from very ancient times all the
philosophers and saints and sages tell
people to get to know yourself better
it’s one of the maybe the most important
thing in life is to get to know yourself
better but for all of history this was a
process of self exploration which you
did through things like meditation and
maybe sports and maybe out and
contemplation and all these things what
does it mean when the process of self
self exploration is being outsourced to
a big data algorithm and the
philosophical implications are our quite
mind-boggling
I agree I mean the thing about this
ability to hack humans is that it has
also potentially tremendous positive
consequences and this is why it’s so
tempting if it was only bad than it was
bigge which would have been like an easy
deal to say okay we don’t want that and
let’s stop researching or going in the
direction but it is extremely tempting
because it can provide us for example
with the best health care in history
something which goes far beyond anything
we’ve seen so far this can mean that
maybe in 30 years the poorest person on
the planet can get a better health care
from her or his smartphone then the
richest person today gets from the best
hospitals and the best doctors the kind
of things you can just know about what’s
happening in your body is nothing like
we’ve seen so far well I think this is
maybe the most important thing to know
about living right now in the 21st
century that we are now hackable animals
we have the technology to decipher how
humans or what you think what you want
to predict human choices to manipulate
human desires in ways which were never
possible before basically to hack a
human being you need two things you need
a lot of data especially biometric data
not just about where you go and what you
buy but what is happening inside your
body and inside your brain and secondly
you need a
lot of computing power to make sense of
all that data again one of the dangers
that we are facing to during the 21st
century is that computers and AI would
be able to replace humans in more and
more tasks and maybe push millions of
humans out of the job market as a result
that brings me to education so what do
you think that if we’re talking to
somebody who’s 18 right now they’re
trying to decide do I go to college yes
or no should they go to college and if
they go to college what should they be
studying um that’s a very difficult
question the first thing they should
realize is that nobody really knows
nobody really knows how the job market
would look like in 2040 so they should
be suspicious of all these kinds of
advices by people who pretend that they
know what the job market would need in
20 years at the best investment I would
say is in emotional intelligence and in
mental balance and these kinds of skills
of how to keep changing throughout your
life how to keep learning throughout
your life now how do you learn that
that’s very very difficult we don’t have
a college degree in mental flexibility
but these are the most important tools
so whatever you choose you can go to law
school you can go to ballet school but
you should keep in mind that much of
what I’m learning might be irrelevant in
in 20 or 30 years so whatever else I’m
doing
I should also invest in developing my
emotional intelligence my mental balance
my ability to keep changing and learning
and reinventing throughout my life so
maybe to give an image or a metaphor if
in the past education was like building
a stone house with very deep foundations
now I would say that education is more
like a constructing attempt
that you can fold up and move to another
location very quickly and easily one of
the most important things in my life and
also in I think in my scientific career
was the realization of how little I know
about myself and humans in general there
were so many important ideas and
important facts we don’t realize about
herself I was 21 when I finally realized
that I was gain which is you know when
you think of it it’s it’s absolutely
amazing I mean it should have been
obvious at age you know 16 15 and an
algorithm would have realized it very
quickly and you can build algorithms
like that today or in a few years you
just need to follow your eye movements
like you you go on the beach or you look
at the computer screen and you see an
attractive guy an attractive girl and
just follow the focus of the eyes were
do the eyes go and whom do they focus on
to be very easy and such an algorithm
could have told when I was 15 that I was
gay and the implications are really
mind-boggling when an algorithm knows
such an important thing about you before
you know it about yourself now it can go
in all kinds of directions it really
depends on where you live and what you
do with it in some countries you can be
in trouble now with the police and the
government you might be sent to some
really Cashen facility in some countries
like with you know surveillance
capitalism so maybe I don’t know about
myself that I’m game but coca-cola knows
I’m gay because they have these
algorithms and they want to know that
because they need to know which
commercials to show me let’s say
coca-cola knows that I’m gay and I even
know about myself that they know it and
Pepsi doesn’t coca-cola will show me a
commercial with a shirtless guy drinking
coca-cola but Pepsi will make the
mistake of showing a girl in the bikini
and next day without my realizing why
when I go to the supermarket when I go
up
to the restaurant I will order a
coca-cola not Pepsi I don’t know why but
they know so they might not even share
this kind of information with me
now if the algorithm does share the
information with me again it’s it a lot
depends on context I mean something as
simple as choosing music so you you were
just dumped by your boyfriend or
girlfriend and the the algorithm that
controls the music that you listen to
chooses the songs that are the best fit
for your current mental state and of
course this brings up the the question
of what is the matrix what do you
actually want from the music do you want
the music to uplift you of do you more
want the music to kind of connect you to
the deepest level of sadness and
depression and ultimately we can say
that the algorithm can follow different
kinds of instructions if you know what
kind of emotional state you want to be
in you can just tell the algorithm what
what you want and it will do it if you
are not sure you can tell the algorithm
follow the recommendation of the best
psychologist today so let’s say you have
the five stages of grief so okay walk me
with music through this five stages of
grief and the algorithm can do that
better than any human DJ and what we
really need to understand in in this
regard is that what music and most of
art plays on in the end is the human
biochemical system at least according to
the dominant view of out in the modern
Western world we had different views in
different cultures but in the modern
Western world the idea of art is that
out is above all about inspiring human emotions
philosophers and saints and sages tell
people to get to know yourself better
it’s one of the maybe the most important
thing in life is to get to know yourself
better but for all of history this was a
process of self exploration which you
did through things like meditation and
maybe sports and maybe out and
contemplation and all these things what
does it mean when the process of self
self exploration is being outsourced to
a big data algorithm and the
philosophical implications are our quite
mind-boggling
I agree I mean the thing about this
ability to hack humans is that it has
also potentially tremendous positive
consequences and this is why it’s so
tempting if it was only bad than it was
bigge which would have been like an easy
deal to say okay we don’t want that and
let’s stop researching or going in the
direction but it is extremely tempting
because it can provide us for example
with the best health care in history
something which goes far beyond anything
we’ve seen so far this can mean that
maybe in 30 years the poorest person on
the planet can get a better health care
from her or his smartphone then the
richest person today gets from the best
hospitals and the best doctors the kind
of things you can just know about what’s
happening in your body is nothing like
we’ve seen so far well I think this is
maybe the most important thing to know
about living right now in the 21st
century that we are now hackable animals
we have the technology to decipher how
humans or what you think what you want
to predict human choices to manipulate
human desires in ways which were never
possible before basically to hack a
human being you need two things you need
a lot of data especially biometric data
not just about where you go and what you
buy but what is happening inside your
body and inside your brain and secondly
you need a
lot of computing power to make sense of
all that data again one of the dangers
that we are facing to during the 21st
century is that computers and AI would
be able to replace humans in more and
more tasks and maybe push millions of
humans out of the job market as a result
that brings me to education so what do
you think that if we’re talking to
somebody who’s 18 right now they’re
trying to decide do I go to college yes
or no should they go to college and if
they go to college what should they be
studying um that’s a very difficult
question the first thing they should
realize is that nobody really knows
nobody really knows how the job market
would look like in 2040 so they should
be suspicious of all these kinds of
advices by people who pretend that they
know what the job market would need in
20 years at the best investment I would
say is in emotional intelligence and in
mental balance and these kinds of skills
of how to keep changing throughout your
life how to keep learning throughout
your life now how do you learn that
that’s very very difficult we don’t have
a college degree in mental flexibility
but these are the most important tools
so whatever you choose you can go to law
school you can go to ballet school but
you should keep in mind that much of
what I’m learning might be irrelevant in
in 20 or 30 years so whatever else I’m
doing
I should also invest in developing my
emotional intelligence my mental balance
my ability to keep changing and learning
and reinventing throughout my life so
maybe to give an image or a metaphor if
in the past education was like building
a stone house with very deep foundations
now I would say that education is more
like a constructing attempt
that you can fold up and move to another
location very quickly and easily one of
the most important things in my life and
also in I think in my scientific career
was the realization of how little I know
about myself and humans in general there
were so many important ideas and
important facts we don’t realize about
herself I was 21 when I finally realized
that I was gain which is you know when
you think of it it’s it’s absolutely
amazing I mean it should have been
obvious at age you know 16 15 and an
algorithm would have realized it very
quickly and you can build algorithms
like that today or in a few years you
just need to follow your eye movements
like you you go on the beach or you look
at the computer screen and you see an
attractive guy an attractive girl and
just follow the focus of the eyes were
do the eyes go and whom do they focus on
to be very easy and such an algorithm
could have told when I was 15 that I was
gay and the implications are really
mind-boggling when an algorithm knows
such an important thing about you before
you know it about yourself now it can go
in all kinds of directions it really
depends on where you live and what you
do with it in some countries you can be
in trouble now with the police and the
government you might be sent to some
really Cashen facility in some countries
like with you know surveillance
capitalism so maybe I don’t know about
myself that I’m game but coca-cola knows
I’m gay because they have these
algorithms and they want to know that
because they need to know which
commercials to show me let’s say
coca-cola knows that I’m gay and I even
know about myself that they know it and
Pepsi doesn’t coca-cola will show me a
commercial with a shirtless guy drinking
coca-cola but Pepsi will make the
mistake of showing a girl in the bikini
and next day without my realizing why
when I go to the supermarket when I go
up
to the restaurant I will order a
coca-cola not Pepsi I don’t know why but
they know so they might not even share
this kind of information with me
now if the algorithm does share the
information with me again it’s it a lot
depends on context I mean something as
simple as choosing music so you you were
just dumped by your boyfriend or
girlfriend and the the algorithm that
controls the music that you listen to
chooses the songs that are the best fit
for your current mental state and of
course this brings up the the question
of what is the matrix what do you
actually want from the music do you want
the music to uplift you of do you more
want the music to kind of connect you to
the deepest level of sadness and
depression and ultimately we can say
that the algorithm can follow different
kinds of instructions if you know what
kind of emotional state you want to be
in you can just tell the algorithm what
what you want and it will do it if you
are not sure you can tell the algorithm
follow the recommendation of the best
psychologist today so let’s say you have
the five stages of grief so okay walk me
with music through this five stages of
grief and the algorithm can do that
better than any human DJ and what we
really need to understand in in this
regard is that what music and most of
art plays on in the end is the human
biochemical system at least according to
the dominant view of out in the modern
Western world we had different views in
different cultures but in the modern
Western world the idea of art is that
out is above all about inspiring human emotions
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