Are tech tools neutral?
Many say yes. They believe that a tool can be used or misused but the technology or the tool itself has no agenda. I disagree.
Tools come with default settings and nudges that reflect the values of their creators and the business models of the companies behind them. This shapes how technology organizes power as well as user behavior. As Prof. Langdon Winner puts it: Artifacts have politics. This is why I believe you can understand a lot about a technology by looking at the motivations of the people and companies behind it.
In Episode 2 of Creative Intelligence, I spoke with Cade Metz, tech reporter at The New York Times and author of Genius Makers, to explore the people, culture, and companies behind modern AI. Cade’s book tells the story of some of the researchers who believed in modern Machine Learning methods (in particular Neural Nets) at a time when the rest of Computer Science had given up on it.
We covered:
🔹 The infamous auction where Geoffrey Hinton (who many consider as one of the godfathers of moderns AI) “sold” himself and his students to Google for over $30M
🔹 What early AI cultures at Google/Deepmind and OpenAI reveal about where we’re headed next
🔹 Who is taking AI ethics seriously versus paying lip service to it
The part that stayed with me the most was our discussion of the “brain-stretching paradox [that] the people who say they are most worried about A.I. are among the most determined to create it and enjoy its riches. They have justified their ambition with their strong belief that they alone can keep A.I. from endangering Earth.”
This episode is full of stories that show how who builds AI matters just as much as what AI can do. Hope you enjoy this episode. Comments as well as suggestions for future topics and guests are always welcome.
Episode Segments:
0:00 Introduction
2:44 Cade’s Approach to Writing Genius Makers
8:15 Hinton: A Godfather of AI
15:00 AI versus Human Creativity?
19:25 DeepMind’s Founder and the Contrast with Hinton
24:05 Hinton’s Persistence
27:36 Companies behind AI
33:55 Google’s AI Leadership and OpenAI Threat
38:55 Writing and AI
45:00 Audience Q/A
59:40 Last Question
1:03:33 Kartik’s Closing Thoughts
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