-
Chris Anderson: So I guess
what we're going to do is
-
we're going to talk about your life,
-
and using some pictures
that you shared with me.
-
And I think we should start
right here with this one.
-
Okay, now who is this?
-
Martine Rothblatt: This is me
with our oldest son Eli.
-
He was about age five.
-
This is taken in Nigeria
-
right after having taken
the Washington, D.C. bar exam.
-
CA: Okay. But this doesn't
really look like a Martine.
-
MR: Right. That was myself as a male,
the way I was brought up.
-
Before I transitioned from male
to female and Martin to Martine.
-
CA: You were brought up Martin Rothblatt.
-
MR: Correct.
-
CA: And about a year after this picture,
you married a beautiful woman.
-
Was this love at first sight?
What happened there?
-
MR: It was love at the first sight.
-
I saw Bina at a discotheque
in Los Angeles,
-
and we later began living together,
-
but the moment I saw her,
I saw just an aura of energy around her.
-
I asked her to dance.
-
She said she saw an aura
of energy around me.
-
I was a single male parent.
She was a single female parent.
-
We showed each other
our kids' pictures,
-
and we've been happily married
for a third of a century now.
-
(Applause)
-
CA: And at the time, you were
kind of this hotshot entrepreneur,
-
working with satellites.
-
I think you had two successful companies,
-
and then you started
addressing this problem
-
of how could you use satellites
to revolutionize radio.
-
Tell us about that.
-
MR: Right. I always
loved space technology,
-
and satellites, to me, are sort of
like the canoes that our ancestors
-
first pushed out into the water.
-
So it was exciting for me
to be part of the navigation
-
of the oceans of the sky,
-
and as I developed different types
of satellite communication systems,
-
the main thing I did was to launch
bigger and more powerful satellites,
-
the consequence of which
was that the receiving antennas
-
could be smaller and smaller,
-
and after going through
direct television broadcasting,
-
I had the idea that if we could make
a more powerful satellite,
-
the receiving dish could be so small
-
that it would just be a section
of a parabolic dish,
-
a flap of a plate embedded
into the roof of an automobile,
-
and it would be possible to have
nationwide satellite radio,
-
and that's Sirius XM today.
-
CA: Wow. So who here has used Sirius?
-
(Applause)
-
MR: Thank you for
your monthly subscriptions.
-
(Laughter)
-
CA: So that succeeded despite
all predictions at the time.
-
It was a huge commercial success,
-
but soon after this, in the early 1990s,
-
there was this big transition in your life
and you became Martine.
-
MR: Correct.
CA: So tell me, how did that happen?
-
MR: It happened in consultation with Bina
and our four beautiful children,
-
and I discussed with each of them
-
that I felt my soul was always female,
and as a woman,
-
but I was afraid people would
laugh at me if I expressed it,
-
so I always kept it bottled up
-
and just showed my male side.
-
And each of them
had a different take on this.
-
Bina said, "I love your soul,
-
and whether the outside
is Martin and Martine,
-
it doesn't it matter to me,
I love your soul."
-
My son said, "If you become a woman,
will you still be my father?"
-
And I said, "Yes,
I'll always be your father,
-
and I'm still his father today."
-
My youngest daughter did an absolutely
brilliant five-year-old thing.
-
She told people, "I love my dad
and she loves me."
-
So she had no problem
with a gender blending whatsoever.
-
CA: And a couple years after this,
you published this book:
-
"The Apartheid of Sex."
-
What was your thesis in this book?
-
MR: My thesis in this book is that there
are seven billion people in the world,
-
and actually, seven billion unique ways
to express one's gender.
-
And while people may have
the genitals of a male or a female,
-
the genitals don't determine your gender
-
or even really your sexual identity.
-
That's just a matter of anatomy
-
and reproductive tracts,
-
and people could choose
whatever gender they want
-
if they weren't forced by society
into categories of either male or female
-
the way South Africa used to force people
into categories of black or white.
-
We know from anthropological science
that race is fiction,
-
even though racism is very, very real,
-
and we now know from cultural studies
-
that separate male or female genders
is a constructed fiction.
-
The reality is a gender fluidity
-
that crosses the entire continuum
from male to female.
-
CA: You yourself don't always
feel 100 percent female.
-
MR: Correct. I would say in some ways
-
I change my gender about as often
as I change my hairstyle.
-
CA: (Laughs) Okay, now, this is
your gorgeous daughter, Genesis.
-
And I guess she was about this age
when something pretty terrible happened.
-
MR: Yes, she was finding herself
unable to walk up the stairs
-
in our house to her bedroom,
-
and after several months of doctors,
-
she was diagnosed to have a rare,
almost invariably fatal disease
-
called pulmonary arterial hypertension.
-
CA: So how did you respond to that?
-
MR: Well, we first tried to get her
to the best doctors we could.
-
We ended up at Children's National
Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
-
The head of pediatric cardiology
-
told us that he was going to refer her
to get a lung transplant,
-
but not to hold out any hope,
-
because there are
very few lungs available,
-
especially for children.
-
He said that all people
with this illness died,
-
and if any of you have seen
the film "Lorenzo's Oil,"
-
there's a scene when the protagonist
-
kind of rolls down the stairway
crying and bemoaning the fate of his son,
-
and that's exactly
how we felt about Genesis.
-
CA: But you didn't accept that
as the limit of what you could do.
-
You started trying to research
and see if you could find a cure somehow.
-
MR: Correct. She was in the intensive
care ward for weeks at a time,
-
and Bina and I would tag team
to stay at the hospital
-
while the other watched
the rest of the kids,
-
and when I was in the hospital
and she was sleeping,
-
I went to the hospital library.
-
I read every article that I could find
on pulmonary hypertension.
-
I had not taken any biology,
even in college,
-
so I had to go from a biology textbook
to a college-level textbook
-
and then medical textbook
and the journal articles, back and forth,
-
and eventually I knew enough to think
that it might be possible
-
that somebody could find a cure.
-
So we started a nonprofit foundation.
-
I wrote a description
asking people to submit grants
-
and we would pay for medical research.
-
I became an expert on the condition --
doctors said to me, Martine,
-
we really appreciate all the funding
you've provided us,
-
but we are not going to be able
to find a cure in time
-
to save your daughter.
-
However, there is a medicine
-
that was developed at the
Burroughs Wellcome Company
-
that could halt the progression
of the disease,
-
but Burroughs Wellcome has just
been acquired by Glaxo Wellcome.
-
They made a decision not to develop
-
any medicines for rare
and orphan diseases,
-
and maybe you could use your expertise
in satellite communications
-
to develop this cure
for pulmonary hypertension.
-
CA: So how on earth did you get
access to this drug?
-
MR: I went to Glaxo Wellcome
-
and after three times being rejected
and having the door slammed in my face
-
because they weren't going
to out-license the drug
-
to a satellite communications expert,
-
they weren't going to send the drug
out to anybody at all,
-
and they thought
I didn't have the expertise,
-
finally I was able to persuade
a small team of people to work with me
-
and develop enough credibility.
-
I wore down their resistance,
-
and they had no hope this drug
would even work, by the way,
-
and they tried to tell me,
"You're just wasting your time.
-
We're sorry about your daughter."
-
But finally, for 25,000 dollars
-
and agreement to pay 10 percent
of any revenues we might ever get,
-
they agreed to give me
worldwide rights to this drug.
-
CA: And so you put this drug on the market
in a really brilliant way,
-
by basically charging what it would take
to make the economics work.
-
MR: Oh yes, Chris, but this really wasn't
a drug that I ended up --
-
after I wrote the check for 25,000,
-
and I said, "Okay, where's
the medicine for Genesis?"
-
they said, "Oh, Martine,
there's no medicine for Genesis.
-
This is just something we tried in rats."
-
And they gave me, like,
a little plastic Ziploc bag
-
of a small amount of powder.
-
They said, "Don't give it to any human,"
-
and they gave me a piece of paper
which said it was a patent,
-
and from that, we had to figure out
a way to make this medicine.
-
A hundred chemists in the U.S.
at the top universities
-
all swore that little patent
could never be turned into a medicine.
-
If it was turned into a medicine,
it could never be delivered
-
because it had a half-life
of only 45 minutes.
-
CA: And yet, a year or two later,
you were there with a medicine
-
that worked for Genesis.
-
MR: Chris, the astonishing thing
is that this absolutely worthless
-
piece of powder
-
that had the sparkle of a promise
of hope for Genesis
-
is not only keeping Genesis
and other people alive today,
-
but produces almost a billion
and a half dollars a year in revenue.
-
(Applause)
-
CA: So here you go.
-
So you took this company public, right?
-
And made an absolute fortune.
-
And how much have you paid Glaxo,
by the way, after that 25,000?
-
MR: Yeah, well, every year we pay them
10 percent of 1.5 billion,
-
150 million dollars,
last year 100 million dollars.
-
It's the best return on investment
they ever received. (Laughter)
-
CA: And the best news of all, I guess,
-
is this.
-
MR: Yes. Genesis is an absolutely
brilliant young lady.
-
She's alive, healthy today at 30.
-
You see me, Bina and Genesis there.
-
The most amazing thing about Genesis
-
is that while she could do
anything with her life,
-
and believe me, if you grew up
your whole life with people
-
in your face saying
that you've got a fatal disease,
-
I would probably run to Tahiti and just
not want to run into anybody again.
-
But instead she chooses to work
in United Therapeutics.
-
She says she wants to do all she can
to help other people
-
with orphan diseases get medicines,
-
and today, she's our project leader
for all telepresence activities,
-
where she helps digitally unite
the entire company to work together
-
to find cures for pulmonary hypertension.
-
CA: But not everyone who has this disease
has been so fortunate.
-
There are still many people dying,
and you are tackling that too. How?
-
MR: Exactly, Chris. There's some 3,000
people a year in the United States alone,
-
perhaps 10 times that number worldwide,
-
who continue to die of this illness
-
because the medicines
slow down the progression
-
but they don't halt it.
-
The only cure for pulmonary hypertension,
pulmonary fibrosis,
-
cystic fibrosis, emphysema,
-
COPD, what Leonard Nimoy just died of,
-
is a lung transplant,
-
but sadly, there are only enough
available lungs for 2,000 people
-
in the U.S. a year
to get a young transplant,
-
whereas nearly a half
million people a year
-
die of end stage lung failure.
-
CA: So how can you address that?
-
MR: So I conceptualize the possibility
-
that just like we keep cars and planes
-
and buildings going forever
-
with an unlimited supply
of building parts and machine parts,
-
why can't we create an unlimited supply
of transplantable organs
-
to keep people living indefinitely,
-
and especially people with lung disease.
-
So we've teamed up with the decoder
of the human genome, Craig Venter,
-
and the company he founded
-
with Peter Diamandis,
the founder of the X-Prize,
-
to genetically modify
-
the pig genome
-
so that the pig's organs will not
be rejected by the human body
-
and thereby to create an unlimited supply
-
of transplantable organs.
-
We do this through our company,
United Therapeutics.
-
CA: So you really believe that within,
what, a decade,
-
that this shortage of transplantable lungs
maybe be cured, through these guys?
-
MR: Absolutely, Chris.
-
I'm as certain of that as I was
of the success that we've had
-
with direct television
broadcasting, SiriusXM.
-
It's actually not rocket science.
-
It's straightforward engineering away
one gene after another.
-
We're so lucky to be born in the time
that sequencing genomes
-
is a routine activity,
-
and the brilliant folks
at Synthetic Genomics
-
are able to zero in on the pig genome,
-
find exactly the genes
that are problematic, and fix them.
-
CA: But it's not just bodies that,
though that is amazing.
-
(Applause)
-
It's not just long-lasting bodies
that are of interest to you now.
-
It's long-lasting minds.
-
And I think, like,
-
this graph for you
says something quite profound.
-
What does this mean?
-
MR: What this graph means,
and it comes from Ray Kurzweil,
-
is that the rate of development
in computer processing
-
hardware, firmware, and software,
-
has been advancing along the curve
-
such that by the 2020s, as we saw
in earlier presentations today,
-
there will be information technology
-
that processes information
and the world around us
-
at the same rate as a human mind.
-
CA: And so that being so, you're actually
getting ready for this world
-
by believing that we will soon
be able to, what,
-
actually take the contents of our brains
and somehow preserve them forever?
-
How do you describe that?
-
MR: Well Chris, what we're working on
is creating a situation
-
where people can create a mind file,
-
and a mind file is the collection
of their mannerisms, personality,
-
recollection, feelings,
-
beliefs, attitudes and values,
-
everything that we've poured today
into Google, into Amazon, into Facebook,
-
and all of this information stored there
will be able, in the next couple decades,
-
once software is able
to recapitulate consciousness,
-
be able to revive the consciousness
which is imminent in our mind file.
-
CA: Now you're not just
messing around with this.
-
You're serious. I mean, who is this?
-
MR: This is a robot version of
my beloved spice, Bina.
-
And we call her Bina 48.
-
She was programmed
by Hanson Robotics out of Texas.
-
There's the centerfold
from National Geographic Magazine
-
with one of her caregivers,
-
and she roams the web
-
and has hundreds of hours
of Bina's mannerisms, personalities.
-
She's kind of like a 2-year old kid,
-
but she says things
that blows people away,
-
best expressed by perhaps
-
a New York Times Pulitzer-Prize
winning journalist Amy Harmon
-
who says her answers
are often frustrating,
-
but other times as compelling
as any flesh person she's interviewed.
-
CA: And this is your thinking here,
part of your hope here, is that
-
this version of Bina can in a sense
live on forever, or some future upgrade
-
to this version can live on forever?
-
MR: Yes. Not just Bina, but everybody.
-
You know, it costs us virtually nothing
to store our mind files
-
on Facebook, Instagram, what-have-you.
-
Social media is I think one of the most
extraordinary inventions of our time,
-
and as apps become available
that will allow us
-
to out-Siri Siri, better and better,
-
and develop consciousness
operating systems,
-
everybody in the world,
billions of people,
-
will be able to develop
mind clones of themselves
-
that will have their own life on the web.
-
CA: So the thing is, Martine,
-
that in any normal conversation,
this would sound stark-staring mad,
-
but in the context of your life,
what you've done,
-
some of the things we've heard this week,
-
the constructed realities
that our minds get,
-
I mean, you wouldn't bet against it.
-
MR: Well, I think it's really nothing
coming from me.
-
If anything, I'm perhaps a bit
of a communicator of activities
-
that are being undertaken
by the greatest companies
-
in China, Japan, India, the U.S., Europe.
-
There are tens of millions of people
working on writing code
-
that expresses more and more aspects
of our human consciousness,
-
and you don't have to be a genius
to see that all these threads
-
are going to come together
and ultimately create human consciousness,
-
and it's something we'll value.
-
There are so many things
to do in this life,
-
and if we could have a simulacra,
a digital doppelgänger of ourselves
-
that helps us process books, do shopping,
-
be our best friends,
-
I believe our mind clones,
these digital versions of ourselves,
-
will ultimately be our best friends,
-
and for me personally and Bina personally,
-
we love each other like crazy.
-
Each day, we are always saying, like,
wow, I love you even more
-
than 30 years ago.
-
And so for us, the prospect of mind clones
-
and regenerated bodies
-
is that our love affair, Chris,
can go on forever.
-
And we never get bored of each other.
I'm sure we never will.
-
CA: I think Bina's here, right?
MR: She is, yeah.
-
CA: Would it be too much, I don't know,
do we have a handheld mic?
-
Bina, could we invite you to the stage?
I just have to ask you one question.
-
Besides, we need to see you.
-
(Applause)
-
Thank you, thank you.
-
Come and join Martine here.
-
I mean, look, when you got married,
-
if someone had told you that,
in a few years time,
-
the man you were marrying
would become a woman,
-
and a few years after that,
you would become a robot
-
-- (Laughter) --
-
how has this gone? How has it been?
-
Bina Rothblatt: It's been really
an exciting journey,
-
and I would have never
thought the at the time,
-
but we started making goals
and setting those goals
-
and accomplishing things,
-
and before you knew it,
we just keep going up and up
-
and we're still not stopping,
so it's great.
-
CA: Martine told me something
really beautiful,
-
just on a short Skype before this,
-
which was that he wanted
to live for hundreds of years
-
as a mind file,
-
but not if it wasn't with you.
-
BR: That's right,
we want to do it together.
-
We want cryogenics as well,
and we want to wake up together.
-
CA: So just so as you know,
from my point of view,
-
this isn't only one of the most
astonishing lives I have heard,
-
it's one of the most astonishing
love stories I've ever heard.
-
It's just a delight to have you
both here at TED.
-
Thank you so much.
-
MR: Thank you.
-
(Applause)
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was modified on 6/23/2015: "Genesis" was changed to "Jenesis" throughout the talk.