#13 Spock, Sherlock or just good old AI with Holger Hoos

04/27/21 • 52 min

Our guests is Holger Hoos, co-founder of CLAIRE, the Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe, and professor of Machine Learning at Leiden University. I had the pleasure of joining Holger at last week's event Vision for AI 2021 in response to the European Commission’s publishing their “European Approach to Artificial Intelligence”. We’re chatting about the real back end of AI, its beginnings, why it’s so cool, where do we already encounter it in our everyday lives and what should Europe’s AI look like?
Why should I care about AI? What are the right reasons?

What would you have said to people 200 years ago on why should I care about electricity? Because it will change your life, work, everything, it will make things possible, it will make the world a better place, you can say the same about AI

It is a transformative technology. We have manoeuvred ourselves as humanity into a position where human intelligence is too limited for the mess we’ve made. We need more powerful tools than we’ve had in the past. Climate change and responsible and sustainable use of resources.

A lot of people’s views of AI has been formed by science fiction movies, in some cases, this is rather dystopian and in other cases, it’s an overly optimistic view. Destroy us or make paradise? What we’re really looking at is a foundational technology, computers taken to the next level.

Automative AI - bringing down the level of expertise needed to use AI. People become more productive and what they do becomes better than what they can do alone.

Why is it the most underappreciated area of AI? Examples of aeroplanes flying, computers enabling us to talk to each other via zoom, what is enabling us to do all this? Automative reasoning - the hardware on which all of this is running, (banks, medical equipment), all computer-controlled, and we trust the hardware.

Where should this not be used? If we were to date Mr Spock, we’d find that pure logic has limits. The same is for AI. Particularly when it comes to dealing with people, and all their limitations and bias.

Human-centred AI - AI build by people, for people, for the benefit of people. We have to compensate for some of our limitations, and automotive reasoning and deep learning does this well. It should do all of this in order to help us reach our goals, and this isn't something you can do as a second thought, it needs to be designed with this purpose.

European AI - do we go it alone? Does it make sense to do anything of global consequence alone? No, it doesn’t!

CLAIRE - why does it exist? Because AI is important for our future, and all the citizens of Europe and the world. The two superpowers, China and the US are making massive investments, and there is a real risk of losing talent to them and the edge that we could and should have in AI technology that is so transformative.

Is there such a thing as US AI or China AI or European AI? What are the differences? At a simplistic level, AI in China is government-driven, which is a great thing

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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Automative AI - bringing down the level of expertise needed to use AI. People become more productive and what they do becomes better than what they can do alone.

European AI - do we go it alone? Does it make sense to do anything of global consequence alone? No, it doesn’t!

Is there such a thing as US AI or China AI or European AI? What are the differences? At a simplistic level, AI in China is government-driven, which is a great thing

Previous 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.

Next Episode

#14 Possibilities of AI & Human Rights with Constanza Gomez Mont

Today’s guest, the social entrepreneur Constanza Gomez Mont, co-founder for the initiative AI for climate, joins us to discuss civic technologies in practice and how the process of combining human rights with AI works.

Examples of AI technologies in the field of human rights
How is AI practically used for the environment?
1.5/2 degree goal and tipping points for the climate, AI as a possibility?
Successes and failures for AI in the fight against climate change
How well is AI data received by governments?
Which technologies are already being used for the climate?
May new technologies be the solution to climate change?
Carbon emissions in construction, can AI help?
Impact of international AI panels?
Future challenges and opportunities

“The biggest challenge we face as humanity is climate change in every structure and in every level”
Gomez Mont’s organisation has throughout time shifted from a social focus towards a more environmentally-oriented one and she strives to combine AI in the fight against climate change. The objective is to advance conversations in a way that brings people together and she works to unite individuals from different sectors, especially in the global south, to seize the new possibilities of AI.
She describes how the opportunities of these new technologies can be used to harness data for environmental and social causes. In mobilizing AI in private-public partnerships you can generate great social power and get better value to combat social challenges, in particular those issues that diverse communities face.
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.