foreign [Music] so thank you very much it's a pleasure for me to be here let's go straight to the point I just want to say that by Nature I'm a biomedical researcher so I'm what I consider myself a realistic optimistic okay so I am really a person that I believe in the future okay so I'm not so the questions will go into that direction and not so much into like the dangers of you know the resentions but how can we really solve problems yes so you know as you said there is a immense human potential
and one of the things that you know we have shown through is that we created amazing things you know philosophy heart science and they all use different methods they all different you know tools but they all are in this pursuing that we have to understand the world around us I'm obviously biased towards the scientific method I think is the best one and better than the other ones but you know it's undeniable that the throughout history scientific discoveries are really you know change our way of living and they really have frequently changed long-held beliefs and disrupted
societal Norms but of course these these decades centuries sometimes now they need to take you know days seconds okay so really we would like to see your point of view how can we really you know balance between embracing the power of Science and the scientific discoveries but then at the same time ensuring that its implications are accepted not as a dictatorship are accepted because they are understand people understand them by societies by different individuals how you see this balance you know to go through such a fast process yeah it's difficult I think two things about
science first of all science is about reality and reality is extremely complicated that's it sounds obvious but it's important to say it because all people are lazy all of us I'm also we are lazy we don't want to think very hard and science forces us to think very very hard because our minds really will not adapted by Evolution to understanding things like viruses or like Evolution itself and um you see in human history you talked about how you talk about philosophy that what humans create with their own imagination tends always to be much more simple
and then than what science discovers if you want to know for instance the difference between mythology and science is that science is far more crazy than any mythological idea ever dreamed up by any religion or any culture in the world most mythologies they simply take our daily life and magnify them like you have a family your mother and father fight about something and then you imagine Zeus and Hira the gods as a family with mother and father fighting about something you think about also Christian or Jewish theology so in the end it's a lost boy
looking for his mother or his father um you know what is hell if you ask theologians so if you ask the common people oh hell is whether demons Rose to your life in in fire but theologians will tell you no it's when the soul loses connection with God that's hell and this is simply a boy lost lost his connection with his father or his mother very difficult for scripted a very limited a repertoire of biological dramas and almost all of human art and mythology all the Netflix uh series are they just these biological dramas again
and again and again um in science you know we look at quantum mechanics you look at the evolution of viruses this is a completely different thing and we fight very difficult to understand it because we were built again for these limited repertoire of biological dramas and then we fall praying to all kinds of conspiracy theories and so forth which are again tend to be very very simple you know to understand what a virus is is so complicated because we never encountered when they are inside us around us but we never encounter them um because they're
just so tiny and we are not even sure how their life or not viruses they don't eat they can't reproduce by themselves they are just tiny bits of of genetic code that can hijack the mechanisms of our body to produce more of them this is such a strange thing you don't find in any human mythology such a strange idea and then when somebody comes along and tells you some conspiracy theory about viruses it's it's it's much more tempting and the other thing about science I'll try to be short is that science is ultimately based on
on admitting ignorance the big discovery that launched the Scientific Revolution was not some discovery of Copernicus in astronomy or in in geography it was the discovery of ignorance for all of history human cultures believed we know everything we have all the answers in this holy book of that Holy person there he or she knows everything science began real modern science began when a a culture an institution admitted we don't know Nobody Knows the answers to some of the most important questions in the world let's investigate and again this is very difficult for people they want
answers they don't want this open-ended investigation let me go on with that with that subject because technology created an impatient Society we are very used not even to the short term but to the Nano term the immediate everything solved by now and Technology made it possible in millions of ways but democracy relies on procedures on bureaucracy on Dialogue on consensus on time and populists exploit very much the this match of expectations that people are now having with democracy yeah so my question is how do you see this and how do you see if if it's
possible for the Democracy the Democracy to speed up keeping the structural rules that we rely upon and can artificial intelligence play a role on that fight and endeavor so ultimately the answer is no we can't we cannot speed up Beyond a certain point um democracy is a conversation conversation takes time different people need to voice their opinions you need to actually listen to them this is the hardest thing in the conversation to actually listen to the other side take it seriously maybe change your own views a little says it takes time dictatorship can be instantaneous
you have one person dictating everything the problem is with dictators with all these strong men and populist leaders that they assume infallibility and nothing in the world certainly not in the world of humans nothing is infallible all leaders make mistakes all books contain errors all institutions make mistakes if you build a political system based on the Assumption of infallibility it will lead to disaster the whole idea of democracy is that we assume that everybody makes mistakes so we don't give absolute power to any one member of the system and we always have a kind of
self-correcting mechanism that can identify mistakes even of the biggest leaders and correct them and even the self-correcting mechanisms themselves make mistakes so we must have several self-correcting mechanisms it's not enough that we have you know a government an empowerment balancing each other we also need an independent Judiciary we also need a free press we also need universities why because any element in the system can make mistakes so we need to have all these different self-correcting mechanisms that keep each other and this takes time it cannot be instantaneous when when dancers also often you know Science
and Technology when they come with something that really can impact a lot in society and for example in tackling Global Health crisis as we see in the pandemic is that science responded really fast and you know in an amazing way of course it was not as fast as people think because it's been Decades of research but at that time they the science and knowledge was there to respond but one thing that a society will really fail is the fact that you know this science and technology that we have developed is not accessible to everyone the
same way and we frequently really have marginalizing you know type of groups of people or you know social economical groups Etc and this is really one point that then the populist and everything is because it's these people that feel marginalized that are there so how can you know really what should a society as a global Society not probably as Nation individual Nations but as Global Society should we do to ensure that you know science technology is more um accessible to everyone no I think it's probably the responsibility of scientists themselves to devote some of the
time and energy to conveying the latest discoveries and ideas to the general public of course it can't be everything they do because then nobody does new research but this for instance is what I see as my role to serve as a bridge between the scientific community and the general public and to write books for for adults for children like my latest project is to write it as a a children's book a series of books about the history of the world from the Stone Age to today aimed at children and the idea there is exactly that
if if Scholars don't make the effort to reach the public they are leaving a vacuum which is easily abused by populists by conspiracy theories by fake news and of course it's it's difficult for scientists because they are trained to you know think and write in a way which is often inaccessible to the general public the most important thing to know about humans in this respect is that humans are storytelling animals we think in stories but in many uh branches of science like in biology scientists try to write and even think in statistics in equations in
isolated facts they are suspicious of stories and they are suspicious for a good reason because every story contain elements of fiction of simplification but that's the job if you say no I'm not going to tell any story I will just present the public with these statistics and mathematical equations you lose the public so of course again it's not a job of all scientists to do that but we need people to serve as a bridge because ultimately as I said earlier the stories of science potentially they are the most amazing Stories ever there is no human
mythology that comes close to the kind of again craziness of evolution or of quantum mechanics so if you know how to tell this story in in the right way it has a chance to Captivate billions without open societies if you look back usually let progress progress in ideas arts science Industry agriculture wealth and they learn from each other they shape ideas that can improve lives they Foster tolerance they welcome diversity and although being well aware that artificial intelligence May well serve a digital dictatorship that can close countries or societies can we still rely on the
strength of the open societies a digital dictatorship is not destined to fall because of its closeness as all the closest uh regimes did in the past that's wishful thinking a little um especially when we look at the 20th century we tend to adopt and overlaying complacent attitude to 20th century history and tell ourselves that the ultimate defeat of totalitarianism was inevitable that it was inevitable that in the end uh the Nazis will be defeated that the Soviet Union will collapse that the regimes like of Franco in Spain and Salazar in Portugal they're bound to collapse
in the end and I think this is being complacent the Nazis and the Soviets were frightened and enclosed to winning to taking over the world closed societies have their own strength they are not a good place to research the truth but they are very good at imposing order and all there is power and we need to be realistic about it so that we make greater efforts we cannot rely on History to fight our Wars for us and we don't need to do much open Society it will definitely defeat the dictators because you have greater economic
growth and more technological inventions you know in the second world war in many fields the Nazis were more advanced they made the wrong bet they bet for instance on Jets and on jet airplanes and on Rockets and not nuclear weapons and they were far more advanced than the Allies for instance in Rockets ultimately the rockets that brought the Americans to the moon were based on Nazi technology um so we shouldn't be complacent about that and again a few different decisions during the critical years of the war 1941 1942 and there was a realistic chance that
the Nazis could have won um so it open societies definitely have huge advantages their biggest Advantage is their ability to identify mistakes and correct them but they pay a price and it's much more difficult to build the consensus in an open Society when you have to move fast sometimes ruthless dictators have an advantage so um again I hope that in the 21st century too the open societies will prevail but for that we'll need to make a very serious effort we cannot rely on some law of History to ensure that and in this open societies okay
we need to deal with dilemmas as every time that you know science evolves and brings a new tool a new way of seeing life you know we need to deal with these uh dilemmas that can be related to genetic engineering that are already there so it's not something of the future something in fact I've already past and present artificial intelligence that we already mentioned and the potential for human enouncement that you know people already starting to talk really in in high levels so how can then we effectively navigate this ethical challenges in an open Society
but I ensure that scientific progress aligns with human values because you know when you have no artificial intelligence and there will be a lot of aspects of human enouncement that we can probably operate and could be seen as a you know something good okay but how can we really I'm not saying that we I'm not so much in favor that we should put a you know a break because science will never be able as you already mentioned we'll never be able to slow down science is there and you know our curiosity will drive science but
I really can realign these you know ways of human values and the what we accept from science for the future and to be making a much more a better Human Society how we would yeah I think the the key first step is for scientists to realize that they can no longer completely isolate themselves from politics that there has been there still is a scientific ideal that I'm in the laboratory I'm doing my thing it has nothing to do with politics I don't want to get involved in politics and scientifically is true because we don't know
we don't want political views dictating your research the outcome of your research but what we see more and more is that science can no longer isolate itself from politics in more and more Fields the most important political questions are scientific questions you know climate scientists a few decades ago they thought we are just scientists we have nothing to do with politics we don't want politics but now they are forced to do politics climate science has been completely politicized during the pandemic I think one of the shocks for doctors for epidemiologists was to realize that they
cannot Escape politics anymore they thought hey we're just doing science but people tell them no you're doing politics and it's now happening with AI it will happen with more and more Fields because science changes the world and politics is ultimately about these changes so politics and science are now merging in an inextricable way now scientists should still be loyal to the basic scientific value of objectivity that if you have a polite like I'll give an example from my feel like history that um I care very much about suffering of animals and when I researched the
Stone Age humans in the Stone Age I wanted to discover that humans were vegan in the Stone Age and that eating meat uh became widespread only after the agriculture Revolution like this is kind of you can say this is my politics but the evidence didn't support my uh the the conclusion that my politics wanted to find the evidence pointed out that humans ate a lot of meat and it was an important a part of evolution if we didn't if our ancestors hadn't eaten meat probably we would never have developed this big brain still I think
we should not eat so much meat now and be very mindful of the suffering we inflict on other animals but when it comes to the scientific research I stick with the evidence still while sticking with the evidence we should understand that we can no longer isolate ourselves from politics it could if we try it it would come knocking on the door or bulging in what happened to The Climate scientists what happened to the epidemic epidemiologists is likely to happen to more and more fields and therefore we need to be out there and to especially to
protect things like academic freedom whenever the academic freedom of any discipline is threatened scientists in other disciplines should understand this can happen to me too you know we don't need to go to China or Russia in the EU you have Hungary as a member state of the EU which closed down all Departments of gender studies in an act of political violation of academic freedom and if they now do that to gender studies uh down the road it can be any other department so again I think that we should as scientists we must stay loyal to
the scientific values of objectivity but understand that we also have to take political stance because politics will no longer leave us alone I don't know if the the room is feeling the same kind of apocalyptical tone here which is to me it's it's a form of Utopia apocalypse and Utopia that populists use that exploit very well to bring the savior and I'm a rational Optimist I want to relentlessly work to the progress that we have been enjoying so we almost end up this conversation by thinking that uh people will be influenced people will be led
by machines by artificial intelligence so if democracy relies on people's will and people are deciding badly maybe democracy is not the way so one can end up thinking that okay to fight the digital dictator we need a good dictator and that's where the populists also come so as a rational Optimist that I myself I'm just asking you for some kind of guidance and hope how can someone who is in politics or not fight the good fight for freedom and open societies first we need to realize again democracy is not isolated from technology democracy is always
dependent on technology especially Information Technology because democracy is a conversation now in ancient times you could only maintain democracy in very small societies hunter-gatherer societies were mostly democratic uh we have examples like Athens like Rome which were democratic because they were small city-states once they expanded they stopped being Democratic we don't have any example of a large-scale democracy democracy encompassing millions of people over thousands of kilometers before the late Modern Age why because the technology was not there even if you wanted to have a large-scale democracy let's say in Portugal in the 16th century or
in ancient Rome you could not hold a real life real time Democratic discussions of politics because you didn't have the technology in Athens everybody can come together in the main square and talk but if you are a kingdom you can't do that democracy's large-scale democracies for the first time became Possible only with the invention of modern information Technologies first of all the printing press and then newspapers the all the first modern democracies were based on the newspaper as the technology that enables a public conversation over a large territory and then you had radio in the
Telegraph and and television and so forth and every new information technology because democracy is being is built on Information Technology it's not something on the side we have democracy and we have technology on the side no it's the basis every time you change the basis the structure shakes so we had it in the early 20th century when the same information technologies that made it possible to expand democracy also made it possible to build totalitarian machines Hitler and Stalin they used the radio the telephone the same tools as democracies in the 1960s you had another round
of new technologies and another round of democratic upheavals now if you looked around the world in the 1960s you would be likely to think that democracy is over and the future belongs to communist dictatorships because if you look like at the years like 1968 first of all you have very few democracies even in Europe Spain Portugal there are still dictatorships and even the democracies seem to be collapsing 1968 in France in Italy in the United States there is so much violence assassinations and the meanwhile the Communist dictatorships seem to be completely stable nothing moves and
then you fast forward 20 years and it's the Communist dictatorships and the fascist dictatorships which collapsed and the Democrat the democracies again I don't going back to what I said earlier it's not a law of history that they always prevail but they have a built-in ability to adapt better than any other regime because they don't concentrate all the power in one place they have these self-correcting mechanisms so they are much more flexible they are better at adapting I cannot make any promises about the current wave again we have a revolution in Information Technology leading to
the entire structure of democracy is shaking hopefully we can adapt again and come out of of this upheaval with even stronger democracies like in previous times that each of these previous crisis it led to a stronger democracy now and it's it's in our hands we the technology will not regulate itself we need another round of democratic conversations about how to manage the Technologies I mentioned earlier some basic ideas like you have a law that you cannot counterfeit people you cannot control fade humans that's very simple if uh the big tech companies knew that if my
platform allows fake humans I'm going to jail for 20 years in the same way that if I own a printing shop and I allow people to print fake money I go to jail then immediately you will see a huge drop in all these problems of fake news and conspiracy theories and and so forth and you know you have people like Elon Musk saying freedom of speech freedom of speech Bots don't have freedom of speech only humans have freedom of speech so regulation that gets rid of all the Bots or forces AI to identify as AI
when he talks to you this doesn't violate freedom of speech okay we ran out of time thank you not a lot very much let me just say Toda another Hebrew word I hope I said it correctly we end up here I'm presenting the show thank you very much and thank you very much [Applause] [Music]
