#319 — The Digital Multiverse

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sam Harris speaks with David Auerbach about the problematic structure of online networks. They discuss the tradeoffs between liberty and cooperation, the impossibility of fighting misinformation, bottom-up vs top-down influences, recent developments in AI, deepfakes, the instability of skepticism, the future of social media, the weaknesses of LLMs, breaking up digital bubbles, online identity and privacy, and other topics.

If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.
0:09.1	This is Sam Harris.
0:11.3	Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber
0:14.8	feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation.
0:18.6	In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe
0:22.5	at samharis.org.
0:24.5	There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with
0:28.3	other subscriber-only content.
0:30.7	We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support
0:34.6	of our subscribers.
0:36.0	So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
0:47.1	Today I'm speaking with David Auerbach.
0:49.9	David is a writer and technologist and software engineer.
0:55.3	He previously worked at Google and Microsoft after graduating from Yale University.
1:02.0	His writing has appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, MIT Technology Review, The Nation,
1:08.3	N plus 1 tablet, and elsewhere.
1:11.7	He teaches the history of computation at the new Center for Research and Practice.
1:16.2	And his most recent book is Meganez, How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Common Deer
1:21.1	Are Daily Lives and Inner Realities.
1:24.2	And that is the topic of today's conversation.
1:26.1	We talk about the growth and the problems of online networks, the trade-offs between
1:32.3	liberty and cooperation, the apparent impossibility of getting rid of misinformation, bottom-up
	...

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