Latest / Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza / Ep.67 – Anastasia Dedyukhina: Raising Virtuous Kids in the Age of AI - My Wake-Up Call | Faith & Family | Digital Wellness | Christian Parenting | Tech & Kids

Transcript

Ep.67 – Anastasia Dedyukhina: Raising Virtuous Kids in the Age of AI - My Wake-Up Call | Faith & Family | Digital Wellness | Christian Parenting | Tech & Kids · Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza

• 0:00
  Everyone has this ability to be very much in tune with the
• 0:03
  world, and everyone has this ability to be restored by
• 0:06
  nature. But I think that many of us are
• 0:09
  not listening to this. There is silent internal voice
• 0:12
  that's telling you go outside now.
• 0:15
  Go outside now. close your lap. Don't believe your phone?
• 0:24
  You've given more than 1000 keynotes on digital well-being.
• 0:28
  Do we live in the matrix? Yes.
• 0:32
  Yes, we're already up to. A very straightforward, that's a
• 0:37
  great question. We live in the matrix, but I
• 0:39
  think it's not the matrix that Silicon Valley thinks about.
• 0:44
  You know, there is a very popular narrative now in the
• 0:46
  Silicon Valley that we really live in the metrics that kind of
• 0:48
  like our realities is designed by some kind of somebody, I
• 0:54
  don't know, like the chief game officer of Planet Earth.
• 1:00
  And they're serious. And I'm, I'm seriously speaking
• 1:03
  about this. There is serious discussion
• 1:04
  among like very prominent business people there that like,
• 1:08
  you know, we have to get out of the metrics.
• 1:10
  And that's where you have all this, you know, kind of let's go
• 1:12
  to Mars. And so that's where it stems
• 1:14
  from. I do think that we'll live in
• 1:17
  the metrics, but I think it's slightly different.
• 1:20
  We are powering the current metrics with our data, so we are
• 1:28
  essentially working for free day and nights, days and nights,
• 1:34
  providing our data to machines. We're not getting compensated
• 1:39
  for that. I think probably a great example
• 1:43
  is CHA GPT that thrives on our data and people put all sorts of
• 1:48
  data there. I like from private
• 1:51
  conversations, you know, one of the biggest use cases of Chachi
• 1:55
  PT speaking about like the relationships with a partner,
• 1:58
  with somebody you want to be who you want to be a partner,
• 2:03
  uploading WhatsApp conversations, for example.
• 2:07
  And in that sense, I think, yes, we're totally living in the
• 2:09
  metrics because then the stage is getting used to target us
• 2:14
  with advertising to control us more and more, I think to
• 2:23
  control our behavior. Now we're getting also into
• 2:27
  predicting our desires. Yeah, it used to be that our
• 2:32
  attention was the main currency. Now we're getting into the
• 2:34
  economy that's based on predicting our desires,
• 2:37
  predicting what you may even want to wish.
• 2:40
  And we are doing it by our own hands.
• 2:44
  Wow, that's disturbing. Yes.
• 2:48
  And that's also fun. That's a fun time to live in
• 2:52
  because that also gives you lots of, you know, opportunities to
• 2:57
  understand what it's like to be human and what you want to keep
• 3:02
  for yourself versus to give to the machines.
• 3:06
  What a reframe can. Speak more on that.
• 3:11
  Well, I think that's where do I start.
• 3:16
  So the, if you look at the design of technology UX, you've
• 3:22
  probably heard, you know, the work by Tristan Harris and
• 3:26
  others from the Silicon Valley who speak about like
• 3:29
  technologies making us addicted, right?
• 3:32
  Like this Doberman feedback loops and so on.
• 3:35
  But really, if you look at that, like all the design principles
• 3:38
  are based on behaviourism, Behaviourism as psychological
• 3:43
  school tells you that humans don't have a soul, humans don't
• 3:47
  have anything higher than them. And in principle, humans are
• 3:52
  just animals and everything they do can be triggered.
• 3:58
  Yeah. And so they give a response of
• 4:00
  this trigger response. Yeah.
• 4:02
  It's the essence of behaviorism, unfortunately has become the
• 4:05
  essence also of the design of most modern apps.
• 4:11
  Yeah, there, for example, like Gimme fine things.
• 4:15
  And by doing that we're essentially down grading the
• 4:19
  human to to an animal. And I'm not even speaking about
• 4:26
  the spiritual element here, although that's important.
• 4:28
  But I think even if you look from the, if you look at this
• 4:34
  from the neuroscience viewpoint, humans have a very well
• 4:40
  developed prefrontal cortex. And that's where we have our
• 4:45
  willpower mechanisms, that's where we have our ability to
• 4:50
  plan and achieve long term goals.
• 4:53
  That's where we have our high aspirations, our sense of self.
• 4:59
  And essentially, if we direct ourselves by behaviourism, we're
• 5:03
  denying ourselves that we have all these things, which is very
• 5:07
  disturbing for me. So that's the first first part
• 5:13
  of the answer to your questions. The second part of the answer to
• 5:19
  your question is I think we are very much obsessed with the
• 5:25
  idea. When I say we, I mean like
• 5:27
  people working in technology, different sides of that.
• 5:30
  I used to work in technology myself.
• 5:32
  We are obsessed by the idea that everything can be measured and
• 5:36
  quantified. And again, going back to the
• 5:39
  data, right, I'm thinking about the, let's say, wearables.
• 5:43
  Yeah. Or sleeping apps.
• 5:45
  It's actually super difficult to measure sleep because there are
• 5:49
  so many parameters. But there are sleeping apps that
• 5:51
  are being presented to you as something that helps you sleep,
• 5:55
  fall asleep or know what to do with your sleep.
• 5:59
  But the truth is like for example, when we work in with
• 6:02
  clients at the College Digital Institute, so they come with
• 6:05
  this data set and say, oh, you know, like I've had like 3 hours
• 6:11
  of RAM sleep, therefore I'm good.
• 6:14
  And the truth is to get proper RAM sleep, you actually need to
• 6:19
  go through all the previous phases.
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  And then this is what makes you really like it's create good
• 6:27
  quality sleep. When you design the app that
• 6:31
  measures R.E.M. sleep and does not take into account everything
• 6:35
  else that needs to happen, then the number, like the number of
• 6:40
  minutes that you've had in R.E.M. sleep might seem correct,
• 6:43
  but it does not reflect the reality.
• 6:48
  And that's a huge problem, right?
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  Because the world is much more complex than any theory that can
• 6:54
  describe it. And if we're reducing human
• 6:58
  beings to a number of indicators, and if you're doing
• 7:00
  an app or even, like if you're doing, let's say, an AI system
• 7:05
  generated by any kind of AI, right, you need to use the
• 7:08
  probabilities, which means like, you need to think, OK, look,
• 7:11
  what's the most likely response? Yeah.
• 7:15
  Which means that you're living outside so many opportunities.
• 7:19
  Yeah. Of like, what it means to have a
• 7:20
  good sleep or what it means, you know, like, to be a creative
• 7:23
  person. You're still following me, which
• 7:28
  basically, yeah, creates this problem that when we are not
• 7:33
  like accepting that there is a variety of people, we're not
• 7:36
  accepting that humans, extremely complex beings.
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  When we think that by measuring one to even 100 numbers, we can
• 7:44
  describe a human, Yeah, we're essentially reducing them.
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  And then we're creating the tools that are reducing them and
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  then people start behaving as a very reduced versions on
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  themselves. And for me that's a real
• 7:58
  problem. So kind of paradoxically, we
• 8:02
  have an opportunity now to reflect further on what it means
• 8:05
  to be a human. It is because essentially, let's
• 8:11
  say the creators of the app unconscious, they're saying,
• 8:14
  Hey, being human is whatever, like being productive or like
• 8:16
  being this and that and that and you do all that and like you
• 8:21
  seem to be, you know, ticking all the boxes, all your numbers,
• 8:24
  you know, like your like your health is optimized.
• 8:28
  And I've seen so many people who, you know, like are so
• 8:32
  extremely unhappy, although all boxes are ticked.
• 8:37
  And then because. All boxes are ticked.
• 8:40
  Yeah, all boxes are ticked. You know, like it's like there
• 8:42
  is this perfect thing and there's and you know, like, and
• 8:44
  I'm like, and I'm using charge of PD and I'm building like I'm
• 8:47
  five more times more productive. I'm making so much more money.
• 8:50
  Like my my team is, you know, like, well, steroids.
• 8:55
  And I'm not saying everyone is like that, but I see this a lot,
• 8:59
  you know, like among very successful people, that they
• 9:01
  feel very lost. And what they have to answer
• 9:07
  themselves is like, OK, what's going on?
• 9:09
  Very often they say, oh, no, because I haven't optimized
• 9:12
  myself enough. But I think the answer is at the
• 9:18
  other end of the spectrum. The answer is being human means
• 9:22
  being very flawed. Being human means making lots of
• 9:27
  mistakes, which we're not allowed to make, like now in the
• 9:32
  digital space because everything remains recorded.
• 9:36
  I think being human is, you know, like trying different
• 9:39
  things and not always relying, you know, on the past data.
• 9:44
  Being human for me right now, yeah, maybe it will change in a
• 9:47
  year, means trying to find your own answers rather than asking.
• 9:50
  Charge APT because it's about living your own experience.
• 9:56
  And I think we will wake up to this realization sooner or
• 9:59
  later, but it's quite, it's quite a process.
• 10:07
  In this age of exporting our mind, I I wonder if the liberal
• 10:11
  arts education is going to be increasingly valued because it
• 10:15
  teaches one to think for oneself.
• 10:18
  Hell yes here I totally disagree.
• 10:21
  Here I totally disagree with Elon Musk, who says that
• 10:24
  humanities are useless and like physics is the future.
• 10:29
  But there is a little problem with that.
• 10:31
  And the problem is that if you look at what AI is doing to
• 10:35
  education right now, and I work in education and I teach and I
• 10:39
  have grown up students, so it's slightly different, but I work
• 10:41
  for schools. Also, I speak a lot with
• 10:43
  teachers and I just see how students are completely and
• 10:49
  capable incapable of formulating their thoughts of writing an
• 10:56
  essay, finishing an essay. And by the way, and I was having
• 11:01
  this discussion yesterday with somebody very brilliant like who
• 11:04
  does thought leadership. And he says, look, I, I find
• 11:07
  myself being constantly lazy and saying, you know, like to charge
• 11:10
  APTO no formulate this for me, formulate that for me.
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  And we already have the research that shows that this does have a
• 11:17
  cost. So when you're not using your
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  brain, when you're not, you know, teach yourself to process
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  information at very deep level. And that's exactly what
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  humanities teach you to do to see the context and to process
• 11:32
  information and you know, like to be able to work with words,
• 11:36
  deep reading, writing, all those things super important if you're
• 11:42
  just faking it by, you know, like feeding to chat to PTO,
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  whoever it is, the topics. If you have clean thinking when,
• 11:52
  which is what most young people have, right, like they can't
• 11:55
  stay focused on reading a book to three hours.
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  And that's a real problem. They have completely unlearned
• 12:00
  the skill. Then the theoretical arts and
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  humanities education is good, but the reality of it, it's
• 12:12
  preparing right now. People who are completely
• 12:16
  uneducated. Completely.
• 12:20
  Well, there's this dark irony. Go ahead.
• 12:22
  Sorry, Doctor. No.
• 12:23
  No, no, no, no, I just, I just thought about the example.
• 12:26
  So I read this, sorry. I was studying another day.
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  I think it was from MIT. So they did like MRI scans of
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  people who were using ChatGPT I think for write essays.
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  And basically, I think after 10 minutes, they couldn't remember
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  a single line of what they have, what they have written using
• 12:44
  ChatGPT. And I can tell you like an
• 12:48
  episode from my one of my past lives, career lives.
• 12:53
  I mean, I was a journalist for about 10 years.
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  And that was when you're still work doing your own writing and
• 13:02
  your own. And you worked with a human
• 13:04
  editor and I had a cardcore editor, but who taught me a lot.
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  So I would write an article. It would maybe take me like a
• 13:11
  week. I was working for something like
• 13:13
  The Economist, kind of covering business.
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  And I would bring this article like a file to him that was
• 13:23
  saved like on the drive. And he would read it so very
• 13:25
  good. And then he would close the file
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  and press the delete button. And that means like the file was
• 13:33
  not saved. And he would tell me, well, and
• 13:35
  now go and reproduce whatever you remember.
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  And that came as a shock. And having said that, that was
• 13:43
  probably one of the best lessons because when you really
• 13:46
  remember, you know, like and you can reproduce what really
• 13:50
  matters. And everything else is it's
• 13:54
  garbage should go because your reader should not be reading
• 13:57
  garbage. If you ask anyone who wrote to
• 14:02
  judge the article to do that, they will not be able to
• 14:07
  reproduce that. In fact, like they will be
• 14:09
  hardly, they will hardly be able to reproduce anything.
• 14:12
  What have they have written? Because the speed and the
• 14:16
  so-called efficiency comes at the death of processing.
• 14:20
  So will literally become people who are just pressing the
• 14:23
  buttons. But we're not letting things for
• 14:27
  ourselves. So therefore, again, talking
• 14:29
  about humanities and the humanities, you can bring your
• 14:32
  own perspective into everything, right When I'm reading, when I'm
• 14:35
  responding, yeah, I'm given to you some kind of like all my
• 14:41
  years of experience into this e-mail, into this post.
• 14:46
  That doesn't happen if you're using Chang GPT to generate it.
• 14:50
  That's not to say you shouldn't use Chang GPT to generate texts,
• 14:54
  but that's that should be very separate type of tasks for which
• 15:03
  to use it. Just one one last example and
• 15:05
  I'll let you ask comment the question to what I'm saying.
• 15:10
  New York Times has established very strict rules using ChatGPT
• 15:15
  for its authors. So one of the things they say
• 15:17
  like you're not allowed to create text to generate texts to
• 15:20
  generate text ideas. What you can do, for example, is
• 15:23
  to do the proofreading. And what you can also do is, for
• 15:27
  example, asked it's, ask it to review the article once it's
• 15:30
  finished, to challenge yourself to see there is somewhere
• 15:35
  whether you can improve it. And that makes sense for me,
• 15:39
  right? Because you're not outsourcing
• 15:41
  your brain, Yeah, you're actually keeping it, and you're
• 15:44
  using charge of PTO, whichever digital tool to train yourself.
• 15:50
  But that's not what I see, at least in the way most humans are
• 15:55
  in this day, especially young ones who are very overwhelmed.
• 16:00
  Pacific or to you? That's ironically, in an age
• 16:04
  when we have incredible technological advancement which
• 16:08
  prior generations could only dream of, and perhaps not even
• 16:11
  that. We seem to be more and more
• 16:15
  firmly ensconced in a cultural and intellectual dark age.
• 16:21
  Yes, we're we're in a new dark age.
• 16:23
  Oh, yeah, completely, completely.
• 16:27
  And the reason is that we think, and again, that comes from this
• 16:34
  idea that humans are flawed and it's very bad and we need to fix
• 16:42
  them. And to fix them, then we need to
• 16:44
  use the machinery or like the technology, the data, which, you
• 16:48
  know, has become the new God, right?
• 16:50
  Which we say that oh, it will solve a lot of problems.
• 16:55
  Spoiler, it won't. But of course some people will
• 17:00
  make a few billions on this. But no, no, it won't.
• 17:06
  The main problem here is that instead of using technology to
• 17:14
  train our internal abilities, we are outsourcing our internal
• 17:22
  abilities to technology. And that has started many, many
• 17:26
  years ago, right? But I think now we're doing it
• 17:30
  just like to such a degree that it becomes very evident.
• 17:35
  Probably the most, the easiest example is outsourcing our sense
• 17:41
  of direction to Google. Yeah, to Google Maps or
• 17:44
  whatever, Apple Macs, Maps, whatever you use.
• 17:46
  And many people indeed have lost this ability.
• 17:51
  Yeah, to navigate around. Well, guess what?
• 17:53
  Spatial recognition is actually related to a number of things.
• 17:57
  It's related to like, to your psychological understanding of
• 18:00
  yourself. So it's not just to memorizing
• 18:04
  things. It's related to your
• 18:06
  relationship and environment in which you live.
• 18:08
  So it's it, it comes with the cost.
• 18:10
  But let's say this cost is kind of not so obvious for us.
• 18:15
  Then we had social media, which essentially became
• 18:19
  intermediaries. Yeah, between US and other
• 18:21
  people. So rather than having direct
• 18:23
  contact or, you know, like even like calling somebody, we were
• 18:26
  hiding ourselves behind other screens.
• 18:28
  Yeah. Writing something, correcting,
• 18:31
  cancelling the person. Same thing with online dating,
• 18:34
  right? You swipe right or left.
• 18:36
  You don't like somebody, you just cancel.
• 18:38
  Very easy. And there is, there are quite a
• 18:43
  few books about it. Yeah, I'm, I'm trying to
• 18:49
  remember the name of the lady who's Sherry Turkle.
• 18:52
  Yeah, Sherry Turkle has a few Ted, I think at least one Ted
• 18:55
  talk about it and a few books. Yeah, Alone together and you can
• 19:00
  look that up. She describes this brilliantly.
• 19:03
  Then we had wearables where technology essentially tells you
• 19:08
  you outsource your interception. So interception, I don't know if
• 19:12
  you've heard of that. That's our internal ability for
• 19:16
  the viewers to recognize the signals from your body.
• 19:20
  Yeah. So your heart is beating.
• 19:22
  Is it beating faster or slower? Yeah.
• 19:25
  That gives your brain, your insular, some kind of
• 19:28
  information, you know, like these.
• 19:31
  Are you hungry? Are you not?
• 19:33
  Do you feel cold? Do you feel hot?
• 19:34
  Yeah. All this information gets
• 19:36
  aggregated by thirsty or not. Do I want to sleep or not?
• 19:40
  And sent to insula. Insula works like puts together
• 19:45
  this information, sends it back to the organs.
• 19:47
  So that's how your body knows what to do essentially.
• 19:50
  And interception is super important because people with
• 19:53
  high level of interceptions with the ability to read border
• 19:56
  signals and correctly interpret them, they actually have better
• 19:59
  mental health, better physical health, better relationships,
• 20:04
  just again, like that. That's all research based.
• 20:07
  What we're doing now, we're all sourcing this interception to
• 20:11
  our watches, to other wearables, right?
• 20:14
  So they tell us, oh, you should go to sleep now.
• 20:17
  Not because I feel sleepy, because it tells me, it tells
• 20:19
  me, oh, you should go and do 10,000 steps, which is, by the
• 20:23
  way, completely arbitrary metrics.
• 20:26
  And maybe on that day I don't need to do 10,000 steps,
• 20:29
  actually, but my body really needs a good stretch.
• 20:32
  Yeah, but we don't listen to our bodies.
• 20:35
  It tells me, oh, you're nervous, you should stop and breathe.
• 20:39
  It tells you, oh, you should drink.
• 20:42
  Usually, like by the age of three, more or less children
• 20:45
  know if they should drink or not, right.
• 20:48
  So that's infantilizing us again.
• 20:50
  Yeah, because we are outsourcing this ability.
• 20:52
  And now we have the new way of outsourcing.
• 20:55
  We generate FAI, right? So what people do people
• 20:58
  outsource their decision making to a big time?
• 21:02
  Yeah. They're asking for all sorts of
• 21:04
  decisions. Should I stay with my boyfriend,
• 21:06
  with my girlfriend or not? Yeah.
• 21:08
  Should I buy this flat or not? So it's not just how do I.
• 21:15
  Yeah, there is lots of moral outsourcing happening.
• 21:19
  Again, if you look at the case, use cases which used to sit with
• 21:25
  us with humans, and then of course the question is, OK, so
• 21:31
  like if technology is doing all these things, so what's left for
• 21:33
  you and who are you being? And that's, yeah, that's that's
• 21:42
  a very dangerous territory to enter into, especially if we're
• 21:47
  speaking about the younger generation, because I don't have
• 21:50
  experience. So you probably do have
• 21:52
  experience of living without technology to such a degree.
• 21:55
  And we probably, I mean probably struggle a little bit, but we
• 21:58
  would probably still be able to do it without.
• 22:03
  But for younger people, again, like if you listen for example,
• 22:08
  to Sam Altman when he speaks about how like 1315 year olds
• 22:12
  use child UPT, they pretty much use it for everything.
• 22:15
  They ask it, what should I have for breakfast?
• 22:17
  You know, like, where should I go with my friends So they're
• 22:20
  not making their own decisions, They don't have experience of
• 22:25
  making their own decisions and taking full responsibility for
• 22:28
  that. And does that create a
• 22:32
  generation that is very easily manageable?
• 22:35
  Very easily. It's going to be I'm, I'm being
• 22:39
  very gloomy here. Well, and that that raises the
• 22:43
  thought, the question, is there hope?
• 22:45
  I mean, it seems to me that there's going to be a
• 22:47
  destruction of at least a generation.
• 22:51
  Oh, there is always hope, but I think what I see is there is a
• 22:54
  very big split happen in society.
• 22:56
  Well, there are two splits. 1 is there is definitely a counter
• 23:00
  movement. So you can see lots of, for
• 23:03
  example, people now willing to get together, willing to meet
• 23:06
  strangers, willing to help each other meet without phones, you
• 23:11
  know, like they're like clubs popping up, like when people
• 23:14
  just get together, you know, pay even for their phones being
• 23:18
  looked, you know, like digital detox 3 traits.
• 23:21
  That's what happening. You know, yoga, like all this
• 23:23
  like connection and that's natural thing.
• 23:26
  And it will be happening because there is something internally
• 23:29
  calling people for it. Lots of people being interested
• 23:33
  in kind of dancing, you know, bodywork, lots of people getting
• 23:38
  into spirituality 1 shape or another.
• 23:41
  I'm not saying whether it's good or not, but like this is
• 23:43
  definitely like the pendulum also, you know, trying to swing.
• 23:48
  Neither of you know, the extremes is good.
• 23:51
  You know, we want to be somewhere in the middle, but we
• 23:53
  are right here like with technology.
• 23:55
  But like we can see already that's happening.
• 23:57
  This will be made mainstream in three, five years for sure.
• 24:00
  You know, like so kind of like the unplugged experiences.
• 24:03
  So let's hope, but it also means right like so going forward, I
• 24:10
  think we will I'm given more like a 10 years.
• 24:14
  I think this will be more of a dilemma.
• 24:16
  I think we will have two groups of people.
• 24:18
  I think we'll have people want to get upgraded with technology
• 24:23
  who will feel that, you know, like they're capabilities are so
• 24:29
  much bigger that they prefer, you know, to have, I mean, we
• 24:31
  already have technology with us most of the time.
• 24:34
  I don't know if we will be speaking about like installing
• 24:36
  like a chip into your brain or, you know, something like that.
• 24:39
  But let's say like who will be completely like relying on
• 24:42
  technology to do everything and probably with very upgraded
• 24:49
  qualities, physical qualities as well.
• 24:52
  But I would ask, you know, what will be happening to their
• 24:55
  levels of happiness? And if you believe in God, like
• 25:02
  with our soul, that's a different discussion.
• 25:06
  And I think there will be another group that will be very
• 25:09
  much like, let's return to the basics, pro nature, kind of like
• 25:14
  connections. And so, and I think they will be
• 25:16
  going more and more extreme. So that that would be like, I
• 25:20
  mean, I don't know if they're going to have wars, but you
• 25:22
  know, like I, I think I think that, that, that that's really
• 25:25
  going to be the big split between these two groups.
• 25:30
  Second split I see, I see more and more split between the
• 25:34
  wealthy and the poor, where the wealthy would have advantage of
• 25:39
  human contact. I mean, it's kind of already
• 25:41
  happening. Like if you're a wealthy person,
• 25:44
  you have a private banker, you call to the bank, they pick up
• 25:47
  the phone, you don't have to jump, you know, like through the
• 25:49
  hopes of like out responders and freak out because they don't
• 25:54
  recognize your accent. And I think more and more we
• 26:00
  see, for example, in developing countries, in poor families that
• 26:05
  phones, iPads are being used as nannies, you know, device that
• 26:08
  become increasingly accessible, lots of cheap content.
• 26:12
  You know, medicine will be generally out based for these
• 26:16
  people. And I think for wealthy people,
• 26:19
  like they will still have human doctors, human teachers, human
• 26:21
  nurses, human everything. And they will have an option
• 26:24
  like to have technological ones. But I think human will be like
• 26:28
  privilege. And again, I see.
• 26:30
  And that's like what I economically see.
• 26:32
  And like, if you look at the statistics as well, middle class
• 26:36
  is disappearing. So there will be lots of like,
• 26:41
  you know, automated solutions for the port, cheap and kind of
• 26:46
  like standardized and very, you know, exclusive for the for the
• 26:53
  rich. And because also technology is
• 26:56
  creating the kind of economy where middle class is losing its
• 27:00
  income. And we're, you know, we're going
• 27:01
  for the uberisation of economy. So you don't have lots of like
• 27:06
  predictable jobs even before the EI, right?
• 27:09
  And the EI is taking away lots of, you know, like middle class
• 27:12
  jobs as well. And then you will have the
• 27:14
  wealth being concentrated in the hands of a few that, you know,
• 27:17
  are controlling this technology because we're building all the
• 27:19
  system ecosystem around technology.
• 27:23
  And yeah, my concern is there is nothing in the middle.
• 27:26
  And, you know, from any kind of social economical theories, we
• 27:30
  know that when there is nothing in the middle, it's a very
• 27:33
  dangerous place to live in because the social unrest is
• 27:38
  very real. And that will be my kind of next
• 27:41
  forecast. But we're speaking 1520 years
• 27:43
  from now. Yeah.
• 27:45
  Plus all the fun with climate. So is there hope?
• 27:50
  Yes. Is there hope on the central
• 27:53
  level? No.
• 27:54
  I think the hope comes from grassroots.
• 27:58
  I think the hope comes from local communities, building
• 28:02
  local trust. Because I think like on the
• 28:03
  global level, there is lots of mistrust.
• 28:06
  I think there is lots of governments show their
• 28:09
  inability, complete inability to manage the technological shifts
• 28:16
  and not let them affect negatively the social shifts.
• 28:21
  It's embarrassing what's happening everywhere in the
• 28:23
  world. I haven't, I mean, even the
• 28:25
  European Union, you know, that has introduced the EU act.
• 28:28
  They like the AI act. They're now like trying to
• 28:32
  withdraw it. And there was something, you
• 28:34
  know, that was supposed to somehow safeguard people.
• 28:36
  It's not happening anymore. What is that?
• 28:39
  Oh, OK. So EU was the first number,
• 28:43
  Well, kind of country like Oregon.
• 28:45
  How do you say this like entity to introduce legislation about
• 28:53
  artificial intelligence called the AI Act that it was discussed
• 28:57
  for a few years. There were like a loss of
• 29:00
  experts involved in it. It was supposed to set the
• 29:03
  standards for which AI systems can be used and cannot be used
• 29:07
  and that categorized AI systems into free group.
• 29:11
  So those who are safe to use, those that could be used with
• 29:13
  caution and those that were not allowed to use on the territory
• 29:17
  of you and you couldn't sell it. So one of those, for example,
• 29:20
  were automated weapons like AI powered weapons.
• 29:23
  They were saying no, no, you can't do that.
• 29:26
  And now they're basically pausing it and say yes, but it
• 29:29
  will kill the competition. You know, you will remain
• 29:32
  behind, which for me is very dangerous because that that
• 29:36
  means that there is, if this really goes this way, then we
• 29:39
  have absolutely no control and mechanism.
• 29:41
  So what's happening? And when you have private
• 29:45
  companies and not like, you know, open code or you know,
• 29:50
  like not universities behind AI development, you know, you
• 29:56
  cannot expect that they will be acting in the interest of the
• 29:59
  society. You can expect they will be
• 30:02
  acting in the interest of maximizing their returns.
• 30:06
  But my point is the governments are not coping with their
• 30:09
  responsibilities, whether it's for the lack of understanding
• 30:13
  what's happening, whether it's for the nature of just the
• 30:18
  naturally slow. You obviously cannot rely on
• 30:23
  detector police itself. So for me, like the hope, where
• 30:31
  I see the hope and where I see lots of growth is like on the
• 30:34
  local areas, local administration, local
• 30:37
  communities, people getting together.
• 30:39
  And by the way, I've seen for example, in France, there is
• 30:42
  this app that's becoming increasingly popular where
• 30:44
  people are just exchanging skills.
• 30:46
  So let's say like, I don't know, like I need to put up the shelf.
• 30:48
  I put it, I write it on the app and say, can somebody come and
• 30:52
  help me with that? They do come free of charge.
• 30:55
  And next time I can come and help somebody else.
• 30:57
  So lots of best things are happening everywhere in the
• 31:00
  world, right? Sometimes technology powered,
• 31:02
  sometimes not. And I think for me, this is a
• 31:06
  sign of the cope that, you know, like inherently we have these
• 31:11
  things built in in US. Yeah.
• 31:12
  And like when we're just in the face of challenges, you know,
• 31:17
  like or like when we have a little bit of an opportunity to
• 31:22
  clear up our minds and we default to know to what it means
• 31:26
  to the humans. It's collaboration, kindness to
• 31:32
  other people, connection to nature, understanding the impact
• 31:36
  on the environment, responsibility for it as well.
• 31:38
  I don't know, maybe I'm being idealistic.
• 31:42
  As you're talking, I've thought more than once you should write
• 31:45
  a book about this. In fact, you have I.
• 31:47
  Agree. I agree.
• 31:50
  Well, I've written one book 10 years ago about digital
• 31:53
  well-being. So it doesn't say anything about
• 31:56
  AI, but the book actually talks about how we are outsourcing,
• 32:01
  yeah, our abilities, what it leads to.
• 32:03
  So I think AI is a natural extension.
• 32:05
  So the second book was in the making, yes.
• 32:08
  Now when? But yes.
• 32:12
  So what, what are you offer some other tools like digital
• 32:15
  well-being course, digital detox.
• 32:18
  That's something I'm I'm very fascinated by.
• 32:20
  So can you walk us through what you teach people to help them?
• 32:24
  Yeah. So what I do, I trade the
• 32:26
  trainer. So I'm director of Conscious
• 32:29
  Digital Institute, which offers one year certification in
• 32:32
  digital well-being. It's a program accredited by two
• 32:35
  major coaching associations, ICF initial Board for Health and
• 32:39
  Wellness Coaching. And essentially it's a program
• 32:43
  that helps people want to work with others around their digital
• 32:48
  habits. So maybe with organizations,
• 32:50
  with school, with parents, so can be psychologists, can be
• 32:54
  trainers, consultants, developers who want to create
• 33:00
  ethical tech products, for example.
• 33:03
  So we go for neuroscience, so for our digital habits.
• 33:05
  So we see like what's happening with the brain.
• 33:08
  We also look at specific like tools, behavioural change tools
• 33:12
  that you can help people with because the point is we all know
• 33:18
  what's happening, but we don't, don't, don't change anything,
• 33:22
  right? So it's useless just to tell
• 33:24
  people that's what you should do or that's what you shouldn't do,
• 33:27
  right? So you need to give them tools
• 33:28
  to be able to change your behaviour.
• 33:31
  And it's very difficult to do when you're work in the
• 33:33
  environment or live in the environment where technology is
• 33:37
  being pushed at you. Yeah, most of the time.
• 33:40
  So that's one thing I do. Second thing I do, I do public
• 33:43
  speaking. So I sometimes I speak at
• 33:45
  conferences, sometimes work with, for example, tech
• 33:47
  companies because their stuff tends to be very overwhelmed
• 33:52
  digitally. Work a lot with HRS digital
• 34:00
  detox. So we I sometimes do digital
• 34:03
  like once here, we do digital detox retreats, but it's just
• 34:06
  for, for our students for fun. But also it's a great space like
• 34:11
  to process new information to build connections.
• 34:14
  And it's a lovely annual tradition that we have.
• 34:19
  But our graduates, we have a number of graduates.
• 34:21
  For example, we have one in Italy, Gavino who does, he has
• 34:27
  set up a digital detox business. So he does retreats both for
• 34:32
  families. That's actually becoming a big
• 34:35
  thing. So bringing together and
• 34:38
  plugging both parents and children and letting them speak
• 34:40
  to each other, but also for the groups, for the corporate.
• 34:43
  So that's he has, he's done a very successful business and we
• 34:46
  have a number of people like around the world who do that.
• 34:49
  So if anyone is interested, you can reach out or like just check
• 34:52
  on our website consciouslyhyphendigital.com.
• 34:55
  We'll have like coaches and then there is a list of what they do.
• 34:59
  So you can find somebody who's who does something interesting
• 35:03
  in in your area and what else? Yes.
• 35:07
  And we have like a short course just for people who are not sure
• 35:10
  if they want to do certification, but it's for
• 35:12
  anyone called 5 days and detox Challenge.
• 35:15
  So the next one will be unless we do it earlier, but I think
• 35:19
  for next one is scheduled for January 2026.
• 35:23
  And that basically allows you to review like what's taking away
• 35:29
  your attention over 5 days. Understand you know the
• 35:32
  mechanism behind mechanisms behind it And Yep, introduce
• 35:38
  some neuroscience based practices to manage it.
• 35:43
  One of them should work. So for the Berkshire Singer's
• 35:48
  audience listening to this, what are the top 3 tips you can offer
• 35:52
  for well-being in the digital age?
• 35:55
  How hardcore do you want me to go?
• 35:58
  As hardcore as you can. These people can take it.
• 36:01
  They're my listeners. I mean it depends.
• 36:05
  I would say start from removing your phone from your bedroom.
• 36:10
  If you still have it there, it's going to make tremendous
• 36:14
  difference to A at what time you fall asleep because when we have
• 36:17
  our phones, we tend to delay the sleep.
• 36:21
  And also, that means you won't be checking your phone first
• 36:24
  thing in the morning, which means that your cortisol level
• 36:27
  won't be going up, which means that, you know, like you'll beat
• 36:30
  more naturally waking up. And then the first thing to do
• 36:35
  in the morning is to drink water and to go outside for 10-15
• 36:39
  minutes for the natural sunlight.
• 36:40
  And that's your best way to wake up.
• 36:42
  And then you can do whatever you want with your phone.
• 36:46
  Easier said than done, but will already generate lots of energy
• 36:50
  for you. Second thing, stop eating in
• 36:53
  front of your screens. Just prohibit yourself from
• 36:56
  doing this because again, it affects the digestion.
• 37:00
  I usually start, I mean, I'm all my tips start from the restoring
• 37:04
  the contact with the body because the contact with the
• 37:07
  body gives you more energy because when you're living in
• 37:09
  your head, like you're constantly behaving as a brain
• 37:12
  on the stick, you know, working in a computer, the body tells
• 37:16
  you what you need to do. And so if you start restoring
• 37:21
  contact with your body, it will start telling you, Oh no, you
• 37:25
  know what, like now actually it's time like to unplug and go
• 37:29
  breathe and do something. Yeah.
• 37:32
  So sleep, food. And the third thing, start
• 37:37
  introducing some kind of 5 minutes per day exercises, any
• 37:42
  kind of exercises. I don't know, like I'm giving
• 37:46
  like to my students, they have like weekly challenges.
• 37:50
  So their current challenge, and they will be doing it for three
• 37:53
  months, is to be doing, oh, gosh.
• 37:59
  So there are two things, like there is like one exercise
• 38:01
  called Angel winks when you're just standing against the wall
• 38:05
  and you're doing this. And that's for everyone who's
• 38:07
  working in front of the screens and does that.
• 38:10
  Yeah. So 10/20.
• 38:12
  Back to the wall. Yeah, back to the wall thing.
• 38:14
  And the second thing that they do is squats.
• 38:18
  And squats you do like your hold.
• 38:21
  See, I don't have door handle, but you hold to the door handle
• 38:24
  and you see it like just normal for holding to the door handle.
• 38:28
  You don't have to sit very deep a little bit.
• 38:30
  Why this to exercise? Because this last one that was
• 38:33
  used actually by the Soviet scientists to help the
• 38:38
  cosmonauts coming back from their space trips restore the
• 38:45
  blood circulation because. And then that's one of the
• 38:49
  things that suffering in our bodies a lot when we're sitting
• 38:54
  for long hours in front of the screens.
• 38:56
  Yeah. So heart is not the only kind of
• 38:59
  muscle in the body that pumps blood.
• 39:03
  Legs are super important. Yeah.
• 39:05
  So if you can start introducing this now, do 10 in the morning
• 39:09
  and then maybe once or twice 10 of this when you are when I've
• 39:15
  been sitting for hours in front of your screen.
• 39:18
  The main thing to understand is while all these things seem very
• 39:22
  small, when you accumulate them is what's going to lead to the
• 39:26
  change. Yeah.
• 39:28
  What I told you is going to increase the level of your
• 39:31
  energy. Yeah.
• 39:33
  I cannot give you bigger things because you won't have the
• 39:37
  energy to implement this. Yes.
• 39:39
  So my task if I were starting to work with anyone like with
• 39:42
  special like very managed by their devices is like to create
• 39:46
  a bit of extra energy because devices do it up energy and
• 39:49
  they're working with the body does that.
• 39:51
  Yeah. So again, I repeat, no phones in
• 39:54
  the bedroom, not checking them first things in the morning,
• 39:56
  going outside for 5/10/15 minutes for a natural light then
• 40:01
  do whatever phones outside the bedroom so you go to bed
• 40:05
  earlier, proper sleep yeah. Second thing, eating out like.
• 40:12
  Away from your phones, whatever it is, because it helps your
• 40:15
  digestion get more nutrients. So again, this creates the
• 40:19
  energy. And third thing, squats and
• 40:22
  this, yeah, after about 2-3 weeks you'll already start
• 40:27
  noticing the difference and that's why you can introduce any
• 40:30
  change you want, but you will have more energy and more
• 40:34
  willpower to sustain them. Yeah, whether it's going to be
• 40:37
  like, limiting how many tabs you open or, you know, I don't like
• 40:41
  you to read different smarts and whatever, whatever you think you
• 40:44
  would like to do. I don't think, by the way,
• 40:46
  everyone needs to do that. It's just gives, gives your
• 40:50
  brain a little bit more energy to see what's actually
• 40:53
  happening. Yeah.
• 40:54
  But when we are at a very low level of energy, you can't
• 41:00
  expect people to make changes. Yeah.
• 41:02
  So the first thing is to create attention.
• 41:06
  OK, final question, Doctor Anastasia, So I have to ask you,
• 41:10
  you speak with astonishing clarity and what's the word
• 41:15
  here? You have a very unique
• 41:18
  perspective. I mean, I could have gone this
• 41:23
  each like each idea that you gave could have been its own
• 41:26
  podcast episode. So, but what kind of what I'm
• 41:30
  wondering in the background is where what motivates you?
• 41:34
  Where where are you getting this idea, these ideas from?
• 41:37
  And hi, to what? To what extent does spiritual
• 41:44
  realities motivate you and your work?
• 41:48
  It's a good question. I wanted to to joke that it's I
• 41:52
  pick them up from chatty PT. No, I, I don't know.
• 41:58
  It's kind of, I've always been good.
• 42:04
  My background is, and I mean, I have a collective background.
• 42:07
  My first career was in music and then I was a journalist for many
• 42:09
  years. And I think the skill that I
• 42:12
  learned in journalism is being able to see the bigger picture.
• 42:20
  And I've always been very good with that.
• 42:21
  So I can get multiple data points and I can tell a story
• 42:25
  around it. So I think what you're asking me
• 42:29
  is when I read, you know, single facts, when I speak to people, I
• 42:35
  have this ability to synthesize it into some kind.
• 42:38
  Oh, that's what's going on. I don't know whether it's
• 42:40
  spiritual or not. I think it's just like the
• 42:43
  natural and also like experience of synthesize information quite
• 42:51
  well in terms of spiritual dimensions.
• 42:57
  I'm I'm a Christian Orthodox. I'm not a practicing one, but
• 43:04
  that's part of my culture and I'm very connected to nature.
• 43:12
  I'm very connected as like I feel natural rhythms.
• 43:14
  I naturally wake up with sunlight whether I want it or
• 43:18
  not, which be is like late night parties, unfortunately are not
• 43:23
  often an option even if I want to.
• 43:27
  I, I don't even know what that is.
• 43:31
  I think I have certain synchronicity with the world
• 43:34
  outside, man. It's always been the case.
• 43:38
  You can also call this spiritual.
• 43:39
  I call it more like integrated. I think I'm more integrated into
• 43:43
  like what's happening around and I'm just picking up on lots of
• 43:46
  things that I, I sense and feel and yeah.
• 43:55
  And, and, and with that in mind, I think probably spiritual
• 43:58
  practice is what, and I have my own like routines.
• 44:02
  But I think what it helps me is just to keep this vision more or
• 44:06
  less clean and clear. Yeah.
• 44:11
  Because I know that, for example, when I'm spending long
• 44:13
  hours in front of my laptop and I do for work, then this vision
• 44:17
  gets blurred a little bit. Yeah.
• 44:19
  So for me, the way to do that is to go like a four, four or five
• 44:23
  hour walk by myself, not with my ear earphones, just just walk in
• 44:31
  and be in nature by myself. And then I get immense clarity.
• 44:35
  In fact, like one of my most clear periods was when I did
• 44:40
  come into the Santiago St. Jacob's Way.
• 44:43
  You know, it's like a pilgrimage route that you have in Spain
• 44:46
  that leads to Santiago de Compostela, where allegedly the
• 44:50
  remains of Saint Jacob's are. James, is it?
• 44:55
  Oh, St. James.
• 44:57
  Sorry. Yeah, No problem.
• 44:59
  Yeah. It's Santiago.
• 45:01
  OK. Saint James.
• 45:02
  Yeah. Because I will say, say this in
• 45:04
  the Spanish way, say, yeah. So where the remains of Saint
• 45:11
  James are, and I didn't do it for spiritual reasons, but I
• 45:15
  think the benefits I got from which were very spiritual
• 45:19
  anyway, like there was lots of clarity around what's happening.
• 45:23
  By the way, I don't think that that's something exclusive to
• 45:29
  me. I think that everyone has this
• 45:32
  ability to be very much in tune with with the world and
• 45:36
  uniliquids. Everyone has this ability to be
• 45:40
  restored by nature. But I just, I think that many of
• 45:43
  us are not listening to this very silent internal voice
• 45:47
  that's telling you like, go outside now, go outside now,
• 45:52
  close your lap. Don't believe your phone because
• 45:55
  we're telling ourselves stories, right?
• 45:57
  Like we have started to believe stories.
• 46:04
  So I think it's you don't even need to teach people this.
• 46:07
  You just need to, you know, clear away the garbage a little
• 46:14
  bit. That's that's what I tried to do
• 46:16
  in my work as well. Well, it's been an amazing
• 46:19
  conversation. Keep up the good work on stage
• 46:21
  here.