Can AI help us understand animal intelligence? - Highlights - POORVA JOSHIPURA

Can AI help us understand animal intelligence? - Highlights - POORVA JOSHIPURA

PETA U.K. · Senior Vice President
Author of Survival at Stake: How Our Treatment of Animals is Key to Human Existence

I wrote Survival at Stake because I've been working in animal rights for nearly the past 25 years. Throughout that time, one common question has been asked: Well, shouldn't we deal with human issues first. But animal rights are human rights. Animal rights is environmentalism. These things are not distinct. And that's the point I was really trying to make in my book. I was inspired to write it because of the COVID-19 crisis. It just brings us back to the point of why it is so important to teach people, young people, and young men the importance of being kind to everyone, animals included. If you teach them that, I think the other lessons start to much more automatically transfer over.

How Will AI & New Technologies Change the Role of Artists? - Highlights - JONATHAN YEO

How Will AI & New Technologies Change the Role of Artists? - Highlights - JONATHAN YEO

Artist

What are you trying to do with the portrait? On a basic level, you're trying to communicate something about the essence of who someone is. You're trying to figure out who they are, not necessarily who they present themselves as. The two things can quite often be different. And then, you're trying to find ways of showing that through their face, their posture, or any other context. My instinct is always to try to reduce down to the essential elements. We read faces. It's obviously very, very deep in our DNA, really our survival instinct. We are programmed to read faces in a very fine-tuned way.

JONATHAN YEO - Celebrated Portrait Artist on the Importance of Connection & Intuitive Intelligence

JONATHAN YEO - Celebrated Portrait Artist on the Importance of Connection & Intuitive Intelligence

Artist

What are you trying to do with the portrait? On a basic level, you're trying to communicate something about the essence of who someone is. You're trying to figure out who they are, not necessarily who they present themselves as. The two things can quite often be different. And then, you're trying to find ways of showing that through their face, their posture, or any other context. My instinct is always to try to reduce down to the essential elements. We read faces. It's obviously very, very deep in our DNA, really our survival instinct. We are programmed to read faces in a very fine-tuned way.

How can we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable? - Highlights - DR. SASHA LUCCIONI

How can we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable? - Highlights - DR. SASHA LUCCIONI

Founding Member of Climate Change AI
AI Researcher & Climate Lead · Hugging Face

My work is really about figuring out how, right now, AI is using resources like energy and emitting greenhouse gases and how it's using our data without our consent. I feel that if we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable, we can help future generations so that AI will be less of a risk to society.  The way I got into this field was working on the environmentally beneficial applications of AI, and I do believe that that's an impactful way of using AI techniques because there's so much data about the climate, satellite data, and sensor data, and the way to go about this is to work with domain experts. AI is never going to solve the problem on its own, but it can be a tool. So I think that there's a lot of promise there.

DR. SASHA LUCCIONI - Founding Member Climate Change AI - Climate Lead & AI Researcher - Hugging Face

DR. SASHA LUCCIONI - Founding Member Climate Change AI - Climate Lead & AI Researcher - Hugging Face

Founding Member of Climate Change AI
AI Researcher & Climate Lead · Hugging Face

My work is really about figuring out how, right now, AI is using resources like energy and emitting greenhouse gases and how it's using our data without our consent. I feel that if we develop AI systems that are more respectful, ethical, and sustainable, we can help future generations so that AI will be less of a risk to society.  The way I got into this field was working on the environmentally beneficial applications of AI, and I do believe that that's an impactful way of using AI techniques because there's so much data about the climate, satellite data, and sensor data, and the way to go about this is to work with domain experts. AI is never going to solve the problem on its own, but it can be a tool. So I think that there's a lot of promise there.

How can AI & new technologies help reverse biodiversity loss and restore our ecosystems? - Highlights - THOMAS 
CROWTHER

How can AI & new technologies help reverse biodiversity loss and restore our ecosystems? - Highlights - THOMAS 
CROWTHER

Ecologist · Founder of Restor
Co-chair of the Board for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

Global restoration really means finding and empowering the millions of local communities, indigenous populations, and farmers who are promoting biodiversity. Restor is a digital platform, sort of like Google Maps, but for restoration. So rather than seeing coffee shops and supermarkets, you will see conservation projects and Indigenous-led restoration initiatives. And that means you can find a currently on Restor - I think we have around 140, 000 - so you can go on there for free right now and find thousands and thousands of these amazing heroes of nature. And you can zoom in and you can see every single tree on the ground. You can see every bush and you can fund them or you can buy their coffee or you can go visit their projects and do ecotourism. There's a myriad of ways that we can all support their efforts by also improving our own lives. 

We need to be cutting our emissions so that we can allow nature to thrive and help us along the way. For far too long people have been squabbling about emissions. We should do this or we should do that. Climate change is way too big for us to be squabbling about things. We need to do everything now. When we grow the same crops every year, the soil gets more depleted and all the nutrients are lost. I've heard quotes that if we cannot find agricultural systems that rejuvenate the soil instead of depleting it, we are signing our death warrant. It's like we need to be promoting healthy soils if we're going to have any agriculture in the future.

THOMAS CROWTHER - Ecologist - Co-chair of the Board for UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration - Founder of Restor

THOMAS CROWTHER - Ecologist - Co-chair of the Board for UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration - Founder of Restor

Ecologist · Founder of Restor
Co-chair of the Board for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

Global restoration really means finding and empowering the millions of local communities, indigenous populations, and farmers who are promoting biodiversity. Restor is a digital platform, sort of like Google Maps, but for restoration. So rather than seeing coffee shops and supermarkets, you will see conservation projects and Indigenous-led restoration initiatives. And that means you can find a currently on Restor - I think we have around 140, 000 - so you can go on there for free right now and find thousands and thousands of these amazing heroes of nature. And you can zoom in and you can see every single tree on the ground. You can see every bush and you can fund them or you can buy their coffee or you can go visit their projects and do ecotourism. There's a myriad of ways that we can all support their efforts by also improving our own lives. 

We need to be cutting our emissions so that we can allow nature to thrive and help us along the way. For far too long people have been squabbling about emissions. We should do this or we should do that. Climate change is way too big for us to be squabbling about things. We need to do everything now. When we grow the same crops every year, the soil gets more depleted and all the nutrients are lost. I've heard quotes that if we cannot find agricultural systems that rejuvenate the soil instead of depleting it, we are signing our death warrant. It's like we need to be promoting healthy soils if we're going to have any agriculture in the future.

Are we living in a Simulated Universe? - Highlights - MELVIN VOPSON

Are we living in a Simulated Universe? - Highlights - MELVIN VOPSON

Physicist · Author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe
Co-founder & CEO of the Information Physics Institute

These ideas go as far back as Ancient Greece, which basically gave birth to two lines of thinking, two ideologies, materialism and idealism. And the idealist thinkers like Plato regarded reality as a projection of our minds, as something that is not real. And the only thing that is real is our consciousness and our minds and everything else around us is just constructs of our proception and projections. And that was a philosophy that was opposed to materialism, which regards the world as in a materialistic way, made up of atoms and matter and our minds are a product of these chemical reactions and the matter is coming together and forming our minds and consciousness. And everything in the world exists regardless of our consciousness or our minds and the universe is there and it's a materialistic view of the world. So these are two competing ideologies, and this is actually how we see the world today in a materialistic way.

MELVIN VOPSON - Physicist - Author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe

MELVIN VOPSON - Physicist - Author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe

Physicist · Author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe
Co-founder & CEO of the Information Physics Institute

These ideas go as far back as Ancient Greece, which basically gave birth to two lines of thinking, two ideologies, materialism and idealism. And the idealist thinkers like Plato regarded reality as a projection of our minds, as something that is not real. And the only thing that is real is our consciousness and our minds and everything else around us is just constructs of our proception and projections. And that was a philosophy that was opposed to materialism, which regards the world as in a materialistic way, made up of atoms and matter and our minds are a product of these chemical reactions and the matter is coming together and forming our minds and consciousness. And everything in the world exists regardless of our consciousness or our minds and the universe is there and it's a materialistic view of the world. So these are two competing ideologies, and this is actually how we see the world today in a materialistic way.

Does privacy exist anymore? Or are humans just sets of data to be traded and sold? - Highlights - WENDY WONG

Does privacy exist anymore? Or are humans just sets of data to be traded and sold? - Highlights - WENDY WONG

Author of We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age
Professor of Political Science at University of British Columbia

One of the things that we need to remember is that we are data stakeholders and not data subjects. We're often called data subjects if you look at the way legislation is written and tech companies talk about the users of their technology as data subjects. Being a subject casts this sort of '“you can't help but have this happen to you” effect. But we're actually data stakeholders for the reason that data cannot be created without us. If companies were incentivized to follow data minimization for example, where they only collect the data they need, that would change the way we interact with digital technologies.

WENDY WONG - Author of We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age

WENDY WONG - Author of We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age

Author of We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age
Professor of Political Science at University of British Columbia

One of the things that we need to remember is that we are data stakeholders and not data subjects. We're often called data subjects if you look at the way legislation is written and tech companies talk about the users of their technology as data subjects. Being a subject casts this sort of '“you can't help but have this happen to you” effect. But we're actually data stakeholders for the reason that data cannot be created without us. If companies were incentivized to follow data minimization for example, where they only collect the data they need, that would change the way we interact with digital technologies.

MAX BENNETT - Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains - CEO of Alby

MAX BENNETT - Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains - CEO of Alby

Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
Cofounder & CEO of Alby · Fmr. Cofounder & CPO of Bluecore

So, modern neuroscientists are questioning if there really is one consistent limbic system. But usually when we're looking at the limbic system, we're thinking about things like emotion, volition, and goals. And those types of things, I would argue reinforcement learning algorithms, at least on a primitive level, we already have because the way that we get them to achieve goals like play a game of go and win is we give them a reward signal or a reward function. And then we let them self-play and teach themselves based on maximizing that reward. But that doesn't mean that they're self-aware, doesn't mean that they're experiencing anything at all. There's a fascinating set of questions in the AI community around what's called the reward hypothesis, which is how much of intelligent behavior can be understood through the lens of just trying to optimize a reward signal. We are more than just trying to optimize reward signals. We do things to try and reinforce our own identities. We do things to try and understand ourselves. These are attributes that are hard to explain from a simple reward signal, but do make sense. And other conceptions of intelligence like Karl Friston's active inference where we build a model of ourselves and try and reinforce that model.

HOWARD GARDNER - Author of A Synthesizing Mind & Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences - Co-director of The Good Project

HOWARD GARDNER - Author of A Synthesizing Mind & Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences - Co-director of The Good Project

Author of A Synthesizing Mind · Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
Co-director of The Good Project

The garden that makes up one's mind is always to some extent the flowers and trees that we get from our families genetically, but also we get from our families culturally. I became interested in synthesis and I wrote the memoir quite a while ago, but now with the advent of large language instruments or ChatGPT, the pressure to figure out what synthesis is, what these computing systems can or can't do that human beings are still the privileged cohort in carrying out those tasks, that's made the interest in synthesis more important than ever. If we're trying to decide what policy to cover, whether it's an economic policy about interest rates, or whether - we're talking now during the beginning of the war in the Middle East - what policies to follow militarily, economically, and ethically. For that matter, do we entrust that to some kind of a computational system, or is this something that human judgment needs to be brought to bear?

What distinguishes our consciousness from AI & machine learning? Highlights: LIAD MUDRIK - Neuroscientist, Tel Aviv University

What distinguishes our consciousness from AI & machine learning? Highlights: LIAD MUDRIK - Neuroscientist, Tel Aviv University

Neuroscientist · Principal Investigator Liad Mudrik Lab · Tel Aviv University

So when I say that I am a conscious creature, I mean that I don't only analyze information about the world, or not only even respond to the world because you can think about, your thermostat response to the world, but when I sense the world, I don't only process information. I also have a qualitative experience, adopting Thomas Nagel's famous title of his paper. It feels like something in his case to be a bat. In our case, to be me. It feels like something to drink coffee, right? So the question is what allows us as human beings not only to process information but also to experience it? And this is what we are trying to understand, basically. And I should say, I said us as human beings, but I think that animals also have such conscious experience.

So to what extent does our cognition affect perception itself? And I belong to those researchers who think that it does. We are affected by what we expect to see. And sometimes we even perceive the expected as opposed to the world as it is. That also pertains to day-to-day life, to politics, to the reality you construct for yourself. So the brain is an amazing, amazing piece of machinery. And one of the things that it does best is to create these narratives. into which we project ourselves. So it creates a model of the world.

LIAD MUDRIK - Neuroscientist - Principal Investigator Liad Mudrik Lab, Tel Aviv University

LIAD MUDRIK - Neuroscientist - Principal Investigator Liad Mudrik Lab, Tel Aviv University

Neuroscientist · Principal Investigator Liad Mudrik Lab · Tel Aviv University

So when I say that I am a conscious creature, I mean that I don't only analyze information about the world, or not only even respond to the world because you can think about, your thermostat response to the world, but when I sense the world, I don't only process information. I also have a qualitative experience, adopting Thomas Nagel's famous title of his paper. It feels like something in his case to be a bat. In our case, to be me. It feels like something to drink coffee, right? So the question is what allows us as human beings not only to process information but also to experience it? And this is what we are trying to understand, basically. And I should say, I said us as human beings, but I think that animals also have such conscious experience.

So to what extent does our cognition affect perception itself? And I belong to those researchers who think that it does. We are affected by what we expect to see. And sometimes we even perceive the expected as opposed to the world as it is. That also pertains to day-to-day life, to politics, to the reality you construct for yourself. So the brain is an amazing, amazing piece of machinery. And one of the things that it does best is to create these narratives. into which we project ourselves. So it creates a model of the world.

Highlights - BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab - Author of The Future You

Highlights - BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab - Author of The Future You

Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted
Director of the Arizona State University’s Threatcasting Lab
Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

Let's talk about technology and the role of humanity and the role of being human and what it means to be present in that. We need to keep humans at the center of everything that we do, that everything that we do in our life is about humans. It begins with humans and ends with humans. There might be technologies and businesses and all these things in between, but we should measure the effect on humans.

When I talk to people about artificial intelligence or technology, I'm generally asking them two questions. What are you optimizing for? What's the effect that you're trying to get? Developing technology for technology's sake, although it can be kind of interesting...then is why you're doing it because you think it's interesting? But then ultimately, if you're doing it beyond your own gratification, why are you doing it?

So much of what I do in that is talking to governments and militaries and large organizations to say we always have to keep humans in the loop. You have to keep humans in the center because it's about us. That really is incredibly important. And that's one of the central ideas in the future. The future should be about humans, and where are humans going. And what do we want as humans? And how are we using technology to make us more human, or healthier, or happier, or more productive?

BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted - Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted - Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted
Director of the Arizona State University’s Threatcasting Lab
Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

Let's talk about technology and the role of humanity and the role of being human and what it means to be present in that. We need to keep humans at the center of everything that we do, that everything that we do in our life is about humans. It begins with humans and ends with humans. There might be technologies and businesses and all these things in between, but we should measure the effect on humans.

When I talk to people about artificial intelligence or technology, I'm generally asking them two questions. What are you optimizing for? What's the effect that you're trying to get? Developing technology for technology's sake, although it can be kind of interesting...then is why you're doing it because you think it's interesting? But then ultimately, if you're doing it beyond your own gratification, why are you doing it?

So much of what I do in that is talking to governments and militaries and large organizations to say we always have to keep humans in the loop. You have to keep humans in the center because it's about us. That really is incredibly important. And that's one of the central ideas in the future. The future should be about humans, and where are humans going. And what do we want as humans? And how are we using technology to make us more human, or healthier, or happier, or more productive?

Highlights - ALLEN STEELE - Hugo Award-winning Science Fiction Author of the Coyote Trilogy, Arkwright

Highlights - ALLEN STEELE - Hugo Award-winning Science Fiction Author of the Coyote Trilogy, Arkwright

Winner of the Hugo · Asimov's Readers & Locus Awards
Served on the Board of Directors of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America

I'm really very glad. I was happy to see that within my lifetime that the prospects of not just Mars, but in fact interstellar space is being taken seriously. I've been at two conferences where we were talking about building the first starship within this century. One of my later books, Arkwright, is about such a project. I saw that Elon Musk is building Starship One, I wish him all the best. And I envy anybody who goes.

I wish I were a younger person and in better health. Somebody asked me some time ago, would you go to Mars? And I said, “I can't do it now. I've got a bum pancreas, and I'm 65 years old, and I'm not exactly the prime prospect for doing this. If you asked me 40 years ago would I go, I would have said: in a heartbeat!” I would gladly leave behind almost everything. I don't think I'd be glad about leaving my wife and family behind, but I'd be glad to go live on another planet, perhaps for the rest of my life, just for the chance to explore a new world, to be one of the settlers in a new world. We've got to be careful about how we do this. And we've got to be careful, particularly about the rationale of the people who are doing this.

ALLEN STEELE - Hugo Award-winning Science Fiction Author of the Coyote Trilogy, Arkwright

ALLEN STEELE - Hugo Award-winning Science Fiction Author of the Coyote Trilogy, Arkwright

Winner of the Hugo · Asimov's Readers & Locus Awards
Served on the Board of Directors of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America

I'm really very glad. I was happy to see that within my lifetime that the prospects of not just Mars, but in fact interstellar space is being taken seriously. I've been at two conferences where we were talking about building the first starship within this century. One of my later books, Arkwright, is about such a project. I saw that Elon Musk is building Starship One, I wish him all the best. And I envy anybody who goes.

I wish I were a younger person and in better health. Somebody asked me some time ago, would you go to Mars? And I said, “I can't do it now. I've got a bum pancreas, and I'm 65 years old, and I'm not exactly the prime prospect for doing this. If you asked me 40 years ago would I go, I would have said: in a heartbeat!” I would gladly leave behind almost everything. I don't think I'd be glad about leaving my wife and family behind, but I'd be glad to go live on another planet, perhaps for the rest of my life, just for the chance to explore a new world, to be one of the settlers in a new world. We've got to be careful about how we do this. And we've got to be careful, particularly about the rationale of the people who are doing this.

Highlights - SUSAN SCHNEIDER - Author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, Fmr. Distinguished Scholar, US Library of Congress

Highlights - SUSAN SCHNEIDER - Author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, Fmr. Distinguished Scholar, US Library of Congress

Founding Director · Center for the Future Mind · Florida Atlantic University
Author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind
Fmr. NASA Chair at NASA · Fmr. Distinguished Scholar at US Library of Congress

So it's hard to tell exactly what the dangers are, but that's certainly one thing that we need to track that beings that are vastly intellectually superior to other beings may not respect the weaker beings, given our own past. It's really hard to tell exactly what will happen. The first concern I have is with surveillance capitalism in this country. The constant surveillance of us because the US is a surveillance capitalist economy, and it's the same elsewhere in the world, right? With Facebook and all these social media companies, things have just been going deeply wrong. And so it leads me to worry about how the future is going to play out. These tech companies aren't going to be doing the right thing for humanity. And this gets to my second worry, which is how's all this going to work for humans exactly? It's not clear where humans will even be needed in the future.