COnversation #3: WHAT CAN WE DO?
Power in Purpose
What is your Ultimate Mission and how might you choose to use (or why might you limit the use of) technology in order to accomplish it in a way that is ambitious, noble, beautiful and unique to you and which wins some victory for humanity?
The Power of One
Can individuals really impact the future of AI/automation or is humanity stuck following along on the inevitable path of that megatrend? By learning about AI, regularly voting with their ballots, pocketbooks, and feet, and (perhaps) leading key efforts related to AI, individuals are already impacting the future of AI.
One
How do we navigate an authentically human life of meaning in an age of advanced AI? By learning our true worth and value as humans, recognizing and respecting that in others, and coming together to accomplish great things.
COnversation #2: Will Machines Ever Live?
Piece of the Puzzle
Why even ask the question whether machines will ever live? Simply put, it is an important piece of the overall AI puzzle. The answer helps us understand if good things or bad things are about to happen.
Behind the AI Curtain
While we could certainly expand the definition of what constitutes a living being in ways that allow AI in, to what end would we be doing so? Such an expansion makes AI the party responsible for its actions rather than the human actors who created and deployed it (and who profit handsomely from it). Shifting the definition shifts our attention away from those living beings and from the real harms being done by their creations.
Rational Animals and Passionate Machines
Machines may soon be able to take care of themselves and even produce more machines. They may “live,” but will they truly live as humans can?
Irreplicable, Irreplaceable
What makes a thing "living"? Is it strictly the matter we are made of -- biological categories like organization, metabolism, and reproduction -- or in an era of robots and advanced AI, might we need to expand our thinking on what makes us distinctly alive?
Digging Deeper
Definitions are critical to our empowerment in discussions, particularly those surrounding AI and automation where terms and their accompanying definitions can change with dizzying speed. How might we make sense of the resulting terminological mayhem? By applying the “divide and conquer” method to arrive at a working definition that holds meaning for us.
Space for Thairaav
That we are irreplicable, irreplaceable human beings matters. It matters how we define ourselves and how we live out those definitions. It matters how we are defined by others and whether we buy into those definitions. It matters what the motivations are behind those definitions. It matters what the impacts of those definitions will be long term and to the lived reality of human beings. Because those things matter, thairaav matters. It matters that we pause and reflect, in thoughtful ways, on the impacts of our words and the actions that come of them.
Conversation #1 What Humans can Do That AI CANNOT.
What Humans Can Do That AI Cannot
What humans can do that AI cannot: thoughtful, attentive human beings have the capacity to see the errors made by others - the moments when we, through ignorance or inhumanity or inattentiveness, cause harm to one another - and to correct those errors.
To Err is...
Is AI able to assess human #potential, perhaps better than humans themselves? Verum co-founder and lead technology analyst Marc Young says it just might.
1 Versus 331 Million
A single human being might undervalue another human’s potential. That has profound impacts. Yet, there are 331 million other humans in this country who can correct that mislabeling. Where does that human go when the one and only AI system mislabels them?
Biological Machines
Questions surrounding AI carry with them questions about the nature of humanity itself. Are we essentially biological machines or is there more to humanity than meets the automated eye?
Shared Humanity
Some want to quantify humanity, to reduce its complexity to key attributes like intelligence that can be programmed into the algorithms, but doing so “affords the human mind less complexity than it is owed and the computer more wisdom than it is due.”
Finding the Answer
Key findings from the founders' AI debate, including a warning: “Humanity must grow to understand that we are more than just biological machines. If we don’t, we will be treated as if we are, we will be outcompeted, and quite likely we will be replaced."