Intelligent Thinking about A.I.

Happy (nearly) New Year, Spokane Tech Community!

The theme for our first 2025 event will be Intelligent Thinking About A.I. We'll have help from a renowned authority on the subject, Jaron Lanier.

Agenda:
5:30 - 5:45: Arrive, catch up with folks, and grab a drink if you like (beer, wine, cider, kombucha, etc.)
5:45 - 6:45: Watch and discuss three sections of a Feb 2024 interview with Jaron Lanier posted by The World Science Festival. Sections we'll watch and discuss: 1) History of A.I., 2) Are fears about A.I. causing catastrophic harm grounded in reality?, 3) Taking responsibility and the concept of "data dignity". The length of these 3 sections in totality is ~30 minutes. We'll watch a section, discuss, then move on to the next section.
6:45 - 7:15: Open discussion/socializing

Some context about Lanier and the interview we'll watch:

Jaron Lanier is a highly influential computer scientist, computer philosophy writer, humanist, and futurist. He is a founder of virtual reality (and he coined the term). In 2005, Foreign Policy named Lanier as one of the top 100 Public Intellectuals. In 2010, Lanier was named to the Time 100 list of most influential people. In 2014, Prospect named Lanier one of the top 50 World Thinkers. In 2018, Wired named Lanier one of the top 25 most influential people over the last 25 years of technological history. (Source: Jaron Lanier - Wikipedia)

The interview / Lanier's ideas:
Lanier emphasizes that A.I. as a tool, saying that we need to stop thinking of it is an entity and rather see it as a new form of collaboration that has increased the ability of to collaborate with many others from the past and from distant places to work together more effectively. He thinks it is important that we demystify it and take responsibility for it. "Anything engineered—cars, bridges, buildings—can cause harm to people, and yet we have built a civilization on engineering. It’s by increasing and broadening human awareness, responsibility, and participation that we can make automation safe; conversely, if we treat our inventions as occult objects, we can hardly be good engineers. Seeing A.I. as a form of social collaboration is more actionable: it gives us access to the engine room, which is made of people." (from: There is No A.I.)

No pre-reading is required, but if you want more context for some of his comments in the interview, I suggest this article: How To Picture A.I.. You may also be interested in: There is No A.I.

Looking forward to seeing everyone and a lively discussion!

Casie