EmTech 2022: bridging the gap between humanity and the machines
5: 08 And that’s a wrap folks! We are so grateful that you have been following our EmTech sessions. You can also see all the announcements from . yesterday’s sessions. We hope that you can attend the event in person or online next year.
4: 50 Schillings said that X also strives to quickly shut down projects that aren’t working, but also tries to learn from and preserve key ideas that could be applied to different projects in the future. It is called “compost.”
When a project is shut down, they also try to identify the “cause of death,” noting what went wrong. X collects these periodically and holds “tales from crypt” sessions. During these sessions, they review old ideas and determine if something has changed that could make it a good time to revisit them.
4: 42 Asked how X’s thinking has shifted since it was founded 12 years ago, Schillings says that they were initially overly focused on radical solutions, “without much rigor on, ‘would this really work?'” While they still strive to maintain high levels of creativity, they have become more stringent about proving that an idea is worth investing. “
4: 36 Now we’ll hear from Benoit Schillings, chief technology officer at X, Alphabet’s “moonshot factory,” which helped develop self-driving cars, the Google Brain machine learning tools that power many Google products and numerous other projects.
4: 30 Werner acknowledged that financing is tightening in the current economic environment. She said that there is still a lot of capital available for companies that could have a significant global impact on big issues like climate change. She also mentioned that the Inflation Reduction Act, which was recently passed, will provide large amounts of funding to support pilot and demonstration projects in the US for clean tech industries.
4: 24 Werner says that in selecting startups to support, the Engine looks for companies that could “bring prosperity to the entire world,” and they focus on the people. They seek to establish relationships with top researchers at top labs who are working to solve difficult problems in areas such as climate change and human health.
4: 03 Hello, and welcome to the final chapter of the final day of EmTech 2022! James Temple is an editor at MIT Technology Review. In conversation with David Rotman (MIT Technology Review’s editor at large), our next speakers will discuss “New Frontiers in Hard Technology.”
First up is Milo Werner. He is the general partner at TheEngine ,, an MIT-backed venture company that focuses on “tough tech.” ”
3: 38 That’s all for this session on artificial intelligence! Come join us for our next session about how to tackle the most difficult problems in tech.
3: 35 An audience member asks about artists who are upset about AI programs generating images that copy the style of real artists.
Stevenson states that artists may find it advantageous to have multiple styles. “Anyone who has a single type, they’re the most effective training a model.” “
He wonders if it would be possible for artists to “opt-out” of having their artwork used by AI training models in future.
Jang states that OpenAI is in communication with policymakers about how regulations should be implemented. She says, “I think the law really must catch up to this.”
3. 29 Overcoming issues around bias and harm that AI systems learn from large datasets is a “work in progress,” Jang says.
3. 24 Will asks: Will these new technologies take away artists’ jobs?
Stevenson, a former DreamWorks employee, said that the same anxiety was felt when computer animation was introduced. First there is an existential crisis. Then artists quickly learn how to use the tools and incorporate them into creative processes.
“When computers were first announced as a tool for animation in the 90s, lot of people are like, ‘That’s it–my whole job. ‘”
3. 19 Will asks about OpenAI’s new DALL-E API.
Jang states that the company was careful about the rollout, from hundreds of users to now more than 3 million users, due to safety concerns. Engineers have gradually adjusted filters and loosen restrictions.
3. 12 Now speaking is XR creator and independent consultant Don Allen Stevenson III. DALL-E is a program that helps him as an artist with certain aspects of his designs.
I struggle with composition so it’s really useful to have something that helps make the framing of things easier,” Stevenson said. Stevenson says DALL-E can help with storyboarding, 3D modeling and creating VR avatars.
3: 07 On stage now is Chad Nelson, chief creative director at Topgolf/Callaway. Topgolf’s designers are responsible for creating virtual golf courses.
He believes programs like DALL-E have revolutionized the way designers work. It “takes 15 seconds to generate, so it’s changing the way creatives go through their daily process and the whole creative process. ”
3. 00 Jang says that using DALL-E still requires human originally and creativity. It can “take the salient characteristics of an image and alter certain parts while keeping the core,” creating different images around the same theme.
She describes it as “image searching for your imagination.” ”
Jang announces that, starting today, DALL-E is now available as an API.
2: 54 Jang explains that the way DALL-E works is by showing an AI model millions of images, which the model then learns from to generate its own original images, akin to how a child may learn.
It learns concepts and how they relate to each other, then creates new images. ”
2: 48 This next lineup of speakers is going to be talking about generative AI and how to design with AI image generation technologies. Joanne Jang , is the OpenAI product lead.
2: 47 An audience member asks whether engaging deeply with AI helps humans to ask more interesting and deeper questions.
The speakers agree. Hadsell states that building new AI systems with new technologies allows people to see problems in a different light. “Using reinforcement learning, we’re able a faster way to do a really fundamental piece in computer science, which I think is really exciting,” she said.
2: 39 Will moves on to discussing responsible AI.
LeCun says that AI is part of the solution for making technology more responsible. He cites Facebook’s partially automated content moderation system, which can scale up moderation for billions. AI is required to do content moderation. “
2: 34 Will asks the speakers about the difficulty of building AI in a world where the systems have to interact with humans, who are often unpredictable and irrational.
Hadsell believes that AI will improve if it interacts more with people, much like Wikipedia did when it was first introduced. Wikipedia is an example of how technology can grow in its interaction and communication with the rest of the world. ”
2: 26 Hadsell says that robotics, although it may seem like a tangential discipline, will be crucial to unlocking artificial intelligence’s potential.
Robotics is relevant for AI “because we want do useful things in this physical world,” Llorens says. LeCun states that AI must go beyond preprogrammed behavior. “The errors that large language models make are due to the lack of any knowledge of the underlying reality of the language. ”
2: 19 Will asks LeCun: What is AI still unable to do? LeCun states that AI systems are still unable to learn from the world in the same way humans and animals do.
” The next few years will be a challenge as systems try to develop self-directed learning methods that allow them to learn all about the world by simply watching video. “
2: 12 Llorens is impressed by the progress of language models and language processing technology, which has advanced even within the last few years.
It allows you to interact more intuitively with machines. We can now see the ability to take an expression and transform it into text completion, turn it into an illustration, or even a video. ”
2: 06 Will asks the panelists, “What is AI? “
The panelists agree that the term is broadening and has changed a lot. Llorens states that AI is best understood in terms of its purpose. It’s a moving target,” LeCun states. Hadsell suggests it’s a term that has been diluted by excessive use. “I was shopping for a refrigerator recently and couldn’t find one that didn’t mention AI. ”
2: 01 On stage is Will Douglas Heaven, senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review, who will be hosting the speakers for this session.
He is joined by Ashley Llorens , vice-president and managing director at Microsoft Research, Yann LECUN , chief AI scientist at Meta and Raia Haddell senior director for research and robotics at DeepMind.
1: 50 Nelson says everyone is a designer, whether they realize it or not.
But professional designers often design for things they won’t use. When Kyndryl was working with Dow Chemical to design for their engineers it was important to understand how they work. Nelson refers to the process of working with diverse people to create good design as “co-creation.” “
1: 38 Up next, we’ll be hearing from Sarah B. Nelson, chief design officer at infrastructure service provider Kyndryl. She will share ideas about how to design for human-centered organisations of the future.
1: 36 Welcome back to this afternoon’s session of EmTech, where we’ll be learning about what’s next in artificial intelligence. Tammy is a reporting fellow at MIT Technology Review.
12. 25 That’s it for this morning’s sessions! We will take an hour break for lunch and then return to our sessions with Tammy Xu, our AI specialist. We’ll see you later!
12. 15 Matsuhisa has been working on stretchable sensors and displays that could be installed on your skin, flexible and lightweight enough to sit undisturbed on your wrist, for example. He was just curious about the field. He was attracted to the idea of stretchy conductors and has spent a lot of time developing new, flexible devices. He believes they could be very useful in the development soft robots.
12. 04 Where is technology heading next? The individuals on our MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 list, our annual search for the brightest young minds tackling the biggest technological challenges, are dedicated to finding out.
Naoji Matsuhisa is an associate professor at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo, and a recipient of the 2022 Innovator Under 35 list for his work with stretchable electronic materials and devices. To monitor people’s health more effectively than rigid devices that are less effective at keeping skin contact, he has created a stretchy diode from thin rubber sheets.
12. 00 There are billions of interactions with Alexa every day, so the quickest way to reach a trillion interactions would be through more devices answering a wider range of requests, Sharma says. When Sharma is asked how to build knowledge graphs, he laughs and admits it’s a big problem.
11. 50 The rise of voice assistants and ambient AI computing has been pretty phenomenal, and helped to usher in new forms of computing that will continue to unfold over decades, says Sharma. He says that you don’t want the device to feel like a tool. You want it to feel part of you. You want to be able to look at the world through smart glasses. “
11. 30 Voice assistants have been one of the biggest consumer tech success stories of the past decade, with 60% of US households believed to currently own a smart speaker. We’re now going to hear from Vishal Sharma, the vice president of Alexa AI at Amazon, which spearheaded the smart speaker sector with the launch of the first Amazon Echo in 2014.
Sharma will discuss the future of voice computing, how it is revolutionizing the way people interact with their devices and their data.
11. 25 Herr lost both legs below the knee following a mountain climbing accident when he was 17, and uses smart prostheses. He hopes to get critical tissue manipulations and implant surgery again, so that he can have a closer relationship with his prostheses than he has with their ankles.
” It’s almost like not being able drive. You’re always in the backseat. “I want my hands on the steering wheel, and I want to be part the car, if someone is driving. “
11. 15 Herr’s lab is focusing on four projects across four years, one of which involves developing an exoskeleton that could help people who have muscular weakness after experiencing a stroke. It can also allow people without muscular weakness to move faster and run faster.
Another project revolves around the pursuit of improving the current technology designed to help people with spinal cord injuries. Many people with these injuries use a wheelchair. Those who are able to afford it can use exoskeletons with external motors and processors that can move in parallel. Herr’s lab wants the person’s existing skeletal muscles to be activated by shining light onto the skin to activate the nerves beneath.
11. 00 We’re back, and next on the agenda is Hugh Herr, a media arts and sciences professor at the MIT Media Lab and co-director at the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics. He is a leader within the new field of Biomechatronics, which is technology that enables the enhancement of the human body with machinery.
10. 28 We’re now going to take a half-an-hour break, and when we come back we’re talking all things body tech. We’ll see you on the other side!
10. 20 AR works best in environments such as museums, galleries or other cultural institutions when it’s least expected, says Cason. An AR experience that is too complex to be layered on top of an already beautiful piece of art can distract from it. However, if the experience is placed around a sign or box, people will be surprised and delighted to interact with it. This is exactly what its creators want.
A metaverse-style approach to AR is not something she can ever see taking off. She says, “I don’t want to fully invest into an AR or VR universe.” “AR is only for a certain time and it doesn’t work properly if it’s on constantly, so I’m not too excited about it.” “
10. 10 AR is a more natural way of interacting with technology than VR, says Murphy, because it tallies with the way we move through the world, including how we move our heads to look around us. He adds that AR is a natural way for humans to interact with technology.
“AR is a key component of our ability to drive engagement and enable people to do some fun and really exciting things,” he says.
“It’s true that there are a lot of privacy risks in how AR is used,” he says. “We try to put a time limit on data and an expiration date on data, and keep it for as long as it takes to make it work efficiently.
09. 50 Next on the agenda is augmented reality (AR)–the technology we use to layer digital elements including everything from interactive filters to gaming assets into our real-world environment.
Charlotte is joined by Lauren Cason ,, a creative technologist who has worked on award-winning videogames such as Monument Valley 2. Bobby Murphy , is the current CTO at Snap.
09. 45 As a society, we need a project, says McCourt. McCourt wants to know where innovation is and where there are opportunities for discussion, regardless of political backgrounds or ethnicity. Focusing on one project, such the race to get man on the moon or the human genome project, can help people focus their attention and increase the likelihood of actually achieving anything.
“We’re in a new Cold War,” he says. “We want all democracies involved with Project Liberty. But Europe seems like the best place to start, because they are ahead in terms public policy objectives such as human rights. Our technology is being used in the US much more than it is in China. Because it’s centralized, our data can be accessed and used to manipulate people.
09. 25 If our information is corrupted, everything just becomes noise, says McCourt. While focusing on the inherent problems of social media does not mean that it is the only way to clean up the internet, it is a good place to start due to its enormous power. He says, “I don’t think that tweaking what we already have is going to work.” “This is the right time to fix the internet. And get it right this moment. “
09. 10 What will it take to remake the internet into a fairer, more equitable place? Frank H. McCourt , Jr is a civic entrepreneur who is also the CEO of McCourt Global. He believes that the current internet’s structure is flawed. Instead, he believes we should look to a new web architecture that is more responsive to users than corporations.
09. 00 Hello, and welcome back to the final day of EmTech 2022! Rhiannon is a reporter at MIT Technology Review. Today we will be focusing on the technologies with the greatest potential to transform our lives, one innovation at a. time.
We’ll be diving in with some welcome remarks by Charlotte Jee, our news editor.
Come back to this page for rolling updates throughout the day as we kick off the final day of EmTech 2022, MIT Technology Review’s flagship event on emerging technology and global trends.
Global changemakers, innovators, and industry veterans will take to the stage to distinguish what’s probable, plausible, and possible with tomorrow’s breakthrough technologies.
We’ll be hearing from some of the biggest names in the industry, discussing everything from how to get promising ideas off the ground and commercialize space, to building tomorrow’s AI and tackling the world’s biggest challenges.
Today we will be discussing the future of Web 3.0, body tech and AI. Yesterday’s schedule explored the exciting technologies that promise to transform our lives.
Programming starts at 9am ET, and it’s not too late to get online-only access tickets, if you haven’t already.
I’m a journalist who specializes in investigative reporting and writing. I have written for the New York Times and other publications.
