Ep 3 - Mindful AI with Dr Michael Kollo

Dr Michael Kollo is a domain expert in financial services and the use of AI systems across a range of industries. He is the CEO of Evolved Reasoning, a company that helps organisations de-risk AI adoption. Dr Kollo received his PhD in Finance from the London School of Economics and is a frequent speaker on the impact of AI.

Key points:

- Technology replacing human jobs has happened before, we just have to accept it. The "Terminator fear" of superintelligent beings wiping us out is unlikely. 

- In developing AI, we must decide if we want to give it human-like traits or specific functional agents. Functional AI should focus on complex tasks humans struggle with, not imitating humans. As long as AI does not directly harm, imitate or commit crimes, and is used to improve lives, it should be okay.  

- Companies should be transparent in using AI, identify AI components, and consider customer experience. Guidelines will likely emerge naturally. 

- There are trade-offs between censorship and free speech with AI. Different groups may develop AI according to their values. 

- Users should be held accountable for responsible use. Education and enabling informed use is more effective than top-down regulation which can likely be worked around. 

- AI systems are relatively new, and optimize for engagement, not truth. The most engaging system may dominate. 

- The conversation around AI bias and ethics has evolved. It started as avoiding unintended consequences in data/algorithms, then became about using AI to solve social issues and represent marginalized groups. With large language models, the issues are nuanced - e.g. should chatbots show emotion or morality?

- AI will likely be diverse, distributed and multi-purpose rather than a single system like "Skynet". 

- The future is hard to determine, but we can build the world we want to see.

https://www.zentermeditation.com/mindful-ai for more episodes