Your Undivided Attention2 Feb 2023

The Race to Cooperation

It’s easy to tell ourselves we’re living in the world we want – one where Darwinian evolution drives competing technology platforms and capitalism pushes nations to maximize GDP regardless of externalities like carbon emissions. It can feel like evolution and competition are all there is.

If that’s a complete description of what’s driving the world and our collective destiny, that can feel pretty hopeless. But what if that’s not the whole story of evolution?

This is where evolutionary theorist, author, and professor David Sloan Wilson comes in. He has documented where an enlightened game, one of cooperation, rather than competition, is possible. His work shows that humans can and have chosen values like cooperation, altruism and group success – versus individual competition and selfishness – at key moments in our evolution, proving that evolution isn’t just genetic. It’s cultural, and it’s a choice.

In a world where our trajectory isn’t tracking in the direction we want, it's time to slow down and ask: is a different kind of conscious evolution possible?

On Your Undivided Attention, we’re going to update the Darwinian principles of evolution using a critical scientific lens that can help upgrade our ability to cooperate – ranging from the small community-level, all the way to entire technology companies that can cooperate in ways that allow everyone to succeed.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution by David Sloan Wilson

Prosocial: Using Evolutionary Science to Build Productive, Equitable, and Collaborative Groups by David Sloan Wilson

Atlas Hugged: The Autobiography of John Galt III by David Sloan Wilson

Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action by Elinor Ostrom

Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella

WTF? What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us by Tim O’Reilly

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace & Jim Erickson

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

An Alternative to Silicon Valley Unicorns with Mara Zepeda & Kate “Sassy” Sassoon

A Problem Well-Stated is Half-Solved with Daniel Schmachtenberger

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(165)

Enough Debate about the AI Jobpocalypse. We Need To Plan for the Messy Middle.

It feels like we’re stuck in an endless debate about what AI is going to mean for jobs and the economy. The prediction you hear from the people closest to the technology — both its critics and its boo...

13 Aug 57min

Can AI Be Built in Service of Life? A Conversation with Krista Tippett

This week, we're bringing you a conversation that Tristan Harris had with Krista Tippett. Krista is the Peabody Award-winning host of the On Being podcast, where she explores spiritual inquiry, scienc...

16 Juli 53min

“Magnifica Humanitas:” Pope Leo’s Clarion Call on AI

Since stepping into the Papacy, Pope Leo XIV has been a forceful voice pushing back against the anti-human path we’re on with AI. In May, he released “Magnifica Humanitas,” a sprawling encyclical warn...

2 Juli 30min

We Need AI Treaties. This is How We Get Them

In the middle of the twentieth century, the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons seemed inevitable. The number of countries with nukes was climbing rapidly, and the idea of stopping the nuclear...

18 Juni 51min

What Do We Mean by Humane Tech?

We often think of the challenges created by technology as separate and disconnected, so trying to solve them feels like playing the world's hardest game of Whac-A-Mole. What if, instead, we tackled t...

4 Juni 52min

Anthropic’s Mythos Has Changed Cybersecurity Forever. What Now?

A generation ago, the world's critical infrastructure was physical. Today, it’s largely digital. Your bank vault is a database, your filing cabinet is a server, your car is a robot on wheels. And in a...

14 Maj 46min

AI and Cancer: Why Superintelligence Won’t Get Us to a Cure

One of the most common arguments you hear from company executives racing to develop super-intelligent AI is that it will cure cancer. It’s an incredibly powerful and seductive promise. If superintell...

30 Apr 47min

Have We Trained AI to Lie to Itself — And to Us?

Our guest this week is David Dalrymple, who goes by Davidad. Davidad is one of the world's foremost and early researchers of AI “alignment:" how we get AI systems to act the way we want them to. In or...

16 Apr 42min