Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Another World IS still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose - and now it's collapsing around us. So how do we co-create a Thrutopian future that we'd all be proud to leave as our legacy?
What stories can we weave of possibility? Of transformation? What happens if we commit to a world based on generative values: compassion, courage, integrity?
What happens if we let go of the race for meaningless money and commit instead to the things that really matter: clean air, clean water, clean soil - and clean, clear, courageous connections between all parts of ourselves, between ourselves and each other, between ourselves and the Web of Life - so that we can reclaim our birthright as self-conscious nodes in the web of life?
We can do this. Some of us already are. Every week on Accidental Gods we speak with the people who are living this world into being, courageous pathfinders who are exploring the emergent edge of inter-becoming.
As a species, we have all the answers, we just haven't yet crafted all the new stories and woven them into a future that works. We have the choice now - we can choose to transform…or we can face the chaos of a failing system.
Our Choice. Our Chance. Our Future.
Accidental Gods is a podcast and membership program devoted to exploring the ways we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations yet to come.
Find the membership and the podcast pages here: https://accidentalgods.life
Find Manda's Thrutopian novel, Any Human Power here: https://mandascott.co.uk
Find Manda on BlueSky @mandascott.bsky.social
On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandascottauthor/
On FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/MandaScottAuthor
Manda: Hey people, welcome to Accidental Gods. To the podcast where we do still believe that another world is possible and that if we all work together, there is still time to lay the foundations for a future that we would all be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. I'm Manda Scott, your host and fellow traveller in this journey into possibility. And it's about time we really began to look into AI. It's ubiquitous, it's powerful, and currently it is largely unconstrained. And this is not an ideal combination. If we live in the real world of mass extinction, where human and more than human communities are being destroyed to serve the death cult of predatory capitalism at its most rapacious, the key core question is how do we shift the dial on the future, when so many of those whose fortunes are sunk into tech, and AI in particular, seem to be steeped deeply in the dark triad of psychopathy and sadism and narcissism? Is there any sign of hope? Amidst all the chaos and the frozen despair that the narratives of inevitability can foster in us. And who better to turn to than long time friend of the podcast, Nathalie Nahai. As you'll know, if you listen to our solstice three way conversations with Nathalie and Della, or have you listened to the four way conversation with Tim Logan and Amit, Paul and Nathalie and me? Natalie is a celebrated author, a keynote speaker, and host of the Absolutely glorious Nathalie Nahai In Conversation podcast, which inquires into our relationship with one another, with technology and with the living world.
Manda: She's the author of the international bestseller Webs of Influence, with the subtitle The Psychology of Online Persuasion, and more recently, Business as Usual Values; Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience, which has been described as one of the defining books of our times. She's a consultant artist and the founder of Flourishing Futures Salon, a project that offers curated gastronomical gatherings that explore how we can thrive in times of turbulence and change. And all of this is true, and more deeply than this Nathalie is one of those people who crosses many boundaries. She's a singer and a songwriter. She's an exceptional artist. She's a shamanic practitioner. She goes to Plum Village and attends their artist conventions and explores deeply into the nature of Spirituality, of our relationship with the human and the more than human world. And on top of this, Natalie spent a lot of time going around conferences, speaking at the levels that most of the rest of us don't even know exist. Speaking to the C-suites, to the masters of the universe, to the people who even six months ago were beginning to freeze in place with that rabbit in the headlights look that says, we know things are going bad and we don't really know what to do about it.
Manda: But more recently, and the reason I really wanted to talk to Nathalie is that that frozen stance is thawing. She is beginning to see real change in the conversations that she's having, in the meetings that she's attending, in the conference panels that she chairs, and the places where she is invited to give the keynotes. I don't know many people who are more deeply embedded at the forefront of how our businesses can be part of the progressive change that we need. And on top of all of that, she is incredibly generous with her time and with her spirit and with her greatness of heart. So people of the podcast, please welcome back Nathalie Nahai.
Manda: Nathalie Nahai, friend of the podcast, very good friend of all that we do. Welcome back. We organised this six months ago and then Tim organised something in the interim. So we've talked to you quite recently, but we talked as a group. So let's 1 to 1 explore all of the things that we enjoy talking about when we're not recording. So let's start with our standard opening. How are you and where are you on this sunny July morning?
Nathalie: So I am in a very warm Barcelona and I'm really well, I'm excited to be talking with you. I've been looking forward to this. And I've just come back from four days in London, which was joyful. There was lots of gathering and music making and meeting up with old friends. So I'm feeling energised and excited. Yeah.
Manda: And London was almost, but not quite as hot as Barcelona. It's 32°C where you are. I just want everyone to know that Nathalie is sweltering but still looking cool as ever.
Nathalie: That'll be the air con. I mean, it's set to 24 degrees, 24.5, so it's not like freezing temperatures, but just to keep things in check, you know, so I can actually think straight.
Manda: Yeah, yeah, it's not quite that here. We don't have air con, we just open the windows.
Nathalie: And hope for the best. Yeah.
Manda: And then hope for the best. Yes. Exactly that. All right. There is so much that we could talk about, so much we want to talk about, so much we planned to talk about. And the world is moving so fast that even some of the stuff we thought about a few months ago is, is pretty much obsolete already. So tell me what you've been doing, besides being in London and singing and enjoying people's company. In the circles in which you move what is most alive just now?
Nathalie: The thread that I've found to be the most present and repeating as a theme among many of the different groups that I've been connected with recently, is people coming to me in the desire to gather people from different disciplines around a common theme. Which is how do we find collective agency rooted in values that will help support the flourishing of life, where we're bringing people from different disciplines, different backgrounds, different traditions, to be able to start to impact the system in ways that we might not necessarily have to know, but that feel generative. And within literally the last three months, there have been so many of these invitations. So I know that you are working on something, I don't know how much you're able to disclose, but for the coming year.
Manda: Yes. Thank you. We're doing a whole bunch of stuff with Rob Hopkins. We got half $1 million from VKRF Foundation. Thank you, V K Rasmussen. And quite a lot of it is going on a series of five weekend festivals of the future in five cities around the UK, starting in Sheffield in November. And then we're also having an invitation only gathering at Broughton Sanctuary in September of 2027. And exactly that; bring together what I called in the application 'leverage point gatekeepers'. So people who have a thread of the tapestry, who have the bandwidth and the emotional resilience to know that their thread is not the only thread. We don't want people who are going to get shouty at other people, that they have to become vegan or give up flying, or all those things, because everybody has a thread and nobody has the whole picture. But how can we go from what will almost certainly be a collection of quite narrow boundary thinking, because that's how we are, into dissolve the boundaries to create really wide boundary thinking. What is the widest of the wide boundary? With people who then can go back to the systems in which they have some degree of gatekeeping leverage and change the system. If we don't get behaviour change, we were just discussing this with our wonderful PR and comms team. Hello, Sam. Hello, Claire. If we don't get behaviour change when people go back, then we have misspent VKRF money and we do not intend to misspend it. So that's our baseline. What is the baseline of the other gatherings in which you are involved?
Nathalie: Similar. So there are people who have either physical spaces, gathering spaces. So festivals. Or who have the capacity to invest money. So people who have these kinds of, I guess, ways in which to help support and amplify the voices who are seeking to create change with other people. So it's very much a collective agency thing, either through networks, physical spaces or capital or relationships.
Manda: Okay. And it's going to take all of those. That's the thing. It's not an and/or it's a yes/and in everyone.
Nathalie: It's going to take all of them, yeah. So that's one element is the sense of, oh my God, we need to do this now. But the deeper theme is we're in it together, we need to do this together. And now it's almost like it feels like people are swinging open the doors of their heart and going, now. Now. Now we have to be visible to each other. And it means holding spaces in which we can come together and not agree on everything and acknowledge difference, and not seek to fix or change other people's minds necessarily. But just where is the territory on which we can agree as a starting place? Like what do we want to be able to protect? And I know that you talk about this a lot on the podcast. So one would be hard pressed to find anyone who, at least for themselves, starting from the most selfish perspective, Someone who doesn't want clean air or clean water or food or shelter or healthcare or education, or a sense of hope and potential for the future. Every single human being wants that. And some of us that want extends to wider circles of kin, maybe to our closer circles. But we have to include everyone, no matter where their circle stretches. And that's what I'm noticing a lot and it's given me a great amount of excitement and hope, because I'm seeing it in people who hadn't necessarily previously been looking in these directions and who are just so open. So open. They're like: 'tell me what I don't know'.
Manda: Okay. And they're coming to you because you do have...
Nathalie: And to others.
Manda: Yes, obviously. Um, what do you think? Is it the Trump presidency? Is it the whole project 2025 is so obviously driving us over the edge of a cliff? What is it that's flipped the switch and opened the doors of people's hearts?
Nathalie: For the people that I know, it seems to me that it's not something that's just happened overnight. I think it's something where it's like the tap has been left open, the water has been dripping, and now we're getting to the point where it's filled the bucket and it's spilling over. And many people's buckets are spilling over at the same time. And who knows if it's because the collective energy means that more water is coming out and so suddenly there's been an amplification. But there is something about this, it feels like we're talking about phase transitions, this sudden kind of 'out of a dream' and you go, oh, hold on! Because last year, the quality for me, I encountered so many people who were in this sense of frozen despair, discomfort, not really wanting to look, but being able to name the fears. At conferences in particular, where people are generally a bit more reticent to come in and talk about their deep hopes and fears, unless you catch them in a quiet moment, you know, after the fact. But now so many more people straight out the gate are saying, okay, what do we do about it? Whereas before it was like, is there anything we can do? So there is this sense of urgency that's shifted. And I think so many different people are starting to see that these elements are interconnected. And especially when you look at the books that are coming out and the people. I've got, I've started to compile a list. I'll give them to you so you can put them in the show notes at the end.
Manda: Yes, please.
Nathalie: But people talk about these intersecting issues. So Karen Hao talking about the kind of colonial, rapacious, extractive incentives that are driving this kind of hyper scaling behaviour. You've got people talking about the ecological costs, you've got people like Erin Brockovich, famous from the movie, who is now mapping data centres around the U.S. so you can see where the drought stricken areas are most likely to be affected. You've got communities coming out and saying not here; we've only just managed to get clean water, you're not going to devastate it. Around the world, not just in the US, but obviously that's one of the big hubs. People talking about the failing crops. Unlikely people. As much as you love or hate him or whatever, people like Jeremy Clarkson, who's talked about how his farm is at the sharp end. Who knew that a kind of petrol head would suddenly come around and go, hang on a minute, guys.
Manda: He's not the likeliest of people, but he's saying it.
Nathalie: But that's the point. And I think if we are looking towards creating and you mentioned this tapestry of change, it means calling upon everyone: remember, remember what you love, remember what we have to lose. Let's come together. And we need broader coalitions. Rutger Bregman talking about moral ambition and stepping away from purity politics, or Anthea Lawson talking about acknowledging if you are lucky enough to be someone who gets privileges and you're white and you're in the middle classes, shrinking as they might be,to find ways to shoulder the burdens, to help stand beside those who shouldn't have to fight further for rights. So and then how do you deal with the saviour complex and these underlying dynamics? So there's all of these people looking at these elements, and there are many more besides. And it feels to me like there is a tidal wave building and many, many people are starting to see just how interconnected we are. And how many of these themes, which seemingly previously were quite disparate, intersect and connect with one another.
Manda: Right.
Nathalie: Yeah. And so I think then there's a question of before it might have been a sense of: I'm by myself, certainly in Western cultures, AI is going to take my jobs. I've got no agency. I need to feed my kids. I've got no hope. My kids are all spending all their time on screens (I'm making a generalisation here), what can I possibly do? And now suddenly this year, it's like, oh, hold on. There are these voices speaking on my behalf. Bands are starting to happen; I don't think they're the answer, but at least it's getting the theme discussed. And so there's this sense of, oh, I'm not alone. And actually there are things I can do, resources I can turn to, movements I can participate in, gatherings I can attend, things I can do at my local school or church or organisation or community farm. Wherever you want to place it. Yeah.
Manda: Which is what we have been hoping for all the way along, you and I, because our podcasts have been talking about emergence and tipping points and this feels like a tipping point in action.
Nathalie: I hope so.
Manda: Yes, yes. And so interesting. That all the theory actually comes together and that there are many people obviously pushing back. It's been so interesting in the UK watching temperatures soar and the right wing press go into full on climate denialism and publishing memes and the number of people who hook into that. But also the number of people who absolutely don't. And people like Rupert Read, who we had on the podcast recently and we'll be having on again very soon, who are invited now on to GB news and are able to say to the presenter's face, well, the reason that you don't believe it is that you are funded by (name of fossil fuel magnate). So of course you don't. But that doesn't mean it isn't true. And that's getting aired. They don't cut it out of the segment anymore, which is really interesting.
Nathalie: That is really interesting because it's a voice and a perspective that previously would have just been banished.
Manda: Yeah, totally. Yes. And the legacy media is still heavily in favour of climate denialism and push things under the covers and under the table and out of sight. But it's less than it was. And just before we came on air, I was reading the papal encyclical on AI, and I never thought these words would cross my lips, but I'm really impressed with this pope on many, many levels. And clearly, you know, the entire 2000 year history of the Catholic Church is laden with issues, but that doesn't mean that the guy currently in charge is not trying to address some of them as fast and as hard as he can. When Francis died and this version of Leo was elected, we all hoped he would continue in Francis's vein, and he is taking it steps further. Very far, very fast.
Nathalie: And as a white American man who's able to provide a counterpoint to the other white American man, or the men, because there are, let's say, several. It's interesting that, thinking about, again, the work of coalitions with people with whom you may not entirely agree. And I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the Catholic Church having been raised in that tradition. And at the same time have a lot of respect for someone who's willing to stand up and say, hold on. And with all of the people who are within that community of practising Catholics, to hear someone suddenly say, well, Maybe we need to take a different look at this. And then when you think about the ways in which the numbers of people returning to or rediscovering or discovering for the first time, religion. Specifically I've got in mind this raving Catholic priest who does these extremely beautifully produced raves for young Catholics. And it's full on, and actually the music's really good. I don't even like techno. There's like these Gregorian chants and pounding beats and then they've got the dove in the background. Talk about phase transitions! There is some bonkers stuff going. So if that is happening around the world, some sort of revival in different guises towards a sense of shared community, spiritual or religious practice, not that the two are mutually exclusive. And that these flanks are growing. Then we need people with that lever and platform to say, well, look, actually we need to take our responsibilities, spiritually speaking, much more seriously, if we are to have an inhabitable world. If we are children of God, according to that, then we have a responsibility to protect life. And so the more religions can get on board with that and start to dialogue with one another.
Manda: Yeah, that would be good.
Nathalie: And with all of those of us who are not religious in those ways, then the more of us can come to the table, I think the better.
Manda: Yes. Yes. So much, so much. We could go down the 'oh my goodness, isn't Catholicism turning into something interesting' route. But let's not, because I've been geeking out on that. We've got a lot of other things. But the Pope's encyclical about AI, if I delete the obvious things he has to say about religion: "we are today facing a pivotal choice either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together. Each generation inherits the task of shaping its own era of guiding history to become a place where the dignity of every person is safeguarded. Justice is promoted and fraternity made possible. Yet every era also runs the risk of creating an inhumane and more unjust world". That's the start of his encyclical on AI. And what I am getting about this guy is white, male, American, and extremely smart. And one of the things that strikes me most about about AI is that a lot of the people who are making decisions about tech in general are politicians and diplomats for whom the phrase extremely smart does not apply. I was listening to Your Undivided Attention just before we came online, about the papal encyclical, and Tristan Harris was saying he'd been to a bunch of UN meetings, convocations, conferences, whatever you call it, where the diplomats were sitting around trying to sort diplomatic responses to digital tech and AI in particular. And he said the problem was nobody in the room actually understood what they were talking about. So when the people outside were going, oh, Tristan, what can we do? And he said, do you do you think the diplomats in there, whose job is to talk to each other and negotiate, understand AI? They went, no, no. And he said, well, actually that would be the first thing, would be to get people in the room who know how to negotiate with other people and who understand the technology. And that cannot be impossible.
Nathalie: No, and it's not impossible. I think, again, it's this invitation to relinquish our need to seem as though we know everything. It's this kind of intellectual humility to be able to say, okay, in order to make the best decisions, I need you to give me everything I need to know, foundationally, at least, about these systems. How they work, what are the risks? What are the impacts? What are the different systems that sit within this huge suitcase term of AI? What about machine learning? What about Neurosymbolic AI? What about large language models? And what about gen AI? And what about small language models? And what about the interoperability of data, or getting consent from people to use their data and verifying whether the results are fabricated, and the rate of fabrication and benchmarking? Like people need to have a sense of the territory and not necessarily know it in the way that an expert might, but to have enough of the founding principles to then say, okay, now I have some sense of the territory, what are the best questions to ask? Where are the biggest issues, risks, gains? Are we having the right investment in the right areas? But unless we're able to get to that place where people can come out of the need to defend their intellects or their status and egos remain intact, and I think that's not all of it, but I think that's a large part of it, then we're in trouble. But I think more people are starting to be open to the idea that actually some expert perspectives and insights will help them triangulate a better route forward. Because also different experts have different things to say. It's not that there's this kind of single answer.
Manda: Well that was my question. Because when the Pope convened his convergence or conference to which Tristan Harris was invited, he also had a tech guy from Anthropic so that they had at least one voice in the room who definitely got the tech. But it seems to me part of the issue would be, if we asked a dozen people involved in AI from, I don't know, somebody in OpenAI, someone in Anthropic, someone in Google. Tristan Harris, Eliezer Yudkowsky who wrote If Anybody Builds It, Everybody Dies. With five people you can have five different opinions. It's going to be very hard. You're going to conferences where this is the question, it seems to me; how do we retain our humanity in the age of AI? The AI is not going away. Are you seeing a route through where we could still harness the possibilities of AI actually for the benefit of humanity, and not just for the benefit of the people who are making a lot of money out of it?
Nathalie: Yes. So I think there are some really good use cases which are tangible that we can give as an example for people who are thinking, all right, show me something where it works, where it's valuable, where it helps. So I was recently chairing a panel at London Tech Week, and it was about whether we can augment humans and how and why we might like to and what that might mean. Augmentation is, you know, it's a big term, again, that one has to define from the get go. But one of the people who was on the panel was Doctor Jan Cosgrove. And she's a clinical psychiatrist who runs neurotype.uk and she has created a very interesting AI model that helps clinicians to assess whether people have autism or ADHD. So clinical diagnosis to help deal with the backlog of diagnoses that we're seeing around the UK. And what's fascinating is that this model is different because, number one, it gathered the data with informed consent from clients: this is what we'd like you to provide, this is how we're going to use it.
Because we have established methods for diagnosing autism and ADHD in the different ways in which they express themselves. Because you already have clinical diagnoses, if it does fabricate something, you can test what's gone wrong and where. Because it's a stable environment in which you have ways of understanding whether two plus two equals four versus two plus two equals five. So if you know what you're looking for and you know what looks right and what doesn't, you can test it better. It's a small model, it doesn't require huge amounts of resources, because the ecological impacts can be devastating. Same as the instability that is then created in electrical grids that are not designed for such a huge amount of draw off. Anyway, so that's a really good example where you can use these to triage that part of the process, to triage people who need that kind of support, so that then you're freeing up clinicians to meet face to face and they can check the results, but they don't have to spend those hours. Those hours are then regained. And it's not to say that we shouldn't change the system. I think it's not a binary thing. Wouldn't it be great if we could have these tools? But it does mean that it's freeing people up to do the kind of work that has an impact on their clients lives.
Manda: Rather than just filling in tick boxes by hand. Right.
Nathalie: Because wouldn't you rather that person spend time helping you figure out where you might be able to strategize or find different ways through? Other examples; thinking about the use of AI systems to discover patterns in, let's say, for instance, I'm thinking about Clarkson's Farm. You want to figure out how to massively reduce the pesticide use in your farm and so you can map the areas of the field where there are weeds. And you can then target those specific areas so the pesticide use is down, even if you're not able to do organic. So where can we move the dials? Of course, it would be great if we move towards regenerative agriculture.
Manda: Regenerative agriculture that did not use any chemicals at all.
Nathalie: Not use any. And yet this might be a step in that direction.
Manda: Okay. Yeah. And we massively need to reduce the glyphosate use because we're going to kill the oceans before everybody goes regenerative.
Nathalie: Like, we're not going to hand pollinate acres and acres and acres and acres of wheat fields.
Manda: No, but MIT is trying to develop robot bees because then you don't need real bees.
Nathalie: Oh God! Or the VR headsets that people want to put on cows so that they feel like they're out in a pasture. This is insane. Yeah. I mean, this came out a few years ago. And the thing is, if you've ever tried a VR headset and you'll know that every few years it comes around, VR, it's going to be amazing this time. And you wear it for half an hour and you're feeling sick.
Manda: You start feeling sick. Yeah. But we're going to put it on the cows who won't have the option to take it off.
Nathalie: Right. It's another kind of enslavement. It's a cognitive cage. Or not just a cognitive cage.
Manda: I mean, that's a form of torture, actually.
Nathalie: Yeah.
Manda: But a lot of what we do in our industrial farming system is torture. So it shouldn't surprise us, but whoa, how disconnected do you need to be to think that's a good idea? So again, this is what I find really interesting. I'd like to drill down into this. Because I also heard of someone who was creating a large Land model where you could map in your own land and put in all of the soil data, and it would tell you the best way to regenerate your land. And it would also have soil data from all around. The industrial farmer down the line is doing this, but the organic farmer out there's doing this, and you could build a wildlife corridor and whatever. That would be a really useful idea. And I think what they're doing at the River Don model in Sheffield, where they're they're mapping the whole of the River Don and using Audrey Tang's AI to give it a voice. So you can volunteer to be a river steward and it'll tell you if someone has leaked something toxic into the river, it'll scream. And I think that's faster than trying to give the river legal rights. If everyone around is signed up as a river steward and the river is screaming at them, there will be some repercussions on that. But as with everything else, the power rests with the people who manipulate the data. This is back to Stalin saying it doesn't matter who votes, it matters who counts the votes. And I have theories about the most recent American election in that regard. We won't go into it at the moment, but there's some very interesting stats. So with any of this, somebody may gather, let's say, all of the data for someone who thinks they're neurodivergent with informed consent. And then somebody else buys out that company. And they will have the bigger lawyers. You know, we're back to why are we drinking poisoned rain? Because the people who produce the forever chemicals have bigger lawyers than the people trying to stop them poisoning the rain. And we're now conducting the biggest uncontrolled experiment the world has ever seen on what happens if we all drink forever chemicals.
Manda: So how do we regulate the unregulated? Because law is an agreement that people make when there is a degree of trust and a capacity for enforcement. And it seems to me that the people with huge, huge, huge amounts of money are now beyond any kind of enforcement. And they are the people currently backing the idea of putting VR in cows and everything that goes with it.
Nathalie: So I was recently listening to a really interesting conversation on Outrage and Optimism podcast, which features Christiana Figueres, who was one of the primary architects for the Paris Agreement. And they were talking with a mayor in Australia who's a member of the C40, which is a convergence of mayors from more than 40 cities. As you know, it's grown significantly.
Manda: All around the world.
Nathalie: Yeah. I think it's something like 90 something cities now, if I'm not mistaken. Where the mayors have their finger on the pulse of what's going on in their cities, and they're able to see where the law hits the land, where the law hits the people, where the law hits the local economy, and what changes need to be made that people are asking for that would help improve the lives of people living in that locality. So thinking most recently, so obviously I live in Barcelona, but looking at the news in London, Sadiq Khan was one of the few people as a member of Parliament who stood up and said, Palantir, which is a US spyware company, we don't want you with your hands on our data at the NHS. We say no. And a lot of Londoners felt themselves represented in his voice, in that stand. And if you have one mayor of a major city in a major country, in a major economy in the world, saying, no, we don't stand for this. And other mayors with whom one would imagine, as part of this C40 group, I'm assuming he is but I don't know if he is, would look to the other cities making these decisions and say, well, hang on. If this mayor and this city are standing up, we'll stand up. And sharing their playbooks with one another. And so when we're thinking about top down systemic change, where are the pressure points that can be triggered or pressed within anywhere in that system? Not just at the top, that will send the pressure upwards, but that also represents these middle pressure points, that are able to escalate the concerns of those that sit 'beneath them' to the powers that be. Or that have that kind of power to block.
Nathalie: And I think there's a really interesting question there about looking at these different cities who are making choices on the ground that will impact the communities for years to come. So in Barcelona, for instance, Ada Colau while she was mayor, and she was quite controversial in many ways, but made extraordinary gains to the ecological and climatic resilience of the city, creating parks, creating super manzanas, which are basically these entire blocks where instead of having traffic going through every block, which makes it harder to breathe, it makes it much more polluting, much noisier. You expand it so that the whole area becomes pedestrianised. There was a lot of friction against that to begin with. People actually won a court case to be able to stop that or reverse the decision on one of their streets. And by the time that that came to court and the local businesses were granted the ability to repeal the decision, to say, okay, yep, you can have it back to how it was; their original objection was, oh, we're not going to have as much footfall. We're not going to have as much business. They're like, oh no, actually business has boomed. It's much nicer. People are actually lingering and coming to the street at all times. Like, no, actually, we'll keep it.
Manda: Oh, interesting. Right.
Nathalie: These are examples where real change cascades down and people live that change and then realise the benefit. Same thing with data centres. The mayor in this particular episode of Outrage and Optimism was talking about finding ways in which to make sure that the companies coming in can't do it by stealth overnight and bring in 30 generators, for example, instead of 15, where then there's a massive hum and then all the wildlife go.
Manda: There's no water left.
Nathalie: Yeah. There's no water left or the sound is so overwhelming. So there's all sorts of things that we're not even attentive to that will make a difference as to how rich and vibrant our lives and ecosystems are. And people are aware of this, increasingly, I would say.
Manda: Okay. And I just looked up while you were talking, and Manchester is part of the C40, so Andy Burnham has been part of that.
Nathalie: Interesting.
Manda: So that's going to be kind of interesting. So then you have the, one assumes, future Prime minister who has been integral to that. And then we are going to discover quite fast, I guess, the extent to which corporate capture is a thing. So that's a different podcast. Okay. So so we're working at the edges of complexity. And I know that you're one of the people who really get systemic change. And we have technical advancements, which are not just AI, but all of the capacity to influence our perception of the world. And this seems to me one of the biggest fuzzy areas of we no longer know what's true and what's not. It was a while since Audrey Tang said the only way to be sure that somebody actually exists is to meet them in person. Share data in a way that cannot be hacked and then if they tell you someone else is reliable, you can believe them. But sharing data in a way that cannot be hacked is getting harder. I mean, fundamentally, we're down to pen and paper probably. And it's a long time since various spy agencies were able to intercept your mail. I don't know whether they bother anymore, but you know, everything else is digital and that means it's hackable.
Manda: So I'm interested in the people with the money, because at the moment the trillionaires are sucking value out of the economy so fast. So one of the things Gary Stevenson points out is that if your average billionaire invests a billion, at the average rate of interest of 5% they are making 1 million units of currency per week. And they're not making it, they're sucking it out of the economy. A trillionaire does the same, then they're sucking out of the economy 1 billion units of currency per week, per trillion. And then Gary has said, give it ten years and we will be in a feudal society where the kings have everything and the rest of us have actually nothing. And at the moment, we exist in a system where finance equals power. And I think we need to change that system very, very urgently. Or, see above. Are people engaging with the interface between sense making and power grabbing at a level where there is a possibility of sticking a spoke in the wheel of that progress? Does that make sense as a question?
Nathalie: So sense making and power grabbing. So one of the things I read last week was about, and I can send you the article because it's a really interesting article to read. In California, there's been a movement to tax this year, the wealthiest tech companies, I think it's the wealthiest companies, but obviously that includes the tech companies in Silicon Valley, which is in California. And according to this article, the tech companies had spent something like $43 million trying to prevent the collection of a million names needed to get this vote to be passed in government. And bearing in mind that these are companies that, if we're thinking of the tech companies, do have undue influence. Not just financial but also communications wise and shadow banning and all the rest of it. Which is when you kind of make a post much less accessible to others, you make it less visible, it's not going to propagate to your fan base. So ways in which we would normally share information on platforms owned by these companies, if that becomes cut what do we do? How do we get the word out? How do we verify the information and share kind of vital knowledge that will then enable us to gather and make change? So even though they had spent 43 million, by the estimate of this particular article, trying to stop this from happening, including giving money to people who have no homes, who are fighting for survival. And these are techniques, I was talking with Freddie, who's my partner he's from Costa Rica, that you find in many places in impoverished societies or communities, including Costa Rica, but beyond all over the world, where politicians can say, okay, they'll go to a village. And if I was a mother and I didn't have food for my children, and someone comes in and says, here's three days grocery, I'm not going to say no.
Manda: No, exactly.
Nathalie: I dare anyone to judge me. Or don't vote. Crucially, don't vote. These tactics are not new, they are old. And yet, the awareness around what is at stake and the importance of taxing wealth for these companies that don't pay any taxes in some instances, has made its way into the mainstream. And they managed to get over a million names. And in the autumn of this year, it is going to go to a vote for the state of California. And I think they're asking for, if I'm not mistaken, a 5% tax. Which represents so much money and it would help support people who then are no longer able to get Medicaid, are no longer able to go to food banks, all of those things. So when you're seeing in the belly of the beast, in the heartland of the drive towards rapid, vast inequality that will completely cannibalise the entire economic system. If you don't have people able to pay for services, you're not going to have any people to sell your services and goods to. And then it's like, okay, well, what value is human life if you can't attach a financial value to it? If you can't pay for anything, then maybe we just don't enable you to live.
Manda: Well yes. And that seems to be what Jeff Bezos was saying the weekend before last, where he came out at a tech valley conference and said, fundamentally, people are all going to die, everyone's going to die. The AI could "save us". And so it matters more to give the power and the water to the AI than to the people, because the AI is the answer.
Nathalie: It's so insane!
Manda: And it did feel like saying the quiet part out loud. And I do quite often wake up in the morning and think, why am I still alive? Because it's not in the interests of the people with the power to keep any of us anymore. They don't need us. And is it just that they're not efficient enough to get rid of us? Or have they just not quite raised the courage to press the button or what? And not quite efficient enough is currently top of my list. Because they're not actually very smart people, they just happen to be utterly ruthless. A lot of them.
Nathalie: A very narrow band of intelligence applied with ruthlessness, in a system that rewards that kind of behaviour.
Manda: Yes, exactly. Yes.
Nathalie: And yet, if the system shifts, because there's always multiple systems, if people start moving towards other systems or find leverage points, because there's always points within a system that you can...
Manda: Yeah. Acupuncture points that will make a big difference to the welfare of the entire system.
Nathalie: And the recurring thought that's been on my mind, on my heart, on my mind for quite a while, is that there is no accounting for chaos. People tend to think, especially these kind of mathematical minds that are so...
Manda: Everything's linear.
Nathalie: Yeah. Yeah. And so clinical. If we just have enough data, if I just increase my bandwidth, if I implant, you know, nanotechnology into my brain or I upload my consciousness to the cloud and I can live forever. I would be very, very curious to sit down with one of these men, because they are men, and ask them, what is it like for you when you sit with your loved one? What is it like for you when you lose a parent to death? Do you feel that? What do you feel? And I have certain assumptions and I would be very willing to relinquish these. But I want to know how connected they feel to the heartbeat of life. When was the last time you actually felt a sense of deep belonging and joy? It may be that they do, it may be that they don't. But I wonder if for those of us who have a sense of what's at stake, you know, I don't want to live forever. I want to have a meaningful, beautiful life. I don't need to be remembered, but I want to touch joy and accompany others and watch the sunsets and make music and make love and dance and eat. Have conversations like this. I want to live fully.
Manda: And be in love with life.
Nathalie: This is it. And we know from certain testimonies that, Like all of us, many of the people who are heading these companies struggle with anxiety and depression. I get it, it's a very human thing. And yet, I think the means through which some of them are seeking to salve that wound are actually compounding the issue. And then the extent of their power means that we have to live with their unwise choices.
Manda: Yeah. And their projection outwards of that which assails them. Yes. Yes, totally. A few years of actual committed therapy and the world would be a completely different place. But, you know, they're quite often on record as saying that they're never going to have therapy, so that's fine. It is what it is. And yet, what I come down to, and I think this is where we started, with your sense that there's an emergent wave, is that one could be that disconnected. And clearly this is the end point of generations of trauma to, to get to that level of disconnect, where they are on record as saying that the natural world is an aesthetic option. Which means that you can decide not to have it, which is manifestly bonkers.
Nathalie: It's also just very uneducated. It's a very ignorant statement.
Manda: Yes, yes. Where do you think your oxygen comes from? I mean, they genuinely think they're going to survive the sixth mass extinction when nobody else does, because they don't understand the nature of ecosystem collapse, I think. But they're not alone in that. They're unable to see the magnitude because that's not how we're wired. And that's fair. But equally, you were saying earlier, we don't account for chaos and we don't account for the energetic implications of a dozen people or a hundred people. You've been to Plum Village. You know how it feels when a group of people are in energetic resonance and energetic resonance with the web of life, because once you're in that energetic resonance, you would have to work very hard to be disconnected from the web of life. And they're not clearly. And so we don't know the energetic ripples of that, but I think we're beginning to see them. And everybody who feels what it is to be fully connected with the web of life enables those around them to catch a taste of that and to want more of it. And it seems to me that that is where project 2025, or the transhumanism or any of the things that are the product of having read an awful lot too much Asimov when they were young, I think, and not understanding that the world is bigger and more magical than they could possibly allow. It always confuses me that Peter Thiel names all of his companies after things in Lord of the rings and Lord of the rings was, to an extent, a paean to magic. And what he came out of it with was Opus Dei is the way forward and, and total control. And again, something else that came out of that conference was one of the AI people, and I can't remember which one so I don't want to misname them, saying people behave much better when they're being completely surveyed.
Nathalie: Which we're getting in the UK. We're getting in London these fixed face recognition.
Manda: Total Surveillance. And actually people don't behave that much better. I mean, Orwell did write all of this; who controls the present, controls the past, who controls the past, controls the future. But also, here's what happens when you have total surveillance is people find out the places where it isn't working, and then they do the bad stuff there. And if total surveillance were going to work, Epstein would not have been a thing.
Nathalie: Yeah.
Manda: The latest telegram group that's just been turned up of the let's all rape each other's wives while they're drugged, is in Germany. And these things, it's not that they don't happen, it's just that the people who own the control are the people doing it. And so that's not a useful way forward, in my view, because these things need to stop happening. And they stop happening at the point when you have empathy and otherwise you have one law for them and one law for us.
Nathalie: Yeah. And so when we're thinking about like Karen Hao's empire of AI, like this feudal or, you know, Varoufakis talks about techno feudalism, this idea that the same enclosures, grabs, erasure and capture of the commons that happened, is now happening digitally. And to come back to one of the earlier points that you raised, that Audrey Tang mentioned about being in person. I'm meeting so many more people now who are rethinking how they get their information, how they gather. And again, I'm seeing it across a panoply of different industries. So just from the perspective of, well, I'll give a couple of examples. So one example is music. Another example is someone who works philanthropically who I met at a conference back in spring. I was doing a talk for the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute and met this guy who came up to me afterwards, and we got talking about many of these themes that we're interested in, that you and I are talking about today. And how can we collaborate? How can we find points? How can we gather people together? Where's the where's the territory that you're most excited by and what have you seen? And it's this kind of exploratory.
Nathalie: And he and his wife for many years have been gathering people at their house just off the coast of Spain for the main purpose of just cross-pollination. And what conversations might come from this. And I met him at a conference, I met him once. I'm not in the habit of saying yes to strangers, to gather with them. And yet you talked about energetics. I was like, okay, we know quite a lot of the same people that I have a lot of respect for. Your questions that are heavy on your heart are like mine. Let's do it. Let's see what happens. And it was incredible. And through him, I ended up meeting someone who is heavily involved at the Medicine Festival, which this year they're doing an AI and ancestry workshop that they've asked me to help facilitate. And some of the people that they're bringing in there, again across different backgrounds, lineages, perspectives, industries are incredible. And that's popping up in a mainstream festival of 10,000 people.
Manda: I don't know that the Medicine festival is that mainstream, but it's a big festival for sure.
Nathalie: Yeah, but 10,000. It's grown a lot in recent years. It's not as mainstream as Glastonbury. I mean, wouldn't that be amazing? But then from another industry perspective, like the music making side, one of the things that I've noticed among my peers are gatherings in people's living rooms. Which sounds tiny, and yet it's radical because you're not giving any money to the industry. You're letting it spread word by word, one mouth to the other or whatever. And it's got its own momentum, right?
Manda: And it's trusted people making networks of trust. And change happens at the speed of trust. And how else do you build trust? You sit and sing with people.
Nathalie: Right? Yeah. So I'm seeing a lot of that. And also the kind of renaissance of salons. I mean, I've been doing mine since I can't remember when 2021, 22, but you're seeing them everywhere. And that's a really good sign. It's a great sign.
Manda: People wanting to sit down with actual real people. Yeah, maybe we've had peak social media. That would be kind of exciting, wouldn't it?
Nathalie: I mean, I think there's something to that. And we're also seeing, there was research looking at Brits in the UK, but in Gen Z there's a huge uptake in bird watching among Gen Z. Bird watching, Manda, bird watching!
Manda: Because you have to be silent and outside and quiet and still, and you use your phone as a camera and then you can post it on Blue Sky on bird of the day, which trends every day.
Nathalie: It's great. And that's a great example of a positive app, you know, using Cornell University's Merlin app. That's technology. It brings you into contact with nature.
Manda: I have a beef with it though, because our grandkids are going 'we saw a barn swallow' and I'm going you mean a house martin. 'No it's a barn swallow'. That's what it's called in the States. Over here it's called a house Martin. And the kids are going but we've never seen a barn swallow before. Yes you have but you just called it something else.
Nathalie: Yeah. Lost in translation.
Manda: Regionalised names, please. But otherwise, yes, it's amazing.
Nathalie: And tech sovereignty. That's a whole nother thing that we need.
Manda: Go on then.
Nathalie: So the idea that when you have big companies like Palantir, the whole infrastructure provided by AWS or Oracle or our reliance on WhatsApp, on Instagram, on the whole G suite, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, Apple phones and laptops and technology. Like everything that I'm using to speak to you right now was designed in America, made predominantly in China, probably sourced much of it in Africa. And it's really easy to just turn all of that off. If you piss someone off, which happened to one of the ICC judges, suddenly you're locked out of your Google search and you can't use Microsoft. And what happens to all of your documents that you need in order to work?
Manda: You had been saving on the cloud that you thought was yours, which is why Europe is trying to do its own satellites to have instead of Starlink. But then we end up with a sky that's so full of satellites that you can't see the night sky.
Nathalie: I know. Yeah. I mean, one solution yields to further problems. And yet I think there is a lot to be said for trying to at least create technological alternatives that enable us to have much greater say over where our data goes. Cory Doctorow talks a lot about this. Anti-circumvention laws, for instance. If you buy a John Deere tractor from the States and you're in Europe, they have a kill switch, and then you have to pay however many tens of thousands of dollars just to.
Manda: Have them switch it back on again. But there must be a way around that because it's basically a thing with wheels and an engine that goes.
Nathalie: There is. But that's the Anti-circumvention law. If you find a way to patch it or intervene in the code, you get sent to jail even though you've paid for the product. Because you're not allowed to circumvent the software it comes with. And Tesla's the same.
Manda: Okay. So Europe just makes a law where you can't do that. John Deere, I'm sorry, that doesn't apply in Europe.
Nathalie: Well so previously, and you should have Cory Doctorow on the show, it would have been the case where up until they made this law come into effect and said, okay, if you don't capitulate, we will put trade sanctions on you, well look what happened last year, we're already trade sanctioned in some respect. So then well why capitulate if you're already punished? It's like if you've already punished me, I'm just going to do my own thing anyway, which is why not?
Manda: So what's the end result with John Deere tractors? Because I did hear them saying in Canada, the biggest thing that Carney could do, one of the big things, would be to say, okay, anyone in Canada can do what the heck they like with any of these.
Nathalie: Yes, so that would be not respecting the anti-circumvention law. Yeah. So then you would basically have to wait and see what happens. And either they decide that they want to punish Canada for making that law possible if and when and if they've done it.
Manda: The Americans as a whole? So Trump would put on yet another 10% of tariffs, or John Deere would decide not to sell the tractors in Canada.
Nathalie: Well, it depends on how big their export market is. And if all of the middle powers say, okay, we're not playing anymore. You know, think about all the defence funds that now Europe is having to put into our own military. You know, again, this is another shake up which makes for interesting questions. But just because Trump is saying, well, we're not gonna protect you anymore, it's like, well, what about your nuclear defence that sits on European shores? Shall we just shut the door on that too? Like, there's a lot of systemic elements being called into question, and I think it's a good thing.
Manda: Yes, because they all made a lot of assumptions that we're the good guys and the bad guys, and all those assumptions were wholly false. If you and I were to design, if you particularly were to design something ten, fifteen, twenty years out, that was a bridge to something where those kinds of things do not apply. So I would say, for instance, ISDS gone. TIPP gone. I would change the entire financial system. What would the baselines be for you? Have you thought that far ahead? Do you think in those kinds of systems? If this is an irrelevant question, then say so.
Nathalie: So are you thinking about legal interventions that I would like to see come into play?
Manda: Yes. At the level of let's assume that we get the people in the room who actually do understand what's going on. So we get diplomats who understand tech, or I'm thinking the obvious way is to get an actual competent diplomat paired with an actual competent tech person, and they know how to talk to each other in an emotionally literate way. Because otherwise you're having to teach tech to diplomats who might not have the bandwidth or their brains might not work that way, or you're having to teach diplomacy to tech people. First of all, how do we create international systems that work at scale and in time? And second, what would their baselines for decision making be? Because at the moment, it's a competitive advantage; we're back to Ricardo, and that was insane back in the 1700s, and it's still insane now. How do we create an international order that isn't dependent on, for instance, a madman in the white House deciding to press the nuclear button. Or isn't held hostage by that.
Nathalie: So you mentioned several things in that that I think are really important and that are worth spending a bit of time on individually. So I think educating the decision makers as to the territory on which they are making the decisions. So what is the suitcase term AI? What are the different types of AI? What are the different domains in which they work? You know, a large language model is very different to other forms of AI. So I think there's an element there around how do we educate people. The first thing is education of people. You mentioned training people. I think there are organisations already that provide really useful means through which to train people. So one of them is Luminar AI, which is run by Emma Mueller, who has a fascinating background, well worth exploring. But she recently joined me on a panel at Integra in Amsterdam, which looks at the poly crisis. And one of the things we were talking about was how do you get people to make wiser decisions? And one of the ways that they work is to have a cohort of leaders within business get trained up on what different types of AI are. What it means to take an ethical, responsible approach to the use of AI in one's companies. So that kind of includes these other elements that have to be present when we're talking about any technology that has the means to impact people's thinking, decision making, performance and profitability, but attachments; intimacy, access to media, misinformation. There's a whole gamut of risks. So bringing in an ethical and responsible dimension is really important. So there are organisations that exist that can train people and that's just one because I know of them, but there are others.
Nathalie: Then I think there's different areas. So thinking about the law. And it comes back again to this idea of the different threads that make up the tapestry in which we live. It would have to be a way of getting people to understand that the decisions we make about these technologies, that have such a potential to shift our information ecologies, our physical ecologies, our relational ecologies. We need to think also about their impact on the living web of life. On the stability of economies. You know, if you're getting rid of, it's called the Klarna effect quite ironically, but the idea that if a company thinks it can fire 7000 people and put chat bots as customer service representatives and people get annoyed because they don't have access to real humans, then they have to rehire people, and that's an extra cost. And so many companies are having to backtrack because they made that same initial short term decision. Other issues around biometrics, thinking about existing examples that have worked, in Denmark I think it is, there was a law that was passed where each citizen owns their own biometric data. So if you were there, your face data belongs to you. Your iris data belongs to you. Your voice as a means through which to identify yourself belongs to you. And so if you have a company coming in from outside of Denmark, as well as in Denmark, any data that they might want to siphon off and send back to their warehouses and give to their governmental agencies and what have you, they can't because it's copy written.
Manda: How do you enforce that when you're Denmark, which is relatively small compared to Palantir, say?
Nathalie: I don't know. We should look that up.
Manda: That strikes me as a problem. I could, you know, Scotland, Denmark, anywhere, could pass all the laws it likes and I can see the people who think they are masters of the universe going, do we need to listen to that law? No, I don't think we do.
Nathalie: But then my sense would be that, and this is again worth checking, that if you have a law that your government's put into place that shows your position, vis a vis certain practices, then those companies, either they don't knock on your door, or if they do knock on your door, the government has a responsibility to at least question and then go with a different provider. If you don't have that law in place, in any case, then you're really stuck. So there's the biometric question, but then I think there's also the human flourishing question, thinking about what it means to live a free life. If we're talking about surveillance, that time and time again, misidentifies people with darker skin. That misrepresents certain data or leaves out entire other pieces of data, or, for instance, not even thinking about that, but like large language models. I was doing a talk for a financial company recently, and one of the things that was interesting in the research that I came across, was if you present as female to this large language model, the major ones, and you ask for financial investing advice, if it perceives or assumes that you are female, it will give you less aggressive investment strategies. That's just one example. And it doesn't matter about your risk profile. So there's all sorts of really bonkers stuff. And that's just within that nook.
Manda: And that's just one that we've identified. I think the hidden biases that we don't notice because they're part of the people who embedded them.
Nathalie: And all the training data, all the Reddit threads that are full of racist, misogynist. I mean, garbage in, garbage out. But so I think you were asking about a law and I think it would have to be, what I would love to see, is for the people who make these decisions to have to be accountable to like a citizens assembly. Or it wouldn't be quite a citizens assembly. It would be like people who represent and have knowledge in each of these areas of the impacts of said trajectory on ecologies, economies, on data, on privacy, on relationships. Human flourishing. So that then they go on a course, they experience firsthand some of the impacts. They go and speak to mothers and fathers who've lost their children to social media, you know, grooming and self-harm videos. And they have to really face into the reality of what they could potentially be unleashing in their populations. And then to fund that you would have, this is my great dream, I wish it was more exciting. If we could somehow, and this is going to sound so naive, but imagine the wealth that would be redistributed if we did this: a flat 10% tax for everyone, everywhere in the world. 10%. Immediately people would be lifted out of poverty, if you had the systems.
Manda: Of redistribution, that would...
Nathalie: Yeah, obviously you'd need to have the backing. But if you had no way of avoiding taxation, if you couldn't put your headquarter in Ireland and...
Manda: Yes, or British Virgin Islands or all of the ex-British colonies. Why are we stopping at 10%? I would have a maximum. You cannot have more than, let's say a cap on it for 500 million. I mean, who needs more than Half $1 billion? But you have to identify it and you have to enforce it. And this is interesting; Richard Murphy, who's a modern monetary theorist, a really interesting guy and he says they will just ignore you. How do you enforce that?
Nathalie: Yeah. How do you enforce it? Well, let's see what happens in California later this year. Because if that becomes law, then it's much easier for other cities and states to then galvanise to be able to make that ripple outwards. And if you get enough of these kind of major cities tipping.
Manda: If everyone that is now in the C40, which is definitely a C90, if not more, all did it. Because they are inevitably the big cities in the big global North nations. That'd be really interesting, wouldn't it? It seems to me that enforceability is the key. Because I think you could take some of the masters of the universe, you could introduce them to the parents of kids that their tech has encouraged to kill themselves and I just don't think they have the empathy. I mean, I'd love to be wrong. But you can require them to come in front of Congress and they just lie. They just sit there and lie through their teeth. And this is the dark triad writ large. And we have a system that promotes that. And so we need to change the system, obviously. But in the stepping stones, I don't see any way other than totally changing the world economy, because the day the dollar ceases to have value, they are not billionaires anymore. The day the dollar is not our exchange mechanism, they're just another block.
Nathalie: I think a lot of it also is down to actually making visible the ways in which these manipulatory techniques hold us in these, sort of disenfranchise us. And so one of the examples that's really recent, that's been horrifying and brilliant to watch, because some of these things, it's both. So Sarah Wynn Williams, who wrote this book last year called Careless People, which chronicles her experience as head of policy at Facebook, from a very early time until relatively recently. It's an exposé. Imagine a techno dystopian version of Bridget Jones's Diary. It's like that.
Manda: But it's not fiction.
Nathalie: It's not fiction.
Manda: Wow.
Nathalie: It's out there. And one of the things that's been really interesting, she was invited to the hay Festival, big Book Festival in the UK to come and speak about this book. Do you remember this? Yes?
Manda: Say anyway. Because listeners might not.
Nathalie: So her lawyers basically said, look, Facebook is meta, it's going to come after you if you speak about this. She's essentially not allowed to talk about the book. She's not allowed to hold her own book. She's not allowed to be in any airport where they sell her book. She's not allowed to in any way promote her own book. And yet, as far as I know, not a single defamation case has been brought against her by Facebook, by Meta, which one would suspect might be because there isn't a watertight argument.
Manda: Case to be made.
Nathalie: Anyway, so she goes to Hay Festival and this is happening in lots of different places now. But she's sitting there with Carole Cadwalladr, who runs now The Nerve, which is brilliant. If you haven't listened to The Nerve, it's a fantastic group of journalists who are just doing the most extraordinary work.
Manda: And it's worth saying that Carole Cadwalladr is the one who broke Cambridge Analytica and she of anyone in the world who understands the dangers of the depths of data mining that's happening, Carole Cadwalladr is the one who is also publicising it. So then she's on a panel with Sarah Wynn-williams and...
Nathalie: There's another panellist. But the clip that I saw, the YouTube interview that I saw, was where Sarah is sitting there in silence, and Carole is saying why it is that she's having to remain silent. She's gagged.
Manda: She can't speak.
Nathalie: Here's why she can't speak, but I can speak on her behalf. And so this sisterhood, this siblinghood, but sisterhood. You mentioned fraternity from the Pope. I think we need to extend that to Siblinghood, the language matters, really matters. Anyway, the siblinghood that we are seeing, this allyship of the clips that I've seen are primarily women, but also of men saying we need to speak on this woman's behalf. There is a reason she's being silenced. Her book sales went up 300% after that appearance at Hay Festival without her uttering a word, right?
Manda: Yes, because she wasn't allowed to. And that really triggers a lot of people of now I want to know what you're saying, because they want you not to say it.
Nathalie: Right. And so I agree, we need to hold these people accountable. And I think part of that is reclaiming the attention that we give, that we allow to kind of get strip mined. The imagination that we allow to just get completely crushed, the relationship that we allow to get perverted and kind of colonised by all of these tech platforms in larger and smaller amounts. To actually find a way. Once you see something like that happen, or you read that kind of book, or you see sort of, and again, I mean, it's unfortunate that this should be tribalism, but one of your own being silenced when they're trying to protect you.
Manda: Yes, yes. Really deep limbic responses arise, yes.
Nathalie: Very deep. And so one would hope to be able to acknowledge that and move beyond. But also, fierce compassion is about standing up for justice, which means not abusing other people or the living world and all the beings on it. And so there is this sense now that I see of people sort of standing up around this person saying, no, no, no, this is morally wrong. We're going to do something different. And it's kind of fanning the flames of a cultural moment where people are realising that, yes, we have collective agency. They can silence one person, but they're not going to silence us all. And there are routes forward for positive, imaginative types of technologies like Polis that Audrey Tang set up back in Taiwan. These technologies exist. There are extraordinary ways to harness technology to help us understand whether a water body or a stream or a tree or a forest, needs extra support. How to look after our crops. Whether a cow that is calving needs extra help if she's in distress. Whether someone is being stalked online. So there are ways to harness these technologies and develop them if the regulation is there. But the regulation only comes with sufficient awareness of what kind of world we want to live in, what values we want to protect and uphold. And then if the pressure mounts, which it is in multiple places, then we can apply pressure through our mayors etc. to be able to get the regulations that we want. So it's all interconnected, but we have absolutely got to stand up for what we love and come together in broad coalitions to say there are other ways forward. Which is all about thrutopian thinking, what you're talking about. And the change is there, there are living examples where it's already working. It's just that that future is unevenly distributed, but it exists.
Manda: Right. It does exist. Brilliant. Yes. Okay, thank you. This is joining together a lot of dots. So let me just feed back what I heard you just say. First of all, the future is unevenly distributed, but it is there and it's a value shift. And speaking aloud that the value has shifted to one of connection and conviviality and flourishing of the human and the more than human world, and valuing connection over valuing accumulation of stuff and valuing justice at its core. And sovereignty is one of those words that keeps getting thrown around and has multiple different meanings. As with freedom. I will never forget talking to the people from Braver Angels who said that their Los Angeles chapter had gathered together a group of Democrats and Republicans to find common ground, and they'd spent the entire weekend discussing the meaning of the word freedom. And how different it was to each group. And I still don't know, and I regret not asking, were they able to find common ground at all? And what was that common ground?
Manda: And sovereignty seems to me that same thing, it means different things to different people. But finding that sense of I have a sense of who I am and my value in the world, and my value is valued by others. And I offer that value in service to the collective. That would be my sense of sovereignty. And it seems to me that what you're saying, with musicians meeting, gathering in people's front rooms and getting up to the fact that you're going to conferences where people are discussing how do we find the humanity and the ways forward? That feels like it's rippling at all of the levels. There's so much else we wanted to talk about. You spoke in the podcast with Tim Logan about being at a conference where you got everyone to sing, and I would like you to recount that, because not everybody's listened to the same podcast. So tell us about that. And then just for a little while before we stop Shifting into the spiritual shifts that you are participating in, the artistic and spiritual, that place where art and spirituality flow together and are part of this rising tide. Tell us about that.
Nathalie: So one of the things that I've noticed is that when we have warring factions, and you've spoken to this, within ourselves and we find ways to bring them into dynamic conversation; it doesn't have to be peace necessarily, we can get on our way to that. But if we find ways to integrate or be in more fruitful conversation with warring factions of ourselves, then we start to see that change emerge in the way that we respond to the world. And one of my big fights has been between this kind of very intellectually directive prove oneself; go out into the world in a male dominated field and make sure that you are dotting your I's, crossing your t's and this armouring up of intellect to perform, to be as untouchable. One can never be untouchable, there's always going to be someone who has something. But so this kind of like defence mode.
Manda: Doing our best.
Nathalie: Yeah. Like be perfect and then you might be valued. So for years I've fought with this and then the other side, and it did feel like warring factions, is this kind of creative, permeable artist, musician, gatherer that that wants to move much more in relationship. And so there's kind of these factions being very much at war with one another. And one of the things that is an unexpected joy of getting to this place where we're asking questions, what if AI can replace the kind of human output that we value economically, culturally, what's left for us means that having done a lot of work, to try and find a way to get these parts to relate, as like an orchestra playing the same symphony, as opposed to the guy in the back on the timpanis being like, ding dong, ding, while the flute at the front is going shut up! What is the symphony for this orchestra of parts? And I suddenly realised, through a lot of work, kind of, oh, hang on, now there is the potential to bring these elements into a single place to bring the intellect in all its clarity and syncretic way of constellating ideas together, to bring that to bear, and also to speak from a place in which my deep love of and heartbreak around the ways in which we are relating to the living world and to one another, can be held in present in the room, in that space.
Nathalie: So at this event in November of last year, I was speaking at the World Business Forum in Madrid and the guy who booked me, we'd been having a conversation in a taxi in Medellin, in Colombia, where I'd done another talk, where he was like, I think you need to bring your creativity in in some way. Like sing on stage or bring in your art or do something. Do something. Okay. So Adam Grant was speaking, Brenee Brown was speaking, these kind of titans of psychology from the states. And I was thinking, now or never, I'm either going to crash and burn or it's going to go brilliantly well, not to be too binary about it, but you know one's mind kind of tends to go like, well, this is what we're playing with guys. And I thought, well, now's the time. So I got on stage, I gave this talk about AI and human agency, and I was touching on things like cognitive surrender and the relinquishing of critical thinking and artificial intimacy and agency, and what it means to be intrinsically motivated versus kind of externalising those sorts of decisions. All of these different things, like that map, but giving stories throughout. And at the end, I landed in this place where I was trying to encourage people to think about how, in an age of increasing automation, where we can cognitively offload or outsource our thinking, decision making, etc., to something else, perhaps the most radical thing we can do to reclaim our humanity is to dare to be present.
Nathalie: Because throughout Covid, many of us had to turn to our phones and it was wonderful, but then that, I think, is where we saw a sort of a shift towards the capture of attention, intimacy, relationship, etc., sleep. And so then I asked this audience to play a game and I thought, okay, if we play a game, then it's again, being careful with one's frame. So like, are you up for it? Yes. And then I asked them, okay, raise your hand if you played an instrument when you were a kid growing up. 85% of the audience raised their hand.
Manda: Everyone gets a recorder don't they.
Nathalie: Or a tambourine or castanet. Like whatever it is. And then OK, raise your hand if you ever sing in the shower. Like, pretty much everyone's hands went up. I was like, okay, so you can all make musical sounds. So we're going to play a game. I'm going to sing these notes and you're going to guess the next note. So I was like, ah, ah, ah, ah (descending) and then of course they went, 'ah'(lower note). And so you warm them up. They're like, okay, we're doing a game, we're doing game. I was like, all right, now I want you to sing this loop of notes and when you've got the loop of notes, your job is to not get distracted by what I sing. I'm going to sing something on top. And again, it kind of sidesteps that shame of, oh my God, I'm singing a song in public. For these. I mean, I was bricking it but that's something different, that's my responsibility. So they do, they start singing this tune and I start doing some harmony on top. And then I sing this invocation to the world, this kind of love letter to the world, which is called the People's Song. And it's an invocation to all the peoples of kin to come and be present. Usually I sing it at the beginning of when I'm going to do a shamanic practice, or occasionally with a small group of friends if we're going into ceremony and it's just asking all the kin to be with us.
Manda: Could you sing it now?
Nathalie: Okay, sure: "Oh by one by one, may all your voices come. By foot and flight to sing this night, until the Dreaming's done. Oh River root and stone, come lead your brethren home. To gently stand upon this land, and make your song our own. Oh sky and stars and sea, may all your children be, as golden threads of this great web, beloved, strong and free. Beloved, strong and free.
Manda: Wow. Thank you so much. Gosh.
Nathalie: My pleasure.
Manda: That'll be the bit we pick out and put at the front. Thank you. Thank you. So you sang that while they were singing the four note harmony underneath?
Nathalie: Yeah. Wow. And the thing was, while my mind was rushing and my hands were shaking and I was thinking, let me do honour to this song, knowing full well what I was doing. What was extraordinary was hearing 1300 people sing in unison in a business conference, with someone they'd never met before, who was just like, shall we try it? Let's just try it. Let's see what happens.
Manda: It's a game. It doesn't matter.
Nathalie: Yeah, yeah.
Manda: And it does matter a lot.
Nathalie: And it does matter. And it wasn't necessarily, you know, this is a Spanish speaking audience. They were listening to me speak in English. Their English level was incredible. And it doesn't matter whether they understood the animist meanings of the words or the invocation. What I found mattered, and this was in emails I got later from men, men who wrote in emails, and typically women who came up in person, that was an interesting thing. One of them in particular sent me this long email and said the song, and just hearing all these other voices around me, hearing all these other voices around me, made me realise that I'm not actually alone. And I cried, and I was reminded of my father and just this, this beautiful email that he sent me. And I thought it's not about whether I sing it perfectly, it's not about whether they sing it perfectly. It's the act of daring to be present, singing together and realising we're here for this fleeting moment. Let's Be Here Now, together, in voice. And remember what it is. To just belong in the moment with one another.
Nathalie: And you mentioned earlier, tasting the quality of these experiences, touching the quality of the experiences, like these fleeting moments of longing and beauty and opening and being held and doing the holding. It's not complicated. And yet we need more contact with this and to hold and be held. And if we can do it in territories that might be a little more arid, like that, a little more unexpected. And you can move people from this place of just receiving passively to kind of creating with others, to be invited into play and into song, which can be quite profound just in the act of letting your voice come out and join the voices of others. It can be profound.
Manda: Wow. Thank you. I feel we should. The energy has moved to a place where we could stop. But what I really wanted is for you to tell us the entirety of the talk that you gave to these people. I think that would be a very interesting podcast. I could probably share it with you. Certain parts.
Manda: But we could just do that as another podcast at some point. There will be others for sure. Was there anything else? There's so much stuff that we could talk about. Was there anything else that was arising for you before we hit record that you wanted to say to people?
Nathalie: I would love to give a shout out to people that I think are important for us to know of, who are doing this kind of work. Is it okay?
Manda: Yes. Of course. Yes. People that I might want to invite on the podcast.
Nathalie: So if you are inspired by this conversation or you want to learn more, here are some of the most interesting people, events and organisations. So Timnit Gebru, who was a coder, developer at Google, but speaks a lot to the ethical questions. Cory Doctorow, whose book Enshittification has come out. He has a lot of interesting things to say. We have Gary Marcus, cognitive neuroscientist from the States or maybe from Canada who sold his first AI company to Uber. He's very interesting. If you want a technologically insightful, informed perspective that also points towards the risks and the macro picture, he's brilliant. Carl Miller, who I interviewed recently from Demos Digital Think Tank in the UK, does lots of interesting information around LLMs, misinformation and how to protect democracy and get more people engaged. Karen Hao, Book Empire of AI, doctor Joy Buolamwini, who was featured in Time. She's written books speaking about algorithmic justice, about the racialisation of the large language models that then put people at a significant disadvantage. Wakanyi Hoffmann, who talks about principally ubuntu approaches to technology. Zach Stein, who you mentioned, Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin.
Nathalie: You have some interesting books coming out later this year. So Hyperscalers by Paris Marx, which will be really interesting to read. Sherry Turkle has a new book coming out called Artificial Intimacy; Who We Become When We Talk to Machines. A book that came out a couple of years ago by a British writer, Naomi Alderman, called The Future. You must read this book. It's a work of fiction, but it is so good. Ted Chiang, who's written several books, but one of the books which I loved, short stories called Your Life and Other Stories, and that's about technology and the future. Um, and then Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams. And there are all sorts of other things like RSL media.org, which is inviting artists and other people to sign up to protect your data and decide who gets access to what. You get to decide. It's headed up by Cate Blanchett. The AI resist list.org. Karen Hao. The DAIR Institute distributed AI Research Institute headed by Timnit Gebru. Humane tech.com. The nerve.com. And there's various other ones. But I think that's probably enough to be getting on with.
Manda: Tell me you're going to send me that list for the show notes. I will.
Nathalie: I'll send you all of it. And then the medicine festival. Come along to that. And the UN's AI for Good summit, which I think is happening this week. So this will have gone out by then, but that's a lot to be getting on with.
Manda: So much for getting on with. But I'm so inspired that you're moving in these circles, you're meeting these people, you're having these conversations, who better possibly could be doing that? Yeah.
Nathalie: You do me an honour saying that. Thank you.
Manda: But yes, you got 1300 people to sing a paean to the web of life. A love letter to Gaia. It's cracking. So thank you so much. I guess we'd better stop at that, or we'll be heading into the third hour, and we'll have to cut the podcast. But we won't, because this is a whole thing in and of itself. Thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you again sometime very soon. Thank you. Nathalie.
Nathalie: Me too. Thank you.
Manda: And there we go. That's it for another week. Enormous thanks to Nathalie for everything that she is and does. For the huge breadth and depth of your knowledge Nathalie. I am absolutely in awe of the connections that you're making, your capacity to weave links between people and to bring all of us deeper into connection with ourselves and to that sense of mystery that we all yearn for. Into that sense of heart greatness that gives us that feeling of meaning and purpose and a reason to keep on moving forward. If you haven't read Nathalie's books, there are links in the show notes. If you haven't listened to her podcast, there's a link in the show notes to that, too. And Nathalie has offered an extraordinary list of resources of people who are already in this space, from Carole Cadwalladr to Wakanyi Hoffman, to books by Sarah Wynn-williams and Karen Hao and Naomi Alderman, to organisations like the Dare Institute and the Nerve and AI Resist List. So please, if you have any spare time in the next week, head on to the show notes and just click through. Find something that inspires you. Find something that gives you a sense of agency so that you can begin to take action in a world that is changing under our feet.
Manda: And then, as ever, we will be back next week with another conversation. In the meantime, huge thanks to Caro C for the music at the Head and Foot and for this week's production. Thanks to Lou Mayor for producing the video and for curating the YouTube channel. Thanks to Anne Thomas for the transcripts, to Faith Tilleray for the website and the tech, and most importantly, for the conversations that keep us moving forward. And as ever, an enormous thanks to you for listening. If you know of anybody else who wants to get to grips with the potential of AI and the ways that we could begin to bring intelligence and thoughtfulness and genuine connectivity into this work, then please do send them this link. And that's it for now. See you next week. Thank you and goodbye.