Listen "#80 – Dan Williams on How Persuasion Works"
Episode Synopsis
Dan Williams is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sussex and an Associate Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) at the University of Cambridge.
You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes/williams.
We discuss:
If reasoning is so useful, why are we so bad at it?
Do some bad ideas really work like ‘mind viruses’? Is the ‘luxury beliefs’ concept useful?
What's up with the idea of a ‘marketplace for ideas’? Are people shopping for new beliefs, or to rationalise their existing attitudes?
How dangerous is misinformation, really? Can we ‘vaccinate’ or ‘inoculate’ against it?
Will AI help us form more accurate beliefs, or will it persuade more people of unhinged ideas?
Does fact-checking work?
Under transformative AI, should we worry more about the suppression or the proliferation of counter-establishment ideas?
You can get in touch through our website or on Twitter. Consider leaving us an honest review wherever you're listening to this — it's the best way to support the show. Thanks for listening!
You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes/williams.
We discuss:
If reasoning is so useful, why are we so bad at it?
Do some bad ideas really work like ‘mind viruses’? Is the ‘luxury beliefs’ concept useful?
What's up with the idea of a ‘marketplace for ideas’? Are people shopping for new beliefs, or to rationalise their existing attitudes?
How dangerous is misinformation, really? Can we ‘vaccinate’ or ‘inoculate’ against it?
Will AI help us form more accurate beliefs, or will it persuade more people of unhinged ideas?
Does fact-checking work?
Under transformative AI, should we worry more about the suppression or the proliferation of counter-establishment ideas?
You can get in touch through our website or on Twitter. Consider leaving us an honest review wherever you're listening to this — it's the best way to support the show. Thanks for listening!
More episodes of the podcast Hear This Idea
#84 – Dean Spears on the Case for People
01/11/2025
#83 – Max Smeets on Barriers To Cyberweapons
13/03/2025
#78 – Jacob Trefethen on Global Health R&D
08/09/2024
#77 – Elizabeth Seger on Open Sourcing AI
25/07/2024
#76 – Joe Carlsmith on Scheming AI
16/03/2024
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.