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Just ask the Capital One Bank

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He'd also tell you that this

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Ah, really? Thanks Capital One Bank

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Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms

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Apply. See Capital one.com/Bank. Capital One

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N-A member FDIC. In

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this episode, you will be listening

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to Mental Mastery vs Mental Slavery, why

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99 % stay trapped, with you will

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know a Harari. Get

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access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the

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link in the show notes. Well,

0:47

I think this is maybe the

0:49

most important thing to know about living

0:51

right now in the 21st century

0:53

that we are now hackable animals.

0:55

We have the technology to decipher what

0:59

you think, what you want

1:01

to predict human choices, to manipulate

1:04

human desires in ways which

1:06

were never possible before. Basically,

1:09

to hack a human being, you need

1:11

two things. You need a

1:13

lot of data, especially

1:15

biometric data, not just about where you

1:17

go and what you buy, but

1:19

what is happening inside your body and

1:21

inside your brain. And secondly,

1:23

you need a lot of computing power. to

1:26

make sense of all that

1:28

data. Now previously in

1:30

history, this was never

1:32

possible. Nobody had enough

1:35

data and enough computing power

1:37

to hack human beings.

1:39

Even if the KGB or

1:41

the Gestapo followed you

1:43

around 24 hours a day,

1:45

eavesdropping on every conversation

1:47

you had, watching everybody you

1:49

meet, still they did

1:51

not have the biological knowledge.

1:54

to really understand what's happening

1:56

inside you and they

1:58

certainly didn't have the computing

2:00

power necessary to make sense even

2:02

of the data they were

2:05

able to collect. So

2:07

the KGB could not really

2:09

understand you, could not really

2:11

predict all your choices or

2:13

manipulate all your desires and

2:15

so forth. But now it's

2:17

changing. What the KGB

2:20

couldn't do corporations and

2:22

governments today are beginning to

2:24

be able to do. And

2:26

this is because of the

2:28

merger of the revolution in

2:31

biotech. We are getting better

2:33

in understanding what's happening inside

2:35

us, in the body, in

2:37

the brain. And at

2:39

the same time, the revolution

2:41

in infotech, which gives us

2:43

the computing power necessary. When

2:45

you put the two together,

2:47

When infotech merges with biotech,

2:50

what you get is the

2:52

ability to create algorithms that

2:54

understand me better than I

2:56

understand myself. And then

2:58

these algorithms cannot just predict my

3:00

choices, but also manipulate my desires

3:03

and basically sell me anything, whether

3:05

it's a product or a politician.

3:07

Yeah, this is one of the things you can

3:10

do. Then you can predict, you can

3:12

manipulate, you can

3:14

eventually also re -engineer

3:16

or replace. If you

3:18

really hack a system, you really

3:20

understand how it functions, then usually

3:22

you can also re -engineer it, or

3:24

you can completely replace it. And

3:27

again, one of the dangers that

3:29

we are facing today in the

3:31

21st century is that computers and

3:33

AI would be able to replace

3:35

humans in more and more tasks

3:37

and maybe push millions of humans

3:39

out of the job market as

3:41

a result. The thing

3:43

about this ability to hack

3:45

humans is that it has

3:47

also potentially tremendous positive consequences

3:49

and this is why it's

3:51

so tempting. If it

3:53

was only bad then it would

3:55

have been like an easy

3:57

deal to say, okay, we don't

4:00

want that and let's stop

4:02

researching or going in that direction.

4:04

But it is extremely tempting

4:06

because it can provide us, for

4:08

example, with the best healthcare

4:10

in history, something which goes far

4:12

beyond anything we've seen so

4:14

far. This can mean that maybe

4:17

in 30 years, the poorest

4:19

person on the planet can get

4:21

a better healthcare from her

4:23

or his smartphone than the richest

4:25

person today gets from the

4:27

best hospitals and the best doctors.

4:30

The kind of things you can

4:32

just know about what's happening

4:34

in your body is nothing like

4:36

we've seen so far. The

4:38

Stanford algorithm, actually there is a lot

4:41

of problems with that research and let's put

4:43

it aside, but first key

4:45

message from that is

4:47

how little people actually know

4:49

about themselves. And

4:51

one of the most important

4:53

things in my life and also

4:56

I think in my scientific

4:58

career was the realization of how

5:00

little I know about myself

5:02

and humans in general. There were

5:04

so many important ideas and

5:07

important facts we don't realize about

5:09

ourselves. I was 21. when

5:11

I finally realized that I was

5:13

gay, which is, you know, when

5:15

you think about it, it's absolutely amazing. I

5:17

mean, it should have been obvious at age,

5:19

you know, 16, 15. And

5:21

an algorithm would have realized it

5:24

very quickly. And you can build

5:26

algorithms like that today or in

5:28

a few years. You just

5:30

need to follow your eye

5:32

movements, like you go on

5:34

the beach, or you look at the

5:36

computer screen and you see an

5:38

attractive guy and an attractive girl and

5:41

just follow the focus of the

5:43

eyes. Where do the eyes go and

5:45

whom do they focus on? It

5:47

should be very easy. And

5:49

such an algorithm could have told

5:51

when I was 15 that I

5:53

was gay. And

5:55

the implications are really mind -boggling.

5:58

when an algorithm knows such

6:00

an important thing about you

6:02

before you know it about

6:04

yourself. Now, it can go

6:06

in all kinds of directions. It really depends

6:08

on where you live and what you

6:10

do with it. In some countries,

6:13

you can be in trouble now with

6:15

the police and the government. You

6:17

might be sent to

6:19

some re -education facility. In

6:22

some countries, like with

6:24

surveillance capitalism, so maybe

6:26

I don't know about myself that

6:28

I'm gay, but Coca -Cola knows that

6:30

I'm gay because they have these algorithms

6:32

and they want to know that

6:34

because they need to know which commercials

6:36

to show me. Let's say Coca -Cola

6:38

knows that I'm gay and I

6:40

even know it about myself that they

6:42

know it and Pepsi doesn't. Coca

6:45

-Cola will show me a commercial

6:47

with a shirtless guy drinking Coca -Cola

6:49

but Pepsi will make the mistake

6:51

of showing a girl in the

6:53

bikini. And next day, without my

6:55

realizing why, when I go to

6:57

the supermarket, when I go to

6:59

the restaurant, I will order Coca

7:01

-Cola, not Pepsi. I don't know

7:03

why, but they know. So

7:05

they might not even share this kind of

7:07

information with me. Now, if

7:09

the algorithm does share the

7:11

information with me, again, it all

7:13

depends on context. One scenario

7:15

is that you're 15 years old,

7:17

you go to a birthday

7:19

party of somebody from your class,

7:21

and somebody just heard that

7:23

there is this cool new algorithm

7:25

which tells you your sexual

7:27

orientation. And everybody

7:29

agrees it will be a

7:32

lot of fun to just

7:34

have this game that everybody

7:36

takes turn with the algorithm

7:38

and everybody else looking and

7:40

seeing the results. Would you

7:42

like to discover about yourself

7:44

in such a scenario? This

7:46

can be quite a shocking

7:48

experience. But even if it's

7:50

done in complete privacy, it's

7:52

a very deep

7:54

philosophical question. What

7:57

does it mean to

7:59

discover something like that about

8:01

yourself from an algorithm? What

8:04

does it mean about human life,

8:06

about human identity? We

8:08

have very little experience

8:10

with these kinds of things.

8:13

You know, from very ancient times, all

8:16

the philosophers and saints and sages tell

8:18

people to get to know yourself better.

8:20

It's one of the, maybe the most

8:22

important thing in life, is to get

8:24

to know yourself better. But

8:26

for all of history, this

8:28

was a process of self

8:31

-exploration, which you did through

8:33

things like meditation and maybe

8:35

sports and maybe art and contemplation

8:37

and all these things. What

8:39

does it mean? when

8:41

the process of self

8:43

-exploration is being outsourced

8:45

to a big data

8:47

algorithm. And the philosophical

8:49

implications are quite mind -boggling.

8:52

Something as simple as choosing music,

8:54

so you were just dumped

8:56

by your boyfriend or girlfriend, and

8:59

the algorithm that controls

9:01

the music that you listen

9:03

to chooses the songs

9:05

that are the best fit.

9:08

for your current mental

9:10

state. And of course,

9:12

this brings up the question of what

9:14

is the metric? What do you actually want

9:16

from the music? Do you want

9:18

the music to uplift you? Or

9:20

do you want the music to kind

9:22

of connect you to the deepest

9:24

level of sadness and depression? And

9:27

ultimately, we can say

9:29

that the algorithm can follow

9:31

different kinds of instructions. If

9:34

you know, what kind of

9:36

emotional state you want to be

9:38

in, you can just tell

9:40

the algorithm what you want and

9:42

it will do it. If

9:44

you are not sure, you can

9:47

tell the algorithm, follow the

9:49

recommendation of the best psychologist today.

9:52

So let's say you have the five stages

9:54

of grief. So, okay,

9:56

walk me with music

9:58

through these five stages of

10:00

grief. And the

10:02

algorithm can do that better

10:04

than any human DJ. And

10:07

what we really need to

10:09

understand in this regard is that

10:11

what music and most of

10:13

art plays on in the

10:15

end is the human biochemical system,

10:18

at least according to the

10:20

dominant view of art in

10:22

the modern Western world. We

10:24

had different views in different cultures,

10:26

but in the modern Western

10:28

world, the idea of art

10:30

is that art is above

10:32

all about inspiring human emotions. It

10:35

doesn't necessarily have to be joy, great

10:38

art. can inspire also

10:40

sadness, can inspire

10:42

anger, can inspire fear.

10:44

It can be a whole

10:46

palette of emotional states,

10:48

but out is about inspiring

10:50

human emotions. So

10:52

the instrument artists play

10:54

on, and whether it's

10:56

musicians or poets or

10:59

movie makers, they're actually

11:01

playing on the Homo

11:03

sapiens biochemical system. And

11:05

we might reach a

11:07

point quite soon when an

11:09

algorithm knows this instrument

11:11

better than any human artist.

11:14

A movie or a poem

11:16

or a song that will

11:18

not move you, that will

11:20

not inspire you, might inspire

11:22

me. And something that will

11:24

inspire me in one situation

11:26

might not inspire me in

11:28

another situation. And as time

11:30

goes on and the algorithm gathers

11:32

more and more data about me,

11:34

it will become more and more

11:37

accurate. in reading my biochemical

11:39

system and knowing how to play

11:41

on it as if it was

11:43

a piano like okay you want

11:45

joy I press this button and

11:47

out comes the perfect song the

11:49

only song in the world that

11:51

can actually make me joyful right

11:53

now if there is like something

11:56

seriously wrong in my body that

11:58

I don't know about, like, I

12:00

don't know, cancer or something, I

12:02

would like the algorithm to find

12:04

that out. I don't want to

12:06

wait until, I mean, the usual

12:08

process is that it has to

12:10

go through your own mind. You

12:12

can't outsource it. I mean, today,

12:15

when you need to diagnose cancer,

12:17

there are exceptions. But in most

12:19

cases, there is a crucial moment

12:21

when you feel something is wrong

12:23

in my body. and you go

12:25

to this doctor and that doctor

12:27

and you do this test and

12:29

that test until they finally realize,

12:31

okay, we just discovered you have

12:34

cancer in your liver or whatever.

12:37

But because it relies

12:39

on your own feelings, in

12:42

this case, feelings of pain, very

12:44

often it's quite late

12:46

in the process. By

12:48

the time you start feeling

12:50

pain, usually the cancer has

12:52

spread And maybe it's not

12:54

too late, but it's going

12:56

to be expensive and painful

12:58

and problematic to treat it.

13:01

But if we can outsource

13:03

this, don't go through the

13:05

mind, through my feelings. I

13:08

want an algorithm that with

13:10

biometric sensors is monitoring my

13:12

health 24 hours a day

13:14

without my being aware of

13:16

it. It can

13:18

potentially discover this liver cancer

13:20

But it's just a

13:23

tiny, just a few cells

13:25

are beginning to split

13:27

and to spread. And

13:29

it's so easy and cheap and

13:31

painless to take care of it

13:33

now instead of two years later

13:35

when it's already spread and it's

13:37

a big problem. So this is

13:39

something that I think almost everybody

13:42

would sign on to. And this

13:44

is the big temptation because it

13:46

comes with the whole other, the

13:48

long tail of dangers. I

13:50

mean, this algorithm, the

13:52

healthcare system knows almost everything

13:55

about you. So

13:57

one of the biggest battles

13:59

in the century is

14:01

likely to be between privacy

14:03

and health. And

14:05

I guess that health is going to win. Most

14:09

people will be willing to give

14:11

up a very significant amount of

14:13

privacy in exchange for far better

14:15

healthcare. Now, we do need to

14:17

try and enjoy both worlds to

14:19

create a system that gives us

14:21

a very good healthcare but without

14:24

compromising our privacy, keeping the, yes,

14:26

you can use the data to

14:28

tell me that there is a

14:30

problem and we should do this

14:32

or that to solve it, but

14:34

I don't want this data to

14:36

be used for other purposes without

14:39

my knowing it. Whether we can

14:41

reach such a balance, and

14:43

like, you know, have your cake and

14:45

eat it too, that's a big political

14:47

question. So our identity

14:49

is really just a story

14:51

which we constantly construct and

14:53

embellish. I mean, you can

14:56

say that the entire human

14:58

mind is a machine that

15:00

constantly produces stories and especially

15:02

one very important story which

15:04

is my story. And

15:07

different people have specialized

15:09

in different genres. Some people

15:11

build their stories a tragedy. Some

15:13

people build their stories a comedy or as

15:15

a drama. But in

15:17

the end, the self

15:20

is a story and

15:22

not a real thing. And

15:25

on the one hand, with all the

15:27

new technologies, you get

15:29

better and better

15:31

abilities to construct yourself.

15:34

But already today, A lot

15:36

of the work which previously

15:38

was done in the brain and

15:40

in the mind of constructing

15:43

my identity, my story, has been

15:45

outsourced to things like Facebook. That

15:48

you build your Facebook account

15:50

and this is actually outsourcing it

15:52

from the brain and you

15:54

are busy maybe for hours every

15:56

day just building a story.

15:58

and becoming extremely attached to it

16:01

and publicizing it to everybody.

16:03

And you tend to make this

16:05

fundamental mistake. You think this

16:07

is really me. First

16:09

of all, if you take something

16:11

like the profile that people

16:13

create about themselves in Facebook or

16:15

in Instagram, it should be

16:18

obvious. It doesn't really reflect your

16:20

actual existence, your actual reality,

16:22

both inner reality and outer reality,

16:24

like the percentage of time

16:26

you smile in your Instagram account

16:28

is much bigger than the

16:30

percentage of time you smile in

16:32

real life. And you

16:34

go on some vacation and

16:36

you post the images from

16:38

the vacation. So usually you're

16:41

smiling in your swimming suit

16:43

on the beach with your

16:45

girlfriend and boyfriend holding this

16:47

cocktail and everything looks perfect

16:49

and everybody is so envious.

16:52

but actually you just had a

16:54

nasty fight with your boyfriend

16:56

five minutes ago and then this

16:58

is the image that everybody

17:00

else is seeing and thinking

17:03

oh they must have such wonderful

17:05

time and afterwards like a

17:07

year later or two years later

17:09

you look back and this

17:11

is what you see and

17:13

you forget what was the actual

17:16

experience like we constantly edit

17:18

the the story Just

17:20

like the news on TV are edited

17:22

and just like, you know, it's a

17:24

bit like making a movie. Like you

17:26

watch the movie in the cinema and

17:29

everything is so seamless. Like,

17:31

yeah, this is the story, it flows. And

17:33

then when you actually see how

17:35

a movie is produced, this is insane.

17:38

Like, you have this tiny

17:40

bit of a scene. You

17:42

repeat it 50 times and

17:44

sometimes, you know, you shoot

17:46

this scene, this scene two

17:48

comes after scene one, but

17:50

actually it was filmed long

17:52

before that. So sometimes you

17:55

film the breakup of the

17:57

lovers before you film the

17:59

first meeting for all kinds

18:01

of scheduled reasons and locations. So

18:03

the end result

18:06

is completely seamless and

18:08

perfect. but it is

18:10

actually made up from all these

18:12

tiny disconnected bits that have been,

18:14

you know, this is from here

18:16

and this is from there and

18:19

we somehow glue it together and

18:21

it looks good. And it's

18:23

the same with the story of our

18:25

life. It's all kinds of

18:27

bits and pieces and only when

18:29

you tell it to yourself or

18:31

to somebody else, it kind of

18:33

makes sense. The cost

18:36

of trying to stick

18:38

with the reality as it

18:40

is is very, very

18:42

high. It's very difficult,

18:44

it demands a lot of

18:47

effort and it's often very

18:49

painful because you have to

18:51

acknowledge many things about yourself

18:53

that you don't want to

18:55

acknowledge them. People have this

18:58

fantasy of going to some

19:00

retreat and just taking out

19:02

a week or two from

19:04

life. to really observe

19:07

inside, to really explore

19:09

who am I, what is

19:11

my authentic self. And they have

19:13

this fantastic notion that I

19:15

will be able to finally connect

19:17

to my inner child and

19:19

I will discover my true vocation

19:21

in life and I will

19:23

discover all these wonderful things about

19:26

me. And when you actually

19:28

do it, the first

19:30

thing you usually encounter is all

19:32

the things you don't want

19:34

to know about yourself. There is

19:36

a reason that you don't

19:38

want to know them. I think

19:40

it's worth the effort, but

19:42

it's a very, very hard task.

20:04

It's pretty much all he talks about, in

20:06

a good way. He'd also tell you that

20:08

this podcast is his favorite podcast, too. Ah,

20:11

really? Thanks, Capital One Bank

20:13

Guy. What's in your wallet?

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