In our last episode, we talked about cognitive technologies, or behaviors that shape our capacities to think, communicate, and imagine. Cultural artifacts like language, visual drawings, math, and art are cognitive technologies because they allow us to link our minds together and invent new ideas that go beyond what any one mind could do on its own. They allow us to stabilize and share ideas across space and time to build increasingly complex tools, systems, and societies.Today, humans are at a point in society where we’re creating things that we don't understand. A few decades ago, it was said we’d reached a point where no one individual could understand things we were starting to build, such as how computers work. Instead, it took a group of specialized experts to jointly piece together new technologies we were inventing. In the past few years, with increasingly complex artificial intelligence technologies, we’ve crossed another threshold: we’ve built things that nobody can fully understand - not even groups of experts. Unlocking this Pandora's box has created a positive feedback loop: In order to coordinate the collective interactions of new, complicated technologies, we must develop even more complicated systems. Ironically, many of the technologies are intended to simplify our lives - to allow us to more easily connect with one another, manage our finances, and order our groceries. But the speed at which new technologies are evolving in fact further complicates our lives. This is one of the major paradoxes of the 21st Century. (“Hashtag disruption!”)Today we’re talking with Tim Hwang about one of the most pervasive examples of these technologies. It’s the one that underlies the entire business model of the internet. And it’s having a profound effect on human behavior at a global scale. We’re talking about programmatic advertising. Tim is a writer, researcher, and currently the general counsel at Substack. He’s the author of The Subprime Attention Crisis, a book about the online advertising bubble that we’ll be discussing today. He’s also a research fellow at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a board member of Meedan, a non-profit that builds software and programmatic initiatives to strengthen journalism, digital literacy, and accessibility of information. Previously he’s served as the global public policy lead for artificial intelligence and machine learning at Google, as well as the director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative, a $27M philanthropic fund and research effort working to advance the development of machine learning in the public interest.The ideas we’ll cover are a bit jargonized and technical, but their implications are extremely broad and important. Tim believes we’re in danger of another economic collapse, perhaps even orders of magnitude larger than the 2008 mortgage crisis. Given the technical nature of the topic, we’re going to first review the main arguments in Tim’s book and then ask him to connect his ideas to the themes we think about at Oscillations. We encourage our listeners to read The Subprime Attention Crisis, since there’s a lot of information that we won’t be able to cover in our conversation today. "Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram /

In the modern world, technology is all around us. It’s hard to imagine a life without our phones, our cars, and our apps. When we think about what technology is, we typically think about physical inventions, like lightbulbs, steam engines, and laptops, along with the algorithms these machines run on. Most people would agree that technology, broadly speaking, refers to the tools we invent to solve problems and simplify things. Moreover, many would also acknowledge that these tools often create new problems and complicate things. For example, the internet has given us unprecedented access to information... but it has also accelerated the spread of misinformation. This means that we have to invent new technologies to manage the old ones. Within this cycle, we culturally co-evolve with our technologies.When we think about technologies as culture-shaping tools with which we co-evolve generally, rather than hardware and software specifically, it becomes clear that many things can count as “technologies.” Those of you who’ve listened to previous podcasts know that my research focuses on language evolution. When I was making the transition from academia to tech, I had to give a talk as part of the interview process at Google. So I gave my dissertation talk, and in it I described language as the “original technology” that defined homo sapiens. My interviewers found this very strange. They were used to thinking about technology in terms of the products they were building. Fundamentally, however, language is a technology - and it’s one that set humans off on their current evolutionary trajectory. At Oscillations, we focus on technology, art, culture, and the science of the mind. All of these things come together in what psychology Professor Judy Fan, Director of the Cognitive Tools Lab at UC San Diego, calls “cognitive technologies.” Cognitive technologies are behaviors that shape our capacities to think, communicate, and imagine. I met Professor Fan earlier this year at a month-long conference called the “Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute,” or “DISI” for  short. As the name implies, every summer the institute brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars working on some aspect of intelligence. There are cognitive scientists, like Judy and myself, philosophers, biologists, neuroscientists, artificial intelligence researchers, political scientists, and even writers and artists. DISI also puts out a fantastic podcast called the Many Minds podcast, which you should definitely check out if you’re into the science of the mind.Today we’re talking with Professor Fan about some of her recent research, which integrates methods from cognitive science, computational neuroscience, and AI, to investigate how humans learn and link their minds together. This research has implications for understanding our cultural co-evolution with technology, our strategies for establishing common ground, and our predisposition to create art."Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter / Vero / Substack / Patreon 

Grace is a way of making others feel at ease. Like hospitality, good manners, cultivating a sense of fashion, and putting your best foot forward when it counts, grace is an ongoing effort and cultivated habit of making the world less stressful and more pleasing for those around us.For these reasons, grace is something like a virtue or a paramount “first principle” of social interaction. In this sense, grace is a courtesy; a respect for others. Grace reflects an awareness of being situated in something larger than ourselves, whether that’s a relationship, a community, or a society. Yet grace is overlooked. In my own lifetime, it seems to have eroded considerably. I remember fondly back to my childhood, a time when nobody received calls after 7pm - a social convention that respected family and personal time and recognized a need to collect oneself, move at a slower pace, and wind down for the day. I remember a time when politicians showed at least some deference to decorum, especially a head of state. I even grew up in a small town in the foothills of Berkshires where vestigial organs of a bygone etiquette would make the occasional appearance: antique ideas that children might refer to their parents and grandparents by “sir” and “maam,” that one ought to ask to be excused from the table, or that any plateware left behind by a guest ought not be returned to them empty.Grace is an outward orientation, and as such it’s a bit anemic in a modern culture with such inward-oriented messaging that encourages us to prioritize our own happiness, our own boundaries, our self care, our self expression, our feelings, our self-reliance, and our independence. To try and understand what grace is and where it fits into modern life, we’re speaking today with Sarah Kaufman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and dance critic at the Washington Post. I read her book “The Art of Grace: On Moving Well Through Life” years ago and it’s had a lasting impact on me. It takes the reader on a search for grace, occasionally looking at some pretty surprising and educative examples. It’s not only a pleasure to read, it’s an inspirational call to action. At OSCILLATIONS we’re all about the inspirational and the visionary - the imagining of new, more creative and beautiful worlds. The book gently encourages us to imagine a world where we are generally better to each other and collectively contributing to a sort of beautification project. For most of us, life is hard enough without having to suffer through its trials surrounded by slumped shoulders, shuffling feet, and morose dispositions. I came away from the book with a strong desire to fashion myself into a graceful person as a matter of virtue and civic responsibility. Let’s just say it’s a work in progress. We couldn’t be more honored and excited to speak with Sarah about grace, culture, art, dance, civics, and science. And so with that, we bring you Sarah Kaufman."Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter / Vero / Substack / Patreon 

Art and entertainment play a central role in culture, shaping our preferences, attitudes, and values, and creating a sense of shared cultural identity. In the 21st century, new technological platforms have not only changed the way we consume art and entertainment, but they’ve also led to new genres of content and paved new pathways for creators. There’s been an explosion of new forms of expression, communication, storytelling, and connecting with others around the world.At OSCILLATIONS, we’re interested in understanding these cultural changes and how we can leverage them to amplify creative expression and cross-cultural collaborations. On this front, there’s perhaps no better role model to look to than Brad Haugen, President of Westbrook Media at Westbrook. We’ve all seen Will Smith and his family’s incredible adaptation to the new ways of doing media and entertainment in the digital and social technology age. Westbrook exemplifies several emerging trends, where celebrities are leveraging their brands in new, socially progressive ways. They’re working to reach younger audiences, who engage with content very differently. They’re partnering with other organizations in the Smith Family circle to make and promote socially impactful investments in startups. And they’re experimenting with categorically new kinds of storytelling at a time when Hollywood—and our increasingly interconnected world, more broadly—is undergoing rapid transitions and associated growing pains. Westbrook’s mission is to empower artists to tell stories that connect the world. If you’ve read the OSCILLATIONS manifesto or listened to us read it on the first three episodes of our podcast, you might have noticed the alignment. At OSCILLATIONS, we’re all about empowering artists to guide the future of some of the most exciting—but also potentially scary—creative technologies that will be coming out in the next decade or two. One of the reasons we’re so excited to talk with Brad is that he himself is a talented visual artist. You can see his paintings on his Instagram profile, and more recently showcased at art galleries. It’s extraordinarily rare to find such dedicated, technically proficient, and talented artists working on the business and entrepreneurial side of any industry. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to get Brad’s thoughts on how entertainment is changing, how the attention economy can be used for social good, and how artists might tangibly shape the future by spreading their art and ideas in a rapidly changing world."Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter / Vero / Substack / Patreon 

Welcome to the OSCILLATIONS Podcast, where we invite you to participate in conversations at the intersection of art, culture, technology, and the science of the mind. There's often a lag between common knowledge and academic knowledge. Sometimes that lag can span decades or even centuries. What the average person might know about the latest ideas in politics. cognitive science, economics, or astrophysics, for example, may in fact be outdated by many years. The field of psychology is only about a century and a half old, but it's gone through some profound changes. The trajectory of our understanding of human thought and behavior has branched off into many disciplines, some of them more speculative and philosophical. Others more concerned with remedial mental health care and others still taking a scientific approach to understanding how the mind works. It's in this scientific approach where we've made the most progress. We now have mountains of evidence in cognitive science, neuroscience and certain areas of experimental psychology that collectively portray an increasingly nuanced understanding of how the human mind evolved, how it develops and how it constructs models of the world. We're beginning to make headway on exciting if still hotly debated questions surrounding consciousness selfhood, identity and agency. Most non scientists aren't aware of this progress. But in our modern world, it's nevertheless critically important to understand Keystone ideas of the science of the mind. These ideas have important implications for governance, progress, and many areas of our individual and collective lives. That's why we recently interviewed Dr. Bruce Hood, an experimental psychologist who makes a great effort to communicate these ideas to a broader audience. Dr. Hood is a professor of developmental psychology in society. His area of research, like Danielle's, focuses on cognitive development. He also participates in many conversations at the intersection of psychology, Technology and Society, including at conferences like Ted RSA and cipher at Google, as well as in interviews for NPR and other major media outlets. He's written several fantastic books for the public that elegantly tackle complex or counterintuitive scientific ideas. These include super sense why we believe the unbelievable the science of superstition, how the developing brain creates supernatural beliefs, the self delusion, how the social brain creates identity, the domesticated brain, and most recently possessed why we want more than we need.Dr. Hood's work has shaped Danielle's approach to AI research at Google, and her theories on the psychology of art. When she teaches undergraduate courses on cognitive science and developmental psychology, she has her students watch excerpts from his online lectures. The discussions that emerge, such as those on the nature of selfhood are consistently the most engaging topics for her students. Both Brendan and Danielle would also argue that they're among the most important. So with that, OSCILLATIONS brings you Dr. Bruce Hood."Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter / Vero / Substack / Patreon 

"Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter / Vero / Substack / Patreon This is the second part of our discussion: What is the meaning of art? This may seem like an impossibly difficult question to answer. Art is subjective, right? Art is off limits to scientific analysis because it's too broad, vague,  and amorphous, isn't it? Isn't art whatever anyone wants it to be?We asked the OSCILLATIONS inner circle what they thought was the meaning of art, and we found a common thread. From our investors to thought leaders in immersive technology, celebrated jazz musicians to linguists, neuroscientists to art historians, everyone converged on a definition of art that we use at OSCILLATIONS to guide the work that we do. Join us for a discussion that really gets at the heart of what we're all about and why we do what we do. Featured guests: Isabelle Charnavel, Department of Linguistics at Harvard UniversityMoran Cerf, Professor of Neuroscience and Business at Northwestern University, MIT, New York University, and the American Film InstituteEric Oldrin, Director of Emerging Platforms at FacebookSarah Vick, Strategic Growth at Hulu, Business Development and Producer at Intel StudiosRotem Sivan, Jazz Musician at Steeplechase, Fresh Sound, and Alma RecordsSuzanne Dikker, Cognitive Neuroscience at New York UniversityAnna Winestein, Executive Director at the Ballet Russes Arts InitiativeChristopher Deustch, Investor at Lofty VenturesTom Emrich, VP of Product at 8th Wall, Co-Organizer at Augmented Word Expo, Investor at SuperVenturesLydia Hannah, Director at Atland Ventures, Technology Consultant at West Monroe Partners

"Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter / Vero / Substack / Patreon What is the meaning of art? This may seem like an impossibly difficult question to answer. Art is subjective, right? Art is off limits to scientific analysis because it's too broad, vague,  and amorphous, isn't it? Isn't art whatever anyone wants it to be?We asked the OSCILLATIONS inner circle what they thought was the meaning of art, and we found a common thread. From our investors to thought leaders in immersive technology, celebrated jazz musicians to linguists, neuroscientists to art historians, everyone converged on a definition of art that we use at OSCILLATIONS to guide the work that we do. Join us for a discussion that really gets at the heart of what we're all about and why we do what we do. Featured guests: Isabelle Charnavel, Department of Linguistics at Harvard UniversityMoran Cerf, Professor of Neuroscience and Business at Northwestern University, MIT, New York University, and the American Film InstituteEric Oldrin, Director of Emerging Platforms at FacebookSarah Vick, Strategic Growth at Hulu, Business Development and Producer at Intel StudiosRotem Sivan, Jazz Musician at Steeplechase, Fresh Sound, and Alma RecordsSuzanne Dikker, Cognitive Neuroscience at New York UniversityAnna Winestein, Executive Director at the Ballet Russes Arts InitiativeChristopher Deustch, Investor at Lofty VenturesTom Emrich, VP of Product at 8th Wall, Co-Organizer at Augmented Word Expo, Investor at SuperVenturesLydia Hannah, Director at Atland Ventures, Technology Consultant at West Monroe Partners

In a special bonus episode, the OSCILLATIONS founders debrief and compared notes on their recent interview with dance historian Dr. Lynn Garafola. How does what we learned last week speak more broadly to our current era? What can OSCILLATIONS learn from the example set by the Ballet Russes? How can the unique history of art in the early 20th century inform our understanding of art, cognitive science, creative technology, culture, and politics one hundred years later?"Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter / Vero / Substack / Patreon 

"Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter / Vero / Substack / Patreon It's a great honor to be interviewing Dr. Lynn Garafola today. She is a pioneering dance historian and the author of several books, including "Diaghilev's Ballet Russes" and the forthcoming "Nijinska Choreographer of Ballet's Avant Garde". If you google dance history, she's one of the first people that comes up, so we're very grateful to have the opportunity to discuss a topic with her which happens to be both dear to our hearts and one of her specialties. Dr. Garafola's historical analysis on the Balley Russes has a deep impact on what we do at Oscillations. As with our other interviews, what we're attempting to do today is translate a thoroughgoing expertise into knowledge that contributes to a holistic framework. Danielle and Brendan want to understand the 21st century human experience from the joint lens of cognitive science, art and society. We're looking for broad insights about the role of art in human society, and what the story of the Ballet Russes and its sphere of influence can tell us about human psychology and collaborative settings. What can we learn from a range of radically diverging opinions about art? And what can we learn from the creative works and processes that reflect a collision of renowned minds under unique historical circumstances?Today you'll hear the story of the most impactful performing arts company in the 20th century- a company whose incredible story intersects with an all-star lineup of historical figures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries including: Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel, Igor Stravinsky, Eric Satie, Francis Poulenc, George Balanchine, Maurice Ravel, Jean Cocteau, Leon Bakst, Oscar Wilde, Mata Hari, Edward Bernays, Gertrude Stein, TS Eliot, Aldous Huxley,  e.e. Cummings, Zelda Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf., John Maynard Keynes, Ida Rubenstein, Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Johannes Brahms, Lincoln Kerstein, Enrico Cecchetti, and Claude Debussy to name just a few. 

"Art is the signature of civilizations." -Beverly SillsJoin the movement from the very beginning. If you believe that #thefutureiscreative, support us with a like, a follow, and a share.subscribe: YouTube  / Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter / Vero / Substack / Patreon A New Conversation between Artists, Scientists, and Technologists.OSCILLATIONS creates with over 100 of the world’s most accomplished dancers, visual artists, fashion designers, and niche creatives. Our partners in the sciences are discovering the mechanisms by which we link our minds together to co-create our perceptions of reality, while our partners in technology are innovating in VR, AR, AI, and BCIs to pave the way for a new mode of performance.An Ambition for Changing the World.OSCILLATIONS aims to innovate a new mode of performance art, leverage technology to increase access to art, and inspire scientific exploration into the brain on art. We facilitate a constant dialogue between the most progressive artists and academics, pushing our understanding of what it means to be human beyond a limit we have ever dreamed of.If you want the future to be creative, spread the word. If you want to live in a beautiful world where art flourishes, support us. If you want art and technology to co-evolve and mean something more than just zombies, shooters, light sabers, and black mirrors, join us!