Future Cities, Utopian Visions & Embracing Imperfection - SCOTT DOORLEY & CARISSA CARTER - Co-authors of Assembling Tomorrow - Highlights

Future Cities, Utopian Visions & Embracing Imperfection - SCOTT DOORLEY & CARISSA CARTER - Co-authors of Assembling Tomorrow - Highlights

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Creative & Academic Director · Stanford d.school
Co-authors of Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future

Today, someone is putting the finishing touches on a machine-­ learning algorithm that will change the way you relate to your family. Someone is trying to design a way to communicate with animals in their own language. Someone is cleaning up the mess someone else left behind seventy years ago yesterday. Today, someone just had an idea that will end up saving one thing while it harms another.

To be a maker in this moment—­ to be a human today—­ is to collaborate with the world. It is to create and be created, to work and be worked on, to make and be made. To be human is to tinker, create, fix, care, and bring new things into the world. It is to design. You—­ yes, you!—­ might design products or policy, services or sermons, production lines or preschool programs. You might run a business, make art, or participate in passing out meals to the poor. You may write code or pour concrete, lobby for endangered species legislation or craft cocktails. Wherever you fit in, you are part of shaping the world. This is design work.

– Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future

Can Design Save the World? - SCOTT DOORLEY & CARISSA CARTER - Co-authors of Assembling Tomorrow - Directors of Stanford’s d.School

Can Design Save the World? - SCOTT DOORLEY & CARISSA CARTER - Co-authors of Assembling Tomorrow - Directors of Stanford’s d.School

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Creative & Academic Director · Stanford d.school
Co-authors of Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future

Today, someone is putting the finishing touches on a machine-­ learning algorithm that will change the way you relate to your family. Someone is trying to design a way to communicate with animals in their own language. Someone is cleaning up the mess someone else left behind seventy years ago yesterday. Today, someone just had an idea that will end up saving one thing while it harms another.

To be a maker in this moment—­ to be a human today—­ is to collaborate with the world. It is to create and be created, to work and be worked on, to make and be made. To be human is to tinker, create, fix, care, and bring new things into the world. It is to design. You—­ yes, you!—­ might design products or policy, services or sermons, production lines or preschool programs. You might run a business, make art, or participate in passing out meals to the poor. You may write code or pour concrete, lobby for endangered species legislation or craft cocktails. Wherever you fit in, you are part of shaping the world. This is design work.

– Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future

DR. SASHA LUCCIONI - Founding Member Climate Change AI - Climate Lead & AI Researcher - Hugging Face

DR. SASHA LUCCIONI - Founding Member Climate Change AI - Climate Lead & AI Researcher - Hugging Face

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Founding Member of Climate Change AI
AI Researcher & Climate Lead · Hugging Face

My work is really about figuring out how, right now, AI is using resources like energy and emitting greenhouse gases and how it's using our data without our consent. I feel that if we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable, we can help future generations so that AI will be less of a risk to society.  The way I got into this field was working on the environmentally beneficial applications of AI, and I do believe that that's an impactful way of using AI techniques because there's so much data about the climate, satellite data, and sensor data, and the way to go about this is to work with domain experts. AI is never going to solve the problem on its own, but it can be a tool. So I think that there's a lot of promise there.

How can we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable? - Highlights - DR. SASHA LUCCIONI

How can we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable? - Highlights - DR. SASHA LUCCIONI

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Founding Member of Climate Change AI
AI Researcher & Climate Lead · Hugging Face

My work is really about figuring out how, right now, AI is using resources like energy and emitting greenhouse gases and how it's using our data without our consent. I feel that if we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable, we can help future generations so that AI will be less of a risk to society.  The way I got into this field was working on the environmentally beneficial applications of AI, and I do believe that that's an impactful way of using AI techniques because there's so much data about the climate, satellite data, and sensor data, and the way to go about this is to work with domain experts. AI is never going to solve the problem on its own, but it can be a tool. So I think that there's a lot of promise there.

MAX BENNETT - Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains - CEO of Alby

MAX BENNETT - Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains - CEO of Alby

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Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
Cofounder & CEO of Alby · Fmr. Cofounder & CPO of Bluecore

So, modern neuroscientists are questioning if there really is one consistent limbic system. But usually when we're looking at the limbic system, we're thinking about things like emotion, volition, and goals. And those types of things, I would argue reinforcement learning algorithms, at least on a primitive level, we already have because the way that we get them to achieve goals like play a game of go and win is we give them a reward signal or a reward function. And then we let them self-play and teach themselves based on maximizing that reward. But that doesn't mean that they're self-aware, doesn't mean that they're experiencing anything at all. There's a fascinating set of questions in the AI community around what's called the reward hypothesis, which is how much of intelligent behavior can be understood through the lens of just trying to optimize a reward signal. We are more than just trying to optimize reward signals. We do things to try and reinforce our own identities. We do things to try and understand ourselves. These are attributes that are hard to explain from a simple reward signal, but do make sense. And other conceptions of intelligence like Karl Friston's active inference where we build a model of ourselves and try and reinforce that model.

Highlights - BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab - Author of The Future You

Highlights - BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab - Author of The Future You

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Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted
Director of the Arizona State University’s Threatcasting Lab
Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

Let's talk about technology and the role of humanity and the role of being human and what it means to be present in that. We need to keep humans at the center of everything that we do, that everything that we do in our life is about humans. It begins with humans and ends with humans. There might be technologies and businesses and all these things in between, but we should measure the effect on humans.

When I talk to people about artificial intelligence or technology, I'm generally asking them two questions. What are you optimizing for? What's the effect that you're trying to get? Developing technology for technology's sake, although it can be kind of interesting...then is why you're doing it because you think it's interesting? But then ultimately, if you're doing it beyond your own gratification, why are you doing it?

So much of what I do in that is talking to governments and militaries and large organizations to say we always have to keep humans in the loop. You have to keep humans in the center because it's about us. That really is incredibly important. And that's one of the central ideas in the future. The future should be about humans, and where are humans going. And what do we want as humans? And how are we using technology to make us more human, or healthier, or happier, or more productive?

BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted - Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted - Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

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Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted
Director of the Arizona State University’s Threatcasting Lab
Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

Let's talk about technology and the role of humanity and the role of being human and what it means to be present in that. We need to keep humans at the center of everything that we do, that everything that we do in our life is about humans. It begins with humans and ends with humans. There might be technologies and businesses and all these things in between, but we should measure the effect on humans.

When I talk to people about artificial intelligence or technology, I'm generally asking them two questions. What are you optimizing for? What's the effect that you're trying to get? Developing technology for technology's sake, although it can be kind of interesting...then is why you're doing it because you think it's interesting? But then ultimately, if you're doing it beyond your own gratification, why are you doing it?

So much of what I do in that is talking to governments and militaries and large organizations to say we always have to keep humans in the loop. You have to keep humans in the center because it's about us. That really is incredibly important. And that's one of the central ideas in the future. The future should be about humans, and where are humans going. And what do we want as humans? And how are we using technology to make us more human, or healthier, or happier, or more productive?

Highlights - SUSAN SCHNEIDER - Author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, Fmr. Distinguished Scholar, US Library of Congress

Highlights - SUSAN SCHNEIDER - Author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, Fmr. Distinguished Scholar, US Library of Congress

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Founding Director · Center for the Future Mind · Florida Atlantic University
Author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind
Fmr. NASA Chair at NASA · Fmr. Distinguished Scholar at US Library of Congress

So it's hard to tell exactly what the dangers are, but that's certainly one thing that we need to track that beings that are vastly intellectually superior to other beings may not respect the weaker beings, given our own past. It's really hard to tell exactly what will happen. The first concern I have is with surveillance capitalism in this country. The constant surveillance of us because the US is a surveillance capitalist economy, and it's the same elsewhere in the world, right? With Facebook and all these social media companies, things have just been going deeply wrong. And so it leads me to worry about how the future is going to play out. These tech companies aren't going to be doing the right thing for humanity. And this gets to my second worry, which is how's all this going to work for humans exactly? It's not clear where humans will even be needed in the future.

SUSAN SCHNEIDER - Director, Center for the Future Mind, FAU, Fmr. NASA Chair at NASA

SUSAN SCHNEIDER - Director, Center for the Future Mind, FAU, Fmr. NASA Chair at NASA

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Founding Director · Center for the Future Mind · Florida Atlantic University
Author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind
Fmr. NASA Chair at NASA · Fmr. Distinguished Scholar at US Library of Congress

So it's hard to tell exactly what the dangers are, but that's certainly one thing that we need to track that beings that are vastly intellectually superior to other beings may not respect the weaker beings, given our own past. It's really hard to tell exactly what will happen. The first concern I have is with surveillance capitalism in this country. The constant surveillance of us because the US is a surveillance capitalist economy, and it's the same elsewhere in the world, right? With Facebook and all these social media companies, things have just been going deeply wrong. And so it leads me to worry about how the future is going to play out. These tech companies aren't going to be doing the right thing for humanity. And this gets to my second worry, which is how's all this going to work for humans exactly? It's not clear where humans will even be needed in the future.

AI & THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY

AI & THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY

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What will the future look like? What are the risks and opportunities of AI? What role can we play in designing the future we want to live in? In this first episode of our new channel, philosophers, futurists, AI experts, science fiction authors, activists, and lawyers reflect on AI, technology, and the Future of Humanity..