00:00hi everyone welcome to the a 6 in z
00:02podcast i'm sonal today we have a really
00:05interesting topic which is all about
00:06wearables quantified self biohacking and
00:10you know all three of those are actually
00:11related concepts and joining us to have
00:14we have Rachel Kumar and she is
00:17currently at the Berkman Kline Center at
00:19Harvard University and I actually met
00:20Rachel a few years ago when she was at
00:23misfit and I was at wired and misfit was
00:25a wearables company and the thing that
00:26struck me most Rachel was that you had
00:28like six watches on each hand or like
00:31some number I think my peak was 38
00:33devices that I wore everyday I'm down to
00:37seven now which is a very reasonable
00:40amount and then we have Jeffery woo
00:42who's the co-founder and CEO of nutri
00:44box last but not least we have Gary wolf
00:47the founder of the quantified self
00:49movement welcome guys I think the first
00:52thing is like why do you guys care about
00:54this topic I guess yeah I Cara because
00:57our humanity our our system is the most
01:00important asset that we have and by
01:02system you mean body our body yeah I
01:03think we all want to live longer I mean
01:05I think this is a very human instinct
01:07Cortez finding the Fountain of Youth I
01:09think what's interesting with quantified
01:11self measuring biometrics biohacking is
01:15that we finally now have the tools and
01:16the sensors actually quantify and
01:19measure the inputs and outputs of the
01:20human system so let's apply engineering
01:23perspective to the human biology that's
01:27nutrition where you're framing it I'm
01:28Gary I care to hear your thoughts you're
01:30the one who coined the phrase quantified
01:32self how did you think of it now in
01:34daily life we can apply some techniques
01:36that used to be really professional
01:38techniques that engineers and scientists
01:40would use but we're very difficult for
01:43most people to use these have been
01:45packaged into software even just storing
01:48the data is a lot easier so much easier
01:50to track what's going on so all of this
01:54empirical toolkit is now available to us
01:57when we want to think about something
01:58and yet we actually don't know very much
02:01about what works and what doesn't work
02:04even in improving the daily aspects of
02:08never mind kind of the impossible dreams
02:11that are in front of us and to pay daily
02:13something if concrete is how we sleep
02:15right exactly exactly how we sleep how
02:19we feel go to any bookstore and you'll
02:21see shelf after shelf of ideas about
02:25things that are supposed to dramatically
02:27improve our lives most of these ideas
02:30are tried without any attempt to
02:34carefully measure whether they work for
02:37us or not and you may think that that
02:39that sort of failure to follow up and
02:41failure to reason carefully about our
02:43actions typifies just New Age stuff or
02:48self-help stuff but let me tell you even
02:50in the world of professional science the
02:54drugs that we take there's really a lack
02:57of ability to carefully think about how
03:03these affect us as individuals even if
03:07we have good evidence at the group level
03:10often what we care about most is did it
03:13work for me and also what price did I
03:15pay in terms of say side effects and all
03:19of these areas are now sort of
03:21dramatically accessible to us in a way
03:22that they never have been before right
03:24so I'm hearing this theme of being able
03:26to link inputs to outputs and for the
03:28first time because of all the
03:29information and tools we have that we
03:32have this ability to do this Rachel you
03:34haven't shared your framing yet for how
03:35you think about this world and arrive to
03:37it because when I think of send
03:38certification wearables are a big part
03:40of that and you're a leader in thinking
03:42about wearables you got your PhD at
03:43Stanford neuroscience yeah if I spent 12
03:47years looking at noisy signals from the
03:49brain and trying to understand how the
03:51brain produces behavior the thing about
03:53neuroscience is that most of it is done
03:56in a lab environment right now but what
03:59we really care about is behavior in the
04:02real world and up until you know the
04:05last like 5-10 years it was really
04:09difficult to get data about behavior in
04:11the real world and now all of the tools
04:14that have been coming online provide us
04:16a way to be able to actually collect
04:19data about our daily patterns and what
04:23we do and that not only will would be
04:25helpful for understand
04:27how the brain works but it is really
04:29important for medicine as well we can
04:32take this data that right now is more in
04:35the health and fitness based look at in
04:37the longitudinal sense and tie it
04:39together with clinically relevant
04:41outcomes that's going to allow us to
04:43have better predictive models of health
04:45and disease imagine that we're driving
04:48cars and we only let ourselves open our
04:50eyes every minute and that's essentially
04:52like the snapshot of information we get
04:54when we go to the doctor right we get
04:56our panels and then a doctor's like hey
04:58course-correct with this XYZ right
05:01that's like us you know jerking the
05:03steering wheel I heard in another
05:04podcast about a health feedback loop for
05:06Humanity we have more signals that we
05:08use to recommend movies to us than we do
05:11for how did like take care of our body
05:13exactly a lot of these continuous
05:15measuring allows us to be constantly
05:18correcting we should be manipulating our
05:20health and wellness on a continuous
05:23basis not a snapshot basis that's what I
05:25think about with nootropics and
05:27biohacking we have interventions
05:29entering as inputs into the human system
05:31and you know we have sort of noisy
05:35signal coming out whether that's working
05:36or not well to really solve and answer
05:39these questions on a rigorous level we
05:41have to actually close a loop here
05:42finally with concepts from quantified
05:45self with wearables with sensors we can
05:47actually finally close the loop you talk
05:49about we but it's really in this podcast
05:51I saw three of you guys how do you think
05:53about this as moving beyond early
05:54adopters what do you think the obstacles
05:56and challenges are to actually making it
05:58more mainstream I mean Gary the
06:00quantified self aspect of this like 20
06:01years ago I and Rachel you've been
06:03studying this like 12 years I think
06:05including your time at Stanford what are
06:06your thoughts for making it just
06:07something that like really motivated
06:09people do I think about this as they get
06:13cell phones or cell phone cameras as
06:15they became cheaper and more and more
06:17people have them and cell phone cameras
06:20also used to be pretty poor quality
06:23photos but at the end of the day the
06:26best camera is the one that you have and
06:28so people kept using their cell phone
06:30cameras and they got better and better
06:31and now most of us don't own regular
06:35cameras we just use our cell phone the
06:37devices that we wear are on a similar
06:41now we're in poor quality photo phase
06:44over time they're going to be better
06:47resolution and they're going to be used
06:50by more people but I also think in
06:53passive ways that don't necessarily
06:56require engagement a lot of the tracking
06:58will be invisible which is different
07:01from the quantified self there will
07:02always be room for people who want to be
07:04engaged and people who will have these
07:08this data collection happening in the
07:10background that's actually a really
07:12great analogy I mean even in more of an
07:13original analogy of homebrew computing
07:15club computer hackers right these were
07:17garage tinkerers and now everyone has a
07:19super computer in their pocket so
07:21echoing Rachel I think a lot of these
07:23schemes will become a lot more passive
07:25I've been wearing continuous glucose
07:26monitors designed for diabetics are you
07:28diabetic I mean I'm not okay but I use
07:31it to understand my blood glucose levels
07:33and how it responds to fasting how
07:34responds to ketogenic diets versus you
07:37know a more carb right meal because I
07:40think we all intuitively understand a
07:41certain routine or regimen or sometimes
07:44you feel better or worse and I think
07:46reflecting why we care about collecting
07:47this and in the first place let's
07:49actually get quantified to all the
07:52possible inputs that could contribute to
07:54us a mental state of probably or sloth I
07:57mean it's like high resolution right now
07:58I eat something heavy for lunch and I'm
08:00like oh crap I'm very tired it's
08:02intuitive but I understand that right
08:05exactly that but Gary you've got the
08:07longest vantage point of us in terms of
08:09what worked then and now like do you see
08:11much difference in the community
08:13genuinely for the community that you
08:14engage with I do I'm interested in
08:18quantified self as a cultural phenomenon
08:21and cultural change has a certain time
08:24scale that seems fast
08:27in retrospect but slow if you for
08:31instance have to deliver returns to your
08:33investors you know in a few years and I
08:37think quantified self has two meanings
08:40on the one hand it's used as shorthand
08:44for a market and the market is you know
08:48wearables and fitness devices on the
08:51other hand the quantified self is an
08:54people doing real things and interacting
08:56with each other developing methods and
08:59sharing knowledge the market is much
09:02bigger and Fitbit alone you know has
09:05well over 20 million active users so
09:08this is a lot of people it's not you
09:10know just a very small you know group of
09:14advanced users right
09:15however quantified self as a community
09:18is much much smaller than that and that
09:22makes sense to me because to be
09:24motivated to use these tools to make a
09:29new discovery you have to have a
09:31question that is really driving you and
09:33fortunately we're not compelled to
09:36really really think hard about something
09:37that's really really bothering us all
09:40right that would be that would be no
09:42good if that were the general condition
09:44that humans lived in but none of us get
09:47away with a whole life without having
09:49something that we have to think about in
09:51which the off-the-shelf solutions aren't
09:54working you know we might have tried one
09:56or two things that seem kind of obvious
09:57but something didn't work and we have a
09:59questions in our mind so we use our
10:01brain and we use our tools that are
10:03available to us to observe and to make
10:05changes in that dimension the dimension
10:07of how do we reason about ourselves and
10:10make discoveries about the things that
10:11are really important to us even if you
10:13imagine just for the sake of a kind of
10:16quick little heuristic that only you a
10:19tenth of a percent of the people who are
10:22actively using some wearable technology
10:25are engaged in a process that you might
10:28describe as a quantified self process of
10:31reasoning with their data that's still
10:34tens of thousands of people even today
10:37growing ultimately into hundreds of
10:39thousands of people yeah and for
10:42cultural change think about something
10:44like Wikipedia or other novel forms new
10:47forms of knowledge making that one tenth
10:50of a percent at any given time is
10:52generating material that's really useful
10:56to many other people yeah sort of a
10:58multiplicative effect yeah I think
10:59seeing this cultural dynamic is really
11:03what's important in understanding how
11:04quantified self will change the general
11:08well that's actually really interesting
11:09because nootropic sort of spawn on
11:11reddit as a community that is sort of
11:13the equivalent of sort of this very
11:14engaged base as creating knowledge for
11:17people in public but I have a push back
11:19which is I buy the argument that things
11:22that are early trends they start small
11:24and they grow big I buy the argument
11:25that it highly engaged group of people
11:27can help drive that I also think people
11:30are very lazy fundamentally and very
11:32resistant to change and sometimes change
11:35does happen upon them passively to quote
11:37a word used earlier but people wear it
11:38wearable and they don't do anything with
11:40that data because it's very easy to
11:41optimize for one half of this and you
11:43kind of treat the act of doing it as the
11:45act itself it's as if you've already
11:47done it so I think that that's
11:49completely right and that's why we're
11:51seeing a bit tapering in the wearables
11:55area like it's not the beginning of the
11:58end of wearables right now I think that
12:00we're at the end of the beginning so the
12:02way that I like to think about this is I
12:04like to compare all of these devices to
12:06Mills that are turning into flour and
12:10instead of flour they're producing data
12:12and some people say hey I love to bake I
12:15have data like now I know exactly how
12:18I'm gonna answer these questions about
12:20myself this is great most people say
12:22okay I have flour but I don't think I
12:24want a cookie where's my cookie and the
12:27the challenge is that there aren't
12:30cookies yet and that's not the fault of
12:33any one company it's just a reflection
12:36of where the field is we're still in
12:38that really day is we have the the
12:39crappiest cell phone cameras of the
12:42the quantified self community people are
12:45swapping recipes and figuring out how to
12:47make cookies but we haven't figured out
12:48kind of the mass cookie recipe that
12:52works for everybody I think that what a
12:56cookie will look like will be acts and
12:58services built on top of this data that
13:00don't require people to look at the data
13:03predictive model of like hey you're at
13:06risk for a heart attack because we've
13:08seen in all of the populations like you
13:11that preceding heart attacks this is
13:13what it'll look like that will be one
13:16path when we can tie these things to
13:18clinically relevant outcomes
13:21another pack will be closing feedback
13:23loops automatically so without the
13:26person in the loop the mood ring that
13:29would monitor how much exposure I've had
13:31to light and instead of going through
13:34the seasonal affective disorder kind of
13:37a funk where you wonder what's wrong
13:40with you you could just have this mood
13:42ring you talk to the lighting in your
13:43house they could automatically
13:45compensate and you wouldn't have to go
13:47through that cycle every fall you're
13:50talking about about closing the feedback
13:51loop and that's one of the cookies with
13:53predictive models another cookie what
13:56about design let me design plays across
13:57all of this do you guys have any
13:59thoughts on the design aspect one thing
14:00that I've been thinking about a lot is
14:02that wearables are interesting but could
14:06the sensors be in the environment around
14:08you so for example could you imagine and
14:11you know a futuristic clinic gym or you
14:14know instead of going to the urinal and
14:16you're peeing away all this data you're
14:19collecting all your you know your feces
14:21your urine and you're having your
14:22microbiome sequence then and there a bio
14:24fund which is a distinct fun from this
14:27conversation one of the things that they
14:28said is that they think the bathroom is
14:31actually the ultimate diagnostic of the
14:33future it yeah exactly but it's the
14:36ultimate input/output you know literally
14:39just speaking of vehicles at the vehicle
14:42like that your car is another great
14:44place for monitoring you're a captive
14:46audience you can have sensors and a
14:48steering wheel you can have cameras that
14:51are pointed towards your face because
14:53you're you're facing in the same
14:54direction there are a number of car
14:56manufacturers who are adding at these
14:58kinds of sensors in the car whether
15:00we're using driving looking at
15:02drowsiness etc I guess in the same way
15:05as the bathroom is piggybacking on
15:07something that you already do sitting in
15:09a car something that you already do well
15:12there's a best practice in design which
15:15is to get deeply involved with the users
15:19of the products there are often some
15:22really unexpected discoveries that you
15:24make when you when you bring yourself
15:25close to that situation a range of
15:28questions that isn't very well described
15:30by the optimization culture of Silicon
15:35and so I would say that it would be a
15:38useful exercise to stand a little bit
15:40closer to the reality of many many many
15:44other people and listen to how they
15:47describe the questions that are really
15:50on their minds and just to give you an
15:52example of that many people are deeply
15:58involved in caring for other people and
16:00in doing that caregiving and caretaking
16:03they often deprioritize some things like
16:06how much time they spend at the gym and
16:08how closely they monitor what they eat
16:10and yet they take those values family
16:13values and community values to actually
16:15be superior so in their minds they they
16:18make a choice that is a conscious choice
16:20and a justified choice in which their
16:23physical health is sometimes sacrificed
16:25in terms of designing products or
16:27designing services I do think it's
16:30important to start pretty far upstream
16:32with an attitude of kind of
16:33open-mindedness and and respect to the
16:36variety of circumstances in which users
16:38of those products may find themselves I
16:39come from the world of ethnography and
16:41ethnographic methods are critical
16:43because you're not relying on like user
16:45studies of what people say they want or
16:47do but you're actually observing them in
16:49their natural behaviors and their
16:51natural habitat and then then designing
16:53the individual as part of this larger
16:55ecosystem to your point are they a
16:56caregiver or they caretaker
16:58mother-father aging parents it could be
17:00any you know permutation thinking about
17:03technology and context is pretty
17:04critical for adoption I mean that's how
17:07the GUI came about but you're really
17:08embedded in this perspective of how
17:10people are actually using it Geoffrey
17:11you referenced the homebrew club earlier
17:13but the reality is it's only when people
17:15started thinking about okay how do we
17:17make this like for kids to be able to
17:18use computers I think it has to be super
17:21passive for 90% of people to use it so
17:24things like continuous glucose
17:25monitoring you don't need to worry about
17:26it you pulled that off yeah or to
17:28Rachel's point earlier building and an
17:29existing things like grafting it onto
17:31cars grafting it onto gyms it's James
17:35right exactly and then the only thing
17:36you can make active you have to make it
17:38feel good under the day you have some
17:39sort of closed reward loop a lot of
17:41people that like exercising it feels
17:43good to do that X G and that a 15 minute
17:46run or when you're fasting it feels
17:48good to you know get into ketosis make
17:51sure that they actually have some sort
17:52of like game of fides yeah communication
17:54mechanic right sometimes feeling good is
17:56its own reward but it doesn't hurt like
17:58my favorite thing it was a to-do list
17:59and being able to check it off it's like
18:01the most satisfying thing in the world
18:03it was a very minor thing but right it's
18:04a perfect example of how you can design
18:06for and we make one quick comment if you
18:08think about your idea about sense
18:09certifying the environment not just like
18:11the wearables the first thing that went
18:12through my head is what is a baby
18:14monitor in a baby's room but that it's
18:17literally putting visual sensors it's
18:19actually a way of demystifying this like
18:21scary idea this augmented vision into a
18:23child's room yeah no I think it's a good
18:25that's a good example this is a good
18:27moment to just do a quick terminology
18:29check Gary you define quantified self in
18:31terms of the market and the community
18:33but like what is quantified self itself
18:35well what are the ways to think about
18:36quantified self is as a a variation on
18:40the words personal computing quantified
18:44really is a synonym for computing by
18:49quantified we don't just mean it has a
18:51numeral but we mean that it's
18:55observations are structured in such a
18:57way that they can that you can use some
19:00of the techniques of science and
19:02technology to work with them so that's
19:04quantified yeah and in the self is a
19:06synonym for personal it's a usefully
19:09ambiguous word that concentrates all of
19:12the most important and often implicit
19:14things that we care about but the
19:17difference between personal computing
19:18and quantified self is that personal
19:21computing is a category of computing
19:24computing is the noun and personal is
19:27the adjective quantified self is really
19:29a way of thinking about the self and the
19:32computing or the technology that's in
19:34the term is a way of thinking that's
19:37connected to lots of other ways people
19:39have thought about themselves throughout
19:41history it's so interesting because it's
19:43the inversion of personal computing but
19:44much more than that Geoffrey you
19:46referenced some other quick keywords
19:50are compounds that have cognitive
19:52enhancing aspects in colloquial use and
19:56nootropics or anything that enhances
19:57cognitive performance it's not like a
19:59pharmaceutical drug well I think
20:02orthogonal to legality there are you
20:04know scheduled drugs supplements and
20:07then drugs prescribed drugs think of
20:09them as orthogonal pieces okay so that's
20:11nootropics you said ketones a few times
20:12so our bodies produce energy ATP using
20:17either glucose through a process called
20:19glycolysis or what's typically sort of a
20:22back up turbocharged state which is
20:24using ketosis which develops ketones so
20:27ketones are compounds that are broken
20:29down from fat and our cells can use that
20:31to create ATP and it's very interesting
20:32because a lot of emerging data on
20:35ketones being more efficient for
20:37mitochondria to produce energy you
20:39actually get more power per unit carbon
20:42using ketones as opposed to glucose so
20:44that's been very interesting from about
20:46Hawking perspective of how to use
20:48ketones potentially as a more efficient
20:50fuel for various performance and how do
20:52you define biohacking biohacking to me
20:55is approaching the human system from an
20:59engineer's perspective so being very
21:01thoughtful or algorithmic about inputs
21:03to maximize certain output Rachel how
21:05would you define wearables I'd say that
21:07generally they're electronics that you
21:09wear although I have an antique Tiffany
21:14pedometer from the late 18-hundreds
21:17which is completely mechanical so I'd
21:22say that wearables are anything that you
21:23wear that can help track or interact
21:27with the world we have fitness trackers
21:30and activity trackers as one category of
21:33wearables another category that's
21:36becoming more popular now are curable
21:38use our headphones that often have
21:42sensors and then I recently got a
21:45Kickstarter pair of Hero Bulls called VI
21:49they do a lot of the biosensing that is
21:52done on your wrist elsewhere and they
21:54also have an AI coach and so the goal of
21:59is to to move towards like augmented
22:02reality for your auditory system so like
22:06in the movie fur so here bulls is
22:08another category of wearables and then
22:10headsets like emotive and things like
22:12that where does that fit in the mass of
22:13wearable obviously but like is that just
22:15like its own category
22:16so I think anything that you wear on
22:18your body that collects data about you
22:20or allows you to interact with other
22:22devices could be a wearable it's
22:26interesting to see the different
22:27categories of wearables it's not just
22:29activity trackers obviously virtual and
22:32augmented reality is another category of
22:35wearable Google glass paved the way for
22:37wearing wearables on your face I have
22:41the new snap spectacles and I just
22:44collected a lot of interesting and I
22:46level videos on my recent trip to Rome
22:49yeah I mean I wear Ringley eyewear
22:52Ringley which full disclosures and a
22:53sixth sense a company but I actually
22:54knew her before which is she's basically
22:56a ring that does notifications they also
22:58have bracelets with the now a fitness
23:00tracker built in but my number one thing
23:03fundamentally about the fashion is
23:05wearing a piece of jewelry to me and
23:07that to me is what makes like a wearable
23:08more ubiquitous which is what I love
23:10that you mentioned and reference now
23:11because we don't have to think about
23:12these big clunky ugly look 18 a Tiffany
23:14$4 that's that's quite I want to see
23:17that I'm wearing a ring that's an
23:20antique watch we should actually share
23:21photos right after people wear things
23:24for all sorts of reasons but if we were
23:26things just for utility so we'd probably
23:30be walking around wearing like our
23:32workout clothes and our running shoes
23:35all of the time and so this goes back to
23:37what we're saying before of like
23:38understanding your users is really
23:40important if you can't get somebody to
23:42wear the device that you build none of
23:46the sophisticated algorithms and that
23:50you have matter at all I totally agree I
23:52mean it's the broader theme of this
23:53conversation to which is about changing
23:55culture people have been wearing totemic
23:56objects for ages that have no function
23:58except maybe signaling for how many
24:00calories you have on your necklace I
24:02think just like I think reflecting back
24:03to maybe why it's a slow adoption I
24:07think I think Gary's point is spot-on
24:09culture takes a long time the shift I
24:11think one interesting notion is that
24:13we're probably the sickest cohort of
24:14humans in the history of humanity if you
24:16look at obesity Alzheimer's diabetes I
24:18think that one of the latest statistics
24:20up to some high percent of Americans are
24:21pretty to be obese by 2050 which is
24:24insane yeah but so you're saying a
24:26majority of our country will be
24:30the only little piece in just like a few
24:32years yeah yeah and I think that this
24:34from a historical perspective going to
24:37Jim is only a recent phenomena in the
24:40physical labor was just a part of our
24:43livelihoods for most of human
24:45civilization yeah and now we have to
24:48make an intervention of exercise back
24:50into what we're contriving because of
24:52change and you know look the way we work
24:53and live today like the fact that we
24:55have standing desks right and I think if
24:57we constantly eat maybe you know
24:59intermittent fasting is interesting sure
25:00intervention we're all gonna be tracking
25:02our blood glucose or insulin responses
25:04hmm I think that could be something that
25:07brings quantified self from more of a
25:09niche activity to be a standard protocol
25:12for people who live by it's a natural
25:13evolution of etiquette and culture as
25:15innovation happens Rachel you mentioned
25:17noisy signals you into a quick short
25:18definition on that if you knew the
25:20ground truth say how many steps you've
25:22actually walked today that would be
25:25great but it that's not possible until
25:27all of your different devices have
25:28different algorithms that they're
25:30running and so you have multiple noisy
25:32views of some underlying round truth and
25:36so one way I like to think about this
25:38especially with respect to health care I
25:42like to think of going to a doctor's
25:44visit is going to have a studio portrait
25:47taken like a professional portrait where
25:49the lighting is right and they know how
25:52to pose you and a lot of the digital
25:54health tools that we have are much more
25:58like selfies taken on on an old cell
26:02phone which are not really great quality
26:05photos but they can taken together with
26:08the studio quality portraits they add
26:12more information and if you take all of
26:14the the noisy snapshots of your life it
26:16will give you a better picture of what
26:19your life is actually like than who only
26:21had high quality studio portraits you
26:23have the best analogies are there any
26:24parting thoughts on what and what's next
26:27or what you want listeners to like leave
26:29with after hearing your viewpoint on
26:31this podcast well I would just say that
26:33if you have something that's bothering
26:35you a question that's hard to answer you
26:38could try some empirical approaches what
26:40are the most interesting things that
26:41you're tracking now like what's most
26:43for you the thing I'm most excited about
26:45is I did just get a freestyle Libre Pro
26:48arrived in the mail and so I'm looking
26:50forward to learning about my glucose
26:52levels what is that it's glucose monitor
26:54CD i'm right very using that yeah I
26:59think that continuous biometric data is
27:03going to be inevitable data can be used
27:06there's dystopic versions of how to use
27:09this data but the status quo as is is
27:11pretty dystopic where everyone's obese
27:13so I'm just excited or at least hopeful
27:16optimistic that the more data that we
27:18have the better decisions we can make to
27:20improve not just ourselves but the size
27:22society around us the interesting thing
27:24around the social dynamics around
27:26biohacking a nootropic said that that
27:28has always been two veins of groups when
27:31you have the community base and these
27:33are people doing N equals one self
27:35experiments and then you have academia
27:38that's being funded by Department of
27:40Defense or DARPA to create super
27:43soldiers are just more enhance humans
27:45and I think where this interesting point
27:47where these two different groups are
27:50really converging to one so we can start
27:52seeing some of these military you know
27:54research you know blue sky idea is being
27:57productized and something that can be in
27:58consumer hands that's actually the
28:00inevitable progression of technology too
28:01right cuz like you have like things like
28:03the homebrew club which sort of took
28:04like this DARPA base like you know
28:06centralized notion of computing and then
28:08you also have like the communities of
28:10personal computing you know PC
28:12enthusiasts right and the mainstream and
28:14we are an interesting point I think with
28:15technology in general where we're seeing
28:18a lot of this where there are certain
28:20things that are being developed at a
28:21government level and like people at a
28:22consumer level are plugging into that in
28:24different ways which I think is really
28:25relevant yeah one of the things that we
28:28have to figure out as a society is how
28:32do we think about some of the questions
28:34about what happens when our entire lives
28:38are monitored not just by our wearables
28:40but by our home and bathrooms by our
28:43cars wearables are changing and evolving
28:47but they're not going to go away what
28:49kinds of systems do we want to have set
28:54up such that we were
28:56protected further down the line so we
28:59have Gina the genomic information
29:01non-discrimination Act which prevents
29:04your genomic information from being used
29:07against you in certain ways but all of
29:09this data that we're collecting now I
29:11like to think about it in the same way
29:14that in the nineteen fifties and sixties
29:17x-rays were used and the shoe stores you
29:22could go in and have an x-ray taken of
29:24your foot to see if the shoe fit well
29:26and it was this novelty but over time we
29:29realized that they were actually very
29:31dangerous side effects the x-rays and it
29:34didn't mean that the x-rays shouldn't be
29:36used or should be outlawed completely
29:38but that there were particular
29:41circumstances in which we should use
29:43x-rays but we also needed to exercise
29:45caution and I think that we're going to
29:47realize that data is a lot like x-rays
29:51in that there are very many positive
29:55benefits that we will be able to get out
29:58of having this data but it's also
30:00important to exercise some amount of
30:04caution because data has become
30:06permanent and once it exists about us
30:08it's there and there going to be a lot
30:12of potentially dystopian the kinds of
30:15features that might come up that and so
30:18I'd say that for even if you think that
30:22you're not collecting data about
30:24yourself it's being collected anyway and
30:27so it's important to think about some of
30:29the longer-term implications of that you
30:32can avoid it so how do we think about
30:35moving forward positively I'm so glad
30:38you brought that up because you know I
30:39one of the things that I don't like is
30:41when we preemptively decide things
30:42before there's heard this permissionless
30:45innovation and creativity that can
30:46happen but to your point we absolutely
30:48have to be more thoughtful about those
30:51consequences I mean one great example at
30:53a very evolutionary scale this
30:54conversation we had Yuval her Ari on
30:56this podcast and he's the author sapiens
30:58and Homo Deus and one of the big things
31:00that he pointed out is like where as we
31:02enter a world where we may be able to
31:03augment ourselves with technology it
31:05could actually entrench inequalities
31:06because a certain class of people might
31:09be able to afford a certain class
31:10devices or augmentation that other
31:13people might not and in fact what was
31:15previously you know an inequality of you
31:17know societal cultural level becomes a
31:19technological one then and then one that
31:21actually really affects outcomes if it
31:23escape velocity the richer yet yeah
31:25everything exactly so to your pointers
31:28responsibility to data there's this
31:29broader question of things connected to
31:31surveillance and privacy and then of
31:33course a larger consideration around
31:35inclusion so that making sure that a
31:37certain elite class isn't the only one
31:39benefiting from such technologies okay
31:42well thank you for joining the a 6nz
31:43podcast thanks Mel thank you thank you
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