A candid conversation with psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer on why human judgment outperforms AI, the “stable world” limits of machine intelligence, and how surveillance capitalism reshapes society.Guest bio: Dr. Gerd Gigerenzer is a German psychologist, director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, a leading scholar on decision-making and heuristics, and an intellectual interlocutor of B. F. Skinner and Herbert Simon.Topics discussed:Why large language models rely on correlations, not understandingThe “stable world principle” and where AI actually works (chess, translation)Uncertainty, human behavior, and why prediction doesn’t improve muchSurveillance capitalism, privacy erosion, and “tech paternalism”Level-4 vs. level-5 autonomy and city redesign for robo-taxisEducation, attention, and social media’s effects on cognition and mental healthDynamic pricing, right-to-repair, and value extraction vs. true innovationSimple heuristics beating big data (elections, flu prediction)Optimism vs. pessimism about democratic pushbackBooks to read: How to Stay Smart in a Smart World, The Intelligence of Intuition; “AI Snake Oil”Main points:Human intelligence is categorically different from machine pattern-matching; LLMs don’t “understand.”AI excels in stable, rule-bound domains; it struggles under real-world uncertainty and shifting conditions.Claims of imminent AGI and fully general self-driving are marketing hype; progress is gated by world instability, not just compute.The business model of personalized advertising drives surveillance, addiction loops, and attention erosion.Complex models can underperform simple, well-chosen rules in uncertain domains.Europe is pushing regulation; tech lobbying and consumer convenience still tilt the field toward surveillance.The deeper risk isn’t “AI takeover” but the dumbing-down of people and loss of autonomy.Careers: follow what you love—humans remain essential for oversight, judgment, and creativity.Likely mobility future is constrained autonomy (level-4) plus infrastructure changes, not human-free level-5 everywhere.To “stay smart,” individuals must reclaim attention, understand how systems work, and demand alternatives (including paid, non-ad models).Top quotes:“Large language models work by correlations between words; that’s not understanding.”“AI works well where tomorrow is like yesterday; under uncertainty, it falters.”“The problem isn’t AI—it’s the dumbing-down of people.”“We should become customers again, not the product.”
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