The annual technology, design and entertainment conference, known for ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’, used much of its latest event in Vancouver to showcase today’s rapidly changing artificial intelligence (AI). I tried to wrap the participants’ heads about the field.
At the opening of the five-day conference Monday at the Vancouver Convention Center, TED director and curator Chris Anderson said, “AI is as amazing as it is amazing.
Of the approximately 80 people who spoke at the conference, at least one-fifth said they believed advances in AI and its potential to improve life on earth through breakthroughs in medicine, the environment, or communications, as well as misinformation and even more. We directly addressed the possibility of causing confusion by being bad.
After attracting top names in just about every sector for decades, TED did the same for AI this year, including OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, who created ChatGPT, and several famous Toms. Created a cruise deepfake and some important AI questioners.
“A smarter, less compassionate being”
Eliezer Yudkowsky, who spent 20 years researching the rise of AI and its potential to overtake its creators, had these doubts.
Yudkowsky was a last-minute addition to the conference, and his short six-minute talk, with no slides or visuals at all, earned a standing ovation.
“I really hope that there are smarter and less compassionate beings who can figure out strategies and techniques that can kill us quickly and reliably, and then kill us,” he said.
Yudkowski called for shutting down the AI system.
But that intervention didn’t translate to other TED attendees. Instead, many agreed that global cooperation is needed for strong governance to govern things like computer science and AI that combine massive data sets to solve problems.
Last summer, the Canadian government introduced the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) as part of Bill C-27. This is intended to help Canadians trust the digital technology they increasingly use.
“Without clear standards, it will be difficult for consumers to trust this technology and for businesses to prove they are using it responsibly.
AI fun
Despite many TED talkers warning about the need to properly regulate AI, others were caught up in the fun and wonder of AI.
The meeting began with Anderson interacting with Graham of Metaphysic.AI. Graham’s company is responsible for developing AI that can create videos of humans that are indistinguishable from their real-life versions.
Graham replaces Anderson’s image and voice with his own face to express his trademark enthusiasm for actor Tom Cruise being in Vancouver, along with live video projected onto the screen above. We also published a video of technology replication. there you are
Graham argues that the technology will change the way humans interact, such as allowing family members to converse with their deceased grandparents.
When Anderson said it might be “spooky,” Graham replied that the relationship would outweigh the initial disgust.
Fake AI-generated videos and images are becoming available online, but they are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Futurist girlfriend Sinead Bovell takes CBC’s David Common to introduce a few duped figures and show you how to spot them.
“Let’s acquire the knowledge of this technology”
The optimism is grabbing headlines for being able to converse with humans, create communications using powerful language processing, and write code for the latest versions of ChatGPT and DALL-E. It was continued by Brockman who did the show and tell. Create an image from your language.
Brockman let the AI suggest post-meeting meals and put together a shopping list of the items needed to make them. Tweet with imageAt the same time he showed us the technical backend so we could see how ChatGPT works.
He defended releasing technology that users around the world use and improve in real time, rather than giving the go-ahead only when it clears industry and government gatekeeping, rather than in a closed lab.
“We have to take it step by step every time we come across it. I think it’s very important today to be familiar with this technology,” he said.
“If ChatGPT wasn’t there now, we wouldn’t be having these discussions.”
Safety check, shortcomings
TED also gave the stage to so-called AI prophet Gary Marcus. He called for a non-profit, neutral international governance body for AI and further security checks before the technology is deployed.
Meanwhile, Yejin Choi of the University of Washington pointed out the shortcomings of AI common sense and what it takes (funds) to give the technology better data than is freely available online.
TED artists talked about how AI empowers us to create images, sculptures and music.
“AI can open our minds and produce remarkable results,” says K Allado-McDowell, a musician and writer who has worked with AI technology to create books and music. Let’s go,” he said.
Ina Fried, a San Francisco-based journalist and chief technical officer at Axios who has been covering the industry for 25 years, says that while generative AI has captured the world’s attention through ChatGPT, the technology is taking many more forms. says he is ready to take Humans should be optimistic.
“There are so many things you can do other than just type in a few words and let the computer do it,” she said.
“It allows for really creative dialogue, so I expect to see many interesting applications of this key underlying technology in the next year or two.”
But she also agreed with Anderson’s view that AI is one of the biggest problems the conference has ever addressed.
“This is a big new shift in how humans react and interact with technology,” said Anderson. “We better get it right.”
