#GigaGipfel: My Perspective on Artificial Intelligence
When it comes to technological innovations, companies — especially the tech giants — often determine the debate. They develop and test new concepts, build prototypes and explore the potential of the new technology. The larger the potential, the more the technology will affect different areas of our society and personal life. This couldn’t be more true for any other technology than it is for Artificial Intelligence (AI).
For this reason, it is important to include as many perspectives as possible in the debate on AI and to actively participate in shaping the discourse. This is what happened at Giga Gipfel last week: experts from business and science, politics and society, media and technology gathered at more than 3,000 metres to open up new perspectives on artificial intelligence.
Giga Gipfel, which is jointly organised by Handelsblatt, Wirtschaftswoche, Tagesspiegel and the new magazine Ada, also achieved this goal for me. My probably most profound impression refers to the fears that many people have in connection with artificial intelligence. Fears are irrational, a diffuse feeling somewhere in the stomach area. We all know them and yet we are not always aware of where they come from.
An important factor that encourages the emergence of fears is ignorance — we can observe this every day on Twitter and Facebook. Hardly a day goes by without new headlines, forecasts and (expert) assessments of artificial intelligence — from the robot colleague that makes us all unemployed to the cure of cancer and the use of AI for our planet Earth. From orders that are made automatically without our intervention and the refrigerator that has learned from the calendar that we invited friends for dinner. The technology itself is just as complex as these scenarios. That’s why reporting on it repeatedly triggers this diffuse feeling of fear — the technology seems overpowering, nobody really seems to know how it works and whether it will soon outwit people after all. At the same time, it promises a better, more sustainable and, above all, smarter future. This in turn leaves a very beautiful, promising feeling.
What I take with me from #GigaGipfel — or: my aha moments
It was this very area of tension that we discussed in detail at the Giga Gipfel — among others with State Secretary Dorothee Bär as well as with philosopher Richard David Precht and Dr. Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO of Vodafone. I want to share my greatest aha moments with you here:
- Each path begins with the first step — and with elucidation
Of course, we need great visions that we can work towards together. A target image that we all help to shape and share. But it is also the many small applications in which we take the first steps with the technology that ultimately bring us closer to our great vision. A US start-up, for example, offers a modular system with which new AIs can be created on the basis of artificial intelligence — in order to make the technology accessible to people and companies without deep technological expertise. However, it is essential that we do not only talk about the technology itself, but also about the bias and that we strongly work on more diversity in artificial intelligence.
2. Get out of the niche.
In Germany, artificial intelligence still has a niche existence in practice — only 25 percent of companies use the technology. On the one hand, this may be due to its complexity and the lack of resources, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, however, this figure also means that only a quarter of companies are actively involved in the design processes and debate surrounding artificial intelligence. This is not only a waste of potential for the organisations themselves, but also a problem for us as a society when a few are shaping the future of many.
3. Ethics first.
This is not least for ethical reasons: People should be at the forefront of all social debates. This means that we have to deal intensively with ethical issues in order to develop a common vision and give technological development guidelines. There is currently a complete lack of this — although there are first attempts by some companies, but a patchwork of individual ideas is of little help to us. We need a society-wide understanding of what artificial intelligence may, can and should do to help us in the best possible way.
4. Silence is silver, speech is golden.
We need to talk. Yes, as simple as it sounds: the most important basis for common ethical guidelines and a shared vision is communication. At the same time, it is also the only remedy for the diffuse fears that some people feel when it comes to AI. Of course, this does not only apply to this technology, but basically to everything new — because man is an enemy of what he does not know. But at the same time we are curious by nature. It is this curiosity that we should use much more frequently: take a close look at ne technologies, talk about them in order to understand which feelings of fear are justified and which are not. Just as with new places, impressions and people, it is necessary to be open to new technologies — they will change our daily lives. Actually, they’re already doing it today. For this reason: Let us remain curious to actively shape the technology instead of watching helplessly how our future is made without us.
Theses for a fair, digital future
With these thoughts in mind, I would very much like to support the theses published at the Giga Gipfel:
If we want to shape our technological future sustainably, we need an open dialogue. And responsibility. This means that we must intensify communication and empower people to take personal responsibility. The best basis for this is (digital) education, which must be our focus on the path to more accountability — for adults as well as for children.
In addition to personal responsibility in society, companies, developers and manufacturers must assume responsibility for the software they develop. Fair solutions only emerge in diverse teams with different perspectives and requirements. Europe is diversity. This makes it more difficult at some points to introduce products into the European market. When it comes to fair AI, diversity becomes a competitive advantage. In addition to diversity in all its facets, transparency about data and algorithms is also part of fair software for me. Again, Europe has a chance to lead the way — another reason why it is so important that we meet new people from other industries and countries at events like the Giga Gipfel.
How we deal with artificial intelligence at Porsche Digital Lab can be seen here. But I’d be even happier if we could discuss it together — just drop by one of our First Tuesdays in Berlin, write to us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or leave a comment.
