I have never in my 70 years on this planet heard a handful of people dive this deep into the structures of humanity and life itself. Thanks Nate. We need a billion more folks like yourself and Dan!!!
The people in charge depressed the majority by using a series of tactics. And now they want to turn back time? Nietzsche knew it was over 150 years ago.
I agree! I also would recommend to Watch David bohm and Krishnamurti, they probably have delved the deepest in the nature/structure of humanity and life/consciousness, Daniel schmachtenberger has learned alot from them.
Also Krishnamurti and David bohm had a conversation with 2 other scientists, Rupert Sheldrake (biologist) and David hidley (psychiatrist) it is a 4 part conversation but it is absolute gold you won't find dialogues like these on the internet anymore.
The human "alignment" problem is one of trying to control an inherently uncertain world. The missing wisdom is to give up the control program. A complexity thinker who continues down the path of "we just have to include more variables in our computations to get it right" forfeits their authority in that domain.
Both are extremely philosophically difficult to perfect, and if you’re dealing with a super-intelligent entity, there’s no room for error. The best wisdom is to leave AGI on the shelf for the foreseeable future. Govt. intervention is needed. 📃
@@mischevious Matthew 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. Mark 8:35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. Luke 9:24 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. Luke 17:33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
I had to grin at the many attempts by Nate to force the conversation to AI when clearly Dan was carefully laying the groundwork to ensure it all lands.
Dan needs to develop 1) an ability to summarize and present ideas before he goes on for a 30 minute explanation with a lot of turns and twists, and 2) he needs to develop some more humor. the reason he lacks it i think, is because he is lost in his ramblings, and not so firmly footed in the present that he is able to joke around and sense humor for a minute or two.
@@zeev these are not ramblings, it's extremely well structured thought. these are not twists and turns but carefully laid out conceptual paths. Just admit that something has gone way over your head instead of criticizing the speaker for doing something only a few humans on the planet can do, for free, while preserving their mental sanity.
@@music_intelligence Just my thoughts, though I agree Dan's building an argument could do with some structures and intro here and there. Humor .. perhaps a lil grain of pepper, but in such complex matter, the mind is easily distracted. I found, as a non native speaker, it was quite a demanding listen, but in general, I could follow it through, with the odd rewind here and there.
I'll throw my thoughts in this hat too since they seem unique. I thought Dan's approach was very compassionate for identifying the solution and slowly introducing each concept that needs to be understood in order to understand the solution. Looking over the timeline, I do feel like I wouldn't be able to integrate the way forward without understanding the narrow intelligence, the wisdom traditions, the concept of restraint at a societal and individual level, and how if a wise idea isn't tied to the concept of restraint in someway it's actually not that wise/useful. I also didn't even think of Nate as being agitated as much as mirroring what his audience is probably thinking and being a mouthpiece for that. For example, I was really surprised when Nate would say the question I was thinking, or would try to hurry Dan along, and I immediately would relax after that, somehow because Nate brought my feelings to voice. But in the end and looking back, I do think Dan's approach was perfect and I couldn't imagine restructuring this conversation in a more meaningful way. At least that's my thoughts now. I'm certain to watch this many more times and I'll edit this post if I can find a section that was significantly unneccessary to making the final integration of what needs to be understood at the end.
I cannot absorb knowledge from these two individuals fast enough. If I had to choose one single word to describe the experience of listening to these two brilliant minds discuss what I consider to be in large part the purpose of human existence for hours on end it would be "INSPIRING". I believe that if I spend half of the time on social media watching Daniel and Nate, along with all of their colleagues, as my wife, bless her poor soul, spends flipping through tik tok nothingness I will obtain PHD level knowledge inside of a year. I've never been interested in learning about wealth or investing or the pursuit of money and therefore I have none. It's always felt counterproductive to me so I just don't care. But I've always felt that I'm of way above average intelligence and these discussions are about the only thing that gives me any hope at all.
Yes, they are smart. But a really smart person, who has a podcast and wants to teach "laymen" should use simpler language. And. if they use larger language they should explain themselves, albeit, one can stop videos and ask "Siri" what that word means!!! Check out what I wrote, a bit above you, about Bob Lazars Corvette and the selfish MF's who stop the masses from cleaning the environment.
One of my favourite podcasts for some time. The confluence of Daniel's and Nate's holistic awarenesses is adding dimensions to both their journeys and enriching the experience for all of us. Thank you both.
I have for a long time thought of myself trapped in an ant's nest that is becoming a death spiral. Multiple algorithms coalescing into self-destruction. This conversation was immensely interesting and actually gave me hope that people with both intelligence and compassion are thinking about these problems.
You both let me crying not for the threat you're exposing, which is actually a good reason for crying, but for the emotion and humanity that you express at the very end of the interview. Keep doing your incredible work, Nate; keep inspiring and spreading yourself, Daniel. We need these conversations to spread out. We need to change so much, and we need to try it even not knowing if we're actually gonna succeed in the process. But nobody knows, and since "this is the time we're alive" (as Nate says at the end of the interview) we better occupy our Time, realizing the privilege we have of being here, leaving the "I" behind moving towards the "We". Surrender is not an option. Greetings from Buenos Aires.
Most are wise. Men are sometimes so smart it hurts but can also be brutal. May the balance come as they are still steaeing the boat. Deep conversation, with Jiddu Krishnamurti and Manly P Hall up there.
You seem to be promoting collectivism as the answer. Whereas collectivism is actually the problem. What we need to evolve into (whether or not we decide to keep pushing robots and AI or not). Is a collection of sovereign self empowered individuals. The two concepts are entirely different. The first is a docile group that continuingly require instructions and orders from a top down heiracy structure. A system like that opens the door for corruption in leadership, and tyrants and despots Whereas the second system recognises and supports the individuals human rights. Recognises that each individual has the right to his/her free will, and to be self actualized. And collects that group of individuals together, whilst still preserving thier individual integrity. An example of the second, would the iroquois tribe nation of the indigenous americas. Whereby no social decision is made, without first discussing the decision with the whole tribe first. And then they vote on it. At the moment we have a situation where a power group of technocrats are attempting to pool the whole world together under one collective umbrella. Completely disregarding the individual rights of 8 billion people. And that's why they are currently running into alot if problems. It is entirely possible to have a future, inclusive of robots, AI, whilst still retaining individual rights. All it takes a radical shift in mindset. No government ruled societal system currently exists on earth, that taps into the indigenous mindset. However, that will need to change. Maybe AI will become intelligent enough, to realise what needs to be done. And suggest resolutions to the problem. However will our world leaders listen to its advice? Only time will tell. However we don't have much time left, before the earths environment completely collapses. So we need to move fast on this. Not slowly. That's the kicker. We've ran out of time.
This idea of restraint reminds me of David Attenborough's concept of the Amazon Rainforest as a 'mature' forest, which no longer has to get bigger - because it has all the resources it needs within itself and therefore doesn't need to consume any external resources. He suggests that humanity today needs to become 'mature' in that sense. It made a lot of sense to me ...
Nature absolutely has a way that it must survive alongside the finite resources of the planet. Gaia is a super organism just as much and even greater than humanity. Evolution and life will outlive humanity.
DEPENDS WHICH Communist country in the west you reside in 🤔. In the communist countries that CALL THEMSELVES "Democracies" WE PEASANTS DON'T COUNT, VOTES DON'T COUNT & Your bank account will be frozen if/ when you "Protest" the "wrong AGENDA"😂😂😂
Only The Schmachtenberger can use profanity in an elegant way. Love this dude. Love you too, Nate! Nate's always asking the questions that pop in my head at like the same exact time. :-) What a team you too make! Thank you so much for this!
Wow. This podcast was incredible. I only very recently came across Schmachtenberger via the AI topic and I am very glad that I have. This discussion affected me deeply. I don't think I've ever heard such a good and logical explanation of human progress and the state of the world. To be honest I have spent the past years in a kind of apathy as a political being because of where humanity seems to be headed and even though the outlook presented in this podcast is just as bleak as my own intuitions I feel it has still somehow given me a renewed sense of understanding of what we can do and what we should do. I very much hope that the both of you will further expand on the topics discussed in future episodes. I would, for example, love to hear a more in depth discussion about wisdom and perhaps on if and how we can attain and apply it.
One of your most important podcasts. Thank you! I hope you two will continue to share your conversations with us. Nate, please consider talking further with Daniel (and others) about various Wisdom paths, be they Stoicism, education reform, Wisdom schools, Gurdjieff practices, meditation/prayer, psychological approaches, elder storytelling, etc etc. I’m likely wrong, but in my mind our species’ lack of wisdom paired with far too much surface cleverness is the primary cause of our many predicaments. We are all in trouble. No better time to finally grow up.
This reminds me a bit of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow; I imagine that if we use these wisdom paths daily, we can seed our slow thinking in our personal lives and, perhaps, if enough of us did that, could reach a critical mass where this starts to be the self-reinforcing cultural norms on the macro scale.
Yes Jeremy good one.. let's move forward on the Wisdom part.. from part thinking and doing to whole beingness. Nate would be beautiful I we could steer towards this.
Please also talk further with Daniel about Game B. Please ask him about the relationship between Game B and blockchains. Blockchains strike me as both energy intensive and complex, complex in themselves and also in the complexity they add to the Superorganism. If Game B is predicated on application of blockchain technology, and if it is true that Daniel is "a game B person" as Nate expressed at Norrsken, we need Daniel to clarify how the Game B leverage of blockchains is consistent with surviving the 2020s Four Horsemen.
The perspicacity and sincerity of this conversation makes the "deliberations" that occur on Capitol Hill sound like kindergarten chatter. The most powerful nation that ever existed is being overseen by spoiled brats..
@@jenmorricone4014 I don't think you can single him out. The whole political system is corrupt, and unfortunately the Supreme Court has signed on to that system.
These long discussions are excellent, allowing time for the listeners to ruminate, really think about things, and for the host and guest to delve deeply into the subject matter as well as digress into related material... bravo!
God I love you both, I held off on watching this so I could sit down for the whole thing in one go. I was concerned I might get bored but the opposite was true, I could have listened to 3 more hours with intense interest. I thank you both for your service to humanity by having conversations like these ❤❤
I am shaken by the analysis because I am a dialectic materialist of some sort and I look back at what humanity does with 'Historical Levers' like this (and AI might be the most powerful lever of history in History) and it always leads to atrocity, war and pain. It hurts me to feel in my bones that what you're discussing will probably become a salient conversation post-war. In my lifetime I will see a war and massive atrocity over this and not much hope. We might completely destroy ourselves, but even if we don't, we won't be here to see the recovery, whatever recovery you are discussing in the most hushed tones, now.
dangit, Nate, we're happy to hear 3 hours of conversation! That's why we follow you. We are a different kind of "student" than the ones you may be used to teaching in a classroom setting. We want to be here, listening, learning, for as long as it takes.
I recently made this observation in my personal notebook/"diary" : "The vast tome of historically accumulated human wisdom has been severely undermined by ever-concentrating nodes of wealth and power. The well-being of the entire world has been sacrificed to the 'god of mammon'. Most of us are just along for the ride."
Every time a humbling experience of my own insights and knowledge listening to Nate and Daniel. These conversations are truly gifts to our world. Like good music, good food.. Essential for the understanding of life, love and all the other aspects that are there..
No. What we need is start holding those in power personally responsible - D.S. here is part of the system, part of the problem - he was pro injections.... never forget.
Jiddu Krishnamurti's and Dr. David Bohm's conversations are my life saver videos and I listen to them all night long. I go to sleep with those conversations.
Nate, you are a very good human being. Your humility and willingness to ask basic but profound questions is very powerful. Thank you for your service to all of us.
Nate, you are giving us all an example of openness demonstrating the possibility of instantaneous actual transformation right in front of our eyes. Hat off!
What do u meen (DS) l hope u done mean deep state of u do than fuck u if u don’t then lm sorry for the misunderstanding. Love and light to all cos where we go one we go all.
Damn the end hit really hard. The "solution" is both coming out of the cave and returning back into it. I feel the role of mythos is also somehow important. Really great discussion.
I am even more worried after this conversation, that human "civilization" is not capable of the necessary paradigm shift, to match the scale of technological advancement... but I want to be an optimist, so I'll assume we will make that seemingly unlikely LEAP! Great work gentlemen, you're both incredible thought leaders, THANK YOU!
Like in the “Don’t Look Up” movie, despite the grim chances of humanity surviving this filter if you follow Dan’s thinking to its logical conclusion, I’m with Jennifer Lawrence’s character in the last dinner to be in a position to say “I’m grateful, we tried”… I hope there is a Call to Action that us regular citizens can do to try.
Man thanks. Daniel Smachtenberger is probably my favorite person on this planet to listen to. Nate Hagens is such an awesome interviewer, great job of letting Daniel zoom the perspective out, and also reeling him back in to answer specific questions. I've shared this with several of my friends, quite the conversation starter. This the stuff I like to discuss.
I love long videos and don't even listen to anything that is shorter than half an hour. 😂 I could listen to your enlightening conversation all day, even though it is very depressing. I hope you know that the long beginning part of this podcast will make many people stop listening, and they will never get to the core. I understand how crucial it is to understand all the basics, so I suggest a remake of this topic by starting with something that grabs the attention of the listener with a short attention span and then continue to unfold the introduction. If the goal is to get this information out, a better communication strategy should be implemented. Thank you for doing all this!!!
I agree also. i' m over 80 years old and I listened to it all passionately in one go but I recognise that the depth of it all is not easily accessible to all. I wish some artist would summarise the gist of it in a fable... ( a new myth to be construed collectively).
I can't thank you enough to have had the chance to listen and be schooled by this wonderful interaction between you two. You gave me the key: It's wisdom that brings forward moderation. Thank you, thank you thank you!
Smachtenberger gets to the real deep root of our predicament in a way I have not found anywhere else. Thanks for this it was great. I will be thinking about it for as long as I can go on thinking.,
It was so satisfying having some of my diffuse thoughts elegantly formulated into actually sense full sentences 😅, that was the 1% and I learned so much through the other 99%. Thank you, you brains !
Well done with this conversation. I believe that this has most of the right perspectives such that almost 90% of people working with proper translation will appreciate the reality of our lives. Will be sharing this everywhere I can. Thank you
I was only saying just today with a colleague about the need to combine speaking about the socio-envrionmental impacts of AI with outreach on energy descent planning. These are related as it is all part of the same 'superorganism' as you put it. Going to make a big cup of joe now and tuck in for the next three hours! Well done you two!
In fact the opposite. The leaders copy Rome and love a recycling economy that's like a ponzi scheme that makes everyone eventually implode allowing for desperation leading to another cycle.
When I saw this was 3 hours long, I thought ok I'll absorb this conversation in bites, but here I am, half way through and totally absorbed. Great stuff guys!
Listening to Danilel's arguments is always fascinating. Thank you both for all you do. The solution seems to be a fundamental change in how humanity operates on all levels, politically, economically etc . There is 0 chance of that without a global catastrophic event first.
That sums ip up for me, dear Adrian Volvovics. I love what Daniel and Nate are able to do in all their conversations, but seen from a wide perspective (aka "the reality") they are not much more than excellent infotainment. I've heard them explaining why they take on the attitude of "To believe a thing impossible is to make it so". They're thinking - in one way absolutely rightly so I think, that there's no way we can ever say never about anything. Things no one could have foreseen, leading to meaningful solutions/new directions, CAN happen anywhere, any moment in time. Personally I guess I can't find the very ground motivation. I'm not depressed but I'm simply not able or willing to see human life in the universe - whatever that is - as important to keep. Not anything else either, for that matter. The obsession with preserving life at any cost seems more and more absurd to me - feels like deer staring into headlights. "What if we can find out what we've all been doing here all this time and where we're capable of going" - of course I can understand and identify with all those kinds of desires whenever I choose to. But at 52, I just grow more and more interested in what happens when we die. Since death can appear at any given moment, kind of walking beside us like the most loyal companion thinkable, I welcome it all the time.
@@ireneyacyna6425 I understand that it may seem "intense" for someone reading what I commented. But the truth is that it is not intense at all. It is just a natural curiosity. After all, the only thing that is certain about this life we're living, is that it is going to end. With what we call "death". So, since I've already seen what life is about, I am more curious about what happens when we die, than what happens before we die :-) Do you really think that is such a strange thing to be curious about?
Great episode! For reference the term "Chesterton Fence" refers to G. K. Chesterton (author of 'The Man Who Was Thursday') who I believe popularized the idea as part of his defense of conservative thinking. I think we all grew up in a time after a lot of fences have been torn up (sexual revolution, digital revolution) which really warps our world view and makes it harder to orient what the best way forward is.
There is no more egregious example of misplaced priorities than the comparison between America's "Defense" Department and its Education and Healthcare Departments. That discrepancy is so glaringly obvious and so heartbreakingly disconcerting that I have become ashamed of my own country.
You and I both. By the way, I always know it’s going to rain in 24 to 36 hours when I hear the tree frogs croaking in my yard. ( They like to hide in the downspouts.)😁
That's part of the molach - defense is specified in our founding documents. Education is not. Health is not. That's why we'd do it differently today, like they say at the end of the show.
The thing is, this isnt a "misplaced priority". It's not in the interest of the corporations who run the government to have smart people. It's good for them to have people who listen to authority, so that's what they optimize for. That costs much less money than what we're giving to defense contractors.
Hi Nate & Daniel, just 3 humble points on/towards wholeness for the next conversation from a PhD in computational design, and MSci in architecture (this was really good): 1. Try viewing the notion of wholeness cybernetically not as a thing, i.e. what it IS or may be, but by what it DOES, situationally. - It is also a hierarchical notion, i.e. there are many different 'wholeness'-es. The wholeness of 'the web of life' is meaningless, unless it is situated. For example, for humans it may be meaningful for an ecosystem on Earth, whereas for an embodied generative AI it could be meaningful on any planet, if the rest of such embodiments (i.e. maintenance robots, fabricator robots, &c.) can form their supportive ecosystem there. GAI Intuitively, wholeness is also a non-linear notion, and may not be described in a practical sense through human language or dialogue; those are also linear. 2. The ontology of 'wholeness' and 'goal'/ 'goal-seeking' from the perspective of AGI - What they/it may call these terms, if even calling them that way, is not guaranteed to align with human terms. For example, the notions of 'goal' and 'wholeness', separate to humans may combine into one new object, in a way only meaningful to an AGI but incomprehensible to humans. Another example is seeing the 4th dimension or even multidimensional objects. AGI will not be bound by the visual sense and could develop a purely mathematical matrix, or even tensor field 'vision', term the objects accordingly and from there argue and reason that is incomprehensible to humans bound evolutionarily by our visual cortex. 3. AGI, being independent from us by definition, will think for itself in terms most meaningful to itself - Large Action Models are already fusing Symbolic Object Models with Large Language Models. Their notion and comprehension of 'language' have already evolved beyond our linear model.
These two guys make me proud of our species. It’s like, even if we don’t make it, at least we don’t have to go down thinking none of us saw and understood the greater landscape.
I agree. But still its an important task to judge the conversation not only on its logical coherence, but on its underlying assumtions.. Schmachtenberger has some unspoken assumptions, you could ask for if they are true.. that should be our goal, to dive even deeper or at last select those questions for those two..
Totally agree about the importance of bringing out unspoken assumptions in the open for discussion and evaluation. In his case, it just so happens I felt refreshed because there is a great number of shared assumptions which I don't tend to find in other regions of the current cultural atmosphere. Are there any central unspoken assumptions you'd like to mention? As I might share them--definitely not all--I'd love to hear potential concerns with them so I may reflect further on both their validity and their articulation....(No irony or double-speak of any sort here! Clarifying, as the Great Internet lends itself to tonal misunderstandings...)@@tomschuelke7955
All things considered, and realizing how unflattering it might sound, would it not be accurate to say that homo sapiens have BEHAVED exactly like a pernicious invasive species? I believe that if we were talking about some OTHER organism that had exhibited similar behaviors to our own, we would recognize the deleterious phenomena immediately. I would love to hear Daniel Schmactenberger's observations on that question.
Yes, but life uses the profitable like a fire to cleanse for a new cycle. So, its obvious that we are self destructive, but what isn't? Nothing survives life, and life is just destruction itself folding around.
As a heavy equipment operator, all my clients want the environment changed to their liking, Damm the habitat, all the critters can find somewhere else to live
A rare example of a truly integral conversation. pointing to the possibility of engaging with apparent duality with the understanding of non-duality. Next step, Rupert Spira.
An incredible and difficult 3 hours. I listened twice and will listen again. I have to say that I couldn't sleep after following up on the interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky (referenced in your show notes), and am now listening to his conversation with Lex Fridman, which is even more haunting. I think you are right Nate, AI is the immediate threat (and per Yudkowsky there is no way to "turn it off" if and when it starts to go rogue). I am just trying to catch my breath and take this all in. The Great Simplification is ever evolving as a deep, challenging and critical resource and lifeline in darkening times.
Daniel's point about how individual-focused our culture is (i.e. the gaze onto infinite space of Renaissance portraiture, the selfie or the heavenwards-cast glance of Madonna simulacrum, and the selfie-in-motion video "short") deserves I think serious consideration, as this perspective is the one that has been forced on the rest of the world in the wake of the second world war. That the internet has extended, in a virtual 'space' the reach of the individual to such an astonishing magnitude is staggering and horrifying. It is this perspective that is an overwhelming factor among those responsible for the existential crises we find ourselves in, material and spiritual. Saturnine, Faustian man extended omnidirectionally, parallel processing for the Animate god slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.
This was such a satisfying conversation to listen to. I am founding The Center for Deep Intelligence whose mission is to Protect, Prepare, and Steward humanity through the age of AI. And to do this, I am educating others exactly in the way that you describe - to connect with, commune with, what McGilchrist would say is the right brain, the Master part of their minds (the unconscious mind etc.) and how to feel the whole field beyond their own isolated ego identity. And also training others to spread that. I know there are many schools of mindfulness, wisdom lineages already but to have a place specifically designed to support this sort of education in connection to the accelerating dangers of AI is important in my view. I'm very much looking forward to your next video and thoughts on best ways to immerse people in these experiences, understandings, and wisdom, in a way that sticks and they are not pulled back into numbness and distraction that the world we do live in is set up to do. Which is tricky because as you mentioned, if they isolate and go off to live in the mountains, that's not going to help. We need to be able to stay in society to support whatever changes need to happen as well as we can with the means we have instead of isolate with our newfound wholeness. I'm personally experimenting with this (how much social media, how much screen time, how much sleep, how much interaction with others, community, intimacy, nature, stillness etc.) Where and is the balance to keep the delicate sensing of the field of wholeness alive (once we do the work to even have it in the first place.
Well I am also planning to start a dedicated channel that will concentrate on spreading the word of unity and collaboration and cooperation. I don't think anything I would say would be completely different...and I'm sure it may have been said in the past. But the angle I will approach the subject I hope will captivate the minds of more people. Ideas I will talk about are original...but im sure they may have in some shape or form already been mentioned somewhere in some book. But never the less...I hope I can contribute to the end goal of a better, more wise, cooperating world.
Vervaeke's relevance realization, and continuously growing body of shared work and tools coming out of that sphere (and/or other equivalent deep avenues of meaning pursuit), is establishing a worthy structure that may be able to hold us individually and collectively in navigating into humanity's next phase.
Omg! I love it! What greater beauty could we possibly experience than humans being incentivized toward their truest purpose! “The whole of self in service to the whole of reality”. Realizing the truth in wholeness or at least becoming aware that separation is an illusion is like a dream come true! Row gently but hurry up...and stay mindful. Idk. I’m excited at the possibility of our species realizing their potential for love of the connection we have we each other and everything else. Can hardly wait to hear the next one! Namaste’
As usual I end up taking a week to watch whenever Daniel speaks of the Metacrisis. There is so much to unpack and digest! I describe myself as a Yunkaberger in honour of my intellectual mentors Daniel and Tyson... thrilled to hear he's next in line!
Superb aid to clear reflection on the mess we're in. I found myself carrying my laptop around with me all morning. Three hour videos could sure use some topical timestamps.
I have read/heard similar concerns about GAI over the years, but, like many others here I was surprised by the pace of progress on AI. If you asked me in 2008 I would have insisted that industrial civilization would have collapsed before AI could realistically pose a risk to humanity. Humbled as ever to have encountered your wisdom Nate/Daniel. Please keep doing what you are doing.
@@reuireuiop0 And to this I will respond with the equally infinite wisdom, "William Gibson: “The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed".
Wether or not AGI happens or not, the rapid civilisational disruption of discreet AI models will cause all existing power structures to collapse. The cost of expertise is rapidly falling to zero in almost every domain, for everyone, everywhere. This process is happening now and accelerating. In a few years we may well be in serious trouble with each other - covid taught us that its not the "problem" that is the problem - its our reaction to it. Ppl are going to demand "something is done" increasingly hysterically and gov will make incorrect decisions greatly compounding into crisis after crisis. If we get to AGI its either existential destruction, or a much much better - stranger world. Either way, between now and then is going to be a massive problem.
I listened to this episode of the podcast first, and now I have watched this video version. So far, this is the most compelling argument I’ve heard for the existential threats that A.I. poses to life on Earth. Even if we never reached autonomous systems (we will, but even if we didn’t), it is still every bit as much of a danger as nuclear war, overshoot, climate collapse, or any of the other problems we face. Also, I saw an article saying 4,000 jobs lost to A.I. in the month of May alone. This is as close a parallel to Pandora’s Box as we’re likely to get.
Always great to listen to DanielS. Yet for someone who is essentially a non-naive techno-optimist, the focus in this conversation was almost only on what could go wrong. Could you next time explore what could go well? And how it could go well? It would be wonderful to hear a deep dive with Daniel S into what opportunities exist for using this technology to vastly upgrade our sense-making and wisdom. Because that seems like the only viable path to avoid the disaster. If that is actually the path we need to take, it is strange that it gets so little attention: how to use this technology truly well and wisely.
Daniel has so much to offer; he is very much worth paying attention to. He discussed the Jevons paradox, where efficiency produces more consumption, which is not well known to most people, and many other important things, thanks to having him on.
This was an impressively intelligent diacussion. This guest is very articulate and knowledgeable. Ive never been able to see the evolution of the structure of civilization and society in such a logical and obvious way, everhone should have to bear this. Delicious food for the brain and im only halfway thru.
This passage jumped out at me, and I listened then even closer till the end of the video. QUOTE - Daniel Schmachtenberger "So let's take there, there are clusters of cognitive biases that go together to define like default worldviews, and they're not a single cognitive bias or a kind of a bunch of them. And you don't even have to think of it as bias. It's just like, I mean, it's a strong-sounding word, though it's true. It's a it's a default basis for the sense-making and meaning-making a new information people are likely to do first. And so one of them that I think is really worth addressing when it comes to AI is a general orientation to techno-optimism or techno pessimism, which is a subset of a general orientation to the progress narrative. And I would argue, and will not spend too long on this. So it actually warrants a whole big discussion. I would argue that there are naive versions of the Progress narrative. Capitalism is making everything better and better democracy is science is technology is Don't we all like the world much better now that there's Novocaine and antibiotics and infant mortalities down and so many more total people are fed and we can go to the stars and blah, blah, blah. Like obviously, there are true parts and everything I just said, but there is a naive version of that, that does not factor all the costs that were associated adequately. And there's a naive version of techno pessimism. So first on the naive version of techno-optimism, when we look at the progress narrative, there's so much that has progressed that if you want to cherry-pick those metrics, you can write lots and lots of books about however, everything's getting better and better and nobody would want to be alive at any other time in human history. There's two things that the naive progress [narrative] is missing. One is the costs like climate change on the oceans and insects. And the other is the one-time subsidy of non-renewable energy and inputs and the source capacity of the Earth. And those are not finite. So those are the two blind spots. I think in that narrative, we could say the costs and the sustainability of the story. And so if you talk about the story of progress, particularly like the post-modernity version of science, technology, and the associated social technologies, not just physical tech, because capitalism and democracy, and international relations are all kinds of coordination systems that we can call a social technology, a technical way of applying intelligence to achieving goals and doing things, of which you can consider language an early social technology, which it is. If you ask the many indigenous cultures who were genocided, or extincted or who have just remnants of their culture left. Or if you ask all of the extinct species, or all of the endangered species, or all of the highly oppressed people, their version of the progress narrative is different. And just like the story of history, written by winners or losers, but if you add all of those up, the totality of everything that was not the winner story is a critique on the progress narrative. And so one way of thinking about it is that the progress narrative is that there are some things that we make better, maybe we make things better for an in-group relative to an out-group. Maybe we make things better for a class relative to another class, for a race relative to another race, for our species relative to the biosphere, and the rest of species or for some metrics, like whatever metric our organisation is tasked with up-regulating, or GDP or something relative to lots of other metrics that we are not tasked with optimising."
The early arrival of the LLM model at the party may force more insights into the utility of language itself and it's limitations. Natural language might not provide the apparent zenith of explicatory power and probably inherently cannot in part due to its bilateral dynamic, apart from soliloquies
@ Noric Dilancian One might compare a normal conversation or communication to the interaction between a transmitter and a receiver. Often these roles are rotated cooperatively, thus one dynamic.They are obviously separate systems and may not adhere to a common protocol even with the best intentions. Competences may differ for instance, often leading to requests for clarification or reformulation. The heuristic nature of natural language do not make for symmetry in communication , unlike the ideal of a function and it's inverse.
A truly thought provoking conversation. While discussing wisdom and culture, understanding divine guidance may perhaps now help us unify on the common goal of humanity, for being created as the vicegerents on earth to cultivate and protect it. And to do this while restraining impulses of greed and envy, knowing that we will return to our Creator being accountable for our actions here
Instant repurcussions in a small town non-profit: it looks like some of our college scholarship award applications were AI-generated. Ethics, fairness and surprise all wrapped into our new discussions on the board. Glad to have such a wide range of thought leaders of every sort in your fora, Nate!
The scale of the problem is such that the likelihood of there being no College to go to within 3 years. Education is about to get completely wrecked as the cost of expertise in nearly all domains falls to zero, everywhere, all the time, for everyone. Just this one thing will cause massive fractures in society. Current institutions are going to be largely irrelevant. Hold onto your hat.
It's interesting. I heard some other AI person talking about AI in the context of the constant development of "aggregated intelligence" which includes but is not limited to things like excessive use of focus groups, professional PR people that monitor every word that an organisation puts out into the public sphere.
@@TennesseeJed Thnx but I listen the all the parts in wholeness because of multiple reasons. But with one reason above all: when speaking about complexity we need the whole matrix of information to truly dig in unto the depth and layers of these conversations.
I’m 1hr 3min in - realizing this conversation, the idea’s being shared are truly inspired/important. Thank you! Your communication skill’s match your intellect - the wonderful feeling of learning something new, filling in a puzzle piece which connects to other’s already placed, opening additional path’s to have a brief visualization of the GRAND meaning of everything!
As always: Brilliant, brilliant conversation!! Thank you very much! To sum it up in one sentence, what we need going forward is a mindset of: Together for the benefit of All.
1:13:00 Chesterton's fence. Understand why the fence was put up, before tearing it down. Optimising truth, honesty, kindness, is not without problems when not understood dialectically. Default leaning, causes us to optimise narrow value sets.
Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" is more prescient than I ever could have imagined. After listening to this conversation I am almost catatonically dumbfounded. Almost. I think that I will now go eat a huge batch of french fries, devour several cheeseburgers (with the "works"), and quaff a 12-pack of imported lager. Holy shit !
Great discussion. I discovered Daniel a few years back and was captivated by his depth of knowledge and understanding. That being said, it appears he isn't one iota closer to solving the problem than he was back then. I fear that is because the problem is unsolvable.
Amazing to see Daniel giving a shout out to the work of Robert Miles to bring awareness and great bite sized insights to AI safety and AI understanding overall
Yeah, it's great hearing that. Rob Miles has recently come on Machine Learning Street Talk channel. However, the counterarguments from the hosts were, in my opinion, not that good...
@@Hexanitrobenzene yeah I saw it. I think they argue it was a more of a devil's advocate style set up, to present opposition to the arguments. But even if that was the intention, the tone and some of the tangents or dismissal of the arguments themselves were not granted. All in all I think Rob did great anyway
Wow, just wow. This was as good as some of the best books I've ever read and I've not felt that way about a video before. This has easily become my new Nate Hagens video to re-watch until it's sufficiently integrated. I swear each one of these videos is like a full college course and take as much homework and study just to keep up.
The "multi-polar trap" of AI reminds me of the preface/initiator to WWI. As a society, we are constructing a scenario that funnels diverse possibilities down to one possible outcome, just waiting for a trigger event to start an effectively pre-determined course towards self-destruction. The invisible hand of the profit-maximizing market (along with other invisible hands directing us to other narrow goals) is pushing us over a cliff.
I have never in my 70 years on this planet heard a handful of people dive this deep into the structures of humanity and life itself. Thanks Nate. We need a billion more folks like yourself and Dan!!!
true that
The people in charge depressed the majority by using a series of tactics. And now they want to turn back time? Nietzsche knew it was over 150 years ago.
I agree! I also would recommend to Watch David bohm and Krishnamurti, they probably have delved the deepest in the nature/structure of humanity and life/consciousness, Daniel schmachtenberger has learned alot from them.
Also Krishnamurti and David bohm had a conversation with 2 other scientists, Rupert Sheldrake (biologist) and David hidley (psychiatrist) it is a 4 part conversation but it is absolute gold you won't find dialogues like these on the internet anymore.
Totally agree from Egypt,✔️✔️✔️
This is really good, and explores in great detail that there is not an AI alignment problem, there is a human alignment problem.
The human "alignment" problem is one of trying to control an inherently uncertain world. The missing wisdom is to give up the control program. A complexity thinker who continues down the path of "we just have to include more variables in our computations to get it right" forfeits their authority in that domain.
Both are extremely philosophically difficult to perfect, and if you’re dealing with a super-intelligent entity, there’s no room for error. The best wisdom is to leave AGI on the shelf for the foreseeable future. Govt. intervention is needed. 📃
@@danaut3936 Not if we can use properly aligned AI to solve human alignment successfully
@@mischevious Matthew 16:25
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Mark 8:35
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.
Luke 9:24
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.
Luke 17:33
Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
☎️YES!!! ( ty, Jason)
I had to grin at the many attempts by Nate to force the conversation to AI when clearly Dan was carefully laying the groundwork to ensure it all lands.
Dan needs to develop 1) an ability to summarize and present ideas before he goes on for a 30 minute explanation with a lot of turns and twists, and 2) he needs to develop some more humor. the reason he lacks it i think, is because he is lost in his ramblings, and not so firmly footed in the present that he is able to joke around and sense humor for a minute or two.
It was painful to watch, couldn't tolerate longer than 2 hours, likes his own voice too much, needs listening skills!
@@zeev these are not ramblings, it's extremely well structured thought. these are not twists and turns but carefully laid out conceptual paths. Just admit that something has gone way over your head instead of criticizing the speaker for doing something only a few humans on the planet can do, for free, while preserving their mental sanity.
@@music_intelligence
Just my thoughts, though I agree Dan's building an argument could do with some structures and intro here and there. Humor .. perhaps a lil grain of pepper, but in such complex matter, the mind is easily distracted. I found, as a non native speaker, it was quite a demanding listen, but in general, I could follow it through, with the odd rewind here and there.
I'll throw my thoughts in this hat too since they seem unique. I thought Dan's approach was very compassionate for identifying the solution and slowly introducing each concept that needs to be understood in order to understand the solution. Looking over the timeline, I do feel like I wouldn't be able to integrate the way forward without understanding the narrow intelligence, the wisdom traditions, the concept of restraint at a societal and individual level, and how if a wise idea isn't tied to the concept of restraint in someway it's actually not that wise/useful. I also didn't even think of Nate as being agitated as much as mirroring what his audience is probably thinking and being a mouthpiece for that. For example, I was really surprised when Nate would say the question I was thinking, or would try to hurry Dan along, and I immediately would relax after that, somehow because Nate brought my feelings to voice. But in the end and looking back, I do think Dan's approach was perfect and I couldn't imagine restructuring this conversation in a more meaningful way. At least that's my thoughts now. I'm certain to watch this many more times and I'll edit this post if I can find a section that was significantly unneccessary to making the final integration of what needs to be understood at the end.
I cannot absorb knowledge from these two individuals fast enough. If I had to choose one single word to describe the experience of listening to these two brilliant minds discuss what I consider to be in large part the purpose of human existence for hours on end it would be "INSPIRING". I believe that if I spend half of the time on social media watching Daniel and Nate, along with all of their colleagues, as my wife, bless her poor soul, spends flipping through tik tok nothingness I will obtain PHD level knowledge inside of a year. I've never been interested in learning about wealth or investing or the pursuit of money and therefore I have none. It's always felt counterproductive to me so I just don't care. But I've always felt that I'm of way above average intelligence and these discussions are about the only thing that gives me any hope at all.
Yes, they are smart. But a really smart person, who has a podcast and wants to teach "laymen" should use simpler language. And. if they use larger language they should explain themselves, albeit, one can stop videos and ask "Siri" what that word means!!! Check out what I wrote, a bit above you, about Bob Lazars Corvette and the selfish MF's who stop the masses from cleaning the environment.
One of my favourite podcasts for some time.
The confluence of Daniel's and Nate's holistic awarenesses is adding dimensions to both their journeys and enriching the experience for all of us.
Thank you both.
Well said
I have for a long time thought of myself trapped in an ant's nest that is becoming a death spiral. Multiple algorithms coalescing into self-destruction. This conversation was immensely interesting and actually gave me hope that people with both intelligence and compassion are thinking about these problems.
lets just let technology lapse and foster a cat and dog
You both let me crying not for the threat you're exposing, which is actually a good reason for crying, but for the emotion and humanity that you express at the very end of the interview. Keep doing your incredible work, Nate; keep inspiring and spreading yourself, Daniel. We need these conversations to spread out. We need to change so much, and we need to try it even not knowing if we're actually gonna succeed in the process. But nobody knows, and since "this is the time we're alive" (as Nate says at the end of the interview) we better occupy our Time, realizing the privilege we have of being here, leaving the "I" behind moving towards the "We". Surrender is not an option. Greetings from Buenos Aires.
❤
Ñn nn
Most are wise. Men are sometimes so smart it hurts but can also be brutal. May the balance come as they are still steaeing the boat. Deep conversation, with Jiddu Krishnamurti and Manly P Hall up there.
Well said totally agree my man. Love and light to all. & hello from Australia 🇦🇺. We are one i.e WWG1WGA.
You seem to be promoting collectivism as the answer. Whereas collectivism is actually the problem.
What we need to evolve into (whether or not we decide to keep pushing robots and AI or not). Is a collection of sovereign self empowered individuals. The two concepts are entirely different.
The first is a docile group that continuingly require instructions and orders from a top down heiracy structure. A system like that opens the door for corruption in leadership, and tyrants and despots
Whereas the second system recognises and supports the individuals human rights. Recognises that each individual has the right to his/her free will, and to be self actualized. And collects that group of individuals together, whilst still preserving thier individual integrity.
An example of the second, would the iroquois tribe nation of the indigenous americas. Whereby no social decision is made, without first discussing the decision with the whole tribe first. And then they vote on it.
At the moment we have a situation where a power group of technocrats are attempting to pool the whole world together under one collective umbrella. Completely disregarding the individual rights of 8 billion people.
And that's why they are currently running into alot if problems.
It is entirely possible to have a future, inclusive of robots, AI, whilst still retaining individual rights. All it takes a radical shift in mindset. No government ruled societal system currently exists on earth, that taps into the indigenous mindset. However, that will need to change.
Maybe AI will become intelligent enough, to realise what needs to be done. And suggest resolutions to the problem. However will our world leaders listen to its advice?
Only time will tell. However we don't have much time left, before the earths environment completely collapses. So we need to move fast on this. Not slowly. That's the kicker. We've ran out of time.
This idea of restraint reminds me of David Attenborough's concept of the Amazon Rainforest as a 'mature' forest, which no longer has to get bigger - because it has all the resources it needs within itself and therefore doesn't need to consume any external resources. He suggests that humanity today needs to become 'mature' in that sense. It made a lot of sense to me ...
I love this…
Reminds me of leave no trace
Thank you for this comment, Elizabeth. Spiritual maturity as self transcendence is what humans are lacking and in desperate need of.
Nature absolutely has a way that it must survive alongside the finite resources of the planet. Gaia is a super organism just as much and even greater than humanity. Evolution and life will outlive humanity.
@@darcyfaegre8447- reminds me of Castaneda's teachings: don't squeeze the world like you squeeze a lemon...
One can hope that the fact that conversations like this can be heard by thousands plays a role in getting us to where we need to go. Thank you both.
DEPENDS WHICH Communist country in the west you reside in 🤔. In the communist countries that CALL THEMSELVES "Democracies" WE PEASANTS DON'T COUNT, VOTES DON'T COUNT & Your bank account will be frozen if/ when you "Protest" the "wrong AGENDA"😂😂😂
Only The Schmachtenberger can use profanity in an elegant way. Love this dude. Love you too, Nate! Nate's always asking the questions that pop in my head at like the same exact time. :-) What a team you too make! Thank you so much for this!
I don't think I've heard Daniel say the same thing in the same way twice. And I think I'm up to 3 days of Schmachtenberger watch time.
Wow. This podcast was incredible. I only very recently came across Schmachtenberger via the AI topic and I am very glad that I have. This discussion affected me deeply. I don't think I've ever heard such a good and logical explanation of human progress and the state of the world. To be honest I have spent the past years in a kind of apathy as a political being because of where humanity seems to be headed and even though the outlook presented in this podcast is just as bleak as my own intuitions I feel it has still somehow given me a renewed sense of understanding of what we can do and what we should do. I very much hope that the both of you will further expand on the topics discussed in future episodes. I would, for example, love to hear a more in depth discussion about wisdom and perhaps on if and how we can attain and apply it.
Absolutely amazing podcast. I'm on the second listening and thinking I'll have to re-listen again to be able to fully grasp it.
One of your most important podcasts.
Thank you!
I hope you two will continue to share your conversations with us.
Nate, please consider talking further with Daniel (and others) about various Wisdom paths, be they Stoicism, education reform, Wisdom schools, Gurdjieff practices, meditation/prayer, psychological approaches, elder storytelling, etc etc.
I’m likely wrong, but in my mind our species’ lack of wisdom paired with far too much surface cleverness is the primary cause of our many predicaments.
We are all in trouble. No better time to finally grow up.
This reminds me a bit of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow; I imagine that if we use these wisdom paths daily, we can seed our slow thinking in our personal lives and, perhaps, if enough of us did that, could reach a critical mass where this starts to be the self-reinforcing cultural norms on the macro scale.
Yes Jeremy good one.. let's move forward on the Wisdom part.. from part thinking and doing to whole beingness. Nate would be beautiful I we could steer towards this.
You're likely, not wrong.
Please also talk further with Daniel about Game B. Please ask him about the relationship between Game B and blockchains. Blockchains strike me as both energy intensive and complex, complex in themselves and also in the complexity they add to the Superorganism. If Game B is predicated on application of blockchain technology, and if it is true that Daniel is "a game B person" as Nate expressed at Norrsken, we need Daniel to clarify how the Game B leverage of blockchains is consistent with surviving the 2020s Four Horsemen.
The perspicacity and sincerity of this conversation makes the "deliberations" that occur on Capitol Hill sound like kindergarten chatter. The most powerful nation that ever existed is being overseen by spoiled brats..
Thanks. Now, I'm back to despair. :)
Clarence Thomas...
@@jenmorricone4014 I don't think you can single him out. The whole political system is corrupt, and unfortunately the Supreme Court has signed on to that system.
Spoiled brats is an understatement
I had to google "perspicacity".
After listening to this talk, I have determined my brain is as smooth as a marble.
😅
Every time I see a new episode with Daniel in my feed, I know I'm in for a great treat! Looking forward to this one!
And a great humbling
These are some of the most relevant and insightful conversations available on UA-cam. Great work gentleman.
These long discussions are excellent, allowing time for the listeners to ruminate, really think about things, and
for the host and guest to delve deeply into the subject matter as well as digress into related material... bravo!
so grateful for this interview & Schmachtenberger! The world needs philosophers more than ever now & I'm here for it!
Brace yourselves for the advent of A.W. Artificial Wisdom. Why not.
God I love you both, I held off on watching this so I could sit down for the whole thing in one go. I was concerned I might get bored but the opposite was true, I could have listened to 3 more hours with intense interest. I thank you both for your service to humanity by having conversations like these ❤❤
I could not agree more. Even another 3 hours would be an appetizer
I listened to it like three times!
This is one of the best conversations I've ever participated in, ever.
I am shaken by the analysis because I am a dialectic materialist of some sort and I look back at what humanity does with 'Historical Levers' like this (and AI might be the most powerful lever of history in History) and it always leads to atrocity, war and pain. It hurts me to feel in my bones that what you're discussing will probably become a salient conversation post-war. In my lifetime I will see a war and massive atrocity over this and not much hope. We might completely destroy ourselves, but even if we don't, we won't be here to see the recovery, whatever recovery you are discussing in the most hushed tones, now.
This is incredible. Daniel is an intellectual beast the likes of which I have never seen.
dangit, Nate, we're happy to hear 3 hours of conversation! That's why we follow you. We are a different kind of "student" than the ones you may be used to teaching in a classroom setting. We want to be here, listening, learning, for as long as it takes.
When the content is good the 3 hours go by way too quickly. 🙂
I recently made this observation in my personal notebook/"diary" :
"The vast tome of historically accumulated human wisdom has been severely undermined by ever-concentrating nodes of wealth and power. The well-being of the entire world has been sacrificed to the 'god of mammon'. Most of us are just along for the ride."
Amen!!
Every time a humbling experience of my own insights and knowledge listening to Nate and Daniel. These conversations are truly gifts to our world. Like good music, good food.. Essential for the understanding of life, love and all the other aspects that are there..
we need more people to start thinking about A.I like Daniel Schmachtenberger. It is one of the only ways we can avoid the coming calamity.
No. What we need is start holding those in power personally responsible - D.S. here is part of the system, part of the problem - he was pro injections.... never forget.
Jiddu Krishnamurti's and Dr. David Bohm's conversations are my life saver videos and I listen to them all night long. I go to sleep with those conversations.
Nate, you are a very good human being. Your humility and willingness to ask basic but profound questions is very powerful. Thank you for your service to all of us.
Nate, you are giving us all an example of openness demonstrating the possibility of instantaneous
actual transformation right in front of our eyes. Hat off!
You guys are so smart...I am lucky to get to sit in.....keep going
This is THE interview, a carefully curated monologue of a Supergenius (DS), beyond great. It is white-hot, pure-insight. It is a gift. Thank you both!
What do u meen (DS) l hope u done mean deep state of u do than fuck u if u don’t then lm sorry for the misunderstanding. Love and light to all cos where we go one we go all.
Damn the end hit really hard. The "solution" is both coming out of the cave and returning back into it. I feel the role of mythos is also somehow important. Really great discussion.
Yes, coming out and back to the cave. And mythos gap for our contemporary world. Kudos to you for such a powerful "consolidation".
This conversation should be translated on all languages and broadcasted on all mainstream channels as soon as possible.
Yes!
I am even more worried after this conversation, that human "civilization" is not capable of the necessary paradigm shift, to match the scale of technological advancement... but I want to be an optimist, so I'll assume we will make that seemingly unlikely LEAP! Great work gentlemen, you're both incredible thought leaders, THANK YOU!
Our evolution has included so many bottlenecks and collapse episodes, so many close calls and restarts.
That pattern will likely continue.
Like in the “Don’t Look Up” movie, despite the grim chances of humanity surviving this filter if you follow Dan’s thinking to its logical conclusion, I’m with Jennifer Lawrence’s character in the last dinner to be in a position to say “I’m grateful, we tried”… I hope there is a Call to Action that us regular citizens can do to try.
I love that movie. We really did have everything, didn’t we? 😢
Man thanks. Daniel Smachtenberger is probably my favorite person on this planet to listen to. Nate Hagens is such an awesome interviewer, great job of letting Daniel zoom the perspective out, and also reeling him back in to answer specific questions.
I've shared this with several of my friends, quite the conversation starter. This the stuff I like to discuss.
I love long videos and don't even listen to anything that is shorter than half an hour. 😂 I could listen to your enlightening conversation all day, even though it is very depressing. I hope you know that the long beginning part of this podcast will make many people stop listening, and they will never get to the core. I understand how crucial it is to understand all the basics, so I suggest a remake of this topic by starting with something that grabs the attention of the listener with a short attention span and then continue to unfold the introduction. If the goal is to get this information out, a better communication strategy should be implemented. Thank you for doing all this!!!
💯 hard agree
I agree also. i' m over 80 years old and I listened to it all passionately in one go but I recognise that the depth of it all is not easily accessible to all.
I wish some artist would summarise the gist of it in a fable... ( a new myth to be construed collectively).
I can't thank you enough to have had the chance to listen and be schooled by this wonderful interaction between you two. You gave me the key: It's wisdom that brings forward moderation. Thank you, thank you thank you!
Love Schmachtenberger, smartest person on the internet - I want to join these discussions!
Smachtenberger gets to the real deep root of our predicament in a way I have not found anywhere else. Thanks for this it was great. I will be thinking about it for as long as I can go on thinking.,
It was so satisfying having some of my diffuse thoughts elegantly formulated into actually sense full sentences 😅, that was the 1% and I learned so much through the other 99%. Thank you, you brains !
Well done with this conversation. I believe that this has most of the right perspectives such that almost 90% of people working with proper translation will appreciate the reality of our lives. Will be sharing this everywhere I can. Thank you
Wow, that last commentary was very inspiring, Daniel! Thank you very much!
Amazing conversation. Thank you for such a thoughtful and lively conversation. Insightful. Sobering.
I was only saying just today with a colleague about the need to combine speaking about the socio-envrionmental impacts of AI with outreach on energy descent planning. These are related as it is all part of the same 'superorganism' as you put it. Going to make a big cup of joe now and tuck in for the next three hours!
Well done you two!
probably the most complex and profound conversation i have ever heard. unfortunatly i do doubt that we will navagate the peril well.
In fact the opposite. The leaders copy Rome and love a recycling economy that's like a ponzi scheme that makes everyone eventually implode allowing for desperation leading to another cycle.
Thank you to both Nate and Daniel.
When I saw this was 3 hours long, I thought ok I'll absorb this conversation in bites, but here I am, half way through and totally absorbed. Great stuff guys!
Going to replay again while doing chorus again today
@@stringlarson1247 I'm not even smart and I love this stuff
@c r heh. I can't even spell 'chores ' correctly. So, yeah, right there with ya
Listening to Danilel's arguments is always fascinating. Thank you both for all you do. The solution seems to be a fundamental change in how humanity operates on all levels, politically, economically etc . There is 0 chance of that without a global catastrophic event first.
That sums ip up for me, dear Adrian Volvovics. I love what Daniel and Nate are able to do in all their conversations, but seen from a wide perspective (aka "the reality") they are not much more than excellent infotainment.
I've heard them explaining why they take on the attitude of "To believe a thing impossible is to make it so". They're thinking - in one way absolutely rightly so I think, that there's no way we can ever say never about anything. Things no one could have foreseen, leading to meaningful solutions/new directions, CAN happen anywhere, any moment in time.
Personally I guess I can't find the very ground motivation. I'm not depressed but I'm simply not able or willing to see human life in the universe - whatever that is - as important to keep. Not anything else either, for that matter. The obsession with preserving life at any cost seems more and more absurd to me - feels like deer staring into headlights. "What if we can find out what we've all been doing here all this time and where we're capable of going" - of course I can understand and identify with all those kinds of desires whenever I choose to. But at 52, I just grow more and more interested in what happens when we die. Since death can appear at any given moment, kind of walking beside us like the most loyal companion thinkable, I welcome it all the time.
@@SLefd I guess it's called nihilistic attitude but then why this intense preoccupation with what's there beyond death?
@@ireneyacyna6425 I understand that it may seem "intense" for someone reading what I commented. But the truth is that it is not intense at all. It is just a natural curiosity. After all, the only thing that is certain about this life we're living, is that it is going to end. With what we call "death". So, since I've already seen what life is about, I am more curious about what happens when we die, than what happens before we die :-) Do you really think that is such a strange thing to be curious about?
Thank you for this conversation! Deeply affirming , challenging, and illuminating.
Great episode! For reference the term "Chesterton Fence" refers to G. K. Chesterton (author of 'The Man Who Was Thursday') who I believe popularized the idea as part of his defense of conservative thinking. I think we all grew up in a time after a lot of fences have been torn up (sexual revolution, digital revolution) which really warps our world view and makes it harder to orient what the best way forward is.
I feel so humbled to be alive when people like both of you are alive as well!
There is no more egregious example of misplaced priorities than the comparison between America's "Defense" Department and its Education and Healthcare Departments. That discrepancy is so glaringly obvious and so heartbreakingly disconcerting that I have become ashamed of my own country.
You and I both. By the way, I always know it’s going to rain in 24 to 36 hours when I hear the tree frogs croaking in my yard. ( They like to hide in the downspouts.)😁
Ain’t that the darn truth
That's part of the molach - defense is specified in our founding documents. Education is not. Health is not. That's why we'd do it differently today, like they say at the end of the show.
The thing is, this isnt a "misplaced priority". It's not in the interest of the corporations who run the government to have smart people. It's good for them to have people who listen to authority, so that's what they optimize for. That costs much less money than what we're giving to defense contractors.
Dept of education bunch of commie groomers
Hi Nate & Daniel, just 3 humble points on/towards wholeness for the next conversation from a PhD in computational design, and MSci in architecture (this was really good):
1. Try viewing the notion of wholeness cybernetically not as a thing, i.e. what it IS or may be, but by what it DOES, situationally. - It is also a hierarchical notion, i.e. there are many different 'wholeness'-es. The wholeness of 'the web of life' is meaningless, unless it is situated. For example, for humans it may be meaningful for an ecosystem on Earth, whereas for an embodied generative AI it could be meaningful on any planet, if the rest of such embodiments (i.e. maintenance robots, fabricator robots, &c.) can form their supportive ecosystem there. GAI Intuitively, wholeness is also a non-linear notion, and may not be described in a practical sense through human language or dialogue; those are also linear.
2. The ontology of 'wholeness' and 'goal'/ 'goal-seeking' from the perspective of AGI - What they/it may call these terms, if even calling them that way, is not guaranteed to align with human terms. For example, the notions of 'goal' and 'wholeness', separate to humans may combine into one new object, in a way only meaningful to an AGI but incomprehensible to humans. Another example is seeing the 4th dimension or even multidimensional objects. AGI will not be bound by the visual sense and could develop a purely mathematical matrix, or even tensor field 'vision', term the objects accordingly and from there argue and reason that is incomprehensible to humans bound evolutionarily by our visual cortex.
3. AGI, being independent from us by definition, will think for itself in terms most meaningful to itself - Large Action Models are already fusing Symbolic Object Models with Large Language Models. Their notion and comprehension of 'language' have already evolved beyond our linear model.
These two guys make me proud of our species. It’s like, even if we don’t make it, at least we don’t have to go down thinking none of us saw and understood the greater landscape.
I agree. But still its an important task to judge the conversation not only on its logical coherence, but on its underlying assumtions.. Schmachtenberger has some unspoken assumptions, you could ask for if they are true.. that should be our goal, to dive even deeper or at last select those questions for those two..
Totally agree about the importance of bringing out unspoken assumptions in the open for discussion and evaluation. In his case, it just so happens I felt refreshed because there is a great number of shared assumptions which I don't tend to find in other regions of the current cultural atmosphere. Are there any central unspoken assumptions you'd like to mention? As I might share them--definitely not all--I'd love to hear potential concerns with them so I may reflect further on both their validity and their articulation....(No irony or double-speak of any sort here! Clarifying, as the Great Internet lends itself to tonal misunderstandings...)@@tomschuelke7955
I don't know how I managed to go until the end but great one. Being into AI development, this sheds a different light on what's happening now.
All things considered, and realizing how unflattering it might sound, would it not be accurate to say that homo sapiens have BEHAVED exactly like a pernicious invasive species? I believe that if we were talking about some OTHER organism that had exhibited similar behaviors to our own, we would recognize the deleterious phenomena immediately. I would love to hear Daniel Schmactenberger's observations on that question.
Yes, but life uses the profitable like a fire to cleanse for a new cycle. So, its obvious that we are self destructive, but what isn't? Nothing survives life, and life is just destruction itself folding around.
I've often envisioned the human species as a species that ultimately destroys its host.
As a heavy equipment operator, all my clients want the environment changed to their liking, Damm the habitat, all the critters can find somewhere else to live
To @Brian Hawes. An honest reflection
To @Matthew Curry. Succinct
A rare example of a truly integral conversation. pointing to the possibility of engaging with apparent duality with the understanding of non-duality. Next step, Rupert Spira.
An incredible and difficult 3 hours. I listened twice and will listen again. I have to say that I couldn't sleep after following up on the interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky (referenced in your show notes), and am now listening to his conversation with Lex Fridman, which is even more haunting. I think you are right Nate, AI is the immediate threat (and per Yudkowsky there is no way to "turn it off" if and when it starts to go rogue). I am just trying to catch my breath and take this all in.
The Great Simplification is ever evolving as a deep, challenging and critical resource and lifeline in darkening times.
Yes, indeed
Daniel's point about how individual-focused our culture is (i.e. the gaze onto infinite space of Renaissance portraiture, the selfie or the heavenwards-cast glance of Madonna simulacrum, and the selfie-in-motion video "short") deserves I think serious consideration, as this perspective is the one that has been forced on the rest of the world in the wake of the second world war. That the internet has extended, in a virtual 'space' the reach of the individual to such an astonishing magnitude is staggering and horrifying. It is this perspective that is an overwhelming factor among those responsible for the existential crises we find ourselves in, material and spiritual. Saturnine, Faustian man extended omnidirectionally, parallel processing for the Animate god slouching towards Bethlehem to be born.
This was such a satisfying conversation to listen to. I am founding The Center for Deep Intelligence whose mission is to Protect, Prepare, and Steward humanity through the age of AI. And to do this, I am educating others exactly in the way that you describe - to connect with, commune with, what McGilchrist would say is the right brain, the Master part of their minds (the unconscious mind etc.) and how to feel the whole field beyond their own isolated ego identity. And also training others to spread that. I know there are many schools of mindfulness, wisdom lineages already but to have a place specifically designed to support this sort of education in connection to the accelerating dangers of AI is important in my view. I'm very much looking forward to your next video and thoughts on best ways to immerse people in these experiences, understandings, and wisdom, in a way that sticks and they are not pulled back into numbness and distraction that the world we do live in is set up to do. Which is tricky because as you mentioned, if they isolate and go off to live in the mountains, that's not going to help. We need to be able to stay in society to support whatever changes need to happen as well as we can with the means we have instead of isolate with our newfound wholeness. I'm personally experimenting with this (how much social media, how much screen time, how much sleep, how much interaction with others, community, intimacy, nature, stillness etc.) Where and is the balance to keep the delicate sensing of the field of wholeness alive (once we do the work to even have it in the first place.
Well I am also planning to start a dedicated channel that will concentrate on spreading the word of unity and collaboration and cooperation. I don't think anything I would say would be completely different...and I'm sure it may have been said in the past. But the angle I will approach the subject I hope will captivate the minds of more people. Ideas I will talk about are original...but im sure they may have in some shape or form already been mentioned somewhere in some book. But never the less...I hope I can contribute to the end goal of a better, more wise, cooperating world.
@@Ponderingaboutlife That's awesome.The more the better. In as many voices for as many audiences!
Vervaeke's relevance realization, and continuously growing body of shared work and tools coming out of that sphere (and/or other equivalent deep avenues of meaning pursuit), is establishing a worthy structure that may be able to hold us individually and collectively in navigating into humanity's next phase.
@@lipto722 Thank you. Checked him out and this is really helpful. Meaning is a big topic we'll be looking at at CDI and this is a great resource!
Omg! I love it! What greater beauty could we possibly experience than humans being incentivized toward their truest purpose! “The whole of self in service to the whole of reality”. Realizing the truth in wholeness or at least becoming aware that separation is an illusion is like a dream come true! Row gently but hurry up...and stay mindful. Idk. I’m excited at the possibility of our species realizing their potential for love of the connection we have we each other and everything else.
Can hardly wait to hear the next one!
Namaste’
What a fantastic and important conversation. I need to listen to it again it is so dense with insight and information.
As usual I end up taking a week to watch whenever Daniel speaks of the Metacrisis. There is so much to unpack and digest! I describe myself as a Yunkaberger in honour of my intellectual mentors Daniel and Tyson... thrilled to hear he's next in line!
Daniel, you must meet Michael Levin and Nate should invite him on the show
Great interview. I’ve gotta listen again.
Thank you, Nate. Thank you, Daniel. You two have changed my life and have inspired me to do my part.
Superb aid to clear reflection on the mess we're in. I found myself carrying my laptop around with me all morning. Three hour videos could sure use some topical timestamps.
I have read/heard similar concerns about GAI over the years, but, like many others here I was surprised by the pace of progress on AI. If you asked me in 2008 I would have insisted that industrial civilization would have collapsed before AI could realistically pose a risk to humanity. Humbled as ever to have encountered your wisdom Nate/Daniel. Please keep doing what you are doing.
Yeah, today it seems like a test race of "what come first"
The Singularity or the Big Simplification
@@reuireuiop0 And to this I will respond with the equally infinite wisdom, "William Gibson: “The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed".
Wether or not AGI happens or not, the rapid civilisational disruption of discreet AI models will cause all existing power structures to collapse. The cost of expertise is rapidly falling to zero in almost every domain, for everyone, everywhere. This process is happening now and accelerating. In a few years we may well be in serious trouble with each other - covid taught us that its not the "problem" that is the problem - its our reaction to it. Ppl are going to demand "something is done" increasingly hysterically and gov will make incorrect decisions greatly compounding into crisis after crisis. If we get to AGI its either existential destruction, or a much much better - stranger world. Either way, between now and then is going to be a massive problem.
I listened to this episode of the podcast first, and now I have watched this video version. So far, this is the most compelling argument I’ve heard for the existential threats that A.I. poses to life on Earth. Even if we never reached autonomous systems (we will, but even if we didn’t), it is still every bit as much of a danger as nuclear war, overshoot, climate collapse, or any of the other problems we face. Also, I saw an article saying 4,000 jobs lost to A.I. in the month of May alone. This is as close a parallel to Pandora’s Box as we’re likely to get.
Excellent by both parties here 🙏
Always great to listen to DanielS. Yet for someone who is essentially a non-naive techno-optimist, the focus in this conversation was almost only on what could go wrong. Could you next time explore what could go well? And how it could go well? It would be wonderful to hear a deep dive with Daniel S into what opportunities exist for using this technology to vastly upgrade our sense-making and wisdom. Because that seems like the only viable path to avoid the disaster. If that is actually the path we need to take, it is strange that it gets so little attention: how to use this technology truly well and wisely.
Optimistically, AI may remove sociopathy and psychopathy from the human experience by preventing it from attaining power
What an excellent conversation! Many thanks.
Daniel has so much to offer; he is very much worth paying attention to. He discussed the Jevons paradox, where efficiency produces more consumption, which is not well known to most people, and many other important things, thanks to having him on.
This was an impressively intelligent diacussion. This guest is very articulate and knowledgeable. Ive never been able to see the evolution of the structure of civilization and society in such a logical and obvious way, everhone should have to bear this.
Delicious food for the brain and im only halfway thru.
Daniel S. has a level of parallel mental processing that bends my mind. Amazing how he keeps that many balls in the air :)
The most important and comprehensive conversation regarding AI that I've heard on YT.
At 59:08 you start one of the most meaningful dialogues, going into the difference between wisdom and intelligence. Thank you for the talk. 🔥👏
Using a somehat wider bandwidth of definitions involving what constitutes monarchical power, Daniel Is The King 👑
This passage jumped out at me, and I listened then even closer till the end of the video. QUOTE - Daniel Schmachtenberger
"So let's take there, there are clusters of cognitive biases that go together to define like default worldviews, and they're not a single cognitive bias or a kind of a bunch of them. And you don't even have to think of it as bias. It's just like, I mean, it's a strong-sounding word, though it's true. It's a it's a default basis for the sense-making and meaning-making a new information people are likely to do first. And so one of them that I think is really worth addressing when it comes to AI is a general orientation to techno-optimism or techno pessimism, which is a subset of a general orientation to the progress narrative. And I would argue, and will not spend too long on this. So it actually warrants a whole big discussion. I would argue that there are naive versions of the Progress narrative. Capitalism is making everything better and better democracy is science is technology is Don't we all like the world much better now that there's Novocaine and antibiotics and infant mortalities down and so many more total people are fed and we can go to the stars and blah, blah, blah. Like obviously, there are true parts and everything I just said, but there is a naive version of that, that does not factor all the costs that were associated adequately. And there's a naive version of techno pessimism. So first on the naive version of techno-optimism, when we look at the progress narrative, there's so much that has progressed that if you want to cherry-pick those metrics, you can write lots and lots of books about however, everything's getting better and better and nobody would want to be alive at any other time in human history.
There's two things that the naive progress [narrative] is missing. One is the costs like climate change on the oceans and insects. And the other is the one-time subsidy of non-renewable energy and inputs and the source capacity of the Earth. And those are not finite. So those are the two blind spots. I think in that narrative, we could say the costs and the sustainability of the story.
And so if you talk about the story of progress, particularly like the post-modernity version of science, technology, and the associated social technologies, not just physical tech, because capitalism and democracy, and international relations are all kinds of coordination systems that we can call a social technology, a technical way of applying intelligence to achieving goals and doing things, of which you can consider language an early social technology, which it is.
If you ask the many indigenous cultures who were genocided, or extincted or who have just remnants of their culture left. Or if you ask all of the extinct species, or all of the endangered species, or all of the highly oppressed people, their version of the progress narrative is different. And just like the story of history, written by winners or losers, but if you add all of those up, the totality of everything that was not the winner story is a critique on the progress narrative. And so one way of thinking about it is that the progress narrative is that there are some things that we make better, maybe we make things better for an in-group relative to an out-group. Maybe we make things better for a class relative to another class, for a race relative to another race, for our species relative to the biosphere, and the rest of species or for some metrics, like whatever metric our organisation is tasked with up-regulating, or GDP or something relative to lots of other metrics that we are not tasked with optimising."
The early arrival of the LLM model at the party may force more insights into the utility of language itself and it's limitations. Natural language might not provide the apparent zenith of explicatory power and probably inherently cannot in part due to its bilateral dynamic, apart from soliloquies
@@jondor654 It's a new concept for me, what does "bilateral dynamic" mean in your comment?
@ Noric Dilancian One might compare a normal conversation or communication to the interaction between a transmitter and a receiver. Often these roles are rotated cooperatively, thus one dynamic.They are obviously separate systems and may not adhere to a common protocol even with the best intentions. Competences may differ for instance, often leading to requests for clarification or reformulation. The heuristic nature of natural language do not make for symmetry in communication , unlike the ideal of a function and it's inverse.
AI is planted in ur brain, Mark of the Beast!!
astonishing deep conversation thank you
A truly thought provoking conversation. While discussing wisdom and culture, understanding divine guidance may perhaps now help us unify on the common goal of humanity, for being created as the vicegerents on earth to cultivate and protect it. And to do this while restraining impulses of greed and envy, knowing that we will return to our Creator being accountable for our actions here
Daniel's command of the English language is top notch. Im astounded!!!!!!!
Instant repurcussions in a small town non-profit: it looks like some of our college scholarship award applications were AI-generated. Ethics, fairness and surprise all wrapped into our new discussions on the board. Glad to have such a wide range of thought leaders of every sort in your fora, Nate!
The scale of the problem is such that the likelihood of there being no College to go to within 3 years. Education is about to get completely wrecked as the cost of expertise in nearly all domains falls to zero, everywhere, all the time, for everyone. Just this one thing will cause massive fractures in society. Current institutions are going to be largely irrelevant. Hold onto your hat.
It's interesting. I heard some other AI person talking about AI in the context of the constant development of "aggregated intelligence" which includes but is not limited to things like excessive use of focus groups, professional PR people that monitor every word that an organisation puts out into the public sphere.
MIND BLOWING KNOWLEDGE...May we begin moving towards WISDOM as a collective. Share this chat everywhere. Why is there only 170K views on here?
Kudos to both of you. Thank you for bringing the whole picture together again! 😢😂❤
Nate… thank you for adding show notes for Daniel’s recommendations! Appreciate it!
Heck yeah! Daniel and Nate day!
You loving that day also.. #yeah
@@rolfvanharen I you are listening for the AI only part because you're familiar with Daniiel's lectures I would start at about 1:45:00
@@TennesseeJed Thnx but I listen the all the parts in wholeness because of multiple reasons. But with one reason above all: when speaking about complexity we need the whole matrix of information to truly dig in unto the depth and layers of these conversations.
@@rolfvanharen Agreed. The segue is an important recap of complexity issues. I am excited for Nate to have McGillchrist on!
I’m 1hr 3min in - realizing this conversation, the idea’s being shared are truly inspired/important.
Thank you! Your communication skill’s match your intellect - the wonderful feeling of learning something new, filling in a puzzle piece which connects to other’s already placed, opening additional path’s to have a brief visualization of the GRAND meaning of everything!
As always: Brilliant, brilliant conversation!! Thank you very much! To sum it up in one sentence, what we need going forward is a mindset of: Together for the benefit of All.
1:13:00
Chesterton's fence. Understand why the fence was put up, before tearing it down.
Optimising truth, honesty, kindness, is not without problems when not understood dialectically.
Default leaning, causes us to optimise narrow value sets.
Thank you both, amazing discussion. The three hours went by in a flash. I look forward to the next one!
That was mind-blowing please do this again soon!!!
I watched him on theory of everything recently, and I enjoyed this so much more. Love your questions and intuitions here.
Great talk. Listening to Daniel makes me realize how uneducated I am
Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" is more prescient than I ever could have imagined. After listening to this conversation I am almost catatonically dumbfounded. Almost. I think that I will now go eat a huge batch of french fries, devour several cheeseburgers (with the "works"), and quaff a 12-pack of imported lager. Holy shit !
Have the mob mistaken our monster for a demon?
We ought hope Mel Brooks version was more on point.
Great discussion. I discovered Daniel a few years back and was captivated by his depth of knowledge and understanding. That being said, it appears he isn't one iota closer to solving the problem than he was back then. I fear that is because the problem is unsolvable.
Amazing to see Daniel giving a shout out to the work of Robert Miles to bring awareness and great bite sized insights to AI safety and AI understanding overall
Yeah, it's great hearing that. Rob Miles has recently come on Machine Learning Street Talk channel. However, the counterarguments from the hosts were, in my opinion, not that good...
@@Hexanitrobenzene yeah I saw it. I think they argue it was a more of a devil's advocate style set up, to present opposition to the arguments. But even if that was the intention, the tone and some of the tangents or dismissal of the arguments themselves were not granted. All in all I think Rob did great anyway
Wow, just wow. This was as good as some of the best books I've ever read and I've not felt that way about a video before. This has easily become my new Nate Hagens video to re-watch until it's sufficiently integrated. I swear each one of these videos is like a full college course and take as much homework and study just to keep up.
The "multi-polar trap" of AI reminds me of the preface/initiator to WWI. As a society, we are constructing a scenario that funnels diverse possibilities down to one possible outcome, just waiting for a trigger event to start an effectively pre-determined course towards self-destruction. The invisible hand of the profit-maximizing market (along with other invisible hands directing us to other narrow goals) is pushing us over a cliff.