Stress-Testing Ideas with AIDOP & Enlightened Populism - Mohamed Nabil | Ep 210

Welcome to the Ferrier TechCast, we are bringing all things, science, engineering, technology and innovation. I'm your host, Izzy Kiel, Ferrier and today we are joined by Mohamed Nabi, an independent philosopher and author from Egypt. He created something called EIDOP, IDBIT and one's publications. Yeah, he prompts EITUs to criticize his own work and publishes unedited transcripts of the back and thoughts within 24 hours. He's also developed a framework called Enlightened Populism as an alternative to blind elitism and ignorance populism. His ideas range from establishing a global government to setting a world cup at $999 million per person. So Mohamed, I am honoured and excited to welcome you to the show. Thank you very much for joining us here today. Thank you for the wonderful introduction. It's a pleasure to welcome you. So let's dive into it. Let's start at the beginning. You've written that a brain concussion in 2008 set you on the path to what philosophy on intellectual curiosity, so what happened, how did that experience change the way you think about everything? Well, back in 2008 I had the brain concussion and as a result I lost my memory. So I had to reshape everything, I had to build my own personality from scratch. So I had to learn everything from the beginning and I chose what to learn and how I selected what to learn and what to get exposed to. So I was basically interested in philosophy, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, stuff like that. And then I expanded later on into philosophy specifically. Okay. Okay. So you know, you said it made you question everything, including yourself. So what was like, the first things, the first few things you realised you had been wrong about? Well, after the accident, I believed in nationalism or patriotism, I considered myself a patriot for a few years and I considered that a vector. Now I realised that nationalism is absurd. I considered myself a citizen of the world. I believe that I belonged to the entire human race and nationalism or patriotism is a structural barrier to achieving a better world. Okay. All right. You know, let's talk about IDOP. You know, you created something called EIDOP does, AI debits on one's publications. So what is it in a clean language? It's a concentration framework by which a content creator prompts an AI tool to criticize their own content, engages them back and forth argumentation with the tool and publishes the entire unads the transcript within 24 hours of the exchange. The goal of these debates isn't to in or lose. The main objectives include stress testing ideas through AI, effectively making them sharper by responding to criticism, refining one's own thoughts, simply accepting criticism as valid or agreeing to agree in certain points, inviting readers to explore the mechanisms of the thought process instead of simply asking them to accept conclusions and documenting where AI tools stand at the time of publication. So you have a piece of content whether it's a book or an essay or even a video like this one. And then you got to use it on AI tool, the AI tool to criticize it, engage them back and forth argumentation and then publish the entire unads transcripts of back and forth argumentation within 24 hours of the exchange. Okay. So we ask AI to be our critique. So what does Ali, you know, is the end goal of this, you know, all criticism does it make us better think as a teacher, enhance our ideas of it, open our eyes to the flaws in the potential publication, I like to know why we have to be critiqued by artificial intelligence. Well, the idea of having a debate on a book or an essay keeps it alive, it turns a book or an essay from a close chapter into series of close chapters into a living text by debating something you keep alive, that's a general idea. So using AI as almost half the sum of human knowledge nowadays because of the human data sets they've been trained on. So especially if you have radical ideas like mine, especially if you're calling for establishing a global government to stuff like that, you can let the AI to criticize your own content using the consensus established within social sciences and humanities and you can engage them back and forth argumentation accordingly, allowing people to follow the reasoning instead of simply accepting, rejecting your conclusions. So this is linked to my core philosophy which is enlightened populism, I could find enlightened populism as a behavior pattern of communication, it involves listening to multiple experts, trying to understand how they reach certain conclusions and investigating the information to the screen that wrote. So enlightened populism is enabled and encouraged through AI debates on one's publications because you basically allow readers or audiences to follow the reasoning behind your own conclusions. So Mohammed, you know, why do you publish unedited transcripts of AI criticizing your own working within 24 hours, what's the purpose of that? To document where one or multiple AI tools stand at this time of publication. The main idea is that these tools evolve over time and they may come up with the smart circuit system the next day or the day of so to document where they stand today, this is why I tend to publish within 24 hours of that strange. Okay, so I'd like to know for you personally Mohammed, you know what's one hard piece of criticism, you know what's the hardest piece of criticism you've received, you know, from an AI about your own ideas. Well, I had a theory on a war-clive balance and I engaged an aid up session with an AI tool. It was charge of e and charge of e told me that my idea wasn't universal, that my own theory wasn't universal. Not everyone can apply it. It had to do with managing your own time and managing, getting out of depth deep scene, understanding the fact and focusing on long term objectives and celebrating the small wins and stuff like that. So it was a comprehensive theory and it told me it wasn't universal, not everyone can apply it because some people economically are stuck within multiple jobs, not because of their choice, they just need to work most of the time in order to survive. So the theory didn't work for everyone. This was the harshest process when I accepted it as value. Okay, so for you, you know, the AI told you that your idea wasn't universal, you know, not everyone can apply, on reflecting back to that criticism, you know, what did you learn from it? Did you find that it was actually, you know, a positive criticism, something you could actually get a lesson from? Yes, it did, because sometimes you come up with an idea, the idea of coming up with a work-life balance theory was based on my own experience as our colleague. So I started applying lessons from my own life into the theory and then I reached certain conclusions and these conclusions can serve other or colleagues like myself. Those were or colleagues by choice. All right. So it doesn't fit for everyone, it doesn't, not a one-size-fits-only kind of thing. Yeah, it was beneficial to get this kind of criticism from the AI tool to remind myself that not everyone is or call it by choice. Some people need to work for long hours because of economic situations. Absolutely, absolutely, you've also said that AIDOP, you know, it could actually revolutionize education and population. So how is that, you know, what changes when, you know, students and readers, you know, can see the back-and-forth between an auto and an AI critic? Within publishing, you're changing the dynamics, you're not simply changing the dynamics of authorship, you're not simply being an author, speaking from all over it. You're telling everyone what to believe and what to follow, you're presenting the certain thesis or theory and then you're publishing the back-and-forth argumentation, allowing people to follow the reasoning. So I have this book, it's called Ideas that Survive, A-D-U-P. People can read into the book. So I have a pair together essays pair together, one essay, original essay of mine and then an essay that includes AIDOP session on the original essay. So it's a series of essays paired together, so people can follow the reasoning behind each of my own theories. So this way we're changing the relationship. I'm not asking them to believe certain things. I'm telling them this is the best I can come up with. And here are the arguments and counter-arguments. Even the counter-arguments are included. And if you wish to believe something that I don't believe then, that's your own choice. Within education, it might change how the education system is going right now. We have a panic within the education, within education systems around the world about AI. And the user AI within education. So instead of the cheating or ghost writing or idea generation through LLMs, we can ask students to submit AI/DUP sessions at the end of each assignment and then handle debates with their own human beliefs on the findings of their papers. So if you could redesigning university course using this approach, what would it look like? You talked about how they can submit that. But if you are going to be detailed about it like a framework, how would you put it? Well, I've integrated into the already existing courses. So for instance, people are studying sociology for instance. And they need to come up with a research paper on very sociological aspects within various agents of socialization within society. And the influence, the varying influence of all of these agents. So the students will take the paper, got it done, got the research paper done, just like the regular scenario just like they did years ago. At the end of it, they'll include an AI/DUP session. They'll take their own content, beat it into an AI tool, ask the AI tool to criticize it, and then engage them back and forth argumentation, and then publish the whole thing. They'll take the whole thing and submit it to the teacher. And then the teacher will ask them to start the debate with their own queries on their own findings. To make sure that they didn't just let AI tools speak to one another, because their students are smart about these things. They can find a way to shape that out. Yeah, students, they like to find their ways around these. They like to look for shortcuts and all of that. So, Mohammed, there are people who generally have fears about artificial intelligence. Some of them fear that AI will take their jobs, some of them fear that AI will replace them. Others fear that AI will gradually erode their critical thinking skill. So for those set of people who are afraid of losing their creativity and critical thinking to AI, how does this idea of having AI as a critique, how does it change the narrative for them? Does it actually enhance thinking, going through it, going through back and forth conversation with AI critical? Does it just leave everything all the thinking for the AI to do? Putting it in the position where, over the span of years, using this tool, you might actually lose your critical thinking. I'd like to hear your own thoughts on this. One AI at the end of the day, AI, especially Alan Lam's, are just tools. It depends on your own use of it. So if you use an AI tool for idea generation, if you use an AI tool to generate questions on your behalf or the interviews, or if you use it for idea generation in general, your mind will become numb over time. You'll become over your key pre-lying on the AI tool to generate everything on your behalf and over time, you'll lose your own capability and your own abilities of generating ideas. On the other hand, if you use it as a critical thinker, if you use it like I do as a debate partner, you're practically letting the AI tool sharpen your own thinking. Because by responding to its system, you can sharpen your own ideas. And at times, like I explained previously, you can attack the system as valid or agree to disagree on certain points. All right. All right. That makes a lot of sense. So you also talk about three ways, people from three ways, people from all opinions. You talk about blind elitism, ignorance, populism, and enlightened populism. Can you break these down? Why do you think most people default to some or others? Well, blind elitism entails blindly following an expert or an elite or a certain issue, and ignorant populism also involves the absence of investigation while relying on feelings or trends. So the reason why people, these two, I consider these two to be the two dominant behavioural patterns of communication today's work. And the reason they are dominant is because of the cognitive energy you need to practice enlightened populism. People find it easier to follow a certain expert blindly or to follow a certain trend or a feeling without investigating the information. It's easier. It doesn't require cognitive energy. It doesn't require cognitive effort. However, what I'm preaching for is enlightened populism, which is a behavioural pattern of communication that involves listening to multiple experts trying to understand how they reach certain conclusions and investigating the information to discover the truth. So it requires cognitive energy. And this is why people need to train themselves to use. What does it actually look like to practice enlightened populism in your day-to-day life? Well, in my day-to-day life, I can tell you about something that happened to me. I had a minor health issue recently, and I went to multiple experts, I practiced Latin populism, so I went to multiple experts. And they gave me various diagnosis. They didn't give me the exact same diagnosis. So I had to do my own research based on the tests that I conducted, the medical tests that they conducted. I had to do my own research and I identified the problem. And from the content published by other experts online, I managed to find a solution, a medical solution for my trouble. It had to do with a few dietary changes and a little bit of training and stuff like that. So I did it and now I'm fine. So it's essential in the areas of life that you consider essential for yourself. So healthcare would be essential, it would be a priority, legal matters would be a priority. Political issues, if you live in a world like the one I'm promoting for, if you live in a world where you need to directly vote on issues instead of relying on representative democracies, then political issues will be a priority, you will need to be aware of them in order to formulate your own opinions and stuff like that. So it depends on what you prioritize in your own life, the aspects you prioritize in your own life. Absolutely, really insight. So, you know, Mohammed, you talked about how you went to investigate and do a little research on your own. So I'd like to know, how do you investigate information without actually getting overwhelmed? The best thing is not to blindly follow a certain aspect. You need to, in my own case, I got information from multiple sources and some of these information were a little bit contradictory. So I had to verify from multiple sources, from multiple credible sources. While established institutions, I had to verify, cross verify their own messages and cross verify what they have written. So, in my own case, it worked out well and I believe others can do the same. Alright, alright. So, you know, here's a person I want, you know, an opinion-based question for you. You know, after creating the idea of writing multiple books and thinking deeply about the future of humanity, I'd like to know, like, what does innovation, you know, mean to you now? Is it about better technology, better ideas, or better way of questioning everything we think about? I'd like to hear your own personal opinion on this. Well, innovation is everything. Innovation, we can innovate within technologies, we can innovate within the way we handle information. And most importantly, we need to change the way we deal with information and we need to rely on critical thinking. Most importantly, we need to keep questioning everything we know. So, as human beings, we strive for consistency, and that's a main issue. When we all strive for consistency, we may find the consistency we are seeking within the boundaries of uncertainty, by embracing the fact that opinions, attitudes and beliefs are changeable over time. Alright, that is such an interesting, you know, meaning you attribute it to innovation. Thank you for sharing it with us, Mohammed. So, to wrap things up here, you know, for our listeners, what you want us to go, you know, explore your ideas, read your books, or just continue this conversation. So here's the best place for them to start. Well, my books are available on Amazon and Google Play and they can start by visiting my own website. One man, the build.world. I'm O-H-A-M-E-D and A-B-I-L dot W-O-R-L-D. It would be helpful if you can leave it in the description of the episode. Absolutely. I'll be sure to have it included so far. The listeners, you can scroll down and you'd see Muhammad's website right there. So it has been a really insightful conversation, sort of provoking one indeed, which you hear today, sir. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us on the show. Being a true honer I've been here. It has been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.