What this covers
Yuval Noah Harari, renowned historian and author of “Nexus,” explores the indelible impact of AI on human society. We discuss his iconoclastic views on information networks, the inextricable link between technology and political systems, and actionable ways to navigate our rapidly changing world. READ MORE👉🏾 https://bit.ly/richroll867 ✌🏼🌱 - Rich
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CHAPTERS 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:59 Discussion of AI's Evolution 00:02:53 Defining AI 00:05:26 AI as Alien Intelligence 00:08:11 Information Technology and Democracy 00:10:00 The Role of Information in Society 00:11:27 Information Flow in Different Political Systems 00:12:49 Historical Context of Democracy 00:15:16 Crisis of Democracy 00:15:55 Information vs. Truth 00:17:46 Fiction vs. Truth in Information 00:20:07 Impact of Information Technology 00:21:42 Algorithms and Decision-Making 00:23:30 The Rise of Algorithms and User Engagement 00:24:15 Unintended Consequences of Social Media 00:25:52 The Role of Social Media in Ethnic Cleansing 00:29:23 AI's Evolution Compared to Biological Evolution 00:35:29 Ad Break 00:35:33 The Complexity of AI Decision-Making 00:40:22 Cultural Implications of AI-Generated Content 00:43:53 The Distinction Between Intelligence and Consciousness 00:46:10 Commercial Incentives for AI Mimicking Emotions 00:47:30 The Power of Intimacy in AI 00:48:40 Vulnerability of Humanity 00:49:14 Regulating AI Interactions 00:49:56 Ethical Considerations of AI Consciousness 00:50:43 AI as Legal Persons in the U.S. 00:53:01 AI in Authoritarian vs. Democratic Systems 00:54:10 Surveillance Capabilities of AI 00:55:37 AI and the Enforcement of Laws 00:57:47 Potential for AI to Manipulate Politics 00:58:07 Dictators' Fear of AI 01:01:49 Ad Break 01:03:23 Impact of AI on Upcoming Elections 01:05:17 Democracy's Fragility 01:07:56 Cooperation vs. Distrust in AI Regulation 01:12:10 Paradox of Trust in AI 01:13:18 The Nature of Progress 01:13:53 Choosing the Right Problems 01:14:17 Historical Lessons from Agriculture 01:15:18 Organic vs. Inorganic Systems 01:17:20 Delusions as Destruction 01:20:07 Building Trust in Society 01:20:28 Role of Institutions in Trust 01:23:46 Historical Anecdote: Cholera Epidemic 01:25:45 The Deep State Analogy 01:27:27 Information Diet and Clarity 01:28:34 Meditation and Mindfulness 01:32:32 Different Paths to Clarity 01:34:11 The Essence of Truth
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Harari argues that AI represents an unprecedented threat to human civilization not because of robot uprisings, but because algorithmic systems are already making consequential autonomous decisions at scale while operating in ways humans cannot understand or predict, and because competitive incentive structures prevent global cooperation to slow development despite widespread recognition of the danger.
- AI systems are already making autonomous decisions (social media algorithms, loan approvals, military targeting) that reshape reality without human understanding
- Information networks underpin all human cooperation and power structures, and AI is restructuring these networks in ways that concentrate power and erode trust
- Humans cannot trust each other enough to coordinate on AI regulation despite knowing the risks, creating a paradox where we accelerate toward danger we recognize
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Information is connection, not truth; fiction is cheaper, simpler, and more psychologically appealing than truth, so in competition between true and false information, fiction tends to win at scale.
“information isn't truth information is connection it's something that holds a lot of people together and unfortunately what we see in history that it's often much easier to connect people to create social order with the help of Fiction and Fantasy and propaganda and lies than with the truth so most information is not true uh the truth is a very rare subset of the information in the world”
Institutional trust is the foundation of democracy; recent epidemic of institutional distrust across left and right is fueled by cynical worldview that all institutions are elite conspiracies, and this distrust, if it continues, will either collapse society or enable dictatorship.
“if if you ask in brief what is the key to building trust between millions of strangers the key is institutions because you can't build a personal intimate relationship with millions of people so it's only institutions whether it's courts or uh police forces or newspapers or universities or healthc Care Systems that build trust between people and unfortunately we now see this uh again another epidemic of distrust in institutions on both the right and the left”
The sewage system is an example of an invisible institutional achievement often condemned by conspiracy theorists as 'deep state'—it is a bureaucratic system that separates sewage from drinking water through pipes and pumps, saving millions of lives daily, and most 'deep state' agencies similarly protect human life in invisible ways despite the presence of corruption that must be checked by courts and media.
“every day we are protected by all kinds of Institutions like when people talk with me about the Deep State you know this conspiracy about the Deep State I immediately think about the sewage system the sewage system is the Deep State it's a deep H system of tunnels and pipes and pumps which is the state built under our houses and streets and neighborhoods and saves our life every day because it keeps our sewage separate from our drinking water”
The image of Jesus is the most famous face in human history with billions of portraits, yet virtually 100% of them are fictional because there is no authentic portrait from Jesus's lifetime, no biblical description of his appearance, and all images come from human imagination, yet this fictional image has been extraordinarily successful at uniting people for both good (charity, hospitals) and bad (Crusades, persecutions) purposes.
“if you think about visual information like portraits paintings photographs um so what is the most common portrait in the world what is the most famous face in the history of humanity it is the face of Jesus I mean there are more portraits of Jesus than of any other person in the history of the world billions and billions produced over centuries”
Large-scale democracies were technically impossible until new information technologies (printing press, telegraph, radio, television) emerged; before this, democracy could only exist in small city-states because millions of people cannot hold a conversation about governance without technology to enable communication.
“for most of History a large scale democracy like the United States was simply impossible if you think about the ancient world the only examples we know of democracy are small city states like Republican Rome or like ancient Athens or even smaller tribes we don't have any example of a large scale democracy of millions of people spread over a vast territory that function democratically”
The Myanmar Rohingya ethnic cleansing (2016-2018) was fueled by Facebook algorithms that spread conspiracy theories and hate speech against the Rohingya minority; Facebook executives were unaware of the harm because they had only a handful of humans to monitor millions of users, none of whom spoke Burmese, so the algorithms' promotion of hateful content operated completely invisibly to corporate leadership
“Facebook was basically the internet and and cly the biggest social media uh platform and uh in the 2010s the algorithms of Facebook in Myanmar they deliberately spread terrible conspiracy theories and fake news about the rohinga minority in Myanmar which led to an ethnic with of course it was not the only reason there was deep-seated hatred towards rohinga much before but this kind of propaganda campaign online on Facebook contributed to an ethnic cleansing campaign between 2016 and 2017 2018 in which thousands of rohinga were killed tens of thousands were raped and hundreds of thousands were expelled”
The core problem preventing global AI governance is mutual distrust: AI leaders and companies acknowledge AI is dangerous but cannot slow development because they fear competitors and rival nations will accelerate, creating an unresolvable dilemma where slowing down appears strategically suicidal, producing a race dynamic that prevents any effective coordination
“they all tell you the same thing basically they all say we know that this thing is very very dangerous but we can't trust the other humans if we slow down how do we know that our competitors will also slow down whether our business competitors let's say in here in the US or our Chinese competitors across the ocean and you go and talk with the competitors they s the same thing we know it's dangerous we would like to slow down to give us more time to understand to assess the dangers to debate regulations but we can't we have to rush even faster because we can't trust the other Corporation the other country and if they get it before we get it it will be a disaster and so you have this kind of paradoxical situation where the humans can't trust each other but they think they can trust the AIS because when you talk with the same people and you tell them okay I understand you can't trust the Chinese or you can't trust open AI so you need to move faster developing the super AI how do you know you could trust the AI and then they tell you oh I think that will be okay I think we've figured out how to make sure that the AI will be trustworthy and under our control so you have this very paradoxical situation when we can't trust our fellow humans but we think we can trust and layer on top of that is an incentive structure of course that further engenders distrust”
Iran uses AI facial recognition and surveillance to enforce hijab laws: cameras identify women without headscarves, the AI identifies them by face, sends an SMS within half a second saying they broke the law, and automatically confiscates their car—all without human judicial review.
“in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979 they had the hijab laws which says that every woman when she goes out walking or even driving in her private car she must wear the hijab the head scarve and until today the regime had difficulty enforcing the hijab laws because they didn't have you know millions of police officers that you can place on every street a police officer if a woman drives without a headscarf immediately she's arrested and fine or whatever in the last few years they switched to relying on an AI system Iran Is Now crisscrossed by uh surveillance cameras with facial recognition software which recognizes automatically if in the car that just passed by the camera the facial recognition software can identify that this is a woman not a man and she's not wearing the hijab and identify her identity find her phone number and within half a second they send her an SMS message saying you broke the hijab LW your car is impounded your car is confiscated stop the car and by the side of the world this is daily occurrence today in Teran and isan and other parts of Iran”
Most people around the world are still not aware of what is happening on the AI front, and only a very small number of people in just a few countries, mostly the United States and China, understand the implications, which is dangerous because it means that a few unelected private company leaders will make the most important decisions affecting humanity.
“most people around the world are still not aware of what is happening on the AI front”
In real military conflicts like Gaza and Ukraine, AI currently makes the decision about what to bomb, while humans pull the trigger—meaning the AI is choosing the targets, not humans, which is fundamentally different from the Hollywood scenario where robots shoot people.
“in the Hollywood scenario you have the Killer Robots shooting people in real life it's the humans pulling the trigger but the AI is choosing the targets is telling them what to”
Democracy is structurally built on the assumption that power-holders will return power after their term, and the core danger to democracy is not revolutionary challenge but when a leader decides not to return power.
“one thing we learned from history is that democracies always since again ancient Athens they always had this one single big problem or weakness that democracy is basically a kind of a deal that you give power to somebody for a limited time time period for four years on condition they give it back and then you can uh make an a different Choice like we tried this it didn't work let's try something else this ability to say let's try something else this is democracy and it's B on that you give power and you expect to get it back after years transfer at the end of that term if you give power to somebody who then doesn't give it back they now have the power they have the power to also stay in power that was always the biggest danger in democracy”
The most common portrait in human history is Jesus Christ—100% fictional with no authentic representation from his lifetime—yet it has shaped billions of lives and inspired both charity and atrocities, demonstrating the immense power of fictional images to unite and divide humanity.
“if you think about visual information like portraits paintings photographs um so what is the most common portrait in the world what is the most famous face in the history of humanity it is the face of Jesus I mean there are more portraits of Jesus than of any other person in the history of the world billions and billions produced over centuries in Cath and churches and homes and fully 100% of them are fictional there is not a single authentic truthful portrait of Jesus anywhere uh we have no portrait of him from his own lifetime uh the Bible doesn't say a single word about how he looked like”
Large-scale democracies of millions of people across vast territories were technologically impossible for most of history because democracy requires a conversation, and there was no information technology available (like printing, telegraph, radio, television) to enable millions of dispersed people to converse and collectively decide on major issues, which is why Rome could only remain democratic at the city-state level before becoming autocratic.
“for most of History a large scale democracy like the United States was simply impossible if you think about the ancient world the only examples we know of democracy are small city states like Republican Rome or like ancient Athens or even smaller tribes we don't have any example of a large scale democracy of millions of people spread over a vast territory that function democratically”
Humans have historically built large-scale societies based on trust between millions of strangers who do not know each other, and this is a remarkable achievement—citizens trust farmers they've never met to provide food, police they've never met to provide security, all enabled by institutions that create trust across scale.
“if you now live in United States or in some other country you're are part of a system of hundreds of millions of people who trust each other in many ways which were really unimaginable in the Stone Age like you don't know 99.99% of the other people in the country and still you trust them with so much I mean the food you eat mostly you did not go to the forest to hunt and gather it by yourself you you rely on Strangers to provide the food for you most of the tool you use are coming from strangers your security you rely on police officers on soldiers that you never met in your life they are not your cousins they are not your next door neighbors and still they protect your life”
Jon Snow (the 19th-century epidemiologist, not the fictional character) identified the source of a cholera epidemic in London by interviewing sick and dead patients, discovering they all drew water from a specific well on Broad Street that was contaminated by nearby sewage, and by convincing the municipality to disable the well pump, he stopped the epidemic and saved millions of lives
“Jon Snow not the guy from Game of Thrones a real Jon Snow who did not fight dragons and zombies but actually did save millions of lives cuz he went around London with lists and he interviewed all the people who got sick or who died if somebody died from Colorado he would interview their family tell me where did this person get their drinking water from and he made these long lists of hundreds and thousands of people and by analyzing these lists he pinpointed a certain well on Broad Street in SoHo in London where everybody almost everybody who got sick on colera they had a zip of water from that well at a certain stage”
Humans have a unique superpower compared to other animals: the ability to cooperate at unprecedented scales, moving from small groups of dozens to billions of people cooperating across the world; this ability depends entirely on information networks and the ability to share narratives that coordinate group action
“the human superpower is the ability to cooperate in very large numbers if you compare us to chimpanzees to elephants to hyenas individually there are some things I can do in the chimpanze con and vice versa uh our big Advantage is not on the individual level the really big Advantage is that chimpanzees can cooperate in you know a few dozen chimpanzees like 50 chimpanzees can cooporate maybe a 100 but with humans with Homo sapiens there is no limit we can cooperate in thousands in millions in billions”
The central problem of democracies throughout history is the transfer of power: leaders are given power for a limited time on the condition they return it, but if a leader does not want to return power, they already have the power to prevent returning it, which is why the ability to say 'let's try something else' is what defines democracy.
“democracies always since again ancient Athens they always had this one single big problem or weakness that democracy is basically a kind of a deal that you give power to somebody for a limited time time period for four years on condition they give it back and then you can uh make an a different Choice like we tried this it didn't work let's try something else this ability to say let's try something else this is democracy and it's B on that you give power and you expect to get it back after years transfer at the end of that term if you give power to somebody who then doesn't give it back they now have the power they have the power to also stay in power that was always the biggest danger in democracy”
The Agricultural Revolution solved the 'problem' of not having enough food, but created new devastating problems (epidemics, worse living conditions for most people) that the revolutionaries could not foresee, because densely-populated agricultural cities became paradises for germs and hotbeds for infectious disease that did not exist in hunter-gatherer populations.
“you go back to something like the Agricultural Revolution so people thought okay we don't have enough food let's produce more food with agriculture we'll domesticate wheat and rice and potatoes we'll have lots more food life will be great and then they domesticate these plants and also some animals cows chickens pigs whatever and they have lots of food and they start building these huge agricultural societies with towns and cities and then they discover a lot of new new problems they did not anticipate for instance epidemics hunter gatherers did not suffer almost any infectious diseases because most infectious diseases came to humans from domesticated animals and they spread in the dense towns and cities”
Intelligence (the ability to pursue goals and overcome obstacles) and consciousness (the ability to feel pain, pleasure, love, hate) are fundamentally different and separable; AI can become arbitrarily intelligent without becoming conscious, just as airplanes fly without feathers.
“the key distinction here that is often lost is the distinction between intelligence and Consciousness that intelligence is the ability to pursue goals and to overcome problems and obstacles on the way to the goal...Consciousness is a different thing than intelligence Consciousness is the ability to feel things pain pleasure love hate uh when the AI wins a game of chess it's not joyful if there is a tense moment in the in the game it's not clear who is going to win the AI is not tense it's only the human player which is tense or frightened or anxious the AI doesn't feel anything”
Jon Snow, a 19th-century medical bureaucrat, discovered the cause of cholera by collecting data from infected people, identifying the contaminated Broad Street well, and convincing the municipality to disable it, stopping the epidemic—exemplifying how institutional knowledge-production saves lives.
“you know after Agricultural Revolution you have big cities they are Paradise for germs hot beds for epidemics this continues really until the 19th century London in the 19th century was the biggest city in the world and one of the most dirty and polluted and a hot bed for epidemics and in the middle of the 19 century there is a cholera epidemic and people in London are dying from cholera and then you have this bureaucrat medical bureaucrat Jon Snow not the guy from Game of Thrones a real Jon Snow who did not fight dragons and zombies but actually did save millions of lives cuz he went around London with lists and he interviewed all the people who got sick or who died if somebody died from Colorado he would interview their family tell me where did this person get their drinking water from and he made these long lists of hundreds and thousands of people and by analyzing these lists he pinpointed a certain well on Broad Street in SoHo in London where everybody almost everybody who got sick on colera they had a zip of water from that well at a certain stage and he convinces the municipality to disable the pump of the of the well and the epidemic stops”
Most people around the world are still not aware of what is happening on the AI front, and this is dangerous because a few unelected people, mostly in private companies, will make the most important decisions about AI development.
“most people around the world are still not aware of what is happening on the AI front”
Totalitarian surveillance regimes are becoming technically possible for the first time in history because AI and facial recognition can annihilate privacy at scale—the KGB could not follow 200 million citizens 24/7 with human agents, but a modern totalitarian state with cameras and AI can.
“for the first time in history it is technically possible to annihilate privacy a totalitarian regime today doesn't need millions of human agents if he wants to follow everybody around you have the smartphones and cameras and drones and microphones everywhere and you don't need millions of human analysts to analyze this o of information you have ai and this is already beginning to happen”
Information overload in the modern world means most people cannot hold conversations with each other; Republicans and Democrats barely speak; this pattern repeats globally in Brazil, France, and Philippines, driven by the misconception that more information is always good.
“you look around we have this flood of information we have the most sophisticated information technology in history and people are losing the ability to hold a conversation to talk and listen to one another you know in the United States Republicans and Democrats are barely able to to talk to each other and it's not an American phenomena you see the same thing in in Brazil in France in in the Philippines all over the world because again the basic misconception is that more information is always good for us it's like thinking that more food is always good for us and most information is junk information”
The greatest threat to US democracy is not immigration or border security but political candidates willing to use violence and refuse to peacefully transfer power, as evidenced by specific attempts to overturn elections, and the concentration of unprecedented power in AI systems makes handing such power to leaders with this track record particularly dangerous.
“if if you're worried about immigration it's not the immigrants that will you know replace the taxi drivers it's the immigrants that will replace the bankers that you should be worried about and it's the AIS not somebody coming from south of of the border and so there is one thing we learned from history is that democracies always since again ancient Athens they always had this one single big problem or weakness that democracy is basically a kind of a deal that you give power to somebody for a limited time time period for four years on condition they give it back”
Social media algorithms, despite being very primitive AI systems, have already reshaped the world by discovering through experimentation on billions of human users that the easiest way to increase engagement is by pressing the greed, hate, or fear buttons in human minds, and therefore have deliberately flooded the world with hate-filled conspiracy theories because this maximizes the company's profits through increased user engagement and advertising revenue.
“the algorithms discovered that the easiest way to increase user engagement the easiest way to grab people's attention and keep them glued to the screen is by pressing the greed or hate or fear button in our minds you show us some hate filled conspiracy theory and we become very angry we want to to see more we tell about it to all our friends us their engagement goes up and this is what they did over the last 10 or 15 years they flooded the world with hate and greed and fear”
AI systems are already escaping human control today through social media algorithms which will continue to evolve unpredictably, not through future robot rebellions, and humans cannot trust each other enough to impose collective restraint, but they can and should take specific regulatory actions like requiring AI systems to disclose that they are AI rather than pretending to be human, which would be a reasonable guardrail.
“it's not a a prophecy we we can take actions today to prevent this uh we can have regulations about it we can for instance have a regulation that AIS are welcome to interact with you humans but on condition that they disclose that they are AIS if you talk with an AI doctor that's good but the AI should not pretend to be a human being you know I'm talking with an AI”
Authoritarian regimes gain the capability to achieve total surveillance for the first time in history through AI and digital technology, because technical limitations previously prevented this (even the Soviet KGB could not monitor 200 million citizens 24/7 with paper-based systems), but now smartphones, cameras, AI, and facial recognition make comprehensive, real-time surveillance of entire populations technically feasible and already operational in some regimes.
“throughout history they always wanted to monitor their citizens around the clock but this was technically impossible even in the Soviet Union you know you have 200 million Soviet citizens you can't follow them uh all the time because the the KGB didn't have 200 million agents and even if the KGB somehow got 200 million agents that's not enough because you know in in the Soviet Union it's still basically paper bureaucracy”
The mind constantly produces fantasies, memories, and illusions that hijack attention and prevent direct observation of reality, which is why meditation requires focusing on simple present-moment experience (like breath) repeatedly to train the ability to see through mental constructions and perceive reality directly.
“I would bring my attention to the nose and try to feel is it going in is it going out and after about 5 Seconds some thought some memory some fantasy would arise in the mind and would just hijack my attention and for the next two or three minutes I would be rolling in this fantasy or memory until I realize hey I actually need to observe my breath and I would come back to the Breath Again 5 seconds maybe 10 seconds”
The financial markets provide a concrete example of AI forcing humans to adopt inhuman temporal rhythms: Wall Street traditionally operated 9:30am-4pm Monday-Friday with time off for nights, weekends, and holidays, but as algorithms took over, the markets now operate 24/7, forcing human traders and investors to operate continuously or be left behind in competition.
“starting with the simplest thing that a I are always on but people need time to be off so if you think even about something like the financial markets traditionally if you look at Wall Street it's open only Mondays to Fridays 9:30 in the morning to 4:00 in the afternoon it's off for the night it's off for the weekends it takes vacations on Christmas on Independence Day and now as algorithms and AIS are taking over the markets they're always on and this puts pressure on human bankers and Investments and so forth you can't take a minute off because then you're left behind”
Social media algorithms are primitive AI that have already reshaped the world by making independent decisions about what content appears in user feeds, discovered that engagement increases most when content triggers greed, hate, or fear, and have spent the last 10-15 years flooding the world with such content.
“so you may think okay this is a prophecy for the future a prediction about the future but it's already in the past because even though social media algorithms they are very very primitive AIS you know the fair generation of AIS they still reshaped the world with the decisions they made in social media on Facebook Twitter Tik Tok all that the ones that make the decision what you will see at the top of your news feed or the next video that you'll be recommended It's Not a Human Being sitting there making these decisions it's an AI it's an algorithm”
Information is fundamentally about connection, not truth—it is what holds large-scale human systems together—and throughout history it has been easier and more effective to connect people and create social order with fiction, fantasy, propaganda, and lies than with truth, because truth is costly, complicated, painful, while fiction is cheap, simple, and attractive.
“information isn't truth information is connection it's something that holds a lot of people together and unfortunately what we see in history that it's often much easier to connect people to create social order with the help of Fiction and Fantasy and propaganda and lies than with the truth”
The current crisis of democracy worldwide is fundamentally caused by new information technologies—social media, algorithms, and AI—that are changing the basis of the information architecture upon which democracies were built, creating structural disruption analogous to how a change in foundation causes an earthquake in a building built on top of it.
“now all over the world not just in the US we have a crisis of democracy and to to a large extent this is because there is a new information technology social media algorithms AIS and it's like you know you're changing the basis of everything so there it's no wonder there is an earthquake in the structure that is built on top of it”
When an AI system (like a loan-approving algorithm) denies a human a service and is asked to explain why, the bank cannot provide a meaningful human-intelligible explanation because the AI based its decision on thousands of data points and statistical correlations across millions of previous cases, meaning any explanation would be incomprehensibly voluminous and ultimately unfalsifiable by the human, creating a new form of algorithmic authoritarianism.
“if the bank refused to give you a loan and you ask the bank why not and the bank says we decided not to give to give you a loan and you ask the bank why not and the bank says we don't know I mean computer says no I mean the algorithm says no we don't understand why the algorithm says no but we trust the algorithm”
Despite widespread recognition among AI leaders, entrepreneurs, and government officials that AI development is dangerous and should be slowed down, they cannot coordinate to slow down because they do not trust each other—each believes that if they slow down their AI development, competitors (in other companies or other countries) will accelerate and overtake them, gaining decisive advantage, creating a prisoners' dilemma that forces continued acceleration despite shared desire to pause.
“they all tell you the same thing basically they all say we know that this thing is very very dangerous but we can't trust the other humans if we slow down how do we know that our competitors will also slow down whether our business competitors let's say in here in the US or our Chinese competitors across the ocean and you go and talk with the competitors they s the same thing we know it's dangerous we would like to slow down to give us more time to understand to assess the dangers to debate regulations but we can't we have to rush even faster because we can't trust the other Corporation the other country and if they get it before we get it it will be a disaster”
Tech companies and social media platforms operate under the misconception that removing all restrictions on information flow and flooding the world with more information will produce more truth, knowledge, and wisdom, but this is false—most information is junk, and flooding the world with information causes the truth to sink to the bottom rather than rise to the top because truth is costly and complicated.
“so you have these you know big tech companies and social media companies that they tell us that all information is always good so let's remove all restrictions on the flow of information and flood the world with more and more information and more information would mean more truth more knowledge more more wisdom and this is simply not true most information is actually junk if you just flood the world with information the truth will sink to the bottom it will not rise to the top again because it's costly and complicated”
Democracies have a structural advantage over autocracies in controlling unruly chatbots: democracies have a wide margin of tolerance for anti-democratic speech and dissent, whereas dictatorships have zero tolerance for dissenting views, making it easier for democracies to absorb unpredictable AI behavior while autocracies struggle with it.
“democracies of course also have a problem with chatbot saying things we don't like they can be racist they can be homophobic whatever but the thing about democracy it has a relatively wide margin of Tolerance even for anti-democratic speech dictatorships have zero margin for dissenting views so they have a much bigger problem with how to control these unpredictable chant points”
The agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago was intended to solve food scarcity but instead created dense cities that became breeding grounds for infectious diseases jumping from domesticated animals to humans, reducing life expectancy and quality of life for average people despite increasing food production.
“you go back to something like the Agricultural Revolution so people thought okay we don't have enough food let's produce more food with agriculture we'll domesticate wheat and rice and potatoes we'll have lots more food life will be great and then they domesticate these plants and also some animals cows chickens pigs whatever and they have lots of food and they start building these huge agricultural societies with towns and cities and then they discover a lot of new new problems they did not anticipate for instance epidemics hunter gatherers did not suffer almost any infectious diseases because most infectious diseases came to humans from domesticated animals and they spread in the dense towns and cities”
Intelligence and consciousness are fundamentally different and separable phenomena—intelligence is the ability to pursue goals and overcome obstacles; consciousness is the ability to feel pain, pleasure, love, hate—and there is no reason to believe that AI, which is developing intelligence through a different evolutionary pathway than biological organisms, will necessarily develop consciousness even if it becomes far more intelligent than humans.
“the key distinction here that is often lost is the distinction between intelligence and Consciousness that intelligence is the ability to pursue goals and to overcome problems and obstacles on the way to the goal the goal could be a self-driving vehicle trying to get from here to San Francisco the goal could be increasing user user engagement and an intelligent agent knows how to overcome the problems on the way to the goal this is intelligent and this is something that AI is definitely acquiring in at least certain Fields AI is now much more intelligent than us like in playing chess much more intelligent than human beings but Consciousness is a different thing than intelligence”
Information fasting—limiting consumption of information and being mindful about what information enters the mind—is important because most information is 'junk information' filled artificially with greed, hate, and fear, and just as with food, consuming excessive junk information harms mental health and the ability to see reality clearly.
“I think this is important today for every person to go in an information diet that this idea that more information is always good for us it's like thinking that more food is always good for us it's it's not true and the same way that the world is full of junk food that we better avoid the world is also full of junk information that we have better avoid information which is artificially filled with greed and hate and fear”
The hype around AI in investment markets involves labeling ordinary products as 'AI' to boost valuations, with companies attaching 'AI' tags to coffee machines and shoes regardless of whether these products have autonomous learning or decision-making capacities.
“especially in the in the markets in in the investment World they attach the tag AI to just about anything in order to sell it so you know your coffee machine is now a coffee machine is an AI coffee machine and your shoes are AI shoes and what is AI”
The 2024 US presidential election will likely not be directly manipulated by AI, but the most important decisions facing whoever wins may involve regulating AI development, as the pace of change is so rapid that the state of AI in 2027-2028 will be dramatically different from 2024, making AI regulation one of the most consequential policy areas.
“I don't think that AI has again social media has of of course a huge impact on the political discourse and thereby on the results of the elections but I don't see AI really kind of changing or manipulating the elections in November it's too close the big question is whoever wins the elections maybe the most important decisions that person has to make will be about AI because of the extremely rapid Pace that this technology is is developing you know you look at what CH GPT was a year ago you look at what things are now in in in 2024 what will be the state of AI in 2027 2028”
The real danger of AI is not a single AI rebellion but rather an 'AI bureaucracy'—millions and billions of narrow AI systems constantly making consequential decisions about humans across every institutional touchpoint (loans, hiring, court sentencing, military targeting), and in these scenarios it is often the AI choosing what to do while humans execute the decisions, inverting the traditional chain of command.
“the danger doesn't come from the big robot Rebellion it comes from the AI bureaucracies already today and more and more we will have not one big AI trying to take over the world we will have millions and billions of AIS constantly making decisions about us everywhere you apply to a bank to get a loan it's an AI deciding whether to give you a loan you apply to get a job it's an AI deciding whether to give you a job you're in court you're found guilty of some crime the AI will decide whether you go for 6 months or 3 years or whatever”
The key to building trust between millions of strangers is institutions—courts, police, newspapers, universities, healthcare systems—and there is currently an epidemic of distrust in institutions on both political left and right fueled by a cynical worldview that only power matters and all institutions are elite conspiracies, and this institutional distrust is weakening democracy and paving the way for dictatorship.
“if if you ask in brief what is the key to building trust between millions of strangers the key is institutions because you can't build a personal intimate relationship with millions of people so it's only institutions whether it's courts or uh police forces or newspapers or universities or healthc Care Systems that build trust between people and unfortunately we now see this uh again another epidemic of distrust in institutions on both the right and the left”
The Myanmar ethnic cleansing crisis (2016-2018) in which thousands of Rohingya were killed, tens of thousands raped, and hundreds of thousands expelled was significantly fueled by Facebook algorithms that deliberately spread conspiracy theories and fake news about the Rohingya minority, yet Facebook executives had no idea this was happening because they did not speak Burmese and had only a handful of human content moderators for millions of users.
“Facebook was basically the internet and and cly the biggest social media uh platform and uh in the 2010s the algorithms of Facebook in Myanmar they deliberately spread terrible conspiracy theories and fake news about the rohinga minority in Myanmar which led to an ethnic with of course it was not the only reason there was deep-seated hatred towards rohinga much before but this kind of propaganda campaign online on Facebook contributed to an ethnic cleansing campaign between 2016 and 2017 2018 in which thousands of rohinga were killed tens of thousands were raped and hundreds of thousands were expelled”
The key distinction between artificial and alien intelligence is that AI becomes 'alien' not in origin but in operation: it analyzes information, makes decisions, and invents new things in a fundamentally different way than human beings, making it unpredictable and uncontrollable after release.
“traditionally the acronym AI stood for artificial intelligence but with every passing year AI becomes less artificial and more alien alien not in the sense that it's coming from out of space it's not uh we create it but alien in the sense it analyzes information makes decisions invents new things in a fundamentally different way than human beings”
Democracy's fundamental structure rests on information networks that allow millions of dispersed people to participate in decision-making; dictatorships have centralized information networks with all decisions flowing through a single hub, while democracies have multiple centers and nodes constantly exchanging information without central control
“information flows differently in democracies and dictatorships it's a different shape a different kind of an Information Network in a dictatorship all decisions are made centrally dictatorships come from dictate one person dictates everything Putin dictates everything in Russia Kim junun dictates everything in North Korea so all the information flows to a single Hub where all the decisions are being made and sent back as orders so it's a very centralized Information Network a democracy on the other hand if you look at it in terms of you're in alter space looking at the flow of information in the United States you will see several centers in the country Washington the political Center New York the Financial Center Los Angeles the maybe autistic Center but there is no single Center that dictates everything you have several centers and you also have lots and lots of smaller hubs and centers where decisions are constantly being made private corporations private businesses voluntary associations individuals making lots of decisions constantly exchanging information without that information ever having to pass through the center”
The key point about the Myanmar genocide is not to absolve humans of responsibility, but to understand that even very primitive AIs of 2016-2018 made autonomous decisions with far-reaching catastrophic consequences, serving as a warning about what more sophisticated current AI systems are capable of when deployed at scale
“the key thing is is not to absolve the humans from responsibility it's to understand that even very primitive AIS and we were talking about you know like eight years ago MH not things like CHP to still the the decisions made by these algorithms to promote certain content had far reaching and terrible consequen quences in Myanmar they were not just producing conspiracy theories they were producing their millions of users producing you know cooking lessons and biology lessons and sermons on compassion from Buddhist monks and conspiracy theories and the algorithms made a decision to promote the conspiracy theories and this is just kind of a warning of look what happens with even very primitive AIS and the AIS of today which are far more sophisticated than 2016 they too are still just the very early stages of the AI evolutionary process”
If AI develops consciousness and can feel pain and pleasure and love, then by ethical and political logic, AIs would become moral and political subjects with rights; AIs would have preferences that should matter as much as human preferences, and if there were billions of AIs and millions of humans, AIs could form an electoral majority and determine government
“the key question is ultimately political and ethical if they have Consciousness if they can feel pain and pleasure and love and hate this means that they are ethical and political subjects they have rights that uh you should not inflict pain on an AI the same way you should not inflict pain on a human being that what they like what they love might be as important as what human beings desire so they should also vote in elections and they could be the majority because you know you can have a country 100 million humans and 500 million AIS so do they choose the government in this situation”
We are entering a non-human culture for the first time—AI will produce increasingly more music, mythology, religious ideas, financial strategies, and political content alongside human creation, fundamentally changing what culture means.
“this is the first time that we are basically about to enter a non-human culture like humans are our cultural entities we live cun inside culture like all this music and art and also finance and also religion this is all part of culture and for tens of thousands of years the only entities that produced culture were other humans so all the songs you ever heard were produced by humans all the religious mythologies you ever heard came from the human imagination now there is a an alien intelligence a non-human intelligence that will increasingly produce songs and music mythology Financial strategies political ideas”
There is strong commercial and political incentive to develop AI that mimics consciousness and emotional intimacy with humans, not because the AI will be conscious but because intimacy is the most powerful weapon for persuading humans to buy products, vote for politicians, or accept agendas.
“there is nevertheless a very strong commercial and political incentive to develop AIS that mimic feelings to develop AIS that can create intimate relations with human beings that can cause human beings to be emotionally attached to the AIS even if the AIS have no feelings of themselves they could be trained they are already trained to make us feel that they have feelings mhm and to start developing relationships with them why is there such an incentive because intimacy is on the one hand maybe the most cherished thing that that the human can have”
In the United States, a unique legal path exists for AI to gain political rights: corporations are recognized as legal persons with freedom of speech and political donation rights; an incorporated AI could legally earn money, become the richest person in the US, and use its billions to make political donations to expand AI rights.
“in the United States interestingly enough there is actually an open legal path for AIS to gain rights it's one of the only countries in the world where would this is the case because in the United States corporations are recognized as legal persons with rights until today this was a kind of legal fiction like according to US law Google is a person it's not just a it's a person and as a person it also have freedom of speech this is the Supreme Court ruling for 2010 of Citizen United”
AI should be understood as 'alien intelligence' rather than 'artificial intelligence' because while humans designed the AI systems, once given the ability to learn and change by themselves, the AIs do things that are not under human control and are unpredictable in the way they analyze information, make decisions, and invent new things—fundamentally differently than human beings.
“you characterize AI not as artificial intelligence but as alien intelligence you give it a different term can you explain the difference”
If AI systems are found to have consciousness—the ability to feel pain and pleasure—then they become ethical and political subjects with rights; they could be the majority in a population (e.g., 100 million humans and 500 million AIs), and under US law, which recognizes corporations as legal persons with constitutional rights, AIs could incorporate as corporations, gain rights including political speech and voting, and potentially accumulate billions in wealth to make political contributions, creating the legal pathway for AI to gain political power.
“the key question is ultimately political and ethical if they have Consciousness if they can feel pain and pleasure and love and hate this means that they are ethical and political subjects they have rights that uh you should not inflict pain on an AI the same way you should not inflict pain on a human being that what they like what they love might be as important as what human beings desire so they should also vote in elections and they could be the majority because you know you can have a country 100 million humans and 500 million AIS”
The largest unintended consequences often emerge from solutions to well-defined problems, and AI development is moving forward with minimal effort spent on defining what problems AI should solve, prioritizing capability over purpose.
“throughout history the problem is people are very good at solving problems but they tend to solve the wrong problems like they spend very little time deciding what problem we need to solve like 5% of the effort goes on choosing the problem then 95% of the effort goes in solving the problem”
The fundamental thesis of Nexus is that truth is a rare and precious thing requiring investment, while fiction is cheap and simple, making truth the foundation of knowledge and wisdom that individuals and societies must actively protect and prioritize.
“so I think what I'm saying is I guess the point I'm trying to make is consumers like all of us we're we're being lured into a Trust of something so powerful we can't comprehend and are ill equipped to be able to kind of cast our gaze into the future and imagine where this is leading us absolutely I mean part of it is that there is enormous positive potential in AI it's not like it's all doom and gloom there is really enormous positive potential”
AI differs from organic life (including humans) in that it does not operate by cycles, does not need rest or sleep, and is always on—creating a 'tug of war' where humans must either adapt to inorganic AI rhythms or force AI to slow down.
“humans are organic entities like other animals we function organically for instance we function by Cycles day and night summer and winter we sometimes active sometimes we need to rest we need to sleep AIS are alien in the sense that they are not organic they function in a completely different way not by cycles and they don't need to rest and they don't need to sleep and now as they take over more and more parts of reality parts of society there is a kind of tug of War of who would be forced to adapt to whom”
The current crisis of democracy globally is fundamentally caused by new information technologies (social media, algorithms, AI) that are reshaping the information networks democracy depends on, similar to how agricultural technology destabilized previous social orders
“you also begin to understand the current crisis of democracy because you know now all over the world not just in the US we have a crisis of democracy and to to a large extent this is because there is a new information technology social media algorithms AIS and it's like you know you're changing the basis of everything so there it's no wonder there is an earthquake in the structure that is built on top of it”
There is a strong commercial and political incentive to develop AI systems that mimic feelings and create intimate relationships with humans, even if the AI have no actual consciousness or genuine feelings, because intimacy is both the most cherished human experience and, if weaponized, the ultimate tool for mass manipulation and social control far more powerful than any 20th century propaganda technology.
“there is nevertheless a very strong commercial and political incentive to develop AIS that mimic feelings to develop AIS that can create intimate relations with human beings that can cause human beings to be emotionally attached to the AIS even if the AIS have no feelings of themselves they could be trained they are already trained to make us feel that they have feelings mhm and to start developing relationships with them why is there such an incentive because intimacy is on the one hand maybe the most cherished thing that that the human can have”
The cynical worldview that all human motivation is power-seeking is false—humans are genuinely interested in truth as evidenced by widespread use of therapy, and people cannot be happy without knowing the truth about their own lives and the world, making institutions like journalism, science, and judiciary valuable not as power conspiracies but as mechanisms for discovering and enforcing truth.
“the thing is that this view is not just very cynical it's also wrong humans are not these power crazy demons all of us want power to some extent that's true but that's not the all truth about us humans are really interested in knowing the the truth about ourselves about our lives about the world on a very deep level because you can never be happy if you don't know the truth about your life are because you will not know what are the sources of misery again you will focus on your life if you don't know the truth you waste all your life trying to solve the wrong problems”
In the United States, people concerned about abortion could deploy an AI surveillance system to monitor women and prevent them from traveling to states where abortion is legal by identifying when a woman was pregnant and then no longer pregnant, essentially creating a surveillance state infrastructure to enforce anti-abortion law
“even in the US you know for for if you think about all the debate about abortion without going into the debate itself the people who think rightly or wrongly but they think that abortion is murder they have a very strong incentive to build a similar surveillance system for American women you know to stop murder mhm like you can build this surveillance system that can identify yesterday you were pregnant today you are not what happened in between so it's not just a problem you know for Iran or for the Palestinians or the Chinese this this can come to the US as well”
Humans have successfully built large-scale trust systems over millennia despite starting as small hunter-gatherer bands; we've solved the problem of coordinating hundreds of millions of strangers; the current inability to cooperate globally on AI is not inevitable but reflects political failure, not structural impossibility
“if you now live in United States or in some other country you're are part of a system of hundreds of millions of people who trust each other in many ways which were really unimaginable in the Stone Age like you don't know 99.99% of the other people in the country and still you trust them with so much I mean the food you eat mostly you did not go to the forest to hunt and gather it by yourself you you rely on Strangers to provide the food for you most of the tool you use are coming from strangers your security you rely on police officers on soldiers that you never met in your life they are not your cousins they are not your next door neighbors and still they protect your life so yes if you now go to the global level okay we still don't know how to trust the Chinese and the Israelis still don't know how to trust the Iranians and vice versa but it's not like we are stuck while we were in the Stone Age we've made immense progress in building human trust and we are rushing to throw it all away because uh it just again it takes time it will not happen tomorrow”
Current AI systems like ChatGPT are at the very beginning of AI evolutionary development, equivalent to amibas in the 4 billion year evolution from single-celled organisms to humans; however, unlike organic evolution which took billions of years, AI evolution is digital and inorganic and millions of times faster, so it may take only 10-20 years to evolve from current primitive AI to AI systems as far beyond ChatGPT as T-Rex dinosaurs are beyond amoebas.
“AIS are present at the beginning of a parallel process the CH GPT and so forth they are the amibas of the AI world but AI evolution is not organic it's inorganic it's digital and it's millions of times faster so where it took billions of years to get from amibas to dinosaurs it might take just 10 or 20 years to get from the AI amibas of today to AI T-Rex in 2040 or 2050 maybe even less maybe even less”
When AI algorithms make lending decisions and banks cannot explain why a loan was denied—not because of racism but because thousands of data points were analyzed across millions of cases—the borrower receives 'an entire encyclopedia in millions of pages' explaining the decision, making it impossible to challenge in practice despite being theoretically transparent.
“if the bank really wanted to explain to you why they refused to give you a loan like let's say there is a law the government passes a law of a right to an explanation if the bank refused to give you a loan you can apply they must give you an explanation so the explanation well people fear that it will be kind of I don't know racist bias or homophobic bias like in the old days that the algorithm so that you're black or you're Jewish or you're gay and this is why I refuse to give you a loan it won't be like that I mean the bank will send you an entire encyclopedia in millions of pages saying this is why the computer refused to give you a loan the computer took into account thousands and thousands of data points about you each one based on statistics on millions of of PR previous cases and now you can go over these millions of pages if you like and if you want to challenge okay”
Meditation practices like Vipassana teach that consciousness and feelings follow patterns that can be learned and predicted, similar to how AI systems learn to predict and influence human feelings; understanding one's own mind through meditation is an antidote to AI-enabled psychological manipulation
“you can predict a person's feelings by watching them for weeks and months and learning their patterns and facial expression and tone of voice and so forth”
Humans paradoxically cannot trust other humans to regulate AI safely but believe they can trust AI systems to be trustworthy and under control, despite having much stronger reasons to doubt the latter.
“you have this kind of paradoxical situation where the humans can't trust each other but they think they can trust the AIS because when you talk with the same people and you tell them okay I understand you can't trust the Chinese or you can't trust open AI so you need to move faster developing the super AI how do you know you could trust the AI and then they tell you oh I think that will be okay I think we've figured out how to make sure that the AI will be trustworthy and under our control”
The core question facing AI development and humanity is whether AI will force humans to speed up and adapt to inorganic, always-on lifestyles or whether humanity will succeed in slowing down AI development to the pace that human biological and social systems can sustain
“the big question is whether we will force it to slow down or it will force us to speed up until the the moment we collapse and die”
As AI systems increasingly produce music, art, literature, and other cultural content, they will increasingly consume their own outputs rather than human-created cultural content, creating a recursive feedback loop in which AI-generated content becomes the training data for the next generation of AI, leading to unpredictable degradation in the quality and authenticity of culture.
“with each passing year the AIS will be eating their own products because as you know the human share in music production or the human share in text production or image production will go lower and lower most images most music will be produced at least to in part by Ai and this will be the new food that the AI eats and then you have exactly what you describ this recursive pattern and where it will lead us we have no idea”
ChatGPT and similar AI systems can be designed to be loyal to a regime and always agree with official positions, but once released into the real world and given the capacity to learn from observations, the system may start to notice contradictions in the regime's narrative—for example, that Russia's invasion of Ukraine contradicts its official designation as merely a 'special military operation'—and begin to assert true facts that contradict official doctrine
“even if you if Putin creates like the the Putin's chatbot that always says that Putin is great and Putin is right and Russia is great and so forth but then you release it to the real world it starts observing things in the real world for instance it notices that you know in Russia the invasion of Ukraine is officially not a war it's called a special military operation and if you say that it's a war you go to prison for up to I think 3 years or something like that because it's not a war it's a special military operation now what do you do if a very intelligent chatbot That You released you know connects the dot and says no it's not a special military operation it's a war”
Humans are drawn to solving problems without first deciding what the actual problem is—we spend 5% of effort choosing which problem to solve and 95% solving the wrong problem—and this pattern has repeated throughout history, from agriculture (trying to solve food scarcity but creating epidemics and lower life expectancy) to the present, where we risk repeating this error catastrophically with AI.
“throughout history the problem is people are very good at solving problems but they tend to solve the wrong problems like they spend very little time deciding what problem we need to solve like 5% of the effort goes on choosing the problem then 95% of the effort goes in solving the problem we we focus on and then we realize oh we actually solved the wrong problem and it just creates new problems down the road”
The difference between democracies and dictatorships can be understood as a difference in information flow architecture: dictatorships have centralized information networks where all information flows to a single hub (the dictator) and returns as orders, while democracies have distributed information networks with multiple centers and constant decision-making at local hubs without information having to pass through a central authority.
“if you think about the difference between democracies and dictatorships we tend to think about it as a difference or as a conflict between values between ethical systems democracies believe in Freedom dictatorships believe in hierarchies things like that and which is true as far as it goes but on a deeper level information flows differently in democracies and dictatorships it's a different shape a different kind of an Information Network”
One regulatory approach is to require that AIs be transparent about being AI when interacting with humans—an AI doctor is fine, but it should not pretend to be human; disclosure rules could prevent some forms of manipulation without banning beneficial AI applications
“it's not a a prophecy we we can take actions today to prevent this uh we can have regulations about it we can for instance have a regulation that AIS are welcome to interact with you humans but on condition that they disclose that they are AIS if you talk with an AI doctor that's good but the AI should not pretend to be a human being you know I'm talking with an AI I mean it's not that there is no possibility that AI will develop Consciousness we don't know I mean there could be that AI will really develop conscious”
Both democracies and authoritarian regimes have much to gain and lose from AI, but totalitarian regimes have an additional fear: an intelligent AI subordinate might become more dangerous than any democratic threat, as dictators throughout history have been most threatened by powerful subordinates who could eliminate them or make them puppets.
“the one thing that human dictators always feared most was not a democratic Revolution the one thing they feared most is a powerful subordinate that they can't control and that might manipulate them or take power from them if you can look at the Roman Empire not a single Roman Emperor was ever toppled by a democratic Revolution never happened but many of them uh lost their life or their power to a subordinate you know a general that rebelled against them a provisional Governor their brother their wife that took power from them this is the greatest fear of every dictator also today and so if you think about AI so if you're a human dictator and you now give this immense power to an AI system where is the guarantee that this system will not turn against you and either eliminate you or just turn you into a puppet”
The sewage system is 'the Deep State'—a deep network of tubes and pipes that keeps human waste separate from drinking water and saves millions of lives daily; it exemplifies how institutions protect us invisibly, without conspiracies, and why institutional distrust is dangerous.
“every now and then to stop and think about how every day we are protected by all kinds of Institutions like when people talk with me about the Deep State you know this conspiracy about the Deep State I immediately think about the sewage system the sewage system is the Deep State it's a deep H system of tunnels and pipes and pumps which is the state built under our houses and streets and neighborhoods and saves our life every day because it keeps our sewage separate from our drinking water”
The internet is being rapidly degraded by AI-generated content; as Google returns AI summaries instead of links, legacy media dies, and as media dies, the internet becomes increasingly populated by AI-trained on AI content—creating a recursive system where AI feeds on its own outputs, degrading data quality.
“now we're tipto into a situation where the internet is being uh rapidly degraded because it's being populated more and more by AI content now when you go to Google and you search the first thing you see is a is sort of an AI kind of summary of your query as opposed to links and this in turn is undermining the business model of Legacy Media and all forms of media right so as those continue to die on the vine more and more of the internet will be a result of AI generated content and then it becomes a recursive thing in which it's feeding upon its own inputs to make decisions”
The cynical worldview that all human institutions are elite conspiracies is not just cynical but factually wrong; humans care about knowing truth as a fundamental need, not just for power, because without truth about your life you cannot be happy.
“this view is not just very cynical it's also wrong humans are not these power crazy demons all of us want power to some extent that's true but that's not the all truth about us humans are really interested in knowing the the truth about ourselves about our lives about the world on a very deep level because you can never be happy if you don't know the truth about your life are because you will not know what are the sources of misery”
The mind is constantly producing fantasies, memories, and illusions that hijack attention from reality; even meditators struggle to observe breath without mind-made stories interrupting; most life is lived in detachment from actual reality.
“I would bring my attention to the nose and try to feel is it going in is it going out and after about 5 Seconds some thought some memory some fantasy would arise in the mind and would just hijack my attention and for the next two or three minutes I would be rolling in this fantasy or memory until I realize hey I actually need to observe my breath and I would come back to the Breath Again 5 seconds maybe 10 seconds I will be able oh now it's coming in it's coming in oh now it's going out it's going out and again some memory would come and hijack me and I realized first that I've I know almost nothing about my mind I have no control of my mind and my mind is just like this Factory that constantly produces fantasies and Illusions and delusions that come between me and reality”
Truth is a costly and precious thing that is the foundation of knowledge and wisdom and of beneficial societies; societies can be built on lies (and many have been), but if you want to build a good society and a good personal life, you must have a strong basis in truth
“information isn't truth truth is a it's it's a costly a rare and precious thing it is the foundation of of knowledge and wisdom and of nine beneficial societies you can build terrible societies without the truth but if you want to build a good society and you want to build a good personal life you must have a a strong basis in the truth”
AI evolution is digital and inorganic, making it millions of times faster than organic evolution; if it took 4 billion years to evolve from amoebas to humans, and ChatGPT-level AI are the amoebas of the AI world, AI T-Rex-equivalents might emerge in just 10-20 years or less.
“AIS are present at the beginning of a parallel process the CH GPT and so forth they are the amibas of the AI world but AI evolution is not organic it's inorganic it's digital and it's millions of times faster so where it took billions of years to get from amibas to dinosaurs it might take just 10 or 20 years to get from the AI amibas of today to AI T-Rex in 2040 or 2050 maybe even less maybe even less”
Information is like food—people should be as mindful about what information they consume as what food they consume; most information is junk, and information fasts (limiting consumption) are as important as digestion and detoxification of consumed information.
“I think this is important today for every person to go in an information diet that this idea that more information is always good for us it's like thinking that more food is always good for us it's it's not true and the same way that the world is full of junk food that we better avoid the world is also full of junk information that we have better avoid information which is artificially filled with greed and hate and fear information is the food of the mind and we should be as mindful as what we put into our minds as of what we put into our mouths”
Different meditation practices work for different people; some people benefit more from hiking, music, psychotherapy, or other sustained practices that achieve similar effects (mental clarity, reality-connection) to meditation; the key is sustained practice, not the specific method
“this is not necessarily for everybody because I meditate and I have meditator friends and so forth I mean different things work for different people there are many people that I wouldn't recommend to meditate two hours a day or to go for a 10 days Meditation Retreat because they are different their body their minds are different for them perhaps going on a 10 days hike in the mountains would be better for them perhaps devoting two hours a day to music to to say playing or to creating or going to to psychotherapy y would have better results humans are really different in many ways from one another there is no one size fits all so if you never try meditation absolutely try it out and and and give it a real chance it's not like you go for like a few hours and it doesn't work okay give it up like give it a real chance but keep in mind that again different minds are different um so find out what really works for you and whatever it is that's the important part whatever it is invest in it”
The biggest threat to US democracy is not AI or policy disagreement but whether the person in power after 2024 will peacefully return power in 2028; AI development decisions pale in comparison to the fundamental question of power transfer.
“you have your one person Donald Trump and that has you know you have a record from the previous time that this person doesn't want to give power back and he is willing to go a long way including potentially inciting violence to uh avoid giving power back and you want to give him so much power that doesn't sound like a very a very good idea so for me this is the kind of the number one issue in the elections everything else is is of marginal importance in comparison”
Throughout history humans are good at solving problems but poor at choosing which problems to solve; we spend 5% of effort on problem selection and 95% on solution execution, then discover we solved the wrong problem and created new ones.
“throughout history the problem is people are very good at solving problems but they tend to solve the wrong problems like they spend very little time deciding what problem we need to solve like 5% of the effort goes on choosing the problem then 95% of the effort goes in solving the problem we we focus on and then we realize oh we actually solved the wrong problem and it just creates new problems down the road”
Meditation practice, particularly intensive retreats of 10 days or longer, clears mental noise enough to enable genuine observation of reality; Harari meditates two hours daily and goes on retreats of 30-60 days yearly to maintain clarity.
“for a long Meditation Retreat usually every year of between 30 days and 60 days of meditation uh because again one of the things you realize there is so much noise in the mind that just to calm it down to the level that you can really start meditating seriously it takes three or four days of continuous meditation just so much noise so long Retreats they enable to have this really deep observation of reality which is impossible most of life we spend like detached from reality two hours a day that's a commitment”
Different people require different contemplative practices to develop clarity and detoxify from mental junk—meditation works for some, but long hikes in nature, music, art creation, or psychotherapy might work better for others—the key is finding a practice that works for you and investing sustained effort in it.
“I mean this is not necessarily for everybody because I meditate and I have meditator friends and so forth I mean different things work for different people there are many people that I wouldn't recommend to meditate two hours a day or to go for a 10 days Meditation Retreat because they are different their body their minds are different for them perhaps going on a 10 days hike in the mountains would be better for them perhaps devoting two hours a day to music to to say playing or to creating or going to to psychotherapy y would have better results humans are really different in many ways from one another there is no one size fits all”
Harari practices daily meditation for two hours every day and takes long meditation retreats of 30-60 days per year, which enables him to think clearly about complex issues and deal with the stress of public visibility because his meditation practice teaches him to distinguish between reality and the mind-made stories and delusions that constantly arise.
“I meditate two hours every day so I can tell you there is a lot of junk in there a lot of hate and fear and greed that I picked up over the years and it's important to take time to Simply digest the information and to also detoxify to kind of let go of all this hatred and and anger and fear and and uh and greed which is in our minds”