Hi everybody. I'm Nikolai Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. And today I'm in

really good company with Sir David Spiegelhalter. He is, well, I would say he's the world best

statistician and for sure the best communicator of risk that I've ever seen. Written lots of

fantastic books and is particularly known for making

statistics, which is difficult, really accessible for most people. So big thanks for joining us.

No, great, great pleasure to be here.

Having worked with risks, what's the main thing that you have learned about human psychology?

Well, first of all, that I'm not a psychologist. So, you know, I am a statistician, but I have done my best to learn from psychologists that I have worked with.

And I suppose just from observing how people react to risk and uncertainty.

I tend to think of the broader idea of uncertainty rather than just risk, everything to do with not knowing about what might happen in the future or even not knowing what's going on at the moment or what's happened in the past.

All these things we are uncertain about.

Some of them, you know, usually things do have an upside and a downside, and so they could be

considered risks depending on how they occur.

But I think, you know, what I've learned is that people, you know, have to live with uncertainty.

When you ask people, they say, oh, I don't like uncertainty. But some people like it, right? Well, some people like it. Some people are a bit more bold than others. But the point is that when you actually then go a bit further and say, well, do you want to know what you're going to get for Christmas? Do you want to know how a match is going to end, if you've recorded it or something?

Do you want to know, do you want to know what you're going to get for Christmas? Do you want to know how a match is going to end, you know, if you've recorded it or something? Do you want to know, do you just jump to the end of your, you know, series on TV to see the last episode and see what happens? Also, the thing I ask is, do you want to know when you're going to die, if I could tell you. No, they all say no. Some would quite, some would like to know when

they're going to die. Some are so in a way uncertainty averse that they really like to have

everything planned. But most people have realized that you've got to live with uncertainty and

think of a life without uncertainty, without some risk. What are the people who hate risks the most?

Oh, there are some people, I think, who are very cautious, who would like to have everything

planned out, who want to feel that they can control all contingencies and have mapped out

the possibilities.

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