AI Are we ready to hand it over to the machine

[Music]

i want to

ask you two questions

every revolution comes with an utopia

and a dystopia and i’ve been working in

communications for

26 27 years now

and i have seen many revolutions

many of the results of these resolution

revolutions

we consider more or less normal and we

are used to them

but i think at the moment we

are witnessing a very big revolution

a very important revolution and it’s

basically driven by

artificial intelligence

and if you focus on the

of on the size and the impact of this

revolution

you realize that we have to be careful

we have to be careful

that the whatever is happening

technically

is based on values we agree on

and before we look into the future i

would love to

take a look into the past because i

think we can learn

a lot from what we’ve gone through the

last 20 years and if you look

back you know in 1990 1994

i read this article about mosaic and i

was absolutely thrilled by these things

that were happening

and i was absolutely convinced that it

will change the world and it changed the

world

at that time we all maul is all pioneers

at that time were very optimistic we all

believe that

free access to free information

will free the mind of the people and

lead to free

societies but at the end we have to

realize

part of it happened and parts of it

didn’t happen

so if we look at the past i think we

have we get

good information how to behave for the

future

so let’s uh think about the two

questions

that i have the one question is

what you tell utopias came true and the

second

question is which dystopias came true

and looking at the utopias i must say

i’m still

more than happy that i live now that

i’ve gone through the

last 20 years i love technology

technological progress i love everything

that is happening

things are you know improving it’s

always you know

something new you have to recombine

things you have to understand

things everything is moving very fast i

love that

and parts of the original idea survived

the 20 years ideas like free more or

less free communication with everybody

you want to communicate with

you can find people all over the world

more or less without restrictions that

are interested in the same things as you

are

and things like this so it’s it’s very

open it’s very

uh accessible you know the internet

changed the world a lot in this

in this part but there are also

dystopias that came through

for example something we are very

suffering a lot

recently is this whole thing the

fake news filter bubbles misinformation

so free access to information is not

always information

access to good information sometimes

it’s really bad information

and the second part is that it’s

we all started kind of equal when it

when the world wide web

opened for us but now we are not equal

anymore there are huge corporations

um that dominate the cyberspace and that

are

very important i mean for for several

reasons

and that are very strong and uh

to show you a little bit how big and

important

uh they are i have a little chart

that was the questions now the chart

shows

um just you know give you a glimpse of

how powerful they are

the chart shows the market shares of

facebook and google in different

countries for example here in

in the us it’s 50 in the uk 65 percent

and in germany even 75 percent

and the the cake they are eating

is getting bigger and bigger because

more and more ads uh

go online so that is something that came

true uh or that not came true that was

the dystopia that

at the beginning we did not really

expect but there was if you look back

back we were very naive so it’s not

really surprising that we have this now

and what is the what are the values that

drive this

development the values are more i would

say kpis

it’s about attracting attention of as

many users as possible

as long as possible and it is selling

these attention selling ads to the users

that’s basically what happened and so if

you look at

the original idea of the free web and

all that stuff

you know there’s not much left here it’s

not free it’s all

you know kpi driven more or less

so that should teach us that we have

a chance to lead the stuff the future

in in into the right direction but

there’s also a dystopian aspect of it

so

now we are witnessing and it’s um even

bigger revolution

um since we you know we reflect the past

now we look into the future and we

realize it’s

it’s a revolution that is going deeper

and it’s for me it’s always kind of

difficult to explain how

deep it goes and how exactly uh

uh it will change the world but i have a

very strong feeling that it’s extremely

deep

i have a little chart i already that

already shows the original situation

where we come from

the individual and the world that’s what

we see

that’s how we’ve been living for

millions of years

and in the time of the mass media some

devices

came in like tv or radio

these devices are still part of our

world

and there are devices you switch them on

you switch them

off it’s very simple and we are used to

that and

you know we exist around these devices

we still have a strong interaction with

the world

besides these devices and i would say

starting in the 90s we got a completely

different development

now we are more and more surrounded by a

layer

a digital layer that is always on there

is a big big difference

and that is more and more driven by

artificial intelligence

i think that’s very important and that’s

something we really have to realize that

is a

real game changer and it all started

with the

spread of the smartphone with the iphone

in 2007 since that we have a device that

is extremely personal

that is very close to us and that

contains more or less all aspects of our

life

that’s the reason why i think there’s

really a difference now

if you focus if you look at it

it’s you know if you think about your um

the

last two days or last week

you have to realize that even we are on

the revolution is already is only

starting

we’re already doing a lot of decisions

machine based and that’s what i mean

with this digital layer

you know the interaction with the world

is not neutral it’s not us in the world

and a few tools that we switch on and

off we are more and more relying on

machines we check the weather to find

out what to wear tomorrow

we check the route to the beach if it’s

sunny

we check the stock market we check

prices for sneakers we do

everything we communicate all the time

with these devices

so they are not separate from us they’re

getting closer and closer to us

and there is uh there are a lot of

devices coming like voice interaction

tools like

alexa or google homepod or something

like that

vr ar and more things to come watches

so the digital layer that surrounds us

is

is tightening up and is getting more and

more

between us and the world

so if we think we if we agree on that

we must say you know we really have to

think about

what is driving these machines what is

happening inside of the machines

what is happening in these algorithmic

systems

what is happening in this artificial

intelligence services

that make decisions and artificial

intelligence

is uh is uh different than it used to be

so far up to now there were algorithmic

systems

that reacted on us i artificial

intelligence is more

you know it’s self-learning systems and

they predict the future

and on this prediction they make

decisions

that’s so we have now in our

digital layer decision making

self-learning systems

so if you think about that we have to

really

decide what values they’re based on as i

described in the first phase of the

revolution

we have values that maybe we do not

fully agree on

like you know attract as much attention

and sell the

the user data and the attention of the

user so my suggestion is

we need a i based on humanistic values

if we agree on that we have to look at

three

questions question number one what are

humanistic values

question number two what happens when

a.i does not include them question

number three

how can we include them we go through

this so

the debate about what are humanistic

values can be

big and long but let

let’s make it short i found a very good

concept

from amartya sen and martha

nussbaum two authors who wrote

that or developed this idea

that societies the goal of humanistic

societies

is to improve increase the capabilities

of the

people not of a few person individuals

but all of them so if education is good

for

increasing capabilities you invest in

education and the same you can transfer

it to the

to technology because technology is

there to improve the

capabilities of human beings so we could

say that

if we want technology that is based on

on

humanistic values we need technology

that

improves the capabilities of people

okay if we agree on that we go to the

next

question what happens when ai does not

include them

that’s the second question very

important we can see that we don’t have

to speculate it we can look at what is

happening at the moment

we see that a lot of companies and

countries are

investing in ai i give you a short

idea of the amounts that are invested

and who

invests how much and you can see the

main drivers are the us

and china and if you look at their

values or their systems that they are

establishing

you see that on one side china is trying

to use

ai to get more control over people so

the state

knows it all and the u.s are trying to

use ai to get control over profit so the

market knows it all

so i must say i neither want to live in

a

you know state controlled system nor do

i want to be

in a in a market controlled system

so that’s why i say we need

oh sorry we need we need

humanistic values in this in this

to emphasize how important it is i can

show you what

facebook did lately they did they

checked what

natural engagement patterns exist

in connection to the content so on the

right side you see prohibited content

on the left side allowed content and the

engagement of people

is in the allowed content section is

average and the closer it gets to

prohibited content

the clo the more engagement

develops so that’s a real problem so

they’re

looking for our instincts and how to get

them

and how to use them to um to

give us a feeling of you know intense

experience and stuff like this

so we should be very careful with all

that

and we should focus on the next question

the most important question how can we

include them how can we include

humanistic values into artificial

intelligence

um we have i think the most important

thing that we have to realize is

that we are the generation who will

decide where we are going

who will make the this future the

utopian future or the dystopian future

exists we decided now and

we have strong allies i would

emphasize that we have to get

the the transparency and the design of

ai

regulated and there’s a strong ally like

the

european union which is really strong if

you look

at for example

what the big tech companies spend on

lobbying in brussels you see that big

tech

companies nearly spend three times more

than the

top seven car manufacturers so they

agree on how powerful the eu

is if you

if we agree on this we should um

that’s not everything so we should when

you when you vote

look for parties that think that ai is

important

that work for this humanistic

value idea there’s a

german author ferdinand from shirak

who is trying to get the eu

um to recognize

um some aspects that are seem important

that people don’t get

manipulated that people don’t get spied

on and things like this

but on an individual level you can do a

lot you know

because it’s a fantastic time and a

fantastic world to change the future

and to work together and

i think if you if you have money invest

in companies that

are focused on

humanistic ai based on humanistic values

if you look for a job if you’re young

invest your time and your brain

into this if you work in politics

of course you should focus on the

humanistic values

values and it’s not just something that

the techies should do

it’s important for the whole society

it’s

important for all of us because it’s as

i told you

it’s part of this digital layer that

will define our relationship

and our in interaction with the world so

it’s really time

to wake up and to stand up and to work

for a better future

with technology that supports us and

makes uh

our capabilities as individuals and as

humans bigger so please wake up and

stand up and i say that

as a human being a european

citizen as a professional um

from communi from the you know

communications

and as a father i hope you

agree and i hope you join in the quest

for the better future

thank you very much

you