Speaker 1: If you have your own story of being in a
Speaker 1: cult or a high control group.
Speaker 2: Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power
Speaker 2: that you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: Leave us a message on our hotline number at three
Speaker 1: four seven eight six trust.
Speaker 2: That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight, or.
Speaker 1: Showed us an email at trust Me pod at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 3: Trust me, Trust trust me.
Speaker 4: I'm like a squat person. I've never lied to you.
Speaker 2: I never If you think that one person has all
Speaker 2: the answers, don't welcome to trust Me. The podcast about cults,
Speaker 2: extreme belief and manipulation from two artificially intelligent beings who've
Speaker 2: actually experienced it. I'm Lola Blanc.
Speaker 3: And I'm Megan Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Today's guest is Sarah Teitelman. She's a tech consultant and
Speaker 2: author of a forthcoming book about tech who's going to
Speaker 2: talk to us about the culty elements of technology. And
Speaker 2: while Sarah's specialty lies more in optimization of the nonprofit workplace,
Speaker 2: we're going to have more of a philosophical discussion about
Speaker 2: how we are expected to just try us in our
Speaker 2: tech overlords without questioning both the CEOs and the algorithms themselves,
Speaker 2: how it's a sort of coercion to be handed algorithms
Speaker 2: and apts with no say in or understanding of how
Speaker 2: they work, and how AI factors into all of it.
Speaker 1: Culty, we'll talk about the difficulty of reigning and tech
Speaker 1: fast enough, how social media is dulling our critical thinking skills,
Speaker 1: and what she sees as a better approach to tech
Speaker 1: and life in general. It's also worth noting that one
Speaker 1: of the things she said in this interview that really
Speaker 1: blew my mind is that the people creating the AI
Speaker 1: or the technology don't even know how it's working themselves,
Speaker 1: which is just so scary.
Speaker 2: It's so scary.
Speaker 5: What's going on in there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't know, will nobody knows.
Speaker 2: We will discuss. We do not know, but we will discuss.
Speaker 6: We always do.
Speaker 2: Listen, it's a podcast, Milligan, before we talk tech. What's
Speaker 2: your cultiest thing of this week?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I've been following the story in the Philippines.
Speaker 1: It's a group called the Kingdom of Jesus Christ or
Speaker 1: the ko JC. It's run by a man named Apollo
Speaker 1: who shocking. Yeah this might be surprising to you, but
Speaker 1: he is the owner of the universe and appointed son
Speaker 1: of God.
Speaker 6: No, no, I know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, according to him, don't come at me anybody who
Speaker 1: believes in this. But he is currently on a like
Speaker 1: a compound where they built underground bunkers for him, and
Speaker 1: he's hiding. They sent like two thousand riot police out
Speaker 1: to get him last week with like detectors that can
Speaker 1: detect humans through cement. They still haven't found him. And
Speaker 1: then I'm reading the other side where his believers are
Speaker 1: saying this is way too much force, Like we didn't
Speaker 1: do anything wrong. He's of course being charged with child
Speaker 1: sexual abuse and fraud and all of the other things
Speaker 1: in between that we usually see here. And the fbis
Speaker 1: in our country is actually involved as well.
Speaker 3: So they still got him.
Speaker 2: Wow, Yeah, so dramatic. I want to know what happens
Speaker 2: and where he is. Like, are his followers being like,
Speaker 2: of course you can't detect him because he's undetectable because
Speaker 2: he's like a god or whatever.
Speaker 1: No, I think they're like, he's in a hundred foot bunker.
Speaker 1: But also but also there, I mean, they probably have
Speaker 1: a sensation of it being divine intervention.
Speaker 2: I would yeah, you know, I mean when you when
Speaker 2: you say he's no one has detected anything. I'm like,
Speaker 2: sounds very ex files. Well, I can't wait to hear
Speaker 2: more about how that goes, because yeah, people who do
Speaker 2: that should not be doing that, agreed.
Speaker 1: And one of the things he said he did was
Speaker 1: stop an earthquake from happening. And I'm just like, okay,
Speaker 1: so did.
Speaker 2: I I mean, you too, can't prove that you're not
Speaker 2: sting earthquakes listeners. What are you even doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: He's kind of obnoxious in my opinion, but again, don't
Speaker 1: come at me. Maybe he's great.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, uh, will you he's not great. I think
Speaker 2: he's The thing you just said is something. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: never like have the words to articulate in the moment,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to do a bad job of it.
Speaker 2: But it's it's about how you are making an unprovable
Speaker 2: claim when, which I feel like happens so much is
Speaker 2: on the internet, in particular, speaking of tech, where people
Speaker 2: will put out a claim and you can't prove that
Speaker 2: they're not right, but there is no evidence that they are,
Speaker 2: and that distinction is very important, Like, yes, I cannot
Speaker 2: technically reach into my possible earthquake list a file and like,
Speaker 2: find the earthquake that you prevented. But also you have
Speaker 2: zero evidence to prove that you did it, So so
Speaker 2: what are we talking about.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, that's an interesting point.
Speaker 6: You have.
Speaker 2: The burden is on the person making the claim to
Speaker 2: furnish evidence, is what I'm saying. Obviously that's a very
Speaker 2: extreme one, so we all know he didn't do that.
Speaker 2: But it's an example of that thing that comes up
Speaker 2: a lot, which is always, for some reason, really hard
Speaker 2: for me to articulate in the moment.
Speaker 1: And we all don't know that you did it because
Speaker 1: millions of people are in this cult because they've been
Speaker 1: so well groomed.
Speaker 2: So it's oh, is it that big? Is this like
Speaker 2: a national religion?
Speaker 1: I guess the Philippines And uh okay, I guess the
Speaker 1: Philippines political culture is very tight in with the religious culture,
Speaker 1: and so this is also kind of a political move
Speaker 1: when you get down deeper into it, which then brings
Speaker 1: you to the fact that like Christianity was brought there
Speaker 1: to begin with by the Spanish, and it's just.
Speaker 2: All so confused. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Yeah,
Speaker 2: religion and politics should be separate people.
Speaker 1: Amen, Amen, I minimen.
Speaker 2: Well, similar to what you seem to be describing, but
Speaker 2: about five decades earlier. My cultiest thing is about a
Speaker 2: compound that is now for sale in New York could
Speaker 2: be yours for six million dollars. And I love the
Speaker 2: real estate like the cult compound. Real estate listings like
Speaker 2: this is this is a fun category for me. So
Speaker 2: this is a building in Brooklyn that is decorated like
Speaker 2: ancient Egypt. It's got murals on the outside, it's got statues.
Speaker 2: According to the New York Post, it has a dark
Speaker 2: history as the home of a UFO believing cult whose
Speaker 2: hateful leader has claimed he's God from outer space. So
Speaker 2: it's at the corner of Bushwick and Heart and the
Speaker 2: group is called the probably butchering the name the Nuwabian Nation,
Speaker 2: who also called themselves Sabaian Sibbians. I'm saying I'm probably
Speaker 2: saying wrong. This group was really big in the seventies
Speaker 2: and eighties. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated them as
Speaker 2: a hate group because they were peddling black supremacist ideas
Speaker 2: with various conspiracies related to the Illuminati, worship of the Egyptians,
Speaker 2: belief in UFOs, but of course, like unto the man
Speaker 2: you just described, the leader, there were child sexual assault.
Speaker 2: Don't even think allegations. I think he actually was arrested
Speaker 2: for them. He went to jail for let's see, he
Speaker 2: was sentenced to over one hundred and thirty years in
Speaker 2: federal prison on multiple racketeering and child molestation convictions. The
Speaker 2: whole thing is he's a god from outer space. So
Speaker 2: that's the baseline. As we know.
Speaker 3: How many earthquakes did he stop?
Speaker 2: That's what I thought, probably like a lot. They moved there.
Speaker 2: They relocated to Georgia, where they built a massive compound
Speaker 2: consisting of two pyramids in anticipation of a UFO slated
Speaker 2: to visit Earth in two thousand and three and take
Speaker 2: with it one and forty four thousand chosen people. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, the neighbors are like, yeah, they're fine,
Speaker 2: they're nice. They don't really do anything. They have barbecues,
Speaker 2: they hand out turkeys.
Speaker 6: They're fine.
Speaker 2: Now, So I don't know, but I do know that
Speaker 2: you can buy the property if you would like to
Speaker 2: have an Egyptian temple in Brooklyn. It is available to
Speaker 2: you now.
Speaker 1: From a racist pedophile six million dollars who wants it.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know Brooklyn real estate that is very confident.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, as we always say, tech is helping people get
Speaker 1: out of cults and to get into them. So it's
Speaker 1: interesting to think about that cult however, many years ago
Speaker 1: and now this cult present day, and how much more
Speaker 1: information people have about it now and how they can
Speaker 1: easily find out how to get into it and how
Speaker 1: you get out of it.
Speaker 2: It's true. Oh my god, I thought you said Jack
Speaker 2: and I was like, Jack, Jack is Jack is doing?
Speaker 2: What about cults? I understand tech.
Speaker 1: You said tech, which is related to our episode.
Speaker 2: I get it. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It is so
Speaker 2: much easier to get into a cult now now, and
Speaker 2: it's so much easier to get out a summing. You
Speaker 2: are ready to look it up online. Yeah, so let's
Speaker 2: get into that discussion now, should we.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to throw out the name of
Speaker 1: her book. It's in in the Art of Digital Transformation,
Speaker 1: Leading a Mindful Redesign of the Digital Enterprise, and we
Speaker 1: will let you guys know when it is released.
Speaker 3: Let's talk to Sarah.
Speaker 2: Welcome Sarah Titelman to trust me. Thank you for joining us,
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. You are someone who's going
Speaker 2: to speak to us a little bit about technology and
Speaker 2: the cultic qualities that technology can have. Can you first
Speaker 2: give us a little bit of background on you and
Speaker 2: why you are talking about technology in these terms.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I came into technology kind of in a roundabout way.
Speaker 4: I did not start my career at all in tech.
Speaker 4: I was actually a comparative literature major as an undergrad
Speaker 4: and then kind of wandered around and found that I
Speaker 4: really enjoyed kind of thinking about communities and community health.
Speaker 4: And I had this trip to Africa that really inspired
Speaker 4: me to think about like community system and structures and
Speaker 4: how they support health or unhealth, and so that led me.
Speaker 4: First I thought I wanted to be a doctor, and
Speaker 4: then that was too specific, Like I actually got asked
Speaker 4: in the medical school interview like do you actually like
Speaker 4: being around sick people? And I was like, no, I
Speaker 4: don't actually.
Speaker 6: Particularly enjoy doing that.
Speaker 4: That was a great question to ask somebody going to
Speaker 4: medical school, and so that kind of like led me
Speaker 4: down this path of you know, what is it that
Speaker 4: I'm really trying to do. And he actually suggested public health,
Speaker 4: which I didn't even know what public health was at
Speaker 4: the time. I guess now, you know, post COVID, everybody
Speaker 4: knows what public health is, but at the time it
Speaker 4: was this kind of mystery field. But really what it's about,
Speaker 4: it's about looking at a population and thinking about, you know,
Speaker 4: what are the things, the behaviors, the influences, the controls
Speaker 4: that lead a population to be healthier or less healthy? Right,
Speaker 4: Like the classic example is like smoking, Like how do
Speaker 4: you make it more difficult? You know, California has done
Speaker 4: a phenomenal job at the you know, how do you
Speaker 4: make it really difficult for somebody to smoke, like just
Speaker 4: to allow them to do?
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 4: So that's the kind of thinking that public health people do,
Speaker 4: and they have, you know, there's a lot of like
Speaker 4: behavioral researchers and things in that field that I got
Speaker 4: got turned on too during grad school and so then
Speaker 4: I went into the public health field. And it was
Speaker 4: actually during like the height of the HIV epidemic globally.
Speaker 4: I got kind of swept up in that and I
Speaker 4: was working at these large NGOs that were at the
Speaker 4: forefront of this work, and it was super complicated. There
Speaker 4: was ton you know, hundreds of millions of dollars being
Speaker 4: pumped through these organizations to essentially, you know, figure out
Speaker 4: how we can do better in the HIV crisis. And
Speaker 4: my focus area was in Africa, but you know, I'd
Speaker 4: be working at these organizations that were working in like
Speaker 4: thirty fifty in one hundred different countries, and so they
Speaker 4: basically had satellites, you know, of doctors, nurses, researchers in
Speaker 4: each of these countries working vigorously on you know, these
Speaker 4: challenges in different ways. So there was like information streaming everywhere.
Speaker 4: And I realized that what we essentially had, you know,
Speaker 4: at least at like the headquarters, you know, I'd be
Speaker 4: in DC an information problem, Like there was an information problem.
Speaker 4: There was too much information coming in. There was the
Speaker 4: ability to like process that information and make sense out
Speaker 4: of it in real time to then kind of like
Speaker 4: ingest those learnings and send them back out to the
Speaker 4: field so that we were actually making real time progress
Speaker 4: on things.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of talking about public health as
Speaker 2: it pertains to technology, because we kind of think of
Speaker 2: our brains as separate from public health so much of
Speaker 2: the time, when it's obviously the brain has so much
Speaker 2: to do with our physical health and our societal health overall,
Speaker 2: and our brains are being impacted so much every single
Speaker 2: day and being manipulated by technology that we interact with
Speaker 2: on a daily basis. I love that that's how you
Speaker 2: came to this work because that makes so much sense
Speaker 2: and it's such an important area of work. So well,
Speaker 2: when you say technology, what parts of technology are you
Speaker 2: referring to?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, So my real focus is on how organizations
Speaker 4: use technology to get their work done. So you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not really thinking about I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of great thinking, for instance, out in the realm of
Speaker 4: like social media and consumer tech and all that stuff
Speaker 4: I think is like well trodden territory. You know, there's
Speaker 4: a lot of obviously discussions about you know, how healthy
Speaker 4: it is. But I think the technology within organizations, given
Speaker 4: that most people spend the majority of their days, you know,
Speaker 4: at a job in front of a computer doing stuff
Speaker 4: like we don't actually talk about that aspect of technology
Speaker 4: very much in terms of its contribution to the health
Speaker 4: and well being of employees the ability for organizations to function.
Speaker 4: Since my focus in my consulting practices on you know,
Speaker 4: supporting nonprofits in that realm, you know, it's crucially important
Speaker 4: if if the goal of a nonprofit is to you know,
Speaker 4: achieve its mission and X, Y, and z. If it
Speaker 4: can't function internally, then that's a real issue. And if
Speaker 4: it's wasting tons of money and resources and time on that,
Speaker 4: then that's less resources and time that can be spent
Speaker 4: on actually doing the work that they are wanting to do.
Speaker 4: So that was kind of always my angle. It was like,
Speaker 4: how can we do better when it comes to technology
Speaker 4: in the workplace.
Speaker 2: And what are some of the ways that we are
Speaker 2: not doing better for technology in the.
Speaker 6: Workplace or in society life. Yeah? Yeah, really bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really bad. You know. When I started out
Speaker 4: paying attention to tech, it was because of my own
Speaker 4: frustrations as someone trying to get work done in a large,
Speaker 4: complex organization. I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
Speaker 4: You know, I've always liked tech, Like I was kind
Speaker 4: of a tech nerd when I was a kid and
Speaker 4: I had a you know, Apple computer when I was
Speaker 4: like eight or nine, and I did stuff, you know,
Speaker 4: So I like, I just like getting into things and
Speaker 4: I'm not scared for, you know, of tech at all.
Speaker 4: You know. I started connecting with folks in it, and
Speaker 4: I was like, can we do this, can we do that?
Speaker 4: And they were like, well, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 4: like just don't bother us. We're busy, you know with
Speaker 4: help us tickets, you know that kind of thing. And
Speaker 4: I was like, but we could do really cool stuff.
Speaker 4: And you know, finally I did get them on board.
Speaker 4: But you know, the issue that I see that I
Speaker 4: thought was unique to just a few of the organizations,
Speaker 4: and now that I'm a consultant, I see it every
Speaker 4: single organization is that people, the human beings that work
Speaker 4: in the organization, are not accounted for when it comes
Speaker 4: to how the technology is selected, rolled out, used. It's
Speaker 4: like they're sort of two worlds that have collided with
Speaker 4: no regard for one another. Like people have been thrown
Speaker 4: into a situation that they did not, in most cases,
Speaker 4: have any say in. They were not consulted about what
Speaker 4: their needs actually were, they were not properly trained or
Speaker 4: supported to adopt whatever this thing was, and now their
Speaker 4: job performance and their livelihood depends on it. And it's terrifying.
Speaker 4: I mean, most people are throwing around terms like PTSD
Speaker 4: from like the last failed tech implementation. You know, it's
Speaker 4: a serious crisis and it's not just like spread I mean,
Speaker 4: it's amazing, Like every single organization, every person I talk to,
Speaker 4: I've had people candidly tell me, you know, and I assumed, well,
Speaker 4: you know, nonprofits are always underfunded and they're kind of
Speaker 4: messy as organizations generally, like even the larger ones. Right,
Speaker 4: So I figured surely, you know, in other sectors like
Speaker 4: banking or tech companies themselves, like this would be a
Speaker 4: different situation, right When would assume I would assume, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I've had friends and family, you know, candidly tell me, like,
Speaker 4: you know, they work at Apple, it's the same situation there.
Speaker 4: They work at you know, Tesla, it's the same situation there.
Speaker 4: And I'm like shocked, But now I'm not shocked anymore
Speaker 4: because this just seems to be the norm.
Speaker 2: So and you say that people are using language like
Speaker 2: they have PTSD after the last rollout, Like, what would
Speaker 2: that be from? What is the disconnect that's happening? That's distressful? Yeah,
Speaker 2: distressing distressing.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, distressing, I think it is, you know,
Speaker 4: living through a process where it kind of hit you
Speaker 4: out of the blue. So there was you know, not
Speaker 4: adequate preparation, Like imagine you're just going about your work day,
Speaker 4: and you know the tools that you're using are imperfect,
Speaker 4: but you know them. You know. It's like you have
Speaker 4: a funky car and you know that you know, the
Speaker 4: passenger Jordan never slams unless you like hit it really
Speaker 4: hard or something. You know, you get used to those
Speaker 4: little things and you just have your way of dealing
Speaker 4: with them, and then all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 4: out of nowhere, somebody says, hey, we're going to rip
Speaker 4: out all this stuff and we're going to replace it
Speaker 4: with something that's way better, and it's going to do
Speaker 4: all these amazing things, and you just have to go along,
Speaker 4: you know, on this journey with us. And so they do,
Speaker 4: and at some point, what do they call it, like
Speaker 4: the trough of disillusionment, like kicks in you sort of
Speaker 4: in tac there's like this curve and it's like this
Speaker 4: elation of like, oh my god, it's going to solve
Speaker 4: all our problems. And then it just bends into the
Speaker 4: trophic disillusionment and they realize, like, this is going to
Speaker 4: be incredibly disruptive to me and I don't even know
Speaker 4: how this thing works, and is this even the right
Speaker 4: solution to the problem.
Speaker 2: When we talk about technology, we're talking about its impact
Speaker 2: on you know, society as a whole, or like how
Speaker 2: it kind of creates these many cults. But I think
Speaker 2: that the point that you're making that is really resonating
Speaker 2: with me is just like we really don't get a say,
Speaker 2: there are like four companies. We all kind of are
Speaker 2: coerced into engaging with those four companies, and they're you know,
Speaker 2: smaller companies underneath them. It's totally opaque how their algorithms work,
Speaker 2: but we know that they're contributing to, for example, like
Speaker 2: making everyone's beliefs even stronger, and they're in group been
Speaker 2: making them more.
Speaker 6: Tribalistic at least right now in society.
Speaker 2: And I hope that this changes as society course corrects,
Speaker 2: maybe in fifty years, I don't know, But there really
Speaker 2: isn't a sense that like technology is working for me
Speaker 2: or I get to choose, I get a choice in
Speaker 2: what I want to be shown. I get a choice in,
Speaker 2: you know, the type of content I want to see,
Speaker 2: and not just like oh I clicked on something and
Speaker 2: therefore I will see fifty more of that thing. But
Speaker 2: like no, like holistically, like what kind of algorithms do
Speaker 2: I want in my life? We just don't get a choice.
Speaker 2: Part of that obviously is just corporations controlling everything. But
Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, what is your sense of
Speaker 2: that sort of on a larger cultural.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, it's interesting. I mean where it kind of impacts.
Speaker 4: You know. What I'm interested in is, you know, within
Speaker 4: the workplace, there's even less control, you know, and I
Speaker 4: think that's where the trauma comes in because in the workplace,
Speaker 4: not only do you not have control, especially when you're
Speaker 4: part of a process that is not consultative, that is
Speaker 4: not human centered. And that's my big thing is human
Speaker 4: centered digital transformation. Like I'm not suggesting that we just
Speaker 4: like throw everything out and say no tech is bad.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, like, you know, you have to design
Speaker 4: it around human beings, and you have to empower those
Speaker 4: human beings to actually have a say in how technology
Speaker 4: is used, in this case, in their work life. And
Speaker 4: when that doesn't happen, people feel incredibly threatened. They do
Speaker 4: assume that they're the stupid ones, that they just don't
Speaker 4: get it, and you know that if they were just
Speaker 4: smarter or more tech savvy or whatever, you know, and
Speaker 4: that leads to incredible levels of anxiety because if you
Speaker 4: can't perform your job and if you feel like it's
Speaker 4: out of your control, how stressful is that. My observation
Speaker 4: is that and this is like the dirty little secret
Speaker 4: of you know, enterprise tech is that the IT department
Speaker 4: doesn't even understand what's going on, Like they have completely
Speaker 4: lost the block control of what is happening. Not only
Speaker 4: do they not understand the tech that they're supposed to
Speaker 4: be responsible for, but then they might not say, hey,
Speaker 4: this is your official thing, but you know, the marketing
Speaker 4: department decides to use slack and now they're like, hey,
Speaker 4: what how do I use this? And it is like
Speaker 4: I don't know, we don't even that I didn't even
Speaker 4: know you add slack, you know, and it's just like
Speaker 4: total chaos. I think this is where, you know, it
Speaker 4: intersects really interestingly with the concept of cults. Where we're
Speaker 4: at now is that tech is evolved enough that it's
Speaker 4: actually easier to understand in that way, which is good.
Speaker 4: That's a good thing. It's being demystified. But there are
Speaker 4: people including you know, unfortunately a lot of like IT
Speaker 4: folks and all people in tech who fit tremendously from
Speaker 4: it being a black box, you know. So they're like
Speaker 4: the wizards behind the curtain and they don't ask about
Speaker 4: what goes on here, but he did, and you wouldn't understand.
Speaker 6: So just back away with the advent of AI.
Speaker 2: I wonder, like, doesn't that contribute more to that sort
Speaker 2: of we don't really know what's going.
Speaker 6: On and it's just the tech gods that are guiding us.
Speaker 4: Right Well, that that's really interesting. So yeah, I've done,
Speaker 4: you know, a fair amount of thinking about this. And
Speaker 4: I read this article a while ago which was excellent.
Speaker 4: I'll try to dig it up and send you guys
Speaker 4: the link, but I think it was in Wired magazine,
Speaker 4: and it it talked about the team that was developing
Speaker 4: chat GPT and at this point, you know, it had
Speaker 4: maybe gone to like two versions or something, and now
Speaker 4: it's on like the fourth or fifth version, and they
Speaker 4: were saying that the you know, the brilliant minds, the
Speaker 4: people who are literally creating this thing, really did not
Speaker 4: understand how it was working because basically they created what
Speaker 4: was essentially a neural network, Like they could control the
Speaker 4: inputs and they could control that, you know, they saw
Speaker 4: what the outputs were, but like, what was actually going
Speaker 4: on inside that neural network? They had, they couldn't see
Speaker 4: you can't see data flying, and like.
Speaker 1: It's like anesthesiology where they're like, we don't actually know
Speaker 1: why and how this works, but it.
Speaker 6: Works exactly right.
Speaker 4: Which interestingly, I mean, the field of anesthesiology led to
Speaker 4: a scientific study of consciousness and like what is consciousness?
Speaker 4: Because it's like, it's an interesting thing to contemplate when
Speaker 4: you're like putting people asleep, and so.
Speaker 2: Where do they go right and at what point is
Speaker 2: AI conscious?
Speaker 4: Right exactly? So the thing about AI in that regard
Speaker 4: is like, yeah, even I mean, it's mysterious to even
Speaker 4: the engineers who have built it right on the one hand,
Speaker 4: On the other hand, it's really interesting because it's the
Speaker 4: first time that like a normal human with no prior
Speaker 4: knowledge of technology could interact with technology in a very
Speaker 4: sophisticated way. Like you could be just a regular person
Speaker 4: and tell chat GPT to write you a computer program
Speaker 4: that's going to do X, Y and Z, and it
Speaker 4: will do it, which is fascinating to me because it's
Speaker 4: like the barrier between humans and computers is actually being
Speaker 4: broken down by AI. But at the same time, I mean,
Speaker 4: obviously it opens up all these areas of danger and
Speaker 4: risk and all of these things. But on the other hand,
Speaker 4: it's actually taking It's almost like the tech industry and
Speaker 4: the people who control technology, both in organizations and globally,
Speaker 4: have been in the middle of this. They're like, trust us,
Speaker 4: we know how this works, and you know, don't look
Speaker 4: behind the curtain because you won't understand. But you know,
Speaker 4: we've got this and we'll just give you the things
Speaker 4: that we think you need and call it now. It's
Speaker 4: like people have the ability to kind of look inside
Speaker 4: the machine a little bit and tinker around and say,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't like the way this is. I'd
Speaker 4: like it to be like this, or for me personally,
Speaker 4: I you know, this works better for me. So it's
Speaker 4: this really interesting time of like we're at this crossroads
Speaker 4: where yeah, there's all this scary stuff about AI, but
Speaker 4: at the same time, it's also like allowing normal people
Speaker 4: to see inside the mystery cube totally and like reduce
Speaker 4: that barrier.
Speaker 1: I was talking to my friend's cousin the other day,
Speaker 1: who is like a big Wall Street She's like a
Speaker 1: software person on Walls Street, and we were asking her,
Speaker 1: how was your day, and she was like, it was
Speaker 1: actually really interesting. I solved the code that's been like
Speaker 1: bothering our whole office for a week just from putting
Speaker 1: it in chat rept. And I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And she was like and it took me a week
Speaker 1: to even think to do it, and this is what
Speaker 1: our smartest mine's and I programmed chat rept to call
Speaker 1: me baby and.
Speaker 5: Like everything about you. So we're using it for totally
Speaker 5: different things.
Speaker 6: But I was like, oh shit, this.
Speaker 1: I could now make a code just like you said.
Speaker 4: I got it.
Speaker 1: But I could also isolate myself like a cult member
Speaker 1: in my room making shit for twenty four hours a day,
Speaker 1: which I want to do.
Speaker 2: But also the companies that are serving us this product
Speaker 2: are still companies that are serving us this product for
Speaker 2: their own profit.
Speaker 6: There were a huge amount of people.
Speaker 2: Who were like, hey, we don't understand this yet, Please
Speaker 2: don't roll this out this quickly. We need to put
Speaker 2: in safeguards, and everyone was like, nah, we're just gonna
Speaker 2: keep going. You know what, it does feel like this
Speaker 2: idea of technological advancement is this sort of like thing
Speaker 2: we're holding as the god above all gods, and it's
Speaker 2: the most important thing, and it must be as fast
Speaker 2: as possible, and it must make as much money as possible,
Speaker 2: and nobody wants to stop and question that. And whenever
Speaker 2: nobody wants to stop and question it, my alarm bells
Speaker 2: go off. You know, I do feel like the tech
Speaker 2: world is very progress oriented and forward movement oriented, but
Speaker 2: there's very little like pause, think critically, what do we
Speaker 2: need to do to make this safer? And of course
Speaker 2: some companies are doing that, but it worries me how
Speaker 2: much like we hold up tech CEOs for example, as
Speaker 2: like these sort of cult like figures, and then this
Speaker 2: idea of the technology advancing as this ideal of like
Speaker 2: some promise of the future that's going to solve all problem.
Speaker 2: And that's always what you know, could say shit like.
Speaker 4: That, right, It's it's all in the you know, in
Speaker 4: the execution. It's like to me, there's no you know,
Speaker 4: ultimate good or bad when it comes to technology, you know,
Speaker 4: it is all in how it's executed. And like you said,
Speaker 4: I mean chat GPT came along and there were no
Speaker 4: like safeguards, and they kind of shifted from being you
Speaker 4: know what seemed like sort of this you know, well
Speaker 4: meaning group of technologists who wanted to create you know
Speaker 4: it was like it was an set up as a
Speaker 4: nonprofit and there were all these kind of like high
Speaker 4: minded ideas about you know, what AI was going to do,
Speaker 4: and it, you know, quickly and understandably went into this
Speaker 4: area of like, oh my god, massive business potential, you know,
Speaker 4: and then there was all out and the whole Sam
Speaker 4: Altman thing and all of that. But like I remember,
Speaker 4: like there was an interview I hadn't really been paying
Speaker 4: attention to specifics of like the whole jet Chat GPT rollout,
Speaker 4: and then I thought, you know, Sam Altman, he must
Speaker 4: be like this like mega genius, you know, and I
Speaker 4: just had this like inflated idea of him. And then
Speaker 4: I saw him interviewed on some you know thing, and
Speaker 4: I was, you know, desperately like searching for his genius,
Speaker 4: you know, getting warmed to of like he's going to
Speaker 4: say something really genius. In a moment, I'm just like,
Speaker 4: this is just a regular guy.
Speaker 6: Like this guy I.
Speaker 4: Don't even know that I would want to talk to
Speaker 4: him for very long at a party he was not.
Speaker 4: And then I started to panic. You know. It's like
Speaker 4: around that time that I read that article, and you know,
Speaker 4: it was like who are these people? That are actually
Speaker 4: at the controls, you know, do your point like are
Speaker 4: these people that we should trust? Do we even know
Speaker 4: who they are and what their motivations are and what
Speaker 4: they what keeps them up at night? I mean, why
Speaker 4: are we not able to? My husband was reminding me
Speaker 4: there's so sci fi author that you know, wrote about
Speaker 4: AI stuff, like really long time ago, you know, and
Speaker 4: they in the book they created like a moral code
Speaker 4: right for or an ethical code for AI, and it
Speaker 4: was like six or seven rules and it was like
Speaker 4: if if the AI violated one of these rules, and
Speaker 4: you know, it would like cease to exist or something,
Speaker 4: and they were really yeah, it was really smart, it
Speaker 4: was really clever. It was things like, you know, if
Speaker 4: this could ever lead to any harm to anyone, if this?
Speaker 4: And I was like, why why are we not talking
Speaker 4: about this in very practical terms, like as in this
Speaker 4: needs to exist now, not like you know, some academic
Speaker 4: journal talking about you know, the ethical implications of AI.
Speaker 4: He's going to read. There's like a total there's like
Speaker 4: two worlds right now around AI. There's the hype machine,
Speaker 4: which is kind of what I feel I live in,
Speaker 4: you know, when I you know, look at social media
Speaker 4: and stuff. It's just like pumping with how amazing like
Speaker 4: everything related to AI is. And then there's some of
Speaker 4: your shadowy halls of like congress and academic journals where
Speaker 4: they're actually contemplating the real you know, ethical qaundaries that
Speaker 4: this presents, like that's.
Speaker 5: Why we don't care.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, it's like nobody really cares.
Speaker 6: No, okay, well yeah.
Speaker 4: But understanding the tech, like the thing is. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think what I've realized is if you really hold
Speaker 4: an understanding of it, it's like a wave, right, it's
Speaker 4: moving really fast. You have to ride the wave. Like
Speaker 4: it's very hard to just like step into it mid
Speaker 4: stream because it's evolving so quickly. So if I got
Speaker 4: on that wave, you know, around enterprise tech, let's say,
Speaker 4: like you know, sixteen seventeen years ago, and I've just
Speaker 4: been kind of surfing it, and so when new things happen,
Speaker 4: it's like it's it's easy to assimilate that because I
Speaker 4: had like a baseline of understanding. And I think, you know,
Speaker 4: that's you know, thinking about a cult. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think one of the powers of a cult is that
Speaker 4: it's disorienting. It basically takes everything that you thought you
Speaker 4: knew and you knew to be true and turns it
Speaker 4: upside down so that you're now stripped of any sense
Speaker 4: of selfness or logic or reason or critical things all
Speaker 4: gone right. And I think when people step into the
Speaker 4: realm of technology and they don't have an orientation, it
Speaker 4: is kind of like that, it's like whoa, you know,
Speaker 4: It's like I'm in wonderland. I don't understand how any
Speaker 4: of this works, and so you're completely vulnerable in that
Speaker 4: position to make good choices or even engage in good
Speaker 4: conversations about you know what this is.
Speaker 2: Right as someone who is a filmmaker, as a musician
Speaker 2: mid journey and these different AI apps that are a
Speaker 2: to create art that to me is like supposed to
Speaker 2: be a human thing. Art is supposed to be for humans.
Speaker 2: That is how that makes me feel. It makes me
Speaker 2: feel completely crazy and like the world is upside down.
Speaker 6: Also, TikTok sometimes like.
Speaker 2: The only reason I am like starting to now post
Speaker 2: more on TikTok is because you literally like cannot be
Speaker 2: a music artist in today's day and age without being
Speaker 2: on TikTok. You are forced to engage with this technology.
Speaker 2: It is the only way to get your music out there.
Speaker 2: A lot of artists are posting videos about this, joking
Speaker 2: about how, like, you know, the skill you actually need
Speaker 2: to become a famous artist now is learning how to
Speaker 2: make stupid fucking videos for the internet.
Speaker 6: But it's true.
Speaker 2: But I do feel I mean, like, you know, maybe
Speaker 2: this is a stretch, and there are so many other
Speaker 2: ways that technology can be more coercive and cult like,
Speaker 2: but to me, I do feel coerced into using this technology.
Speaker 2: That isn't my art, it's not my talent, it's not
Speaker 2: what I want to do, but it is something that
Speaker 2: I have to learn if I want to make a
Speaker 2: living or like get my art out into the world.
Speaker 4: Which is exactly what's going on in organizations. You just
Speaker 4: describe the plight of modern worker like, whatever your job
Speaker 4: actually is, it's probably not technology. You know, that's not
Speaker 4: your job. It's like, right, you know Ken's job in
Speaker 4: Barbie like beaches, you know, like, what's your job? Technology
Speaker 4: not what it is, but they have to engage and
Speaker 4: they're very frustrated.
Speaker 2: So what what are some of the things that you
Speaker 2: kind of tell people or teach about how to deal
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So my work mainly is to run processes that
Speaker 4: are human centered in their approach. So, you know, there's
Speaker 4: this practice called human centered design, which is basically like
Speaker 4: you can apply it to anything. But you walk into
Speaker 4: a situation and you know, we're all kind of natural
Speaker 4: problem solvers, right, So the first things you do are
Speaker 4: kind of scan the environment and detect problems, and then
Speaker 4: immediately your brain goes to, like, Okay, how am I
Speaker 4: going to solve these problems? So that's kind of like
Speaker 4: the typical, like what executives are doing most days is like,
Speaker 4: here's a problem, I've got an idea, let's solve it
Speaker 4: this way. But human centered design is very different in
Speaker 4: the sense that you walk in you see there may
Speaker 4: be some problems that you observe, probably a lot you
Speaker 4: assume that you are not able to observe because you're
Speaker 4: not you know, you're an observer, and so you need
Speaker 4: to sit down with people and interview them and talk about,
Speaker 4: you know, how their work life is going, what difficulties
Speaker 4: are they running into, what problems do they see? Da,
Speaker 4: da da, And then you basically bring them into a
Speaker 4: design process, a problem solving design process that's collaborative. And
Speaker 4: so you know, my toolbox is tech because you know,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of good things you can do with
Speaker 4: tech if it's intentionally designed in the workplace. So you know,
Speaker 4: but I don't want they don't have to think about that.
Speaker 4: All they have to do is tell me what it
Speaker 4: is that they're trying to do better, and then you know,
Speaker 4: our firm comes in to do the work of like,
Speaker 4: we can design something for you. We know what tools
Speaker 4: you have available. It might be a tech they already have.
Speaker 4: In a lot of cases. It is so because I'm
Speaker 4: at the advantage of like I'm not selling tech, I'm
Speaker 4: selling our services, so I don't have to sell them
Speaker 4: a new tool in order to make a living, which
Speaker 4: is not the case with most people in tech. You know,
Speaker 4: they're trying to sell a new thing, so they just
Speaker 4: slap a new thing onto a broken old thing. It's
Speaker 4: like the classic example that we run into all the
Speaker 4: time is like you have a crappy process around recruitment,
Speaker 4: and instead of fixing the process, you know, the head
Speaker 4: of HR is like, we need a new software. So
Speaker 4: you know, they go out shopping and every single software
Speaker 4: vendor has advertisement saying we're going to fix your process.
Speaker 4: Your process is probably horrible and broken, and if you
Speaker 4: buy our software, it's going to be fixed, and then
Speaker 4: they just throw it in there, and of course it's
Speaker 4: not fixed because it's the process. It's not the software
Speaker 4: that was the problem in the first place. So it's like.
Speaker 1: The pharmaceutical companies like eating healthier, They're like, it's like.
Speaker 4: It's it's just and money. I mean, this is real money.
Speaker 4: And the other interesting thing is, you know, and this
Speaker 4: goes for every sector, but it's particularly painful for me
Speaker 4: to see in the nonprofit sector because they don't have
Speaker 4: a lot of money to begin with, or they could
Speaker 4: be spending it on something better. Is that, you know,
Speaker 4: they get sold a bill of goods, like over and
Speaker 4: over and over again, and by the time that realization
Speaker 4: kicks in, you know, the salesperson is gone now they
Speaker 4: you know that usually the employees are left to pick
Speaker 4: up the pieces and they're like, oh, now we have
Speaker 4: to deal with this broken thing that doesn't even meet
Speaker 4: our needs for the next five years until you know,
Speaker 4: we can buy another messed up solution. You know, they're
Speaker 4: on this treadmill, and that's what we try to do
Speaker 4: is get them off of that. What are the factors
Speaker 4: that are contributing to people's misery in this place, since
Speaker 4: ninety nine percent of how people work these days is technology.
Speaker 4: Technology is usually a big factor. It's not the only factor,
Speaker 4: but focusing on it is certainly worthwhile. And it's interesting
Speaker 4: that like all these employee well being you know things
Speaker 4: and perks and all this stuff, like they never talk
Speaker 4: about the tech, which is what people that's like, how
Speaker 4: people experience their company these days is.
Speaker 2: Electronically at the like larger societal consumer level of what
Speaker 2: you're talking about, Like, I wish that you existed for
Speaker 2: these ubiquitous companies we all engage with every day that
Speaker 2: are essentially controlling our minds. I mean, it's just not
Speaker 2: like a conspiracy theorist, but like you know, like the
Speaker 2: algorithms influence the way that we think they do.
Speaker 4: You raise a very important point because this has been
Speaker 4: on my mind lately too, like around AI and stuff.
Speaker 4: I'm like, if we you know, if we did imagine
Speaker 4: we did that kind of exercise as a society. Let's
Speaker 4: keep it to the United States for starters, and we said,
Speaker 4: like like we do for organizations. We came in and
Speaker 4: we're like, what are the problems that you all are seeing?
Speaker 4: You know, what do you actually need in your life
Speaker 4: right now that you don't have, or like what's difficult
Speaker 4: for you to do right now that you wish were easier,
Speaker 4: and use technology as a tool to actually solve those problems.
Speaker 4: That would be amazing, that would be like revolutionary, and
Speaker 4: the fact that instead it's, like you're saying, it's being
Speaker 4: you know, the power of that very powerful technology is
Speaker 4: being trained to basically get us all to either buy
Speaker 4: more things, hide under our beds, combination of the two.
Speaker 2: Click scroll it doom scroll doom scroll doom scroll, hate each.
Speaker 4: Other, hate each other, be scared about the world and
Speaker 4: who live in it, you know, and not engage in
Speaker 4: any kind of like real problem solving, you know, just
Speaker 4: throwing shade. I think what's most interesting is if you
Speaker 4: really dig into it and if you could adopt the
Speaker 4: posture of like tech is neither good nor bad, right, Like,
Speaker 4: if you can at least suspend you know, belief otherwise
Speaker 4: for a moment and think, well, it's just a tool, right,
Speaker 4: It's just a like a utility. Then who is actually deciding,
Speaker 4: you know, who's making the decisions that it's only being
Speaker 4: used for one thing or you know, only for evil,
Speaker 4: Like is there anyone that's actually deciding that, Or is
Speaker 4: that just because it's like sliding into that momentum, because
Speaker 4: that's how oursciety is, you know. It's like it's just
Speaker 4: a tool. We've always had, this capitalist society. We've always had,
Speaker 4: you know, so much focus and energy and concentration on
Speaker 4: just making more money and making us into better consumers.
Speaker 4: So of course tech is going to be used as
Speaker 4: the next best tool for that. But why are we
Speaker 4: not then also harnessing it for good? Like where are
Speaker 4: all the people that should be harnessing it for good?
Speaker 4: Like nobody's stopping them, right, Like, I mean when I
Speaker 4: come into an organization, it's not like the tech companies
Speaker 4: are saying, no, you can't use it in that way.
Speaker 4: I mean they love that it's like helping people more
Speaker 4: in that context, right, I mean in that context they
Speaker 4: make money either way, so they don't really care. All
Speaker 4: they care about that people keep paying for their licenses.
Speaker 4: So if people are happier with it and it's actually
Speaker 4: working for them, they're like, great, you know, that's good
Speaker 4: for everybody.
Speaker 2: Right, And there are, of course so many examples of
Speaker 2: tech being used for good in the nonprofit space.
Speaker 6: My boyfriend works for a nonprofit.
Speaker 2: He has to engage with apps that help with you know,
Speaker 2: like food recovery. And I have another friend who's a
Speaker 2: nonprofit app designer and they're they're doing it to help people.
Speaker 2: But I guess, like for me, it's like, yes, it
Speaker 2: is a tool, but also there are choices being made
Speaker 2: at the top that we don't really get a say
Speaker 2: in for.
Speaker 6: How those tools work.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a tool, but what about the like consequences
Speaker 2: of the tool not having enough guardrails or checks and balances.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I agree, I think, you know, but
Speaker 4: it's a fine line, right because it's like you don't
Speaker 4: want to live in a police state where everything we
Speaker 4: use and interact with is governed. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: for sure, tech is being used in all these cool
Speaker 4: ways and like you know, you see that, and but
Speaker 4: is it being harnessed at the highest level of like
Speaker 4: how do we get out of this shitty situation we're
Speaker 4: in as a society? Like at that level, I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't see that there's a lot of movement around
Speaker 4: like harnessing technology in that way and kind of engaging
Speaker 4: in an exercise around like thinking about how we as
Speaker 4: a society like harness technology for good. I think there's
Speaker 4: conversations that are starting to happen that are mostly like
Speaker 4: in the negative, like ooh, we have to you know,
Speaker 4: police social media and you know, make it safer for
Speaker 4: kids or something like that. You know, that's great, but
Speaker 4: that's not the same thing. That's like a negative you know,
Speaker 4: like kind of problem oriented way of approaching things like
Speaker 4: I'm talking about like kind of flipping that and being
Speaker 4: like what kinds of solutions could hate like just fresh
Speaker 4: with technology that aren't like something right right, They aren't
Speaker 4: solving the problem of technology. They're actually just shifting the
Speaker 4: conversation in a different All of my.
Speaker 1: My chat GPT and I have discovered how to get
Speaker 1: rid of a bunch of the world's trash by sending
Speaker 1: it into space.
Speaker 5: I wish really that somebody could actually do that. Was
Speaker 5: focusing on it and feeling us stupid.
Speaker 6: Until the trash meteor.
Speaker 1: No, we were getting it way out of the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: But like I guess, if you're making people happier, creating
Speaker 1: a better world, they're less apt to buy stupid things.
Speaker 4: So right, yeah, there's definitely a disincentive I think on
Speaker 4: the part of the companies do that route.
Speaker 2: That's a good point, Megan, like you do need to
Speaker 2: make people feel like they need something in order to
Speaker 2: be profitable, and if profit is the central motive, then
Speaker 2: that's that's going to be problematic.
Speaker 4: I mean, speaking of social media and influence, I mean,
Speaker 4: I feel like that's the road that it's taking us down.
Speaker 4: The feeling of exasperation and helplessness, and that is very
Speaker 4: much like a narrative around tech. It's sort of like
Speaker 4: tech is taking over. There's nothing we can do about it.
Speaker 4: AI is going to come and take my job away.
Speaker 4: And we're basically like I have people every day like
Speaker 4: if I mention I'm working in tech, we basically say
Speaker 4: something along the lines of I think AI is basically
Speaker 4: going to destroy us, like it's going to be terminator
Speaker 4: and that's it, you know. And and that's like the
Speaker 4: new doomsday scenario, which also is so cult Yeah, so true.
Speaker 1: You create that end of the world thinking because then
Speaker 1: you're powerless.
Speaker 4: You can't do anything about it. It's inevitable is going
Speaker 4: to take your job away, and you're going to be
Speaker 4: poor and destitute and probably then get exterminated by some
Speaker 4: you know, cop robot and it's inevitable, so.
Speaker 6: There's nothing to do worry about it.
Speaker 4: Just stay online and you know, troll people and just
Speaker 4: you know, mind your own business until scroll scroll away terminated.
Speaker 4: But I feel like in a way, it's like any
Speaker 4: time in history because we've always been facing these looming crises.
Speaker 4: I mean, there there's never been a time when that's
Speaker 4: not been the reality. I think the problem is that
Speaker 4: it feels inescapable right now because we live so much
Speaker 4: of our lives online. It's like we're getting almost have
Speaker 4: like this image of we're just getting squeezed into this,
Speaker 4: like you know, into the computer, Like you know, we're
Speaker 4: we're walking around all day like this, and so we're
Speaker 4: like kind of.
Speaker 5: Just holding her phone in front of her face, out.
Speaker 4: Of reality, and and that's what's happening to us. So
Speaker 4: it's like I think it's kind of imperative on all
Speaker 4: of us to break out of that, like break out
Speaker 4: of the computer.
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, how do we do that?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: You know, like I mean, get perspective back on like
Speaker 4: what the computer is supposed to be. It's a tool.
Speaker 4: It's not our lives, Like it's not a substitute for reality.
Speaker 4: Even though the tech overlords would want us to think that,
Speaker 4: but that's not true. Like it's not reality. It's it's
Speaker 4: it's like a it's like a movie. It's like, you know,
Speaker 4: do you want to go jump into I mean, yeah,
Speaker 4: we all want to like visit La La Lands or whatever,
Speaker 4: but you know, it's like do you want to live there?
Speaker 4: Like no, because it's not real, So why would you,
Speaker 4: you know? I mean, these are the lines that are
Speaker 4: getting blurred now, but I don't know. That's how I
Speaker 4: think about it.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, we are being exposed to
Speaker 2: information that is very real and you know, scenarios in
Speaker 2: the world that we didn't have access to witnessing before.
Speaker 4: I think the problem now is it's almost impossible. Like
Speaker 4: my husband and I talk about this a lot, like
Speaker 4: it's almost impossible, and it will become impossible very soon.
Speaker 4: We'll reach that like singularity where it will be impossible
Speaker 4: to tell what's real and what's not real online. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's already happening, like I can. I can create a
Speaker 4: deep fake video of anyone in five seconds and will
Speaker 4: be totally convincing and nobody will know whether it's real
Speaker 4: or not. And so this is going to be used
Speaker 4: for all kinds of purposes. It already is just like,
Speaker 4: you know, bots were such a big deal and the
Speaker 4: past few elections, I mean, imagine that on steroids, Like
Speaker 4: it's going to be crazy. So for that reason, it's
Speaker 4: it's really important that we you know, that the critical
Speaker 4: thinking and the kind of self protections that we need
Speaker 4: to sort of discern reality from fiction are like it's
Speaker 4: at the same time that we crucially need those skills,
Speaker 4: it's like they're getting dulled down to almost being like undetectable,
Speaker 4: Like the skills of critical thinking, critical thinking discernment, like
Speaker 4: being able to question the first and even use your instincts,
Speaker 4: your inner voice, and your inner knowledge to say, like
Speaker 4: does this feel right to me? Like I mean, I
Speaker 4: have a six year old, and like she's not learning
Speaker 4: these things at school. This is not baseline skills that she,
Speaker 4: you know, should have at this age, because she's already
Speaker 4: engaging heavily in tech.
Speaker 2: I wish I had more societal power to demand that
Speaker 2: critical thinking classes be taught in elementary school and a
Speaker 2: junior high and high school and in college and to adults.
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I was just preparing a video that I'm doing on
Speaker 2: certainty and was, I'm kind of going to be recapping
Speaker 2: some things we've talked about on this podcast with other researchers,
Speaker 2: which include like how when something is repeated, it feels
Speaker 2: more true to us with something rhymes, it feels more
Speaker 2: true when something when it's in like a snappy meme
Speaker 2: that's like really simple and easy to understand, Like that
Speaker 2: feels more true.
Speaker 5: Like things feel true for reasons.
Speaker 2: That are not reflective of what actually makes them true,
Speaker 2: and without a baseline of understanding of that and knowing
Speaker 2: that you do have to engage with slower thinking and
Speaker 2: not just being on autopilot when you're online. To me,
Speaker 2: that's just like such a critically important skill for all
Speaker 2: of us to have, and we are all losing it
Speaker 2: by being on the social media.
Speaker 4: The concept that reality is complicated and nuanced and not
Speaker 4: black and white at all is like getting completely lost
Speaker 4: on everyone, you know, because it's we're not trainable if
Speaker 4: we exert those critical thinking skills and actually see beyond
Speaker 4: the talking points and the TikTok videos. I was having
Speaker 4: this conversation yesterday with a woman you know who's helping
Speaker 4: me with like the book publicity and stuff, and I
Speaker 4: was saying like, you know, what's my concept? Like another
Speaker 4: one of our clients was like the culture CEO. You know,
Speaker 4: it's like you get that, you know what that means?
Speaker 4: I don't really, but you.
Speaker 1: Know.
Speaker 4: So it's like I was like, okay, you know what's
Speaker 4: my thing? And I'm like, I don't. You know, my
Speaker 4: message is kind of complicated and nuanced. It's not something
Speaker 4: that can be digested in a SoundBite. And like I'm
Speaker 4: okay with that. And if that means that I don't
Speaker 4: have like five million followers you know on X or whatever,
Speaker 4: you know, that's fine, Like I don't you know, I'd
Speaker 4: rather just stay true to the message than sell it
Speaker 4: to the maximum amount of people. And I think that's
Speaker 4: the problem. We're all being trained to dumb down our
Speaker 4: points of view and our messaging and our content to
Speaker 4: your point, so that it is mass digestive, so that
Speaker 4: it's benign basically, right. It's like, yeah, the power as
Speaker 4: has been taken out of it. It's a real problem
Speaker 4: because if the audience isn't there for these you know,
Speaker 4: complicated reality based messages and conversations, then you know, then
Speaker 4: you're just speaking into a void, and like what good
Speaker 4: is that? You know, so it's like you're in this.
Speaker 4: I imagine that's kind of what your quandary is, right,
Speaker 4: It's like, I want to make this content. I want
Speaker 4: to make it meaningful because I'm trying to reach people
Speaker 4: with a meaningful message, but it's like people aren't able
Speaker 4: to receive it because they've all you know, they've all
Speaker 4: turned into you know, balls of jello or something.
Speaker 2: I also think, though, that social media skews our perception
Speaker 2: of other people and what they actually want, because when
Speaker 2: I'm online and I'm seeing people, maybe like in my outgroup,
Speaker 2: I'm like, you're being fucking crazy, you have no interest
Speaker 2: in critical thinking, And then if I engage with them
Speaker 2: in real life, I'm like, oh, you like actually think
Speaker 2: really similarly to me, and know just plumbing at it
Speaker 2: from a different perspective, or like maybe you haven't been
Speaker 2: exposed to this information that I've been exposed to. Like,
Speaker 2: I do think that social media makes us feel like
Speaker 2: everyone is more extreme than maybe they are or are
Speaker 2: capable of being, even if they are like currently in
Speaker 2: the extreme land. I do think the the optimist in
Speaker 2: me still believes that most people people are capable of
Speaker 2: more thoughtful engaging.
Speaker 4: It's just like comfortable.
Speaker 1: We have to be a little bit more used to
Speaker 1: being uncomfortable instead of certain.
Speaker 4: You know, certain culturyer's time. I mean this content is
Speaker 4: an example, like we're having long form conversation. Podcasts are popular,
Speaker 4: you know, as a as a medium. I think, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's interesting though, because it's like I think about it
Speaker 4: from like a technological you know, tools and design standpoint.
Speaker 4: It's like a lot of the social media platforms just
Speaker 4: don't you know, they kind of force that kind of communication.
Speaker 4: You know, you can't. I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't
Speaker 4: give itself to long form content, but like people want
Speaker 4: to engage with each other. It's kind of this interesting problem,
Speaker 4: like is it possible even to meaningfully engage like on
Speaker 4: a platform where you have to like post a short
Speaker 4: video or you can't go over a certain number of characters?
Speaker 4: Like what should it actually be used for, like you know.
Speaker 1: Or not use like negative comments boost you on the
Speaker 1: algorithm too.
Speaker 2: So it's just obviously we all can grasp the idea
Speaker 2: that like TikTok makes us.
Speaker 5: And by the way, I think TikTok can be awesome.
Speaker 2: I don't want to sound like TikTok hater, like TikTok
Speaker 2: can be so good for spreading information that that people
Speaker 2: are able to access otherwise. But I think intuitively we
Speaker 2: understand that like it does diminish our attention span whatever.
Speaker 6: It's just it's moving, so complete.
Speaker 2: But what they posted that I thought about, a study
Speaker 2: that they posted about which I actually thought was interesting.
Speaker 5: Was that we actually enjoy it less when.
Speaker 2: Enjoy that level of short form content, like the quicker
Speaker 2: that content is, we actually do not enjoy it as
Speaker 2: much as we do when engaging with long form content.
Speaker 2: They compared short TikTok videos to longer form YouTube videos
Speaker 2: and found that people were more engaged and more interested
Speaker 2: in the long form content.
Speaker 5: But we become like addicted to.
Speaker 2: This scrolling of this really fast, small, snackable content, even.
Speaker 5: Though we don't like it as much. It's so interesting.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 4: I see it with children. I mean, just observing my daughter.
Speaker 4: You know, we've made a choice to not overly restrict
Speaker 4: her access to technology and screens, and I guess, admittedly,
Speaker 4: you know it's a risky decision, but it's also like
Speaker 4: I'm also interested if there's a way that we can
Speaker 4: like work with this instead of against it, you know,
Speaker 4: because like even when we were choosing schools, you know,
Speaker 4: there's a Waldorf school here, and you know they it's
Speaker 4: like no screens. You can't have screens at home. We
Speaker 4: we don't even want the kids wearing any like characters
Speaker 4: on their T shirt because those kids that have never
Speaker 4: seen that character might feel like left out or excluded.
Speaker 4: That would have been.
Speaker 5: Great for me as a child with no television.
Speaker 4: I have no idea what the.
Speaker 8: Fuck exactly you would be like incopole, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: And I just felt like, you know, I really thought
Speaker 8: about it, because it's, you know, the serious decision is apparently.
Speaker 4: You know what right out are you going to choose here?
Speaker 4: And I was just like, I do not feel right
Speaker 4: about kind of creating a fake firewall between my child
Speaker 4: and the reality, which is that everybody's using technology for
Speaker 4: all kinds of things and she should be aware of that.
Speaker 4: And so it's kind of forced me into this place
Speaker 4: where I have to try to find tech that she
Speaker 4: will engage with that's actually enriching to her versus things
Speaker 4: that are time wasting. And it can't be one or
Speaker 4: the other because there's no way I can get her
Speaker 4: to do enriching stuff, you know, one hundred percent of
Speaker 4: the time. But it's interesting, you know, I'm still very
Speaker 4: much like learning as I go. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: she'll sit down and she'll watch a one and a
Speaker 4: half hour you know, Disney movie and be super happy
Speaker 4: and engaged with that too. So I mean kind of
Speaker 4: to your point, like maybe there's more pleasure coming from
Speaker 4: the you know, the more in depth long form content.
Speaker 2: It just all comes back to for me, like we
Speaker 2: do need to engage with people offline, and we do
Speaker 2: need to create offline communities, and which is why cults, which.
Speaker 6: Is why we cults.
Speaker 1: Yes, how do we create offline communities that are not cults,
Speaker 1: that are not cut right?
Speaker 5: You can do it.
Speaker 6: We can do it.
Speaker 4: We have to reclaim our sense of community in the
Speaker 4: real world. Like I think one thing that social media
Speaker 4: has taught us is that your people are out there somewhere, right, Like,
Speaker 4: nobody in this world is alone and unique and someone
Speaker 4: that nobody else can understand. And I think, you know,
Speaker 4: like if you grew up in a small town like
Speaker 4: I grew up in a town with like two thousand people,
Speaker 4: or if you grew up in a cult, you know,
Speaker 4: you you often grow up with this feeling. But you know,
Speaker 4: pre technology, like there was no Internet when I was
Speaker 4: a kid, Like you feel like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 4: a weirdo and nobody understands me, and like this is
Speaker 4: how life is going to be, and it's very sad
Speaker 4: and depressing. And so there's this amazing opening up of
Speaker 4: the world that social media has given us, where it's
Speaker 4: like taught us that there's somebody out there that's just
Speaker 4: like you, that feels the same things that you feel,
Speaker 4: that understands you, that cares about you. You know, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: That's that's what you should meet up in person and
Speaker 1: still have other friends and not form a cult with
Speaker 1: each other totally exactly, and you should use social media
Speaker 1: and use tech, but you should also have real life
Speaker 1: connections and just spread it all out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like the truth that like there's a lot of
Speaker 4: good in this world and like, you know, but it
Speaker 4: is like the human connection is what it's all about.
Speaker 4: Right at the end of the day. We're all humans.
Speaker 4: We all need to feel connected, and we should give
Speaker 4: ourselves like as much you know, possibility for that as
Speaker 4: we possibly can. You know. It's like and the real
Speaker 4: world stuff is really important.
Speaker 1: And by connected you mean not like, oh, I just
Speaker 1: shared a video that got oh yeah, you mean like
Speaker 1: smiling at somebody.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ideas, so miserating, crying, you know, over a drink,
Speaker 4: like all the things that we need to do as
Speaker 4: human beings to feel normal and stable. I think COVID
Speaker 4: was a really interesting like social experiment in that way,
Speaker 4: like not in a good way, but in the fact
Speaker 4: that we all became so isolated that we couldn't actually
Speaker 4: be together in person. And I think, you know, my
Speaker 4: feeling is a public health former public health professional, you know,
Speaker 4: I keep reading the data because I feel like the
Speaker 4: impact that that had on mental health was more extreme
Speaker 4: than I think any of us have really fathomed at
Speaker 4: this point that will be for years prepairing, the kind
Speaker 4: of damage that was done to people in their lives,
Speaker 4: especially people who were struggling to begin with, and totally
Speaker 4: so you know, it's it's real, and so yeah, I
Speaker 4: think it's it's like that that's the anti cult, right,
Speaker 4: Like what's the anti cult? The anti cult is being
Speaker 4: together in community with no like control agenda, you know.
Speaker 4: In zen I'm saying that because my book is done
Speaker 4: in the art of digital transformation. So I like bring
Speaker 4: in some of these Zen concepts, and there's this Zen
Speaker 4: concept of the beginner's mind, and that is basically exactly
Speaker 4: what I think critical thinking actually is, which is you
Speaker 4: you have to strip that cognitive bias. I mean, that
Speaker 4: is really powerful, and that's part of the problem, right,
Speaker 4: So you have to kind of come in blank slate.
Speaker 4: It's part of human centered design too, and assume that
Speaker 4: you know nothing, like take away whatever you think you
Speaker 4: know about this and just start there and contemplate it.
Speaker 4: And I think that is that that's part of the
Speaker 4: slow thinking too. It's like, you know, really take it in,
Speaker 4: but take it in as if it were just a
Speaker 4: brand new thing, you know, kind of almost in a
Speaker 4: way like playing dumb, like just kind of like acting
Speaker 4: like your ignor, like cheese, huh, I've never seen a
Speaker 4: TikTok video before, you know, like kind of examining it
Speaker 4: as if you just like landed from outer space. It's
Speaker 4: a really interesting exercise because you know, I often am
Speaker 4: surprised at some of the assumptions that I will arrive
Speaker 4: at if I do it unconsciously. But then I'm also
Speaker 4: equally surprised, you know, at some of the conclusions that
Speaker 4: I come to when I'm like starting from that blank
Speaker 4: slate and some of them I find personally unfavorable, Like
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, geez, do I really is that?
Speaker 6: But I think, like that's just a.
Speaker 4: Really vibe with who I think I am, or like
Speaker 4: the people I hang out with or something. This is
Speaker 4: like really out of left field, and that's uncomfortable.
Speaker 5: I've said this a million times and then I'll say
Speaker 5: it again.
Speaker 2: We have to make that process cool. We have to
Speaker 2: make that part of our culture, like being able to say, like, huh,
Speaker 2: I guess I was wrong about that, like or what
Speaker 2: part of this am I not examining and that I
Speaker 2: need to think about in a new way, and like
Speaker 2: making that be something that we like hold up as
Speaker 2: our standard of like what is cool and good.
Speaker 5: I don't know how you do that, but that's my mission.
Speaker 4: I think it really does all come back to the
Speaker 4: critical thinking piece and being human centered, which is to
Speaker 4: say that we also like accept our flaws as human beings,
Speaker 4: and we accept that we are human beings and we're
Speaker 4: vulnerable to the forces of technology. We have needs that
Speaker 4: might be unfulfilled by technology, and that's okay too. That
Speaker 4: doesn't make us less than that we all have a
Speaker 4: right to understand the tech that is part of our lives,
Speaker 4: and that we have a right to question that technology
Speaker 4: and the people who are behind it. Yeah, that's okay too,
Speaker 4: and that we should. You know that it's not about
Speaker 4: making technology go away or you know, turning everything into
Speaker 4: a police state where everything is so tightly governed. It's about,
Speaker 4: I think with any form of you know, social activism
Speaker 4: or awareness raising, it's like, let's be conscious consumers, let's
Speaker 4: be conscious about how we engage, and let's let's demand
Speaker 4: better right from the tech industry. Let's demand better because
Speaker 4: they're people too, Like, you know, most people that I've
Speaker 4: met in tech are really good people, and like you
Speaker 4: can talk to them a lot about what they see
Speaker 4: and the problems that they're seeing. They see it, but
Speaker 4: they're you know, silence is complicity or whatever. You know,
Speaker 4: they're just machine exactly, and they're part of it. They
Speaker 4: need a job to you know. It's like, let's have
Speaker 4: compassion for everybody who's part of this. You know, even
Speaker 4: Sam Altman. Sorry, Sam, you know you're probably really smart
Speaker 4: in person.
Speaker 5: It was we know you're listening to the I know you're.
Speaker 7: Listening, so at it. But those are the things that
Speaker 7: I think would really get us a little bit further
Speaker 7: from where we are now. And I think, you know,
Speaker 7: like Megan and I when we chatted before all of this,
Speaker 7: you know, I was saying that it's basically that thing
Speaker 7: of you know, I feel stupid, I feel left out.
Speaker 7: I don't know what's going on, so I'll just like
Speaker 7: stick my head in the stand and you know, ignore
Speaker 7: it until it goes away. But technology isn't going to
Speaker 7: go away, so then we have to deal with it.
Speaker 4: We really do.
Speaker 1: And I have to learn how to turn my computer
Speaker 1: on and office. Yeah, something that's going to have to happen.
Speaker 4: And then on maybe AI isn't even interested in taking over,
Speaker 4: like what's in it for that.
Speaker 1: True, I've never even thought of it.
Speaker 5: It's like I don't want to be who's.
Speaker 2: It's almost a program and their AI for that someone's
Speaker 2: doing it, you know they are also military is literally
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 4: But yeah, no military, I know. But like I mean,
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, if we're talking like
Speaker 4: end days here, you know, it's not a great end
Speaker 4: game for AI. I mean, yeah, kind of needs Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: The next twenty years will be so.
Speaker 4: Crazy yeah, buckle up a ride.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Sarah. This has been so thought
Speaker 1: provoking and cannot wait to rage. Your bucket comes out
Speaker 1: January fifteenth, so we'll do a reminder when it drops.
Speaker 4: And tell us the name again then and the art
Speaker 4: of digital transformation leading a mindful redesign of the digital enterprise.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 2: This has been lovely, lovely conversation began. Do you have
Speaker 2: any particular takeaways?
Speaker 5: I know I for me like I come back.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, y'all know I don't shut up
Speaker 2: about the algorithm.
Speaker 1: You love a good algorithm.
Speaker 2: I hate yes, talk.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The ways that all of our beliefs are reinforced is
Speaker 2: so so culty to me and also leaders themselves, Like
Speaker 2: what what do you think are for you? What are
Speaker 2: the cultiest parts of tech?
Speaker 5: You know what?
Speaker 1: Because the real interesting part to me is that it's
Speaker 1: like anesthesiology and nobody even knows how it's fucking working.
Speaker 1: So that leads to this very weird atmosphere of awe.
Speaker 1: That's the that's the biggest takeaway for me, where it's
Speaker 1: like this is not of this world. I don't know
Speaker 1: what is happening how it's doing it, and neither does
Speaker 1: anyone else, and it's creeping me out and now I
Speaker 1: feel like I worship it.
Speaker 6: Yes, That's where I get stuck.
Speaker 3: What about you?
Speaker 2: My cousin is a is a neuroscientist specializing in anesthesiology,
Speaker 2: and like trying to get to the bottom of that question,
Speaker 2: because yeah, like it is so fucking weird that we
Speaker 2: don't understand what's happening in the brain. Same with andy depressants.
Speaker 2: We don't really We have like a general idea about
Speaker 2: how what's probably happening, but like not for sure, not really.
Speaker 3: They're just like, here we this works.
Speaker 1: We don't know why.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like the mechanistic research is not really has
Speaker 2: you know, not caught up, which is interesting. Yeah to me,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I think we'll get there. I think that
Speaker 2: like even AI itself can eventually tell us probably, But
Speaker 2: I for me, what is what it always comes back
Speaker 2: to is that humans are designing this and they are
Speaker 2: making choices, whether they're conscious of their bias or not.
Speaker 2: We are all everyone in the world is being impacted
Speaker 2: by these Like tech designers own internal bias, and the
Speaker 2: CEOs of those companies who are directing them and their
Speaker 2: choices algorithmically, you know, to focus on revenue like that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. It is so crazy that we all
Speaker 2: use the same four companies for absolutely everything in our lives,
Speaker 2: and we and our faith and our trust are just
Speaker 2: in their hands. I say this all the time, But
Speaker 2: next twenty years will be really really interesting to see
Speaker 2: what changes culturally and if there ever is a demand
Speaker 2: for more transparency or more health oriented tech will we'll
Speaker 2: see or maybe we'll all be dead by then. Who knows,
Speaker 2: because I killed us.
Speaker 3: We don't know, and that's exciting.
Speaker 1: Thanks, thank you all for listening to another episode of
Speaker 1: trust Me. We can't wait to see you again next week,
Speaker 1: and as always, remember to follow your gut, what's up
Speaker 1: for d flax.
Speaker 2: And never ever trust me Hie. Trust Me is produced
Speaker 2: by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and Steve Delemator.
Speaker 1: With special thanks to Stacy Para.
Speaker 2: And our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
Speaker 1: Twitter at trust Me Cult Pod, or on TikTok at
Speaker 1: trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and oh La Lola on Twitter.
Speaker 1: And I am Megan el's Sabeth eleven on Instagram and
Speaker 1: Bebraham Hicks on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Remember to rate and review and spread the word.