Towards “A New and Perhaps More Human Outlook” (video)

This is a talk I gave at the Universidad de las Américas Puebla on 3 September 2026, for the Ciclo de conferencias “El impacto contemporáneo de la antropología”. In it, I talk about systems and scope and “differences that make a difference.” Specifically, my argument is that many of the failures we attribute to people or technologies are actually failures of a system’s scope. Systems cause strain to people because they cannot see, interpret or act upon the differences that matter. I took us back to a moment in history when anthropologists and cognitive scientists and early computer scientists were collaborating toward a new field of complex system dynamics. I speculated on what it could have meant for the development of AI had this collaboration held, and why the paths diverged. And I shared the opportunity Toyota has created for my team to tackle this. These are early efforts, but we hope that in sharing them, we can expand the conversation, expand the interest and grow the research.

Use the tabs above the video to jump to each part of the talk: complex systems, cybernetics and AI, a TRI research platform called HIRO, and the closing Q&A.

Video: TVUDLAP.