Dec 27, 2022
Gerd Gigerenzer visits Google to discuss his latest book "How to
Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats
Algorithms.” The book is a comprehensive guide on how to stay in
charge in a world populated by algorithms that beat us in chess,
try to find us romantic partners, and tell us to “turn right in 500
yards.”
Doomsday prophets of technology predict that robots will take over
the world, leaving humans behind in the dust. Tech industry
boosters think that replacing people with software might make the
world a better place, while tech industry critics warn darkly about
surveillance capitalism. Despite their differing views of the
future, they all agree: machines will soon do everything better
than humans.
Machines powered by artificial intelligence are good at some
things, like playing chess, but not others. Gigerenzer explains why
algorithms often fail at finding us romantic partners, why
self-driving cars fall prey to the so-called Russian Tank Fallacy,
and how judges and police rely increasingly on nontransparent
“black box” algorithms to predict whether a criminal defendant will
reoffend or show up in court. He invokes the hit TV show Black
Mirror, considers the privacy paradox in which people want privacy,
but give their data away, and explains that social media gets us
hooked by programming intermittent reinforcement in the form of the
“like” button. Gigerenzer tells us that we shouldn't trust smart
technology unconditionally, but we shouldn’t fear it unthinkingly
either.
Visit YouTube.com/TalksatGoogle to watch the video.