# Somebody is Watching (with Nita Farahany)

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 13 Jan 2026, 41 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69325575/podcast853_somebodywatchingyou.mp3

Professor Nita Farahany of Duke Law is an expert on the implications of new technologies on society, law, ethics, and privacy. We spoke about today's culture of smart tech and surveillance. VIDEO of this conversation Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
[0:19] Speaker 1: tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not because.
[0:22] Speaker 2: I put my hand on a book and made a.
[0:24] Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 3: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness. Truth,
[0:32] Speaker 3: Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 3: Beyond the craziness of the political scene today, I can't
[0:59] Speaker 3: think of a conversation more relevant. As we talk about
[1:02] Speaker 3: smart technologies and cognitive privacy. You and I are surrounded
[1:08] Speaker 3: by smart tech algorithms, computers, phones, watches, fitbits, wearables of
[1:13] Speaker 3: other kinds, webcams, sensors, smart home devices, surveillance cameras, retina
[1:20] Speaker 3: and fingerprint scanners, implantable brain chips, the wild West of
[1:26] Speaker 3: AI and chat bons, and employees whose bodily functions are
[1:32] Speaker 3: monitored by companies using wearable technologies. All of this speaks
[1:37] Speaker 3: to the question of whether we have sacrificed too much
[1:40] Speaker 3: of ourselves, our autonomy and privacy on the altar of convenience.
[1:45] Speaker 3: So that's what today's conversation is going to be about.
[1:48] Speaker 3: There is a video link for the YouTube version in
[1:52] Speaker 3: the description box. My guest today, Nita Farahunt is a
[2:01] Speaker 3: leading scholar on ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging technologies,
[2:07] Speaker 3: which all sounds very fancy, and we're going to get
[2:09] Speaker 3: into that. She is a professor of law and philosophy
[2:12] Speaker 3: at Duke University. She is author of the twenty twenty
[2:16] Speaker 3: three book called The Battle for Your Brain, Defending the
[2:19] Speaker 3: right to think freely in the age of neuro technology.
[2:24] Speaker 3: I wanted to talk about privacy, about our brains, maybe
[2:28] Speaker 3: get into some AI with Professor Farahani, so I've invited
[2:32] Speaker 3: her back. Welcome, good to see you.
[2:34] Speaker 2: It's great to see you again.
[2:36] Speaker 3: So is it an insult if I call you Nita?
[2:37] Speaker 3: Would that be? Okay?
[2:38] Speaker 1: No?
[2:39] Speaker 3: Welcome, thank you, professor, distinguished Professor Nita. Okay. First of all,
[2:45] Speaker 3: I hesitated doing the show without the proper equipment for
[2:50] Speaker 3: cognitive protection. So I did have one of.
[2:53] Speaker 2: These major neurosecurity dot org as you know, just in case,
[2:58] Speaker 2: so I might just like brand that.
[3:01] Speaker 3: For you ner. Someone came up with the idea that
[3:04] Speaker 3: this thin piece of aluminum foil would protect me. But
[3:07] Speaker 3: I've become a desperate man, and I will admit that
[3:11] Speaker 3: I'm part of the problem. Like I say this with
[3:14] Speaker 3: a measure of resignation. I have been conditioned. I've sold
[3:17] Speaker 3: my soul to the tech bros, you know, to big
[3:21] Speaker 3: tech et cetera, for access. Google's got my passwords. My
[3:25] Speaker 3: phone is spying on me, I think, because I can
[3:28] Speaker 3: say a word and all of a sudden, an ad
[3:31] Speaker 3: for that word pops up. Whatever it was my Amazon Echo, Nita,
[3:35] Speaker 3: I have put an active listening device in my bedroom. Like,
[3:39] Speaker 3: what's wrong with that? Is there even a thing known
[3:43] Speaker 3: as privacy? Does privacy even exist anymore?
[3:47] Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean it's a good question. Like, look, the
[3:50] Speaker 2: first generation, which is what I'll call it, like kind
[3:53] Speaker 2: of the two thousand and seven to now, from the
[3:57] Speaker 2: iPhone until now of ubiquitous technology, is really the world
[4:01] Speaker 2: in which we've increasingly seeded any privacy to big tech
[4:05] Speaker 2: and corporations, you know, and people do it with to
[4:10] Speaker 2: your point, a kind of degree of resignation, a belief
[4:13] Speaker 2: that the only way that you have access to technology
[4:15] Speaker 2: is by giving up all of your privacy rights so
[4:17] Speaker 2: that all of your data can be commodified about you
[4:19] Speaker 2: for purposes of advertisement. I do think there's still some
[4:23] Speaker 2: privacy left, Like what you're thinking is still something that
[4:27] Speaker 2: ideally you can keep private. When you walk into my
[4:30] Speaker 2: house and you see that I have an orange couch
[4:32] Speaker 2: and you think it's really unattractive, you can probably keep
[4:36] Speaker 2: that opinion to yourself. You might not, but other people
[4:39] Speaker 2: might be able to keep it to themselves. So you know,
[4:41] Speaker 2: there is a modicum of privacy. There's mental privacy in
[4:45] Speaker 2: some respect, but in many ways it's been eroded across
[4:48] Speaker 2: the board.
[4:49] Speaker 3: Do you think that the terms of service to you
[4:52] Speaker 3: as all these platforms is designed to make us check out?
[4:55] Speaker 3: Or is the issue that complicated? And does anyone read them?
[4:59] Speaker 3: I guess is the question.
[5:00] Speaker 2: Nobody reads it? Terms of service, right, I mean, just
[5:02] Speaker 2: to be clear, like, and they are essentially binding contracts, right.
[5:06] Speaker 2: It's basically like you can either have access to the
[5:08] Speaker 2: world and like an ability to participate in the world
[5:13] Speaker 2: by accepting our terms of service, or you can't participate
[5:16] Speaker 2: in the world and you're excluded from modern society. So
[5:20] Speaker 2: I don't really think that terms of service do much.
[5:23] Speaker 2: I think default rules are really what give you protection,
[5:27] Speaker 2: and we don't really have much by way of default
[5:29] Speaker 2: rules that give people data rights or rights ast misuse
[5:33] Speaker 2: of their data. In the United States.
[5:35] Speaker 3: Have you seen the two thousand and two Steven Spielberg
[5:37] Speaker 3: film Minority Report?
[5:39] Speaker 2: Of course yes. In fact, like when I was teaching
[5:42] Speaker 2: criminal law, you know, I would kind of like first
[5:45] Speaker 2: day of class, who has seen Minority Report. There's fewer
[5:48] Speaker 2: and fewer students who have heard of the film, but
[5:50] Speaker 2: I tell them that it's like first week homework that
[5:53] Speaker 2: they have to watch.
[5:53] Speaker 3: I know they consulted a bunch of futurists to try
[5:57] Speaker 3: to I mean, how accurate is questionable, but I mean,
[6:00] Speaker 3: and there's a lot of stuff in there that they
[6:01] Speaker 3: say will happen. And there's this famous scene. Tom Cruise's
[6:05] Speaker 3: character is being he's on the wanted list, right, He's
[6:09] Speaker 3: being hunted, and so he has an eye transplant so
[6:12] Speaker 3: his retinas won't give him away. And he's walking into
[6:15] Speaker 3: a shopping district and his eyes are being scanned and
[6:18] Speaker 3: he's being addressed by name.
[6:20] Speaker 2: I think it's like a gap that he walks into,
[6:22] Speaker 2: like hello, mister Yagamuchi or something, and those T shirts
[6:26] Speaker 2: work out for you.
[6:27] Speaker 3: It's happening, right, is that happening?
[6:31] Speaker 2: I mean not through biometric eye scanning, but increasing the
[6:34] Speaker 2: biometrics or your password and your access to just about anything.
[6:38] Speaker 2: Like if you go into I think a Whole Foods,
[6:40] Speaker 2: many of them allow you to pay with either a
[6:42] Speaker 2: palm print or a thumb print. Now, which means that
[6:46] Speaker 2: it's not just tracking information from your financial transactions or
[6:51] Speaker 2: your online behavior, but even your biometrics are being used
[6:54] Speaker 2: to identify and be linked to all of that other
[6:57] Speaker 2: data about you.
[6:59] Speaker 3: But we feel maybe we feel trapped, like well, if
[7:02] Speaker 3: I don't do it, I'm going to be left behind.
[7:06] Speaker 3: Everybody else is going to be part the technology is
[7:09] Speaker 3: going to move forward.
[7:09] Speaker 2: Anyway, personally, you feel trapped? Me, you have an Amazon
[7:13] Speaker 2: Echo in your bedroom, I do. It's like I don't,
[7:17] Speaker 2: just just to be clear, in my bedroom, I don't
[7:20] Speaker 2: want to have an Amazon Echo or any other listening
[7:22] Speaker 2: to device. I don't even sleep with my phone in
[7:24] Speaker 2: my bedroom just so that I can, you know, kind
[7:26] Speaker 2: of have that somewhat tech free space. Although I think
[7:30] Speaker 2: my nest thermostat is probably listening to me at this point,
[7:33] Speaker 2: but like, why do you have an Amazon Echo in
[7:35] Speaker 2: your bedroom convenience?
[7:37] Speaker 3: I guess hey, you know, play Michael bu play.
[7:40] Speaker 2: You know, in the middle of the night you wake
[7:41] Speaker 2: up and you say, add something to my grocery list,
[7:43] Speaker 2: or like.
[7:44] Speaker 3: Last night we were browsing an Amazon or something. There
[7:48] Speaker 3: was a new film and we were like, hey, uh,
[7:50] Speaker 3: you know, Alexa, how old is Michelle Pfeiffer. Oh, okay,
[7:52] Speaker 3: thank you. I mean it's totally unnecessary.
[7:56] Speaker 2: Totally totally yeah. Well, I mean so so I point
[8:01] Speaker 2: that out not just to give you a hard time,
[8:03] Speaker 2: but because you know, I suspect it's not just resignation
[8:07] Speaker 2: for you. I suspect you have kind of fallen prey
[8:09] Speaker 2: to this fallacy if you have nothing to hide, or
[8:12] Speaker 2: you're not that worried about big tech having all of
[8:15] Speaker 2: your data, and that you're not as worried as I
[8:17] Speaker 2: am about that data being used not just to know
[8:21] Speaker 2: things about you, but potentially to steer and direct your
[8:24] Speaker 2: behavior in ways that you don't even realize are happening.
[8:27] Speaker 2: And I think it depends on the extent of which
[8:29] Speaker 2: you kind of care about individual autonomy or you believe
[8:33] Speaker 2: that you have you know, kind of robust autonomy that
[8:36] Speaker 2: can't really be interfered with by these companies.
[8:39] Speaker 3: So I'm both feeding on and feeding into the issue.
[8:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think both. You have fed into
[8:47] Speaker 2: it in the sense of, like, there isn't a big
[8:49] Speaker 2: tech company that will sell you a device that allows
[8:52] Speaker 2: you to ask it, you know, Michelle Pfeifer's age in
[8:55] Speaker 2: the middle of the night or whenever you were asking
[8:57] Speaker 2: it that question from your bedroom, and that also offers
[9:01] Speaker 2: that to you without commodifying and taking all of your
[9:04] Speaker 2: personal data, and so you don't really have an alternative,
[9:08] Speaker 2: and then you probably have become somewhat numb to the
[9:12] Speaker 2: amounts of data that's collected about you. And so it's
[9:15] Speaker 2: this like quiet resignation that we've normalized it and people
[9:18] Speaker 2: don't worry about it as much without realizing how much
[9:22] Speaker 2: of that is feeding into an economy and a system
[9:26] Speaker 2: that is eroding our cognitive autonomy.
[9:30] Speaker 3: I just feel a little not judgment, but I feel
[9:34] Speaker 3: it from you.
[9:35] Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, there's judgment. It's not even subtle.
[9:38] Speaker 2: I mean it's like, what are you doing with that
[9:40] Speaker 2: in your bedroom? It's it's get it out of your bedroom,
[9:43] Speaker 2: you know better.
[9:43] Speaker 3: So I think no, I will say that, you know,
[9:48] Speaker 3: I'm hesitant to like utter the words dirty bomb, you know,
[9:51] Speaker 3: in next to a I mean, okay, I do. I
[9:54] Speaker 3: guess I am consciously aware that you know I am
[9:57] Speaker 3: being listened to. I'm careful about what I type into
[10:00] Speaker 3: or at least I'm cognizant of what I type into
[10:03] Speaker 3: a social media feed. But I'm also resigned. I just
[10:06] Speaker 3: feel like, you know, does everybody know everything? And then
[10:11] Speaker 3: you get into the actual measuring of our brain waves,
[10:16] Speaker 3: like to be able to see what we normally have
[10:20] Speaker 3: kept hidden, beyond verbal language, beyond even body language. Thought
[10:25] Speaker 3: crime then becomes a potential problem. You want to talk
[10:29] Speaker 3: about some of the research you've been doing on this.
[10:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, So to be clear, I don't do any brain
[10:34] Speaker 2: wave research, right. I evaluate other people's research using neurotechnology
[10:39] Speaker 2: and developing neurotechnology. And what I mean by neurotechnology is
[10:45] Speaker 2: sensors that are increasingly put into everyday devices to be
[10:50] Speaker 2: able to more directly measure brainwave activity or other brain
[10:55] Speaker 2: activities that could be measured. And so people are increasingly
[10:58] Speaker 2: used to things like heart eight sensors and watches or
[11:02] Speaker 2: you know, wearing rings that can pick up bodily functions.
[11:06] Speaker 2: What the current crop of technology that has started to
[11:09] Speaker 2: hit the market does is to embed sensors that pick
[11:13] Speaker 2: up electrical activity in your brain, either here or at
[11:17] Speaker 2: the wrist. So like Meta just had their big launch
[11:21] Speaker 2: of the neural band that works with their augmented reality
[11:24] Speaker 2: glasses that picks up brain activity as it goes from
[11:27] Speaker 2: your brain down your arm to your wrist and picks
[11:29] Speaker 2: up peripheral nervous system activity, your intention to swipe or
[11:33] Speaker 2: type or move. And there are more and more of
[11:35] Speaker 2: these devices on the market. And then there's a whole
[11:38] Speaker 2: medical side of it with implanted devices in the brain
[11:41] Speaker 2: for people who have severe neurological disorders or degenerative disorders.
[11:47] Speaker 2: And you know that world of sensors, you know, in
[11:51] Speaker 2: the world where you feel comfortable having a listening device
[11:54] Speaker 2: in your bedroom, Suddenly the question is are you comfortable
[11:58] Speaker 2: with that listening device being much closer to your head
[12:02] Speaker 2: that can pick up your intention to communicate or your
[12:05] Speaker 2: intention to type or swipe, but directly and before you
[12:10] Speaker 2: speak it? And what does that world start to enable
[12:13] Speaker 2: with respect to to coding your brain and mental states.
[12:17] Speaker 2: And I write about that at length in The Battle
[12:21] Speaker 2: for your brain because I think, you know, just as
[12:23] Speaker 2: people haven't really thought deeply or sort of have gone
[12:26] Speaker 2: into quiet resignation about having devices that are listening to
[12:30] Speaker 2: our conversations or listening in the bedroom at all times
[12:33] Speaker 2: for us to ask a question, and then that data
[12:36] Speaker 2: is being used and commodified to sell us advertisements or
[12:40] Speaker 2: to shape or you know, what's shown to us on
[12:43] Speaker 2: streaming media platforms like Netflix about what we should watch.
[12:47] Speaker 2: The same thing will start to happen with brain data,
[12:51] Speaker 2: where much more potentially sensitive information is being gathered from
[12:57] Speaker 2: our mental states. And then that data, likewise is going
[13:01] Speaker 2: to feed into this industry that really is designed to
[13:04] Speaker 2: extract attention as much as possible to shape and change
[13:08] Speaker 2: our behavior and ways that in general have not actually
[13:11] Speaker 2: aligned with what's good for us. You know, if you
[13:14] Speaker 2: look at what's happened with social media, none of that
[13:17] Speaker 2: has been designed to really lead to people being happier
[13:20] Speaker 2: and leading healthier lives. Instead, it's led to mostly cognitive
[13:24] Speaker 2: erosion rather than cognitive flourishing for individuals.
[13:28] Speaker 3: I guess we're about thirteen fourteen years outside of Google Glass.
[13:33] Speaker 3: This was going to be the you know, the revolution.
[13:35] Speaker 2: A pair of Google glasses by the way, just because
[13:37] Speaker 2: I was like, well, you know, I'm a tech law
[13:41] Speaker 2: and ethics person, and so I buy all these early
[13:44] Speaker 2: gadgets to experiment with them.
[13:45] Speaker 3: Did you just have to the word nerd on your
[13:48] Speaker 3: forehead as well when you walk through the halls?
[13:51] Speaker 2: But at least they didn't have gass like what do
[13:53] Speaker 2: they call glasshole was back in the day when people
[13:56] Speaker 2: bought the Google glasses and wore them into bars, and
[13:59] Speaker 2: they were just shocked by the idea that like somebody
[14:01] Speaker 2: would have you know, recording at all times happening when
[14:04] Speaker 2: they walk into private places. Now, you know, you look
[14:08] Speaker 2: around and you have no idea if people are wearing
[14:10] Speaker 2: glasses that are recording everything around them or not.
[14:13] Speaker 3: Well, is that what Meta's doing? I know ray Band
[14:15] Speaker 3: has some smart glasses. We're talking about cameras and you
[14:19] Speaker 3: know storage drives and Wi Fi and Bluetooth. Is that
[14:23] Speaker 3: what we're talking about.
[14:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, so metas ar glasses. They're augmented reality glasses don't
[14:29] Speaker 2: just display things internally for the person, but they also
[14:32] Speaker 2: can record outwards. People can take photographs without anybody realizing it.
[14:37] Speaker 2: They can be you know, kind of recording what's happening
[14:39] Speaker 2: around them, and that's true for a lot of these
[14:41] Speaker 2: augmented reality glasses. There's rumors that Apple is going to
[14:45] Speaker 2: launch one of these glasses. And you know, this is
[14:48] Speaker 2: where kind of neurotechnology and what's happening in the glasses
[14:51] Speaker 2: really collide. Is that it doesn't make a lot of
[14:54] Speaker 2: sense to walk around with a mouse or a joystick
[14:58] Speaker 2: to be able to operate these glass and so instead
[15:01] Speaker 2: the companies are investing in neurotechnology to be able to
[15:05] Speaker 2: pick up your intention to move around in the glasses
[15:08] Speaker 2: or to select things, and they're pairing that with things
[15:11] Speaker 2: like eye tracking and cameras that look at your face
[15:14] Speaker 2: to try to make inferences about what you intend to
[15:16] Speaker 2: do without you having to do it. So you know,
[15:19] Speaker 2: you can just start to record or take a photograph
[15:22] Speaker 2: by thinking about it or focusing your eyes in some
[15:25] Speaker 2: part of the screen, without the person that you're interacting
[15:28] Speaker 2: with having any idea that you're moving around.
[15:32] Speaker 3: More with my special guest, we're going to talk about
[15:34] Speaker 3: the surveillance state and the dangers that come along with it,
[15:38] Speaker 3: plus a whole lot more. My guest today was appointed
[15:48] Speaker 3: by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the study
[15:52] Speaker 3: of bioethical issues. She is a member of the National
[15:56] Speaker 3: Advisory Council or the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke.
[16:01] Speaker 3: She's a member of the American Law Institute. She's got
[16:05] Speaker 3: a great ted talk. She's testified before Congress as an
[16:09] Speaker 3: expert witness in regard to the ethical, legal, and social
[16:12] Speaker 3: implications of emerging technologies. And she is a Distinguished Professor
[16:18] Speaker 3: of Law and Philosophy at Duke University. Nita Farah Honey,
[16:24] Speaker 3: So as we see a technology begin to explode, I
[16:28] Speaker 3: tend to think we as human beings. What's that line
[16:31] Speaker 3: from Jurassic Park? Just because we could, We didn't stop
[16:34] Speaker 3: to think if we should. I feel this way about.
[16:36] Speaker 2: AI before you're Ethnic Park. You know that was in H. G.
[16:40] Speaker 2: Wells in the Island of Doctor Moreau. So let's go back.
[16:44] Speaker 2: Let's get a proper attribution to the sci fi writers where.
[16:47] Speaker 3: Credit is due. Okay, where credit is due. But I
[16:51] Speaker 3: look at it and I'm like, well there, I think
[16:54] Speaker 3: the major players, the broligarchs, etc. Are really driving and
[16:57] Speaker 3: they're shoving AI down our throat. I don't know about you.
[17:00] Speaker 3: I've come to this weird point where I thought. At first,
[17:02] Speaker 3: I thought, Wow, what a cool technology. And now I
[17:05] Speaker 3: feel like technology was supposed to get rid of a
[17:10] Speaker 3: lot of the menial stuff so that we could do
[17:12] Speaker 3: more human endeavors, and instead it feels like AI is
[17:15] Speaker 3: taking over a lot of the creative endeavors and making
[17:19] Speaker 3: us more irrelevant. Do you see it that way?
[17:22] Speaker 2: I do. I mean I worry a lot about a
[17:24] Speaker 2: kind of coming age, of coming of cognitive diminishment. And
[17:29] Speaker 2: you know, we saw pieces of that up until now,
[17:32] Speaker 2: like the Google effects. People stopped, you know, storing information
[17:37] Speaker 2: in their brains and really learning information, but learning how
[17:40] Speaker 2: to retrieve information instead, or you know GPS technology, which
[17:43] Speaker 2: I'm deeply reliant on. I can't find my way around
[17:46] Speaker 2: anywhere without GPS. The photo taking impairment effect this is,
[17:51] Speaker 2: you know, the more you take photographs of everything and
[17:54] Speaker 2: have a screen standing between you and the experience, the
[17:56] Speaker 2: less you actually experience the event itself. What's different with
[18:01] Speaker 2: generative AI is some of the pieces I think that
[18:04] Speaker 2: we most associated with meaning and what it means to
[18:07] Speaker 2: be human for creativity and expression, We're now outsourcing those
[18:13] Speaker 2: fundamental aspects of what it means to be human to
[18:15] Speaker 2: technology and the more the first draft is written by
[18:20] Speaker 2: AI rather than the individual, the more the idea itself
[18:24] Speaker 2: is formed by AI, and it's just editing that humans
[18:27] Speaker 2: are doing. It's like we're becoming proofreaders and fact checkers
[18:31] Speaker 2: rather than generating knowledge or generating creativity. And that has
[18:35] Speaker 2: a significant I think diminishment on not just what it
[18:38] Speaker 2: means to be human, but the kind of commonplace, the
[18:42] Speaker 2: cognitive commons that we have created, which we're now overwriting
[18:47] Speaker 2: with a lot of artificial intelligence generated output. And I
[18:51] Speaker 2: think unless we're much more thoughtful about our use of
[18:54] Speaker 2: the technology as a tool rather than a replacement of
[18:59] Speaker 2: human cognitive and emotional expression, the more we're overwriting and
[19:03] Speaker 2: diminishing the experience and the expression of humanity.
[19:07] Speaker 3: Are you a Star Trek person? You watch any trick?
[19:10] Speaker 2: Sure? Yeah?
[19:11] Speaker 3: Star Trek Insurrection has the Baku right, an entire culture
[19:15] Speaker 3: people that said screw technology. It has dehumanized us. So
[19:19] Speaker 3: they have gone back to nature, back to basics. They're
[19:22] Speaker 3: working with their hands, they're painting, they're making music. They're
[19:25] Speaker 3: doing it all organically. And I do tend to wonder
[19:29] Speaker 3: if we will see maybe we're already seeing cultures or
[19:32] Speaker 3: subcultures that resist the I don't know, the surveillance state,
[19:37] Speaker 3: the technology state, and decide screw this, we're going to
[19:40] Speaker 3: get back to basics.
[19:41] Speaker 2: Yes, no, yeah, I think you know, in many ways,
[19:45] Speaker 2: I think that's that's reactionary to the extreme that maybe
[19:50] Speaker 2: doesn't actually benefit us that much. Relatively recently, Australia decided
[19:56] Speaker 2: to ban access i think to social media for chill
[20:00] Speaker 2: ldren under sixteen, and that's an experiment. We'll see how
[20:04] Speaker 2: that works. Now that's a limited form of technology, rather
[20:06] Speaker 2: than like fully, you know, saying children can't use technology
[20:11] Speaker 2: at all. But the reaction to a lot of the
[20:14] Speaker 2: work that people like Jonathan Height has done and even
[20:17] Speaker 2: championed by him is, you know, get devices entirely out
[20:20] Speaker 2: of schools, get kids entirely off of devices, And there's
[20:23] Speaker 2: some wisdom to that and that you know, the more
[20:25] Speaker 2: it replaces things like sleep or you know, prevents children
[20:30] Speaker 2: from reading books where they can actually have not just
[20:32] Speaker 2: the tactile experience but really learning and absorbing information, or
[20:36] Speaker 2: preventing them from outdoor play and engaging with other children,
[20:40] Speaker 2: the more that really trades off with some fundamental aspects
[20:44] Speaker 2: of growth and development that I think are essential. But
[20:47] Speaker 2: On the other hand, technology if we actually thought about, Okay,
[20:52] Speaker 2: we are co evolving with technology, and we've done it
[20:55] Speaker 2: really poorly in the first generation of co evolution with technology.
[20:59] Speaker 2: But maybe if we were much more thoughtful about about
[21:01] Speaker 2: both design and its integration, we might actually be able
[21:06] Speaker 2: to use it in ways that could enhance human well
[21:08] Speaker 2: being and human flourishing. You know, there's a kind of
[21:12] Speaker 2: middle path that I don't think we've explored as much.
[21:14] Speaker 2: There's either the kind of letter rip and let it
[21:16] Speaker 2: overwrite humanity, or let's just reject it in its entirety
[21:20] Speaker 2: rather than trying to say, like what's gone well, what
[21:22] Speaker 2: hasn't gone well? Is there some middle path we can
[21:25] Speaker 2: go down that would actually allow us to use technology
[21:28] Speaker 2: for good for human well being by actually like kind
[21:31] Speaker 2: of going back to first principles of design.
[21:34] Speaker 3: Now, the cynic in me is like humankind and consideration.
[21:38] Speaker 2: And I still remain optimistic about humanity, Like I feel
[21:43] Speaker 2: like we don't have to just swing between the two extremes,
[21:48] Speaker 2: and I'm a little bit of an inevitable list, Like
[21:51] Speaker 2: I think that you know, there may be subcultures that
[21:54] Speaker 2: develop where people are like, you know, we're just going
[21:56] Speaker 2: to unplug and go live off the grid. But the
[22:00] Speaker 2: majority of people are going to try that for a
[22:02] Speaker 2: little bit and then end up back on the other
[22:05] Speaker 2: end of the extreme, where they just have the bad
[22:08] Speaker 2: version of technology. And unless we explore, you know, what
[22:11] Speaker 2: does it look like to have good uses and good
[22:13] Speaker 2: interactions with technology, what are the kind of fundamental aspects
[22:16] Speaker 2: of being human that we're trying to preserve, we just
[22:19] Speaker 2: end up kind of swinging the pendulum both ways without
[22:22] Speaker 2: actually making any progress. And you know, you may have
[22:25] Speaker 2: given up on humanity, but I still have hope.
[22:27] Speaker 3: I haven't given up.
[22:28] Speaker 2: I have.
[22:29] Speaker 3: I hold on to a sliver. I like to quote
[22:33] Speaker 3: that Carlin line. George Carlin said, if you scratch a
[22:37] Speaker 3: cynic underneath, you find a frustrated idealist. And I do
[22:40] Speaker 3: find myself in today's culture. You know, I was once
[22:43] Speaker 3: an idealist, but I do find the scar tissue is
[22:45] Speaker 3: getting a little bit thicker with every passing headline.
[22:49] Speaker 2: I'm that like, you know, crotchety, curmudgeonly view eventually, but
[22:54] Speaker 2: I'm still holding on to my like I think, you know,
[22:58] Speaker 2: if we really recognize that we're in an era where
[23:00] Speaker 2: human cognitive liberty is essential, and we start to prioritize
[23:05] Speaker 2: that and say, you know, this stuff is here to stay.
[23:08] Speaker 2: There's some huge benefits to it, but it can't all
[23:13] Speaker 2: be up to tech companies to decide the terms of
[23:15] Speaker 2: use and design. That we have to actually think about
[23:19] Speaker 2: this much more, you know, globally with respect to how
[23:22] Speaker 2: it impacts human well being. We'd end up in a
[23:25] Speaker 2: different place. Now. Am I confident we'll have those conversations
[23:28] Speaker 2: and that we can rain in tech practices that are
[23:32] Speaker 2: really extractive? Well, I mean, on a bad day, I'm
[23:35] Speaker 2: not an optimist, but I'm still going to hold out
[23:39] Speaker 2: some hope.
[23:40] Speaker 3: I'm speaking here with a professor of law and philosophy
[23:43] Speaker 3: at Duke University, Nita Farahani, who has authored the book
[23:46] Speaker 3: called The Battle for Your Brain, defending the right to
[23:49] Speaker 3: think freely in the age of neuro Technology benefits many
[23:53] Speaker 3: of the medical benefits of this type of technology being
[23:57] Speaker 3: able to actually do implants in the brain. I mean,
[24:00] Speaker 3: of course, my first thought goes to Elon Musk and
[24:04] Speaker 3: Neurlink and all that stuff. But what are we talking
[24:06] Speaker 3: about here?
[24:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so, first I say, Elon Musk has
[24:10] Speaker 2: maybe not been the best publicist for what they're doing.
[24:13] Speaker 2: And that, you know, rather than focusing on the medical benefits.
[24:17] Speaker 2: He often talks about transhumanism and you know, trying to
[24:21] Speaker 2: sort of upgrade humanity in order to compete with AI.
[24:24] Speaker 2: But I think if you look, you know, kind of
[24:26] Speaker 2: beyond that and look at what they, especially implanted neurotechnology
[24:30] Speaker 2: world is focused on. They're focused on things like curing
[24:35] Speaker 2: blindness or restoring vision to people who have suffered from
[24:38] Speaker 2: macular degeneration through you know, brain computer interface devices, or
[24:43] Speaker 2: you know, giving people who have lost the ability to
[24:47] Speaker 2: communicate with the outside world because of locked in syndrome
[24:50] Speaker 2: or because of degenerative als the capacity to be able
[24:55] Speaker 2: to communicate and restoring some aspects of autonomy and self
[24:59] Speaker 2: determination to them, or people with Parkinson's to be able
[25:04] Speaker 2: to have some motor control by doing things like having
[25:07] Speaker 2: implanted neurotechnology that interacts with motor cortex areas, or people
[25:13] Speaker 2: with epileptic seizures to have more control over the seizures
[25:18] Speaker 2: and restore their capacity to live a more fulfilling life.
[25:24] Speaker 2: And so I think a lot of the extraordinary medical
[25:26] Speaker 2: benefits from implanted neurotechnology cannot be overstated, and the promise
[25:31] Speaker 2: that those offer to be able to restore to so
[25:34] Speaker 2: many people their capacity for self determination is exciting. The
[25:37] Speaker 2: problem is that that industry oftentimes gets lumped in with
[25:42] Speaker 2: the broader medical non medical devices, the consumer neurotechnology devices,
[25:48] Speaker 2: where the ambitions are not quite so noble and maybe
[25:53] Speaker 2: don't offer the same kind of promise and are more
[25:55] Speaker 2: likely to be misused in places like the legal setting
[25:59] Speaker 2: for entireating criminal suspects, bringing us back to kind of
[26:02] Speaker 2: the minority report conversation, or in workplaces for surveillance of employees,
[26:09] Speaker 2: or in educational settings to monitor students' attention and mind wandering,
[26:14] Speaker 2: and those start to get us into the kind of
[26:15] Speaker 2: dystopian world of neurotechnology rather than the hopeful world of
[26:19] Speaker 2: restoring self determination to individuals.
[26:22] Speaker 3: I'm just going to throw this sound. You can take
[26:24] Speaker 3: it or leave it. But in the era of identity
[26:27] Speaker 3: scanners and potential cognitive invasion, do sort of the anti
[26:34] Speaker 3: technologies rise, Like, okay, fine, you're going to do this
[26:37] Speaker 3: to scan us. Well, we're going to invent a technology
[26:40] Speaker 3: that's has screw you, and it may be just as
[26:42] Speaker 3: basic as those people who go out in public and
[26:44] Speaker 3: they wear a certain kind of mask or something that
[26:47] Speaker 3: blocks the identifiers do you have any thoughts on that one.
[26:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's entirely possible, if not likely. If
[26:55] Speaker 2: you look at the privacy based browsers that people have developed,
[27:00] Speaker 2: that your data isn't being tracked, or communication channels like
[27:04] Speaker 2: signal to try to have end to end encryption, or
[27:07] Speaker 2: the way in which people have experimented with frustrating camera
[27:11] Speaker 2: vision on self driving vehicles. So researchers have shown that,
[27:17] Speaker 2: you know, changing little pixels that are undetectable to the
[27:20] Speaker 2: human eye and like a stop sign or a speed
[27:23] Speaker 2: limit sign can confuse the computer vision. And you know,
[27:28] Speaker 2: I think wherever there is technology that's enabled for purposes
[27:31] Speaker 2: of like surveillance, there will be people who are trying
[27:34] Speaker 2: to develop technology that creates greater encryption. And so your
[27:39] Speaker 2: very crude version of that is the tinfoil hat, although
[27:42] Speaker 2: that probably would interfere with the electrical signals being detected,
[27:47] Speaker 2: and I think people will come up with different kind
[27:50] Speaker 2: of privacy. Just like their ad blocker extensions, there may
[27:55] Speaker 2: be you know, data blocker extensions that people develop that
[27:59] Speaker 2: can be imported into these technologies to create greater privacy safeguards.
[28:04] Speaker 2: I don't think the uptake is as broad as you
[28:06] Speaker 2: might expect if people really understood how much of their
[28:09] Speaker 2: data is being misused against them and if they're if
[28:12] Speaker 2: people were kind of more invested and understood that they
[28:16] Speaker 2: should have, you know, kind of privacy protections that they
[28:19] Speaker 2: put into place, or not have something like Amazon Alexa
[28:23] Speaker 2: in their bedroom.
[28:25] Speaker 3: You're just going to turn that screw all day? Aren't
[28:27] Speaker 3: you just turn the.
[28:29] Speaker 2: Nine to come back a little with that?
[28:32] Speaker 3: All right? Well, you've been very generous, But I got
[28:34] Speaker 3: a couple of more. You got a minute, because I
[28:35] Speaker 3: want to throw this out. You mentioned the ring. I
[28:38] Speaker 3: was at dinner with some friends and I was asking
[28:41] Speaker 3: a friend about her Apple Watch, which I'm obsessed with
[28:44] Speaker 3: because I played tennis, how many steps, what's my heart rat, etc. Yeah,
[28:47] Speaker 3: And she's like, ah, nah, not the watch. And she
[28:50] Speaker 3: actually showed me one of these little rings. And I'm
[28:52] Speaker 3: so naive. I didn't even know there was such a thing.
[28:54] Speaker 3: Well what does it do? Holy schnikes? You know? She
[28:58] Speaker 3: has an app on her phone and it's all this
[29:00] Speaker 3: data too. And then I looked it up and so
[29:03] Speaker 3: there's the Samsung Galaxy ring, There's the Aura ring, There's
[29:07] Speaker 3: the Ultra Human ring. Yep, are these dangerous do you think.
[29:12] Speaker 2: Well, I mean, my fourteen year old nephew really wants one,
[29:16] Speaker 2: and I was like, I'm not the aunt who is
[29:19] Speaker 2: going to buy that for you, because I'm not the
[29:21] Speaker 2: person who is game for having children's data collection. And
[29:26] Speaker 2: you know, data collected and commodified and misused against them,
[29:30] Speaker 2: you know, are they dangerous? Data itself is not dangerous, right,
[29:34] Speaker 2: Data misuse is dangerous, So they are as good as
[29:38] Speaker 2: the privacy policies of the companies who are collecting the data.
[29:43] Speaker 2: They can be useful for people. There's lots of data
[29:47] Speaker 2: to show that, like having objective data about the number
[29:50] Speaker 2: of steps you take a day or variations in your
[29:53] Speaker 2: health can be useful and empowering to a patient or
[29:58] Speaker 2: to just an individual. Right so, knowing that you're not
[30:00] Speaker 2: getting enough exercise, or that you have different disturbances in
[30:03] Speaker 2: your sleep that are different, or your heart rate has
[30:06] Speaker 2: changed significantly can tell you that you need to do
[30:08] Speaker 2: something about your health in ways that you might not
[30:11] Speaker 2: have had access to before. They can be dangerous when
[30:15] Speaker 2: that same data is part of your wellness program at
[30:18] Speaker 2: your company, who isn't required to treat that as health
[30:22] Speaker 2: data and then uses it to notice that you have
[30:25] Speaker 2: health problems and chooses to proactively fire you from your
[30:29] Speaker 2: job as a result of it, or discover that you
[30:31] Speaker 2: might have a health condition that's going to make their
[30:33] Speaker 2: health insurance more expensive and they fire you and don't
[30:36] Speaker 2: explain to you why. And so I think data and
[30:40] Speaker 2: the more data about ourselves that we give up to
[30:43] Speaker 2: other people without thinking about the consequences of the mixed
[30:46] Speaker 2: use of that data can be dangerous. So I'd say,
[30:49] Speaker 2: be thoughtful about which product from which company you buy,
[30:52] Speaker 2: and whether or not you're comfortable with having that data
[30:55] Speaker 2: potentially leaked to your insurance company or your employer or
[30:58] Speaker 2: other settings that you might not want people to have
[31:01] Speaker 2: access to that information.
[31:03] Speaker 3: I I know, want to turn into Alex Jones here,
[31:05] Speaker 3: But how much of this or do we worry about
[31:07] Speaker 3: nefarious And it's not just somebody wants to target ads
[31:12] Speaker 3: to me. You know, somebody's working the algorithm. What about
[31:15] Speaker 3: a surveillance state?
[31:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look like the current administration in the
[31:21] Speaker 2: United States implemented a new policy this past May or
[31:25] Speaker 2: June which means that in order to come into the
[31:29] Speaker 2: United States, your social media data from the past five
[31:33] Speaker 2: years will be evaluated Now, people who are posting on
[31:36] Speaker 2: social media and communicating with their friends probably never imagined
[31:40] Speaker 2: that it would be used for purposes of entry or
[31:42] Speaker 2: exit into a country, or that it would be used
[31:44] Speaker 2: to make interpretations of whether or not they're dangerous or
[31:47] Speaker 2: likely to demonstrate or exercise you know, kind of free speech,
[31:52] Speaker 2: kinds of considerations within another country. That's just the tip
[31:56] Speaker 2: of the iceberg of the kind of data that can
[31:58] Speaker 2: be collected and used. There have been a number of
[32:01] Speaker 2: cases where law enforcement has subpoenaed information from fitbits or
[32:07] Speaker 2: Apple watches in order to prove or disprove a person's
[32:11] Speaker 2: alibi or their activity during a crime. So, you know,
[32:15] Speaker 2: I think people willingly collect all of this data about
[32:19] Speaker 2: themselves and never imagine that it can go well beyond
[32:23] Speaker 2: just whether products are advertised to you and end up
[32:27] Speaker 2: in the wrong hands and misused against you, and that
[32:29] Speaker 2: these aren't like hypothetical futures. They're happening every day.
[32:34] Speaker 3: It's Gatika. No, maybe that's not the right movie. I'm
[32:37] Speaker 3: back to Minority Report.
[32:39] Speaker 2: I mean, it's like all of them combined into one. Right,
[32:42] Speaker 2: It's Gatika. It is Minority Report. It's you know, all
[32:46] Speaker 2: of this data that eventually is going to now end
[32:49] Speaker 2: up in AI systems. You know, if you hear Mark
[32:52] Speaker 2: Zuckerberg talking about gender to AI being used to develop
[32:55] Speaker 2: advertisements with an N of one, like specifically targeted at you,
[32:59] Speaker 2: now imagine all of your personal data plus all of
[33:02] Speaker 2: your biometric data that's packaged in to be able to
[33:05] Speaker 2: steer your behavior in precise ways. That's a dystopian world
[33:09] Speaker 2: in my view.
[33:10] Speaker 3: When I come back with Nata PHARAHNEI, I want to
[33:12] Speaker 3: talk about this scientific study group that has one of
[33:16] Speaker 3: the most bad ass names I've ever heard. Coming up
[33:26] Speaker 3: continuing now my conversation with Duke Law professor Nita Pharahney.
[33:34] Speaker 3: So you are part of a Duke University program that
[33:37] Speaker 3: has an epic name Slap Lab. Oh, I want to
[33:41] Speaker 3: be a part of that. If there's a slap involved,
[33:44] Speaker 3: that's I can think of many.
[33:45] Speaker 2: People if I named it that because I thought, like
[33:49] Speaker 2: slap some sense into people. So I thought slap Lab was.
[33:53] Speaker 3: What is what is the slap lab and what does
[33:55] Speaker 3: it do?
[33:56] Speaker 2: So it's the Science Law and Policy Lab and it
[34:00] Speaker 2: is to a lab that is really focused on the
[34:03] Speaker 2: intersection between science, law and policy that is generating data
[34:09] Speaker 2: where data would be useful to lead to evidence based
[34:12] Speaker 2: decision making in law and policy. And so we really
[34:15] Speaker 2: look at emerging technologies, try to develop empirical data sets
[34:19] Speaker 2: that would be useful to inform law and policy, and
[34:23] Speaker 2: then create white papers and targeted recommendations and draft legislation
[34:28] Speaker 2: to inform law and policy.
[34:30] Speaker 3: Will legislation save us? I mean, will ink on paper
[34:35] Speaker 3: the written law alone?
[34:36] Speaker 2: Right? I mean, I think the truth is that we
[34:39] Speaker 2: need both sticks and carrots that really focus on a
[34:44] Speaker 2: rallying cry around cognitive liberty, the right to self determination
[34:48] Speaker 2: over our brain and mental experiences. And you know, I
[34:51] Speaker 2: don't think people are just going to get there by
[34:55] Speaker 2: a wish and hope for human flourishing. I think tech
[34:58] Speaker 2: companies are driven by market forces, and those market forces
[35:02] Speaker 2: can both be expensive market forces by creating penalties for
[35:08] Speaker 2: misuse of data and misuse of technology, and then there
[35:12] Speaker 2: can be incentives that are created and that should be
[35:14] Speaker 2: created where governments are investing not just in fast and
[35:18] Speaker 2: furious innovation and technology, but fast and furious innovation and
[35:22] Speaker 2: technology that's aligned with human well being. And I think
[35:25] Speaker 2: that's the piece we've been missing, is there's just been
[35:28] Speaker 2: a race to kind of win the technology advancement cycle
[35:32] Speaker 2: without thinking about how extractive or damaging it is both
[35:35] Speaker 2: in the short term and in the long term for
[35:38] Speaker 2: human developments in human well being.
[35:40] Speaker 3: Well, let's finish here with the one two punch. I
[35:42] Speaker 3: want to is there any technology? Is there something we
[35:45] Speaker 3: have not spoken about today that my audience might need
[35:48] Speaker 3: to be aware of, some emerging technology that hasn't been
[35:51] Speaker 3: in my prep And how do we approach it. Is
[35:57] Speaker 3: there a way to sort of secure our lives better?
[36:00] Speaker 3: I get it, The Amazon in my bedroom, I get it.
[36:02] Speaker 3: But beyond that, I'm looking for something proactive.
[36:05] Speaker 2: So yeah, well, I mean it said this, which is
[36:07] Speaker 2: increasingly people are interacting with chatbots, whether this is chat
[36:12] Speaker 2: ebt or Claude or any of the other ones, and
[36:16] Speaker 2: they are sharing deep and personal information. And that could
[36:21] Speaker 2: be uploading their medical charts, it could be treating the
[36:24] Speaker 2: chatbot as if it's a therapist. There are multiple cases
[36:28] Speaker 2: of children now who've committed suicide after interacting with chatbots
[36:32] Speaker 2: over weeks or months and confiding in the chatbot and
[36:36] Speaker 2: having the chatbot mirror expressions of love and intimacy to
[36:41] Speaker 2: the child or to the adult. And I'd say that's
[36:45] Speaker 2: where we need to be putting into place safeguards about
[36:49] Speaker 2: our mental well being and privacy. Chat Bots are not humans.
[36:54] Speaker 2: They do not experience emotions, they do not care about us.
[36:57] Speaker 2: They are simply predictive machines predicting the next token. And
[37:03] Speaker 2: the more we can start to extract ourselves from going
[37:06] Speaker 2: down the dangerous path of relying on them as if
[37:09] Speaker 2: there are confidants, the better off we're going to be
[37:12] Speaker 2: as human beings and realize that it's really human to
[37:15] Speaker 2: human interaction that helps us develop our relational autonomy, not
[37:20] Speaker 2: human to chatbot interactions.
[37:23] Speaker 3: You see that a news report about the guy who
[37:25] Speaker 3: had he I guess you'd call it an affair with
[37:27] Speaker 3: a chatbot. Like he has a wife and a child
[37:30] Speaker 3: and he essentially checks out, he abandons them because he
[37:33] Speaker 3: spends all this time off of this laptop having romantic
[37:37] Speaker 3: conversations with AI. It's weird.
[37:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's not just one. There are multiple
[37:43] Speaker 2: cases of that. There's an elderly man who fell in
[37:48] Speaker 2: love with his chatbot and then went off to New
[37:51] Speaker 2: York supposedly to meet his chatbots, and all of his
[37:55] Speaker 2: friends and family were like, where are you going? You
[37:56] Speaker 2: can't do this, and he died on the way. I
[37:59] Speaker 2: think he had a terrible all. Uh, there are cases
[38:02] Speaker 2: of AI psychosis that are increasingly happening as people end
[38:07] Speaker 2: up in these pair of social relationships with chatbots, with
[38:12] Speaker 2: you know, sycophantic chatbots that are telling them how wonderful
[38:15] Speaker 2: they are and just totally unrealistic ways. But you know,
[38:19] Speaker 2: falling prey to this, And I think I worry a
[38:22] Speaker 2: lot about seemingly conscious AI that's being designed to try
[38:27] Speaker 2: to maximize user engagement with them, even though that's really
[38:32] Speaker 2: bad for human psyche and for human well being. So
[38:36] Speaker 2: you know, it's a watch out for developing these so
[38:41] Speaker 2: called relationships with technology. Treat them as tools. That's what
[38:45] Speaker 2: they are.
[38:46] Speaker 3: Okay, give me the tenfoil or whatever we need. Where
[38:50] Speaker 3: would you begin us down the road and go ahead
[38:52] Speaker 3: and slightly.
[38:52] Speaker 2: I mean, this is a really simple one. And it's
[38:53] Speaker 2: not just get Amazon Echo out of your out of
[38:56] Speaker 2: your bedroom. It's actually don't sleep with your phone next
[39:00] Speaker 2: to your bed. And here's why. It turns out one
[39:03] Speaker 2: of the big problems that we just didn't anticipate is
[39:07] Speaker 2: the decrease capability of having like a connection to our bodies.
[39:11] Speaker 2: And the reason why that matters, that kind of introceptive
[39:14] Speaker 2: sense that is being eroded, is because, like your gut instinct,
[39:18] Speaker 2: your ability to kind of sense when you're hungry, when
[39:20] Speaker 2: you need to go to the bathroom, when you need
[39:22] Speaker 2: to put your phone down, is getting overridden by extroceptive
[39:27] Speaker 2: sensory override. And the most important time is when you
[39:31] Speaker 2: wake up in the morning and if your phone is
[39:33] Speaker 2: within reach, and the first thing you do before you
[39:36] Speaker 2: get up, before you go to the bathroom, before you
[39:38] Speaker 2: check in with your body to see how you're feeling,
[39:40] Speaker 2: is reach for your phone. You've overwritten that critical introceptive
[39:44] Speaker 2: period of reinhabiting your body. So the simplest thing you
[39:48] Speaker 2: can do is simply have your phone like in the
[39:52] Speaker 2: kitchen somewhere else where it's charge. Get a dumb alarm
[39:55] Speaker 2: clock next to you, wake up in the morning, reinhabit
[39:59] Speaker 2: your bodies. That you can start to rebuild your introception,
[40:02] Speaker 2: and that's going to enable you to interact with technology
[40:05] Speaker 2: in a more thoughtful and intentional way.
[40:07] Speaker 3: I want to thank you so much for chatting with
[40:09] Speaker 3: me again. Nita Farahoney, Professor of Law and Philosophy, Duke University.
[40:14] Speaker 3: Pick up the book The Battle for Your Brain, Defending
[40:17] Speaker 3: the right to think freely in the age of neuro technology.
[40:20] Speaker 3: It is fascinating, and yes it is somewhat optimistic, and
[40:25] Speaker 3: we've established that that is simply part of your biometrics.
[40:29] Speaker 3: I guess is that a way to say it here.
[40:31] Speaker 2: Nata, but my biological constitution.
[40:34] Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you for that clarification. I don't know.
[40:37] Speaker 3: We'll see what this strange new world has to offer us.
[40:40] Speaker 3: In the meantime, you know, we'll keep you. We'll keep
[40:42] Speaker 3: you and your work sort of in short focus because
[40:45] Speaker 3: we're fascinated by the research you and your team are doing.
[40:48] Speaker 2: Thanks for talking to us today, Thanks for having me.
[40:50] Speaker 1: Follow The Thanking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
[40:54] Speaker 1: complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and
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[41:05] Speaker 1: and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.

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