AI, Virtual Reality & Dawn of the New Everything w/ JARON LANIER, VR Pioneer, Musician, Author

AI, Virtual Reality & Dawn of the New Everything w/ JARON LANIER, VR Pioneer, Musician, Author

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VR Pioneer · Musician · Author JARON LANIER
Who Owns the Future? · Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality & Virtual Reality · Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

AI is obviously the dominant topic in tech lately, and I think occasionally there's AI that's nonsense, and occasionally there's AI that's great. I love finding new proteins for medicine and so on. I don't think we serve ourselves well when we put our own technology up as if it were a new God that we created. I think we're really getting a little too full of ourselves to think that.

When we do that, I think we confuse ourselves too easily. This goes back to Alan Turing, the main founder of computer science, who had this idea of the Turing test. In the test, you can't tell whether the computer has gotten more human-like or the human has gotten more computer-like. People are very prone to becoming more computer-like. When we're on social media, we let ourselves be guided by the algorithms, so we start to become dumb in the way the algorithms want us to. You see that all the time. It's really degraded our psychologies and our society.

How to Fight for Truth & Protect Democracy in A Post-Truth World? - Highlights - LEE McINTYRE

How to Fight for Truth & Protect Democracy in A Post-Truth World? - Highlights - LEE McINTYRE

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Philosopher · Author of On Disinformation: How To Fight For Truth and Protect Democracy · How to Talk to a Science Denier

One thing people don't realize is that the goal of disinformation is not simply to get you to believe a falsehood. It's to demoralize you into giving up on the idea of truth, to polarize us around factual issues, to get us to distrust people who don't believe the same lie. And even if somebody doesn't believe the lie, it can still make them cynical. I mean, we've all had friends who don't even watch the news anymore. There's a chilling quotation from Holocaust historian Hannah Arendt about how when you always lie to someone, the consequence is not necessarily that they believe the lie, but that they begin to lose their critical faculties, that they begin to give up on the idea of truth, and so they can't judge for themselves what's true and what's false anymore. That's the scary part, the nexus between post-truth and autocracy. That's what the authoritarian wants. Not necessarily to get you to believe the lie. But to give up on truth, because when you give up on truth, then there's no blame, no accountability, and they can just assert their power. There's a connection between disinformation and denial.

How can we ensure that AI is aligned with human values? - RAPHAËL MILLIÈRE

How can we ensure that AI is aligned with human values? - RAPHAËL MILLIÈRE

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Asst. Professor in Philosophy of AI · Macquarie University
I'd like to focus more on the immediate harms that the kinds of AI technologies we have today might pose. With language models, the kind of technology that powers ChatGPT and other chatbots, there are harms that might result from regular use of these systems, and then there are harms that might result from malicious use. Regular use would be how you and I might use ChatGPT and other chatbots to do ordinary things. There is a concern that these systems might reproduce and amplify, for example, racist or sexist biases, or spread misinformation. These systems are known to, as researchers put it, “hallucinate” in some cases, making up facts or false citations. And then there are the harms from malicious use, which might result from some bad actors using the systems for nefarious purposes. That would include disinformation on a mass scale. You could imagine a bad actor using language models to automate the creation of fake news and propaganda to try to manipulate voters, for example. And this takes us into the medium term future, because we're not quite there, but another concern would be language models providing dangerous, potentially illegal information that is not readily available on the internet for anyone to access. As they get better over time, there is a concern that in the wrong hands, these systems might become quite powerful weapons, at least indirectly, and so people have been trying to mitigate these potential harm

Environmental Crisis, Philosophy & the Search for Meaning - ROBERT PIPPIN

Environmental Crisis, Philosophy & the Search for Meaning - ROBERT PIPPIN

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Author of The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy
Modernism as a Philosophical Problem · Hegel’s Idealism

Philosophy is both an academic discipline and also something that everybody does. Everybody has to have reflective views about what's significant. They also have to justify to themselves why it's significant or important. The nature of justice itself, and the various opinions that have been written about in philosophy about justice, can get to a very high level. So there's this unusual connection between philosophy and human life. We've inherited from the middle ages, this incredible tradition that's now developed into a chance for young people to spend four or five years, in a way, released from the pressures of life. The idea to pursue your ideas a little further in these four years you have, exempt from the pressures of social life, allows philosophy to have a kind of position unique in the academy. In confronting what the best minds in the history of the world have had to say about these issues, the hope is that they provide for the people who are privileged enough to confront philosophy a better and more thoughtful approach to these fundamental questions that everybody has to confront.

What does the future hold for our late-stage capitalist society with mega-corps controlling everything? KYLE HIGGINS, KARINA MANASHIL & KID CUDI

What does the future hold for our late-stage capitalist society with mega-corps controlling everything? KYLE HIGGINS, KARINA MANASHIL & KID CUDI

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Eisner Award-nominated Comic Book Author KYLE HIGGINS
Emmy-nominated Producer KARINA MANASHIL & KID CUDI on the Making of Moon Man

So, as we started talking and going through what this could look like. What a new black superhero in 2024 could look like? What would the threats be? What the world might look like if it's maybe not even five minutes in the future? I would argue it's like two and a half minutes in the future. And then what kind of really complex, emotionally layered journey we could put this character through?

BROCK BASTIAN - Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living

BROCK BASTIAN - Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living

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Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living
Professor at University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences

In today's world, feeling happy is no longer simply a state of mind. It's become a marker of mental health and success. On the flip side, pain and sadness are viewed as signals of failure and sickness. If we're not happy, then there is something wrong with us, and we need to fix it. It is no wonder that the painkiller and antidepressant markets, already worth billions of dollars, continue their rapid expansion. We've come to treat even commonplace experiences of pain and sadness as pathological, as things that need to be medicated and eradicated.

HENRY SHUE - Author of “The Pivotal Generation” - Snr. Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, Oxford

HENRY SHUE - Author of “The Pivotal Generation” - Snr. Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, Oxford

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Author of The Pivotal Generation: Why We Have a Moral Responsibility to Slow Climate Change Right Now · Basic Rights
Senior Research Fellow · Centre for International Studies · University of Oxford

We can tell from the science that we have to reach zero carbon emissions by 2050. And common sense tells you that bringing them down for the second 50% is going to be harder than the first 50%. So we have to take care of the first 50% by about 2030, and it's 2023 already. We literally must - if we're going to keep climate change from becoming even more dangerous than it is - is to do a very great deal in the next seven or eight years. And a huge amount between now and 2050. So it's not that this problem is the most important of all possible problems. There are other problems like preventing nuclear war, but this is a problem that either we get a grip on it now, or there's a real possibility that it will escape from our control. 

William Irvine - Author of “The Stoic Challenge”, “A Guide to the Good Life”

William Irvine - Author of “The Stoic Challenge”, “A Guide to the Good Life”

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Author of The Stoic Challenge & A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Happiness is another interesting thing. I've been thinking about this lately. You know, people take aim at happiness. I don't know if you can actually do that, if you can have a recipe for attaining happiness. Happiness is something that just happens as a byproduct of something else going on in your life, and that is having a day where you're experiencing equanimity. You don't have this abundance of negative emotions, where you value the things you've already got, where you value the relationships you've got, where you feel good inside your own body. You like being who you are. And I think, if all that happens, then suddenly, you know, it'll dawn on me. 'Gosh, I guess I'm happy...'

Jonathan Newman - VP, Research, Wilfrid Laurier University

Jonathan Newman - VP, Research, Wilfrid Laurier University

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Lead Author of Climate Change Biology, and Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics
Vice President of Research, Wilfrid Laurier University

Climate change is certainly going to affect biodiversity. Some species will benefit from climate change, but others will not, and we'll have different ecosystems, different biotic communities as a result of this. I think the impacts that are likely are pretty clear, and I think that's a pretty good reason to do all those things we can do without completely destroying our economies and our communities because those things have moral value as well. It's not just the environment that we think is important. We also think humans are important, then doing the things we can do now, do the less painful things first. We should have done them already, and we should be now thinking about how to do the harder things.

Ami Vitale · Award-winning Photographer, Filmmaker & Exec. Director of Vital Impacts

Ami Vitale · Award-winning Photographer, Filmmaker & Exec. Director of Vital Impacts

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Award-Winning Photographer & Filmmaker
Executive Director of Vital Impacts

When are we all going to start to care about one another? Because all of our individual choices do have impacts. And I just think the demands that we place on this planet, on the ecosystems, are what are driving conflict and human suffering. In some cases, it's really the scarcity of resources, just like water. In others, it's the changing climate and the loss of fertile lands to be able to grow food. But in the end, it's always the people living in these places that really suffer the most. All of my work today, it’s not really about wildlife, and it's not just about people either. It's about how deeply interconnected all of those things are. People and the human condition are the backdrop of every one of the stories on this planet.

(Highlights) AZBY BROWN

(Highlights) AZBY BROWN

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Author of Just Enough · Small Spaces · Lead Researcher for Safecast
Authority on Japanese Architecture, Design & Environmentalism

In Edo Japan, basically life was pretty good, and they recycled everything. Everything was reused, upcycled. Waste was considered taboo. A person who was wasting was considered an ugly person. So there’s a lot that we could talk about design, the layout, scale. Buildings were rarely taller than two storeys. Very good use of environmental features, microclimates, use of wind for cooling, passive solar heating. Good use of planting, gardens, etc. But regarding cities of the future, I think the main thing is it needs to be a place where people feel like they belong and want to take responsibility.


MERLIN DONALD

MERLIN DONALD

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Psychologist, Neuroanthropologist & Cognitive Neuroscientist
Author of Origins of the Modern Mind, & A Mind So Rare

Lots of people have written books both optimistic and pessimistic about the Internet. It's a wonderful thing, it gives an opportunity to broaden our experience. I think in many ways the Internet is the only hope if you want to eliminate racism and want to raise the bar across the world, but at the same time, the inequalities are completely ridiculous. They've reached a point of insanity, and we have a moral issue. Is one person ever worth twice as much as another person? Can you justify one human being owning 10 times as much as another person? I don't think you can. I don't think that the president of the biggest cooperation in the world is worth 10 times the poorest person in the world, but that's not what we have. Sometimes he may be “worth” a million times more, a hundred thousand times more. That’s crazy.

EARL K. MILLER, Ph.D.

EARL K. MILLER, Ph.D.

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Picower Professor of Neuroscience
MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory & Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences

There are a lot of distractions in cities. So it's always good to maybe take some time out, be in a quieter place with no distractions so you can let your thoughts run. And that leads into the creative process because new ideas, new thoughts and where they come from. They come from following the garden path of associations in your mind. One thought leads to another, leads to another until your mind is in a new place it's never been before. Or you put two thoughts together that were never together before, but now they are because you managed to somehow follow this garden path of thoughts from one thought to the other. That's where creativity comes from, that's where your ideas come from, seeing things in a new way, seeing things that were never together before. And if you have constant distractions that interferes with that process.

GEORGE ELLIS

GEORGE ELLIS

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Cosmologist, Theoretical physicist & Star of South Africa Medal Recipient

Artistic creativity and it’s crucial to artistic creativity amongst many other things. In artistic creativity, from my viewpoint, is that you start off with an idea and you’re shaping and you’re totally in control and it doesn’t matter if it's music or sculpture or painting or a novel, eventually the thing sparks its own life, becomes itself, and at that point, the role of the artist is to stand back and let it become what its got to become. And that’s where you get the great art.

IAN BURUMA

IAN BURUMA

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Ian Buruma is the author of many books, including A Tokyo Romance, The Churchill Complex,Their Promised Land, Year Zero, The China Lover, Murder in Amsterdam, Occidentalism and God’s Dust. He teaches at Bard College and is a columnist for Project Syndicate and contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other publications. He was awarded the 2008 Erasmus Prize for making "an especially important contribution to European culture" and was voted one of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals
by the Foreign Policy magazine.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Lexi Kayser with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Digital Media Coordinator is Phoebe Brous.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

RICHARD D. WOLFF

RICHARD D. WOLFF

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Founder of Democracy at Work · Host of Economic Update
Author of The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself

You can criticize many things in the United States, but there are taboos and the number one taboo is that you cannot criticize Capitalism. That is equated with disloyalty…This story about Capitalism being wonderful. This story is fading. You can’t do that anymore. The Right Wing cannot rally its troops around Capitalism. That’s why it doesn’t do it anymore. It rallies the troops around being hateful towards immigrants. It rallies the troops around “fake elections”, around the right to buy a gun, around White Supremacists. Those issues can get some support, but “Let’s get together for Capitalism!” That is bad. They can’t do anything with that. They have to sneak the Capitalism in behind those other issues because otherwise, they have no mass political support.

MERLIN SHELDRAKE

MERLIN SHELDRAKE

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Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and bestselling author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures. Merlin received a Ph.D. in tropical ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Entangled Life won the Wainwright Prize 2021, and has been nominated for a number of other prizes. Merlin is a research associate of the Vrije University Amsterdam, Head of Science and Communications Strategy for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi Foundation.

MERLIN SHELDRAKE

Humans have been partnering with fungi for an unknowably long time, no doubt for longer than we’ve been humans. Whether as foods, eating mushrooms, as medicines, dosing ourselves with moulds and other mushrooms that might help, parasites or others helpers with infection, mushrooms as tinder or ways to carry a spark, this very important thing that humans needed to do for a very long time, and as agents of fermentation, as in yeasts creating alcohol. So humans have partnered with fungi to solve all sorts of problems and so fungi have found themselves enveloped within human societies and cultures for a long time.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk & Cooper Berkoff with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Cooper Berkoff. Digital Media Coordinator is Phoebe Brous.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).