Dr. Charles D. Koven - Earth System Scientist - Lead Author on the IPCC Report

Dr. Charles D. Koven - Earth System Scientist - Lead Author on the IPCC Report

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Earth System Scientist, Climate Sciences Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lead Author on the IPCC Report

Looking into the future, as a scientist, what I've learned how to do is hold multiple futures in my head at the same time because we just don't know. We don't know what the future holds. We need to fight for the futures that we want, and against the futures that we don't want. All I can really say is that it's up to us. It's up to us to fight and advocate for the future we want, and what does that look like, and how do we get there?

Highlights - Neil Grimmer - Brand Pres. - SOURCE Global - Drinking Water Made from Sunlight and Air

Highlights - Neil Grimmer - Brand Pres. - SOURCE Global - Drinking Water Made from Sunlight and Air

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Brand President of SOURCE Global · Innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel
Drinking Water Made from Sunlight and Air

Water insecurity and water scarcity is affecting all people in almost every part of the world. At this point, by 2025, we expect 1.8 billion people to suffer from water scarcity, which means they have no access to clean, safe drinking water within a 30-minute walk of their home. You fast forward to 2050, we expect 6 billion people will have water scarcity. So the rate at which this problem is increasing is far greater than the current infrastructure that has supported water for humans. And that's where innovation and rapid deployment of technology at scale is really essential. And that's what we're in the business to do.

Neil Grimmer - Brand President - SOURCE Global - Innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel

Neil Grimmer - Brand President - SOURCE Global - Innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel

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Brand President of SOURCE Global · Innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel
Drinking Water Made from Sunlight and Air

Water insecurity and water scarcity is affecting all people in almost every part of the world. At this point, by 2025, we expect 1.8 billion people to suffer from water scarcity, which means they have no access to clean, safe drinking water within a 30-minute walk of their home. You fast forward to 2050, we expect 6 billion people will have water scarcity. So the rate at which this problem is increasing is far greater than the current infrastructure that has supported water for humans. And that's where innovation and rapid deployment of technology at scale is really essential. And that's what we're in the business to do.

Highlights - Nicholas Christakis - Author of “Blueprint” - Dir. - Human Nature Lab, Yale

Highlights - Nicholas Christakis - Author of “Blueprint” - Dir. - Human Nature Lab, Yale

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Author of Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
Director of the Human Nature Lab at Yale · Co-director of the Yale Institute for Network Science

So these kinds of problems in what I call hybrid systems of humans and machines are a key focus of my lab right now. Margaret Traeger, who's now at Notre Dame, she did a wonderful project in which we made these groups of three humans and a humanoid robot work together to solve a problem.

We manipulated the humanity of the robot. For example, sometimes we had the robot tell stupid dad jokes, like corny jokes. Or we had the robot break the ice by saying, "You know, robots can make mistakes, too." This kind of stuff. And what we found was that the human interactions could be changed by the simple programming of the robot.

Nicholas A. Christakis - Author of “Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society" - Dir. - Human Nature Lab, Yale

Nicholas A. Christakis - Author of “Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society" - Dir. - Human Nature Lab, Yale

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Author of Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
Director of the Human Nature Lab at Yale · Co-director of the Yale Institute for Network Science

We're not attempting to invent super smart AI to replace human cognition. We are inventing dumb AI to supplement human interaction. Are there simple forms of artificial intelligence, simple programming of bots, such that when they are added to groups of humans – because those humans are smart or otherwise positively inclined - that help the humans to help themselves? Can we get groups of people to work better together, for instance, to confront climate change, or to reduce racism online, or to foster innovation within firms?

Can we have simple forms of AI that are added into our midst that make us work better together? And the work we're doing in that part of my lab shows that abundantly that's the case. And we published a stream of papers showing that we can do that.

(Highlights) MIKE PONDSMITH

(Highlights) MIKE PONDSMITH

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Creator of Cyberpunk · Origins Award-Winning Game Designer

One of the things I’ve noticed is that a lot of those younger people are actually much nicer than they need to be. And they have to realize that this is going to be your world. It turns out the way you want to make it and so you should be thinking now about what you want out of this. What do you want that world to be? Do not wait around until the two generations beyond you have gone ahead and done it the way they want it because, by the time they get done, you’re not going to have the chance to shift it to where you want it. So start thinking now about where do you want to be? What is the future you want? And don’t be nice about it, just go ahead and start planning it now.

MIKE PONDSMITH

MIKE PONDSMITH

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Creator of Cyberpunk · Origins Award-Winning Game Designer

One of the things I’ve noticed is that a lot of those younger people are actually much nicer than they need to be. And they have to realize that this is going to be your world. It turns out the way you want to make it and so you should be thinking now about what you want out of this. What do you want that world to be? Do not wait around until the two generations beyond you have gone ahead and done it the way they want it because, by the time they get done, you’re not going to have the chance to shift it to where you want it. So start thinking now about where do you want to be? What is the future you want? And don’t be nice about it, just go ahead and start planning it now.

(Highlights) BEN PRING

(Highlights) BEN PRING

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Director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work
Author of Monster: A Tough Love Letter On Taming the Machines that Rule Our Jobs, Lives

They’re single-purpose engines doing one thing in extraordinary ways, and they’ve been encouraged in that by the ecosystem around them, by the funding that’s being pumped into them by people whose only motivation is simply to make more money–and you can see the results of that in the world as this technology has grown from a little acorn to now being the biggest Sequoia in the forest. And it’s shading every other tree, it’s taking all the light, it’s taking all the energy from the forest, and it’s distorting so much in the world.

BEN PRING

BEN PRING

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Director of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work
Author of Monster: A Tough Love Letter On Taming the Machines that Rule Our Jobs, Lives

They’re single-purpose engines doing one thing in extraordinary ways, and they’ve been encouraged that by the ecosystem around them, by the funding that’s being pumped into them by people whose only motivation is simply to make more money–and you can see the results of that in the world as this technology has grown from a little acorn to now being the biggest Sequoia in the forest. And it’s shading every other tree, it’s taking all the light, it’s taking all the energy from the forest, and it’s distorting so much in the world.