Yuval Noah Harari & Ian Bremmer at The 92nd Street Y – March 2024
Yuval Noah Harari
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Watch Yuval Noah Harari's conversation with author and @GZEROMedia founder @Ian_Bremmer – in front of a live audience at New York's 92nd Street Y. Their discussion covers Harari's new children's book, 'Unstoppable Us, Vol. 2: Why the World Isn't Fair', the power of stories, disruptive AI, the war in Gaza, and questions from the audience. Filmed on 3 March 2024.
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Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and the bestselling author of 'Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind' (2014), 'Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow' (2016), '21 Lessons for the 21st Century' (2018), the graphic novel series ‘Sapiens: A Graphic History’ (launched in 2020, co-authored with David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave), the children’s series ‘Unstoppable Us’ (launched 2022), and the forthcoming ‘NEXUS: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI’ (2024).
Yuval Noah Harari and his husband, Itzik Yahav, are the co-founders of Sapienship: a social impact company specializing in content and production, with projects in the fields of education and storytelling. Sapienship’s main goal is to focus the public conversation on the most important global challenges facing the world today. Learn more about Sapienship: https://www.sapienship.co/
Yuval Noah Harari speaks internationally and teaches at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. On this channel you can see his interviews, lectures, and public conversations with prominent leaders and influencers — including Mark Zuckerberg, Natalie Portman, Christine Lagarde, Anderson Cooper and Jay Shetty.
Transcript
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thank you and and welcome thank you it's your first time giving a public audience
0:16
in the US in a couple years now yeah since uh for two years I think since 22 the world has changed a bit since then
0:23
yeah we'll get to that we'll start with your book uh Unstoppable us I read it
0:28
yesterday it's a children's book it still took me a couple hours um the thing that I took away uh
0:38
most directly uh when you're writing for kids about why life isn't fair is you're
0:44
saying it's basically it's all about stories yeah explain what you mean by that much of it is about stories yeah
0:52
that you know um since I was a kid I was extremely concerned especially about the
0:58
issue of War I live in Israel live in the Middle East there is constantly war and you want to know why there are so
1:05
many wars in the world and many people tell you that people fight humans fight
1:12
for the same reasons that other animals fight it's just natural you fight over territory you fight over food the same
1:19
way that chimpanzees and wolves and lions fight and it took me many years of of researching history to understand
1:26
this is just not true humans don't fight over territory and food they fight over
1:34
imaginary stories in their minds if I look at the present terrible conflict
1:40
tearing apart my region of the world it's not really about territory not objectively there is enough land between
1:48
the Mediterranean and the Jordan River to build houses and schools and hospitals for everybody there is no
1:54
objective shortage of land and similarly there is no objective of food there is
2:01
enough food uh to feed everybody and this is through of other conflicts in the world you look at the Russian
2:06
invasion of Ukraine Russia doesn't like territory the last thing they need is more land um and so why do they fight
2:15
people fight over the stories in their mind like I come I I work in Jerusalem in the Hebrew University and you know
2:22
it's one of the most fought over places in human history I it's hard to
2:28
understand why it's not such a great place you know I mean it's a very ordinary place it's you walk around it's
2:37
just you know you have stones and trees and cats and pigeons and people just
2:42
like any other place I it's on the water it's the land is pretty good the land is
2:47
not good you can grow olives or something there are no oil fields there are no gold mines nothing and but in
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their imagination people think oh this is not a stone this is a holy Stone this is not
3:03
uh just any place it's full of angels and gods and and Saints and Prophets and
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they fight over over this you know my husband just went two days ago here to the Apple store and bought these new
3:16
Apple glasses you let him do that seriously it's the beginning of the end
3:23
of your relationship obviously well that's one prediction that we'll see if if what will happen with it
3:30
um but you know people invented it thousands of years ago this technology
3:36
like they they they just call it a different name it's the holy book like you walk around Jerusalem with this holy
3:42
book and you see it's full of the augmented reality of of of angels and
3:49
and gods and and this is what people fight over I just read a couple of weeks
3:57
ago a book that sarba a Palestinian philosopher wrote A couple of years ago
4:03
and he he said that uh uh um you know in in context of the fight over Temple
4:09
Mount and the Dome of the Rock and the holy Rock on the on on the Dome of the Rock Under the Dome of the Rock and he
4:15
wrote that Jews and Muslims armed with nuclear weapons are about to commit the
4:22
one of the worst massacr of human beings ever over a
4:28
rock over a ro Rock and um it's absolutely true I listened to our prime
4:33
minister netan and he says this is the Sak menu the rock of our
4:39
existence and of course the rock is just a rock but the stories that we tell
4:45
about it make it so important that people are willing to be killed to kill
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and be killed in millions so structurally what upsets you more uh
4:56
nationalism or religion
5:01
I think first of all we need both um in order to construct large
5:09
scale human societies you must have these stories they are not necessarily bad stories are tools you know it's like
5:16
a knife that you can use the knife to murder somebody or to save their life in surgery or to cut salad for dinner and
5:24
they create order in large societies so without religion without nationalism we can talk later for instance about the
5:30
link between nationalism and democracy I think that there are exceptions but in most cases nationalism
5:36
is a precondition for democracy if you don't have a strong National Community you cannot have a functioning democratic
5:44
system every state is made up of many different tribes if you don't have
5:50
strong patriotic National feelings that unite the tribes there is you cannot have a democracy because every tribe
5:57
will just fight for its own interests without caring at all and and and you can have a democracy a dictatorship
6:03
under such conditions but not a democracy and um again like with every
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story is religion a precondition for anything on the positive side um I don't
6:15
think it's a precondition let's say for democracy but it has done throughout history a lot of good as well as a lot
6:21
of bad things and the question is what do we do with these stories like with
6:26
nationalism you have the the the the good side of nationalism is when it's
6:32
about love that the essence of nationalism should be a feeling of of
6:37
Love of of a special care about a group of people that makes me uh uh for
6:44
instance you know pay my taxes honestly so that people that I never met in my life will get healthare this is the
6:50
bright side of nationalism it the dark side is when it turns from love to hate
6:56
when people think that to be a patriot means to hate foreigners or minorities or whatever and
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it's the same with religion religion doesn't come down from heaven it's created by humans you look at the
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history of every religion Judaism Islam Christianity Buddhism uh people can make
7:14
terrible things out of it and they can make good things out of it it's it's in our hands now I reading the beginning of
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the book you talk early stage about how these stories began and the stories
7:27
began because as you move from hunting hunters and gatherers to fixed
7:33
agriculture that requires a level of order you need stories yes and those stories can be unfair they usually have
7:41
an element of unfairness in them I mean the key thing is you need lots of people
7:47
to agree on the same rules if you live in a small hunter gatherer band like 50 people going around you know everybody
7:54
else personally so if there is some disagreement everybody can come together and and discuss it if you now try to
8:01
build a a big city or a kingdom let's say with a million people you don't know
8:06
99% of the of the people in your kingdom you can't talk with them directly so how
8:12
do you agree on common rules now
8:17
democracy was if if you think okay let's have de democratic debate about it you
8:23
could not have a democratic debate on on a on a large scale anywhere in the world
8:29
until about the 18th century because you don't have the technology democracy is
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built on top of information technology which is why every change in Information Technology necessarily shakes democracy
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before the late Modern Age there is just no technical means to conduct a large
8:50
scale conversation on the level of an entire country which is why the only examples we have of a democracy before
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the late modern era are from tribes and city states like ancient Athens you
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don't have a single example of a large scale democracy before the Modern
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Age now when I was reading about
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your looking and comparing these two systems I have to say you come across as
9:22
almost nostalgic for why couldn't we all just stick around and be hunters and
9:27
gatherers for a longer period of time yeah that's true in a way I think we all have
9:32
this in ourselves you know if you're a kid stuck in school and you think oh I would rather go out and clim a tree it's
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part of your mind remembers how it was for millions of years you know humans
9:44
have been around for 2 million years for most of that time like 99% of the of that time we were hunter gatherers
9:51
living in the savannah and in the forests um and the type of life we came
9:56
to live from the Agricultural Revolution onwards it's really alien to us in so
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many different ways uh from what we do for a living to to what we eat you know
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lots of people wonder for instance why do I have this tendency to eat things that are bad for me what's wrong with my
10:15
body that it wants to eat things that are bad for it um and this is just a historical mismatch um basically our
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bodies still think that we are in the African Savannah so if they encounter a
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a something sweet like a chocolate cake they think oh we found a tree full of
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ripen fruit uh we better eat as many of them as quickly as possible before the
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baboons come and finish it so your body's acting perfectly
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rational for the African Savannah but of course not for life in the modern era
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but again on on on on the conscious level we know that but on the Deep level
10:56
of our minds and bodies we don't and is it because not enough time has passed because I mean the wolves that are
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circling they get domest domesticated in relatively short order they learn how to
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interact in this new environment but human beings haven't done that yet uh you know it's it takes a long time even
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even dogs are still to a large extent wolves uh it's interesting that that they really domesticated
11:24
themselves and we think that we domesticated them and this is the case with most animals you know cows and
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sheep and horses and so forth but not the dogs they were the first and there is an entire section in in the
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children's book children's Love Dogs I also love dogs so you know the history of dogs is very important and uh it's
11:42
very interesting that they apparently it was wild wolves that started following
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the human bands realizing hey these Apes they know something they can bring down
11:54
a mammoth and they can't eat the H of it so if we just follow them and wait when
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they go away we can have for free lunch and uh but to do that you need to start
12:05
understanding these apes and the Wolves became very good at understanding human
12:11
beings and they are still probably the animal that understands Us best and they
12:17
are not the smartest animal like pigs are smarter than dogs but not when it comes to understanding human emotions
12:23
but the key for survival over like 20 25,000 years since the beginning of this
12:29
process of domestication for the wolf that became a dog the key is to
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understand these humans no and and I I got that from the book I mean definitely any child that reads this book will
12:40
understand that dogs are something that we should treasure we should engage with you don't feel that way about cats that
12:45
also resonates with me I thought that was very important um but but I do remember the two skeletons and the two
12:51
skeletons as they're talking to each other and one of the skeletons had a pretty good life and you know looked
12:57
healthy for a skeleton the the other has all of these problems it's hunched over it's missing teeth and that's the one
13:04
that advanced yes into agricultural societ fer so if I'm a kid I'm thinking
13:11
wow Society just did horrible things to people is that what you want me to take away as a child one of the main
13:17
takeaways is there are unintended consequences to our decisions um it
13:22
sounded like a good idea to start farming and it turned out to be a good
13:28
idea for a few people in the ancient world like the Kings and the Pharaohs that didn't have to do all the hard work
13:34
and got all the benefits but for most people life as Farmers was much harder
13:41
in again instead of going to the wood to find fruits and Chase animals and things
13:47
like that you have this monotonous back breaking literally backbreaking job
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digging ditches and and and harvesting wheat and grinding corn and you don't
13:58
get a good diet in exchange you get a much worse diet the diet of hunter
14:03
gatherers was extremely varied you gather and Hunt dozens of different species of animals and plants so you get
14:10
a very balanced diet uh Farmers especially ancient Farmers if you live in the Middle East you eat wheat and
14:17
wheat and wheat and if you live in like India or China you just eat rice and
14:22
it's not a good diet on top of that you also get a lot of epidemics uh epidemics
14:29
were not always there they were also an unintended product of the Agricultural
14:35
Revolution people thought they were creating Paradise for humans they actually created Paradise for germs like
14:42
in a hunter gather a band if somebody gets diarrhea maybe they infect one or two people and you know the next day the
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band moves away but but everybody gets it if you're stuck in one little fixed
14:55
place if you're stuck in a fixed Village or town thousands of people cram together with their goats and sheep and
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Duck and their sewage and their garbage this is Paradise for germs and this is
15:06
when you start seeing epidemics and also large scale Warfare I mean again uh uh
15:13
people think that Wars are part of human nature we actually don't have any
15:18
archaeological evidence for large scale Warfare between groups before about
15:25
13,000 years ago there lot of theories about what happened before but hard
15:31
evidence skeletons with broken heads and arrows stuck in in in their bones first
15:38
time we have it 13,000 years ago on the eve of the Agricultural Revolution in the Nile Valley so it seems that agriculture if
15:47
it didn't create War it certainly gave it a huge boost there is much more to fight over now if I want to look take
15:55
this into the future understand that for much of our history the lives of the
16:01
average human being deeply problematic the last 50 years it's been
16:07
kind of extraordinary right Best Time Ever Best Time Ever globalization we
16:12
like it what what made the change and should we be just truly optimistic when
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we talk to young people today about what we've been able to accomplish more
16:22
recently um first of all it should be clear that it it's it's it was better than any previous time it still was
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wasn't good lots of Wars lots of problems but still better than any
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previous time we know about uh so this distinction should be clear um and you
16:41
know there lot of Statistics to uh illustrate it one I think of the most
16:47
important statistics is government expenditure that when people talk about
16:53
the early 21st century being the most peaceful era in human history at least is is since we have records um you know
17:00
for most of History the average expenditure on the military from the
17:05
Roman Empire to the Ottoman Empire to the British Empire at least 50% of the government budget goes to the military
17:13
soldiers fors warships in the early 21st century it was done down to about
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7% of the government budget worldwide goes to the military whereas
17:27
10% goes to healthcare first time in history that we know of
17:32
that governments all over the world spent more time on Healthcare than on the military now this was not the result
17:39
of some Divine Miracle or a change in the laws of nature it was humans making
17:46
good decisions building good institutions uh formulating and
17:52
believing in in in hopeful and beneficial stories
17:57
ideologies and the the bad news is that because it wasn't a change in the laws of nature or
18:03
a Divine Miracle it was just humans making good choices over the last 10 years or so people started making some
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very very bad choices and I think that the good times are over and we are now
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seeing a a Resurgence of Wars all over the world mil military budgets are
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skyrocketing the money shifts back from nurses and hospitals and then teachers
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and schools it shifts back now to missiles and tanks and cyber weapons so despite all of the explosion of
18:34
crossborder trade and capital despite all of the education for young people
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for women around the world despite the massive expansion of the middle class on
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a global basis not just rich people yeah you actually think looking at the world right now 2024 nope uh the next the
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coming years are going to be much more problematic and it's not deterministic I understand we still have ch but looking
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at the trends in recent years we are going towards a very dark place so if
19:04
you are a parent let's still want to stick with the book for a couple minutes absolutely if you're a parent trying to
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explain all of this to your children I was very clear as as I was reading the
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book that this was the book that you wanted that you wish you had for yourself yeah it was very comes through and it's lovely in that way how would
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you talk to parents in the audience today to say say here is how I think you
19:29
should try to address the fact that we are living in such a a fraud a dangerous
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period first I would say that um we can't protect the kids from the actual
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violence and from the actual bad consequences so we shouldn't try to
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protect them from from the information about it that uh we should talk openly
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about what is happening in the world of course not in a kind of Doomsday scenario that's it it's all over um the
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key message is that humans created the world in which we live so humans can
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change it yes the the the trends now are in a in a negative Direction but this is
20:16
just a result of human decisions we have the resources to deal with all the major
20:23
problems of the world you know whether it's climate change whether it's the rise of AI whe whether it's the the the
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rise of resurgence of Wars um we can deal with it you know if you think about
20:34
for instance climate change and the ecological crisis which worries a lot of of of young people the most important
20:41
thing to say about it I think is that again going back to government budgets if you need to place a kind of price tag
20:47
on it how much would it cost Humanity to prevent catastrophic climate change the
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best estimates I could find is less than 5% of the global budget if you think in
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terms of of the the budget of humanity Global GDP less than 5% uh protects us if we invested in the
21:08
right places protects us from catastrophic climate change now it's a huge amount of money but it's still in
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terms of budget it's less than 5% we can do that doesn't mean that we will do it it's a question of motivation and like
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with Wars going back to the Israel Palestinian conflict and what I said in the beginning that it's about stories
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it's not an insolvable conflict you know it's not like in mathematics that there are certain mathematical problems which
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have no solution and mathematicians can actually prove to you this problem has
21:43
no solution it's never like that in politics every problem has a solution
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often many more than just one solution it's a question of motivation do people have the motivation to solve it and you
21:56
want young people to question question the stories when the stories are unfair
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yes when you talk about Malala and the fact that she just wanted girls to go to
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school she thought it was unfair that girls weren't able to go to school and so she was shot for that but now
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received a Nobel Prize for that and is making a difference all over the world for that yeah I I think that the
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feminist Revolution more generally is one of the most homeful examples we have
22:28
in history history because um you know the the the the the Injustice involved
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in gender relations has been one of the most
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widespread uh injustices in human history so in almost every society for thousands of years was very easy to
22:46
reach the conclusion that this is just a natural and eternal part of human
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societies it could never be changed and if perhaps it can can be changed it will
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require enormous amount of violence you know you have a lot of
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people uh who have this thinking that deep structural injustices can only be
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solved with violence if you want to make an omelet you have to break some
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eggs and uh the feminist Revolution showed that this is just not true it was
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one of the most successful and quickest Revolutions in in the longterm history
23:28
of humanity accomplished with remarkable little violence at least on the side of
23:34
the revolutionaries so read didn't start any wars didn't assassinate any political Rivals and still change the
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world for the better uh in a in extremely rapidly in so you came across
23:47
as incredibly hopeful on that and I was glad that that was a way that you closed the book for for young people you know
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the thing that you came across as most negative on um and it was through the book
23:59
was how badly we treat animals all the way through yeah whether
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you're talking about milk and the fact that you know sort of sheep and cows
24:09
don't have access to their children they have to just keep birthing or whether it's the way we treat animals for meat
24:15
all of that what why three people care about that in the audience it's good um so what what why
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do you think why has that been something because also it's a question of resources why have we been so much more
24:28
ful on feminism recently and why are we why do so few people actually talk about
24:33
the issue of how we treat all of these other beings that live with us on the planet and it goes back in the end to
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stories we don't think about ourselves as animals we think that there are animals and then there are us and we are
24:46
something completely different um we thought about women that way we thought about slaves that way we thought about a
24:51
lot of beings that way for a long time we don't need more yes and again even
24:57
extremely powerful and Dee rooted stories can be changed quite
25:02
quickly so uh again this is part of the hopeful message of the book and again
25:09
trying to think in in Broad terms I mean how do people understand history so at
25:16
least in the last century or so you can say there are really just three big stories that people have told about
25:23
history uh you have the fascist story which tells people history is a conflict between nations
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this is the fundamental structure or dynamic of history is a conflict between nations or between races which is
25:40
inevitable and which can only end with the complete victory of one nation or
25:46
One race over all the others then the second story is the Marxist or the
25:52
Communist story which also says history is a conflict but not between nations
25:57
it's a conflict between classes again it's an inevitable conflict that can only end with the
26:03
complete victory of one class over the others and from these two perspectives
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everything we talked about about all these stories about women about animals about religion this is just a smoke
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screen this is just confusing people look through the smoke you will see the Deep mechanisms of nation against Nation
26:22
or of class against class and these are deeply pessimistic stories because they
26:29
say that conflict is inevitable and that injustices in relations between nations
26:35
or between classes can only be fixed with violence that the whole world is a
26:41
power struggle and the only thing that makes a difference is power the third
26:46
story is much more hopeful and this is the liberal story and the main message of liberalism is that the world is not
26:53
conflict history is not about conflict the Deep truth about history is that
26:59
humans of all Nations and classes share certain experiences based on which we can find
27:07
shared values and interests not everything of course is shared but the
27:12
the deepest level of who we are I mean you know all these nations and all these religions they are just a few thousand
27:19
years old if you go really deep inside us so people everywhere suffer from pain
27:25
from Hunger everywhere they love their parents their children and um why then are there so many
27:31
conflicts and injustices because of the of ignorance and of problematic stories
27:38
that people believe and if the stories are the problem then yes sometimes
27:43
violence is is necessary but ultimately you can solve at least some problems and
27:49
some injustices just by talking with people and changing the stories they believe so we start with very small
27:57
amounts of organ organization that don't require stories either for order or to
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uh motivate in negative ways we then move through societies that become bigger we have kingdoms we now have
28:09
Nations they require nationalism to get democracy but as we look ahead and not
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very long just within a generation or two we're now talking about issues
28:20
challenges that don't have borders they're global climate change is one artificial intelligence is another I I
28:27
mean I mean the stories that you would have to tell are Global are Global absolutely so there's no outgroup there
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shouldn't be if if there is an outg group we are in deep trouble because we can't solve climate change on
28:42
the level of one nation we can't regulate AI on the level of one nation so uh if we continue to think in terms
28:48
of US versus them we can win all the battles we will lose the big war but
28:54
structurally does that make you more optimistic since the N the nature of the organization that will be required to
29:00
respond to these challenges are Global then the stories by their nature will
29:06
need to involve people that are so otherwise different yeah so um this is
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why I I write for instance these books uh to tell the story of humanity and not
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the story of Israel or the story of the Jewish Nation or the there is place also for these kind of local and tribal
29:25
stories but because we face these kind of global problems we also need to think
29:32
more in terms of global stories and um as I as I said before I mean ultimately
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I think it's it's important to go down to to the level of the body what divides
29:44
people one against the other is the fantasies in our mind if you when you
29:50
look in our fantasies we are so different from each other when you look at the level of the body we are
29:57
extremely simil similar to each other so again I'm not advocating abandoning the
30:02
mind but having a better balance between mind and body with more emphasis on our
30:08
embodied existence that would be very good for us so let's now move to we've
30:14
been talking about things that are affecting us right now actually no one other question first which is you're a historian and you're not just bounded by
30:21
your body and your mind you're also bounded by this very specific context the when so I mean you're writing these
30:28
very very big books frankly a couple of the most important books of the 21st
30:33
century are you are you do you exist at exactly the right time or would we be
30:40
much better off if you were a little in the past or a little in the
30:45
future I have no idea I mean I think that everybody is the product of the the exact moment but given what you're
30:52
trying to explain to people given where the world has been and where it is about to be mhm what is what's the most
30:58
important time to be telling the kind of story that you want to tell I I I think now and I think we don't have a lot of
31:05
time we haven't mentioned AI so far but uh The Horizon I mean we are at the edge
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of the cliff uh we are very close to the point when whether you think about the
31:17
world in terms of power or whether you think about the world in in terms of stories uh it's going to shift the the
31:24
the control of these is going to shift to AI uh AI is the the first technology in history that can take power away from
31:32
us um you know every previous tool Stone knives atom bombs they empowered us
31:38
because the decision about how to use them could only be made by a human being an atom bomb cannot decide who to bomb
31:46
an autonomous weapon system can decide by itself who to bomb a a social media
31:53
algorithm decides by itself what news to show you or what stories to show you and
32:00
uh uh so it it is already taking power away from humans for the first time in history we have losing power as a
32:07
species at a very rapid pace and similarly we are also losing control of the stories that we believe and AI is
32:15
the first technology in history that can create stories by itself people compare it sometime to the printing press but
32:22
it's a completely different thing you know a printing press can can only copy my ideas write something and then it can
32:29
create a thousand a million copies it cannot write a single line by itself but
32:34
AI can and I think very soon we will reach a point when the stories that
32:41
dominate if we are not careful the stories that dominate the world ideologically politically religiously
32:47
will be composed by a nonhuman intelligence is that not
32:53
inevitable I as a historian I I tend not to believe in inevitability again we at the present moment 2024 we
33:02
still have control of the direction that AI is developing but I don't know for how many more years if if we don't do
33:09
anything then yes I think that in I don't know 10 years the stories that dominate the world will for the first
33:16
time in history be the product of a non-human intelligence this is happening I assume this is happening actually
33:23
faster than what you anticipated when you wrote home
33:29
yeah it's it's you know when I wrote sapiens in 2014 I hardly thought about AI at all I mean in 2014 just 10 years
33:36
ago AI was the domain of Science Fiction and of a very small community of
33:42
experts um I wrote homodeos in 2016 and I got really interested in AI around
33:47
that time and still I couldn't imagine that we will be where we are right now
33:54
in 2024 I thought it would take us much much longer to get to a situation with the
34:02
capabilities that now say say CAD GPT or gp4 have it's moving faster than I think
34:09
almost anybody expected and um really we haven't seen anything yet like thinking
34:16
about it in terms of say kind of organic evolution so the AIS of today basically
34:23
like amibas they are just the the the the first tiny creatures at the
34:29
beginning of a new evolutionary process but digital evolution is millions of
34:36
times faster than organic evolution it took you know billions of years to get
34:43
from the the first microorganisms to dinosaurs to T-Rex but uh to get from the AI amibas
34:51
to AIT Rex could get could take maybe just 10 years now if CHP is the amoeba
34:59
just try to imagine what the AI T-Rex of 10 years from now would look
35:04
like no the history that you write about is full of incremental change and it's
35:10
also full of discontinuities but there's no logarithmic change in the histories that
35:16
you write yeah th this is that because we are shifting from an organic to an
35:21
inorganic world yes we are organic beings again we constantly go back to the body even our mind our imagination
35:28
is ultimately the product of organic processes so we think on an organic time
35:35
scale and AI is not an organic entity it
35:40
plays by a completely different set of rules both in terms of
35:47
the time scale of how fast it changes and develops and um the the the limits
35:53
on on what it can do you know if you take for instance the the game of Go so
35:59
people played go for 3,000 years in a particular way and entire traditions and
36:05
and and schools of thought and then wisdom of generations and within a few years First
36:11
Alpha go and then Alpha zero just you know opened up completely new
36:17
territories of how to play Go that never occurred to any human being for 3,000
36:23
years and this is likely to happen more and more with our and politics and
36:28
religion and every field that AI will enter so what's most vulnerable given those changes is it the nature of our
36:36
democracy is it the nature of our society is the nature of of religion is
36:42
it our economic systems what what do you think is most vulnerable not 20 years out but like you know one two three five
36:50
years out where where do you think we need the most Focus for resilience for example I'm not sure but I would say
36:57
that democracy and finance are two of the uh of the weakest links uh democracy
37:05
because democracy is a conversation and AI has hacked our
37:10
conversations it has mastered language it is now able to produce texts and to
37:17
deep fake voices and to increasingly even uh uh create intimacy with us it
37:25
has no feelings of of its own yet yet but it is able to uh uh fake intimate
37:31
relations you meet someone online you are no longer able to tell whether it's a human being or an AI now over the past
37:39
10 years there was this big battle for human attention over social media now the Battlefront is shifting from
37:46
attention to intimacy if you want to change people's minds about anything
37:51
intimacy is the key and AI is learning how to press our emotional buttons
37:57
better better than any human being and under these conditions the conversation
38:02
could simply collapse just think about the the public sphere being flooded not
38:08
with a few hundred or a few thousand AIS but you know they can be
38:13
mass-produced hundreds of millions of AIS being able to hold a conversation
38:18
better than the average human being uh infinite patience engagement no emotions
38:25
of their own so they are never angry they are never fearful they are never bored they are just 100% focused on you
38:33
on hacking your emotional system the longer you interact with it like you meet somebody online and you have an
38:40
argument about climate change or the the US elections or whatever it's a bot now
38:46
for for you it's a complete waste of time I mean you're not going to change the bot's opinion on anything it's a bot
38:52
but every minute you spend talking with this bot it gets to know you better and better to Horn its arguments to forge an
39:01
intimate relationship with you this is a a a um um social weapon of mass
39:08
destruction it could potentially destroy trust between people and destroy the ability to have a conversation and that
39:15
is already happening we see that happening with social media today yeah I mean one of the kind of key questions to
39:21
ask you know any Tech executive or whatever is just explain to me how is it that you cre ated the most sophisticated
39:29
information technology in the history of the world and people can no longer talk with each other I it possible I mean uh whatever
39:38
you think about what's happening in the world it's clear that the conversations are breaking down and the fact that it it's happening
39:46
at the same time that we have the most sophisticated information technology in history it can't be a coincidence so one
39:54
possibility we said earlier that that democracy large scale democracy was
39:59
simply impossible before the 18th century uh because the technology was
40:05
not there it could be that we now have the technology is too sophisticated for the human brain and
40:13
that in the new technological era again democracy becomes impossible what will
40:19
replace it is not clear because dictatorships are also in big big trouble we tend not to think about it
40:26
but dictators also have have problems in life and you know you were actually
40:32
sympathetic to the challenges of creating order as a dictator in your book you were and as a dictator the
40:39
biggest problem always is how to control your own subordinates the one thing a
40:44
dictator never wants to have is a subordinate more powerful that he do
40:50
doesn't know how to control and AI is exactly that you know
40:55
in the toolkit of one the reason the Chinese are regulating AI so much more terrified absolutely I mean you think
41:01
the the the the the most effective tool of every dictator in history is fear how
41:07
you are Stalin and you want to keep people in line what do you do you terrorize them how do you terrorize an
41:15
AI what will you do send it to the gulag kill its family I mean what can you do to an AI that starts to say things or or
41:24
do things that go against the party line or try to take take power away from you
41:31
dictators are in a very very serious problem in a way even worse problem than
41:37
democracies So speaking of the gulag uh we need to talk for a couple
41:42
minutes about public events and uh back when the Russians Russians invaded Ukraine uh
41:49
2022 you were hopeful that this could end culture war between left and right
41:56
yes in the West it does not feel like that no has happened did not happen um
42:03
also you still believe that Russia Ukraine is the most important yes geopolitical conflict out there talk
42:10
talk for a couple minutes about where you think it is and where it's going I mean basically if Russia is allowed is
42:17
allowed to win that's the end of the global order as we have known it for
42:23
decades the most fundamental rule was that you cannot just invade and Conquer
42:28
and Annex another country neighboring country just because you're stronger this was the case for centuries for
42:35
thousands of years it was not the if we talked earlier about State budgets the
42:41
reason the average expenditure on the military went down from 50% to 7% and
42:47
released all these resources to healthcare and education and so forth is because most people most countries felt
42:54
that uh um they're safe that even if they have a strong neighbor it's just
43:00
not done anymore they they they want maybe there'll be some kind of Border Clash or whatever but the idea that the
43:06
neighbors will just invade us conquer us and Annex our our country it's not just
43:11
not done and this is exactly what uh Putin is trying to do in Ukraine it's
43:17
completely different from say the American invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan which had huge of course problems there
43:23
but there was no intention of making Iraq the 51st state of the United States they weren't going to take the oil they
43:30
weren't going to take the land that wasn't going to happen I mean people talk about imperialism imperialism they forgot what imperialism means originally
43:37
imperialism in the Roman sense in the ottoman sense in the Mongol sense is that you invade a neighboring country
43:45
and just conquer an anex it it's not cultural imperialism this is imperialism um people forgot because it
43:52
wasn't done for quite some time and this is exactly what Putin is trying to do if
43:58
he gets away with it we will see more and more putins all over the world uh I
44:04
don't know like Maduro in Venezuela ey in Guyana I mean good good luck with that yeah I mean if if if Russia can
44:11
invade and Conquer Ukraine why can't Venezuela invade and Conquer Guyana do you want me to answer that I mean you
44:17
know it's you can't get through the border the Brits have sent the ships Venezuela there are there are many no
44:24
I'm I'm I'm saying it not as a kind of technical issue philosophically yes that
44:29
more again if assum a can opener it's the the question is does anything dep
44:36
defends any country around the world except brute military force uh and if the answer is no then we
44:44
will see military budgets everywhere Skyrocket and more and more military alliances and more and more Wars because
44:50
we know the cycle I mean um you want to make yourself safer the the neighbors feel more frightened and uh this is what
44:57
we've been through for centuries um there is a chance actually
45:04
you know history is often we we only understand the meaning of historical events with
45:10
insight and there is a scenario that we are already living in the midst of the
45:15
third world war and we just don't know it you know if you think about the second world war so today any school kid
45:22
knows that it started on the 1st of September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland but if you ask people let's say
45:28
in May 1941 in people in New York people in stalling ground people hirosima it's not
45:34
World War I yes there is a conflict in Europe there are some conflicts in Asia but it's not World War II only with
45:40
Insight we say oh yeah this is when it started we could already be in the midst
45:46
of World War I that started on the 24th of February 2022 and with the Russian
45:51
invasion of Ukraine and we just don't know it yet now why hasn't it brought together I mean is stronger today than
45:58
it was in 2022 that's clear but but it hasn't brought together left and right across the US and Europe why
46:04
not I'm not sure um I'm not an expert you know on the political Dynamics
46:11
within the United States within Europe what you do see very worrying is a trend
46:16
in many countries in the US also in my my country of the kind of suicide of conservative parties you know for many
46:24
generations the Democratic game was a kind of double Act of conservatives and
46:30
progressives like a car with the brakes and the fuel pedal you press this you press that you change going too fast
46:37
going too slow and suddenly conservative parties all over the world are committing
46:42
suicide and turning into radical revolutionary parties that the the basic idea of
46:49
conservatism is to conserve to conserve institutions to
46:54
conserve Traditions it's the Progressive who say let's move faster let's change things let's let's destroy institutions
47:01
and the conservative says no no no let's calm down we don't understand the world very well you think this institution
47:07
should be destroyed but actually it's it's important and now the ones who are
47:12
trying to destroy institutions and traditions are the conservatives and it becomes the job of
47:19
progressives to protect and conserve institutions and traditions and they're not good at it because this is not their
47:25
job I mean they're the the ones who supposed to press forward all the time
47:31
um and it's it's I don't really know why why it's happening but you think about for instance the 6th of January and the
47:38
kind of the the mythological moment of the conservative philosophy is the
47:44
storming of the bastile when Burke says you know this is a bad idea it will end badly and this
47:52
was the kind and this is kind of the creation story of conservatism and on the 6 of January you have all these
47:58
conservatives cheering the storing of the bastile so again the progressives are basically
48:06
doing what they've been doing for decades what I I what I don't understand
48:12
is this kind of self- imulation of conservative parties and again you can in the US you can try and explain it in
48:19
all kinds of of local Dynamics but because you see it in more and more places around the world um um but is I
48:27
mean if I wanted to take the magga position right which is New York so it's
48:33
hard to do um but but you know you have a lot of people that are saying well you
48:39
supported globalization um and it hollowed out our working class our middle class you know
48:46
you supported all of this automation but what about like the way we used to live
48:51
you allowed all this immigration but who are we so I mean many of them would argue the conservatism is trying to like
48:58
focus on the historic why why perfectly okay why the attack on
49:05
institutions why the attack on the institution of the elections why the
49:10
attack on uh all the all the all the civil servants as deep State I mean this
49:17
is not conservative if you believe those institutions no longer reflect or support the people or the values then
49:24
you become revolutionary Yes again I this is the narrative The Narrative that's the narrative I'm I'm you can we
49:30
can argue it's true it's not true I'm just making an observation this is a revolutionary narrative it's a narrative
49:37
saying all the institutions or most of the institutions of the country are
49:42
dysfunctional we need to destroy them and start from scratch this is the
49:47
French Revolution this is the bolic revolution this is not conservatism so you can say it's still true we still
49:53
need to do it but uh uh and the other thing I would say is about this you know Narrative of
50:00
globalization maybe it's true of the US but what about Brazil what about India
50:05
what about Poland there so many countries that benefited from globalization and you still see
50:12
analogous processes so uh I think globalization and and and and and the
50:18
impact on the job market it's too it's it's an easy solution but it doesn't cover what we see globally yeah it's
50:23
developed it's not developing I think that's interesting and of course Brazil had their January 8th moment just like the US had January 6th so I have a few
50:30
questions from you I haven't I'm going to transition to that by asking the one question I haven't asked you at all haven't talked about the Middle East oh
50:37
the Middle East you live in Israel yes um and I mean you were active you were out there demonstrating uh before uh the
50:45
horrors of October 7th because of what the Prime Minister was trying to do uh
50:50
as a conservative uh with Israeli institutions like theary same thing he
50:56
was trying to systematically destroy the institutions of Israeli democracy and we
51:02
had the same conspiracy theories about the Deep State uh also in Israel and
51:08
actually this was one of this is one of the key explanations for for what happened on October 7th that you know
51:14
you had for months the Army the Secret Service the shin betet warning Nan both
51:21
privately and also publicly Israel is in a terrible Danger that you need to shift
51:28
your attention from trying to destroy Israeli democracy to focus on the external threat of Hamas ofah of Iran we
51:37
are in extremely dangerous situation and he just didn't listen and
51:44
the reason he didn't listen and the people around him didn't listen they had a theory in their minds of Al publicly
51:51
they stated it that all these military experts the chief of the Ida the chief
51:57
of the shinb they are part of the deep state conspiracy against them they don't
52:02
really have information they don't really believe that Israel is in danger Israel is in no danger at all they are
52:08
just making these warnings in order to force me to stop the judicial overhaul
52:15
the attempt to again destroy the institutions of of of Israeli democracy and this is how we got to October the
52:23
7th on a deeper level I would say that what is happening in Israel uh has been
52:29
happening for not just in recent the recent year but for years now is a a struggle for the soul of the
52:38
country and more than that for the soul of Judaism um between
52:45
Zionism the national movement of the Jewish people and a new
52:52
Messianic uh uh mutation of of Judaism that believes in
52:57
Jewish Supremacy you know we talked about the difference between good nationalism and
53:03
bad nationalism at its best nationalism recognizes the uniqueness of our nation
53:10
and uh talks about our our right to develop our traditions and so forth at
53:16
its worst it falls victim to this Supremacy complex that we are not just
53:21
unique we are superior to everybody and we now have
53:27
uh this movement of Jewish Supremacy in Israel it's part of the Coalition it's
53:32
part of the government they have a Messianic vision for the country if you
53:38
ask them what do you see in the future five years 10 years down the road they
53:43
also talk in terms of from The River To The Sea of a single big Israel with Jews
53:50
Supreme basically a three class or three cast system with Jews Supreme with full
53:57
rights some Arabs with some rights as second class citizens and lots of other
54:02
Arabs with no rights at all this is their vision for the country uh you're talking about some of the farri right
54:08
that's in the Coalition that's right they're in the Coalition with Nan if this is the big
54:15
fight we are trying to stop them if we fail if they succeed in in in in
54:20
realizing this this Messianic Vision this will change the very meaning of Judaism all over the world people here
54:28
we also have to deal with the consequences so I mean the question here which is do you think there is a way to
54:33
use your stories these stories to alleviate the hatred and the violence that we have right now and I add to that
54:40
you know the supremacy issue also exists uncomfortably with the victimhood
54:47
stories and that you know both with the Palestinians and the Jews for so long
54:53
they've defined themselves in terms of the pain of victimhood that doesn't create much space for other people's
55:01
story so how do you do that um this is the work we need to do
55:07
like individually and also collectively to change the narrative to change the story um again you see it all over the
55:14
world that people everywhere tell their story as a story of victimhood you have
55:20
also some of the most powerful countries in the world Russia telling itself its story as a story of victim everybody is
55:27
against us everybody hates us everybody tries to destroy us and the problem with
55:32
stories of victimhood even they always have an element of Truth in them of course but if you think about yourself
55:39
primarily as a victim it relieves you of all responsibility I'm not responsible for
55:44
all the problems in the world I'm a victim I need more power one day when
55:50
I'm empowered okay then I take responsibility but not now now I just need to focus on getting more powerful
55:56
myself you're not responsible for any of the people that are killed in Gaza not one that's the story of the victim and
56:05
um and part of of also what I try to do in in the children's book is to say no
56:11
humans are the most powerful entities on the planet and also when you look at
56:17
human collectives States tribes religions all of them have some measure
56:22
of power and unless we kind of change our
56:28
narratives from one of victimhood to one of at least partial empowerment um we
56:34
are not going to take responsibility for anything so then how do you another question from the audience it's a great
56:39
one how do you define the difference between patriotism and nationalism specifically where's the limit before we
56:45
have ideologies that endanger us it's the limit between uniqueness and supreme and supremeness and the and the limit of
56:52
the border between love and hate the good type of patriotism says that this is a a unique group of
57:00
people which I love I care about and therefore I'm willing to go the extra
57:05
mile from for them I'll do for them things that I wouldn't do for others which is completely reasonable this is
57:11
how we behave with our family with our friends this is also how we should behave with our nation it becomes
57:16
dangerous when we start saying this group of people they are not just unique they are superior they are Supreme they
57:23
are better than anybody else they deserve far more than anybody else and
57:29
when the emphasis shifts from love and caring to hate people who Define
57:35
themselves I'm a great great Patriot because I hate foreigners I am a great Patriot not because I pay my taxes I
57:42
don't pay any taxes it's because I hate minorities so I'm a great Patriot and uh
57:48
this is the this is the danger zone another question in the months leading up to October 7th you are highly
57:54
critical of the Israeli government we've talked about that since October 7th you have defended Israel's right to exist
58:00
and been critical of the progressive left that blames Israel and the occupation how do you reconcile these
58:06
complicated views two ideas held at the same time no no problem I mean I
58:16
mean I'm in favor of uh Palestinians uh uh uh realizing their rights to live a
58:23
dignified life in their Homeland and at the same time I'm in favor of Israelis
58:29
uh having their right to live dignified lives in their Homeland what exactly the solution would look like two states this
58:37
kind of solution it's difficult to say the present moment but at the end of the road we need a situation when their
58:45
right to uh to to exist and not just to exist but again to live dignified lives of both Nations is recognized and there
58:53
shouldn't be a logical contradiction just because you are in favor of uh the rights of Palestinians doesn't mean you
59:00
have to be also in favor of destroying Israel completely and just because you're in favor of Defending Israel uh
59:08
uh doesn't mean that you should ignore the the the terrible suffering of the Palestinians and their rights so two big
59:14
things speaking of speaking of holding two views in your
59:20
mind at the same time since October 7th two different things have happened right on the one hand we have a lot more
59:27
people that now see the urgency of creating a pathway for the Palestinians
59:32
to be able to govern themselves and have a level of self-defense on the other hand you have radicalized far larger
59:41
numbers of populations both inside Israel and in Gaza in the West Bank
59:47
among Palestinian refugees in Jordan and elsewhere which of those two things do
59:52
you feel is more likely to play out to
59:57
determine outcomes and why it depends on on the decisions being taken right now
1:00:03
or in the coming weeks and months um there is a potential that out of this
1:00:09
terrible catastrophe something good will actually emerge if there is a kind of
1:00:14
comprehensive deal for you know a peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia
1:00:20
which also includes the restart of the Israeli Palestinian peace conference a peace process uh rebuilding of Gaza and
1:00:30
providing the Palestinian people with a better future and if we go in that
1:00:36
direction um I think that you know all the terrible hatred and fear that has
1:00:41
been created in recent months we can get over it um you know when you're in the
1:00:48
midst of this moment of terrible pain you think it will last
1:00:53
forever but uh time is very powerful talk about Rwanda give them the Rwanda
1:00:59
example I me exactly 30 years ago we had this terrible genocide in
1:01:06
Rwanda uh you had October the 7th on 10 times bigger not a thousand people
1:01:12
massacred in a day 10,000 people massacred in a day in a terrible way not with bombs from far away but with knives
1:01:19
and clubs and then it happened again the next day and again the next day and
1:01:24
again the next day for a 100 days a million people were murdered in a 100
1:01:30
days in the most atrocious ways you could imagine 30 years later they live
1:01:37
together the Hutu and Tutsis Rwanda is one of the most successful by many
1:01:42
measures countries in Africa um and at the time in the early
1:01:47
90s it would have been utterly Unthinkable and it's it's only 30 years
1:01:53
and similarly if you think about you know the history of Jews and Germans that are now very good friends
1:02:00
and it was just you know 7080 80 years ago so uh in in the midst of of of of a
1:02:07
very painful moment uh you know the pain and the hat they just flood your mind completely
1:02:14
it's like a black screen in front of your eyes you can see nothing you think it will last
1:02:20
forever but uh if you if people make the right decisions even the worst storms
1:02:27
pass so the last question I have here is actually about you going off the grid um
1:02:33
which I guess you do for a month every year I try to yeah and and I mean you know make it per you also don't use a
1:02:41
smartphone except for emergencies M um you're vegan right veganish veganish I try not
1:02:50
to make it a religion you well you do that you try to make most things not a religion I think is way we've had that
1:02:57
discussion um you meditate for an hour in the morning an hour after work are
1:03:02
you doing this just to Annoy Us right um cuz I don't know about you guys
1:03:09
like I mean I I'm aligned with a lot of what he says but the flesh is weak right so explain what if this isn't just to be
1:03:17
better than us what are you trying to accomplish you know people
1:03:22
take such good care of their bodies sometimes they spend hours you know in the gym and special diet and whatever
1:03:29
and I also try to take good care of my mind that and our minds were shaped back
1:03:35
in the Stone Age In a completely different situation environment we are now flooded by enormous amounts of
1:03:42
information that we cannot deal with on top of that uh with our smartphones and
1:03:48
social media algorithms and so forth you know the SM what what the smartest people in the world have been doing in
1:03:54
recent years is figuring out how to use these devices in order to hack our
1:04:01
brains and press our emotional buttons and anybody who thinks they are strong enough to resist it is just fooling
1:04:08
themselves it's much much more powerful than us so I'm not saying it's it's
1:04:13
impossible to just you know completely disconnect from the world but taking some time off to just detoxify the mind
1:04:22
and to have you know a kind of information diet both in in terms of the quantity of information and also in
1:04:29
terms of the quality of information that we consume again some people are so aware of what they put into their mouth
1:04:36
and into the stomach we should need to be also aware of what we put into our minds and also what we take
1:04:43
out um because my work I I write books I
1:04:51
give these kind of public talks I'm a public intellectual so I know that the things I say uh they go into the minds
1:04:58
of thousands maybe potentially millions of people and they are like seeds that
1:05:04
go into all these Minds so we have to be very very careful about what seeds we
1:05:10
are planting and I think this is even more important in the case of
1:05:15
politicians if I look at politics today again one of the worst things about politics today is that people confuse
1:05:21
politics and therapy like they want to be authentic
1:05:26
they value when you really when you speak your mind you shouldn't speak your mind as a
1:05:31
politician you should be very careful about what you say I mean as a meditator
1:05:36
meditator I know that the mind is full of garbage so uh you know people are very
1:05:43
much in favor of building walls this day we need to build a wall between the mind and the
1:05:49
mouth and be very careful about what immigrants we allow to cross the wall
1:05:56
between the mind and the mouth again not one not in therapy if you go to I also
1:06:02
go to therapy if you go to therapy say whatever you want I also think that we need h a part of of of of preserving
1:06:10
privacy is to preserve the right for stupidity that I think that especially
1:06:15
politicians have should have a right to be stupid in private that when they are
1:06:20
just meeting their friends they should have the right to say stupid and things
1:06:26
and racist things and anti-semitic things and homophobic things uh in
1:06:31
private uh because it's I know from again my job as a public speaker that
1:06:37
you need to be very to to have a good guard of your mouth it Demands a lot of
1:06:43
mental effort and you can't maintain it throughout the day day after day after
1:06:48
day so I think that yes we have to be very careful about what we say in public and we also need again time off to be as
1:06:56
stupid as we want you know what I really like about this answer is that I was worried that you were better than us and
1:07:02
in reality in reality it turns out you're a little worse just deep
1:07:07
down so will you please join me in giving a hand to help making youal great
1:07:13
again thank
1:07:24
you
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