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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Highlights - Robert Sternberg - Fmr. President, American Psychological Assoc. - Author of “Adaptive Intelligence”

Highlights - Robert Sternberg - Fmr. President, American Psychological Assoc. - Author of “Adaptive Intelligence”

Award-winning Educator - Author of Adaptive Intelligence: Surviving and Thriving in Times of Uncertainty
Fmr. President of the American Psychological Association

Are we looking at intelligence wrong? There are an awful lot of people who have graduated from top schools who become leaders who are worse than incompetent. They make their countries worse rather than better. And the conclusion I came to is that we made a mistake, in that intelligence was originally defined by the founders of the field Alfred Binet, David Wechsler, and others, as the ability to adapt to the environment a requirement. And answering a vocabulary problem for an obscure word is not about adapting to the environment. So I began to wonder where we lost the train of thought. And the conclusion I came to is that colleges just forgot the original message of the founders of the field, and so we got immersed in these numbers that turn out not to mean that much. So I wrote about intelligence as the ability to get along in the world and hopefully make the world a little bit better

Robert Sternberg - Award-winning Educator - Author of “Adaptive Intelligence” - Fmr. President, American Psychological Assoc.

Robert Sternberg - Award-winning Educator - Author of “Adaptive Intelligence” - Fmr. President, American Psychological Assoc.

Award-winning Educator - Author of Adaptive Intelligence: Surviving and Thriving in Times of Uncertainty
Fmr. President of the American Psychological Association

Are we looking at intelligence wrong? There are an awful lot of people who have graduated from top schools who become leaders who are worse than incompetent. They make their countries worse rather than better. And the conclusion I came to is that we made a mistake, in that intelligence was originally defined by the founders of the field Alfred Binet, David Wechsler, and others, as the ability to adapt to the environment a requirement. And answering a vocabulary problem for an obscure word is not about adapting to the environment. So I began to wonder where we lost the train of thought. And the conclusion I came to is that colleges just forgot the original message of the founders of the field, and so we got immersed in these numbers that turn out not to mean that much. So I wrote about intelligence as the ability to get along in the world and hopefully make the world a little bit better

Highlights - Vitaliy Katsenelson - Author of “Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life” - CEO of IMA

Highlights - Vitaliy Katsenelson - Author of “Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life” - CEO of IMA

Author of Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life
CEO of IMA - Investment Management Associates

There are four modes of communicating: preacher, prosecutor, politician, and scientist. So those three Ps are very important modes, but if you spend all your time in these modes, you will learn very little because all of them are kind of outward-looking modes. You're trying to convince others, and you don't learn very much when you're in those modes. Now, I would argue that most of us need to spend a good chunk of our time in a scientist mode. If you are in a scientist mode, then you are doing what Seneca said, "time discovers truth.

Vitaliy Katsenelson - Author of “Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life” - CEO of IMA

Vitaliy Katsenelson - Author of “Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life” - CEO of IMA

Author of Soul in the Game: The Art of a Meaningful Life
CEO of IMA - Investment Management Associates

There are four modes of communicating: preacher, prosecutor, politician, and scientist. So those three Ps are very important modes, but if you spend all your time in these modes, you will learn very little because all of them are kind of outward-looking modes. You're trying to convince others, and you don't learn very much when you're in those modes. Now, I would argue that most of us need to spend a good chunk of our time in a scientist mode. If you are in a scientist mode, then you are doing what Seneca said, "time discovers truth.

Highlights - Jack Horner - Renowned Paleontologist - Technical Advisor, Jurassic Park/World Films

Highlights - Jack Horner - Renowned Paleontologist - Technical Advisor, Jurassic Park/World Films

Renowned Dinosaur Paleontologist
Technical Advisor on all Jurassic Park / Jurassic World Films

I found my first fossil when I was six years old. And I found my first dinosaur bone when I was eight, my first dinosaur skeleton when I was 13. When I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be a paleontologist, and I didn't think there was much hope for it, though. I was doing very poorly in school. I think I was always a pretty positive kid. And so even though I wasn't doing well in school, I was really happy about the fact that I was finding all these cool fossils, and I was making collections. I don't know when it came to me that I would do this, but I think I just was born this way.

Jack Horner - Renowned Dinosaur Paleontologist - Technical Advisor, Jurassic Park/World Films

Jack Horner - Renowned Dinosaur Paleontologist - Technical Advisor, Jurassic Park/World Films

Renowned Dinosaur Paleontologist
Technical Advisor on all Jurassic Park / Jurassic World Films

I found my first fossil when I was six years old. And I found my first dinosaur bone when I was eight, my first dinosaur skeleton when I was 13. When I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be a paleontologist, and I didn't think there was much hope for it, though. I was doing very poorly in school. I think I was always a pretty positive kid. And so even though I wasn't doing well in school, I was really happy about the fact that I was finding all these cool fossils, and I was making collections. I don't know when it came to me that I would do this, but I think I just was born this way.

Highlights - Bruce Mau - Award-winning Designer, Author of “Mau MC24…24 Principles for Designing Massive Change”

Highlights - Bruce Mau - Award-winning Designer, Author of “Mau MC24…24 Principles for Designing Massive Change”

Award-winning Designer, Artist & Educator
Co-founder & CEO of Massive Change Network
Author/Co-author of Mau MC24 · The Nexus · S, M, L, XL

I would like them to know just how powerful they are, that they have the power to shape the world. At some point, I realized that the world is produced. The world is designed and produced, and since we designed and produced it, we can redesign it. And you can play a part in designing it. You can play a part in that production. It doesn't have to happen to you. And I think, for too many people, too much power and too much control is concentrated in too few hands. People need to have the power to control and design their own life.

Bruce Mau - Author of "Mau MC24…24 Principles for Designing Massive Change in Your Life and Work”

Bruce Mau - Author of "Mau MC24…24 Principles for Designing Massive Change in Your Life and Work”

Award-winning Designer, Artist & Educator
Co-founder & CEO of Massive Change Network
Author/Co-author of Mau MC24 · The Nexus · S, M, L, XL

I would like them to know just how powerful they are, that they have the power to shape the world. At some point, I realized that the world is produced. The world is designed and produced, and since we designed and produced it, we can redesign it. And you can play a part in designing it. You can play a part in that production. It doesn't have to happen to you. And I think, for too many people, too much power and too much control is concentrated in too few hands. People need to have the power to control and design their own life.

Highlights - William Irvine - Author of “The Stoic Challenge”, “A Guide to the Good Life”

Highlights - William Irvine - Author of “The Stoic Challenge”, “A Guide to the Good Life”

Author of The Stoic Challenge & A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Happiness is another interesting thing. I've been thinking about this lately. You know, people take aim at happiness. I don't know if you can actually do that, if you can have a recipe for attaining happiness. Happiness is something that just happens as a byproduct of something else going on in your life, and that is having a day where you're experiencing equanimity. You don't have this abundance of negative emotions, where you value the things you've already got, where you value the relationships you've got, where you feel good inside your own body. You like being who you are. And I think, if all that happens, then suddenly, you know, it'll dawn on me. 'Gosh, I guess I'm happy...'

William Irvine - Author of “The Stoic Challenge”, “A Guide to the Good Life”

William Irvine - Author of “The Stoic Challenge”, “A Guide to the Good Life”

Author of The Stoic Challenge & A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Happiness is another interesting thing. I've been thinking about this lately. You know, people take aim at happiness. I don't know if you can actually do that, if you can have a recipe for attaining happiness. Happiness is something that just happens as a byproduct of something else going on in your life, and that is having a day where you're experiencing equanimity. You don't have this abundance of negative emotions, where you value the things you've already got, where you value the relationships you've got, where you feel good inside your own body. You like being who you are. And I think, if all that happens, then suddenly, you know, it'll dawn on me. 'Gosh, I guess I'm happy...'

Highlights - Victor Lopez-Carmen - Co-Chair, UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus - Dakota - Yaqui Writer, Health Advocate

Highlights - Victor Lopez-Carmen - Co-Chair, UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus - Dakota - Yaqui Writer, Health Advocate

Dakota & Yaqui Writer, Health Advocate · Co-Chair, UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus
Founder of Translations for our Nations · Co-founder Ohiyesa Premedical Program

My mom and my dad would often go to protests. They would organize movements. They'd be part of multilateral indigenous people's movements, not only nationally, but internationally, that were operating at the grassroots level. Activism, it’s a tradition in my family for indigenous rights. I have aunts and uncles that were very involved as well. So as a kid, I was often at those protests. I was running around as a little Native kid with all the other little Native kids, when our parents would be in meetings discussing how to move forward discussing indigenous rights.

Victor Lopez-Carmen - Dakota - Yaqui Writer, Health Advocate - Co-Chair, UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus

Victor Lopez-Carmen - Dakota - Yaqui Writer, Health Advocate - Co-Chair, UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus

Dakota & Yaqui Writer, Health Advocate · Co-Chair, UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus
Founder of Translations for our Nations · Co-founder Ohiyesa Premedical Program

My mom and my dad would often go to protests. They would organize movements. They'd be part of multilateral indigenous people's movements, not only nationally, but internationally, that were operating at the grassroots level. Activism, it’s a tradition in my family for indigenous rights. I have aunts and uncles that were very involved as well. So as a kid, I was often at those protests. I was running around as a little Native kid with all the other little Native kids, when our parents would be in meetings discussing how to move forward discussing indigenous rights.

(Highlights) Mario Alberto Zambrano · Dancer, Writer, Assoc. Dir. of Dance, The Juilliard School

(Highlights) Mario Alberto Zambrano · Dancer, Writer, Assoc. Dir. of Dance, The Juilliard School

Dancer, Writer, Choreographer
Associate Director of Dance at The Juilliard School, NYC

In both writing a first draft and in the improvisation of a dancing body, what is so key and relevant and exposed is voice. That internal voice of the artist of what they're writing on the page or what they're writing in space. If you go to fiction workshop, you talk about plot, structure, and you talk about character development, but there are very few classes within a dance curriculum where you break down an improvisation and you talk about voice, point of view, metaphor, or musical composition within a phrase. The lifespan of a phrase. And so this realisation is helping me understand that a one minute post of improvisation or even a ten-minute span of improvisation if it’s recorded is very similar to a first draft of creative writing, where then the artist is in a position to evaluate those 10 minutes and identify what is the setting? What is the voice that has come out of my experience of writing this first draft of an improvisation? And how can I give it structure? How can I give it form?

Mario Alberto Zambrano - Dancer, Writer, Assoc. Director of Dance, The Juilliard School

Mario Alberto Zambrano - Dancer, Writer, Assoc. Director of Dance, The Juilliard School

Dancer, Writer, Choreographer
Associate Director of Dance at The Juilliard School, NYC

In both writing a first draft and in the improvisation of a dancing body, what is so key and relevant and exposed is voice. That internal voice of the artist of what they're writing on the page or what they're writing in space. If you go to fiction workshop, you talk about plot, structure, and you talk about character development, but there are very few classes within a dance curriculum where you break down an improvisation and you talk about voice, point of view, metaphor, or musical composition within a phrase. The lifespan of a phrase. And so this realisation is helping me understand that a one minute post of improvisation or even a ten-minute span of improvisation if it’s recorded is very similar to a first draft of creative writing, where then the artist is in a position to evaluate those 10 minutes and identify what is the setting? What is the voice that has come out of my experience of writing this first draft of an improvisation? And how can I give it structure? How can I give it form?

Highlights-Sir Geoff Mulgan, Author of “Another World is Possible”

Highlights-Sir Geoff Mulgan, Author of “Another World is Possible”

Author of Another World is Possible: How to Reignite Social & Political Imagination
Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy & Social Innovation at University College London

The great thing about a complex society is there is space for lots of different kinds of people. There's space for wildly visionary poets and accountants and actuaries and engineers. And they all have a slightly different outlook, but it's the combination of this huge diversity, which makes our societies work. But what we probably do need a bit more of are the bilingual people, the trilingual people who are as at ease spending a day, a week, a year designing how a criminal justice system could look in 50 years and then getting back to perhaps working in a real court or real lawyer's office.

Sir Geoff Mulgan, Author of “Another World is Possible”

Sir Geoff Mulgan, Author of “Another World is Possible”

Author of Another World is Possible: How to Reignite Social & Political Imagination
Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy & Social Innovation at University College London

The great thing about a complex society is there is space for lots of different kinds of people. There's space for wildly visionary poets and accountants and actuaries and engineers. And they all have a slightly different outlook, but it's the combination of this huge diversity, which makes our societies work. But what we probably do need a bit more of are the bilingual people, the trilingual people who are as at ease spending a day, a week, a year designing how a criminal justice system could look in 50 years and then getting back to perhaps working in a real court or real lawyer's office.

(Highlights) Noah Wilson-Rich · Co-founder/CEO, The Best Bees Company, Largest US Beekeeping service…

(Highlights) Noah Wilson-Rich · Co-founder/CEO, The Best Bees Company, Largest US Beekeeping service…

Co-founder & CEO of The Best Bees Company
Largest Beekeeping service in the US

I was originally drawn to bees because they're social creatures. And as humans, I always wanted to know about ourselves and how we can be our healthiest selves and our healthiest society. Bees and wasps, and all of these organisms have been around for so long. Bees especially have been around for 100 million years.

Noah Wilson-Rich · Co-founder/CEO, The Best Bees Company, Largest US Beekeeping service…

Noah Wilson-Rich · Co-founder/CEO, The Best Bees Company, Largest US Beekeeping service…

Co-founder & CEO of The Best Bees Company
Largest Beekeeping service in the US

I was originally drawn to bees because they're social creatures. And as humans, I always wanted to know about ourselves and how we can be our healthiest selves and our healthiest society. Bees and wasps, and all of these organisms have been around for so long. Bees especially have been around for 100 million years.