TPS 60: Will You Vote the Way Your Bot Wants?

Well, in some ways, we need to talk to folks that are closest to the work of the American Policy Roundtable because there is some inside baseball and some family discussions of people who are close to what this work is all about.

And just as a bit of definition, I like to think that what we do here is designed for people who think for themselves and for people who like to think.

Now, I realize that that used to be a compliment.

And it used to be something that you would offer out to say like, you know, here's something that we all would enjoy doing.

But in the era in which we live, it seems that thought is being diminished and words are as well.

And the idea is we're surrounded by technologies that seem to be wanting to think for us.

and to do our homework for us.

And so the concept of thinking is kind of in the way.

You know, we talk about building smart machines, but well, does that mean that the users become dumber? I don't know.

I don't know.

but I know that's not where we're coming from.

And one of the observations I would share with you that why we feel so strongly about this is the research we've done on 1955 shows something that happened that is just simply not discussed anymore.

It's just not talked about.

Now, maybe in some graduate level classes, somebody's talking about it in film school or media school or whatever, but Wayne, prior to 1955, these shared experiences that Americans had were done in person or they were done by radio,

shared

real-time experiences.

Now, we've had shared experiences in books, of course, and in conversations, but real-time where lots of people saw, witnessed, experienced, or felt the same thing.

If you wanted to see what theater could hold the whole world, you had to listen to it on

radio.

In 1955, the world changed, and I would humbly submit it may be that it changed in a bigger way than it even has changed since the cell

phone.

For the first time, we could have a shared live experience, sight and sound, in the real time, in same time, that we all witnessed together.

That never happened before.

And what that did to the creators of media at that period of time and business people and tech people is amazing.

It's still trembling today.

Well, in some ways, we need to talk to folks that are closest to the work of the American Policy Roundtable because there is some inside baseball and some family discussions of people who are close to what this work is all about.

And just as a bit of definition, I like to think that what we do here is designed for people who think for themselves and for people who like to think.

Now, I realize that that used to be a compliment.

And it used to be something that you would offer out to say like, you know, here's something that we all would enjoy doing.

But in the era in which we live, it seems that thought is being diminished and words are as well.

And the idea is we're surrounded by technologies that seem to be wanting to think for us.

and to do our homework for us.

And so the concept of thinking is kind of in the way.

You know, we talk about building smart machines, but well, does that mean that the users become dumber? I don't know.

I don't know.

but I know that's not where we're coming from.

And one of the observations I would share with you that why we feel so strongly about this is the research we've done on 1955 shows something that happened that is just simply not discussed anymore.

It's just not talked about.

Now, maybe in some graduate level classes, somebody's talking about it in film school or media school or whatever, but Wayne, prior to 1955, these shared experiences that Americans had were done in person or they were done by radio,

shared

real-time experiences.

Now, we've had shared experiences in books, of course, and in conversations, but real-time where lots of people saw, witnessed, experienced, or felt the same thing.

If you wanted to see what theater could hold the whole world, you had to listen to it on

radio.

In 1955, the world changed, and I would humbly submit it may be that it changed in a bigger way than it even has changed since the cell

phone.

For the first time, we could have a shared live experience, sight and sound, in the real time, in same time, that we all witnessed together.

That never happened before.

And what that did to the creators of media at that period of time and business people and tech people is amazing.

It's still trembling today.