The Transformational Changes in Technology

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The way in which the experience works on you changes the structure of who you are, such that after you've been changed, you don't actually regret eating all those french fras or drinking all that one. And i think that's another kind of transformative change that we need to think about as a society and also as individuals. Without actually thinking carefully about how they are affecting us, the end result could be quite significantly different. We would change who we are in a permanent sense, and lose track, then, of the values that we once had. Is that the kind of society that we want to have? That's an open question which i think we should consider right now.

How do we decide whether to undergo a transformative experience when we don’t know how that experience will change us? This is the central question explored by Yale philosopher and cognitive scientist L.A. Paul.

Paul uses the prospect of becoming a vampire to illustrate the conundrum: let's say Dracula offers you the chance to become a vampire. You might be confident you'll love it, but you also know you'll become a different person with different preferences. Whose preferences do you prioritize: yours now, or yours after becoming a vampire? Similarly, whose preferences do we prioritize when deciding how to engage with technology and social media: ours now, or ours after becoming users — to the point of potentially becoming attention-seeking vampires?

In this episode with L.A. Paul, we're raising the stakes of the social media conversation — from technology that steers our time and attention, to technology that fundamentally transforms who we are and what we want. Tune in as Paul, Tristan Harris, and Aza Raskin explore the complexity of transformative experiences, and how to approach their ethical design.