Tristan Harris

There's some adults who are making sure that geopolitics is stable.

There's some adults that are making sure that industries don't cause toxicity and carcinogens.

And that there's adults who are caring about stewarding things and making things go well.

And...

I think that there have been times in history where there were adults, especially born out of massive world catastrophes, like coming out of World War II, there was a lot of conscious care about how do we create the institutions and the structures, Bretton Woods, United Nations, positive some economics that would steward the world so we don't have war again.

And as I, in my first round of the social media work, as I started entering into the rooms where the adults were,

And I recognized that because technology and software was eating the world, a lot of the people in power didn't understand the software, didn't understand technology.

You go to the Senate Intelligence Committee and you talk about what social media is doing to democracy and where Russian psychological influence campaigns were happening, which were real campaigns.

And you realize that – I realized that I knew more about that than people who were on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Making the laws.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that was a very humbling experience because I realized, oh, there's not that many adults out there when it comes to technology's dominating influence on the world.

And so there's a responsibility – and I hope people listening to this who are in technology –

Realize that if you understand technology and technology is eating the structures of our world, children's development, democracy, education, journalism, conversation, it is up to people who understand this to be part of stewarding it in a conscious way.

And I do know that there have been many people, in part because of things like the social dilemma and some of this work, that have basically chosen to devote their lives to moving in this direction as well.

But what I feel is a responsibility because I know that most people don't understand how this stuff works.

And they feel insecure because if I don't understand the technology, then who am I to criticize which way this is going to go?

We call this the under-the-hood bias.

you know, if I don't know how a car engine works, and if I don't have a PhD in the engineering that makes an engine, then I have nothing to say about car accidents.