In 2016 the AI program AlphaGo defeated the world champion at the board game Go.
“there is this famous example with the game of Go that in 2016 AlphaGo defeated the world champion, Lisa Doll.”
Person
Yuval Noah Harari
1 episodes · 18 quoted claims
Harari describes Go as a strategy game developed in ancient China and long regarded as a basic art for cultivated people in East Asia.
“a strategy game developed in ancient China, and considered one of the basic arts that any cultivated, civilized person in East in East Asia had to know.”
Yuval Noah Harari says he was originally a specialist in medieval military history, writing about the Crusades and the Hundred Years War.
“I was originally a specialist in medieval military history. I wrote about the uh, crusades and the hundred years war”
Harari says the main ancient democracies were small city-states such as Athens and Republican Rome.
“the only examples we have from the ancient world for democracies are small city-states, like Athens or Republican Rome.”
Harari says Stone Age hunter-gatherer bands were mostly democratic because they could simply talk things through.
“in the Stone Age, hunter gatherers living in small bands, they were mostly democratic.”
Harari argues large-scale democracy became possible only in the late modern era, with the newspaper, telegraph, radio and television.
“large scale democracy becomes possible only in the late modern era, when a couple of information technologies appear first the newspaper, then telegraph and radio and and television”
Harari says that in ancient Mesopotamia, writing on clay tablets changed ownership from a community agreement into a matter of documents held in a king's archive.
“Then comes writing, and you have written documents, and ownership changes its meaning.”
Harari says money and financial devices are fundamentally about creating trust between strangers.
“All these financial devices, money itself is really just trust.”
Harari says about a quarter of Venezuela's population fled the country, which was previously one of the richest in South America.
“something like a quarter of the population fled the country, which was one of the richest countries in in South America before”
Harari says Donald Trump did not hand over power peacefully after the 2020 election and tried to prevent the transfer.
“in 2020, he did not hand power peacefully. He tried to prevent it.”
Harari says the word bureaucracy comes from eighteenth-century French and means rule of the writing desk.
“It comes from French from the eighteenth century, and bureaucracy is is means the the rule of the writing desk”
Harari says the early internet metaphor was the web, but the new metaphor is the cocoon, which encloses people in separate information bubbles.
“The new metaphor is the cocoon. It's a web that turns on you and encloses you from all sides”
Harari cites Plato's allegory of the cave, in which prisoners mistake projected shadows for reality, as an ancient version of fears about screens and illusion.
“Plato wrote exactly about that in the most famous parable. I think from Greek philosophy is the the the allegory of the cave”
Philosopher Nick Bostrom invented the paperclip thought experiment about AI goals in 2014.
“the classical, uh, kind of example is a thought experiment invented by the philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2014”
Harari says that around 2014 the managers of Facebook and YouTube told their algorithms to increase user engagement.
“the managers of Facebook and YouTube, they told their algorithms. Your goal is to increase user engagement”
Harari argues digital evolution is billions of times faster than organic evolution, so AI could advance from an amoeba stage to a dinosaur stage in decades.
“But digital evolution is billions of times faster than organic evolution.”
Harari said he planned a sixty-day meditation retreat in India after finishing his book tour.
“I plan in December, after the book tour is over, to go sixty days for a meditation retreat in India.”
Harari says AI and algorithms create a 'silicon curtain' dividing people, comparing it to the Iron Curtain of the Cold War.
“just as we had kind of, you know, the the iron curtain in the cold war, now we have the silicon curtain.”