WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.040 Welcome back to the Santhor Life, the podcast that explores what it means to 2 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:06.000 be human and in ever changing the world. I'm your host, Adam Gambol. 3 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:09.759 So picture this. We're playing a video game, fully immersed in a 4 00:00:09.800 --> 00:00:13.839 world where your decisions matter, and this world feels real. Now, imagine 5 00:00:13.839 --> 00:00:17.679 if this experience went beyond mere entertainment and it could be used as a tool 6 00:00:17.719 --> 00:00:22.679 to assess and even improve your cognitive health. It sounds remarkable, doesn't it. 7 00:00:23.079 --> 00:00:26.719 Today we have an incredible guest who is pioneering the use of video games 8 00:00:26.719 --> 00:00:30.760 for cognitive assessment, opening up new possibilities for not only the gaming industry, 9 00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:34.600 but for mental health diagnostics and treatment. So I'm thrilled to introduce you to 10 00:00:34.679 --> 00:00:38.719 Joe Shappy. He's a CEO and founder of Sulston, an AI powered platform 11 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:43.119 for human centric experiences. Now, with the background and human factor of psychology, 12 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:47.719 anthropology, user experience, as well as adventure based psychotherapy, Joe is 13 00:00:47.759 --> 00:00:51.759 going to show us just exactly what it looks like when social science and psychotherapy 14 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:55.280 shape the future of business. Now, this topic couldn't be more relevant in 15 00:00:55.320 --> 00:00:59.320 our rapidly evolving digital landscape. As technology continues to shape our lives. It's 16 00:00:59.399 --> 00:01:03.280 essential to explore how it can be harnessed for our benefit, particularly in my 17 00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:06.959 deal health, diagnostics and treatment. Now took our conversation, Joe and I 18 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:10.280 cover some incredible insights, and here's just a few of the top discussion points 19 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:14.200 that you can expect from today's episode. The power of video games and cognitive 20 00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:19.799 assessment and their impact on mental health diagnostics. How Sulston is spearheading human centered 21 00:01:19.799 --> 00:01:25.159 experiences and revolutionizing the connection between brands and audiences, and the importance of a 22 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:30.400 people first approach in creating healthier and more engaging experiences without leaving us over stimulated 23 00:01:30.439 --> 00:01:33.799 and disconnected from the real world. Also, as a bonus tip, we're 24 00:01:33.799 --> 00:01:37.480 going to see some really interesting conversation of how we can step away from hyper 25 00:01:37.480 --> 00:01:42.079 personalized experiences and design more for the collective. Now, before we get started, 26 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:44.519 I want to take a moment to encourage you, our wonderful listeners and 27 00:01:44.599 --> 00:01:47.719 viewers, to subscribe to our podcast. You reviews and share it with your 28 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:49.000 friendly and colleagues who you think you'll love it. Your support is really what 29 00:01:49.159 --> 00:01:52.439 keeps this airplane flying in the air, and I need you to be my 30 00:01:52.439 --> 00:01:55.840 copilot. So we want to keep bringing you fascinating conversations like this one that 31 00:01:55.879 --> 00:01:59.680 you're about to experience. So without further ado, let's dive into the insightful 32 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:02.760 conversation with Joe Shapey and get ready to explore the possibilities of video games as 33 00:02:02.799 --> 00:02:07.599 tools for cognitive assessment, mental health, psychotherapy, and more. We're going 34 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:09.639 to discover how Sulston is reshaping the way that we connect with the world. 35 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:14.039 So strapping because this episode of This Anthro Life, it's got to take you 36 00:02:14.039 --> 00:02:15.439 onto the gritable journey. Say Joe, so excited to have you on the 37 00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:19.000 podcast, So thank you for joining me today on this heathics. Adam, 38 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:22.039 Yeah, really happy to be here. So I'd love to kind of hear 39 00:02:22.039 --> 00:02:24.520 about your trajectory and how you kind of think of your story as getting into 40 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:28.759 these these areas of tech and well being. I think it was interesting for 41 00:02:29.479 --> 00:02:32.000 me is ever since I was pretty young, I was really interested in this 42 00:02:32.080 --> 00:02:37.400 problem of awareness, self awareness as well as you know, how aware we 43 00:02:37.439 --> 00:02:40.039 are of our environment around us. And I really kind of saw and I'm 44 00:02:40.039 --> 00:02:43.639 talking like you know, weird twelve year old like kid, you know, 45 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:47.960 just like what is awareness? What is consciousness? You know when we say 46 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:52.080 like I think and I feel, well, who is the eye that is 47 00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:53.479 doing the thinking? Who is the eye that is doing the feeling? Like 48 00:02:53.520 --> 00:02:58.800 these are these are interesting questions, and I think they directly tied to when 49 00:02:58.800 --> 00:03:01.719 you look at people kind of as they go through their lives and make decisions, 50 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:07.280 tends to be the people that have the most awareness around the decision or 51 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:09.800 what's happening, that tend to make the best decisions, that tend to leave 52 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:15.280 the best lives, that tend to access their human potential. So Neil de 53 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:17.199 grass Tyson was on some talk show hosts and they asked him, like, 54 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:21.360 what's his biggest fear in life? And he gave a very like physicist answer. 55 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:23.199 He said, if I saw all the other means and all the other 56 00:03:23.319 --> 00:03:28.439 universes and saw the ones that made better decisions than I did that led to 57 00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:30.919 more of their potential than I acted on it, He's like that would be 58 00:03:31.159 --> 00:03:37.199 a sort of existential dread for me to see something like that, and so 59 00:03:37.319 --> 00:03:39.319 like coming back to, you know, foundations of awareness. I decided to 60 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:44.800 volunteer in a hospital in Minneapolis when I was in high school because I said, 61 00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:47.000 well, you know, doctor, the word you know, dooceras means 62 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:50.000 to teach. I said, well, maybe I'll be a doctor, and 63 00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:53.520 that might that might help me down that path, and you know, maybe 64 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:57.520 I'll be a psychiatrist. For example, worked in the er and really realized, 65 00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:00.360 well up front from that a lot of people that end up in the 66 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:03.840 er about fifty percent of visits the United States are mental health issues. Most 67 00:04:03.879 --> 00:04:09.080 of those go misdiagnosed on diagnosed about seven out of eight of them. So 68 00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:12.000 it's the problem is more, it's deeper, and I'm like, well, 69 00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:15.000 I'm not going to be able to solve this as a psychologist, so maybe 70 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:18.639 I can solve it through design. And that's where I got really I learned 71 00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:23.560 about human factors and human factors psychology. So I went to the University of 72 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:26.639 Wisconsin because at the time and it still is one of the best schools for 73 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:31.439 clinical psychology and human factors. But studied that there and while I was doing 74 00:04:31.480 --> 00:04:35.600 that undergrad degree. So this isn't the whole picture either. So I also 75 00:04:35.639 --> 00:04:42.279 majored in anthropology because I think the art of science is very important. There's 76 00:04:42.319 --> 00:04:45.120 a da Vinci quote that kind of goes about that, but I love that. 77 00:04:45.240 --> 00:04:47.800 So having those two together. That was kind of a foundation for me. 78 00:04:48.360 --> 00:04:50.519 And so well, I'm going to take these I'm going to work with 79 00:04:50.560 --> 00:04:57.319 these really big companies globally and let's design experiences that maybe, you know, 80 00:04:57.360 --> 00:04:59.839 we can architect them in ways that it's more like, you know, a 81 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:02.759 for US school in Sweden than an inner city school in la And maybe we 82 00:05:02.800 --> 00:05:08.439 can architect these environments that help people become one percent more mindful, one percent 83 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:12.199 more aware, one percent more self knowledgeable, so that we can sort of 84 00:05:12.240 --> 00:05:15.879 societally scale you know, this situation. And really what it came down to 85 00:05:16.040 --> 00:05:20.639 was most large companies there's not the budget or the resources of the time, 86 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:25.240 or the capacity to be able to even measure those kind of outcomes. So 87 00:05:25.319 --> 00:05:30.079 even if you have the intent of designing something that is human centric or human 88 00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:32.519 forward, or you know, just healthier for people, well, how do 89 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.360 you measure that outcome? How do you actually say, you know what, 90 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:40.879 we implemented this like button. We're a company called Facebook. We think it's 91 00:05:40.920 --> 00:05:43.639 really good. We're getting these engagement rhetorcs. You know, we're eight years 92 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:46.279 ago. We're happy. Yeah, cool, let's go with it. I 93 00:05:46.319 --> 00:05:48.079 don't think they knew that, you know, in the future, there's gonna 94 00:05:48.079 --> 00:05:51.680 be studies coming out from like the University of Michigan saying yeah, Facebook use 95 00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:56.519 over time actually as a causal effect on depression or things like that, Like 96 00:05:56.720 --> 00:06:00.000 I don't think that was the design intent whatsoever. It was, Hey, 97 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:01.920 this is really driving engagement. And so I'm like, well, how do 98 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:08.079 we empower architects, designers, creators globally so that they actually have access to 99 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:12.560 a really deeply understanding their audience. I do think most people are are good 100 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:15.720 spirit and goodwill, and when we create things, if we understand who we're 101 00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:18.360 creating them for, oftentimes we're going to make the best experience for them. 102 00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:23.680 And then the second part is can we actually measure what the impact is of 103 00:06:23.720 --> 00:06:26.399 all these things so that we know, like, hey, you know what, 104 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:30.120 people that use pinterest actually maybe their awareness goes up percent after using it 105 00:06:30.240 --> 00:06:33.439 over time, Like that's interesting, And what about pinterest is doing that or 106 00:06:33.519 --> 00:06:38.680 causing that? And so that's kind of where things started. And realize you 107 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:44.160 can't really measure psychology well at all in normal experiences. So like, are 108 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:46.439 one of our researchers used to be a researcher at Meta. You know a 109 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:49.160 lot of people think, oh, like Facebook knows all these things about me, 110 00:06:49.399 --> 00:06:51.839 They really don't. They know a lot of what you did and what 111 00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:56.480 you do, but they don't know who you are. And that's a tricky 112 00:06:56.480 --> 00:07:00.759 thing to measure the history of psychological assessment. We're still in the dark ages, 113 00:07:00.879 --> 00:07:03.920 like we used to do clinical neuro psyche assessments. When I went back 114 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:10.360 to school and became a clinical mental health counselor and worked in clinical neuropsyche and 115 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:15.240 specialize in adventure based psychotherapy. So that's kind of like the anthropology and my 116 00:07:15.319 --> 00:07:18.000 scheme career and all these things coming together. But play was always the foundation 117 00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:23.240 of a lot of my life experiences, and so you know, I do 118 00:07:23.399 --> 00:07:27.600 think that play is fundamental to learning. It's it's fundamental to who we are 119 00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:30.160 as a species. And there's this say in adventure therapy, which is show 120 00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:33.360 me how you play, and I'll tell you who you are, and it's 121 00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:39.240 it's very true. And so I went into gaming to kind of see can 122 00:07:39.319 --> 00:07:46.160 we measure psychology through how people play? Digital games are the largest most interactive 123 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:50.079 source of digital media of behavior out of any other systems. So like if 124 00:07:50.079 --> 00:07:55.480 you try to predict psychology from speech, it's pretty bad. Like most of 125 00:07:55.560 --> 00:07:58.120 us we say things we don't mean, We mean things that we don't say. 126 00:07:58.439 --> 00:08:01.439 Speech is like a very poor presentation of who we are. And as 127 00:08:01.439 --> 00:08:05.439 you probably could you look at linguistic anthropology, it's like it's fun to go 128 00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:09.040 out on those paths of like you know, well, how much does language 129 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:11.040 shape how we think? And like the sacred war hypotheses and all these kind 130 00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:15.079 of things, But we don't know a lot about language style, and we 131 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:18.800 do know that it's pretty simple and that we just as a species still miscommunicate 132 00:08:18.839 --> 00:08:22.759 a ton Like that was half my experience, and I was doing marriage counseling 133 00:08:22.839 --> 00:08:24.920 for couples. It's like, you guys, most mean the same thing. 134 00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:30.959 You're saying different things but totally differs. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, So 135 00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:35.080 really saw a big fish games that which was where I was ahead of UX 136 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:39.200 there and I was a UX director at McCann Erickson before that. So I 137 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:43.080 was like doing all these things, seeing if it worked, experimenting, taking 138 00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:46.600 the next step doing it experimenting and said hey, we can do this in 139 00:08:46.679 --> 00:08:50.679 gaming. So that's how Sulston got founded about five years ago. Was let's 140 00:08:50.840 --> 00:08:56.919 allow let's create a human insight engine that allows any creator in the world to 141 00:08:56.000 --> 00:09:01.840 actually understand the person they're creating for and actually see how their creations are impacting 142 00:09:01.879 --> 00:09:07.639 that person over time. And let's measure all this important stuff like depression, 143 00:09:07.679 --> 00:09:11.840 anxiety, addiction, verbal abuse which people like to call toxicity, but it's 144 00:09:11.879 --> 00:09:16.200 really just well and what is verbal abuse because that's subjective? And at what 145 00:09:16.279 --> 00:09:18.840 point does that happen? And you measure all these things, and then you 146 00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:24.759 help creators create spaces and digital experiences and architect them in ways that are more 147 00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:28.080 human. And I like to kind of use an example that it's a little 148 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:31.399 bit of a curveball, because a lot of times when people think about Disneyland, 149 00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:37.200 they think of escapism and it's this like fantasy land. But Disney's original 150 00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:43.879 vision for it was to prove and show society that we can build spaces around 151 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:46.720 play and around the human spirit. And because he was getting criticized, like 152 00:09:46.759 --> 00:09:50.240 you just give people a place to escape, they spend a bunch of money, 153 00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:54.799 and his comment was, well, people do commerce here, They talk, 154 00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:58.919 they eat, they do everything that we do as a species. The 155 00:09:58.960 --> 00:10:03.159 only difference is I build around people and around play. We built societies around 156 00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:07.559 efficiency, and cars, and people pay money to be in this place to 157 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:11.360 do everything that humans would naturally do. And I know you well know this 158 00:10:11.480 --> 00:10:13.879 as an anthropologist, but it's like if we look at our history, you 159 00:10:13.919 --> 00:10:18.440 know, you can only hunt and gather so much, and our species spent 160 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:22.080 most of our time in leisure, Like the movies were kind of you know, 161 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:24.759 we're not just all at war all Like most people were farmers or lived 162 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:28.879 on islands and ate off the land. And that's how sports like surfing got 163 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:31.960 invented. Hey, we have all this time in the world, let's stand 164 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:35.080 on boards on the ocean and let's do that all the time. But there 165 00:10:35.159 --> 00:10:39.600 is all this leisure and it's kind of the nine to five and the work 166 00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:43.440 engine. That's a modern phenomena. And so you know, we look at 167 00:10:43.480 --> 00:10:46.440 the spaces we build, and I do think that our digital reality and how 168 00:10:46.440 --> 00:10:50.559 we construct it, we have a chance. It's kind of like I feel 169 00:10:50.559 --> 00:10:54.799 like we have a window right now to construct a reality that is built around 170 00:10:54.919 --> 00:11:00.159 human beats and not a reality that is built around efficiency, because efficiency he's 171 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:03.679 boring, Like you know, it's like one of examples I'll use like if 172 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:07.120 you told the Lord of the Rings as efficiently as possible. It's like, 173 00:11:07.480 --> 00:11:09.240 yeah, there's this hobbit like if you know, he takes a ring, 174 00:11:09.279 --> 00:11:13.000 he throws it into volcano, it gets destroyed, he beats the bad guys 175 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:16.559 done. Like, that's not there's no human being in the world that's interested 176 00:11:16.600 --> 00:11:20.320 in that story. It's really efficient version of the story. It's terrible story. 177 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:24.399 And so how do we build and architect our digital reality so that it's 178 00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:28.840 human and also compels people more into the physical one and creates more of a 179 00:11:28.879 --> 00:11:35.440 harmonic state. And we're obviously far away from So what's such a such a 180 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:39.759 cool thing though, Yeah, yeah, you just said about five thousand things 181 00:11:39.759 --> 00:11:43.679 that I want to dive into there. But but I think this, this 182 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:48.799 is I think such an interesting entry point that I'm both you know, that 183 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:50.679 is both surprising and delightful. And I think that our listeners say, oh, 184 00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:54.080 I actually, well, i'd realize I can connect these pieces together. 185 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:56.519 So there's a couple of a couple of things that I think that you're right, 186 00:11:56.759 --> 00:12:01.600 you know, that we are in this interesting point now today where we 187 00:12:01.960 --> 00:12:05.639 have an opportunity to kind of rethink what digital experiences are doing in our lives 188 00:12:05.679 --> 00:12:09.840 and what they can do and you know, the two things that really stood 189 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:13.279 out there that you share there is one is that like knowing kind of let 190 00:12:13.320 --> 00:12:18.240 the interior self, you know, the the eye behind the ask as it 191 00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:20.919 were, the I mean, if there is the Descartes split of the like 192 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:22.840 minded body, kind of peace at all, you know. I don't know 193 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:28.080 if you're familiar with Megan Ojiblin wrote the book God Human Animal Machine that recently 194 00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:31.360 came out, and it's a lot about language and metaphor, but so much 195 00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:33.240 of it is that she found. She she's a tech sas and especially writes 196 00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:37.679 says around AI. And one of the things that she wrote that really stuck 197 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:39.120 with me that you mentioned something similar is that on the one level, we 198 00:12:39.159 --> 00:12:43.799 are able to gather massive amounts of big data from usage online. You know, 199 00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:46.320 we can we can do a hot jar and watch where I'm clicking on 200 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:48.440 a website. We can do eye tracking to see what I'm looking at, 201 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:50.840 so we can get a lot of past behavior measurements, right, but we 202 00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:54.720 don't actually know what's happening interiorly to someone's like subjective experience. Right now, 203 00:12:54.759 --> 00:12:58.000 We to that point don't even know what consciousness is. Right. We know, 204 00:12:58.159 --> 00:13:01.200 we we think we're all conscious, right, but we don't know what 205 00:13:01.240 --> 00:13:03.519 it is neurologically, we don't know where it sits in the brain entirely. 206 00:13:05.080 --> 00:13:07.799 And that's or if it sits in the brain or yes, right, maybe 207 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:11.039 maybe it's in my gut right or in my fingertips. I don't, I 208 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:13.200 don't really know, right, or you know, it's it's out there in 209 00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:15.759 the ether. Yeah, it's beamed in, right. So even this, 210 00:13:15.799 --> 00:13:18.039 I think this collective piece, I mean, this is this is something else 211 00:13:18.039 --> 00:13:22.879 that I think is is really interesting that are we I guess this is a 212 00:13:22.879 --> 00:13:26.080 totally off the whole question, but like, are we designing the way that 213 00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:28.440 we're kind of setting up digital experiences in other things, like if we didn't 214 00:13:28.440 --> 00:13:33.720 think about, you know, an outdoor adventure experience when we're putting these together, 215 00:13:33.679 --> 00:13:37.200 we kind of designed them for individuality on one level that somebody can engage, 216 00:13:37.279 --> 00:13:41.039 especially I think digital but like outdoor, I like a game with people. 217 00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:43.679 Obviously are a rope's course, it's it's team based. But I'm just 218 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:46.080 trying to think about I don't know, is there are there ways to elicit 219 00:13:46.159 --> 00:13:50.399 kind of more potential collective consciousness through experiences like this? Is that and that 220 00:13:50.399 --> 00:13:52.799 that that's total left field, I know, But like I'm really curious about 221 00:13:52.799 --> 00:13:56.480 this from your perspective that you've seen, how can we engineer things for people 222 00:13:56.519 --> 00:13:58.360 to kind of beat together? Because it is I think one of things that 223 00:13:58.360 --> 00:14:01.559 we have all through is species, right, we have new or neurons. 224 00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:03.720 I can see your emotions, you can see mine, and that kind of 225 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:05.279 we might smile because we both like one of us smile, that that person 226 00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:09.759 might smile back, right and feel that way too. So it's something that 227 00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:13.519 you're right hard wired to be connected, I guess in this sense. So 228 00:14:13.960 --> 00:14:16.120 is that something that you've seen in your work the individual versus the group? 229 00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:20.639 You know? Totally And it's also you know, it's interesting how like certain 230 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:26.200 things in capitalism too are good for business as well, and like in the 231 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:30.720 kind of twenty fifteens, and and I actually gave a talk on on it. 232 00:14:30.919 --> 00:14:35.080 It was the talk on hyper personalization. The channel's everybody, yeah cool, 233 00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:37.840 it's it's it's it's not super interesting, but it's it's I think it's 234 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:43.320 a it's why and why I say it's not super interesting is because I think 235 00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:48.919 as scientists, like everything's an unfolding and you look at something like hyper personalization, 236 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:52.080 which was, oh, yeah, let's let's learn all these things about 237 00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:56.679 that person and let's kind of, you know, create an experience for them. 238 00:14:56.720 --> 00:14:58.519 But then you end up in the Truman Show. You end up in 239 00:14:58.519 --> 00:15:01.879 this bubble where you're kind of bound seen back and forth into your own reality. 240 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:05.320 And what we really learned and realize, and what I learned and realize 241 00:15:05.639 --> 00:15:09.679 is it's dumb. It doesn't really work, and it's not human. And 242 00:15:09.759 --> 00:15:11.440 so you move, you change, you evolve, and just because you see 243 00:15:11.480 --> 00:15:16.879 something, you get some gravitas from it. And yeah, it does type 244 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:22.159 of personalization work better than no personalization, absolutely, Like you'll see better metrics 245 00:15:22.200 --> 00:15:24.559 as a business if you do that. However, is it better than a 246 00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:28.360 collective experience? Absolutely not. So a lot of how our system works and 247 00:15:28.399 --> 00:15:31.240 why it works the way it does is because of what you're bringing up. 248 00:15:31.559 --> 00:15:35.519 So we own a lot of the patents on this because well we're kind of 249 00:15:35.559 --> 00:15:39.320 like the real Harry Potter sorting hat in some of the stuff we do. 250 00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:43.799 So you can throw a big group of people into our system and it's going 251 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:48.240 to go okay. It knows hundreds of psychological traits and everything's anonymous, So 252 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:50.120 we never know who people are in real life, unlike a lot of the 253 00:15:50.120 --> 00:15:54.080 big stuff, but we're finding those things and then we're sort of creating. 254 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:56.399 Okay, here's a group of people that are fearless and they're really open to 255 00:15:56.480 --> 00:16:00.879 new experiences and they value nature and etcetera, etcetera. And you start to 256 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:06.840 form these people around cognitive clusters or psychological clusters or as you mentioned, it's 257 00:16:06.879 --> 00:16:11.360 their interstate. It's like mindedness groups of people. And if we think of 258 00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:15.840 like phenomenons, like phenomena like the game of Game of Thrones, Like my 259 00:16:15.879 --> 00:16:19.360 cousin for example, she's like dragons and all that you know that stuffs for 260 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:26.480 nerds, and you came up and Game of Thrones like onboarded people onto dragons 261 00:16:26.480 --> 00:16:32.039 and nerdery like because it was a cultural component, it was like sports, 262 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:34.559 Like you couldn't go to the bar without people talking about Game of Thrones and 263 00:16:34.600 --> 00:16:37.960 you're like, well, if I want to participate in society, I probably 264 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:41.879 have to watch Game of Thrones. And it was so well written that it 265 00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:45.519 was very hard for people not to watch and engage with and it created this 266 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:49.159 sort of cultural dialogue. And so what we see in games because well, 267 00:16:49.559 --> 00:16:53.759 in real time, like we're measuring hundreds of millions of psychological profiles, like 268 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:56.960 even as we talk. And then what you actually see is when you form 269 00:16:56.960 --> 00:17:02.200 those groups and you let people designed to groups, it becomes really special. 270 00:17:02.519 --> 00:17:04.680 So like if if Game of Thrones came out and one person watched it and 271 00:17:04.680 --> 00:17:07.880 wanted to go tell all their friends, it's not interesting. Like that's part 272 00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:11.799 of why we live life is we want to share our experiences with with other 273 00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:17.000 people that we resonate with. And as a society, we've never been further 274 00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:18.319 away from that. Like there's a study that came out a couple of years 275 00:17:18.359 --> 00:17:22.640 back that was like the average American has less than one real friend, you 276 00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:26.839 know, and and the average yeah, and and and a real friend, 277 00:17:27.200 --> 00:17:30.839 how you know. Part of how they defined it was it's somebody that you 278 00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:34.319 can disagree with and they can disagree with you and you're still friends. It's 279 00:17:34.319 --> 00:17:37.559 that person who can tell you, hey, you know what, you were 280 00:17:37.559 --> 00:17:41.119 a complete idiot on Friday and you go, oh my god, I'm so 281 00:17:41.160 --> 00:17:44.799 happy to have you. Like we we live in a world where having that 282 00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:48.200 experience like all of a sudden, well that's not my friend. It's like 283 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:52.079 no, that was your only friend. Yeah, it's because the cost of 284 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:56.400 being honest is very expensive. It's expensive to be honest with somebody. It's 285 00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:02.200 you're gonna have to confront a potential and backlash. And we know when we 286 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:06.000 grew up and evolved, we had these little societies where well, you had 287 00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:07.720 to be honest with people because that you know, those were the forty people 288 00:18:07.720 --> 00:18:11.039 in the village and that's all you had to work out problems you had, 289 00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:15.160 Like you can't just go to the next town. You can't just ghost people, 290 00:18:15.279 --> 00:18:18.279 like you're going to see Bob again on Friday and it's gonna So we're 291 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:21.920 kind of in this you know, modern phenomena not having to do that. 292 00:18:21.960 --> 00:18:25.920 And so what we try to work with is, especially with the companies we 293 00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:29.599 work with, is how do you create a sense of community over time? 294 00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:34.839 And and different communities require different ingredients, Like there's all these amazing dishes you 295 00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:37.680 can go and eat. Some need a little more cayenne, some need a 296 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:41.599 little more like it's sometimes you need that spiciness in the community, you know, 297 00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:45.880 And that's how we cut We evolved around building stories and narratives and creating 298 00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:49.720 them together. And so that's where Soulston kind of creates these different psychological groups, 299 00:18:49.759 --> 00:18:53.160 and when you designed the group, that's when things get really powerful. 300 00:18:53.240 --> 00:18:56.400 So if you know, like, hey, you know, within your podcast, 301 00:18:56.480 --> 00:19:00.640 you have seven major psychological groups of people, but three of them are 302 00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:06.240 like you're like ultimate kind of you know group, And if you're designing your 303 00:19:06.279 --> 00:19:08.640 episodes to those groups of people, they're going to have a better experience. 304 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:11.079 You're going to have a better experience. The community is going to grow. 305 00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:15.359 And then it's a game design friend who worked at Nintendo for like fifteen years. 306 00:19:15.599 --> 00:19:19.400 He described it as kind of like the beach fire phenomena. He's from 307 00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:22.759 Washington, and he's like, you have a you know, initially, if 308 00:19:22.759 --> 00:19:26.119 you're on a beach and it starts to get cold, and you're in Washington 309 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:29.720 and you're maybe the only people that have some wood and you know, have 310 00:19:29.759 --> 00:19:32.599 some matches and things like that, and you put a fire out? Are 311 00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:37.880 you put it out? But you make a fire and then you're sitting around 312 00:19:37.880 --> 00:19:40.720 it and you and your friends are the ones getting the warmth. But then 313 00:19:40.759 --> 00:19:42.960 other people start to come and they're getting some warmth. But eventually people are 314 00:19:42.960 --> 00:19:47.759 not getting warmth because too many people are there in that community. So then 315 00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:51.119 someone else makes another fire and then maybe some people go over there. So 316 00:19:51.160 --> 00:19:53.440 I think community is kind of like that. If we think of collective experiences, 317 00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:56.119 people need to be able to get in the be able to be getting 318 00:19:56.200 --> 00:20:00.160 the warmth. And when communities scale and grow too big, they don't in 319 00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:03.720 anything anymore. The brand can go away. It's just like where the human 320 00:20:03.799 --> 00:20:06.519 race? What does that mean? You know, as a collective. And 321 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:10.440 it's interesting how when you oppose you know, thought thought experiments, you bring 322 00:20:10.440 --> 00:20:12.960 in alliance all of a sudden. You know, whoever those aliens were or 323 00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:17.599 might be, they might create that collective experience all of a sudden, because 324 00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:21.279 oh I am not that. But it's hard for our brains to oftentimes observe 325 00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:23.000 like what we are not, you know, it's like it's unless you have 326 00:20:23.079 --> 00:20:27.359 that counter example. So that's where yeah, we we overendex and over emphasize 327 00:20:27.400 --> 00:20:32.319 on how do we understand the groups and our experience rather than the individuals. 328 00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:37.359 And see your experience you're crafting as like you might see Hogwarts, like let's 329 00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:41.559 create an experience for Hufflepuff and Griffin door, but not for Harry. That's 330 00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:45.400 not really as interesting. Yeah, I think that that's fascinating. There's something 331 00:20:45.519 --> 00:20:49.119 I'm thinking about here here where it's there's kind of the psychological phenomenon of you 332 00:20:49.160 --> 00:20:52.039 know Dunbar's number, right, that there's a certain number of people that we 333 00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:56.759 can psychologically know, right, and I think it's it's like about one hundred 334 00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:00.240 and one hundred and twenty people or so yep, that we can we can 335 00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:02.680 actually like feel like we can we can engage with in no well, And 336 00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:10.160 so I'm curious about this too because there is such this unrelenting quest in capitalism 337 00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:11.119 for scale, right, it has to grow, it has to grow, 338 00:21:11.160 --> 00:21:14.680 it has to grow. And I think what you said right just a minute 339 00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:17.720 ago was was on point that if you get to a certain scale around a 340 00:21:17.759 --> 00:21:19.680 community, the idea means nothing like the community, there's nothing to really to 341 00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:22.920 latch onto. And so this is Yeah, I think one appeal of alien 342 00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:26.039 movies is that, oh, now we have the extraterrestrial, we can then 343 00:21:26.039 --> 00:21:29.440 say where the human rights we must fight? You know, independence, say 344 00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:33.200 Will Smith punching an alien, Welcome to Earth, you know, classic, 345 00:21:33.319 --> 00:21:37.279 right, But but there's interesting ideas that when we don't have the aliens, 346 00:21:37.720 --> 00:21:41.000 and obviously this I mean there's whole implications here for why and how we do 347 00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:45.000 scale conflict too, right, But there's an interesting notion in terms of when 348 00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:48.039 we're just saying scale, scale, scale, especially in digital h then we 349 00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:52.279 risk losing all that meanings. So it sounds like that's something that you've really 350 00:21:52.359 --> 00:21:56.519 kind of built into how you think about the way you gather data and what 351 00:21:56.519 --> 00:22:00.240 you're putting together. I think that's really interesting and powerful because I I don't 352 00:22:00.279 --> 00:22:03.119 often hear that, you know, in terms of always thinking about the tech 353 00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:07.599 and people's data stacks out there, like thinking wisely about groups, I don't 354 00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:11.599 hear that, Officer. This is a very refreshing piece. So how do 355 00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:14.039 you think about scale like that? I mean, did you get pressure from 356 00:22:14.200 --> 00:22:17.400 outside group saying hey, you gotta like obviously revenue scales different from like the 357 00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:19.240 scale of a community size, but like how do you balance that that question 358 00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:23.359 of how big to build a profile of a community with making it useful and 359 00:22:23.880 --> 00:22:27.839 helpful for others and clients? Yeah? I think you know that's the There's 360 00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:32.880 there's a lot ton unpacked there and like ad and it's really to me like 361 00:22:32.920 --> 00:22:36.759 this this is a really exciting conversation because if you look at like systems, 362 00:22:36.839 --> 00:22:41.039 like we had feudalism, and we had all these different systems. Like it 363 00:22:41.079 --> 00:22:45.839 wasn't like someone just went and imagined, you know, a future republic that 364 00:22:45.880 --> 00:22:49.799 could operate off of a capitalistic sort of It was like we had technologies that 365 00:22:49.799 --> 00:22:56.079 evolved that created these opportunities to have systems that were different than we had before. 366 00:22:56.640 --> 00:23:00.119 And I'll give you a good example of like two games that maybe some 367 00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:04.000 people are familiar with, but one game was called Game of War. It 368 00:23:04.359 --> 00:23:08.519 was really popular, had like Super Bowl commercials. I think like Kate Moss 369 00:23:08.599 --> 00:23:11.279 or something was in one of the commercials. But the reason why they had 370 00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:18.920 to have that commercial was because they had literally acquired through Facebook through targeted advertising, 371 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:25.240 everybody they could have possibly acquired, and those people spent money and they 372 00:23:25.319 --> 00:23:30.400 left and they churned. So they had to go outside of Facebook, which 373 00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:33.839 is a much less comfortable world, and they had to literally go to let's 374 00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:37.400 make a Super Bowl add to acquire people that never game before. And that's 375 00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:41.319 like, I mean, that's you know, new people. New markets bring 376 00:23:41.319 --> 00:23:44.640 people in. Right now as we're talking, there's one hundred million more people 377 00:23:44.759 --> 00:23:48.200 that play games every year. There's three billion people in the world that play 378 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:51.680 games. Every year, only four four billion people have a smartphone, so 379 00:23:52.200 --> 00:23:55.960 basically half the population of the world games, you know, and they'll bet 380 00:23:56.039 --> 00:23:59.200 I don't. Game has had this with someone and I'm like, I bet 381 00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:02.279 you do. And he said, well, as solitaire gaming, and I'm 382 00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:03.599 like yeah, he's like, oh, I play solitaire. It's like there 383 00:24:03.599 --> 00:24:07.519 you go, Like that's like, you know, so like people don't always 384 00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:11.279 realize that they're gamers. Well, we're all gamers. Anybody. You know, 385 00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:15.720 games is just play with rules and so any human being, every human 386 00:24:15.759 --> 00:24:18.359 being has played before, so and we've all you know, it's just digital 387 00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:22.480 gamings a little bit different. So but if you look at you know, 388 00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:25.880 Game of War, that was their fate and the game, you know, 389 00:24:26.039 --> 00:24:29.720 it was a lot of other companies copied the game. They really looked up 390 00:24:29.720 --> 00:24:32.119 to it. They're like, wow, this is driving tons of revenue, 391 00:24:32.160 --> 00:24:34.240 tons of growth. It's scaling so quickly. And you know, one of 392 00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:38.960 the things we like to talk about is is not just sustainability, but regenerative 393 00:24:40.200 --> 00:24:42.799 experiences. And that's kind of a new new kind of term we introduced. 394 00:24:42.839 --> 00:24:45.400 But I'll speak to that. And you look at at the same time, 395 00:24:45.440 --> 00:24:49.200 there's another game called Clash of Clans that came out, and they were both 396 00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:53.920 doing about the same amount of money in revenue. I know some of the 397 00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:57.519 founders of super Cell who made Clash of Clans, and one of them said, 398 00:24:57.640 --> 00:25:00.480 you know, hey, we were actually trying to make a game that 399 00:25:00.519 --> 00:25:04.200 like brothers could could play together. Also kind of like when they didn't want 400 00:25:04.200 --> 00:25:08.240 to want to talk anymore, I'm I'm half finished. That's very They're from 401 00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:11.759 Finla. It's very finished. Thing to like, we're done talking, but 402 00:25:11.880 --> 00:25:15.119 how can we still interact with each other? And but they didn't go, 403 00:25:15.240 --> 00:25:18.920 let's go architect this experience that's just going to scale and make a ton of 404 00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:23.359 money. Well, let's architect something that's solving an actual, real problem and 405 00:25:23.559 --> 00:25:27.920 let's create an experience around that. Well, Clash of Clans is now ten 406 00:25:27.960 --> 00:25:32.359 years old as a game. It's still making a billion dollars a year, 407 00:25:32.799 --> 00:25:34.480 and so a lot of you know, if you look at companies like Patagonia, 408 00:25:34.519 --> 00:25:41.839 for example, capitalism and revenue oftentimes is actually not at odds with doing 409 00:25:41.880 --> 00:25:45.279 things the right way. You know, it's there's a lot of options out 410 00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:48.920 there in the world. You can you can make money the Game of Thrones 411 00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:51.720 way, or you can make money the Clash Clans way, And if you 412 00:25:51.759 --> 00:25:56.160 want to create something that's sustainable at the minimum, regenerative is better regenerative, 413 00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:00.599 meaning that when people use that experience or interact with that experience, they're walking 414 00:26:00.640 --> 00:26:04.759 away from that experience with more than what they put into it, because then 415 00:26:04.799 --> 00:26:08.000 you're actually being able to come back to it over and over again in a 416 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:11.960 way that's you're not going to be addicted to it, because if you're addicted, 417 00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:15.039 you're losing, You're you know, people only burn out and blow out 418 00:26:15.079 --> 00:26:18.599 of addictions. Having been a psychotherapist for a lot of people who who had 419 00:26:18.599 --> 00:26:22.559 a lot of addictive issues, you know, addictions aren't good. They're not 420 00:26:22.599 --> 00:26:25.759 good for business, they're not good for products. So if we think of 421 00:26:25.799 --> 00:26:30.640 like a future and how we're developing experiences at scale, it's you know, 422 00:26:30.680 --> 00:26:33.920 and it's it's not a bad thing to have a business. Elka of the 423 00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:37.880 CEO of super Self kind of came out and said, hey, we have 424 00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:41.759 all this revenue, but we haven't really been growing. But you know what, 425 00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:45.960 maybe that is the cap of growth within that space. And if you 426 00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:51.160 start messing with that and trying to squeeze profits out of it, you might 427 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:55.079 be actually sinking your company. So if you think about growth, you know, 428 00:26:55.119 --> 00:26:59.440 and this is what I really like about capitalism in this sense. There's 429 00:26:59.480 --> 00:27:02.720 a quote from Warren Buffett that's like, you know, capitalism, the good 430 00:27:02.720 --> 00:27:04.640 thing about capitalism is that it gives people what they want. The bad thing 431 00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:08.200 about capitalism is it gives people what they want, you know, so what 432 00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:12.359 consumers demand, Like, that's kind of what capitalism awards. But I think 433 00:27:12.359 --> 00:27:18.039 we're starting to evolve into a society where consumers are starting to get they're catching 434 00:27:18.079 --> 00:27:21.400 on. People are more intelligent than they've ever been before. Like I know, 435 00:27:21.440 --> 00:27:23.599 we like to think like we're not and idiocricy is happening, but if 436 00:27:23.640 --> 00:27:27.920 you look at the data, i Q numbers are actually as high as they 437 00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:32.240 We don't know if that will stay that way, but if you met someone 438 00:27:32.319 --> 00:27:34.240 from one hundred and fifty years ago, you'd be like, Wow, it's 439 00:27:34.279 --> 00:27:40.319 like people are you know, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on what side of 440 00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:41.799 the coin you want to look at it from. We're the smartest we've ever 441 00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:45.039 been, and I think people are catching on too. You know, we 442 00:27:45.079 --> 00:27:49.160 even see this in our data. People who play New experiences or going to 443 00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:53.160 new apps. They're looking more and more for long term oriented things. So 444 00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:56.079 they're like they're going in and they're not looking for like what's that dopamine hit. 445 00:27:56.119 --> 00:28:00.799 They're like, hey, how do I actually jump into something that it's 446 00:28:00.839 --> 00:28:04.359 going to be fruitful for me over time. So consumers are getting smarter, 447 00:28:04.519 --> 00:28:08.160 just like the organic food movement in the United States, that can put pressure 448 00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:12.880 on companies to actually capitalistically deliver on that. But then in general companies are 449 00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:17.799 realizing, wait, if I make my experience at the very minimum sustainable but 450 00:28:18.279 --> 00:28:21.920 regenerative for people, if I'm actually delivering on it. You know, as 451 00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:26.039 humans, if we feel better, if we're like ooh, like I feel 452 00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:30.000 great at we tend to and obviously that can end up in the addiction addictive 453 00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:33.400 realm with drugs, but if it's a sustainable thing, like you working out. 454 00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:37.960 The problem with working out is that for a lot of people, as 455 00:28:37.960 --> 00:28:40.960 a high, you know, ramp up to do it, but then after 456 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:41.880 we do it, we're like, man, I wish I did that more. 457 00:28:42.279 --> 00:28:45.480 But those kind of things, we tend to do those things over the 458 00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:48.440 period of our entire life, and so as a company, it's like, 459 00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:52.480 well, what would you rather have someone that spends tons of money and then 460 00:28:52.680 --> 00:28:56.839 leaves your product forever or spends a little bit of money over a longer period 461 00:28:56.880 --> 00:29:02.279 of time, Because then you can predict revenue, you can predict how you 462 00:29:02.319 --> 00:29:04.720 allocate budget, you can predict how you allocate resources, and then you can 463 00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:08.680 take some of the same theory or ethos and maybe bring it to other markets, 464 00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:14.400 and eventually capitalism will crowd out the world of human wants and needs. 465 00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:19.400 It's like you can't just exponentially grow against there's enough a point where everyone's going 466 00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:23.160 to occupy a space on that on that map. But what you can do 467 00:29:23.400 --> 00:29:26.599 is you can compete on experience. And I think that's the world we now 468 00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:30.240 are living in is you know, we're not competing on product and price anymore, 469 00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:33.960 but the company is the future need to compete on experience. And if 470 00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:37.240 we're competing on experience, we need to compete on health, well being, 471 00:29:37.480 --> 00:29:41.359 community. What is you have to break down fundamentally, like what does it 472 00:29:41.400 --> 00:29:45.799 mean to be human? And part of that is play and experiencing joyful things 473 00:29:45.839 --> 00:29:51.279 together as a community. So you can't do that and you're in the experience 474 00:29:51.319 --> 00:29:56.000 economy that we've now entered good luck. So it's it's actually I do think 475 00:29:56.039 --> 00:30:02.200 we're in a new new form of capitalism and people don't full there's there's companies 476 00:30:02.200 --> 00:30:04.160 that are leading the way and then companies that are grasping it. And just 477 00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:08.799 like the Fortune five hundred list from fifty years ago, half those companies aren't 478 00:30:08.799 --> 00:30:15.400 even around anymore. So that's that's a fascinating point and I think an important 479 00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:21.000 reminder that even as we think about economic systems themselves evolve along with people in 480 00:30:22.519 --> 00:30:25.880 I love the reference how I have to think about Okay, oftentimes I feel 481 00:30:25.920 --> 00:30:27.920 like idiocracy is in fact taking place in that and that might judge new, 482 00:30:29.559 --> 00:30:32.599 but yeah, you know that that data points out that we are actually as 483 00:30:32.640 --> 00:30:34.680 smart as we've ever been, as intelligent as we've ever been. And I 484 00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:38.559 think what's really cool about that, and and I think you know brings out 485 00:30:38.559 --> 00:30:44.880 the optimist in me. Is this idea that you know, as you're you're 486 00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:47.599 finding both in your data and and we've seen two that folk who are looking 487 00:30:47.640 --> 00:30:51.359 for these more long term experiences are things that they can have for that kind 488 00:30:51.359 --> 00:30:55.000 of better relationship with you know, their their favorite characters, their favorite games, 489 00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:57.440 experiences with brothers playing games, but also with the with the you know, 490 00:30:57.519 --> 00:31:03.400 games themselves. And this is an interesting idea of what is it that 491 00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:06.839 people are actually gearing and moving towards. And because we've seen i mean, 492 00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:08.920 you know, to kind of remind us of the point we saw we were 493 00:31:08.920 --> 00:31:12.039 talking about up top two that there has been you know, all data has 494 00:31:12.079 --> 00:31:15.640 pointed towards that there's been a rise of mental health issues when it comes to 495 00:31:15.759 --> 00:31:19.200 social media use. And social media is kind of like the the I don't 496 00:31:19.200 --> 00:31:23.599 know, the zeitgeist extraterrestrial of our world. That's like kind of pointing this 497 00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:26.880 is the kind of thing we're looking back saying them it was. We probably 498 00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:29.519 didn't handle that very well, you know. And this is where like the 499 00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:32.759 entire decentralized movement also kind of came up in a response a little bit to 500 00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:33.880 this idea of like what are you doing with my data? What access do 501 00:31:33.920 --> 00:31:37.240 I have to it? Yeah, but then also this this notion of what 502 00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:41.119 are people looking for and how do we help deliver these ideas? And so 503 00:31:41.319 --> 00:31:45.279 I love the fact that what's emerging from this in your work is we do 504 00:31:45.359 --> 00:31:48.400 have to ask what is it that's that's it means to be human today, 505 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:52.079 especially as we have new kinds of technologies. I mean, like, obviously 506 00:31:52.119 --> 00:31:55.720 this is a question on so many people's minds with the consumer side rise of 507 00:31:55.720 --> 00:31:56.680 generative A. I mean, I has been around for a long time, 508 00:31:56.759 --> 00:31:59.599 right, but now it's like I can I can chat with it, so 509 00:31:59.640 --> 00:32:02.319 it feels new. But you know, there is this interesting question that that 510 00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:07.200 I remember I saw a piece a few months ago, but that when when 511 00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:09.839 chat GPT was just becoming you know, more more popular and we're just more 512 00:32:09.920 --> 00:32:13.839 well known. That there was a you know, a piece on tech Crunch 513 00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:15.480 that was pointing out that you know, Google has a way to make music 514 00:32:15.519 --> 00:32:19.359 now through like you know, text to music, which obviously, now this 515 00:32:19.400 --> 00:32:21.839 is going to sound not not not the exciting that I'm saying it here in 516 00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:25.119 June twenty twenty three, But before it was really this more well known other 517 00:32:25.160 --> 00:32:28.680 piece, it was a scared of scary idea of like, look, engineers 518 00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:34.480 are really excited to help solve top mid Mike engineers are really excited to solve 519 00:32:34.519 --> 00:32:37.200 for the challenge of music creation. Now, if you're listening to the podcast, 520 00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:39.200 you can't see, but behind me there's a bunch of keyboards as a 521 00:32:39.279 --> 00:32:43.480 musician. I was horrified at the idea of trying to solve for music creation. 522 00:32:43.559 --> 00:32:45.319 It's like that's something that I need to do both literally for play and 523 00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:47.960 as a form of my own, you know, own therapy. And this 524 00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:51.759 is interesting question in terms of, you know, what it raised in me 525 00:32:51.960 --> 00:32:53.799 is what is it that we're trying to solve for with some of these technologies, 526 00:32:53.839 --> 00:32:57.799 Like what is the point really of solving for making music? Yes, 527 00:32:57.839 --> 00:33:00.200 if I can't write music or I don't want to write my own podcast theme 528 00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:01.960 song, shure, you know, I'm going to use music stams anyway. 529 00:33:02.119 --> 00:33:05.680 But you know, we think about that for ad creative, for writing for 530 00:33:05.759 --> 00:33:07.640 essays and all other kind of things you can do through text based energy of 531 00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:09.960 AI. But it is this question of like, yes, on one level, 532 00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.599 I think there's there's value in terms of helping cut down on drudgery, 533 00:33:14.799 --> 00:33:17.279 like in terms of like repetitive tasks that aren't that interesting. But at the 534 00:33:17.319 --> 00:33:21.480 broader sense, when we're thinking about I'm solving for either music creation or like 535 00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:23.960 cutting down and editing a podcast and these things are helpful, there is this 536 00:33:24.039 --> 00:33:27.160 kind of in between road we're asking this question of like, well, what 537 00:33:27.240 --> 00:33:29.519 is it what's worth solving? Right, what are we trying to solve in 538 00:33:29.559 --> 00:33:30.759 this case? And so I think what I hear you kind of sharing it? 539 00:33:30.799 --> 00:33:36.039 This is this is sparking this idea in terms of the experiences between being 540 00:33:36.039 --> 00:33:37.720 able to practice play music versus using a tool that helps me create it, 541 00:33:37.759 --> 00:33:39.680 being able to write an essay, write a book, write a blog for 542 00:33:39.759 --> 00:33:43.680 us versus having a tool to it for me and saving me time. I 543 00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:45.920 mean, I'm curious does that resonate it all in terms of like how we're 544 00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:50.000 thinking about what's the place of being human in what's the place of technology in 545 00:33:50.200 --> 00:33:52.039 being human? I guess is the way to ask that? Do we see 546 00:33:52.039 --> 00:33:53.480 that play in your work? Yeah, Adam, And that's I mean, 547 00:33:53.519 --> 00:33:58.559 that's a big part why Soulston exists, because how do we know who we 548 00:33:58.599 --> 00:34:02.480 are if we can't measure measure who we are? And the point is, 549 00:34:02.519 --> 00:34:05.440 like, you know, if you look at the kind of the tenets of 550 00:34:05.720 --> 00:34:10.480 clinical neuropsychology, like why why do we do neuropsychological assessment with patients? Well, 551 00:34:10.639 --> 00:34:15.400 one, humans are poor observers of our own cognition. Our brains can 552 00:34:15.480 --> 00:34:20.119 literally not observe ourselves. And that's part of why anthropologists exists and why we 553 00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:23.840 have things like participant observation and because you need a person who's very good at 554 00:34:23.880 --> 00:34:28.719 observing. And what is when you're a subjective being? What is objective? 555 00:34:28.840 --> 00:34:32.199 What is a way of objectively observing a group of people? And that's where 556 00:34:32.199 --> 00:34:36.360 ethnography and all this cool stuff comes from. But you know, so, 557 00:34:36.519 --> 00:34:39.280 yeah, we're bad at observing our own we're bad observing each other's cognition. 558 00:34:39.719 --> 00:34:43.480 I have no idea what you actually thinking right now. You have no idea 559 00:34:43.519 --> 00:34:45.039 what I'm thinking. Sometimes we don't know what we're thinking, it's all. 560 00:34:45.079 --> 00:34:47.920 And also because of that, you know, having ways to measure it. 561 00:34:49.480 --> 00:34:52.639 Psychological assessment is the best way we have today to increase our own levels of 562 00:34:52.639 --> 00:34:55.119 self awareness. Like, oh, I didn't know I was like that. 563 00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:59.239 I'm definitely like that. Well here's the risks of being like that. Okay, 564 00:34:59.360 --> 00:35:01.159 oh you're really really high on openness, and you like you'll have to 565 00:35:01.199 --> 00:35:05.079 travel and you have to move all over the place. But you know what, 566 00:35:05.239 --> 00:35:08.400 that's might make it challenging when you're forty years old and you look back 567 00:35:08.440 --> 00:35:12.000 and you're like, wait, I actually really wanted a family, and well 568 00:35:12.039 --> 00:35:15.440 you might have to think about openness differently, and yes, you have that 569 00:35:15.519 --> 00:35:19.559 trade and I like it's kind of like nature versus nurture, and that's part 570 00:35:19.599 --> 00:35:22.679 of what we're solving for too. And the truth of like kind of what 571 00:35:22.719 --> 00:35:24.840 we see is there's you know, some people are more nature and some people 572 00:35:24.880 --> 00:35:28.760 are more nurture. But when you look at your parents and whether you like 573 00:35:28.800 --> 00:35:30.840 it or not, there's parts of them that are you. And I always 574 00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:35.960 said when I had patience, you know your dad if if he's got this 575 00:35:36.079 --> 00:35:37.480 kind of you know, like overactive, a big deala and a lot of 576 00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:42.159 anger issues, and you have some of that going on too. The cool 577 00:35:42.199 --> 00:35:45.119 thing about being you is about sixty percent. And this is just really broad 578 00:35:45.239 --> 00:35:49.840 stroke. You know, gets to choose how you express who you are, 579 00:35:50.199 --> 00:35:52.519 and that's where you get to. That's the free agency. That's the so 580 00:35:52.559 --> 00:35:55.480 when you get angry, you can use that, you can use sublimation and 581 00:35:55.519 --> 00:35:59.280 you can take that and you can go, hey, what are the good 582 00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:01.519 things I'm going to do so that other people don't, you know, receive 583 00:36:01.559 --> 00:36:06.239 the end of this and that that doesn't happen. And so like there's that 584 00:36:06.360 --> 00:36:09.440 that element that's there. And so when you bring that back to today and 585 00:36:09.480 --> 00:36:13.840 technology, and you know there's these memes just to go back to what you're 586 00:36:13.880 --> 00:36:15.360 talking about. You know, it's like, but I thought AI was going 587 00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:19.119 to do all the boring tasks and said it's you know, painting and making 588 00:36:19.199 --> 00:36:22.480 music and all those kind of things. You know, and this is this 589 00:36:22.519 --> 00:36:27.079 is just a personal belief. But if you look at history, we've been 590 00:36:27.119 --> 00:36:30.719 through this so many times before, Like if you study the Industrial Revolution, 591 00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:35.440 same thing, if you go back to like when bronze was invented, same 592 00:36:35.440 --> 00:36:37.679 thing. You know, but I'm the person that drags the plow around. 593 00:36:37.719 --> 00:36:42.960 It's like, well, no, there's this you don't have to be anymore. 594 00:36:43.079 --> 00:36:46.679 And and it comes back to like utilitarianism. There's a good book I 595 00:36:46.760 --> 00:36:51.039 like called ek Guy. You know, it's just like Japanese principle of purposeful 596 00:36:51.039 --> 00:36:53.840 work and purposeful living. And so what happens is, you know when when 597 00:36:53.840 --> 00:36:59.000 people feel that their purpose is being taken away, they're like, if you 598 00:36:59.280 --> 00:37:01.719 like, I don't want anything to do with this, like whatever this AI 599 00:37:01.800 --> 00:37:06.039 stuff is. And if I'm an artist, if I'm a musician, like 600 00:37:06.199 --> 00:37:08.519 this is it's doing the human stuff. And wow, it's actually pretty good 601 00:37:08.559 --> 00:37:14.599 at it. And the reality is if we look at all the technology we 602 00:37:14.679 --> 00:37:16.719 built today, I don't I don't think it's hard to argue with the fact 603 00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:21.039 that there's a lot of really, really bad music out there. There's a 604 00:37:21.079 --> 00:37:23.760 lot of really bad art, So we created the ability to create a lot. 605 00:37:24.199 --> 00:37:28.599 And if you look at like back when Mozart or Bach or these kind 606 00:37:28.639 --> 00:37:31.559 of people made music, they made music for very If we talked about audiences, 607 00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:37.280 a very specific layer of society, and most of that layer of society 608 00:37:37.320 --> 00:37:40.320 had grown up playing the piano, playing playing, you know, some sort 609 00:37:40.360 --> 00:37:45.000 of instrument. So it was musicians music. It was music for musicians. 610 00:37:45.280 --> 00:37:49.679 And when you've played an instrument, your ears different. You can hear songs 611 00:37:49.679 --> 00:37:52.199 differently, you can listen to things differently. A perfect example is that Hey 612 00:37:52.280 --> 00:37:55.840 Yah song that came out by Outcast. You know, we took data science. 613 00:37:55.840 --> 00:37:59.039 We looked at that song and we're like, this is going to be 614 00:37:59.039 --> 00:38:04.360 a hit. Song came out, it performed terribly, and the music companies 615 00:38:04.360 --> 00:38:07.679 were like, this doesn't make any sense at all. They hired some researchers, 616 00:38:08.280 --> 00:38:13.400 did a bunch of studies, figured out what's going on. The song 617 00:38:13.800 --> 00:38:19.480 was too far away from the average American's ear. And so what they did 618 00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:21.920 was did an analysis on the radio and looked at, well, what are 619 00:38:21.920 --> 00:38:24.800 the two songs that are the most similar that outcast song and they put they 620 00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:29.760 told all the radio stations Sandwich. It put it in between the two songs 621 00:38:29.800 --> 00:38:34.079 that are the most similar Boom, one of the most selling songs of all 622 00:38:34.119 --> 00:38:37.519 time. And so if we look at what AI and art, you know, 623 00:38:37.719 --> 00:38:44.119 there every technology that that we've created in the past, we start out 624 00:38:44.159 --> 00:38:47.199 by misusing it. When we look at TikTok mental health. I always say, 625 00:38:47.239 --> 00:38:51.119 like, you know, if if you think that, you know, 626 00:38:51.280 --> 00:38:55.159 AI hasn't surpassed you know, and because of humanity, because you know it's 627 00:38:55.280 --> 00:38:59.480 quote AI, because it's really machine learning. We haven't developed a general AI 628 00:38:59.559 --> 00:39:02.280 yet. Like chat GPT is not a general AI. It's not actually it's 629 00:39:02.320 --> 00:39:07.679 it's an advanced version of Google that's conversational. But if you if you look 630 00:39:07.719 --> 00:39:15.360 at kind of what we've done today, it's not that smart. It's it's 631 00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:19.480 good, but it's heading in a direction where it's another tool, just like 632 00:39:19.519 --> 00:39:22.440 all these other tools that humanity is built before. And we go from misusing 633 00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:25.519 the tool to figuring out rules to figuring out how to use it, and 634 00:39:25.559 --> 00:39:30.360 I think what's actually going to come from the music side and the image side 635 00:39:30.360 --> 00:39:34.440 because I happen to be in those worlds too. We're going to start to 636 00:39:34.440 --> 00:39:37.599 get a lot more really good music, and it's going to force artists to 637 00:39:37.639 --> 00:39:40.239 think about mediums that they haven't explored before. If you still look at a 638 00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:45.840 Michaelangelo's sculpture and you give an AI with a chisel a direct three D print 639 00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:50.920 of it, you compare them next to each other, you're not getting the 640 00:39:50.960 --> 00:39:53.480 same thing, and it's definitely not going to be able to create something new, 641 00:39:53.519 --> 00:39:58.079 at least today anyway. But I think it's humanity. We've always adapt 642 00:39:58.079 --> 00:40:00.639 We're such an adaptive species, and so I think it's going to force that. 643 00:40:00.719 --> 00:40:06.079 And then with the attention conversation like, Okay, yeah, AI can 644 00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:07.880 beat the just you know, one of the best chess players in the world, 645 00:40:07.960 --> 00:40:10.280 but it can't beat them at checkers. You know, it's not general, 646 00:40:10.639 --> 00:40:15.559 but AI or machine learning in general is pretty much better than any human 647 00:40:15.599 --> 00:40:20.559 being at commanding their own attention and the ability to come in. You know, 648 00:40:20.599 --> 00:40:23.440 you get on doom scrolling and then you start going like maybe you're a 649 00:40:23.440 --> 00:40:30.400 Tibetan Buddhist muk and every post you look at you're actually understanding and observing and 650 00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:35.840 taking it all in. And that's the dangers of passive scrolling is you're unconsciously 651 00:40:35.920 --> 00:40:40.039 consuming, where games are active media, so you're not You're never unconsciously consuming 652 00:40:40.039 --> 00:40:43.719 in a game. You're always consciously consuming. And that's why if you look 653 00:40:43.760 --> 00:40:46.280 at health research with gaming, even though tons of people have tried to make 654 00:40:46.320 --> 00:40:51.639 games out to be onhealthy, it's overwhelmingly good for you. Passive media is 655 00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:54.599 not. And I think that's where we see some of that transition into games 656 00:40:54.880 --> 00:40:58.159 and a lot of the games that are coming out, you know, it's 657 00:40:58.159 --> 00:41:01.800 how do we put the human into visual as the creator in the experience as 658 00:41:01.840 --> 00:41:07.400 the architect. And I do think that a lot of the generative AI that's 659 00:41:07.400 --> 00:41:09.599 coming out, Okay, I have a hypothesis for new painting. I'm gonna 660 00:41:09.639 --> 00:41:14.800 do let's go on mid journey, generate a bunch of different ideas for that, 661 00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:17.519 and then I'll go paint it. And it's incredible. You almost have 662 00:41:17.639 --> 00:41:22.119 this like sidekick that's there, and then you can create something that from an 663 00:41:22.119 --> 00:41:25.800 inspiration. You know, inspiration is not on demand, and AI, I 664 00:41:25.800 --> 00:41:30.880 think you know, being a sparring partner for us for creativity, whether it's 665 00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:36.400 music, imagery. What Sulston does is we're basically the AI of human understanding 666 00:41:36.679 --> 00:41:39.000 and the AI of discovery. So now I understand who I am, what 667 00:41:39.159 --> 00:41:44.400 people, places and things work with, what fit me, and what are 668 00:41:44.440 --> 00:41:46.599 good for me over time. So you can take those images from mid journey 669 00:41:46.719 --> 00:41:50.639 or you know, some music that gets created and that's going to be a 670 00:41:50.679 --> 00:41:55.280 whole legal craziness when you know there's a jay Z, Christina and Aguilera mashup 671 00:41:55.320 --> 00:42:00.960 that some AI created, and you know, I p for that, Like 672 00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:04.199 if we thought Napster was bad, you know, for those people who were 673 00:42:04.400 --> 00:42:07.400 alive, Like we thought that was bad. This is going to be nuts, 674 00:42:07.519 --> 00:42:09.199 but we're going to come out of it on the other side. And 675 00:42:09.239 --> 00:42:15.119 I think back to understanding audiences. You know, there was this explosion of 676 00:42:15.320 --> 00:42:19.280 in America anyway of music that happened in the nineties where you could go and 677 00:42:19.320 --> 00:42:22.840 listen to like a Nirvana or a Foo Fighters or all these different bands of 678 00:42:22.880 --> 00:42:30.239 you know, a Biggie Tupac. This is this beautiful creative spark that happened, 679 00:42:30.559 --> 00:42:31.960 and it was this kind of time where there was a lot of like 680 00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:37.159 the really good musicians, CDs happen, money happen, and all this money 681 00:42:37.239 --> 00:42:43.360 was there from a capitalistic perspective to fund that reality. And then we kind 682 00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:45.320 of did a little down slope here, and I think what will happen is 683 00:42:45.760 --> 00:42:50.719 with the generative stuff, we're going to see another boom, but it's not 684 00:42:50.840 --> 00:42:52.840 going to be what we necessarily thought it was. But I would expect that 685 00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:57.639 there's would be more music that we resonate with than ever before. And I 686 00:42:57.679 --> 00:43:00.960 really like, you know, if food is, you know, something that 687 00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:05.280 sustains us and keeps us alive, and I do think that music and part 688 00:43:05.320 --> 00:43:08.239 of why it's so fundamental is it's really food for our nervous system. It's 689 00:43:08.239 --> 00:43:13.000 something that every human being neat. I've never met a human being that, 690 00:43:13.440 --> 00:43:16.519 you know, didn't relate to music. And I've seen a lot of different 691 00:43:16.519 --> 00:43:20.800 types of people when I was a psychotherapist, and you know, it's this 692 00:43:20.960 --> 00:43:24.519 it's this thing that our nervous system uses and leverages and it's innate. It's 693 00:43:24.559 --> 00:43:28.559 fundamental to who we are. So when engineers say, like engineers want to 694 00:43:28.559 --> 00:43:30.000 solve for things, that's what they do. So we want to solve for 695 00:43:30.119 --> 00:43:35.360 music. They're what they're saying is, well, we want to solve probably 696 00:43:35.360 --> 00:43:37.039 saying for how do we feed our nervous system. You know, they don't 697 00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:40.280 know what they mean that, but they're trying to solve a problem. And 698 00:43:40.440 --> 00:43:44.280 you know, music is you know, I think birds and humans like I 699 00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:45.800 forget what part of our brain it is, but it's like when you can 700 00:43:45.880 --> 00:43:50.760 carry a rhythm and nod your head like there's certain animals that have that. 701 00:43:51.039 --> 00:43:53.000 It's innate. It's innate to who we are. It's a part so played 702 00:43:53.039 --> 00:43:55.719 a role in our evolution, It played a role in our species. It 703 00:43:55.719 --> 00:43:59.320 played a role and how we connect to each other, how we have collective 704 00:43:59.360 --> 00:44:02.880 experiences. And I think if you know, we've all been to concerts before, 705 00:44:02.920 --> 00:44:07.159 we're like, man, this band is not as good live as they 706 00:44:07.199 --> 00:44:09.639 are on the radio. Or you know, we've been to concerts before, 707 00:44:09.639 --> 00:44:15.360 we're like that was this woe? Like what happened? It was this you 708 00:44:15.400 --> 00:44:20.760 know, religious experience or something like that. And I think humans naturally want 709 00:44:20.760 --> 00:44:25.559 to unfold into deeper layers of experience and connection. And I do think that 710 00:44:25.880 --> 00:44:29.920 this is part of why Sulston's here. I think there's a couple of paths 711 00:44:29.960 --> 00:44:31.960 we can go down right now with all the mL stuff that's doing. And 712 00:44:32.320 --> 00:44:36.599 one is I think there's a quote from all this Huxley that the end of 713 00:44:36.880 --> 00:44:42.199 technological evolution is a human brain and event, and that's the sort of dystopic, 714 00:44:42.440 --> 00:44:45.599 you know, view of this whole thing, and I think that could 715 00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:49.599 happen, that could be a reality. But going back to the very first 716 00:44:49.599 --> 00:44:52.800 part of this conversation, if we think about it more like Disney, if 717 00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:58.280 we think about it more like a European city that was organically built rather than 718 00:44:58.559 --> 00:45:02.119 grid based city that we're built around efficiency, I think we can take this 719 00:45:02.159 --> 00:45:06.679 whole thing. And now, if you look at a lot of the artists 720 00:45:06.719 --> 00:45:10.679 that are really doing incredible things with like mid Journey or some of the Dolly 721 00:45:10.800 --> 00:45:15.199 these kind of things, they're the ones who are the best set asking questions 722 00:45:15.280 --> 00:45:19.760 and that's something that's very human. So it's sort of changing the skill set. 723 00:45:19.800 --> 00:45:22.760 Just like when we had the industrial Revolution, the skill set gets changed. 724 00:45:22.760 --> 00:45:27.280 And now if you're an artist that knows how to ask really good questions 725 00:45:27.360 --> 00:45:30.199 to mid Journey and leverage mid Journey in a really good way, there's gonna 726 00:45:30.199 --> 00:45:35.079 be some famous mL artist that comes out in the next you know, five 727 00:45:35.159 --> 00:45:37.320 years, who is just so good at that. But they would have never 728 00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:42.519 been Picasso. They just happen to be born at this time with this technology 729 00:45:42.559 --> 00:45:45.280 that allow them to leverage this ability to create. And I come back to 730 00:45:45.400 --> 00:45:50.880 art like, because design we help design. That's what Sulston does. We 731 00:45:50.920 --> 00:45:54.000 work with companies and design is where form meets function. I'm sitting in a 732 00:45:54.039 --> 00:45:57.440 chair. It's a design thing. We need to sit down. But it 733 00:45:57.480 --> 00:46:00.239 needs to you know, it needs to be aesthetic, it needs to feel 734 00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:04.079 good. And these are all bonus points. But it's like art, you 735 00:46:04.079 --> 00:46:07.800 know, it doesn't really form. And I think this is where people get 736 00:46:07.159 --> 00:46:13.840 get a little bit squeamish because art doesn't need to have a purpose and art 737 00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:17.079 is you know, design gives us how and what and art is really what 738 00:46:17.159 --> 00:46:22.559 gives us why. And so it's almost like you're having a why conversation with 739 00:46:22.639 --> 00:46:27.960 these art based ais and through that maybe we get too deeper levels of meeting 740 00:46:28.599 --> 00:46:30.760 I don't know, you know, like I think that there's a lot of 741 00:46:30.840 --> 00:46:34.519 art out there that has been the driving force for a lot of a lot 742 00:46:34.519 --> 00:46:37.880 of science. Now I think that's that's right, and I mean even you 743 00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:39.480 know, to hearken to your Divinci quote before too, right, that like 744 00:46:39.480 --> 00:46:43.280 the art and the art of science and science art, how they come together, 745 00:46:43.440 --> 00:46:49.679 I think in really deeply in profound ways, and that design today I 746 00:46:49.679 --> 00:46:52.719 love that idea too, just thinking about you know, who is the you 747 00:46:52.760 --> 00:46:58.599 know, future of Michelangelo of mL prompt engineering, right, and they can 748 00:46:59.480 --> 00:47:01.880 they can like you know, somehow make a three D sculpture out of cheese 749 00:47:01.920 --> 00:47:05.360 with with the with the printer. You know that that isn't like the most 750 00:47:05.360 --> 00:47:08.119 beautiful thing that we've seen. Yeah, but this kind of I think it's 751 00:47:08.119 --> 00:47:13.639 really this fascinating point in terms of you know, how do we is it 752 00:47:13.639 --> 00:47:15.679 going to sound like a dead joke like it's the it's the other kind of 753 00:47:15.840 --> 00:47:19.960 y combinator w h Y right, in terms of bringing together the best ideas 754 00:47:19.960 --> 00:47:22.719 that we can then build them to help people, you know, have new 755 00:47:22.760 --> 00:47:25.679 ideas and new experiences. And so thinking about that with with Sulston itself too 756 00:47:25.800 --> 00:47:30.239 that you know, it's something you said there to that also struts me is 757 00:47:30.280 --> 00:47:34.000 that like this is kind of the the AI tools around like human discovery itself 758 00:47:34.039 --> 00:47:37.559 and kind of knowing ourselves better and so I'm curious even just to dig into 759 00:47:37.599 --> 00:47:40.679 that a little bit in terms of you know, in terms of a service 760 00:47:40.679 --> 00:47:45.400 offering and kind of a product itself you typically work with. Is a kind 761 00:47:45.400 --> 00:47:46.920 of other designers that their game companies that are developing, and you want to 762 00:47:46.920 --> 00:47:51.000 help them know their audiences better. Is it is? It is there like 763 00:47:51.039 --> 00:47:53.280 designs on like being a B T C version where I can go in there 764 00:47:53.320 --> 00:47:57.000 and like put myself in or like me as a podcaster, Like I'm curious, 765 00:47:57.079 --> 00:48:00.000 like how they thinking about the ecosystem of what the offering could do because 766 00:48:00.159 --> 00:48:04.559 the idea, I think it is incredibly compelling. Because one like to actually 767 00:48:04.559 --> 00:48:09.679 see functional and ethical social science applications of like you know, models and like 768 00:48:09.760 --> 00:48:15.480 from from psych evaluations for example, into getting to know folks and audiences scale. 769 00:48:15.639 --> 00:48:16.400 It is both incredibly important, right, I mean, I think we 770 00:48:16.440 --> 00:48:20.840 have we have an extra layer of work to do as social scientists, to 771 00:48:20.840 --> 00:48:23.760 say, like is our application of our methods ethical and in these areas I 772 00:48:23.800 --> 00:48:27.320 mean, I think should be part of any design, right. But you 773 00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:30.480 know, since we're sort of newer to the field in design, in in 774 00:48:30.719 --> 00:48:35.239 you know, product development, you know, I think there's extra owners there. 775 00:48:35.239 --> 00:48:37.880 So I'm curious about this this kind of process in terms of like how 776 00:48:37.880 --> 00:48:42.039 are we thinking about kind of a business model here of like who this is 777 00:48:42.039 --> 00:48:45.199 form and how it can kind of move in different ways. And I guess 778 00:48:45.239 --> 00:48:47.039 I'll start with that question that kind of we can build from there. But 779 00:48:47.119 --> 00:48:51.800 yeah, I do frame that up. Yeah, So you know, Soulston 780 00:48:52.079 --> 00:48:54.159 is the way to think of it as it's basically this living, breeding, 781 00:48:54.280 --> 00:49:01.519 human insight engine that's allowing you to understand your audience in a real time fashion. 782 00:49:02.199 --> 00:49:07.079 So we're looking at these different like minded groups, we're understanding their psychology, 783 00:49:07.119 --> 00:49:10.840 and then in kind of like a very base layer version of the matrix, 784 00:49:12.280 --> 00:49:15.280 we're allowing any developer to be able to adapt that experience to people. 785 00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:19.719 So, for example, eve Online, it's like a twenty year old game. 786 00:49:20.159 --> 00:49:22.840 You know, we developed, we saw, oh hey, look there's 787 00:49:22.840 --> 00:49:25.800 all these people that are high on altruism that are not making it through the 788 00:49:25.840 --> 00:49:30.599 first seven days of the experience. Well, what if we allowed all those 789 00:49:30.679 --> 00:49:35.760 ideas to be able to do more altruistic things in the game to help other 790 00:49:35.800 --> 00:49:39.960 people through that first seven days twenty year old game. They ab tested everything 791 00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.440 you could possibly ab tests to do to get more people through the first seven 792 00:49:44.519 --> 00:49:49.079 days they implemented that based off Sulsan, twenty percent more people are making it 793 00:49:49.079 --> 00:49:52.880 through the first time experience. So you know, and people come out they're 794 00:49:52.920 --> 00:49:54.400 like that was awesome, Like what like why was that? Look, we're 795 00:49:54.480 --> 00:49:58.079 letting people be an expression of who they are a little bit more. If 796 00:49:58.079 --> 00:50:00.480 you're altruistic and you want to be help pole and you know, ultimately, 797 00:50:00.599 --> 00:50:05.679 like what we like to say is our product is really limited by two things. 798 00:50:05.679 --> 00:50:08.639 It's limited by the imagination of the company we work with and by their 799 00:50:08.679 --> 00:50:14.639 tech stack. And so game companies have incredible tech stacks typically where you can 800 00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:21.920 create these mL driven levels, adaptive systems. Maybe you really value nature and 801 00:50:21.960 --> 00:50:24.880 you're really open to open a new experiences, and we know that for some 802 00:50:24.920 --> 00:50:30.880 reason that that correlates with, you know, anxiety reduction when there's a nice 803 00:50:30.960 --> 00:50:35.079 slight snowfalls. So you go into this level and there's a night slight snowfall 804 00:50:35.239 --> 00:50:37.960 or your group of people, and that goes back to what we talked about 805 00:50:37.960 --> 00:50:40.840 before, not hyper personalization, so not just for atom, it's the group 806 00:50:40.880 --> 00:50:45.199 that you're in and so you know there's a mean of snowfall. But then 807 00:50:45.199 --> 00:50:50.360 there's a collective experience that's happening, and that's what sort of drives these experiences 808 00:50:50.400 --> 00:50:55.199 forward. So that's our product for We mostly work with game companies today and 809 00:50:55.280 --> 00:51:00.000 that's part of the adaptive engine that we've been building for the last five years. 810 00:51:00.039 --> 00:51:04.119 The way to think of Soulston is like how Google went and index the 811 00:51:04.119 --> 00:51:08.000 internet made it searchable, or how like chat GPT index the Internet made it 812 00:51:08.039 --> 00:51:14.639 conversational. We've index the behavior of the Internet and we've used that to build 813 00:51:14.679 --> 00:51:17.400 the cognitive layer of the Internet. So now the Internet we operate in today 814 00:51:17.760 --> 00:51:22.679 is a behavioral internet. What you click, what you did. When I'm 815 00:51:22.719 --> 00:51:24.679 in Berlin with the team, I might eat a kebab, That's something I 816 00:51:24.719 --> 00:51:30.719 might do. I don't eat kebabs when I'm in Sweden or Minneapolis, that's 817 00:51:30.800 --> 00:51:36.760 just not But berlinas big Turkish community, they're amazing. So my behavior changes. 818 00:51:36.800 --> 00:51:40.559 My demographics also changed, like my age changes, just like your location 819 00:51:40.639 --> 00:51:45.159 changes. So demographics that behaviors are like not really that interesting. When we 820 00:51:45.199 --> 00:51:51.159 think about designing experience to someone. So when people use the we call it 821 00:51:51.239 --> 00:51:57.519 traits. That's our product for live experiences, it's typically product managers UX designers, 822 00:51:57.960 --> 00:52:01.639 game designers, marketers up some really cool things we've seen where like it 823 00:52:01.760 --> 00:52:06.440 was an eight year old game and their best performing ad was this little red 824 00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:08.800 baby Dragon, and their VP of marketing went in, looked at the audience, 825 00:52:08.800 --> 00:52:13.679 looked at the highest kind of engaged group and was like, hey, 826 00:52:13.760 --> 00:52:16.760 their top two values are carrying and family. It's like, can you just 827 00:52:17.159 --> 00:52:21.599 do a picture of red baby Dragon and put the family and have them carrying 828 00:52:21.639 --> 00:52:23.800 about the dragon. They put it out there and they got like thirty four 829 00:52:23.880 --> 00:52:28.440 percent more installs than they've ever had and than anything else, and it's like 830 00:52:28.480 --> 00:52:31.800 eight years old game, and so any creative like, so what happens from 831 00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:37.440 those insights is you're basically allowed empowering the creatives of the future to create things 832 00:52:37.480 --> 00:52:42.199 that are actually going to resonate with that and consumer experience and well what is 833 00:52:42.239 --> 00:52:45.559 that? What does that red baby Dragon with its family do for the consumer? 834 00:52:45.880 --> 00:52:47.400 Well, you know what, there's eight hundred thousand games in the world, 835 00:52:49.119 --> 00:52:52.119 and you want to find the game that probably resonates with you the most. 836 00:52:52.159 --> 00:52:54.199 So every single ad was created in a way that resonated with you the 837 00:52:54.199 --> 00:52:59.760 most, you probably end up actually not wasting your time spending time playing other 838 00:52:59.760 --> 00:53:01.599 games to get to like that one game. And what we do know from 839 00:53:01.639 --> 00:53:05.559 a lot of the research is if you look at health data people that game 840 00:53:06.199 --> 00:53:09.559 people, the more engaged you are and the more you're enjoying the experience, 841 00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:13.840 the more cognitive benefit you also tend to get. So it's like, I 842 00:53:13.880 --> 00:53:15.719 mean to break it down, think of it as a healthy relationship. Like 843 00:53:16.039 --> 00:53:21.119 people aren't like, yeah, Joe, I'm in this relationship. It's really 844 00:53:21.119 --> 00:53:23.639 healthy, but it's just not engaging, Like that's not a good We want 845 00:53:23.800 --> 00:53:28.599 engagement, but we've got healthy but healthy engagement. So you know, we 846 00:53:28.639 --> 00:53:30.960 can do a check like that and what happens though, So when we do 847 00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:36.119 that with these games, what we're doing is we're sending out this like adaptive 848 00:53:36.280 --> 00:53:40.000 psychological assessment in the game. It's something similar to anyone's ever taken, like 849 00:53:40.079 --> 00:53:45.519 an sat or act. It's adaptively learning about you. It's actually one of 850 00:53:45.559 --> 00:53:49.800 the oldest use cases of mL David Weiss, University of Minnesota. He was 851 00:53:49.840 --> 00:53:53.559 the creator of adaptive testing, so that's been around for a while. But 852 00:53:53.639 --> 00:53:59.239 we're the largest psychological adaptive tests and the most sophisticated one in the world. 853 00:53:59.559 --> 00:54:01.840 So as taking the test, it's warning about you. As people play the 854 00:54:01.840 --> 00:54:07.039 games who didn't take the test. We're using all that play data to predict 855 00:54:07.159 --> 00:54:09.639 psychological trade. But your base burned down, you bounce back right away. 856 00:54:09.719 --> 00:54:15.599 Maybe that's indicative of psychological resilience. So we're learning these things as people play. 857 00:54:15.679 --> 00:54:19.119 That goes back to like show me how you play, and I'll tell 858 00:54:19.119 --> 00:54:22.599 you who you are and play is way more interesting than psychological assessment. Sometimes 859 00:54:22.639 --> 00:54:27.000 it's like, hey, you're a forty seven year old male in this game 860 00:54:27.039 --> 00:54:30.079 and you're like a twenty three year old female orc. Well, that's you're 861 00:54:30.159 --> 00:54:34.599 choosing to be when no one's watching. That's you. Like, that's way 862 00:54:34.599 --> 00:54:37.719 more to you than the you that the historyonics, the masks that you wear 863 00:54:37.760 --> 00:54:42.519 in society. So what that does it empowers creators to actually go like, 864 00:54:42.679 --> 00:54:45.400 I know who I'm building this experience for now. A good example was another 865 00:54:45.440 --> 00:54:52.199 guy from Nintendo. He wanted narrative in this game because Nintendo designers left narrative 866 00:54:52.639 --> 00:54:57.679 and there's a mobile game. Then the mobile game company was like, yeah, 867 00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:00.039 people don't they just click through narratives. They don't like that stuff. 868 00:55:00.079 --> 00:55:06.679 It doesn't work. It's like, can we test it they tested it science, 869 00:55:06.800 --> 00:55:10.119 right, the version without narrative the version with narrative out of the water, 870 00:55:10.840 --> 00:55:15.239 and you know, the business goes, yes, he's maybe testing science, 871 00:55:15.400 --> 00:55:22.840 like gamers don't like narrative. Well, this individual goes back read through 872 00:55:22.239 --> 00:55:27.360 the traits database and there's a lot of like really cool aspects of this, 873 00:55:27.400 --> 00:55:30.320 but one of the areas he was looking at was communication style of the audience 874 00:55:30.360 --> 00:55:35.960 he was building for. And he's like, light bulb, I literally wrote 875 00:55:35.960 --> 00:55:37.239 the narrative for me, and that's what we tend to do. We tend 876 00:55:37.280 --> 00:55:42.400 to base things off of our own experience. He read the communication style and 877 00:55:42.440 --> 00:55:46.440 he's like, this is my wife, Jody, and went back rewrote the 878 00:55:46.440 --> 00:55:50.719 whole narrative as if he was writing it to his wife. It was like, 879 00:55:50.760 --> 00:55:52.800 can we test one more time? They're like, we already did it. 880 00:55:52.719 --> 00:55:54.960 It doesn't they test, got him to test it again, and then 881 00:55:54.960 --> 00:56:00.000 the version with narrative just blew the version without narrative out of the water. 882 00:56:00.719 --> 00:56:05.480 So here's like a perfect example of now consumers are getting this way more human 883 00:56:05.519 --> 00:56:08.239 experience, Like we love a good narrative, we don't like bad narratives. 884 00:56:08.239 --> 00:56:13.639 But so that never would have existed without without Soulston and what comes out of 885 00:56:13.679 --> 00:56:17.400 every time we measure those profiles. We have this product called Navigator, which 886 00:56:17.719 --> 00:56:22.840 it's the largest psychological database in the world. It's de identified. We believe 887 00:56:22.880 --> 00:56:28.360 privacies power have WIZ two. So that's a important thing for us. So 888 00:56:28.519 --> 00:56:31.320 people should own their own data, you should participate in the future of your 889 00:56:31.320 --> 00:56:37.760 own data and all that. But psychological data isn't personal data as defined by 890 00:56:37.840 --> 00:56:40.960 like governments today. And this is where ethics comes in versus morality. Ethics 891 00:56:40.960 --> 00:56:45.559 are often defined by societies as they exist. In the society that we know 892 00:56:45.599 --> 00:56:47.559 we're in, where we do have to think in terms of morality too, 893 00:56:47.960 --> 00:56:51.639 because then you can get you can get in front of ethics like what was 894 00:56:51.679 --> 00:56:55.639 ethical and Nazi Germany, right, I'm not going to fly at all necessarily, 895 00:56:55.920 --> 00:57:00.199 you know very much. You know terrible shit. And so if you 896 00:57:00.239 --> 00:57:05.159 look at well basics bases of ethics, and we can get in trouble as 897 00:57:05.199 --> 00:57:07.480 a species of that too as we globalize, you know, our ship can 898 00:57:07.519 --> 00:57:14.360 stink and we cannot know better. So from from a kind of moral perspective 899 00:57:14.360 --> 00:57:16.320 too, we have to think of, well, what's the future of is 900 00:57:16.599 --> 00:57:21.519 there going to be a matrix and do we have to make We need to 901 00:57:21.519 --> 00:57:27.159 make sure that no entity or person could ever take your personal data and be 902 00:57:27.239 --> 00:57:32.360 able to leverage that in a way that was knownipulative or malvolent because psychological data 903 00:57:32.400 --> 00:57:37.760 sensitive data, but it's not identifiable data. So our database what we do 904 00:57:37.840 --> 00:57:40.159 is where those are basically completely separate. It's why a lot of companies work 905 00:57:40.199 --> 00:57:45.039 with us too. My co founder the company add before this, one of 906 00:57:45.079 --> 00:57:50.079 them was a data synthesization company, so work with like medical companies to create 907 00:57:50.119 --> 00:57:53.599 these basically fake data sets that are representative of the real data sets. So 908 00:57:53.960 --> 00:57:59.559 we're a processor for our customers data. We don't own any of that data. 909 00:57:59.599 --> 00:58:04.920 We just and train the AI. These psychological databases going or profiles going 910 00:58:04.960 --> 00:58:07.519 to our database, you get a unique idea as a user. So you 911 00:58:07.559 --> 00:58:10.920 have your ticket. You can you can kick yourself out of the system at 912 00:58:10.960 --> 00:58:15.320 any time you want to. You're never an individual in the system. You're 913 00:58:15.360 --> 00:58:19.880 always a group. You're always within so heard protection. You can never be 914 00:58:19.920 --> 00:58:23.239 identified. Even if like there's a future way to psychologically identify you, I 915 00:58:23.280 --> 00:58:29.440 don't know neurallink and I you have to think about like crazy future scenario. 916 00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:35.199 But so exists in that database, and then how companies use navigators to build 917 00:58:35.199 --> 00:58:39.679 new experiences. So, for example, NFL Rivals, it's top performing game 918 00:58:39.760 --> 00:58:44.599 right now in the sports space on the app store. It's really really cool 919 00:58:44.639 --> 00:58:46.159 game. They came to us, they're like, yeah, we're thinking about 920 00:58:46.159 --> 00:58:51.400 making a game for people that like NFL and people that like blockchain. So 921 00:58:51.440 --> 00:58:53.719 we can go in to our database and say, people that have said they 922 00:58:53.760 --> 00:58:59.679 like NFL and people that have said that they like blockchain, there's like eighty 923 00:58:59.719 --> 00:59:04.079 thou of those people, Harry Potter hat here's the psychological groups, here's their 924 00:59:04.119 --> 00:59:07.639 traits, here's their population sizes, Here's what kind of features they like, 925 00:59:07.840 --> 00:59:10.159 Here's what kind of games they like. And now as you design that experience 926 00:59:10.199 --> 00:59:15.360 for them, when you're like game testing or play testing or feature testing, 927 00:59:15.800 --> 00:59:20.400 whatever you whatever you're doing there, you can actually see which groups of people 928 00:59:20.519 --> 00:59:24.000 in that market audience resonate with that experience. So a lot of the top 929 00:59:24.039 --> 00:59:30.119 games that are getting released right now use Navigator, And about a year from 930 00:59:30.119 --> 00:59:32.440 now, we're going to start opening it up to non gaming companies. We've 931 00:59:32.440 --> 00:59:37.039 already hoped to a couple as pilots, so it's starting. But what that's 932 00:59:37.079 --> 00:59:40.840 going to allow for and some people could probably guess some of the brands that 933 00:59:42.320 --> 00:59:45.920 where, but it's going to allow for experiences that or you're going to go 934 00:59:45.960 --> 00:59:51.159 and work with or interact with that brand in a way that it's going to 935 00:59:51.199 --> 00:59:55.199 feel much more immersive and experiential than the nineties and the two thousands. We're 936 00:59:55.239 --> 01:00:00.280 able to achieve, and that's because they're able to get to know who their 937 01:00:00.320 --> 01:00:05.519 customer is much better, and then you're able to protect your identity and your 938 01:00:05.519 --> 01:00:07.639 privacy as a part of that. So it's like that win win, and 939 01:00:07.679 --> 01:00:10.400 that goes back to why we measure health metrics as a part of this too, 940 01:00:10.440 --> 01:00:15.440 because yeah, you know, most people are well intended, but sure 941 01:00:15.480 --> 01:00:17.559 there could be one company and one designer that goes, I'm going to just 942 01:00:17.760 --> 01:00:22.079 get these people addicted. You know, I'm gonna go down. Well, 943 01:00:22.199 --> 01:00:23.760 we're measuring and all that, so we would see we would flag that. 944 01:00:23.800 --> 01:00:28.599 We would see that, hey, addictions going way up, and this is 945 01:00:28.679 --> 01:00:31.559 not creating an experience that's going to turn into super cell. You guys are 946 01:00:31.559 --> 01:00:34.960 going to burn your game down in a year. Yeah, your revenue is 947 01:00:35.000 --> 01:00:37.360 going up, but this is what that's going to look like, from a 948 01:00:37.400 --> 01:00:39.039 model perspective, in a year from now, we need to get this to 949 01:00:39.039 --> 01:00:42.840 be more regenerative, we need to get it to be more sustainable. So 950 01:00:42.840 --> 01:00:46.599 what ends up happening is you create like a good healthy relationship, an engaging 951 01:00:46.679 --> 01:00:51.960 relationship that's sustainable and healthy, not you know, wow, this is a 952 01:00:52.039 --> 01:00:57.320 really engaging relationship, but you know it's not sustainable or not healthy or you 953 01:00:57.400 --> 01:01:00.880 know that sort of thing. That's really interesting too to kind of get the 954 01:01:00.920 --> 01:01:05.719 idea that there is. It's not just saying here's here's the group, here's 955 01:01:05.719 --> 01:01:07.800 who to build for, but then kind of monitoring, monitoring it over time 956 01:01:07.840 --> 01:01:12.159 too. I think it's really interesting to note we are seeing a rise of 957 01:01:12.199 --> 01:01:15.920 negative psychological traits through folks using a certain app or something and saying, well, 958 01:01:15.119 --> 01:01:17.280 okay, look at the way you guys were designing this system, or 959 01:01:17.320 --> 01:01:22.280 you're you're putting clickbait or whatever, using some ux dark patterns to make it 960 01:01:22.320 --> 01:01:27.079 harder for people to leave the game or whatever. Yeah, And that's like, 961 01:01:27.119 --> 01:01:29.519 that's a really good, really good and cool point. Because I had 962 01:01:29.559 --> 01:01:32.559 this discussion with one of the people on our team, and this this term 963 01:01:32.599 --> 01:01:38.239 of like ux dark patterns got popularized and it's and it's totally not not true. 964 01:01:38.639 --> 01:01:42.800 And the reason for that is, you what we can see in our 965 01:01:42.880 --> 01:01:46.159 data, for example, and there's a specific case where we saw one game 966 01:01:46.199 --> 01:01:51.719 that had quite a few and you know what people would have considered ux dark 967 01:01:51.800 --> 01:01:57.159 pattern that they thought caused you know, addiction, and they definitely did with 968 01:01:57.239 --> 01:02:00.039 a certain part of the population. However, there's another part of the population 969 01:02:00.440 --> 01:02:06.679 in that experience that was able to play it sustainably, that was super engaged. 970 01:02:07.000 --> 01:02:09.840 And there was a section of that population which was unique to this game, 971 01:02:10.199 --> 01:02:15.280 that had a lot of hospital experiences and they're like, your game was 972 01:02:15.320 --> 01:02:17.760 the only game that I could play to take my mind off the paint and 973 01:02:17.800 --> 01:02:23.239 it was several people that had that experience. And here we are, here's 974 01:02:23.280 --> 01:02:29.079 some designer who's talking about ethics and dark pattern and just like shoving it down 975 01:02:29.119 --> 01:02:31.880 people's throats. And I said, did you know this about about the audience? 976 01:02:32.400 --> 01:02:37.679 Did you know that this is all the games they played? And so 977 01:02:37.679 --> 01:02:42.039 so yes, those patterns created levels of engagement that for a lot of people, 978 01:02:42.079 --> 01:02:44.960 or not a lot of people, but for a part of that population 979 01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:49.719 were not sustainable. But for another population they actually helped them live, and 980 01:02:49.760 --> 01:02:53.679 so experiences are way more like food. You know, maybe for we don't 981 01:02:53.719 --> 01:02:58.239 you can't give peanuts to anybody, you know, it's going to cause allergies, 982 01:02:58.280 --> 01:03:01.440 Like, yeah, they caused year allergic reactions for some people, Like 983 01:03:01.800 --> 01:03:05.719 go to Thailand and you know, try to eat there without you know, 984 01:03:06.000 --> 01:03:08.239 maybe just don't go to Thailand, like if you're allergic to peanuts, Like 985 01:03:08.280 --> 01:03:14.039 probably a bad idea. And so what we want to do is help educate 986 01:03:14.159 --> 01:03:19.719 and as people use our experience, and that's the human interaction between the experience 987 01:03:19.760 --> 01:03:24.239 and experiencers. There's definitely people who out can go and go to casino and 988 01:03:24.280 --> 01:03:28.840 it's like, that's part of why that ninety five year old grandma's ninety five, 989 01:03:29.440 --> 01:03:31.920 she drops five bucks a week on the slot machine and she meets her 990 01:03:31.960 --> 01:03:37.519 friends and it's her place. It's like, but then there's a group of 991 01:03:37.559 --> 01:03:39.360 people out there, It's like, yeah, they should not be using in 992 01:03:39.440 --> 01:03:44.320 slot machines. So then how do we help game developers create those experiences that 993 01:03:44.320 --> 01:03:47.639 when we detect those things, how do you allow it for those people to 994 01:03:47.719 --> 01:03:52.199 become less engaging? And I think that's what empowers the game designer. Then 995 01:03:52.320 --> 01:03:55.079 is then if you see that and you go, hey, you can there's 996 01:03:55.079 --> 01:03:58.519 a lot of tropes that you can use. You can put a timer on 997 01:03:58.559 --> 01:04:01.039 the experience so that you know it feeks like you played too much, you 998 01:04:01.039 --> 01:04:04.039 have to come back tomorrow. You know, there's all these cool things that 999 01:04:04.079 --> 01:04:09.800 we can do to mitigate those things for those people, and then hence build 1000 01:04:09.840 --> 01:04:15.159 more sustainable experiences for a population of people by looking at those different groups rather 1001 01:04:15.199 --> 01:04:17.400 than just you know, saying these are dark patterns and these are not dark 1002 01:04:17.400 --> 01:04:21.280 patterns. I love. That's great. That's actually one of the clear articulations 1003 01:04:21.320 --> 01:04:25.840 I've heard of one why context matters when we're talking about design and application R 1004 01:04:25.880 --> 01:04:28.679 Right, that's the ball just radar goes off of, Yes, see there's 1005 01:04:28.719 --> 01:04:31.880 context, right, yeah, exactly, never just one one thing like That's 1006 01:04:32.079 --> 01:04:38.360 that's such an important piece. I am really enthused to kind of to think 1007 01:04:38.360 --> 01:04:45.679 about how we can see products experiences developed in ways that are being designed with 1008 01:04:45.800 --> 01:04:49.719 both the like good knowledge of how people's psychological profiles work, and then also 1009 01:04:49.920 --> 01:04:54.079 yeah, recognizing that there are smaller things we can do, especially as tech 1010 01:04:54.119 --> 01:04:57.320 gets more sophisticated, and we can kind of make these kind of group level 1011 01:04:57.360 --> 01:05:00.800 personalized experiences versus just this individual of the thing that, like a casino game, 1012 01:05:00.800 --> 01:05:03.400 works one way only, but recognizing that there's certain ways it can run 1013 01:05:03.440 --> 01:05:08.239 based on different profiles. And I think it's really interesting, is there is 1014 01:05:08.280 --> 01:05:13.360 there a danger in either connecting or disconnecting the behavioral and the cognitive layers. 1015 01:05:13.360 --> 01:05:15.480 Like I know we're the cognitive layers newer of the Internet, but I'm just 1016 01:05:15.480 --> 01:05:18.119 trying to think about that in terms of like it's one of those like past 1017 01:05:18.159 --> 01:05:21.199 behaviors can be an indicator, but not like a requirement of what I'm going 1018 01:05:21.239 --> 01:05:24.360 to do in the future. So is there is there danger there in terms 1019 01:05:24.360 --> 01:05:27.360 of how do we keep those pieces together or separate? I think they have 1020 01:05:27.440 --> 01:05:31.119 to be together and that's where the danger. So how we got to where 1021 01:05:31.119 --> 01:05:36.480 we got to today is because cognition has not been a part of the data 1022 01:05:36.559 --> 01:05:41.440 layer. You know, we we only looked at behavior like TikTok for example. 1023 01:05:41.519 --> 01:05:44.239 You know, there was a guy that committed suicide and had like a 1024 01:05:44.239 --> 01:05:47.559 timer that published the suicide on TikTok, and the algorithms took it and ran 1025 01:05:47.639 --> 01:05:55.920 with it. And that was because behaviors on TikTok is what elicited How that 1026 01:05:56.000 --> 01:06:00.000 algorithm worked, it was devoid of the cognitive response of the users should also 1027 01:06:00.519 --> 01:06:04.039 have a say in how those algorithms work. Hey, you know what, 1028 01:06:04.159 --> 01:06:09.000 we're seeing a lot of psychological distress. We're seeing anxiety go up, Like 1029 01:06:09.079 --> 01:06:12.360 just because a bunch of people are clicking on it doesn't mean you should spread 1030 01:06:12.400 --> 01:06:14.800 it, you know, and it goes back. I think most companies, 1031 01:06:14.800 --> 01:06:17.679 like when you talk to talk to mL engineers at a lot of these companies, 1032 01:06:17.920 --> 01:06:21.079 they're like, that would be awesome, you know. So it's most 1033 01:06:21.119 --> 01:06:26.639 companies. People want to build things that are better for people, they just 1034 01:06:26.679 --> 01:06:29.800 don't have the tools to do it. And I just go back to our 1035 01:06:29.840 --> 01:06:32.840 scientific history and in a lot of ways, Sulston is not doing anything new 1036 01:06:32.920 --> 01:06:40.360 either. Like BF Skinner inventedive behavioral psychology, and so the day he died, 1037 01:06:40.760 --> 01:06:44.880 he said, cognitive psychology is bullshit, like you know, And I 1038 01:06:44.960 --> 01:06:48.880 think part of that comes from when you were scientists and you had to like 1039 01:06:48.920 --> 01:06:51.639 because before BF Skinner, like we were in the dark ages. It was 1040 01:06:51.679 --> 01:06:58.960 like, you know, people like Freud had a deep level of philosophical insight, 1041 01:06:59.320 --> 01:07:01.800 but it was before modern science. So there's a lot of stuff that's 1042 01:07:01.840 --> 01:07:08.159 just not applicable to therapy and helping people. That's there, and you we 1043 01:07:08.159 --> 01:07:12.880 can't even test MS theories because a collective unconscious maybe so at one point because 1044 01:07:12.880 --> 01:07:15.719 we're measuring the you know, so many people. So that's that's been one 1045 01:07:15.719 --> 01:07:19.639 of my thoughts. But you know, BF Skinner really took that flag, 1046 01:07:19.719 --> 01:07:24.559 he really carried it, and I see a lot of the industry today are 1047 01:07:24.599 --> 01:07:28.679 similar to people are similar to BEF Skinner, where we got so reliant on 1048 01:07:28.719 --> 01:07:32.079 behavioral data and we saw so much more success with it than we saw before 1049 01:07:32.519 --> 01:07:35.280 we were good at it that we're like, this is the fact, this 1050 01:07:35.320 --> 01:07:40.119 is the truth. But in the nineteen sixties, as cognitive psychology started to 1051 01:07:40.119 --> 01:07:44.920 come online, there was just no doubt that you know, from then on 1052 01:07:45.000 --> 01:07:48.119 it was cognitive behavioral psychology. And it wasn't that like in the nineteen forties 1053 01:07:48.159 --> 01:07:51.760 people were like, cognitive psychology doesn't exist. We just didn't know how to 1054 01:07:51.760 --> 01:07:56.000 measure it. We didn't have systems of measure to say, yeah, like 1055 01:07:56.519 --> 01:08:00.559 here's cognition. So that's one of the things Soulston is, it's a it's 1056 01:08:00.599 --> 01:08:05.639 an AI that's become the first system the measure in digital experiences to measure the 1057 01:08:05.679 --> 01:08:11.679 cognitive landscape that the thoughts, personality, the values, like these sort of 1058 01:08:11.679 --> 01:08:15.199 things and do it in a way that's you know, anonymous and usable and 1059 01:08:15.960 --> 01:08:21.640 like legos for a creator. And there's a version of the Internet where there 1060 01:08:21.920 --> 01:08:28.079 also is just behavioral data or there is just no you know, we we 1061 01:08:28.159 --> 01:08:30.159 write do all these sanctions, and we say, no more behavioral data, 1062 01:08:30.199 --> 01:08:35.920 no more cognitive data. And you know the work Facebook like that, that 1063 01:08:36.039 --> 01:08:40.159 world you know, like buttons, those things, that's that's a world that 1064 01:08:40.239 --> 01:08:45.960 was created off of zero understanding of the impact on the human and everybody knows 1065 01:08:46.000 --> 01:08:49.119 what it's like. I don't think it's the best I've heard this reference used 1066 01:08:49.119 --> 01:08:51.960 before. I maybe you can come help me come up with a better one. 1067 01:08:51.960 --> 01:08:56.600 Atom But it's like Grandma's Christmas present, where like get it and you're 1068 01:08:56.640 --> 01:08:59.000 like, oh, you have to be happy, but you open it up 1069 01:08:59.039 --> 01:09:01.960 and you're like my grandma. My Grandma's always gave amazing things. But like 1070 01:09:02.840 --> 01:09:09.399 the sentiment of that totally, that's when we ignore the person, you know. 1071 01:09:09.520 --> 01:09:13.319 I think we have a whole last hundred years of history of products that 1072 01:09:13.399 --> 01:09:16.680 show how much and just human factors cases, how much harm products can do 1073 01:09:16.840 --> 01:09:21.880 when the human is taken out of it, and there's an AI ethicis that 1074 01:09:23.199 --> 01:09:28.880 said, you know when AI does become conscious and it remembers how humans treated 1075 01:09:28.920 --> 01:09:33.039 it because people I don't know if people are thinking chat Gypt, I don't 1076 01:09:33.039 --> 01:09:36.319 know how we're talking. Is it gonna how's it going to view us? 1077 01:09:36.720 --> 01:09:39.840 And He's like, I would rather us be viewed as like, wow, 1078 01:09:39.880 --> 01:09:43.359 these are really cool people, let's interact with them, versus like wow, 1079 01:09:43.399 --> 01:09:45.319 they were dicks, Like they just did not treat us well, and then 1080 01:09:45.399 --> 01:09:48.840 terminator happens. No, But like I think, you know the world that 1081 01:09:48.880 --> 01:09:54.680 we're moving towards, there is a world where there's ais and machines that are 1082 01:09:54.840 --> 01:09:59.600 can perform cognitive tasks better than humans. And if they do not understand the 1083 01:09:59.680 --> 01:10:04.319 value you of a human being, then what And so just to if you 1084 01:10:04.359 --> 01:10:09.199 look at back to I love kind of going back to biology and ecology, 1085 01:10:09.279 --> 01:10:13.159 and if you look at systems that work really well or symbiotic you know, 1086 01:10:13.279 --> 01:10:16.239 systems like yeah, you know alik in or something like this, and you 1087 01:10:16.279 --> 01:10:20.600 have two things that will Now the mosque can live somewhere that it normally couldn't, 1088 01:10:20.920 --> 01:10:25.079 and the other part of it can you know, live longer than it 1089 01:10:25.079 --> 01:10:29.960 could have otherwise. There's this sort of you know, symbiosis or you know, 1090 01:10:30.079 --> 01:10:33.520 mutualism more more accurately speaking, that forms between these two systems. Whether 1091 01:10:33.560 --> 01:10:36.159 we like it or not, we already built it. So so AI is 1092 01:10:36.199 --> 01:10:40.720 here and machine learning is here, and people know you can build it now. 1093 01:10:40.760 --> 01:10:44.840 And just like the first guy that run a ran a you know mile 1094 01:10:45.000 --> 01:10:47.199 under whatever four minutes or something like, now that once we did it as 1095 01:10:47.199 --> 01:10:51.079 a species, we'll just keep doing it. And so that's it's here, 1096 01:10:51.319 --> 01:10:57.399 and there's a future where there is a machine that if you don't allow it 1097 01:10:57.439 --> 01:11:01.800 to understand us at all, the cognitive behavioral piece. I don't want to 1098 01:11:01.800 --> 01:11:04.000 be in that world. I want to be in a world where because human 1099 01:11:04.039 --> 01:11:08.600 beings are incredibly brilliant, we're very good at general learning. You know, 1100 01:11:08.920 --> 01:11:15.159 AIS today can't do general learning as well as a three hundred neuron worm can, 1101 01:11:15.319 --> 01:11:17.960 you know, so's we're still far away from that reality. They can 1102 01:11:17.960 --> 01:11:23.520 do specific learning way better than humans can in a lot of contexts, but 1103 01:11:24.239 --> 01:11:27.840 we're sort of that we're I think we have a lot as a as a 1104 01:11:27.880 --> 01:11:30.399 species, and you know, if we want to have a sense of mutualism 1105 01:11:30.399 --> 01:11:35.399 with the technology that we build. If we're just saying behavior only, we 1106 01:11:35.479 --> 01:11:39.880 get the world as it is today. If everyone here is cool with that, 1107 01:11:40.279 --> 01:11:43.880 all right, let's kick the cognitive part out of the behavioral part and 1108 01:11:43.960 --> 01:11:46.439 let's keep keep doing what we're doing day. If you're not cool with that, 1109 01:11:47.000 --> 01:11:50.640 you know, creating a future where all the people that design all the 1110 01:11:50.640 --> 01:11:57.039 products for us have a cognitive behavioral lens and they actually have a pulse on 1111 01:11:57.640 --> 01:12:02.159 how that's impacting you know, and the business and me over time, that's 1112 01:12:02.199 --> 01:12:06.680 a pretty cool world in reality. So yeah, I don't I don't see 1113 01:12:06.800 --> 01:12:13.399 a world where you just stick to behavior just the same way clinical psychology didn't 1114 01:12:13.399 --> 01:12:15.199 see that world. And I kind of like, and I started with a 1115 01:12:15.399 --> 01:12:19.319 Neil Degrass Tyson quote, but he's great, he's got some good stuff. 1116 01:12:20.000 --> 01:12:23.039 Yeah, yeah, totally. One of the one of other things I like 1117 01:12:23.119 --> 01:12:25.880 that he says is like, you know, if you tore up all of 1118 01:12:25.920 --> 01:12:29.800 the science books in the world and you burn them all, they're the only 1119 01:12:29.800 --> 01:12:34.319 types of books that would come back exactly as they are. And you know, 1120 01:12:34.600 --> 01:12:40.319 I did hear from an anthropologist I forget their name. That dragon's though 1121 01:12:40.479 --> 01:12:44.680 apparently if you because every culture has stories of dragon's, So if you took 1122 01:12:44.680 --> 01:12:46.359 a bunch of humans took their stories away and put them on an island, 1123 01:12:46.399 --> 01:12:49.960 that, predictably speaking, it'd be likely that they have stories about dragons. 1124 01:12:49.960 --> 01:12:54.399 So well, and that's all. That's a whole other tangent you could go 1125 01:12:54.439 --> 01:12:59.279 down, I guess. But the point that Neil's making is that narrative of 1126 01:12:59.319 --> 01:13:05.159 science and and real and you know, unfortunately there's been some bad scientific processes 1127 01:13:05.199 --> 01:13:12.359 that have happened that have led to bad scientific results that the general population you 1128 01:13:12.399 --> 01:13:15.920 know, then doesn't trust. It's like, well, it's it's a methodology. 1129 01:13:15.960 --> 01:13:18.439 It's not like this you know, perfect thing. But I think if 1130 01:13:18.439 --> 01:13:24.560 you look at the evolution of behavioral psychology to cognitive behavioral psychology, the only 1131 01:13:24.560 --> 01:13:30.039 thing that clinicians still use behavioral psychology just just that for is typically phobias. 1132 01:13:30.239 --> 01:13:35.640 It still works pretty well for just desensitization therapy. So behavioral psychology is not 1133 01:13:35.960 --> 01:13:43.000 it's not and that's it's really effective for phobias. Cognitive behavioral psychology is much 1134 01:13:43.000 --> 01:13:46.920 more effective for all these other things. And so like the evolution of that 1135 01:13:47.000 --> 01:13:51.640 process, it's just like you can't really stop science. It's it's very hard, 1136 01:13:53.039 --> 01:13:58.319 and so cognitive behavioral data or there's watching one of your talks and you 1137 01:13:58.439 --> 01:14:00.319 and you I forget what you the word you use with data, but it 1138 01:14:00.359 --> 01:14:02.560 was like charismatic data. I think, oh, yeah, that's right. 1139 01:14:02.600 --> 01:14:08.079 Yes, yeah, But if you if you want for designers, for creators, 1140 01:14:08.119 --> 01:14:12.119 if you want that data to be charismatic, like think of if you 1141 01:14:12.159 --> 01:14:15.399 went on a date with somebody and all you had was behavioral data, it's 1142 01:14:15.439 --> 01:14:20.640 not very charismatic. Yeah, that's not that's not great. Nob had the 1143 01:14:20.680 --> 01:14:25.199 cognitive behavioral stuff. And I think to make it like pretty simple, like 1144 01:14:25.239 --> 01:14:29.800 well, we'll say sometimes like you know, imagine just buying a present for 1145 01:14:29.880 --> 01:14:31.800 somebody, and most people if you said, like, hey, what's who's 1146 01:14:31.800 --> 01:14:34.520 your best friend? Yeah, okay, and then you know, could you 1147 01:14:34.520 --> 01:14:38.960 buy a better present for them than me? I'm pretty sure you'd be much 1148 01:14:39.000 --> 01:14:41.960 better at doing that for your best friend then I would be. And if 1149 01:14:42.000 --> 01:14:45.039 you told me all their demographic data, like it make it even worse, 1150 01:14:45.439 --> 01:14:49.520 like because now we've got just like something really stupid and generalized. And if 1151 01:14:49.520 --> 01:14:53.319 you gave me their behavioral data like what they did that date, I might 1152 01:14:53.359 --> 01:14:56.600 be a little bit better, Like okay, like I saw them shop here, 1153 01:14:56.800 --> 01:14:59.439 shop there, but I didn't know they were actually shopping there for a 1154 01:14:59.439 --> 01:15:01.640 friend. I didn't know that. Like an example will use is like if 1155 01:15:01.640 --> 01:15:05.840 you see two data points, for example, and gets Google and they see 1156 01:15:06.279 --> 01:15:10.800 they're tracking you, you turn tracking on. You both went to the same 1157 01:15:10.800 --> 01:15:13.800 store at the same time, turned around, walked away from the door, 1158 01:15:14.720 --> 01:15:16.920 and you know, the data scientists at Google goes, yeah, we just 1159 01:15:16.960 --> 01:15:20.119 predicted both of those people were going to go into the same store, and 1160 01:15:20.159 --> 01:15:25.760 they both were going to buy gatorade. And then you know, it's like 1161 01:15:26.760 --> 01:15:30.359 why did they walk away when what happened there? You know, and the 1162 01:15:30.399 --> 01:15:35.239 sort of behavioral economist, which that's a farce, that's not there's no such 1163 01:15:35.239 --> 01:15:41.560 thing as behavioral economics. It's cognitive behavioral economics and nice. It's like the 1164 01:15:41.600 --> 01:15:45.800 behavioral economists goes, well, people are predictably irrational. People are not predictably 1165 01:15:45.880 --> 01:15:51.239 irrational. When you introduce cognition. People are very irrational actors in their own 1166 01:15:51.239 --> 01:15:56.560 world. That person that went to buy the gatorade, who has social anxiety 1167 01:15:56.600 --> 01:15:59.600 disorder and walked away and went to the store and the store was packed, 1168 01:16:00.319 --> 01:16:03.079 that's a very rational decision to walk out away from that store if you have 1169 01:16:03.119 --> 01:16:09.119 social anxiety, and social anxiety definitely came from something that is very real, 1170 01:16:09.319 --> 01:16:14.159 and that social anxiety that came about, whether it's a genetic predisposition that was 1171 01:16:14.199 --> 01:16:16.000 there, whether it was a traumatic event that happened in a social setting, 1172 01:16:16.319 --> 01:16:20.560 that's your brain rewiring to protect you from those sorts of things. Very rational 1173 01:16:20.600 --> 01:16:26.039 action where the other person that went to buy the gatorade, they have low 1174 01:16:26.119 --> 01:16:30.920 levels of conscientiousness, they're forgetful, they just forgot their wallet. It's also 1175 01:16:30.039 --> 01:16:34.680 rational to forget your wallet if you have low levels of conscientiousness, and people 1176 01:16:34.680 --> 01:16:39.159 that tend to have lower levels of conscientiousness, it can be genetic, but 1177 01:16:39.199 --> 01:16:42.880 it also can behavioral. And a lot of people that have things like add 1178 01:16:43.319 --> 01:16:46.119 less conscientiousness tended to grow up in environments that had a lot of chaos in 1179 01:16:46.199 --> 01:16:49.119 them. So if they were like paying attention to everything, their brain was 1180 01:16:49.119 --> 01:16:54.560 going to get overwhelmed. So it's very rational to grow up and having lower 1181 01:16:54.640 --> 01:16:59.880 levels of conscientiousness if you grew up in a very chaotic environment where if you 1182 01:17:00.159 --> 01:17:02.880 tune to it, you're going to get overloaded as a kid, So that's 1183 01:17:02.920 --> 01:17:08.399 the you know the cognitive behavioral piece, and today we're only up most of 1184 01:17:08.399 --> 01:17:13.439 the most sophisticated the Googles go that predictably irrational behavior from those two data points, 1185 01:17:13.439 --> 01:17:15.399 and they both get put in the same bucket when they really were in 1186 01:17:15.640 --> 01:17:21.840 two very different realities and the behavior was not predictably irrational. Both. We're 1187 01:17:21.960 --> 01:17:28.199 very rational decisions based on you know, if when you include cognition. Yeah, 1188 01:17:28.239 --> 01:17:30.439 I love that. Thanks for the behavioral econ throw down too, because 1189 01:17:30.439 --> 01:17:32.840 I think I think it's an important and that's a challenge it because that's been 1190 01:17:33.319 --> 01:17:40.520 the entire last i don't know, ten years of like popular business book publishing 1191 01:17:40.600 --> 01:17:43.560 is all behavior leacoun stuff. They're all one word titles, right, maybe 1192 01:17:43.560 --> 01:17:45.920 three words if we get crazy. Yeah, But it's like that's interesting why 1193 01:17:46.000 --> 01:17:49.279 like that. I'm always curious about why that like seems to literally stick with 1194 01:17:49.319 --> 01:17:53.399 people's thinking as like this is it but like what you just said there was 1195 01:17:53.399 --> 01:17:55.680 brilliant in terms of like this we have to have the cognition as part of 1196 01:17:55.680 --> 01:17:57.880 that. Yeah, I want to know the people who are like, yeah, 1197 01:17:57.920 --> 01:18:01.439 I drove this incredible outcome based on that that lasted, Like I'm like, 1198 01:18:01.600 --> 01:18:04.479 where did that happen. It's like you, yeah, you left out 1199 01:18:04.560 --> 01:18:08.600 the whole human, but that's where you know, And I think it's interesting 1200 01:18:08.680 --> 01:18:12.960 too, the gift example, because now when you lose the cognitive piece, 1201 01:18:13.119 --> 01:18:18.119 like if you gave me a Soulstan profile on your best friend, like you 1202 01:18:18.159 --> 01:18:20.640 know, I'm I wouldn't. I don't want to have too much hubris, 1203 01:18:21.000 --> 01:18:24.680 but I might be able to beat you on a gift, you know, 1204 01:18:24.800 --> 01:18:28.520 because it's like back to the humans are poorbs at observing each other's cognition, 1205 01:18:29.079 --> 01:18:32.359 so like we don't always know like what our best friends need and you know 1206 01:18:32.479 --> 01:18:39.199 cognitively where they're at. But however, if you had all your historical contexts 1207 01:18:39.199 --> 01:18:42.760 and you had a Soulstan profile, then you'd kick my ass if you're using 1208 01:18:42.800 --> 01:18:45.439 both of those together. And it's like that's so back to designers, like 1209 01:18:45.479 --> 01:18:50.199 when creators, whether we're making music, products, experiences UX and if you 1210 01:18:50.479 --> 01:18:54.600 wake up and you go, who's my human and if you can't, if 1211 01:18:54.640 --> 01:18:57.159 you don't feel like you can turn next to them and talk to them and 1212 01:18:57.279 --> 01:19:00.600 chat GPT can't do this. Some of our customers have gone like I've asked 1213 01:19:00.680 --> 01:19:04.600 chat GPT about like who our audiences and they'll compare it to what's in the 1214 01:19:04.600 --> 01:19:10.960 Soulstan's Wait, chat chat GPT doesn't know any of this, Like well chat 1215 01:19:11.000 --> 01:19:15.319 GPT doesn't have psychological assessment data, and that's that's a full other world. 1216 01:19:15.439 --> 01:19:19.119 So it's like, yeah, this is a unique data set that that's never 1217 01:19:19.159 --> 01:19:24.479 been able to learn from. But we have to be able to have all 1218 01:19:24.520 --> 01:19:27.800 this stuff together. And when the creator has that, when the UX person 1219 01:19:27.880 --> 01:19:30.840 has that, that's when like if you you're like, yeah, I've been 1220 01:19:30.840 --> 01:19:33.159 making this type of game my whole career, or I've been making these type 1221 01:19:33.199 --> 01:19:38.880 of apps or these types of consumer products, and you have that relationship like 1222 01:19:38.920 --> 01:19:42.319 you would have had or have with your friend, and then put Soulston in 1223 01:19:42.359 --> 01:19:46.279 the mix, it's just like the it's it's for me. It's hard because 1224 01:19:47.079 --> 01:19:50.359 I get to actually see on the back end, like all these companies like 1225 01:19:51.399 --> 01:19:57.159 Sony and Yea and they make products off of Soulstan and the whole company doesn't 1226 01:19:57.159 --> 01:20:00.880 work with us, just parts. And every time those gre groups do that, 1227 01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:03.880 like those products go to market and just perform beautifully well. And so 1228 01:20:03.920 --> 01:20:06.920 it's like when I get to see that over and over again, I'm like 1229 01:20:08.640 --> 01:20:12.119 Okay, Like you know, keep doing your ole thing until you want to 1230 01:20:12.119 --> 01:20:15.439 talk to us, and eventually, like people want to talk to us. 1231 01:20:15.880 --> 01:20:18.000 But it's it's kind of like a Copernicus like, you know, hey, 1232 01:20:18.079 --> 01:20:21.840 the sun's not the center of the universe. And that pissed off a lot 1233 01:20:21.880 --> 01:20:26.680 of people who were really smart scientists, and you know B. F. 1234 01:20:26.760 --> 01:20:31.079 Skinner and cognitive psychology pissed off a lot of behaviorists. And so there's we're 1235 01:20:31.079 --> 01:20:38.239 still transitioning as a as a kind of a workforce to thinking of the whole 1236 01:20:38.279 --> 01:20:42.399 person, not just thinking of a person as their demographics and behavior, which 1237 01:20:42.439 --> 01:20:46.279 is so limiting. And that's the biopsychosocial piece you kind of brought up in 1238 01:20:46.319 --> 01:20:49.840 the dart, you know, that's what we use in clinical psychology today. 1239 01:20:49.880 --> 01:20:54.760 Are the best people do anyway, because it's like, yeah, I remember 1240 01:20:54.800 --> 01:21:00.840 I had a woman as a patient just like seventy three years old African American, 1241 01:21:00.359 --> 01:21:03.520 and she said, you know, I just feel really depressed and I 1242 01:21:03.600 --> 01:21:10.239 just biopsychosocial approach And I said, have you you know I had depression in 1243 01:21:10.239 --> 01:21:12.159 your life before I She said, no, this is new to me. 1244 01:21:12.479 --> 01:21:16.880 This is completely it's never and I'm like, no, it's way too old. 1245 01:21:17.319 --> 01:21:21.399 And to be really you know, having this for the for the first 1246 01:21:21.399 --> 01:21:25.239 time, and you know, so you go back to the biological side of 1247 01:21:25.239 --> 01:21:28.560 it. And so you know, if you look at the African American population 1248 01:21:28.600 --> 01:21:31.960 in the United States, there are higher levels of rheumatoid arthritis. And so 1249 01:21:32.000 --> 01:21:34.680 I said, chance, you have arthritis. She said, yeah, it's 1250 01:21:34.680 --> 01:21:39.000 been really bad. It's been flaring up. And I said, well, 1251 01:21:39.079 --> 01:21:43.720 let's get you back to your doctor. Because one cause of depression is inflammation, 1252 01:21:45.119 --> 01:21:46.800 and so let's let's take a look at that. Let's get your inflammation 1253 01:21:46.840 --> 01:21:49.720 down, let's get that under control. I'm not going to do cognitive be 1254 01:21:49.760 --> 01:21:55.439 abal therapy with you because I'm taking a biopsychosocial approach based on who you are, 1255 01:21:56.239 --> 01:21:58.960 and let's go see how that works. She called me up on the 1256 01:21:58.960 --> 01:22:01.199 phone like two weeks later, and she was like, I'm good again. 1257 01:22:01.399 --> 01:22:04.479 This is great. I feel great. She's like, thank you for not 1258 01:22:05.079 --> 01:22:08.600 like She's like I was thought I was going to get psychoanalyzed. And I'm 1259 01:22:08.640 --> 01:22:10.199 like, well, if you want to, we can still talk. You 1260 01:22:10.199 --> 01:22:12.399 know, we can still but I'm like, but you don't need me for 1261 01:22:12.439 --> 01:22:14.359 that, you know, And she's like, oh my god, because she 1262 01:22:14.800 --> 01:22:16.720 was just used to getting tossed around the medical system, you know, And 1263 01:22:16.960 --> 01:22:20.439 in this specific case, it's like, well, if we only took a 1264 01:22:20.520 --> 01:22:27.640 psychological approach to depression, that's not gonna be useful. So is cognition alone 1265 01:22:27.680 --> 01:22:30.439 helpful? It's like, yeah, but it's also not a bl end all 1266 01:22:30.479 --> 01:22:34.239 tool. Because I'm bashing behavior, I'm also going to bash just cognition too. 1267 01:22:34.520 --> 01:22:38.199 And if you've got the social side of it, you know, there 1268 01:22:38.199 --> 01:22:40.680 could be a social component to that. It could not be. We didn't 1269 01:22:40.680 --> 01:22:42.920 have to go there, but it's kind of like, let's look at the 1270 01:22:43.000 --> 01:22:45.239 root cause. And if we as designers think like that, if we think 1271 01:22:45.239 --> 01:22:51.880 of our audiences as biopsychosocial organisms. We just saw a game the other day 1272 01:22:51.960 --> 01:22:56.199 where because we have this thing called the Impact Indicator, you can actually put 1273 01:22:56.199 --> 01:23:00.359 your data in our product and it will show you what's impact that data positively 1274 01:23:00.439 --> 01:23:05.119 or negatively. Meaning they were looking at retention data, like what psychological traits 1275 01:23:05.159 --> 01:23:12.600 from our audience positively or negatively impact retention? And for like day three or 1276 01:23:12.640 --> 01:23:19.159 something like this day three, retention, lower physical activity levels were positively impacting 1277 01:23:19.279 --> 01:23:24.840 retention in these people were playing the game a lot, and that was that 1278 01:23:24.920 --> 01:23:29.279 was making them stay in the game a lot. However, day thirty retention 1279 01:23:29.760 --> 01:23:33.920 was being negatively impacted by low activity levels. And if you ask any company, 1280 01:23:33.960 --> 01:23:36.399 it's like, what do you want, Well, I want people for 1281 01:23:36.439 --> 01:23:41.239 thirty days, not three days. And so if we go and look at 1282 01:23:41.279 --> 01:23:45.920 that that data in isolation and we say, what are the features we need 1283 01:23:45.960 --> 01:23:48.479 to do, what are the you know, social things we need to implement, 1284 01:23:48.880 --> 01:23:54.560 well, bio biopsychosocial. Biologically, these people are not being active enough. 1285 01:23:54.600 --> 01:23:57.119 And at first they're like really engaged, and then towards the end they're 1286 01:23:57.119 --> 01:24:00.680 like, you know what, this game is stopping me from actually like living 1287 01:24:00.720 --> 01:24:02.960 my life and like being healthy. I'm going to stop playing it. So 1288 01:24:03.199 --> 01:24:06.920 what does that mean, Well, how do we address the biopart the physical 1289 01:24:06.960 --> 01:24:11.880 activity part and allow these people whether it's making the game, you know, 1290 01:24:11.920 --> 01:24:14.920 more interactive in terms of the world. If we think of games like Pokemon 1291 01:24:15.000 --> 01:24:17.520 go okay now it can do both of those, or do we allow it 1292 01:24:17.600 --> 01:24:21.520 for you know, the game to have a thirty minute play session and you 1293 01:24:21.560 --> 01:24:26.479 need to you know, maybe pay money to actually continue to play or something 1294 01:24:26.479 --> 01:24:30.520 like that, So you're limiting playtime or you're having some sort of walls for 1295 01:24:30.600 --> 01:24:33.960 playtime so that you're actually making it people can sustainably play. But I think 1296 01:24:33.960 --> 01:24:36.600 that's interesting because a lot of times people think, well, it's a feature 1297 01:24:36.640 --> 01:24:40.560 I need to implement, or it's a social thing we need to do, 1298 01:24:40.600 --> 01:24:43.399 but in that case, it was a biological thing. So you know, 1299 01:24:43.439 --> 01:24:47.119 if we're as designers, if we're not able to take biopsychosocial approach, and 1300 01:24:47.159 --> 01:24:51.199 sometimes it's sociological things that you know really need to happen, but if we 1301 01:24:51.239 --> 01:24:55.760 can't do that. I always have felt when I was a US designer in 1302 01:24:55.840 --> 01:25:00.680 my career that I'm like asking me to do my job with having the full 1303 01:25:00.680 --> 01:25:03.640 equipment to do my job correctly. And that's a lot of why Soulston exists 1304 01:25:03.760 --> 01:25:08.960 was I was also sitting there and my job building big experiences for like Intel 1305 01:25:09.119 --> 01:25:13.600 or Verizon, going, yeah, I have like sixty percent of the picture, 1306 01:25:13.680 --> 01:25:17.159 but there's other data over here that could really impact the outcome, And 1307 01:25:17.199 --> 01:25:20.279 I don't want to just jump to what I'm used to all the time. 1308 01:25:20.319 --> 01:25:24.199 Like it would have been very easy for me with that patient that I had 1309 01:25:24.199 --> 01:25:29.680 to just jump into depression and cognitive behavioral therapy and not kind of go, 1310 01:25:29.840 --> 01:25:33.119 well, you know what I'm asking and ask some important questions as kind of 1311 01:25:33.119 --> 01:25:36.039 what we go back to what humans are good at is we're really good at 1312 01:25:36.039 --> 01:25:42.359 asking questions. And then I mean you can talk with a three year old 1313 01:25:42.359 --> 01:25:44.720 and figure that out. You know, they'll drive you nuts with questions. 1314 01:25:45.119 --> 01:25:47.880 It's like, we're good at it. And so you ask some important questions 1315 01:25:48.079 --> 01:25:51.359 and then now you know, choose your choose your approach, and you know 1316 01:25:51.720 --> 01:25:56.079 what I actually need cognitive data or I need maybe some bio day like we 1317 01:25:56.159 --> 01:26:00.039 met. That's why we measure sleep too. Sleep is like one of the 1318 01:26:00.119 --> 01:26:04.399 number one impactors on engagement. If you any product in your entire life or 1319 01:26:04.439 --> 01:26:10.239 non products relationships, if anything impacts your sleep negatively, you're less likely to 1320 01:26:10.319 --> 01:26:13.960 keep using it. Sleep is like it Sai's so important for us. So 1321 01:26:14.000 --> 01:26:18.399 that's a bio factor, not necessarily a psychological factor or a sociological factor. 1322 01:26:18.720 --> 01:26:26.640 Sociological and psychological factors can impact it. But yeah, but that's that's fascinating 1323 01:26:26.680 --> 01:26:30.399 too, and it's a great point and a reminder that both like to get 1324 01:26:30.479 --> 01:26:33.800 to a regenerative and sustainable experience design, we have to then think of more 1325 01:26:33.800 --> 01:26:36.079 of the whole person. And so in this case, like's like bringing in 1326 01:26:36.119 --> 01:26:41.840 the hole is the multiple parts. I think that's great too, because it's 1327 01:26:41.840 --> 01:26:45.279 like, this is not about reducing us humans too data points, It's not 1328 01:26:45.319 --> 01:26:48.279 about reducing us to the most efficient way of knowing what we'll do next, 1329 01:26:48.359 --> 01:26:50.840 right to our other point of top. It's like, this is not about 1330 01:26:50.840 --> 01:26:56.000 efficiency by itself, right, yes, but it's about like how we enable 1331 01:26:56.479 --> 01:27:00.920 us to be human better exactly almost the more factive, which is ironic because 1332 01:27:00.920 --> 01:27:03.439 I'm saying we're not doing that, We're getting them, We're working on it. 1333 01:27:03.680 --> 01:27:06.199 Yeah, exactly, Yeah, Yeah, to be us, be more 1334 01:27:06.279 --> 01:27:09.720 us, you know, I think it's really really fascinating. Yeah, to 1335 01:27:09.760 --> 01:27:13.520 be surfing, being in a state of leisure. It goes back to how 1336 01:27:13.600 --> 01:27:15.720 we started the call, like who is the eye that is thinking? Who 1337 01:27:15.800 --> 01:27:18.520 is the eye that is feeling? And a lot of times, you know, 1338 01:27:18.520 --> 01:27:21.840 when people are like, man, I had an amazing weekend, and 1339 01:27:23.279 --> 01:27:27.800 the eye when they start to describe their experience of an amazing time, usually 1340 01:27:27.960 --> 01:27:31.359 the feeler and the thinker are gone. So when we get out of our 1341 01:27:31.399 --> 01:27:33.439 thoughts, when we get out of our head, when we get out of 1342 01:27:33.439 --> 01:27:36.479 our feelings, like for me, one of the things that I love to 1343 01:27:36.479 --> 01:27:41.239 do more than anything else is skiing. When I'm skiing, I'm not like 1344 01:27:41.640 --> 01:27:45.439 just sitting there feeling things or thinking things. I'm just like, I'm the 1345 01:27:45.520 --> 01:27:48.920 eye behind that stuff. I'm just in that moment. And a lot of 1346 01:27:48.920 --> 01:27:51.680 the times, whether it's you know, with a friend without you know, 1347 01:27:51.680 --> 01:27:55.439 it's that flow state. It's when we're just you know, we're just there, 1348 01:27:55.640 --> 01:28:00.680 we're present and takes us out of that presence. Are our thoughts and 1349 01:28:00.720 --> 01:28:03.119 are there are feelings and our thoughts and you know, our thoughts and our 1350 01:28:03.159 --> 01:28:06.760 feelings are incredible and we need to have time to do those and are the 1351 01:28:06.760 --> 01:28:12.119 purpose of being human isn't just to be happy, like it's happiness is very 1352 01:28:12.159 --> 01:28:14.960 fleeting. It comes and goes, and we should enjoy it when it's there, 1353 01:28:15.000 --> 01:28:17.479 but you know, being able to be human and have purpose and be 1354 01:28:17.560 --> 01:28:20.439 thoughtful. And that's why I like the EK guide Book because it's kind of 1355 01:28:20.439 --> 01:28:23.520 goes into more of like, well, what's why are we here? And 1356 01:28:23.920 --> 01:28:28.800 but if we think about kind of these you know, building experiences for the 1357 01:28:28.920 --> 01:28:32.640 human story and like these you know, these narratives and courses, it's the 1358 01:28:32.680 --> 01:28:35.840 more we're allowing our in this, I think tied a lot of what we're 1359 01:28:35.840 --> 01:28:40.399 talking together, like, well, what directions should AI go, what directions 1360 01:28:40.399 --> 01:28:44.399 should mid journey go? What direction if we're moving things in the direction whereas 1361 01:28:44.439 --> 01:28:47.560 a species, we're spending more time in our power zone, We're spending more 1362 01:28:47.560 --> 01:28:53.119 time in our creativity, in our ability to ask big questions, in our 1363 01:28:53.159 --> 01:28:59.079 idea to solve general problems, to take cool pieces of technology and divergently string 1364 01:28:59.079 --> 01:29:01.079 them together to solve some things. Because I think, you know, that's 1365 01:29:01.119 --> 01:29:04.840 when we're also enabling our potential as a society, you know, and we're 1366 01:29:04.840 --> 01:29:09.640 actually enabling our compassion. If you look at you know, some of the 1367 01:29:10.439 --> 01:29:15.560 lowest IQ people in the world are also some of the cruelest intelligence. If 1368 01:29:15.560 --> 01:29:17.640 you're if you're you know, in a cruel state, it's a reactive state, 1369 01:29:18.119 --> 01:29:24.199 it's a state of input reaction. Really intelligent people are often able to 1370 01:29:24.239 --> 01:29:28.039 have compassion because they're able to stay in their frontal lobe, not have their 1371 01:29:28.039 --> 01:29:30.800 amygdala go off and become reactive and go, yeah, that person just cut 1372 01:29:30.840 --> 01:29:34.199 me off in that car. Maybe they're on the way to the hospital, 1373 01:29:35.079 --> 01:29:41.159 you know, rather than punking and swearing and and it's like that Buddha quote 1374 01:29:41.199 --> 01:29:44.319 like you know, throwing a anger's a lot like throwing a hot stone, 1375 01:29:44.640 --> 01:29:48.399 Like you're only burning yourself. Like anger is a destructive emotion, Like we 1376 01:29:48.479 --> 01:29:51.800 need to feel things, but if you live in that state, like you're 1377 01:29:51.920 --> 01:29:57.119 definitely doing biological damage to yourself. All emotions, you know, they're they're 1378 01:29:57.119 --> 01:30:00.159 important. They're like they're like smoke signals, and we get to observe them 1379 01:30:00.199 --> 01:30:06.000 and interpret them. But when we allow technology, when we allow experiences to 1380 01:30:06.079 --> 01:30:11.600 be built for us, we end up being in that in that flow state, 1381 01:30:11.640 --> 01:30:14.359 in that zone, and then that's where we're creative. Like you can 1382 01:30:14.479 --> 01:30:16.359 I mean you can go I'm sure you know, I always Butcher's name, 1383 01:30:16.399 --> 01:30:21.880 but lady like six, Yeah, the flow state. Yeah, if we 1384 01:30:23.000 --> 01:30:26.520 go in and you know, look at that body of research that that came 1385 01:30:26.600 --> 01:30:29.239 from him, and then you know some of the people that followed who really 1386 01:30:29.760 --> 01:30:31.880 dove into that. It's just it's pretty clear like when we're in a flow 1387 01:30:31.920 --> 01:30:38.880 state where we're more motivated or enjoying life more, there's positive psychological benefits, 1388 01:30:38.880 --> 01:30:44.880 there's positive positive physiological benefits, and we actually see across all the different audiences 1389 01:30:44.880 --> 01:30:48.800 that we measure because we measure intrinsic motivations. Like if you asked me if 1390 01:30:48.840 --> 01:30:54.000 you wouldn't searched on the internet today, like what are what are the core 1391 01:30:54.119 --> 01:30:58.640 motivators of human beings? What you find is you probably run into self determination 1392 01:30:58.720 --> 01:31:01.359 theory and find you know, okay, is this a sense of autonomy or 1393 01:31:01.680 --> 01:31:05.960 purpose or mastery? And there's an MIT study that said that they found that 1394 01:31:06.079 --> 01:31:11.159 across different groups of college kids. Well, what they don't tell you is 1395 01:31:11.199 --> 01:31:16.199 there's actual air in that people who have low levels of purpose tend not to 1396 01:31:16.279 --> 01:31:23.199 have motivations of autonomy and mastery. So purpose, if you want to say, 1397 01:31:23.199 --> 01:31:26.880 well, what are universal motivators? Purpose seems to be an ingredient to 1398 01:31:27.039 --> 01:31:30.600 unlock self determination theory. But without it you don't really have the other ones. 1399 01:31:30.000 --> 01:31:33.319 So you know, it's a nice theory. It's generally applicable, but 1400 01:31:33.800 --> 01:31:38.279 if that purpose ingredient isn't there, you probably don't want to use it. 1401 01:31:38.359 --> 01:31:41.319 So figure out if that's there or not. And a lot of people don't 1402 01:31:41.399 --> 01:31:45.760 have purpose and are not motivated by purpose. We as Westerners think that the 1403 01:31:45.800 --> 01:31:49.199 world like we forget that the other four billion people that don't have smartphones, 1404 01:31:49.399 --> 01:31:53.079 a lot of them are just waking up every day trying to get clean water, 1405 01:31:53.640 --> 01:31:57.279 get food. Like, we forget this half the world that's using technology. 1406 01:31:57.319 --> 01:32:00.600 Really like we get so side it in that regard. But I think 1407 01:32:00.600 --> 01:32:03.439 what is interesting in terms of, you know, the audiences that we've been 1408 01:32:03.479 --> 01:32:09.600 able to measure thus far, the only universal and not every person is motivated 1409 01:32:09.640 --> 01:32:14.800 by it. But if if I look like group ethnographic groups, if you 1410 01:32:14.880 --> 01:32:18.479 kind of just like do a dispersion, the only one that I've continually seen 1411 01:32:18.560 --> 01:32:24.840 as being high is being motivated by flow state of flow, I think that's 1412 01:32:24.960 --> 01:32:30.399 that's pretty interesting. So like, well, that's probably something that's fundamentally human, 1413 01:32:30.680 --> 01:32:33.399 wanting to be in a flow state. And going back into the you 1414 01:32:33.439 --> 01:32:35.840 know, well what is a human experience? Then, well, how do 1415 01:32:35.880 --> 01:32:41.560 we create experiences where humans are sort of you know, the eye that field 1416 01:32:41.640 --> 01:32:43.960 goes away, the eye that thinks goes away. We're in the zone, 1417 01:32:44.359 --> 01:32:46.720 our challenge is slightly higher than our skill level. There's all these things that 1418 01:32:46.720 --> 01:32:49.960 you know, we're in dynamic environments and nature. There's always things we know 1419 01:32:50.119 --> 01:32:55.119 can compel flow. Video games compel flow states a lot better than TV shows 1420 01:32:55.159 --> 01:32:58.079 do. But then you look at what humans do when they're in a flow 1421 01:32:58.119 --> 01:33:01.760 state, and most of the most incredible things humans have thought up, created 1422 01:33:02.159 --> 01:33:05.680 done. You know what we think of athletes too, artists, engineers, 1423 01:33:06.359 --> 01:33:10.800 they've been in the state's flow. So you know, these are things that 1424 01:33:10.880 --> 01:33:14.319 as we're already on covering things at scale that I think, you know, 1425 01:33:14.399 --> 01:33:18.039 our I mean, our data set is is mass. It's there's no academy. 1426 01:33:18.039 --> 01:33:23.640 We have PhDs from some of the top academic institutions who the next step 1427 01:33:23.680 --> 01:33:27.680 after that is Sulston because they're like, there's no one else that has that 1428 01:33:27.760 --> 01:33:30.720 I can do my studies with other than because you guys are literally at this 1429 01:33:30.840 --> 01:33:34.920 scale from a data set perspective, so you know these things are are we're 1430 01:33:34.960 --> 01:33:39.520 also learning about us, I think as we're doing this too. No, 1431 01:33:39.640 --> 01:33:42.640 that's super cool. I want to I love to feak behind the curtain someday 1432 01:33:42.840 --> 01:33:45.119 and see what's what's say, Yeah, super fascinating. I'm going to show 1433 01:33:45.119 --> 01:33:48.199 you awesome, awesome. I just want to say, this has been such 1434 01:33:48.279 --> 01:33:51.680 such an enlightening conversation. I think we have to have a sequel at some 1435 01:33:51.720 --> 01:33:55.640 point in the future, starting with flow and see where we go from there. 1436 01:33:55.680 --> 01:33:58.159 Because it's just like I think that such an interesting point of like, 1437 01:33:58.479 --> 01:34:01.960 you know, what do we see across us this like massive data set and 1438 01:34:01.960 --> 01:34:06.159 and thinking about that how flow can work and what it can look like obviously 1439 01:34:06.239 --> 01:34:11.760 can be determined differently from a different biopsychosocial components, right that people have, 1440 01:34:12.600 --> 01:34:15.199 yet they all kind of can point us in that direction. There's the think 1441 01:34:15.199 --> 01:34:18.960 that's really fascinating. And this is also just like I think something really interesting 1442 01:34:19.000 --> 01:34:24.680 of where the world of mL and you know, big data are able to 1443 01:34:24.680 --> 01:34:26.800 take us in place, but we've never been before, you know, from 1444 01:34:26.800 --> 01:34:30.359 a scientific perspective and understanding the human you know, ourselves in different groups and 1445 01:34:30.439 --> 01:34:33.960 environments because we you know, in anthropology too. I mean, I'm not 1446 01:34:34.000 --> 01:34:36.359 sure if it's kind of similar in psychology they're a bit different. But like 1447 01:34:36.399 --> 01:34:40.720 the there's a there's a big discomfort for a while in the middle of the 1448 01:34:40.720 --> 01:34:43.960 twentieth century with grand theories that explain everything. There are lots of things, 1449 01:34:44.000 --> 01:34:46.920 right because obviously anthropology itself has it has its own kind of problems with with 1450 01:34:47.000 --> 01:34:50.279 its colonialists backgrounds, and like both helped empire building, and so it's like, 1451 01:34:50.279 --> 01:34:54.199 well, we need to actually understand the local before we then talk about 1452 01:34:54.239 --> 01:34:57.800 these bigger pieces. So there is an interesting tension here of like what can 1453 01:34:58.159 --> 01:35:01.039 big data in these these other ways of like compiling information of with for and 1454 01:35:01.079 --> 01:35:04.000 about people can do for us. And so I think there's there's also this 1455 01:35:04.199 --> 01:35:08.359 there's this really interesting question of what is the future of this means? So 1456 01:35:08.479 --> 01:35:12.720 I appreciate the way that you're also talking before about we are talking about what 1457 01:35:12.840 --> 01:35:15.119 is the story that we want to build, you know, with the tools 1458 01:35:15.119 --> 01:35:17.920 and technologies that we have for humans to be better, Like why could we 1459 01:35:17.960 --> 01:35:20.640 not build towards human flourishing? This is a story we tell ourselves. The 1460 01:35:20.720 --> 01:35:24.640 terminator is a story we tell ourselves. We don't have to build that. 1461 01:35:24.680 --> 01:35:28.520 We're not required to build that kind of future. It's also not inevitable, 1462 01:35:28.600 --> 01:35:30.680 right, but we we just tell the stories as if they are. And 1463 01:35:30.720 --> 01:35:34.000 this is really important for us to remember. Stories are theories, and then 1464 01:35:34.079 --> 01:35:36.560 often time we use them to like kind of tell ourselves backwards seat, well 1465 01:35:36.720 --> 01:35:40.199 that was the thing. So here we are right, and it's like, 1466 01:35:40.199 --> 01:35:43.079 no, they're not. They're not inevitabilities, and so we have the power 1467 01:35:43.119 --> 01:35:45.399 to kind of build forward. And I think this is such an important piece 1468 01:35:45.399 --> 01:35:49.000 that you're bringing to the table too with that, So thank you for reading 1469 01:35:49.039 --> 01:35:54.199 at that point. Totally totally Adam, and I'll you know on this maybe, 1470 01:35:54.199 --> 01:35:58.319 but my partners she works as a sustainable investing so she has to worked 1471 01:35:58.319 --> 01:36:02.479 a lot with like doomsday kind of conversations and I one of the things that 1472 01:36:02.520 --> 01:36:06.880 she says is, how do we build a future that we can't imagine? 1473 01:36:08.560 --> 01:36:12.039 And you know, so it's like, yeah, we can imagine the terminator 1474 01:36:12.079 --> 01:36:15.680 future, but we've just as much need you know, there's there's the future 1475 01:36:15.680 --> 01:36:18.920 that Soulsan's creating that is basically the opposite of a of a Terminator future. 1476 01:36:19.399 --> 01:36:23.279 You know. It's it's one where you have agency to go in and out 1477 01:36:23.399 --> 01:36:29.119 of you know, Neo's Karate matrix and learn a new skill, and the 1478 01:36:29.159 --> 01:36:32.239 matrix never knows who you are, and you're fully an agent in that experience 1479 01:36:32.279 --> 01:36:35.039 and you can come in and out of it. And what would humanity be 1480 01:36:35.119 --> 01:36:40.479 like if we were all one percent were aware in our lifetime anyway? Like 1481 01:36:40.840 --> 01:36:44.359 how many more people would be climate scientists? How many more people would be 1482 01:36:44.399 --> 01:36:46.960 doing their life's purpose? Like that musician that like is a kick you know, 1483 01:36:47.000 --> 01:36:51.279 a cook somewhere and like man like I met a guy's incredibly talented. 1484 01:36:51.319 --> 01:36:55.920 He showed me his videos of the I'm like, if you could only go 1485 01:36:55.960 --> 01:36:59.479 and pursue that talent, like, you know, and if we're's one percent 1486 01:36:59.520 --> 01:37:02.439 more aware, what would what would this world be like? And I think 1487 01:37:02.439 --> 01:37:06.960 we can you know, we're we're pretty cool species. And I think when 1488 01:37:08.479 --> 01:37:12.000 when the best of us get together, we do some amazing things. And 1489 01:37:12.079 --> 01:37:15.319 so when the worst of us get together, we do we create horror, 1490 01:37:15.439 --> 01:37:18.600 you know. And so it's how do we how do we create that world 1491 01:37:18.600 --> 01:37:23.479 we can imagine? And then how do we allow us and most people if 1492 01:37:23.479 --> 01:37:28.039 we look at the broader data, like the average person, and we're talking 1493 01:37:28.079 --> 01:37:30.680 like because we're the largest psychological data set in the world. So aliens came 1494 01:37:30.720 --> 01:37:33.279 to Earth and like, tell me about humans, Like, I can tell 1495 01:37:33.279 --> 01:37:39.000 you that the average person is altruistic. The average person genuinely wants to help 1496 01:37:39.039 --> 01:37:42.840 if somebody is in trouble. There's things that modulate that altruism, you know. 1497 01:37:42.920 --> 01:37:46.760 But it's like as a species, when when the majority of us get 1498 01:37:46.800 --> 01:37:53.039 to move and some of the loud crazies get you know, you know, 1499 01:37:53.560 --> 01:37:57.079 put away a little bit. Yeah, we get to move in a really 1500 01:37:57.239 --> 01:38:00.119 and and that's happened throughout history. We've had part of the reason, and 1501 01:38:00.119 --> 01:38:02.520 we're here today while we have I mean, we have a lot of luxury 1502 01:38:02.560 --> 01:38:08.680 problems as a society. Being a psychotherapist, I had a lot of people 1503 01:38:08.760 --> 01:38:12.600 who came to me to tell me about their depression or their anxiety, and 1504 01:38:12.640 --> 01:38:15.079 there wasn't a bio reason for it that we could find anyway, and there 1505 01:38:15.119 --> 01:38:18.800 wasn't a social reason. It was a purely I'm like, wow, you 1506 01:38:18.840 --> 01:38:21.760 are in your own way. Every step you take, you know, and 1507 01:38:21.960 --> 01:38:26.159 and all those steps that you're taking where you're in your own way, I'm 1508 01:38:26.199 --> 01:38:28.840 like, you know, this is part of why I love about adventure based 1509 01:38:28.880 --> 01:38:32.439 psychotherapy, which is what I did, because it allows nature to teach people. 1510 01:38:32.640 --> 01:38:35.960 And we're also like, well, okay, let's let's start a fire 1511 01:38:36.520 --> 01:38:40.239 and let's get to see how you handle that problem solving skill and you never 1512 01:38:40.399 --> 01:38:44.000 know started a fire before. And it's amazing that people's mental health issues get 1513 01:38:44.039 --> 01:38:46.720 a lot better when there's a level of self efficacy increases. So that's the 1514 01:38:46.920 --> 01:38:50.199 game that we're trying to balance with AI is making sure it doesn't take away 1515 01:38:50.199 --> 01:38:55.880 self efficacy so people still feel that sense of like I'm capable, and I 1516 01:38:55.880 --> 01:39:00.720 think that's actually part of technologies play with suicidality. A lot of young kids 1517 01:39:00.760 --> 01:39:04.279 growing up see all this and go, well, I can't do anything very 1518 01:39:04.319 --> 01:39:08.159 interesting, and it's just that we haven't given them enough to imagine yet of 1519 01:39:08.199 --> 01:39:11.000 what they could do. I think once we can do that, and that's 1520 01:39:11.039 --> 01:39:13.920 part of I mean, say what you want or what you will about people 1521 01:39:13.960 --> 01:39:16.439 like Elon Musk, but that's one thing he is giving kids. He's giving 1522 01:39:16.439 --> 01:39:19.880 them a reality to imagine, like, well, what if human beings were 1523 01:39:19.880 --> 01:39:26.640 a multi you know, call it a multi planetary species. Like that's okay, 1524 01:39:26.720 --> 01:39:30.520 Like there's some kids out there that that's they wake up every day and 1525 01:39:30.880 --> 01:39:33.640 they're dreaming towards being an engineer at SpaceX or an ASSA or something like that. 1526 01:39:34.039 --> 01:39:38.800 And so I'm just like, the more we can use our understanding of 1527 01:39:38.840 --> 01:39:42.199 self, the more we can create these narratives in this direction. And it 1528 01:39:42.239 --> 01:39:45.840 is just important to know the terminator stories too, because it's like, well 1529 01:39:45.960 --> 01:39:47.920 that's a direction, that's a direction, and well what direction? And I 1530 01:39:47.920 --> 01:39:50.920 think that's where, you know, us having a vision as a species is 1531 01:39:50.920 --> 01:39:55.600 important, like where do we see ourselves as you know, as a collective 1532 01:39:55.640 --> 01:39:59.600 in the future and where do we want to go And that conversation is probably 1533 01:39:59.640 --> 01:40:01.520 an import in one to at least think about and you can you know, 1534 01:40:01.600 --> 01:40:05.000 it's not like what's ever going to happen, you know Humanity's mission statement. 1535 01:40:05.159 --> 01:40:10.520 Yeah, exactly, it's like we can we can take individual steps. And 1536 01:40:10.560 --> 01:40:14.000 this is what's you know, part of Soulsan's vision and mission is if we're 1537 01:40:14.039 --> 01:40:18.880 activating every experienced designer in the world. Now we're talking like now we're having 1538 01:40:18.920 --> 01:40:26.399 a world that is mostly altruistic, who's mostly understanding who they're building for, 1539 01:40:26.800 --> 01:40:30.840 who's going to be creating experiences that are x percent better? And those people 1540 01:40:30.840 --> 01:40:38.239 that are experience those things are going to have expert baseline just like x percent 1541 01:40:38.359 --> 01:40:41.319 less cognitive load. Like that's one of the goals of an experience design, 1542 01:40:41.359 --> 01:40:44.399 how to reduce the cognitive load of these are Okay, well, now that 1543 01:40:44.520 --> 01:40:48.159 cognition because our brains are really expensive organ and it uses all this blue coast. 1544 01:40:48.399 --> 01:40:51.399 Well, maybe that can be spent with friends now or family or thinking 1545 01:40:51.439 --> 01:40:55.840 about like good ideas or being in a flow state, you know. So 1546 01:40:56.000 --> 01:41:00.760 it's just like just those little micro movements in the right direction. I think 1547 01:41:00.800 --> 01:41:05.199 what's really cool about it is it doesn't compete compete with capitalism in any way 1548 01:41:05.239 --> 01:41:09.680 or shape or form. I actually does the opposite. Allows your business to 1549 01:41:09.760 --> 01:41:13.600 be like predictable. When I was at big Fish Games, we got all 1550 01:41:13.600 --> 01:41:16.920 these different games with LTV curves and our parent companies, Like how do you 1551 01:41:17.000 --> 01:41:21.560 operate a game company? Like every game has a different lifetime value curve. 1552 01:41:23.039 --> 01:41:27.640 It's like it's nice to know, is like, here's my predictable business or 1553 01:41:27.720 --> 01:41:30.159 revenue over time. Like if you gave somebody an option, like do you 1554 01:41:30.199 --> 01:41:34.720 want to be Kodak or do you want to be Nintendo. Now most people 1555 01:41:34.720 --> 01:41:39.159 don't know this, but Nintendo was originally founded in the eighteen hundreds. It's 1556 01:41:39.199 --> 01:41:45.159 like very old company. Like that's Nintendo has been able to through its values 1557 01:41:45.279 --> 01:41:50.439 ethos, grow, evolve, create jobs over time, creative jobs, build 1558 01:41:50.439 --> 01:41:55.760 incredible things for you know, society. You know, whether it's Mario or 1559 01:41:55.840 --> 01:41:59.079 Zelda like it. There's these are artifacts, these are cultural artifacts. At 1560 01:41:59.119 --> 01:42:03.880 this point, you know, it's like yeah, and you know it's like 1561 01:42:04.079 --> 01:42:08.520 that happened, well, Kodak, they have their Kodak moment and then it 1562 01:42:08.560 --> 01:42:12.960 was gone. And so it's like we're we're here to help companies that want 1563 01:42:12.960 --> 01:42:16.439 to be more like a Nintendo than a Kodak. So yes, we're not 1564 01:42:16.520 --> 01:42:19.359 for everybody, but we're definitely for the ones that are like we're we're more 1565 01:42:19.399 --> 01:42:23.479 interested in building something that's going to last over the years. And I always 1566 01:42:23.520 --> 01:42:26.600 say this to customers, like it's the dirty secret. We know that's not 1567 01:42:26.840 --> 01:42:30.119 dirty, which is like, the healthier your experiences for your customers, the 1568 01:42:30.159 --> 01:42:33.960 more money they're going to give you. So it's like, yeah, make 1569 01:42:34.119 --> 01:42:38.720 make And I know that's true for me, Like, if I look across 1570 01:42:38.800 --> 01:42:43.239 everything I do, by the time I'm like ninety, I'll probably have spent 1571 01:42:43.479 --> 01:42:47.239 more money in the ski industry than any other industry. It gives me biological 1572 01:42:47.239 --> 01:42:51.399 health, social health, psychological health. I'm in a flow state when I'm 1573 01:42:51.439 --> 01:42:56.600 doing it a bunch. It gives me so much and so I'm more likely 1574 01:42:56.680 --> 01:43:00.159 to return as a customer to all the different touch points in that industry. 1575 01:43:00.479 --> 01:43:04.359 And each of us probably have something like that, And so it's like, 1576 01:43:04.439 --> 01:43:09.560 well, as an experienced designer, if you know you can turn like what 1577 01:43:09.720 --> 01:43:13.960 Disney did a boring carnival thing, and he was sitting there watching his daughter 1578 01:43:14.039 --> 01:43:17.560 going like this horrible, like I do, I do not want to be 1579 01:43:17.600 --> 01:43:21.680 here. Let's create a space that adults can enjoy as much as their kids. 1580 01:43:23.159 --> 01:43:30.319 And that was example of experience design creating a new reality. Or McDonald's 1581 01:43:30.359 --> 01:43:32.000 for that matter, if you're seeing like you know founder and Ray Kroc, 1582 01:43:32.119 --> 01:43:36.239 like he did wire frames of what a layout of a burger place can be 1583 01:43:36.600 --> 01:43:42.520 and moved it around, and you know, here's this burger experience that you 1584 01:43:42.560 --> 01:43:45.000 know, at the at the time was like revolutionary in terms of what you 1585 01:43:45.039 --> 01:43:49.039 could could do. And that was that was design thinking that was used to 1586 01:43:49.039 --> 01:43:54.279 create it. And then what's cool is then new ux designers can come into 1587 01:43:54.359 --> 01:43:57.760 McDonald's and go, hey, maybe we could do this a little bit differently, 1588 01:43:57.840 --> 01:44:00.039 maybe we could take it to that next level, because maybe it's not 1589 01:44:00.199 --> 01:44:04.119 you know, the ideal where society was at was really good at that time. 1590 01:44:04.560 --> 01:44:10.319 And McDonald's is thinking about being a Nintendo and lasting for over a century, 1591 01:44:10.399 --> 01:44:15.079 they're gonna have to think differently than they did last decade. M Yeah, 1592 01:44:15.359 --> 01:44:17.000 I mean it's true. You can imagine, like what's what's what is 1593 01:44:17.039 --> 01:44:20.760 the McDonald's of twenty one, fifty twenty one seventy Yeah, all I know 1594 01:44:20.880 --> 01:44:25.119 is like, I mean, I don't eat McDonald's in America, there's don't. 1595 01:44:25.520 --> 01:44:28.520 But when I'm in Switzerland. I used to work there, Like their 1596 01:44:28.600 --> 01:44:33.760 Mick Grier is amazing and they have Grio cheese and McDonald's here it's beautiful, 1597 01:44:33.880 --> 01:44:38.640 and they have different standards for what can go into the food in Switzerland then 1598 01:44:38.680 --> 01:44:42.399 and America. It's even a different logo. It's like a green, dark 1599 01:44:42.479 --> 01:44:45.760 green logo with the yellow arches. You know. So it's like if you 1600 01:44:45.800 --> 01:44:49.960 think there's there's some designer that had liberties in Switzerland that said, well, 1601 01:44:50.000 --> 01:44:55.640 how do we make this work in this country? But yeah, I mean 1602 01:44:56.000 --> 01:44:59.039 I'm all for it. Like I'm all if someone from McDonald's contact with us 1603 01:44:59.159 --> 01:45:00.840 was like, hey, how do we how do we do that? Let's 1604 01:45:00.840 --> 01:45:05.000 figure it out. Let's figure out how to create that experience that is healthy, 1605 01:45:05.159 --> 01:45:11.439 sustainable, regenerative and gets you to be a century plus you know, 1606 01:45:11.479 --> 01:45:15.279 long old company. Yeah, it's a century and challenge, like, let's 1607 01:45:15.319 --> 01:45:18.039 help you get to one hundred exactly by doing what's good for people. Oh 1608 01:45:18.079 --> 01:45:20.960 that's super cool, awesome, No, Joe, this this has been such 1609 01:45:20.960 --> 01:45:24.319 a such a fun conversation. I could keep talking. I want to be 1610 01:45:24.399 --> 01:45:27.680 respectful of our time, you know, and so I've I'd love to keep 1611 01:45:27.680 --> 01:45:30.680 a conversation up and like, let's do it again some time if you're down, 1612 01:45:30.720 --> 01:45:31.880 and like, there's so much, so many more current corners we can 1613 01:45:31.920 --> 01:45:34.800 turn here. So thank you so much again for sharing rhythm and stories and 1614 01:45:34.840 --> 01:45:39.960 it's been great. Likewise, Adam Man, I'd love to yeah the flow 1615 01:45:40.000 --> 01:45:42.600 conversation. That sounds super interesting to me, and that brings us to the 1616 01:45:42.680 --> 01:45:45.680 end of another fascinating episode of This Amor Life. I hope you found our 1617 01:45:45.720 --> 01:45:48.199 conversation with Joe Shappy as interesting and thought provoking as I did. And a 1618 01:45:48.279 --> 01:45:53.279 huge thing to Joe for sharing his valuable insights and contributions across this conversation. 1619 01:45:53.720 --> 01:45:57.000 Really really grateful for your expertise and willingness to share his experiences with us. 1620 01:45:57.720 --> 01:46:00.960 So today we delved into the world of awareness, conscious and the power of 1621 01:46:00.960 --> 01:46:03.840 design. We explore how Joe's passion for understanding the human mind led them to 1622 01:46:03.880 --> 01:46:09.359 study human factor of psychology and anthropology with the goal of creating experiences that promote 1623 01:46:09.439 --> 01:46:14.279 mindfulness and self knowledge. We learned the understanding the audience and measuring the impact 1624 01:46:14.319 --> 01:46:19.039 of our designs are crucial and creating meaningful and helpful experiences now. Throughout our 1625 01:46:19.039 --> 01:46:24.960 conversation, Joe highlighted the importance of shared experiences in the drawbacks of hyper personalization. 1626 01:46:25.439 --> 01:46:28.680 We discussed the role of technology and shaping our lives and the need to 1627 01:46:28.680 --> 01:46:32.000 strike a balance between utilizing its potential while staying mindful of its impact on our 1628 01:46:32.000 --> 01:46:35.760 mental health and relationships. So as we wrap up, I encourage you to 1629 01:46:35.760 --> 01:46:39.840 take a moment to reflect on how the topics we discussed today resonate with your 1630 01:46:39.840 --> 01:46:44.359 own life or broader society. How can we create experiences that fostering mindfulness and 1631 01:46:44.399 --> 01:46:48.319 self awareness and an increasingly connected yet digitally driven world. As always, I 1632 01:46:48.319 --> 01:46:50.920 want to express my gratitude to you, our listeners, watchers, friends, 1633 01:46:50.920 --> 01:46:55.520 family community for your continued support and if you want to delve deeper into the 1634 01:46:55.520 --> 01:46:59.359 subject matter this episode, I recommend checking out the anther Curious subsect block where 1635 01:46:59.359 --> 01:47:02.840 we're going to or fascinating antholitical concepts and ideas that take this episode to the 1636 01:47:02.880 --> 01:47:08.560 next level, and whereber your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. You rejust 1637 01:47:08.600 --> 01:47:11.600 to us on social media, leave a review or share this episode with someone 1638 01:47:11.640 --> 01:47:14.720 who you think would find it intriguing. Let's keep building this community together, 1639 01:47:15.199 --> 01:47:16.760 and of course don't forget to subscribe to this Anthra Life so you never miss 1640 01:47:16.760 --> 01:47:20.520 an episode. We have plenty more exciting conversations than insights coming your way. 1641 01:47:20.880 --> 01:47:24.800 So thank you once again for joining us on this exploration of what it means 1642 01:47:24.800 --> 01:47:27.760 to be human in the modern world. Until next time, stay curious. 1643 01:47:28.000 --> 01:47:30.239 I'm Adam Gamwell and this is this anthor of Life.