On The Digital Life this week, we chat with special guest Katja Grace from AI Impacts, whose research is focused is the future of AI. Where will AI be in 10 years and what kind of impact will it have on the world? The buzz now is that deep learning will increasingly automate knowledge work. AI and automation will change creative fields, from research science to journalism, fiction writing to graphic design, software engineering to management activities. Join us as we discuss.

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AI Impacts

Experts Predict When Artificial Intelligence Will Exceed Human Performance

When Will AI Exceed Human Performance? Evidence from AI Experts

On The Digital Life this week, we discuss “gaming” techniques and design fiction for the purposes of imagining possible scenarios around emerging technologies and their effects and consequences.

Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security recently sponsored an exercise in Washington DC, CladeX, to evaluate governmental response to potential future pandemics. This exercise introduced a scenario—using realistic virology and epidemiological models—in which a man-made virus was released as part of a terrorist attack. This CladeX exercise is similar to the type of envisioning practice that’s used in design fiction to work through the implications of a new technology, imagine it within a human context, and look at elements related to its misuse. As a part of the event, the Center for Health Security also presented strategic policy recommendations for preventing or reducing the worst possible outcomes in future pandemics. Join us as we discuss.

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It’s fiction, but America just got wiped out by a man-made terror germ

On The Digital Life this week, we discuss the idea of “super technologies”—the combination and subsequent amplification of emerging technologies like AI, robotics, and the IoT.

The recently released MIT Sloan executive guide “Seven Technologies Remaking the World” highlights pervasive computing, wireless mesh networks, biotechnology, 3D printing, machine learning, nanotechnology, and robotics as “the starting line of a universal technological revolution”. Further, the report continues, “beyond their individual impact, an intriguing and powerful aspect of the seven technologies lies in their potential as combinations.”

On The Digital Life, we’ve previously discussed the concept of super technologies under the moniker of Smartware. Together, these technologies promise to create a radical inflection point at the same scale as personal computers in the 1970s, the Internet in the 1990s, and mobile computing in the 2000s. Join us as we discuss!

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Seven Technologies Remaking the World

On this episode of The Digital Life, we chat about science, emerging technology and whiskey with Sammy Karachi from Relativity Whiskey.

American craft whiskey is having a big moment and, more and more, innovation in science and technology is changing how whiskey is being made. In particular, Relativity Whiskey, uses a special, data-driven, maturation technology to age the spirit more quickly, saving years of time in the process. How will software and algorithms shape the whiskey creation process in the future? Join us as we discuss.

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Relativity Whiskey

The scientific tricks that can age whiskey in days instead of years

On The Digital Life this week, we explore designing bioinspired products with special guest Nic Hogan, a computational designer focused on the creation of design and fabrication techniques that emulate or implement biological processes. Nic’s work includes projects with Harvard iLab and bioinspired technologies currently being developed at the Wyss Institute.

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The Wyss Institute
Harvard iLab