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AI's evolving role in society
In a world where humanity put a man on the moon before adding wheels to luggage, the rapid advancements in AI seem almost paradoxical. Microsoft’s chief data scientist Juan Lavista, in a recent Global Stage conversation with Tony Maciulis, highlighted this contrast to emphasize how swiftly AI has evolved, particularly in the last few years.
Lavista discussed the impact of generative AI, which allows users to create hyper-realistic images, videos, and audio. This capability is both impressive and concerning, as demonstrated in their “Real or Not?” Quiz, where even experts struggle to distinguish between AI-generated and real images.
While AI offers incredible tools for good, Lavista warns of the potential risks, particularly with deepfakes and other deceptive technologies. He stresses the importance of public education and the need for AI models to be trained on diverse data to avoid biases.
As AI continues to evolve, its impact on daily life will only grow. Lavista predicts more accurate and less error-prone models in the future, underscoring the need to balance innovation with responsible use.
Podcast: The case for global optimism with Steven Pinker
Listen: War in Ukraine. Global poverty on the rise. Hunger, too. Not to mention a persistent pandemic. It doesn't feel like a particularly good time to be alive. And yet, Harvard psychologist Stephen Pinker argues that things are getting better today than ever across the world, based on the metrics that matter. Like laundry.
In 1920, the average American spent 11.5 hours a week doing laundry (and that average American was almost always a woman, dudes just wore dirty clothes). By 2014, the number had dropped to 1.5 hours a week, thanks to what renowned public health scholar Hans Rosling called "greatest invention of the Industrial Revolution”: the washing machine. By freeing people of washing laundry by hand, this new technology allowed parents to devote more time to educating their children, and it allowed women to cultivate a life beyond the washboard.
The automation of laundry is just one of many metrics that Pinker, uses to measure human progress. But how does his optimistic view of the state of the world stack up against the brutality of the modern world? Ian Bremmers asks this "relentlessly optimistic macro thinker" to share his view of the world on the GZERO World podcast.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.- Podcast: Brave new big tech world: Nicholas Thompson's perspective ›
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