Transcriber: Linh Kieu Reviewer: Emma Gon
Imagine a world where machines can think and act like humans.
A world where self-driving cars roam the streets,
where robots perform surgeries
and where algorithms make important decisions for us.
This is not the stuff of science fiction.
This is the reality of the world we live in today.
As AI becomes more and more advanced
it will continue to shape the way we live and work.
And it is about time we start paying attention to how it will shape our future.
In this talk, I will explore the history of AI.
I will go through some present day examples of how AI is being used
and we will discuss the potential benefits
and risks associated with this new technology.
So buckle up because the future is here and is being driven by AI.
The field of AI is rather broad and it encompasses
the development of intelligent machines and software to perform tasks
that would otherwise require human level intelligence,
such as learning, decision making and problem solving.
Now, the concept of AI has been around for centuries,
with early philosophers and scientists speculating
about the possibility of creating intelligent machines.
And one of the first examples of AI research was done in the 50s
by Alan Turing when he proposed the Turing Test
as a way of determining the intelligence of a machine.
In a Turing test, a human observer would communicate with both a machine
and another human through a series of written messages.
And if the human observer was unable to distinguish
between the human and the machine,
then the machine will be considered intelligent.
The 60s and 70s saw a lot of advancements in AI
with the coming of expert systems, and expert systems are developed
and designed to mimic the decision making ability
of an expert in a particular field.
These systems, however, were not really perfect
and they were limited in their capabilities
because they were only able to do the tasks
that they have been programmed to do.
This changed in the 80s and 90s with the emergence of machine learning.
Machine learning is a type of AI that can learn and make decisions
and improve its own way of working
without being explicitly programmed to do so.
And the way it works is that machine learning can learn from data
and make predictions and decisions based on that data.
And in the final last decade that we had, we saw the emergence of deep learning.
And deep learning is a special kind of machine learning
that involves the use of artificial neural networks to learn and make decisions.
Deep learning has been responsible for many of the recent advances
in artificial intelligence, such as self-driving cars,
facial recognition software and last but certainly not least,
natural language processing.
So AI is being used in a number of different industries
and it is continuously shaping the way we live and work.
A few examples of industries
that are continuously employing AI include healthcare.
AI is being used in healthcare to improve patient care,
reduce errors and to optimize efficiency.
AI powered diagnostic tools, for example,
can analyze medical images and make recommendations for treatments.
While AI chat bots and virtual assistants
can provide information and support to patients.
Another industry is transportation.
AI is being used in transportation to increase efficiency
and to increase safety as well.
Self driving cars use AI for example,
to navigate the roads and to safely navigate with the car itself.
It's also being used to optimize routes for delivery trucks
and to manage traffic flows in cities.
A third example would be the finance industry.
AI is being used to increase the efficiency
and speed of financial decision making.
AI tools can analyze financial data and make recommendations
for investment decisions.
And the last example that we want to discuss today with you is agriculture.
AI is being used in agriculture to improve crop yields,
to reduce the use of pesticides and to optimize irrigation.
So AI sensors can detect soil moisture levels
while AI powered drones can detect diseases
and pests and then act accordingly.
So there are a lot of industries where AI is currently being used
and it’s having a massive impact on people’s daily lives.
But that doesn't mean that artificial intelligence is without any risks
or concerns or without any drawbacks.
One potential concern is in fact, the displacement of human jobs.
Of course, artificial intelligence is used to automate certain tasks,
but in industries where there’s a high possibility of automation,
there is a possibility that there will be
a massive layoffs of human workers.
And this can be especially problematic
when those workers don’t have the necessary skill set
or education to adapt to new roles in a rapidly changing job market.
Another problem AI might face has to do with the ethical side of it.
As AI becomes more and more popular, there will be problems
with bias, transparency and maybe even discrimination.
To give you an example, if AI becomes more and more advanced,
it will probably be used for more and bigger and bigger decisions
such as hiring decisions or loan approvals.
And in these situations, bias and discrimination can become a real problem.
So it is absolutely important that we develop,
design and implement artificial intelligence
in the most ethical way as possible.
So right now we’ve discussed that artificial intelligence has some risks.
We’ve discussed that it is used for delivering personalized experiences,
that we use it for problem solving, that we use it for decision making,
for automating tasks, and it will have a massive impact on our lives.
But I have a small secret to share with you.
Are you ready?
Everything you’ve just heard up until this point
was created by an artificial intelligence.
Every word you heard was created by a machine learning algorithm.
And this may seem hard to believe, but it's true, actually.
And it is a wonderful example of how AI is shaping our lives
and our work and how it is creating
new ways of communication and content creation.
But how did I do this?
How did we create a talk about AI using nothing but AI tools?
In the next segment of this talk, I will lead you through it.
I will take you through the steps we had to create this talk
using nothing but AI. Let’s dive in.
So these are actually the first words not written by an artificial intelligence.
And the reason we wanted to do this.
This actually started a couple of months ago,
when there was a sudden upsurge of AI tools
that suddenly became available to the public.
And we thought, well, would it be possible to use these tools
to create a talk and maybe for one or two, maybe even three people?
Basically, we wanted to do a little experiment,
a little Turing test of our own with you, the audience, as unknowing participants.
But we didn't want to make it too complex, so we gave ourselves three rules.
Rule number one - the AI had to be in the lead.
The only thing we were allowed to inject in this talk was the dramatic reveal.
Rule number two -
we weren’t allowed to edit any of the output of the artificial intelligence.
We were, however, allowed to shorten it when necessary.
And rule number three and this was the most important one.
If the AI would give an output that didn’t survive a rigorous fact check,
we would immediately stop with the experiment,
because the last thing that we want to do
is spread misinformation on a TED stage.
So with these three rules in mind,
we went to an online chat tool called ChatGPT.
You might have heard of it.
And we asked him a very basic question.
We asked him, how would a TED talk with the title
“How AI is shaping the world” be structured?
Pretty, pretty straightforward.
And he came back with five points,
five elements that we could use for our talk.
So that’s great. Now we had a structure.
But it didn’t really end there,
because the AI gave way more input than we could have guessed.
And to illustrate this, let’s zoom in on a portion of his answer
where the AI explores how we can approach the part,
the historical context portion of this talk.
The AI said, well, the speaker could then provide
some historical context for AI
discussing its evolution and the key milestones
that have contributed to its development.
This could include a discussion of early artificial intelligence research,
the emergence of machine learning and the recent advances in deep learning.
This was a great suggestion.
So we just almost copied it word for word in our next question to this AI,
and thereby also ensuring that we didn’t inject
any of our own ideas into this talk.
It was in fact the AI himself who suggested
that the present day examples should include healthcare,
transportation, finance and agriculture.
So after we did this, we went to another AI tool called Dall-E
And Dall-E is an AI tool that creates images based on the user prompt.
So you just have to write down what kind of image you want,
and Dall-E then generates four images for you to choose from.
This also means that all the pictures you saw
in the beginning were also created by an artificial intelligence.
And this is also a very great example of how AI is slowly taking over industries
that were long thought to be forever the domain of humans
because of all the creativity involved.
So after we did this,
there were still two parts to cover because we did the introduction,
we did the historical context portion,
we did the present day examples and we had the risks associated with AI,
but there were still two portions left, the review and the ending.
But both have become very easy by now.
So for the review, we asked the AI if he could write a review for us
and if he could make it apparent that the AI wrote everything.
And we also asked him if he could also create a bridge
to the next segment where we would explain how we did it.
And well, you know what came out of that one.
So a quick side note before we continue.
These tools that I just mentioned are in the news
and they are in the news a lot.
So some of you might not seem terribly impressed.
And that's okay because that is not the main point of this talk.
The main point of this talk is that there is now finally
an artificial intelligence that can pass the Turing test.
And to give you some a little bit of context,
this is about the same as the first motorized flight by the Wright brothers.
This is comparable to, well, the first man walking on the moon.
And in terms of scientific breakthroughs,
this is on par with the discovery of the Higgs boson particle,
you know, the God particle.
And it is very important that we realize
that this is all just brand new.
We are just at the beginning of mass usage of AI.
If you were to go online and you would look up clips
from the 80s and 90s where people demonstrate the Internet,
how computers can go online,
how it is almost magical that computers can talk to other computers.
And it is absolutely amazing to see those clips because these things,
these things that are now so ingrained into our society
were once completely new and completely novel.
And that is where we are today with artificial intelligence,
this talk itself might even be one of those clips
where people in 20, 30 years time will look back and probably laugh
because of how basic it was and how primitive it all looked.
And that is okay because it means
that awesome stuff is waiting for us in the future.
And we don’t know what the future might bring, to be honest.
We don’t know what the future might bring, only time will tell.
But we do know is that this will change industries
How is this going to change the educational system
now that students can generate homework answers instantly?
How is this going to change the creative industry
now that I can generate a thousand designs in a couple of seconds?
How is it going to change your job?
How is it going to change the industry you work in?
How that going to change your life?
We don’t know yet.
But what we do know is that the people who anticipate these changes
and roll with them are usually the people who come out on top.
So we are nearing the end of this talk and it would feel weird for me
if I did all the talking when I had to do so, so little.
So we did two things.
We went back to ChatGPT and we asked him
if he could write the final remarks of this talk.
And the second thing is that we tried to give ChatGPT a voice.
So without further ado, I present you the artificial intelligence.
Over the course of this talk,
we’ve explored how AI is being used in various industries
and how it is shaping the way we live and work.
We’ve discussed the potential benefits of AI,
including increased efficiency and productivity,
as well as the potential risks
such as job displacement and ethical concerns.
While AI has the potential to bring significant benefits,
it is important that we consider these risks and work to ensure
that AI is developed and used ethically and responsibly.
As AI continues to advance,
it will be important for us to keep an open mind
and embrace the opportunities it brings,
while also being mindful of the potential challenges it may present.
I believe that by working together, we can harness the power of AI
to create a brighter and more prosperous future for all.
Thank you. (Applause)