1
00:00:01,040 --> 00:00:04,791
I'm here to offer you
a new way to think about my field,

2
00:00:04,815 --> 00:00:06,583
artificial intelligence.

3
00:00:06,607 --> 00:00:08,621
I think the purpose of AI

4
00:00:08,645 --> 00:00:12,079
is to empower humans
with machine intelligence.

5
00:00:13,286 --> 00:00:15,736
And as machines get smarter,

6
00:00:15,760 --> 00:00:17,013
we get smarter.

7
00:00:17,907 --> 00:00:20,419
I call this "humanistic AI" --

8
00:00:20,443 --> 00:00:24,114
artificial intelligence
designed to meet human needs

9
00:00:24,138 --> 00:00:27,069
by collaborating and augmenting people.

10
00:00:28,149 --> 00:00:30,059
Now, today I'm happy to see

11
00:00:30,083 --> 00:00:32,260
that the idea of an intelligent assistant

12
00:00:32,284 --> 00:00:33,753
is mainstream.

13
00:00:33,777 --> 00:00:38,837
It's the well-accepted metaphor
for the interface between humans and AI.

14
00:00:39,556 --> 00:00:42,253
And the one I helped create
is called Siri.

15
00:00:42,957 --> 00:00:44,109
You know Siri.

16
00:00:44,133 --> 00:00:46,778
Siri is the thing that knows your intent

17
00:00:46,802 --> 00:00:48,844
and helps you do it for you,

18
00:00:48,868 --> 00:00:50,369
helps you get things done.

19
00:00:50,393 --> 00:00:52,867
But what you might not know
is that we designed Siri

20
00:00:53,645 --> 00:00:55,611
as humanistic AI,

21
00:00:55,635 --> 00:00:58,806
to augment people
with a conversational interface

22
00:00:58,830 --> 00:01:02,283
that made it possible for them
to use mobile computing,

23
00:01:02,307 --> 00:01:05,591
regardless of who they were
and their abilities.

24
00:01:06,814 --> 00:01:08,391
Now for most of us,

25
00:01:08,415 --> 00:01:11,196
the impact of this technology

26
00:01:11,220 --> 00:01:13,503
is to make things
a little bit easier to use.

27
00:01:13,916 --> 00:01:16,095
But for my friend Daniel,

28
00:01:17,352 --> 00:01:20,523
the impact of the AI
in these systems is a life changer.

29
00:01:21,217 --> 00:01:26,050
You see, Daniel is a really social guy,

30
00:01:26,074 --> 00:01:27,833
and he's blind and quadriplegic,

31
00:01:28,614 --> 00:01:32,473
which makes it hard to use those devices
that we all take for granted.

32
00:01:32,497 --> 00:01:34,939
The last time I was at his house,
his brother said,

33
00:01:34,963 --> 00:01:36,821
"Hang on a second, Daniel's not ready.

34
00:01:36,845 --> 00:01:39,187
He's on the phone with a woman
he met online."

35
00:01:40,250 --> 00:01:42,260
I'm like, "That's cool, how'd he do it?"

36
00:01:42,284 --> 00:01:45,778
Well, Daniel uses Siri
to manage his own social life --

37
00:01:46,731 --> 00:01:48,671
his email, text and phone --

38
00:01:48,695 --> 00:01:51,171
without depending on his caregivers.

39
00:01:52,501 --> 00:01:54,239
This is kind of interesting, right?

40
00:01:54,263 --> 00:01:55,580
The irony here is great.

41
00:01:55,604 --> 00:01:58,500
Here's the man whose relationship with AI

42
00:01:58,524 --> 00:02:01,701
helps him have relationships
with genuine human beings.

43
00:02:02,805 --> 00:02:05,935
And this is humanistic AI.

44
00:02:07,404 --> 00:02:09,802
Another example with
life-changing consequences

45
00:02:09,826 --> 00:02:11,083
is diagnosing cancer.

46
00:02:12,795 --> 00:02:14,950
When a doctor suspects cancer,

47
00:02:14,974 --> 00:02:17,677
they take a sample
and send it to a pathologist,

48
00:02:17,701 --> 00:02:19,653
who looks at it under a microscope.

49
00:02:20,145 --> 00:02:22,670
Now, pathologists look at
hundreds of slides

50
00:02:22,694 --> 00:02:25,018
and millions of cells every day.

51
00:02:25,630 --> 00:02:27,017
So to support this task,

52
00:02:27,041 --> 00:02:30,483
some researchers made an AI classifier.

53
00:02:31,548 --> 00:02:36,101
Now, the classifier says,
"Is this cancer or is this not cancer?"

54
00:02:36,125 --> 00:02:37,430
looking at the pictures.

55
00:02:38,355 --> 00:02:39,919
The classifier was pretty good,

56
00:02:40,967 --> 00:02:42,652
but not as good as the person,

57
00:02:43,945 --> 00:02:45,713
who got it right most of the time.

58
00:02:46,427 --> 00:02:52,607
But when they combine the ability
of the machine and the human together,

59
00:02:52,631 --> 00:02:55,626
accuracy went to 99.5 percent.

60
00:02:57,150 --> 00:03:02,151
Adding that AI to a partnership
eliminated 85 percent of the errors

61
00:03:02,175 --> 00:03:05,861
that the human pathologist
would have made working alone.

62
00:03:06,820 --> 00:03:09,979
That's a lot of cancer
that would have otherwise gone untreated.

63
00:03:11,097 --> 00:03:13,027
Now, for the curious, it turns out

64
00:03:13,051 --> 00:03:16,525
that the human was better
at rejecting false positives,

65
00:03:16,549 --> 00:03:20,121
and the machine was better
at recognizing those hard-to-spot cases.

66
00:03:20,145 --> 00:03:23,382
But the lesson here isn't about
which agent is better

67
00:03:23,406 --> 00:03:25,484
at this image-classification task.

68
00:03:25,888 --> 00:03:27,727
Those things are changing every day.

69
00:03:27,751 --> 00:03:29,319
The lesson here

70
00:03:29,343 --> 00:03:32,703
is that by combining the abilities
of the human and machine,

71
00:03:32,727 --> 00:03:37,678
it created a partnership
that had superhuman performance.

72
00:03:38,543 --> 00:03:41,483
And that is humanistic AI.

73
00:03:42,787 --> 00:03:44,773
Now let's look at another example

74
00:03:44,797 --> 00:03:47,084
with turbocharging performance.

75
00:03:47,108 --> 00:03:48,511
This is design.

76
00:03:48,535 --> 00:03:50,576
Now, let's say you're an engineer.

77
00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:52,717
You want to design
a new frame for a drone.

78
00:03:52,741 --> 00:03:55,805
You get out your favorite
software tools, CAD tools,

79
00:03:55,829 --> 00:04:00,044
and you enter the form and the materials,
and then you analyze performance.

80
00:04:00,068 --> 00:04:01,412
That gives you one design.

81
00:04:02,162 --> 00:04:05,839
If you give those same tools to an AI,

82
00:04:05,863 --> 00:04:08,987
it can generate thousands of designs.

83
00:04:10,193 --> 00:04:12,127
This video by Autodesk is amazing.

84
00:04:12,151 --> 00:04:13,451
This is real stuff.

85
00:04:14,092 --> 00:04:17,163
So this transforms how we do design.

86
00:04:17,187 --> 00:04:18,615
The human engineer now

87
00:04:18,639 --> 00:04:21,954
says what the design should achieve,

88
00:04:21,978 --> 00:04:23,134
and the machine says,

89
00:04:23,158 --> 00:04:24,528
"Here's the possibilities."

90
00:04:25,758 --> 00:04:28,698
Now in her job, the engineer's job

91
00:04:28,722 --> 00:04:31,822
is to pick the one that best meets
the goals of the design,

92
00:04:31,846 --> 00:04:35,185
which she knows as a human
better than anyone else,

93
00:04:35,209 --> 00:04:37,003
using human judgment and expertise.

94
00:04:37,414 --> 00:04:38,994
In this case, the winning form

95
00:04:39,018 --> 00:04:41,729
looks kind of like something
nature would have designed,

96
00:04:41,753 --> 00:04:43,868
minus a few million years of evolution

97
00:04:43,892 --> 00:04:46,273
and all that unnecessary fur.

98
00:04:48,424 --> 00:04:53,096
Now let's see where this idea
of humanistic AI might lead us

99
00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:55,513
if we follow it into
the speculative beyond.

100
00:04:56,118 --> 00:04:59,122
What's a kind of augmentation
that we would all like to have?

101
00:04:59,529 --> 00:05:02,435
Well, how about cognitive enhancement?

102
00:05:03,904 --> 00:05:05,383
Instead of asking,

103
00:05:05,407 --> 00:05:07,468
"How smart can we make our machines?"

104
00:05:07,492 --> 00:05:08,665
let's ask

105
00:05:08,689 --> 00:05:11,394
"How smart can our machines make us?"

106
00:05:13,105 --> 00:05:14,885
I mean, take memory for example.

107
00:05:15,511 --> 00:05:18,457
Memory is the foundation
of human intelligence.

108
00:05:19,767 --> 00:05:22,738
But human memory is famously flawed.

109
00:05:23,541 --> 00:05:25,615
We're great at telling stories,

110
00:05:25,639 --> 00:05:27,590
but not getting the details right.

111
00:05:27,614 --> 00:05:30,820
And our memories -- they decay over time.

112
00:05:30,844 --> 00:05:34,076
I mean, like, where did the '60s go,
and can I go there, too?

113
00:05:34,100 --> 00:05:35,567
(Laughter)

114
00:05:36,648 --> 00:05:40,952
But what if you could have a memory
that was as good as computer memory,

115
00:05:42,158 --> 00:05:45,017
and was about your life?

116
00:05:45,714 --> 00:05:48,503
What if you could remember
every person you ever met,

117
00:05:48,527 --> 00:05:50,473
how to pronounce their name,

118
00:05:50,497 --> 00:05:52,589
their family details,
their favorite sports,

119
00:05:52,613 --> 00:05:54,576
the last conversation you had with them?

120
00:05:54,600 --> 00:05:57,255
If you had this memory all your life,

121
00:05:57,279 --> 00:06:00,577
you could have the AI look
at all the interactions

122
00:06:00,601 --> 00:06:02,018
you had with people over time

123
00:06:02,042 --> 00:06:05,835
and help you reflect on the long arc
of your relationships.

124
00:06:06,530 --> 00:06:11,596
What if you could have the AI read
everything you've ever read

125
00:06:11,620 --> 00:06:14,134
and listen to every song
you've ever heard?

126
00:06:15,344 --> 00:06:19,083
From the tiniest clue,
it could help you retrieve

127
00:06:19,107 --> 00:06:21,220
anything you've ever seen or heard before.

128
00:06:21,931 --> 00:06:25,181
Imagine what that would do
for the ability to make new connections

129
00:06:25,205 --> 00:06:26,785
and form new ideas.

130
00:06:26,809 --> 00:06:28,797
And what about our bodies?

131
00:06:29,732 --> 00:06:34,010
What if we could remember the consequences
of every food we eat,

132
00:06:34,034 --> 00:06:35,535
every pill we take,

133
00:06:36,485 --> 00:06:38,320
every all-nighter we pull?

134
00:06:39,048 --> 00:06:41,758
We could do our own science
on our own data

135
00:06:41,782 --> 00:06:45,642
about what makes us feel
good and stay healthy.

136
00:06:45,666 --> 00:06:48,142
And imagine how this could revolutionize

137
00:06:48,166 --> 00:06:50,856
the way we manage
allergies and chronic disease.

138
00:06:52,909 --> 00:06:57,883
I believe that AI will make
personal memory enhancement a reality.

139
00:06:59,122 --> 00:07:01,946
I can't say when or what
form factors are involved,

140
00:07:02,627 --> 00:07:04,590
but I think it's inevitable,

141
00:07:05,923 --> 00:07:10,750
because the very things
that make AI successful today --

142
00:07:10,774 --> 00:07:13,267
the availability of comprehensive data

143
00:07:13,291 --> 00:07:16,839
and the ability for machines
to make sense of that data --

144
00:07:16,863 --> 00:07:19,922
can be applied to the data of our lives.

145
00:07:20,505 --> 00:07:23,992
And those data are here today,
available for all of us,

146
00:07:24,016 --> 00:07:27,884
because we lead digitally mediated lives,

147
00:07:28,570 --> 00:07:30,705
in mobile and online.

148
00:07:31,833 --> 00:07:35,723
In my view, a personal memory
is a private memory.

149
00:07:35,747 --> 00:07:39,684
We get to choose what is and is not
recalled and retained.

150
00:07:40,517 --> 00:07:44,181
It's absolutely essential
that this be kept very secure.

151
00:07:45,294 --> 00:07:46,756
Now for most of us,

152
00:07:46,780 --> 00:07:49,673
the impact of augmented personal memory

153
00:07:49,697 --> 00:07:52,432
will be a more improved mental gain,

154
00:07:52,456 --> 00:07:54,911
maybe, hopefully, a bit more social grace.

155
00:07:56,658 --> 00:08:01,305
But for the millions who suffer
from Alzheimer's and dementia,

156
00:08:03,209 --> 00:08:05,412
the difference that augmented
memory could make

157
00:08:05,436 --> 00:08:07,897
is a difference
between a life of isolation

158
00:08:09,016 --> 00:08:10,795
and a life of dignity and connection.

159
00:08:12,166 --> 00:08:17,813
We are in the middle of a renaissance
in artificial intelligence right now.

160
00:08:18,652 --> 00:08:20,623
I mean, in just the past few years,

161
00:08:20,647 --> 00:08:24,278
we're beginning to see
solutions to AI problems

162
00:08:24,302 --> 00:08:28,272
that we have struggled
with literally for decades:

163
00:08:29,226 --> 00:08:31,893
speech understanding, text understanding,

164
00:08:31,917 --> 00:08:33,237
image understanding.

165
00:08:34,177 --> 00:08:38,252
We have a choice in how we use
this powerful technology.

166
00:08:39,268 --> 00:08:44,132
We can choose to use AI
to automate and compete with us,

167
00:08:44,156 --> 00:08:48,133
or we can use AI to augment
and collaborate with us,

168
00:08:48,157 --> 00:08:51,228
to overcome our cognitive limitations

169
00:08:51,252 --> 00:08:54,414
and to help us do what we want to do,

170
00:08:54,438 --> 00:08:55,729
only better.

171
00:08:56,339 --> 00:09:02,843
And as we discover new ways
to give machines intelligence,

172
00:09:02,867 --> 00:09:05,936
we can distribute that intelligence

173
00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:08,341
to all of the AI assistants in the world,

174
00:09:08,365 --> 00:09:11,899
and therefore to every person,
regardless of circumstance.

175
00:09:13,189 --> 00:09:14,718
And that is why,

176
00:09:14,742 --> 00:09:17,903
every time a machine gets smarter,

177
00:09:18,628 --> 00:09:20,032
we get smarter.

178
00:09:21,028 --> 00:09:24,761
That is an AI worth spreading.

179
00:09:24,785 --> 00:09:25,967
Thank you.

180
00:09:25,991 --> 00:09:29,964
(Applause)