doing, our ability to simulate what that fear experience must be like would be enough to stop us from doing that thing. and if you don't have the ability to do that, you just go right on ahead. >> 100 most influential people and foreign policies 100 global thinkers. he brings us tonight his new enlightenment now the case for

reason, science, humanism, and progress. bill gates says the world is getting better even if it doesn't always feel that way. i'm glad we have brilliant thinkers like steven to help us see the big picture. enlightenment now is not only the best book he's ever written. it's my new favorite book of all time. so without further adieu, please join me in welcoming steven thinker. [applause] >> thank you very much. from time to time, we all ask some deep and difficult questions. why is the world so -- how can we make it better? how do we give meaning and purpose to our lives? well at difficult as these questions are, many people have

answers to them. for example, some people believe that morality is dictated by guard in holy scriptures. when everyone obeys his law the world will be perfect. or problems are the fault of evil people who must be shamed punished and defeated. or -- our tribe should claim its rightful greatness under the control of a strong leader who embodies its athen tick virtue. or o -- in the pasts we lived in a state of order and harmony until alien force brought on decadence and deit generation we must restore the society to its golden age. well, what about the rest of us? enlightenment now i argue that there's an alternative is of beliefs and values. mainly the ideals of the enlightenment. that we can use knowledge to enhance human u flourishing. many people embrace idealing of

the enlightenment without able to name or describe them they've faded into the background as the status qoa or establishment. other ideology have patient passionate an they need a positive defense and an explicit commitment and that is what i've tried to do. the ideals of the enlightenment i suggest can be -- captured in four key ideas. reason, science, humanism, and progress. let me say a few words about each. it all begins with reason that traditional sources of belief are generators of delusion. faith, revelation, tradition, authority, charisma, intuition, the parsing of sacred texts are always of being wrong. reason in contrast is non gauchable as soon as you try to

provide reasons why we should trust anything other than reasoning, as soon as you try to -- suggest that you are right that other people should believe you, that you're not lying. or full of crap you've lost the argument because you've appealed to reason. now, humans on their own are not particularly reasonable. cognitive psychologists most notably daniel have shown is that human beings are likely liable to generallyize from an a tech dotes to reason from stereotypes, to we all seek evidence that confirms our beliefs and -- grow off evidence that disconfirms them. and we're overconfident about our knowledge, wisdom and our rectitude, however, people are capable of reason if they establish certain norm an institutions. such as free speech, anyone can criticize the claims of anyone

else. such open criticism and debate logical analysis, fact checking and testing that brings me to second of the enlightenment ideals science. science is based on conviction that the world is intelligible. that we can understand the world by formulating possible explanations, and testing them against reality. scientists shown it's thought to be most reliable way of understanding the world including ourselves in important enlightenment ideal is that there can be a science of human nature and beliefs about society are testable like any other beliefs about the world. now, science divides not just technical know u how and handy gadgets but insight about the human condition. naturalism, the universe has no goal or purpose related to human welfare with the implication if we want to improve that welfare we have to figure out how to do

it ourself os. intrepty in a system one without input of energy, disorder increases -- things fall apart. stuff whats. that's because they're vastly more ways for things to go wrong than to go right. revolutions humans at a competitive process that selects for reproductive society not for well being as they put it either be crooked timber of humanity no truly straight thing can be built. this leaves to the third enlightenment theme humanism that the ultimate moral purpose is reduce suffering enhance flourishing of human beings and other creatures. now, that sounds pretty obvious who can be against human flourishing and the reason is there are lots of alternative moral systems that prioritize other things such as that the ultimate good is to chance the glory of the tribe, the nation,

the race, the class, or o the faith to obey dictate of.infoty and pressure others to do the same to achieve peats of greatness or advance some mystical force dialectic struggle or pursuit of a utopian or age. humanism is feasible because humans are endowed with sense sympathy another reoccurring enlightenment theme. that is we can be concerned with the welfare of others we feel others pain. by deall the our circle of sympathy is rather piewning we tend to sympathize only with -- genetic relatives with close friends and allies -- with cute fuzzy baby animals and that's it be. but our sense of sympathy could be expanded through forces of cosmopolitanism through education, journalism, art, mobility, and reason. i can't insist that my interests

are special just because you're not and hopefully you take me seriously so when we're engaged in discourse that forces us to expand our circle of sympathy to include others. the final enlightenment ideal is progress that if we apply knowledge and sympathy to reduce suffering to enhance floor herbing we can gradually succeed. now, if human nature doesn't change, how could progress be possible? and important to answer from the enlightenment is it is possible through benevolent norm and institutions. by which we can deploy energy, and knowledge to combat intrep i to magnify better angel of our nature such as reason and sympathy and marginalizing our inner demon, bias, illusion, tribalism our dominance our vengeance. examples of enlightenment

institutions bringing children of the enlightenment are democracy, declarations of rights, markets, organizations for global cooperation, and institutions of truth seeking such as academies, scientific societies, and a free press. so -- how does that enlightenment thing work out? well if you ask most intellectuals the answer is not very well. because i have learned it that -- most intellectuals hate progress. and intellectuals who call themselves progressive really hate progress. [laughter] if you think we can solve problems i have been told then you have a -- blind faith, and a religious belief in the outmotive superstition of the false promise of the myths of the onward march of inevitable progress. you are a cheerleader for vulgar american can doism with the spirit of ideology and chamber

of commerce you are a practitioner of wig history. in nigh chief optimist, a, of course, a pen gloss in ul luges to the character who declared all is or for the best in the best of our possible worlds. now by standards it would be -- categorized as a pets mist because real optimist think we can do much better than the world we find today. this is definitely not the best of all possible worlds. but -- the key progress -- should not depend on what -- on an attitude, temperament with a funny disposition. it can be treated as a hypothesis. human well being can be measured. we can measure life, health, prosperity, peace, freedom, safety, knowledge, leisure, happiness, i submit if they increased overtime that is progress.

that enlightenment now i try to make the case with grass, plotting measure of human being overtime because of the con straingts of this room, i although i feel naked telling this story without grass behind me, i'll have to -- did a combination of description to convey the same point. but let's begin with the most precious resource of all life itself. through most of human history, life expectancy at birth was around 30 years but thanks to -- vaccinations, sanitation, antibiotics, and other advances in health and medicine, life expectancy at birth today in the developed world is greater than 80 years. and in the world with as a whole, 71 years virtually no one guesses that it is that high. most of history, that the biggest hit to human life-span has been child mortality indeed even in a country as -- wealthy and advanced as sweden,

200 years ago one-third of children did not make it to their fifth birthday. today, in the poorest parts of the world no more than 6% of children fail to make it to their fifth birthday this would be ethiopia just in the last 40 years have brought their rate of child mortality down from 25% to 6%. still too high but the -- but the improvement is -- is continue oing. maternal mortality is another contradict to premature death and sweden 1% of mothers died in child birth. that has been brought down now to -- a third of one percent in the poorest countries of the world. and most of the measures of well being i can't depict it in grass but general pattern you see in measure after measure is that -- before the enlightenment about

250 yearses ago, pretty much everyone was retched there was universal poverty, and hunger and early death. european and american countries were the first to make the great escape from universal post and early death. followed though followed by asia southern asia and sub saharan africa is closing the gap. health, the -- someone who has spent a good chunk of his career studying the grammar of the past tense in english, i can identify my favorite past tense sentence in the history of the language and it comes from a wikipedia entry for small pox and entry begins smallpox was a disease caused by two -- two vices. yes the definition is in the past tense because smallpox that

killed 300 million people in 20th century alon has seesed to exist. and -- similar progress has been made not similar yet but slated for the past tense including polio and guinea worm and even diseases not be extinguishes are all comings down in the mortality rate ma lair ya, measles, hiv, aids. sub is it in starting with the agricultural revolution in britain in the late 18th century with -- crop rotation, other advances in agronomy later synthetic fertilizers, mechanism of farming, collective breeding as captured in the green revolution thought to have saved a billion lives. and transportation americas that number of calories available per person has increased in every part of the world including sub

is a making fat fatter but undernourishment is decimated in 1947, approximate 50% of the world met the definition of undernourishment that fell to 33% in 1970, and it is come down in every part of the world. effectively zero in the developed world but also coming down in -- latin america, asia and sub saharan africa. as a result famine which was one of the horseman of the apocalypse to strike without any warning for most of human history has been banished except for the most -- remote and war torn corners of the world. prosperity -- , though, most of human history economic growth pretty much was a -- nonexistent. tiny little increase until the

industrial revolution in the 18th century which initiated a blastoff of exponential growth with result that it will increase to about 200 fold in the last 250 years. once again, this was an uneven process it began with -- yiewrm and the americas thanks to the growth of -- education and technology and institutions that foster commerce and trade. but again dubious acheement if it gave rich people richer again but in a development that seldom appreciated, the growth of prosperity is -- starting to put an end to extreme poverty. extreme poverty is standardsly defined as the minimum amount necessary to feed one self in one's family. but that cry tier yum 200 years ago 90% of the world's population fit the definition of extreme poverty.

that has now fallen to -- less than 10% and the united nations set as one of the sustainable development goals, the elimination of extreme poverty everywhere on earth by the -- 2030s. may we all live to see that day. as a result of the defamation of extreme poverty, global inequality has been decreasing. now, it was inevitable that with the industrial revolution and the first expansion of wealth that inequality must have increased because before the industrial revolution everyone lived in poverty pretty much. when with the discovery of new sources of wealth from industrialize meant that some escaped from extreme poverty o leaves others behind therefore increasing global inequality. but more recently, because of globalization and -- trade and markets, poor

countries are getting richer than them and global index has been decreasing. now, of course within wealthy countries, like united states and britain inequality man increasing but perhaps what's more relevant is is not so much between rich and poor but the situation of the -- of the poor whether people not so much whether everyone has the same but whether everyone has enough, and in a revolution that is seldom appreciated, there's been a massive expansion in the amount of social spending that is -- reallocation of wealth to the poor, the sick, young, the old, in eve developed country. it is even called even has a name called wagner's law. for most of -- history everyone wealthy devoted 1% of their gdp to social spedgedding today the medium is

22% of social spending even a country like the united states which is behind the western average allocates 19% of its gdp to social transfers. thanks while inequality increased poverty has not. by the measure of disposable income after taxes and transfers, the poverty rate in the united states has fallen by one measure from about 30% in 1960 to about 6% today. and if it is measured by kumtion by what people can afford in food and clothing and shelter, the poverty rate today is less than 3%. peace -- for most of modern history, war is the natural state of international relations and peace was a mere interlude between wars. i have a graph from a while violence has denied which shows

percentage of years that the great powers of the day, the major states and empires were -- at each other's throats in -- many major wars. it goes from about 100% in the -- 16th century to 0% today. there's not been a great power war directly pitting two great powers against each other since the united states faced off against china 60 years ago. if we zoom in on -- the post war period, we see that another unheralded development which is with ups and downs, the global rate of death in warfare has been dramatically decrease iting. during the era of the -- korean war about 20 per hundred thousand people per year die in the war that went down to about -- nine or 10 during the in the 1960s during the vietnam war. about 5 if in the 1980s during the iran iraq war in the soviet

invasion of afghanistan. today with the worst war in a generation the syrian civil war it's about 1.2. with the signing of the peace agreement between -- the government of columbia and the last war in the western hemisphere came to an end so we're living in an era in which entire hem fear is free of war. and indeed five, six of the world pass is now free of war. freedom in rights -- despite obvious backsliding in russia, in turkey, in venezuela, and just today in -- in china. the overall trend towards, has not been reversed. the world has never been more democratic than it has been in this decade. in 1971, the world only had 31 democracies. half of europe was behind the iron curtain. even in western europe, spain and portugal fascist grief under

control of a military hunter most of latin america was under the control of military governments. taiwan, south korea, all dictatorships today they've all become democratic and from 31 countries in 1971, today, 103 countrieses are democracies compromising about two-thirds of the world's countries and two-thirds of the world's population. within krpghts as well, the power of governments took to brutalize their citizens has been garage yulely curtailed capitol punishment which used to be pretty much universal has been abolished in country after country. if current trends continue they probably won't but if you were to tex trap late for abolition of capital punishment it will vanish from the face of the earth in about ten years. in another development homosexuality has been decriminalized it used to be a

criminal offense in just about every country, and every year another couple of countries decriminalize homosexuality. child labor in imlangd in the mid-19th century, the era immortalized by dickens in oliver twist for example about a third of the children were put to work in farms and factories. thanks to -- the premium on education, mechanism of agriculture and increase evaluation of lives of children that went town it pretty close to zero. trajectory that is now replicated in the world as a whole in 1950s also about 30% of the world's children are -- were put to work today it is now 10% encontinuing to fall. kay color won the noble peace prize a couple of years ago for his efforts. hugely successful in bringing down the greats of child labor. violent crime in the -- homicide statistics in many

parts of the world go back year tots middle ages, and in the 14th century, the homicide rate in -- it in england and nether lands other order o about 35 per -- 100,000 per year. thanks to the frontier regions being brought under the control of the rule of law and the -- anarchy and code that is fallen to one per 100,000 per year. a 35-fold reduction. now to the process that seems to be replicated whenever frontier region are brought under rule of law the same thing happened in new england when the -- anarchy fell into the rule of law and same as american wild west made payments bit cowboy movie, with and even parts of the world that today -- will name notorious for their high rate like mexico. ive had a --

a five fold reduction compared to the rate are of violence in the 1930s. that process is continued in the united states which in -- rates of violence as we've said many other areas flourishes eyes is a back water when it comes to wealthy democracies in pretty much every measure of human flourishing we fall behind our democratic peers. most notably homicide where our rates of homicide has been between five and 10 times that of european countries. but even in the united states, the rate of homicide has fallen by -- more than half in just the last 25 years. it's not just the most extreme crime namely homicide that is shown reductions. but the rate of rape in the united states has fallen 75% since the 1970s. the rate of domestic violence has plummeted. and the victimization is of children in schoolyards in the home rates of bully, physical

abuse, rates of sexual abuse have all gone down. indeed, we have become safer in -- just about every other way that you can imagine. thanks to advances in the design of automobiles and highways, better licensing requirements, better traffic law enforcement we are -9d 6% less like lie toe die in a car crash compared to the early 20th century. we're 88% likely to be mowed down on a sidewalk. 99% less likely to die in a plane crash. 59d% less likely to fall to our death and to be burned to death. 09% less likely to drown. 92% less likely to be asphyxiated one exception to this trend, and if i were to be able to show you grass you would see curves going down for various accidental causes of death. but one of them going up and that is the category that public

health experts called -- death by poison, solid or liquid i wondered why people were suddenly drinking bleach or eating rat poison. but turns out that that is the category that includes drug overdoses and the opioid epidemic is one category of safety that has gone dramatically in the wrong direction. however, we're 495% less likely to be killed on the job. and we're globally far less likely to be killed in an act of god in a earthquake, brush fire, a volcano, a flood, a famine -- what about the quintessential act of god everyone's favorite metaphor for unpredictable date with death. the literal bolt from the blue -- the thunderbolt hurled by 96 like oily to die from a lightning strike compared to several decades ago.

knowledge -- in through most of european history no more than 15th pption knew how to read or write today that figure is 100% in the developed world. but in the world as whole, the literacy rate has exceeded 80% and for people urd the age of 25 -9d 0%. 90% this is true not just for boys as was traditional. but for girls who approaching gender parity in literacy basic education and perhaps the most -- incredible example of human progress that -- that i have come across we're getting smarter. in a well replicated effect called the flynn affect scores bethree for almost a century thanks mostly to -- the spread of education probably also buzz of the rise of public

health. and probably also the spread of symbols and abstract concept ares into everyday life trickling from science academia and technology. well does it any of this bring any gains in quality of life? all of these things that economists like to measure and quantify? well, by pretty much any definition of quality of life, yes. for example, we as charles dickens reminded us in 19th century people worked about 65 hours a week. that has fallen by 22 hours week. and most workers today get three weeks of fade vacation in addition to the reduced workweek. in the domestic sphere we used to spend -- about 60 hours a week house work and by we, that really means women because house work traditionally and to larger extend today is gendered but thanks to the --

ubiquity of electricity, run aring water, and labor saving devices like refrigerators, vacuum cleaners washington cleaners and stoves which a majority have including a majority of poor households, the amount of time that we lose house work fallen from about 60 hours a week to -- about 15 hours a week. in fact, an entire day of a week of one withs life used to be called wash day. a day in which women did nothing but wash clothes, has been returned to our lives. thanks to the reduction in the workweek and the reduction in house, in house work, hrb of time has been increasing. even since the 1960s putting aside gainses from early 20th century if you were to see the imraf you would see one anomaly which is that the amount of time for men has steadily increased the amount of leisure time for women increased through the early 90s and then kind of leveled off. and the reason is, that women

spend more time today with their children. , in fact, a single working mother spends more than a married stay at home mom spent in the 1950s. so forget e leave it to beaver. we also spend less of our paycheck on necessities in 1920s people had to fork over more than 60% of their paycheck to food loathing and shelter. today it is less than a thrd. does this make a difference for our happiness the answer is yes it does in a majority of countries countries with longitude data tracks happiness over time there's been an increase. united states by the way is an exception. united states happiness was pretty much stagnated over hasn't gotten worse. and more generally, if we stem back and we look at the effects of equipment development on happiness and full range of the scale from poor countries to rich countries, then we see that

there's a very strong but a relationship between gdp per capita and happiness both across countries and within countries. so as the world gets richer its people on average get happier. well, has this all happen haded at the expense of the environment? initially it is surely did but in a development few appreciate the environment is rebounding, and in a kind of report card for the state of the environment, that yale university the environmental progress index 78 out of 80 countries have shown an increase in environmental quality in the several decades this includes the united states where since the passage of the -- environmental protection act in 1970, our gdp has gone up. the number of miles that we drive every year has gone up. the amount our population has gone up. but the rate of emission of air pollutions at the same time has

gone down. so the idea this popular both among the -- hard green left ab the hard libertarian right that you can have environmental growth or o you can have environmental you can have economic growth or environmental protection. but you can't have both. is false. we have had both. thanks to -- environmental regulation which needless to say are currently underthreat. in temperate parts of the world deforestation has -- basically fallen to zero as tarms have been abandoned and are reclaimed by forest. even in -- tropical forests where there's still an alarming amount of deforestation the amount has peaked, and it has way down we have to bring that to zero. but the direction is -- downward. as the world has -- shipped more and more oil by sea, there have been fewer and fewer oil spills. and more and more of the earth's

surface both land surface and oceans have -- are now protected against economic exploitation about 15% of the world's land area and about 12% of the world's oceans. quell, i've reviewed a case of a case of what one would have to call human progress. how is this reflected in the news? well one more graph that begin i have to because i can't project it. i -- data scientists use a technique of sentiment mapping which automatically analyzes new stories for a degree of positivity and positive words with anding in words, and what is it shown is that "new york times" has gotten pretty much more and more over time. that's not just a "new york timeses" a sample of the world's news sources show the same increasing gloominess. so -- why do people deny progress? one answer comes from an

interaction between the nature of human cognition and the nature of journalism identified a short cut that the human brain takes a rule of thumb by which we assess probability, called availability namely easier it is to recall examples from memory. images anecdotes, narratives, the more likely we think is. now think about how ho the news works. news is about stuff that happens. not stuff that doesn't happen. you never see a reporter saying here i am reporting live from a city that is not been struck by terrorist today. [laughter] or a school that is not been shot up or country that has been at peace for 40 years. as long as the number of bad events hasn't fallen to zero there will always be incidents to report on the news. you combine that with availability and you get the

impression that the world is getting more dangerous and always has been. there are other psychological quirks that i think inflate our sense of -- of dread and doom, in a phenomenon sometimes called negativity bias that bad is stronger than good, we dread losses more than we saver ingas. we worry more about threats than we appreciate improvements. lead to not only a sense that the world is always dangerous place. but it kind of opens up niche for commercial and doom says and prophets to reare mind us of threats that we may have overlooked indeed this sets up a kind of perverse prophesy market where the -- gloomiest most prophets are ones to which we accord greatest moral seriousness. as morgan financial writer put it pessimist sound like they're

trying to help you optimists are trying to sell you something. okay let me conclude with three -- [laughter] general questions about progress and enlightenment. when mike reasonably asked it good to be pessimistic and important to -- rake the muck flick the can comfortable speak truth into power? well it is up to a point but really what's important is to be accurate. that is to be aware of problems and suffering and injustice where they occur but also to be aware of ways in which this can be reducedded because there are dangers to thoughtless pessimism within of them is fatalism why waste time and money on a hopeless cause why throw money down it a rat hole trying to alleviate poverty in developing world if poor will always be with you? precisely the conviction that we can improve -- solve problems that give us the confidence to solve the problems that remain.

also, the pessimism can give rise to radicalism that if every institution is is failing, if all of our problems intractable society is just spiraling downward circling the dream, then we may as well raise are the institutions of -- smash the machine drain the swamp, burn the empire to the ground. empower a leader who promises only i can fix it. and out of the hope that anything would be better than what we have now. well that can be history reminds us that can be a dangerous kind of desperation because -- the sentiments that things can't get any worse can be wrong even with problems that reare main. second question, is progress inevitable and the answer is, of course, not. there is no magical art bending toward justice or tide of rise human improvement that will make

things better off all by themselves. quite the contrary, the laws of the universe are indifferent to human well being. and will have the to their own devices things get worse. not better. solutions create new problems which have to be solved in their turn and us a be blindsighted by nasty surprises and they do happen. like the world wars -- the 1960s crime boom. the opioid epidemic in the united states. also, there are severe global challenges that we have not yet solved. prominent are climate change improbable but catastrophic event best off as seeing problems that are unsolved by solvable. climate change must be addressed by carbonization by carbon pricing, including carbon taxes,

and low zero eventually negative carbon technologies. denuclearization to be pursued by enhancing stability and programs -- to reduction and arms reduction. the -- graph which i would show you if i was showing graphs show that progress in both of these -- endeavors is by no means a utopian aspiration but it's to some extent it has been happening. if you plot the amount of co2 the country emit per dollar of gdp you find that there is a -- an ark that britain relied on wood and then coal, but then less as it switched to oil and gas and renewable and nuclear. the united states followed the same u shape curve. china has repeated that trajectory, i understood why and

world as a hol, soization is committed to flames carbon but it it is a process that has begun and has to be accelerated much more and has to be brought to zero. but those suggest that it is not impossible. like wise few people are aware that the world's nuclear arsenal has been reduced by 85% since the height of the cold war. indeed about 10% of american energy comes from nuclear power from decommission soviet weapons. again, that ideally should be brought to zero. final question that i'll raise. does the enlightenment somehow go against human nature this is a frequent accusation from defenders of religion and nationalism. that humanism all sounds very good. but isn't kind of tepid or flattened view of human life as if they conquest of disease

famine, poverty, violence ignorance is -- boring. do people need to believe in magic a father in the sky -- a strong chief to protect the tribe myth of heroic ancestors i don't think so. for one thing secular liberal democracies v proven to be happiest and on the earth probably in the history of our species and they're the top destination of the people who vote with their feet. also, i dare say that applying knowledge and sympathy to enhance human flourishing when properly appreciated is heroic glorious, and i dare say spiritual. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> is use up the time or o time now for questions? >> we have time for questions from the audience just raise your question and i'll come to i

have a q and a mic here and get to as many as we can and folks keep your questions to questions, thank you. >> hi. steven, i have a lot of admiration for you as public intellectual and write great books to red and i'm the not to be argue with your statistics on human history. however, i think you're optimism is a bit irrational. i think it was martin reeves who said a good way to figure out how long thrings going toes last is to see how long they've lasted it in mod erin western civilization is only a couple of hundred years old so i was looking at the curve you had of gdp and it's just feels like -- it's going against the dynamic and grade i can't it feel like you have to fall off. so do you think -- okay -- >> do you think that maybe -- don't you think maybe this is a local maximum that with the uncertainty of -- climate change and artificial intelligence that all bets are off? >> well, a few things there's no law of physics or universe that

says that gdp growth has to level off or stop because it isn't about stuff. it is it be things that people value. and in particular, as -- with the advance in technology, we get more and more human benefit with fewer and fewer atom smart phone replaced 50 appliances. most wealthy countries have is reached peek staff if we consume less timber, less steel, less every resource, but life keeps getting a little more interesting because we -- process bits on our cell phone so gdp no law that says it has to level off. that is a myth. climate change indeed is unsolved problem as i mentioned and maybe won't so solve it but maybe we will. paths towards it carbonization is laid out. there's no layoff physics that says we cannot solve the problem. there may be a lack of political -- coordination and will. but there's plenty of those that

hit the world surface is from solar energy and opportunities from nuclear energy to supply worlds energy needs even with growth continuing into the future. and in terms of a long run like the very long run you have sun to expand in a red giant to boil oceans we are going die and get along when we're dead so there's undoubtedly a local maximum in the span of -- and million years -- and there isn't but none of the arguments that there are i think holds we are the and i think the threat of the intelligence i haven't mentioned that topght but i do discuss it in detail it in the book, is a -- is i think it is look the fear that many of us remember of the yt2 bug if you remember in 1999 and how nuclear missiles launch

from silo and planes fall from the sky. nuclear power plants will fall down i think that was a threat from artificial intelligence is -- is in that category that's a different side of nuclear war and climate change i think are real. are serious, are unsolved by might be solve only but i'm not worried about robots. [laughter] >> question over here. >> so first off thanks for coming today and thanks for the great talk. if the mainstream media is negative in nature. then does that mean there's a tradeoff being happy and being informed even if we're knowing it is going to be negative? >> yeah. there's something of a tradeoff i do discuss that on the chapter on happiness. one of the reasons that i speculate because no one knows the reason. why given the -- rising of fortune of merchs why is our happiness stagnated and in some ways the percentage of americans call themeses extremely happy has gradually sunk somewhat. and some of it may be that as we come more aware of the world's

problems, just as when we grow up and we become more mature our worry burden, npgzs when we become grownups we have to pay the rent and make living and put food on the table, as a species, we have to now worry about things that couple of generations ago people didn't worry about. like in the 1950s probably the peak of american influence and -- and glory and standing have, you know, people didn't worry about racial inequality. they didn't choir -- as much as we do about nuclear war. i mean there were the atomic cafe. there were -- s housewives had bless with appliances poverty invisible. african-americans were invisible and as we became more aware of american foreign policy blunders of poverty, then i think it wasn't surprising that -- each one of us might add it our

personal worry list some of the world's problems. i mean, now there are people who are anxious if climate change even though there's nothing whatsoever they can personally do about it. so you're right. i think there's something of a tradeoff, and i think one of the challenges to us as a individuals is how to be -- mature and responsible about taking the world's problems seriously. without all of us worries ourselves to death and whether it will be through, you know, mindful necessary or meditation or -- or cognitive behavior therapy or pharmaceutical or advice from wise people it is it a challenge that we face as we grow up to become mature citizens. >> person over here -- >> thank you for being here. i was -- wondering about what you thought caused -- the enlightenment to think of human history beginning -- a long time ago but civilization new but even in that span, do you -- only the 1700s -- sort of that, you know, made

people value sign and humanism so how can you think of those causes and -- >> it's a great question. and with all as with with all historical questions, the problem being that will only ham once we can't reare wind the tape and play it thousands of times add up all of it dirveght outcomes. of course there were -- a predecessor to enlighten ideas in classical greece during a renaissance, so here's some possibilities. one of them is historical memory of the carnage of the wars of religion of the -- 16th, 17th centuries and people realized that who are risk results happened when you takier religious beliefs too seriously and catholic and vice versa an ?ifng revolution at the 17th century showed people that convictions could be flat wrong and that the -- packed understanding had to be in -- applying reason making beliefs

tentative subject to imper call verification. the -- age of exploration, the fact that entirely new continent came into conscienceness with all of these people doing it things very drchghtly than europeans did. forcing you to step back and -- they work -- the enlightenment thinkers were cultural angt polingses in appreciating diversity of human cultural saying things we have taken for granted should be another look. but -- the final contradict tore may have been a technological development if. then the only industry that showed a -- huge increase was publishing. so in the 18th century the cost of printing become an pan them plunged at the same time literacy surpassed in european history for the first time and ideas proliferated.

pan pamphlets and manifestos went viral by stardz of the day which meant they proliferated in a matter of weeks not minutes but still so there's a huge exchange about ideas. and hon with the exchange of ideas people became more mobile it was easier if you're prosecuted you can go to a ship to amsterdam or go to london when the heat got too high and enlightenment thinkers were prosecuted but managed instead of being bee headed they found safe haven somewhere else and possibility of people an ideas also i think played a role those are are some conjectures. question over here. go ahead. >> i really enjoyed the become and this talk and i'm looking forward to your thoughts with sam harris, and -- my question is on topic of artificial intelligence and way to deal with in the book -- the way to deal with the risk of

superai is simple don't build one. it seems to me like the intelligent people who are concerned about the risk of ai actually think it will be that it won't be tamper proof by design but rather it would be unintended consequence. girch the potential for god god and profit, do you think that it isistic to expect simply not building one is a possibility? >> i do. because -- i have extensionive discussion on the threat within of it is we have to reare cyst temptation to think that as things get smarter, they get more ambitious about and more we project human primate psychology on the concept of intelligence. and -- that it is inevitable they'll see us as rivals and i argue that is a fallacy.

now there's i think a more sophisticated argument sometimes called a value alignment problem that maybe, in -- they won't want to come to mate or displace us but will be collateral damage for the goals that we do set them. so we say okay, robot, cure cancer. then it will -- draft us all as -- getting things in fatal experiments and nothing we can do about it. or we say -- increase happiness and we treat in happiness with a picture of a smile to have universe with smiley faces to convert every atom into a smiley face. i think these scenarios are -- actually self-refuting for one thing, they assume that we are going to be so bril yant that we'll design a artificial intelligence with a power to cure cancer. so stupid to give us control over society and without

thinking gee what could possibly go wrong? and that the intelligence itself will be so brilliant that could experiments that would cure cancer but interpret our goals that we set so literally that it would, it would kill us all in the process. i think these are -- i think these are -- not just exotic but i think just badly conceived scenarios. everyone someone like elon musk who i have tremendous rpght for who calls artificial intelligence to that why he building selfing driving cars isn't he worried to program in and take me to airport fastest route possible and car will just go on straight line and mow people down on sidewalk to smash through building? it is not really worried about that because he wouldn't build a car that would accept a -- comangd like that like wise real artificial intelligence won't be built -- first of all won't give it control over every molecule in

the universe. it won't be idea that intelligence will take off in -- such a -- unstoppable victim that is a hype cycle in ai that a lot of current systems for successes are not as bril yngt brilliant this is widespread understanding about people in trenches of ai research. and also, these scenarios confuse general intelligence with -- with hypothetical entity that knows position and velocity to predict to sheer computation. now it is impossible for a variety of reasons. and what real intelligence consistents of is interacting with l world by trial and error imperically and always be a

limitation of how smart system can get based on how embodied it is u how connected it is to the real world of atoms and so the fantasy of take offs faster than we can control it, i think that -- it is disconnected from the actual nature of intelligence. a time for one or two more -- >> we haven't had a single woman -- >> and then passed to a woman -- >> thank you. >> i huge fan of your work i feel like, a lot of us are saying well sowkdz great but what about, won't it be terrible. but i know you talked about the effect increase in intelligence, and how i think you mentioned in the book that it started to slow down. is there any -- a turn that it may reverse i'm thinking of studies in number of

children correlated in -- some western krpghts is that a cause for concern? >> yeah, there's a -- i think called babies law and it is l leveled off in the countries in which it has gone on the longest. it won't keep increasing. or there'll be some efnght of like the move anyone see the movie i had you can city that plays out of the effect. for best we can tell that doesn't seem to be -- a strong is effect enough reverse the effect going in the other direction. and world contained if you think of what percentage of the world has not had the opportunity to put its -- innate intelligence to full use, and percentage of people in -- asia and top 1% of the iq

description not gone to college or graduate school that probably will in the next -- self decades of current trends towards education continue, there could be a massive recruitment of underused brain power across the globe that i think would swamp any kind of i had you can city scenario. >> perhaps a final or o second toes last question over here. >> hi thank you for the talk many my question for you is in relationship to your finding of the happiness factor leveled off for us in the united states. >> yes, and the cause of death, and the 2016 morbidity all correlate to what seems to be the stress factor are ways of -- boost work with the stress cycle and load, and if it is not that

what is going on is how we perceive that it is buzz of our negativity bias that we're always looking for worst case scenario and our inabilities, and the earth institute and united nations did a sustainable happiness, what is the happiness factors in the world factors. that were identified or positive emotion resilience mindfulness. >> and freedom in gdp per capita those are number one and two. all factors social trust, lack of corruption -- yeah. >> yes. yes. so the thanks to -- things regarding the news, i mean that again -- it's again towards the negativity factor right -- that becomes news because it's more of the exception than it is the common factor for us.

>> indeed, and i should emphasize that progress does not mean everything gets better for everyone always buzz that would be magic that wouldn't be kind of science driven problem solving indeed in the writes in the last -- five to ten years, there's tefl been a regression in a particular sector of the population. identified by angus and case. namely, mainly concentrated in less educated more rural baby boomer -- white men. where life expect city has gone down and suicide has gone up. ...

>> or they are loss of healthcare and health benefit some of this is self-inflicted because of the availability of opioids so it is unmistakable in certain sectors of the united states and is imperative to address how progress doesn't happen by itself. >> i think it is time for the signing unless you have final comments. [applause] >> welcome to tucson arizona hosted by the university of ariz t