Obama says drift towards extremism 'not inevitable'

Key points

• Barack Obama told a Glasgow audience that hope is worth fighting for despite modern challenges.
• He said social media platforms now focus on content that stokes anger and fear, but a drift to extremism is not inevitable.
• Obama said a critical balance is needed between free speech and regulation, and warned AI could worsen the problem.

Former US President Barack Obama spoke to an audience of 12,150 people at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow on Wednesday, saying hope is worth fighting for despite the big challenges facing the modern world. He appeared in conversation with British journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera as part of three UK speaking dates.

Obama, the 44th US president, said online platforms had shifted in recent years to focus on content that stoked anger and fear, but he told the crowd that a drift towards extremism was not inevitable.

Obama on social media and extremism

Obama said that during his 2008 presidential campaign, when social media and technology were gaining traction, he saw them as a beacon for hope. But he said the same tools that could mobilise people around democracy or human rights could also be used by hate groups, and that they connected people for good, but also for ill.

He said the reptilian side of our brain really gets attracted to anger, resentment and the sense that someone is out to get you, and that a lot of social media and information is informed around that. He added that there was a critical balance to strike between free speech and regulation, and that the world and its leaders would need mechanisms and new institutions to allow rigorous debate while helping people sort out basic facts.

It turns out that the reptilian side of our brain really gets attracted to anger, fear, resentment and the sense that someone is out to get you

— Barack Obama

Warnings about AI and democracy

Obama said that if he had a blame pie for why politics is so polarised and why we are seeing a rise of populism in many places, it is because of that information going into our brains every day. He said this resulted in young people feeling discouraged, and that it is not a healthy diet that our brains are on at the moment.

He added that he feared this could become even worse with AI making it hard to distinguish between what is true and what is not, something he believes will make democracy hard to function. He also said there seems to be a cycle in humanity where people forget lessons learned from the past and start to take things for granted.