New World Same Humans

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 11,000+ curious souls on a journey to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

We’ve become accustomed to asking: is 2020 the start of a great change? And it’s clear we can’t answer that question without thinking about the future of capitalism.

That’s what this week’s essay seeks to do. Specifically, it takes aim at a much-repeated but little-examined idea: that we live inside a kind of economic and cultural after-time, which we call late-stage capitalism. I wonder whether that is really true. In the essay, I float a new way to judge how far into the evolution of capitalism we’ve travelled.

Also, a little innovation when it comes to this newsletter. Two changes, both designed to to ensure you can quickly draw maximum value from New World Same Humans.

First, I’m adding a new permanent section to this newsletter called Fast Download. This is a bullet-point summary of the argument made in the essay. You can read more about it, and see it for yourself, in the text version of this instalment.

Second, the regular snippets section will now become a separate email – delivered every Wednesday. The format stays the same: new stories and super-fast analysis.

So NWSH now becomes the Sunday essay and the Wednesday news.

Enough introduction; just hit play! And if you’d rather read this instalment, check out the text version of New World Same Humans #30.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. The idea that we live inside late-stage capitalism has become commonplace.

2. Replika is an AI-fuelled virtual companion.

3. Simulated worlds such as Fortnite are becoming new domains of meaningful experience.

4. The American philosopher Robert Nozick conceived of an Experience Machine.

Network effects

Thanks for reading this week.

We may be a long way from the Experience Machine, but together we’re building something almost as exciting. That is, a community dedicated to understanding our shared future – and to mutual empowerment, support and inspiration. Each one of us is a valuable node in the growing New World Same Humans network.

Behind the scenes, the NWSH team is working hard to take this community to the next stage. There’s one thing you can do to help. Link up more people!

So if you found today’s instalment useful, please forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why you find this newsletter valuable.

Your membership of our community is so appreciated. I’ll be back next Sunday; until then, be well.

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 11,000+ curious souls on a journey to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

The world around us tends towards chaos. Meanwhile, we seek constantly to impose our structures on it.

This week is all about a structured way of thinking about the future. More specifically, it’s about three trends.

Trends allow us to process, and make sense of, the changes we see around us. They do that by asking us to see that change through the lens of fundamental and unchanging human needs.

Specifically, trends ask us to look at how change is unlocking new ways to serve those age-old needs: security, value, social connection, and others. When that happens – when change unlocks new ways to serve basic needs –new behaviours, habits and expectations are sure to follow.

In this week’s episode, you’ll hear about three emerging trends that I’ve been tracking recently. I think each is powerful, and will help shape the new world that lies ahead:

🔎 Truth Verticals: An ecosystem of new armies in the information war

🤖 The Represented Self: Live your best life – because the machines are always watching

🎓 Silicon Schools: Big Tech companies become the new Ivy League

That’s enough by way of introduction. Hit play and start listening! And if you’d rather read this instalment, check out the text version of New World Same Humans #29.

Links in this week’s instalment

Truth Verticals:

1. Chinese internet censorship aims to impose an alternate reality on citizens.

2. New technologies can help us identify deepfakes.

3. The brilliant Our World in Data.

4. A new UN Truth Vertical around the coronavirus.

The Represented Self

1. Fawkes is a new privacy tool that allows users to cloak their pictures against facial recognition.

2. These tee-shirts confuse facial recognition technologies.

3. Amazon is using AI and facial recognition to monitor staff behaviour at fulfilment centres.

4. Kia Motors want to build cars that respond to the emotions of their drivers.

Silicon Schools:

1. Over 20% of this year’s freshman Harvard class has deferred.

2. Google has launched a range of new courses that its recruiters will consider equivalent to four-year degrees.

Let’s start trending

Thanks so much for listening this week.

Together, we in the New Worlds Same Humans community are on a journey to understand our shared future.

And more than that, this community is for those on a mission to help build that future. Whether you’re a founder, innovator, product designer, marketer, policy maker, and much else besides, New World Same Humans wants to provide content and tools that will empower you to think more clearly about the decades ahead.

There’s one thing you can do to help – bring more great people to the club!

So if you found today’s instalment useful, please forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why you find this newsletter valuable.

I’ll be back next Sunday! Until then, be well.

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 10,000+ curious souls on a journey to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

Under lockdown, life is atomised.

You used to sit in the office, sipping a coffee, working on your laptop and chatting to a colleague – all at once. Now you sit at your kitchen table and work alone. Later, you Zoom a colleague for 30 minutes. You make your own coffee. Back to the laptop.

For months now ordinary experiences have been broken down into their constituent parts and then served back to us. It’s been a novel, strange kind of defamiliarisation. But it also has deep consequences for the way our societies work, and for what lies ahead.

This week, I want to look at those consequences. In particular at the common theme that runs through many of them: our desire, and need, to learn.

Ready? Then hit play!

If you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the the text version of New World Same Humans #28.

Links in this week’s instalment

The School of Life:

1. Business thinker and New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway on the unbundling of higher education.

2. Former a16z VC and technology thinker Li Jin on employment as a bundle.

3. Martin Recke, Corporate Editor at SinnerSchrader and founder of the NEXT Conference, on business events as bundles.

4. The social innovator Michael Young.

Bright lights, big city?

1. Last week’s essay on GPT-3, neural networks, and minds. This week, GPT-3 wrote its own essay on AIs and minds.

2. A new MIT report says cities are no longer escalators of opportunity. We talked about the end of the Great Age of the City in NWSH #12.

3. Matthew Taylor, CEO of the Royal Society of Arts, says it’s time for a new Reflexive Age in his annual RSA lecture.

4. People are having business meetings inside video games. We talked about the virtual experience economy in NWSH #15.

Forward, together

Thanks for listening this week.

Together, we’re forging a community for all those on a mission to build a better shared future. That means innovators, technologists, founders, strategists, product people, designers, marketers, policy makers, and more. It means you.

Learning and education will need to play a massive role in the new, improved New World Same Humans that is coming. I’m thinking hard about what that looks like, and pondering NWSH courses on foresight methodologies, better decision making, and more. There are two things you can do to help.

First, write and tell me what you want to learn from New World Same Humans. I’m also keen to hear what kinds of learning formats would work for you: text, podcast, hangout, something else? The more data I gather, the better this community can serve you. And I promise to write back!

Second, our community is only as strong as its members. So if you found today’s instalment useful, please forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why you find this newsletter valuable. Just hit the share button!

The more interesting people join us on our journey, the better for us all.

That’s enough from me for this week. Until next Sunday, be well,

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 10,000+ curious souls on a journey to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

This week: we need to talk about neural networks.

Many of you will already know why. You’ve seen the demonstrations, read the stories, surfed both the wave of hype and the backlash to it.

I’m here to reignite that hype all over again. Well, not quite. But I am here to question whether the hype backlash is, itself, over hyped. And that means asking some big questions about the nature of minds, and what the emergence of AI means for our shared future.

Our journey starts, though, with a short and strange paragraph. Enough reading: hit play and hear it!

If you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the the text version of New World Same Humans #27.

Links in this week’s instalment

Do you mind:

1. A short story about Harry Potter written in the style of Raymond Chandler, by GPT-3.

2. GPT-3’s news article about the recent split in the Methodist Church.

3. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s tweet against excessive GPT-3 hype.

4. American philosopher Daniel Dennett’s views on consciousness.

5. Neural network expert Geoffrey Hinton on getting to a trillion parameters.

6. The Turing Test and what it is intended to tell us.

Attack of the robot dolphins

1. A New Zealand company has created incredibly realistic robot dolphins.

2. US investors including Sequoia Capital are making a play to buy TikTok.

3. A new poll says almost half of British people think Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

4. You can now play 90s-era first-person shooter game Doom inside the social video game Roblox.

All for one

Thanks for listening this week.

The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe. We can think of it as a piece of organic technology; one far in advance of any neural network we’ve so far managed to build. And it’s over 200,000 years old.

Those facts lie close to the heart of the core message of this newsletter. Yes, we live in a fast-changing and complex world. But amid all that we’re still the same humans, with the same old human nature. New World Same Humans is on mission to interrogate that fascinating predicament – to understand the trends reshaping the world around us, and what they mean for the way we’ll live, work, play and think in the decades ahead.

In 2020, that mission feels more urgent than ever. I hope that as our community grows, we can come to play our own small role in building a better future. So if you found today’s instalment valuable, please forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why you listen to it:

I’ll be back next Sunday; until then, be well.

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 10,000+ curious souls on a journey to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

We’re living in fractious times. You’ve probably noticed. This week, two thoughts related to that observation.

First, an attempt to take a long view on the 2020 culture wars.

Second, a simple formula that captures the promise consumer societies make to their inhabitants, and the way that promise is now breaking down.

If you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the the text version of New World Same Humans #26.

Links in this week’s instalment

Revolution in the head:

1. The open letter to Harper’s Magazine in which 150 eminent authors, journalists and academics complain about a new ‘cancel culture.

Time slips away:

1. An article in Noema magazine says it’s time to haul democracy out of the 19th-century.

2. Google have published a new report on how consumers make purchasing decisions online. TL:DR: they don’t do it rationally.

3. BA have retired their fleet of 747s earlier than expected.

4. An essay by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei says time has dissolved during the pandemic.

New patented formula:

1. The UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility says unemployment could rise to 4 million.

Fix up look sharp

Thanks so much for listening this week.

New technologies may be eroding the link between work and value, but no machine can do what we, the New World Same Humans community, are trying to do together. That is, to look out to the world, make sense of it, and find ways to build a better shared future.  

It’s a project that I’ve become pretty obsessed with. I’m like:

Whether you’re a founder, innovator, product designer, marketer, policy maker, and much else besides, New World Same Humans wants to provide content and tools that will help you sharpen yourself, and enable you to think more clearly about the trends reshaping the decades ahead.

Soon, we’ll all be learning from one another in a New World Same Humans community platform.

So if you found today’s instalment useful, please forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why you find this newsletter valuable. All you have to do is navigate back to the article page where this podcast is embedded and hit the share button.

I’ll be back next Sunday; until then, be well.

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 9,000+ curious souls on a journey to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

The internet was supposed to bring us closer together. The reality: not so much.

This week, though, I look at an internet trend that may do more than any other to estrange billions of people from one another in the decades ahead.

Intrigued? Hit play!

If you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the the text version of New World Same Humans #25.

Links in this week’s instalment

One wall, two realities:

1. TikTok is pulling out of Hong Kong.

2. New World Same Humans #13, in which I wrote about the trend towards human unification.

Lucky for some:

1. Anduril is building a virtual border wall between the US and Mexico.

2. Young workers are missing the office more than their older counterparts.

3. Niantic, makers of Pokémon Go, are partnering with UK immersive theatre company Punchdrunk. This will remind regular readers of a NWSH obsession: augmented modernity.

4. The historian Peter Turchin predicted that 2020 would be a year of unrest in the US.

Internet dream time

Thanks so much for listening this week.

When it comes to the future – and bifurcation – of the internet, New World Same Humans will keep watching. This instalment covered an unlikely trifecta: TikTok, Trump, and the CCP. With those players on the field, who can say where the game goes from here? It’s a crazy time.

In the meantime, though, the New World Same Humans community is busy building its own little corner of the internet. And we should invite more people to the party!

So if you found today’s instalment useful, please forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and people know why you find this newsletter valuable.

Until next week, thanks for listening,

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 9,000+ curious souls on a journey to build a better shared future 🚀🔮

This week’s instalment asks two Big Questions about our shared future.

First, who will control the thinking machines that we’re currently creating? Second, where next when it comes to the eternal human quest for meaning?

Spoiler alert: I don’t have the answers. Think of the two short pieces in this week’s email as thought starters. I hope they fuel your thinking, and I’ll be returning to the ideas discussed here in the months ahead.

Enough preamble: just press play!

If you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the the text version of New World Same Humans #24.

Links in this week’s instalment

Intro:

1. New World Same Humans #13, in which I wrote about Big History.

Who controls the thinking machines?

2. New World Same Humans #1, in which I wrote about James Lovelock.

Touch the screen:

3. Quibi is a $1.75 rival to Netflix, and it has been a spectacular flop.

4. The Atlantic magazine says Hong Kong is becoming a colony once again.

5. A YouTuber called Mr Beast ran a competition called ‘Finger on the App’.

Everything must go:

6. The new video game Among Trees is another signal of the way simulated worlds are becoming domains of meaning and life experience.

Who needs self-lacing shoes?

Thanks so much for listening this week. I hope New World Same Humans is proving useful to you, and helping to fuel your thinking when it comes to where we’re at now and what you should do next.

Understanding more about our shared future has been a lifelong obsession for me. And while I’m still waiting for the self-lacing sneakers we were promised in Back to the Future, that obsession is only intensifying.

Nike actually make these shoes now! I just don’t have a pair.

When it comes to NWSH, this newsletter is just the first iteration. In the weeks ahead I’ll continue to plan all kinds of new content formats. All of them will be intended to share new ideas, perspectives and evidence on our shared past, present and future with the NWSH community Any thoughts on what you’d like to see? Email me.

In the meantime, we can make our community more powerful in one important way: by growing it!

So if you found today’s instalment useful, please forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or share New World Same Humans across one of your social networks, and let people know why you find this newsletter valuable:

The more great people who join our community, the better for all of us!

Until next week, thanks for reading,

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 9,000+ curious souls on a journey to build a better shared future:

This week’s instalment is about power.

More specifically, it’s about the idea that ‘algorithms will soon know us better than we know ourselves’, and what that means for the future of the societies we live in.

The historian and techno-futurist Yuval Harari says that in a world of all-knowing algorithms, liberal democracy will no longer make sense. People will ask: ‘why should I vote, when The Algorithm can vote on my behalf?’

Harari thinks that challenge may prove fatal for democracy. But I think there’s an answer. To learn more, press play!

If you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the the text version of New World Same Humans #23.

Links in this week’s instalment

1. The New York Times article about Robert Julian-Borchak Williams, a 42-year-old African-American who, says the paper, is the first person to be arrested for a crime he didn’t commit after a being misidentified by a facial recognition algorithm.

2. A new paper from researchers at Harrisburg University, who claim to have created a facial recognition algorithm that could ‘predict if someone is a criminal based solely on a picture of their face.’

3. TikTok’s limited explanation of its For You algorithm, which helps shape what 800 million active users get to see on the platform.

New World Leviathan

The iconic illustration that accompanied Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan is one of my favourite ever images. It so perfectly captures the powerful, frightening idea that stands at the heart of the book: that sovereign power comes into being when a multitude of people hand their natural power over themselves to a single individual.

Just like Hobbes’s Leviathan, New World Same Humans is a single entity made up of many people. Luckily, that’s where the similarity ends; no sovereign power is involved! Instead, we’re building a decentralised community where everyone gets to represent themselves, and everyone gets to have a say.

As promised, the Slack group that makes that promise a reality is on the way!

In the meantime, we can make our community more powerful in one important way: by growing it! So if you found today’s instalment valuable, please forward this email to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or hit the share button below and let people know why you enjoy NWSH.

The more great people who join our community, the better for all of us!

Until next week, thanks for listening,

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 9,000+ curious souls on a journey to understand to build a better shared future:

This is the third audio edition of the New World Same Humans newsletter. And this week, it’s introduced by Alexa!

A number of you have asked for the Sunday instalments as a podcast, and I’ll be recording an audio version of every Sunday newsletter from now on. Let me know what you think.

This week, I write about the changing nature of our relationship with digital technology. In particular, the rise of virtual companions: AI fuelled entities that could become the counsellors, gurus, and even friends of the future.

If you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the the text version of New World Same Humans #22.

Links in this week’s instalment

The virtual companions essay:

1. Akili’s EndeavorRX, the first video game to be approved by the FDA as a medical treatment.

2. Woebot is a chatbot for cognitive behavioural therapy that now exchanges 4.7 million messages with people each week.

3. Samsung’s new range of AI-fuelled virtual friends, called NEONS.

Snippets from Anonymous Anteater:

1. The Technology Review says the humble Google doc has emerged as a key collaboration tool among protestors in recent weeks.

2. The Black Lives Matter AR lenses give a glimpse of how AR will reshape our experience of communal events in years to come.

3. A new book says our societies are devolving towards a new kind of feudalism.

4. The Charity Text Line CEO was fired when employees went to Twitter with their concerns over her racial insensitivity.

You must complete your mission, Dave

I still can’t write about virtual companions without remembering HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi epic Space Odyssey.

We’re a long way of that kind of artificial general super-intelligence. And if it arrives, let’s hope it’s less sinister than HAL.

Either way, New World Same Humans will be watching this trend – and many others – as it evolves. And our growing community will be thinking hard about what it all means.

So if you found today’s instalment useful, please forward the emai version to one person – a friend, family member or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or hit the share button below and let people know why you find this newsletter valuable.

Let the hivemind that is NWSH grow ever larger!

Thanks so much for listening, and see you next week,

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz

Welcome to the podcast version of New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

If you’re listening to this and you haven’t yet subscribed, then join 8,000+ curious souls on a journey to understand to build a better shared future:

This is the second audio edition of the New World Same Humans newsletter.

A number of you have asked for the Sunday instalments as a podcast, and I’ll be recording an audio version of every Sunday newsletter from now on. Let me know what you think!

This week, I want to share a powerful tool that can help you see, and plan for, the possible futures that lie ahead of you. It’s called the Four Futures framework, and it’s the creation of Professor James Dator, one the fathers of future studies in the US.

If you prefer to read this week’s instalment, go here for the the text version of New World Same Humans #21.

Links in this week’s instalment

The Four Futures essay:

1. The homepage of Professor James Dator of the University of Hawaii.

2. James Dator’s essay on the Four Futures framework.

Space Force is go:

1. The future of cities. New World Same Humans #12. A new poll by Ipsos MORI finds 44% of Britons expect cities to become less attractive places to live.

2. A Harvard Business Review paper on personality attributes that lead to career success.

3. People are starting businesses inside New Horizons: Animal Crossing. NWSH #15 was about the rise of video games as domains of meaningful experience.

4. Netflix is fighting the US government for ownership of the name ‘Space Force’.

Let’s build this thing!

I started this newsletter back in January, and sent the first instalment to a list of around 100 friends and colleagues. Now, over 8,000 curious people receive New World Same Humans in their inbox every Sunday 🙏🙏

So far, it’s been a one-to-many situation. But that is all about to change. More than anything, NWSH should be a community that supercharges you via new ideas, tools, and personal connections. To that end, we’re about to open a Slack group where we can all talk, share and connect. Watch out for an invite in your inbox soon.

The bigger and more active that community becomes, the better for all of us.

So here’s how you can help. If you found the Four Futures exercise useful, forward this email to one another person – a family member, friend or colleague – who’d also enjoy it. Or share NWSH across a social network, with a comment on why it’s valuable to you:

This community belongs to all of us. Let’s make it count!

Thanks for listening, and see you next week,

David.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.newworldsamehumans.xyz