Telekom Open Spaces - 5 Questions to … Trent McConaghy
1. Hey Trent, it‘s great to meet you today! So, let‘s begin talking about some current topics of AI. For a start, please tell us something about you – where do you currently at, what is your professional focus, etc.?
Trent McConaghy: I’m working on Ocean Protocol. We aim to equalize the opportunities and potential benefits from AI, by unlocking access to data while preserving privacy.
2. You did AI research for two decades - if you had to sum up the research progress with no more than 5 sentences, what would you say?
Trent McConaghy: I've always seen AI as a good lever to nudge the world towards a positive future. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that this influenced my choice of work: subfields of AI that are not only useful technologies, but also philosophically or societally fascinating. First was creative AI, which leads to many questions on *human* creativity. Second was how AI can help drive Moore's Law -- the backbone of technology progress in the last 50 years. Third is how AI can used as a tool for good, at scale.
3. Talking about the negative aspects of AI – in your opinion: which are the biggest problems in Artificial Intelligence currently?
Trent McConaghy: The biggest near-term issue is that the majority of benefits of AI are accruing to a small number of companies.
Beyond, the biggest issue is that AI will displace the vast majority of jobs in the next decade or two.
But I'm hopeful that we can change the trajectory, so we can spread the opportunities and benefits of AI, leading to abundance, where everyone can not only feed their families, but have the opportunity to self-actualize.
4. If you apply those dangers on your firm, do you see any real threatening developments – and if yes, how could you handle prevention?
Trent McConaghy: With Ocean Protocol, we are taking action to help steer AI towards this positive future. We use blockchain technology to shape incentives so there is a win-win as people grow an AI Commons, and so that the utility of private data can get unlocked without compromising privacy.
5. At Telekom Open Spaces we are all about learning and sharing knowledge. So we ask everybody to share his favorite sources of information. What are your favorite websites, blogs or newsletters you follow?
Trent McConaghy: I would recommend the following information resources:
- https://www.exponentialview.co/
- https://twitter.com/trentmc0/following
All right, Trent, thank you for providing us such interesting insights about Artificial Intelligence and for naming some personal recommendations concerning information resources.
We wish you an enjoyable afternoon at the Rise of AI Conference.
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