Tristan Harris

When we invented Teflon nonstick pans, we thought that's progress.

But the coating in Teflon was for these PFAS, forever chemicals, that literally don't break down in our environment.

And then now, if you go anywhere in the world and you open your mouth and you drink the rainwater, we get levels of PFAS that are above what the EPA recommends.

And it's because these chemicals literally don't break down.

That was not progress.

That was actually giving us cancers and degrading our environment.

Whether it's that or leaded gasoline, which we thought was a technology that would solve a problem with engine knocking, leaded gasoline ended up dropping the collective IQ of humanity by a billion points because lead in our environment stunts brain development.

All that's to say, innovation, you asked, what is innovation?

Innovation is honestly looking at what would constitute true progress.

Is social media that makes us feel more lonely actual innovation?

Is it progress?

So what we want is humane technology that is aligned with and sustainable with the underlying fabric of whether it's the environment or our social life.

We can have humane technology that's aligned with our mental health, that's aligned with our societal health, that's aligned with our healthy information environment.

But it has to be designed in a way explicitly to protect those things rather than just sort of steamroll it and assume that the technology is progress.

I haven't done it in a while, but I used to love Argentine tango and I danced tango for 10 years.

Yeah.

It's not something people would anticipate.

No, that's another one.

That was the last time that we talked.

No, I lived in Buenos Aires for four months and I learned to dance Argentine tango because of a woman that I