Last week in Geneva, I had the opportunity to attend the United Nation’s AI for Good Summit. The event was fascinating, with thousands of leaders there from business, policy and politics as well as academia and wider society. The media attention largely focused on humanoid robotics – doesn’t it always! There were some technical difficulties during the demos due to connectivity issues, which is a relatable experience. Despite this, the true stars of the summit were less apparent but definitely more thought-provoking. Here are highlights in 40 seconds.
Jamie Paik demonstrated how her team found inspiration in the art of origami, which helped them develop Mori3 (watch the video below). Mori3 is equipped with artificial intelligence and consists of hinged triangles capable of transforming into various shapes to perform different tasks.
We were inspired not only by technology, but also by AI generated music, singing and poetry, particularly drummer Jojo Mayer who gave an inspirational showcase of human musician and AI generated music performing in harmony.
Other fabulous facts and findings:
- Over half of the satellites currently operating in space are owned by Elon Musk. At the moment, there are no specific regulations that govern the usage of space.
- There is only one AI safety engineer for every 30 AI engineers
- People are attracted to solving complex problems, which could explain why we put a man on the moon before we put wheels on luggage
- Less than 0.5% of the world’s population know how to code (but with the advent of foundation models this is not the problem it once was)
- The AI world does not agree on if / when AI will pose a threat to humanity (no surprise there!)
- The human genome only accounts for 20% of human disease so the Human Immunome Project is using AI to map the immunome. They aim to anticipate how individuals will respond to different threats and work out the right personalised treatment
- There was broad agreement that AI governance is vital at the international, state and regional levels (but we should question whether people with a different view exist but were not at this event).
If you want to learn more about what we witnessed and heard in Geneva last week, feel free to reach out to us by sending an email to sue.turner@aigovernance.co.uk
