WEBVTT 00:00:01.040 --> 00:00:04.791 I'm here to offer you a new way to think about my field, 00:00:04.815 --> 00:00:06.583 artificial intelligence. 00:00:06.607 --> 00:00:08.621 I think the purpose of AI 00:00:08.645 --> 00:00:12.079 is to empower humans with machine intelligence. 00:00:13.286 --> 00:00:15.736 And as machines get smarter, 00:00:15.760 --> 00:00:17.013 we get smarter. 00:00:17.907 --> 00:00:20.419 I call this "humanistic AI" -- 00:00:20.443 --> 00:00:24.114 artificial intelligence designed to meet human needs 00:00:24.138 --> 00:00:27.069 by collaborating and augmenting people. 00:00:28.149 --> 00:00:30.059 Now, today I'm happy to see 00:00:30.083 --> 00:00:32.260 that the idea of an intelligent assistant 00:00:32.284 --> 00:00:33.753 is mainstream. 00:00:33.777 --> 00:00:38.837 It's the well-accepted metaphor for the interface between humans and AI. 00:00:39.556 --> 00:00:42.253 And the one I helped create is called Siri. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:42.957 --> 00:00:44.109 You know Siri. 00:00:44.133 --> 00:00:46.778 Siri is the thing that knows your intent 00:00:46.802 --> 00:00:48.844 and helps you do it for you, 00:00:48.868 --> 00:00:50.369 helps you get things done. 00:00:50.393 --> 00:00:52.867 But what you might not know is that we designed Siri 00:00:53.645 --> 00:00:55.611 as humanistic AI, 00:00:55.635 --> 00:00:58.806 to augment people with a conversational interface 00:00:58.830 --> 00:01:02.283 that made it possible for them to use mobile computing, 00:01:02.307 --> 00:01:05.591 regardless of who they were and their abilities. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:06.814 --> 00:01:08.391 Now for most of us, 00:01:08.415 --> 00:01:11.196 the impact of this technology 00:01:11.220 --> 00:01:13.503 is to make things a little bit easier to use. 00:01:13.916 --> 00:01:16.095 But for my friend Daniel, 00:01:17.352 --> 00:01:20.523 the impact of the AI in these systems is a life changer. 00:01:21.217 --> 00:01:26.050 You see, Daniel is a really social guy, 00:01:26.074 --> 00:01:27.833 and he's blind and quadriplegic, 00:01:28.614 --> 00:01:32.473 which makes it hard to use those devices that we all take for granted. 00:01:32.497 --> 00:01:34.939 The last time I was at his house, his brother said, 00:01:34.963 --> 00:01:36.821 "Hang on a second, Daniel's not ready. 00:01:36.845 --> 00:01:39.187 He's on the phone with a woman he met online." 00:01:40.250 --> 00:01:42.260 I'm like, "That's cool, how'd he do it?" 00:01:42.284 --> 00:01:45.778 Well, Daniel uses Siri to manage his own social life -- 00:01:46.731 --> 00:01:48.671 his email, text and phone -- 00:01:48.695 --> 00:01:51.171 without depending on his caregivers. 00:01:52.501 --> 00:01:54.239 This is kind of interesting, right? 00:01:54.263 --> 00:01:55.580 The irony here is great. 00:01:55.604 --> 00:01:58.500 Here's the man whose relationship with AI 00:01:58.524 --> 00:02:01.701 helps him have relationships with genuine human beings. 00:02:02.805 --> 00:02:05.935 And this is humanistic AI. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:07.404 --> 00:02:09.802 Another example with life-changing consequences 00:02:09.826 --> 00:02:11.083 is diagnosing cancer. 00:02:12.795 --> 00:02:14.950 When a doctor suspects cancer, 00:02:14.974 --> 00:02:17.677 they take a sample and send it to a pathologist, 00:02:17.701 --> 00:02:19.653 who looks at it under a microscope. 00:02:20.145 --> 00:02:22.670 Now, pathologists look at hundreds of slides 00:02:22.694 --> 00:02:25.018 and millions of cells every day. 00:02:25.630 --> 00:02:27.017 So to support this task, 00:02:27.041 --> 00:02:30.483 some researchers made an AI classifier. 00:02:31.548 --> 00:02:36.101 Now, the classifier says, "Is this cancer or is this not cancer?" 00:02:36.125 --> 00:02:37.430 looking at the pictures. 00:02:38.355 --> 00:02:39.919 The classifier was pretty good, 00:02:40.967 --> 00:02:42.652 but not as good as the person, 00:02:43.945 --> 00:02:45.713 who got it right most of the time. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:46.427 --> 00:02:52.607 But when they combine the ability of the machine and the human together, 00:02:52.631 --> 00:02:55.626 accuracy went to 99.5 percent. 00:02:57.150 --> 00:03:02.151 Adding that AI to a partnership eliminated 85 percent of the errors 00:03:02.175 --> 00:03:05.861 that the human pathologist would have made working alone. 00:03:06.820 --> 00:03:09.979 That's a lot of cancer that would have otherwise gone untreated. 00:03:11.097 --> 00:03:13.027 Now, for the curious, it turns out 00:03:13.051 --> 00:03:16.525 that the human was better at rejecting false positives, 00:03:16.549 --> 00:03:20.121 and the machine was better at recognizing those hard-to-spot cases. 00:03:20.145 --> 00:03:23.382 But the lesson here isn't about which agent is better 00:03:23.406 --> 00:03:25.484 at this image-classification task. 00:03:25.888 --> 00:03:27.727 Those things are changing every day. 00:03:27.751 --> 00:03:29.319 The lesson here 00:03:29.343 --> 00:03:32.703 is that by combining the abilities of the human and machine, 00:03:32.727 --> 00:03:37.678 it created a partnership that had superhuman performance. 00:03:38.543 --> 00:03:41.483 And that is humanistic AI. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:42.787 --> 00:03:44.773 Now let's look at another example 00:03:44.797 --> 00:03:47.084 with turbocharging performance. 00:03:47.108 --> 00:03:48.511 This is design. 00:03:48.535 --> 00:03:50.576 Now, let's say you're an engineer. 00:03:50.600 --> 00:03:52.717 You want to design a new frame for a drum. 00:03:52.741 --> 00:03:55.805 You get out your favorite software tools, CAD tools, 00:03:55.829 --> 00:04:00.044 and you enter the form and the materials and then you analyze performance. 00:04:00.068 --> 00:04:01.412 That gives you one design. 00:04:02.162 --> 00:04:05.839 If you give those same tools to an AI, 00:04:05.863 --> 00:04:08.987 it can generate thousands of designs. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:10.193 --> 00:04:12.127 This video by Autodesk is amazing. 00:04:12.151 --> 00:04:13.451 This is real stuff. 00:04:14.092 --> 00:04:17.163 So this transforms how we do design. 00:04:17.187 --> 00:04:18.615 The human engineer now 00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:21.954 says what the design should achieve, 00:04:21.978 --> 00:04:23.134 and the machine says, 00:04:23.158 --> 00:04:24.528 "Here's the possibilities." 00:04:25.758 --> 00:04:28.698 Now in her job, the engineer's job 00:04:28.722 --> 00:04:31.822 is to pick the one that best meets the goals of the design, 00:04:31.846 --> 00:04:35.185 which she knows as a human better than anyone else, 00:04:35.209 --> 00:04:37.003 using human judgment and expertise. 00:04:37.414 --> 00:04:38.994 In this case, the winning form 00:04:39.018 --> 00:04:41.729 looks kind of like something nature would have designed, 00:04:41.753 --> 00:04:43.868 minus a few million years of evolution 00:04:43.892 --> 00:04:46.273 and all that unnecessary fur. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:48.424 --> 00:04:53.096 Now let's see where this idea of humanistic AI might lead us 00:04:53.120 --> 00:04:55.513 if we follow it into the speculative beyond. 00:04:56.118 --> 00:04:59.122 What's a kind of augmentation that we would all like to have? 00:04:59.529 --> 00:05:02.435 Well, how about cognitive enhancement? 00:05:03.904 --> 00:05:05.383 Instead of asking, 00:05:05.407 --> 00:05:07.468 "How smart can we make our machines?" 00:05:07.492 --> 00:05:08.665 let's ask 00:05:08.689 --> 00:05:11.394 "How smart can our machines make us?" 00:05:13.105 --> 00:05:14.885 I mean, take memory for example. 00:05:15.511 --> 00:05:18.457 Memory is the foundation of human intelligence. 00:05:19.767 --> 00:05:22.738 But human memory is famously flawed. 00:05:23.541 --> 00:05:25.615 We're great at telling stories, 00:05:25.639 --> 00:05:27.590 but not getting the details right. 00:05:27.614 --> 00:05:30.820 And our memories -- they decay over time. 00:05:30.844 --> 00:05:34.076 I mean, like, where did the '60s go, and can I go there, too? NOTE Paragraph 00:05:34.100 --> 00:05:35.567 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:36.648 --> 00:05:40.952 But what if you could have a memory that was as good as computer memory, 00:05:42.158 --> 00:05:45.017 and was about your life? 00:05:45.714 --> 00:05:48.503 What if you could remember every person you ever met, 00:05:48.527 --> 00:05:50.473 how to pronounce their name, 00:05:50.497 --> 00:05:52.589 their family details, their favorite sports, 00:05:52.613 --> 00:05:54.576 the last conversation you had with them? 00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:57.255 If you had this memory all your life, 00:05:57.279 --> 00:06:00.577 you could have the AI look at all the interactions 00:06:00.601 --> 00:06:02.018 you had with people over time 00:06:02.042 --> 00:06:05.835 and help you reflect on the long arc of your relationships. 00:06:06.530 --> 00:06:11.596 What if you could have the AI read everything you've ever read, 00:06:11.620 --> 00:06:14.134 and listen to every song you've ever heard? 00:06:15.344 --> 00:06:19.083 From the tiniest clue, it could help you retrieve 00:06:19.107 --> 00:06:21.220 anything you've ever seen or heard before. 00:06:21.931 --> 00:06:25.181 Imagine what that would do for the ability to make new connections 00:06:25.205 --> 00:06:26.785 and form new ideas. 00:06:26.809 --> 00:06:28.797 And what about our bodies? 00:06:29.732 --> 00:06:34.010 What if we could remember the consequences of every food we eat, 00:06:34.034 --> 00:06:35.535 every pill we take, 00:06:36.485 --> 00:06:38.320 every all-nighter we pull? 00:06:39.048 --> 00:06:41.758 We could do our own science on our own data 00:06:41.782 --> 00:06:45.642 about what makes us feel good and stay healthy. 00:06:45.666 --> 00:06:48.142 And imagine how this could revolutionize 00:06:48.166 --> 00:06:50.856 the way we manage allergies and chronic disease. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:52.909 --> 00:06:57.883 I believe that AI will make personal memory enhancement a reality. 00:06:59.122 --> 00:07:01.946 I can't say when or what form factors are involved, 00:07:02.627 --> 00:07:04.590 but I think it's inevitable, 00:07:05.923 --> 00:07:10.750 because the very things that make AI successful today -- 00:07:10.774 --> 00:07:13.267 the availability of comprehensive data 00:07:13.291 --> 00:07:16.839 and the ability for machines to make sense of that data -- 00:07:16.863 --> 00:07:19.922 can be applied to the data of our lives. 00:07:20.505 --> 00:07:23.992 And those data are here today, available for all of us, 00:07:24.016 --> 00:07:27.884 because we lead digitally mediated lives, 00:07:28.570 --> 00:07:30.705 in mobile and online. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:31.833 --> 00:07:35.723 In my view, a personal memory is a private memory. 00:07:35.747 --> 00:07:39.684 We get to choose what is and is not recalled and retained. 00:07:40.517 --> 00:07:44.181 It's absolutely essential that this be kept very secure. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:45.294 --> 00:07:46.756 Now for most of us, 00:07:46.780 --> 00:07:49.673 the impact of augmented personal memory 00:07:49.697 --> 00:07:52.432 will be a more improved mental gain, 00:07:52.456 --> 00:07:54.911 maybe, hopefully, a bit more social grace. 00:07:56.658 --> 00:08:01.305 But for the millions who suffer from Alzheimer's and dementia, 00:08:03.209 --> 00:08:05.412 the difference that augmented memory could make 00:08:05.436 --> 00:08:07.897 is a difference between a life of isolation 00:08:09.016 --> 00:08:10.795 and a life of dignity and connection. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:12.166 --> 00:08:17.813 We are in the middle of a renaissance in artificial intelligence right now. 00:08:18.652 --> 00:08:20.623 I mean, in just the past few years, 00:08:20.647 --> 00:08:24.278 we're beginning to see solutions to AI problems 00:08:24.302 --> 00:08:28.272 that we have struggled with literally for decades: 00:08:29.226 --> 00:08:31.893 speech understanding, text understanding, 00:08:31.917 --> 00:08:33.237 image understanding. 00:08:34.177 --> 00:08:38.252 We have a choice in how we use this powerful technology. 00:08:39.268 --> 00:08:44.132 We can choose to use AI to automate and compete with us, 00:08:44.156 --> 00:08:48.133 or we can use AI to augment and collaborate with us, 00:08:48.157 --> 00:08:51.228 to overcome our cognitive limitations 00:08:51.252 --> 00:08:54.414 and to help us do what we want to do, 00:08:54.438 --> 00:08:55.729 only better. 00:08:56.339 --> 00:09:02.843 And as we discover new ways to give machines intelligence, 00:09:02.867 --> 00:09:05.936 we can distribute that intelligence 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:08.341 to all of the AI assistants in the world, 00:09:08.365 --> 00:09:11.899 and therefore to every person, regardless of circumstance. 00:09:13.189 --> 00:09:14.718 And that is why, 00:09:14.742 --> 00:09:17.903 every time a machine gets smarter, 00:09:18.628 --> 00:09:20.032 we get smarter. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:21.028 --> 00:09:24.761 That is an AI worth spreading. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:24.785 --> 00:09:25.967 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:25.991 --> 00:09:29.964 (Applause)