Advanced Technology And Its Integration With Our Way Of Life | With Stephen Wu And Keith Abney

By Marco Ciappelli & Sean Martin
Guests: Stephen Wu | Keith Abney

Hello humans, robots, intelligent or stupid beings, and everything in between. I welcome you all to the Cyber Society of Today—a wondrous place where 'what' is a possibility, 'how' is full of options, and 'when' is a mystery.

Despite what you may think, this is a real place. It is here, it is now, and most certainly you are in it. So, buckle up, be open-minded, and enjoy the ride—the doors are locked, and there is no place to hide.

In this podcast, Sean and I are following up on an exciting story that we started during one of the panels we hosted at the RSA Conference in San Francisco a few weeks ago.

This is the first of two (perhaps many more) stories on ITSPmagazine’s Cyber Society about advanced technology and its integration with our way of life. Or, is it the other way around? Well, let's get started and see where we end up with this.

This first episode is about the present status of advanced technology, and we start by defining and interpreting some of the terms that are part of this discussion.

We look at where we are, how we got here, and what problems we're facing right now as we begin to live in this cyber society. Obviously, advanced technology is not just a vision for the future. It is about the present and about the fact that robots and artificial intelligence are among us and we are already working and living with them.

Today, machine intelligence is not the same as human intelligence. Will it ever be? What is the difference between human and machine cognition? What is the definition of intelligence?

To answer these—and many more—questions and to make us think and prepare to have more conversations in this topic, we are navigating and exploring possibilities with a legal expert and a philosopher.

Stephen Wu is an AI/Technology attorney, former chair of the American Bar Association Science and Technology Law Section, and started the very first American Bar Association Wide National Institute on artificial intelligence and robotics.

Keith Abney teaches at Cal Poly State University. Philosopher and Senior fellow at the Ethics and Emerging Sciences Group (a non-partisan organization focused on the risk, ethical, and social impact of emerging sciences and technologies). He is also the co-editor of robot ethics and robot ethics 2.0.

If intelligence is what enables a cognitive goal to be achieved, many machines are far more intelligent than humans already. Still, if we move from a narrow to a general-purpose use of artificial intelligence (AI), then things change quite a bit.

Narrow AI is the attempt to achieve a narrow cognitive goal. We are there. General AI—or human intelligence—is something that, at the moment is, at best, in tomorrow's land.

We will talk about that reality next time on the Cyber Society, while we will also discuss the future of advanced technology and how today's decisions can make the difference between something that could resemble either a utopia—or a dystopia. I am personally betting on something in between, but let's see if human intelligence will prove to be much better than what I think it is.

Our goal here at ITSPmagazine is to have conversations that leave people thinking once the podcast music fades out.

If that happens, it means we have done a decent job. We hope we did.

You be the judge.
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