Original subtitles

[applause]

Good evening and welcome everyone. It's

wonderful to see the Barbin Hall packed

tonight when we're going to be

discussing the state of the world,

ideas, politics, history with a man who

I think has given us all a fair bit to

chew on over time. Who hasn't read

sapiens in this hall? I bet there's not

many of you. Um, Professor Uval Noah

Harrari is a historian, philosopher, and

a best-selling author. His books have

sold 50 million copies in 65 languages

around the world and he's considered one

of the world's leading public

intellectuals today. I'm delighted to

say that we can tap into some of that

wisdom tonight. Good evening. Welcome

Uval. It's wonderful to have you here.

I'll be chatting with you for the next

50 minutes and we will have time for

your questions at the end which I hope

you've already been submitting. So let's

begin you've all with one of my kind of

personal

difficulties I would say at the moment

which is the sheer pace of events that

we're living through. It can actually

feel a little bit overwhelming. Do you

feel overwhelmed?

>> Um completely. I I think history is

accelerating and this is one of the

things that everybody is feeling in

whatever sphere of activity and there

are several causes for it but I think

the deepest cause is that we are seeing

it's part of the clash between organic

and nonorganic systems in the world. We

human beings

uh we are organisms. We are animals and

like all organisms we work by cycles day

and night, summer and winter, times of

activity and times of rest and sleep.

And this has been like that, you know,

for ages, for billions of years. Now

increasingly

our society, our economy, our politics

is being taken over by nonorganic

agents, non-organic entities,

algorithms, AIs. And the thing about

non-organic entities is that they don't

work in cycles.

They don't need to rest. They don't need

to sleep. They don't have families. they

don't go on vacation. And to give maybe

an extreme but an important example, if

you think for instance about Wall

Street, the stock exchange,

uh, traditionally the stock exchange was

open from 9:30 in the morning, I think,

until 4:00 in the afternoon, Mondays to

Fridays. That's it. Because investors

and brokers and bankers, they're also

human. They also have families. They

often want to rest and to sleep. Now, as

the financial system is being taken over

by algorithms and AIS, they're all the

time active. If you take a vacation, if

you rest, you're being left behind. You

cannot afford that. And the same is

happening in the media. And the same is

happening in politics.

No, previously also politics worked by

cycles. And if you are, I don't know,

Henry VIII and you're riding somewhere

from London to York on the way nobody

can reach you. No, even if there is a

war in France or whatever, they can't

reach you. So you have time off.

Now nobody has time off.

>> This is true. And this is destructive

because if you force an organism

to be active all the time, it goes mad

and eventually collapses and dies.

>> So what do you do? How do you [laughter]

switch off?

>> What's the secret?

>> It's a long conversation. Luckily for

me, I'm not a politician. I don't envy

them. I'm not really a media personality

either.

uh I'm I'm one of the last professions

as a scholar as a historian that I am

allowed to kind of take things more

slowly and I also have a team of 20

people who are [laughter]

headed by my husband who are managing

everything and answering all the emails

and taking care of social media and so

forth. So it's it's it's a bit tricky

there also.

>> So let's tap into some of those big

thoughts then. Yes, the pace of change

is is enormous. Let's talk about America

to begin with. Uh we've seen this

extraordinary response to the shooting

of Charlie Kirk, who I have to confess,

I didn't really knew know who he was

until he was shot, but clearly an

enormous figure in the states and has

become a big figure for some people in

this country, too. Mhm.

>> What do you think that event and the

election of Trump, the reaction of the

Republicans, what does it tell us about

where we are, where the US is in its

political state?

It's at the crucial moment when people

completely stop talking and start

fighting instead which is extremely

extremely dangerous which is why also

this assassination should be condemned

very clearly without any buts and ifs

and and whatever should be very clear if

people can't talk they should they fight

and we do not want to go in that

direction and it should be also very

clear and we know that say from the

history of the 20th the century that uh

uh political violence on the far left

can be as dangerous as on the far right.

Uh and this does not justify

um you know persecuting people who have

nothing to do with the assassination,

but it is it is a very very dangerous

moment politically. And it actually ties

back to what we talked earlier about

this shift from

humans to algorithms

because you also see it in the public

conversation that we are in an it it's

it's such a strange paradox if you think

about it. We have the most sophisticated

information and communication technology

in the history of the world

>> and we can no longer talk with each

other.

Something very scary and bizarre is

happening. Why is it that you know you

can pick up the the phone and talk with

somebody on the other side of the planet

but at the same time the conversation

between neighbors between colleagues is

collapsing. People cannot agree on the

most basic facts. People cannot they can

talk all right but they can't listen.

You know a conversation is not just

talking. It also has an important bit of

listening and this is disappearing.

Nobody knows for sure what is happening

but a lot of evidence points again in

the direction of the technology of the

algorithms

that most human communication today is

mediated by these nonhuman

uh uh entities by these non-human

agents. If you think about the media, so

who are the most important

editors

in today's media? You know, in the 20th

century, the editors of the big

newspapers, of the television, of the

radio, they're extremely influential

people. They shaped the conversation.

They decided what will people talk about

which is more important than telling

people what to think about a particular

question is telling people which

questions you should talk about. And

this was the immense power of editors.

And if you ask today who are the most

important editors on the planet, what is

their names? They don't have names

because they are algorithms.

It's the algorithms that edit the news

feeds on Facebook and Tik Tok and

Instagram and so forth. And it might not

be a pure coincidence

that at the moment that we give control

of the public conversation to nonhuman

agents, the conversation is collapsing.

>> But but isn't there a chicken and egg

thing here? Because if we talk about so

let's take the case of immigration right

it's something that people are talking

about on both sides of the Atlantic

>> people also talk about clickbait which

is in a sense what you're saying the you

know people click on these stories the

algorithm keeps churning them out

>> there's human agency involved there we

are choosing to look at these stories

and that to some extent is driving the

agenda you can't put it all down to

technology can you humans are

interacting with the technology and

driving the conversation in a particular

direction.

>> Oh, absolutely. Humans are still

involved, but one of the things that is

happening is the technology learns our

weaknesses.

Some people fear that AI will take over

when it overwhelms us in our uh uh uh

most important abilities and fields. But

actually AI is taking over by first of

all uh uh overwhelming our weaknesses.

You know the same way that you hack the

code of a computer or a bank account or

a phone, you you go over the code and

you look for the weakness and you use

that to hack the system. It's the same

with human systems. You go over the code

of the human and you look for the

weakness for the things that already

make that person extremely angry or

extremely fearful or extremely hateful.

That's how we'll get them. The

algorithms were given a very basic task

by their currently human masters like on

platforms like Facebook and Tik Tok and

so forth. Increase engagement.

And engagement sounds very good. Who

doesn't like to be engaged?

But engagement simply means the amount

of time you spend on the platform and

whether you share stories and items with

with other people. That's engagement.

And when the algorithms were given the

task of increased user engagement, they

experimented on billions of human guinea

pigs and they discovered the weakness of

these human guinea pigs. that the

easiest way to grab human attention, to

make people engaged is to press the hate

button, the anger button, the fear

button. And this is what they have been

doing. So yes, humans are still

involved, but the technology is learning

to hack humans to find our weaknesses

and manipulate uh uh manipulate us with

that. Lots of people would agree that if

you like technology that the the tech

titans have enormous amounts of power,

but then you're very pessimistic in your

in your diagnosis for what's going on.

Do you think

>> not necessarily I mean there are some

steps that we can take which are not

easy but are at least completely

legitimate. The first step would be to

ban bots from imper ban bots and

algorithms and AIs from impersonating

humans. Like if you go online

>> and you receive a message about some

story about whatever, you need to know

if you are communicating with a human

being or with a bot. Now before people

raise the issue of free speech, remember

that bots don't have free speech.

Now if somebody says you know if a human

invent some conspira hatefilled

conspiracy theory I would be very very

careful before I censor that human

being. Censoring human beings silencing

human beings even when they lie even

when they lie intentionally

it's a very delicate subject and except

in extreme cases I wouldn't do it. I

think that at least to some extent free

speech even covers lies.

>> So you take a first amendment American

kind of style attitude.

>> Free speech.

>> Bots don't have free speech.

>> If a human being invented some hateful

conspiracy theory and posted it online,

that's one problem. If an algorithm then

decided to show this conspiracy theory

to thousands and millions of other human

beings because this drives engagement,

this is not covered by free speech. the

algorithm is not entitled to that and uh

it should be technically feasible and

completely legal to ban bots from

impersonating people and this will go a

long way towards uh uh easing the

problem at least this problem and we

still one of the key things about

public conversations and how they are

driven the most important question is

always what is the question?

What is the issue that everybody is

talking about

and this is the power that we need to

exercise very carefully. I mean, I think

part of my job as a public intellectual

is not necessarily to say what I think

about this subject or that subject, but

first of all to define what are the most

important subjects on the table at the

present moment. But but given what

you're saying about about technology, I

think it's doesn't there's no evidence

right now to suggest that there is any

real impetus to to to even ban bots to

control in the way that you're

describing.

>> Where does that leave democracy? It

feels very um weak in the face of this

particular onslaught.

Democracy is very vulnerable to this

kind of threat because democracy is a

conversation

at bottom. If you ask yourself what is

democracy, it's a conversation, an open

conversation. A dictatorship

is one person dictating everything. A

democracy is a situation when a group of

people, a society, a community faces a

problem or a set of problems and they

come together to have an open

conversation to decide what do we do.

>> Now

a conversation demands the ability to

converse to talk and to listen. If it's

a group of 20 people, so okay, they all

meet in a room or in in the in in in

some clearing in the woods and they

talk. How do you create a conversation

between 20 million people, between 200

million people? For most of history, the

answer was you can't.

Which is why for most of history there

were no largecale democracies.

We all know of examples of ancient

democracies. They all come from

smallcale societies. We have many

examples from huntergatherer bands and

tribes. We have examples from citystates

like Athens and Rome and medieval

Florence and things like that. They are

all at at maximum city states. We don't

have any example that I know of of a

largecale country kingdom with millions

of people spread over thousands of

kilometers that is run democratically

before the modern era

>> because you could not you just couldn't

have a conversation if you don't have

printing presses and radio and

television and all that. that mass

communication technology is not a kind

of luxury or side dish that you have

democracy and on the side oh it's nice

we have television we have printed

newspapers it's the basis

before you have that you do not have

large scale democracy it's built on top

of the ability to hold a a a realtime

conversation between millions of people

and this is Why? When there is a major

revolution in information technology, it

is bound to create an earthquake in

democracy.

Hopefully, democracy can uh adjust and

adapt because again the the big

advantage of democracy compared with say

dictatorships is that it is the most

adaptable system of government because

it is an open conversation.

So we've seen it before

and I hope that after a period of

turmoil the same way the democracy

actually became stronger after radio

came along and television and the early

internet. I hope that in this again

there is no guarantee depends on our

decisions

>> but hopefully democracy will be able

again to adapt and to come out even

stronger than before. But what would you

say to those who might argue looking at

the example perhaps of the United

States, perhaps of what's going on in

Israel, and we can talk about that a

little bit more that actually what this

level of technology enables is for

people in single individuals to acrue

power. They're not dictators, but

they're perhaps autocrats.

>> Yeah. Democracy always had one big

problem and this does go back to ancient

Athens and ancient Rome.

Um democracy in in the conversation one

of the key questions that is being asked

is who should get the power

and in democracy the agreement is that

you never give power to anybody

indefinitely.

You give it for a limited time period.

People agree through this uh election

system or that election system to choose

a certain candidate, a certain party and

give them power for a limited time, four

years, five years, six years as however

it is to try different policies on

condition that after the period is over,

they give power back

>> and the people can say, you know what,

we made a mistake last time. Let's try

somebody else this time. This is the

deal. And since ancient Athens and Rome,

everybody always knew there is a problem

in the system. What if you give power to

somebody who doesn't want to give it

back? You gave them the power. Now they

have the power. They can use the power

to stay in power.

They can use the power to they have four

years or five years or however they can

use the power in that time to destroy

the checks and balances of democracy and

then maybe there are elections after

four years but they are completely

rigged.

>> We have examples from Venezuela to

Russia to North Korea. There are

elections in North Korea every four

years

>> like clockwork.

They are so sophisticated they even know

in advance what the results will be. Not

you know like these primitive people in

the west who have to wait until the

everything is planned.

So

the the the problem is [snorts] how do

you give power to somebody without the

power to rig the elections and stay in

power and there is no magic solution.

This is the whole issue of checks and

balances. Oh, we need free courts and we

need an independent media, but who is

going to regulate the media and who is

going to regulate the court and what if

there is corruption in court? So, it's

complicated. You know, dictatorship is

simple. Again, it's one person dictates

everything. Democracy is inherently

complicated

and you need a lot of people with a lot

of goodwill for it to work. Again, it's

not about writing the perfect

constitution.

And you know, Russia has a wonderful

constitution guaranteeing freedom of

speech and whatever,

but it's just a dead piece of paper.

Ultimately, it's the spirit of people

that determines whether a democracy is

alive or dead. So, in a sense, what

you're saying is we've got the political

system, the democracy that we actually

want. We've got what we deserve.

>> Mhm.

>> I mean, for better or for worse. and

some might say for worse right now.

>> You know, ultimately you cannot force a

people to stay democratic. If people see

what certain leaders are doing, if

people see what policies they are

pursuing and they vote for them, you

know, the first time you can say, okay,

they didn't know. If it's out in the

open and they keep voting for them,

ultimately you cannot force a country to

be a democracy. can force a country to

be a dictatorship

and it's like uh a one-way street. I

mean, it's easy to slide from a

democracy to an autocracy. Once you're

in autocracy, if you say, "Oh, wait a

minute. I didn't I I didn't think it

would be like this. I want to go back.

Sorry, too late." Once you have crossed

a certain threshold, it's almost

impossible to go back.

>> And is that what's happening? Do you

think say in the United States or

>> United States is still a certain I think

that the the 2026 and 20 2028 elections

will be crucial.

uh if people who are seeing what is

happening again with open eyes they see

everything and if the elections are not

rigged of course you have the

complication maybe within four years uh

there there is enough power acred to rig

the elections but let's say there is a

free and fair more or less free and fair

elections and after seeing everything

people again vote for the same thing

what can you do you cannot force a

democracy on people who don't want it

Which brings me to the question of

Israel and Gaza. What is your view of

what is happening there? What is your

view of Israel's power, its role, its

right to defend itself? Where do you

stand on this?

>> It has a right to defend itself, but not

to starve two million people.

Um, and it's terrible what is happening

there. It's terrible both for the people

who live there and for the implications

for the entire world because the entire

world is watching

and uh saying well if this can be done

there it can be done in other places as

well. It's not the only place where

terrible things are happening in the

world but this is spreading to more and

more places. uh the global order that we

have known in the last few decades which

had many many problems but was still the

most peaceful order that humanity has

ever managed to create is collapsing

because of what is Russia is doing in

Ukraine because of what Israel is doing

in Gaza and this is spreading to more

and more places and it will be felt all

over the world

>> do you think that's something though

that is on the minds of Israelis who

clearly are very traumatized by the

hostage situation by uh the events of

October the 7th but do you think they

understand the way in which Israel is

becoming a symbol of some of that in the

same way

>> some of them again Israel is still a

democracy of sorts uh it's not a

monolith there are people sometimes

don't realize it but for the last two

years including during the war including

now every week, hundreds of thousands,

sometimes tens of thousands, some

hundreds of thousands of Israelis go out

into the street to demonstrate and to

protest. There is still a very strong

opposition uh uh to the government which

is now running Israel. Uh there was

supposed to be elections next year. We

do not know whether there will be free

and fair elections. Uh but again like

the elections in the US, they will be

decisive for the future of the country.

If after everything that happened in the

last uh uh uh three years, if there are,

it's a big if, if there are free and

fair elections and the Israelis again

vote for the same government, for the

same policies, what can you do?

But I hope not. Again, the country is

really much more divided than even what

you see in the United States. Basically,

I would say that roughly half the people

hate Netanyahu like they never hated

anybody in their life and half the

people think he's the messiah.

There is very little kind of middle

ground uh uh in between them. The one

thing everybody can agree on is that the

country is completely divided against

itself. And this is again a global

phenomenon. You see it in more and more

countries around the world and it's it's

often politicians who present themselves

as great patriots

who are actually dividing the nation

against itself because their view of

patriotism is not based on love. That to

be a patriot is to care and about your

compatriots to to love them and to take

care of them. Their view of patriotism

is mostly about hate, about hating

foreigners and minorities and so forth.

And these types of of leaders like

Netanyahu when they seeing a wound, a

scar in the body of the nation, instead

of trying to heal it, they poke the

finger into it and try to enlarge it to

open the scars to open the wound as far

as possible because their political

career is based on division, not on

nationalism, but actually on tribalism,

on dividing the nation. nation into

hostile tribes

and then presenting themselves as the

leader of a tribe within the nation, not

of the nation as a whole. And I think

part of the antidote to that is to have

the healthy kind of nationalism and

patriotism which is not afraid of the

flag and is not afraid to admit and to

celebrate the achievements of the nation

uh but which focuses on patriotism on as

as something which is about love and

care and not about hate and division.

Do you think we live in intensely

ideological times when people are really

really attached to a set of ideas and

they simply won't let go in a way that

perhaps wasn't true 20 30 years ago?

>> It's hard to say because in many cases

you don't see a clear-cut ideologies.

Uh we are more in a kind of a medieval

situation when people are attached to

personalities and tribes and not to

ideologies. This is especially true in

cases of leaders like Trump that one of

his strength as a politicians as a

politician as a president is that he's

not bound by any ideology.

He can say something and say the exact

opposite tomorrow and his base is with

him. He can do something and then do the

exact opposite tomorrow and his base is

with him because it's like a king.

they support the person not any ideology

behind the person and you know some

people describe Trump as I don't know

conservative he's as far away as you can

get from a conservative

whether it's about uh uh perceptions of

tariffs and and free trade or about the

very the deep conservativism

to be a conservative is about conserving

is about respecting traditions

institutions S this is kind of

traditional Burkian conservatism

>> and what he is doing is to destroy

traditions and institutions

and again it goes back to a medieval

kind of politics that you mistrust

institutions

and instead you trust a personality of

somebody who is almost divinely elected

or or or superhuman.

And again it also ties back to what we

talked in the beginning about AIs and

algorithms. It ties to this crisis of

trust or deficit of trust in human

institutions. Then in one field after

the other you see that people are losing

trust in institutions.

The only thing that gains trust is

algorithms and these human kings.

Um if you think for instance about

banking the example we started with.

So

the rise of cryptocurrencies for as as

as as as a as as a phenomenon is about

people losing trust in the human

institution of banks and bankers, flesh

and blood bankers and instead putting

their trust in algorithmic money. money

which is created and supported and

guaranteed by algorithms.

So it's not that trust completely

disappears from the system. It shifts

from humans to algorithms. The same

thing is happening in the media. Again

people have all these kind of fears and

doubts about traditional media. Oh, I

don't trust the editors, the owners of

the newspapers of but I do trust the

algorithm that is running my social

media feed.

>> Well, is it that people trust or they

just don't appreciate the extent to

which they're being manipulated?

>> It doesn't matter. Trust is not about

what you say. It's mainly about what you

do. If you go on an airplane, you can

all all all the way talk about how you

are afraid of flying and you don't trust

the airline. You're on the airplane.

By your own action, you have shown that

you trust the engineers who built the

airplane and you trust the pilot.

So if you say that you don't trust

anybody but you're constantly scrolling

whatever it is you're trusting this

and this now gets enormous trust. So

again the big picture of what is

happening now in the all over the world

is trust is being shifted from human

beings and human institutions to

algorithms and to AIS

which is why I think that one of the

biggest political questions of the

present moment that should be at the

heart of every election campaign every

political debate is do we want to

recognize AIS as legal legal persons

sounds very strange and alien. So I I'll

try to to to explain what what it means.

AIS are now becoming agents. They're

agents in the sense that they can make

decisions by themselves and they can

invent new ideas by themselves. They can

learn and change independently. Yes,

humans originally designed them at least

for now.

uh but the AI can learn and change by by

itself and make decisions by itself

which means it has agency.

Do we want these AIs to be recognized

also as legal agents,

for example, to be able to open a bank

account

and uh h be an actor in the financial

system

to trade, to buy, sell, uh uh hire

people, fire people, donate?

Um, do we want AIs to have social media

accounts, which they already have

because all these millions of bots, but

do we want AIS to be recognized as legal

persons? Now I'm not sure about the

situation in the US in sorry in the UK

but in the US there is already a open

legal path for AIs being recognized as

legal persons which means that according

to the law they are persons with rights

and this path is by incorporating AIS

because according to uh uh the US legal

system corporations are legal persons.

persons or entities.

>> Persons this is the the the the language

of the law. For instance, there was a

famous case in 2010, I think, of the

Citizen United ruling of the US Supreme

Court which says that corporations are

legal persons and therefore they have

freedom of expression. Goes back to our

initial discussion of why it was meant

to defend the ability of corporations to

give donations to politicians.

Because if a corporation, if if Google

or whatever is giving a donation to a

politician, this is freedom of

expression

and freedom of speech. And if a

corporation is a person, then the US

Constitution guarantees that all persons

have freedom of expression. Now, until

today,

all of this was just legal fiction, make

believe. Because even though

corporations were recognized as legal

persons and they can open bank accounts

and hire people and lobby politicians

and hire lawyers and whatever.

In practice,

all decisions of every corporation on

earth were made by human beings.

If a corporation decided to hire

somebody or fire somebody or donate

money or invest in something, it was

always the decision of some human

executive, engineer, accountant,

shareholder, something. There was

nothing on earth

>> other than humans that could do it. Now

there is.

You can technically now incorporate an

AI

and the AI can manage the corporate bank

account. The AI can decide to buy

things, to invest in something, to hire

a lawyer and to uh sue somebody. It is

now technically possible to do that.

Do we as a society

want to allow it uh legally,

politically?

Again,

remember that the original reason for

the US to give this decision was to

allow corporations to donate money to

politicians. What do you think about a

situation in which an incorporated AI

had made billions of dollars by trading

in cryptocurrency, let's say, and it's

now the richest person in the country,

and it is donating money to politicians

uh in order for these politicians to

advance more rights for AI.

This sounds like a kind of crazy science

fiction scenario, but this is becoming a

completely realistic scenario.

>> Is anybody talking about it in your

mind? Is anybody willing to put up a red

flag and say, "No, this cannot be

allowed."

>> Hardly.

You don't even see the beginning of a

You see the beginning of a conversation,

but there are still no clear party

lines. like what is the difference

between Democrats and Republicans on

this view that uh AI should be

recognized as legal persons? You would

think on the one hand that say

Republicans because they are all in

favor of less regulation, free trade so

forth, they will be in favor of

recognizing AI as legal persons. On the

other hand, many of their members are uh

uh uh religious evangelists, Christians

and so forth and they have a strong

commitment

to the value of humanity.

So the idea of recognizing

not just nonhumans but non-organic

entities as persons, it might be much

more difficult for the religious right.

So we actually see the beginning of a

battle within the Republican party

within Manga exactly between these two

camps. And this is not left versus

right. In traditional terms of left

versus right, it's very difficult to

know what is a leftwing and what is a

right-wing position.

>> Well, is it even helpful to talk in

those terms? Now

>> I I I think people are talking less and

less in in these terms because the

conversation is really shifting to new

territories

>> and in terms of then the political

battlegrounds you've said you've

described this this debate around AI and

how we consider it a moral and

philosophical question in many ways

whether we can personify AI.

>> Why aren't we having those

conversations? Why are we having the

wrong conversations? what would be on

your agenda? What would be on the the

Uval manifesto?

>> And it's partly uh there are political

interests in focusing the conversation

on certain issues and not others. There

are technological interests. Again,

increasingly it's the algorithms that

decide what the humans will be talking

about.

Partly it's a legacy of evolution of

what we I mean politics is a very

emotional thing. It's not an

intellectual thing. In elections, people

are not asked uh uh what is the truth.

They are asked what do you feel?

People vote according to their emotions,

their desires.

And we are programmed by evolution

to get very engaged,

very excited about certain things that

were very prominent in the African

savannah when we evolved there hundreds

of thousands of years ago and not about

other things.

>> So people from the other tribe are

coming to our territory. This is very

engaging.

But something like climate change wasn't

engaging 200,000 years ago because it

was just completely irrelevant.

The actions of stone age hunter

gatherers did not change at least not

significantly the uh the earth's

ecology.

So there was no reason for the human

mind, for the human lyic system, for the

human emotional system to evolve, to

care about such things.

And we are still basically the same

bodies and minds we were tens of

thousands of years ago in the savannah.

So, it's very easy to get us engaged,

emotional, excited about the things that

were very relevant 50,000 years ago,

which some of them could still be

relevant. I'm not saying that

immigration is not important. It is a

very important subject, but it's much

easier to get people engaged in that

debate than in other debates which might

be just as important in the long run may

be far more important. Again, even the

AI question can be presented in terms of

immigration.

You know, if you ask people who are

concerned about immigration, what is

your biggest concerns? What are your

biggest fears? They would usually tell

you we are afraid that these people will

take our jobs that they will change the

culture. They are coming with different

cultural ideas and they will change the

culture here and they might take over

politics.

>> These are the three main fears I think

and my question is okay why aren't you

concerned about the digital immigration?

There is a wave of millions of AI

immigrants infiltrating the country.

They are not coming in boats in the

middle of the night. They are coming

through cables and screens and

satellites. They are traveling at the

speed of light. They don't need visas.

They are not stopped at any border. And

they are increasingly going to take a

lot of jobs. Yes, they will create new

jobs the same way that human immigrants

also sometimes create new jobs. There'll

be a huge huge upheaval in the job

market. They come with very different

ideas about culture. They are changing

culture in a very fast and and an alien

way and they are already taking over

politics. At least some of the most

important political positions in the

country have already fallen into their

hands. Again, who are the most important

news editors in the UK today? They are

not people and they are not in the UK.

>> They are algorithms across the sea.

>> I suspect some of my former bosses might

take uh take umbrage at that. Um

>> it's it's crucial and people think that

you know that the first jobs that will

be lost

are I don't know taxi drivers but some

of the first jobs that have already been

lost are some of the most powerful jobs

in the country

>> and I think we we've just heard that

Albania has appointed an AI to be a

minister

I think just in in in the last few

years. I don't know to what extent this

is a gimmick or a serious thing, but

certainly what is very serious is that

in warfare, life and death decisions in

Gaza, in Ukraine, elsewhere is

increasingly taken by AI.

>> This is no longer science fiction. This

is the face of warfare in the second

half of the 2020s.

Well, on that sobering thought, uh, I

have your questions which haven't been

looked through by an algorithm, but some

technology is involved. Um, [laughter]

so there's a question here, lot loads of

questions, and I'm going to scroll

through them. I'm going to go through

them as quickly as I can. Uh, an

anonymous question. As a fellow

technology skeptic, do you think that

democracy can survive polarization

caused by social media which has given

rise to political extremism? Yes. Again,

democracy is extremely adaptable. This

is its strength and it has faced

previous periods of crisis. It's almost

always in crisis. It was in crisis in

the 1930s. It was in crisis in the 1960s

and 70s. Also in these previous

occasions partly because of new

communication technologies like radio

and like television and democracy have

learned how to adapt and adjust and

actually became better and stronger as a

result. Um but it will it's not a it's

it's not a guarantee. It depends on

decisions that people make. And one

example is the decision to uh about

whether algorithms should be recognized

as legal persons and whether they can

hold social media accounts. At present

the actual situation is that much of

social media is run by bots by

algorithms. They are relatively a small

percentage of the accounts but they are

a very big percentage of the actual

traffic. Now this is something that as a

society we can agree we do not allow

that and we demand that the platforms

that the big technology companies uh uh

do something about that either ban the

bots or at the very least if a bot is

communicating with me I need to know

it's a bot and not a human being and no

arguments about free speech can be

accepted because bots don't have freedom

of speech

Now I think I'm looking at the wrong

questions and I'm wondering if uh one of

my colleagues can come and help me

because I don't think they're the

questions from this evening. Um

so that was very honest of me when the

technology goes really

>> got somebody else's questions. Is there

anything good? Um it was on Fran's

questions I think

>> in the hands of technology

>> question. I was looking at the wrong

questions, right? Um although that first

one was pretty relevant. [laughter]

There's just lots of questions about New

York and I was thinking no that this

isn't what we want to talk about. Um

okay, so now I'm looking at the right

questions. Uh so we talked about right

and left perhaps being irrelevant, but

an interesting question bearing that in

mind. In an era where the right is

winning big thanks to a populist and

loud approach, what concrete steps can

the left take? Should it lower itself,

the words of the questioner, to the same

level? I

>> I'm not sure what lowering to the same

level would mean in in in this context,

but politics is is to a large extent

about what are the things people talk

about. If the main subject that people

that decides the election is

immigration,

then the far right will win. The

question is what is what do people think

are the biggest problems facing the

country facing society and if you

remember for instance the debate between

uh Camela Harris and Donald Trump the

only thing almost anybody remembers from

that debate is Trump remark about the

cats and dogs.

>> Yes. And it was extremely effective

because it got people to talk about

immigration. It doesn't matter how. If

you get people to talk about it, if this

is the topic of the conversation, then

this decides who will win. And the issue

in politics is very often that people

are not talking about the most important

problems

uh and how to dominate the agenda. And

we saw it in the UK for instance with

Brexit that for five years the country

almost lost its mind and lost so much

time and money and effort debating a

question that almost 10 years later the

main thing I think people can say about

it it wasn't very important because it

didn't bring any results like even the

people who supported it and and expect

that it will make a big change what what

big problem that the UK had in 2015 15

was actually solved by it. Many of the

problems that the supporters of Brexit

promised will be solved are again the

the problems they're talking about now.

>> Although always the intangible question

of sovereignty which is not something

it's not a problem. It's an idea. It's a

concept.

>> Again there are always many many does

God exist?

In the 4th century, late Roman Empire

and Byzantine Empire, questions about

the nature of Christ, the relation

between God the father and God the son,

are they the same? Are they not the

same? This was one of the most important

questions in society. If you travel back

to 17th century England and uh uh uh uh

so one of the most important question is

whether the Catholics or the Protestants

are right about about Christianity about

Christian dogma. If you go to Germany

people were massacring each other by the

million in the 30 years war Catholics

versus Protestants. Did they decide the

question? No. When Germany goes to

election in a few years, is the question

of who is right, Catholics and

Protestants, should it be the main

subject that people discuss? Probably

not

because there are more urgent things to

discuss. So for instance, if we mention

Germany, one another kind of key

question that is not being discussed

enough in the UK, in Europe is for

instance, should Germany have nukes.

You know, if if you're a German today,

you ask yourself this question very

seriously because you say to yourself,

we need deterrence against the Russians.

Traditionally, it was the Americans, but

obviously we can't trust the Americans

anymore. Who knows what they will do if

the Russians come? So this leaves us

with the French and the British. If say

in a couple of years, Le Pen is

president of France, Farage is prime

minister of of Britain. Do we really

want to trust

the sovereignity of Germany, the

independence and security of Germany to

these two individuals?

If not, maybe we need our own nukes.

So a question that should be asked to

far to Le Pen and to every other

politician. What is your position on

Germany having a nuclear program if you

don't like it? What is your plan? What

kind of security guarantees

and what kind of European

uh network alliance are you willing to

commit to to reassure the Germans that

no no no no, you don't need your own

nukes, you can rely on us. And this is a

conversation that is hardly happening.

>> But that's a conversation of nuance.

That isn't that's a conversation which

involves nuance. The conversations we're

having now,

>> it involves a lot of emotions. Germans,

nukes, there is a lot of emotions

involved.

[laughter]

>> Does anybody German in the audience?

And I'm not saying it is a criticism. I

I think there in Germany today there is

a case to be made that given the

political climate in the US, France and

Britain, Germany needs to think

seriously

>> about this issue and it it and it

involves a lot of emotions and a lot of

very difficult memories and again the

question is what do people talk about?

Why don't they talk enough about these

subjects?

>> Slightly interesting take, not something

we've really talked about at all. AI has

the potential to make languages obsolete

and communication thus seamless. What

might our world look like when language

barriers disappear altogether?

>> Um, [clears throat] that's a good

question. I mean

we do see that AI is mastering language

which is a crucial historical

development because language was the

tool with which our specy conquered the

world. Homo sapiens took over the world

not because we are individually smarter

or more powerful than chimpanzees or

elephants but because we could organize

better. And we could organize better

because we had the most sophisticated

language on the planet. And everything

we've built is ultimately built on

language on stories. This is the

operating system of banks and religions

alike. In the beginning was the word

and the word is now made not flesh. It

is made silicon.

AI is becoming better at language than

human beings. As an all I I say it as an

author, as a writer, I'm actually

working now on a new book.

I have a 50%

bet with myself that this is probably my

last book because uh afterwards AI will

take over that I will not be able to

compete with AI in in writing books.

Heavens, that's a very big kind of

statement. You just don't think you can

come up with ideas that AI can't come up

with.

>> I think about the thing what I do. I

read a lot. AI can read a lot more than

I can. Much faster and remember

everything. It's unlike me. I find

patterns in what I read.

>> Yes. But you're a human. You've lived.

You've had a bad day. You've had a good

day. You've had a headache.

>> That's not language. Language is

different. I mean, we have experience in

human history. There was always this

deep tension between language and

experience.

You know like in in in in Daoism the Dao

that can be expressed in words is not

the real Dao.

>> Find it in all the tradition there are

places language cannot reach.

And these are the the most important

things about us. But at the level of

social construction, at the level of

banks and religions and armies,

it's the language that matters. It's the

holy scriptures, it's the manuals, it's

the laws, it's the constitutions. They

are made of language.

And something now appeared on earth

which is better at language than we are.

And you think about, you know, something

like a traditional religion. Religions

that are based on text

are in great jeopardy jeopardy of being

taken over by AI very soon. If I think

for instance about Judaism.

So in Judaism ultimate authority is

given at least in orthodox Judaism

>> not to human beings and not to human

experiences but to a text.

Now, like with corporations,

until today, this was a kind of fiction

because the text, the holy text could

not actually speak and because people

had questions about the text and the

text couldn't answer. So, authority was

actually in the hands of the experts on

the text, the rabbis.

They read the text and they interpreted

it. And over thousands of years they

wrote commentaries and commentaries on

commentaries and commentaries and

commentaries on commentaries. And to be

a rabbi you needed to read as many of

these religious texts as possible and

remember them. Now no human was a

actually a no rabbi is able to read all

the texts of Judaism and remember them.

AI can. For the first time in in the

history of Judaism, there is an entity

that can read every single text written

by every rabbi in Yemen or Poland in the

17th century. Remember every word,

understand the linguistic context of

every word. What's the difference

between 17th century Yiddish and 15th

century Yiddish? And this word was used

like this here, but this word was used

differently there. and will be the

authority, the highest authority on the

text. It will actually be

>> a text that can speak back to you. What

happens to a religion of texts when the

texts begin to speak?

>> But wouldn't you, the believer want

that? Maybe it's the rabbi that asks the

question to chat GPT, but don't I, the

believer, want to hear the answer from

the rabbi? Because in the end, the rabbi

has the lived experience. The AI doesn't

>> this is maybe Buddhism but not Judaism.

Judaism it's text.

It is written here in Deuteronomy

3:7. It says blah blah blah.

You can't say yes but my experience says

differently. You want to say this go be

a Buddhist.

Well, I I was toying whether to to ask

you this question, but I feel it's very

relevant now given that you've just told

us you your next book might be your

last. What is your purpose in life? Do

you think it will change? And if so, how

do you anticipate it will change?

>> I don't think in in terms of purposes, I

try to understand life. And I think one

of the most misleading things about life

is that again the human mind tends to

think in stories but reality is not a

story. We constantly try to impose a

story on reality and of course with

ourselves as very important heroes at

the center of the narrative and this is

just reality doesn't work like that.

So as long as we keep being attached to

these ideas of what is the story of the

universe, what is the meaning of life,

what is the purpose of life, it

guarantees that we misunderstand what

life actually is.

Cassia says, "In sapiens, you argue that

shared myths unify societies. Are there

any positive sustainable myths that can

unify us now?" that can unify us. Now

>> um at the present moment the most

important level to go back to is the

biological level

that again the world is taking over by a

non-organic nonbiological network which

is not an evil necessarily. It has

enormous positive promises as well but

ultimately it is not organic. It is not

biological

and um we need to go back to the level

ultimately of the body. Our minds divide

us because our minds keep inventing

stories

that we are different from them on the

level of the body. We are almost exactly

the same.

And this is in this was always important

to know in history, but it is especially

important to know now when we live more

and more of our lives inside these kind

of artificial digital spaces, where the

body almost disappears, where biology

almost disappears. And it makes it even

easier to divide us and turn us against

each other. Because when we live in the

mind again, I hold one myth in my mind

and you hold a different myth in your

mind. It makes us so different.

>> When we go down a little from the level

of the mind to the level of the body, we

are the same. We need oxygen. We need

water.

Um so I I think that it's to to survive

and flourish in the 21st century. uh

humanity needs to stay very connected,

very rooted in its bodily, biological,

organic uh uh uh uh structure.

>> So human to human contact, get away from

those algorithms.

>> Uh absolutely that that's that's part of

it. But also all these fantasies about

you know living in the clouds and

uploading our our consciousness to a

cloud. And this is very ancient

fantasies. Again you see it in religious

history again and again that people

fantasize about escaping the biological

body with all its messiness and existing

forever in a kind of purely spiritual

realm. And this has always been an

extremely dangerous fantasy that

sometimes caused people to do terrible

things to one another. It is doubly

dangerous now because at least some

people see a path.

Previously they told you okay after you

die you will get it. Now increasingly

people want it in their life. And we

just have I think a very interesting

conversation a couple of weeks ago

between Xiinping and Vladimir Putin.

When the microphone called them, they

weren't aware that they're being

listened to. What were they talking

about? Not the war in Ukraine, not Gaza.

They were talking about extending their

life indefinitely

>> using uh uh new biotechnology.

>> This is this is what these people

ultimately really care about. They want

to stay in power forever

for which they first need to live

forever. and they think they see a path

to accomplishing that.

>> Well, Tommy is asking, do you think the

West is now going to permanently have

populist governments?

>> Nothing is permanent in history.

[laughter]

Uh, again, history is just accelerating.

Nobody has any idea what the political

situation will be in five or 10 years.

And also the thought that the populists

are some kind of coherent one thing,

they are not. And it's very important to

realize it uh that otherwise you cannot

make political alliances. Politics is

ultimately about understanding the other

side

and finding ways to make compromises and

alliances. And if you have a very rigid

worldview that the world is just divided

into these two blocks that will forever

remain separate, it makes you a very bad

politician.

>> I think I'm going to try and get in a

couple more if I can. I'm going to and

going to put two questions together. You

indicated earlier and forgive me if I'm

misinterpreting that I think you're

quite a a free speech kind of you

believe in free speech in in the purest

sense, but two questions. No, I I just

don't believe in giving any I don't

trust anybody with the power to uh uh

forcefully regulate free. Again, when I

said that free speech even protects

lies, it's because I don't want to give

anybody the power to decide what is a

lie and what is truth. Because I know

from historical experience once you give

that power to somebody, they will use it

not necessarily in ways that you think

they will. So it's better to allow some

people to lie occasionally than to give

some ministry of truth the power to

decide, oh this is a lie. You cannot say

that.

>> So I think you might have answered one

of the questions, but let me ask you

them both and you can go where you'd

like. Thoughts on the increasing

suppression of freedom of speech seen in

developed western nations such as the UK

and the US. And then Charlie asks, can

you share your thoughts on Jimmy

Kimmel's cancellation and whether it

suggests the end of freedom of speech?

By itself it's not the end of threat of

freedom of speech. It is worrying.

Uh but again ultimately

[clears throat] the thing to focus on is

the algorithms and the bots which are

increasingly running the conversation.

Uh and it's a question of what do people

talk about? The more you talk about the

freedom of speech of the humans, you are

in the old conversation with, you know,

these kind of first world war fortified

trenches and it's very difficult to move

even a kilometer. At the same time, you

have this entire open arena which is

maybe the most important battlefield

today about conversations, speech, free

speech, which is what do you think about

the free speech of AIS and algorithms

because they are increasingly running

the show.

>> Okay, I'm going to end on a really

potentially I think it could be yes, it

is an optimistic end. Nicole, in a world

of crisis, what gives you hope?

>> That humanity has done the impossible

so many times before.

And that one of the key lessons of

history is that most humans are

trustworthy.

Most humans are well-meaning.

Otherwise, we wouldn't be here. If the

human species was mainly made of

psychopath and liars and untrustworthy

individuals, we would still be kind of

tiny bands in the savannah, barely able

to hold our own against the chimpanzees

or the hyenas or or the lions.

We took over the planet because we have

learned to build bigger and bigger

networks of cooperation from a situation

when you had a few dozen people living

in a tiny band not able to trust anybody

outside the band.

>> Today you have nations like Britain with

tens of millions of citizens. Some

nations have hundreds even even more

than a billion citizens in China and

India uh that cooperate

in amazing ways when you look at it from

the viewpoint of the stone age or even

of the middle ages.

Um, we have networks of cooperation that

extend beyond nations like the global

trade network that so much of the food

we eat, of the clothes we wear, of the

medicines that keep us alive, they are

invented, grown, produced by complete

strangers on the other side of the

world. So humans have been able to build

immense amount of trust and this was

only possible because most humans are

trustworthy

and uh this is the main source for hope

also now as we see this deficit of trust

or this collapse of trust that this is

not inevitable.

>> This is not objective. This is not

because there is something wrong with

humanity

and there are ways to rebuild uh uh uh

this trust.

I think that one way very important and

you start on the individual level is to

simply have a more charitable approach

to the other humans you encounter

whether physically or online or

wherever.

uh a charitable approach means you know

like texts we talked earlier about like

the Bible that every sentence in the

Bible you have a hundred different

interpretations.

Similarly when you meet somebody and

they say something or do something there

usually several different ways you can

interpret it. Some people unfortunately

they immediately go for the worst

interpretation possible. Like they would

listen to what you say and they will

think hard what is the worst possible

interpretation

I can give to what you just said and

then get all upset about it. So don't do

that.

>> Have a more charitable approach to what

people do and say. Now don't be naive.

If you have evidence, there are some bad

people out there definitely. If you have

evidence that somebody is a bad actor,

don't trust them

>> and don't fall for their manipulations

and lies. But this should not cause us

to be inherently suspicious towards

every human being and everything that

happens on the planet. I will let you on

a secret. I've met quite a few uh

politicians

uh in in recent years and even most of

them

are good and trustworthy people with

very very difficult jobs that I don't

envy. Not all of them but many of them.

And we should also have the same

approach, the same attitude to them

because we need good politicians and we

need good people uh uh to go into

politics and the more trust that we have

towards people and that we spread in the

world, the better the world will be.

>> Well, on that very positive note, I'm

glad to say Ivan Noah Harari, thank you

very much indeed. Thank you. [applause]