Original subtitles

hi

everybody so I'm very excited to be back

here last time I was here um uh I was

talking about my own book with Sam Alman

who did an excellent job a little

frightening how good he was as an

interviewer uh for my book but I'm very

excited um uh I've interviewed uh you've

all SE I think several times um but I'm

super excited that he wrote a book about

AI really but it's actually about the

history of information because he's a

historian uh by trade and so I'm super

excited to talk about that um I'm

thrilled you're all here you missed the

vice presidential debate it's probably a

good thing it's probably this is much

more interesting uh and we won't be

talking about eating dogs so that's good

that's we're already way ahead um and uh

and I'm very excited I he needs no

introduction what an amazing man what an

amazing author and this book uh is sure

to be another bestseller uh you've come

out yal

Harari

great so um so we have a lot of

questions and then we'll get to

questions from the audience at the end

um we can't see you very well right now

so apologies if I don't uh but we will

bring up the lights when you ask

questions um but I've got a a bunch of

them this is actually going to be uh put

on on with Cara swis sure on the podcast

so it'll so react it'll be it should be

really interesting and a great

discussion so welcome to city arts and

lectures it's great to see you again and

thanks for joining me thank you it's

really good to be here with you so we're

here to talk about your latest book

Nexus a brief his a brief history of

information networks from the Stone Age

to AI it's not brief uh it's quite a

large and long book and from the Stone

Age to AI in like 400 Pages it's quite

all right okay fine okay all right okay

if you say so um your first bestseller

sapiens obviously brief history of

humankind I like to use brief all the

time came out in 201 and honestly these

books could kill a small dog thingy of

dogs um and then you wrote homod Deus a

brief history of tomorrow in 2015 and

again despite the titles are not so

brief so let's talk about what you were

trying to do with Nexus and how it it

relates to these other books that you

wrote and why you decided to do this and

then we're going to get into history

first so I mean it picks up where I left

off with sapiens and with homodeos the

two main questions at the basis of the

book is first of all if humans are so

smart why are we so stupid like we've

managed to take over this planet to

reach the moon to split the atom to the

cipher DNA and here we are on the verge

of destroying ourselves and much of the

ecological system with us in several

different ways could be ecological

collapse could be nuclear war could be

the rise of AI so what's wrong with us

MH and you know this is a question that

has bothered people throughout history

and you have a lot of answers in

mythologies and theologies that tells us

that uh there is something wrong with us

there is something wrong with human

nature and Nexus takes a different view

uh the problem is not in our nature the

problem is in our information if you

give good people bad information they

will make bad decisions right and

self-destructive decisions and then the

book goes on to explore the long-term

history of information why isn't

information getting better I mean you

would have expected that over thousands

of years our information will get better

and it really doesn't large scale uh

modern societies right are as

susceptible to mass delusion and really

Insanity like Mass Insanity as Stone Age

tribes if you think about the 20th

century with stalinism and Nazism I mean

far more powerful of course than stone

age right tribes a lot more

sophisticated Information Technology but

still can be extremely delusional and

when you look at the world today we have

the most sophisticated information

technology in history and people are

unable to hold a rational conversation

anymore you know there's a techn ology

term for that which is very technical

which is garbage in garbage out right um

and I think a lot it explains quite a

bit of it in really kind of very easy

simple way but the point you're making

is this is historical this is a

historical thing it's just more

sophisticated in the garbage that we're

making for ourselves correct but the the

garbage is is not accidental and it's

it's effective in one important thing

it's effective in creating

order and the one of them key ideas of

the book is that humans control the

world because we can cooperate in larger

numbers than any other animals and to

create a large scale Cooperative system

you need two things which pull you in

different directions you need to know

truth some truth about the world MH but

you also need to preserve order between

large numbers of people thousands

millions billions and the truth is not

the easiest way to do it in most cases

uh Fiction and Fantasy and down

downright lies are more effective in

creating order among people so one of

the things that I think about a lot

today and we'll get into this in a

minute I want to get to history first is

the idea that that technology and

information is either a tool or a weapon

technology used whether it's the

printing press whether it's Papyrus it's

both used as both it will always be used

as a weapon no matter what happens in

every

historical a spear is well spear is

always a weapon but um a lot a knife is

a better example it's a tool and a

weapon um obviously AI is very hot right

now but you know in homod deas you you

discuss the benefits and dangers of new

information technology especially if

humans lose control um and you write in

Nexus that since homod deas your

conversations about a have gone from

being idle philosophical speculations to

having quote focused intensity of an

emergency room why what is that

conversation right now from your

perspective about AI

MH I mean there are two

conversations one is simply

understanding what we are facing what is

AI why is it dangerous what is the

threat and a lot of people have H A

difficulty grasping it it's not like

nuclear weapons right that the danger

was obvious andle a war which will just

kill everybody what's the what's the

danger in Ai and Hollywood I think uh

this did is a good big service in

focusing attention on on that issue long

before anybody else thought about but it

focused on the wrong scenario mhm if you

think about the Terminator or the Matrix

the focus is on the big robot Rebellion

right the moment the AIS decide to take

over the world and wipe us out and this

is unlikely to happen anytime soon

because AI doesn't have the kind of

broad intelligence necessary to build a

robot army and take over a country or or

the whole world and this makes people

feel

complacent and I think one of the key

issue in the in issues in the

conversations about AI is to explain

that it's not about the big robot

Rebellion it's more about the AI

bureaucrats it will take the world from

within and not by rebelling from from

outside of from below I mean AI yes it's

not a general intelligence but it

doesn't need to be within a bureaucracy

you need a very kind of narrow

intelligence to gain enormous power if

you think about a lawyer for instance as

an example if you drop a lawyer in the

middle of the Savannah he or she are not

particularly powerful entities they are

much weaker than in a lion or an

elephant or aena but within

bureaucracy a lawyer could be more

powerful than all the Lions of the world

put together right and this is where AI

is stepping in we now have millions of

AI bureaucrats increasingly making

important decisions about us about the

world you apply to a bank to get a loan

it's an AI deciding you apply for a job

in in Wars increasingly it's AI choosing

the

targets so one part of the conversation

is to understand what is the threat and

we can explore that the other part of

the conversation is of course what to do

about it and here I think I mean almost

everybody after a certain amount of time

agree that the the best thing would be

to Simply slow down give human soci

everybody agrees that no not everybody

does because of of an argument that I'll

get to immediately I mean they will say

ideally yes it would be good to slow

down because it would give Human Society

time to adapt but we can't slow down we

can't afford to slow down because then

the bad guys are competitors here or

across the ocean they will not slow down

and they will win win the race so we

must run faster MH and then you have

this kind of paradox that basically they

are telling us we have to run faster

because we can't trust the humans but we

think we'll be able to trust the

right right exactly and you know you and

I had this discussion with Daniel Conan

the late Daniel Conan about the decision

making of AI versus decision- making of

humans I don't know if you remember that

but one of the things that's I I think

is interesting to explore at the

beginning though is is the historical

what what's happened historically with

much lesser information systems that

humans construct so the the tacid

Assumption of the this information age

is what we call I think all ages have

been information ages in a lot of ways

um as you said that more information

lead to the truth which will lead to

more wisdom more openness A Better World

um obviously that's naive and you

discuss that and you you define the

information instead as something that

creates new realities by connecting

different points of view into a network

um talk a little bit about that because

this concept is standard in mathematics

right um but as a philosopher do you see

any and historian see any danger in

separating information from truth most

information is not truth the truth is a

very small substance

of all information in the world uh the

truth is first of all it's it's costly

if you want want to write a truthful

account of anything you need to research

you need to gather evidence to fact

check to analyze that that's very costly

in terms of time and money and effort uh

fiction is very cheap you just write the

first things that comes to your mind the

truth is also often very complicated

because reality is complicated whereas

fiction can be made as simple as you

would like it to be and and people

prefer usually simple stories and

finally the truth can be painful whether

the truth about us personally my

relationships what I've done to other

people to myself or entire nations or

cultures um whereas fiction you can you

can make it as attractive as flattering

as you would like it to be so in this

competition between truth and and

Fiction and Fantasy truth is at a huge

disadvantage if you just flood the world

with information which was the point of

a lot of people most information will

not be the truth and in this ocean of

information if you don't give the truth

some help some Edge the truth tends to

sink to the bottom not rise to the top

and we see it again and again throughout

history every time people invent a new

information so it's really interesting

because I was just listening reading um

Rachel M's prequel where she talks about

Joseph goal's talking about this like if

you flood the Zone with L with bad

information or just anything it it

washes out the truth and of course teny

Williams said the truth is at the bottom

of bottomless well you can never get to

it um and and it's and someone more

modern Steve Bannon if you I read Steve

Bannon I'm sorry I do it for the rest of

you but he talks about it incessantly

the idea of flooding The Zone because

that's the best way to confuse and

distract people uh into um and it's used

everywhere including years ago in

Circuit City which was a

was just an Electronics retailer when I

walked in there was a bunch of TVs and

they were all going and I said why is

that doing it and the person goes oh

it's the wall of Confusion And I was

like what he goes we want you to buy a

certain television set so we want to

upset and confuse you and then make you

wander through a racetrack situation and

then you'll buy the TV we want oh which

I know right it was brilliant and it was

um but as you said it's not a new thing

so we're used to equating new technology

with scientific project prog ress this

virtuous circle like the case of the

printing press and this was a really

interesting part of your book so let's

go a little bit in history um you noted

that when the Gutenberg guten the Press

was invented um uh instead of Science

and such as cernus is on the Revolutions

of the Heavenly Spears one of the

founding documents of Science of the

scientific tradition he wrote the real

bestseller of the 15th century was a a

treat a book called The Hammer of

witches

yeah talk a little about the hammer of

witches okay was a bestseller huge

bestseller yeah huge bestseller so um

basically especially in a place like

this in San Francisco in Silicon Valley

you talk with people about information

they will eventually reach out to

history to give you some historical

analogies and they will tell you

something like the same way that the

printing press caused the Scientific

Revolution so what we are doing will

create a new scientific revolution right

and the thing is the printing press did

not cause the Scientific Revolution you

have about 200 years from the time that

Gutenberg uh brings print technology to

Europe in the middle of the 15th century

until the flowering of the Scientific

Revolution with Newton and lianet and

all these people in the middle of the

17th century during these 200 years you

have the worst wave of Wars of religion

in European history because of the

printing again the printing enabled it

in in in in in a way I I'll explain in a

moment and also the worst wave of Witch

Hunt the big European Witch Hunt craze

is not a medieval phenomenon it's a

modern phenomenon that was helped Along

by the printing press medieval Europeans

didn't worry much about about witches

they thought they existed but they

didn't think they were dangerous right

then around the time that Gutenberg

comes with the Press you have a small

group of people that comes up with this

conspiracy theory that witches are not

individuals with magical powers that can

Brew love potions and help you find lost

treasure there is a global conspiracy

led by Satan with agents in every town

and every village that wants to destroy

Humanity so qanon is what you're talking

basically yes I mean there is a direct

line it's it's there is a direct line I

mean the ideas are coming from there

and at first nobody paid it much much

attention then there was one one of the

people who popularized it was a man

called Hinrich Kramer he stouted the

do-it-yourself Witch Hunt in the Alps

what is today

Austria and uh but he was stopped by the

church authorities who thought he was

crazy and expelled yes and he took

Revenge through the printing press he

wrote this book the Hummer of the

witches m maleficarum which was again a

do-it-yourself manual to how to identify

and kill witches M and many of the ideas

we still associate today with witches

for instance that witches are mostly

women that they engage in Wild sexual

orgies this came to a large extent from

the deranged imagination of hinor Kramer

now just to give you a taste of this

book there is an entire section in the

book about the ability of witches to

steal penises from

men with all kinds of evidence you know

it's all evidence-based I heard from

some people

mhm that so for instance he G he brings

a story evidence yeah of a man who wakes

up one morning to find out that his

penis is gone ah and so he suspects the

local witch yeah he goes to the house of

the local witch right and forces her to

bring him back his penis and the witch

says okay okay climb this tree

and he climbs the tree and at the top of

the tree he finds a bird's nest where

the witch keeps all the penises she

stole from different men and she says

okay you can take your own yeah and the

man of course takes the biggest one

right and the the witch tells you no no

no you can't take this one this belongs

to the parish priest oh okay good good

for him now you can understand why this

book sold a few more copies than

copernicus's on on the revolution of the

heavens I don't think there's penises in

that there yeah and now this is all

sounds very very funny yeah but until

you realize the consequences right tens

of thousands of people were killed in

the most horr horrendous way during the

European Witch Hunt craze and to give

just one example to to balance the funny

story about the penises so in Munich

they arrested an entire family the

poppenheimer family accusing them of

being part of this glob conspiracy of

witches and uh it's a father mother of

three kids and they start by torturing

the 10-year-old boy the youngest of the

family and you can still read the

protocol of the interrogation in the

archives in Munich today and they they

torture a 10-year-old boy in unspeakable

ways until he incriminates his mother he

admits yes she's a witch she she went to

meet Satan she she kills babies she

summons hailstorm and they break the

whole family

and they execute all of them including

the 10-year-old

boy and um you know this eventually also

reaches to America the Salem witch hunts

right and this was uh again this was

fued it was not caused by of course but

it's not that the printing press caused

it but the printing press enabled it to

spread right uh for the same reason that

fake news and conspiracy theories spread

today and then the people that create

the printing presses don't take

responsibility for it this modern day

yeah I've been in that conversation I

mean and and the thing is that

conversation happened centuries ago

right and today you again have millions

of Americans basically believing in the

same story about a global conspiracy led

by Satan right uh uh to destroy

civilization right and if you look what

what stopped it last time how did we in

in the end get to the Scientific

Revolution it wasn't the technology of

the printing press it was the creation

of

Institutions that were dedicating to

sifting through this kind of ocean of

information and all these stories about

wit witches and so forth and uh are

developing mechanisms to evaluate

reliable informed by the population

correct which is very easily fooled

right and and and to to to spread not

the information people are most likely

to buy but the information which is most

likely to be true right you know when

you when you send a manuscript to a

scientific publisher to be published as

as as a paper or as a book so uh they

want to know not only if is this will

will this sell a lot of books or a lot

of of of copies is it true right which

you know one of the things that's

happened if you fast forward today and I

want to ask a couple more historical

things because it it happens again and

again this this constant uh Narrative of

lying essentially that that people

people tend to believe um was uh when I

I had an interview with Mark Zuckerberg

where I I was talking we were talking

about um Alex Jones who is one of the

greatest purveyors of misinformation a

toly heinous character in our in our

modern history and I was like why don't

you take him off the platform he's

clearly lying and it's not true and

these kids weren't Child Actors and

they're actually dead and it's damaging

to the parents it's damaging Temp and

for some reason he switched the

conversation to Holocaust Deni when we

did this interview and I was like oh

what a mistake on your part but fine

we'll go to Holocaust Den IR I was like

no no let's stay with Alex Jones but he

did it and I went along and he started

to talk about uh that Holocaust deniers

don't mean to lie and I felt that was

the definition of Holocaust and I was

like Wow and I let him spin it out which

was really interesting um to hear his

point of view which was completely

ridiculous because I felt that the more

Holocaust than are on the platform the

more anti-semitism

down the river would happen like you

could see it happening if these people

had access to other people because it's

interesting stuff yeah right it's it's

much more interesting than the facts and

and you know he got in a lot of trouble

for saying that and Etc but it didn't

prevent him from continuing to allow

them to thrive on the platform until two

years later when he decided to kick them

off he decided one person was

responsible as far as I was concerned

for this flood of anti an semitism

because he refused to do anything at at

the beginning so talk a little bit about

from a historical sense how where

those because right now it's in the

hands of just a few people and they have

real problems with history they have

real problems with knowledge Beyond

coding yeah I I think the main

issue and some for some reason they all

have penises but go

ahead so they are afraid the witches

will steal them that's well no that's

just Elon nobody wants your penis

on well

[Music]

um so how how do you go you talk about

self-correcting you talk about the

importance of self-correcting mechanisms

that's what you call it yeah I I think

again the key point about all these

issues is not whether people are allowed

to say these things because here I would

tend to actually agree with zukerberg

with Elon Musk with others we should be

very careful before we start simply

silencing people you cannot say that at

all well let me make a point they do

silence when they feel like it so you're

aware it's a lot ofy I know I know but

but I think again when it comes to

really censoring the the there is a

there is a discussion to to be to be had

right the problem is not with people

saying all kinds of things the problem

is with the platforms deliberately

promoting MH particular particular kinds

of things particular kinds of things

that spread hate and fear and anger and

outrage it's as as as at some point even

Elon Musk said it's not freedom of

speech it's freedom of of reach no he

didn't say it he copied it from someone

but go ahead it was said years before he

was willing to repeat it sure but the

thing is that um people produce an

enormous amount of content all the time

right and the question is what gets

attention

what gets spread MH and here the

responsibility of somebody who manages a

big platform media information system

whether it's a printing shop or whether

it's a social media Outlet is to be very

careful about what they choose to spread

what they choose to promote and if they

don't know how to tell the difference

between facts and and lies they are in

the wrong business I mean this was this

is for instance what was built during

the Scientific Revolution is exactly

these mechanisms right how do we tell

the difference between facts and fiction

so how do we build those today when this

is in the hands of some very troubled

people like with the full control of

these things or either uneducated or

just they don't know what they're doing

actually it's some incompetence some

arrogance some narcissism it's in the

hands of a very small amount of people

who most of whom know better and and

it's in the architecture of this stuff

to me it's the architecture because when

you look at say a Google it's designed

for Speed con what you're looking for if

you search for whatever um speed context

and accuracy like I'm searching for ADL

I'm going to get ADL this is an example

I always use that's a utility right it

comes to what social networ are Divine

for is virality speed and uh engagement

engagement which is a different

architecture altogether and it always

leads the bad Direction so how do you

create what should influence are

thinking because the government refuses

to step in we'll get to that in a minute

I first of all it should be clear that

the platforms should be liable for the

actions of their algorithms not for the

content of the users yeah and if

somebody posts a hatefield conspiracy

online that's the responsibility of that

human being right but then if the

Facebook algorithm or the Tik Tok

algorithm decides to promote that

conspiracy theory to recommend it to

autoplay it this is no longer on the

user this is the action of the algorithm

and this is the main problem and I mean

it it's amazing to think about it but

one of the first jobs to be automated in

the world was not taxi drivers and was

not textile workers it was edit s m news

editors I mean this used to be one of

the most powerful positions in society

if you edit a major news platform and

newspaper you're one of the most

important people because you shape the

public conversation sure and we saw

throughout history how much power

editors had like during the French

Revolution Jean Paul Mara shaped the

course of the French Revolution by

editing maybe the most important

newspaper of Paris of France that in

those time

L uh Lenin before he was dictator of the

Soviet Union his one job basically was

editor of a newspaper iscra uh musolini

was editor of the newspaper Avanti this

is how he rose to fame and then became

dictator of Italy so like the ladder of

promotion was like journalist editor

dictator and now the job I haven't

reached the top one yet but go ahead

because the wrong period during the

wrong era I mean

now the job that was once done by Len

and musolini is done by algorithms it's

one of the first jobs in the world to be

completely

automated and the the it's still of

course the humans are still in control

they give the algorithms the goal and as

I guess most people here know the goal

given was increase user engagement right

and the algorithms by trial and

discovered that the easiest way to

increase user engagement is spread

outrage and this is what they did and

this they should be liable for that

again not for the content of the users

so so the idea you're talking about is I

I the way I boil down was enragement

equals engagement you know it that's the

way it does because it works Joy also

works but it works less well than

enragement right um so which is why you

get cat videos and qanon right that's

you know essentially the two things but

one of the things um so speaking of the

hammer of witches actually before we get

to that talk a little about what

happened you know in the most famous

version of propaganda which is still

probably Nazi Germany in terms of using

the media using imagery using propaganda

because I think we use the word

misinformation or disinformation when

we're really talking about propaganda in

the end but it's all part of the of the

same kind of of of tool kit because a

key difference between dictatorships and

democracies is that democracies work on

trust and especially trust in

institutions whereas dictatorships work

on terror so dictators they don't really

need you to believe in a particular

theory in a particular version of

reality they really need you to

disbelieve everything if they can

destroy all trust between people then

the only system that can still function

is a

dictatorship so and we see it also today

and we thought of course in Nazi German

in the Soviet Union I mean there is like

in with one hand they try to spread a

particular conspiracy theory a

particular propaganda but with the other

hand they just try to S

distrust and unfortunately both

historically and also today this is not

the The Preserve say of Nazis or

fascists of of the extreme right we see

it on on the right and on the left as

well it was also uh something very

common on the Marxist left mhm that and

and we and and and the key idea maybe

the most important idea which is common

here is the idea that the only reality

is power and that all human relations

are power struggles this is an idea

which is common on both the extreme

right and the extreme left which is

corrosive of trust it implies that all

human institutions whether it's the

media whether it's science whether it's

the C

they are just cons Elite conspiracies to

gain power whenever somebody tells you

something the question to ask is not is

it the truth the question to ask is

whose privileges does it serve it's

obviously not the truth because nobody

cares about the truth All Humans care

only about power so every time somebody

says something the only question is who

is who is gaining in power by this so

speaking speaking of that in the hammer

of witches for example the times the New

York Times fact checked over 170 posts

recently from Elon Musk who owns a big

communications platform now along with

the other stuff he should still be doing

and not this um on X in a week and he

found that almost one-third were false

misleading or missing context his posts

coincided with harassment campaigns on

Election officials so basically he's

using the public the it's not a Public

Square it's a private Square owned by

the world's richest man to to burn

people in his own way so what do you

think about that how do you assess

social media at the moment in its

ability to self-correct why would it if

one rich person who has somehow lost the

narrative has the ability to do this in

so many ways so first let let this is

leaving Trump aside let explain what

self-correction is yeah I mean when you

look at information networks and at

institution throughout history so a key

difference is whether they have strong

or weak self-correcting mechanisms a

self-correcting mechanism is something

within the institution

itself that constantly Works to identify

to expose the mistakes of the

institution or of the member of the

institution and correct them so um some

institutions have only weak uh uh

self-correcting mechanisms in

dictatorships they are almost

non-existent like in Putin's Russia

there is no no mechanism to identify and

correct Putin's mistakes well there's no

mechanism you know just recently when

Elon tweeted about assassination of

kamla Harris he was like well it was

funny to my employees and so I thought

it was funny I was which is sort of like

your employe have to laugh at what you

say it felt like the same thing so how

do you I mean this summer the Supreme

Court sidestepped whether social media

should or should not away from musk

should should not moderate content

public opinion is split because of the

at least in this country because of the

First Amendment they always get mushed

in there in a way that's very deceptive

I think conservatives think they're

doing too much progressives think too

little um and proponents of less content

moderation often as I said cite the

First Amendment but I don't think it's

about Free Speech it's about as you said

algorithms um I'm going to read a bit

from your book you wrote The Information

Network has become so complicated it

relies on to such an extent on an opaque

algorithmic decisions in intercomp

computer entities that has become very

difficult for humans to answer even the

most basic of political questions why

are we fighting each other so talk about

the impact of these unfathomable

algorithms that are owned by individual

people who direct them in some fashion

or control them

um but there is a big question here

whether the danger is the individuals

who own them or whether the danger

potentially is the algorithms themselves

and I agree that at the present moment

moment the people who own the technology

uh probably posed a bigger danger but in

the long term we have to take into

account that this is the first

technology in history which can

potentially make decisions and invent

new ideas by itself right that AIS are

agents and not tools and therefore down

the road the main problem could be the

AIS and not their human creators or the

human owners right so that it becomes

self what it does what it wants to do

correct yeah and like in the case of the

social media algorithms at I mean today

they should know better but at least in

the beginning the uh uh Executives who

gave the algorithms the task of increase

user engagement they did not anticipate

what will happen and I think that most

of them definitely didn't want what what

what happened that that that the uh

corrosion of trust and the collapse of

the public conversation and the

destabilization of democracy this was

not their plan well they certainly

should have anticip it wasn't very hard

to figure that out correct I mean when

you I was in a meeting with Facebook

when they showed Facebook live and I

said oh what what happens when people

murder each other on this thing what

happens when someone puts a GoPro on

their head and does a mass murder what

happens when there's bullying suicide

and literally the person there was like

you're a bummer carouser I was like yeah

I am you know like human Humanity has

become sometimes a bummer so how do you

then self-correct that because because

the thrust of your book is about Ai and

you say we're at a critical moment of

canonization um that AIS will become

full-fledged members of our information

Network let me read this section because

you're talking about the people are the

problem now um but the algorithm itself

will be the AI algorith could become the

main problem down the road

um which makes you scared because

they're doing a bad humans are doing a

bad job right now but in in in coming

years all information networks from

armies to religions will gain millions

of new AI members which will process

data very differently than humans do the

new members will make alien decisions

and generate alien ideas that is

decisions and ideas that are unlikely to

occur to humans which is a plus for for

AI for a lot of people the addition of

so many alien members is bound to change

the shape of armies religions markets

and Nations entire political economic

and social systems might collapse and

new ones will take their place that's

why AI should be a matter of utmost

urgency even to people who don't care

about technology and who think the most

important political questions concern

the survival of democracy or their Fair

distribution of wealth it that sounds

terrifying because people are doing a

terrifically bad job right now so talk

about you were not an optimist when it

comes to AI you know you're saying Mark

Zuckerberg and need Master are one thing

but boy way did you get a load of this

AI kind of thing I mean first of all

it's obvious that AI also has enormous

positive potential otherwise we would

not be developing it right well um there

is the money but go ahead yeah no but

even the money I mean you need to sell

something I mean it does I mean in many

cases people buy it because there is

benefit in it otherwise it's difficult

to sell it but um the key thing is that

humans human societies are extremely

adaptable if we give them enough time MH

and this is just moving too fast we

don't have time to adapt again to these

completely new Financial systems armies

religions which are which will be

created by all these new AI agents you

call them alien and not artificial

intelligence why is

that uh they are alien not in the sense

of coming from outter space of course

they although I can't wait till they get

here and fix everything but go ahead

about now guys get down here it's

because you know artificial intelligence

conveys I think again a complacent and

wrong idea that these things are

artifacts and people when they think of

artifacts they think we create them so

we can control them we can anticipate

them and the most important

characteristic of AI is that you cannot

really anticipate it because it learns

and changes by itself self if a machine

cannot learn and change by itself it is

not an AI it is an automatic machine if

you think about you know a washing

machine a coffee machine you have lots

of automatic machines which are not

AI it's only AI if it can learn and

change by itself which means that it's

going to be very difficult to anticipate

and to control what it's going to do

even though it's fueled by our own

information that we've been uploading

the past two decades correct yes I mean

it works I mean it eats all the

information that humans have produced

not just in the last two decades in the

last tens of thousands of years if you

think about AI that produce images so we

feed them with all the images created

since the cave art of 40 and 50,000

years ago and they eat the whole of it

within just a few months and then start

creating new things the at the first

kind of generation it's more ly similar

to what humans have produced so far but

I guess that very quickly they will

start to become more and more creative

which also means more and more alien

more and more different from Human

Creations now we have been used to

living you know throughout history

inside human culture like everything all

the images all the Poetry all the

financial systems all the armies they

all came ultimately from the human

imagination from our mind and suddenly

very quickly we will find ourselves

living inside a culture which is more

and more an alien culture coming out of

the calculations and confabulations and

imaginations of a nonorganic entity

which was originally fed by us which was

originally fed by us the same way that

we originally we eat the plants and we

eat animals and still we can create

things that plants and animals can't

it's you go back 3 billion years or

whatever so you have

these the atmosphere of the Earth had

almost no oxygen in it then you had

these

microorganisms that uh uh polluted the

atmosphere with oxygen and this

destroyed this killed almost all the

organisms in the world a few of them

adapted to the oxygen and we are their

descendants um but eating all this

oxygen we can still do stuff that these

microorganisms from 3 billion years ago

couldn't anticipate and and can't

understand why do you assume

it's it wants to kill you know the idea

is doesn't want one of the things it

does what it does what it does what it

does so we don't know what it'll do so

again to take something you know think

about the financial system the financial

system is a good example because it is

the ideal playground for ai ai have a

still a big difficulty with a messy

physical biological world this is why

every year you have these promises that

next year you have all the the self

driving cars on the road and it's it

turned out to be much more difficult

because you have to deal with traffic

and humans and and and broken roads and

dogs and whatever so it's difficult the

financial system is easy the financial

system is only data it's data in and

data out that's it so this is kind of AI

this is their ideal playground right

what happens if you give AIS more and

more power to make decisions and also

invent new stuff in the financial that

we hadn't thought of right exactly one

of the tool the things that which is

really interesting is that tech people

are using a term agent co-pilot friend

assistant like they're lesser than

essentially than humans and we are

completely in charge I just recently

spoke with Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa

Suliman and they they have a new word at

my Microsoft called agentic which is

Agent which agent it's not a word I

don't care I think it's a new word they

invented okay fine but it's not um you

know and you're ringing the bell talk

about what you think between the

thinking of AI as a tooler agent because

that's what they're leaning in on this

is here to we're here to help you and it

reminds me of the which I always say the

Twilight Zone episode to serve man it's

a cookbook right like that when they

came I don't know if you ever saw it but

you should um it's a cookbook uh it's

not here to serve man it's a serve man

with a side of uh potatoes I guess um

when you talk about this idea of agentic

you're talking about something very

different because um because they're

using uh companion friend everything

teacher aent is an entity that can make

decisions by itself that you can't

anticipate and that can invent new ideas

by itself that you can't anticipate that

can learn and change so they had for

instance this famous experiment that

open AI did when they wanted to test gp4

before releasing it and they gave it the

uh task of solving capture puzzles and

it couldn't solve the capture puzzles

all these kind of strings of Twisted

words you need you need to identify so

they gave it access to the task rabbit

uh uh online uh web page where you can

hire people to do things for you and gp4

try to hire a human to solve the Capa

for it makes sense interesting thing was

the human got suspicious the human

worker on task rabbit wrote why do you

need help solving capture are you a

robot it ask the it directly asked are

you a robot wow humans for the wind

that's rabit uh but what happened then

is the gp4 answered no I am not a robot

I have a vision impairment which is why

I can't solve the Capa and I need your

help and the human I mean was this

sounds reasonable and the human did it

right now nobody told gp4 to lie and

nobody told gp4 what lie would be most

effective this was a very effective Lie

from if it was just you know this

glorified autocomplete let's just take a

word from here and a word from there you

you wouldn't come up with such an

effective lie right so it's a good Li so

this is an agent right and you know you

you scale up and I I I'll give an

example from what's happening in my home

country now in Israel so um there is a

huge debate I'm not sure who is correct

there about the role of AI in choosing

bombing Targets in Gaza MH like choosing

you know in The Terminator you had the

robots pulling the trigger right but

what's really happening in Wars today

it's the humans pulling the trigger but

the AIS are calling the shots literally

calling the shots I mean everybody that

I talked with agree that at present the

AI has the capability of choosing

targets right and that it is being used

to go over immense amounts of data that

no human analyst is able to analyze and

choose targets so so is when you CU let

let me read you what sulaman said they

use the word friend they use the word

companion they're using these very

lovely words for I guess the lonely

Humanity but um and friend is doing a

lot of heavy lifting here he said it's

going to this is what he said to me it's

going to be your teacher your medical

advisor your support network ultimately

it's going to take actions on your

behalf this is the friendly version of

that you're talking about a very

unfriendly Target selector right now

again there is a debate and I I don't

know who is right because I talked with

a lot of people and they they tell you

different things and I I I read

different reports and documents one

school of thought says that the AI goes

over again enormous amount of data that

no human can analyze this and and based

on patterns in the data mhm says that a

particular building let's say it's Hamas

headquarters and tell says to the humans

bomb this building and the humans just

go ahead and and bom it right on on

basically on the advice or orders of the

AI the other school of thought I've been

talking to that says no it's not how it

happens the AI says this building is a

Hamas head headquarter bomit and then we

get the human analysts to go again over

all the idea whether it's Radiology or

that can itate into anything yes and but

they all agree that the AI is key

because the humans would never even

think of looking at that building

without the the AI pointing at it

although you're talking and this is

still extremely primitive AI right I

mean this kind of bombing Ai and C GPT

and gp4 this is like the anas of the AI

world right which is what they talk

about was but but where does human where

do humans intercede because a lot of

them argue to me for example if you said

to AI solve human hunger right solve

hunger around the world the first thing

it does you know the first answer

without the correct prompts is we kill

half the human race that'll work and

that's what it will do that was because

it makes sense like that's what you

should do not find new crops find new

which it could also do so doesn't it

really depend one of the things you had

let me read this um an AI agent in your

phone has implic on a personal level as

you know it's all in your phone your new

Apple intelligence or whatever it's

called right now it just tries to

rewrite emails for you but um which is

irritating because most of my emails are

no and yes and then it asks me if they

they want me to rewrite that which is no

I don't um you write the easiest way for

AI to seize power is not by breaking out

the Dr Frankenstein's lab but by in

grating itself with some paranoid

tiberious dictator yeah I can think of

one or two these days um what risk do

you see talk about that because you're

talking about talk about we tend to talk

about AIS in the context of democracies

mhm but dictatorships also have a huge

problem with with

AIS uh for dictators for human dictators

the scariest thing in the world is not a

democratic Revolution the scariest thing

is a powerful

subordinate that takes power from them

either assassinates them or manipulates

them if you think about the Roman Empire

for instance this is the reference to

tiberias not a single Roman Emperor was

ever toppled by a democratic Revolution

but a very large percentage of them were

either killed or toppled or manipulated

by powerful subordinates a general a

provincial Governor their wife their son

somebody right and this is still the

number one problem for dictators around

the world and for them to give a lot of

power to an AI that can get then get out

of their control is very very tricky

because you know to to to seize power in

a democracy it's difficult because power

is distributed between many organization

institutions how would the AI deal with

the Senate phillybuster it's difficult

but to seize power in a dictatorship you

just need to learn how to manipulate a

single very par individual MH and

paranoid people are usually the easiest

to manipulate M so if you think again I

know a few yeah so uh it's not just an

issue for democracies also dictatorships

have H uh problems and you know it

starts with small things like if you

release a a a chatbot to the Russian

internet how can Putin make sure that

the chatbot will not tell jokes about

him or criticize the invasion of Ukraine

or say call it a war God forbid because

in Russia there is a law that this is

not a war this is a special military

operation and if somebody says that this

is a war they go to jail now what do you

do with

chatbots I mean how do you terrorize a

chatbot like even if you prepare a

perfectly kind of the the regime

prepares its own chatbot and releases it

to the Russian internet

but then the chatbot starts interacting

with people starts analyzing data starts

learning and changing if the how can you

prevent the chatbot from starting to say

things against the regime so it's not

good for dictatorships but democracy it

also creates chaos um one of the selling

points of the internet and social media

was that it brought the world closer

together that was at the beginning just

so you're aware um yes we're all going

to get along if I had a dollar for every

time Mark zuer said Community to me I'd

be very wealthy but somehow it didn't

turn out that way um there's you say

right now diverging views on social

media are actually leading to more

separation will get worse with AI talk

about this you called it the Silicon

curtain and data

colonialism so this is about what might

happen on the international level not

within countries but with between

countries so the two main scenarios is

uh that you'll have the world splitting

into completely different information

spheres after centuries of convergence

and globalization you will have

completely you know if the main metaphor

in the early days of the web was the web

that connects everything and community

and la la la so now the main metaphor is

the cocon like the web is closing in on

us and we are enclosed within

information cocoons and different people

are inside different cocoons and the

Silicon curtain

is of course a reference to the Iron

Curtain and to the idea that we will

have entire countries or entire spheres

which are in completely separate

information which we have in this

country right now which is which is

which is developing at a very fast rate

um and then a complete breakdown in

communication and understanding between

human beings that you cannot agree on on

there is no longer a shared human

reality mhm and uh the other main danger

is of the rise of new digital Empires

and data colonialism the same thing that

happened in the 19th century with the

Industrial Revolution the few countries

that industrialized first they had then

the power to conquer and dominate and

exploit the rest of the world this can

happen again with AI technology but it

doesn't have to be countries it can be

people right it can be people inside the

country but I mean I think the biggest

worry is still on the international

level you know some countries will

become fabulously wealthy because of AI

and the US is and China are are are the

the the Front Runners here but other

countries could completely

collapse uh their economy could

completely collapse and they will not

have the resources to re re the work

force to rebuild to to to adapt to the

new AI economy so we can have a repeat

of the Imperial uh uh imperialist Drive

of the 19th century and this time uh

centered around data to control a

country from afar you will no longer

need to send in the soldiers and

gunboats and then machine guns you will

basically just need to take out the data

right if you have all the data of a

country you have all the data of every

journalist every politician every

military officer

and you also control the attention of

the people in that country you control

what they see what they he you don't

need to send in the soldier right this

has become a data Colony so before we go

I want to we're going to get to

questions in just a second I want to

talk about regulation you've been

advocating for AI regulation for a while

so have I um last year you signed the

open letter causing for a pause which

very nice but it didn't happen just FYI

nobody really expected it no it did not

and they you know open a is Raising $150

billion uh I sorry a valuation of 150

billion they're raising 6 billion um

lots of people and signed it um and then

started their own their own thing uh for

I think of one two people you didn't um

here in California Gavin news recently

vetoed a bill that would have been the

first legislation of the nation to put

up AI guard rails it was a problematic

bill it was it was somewhat unspecific

but it required safety testing it man

data to kill switch turn off AI systems

um and and many who criticize it said it

was focused too much on Frontier models

um and then Stanford Professor f f Lee

who was one of the early AI people also

warned that we disadvantage smaller

developers and they're trying to rewrite

it but there's almost no uh regulation

anywhere and there's no Global

regulation uh there's some of banning

Bots deep fakes people are talking about

um how do you how do you what do you see

as the regulatory scheme workk here to

do this cuz it Doesn't we haven't been

able to do the last one yeah not one so

I think that there are three things I

can say I mean there are two regulations

which should be obvious one is that

corporations should be liable for the

actions of their algorithms you

developed it you deployed it you're

liable like with cars like with

medicines like I agree I the other is

that AI you should you should ban

counterfeit humans mhm AIS and Bots are

welcome to interact with us only if they

identify as AIS so transparency yes

right but I mean it's going to be

impossible to just regulate AI in

advance because again it's an agent

because it learns and changes very very

rapidly the only thing that can work is

to create living institutions not kind

of dead regulations that are written in

in in in books but living institutions

staffed by at least some of the bank

Talent on the planet and with enough

budget to understand what is happening

and to react on the Fly and again before

we even get to regulation the first step

is observation we need eyes before teeth

like most people even in this country

are hardly understand what is happening

and why is is it dangerous if you go to

the rest of the world to the countries

which might end up as data colonies they

are even in a worse situation because

they have to rely on what the American

or the Chinese companies or governments

tell them MH so what we need urgently is

an international

institution uh again with the best

talent and with enough budget to Simply

tell people what is happening and what

are the dangers and now we can discuss

what regulations nuclear Regulatory

Commission is kind of what you're

talking about right like but again with

nukes it was relatively easy to

understand the danger right with AI it's

a very very rapidly develop positives to

it the Surgeon General talked about this

there's never been technology that's

both positive and possibly devastating

to humanity so my last two questions um

you say also that unsupervised uh

algorithms should be banned from

curating public debates yeah absolutely

um people do such a good job at it

already um I still I would trust the the

humans more than the we have thousands

of years of experience uh with humans we

don't have experience with AIS I mean in

the tech work I often hear the opposite

argument we have thousands of years of

experience these humans we know we can't

trust them the AIS we don't know so

maybe they'll be good yeah and that's a

a huge huge gamble yeah yeah so I want

to finish on this you you write um you

said the um the survival of democracies

depends on their ability to regulate the

information Market which we have not

done at all like at all yeah not one I

was just recently on a CNN debate with

and this gu who was a trump spokesperson

spokes model really because he didn't

know anything um he said I said how many

law laws are regulating uh the internet

and Free Speech because he was going on

about free speech and he goes hundreds

and I said zero but you're close you

know um so so you note the decisions we

make in the coming years will determine

whether summoning this alien

intelligence proves to be a terminal

error or the beginning of a hopeful new

chapter of the evolution of life you

have it both ways there I see

so before we go what's your worst case

scenario and what's your best case

scenario you know the the the the worst

case scenario is that AI destroys not

just human civilization but you know the

the very light of Consciousness that AI

are highly

intelligent but they are non-conscious

entities at least so far right and we

could have a scenario that they take

over the the

nonorganic highly intelligent entities

take over the planet even spread from

this planet to to to the rest of the

Galaxy but it's a completely dark

universe that Consciousness I mean the

ability to feel things like love and

hate and pain and pleasure this could be

completely gone so this is like it's not

a very high probability but it's there

is some probity we'll call that the

Thanos version but go ahead yeah okay

and that's the wor case scenario okay

what's the best one the best case

scenario is that we are able to harness

the immense positive potential of AI you

know in health care in solving climate

change in

education and the key is knowing which

problems to solve one of the key

problems of humanity throughout history

and you see it in particular in in

Silicon Valley is that we rush to solve

problems we do a tremendous job and then

we realize we solved the wrong problem

because we did not spend enough time on

just understanding what the problem is

and you know we now have this fabulous

technology to say unimportant things to

people we don't care about and we still

don't have we still don't know how to

say the most important things to the

people we most love we most care about

so we I mean it happens again and again

in history right that and we are so wise

when it comes to you know finding the

Technical Solutions but we just don't

spend enough time on choosing the right

problems to solve right absolutely you

don't use emojis then I guess um you

ever heard of gen emojis of what gen

emojis h no this is an apple thing you

can generate any Emoji you want oh so

like a face anything you just describe

it and the Emojis generated all right

we're going to get to questions from the

audience um uh think about your gen

Emoji what you want to make and waste

your time doing that well the machines

take over and kill us I guess that's

where we're going on um are you a

positive person or a negative person

would you say I try to be a realist

right well you're a historian as a

historian historian yeah as a historian

are you are you positive or negative you

know I'm I I I I know a lot of terrible

things that humans have done yeah but I

also am familiar with a lot of very good

things that humans have done I mean

we've managed to shift from a situation

when we can only trust say 50 other

people in the band like this small

Hunter gather band uh to a situation

when you we can now trust to some extent

hundreds of millions and even of

billions of people in a country or all

over the world I mean the food we eat

almost all of it is grown and produced

by complete strangers on the other side

of the world yeah so this is really

remarkable yeah uh so it's not only bad

news again in this discussion who should

you trust more the AIS or the humans I

think yes we have thousands of years of

experience with humans and we've

actually made some significant progress

m in building trust between humans so

this is why I I I think we we are still

better gamble on the humans and not on

the AI okay all right so questions from

the audience we talk about a couple of

them where's the all right where's put I

guess you put your hand out is that

correct are you guys where's the people

with the hello we have a question from

the balcony on your right okay it's hard

to see but go ahead hi thanks for coming

um I uh really enjoyed sapiens and there

was one particular part that gave me

pause um if I could read it it's a you

say cognitive dissonance is often

considered a failure of the human psyche

in fact it is a vital asset had people

been unable to hold contradictory

beliefs and values it probably would

have been impossible to establish and

maintain any human culture so um I

agreed with almost everything in sapiens

and this one idea just completely

flabbergasted me it's the exact opposite

of what I believe and I was wondering

this was written a while ago I was

wondering if the political experience

especially in in this country has if

you've um updated your opinion or if you

could elaborate great question so just

to to explain the idea the idea that the

reality is so

complicated that to come up with a

theory a model that just explains

everything in a perfect way is

impossible for humans so if you look at

any culture if you look at any ideology

any religion there are always these

contradictions inside them and um if we

could not to some extent live with the

contradictions we could not have

cultures and ideologies and religions

and financial systems and states and and

so forth uh the question is what do we

do with them and I think the the the the

positive side is to

acknowledge these contradictions and use

them as fuel to to to think further to

explore

further uh the what is really dangerous

I find is the kind of

fanaticism that sees only half of

reality or only half of of uh uh you

know you shut down half your brain or or

or one eye and you just don't

acknowledge part of reality because of

the inability to deal with the cognitive

dissonance and this usually leads to the

greatest crimes in history it's not a

matter of you know it could be secular

ideologies like communism it could be

religious ideologies is if you have some

kind if you're comfortable with

exploring the the cognitive dissonance I

think uh you you'll be okay but if you

go in the kind of fanatical directional

just have this one idea one key unlocks

all the all the problems in the world

this this tends to be the most dangerous

okay next question I don't um this

question is all the way to your right in

the orchestra okay right here go I see

you hello um I have a question so you

talked a lot about uh technology

companies regulation uh specific people

uh could you talk a little bit more

about the individual

responsibility so uh the analogy that I

have in my mind so information is like

food it's very easy for people who are

AES who drive the car every day get the

bad food to blame the government blame

the regulations uh you know the quality

of the food while the answer there is of

course in regulation but there is

something that individuals have to do to

complement that and in the public

discourse there is not so much

information about what we as individuals

need to uh how do we leave with this uh

going forward thank you yeah the only

can I say there are no regulations so

it's not we're we're either getting

tainted meat or not and so in life you

don't that doesn't happen that's just

one thing is we don't we don't get

signals not enough I mean first of again

the number one responsibility is not on

the individuals I mean these are

extremely powerful and complex systems

and we shouldn't play it's like with

climate change that yes each individual

should do their part but ultimately it's

a trick by the big corporations to kind

of shift the blame and do a kind of of

of of guilt game oh you everybody's

guilty and you go home and feel guilty

for what you did and leave us out of it

so the the number one responsibility is

first on the government and on the big

corporations but of course individuals

have the responsibility at least in

their own life and I really like the

analogy uh uh is food and I basically

yeah agree that everybody should go on

an information

diet that the same way that with food

you know a century ago food was scarce

people would eat whatever they could get

and uh especially if lots of sugar and

fat in it that's good lots of energy now

food in many places around the world is

super abundant you have all this

industrially produced junk food which is

deliberately pumped full of fat and

sugar and salt to make it addictive Ive

and people have under at least many of

us have understood this is not good for

us and we need an information diet and

we need a food diet and it's the same

with information once it was scarce we

consumed anything we could get the only

book in in in in the village now it's

super abundant you have all this junk

information around uh so the idea that

more information is always good for you

this is nonsense we need time to digest

information

and we need time also to detoxify the

Mind from all the junk information that

we put in there it's also addictive and

necessary it's two things at once it's

it's designed to be addictive by the

people who designed it and the

algorithms and then it's also you can't

live without it because you can't do

your job so you can't put it down ever

yeah again I'm not saying completely cut

yourself off right but each person in

their life uh should think about what is

my information diet and how could I

improve it both in terms of quantity and

for most people it means consuming less

information and again consuming less

information and going on an information

fast every now and then means I have

more time to digest and to detoxify the

information I already

consumed and also be more mindful about

the type of information that you put

inside your mind right so absolutely

okay time for I think two more questions

where is the person uh this next

question comes from the balcony in the

center okay all right right there I see

you thank you I read about the

vacillation in capabilities between

platform AIS and individually controlled

AIS that might even run on um a gaming

computer say what's that going to look

like moving forward if individuals or

affiliation groups can control their own

agents and what are the implications

will it just amplify their Tribble

they'll they'll incentivize it to say

give me qanon or will they and what

would it look like to say give me the

truth

MH well I mean with regard to give me

the truth the expectation that AI will

give us the truth is is unlikely to be

realized again because most information

is not is not the truth AI is simply

likely to create it it won't tell us the

truth about this world it will create a

new and much more complicated and much

more difficult to understand world and

again um I know that immigration is on

it's on the mind of a lot of people in

the United States and other countries

around the world today and people are

worried we'll have all these immigrants

in and they will take some of the jobs

and they will have all these kind of

different ideas about how to do things

how how can we manage how can Society

manage so whatever you think about human

immigration this is a good model to

think about the AI Revolution what we

are talking about is the immigration of

millions and maybe billions of Agents

into society taking up a lot of jobs and

they will not necessarily start with

again that the taxi drivers they may

start with the editors and the bankers

and the scen writers and the producers

that's exactly where they're they will

take the the the kind of most important

jobs first or the generals in the Army

and they will have different ideas about

how to manage society and and some of

them could become your friends one thing

we haven't discussed is this uh uh new

abilities of AIS to fake intimacy yeah

with people I mean if previously the big

issue with social media was the battle

for attention you had these algorithm

very capable in grabbing human attention

the new generation of AIS they can go

far beyond attention they can go to

intimacy for the first time in history

it would be possible to create Mass

intimacy which is a contradictory idea

which was never possible before you know

like Hitler's propaganda machine it was

good at attention you could force every

German family to listen on the radio to

the speech by the great leader but this

did not create intimacy now with the new

generation of AI you could have you

could Mass produce intimacy so maybe

some of your best friends will be

AIS and they will influence the way you

think and uh again before we even get to

the discussion optimism pessimism is it

good is it bad it's just radically

different from anything we we have to

understand what it could do okay um one

more question I'd like it to be woman

please three guys that's enough I have

three sons love them but I love my

daughter too so let's have a woman this

question is all the way in the back

middle of the orchestra okay as long as

it's a

lady I'm sorry I'm a man oh no no I'm

sorry I I don't mean to be rude but we

only have a few minutes

apologies

where I I apologize I'm just going to

overrule you so that's okay okay over

here wherever you can find whoever's

doing the picking is going to have to

talk to

afterwards okay thank

you again I have three sons love them

but it's time for my daughter go wow

thank you

um okay I wrote this down because I'm a

little shy about this um would you agree

that Europe has a lower tolerance for

fake news and holds media professional

to a higher standard than the US who is

often criticized for the systemic spread

of

misinformation if so how do you think we

can hold the media accountable in combat

misinformation should there be rules

that prevent certain news outlets from

labeling themselves as news if they

don't adhere to specific standards M

shouldn't there be requirements such as

you're not allowed to tell more than 5%

of verified

BS well that would be great

yeah so definitely I mean part of what

is happening is the Erasure of

borders uh between you know the private

space and public space people don't know

if what they say they are setting in in

private or in public similarly the

Erasure of the border between news and

entertainment and you know if you want

to be a news channel you have to live up

to C certain standards and if you don't

want to then just Define yourself as

entertainment but as long as people

understand what they are

consuming and and we don't have that uh

with regard to Europe and the US it's

not my expertise I'm not sure uh but I

would say that you know I hear a lot of

people say that Europe has too many

regulations and this is bad for business

this is bad for the development of the

technology so what's how would it help

you if you have all the regulations but

all the companies are

elsewhere so we are self-destructing

this is what the the the they often tell

to the

Europeans and I think this is this is

inaccurate because regulation and safety

is not bad for business you know if you

want to put a car on the road people

want a safe car if you have a a good

safety regulations this is not bad for

the business of of car production if you

think about you know the the the covid

and the vaccines so if you have a choice

between a Russian vaccine and a German

vaccine

most people would go for the German

vaccine right because there are a lot

more regulations that you can trust in

Germany about how you produce uh uh

vaccines and medicines and so forth and

in Russia so in many areas this kind of

binary choice you have to choose either

you have regulations or you have an

economy this is just not true it is

absolutely right 100 but they that's one

of the biggest tropes of Silicon Valley

and with regards to media media actually

has regulations attached to it they get

sued look at what happened to FOX and

smartmatic they do there is a price and

the problem is there's no price I'm

going to ask the last question I'm sorry

we've got to go they're telling me we

have to go but I have one more question

so with sapiens you became like every

Tech bro was a fanboy of you like crazy

I I was like have you talked to you all

do you know what you've all said I'm

like no I took an anthropology course in

college unlike you so I did know a lot

of this stuff um uh so but they were

thrilled and you really did find a way

to get them relative ly educated not

very um about some stuff so they loved

you loved you loved you like couldn't

stop talking about you know that right

um they were your biggest Fanboys this

is critical yeah what are they saying

about they don't like me anymore they

never did but uh what do they how do out

we'll wait and see what do you think

what I I think they will like it less

than sapiens but but but again I think

maybe I'm less critical than you are of

them but I I think many of them not all

of you met them yet but go ahead I've

met some of them and many of them are

really deeply concerned about it they

are because they I mean they understand

almost better than anybody else what

they are creating and they are very

concerned they don't know how to stop

again they have this basic argument that

we would most of them not all of them we

would like to slow down we realize it's

dangerous we would like to give Human

Society more time more time to think

about it more time to develop the safety

mechanisms but we can't stop we can't

slow down they will say we are the good

guys if we slow down the bad guys on in

the other company or in the other

country will not slow down and then the

bad guys will win the race and take over

the world so we must do it first right

but that's sort of the X orme argument

that Mark Zuckerberg's often made like

it's either X or us and I'm like is that

my choice is there another is there

choice I mean I think there I think

there are more choices but I also think

this is a serious argument

and again I don't think they are kind of

Hollywood science fiction villains just

Dr Evil out to take over the world so

um I think that they they would

appreciate uh to some extent a a deep

and meaningful conversation about it

they have their opinions but I I

wouldn't write them off so so quickly

and so

easily all right on that note youve all

her right it's a great book Thank you

thank you thanks

you great thank you