JARON LANIER on Humanism, Tech, Creativity & Who Owns the Future - Highlights

JARON LANIER on Humanism, Tech, Creativity & Who Owns the Future - Highlights

/

VR Pioneer · Musician · Author JARON LANIER
Who Owns the Future? · Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality & Virtual Reality · Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

AI is obviously the dominant topic in tech lately, and I think occasionally there's AI that's nonsense, and occasionally there's AI that's great. I love finding new proteins for medicine and so on. I don't think we serve ourselves well when we put our own technology up as if it were a new God that we created. I think we're really getting a little too full of ourselves to think that.

When we do that, I think we confuse ourselves too easily. This goes back to Alan Turing, the main founder of computer science, who had this idea of the Turing test. In the test, you can't tell whether the computer has gotten more human-like or the human has gotten more computer-like. People are very prone to becoming more computer-like. When we're on social media, we let ourselves be guided by the algorithms, so we start to become dumb in the way the algorithms want us to. You see that all the time. It's really degraded our psychologies and our society.

AI, Virtual Reality & Dawn of the New Everything w/ JARON LANIER, VR Pioneer, Musician, Author

AI, Virtual Reality & Dawn of the New Everything w/ JARON LANIER, VR Pioneer, Musician, Author

/

Father of VR · Musician · Author JARON LANIER
Who Owns the Future? · Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality & Virtual Reality · Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

AI is obviously the dominant topic in tech lately, and I think occasionally there's AI that's nonsense, and occasionally there's AI that's great. I love finding new proteins for medicine and so on. I don't think we serve ourselves well when we put our own technology up as if it were a new God that we created. I think we're really getting a little too full of ourselves to think that.

When we do that, I think we confuse ourselves too easily. This goes back to Alan Turing, the main founder of computer science, who had this idea of the Turing test. In the test, you can't tell whether the computer has gotten more human-like or the human has gotten more computer-like. People are very prone to becoming more computer-like. When we're on social media, we let ourselves be guided by the algorithms, so we start to become dumb in the way the algorithms want us to. You see that all the time. It's really degraded our psychologies and our society.

Crisis, Philosophy & the Search for Meaning - ROBERT PIPPIN - Highlights

Crisis, Philosophy & the Search for Meaning - ROBERT PIPPIN - Highlights

/

Author of The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy
Modernism as a Philosophical Problem · Hegel’s Idealism

Philosophy is both an academic discipline and also something that everybody does. Everybody has to have reflective views about what's significant. They also have to justify to themselves why it's significant or important. The nature of justice itself, and the various opinions that have been written about in philosophy about justice, can get to a very high level. So there's this unusual connection between philosophy and human life. We've inherited from the middle ages, this incredible tradition that's now developed into a chance for young people to spend four or five years, in a way, released from the pressures of life. The idea to pursue your ideas a little further in these four years you have, exempt from the pressures of social life, allows philosophy to have a kind of position unique in the academy. In confronting what the best minds in the history of the world have had to say about these issues, the hope is that they provide for the people who are privileged enough to confront philosophy a better and more thoughtful approach to these fundamental questions that everybody has to confront.

What are we willing to give up to find meaning & a sense of belonging? - TARA ISABELLA BURTON

What are we willing to give up to find meaning & a sense of belonging? - TARA ISABELLA BURTON

/

Author of Here in Avalon · Social Creature
Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World 
Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians
So this idea that we can present ourselves as works of art, that we can create ourselves has always had a particular sort of aristocratic coding, historically associated with monarchs, who create their public image and their public persona, including through fashion. Today, if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand, will we find the right partner? Get into the right college? Even secure the best job?

Spirituality & Selfhood: TARA ISABELLA BURTON - Author of Here in Avalon, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World

Spirituality & Selfhood: TARA ISABELLA BURTON - Author of Here in Avalon, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World

/

Author of Here in Avalon · Social Creature
Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World 
Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Kardashians
So this idea that we can present ourselves as works of art, that we can create ourselves has always had a particular sort of aristocratic coding, historically associated with monarchs, who create their public image and their public persona, including through fashion. Today, if we don't self-promote, self-create, and self-brand, will we find the right partner? Get into the right college? Even secure the best job?

Highlights - PIA MANCINI - Co-founder/CEO, Open Collective - Chair, DemocracyEarth Foundation - YGL World Economic Forum

Highlights - PIA MANCINI - Co-founder/CEO, Open Collective - Chair, DemocracyEarth Foundation - YGL World Economic Forum

/

Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation
Alum of YC & Young Global Leaders at World Economic Forum

And so I think many of those challenges have to do with the nature of power and how power is conservative and power will do anything in order to stay in power. And the status quo will do anything and make itself look like anything that you want in order to stay in power. And they might change their spots a little bit here or there, but if you look deep enough, it's the same people. It's the same power.

And so for me, that was the big challenge of realizing that we were facing power and power is conservative, and that's not the way to really achieve the change that we wanted to make. I wasn't patient enough for incremental changes. That's not what I'm interested in. So there's one set of challenges that I think is common to anyone in my position trying to do this. With regards to being a young woman, I mean, sure you face the same kind of sexist comments that you would face anywhere else that I face now as a woman CEO. The best thing I can do for that is just occupying the space and keep occupying the space and refusing to move away or let things like that stop me from engaging.

PIA MANCINI - Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation - YGL World Economic Forum

PIA MANCINI - Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation - YGL World Economic Forum

/

Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation
Alum of YC & Young Global Leaders at World Economic Forum

And so I think many of those challenges have to do with the nature of power and how power is conservative and power will do anything in order to stay in power. And the status quo will do anything and make itself look like anything that you want in order to stay in power. And they might change their spots a little bit here or there, but if you look deep enough, it's the same people. It's the same power.

And so for me, that was the big challenge of realizing that we were facing power and power is conservative, and that's not the way to really achieve the change that we wanted to make. I wasn't patient enough for incremental changes. That's not what I'm interested in. So there's one set of challenges that I think is common to anyone in my position trying to do this. With regards to being a young woman, I mean, sure you face the same kind of sexist comments that you would face anywhere else that I face now as a woman CEO. The best thing I can do for that is just occupying the space and keep occupying the space and refusing to move away or let things like that stop me from engaging.

Highlights - Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

Highlights - Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

/

Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker & Speaker
Creator of the Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move

Technology has very much changed the way we read and take in information and shortened it into quick bursts and attention spans. We're living in a new world, for sure. And how do we communicate in this new world? Not just in a way that gets the reach, because there are whole industries aimed at what do I do to get the most likes or the most attention, and all of that, which I don't think is very fulfilling as artists.

It's sort of a diminishing of our art form to try and play the game because then we're getting the attention and getting the hits, as opposed to what do I really want to create? How do I really want to create it? How do I want to display this? And can I do it in a way that breaks through so that if I do it my way, it's still going to get the attention, great. But if it doesn't, can I be cool with that? And can I be okay creating what I want to create, knowing that that's what it's about. It's about sharing in an honest, authentic way what I want to express without letting the tentacles of social media drip into my brain and take over why I'm literally doing the things that I'm doing.

Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

Max Stossel - Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker, Creator of "Words That Move"

/

Award-winning Poet, Filmmaker & Speaker
Creator of the Stand-Up Poetry Special Words That Move

Technology has very much changed the way we read and take in information and shortened it into quick bursts and attention spans. We're living in a new world, for sure. And how do we communicate in this new world? Not just in a way that gets the reach, because there are whole industries aimed at what do I do to get the most likes or the most attention, and all of that, which I don't think is very fulfilling as artists.

It's sort of a diminishing of our art form to try and play the game because then we're getting the attention and getting the hits, as opposed to what do I really want to create? How do I really want to create it? How do I want to display this? And can I do it in a way that breaks through so that if I do it my way, it's still going to get the attention, great. But if it doesn't, can I be cool with that? And can I be okay creating what I want to create, knowing that that's what it's about. It's about sharing in an honest, authentic way what I want to express without letting the tentacles of social media drip into my brain and take over why I'm literally doing the things that I'm doing.

Highlights - Adam Alter - NYTimes Bestselling Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”

Highlights - Adam Alter - NYTimes Bestselling Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”

/

Author of NYTimes Bestseller Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked ·
Anatomy of a Breakthrough · Drunk Tank Pink

The other thing from a creativity perspective is we know that more people around you is good for creativity. It's one of the axioms in thinking about creativity in general. You need time. An artist, a writer. I'm a writer. I need time on my own. I also paint and draw. I cannot do that with other people around. It's just my process. But before you get there, before you get to that point where you need that time alone, that space apart, for almost everyone being around other people is good. It's good for creativity. It's both about diversity of opinion and idea and just about having more - just more information, more thoughts, more ways of looking at the world. And some of the most profound research I've come across in preparing for this book suggested that it's better to be around people who are deeply incompetent than it is to be around no one, which I found very surprising.

Adam Alter - Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”, “Anatomy of a Breakthrough"

Adam Alter - Author of “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology”, “Anatomy of a Breakthrough"

/

Adam Alter is a Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business and the Robert Stansky Teaching Excellence Faculty Fellow. Adam is the New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, and Drunk Tank Pink, which investigates how hidden forces in the world around us shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. He has written for the New York Times, New Yorker, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and a host of TV, radio, and publications. His next book Anatomy of a Breakthrough will be published in 2023.