Cannes Round-Up 1: Full Episode

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It's Machine Yearning from Assist. It's a podcast where we think and dream about the future of AI, the talking internet, and how we're reshaping our culture. Only 4 episodes into this podcast, we thought we'd change it up a bit. Today and in next week's episode, we have a bunch of conversations from the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. It's where over 10,000 folks from 90 countries meet to hand out awards and chop up the future of brand communication. A great place to geek out on our obsessions: language and how people connect, how we use technology to facilitate our connections, and the hardest one, the blind spots we need to discover so we can do it better. We did almost all of our interviews on a boat because, hello, it's Cannes. But it wasn't just any boat. It was the floating home of LivePerson. One of the true leaders in transforming customer care from voice calls to mobile messaging at scale. They're a huge deal in the conversational commerce world. LivePerson took great care of us and are a true friend of the pod. Starting things off, Shane sits down with Rob Locascio, LivePerson CEO. We pick up where they're deep in it and asking, how can we expect to build and teach machines to do things if we don't do them ourselves? Get ready because we start at speed with a conversation on the role of empathy, the impact of bias, and all the things that make us human. We loved our time with Rob and we think you will too. Enjoy.

Why is empathy so important to this? What, what is it specifically that empathy— I mean, empathy is important for everyone to understand what it's like to not be yourself, but how specifically in this space does that play out?

So what is empathy? You know, like if we start there, it's really that you are engaged with another human being. You are actively listening to that human being. Uh, you're not judging them. And they are not feeling that they're being judged either, okay? Because we all come with our biases. I see right now you're in a t-shirt and you got your sunglasses on, and I could just make a judgment that you're not serious about technology.

I just got off a boat.

I understand it was hot.

That's what I'm saying. So, but I'm just saying, like, I could step in and I'm just making a point. Obviously I know you're serious about technology and you're a great technologist. But we have biases. If I didn't know you, let's say I just sat down, I'm like, this guy's not— but so I have that. And then as you started to speak and I listened, I would say, oh wow, you're a serious guy, really, he's run a great company, so forth and so on. And then I let that down. You know that. Yeah, I'm not judging you. And then at that, there's a magic moment where there's empathy. I can relate to you. I can relate to your story. I'm not judging you on my history of what I— who I met someone like you, because the brain the brain does a very funny thing. It tries to optimize for sort of lack of energy, you know.

Say more, what do you mean?

So the brain, you know, when we're, about 20% of our energy goes to our brain. So think of our brain as burning 20% of our energy through thought. And so, in a day. So our brain is actively trying to do is use its filters to just put you, put things into a box so I don't have to overthink it. You know, if you sat and overthought everything, you'll burn more than 20%.

So bias actually comes from— save— it's trying to save energy and not have to think again.

That's it.

Wow.

So that's the first thing. The second thing bias is, is protecting. I know that you are something, or the, uh, the, the— our past, and our past is, is thousands of years past, as in there's a, there's a statistic that like 90% of how we're perceiving things is from a from our past, okay? I'm talking about not our past, just I've been around 50 years. I'm talking like from 100,000 years ago.

Wars.

I trusted you because we went to war together and you saved me, correct?

So our brain has genetic markers all the way through and memories, and then we have our current memories. And then that's what basically what we're doing is saying all of that tells me a bias. You could hurt me, okay? You could hurt me. Like if you're if you were Black, maybe I just have a natural bias because that's what I've had, that's what's been around for years in the world, or the people in my group of people, I don't know. And I come with that, even if I don't, it's unconscious, even though I don't even know it's there. So that's what bias is about, it's the brain optimizing, it's also trying to protect the human from getting hurt, from getting killed. So that's why it's a very powerful thing. Thing.

And when you have that, how do you practice empathy then? How do you make yourself more empathetic?

The best way you can make yourself more empathetic is just put yourself out into things that you don't do. Like, all I can— I can be— I can empathize with you and with your stories if I've had a similar story. So if I've had this life that's fairly limited and I've met— then that's why diversity is very powerful— and I've met a limited set of diverse people my mind won't expand. Only through diversity do we change. Diversity in our environment, a diversity in the people we know. That's why building a great company with diversity, it will help us change. So that's, that's really the important thing.

So in the bot space specifically, and AI, I would say is also relevant because I agree with you on the negative tech narrative that it's going to take all our jobs, kill all the people, and take over the world. What are you most optimistic about?

I, I don't think it's going to do that. I, I think actually, first of all, I don't believe that AI should be replicating human intelligence nor consciousness. The human brain is just a tool that's being used to paint reality. That's what it does. And it paints reality based on a set of inputs it's getting from the world around us. Okay. Even color, you know, we're seeing color That's light reflecting off of an object, then my eye interpreting that. I'm saying like our brain is just doing this interpretive thing all day. Why replicate that? Yeah, I don't, I don't get that. Like, it's pretty good. The problem that it has is that the, the inputs it gets, sometimes it, it makes a false connection to something in from the past, like we're saying in this bias. If the machine could provide me with another set of realities you know, another, a better way to do things. For instance, maps are great, like Google Maps. Before there was Google Maps, I may have had a bias.

Like, what do you mean?

I, maybe I went down a road, I see this in New York City all the time. I'll be, I'll go in a taxi and the guy will go take a route and I'm like, why are you taking that route? And he's like, because this, the route that I'm taking has less traffic. And I will know that I take the other route all the time. It never has traffic. I've seen this all the time. And I'm like, The guy's like, but because sometime in his past he hit traffic in that one area, so he figures traffic will be there. You open Google Maps, it says it's green, I'm going. Sometimes says red, sometimes it's make a right, left, right, left to get around things. That's— that made my reality in the world I'm living in much easier. Like, Maps also allowed me to discover things. I can find restaurants, I can find things. So Maps and Google Maps is— is when you think about machine learning And the data, what they've done is make my— the way my brain is processing reality better. I can better get from point A to point B. And that's what we want is more maps created around us.

That's a great example. That's one of those ones where I think 50% of my childhood parents' fights were around directions to places.

Yeah.

Like that is a— that hits a trigger in me of like remembering always like, no, I know which way.

Go left. It's not left.

It's right.

Yeah.

I remember every time we got stuck in traffic up in the Bronx coming back from New Jersey, my dad was convinced that a game let out at Yankee Stadium. It was like if there was traffic, it was a game in Yankee— even the Yankee, it was wintertime, the Yankees weren't playing. He's like, a game must have let out. It was like, cause he had something that happened in his past where a game let out and he was in traffic, you know, and 60 years later the game had left out. So you're right.

That's also a great example of people trusting the machine enough. And once it got there, cause I remember even, and I would go back to the Midwest and I would have Google Maps open. And even 2 or 3 years ago, people would be like, no, I know how to get there faster. And I'm like, it literally says, like, I know all 3 routes and exactly how fast.

Um, so, so we'll trust the machine. This goes back to building bots. We'll trust the machines when they start to paint a, a reality that makes life easier for us and how we think, which is not hard because most of us do trust Google Maps. Like I said, some people but most of the world are trusting electronic maps now.

You know what's fascinating about what you just said though? I never thought about this way. I think it's a really good analogy for bots where you have to let people see where they're going, point A to point B, know there's other routes, but to get to the same end goal. And then you know the friction or speed or steps in which it's going to take to get there. Like maps is actually maybe a great analogy for bot building.

Yes, because in the end, Even with maps, we have human choice.

Exactly.

I'm not being forced. My car is not autonomous yet where I'm forced to go and take a route because of it. I have choice. And so I think people still want to feel that power, and they want to feel that they're going to have that choice as they live their life.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Machine learning.

Told you we were starting at speed today.

Machine learning.

Up next on today's episode from the live person yacht at the Cannes Lions, we have video producer Jessica Allen of Fancy Films in Australia. Jessica's right in the thick of a major conversation for AI, machine learning, and tech as a whole. It's this. If we want the machines to speak effectively with everyone, we need everyone to be working on the solution, which immediately brings us to leadership. In Jessica's case, she's out with camera and crew getting people to talk about the role of women and leadership. One of the more fascinating parts of the conversation you're about to hear are how gendered the differences are between what women and men look for in an effective female leader. We loved discovering Jessica at Cannes because machine learning is all about the ways we navigate a new world. Where identity and technology and commerce and culture have to live together in ways we can't even fully imagine yet. Got an idea for a guest you'd like to hear on Machine Yearning? Let us know. DM us @assist on Twitter. And now, Jessica Allen.

What are you up to?

A web series, and it's called From A to Me, and it's profiling a range of prominent Australian female leaders in relation to inspiring women and our next generation of women coming up who will be obviously our next range of female leaders. And so we're here at Cannes, it's our third year, and we've been using the opportunity to absorb the content around this subject because it is a very prominent subject this year and it was last year as well, but also collect some supporting content for ourselves for our big launch. So we've been interviewing a lot of people and asking them, you know, what it means to them, what makes a good female leader, what makes a an impressive female leader and who were their female role models. So it's been quite interesting, the range of responses we've been getting really.

And what did they say? What is the answer to what makes a great female leader?

Resilience, strength. We've noticed there is actually quite a difference between the females that we ask versus the males that we ask, what their responses are. So, you know, when we're asking the women and even younger girls, what do you see as a good female leader? That, you know, strength and resilience and being bold and, you know, all those really great qualities that I really aspire to be. And, you know, men are saying the same thing, but then they also bring in other aspects like grace and gentleness and those kinds of qualities, which I like, you know, whilst I see them as important as well, it's interesting that No female has listed those.

Fascinating.

Yeah. So yeah, we need to be strong and, you know, have grit and that kind of thing. But there's also this expectation that we have to do it lightly and with grace and beauty.

What's the genesis story of this? When did this start?

So this started a year ago when I was here with my boss, our creative director, and she is, is probably one of my role models and I feel very lucky to have worked with her for the last 7 years. And it was sparked by her. This is all, this is her baby. And it started when we saw a session last year, a panel of women, Gillian Armstrong being one of them, one of Australia's leading female film directors. And she made a comment where she said, she gave some stats and some quotas and she said, only 9% of directors are female. And that really struck a chord with my boss. And she thought that was appalling as a female director herself. And she wanted to do something about it and do what she could using the vehicle that she has with a film production company to, you know, spark change and, have a response to these terrible figures. And so, you know, then came MeToo, not long after that. And, you know, in the response to that, there was an article on LinkedIn that she came across from a prominent Australian female journalist, Tracey Spicer. And she spoke about launching this campaign called 100 Days for Change in Australia. And that campaign is asking businesses and individuals to do what they can in whatever capacity they can to help create a more equitable workplace and help close that gender gap. And so as part of that, my boss, Karen Nossel, she decided to create this series. And yeah, it sort of started from there and snowballed from there. We actually got Tracee Spicer on board. And so we've already interviewed her and we're gonna be launching a video a week for the 100 days. And then, you know, who knows what'll happen.

What I think is amazing about this initiative you're going after at Cannes is even our podcast is called Machine Yearning. And it's that, you know, in this era of AI and machine learning, no one really knows what's going to happen. But we need to be intentional about the decisions we make for this next phase of the internet. And it makes me think of yesterday we interviewed on the boat a guy named Rob Locascio, and he just started an initiative called Equal AI and Equal AI. Is because he saw people naming even Alexa as a woman, and it speaks like a woman.

Yeah.

And then you tell it what to do and turn on the lights and do all these chores, all the menial tasks. Exactly. And then Watson is a man, and IBM's like, this is the smartest AI, and this is the real— and I think it's a bigger thing. Like, I think these two things going in parallel are very actually important and probably there's a reason they're both landing here at the same time. Because if we don't perceive women in leadership differently, or get way more in leadership, like, we also have to change what we're doing with this new wave of machines and AI and talking to, uh, bots and voice agents and all this stuff. And you shouldn't name it a fucking woman, like, at all.

I agree. And I've, I've never actually thought of that before.

What do you hope to see out of this? How do you know that you are making an impact?

So we work with a lot of big corporate companies in Australia, and we would love for this to inspire them to get on board with this platform and, you know, start profiling some of their strong female leaders within their organizations to really foster, you know, a culture that embraces females and encourages them into positions of power. Because, you know, that can be hard in a lot of the industries we work within are heavily heavily male-dominated industries. And so as a female, young or old, working within that, you know, you're often expected to almost become a man or exhibit, you know, masculine qualities. And so it's about really supporting, supporting each other as females, and also, you know, what the, what the men can do as well, because it's, it needs both sides to work towards this.

What can we do?

I think really just looking at women. So, you know, simple as when there's job openings, making sure that you've got women in the mix of these positions that are, you know, up for grabs and that kind of thing. Making sure you're creating environments where they feel safe to voice, you know, their ideas and where they feel like they're heard and they're not shut down and not sort of just put to the side. I heard an interesting quote in a session yesterday where they said, "It's not actually enough to have one female on a board or at a table because as one female, she can only speak for females. Whereas if there's more than one female, she can actually speak to her creative ideas, her own personal ideas 'cause she's not having to speak on behalf of all women." I thought that— I'd never thought of that. I thought that was a really interesting observation.

That's great. It's almost like once we gave opportunity or allowed women to do things that they couldn't in the past, we're still clouded by what it was like before that, even though we want you to have as much access and opportunity. And we're still like clouded. So how do we change our— how do you change your perceptions?

It can be difficult for men to see it because they haven't necessarily experienced it. A big piece of it comes down to educating the boys.

Yeah.

The young men who are coming up and educating them about, you know, these aspects of equality and that girls, you know, that they're interacting with are just as important and teaching them that it's not okay to do certain things. And 'cause a lot of it's like, you know, boys will be boys and all that kind of thing. Like whilst it may seem innocent, it's really sending, you know, not a great message. And part of that is showing that those feminine qualities aren't negative. So it's also giving boys and men the freedom and space to exhibit traditionally feminine qualities. And that's where the whole concept of, you know, toxic masculinity comes in. So not seeing softness and, and, you know, those kind of things as negative traits. Like, there's no sort of negative characteristics. It's just that we give them negative—

yeah, you know, like, and once you get there, you realize it's really just giving yourself empathy.

Exactly.

And more empathy.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, so I agree with you. The children feels like the most important place to start. And then that you women are more, more sometimes, and the same, capable as, as the boys.

Yeah, it's just that often we're not given the opportunity to show that. I really think it's in the creating opportunities, drawing your attention to it so that you're intentionally including— yeah, women.

I think that's a very interesting point to end on, which is whether you're in a professional setting, a work setting, uh, filmmaking setting, any setting, to never go, hey, is this the greatest work yet, or is this what we should do? And say, the question is more Did we ask the right questions about inclusion? And if not, then change it.

And, and I believe that that's all levels of diversity. Yeah, like diversity of opinion and, and background and race and gender. It all sort of feeds into a better outcome. And, and the statistics show that a more diverse workplace produces better results. Financially.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Machine learning.

Jessica Allen in the first of a couple machine learning episodes that we're doing from the Cannes Lions.

Machine learning.

Thanks to LivePerson for helping to make these episodes possible.

Machine learning.

Coming up, we saved a great conversation with Facebook's Eric Oldren. Eric's working at the front edge of AR and VR, augmented and virtual reality, and the storytelling implications of that technology. Eric speaks eloquently about the emotional resonance of the tech we're dealing with and about the role of empathy and agency. And he's always asking us to remember where the technology can still be fun and serve our deepest desires to connect. Eric is super thought-provoking and lovely, so let's get to it.

What brings you to Cannes this year? What are you doing? What brings you out here?

Well, Facebook has for a few years now had a presence at Cannes, and we just come here to connect with the creative industry, you know, brands and advertisers and people creating. It's a festival of creativity, so our team in particular is really focused on Cannes as an important tentpole moment for us.

And when you say your team, can you tell us what, what do you do?

Well, I'm part of the Creative Shop team in Facebook, and we work with brands and advertisers really focused on exploring all of our different creative spaces and helping to show the industry what's possible. And people both on the brand and advertising side, but also publishers and creators and developers like yourself to just explore that space. And try to, try to push the envelope, create some lighthouse examples of what's possible, and to really just inspire people and drive— on my end, to drive product adoption and exploration of the space.

And the space today for you is the AI space or the conversational space. Is that most of the area you're spending your time in?

I really look at emerging platforms and products, and so part of that is messaging. Which includes conversational AI, but also things that are more sort of utilitarian, built within the platform that are focused on single tasks. And they do one thing really well and they're a lot of fun. There's one, for example, that focuses on events.

Interesting. So is a key insight to keep it fun?

Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's important to create a sense of connection between people, and fun is a big part of that, some kind of delight, emotional connection. There's an opportunity there. It doesn't always have to be that way, I guess, but we found that brands have really defined this space by exploring that natural one-to-one personal connection that can be established. It's sort of like if you were a simple shopkeeper and someone walked into your store and you had a conversation with them. Let's say you were you know, selling bicycles. And that's a tough decision for you to make. You're not really sure how to choose all the different parts of that, you know, whether it's the type of bike, if you want a road bike or mountain bike, or what kind of seat, or what kind of spend limit you should have. And so the Shopkeeper helps you get through that very complex decision. And we found within Messenger that some of the best experiences are ones that guide people through a really complex decision that they're trying to make. So LEGO made a really interesting experience back during the holidays, and they've continued to evolve this Ralph the Robot experience that they've created in Messenger that allows parents really to understand what kind of products are available. There's thousands and thousands of different LEGO kits, and so by asking parents questions about their kids, you know, what age are they? Do they like things that move or do they like little worlds to walk into? You know, LEGO helped to make some, some choices and then you can make a purchase right there.

Wow.

Or if you look at things, for example, from Alcoholics Anonymous or the Belong To Bot, where we're dealing with issues within our community that are really important and oftentimes people struggle to navigate through those choices. And in that case, Messenger again allows people through a conversation to unpack a lot of the tough things to consider in a very personal and very thoughtful way.

You said creating emotion. How do you think about designing emotional connection?

Well, I think that really comes down, you know, to all the expressions that are available within the thread, within the conversation. Certainly language and syntax and words are important in the way that a bot communicates, but also all the other expressive elements that are available, whether it be GIFs or emojis or video or, you know, even audio, I think is a really interesting avenue for people to explore within messaging. There's certain countries that—

What specifically?

Well, I mean, are you aware down in, like, I think it's within Latin America, like Brazil, and I've seen this a little bit in Mexico, where if you're texting someone, like through SMS, someone would record their voice, and then they'd send that as a message to someone through texting or messaging, and it's a simple way without having to use your thumb, you know? And then, so they pass audio clips, basically. So I think there's interesting things to do there.

Are there any expressions or ways to express ourselves that you would be excited about or that you think are coming that we don't even know we'll express ourselves like? Is there anything? Because I mean, I don't think we thought GIFs and animojis and all these memojis or all these things were coming. Is there anything that isn't here yet that you think is exciting?

Well, I'm excited to see the shift towards visual communication. So you mentioned emojis and GIFs, and you can have an entire conversation with someone just by sending GIFs back and forth. And I'll often do that at work. It's not only very effective, but it's also really amusing.

GIFs are like the first intent keyboards because basically it's a group of words with meaning, and we type all these letters to make words, words to make sentences, sentences to make meaning, and a GIF is just the meaning.

Yeah, it's pure raw meaning and emotion.

But it's fun.

It's super fun, especially the contrast between the words and the photo. The photo has this extra layer which is sort of unspoken but understood.

Yeah.

So I'm excited about that direction. And, you know, within Messenger, for example, we recently integrated AR more into bot experiences into the platform itself.

Yeah.

It's amazing, actually. That was a great, great— I mean, it changes browsing. I mean, I think the biggest critique, I think, of messaging as an interface or language is that browsing a lot of items is hard. But all of a sudden, if you put a watch on your wrist or a Sephora makeup on your face or a Casper bed in your room, or all of a sudden browsing when it's really that personal is a much different experience of shopping and it's much better than the web.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it gets you closer to that 1-to-1 connection. It's almost as if, again, going into a store and having a conversation with a shopkeeper. You can talk about the complexity of a decision. So take again that Lego example. You could, you know, navigate through all the different products that you might want to— in other cases, you'd be browsing, but in that case, there's a little bit of help with that decision in that exploration. But then the next step, yeah, is to take it and try it and then buy it. So you actually look at the different Lego opportunities, spin them around, get a real good sense of how you might play with them, how your kids might play with them. And so we've seen this done in a number of different instances. Like Sephora built this really— they were getting really good at AR for track-to-face and like makeup and things like that is crazy good.

Um, and then it shows up in your cart. You try it on, you send it to a friend, and then everything you tried on sitting in your cart.

Yeah, absolutely. It can turn into that. And I think there's also really interesting storytelling opportunities as well. You know, it's not all about experiences with brands and commerce, although there's an incredible amount of value there. But there's really fun things just to explore. We've seen a lot of really cool storytelling partners, you know, whether it's Disney or again Nat Geo and whatnot, just playing in that space. So I think, I think to me that's really exciting is the intersection between conversation, connections, sort of a personal, very real very sort of real-time connection and then bringing in visual experiences around that. I get pretty excited about that.

So 2 years ago then, were you thinking that AR would become part of the conversation, like when you mentioned Sephora, or was that something that happened pretty quickly when it was just applied in that situation?

Yeah, I think we saw some really interesting mainstream style sort of, you know, aha moments happening in AR even 2 years ago. I mean, Pokémon GO was that moment where we started to see this potential of AR. I think we saw a lot of experiments before that as well.

That was crazy times. I like people were just like a whole world and everyone was just walking around catching Pokémon.

It was so fun. I mean, to your point earlier, it really is about sort of connecting with people. In an emotional way, allowing a little joy in their life.

There's this whole narrative around people are going to just talk to their robots and stuff, but I think that kind of showed that people still wanted to get out and get offline and be around the other people in community. And, you know, maybe the AR and AI actually gets us off these devices to get into back into real life.

Yeah, I agree. I think we're really at an interesting place, and technology will do this where It rushes forward, it feels all-encompassing, people get a little worried about it, and then it finds an equilibrium that balances between the analog and the digital. And at the end of the day, technology is meant to be invisible. It's meant to be part of the sort of seamless fabric of our lives and additive and joyful and connect us. That's the goal of technology, is to bring us closer together, not to divide us. And the times where we feel like it's dividing us, I think we're just just, that's just a little bit of growing pain. And in fact, it's actually moving towards this place where we will naturally move towards connections. We, we as humans want to naturally be social. Yeah.

Do you think that, you know, you guys succeeded so well at getting everyone connected, and what you say about we're at that interesting moment in time where the thing that disconnects us now is we're all just staring at our phones when we are in person. You know, you look around and it's really everyone And do you— how does this shift back? How does this shift back to in-person connection that's not distracted?

Well, it's probably not a one answer.

Yeah, I think it's a global— it's a, it's a now a global problem, right?

Yeah. I mean, I think at the end of the day, the way it shifts back is that we find meaning in the world around us and that the device brings our heads up because it's connecting to something important. And the good experiences that we find within a mobile device do just that. They bring you to a beautiful place. They give you great recommendations about a restaurant where you then have a wonderful evening with your friends. You know, they help you find products and interesting things that you're going to have, you know, with your family and a great Christmas that you're going to share together. And, um, or AR brings your head up and you're actually discovering things in the world around you, or you're, you're meeting people that you knew 20 years ago in high school and all of a sudden you're reconnected and you end up getting married to them. I mean, these are real stories that happen every day. I think it's real easy for us to over-index on the dark side of stuff, but at the end of the day, there's far more beautiful stories in the world than there are dark ones.

100%. You know, and I'm curious when you say that, that's an interesting design or philosophy for people to think about building in this space is that get people to move their head up. Like, that's actually a design thing I never thought about, which is look up, get people to look up from their phone, not down at their phone.

Yeah, I mean, it can be something that you have as a design tenet, huh, or it can be something that is innately within everything you're building anyway. And I truly, I have, I have faith in the beauty of humanity and the fact that we naturally are building things that are bringing us together and causing us to look up. Like, it doesn't even need to be written down on a list of your 10 design tenets, like that will naturally come out of what people build because that's what they're trying to do is bring us together.

And can you take me a little deeper into VR? I'm not, I don't know that much about it. And I think a lot of people, you know, you have the people on one side that say you're just gonna be in your headset all day, but there's obviously some beauty and amazing things happening inside of VR. What are some things that either most people wouldn't know about or some examples that you think are really good use cases of VR to show beauty and connection and feeling?

I think the power of AR is about empathy. It creates a sense of presence and agency within a space. So presence is a feeling like I'm really there. It's like a lucid dream or it's like a dream. And then agency is the lucid part, like the sense that you can actually take an action so you can interact and you can have an effect on that space. And when you're in, you're transported ported to these new experiences, the potential for empathy that comes from that is astounding. Some of the most interesting experiences I've seen are ones that really bring someone into the perspective of another person or another place that they may never have experienced or they really need to. Yeah, Chris Milk did this amazing film that brought people into the eyes of a refugee, and this is a 12-year-old girl, and they followed her journey. And I mean, it is unnerving. It's absolutely just— if you're not changed by the end of that, something— yeah, something's wrong with you, you know. It was a really powerful experience. And that's the excitement I see in VR, is this incredibly powerful potential to connect and to create empathy. And now imagine applying that to stories. I think we've just scraped the surface when it comes to narrative and amazing storytelling within VR. So I'm really excited to explore that. That's, that's sort of something that really gets me, gets me pretty excited.

And because empathy is really just understanding what it's like to not be you and then not judging it, essentially, right? Like, what is— what specifically to you? You use the word very, you know, very directly. What does it mean to you?

I think you— I think you described it well. I think it's to understand what it's not like to be you, to have a moment where you forget yourself and you, you know, you, you walk a mile in someone else's shoes kind of, kind of feeling.

Wow. Do you think the next real frontier of mindset is— it's the era of the self or the individual?

I, I think, uh The baby boomers put us solidly in that place about 20, 30 years ago. I think we're on our way out of that, hopefully. And we're sort of continuing to open the aperture around community and connections with other people. And I actually think we're moving to a place that's far less about self and trying to find a balance between individuality and community. And it's tough. I mean, that's our age-old tension.

I guess it would be more— it's the era of changing self to be empathetic and care more about others and be more open to others. But because we weren't that, because we were so focused on self.

Yeah, I like that.

Interesting.

Let's toast some rosé to that idea. Done.

Let's go have rosé. We'll have a little—

right now.

All right, thanks for listening. And thanks to the folks at LivePerson. Our episodes from Cannes wouldn't have been the same without their tremendous support. Get in touch on Twitter @Assist. DMs are open. We're super interested to hear who you think should appear on the podcast. Please subscribe so you never miss an episode and share this with someone who cares about how we make sense of these changing times. Machine Learning by Assist is made by Paul Chufo and Michael Alsesser. For Limina House. Have a great day!