Uncomfortable Collisions with Reality

Welcome to another edition of Uncomfortable Collisions with Reality, where Gene Tunny and I react to a UN report on AI that invested me as the intellectual godfather of the phrase "digital public goods". I have been mulling on the quWelcome to another edition of Uncomfortable Collisions with Reality, where Gene Tunny and I react to a UN report on AI that invested me as the intellectual godfather of the phrase "digital public goods". I have been mulling on the question of public goods since well before chairing the Government 2.0 task force, realising that many of the public goods of the twenty-first century are digital. Most people haven't noticed yet, but the Ostroms' quadrant in which a public good is both non-rival and non-excluded is no longer good enough as a definition. It denies public goods as a problem solved. But Wikipedia is a public good and it's excludable. It's just that its founders wanted to open it and could raise the funds to do so as a charity. Likewise, just as free-to-air TV figured as a public good in some 1950s and 60s textbooks, so Google, Facebook and Twitter(X) are public goods even though they're funded by advertising. (And of course you're free to think that X or any of the other social networks are public BADs, but that means they're just public goods that generate negative value. We then go on to explore ways in which social media could contribute to social mobility - something I wrote about hereAnd Gene asks me some questions about AI. I think it's obviously intelligence. Chatting with Claude and ChatGPT reveals a mysterious, shape-shifting intelligence that can easily beguile us without being truly conscious. By launching careful pilots and managing the risks, we can ensure this alien technology serves its ultimate purpose of improving our real lives.The UN report mentioned is here.

Are we suffering from an austerity of the imagination? Why does modern political and policy reform feel completely stuck in a rut?In this episode of Uncomfortable Collisions with Reality, I sit down with Luca Tiratelli to diagnose the exhaustion of the modern policy landscape. We explore why radical solutions seem impossible today, distinguishing between the Overton window of vested interests and the Overton window of imagination. We unpack the creeping careerism infecting academia and the public sector, where producing content and appeasing stakeholders has replaced frank, fearless advice.Luca shares his thoughts on the necessity of utopian thinking and having a clear vision to drive reform, whilst I argue that mapping out an unknown future often distracts from making difficult trade-offs in the present. Finally, we discuss why our current electoral democracy encourages risk aversion and competitive misrepresentation, and how alternative governance models like sortition might break the gridlock and breathe new life into our institutions.

Greg Smith has a well thought out, deeply compelling and scary take on the world we suddenly find ourselves in. I thought you should hear from him and so have just recorded this conversation. I strongly recommend you check it out.
(Note: this was recorded in March but only hoisted on YouTube until now - early October. But it's still very much current.

What if technology stopped keeping us apart and started bringing us back together?

In this, part 2 of my conversation with Jim Savage, we turn from diagnosing the problem of loneliness to what we’re doing about it.

Jim introduces Feather, the platform he founded to make real-world connection easier, richer, and more meaningful. Unlike traditional social media, Feather is built to help enrich our social interactions in real life, in studios, clubs, dinner parties, and shared experiences IRL.

We discuss how Feather is building pro social design into technology: lowering the barriers to invitation, helping organisers thrive, and fostering communities that outlast the events themselves. From acrobats in North America to local yoga studios and comedy clubs, Feather is already showing how digital tools can nurture and repair the fabric of social life.

If part 1 asked why loneliness has spread, part 2 asks: what would it look like to build technology that heals society rather than harms it?

Here is the link to watch the video version of this conversation.

Why, in an age of constant connection, are so many of us lonelier than ever?

In this first part of my conversation with Jim Savage, entrepreneur, dinner party host, acrobat and thinker on social connection, we dive into one of the defining challenges of our time: loneliness. From the rise of singledom and the decline of community institutions, to the way technology amplifies our tendency to seek out people "just like us", we explore why friendship has become harder and why simple acts like talking to strangers seem rarer than ever.

We also discuss the paradox of being wired for human connection yet behaving in ways that drive us apart, the subtle ways our social architecture is eroding and the importance of intergenerational exchange. In that regard, check out the intergenerational initiative I talk about here. It’s fantastic. If loneliness is the silent epidemic of modern life, what can we do about it?

Check out part 2 of our conversation which turns to solutions, most notably Feather, Jim’s start up designed to bring people back together in the real world.

Watch the video of this interview on my YouTube here.