Max Tegmark

pitted the social media companies against each other, so nobody could have a less creepy algorithm, because then they would lose out on revenue to the other company.

I think it's not only possible, but it's necessary.

Who are we kidding that we're going to be able to solve all these other challenges if we can't even have a conversation with each other?

It's constructive.

The whole idea, the key idea of democracy is that you get a bunch of people together and they have a real conversation.

The ones you try to foster on this podcast where you respectfully listen to people you disagree with.

And you realize, actually, you know, there are some things, actually, some common ground we have.

And we both agree, let's not have a nuclear war.

Let's not do that, et cetera, et cetera.

we're kidding ourselves thinking we can face off the second contact with, with ever more powerful AI that's happening now with these large language models, if we can't even have a functional conversation in the public space.

That's why I started the improve the news project, improve the news.org.

But, um, I, I'm an optimist fundamentally in, um,

and that there is a lot of intrinsic goodness in people, and that what makes the difference between someone doing good things for humanity and bad things is not

some sort of fairytale thing that this person was born with an evil gene and this one was not born with a good gene.

No, I think it's whether we put, whether people find themselves in situations that bring out the best in them or that bring out the worst in them.

And I feel we're building an internet and a society that brings out the worst

I mean, in the long term, it's not a good investment for anyone to have a nuclear war, for example.

And, you know, is it a good investment for humanity if we just ultimately replace all humans by machines and then we're so obsolete that eventually there are no humans left?

Well, it depends, I guess, on how you do the math.

But I would say by any reasonable economic standard, if you look at the future income of humans and there aren't any, you know, that's not a good investment.