YouSaid · the spoken record

Justin Hempson-Jones

lines on the record: 27
first: 2024-08-21
most recent: 2024-08-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yeah, so I think the most important thing in our time is to connect with those who don't think like we do. It's our natural instinct as humans to connect with those who are like us. And that sets off that whole identity tribe building thing. Now what happens there is that we then share stale information with each other and we don't learn anything new. And in our time in the information age, by talking with people with different perspectives, we end up being a bridge between different communities. It's hugely empowering for us as individuals because we have the power of bridging those communities. But we also will innovate and help society as well by bringing these different communities together. So that would be my number one rule.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I guess we focused a lot on our instinctive mind, but the interesting thing about us is we do have the reflective mind too. So about bringing that into play, firstly by sitting back and thinking more carefully about lots of these aspects. And a lot of this can be trained. So it might be that we just need to institute a lot more training across society about how we deal with sources. So for example, if a stranger asks to join our social network, we should automatically say no to strangers if you like, but that's not necessarily what happens. So it was like this, or just that idea, for instance, that when we are made to, when we do feel emotional after something we've read, that we do take that pause, that we do step back, that we do reflect, that we constantly ask questions about who is contacting us and why. Yeah, so a lot of activity here related to gearing up our reflective brainless rather than our instinctual ones.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. So I think we need to control our information diets more effectively. So if we start thinking about our information diets just as we do our physical diets, so we know what we eat forms our bodies. Well, the information that we eat ultimately forms our minds. So thinking a lot more carefully about what we put into them. And that means looking at diversity of different information sources, being able to think more critically about where that source comes from. and why that source is saying what they're saying. The second part is becoming expert at detecting deception. So being able to spot that, being more skeptical but open about sources and looking for those deceptive attempts to influence us, including who's in our network, for example. The third part, really important, is...”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. And so ultimately, there has to be a number of different activities to help reduce the problems of malign influence in our age. Some of those will be focused on the bad actors themselves so we reduce their ability to influence us. Some will be about the regulation that we've already discussed. But the third part is upskilling the citizenry so that we are ultimately upgraded to operate as democratic citizens of the 21st century digital environment”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But there may even be democratically elected, but these institutions would have oversight of the information environment and would be able to explore things like what an algorithm does, which changes the way we perceive the world. And ultimately be able to influence what that looks like”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so I think these spaces do need to be much more carefully regulated. And we've seen some moves in that direction from the European Union. In many ways, these are old ideas that still have not been implemented. So for example, the key problem for me is that the big tech platforms are not incentivized to safeguard democracy. There's a fundamental tension between their objectives and the needs of a liberal democratic society. So in fact, old things like revisiting this idea that the platform should be held accountable for what is published on these platforms, so treated as publishers rather than mere platforms. Then steps like allow transparency of the algorithms and potentially even more radically putting some sort of democratic oversight over these platforms. It may be that we need new institutions for our time that fit for purpose.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have responsibilities. One of the key questions there is what free speech means in our time, for example, because free speech is arguably very relative. Some of us have more than others. And if those who have more than others, you use it to suppress those who have less of it, then that is not a free speech environment. So working to change the regulatory structure, I think, would probably have the biggest impact.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do think you can define it like that, and I would partly support that division. But I also think it's slightly artificial and actually ties democracies in knots. So we've seen, for instance, the American government has very much approached it like that. So they have said, well, look, there's these external actors, and they need to be treated one way. And then there's internal actors who are merely using their right to free speech, for example. Now, to my mind, that doesn't really hold because essentially digital connectivity has swept that way of thinking. away, you know, the external actors are firmly embedded with the domestic actors. So I feel like, yes, efforts do need to be made to reduce the impact and effect of what those hostile external actors are doing. But the other part is changing the norms in our societies about how we should act in this digital age and how different actors in society”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Interesting examples of this so that campaign would send messages to progressive voters that would judge to care about animal rights. They would draw attention to Spanish bullfighting or say stop the whaling as a way of discrediting the EU. Now the reason why that's dangerous is essentially it sections us off and makes us into our autonomous individuals and takes the debate away from any kind of public square. So ultimately it's asymmetry of power because of course the platform knows a lot about us but we don't really have a lot of information about what the platform is doing with that data.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“US capital, Facebook was criticized because its recommender algorithm helped put these online syndicated groups together. So you'd have the group come together through the network and then the algorithm was further suggesting that they get together in largely ultimately encouraging this online syndication effect and amplifying it. So that's one aspect. Another aspect is the ability to, because many of the tech platforms have our data authoritarian governments potentially via the tech platforms in those jurisdictions, they can take that data and use it to manipulate us. So we see this in the concept of microtargeting, especially this idea that the data about us is taken and then tailored adverts can be pushed on us to influence us. So back in the EU referendum in the UK, there was really...”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. So, the first is, I would say, is this concept of online syndication. And what that means is that we now have much easier access to people who think like us. So people with very marginal beliefs or interests can now find each other and form groups. So this can have a positive effect. It could be support groups for people with very unique diseases, for example, which is a very good thing. And it could be for groups like Trekies, very niche interest groups like the Bronies, the male fans of My Little Pony. But it can also lead to various extremists being able to pull together. So that dynamic is really enabled by network much more easily. And relate it to that is the way that algorithms further harness that back when there was the riot or the storming of the”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can influence whether Chinese folks are allowed to buy train tickets or what have you and cameras that recognize your face at traffic lights, for example, and then shame you by broadcasting your imagery on a video screen if you jaywalk or any other similar offense.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I think so, but I would argue that actually the direction of technology, which I'm not sure it has to be this way, has been towards authoritarian enabling societies. So you think about social media, ultimately it's a surveillance apparatus. And the other part of surveillance collecting the data, one of the first principles of influence, know your audience. Who are they? How do they see the world? Obviously, if you can collect that data about us, then you can then plug into the ways that we see the world by influencing us on that basis. And we see that happen. Now, authoritarian states have really been able to harness these tools for social control. And again, on this score, China is probably the key innovator. They're able to harvest a great deal of data from their citizens that would not be possible in the West. So even this idea of social credit scores.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“infect our computers and empty our bank accounts. There's an interesting dynamic too because we'll see subtactics that used to be just played out by sensitive parts of security states now being applied everywhere. So for instance this idea of catfishing you see with online romance scams people are being duped by actors purporting to be people who are then not and in the old days you would have the honey traps, so spies trying to honey trap each other, blackmail each other for information and now really sadly that same tactic is being applied to say teenage boys being blackmailed. There's been some really awful cases recently of teenagers committing suicide after being on the end of those. So we see the dynamics that used to be just parts of states butting up against each other now being democratized in a pretty terrible way.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, at the high level, I think we have some pretty good ideas. So, authoritarian hostile states. So the Russian state has been a real pioneer in this area, going back to at least the early part of last decade. And the Chinese state too is rapidly acting in this space. And that potentially is more worrying because they do have access to a significant industrial base and they may pioneer the next generation of innovations in this area using the artificial intelligence capabilities that they have generated. The Iranian state is maybe not so technologically advanced but is very active in this area. And so some criminal actors too are taking advantage of some of the same heuristics. So we see, for instance, it's the ubiquitous phishing emails that we all receive trying to”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Could be still divisive information. And there they'll start doing things like put that information across that network in ways that conform to the beliefs of those bubbles that they have infiltrated.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. I think in a very cynical way a lot of adversaries, especially hostile authoritarian states, have really gotten to grips with some aspects of the human condition that in liberal democracies we are struggling to think about and leverage as we move forward. So for example, we have these open societies and they're a great boon to us. They allow us to share thoughts and ideas and there's great connectivity. So it makes us extremely innovative compared to authoritarian states. But of course it also allows them an opportunity to infiltrate our societies and start leveraging some of these heuristics. So for example they can create fake social media actors and integrate, build trust with authentic people in our social networks which then puts them in a good position to spread propaganda and disinformation. It might be truthful information of course but it”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“See it in others. So, a great example here is the cargo cults of the South Pacific. And these South Pacific islanders back in the 50s had seen the American World War II soldiers land the logistics and the materiel on these islands and they thought, hey, we'd like some of that. So they mocked up these airports and these aeroplanes entwine and wood and then called to their gods to bring down the cargo. Obviously that didn't work out for them. And the point is they lived in an epistemic bubble. It's easy for us to see and go, well, okay, well, you don't have the knowledge of science or engineering. That's why you're in that bubble. But it's very difficult to see exactly what bubbles we're in, but what can be pretty much guaranteed is that we're all in some kind of epistemic bubble.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think that's quite right. And we tend to, of course, believe we know more than we do. So we suffer from superiority biases where we think we're better than others, but we believe we know more about things out there than we do. There's some great studies that ask people to how much they know about regular household objects and ask them to more bicycle or explain how a cylindrical lock works. And people typically greatly overestimate just how much they know about these objects. And the point here is that we essentially skim the surface of the knowledge that our groups hold. And we think we know more than we do. And ultimately, this puts us all in these, we call an epistemic bubble, like a bubble of knowledge intertwined with beliefs, some erroneous, some may be true, very difficult to get handle on exactly what that looks like. We see it as easier when”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So they would be feeding into our pattern recognition minds. So we're searching for patterns in those environments that present opportunities that may also be hostile. And we think in ways that are the opposite of good scientists instinctually. So we look for patterns that confirm what we already believe. And of course the scientists are supposed to disconfirm their hypothesis what they believe or their starting assumptions. And of course, this is a quick way of acting again in the world. And this applies to our social beliefs too. So whether they're religious beliefs that bond groups together or any other or political beliefs that we hold. So an actor that wants to manipulate us is going to want to build into those beliefs. So start with the beliefs that we have and then add to those in order to cause some kind of reaction from us.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. So if we go back to our ancestral heritage, we generated this amazing thing called culture. So we learned from each other, we're able to socially learn. And we developed a very tribal mentality. And this is great because we learned to cooperate in our tribes. And we learned this by sharing similar beliefs even when these beliefs would seem nonsensical potentially to outsiders and similar values. this thing called norms which are the right ways to behave in a different tribe. And what that means is that we are very tribal in our identities. They, our groups, are instinctively the places that protect us where we can seek our belonging and survive in a hostile world. So we tend to take on the information that is told to us by our group members and especially by the leaders of those groups, whereas information coming from beyond the group is instinctively treated.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. That's the question. And it's very difficult, right? Because our feelings are so visceral to us in a way. It's almost all we have, right? So when they are being manipulated, we feel it's so intensely, it can spark a kind of tension between us, the reflective mind versus that emotional mind. But if we can, and it does require a great deal of discipline, which is probably beyond the vast majority of us, all of us maybe, especially in different contexts, The key is to sit back and ask, why do I feel this way?”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. So again, emotion is a key shortcut or heuristic. And what's interesting is even a few years ago, some psychologists were still claiming that emotion was essentially some kind of evolutionary noise that didn't have a useful role to play. But the current consensus is that emotion is there to rapidly frame action. So we're quickly in the mode for action, that sort of fight or flight dynamic. And it therefore acts as a very quick shortcut to acting quickly. when necessary. And again, it can easily be exploited. And it's especially easily exploited using visual means of communication. That is because we tend to process visual stimulus on a very instinctive neural circuit and it shortcuts our ability to reflect. Whereas when we read things, for example, it often has to be passed through our reflection.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Heuristic is called the isolation effect. We're drawn to things that stand out from the environment, as we can see, especially now in our attention economy. People are competing to make things stand out in the environment. But we see these heuristics across the ways that we think. So not just attention, but in memory to, for example, once we remember something, it's very hard to overwrite. So for example, if I say don't think about pink elephants, that's usually the thing that is going to be recalled because as I ask that of you, you're now searching your memory for that very thing regardless of whether you want to or not. And that sort of heuristic can be easily manipulated as well by hostile actors.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. So they have a logic and it is an evolutionary logic. So for example, if we look at attention again, a key heuristic, and sorry, a heuristic is a rule of thumb. So it's a shortcut to making decisions. And they're especially useful because we don't often have time to make thoughtful, reflective judgments about what is going on. And you can imagine for our ancestors it was even more extremely the case because they had to worry about direct threats to their survival. on a day-to-day basis so an example of a heuristic is the way that we apply our attention and attention of course is is the mechanism by which we focus on a particular part of the information environment and so we tend to focus on threats and also on opportunities that might not be super surprising but we also focus on the novel so one”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely systematically irrational is a really good way to put it. And if we go back to how we evolved, ultimately our thinking is designed to help us survive and to prosper. So, for example, one of the key things we do is something called satisfying. So economists use this term to say we take where we are rational, we take rational judgments on the information that is directly in front of us. Now this becomes particularly problematic given that we only see small part of the overall information environment. So we're only ingesting a very tiny part of this information environment and satisfying means that will make judgments on that tiny part of the information environment. Obviously this affords all sorts of actors that may not have our best interests at heart opportunities to play around and structure that information environment to start manipulating our thoughts and our behaviour.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I would say so. We have a brain that evolved to help our ancestors survive and prosper in very dangerous environments. And this has now collided with the scale of information that is hitting us. And we haven't quite yet worked out how to deal with that in terms of restructuring politics and the regulation to help our democracies, especially survive in this strange new world. I should say as well that we're a social species, so the book is about influence and how that works so that actions that we have on the thoughts and behaviors of others. So if we go back to the landscape our ancestors faced, they influenced each other to cope with these threats and our modern political systems and societies have not really understood or counted for how these modern dynamics of information flow interact.”
2024-08-21 · Intelligence Squared · The Power of Influence, with Justin Hempson-Jones · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT