Welcome to our first-ever Ask Us Anything episode. Recently we put out a call for questions… and, wow, did you come through! We got more than 100 responses from listeners to this podcast from all over the world. It was really fun going through them all, and really difficult to choose which ones to answer here. But we heard you, and we’ll carry your amazing suggestions and ideas forward with us in 2023.

When we created Your Undivided Attention, the goal was to explore the incredible power technology has over our lives, and how we can use it to catalyze a humane future. Three years and a global pandemic later, we’re more committed than ever to helping meet the moment with crucial conversations about humane technology - even as the tech landscape constantly evolves and world events bring more urgency to the need for technology that unites us, invests in democratic values, and enhances our well-being.

We’ve learned from our guests alongside all of you. Sixty-one episodes later, the podcast has over 16 million unique downloads! That’s a lot of people who care about the promise of humane technology and are working to construct a more humane version of technology in their lives, their family’s lives, and within their communities and society at large. We’re a movement! 

Thank you to everyone who submitted questions and comments for us. We loved doing this, and we’re looking forward to doing it again!

Correction:

When discussing DeepMind’s recent paper, Aza said the premise was four people entering their views and opinions, with AI finding the commonality between all of those viewpoints. It was actually three people entering their views and opinions.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

CHT’s Recommended Reading List:

Foundations of Humane Technology

Our free, self-paced online course for professionals shaping tomorrow’s technology

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff 

Foundational reading on the attention economy

Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble 

Seminal work on how algorithms in search engines replicate and reinforce bias online and offline

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman 

Written in 1985, Postman’s work shockingly predicts our current media environment and its effects

Attention Merchants by Tim Wu

A history of how advertisers capture our attention

Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth 

A compass for how to upgrade our economic models to be more regenerative and distributive

Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows

This excellent primer shows us how to develop systems thinking skills

What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael Sandel

Sandel explores how we can prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don’t belong

Essay: Disbelieving Atrocities by Arthur Koestler

Originally published January 9, 1944 in The New York Times

Humane Technology reading list

Comprehensive for those who want to geek out

ORGANIZATIONS TO EXPLORE 

Integrity Institute

Integrity Institute advances the theory and practice of protecting the social internet, powered by their community of integrity professionals

All Tech Is Human job board

All Tech Is Human curates roles focused on reducing the harms of technology, diversifying the tech pipeline, and ensuring that technology is aligned with the public interest

Denizen

Denizen brings together leaders across disciplines to accelerate systemic change

New_Public

New_Public is place for thinkers, builders, designers and technologists to meet and share inspiration

Psychology of Technology Institute

PTI is non-profit network of behavioral scientists, technology designers, and decision-makers that protects and improves psychological health for society by advancing our understanding and effective use of transformative technologies

RadicalxChange

RxC is a social movement for next-generation political economies

The School for Social Design

The School for Social Design offers three courses on articulating what’s meaningful for different people and how to design for it at smaller and larger scales

TechCongress

TechCongress is a technology policy fellowship on Capitol Hill

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES 

An Alternative to Silicon Valley Unicorns

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/54-an-alternative-to-silicon-valley-unicorns

A Problem Well-Stated is Half-Solved

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/a-problem-well-stated-is-half-solved

Digital Democracy is Within Reach

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/23-digital-democracy-is-within-reach

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When you look at the world, it can feel like we're in a precarious moment. If you’ve listened to past episodes, you know we call this the meta-crisis — an era of overlapping and interconnected crises like climate change, polarization, and the rise of decentralized technologies like synthetic biology. It can feel like we’re on a path to destroy ourselves.

That's why we’re talking to Rick Doblin, the founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS. They’re a nonprofit focused on educating and researching the benefits of using psychedelic therapy to address PTSD and promote humane ways of relating worldwide.

Doblin’s vision is for nothing less than a transformation of society through psychedelic-assisted therapy – not for the drugs themselves, but for their ability to help us react to one another with compassion, appreciate differences, and accept criticism.

Given the perma-crisis we face, it’s provocative to think about a tool that, when prescribed and used safely, could help us overcome rivalrous dynamics out in the world and on social media. If we rescue our hijacked brains, we can heal from the constant trauma inflation we get online, and shrink the perception gap that splits us into tribes.

Both MAPS and Center for Humane Technology want to understand what helps minds heal and be free. We invite you to keep an open mind about a different kind of humane technology as you listen to this episode. 

Correction: 

Doblin attributes a quote to Stan Grof about psychedelics helping your ego be “transparent to the transcendent.” In his book Pathways to Bliss, Joseph Campbell wrote, "When a deity serves as a model for you, your life becomes transparent to the transcendent as long as you realize the inspiring power of that deity. This means living not in the name of worldly success and achievement, but rather in the name of the transcendent, letting the energy manifest through you.” Grof was likely paraphrasing Campbell’s work and applying it to psychedelics. 

Additional credits:

The episode contains an original musical composition by Jeff Sudakin. Used with permission.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

The non-profit founded by Rick Doblin in 1986 focused on developing medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana. MAPS has some open clinical trials; see details on their website. 

Rick Doblin’s TED talk

In this fascinating dive into the science of psychedelics, Doblin explains how drugs like LSD, psilocybin and MDMA affect your brain - and shows how, when paired with psychotherapy, they could change the way we treat PTSD, depression, substance abuse and more.

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

Pollan writes of his own consciousness-expanding experiments with psychedelic drugs, and makes the case for why shaking up the brain's old habits could be therapeutic for people facing addiction, depression, or death.

How to Change Your Mind on Netflix

The docuseries version of Pollan’s book

Breath by James Nestor

This popular science book provides a historical, scientific and personal account of breathing, with special focus on the differences between mouth breathing and nasal breathing.

Insight timer

A free app for sleep, anxiety, and stress

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES 

You Will Never Breathe the Same Again with James Nestor

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/38-you-will-never-breathe-the-same-again

Two Million Years in Two Hours: A Conversation with Yuval Noah Harari 

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/28-two-million-years-in-two-hours-a-conversation-with-yuval-noah-harari

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_
 

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When it comes to social media risk, there is reason to hope for consensus. Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris recently helped launch a new initiative called the Council for Responsible Social Media (CRSM) in Washington, D.C. It’s a coalition between religious leaders, public health experts, national security leaders, and former political representatives from both sides - people who just care about making our democracy work.

During this event, Tristan sat down with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, a friend of Center for Humane Technology, to discuss the harm caused to our mental health and global democracy when platforms lack accountability and transparency. The CRSM is bipartisan, and its kickoff serves to boost the solutions Frances and Tristan identify going into 2023.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

Council for Responsible Social Media (CRSM)

A project of Issue One, CRSM is a cross-partisan group of leaders addressing the negative mental, civic, and public health impacts of social media in America.

Twitter Whistleblower Testifies on Security Issues

Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a former Twitter security executive, testified on privacy and security issues relating to the social media company before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Beyond the Screen

Beyond the Screen is a coalition of technologists, designers, and thinkers fighting against online harms, led by the Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen.

#OneClickSafer Campaign

Our campaign to pressure Facebook to make one immediate change — join us!

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES 

A Conversation with Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/42-a-conversation-with-facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen

A Facebook Whistleblower: Sophie Zhang

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/episode-37-a-facebook-whistleblower

Mr. Harris Zooms to Washington 

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/episode-35-mr-harris-zooms-to-washington

With Great Power Comes… No Responsibility? 
https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/3-with-great-power-comes-no-responsibility

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The weekly American news show 60 Minutes invited Center for Humane Technology co-founder Tristan Harris back recently to discuss political polarization and the anger and incivility that gets elevated on social media as a matter of corporate profit. We're releasing a special episode of Your Undivided Attention this week to dig further into some of the important nuances of the complexity of this problem.

CHT’s work was actually introduced to the world by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes back in 2017, and we’re honored to have been invited back. In this new interview, we cover the business model of competing for engagement at all costs - the real root of the problem that we’re thrilled to be able to discuss on a far-reaching platform.

We also busted the myth that if you’re not on social media, you don’t need to be concerned. Even if you're not on social media, you likely live in a country that will vote based on other people’s collective choices and behaviors. We know that the media we engage with shapes the people who consume it.
 

CORRECTION: 

• Tristan notes that Facebook's Head of Global Policy, Monika Bickert, says in the  interview that social media can't be the root of America's anger because it's people over the age of 60 who are most polarized. She actually said that people over the age of 65 are most polarized.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA

60 Minutes: “Social Media and Political Polarization in America”

https://humanetech.com/60minutes

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/297276/amusing-ourselves-to-death-by-neil-postman/

Neil Postman’s groundbreaking book about the damaging effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century.

60 Minutes: “Brain Hacking”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awAMTQZmvPE

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES 

Elon, Twitter, and the Gladiator Arena

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/elon-twitter-and-the-gladiator-arena

Addressing the TikTok Threat

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/bonus-addressing-the-tiktok-threat

What is Civil War In The Digital Age? With Barbara F Walter

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/50-what-is-civil-war-in-the-digital-age

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Since it’s looking more and more like Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, will probably soon have ownership of Twitter, we wanted to do a special episode about what this could mean for Twitter users and our global digital democracy as a whole.

Twitter is a very complicated place. It is routinely blocked by governments who fear its power to organize citizen protests around the world. It’s also where outrage, fear and violence get amplified by design, warping users’ views of each other and our common, connected humanity.

We’re at a fork in the road, and we know enough about humane design principles to do this better. So we thought we would do a little thought experiment: What if we applied everything we know about humane technology to Twitter, starting tomorrow? What would happen?

This is the second part in a two-part conversation about Twitter that we’ve had on Your Undivided Attention about Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter and what it could mean in the context of the need to go in a more humane direction.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill

Published in 1859, this philosophical essay applies Mill's ethical system of utilitarianism to society and state

Elon Musk Only Has “Yes” Men by Jonathan L. Fischer

Reporting from Slate on the subject 

Foundations of Humane Technology

The Center for Humane Technology's free online course for professionals shaping tomorrow's technology

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES 

A Bigger Picture on Elon and Twitter

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/bigger-picture-elon-twitter

Transcending the Internet Hate Game with Dylan Marron

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/52-transcending-the-internet-hate-game

Fighting With Mirages of Each Other with Adam Mastroianni

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/56-fighting-with-mirages-of-each-other

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We often talk about the need to protect American democracy. But perhaps those of us in the United States don't currently live in a democracy.

As research shows, there's pretty much no correlation between the percentage of the population that supports a policy and its likelihood of being enacted. The strongest determinant of whether a policy gets enacted is how much money is behind it.

So, how might we not just protect, but better yet revive our democracy? How might we revive  the relationship between the will of the people and the actions of our government?

This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're doing something special. As we near the election, and representation is on our minds, we're airing a talk by Harvard Law professor and Creative Commons co-founder Larry Lessig. It's a 2019 talk he gave at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, DC about his book, They Don't Represent Us.

The book title has two meanings: first, they — as in our elected representatives — don't represent us. And second, we — as in the people — don't represent ourselves. And this is where social media comes in: we don't represent ourselves because the more we use social media, the more we see extreme versions of the other side, and the more extreme, outraged, and polarized we ourselves become.

Last note: Lessig's talk is highly visual. We edited it lightly for clarity, and jump in periodically to narrate things you can’t see. But if you prefer to watch his talk, you can find the link below in Recommended Media.
 

RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

Video: They Don't Represent Us

The 2019 talk Larry Lessig gave at Politics and Prose in Washington, DC about his book of the same name

Book: They Don't Represent Us

Larry Lessig’s 2019 book that elaborates the ways in which democratic representation is in peril, and proposes a number of solutions to revive our democracy -- from ranked-choice voting to non-partisan open primaries

Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens 

Princeton's Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page study measuring the correlation between the preferences of different groups and the decisions of our government
 

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

Digital Democracy is Within Reach with Audrey Tang

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/23-digital-democracy-is-within-reach

How Political Language Is Engineered with Drew Westen and Frank Luntz

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/53-how-political-language-is-engineered

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The next frontier of the internet is the metaverse. That's why Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of his company from Facebook to Meta, and just sold $10 billion in corporate bonds to raise money for metaverse-related projects.

How might we learn from our experience with social media, and anticipate the harms of the metaverse before they arise? What would it look like to design a humane metaverse — that respects our attention, improves our well-being, and strengthens our democracy?

This week on Your Undivided Attention, we talk with two pioneers who are thinking critically about the development of the metaverse. Professor Jeremy Bailenson is the Founding director of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, where he studies how virtual experiences lead to changes in perceptions of self and others. Dr. Courtney Cogburn is an Associate Professor at Columbia's School of Social Work, where she examines associations between racism and stress-related disease. Jeremy and Courtney collaborated on 1000 Cut Journey, a virtual reality experience about systemic racism.

CORRECTIONS: 

1. In the episode, Courtney says that the average US adult consumes 9 hours of media per day, but the actual number in 2022 is closer to 13 hours.
2. Finally, Aza mentions the "pockets of 4.6 billion people" — implying that there are 4.6 billion smartphone users. The global number of social media users is 4.7 billion, and the number of smartphone users is actually 6.6 billion.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA: 

Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do

https://www.amazon.com/Experience-Demand-Virtual-Reality-Works/dp/0393253694
Jeremy Bailenson's 2018 book exploring how virtual reality can be harnessed to improve our everyday lives

Experiencing Racism in VR

https://www.ted.com/talks/courtney_cogburn_experiencing_racism_in_vr_courtney_d_cogburn_phd_tedxrva
Courtney Cogburn's 2017 TEDx talk about how using virtual reality to help people experience the complexities of racism

Do Artifacts Have Politics?

https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/Winner.pdf   
Technology philosopher Langdon Winner’s seminal 1980 article, in which he writes, "by far the greatest latitude of choice exists the very first time a particular instrument, system, or technique is introduced."

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES: 

Do You Want To Become A Vampire? with LA Paul

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/39-do-you-want-to-become-a-vampire

Pardon the Interruptions with Gloria Mark

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/7-pardon-the-interruptions

Bonus - What Is Humane Technology?

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/bonus-what-is-humane-technology

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Have you ever lost a friend to misperception? Have you lost a friend or a family member to the idea that your views got so different, that it was time to end the relationship — perhaps by unfriending each other on Facebook?

As it turns out, we often think our ideological differences are far greater than they actually are. Which means: we’re losing relationships and getting mired in polarization based on warped visions of each other. 

This week on Your Undivided Attention, we're talking with Adam Mastroianni, a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School who studies how we perceive and misperceive our social worlds. Together with Adam, we're going to explore how accurate — and inaccurate — our views of each other are. As you listen to our conversation, keep in mind that relationship you might have lost to misperception, and that you might be able to revive as a result of what you hear.

CORRECTIONS: In the episode, Adam says in 1978, 85% of people said they'd vote for a Black president, but the actual percentage is 80.4%. Tristan says that Republicans estimate that more than a third of Democrats are LGBTQ, but the actual percentage is 32%. Finally, Tristan refers to Anil Seth's notion of cognitive impenetrability, but that term was actually coined by the Canadian cognitive scientist and philosopher Zenon W. Pylyshyn.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

Widespread Misperceptions of Long-term Attitude Change
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2107260119   
Adam Mastroianni's research paper showing how stereotypes of the past lead people to misperceive attitude change, and how these misperceptions can lend legitimacy to policies that people may not actually prefer

Experimental History
https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/  
Adam's blog, where he shares original data and thinks through ideas

Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32412-y
Academic study showing that Americans are living in what researchers called a “false social reality” with respect to misperceptions about climate views

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES 

Mind the (Perception) Gap with Dan Vallone

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/33-mind-the-perception-gap

The Courage to Connect. Guests: Ciaran O’Connor and John Wood, Jr.

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/30-the-courage-to-connect

Transcending the Internet Hate Game with Dylan Marron

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/52-transcending-the-internet-hate-game

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Imagine it's the Cold War. Imagine that the Soviet Union puts itself in a position to influence the television programming of the entire Western world — more than a billion viewers. 

While this might sound like science fiction, it’s representative of the world we're living in, with TikTok being influenced by the Chinese Communist Party.

TikTok, the flagship app of the Chinese company Bytedance, recently surpassed Google and Facebook as the most popular site on the internet in 2021, and is expected to reach more than 1.8 billion users by the end of 2022. The Chinese government doesn't control TikTok, but has influence over it. What are the implications of this influence, given that China is the main geopolitical rival of the United States?

This week on Your Undivided Attention, we bring you a bonus episode about TikTok. Co-hosts Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin explore the nature of the TikTok threat, and how we might address it.

RECOMMENDED MEDIA 

Pew Research Center's "Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022"

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/

Pew's recent study on how TikTok has established itself as one of the top online platforms for U.S. teens

Axios' "Washington turns up the heat on TikTok"

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/07/congress-tiktok-china-privacy-data?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Article on recent Congressional responses to the threat of TikTok

Felix Krause on TikTok's keystroke tracking

https://twitter.com/KrauseFx/status/1560372509639311366

A revelation that TikTok has code to observe keypad input and all taps

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

A Fresh Take on Tech in China with Rui Ma and Duncan Clark

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/44-a-fresh-take-on-tech-in-china

A Conversation with Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/42-a-conversation-with-facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen

From Russia with Likes (Part 1). Guest: Renée DiResta

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/5-from-russia-with-likes-part-1

From Russia with Likes (Part 2). Guest: Renée DiResta

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/6-from-russia-with-likes-part-2
 

Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on Twitter: @HumaneTech_

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

At Center for Humane Technology, we often talk about multipolar traps — which arise when individuals have an incentive to act in ways that are beneficial to them in the short term, but detrimental to the group in the long term. Think of social media companies that compete for our attention, so that when TikTok introduces an even-more addictive feature, Facebook and Twitter have to mimic it in order to keep up, sending us all on a race to the bottom of our brainstems.

Intervening at the level of multipolar traps has extraordinary leverage. One such intervention is the Long Term Stock Exchange — a U.S. national securities exchange serving companies and investors who share a long-term vision. Instead of asking public companies to pollute less or be less addictive while holding them accountable to short-term shareholder value, the Long-Term Stock Exchange creates a new playing field, which incentivizes the creation of long-term stakeholder value.

This week on Your Undivided Attention, we’re airing an episode of a podcast called ZigZag — a fellow member of the TED Audio Collective. In an exploration of how technology companies might transcend multipolar traps, we're sharing with you ZigZag’s conversation with Long Term Stock Exchange founder Eric Ries.

CORRECTION: In the episode, we say that TikTok has outcompeted Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. In fact, TikTok has outcompeted Facebook, but not yet YouTube or Instagram — TikTok has 1 billion monthly users, while YouTube has 2.6 billion and Instagram has 2 billion. However, we can say that TikTok is on a path toward outcompeting YouTube and Instagram.

RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODES

An Alternative to Silicon Valley Unicorns with Mara Zepeda & Kate “Sassy” Sassoon: https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/54-an-alternative-to-silicon-valley-unicorns

A Problem Well-Stated Is Half-Solved with Daniel Schmachtenberger: https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/a-problem-well-stated-is-half-solved

Here’s Our Plan And We Don’t Know with Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin, and Stephanie Lepp: https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/46-heres-our-plan-and-we-dont-know

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.