1 00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:09,879 Speaker 1: What do counterfeit bills have to do with brains? And 2 00:00:09,920 --> 00:00:12,479 Speaker 1: why is it so hard for you to recognize a 3 00:00:12,600 --> 00:00:15,200 Speaker 1: real penny? And what does this have to do with 4 00:00:15,840 --> 00:00:20,000 Speaker 1: the building on the fifty euro bill recently getting replaced 5 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:23,520 Speaker 1: with the face of the goddess Europa And what did 6 00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:25,279 Speaker 1: I have to do with that? And why did I 7 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:29,120 Speaker 1: campaign to the European Central Bank that all bills should 8 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:36,400 Speaker 1: be blank with a single hologram in the middle. Welcome 9 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:38,839 Speaker 1: to Inner Cosmos with me, David Eagleman. 10 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:43,200 Speaker 2: I'm a neuroscientist, and you might wonder how a neuroscientist 11 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:47,880 Speaker 2: got involved in studying counterfeit money. Ll hang tight, because 12 00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:51,000 Speaker 2: in this episode we're going to see how all these 13 00:00:51,080 --> 00:01:02,520 Speaker 2: issues intersect. The most pervasive mistakes that we make is 14 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:07,360 Speaker 2: believing that our visual systems give us a faithful representation of. 15 00:01:07,319 --> 00:01:10,600 Speaker 1: What's out there. We think of our vision the way 16 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:13,640 Speaker 1: we think of a movie camera, like it's just capturing 17 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:16,880 Speaker 1: the information from the world. But there are a whole 18 00:01:16,959 --> 00:01:21,720 Speaker 1: bunch of simple demonstrations that can quickly disabuse you of 19 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:26,880 Speaker 1: this notion. For example, imagine that I show you two pictures. 20 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:29,360 Speaker 1: I flash one, then it goes off, then the second 21 00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:31,479 Speaker 1: one comes on, then it goes off, then the first 22 00:01:31,480 --> 00:01:34,240 Speaker 1: one comes back on, and so on, So it alternates 23 00:01:34,240 --> 00:01:37,400 Speaker 1: between pictures A and B, and it looks like it's 24 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:40,680 Speaker 1: the same picture. But let's say I let you know 25 00:01:40,959 --> 00:01:44,320 Speaker 1: that there is a difference between the pictures, and your 26 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:47,680 Speaker 1: job is simply to spot the difference. Well, if you've 27 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:51,000 Speaker 1: ever played these sorts of games before, you know how 28 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:55,640 Speaker 1: surprisingly difficult it can be to tell the difference between them. 29 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:59,520 Speaker 1: It turns out that we are really blind to changes 30 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:03,560 Speaker 1: in scene, and these can be quite large changes. So 31 00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:06,840 Speaker 1: you might have a big statue that's present in the 32 00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:09,960 Speaker 1: background of one photo and not the other, or a 33 00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:15,680 Speaker 1: jeep or an airplane, and the difference goes unseen. You 34 00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:18,160 Speaker 1: can see some demos of this at eagleman dot com 35 00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:22,920 Speaker 1: slash podcast. So what happens is that your attention slowly 36 00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:28,600 Speaker 1: crawls over the photograph and you analyze the interesting landmarks 37 00:02:28,960 --> 00:02:32,440 Speaker 1: until you finally detect what is changing. And once your 38 00:02:32,440 --> 00:02:35,920 Speaker 1: brain has latched on to the appropriate object, then the 39 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:39,800 Speaker 1: change is trivial to see. But this happens only after 40 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:46,520 Speaker 1: a pretty exhaustive inspection. This is what's known as change blindness, 41 00:02:47,040 --> 00:02:52,160 Speaker 1: and it highlights the importance of attention, which is to say, 42 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:56,360 Speaker 1: to see an object change, you have to attend to it. 43 00:02:56,680 --> 00:02:59,520 Speaker 1: And what an experiment like this surface is is that 44 00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:03,600 Speaker 1: you're not actually seeing the world with the rich detail 45 00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:08,120 Speaker 1: that you implicitly believed you were. In fact, you're not 46 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:12,280 Speaker 1: aware of most of what's hitting your eyes. So imagine 47 00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:15,600 Speaker 1: you're watching a short film with a single actor in it. 48 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:19,080 Speaker 1: He's cooking an omelet, and the camera cuts to a 49 00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:24,000 Speaker 1: different angle as the actor continues his cooking. Surely you 50 00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:28,320 Speaker 1: would notice if the actor changed into a different person, right, 51 00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:33,679 Speaker 1: But in studies, two thirds of observers don't. In one 52 00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:38,840 Speaker 1: really astonishing demonstration of change blindness, random pedestrians in a 53 00:03:38,880 --> 00:03:41,960 Speaker 1: courtyard were stopped by an experimenter and they were asked 54 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,600 Speaker 1: for directions, So they start giving directions, and at some point, 55 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,560 Speaker 1: as the unsuspecting person is in the middle of explaining 56 00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:54,560 Speaker 1: this workmen carrying a door walk right in between the 57 00:03:54,600 --> 00:04:00,400 Speaker 1: two people, and unbeknownst to the pedestrian, the experimenter is 58 00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:05,080 Speaker 1: stealthily replaced by a confederate who's been hiding behind the door. 59 00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:09,040 Speaker 1: So the people are swapped, and after the door passes, 60 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:12,160 Speaker 1: a new person is standing there and the majority of 61 00:04:12,280 --> 00:04:17,560 Speaker 1: subjects continue giving directions without noticing that the person they 62 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:20,760 Speaker 1: were talking to is not the same one that they 63 00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:24,880 Speaker 1: were talking to. In other words, they were only encoding 64 00:04:25,279 --> 00:04:28,239 Speaker 1: small amounts of the information that was hitting their eyes. 65 00:04:28,839 --> 00:04:34,240 Speaker 1: The rest was assumption. Now, neuroscientists weren't the first to 66 00:04:34,279 --> 00:04:38,160 Speaker 1: discover that placing your eyes on something is no guarantee 67 00:04:38,200 --> 00:04:42,000 Speaker 1: of seeing it. Magicians figured this out long ago, and 68 00:04:42,040 --> 00:04:46,760 Speaker 1: they perfected ways of leveraging this knowledge. So by directing 69 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:51,720 Speaker 1: your attention, magicians perform sleight of hand in full view. 70 00:04:52,279 --> 00:04:56,000 Speaker 1: Their actions, their hand motions should give away the game, 71 00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:00,040 Speaker 1: but they can rest assured that your brain process it 72 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:03,960 Speaker 1: is only small bits of the visual scene. It's not 73 00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:07,039 Speaker 1: everything that's hitting your retinas. And by the way, this 74 00:05:07,279 --> 00:05:11,719 Speaker 1: limitation of our vision helps to explain the colossal number 75 00:05:11,839 --> 00:05:16,160 Speaker 1: of traffic accidents in which drivers will hit pedestrians who 76 00:05:16,160 --> 00:05:19,520 Speaker 1: are in plane view, or they'll collide with cars that 77 00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:22,480 Speaker 1: are right in front of them. Sometimes you'll even see 78 00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:26,320 Speaker 1: stories where a car intersects with a train on the track. 79 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:29,839 Speaker 1: In some of these cases, the eyes are in the 80 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:34,799 Speaker 1: right place, but the brain isn't registering the stimulus. Vision 81 00:05:35,440 --> 00:05:39,640 Speaker 1: is more than looking Now This is all an example 82 00:05:39,680 --> 00:05:42,800 Speaker 1: of a larger point, which is that we're not generally 83 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:47,120 Speaker 1: aware of what's going on until we ask the question. So, 84 00:05:47,320 --> 00:05:51,120 Speaker 1: for example, what is the position of your tongue in 85 00:05:51,160 --> 00:05:54,280 Speaker 1: your mouth right now? Once you're asked the question, you 86 00:05:54,279 --> 00:05:57,680 Speaker 1: can answer it, But presumably you weren't aware of the 87 00:05:57,800 --> 00:06:01,920 Speaker 1: answer until I asked the question. Why does the brain 88 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:06,279 Speaker 1: work this way because your brain generally doesn't need to 89 00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:10,400 Speaker 1: know most things. It simply needs to know how to 90 00:06:10,440 --> 00:06:13,480 Speaker 1: go out and retrieve the data when it needs it. 91 00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:17,400 Speaker 1: It perceives things on a need to know basis. You 92 00:06:17,440 --> 00:06:21,360 Speaker 1: don't continuously track the position of your tongue in your 93 00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:26,440 Speaker 1: consciousness because that knowledge is only useful in rare circumstances. 94 00:06:26,839 --> 00:06:30,240 Speaker 1: So again, you're not aware of much of anything until 95 00:06:30,279 --> 00:06:34,480 Speaker 1: you ask yourself about it. What does your left shoe 96 00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:37,599 Speaker 1: feel like on your foot right now? What pitch is 97 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:41,000 Speaker 1: the hum of the air conditioner in the background. Just 98 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:45,240 Speaker 1: like with change blindness, we are unaware of most of 99 00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:48,720 Speaker 1: what should be obvious to our senses. It's only after 100 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:52,800 Speaker 1: we deploy our attention onto small bits of the scene 101 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:56,120 Speaker 1: that we become aware of what we were missing. And 102 00:06:56,200 --> 00:07:01,880 Speaker 1: before we engage our attention. We're typically not aware that 103 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:04,800 Speaker 1: we're not aware of those details. So not only is 104 00:07:04,839 --> 00:07:08,520 Speaker 1: our perception of the world a construction that doesn't accurately 105 00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:12,520 Speaker 1: represent the outside, it's weirder than that because we have 106 00:07:12,640 --> 00:07:17,480 Speaker 1: the false impression of a full, rich picture, when in 107 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:21,200 Speaker 1: fact we only see what we need to know and 108 00:07:21,240 --> 00:07:23,880 Speaker 1: what we ask questions about, and we don't see anything 109 00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:26,160 Speaker 1: more than that. Now, this is a topic I'm going 110 00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:30,080 Speaker 1: to return to in many episodes, but for now I 111 00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:32,960 Speaker 1: want to ask what this has to do with the 112 00:07:33,120 --> 00:07:42,480 Speaker 1: economic currencies on this planet. So the scene is Lima, Peru, 113 00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:46,440 Speaker 1: a little before dawn. There's a bunch of houses and buildings, 114 00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:52,240 Speaker 1: and suddenly fifteen hundred Peruvian police officers and US Secret 115 00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:57,120 Speaker 1: Service agents storm the doors. This was called Operation Sunset, 116 00:07:57,200 --> 00:08:00,520 Speaker 1: and it was the finale of a long running inventstigation 117 00:08:00,680 --> 00:08:05,480 Speaker 1: aimed at reducing the flow of counterfeit US dollars from Peru. 118 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:09,960 Speaker 1: They brought down six plants that had presses and plates 119 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,800 Speaker 1: and negatives and piles of fake one hundred dollar bills, 120 00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:17,160 Speaker 1: and in just the past few years, counterfeit notes worth 121 00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:22,000 Speaker 1: more than seventy five million dollars have been confiscated in Peru, 122 00:08:22,080 --> 00:08:24,960 Speaker 1: and this is just one of lots of countries where 123 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:28,120 Speaker 1: you have fraudsters who are cooking up fake dollars, And 124 00:08:28,200 --> 00:08:32,960 Speaker 1: it's essentially impossible to estimate the volume of counterfeit banknotes 125 00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:36,800 Speaker 1: passing through the US economy. What you find is that 126 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:40,200 Speaker 1: the authorities claim they've captured most of the fakes, and 127 00:08:40,280 --> 00:08:45,280 Speaker 1: the counterfeitters claim exactly the opposite. Anyhow, counterfeiting is a 128 00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:49,360 Speaker 1: problem that faces every major player in the currency game. 129 00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:53,880 Speaker 1: Russia seizes counterfeits in the range of two hundred million 130 00:08:53,960 --> 00:08:59,160 Speaker 1: rubles per year. China captures five hundred million fake yu. 131 00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:03,640 Speaker 1: A few years years ago, India terminated their five hundred 132 00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:06,280 Speaker 1: and one thousand rupee notes, and this was at least 133 00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:10,280 Speaker 1: partially because of the rising concern about forgeries and their 134 00:09:10,400 --> 00:09:14,320 Speaker 1: inability to stem that. In Venezuela, the inflation was so 135 00:09:14,559 --> 00:09:19,240 Speaker 1: bad that it became worthwhile for fraudsters to bleach the 136 00:09:19,360 --> 00:09:22,360 Speaker 1: ten bole of oar bill and use the paper to 137 00:09:22,559 --> 00:09:44,720 Speaker 1: forge notes in other currencies. So it turns out there 138 00:09:44,720 --> 00:09:50,600 Speaker 1: are counterfeitters everywhere, and they're busy pushing fake banknotes into 139 00:09:50,760 --> 00:09:54,640 Speaker 1: streets and squares in every major city. You may wonder 140 00:09:54,679 --> 00:09:57,480 Speaker 1: how I came to care about counterfeits, given that I'm 141 00:09:57,480 --> 00:10:01,600 Speaker 1: a neuroscientist. Well, what happened is some years ago I 142 00:10:01,640 --> 00:10:04,880 Speaker 1: was giving a presentation at a brain science conference, and 143 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:08,600 Speaker 1: afterwards I was approached by this guy and we started talking, 144 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:11,600 Speaker 1: and I was surprised to learn that he was working 145 00:10:11,679 --> 00:10:14,800 Speaker 1: for the European Central Bank. And I was surprised because 146 00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:17,640 Speaker 1: it wasn't clear to me why someone like that would 147 00:10:17,679 --> 00:10:21,600 Speaker 1: be at a highly academic neuroscience conference. As it turns out, 148 00:10:22,040 --> 00:10:27,120 Speaker 1: his job was to find a solution to Europe's counterfeiting problem. 149 00:10:27,360 --> 00:10:32,520 Speaker 1: Their problem was that the EU comes across hundreds of 150 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:36,360 Speaker 1: thousands of fake euro banknotes every year, mostly in the 151 00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:40,840 Speaker 1: form of twenties and fifties. At the heart of the 152 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:46,800 Speaker 1: issue is the fact that governments spend millions creating security features. 153 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:49,800 Speaker 1: So while we're talking, take out a twenty dollars bill, 154 00:10:50,080 --> 00:10:52,520 Speaker 1: or whatever country you're in, take out a high value bill. 155 00:10:52,559 --> 00:10:56,040 Speaker 1: They all have similar security features. Now, if you look 156 00:10:56,080 --> 00:10:58,959 Speaker 1: at it, you'll see that as you tilt the note 157 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:03,719 Speaker 1: slightly back in fourth there's color changing ink. So the 158 00:11:03,720 --> 00:11:06,760 Speaker 1: color changes here of let's say the twenty and now 159 00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:09,160 Speaker 1: if you hold this up to the light, what you'll 160 00:11:09,200 --> 00:11:14,160 Speaker 1: see is a water mark that's otherwise invisible to you. 161 00:11:14,160 --> 00:11:16,160 Speaker 1: You can't see it normally, and it's not printed on 162 00:11:16,200 --> 00:11:18,319 Speaker 1: the front or the back, but it's printed on an 163 00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:22,200 Speaker 1: intermediate layer and on euros, and actually on the one 164 00:11:22,280 --> 00:11:26,480 Speaker 1: hundred dollars bill. What you see are holograms. So when 165 00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:30,080 Speaker 1: you angle this and change this, it moves around slightly 166 00:11:30,080 --> 00:11:33,439 Speaker 1: and appears to be three D. And you'll also see 167 00:11:33,720 --> 00:11:37,800 Speaker 1: colored strips that display the value of the note. And 168 00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:40,880 Speaker 1: if you happen to have an ultraviolet light, turn that 169 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:43,520 Speaker 1: on and hold the bill under it, and you'll see 170 00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:46,600 Speaker 1: that the bill turns very colorful. You've got all these 171 00:11:47,080 --> 00:11:51,920 Speaker 1: invisible fibers in it that fluoresce under ultraviolet. So a 172 00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:56,839 Speaker 1: piece of currency is a bustling collection of security devices. 173 00:11:57,280 --> 00:12:01,000 Speaker 1: The problem is that no one pays attention to these 174 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:05,640 Speaker 1: security devices. People who pass notes around in daily transactions 175 00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:11,559 Speaker 1: don't typically pause to examine them carefully. The special ink, 176 00:12:11,679 --> 00:12:16,400 Speaker 1: the watermark, the strip, the fibers, the hologram. These are 177 00:12:16,520 --> 00:12:21,160 Speaker 1: very expensive security features and they are a totally wasted 178 00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:25,560 Speaker 1: effort because counterfeit bills get passed from person to person 179 00:12:25,960 --> 00:12:30,120 Speaker 1: and no one ever notices these or notices if they 180 00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:34,920 Speaker 1: are badly rendered. Do you know how counterfeit bills almost 181 00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:38,840 Speaker 1: always are found at the banks? And that's because real 182 00:12:38,880 --> 00:12:42,800 Speaker 1: notes have one more feature, they have machine readable code 183 00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:45,839 Speaker 1: in the bill. Counterfeitters can do a good job making 184 00:12:45,840 --> 00:12:48,559 Speaker 1: a counterfeit, but they can't make the machine readable code, 185 00:12:48,880 --> 00:12:51,920 Speaker 1: and that's why the bank catches those. But the counterfeiters 186 00:12:51,960 --> 00:12:54,600 Speaker 1: don't need to do that because their bills get passed 187 00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:58,960 Speaker 1: around and no one ever notices. And this problem of 188 00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:04,240 Speaker 1: inattention led the European Central Bank to explore a simple question, 189 00:13:04,840 --> 00:13:08,400 Speaker 1: could banknotes be better designed so that the person on 190 00:13:08,440 --> 00:13:11,760 Speaker 1: the street would be more likely to notice when something 191 00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:15,240 Speaker 1: was amiss? And for that they finally started to think 192 00:13:15,240 --> 00:13:19,040 Speaker 1: about neuroscience. And that's how I got involved, because as 193 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:22,520 Speaker 1: our understanding of the brain has developed over recent decades, 194 00:13:22,559 --> 00:13:26,800 Speaker 1: neuroscience has forged insights into a range of fields from 195 00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:31,760 Speaker 1: early education to consumer behavior to government policy, and modern 196 00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:36,760 Speaker 1: brain science has wide ranging applications, particularly when it comes 197 00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:40,080 Speaker 1: to understanding the ways in which our perceptions of the 198 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:44,920 Speaker 1: world are inaccurate. In the case of banknotes, the questions 199 00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:49,040 Speaker 1: were straightforward, what details do we notice or not notice? 200 00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:53,320 Speaker 1: And why? What features could be better designed? To be 201 00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:58,440 Speaker 1: brain compatible of all the anti counterfeiting measures that the 202 00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:01,880 Speaker 1: government takes, which ones work, and how could their efforts 203 00:14:01,920 --> 00:14:05,240 Speaker 1: be better spent. So the man at the conference eventually 204 00:14:05,400 --> 00:14:08,320 Speaker 1: contracted with me to help them figure out the question 205 00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:12,160 Speaker 1: how should Europe redesign their bills? So we signed a 206 00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:15,360 Speaker 1: bunch of security documents and then I flew to the 207 00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:19,560 Speaker 1: headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany. Now 208 00:14:19,600 --> 00:14:22,360 Speaker 1: this was very cool because although the building was just 209 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:26,680 Speaker 1: a boring government building, I was beeped through a badge 210 00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:31,120 Speaker 1: protected door, and then another, and then another, and we 211 00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:35,200 Speaker 1: finally arrived at this small inner room at the heart 212 00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:37,880 Speaker 1: of the building, and there were all these piles of 213 00:14:37,960 --> 00:14:41,560 Speaker 1: money of euros, mostly twenties and fifties, and they were 214 00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:46,560 Speaker 1: all counterfeit. Each pile had some feature that distinguished it, 215 00:14:46,880 --> 00:14:49,680 Speaker 1: whether that was the way they had done the shiny 216 00:14:49,720 --> 00:14:52,800 Speaker 1: foil or the way they had done the watermarks or whatever, 217 00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:56,560 Speaker 1: and this is how the bank arranged them. Now, many 218 00:14:56,560 --> 00:15:00,320 Speaker 1: of these forgeries were quite good. If you weren't paying 219 00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:03,760 Speaker 1: super close attention, the kind of attention no one ever 220 00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:06,600 Speaker 1: really pays to money, you couldn't tell there was anything 221 00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:10,520 Speaker 1: amiss with most of these forgeries you could tell under 222 00:15:10,640 --> 00:15:13,200 Speaker 1: ultraviolet light. But if you didn't have that, there was 223 00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:16,520 Speaker 1: really nothing that would even make you think to pay 224 00:15:16,640 --> 00:15:19,760 Speaker 1: extra attention. And here's a weird fact that I learned 225 00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:24,400 Speaker 1: there in the vaults. These really good forgeries, they always 226 00:15:24,480 --> 00:15:28,680 Speaker 1: have a slight error in them. And think about why 227 00:15:28,720 --> 00:15:33,000 Speaker 1: this is weird. You've got a otherwise amazingly well done 228 00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:37,600 Speaker 1: counterfeit bill, but it's got an error. For example, there 229 00:15:37,600 --> 00:15:42,280 Speaker 1: are essentially perfect counterfeits of the American twenty dollars bill. 230 00:15:42,520 --> 00:15:46,200 Speaker 1: But if you look at the number two, the way 231 00:15:46,280 --> 00:15:49,240 Speaker 1: that the bottom of the two spreads out what's called 232 00:15:49,240 --> 00:15:54,560 Speaker 1: the trumpeting in font language, it's just slightly wider than 233 00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:56,760 Speaker 1: it is on a real bill. So what's going on 234 00:15:56,800 --> 00:15:59,400 Speaker 1: with that? How can you get the whole bill right 235 00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:02,960 Speaker 1: but not get that little detail right? And there's actually 236 00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:05,920 Speaker 1: one more part to this mystery. There's only one mistake 237 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:08,560 Speaker 1: on a bill and no more than that. And the 238 00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:11,520 Speaker 1: answer is it's not a mistake. It's on purpose, and 239 00:16:11,560 --> 00:16:16,160 Speaker 1: it's because counterfeitters need a way to distinguish their own 240 00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:19,280 Speaker 1: bills from the real ones. This is so they don't 241 00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:22,520 Speaker 1: spend their real money accidentally. Okay, so some of these 242 00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:26,480 Speaker 1: bills were almost perfect with this single tiny change, But 243 00:16:26,560 --> 00:16:30,320 Speaker 1: that's not the part that's interesting. What's interesting is that 244 00:16:30,520 --> 00:16:34,880 Speaker 1: most of the counterfeits were not as expertly done as 245 00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:38,320 Speaker 1: you might expect. On almost all of them, the part 246 00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:42,760 Speaker 1: where the color changing ink normally is didn't actually change color, 247 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:47,000 Speaker 1: and on others the water mark had been hand drawn 248 00:16:47,520 --> 00:16:51,480 Speaker 1: really poorly, and in one pile of notes, the silver 249 00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:56,360 Speaker 1: hologram had been impersonated with a glued piece of shiny 250 00:16:56,440 --> 00:17:00,720 Speaker 1: material from the seal of a compact disc case. Many 251 00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:04,680 Speaker 1: of the notes had essentially none of the actual security features. 252 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:08,120 Speaker 1: But the surprising thing is this, to get a counterfeit 253 00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:12,840 Speaker 1: into circulation, most counterfeiters don't bother to go through the 254 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:17,320 Speaker 1: trouble of making an almost perfect one. Why because it 255 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:21,120 Speaker 1: makes almost no difference. Almost no one in the general 256 00:17:21,160 --> 00:17:25,679 Speaker 1: public notices a bad forgery. People will stuff the notes 257 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:28,439 Speaker 1: into their wallets, and they'll pass them on, and the 258 00:17:28,480 --> 00:17:32,160 Speaker 1: notes spread like a virus through the population. Because as 259 00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:37,200 Speaker 1: banknote users, we are surprisingly unobservant. We just don't pay 260 00:17:37,240 --> 00:17:41,800 Speaker 1: attention to the bills in our hand. The government spends 261 00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:46,200 Speaker 1: an incredible amount on security features, and we don't even 262 00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:50,320 Speaker 1: look at it now. The ECB tried to tackle this 263 00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:55,199 Speaker 1: problem by hosting public awareness campaigns where they encourage people 264 00:17:55,280 --> 00:17:59,080 Speaker 1: to stop and look carefully at what they were holding. 265 00:17:59,640 --> 00:18:04,400 Speaker 1: The coach failed. People wouldn't put in the effort. Governments 266 00:18:04,560 --> 00:18:08,800 Speaker 1: cary enormously about security features and the population doesn't. So 267 00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:12,280 Speaker 1: the Central Bank now wanted to try a different tack. 268 00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:15,800 Speaker 1: They wanted to work out what the human visual system 269 00:18:16,119 --> 00:18:20,679 Speaker 1: actually notices and why there was no point spending a 270 00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:24,320 Speaker 1: massive amount on security features that are only noticed by 271 00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:27,600 Speaker 1: security experts. And that was the beginning of a long 272 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:31,840 Speaker 1: relationship I had with the ECB. For legal reasons, they 273 00:18:31,880 --> 00:18:36,479 Speaker 1: couldn't manufacture or mail to me counterfeit bills, and so 274 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:42,119 Speaker 1: I had to figure out how to make pseudo bills myself. First, 275 00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:45,280 Speaker 1: I had to get approval from my university for this 276 00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:48,960 Speaker 1: very unusual study, and then my students that I set 277 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:51,760 Speaker 1: to work. As it turns out, it's not that difficult 278 00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:55,320 Speaker 1: to make a rough counterfeit now. It happens that I 279 00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:59,200 Speaker 1: was recently talking with my friend Adam Savage of MythBusters fame, 280 00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:02,040 Speaker 1: and it turned out but that he also has done 281 00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:06,560 Speaker 1: lots of forgeries of things not illegally, but legal versions 282 00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:10,040 Speaker 1: of making replicas of all kinds of wonderful things. So 283 00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:12,600 Speaker 1: before I tell you about my experiences, I wanted to 284 00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:19,800 Speaker 1: ring up Adam to hear about his. So, Adam, you've 285 00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:22,280 Speaker 1: done some countershitting. Tell me about that? 286 00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:26,200 Speaker 3: Ha ha. Right, I don't want to brag that I've 287 00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:31,400 Speaker 3: done some counterfeiting, but I'm obsessed with the idea of replication. 288 00:19:31,520 --> 00:19:34,040 Speaker 3: That's one of my main practices here in the cave, 289 00:19:34,520 --> 00:19:37,600 Speaker 3: and so like. Just for instance, recently, I obtained a 290 00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:41,840 Speaker 3: really lovely replica of one of Leonardo da Vinci's coticies. 291 00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:45,600 Speaker 3: This is known as the Paris manuscript A, and I've 292 00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:48,800 Speaker 3: been slowly spending a couple of weeks making a completely 293 00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:52,480 Speaker 3: accurate cover for it, based on the information from the 294 00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:54,920 Speaker 3: collection that it's since so I've been printing up the 295 00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:58,119 Speaker 3: cover full size of and having the collection stamps made, 296 00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:02,160 Speaker 3: and I'm gonna slowly make this thing indistinguishable from the original. 297 00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:04,600 Speaker 3: So that's the kind of counterfeiting I really dig is 298 00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:06,359 Speaker 3: the experiential counterfeit. 299 00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:09,320 Speaker 1: Oh that's amazing. Now let me ask you this. Do 300 00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:13,640 Speaker 1: you find that if there are changes things you don't 301 00:20:13,680 --> 00:20:16,960 Speaker 1: get perfect? Do you find that people don't notice those. 302 00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:24,080 Speaker 3: People's threshold for what they notice is it's an interesting 303 00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:28,520 Speaker 3: mixture because you can kind of bypass some of their 304 00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:32,439 Speaker 3: filters with the right amount of aging, or even sometimes 305 00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:35,840 Speaker 3: a smell will just have someone bypass all their filters 306 00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:38,959 Speaker 3: from what they can see. So it's really different object 307 00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:42,679 Speaker 3: by object about what the threshold is for what lends 308 00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:46,400 Speaker 3: what feels like an experience of veracity. 309 00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:49,399 Speaker 1: Have you ever tried counterfeiting money? Is that something you've 310 00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:49,920 Speaker 1: ever tried? 311 00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:53,520 Speaker 3: Uh? I have made so behind me here on my 312 00:20:53,600 --> 00:20:56,800 Speaker 3: desk pieces in my collection, and it's the bank box 313 00:20:56,840 --> 00:21:00,520 Speaker 3: from the Borne identity, and this is the act bank 314 00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:03,840 Speaker 3: box from the Bourne identity. I bought it empty, but 315 00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:06,640 Speaker 3: one of my long term plans is to actually fill 316 00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:11,359 Speaker 3: it full of original bills or correct bills. And this 317 00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:13,600 Speaker 3: is made easier by the fact that a lot of 318 00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:15,800 Speaker 3: the bills that were in the Boorne identity bank box 319 00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:20,439 Speaker 3: are now euros, and so those original currencies, the real 320 00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:24,320 Speaker 3: it's the frank et cetera, are no longer extant, and 321 00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:29,399 Speaker 3: so I get suitably and appropriately nervous even doing Google 322 00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:33,359 Speaker 3: searches about replicating money. But to me, your job of 323 00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:36,680 Speaker 3: actually trying some counterfeits to see what work sounds like 324 00:21:36,720 --> 00:21:38,720 Speaker 3: an absolute dream come true for me. I was like 325 00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:40,359 Speaker 3: I was born to be a pen tester. 326 00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:58,320 Speaker 1: Okay, so back to my counterfeiting contract. So the notes 327 00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:01,360 Speaker 1: that we made in the lab had no security features 328 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,720 Speaker 1: like holograms or color changing ink, because that wasn't precisely 329 00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:08,040 Speaker 1: what we were studying. We were studying how much somebody 330 00:22:08,119 --> 00:22:11,879 Speaker 1: would notice if we presented them with a bill with 331 00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:15,479 Speaker 1: a particular design, and we let them examine it and 332 00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:18,200 Speaker 1: turn it around in their hands, and then we took 333 00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,800 Speaker 1: it back and we handed them another note, and that 334 00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:25,159 Speaker 1: other note might have some change that was made to it, 335 00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:28,240 Speaker 1: and we asked them, is this the same bill or 336 00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:31,080 Speaker 1: a different one? In other words, how much do they 337 00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:35,080 Speaker 1: remember about the note that they just examined. Now, you 338 00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:38,640 Speaker 1: might expect that if you get to examine a note carefully, 339 00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:40,640 Speaker 1: it's not going to be any problem to see when 340 00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:45,520 Speaker 1: something changes, But you'd be shocked at the limits of 341 00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:50,080 Speaker 1: our observation and our memory. Take a simple experiment run 342 00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:54,320 Speaker 1: by the psychologists Raymond Nickerson and Marilyn Adams in nineteen 343 00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:57,520 Speaker 1: seventy nine. What they did is they showed people fifteen 344 00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:02,200 Speaker 1: different drawings of the US penny, and one was the 345 00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:06,880 Speaker 1: actual penny, while the other drawings were manipulated versions where 346 00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:09,439 Speaker 1: you had the date in a different place, or you 347 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:14,560 Speaker 1: had the slogan changed, for example, United States of America 348 00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:18,639 Speaker 1: instead of in God we Trust. And fewer than half 349 00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:23,320 Speaker 1: the participants could identify which one was the correct penny. 350 00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:28,160 Speaker 1: Although the participants handled pennies almost every day of their lives, 351 00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:32,280 Speaker 1: they hadn't paid attention in the way they thought they had. 352 00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:40,000 Speaker 1: Experience doesn't translate into expertise. Why not. It's because we 353 00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:44,679 Speaker 1: only see what we closely attend to. So imagine you 354 00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:47,040 Speaker 1: catch a glimpse of a man and a woman having 355 00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:50,080 Speaker 1: a picnic in a park. All you actually see is 356 00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:55,200 Speaker 1: something like man, woman food. With time, as you crawl 357 00:23:55,320 --> 00:23:58,879 Speaker 1: the scene with your attentional systems, you'll incorporate more details. 358 00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:01,880 Speaker 1: Oh they've got bulls of suit. It's a checkered blanket 359 00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,919 Speaker 1: that's a little unusual. There are hills in the background, 360 00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:08,840 Speaker 1: and with more time you'll notice, Oh, his spoon is 361 00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:12,960 Speaker 1: slightly bent, or she's wearing a silver necklace, or the 362 00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:18,320 Speaker 1: encircling trees are buckthorn. But we incorporate more detail into 363 00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:21,640 Speaker 1: a scene only if we pay more attention and we 364 00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:25,159 Speaker 1: ask more questions. And as I said before, it's like 365 00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:28,640 Speaker 1: this with all of our senses. What is the feeling 366 00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:32,439 Speaker 1: of your pants on your left kneecap right now, or 367 00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:35,760 Speaker 1: the feeling of your shirt on your shoulders. As soon 368 00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:39,239 Speaker 1: as you ask these questions, you can become aware of 369 00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:42,760 Speaker 1: the answer, but you didn't know until you queried. So 370 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:46,439 Speaker 1: our visual sense is not like a camera that's taking 371 00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,240 Speaker 1: in the complete scene. Instead, we see only the details 372 00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:52,120 Speaker 1: that we go out to seek. And this is the 373 00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:56,840 Speaker 1: issue with the banknotes. We may glance at one to 374 00:24:57,080 --> 00:25:01,520 Speaker 1: verify that it matches the general template expecting, but we 375 00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:07,000 Speaker 1: don't scrutinize the details. And that's why the European central 376 00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:11,919 Speaker 1: banks campaign to stop and pay attention to money it 377 00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:16,640 Speaker 1: just didn't work. We don't attend to things that sufficiently 378 00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:21,280 Speaker 1: fit our assumptions. We believe we already know the note 379 00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:22,680 Speaker 1: in our hands. 380 00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,840 Speaker 3: I recently had a fake bail passed to me in 381 00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:31,119 Speaker 3: New York City. I was getting a hot dog, which 382 00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,800 Speaker 3: was four bucks, and I gave him a ten, and 383 00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,160 Speaker 3: he gave me what looked like a one and a five, 384 00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:40,320 Speaker 3: except the five was I'm on the street, right, I'm 385 00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,479 Speaker 3: just I put it in my pocket. I get back 386 00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:45,400 Speaker 3: to my room. The five was actually a discontinued old 387 00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,480 Speaker 3: five thousand yen Japanese note. 388 00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:50,920 Speaker 1: Exactly. 389 00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,280 Speaker 3: We had Matt respect for him for handing that directly 390 00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:54,679 Speaker 3: to me. 391 00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:58,480 Speaker 1: That's amazing because you're a guy who pays so much 392 00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:01,800 Speaker 1: attention to what's there, and even for you, you expect 393 00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,800 Speaker 1: you're getting a five back, and so your brain fills 394 00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:06,359 Speaker 1: in all the blanks and you just take it and 395 00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:08,280 Speaker 1: you go, well, I mean, you know. 396 00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:10,439 Speaker 3: It's a difficult problem to solve when you realize that 397 00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:14,080 Speaker 3: we regularly interact with bills that are ancient and are 398 00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:18,480 Speaker 3: filthy and like soft leather and brand new, and they're 399 00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,720 Speaker 3: crisp and smell totally differently and look totally different. When 400 00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,320 Speaker 3: you hold those two up against each other and you think, 401 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,760 Speaker 3: I've got to get someone to be able to parse 402 00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:31,760 Speaker 3: that both of these are real, that's that's a complicated 403 00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:32,560 Speaker 3: problem to solve. 404 00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,360 Speaker 1: What the EU Opinion Union does is they have all 405 00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,640 Speaker 1: these security features in their bills. They spend so much 406 00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,520 Speaker 1: money for these security features, and no one ever notices. 407 00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:46,600 Speaker 1: So my job is to figure out which elements of 408 00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,480 Speaker 1: the banknotes were noticed and which weren't, and to make 409 00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:54,200 Speaker 1: recommendations for next step. We performed a series of experiments 410 00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:57,159 Speaker 1: for over a year and in the end it became 411 00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,959 Speaker 1: obvious to me what needed to be done. So in 412 00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:03,920 Speaker 1: my final presentation to the European Central Bank, I put 413 00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:08,439 Speaker 1: forward evidence that the watermark on the euro should be 414 00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:13,240 Speaker 1: a face instead of a building. Why it's because the 415 00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:18,439 Speaker 1: human brain is massively specialized to recognizing faces, but it 416 00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:24,199 Speaker 1: has little neural real estate devoted to buildings. You can 417 00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:26,040 Speaker 1: see a building and then you can see a building 418 00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,720 Speaker 1: that looks sort of like it, and you really can't 419 00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:31,200 Speaker 1: tell the difference. Maybe you can't if you're an architect, 420 00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:35,040 Speaker 1: but the rest of us just wouldn't notice. And forged 421 00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:39,760 Speaker 1: water marks are generally hand drawn, and that's because it's 422 00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:42,760 Speaker 1: this intermediate layer and you need to do that by hand. 423 00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,680 Speaker 1: And it turns out that if you draw a building, 424 00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:49,680 Speaker 1: even if you do a really lousy job, no one's 425 00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,560 Speaker 1: going to catch the difference. Your brain just doesn't care 426 00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,760 Speaker 1: that much about the exact details of a building. But 427 00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:59,920 Speaker 1: contrast this with faces. We have a ton of brain 428 00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:05,240 Speaker 1: territory devoted to faces. Think about the difference in the 429 00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:07,960 Speaker 1: faces of the people you see every day. The length 430 00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:11,000 Speaker 1: of the nose, the distance between the eyes, the shape 431 00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,119 Speaker 1: of the lips. These are really subtle details, but we're 432 00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,320 Speaker 1: super sensitive to picking up on these. Now, this is 433 00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:20,720 Speaker 1: of course for human faces. You presumably couldn't tell that 434 00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:25,119 Speaker 1: much difference between the faces of twenty different German shepherd dogs. 435 00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,480 Speaker 1: They all sort of look alike to you. But now 436 00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:30,959 Speaker 1: put yourself in the position of the dog. Presumably humans 437 00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,120 Speaker 1: look mostly alike to it. But the details we are 438 00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,679 Speaker 1: so sensitive to, like the hairline and the cheekbones, and 439 00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:39,840 Speaker 1: the length of the nose and the exact position of 440 00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:42,680 Speaker 1: the ears and all that stuff, would mean nothing to 441 00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:47,160 Speaker 1: the dog. But we are incredibly sensitive to these tiny, 442 00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:51,000 Speaker 1: tiny differences. And this is why it's so much easier 443 00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:56,080 Speaker 1: to spot an imperfect face than an imperfect building. And 444 00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,480 Speaker 1: this is why the ECB decided to change the watermark 445 00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:05,200 Speaker 1: on fifty year D bill from a building to a face. Now, unfortunately, 446 00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:09,400 Speaker 1: they had an implementation challenge, a political one, which is, 447 00:29:09,640 --> 00:29:12,800 Speaker 1: how can they get all the different countries to agree 448 00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,880 Speaker 1: on one person's face. What nationality were they going to choose? 449 00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:20,160 Speaker 1: The Italians were going to want Michelangelo, the British would 450 00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,360 Speaker 1: want Shakespeare, the French would want Napoleon, and so on. 451 00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,640 Speaker 1: That's why they had originally chosen a building, because that 452 00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:30,360 Speaker 1: circumvented the argument. But now there was a reason to 453 00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,200 Speaker 1: choose a face. So finally someone suggested that instead of 454 00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:39,000 Speaker 1: fighting it out between historical heroes, they should just settle 455 00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:44,080 Speaker 1: on the mythological Princess Europa, after whom Europe is named, 456 00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,640 Speaker 1: and so the new fifty dollars note with her face 457 00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:51,800 Speaker 1: rolled out in twenty seventeen. Now that move is a 458 00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:55,080 Speaker 1: step in the right direction, but since they chose a 459 00:29:55,200 --> 00:30:00,880 Speaker 1: mythological face with no single correct version, it's slightly less 460 00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,400 Speaker 1: useful than a face everyone would recognize, like if they'd 461 00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:09,120 Speaker 1: used Juliete Bnotia's face or Benedict Cumberbatch's face. But anyway, 462 00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:11,520 Speaker 1: it was a good start. But that was only my 463 00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:16,520 Speaker 1: first recommendation. I then recommended that all euro banknotes should 464 00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,800 Speaker 1: be the same size, the way that American bills are. 465 00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,120 Speaker 1: Why because that would at least get people to look 466 00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,440 Speaker 1: at them a bit longer to see what they're dealing with. 467 00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:29,840 Speaker 1: Right if you're handing someone an American bill, they have 468 00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,360 Speaker 1: to stare at it for some hundreds of milliseconds longer 469 00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,560 Speaker 1: just to register what in the heck they're holding, because 470 00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,920 Speaker 1: there aren't other clues from size, whereas in Europe you 471 00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,440 Speaker 1: grab a bill and you know much faster if it's 472 00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,280 Speaker 1: a twenty or fifty or whatever, and as a result, 473 00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,600 Speaker 1: you pay even less attention to what is written on it. Now, 474 00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:54,560 Speaker 1: there are advantages to the blind community in having bills 475 00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:57,840 Speaker 1: of different sizes, but now you can do three D 476 00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:02,320 Speaker 1: printing on bills, and so the blind community no longer 477 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,880 Speaker 1: needs different sizes to be able to tell what bill 478 00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:08,400 Speaker 1: they're holding. Now, the council told me that while they 479 00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:10,680 Speaker 1: took my point, there was no way they were going 480 00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,600 Speaker 1: to make all the bills the same size. Why it 481 00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,880 Speaker 1: wasn't just because they'd have to retool the mints where 482 00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,440 Speaker 1: they print the bills, but more importantly, they'd have to 483 00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,920 Speaker 1: retool all the vending machines in Europe, and this was 484 00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,320 Speaker 1: an impossible amount of work, which got me thinking about 485 00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:30,560 Speaker 1: the way that things get ensconced. They get calcified into 486 00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:35,160 Speaker 1: place by some historical trajectory, and then it becomes too 487 00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:37,760 Speaker 1: hard to change it, like the way that we use 488 00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:42,280 Speaker 1: the imperial measuring system in America, where it's not based 489 00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:45,280 Speaker 1: on tens, and therefore it's very difficult to convert between 490 00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:48,720 Speaker 1: different units, like we have twelve inches equally a foot 491 00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,880 Speaker 1: or sixteen ounces is a pound. And when I was 492 00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,280 Speaker 1: a kid, there was a big push to teach both 493 00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:58,120 Speaker 1: the imperial and the metric systems at the same time 494 00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,520 Speaker 1: so that we could slowly make the transition into something 495 00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,920 Speaker 1: that made more sense. But it just proved too hard 496 00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:10,080 Speaker 1: to change because the imperial measurement system got calcified into place, 497 00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:13,520 Speaker 1: and then you can't get rid of it. So anyway, 498 00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,880 Speaker 1: the European Central Bank acknowledge that I had a point 499 00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,760 Speaker 1: about the bill size, but they concluded it would just 500 00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:23,720 Speaker 1: be too much work to retool everything. So they asked 501 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:27,440 Speaker 1: for my next recommendation, and here was my chance to 502 00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:31,600 Speaker 1: deliver my clincher. This was a sense that had been 503 00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:34,320 Speaker 1: creeping up on me for the entire year that I'd 504 00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:38,200 Speaker 1: been studying the problem of counterfeiting. The heart of the 505 00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:43,520 Speaker 1: problem is that notes are jam packed with decorative features 506 00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:45,960 Speaker 1: that have nothing to do with the security. So you 507 00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:50,200 Speaker 1: have pictures of trees and patriots and birds and flags, 508 00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:53,920 Speaker 1: you have swirling colors, and no one notices the security 509 00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:58,480 Speaker 1: features because of all these distractions. So I told them 510 00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,760 Speaker 1: that a piece of current, see a bill, should be 511 00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,959 Speaker 1: a blank, white piece of paper with a single hologram 512 00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:09,600 Speaker 1: in the middle. That's it, nothing else on it. A 513 00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:15,280 Speaker 1: counterfeiter wouldn't be able to replicate that without serious specialized equipment, 514 00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:19,080 Speaker 1: and the person in the street wouldn't be distracted by 515 00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:22,400 Speaker 1: all the detailing that has nothing to do with the security. 516 00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,880 Speaker 1: So they agreed with my recommendation in theory, but they 517 00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:31,240 Speaker 1: rejected it on the grounds that there's too much cultural 518 00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:35,400 Speaker 1: momentum in the design of banknotes. In other words, people 519 00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:39,760 Speaker 1: expect notes to look a certain way. Currencies are supposed 520 00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:45,080 Speaker 1: to impress the viewer with the regal power and artistic 521 00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:50,160 Speaker 1: talents of the ruling body, and apparently no government wants 522 00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:55,080 Speaker 1: to appear unregal and unartistic when compared to another government. 523 00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:58,800 Speaker 1: And so the experiment came to a close. The building 524 00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:01,040 Speaker 1: got changed to a face, which was a good start, 525 00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:04,880 Speaker 1: but so much about the rest of currencies is stuck 526 00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:08,200 Speaker 1: in place. So we'll see what happens with the future 527 00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:11,680 Speaker 1: of digital exchanges like PayPal or Venmo and the future 528 00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:15,320 Speaker 1: of crypto, but it appears that for now paper money 529 00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,879 Speaker 1: is sticking around almost everywhere on the planet. So it's 530 00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:23,239 Speaker 1: still my general hope that some government somewhere will get 531 00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,759 Speaker 1: this straight. And the advantage for them is they'll have 532 00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,920 Speaker 1: massively less counterfeiting to drag on their economy. So if 533 00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,480 Speaker 1: you're going to start a new country, take this podcast 534 00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:35,800 Speaker 1: as my free advice for how to do your bills. 535 00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:40,560 Speaker 1: Effective solutions from science can sometimes bump up against tradition, 536 00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:44,319 Speaker 1: but if we really care about tackling a problem, we 537 00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:48,480 Speaker 1: have to move beyond adherence to custom. The human visual 538 00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,160 Speaker 1: system is never going to notice security features that are 539 00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:54,239 Speaker 1: buried in other details, and if you give your brain 540 00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:58,239 Speaker 1: any excuse to believe it knows what's out there, it 541 00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:03,760 Speaker 1: will take shortcuts and make extra assumptions. So this episode 542 00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:06,520 Speaker 1: repeats a theme that you're going to hear many times 543 00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:10,279 Speaker 1: on this show. Whenever you want to improve society, you 544 00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:13,640 Speaker 1: have to do your best to understand the details of 545 00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:22,680 Speaker 1: the brains that comprise that society. That's all for this week. 546 00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,359 Speaker 1: To find out more and to share your thoughts, head 547 00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:29,200 Speaker 1: over to Eagleman dot com slash Podcasts, and you can 548 00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:33,680 Speaker 1: also watch full episodes of Inner Cosmos on YouTube. Subscribe 549 00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:36,000 Speaker 1: to my channel so you can follow along each week 550 00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:40,680 Speaker 1: for new updates until next time. I'm David Eagleman and 551 00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:42,279 Speaker 1: this is Inner Cosmos.