‘The Edge of Intelligence’: Where the ideas for Aspen Ideas Festival come from
Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Editor’s note: This is the fourth of a series about the Aspen Ideas Festival’s themes and the thought behind them.
Have you ever wondered how the programming is put together for the Aspen Ideas Festival? The organizers of the festival explain in a blog: aspenideas.org/articles/how-we-build-the-aspen-ideas-festival. Here, we’re serving up slices by the theme.
The blog posted on Tuesday delves into this year’s themes to give a behind-the-scenes look at how they create the program tracks that will guide seven days with some 300 speakers, 150 sessions, and 3,000 attendees.
The themes this summer: “Age of Uncertainty: Imagining a New World Order,” “The Mind,” “Powering the Future,” “The Edge of Intelligence,” “Driving the Economy Forward,” and “We the People.”
These themes change every year in response to the news of the world, the emerging challenges local and global, as well as inspiring the cutting-edge ideas.
The Edge of Intelligence
From the blog: “Everywhere you look, there’s a splashy headline about the power of artificial intelligence and how it will impact all aspects of our lives in ways we have not yet imagined. Just like the introduction of social media, the ubiquity of AI will have both positive and negative consequences, and this track will consider how we can proceed with caution.
“Plus — a fun, hands-on workshop will show you ways to save time and hack your life by using ChatGPT to do work for you.”
What we’re consuming
How ChatGPT Will Destabilize White-Collar Work, The Atlantic
Using A.I to Detect Breast Cancer That Doctors Miss, The New York Times
Artificial Intelligence is Already Upending Geopolitics, Tech Crunch
How Scientists are Using A.I to Talk to Animals, Scientific American
The A.I Dilemma, Center for Humane Technology
A Psychologist Explains How AI and Algorithms Are Changing Our Lives, The Wall Street Journal
The Age of AI has Begun, GatesNotes
Innovation Power: Why Technology Will Define the Future of Geopolitics, Foreign Affairs
What Biden’s Top A.I. Thinker Concluded We Should Do, The Ezra Klein Show
Cybersecurity and AI, The Lawfare Podcast
A Google AI model developed a skill it wasn’t expected to have, Quartz
What Kind of Mind Does ChatGPT Have?, The New Yorker
Review: We Put ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Bard to the Test, WIRED
GPT-4 Is Exciting and Scary, The New York Times
ChatGPT: A scientist explains the hidden genius and pitfalls of OpenAI’s chatbot, BBC Science Focus
Questions we’re grappling with
What are the implications of rolling out AI applications across industries without government regulations in place?
How will AI impact our jobs?
From diagnosing cancer to personalizing education and even understanding animal language, what possibilities lay ahead as machine learning gets smarter?
Some are speculating that AI could be a humanity-ending technology. Could it?
What are the most hopeful advancements that will arise from AI?
