the humans are still more powerful than

the AIS the problem is that we are

divided against each other and the

algorithms are using our weaknesses

against us and this is very dangerous

because once you believe that people who

don't think like you are your enemies

democracy collapses and then the

election becomes like a war so if

something ultimately destroys us it will

be our own delusions not the AIS we have

a big election in the United States yes

democracy in the states is quite fragile

but the big problem is what if

surely that will never happen youal Noah

Harari the author of some of the most

influential non-fiction books in the

world today and is now at the Forefront

of exploring the worldshaping power of

AI and how it is beyond anything

Humanity has ever faced before biggest

social networks in the world they're

effectively going to go for free speech

what is your take on that the issue is

not the humans the issue is the

algorithms so let me unpack this in the

2010s there was a big battle between

algorithms for human attention now the

algorithms discovered when you look at

history the easiest way to grab human

attention is to press the fear button

the hate button the greed button the

problem is that there was a misalignment

between the goal that was defined to the

algorithm and the interests of human

society but this is how it becomes

really disconcerting because if so much

damage was done by giving the wrong goal

to A Primitive social media algorithm

what would be the results with AI in 20

or 30 years so what's the solution we've

been in this situation many times before

in history and the answer is always the

same which is are you optimistic I try

to be a

realist this is a sentence I never

thought I'd say in my life um we've just

hit 7 million subscribers on YouTube and

I want to say a huge thank you to all of

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people thank you from the bottom of my

heart let's get to the conversation

10 years ago you made a video that was

titled why humans run the world it's a

very well-known Ted Talk that you

did after reading your new book Nexus I

wanted to ask you a slightly modified

question which is do you still believe

that 10 years from now humans will

fundamentally be running the

world I'm not sure it depends on the

decisions we all take in the coming

years but there is a chance that the

answer is no that in 10 years um

algorithms and AIS will be running the

world I'm not having in mind some kind

of hollywoodian Science Fiction scenario

of one big computer kind of Conquering

the world it's more like a bureaucracy

of AIS that we will have millions of AI

bureaucrats everywhere um you know in

the banks in the government in

businesses in universities making more

and more decisions about about our lives

that um everyday decisions whether to

give us a loan whether to accept us to a

job uh and we will find it more and more

difficult to understand the logic the

rationale why the algorithm refused to

give us a loan why the algorithm

accepted somebody else uh uh to for the

job and um you know you could still have

democracies with people voting for this

president or this prime minister but um

if most of the decisions are made by AIS

and humans including the politicians

have difficulty understanding the reason

why the AIS are making a particular

decision then power will gradually shift

from

Humanity uh to these new alien

intelligences alien intelligences yeah I

prefer to think about AI I I know that

the acronym is artificial intelligence

but I think it's more accurate to think

about it as an alien int intelligence

not in the sense of coming from out of

space in the sense that it makes

decision in a fundamentally different

way than than human mind artificial

means or or have the sense that we

design it we control it some something

artificial is made by humans with each

passing year AI is becoming less and

less artificial and more and more alien

uh yes we still design the kind of baby

AIS but then they learn and they change

and they start making uh unexpected

decisions and they start coming up with

new ideas which are an alien to the

human way of of doing things you know

there was this famous example with the

game of Go that in 2016 alpago defeated

the world champion Lisa do but the

amazing thing about it was was the way

it it did it because humans have been

playing go for 20 500 years a board game

a board game a a strategy game developed

in ancient China and considered one of

the basic Arts that any cultivated

civilized person in East in East Asia

had to know and tens of millions of

Chinese and Koreans and Japanese played

go for centuries entire philosophies

developed around the game of how to play

it it was considered a good preparation

for politics and for life and people

thought that they explored the

entire uh uh realm the entire geography

landscape of go and then alphago came

along and showed us that actually for

2,500 years people were exploring just a

very small bit a very small part of the

landscape of go there are completely

different strategies of how to play the

game that not a single human being came

up with in more than 2,000 years of

playing it and Alpha go came up with it

in just a few days so this is alien

intelligence and you know if it's just a

game then but the same thing is likely

to happen in finance in medicine in

religion For Better or For

Worse you wrote this book Nexus Nexus

how do you pronounce it Nexus Nexus I'm

not an expert on pronunciation

so you could have written

many a book um you're someone that's I

think broadly curious about the nature

of life but also the nature of history

for you to write a book that is so

detailed and comprehensive there must

have been a pretty strong reason why

this book had to come from you now and

why is that because I think we need a

historical perspective on on the AI

Revolution I mean there are many books

about about AI this is Nexus is not a

book about the about AI it's a book

about the long-term history of

information networks I think that to

understand what is really new and

important about AI we need perspective

of thousands of years to go back and

look at previous information revolutions

like the invention of writing and the

printing press and the radio and only

then you really start to understand what

is happening around us right now uh one

thing you understand for instance is

that AI is really different people

compare it to previous revolutions but

it it's different because it's the first

technology ever in human history that is

able to make decisions

independently and to create new ideas

independently a printing press could

print my book but it could not write it

it could just copy my ideas an atom bomb

could destroy a city but it could it

can't decide by itself which City to bom

or why to Bone it and AI can do that and

you know there is a lot of hype right

now around AI so people get confused

because they now try to sell us to sell

us everything as AI like you want to

sell this table to somebody oh it's it's

an it's an AI table and this water this

is AI water so people what is AI

everything is AI no not everything um

there is a lot of automation out there

which is not AI if you think about a

coffee machine that makes coffee for you

it does things automatically but it's

not an AI it's pre-programmed by humans

to do certain things and it can never

learn or change by

itself a coffee machine becomes an AI if

you come to the coffee machine in the

morning and the Machine tells hey based

on what I know about you I guess that

you would like an

espresso it learned something about you

and it it and and and it it makes

independent decision it doesn't wait for

you to ask for the espresso and it's

it's really AI if it tells you and and I

just came up with a new drink it's

called Buffy and I think you would like

it that's really AI when it comes up

with completely new ideas that we did

not program into it and that we did not

anticipate and this is a GameChanger in

history it's it's bigger than the

printing press it's bigger than the atom

bomb you said we need to have a

historical perspective and do you

consider yourself to be a historian yes

that that's my my profession is a

historian that that's kind of this is my

training I was originally a specialist

in medieval military history I wrote

about the H Crusades and the 100 Years

War and the strategy and lo Logistics of

the English armies that invaded France

in the 14th century this was my my first

articles um and this is the kind of of

perspective or of knowledge that I also

bring to try and understand what's

happening now with with AI because most

people's understanding of what AI is

comes from them playing around with a

large language model like chat PT or

gemini or Gro or something that's like

their understanding of it you can ask it

a question and it gives you an answer

that's really what people think of AI as

and so it's easy to be a bit complacent

with it or to see this technological

shift as being

trivial but when you start talking about

information

and they like disruption of the flow of

information and information networks and

when you bring it back through history

and and you give us this perspective on

the fact that information effectively

glues us all together then it starts to

become for me I think about it

completely differently I mean there are

two ways I think about it I mean one way

is that when you realize that as you

said that information is is the basis

for everything when you start to shake

the basis everything can collapse or or

change or or something new could come up

for instance uh um democracies are made

possible only by Information Technology

democracy in essence is a conversation a

group of people conversing talking

trying to make decisions together

dictatorship is a somebody dictates

everything one person dictates

everything that's dictatorship democracy

is a conversation now in the Stone Age

hunter gatherers living in small bands

they were mostly Democratic whenever the

band need to decide anything they could

just talk with each other and and decide

as human societies grew bigger it just

became technically difficult to hold the

conversation so the only examples we

have from the ancient world for

democracies are small city states like

Athens or republican Rome these are the

two most famous examples not the only

ones but the most famous and even the

Ancients even philosophers like Plato

and Aristotle they knew once you go

beyond the level of a citystate

democracy is impossible we do not know

of a single example from the premodern

world of a large scale democracy

millions of people spread over a large

territory conducting their political

Affairs

democratically why not because of this

or that dictator that took power because

democracy was simply impossible you

cannot have a conversation between

millions of people when you don't have

the right

technology de large scale democracy

becomes Possible only in the late modern

era when a couple of information

Technologies appear first the newspaper

then Telegraph and radio and and

television and they make large scale

democracy possible so democracy it's not

like you have democracy and on the side

you have these information Technologies

now the basis of democracy is

information technology so if you have

some kind of Earth quake in the

information technology like the rise of

social media or the rise of AI this is

bound to shake democracy which is now

what we see around the world is that we

have the most sophisticated information

technology in history and people can't

talk with each other the Democratic

conversation is breaking down and every

country has its own explanation like you

talk to Americans what's happening there

between Democrats and Republicans why

can't they agree on even the most basic

facts and they give you all these

explanations about the unique conditions

of American history and Society but you

see the same thing in Brazil you see the

same thing in in France in the

Philippines so it can't be the unique

conditions of this or that country it's

the underlying technological Revolution

and the other thing that history kind of

um that I I bring from history is how

even relatively small technological

changes or seemingly small changes

can have far-reaching

consequences like you think about the

invention of writing originally it was

basically people playing with

mud I mean writing was invented for the

first it was invented many times in many

places but the most the first time in

ancient Mesopotamia people take clay

tablets which is basically pieces of mud

and they take a stick and they use the

stick to make marks in the in the clay

in the clay in the in the mud and this

is the invention of writing and this had

a profound effect to give just one

example um you think about ownership

what does it mean to own something like

I own a house I own a field so

previously before writing to own a field

if you live in a small Mesopotamian

Village like 7,000 years ago you own a

field this is a community Affair it

means that your neighbors agree that

this field is yours and they don't pick

fruits there and they don't graze their

sheep there because they agree it's

yours it's a community agreement then

comes writing and you have written

documents and ownership changes its

meaning now to own a field or a house

means that there is some piece of dry

mud somewhere in the archive of the king

with marks on it that says that you own

that field

so suddenly ownership is not a matter of

community agreement between the

neighbors it's a matter of which

document sits in the archive of the king

and it also means for instance that you

can sell your land to a stranger without

the permission of your neighbors simply

by giving the stranger this piece of dry

mud in exchange for gold or silver or

whatever so what a big change a

seemingly simple invention like using a

stick to to draw some some signs on a

piece of mud and and now think about

what AI will do to ownership like maybe

10 years down the line to own your house

means that some AI says that you own it

and if the AI suddenly says that you

don't own it for whatever reason that

you don't even know that's it it's not

yours that that Mark on that piece of

mud was also the invention of sort of

written language

and I think I was thinking about when I

was reading your book about how language

holds our society together not in the

way that we we often might assume as in

me having a conversation with you but

passwords um poet passwords uh like

banking it's like our whole society is

secured by language yeah and the first

thing that the AIS have mastered is with

large language models is the ability to

replicate that which is which made me I

think about all the things that in my

life are actually held together with

language even my relationships now

because I don't see my friends my

friends live in Dubai and America and

Mexico so we conversate in language our

our relationships are held together in

language and as you said democracies are

held together in language um and now

there's a more intelligent Force that's

mastered that yeah it was so unexpected

like you know five years ago people said

AI will Master this or that self-driving

vehicles but language nah this is such a

complicated problem this is a the human

Masterpiece language it will never

Master language and CH GPT came and it

is you know I'm I'm a words person and

I'm simply Amazed by the quality of the

texts that uh these large language

language models produce it's not perfect

but uh they really understand the

semantic field of words they can string

words together and sentences to form a

coherent text that that's really

remarkable and as you said I mean this

is the basis for everything like I give

instructions to my bank with language if

AI can generate text and audio and image

then how do I communicate with the bank

in a way which is not open to

manipulation by an AI but the tempting

part in that sentence is you don't like

communicating with your bank anyway as

in calling them being on the phone

waiting for another human so the temp

the Temptation is know I don't like

speaking to my bank anyway so I'm

goingon to let the AI do that I'm gonna

invest if I can trust them I mean the

big question is I mean why does the bank

want me to call personally to make sure

that it's really me it's not somebody

else telling the bank oh make this

transfer to to I don't know Cayman

Islands it's really me and how do you

make sure how do you build this is TR I

mean the the Hall of Finance for

thousands of years is just one question

trust all these Financial devices money

itself is really just trust it's not

made from gold or silver or paper or

anything it's how do you create trust

between strangers and therefore most

Financial inventions in the end they are

linguistic and symbolic inventions it's

not you don't need some complicated

physics it's it's complicated symbolism

and now AI might start creating new

Financial devices and and will Master

Finance because it mastered language and

and like you said I mean we now

communicate with other people our

friends all over the world you know in

the 2010s there was a big battle between

algorithms for human attention we're

just discussing it before the podcast

like how do we get the attention of

people but there is something even more

powerful out there than attention and

that's intimacy

if you really want to influence people

intimacy is is more powerful than

attention how are you defining Intimacy

in this regard someone that you have a

long-term acquaintance with that you

know personally that you trust that to

some extent that you love that you care

about um and until today it was utterly

impossible to fake

intimacy and to must produce intimacy

you know dictators could must produce

attention you know once you have for

instance radio you can tell all the

people in Nazi Germany or in the Soviet

Union the great leader is giving a

speech everybody must turn their radio

on and listen so you can Mass produce

attention but this is not intimacy you

don't have intimacy with the great

leader now with AI you can for the first

time in history at least theoretically

must produce intimacy with millions of

maybe working for some

government uh are faking intimate

relationships with us which will be hard

to to know that this is a bot and not a

human

being H it's interesting because when I

I've had so many conversations with

relationship experts and a variety of

people that speak to the decline

in human to human intimacy and the rise

in loneliness and us becoming more um

sexless as a society and all of these

kinds of things so it's it's almost with

the decline in human to human intimacy

and human- to human connection and the

rise of the sort of AR the possibility

of artificial intimacy it begs the

question what the future might look like

in a world where people are lonlier than

ever more disconnected than ever but

still have the same maslovian need for

that connection and that feeling of you

know love and belonging and maybe this

is why we're seeing a rise in

polarization at the same time because

people are desperately trying to belong

somewhere and the algorithm is like

reinforcing my echo chamber so you know

and

it's but I don't know how that

ends I don't think it's deterministic it

depends on the decision we make

individually and as a society uh there

are of course also wonderful things that

this technology can do for us uh the

ability of AI to hold a conversation the

ability to understand your emotions it

can potentially mean that we will have

lots of AI teachers and AI uh uh doctors

and AI therapists that can give us

better health care services better

Education Services than ever before

instead of being you know a kid in a

class of 40 other kids that the teacher

is barely able to give attention to this

particular child and understand his or

her specific needs and his or her

specific personality you can have an A

AI tutor that is focused entirely on you

and that is able to give you a quality

of Education which is really

unparalleled I had this debate with my

friend uh on the weekend he's got two

young kids who are one years old and

three years old and we were discussing

in the future in sort of 16 years time

where would you rather send your child

would you rather send your child to be

taught by a human in a classroom as

you've described with lots of people

lots of noise where they're not getting

personalized learning so if the

classroom are more intelligent they're

being left behind if they're more

intelligent they're being dragged back

or would you rather your child sat in

front of a screen potentially or a

humanoid robot and was given really

personalized tailored

education that was probably

significantly cheaper than say private

education or

university but you need the combination

I mean I think that the the for for many

of the lessons

it will be better to go with the AI

tutor which again you don't even have to

sit in in in front of a screen you can

go to the park and get a a lesson on on

on ecology just listening on on on as as

you walk but you will need uh large

groups of kids for break time because

very often you learn the the most

important lessons in school are not

learned during the lessons they are

learned during the breaks and this is

something that should not be automated

uh you would still need large group of

of children together with with human

supervision uh for that the other thing

I I thought about a lot when I was

reading your book is this idea that I

would assume that us having more

information and more access to

information would lead to more truth in

the world less conspiracy more agreement

but that doesn't seem to be the case no

not at all uh most information in the

world is junk I mean I think the best

way to think about it is it's it's like

with

food that there was a time like a

century ago in many countries where food

was scarce so people ate whatever they

could get especially it was full of fat

and sugar uh and they thought that more

food is always good like if you ask your

great grandmother she would yes more

food is always good and then we reach a

time of abundance in in in food and uh

we have all these

industrialized processed food which is

artificially full of fat and sugar and

salt and whatever and it's obviously ban

for us the idea that more food is always

good no and definitely not all this uh

junk food and the same thing has

happened with information that

information was once scarce so if you

could get your hands on a book you would

read it because it was nothing else and

now information is abundant we are

flooded by information and much f is

junk information which is artificially

full of greed and anger and fear because

of this battle for

attention um and it's not good for us so

we basically need to go on an

information diet that uh again the first

step is to realize that it's not the

case that more information is always

good for us we need a limited amount and

we actually need more time to

digest the information and we have to be

off of course also careful about the

quality of what we take in because uh

again of the abundance of of junk

information and the the basic

misconception I think is this link

between information and truth that

people think okay if I get a lot of

information this is the raw material of

Truth and I more information will mean

more

knowledge and that's not the case

because even in nature most information

is not about the truth the basic

function of information in history and

also in biology is to connect

information is

connection and when you look at history

you see that very often the easiest way

to connect people is not with the truth

because the truth is a is a costly and

and and rare kind of information it's

usually easier to connect people with

fantasy with fiction uh why because the

truth tends to be not just costly the

truth tends to be complicated and it

tends to be uncomfortable and sometimes

painful if you think of you know like in

politics uh a politician who would tell

people the whole truth about their

nation is unlikely to win the elections

because every nation has these skeletons

in the cuper and all these dark sides

and dark episodes that people don't want

to be confronted

with so we see that politically it's not

uh uh if you want to connect Nations

religions political parties you often do

it with fictions and Fantasies and

fear um I was thinking about sapiens and

the role that stories play um in

engaging our brains and I was thinking a

lot about the narratives in the UK we

have a narrative where we we're told

that much of the cause of the problems

we have in society are employment um

other issues with crime are because

there's people crossing from France on

boats and in the U and it's a very

effective narrative to get people to

band together to march in the streets

and in America obviously the same

Narrative of the wall and the southern

border um they're crossing our border in

the millions it's their rapists it's

then they're not sending their good

people they're coming from mental

institutions has galvanized people

together and those people are now like

marching in the streets and voting based

on that story that is a fearful story

it's a very powerful story because it

connects to something very deep in

inside us uh and if you want to get

people's attention if you want to get

people's engagement so the fear button

is one of the most efficient most

effective buttons to press in the human

mind and again goes back to the Stone

Age so if you live in a stone age tribe

uh one of your biggest worries is that

the people from the other tribe will

come to your territory

and you will take your food or we will

kill you um so this is a very ingrained

fear in not just in humans in every

Social Animal you they did experiments

on chimpanzees that show that

chimpanzees have a also a kind of almost

instinctive H fear or disgust towards

foreign chimpanzees from a different

band and politicians and religious

leaders and and and they learn how to

play on these uh uh human emotions

almost like you play on a piano you know

originally these feelings like

discussed they evolved in order to help

us um you know on the most basic level

discuss is there because you know as as

especially as a kid you want to

experiment with different foods but if

you eat something that is bad for you

you need to to to you know puke it you

need to to to throw it out so you have

discuss protecting you but then you have

religious and political leaders

throughout history hijacking this

defensive mechanism and teaching people

from a very young age to not just to

fear but to be

disgusted by foreign people by people

who look different and this is again you

as an adult you can learn all the

theories and you can educate yourself

that this is not true but still very

deep in your mind if that there is a a

part that is just these people are

disgusting these people are

dangerous and uh we saw it throughout

history

how many different movements have

learned how to use this uh uh emotional

mechanisms to to motivate people we we

we sit down at a very interesting time

youal because two quite significant

things have happened in the last I think

year as it relates to information and

many of the things we've been talking

about one of them is Elon Musk bought

Twitter and his real mandate has been

this idea of free speech and as part of

that mandate he's unblocked a number of

figures who were previously blocked on

Twitter um a lot of them right leaning

people that were blocked for a variety

of different reasons and then also this

week Mark Zuckerberg released basically

a letter publicly and in that letter he

says that he

re regrets the fact that he cooperated

so much with the FBI the government when

they asked him to censor things on

Facebook one particular story he says he

regrets doing that and it looks like if

you read between what he's saying well

he actually says it explicitly he says

we're going to push back harder in the

future if governments or anybody else

asks us to censor certain messaging now

what what I'm seeing is that Twitter

which is one of the biggest social

networks in the world and meta the

biggest social network in the world have

now taken this dance that effectively

they're going to let information flow

they're effectively going to go for this

free speech narrative now as someone

that's used these platforms for a long

time specifically X or Twitter it is

crazy how different it is these days

there are things that I see every time I

scroll that I never would have seen

before this free speech um position now

I'm not taking a stance whether it's

good or bad it's just very interesting

and there's clearly an algorithm that is

now really like if I scroll if I go on X

right now I will see someone being

killed with a knife I reckon within 30

seconds and I will see someone getting

hit by a car um I will see extreme

islamophobia potentially um but then

I'll also see the other side so it's not

just I'm saying I'll see all of the

sides and when you talking earlier about

like is that good for me I I had a

flashback to my friend this weekend it

was my birthday so my me and my friends

were together just looking over at him

mindlessly scrolling these like horror

videos on Twitter as he was sat on my

left thinking God he's like frying his

dopamine receptors and I just I just

think this whole new like free speech

movement what is your take on this idea

of free speech in the role you know only

humans have free speech Bots don't have

free speech the tech companies are

constantly confusing us about this issue

because the issue is not the humans the

issue is the algorithms and let let me

explain what I mean if the question is

whether to ban some somebody like Donald

Trump from Twitter I agree this is a

very difficult issue and we should be

extremely careful about banning human

beings especially important politicians

from voicing their views and opinions

however much we dislike their opinions

or or them personally it's a very

serious matter to ban any human being

from from a platform but this is not the

problem the problem on the platform is

not the human users the problem is the

algor ithms and the companies constantly

shift the blame to the humans in order

to protect their business interests so

let let me unpack this humans create a

lot of content all the time they create

hateful content they create ceremon on

compassion they create cooking lessons

biology lessons so many different things

a flood of information the big question

is then what gets human attention

everybody wants attention now

uh the companies also want attention the

companies give the algorithms that run

the social media platforms a very simple

goal increase user engagement make

people spend more time on Twitter more

time on Facebook engage more sending

more uh uh likes and recommending to

their friends why because the more time

we spend on the platforms the more money

they make very very simple now the

algorithms made a huge huge Discovery by

experimenting on millions of human

guineapigs the algorithms discovered

that if you want to grab human attention

the easiest way to do it is to press the

fear button the hate button the greed

button and they started recommending to

users to watch more and more content

full of hate and fear and greed to keep

them glued to the screen

and this is the deep cause of the

epidemic of fake news and conspiracy

theories and and and so forth and the

the defense of of the companies is we

are not producing the

content somebody a human being produced

a hatefield conspiracy theory about

immigrants and it's not us it's like a

bit like I don't know the the the chief

editor of the New York Times publishing

a hatefi conspiracy theory on the front

of the first page of the newspaper and

when you ask him why did you do it or

you blame him look what you did he says

I didn't do anything I didn't write the

piece I just put it on the front of the

New York Times that's all that's nothing

it's not

nothing people are producing immense

amount of

content the algorithms are the king

makers they are the editors now they

decide what gets viewed sometimes they

just recommend it to you sometimes they

actually auto play it to you like you

you you chose to watch some video at the

end of the video to keep you glued to

the screen the algorithm immediately

without you telling him it the algorithm

without you telling the algorithm the

algorithm autop

plays some kind of video full of fear or

greed just to keep you glued to the

screen it is the algorithm doing it and

this should be banned or this should at

least be uh uh supervised and regulated

and this is not free freedom of speech

because the algorithms don't have

freedom of

speech uh yeah the person who produced

the hatefield video I would be careful

about banning them but that's not the

problem it's the recommendation which is

the problem the second problem is that a

lot of the conversations now online are

being overrun by Bots again if you look

for instance at Twitter X as an example

so people often want to know what is

trending what which stories get the most

attention if everybody's interested in

in in a particular story I also want to

know what everybody's talking

about and very often it's the Bots that

are driving the conversation because a

particular story initially gets a lot of

traction a lot of traffic because a lot

of bots Retreat it and then people see

see it and think they don't know it's

Bots they think it's humans so they say

oh lots of humans are interested in in

this so I also want to know what's

happening and this draws more attention

this should be forbidden buts are uh

very basically you cannot have ai

pretending to be human beings this is

fake humans this is counterfeit humans

if you see activity online and you think

it's human activity but actually it's

bought activity this should be banned

and

doesn't uh uh uh harm the free speech of

any human being because it's a bot it

doesn't have freedom of

speech I was thinking a lot about what

you said about these algorithms are

actually running running the world and I

mean yeah so if the algorithms are

deciding what I see based on what I

spend my time looking at because they

want to make you know the platforms want

to make more money and if I have a

innate sort of predisposition to spend

more time focused on things that scare

me yeah or

then you just have to give me a couple

of years and every year that goes past

I'll become more fearful more it

reinforces your own weaknesses I mean

again it's like the food industry so the

food industry discovered we liked food

with a lot of salt and and and fat in it

and gives it more to us and then it says

but this is what the customers want what

do they want from us it's the same thing

but even worse with these algor

algorithms that because this is the food

for the mind yes humans have a tendency

that if something is very frightening or

something fills them with anger they

they focus on it and they tell all the

friends about it but to artificially

amplify it it's not it just it's just

not good for our Mental Health and

Social Health it is using our own

weaknesses against us instead of helping

us deal with them is it fair to say now

this is me just jumping to conclusions a

little bit but is it fair to say that in

a world where you remove um restrictions

around blocking certain characters

right-wing characters that are their

messages maybe based on immigration Etc

you remove those restrictions so they're

all allowed on every platform and then

you program the algorithm to be focused

on Revenue that eventually more people

will become right-wing and I say that in

part

because it's it's a right-wing narrative

to say that immigrants are bad and that

you know I'm not saying that the left

are innocent because they're absolutely

not but I'm saying that the fearful

narratives the fear seems to come more

from the right in my opinion MH like

especially in the UK it was the fear

comes from immigrants and these people

are going to take your money and all

these kinds of things um I I I think the

key issue is to not to label it as a

right or left issue because again

democracy is a conversation and you can

have a conversation only if you have

several different opinions and it's I

think it should be okay to have a

conversation about immigration that

people should be able to have different

opinions about it uh that's fine the

problem starts when uh one side

vilifies and and

demonizes anybody who doesn't think and

you see it to some extent from both

sides but in in the case of immigration

so you would have these conspiracy

theories that anybody who supports

immigration for instance they want to

destroy the country they are part of

this conspiracy to flood the country

with immigrants and to change its nature

and and whatever and this is the problem

that uh democracy once you believe that

people who don't think like you they are

not just your political Rivals they are

your enemies they are out to destroy you

they intend to destroy your way of life

your group then democracy

collapses because there can be no way uh

between enemies democracy doesn't work

it works if you think that the other

side is wrong but there are still

essentially good people who care about

the country who care about me but they

have different opinions if you think

that they are my enemies they try to

destroy me then the election becomes

like a war because you're fighting for

your survival you would do anything to

win the election because your survival

is at stake if you lose you have no

incentive to accept the verdict if you

win you only take care of your tribe and

not of the enemy tribe what if you don't

believe the election is legitimate then

democracy can't

function uh this is the again the basic

democracy can't exist in just any it's

like it's like a delicate plant that

needs certain conditions in order to

survive and to flourish and one

condition for instance is that you have

information technologies that allows a

conversation another condition is that

you trust the institutions if you don't

trust the institution of

Elections it doesn't work and and a

third condition is that you need to

think that the people on the other side

of the political divide they are my

rivals but they are not my enemies

now the problem with what's happening

now with Democratic conversations is

because of this tendency to go to more

and more and more

extremes it creates the impression that

the other side is is an enemy and this

is a problem not just for the right also

for the left that on both sides you see

this this uh uh uh feeling that the

other side is the is an enemy and that

its positions are completely

illegitimate and if we reach that point

then the conversation

collapses and it should be possible to

have complex conversations and

discussions about difficult issues like

immigration like gender like climate

change without seeing the other side as

an enemy which was possible for you know

for Generations so why is it that now it

seems to just become impossible to talk

with the other side or to about

anything we have a big election in the

United States this year very big one

yeah do you think a lot about it uh yes

yes I mean it seems like a very L it

will be a coin TOS I mean like

50/50 um you know elections become

really an existential

issue if there is a chance they will be

the last

elections if one side is intends to

Simply change the rules of the game if

it comes to power then it becomes

existential because again democracy

works on the basis of self-correcting

mechanisms that this is the big

advantage of democracy over dictatorship

in a dictatorship a dictator can make a

lot of good decisions but sooner or

later they will make a bad decision and

there is no mechanism in a dictatorship

to identify and correct such mistakes

mistakes like Putin yeah there is just

no mechanism in Russia that could say

Putin made a mistake he should go he

should let somebody else try a different

course of action this is the great

advantage of democracy you try something

it doesn't work you try something else

but the big problem is what if you

choose someone who then changes the

system neutralizes its self-correcting

mechanism and then you cannot get rid of

him anymore this is what happened for

instance in Venezuela that or originally

Chavez and the chavista movement they

came to power democratically people

wanted to let's try this and now in the

last elections a couple of weeks ago um

the evidence is very very clear that

Maduro lost big time but uh he controls

everything the election committee

everything and he claims no I won and

the they destroyed Venezuela you know

it's something like a quarter of the

population fled the country which was

one of the richest countries in in South

America before and they just can't get

get rid of the guy surely that will

never happen in the west oh don't say

never in history uh uh history can can

catch up with you whoever you are that's

one of the Illusions we Venezuela was

part of the West in in many ways still

is this is one of the Illusions we live

under though we think oh that that can

never happen to the UK or the United

States or Canada these sort of of quote

unquote civilized Nations you know

According to some measurements democracy

in the United States is quite new and

quite quite fragile if you think about

it in terms of of who gets to vote for

instance so um it's yeah it would be

again I don't know what are the chances

but even if there is a 20% chance that a

trump Administration would change the

rules of the game of American democracy

in such a way to as to make it for

instance by uh uh changing the rules

about who votes or how do you count

votes H that it will become almost

impossible to get rid of them uh that's

not that that's not out of the possible

in historical

terms do you think it's possible that

Trump will do that yes I mean you saw it

on the 6th of January I mean the the the

most sensitive moment in in every

democracy is the moment of transfer of

power and the magic of democracy is that

democracy is meant to ensure a peaceful

transfer of power that as I said like

you choose one party you give them a try

after some time if people say they

didn't do a good job let's try somebody

else and you know you have people who

hold in the United States they hold the

biggest power in the world the president

of the United States have enough power

to destroy human civilization

all these nuclear missiles all this Army

and he loses the election and he says

okay I give up all this power and I let

the other guy try this is this is

amazing and this is exactly what Trump

didn't do he from the beginning I mean

even from 2016 he refused they they

asked him directly if you lose the

election will you accept the results and

he said no and um in 2020 he did not

hand power peacefully he tried to

prevent it and the fact that he is now

running again and I I think to some

extent the lesson he got from the sixth

of January is that I can basically get

away with anything at least with my

people with my base that it was like a a

a test a try if I do this extreme thing

and they still support me

afterwards it basically means they will

support me no matter what I do I'm I'm

wondering in a world of um such a

fragile democracy when information Flows

In networks are disrupted by something

like AI if misinformation and

disinformation and the ability for me to

make a video I could make a video right

now of Donald Trump speaking and saying

something in his voice um and I could

help that video go viral like how do you

hold

together democracy and communication

when you don't believe anything that

you're seeing online H and we're just at

the start of this now so I we haven't

seen anything yet this is just really

the the first baby steps I'm going to

play a video on the screen right now so

people can see and for those listening

you'll just hear it but I'm going to

play a video that Isaac over there in

the corner of the room made of me

speaking in this chair and it wasn't me

and I didn't say it and I wasn't in this

chair hey there this is AI Steve do you

think I'll be able to take over the dire

of a CEO one day leave your comments

below and it sounds EX like me identical

and it's not me and I I wonder this with

you know mo most of us get our political

information and our information

generally now from social media yeah

from and if I can't believe anything

that I'm seeing because it's all easy to

make some kid in Russia in their bedroom

could make a video of the Prime Minister

here um I don't know where we get our

information from anymore how we the

answer is institutions we've been in

this situation many times before in

history and the answer is always the

same institutions you cannot trust the

technology you trust the institution

that verifies the information think

about it like with with

print that um you can write on a piece

of paper anything you want you can write

the prime minister of Britain said and

then you open quotation marks and you

put something into the mouth of the

Prime Minister you can write anything

you want and when people read it they

don't believe it or they they shouldn't

believe it just because it's written

that the prime minister said it doesn't

mean that it's true so how do we know

which pieces of paper to believe as an

institution we would believe or greater

chance we will believe if on the front

page of the New York Times or of the

Sunday Times of the Guardian you will

have the British prime minister said

open quotation marks blah blah blah

because we don't trust the paper or the

Inc we trust the institution of the

guardian of the or the Wall Street

Journal or whatever

with videos we never had to do that

because nobody could fake them so we

trusted the technology if we saw a video

we said ah this is this has to be true

but when it becomes very easy to fake

videos then we revert to the same

Principle as with Sprint we need an

institution to verify it if we see the

video on the official website of CNN or

of the Wall Street Journal than we

believe it because we believe the

institution backing it and if it's just

something on Tik Tok we know that you

know any kid can do that why why should

I believe it so now we are in the

transition period we are still not used

to it so when we see a video of Donald

Trump or Joe Biden the video still gets

to us because we grew up in a time when

it was impossible to fake it but I think

very quickly people will realize you

can't trust videos you can only trust

the the

institutions and the the question is

will we be able to produce uh to create

to maintain trustworthy institutions

fast enough to save the Democratic

conversation because if not if you can't

believe anything this is the ideal for

dictators uh uh when you can't trust

anything the only system that works is a

dictatorship because democracy works on

trust but dictatorship works on terror

on fear you don't need to trust anything

in a dictatorship you don't trust

anything you

fear uh for democracy to work you need

to trust for instance that some

information is reliable that the

election committee is impartial that the

courts are just and uh uh if more and

more institutions are attacked and

people lose trust in them then then then

democracy collapses uh but going going

back to to to information so one option

is that the old institutions like

newspapers and TV stations uh uh they

will be the institutions that we trust

to verify certain videos or we will see

the emergence of new

institutions and the again the big

question is whether uh we'll be able to

develop trust in them and I specifically

say institutions and not

individuals no large scale soci Society

especially not a Democratic Society can

function without trustworthy

bureaucratic

institutions and will those bureaucratic

institutions be AI That's the big

question because increasingly AIS will

be the

bureaucrats and what do you mean by

bureaucrats what's the word bureaucrat

what does that mean oh uh that that's a

very important question because uh uh

human civilization runs on bureaucracy

bureaucrats are essentially officient in

government that TR not just in

government it's I mean the origin of the

word bureaucrat it comes from French

from the 18th century and bureaucracy is

is means the the rule of the writing

desk is to rule the world or to rule

Society with pen and papers and

documents like the example we gave in

the very beginning about

ownership so there you own a house

because there is a document in some

archive that says that you own it and a

bureaucrat produced this document and if

you now need to retrieve it then this is

the job of of a bureaucrat to find the

right document at the right time and all

big uh uh uh systems run on it hospitals

and schools and corporations and Banks

and and sports associations and

libraries they they all run on these

documents and and the bureaucrats who

know how to read and write write and

find and file

documents one of our big problems is

that it's it's it's difficult for us to

understand bureaucratic systems because

there are a very recent development in

human evolution and this makes us

suspicious about them and we tend to uh

believe all kinds of uh uh conspiracy

theories about the Deep State and about

what what's going on in all these

bureaucracies

and it's really complicated and it's

going to be more complicated as more of

the decisions will be made by AI

bureaucrats and AI bureaucrat means that

decisions like how much money to

allocate to a particular issue will no

longer be made by a human official it

will be made by an algorithm and when

people decide why when people ask why is

the switch system broken why didn't they

why didn't they give enough money to fix

it

I don't know the algorithm just decided

to give the money to something else why

will bureaucracies be run by AI over

people like why will at some point a

nation decide that in fact AI can is

better at making these decisions first

of first of all it's not a future

development it's already happening more

and more of the decisions are being made

by AIS and this is just because the

amounts of information you need to take

into account are are enormous

and it's very difficult for humans to do

it it's much easier for the AIS to do it

if all these people you know bureaucrats

lawyers accountants it sounds like I I

always wonder you know what are humans

going to be left to do in your book you

say that AI is going to

far AI is going so far beyond human

intelligence that it should actually be

referred to alien intelligence now if it

goes so far beyond human intelligence

it's my asson that most of the work that

we do is based on intelligence so even

like me doing this podcast now this is

me asking questions based on information

that I've gathered based on what I think

I'm interested in but also based on what

I think the audience will be interested

in and compared to AI I'm a like a

little monkey like I you know what I

mean if if an AI has an IQ that is 100

times mine in in source of information

that is a fat million times bigger than

mine there's no need for me to do this

podcast I can get an AI to do it and in

fact an AI can talk to an AI and deliver

that information to a human but then if

we look at most Industries like being a

lawyer um accountancy I mean a lot of

Med the medical profession is based on

information um driving I think that's

the biggest employer in the world is the

profession of driving whether it's

delivery or Uber or whatever it is um

where where do humans belong in this

complex anything which is just

information in information out is ripe

for automation these are the easiest

jobs to

automate um like being a coder like

being a coder or again like being an

accountant at least certain types of

accountants lawyers doctors they are the

easiest to automate if a doctor the only

thing they do is just take information

in all kind of results of blood tests

and whatever and they information out

the they diagnose the disease and they

write a prescription this will be easy

to automate in the coming years and

decades but a lot of jobs they require

also social skills and motor skills if

your job requires a combination of

skills from several different fields

it's it's not impossible but it's much

more difficult to automate it so if you

think about a nurse that needs to

replace a bandage to a crying child this

is much much harder to automate than

just a doctor that writes a prescription

because this is not just data the nurse

needs uh uh good social skills to

interact with the child and motor skills

to just replace the

bandage um so this is harder to

automate and uh there will even for

people who just deal with information

there will be new jobs the problem will

be the retraining and not just you know

retraining in terms of of acquiring new

skills but psychological retrain

training how do you kind of reinvent

yourself in a new profession and do it

not once but again and again and again

because as the AI Revolution unfolds and

we have just at the very beginning of it

we haven't seen anything yet so there

will be old jobs disappearing new jobs

emerging but the new jobs will rapidly

change and vanish and then there will be

a new wave of new jobs and people will

have to reinvent themselves four five

six times to stay relevant

and this will create immense

psychological

stress so many of the big companies are

also working at the same time on

humanoid robots there's this humanoid

robot race going on and by humanoid

robots I mean you know Tesla have their

humanoid robot I think it's called Optus

which they're developing and it'll cost

you know X thousands of pounds and and I

watched a video of it recently where it

can do quite delicate sort of motor

skill based stuff so probably clean the

house it can probably work on the

production line can probably put things

in boxes

um and I just wonder when we say you

know people are going to lose their jobs

in a world where you have humanoid

robots and you have intelligence that's

beyond us and you combine the two where

these humanoid robots are very very

intelligent I go I don't know what I'm

like where did the the unemployed go to

to to find these new professions like

obviously it's it's difficult to

forecast the new professions of the

future history tells us then but I but I

can't get I can't figure out what the

new professions are I mean my girlfriend

does breath work I guess the breath work

part is quite easy to disrupt but then

she takes women away for retreats in

Portugal and stuff so I'm like okay

she's going to kind of be safe because

these women are going there to connect

with humans and to be in this little

special place offline intentionally so

Retreats she'll probably be fine yeah

anything that you know there are things

that we want in life which are not just

about solving problems like I'm sick I

want to be healthy I want my problem

solved but there are

uh um many things that we want to have a

connection like if you think about

sports um robots or or or machines can

run much faster than people for a very

long time now and we just had the

Olympics and people are not very

interested in seeing robots running

against each other or against people

because what really makes Sports

interesting in the end is the human

weaknesses and the ability of humans to

to deal with their

weaknesses and and human athletes still

have jobs even though in in again in

many lines like running you can have a

machine run much faster than the world

champion I thought about this the other

day and uh uh and another example is is

priests like one of the easiest jobs to

automate is the priesthood of at least

certain religions because you just need

to repeat the same texts and and

gestures

again and again in in specific

situations like if you have a wedding

ceremony then um you know the priest

just need to repeat the same words and

there you are you're married now we

don't think about priests as being in

danger of being replaced by

robots um because what we want from a

priest is not just the mechanical

repetition of certain words and

gestures we think that only

another frame flesh and blood human who

knows what is pain and love and and who

can suffer only they can connect us to

the Divine so most people would not be

interested in having the wedding

conducted by a robot even though

technically it's very easy to do it now

the big question of course what happens

if AI gains Consciousness this is like

the trillion dollar question of of of AI

Consciousness then it's all bets are off

but that's a a different and very very

big discussion I mean whether it's

possible how would we know and and so

forth do you think it's

possible we have no idea I mean we don't

understand what Consciousness is we

don't know how it emerges in the organic

brain so we don't know if there is an

essential connection between

Consciousness and organic

biochemistry so that it can't arise in

an inorganic uh silic based computer

there is a big confusion first of all

should be said again between

Consciousness and

intelligence um intelligence is the

ability to reach goals and solve

problems Consciousness is the ability to

feel things like pain and pleasure and

love and

hate humans and other animals we solve

problems through our feelings our

feelings are not something on the side

they are a main method for how to deal

with the world how to solve

problems now so far

computers they solve problems in a

completely different way than humans

again they are alien intelligence they

don't have any feelings when they win a

game of chess they are not joyful when

they lose a game they are not sad they

don't feel anything now we don't know

how organic brains produce these

feelings of pain and pleasure and love

and hate so this is why we don't know

whether an inorganic structure based on

silicon and not carbon whether it will

be able to generate such things or not

that's I think the biggest question in

in in science and um so far we have no

answer isn't Consciousness just like a

hallucination isn't it just like an

illusion that I think I'm conscious

because I've got at the circuitry which

tells me that I am effectively it tells

me through a bunch of like feelings and

things that I'm conscious like I think

I'm looking at you now I think I can see

you the feeling is real I mean even if

we are all it's like the Matrix and we

are all in how do you know it's real

it's the only real thing in the world I

mean there is nothing I everything else

is just conjuncture we we only

experience our own feelings what we see

what we

smell what what we touch this we

actually experience this is real then we

have all these theories about why do I

feel pain oh it's because I stepped on a

nail and there is such a thing in the

world as a nail and whatever it could be

that we are all inside that a big

computer on the planet ziron run by

superintelligent mice if I spoke to an

AI I could get an AI to to tell me that

it feels pain and sadness that's that

that's the that's a big problem because

there is a huge incentive to train AIS

to pretend to be alive to pretend to

have feelings and and and we see that

there is a huge effort to to to to

produce such AIS and in truth because we

don't understand Consciousness we don't

have any proof even that other humans

have

feelings I feel my own feelings but I

never feel your feelings I only assume

that you're also a conscious being and

Society grants uh this a status of a

conscious

entity to not only to humans but also to

some animals not based on any scientific

proof but based on social

convention like most people feel that

their dogs are conscious that their dogs

can feel pain and pleasure and love and

so forth so Society accepts most

societies that dogs are sentient beings

and they have some rights under the law

now as AI become even if AI has no

feelings no consciousness no sentience

whatsoever but it becomes very good at H

uh pretending to have feelings and

convincing us that it has feelings then

this will become a a social convention

that people will feel that their AI

friend is is a conscious being and

therefore should be granted rights and

there is even already a legal path for

how to do it at least in the United

States you don't need to be a human

being in order to be a legal person it's

funny because you mentioned you kind of

alluded to the fact jokingly that we

might just be in like a simulation it

was one of you like well maybe we're

just in a simulation but could be and

it's funny because in a world of AI I

think my belief in that as a possibility

has only increased this is in fact just

a simulation because I've watched us go

from when I was born not really having

internet access to now being being able

to kind of speak to this alien on my

computer that can like now do things for

me and having virtual reality

experiences which are sometimes quite

indistinguishable where my my you know I

fall into the Trap of believing that I

am inside squid games because I've got

this headset on and you play it forward

and you play it forward and you play it

forward and you imagine any rate of

improvement then I hear the the

arguments for simulation Theory and I go

do you know probably if you play this

forward a 100

years you know like at the rate we're on

the rate of trajectory we're on then we

will be able to create information

networks and organisms that don't in

like a laboratory or in a computer that

don't necessarily realize yeah they're

in the

computer especially with like what's

going on with it's already happening to

some extent you know these information

bubbles that more and more people live

inside them it's still not the whole

physical world but you get the same

event and people on say different parts

of the political political spectrum they

just can't agree on anything they live

in their own metries MH and you know the

the when when when the internet came

along for the first time the main

metaphor was the web the worldwide web a

web is something that connects

everything and now the main metaphor

which is uh uh the the simulate this

simulation theory is is is is is is

representing this new metaphor the new

metaphor is the cocon it's a web that

turns on you and en closes you from all

sides so you can no longer see anything

outside and there could be other cocoons

with other people in there and you have

no way to get to them yeah no nothing

that happens in the world can connect

you anymore because you're in different

cocoons you've only got to look at

someone else's phone you've only got to

look at someone else's Twitter or X or

Instagram is this the same reality it is

so different I do you know what I was

talking about over the weekend my friend

was at to my left scrolling he clicked

on the Discovery section which is where

you find new content I looked down at

his phone and was like it's all

Liverpool Football Club it's like the

entire feed is Liverpool and my entire

feed is completely different and I was

just thinking wow he lives in a

completely different world to me because

he's a Liverpool fan I'm a Manchester

United fan and and it's yeah just and to

think about that like to think that when

you open your phone and many of us are

spending up to 9 hours a day on our

mobile phones you're experiencing a

completely different window into a

completely different world than I am and

and this was you know this this is a

very ancient fear because um for

instance Plato wrote exactly about that

in the most famous Parable I think from

Greek philosophy is the the allegory of

the cave in which PL

imagines a theoretical scenario an

imaginary scenario of of a group of

prisoners chained inside a cave with

their face to a blank wall in which

Shadows are being projected from behind

them and they mistake the shadows for

reality and he was basically describing

you know people in front of his screen

just mistaking the screen for reality

and you have the same thing in Ancient

India with Buddhist and Hindu sages

talking about uh uh Maya which is the

world of

Illusions and the Deep fear that maybe

we are all trapped inside a world of

illusions that the the most important

thing that we think in the world uh the

the wars we fight we fight Wars over

Illusions in our

mind and uh this is now becoming

technically possible like previously it

was these philosophical thought

experiments now part of what is

interesting as a historian about the

present era is that a lot of ancient

philosophical problems and discussions

are becoming technical

issues that yes you can suddenly realize

PLO cave in your

phone so scary I find it really scary

because you're right like I think right

now some people might say that they have

some kind of grasp over like the ranking

system or why something shows up when I

search it or whatever but as these

intelligence aliens become more and more

powerful um it's of course we would have

less understanding because we're like

handing over the decision in some

Industries they are now completely the

king makers like I'm here on a book tour

I wrote Nexus so I go from podcast to

podcast from TV station to TV station to

talk about my book

but the the the entities I'm really

trying to impress of the algorithms M

because if I can get the attention of

the algorithms the humans will

[Laughter]

follow H yuck uh you know that's that's

our real we are basically kind of carbon

creatures in a silicon world I used to

think we were in control though and now

I feel like the Silicon in control

uh control is Shifting that that's we

are still in control to some extent we

are still making the most important

decisions but not for long and this is

why we have to be very very careful

about the decision we make in the in the

next few years because uh in 10 years in

10 in 20 years it could be too late by

then the algorithms will be making the

most important decisions you talk about

a couple of um big dangers you see with

the algorithms in Ai and the sort of

shift and disruption of information one

of them is this alignment

problem which um how would you explain

the alignment problem to me in a way

that's simple to understand so the

classical uh kind of example is a

thought experiment invented by the

philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2014 which

sounds crazy but but you know bear with

it um he imagines a super

intelligent uh AI computer which is

bought by a paperclip Factory and the

paperclip manager tells the AI your goal

the reason I I bought you your goal your

your entire existence you're here to

produce as many paper clips as as

possible that's your goal and then the

AI conquers the entire world kills all

humans and turns the entire planet into

factories for producing paper clips and

it even begins to send itions to outer

space to turn the entire galaxy into

just paperclip production

industry and the point of the thought

experiment is that the AI did exactly

what it was told it did not rebel

against the humans it did exactly what

the boss wanted but of course it was not

the the strategy it chose was not

aligned with the real intentions with

the real interests of the of the human

Factory manager who just couldn't

foresee that this will be the result now

this sounds like outlandish and

ridiculous and crazy but it already

happened to some extent and we talked

about it this is the whole problem with

social media and user engagement in the

very same years that Nick Bostrom came

up with this thought experiment in 2014

the managers of Facebook and YouTube

they told their algorithms your goal is

to increase user engagement and the

algorithms of social media they

conquered the world and turned the whole

world into user engagement which was

what they were told to do we are now

very very

engaged and again they discover that the

way to do it is with outrage and with

fear and with conspiracy theories and

this is the alignment problem when Mark

Zuckerberg told the Facebook algorithms

increase user engagement he did not

foresee and he did not wish uh that the

result will be collapse of democracies

wave of conspiracy theories and fake

news hatred of minorities he did not

intend

it uh but this is what the algorithms

did because there was a

misalignment between the uh uh the way

that the algorithm the goal

that was defined to the algorithm and

the interests of of human society and

even of the human managers of of the

companies that that are deployed these

algorithms and this is still as a small

scale

disaster because the social media

algorithms that uh uh created all this

social chaos over the last 10 years they

are very very primitive

AI this is like the the amibas of if you

think about the development of AI as an

evolutionary process for this is still

the amoeba stage the amoeba being the

very simple the very simple life forms

the the beginning like a single cell

life form we are still in evolutionary

terms organic evolution we are like

billions of years before we will see the

dinosaurs and the mamals or the humans

but digital evolution is billions of

times faster than organic evolution so

the distance between an AI amoeba and

the AI dinosaurs could be covered in

just a few decades if CH GPT is the

amiba how would the AI Tyrannosaurus Rex

would like would would look

like and this is where the alignment

problem becomes

really

disconcerting because if so much damage

was done by giving kind of the wrong

goal to A Primitive social media

algorithm what would be the results of

giving a

misaligned goal to a

T-Rex AI in 20 or 30 years the issue at

the heart of this is you know some

people might think okay just give it a

different goal but when you're dealing

with private companies who are listed on

the stock market there really is only

one goal that keep that exactly that

benefits survival so all of the

platforms have to say you know the goal

of this platform is to make more money

and to get more attention because also

it's mathematically easy and there is a

huge huge problem in how to define for

AIS and algorithms the the goal in a way

they can understand now the the great

thing about make money or increase user

engagement is that it's very easy to

measure it mathem atically MH uh one day

you have a million hours being watched

on YouTube then next a year later it's 2

million very easy for the algorithm to

see hey I'm making progress but let's

say that that Facebook would have told

its algorithm increase user engagement

in a way that doesn't undermine

democracies how do I measure that who

knows what is the definition for the

robustness of De of democracy nobody

knows

so defining the go of the algorithm as

increase user engagement but don't harm

democracy almost

impossible this is why they go for the

kind of of of easy goals which are the

most dangerous but even in that scenario

if I told if I'm the owner of a social

network and I say increase user

engagement but don't harm democracy the

problem I have is my competitor who

leaves out the second part and just says

increase user engagement is going to

beat me because they're going to have

more users more ibles more Revenue

advertisers are going to be happier then

my company is going to falter investors

are going to pull out that's a question

because there are two things to take

into consideration first of all uh you

have governments governments can

regulate and they can penalize a social

media company that defines goals in a

socially responsible way just as they

penalize newspapers or TV stations or or

or or car companies that uh behave in an

antisocial way the other thing is that

uh um humans are not stupid and

self-destructive that uh uh if we we

would like to have better products in

the sense of also socially better

products and I I gave earlier the

example with food diets like think how

much yes the food companies they

discovered that uh uh if they fill a

product artificially with lots of fat

and sugar and salt people would like it

but people discovered that this is bad

for their health so you now have a like

for instance a huge market for diet

products and people are becoming very

aware of what they eat the same thing

can happen in the information Market the