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