Your Undivided Attention

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, science, social healing, and poetry, and the wisdom that we need to replenish and orient in this tender and tumultuous time. Krista and Tristan spoke remotely in front of a crowd while she was in person at the Wisdom in Action forum in Australia. Their discussion was focused on trust in the age of AI and explored big, critical questions like what does it mean to build AI in service of life? How can we hold a collective problem this big as individuals? And what does it take to resist the spell of inevitability? We hope you enjoy this thought-provoking conversation.  Your Undivided Attention will be taking a short summer hiatus. We’ll be back with more episodes soon! Your Undivided Attention is produced by Center for Humane Technology. You can find a transcript of this conversation on our Substack [https://open.substack.com/pub/centerforhumanetechnology/p/can-ai-be-built-in-service-of-life?r=2f9wjk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web]. RECOMMENDED MEDIA On Being with Krista Tippett [https://onbeing.org/series/podcast/] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“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 warning of the dangers to human dignity and agency posed by runaway AI. Tristan had the incredible opportunity to meet with the Pope ahead of the encyclical's release.  In the modern world, you’d think we would have developed governance structures to deal with powerful new technologies like AI. It's worth asking why a 2,000-year-old religious institution is the only one standing up and loudly declaring that the default path is unacceptable.  In this episode, Tristan and Aza discuss what it was like for Tristan to be at the Vatican, why this is such a critical step toward a pro-human future, and how we can build on the momentum of the Pope’s call to action. Your Undivided Attention is produced by Center for Humane Technology. You can find a transcript of this conversation on our Substack [https://centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com/publish/post/203327282?r=2f9wjk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web]. RECOMMENDED MEDIA The Pope’s encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” [http://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html] RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/the-tech-god-complex-why-we-need-to-be-skeptics] What Do We Mean by Humane Tech? [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/what-do-we-mean-by-human-tech] Corrections: * Tristan said that Pope John XXIII gave his radio address weeks after the Cuban Missile Crisis. It actually occured during the crisis. * Tristan paraphrased the full quote from Pope Leo's encyclical on AI disarmament. Here is the full quote: "Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of “armed” competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance." * Aza slightly misquoted Dr. King Jr. The full quote begins "The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live." * The delegates for Bretton Woods came from just 44 countries, not "hundreds" as Tristan said.     Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 arms race seemed like a pipe dream.  But that’s exactly what happened. Over the course of 60 years, nations around the world agreed to nuclear red lines, slowdowns, and even disarmament. How did this happen? Largely because of technology.  The biggest obstacle to agreeing on nuclear red lines was that adversaries couldn't trust any promise the other made. They needed to know the number of warheads, the amount of enriched uranium, or whether a nuclear device was for a weapon or a power plant. None of that was possible until we built the tech needed to verify those things.  Today, we're in a similar situation with AI. For adversaries like the United States and China to agree on reasonable AI red lines on issues like bioweapons, cyber hacking, or the risk of recursive self-improvement, they first need to be able to trust each other. We urgently need to build the verification technology that would make that trust possible.  In this episode, Tristan sits down with two experts in this field to discuss the kinds of verification technology we need for AI, the challenges of building it, and the world it could unlock if we do. Tim Fist [https://ifp.org/author/tim-fist/] is the Director of Emerging Technology Policy at the Institute for Progress, and Janet Egan [https://www.cnas.org/people/janet-egan] is Senior Fellow and Deputy Director for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for New American Security. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. You can find a transcript of this episode on our Substack [https://centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com/].  RECOMMENDED MEDIA Anthropic’s open letter warning about recursive self-improvement and calling for a pause in development. [https://www.anthropic.com/institute/recursive-self-improvement] The website for the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) [https://www.nist.gov/caisi] Further reading on the different mechanisms of verification for international AI governance. [https://aigi.ox.ac.uk/publications/verification-for-international-ai-governance/]   RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES America and China Are Racing to Different AI Futures [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/america-and-china-are-racing-to-different-ai-futures] Can We Govern AI? with Marietje Schaake [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/can-we-govern-ai] The Crisis That United Humanity—and Why It Matters for AI [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/the-crisis-that-united-humanity-and-why-it-matters-for-ai] Daniel Kokotajlo Forecasts the End of Human Dominance [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/daniel-kokotajlo-forecasts-the-end-of-human-dominance] Correction: Tim referred to the CargoScan technology as being jointly developed by the US and the USSR. It was actually developed solely in the US and administered in Soviet nuclear facilities.    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 them at the root by identifying the patterns in design, development, and deployment that are causing these issues? Once we understand what's driving inhumane tech, we can develop a set of principles for building humane tech.  In this week’s episode of Your Undivided Attention, Aza Raskin sits down with fellow CHT co-founder Randy Fernando to walk through CHT's Seven Principles of Humane Technology. For each principle, they draw on real-world examples from the podcast and beyond to clearly illustrate how these principles (and their absence) show up in the world.  There’s so much more here than can go into a single podcast. If you want to go deeper, visit humanetech.com/course and sign up to learn more.  Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology [https://www.humanetech.com/]. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_ [https://twitter.com/humanetech_] and subscribe to our Substack [https://centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com/]. RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES What Happened in Vegas with Natasha Dow Schüll  [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/1-what-happened-in-vegas] Down the Rabbit Hole by Design. Guest: Guillaume Chaslot [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/4-down-the-rabbit-hole-by-design] Forever Chemicals, Forever Consequences: What PFAS Teaches Us About AI  [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/forever-chemicals-forever-consequences-what-pfas-teaches-us-about-ai] The Power of Solutions Journalism with Tina Rosenberg and Hélène Biandudi Hofer  [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/40-the-power-of-solutions-journalism] The Invisible Cyber-War with Nicole Perlroth [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/55-the-invisible-cyber-war] Anthropic’s Mythos Has Changed Cybersecurity Forever. What Now? [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/anthropics-mythos-has-changed-cybersecurity-forever-what-now] How OpenAI's ChatGPT Guided a Teen to His Death [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/how-openai-s-chatgpt-guided-a-teen-to-his-death] Attachment Hacking and the Rise of AI Psychosis [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/attachment-hacking-and-the-rise-of-ai-psychosis] Digital Democracy is Within Reach with Audrey Tang [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/23-digital-democracy-is-within-reach] The Tech We Need for 21st Century Democracy with Divya Siddarth [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/the-tech-we-need-for-21st-century-democracy-with-divya-siddarth] Mind the (Perception) Gap with Dan Vallone  [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/33-mind-the-perception-gap] CORRECTIONS Aza incorrectly named Tina Rosenberg as one of the founders of Solutions Journalism. Her organization's name is the Solutions Journalism Network.  Aza stated that “chatbots are better than any human at persuading people out of conspiracy theories.” This is in reference to a study that found AIs to be very slightly more persuasive than human experts; we can’t extrapolate from that that they are better than any human. The point stands that they are remarkably good persuasion machines. Aza referred to EO Wilson as the “father of evolutionary biology,” but the field he is largely credited with founding is sociobiology.  Aza cited Spain and Denmark as examples of countries that have banned social media for teens. However, these countries have only proposed such bans; they have not been enacted.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 world where these systems are mostly secure, life is more convenient and efficient. But all that comes into question when an AI system can break through the security that runs the world. That’s what’s happened with Claude Mythos, Anthropic’s most powerful AI model yet. In a very short time, Claude found thousands of flaws and vulnerabilities in the software that runs the world, in every major operating system and web browser — systems that human security researchers had thought were secure for years. How do we live in a world where a private company suddenly has a skeleton key that can unlock the entire digital world with little oversight or accountability? And what does Mythos mean for all of us who rely on digital security to go about our lives? In this episode, we speak with two cybersecurity experts to answer these questions: Josephine Wolff [https://fletcher.tufts.edu/academics/faculty/josephine-wolff]is a professor of cybersecurity policy at Tufts University, where she focuses on the economic impact of cyberattacks.  Fred Heiding [https://www.belfercenter.org/people/fred-heiding] is a research fellow at the Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology [https://www.humanetech.com/]. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_ [https://twitter.com/humanetech_] and subscribe to our Substack [https://centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com/]. RECOMMENDED MEDIA  The Claude Mythos System Card [https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/8b8380204f74670be75e81c820ca8dda846ab289.pdf] The Project Glasswing announcement [https://www.anthropic.com/glasswing] “Black-hat LLMs,” a talk on AI’s hacking capabilities by senior Anthropic researcher Nicholas Carlini [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sd26pWhfmg&t=78s] You'll See This Message When It Is Too Late: The Legal and Economic Aftermath of Cybersecurity Breaches [https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262038850/youll-see-this-message-when-it-is-too-late/]  by Josephine Wolff [https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262038850/youll-see-this-message-when-it-is-too-late/] “America’s Endangered AI: How Weak Cyberdefenses Threaten U.S. Tech Dominance,” by Fred Heiding and Chris Ingles [https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/americas-endangered-ai] RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES America and China Are Racing to Different AI Futures [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/america-and-china-are-racing-to-different-ai-futures] “Rogue AI” Used to be a Science Fiction Trope. Not Anymore. [https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/rogue-ai-used-to-be-a-science-fiction-trope-not-anymore] The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive [https://centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com/p/the-self-preserving-machine-why-ai] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com [https://pcm.adswizz.com] for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.