"if we now find ourselves inside this kind of world of illusions created by an alien intelligence that we don't understand but it understands us this is a kind of you know spiritual enslavement that we..."

"13.8 billion years ago is the origin of our universe 3.8 billion years ago is the origin of life here on our little planet the one we call Earth let's say 200 000 years ago is the appearance of early ..."

"so intelligence also tends to be self-destructive which implies that if there are or were intelligent life forms elsewhere maybe they don't survive for long so you think there's a tension between happ..."

"Consciousness is far more important and valuable than intelligence can you stream on the case that Consciousness and intelligence are intricately connected so not just in humans but anywhere else they..."

"don't know I mean that we have to take both options into account well a big part of that is do you think we humans would be able to detect other intelligent beings other conscious beings another way t..."

"it but I think Consciousness in social norms because we cannot prove Consciousness in anybody except ourselves we know that we are conscious because we are feeling it we have direct access to our subj..."

"and I think we are quite close to the point when the legal system will have to take this into account that even though I don't think computers have Consciousness I think we are close to the point the ..."

"in some situations you know when two people talk with one another one of the things that kind of uh um makes the conversation more difficult is our own emotions you're saying something and I'm not rea..."

"and I think also a huge huge danger well the interesting Catch-22 there is you said somebody to listen to us yes we want somebody to listen to us but for us to respect that somebody they sometimes hav..."

"if we don't regulate it if we don't train ourselves to deal with it it could destroy the foundations of human society well one of the possible trajectories is those same algorithms would become person..."

"optimistic we need to to to think about the failed experiment which accompanied every major new technology so this intelligence thing like you were saying is a double-edged sword is that every new thi..."

"and and okay has a lot of possible variations to it because there's a lot of suffering along the way even for the people that survived so the the quality of life and all of this but let's actually go ..."

"alone on some island with a chimpanzee an elephant and a pig I wouldn't bet on me being the the the the best Survivor uh the the one that comes is successful if I may interrupt for a second I just I w..."

"and not the chimps and not the Neanderthals is not any individual ability but our Collective ability our ability to cooperate flexibly in very large numbers chimpanzees knows know how to cooperate say..."

"the other side of the world countries like China like India they have 1.4 billion people even Israel which is a relatively small country say 99 million citizens that's more than the entire population ..."

"it's most obvious in cases like religion you know you can't convince a group of chimpanzees to come together to fight a war or build a cathedral by promising to them if you do that after you die you g..."

"the bankers the finance ministers all these people they are the best storytellers ever and they tell us a story that this green little piece of paper or this bit of information it is worth a banana an..."

"nothing it's the story around the the math which is the real magic is it possible that the story is the primary living organism not the Storyteller so that somehow humans uh Homo sapiens evolved to be..."

"place you know it's a town you have buildings you have Stones you have trees you have dogs and cats and pedestrians it's a regular place but then you have the stories about the place oh this is the pl..."

"doesn't suffer the soldiers suffer the civilians suffer animals can suffer you have an army with horses and whatever and the horses get wounded the horses suffer the nation can't suffer it's just in a..."

"of a living organism is the capacity to feel and the the ultimate feeling is suffering you know to the question yeah but when you suffer you know yes and also in in ethical terms it's more important t..."

"quite a long time ago already so I work with a lot of robots legged robots but I've even had inspired by a YouTube video I had a bunch of roombas and I made them scream when I touched them or kick the..."

"be forbidden and similarly a more General level that it should be forbidden for an AI to pretend to be a human being that it's okay you know there's so many things we can use AIS as teachers as doctor..."

"talk about the big philosophical notion of truth then um you've already talked about these the capacity of humans one of the things that made us special is um stories so is there such thing as truth a..."

"invented by humans and this is true they were invented by humans and when you are honest about it it enables you to change the rules which is being done in football every now and then it's the same wi..."

"which was used later on to for instance amend the Constitution to ban slavery so now you're describing some interesting and powerful ideas throughout human history can you just speak to the mechanism ..."

"it comes from stories there are people that believe in different stories the stories create the identity the stories create the interests Israelis and Palestinians are fighting over Jerusalem not beca..."

"twice out of a hundred times it was such an unlikely thing to happen and it's the same with Islam it's the same I don't know it's the Communist takeover of Russia in 1914 if you told people that in th..."

"Jobs as Central to the development of the computer maybe Bill Gates you you you tell it to the stories of individuals like this because it's just easier to tell a sexy story that way maybe it's an int..."

"difference so you have this interplay between the structural forces which are beyond the control of any single charismatic leader but then the the small changes they can have a big effect and I think ..."

"uh this path I think part of it is part of the appeal of of again history was a very very skillful storyteller sold people a story the fact that he was nobody made it even more effective because peopl..."

"and this is so beautiful so it can't be but when you look in the fascist mirror you all you never see a monster you see the most beautiful thing in the world and that's the danger this is the problem ..."

"history as a kind of necessary Collision between big forces they place the individual at the center if you want to know you know there is a bed especially in the US today liberal is taking taken as th..."

"things but not always if your nation tells you to murder millions of innocent people you don't do that even though the nation tells you to do it um when to to lie for the national interest you know in..."

"in the same way in communism art is only about class struggle a movie is good if it serves the interest of the target artistic values there is nothing like that and the same with truth the everything ..."

"this sometimes you prefer that that's complicated and but you know life is complicated but also I think uh maybe you can correct me but liberalism acknowledges the corrupting nature of power when ther..."

"independent codes you have three academic institutions you have ngos you have a lot of checks and balances so that's the ideologies and the leaders what about the individual people the millions of peo..."

"listened to the interview you just did with prime minister Netanyahu a couple of days ago and one of the things that most struck me during the interview that you asked him you asked him are you afraid..."

"in the United States for instance there are a lot of checks and balances that limit the power of the government um you have the Supreme Court you have the Senate you have the House of Representative y..."

"they came out with this plan to take over the Supreme Court to have all these laws and there are hundreds of thousands in people in the streets again soldiers saying they will stop serving a general s..."

"they are not trying a different tactic previously they took they had all these dozens of laws that they wanted to pass very quickly within a month or two they realize no this is there is too much oppo..."

"everywhere so it's it would be scary for it to uh go from being a problem of security and protecting the piece to becoming a religious War it is already becoming a religious warming the war the confli..."

"when nations are in Conflict you can reach them compromise okay you have this bit of land we have this bit of land but when it becomes a religious conflict between fundamentalists between Messianic pe..."

"easy is there an important distinction to draw between the people on the street and the leaders in power in terms of motivation so are most people uh motivated and hoping for peace and the leaders are..."

"hate one of the things that happened in Israel over the last um 10 years or so Israel became much stronger than it was before largely thanks to technological development and it feels that it no longer..."

"uh with a lot less effort less boots on the ground also less blood and Israel is also now exporting this technology to many other regimes around the world um again I heard Netanyahu speaking about all..."

"are effectively promoting the three class uh solution which means there is just one country and one government and one power between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River but you have three classes o..."

"uh you know if the Palestinians would adopt the same policy as the black South Africans if you have the Palestinians coming and saying okay forget about it we don't want to destroy Israel we don't kno..."

"Germans Protestants and Catholics but eventually they United to form a single country you saw the same thing I don't know in Britain English and Scots for centuries hated and fought each other ferocio..."

"do you believe in the power conversation between leaders to sit down human beings and agree first of all what home means because we humans draw lines that's true I believe in the power of conversation..."

"anything so this is no longer a place where real conversations take place the big question about American democracy is is there a place where real conversations which actually change people's minds st..."

"and when it comes again to Ukrainian Russia I don't think that if you get uh if you somehow manage to get Putin in zelenski to the same room when everybody knows that they are there and they they'll h..."

"kind of uh evolving these stories that maximize hap or minimize suffering in the world and this is why I'm going to talk with some of the most difficult characters around in the world today um and wit..."

"so um this gives me hope that it's not easy in many cases we fail but it is possible sometimes in history to make a very very big change positive change uh mainly by talking and demonstrating and chan..."

"I think it's an extremely dangerous uh development and the chances that this will go wrong that will this will you people will use the new technologies trying to upgrade humans but actually downgradin..."

"humanity and one of those ways could be removing the compassion another way that really worries me for me is probably more likely is a Brave New World kind of thing that uh sort of removes the flaws o..."

"manipulating A system that you don't understand deeply and we don't understand ourselves so I have to ask you about an interesting Dynamic of stories you wrote an article two years ago titled when the..."

"you have been part of conspiracy theories I find myself recently uh becoming part of conspiracy theories is there a device you can give of how to be a human being in this world that values truth and r..."

"conspiracy theory I think ultimately you can't we can't I mean um you know it's like proving Consciousness that you can't just that's just the situation whatever you say can and will be used against y..."

"or whatever um they come from much more diffused forces which are not under the control of any single individual we don't have to look for the evil people we need to look for human allies in order to ..."

"about AI you know so many things are being said now about AI but I think there are two things that every person should know about AI first is that AI is the First Tool in history that can make decisio..."

"this is already beginning to happen in an accelerated R Pace more and more decisions about our lives whether to give us a loan whether to give us a mortgage whether to give us a job or taking by Ai an..."

"thinking is that that idea generation is so fundamental to like the evolution of humanity that we can't resist the idea is to to resist an idea you need to have some some vision of of the creative pro..."

"and this was a big philosophical question for thousands of years now it's becoming a practical question of engineering because previously all the ideas as far as we know maybe we are living inside a c..."

"and um if we now find ourselves inside this kind of world of illusions created by an alien intelligence that we don't understand but it understands us this is a kind of you know spiritual enslavement ..."

"you the money I mean if this can be automated wonderful we need to make sure that these people uh then have better jobs uh uh better means of supporting themselves and developing their social abilitie..."

"does that surprise you how well large language models work I mean has it modified your understanding of the nature of intelligence yes I mean you know I've been writing about AI for I know like eight ..."

"religion for thousands of years and now it's coming with AI so you as a person who has written some of the most impactful words ever written in your books uh how does that make you feel that you might..."

"observing as much as possible non-verbally what is happening within myself focusing you know Body Sensations the breath thoughts keep coming up but I try not to give them attention don't try to drive ..."

"it's just the story your own mind created so first thing train the mind to be silent and just observe so two hours every day and I go every year for a long retreat between one month and two months 60 ..."

"definitely and then you know when I encounter a problem a difficult intellectual problem then um I give it I I let the problem lead it lead me where it goes and not where I want it to go if I approach..."

"my own nonsense so it gives me this room for playfulness I will be amazing ask for people interested in hearing you talk about meditation if they want to start meditating what advice would you give an..."

"death is exciting it's not exciting when you when he died ultimately it's it's boredom nothing happens it's the end of exciting things and many things in the world happen because of boredom to some ex..."

"that applies in more ways than one um what advice would you give to young people uh today in high school and college how to have a successful life how to have a successful career what they should know..."

"difficult to keep Reinventing ourselves it's a deep again it's in a way a spiritual practice to build your personality to build your mind very flat as a very flexible mind if traditionally people thou..."

"and nobody wanted to identify with such a thing if your options okay you can be a singer you can be a defect but what do you want uh not good options there and it took me many years till I was 21 to t..."

"some people or for whatever reasons hate it gay people they said oh they go against nature but this is the story created by people this is not the laws of nature and this taught me that so many of the..."

"each other so me and it even though we rode the same bus together to school for years we didn't meet in the physical world we met online because again in the physical world you don't want to identify ..."

"hear it tends to be a very kind of male match of fantasy I don't need anybody I can be so strong and so brave that I'll do everything by myself it never works me the friends you need a mentor you need..."

"about it that's why you read kamu and others when you're a teenager you really worry about the existential questions well this feels like the right time to ask the big question what's the meaning of t..."