Yuval Noah Harari on AI & the Future of Information
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Hi everyone from new york magazine in the box media podcast network. This is on with the swish er and I Carry swisher. My guests today is israeli historian and philosophers.

You've all know a Harris who is out with his latest book, nexus. It's called a brief history of information networks from the stone age to A I. It's kind of a third in a sequel after sapiens, a brief history of humankind and homo daas, a brief history of tomorrow.

Let me be clear, none of them are beef. And once again, hori is covering a lot of ground and he's breaking ground. He's not just looking backwards. He's analyzing the present complicated paradise shift we find ourselves in with A I and emerging information network and helping us understand where you could lead us in the future.

Spoiler alert, according to him, IT doesn't look good, but he makes a lot of suggestions, based on historical experience, of how we can prevent the worst case scenario, the collapse of democracy. Oh, that the A I revolution is obviously something, many people, including mere fine, very closely and strAngely, despite his apocalyptic vision of the A I future, hori is revealed in on value, maybe not after this book. Daniel immer, war from the atlantic and said, harari is to the taxi E.

O. With David Foster. Wallace once was to the Williamsburg hipster. Let's see if that holds true after he's done raining on their parade.

My conversation you all was taped at city arts and lectures and sanfords. Ces o IT was a packed audience. And again, thank you so much to a terrific organization in my amazing city.

It's really important addition to this ongoing conversation we're having about the impact of tech, especially AI on society. One more thing i've been nominated for best toes in the signal listener's choice awards. If you agree that i'm best and why wouldn't you, you can vote at vote does signal dot com or follow the link in the show notes. Thanks so much. Now let's get to IT.

So welcome to city art and lectures is great to see you again. And thanks joining me.

Thank you. It's really good to be here with you.

So we're here to talk about your latest book. Next is a brief history of information network from the stone age to A I, it's not brief.

It's stone age. yeah. Hundred ages quite.

Oh right. Okay, fine, okay. All right. okay. If you say so, um your first best seller, sapp ens, obviously a brief history of humankind, I like to use brief all the time, came out in two thousand and then you wrote, homo day is a brief history of tomorrow in two thousand and fifteen. So let's talk about what you were trying to do with access and how IT relates to these other books .

that you wrote. So I mean, he picks up where I left off with sapiens and with homogenous. The two main questions, that the basis of the book is, first of all, if humans are so smart, while we so stupid, like we've managed to take over this planet to reach the moon, to split the atom to the cypher DNA, and here we 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 A M. So what's wrong with us? 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 there is something wrong with us, there is something wrong with human nature.

And next to 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 boot goes on to explore the long term history of information. Why isn't information getting Better? I mean, you would would have expected that over thousands of years our information will get Better.

And IT really doesn't large scale are modern societies are as acceptable to mass delusion and really insanity, like mass insanity as storage tribes. If you think about the twenty of century with stalin m and notis m and far more powerful, of course, in storage 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 conversation.

You there is a technology term for that, which is very which is garbage jan, garbage, right? Um and I think a lot IT explains quite a bit of a really kind of very easy, simple way. But the point you're making is this is historical. This historical thing is just more sophisticated in the garbage that we're making for ourselves.

correct? But the garbage is is not accidental and IT is it's effective in one important thing is effective in creating order. And the one of the key ideas of the book is that humans control the world because we can CoOperate in large and numbers than many other animals.

And to create a love scale CoOperative system, you need two things which pull you in different directions. You need to know through some truth about the world, but you also need to preserve order between largest numbers of people, thousands, millions, billions. And the truth is not the easiest way to do.

IT in most cases are fiction and fantasy. And dn right lies are more effective in creating order among people. Obviously.

A I is very hot right now, but you in homes day, as you you discuss the benefits and dangerous of new information technology, especially if humans lose control um and you write in nexus since homestay is your conversation that I 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 A I I mean .

there are two conversations. One is simply understanding what we are facing. What is A I, Y, Z.

dangerous? What is the threat? And a lot of people have A A difficulty grasping. It's not like nuclear weapons, right? That the danger was obvious, a nuclear war, which you'll just kill everybody. What's the danger in A I and holloman wood, I think this is a good big service in focusing attention on on that issue long before anybody else thought about IT, but is focused on the wrong scenario. If you think about the terminator or the matrix, the focus is on the big robot rebellion, right, the moment the a eyes decide to take over the world and wipes out.

And this is unlikely to happen anytime soon, because AI doesn't have the kind of broad intelligence necessary to build the 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 conversation about A I is to explain that is not about the big robot rebellion.

It's more about the A, I bureaucrats. IT will take the world from within, and not by rebelling from from outside or from below. I mean, A I S is not a general intelligence, but he 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, that as an example, if you drop a lawyer in the middle of savana, he or SHE are not particularly powerful entities. They are much weaker than an alion or an elephant ai.

But within a bureaucracy, a lawyer could be more powerful than all the lines of the world puts together. And this is where A I is stepping in. We now have millions of A I bureaucrats increasingly making important decisions about us, about the world.

You apply to a bank to get alone. It's an A I decided you apply for a job in in wars increasing letes 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 that. And here I think, I mean, almost everybody, after A A certain amount of time, agree that the the best thing would be to simply slow down.

No, everybody does .

because of often argument to alger to immediately. I mean, they would say ideally, yes, IT would be good to slow down because I would to give human society time to adapt. But we can't slow down.

We can't afford to slow down because then the bad guys, our competitors here or across the ocean, they will not slow down and they will win, win the race. So we must run faster. And then you have this kind of paradox that basically they are telling us we have to run faster because we can trust the humans, but we think we'll be able to trust the AI.

exactly. Know you and I have this discussion of dano economy and economy about the decision making of A I ever decision making of humans. I know if you remember that, but one of the things that I I think is interesting to explore at the beginning though is, is the historical, what what's happened, historical, with much lesser information systems that humans construct. So the tasted insulation of the this information ages, which we call I think all ages have been information ages and a lot of ways um as you said that more information lead to the truth which will lead to more wisdom, more openness of Better world um obviously that's not you discuss that and you you define the information instead is something that creates new realities by connecting different points of view into a network. Um but as a philosopher, reducing any danger, separating information from truth.

most information is not truth. The truth is a very small subset of all information in the world. Uh the truth is, first of all, it's it's costly.

If you don't 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. A fiction is very cheap. You're just write the first thing that comes to your mind. And the truth is also often very complicated, because the reality is complicated as fiction can be made as simple as you would like you 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 of nations or cultures um whether fiction you can, you can make IT as attractive, as flattering as you would like you 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 is the of a lot of 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 sit again and again throughout history, every time people in event. And new information .

for so IT is really interesting, because I was just listening, reading rtp call is ducks about Joseph gobs talking about this. I give you flood the zone with bad information or just anything IT washes out the truth. And of course, ten years, Williams said.

The truth is at the bottom of bottom as well. You can never get to IT and someone more modern deep band. And if you, I read steep band, i'm sorry, I do IT for the rest of you, but he talks about IT incessancy. The idea of flooding the zone, because that's the best way to confuse and distract people. So we're used to equating new technology with scientific progress is virtuous circle, like the case, the printing press and this was really interesting part of your book so let's go a little bit in history um you know that that when the gutman press was invented instead of science, and such as copernicus on the revolutions of the heavenly spears, one of the founding documents of science, of the scientific tradition, you wrote the real best seller of the fifteen century was a book called the hammer of witches yeah. Talk a little about the hammer of Richard kay was the best seller.

huge beller yeah so um basically, especially in a place like this in some front in silicon valley, you talk with people about the 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. And the thing is, the printing press did not cause the scentin c revolution. You have about two hundred years from the time that gutenberg brings print technology to europe in the middle of the fifteen century, until the flowering of the scientific revolution with newton n and libraries and all these people in the middle, the seventeen th century, during these two half years, you have the worst wave of walls of religion in european history because .

of the printing.

The printing progress enabled IT in a way and explain in the moment, and also the worst wave of which hunt the big european, which hunt raz is not amedeo l phenomenon is a modern phenomenon that was helped along by the printing press media ver european didn't worry much about witches. They thought they existed, but they didn't think that they were dangerous. Right then, around the time that guten bergh comes with the press, you have a small group of people that comes up with this conspiracy theory that which is, are not individuals with magical powers that can grow love positions and help you find lost treasure. There is a global conspiracy LED by sitting with agents in every town and every village that wants to destroy humanity.

So cute .

is basically, there is a direct line. There is a the direct line, I mean, ideas coming from there. And at first nobody paid IT much, much attention. Then there was one of one of the people who popular, zed IT was a man called high cramer.

He started to do IT yourself, which hunt in the apps what is today australia and uh but he was stopped by the church authorities who thought he was crazy and expelled. And he took revenge through the printing press. He wrote this book, the hammer of the wishes mallow when I car room, which was going to do IT yourself manual to how to identify and kill witches.

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 arranging imagination of high cramer. Now, just to give you a taste of this book, there is an entire section in the book about the ability of which is to steal penises from men with all kinds of evidence.

You know, it's all evidence is based. I heard from some people know that. So for instance, he give bring the story evidence of a men who wakes up one morning to find out that these penis is gone.

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 and the, which is OK OK climb this tree. And he climbs the tree, and at the top of the tree he finds a birdless where the witch keeps all the penises SHE stolen from different men.

And he says, okay, you can take your own. And the men, of course, take the biggest one. And the wage child, you never know. You can take this one. This belongs to the .

publish Price OK.

Now you can understand why this book sold a few more copies than copernicus is on the revolutions of the heaven.

I don't think there's been here.

And now this is all sounds very, very funny. Yes, until you realized the consequences, right? Tens of thousands of people were killed in horrendous way during the european which hand craze.

I want to give just one example to to baLance the funny story about the penises. So in muni e, they arrested the entire family, the pop and hyper family, accusing them of being part of this global conservation of witches. And a there is a father, mother of three kids.

And they start by torturing the tender old boy, the Youngest of the family. And you can still read the protocol of the interrogation in the archives in unique today. And they torture a ten year old boy in unexpected ways until he incriminate his mother, admits, yes, she's a which SHE SHE went to meet safe SHE SHE kills babies, SHE someone's hailstorm.

And they break the whole family. And they execute all of them, including the tension, old boy, and of this eventually also reaches to america, the salem, which and this was, again, this was fuel not caused by, of course, but the printing press caused IT, but the printing press enabled to spread, uh, for the same reason that fake news and conspiracy theory spread today. And then the people .

that create the printing presses don't take responsibility for IT modern day. Yeah, I bit in that versar.

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 the global conspiracy. LED, by sitting right, are to destroy civilization, right? And if you look what what stopped IT last time, how did we in in the end, get the same typical revolution. IT wasn't the technology of the printing press. IT was the creation of institutions that we're dedicating to sifting through this kind of ocean of information and all these stories about which, which is and so forth, and are developing mechanisms to evaluate reliable .

for them by the population. Correct, which is very .

easily fool 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 the money script to a scientific publisher, we published as as as a paper as a book. So, uh, they want to know, not only if is this will will this set a lot of books or a lot of of question is you, I think.

is one of the things that have, if you first today. And I want a couple more historical, because IT happens again and again. This is constant, a narrative of lying, essentially that that people tend to believe.

I had an energy with mark cca. Berg where I was talking, we were talking about alex Jones, who was one of the greatest prevail as of this information and truly hainous character in our in our modern history. And I was like, wanted to take him off the point form.

He is clearly lying and it's not true. And these kids weren't t child actors. They're actually dead and is damaging to the parents is.

And for some reason he switched the conversation to holocaust ires. When we did this, interviewer, I was like, oh, what a mistake on your part but fine, we will go to holocaust. I was like, no, no, let's state with alex ones. But he did at night one along, and he started to talk about that holocausts deniers don't mean to lie. And I felt that was the definition of as like wall 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 holocausts on the platform the more anti semitism down the river would happen like you could see that happening if these people had access to other people because it's interesting stuff yeah right. It's much more interesting than the facts. And you know he got a lot of trouble for saying that and ETC, but he didn't prevent him from continuing to low them to thrive on the platform until 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 semitism because he refused to do anything at at the beginning to talk a little bit about from 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 think .

the main issue and .

set for some reason, they all have penises. But go in.

So they afraid that which as we will steal them.

But well, no, that's just elon. Nobody wants rupee nis, elon.

Well, um. So how do you go? So you talk .

about self correcting, you talk about the importance, self correcting mechanisms that what you call. I think.

again, the key point about all these issues is not whether people are allowed to say these things. Yes, because here I would tend to actually agree with super burg, with elon mask, with others. We should be very careful before we start simply silently. People, you cannot say that it's all well.

let me make a point. They do silence when they feel like it's just so you're aware it's a lot of things I know.

but I think I can when IT comes to really censoring the there is a discussion 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 particular kinds of things, particular kinds thing that spread hate and fear and anger and outrage at some point, even little musk, that it's not freedom.

M of speech is freedom. Didn't say he copied from some head.

He was said years before he was willing to repeat IT. sure.

But the thing is that people produce an enormous amount of content all the time, right? And the question is, what gets attention? What gets spread? And here, the responsibility of somebody who manages a big, not form 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. OK. This was, this is, for instance, what was built during the scientific revolution is exactly these mechanisms. How do we tell the difference between facts and fictions?

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, I don't know what they're doing, actually, it's someone in confidence, some arrogance, some narrow ism. It's in the hands of a very small amount of people. 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, context and accuracy. Like I am searching for a going to get a this is exam player was used. That's a utility, right? IT comes you what social network s delay for is val speed and uh engagement, which is a different architecture altogether.

And IT always leads the bad direction. So how do you create which your influence are thinking? Because the government refuses to step.

And i'll get to that in a minute. First, I should be clear that the platforms should be liable for the actions of their algorithms, not for the content of the users. yes.

And if somebody posts a hate field conspiracy online, that's the responsibility of that human being, right? But then if the facebook algorithm of the tiktok algorithm decides to promote the conspiring theory to recommend IT to to play 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's it's amazing to think about IT.

But one of the first jobs to be automated in the world was not taxi drivers and IT was not texted workers. IT was editors, news editors. I mean, this used to be one of the most powerful positions in society. If you edit a major news platform, a newspaper, you are one of the most important people, because you shape the public conversation. sure.

And we saw throughout history how much power editors had, like doing the french revolution, john pole maga, shape the cause of the french revolution by editing maybe the most important newspaper of paris, of france, that on in those time, let me, the people learning. Before he was dictator of the soviet union, his one job basically was editor of a newspaper, esca musli was editor of the newspaper advani. This is how he rose to fame and then became dictator of italy. So like the lateral promotion was like journalist, editor, dictator. And now the joe, I haven't reached the .

top one yet.

because in the same period the year, I mean, now the job that was once done by lennan muslin, I is done by algorithms. Ms, it's one of the first jobs in the world to be completely automated and IT. 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 increased user engagement, right? And the undergo of them by zero discovered that the easiest way to increase the engagement is spread outrage, what they did, and this, they should be liable for that and not for the content of their users.

We will be back in a minute.

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Talk about what happened when the most famous version of propaganda, which is still probably not see 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. 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. Or as dictor ships 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 dictor ship.

So and we see IT also today. And we thought, of course, in nazi germany, in the soviet union, I mean, there is like with one hand they try to spread the particular construct theory, a particular propaganda. But with the other hand, they just try to solve distrust.

And unfortunately, both historically and also today, this is not but the preserve set of nazis or fascists of the extreme right. We sit on on the right and on the left as well was also, uh, something very common on the marxist left. That and we the the key idea is 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 an idea. He's 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 courts, they are just a lie, conspiracies to gain power.

Whenever somebody tells you something, the question to ask is not easy. 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 the humans Carry on about power. So every time somebody says something, the only question is who is who is gaining power?

Speaking of that, in the hammer of witches, for example, the times in your times that checked over one hundred in seventy posts recently for me on musk owns a big communications platform now, along with the other stuff he should still be doing and not this um on accident a week and he found that almost one third were false, misleading or missing context.

This summer, the supreme court sidestep whether social media shooter should not away from muoi should not moderate content, public opinion is split because of, at least in this country, because of the first moment. 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. And proponents of less content, moderation, often, as I said, like the first member. But I don't think about free speech. It's about, as you said, algorithms. I'm going to read a bit from your book you wrote the information network has become so complicated, realize to such an extent on no pay algoma ic decisions and inter computer entities that has become very difficult for humans. Y answer even the most basic of political questions, why are we fighting each other? So talk about the impact of these unfair that are owned by individual people who direct them in some basic 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, the people who owned the technology are probably pose the 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 a is 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 he wants to do.

correct? Like in the case of the social media algorithms, I mean today they should know Better. But at least in the beginning the um 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 happened, that the are corrosion of trust and the collapse of the public conversation and the stabilization of democracy. This was not their plan.

They certainly should have antis 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 happens when people murder each other on this thing? What happens when someone put to go pro on their head and does a mass murder? What happens when there is bullying, suicide? And literally the person I was like, europe boma care fish.

I was like, yeah, and, you know, like human humanity to come sometimes. Obama, so how do you then self correct that? Because the thirsty book is about A I, and you say we're a critical moment of canalized that A I will become full flag members of our information network. Let me read this section because you're talking about the people of the problem now, but the algorithm itself will be the A I could become .

the main problem down the road.

which makes you scared because they're doing a bad, that 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 difference in the humans do.

The new members will make alien decisions, and jeep generate alien and ideas, that is, decisions and ideas that are unlikely to occur to humans, which is plus for for A I, for a lot of people, the addition of so many alien members is bound to change the shape of army's religions, markets and nations. And very political, economic and social systems might collapse, and new ones will take their place. That's why air should be a matter of utmost urgency, even to people who don't care about technology.

You 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 A I, you know, you're saying mark ekberg in the monster one thing, but boy, where did you get a load of this? A I of think.

I mean, first of its obvious that A I also has enormous positive potential, otherwise we would not be developing IT.

There is the money, but go ahead.

No, but even the money, I mean, you need to sell something. I mean IT does in many cases, people bite because there is benefit in IT and why 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 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 will feel be created by all these new A I agents.

You call them alien and not artificial intelligence. Why is that ah .

if they are earlier and nothing, the sense of coming from all the space of .

course though although I can't wait till they get here and fix everything but ad right about now guys get down here.

It's because you know artificial intelligence kind of yes, I think 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. It's only A I if you can learn and change by itself, which means that it's going to be very difficult to anticipate into 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.

It's correct. I to work 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 to produce images. So we feed them with all the images created since the cave out of fourteen and fifty thousand years ago, and they eat the hole of IT within just a few months, and then start creating new things at the first, a kind of generation.

It's mostly 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 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 in alien culture, coming out of the culture, lations and conform, lations and imaginative, of a non organ entity.

which was raining, 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.

right? Tech people are using a term agent, copilot, friend, assistant, like they are lesser than a in humans. And we are completely in charge. I just recently spoke with microsoft, A I C U, most stuff, a suleman.

And they have a new word, microsoft called agenticity, which is agent, which is an it's not a word I don't care at this is a new word, fine but it's not um you know and you're ringing the bell talk about what you think between the think of A I is a tooler aging because that's what we're leaning in on. This is here. We're here to help you. When you talk about this idea of a genetic, you're talking about something very different. And your teacher 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. And you you scale up. And i'll give an example for what happening in my home country now.

And so there is a huge debate. I'm not true, who is correctly about the role of A I in choosing bombing targets in gaza. 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 a eyes are calling the shots, literally calling the shots, right? I mean, everybody that they talked with a agree that at present, the A I has the capability of choosing targets, right? And that IT is being used to go over immense amounts of data that no human underneath is able to to underlies and targets.

So let me read you what Solomon said. This is what he said to me. It's gonna your teacher, your medical advice, your support network ultimate. It's going to take actions on your. Behalf, this is the friendly version of that you are talking .

about a very unfriendly, the target selector. And this is still extremely primitive. A I, I mean, this kind of bombing A I and ChatGPT and GPT for this is like me in the A I.

Would you write the easiest way for A I to seize powers, not by breaking out the doctor Franklin lab, but by enriching itself with some paranoid tiberias dictator? Yeah, I can think of one or two these days what risks you see. Talk about that because you're talking about.

we tend to tell a is in the context of democracies, but dict ships also have a huge problem with with a, uh, for dictators, for human dictators. The scarious thing in the world is not a democratic revolution. The serious thing is a powerful subornation ate that takes powers from them, either assassinates them or manipulates.

If you would think about the roman empire, for instance, this is the reference to take burials. Not a single roman emperor was ever topped by a democratic revolution, but a very large percentage of them were either killed or top iled, or are manipulated by powerful subordinates, a general, a provincial governor, their wife. There are 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 then get out of their control is very, very tricking. Because, you know, to see this power in democracy, it's difficult, because Powell is distributed between many organizations, institutions. How would the AI deal with the senate? fillibuster? It's difficult.

But to seize power in a dictatorship, you just need to learn how to manipulate a single very paranoid individual. And paranoid people are usually the easiest to manipulate. So if you again, I know a few yeah so um it's not just an issue for democracies.

So it's not good for dictatorships. But democracy also creates chaos. And one of the selling points of the internet and social media was that I brought the world closer together. That was, at the beginning, just so aware. Yes, we're all gonna get along. If I had a dollar for every time marsett said community, to me I D be very wealthy, but somehow didn't turn out that way, there's, you say, right now, diverging views on social matter actually into more separation will get worse with A I talk about the c called that the silicon curtain and data colonialism.

So this is about what might happen on the international level, not within countries, but between countries. So the two main scenario is, a that you'll have the world splitting into completely different information fares. After a centuries of convergence and globalization, you will have completely, if the main metaphor in the early days of the web was the web that connects everything in community, la la, la.

So now the main metaphor is the cocoa, 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, our entire spheres, which are in completely separate information.

which right .

which is which 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 assured human reality.

And a the other main danger is of the rise of new digital empire and data colonel ism, the same thing that happens in the one thousand th century with the industrial revolution, the few countries that industrialized first, they had them the power to conquer and dominate and exploit the rest of the world. This can happen again with A I technology. But IT esn have to be country.

IT can be people, right?

IT can be people inside the country. But I mean, I think the biggest worry is, is still on the international level. You know some countries will become fabulous ly wealthy because of A I and the us is in china our, our, our, the the front runners here.

But other countries could completely are the economy could completely collapse, and they will not have the resources to retain the workforce, to rebuild, to adapt to the new AI economy. So we can have a repeat of the imperial drive of the ninety th century. And this time centers around data to control a country from a far, you will no longer need to send in the soldiers and gun boats and machine gun.

You will basically just need to take out the data, right? If you have all the data of the 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 here, you know, to send in the soldier, right? This has become a data colony.

Will will be back in a minute.

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So before we go, I want to talk about regulation. You've been advocating for air regulation while I so eye after you sign the open letter, causing for a pause, which very nice, but IT didn't happen.

just rever. Nobody expected .

lots of people in silence. Ama, they signed IT and then started their own, their own thing for, I think, of one of two people you didn't here in california, gave news. And recently, bett, a bill that would have been the first legislation the nation put up, A I guard rails.

IT was a problematic bill IT IT was somewhat unspecific required safety testing IT Mandated to kill switch, turn off A I systems and and many who criticizes that IT was focused too much on frontier models and then stanford professor flee was one of the early AI people also warned that would disadventure ge smaller developers and they're trying to rewrite IT. But there's almost no regulation anywhere and there's no global regulation. There's some of banning bots, the fakes people are talking about. What do you see as regulatory scheme mark here to do this because he doesn't we haven't been able to do the last one. Yes, not one.

So I think three things I can say. I mean, there are two regulations which should be obvious. One is that CoOperation should be liable for the actions of their algorithms.

You developed IT. You deployed IT. You're reliable. Like with car is .

like with medicines.

I agree. The other is that a you you should then counter fit humans. A and boats are welcome to interact with us only if they identify as .

a anspach rent.

yes. But I mean, it's going to be impossible to just regulate A I 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 books, but living in institutions staffed by at least some of the best 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 the worst, strained, because they have to rely on what the american of the chinese companies or government tell them. So what we need urgently is an international institution are, 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 .

the regulation. Nuclear regulatory commission.

S IT. Was relatively easy to understand the danger, right? With A I is a very rapidly development.

There's general talk about this. There's never been technology that's both positive and possibly devastating to humanity. So my last two questions, you say also that unsupervised a algorithm should be banned from creating public debate. Here, people do such a good job that already.

still, I would trust the humans more than the, we have thousands of years of experience with humans. We don't have experience with a eyes. I mean, in the tech world, I often hear the opposite argument.

We have thousands of years of experiences with humans. We know we can trust them, the a eyes we don't know. So maybe be good. And that's A A huge, huge gamble. Yeah.

yeah. So I won't finished on this. You said the the survival of democracy 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 the CNN debate was and the guy who was a trumped spokesperson spokesman del relax they didn't know anything.

Um he said I said how many laws are regulating the internet and free speech because was going on about free speech and he goes hundreds and I said zero but you're close, you know 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 a both ways there I see. So before we go, what's your worst case scenario and what's your best case scenario?

Oh, you know, the worst case in aria is that A I destroys not just human civilization but you know the the very light of cious sly, that a eyes are Sally intelligent. But there are non conscious entities, at least so far, right? And we could have a scenario that they take over.

This non organic, highly intelligent entities take over the planet. We even even spread from this planet, the rest of the galaxy, but it's a completely dark universe, a consciousness, some in 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 very .

so we call that the sands version. But so OK and the .

worst case.

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 healthcare, in solving climate change, in education. And the key is knowing which problems to solve.

One of the key problems of humanity throughout ty history, and you see in particular in in silicon valley, is that we rush to solve problems, we do a tremendous job, and then we realize we solve 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 an important things to people who 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 I mean, this happens again and again in history, right, that we are so wise when he comes to, you know, finding the technical solutions, but we just don't spend enough time on choosing the right problems to solve.

right? I have a more questions. So with sapience, you became like, every tech bro was a fan boy of you like crazy. I know I was like, have you had to you all you know you've all said unlike, you know, I took in an antipope gy course and cold, unlike you.

So I did know a lot of this stuff um uh so but they were thrilled then you really did find a way to get them relatively educated not very about some stuff so they love you love you, love you. I couldn't stop talking about you know that right um there are your biggest fan boys. This is critical. Yeah what are they saying about they do not like me anymore, they never did.

But what out we will wait and see but what do you think I think they would like IT less than sapiens. But but again, I think maybe i'm less critical the new year of them. But I think many .

of them that I meet.

some of them, but many of them are really deeply concerned about that. 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 its dangerous.

We would like to give you an society more time, more time to think about IT, more time to develop the safety mechanisms. But we can't stop. We can 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 sort of the year, my argument that Marks OK is often is or is that my choice is choice.

think more choices. But I also think this is a serious argument. And again, I don't think there are kind of hollywood science fiction villains, just doctor evil out to take over the world. So um I think they would appreciate uh to some extent a deep and meaningful conversation about IT. They have their opinions but I wouldn't write them off so quickly and so easily.

All right, on that note. But here is a great book.

Thank you. Thank you.

On the Carry wish er is produced by Christian castle with cell cater ry OK jelli e mires and gen. Bernie, special thanks to current rough k galera klin lunch and clear high man. Our engineers are recon fernando au da analytic Jackson and our thing music is by track demi s if you're already falling the show, you get to climb the wichita and choose the biggest penis from the next. If not, just wait until you've been promoted. From editor large new york magazine to dictator of all he surveys go wherever you listen to podcast search for on with kerrs swisher and hit follow thanks for listening to on with kerrs wish er from new york magazine in the box media podcast network and will be back on thursday with more.

Hey, it's fleam from decoder with new ipad talk. We spend a lot of time talking about some of them most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why do they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series diving into summer, the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does that mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you're listening to you right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in A I space, why are so many big players in tech deciding not to acquire and instead license that can hire away cofounder? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems you'll hear all that and more this month. I'm decoder with the litel presented by strike. You can listen to the coder whatever you get your .

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