TRIGGERnometry - Dr Pippa Malmgren on Trump, Social Credit, AI & Virtual Reality

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this is the

00:00:12.360 show for you if you're bored of people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about

00:00:17.200 at trigonometry we don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts our fantastic expert guest this

00:00:23.700 week is a returning guest to trigonometry the first returning guest to trigonometry

00:00:27.480 She's a former advisor to U.S. President and the founder of H-Robotics, Dr. Pippa Malmgren.

00:00:33.780 I got it, right?

00:00:34.860 Yeah, I guess.

00:00:36.020 Welcome back to Trigonometry.

00:00:46.420 Did you say I guessed, so I got it wrong?

00:00:48.360 No, you got it good.

00:00:49.400 I got it good, all right.

00:00:50.820 It's Swedish, it's got too many consonants, nobody can...

00:00:53.340 Yeah, I struggle, to be honest, but it's so great to have you back.

00:00:56.200 We're really, really pleased you've come back to talk to us.

00:00:58.200 You're one of our absolute favorite guests.

00:01:00.300 And for anyone who didn't watch the first interview, just remind everybody who you are,

00:01:04.200 what's been your journey through life, kind of, you know, how are you, where you are.

00:01:07.140 Oh, well, bottom line is, look, I'm an economist.

00:01:10.040 So what I try to do is help shape economic policy by advising governments.

00:01:14.080 So I'm currently a non-executive director of the British government on the Brexit and trade policy issues.

00:01:20.140 I try to explain the economy by writing books.

00:01:22.880 And I've got a new book coming out.

00:01:24.060 Oh, it's right there.

00:01:24.700 Yeah, we'll be talking.

00:01:25.580 coming out. And then I kind of got tired of just being an economist who talked about the world

00:01:32.920 economy and decided to start building it. So I have a robotics company that I co-founded.

00:01:37.320 As you do.

00:01:38.320 As you do, exactly. And that's one of the reasons we want, there's loads of reasons we wanted to

00:01:42.800 speak to you because last time we talked about all kinds of things. But there was a particular

00:01:46.240 moment of, I think, about 40 minutes in when you just started talking about technology and

00:01:51.860 Francis's head just started to explode a little bit and so did mine and we were just like we have

00:01:57.300 to come back and talk about this for a good good portion of time but before we get to that there

00:02:04.440 is something that's been going on with Donald Trump recently that we just wanted to get your

00:02:08.220 take on yeah one of two things yeah and obviously by the time this goes out a couple of weeks from

00:02:14.340 now he might not be president anymore right that's a possibility is he going to be impeached do you

00:02:19.360 IS THAT WHERE THIS IS GOING?

00:02:21.360 SO MY DAD SERVED FOUR PRESIDENTS.

00:02:23.360 I'VE SERVED TWO PRESIDENTS.

00:02:25.360 I'VE GROWN UP IN THIS ENVIRONMENT.

00:02:27.360 AND HERE'S MY INSTINCT.

00:02:29.360 NEITHER THE DEMOCRATS NOR THE

00:02:31.360 REPUBLICANS WANT TO HAVE THEIR

00:02:33.360 FINGERPRINTS ON AN IMPEACHMENT

00:02:35.360 BECAUSE IT RIPPS THE NATION APART.

00:02:37.360 IT IS SO DEVASTATING TO THE SOUL

00:02:39.360 OF THE COUNTRY, LEAVING ASIDE HOW

00:02:41.360 MUCH PEOPLE MIGHT HATE THE

00:02:43.360 CURRENT PRESIDENT, THAT YOU CAN'T

00:02:45.360 DO IT.

00:02:46.360 YOU CAN'T PULL THE TRIGGER ON THAT

00:02:48.360 And that's why everybody says, let's not do it.

00:02:51.200 Let's get the prosecutor to do it. 0.98

00:02:53.280 Prosecutors are supposed to do this. 0.97

00:02:54.520 They love grabbing on to the ankle of a bad guy and then hauling him down to jails.

00:02:58.900 Let him do the job.

00:03:00.660 And so that was the plan.

00:03:02.040 But it turns out not so easy.

00:03:04.260 And we've seen the Mueller investigation dragging on, not that many charges brought, to be fair, considering how much time.

00:03:12.100 And I personally think the real game in town is not Mueller.

00:03:15.680 It's Barbara Underwood, who is the state attorney general in New York. 0.56

00:03:20.180 And they have been very aggressive, saying they are coming after the Trump family, the Trump companies.

00:03:26.620 That matters because you've got to remember, in the Mueller case, really, theoretically, the president can pardon everyone, including himself.

00:03:34.560 So there's no teeth in it.

00:03:36.640 Whereas the state federal level—the state level is totally different from federal, and the president has zero capacity to pardon anyone.

00:03:44.080 And the penalty for a New York state charge is not federal penitentiary.

00:03:50.840 That's a white-collar prison with a golf course and tennis courts.

00:03:54.760 New York state penitentiary is almost not survivable for a white-collar criminal.

00:04:00.140 So it's a—I mean, it's viewed in Washington as literally a death sentence.

00:04:05.840 So this is the negotiating point, and that's why I tell everybody, watch Barbara Underwood

00:04:10.040 Sounds like a character

00:04:11.780 out of House of Cards.

00:04:13.220 Well, he is.

00:04:14.200 And this is House of Cards.

00:04:15.900 By the way,

00:04:16.480 I met the guy

00:04:16.940 who wrote House of Cards

00:04:17.840 and I said to him,

00:04:19.660 I think that you're

00:04:20.460 toning it down

00:04:21.180 for the audience.

00:04:22.000 And he goes,

00:04:22.380 you're from Washington, D.C.

00:04:23.560 And I went, I am.

00:04:24.580 And he went,

00:04:25.740 you're right,

00:04:26.140 I am toning it down.

00:04:27.720 So, you know,

00:04:28.960 it's a tough town, Washington.

00:04:30.580 So, if you were Trump

00:04:32.120 at this point,

00:04:33.000 and I realize

00:04:33.700 it's quite a...

00:04:34.580 Okay, this is a leap

00:04:37.500 into this man's head.

00:04:39.080 Yeah.

00:04:39.220 Would you be worried with everything that's going on?

00:04:43.240 Bear in mind, in terms of front, he almost seems untouchable to the outside eye

00:04:49.900 because everybody else gets arrested, everybody else goes down,

00:04:53.140 and he just carries on regardless.

00:04:55.120 He's got a lot of Teflon factor.

00:04:57.400 Just like Ronald Reagan, who I worked for as a kid right out of college.

00:05:01.540 He also had incredible Teflon.

00:05:03.800 He also had charm, which is absent in this case.

00:05:06.640 But at any rate, you know, who knows what's going on inside of Trump's head?

00:05:11.820 I mean, we know a little more because of Bob Woodward's book, and he taped everything.

00:05:16.440 I would say this.

00:05:17.720 The way to think about Trump is he's a property guy who wants to win the deal and get the prize.

00:05:24.500 So, you know, I've talked a lot about his interest in the North Korea deal.

00:05:29.340 It's all about—he may not get the Nobel, but if we get resolution between North and South Korea,

00:05:34.620 The leaders of those two countries are going to get the Nobel, and he'll be basking in the aura of that.

00:05:40.800 And for him, that's, like, totally worth it.

00:05:43.240 I think that he's got all kinds of things like this where he sees a prize.

00:05:48.260 And as long as he gets those, then he feels like, whatever, you can do what you like, but I'm going to win anyway.

00:05:55.080 Including, you know, I would keep a little eye on any announcements out of the U.S. space station and NASA

00:06:03.220 that we might even aim to do a moonshot during the Trump administration.

00:06:09.460 And I know, amazing as that sounds, but that would be so up his alley to create a—

00:06:15.180 and what has he just announced?

00:06:16.620 The Space Force.

00:06:18.060 What is that a cover story for?

00:06:20.180 Getting a man back up in space, or a woman maybe this time.

00:06:24.420 This is the kind of thing he's thinking,

00:06:26.420 I'm going to do this, and it's going to make history,

00:06:28.560 and you can try to take me down.

00:06:30.360 That's the way he thinks.

00:06:31.800 Hey, you know what?

00:06:33.260 Ivanka in space.

00:06:35.340 Well, I think most people would prefer him to be in space.

00:06:37.760 But, you know, I'm not a big fan of Donald Trump,

00:06:40.700 but I would love for him to get the Nobel Peace Prize

00:06:43.540 just to see how badly everyone gets triggered by this.

00:06:47.820 I would love it.

00:06:48.300 I'm talking about trigonometry.

00:06:49.020 Yeah, right.

00:06:49.620 Oh, my gosh.

00:06:50.260 Well, it would change the whole perception of the peace prize.

00:06:53.000 But listen, your book is about leadership, the Leadership Lab.

00:06:56.260 What do you think is kind of happening with Donald Trump vis-a-vis this leadership?

00:07:00.740 Like, what's happening there?

00:07:02.520 Why has America opted for him, and what's going on there?

00:07:06.040 I have to say, I just spent a month in the U.S., different parts of America.

00:07:10.780 And, I mean, I grew up in America.

00:07:12.280 I'm American.

00:07:13.060 What I felt like was, oh, my God, Kramer, the television show on CNBC, and Shark Tank.

00:07:21.320 That is how Americans speak to each other.

00:07:23.800 That is normal dialogue now.

00:07:26.300 That used to be just one television program that was kind of for people who were extreme.

00:07:30.880 No, the whole country.

00:07:32.620 What about this?

00:07:33.800 You know, you want a newspaper.

00:07:35.400 Do you have the money?

00:07:36.480 I mean, it's literally this kind of attitude is really heavy on everybody.

00:07:40.440 Everybody wears it on their sleeve, the attitude.

00:07:42.940 So I wonder, I'm like, he's kind of a creation of our own making in many respects

00:07:47.760 because the whole country behaves like this now.

00:07:50.500 What I also detect, and I've heard the private polls that the politicians have, which are run by companies that are what they call purple—they're kind of not red, they're not blue, they're genuinely neutral—they're all showing that there's a massive backlash.

00:08:08.820 but it's particularly female voters, and they don't care anymore about public policy stances. 1.00

00:08:15.580 They care about having someone their children can watch without being embarrassed.

00:08:21.060 It's literally like, don't even talk to me about public policy, politics, law, strategy.

00:08:26.960 I want a person that my child can turn the television on, and I don't have to explain what they're saying.

00:08:32.580 And I think that this is one of the reasons we're seeing a record number of female and minority political candidates at every level of government.

00:08:41.100 And they're starting to get voted in because people don't care that they don't have any experience.

00:08:45.840 Ironically, the same motivation they had for electing Trump, which is, I don't care if they have experience.

00:08:51.900 I want this guy to take the government down from the inside.

00:08:55.880 We have the exact same view, just now we want a different person to take it down from the inside.

00:09:00.220 So the hostility of the public towards the federal government remains very, very high.

00:09:07.200 And I would argue it has been that way, because that was partly how Obama got elected, right?

00:09:11.200 He was elected on a radical change mandate.

00:09:13.820 And a lot of people felt he didn't deliver as much radical change as they wanted,

00:09:17.320 so they went for something even more radical, in a sense.

00:09:20.200 They may do the same again.

00:09:22.380 And, by the way, I'll finish last thing is, you know,

00:09:24.660 we have a long tradition of electing very outside candidates, right?

00:09:29.540 Like, nobody ever heard of Bill Clinton two years before he became president.

00:09:33.580 Nobody heard of Obama two years before he became president.

00:09:36.520 The president I worked for, George W., everybody's like, 0.89

00:09:38.740 don't be ridiculous, that's such an outside possibility, he'll never win. 0.94

00:09:42.420 And he wins. 0.99

00:09:43.620 So I would put a lot of money on the person you never heard of right now.

00:09:48.800 Wow.

00:09:49.240 Amazing.

00:09:49.860 And would you say he's a good leader, Trump, in what he does?

00:09:52.600 Because, I mean, if you look at the figures economically, they're not doing too badly.

00:09:57.300 Well, I agree, but here's the question.

00:09:59.060 how much is because of the president.

00:10:01.020 Right. According to him.

00:10:02.120 Yeah, well, all of it. It's mine. It's all mine.

00:10:05.060 And I touched everything. It's mine.

00:10:06.940 Well, so every president, to be fair,

00:10:09.160 gets to claim credit for the good stuff

00:10:10.800 that happens during their watch.

00:10:12.600 And they all do this.

00:10:14.520 You know, in my last book,

00:10:15.840 I wrote about how the economy was absolutely improving

00:10:18.940 and exports would increase

00:10:20.720 and foreign direct investment would increase

00:10:22.680 and jobs were moving from China back to the U.S.

00:10:24.740 That was years before Trump came to office.

00:10:29.060 So the real issue, I think, is, yes, the economy is getting better.

00:10:34.580 And that's a big problem in politics because the Democrats now not only don't have a candidate, they don't have a story.

00:10:41.400 The story used to be the economy is up the creek.

00:10:44.580 You've got to vote for me.

00:10:45.680 What are you going to say now?

00:10:47.120 Because the economy is not up the creek.

00:10:49.260 And I think it's actually going to keep getting stronger.

00:10:52.200 I think I'm the only bull left in the entire financial markets because everybody's like, the crash is coming.

00:10:58.260 The crash is coming tomorrow.

00:11:00.080 Really?

00:11:00.560 Because we're not in that world.

00:11:02.180 People are now saying the crash is coming.

00:11:03.900 People are really genuinely prepared for a meltdown on an epic scale.

00:11:08.780 Because we're booming, therefore the bust is coming.

00:11:10.880 It has to be, because we've had the longest full run in history, so that can't last.

00:11:17.220 And we've just seen fairly recently Amazon's valuation, the first company hit a trillion dollar valuation.

00:11:23.580 So most people think that's it.

00:11:24.860 We're at the top.

00:11:25.860 I have the opposite view.

00:11:27.240 I think the Amazon hitting a trillion is the beginning of a whole new era of valuations, that we are in a whole new category.

00:11:35.500 And that's partly because we still have $20 trillion from quantitative easing left in the system that now is coming off the sidelines because investors are going, wait a minute, inflation is definitely picking up.

00:11:46.280 And we can see that now in the data.

00:11:47.760 It's no longer that, you know, every time you go out for dinner, you're like, what?

00:11:50.760 The steak costs what?

00:11:51.820 You know, the wine costs more.

00:11:53.260 I mean, everyone palpably knows prices are higher.

00:11:56.680 But the data is now really reflecting that it's higher.

00:11:59.880 So investors know you lose money every day, that you have inflation, if you have cash.

00:12:04.140 So they're going, ah, I've got to get out of cash.

00:12:06.400 So what are they going to get into?

00:12:07.520 If you have inflation, you're not going to buy bonds.

00:12:10.060 So you're going to buy equities, what they call private equity, which means private investment

00:12:14.760 and private businesses, or hard assets like infrastructure.

00:12:19.620 And all of those, guess what they do?

00:12:21.920 They make the markets go higher.

00:12:23.420 So I actually think that we should be preparing for several more years of stronger performance rather than a sudden crash.

00:12:31.360 So he's going to get reelected?

00:12:33.000 Well, no, not necessarily, because you can have the economy performing well and have so turned off the public, even in your own team, that everybody goes, basta, enough.

00:12:44.980 Has that happened in the history of American elections?

00:12:47.000 I haven't gone back and done the numbers, but I would say it would be hugely exceptional to have a strong economy and get chucked out.

00:12:55.800 But if you're hugely obnoxious, maybe this is possible.

00:13:00.660 Well, it's just like your former boss is a good example.

00:13:03.940 I mean, the Iraq war was deeply unpopular.

00:13:06.300 Same in Britain.

00:13:07.680 Tony Blair was deeply unpopular for going into Iraq, but they both got reelected because the economy was doing well, right?

00:13:12.980 They did.

00:13:13.440 And so the question is, is that decision about Iraq less offensive to people than what Trump has done?

00:13:22.480 It's kind of sad in a way, isn't it?

00:13:23.940 Yeah, and interestingly, maybe.

00:13:26.040 And what does that say about all of us and our interest in people affected by our own decisions?

00:13:32.220 These are powerful things to consider.

00:13:33.760 When you put it that way, that is pretty crazy.

00:13:35.620 I mean, you know, the war in Iraq killed at least a million people.

00:13:38.860 I know.

00:13:39.920 So it's quite shocking.

00:13:40.860 The other thing is it's very awkward.

00:13:42.860 You know, a lot of Republicans like myself, we wanted someone who was going to, you know, push the establishment, shake it up a bit, make government smaller, reduce taxes, hopefully rein in the spending.

00:13:58.640 You know, we like this as libertarians, but what we weren't really banking on was someone who would do it in such a way as to create enemies at every turn and send messages to the public that unless you're in my particular category or a second-class citizen, this is totally inconsistent with these core values that you're trying to promote individual freedoms versus centralized government.

00:14:28.320 So now there's this awful situation that you've got a lot of Republicans who are like,

00:14:32.000 I like the philosophy, but I can't handle the delivery.

00:14:37.560 And I think this, again, is going to be really hard,

00:14:40.280 because now what I'm arguing is that we're going to see a Republican go up against the president,

00:14:46.660 and that is a very unusual thing.

00:14:48.980 Has that ever happened?

00:14:50.240 I'm sure it has, but it has, but it's usually a dead end.

00:14:54.960 But on this occasion, maybe not.

00:14:57.740 Right. Maybe not. And then I haven't got into the whole business of the real possibility that Trump doesn't run.

00:15:04.080 He voluntarily doesn't run. He announces I'm going to step down, but he'll never say step down.

00:15:09.500 What he'll say is I have bigger plans. And my bigger plan is I am going to launch what they're calling TNN.

00:15:15.680 It's the Trump version of CNN. It is the Trump platform that will have everything from reality TV to political talk shows.

00:15:26.260 I mean, literally, it'll be T-N-N. 0.97

00:15:28.780 And my guess is, if that's where he wants to go, I think he does want to go there.

00:15:32.700 I think he was planning for that when he ran for the presidency.

00:15:34.960 He didn't expect to win.

00:15:35.800 He expected to use that to launch this thing.

00:15:38.560 But I think he's probably already raised a good chunk of change to do that

00:15:41.740 and wouldn't have a hard time raising money to do it if he leaves.

00:15:45.520 And actually, the politicians on the left and the right might say,

00:15:48.700 you know what, that would be an excellent solution

00:15:51.320 because then nobody has to pull the trigger on an impeachment.

00:15:54.820 We bargain with him that if he goes, we don't prosecute him.

00:15:59.560 The New York State Attorney General vaguely says, yeah.

00:16:04.080 And then as soon as he's out, begins prosecution because they're not going to hold back.

00:16:09.100 They're going to go for what they go for.

00:16:10.840 But at least then the fight is private.

00:16:12.860 It's not a public fight of the president in the Oval Office.

00:16:16.860 It's a private fight of a former president about his businesses.

00:16:20.580 and Donald if you're watching we're massive fans and we would love to be on TNN

00:16:25.600 yeah I'm sure I'm sure he's watching me that's what's happening but but to be fair the TNN thing

00:16:30.820 don't forget there's a huge component of the American public who do think in this way and

00:16:36.980 will like what he's doing oh absolutely you know and you can see that his his popularity approval

00:16:42.380 you know it remains like 48 48 48 no matter what happens and so we can't be too dismissive of that

00:16:49.480 side they're real and they're not going to go away let's move on to technology you've got a

00:17:03.460 whole chapter in your book which talks about that and like i said last time we were absolutely

00:17:08.260 fascinated by it and you know what i was thinking you and i met two years ago at kilkenomics in

00:17:13.300 island doing comedy well yeah i was doing you were doing the same thing i was doing comedy

00:17:18.300 and we were chatting in the bar after one of the shows that we were on and you were telling me

00:17:25.500 about this new thing in china where they're going to have this system where they're going to track

00:17:29.880 everybody's behavior and all this stuff and i'll be honest with you pippa i really like you but i 0.79

00:17:34.740 was sitting there listening to you going she's a little bit crazy she could be a little bit crazy 0.99

00:17:41.040 Maybe she smoked a lot of weed when she was a student. 1.00

00:17:44.620 That's so interesting.

00:17:45.560 Yeah, I was sitting there.

00:17:46.820 And then a year later, it's happened.

00:17:50.460 It's real.

00:17:51.360 And that's what you were talking to us about last time you were on the show.

00:17:55.620 What the hell is going on and what's to come?

00:17:58.360 Because now I believe you.

00:17:59.560 Thank you.

00:18:00.340 Okay, so let's just quickly go through what is already real.

00:18:04.360 Right.

00:18:05.220 If you jaywalk in not all of China, they've only rolled it out in one city,

00:18:09.440 but they're going to roll it out nationally.

00:18:10.600 If you jaywalk, it clocks that you've done it because the cameras are ubiquitous now.

00:18:16.360 So the facial recognition is incredibly strong.

00:18:19.220 They have the most valuable artificial intelligence startup in the world.

00:18:22.320 In fact, the most valuable startup in the world called SenseTime.

00:18:25.380 And it can recognize an individual out of a crowd of 10,000.

00:18:28.780 And it can recognize your emotional state at any given time.

00:18:32.620 So it clocks.

00:18:33.660 It's you and particularly you.

00:18:34.940 Next thing you know, you pick your mobile phone up.

00:18:36.960 And the fine for having jaywalked is already in your text messages, if not already deducted from your bank account.

00:18:44.540 And your name and or your government number is already broadcast on the OLED screen that's above the intersection, the nearest intersection.

00:18:53.880 So you've now been broadcast to everyone nearby that you are bad and you just violated the law.

00:18:58.800 Now, this is important because what it does is affects your effectively personal Uber score.

00:19:03.400 The social credit system is based on the idea that you're given a score, which reflects your social compliance.

00:19:10.940 So if you Google stuff that they don't want you looking at, your score goes down.

00:19:15.720 If your brother or your sister does it, your score goes down.

00:19:21.600 Because Mao always said the best eyes and watchers, or it's not the government, is to get everybody to report on each other.

00:19:29.480 And this is a kind of a, I mean, the Stasi would love this system, but it's bigger than that. 0.55

00:19:36.280 Within the last few weeks, it's been announced that when you tap, swipe, and pinch on your mobile device,

00:19:44.540 it's a better indicator of who you are than your thumbprint.

00:19:48.200 So now, even if you're using someone else's phone, they know it's you.

00:19:52.720 Triangulate that with the way you walk.

00:19:54.600 It turns out your walking gait is also a better indicator of who you are than your thumbprint.

00:20:01.400 So what they're doing is taking all these things and triangulating.

00:20:05.940 Think about it as previously independent silos of data.

00:20:09.800 Now they triangulate using artificial intelligence to pull it all together.

00:20:14.080 But it goes even deeper than that.

00:20:16.540 And recently they arrested someone at a rock concert of like 60,000 people because, again,

00:20:21.660 The face went by one camera, bang it clocks, this person is wanted, and they went to the person's seat, you know, the debit card, yep, the ticket, yep, they're arrested.

00:20:32.800 I think they now have 11 million people who are, you can buy a train ticket or a plane ticket, but you can't board it.

00:20:40.040 They won't permit you.

00:20:41.280 So effectively, wherever you are.

00:20:44.000 No, no, so they're putting you into digital prisons.

00:20:46.820 So, I think one of the spouses of one of the dissenters, she's, like, locked into a very small, few-block area around her house.

00:20:58.640 And any time she tries to move beyond it, the officials are alerted and the police will be right there.

00:21:03.700 So, she literally is stuck in a digital prison.

00:21:07.060 This is basically what the technology permits.

00:21:09.800 And it rewards you if you do things that are supportive of what government's interested in.

00:21:15.120 and it basically penalizes you if you don't.

00:21:17.840 We're doing the same thing in the West.

00:21:19.680 It's just it's not government that's doing it.

00:21:21.960 We have private entities that do it.

00:21:23.540 We have Facebook that does it.

00:21:24.840 We have Amazon that does it. 0.53

00:21:26.100 We have Uber that does it. 0.98

00:21:28.140 And I don't know if you saw, but there's been an announcement

00:21:31.120 that there's been a deal between, it seems, Google and MasterCard.

00:21:37.840 So now if I go to, you know, I don't know, a department store

00:21:41.940 and I buy this color lipstick, Google's going to know, and now they know what they're going to

00:21:47.420 advertise to me. So I'm concerned about this, and I write a lot about this in my book, because

00:21:53.780 imagine what we've got. It's a world where you are emitting data points about yourself all the time

00:22:00.140 without even knowing it, because you've turned all the fitness apps off on your phone, but the fact

00:22:04.780 is the way you walk is revealing a lot about you, including, by the way, your cardiac condition,

00:22:10.200 a lot about your health is revealed by how you walk. So this multiplicity of data points that

00:22:15.660 you're throwing off, but you don't know who gets to see it. But whoever does get to see it,

00:22:21.120 they know more about you than you know about yourself. And by the way, it's a two-way thing.

00:22:26.400 If I'm a chief executive and I go on, let's say, this program, and I start talking about my company

00:22:32.180 and I'm lying, this same facial recognition technology can identify your microfacial

00:22:37.860 movements and they know that you're lying and they can set the algorithms to short the stock

00:22:42.620 of your company as you're talking on, say, CNBC's Quackbox. So think of it as almost like a crystal

00:22:49.160 ball of data points. And on the one side, it will let us conjure forth answers that will do things

00:22:55.360 like solve cancer, literally. We will solve extraordinarily difficult problems by having all

00:23:00.360 this data. But it also changes the balance of power between companies and customers because

00:23:06.480 Because companies will have so much information that I've argued—you know, we used to have

00:23:11.460 insider trading laws.

00:23:13.340 We may need insider trading laws.

00:23:16.160 If I am MasterCard now or Google, my knowledge of you is so great.

00:23:22.060 Forget Cambridge Analytica.

00:23:23.380 They only had 5,000 data points on 81 million people, and that was enough to begin to influence

00:23:28.480 your political position.

00:23:30.280 I can sell you way more than a political position.

00:23:32.480 If I have more than that, I can sell you a refrigerator.

00:23:34.480 I can tell you anything I want.

00:23:36.180 So I think human beings are very vulnerable to this kind of power being exercised.

00:23:41.200 And similarly, what kind of world do we have if people don't know how they appear?

00:23:45.560 And should we have a right to know how do we look with that data slice looking at us at any given time?

00:23:53.240 So in the book, I've tried to lay this out because we have a lot of leaders who are making decisions about the landscape of our future who don't understand what I'm saying.

00:24:03.500 And so they're literally missing a profound shift in humanity.

00:24:09.720 Well, this is the future.

00:24:10.780 I mean, this is the future of one of us, right?

00:24:12.520 This is now.

00:24:13.060 It's not even the future.

00:24:14.220 This is nothing I'm not telling you is for the future.

00:24:17.360 It is already existing right now.

00:24:20.820 Jesus Christ.

00:24:21.560 I'm never smoking weed again.

00:24:23.700 You won't need to.

00:24:26.480 So, I mean, joking aside, but then that literally means

00:24:30.700 If you're being tracked of every single second of every day, if they're reading what you were doing, if they can manipulate you, is that the end of free will eventually?

00:24:41.320 This is the—so what's really interesting to me is when I was in college, I studied political philosophy.

00:24:47.420 And everyone went, oh, my God, you will never get a job.

00:24:50.560 I mean, you are permanently unemployed if you study.

00:24:53.100 Now we get to this, and I'm like, these are questions of political philosophy.

00:24:56.820 That's exactly what this is.

00:24:58.480 This is about the balance of power between states and citizens, companies and customers, between citizens.

00:25:07.180 It's about the invasion of a person's free will.

00:25:14.020 Absolutely.

00:25:14.780 These are all core questions now.

00:25:17.780 They're not tangential anymore.

00:25:19.920 And the more we develop artificial intelligence, the greater it's going to be.

00:25:23.940 For example, I know a guy who's building an extraordinary company.

00:25:28.940 It is effectively going to place nanochips, which are so small that they can fit inside the body.

00:25:37.860 They are at the level or they're below the level of atoms, right?

00:25:42.660 You're basically into the level of you can see someone's atomic structure, their DNA, their cellular structure, and their organs.

00:25:51.420 because they float around in your body at the nano level.

00:25:55.560 So that means, the good news is, when you get cancer,

00:25:59.500 you get proteins in advance of the cancer,

00:26:01.840 which now we don't detect very well,

00:26:03.400 but then you'll be able to say, you're building up proteins,

00:26:05.820 we see it coming, we can hit this thing, and you'll never get cancer.

00:26:08.660 But the bad news is, you're emitting information

00:26:11.760 about what is physically happening to you

00:26:14.940 to whoever has access to that data.

00:26:17.900 But again, the good news is that we'll create a kind of, he calls it a cure chain, the guy

00:26:23.000 who founded it, Steve Papermaster, like blockchain.

00:26:25.940 It's a cure chain.

00:26:26.820 We'll be able to cure many obscure diseases that only a few people have that right now

00:26:31.860 aren't worth fixing.

00:26:32.880 But with that, you can fix it easily.

00:26:35.100 But talk about privacy.

00:26:38.060 I mean, the health care companies will know more about your health than you will ever

00:26:41.800 know about your own health.

00:26:43.240 So yes, these are really profound philosophical questions.

00:26:47.700 Well, here's the thing is it's not just health as well

00:26:49.500 because we had an evolutionary psychologist on the show a few weeks back.

00:26:52.620 I don't know if you've caught that episode, Diana Fleischman.

00:26:55.180 And one of the things she was talking about is genetic studies.

00:26:58.700 The study of genetics is now coming to a point

00:27:00.920 where we can pretty confidently say

00:27:02.600 that there's a very strong genetic component to behavior.

00:27:05.720 Yes.

00:27:06.220 Right?

00:27:06.660 So if you can analyze people at that level

00:27:09.240 and their DNA and their genetics,

00:27:11.840 you're not just going to be able to tell what disease they might develop

00:27:14.560 or whatever, you're going to be able to tell

00:27:15.660 what their personality type is to some

00:27:17.740 extent, what their choices are going to be,

00:27:19.820 what their political leanings are going to be.

00:27:21.900 It would make dating really easy.

00:27:24.160 That would actually make dating

00:27:25.820 much easier.

00:27:27.440 Imagine Tinder.

00:27:29.020 No, I want a left-leaning.

00:27:31.180 You're good for three dates and then...

00:27:32.960 You're good for a one-night stand. 0.88

00:27:37.720 I think you're missing the key part.

00:27:40.100 I think you guys are really missing

00:27:41.620 their voice. But you know what?

00:27:43.300 Remember Minority Report?

00:27:44.580 and there was that idea of pre-crime.

00:27:48.560 That is already real in China.

00:27:50.560 They are already using the artificial intelligence

00:27:53.680 in conjunction with this extraordinary data sweep,

00:27:56.780 and they are determining which people look more inclined

00:28:01.080 to cut corners than others

00:28:04.240 and then to start corralling them into a corner

00:28:06.740 and putting pressure to behave better.

00:28:09.060 That's today.

00:28:10.560 That's not maybe someday.

00:28:11.840 We already see this in motion.

00:28:14.580 So again, this is a huge philosophical question, is this question of prejudging, precognition,

00:28:22.020 premeditation, where do we draw these lines?

00:28:25.620 I ended up going back and reading a book, which I actually have to really strongly recommend,

00:28:29.800 actually an author called Norbert Wiener and a guy called Manuel de Landa.

00:28:35.120 But Norbert Wiener, who wrote a book called The Human Use of Human Beings.

00:28:39.960 and it's a profound book he wrote in the late 1940s and he's the guy who came up with this

00:28:46.480 word cybernetics which means the interface between humans and machines so 1949 he's writing about how

00:28:56.120 we're going to have this interface and even assuming that machinery will begin to enter our

00:29:00.620 bodies which already it is but that this will be this conversation between humans and machines is

00:29:08.120 going to be central to our society it's so beautifully written it's so clear it's so

00:29:14.320 absent of jargon or anything and it's a wonderful baseline for anybody who's interested in this

00:29:19.120 subject i would say go back and read norbert weiner it's very short he he was considered

00:29:24.240 the father of modern artificial intelligence and and that's where we got to go back to start at

00:29:29.700 the beginning and do you think it's the way we're moving i know it's a very broad question but do

00:29:34.140 you think it's positive on the whole or do you think this is actually quite worrying and we're

00:29:38.740 heading to a dystopia? I am very positive. My leaning is positive. I think that all this

00:29:46.060 innovation, artificial intelligence, automation and robotics are fundamentally going to solve

00:29:51.560 many more problems than they create. But the problems they create are very serious. So it's

00:29:57.540 a bit like cars, you know, I think cars are marvellous and can they kill thousands of people

00:30:03.320 every year. Yes, they can. So, you know, you wouldn't, we don't say, okay, anybody can vent

00:30:10.020 any kind of car they want and just put it on the road. No, we have rules of the road, right? We

00:30:13.740 have manufacturing standards. We have health and safety and we've gotten better at it, right? When

00:30:18.180 I was a kid, they just dates me, but you know, we didn't even, we didn't have seat belts. We didn't

00:30:22.980 have airbags, you know, the seats weren't even fixed. They used to just flop back and forth. We

00:30:26.940 just thought that was normal, you know? So now we have airbags and seat belts. That's a very good

00:30:31.940 thing. We're going to have airbags and seatbelts for the robotic era too, for sure. So I definitely

00:30:38.120 lean on the side that this is hugely beneficial to society. And I think it's massively democratizing

00:30:44.760 because it's putting power in the hands of people who haven't had it before. And everybody always

00:30:50.140 argues with me and says, well, you got to have a PhD from Stanford or Berkeley in order to even

00:30:55.200 play in this game. And I say, no, that's not true any longer. I was recently at a really cool event

00:31:00.460 held by the Founders Forum called Accelerate Her.

00:31:05.660 And it was about promoting women in robotics and business.

00:31:09.520 And anyway, fascinating woman there 0.87

00:31:12.880 who was into fashion, fashion blogging,

00:31:16.020 but never was able to make any money out of it.

00:31:18.440 And she basically just used apps

00:31:20.980 that you create on your phone

00:31:22.360 and created an app that lets fashion bloggers

00:31:25.080 all over the world actually sell the product

00:31:28.220 they're writing about through their app so they get a little piece they get to take I don't know

00:31:33.900 whatever 10 percent 5 percent suddenly you've got women all over the world they tend to be women 1.00

00:31:38.720 the women who are making half a million bucks a year from their Instagram account just sitting 1.00

00:31:44.580 playing on it because the technology has empowered this so it's not the story that the the insiders

00:31:51.520 have a lock on this anymore it's becoming ubiquitous and I think that's a super beneficial

00:31:56.420 thing to society so then it's a race between the citizen and the state who's

00:32:01.280 got that information and how is it permitted to be used well my concern

00:32:05.600 would be the recent stuff that we've seen the Francis like Facebook and

00:32:09.540 Twitter you know they have not come out well of recent news stories about them

00:32:14.360 and you look at you know Donald Trump got laughed at when he said that Twitter

00:32:17.900 and Facebook is biased or whatever but actually then Twitter came out yes yes

00:32:22.820 we are yeah we are and we're going to just shut down the accounts of those people that we don't

00:32:27.580 like yes which they're doing well i yeah so this raises to me a really interesting question about

00:32:32.760 why is it we only have one facebook why don't we have more competition we why do we have this

00:32:39.420 monopoly positions in these social media arenas it's very interesting i'm not sure i have an

00:32:46.440 answer as to why well the currency is the ubiquity isn't it like everyone is on it that's what makes

00:32:52.180 at Facebook. But why is it that so few of them, and they all serve kind of very different purposes,

00:32:57.300 so they tend to have monopolies over the space that they're in. Where are the competitors? This

00:33:01.860 is super interesting to me why it's harder to create competition in this tech space than it

00:33:07.900 is if it's a grocery store on the corner, but it seems to be. But I do think all of these things,

00:33:13.380 for me, it changes the landscape of leadership. And by that, I'm speaking very broadly. I don't

00:33:19.580 just mean political leaders and business leaders even religious and community leaders i mean all

00:33:24.940 of us have to kind of think about what is the same and what's changed and so what i've argued here

00:33:31.420 with my co-author chris lewis is some things have profoundly changed so one of them is we used to in

00:33:38.140 the 20th century the answer was always in drilling down into greater quantitative detail because

00:33:43.820 somewhere in there there'd be some a black box and that's where your answer was actually that didn't

00:33:48.540 really work out so well and the financial crisis i would say arose in large part because of this

00:33:53.100 approach now in the 21st century okay you can drill down if you want but the answer resides

00:33:58.940 in the look across not the analytical thinking but the parenthetical thinking this connecting

00:34:05.180 the dots between the silos seeing the whole landscape or another way of putting it is we

00:34:11.580 used to be all about measuring the math what are the numbers give me the data points now it's

00:34:17.180 equally important or maybe more so to understand the mood, that the facts and the feelings are

00:34:24.420 very different things. And I know we'll get a lot of pushback because people say, well,

00:34:28.740 you can't analyze feelings. And I'm like, well, I'm sorry, you can when you get voted in or out

00:34:33.600 of office. And you feel it when your customers turn on you for no reason that you can quantify,

00:34:39.260 but everybody knows. So it's about using not only your head, but all the parts, your left brain and

00:34:46.100 your right brain and really joined up thinking and also including in your thought process what's

00:34:51.660 the heart aspect because that's the part when I talk about technology it's not your intellect that

00:34:56.900 twists so much you're like your heart because you're like but what happens to individuals

00:35:01.120 what happens to people right that's your heart speaking and so the book is very much about we

00:35:06.340 need a lot more heart in our leadership we need a lot more joined up thinking and also I know this

00:35:11.820 sounds really corny, but leadership in the 20th century was all about the leader. It was the cult

00:35:17.700 of the leader. It was the Jack Welch. You know, it was one infallible leader, kind of the Jesus

00:35:23.160 Christ model of management. Now it's about the ship. It's about the team. It's about the

00:35:29.340 organization. It's about bottom up, not top down. And a lot of our leaders today have no idea how

00:35:36.320 to manage in that environment. They don't think inclusively. So if there's anything, the core

00:35:41.460 message of the book is we need much more diversity of thinking. And diversity of people is critical

00:35:47.620 to that, and I'm hugely supportive that we have much, much more diversity of people. And I don't

00:35:53.360 just mean gender, although that's a big push in the book, but I mean ethnicity, income background,

00:35:59.920 neuroplasticity, how your brain is wired up. I mean, really, diversity of experience. But you

00:36:07.280 can still have a room full of people who all look very different who go, Trump will never win.

00:36:11.460 then you have a problem.

00:36:13.460 So one of the things leaders need to do is to stop focusing on prediction,

00:36:18.620 because if you say Trump will never happen, that's a prediction,

00:36:20.880 and instead get focused on preparedness for things that sound way out there

00:36:25.440 and use scenarios to test your robustness and your agility.

00:36:30.740 I was just going to say, if we just move on a little bit to virtual reality,

00:36:34.000 I was at a comedy club, playing this comedy club,

00:36:37.540 and one of the guys working there is sort of a graduate

00:36:40.980 and he was saying that actually in a few years' time,

00:36:45.240 comedy clubs will become obsolete,

00:36:47.320 bars will become obsolete,

00:36:50.040 and that this will all go into the virtual environment.

00:36:52.440 Is that a reality?

00:36:53.820 Or do you think people will always need

00:36:56.060 to be sitting in a room together

00:36:57.680 and having that emotional and physical connection?

00:37:00.880 Buckle your seatbelt.

00:37:03.260 Because I work in this space.

00:37:05.020 Because with my robotics company,

00:37:06.620 we're making drones, commercial drones. One of the ways we deliver the information is through

00:37:13.140 virtual reality. So our clients can put on goggles and then walk through an asset that's on the other

00:37:19.500 side of the world. So if you had an avalanche at a mining site, suddenly you could be inside that

00:37:24.280 mining site and viscerally feel it as opposed to watching a video in a two dimension. So I spent a

00:37:30.420 of time in this space and it is so realistic the brain cannot distinguish between real and virtual

00:37:39.780 i recently did a new virtual reality game it was like in a big warehouse and i know

00:37:45.300 i'm standing on a flat floor in a big warehouse and there's nothing to bump into and yet at one

00:37:50.900 point i am like on the 157th floor of a building that has been blown out by explosives and i have 0.97

00:37:57.700 have to cross a rickety bridge and I'm literally like and then I'm going don't be an idiot it's a 0.99

00:38:04.000 floor you're in a building but your brain is going you might fall you might fall it is so realistic 0.98

00:38:09.520 and now the real kicker we're starting to get haptics and this is what as a word everybody

00:38:15.540 should look up and know haptics are items of clothing that permit feeling from a remote

00:38:24.320 location. So haptic gloves, people are familiar with haptic gloves, so you can grab things in a

00:38:30.680 video game by going like this. But now we're getting full body haptics. So let's say I go on

00:38:37.600 a virtual reality boxing program. When the guy in Tokyo who's playing the game at midnight and I'm

00:38:45.280 sitting here in London, when we go against each other in that boxing ring and he hits me in the

00:38:49.980 solar plexus, I'm going to feel that because the haptic thing that I'm wearing is going to give

00:38:55.560 me that punch. Now, I may be able to choose that I only want to feel one-tenth of what he's

00:39:00.960 throwing, right? I could do that, but it'll all be scored. And because the internet is a scoring

00:39:07.380 mechanism, which is actually one of my political philosophy questions is, do we want to live in a

00:39:12.440 world where we're all being scored all the time? Because where is there any place for, you know,

00:39:18.160 beauty I mean how do you smile you guys they do score beauty which I just find

00:39:22.420 incredible you know the women one out of ten like you know what I mean though

00:39:26.560 beauty is not a thing that can happen on a numerical scale and so this business

00:39:31.900 of moving into a world where everything is scored and then marry that up with

00:39:36.460 haptics and virtual reality you're gonna have people who are gonna go I gotta

00:39:40.900 have full force I don't know if you saw the Spielberg film ready player one it

00:39:46.960 is super worth watching. It is our first time that we really are shown what living in a virtual

00:39:52.940 reality world is going to look and feel like. And at one point, the main character is in this

00:39:57.380 situation, and his friends say, turn it down so you don't feel the full blow. And he goes,

00:40:03.280 no, I'm a real guy. And so he sets his outfit to feel whatever the other player is throwing at him.

00:40:11.140 The point is, people are going to get hurt. And put it another way, the Germans recently developed 1.00

00:40:15.920 really interesting virtual reality chair basically sits on bungee ropes that are attached to the

00:40:22.400 sides of the room so that when you sit in the chair with your goggles on not only will you

00:40:28.260 see the VR world but you're going to feel the actual g-forces now you will be moving and I took

00:40:35.240 one look at that and I went that chair someone's going to have a heart attack in that chair 1.00

00:40:39.180 because the brain can't tell the difference they're going to step off the edge of the building

00:40:43.000 in the VR, and then the chair is going to go voof, and that guy is going to have a hard check.

00:40:48.240 It's like the Matrix. The Matrix, your mind makes it real.

00:40:52.140 In fact, we've even been talking with the Red Cross about torture and the need to have a new

00:40:59.760 Geneva Convention on torture. Because if I am given these VR goggles, and I'm a victim of

00:41:08.160 torture. Well, if what I see is that someone's just cut my hand off, my brain is going to process

00:41:15.760 as if that injury is real. You won't be able to, and if you touch me when that happens on my screen,

00:41:23.300 my brain will know something has happened. They visually see what's happened. The brain starts

00:41:27.860 responding to that. So I think this waterboarding will have nothing on what this can bring. And

00:41:36.020 equally, even things that seem innocent, the fact that this is what Spielberg shows in that film,

00:41:40.900 Ready Player One, that you can enter alternative worlds and live there and just stay there.

00:41:49.000 You don't ever have to come back into reality. And again, a big message we have in the book,

00:41:53.720 we looked at all the research, what's happening is people are, in theory, more connected because

00:41:59.520 of the internet. But in practice, there's less and less conversation, less and less human

00:42:04.780 connectedness and virtual reality and augmented reality take you to an even greater level of

00:42:10.680 disconnectedness and create a world where you think that certain things are normal that are

00:42:16.780 not at all normal in real life because what's created in a virtual reality world is it's comics

00:42:21.800 it's it's pictures and it's drawings but they're so real that you start to believe that's the

00:42:27.900 standard that i want that in my life but i do wonder i mean with your question francis right

00:42:32.800 about will people stop coming to comedy clubs

00:42:34.820 or will comedy clubs stop existing.

00:42:36.500 I mean, right now, you can pay £30 or whatever it is for Netflix

00:42:40.120 or even less a month, right?

00:42:41.640 And you can watch a Netflix special

00:42:44.140 from the best comedian in the world,

00:42:45.880 whoever you think that is, for that amount.

00:42:48.080 Or you can go to your local comedy night

00:42:50.240 and pay that same amount twice a month, right,

00:42:54.820 to go and see some far inferior comedians by comparison in person.

00:43:00.640 And there are loads and loads of people.

00:43:02.220 i run a comedy club where i live right people will come and do that so do you think maybe we

00:43:07.180 sometimes we we kind of overestimate the the or maybe underestimate people's desire to be physically

00:43:13.820 doing something physically present with others physically connected in a space that is without

00:43:19.900 screens that is without that thing where it's just right you're right there in that moment i think

00:43:25.180 there's a market for both and i think humans will be doing both but i also think that it's

00:43:31.500 It's not one or the other.

00:43:32.980 Like one thing that I'm working on right now is being able to bring augmented reality to the audiences that I speak to when I do my public speaking.

00:43:41.780 And you guys will be doing the same at some stage.

00:43:44.040 You'll be able to say to the audience, if you pick your phone up and point it at the stage, I'm going to show you something.

00:43:49.340 And we're standing next to you on the stage is suddenly going to be a Pokemon type thing that you've chosen, an example of something that's in your comedy routine.

00:43:57.240 and now you guys are creating an augmented reality experience for that audience so it's not either or

00:44:03.980 it's going to merge more and more but also it's a different level of risk watch if i decide to come

00:44:09.540 watch you guys live of course this is extremely risky thing for me to do but but there's a certain

00:44:15.440 level of risk that you might mess up right or you might surprise me because the mood in that audience

00:44:21.460 that night creates a different energy level in you guys then right because your routine changes

00:44:26.400 depending on the audience right versus going to watch it on in that kind of vr landscape might

00:44:32.640 actually be it's more like watching a pre-programmed thing so the level of risk that it might screw up

00:44:39.600 is much lower or different so it depends what your risk appetite is and you'll measure that

00:44:44.880 on any given day and decide what's the right venue to express that risk appetite but what i do think

00:44:50.560 is it's going to become so mainstream

00:44:53.160 that it'll reach the point we start finding it hard

00:44:56.840 to distinguish one from the other

00:44:58.600 in the same way that robotics and automation

00:45:01.620 will be increasingly inside of us

00:45:04.180 and it'll be hard to distinguish

00:45:05.880 between a person who's 100% human

00:45:08.680 and a person who's not.

00:45:11.480 We're kind of already there as well.

00:45:13.640 I mean, it's also going to impact on people's mental health.

00:45:17.220 Yeah, big time.

00:45:18.240 Because, like you said, you know,

00:45:19.680 You're going to go into these virtual reality worlds where, in a sense, there are no consequences for your actions.

00:45:25.320 You can always get to the end of the game, start again, whatever else.

00:45:28.700 And then once you get into real life, the rules are completely different.

00:45:33.240 Totally.

00:45:33.980 And when it comes as well, when things between relationships, sex, all the rest of it.

00:45:38.940 So in the book, we talk at some length about the fact that an ever larger proportion,

00:45:44.760 And now it looks like in some industrialized countries, it's heading towards 15% of males under the age of 25 have never had a relationship because they live so much online or are in a position where they can avoid the human interaction that they do, which means they have no capacity to negotiate with other human beings because you have to learn that.

00:46:13.120 You have to learn how to negotiate with other human beings.

00:46:16.420 We're seeing record numbers of elderly people.

00:46:20.560 I shouldn't say elderly.

00:46:21.760 Let's say older people, people over the age of 40 who are not.

00:46:26.460 Yeah, yeah.

00:46:27.200 I don't even need to get to elderly.

00:46:29.180 People over the age of 40 are not living together anymore.

00:46:33.180 Right.

00:46:33.440 If you're over the age of 40, you're elderly. 0.57

00:46:35.400 Don't say bye-bye.

00:46:36.560 I'm in that.

00:46:37.980 But even people over the age of 40 are not living together any longer.

00:46:42.760 They may share a roof, but they don't share a life.

00:46:48.280 They're not with a partner.

00:46:49.800 They're in a rent-share space.

00:46:52.060 And those numbers are going up.

00:46:54.140 So the real human consequences of all this technology seems to be that it is separating us from one another.

00:47:02.560 It's ironic, but that is what we're finding as the result.

00:47:06.040 And this is a profound change in the society.

00:47:09.220 We talk about it being it's an atomization, that people becoming more and more isolated, and they don't identify, you know, with larger groups.

00:47:21.700 They feel alone and isolated, and maybe that helps account for the rise of identity politics.

00:47:28.520 It kind of feeds off of that sense of I'm alone.

00:47:32.840 I'm not connected.

00:47:34.140 So how weird.

00:47:35.540 You're uber-connected and simultaneously disconnected.

00:47:39.940 And are there any remedies to this on a personal level?

00:47:43.120 Like, is there something you do as a human being to kind of plug yourself back into reality in this?

00:47:48.240 Yeah.

00:47:49.380 So, you know, and isn't it interesting that all the magnates in Silicon Valley don't let their kids have mobile devices?

00:47:55.600 I mean, how interesting is that?

00:47:59.340 You know, how interesting.

00:48:00.880 I've heard so many of these people who work on these tech products say, basically, we're using

00:48:06.800 all the techniques you use to entice gamblers. Yes. That's what's your phone. So yeah, maybe we

00:48:14.040 need to learn how to turn stuff off, switch off, actually have a conversation. And yes, that is

00:48:21.680 one of the things that we recommend that taking the problem is people are so impatient. So they

00:48:28.380 don't want to, that's just painful for them. They won't even wait two seconds. If a page

00:48:33.640 doesn't load on the web in two seconds, they're gone. So one of the things we have to figure

00:48:38.520 out is how to cultivate patience. There are lots of these things, but the societal impact

00:48:45.380 is quite profound. Actually, there's a section, if I could be really boring, there's one page,

00:48:50.440 page 228 we made a list of all the things that have profoundly changed so this is about the

00:49:00.500 whole landscape not just technology technology feeds this but it used to be we talked the good

00:49:06.500 used to be we the people now it's me the people we used to like thoughtful clear measured responses

00:49:12.540 now it's twitter at speed it's jargon it's emojis it's compressed information um we used to like to

00:49:18.920 study now it's all hacks and shortcuts uh we used to like saving now we like spending we used to

00:49:25.820 dress up now we dress down there's there's a whole swing it's almost like you know when alice in

00:49:30.920 wonderland drinks and she goes through that looking glass and she's ended up on the other

00:49:36.000 side of reality technology has done this and i think we should be aware of this list of what

00:49:43.020 it's doing to us, which is, you know, much more profound than just put your phone down a little

00:49:48.860 bit. Okay, yeah, but we have to learn how we're going to deal with a world where, you know,

00:49:54.560 free speech has been replaced by political correctness. These are super profound societal

00:49:59.980 changes. And do you think this technology is encouraging a narcissistic behavior in people?

00:50:05.640 Sure, absolutely. I mean, it's the rise of the selfie is only possible because of the camera.

00:50:10.860 uh and and that sense is that's we the people no me the people is a person with the selfie stick

00:50:18.740 and so yeah technology that's part of being atomized that we're not connected anymore it's

00:50:24.400 me and only me and how do i look there's a question i've always wanted i every day whenever

00:50:30.040 i speak to you i just got i can't believe i forgot to ask that question you know when you go on google

00:50:34.860 and you go you know what i could i need some new trainers and google's an advert for trainers comes

00:50:39.880 up are they really listening well is that slight paranoia well what we like i said it's now in the

00:50:47.860 public domain the google and mastercard have a relationship and uh and some kind of information

00:50:55.800 sharing is what's implied but sorry i think what francis means is your phone literally picking up

00:51:00.540 what you say and then processing it in that way well the answer is it's perfectly capable of doing

00:51:06.480 so and many other internet things devices in your home and in your life are doing it as well

00:51:13.120 so for example the uh you know amazon echo it's already been subpoenaed in a murder trial as a

00:51:19.980 witness and of course the two of you guys are like whoa yeah and by the way it's a very good

00:51:25.380 witness it's a highly reliable witness well absolutely because it's not you know it doesn't

00:51:30.380 distort the memory in any shape or form and i have to say the story i love was the guy

00:51:36.120 who thought he was being really clever

00:51:38.320 and left his mobile phone at somebody else's house,

00:51:41.840 drove to his house, set the thing on fire,

00:51:44.600 and then, you know, petrol and gasoline everywhere,

00:51:47.980 and thought he was in the clear

00:51:49.060 because he just wanted to get the insurance money,

00:51:50.660 and he forgot he had a pacemaker,

00:51:52.300 and the pacemaker was broadcasting not only his location,

00:51:55.100 but what was happening to his heartbeat

00:51:56.400 as he was setting his house on fire.

00:51:58.320 So this thing is you are constantly emitting data.

00:52:01.220 Back to my point.

00:52:02.440 You may not even know how you're emitting it.

00:52:05.080 In Sweden, companies have recently introduced microchipping the employees in the thumb.

00:52:12.180 And amazingly, a lot of the employees in some of these companies are like,

00:52:15.540 I'd love to do that because I don't want to have to pay for my coffee.

00:52:18.900 I just want to wave my hand and I'm done.

00:52:21.100 It's like magic.

00:52:22.440 Yes, but guess what?

00:52:24.400 Now you're like on the grid and everything you do is on the grid.

00:52:29.100 So the answer is you should assume that any Internet of Things device that is in your world

00:52:34.300 is perfectly capable of broadcasting not only your voice but your physical movement within the space.

00:52:42.760 Vacuum cleaners, automated vacuum cleaners are broadcasting the dimensions of the room

00:52:46.940 and the human use of that space.

00:52:49.900 It seems in this family, they come in to watch television at 4.45.

00:52:54.600 So if you want to advertise spaghetti to these people,

00:52:58.120 4 o'clock might be a good time to hit that little reminder for them.

00:53:02.340 So yeah, this is the point.

00:53:04.300 I mean, again, with social media, the bottom line is if you're not paying for it, you are the product.

00:53:11.580 This is why I love doing the show.

00:53:13.620 We talk about all kinds of stuff on here about men and women, feminism, everything.

00:53:17.620 But fundamentally, what I love is when we do an interview and I kind of go, OK, there's some things I need to do differently in my life.

00:53:24.780 You know, like we had Diana Fleischman on.

00:53:26.880 Among other things, she was talking about veganism.

00:53:29.740 And she was saying that actually it's very difficult to be vegan.

00:53:32.200 And therefore, if you want to reduce the quantity of suffering that you cause

00:53:36.160 and the number of deaths, you've got to start eating the biggest possible animal.

00:53:40.620 Does that make sense?

00:53:41.280 Because there's like a year's worth of meat in a cow.

00:53:43.460 Interesting, yes.

00:53:44.340 And if you eat chicken, you're going to basically be killing another creature

00:53:47.520 every couple of days.

00:53:48.820 So I pretty much don't eat chicken now after that conversation.

00:53:51.500 I eat, you know, beef and whales and whatever.

00:53:53.580 You're such a good person constantly.

00:53:54.840 I am, mate. That's me. I'm woke as hell.

00:53:57.600 I'm so woke I can't sleep.

00:53:58.960 and that's what I love about this is like it's fascinating it's terrifying I think it is

00:54:06.400 absolutely terrifying what you're talking about it's also very encouraging that there's going to

00:54:10.800 be this the ability to resolve all these problems to fix the cancer whatever else but I mean I just

00:54:18.140 think we've got to be really careful I also think you know there's an element there there is a part

00:54:23.460 me that's going yeah but we're still we still have that need for personal contact we still

00:54:30.020 there's going to be some kind of pushback against all of this there's going to be some kind of

00:54:34.220 feeling like you know what actually no we want to get together we want to be physically in the

00:54:37.600 same like look at us people will listen to an hour's interview i mean we talk about you know

00:54:42.460 this kind of bite size everything is now shorter attention spans but actually there's a massive

00:54:47.540 pushback against that now there are people we've interviewed some people who do youtube videos

00:54:51.960 they don't even show their face it's just a guy talking for 40 minutes yeah and is not and he's

00:54:58.320 not even like doing kind of comedy like a little bit of setup punchline it's just a guy talking for

00:55:03.200 40 minutes and people love it and that guy's got a million subscribers and i i totally agree i think

00:55:07.940 there's a market for these things but but this idea that we're automatically jumping to that end

00:55:14.080 i don't know one of the really tricky parts of the book you guys are going to laugh we actually

00:55:18.820 talked about one kind of robotics and automation called teledildonics yes and oh yes it's worse

00:55:27.580 than you think extending your penis remotely is that basically right yeah and so you know people 0.96

00:55:32.680 having sex using devices where someone you've never met on the other side of the world is 0.99

00:55:36.320 controlling what happens like we are moving both directions simultaneously i know i'm like oh my

00:55:43.540 god i was amazed the publisher let us put it in there but but it's a real phenomena like a real

00:55:48.820 phenomena now elon musk actually no he's losing the plot but at any rate at one point not so long

00:55:54.820 ago uh he he said he was in some kind of artificial intelligence product that he'd been introduced to

00:56:04.020 and obviously it's something nobody else has seen yet and he basically said this is a the thing i

00:56:08.980 experienced was something to do with love not sex but love and so you don't know is he talking about

00:56:16.340 some kind of a sex doll or is he talking about an interface with a computer i don't know but

00:56:21.780 what he said was it was so much better than the real thing that it's terrifying and it's going to

00:56:29.940 be the end of humanity and and i have to say this is a thing we really have to think about what are

00:56:37.540 our basic human needs and how do they get met remember that film with um joaquin phoenix i

00:56:43.700 think it was where he falls in love with yes artificial intelligence who had scarlett johansson's

00:56:49.540 voice i think it was yeah right but he literally begins to fall in love because the the ai knows

00:56:56.260 the answers and knows him so well and at the very end is he's completely shocked that someone who

00:57:02.420 knows him so well can just abandon him because you feel the involvement and so again we're back

00:57:08.860 to political philosophy how do how do we handle this because we're vulnerable human beings are

00:57:13.820 vulnerable so the sex realm i mean it's quite there's this is what diana flashman told us

00:57:19.160 there's quite a big difference between men and women in terms of kind of sexual preference yeah

00:57:23.100 right no that's sexist i know but

00:57:24.940 So she's talking about the fact that men, basically, they have less disgust when it

00:57:33.920 comes to the sexual domain.

00:57:35.900 So that means men, as we all know, tend to be more adventurous and more kind of, right?

00:57:40.220 So if you're a man in this new, brave new world, and there's stuff that you want to

00:57:44.260 do sexually, right, well, why would I, why would I meet a real woman and have to like 0.94

00:57:49.100 negotiate stuff and like, you know, right.

00:57:52.540 But not even dinner, but, like, I can do what I want as opposed to what we both agreed to do, right?

00:57:58.400 And all this other stuff.

00:58:00.540 And, yeah, why would you meet a real woman in that situation, right? 1.00

00:58:03.280 I mean, theoretically, at least.

00:58:04.380 That's kind of where this is headed.

00:58:05.720 No, and although this seems like a narrow thing we're sidelining into, this is so fundamental to the human condition.

00:58:15.280 There's a writer who I think is really interesting, like a California guru called David Data.

00:58:21.380 and he writes about he writes about sex and what makes sex really good and he

00:58:27.300 says they're really three kinds of relationships there's the one where one

00:58:31.880 person is saying I want then that's what you just described I want and they're

00:58:36.380 all about imposing what they want they just need another person to do it then

00:58:40.100 there's the I want but I know you do too so let's negotiate right and it's

00:58:45.200 transactional even if it's elegantly transactional it's still I'll take you

00:58:50.120 dinner if you know but the love love is i choose to love and it's unconditional and and my interest

00:59:00.280 in loving you is for your individuation as a human being you know that's how do we get more of that

00:59:07.320 when we're in this environment that's a really interesting question and at in this book we kind

00:59:13.320 of we dance a little around it but we kind of say really good leadership has love i mean now 0.75

00:59:20.020 And that just sounds so corny as to be ridiculous.

00:59:22.380 But in the context of what we're saying, you begin to understand love, the care for the

00:59:27.740 well-being of other human beings now is a fundamental issue for all of us.

00:59:32.640 We have to think about what's happening to people with a heartfelt perspective.

00:59:37.020 But doesn't it also come down to gratification and instant gratification?

00:59:41.920 Because if you go into a computer game, you can be a black belt martial artist in four

00:59:47.200 different disciplines just by switching it on.

00:59:50.000 the reality is in life if you want to be that that takes what 15 20 years constant discipline

00:59:55.140 eating right and the same with love love is incredibly hard it means going and meeting

01:00:00.280 lots of different people involves rejection and then you know it involves compromise maybe for

01:00:05.020 you mate maybe for you yeah i did i did i did i did yeah i did but it it's it's sure yeah it's 0.85

01:00:16.500 Because life, it's fucking hard.

01:00:19.360 Well, and not only that, but again, virtual reality world, it's really interesting because now there have been computer games where you have people who are winning who don't fit what that model is. 0.97

01:00:32.680 So you could have a 50-year-old African-American woman emerges as the champion in a virtual reality world where in a physical world she wouldn't win that fight, but she can win it online. 0.81

01:00:46.500 so so and in virtual reality and the other thing is you know about the marshmallow test

01:00:51.140 no no so i think it was harvard university but i can't remember but anyway the marshmallow test was

01:00:58.080 they took little kids five six years old and said uh and left them alone in a room and said

01:01:06.120 if you don't touch yes the marshmallow will give you three yeah and they left them for 20 minutes

01:01:14.580 And the ones who weren't able to wait 20 minutes and ate the marshmallow versus the ones who waited.

01:01:21.580 The ones who waited had much better human skills, an easier life.

01:01:27.320 They had higher achievement levels.

01:01:29.860 The people who can't wait, their achievement levels are not good.

01:01:33.520 Their empathy and capacity for connection is not good.

01:01:37.580 We need better performance on the marshmallow test as a race.

01:01:41.780 humanity needs to do better at the marshmallow test and the problem is all the technology is

01:01:47.240 pushing us in the other direction so how do we make choices that balance it out because otherwise

01:01:52.820 we may end up in a you know you said is a dystopian we could end up in a dystopian place but i don't

01:01:59.500 see that we have to but we could well on the subject of impatience our time i'm afraid is up

01:02:06.180 so uh coming back as always to our final question what is something that we're not talking about

01:02:11.060 We've talked about all kinds of interesting things today.

01:02:13.420 What is something that we are not talking about that we ought to be talking about?

01:02:17.500 Oh, well, gosh, you should have asked me at this beginning

01:02:21.140 because then I wouldn't have thought about it.

01:02:23.460 I don't know.

01:02:24.140 I still think all of the stuff we've talked about just now we're not talking about.

01:02:31.460 We're not talking, I think, look, in my world, in financial markets and stuff,

01:02:36.460 really everybody is just preparing for catastrophe all the time and I don't think we're talking

01:02:43.120 enough about what about if all of this technology all this stuff works and we end up in a world

01:02:48.760 where we can solve the any food shortages I already know technology that can do this so

01:02:55.460 I think we're there how do we deal in a world that doesn't have any scarcity it has ubiquity

01:03:03.040 That's a really interesting question.

01:03:04.920 And I think we're moving towards a ubiquity world more than a scarcity world,

01:03:10.620 but with all the problems that we've talked about.

01:03:13.920 So to me, that's the interesting thing we're not talking about,

01:03:16.640 a ubiquitous world, not a scarce one.

01:03:20.000 All right.

01:03:20.720 Well, if you've still not left the Internet after that,

01:03:23.980 not destroyed all your mobile devices in one big house fire,

01:03:28.760 Follow Dr. Pippa Mountain-Gren on Twitter at Dr. Pippa M.

01:03:33.260 Buy her book, The Leadership Lab, which is coming out on October 4th.

01:03:36.740 October 4th in the UK and the 28th in the US.

01:03:39.480 28th of October in the US.

01:03:41.600 Get the book. It's going to be fantastic.

01:03:43.660 And as always, follow us at TriggerPod on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook.

01:03:48.680 Obviously, subscribe to this YouTube channel if you're watching it.

01:03:51.680 And click that bell button right next to the subscribe button,

01:03:54.700 which makes sure

01:03:55.540 that you get the videos

01:03:56.400 as they come out

01:03:57.540 and you get notified

01:03:58.380 anything else Francis

01:03:59.580 yeah don't smoke weed

01:04:00.700 whilst you're watching

01:04:01.280 this episode

01:04:02.060 you know

01:04:03.180 I feel like I need to

01:04:04.440 smoke some weed

01:04:04.880 just to calm down

01:04:05.760 after the mind blowing

01:04:07.320 of this episode

01:04:08.240 yeah

01:04:08.520 listen Pippa

01:04:09.440 it's been so great

01:04:10.340 to have you

01:04:10.700 thank you so much

01:04:11.380 for coming on

01:04:11.960 yeah

01:04:12.260 it's been an absolute

01:04:13.140 pleasure

01:04:13.540 brilliant

01:04:14.040 see you next week guys

01:04:15.280 thank you

01:04:15.860 bye

01:04:24.700 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - September 24, 2018

Dr Pippa Malmgren on Trump, Social Credit, AI & Virtual Reality

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