hey welcome back ladies and gentlemen my next guest is an historian philosopher and the bestselling author of sapiens please welcome Yuval Noah Harari [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] please um nice to meet you as I was saying backstage I feel like I had interviewed you before because I've just I've read sapiens I've I've uh seen you being interviewed um so feels like we know each other but everybody knows this book this is sapiens it is one of the most successful non-fiction books of all time and it tackled this sort of Niche subject you know
this Niche subject which is um the entire history of humankind and I'm just curious how you describe your field of study since what you study is everything I'm a historian but I understand history not as the study of the past uh rather it's the study of change of how things change and which what makes it relevant to the present and future um you recently turned your focus from the past to the Future what we're talking about now specifically the impact of technology MH and it it it feels feels like um things are changing incredibly fast
like this generation is undergoing a more rapid change of their technological environment than ever before is it really or does every generation feel that way like people are going like why aren't we carving in stone anymore these kids with their Papyrus why are they doing that is it real that we're actually going through some sort of accelerating change but every generation of things like that but this time it's real and you know it's the first time in human history that nobody has any idea how the world would look like in 20 years now of course
politically it was always impossible to predict the future if you live in the Middle Ages you don't know maybe next year the Vikings invade the Mongols invade there is an epidemic you can't predict that that the basic stuff of human life like the basic basic skills we all going to be sheep in 20 years no matter who's in church you need to teach your kids how to plant rice or wheat how to ride a hor how to shoot a bow because this will still be relevant in 20 years today nobody has any idea what to
teach young people that will still be relevant in 20 years do we need to teach our young people anything now that AI is here how to deal with it how to deal with a okay so that's one AI is AI is of course one of the latest things that we've been anticipating for a long time but now in some I actually think so far very minor way AI is shown up in baby AI they haven't seen anything yet okay so um a lot of people are worried I'm not that worried about AI I just it
just doesn't get my blood going to get worried about AI I think of some positive aspects of it I mean I've seen how humans have handled history and not great and and so I'm ready for the you know big machines that make big decisions programmed by fellas with compassion and vision you know I I'm I'm ready for the machines to tell us what to do mhm are you uh not really it's it's extremely dangerous to give up power to something we don't understand but they're just extensions of us I mean no they not yes they
are we made them they're us we made them but now they become potentially independent of us the one thing to know about AI the most important thing to know about AI it's the first technology in history that can make decisions by itself and can create new ideas by itself people compare it to the printing press to the atom bomb no it's completely different but it has no is there any proof that an AI has come up with a new idea of absolutely all the time what yes give me one for instance deciding what to show
us on social social media oh well that's not that's not a new idea that is making decisions yes so I said two things there are making decisions and there are new ideas if for instance you think about ideas if you take as for example the game of Go what is go I'm sorry a much more complic version of Chess got it let's okay all right uh in East Asia it's one of the oldest games we know 3,000 years of tradition in East Asia entire School schools of thought and AI comes and within a few years
plays like no human ever imagined that it's possible to play and this can happen in more and more fields and we have never encountered anything like that before because every previous Information Technology it's simply copied and disseminated our ideas the printing press just produced more books television just broadcast our thoughts here we have something that can create entirely new ideas which are not even Bound by the limits of our imagination you our imagination is the product of organic biochemistry AI is not limited by that all right so you have a new book now it's called
Unstoppable us why the world isn't fair I'll bite why isn't the world fair and is this a me this is a message this is for young people yeah it's for kids age 8 to 12 hey kids the world isn't fair they know the world isn't fair one of the first things that you know kids everywhere say it isn't fair oh yeah sure it's not something that adults only say and in the end from you know historical perspective it's the stories that we believe but if you look at at the major conflicts and injustices in the
world it's ultimately about the Stories We believe We are a storytelling animal you know some people think that human conflict that human humans fight over the same reasons that other animals fight over territory over food this is rarely the case if I think for instance about the terrible conflict in my region of the world between Israelis and Palestinians it's not really about territory or food there is enough land to build houses and hospitals and schools for everyone there is enough food to feed everybody people fight over the imaginary stories in their mind uh uh who
is God's favorite children uh who God gave Jerusalem or or or these holy stones to this is why most conflicts in the world are about which is also good news because if conflicts are about objective things um the only way to end them is with violence but if conflicts are about the stories we believe there is a chance at least in some cases to just talk about it and perhaps change the story and find a common story that we can both be happy with than his new Buck Unstoppable us volume two is available now you
V Noah Harari everybody we'll be right back a [Music]
