#11 Art for Amnesty, U2, Sting & Bill Shipsey for human rights - the power of culture!

03/25/21 • 47 min

This episode’s guest is Bill Shipsey, founder of Art for Amnesty, human rights activist and the bringer of culture to all things. We’ll be talking about his adventurous life of attaching U2, Sting and Joan Baez to Amnesty International, founding and then bestowing the Ambassador of Conscience award on Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, Ai Weiwei, Alicia Keys and other inspiring advocates of human rights.

Shipsey was Co-Executive Producer of “Instant Karma” – Amnesty’s multi-star benefit album of John Lennon compositions. He devised and produced the Small Places Tour, a 2008 music concert project which partnered with over 800 concerts in some 40 countries worldwide. Shipsey first joined Amnesty in the late 1970’s – inspired in part by the activism of entertainers who performed at the Monty Python inspired “Secret Policeman’s Ball” benefit show.

He is a former Chair of the Irish Section of Amnesty International and a former member of the International Executive Committee of Amnesty International. By profession Shipsey is a Barrister and has appeared for Amnesty International before the Court of Justice of the European Union. He has consulted widely with other human rights organisations around the world seeking to partner with artists in the promotion of human rights campaigns.

We talk about his recent article for the Irish Times about Aleksey Navalny and Amnesty International awarding him the title of Prisoner of Conscience despite his previous history of ultra-nationalist sentiment. We discuss culture and some of his many projects including his exhibitions with Peter Sis, how the journey began and unfolded with his friends from the world of music and art, including Bono and Peter Gabriel, and even the Human Rights Now world tour in 1988, headlined by Bruce Springstein and Tracey Chapman amongst others.

Global Arena Research Institute is an independent, non-partisan research organisation that combines the most advanced methods of AI-driven data, scientific and other artificial reasoning capabilities, elevating data science into completely new levels of opportunity. Our goal is to provide unprecedented insights into the nature, impact, and management of globalization in order to improve institutional and governmental as well as business, energy and other sectors’ decision making. Our mission is to make the most of organically connecting AI-level reasoning capacities with the human-level critical reasoning capacities for the sake of a better future.

If you want better insights into challenges and decisions you or your business are facing, GARI’s analytical services are of unmatched complexity and high accuracy - whether your questions are on the green energy transition, trade and supply chains, or political and security related - contact us for a free consultation and see how you can optimise your decision-making.
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Previous Episode

#10 The story of Artificial Intelligence with Bennie Mols

Our guests is Bennie Mols, renowned science & technology journalist with a background in physics & philosophy on his fascination with AI & robotics and his dream that one day the co-author of a paper will be an AI.

The history of artificial intelligence, from it being just science to being applicable
What is fascinating about AI?
What can AI NOT do?
How would you explain the pace, the rapidity of how the narrative around AI changed from curiosity to fear?
How to achieve a balance in journalism about AI?
Difficulties we must overcome in self-driving cars
Research & investment in AI in the US, China and Europe - how do we differ?
CERN for AI
Google, Twitter and Facebook - too much power?
How to combine the best of humans with the best of machines

What is fascinating about AI?
Bennie: it combines three passions: science technology & philosophy - is it possible to build an intelligent machine? scientifically you answer this question as yes, but then technologically is how are we going to build this kind of machine? and from the philosophical point of view, what does it mean to be intelligent? If a machine is intelligent is it also automatically conscious? How are we able to measure whether a machine has consciousness or not?

In 2010 there was a positive narrative around AI, fast forward 5-10 years we see ethical issues pop up. Now the narrative is completely negative, the bias in data sets, jobs loss, black box decision-making... Designing AI systems requires you to think about values that are important to humans.
We don't have to be afraid of data, we have to think before we design a system. What are the values we want the system to stick to?

If you were talking to a low to mid-level employee - what would you tell them int he sense of “what's in it for you”?

We need to think about how to combine the best of humans with the best of machines - hybrid intelligence. We need some reeducation of people.

New enlightenment: Digital humanism - with three components:

humans should become more empowered and more digitally literate - giving people equal opportunity to use technologies
need to make technology more human
hybrid intelligence - the future belongs to people who best work together with AI

Next Episode

#12 Technology to fight & cope with Climate Change with Manuella Cunha Brito

With guest is Manuella Cunha Brito, co-founder of Good Tech Lab and now Climatescape, joining us from France to chat about using technology to fight climate change, how to incentivize businesses and startups to be sustainable as well as challenges in turning research into real impact.

Topics: Technology, Climate change, Impact investment, Sustainable startups, Decarbonisation, Carbon removal, Biochar - pyrolysis of biomass, Climate adaptation

What are the technologies that are actually relevant for a low carbon future?
Probability of climate action failure versus what the impact of that failure would be
How to incentivise startups to be sustainable?: Actually, you have more chances at succeeding because they have a better chance at being relevant, it’s not so compromising and actually not more costly. You don’t need to compromise on financial returns to get a positive impact.
Where is the balance between negative challenges around using technology and promoting that use and the positive opportunities of using and promoting technology? - in light of the deepening and many times misleading or misinformed narrative and conversation around technology
Who is usually the most uncooperative actor in tech global governance?

Insight:

Limit of 2 degrees celsius in temperature is still very warm - it already means a lot of suffering for many people, extreme weather and other changes. We emit today about 51 giga tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year and we need to get to 0 by 2050. At the same time, improving the standard of living for millions of people around the globe will not be a small challenge.

Helping investors to better understand how to use their economic resources to support innovation that matters and has a positive impact on the planet.

Climatescape - creating a data powered market intelligence platform that will support people in making better decision in how they support startups in the climate tech space

Global Arena Research Institute is an independent, non-partisan research organisation that combines the most advanced methods of AI-driven data, scientific and other artificial reasoning capabilities, elevating data science into completely new levels of opportunity. Our goal is to provide unprecedented insights into the nature, impact, and management of globalization in order to improve institutional and governmental as well as business, energy and other sectors’ decision making. Our mission is to make the most of organically connecting AI-level reasoning capacities with the human-level critical reasoning capacities for the sake of a better future.