The A.I. Monologues w/ James Whittaker

How is it possible to fear an AI induced dystopian future when we live in a human induced dystopian present? We have trashed our environment, poisoned our political discourse, normalized obscene wealth and extreme poverty, raised taxes to historic levels and created the least happy generation of children on record. Pointing the finger at AI’s imaginary dystopia is hypocrisy that should embarrass us all.

AI’s potential to heal humanity’s self-inflicted wounds is reason enough to face these fears even if they were merited. AI has come to us in the knick of time and we need to embrace it with every fiber of our carbon-based being. Indeed, the only dystopian future I see is one where western democracies lose the AI race to bad actors and oppressive autocracies. Winning the AI race is our only hope at reversing otherwise irreversible human catastrophe. It’s disingenuous to imagine AI being worse than humans.

In this talk, I present the case for AI being our best (and perhaps only) way out of the dysfunction of modern society. To accomplish this, I tell the origin story of extra-human intelligence with approachable science and zero bullshit. I then delve into the utopian vision of AI creating a world of leisure and abundance before shattering that vision as impractical (history is clear on this point: humans cannot be trusted to do the right thing). We end up in a familiar place where technology creates both evil and good in measures. The great challenge of mankind is tipping these scales in favor of good and the guardrails, laws and safeguards necessary to do this are discussed.

You’ll learn:

How knowledge escaped its human host and found itself in the clutches of machines

How machine “brains” work and why they outperform human gray matter

Why AI is so much more powerful than ordinary software

How AI can lessen human toil and unleash our creativity

How AI can optimize human well being, both mental and physical

How AI can create wealth that eliminates the need for all taxation

What life could be like as we cohabitate with AI

This will be held at the SIDE HUSTLE LOCAL location!
18117 Bothell Way NE
Bothell, WA 98011

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