The Impact of AI How humanity can use AI for its own growth

artificial intelligence is perhaps

the most hyped yet most misunderstood

technology

over the coming decades ai is going to

impact humanity in ways

incredibly hard to imagine i am deeply

concerned that business leaders and

policy makers

are being advised by charlatans

masquerading

as ai experts decisions that a handful

of people are making

have the potential to impact humanity in

profound ways

and while everyone says they do ai when

you really scratch the surface you find

a worrying lack of understanding

of its capability and impact there are

two definitions of ai

the first and weakest is getting

computers to do things that humans can

do

humans are the most intelligent thing we

know in the universe

and over the past decade we’ve taught

computers to do tasks

traditionally only in the debate of

human beings machines can now correspond

in natural language

and recognize objects and images better

than us

getting computers to do things that

humans can do is a weak definition

because i’d argue

that humans are not that intelligent but

that’s a whole different topic

the stronger definition of ai comes from

the definition of intelligence

which is goal-directed adaptive behavior

ai systems are those that can make

decisions learn from their mistakes so

they can make better decisions

next time ai is creating exponential

advancements

making it more and more difficult for us

to predict the future

these massive exponential leaps taking

us to futures where

normal rules break down are called

singularities

for decades sci-fi writers have been

speculating about what these features

look like

some of you may have heard of one type

of singularity maybe even two

but i want to propose a framework that

captures six

singularities six points in time

where ai creates unforeseeable changes

to our civilization

the framework will be familiar with

anybody that studied business it’s the

macro analysis framework called pestle

p-e-s-t-e-l

pestle is an acronym of six words

political

economic social technological

environmental and legal for each one

i want to explain how a.i could have an

exponential

impact on humanity so let’s start with

political

the political singularity is where we no

longer know what is true

ai allows us to generate images audio

texts

so convincing that it threatens the

fabric of our reality

these technical advancements are being

driven by immersive games

realistic social media filters and the

automation of human tasks

ai was recently used to mimic the voice

of a ceo

to instruct their accounts department to

pay an invoice

it can simulate political leaders to

deliver public announcements that have

catastrophic consequences yet give the

same political leaders an opportunity to

excuse

their real misdeeds as fake news

ai is used to target us with fraudulent

content to reinforce

our prejudices and entrench our bigotry

social media platforms have been

weaponized to polarize and manipulate

our voting behavior

political parties will continue to use

ai to corrupt our sense of right and

wrong

creating false enemies to divide us and

making false promises to conquer our

hearts and minds

some people might argue that we’re

already living in a post-truth world

there are people i know who deny the

authenticity of

any content that doesn’t agree that with

their opinion

this phenomena has sent shock waves

across political systems and has

destabilized nations

corrupt individuals will continue to use

these technologies to amass

wealth and power and i’m not convinced

that global regulation is enough or even

possible to stop them

one antidote is to use ai to depolarize

us

to proactively encourage conversation

collaboration and critical thinking

we could use ai to battle misinformation

bots and help

pop our social bubbles ai could

challenge our own dogmatic views and

enrich our understanding of each other

and the world around us so let’s now

turn to the economic singularity which

was coined by a good friend of mine

callum chase the economic singularity

is when a.i automates the majority of

human labor

ai is freeing us from mundane tasks

allowing us to do more useful and

interesting things

but the commercial drive to reduce costs

means that

ai will increasingly remove whole jobs

if the pace of automation outstrips how

quickly we can retrain or create new

jobs

then we will experience mass

technological unemployment

more and more of us will become gig

workers picking up granular tasks that

ai

can’t automate governments need to

prevent the exploitation of those

flexible workers by introducing new

employment protections and for those of

us who can’t find work governments need

to put in place

frictionless re-skilling and welfare

support

however if we got the time right we

could actually create

a world abundance ai can take the

friction

and cost out of the production of all of

the goods that we depend upon

we could create a world where our energy

nutrition health care

education shelter are all free a world

where everyone is economically free to

pursue happiness for themselves

and for others the social singularity

is when we cure death some people call

this singularity

the methuselah for millennia

immortality has been pursued by

explorers and emperors sorcerers and

scientists

it’s now the turn of the tech tycoons as

we go through our life our bodies

accumulate damage

for most of us death comes when damage

causes one or more

critical organs to fail ai enables us to

monitor our health with evermore

accuracy it’s accelerating our ability

to

identify issues prescribe treatments and

conduct operations

and it’s even helping us push the

boundaries of our understanding of

medicine

that means that we can not only slow

down aging but potentially

reverse it ray kurzweil who popularized

the term singularity

is a massive advocate of longevity he is

one of a growing community of people who

believe there are people alive today

who don’t have to die imagine how

differently you would live your life if

you were immortal

what would the impact on our social

systems be if we didn’t have to die

how would we approach education how do

we what would we do for a career

and how would we structure our

relationships and families

the technological singularity is one

that many of us will be aware of

it’s where we create an ai smarter than

ourselves

this super intelligence could be the

last invention that humanity creates

some people think it’s the most glorious

thing that will happen to us others

think it’s our biggest

existential threat almost two decades

ago when i was doing my phd

i was trying to understand how to solve

intelligence without really thinking

deeply about the consequences

yet this is still the stated goal of

many industrial and academic ai labs

across the globe

ai researchers understand the risks but

for many

the intellectual pursuit is just too

tantalizing

it’s incredibly naive to expect a

silicon god

even one of our own creation will want

to take care of us we might as well

ask aliens to come and rescue us from

ourselves

when the technological singularity

happens i believe

that our only hope is to show it that we

are not a threat

and that means we need to stop fighting

each other over petty things

and start cooperating as one global

species

the second e in pestle is environmental

the environmental singularity is

uncontrollable ecological collapse

ai is accelerating the mass production

and distribution of goods

which on the one hand is enabling us to

live richer healthier happier lives

but on the other hand human consumption

is putting extreme pressures

on our planetary boundaries farming is

driving antimicrobial resistance

clothing prediction is creating an

impending water crisis

transportation is accelerating climate

change and our waste is polluting the

oceans

companies are realizing that having

sustainable

circular supply chains is now not enough

we need to prioritize regeneration as

our industrial and economic driver

instead of

unsustainable exponential production and

whilst we’re waiting for aliens to come

and save us

it’s all of our responsibility to hold

leaders accountable

to putting people and planet ahead of

profit

the final word in pestle is legal

the legal singularity is when

surveillance becomes ubiquitous

ai is being used to track individuals

and corporations

our digital footprint allows

organizations to know us better than

ourselves

these insights are not just used to

suggest what goods we might enjoy

but are used to police and prosecutors

ai is being used to predict and prevent

crime

before it happens a bit like in that

film minority report

how would you feel if tom cruise

arrested you for a crime

you didn’t know you were going to commit

some nations

even use ai to publicly score the

productivity of their citizens

those who control what the algorithm

rewards and punishes

also control the masses ai could

eliminate eliminate

all illegal activity but at what cost to

privacy freedom expression and

creativity

regulation needs to move faster than

technological progress to ensure that

the rights of the individual

are balanced with those of the society

so let’s just recap the political

singularity is when we no longer know

what is true

the economic singularity is when a.i

automates the majority of human labor

the social singularity is when we cure

death

the technological singularity is when we

create a super intelligence

the environmental singularity is when we

trigger uncontrollable

ecological collapse and the legal

singularity

is when surveillance becomes ubiquitous

whilst it’s hard to see beyond each of

these singularities it’s even more

complex

if several happen around the same time

george orwell’s

1984 is an incredible depiction of both

the

legal and political singularities a

surveillance state

in a post-truth world and many people

believe that

these singularities will happen within

our lifetime

like any technology ai is neither good

or bad

it’s how it’s used that determines the

outcome

the pestle of singularities are outcomes

of an incredibly

complex global system a system currently

driven to

maximize production and profit remember

the definition of intelligence

goal-directed adaptive behavior ai does

not set the goal

the goal is set by our intent the

hardest part is setting goals that don’t

have

a negative impact to humanity it’s

easy for us to label business and

political leaders as

corrupt and self-interested most of the

ones i know have a deep concern about

humanity and a desire to make people’s

lives better

they’ve achieved their success through

tenacity and hard work and their ability

they’re smart enough to understand the

boundaries of their capability and they

surround themselves by people

who bring diverse perspectives however

ai is enabling a handful of people to

accumulate a disproportionate amount of

wealth and power

and we incorrectly reflect that wealth

and power as a measure of their

intelligence

they position themselves as having

superior intellects and some are deluded

enough to believe it

instead of being humbled by their

limitations they are clouded by

intellectual hubris and they surround

themselves by cronies and sycophants

achieving their goal is more important

than the destruction that they create in

their wake

we can’t afford for bad outcomes to

happen before we introduce

new laws and regulation because by the

time these singularities come

it will be too late to mitigate some of

the irreversible outcomes governments

need to do

much better at measuring progress than

blunt instruments like gdp

companies need to be genuinely putting

purpose as important as profit

but crucially we as individuals need to

hold them both accountable

and we can do this by raising everyone’s

awareness about the safety and ethical

challenges surfaced by

ai ai safety and ai ethics are used as

marketing buzzwords

to give the illusion of expertise

distinguishing ai safety and ai ethics

from already well-established technology

governance frameworks

makes no sense technology and ethics

frameworks need to be enriched and

extended

to take into account ai and as ai

becomes more and more ubiquitous

these frameworks need to be accessible

to everyone to understand and use

safety concerns itself with ensuring

systems

don’t cause harm software and hardware

already have

rigorous safety methodologies that have

been developed over decades

paradoxically promoting ai safety

separately is not only misleading but

it’s dangerous

the nuance is that some ai systems are

taught

instead of engineered training software

usually is more complex

and is prone to bias which requires much

more robust testing

once an ai is trained we typically don’t

know how it behaves the way it does

so there’s a huge amount of investment

into understanding how an ai

currently makes its decisions the other

type of ai are so complex

they have totally unpredictable and

adverse side effects let me let me give

you a thought experiment to ponder

imagine you’re on the ethics committee

of a ride hailing company

several months ago your company deployed

an ai to automatically set

search prices with the goal to maximize

profit

you’ve just been told that the ai worked

out customers will pay

more when their phone battery battery is

very low ai is making the company huge

amounts of money

but by exploiting people’s vulnerability

what do you do in this situation

ethics is the study of right and wrong

when considering any decision whether

made by ai or not we need to ensure

fairness and equality there are already

well-established processes to

scrutinize ethical decisions in fact ai

ethicists should call themselves

ethicists

and then ask themselves honestly if they

can live for that title

ais are making increasingly complex

decisions

so ethical frameworks need to ensure

that the ai’s design and intent are

transparent

they need to ensure that the data and

methodology used to implement ai

is auditable we need to be able to

explain how the ai

is making its decisions and we have

accountability across the entire

development process we are at an

incredibly

exciting and pivotal moment in human

history

a moment where we will experience

exponential effects of ai

the decisions that each of us are making

are contributing to these

irreversible futures if we are

conscientious then

ai could help us create a fairer and

freer society a world

of abundance where the whole of humanity

can prosper and thrive

and it’s in the hands of all of us to

make that world a reality

thank you for listening