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Amanpour
Interview with "One Helluva Ride" Author Michael Douglas; Interview with MIT Department of Mathematics Assistant Professor and Former NFL Player John Urschel. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 21, 2026 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
On the occupied West Bank, settler attacks against Palestinians surged with Israeli elections less than a week away. Correspondent Jeremy Diamond
investigates.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL DOUGLAS, AUTHOR, "ONE HELLUVA RIDE": The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Michael Douglas has had one hell of a ride. My candid conversation with the celebrated actor, producer, and now out with a hell of a memoir.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN URSCHEL, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, MIT DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND FORMER NFL PLAYER: I'm so lucky to be able to go to work every day. And what do I
do? I just think about problems all day. I just solve math problems.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- John Urschel went from the NFL to MIT. He talks to Walter Isaacson about working out solutions on the chalkboard.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
And we begin in Israel, where less than a week away from critical general elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is campaigning for another
term. And despite heavy criticisms both at home and abroad, President Trump has endorsed him.
This as Netanyahu faces accusations about failing to heed advanced warnings of an attack prior to October 7th, an allegation that he denies. Netanyahu
maintains no one can keep Israel safer than him, but do the voters agree? Some analysts suggest Arab voter turnout could tip the balance against him.
But one group which will almost certainly stand firm are the extremist settlers. No other Israeli government has more aggressively empowered that
group as they sharply increase their attacks and displacement of Palestinian residents.
Correspondent Jeremy Diamond has reported on this story extensively, and he joined me from Jerusalem. Jeremy, good to see you. You have been reporting
on this settler violence for a long time. Now, you're kind of stepping back and putting it into context. What did you find out?
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Christiane. I mean, over the course of the last three years since the October 7th
attacks, we have seen a marked increase in settler violence in the West Bank. It increased again over the course of the Iran war, and at that time,
what we heard a lot from top Israeli officials, including the Israeli prime minister, was trying to paint this settler violence as a fringe phenomenon,
the f- the work of 100 to 150 juvenile delinquents.
But the reality in what we found and what we tried to step back and show here is the extent to which the violent actions of some of these settlers
are then reinforced by Israeli government's action that ultimately is changing the reality and the face of the West Bank for many decades to
come.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DIAMOND (voice-over): For more than two decades, these attacks have been an inescapable reality for Palestinians in the towns of Khusra and Jalud.
Israeli settlers, often descending from a hilltop outpost named Esh Kodesh, have broken windows, set homes on fire, and beaten local residents.
BASHAR QARYOUTE, PALESTINIAN PARAMEDIC (through translator): You can't even describe the tragedies we've witnessed inside this ambulance. We've
seen tragedies, disasters, bodies, injured.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Bashar Al Qaryoute has been a medic here for 25 years, witnessing that settler violence up close.
DIAMOND: As we're driving through the town, I mean, it's like every 20 seconds or so, Bashar is stopping to point out yet another place where a
settler attack took place.
DIAMOND (voice-over): For as long as Bashar has driven his ambulance, Esh Kodesh has stood here illegally under both international and Israeli law.
But that changed in December when the Israeli government retroactively legalized it. Israel's finance minister, who directed the approval process,
was among the first to show up at the newly minted settlement, which is still considered illegal under international law.
But the violence didn't stop. It intensified. Esh Kodesh is one of 104 new settlements approved by the Israeli government since 2023.
[13:05:00]
In just this area alone, Esh Kodesh is one of six new settlements, five of which were previously illegal outposts. Settlers have established hundreds
of these outposts over the last three years, affecting dozens of Palestinian communities across the West Bank. That's because where there
are outposts, there is almost always violence. Attacks against Palestinians have surged, doubling in the last three years.
Mahmoud Tubasi is all too familiar with that reality.
DIAMOND: He says he watches this security camera, his two homes there, 24 hours a day.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Three months ago, Israeli settlers forced him to flee the homes he built for his family.
DIAMOND: What would happen if you went back?
MAHMOUD TUBASI, VICTIM OF SETTLER ATTACKS (through translator): They would kill me.
DIAMOND (voice-over): That nearly happened last month, after the Israeli military acted on a Supreme Court order to return the Tubasis (ph) to their
home. More than 100 settlers attacked, hurling stones and setting fires. Tubasi sees it as yet more evidence of the Israeli government's support for
violent settlers.
TUBASI (through translator): Why does the army have the power to stop Palestinians, but when it comes to these settlers, suddenly it has no
power? No, the army has exactly the same power. It simply does not want to stop them.
DIAMOND (voice-over): It is a cycle of impunity Tubasi first experienced 25 years ago, when he says he was shot by an Israeli settler near the Esh
Kodesh outpost.
TUBASI (through translator): Instead of imprisoning him, instead of restraining him, they legalized the settlement as a reward. This confirms
that the government encourages every settler to attack Palestinians.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Facts on the ground bear that out. A month after the government legalized Esh Kodesh, settlers established new illegal outposts,
and violence surged. We saw firsthand how settlers besieged another home in the area. The Israeli military deployed troops, but failed to clear out the
settlers. The Israeli prime minister has condemned the violence, but he has also downplayed it.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The settler violence thing is a tremendous hoax. Not because there isn't settlers -- it's not settlers,
actually. It's about 150, 200 juvenile delinquents who are doing this.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Netanyahu's government, the most right-wing in Israel's history, has emboldened the settlers, funneling more than $6
billion to settlements, including $450 million to support newly legalized outposts. His ministers of defense and national security have weakened law
enforcement of Jewish violence against Palestinians, with only 6 percent of cases leading to an indictment.
Bashar's colleague was shot and killed while driving this ambulance. He says no one was ever arrested, and the attacks continue.
QARYOUTE (through translator): It's terrible. Whenever I go out in the ambulance, I expect that I might not come back. I expect I won't return
home.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Bashar says much of it can be traced back to the government's outpost legalization.
QARYOUTE (through translator): After that, the settlers in Esh Kodesh bared their fangs. Their ambitions grew significantly. Anyone who commits a
crime is supposed to be punished, but instead, they are rewarded for committing crimes, and this is very dangerous precedent taking place in the
Esh Kodesh area and this entire area southeast of Nabius.
DIAMOND (voice-over): The cycle is now repeating itself across the West Bank. Settler playbook now well-established.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: So, Jeremy, you say the settler playbook now well-established. You see the essentially growing pariah status of Israel with various
different countries complaining, doing all sorts of things like sanctions on certain settler products, et cetera. Internally, all sorts of former
security and politicians and defense officials writing to the prime minister to tell him to stop this, that it's ethnic cleansing, that it
destroys the character of Israel. Is that making any impact?
DIAMOND (on camera): Well, it doesn't really seem to be changing the big picture on the ground in the West Bank. I mean, we have watched as this
settler violence right now, in particular, amid the olive harvest season in the West Bank, is only increasing. We saw last week, for example, a
Washington Post photographer who was attacked. Today, we saw a number of Jewish American activists who were with Palestinians on the ground. They
were detained by the Israeli military.
[13:10:00]
And so, the kind of broader policy of the Israeli government certainly is not changing. We've seen here and there efforts by the Israeli military to
crack down on some of that violence, but it usually only happens after we see high-profile incidents, such as the attack on the Washington Post
photojournalist last week, when international diplomats are attacked.
But then you see actions like today, where the Israeli military comes in and detains dozens of foreign activists who have come to a standing ovation
in the West Bank. And it shows that the broader policy of this government remains unchanged.
And so, it seems that the only way that that policy is really going to change in the West Bank, and that the reality on the ground is going to
change, is if there is a new Israeli government following these elections slated to take place next week.
We have heard from some of the opposition candidates who have been much firmer in their denunciation of the settler violence that we have seen on
the ground than the current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And certainly, we can expect that if a new government comes into place, one,
for example, that could potentially be led by the opposition candidate Gadi Eisenkot, then you would see some changes on the ground.
But for now, much of the international outcry doesn't seem to be shifting this current Israeli government's position.
AMANPOUR: And President Trump, as we know, has openly endorsed Bibi Netanyahu and called on Israelis to vote for him as the best guarantor of
Israeli security. But we also know that, according to The New York Times, a key aid to the current U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee has essentially been
sending very rosy pictures and documents of what's actually going on on the ground up the chain of command to the United States, basically saying,
well, and I'm paraphrasing, it's all going pretty well. Sort of a distorted picture, in my opinion, of what is actually happening on the ground.
I mean, and the idea that Netanyahu cast doubt on whether Heidi Levine, the American photographer, was actually attacked when the video shows it
clearly really gives you the idea of an impunity that's there.
DIAMOND: Absolutely. And, you know, the U.S. ambassador, Mike Huckabee, is an interesting figure in the midst of all of this, because on the one hand,
he is someone who for years, for decades even, before he became the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, stood in lockstep with the Israeli settler movement,
supported the establishment and the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. And he has continued to express that support as the U.S.
ambassador to Israel. In fact, he famously refers to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, the biblical term that is often used by Jewish settlers in
this area to refer to that territory.
But at the same time, we've also seen Mike Huckabee come out and denounce some of this violence in very strong terms, calling it terrorism, calling
it criminal acts and thuggery that must be acted upon by the Israeli government. But Huckabee also seems too often accept at face value when the
Israeli government says that it's cracking down on a certain incident or going to arrest a certain number of settlers who carried out a violent
attack.
And there isn't really much of an impact from his standpoint to the broader policy of the Israeli government. In fact, I asked him about this a couple
of months ago when he went to visit a Palestinian community in the West Bank, and he basically said that he believes that he ultimately has limited
influence with the Israeli government, even though we know that the U.S. government is the largest provider of security and financial assistance to
the state of Israel.
AMANPOUR: Wow, that's really incredible. I mean, if anybody has influence in the United States of America, should they choose to use it?
But let me ask you another question. And it's actually about Gaza, and it's about the 7th of October. There are reports, as you know, by Nadav Eyal in
Ynet earlier this year about Netanyahu asking his Qatari interlocutors in charge of the file to increase funding for Hamas, which was meant to sort
of keep them paying salaries and all the rest of it in Gaza.
What wasn't really focused on, according to sources who I'm talking to, was that the Qatari official told David Barnea, the head of the Mossad who was
making this request from Netanyahu, that it was not a good idea. Anyway, Israel apparently, according to this source, insisted, and it did happen,
and then we saw what happened on October 7th.
Is this having an impression? Is it part of the election campaign? Are people in Israel concerned about their prime minister having upped the
payments, despite Qatari warnings, we understand, to Hamas just before October 7th?
DIAMOND: It is certainly an issue that a number of the opposition candidates have seized upon, pointing to the fact that the Israeli prime
minister effectively helped to prop up Hamas in the Gaza Strip through those payments for years with the belief that he could effectively keep
Hamas in check and that there would not be the kind of massive explosion that we saw on October 7th. That obviously proved to be, you know, an
incorrect assumption and assessment by the Israeli prime minister.
[13:15:00]
And so, a number of candidates have pointed that out. It is one of a myriad of issues that fall in the kind of broader bucket of what kind of
responsibility does Benjamin Netanyahu have for the security failures leading up to October 7th. And within that bucket also fits the various
warnings that came from Egypt and from the UAE, reportedly in the weeks before the October 7th attacks, that Hamas was preparing something. And of
course, what the prime minister knew and when on the eve and on the morning of those October 7th attacks.
But by and large, there's no question that this election has become a referendum on the Israeli prime minister, very closely tied, of course, to
those security failures that led up to October 7th. It is the way that the opposition candidates have framed it. But frankly, it is also how the prime
minister and his supporters have framed it as well, as he has tried to tout all that he has done for Israel's security in the three years since the
October 7th attacks.
And so, next week, as Israelis head to the polls, it will be their first opportunity for some measure of accountability for the Israeli prime
minister and ultimately to kind of reflect the enormous shift that we have seen in this country following the October 7th attack, the traumas that
have followed since for the Israeli public, and of course, the broader impact that all of this has had on the region at large.
AMANPOUR: Exactly. And we will be following your coverage of the election, as you say, barely a week away now. Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much
indeed.
And stay with CNN. We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Michael Douglas is Hollywood royalty, but being the son of Kirk Douglas is no easy burden to bear. He was the swashbuckling star of
"Spartacus," and it meant that Douglas had to fight to establish himself as an actor and a producer on his own merit.
And challenge accepted. Look at the credits. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "The China Syndrome," "Fatal Attraction," a string of massive hits
that helped shape the cultural zeitgeist. Like with this unforgettable scene from "Oliver Stone's Wall Street."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL DOUGLAS, AUTHOR, "ONE HELLUVA RIDE": The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right.
Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
(END VIDEO CLIP
AMANPOUR: Oh, boy. Well, now Douglas has laid out his extraordinary life in almost 500 pages of candor, humor, and more than a little wisdom. He
calls his memoir "One Helluva Ride." And he's joining me now to talk about the highlights and maybe some low points. Michael Douglas, welcome to the
program. Really great to have you on.
DOUGLAS: Thank you so much, Christiane. It's just such always a pleasure to be able to talk with you.
AMANPOUR: And you too, especially about this book. I want to read a little bit at the start. You basically say, if you were to look at my life and
say, Michael, you are one lucky bastard, you'd be absolutely right. Also, if you were to look at my life and say to me, you've been through a hell of
a lot, that would also be true.
[13:20:00]
So, where is the balance? One lucky bastard or been through a hell of a lot or is it both?
DOUGLAS: It's both. "One Lucky Bastard" sort of has a sense that it wasn't really anything I did and I was just fortunate enough. I guess maybe it's
that fear of nepotism babies that goes around. So, I worked hard for it. I worked hard.
And in "One Lucky Bastard," we were thinking about being the title, but "One Helluva Ride" seemed more likely. And it has been -- and I've had a
lot of good times and some of the bad. But I truly never anticipated that this book would be quite the hit that it's become. It's just a joy and a
tremendous surprise at this point in my life.
AMANPOUR: So, Michael, why do you think that is then? Because it has become a hit. Your interviews, which I've listened to in the, you know,
rollout, have been really funny, entertaining, engaging. I mean, it's an old-style Hollywood story. And it's still -- I guess people love that
stuff. And you're very candid.
DOUGLAS: Yes, I am. I think maybe it's a combination. I started out wanting to do almost like a textbook about producing. And I took like 10 of
my movies and have 10 different chapters talking about from the very beginning fruition and all the things that a producer does. And as I was
telling those stories, individual movies, they also involved a lot of personal interactions.
And so, I took a deep breath and realized that if I really was going to do a biography that I had to tell the whole story. And so, I think the book
has a combination of really insights into moviemaking and behind the scenes and a lot of big, successful movies as well as well as some, you know, kiss
and tell all, I guess, a couple of situations with interactions that people are interested about. For instance, Kathleen Turner, after 40 years, people
say, oh, I always knew there was something going on, you know, and sharing that.
So, I think it's a combination of the two and also being vulnerable enough to show your foibles and your own issues. I've dealt with in terms of drugs
and alcohol that makes a combination that people can --
AMANPOUR: All right. There's a lot to ask you about, but just quickly, you're a gentleman. Did you ask Kathleen Turner for permission?
DOUGLAS: I did. I asked both of the -- both ladies. I asked them for their permission, for sure.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, you dedicate this book to your family and we'll talk more about the wider family. But I know you've been asked this every time
you step in front of a camera to be asked about your career. It was, as you write, not easy being the son of Spartacus. Your father was a massive movie
hero around the world.
And just tell us what it was like to step out of his shadow and to actually try to act, you know, with a father who was one of the world's most famous
actors at the time.
DOUGLAS: Well, that it was the issue. I mean, you all who remember Kirk Douglas, he was larger than life. And it wasn't even a question of the act
being an actor. It was can I ever be the man that my father is? He was so dynamic, so energetic. And he also had a pretty strong temper. So, it took
a while. I was pretty withdrawn as a kid.
Never thought about being an actor. It was the last thing I wanted to be, probably because I thought of it as being always either my mother who was
an actress or my father being taken away from me into their jobs. So, it was it was a long haul.
And for a long time, I struggled with my confidence. And I would have to say it wasn't really till the year of "Fatal Attraction" and "Wall Street"
coming out of the same year and getting nominated and winning the Oscar for "Wall Street" that I finally sort of stepped out of the shadow of dad.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, that's really interesting, because one of the other lines I read, which I think is really actually really interesting for
today, you write, I spent a significant portion of my career playing some version of the modern flawed American male.
And you've just mentioned "Wall Street" and that whole Gordon Gekko greed is good thing. "Fatal Attraction" and others. "Basic Instinct," whatever.
[13:25:00]
Tell me about the flawed American male. Why that -- why you were drawn to that.
DOUGLAS: In my father's generation, post-World War II, there were heroes and villains. I think it was a carryover from the war. The war, white hats
or black hats. I grew up in college in the '60s with the Vietnam War going on. And my life, I was perceived as much of a gray area. There was moral
ambiguity in a lot of areas. There was frustrations, a lack of identity between men and women and what their roles are. And the end the war itself.
So, I guess I was somebody who read a lot of newspapers and current events, was attracted to projects that presented a moral dilemma for somebody. And
would they make the right choice or not? And I guess based on the success of a lot of those films, a lot of other people identified with that, too.
AMANPOUR: Michael, do you think in the fullness of time, as you look back and all the conversation about a entitled man and, you know, rich makes
right and toxic masculinity, that some of those characters, I mean, inadvertently perhaps gave permission for that kind of behavior?
DOUGLAS: I wouldn't think they gave permission. I thought it gave them warning more than more than anything else. I mean, certainly, you know,
"Fatal Attraction." I played an adulterer and was an example of the worst nightmare that could possibly happen if you ended up having an affair. And
all my male friends, you know, said, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. You know, that was that.
And I remember going to France and having a picture screened in France. And all the critics said, well, you know, in France, we all have affairs and
relationships. This would not mean much, except every French wife brought their husband to that film to show them what the results could be.
So, no, I cherish the fact that so many of my pictures had food for thought and hopefully were two hours of very good entertainment. And then you left
the theater and you were left thinking about it and the questions that were there.
AMANPOUR: Yes. Well, they certainly were amazingly entertaining and excellent. On a different issue, which is slightly more political and, you
know, more serious in the geopolitical world, you also did China Syndrome. And that was, you know, about essentially prescient, about, you know, the
safety around a nuclear power plant.
And I think it was how many days after, you know, three, three days after or shortly after, 12 days after it was released.
DOUGLAS: Twelve days. Twelve days after.
AMANPOUR: Yes. You had "Three Mile Island." Were you surprised by how sort of life imitated art or was that worry what propelled you to do this film?
DOUGLAS: I began the film thinking that I was making a horror movie, a man against a machine. I was not that familiar with nuclear power, but doing
our research for the film, we were able to acquire two G.E. specialists who had kind of lost faith and come over to the other side to give us the sort
of technical verisimilitude that we needed for the picture. And we were under a lot of criticism.
Jane Fonda at that time, known as Hanoi Jane, and felt it was very controversial. And people didn't believe in the picture at all, although it
was a commercial success when it opened. Twelve days after the movie opened, "Three Mile Island" happened. And there was a possible nuclear
meltdown or very close to it.
And for me, Christiane, it was an epiphany. It was as close to a religious experience as I could have imagined. And it was the beginning for me of the
biggest cause of my life, which is the elimination of nuclear weapons. And I joined the United Nations in 1998 as a United Nations messenger of peace,
focused on disarmament.
And I am unfortunately sad to say that I do not think in my lifetime I am going to see the elimination of weapons, although I've been flirting with
this idea of the Ukraine-Russia sea, the elimination of weapons.
[13:30:00]
Although I've been flirting with this idea of the Ukraine-Russia situation and peace. And might this be a moment where Putin and President Trump, in
the spirit of the Nobel Peace Prize, will dramatically reduce the nuclear weapons, just as Ukraine gave up its weapons?
AMANPOUR: Yes. Well, as you know, the New START treaty expired and Trump before had pulled out of another, I think the INF or something like that.
And, you know, it would be good if Putin and Trump were Reagan and Gorbachev, which, as you remember, did start that process 40 years ago.
Can I just ask you, because you are a geopolitical geek as well, do you wonder sometimes, given our dependence still on fossil fuels, given how
it's affecting the whole world economy now, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, America's invasion of Iran, and really making us realize that we should
have gone down the road of sustainable much, much more seriously.
Do you think that the fear around "Three Mile Island" that kind of catastrophe prevented the world from really developing pretty safe and
clean nuclear energy?
DOUGLAS: It was certainly partially responsible, but we still have an issue of waste materials, which has never been resolved. And now, the new
military-industrial complex is the idea of -- and I must say I have had to change my position on nuclear power plants, given the crisis that our world
is under, to change that.
So, yes, I think it had an influence and certainly, hopefully, made us more carefully analyze the use and the protection from them.
AMANPOUR: Michael, I want to ask you something quite personal. You talked in your opening answer to me about your struggles as well, including with
drugs. And you're very candid. You talk about having gone into therapy and detox and all the rest of it in the 1990s for treatment.
You remember then that the tabloids, especially here in the U.K., said that you were being treated for a sex addiction. Can you just tell us what the
heck is the truth?
DOUGLAS: Well, without going too deeply into the British tabloids, which are an amazing group, no, I was in rehab for alcohol and drugs. And it was
at a time, it was right after "Basic Instinct," the movie, and some astute tabloid editor over there said, I know, sex addiction became the new mode.
And that has been around my yoke for, I don't know, 30 years. But that wasn't part of it.
But I was outed by a couple of other patients that were in the rehab center that I was in at the time and started cooperating with the tabloids.
Somebody was involved and they broke a deep promise that people make when they go in for non-disclosures and to talk about issues. But that was not
one of them.
AMANPOUR: Yes. So, let me ask you about what was one. And that is, you know, full disclosure, we're friends. I saw you in New York when we were
living next door to each other when you were diagnosed with your stage four cancer. And you have been, you know, successfully treated. How are you,
first and foremost? And how did you live through that really difficult time?
DOUGLAS: Well, you survive. I was misdiagnosed for a long time until they found out I had it. And by that time, it was stage four cancer. And at the
same time around there, two good friends of mine, Nick Ashford of Ashford & Simpson and another actor, died from the cancer. So, it was a tough pull.
I'm externally -- internally grateful to my kids at a very early age who took a very close role of being supportive as I laid on the couch with the
chemo and the radiation afterwards and to Catherine. And I was fortunate enough that my process worked out and I am in remission. I'm 16 years
later. No sign of it.
[13:35:00]
But it was -- it created the beginning of my third act, Christiane. And it made me think about a lot of other things other than my career. And so, at
this point in my life, my family and my friends are the closest thing to me. And the book, "One Helluva Ride," has given me my memory back in terms
of being able to go back and research and pick up a lot of memories that I didn't have before.
AMANPOUR: I love that. And now, because you were the son of a very famous father and because both of your children, Dylan and Carys, are in theater
and film and performing arts, how do you feel about that?
DOUGLAS: I can't believe, you know, being a third generation and knowing what I felt as a second. But the difference is, I didn't want to be an
actor. I was actually in college and had to declare a major. And I thought theater would be the easiest thing. So, I became a theater major and then I
started acting and I had terrible stage fright. And my father came to my first show and he said, Son, you were terrible. And so, he was so relieved
he didn't have to worry about it.
But with Dylan and Carys, they started acting when they were in third grade. They went to summer theaters every year. They have the joy, the joy
of acting. They've seen, obviously, their grandparents and their mother and their father. But they have this joy which gives me such a pleasure.
So, I know they're both very good, but I know more importantly than that, they just love acting whenever it's going to happen.
AMANPOUR: That's wonderful. Well, I, growing up in Iran, got to know you through the streets of San Francisco. Yes, it played on television in Iran.
So, great to have you. "One Helluva Ride." Michael Douglas, thank you very much for being with us.
DOUGLAS: Thank you so much, Christine. But I want to say briefly to you that I've been following you for more than 40 years. I appreciated you, and
I know you were Persian, and I loved your influence from the very, very beginning. I could not believe how brave you were as a combat reporter and
the years that you've taken.
I don't listen to anybody more about international news than you. I'm a tremendous admirer of you.
AMANPOUR: Thank you.
DOUGLAS: You've done an extraordinary job, and I wish you the best in whatever you chose to do next.
AMANPOUR: Thank you.
DOUGLAS: My pleasure.
AMANPOUR: Thank you, Michael. Thank you so much. Thank you.
And do stay with us. We'll be back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, OpenAI says its artificial intelligence has solved a mathematics problem that had stumped humans for decades. But as A.I. gets
better at finding these answers, our next guest argues that the real value lies in the human journey to solve them.
[13:40:00]
NFL player turned MIT assistant professor, John Urschel, joins Walter Isaacson, fresh from solving a decades-old math problem of his own.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, John Urschel, welcome back to the show.
JOHN URSCHEL, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, MIT DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND FORMER NFL PLAYER: Thanks for having me.
ISAACSON: First of all, congratulations, John. You've just solved a math problem that's been decades people have been wrestling with. It's about,
it's called Gaussian elimination. It's a little bit like what we do in grade school, where you got a few equations with different variables and
you learn how to simplify it to get the right answer. But you did it with like 10,000, 100,000, and theoretically. Explain what you achieved and how
that could actually be useful in our lives.
URSCHEL: Yes, absolutely. So, it's not just like the algorithm we learn in grade school. It is the algorithm we learn in grade school. It's often
called the elimination method, where you take multiples of one equation and subtract them from other to eliminate variables.
This is exactly what our computers do when we need to solve a linear system to understand what certain unknown variables equal. This is what every
major programming language uses. And this routine is used probably billions, trillions, maybe even quadrillions of times a day. The important
thing is that this is a subroutine in so many applications in engineering, business, and science.
And the big question was, is this algorithm stable? Is this an algorithm we can trust? And this old conjecture from the '90s was exactly aimed at
understanding how does this algorithm work? Does this algorithm work?
ISAACSON: And when you figured out how it works and the way it works, was that sort of like an aha moment? You know, we've seen "A Beautiful Mind" or
all these movies or somebody's in a pub or, you know, Matt Damon's at a whiteboard doing things. Was that sort of what it was like?
URSCHEL: Yes. I can't speak for everyone else, but I can say for me, there's no light bulb moment while you're having, you know, a pint at the
bar. It's slow and steady math progress. And really the biggest thing is slow and steady understanding.
ISAACSON: Now, your background is, of course, totally amazing. And last time we spoke on this program, you had just left the National Football
League, where you were an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. You were also embarking on a Ph.D. in mathematics. And at the time, you had
just gotten married. You were having children.
How does this ability to solve this problem and the path your career has taken, how does that make you feel about your decision to leave
professional football?
URSCHEL: I think I continue to feel good about it. I bet on myself in a really big way. And by all measures, it's paid off. I mean, things are
great. I'm back as a professor at MIT. You know, I'm exactly where I want to be. You know, I've got two small kids. I'm just enjoying doing math,
hanging out with my wife, raising our kids.
And yes, it's a really nice, comfortable life. It's low stress. You know, the most stressful thing I worry about is, you know, maybe I get a paper
cut while I'm, you know, reading a math paper. It's --
ISAACSON: Well, wait a minute. It's low stress. You were the highest stress thing, which is being an offensive lineman. What did you learn from
football that may have helped you with pushing in math?
URSCHEL: The biggest thing is, it's not that big a deal. You know, when it comes to, you know, working on mathematics, trying to solve some problem, I
think oftentimes a lot of us lack perspective. You know, when I'm trying to solve a problem, if I fail, nothing bad happens. If I'm struggling with
something, nothing bad happens. You know, I'm so lucky to be able to go to work every day. And what do I do? I just think about problems all day. I
just solve math problems.
Whereas being in the NFL, you get paid a lot of money. But this is a serious, serious job. You know, if you mess up, someone can really get
hurt. And I can say that I'm really enjoying retirement. And I'm just enjoying going to work every day, using my brain in fun, interesting ways,
and trying to teach young people.
ISAACSON: Now, you say you used A.I. to some extent as a partner to do elements when you were trying to prove this theory. Tell me the role of
A.I. versus the role of human intuition. Is that what I should call it?
URSCHEL: Yes, it's complicated because we have a lot of problems that are falling in a lot of different ways. And it's not quite clear what the
equilibrium is going to look like. I mean, these modern A.I. tools are so new and progress just keeps coming every three to six months. It's a new
breakthrough. They're better than they were.
And so, what they're going to look like in a year, I know better than to make some prediction for just the simple fact that I'm certainly going to
be wrong.
[13:45:00]
There's been a lot of recent developments where OpenAI has released solutions to a number of problems that the mathematics community quite
cares about. And when the internal models that they use become publicly available, I think that's going to be very interesting for the mathematics
community at large.
ISAACSON: Well, let's talk about OpenAI doing that. The famous one that they did, a very famous one, maybe a couple months ago, was the Navier
Stokes' problem, which I think involves fluid motion, that suddenly they solved it. But then there were more than 300 open math problems people have
been wrestling with that OpenAI just said, boom, here's the solution.
What do you worry about if all of a sudden A.I. is just solving these things? Are we going to lose sort of the journey of solving them that's
uniquely human?
URSCHEL: Yes. This is something that I think we as a community and as a society really have to come to grips with. One, OK, this is not the
question you asked, but this is something that's really on my mind, this question of understanding. You know, when you try to prove some result, you
know, in mathematics, the point of being a mathematician was never just to produce proofs of things. The idea is you prove things to know that they're
certainly true. But the important part is that you sort of extract understanding from them.
ISAACSON: And it's a little bit like the Odyssey, the journey is the important part?
URSCHEL: Exactly. And so, when you have, when the destination just magically appears, you want to make sure that people are still going to try
to make that journey to understand what's going on so that they can bring that understanding to bear on other things.
And the second thing is sometimes it's the fact that you're trying to make progress towards some destination, that you discover a lot of important and
interesting things along the way. For instance, one of the problems that OpenAI dropped related to something called free probability.
This was a problem that a professor more or less created a whole area of mathematics to try to solve this problem. And the area of mathematics he
created has been brought to bear on so many different applications, so sort of far from the original problem he was motivated by, that somehow progress
towards a problem can sometimes be more important than the solution to the problem itself.
ISAACSON: Well, that's interesting that the journey and the progress is more important than just saying, give me the answer. Do you worry your
students are going to grow up and in an atmosphere where they get the answer, but they don't make the journey?
URSCHEL: Absolutely. And I think my focus as a professor, as a mentor, is to try to teach young people to still think for themselves, to still go
through the thought process of how do I solve this problem myself? Because the downside is the more that people just purely rely on these tools, the
less they hone their own ability to think, and the less they hone their own ability to understand the thing the machine gives them. And that's a really
scary, scary situation.
If you imagine, you know, let's say a generation or two generations from now, you just have a world where people are not thinking for themselves.
ISAACSON: What is the role of human mathematicians in an era where A.I. is kind of solving, so to speak, many of these problems?
URSCHEL: Well, the first question is A.I. is naturally taking a lot of human mathematics, a lot of human ideas, a lot of human insight, and sort
of really cranking them and sort of pushing them to the sort of furthest boundary and frontier. I'm not going to make a prediction, but it's not yet
obvious to me what the limits of A.I. mathematics are without additional human input. It's too soon to tell. A.I. is too sort of like new of a
technology. It's clearly solving all these problems for us. One question I want to understand is, do we still need human input to make?
ISAACSON: Well, that's a huge question.
URSCHEL: It's a huge question.
ISAACSON: I mean, are you teaching your students that their main role in the future will be learning how to collaborate and use the tools of A.I.
rather than just attack the problem themselves?
URSCHEL: Well, my main role to teach my students is how to think for themselves, how to try to solve a problem for themselves. A.I. is
developing very rapidly, and no one knows where this is going to end up.
But wherever this thing does end up, I do know that the important role of a mathematician is going to be to be able to understand mathematics and to be
able to think through problems for themselves so they can decide what they believe is true, what they believe is not, what they believe is the right
way to go about a problem, and what they believe isn't.
And no matter how advanced A.I. becomes, I think these are the fundamental tools and skills that a mathematician's going to need, you know, a hundred
years ago, right now, and a hundred years from now.
[13:50:00]
ISAACSON: Well, let me ask you a deep philosophical question. Other than the practical implications of solving mathematical problems for, say,
engineering or making fluids do better or airplane wings do better, what is the purpose of mathematics?
URSCHEL: This is a great question. So, OK, you've already stated one of them. The second is for understanding. And I think we want to understand
something about the sort of quantitative world around us, and mathematics is that quantitative language we use.
And so, understanding mathematics at a more holistic level, I think is just something that is aesthetically and just culturally important to us. The
other thing I would say is it's hard to know beforehand what mathematics is going to be useful and what mathematics will not.
You know, I'm not sure Einstein thought, you know, general relativity was going to be at all important. I'm not sure people who are studying, you
know, certain topics in number theory thought that this could ever be useful, whereas, OK, a lot of these things undermine, I mean, sort of
underpin our security systems. And, you know, what mathematics is going to be useful in, let's say, a hundred years, I couldn't tell you.
ISAACSON: You know, when we last spoke, you said how concerned you were about the gap between black and white students in terms of education. Now,
we've gone through a whole lot, both politically, COVID, and everything else. Test scores in math are at historic lows. What do you worry about as
an educator, both in terms of equity and in terms of just math literacy?
URSCHEL: Yes. It's a time to be concerned. I -- you know, I remember when I was a kid, one of the best resources I had was that I had a computer and
access to the internet. And I was so grateful to grow up in a time where I'm one Google search away from finding notes on whatever advanced topic I
want to learn about, written by some of the world's leading experts.
In some ways, you know, when I was growing up as a kid, we were in a time where sort of advanced information was so accessible compared to, I don't
know, when my dad was a kid. He has to go get something from the library or, you know, he fills out some card and they have to send it somewhere.
And, you know, it's this, information is hard to get, especially if you're not sort of, you know, in the right communities and the right places. I
would say the day we're living in now, information is easily accessible by everyone everywhere. It has never been easier to teach yourself something.
It has never been easier to learn some advanced topic.
The difference is that we have so many things vying for our attention, and we have so many things that want to do thinking for us, that want to do
hard work for us. It's never been harder to actually sit yourself and try to learn and try to do things sort of the hard way, which I think is a big
problem that we're facing with young people today. It's hard to do your homework when you have an A.I. system that will just do it for you.
It's hard to convince students to read the book. It's hard to convince students to sort of do the exercises themselves. And I think this is
something we're all grappling with at -- you know, at the high school level, at the college level and beyond.
ISAACSON: And this era of A.I., this era of widespread knowledge you've just talked about, everything being at your fingertips, is that going to be
deployed? And how should we try to deploy it to make sure that every kid, whatever their background, whatever their race, gets an equal opportunity
rather than this technology does as so many other technologies have done, widen the divide?
URSCHEL: Yes. No, this is a great question. I tend to be of the opinion that these things should mostly go untouched during a person's education. I
think it's important to learn to think for yourself. It's important to learn how to learn things in the same way that, you know, my daughter, you
know, is learning mathematics. They don't just throw, you know, a calculator at her in elementary school and say, oh, here you go. I think
the process of thinking through things and sort of gaining this information is really important, the process of learning.
And so, while I am encouraged that greater technology means greater access for all, I mean, even a free ChatGPT account, I'm also concerned that it's
going to sort of disproportionately, negatively affect people in communities where education is not strongly valued. Because now, all of a
sudden, shortcuts become easier and sort of -- the sort of importance of learning and doing things yourself become even harder. And so, you know,
this really is a double-edged sword.
ISAACSON: John Urschel, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.
URSCHEL: Thanks for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[13:55:00]
AMANPOUR: Double-edged indeed. And finally, today marks 60 years since the Aberfan disaster. It was one of the darkest days in Welsh history. On
October 21, 1966, thousands of tons of debris came crashing down onto that small Welsh village. It engulfed a school and nearby homes. It killed 144
people. 116 of them were children. Queen Elizabeth II visited Aberfan eight days after the disaster.
Struck by the tragedy, the usually stoic queen cried in public, one of the only times during her long reign. And she would later describe the delay in
visiting as her biggest regret as monarch. Today, her son, King Charles III, his wife, Queen Camilla, and the future king, Prince William, joined
the community to remember the lives lost and to honor the village that came together in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
That is it for now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
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