The Case for AI Optimism: Neil Lawrence on Humanity’s Edge Over Machines

Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel

Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2024

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you're wrestling with the fast-paced rise of AI and what it means for our future, you are not alone. In this episode, Jessi sits down with Neil Lawrence, DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge and author of The Atomic Human: What Makes Us Unique in the Age of AI. Neil shares a refreshing and optimistic perspective on artificial intelligence. While the common narrative is “adapt to AI or get left behind,” Neil challenges that urgency with a more hopeful and thoughtful outlook. He believes that while AI is changing the world rapidly, it will never replace the complexity, creativity, and humanity that make us unique. He explains why we should focus on solving meaningful problems, trusting that technology will evolve to assist us, rather than letting AI advancements dictate our reactions. We humans are not great at predicting the future, often defaulting to fear in the face of the unknown. But rather than letting our negativity bias take over, Neil suggests we remain open to possibilities and focus on our unique strengths. As AI transforms industries and our daily lives, Neil believes we should pause, take a step back, and look at the bigger picture. He encourages us to think less about the tools themselves and more about the real-world problems we care about solving. Subscribe to the Hello Monday newsletter to get episodes and insights delivered straight to your inbox every Monday!

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn News.
0:06.0	I don't know if maybe listeners have seen this video whether a basketball players passing a ball around and some are dressed in white and some are dressed in black.
0:13.8	I've heard of this before, right?
0:15.4	So the viewer, they have been told by the researchers,
0:18.2	okay, there are going to be some people in black, some people in white,
0:20.9	I want you to watch how many times the ball like goes
0:23.2	and they tell you it's really hard you do goes between the players in white and it is
0:26.9	actually quite hard and so you as a viewer you are focused on that ball
0:29.9	and a lot of people miss what you're talking about.
0:34.0	This gorilla moving across to the background.
0:36.6	And this is exactly the situation people are facing in their lives at the moment.
0:41.2	They're being told, oh, this is AI, it's really hard. You're going to have to really, really
0:44.7	focus on it. And so you miss the gorilla, which is, well, what's your purpose? What do you enjoy?
0:50.7	From the news team at LinkedIn, this is Hello Monday.
0:54.0	It's our show about the changing nature of work and how that work is changing us.
1:00.0	And if you haven't signed up for our newsletter yet, well, what are you waiting for?
1:04.6	You can find it on my LinkedIn profile.
1:06.5	Today I'm talking with Neil Lawrence, a computer scientist and the Deep Mind Professor of
1:18.6	Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge.
1:22.2	You know, it feels like we've been told, I know I've said
1:24.7	it on this show, just use Chachi BT, get on it already, experiment with it,
1:29.5	figure it out. And you should. But if you read between the lines what everyone is kind of really saying is
	...

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