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unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Greg La Blanc

  • 52 minutes 54 seconds
    479. The Birth of Civilizations: Unpacking a 4,000-Year Global History feat. Josephine Quinn

    At what point did the concept of civilization and civilizations emerge? In what ways  do we know that societies were mingling and exchanging ideas and objects with each other? How were the Crusades responsible for our culture’s current sugar obsession?

    Josephine Quinn is a Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford, and the author of several books, including her latest work How the World Made the West: A 4,000 Year History and also In Search of the Phoenicians.

    Greg and Josephine discuss the challenges and insights from piecing together 4,000 years of global history, and digging into the concept of 'civilizational thinking' and its origins. Josephine explains how civilizations intertwine through war, trade, and cultural exchange, and also highlights how modern perspectives shape our understanding of past human interactions. They also discuss the subject of another of Josephine’s books and unpack the significant yet often misunderstood impact of Phoenicians and other early civilizations on today's world.

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    Tracing the roots of civilizational thinking 

    10:52: One of the things I really want people to take away from my book is that war is one of the most effective modes of communication that people have. But all the same, depended on fundamental notion of similarity between peoples. [11:36] But around 1500, what's happening with this European expansion is to me, a very radical change in that, at the same time as Europeans are engaging in mass conversions to Christianity overseas, they're expelling the significant Jewish and Muslim populations from Europe itself. And so, it's creating a, sort of, us and them situation. Basically for the first time, a significant scale, I mean, things like that happen on a smaller scale and throughout history in all societies but I think this is really, in terms of a global history, something really quite new. And so, to me, it is the roots of that civilizational thinking that gets fully articulated a few hundred years later, starting in the 18th century. 

    The idea of continents is fictional and is used by other geographers to create divisions in their works. 

    17:01: The idea of continents is a fascinating one to me. It goes back, in fact, to ancient Greek-speaking scientists who are working on the coast of what's now Turkey, very much in touch with what was going on in the big intellectual centers of antiquity, like Babylon, with Egyptian scientists, and so on. But we don't have any evidence that anybody else thought about the world in terms of continents. But they invented it with some geographers, and it was a kind of label. It wasn't a sort of major concept. One of my favorite commentaries is by another Greek historian, Herodotus. I say Greek-speaking. He also was from Anatolia, grew up in Persian lands, but he says, Well, people say that there are these three continents, and they're all named after women: Europa, Asia, Libya, [the] Greek term for what we now say—Africa, but I think this is nonsense. I mean, people don't even know where they begin and end. And, of course, that's right. I mean, some continents exist. The America exists. Australia exists. But Europe, Asia, and Africa?

    Why do people care about the heterogeneity of origins of things in the modern world?

    43:05 This is the big question, isn't it? Do people have an investment in the idea of a pure West that is facing pollution or even replacement from the outside right now? I think it's the same kind of question. And I think part of it is just that that's an easier way to think. It offers certainty. I think certainty is a terribly attractive thing but the problem is that human history isn't certain. It's fuzzy and complicated and if there's one thing that I would love people who read this book to think harder about, it's the idea of heritage. I think heritage is often seen as a very positive thing in the world today. But actually, I feel like there's a danger that people invest in a collective past at the expense of a collective present. And that, I think, is quite dangerous. But it is much easier to read things than it is to have conversations.

    The idea of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations as two separate cultures is a historical typo.

    The whole idea of Minoan and Mycenaean are basically just two rival labels of two basically warring groups of archaeologists about exactly the same thing. It's like a historical typo that people now think of them as different.

    11 November 2024, 1:58 pm
  • 52 minutes 26 seconds
    478. The Neuroscience of Perception: Exploring Self, Social Conformity, and Animal Cognition feat. Gregory Berns

    What does the sense of self give humans over other animals, and how do our storytelling instincts set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom? What can be learned about humans and animals by training a dog to allow humans to scan its brain with an MRI machine?

    Gregory Berns is a neuroscientist at Emory University and the author of several books, including Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently, The Self Delusion: The New Neuroscience of How We Invent—and Reinvent—Our Identities, and his most recent work, Cowpuppy: An Unexpected Friendship and a Scientist’s Journey into the Secret World of Cows.

    Greg and Gregory discuss the complex interplay between self-perception, social influence, and animal behavior. Referring to his work in The Self Delusion, Gregory delves into how our brains construct and reconstruct our identities, influenced by both sensory information and social pressures. Gregory used brain imaging and machine learning to study conformity, the psychological impacts of social media, and the balancing act between primal instincts and modern life. They also dive into the evolution of human storytelling compared to animal communication, Gregory’s groundbreaking MRI research on dogs, and the deep connections formed through living on a farm and working with cows. This insightful episode also touches on the philosophical and theological questions around human behavior, aiming to provide a holistic understanding of the underlying neuroscience and psychology.

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    Human life is telling stories

    30:16: We're all storytellers, even if you write scientific papers. Ultimately, it's still a story where you do an experiment, you collect data, and yes, I guess at some level, we're testing hypotheses, but most scientific papers these days are not about that, to be honest. Most are more in the exploratory sense, where we're doing experiment because we want to understand something about the world. We might have an idea about it, but it's usually much more nuanced. And then you do the experiment, doesn't turn out the way you expect it. And then it's like, well, what happened? So you tell a story about what you think happened and what it means. And I think, ultimately, that is all that human life is. It is us telling stories, because if it weren't that, then we're not that much different than bees and all the other animals that I study, but we clearly are. 

    Stories go beyond the current state of the art in terms of predictive models

    31:38: We tell stories to ourselves and to each other to have meaning in our lives. It's not the case that the machine is ever going to care about what's meaningful. So, I do think that meaning, in and of itself, has value to humans that has yet to be captured in any kind of computer model.

    Are preferences endogenous or constructed?

    07:36: I think we tend to fool ourselves a little bit in that our preferences are endogenous because it comes back to us thinking about us thinking. It’s like, okay, well, I prefer vanilla ice cream over chocolate ice cream. Well, has it always been that way? I don’t know. Or is it just something that I have come to believe out of habit, and it’s not necessarily the case—or that it even changes based on the circumstance?

    Why the most meaningful experiences are often the most uncomfortable

    20:52: I've written a bit about the ways that we might get around that, and one of the ways is novel experiences. The thing about novel experiences is that they're anxiety-provoking—unless, I mean, for the minority of people who thrive on that. For most people, they like the status quo; they like the comfort of things being predictable, and things being unpredictable causes a great deal of anxiety. Even though, if you ask pretty much everyone, the most memorable experiences in their life, the things they think most fondly of, are probably the things that were most difficult, and the things that initially did cause all that anxiety or were uncomfortable. The things that we, as humans, attach meaning to are the things that are meaningful because they're difficult.

    7 November 2024, 5:21 pm
  • 52 minutes 22 seconds
    477. Cultivating Creativity: The Vital Role of Art in Education and Personal Growth feat. Will Gompertz

    How does art influence our perception of the world? Can fostering creativity in education lead to overall personal happiness and growth? What lessons can be drawn from historical and modern art practices?

    Will Gompertz is the director of Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, and the author of several books, including What Are You Looking At?: The Surprising, Shocking, and Sometimes Strange Story of 150 Years of Modern Art, Think Like an Artist: How to Live a Happier, Smarter, More Creative Life, and most recently See What You're Missing.

    Greg and Will discuss the transformative power of art as a tool for self-help and critical engagement. Will analyzes the impact of creativity in education, emphasizing the need for a balanced curriculum that fosters both artistic and analytical thinking. Greg and Will talk about some key figures in the modern art world such as Pierre Mondrian and Marcel Duchamp, who serve as examples of revolutionary artists that challenged the status quo. Will and Greg also explore new ways to look at the importance of teaching art in schools, and how supportive environments in schools and workplaces, like those fostered under leaders like Satya Nadella, can enhance curiosity and innovation. 

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    Why is art considered self-help?

    01:18: I think art is self-help. I think art is self-help by the artist when he or she is trying to express themselves. It's self-help for us as viewers when we're trying to commune with this idea, this thing which has been put before us and asked us to consider it. And so, I think actually for this sort of the crazy world we live in now, museums, galleries, art, the arts more broadly, are the sanest things that are available to us, where humans are thinking and sharing and considering and challenging and sharing their feelings in a way that seems to be completely disappearing from everyday life, which seems to be getting more hectic, more insular, more anxiety-ridden. So actually, I think the arts are an entity, a form of self-help for all involved.

    Creativity and asking questions make us human

    07:05: Creativity and asking questions are what make us human. Therefore, when we're doing that, we're at our most human; we're feeling the life force at its most powerful. 

    On creating safe spaces for self-discovery in schools

    17:56: School should be a place of self-discovery, friendship, community, and expression, not somewhere which feels like an army drill camp; where you get shouted at and told to sit still, sit still, then sit still. But why don't you want to sit still? So we start asking questions and start creating environments where young people feel respected and safe.

    Do people need to set aside some time for the consumption of art?

    53:45: Human beings have created art in one way, shape, or form since the very first person walked on this earth. And we will continue to create art until the very last person walks on this earth. It (art) is an essential part of the human experience. Therefore, we should all be given the time and space to enjoy.

    4 November 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 37 minutes
    476. AI's Potential for Positive Social Change feat. Juan M. Lavista Ferres

    AI is a fast-growing field full of potential insights, challenges, and ethical implications for its users and the world. How can the people behind the machines explore the ways to use AI and data technology to leverage societal benefits?

    Juan M. Lavista Ferres is the Corporate Vice President and Chief Data Scientist of the AI for Good Lab at Microsoft. He also co-authored the book AI for Good: Applications in Sustainability, Humanitarian Action, and Health.

    Greg and Juan discuss Juan's book 'AI for Good,' various AI projects, and the critical role of data labeling. They also discuss philanthropic initiatives from Microsoft, the transformative impact of robust data collection, and the challenges of applying AI to real-world problems. 

    Juan covers innovations like GPT and Seeing AI, as well as the ethical concerns of open access to AI models, and Satya Nadella's leadership transformation at Microsoft. Listen in for insights into the importance of using AI responsibly, collaborative efforts for accurate data processing, and how AI technology can actually enhance real lives.

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    On deciding which ai-driven projects are worth doing

    12:26: We first ask the questions like, can we solve it through AI? Not a lot of problems can be solved from AI. There's a small portion of them that can be solved with AI. From those problems, does the data exist? Is the data of good quality? And sometimes the answer is no. Even if the data exists, do we have access to the data? Can we get access to the data? We will usually work on the partners' data sets, not our data sets, meaning that the data set will not leave the partners, but sometimes there's no way to have a data-sharing agreement in place, where it makes it impossible to share the data. Once we have that part, the next question is, do we have the right partner? We are not subject matter experts on the point that we work. We are subject matter experts on AI, but if we're working with pancreatic cancer, we need, on the other side, a group of people that are experts on pancreatic cancer, for example. In that case, we try to partner with people who are subject matter experts and are world-renowned.

    Data needs to be representative

    19:55: Data is a fundamental part. I would say the majority of the success or failure will happen because of the data set, and investing in understanding the data set—making sure that there's no bias—is a critical part of the work. It's tough; it's difficult. Data needs to be representative.

    What are the do’s and don’ts for companies looking to launch initiatives for good?

    36:40: I would love more companies. So, this is something that we discussed with my team. Whenever we see other competitors creating something like we do, we feel proud because that would be a success for us in many ways. So I would encourage everybody to use that technology for good. That's something that I think is certainly worth the do's and don'ts; I think it's important to make sure that this organization remains clear that its objective is on the noncommercial part of the philanthropic aspect of the company because, within this organization, the objective is to be helping society and making it clear for the people that are working there. That is something that is helping us a lot. Our end goal is to help society, and I think I would encourage other companies to do it.

    Is there a possibility of a zero bug project?

    21:09: Some of these problems require people to really ask the question: how is this model going to be used correctly? And that takes experience. More importantly, I think it's crucial that in many of these cases, we need to be ready to find those problems and fix them, correct? And I think that this is like software development in many ways. The chances of having a zero-bug project are zero, correct? Projects that have zero bugs are projects that people don't use. What I think is important as an organization is to find those problems, be proactive in trying to find them, and be really fast in solving them.

    31 October 2024, 1:16 pm
  • 44 minutes 27 seconds
    475. Unraveling The History of Economic Crises with Harold James

    How have economic crises throughout history shaped the relationships between nations? Which crises had a hand in wars and major global conflicts? 

    Harold James is a professor of history and international affairs at Princeton University. His recent book, Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization examines major economic upheavals from the 1840s to modern day. 

    Greg and Harold chat about the concept of a crisis and its evolution, the delicate nature of interconnected economies, and how the World Wars contributed to hyperinflation or exchange rate stability and continue to impact economic policy today. 

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    From isolation to innovation lessons from the 1840s and 1970s

    41:07: In the longer run, it seems to me that the pattern that I saw in the 1840s and the 1970s, that the longer-term reaction to a supply shock is actually to open up more. And the 1970s had exactly that. First of all, it's turning inward to the thinking that we can do it ourselves in all the big economies. And then an awareness that the most successful economies had actually not done that, turning in on themselves, but had remained open and had allowed themselves, as a consequence, to innovate. 

    The 1840s crisis paves the way for a new era

    04:05: The crisis of the 1840s generated something in the 1850s that brought the world into a new era, and it's really an era where the Marxist diagnosis gets less and less appropriate.

    Understanding demand and supply shocks

    27:50: The 2008 shock was really best thought of as a negative demand shock that was the consequence of a financial panic, a contagious financial panic. The 2020 shock was a negative supply shock. It has analogies with previous negative supply shocks, but can't be handled in the way that you deal with the absence of a demand shock in the wake of a financial crisis. So the way in which people might have dealt more effectively with the Great Depression and did deal quite effectively with the Great Financial Crisis, the Great Recession, whatever you like to call the 2008 story. And so the fiscal stabilization is much bigger in 2020 than it was in 2008, but really inappropriately so. So it pushes more inflation in these moments of demand shocks. You just want more demand. When it's a supply shock, you need a specific kind of good or commodity.

    28 October 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 47 minutes 7 seconds
    474. Common Sense in the Discourse on Sex and Gender feat. Doriane Lambelet Coleman

    With sex and gender becoming such politicized and polarizing issues recently, what’s a common sense approach to sorting through all the information to better understand the issues at hand? How have different struggles for equal rights throughout history shaped and informed these common-sense positions?

    Doriane Lambelet Coleman is a professor at Duke Law School, specializing in scholarship on women, sports, children and law. She is also the author of On Sex and Gender: A Commonsense Approach and Fixing Columbine: The Challenge to American Liberalism.

    Greg and Doriane discuss the evolving landscape of sex and gender, highlighting the shift from traditional binary definitions to more inclusive yet controversial perspectives. Doriane advocates for a balanced, evidence-based approach that recognizes both biological differences and the rights of transgender individuals. The conversation also touches on the legal implications of defining sex and gender and the socio-political dynamics that shape current debates. 

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    Balancing trans rights while acknowledging the reality of sex

    46:59: Trans people, including trans women, of course, have every right to the same dignity and respect as anyone else, and certainly, equal protection should attach to everyone, including trans people. I don't think we can resolve the impasses without recognizing the difference between sex and gender. I think that we can have trans rights, but not by way of denying sex. In other words, the strategy that requires sex blindness in order to achieve rights for trans people is not going to work for a lot of females. And so, leaving the political right aside that doesn't want to see any gender diversity and working with people who want to be inclusive but also recognize that there are differences between females and trans women, it's going to require that trans advocates take a step back and accept that, in some places, we need to see sex, and we need to be smart about it.

    What does it mean to be inclusive?

    49:25: Being inclusive means taking into account relevant differences and ignoring differences that aren't relevant. That's really important to do, and we shouldn't shy away from that.

    Confronting the provocative shift in our understanding of sex and gender

    40:31: I think it's just a really provocative challenge to something so fundamental about ourselves and our society. Like, if you grow up understanding how fundamental sex is to you or gender is to you, and then somebody says it shouldn't be, or we're going to throw it out, or we're going to change what it means, or you can't use that word for yourself anymore, which is all the stuff that's happening, right? People are saying that you've got to start calling yourself a cis woman or, I mean, lots of vocabulary policing, all that kind of stuff about things that are so fundamental. I think it's super provocative, and I think it's super interesting. It's intellectual. It's a phenomenal intellectual challenge. It's an extraordinary political challenge.

    Is sex difference an equality problem?

    20:27: I think we've made a mistake to put all of sex into equality as an idea. That is the prism through which we view sex. Period, right? That anything you say about sex or do with sex that automatically belongs in the equality bucket, we've automatically got to, like, push it through this increasingly; it's technically intermediate scrutiny, but it's increasingly perceived as strict because that presumes that sex differences are bad. That presumes that any distinctions we would make on the basis of sex are bad. And I think that's wrong. I don't think sex is all bad. I don't think we should presume that most of it is bad. I think a lot of it is great. And so I think that we've made a mistake to see all of sex and sex differences as an equality problem.

    24 October 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 56 minutes 7 seconds
    473. The Evolution of Intelligence with Neil D. Lawrence

    As we get better and better at training machines to emulate humans, are there certain aspects of human intelligence that artificial intelligence will never be able to copy?

    Neil D. Lawrence is a professor of machine learning at the University of Cambridge. His new book, The Atomic Human: What Makes Us Unique in the Age of AI explores the meaning of intelligence as it relates to both humans and machines. 

    Neil and Greg chat about the nuances of human intelligence and artificial intelligence, discussing how terminology affects perceptions and expectations of AI, pivotal technology advancements in history that paved the way for AI, and the insights Neil gained from his time at Amazon. 

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    The trade-offs of increasing automation and the moral concerns of AI

    25:16: As you increase automation, things that would have been moral judgments get moved into processes, whether that's courts of law or whatever; we tend to sort of codify what was a moral judgment, and it brings big advantages. It means we can live together at scale. It reduces the moral load we have if I can make a thousand employees redundant without having to worry individually about how many of them are single mums or whatever I'm worrying about. But, we lose something in that process. And one of the big concerns I have with AI is, yes, something like that's going to happen again. And I don't want to prejudge the future—what people will decide about where they want this technology automating decisions and where they want the human element in. But what I strongly feel is that, as a society, we're not being invited into that decision. And that decision is being made by very few companies and entities who themselves have proven themselves to have a very limited understanding of these subtle elements of society.

    On the great AI fallacy

    22:17: I think that the great AI fallacy was that we built anything that was going to adapt to us and accommodate us. When we hadn't, it was just more automation of things that humans had to do or could do in the past; but humans then had to accommodate this automation in order to make the best use of it.

    Debunking the myth of AI as infallible, all-seeing, and dominating

    31:38: One of the problems with the international conversation now is that it's conflating these two things. It's like the thing that appears intelligent is being intelligent through copying our own evolution, our cultural ideas, but then people are assuming that alongside that it has this characteristic of always getting things right, which is just not true because these shortcuts and heuristics it's using are our shortcuts and heuristics, which we know can fail in different circumstances.

    What’s the role of software engineers in the emergence of AI?

    55:09: So, this modern scribe is the software engineer in terms of the modern scribe, the person who can translate human ideas into things that can be on machines. So it's almost an advance in terms of the computer's powerful technology; it's actually an unpicking of the democratization of information technology.  Because as more and more of our understanding of the world is stored in machines, we're entering a world where it's harder for lawyers and accountants, etc., to access the machine. But this latest wave of technology offers the potential to put that right, because this latest wave makes it possible for a regular human to talk to a computer. 

    21 October 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 55 minutes 37 seconds
    472. The Endless Quest to Define Humanity: Exploring Prehistory feat. Stefanos Geroulanos

    Historically, how were narratives used around race, species, and the beliefs of Western civilization? What have been the contemporary implications for those earlier societal beliefs?

    Stefanos Geroulanos is the director of the Remarque Institute, a professor of history at New York University, and the author of several books. His latest book is called The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins. 

    Greg and Stefanos discuss the complexities of defining human nature and the role of prehistory in understanding humanity's origins. Stefanos explores the ongoing debates about human progress, the impact of scientific discoveries like new fossils, and the culturally loaded interpretations of those findings. 

    They also discuss how perspectives on indigenous populations and humanity's past are shaped by evolving scientific interpretations and narrative constructions, highlighting the intersection of science and politics in the research of human origins.

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    Understanding who we are as humans is key to recognizing our differences

    47:37: If we can begin to admit that we are people who are culturally fundamentally, economically fundamentally different—our lemons come from half a world away, the meat that we consume from another half a world away, and so on. If we come around to understanding that our family structures, our relationships, our religious questions are structured in a different form, that our world is technologically bound, and that ultimately, one way or another, we have biological connections, but even our microbiomes must be fundamentally different from what ancient microbiomes were, then we will not end up having this need to say, "Here's where it's all begun."

    Recognizing fundamental problems in our story opens paths beyond human origins research

    54:49: Recognizing that there have been fundamental problems with a story is one path to recognizing that some of the things we believe in, and some of the hopes we want set, are not necessarily bound by that story entirely, nor were they ever necessarily or entirely bound by that story. I don't think that moral arguments would have ever utterly depended on human origins research.

    How human origins research helped overcome traditional views

    02:53: Human origins became really key at several stages, and at each of those stages, something absolutely current or something truly urgent was in play. Some of these moments had to do with overcoming traditional religious answers. Others had to do with an overcoming of ideas of human nature, so that certain kinds of stability of human nature and so on. Let's not pretend that they simply disappeared, but they did become secondary. And so human origins research came to fill that void. And in some respects, that's a real advance. And in some respects, that's a problem.

    Two stories that helped convince people about evolution

    44:40: I kept thinking, in some way, whether these stories of prehistory helped convince people about evolution. And I really thought that there were two of them that did. One was the bit that we were saying before about the thin veneer—that people came to use the expression so much and to believe there is a continuity between our antiquity and now. Not simply between another, meaning an indigenous person somewhere, but that person was a reflection of who we were. And that helped create the broader belief in human continuity. But the other one was this sense about a renaissance, that people would have to somehow come to this astonishing realization that their body is made of hundreds of thousands, millions of years, which is a story that they couldn't think of without these ruins within. 

    18 October 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 48 minutes 39 seconds
    471. Why It’s Time For Evolutionary Science to Evolve with David P. Mindell

    The long-held dominant narrative about evolution is that it works like a tree. But as science has advanced in the last century, the idea of a family tree might not tell the full story anymore. 

    Evolutionary biologist David P. Mindell is a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and the author of The Network of Life: A New View of Evolution which explores the concept of horizontal evolution alongside traditional Darwinian vertical evolution.

    Greg and David discuss the importance of creating an updated narrative for evolutionary biology, the intricate nature of hybridization and horizontal gene transfer, the ethical implications of gene editing, and horizontal evolution’s potential application in medicine, agriculture, and public health. 

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    Why horizontal evolution matters for understanding life

    35:07: We really have to rethink what are the major mechanisms of evolution for all of life, not just what we see in animals or animals and plants. And this is why I think there's been some resistance to this idea that horizontal evolution really is highly consequential. It's just that we tend still to be human-centric, then animal-centric, and then maybe animal- and plant-centric. But if we really want to understand the evolution of all of life, then we can see that horizontal evolution is a big deal. There's both still vertical and horizontal, but we can't neglect the horizontal evolution from the basic, the most basic narrative, especially for the public, if we want them to understand how evolution operates.

    How important is an overarching narrative in making sense of new discoveries?

    07:37: Narrative is so important because, especially for the public, we understand stories. We're kind of wired to understand a story. And when you get the outlines of a story, you get a lot more information than just the basics of the story. You get new information, and you can plug it into the story as well. So having a narrative that is squared with our best science is valuable because it informs our understanding of evolutionary biology overall.

    The power of decentralized evolution in rapid change

    14:08: I talk in the book [The Network of Life] about inheritance when you're talking about how horizontal evolution can be decentralized. This is a powerful concept because they are supposed to have pros and cons of decentralization, but one of the advantages of it is its rapid change and rapid innovation. And this certainly can be advantageous for organisms, particularly when they're in a changeable environment, to suddenly get a new set of genes that have already been honed for millions of years in some other organism. If you can manage, if an organism can, if those can be expressed, and they are potentially useful, that's a way to get much faster adaptation than single base pair substitutions, which is what you usually see between parents and progeny.

    Can we use horizontal evolution to our benefit—wisely?

    41:50: Humans will be doing more and more forms of hybridizations or tinkering with life forms. If we can find some that carry particular functions that humans are interested in and talk briefly about bacteria that have the ability to remediate environmental toxins, this is something most everybody agrees could be a good thing, or bacteria that are capable of producing energy, and so we will eventually be using horizontal evolution to our benefit. You know, the question is, can we do it wisely enough?

    14 October 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 50 minutes 48 seconds
    470. Understanding Macroeconomics During Volatile Times with Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak

    When COVID-19 hit, many predictions were made about how the global pandemic would impact the macroeconomy. Some of those predictions were accurate, some of them turned out to be false alarms. But when business leaders need to make strategic decisions with macroeconomic forecasts in mind, how do they tell the truth from the doomsaying? 

    Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak is the global chief economist at Boston Consulting Group. He also leads the BCG’s Center for Macroeconomics and regularly contributes to publications like the Harvard Business Review and Fortune.com. His book, Shocks, Crises, and False Alarms: How to Assess True Macroeconomic Risk delves into strategic ways business leaders can assess macroeconomic risk in the face of events like a global pandemic, war, or even presidential elections.

    Philipp and Greg discuss the necessity for today’s executives to understand the macroeconomy, a new approach to judging macroeconomic risk, and why conventional models of the past might not be the best predictor for the macroeconomy’s future. 

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    Technology fuels productivity growth

    31:53: What's important to recognize is that technology is only the fuel of productivity growth. That's what we call in the book [Shocks, Crises, and False Alarms]; it's the fuel, but you also need the spark. You need firms to actually embrace the technology and put it to use. And the spark—that's the tight labor market. When the availability of labor is low or when the price point is too high, that's when you first nudge firms and later force firms to replace their labor needs with technology.

    How are leadership and macroeconomics connected?

    06:30: Most leadership is about coming to a conviction of what the future will be like and adjusting actions around that conviction. Macro is no different, and the more we treat macroeconomics as a science, the worse the outcome will be.

    How do we decide the optimal amount of history we ought to incorporate into our way of thinking about the world?

    25:40: History has great case studies. It shows often coherent drivers that illuminate important parts of the story. But history is always idiosyncratic, and so applying it, extrapolating, or copy-pasting from history is exceedingly difficult, all the way to the sort of inevitability of the great power war. It's simply not true that a rising rival power always leads to great power conflict. I mean, most obviously, Britain was displaced by the U.S., and it didn't come to a head, or like a war or conflict in that sense. So, if you look at the patterns of some of these predictions, it fails right there in the sense that there never is a sort of template-like use of history. All of it is rather idiosyncratic, and that makes it both beautiful and treacherous as an analytical tool.

    Navigating distractions with a strategic perspective

    49:19: It's so easy to be distracted and go down every rabbit hole the financial press will lay out for you. Every data point is spun into disaster. For every true crisis, many false alarms. And how do we learn to navigate that with more calm and, frankly, a better experience? Well, it's by learning about that more strategic picture of how the thing works.

    10 October 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 57 minutes 20 seconds
    469. The Importance of Learning by Doing feat. Matt Beane

    How is technology disrupting on-the-job learning? What do we lose from outsourcing the work of novices to technological tools, and what do we gain? How do some surgical students make surprising decisions about where to do their residencies?

    Matt Beane is an assistant professor of Technology Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also the author of The Skill Code: How to Save Human Ability in an Age of Intelligent Machines.

    Greg and Matt discuss the impact of technology on work and tacit knowledge transmission, exploring topics like the economics of knowledge transfer, the necessity of Matt’s 3 C’s - Challenge, Complexity, and Connection - for skill development, and the implications of AI and remote work on learning. Matt also discusses his extensive field research and offers his ideas on improving learning and mentorship.

    *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

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    ​​Is connection strictly required for human connection?

    40:28: Connection is the third of the three C's, strictly required for healthy skill development. And it is a warm bond of trust and respect between human beings, which we don't often think of as integral to developing skill, but that's integral in two ways. Practically, one is access. If you want to get better at something and I'm an expert, you have to earn my trust and respect to get a shot. I have to give you the job. I have to allow you in the room, whatever. But the other one is motivation, right? Yeah, humans like to produce effects in the world, and that's part of the motivation for skill, but part of it is status. Part of it is feeling like you fit in the social order. And so it is just intrinsically meaningful for us to earn the trust and respect of people who are better at something than us.

    The novice is critical inflow for the expert

    29:19: The novice is a critical inflow for the expert, a disturbing force. It's annoying, but it's also necessary to keep that expert sharp and ready to deal with today's challenges, not yesterday's.

    How does healthy skill development occur?

    23:38: Healthy skill development makes you robust to circumstances for machine learning and for human learning. The way that occurs is that as you progress towards skill in a particular area, you digest and consume collateral work. You make sense of your environment, the other jobs, tasks, skills, and data that are flowing through what you're doing.

    On rules and discretion

    25:39: Rules are useful, and this has to do with this complexity bit, like when and how. It's not just, do I engage with complexity? It's when and how. Before game time? During the game? Definitely not. But even in advance, there are numerous fine-grained different ways of, when is the right time to consume conceptual knowledge, including formalized rules and guidelines for how to do the work. The answer is, basically, don't read the manual before you start to try to use the VCR. You know, minimum exposure. Go try. That's a better time to rock back towards the conceptual.

    7 October 2024, 1:00 pm
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