Daniel Kahneman (DK) and Yuval Noah Harari (YNH): 'Global Trends Shaping Humankind' Interview today,
Friday, April 16, 2021
Very interesting interview. About 90 minutes. Below are my paraphrases of some of what was shared:
YNH: First time in human history we have no idea what 20 years in the future might look like. Pace of change is accelerating. We are the
same people as in Stone Age. Now humanity itself is changing, brain, body structure, reasonable that in a generation or two creatures as different from us as we are different from chimpanzees. Less about moving parts, more about the control and command system and who is making decisions.? New book “Noise”, feels like humanity to me.
DK: I agree with what’s been said about the present. Mistakes that people make in decision due to noise as much as bias. Noise should attract more attention, that’s the intention of my book. Algorithems are noise free.
YNH: Machjnes will get Emotional Intelligence but not emotions.
DK No bigger problem than non-human intelligence taking over decision making. AI programed with objectives, may not be in human domain. YNH phrase “superfluous people” that facinates me. UBI solution is a fantasy. Change wont happen quietly. No clear humans can survive. Meaning of life changinmg now, will destablize the world.
? change now different?
YNH First time about changing the brain, the body. We have very little margin for error. Last revolution industrial, world became better. We solved the problem about using industry for the benefit of humanity. We had trial and error learning. Now we have to get it right in the first attempt.
DK Rate of change is higher than people can cope with. We are in situation of great peril because of the great speed. Human judgement is not going to go quietly. We know crisis are coming.
YNH Ability to hack human beings is our greatest opportunity. Needs massive amounts of data and computing power. Enormous positive and negative potential. Better healthcare and totalitarian regimes. Requires us to be much more humble about ourselves. We need to come to terms with who we are, to be more curious about ourselves. DH has worked on heuristics of human mind for decades, if we can accept and embrace it, it can be the basis for a better world.
DH Im troubled by YNH optimism. There is no we. Groups of people acting in their own self interest. Unless we are invaded by aliens. Why am I interested in improving human thinking if AI is taking over? I’ve been doing it for a long time. The question is democracy will be sustained? When rich can enhance their children and the poor cannot, no signs now the ability of government to deal with this. We tend to think the events in the world are the events we know about. China, others, will determine the 21st century.
In the US with growing inequality of wealth and power democracy becomes a fiction. Power of money over politics in US is poisionest We are lucky to have a few benign billionaires, but concentration of power in the hands of a few is what democracy was intended to avoid. Troubling two people decided who to kick off powerful media.
? Opportunities for positive change. Was robber barons and trains. What now?
YNH Yes politics is all about that. Smae technology can be used for very different purposes. FDR/ Hitler, used technology in two different ways. Things may get much better. Child labor laws. Economy benefit. Was huge debate. Survailance of business and government spending trillions, who is deciding? What happened in China first few weeks of pandemic. If democracy with journalists never would have gone undetected for so long.
? Case for noise, being unpredictable.
DK mistakes bad. Variablity not always good. Centralization of power danger in democracy, potential for misuse antithesis of reason for democracy. Differnt communities exposed to different facts. Western European protection of privacy better than ours. Populism leads to racism. Better in US. Americans reluctant to look elsewhere for inspiration. What allows us to continue to think us healthcare best in world?
YNH 100 years ago massive propaganda, printing lead to conspiracy theories like witches. Believed because books in high regard. Truth more complicated and usually painful.
DH The mind creates coherent stories, they seem to make sense. Truth is a separate issue. Emotional coherence constructed from right heroes, right villains, people will have confidence in it. Has little to do with truth. Speed of change changing the way the mind works. Evolution of brain takes longer. Communities now being created by social media. Was church, now facebook.
YNH There is grounds for some optimism. Positive changes in ethics, social inteeractions. All numbers better, people have changed. Feminist revolution didn’t use any violence, completely changed the world. Proof you can change the world just by changing human minds.
DH Biggest challenge is to change human nature. Bill Gates looks like the adult in the room.
YNH Engineers changing the world, but don’t know what they are creating/
Usually have tunnel vision. Focus on technical problems, not what will be the effect on the world, the geopolitical consequences.
DH They couldn’t know the consequences. Forcasting science has poor record. Limited imagination. We have no idea who the most consequential people in the world are today. 20 years ago most important, we can see now, clearly someone in China. Today— 40-50, in context of AI, get identified only retrospectively.
? Talking with young people, if you were 20 today, what would you pick for area of experience?
DH Study of brain or AI.
YNH The mind, not brain, we are in race, if AI wins, game over. Poetry, artistic imagination. We need a good story to understand what’s happen. That’s what unites people. You need a good story. Crisis of imagination. Even science fiction focused on the wrong things. Black Mirror, some episodes, I’d like to make something like that.
? What is the meaning of life? If you were to rewrite our story, 100 yr?
DH We control agressive impulsive makes it posssible for people to live in peace.
YNH Power of inventions shared, not concentrated in hands of elite. Power of humans used to understand and improve ourselves. We have tech now to know, use for our benefit.
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