Hidden Forces
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In Episode 1 of the Hidden Forces podcast, host Demetri Kofinas talks with journalist and technology commentator David Kirkpatrick. David is the author of The Facebook Effect, and the founder of Techonomy Media, which produces some of the best conferences that rest at the intersection of technology, business, academia, and government. He writes at Techonomy.com, he’s a contributing editor to Bloomberg Television, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
David Kirkpatrick and Demetri Kofinas first met in the Spring of 2015. David expressed interest in a non-profit initiative Demetri was working on around technology and consciousness, and it turned out that both shared some things in common. David is intensely curious and is tremendously passionate about technology, and the positive impact it can have on society. He is a brilliant guy, full of thoughts, ideas, and passionate opinions.
The conversation does not restrict itself only to matters of technology, although this is where most of the episode’s time is spent. The discussion covers artificial intelligence, which David Kirkpatrick and Demetri Kofinas both believe presents tremendous challenges for the future of humanity. If not existential challenges (It seems Demetri may be more pessimistic than David is on the matter of value loading and whether or not we can build utility functions that don’t create perverse instantiations at critical moments), then certainly challenges of creative destruction. Though here, again, David Kirkpatrick seems to feel that the difficulties posed by narrow A.I. and automation will likely be overcome by innovation in new types of work. Demetri Kofinas is less optimistic on this front. He believes that the exponential rates of change will reach such a critical tempo through automation that the destructive forces will outpace anything the private sector can manage to create. This presents a huge challenge for governments and public policy, something that David Kirkpatrick and Demetri both agree on. In addition to questions of automation, machine learning and the future of work, David and Demetri cover challenges posed by big data, black box algorithms, and the security state. The controversy around fake news and the newsfeed is something that ties directly into this conversation as well. David interviewed Mark Zuckerberg, recently, about this very question, and whether or not Facebook has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that its users are not being misled or misinformed by fake news stories. Demetri asks David if he thinks that silicon valley’s elite minds and the leadership of various technology giants – in particular, large platforms like Google and Facebook – are disconnected from the concerns of most of society, and if this puts us all at risk considering that these are the folks creating the algorithms that are increasingly automating our lives.
Our discussion lasts for a total of 90 minutes, so you can imagine how much we cover. We tackle the nuclear question, and if an EMP attack is something that should worry society, and America specifically. We discuss prospects for Africa, in the context of peer-to-peer platforms and the sharing economy. David Kirkpatrick gives a brilliant explanation for Blockchain as a distributed system protocol for the management of property in cyberspace. Demetri also prods David, by asking him, “are we living in a simulation?” David Kirkpatrick also gives us his opinion on the singularity, and whether or not futurists and transhumanists seeking the fountain of youth will end up gravely disappointed.
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Really cool show!
DK is narrow-minded hyper-pragmatic to the point of ignorant, dismissive, arrogant and generally unlikable. Otherwise ok interview 🙂 Jim Rickards was much easier to listen to.