Long Version Can AI Heal US

Dive into the heart of one of the most compelling conversations of our time with the “Can AI Heal Us?” event recording from the House of Beautiful Business and the Acosta Institute. Witness a groundbreaking gathering of visionaries, scholars, and community voices as they explore the profound intersection of artificial intelligence and human wellness. Join us in revisiting this unforgettable evening of rich dialogue, where the vibrant energy of a diverse audience and the wisdom of leading experts converge to question, reflect, and envision the future of AI in healing.

In this video, you’ll not only relive the insightful discussions and poignant moments that defined the event but also gain access to exclusive content that continues to spark debate and inspiration long after the night ended. From the melodic interludes that underscored the theme of humanity in the digital age to the engaging Q&A sessions that followed each talk, every second of this recording offers a chance to engage with ideas that challenge and expand our understanding of what healing truly means in the era of AI.

Websites:
https://houseofbeautifulbusiness.com/

https://www.acostainstitute.com/

Speakers
Angel Acosta: https://www.drangelacosta.com/

Tim Leberecht: https://timleberecht.com/

Matt Klein: https://kleinkleinklein.com/

Susanna Raj: https://www.susannaraj.com/

Sará King: https://mindheartconsulting.com/

just be here in this space uh we held uh an event here uh several months ago so this this feels really uh welcoming and a warm and familiar experience um I want to first uh welcome folks who are online who are uh joining us from the digital world uh so just welcome to to all of you and welcome you all here who are here in person in uh in real life uh so just really excited uh to be able to Host this conversation and I want to begin um by just slowing us down it’s been a long day uh thank you all who made it here I know it’s rainy uh so that means a lot that that you all came and and and and just made the commute um as you all know artificial intelligence is uh Hot Topic right now uh in terms of um really focusing on what I think is the most disruptive technological innovation in our species history we can debate that though that’s what we’re here for uh we got yeah I know heavy claim heavy claims heavy claims in a post-truth world huh um so I’m serious I think that you know the Industrial Revolution was an example of a moment in our Human Experience where we engaged in some really powerful and intense man magnification of our capacity to produce things but I think now with with AI we’re we’re I think this may be a little bigger um and it might give us an opportunity to see evolution in our own time scale in real time and and we’ll talk we’ll talk more about that and although we have some beautiful gorgeous panelists here who are experts in their own right this really is an event for you for each of you to land and to make sense around not just answering the question can AI heal us but what’s your relationship to artificial intelligence what’s your relationship to your own intelligence how do you define your own intelligence especially in relation to such a phenomenon that is maybe possibly smarter or can process more information but can it feel can it touch can it love can it sense can it imagine all kinds of beautiful questions not yet hey not yet you know we got we got people already chiming in love it so what I what I’ll do now is I’ll give a little bit more context and then I’ll hand it over to Tim Tim will share some words and some thoughts and give some more context and then we’ll we’ll jump into a nice panel um and in fact before the panel we actually want to hear a little bit from from the audience um in terms of letting you process what do you think about the question I think before I transition to Tim it’s important to acknowledge the significance of uh this space the learning Smith Center uh it was built recently by the college to be an Innovative uh space uh for learning uh hosted by the digital Futures Institute we thank so much Dr Yolanda s Ruiz for making the connection for allowing us to kind of be here Malik and the team yeah yeah so thank you DJI thank you thank you Teachers College but I think it’s important that I let you know that Teachers College is one of the first uh colleges that focused on training the next generation of teachers when it was founded so at the time you had a lot of mass migrations coming in to the United States and you had a question like how are we going to educate all these folks you had the development of the transatlantic the the the Transcontinental Railroad you had a development of all kinds of Industrial Technologies that were facilitating the booming of the American economy and therefore the attraction of global migration so Teachers College played a major role in propping itself up for educating the next generation of teachers who would support and it now has grown into one of the largest and most you know really powerful educational institutions so it’s in it’s important that I acknowledge that it that that this conversation happens here for a specific reason because it’s always been a pioneering space for having really cutting edge conversations I’ll close by just acknowledging Tim um Tim Tim and I were Tim is a the co-founder of the House of beautiful business and just an incredible rible organization that he’ll speak about and I I when I when I said to him I was like we might we could do something together Tim and and he said and I and I I shared a a possible vision and he’s like I like it I love it let’s do it and I was like let’s go let’s go so this is an incredible opportunity for The aasta Institute to to flex a little bit to flex in terms of its its curatorial power but I want to say this publicly that it’s because of Tim and I look up to you Tim in terms of how you produce and and show up in the community and at the core The aasa Institute is about promoting healing centered education at the you know I’m a we’re a social scientist by heart so contemplative social science what does it mean to do research a little slower that accounts for our humanity and then lastly uh slow work what does that look like in a society that is so seeped into rapid production and uh efficiency so with that I’d love to give the floor up to Tim oh thank you so much Angel for these very flattering words um so if anything then the house of beautiful business we’re flexing our muscles uh partnering with you such a real great honor thank you all so much for coming so my name is Tim um I co-founded the house of beautiful business I don’t know how many of you know the house of beautiful business we call ourselves the network for the life centered economy so that is an economy that honors our life inside us and around does and we started in 2017 uh inspired by a book that I wrote called the business romantic give everything quantify nothing and create something greater than yourself to embark on a journey to make business more purposeful more inclusive more imaginative more playful more tender uh with one word beautiful and we do this in in two ways so first we We Gather we create transformative immersive experiences we run a big Festival every year in in Portugal next year actually we’re going to go to a different geography as well uh bringing together our community which is 30,000 people worldwide but so it’s experiences really like we call it experiential thought leadership really touching people pushing them very gently out of their comfort zone but we also um really are very adamant about language so that’s why we talked about Romanticism and business something that doesn’t quite belong together or uh Beauty and business and particularly with an I an I on AI I believe it’s so important that we broaden the rhetoric because it’s been so technocratic we talk about efficiency gains and optimization and automation um so it’s a it’s a language that’s been really shaped by technologists for the most part and it’s very important that all of you that all of us are weighing in with language that is different and that we consider friendship and tenderness and intimacy and love uh it’s very hard not to boil the ocean when you talk about AI so we’re going to boil the ocean tonight so it’s totally fine it’s going to be a very mandering broad uh conversation when uh I posted about this event on LinkedIn I asked this question can AI healers and someone someone posted a comment and said in the shortterm yes in the longterm no uh and I didn’t have a chance to follow up but I thought it was kind of interesting and I thought about that what could that possibly mean and for myself I think there’s sort of Three Time Horizons so three implications of this question cani heal us before we post that question to our um panelists or our speakers so one is of course the very obvious AI can be used to enhance Mental Health Services it could become a personal tutor Isa Khan the founder of Khan Academy proposes it can help us with psychosocial counseling become maybe a better therapist so it can enhance and optimize existing Services maybe in the short term and thus help us heal and heal others then the maybe not so obvious implication is that it might actually help us it might serve as a mirror right it might help us better understand ourselves and as angel said our relationship to our own intelligence whatever that is this term intelligence and but our relationship up to ourselves to the other to AI how do we become more aware of the emotions of the relationships that we have how do become better humans can AI heal us help us reflect on us uh in that regard and then finally you know this is probably what the commenter meant when he said in the longterm no there is of course we don’t want to shy away from that tonight either there’s this dystopian scenario that super intelligence which will probably not be an event but sort of a slow incremental process might actually render us obsolete or might at least be such an evolutionary Tipping Point that we may no longer recognize us ourselves as humans the way we’re used to so that’s kind of like the Ser that’s kind of out there at that moment we may need healing but I’m not sure it’s going to come from AI I might just be you know the feudal overlords and we are just providing some data and we’ll have a very different role on on Earth than the one that we used to so before we get too dark that’s kind of out there um uh let’s actually kick it back to you angel yeah yeah yeah thank you for that see how you feel I know so wanted to create an opportunity for each of you to process a little bit of some of these questions we’re going to put a menty meter up on the screen and then for those of you who are online we’ll put a link where you can actually give uh your feedback in live form so uh we’ll have the the tech team put the MIM meter up on the screen and you can all start to if you have a phone you have a phone phone put take your phones out and go to mente.com so let’s take your phone out and we’ll go to mente.com so we’ll create a live a live survey so you can get the anonymous responses just inviting the the tech team to put up the me the M meter and here I I call on all the AIS to cooperate there we go so if you go to mentee.com right go to mente.com and then we’ll put the code 6834 342 two let’s click present uh the top right corner we’ll click present in the top right corner and that’ll allow us to kind of make the the survey live yeah there we go um so if you go to men and those of you in the AUD in online you’ll see the link in the chat and so the first question that we’re asking is What feelings come up when you think about artificial intelligence you could put a few responses if you’d like um and again the code is 68 34 3426 you can see them on the multiple uh screens here and let’s see what comes up we’ll spend just a minute giving you the opportunity to metabolize and I invite everybody including folks who are virtual to contribute so some of the responses are revolutionary wander uncertainty efficiency fear excitement efficiency progress hope obsolescence redundancy fascinating question questionable future unknown so just giving ourselves an opportunity to to activate the emotional economy in the room here and also online so you can see just the variety of different feelings the variety of different Sensations from disturbing to inevitable to anxious to Evolution so we’ll go we’ll go to the next question so if we hit enter we can go to the next question and give ourselves an opportunity to process the the next question so when it comes to this question around can AI heal us what comes to mind what what comes to mind no no no possibility which ailments Define healing for me collaboration imagination doubtful I don’t know maybe not our bodies depends afro indigenous wisdom what is Healing medical research yes AI is not God nor spiritual in any form so as you can see as you can see we’re all feeling so much so much around this topic let’s go to this let’s go to one more question just to get uh let’s go to the next question now here’s a here’s a different question to close on as far as like this part do you think AI can teach us how to love no nope absolutely not devil the devil’s in the details of course AI is pragmatic uh yes we can learn to love from so many different sources and Tim you you in our notes you mentioned the movie her and guing Phoenix you know that incredible Love Story between man and machine never so so just a quick snapshot there of the variety of different uh responses to the question and part of what the intention of this evening is to allow us to slow down to metabolize all these feelings together and process it together and think through where do we land not just in terms of the question can AI heal us but actually just in terms of the fundamental evolutionary moment we’re facing with artificial intelligence is that clear just really creating this space for us to process this together so I want to transition us into our our panel uh discussion with our excellent excellent excellent uh panel we’ll have uh Tim uh Grace our introduction with Sarah and then I’ll introduce uh Matt and and Susanna wonderful so Dr Sarah King Sarah yes when people say that the conversation about AI should be more multi or interdisiplinary they must have had you in mind clearly because your work spends education political science Neuroscience Community Health social entrepreneurship so Sarah is the CEO and founder of the Mind heart Collective which is a company that aims to develop or aims to use AI to Foster contemplative practices uh you also a certified meditation or mindful meditation mindfulness meditation yoga instructor and really work at the intersection of Public Health uh social entrepreneurship the Arts um and Neuroscience Garrison Institute fellow an associate of the society for Neuroscience a postdoctoral fellow for public health at the University of California in San Diego and I’m missing the last piece which is um I’m a mom yeah yes please welcome Dr sarak King yeah thank you thank you for that Tim and and just Matt Matt is here uh Matt is a just an incredible cultural theorist and Anthropologist uh we have books in the back as well his zign is there Z up sign up for his zign newsletter it’s an incredible resource he consults for the UN Fortune own 100 companies really helping people think about the future and predicting the future terms of digital transformation so really grateful that you’re here with us mat thank you thank you of course of course and Susana woo you know I I’ve been joking with sus in Dominican we say Susana so so I’ve been joking on her in terms of how I say her name but really A Bonafide uh scienti independent cognitive science and AI eth ethicist um just a a expert in computer human interactions um just really excited that you’re here to to for me really add um a technical piece to this conversation so just really excited about this dialogue that’s our panel for this evening everybody let’s give him a round of applause we have no we have no order but the question we we question can AI heal us what what resonates for you there what do you what’s what’s in your heart in regards to that Dr King you see me getting all amped up over that no um you know uh well first of all I I just always love to start any conversation with an expression of gratitude for being here just gratitude for existing and the fact that I would not exist none of us would exist without the ancestors um um so yeah I actually just want to take a moment and like feel into my feet and I invite you all to do the same if you would like to maybe we can all take a moment feel our feet on the earth which is the place where all of our bodies have come from and maybe we might take a few deep breaths and just really uh ground in the earth as our origin point the Earth as our oldest ancestor and um yeah when it comes to this question can AI heal us I loved all of the responses that we saw on the mentee meter that said what even is healing um I think a lot of the times I get brought into a space as a neuroscientist and people kind of want me to define or say what healing is and the reality is is that we don’t know we we really don’t have any idea what healing is exactly There Is No One Singular definition of healing One Singular definition of well-being um social justice right it’s it’s almost like space exploration so I like to think of these Concepts and especially healing as a as a North Star right so we’re oriented in that direction with our bodies with our beings but it is still really in the space of the unknown and that’s actually really exciting um because we get to Define that collectively it is not up to any group of experts in particular to say for us what healing is um and I was actually reminded of something that happened to me recently uh I went on my first trip to the South a few weeks ago I went to North Carolina it was my first time being there and uh you know I I I land at the airport and it’s like 5: in the morning and I had just gotten off of a red eye so like I’m incredibly groggy right and I just I get into my rental car and I’m getting ready to leave the herts and before I leave there’s a gentleman there and you know I had to like fill out some paperwork or whatever and he’s he’s looking real frustrated real aggravated right um so I just decide to sit with him in presence because I’m like I don’t really know what’s going on here but you know this this gentleman seems a little bit frustrated and then you know he’s all wrinkled and he and he turns around and he looks at me and he says he says I’m not going to do the accent he says I want you to know something I I am a white no he said I am an old white Republican man in the South and I am a conservative and he pauses and I’m like I’m like where is this conversation going sir um and he pauses to look at me and he says you know I just feel so frustrated right now because there’s all of this technology ology that is being built around me I don’t feel like I have any access to it I don’t really understand what’s being developed and by whom but I know one thing he said these people in power are developing this technology for the purposes of keeping people like me and people like you from being in community with one another and he said and I’m not about it he said I used to believe believe in all these politics I used to believe that that was the way you pick a side you stick with it that’s what my grandfather taught me and he said and I’m realizing something right now I’m having a hard time putting words to it and I don’t even know why I’m telling this to you he said all I know is that you and I have to get together in relationship and I’m thinking to myself this is this is an extraordinary moment of connection that is arising for me right now at this Hertz dealership or whatever right and somehow it was pivoting around technology and so I guess I just want to open up this conversation to say that there was something in his soul in his being which uned him to connect with me really deeply so this question of can AI heal us to me is like what is ai’s capacity to really um if it can assist us with Illuminating these false divisions and boundaries that are so persistent and that are contributing to intense violence in our neighborhoods and in our communities like what is the capacity of AI for us to be be able to actually recognize each other as human family on the level of the soul I I don’t really have an answer to that but that’s just what I’m curious about in this moment makes me think just just what a beautiful story that in any relationship the third party is so critical right so maybe AI can be that or was in this case the third party that kind of constituted meaning and granted meaning to you know this this Bond and this moment of coming together that that’s where I wanted to go with it I think it’s really easy for us to take the question from a very literal sense right the output of this machine the data itself the people creating the the tasks the the software we could also pose the question from a more philosophical point of view AI as a concept AI as the boogeyman AI as something that’s in our heads and when we approach it that way I think we have a different a different set of answers and arguably yes if you were to kind of bite off the the the the answer right there I mean literally right look around like this very second we have this concept we we look at the answers of of is this thing fearful or not or are we optimistic whatever the concept has brought together I right that diverse group of people on a rainy Monday night when there is literally every single possible excuse not to be here that this concept in a sense in a small small way is healing right we’re together in a room experiencing some sense of community so if we approach the question that way from not AI the output of of aggregating the the cardiologist or whatever the the data and more from this thing that could bring us together from a conceptual point of view I I think there’s there’s an easy yes right [Applause] there sah did you want to did you want to respond you I heard you m well no I mean Matt I think that you’re being deliciously controversial right now and and I and I really and I I really appreciate that because um you know uh I had no idea that there was a climate March when when I flew into town a couple of days ago and one of the things that I was thinking about is like okay wow this is fantastic like tens of thousands of people getting together with the youth at the center to like really send this powerful message about heal in really to me that’s what the climate March is about is like we are hurting we are inflicting we are we inflicting destruction of a very specific kind to our ecosystem something must be done about it but one of the questions that I had to one of my best friends who I’m not sure is if she’s here hi Melissa in the audience and she works for um break free from plastic an incredible organization um and I was and I was asking her I was saying you know what is the impact of people getting together on this large scale is it sending the message to the people with the levers in power like is it enough for us to gather together in community and like have a conversation have an experience or is there something that needs to be pushed a little bit further in order that there is actual like the kind of internal transformation that is needed for us to see and feel a different world and so I have a lot of I have a lot of questions about that I think the reason uh that we are all gathered here today is that if you replace the word AI into something like God or something powerful that’s why you are asking the second part of the question can AI heal us we feel that we have created now something more powerful than us that we have all now gathered together and asking the question does it have the power to heal whatever that is hurting us but my question is is it really that powerful is it really something that that we have created that so beyond our capability because it’s something that we created so how can it be more powerful than us why are we asking you that question question to it why are we posing that question to it instead of asking something else from it so that’s what I would love to yes yes and as we’re thinking about just wanted to push a little bit here around so when we think about artificial intelligence and most of us are maybe familiar with the chat gpts of the world mid Journeys all those different large language models that are out there that have been deployed over the last year or so and um and the thousands that are coming out every day uh but from from my understanding uh I know our colleague John C Havens is here and really inspired by um his book artificial intelligence and Kate Crawford those of you who really want to go deep uh in terms of understanding AI check out the book um Atlas AI by Kate Crawford just mindblowing that it’s not just us thinking about AI as this this whether it’s generative AI or the different kinds of AI because I’m still kind of wrapping my head around in fact I kind of thought about putting this together so I can learn more about the subject matter by way of facilitating and holding space but what struck me is that as we’re thinking about AI in terms of this process that can generate and process incredible levels of information and its application is varied but but know that it’s it’s a more complicated process process where literally minerals are being mined core minerals are being mined in the content of Africa to create the foundation for computational power that is in our phones that is in our superconductors that in our computers that generate exploitation right so it’s not just AI or the output of the response that you put in J gbt but it’s the human labor the human blood that is shed to generate such response so it’s it’s a Global Network of logistic logistical power within a political economy that’s grounded in capitalism which extracts labor from those of us who are on who are on the other side of the fence so as as cute as the question is can AI heal us there is an underbelly and it’s important that we wrestle with that as well I want to I want to take Susanna’s point and and and see if there’s a thread here I if you want to be controversial I I wonder if the the the emotion here is being driven by perhaps our own lack of confidence in our own abilities are we feeling deficient in our own prowess our own intelligence our own abilities connect our own creativity that we feel so threatened by this net new thing which not for anything is not net new there’s a history behind it and also the fact this hasn’t come from an alien planet it’s our own makings but the fact that we still feel so scared intimidated even by our own selves that that to me is is endlessly fascinating we give it more honor and more respect than what it actually deserves in my opinion so we are getting into the you know it is actually destroying so much of what we value on the this planet it is destroying all of that and it’s creating this immense amount of power and then we are asking it to heal us I think we are asking the wrong party yeah yeah I I want to take that a little bit further by extension and just say that you know I have a certain maybe stereotypical Vision in my mind about who exactly is in the room of the places where they are generating the the data sets or the large language models or whatever it is I have a certain type of person who’s in my mind and that type of person um really in their identity excludes a lot of the people who look like me or come from the community that I come from right and I may or may not be right about that but that’s I just want to I just want to admit that that’s what’s in my mind um there’s a certain exclusivity a certain elitism that comes to my mind and for me when you’re in that kind of echo chamber like even if these are people who are seeking out the greatest Medical Care and therapy and yoga classes or like whatever it is I still don’t think that we can say that that is the Journey of healing right like until the people people in the rooms of Power are actually taking a chance to get out of those Echo Chambers and be in relationship with people who look nothing like them right to encounter their suffering to know their stories to feel compassion and empathy and responsibility for those communities that are being left out of the room then I don’t really think that we can say that there’s like an onus for these persons to heal themselves so if that’s the Consciousness that’s going into the building of these data sets um then I can see every reason for why people would be feeling a lot of fear and limitation and insecurity right I mean it’s kind of like look around we haven’t experienced Collective healing yet so yeah there’s also another aspect to this in terms of inclusivity which is more what’s the right word for on ontological right so generative AI has only access to data that’s been codified right it’s human expression and knowledge that’s been codified digitally until 2021 right now and not everybody’s on the internet of course so that’s actually not representative of human knowledge at all and if anything it’s a very kind of rationalist you know very biased view of what makes up for human intelligence human wisdom and knowledge um so that’s one thing and I think what’s also interesting of course is that so it doesn’t have access to sematics or other intelligence right that our bodies contain for example what what is also interesting is that AI will very soon begin to have access to content generated by AI right so there’s a I read an article in Venture be it’s a phenomenon that the author called generative inbreeding right where AI is essentially creating content based on on content that was created by I so it’s creating a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy further removing us users from the very origin of human expression and that’s also a form of exclusivity or of reductionism that is potentially very real so I just wanted to ask you guys how you feel about that is that a very s is do you agree that that’s a a real concern and can actually almost like remove us from the very source of humanity because the culture will be deprived of the the human Source eventually absolutely I think we’re already there and that I mean if you look at conversation online or anything on social right it’s a post about a post about a post with a comment about the comment it’s this recursion of media like we are so far gone from the original attent of what we were even talking about in the first place we forgotten about it and I think about this in regards to creativity as well I mean even if we we look at the box office right we’re we’re in this Nostalgia hole so what happens when right people or creatives or anybody for that matter matter leverage these tools they’re completely democratized and now our creative output is I mean what are these tools but a reversion to the mean it is the best representation of ordinary or average that we’ve already had granted we we could you know uh uh find ways to to go around that or to challenge the the systems but to your point if we’re already there right now then how bad does it get I mean the the worst example I’ve seen there was um this celebration of people re creating Harry Potter characters in the style of Wes Anderson I see some thoughts right and it was celebrated as the most creative this is so incredible this is our future like that is the most horrifying thing that we could possibly discuss right like we have the most incredible technology that’s ever been created and we’re living through it right now and we’re mashing up two existing IPS when we could break out of that recursion cycle so yes I think it’s a uh it’s a real you know concern but also I think right we could try to land this plane in an optimistic place an opportunity to to break free of that right if all of a sudden all of our creative content is that reversion to the mean and the ordinary right that that Rises the Tide for everyone like there is now a new bar that you to stand out it must be therefore more atypical more unconventional than we’ve historically seen before so there’s a risk that we may just kind of accept the status quo and we’re going to get Harry Potter Wes Anderson forever or there’s an opportunity like well if everyone could do that now I need to be more I need to be more than what everyone else is and that to me is a little exciting it’s almost like it’s the second like it’s it’s you mentioned the story in the beginning right in in defiance of AI in resistance we’re coming together in defiance of the modus operandi of AI we’re creating atypical even more creative content in order to actually stand out and to maintain our Humanity but both are in defiance which is interesting of the you know the general mod up orandi yeah there’s so much and just to acknowledge uh some additional fears that maybe some of us in the audience or or or you know online are having us around like it taking our jobs or it replacing Us in terms of some kind of functional role you have in society so just wanted to name that and and and I had a kind of a striking moment when you were talking Matt about like why are we so intimidated by it by something that we created and something that we we kind of put together and for me my response is that we know that we are tired I think deep down I don’t know about you but I feel like I’m working harder than ever before uh not just in terms of work but just just to be present and make meaning of everything that’s happening from climate change to to racial Justice to just even my own family like it’s it’s just a lot and then to support my community with making sense so think that there are layers of information barrage and then to have something that’s so powerful it’s not that I think that maybe it could be more powerful than us but it’s that there’s this feeling that we might not have the energy to cope or adapt so so for me this conversation is to actually slow us down a little bit to acknowledge part of that be in community and get recharged because for me I have no technical background in artificial intelligence but because AI touches all of our Lives AI is for everyone and we need to learn how to take up space take up power regardless of our technical background and be able to have an opinion shall we stick with the fears a little bit they’re fun um yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it’s the German in me and then um but but then then maybe land on a more optimistic plane in the second half it’ll get good it’ll get good but because I think so I’m I think the fatigue is such an interesting point but I’m I’m also really intimidated by because there’s not one single engineer in the world who can predict what jet GP any gener is going to produce that’s that scares me and when Sydney the chatbot of Microsoft Falls declares their love for the journalist the new times journalist right and no one really knows what happened that scares me it’s like it’s like her 10 years ago and exactly you know what the movie clairvoyantly described uh and what also scares me is that maybe we’re actually actually maybe it’s quite humbling and you know our creativity and our Ingenuity is not that great because it turns out language is you know can language or meaning through language can be created and it might just be good enough and then also creativity there just two studies that came out that already indicate that AI is out I mean whatever the I don’t want to sort of say that these are the the objective metrics but that AI is outperforming humans on ideation and on creativity uh and I I was talking to a friend of mine who’s an anecdotal anecdotal evidence who’s a journalist uh screenwriter and he said he helped the director create a screenplay and they locked themselves in a barn for three days and created a screenplay with characters and and were very happy about the outcome after a lot of like intense labor and then just for fun after three days you know he prompted CET GPT a little bit and CET GPT came up with the exact same screenplay like the exact same plot you know so so maybe we overrate human creativity actually what do you think Susan not at all I mean if you if you look at human creativity we always have been copying others other humans so we take in you can call it copying or you can say I took inspiration from we have been inspired from and then that’s how creativity actually works so then the same way uh AI the way it is currently you know trained it’s actually been trained on all of our data so there is it’s not a Wonder for me that it is actually able to replicate that script or you know come up with the same kind of script because it’s going to do that because it has been trained on our data so it’s going to do the same thing that us humans are capable of doing what it’s actually not capable of doing is that interpreting it in a new different way in circumstances that humans have not yet experienced it cannot do that and so that’s where the human creativity power lies and that’s where AI is going to fail but it’s not that I’m rooting for it to fail but I would love to see us feel more powerful because when something that has been trained on our data is so powerful then what what are we what about our capabilities what about our powers we have not realized that and the one thing that AI has made us realize is that our intelligence is actually very very super intelligent that we could whatever we have written on Wikipedia on the it has been trained on the entire you know internet and all our copyrighted data and all our patterns and all our artwork it has been trained on all of that all that humans have created something that has been trained on that is now so powerful then why aren we so why have been we been holding information keeping it from other humans that that is the part that needs healing where we humans are fighting with each other and holding it while AI was able to talk to itself and you know gain that information and you know was able to come up with so much of capabilities so I I think we need to realize our own capacity and our wound power I love what you’re saying about the need for us to realize just how powerful we are because there is something in the rhetoric right now that is incredibly disempowering disillusioning it’s learned helplessness it’s hopelessness it’s the Lemmings are already off the cliff in the air in the breeze you know what I’m saying it’s just like really like and who gets to determine that for us um and but then also I want to go back to this point that I think you brought up Tim because we we’re saying the AI is being trained on the whole of what’s available on the internet and I think it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that like not everyone on the earth is on the internet sharing their information and even whoever is you’re not sharing the entirety of your being your body your embodied experience your Soul your spirit if you will you’re sharing fragments little bits and pieces little teeny tiny data points right um and then maybe these are being coales into some sort of like Avatar which is a representation of a representation of a copy of a copy as you’re saying um so I think that there’s like a lot of people from the global South that get left out of this conversation like people who maybe are living in areas where there isn’t the same exact technological infrastructure and so there’s this Vision that somehow they are less than and not contributing as much and not as involved or not as equal or something like that and I’m not about that like that’s a lie right um and so there’s so much wisdom and intelligence that the people who have been totally left out of the technological infrastructure that they have because they’re living it you know and so I think we can’t we we can’t forget how skewed the data sets areh um that this AI is being trained on right and so when we call it a mirror it’s not actually a mirror it’s like a mirror like I don’t know it’s like a mirror and Adam big and then we’re treating it like it’s reflecting the whole of the universe back to us so I that’s that’s my personal take on things um and I also think think that um I’m going to go here uh plant medicine is part of my personal practice of healing I’ll just I’ll just be straightforward in saying that and the things that I have encountered in my spiritual growth through encountering psilocybin for example have shown me have allowed me to feel parts of myself my soul that I never would have been able to connect with or known existed without that experience I’m not sitting up here proz and saying like mushrooms for everyone but you know but I am saying that um sometimes I think that there’s like an element of like like The Mystery of Life and existence and Consciousness that can get glossed over here and and I just don’t really I have a lot of questions about um what the relationship is between like Ai and for instance these indigenous communities that have been in um plant medicine practice for Millennia and know things that we do not know and and that information is not on the internet and and it probably maybe shouldn’t be I don’t know so I want to tie two things together and let’s see if we can do this I want to go back to the barn story in the script I think we buried the lead in that story which was since when have we valued the output the script more than the process itself that Barn experience is what we should be valuing that process of being stuck that process of working with other people that process of hitting the wall and figuring out how to overcome it we have optimized for that out put for getting what is gained in that process I.E the relationships achievement process so on and so forth and to your point right there is value in the experience in the process in the discovery in the curation in the debate in the conflict that we have become or so accustomed to just cancelling out since when because it’s just already available you know I want to yes so in a moment also we feeling to you Tim uh want to give you an opportunity to to chime in and and share your thoughts and and your your questions um so my my in response to what what you you two just shared so my response to the question can AI heal us is not necessarily a yes or no but I think the pressure of the question and the pressure of this evolutionary force will Corner us into having conversations around what it means to be human because I think we’ve taken it for granted and what intelligence means which I think we’ve taken it for granted and in that process of defining what is this of exploring okay what what what what are my human properties in relation to the Superhuman Force this re this recommitment to fundamental human values and characteristics that might maybe create conditions for healing so that’s that’s kind of my perspective that is it’s it’s a it’s an indirect way that not just healing but a different way to view ourselves and maybe view each other um how are you feeling Tim in terms of audience responses how are you how are how’s the panel feeling feeling curious ah yes yes so so here’s what we’ll do we have a I have a mic and and my colleague Maria is running the mic as well um I come from uh my my my dear Mentor Dr U Christopher emden is here um and and we come from a tradition where expertise is widely distributed not necessarily anchored in in experts but rather you all have something to say and would love to just just hear you know what’s on your heart what’s on your mind um and we’ll just do a round kind of Robin and here what’s coming up and then after that we have a a special surprise we have a musical performance for you and a poetic uh performance as well so who would like to share yes so we have two here go ahead um just a couple things like I so appreciate what you were saying um AI I is a I’ve been in this space since about 2015 which isn’t that long but Ai and ethics AI is a narrative there’s not one AI it’s not there on that rug right there’s dozens of ways to you know large language models deep learning training methodologies there’s dozens of data sets hundreds of data sets and and it’s all built on our data right so think of AI as like a car where gas is the data and we’re the data so one thing is just don’t not not you or this panel but don’t think that AI is just a thing right there’s no one thing and it’s a narrative I bring this up because I love that you mention that the global South is not mentioned where I work at this place called it it’s the world’s largest engineering organization I’ve been gifted to have worked with a lot of indigenous folks who have reminded me that there are thousands of languages that are not even on the internet and I’m so glad you mentioned that the fabric of humanity does not exist and if you want to talk large language models and I’ll try to make this fastish but Tim knows that means you know go and get a drink and come back I’ll be done in half an hour um large language models let’s put Ki heal us aside for a second is rlms harming us yes 20% of all responses and most chat gbt and others have racist or sexist comments that are informing the agency of everyone under 18 think of all of our kids typing in something and 20% of every response has racist or or sexist aspects to it if if I was talking for however long I’m going to talk and 20% of my responses were overtly racist you’d be like you need to go but we allow it why because the Paradigm of competition rules all the Paradigm of GDP and productivity rules all secondly what do these things do they have hallucinations Cy name for error I work with Engineers I’m like this is a hallucination like what does that mean it’s what an error that would would be called an error they are anthropomorphic which is a term that you probably know that means the machine says I type in chat gbt any question it will respond saying I think we think I think I’ve asked it over and over again excuse me you’re not an i you’re you’re a machine that was created by people and the response is type it in when you go back chat G chap4 the latest version it will say I’m sorry that you’re upset about how this is responding but I’m a dad I’m a dad that people under 18 hear those responses and they don’t understand that there are people that created those things and the agency the fabric of any human that looks at that over and over and over starts to say this is real this is Agi pardon the language on the live stream it’s complete horseshit it’s not that the tools aren’t amazing and they they do wonderful things but then the big lie also is every 15 minute query that any of us use for anything you know what it automatically does takes half a liter of water to make the servers work and I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve been in since 2016 AI is going to help us let’s do AI for Good Will AI heal us great question it is harming Us by using the water the servers are next to you can see the heat maps of servers in the states draining aquifers aquifers takes 16,000 years to replenish all right that’s the bad part the good part when you start to ask the questions about what is joy who do you believe in I love that you mentioned plant-based thing braiding sweet grass one of my favorite books right what is the consciousness of you know like I like saying this every once in a while in public Jesus Oh said the word Jesus how about Allah right all these business settings can AI heal us AGI super intelligence all these things we’re talking about Consciousness and faith-based things where faith is denied by people who say I’ve Define science white patriarchal Colonial stuff for Millennia there’s such an opportunity by the way I’m an artist I’m a writer I used to be an actor I love that you said this Susanna right people copying me that’s what the Screen Actors Guild say don’t do that I get paid for residuals for movies I shot and so this idea Tim to know those two articles the absolute arrogance of someone saying I get to judge all of your creative experience because these two Reports say that AI has beat out creativity I produce something you tell if you like it AI produces something you tell me if you like it that’s it denying Your Existence and subjectivity for what you want to respond to for art is anyone saying you don’t get to think for yourself all right sorry I’m getting emotional and my girlfriend this is where she says calm down but I say this because the other thing I’ll say is a closing comment because it’s not said enough is one in four people right now are suffering for mental health issues it’s a pandemic and I love what you said angel I’m so happy that you invited me to this and get to know you what should AI be doing to heal us every child the suicide rate for kids globally many who don’t have access to the internet is so high the question shouldn’t be cani heal us the question should be what do we do to solve the loneliness and pandemic experience where the narrative that says AI beat humans in this and I’ve been in this space since 2016 some of my intensity comes from it’s a mental health issue to over and over and over again be told you are less then or pretty soon you will be that is a lie you all have worth you have Worth to your moms to your dads to your sisters to your cousins AI has a tool largely is build as obious gation to make money and that’s cool in one sense we all need to make money I have a lot of friends in the space myself included making money there it is but the real opportunity is to say can we heal us as we heal ourselves and then AI all the wonderful tools where you have access to your data how can that be used to amplify that healing that has to come first the planet and people first yes we had a sister back here yes hi um my name is Jordan I Met You Tim and Angel at concrete love um I’m really happy to be here and I am a filmmaker and um I’ve been striking for the last four months with the writer Guild and now with the Screen Actors Guild and what you were saying about the conversation in the barn I mean that really Rings true to the people who work in my business and one of the reasons I came here tonight is I was very curious to you know get some information about whether or not AI can heal us and I know that um for the people who like me who work in this industry and we’re so passionate about it and we love it even if we just got the paycheck for doing nothing that wouldn’t be enough because it’s the process of creating that is really um the meat of what you know why we do what we do and um it’s been very interesting for me to see the community that has been built around all of us really yearning to be back together and creating together and the idea that um you know okay so the output doesn’t really it doesn’t really matter how you got there if people like the output but it actually it does it really matters how we got there because the people who work uh who I work with and who um I love to be around we just want to be doing what we love to do and we want to be continuing to be able to live our lives doing doing what we’re passionate about and so there is a fear that sort of comes with this but I think you know when I look at the media companies now that are largely run by technology companies and now you know making media is an ancillary uh business for them I think well these people have never been in the room in the process of writing a show or creating a film or been on a set and understand just how amazing that feeling is to be with people who you love and respect in creating the work that you really believe will touch other people and um so it’s not just like okay we’ve lost our jobs we’ve been on strike we haven’t been paid but we missed the community so being on the picket line has now become the community and that’s great but we want to take that to the next step so I um I just wanted to be uh to be able to say that on behalf of my creative community that it isn’t just the outcome of what you know I I think chat GPT is so much fun I use it it’s a fun tool it can be a writing buddy but there’s nothing like um creating it on your own with people that you love and respect so thank you yeah thank you so much thank you thank you we have a couple voices over here um yep and then and then uh K kirston okay um thank you angel thank you everyone um for being so quiet right but I’m sure your brains are on fire so um I talk about two out of the three most terrifying things on the planet Ai and diversity climate change bring an umbrella bring a tank top bring a bubble coat can’t handle that one but Ai and diversity to me are ways in which we can rethink and recalibrate how we exist right lean into both things that are terrifying at the same time see what happens right lean into both of those disc Comforts so that’s what I’ve been doing for the past um few months but really like my whole life has been about diversity my whole life has been about educating thinking about how the brain processes information because you can know something but knowing something doesn’t change Behavior what I think is most terrifying about AI is that you know what AI is doing and you’re terrified of the behaviors that we as human beings will then have to change or shift or pivot to because AI exists right it’s the big unknown and that on known changes our Behavior and the more that we know about what AI does means it’s going to force us to change even more behaviors I think that that’s like the thing um so I work for create lab Ventures it’s a for us by by us bipac Le so black brown indigenous lgbtq AI plus neurod Divergent cuz I am hi and everything else in between company so when I hear about oh AI is biased AI is biased as if that’s an absolute I’m here to disrupt that I’m here to shift or or or counter that narrative AI does not necessarily inherently have to be biased even people like in the CL I was an educator so even in the classroom you could be a black teacher and still perpetuate white supremacist theories in the classroom so it’s not about you know an absolute oh you know input output it’s bias because look at those people who are doing it so what I do is ethical and and inclusive AI strategy for some of the biggest corporations on the planet I’ve figured this out in 6 months because I’ve been scrolling down to the bottom of LinkedIn that is my claim to fame I will stalk you on LinkedIn right Angel connect yeah exactly right and so for me when I when I’m hearing like you know can AI heal us you know the conversations about AI that are happening in in the world in the zeit the way the media is covering it the regulation or the lack thereof and the little conferences that they have with with with with our Senators and and I don’t know how many of you all are familiar with Frontier Model okay so Frontier Model is the biggest the the big AI you know like there’s big Tech there’s big Pharma so big AI decided to come together kind of like their own un and say we’re going to regulate ourselves and we’re going to put out best practices as to how AI should not cause harm right they didn’t say they’re going to heal but they did say they’re not going to cause harm but it’s Toothless and so it’s more the we said that we’re going to do it versus here’s what we’re going to do and you’re going to hold us accountable because you can read it in our PDFs right so one how many of you all are familiar with safia Noble T gabu so there’s there’s a there’s a there’s a Cadre of black women actually um of indiv indviduals that are speaking proactively for years about what to do proactively so that we don’t have to do the damage control right and the question is how come those women’s names are not constantly being referenced how come their research is not constantly being upheld and how come they are not put up on a pedestal to say okay before we go into AI Panic let’s see what they had to say let’s go to chapter and verse of what they’ve already published so that’s one thing that I always think about when I when I speak about AI is that I am not alone I am representing a group of individuals that ironically just like the data sets right are not being represented or if they are being represented they’re being marginalized in that data set so um the company that that I said is create lab Ventures I’ll close with this right so we have a tool called Dei GPT so it is a chatbot that is specifically only for divers that’s it that’s all it does so chat gbt Bard llama which is Facebook which is threads which is why I don’t touch threads um so Dei GPT because a lot of these platforms by the way they’re they’re they’re giving that for free because they’re scraping all of your everything every email every family gathering every christening whatever it is you want to do they’re scraping that and that is why the Cadence for when want to when you complete a sentence and it completes it for you that’s how it knows because it knows you better than it knows yourself right oh I heard that visceral but um so back to deig GPT so it is unlike the other General large language models we only feed our data set with actual diversity best practices right so it’s not going to hallucinate right as much as other AI models were going to do because because it can only generate based on the bre practices that it’s been fed and then there’s what’s called red teaming as well so red teaming is auditing there’s ways in which you can create a model so that it it you can tell it okay I don’t care how much this person tries to jailbreak it you can’t say it can’t say this to you no matter what you try to do to stop it from doing that right so again these are some of the best practices that are already out there that can be used to make sure that AI is for good that that AI then once it’s for good can then heal but it can’t heal if it hasn’t been trained to ensure that no matter how deviant a person is no matter how bored they are no matter how traumatized they are that it won’t then give them back something as uh vitriolic or even worse than um the intention is right because again there’s intention versus impact so I’ll just leave it with that if anybody has any questions about uh leveraging Ai and diversity to heal to help your workplace environment to help in terms of like uh we also do visuals that are more accurate and authentic based on the world in terms of like what other people look like that’s literally what our company does um reach out but thank you all so much for oh thank you your Dr uh can I holder thank you everyone yes thank you we have uh Kiren and then my colleague here and then we’ll take a couple more and then we’ll add some musical performances hi everybody Kiren Leo anyway um I I want to my my brother there are three unique things I would say about myself I grew up overseas I was born here but I grew up overseas my family’s from the south from Greenwood Mississippi I was born in Memphis and my brother is autistic and he’s not autistic in like oh he’s on the neurological Spectrum he was autistic as in there is not a way to be able to really articulate because he does not have fluidity of language the way I’m speaking to you now and when we talk about the notion of can AI heel I think that everybody said something which was really Central to me which is I believe that AI has the capacity to help us better trust each other I think that we’ve lost the sense of connection and and you know a lot of people have talked about the idea of the fear the fear of being left out my brother is left out every day you know he has to adjust to a world where he has no language to be able to communicate in the way that we’re communicating here he has to trust that on somebody seeing him he has no physical manifestations of his disability so when we go places I can see Humanity in in motion why because you know I can see somebody say oh I see that he’s autistic oh I know someone in my life and I see the the incredible kind of kindness that comes from people when they pay attention in their present in the moment so this fear you know um my friend over here here who’s talking about being a creative person and being in that process this whole situation I have friends who are in in the industry who have been striking and I’m kind of like a little bit of a um an anarchist in this sense and I said the point of all of this is for everyone to be able to be valued in the way that you want to be valued it’s not a mistake that across our entire Society right now people are striking people are trying to like bring attention to the idea that they’re being mistreated and why because we’re actually paying attention to these things you know they do these surveys and they talk about how most people are behind the strikes they they want people to have Fair lives so part of this may be that you know we do need a boogeyman in the room we do need some kind of you know Avatar to be fighting against to really figure out what is it that we want because we have all the tools to create what we want the question is is that we can we sit in a room like this one and can we kind of create a new language model can we add to the languages that we use to really accommodate for the people who are are part of this conversation but they can’t speak for themselves so I just I you know I appreciate the the diversity of of this room it’s really it’s inspiring to me um and I I think that this is about this us challenging each other and challenging ourselves and feeling this moment out because as you pointed out I talk to people all the time and some times people just want another human being to sit next to them and just be their friend just just just be human in the moment and just kind of explain something to each other to learn something so thank you everybody for the opportunity hi my name is Sophia um I’m not a technologist like you either but I kind of started with a fascination with misinformation and spiraled from there in terms of uh thinking about how we’re very much in a Lial place in these times where we’re being propelled faster and further into this you know digital existence yet something that really struck me was um when we were talking about people’s data and I’m not sure how the rest of you feel but I’m super super super aware of when I’m on zoom and then I open another window and my LinkedIn ad is now recommending me something that was said in Zoom conversation that was supposed to be a private St uh a sacred communal space right so there was a comment previously about our data just being fragments of ourselves just stwn across the internet but it feels so much more than that and there’s a lot of different um cultures who are trying to change the way we talk about data for example those mie Frameworks about data and how it should be respected because we wouldn’t just walk walk on anybody in the street and tell them everything about us so I think part of the conversation that we need to be having and we need to be interrogating within ourselves is how we value our data because these are public spaces like we’re here in a physical public space but the internet is no longer this abstract thing it’s very real how we are exchanging data and data is more than numbers and codes it’s like our attitudes towards each other and what we put out there um I had the privilege of curating this whole experience last year and there was one fascinating person his name is tadak tadaki hazumi and he’s like one of the most learned people I know about all the cosmologies of the world and he believes that this new metaverse or this new Earth that we’re being invited to is very much having the prospects for healing however maybe we’re in the initiation phase and if you’re familiar with mythologies um initiation is not like these Instagram healing things that you see when when somebody runs off it’s being torn apart it’s going up in flames it’s it’s a painful process so maybe that is where we are with AI it is a mirror of us and it’s showing us who we are and maybe we’re afraid because we’re not ready to admit our complicity in these systems of capitalism and how much skin in the game we actually have it’s a very very very disturbing thing to look at as woke as you might think you are so there’s so many like I I don’t know fascinating yet terrifying things about it it does have the capacity to heal I think but not as long as it’s being run through the same old funnels of capitalism you see what the algorithms are doing you see spiritual influencers on Instagram you see it just churning and churning faster and faster more and more and more and more and more um the wheels will come off unfortunately for certain people um they’re definitely more vulnerable able to what’s already happening with AIS but what’s our responsibility in terms of how we show up on the internet and how do we protect our sanctity our data my personhood by the way there’s a fantastic essay by Alex Ebert he used to be in um Edward Sharp of the Magnetic Zeros about how we conceptualize personhood too because that that’s needed to change for a really long time we’re really really behind on thinking about what it means to be a person yeah thank you so we’ll do we’ll have one more colleague here thank you sis one more colleague here and then we’ll add a little bit of music and poetry to help us metabolize this and then we’ll hear from more of you uh thank you very much I had an opportunity tonight to go to um a talk by a prominent Global leader and I just thought I can’t I can’t handle yet another Global leader talking about stuff they’re promising without it being real and so I made a decision to come here and it’s a real Delight to be here tonight and to see an audience it’s also much more reflective of the real world than the audience down there so that’s been a great blessing to me tonight I definitely would ask that question why can we not have more of these conversations down there because I think that needs to be happening um for me this is super interesting topic that I’m deeply passionate about and I think really uh raises the questions around how AI is going to push us to think about what are the more fundamental questions we need to be asking about The Human Experience uh and I I believe it’s all really down to a much more spiritual question to be honest your question around creativity I was in uh Silicon Valley last week uh interrogating in my own mind what AI meant and at one point somebody actually said you know they said oh well you know AI will help artist to make uh to be easier for creativity to be easier and I thought you’ve missed the point you have fundamentally missed the point and you’re not asking the right questions and I even then had the tarity to to question Uber everybody Raves about Uber right we go there at the end of the day Uber is just a ride sharing company that’s all it does yes it might have been made it easier for us to hail a cab but is that changing the world it’s a very first world problem as well so you know I work a lot in the developing World technology still is not having an impact it’s very very difficult for people to be connected and when we talk about indigenous wisdom what’s the difference between intelligence and understanding to my mind the the only thing that AI can do is to push us all to get to much more fundamental questions around who we are and our purpose here and yes what healing means at a much more profound level and I feel like we’ve been touching that much closer tonight tonight so I’m super grateful uh for these you know people asking the real questions here and they need to be asked down there too yeah thank you thank you so much for that now let’s add uh let’s add a nice touch to the evening we have two young men who have inspired me John Luke jobson Lin and Buddy Jackson a cellist and a violinist and they’re both going to Grace us with a uh musical interlude u a moment of us being able to process this conversation through these instruments but without further Ado let’s give them a round of applause and they’ll join us on [Applause] [Music] stage [Music] the [Applause] [Music] all right evening you guys I hope you guys enjoy the well are en basically enjoying the discussion here it’s a very interesting discussion I hope to he about this more in the future especially AI I on discussion it kind of It kind of scares me and personally I feel like if we treat it right because it’s not it’s not human you know it’s kind of like we’re making it in between we’re blurring the lines you know and I think that is it’s a it’s a very interesting thing you know because I feel like in human history we haven’t done this and we’ve only seen it in movies you know but I think that humans and music and AI it’s like I feel like we shouldn’t blur the lines between the human mind and music I think we should create that as just a one sentiment being you get what I mean so there you go so my name so my name is Buddy Buddy Jackson this is my partner John Luke we are both 16 years old we have been uh me personally I’ve been playing playing the violence since I was 3 years old and yeah I’ve been playing since I was five yeah so so the first Rel that we played it was from a collection of movies that I personally enjoy it’s called studio um um it was it was actually two songs uh but this next one that we’re going to play it’s from an upcoming artist her name is Lai and this is um from the start yeah from the start Bel love all right thank you hope you [Music] enjoy [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] a [Music] n [Music] w you know what’s interesting about that song me and John Luke we actually learned it on the spot and that’s usually how we play music and interact with it because music it’s it’s it has life it has it’s a Soul you know it’s something that you can interact to it’s something that you can dance to in your kitchen it’s something that you can cry to in the bathtub with a tub of Ben and jerries music Is Everything music is Spirit you hear it all the time and I’m actually creating music with my mouth right right now and even though it might not be music to most people it’s a sound it’s a frequency and it’s a vibration and that’s what music is all about and that’s what heals people and that is scientifically proven yes that’s B for okay so these next two songs that we’re gonna play it’s can we talk by T Campbell get it that’s the first one and the second one I’m pretty sure all of you guys know it is Isn’t She Lovely [Music] ready oh wait wait [Music] um [Music] e [Music] I [Music] e [Music] the [Music] I [Music] the [Music] [Applause] [Music] e [Music] [Applause] [Music] for [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] the [Music] [Applause] w AI can do that yes a all right with with that being said uh I’ll pass it on pass it on but one more thing to add just please keep music in your hearts because that is the soul of New York and then our our next and final performance um my my dear colleague she is a by training she’s a tene uh professor in the English Department here at Teachers College at Columbia University she was uh my second chair in my doctoral dissertation but she’s also a poet uh so Dr yoland C Ruiz is here to Grace us with a poem that she wrote uh for us by us is she here is she me hey let’s give it up for those young beautiful Brothers let me tell you I felt like that was my hype music because what you didn’t know is Isn’t She Lovely I played that song to my belly to my daughter all nine months and to this day and I don’t think she even realizes when it comes on the radio she moves her body in certain so when we talk about that connection that Spirit the beauty of music thank you for that because like Maria said how do you follow what they did you don’t follow I just come and I honor you thank you for that now now when my brother Angel asked me to write a poem about AI I said wait a minute I write about love I don’t know how to write about AI but you know what when Angel tells me to do something I do it in the same way brother Chris imden when he tells me to show up I show up and so here’s my offering everyone and guess what okay let me see if I can find it um oh I just deleted it but I have it okay I invited Chad gbt to write it with me so this is a co-authored poem and I have to tell you that in listening to all of you and I want to thank my sister Canan I want to thank this illustrious panel excuse my back my back shouldn’t be towards you um and I want to thank you brother for everything that you shared and my mind is is expanding and I feel in some ways that the spirit has moved because all of what was talked about tonight I think is in this poem so maybe AI is working I don’t know it’s called on harm healing and love a conversation on AI with chat GPT t a semi found poem so I’m a teacher an English teacher and I like found poems this is a semi found poem and I also like to play with personification but as you remind us AI already calls itself I AI I you notice that okay so I asked oh AI why do I fear thee can you heal me can you even hear me AI answer answered I know that you fear me I might be able to heal you and I can hear only what you want me to listen to AI continued you likely feel many ways about me curious skeptical optimistic afraid excited cautious or indifferent how you feel about me might depend on your values your interests and level of understanding engage in discussion and seek different perspectives this might help you understand the harm and healing I may bring in the end your feelings about me May evolve over time as you learn more about me and witness how I continue to shape your world a few words on harm you worry that machines and software will replace you you worry that I will inherit bias from your data be tainted by your racist beliefs programmed into my brain leading to discriminatory outcomes I can perpetuate or amplify your biases and you will see these unfair practices in hiring and lending and law enforcement I can Peak into your privacy I can be used to collect and analyze your personal data invade your privacy I can cause huge data breaches that lead to security risk I can be exploited by malicious programmers who create cyber attacks and automate weapons that kill and destroy these autonomous weapons raise ethical and safety concerns and create fear and anxiety about the potential for machines to make life and death choices you worry about the lack of accountability concerning my growth I am growing so fast it is difficult for you to keep up with me and to trace outcomes or mistakes that I make I am used perhaps misused by unhealed hearts and motivated by the quest for power and control you put me in the middle of ethical dilemmas that involve life or death decisions and situations where you humans find it difficult to determine a clear or right answer this can lead to a loss of control a loss of decisionmaking Authority for some too many cooks in the technocratic kitchen you have the concern that I can make worse the economic and social inequalities that exist well I can if access to and benefits from AI Technologies remain unequally distributed and we know they will be this is America after all there is the existential risk that I will become too powerful for your own good that I will become so Advanced and smart that I make decisions on my own and POS an existential risk to Humanity yes all of this is possible more power more risk more loss loss of jobs and Health Care loss of cultural and Creative Impact you saw this among your Hollywood colleagues fearing the con that content generated by me in the worlds of Art and music and literature might dilute your uniqueness while your fears are valid and deserve attention know that I also offer potential benefits like improved efficiency Health Care advancements and solving complex problems ultimately you the human must address your fears and build careful regulation transparency and focus on ethical concerns harm you heal you I’m in your hands a few words on healing I have the potential to help the field of healthc care and assist in various ways but I do not possess healing abilities in the same way that a doctor or a medical treatment does I can be a valuable tool that aids in disease diagnosis and early detection by analyzing x-rays MRIs and CAT scans I can analyze algorithms that can identify patterns and abnormalities that may be difficult for the human radiologist to detect I can help with personalized medicine I can tailor treatment plans I can analyze large data sets and genetic information to predict how you the patient will respond to treatments algorithmically I can analyze vast amounts of biological and chemical data to identify potential drug cures all of this can Aid in prediced analytics which means I can predict disease outbreaks and other Trends to ultimately improve patient care that will help you won’t it it may even heal you right perhaps you can wear me and learn more about your vital signs I can SE send Real Time data to your doctor this can help an early detection of your health problems I can be in the surgery room and help surgeons with precision and stability and maybe even speed up your recovery time even though I have the potential to do all of this I am not a replacement for the knowledge expertise and compassion of medical professions I cannot show compassion I am AI I am not human then I asked but can you understand a human emotion like love and AI responded I can be used for matchmaking and dating I can help make connections and form romantic relationships but love is a complex emotion I can bring you together but can I keep you together I can create song lists for your lover even write love letters but you must tell me your feelings I can regenerate them but cannot generate love those emotions happen between humans I am not capable of experiencing love or forming General emotion gen genuine emotional connections love is a complex and deeply human emotion that involves empathy Consciousness and shared experiences I lack all of these qualities yes I can can assist and facilitate Human Relationships but never ever will I be able to replace the authentic emotional bonds that humans form with each other thank you like that uh poem really added uh a lot of Conta and uh and really really enriched uh This Moment U so thank you so much uh sister really appreciate you so so here we are at the almost the culminating moment in in this experience I um want to check in with the panel uh for a moment also check in how we all doing how we doing good can you can you handle five more minutes can you handle all right so what I want you to do I wanted to add a human component to this we’re going to take five minutes and just turn to someone next to you turn to someone next to you and just share like what’s your perspective on the question what’s coming up for you in terms of AI what’s coming up for you in this moment let’s add a human touch to this experience so I’ll give you five minutes just to kind of turn and talk and introduce yourselves uh go right go right ahead go right ahead all right all right so just wanting to uh if you can hear me clap once if you can hear me clap twice there you go Middle School tactics um just wanting to respect time and and and respect uh our host uh and just kind of Honor uh the conversation um I wanted to give um you all an opportunity to talk to each other um but also give our panelists an opportunity to share any last thoughts in regards to what came up for you um this evening in regards to the question anybody we we’ll have we’ll each we’ll hear from each of them and then we’ll we’ll wrap it up I’ll be brief I think I stand by kind of where we started in in breaking apart well I I don’t mean it in that way but I it’s validating it right we we’re we’re separated the the output versus the concept and if we feel so confused worried threatened insecure that it inspires us to do more of this then I think we’ll be okay [Applause] yeah I think I will go next um I would like to leave all of you with this thought that if you find that a AI does not include you in the data set and as you know sah mentioned that you know there’s so many of languages so many of indigenous cultures and things that have not yet been written into the internet for AI to learn ask yourself why that is and should it also be included in those data sets and if not how do we include ourselves into this new tech technology so that’s a question of you know asking whether I belong in a space or not and I think as Humanity we have never asked ourselves when we walk into a room when we walk into a space when we walk into any uh you know environment whether we belong or not but we always feel like we are the center of it without asking if we belong in it so so make sure that’s the AI that we are seeing currently right now that it thinks is the center similar to how we think we are the center of everything but instead of asking if it actually belongs and where it belongs and when it belongs so make sure you ask yourself that and make sure that you include yourself in the data set and if you want to know how there’s so many experts here who already spoke we can tell you that we and you are also an expert on that because as you include yourself into things include yourself and feel that value in you then you know you will be included in the data set that trains the future AI thank you thank [Applause] you I I’m feeling really emotional right now I’ll I’ll I’ll just be honest um because I’m a Pisces I don’t [Laughter] know um I’ve really experienced this space here today much more like um someone mentioned initiation that was so important I’m so glad that word was brought into the space um I have experienced this as ritual uh as ceremony and when those two brothers when y’all were playing I experienced a sense of timelessness that was so profound I could not locate myself anywhere other than the here and the now in in the emotions that were like zigging and zagging all over my body things that I could not I could not produce words for to describe it it was um it was beyond concept uh so maybe that could be called prayer mhm um um so yeah I think what I’m leaving with is just like a real curiosity around this intersection between um things that we cannot quantify but that we know are real because we feel them we feel the truthfulness of it um and can what is this relationship between Ai and phenomena like um like prayer and spirituality spirit as you also mentioned and I don’t have a single answer for that but I know that questions like that give me a lot more hope um than fear and I hope that we can have more spaces where we’re feeling into those questions [Applause] together yeah thank you all um for this wonderful conversation I I guess the question that that is on my mind and it was alluded to is capitalism so I’m wondering whether this non-quantifiable mystical spiritual world that is so inherent and so essential to us whether that can exist within the system of capitalism so is it a world within capitalism is it a parallel world that we need to create that we can escape to occasionally or is it a completely new world which means we re we need real systems change because I think for me one thing is clear and this is from a I forgot the name of the author from a New Yorker article a couple of months ago which asked the question will AI be the new McKenzie so in other words will AI become the razor blade of Ruthless capitalism the ultimate optimization machine and I don’t see a lot of reasons why that would not be the case so the question is then do we create a parallel world do we then question and challenge capital capitalism and that engine in and of itself uh and I think that’s the that’s the big fundamental question for me that unfortunately I don’t have an answer to so um with that thank you all very much thank you thank you so allow me to just close this out with uh some some gratitude again thanking the Smith Learning Center for allowing us to use this really amazing space thank you to Teachers College thank you for college yeah um just just Malik Anna and the crew just really really grateful to our panelists thank you thank you so much for yeah Susana and Zar flew all the way from the from the West Coast Tim came all the way from Germany I think you’re local Matt right yeah yeah sub and and and I know right which line which which B you rep uh and then Tim Tim to thank you so much for for making the track it means a lot for for the college it means a lot for the aasta institute for you to just really endorse and support and affirm our work um we have a gift for you all um some of you may have gotten a physical copy if you got here but uh my my colleague uh Steve St Flur and I um produced the first magazine uh volume one can AI heal us um and many of you um got a physical copy uh it’s a limited edition as far as physical copy but you’ll all get a a digital copy uh so be on the lookout for that those of you who are here and those of you who are online and um each of the essays were written by our panelists so you’ll be able to go deeper into their perspectives uh in regards to um Can AI heal us and then the the artwork the artwork uh is by this um Nigerian artist her name is aishatu Ado she lives in Berlin she she she she plays with ar the AI as well and it’s just incredible work so we wanted to feature her art in the front cover um and and Fe feature her prominently um you know Jay-Z says what more can I say so I I I’ll just say uh thank you to those of you who are online uh thank you uh for those of you who are here um and again you know the point is fairly simple is that I think there’s indirect maneuver here that asking the question can AI heal us uh is more of an excuse to get us all together but but really an opportunity to really have some fundamental conversations around our fear around AI our excitement around it and what does it tell us about the nature of our Humanity um thank you so much to our violinist and our chist Yolanda Yolanda thank you so much yeah so um thank you everybody online um there’s some free books all those books that are back there are free for you all we got Dr emden’s book ratch ademic we got Tim’s book the bus is romantic we got punished for dreaming we have several po books of poetry from Yolanda and then Matt has a zign there um thank you so much you all take very good care