Have a question that I really would like to ask everyone, due to the fact that we are right now in a technological revolution with the advancement of AI, advanced robotics and nanotechnology, what do you think the impact will be on society moving forward with the advancement of AI? Do you think it's going to be something that's going to ultimately help us or something that's going to ultimately hurt us because
Shammi Mohamed
@shammi · 3:13
However, how we get there is not easy. It's not easy given the current structure of society that we live in. We live in a very highly winner takes all capitalistic society that's based on meritocracy, a meritocracy that isn't fair equally to everyone. And as a result, if and when we start losing jobs to automation, it's not going to be easy on the people who lose jobs. They can't shift around to find newer jobs and things like that
Sudha Varadarajan
@sudha · 1:24
It's a very thought provoking question. I don't believe anybody really knows the answer to the question, and we all have to just guess at what may be the future future. But I would go by history and say that humanity has a self preservation mechanism built into their DNA. That's why we squashed stem cell research. If you look at it right, we may do it in the name of religion. We may do it in the name of a lot of things
Shammi Mohamed
@shammi · 4:22
Oh, my God. So I have to answer this. I can't resist. I have to respectfully disagree with almost everything you said over there. I'm going to start with history. You said, let's look at history and you will notice that humans have a self preserving attribute and they will prevent technology from taking over. I think you're looking too shallow
Mtwadamela Ijogo
@Mtwadamela · 3:33
I don't think it's going to be a situation where it will just be a few jobs that are taken because just think about it. All the other jobs that are much simpler for artificial intelligence, because, let's say, working as a cashier, that's much simpler than driving across country in any kind of weather being able to recognize. Oh, that's a squirrel. Oh, that's a rock. Oh, that's rain coming down. You understand what I'm saying?
Sudha Varadarajan
@sudha · 4:28
You can't just have somebody who is not skilled in something after 50 years of doing it suddenly say that they have to rescue themselves because the technology is going to come in another five years, right? It just doesn't work that way. It takes a generation. And so if you're wise, I think people will have to have the wisdom to slow progress, to allow regulation, to slow the progress and allow people to give them the opportunity to reskill and catch up
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Mtwadamela Ijogo
@Mtwadamela · 2:44
Yes, I think that progress is twofold. There's the progress that we make with outward outward technology. And then there's the progress that we make with inward technology, G the Sciences of the mind. And these are the Sciences that me myself I'm most interested in. Although I am awed and fascinated with outward technology, just like anybody else
phil spade
@Phil · 4:42
So I'd like to bring up two examples where I think technology was a real question Mark. And two of the biggest technological advances in my lifetime are the ones that had the most impact. The first one was the Internet. And I was working at Charles Schwab at the time in about 97 98 and about 98, Schwab dot com was launched. And the feeling at the organization of Charles Schwab at the time was people that were working in the branches, their jobs going away
And for that, we might have to go back to the drawing board and revisit old school ideas of infusing the larger thoughts of social responsibility, going beyond the lip service that it has become today into our education system. Maybe then there will be hope and we will begin to devise and use technology for what it is. Thank you
Mtwadamela Ijogo
@Mtwadamela · 3:05
And we have the self driving cars now, which are no longer cars. That's a robot. And so now we're getting to a whole different level of just typing on a screen. This is artificial intelligence manifesting itself, and we're in the beginning stages of it. It's exploding now. So now you even see it now in the Amazon warehouses, you see more and more robots working
Mtwadamela Ijogo
@Mtwadamela · 2:06
Because if you have a robotic vehicle that will transport your stuff and it's cheaper to do it, then as a businessman, you're probably going to make that decision versus paying a human being who needs food and he needs a lunch break and he gets tired and he might get sleepy and crash and mess your merchandise up and that type of thing. So I'm just curious as to what everybody's thinking about it
Sudha Varadarajan
@sudha · 4:15
And when it comes to AI, I am more on Phil Scamp than on Shami's camp in that I believe that AI will come, but it will be limited in what it can do. And like you said, it will displace a significant portion of the workforce who now have to be reskilled into doing something else because when something new comes in, some new opportunity also comes in
Mtwadamela Ijogo
@Mtwadamela · 3:27
So I wish I could feel confident that the people in charge of other technology are going to be right. But they've never shown so far. I think that was kind of snuffed out and kind of drove underground centuries ago, thousands of years ago. I don't know. Every time we go on Google, we seem to admit that AI is smarter. I really like what you had to say. It seems like you get an innovation and how quickly it involves and how greedy people are
Howie Rubin
@Howie · 1:53
Very, very interesting discussion about technology. From my point of view, technology is and always will be. Technology has helped shape the world and for the most part has been good for the world. When I think about the growth rate in the world, look back at statistics. There are approximately 1.5 trillion people living in the world 100 years ago. Today, there are 7.8 or 7.9 trillion people living in the world without technology
Howie Rubin
@Howie · 0:11
Whoops I think I was talking in terms of dreams. When I said Population, it should be billions. Please forgive me
Shammi Mohamed
@shammi · 4:53
And the goal over there is to ensure that as a committee, we are taking the right precautions to shape the progress of the development of AI such that we don't unleash it into a point of no return. That said, it is still a question because like I said, progress is inevitable. Technology is inevitable, right? And a lot of futurists have been looking at this problem if and when AI gets much more capable than human beings, what's going to happen?
Shammi Mohamed
@shammi · 4:57
It's just that we don't know how Rocky the path to that light is going to be. For those who would like to know more about Andrew Yang, I would highly recommend you read The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang. And also, while we are on the topic of Is technology good or bad, I would highly recommend people see Black Mirror. I'm pretty sure most of you have