See around corners, don't run into them

As strategists, our primary responsibility is to remain acutely aware of what is shaping culture, our clients’ industries, and the world at large. We must know this because our clients need and expect us to anticipate trends rather than react to them.?

To see around corners rather than run face-first into them.

It goes without saying that AI is arguably the most significant trend affecting the world at large. While the technology has technically been around in various forms for decades, these past few years have seen a hockey stick curve of growth in capabilities and awareness.?

Suddenly, your Grandmother is talking about ‘Generative AI’ at Thanksgiving dinner, and the keys “G,” “P,” and “T” are worn out on everyone’s keyboards. While we at Register have spent a lot of time thinking about AI , we want to ensure we remain on the bleeding edge - an ambition that inspired us to attend this year’s AI Conference in San Francisco .?

Talks at the conference ranged from the mildly technical to the extremely technical (apparently, there’s AI that can create, monitor, and improve new AIs???!). But despite our non-engineer brains nearing their computational saturation threshold, we leaned in and had our minds blown several times over.

Among many excellent sessions, two stood out to us:?

First was the conversation with California State Senator Scott Weiner regarding his bill SB-1047 . The session was a thorough discussion of the controversial bill – the intent of which is to create guardrails around the rapidly growing AI model landscape, ideally preventing disastrous consequences. Per the LA Times , “Lawmakers aim to incentivize developers to handle the technology responsibly and empower the state’s attorney general to impose penalties in the event of imminent threat or harm.” Notably, several prominent tech companies, including Meta, have opposed the bill, citing concerns that it will smother innovation. The discussion was animated and interesting, and Senator Weiner fielded some hardball questions from the audience. To paraphrase one of his best retorts, “We didn't regulate data privacy and social media, and look where that got us.” Indeed, Senator, indeed. The future of government oversight of AI, or lack thereof, will have massive implications for the industry and which players rise to the top.

In another session, Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google, and Alfred Spector, a visiting scholar at MIT, had a fascinating fireside chat about the ethical implications of AI. Perhaps the most striking point of the discussion centered around how Spector is encouraging his students in computer science to utilize their mandatory general education credits on the humanities – particularly fields like philosophy – where great minds past and present have debated some of the fundamental questions of right and wrong, good and bad, and even who wins and loses. These key moral and intellectual questions are becoming increasingly critical to address and reflect upon as models become increasingly sophisticated.?

As AI continues to impact the world where our clients’ brands operate, it will be our job—along with our brand-side partners—to ensure we are on the right side of this monumental moment in tech history.