unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

Sentience lies at the core of the human experience, allowing us to experience conscious awareness, subjective experiences, and a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us. But are these capacities exclusive to humans? And are future machines likely to develop these abilities as well?Nicholas Humphrey is a theoretical psychologist based in Cambridge who is known for his work on the evolution of human intelligence and consciousness. He has been a lecturer in psychology at Oxford, assistant director of the Subdepartment of Animal Behaviour at Cambridge, senior research fellow at Cambridge, professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research, New York, and school professor at the London School of Economics. His latest book, Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness, uncovers the evolutionary history of consciousness and the nature of sentient experience in various species.Nicholas and Greg talk about some examples of animals that are believed to possess sentience, how high levels of consciousness can exist in animals without the extra dimension of sentience being present, how phenomenal consciousness came into being, and why it's very restricted in the animal kingdom and why being sentient should not be the only criterion for protecting certain animals and plants.They also explore that while sentience is not expected to emerge in machines naturally, there are potential benefits in our future endeavors to develop sentient artificial intelligence.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:A theory on how phenomenal consciousness came to being19:28: Psychology is a very difficult thing to do—to understand another person with a brain-like mine. The brain is the most complicated mechanism in the universe, as has often been pointed out. Yet you and I can read other people's minds with relative ease. How do we do it? We don't do it by virtue simply of intelligence or being clever. We do it by using our own presence, our own sense of ourself as a model for what it's like to be the other person. We are introspective psychologists, and you can only understand what it's like to be someone else by putting yourself in that place if you first know what it's like to be you. So you have to have a sense of your own self in order to model the selves of other individuals. The essential ingredient in our psychological life 17:50: For creatures like ourselves who value our individuality and count on it in our interactions with other creatures like ourselves, whom we assume to be phenomenally conscious in the same way and to have the same sense of self, this presence, this groundedness of our psychic life, is crucial to the way in which we develop our notion of what it is to be ourselves and our role in the world.The distinction between perception and sensation34:58: Perception is how we represent facts about the world. You know, the apple is round, the chair is heavy, or whatever it may be, the weight is heavy. The sound is the middle sea; facts about the world out there; and sensation is how we represent our interaction with the sensory stimuli in our body and how we feel about those.Soul niche26:41: This phenomenal consciousness and sense of self opened up a new ecological niche for human beings. I've called it the soul niche, which is that humans live in the soul niche, which is, I think, a niche centered on the idea of our individuality based on our self-consciousness. We live in that niche in just the same way that trout live in rivers or bed bugs live in beds.Show Links:Guest Profile:Faculty Profile at CambridgeNicholas Humphrey WebsiteNicholas Humphrey on LinkedInNicholas Humphrey on TwitterHis Work:Sentience: The Invention of ConsciousnessA history of the mindSeeing Red: A Study in ConsciousnessSoul Dust: The Magic of ConsciousnessThe Inner Eye: Social Intelligence in EvolutionSoul searching: Human nature and supernatural beliefArticles on AeonMore scholarly articles  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What if brain chemicals like oxytocin and cortisol could predict how people will behave in social situations and the workplace? Does more testosterone lead to aggressive leadership? Paul J. Zak is the head of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at Claremont Graduate University. His books, including Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies and The Moral Molecule: How Trust Works, examine the connection between brain functions and building trust and cooperation in social groups. Paul and Greg discuss why, 99% of the time, humans default to cooperation, how leadership roles can lead to more circulating testosterone, and a tool that determines exactly what we love based on our brain functions.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How do you sustain long-term profit growth?25:15: Right now, we are dying for good people. So, the number of high performers is scarce, and the number of overall performers is scarce. So let's create an environment where they can flourish and perform at their best. They have the freedom and accountability to do what they love once they're trained. Give them some discretion; let them make mistakes; let them learn. Let them innovate. And that's the way to sustain long-term profit growth.An amazing customer experience starts with a great employee experience28:32: It's a sacred duty to create an amazing customer experience. But that starts with creating a great employee experience.Effective work cultures have low turnover34:55: One of the best predictors we found for effective cultures is low turnover. So, it's well known that most people do not leave jobs for more money. They leave because they just can't stand where they're working. And can't stand means the culture, the humans, and the way humans interact. That's what culture is.On trust and human performance24:31: What I think about trust, about human performance is that employees want it, and organizations benefit from it. So it's a really nice win-win space. On the data, you know, people who work in high-trust organizations get sick less, they retain their jobs more. They enjoy their jobs more. They recommend their place of business to friends and family to work there. So all these good things.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Vernon L. SmithJack WelchPeter DruckerGood for the Money: My Fight to Pay Back AmericaunSILOed episode feat. Ben WaberGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Claremont Graduate UniversityPaul J. Zak’s WebsitePaul J. Zak on LinkedInPaul J. Zak on TwitterPau J. Zak on TEDTalkHis Work:Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance CompaniesThe Moral Molecule: How Trust WorksImmersion: The Science of the Extraordinary and the Source of HappinessImmersion Neuroscience (Website)Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the EconomyMore scholarly articles Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There are levels to leadership, and at the CEO level, the leadership needs are many, but it’s important to strike the right balance. CEOs must think about strategy in both the short and long term but also must not lose sight of the culture they create. ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast,’ as Peter Drucker famously said, and a wise leader pays close attention to the culture in their organization. Ken Wilcox is the and previously served as its CEO. Ken is also an author, and his latest book, Leading Through Culture: How Real Leaders Create Cultures That Motivate People to Achieve Great Things, is a guidebook for leaders of all kinds on how to create culture and, more importantly, why it is so important. Ken and Greg discuss Ken’s history with Silicon Valley Bank, but also why he was so successful there because of his emphasis and attention to creating the right culture. Ken goes over some key parts of being a good leader and the characteristics of different types of people in the organization. Ken and Greg also discuss the current state of SVB and what happened, as well as the interesting history of SVB starting a joint venture with China. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:You cannot hire good people to help you build the culture04:35: You can hire good people to help you build the strategy. You cannot hire good people to help you build the culture. That's something that has to emanate from the CEO, I believe. And the other thing about that is that if you have a good strategy but a poor culture, you're not going to do well. If you have a great culture and maybe a poor strategy, you can always bring some strategic thinkers on board, either in the form of employees or consultants, and they can help you create a much better strategy.Great leaders have a vision09:30: Great leaders have a vision. They're not focused on the present. They delegate most of the responsibility for what happens today and tomorrow to their management team. But most of them are looking into the future and saying, "Where is it I would like us to go, and how will we get there?" and sharing that over and over again with the management team and with the entire corporation.What makes a great CEO?10:01: Great leaders realize they can't do it all by themselves. They build themselves a management team, and then they use that management team to inform them before they make a decision. And one thing that's key here is who makes the decisions. I think good CEOs delegate most decisions downward and focus on only the really big decisions that have to do with long-term direction.Choosing the right adults for your team13:38: The people on your team are adults who understand that adults have different opinions, that all opinions may be valuable to one degree or another, and that the way to solve problems with other adults is to have good discussions where people are being honest without being bossy. There are two kinds of people, or three kinds of people, that you could bring onto a management team that are adults, and those are the people you should seek.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Forbes article on ‘Culture Eats Strategy For Breakfast’LinkedIn article on Leadership ShadowWikipedia article on Cyrus the GreatWikipedia article on Charles M. WilliamsGuest Profile:Professional Profile on LeadingThroughCulture.orgProfessional Profile on WildChina.comContributor’s Profile at Stanford UniversityKen Wilcox on LinkedInHis Work:Leading Through Culture: How Real Leaders Create Cultures That Motivate People to Achieve Great ThingsAmazon Author Page for Ken WilcoxStanford Lectures by Ken Wilcox Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Has the word “democracy” become a catch-all for good government? At this point, the idea is so romanticized that it may go unnoticed that the way America is run today is somewhere between a democracy and an oligarchy.Garett Jones, associate professor of Economics at George Mason University, delves into those questions in his book 10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less. He also studies the factors and foundations of economic growth in his book The Culture Transplant: How Migrants Make the Economies They Move To a Lot Like The Ones They Left. Garett and Greg discuss the true meaning of the word “democracy,” whether it’s better to have a well-educated elite calling the shots, and how migration can actually determine how prosperous a country will be. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:What we love about our so-called ‘democratic system” are its most undemocratic parts03:18: When people use the phrase "we're a nation of laws, not of men," that's a way of saying in the short run, democracy doesn't decide how this trial turns out; the voters don't get to rule on this. We have some rules we set a long time ago. We have some nerdy judges who oversee the system, and they're making the decisions. So a lot of what we love about our so-called “democratic system" are its most undemocratic parts.08:54: The closer a politician is to voters, the further the politician is from wisdom.How do we measure democracy?06:09: The modern methods of measuring democracy often make this mistake of blurring together, like actual voter participation in government with neutral rules that can't be manipulated in the short run. So the first part, to me, is truly democratic. The second part is pretty much judicial independence, which is not democratic.Can migration determine how prosperous a country will be?43:04: The most important channel through which immigration of people from places like China and Western Europe the way that ends up shaping broadly shared prosperity is through our old cliche in economics, which is institutions. So for reasons that are somewhat poorly understood, countries that wind up with a lot of migrants from Eastern Europe, Western Europe, or Eastern Asia tend to wind up with better institutions, better rules of the game. Better rule of law, lower corruption, and that by itself creates a better set of rules that help create broadly shared prosperity for everyone.Show Links:Recommended Resources:The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies by Bryan CaplanPolitical Realism by Jonathan RauchIron law of oligarchyPolitical Parties by Robert MichelsTammany HallGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at George Mason UniversityGarett Jones WebsiteGarrett Jones on LinkedInGarett Jones on TwitterHis Work:10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little LessThe Culture Transplant: How Migrants Make the Economies They Move To a Lot Like The Ones They LeftHive Mind: How Your Nation’s IQ Matters So Much More Than Your OwnBanking Crises: Perspectives from the New Palgrave Dictionary of EconomicArticles on EconlibMore scholarly articles Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If you start to dig into the origin story of cryptocurrency, don’t be surprised if you find the ideas and values of the American Libertarian movement all over it. Finn Brunton teaches science and technology studies at UC Davis and is fascinated by the historical narratives and subcultures behind modern technology. His books include Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency and Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (Infrastructures). Finn and Greg discuss how spammers and scammers were actually some of the earliest adopters of cryptocurrency, the American Libertarian roots in the movement, and the dark future cryptocurrency pioneers worried about.  *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Cryptographic algorithms as a weapons of war39:50: Cryptographic algorithms were classified as munitions, as weapons of war. Like you needed a foreign export license for them in the same way you would if you were selling tanks or something. So, as people were figuring out these sort of cryptographic primitives and fundamental algorithms and things like that, they started doing stuff like getting them printed on t-shirts because then you could be like, if I wear this t-shirt on an overseas flight, I am doing the equivalent of selling crates of AK-47s. And most famously, people got this extremely laconic version of this algorithm in a programming language called “perl” tattooed on themselves. And then you could say, my body is classified as a deadly weapon. You know, it's like this military device. So that tension, I think, is a really good tension for us to bear in mind as we look at how cryptocurrencies developed because part of their heritage was this awareness that strong civilian cryptography was seen as posing a genuine threat to the safety and security of the state.American libertarianism as an ideological strain of the history of cryptocurrency09:08: All of these different agendas for what technology should do represent different threads in libertarian, ideological ideas about what money should be and how society should operate. So that's part of what makes it so fascinating—that it's this new technology.What crypto as a whole shows10:01: To get certain kinds of technologies off the ground ,you can't just build the tech. You have to tell people about the future in which the tech is going to do something of value for them. And that kind of storytelling that media work is for me, where the rubber meets the road of these new technological ideas. And I saw both of them in crypto.On the value of science and technology studies01:01:05: What STS (Science and Technology Studies) provided was a space where all of these different areas, which are all adjacent, could have like a common center in the Venn diagram to meet up and hang out there, and part of what I love is that it gives you a passport to go and meet and learn from really interesting people in all kinds of different zones.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Gadsden FlagBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System by Satoshi NakamotoThe Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret AtwoodThis Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information by Andy GreenbergEnigma MachineExtropianismGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at UC DavisHis Work:Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet (Infrastructures)Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The future is (not entirely) digital - The notion that digital technology will overtake every existing aspect of our lives is an oversimplified assumption.The pandemic-induced revelations, alongside the growing affinity of a younger generation raised in a digital era towards analog media like vinyl records or books, provide compelling evidence to the intrinsic human longing for experiences that transcend the purely digital domain.David Sax is a Canadian journalist, award-winning writer for publications such as New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, Bloomberg Business Week, and The New York Times, a keynote speaker, and the author of several books. His latest work, The Future Is Analog: How to Create a More Human World, examines why our future is not inevitably digital and how to reject the downsides of digital technology without rejecting change.David and Greg talk about the need in a tech-obsessed society to find the right balance between embracing digital advancements that can genuinely enhance certain parts of our lives and the grand human experiences like everyday social interactions, building authentic connections, and experiential education that cannot be replicated by digital technology.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The value of the analog experience isn't diminished41:55: The world is everything. And I think we're sort of losing sight of that, and I think we still continually have the risk of losing sight of it because we can get everything in one place, because the information's so much easier and requires so much less effort in this way. But the value of that greater experience—the analog experience, this more human experience—isn't diminished simply because you don't have to step outside. What is the core of analog?16:19: We lose sight of the fact that the world is analog. The world is not digital. The planet that we're currently on, depending on where you are, is this physical, tactile thing that's the core of what analog is. And the computers, the ones and zeros, play a big role in certain parts of it.Who's driving the growth and interest in all things analog?18:12: I think generational generalization is this great lazy misstep that we always make around technology. [18:34] You know who's driving the growth and interest in all things analog. It's younger people—people who've grown up with this technology, right? Whether you look at the sales and vinyl records, whether you look at the pinball resurgence, whether you look at whatever it is, book sales, you know, all this sort of stuff, it's not people of my generation or your generation. It's those younger than us.On consuming technology wisely25:41: Plunging forward into the newest technology because it's possible and reorienting our lives around it because that's something that seems attractive or maybe there's an economic advantage or something that someone can sell is not something that we should do lightly.Show Links:Recommended Resources:The Inevitable by Kevin KellyGuest Profile:Speaker Profile on The Lavin AgencyDavid Sax WebsiteDavid Sax on TwitterDavid Sax on LinkedInHis Work:The Future Is Analog: How to Create a More Human WorldThe Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They MatterSave the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish DelicatessenThe Tastemakers: Why We're Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with FondueThe Soul of an Entrepreneur: Work and Life Beyond the Startup MythArticles on The New Yorker Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Questions around the possibilities and potential dangers of Artificial Intelligence cover the headlines these days, but are these actually new questions?Computer scientist Peter Norvig has been writing about AI and the ethics of data science for years. Before he was a professor at Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute, he worked for NASA and held a major consulting role at Google. His books, Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (4th Edition) and Data Science in Context: Foundations, Challenges, Opportunities, explore the theory and practice of AI and data science.Peter and Greg discuss the cyclical nature of new technology mania, the misconceptions of modern AI,  and the different ways companies could monetize these systems in the future. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Open source and AI Systems27:56: One reason to open source is if you have a vibrant open-source community, it's hard for one individual company to compete against that. One of the places I worked was Sun Microsystems. They had their own version of Unix. But that wasn't sustainable. You know, one company couldn't compete against the entire open-source Linux community. And I think companies see that. That'll be the same kind of thing with AI systems; if you try to be proprietary and go it alone, you'll fall behind the rest of the open source. And so, it's much better to participate with the open source than try to compete against it.The difference between AI and machine learning02:25: AI is trying to write programs that do intelligent things. Machine learning is doing that by showing examples. And the alternative to that is an older technology we call "expert systems", which means you use the blood, sweat, and tears of graduate students to write down pieces of knowledge by hand rather than trying to learn them.Data science is the intersection of statistics, machine learning and programming03:00: I think of data science as a combination of statistics or machine learning, the ability to do some programming, but not necessarily be a professional-level programmer. And then expertise in the particular type of data you have, whether that's biology, economics, or whatever the data is. And so, data science is the combination or intersection of those three aspects.Is there a possibility of generating revenue through subscriptions for big social media companies?35:39: As a society, we still haven't really understood or adapted to how digital works. And people are super willing to say, “I'm going to spend $50 or even a hundred dollars per month for some kind of physical good that I pay to my phone or cable provider.” But when it comes to paying a few pennies to read something on the internet, it's, “oh, no. Information wants to be free.” And I think we might be better off in a world where these assets were all aggregated, and you just paid for a subscription.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Billy BeaneBusiness Insider: The lawyer who used ChatGPT's fake legal cases in court said he was 'duped' by the AI, but a judge questioned how he didn't spot the 'legal gibberish'The New York Times: Google’s Photo App Still Can’t Find Gorillas. And Neither Can Apple’s The New York Times: A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettledrobots.txtMassive open online course (MOOC)Guest Profile:Faculty Profile at Stanford UniversityPeter Norvig's WebsitePeter Norvig on LinkedIn​​Peter Norvig on TEDTalkHis Work:Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (4th Edition)Data Science in Context: Foundations, Challenges, OpportunitiesMore scholarly articles Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Conversation and communication with others is a natural human urge, as well as a skill that can be developed and honed like any other. The power of conversation has been long known in society, and still, there are regular efforts to preserve and maintain the spaces and opportunities for genuine conversation in today’s world of screens and distractions.Paula Marantz Cohen is the Dean of the Pennoni Honors College and a Distinguished Professor of English at Drexel University. She is also the author of several books. Her latest, which is titled Talking Cure: An Essay on the Civilizing Power of Conversation, is all about the art of good conversation and examining how it connects us all. Paula and Greg discuss the connection with Sigmund Freud and her own book’s title, as well as the connections and differences between conversation and therapy. Paula sheds some light on good practices in conversation and how to carry on civilly on issues that parties disagree with or are controversial. Greg and Paula discuss dinner parties and the false idea that all professors were constantly having them. They discuss the differences between French and American culture and also the idea that there must be a conventional hero and villain in circumstances that may be more nuanced than that.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Are we professionalizing conversation by hiring people to have conversations with us?35:15: We're outsourcing conversation to our therapist. Yeah, that's a sad thing to think of because it also reflects the isolation of the individual. We're alone in ultimately anyway. And this seems to reinforce it further and make it less and less necessary to reach out to other people if we have that weekly appointment with the therapist whom we pay to listen to us and not agree with us but make us the center of focus. So that reinforces the fact that we don't really need anybody else to help us.Conversation is about the exercise of the mind47:34: I think we could sell conversation if we said it was about exercise for the mind, but then we might defeat the purpose.On forging bonds with people through conversation35:15: Finding points of divergence is a lot of fun. As long as goodwill is involved, as soon as there's animus involved, it's not fun anymore, and as soon as it becomes a matter of winning or losing, which is detrimental to conversation, I know people who can only converse or only discuss things they disagree with if they can win. And I didn't realize until recently that I just don't want to do that anymore.Why is dynamic so inherent in our nature?28:59: Many young people are trying desperately to get out of that dynamic of othering because they find it not virtuous. On the other hand, for the sake of intimacy, there has to be a little bit of that we versus they.Show Links:Recommended Resources:The Talking Cure by Sigmund FreudDale CarnegieThe Teagle FoundationSt. Johns Mathematics MethodGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Drexel UniversityProfessional Profile on Macmillan PublishersPaula Marantz Cohen's WebsitePaula Marantz Cohen on LinkedInHer Work:Talking Cure: An Essay on the Civilizing Power of ConversationOf Human Kindness: What Shakespeare Teaches Us About EmpathAlfred Hitchcock: The Legacy of VictorianismBeatrice Bunson's Guide to Romeo and Juliet: a novelSuzanne Davis Gets a LifeGetting Dressed: Confession, Criticism, Cultural HistoryWhat Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death, and the SATsJane Austen in Boca: A NovelSilent Film and the Triumph of the American MythBlogs for The American Scholar Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Courage is not a character trait that is limited to a select few but rather a skill that can be cultivated through deliberate practice.Unless we repetitively practice the high-stress, emotion-laden situations in which we aspire to be courageous, we will never magically become skillful in those moments.Jim Detert is a Professor in the Leadership and Organizational Behavior area at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and a Professor of Public Policy at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. In his book “Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work” he explores how to be 'competently courageous' so that our courage pays off for us and for our organizations.Jim and Greg talk about how to instill a habit of courage, how to overcome the fear of potential negative consequences work-wise or socially, and how to create accurate risk assessments when it comes to choosing the right battles. They also discuss the prevalent inconsistency within organizations that profess to value individuals with courage while, in actuality, demonstrating a reluctance to embrace them and how to change the structural policy and behavioral conditions to truly facilitate courage in the workplace.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:How do you power-through emotion-laden situations?35:25: If you're going to act skillfully in high-stress, emotion-laden situations, you have to practice in high-stress, emotion-laden situations. Practicing in a cognitively cool manner is what a lot of us do, and it's why most of us walk out of a room after and go 30 seconds later. Oh sh*t, I should have said this during the because what happens is your amygdala hijacks your executive functioning, and unless we practice repetitively trying to stay in the moment during that hijacking and tamp it down and act, we'll never just magically be skillful in those moments.In a true learning culture, nobody has to pretend they’re perfect19:27: In a true learning culture, nobody has to pretend they're perfect, and nobody has to pretend that they can't be corrected in public.The key to sorting out a troublemaker  23:42: If you were going to help a recruiter sort out the difference between a chronic troublemaker versus a legitimate truth-teller who simply wanted to draw its right and improve the organization, I think to me it's a matter of patterning. So if a person has had a pattern of successful jobs they've been in for some time and then has a single situation where they are able to explain why it didn't work out, that to me is different than a person who's had seven jobs in the last six years. And for whom every single organization has somehow been toxic and had a terrible boss. At some point, when you are the only consistent thing in a pattern of different situations, you're the problem.The role of leaders30:02: The role of leaders, particularly senior leaders, is to change the structural policy and behavioral conditions so that they get the learning behaviors they need without people thinking it's courageous.Show Links:Guest Profile:Faculty Profile at University of Virginia, Darden School of Business Professional Profile on Psychology TodayJim Detert's WebsiteJim Detert on LinkedInHis Work:Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at WorkJim Detert on Google Scholar Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When scientists game the system to get publishable results, it undermines the legitimacy of science.. Data can be interpreted many different ways and sliced into an infinite number of shapes, but specifically shaping your results to make them fit restrictions leads everyone down the wrong path. This is called torturing data, and it can look like cherry-picking participants or results for a study or getting your results first and then reverse engineering your hypothesis after the fact.Gary Smith is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics at Pomona College. He is also the author of several books on data and economics. His latest work, Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science, explores society’s general and specific instances of distrusting science in different ways.Greg and Gary discuss what nefarious things go on when scientists focus on keeping low P Values. They discuss the distinctions between correlation and causation that an AI might not be able to distinguish and the work in that area of Diedrik Stapel. Gary discusses data mining and HARKing. Gary and Greg discuss the difference in importance and feasibility of both backcasting and forecasting with markets, what makes ChatGPT work under the hood, and the real advantage that Warren Buffet has in investing.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The future of education with large language models50:22: We may be going to a world where my ChatGPT talks to your ChatGPT, but I hope not. And in most jobs, you have to communicate, you have to write reports that are persuasive, coherent, and factually correct. And sometimes you have to get up, speak and talk. And in some of my classes, a lot of the things I do are group projects where they work on things outside of class, then they come into class, stand up, and present the results, kind of like a real-world business situation. And the large language models are not going to take that over. And I think if education switches more to that model, teaching critical thinking, working on projects, communicating results, education's going to actually get better. It's not going to destroy education.Underestimating our capacity as human beings29:27: The problem today is not that computers are smarter than us. But we think they're smarter than us, and we trust them to make decisions they shouldn't be trusted to make. Data mining is a vice23:02: The problem is these computer algorithms they're good at finding patterns—statistical patterns—but they have no way of judging, assessing whether it makes any sense or not. They have no way of assessing whether that is likely to be a meaningful or meaningless thing. And too many people think that data mining is a virtue. And I continue to consider it a vice.The danger of large language models46:53: The real danger of large language models is not that they're going to take over the world but that we're going to trust them too much and start making decisions they shouldn't be making.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Ronald FisherAndrew GelmanNYT article about Diedrik StapelP-Value HackingHARKing Wikipedia PageDaryl Bem Wikipedia PageChatGPTGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Pomona CollegeGary Smith's WebsiteGary Smith on LinkedInGary Smith on TwitterHis Work:Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on ScienceStandard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with StatisticsThe Phantom Pattern Problem: The Mirage of Big DataWhat the Luck?: The Surprising Role of Chance in Our Everyday LivesThe 9 Pitfalls of Data ScienceThe AI DelusionMoney Machine: The Surprisingly Simple Power of Value InvestingYour Home Dividend: Why Buying A Home May Be the Best Investment You'll Ever MakeThe Art and Science of InvestingGary Smith on Google ScholarArticles on Discovery Institute Articles on Salon Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.