In this August 2021 episode of the Lex Fridman podcast, Fridman hosts sleep scientist Matt Walker to discuss the science of sleep and its relation to our health, consciousness, and future technology.

Are we facing a sleeplessness epidemic? According to an estimate from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 45% of the global population of adults isn't getting enough sleep.

In fact, for centuries we failed to understand why we, and so many other animals, even need sleep.

Lex Fridman is an AI researcher at MIT and the host of the Lex Fridman podcast, where he interviews experts across disciplines such as science, technology, and AI.

Matt Walker is a sleep scientist at UC Berkeley, author of the bestselling book Why We Sleep, and host of The Matt Walker Podcast.

In this August 2021 episode, Walker and Fridman hold a wide-ranging discussion around the science of sleep, touching on its evolutionary function, how it's affected by caffeine, what it tells us about consciousness, and its implications for self-driving cars.