Steven Pinker on Revolutions, Rogue AI, and the Struggle for Reality

Dr. Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist at Harvard, a 2x Pulitzer Prize finalist, and author of notable works like The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Enlightenment Now.

Today we discuss his research on the psychology of common knowledge and what it means for democracy in a time of infinite AI slop and social media confusion.

We also dive into deeper philosophical questions on AI consciousness and rogue AI — note that this was recorded before the recent Hugging Face incident, making our commentary especially urgent.

His excellent most recent book: When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows… inspired me to write The Noisy Room — an interactive essay that explains how we might fix the common-knowledge trap sprung by social media.

Programming note: We’ve been off working hard on a great new season of content. I want to offer enormous gratitude to our subscribers for their steady support. Thank you.

A small ask:

The irony is not lost on me in trying to critique the algorithms while still being dependent upon them to reach the right audience.

If you do enjoy the show, please share this episode with a friend and drop us a rating.

You can follow us here:

* Apple Podcasts

* YouTube

* Spotify

* Instagram

Thanks for listening, and please do subscribe.

-Tobias