Artificial Intelligence and You

Exponential technology such as artificial intelligence causes the complexity of our world to explode. How do we address complexity as an existential risk in itself? Enter Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University, in British Columbia. He describes himself as a Complex Systems Theorist, and has a PhD from MIT in international relations, defense and arms control policy, and conflict theory.

His research has focused on threats to global security in the 21st century, including economic instability, climate change, and energy scarcity. He and the Cascade Institute study how people, organizations, and societies can better resolve their conflicts and innovate in response to complex problems.

In part 2 of our talk, we continue discussing his latest book, Commanding Hope, Systems Thinking, and how to identify mechanisms for shaping our collective beliefs and attitudes to produce more effective action on, say, climate change.

All that and our usual look at today's headlines in AI.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

Exponential technology such as artificial intelligence causes the complexity of our world to explode. How do we address complexity as an existential risk in itself? Enter Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University, in British Columbia. He describes himself as a Complex Systems Theorist, and has a PhD from MIT in international relations, defense and arms control policy, and conflict theory.

His research has focused on threats to global security in the 21st century, including economic instability, climate change, and energy scarcity. He and the Cascade Institute study how people, organizations, and societies can better resolve their conflicts and innovate in response to complex problems.

In our talk, we discuss his latest book, Commanding Hope, and the role of hope in empowering us to tackle our biggest problems.

All that and our usual look at today's headlines in AI.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

We tackle the most important question about Artificial General Intelligence - When Will It Happen? Everyone really wants to know, but no one has a clue.  Estimates range from 5 to 500 years. So why talk about it? I talk about how this question was raised in a presentation and what it means to me and all of us.

We might not be able to get a date, but we'll explore why it's such a hard question and see what useful questions we can get out of it.

All that and our usual look at today's headlines in AI.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

Every Johnson should have a Boswell, and the entire artificial intelligence field has Pamela McCorduck as its scribe. Part historian, part humorist, part raconteuse, her books romp through the history and characters of AI as both authoritative record and belles-lettres. Machines Who Think (1979, 2003) and her recent sequel This Could Be Important (2019) help understand the who, what, and why of where AI has come from.

In the second half of this interview, we talk about changes in the experience of women in computing, C. P. Snow's "Two Cultures", and the interaction between AI and the humanities, along with more tales of its founding fathers.

All that and our usual look at today's headlines in AI.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

Every Johnson should have a Boswell, and the entire artificial intelligence field has Pamela McCorduck as its scribe. Part historian, part humorist, part raconteuse, her books romp through the history and characters of AI as both authoritative record and belles-lettres. Machines Who Think (1979, 2003) and her recent sequel This Could Be Important (2019) help understand the who, what, and why of where AI has come from.

In this interview, we talk about the boom-bust cycle of AI, why the founders of the field thought they could crack the problem of thought in a summer, and the changes in thinking about intelligence since the early days.

All that and our usual look at today's headlines in AI.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

How do you drive a community of futurists? David Wood was one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry, co-founding Symbian in 1998. He is now an independent futurist consultant, speaker and writer. As Chair of the London Futurists, he has hosted over 200 public discussions about technoprogressive topics. He is the author or lead editor of nine books, including Smartphones for All, The Abolition of Aging, Transcending Politics, and Sustainable Superabundance.

In the second half of our interview, we talk about OpenAI, economic fairness with the AI dividend, how building an ecosystem with feedback cycles addresses disruption, and how you can participate in shaping the future.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

How do you drive a community of futurists? David Wood was one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry, co-founding Symbian in 1998. He is now an independent futurist consultant, speaker and writer. As Chair of the London Futurists, he has hosted over 200 public discussions about technoprogressive topics. He is the author or lead editor of nine books, including Smartphones for All, The Abolition of Aging, Transcending Politics, and Sustainable Superabundance.

In part 1 of our interview, we talk about David's singularitarian philosophy, the evolution and impact of Deep Learning, and his SingularityNET infrastructure for AI interoperation.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.

Tony Czarnecki is a futurist and a Managing Partner of Sustensis, London – a Think Tank for inspirations for Humanity's transition to coexistence with superintelligence – the final form of an ever faster and more intelligent, self-learning and perhaps even conscious Artificial Intelligence. Tony is the author of several books on the subject of Superintelligence.

In this concluding part of our interview, we talk about his latest book in his Posthumans series, "Becoming a Butterfly," and European and global economic structures for sustaining technological evolution.

Transcript and URLs referenced at HumanCusp Blog.