Neil Jacobstein is the Chair of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Track at Singularity University. As a founding Singularity Expert and former President of Singularity, he brings a wealth of experience to the field. Neil is a MediaX Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, focusing on augmented decision systems since 2007. He actively applies AI to practical business challenges and holds a Venture Partner role at Bold Capital Partners.Neil's impactful career includes being CEO of Teknowledge Corp, an early AI company and providing AI/ML system building and technical R&D consulting to numerous industrial and governmental partners like Deloitte, E&Y, PWC, Boeing, NASA and the U.S. military branches. He reviews technical papers for AI conferences, serves as a Technical Infrastructure Leader on the XPRIZE COVID Pandemic Alliance and is part of the Earth and Life Studies Committee for the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.Beyond AI, Neil is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a founder of the Aspen Institute in New Zealand and actively involved in seminars focusing on technology ethics, leadership and challenges like climate change. He's an interdisciplinary thinker who bridges art and science and is recognized for his talks worldwide on the implications of AI, robotics and manufacturing. With expertise across industries and his commitment to ethical, sustainable progress, Neil continues to advise and consult for corporations, startups, nonprofits and government bodies.
Uncertainty, Change Management, Future of Work, Mental Health, Physical Health
There is no doubt that AI will change health, wealth, and technical innovation in profoundlymeaningful and positive ways. But these benefits won’t come without a price: rapid changes injob displacement and new requirements, loss of privacy, amplification of misinformation anddisinformation, and the need to handle effectively many new ethical questions. Here, Jacobsteinaddresses what AI means for trust, jobs, the way we define ourselves, the distribution of wealth,and our far too limited sense of what is possible. He provides vivid and compelling examples ofAI applications utilized in the market today and on 5 to10 year horizon. He addresses specificand practical AI insights culled from a wide variety of industries and new applications.Jacobstein shares his expertise and passion for AI, highlighting how it can be combined withother emerging technologies to generate vast new wealth and potentially solve some ofhumanity’s critical grand challenges. Finally, he facilitates an interactive dialog on the principlesnecessary to use this powerful technology responsibly and ethically, including near-term issueslike privacy, bias, trust, and accountability, and longer-term issues including alignment withpotential superintelligences. Jacobstein communicates the very real possibility of our creatinghappier, healthier, and more secure lives in the future.
Neuroscience, Mental Health, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Change Management, Resilience
Jacobstein covers the possibilities and transformations brought on by autonomous cars ineveryday life. Reviewing both the technology that makes these vehicles possible as well as theimplications of driverless cars, Jacobstein acknowledges that the technology is currentlyimperfect, but makes the case for a world in which millions of lives are eventually saved by AIpowered vehicles. He discusses the implications of new AI voice interfaces, "driver assistsystems" and autonomous vehicles for other aspects of our lives, including: our use ofcommuting time, optional car ownership, altered insurance policies, reduced demand forparking, changes in city planning and real estate values, reduced pollution, and the increasedproduction of autonomous electric car taxi fleets. This is a powerful, evidence-based look at anemerging and challenging technology that will eventually become ubiquitous.
Machine Learning, Ethics and AI, Ethics, Regulation and Policy
Large language models such as ChatGPT4 and its competitors have captured headlines,capital, and the public imagination. Forecasts vary between immediate widespread abundanceand near certain doom. Jacobstein describes how these systems work and the relationshipbetween model size, computation hardware, data sources, and training. He covers currentapplications and achievements, for example ChatGPT capturing the largest number oftechnology product users in the shortest window of time, and ChatGPT 3.5 passing medical,law, MBA, and creativity exams. Neil discusses the significance of Microsoft's Co-Pilotaugmenting programmer productivity by writing 40-50% of Python code, and the associatedneed to test and scrub errors in the code. Large language models can generate wild new artisticimages, and coherent new articles on almost any subject, but they sometimes get facts wrong,or even make them up. What are we to make of these rapidly evolving and already capablesystems? How will these systems be accelerated by advances in software, data modeling, andclassical and quantum hardware systems? Neil explains that in spite of considerable potentialfor disruption, net impacts will mostly be positive, and provide significant increases inproductivity and abundance. Humans have considerable agency in creating these breakthroughproducts and services, development guidelines and thoughtful regulations. We can create safercode guidelines, monitor for abuse, and hold ourselves and our technology productsaccountable for the results we produce.
GGC: Health, Public Health, Regulation and Policy, Autonomous Vehicles
Jacobstein has had over 50 large banks as customers. He provides a framework for thinkingabout what is driving the AI Revolution, how it has already affected Fintech and globalinvestment opportunities, and how those changes are accelerating. He looks at what specificroles AI, including large language models like ChatGPT4+, can play in finance and the bottom-line value it can add. Drawing on case studies of companies already using this revolutionarytechnology, Jacobstein discusses the task areas where companies are using AI to deliverentirely new digital financial products and services. He also addresses the implications for newtypes of jobs, business disruption, ethics, and business plans to capture the benefits and reducethe risks of this rapidly evolving technology.