The power of networks that included people were just taking off then, but their exponential growth was expected. Yes we had LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook, but none of them had started influencing our society so profoundly. Their combinatorial creativity was visible and alluring, but we didn’t expect that algorithmic decisions would yield such profoundly complex outcomes.
2015 seems an age ago. I remember feeling very positive about the trajectory of global development: beyond digital and energy leapfrogging there was the steady downward trend of people in poverty. Wind forward one pandemic and some politics later, and many of the gains been wiped out, the climate damage accelerated, and political will for solidarity eroded. I hope we can re-engage with a new, sober awareness of our interconnectedness to tackle global inequality again, and in a way that is adaptive to what the future will bring.
The important concern I recall from seven years ago was about AI becoming too powerful for humans to control the technology. There was a view among some that AI might get to the point of being sentient, which would usher in a period where the technology would act in ways exclusive to its own promotion and self-preservation. I suppose the concern is still active, but the flex point for AI domination appears less immediate in 2022.
The power of networks that included people were just taking off then, but their exponential growth was expected. Yes we had LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook, but none of them had started influencing our society so profoundly. Their combinatorial creativity was visible and alluring, but we didn’t expect that algorithmic decisions would yield such profoundly complex outcomes.
2015 seems an age ago. I remember feeling very positive about the trajectory of global development: beyond digital and energy leapfrogging there was the steady downward trend of people in poverty. Wind forward one pandemic and some politics later, and many of the gains been wiped out, the climate damage accelerated, and political will for solidarity eroded. I hope we can re-engage with a new, sober awareness of our interconnectedness to tackle global inequality again, and in a way that is adaptive to what the future will bring.
The important concern I recall from seven years ago was about AI becoming too powerful for humans to control the technology. There was a view among some that AI might get to the point of being sentient, which would usher in a period where the technology would act in ways exclusive to its own promotion and self-preservation. I suppose the concern is still active, but the flex point for AI domination appears less immediate in 2022.
It felt inevitable that Turing level chat bots were right around the corner and within the year they would be the primary interface across products.