Trust in the Artificial Age

Over six episodes, Trust Forward has explored how humans learn who to trust. Through coins, writing, science, gossip and criminal codes, we have found ways to decide who deserves our faith. But in this final episode, that question takes us somewhere new. Into a world where the people asking for our trust may not be people at all.Mary-Ann Ochota explores how the internet has transformed the signals we use to judge what is real. Digital anthropologist Professor Crystal Abidin explains why we are drawn to influencers, follower counts and stories that feel authentic, and how those same instincts can be used to sell us products, ideas and misinformation.Security technologist Bruce Schneier asks whether individuals can realistically protect themselves from systems designed to capture their attention and exploit their vulnerabilities. Mathematician and data scientist Cathy O’Neil considers what happens when artificial intelligence becomes a companion, colleague or decision-maker, despite having no real understanding of truth.As AI makes it ever easier to imitate human voices, faces and emotions, this episode asks what we stand to lose if we hand too much of our judgement to machines. Cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott offers a reminder. Trust is not a flaw in human nature. It is what makes our social lives possible.Trust Forward is a podcast from Sumsub, AI-powered trust infrastructure for compliance operations at scale, made in collaboration with This is Distorted. Every story here is really a version of the same problem playing out in a different era. Today it plays out online, in the moment a business has to decide whether to trust a stranger on the other side of a screen. That’s the problem Sumsub exists to solve.Sumsub's Website: sumsub.comSumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsubSumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcomSumsub on X: x.com/SumsubcomSumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcomMary-Ann Ochota on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mary-ann-ochota-frgs-9234aa61/Professor Crystal Abidin: https://profiles.curtin.edu.au/19007-crystal-abidinBruce Schneier: https://www.schneier.comProfessor Sophie Scott on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sophie-scott-179b6610/Resources for this episode can be found here: https://trustforward.sumsub.com/episodes/trust-in-the-artificial-age Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Before social media, newspapers or even writing, humans had a way of working out who to trust. We talked about each other.In this episode, Mary-Ann Ochota explores gossip as one of humanity’s oldest social technologies. Cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott explains why gossip may have evolved as an efficient human equivalent of primate grooming. It helps us build bonds, share information and work out who belongs in our social world.Historian and writer Tom Standage traces how those conversations travelled further as new technologies arrived. From Roman letters and early newspapers to the printing press and the internet, every new medium has expanded our circle of gossip. It has made it easier to share knowledge, but also easier for rumours, propaganda and misinformation to travel far beyond the people who can verify them.Then mathematician and data scientist Cathy O’Neil asks what happens when the gossip machine is run by algorithms. Her work reveals how the systems making decisions about jobs, education, credit and more can carry old prejudices into the future. Algorithms can be enormously useful, but if we are going to trust them, we need to understand whose interests they serve and what they are really deciding.It is a story about the human need to share information and make sense of one another. The tools have changed, but the instinct remains the same.Trust Forward is a podcast from Sumsub, AI-powered trust infrastructure for compliance operations at scale, made in collaboration with This is Distorted. Every story here is really a version of the same problem playing out in a different era. Today it plays out online, in the moment a business has to decide whether to trust a stranger on the other side of a screen. That’s the problem Sumsub exists to solve.Sumsub's Website: sumsub.comSumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsubSumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcomSumsub on X: x.com/SumsubcomSumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcomMary-Ann Ochota on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mary-ann-ochota-frgs-9234aa61/Tom Standage: https://mediadirectory.economist.com/people/tom-standage/Cathy O’Neil: https://cathyoneil.org/Professor Sophie Scott on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sophie-scott-179b6610/Resources for this episode can be found here: https://trustforward.sumsub.com/episodes/the-gossip-machine Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pirates may look like the ultimate outsiders. Lawless, dangerous and answerable to nobody. But a pirate ship could not survive without rules. There had to be agreement over food, pay, discipline and what happened when someone was injured. In a world beyond the reach of government, trust was what kept the crew together.In this episode, Mary-Ann Ochota explores the hidden codes that hold criminal worlds together. Pirate historian Rebecca Simon reveals that the real pirate “code” was not a Hollywood fantasy, but a set of articles that governed life on board. They set out how spoils were shared, how decisions were made and what happened when someone broke the rules. Even Blackbeard, one of history’s most feared pirates, depended on discipline and intimidation as much as violence.Those same questions continue in the modern underworld. Criminologist Federico Varese explains how criminal groups solve the problem of trust when they cannot rely on contracts, courts or public reputations. From Mafia families to gang initiations, he shows how shared crimes, rituals and the threat of violence can create loyalty and make leaving extraordinarily difficult.Professor Sophie Scott explores why costly tests of belonging can bind people to a group, even when that group is dangerous. Together, these stories reveal the darker side of trust. It’s not simply something freely given, but something that can be demanded, enforced and used as a weapon.Trust Forward is a podcast from Sumsub, AI-powered trust infrastructure for compliance operations at scale, made in collaboration with This is Distorted. Every story here is really a version of the same problem playing out in a different era. Today it plays out online, in the moment a business has to decide whether to trust a stranger on the other side of a screen. That’s the problem Sumsub exists to solve.Sumsub's Website: sumsub.comSumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsubSumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcomSumsub on X: x.com/SumsubcomSumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcomMary-Ann Ochota on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mary-ann-ochota-frgs-9234aa61/Rebecca Simon: https://rebecca-simon.com/Federico Varese: https://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/people/federico-vareseProfessor Sophie Scott on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sophie-scott-179b6610/Resources for this episode can be found here: https://trustforward.sumsub.com/episodes/the-code-of-the-underworld Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The best conmen never have to steal a thing. They just ask, and people hand it over.In this episode, Mary-Ann Ochota tells the story of William Thompson, the original "confidence man," who spent the 1840s asking wealthy strangers a simple question: do you have the confidence in me to lend me your watch until tomorrow? Most said yes, and never saw it again.Writer and psychologist Maria Konnikova, author of The Confidence Game, explains how the same trick has echoed through history, from Charles Ponzi's fake investment scheme in 1920s Boston to Victor Lustig, who once sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap metal. The method barely changes: give someone a reason to trust you, then use that trust against them.It raises an uncomfortable question. If con artists are so predictable, why do we keep falling for them? Cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott explains why humans are wired to believe people by default, and Maria, now a professional poker player herself, reveals what a table full of world class liars taught her about reading people, and being read.It's the next step in a story about how trust gets built, and how it gets broken.Trust Forward is a podcast from Sumsub, AI powered trust infrastructure for compliance operations at scale, made in collaboration with This is Distorted. Every story here is really a version of the same problem playing out in a different era. Today it plays out online, in the moment a business has to decide whether to trust a stranger on the other side of a screen. That's the problem Sumsub exists to solve.Sumsub's Website: sumsub.comSumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsubSumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcomSumsub on X: x.com/SumsubcomSumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcomMary-Ann Ochota on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mary-ann-ochota-frgs-9234aa61/Maria Konnikova: linkedin.com/in/maria-konnikova-697256/Professor Sophie Scott on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sophie-scott-179b6610/Resources for this episode can be found here: https://trustforward.sumsub.com/episodes/the-art-of-the-con Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Science is meant to be ruled by reason and evidence. But for centuries, only certain people were trusted to practise it.In this episode, Mary-Ann Ochota takes us to Cambridge in 1897, where crowds gathered on the streets to protest against women being allowed to earn degrees. Journalist and author Angela Saini explains how the Royal Society, founded in 1660 on the radical idea of testing claims rather than simply trusting the person making them, became a gentlemen's club that kept women and working class scientists locked out for centuries.It's a question that's shaped science ever since. If evidence is meant to speak for itself, why has reputation always mattered just as much, and what happens when that reputation is faked, as with Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who convinced billionaires to back blood testing technology that never worked?To help answer that, Mary-Ann talks to astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered pulsars as a PhD student in 1967 and had to fight to be believed by her own supervisor. Cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott also joins to unpack why humans are so easily swayed by authority and status.It's the next step in a story running from ancient coins to today's digital world, asking one slippery question: who gets to decide what's true?Trust Forward is a podcast from Sumsub, AI powered trust infrastructure for compliance operations at scale, made in collaboration with This is Distorted. Every story here is really a version of the same problem playing out in a different era. Today it plays out online, in the moment a business has to decide whether to trust a stranger on the other side of a screen. That's the problem Sumsub exists to solve.Sumsub's Website: sumsub.comSumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsubSumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcomSumsub on X: x.com/SumsubcomSumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcomMary-Ann Ochota on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mary-ann-ochota-frgs-9234aa61/Angela Saini: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelasaini/Jocelyn Bell Burnell: https://royalsociety.org/people/jocelyn-bell-burnell-11066/Professor Sophie Scott on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sophie-scott-179b6610/__________Resources for this episode can be found here: https://trustforward.sumsub.com/episodes/trust-me-im-a-scientist/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. It's not backed by gold, or by anything you can hold, but by trust. And that trust had to start somewhere.In this first episode, Mary-Ann Ochota takes us back roughly two thousand years, to a Roman trading site buried beneath a working farm in Yorkshire. Guided by archaeologist Dr Brendon Wilkins, who's spent the last decade excavating the site, she pieces together what life looked like for the traders who passed through, haggling over pottery and silver coins, deciding in the moment whether to trust a stranger.It's a question that's been with us ever since. How do two people who've never met agree on what something is worth, and how does that tiny act of trust scale up into the systems we rely on today, from the coins in your pocket to the number on your banking app?To help answer that, Mary-Ann talks to Bruce Schneier, cryptographer and author of Liars and Outliers, about how humanity built trust between strangers on a global scale. Cognitive neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott also joins to unpack what's going on in our brains every time we decide to trust someone.It's the first step in a story running from ancient coins to today's digital world, starting with one slippery question: what is money, really?Trust Forward is a podcast from Sumsub, AI powered trust infrastructure for compliance operations at scale, made in collaboration with This is Distorted. Every story here is really a version of the same problem playing out in a different era. Today it plays out online, in the moment a business has to decide whether to trust a stranger on the other side of a screen. That's the problem Sumsub exists to solve.Sumsub's Website: sumsub.comSumsub's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/sumsubSumsub's Instagram: instagram.com/sumsubcomSumsub on X: x.com/SumsubcomSumsub's YouTube Channel: youtube.com/@sumsubcomMary-Ann Ochota on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mary-ann-ochota-frgs-9234aa61/Bruce Schneier: www.schneier.comDr Brendon Wilkins on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendonwilkins1Professor Sophie Scott on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sophie-scott-179b6610/__________Resources for this episode can be found here: https://trustforward.sumsub.com/episodes/money-is-a-made-up-thing/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trust is one of the strangest things about being human. It's completely invisible, entirely made up, and yet it holds all of society together.Every time you hand over cash, cross the road, or click "buy," you're taking a small leap of faith that the whole system will hold. These are systems we've quietly built to make life with strangers possible. But trust is fragile, it has to be maintained or it breaks, and throughout history we've repeatedly had to rebuild it.That's what this series is about: trust, making it and breaking it.Over six episodes, anthropologist and archaeologist Mary-Ann Ochota talks to some of the world's sharpest minds, from poker players and astrophysicists to mafia experts and cryptographers, tracing how trust has evolved from the invention of money and the Scientific Revolution, through conmen, pirates and spies, to gossip and today's digital world.Beneath every story sits the same question: how do we build the invisible agreements that hold society together, and how do we decide what, and who, to believe?Trust Forward is a podcast from Sumsub, AI powered trust infrastructure for compliance operations at scale, made in collaboration with This is Distorted. Every story here is a version of the same problem playing out in a different era. Today it plays out online, in the moment a business decides whether to trust a stranger on the other side of a screen. That's the problem Sumsub exists to solve.CREDITSFrom Sumsub and This Is DistortedPresented by Mary-Ann OchotaWritten, produced, and sound designed by Anna Staufenberg, This Is DistortedAssistant Producer is Sian Heron, This Is DistortedExecutive Producer is Alex Jungius, This Is DistortedExecutive Producer is Anna Brusnik, Sumsub Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.