#466 — What Is Technology Doing to Us?
A discussion between Sam Harris and a guest about how information technology has harmed society over the past decade, exploring social media toxicity, AI's impact on human behavior, and the potential for both technological solutions and social adaptation. They examine how anonymity enables bad behavior online and how AI might change human interactions both positively and negatively.
Summary
The conversation begins with an assessment that the last decade of information technology has been quite harmful to society, contributing to polarization, mental health crises, and surveillance concerns. The guest predicts it will take half a generation to recover from these negative effects, drawing an analogy to environmental pollution that was eventually cleaned up. The discussion moves to personal experiences with social media, where the guest describes abandoning Twitter due to toxicity and AI-generated content, moving instead to BlueSky for scientific discussions. They explore potential remedies for social media problems, including the role of anonymity in enabling bad behavior online, comparing it to how masks historically disinhibited people. The conversation shifts to AI's broader implications, with the guest expressing confusion about conflicting expert opinions on AI's risks and benefits. A key focus emerges on how AI changes human-to-human interactions, illustrated through the 'Alexa example' - how children learning to be rude to voice assistants might transfer that behavior to interactions with other people. The guest's research focuses on using 'dumb AI' as a catalyst to improve human collective performance rather than replacing human cognition. The discussion concludes with speculation about humanoid robots and whether perfectly human-like robots would require the return of social graces, with references to the philosophical implications raised by shows like Westworld about the ethics of interacting with human-like machines.
About this episode
<p>Sam Harris speaks with Nicholas Christakis about technology, society, and human nature. They discuss the harms of modern communication technology, polarization and anomie, how AI agents can improve human cooperation, the social implications of humanoid robots, Christakis's experience at the center of the woke moral panic at Yale, the Trump administration's assault on American universities and science, the collapse of public trust in institutions, and other topics.</p> <p>If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at <a href="http://samharris.org/subscribe">samharris.org/subscribe</a>.</p>
Key Insights
- The guest argues that communication technologies of the last 10 years have contributed significantly to polarization, mental health crises, and surveillance threats in society
- The speaker claims that anonymity online contributes to bad behavior, drawing parallels to how masks historically disinhibited people at events or in mobs
- The guest's research focuses on using simple AI as a 'catalyst' to improve human-to-human interactions rather than developing superintelligent AI to replace human cognition
- The discussion suggests that AI-generated content ('AI slop') may eventually lead people to re-privilege traditional reputable news sources as they become more skeptical of online content
- The guest expresses feeling torn between conflicting expert opinions on AI, comparing it to the Fiddler on the Roof character who agrees with contradictory viewpoints
Topics
Transcript
Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. Thanks, Sam. Too much to talk about. I think I want to start with the question of, I guess I just want your post-mortem on the present. This last decade, what has technology, specifically…
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to AccessMore from Making Sense with Sam Harris
#495 — Foreign Policy for Sale
Anne Applebaum discusses how the Trump administration is systematically dismantling traditional American foreign policy institutions and replacing them with ideologues, business associates, and far-right sympathizers who are advancing a revolutionary agenda both domestically and internationally. She argues this represents a fundamental shift in how America operates on the world stage, with specific examples in Europe, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
#493 — Two Reasons to Meditate
The speaker identifies two foundational reasons to meditate: psychological/ethical (living better and suffering less) and intellectual/curiosity-driven (understanding the nature of mind and reality). Both motivations converge on the central insight that freedom comes from recognizing the illusion of the self and experiencing consciousness prior to identification with thought.
#492 — The Second Plane, 25 Years Later
Sam Harris reflects on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, arguing that the second plane hitting the South Tower proved jihadism was a coordinated, ideologically-driven threat rooted in religious belief. He critiques both American foreign policy failures and the Western left's confusion about Islamic extremism, contending that ideas have consequences and that jihadism remains a persistent threat unrelated to legitimate political grievances.
#491 — The Suicide of the Left
Sam Harris and James Kirchick discuss what they view as the Democratic Party's dangerous alignment with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a group they characterize as communist rather than democratic socialist. They examine how mainstream Democrats have failed to distance themselves from DSA-affiliated figures like NYC Mayor Eric Adams, attributing this partly to intellectual intimidation by the left and partly to historical patterns of leftist sympathy toward radical movements.
#490 — Lies, Bulls**t, and the Rule of Law
Sam Harris and Preet Bharara discuss the decline of good faith discourse, the role of social media and podcasts in spreading misinformation, the politicization of criminal prosecution, and analyze Trump's political appeal as rooted in demographic receptiveness to conspiracy theories rather than political genius.