EP 049 Kai Roer Talks About Human Behaviour and Human Factors in Security

Kai Roer
CEO
Widely considered as the leading authority on the topic of security culture, Kai Roer is a best-selling author, an award-winning speaker, and a serial entrepreneur. 

Currently serving as CEO at Praxis Security Labs, an innovative security software company which he co-founded in 2023, Kai has been providing actionable advice grounded in empirical evidence to public and private organizations around the world since the 1990s. 

Kai is dedicated to improving the knowledge and understanding of the human factors that influence security and the organizational impact they have, and in recent years has focused on helping organizations understand what culture they currently have, what culture they would like to have, and more importantly, how to get there. In 2010, he created the Security Culture Framework (SCF), a framework and methodology to build and maintain security culture, which he later gifted to the open-source community. The SCF evolved into several spin-offs, including the Cybersecurity Culture Framework by The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA). 

In 2015, Kai founded CLTRe, the world’s first SaaS-platform built to measure and manage an organization’s security culture, which was acquired by KnowBe4 in 2019. After which, Kai served as their Chief Research Officer, where he led a team of researchers that focused on bridging the gap between theory and practice and collaborated with both academia and other industry leaders on numerous well-received publications. 

As best-selling author, an award-winning speaker, and guest expert lecturer, Kai works with the information security community on a global stage. He has written and co-written several best-selling books, including The Security Culture Playbook (Wiley, 2022) and Build a Security Culture (IT-Governance, 2015), which are recognized globally as the leading resources for industry leaders and practitioners to understand and learn how to improve security culture. Thanks to his invaluable contributions to the industry and unique background which combines leadership, communication, and technology, he is a popular keynote speaker, expert lecturer and makes frequent appearances in national and international media (newsprint, radio and TV) and on a variety of podcasts. 

Kai focuses on presenting complex challenges in easy-to-understand language, and explains security in ways that resonate with non-security people. Throughout his career, Kai has received several awards, including the Ron Knode Service Award by the Cloud Security Alliance CSA for his extensive volunteer work for the security community around the world. 

When Kai is not working, he enjoys spending time outdoors, riding his motorcycles and BBQing with his family and friends. 

You can connect with Kai at www.linkedin.com/in/kairoer.

Security Circle ⭕️  is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:12

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Yoyo 0:46

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle Podcast. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members mental health and wellbeing. And you know, I like to bring you an exciting and special guest every single week. And I found this very exciting gentleman. His name is Kai Rua. I hope I've said his name correctly. He's a CEO and founder of Praxis Security Labs. But the reason he's on the show today is because he's an expert in human factors, human behaviors. And we're going to be talking an awful lot about why businesses should be focused more on people than maybe necessarily the technology. Kai Rua, welcome to the Security Circle

Kai 1:36

Podcast. Thank you so much, Yolanda. It's a great pleasure being here.

Yoyo 1:40

Well, thank you so much. Remind me where you are. Remind everybody where you are at the moment.

Kai 1:45

Well, today I am in Sweden. Last week I was in Norway. The week prior to that, um, Kenya. And then before that, Zambia. A couple of weeks I will be in Singapore. And then, we will actually meet in Berlin, won't

Yoyo 1:58

we? We will. Yes, we will. And that's because the Pulse 360, conference is on. And that's a conference where I think It would be best described as a hub for a lot of people focused on cyber security in all sorts of different roles, including strategy and leadership. You're going to be presenting there, aren't you?

Kai 2:18

Yeah, I'm, um, happy and lucky enough to be invited to speak there.

Yoyo 2:24

I'm going to be moderating a panel of CISOs, and, some going out and seeing, hopefully, I'll be... German markets open by that time. I think they will be.

Kai 2:34

Yeah. The Christmas markets are usually open sometimes in November and it's a great experience. Currywurst and Glühwein.

Yoyo 2:43

I like the milky kind of eggnog y type of drinks. Yeah. Alcohol. Good. Yeah. So we've got a long way to go before we meet in Berlin, but what are you going to be talking about Pulse360? what's your Subject

Kai 2:56

matter. That is supposed to be a secret. Yeah it's, I'm sort of pulling your... Your leg here. so these days I talk a lot about resilience and by resilience, I don't necessarily mean a business continuity planning and those things and tech to to bring you backups and all that stuff. Um, I look at this topic from or through a human lens. What impact will whatever incident that is coming your way have on your employees? How will they feel when they come to the office one morning and can't get access anymore? Um, what do they do when they don't have, um, access to the computers or cell phones or whatever it is that they normally would be informed about what is going on and how do they then respond? The point I'm trying to bring out is that. Employees are people too, just like any security person out there, they tend to be people too, as in my experience. Um, but in the heart of a crisis, we tend to forget about the normal people. Instead, we focus on putting out the fire. Which is good and you should of course do that, but maybe add another layer to your incident response plans. Maybe do fire drills for your employees and not only tabletop exercises for the management or the security team.

Yoyo 4:32

So look, is it a simple thing, Kai, that businesses just don't really focus on people because that's the way it's always been? It's been a legacy issue, or is it because they generally don't really see the value in it? There's two channels there, and I accept there may even be more channels. And I get that the common narrative right now is to look at empathetic management, managing with empathy, you know, all the talk is there. We all know that as an experienced employee for several organizations, that talk doesn't always manifest itself. So what do businesses need to be focused on?

Kai 5:14

So I believe that when it comes to businesses today and our job, which is protecting business, right, when we're doing security, our main focus, our main task, our priority need to be this one thing, make sure there is business to be had tomorrow. All right, protect your business today. So your business is around tomorrow. That is our job. Now, in 2023, which I believe we are in this year, um, we are not, most organizations are no longer this It's manufacturing places where you had Taylorism, where a human was like a machine building whatever cars for Ford or whatever it was today. Most people in most of the world are having some sort of a knowledge based job, meaning they bring their value. by their body, but by their brain. And because of this, we know research has demonstrated that people who are happy, people who are feeling safe in the workspace, people who are given enough time and space to do their brain work are more likely to produce the kind of results you're looking for. Put differently, businesses who are able to recognize the value of the brain work that their employees are conducting today are more likely to succeed and have, um, the resilience to come true, whatever incident that is coming your way and make no mistake about that. Incidents are coming your way right now, which means that it's not only about protecting against it, Right. We've been doing that for 30 years and it still doesn't help, which means in my opinion, we need to change our approach. We need to build that organization that can thrive in this chaos, that can survive this chaos. And to do that, we need to involve and engage with our employees. It's not a luxury anymore. It's a have to.

Yoyo 7:35

I think a lot of people will resonate with you, Kai, because, you demonstrate a very real. pragmatic, much needed voice that is, is very lacking at the moment. So where do we start? Because usually if there is, for example, a denial of service and standard access to business technology is interrupted, Some employees, especially if they're remote or less connected to the business, they'll think, Oh my gosh, that's how the company's telling me I've lost my job. There'll be a lot of paranoia and fear and worry about even where their jobs sit. If. Something very significant happens and they can't access systems. The ability for a business to communicate then to everybody is massively disrupted. This is the worst case scenario. It's chaotic. It's unorganized. However, there are a lot of challenges to. Singular emergency communications and backup communication methodologies. There's, for example, I tried to put one in a former company where I said to my three departments, look, let's let's just have a WhatsApp group. Um, and that way, if you put your personal numbers in it as well, if the company network goes down, which had happened. We've all got a way of communicating, in the main, to each other, to stop any fear or be more effective. And I had challenges with a minority group who just didn't want to put their personal phone number in a WhatsApp group, even though they were quite happy to do it with other groups. And it was almost like, um, you know, I don't have to do this is against my wishes. And so those behaviors weren't very productive which was, let's have a backup in case we need to, the network goes down again and we need to talk to each other. Well, how do we deal with this? Because this involves a lot of people and change transformation. I understand it's not a quick fix, but there are other examples as well, aren't there?

Kai 9:38

Yeah, and so what you point to here is actually not one problem, but a number of problems. One of them is using an off limit or off company kind of communication platform like WhatsApp. Now, if you are a listed company in the U. S., that may be a problem for you. Um, not long ago, there was a huge debacle about some company got a breach, I don't remember which, and then SEC came and said, well, you know, you are not allowed to do communication like that. Now we require to see everything also in those platforms. So, so there is a huge legal risk of putting in place. Let's call them knee jerk programs without knowing or understanding that the different kinds of risks that are in place. The other challenge that you point to here is what do you do about those employees who don't see the point or refuse to take part of these things? Number one, I do believe that we need to be empathetic empathetic. We need to understand that not everybody are able to share their personal information with everybody else. I mean, I've been working with colleagues who had stalkers, um, trying to, you know, find them and do. Crazy stuff with them. Obviously, if one of your employees are like that, which statistically it is likely that they are you may not want to force them to give up for them private information that may or may not be used to identify them, find them and those things. So there are some political and personal things that needs to be accounted for. Um, but what can you do that? Right? So in my opinion, what you need to do is to prepare the information, um, or the organization, but by informing them, I mean, we do fire drills in most office buildings around the world usually once a year, sometimes a little bit, um, more often, sometimes a little bit more rarely, uh, but the point of these fire drills is not yeah. to have a fire. We don't expect that office to burn down. The reason we do them is to make sure that everybody understands what they need to do in case that building burns down. aNd I propose that we should do similar things when it comes to cyber security. buT of course, you can't just have a fire drill without people telling people and preparing people and training people advance. Um, so you need to help people understand that in case there is a fire or, you know, DDoS or ransomware or whatever it is, this is what is going to be expected from you. This is what is going to be happening. They may not be possible for you or us to actually give you information. But worry not. People can be, and usually are, a huge, tremendous, valuable resource during crisis. But we as security people, we need to then be able to leverage that, to get back fast, quickly, and that means helping them understand what is going on, and then train them so they do the right stuff.

Yoyo 12:58

And that's all well and good when you've got an engaged, workforce who are committed and happy. But, when you haven't got that, where do you start? Because it's difficult, isn't it, enforcing change. On one hand, you'll have some people say, Oh, God, here we are, you know, we're being told what to do again, you know, and then on the other hand, it's like, I don't know, this is confusing me. Am I supposed to do this? Am I supposed to do that? And humans are incredibly difficult. to herd, you know, and to have them all going in the same direction. And don't you think, to your point about fire tests, that's just been conditioned now. It's been drummed in through years of repetition. That actually we've got quite a big task ahead of us to try and bring about more good change.

Kai 13:48

So, so I think the reference to Pavlov is very good there, right? So, so yes, of course we have conditioned workforces to know what to do in a case of crisis. And my point here is that we need to do the same when it comes to cybersecurity. The difference is that in a fire, you will feel the heat. Right? Um, problem with cyber and cyber security is that it is abstract. It is not only abstracted away from our physical world, but it's layers of abstraction. Back in the day, you would have a computer, everything happened on the computer. Then you would have a physical server in your room. Now everything is in the cloud. And that means it's... It's cloudy. It's difficult for our brains to understand the complexity and then if your job is to do sales, for example, you care about doing sales, closing those deals, finding those leads. That's your job. And you shouldn't have to worry about, um, logging onto systems or whatever it is. You should be made, it should be made easy for you to do your job. Right? And that's another pet peeve of mine. Security, we tend to introduce friction between that sales guy or accountant or CFO or whoever it is and their job. We should be doing the opposite. We should be making it easy for them to do the right stuff. Not hard. Because guess what happens when we make it hard for them? Number one, their motivation goes down. Number two, they start to look for alternatives. Shadow IT anyone? And then you start complaining about them not doing the behavior you want them to do. But you are actually forcing them to do something they don't really want to do, but they have to, they feel like they have to, in order to close that deal or pay that bill or whatever it is that make your business go round.

Yoyo 16:01

In a culture, certainly we reported Did it this year earlier on in the year that the percentage of employees looking to change their roles was significantly higher than expected and the percentage of employees, you know, looking to move, but also looking speculatively were also on the increase. And so, you know, and I look back at some of the roles that I've had and that my colleagues have and being in certain security roles and managing humans is very. You know, I look at the resistance sometimes that we had in a tall building in London, where a particular employee. Um, you know, literally ripped off the fire door to the basement because he wasn't allowed to go below band level to go and get his bicycle because the fire alarm went off at half past four. And he wanted to choose that as an opportunity to go home and he ripped the, he slammed the fire door so hard that it came off its hinges. And you know, that type of scenario is. Very rare. I appreciate that. But they're long lasting scenario. You know, you remember that behave that behaviors exist in you like that. And those kind of behaviors can be very counterproductive to everybody achieving safety. In the event of a real crisis that particularly year we had a number of different incidents in London, we had to lock down several times because of the Westminster bridge attack and the London bridge attack, which were, you know, widely reported terrorism incidents. And so we have to do these scenarios to. Keep people in the right mindset, but it's challenging. You know, I think you're talking about a very ideal world and I think the real world is fraught with obstacles to achieve that. So how do we do it? How do we win people over and gain their compliance when half of them are looking for a job somewhere else, you've got a percentage of people that are fairly hostile and don't really support the business and won't protect it and won't like it. and are quite toxic and complaining. And then you've got this minority of people who, are just indifferent. so There's a lot of challenges there, isn't there? Sure, we're

Kai 18:20

talking about people, right? And every individual person will have their individual motivation. Um, and to me, that means that organizations, businesses, companies, whatever you choose to call these employers, have a responsibility to tap into that motivation of that employee. But the opposite is true to you work at an organization, not only to get a salary, you work there because you are exchanging your time, your focus, your brainpower, or sometimes if you're still a handiwork, your hand time, uh, In exchange of a salary and some sort of social structure in that transaction, you need to also accept the fact that you are now reporting to somebody else that somebody else being the chairperson of the board, being the CEO, being the CSO, being your manager, it doesn't really matter. You have accepted a transaction that whenever they say jump, you jump. In return, you get a salary, sometimes a nice position, and you get to live a different life outside. A lot of people and organizations seem to forget that this transaction is going on. Um, but it's also important. I'm not saying that we should force this by, by being evil or negative in it but I do believe that. In, in many places, it may be worthwhile reminding people why they are actually working there. Um, a saying that I've been saying for many years is that it's voluntary to work here. I mean, you have a choice. You can go somewhere else. But as long as you are here, these are the rules that apply. These are the expectations that apply. Um, of course, not everybody likes to hear that, but then maybe they shouldn't be working with you. Yeah, but

Yoyo 20:35

it isn't easy. And I looked at straight away to Stephen Bartlett, one of the, he's on the Dragon's Den panel here. He's the CEO. He's a. entrepreneur, you know, he's very public about saying, if you've got the wrong people in your business, you need to get rid of them and you need to move them on. However, that isn't the easiest thing to do. And yet I have also seen people stay in jobs that they really shouldn't. They're not good for them. It's, I've seen people just slog it out, fight it out, you know, whatever try and change the system instead of thinking, do you know what, this just isn't the right fit for what I want right now, I'm going to go move and people are scared of moving. And I think also if people felt that they were not having their psychological contracts broken. They would probably be more inclined to share a little bit more love at work. But I think once the psychological contract is broken, people are less inclined to think, you know, and then the older you get, you're thinking, Oh, so you know what? I'm not going to fall in love with this job. This isn't going to be the job of my dreams because I know what the status quo is. There's no job for life anymore. I'm going to go in and see how it goes. And already your expectations are lower than where they would have been maybe 10 years ago. I've got a new job. Yay. Do you know what I mean? So I think we're all getting a little bit soured by experience. And so there's the bias that you talked about at the very early part. We have a responsibility to park that bias and to go in with a good, fresh, positive mindset and contribute everything we can. Some people will find that easy. Um, but there are a lot of challenges there, including not having the people in your business that are bad for your business.

Kai 22:13

So having the right people on board is, of course, crucial everywhere, but it's not easy, right? Some organizations are really heavily regulated. Some countries are heavily regulated. You can't fire people without, you know, extreme cause. Um, and then you create cultures of evasion, cultures of replacements and stuff like that, which is probably not good for anybody. Um. But I also think it's part of a human thing. We don't want to, so this is, I don't want you to feel bad, right? I don't want to cause pain for you. And then what do I do? Instead of telling you what it is and how it is and what you need to change, I just shut up. I don't say anything. And then what happens is that you create a different culture. You create a culture where people are allowed to voice their opinions, even when they are sour and whatever. People are allowed to perform at 40 percent instead of 80%. People are. Allowed to, you know, tear down that door because they don't agree with you or your priorities. Um, so it is complex, but then again it's a lot of research that we can learn a lot from when it comes to people. For example, psychological safety is very important, but it's also very easy to remove it, right? So, so, so, so, so, so, building in psychological safety in your cyber security programs, for example, in my opinion, is a vital, we need that. Um, but I also believe that we cannot accept a world where your personal opinion should go before the needs of the company. You are there basically because you accepted to work there, which means that you accepted the rules and even accepted the fact that the rules will change. How about

Yoyo 24:27

the different generations? I've mentioned this a lot in the podcast conversations I have, because I think generations have a very different approach to, to work. How would you factor that in?

Kai 24:39

I'm not sure I agree with you, actually.

Yoyo 24:41

Let me give you an example. We can learn from the younger generations that work life balance has become more important because their tolerance for working in the way that perhaps the Gen X generation have worked in the past and continue to still work is not something that is acceptable to them and it breaks a psychological contract. You know, I've grown up in a gen, in Generation X where, you know, if my boss said to me, Hey, listen, um, Yolanda, I know it's. It's Bank Holiday on Monday, but can I get a couple of hours? I want to headbutt about an idea and we'll see if we can break through it and I'll be like, okay, yeah, sure. No worries. I wouldn't dream of saying no. And there are so many people of my generation who would have the same attitude. Whereas you speak to somebody who's maybe Gen X or Gen Z, sorry, Gen Z, and they would be like, Bank Holiday. Jog on. That's my holiday. And so it's not to disparage them. They've set a boundary. And what they're saying is just because my former generation operated like that and did so willingly. That doesn't mean to say we have to do the same. And there will be different attitudes, for example, inside a threat across security will be very different across different generations because the loyalties that are there in some generations aren't in others. And the priorities for employees are different across the generation. So I think that's something to factor in.

Kai 26:10

Yeah, but you see, the problem I have with this is that it's usually based on. One or two scenarios. First one is anecdotal proof, which is not really research, it's just my experience, right, or your experience or somebody else's experience. Sometimes it may carry some value if we can put it together and create research on it. But most of the time it's just... It's a nice history. It supports your point, but it doesn't actually validate it or evidence it. The other problem I have with this, or the other source of information we have here is, guess what? Cultural consultants. Those people who make shitloads of money. telling you how different these people actually are, while in reality, most of those changes are not really that big. Those differences in priorities and stuff are not really that big. So in my experience, it is not that big of a deal. Yes, there may be some differences, mainly their age, not generations. Mainly, it's Experience or lack thereof, but of course, also the older we get, the more stuck we get to our ideas, the more difficult it is for us to change our ideas, especially when it comes to our personal worldviews. Um, so in that regard. It's usually harder to change someone on my age than someone on their 25s. But that is not the same.

Yoyo 27:51

You're not 25?

Kai 27:54

Well, I'm 27 and a half. 27 plus the 80. It's something like that. Yeah. Yeah. No but it is, yes, it's easy to divide people into groups and, you know, stereotype them and say that, you know, it has to be like that because that's what I see or hear. But in, in fact, people, the individual people. very rarely fit into that stereotype. And that is very important to remember when we talk about groups of people and characteristics of people. Yes, they characterize that group, but they rarely characterize that individual.

Yoyo 28:35

I feel like talking to you, you're resetting me. And I like that. Thank you. I

Kai 28:41

hold that.

Yoyo 28:43

I like that because I'm very curious. I have lots of, I'm open. I'm very, keen and curious to learn and, you know, I'm very aware that, you know, when I see a continuance of a certain behavior or I see a pattern, it's just the way my brain works. I see a pattern and I see that pattern becoming more embedded and more enforced. And it's just occurred to me that if you can make me feel that I can reset my biases and my behaviors that I've just learned and adopted naturally, that maybe that's what you do for businesses too. And I think it's a superpower you have.

Kai 29:21

Thank you. That's very kind of you. Um, I'm not sure about the superpower, but I do believe in the responsibility of challenging the status quo. We want to build a better world, don't we? We want to build a more secure world. We want to build a world where people, individuals, can be people, individuals. We agree that it's not easy, but we do agree that we have to try. And then sometimes, you know, people like me have to challenge other people out there. I think

Yoyo 29:58

it's really good. It's really good. And you do it in a nice way. You talked to people in general. Let's talk about nations. We, um, I've had some incredibly good conversations recently where we talk about a nation being prepared. And that means being prepared for things like water shortages, being prepared for cyber security attacks, being prepared for other types of crises. There are countries now around the world that need more preparedness in relation to fire. Um, and that maybe even need more preparedness in relation to volcanoes. so there are a lot of reasons to prepare a nation. But one of the key things that seems to, and I'm taking a very sort of holistic global look now. One of the key things that seems to undermine preparedness is false information, fake news, the media, and the manipulation and coerciveness that the media uses, social media. And this kind of dumbing down that we seem to get, which is very stereotypically coming through when you look at hegemony, you look at. China, TikTok, and you look at how they're encouraging their children, for example, to only use TikTok for a limited time per day, which is mandatory. It's a state mandatory requirement. And the point to this is that they show all of their children successful clips of Children mastering musical instruments and science and maths and technology, whereas on the Western states, where there seems to be less preparedness mentally, there's this kind of dumbing down of just crappy, useless, let's get as drunk as we can. Let's do stupid jokes. Let's fall over. Let's drink all this. Let's eat all that. And I just think, you know, we aren't really. Strong enough, I think, at the moment with our mental preparedness as a nation. What do you say to that?

Kai 32:01

So, so what you're pointing at now I will narrow it very down and talk about geopolitics and geosecurity. Um, we are in a war. There is a war going on now and not only in Ukraine, Russia, but globally, there is a global, we call it the trade war, or at least the Americans call it the trade war, but in reality is a war about power, finances and technology. In this war, uh, some of the enemies, if you, yeah, let's call'em enemies has determined that our, um, governing system, our democratic system, where we have lawmakers law of, um, um, the. Legal system, the judges, and the free media, they have discovered that they can manipulate that and use that to, you know, destabilize the society. The funny thing is that, um, who wrote the book on destabilizing societies in order to cause a revolution?

Yoyo 33:15

I couldn't rule out the British Empire. Well,

Kai 33:19

British can try definitively and then you inspired our friends across the pond the CIA they wrote this playbook and tested it in Latin America, for example for it didn't work out for them because they couldn't control public opinion. But what you are seeing now is that technology allows. Different kind of actors to control and manipulate public opinion at great

Yoyo 33:48

scale. Yeah, fast too.

Kai 33:52

Fast, great scale. And we are like, Oh, but you see, I am more worried about my next election period to make some. long term decisions here. Or, I am too worried about how changing our tech is influencing our profit margin this quarter, instead of looking five and ten and fifteen years ahead, as some of our enemies are doing.

Yoyo 34:16

Can I give you another example? We all know Trump's an idiot, right? Donald Trump. But even now when you see him on the news, and he's now facing X, Y, and Z, incarceration and criminal offenses, and he gets onto the, in front of a camera, and he says, this is all a witch hunt, that I, you know, this is all rubbish. And I'm thinking, this is still a part of me. When you hear something enough, you believe it. And I'm thinking, maybe he really isn't. But it's that whole war of words, isn't it? That you can find yourself, he's even as a very sensible person trapped in

Kai 34:47

the middle of it. So I'm a sensible person. I don't talk. Yeah, I'm not commenting on that one. I was about to say something. But yeah, the interesting thing with Trump is how he is manipulating and using the media that we have created over the past 20 years to manipulate public opinion to his favor. Fine. I can feel it. But the fascinating thing is that he did something no other Western politician dared to do. And that was to make that trade war public news, public information, and then fight back. Um, and whatever we think about Trump and Brexit and all those things, it is important to realize not only for the Trumps and the politicians out there, but for the rest of us too. There is a big war going on and we are having parts in that war. This comes back to responsibility that we discussed earlier. You and I have a responsibility to fight back, pick side. Now for some of us, that side has been picked already, so we don't have that luxury, but there are many other countries around the world that has not yet been forced. So in that regard, you need to ask yourself and not you and me, but. people listening, you need to ask yourself this question. So what is the future? I believe will be the best for humankind for man on this globe, right? Um, because it may be the democracy that we are pursuing. It may be an autocracy like the point system in, in China. Yeah. It may be something very different, possibly coming out of Africa, or, and here is a bridge, it may be a whole new kind of intelligence species that are not here at all.

Yoyo 37:11

Okay. Is that because they haven't landed yet? Or because we haven't created them through AI yet?

Kai 37:17

The latter, which also mean also that they could come back some point in the future and say, Oh, we found the mother. Where is my mother?

Yoyo 37:30

Yeah, Voyager. Yeah, Voyager might come back. Yeah, there was a prophecy there. Um. Okay, so, but when you look at Marxist theories, you know, he was able to identify what was working really well with capitalism, wasn't he? But even he acknowledged a weakness in the sense he couldn't identify a a sort of a methodology that could be unmatched to capitalism and still have the same output. Is capitalism the undoing, basically? And when you're,

Kai 38:04

no capitalism is not the undoing. So far through human history, capitalism, regulated capitalism, not neoliberalism, anarcho, whatever the F you call those things, but regulated capitalism is. to date, the most effective governing system humans ever created. The problem is that for the past 50 years to my lifetime, we have increasingly deregulated. We have increasingly created extremely rich crowd on the top, not even a crowd, but a few individuals. And then Removed that middle class that we know is where the, um, productivity add, productivity value add, the spending happens and then built. We, we are basically going back to feudal system. Um, and that is what happens with capitalism when you don't regulate it.

Yoyo 39:08

However, what happens when to that voice of people that don't believe in regulation, remember, I think it's slightly more in America, but at least 10 percent in the UK believe in anarchy and they want and will continue to fight for anarchy. They don't want a government. So, so. So, so,

Kai 39:25

so, so, so anarchy is interesting, right? Yeah. aNd I don't mind you calling me an anarchist because, you know, in my heart I am, but the problem from an intellectual perspective is that humans have not yet evolved to such an intellectual capacity where anarchy will work. Yes. If you start exploring what it means by having no rules, it means that suddenly you have to come up with the rules on the spot. And it has to be the right rule and right decision, right action every single time. And you have

Yoyo 40:09

to surely, you have to be thinking surely about the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right? If you're going to believe in that kind of principle. way of life. Exactly,

Kai 40:18

which leads to an interesting philosophy, ethical and moral questioning. Um, so, so, so, so, yes I dream of an anarchistic society. It would be amazing, but it is. just a fantasy, it's utopia, that humans will not be able to create, sustain, or even live in. But maybe AI, maybe we can build AI to live in an anarchistic system. But then again, maybe if we base AI on our, so let's say that we become God, right, and create AI in our image, um, It will need rules again.

Yoyo 41:07

I feel like the need to drop the F bomb there and say we're fucked, basically. If we build AI in our own image, then we're screwed. I don't see how we can... I agree with you. We're too greedy. So we

Kai 41:23

can look at large language models, which has been the thing this year. They are basically trained on us. Including all the deep, shitty, black, really bad stuff that people say and make claims about. soMe of the good too, but you know, it's a lot of negativity out there because people believe they can be anonymized. And then when they are no longer a person, they can become an asshole and no one can, you know, get at them. Which says something about that dream of anarchist.

Yoyo 42:02

Yeah, I mean, just so you're saying that there can be good anarchy and bad anarchy, really there's not any, I mean, look, don't get me wrong. I've gotten to my ripe old age thinking, Jesus, um, I don't really like what our government are doing, but there's no alternative. And I feel like a lot of people that think the same way, like, Oh, you know, I don't really want to go that way. And this way is probably the better of both. And I'm thinking, but I don't like this is so much wrong. And, but there's nothing ethical. about the whole thing that you think we're just going to be caught up in this web that we can't escape and I feel like that sometimes. It's taken a long time for me to find the words for that because I've always been brought up to never really, um, I don't believe in disestablishmentarianism. I don't believe in, you know, slating the government that's in play. It's being voted in. You have to kind of go along with it. I'm not really a disruptor in that sense. Yes, this

Kai 42:58

is, I think most of us don't want to be disruptors, right? Um, in those countries that has an elected government, like your country and mine, we believe that by electing politicians, we delegate the responsibility for the hard choices. To them, right? So when I elect a politician or a party, I do that because I want them to make the difficult choices on my behalf so I don't have to. I will, of course, bitch and complain if I don't like what they made me do, but that's why we have them. Because if I have to take all my energy, all my time, figuring out, should I be driving on the left hand side or the right hand side of the street? Should I need gun permits or not? Um, should I be allowed to do X, Y, or Z or not? I mean, imagine the chaos. So, so I the problem though is that when I delegate this responsibility to modern politicians, they run away. They don't take the responsibility, instead, they go out there and craft this public opinions polls, who may be a lot of idiots, if you excuse my wording here, who have no clue. They just respond, whatever question the survey company give them. And then 1, 000 out of, I don't know, 80 billion, 80 million or whatever it is in the UK. Um, Informs than the decision for the politician so that the decision hasn't as the politician don't need to make his own judgment and decision. The other challenge I have is this horse training skills. They seem to have. So, so, so, so, so it's really good. But yes, um, just my ranting today. Sorry about that. No. I

Yoyo 45:02

think you kind of made me think that there's greater other global risks as well, that we're not really prepared for as humans. And that is mass migration due to climate change, for example, around the hottest and driest and most arid areas of our, um, planet.

Kai 45:17

Can I shout out your your perspective there? Our part of the world is struggling with one huge issue that we neglect to talk about.

Yoyo 45:26

Um, let me think, um, it's not social media is it a resource? Ah, is it your related?

Kai 45:36

It is about that immigration

Yoyo 45:38

topic. Oh, it is. Oh, it is. Go on then. Yeah. Is it because we're a small country? So,

Kai 45:43

we are small countries with a growing old population. Yes. Which means... Um, we need people to come and work if we want GDP to increase over the next few years and every country needs that to happen, right?

Yoyo 46:00

Yes yeah, agreed. But part

Kai 46:03

of that is that maybe we should start educating. There is people who will be immigrating over the next 50 years. Maybe we have some sort of a responsibility to create that knowledge, that competence, that workforce that we are going to have, wanting it or not, because we need it.

Yoyo 46:29

Gotcha. Wow. And then I'm looking at immigration then over the decades where each sort of nation of immigration has been at the bottom, haven't they, of the working ladder. And then it's almost like you can tell now like who your taxi drivers are and who's working in kitchens and in restaurants and things like that. And gradually you see that the migration nations from maybe 30, 40 years ago. They're not at that, they work through a social ladder, don't they? And I just wonder, do we as a society always need to have, um, that entry level migration level, because otherwise there would just be certain jobs that wouldn't. So,

Kai 47:16

I think that, um, limiting the scope to entry level workers is doing us a disfavor. Agreed. Because we will also be lacking, we are already lacking, knowledge worker. People who come to us and use their brains to do work. As an example, in my company, which is a Norwegian company, we are eight people. I am the only one from Norway. Really?

Yoyo 47:47

Really. Cool though. But technology, let's go back to technology now. Technology is great, isn't it? For the migration of brain power into certainly key popular tech areas. California, Texas, for example Berlin's got a big tech community that encourages a lot of the right type of migration for brains, doesn't it?

Kai 48:10

Yes, but it also, the problem in migration is xenophobia. Yeah. So, so, if I were to move to.

Yoyo 48:25

Yes. We'd be very glad to have you.

Kai 48:28

Thank you. And that's my point because as long as I look like you, everything is fine, right? Ah, dammit. The moment I move somewhere else, Japan for example, I'm no longer fitting in the mole or stereotype of us. I become them. And then regardless of. How good I am, how smart I am how nice I am, somebody else is going to, you know, kill someone or run over somebody or somebody. And then because I am them, not us, I am responsible for that problem. because of this. Right. Um, I have a lot of Polish friends, which is interesting that, that has had these big problems from Brexit because, you know, they spoke English, maybe not as well as you do, but they looked like you. But still a lot of them got a lot of shit, so much problems that they decided to move out. Yeah. And these kind of xenophobic clashes are coming unless we can teach the publics that, you know, we need this. If we want to continue evolve as a society, as a human, as humankind, and on this planet, we need to start working together, not against each other.

Yoyo 50:12

And it's so hard. I want to ask you now, what sort of key things you, for anyone listening that they can take away and say, you know what Kai said makes a lot of sense. Human behaviors are relevant. I can do something from today. What would you advise?

Kai 50:31

Very easy. Start with yourself. Yeah. And I say it's very easy because, you know, it's very easy to say it. Um, but it's also the most difficult change to make. Um, all of us want to change everybody else. Very few, if any of us, want to change ourselves.

Yoyo 50:54

I wish there were more people like me though. I wish there were more people like you. My goodness you kind of have this really stabilizing factor that I'm thinking there needs to be. Can we just clone you? I know, put you in AI. You could be the consciousness that we need.

Kai 51:14

Yeah, I'm not sure I believe in that idea of transferring our brain to the AI. I'm not sure that is ever going to be possible, uh, but I do know this, that AI is going to come with all my mental sides, including my depressions, including my questioning of myself, including my irrational ideas. Really? Because I am human, just like everybody else, I have my things, and they may not always be the best thing to replicate, let's put it that way.

Yoyo 51:56

I don't think we should encourage AI to be depressed.

Kai 52:00

No, I don't think that would be a very good thing, no.

Yoyo 52:04

It's like speaking to Alexa and saying, how are you doing today, Alexa, and Alexa going, you know, I'm just really fed up, don't ask me questions today, I don't want to do anything. Or

Kai 52:12

worse. Or worse.

Yoyo 52:15

Yes, turn everything off.

Kai 52:17

Oh no. Alexa, why are all these Amazon trucks keep delivering shit on my doorstep today? I see ten of them going down the road. And then, oh yeah, I just had a bad day yesterday. I ordered everything on Amazon for you.

Yoyo 52:37

Instead of asking you, would you like to order this again? They just order it anyway. You know, it's really cantankerous. Yeah.

Kai 52:47

So, so yeah, no I don't like the idea of a depressed AI. I agree with you there.

Yoyo 52:50

Yeah. I think we should focus on that. And I always advocate for this and I know it's impossibly hard, but I would like an AI that does no harm to humans. And I, you know, it's like there are some very clever people right now talking about how we've unleashed a monster because, um, it's the same principle, you know, a stone in the hand of a evil person or a stone in the hand of a creative person. Is entirely a different thing and you put AI in replacement of that stone and you can all of a sudden, you know, yeah, I don't need to tell you how bad AI could get. There are movie directors still making movies on, on how important AI is going to be in our future and how destructive it can be. But I wished we'd like everything, you know, we build houses with doors and locks and alarms. Why can't we build technology with, you know, fail safes so that they can't harm us?

Kai 53:52

Yeah, I think it's because we don't want to.

Yoyo 53:55

Oh, that's even worse. That says an awful lot about us, you know, as a human race, and I wonder if we will ever last long enough to be any good to anything.

Kai 54:06

so there's safety in numbers. You mentioned that guy who tore down that fire door. Yes. Because it's one of him and a thousand of the rest of us, he's not causing any damage, at least not. Yeah. Permanent damage to humankind. Now, imagine that this person becomes the president of a company, a country with nuclear tools or the president of a company with AI. Yeah. Then it only takes one.

Yoyo 54:40

Yeah it does. So we will we will pledge to work towards continual peace, even though we are in a very difficult war, certainly a war against ethics. I think we seem to sit in at the moment, but I think we have done around the world in human behaviors. Thank you so much for your time today. What an insightful conversation. Thank you. Thank you for having me.