Joe Rogan Experience #1558 — Tristan Harris Transcript

Transcript

0:00 the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day I think it was the second most popular documentary throughout the month of September, or film in their own personal life you know i was been working on these issues for something like eight or eight years or something look at their phone, they are basically experiencing thoughts and scrolling through

3:05 I went into cults and started studying how cults work, There was never a physical sign? I thought there was something that they actually had. They took it off their page, I think. Let's not get crazy. Yeah. In 2015, Alphabet assumed a slightly adjusted version of the model. I think I remember that, yeah. question is who's good because you live in a morally plural society and there's this question

6:46 never saw this coming when they started Twitter. And they didn't think that they were ever going But I think we should really reverse engineer and then all the taxis get it. And the idea is could we create a dispatch system so that I post remember, like that was a new thing at the time, right? You log in and you see your profile. And I remember a conversation I had

8:58 attention. And that was a real light bulb moment for me, because you realize that as they're on or things that are going to make you engage more if they just allow these things to if someone So there's always been an attention economy. Sort of. And that's the thing is that we actually are competing for attention it felt like it was neutral and it was relatively neutral and to progress that story back in time with um

11:45 You can jump in if you want. Apple has an interesting way of handling sort of the way they have their algorithm for their podcast app. And so you could be number three and it could be number two. We actually just experienced this. that we sort of jumped to the top. the the thing that apple does that i really like in that is it gives an opportunity for these new

14:14 and he was kind of open about it and laughing about it. rewarding the kings that already exist versus who is the most trending. your friends were listening to. addictive to see what your friends are doing in a feed, but it doesn't reward what's true or what's that people become deeply addicted to these platforms what you can do is just let them They have a mode like that on Twitter.

17:15 Correct. other companies have to follow because otherwise they won't get the attention. of who's going to do more. Now, if you open up TikTok, TikTok doesn't even wait. I don't know And one other example of this is the time it takes to reach, let's say, 10 million followers. get to reach, if that's the currency of the thing that gets us to come back to get more attention,

19:26 to hit the fame lottery and make it big, venture capitalists fund these new social platforms based on how fast without the responsibilities of publishers, what we disagree about, black and white thinking, reflective world, what we would say is the most important. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of Have your kids use your willpower. will put it in the most recent. So once you switch apps and you have twitter in a recent it'll be

22:33 okay, I'm going to go watch, I'm going to look at this one thing on Facebook because my friend When you flick your finger, it actually literally wakes up this sort of supercomputer avatar the three AIs what did it show that the girls who watched the teen dieting video? year old girls. Right. And they all tend to watch these, these other videos. I don't know what,

25:27 and zoom way out and say, If you started Teen Girls with a dieting video, it would recommend these bunch of holocaust denial videos right if you started teen girls with And what do you think was the most engaging of those? Oh. because it's the same dynamic they're competing for attention and youtube recommended flat earth It's because of this. and they'll deal with that problem. But then they start doing it based reactively. But again,

28:30 or the easily impressionable it just says who's vulnerable to it. Because another example, the way I think about this is And the conspiracy theory, like dark corners of YouTube, were the dark corners that tends craziest stuff you can find. Crazy Town. No matter where you start, you could start in Walter thinking right now, and again, I want to acknowledge COINTELPRO, Operation Mockingbird,

30:54 Well, the only way I know that like that. And this is the thing is warping our view of reality. And I think that's what really, to recommend things? those videos on the right-hand side, I think that was there pretty early, if I remember, actually. Because that was sort of the innovation, I'm not supposed to, Oh yeah. the platform overall youtube youtube could assure advertisers that it was providing a valuable, high-quality experience for people.

33:38 These technology systems have taken control of human choice their choices. I mean, literally in military theory, if I want to screw up your military, the tweets are prominently featured right and then the response to those i mean like really like arbitrary like weird because it's a values blind And scrutiny. Yeah. I mean, she's just like newsfeeds filled with hate about just what she

36:18 followed, each person gets thousands or project forward into the future a few years. Each of us I just tell them that you can't read that stuff. She's like, fuck her. She's not completely fucked up by it, Right. Yes. But it's never been easier now for not just that one comment to sort of gain more airtime, but then for that to build a hate mob and then to see the interconnected clicks.

38:49 I thought we were friends, that whole kind of psychology. I mean, I didn't not all negative stuff is false And then next thing they know, you know, clear all the drama that happened on social media from the weekend for the kids jesus and again like which is why we talk about in the film, We don't do it. Like, would you trust that doctor? use the things that I was using because they were creative and they were about tools and empowerment. And that's what's changed. We

42:26 protect privacy to uh block advertisements to make sure that at least like when you when you that's right and it's not actually out yet it's gonna be out in January or whether or not these companies get your information i mean those things are great um the challenge is In a system that's okay, we've got species loss in the Amazon, we've got we're losing insects, we've got melting

45:33 this attention extraction paradigm, that the company's growth, as you said, depends on where you're selling thinner and thinner financial assets as if it's real, but it's really just a but that's this sort of invisible force that's upstream that affects every other thing downstream. You can't, but how could you? But, you know, I think we're seeing signs of real change. We have the antitrust case that was just filed against Google

48:32 Oh, really? the kind of fundamental harm of like these things are warping our society. They're warping how our It might be an understatement, yeah. on how to regulate the tech platforms is one of the best. right and they're not actually dealing with how would we solve this problem they're just trying But what else? by the QAnon stuff, do you know? topics, right? I think what I want to make sure we get to, though, is that there are many people

52:25 And Facebook, I think, even just recently announced that they're going to be promoting more of the Facebook group content into feeds, Then you imagine Facebook trying to come up with a policy that will be universal to all the countries that But the problem is he created a situation where he is now in that position. So when you get your smartphone, it comes-

54:20 So the data doesn't apply to Facebook use? Yeah, and WhatsApp. were persecuted and murdered because of fake information spread by the government um on if you go in and you break it, then you are responsible for fixing it. This is Facebook You know, when there's sort of speech that leads to offline violence in these other countries. minority group isn't on Facebook. But if it manipulates the dominant culture to go, we have

57:46 The, they will post those, they'll go viral on WhatsApp and say, we have to go lynch those If you zoom out to the global context, all of us, we don't use Facebook in Brazil. for, you know, English speaking American election, most privileged society, now look at the hundreds It might be me. When you look at the future, do you look at this like a runaway train that's headed towards

1:01:07 capitalists find social media so profitable and such a good investment is because we generate environment that we're all sharing is a totally different process. We went from a high quality speech, and we have this feeling that the solution to bad speech is better, oriented where they can actually steel man the other side? Actually, they can do, you know, for this speech, here is the opposite

1:03:42 if I zoom out and say climate, you know, the climate system, like how is the entire overall system behaving? Like, I don't know how this plays out, hurting itself or eating itself or punching itself. If one of the neurons wakes up in the body, Let's actually change the system. warping of the mind. that that's exacerbated in a fantastic way by social media and the last 10 years of our addictions to social

1:06:30 It's lighter fluid for sparks of, you know, where everyone was going to be educated in a way they had never experienced before in the history of Would be awesome. I actually show you, here's a more complex, nuanced picture that disagrees with that. you swap phones and you actually scroll through their feed for 10 minutes and you scroll through mine for 10 minutes,

1:08:37 What do you use? is, It's just, and it's these people in these verbose arguments about politics and the economy Eric, you might see Eric Weinstein Yeah. Luckily, the work is so busy that that's easier. It's funny. they'll say, we're not immune to them that just because you know that they're manipulating you you know, Justin Rosenstein, Are you worried that it's going to be more and more invasive?

1:12:09 at predicting our next move? It's almost like we have to eliminate that. And I mean, it would be right? We went from a world where we said the environment's something we don't pay attention to this off and say this is sacred but isn't the problem like the the environmental protection For sure. with that well it's more like sugar right because sugar is always going to taste way better than

1:15:12 that is. I think in 2013 or 14 was the year that water crossed over as being more of a successful that capacity. Our brain, we do have the capacity for self-awareness. We can name negativity bias, bias, we can name that obligation to be that guy that is out there sort of as the Paul Revere of the technology we're, frankly, I wish we had, I'm just being really honestly, we, I really wish we'd had those

1:18:45 because all their friends are still using Instagram and TikTok, and they're still going to face-to-face conversation as possible? Yeah. people. It's interesting that you made this comparison to the Environmental Protection Like Facebook is global. Not like sugar is evil, but just you have to have a common awareness about the problem. Yes. You should toot the horn.

1:22:39 I think people see the film that we could then start to mobilize. get all the countries that, you know, where there's the six different major dialects in Ethiopia, figured out that we should regulate lead out of our sort of infused product supply is by proving And they proved that if the IQ points dropped by four points, intelligence. Let's replace IQ with problem-solving capacity. What is your problem-solving

1:26:06 So we have compromise and understanding because you can't And when when they actually two people who traditionally disagree actually agree on something, but you agree on these three things, you know, sort of digital media bolted onto the top of a democracy and have it work better, there's a tiny island and there's a looming threat of this big country. Whereas the United States,

1:29:10 they'll get stopped with a white glove can hack in. That's what we do when we install Facebook in our society, or you install Facebook I think Greece or some other countries like that. And they're way behind the curve. and they were doing it in this very bizarre, Like, that's all done. Maybe people would argue the Civil War was worse, but in recent history, there is maximum incentive for foreign actors to drive up, again,

1:32:53 you know, throw the agent provocateur, And the Renee DiResta podcast that I did, And she said she looked at probably 100,000 memes. create a mockery. And, you know, back in 2016, there was no, there was very little collaboration Yeah, is that if I'm, you know, China, me? Because it's your own people, your own free speech. I'm just the one amplifying the one I want

1:35:28 people, Facebook shut down 2 billion fake accounts. I think this is a stat from a year ago. Oh, my God. That seemed to me to be a calculated thing because, you know, Eric actually tweeted about it saying that, you know, you could probably find the tweet because I retweeted it. It's going against the two-party system. They banned the Unity 2020 account.

1:37:12 concerns in the long run but it's a tremendous issue and it also it it for sure sows the seeds So right now, they want it to be a free for all where there's no moderation at all, It's like I said, and glass devices interact with your brain. about this project you're working at and it could suck up your time staring at butts. Those guys used to be brought up in my awareness more often.

1:39:50 that shows you the number of hours you spend music now which i was like oh that's a mistake right like that's a slippery slope that's the That to opt out of all sharing of your information they have so much goddamn money. Totally. Well, and also they're like the, you know, fund the next thing which means so they're actually enacting a kind of a like how do we want things oriented?

1:42:45 developers ends up going more to things that end up helping people as opposed to things that were we need to really protect, like, we have to call out what's sacred to us now. you pull out your phone, right? Please share your experiences because when you said you tried to change it from the inside, and hack more and more of our vulnerabilities, and that that would grow,

1:45:31 project and actually came up with the word humane to describe the humane interface. And that's where 10,000 people at Google saw it, it was actually the number one meme within the company, they have economy that Google runs. And when you worked there, did you have to use Android? Was it part But we tried to get some of those things like the screen time features that are now launched.

1:47:42 It sort of does, but it doesn't work. I mean, it's even worse. in a system that was designed in a humane and sort of time well spent kind of way, help you next, you know, we're only as good as the menu of choices on life's menu. And right now, a pot where you say the netflix of podcasting well netflix makes their own shows right they spend millions

1:51:11 It's rewarding you in a very productive way. i actually wrote back to the right emails and i mostly didn't think about the rest that when i or excuse me, the only technology company reimagine how those incentives and how the phone fundamentally works. democracy yeah impossible to agree and this is coming from a person that's had like legitimate And then you start doing it again.

1:53:54 Sub-on bills, yeah. I mean, iMessage and iCloud could be the basis for some new neutral social media. It's all buried together so you can find your devices and find your friends. But in a pre-COVID So you could like time bound it and make it easier for serendipitous connection and availability to happen. That's hard to do. It's hard to design that. So you could like time bound it and make it easier for serendipitous connection and availability to happen. That's hard to do. It's hard to design that. But there's things like that,

1:56:17 And there has to be some massive incentive for them to do something that's really going to change the way we interface with these devices and the way we interface with social media. And I don't know what incentive exists that's more potent than that's regulated, that Google and Facebook have to pay the publishers who they're basically Except we also don't want it

1:58:14 from, you know, Let's actually do it in a way I mean, this is where the IQ lead lead example is interesting because they were able to question i mean right now we're we have huge existential problems. We have a global competition, power competition going on. efficient and doesn't devolve the way that our current system you know does i think taiwan in regards to like the influence that they have over their people with an operating system that

2:01:33 Yeah. I do look a lot at the environmental issues, it's uh there's a lot of psychological problems in that community actually a lot of depression No one cares. we start to prefer it over the real thing. And it's kind of related to the kind of deepfake world, right? calculating the next thing. Oh, boy. the negative. If I don't see that, I'm hijacked. I see you in the future wearing an overcoat.

2:05:38 embed ourselves into its system that social media has to exist for humanity, right? And in this case, I think the problem is that how much of our stock market is built on the of the economy. So if you say, we can't do this anymore, we have to stop this. How do you decouple 60 years and willing to do that to get off of slavery. with many of our problems, whether it's some of the environmental issues or, you know,

2:08:45 We've already gotten there. Yeah, that's my concern. My concern is that this is a slow It's Neo. which will cause him to do the thing that verifies the thing that she predicted would happen yeah from regular reality. And it seems we're on that path. And that's the weird feedback loop. into that cocoon but it's becoming a butterfly yeah we seem to be a thing that creates newer

2:11:36 Essential in the sense that we're the only ones who have it? don't want to gang up with a bunch of other people and become an object that can walk i like being a single-celled that were programmed in by our little miniature brains I don't know. I mean, this is the weird paradox of being human which has like ai and supercomputers and voodoo doll versions of each of us. And it has perfectly figured out how to

2:13:52 What does that look like? and we figure out space travel and all of that. but they haven't really changed that much I mean, we're going to get into gene editing and becoming more perfect, perfect in the sense of, you know, that. if we keep playing the win-lose game My fear is that we are, They smell like shit when you drive them. ourselves like if we were able to just be okay with nothing like just being okay with living

2:16:38 in the middle of nowhere, Totally, and I think that those are more sustainable societies. But one of the reasons why I don't buy him, You wear the same outfit every day? Especially when we get into big tech and we talk about censorship a lot It says, let's see. we were all looking out for, you know, 1984, by an externally imposed oppression. that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.

2:19:52 Lastly, in 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New we're the only species with the capacity we're just, I wish I could give people more resources. We do have a podcast, um, called and whatever you need humanity