Latest / New Thinking for a New World / Leading into a Better Future

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Leading into a Better Future · New Thinking for a New World

• 0:02
  Speaker 3: Welcome to New Thinking for a New World, A Tilburg Foundation podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: I am Alan Stoga your host.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: Each week i bring you conversations with people who think differently about the great issues that are shaping our world Geopolitics Disruptive Tech Mass Migration The Changing Climate Culture Wars.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: All of it is grist for our mill!
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: and that you join the conversation at tellbergfoundation.org.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: And now for today's episode of New Thinking
• 0:35
  Speaker 0: For
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: A New World Odin Athens-Greece.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: The awards were presented by Ambassador Vasuly Kaskarellis, Special Advisor to the SNF Board and Vishaka Desai, Vice Chair of the Tilburg Foundation Board of Directors.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Listen as Rhett Butler, Brian Dorey's and David Gruber, the twenty-twenty five laureates discussed not just what they have already done but what they hope to accomplish
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  Speaker 4: in.
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  Speaker 0: Well, thank you for this great honor.
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  Speaker 0: It's a tremendous privilege to be here.
• 2:01
  Speaker 0: I've been asked to speak about what's next, not so much why i'm here but for the future.
• 2:08
  Speaker 0: Just a start Manga Bay is an environmental news service that covers issues of people and nature in places where journalism can still have impact.
• 2:16
  Speaker 0: The premise focus on maximizing impacts.
• 2:20
  Speaker 0: we traditionally targeted key user groups who are decision makers when informed can theoretically drive some outcome.
• 2:31
  Speaker 0: who work in government, making decisions about financial flows into the natural resource sector.
• 2:38
  Speaker 0: People from a private sector are managing commodity supply chains so folks like that.
• 2:42
  Speaker 0: but one big gap for us has been what I would call micro decision makers.
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  Speaker 0: they're people on nature's front lines Who are deciding whether to plant trees To cut down a hectare of mangroves Or do seasonal fisheries closure.
• 3:00
  Speaker 0: And so these people often operate in what you could call information deserts.
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  Speaker 0: So they may not speak Bahasa Indonesia, English Spanish Hindi... They speak local languages!
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  Speaker 0: They may not have any resources to surf the internet or download apps-so they rely on subsidized platforms like WhatsApp and Community Radio.
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  Speaker 0: But their absolutely critical if we hope address many of environmental challenges that we face but also develop new solutions.
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  Speaker 0: The question is, how do you reach those people?
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  Speaker 0: One of our new projects it's called Story Transformer.
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  Speaker 0: so its the idea of leveraging all these resources that are going into AI and transforming this credible information in a different format.
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  Speaker 0: some languages we wouldn't otherwise be able to publish them.
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  Speaker 0: We use a range of different models chosen specifically for their efficacy in a given language, goes through uh process to improve the translation.
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  Speaker 0: So this is things like developing controlled vocabulary style guide.
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  Speaker 0: and so that does the initial transformation again tailored for specific language.
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  Speaker 0: there's then a second model.
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  Speaker 0: it does an accuracy check not a faff deck but an accuracy of that translation Stories gets transformed.
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  Speaker 0: It's not driven by someone who looks like me in United States or someone in Lima, it's being driven by demand.
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  Speaker 0: so what stories are appropriate for that audience and what formats?
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  Speaker 0: This is really interesting because it opens up a bunch of possibilities.
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  Speaker 0: For one A big challenge for journalists around AI Is the idea its going to take their jobs.
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  Speaker 0: So In the context at Manga Bay this completely expansionary Because allows us work on languages we would never otherwise pursue.
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  Speaker 0: Another aspect of it is, that editor also liaisons with the local community.
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  Speaker 0: Part of their role as to build relationships with local media radio stations and NGOs.
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  Speaker 0: on a distribution side they listen what issues are for communities.
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  Speaker 0: so bring those issues back through reporting ecosystem So we can be covered by our reporters.
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  Speaker 0: It lays groundwork establishing micro bureaus because editor then commission stories from local contributors.
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  Speaker 0: So that's a way to bring these issues through a much broader audience, so That's the basic conceptual framework of what we're envisioning and do it or looking at you And how?
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  Speaker 0: We can really scale this up.
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  Speaker 0: There's also interesting things that could be done around understanding in the impact of the provision information like What that how that drives actual outcomes in the world deforestation rates, vegetation return biodiversity and start to try to understand what was the value of this information in terms of carbon emissions or biomass for biodeversary recovery.
• 6:08
  Speaker 0: So there's a lot interesting things we can do here.
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  Speaker 0: it is very exciting expansion for us which you think could greatly expand our work but also the work of others so the eventual idea so they can also use it to get their information in more sources.
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  Speaker 0: That's the next big expansion for us that I'm quite excited about, again thank you for this great honor and its really wonderful to be here!
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: Our next winner is Brian Dorey And his citation says and dialogue aimed to restore human connection, and reimagining the role of culture in public life.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I'm grateful for this short and fleeting time we've spent together because it's made all more meaningful to me also just humbled be amongst you and singled out by you by the significance artistically, spiritually and emotionally of standing here in Athens at this other acropolis that faces in a direction of The Theatre Of Dionysus where storytelling—the nature which theatre-of-war productions is involved with was born into Western world.
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  Speaker 1: I studied classics Greek & Latin as high school or college student.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, was told by everyone I met that I would never make a living with ancient Greek tragedy or learning greek.
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  Speaker 1: Um and i've been very fortunate to have been able to pursue a life that I love without compromise where Ancient Greek is at the center of everything That our company do does.
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  Speaker 1: but in the early days?
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  Speaker 1: I wasn't evangelist for the plays that were performed on that ancient amphitheater down The street And in Greek, the word amphitheater means The Place Where We See In Both Directions.
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  Speaker 1: Amphitheatron —the place where I see you and You see me—and we see ourselves reflected in stories... ...And we see our own stories reflected in each
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  Speaker 1: other.".
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  Speaker 1: And the amphitheatre as i've discovered it through my work with populations that have experienced trauma… …and loss….
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  Speaker 1: …and betrayal.. ..and grief.... …and dislocation and isolation.
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  Speaker 1: The amphitheater is a place of communalization.
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  Speaker 1: It's an ancient technology as sophisticated as the legal, the rhetorical, the architectural and other artistic achievements of the fifth century BC that has yet to be fully acknowledged or
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  Speaker 1: utilized.".
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  Speaker 1: And the biggest discovery for me as an artist working with Greek tragedy but also in particular If you plug this ancient technology into the right audience like an external hard drive, it knows what to do and the audience does as well.
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  Speaker 1: It's still
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  Speaker 1: work.".
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  Speaker 1: And so when I think about the future... ...I think about my company's ambition to build an amphitheater The likes of which Sophocles could never have imagined.
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  Speaker 1: That has only been hinted at or intimated by our experience during the pandemic.
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  Speaker 1: Our first performance on Zoom On May seventh, twenty-twenty was for to our great surprise fifteen thousand people from forty two countries.
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  Speaker 1: and then shortly thereafter we collaborated with the Nobel Prize on a performance where he followed The Dalai Lama.
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  Speaker 1: He talked about mental hygiene.
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  Speaker 1: And Then We Practice Mental Hygiene by Having A Global Conversation About The Climate Crisis By Way Of The Play Oedipus The King Which Is About Arrogant Prophecy I mean ignored prophecy, intergenerational curses, arrogant leadership in a plague and ecological disaster.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And to that one we had close to a hundred countries people tuning-in from all over the world every continent on the planet including research vessels in Antarctica... ...and i began to see the potential for something that was neither radio nor film nor television or theater nor web communication but inextricably all of those things at once the ambition to build a social medium that merges ancient and emerging technologies, has the capaciousness to hold the complexity of the conversations we need to be having with each other across boundaries.
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  Speaker 1: Across borders.
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  Speaker 1: Across differences And also Has the capacuousness To Hold The Emotions That Are Attendant For Those Conversations When We're Actually Acknowledging The Stakes Of Ethical choices that we're talking about making.
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  Speaker 1: And so our vision, of course is to harness the power of what yet-is yet to exist but as intimated by Zoom, it's intimated.
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  Speaker 1: my YouTube live has intimated buy To create something omnidirectional in a world of one way streams In a world in which all of our content is consumed and self isolating in A World in Which Our Social Media are so narrowly flattening of the conversation that they result in us feeling hollow and even more disconnected every time we go to our phones, to use them.
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  Speaker 1: So what if it were possible to build a digital amphitheater?
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  Speaker 1: That harnessed the power Of What was created In The Fifth Century BC And this city... ...and To Use It To Heal The Planet And To Bring People Into Dialogue Across The Planet With Each Other In The Most Intimative Ways.
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  Speaker 1: Now I know i can talk to on blue-in-the face about my work and everyone looks at me like yeah That sounds really lovely, but all you have to do if you haven't yet is come experience it and You will see that there is wisdom in every crowd And at the audience's hiding in plain sight.
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  Speaker 1: All of our institutions and all of our media Have been structured In such a way as To obscure that audience and to marginalize its voice and to plunge into darkness and police Its very bodily behavior until the voice of that young woman we spoke with would never be welcome.
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  Speaker 1: So, I'll just say this in closing to last twenty years...I feel like i've been swimming upstream not against the stream culture and institutions working with sometimes again but the stream our media how discourse is framed in our world.
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  Speaker 1: And this award has made it much easier and much less isolating for me to pursue the stream, into continue swimming now with a little bit of headwind behind me thanks to the acknowledgement of these very impressive groups.
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  Speaker 1: so thank you so much.
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  Speaker 1: its absolute honor to be here today.
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  Speaker 2: What do war lessons from Gaza, rethinking education, peace in Ukraine and visionary leadership have in common?
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  Speaker 2: They are all themes from recent episodes of this podcast.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Check out more episodes on tellbergfoundation.org or a platform over your choice.
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  Speaker 4: David Gruber for bringing together science technology imagination an empathy to decipher the language of whales pointing towards new ways of understanding, interacting with and protecting non-human life.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Well it's a pleasure to be here!
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  Speaker 2: And thank you so much for this award.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you so Much For Being Invited To This Community.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: As we see now community is really important and feeling the warmth that I've been feeling these last few days as being part Liason is immense.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: When I think about leadership, like kind of always put it into humans and humility at the base of it And even our word.
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  Speaker 2: you know we're humans.
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  Speaker 2: that comes from humility in close to earth.
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  Speaker 2: So i've always spent my career just interested in nature Interested in life As a kid...I'm kinda interesting To be here as being described as human leader.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I really loved ants, and just looking at the ants outside my house.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: And seeing these tiny little things that you could harm easily if you put some pressure on them.
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  Speaker 2: but to see the community working together and being inspired by it so made an early commitment more than human world knowing them.
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  Speaker 2: in my career as a scientist two themes came out.
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  Speaker 2: one is western scientists With all this technology that we've invented, We have been hearing about.
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  Speaker 2: You know...we can put a person on the moon and build the acropolis like so many different types of technologies.
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  Speaker 2: How could we channel it in a way that is connective?
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  Speaker 2: So I had made a shark eye camera at an earlier part of my career.
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  Speaker 2: And then i swam with the shark to try see the world from the sharks To push ourselves how far can you take them another species, and to understand them.
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  Speaker 2: And kind of bring them into our sense of
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  Speaker 2: we.".
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  Speaker 2: Then the other thing that took hold was seeing... There's a quote by Stephen Hawking before he passed.
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  Speaker 2: He said the advent in full-blown development of AI and robotics would lead to human extinction.
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  Speaker 2: I remember this moment being like are we stupid?
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  Speaker 2: Why would humans be inventing technology that potentially would drive ourselves to extinction.
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  Speaker 2: Like, how-how would we be so thoughtless?
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  Speaker 2: And I think the idea of intentional innovation comes to mind.
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  Speaker 2: and then... We kind of really re-felt this morning as we talk about AI like just because we can do something should we do it?
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  Speaker 2: um..and-and How do we want it to look?
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  Speaker 2: Should we should really look far out in thinking that?
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  Speaker 2: So that's led to really my life work right now which is with Project Steady Which was now fifty plus.
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  Speaker 2: scientists were all across eight different disciplines, with one goal is to listen too and translate the voices of sperm whales.
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  Speaker 2: And that was actually expending into other whales.
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  Speaker 2: What would that mean if there were a creature?
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  Speaker 2: So sperm whales we have common relative at ninety two million years ago... There's some technology no worries!
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  Speaker 2: So in ninety-two million years old there's a placental mammal Boroeutoria.
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  Speaker 2: The last time we had an ancestor with whales And we stayed on land, became primates and it was we are today.
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  Speaker 2: but they took a different route.
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  Speaker 2: They went into the water.
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  Speaker 2: there's this big extinction.
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  Speaker 2: sixty six million years ago that really had a dramatic impact in everything got very small.
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  Speaker 2: so The first whale is like this little dog packy ascentis um...and then We kind of move In and There Was A full committal Of losing the hips Becoming detached from the spine?
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  Speaker 2: Being fully aquatic and getting Big!
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  Speaker 2: What were finding now Is That these worlds Are coming together that in another mammal, they have elements of language.
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  Speaker 2: They have vowels and diphthongs on their voices.
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  Speaker 2: Their own interpretation or version of an alphabet.
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  Speaker 2: The complexity could even be more beyond what is human.
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  Speaker 2: What would it mean to us if we were de-centered?
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  Speaker 2: If there's a species out here who has figured better than we can... I guess this element of luck happens with all our careers because you kind of chart the course but never know how much will happen.
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  Speaker 2: But a few years ago, a whale was born in front of my research team.
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  Speaker 2: And as sperm whales.
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  Speaker 2: these are animals that you could track them to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution using the oil on their head to kind drive engines and starting this really disconnection with nature.
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  Speaker 2: We witnessed eleven female whales.
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  Speaker 2: There is another I think someone brought up today you know, the importance of female leadership as well.
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  Speaker 2: But I'm living in female ways like I've been.
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  Speaker 2: matrilineal societies worked for six hours to hold a baby above water using both kin and non-kin taking turns And i feel there was such an lesson Of hope and possibility There...and that's what really kind of leads To whether future vision or possibility.
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  Speaker 2: Can we let more voices into the room?
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  Speaker 2: What would the possibility be if we invited other species into The Language Club?
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  Speaker 2: If they could be in court, their voices can be heard.
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  Speaker 2: And then it also starts with imagination of anything is possible and I think even some these scenarios today were kind of blinded to being like okay But I challenge us to think beyond these, and to think in vision.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And bring it on.
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  Speaker 2: love that there's artists and poets here because this is a time of incredible imagination.
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  Speaker 2: We could imagine anything.
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  Speaker 2: we have tools at our fingertips?
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  Speaker 2: We have connectivity and we can script any which future that we want.
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  Speaker 2: So so i just leave with that note Of you know really Just um just keeping things open didn't?
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: And I think one of my mentors that discovered that whale sing was Roger Payne.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: He has a quote, he talked about this from petite prince the little Prince which is second most translated book in world besides The Bible and says if you want to build ship John drum up people like wood don't assign them tasks or work but rather teach for the endless immensity to yearn and dream of a future that we might maybe not even imagine yet.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you!