The Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab hosted 24 of the world’s leading artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, business leaders, economists, and thinkers on October 23. The “4th Annual Rotman Conference on: Machine Learning and the Market for Intelligence” featured discussions of AI and the impact it will bring to the future of business, medicine, and numerous other industries.
Ajay Agrawal, the founder of the Creative Destruction Lab, and Shivon Zilis, the project director of Tesla and Neuralink, co-chaired the 11.5-hour event. Among the speakers were Alibaba — the world’s largest online retailer — President Michael Evans, Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney, and U of T Emeritus distinguished professor Geoff Hinton. Despite their unique perspectives, one message was clear: machine intelligence will revolutionize how we think about solving problems.
The event began with talks from leaders in the international business sector on why industries worldwide are rapidly adopting machine intelligence into their business practices. Kevin Sneader, Global Managing Partner at McKinsey & Company, explained how monumental AI will be toward optimization and efficiency. Sneader said that he expects “mainstream absorption” of AI within the next decade. Evans showcased Alibaba’s automated distribution facilities powered by intelligent roving robots and its multitiered corporate strategy to adopt AI.
The speakers made it clear that businesses see the huge potential upsides associated with smart automation, but none discussed the issues that AI adoption may bring to the labour force or customer data responsibility.
Many industry pioneers dream of closing the gap between human and artificial intelligence, and they want you to know that the results don’t have to parallel dystopian sci-fi. Suzanne Gildert, CEO of Sanctuary AI, is building sentient, fully autonomous robots powered by the next generation of AI.
The artist-turned-technologist said that designing the first generation of synths with realistic human bodies will allow them to interface with our human world. Debates around the treatment, regulation, and integration of robots into human society are still very unresolved, but Gildert hopes that AI will push humankind to new heights. Citing the possibilities to create hyper-empathetic, creative, and intelligent minds, Gildert emphasized her optimism for the future of AI.
She ended her talk with a fascinating, albeit slightly terrifying, demo of a robotic clone of herself, complete with a matching silicon body and voice capabilities.
Perhaps one of the more sobering talks of the day was given by theoretical physicist and former president of the Santa Fe Institute Geoffrey West, who discussed the “socioeconomic entropy” that comes with chasing innovation. Despite the optimism of other speakers and the crowd in light of continued innovation and growth, West cast doubt over humanity’s ability to support sustained accelerated innovation.
Based on his research into the scale of companies and human networks, he suggested an underlying futility to the aspirations of the field. This alternate perspective brought a human context back to the event; if we don’t understand how we grow, we are doomed to collapse under our own weight.
PHOTO BY NIKHI BHAMBRA/THE VARSITY
The lower floors of the event hosted Toronto AI companies, who demonstrated their latest and greatest tech. Dozens of startups and corporations presented their efforts to integrate AI into solutions for specific industry problems, highlighting the extent of AI adoption.
