Looking to make your search bar cast is SAM Harris just a note to say that if your hearing this year currently honour subscriber feet we here in the first part of this conversation in order to access full episodes of making sense, podcast you'll need to subscribe. SAM Herriston, work there you'll find or private our says. We need to add to your favorite pot catcher, along with others, subscriber only content. We don't run ads on the past and therefore its may possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy we're doing here. Please consider becoming one recent developments in asia have been interesting. I am sure I will do many more upon on this topic, but

For the moment, some people have asked whether she pity for and its rapid adoption changed my views at all about air I and a risk. Some of you know I did a ted talk on the topic of artificial general intelligence in twenty sixteen minutes available on youtube and elsewhere, and nothing has really changed about my concern for a g, I and alignment artificial general intelligence and the problem of cream in it such that it is aligned with our interests. It's probably a worse problem now than I thought it was because the main change here is that the suddenness with which I has improved and the way in which we have blown past all the landmarks that a high safety people have carefully erected. That is alarmed me and many other people

because in all my conversations with people like nick bossed, roman max tag mark and alias her caskey and Stuart rust, It was more or less an explicit expectation We crossed the final yards into the his own of human level intelligence, even conditions of an arms race which are not ideal for solving the alignment problem, but even in that case there would be a degree of caution that would sober everyone up and so, for instance, was powerful ally models wouldn't be connected to the internet, or so was thought and the obvious it wouldn't have a eyes. They wouldn't. put into the hands of millions of people at the outset, but with cheap. Eighty four we ve blown passed. All of that. so now is pretty clear that we are developing our most power. Therefore, I morals in the wild without full

understanding the implications. So am I this does nothing to suggest that were better placed to solve the alignment problem, and that problem seems to me to be as big as ever and there's also magnified the near term risk of things going haywire due to unintended consequences and potential malicious uses of narrowly. I would you teepee for it's almost like we ve done our first above ground nuclear test, and we ve seen the flash of very impressive ay. I and now many of us just waiting for the last wave of hoaxes and lies to knock everything over now. I hope I am wrong about this, but I'm half expecting the internet to be eventually inundated by fake information by lies,

half truths to a degree that could render it totally unusable me just imagine not being able to trust the authenticity of most photos and videos and audio and next may imagine what the internet becomes when hey I generated fan fiction crowds out everything else. Then imagine caltech entanglement with all this misinformation on the part of billions of people globally. It seems could be. I ever met in a dream, chrome, indulge coin and catfish scams and ran somewhere and who knows what else for as far as the I can see, and even the best case scenario could still look totally uncanny illicit was solved misinformation problem, though how we're gonna do that is anybody's guess, but even if we did, what will people want?

All valid information can be produced by machine, we all art and science and philosophy when even the smartest and most creative people, can be taken out of the loop. What will we want, then, for some things that I think we just want results? I don't care where the cure for cancer comes from. I just want it right. So there's no future in our ts, no, ecology just give us the winning algorithm. But what about nonfiction reading? If you just want the answer to a specific question, I think ai will be fine. If you ask chant gb t to tell you the causes of world war, two, he does a pretty good job But this will never substitute for reading churchill, provided care to know how the world looked to churchill himself and not to some credible simulation of churchill,

So I don't think anyone knows how all of this is going to transform. Our relationship to information boredom experiencing personally now is a greater desire to make contact with the real world me to see my friends in person to travel, to be out in nature to just take a walk and it may sound. self serving to say this, but podcast and audio books are becoming more and more important for this. I still spent a tremendous amount of time in front of a screen and reading physical books by now spend almost as much time listening to audio, because the difference being stuck at my desk and taking a three hour walk or a hike. able to do that and still call at work is just such an amazing. Have your cake and eat it to experience

and while all this is still being enabled by a smartphone, the effect on my life is quite different from being married to one's phone. For other reasons, listen to audio, really is different, then endlessly checking email or slacker twitter, something else that is fragmenting your attention. anyway, is pretty clear, witnessing an eye, arms race and gold rush, and that things are about to get very interesting and it seems quite reasonable to worry. Landscape of incentives is such that we might wind up someplace, truly undesirable, in fact, someplace it Actually, no one wants to be, and we might

I've there, despite everyone, wanting to avoid such an outcome so as not to figure out- and I am sure it will do a few more podcast on this topic before I'm replaced by a, but that is a far better job of it and now for today's podcast too. Damn speaking with palm bloom policy professors, college, the university of toronto and also professor emeritus of psychology at yale. His research explorers this college, it morality, identity and pleasure, and he is the recipient of many wards and honours, including most recently, the million dollar klaus J Jacobs research prize, he's written firm.

they scientific journals, such as nature and science for the new york times, the new yorker, the atlantic, monthly and elsewhere. He is the author of eight books, including against empathy, just babies, how pleasure works, the sweet spot and his new book is psych. The story of the human mind which discussing this conversation. We cover many topics here, including fiction, isn't window onto psychology recently Miss nay, I the tension between misinformation and free speech france, between bullshit in line truth versus belonging, reliance on scientific authority, the limits of reductionism consciousness versus intelligence, freud

behavior ism, the unconscious mind, confabulation, the limitations of debate, language, cocoa, the gorilla mental health happiness, behavioral, genetics, birth- or, if living a good life, the remembered and experiencing selves and other topics, anyways always great. To talk to Paul and I bring you Paul bloom. I am here with Paul bloom. Paul thanks, rejoined again the great to talk to you again, SAM. I have lost count but to act confident that you are my on my returning champ and and most frequent guest. So congratulations if you need yet another honour to add to your of is that finding a mantle gets a funny thing to put your cv as I'd like to say that most, please put it.

cv. I would like to see the reactions to that some some dean's can be scratching his head, but I did, I do take it as an honour. I like talking with you for people of hearing from you, so on. not not altruism, directed and in your direction. This is pure, wise, selfishness on my part, so, but you have a new book which m is the the nominal occasion for this conversation in that book is psych. Story of the human mind, which will talk this really Urim, you have produced a socially ate a sack wanna one course in super accessible non boring format for the general public? So that's great and people enjoy it that that's that's a nice way of putting it. I aspire to do exactly that, which is present the whole story of psychology, but You know I I hate reading textbooks. I couldn't bear to write one and I tried to put it in in a way that people could enjoy it and and and also textbooks, have

sort of neutrality and objectivity. And you know by I I aspire towards that- I try to tell the story in kind of a straightforward way, but I also often give myself the luxury to to weigh in on different debates. You can't do that in a textbook know. This is not at all textbook like, but it does cover the full sweep of what we know or are we think we know or what we are embarrassed, yet to know about the human mind, yeah so yeah Hannah and there's a lot we don't know. I know. I know there are some other topics we might want to touch before we jump into the book but dumb. But how do you feel about the state of our understanding of the human mind at this point? I guess you- and I have spoken about this before I think, with the specific,

they with respect to parenthood and how surprised we were to realise even you, being a developmental psychologist. How little science informed are dated experience of parenting? How do you feel about the relevance of of science to live in a good life altogether? At this point, guardedly positive- I wouldn't have written a book of I didn't feel like psychology interesting things to tell about questions that matter? A lot like you know how to give a pebble live, a life of happiness had to one how much trust our memories. How does language work even questions. We should become quite quite urgent. These days with, with the dawn of day I whatever revolution were now going through. I think psychology lot to say about it. On the other, and I try to be honest about we with our allies, Our findings are not as robust as we thought they were an

I still believe I know who's who said it for any chomsky harms. You said this very witches that you could learn a lot more from a good novel or a good tv series, or a good movie from a psychology textbook. If somebody was going to say what's a marriage like what's it like to raise teens. Yours. What's it what's it like to grow old, I wouldn't point into a psychology textbook at point him to some good novels. the other interesting I never than it used to be a big reader of fiction and then some point things flipped and now I'm I gotta think I'm twenty two one nonfiction defection or were probably worse than that it could be fifty to one in recent years. I have cancer arrived at that epiphany myself has just it. Theirs much to learn about human life through fair?

and- and you don't you, it seems strange to say that, because it is fiction but yeah, which are seen as art, one of the best attempts of some of the smartest and most creative people to capture the substance of human experience. And if it's you know the some of the most compelling I'm too tat are, by definition what we have singled out as the most valuable forms of of literature, and I guess we could have been a film and television here as well, but it seems strange to say it, but it is. in some cases- are most accurate window onto minimum the lives of others here, and I thank her a good writer good. Filmmaker has insights into the lives of others, often from our own experience and and there's something about it, which is often more powerful, and more transcendent, then what you get through psychological research. You know

Can I use you see a movie like like tar and you you hear about you learn about artistic enterprise and about cancellation of a good and evil. To ban she's movie lovely meditation on friendship, and you know I don't know whether things will ever be different, whether what it'll be a point was in ownership, check out the research I'll, tell you more you're, certainly things research can tell you that a novelist never could, and so maybe the matter staying in ireland or what are you this is going to be a disconcerting lee. Large question But what do we know about the human mind at this point? The years twenty? Twenty three? If you had to distil What we now are, we think we know at this point to somebody who really knew nothing about the last hundred fifty years of mine science, What do you think we know we don't have a theory of the human mind and I don't think we ever will

not because awry inadequacies, but because the mind as many things and so in some You asked what do nobody human body? I have a feeling that an anonymous or a well. While you know, let me tell you about the heart and we tabled you. What explain me tell you about the ankle, bones and so we know a fair amount of the different components of the mind. We know we know some surprise, things about memory, surprising, but personality language, motivations, sex, and generally so so trying to maybe stalling for time. To answer your question, we know them and as the rain we aren't. We, don't exactly know how the brain gives rise to consciousness, but we know how to bring gives rise to intelligence. So dissimilar to any other intelligent machine that we now possess. We know that a lot of our mental life is the product of natural selection. We know a lot of it is to play of cultural evolution? We know, and in here how do not give a shout afraid. We know a lot of

most interesting stuff, isn't accessible to our consciousness. We know were often conflicted beings. We know em Most where we we know- and I I I think I think we know a lot of my colleagues- would disagree with me- that we can be extraordinarily rational creatures were with a capacity for reason and imagination. Creativity far exceeds anything else on the planet, but we can also be and be fooled. We can fool ourselves some things like that. We have set out a nice menu of topics we can heads which take those piece by piece but does before we do native is honestly is honestly prompt a book like this. You know I'm looking for to talk with you about this, but previously we ve talked about very focused topic, so my other books like empathy, our talks and mutual interests like like the morality they I and this is a sprawling book. So what does take a wherever goes year before we jump in

those topics. Let's talk about recent developments in ay I and- The other thing that has caught your attention of late you before we turned on the mai We were talking about mine deleting my twitter account, which is not disconnected to what I find most interested in and troubling about what. in what they are at the moment and I did notice in your book the law thing that was clearly dated and it was dated as of europe into two month. hell emberon embarrassingly did he have yes, I've been having really you could not have. You would have had to have been knows to damage to have foreseen how quickly that particular, I think paragraph was gonna edge, but ere, I moved on quite a bit since you publish your book. and how has it struck yeah, hey eyes specifically for the moment, so justify us up. I have I have a few paragraphs in my book gray eyes

dismiss statistical attempts to to model the human mind and saudis can never work, and I think I think recent events got me that flat footed on this and I I'm kind of late to be honest about when I got thing when I get things wrong and one thing surprise me in an ai what has happened with gb t four, and It has been a huge shock to me if you had. If we you know, if one of our conversations a couple of years ago, in the u s, what's going to happen will we have a system capable of having a perfectly normal conversations and intelligent things. I said I don't know twenty years fifty years, maybe never. and yet here we are, and so I'm I'm kind. stunned by it like a lot of people, and I've heard I've heard you devote a few podcast stock, and people like like my friend gary marcus, like a lot of well, I'm I'm worried about it I don't know where I stand for people who want answers called research for a period but operating as it is an idea worth taking seriously

I'm I'm not really necessarily endorsing idea that that it will kill us all, But in you made argument a while ago, odds are like five percent or ten percent that's worth taking rather seriously, and As a psychologist, I wonder how much the success of models like gb tee for tell us about how our minds work near Yeah me might be on that last point. It might not tell us much at all. Or we certainly need not to constitute its own form of intelligence that disrupt our lives. More benefits us. Immensely dependent the. I may, I think, that's the point yeah. I I really think I my answer to the question is that humans do not learn, do not achieve our intelligence in anywhere anything like the way these large language models. Do it there's no resembles the development of a child, and yet they have an intelligence of some sort and so may,

there's more am I showed you think that the suggestion is more than one way to become smart yeah, is a few red hair, here I think we should dispensed with what one is the confusion about the importance of consciousness here and then and any action necessary or otherwise between consciousness and intelligence. We simply don't know. how and when consciousness emerges and weather comes along for the ride at a certain level of complexity and a certain level of intelligence or not. But there is simply no question that we have built, intelligent machines and were continuing to build them and their intelligence. I e competent whether or not there is ever anything that is like to be those machines. I I think it's an important question in it's own right, but is quite separable from whether an intelligence itself is substrate, independent and whether it's

You know what I can be aligned or on aligned with human interests in, whether we might be building systems that we may one day lose control of right at his just at the consciousness is a completely separate question there and it has ethical importance because what? building machines that are conscious than were building machines that can suffer or be made happy, and that's it an important thing. To have done or to avoid doing, but the more interesting case for me, is that I think were in danger of losing sight of whether there is the question of consciousness even interesting, anymore, because we will be in the presence of machines that are passing the turing test perfectly there, if had virtually They're doing that now in a text based way and at a certain point, they're going to seem conscious and we're going to treat them as though they were conscious. Whether or not we ever know

the ground ruther. I agree. I every word that the question of of what it is to become intelligent. It's kind of bread and butter, scientific question. Computers can do intelligent things, brains can do intelligent things. We have some conception of how how we could build a machine it could play chess or carry on a conversation in our brains. Do that too. the question of conscience, as you put it is it, is entirely independent but also it's going to be important, because you know tourism, there was a guy at google blake le mon. I thinking who am, who is was working with a chat bot and and became convinced that it was sentient and google, I think, put them on leave or something because he was protesting, that it was now hell as a slave it should have it's own rights. It's own legal protection and he came in for a lot of mockery with a lot of attending was was unfair, but the question he struggled with is something which can happen more and more and more and more we're going to Billy's machine is going to be increasingly complicated and

When I say we haven't, we have a situation where each of us owns one that regularly interacts with us, has wonderful conversations with us, seemingly has empathy and compassion for us gives us good advice. We talked to her all the time. It will be inescapable to see it as conscious, and so people will be well as it is this correct, and if it's of moral importance, if it's conscious you, you know a it comes under, comes under the scope of what you call a moral landscape. He can't do bad things to you shouldn't and but we have no idea how to find out. You know an immense, That's gonna be a deep problem and as a promise, it gonna bite us an ass pretty soon that the only thing that has age for me, since the emergence of chechen pity and it sir cousins is out

I have grown more concerned about the near term, chaos and harms of a you know a I that that that falls short of of a g. I artificial general intelligence. I just I just think these tools are so powerful and so disorient in in and of themselves, that damn I'm just while think about turning this technology loose to produce misinformation, which many people will a minute and unless the a becomes a perfect remedy for that sort of thing, it seems like our information landscape is gonna, get so gummed up with what is essentially per ways of spam. Yet I just don't know how we talk or think about anything in public ironically, what seems a step in the direction of democracy as in the search for knowledge, I think, will quickly pen

I'm swing into even greater gate, keeping because only trusted sources of information. I made it one example here is that you know if you, when you think about the deep fakes Deep takes a video and audio and interests images, photos becoming so persuasive that you just you simply can't tell whether this is a real video of a putin declaring that his, launched all his animals or not only get it only, and I could do it and maybe an I can't do it. I just think at a certain point: we're gonna declare epistemological bankruptcy and say something like: ok, often, image hasn't come from getting images as we can't trust. That is an actual image of anything. Right at the end of the baby. A hundred versions of that sort of thing: what were you just what you were seen as a greater silo in of information and a greater role for gatekeepers?

many of us a good play out differently, but this sort of what I'm expecting here, because what digital information is gonna be taken at face value where again in them, and thinking like this, if not years away, this is weeks or months away. I mean the gaiety, first themselves, may be a. We might be envisioning, beginning of an arms race where, where people are using them to distribute false news and misinformation and others I used to filter it out, you can imagine- and I think that the science fiction right, O neill stevenson at a snare ideas, which were all have a well we'll have a personal system, that that uses our own preferences to filter things out and tried to to separate the fakes from originals. But I It might reach a point, no matter how smart you, our house, monotony eyes. It can't tell a fake from an original, if you go back to, where does it, come from where's the imprint, and I could just cedar the world's going to change in that regard, and I want to ask you: do you use gb t four,

three are being in your everyday life. Not yet in oil insofar as I have played around with it, I've been underwhelmed by what has come back to me, I'm overwhelmed by the prospects for manufacturing, good, semi, persuasive disinformation and also just getting confused like eu. You you ask a question and it we'll confidently tell give you an answer, and then you, when you see that some of its answers are in fact hallucinations. Is it some disconcert and to think about ever relying on it in a in a fully confident way. I mean I gotta think it's only going to get better it with respect to it's error rate, but it just seems that we're very close to someone being able us to ask an interchange pity for or let's say five I write me a meadow. journal article in the style of jama about

You know how dangerous am a vaccine technology is and gimme exact hundred and ten references behind the better that gets you it's just like you could produce unit. Fake journal articles by the ream and just populate the world with them. I just don't know the sheer scale of rome and the fact that We might find ourselves in a world where most of what, his on line is fake. I just think as possible and mature we're gonna do about it and you write that somewhat. Paradoxically, this could force a move Acta more respect, more weight, more value given to sort of trust, a traditional authorities where you know, if you, if you hear about a video, you see a video. You might then have to go to the new york times website to see if its confirmed and outcomes You go back to people who are whatever, whoever you trust, but.

And in some way this is a very old problem, the problem of forging signatures and legal documents, and so on, but social media magnifies it a thousand times over. So I ask you dont know if this is a change, a topic or the same topic, but you did. You did leave twitter and I've heard you talk about. Why it seemed like your reasons for leaving twitter were a little bit independent of what we're talking about now yeah. Well that the misinformation peace was important, but was really misinformation as applied to me, and I became the trending topics of the day and it was a storage of what I actually said and men. You know in certain cases meant to say exciting, and in this case it wasn't. I wasn't speaking especially clear I am confident that the reason why I left was I. I just noticed that I had reached a kind of tipping point where twitter was obviously making my life worse, ryan, whose it was it was

beg you as whatever story I could tell myself about the benefits of you know that the good parts, or just the necessity of staying engaged with it as a source of information taking the pulse of the world moment to moment, as I imagine I was doing, checking twitter compulsively it just it was making me a worse person. In particular, it was making me see the worst of other people in a way that I was, I became convinced was a distortion of or the way the world This means the people. People are not as bad as they were appearing to me to be on an hourly basis. In a day after day week after week, my after month and really and on for twelve years, and yet it was just worse and worse, but we did reach. At the tipping point, when I, you know trump a stan, he went berserk in response to something I said on another podcast and that that cup Things were interesting about that one. Is it

yet, while in a red pills twitter there had been a just a complete, run on the bank of my ret reputation. Regimented like this was now. I was completely defenestration In my world, And- really in any place I care about. Nothing had happened right, and so it was strange to see him either there's. This phrase twitter is in real life, which I think is can be misled, because I think your twitter can get people elected president and get a lot of things can happen in you know. If you want, on twitter. You didn't know they were happening for quite some time, but there is a sense in which, at least for my life, it's not real life in rural areas, became unreal, and you know having gotten off of it. I'm just I'm amazed at the difference

in my life and is not just the obvious difference of I'm not hearing from ten thousand psychopaths on a daily basis or people who are effectively behaving like psychopath. It's just my sense of what the world is has changed now he could that there's a bit of a delusion creeping in and in that you I'm I'm not in touch with certain forms of information moment to moment, but I don't know just like a it's almost eight. pre internet existence and I spent a ton of time online and in front of my computer as it is. So it's not pre internet, but something has been stripped out of my life. That was a a digital phantom or a gull on more. You know something awful. What sham in ages is staggering to me. How big is again, I can honestly say that getting off twitter is one of the most important things have done in the last decade: right soldiers, it's an absurd

energy to me that I'm even in a position to say that right, like that, I get that I managed to get so confused about what I should be doing with my attention that I could affect such a comprehensive changed. My life by simply deleting my twitter account has just is staggering to me. So users struck stroke, a b two things going on regarding interactions with people by both true one, is going off twitter. You simply spend less time dealing with strangers, often malevolent or psychopathic. enters. The second is something which which I discovered, wages Sometimes you. You see somebody online and maybe they have an extreme political view. Maybe they're very into donald trump or maybe they're. Just extremely woke are extremely anti awoke and then you meet them in person there invariably more nuanced complicated, kinder, more interest. a less caricatured I'm sure, as exceptions, I'm sure there's people who, who are just just as bad in real life or maybe worse, but am but there's something

but the dynamic of social media at that really does at times bring out the worst in us I forgot to say I was a bit. I was a bit tempted to follow your leave, but I bet there's two things. One thing is I dont have yours. may this year celebrity status? I don't have that prove that particular problem of being in a dredged over night by crazy people, and the second thing is that I waste lot of time on twitter, but I do is often extremely informative as to what's going on in my world yeah yeah. That's that's what kept me hooked for all those years because it you know, I was following hundreds of smart creative people who are constantly surfacing Listen articles are exactly paintings, or am I just it was there was my newspaper so Do you do you have fought I'll put you by them ass now I know nothing, but that is the, I'm actually more has raised some care.

Which, as for followers in little egg shape, that's you know the same people and no, no, no, I'm really! I'm really off I mean I I occasionally have had to check jacket, for you know to do research for a podcast or just to get in touch with a specific piece of information, but no like I I go for weeks without looking at twitter, the website, and it's not that I haven't lost anything yet because I hit you again, I was I was seen articles and other things discovered for me by by smart people that I'm, I'm surely not discovering myself now, but it really does- centre on the point you just made, which is teach the distorted sense of other people. I knew I was getting yeah but couldn't fully correct for could in some cases these aren't just strangers, who I know if I met them over dinner, they'd be better than they seem to me on twitter. These are people who actually, no one had dinner with, but I could see what they were when on twitter- and it was

changing my opinion of them right just deal with. These are now awful human beings who I used to like over dinner, but I can't believe they're behave in this way right, So I just I felt like I had been enrolled in a psychological experiment that was It gone awry in us probably five years ago at least- and I just took me very long time to find enough to just bolt for the door and that some, the abbot, when you, when you add the the ice component to it and the misinformation component to ride very worried about our collective ability to have a fact based discussion about anything, even that even the topics have just raised me thy my claiming confidently- that we have a misinformation problem is the other side. I a debate which you have small

people are happy now, which I think we just can't possibly bring to a satisfactory resolution. I mean the other side. Is we've got people? Talking about. You know, media and and and social media censorship, and every reference to misinformation and disinformation is a covert way of you know the deep state and the the odious establishment trying to suppress the populist democratic, epistemological days, struggling to be born right, where we usually just we're trying to to- force the overton window into a certain shape and position and make it impossible for people to talk about or think about, topics that fall outside of it. So we can

agree about whether misinformation is a thing at this point. Yeah. Yes, oh yeah, I mean, I was gonna, say just just to go back home that risk are you going to do it with the same you miss so much and that the truth is this extent? You do me some things you jemison discoveries. You miss him. Some very funny things very clever things, but you you also missed after you probably should be attending to in the first place, not be as is necessarily mistaken, but because it's the outrage of the day. Yes, it's people getting furious because something happened in this school in nebraska, or somebody said this and in the beginning you know, and in a few days that will go on I'll move to the next and amount of mental energy and I'm speaking personally, that that that daggers caught I get caught up in four issues, which I have no expertise and no intrinsic interest in

but but you know what we're wired for gossip and earring. Oh my god, this person said as an adder to the world's coming to an end, and everybody is just just captivates us and and it it's it's appealing, to our war cells yea and also gives you the sense that you you're supposed to form an opinion about everything right, especially as right when you have a big platform. You know when you have a the hundreds of thousands or millions of people following you, you're something will happen, and you and your feel like. Ok, this is an invitation to comment and it They do not have that space for that kind of micro commentary in my life anymore, like I'd now I have a podcast where I can decide whether I want to talk about something, but it's a very different decision than whether to retweet something or get comment on it, and the time course of the decision is different. You know lots of ephemeral

things just fall away before you have even decide whether or not you they were worthy of your attention, rowena worthy to surface and in your cometary about anything and yet just you. I am missing a lot on twitter, no doubt, but what I will do. What I was missing when I was on twitter were things like books. If I compare, this is it is becoming harder to read books, and so he s got a pace of of one's response to the information one is taking in and it's I don't know, I mean it's definitely and that good at that, not that it comes with zero cost, but I recognise that people have very different experiences on twitter or any other social media say where they happen to be in some people who were just putting out in a happy means are getting nothing but love bag, and it's? They have no idea what I'm talking about, but I just stem.

Yeah. I'm I'm worried that we here we have built tools that we can't. We don't know how to control and may in fact not be controllable by us and they are controlling us rather making certain types of conversation impossible there, making it difficult or impossible to solve coordination problems we really have to solve in order to get anything important done, in the world, and am I just they we they have created. A m was seems like just unbridgable divines in our politics, but this could have always been the case ryan. They could've. They might be analogies to the to the invention of the printing press. That january worried that it made the same kind of indelible changes in how we did things or fail to do things, but I don't know. I just think that the way in which the outrage machine has has no off button and the pace of are engaged

meant with the story of the day. The outrage of the day and the way in which that gets memory hold because its landed by a new outrage of the next day and the way that the cycle time of those changes completely obscures, long standing problems that we just do not have the bandwidth to think about. You know, it's really just seems like we have built information tools that we just can't use effectively. So I know a lot of p. I I see what you're saying I agree with a lot of it. I know a lot of people who are deeply concerned about exactly what you're talking about, particularly now with with I adding something else. Ceramics and am, I sure, that concern, but all solutions that gets proposed often make me a bit queasy john hype suited. The social media. Basically don't have it. It like I retweet button, you modify the structure so that that bit, that you don't get a sword amplification and piling on

Gary Marcus thinks the government should get involved in internet, controlling the runaway flow of misinformation, rob right, you know, suggest, doesn't think it should be mandated by suggesting that we redesign social media to two pretty much force, people eat or vegetables, and you know get exposed to alternative use, and I don't know what do you stand on all of that year? I don't have any kind of remedy worked out in my head, and I personally I have to simply defected, and that makes them sense and I'm trying to find a way of interacting information and producing it that seem sam, like it too has real integrity and getting harder to do, and I just see how silo everyone has become in their preferred echo chamber and its some kid. I well. I don't

feel that that has happened to me in any kind of comprehensive way I can just like. I certainly see people deceiving me on any given topic to have been stuck in in some kind of bubble and take you know covered or as a a clear case race. I, though, the people who think that cove the disease is no big deal and be over or even a hoax. The end those same people tend to think that vaccines recall that are just the crime of the century and gonna kill millions, and then you just flip those two toggles for the other half of arson, eighty and it sir. He is there a conversation to have between those two camps. On some medium, there could possibly converge on a shared set of truth claims, to which everyone would you re in the fullness of time, give assent desire path. It has not,

topics. It come to mind that are equally polarizing in the current environment. I'm just not sure convergence is remotely possible. Yeah and eight could extend this gets better. I dont really see unnatural market solution if Iraq on parallel, somebody saying, oh, my god, rest France fancy restaurants fast through places serve. You know prudent, extremely bad for us, salty, its fatty, its high calorie, is, and so so why don't? We just you know, create these restaurants serve much healthier food with a vegetables all well. You could do that at no one's gonna gonna them here and similarly you now, if you did, you could create a new social media site, that does things better that discourages exaggeration caricature at that brings together, be were real expertise but twitter, so much more fun here, like I do think the there are some changes that banged on about a lot on previous part

has which I think would make a huge difference. I just that. I add that it makes enough of a difference at this point, but I do think the business model to which the internet got anchored is largely at fault rights of each of the fact that we have the game people's attention algorithmic early, so as to maximize add revenue re that that's the business model. For so many of these sites, yeah that's a problem, and I think I do I think that if people just subscribed to twitter and there were no ads- and there was no anonymity and there were zu in a very clear terms of service- it could be much better than it is. But again it it does. You know, may suffer the analysis huge. asked gave it, which is even if the more you solve the problems, I'm worried about you in some measure. The more boring it might get right?

there may well be an eat, your vegetables component to it, but what we have now is just the privileges of misinformation and outraged by the the algorithms as yet There's another dimension. This, which has worry me in a different way, just so many of the algorithms are becoming. I doubt the word is bespoke you're becoming geared for for us and for me my example is, and I didn't wake up in the middle of night. have a bad habit of check. My email and business is find myself on youtube more than once an hour has gone by we're just it was lost time. Cause You two algorithm knows what I like it I like can pr sketches, I, like certain movie trailers. I like this and an eye just lose. and this is not a unique experience to me. I point that I forget, They ran. Netflix said that are, enemy, isn't other screaming services. Here slaver. You know, I feel that the real

well, that's outside of our screens and involves the outside another people is at a serious disadvantage relative to the algorithm driven feed that you get from twitter. You tube our million other sources, and I wrote you know you choose your to stop here some people now. I think I think you must the sky net, matrix just opium of ay. I there's another dist opiate, we're we're all gonna blobs of javier things perched in front of our faces, just willing away our lives yeah. Why is steadily worse? was stepping back and taking stock, because the images again personally, I I, as I said I am I'm I'm embarrassed at at how long it took me to recognize what twitter had become in my life, and it's really you know I I was I'm by no means the worst casualty

the platform that I can think of. I mean there are people who will have much more of a twitter problem than I ever had, but it some I mean it's insane to say it, but like something like one hundred percent of the truly bad things that have happened in my life in the last ten years. have come from twitter right. If I said ninety percent, I'm I'm sure I'm underestimated it is completely crazy. Just What a what a malign influence it has been on my life and it took me years to just get fed up with it, because it into some degree, which is what you I'm just noticed with respect to the youtube algorithm. It's just that it's the steady drip of titillating isn't quite the right word, but its reinforcing information of some kind right and yet and the fact that you on twitter, you can feel like an entirely wholesome

way of satisfying your desire to be in touch with the world than and have your curiosity slaked amid for the longest time. It seems like that, but yeah he's quite ashamed. And some one I'm wondering what you are most concerned about at this moment I am going to take a turn to your your book, but like what? What are you actually thinking about? You know whether it's a professional capacity or or a personal one was worrying. You these days, what's a top of mind As far as some changes in our society that you're out of your finding none bewildering her disconcerting Yeah I I don't know where to begin, and some of it I'd be you know, we're not getting any younger burglars calm and lament of the old is only got. Things have gone to hell back back in the good old days. You know, and I think it could be it. I think. Maybe the balance the complaining

men. Doing I mean I I done right could be it be a godsend, could transform the whirling in in such wonderful ways and so much the social media see you will really adding them than affair job pointing at the bedside but is rescue somebody, people from loneliness people found communities, people found love and putting aside to misinformation, prominent addiction problem, social meetings, and some people are not situated a day yet her social satisfaction out with actual people in rio, sorry date. They do it online and I think the satisfaction to be had for that too. I mean to some extent this speaks to both the positives and negatives of what we're talking about, and it goes back your comment of all the bad things happening to you happening over over twitter, which, as we are extremely social animals and our reputation, is extremely important to us. What people think of us, I think only psychopaths, say

I don't care what people think about me. I mean it. I mean basically having people say terrible things about you. Lying about, you is horrible, is is horrible and it in some way it's far more horrible than bodily pains, are bodily damage near you, ass people. now. Would you rather the whole world? Think of you? child molesters. Would you rather losing arm? I think people vote for losing arm near and m. You know so so and similarly that enough people, people the reputational bones and connecting would be one. Someone has as you for a feeling from any b one. It can be unhealthier and entered an addictive, but I think when done properly can be real placid. These algorithms is interesting. I this could be the way it strikes many people- or this could just be my own personal idiosyncrasy.

The worst thing about in a reputational maintenance and caring about what other people think within the thing that that really will is my kryptonite is the misrepresentation of what my views act, we are I got. Maybe everyone cares about this today, I do. I don't quite see it. So it's not just people saying awful things about. You is area. It's just like that. I the truth. As if someone accurate, Lee characterizes who I am or what I've done or what you know what I think and they hate me for it. That's fine right and so that cause Oh, so listen, I'm an atheist writers of someone hates me, because I'm an atheist rates of fundamentalist christian will say awful things about me because of my if he hasn't ok, great there's, no problem with that, and I there some outrages views I I might have and if someone's accurately characterizing them and they think they totally

Holding that view totally discredits me as a person. Ok, this again no problem with that, but is the line or about what you know what. I think that just get under my skin in a way that is done fairly lifetime, gin and its and that's why I, when I see this larger problem of misinformation, scale wages, can't figure out what is true in this blizzard of purported facts. It, sir, yeah. It really worries me that things can go completely off the rails. It is not related to your tremendous dislike of camp, which, of course, is shared by many people, but I think that a certain feature of your dislike that that connects to your anger about the lies and misinformation, which is from his inner notoriously famously undeniably

Bullshit he's not he's, not he's, not a liar. It doesn't care enough to lie. He has an utter this interest in it, yeah, you're, just say: whatever's, whatever works for him and his true its troops as fast as was he doesn't he doesn't care and there's something in, and it seems to us and it seems, like you started the trend that that he alot of people both for him and against them, have a sort of ethos that well it could be true. It was the sort of thing one would say you know an end

Epistemological crisis is is, is a fancy term, but it's genuinely frightening when, when people just stop caring about the truth cause you can't you can't reason properly, you can't do politics properly, can do science properly, can't do society properly and- and I think that that's that's the problem with that's one of the major problems with the world. We live in now, yeah, that's a distinction that or you're you're referencing courtesy of her Harry Frankfurt, the philosopher here he wrote this very short book, just really an essay but sir a wonderful little book, titled on bullshit and that we've discussed him before in the pot gas, but to remind people that I think it really is a an important distinction. He makes a point the book that the difference between a liar and a bullshit or is it a liar- has to be tracking what the truth is in order to insert his lie in a calculated way in the space provided an

he's observing all of the norms of of reasoning that his his audience relying upon, because he again he's trying to lie in a way that is undetected and undetectable, bind logical human beings, so he's not gratuitously contradicting himself he's not dead. He's trying to conserve the data as much as it can. He is tracking truth and an expected Actions have consistency and every other epistemological norm in order to do his the fairies work, whereas the bullshitter is just talking and is creating a mood and isn't spending any time trying to track what is true or even trying to avoid contradicting what he said five minutes ago, because he just gets a complete, is complete is the anarchy anarchy there. There are no standards, there's no authorities. There's no hierarchy is no ground troops.

To be aware of its just, you know, a blizzard of in the trailer, and we have now what trump did too. That I would not have thought possible was exposed that something like half of our society simply doesn't care about torrents of both shit on the most important topics in the most trivial being spread. It ever our the day across the landscape, with no concern for truth in one when to put it is that liars respect, respected truth here's my respected with more so than somebody who reflexively is honest, never thinks about a liar works hard to orchestrate their statements so that it appears to me to be able and you're really works at. It says says I I got a full viable and an abortion urges just bullshit. You know I have a part in my book. Maybe it's it's is departed.

It's the part of the book re. I think I disagree with most of my colleagues where it's about rationality and airman, defend I'm not going to defend bullshit, permanent and defend people who participate in at some level where names Who are you all? Those who believe are prepared to believe conspiracy theories and wild views and missing nation are somehow being irrational, but Fortunately, is not as simple as that, where What rationality is, I think, is using logic and probability and apparel facts to achieve our goals. Now, if your goal is to get things right, then we should be working to find the truth and appealing to sign and work on our logic nothin for many people the goal is to get along anyway. A community and Everybody there believes that I don't I'll. Take an old example. Barack Obama was born in kenya, and this is not an american citizen has no

are right to be present and that's what everybody here believes. Well, there's not much truth to add. So, if you care about truth, you're not going to believe it you, prime, want to get along lot. People around you and use your sort of in this dilemma where the world as a whole do better. If everybody try to get things right, but has. Individuals in society believing that common following a common practices, believing what other people believe is actually very rational. Yeah me is changing. The nature of the game are merely or ear were equivocating on what rational means in these two contacts but yeah, I would agree that it is like a hierarchy of needs. problem you need unit. You need not be exiled

your community or burned as a which more than you need to be. That's right. You need have an intellectual integrity. I listen in this moment, but for me that the statement of the kind of social pathology right- that's a community that is not as good as it might be It certainly not is in touch with norms of air correction that would keep in touch with reality in I'm going way and yet what we all you're describing it as much more in common with religion, then it has in common with science or any other, really rational enterprise maneater, like assent into certain pseudo truths. Represents a kind of loyalty test amir. Any invidious comparison we're going to make between religion and politics and science, on the other hand, is going to swing on on these kinds of distinctions, images. The difference between wishful thinking,

and a host of other cognitive, biases and bein dispassionately, guided by evidence and argument, that's interesting! I I appreciate the distinction, I think of it more though, as a continuum, so religions, one extreme where you know, unless you publicly I agree assent to the claims made at one, true god, and they may kick you out of town or burn you at the stake. Politics you know is is close to religion in that regard, where you know, if you're a member of a political party in your campaigning and everything you you you. You should believe certain things in a be punished if you're not, but I think

even something like science, science and sort of a pure sense as as norms of rejecting authority and norms of skepticism throughout but day to day. If somebody is too skeptical about claims, you're going to get kicked out at a club, your ear well as something that I have or struggled to make sense of in public for Audiences that seem deeply confused about what the norms are here and it is hard to miserably the sense in which science is not a science and art right, as there is no way we can early. Sir, I don't think there's We can make an algorithm of this process where we value authority, and then we discount its relevance to any specific claim rights. As right. As you say, we overturn it

keenly in science, whenever you make a breakthrough, you're very often prove in some prior consensus. wrong, and we know that you know it, but a nobel laureate in any discipline can be wrong and doesn't need to be taken seriously if he or she is wrong, and are you a lowly graduate student can be right and the rightness wrongness of any claim has. Absolutely nothing to do with the cvs or the reputations of that of the people, making those claims and yet as a time, saving device? We routinely rely on authority and consensus because probabilistic lee what ninety seven per of chemist believe about the structure of a given substance is our best bet. It adds. understanding what that substance is by the light of chemistry and that remain true until flaw in the consensus is discovered by some real loans.

He knows who then overturns it. So it's a specialization in problem at a time management problem, which is why we can't help but reliant authorities, because most of the time it makes perfect sense to do that. That's exactly right. A lot of cognitive neuroscientist could do excellent work but dont fully, I understand some of the statistics that are using a collaborative manners and a better may not fully understand the physics of the mri machine that are used and that's fine and not a graduate student who says, I refuse to to work on a study until I under and all of this in the justify it for myself will have a short career You know you got here, you gotta differ yeah, emergent, there's no way to be a true polly math at this it will allow. Ironically, hey I promises to to make that increasingly possible. If, in fact, you we can outsource our thinking finally, to our robot overlords major

because then you and then you can either you in the in the presence of a chant jpg, twenty five, if any graduate student at any point in say all right, you know explain this to me spain, it again and get down to a hundred words and ok, I like it when you think of how quickly you would be drill down on to first principles on anything that interests you and you can outsource the the burden of having to remember all of that stuff too. with the ai. It's some, it's possible that we could to you know, have more a more of a comprehensive ownership of the full set of facts that you know impinge upon any question, but still that, though, there'll be a some boundary there, where internet you, what you are just accepting that day in this case, you're accepting that the eyes integrating all

the authorities in in a way that could actually works. You know so it's an asset, and that's that brings us back to the limitations of. During the day. I I a little while ago wrote an article where I wanted to get some good quotes from psychologist, who are actually from scholars in general, who believed that the replication crisis showed psychology to be deeply flawed, and so I I asked as gb t three. and I came up with with two amazing- quotes exactly what I wanted: one from girt gig answer, one from the seem to live, I knew they were going to sound exactly in the style of those people and and of course, and of course neither of them existed it just it just plucked them out of thin air. yeah and and these sort of hallucinations are a problem that I and I felt rather betrayed by a lie to her get ready. It's going to get worse. Yeah, that's right! Okay, so when I asked you what we know about

the human mind you gave me several facets of of the answer to this site. in question are you one was evolution and its implications. Another was the brain as the the evolved organ that is producing everything we we know as sir the mind in our case another was the the insight often credited to freud, but their bit than many variants of it. Get that much of what goes on in us and as us, that is mental- is not actually conscious. Wretched. Is this divide, this boundary line between consciousness and what will you fallen? Freud? We have learned to call me

unconscious and, and that could be misleading and variety of ways, one of my favorite veterans day quotes is how he is is said to have responded to this notion of freud's and he said sisters. I think fairly closed to verbatim. Imagine the difficulties we would experience If we had a language that constrain does too say that when you see Nobody in the room, you say, MR nobody was in the room rights of these justice, the reunification of gas absence right as the real the of of nothing being there. In this case case, we could be concerned that there's a ratification of the parts of ourselves that we don't experience eyes those a storehouse of potentially conscious mental state. and then there is this gets related issue of reductionism and emergence rights worthy the amount the mind and anything anymore. Of it. We would want to discuss taken him,

washington or a or an act of cognition, is an emergent phenomenon which, when understood at the level of its micro physical constituents, seems to em into some minds, seems to promise a a smooth reduction to more basic facts, which are the real facts, but the cases that seems like a fool's errand and other though there is an even in the present a perfect ay. I and infinite come union resources. We are never going to be talking about human scale, experience purely in terms of narrow, transmitters and synaptic connections. Much less adamson ends Subatomic particles that said living have just started an attic of that. That's the point when I I I have my. I think my my first main chapter is under brain, and I say you know the mind is the brain. I talk about that talk about the history of that talk,

about how it out as best we understand how that works, but I'm very and in spain as to the chapter sort of seeing a lot of people and think that wow, so the real sciences, nurseries and an end were not met. Beliefs, desires and emotions, and all the if you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at sam harris dot org. Once you do you'll get access to one. full length episode of the making sense podcast, along with other subscriber, only content, including bone, episodes and a and the conversations I've been having on the waking up at the makings, has podcast his ad free and relies entirely on listener support and you can subscribe now at sam harris dot org. I.