Jonathan Haidt: belief

Transcript context

…That’s what the Aztecs did. They put nixtamal in their tortillas, and they don’t get scurvy for that reason. They didn’t eat oranges. They did adapt to it. Ah, I see. What I’m trying to argue here is that humans, as mammals, have certain requirements in childhood, and those are for a lot of play, face-to-face interaction, eye contact, synchrony, a lot of those things. My argument is that the virtual life, the phone-based life is blocking that, so it’s not like they’re going to be able to grow up without that stuff. I think your argument is that AI will play the role of whatever the Aztecs did. AI will allow kids to basically just sit in a room for 18 years and still get face-to-face contact virtually, synchrony, humor, social skills. They could, in theory, sit in their room alone for 18 years and just be fed food and social experiences. Do you think we could do that? That’s one scenario, but the more optimistic scenario is, you talk about this 5- to 10-hour flow of messages you need to manage. AI will do that for you, and you’ll have a lot more time again, and you’ll spend it meeting up with your friends. Like it is fun, right? The fact that it’s fun means it’s not just a public good. Kids will find ways of doing this.…

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