tracts,

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and people could choose
whatever gender they want

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if they weren't forced by society
into categories of either male or female

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the way South Africa used to force people
into categories of black or white.

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We know from anthropological science
that race is fiction,

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even though racism is very, very real,

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and we now know from cultural studies

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that separate male or female genders
is a constructed fiction.

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The reality is a gender fluidity

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that crosses the entire continuum
from male to female.

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CA: You yourself don't always
feel 100 percent female.

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MR: Correct. I would say in some ways

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I change my gender about as often
as I change my hairstyle.

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CA: (Laughs) Okay, now, this is
your gorgeous daughter, Jenesis.

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And I guess she was about this age
when something pretty terrible happened.

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MR: Yes, she was finding herself
unable to walk up the stairs

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in our house to her bedroom,

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and after several months of doctors,

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she was diagnosed to have a rare,
almost invariably fatal disease

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called pulmonary arterial hypertension.

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CA: So how did you respond to that?

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MR: Well, we first tried to get her
to the best doctors we could.

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We ended up at Children's National
Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

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The head of pediatric cardiology

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told us that he was going to refer her
to get a lung transplant,

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but not to hold out any hope,

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because there are
very few lungs available,

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especially for children.

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He said that all people
with this illness died,

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and if any of you have seen
the film "Lorenzo's Oil,"

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there's a scene when the protagonist

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kind of rolls down the stairway
crying and bemoaning the fate of his son,

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and that's exactly
how we felt about Jenesis.

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CA: But you didn't accept that
as the limit of what you could do.

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You started trying to research
and see if you could find a cure somehow.

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MR: Correct. She was in the intensive
care ward for weeks at a time,

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and Bina and I would tag team
to stay at the hospital

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while the other watched
the rest of the kids,

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and when I was in the hospital
and she was sleeping,

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I went to the hospital library.

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I read every article that I could find
on pulmonary hypertension.

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I had not taken any biology,
even in college,

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so I had to go from a biology textbook
to a college-level textbook

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and then medical textbook
and the journal articles, back and forth,

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and eventually I knew enough to think
that it might be possible

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that somebody could find a cure.

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So we started a nonprofit foundation.

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I wrote a description
asking people to submit grants

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and we would pay for medical research.

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I became an expert on the condition --
doctors said to me, Martine,

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we really appreciate all the funding
you've provided us,

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but we are not going to be able
to find a cure in time

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to save your daughter.

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However, there is a medicine

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that was developed at the
Burroughs Wellcome Company

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that could halt the progression
of the disease,

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but Burroughs Wellcome has just
been acquired by Glaxo Wellcome.

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They made a decision not to develop

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any medicines for rare
and orphan diseases,

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and maybe you could use your expertise
in satellite communications

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to develop this cure
for pulmonary hypertension.

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CA: So how on earth did you get
access to this drug?

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MR: I went to Glaxo Wellcome

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and after three times being rejected
and having the door slammed in my face

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because they weren't going
to out-license the drug

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to a satellite communications expert,

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they weren't going to send the drug
out to anybody at all,

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and they thought
I didn't have the expertise,

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finally I was able to persuade
a small team of people to work with me

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and develop enough credibility.

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I wore down their resistance,

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and they had no hope this drug
would even work, by the way,

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and they tried to tell me,
"You're just wasting your time.

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We're sorry about your daughter."

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But finally, for 25,000 dollars

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and agreement to pay 10 percent
of any revenues we might ever get,

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they agreed to give me
worldwide rights to this drug.

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CA: And so you put this drug on the market
in a really brilliant way,

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by basically charging what it would take
to make the economics work.

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MR: Oh yes, Chris, but this really wasn't
a drug that I ended up --

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after I wrote the check for 25,000,

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and I said, "Okay, where's
the medicine for Jenesis?"

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they said, "Oh, Martine,
there's no medicine for Jenesis.

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This is just something we tried in rats."

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And they gave me, like,
a little plastic Ziploc bag

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of a small amount of powder.

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They said, "Don't give it to any human,"

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and they gave me a piece of paper
which said it was a patent,

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and from that, we had to figure out
a way to make this medicine.

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A hundred chemists in the U.S.
at the top universities

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all swore that little patent
could never be turned into a medicine.

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If it was turned into a medicine,
it could never be delivered

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because it had a half-life
of only 45 minutes.

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CA: And yet, a year or two later,
you were there with a medicine

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that worked for Jenesis.

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MR: Chris, the astonishing thing
is that this absolutely worthless

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piece of powder

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that had the sparkle of a promise
of hope for Jenesis

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is not only keeping Jenesis
and other people alive today,

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but produces almost a billion
and a half dollars a year in revenue.

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(Applause)

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CA: So here you go.

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So you took this company public, right?

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And made an absolute fortune.

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And how much have you paid Glaxo,
by the way, after that 25,000?

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MR: Yeah, well, every year we pay them
10 percent of 1.5 billion,

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150 million dollars,
last year 100 million dollars.

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It's the best return on investment
they ever received. (Laughter)

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CA: And the best news of all, I guess,

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is this.

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MR: Yes. Jenesis is an absolutely
brilliant young lady.

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She's alive, healthy today at 30.

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You see me, Bina and Jenesis there.

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The most amazing thing about Jenesis

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is that while she could do
anything with her life,

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and believe me, if you grew up
your whole life with people

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in your face saying
that you've got a fatal disease,

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I would probably run to Tahiti and just
not want to run into anybody again.

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But instead she chooses to work
in United Therapeutics.

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She says she wants to do all she can
to help other people

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with orphan diseases get medicines,

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and today, she's our project leader
for all telepresence activities,

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where she helps digitally unite
the entire company to work together

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to find cures for pulmonary hypertension.

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CA: But not everyone who has this disease
has been so fortunate.

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There are still many people dying,
and you are tackling that too. How?

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MR: Exactly, Chris. There's some 3,000
people a year in the United States alone,

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perhaps 10 times that number worldwide,

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who continue to die of this illness

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because the medicines
slow down the progression

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but they don't halt it.

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The only cure for pulmonary hypertension,
pulmonary fibrosis,

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cystic fibrosis, emphysema,

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COPD, what Leonard Nimoy just died of,

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is a lung transplant,

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but sadly, there are only enough
available lungs for 2,000 people

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in the U.S. a year
to get a lung transplant,

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whereas nearly a half
million people a year

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die of end-stage lung failure.

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CA: So how can you address that?

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MR: So I conceptualize the possibility

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that just like we keep cars and planes

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and buildings going forever

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with an unlimited supply
of building parts and machine parts,

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why can't we create an unlimited supply
of transplantable organs

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to keep people living indefinitely,

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and especially people with lung disease.

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So we've teamed up with the decoder
of the human genome, Craig Venter,

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and the company he founded

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with Peter Diamandis,
the founder of the X Prize,

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to genetically modify

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the pig genome

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so that the pig's organs will not
be rejected by the human body

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and thereby to create an unlimited supply

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of transplantable organs.

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We do this through our company,
United Therapeutics.

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CA: So you really believe that within,
what, a decade,

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that this shortage of transplantable lungs
maybe be cured, through these guys?

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MR: Absolutely, Chris.

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I'm as certain of that as I was
of the success that we've had

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with direct television
broadcasting, Sirius XM.

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It's actually not rocket science.

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It's straightforward engineering away
one gene after another.

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We're so lucky to be born in the time
that sequencing genomes

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is a routine activity,

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and the brilliant folks
at Synthetic Genomics

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are able to zero in on the pig genome,

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find exactly the genes
that are problematic, and fix them.

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CA: But it's not just bodies that --
though that is amazing.

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(Applause)

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It's not just long-lasting bodies
that are of interest to you now.

00:14:30.976 --> 00:14:33.008
It's long-lasting minds.

00:14:33.008 --> 00:14:38.848
And I think this graph for you
says something quite profound.

00:14:38.848 --> 00:14:40.032
What does this mean?

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:40.032 --> 00:14:43.680
MR: What this graph means,
and it comes from Ray Kurzweil,

00:14:43.680 --> 00:14:48.460
is that the rate of development
in computer processing

00:14:48.460 --> 00:14:51.293
hardware, firmware and software,

00:14:51.293 --> 00:14:54.288
has been advancing along a curve

00:14:54.288 --> 00:14:58.460
such that by the 2020s, as we saw
in earlier presentations today,

00:14:58.460 --> 00:15:01.625
there will be information technology

00:15:01.625 --> 00:15:05.108
that processes information
and the world around us

00:15:05.108 --> 00:15:07.523
at the same rate as a human mind.

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00:15:08.333 --> 00:15:12.027
CA: And so that being so, you're actually
getting ready for this world

00:15:12.027 --> 00:15:16.114
by believing that we will soon
be able to, what,

00:15:16.114 --> 00:15:22.457
actually take the contents of our brains
and somehow preserve them forever?

00:15:22.457 --> 00:15:24.287
How do you describe that?

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00:15:24.287 --> 00:15:28.728
MR: Well, Chris, what we're working on
is creating a situation

00:15:28.728 --> 00:15:31.213
where people can create a mind file,

00:15:31.213 --> 00:15:35.221
and a mind file is the collection
of their mannerisms, personality,

00:15:35.221 --> 00:15:37.101
recollection, feelings,

00:15:37.101 --> 00:15:38.657
beliefs, attitudes and values,

00:15:38.657 --> 00:15:44.999
everything that we've poured today
into Google, into Amazon, into Facebook,

00:15:44.999 --> 00:15:51.174
and all of this information stored there
will be able, in the next couple decades,

00:15:51.174 --> 00:15:55.560
once software is able
to recapitulate consciousness,

00:15:55.560 --> 00:16:00.474
be able to revive the consciousness
which is imminent in our mind file.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:00.474 --> 00:16:03.039
CA: Now you're not just
messing around with this.

00:16:03.039 --> 00:16:06.160
You're serious. I mean, who is this?

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:06.160 --> 00:16:10.549
MR: This is a robot version of
my beloved spouse, Bina.

00:16:10.549 --> 00:16:13.010
And we call her Bina 48.

00:16:13.010 --> 00:16:16.609
She was programmed
by Hanson Robotics out of Texas.

00:16:16.609 --> 00:16:19.581
There's the centerfold
from National Geographic magazine

00:16:19.581 --> 00:16:22.251
with one of her caregivers,

00:16:22.251 --> 00:16:24.294
and she roams the web

00:16:24.294 --> 00:16:29.548
and has hundreds of hours
of Bina's mannerisms, personalities.

00:16:29.548 --> 00:16:31.794
She's kind of like a two-year-old kid,

00:16:31.794 --> 00:16:34.975
but she says things
that blow people away,

00:16:34.975 --> 00:16:37.610
best expressed by perhaps

00:16:37.610 --> 00:16:41.418
a New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist Amy Harmon

00:16:41.418 --> 00:16:43.996
who says her answers
are often frustrating,

00:16:43.996 --> 00:16:50.195
but other times as compelling as those
of any flesh person she's interviewed.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:50.195 --> 00:16:54.593
CA: And is your thinking here,
part of your hope here, is that

00:16:54.593 --> 00:17:01.038
this version of Bina can in a sense
live on forever, or some future upgrade

00:17:01.038 --> 00:17:03.430
to this version can live on forever?

00:17:03.430 --> 00:17:05.836
MR: Yes. Not just Bina, but everybody.

00:17:05.836 --> 00:17:09.853
You know, it costs us virtually nothing
to store our mind files

00:17:09.853 --> 00:17:12.779
on Facebook, Instagram, what-have-you.

00:17:12.779 --> 00:17:16.842
Social media is I think one of the most
extraordinary inventions of our time,

00:17:16.842 --> 00:17:20.836
and as apps become available
that will allow us

00:17:20.836 --> 00:17:23.924
to out-Siri Siri, better and better,

00:17:23.924 --> 00:17:26.571
and develop consciousness
operating systems,

00:17:26.571 --> 00:17:29.473
everybody in the world,
billions of people,

00:17:29.473 --> 00:17:33.211
will be able to develop
mind clones of themselves

00:17:33.211 --> 00:17:35.765
that will have their own life on the web.

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00:17:35.765 --> 00:17:37.219
CA: So the thing is, Martine,

00:17:37.219 --> 00:17:41.342
that in any normal conversation,
this would sound stark-staring mad,

00:17:41.342 --> 00:17:44.696
but in the context of your life,
what you've done,

00:17:44.696 --> 00:17:46.786
some of the things we've heard this week,

00:17:46.786 --> 00:17:48.982
the constructed realities
that our minds give,

00:17:48.982 --> 00:17:52.776
I mean, you wouldn't bet against it.

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:52.776 --> 00:17:55.632
MR: Well, I think it's really nothing
coming from me.

00:17:55.632 --> 00:18:02.296
If anything, I'm perhaps a bit
of a communicator of activities

00:18:02.296 --> 00:18:05.686
that are being undertaken
by the greatest companies

00:18:05.686 --> 00:18:09.006
in China, Japan, India, the U.S., Europe.

00:18:09.006 --> 00:18:13.709
There are tens of millions of people
working on writing code

00:18:13.709 --> 00:18:17.424
that expresses more and more aspects
of our human consciousness,

00:18:17.424 --> 00:18:22.509
and you don't have to be a genius
to see that all these threads

00:18:22.509 --> 00:18:26.641
are going to come together
and ultimately create human consciousness,

00:18:26.641 --> 00:18:28.847
and it's something we'll value.

00:18:28.847 --> 00:18:31.285
There are so many things
to do in this life,

00:18:31.285 --> 00:18:35.888
and if we could have a simulacrum,
a digital doppelgänger of ourselves

00:18:35.888 --> 00:18:38.785
that helps us process books, do shopping,

00:18:38.785 --> 00:18:40.735
be our best friends,

00:18:40.735 --> 00:18:43.777
I believe our mind clones,
these digital versions of ourselves,

00:18:43.777 --> 00:18:46.378
will ultimately be our best friends,

00:18:46.378 --> 00:18:48.398
and for me personally and Bina personally,

00:18:48.398 --> 00:18:50.186
we love each other like crazy.

00:18:50.186 --> 00:18:51.982
Each day, we are always saying, like,

00:18:51.982 --> 00:18:54.517
"Wow, I love you even more
than 30 years ago.

00:18:54.517 --> 00:18:57.663
And so for us, the prospect of mind clones

00:18:57.663 --> 00:18:59.707
and regenerated bodies

00:18:59.707 --> 00:19:02.797
is that our love affair, Chris,
can go on forever.

00:19:02.797 --> 00:19:05.999
And we never get bored of each other.
I'm sure we never will.

NOTE Paragraph

00:19:05.999 --> 00:19:08.371
CA: I think Bina's here, right?
MR: She is, yeah.

00:19:08.371 --> 00:19:11.554
CA: Would it be too much, I don't know,
do we have a handheld mic?

00:19:11.554 --> 00:19:15.246
Bina, could we invite you to the stage?
I just have to ask you one question.

00:19:15.246 --> 00:19:16.894
Besides, we need to see you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:19:16.894 --> 00:19:19.843
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:19:23.442 --> 00:19:24.998
Thank you, thank you.

00:19:24.998 --> 00:19:27.691
Come and join Martine here.

00:19:27.691 --> 00:19:32.544
I mean, look, when you got married,

00:19:32.544 --> 00:19:35.633
if someone had told you that,
in a few years time,

00:19:35.633 --> 00:19:37.931
the man you were marrying
would become a woman,

00:19:37.931 --> 00:19:40.833
and a few years after that,
you would become a robot --

00:19:40.833 --> 00:19:43.898
(Laughter) --

00:19:43.898 --> 00:19:47.183
how has this gone? How has it been?

NOTE Paragraph

00:19:47.183 --> 00:19:49.749
Bina Rothblatt: It's been really
an exciting journey,

00:19:49.749 --> 00:19:52.089
and I would have never
thought that at the time,

00:19:52.089 --> 00:19:55.926
but we started making goals
and setting those goals

00:19:55.926 --> 00:19:57.197
and accomplishing things,

00:19:57.197 --> 00:19:59.664
and before you knew it,
we just keep going up and up

00:19:59.664 --> 00:20:02.311
and we're still not stopping,
so it's great.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:02.311 --> 00:20:05.376
CA: Martine told me something
really beautiful,

00:20:05.376 --> 00:20:08.135
just actually on Skype before this,

00:20:08.135 --> 00:20:13.966
which was that he wanted
to live for hundreds of years

00:20:13.966 --> 00:20:16.292
as a mind file,

00:20:16.292 --> 00:20:19.424
but not if it wasn't with you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:19.424 --> 00:20:21.532
BR: That's right,
we want to do it together.

00:20:21.532 --> 00:20:24.785
We're cryonicists as well,
and we want to wake up together.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:24.785 --> 00:20:27.221
CA: So just so as you know,
from my point of view,

00:20:27.221 --> 00:20:30.936
this isn't only one of the most
astonishing lives I have heard,

00:20:30.936 --> 00:20:33.940
it's one of the most astonishing
love stories I've ever heard.

00:20:33.940 --> 00:20:36.300
It's just a delight to have you
both here at TED.

00:20:36.300 --> 00:20:37.646
Thank you so much.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:37.646 --> 00:20:39.968
MR: Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:20:39.968 --> 00:20:46.609
(Applause)