Lex Fridman

Can you speak a little bit more to false memory?

So like, that's just fascinating.

So things happen to us.

We humans do things in the world and then we remember them.

And most of our lives, I guess, is lived in memory and remembering the things that happened to us.

And you're saying that we can modify the story we tell about the things that happened to us.

That's fascinating.

So what do we know about this ability to have false memories?

Well, I mean, yeah, that's, I mean, it's both beautiful and terrifying that nothing is real.

So that's where the verbatim stuff can get you into trouble, because with criminal cases, I suppose the tiniest details...

really matter, because then the lawyers can like really zoom in on that particular detail, and then you can just make that up.

And then the interrogation with a leading question, as you were saying, can just alter your memory of a particular detail, and then everything will hang on that detail.

How hard is it to insert false memories?

So you want to get indirectly as many signals as possible to show that they actually believe the thing happened.

Yeah.

I guess you're just speaking to the fact that, you know, you don't know how representative the sample is.

But even with one study, that's crazy.

That's incredible.

Sure.

What was the methodology for implanting the false memories?