[Music begins.] [Visual: A woman speaks to the camera. In the background is a brick wall, a window, and a large mirror.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Hi, my name's Anne-Laure Le Cunff. I'm a neuroscientist at King's College London and the founder of Ness Labs. My focus is on helping people achieve their goals without sacrificing their mental health. --- [Visual: Anne-Laure walks down a hallway. She holds a book titled "tiny experiments."] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: I wrote a book called Tiny Experiments that is all about helping people having an experimental mindset so they can be more creative and more productive. --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: What makes human intelligence so unique is our strong curiosity. We simply cannot stop asking why. We have a very strong desire to know. [Visual: A close-up shot of sand dunes.] --- [Visual: A close-up of a person's eye.] [Visual: A person holds a magnifying glass.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: And in fact, neuroscience studies show that there is an overlap in neural circuitry between impulsivity and curiosity. So we literally have the impulse to know. This uniquely human curiosity is what is driving scientific discovery and innovation. This is the force behind human innovation. --- [Visual: A person operates a drone with a remote control.] --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: To nurture human intelligence moving forward, we need to focus on curiosity. We need to help people develop an experimental mindset. And an experimental mindset means being comfortable in uncertainty. Even more than that, seeking it, embracing it. --- [Visual: A person walks across a barren landscape towards distant mountains.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Instead of trying to be the person who has all the answers, having an experimental mindset means being the person who tries and asks as many interesting questions as possible. --- [Visual: Two boys run through a tall field of wheat, each holding a toy airplane.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: I believe this starts in childhood. Children ask more than 100 questions an hour on average, but this number goes down as we grow up as adults. So the question I want to ask is how can we make sure that as we grow up, we keep on asking many questions? --- [Visual: Two children sit on a wooden fence overlooking a valley.] --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: To me, this is the core challenge when it comes to nurturing human intelligence and making the most of this very unique capacity that we have as a species. --- [Visual: A close-up of a person's face with light rays overlaying the image.] --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: We need to encourage people to see uncertainty not with fear, but with curiosity. That means seeing uncertainty as a playground to explore, not something to try and resolve as quickly as possible. --- [Visual: A person's silhouette walks down a dark, misty hallway.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Liminal spaces can be very scary. And when we find ourselves in those moments when we don't have all of the answers, we just want to get to the other side as quickly as possible. But in fact, if we learn to sit in that uncertainty, to stay in those liminal spaces, this is where we can find the most interesting seeds for innovation. --- [Visual: From a low angle, a person in a hooded jacket looks up at the sky from the bottom of a circular concrete structure.] --- [Visual: Two people in lab coats work in a laboratory.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Another aspect is interdisciplinary thinking. Amazing things can happen when we connect and combine ideas together across different fields of research. So any ways we can create opportunities for people to collaborate together, to think together, to create together, that is going to be an amazing way to make the most of our very unique human intelligence. --- [Visual: An overhead view of two people sitting on a wooden floor, surrounded by papers. They are working together on a project.] --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Our brains are wired to avoid uncertainty, and that makes sense from an evolutionary perspective because when you find yourself in the jungle where everybody wants to make you their next snack, you want to have as much information as possible. --- [Visual: A cheetah cub looks around.] [Visual: A night view of a busy city street seen through large glass windows.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Anytime you're feeling uncertain means that you might be in danger. But in today's world that is changing all the time, being too certain or chasing that illusion of certainty can make you miss interesting opportunities. --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: So next time you find yourself in a liminal space, remember you're not in the middle of the jungle. There's no lion that's chasing after you and wants to eat you. You are in a space where you can find amazing ideas, where you can discover more about the world and about yourself if you let yourself sit in that space of uncertainty. --- [Visual: A first-person view of feet walking across a wooden rope bridge over water.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: This is an amazing playground for you to ask questions, to be creative, to try new things, to make mistake, and to learn in the process. --- [Visual: Three girls run through a wheat field at sunset.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: It is extremely important that we focus on human intelligence moving forward because we are capable of a way of thinking that is completely different from what machines are able to do. The difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence is that we are able to use historical data, just like machine intelligence, but to add imagination on top of it. --- [Visual: A silhouette of a dancer moves in front of a bright light.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: We're able to think about different ways of doing things that are not based on anything that has been done before. --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Think about something as magical as the internet, for example. The internet has been built on top of existing technology, like telephony, but you needed human imagination in order to picture this as a potential tool for commerce, for communication, for connecting people across the globe. --- [Visual: A person's fingers type on a smartphone screen.] --- [Visual: Two people stand facing each other, their foreheads touching.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: And another aspect that human intelligence brings to the table is empathy, taking into account what makes us truly human and using technology in a way that is moral and advancing humanity for good. --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: That's why I think it's incredibly important that we use human intelligence in tandem with artificial intelligence. --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: When I think about an invention that only a human could come up with, I always think about Yayoi Kusama's infinity rooms. --- [Visual: Children stand in a dark room filled with mirrors and glowing patterns.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: The reason why is because this type of art is a combination of abstract thought and emotional resonance, plus the desire to make people think about their place in the world. --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: This is a kind of art installation that makes you question the very nature of reality, that makes you ask, are there more layers to what we can see with the naked eye? --- [Visual: A person in a glowing suit floats in a futuristic tunnel.] [Visual: A woman poses in a room with mirrored walls reflecting infinite lights.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: And of course, artificial intelligence could probably replicate the visual style of it, but could not come up with the actual concepts, the philosophical questions and the human intent that is behind such a piece of art. --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: If you think about our current educational system, it's very linear. You learn A, then when you're ready, you learn B, then when you're ready, you learn C. This is a very good system if you want to be as efficient as possible in terms of having kids go to school and find a job, any job, right? --- [Visual: A person walks back and forth in front of a large chalkboard covered in scientific and mathematical equations.] --- [Visual: Anne-Laure speaks to the camera.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: But if we want to nurture the next generation of human beings who are highly creative, highly curious, and highly innovative, we need to change the way we educate them. And we need to approach it in a more nonlinear manner. --- [Visual: A teacher helps children at a table as they work with clay.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: That means being okay with changing topics in the middle, finding new connections, not following a linear curriculum, but instead allowing them to follow their curiosity, be creative, ask questions, and figure out what they're interested in. --- [Visual: A person wearing a backpack walks through a grassy field towards a mountain.] Anne-Laure Le Cunff: Our strong curiosity, our almost obsessive curiosity is what makes human intelligence so unique. We are driven to ask questions, to explore, to understand the world. --- [Visual: reMarkable logo on a black screen.] [Music ends.]