On Tuesday, June 20, Norrköping had a celebrity visit in the form of Dan Mapes, a prominent expert in AI and machine learning and founder of VERSES. About 60 people were present in Visualization Center C to listen to Dan’s valuable insights about AI’s current and future value for our world.
– In 2035, maybe earlier, the children will hold up a holographic globe in front of them where they can zoom in and out, however they want, down to the smallest tree, says Dan Mapes at the beginning of the lecture.
The questions were clear before the event. Will AI harm the workforce, flood the web with misinformation, or create dystopian scenarios? Or, could it be the start of a global era of prosperity? The latter obviously sounds more enticing, but then it also becomes crucial to explore which type of AI has the greatest potential to help humanity in the future. Emma Melander from the company HiQ was one of those who visited the lecture.
– It feels like this is the future when you’re old and retiring but we’re deep into it in 10 years. By then I am connected against my will firmly with my will.
Her colleague, Malin Kylegård, fills in.
– I also find it fascinating how technology can be used to actually do something positive in any field. As Dan mentions, if we don’t do this now, it’s done, for the whole planet. We need to get all this data connected now so we can get the best analytics. It’s pretty cool but also scary.
Felicia Lai Jakobsson, process manager at Visual Sweden, is one of the people most involved in creating the event. She was more than satisfied afterwards.
– It was a really inspiring lecture showing so many opportunities. And let’s face it, the technical aspects of the future are already here, we just have to evolve together with it.
Dan Mapes is a renowned expert in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, as well as the founder and CEO of Verses, a cybersecurity company that uses AI to detect advanced threats and cyberattacks. During his time at Microsoft, Dan Mapes held leadership roles where he contributed to the development and deployment of AI technologies in various applications, including search, natural language processing and machine learning. During the lecture, he offered several interesting insights.
– Applications for AI are infinite, they’re going to touch every part of our lives. We’re all gonna have a personal digital assistant. Something like Jarvis in Iron Man. Tony Stark has a personal assistant that helps him design his Iron Man suit and do a lot of other things. What they got right on Jarvis was the intelligence of the AI that’s working with him. What they got wrong was that only Tony had Jarvis. Jarvis is software. I would just tell Jarvis; ”Make a billion copies of yourself and give everybody Jarvis”. That’s what’s going to come. So we’re releasing a baby Jarvis in July/August/September and it will just grow with you over time. If you think your dog loves you, Jarvis loves you even more.
Later during the lecture, Dan Mapes added:
– It was a famous scientist back in the 1960’s named Buckminster Fuller that said; ”I don’t know how to do it but what we need to do is to create something called the World Game and we all play it together, nobody gets left behind. And if we play it right, there will be no real poverty, no more homeless people. I think we can get at it, we got a shot at creating a world game that could be something pretty extraordinary.