It was great to finally see Kevin Kelly speak in person at Vadītāju konference last week. I had particularly enjoyed his podcast with Tim Ferris the previous week and enjoyed their topic of “Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier”
Kevin co-founded Wired magazine in 1993 and served as its executive editor until 1999, so a prominent figure in the tech industry. He is particularly known for his insights into the impact of technology on society, but more so his forward-thinking and optimistic perspectives on emerging trends.
He has authored several books, including “The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future.“ and most recently Excellent Advice For Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier Hardcover – 2 May 2023
During his keynote he highlighted the benefits of AI and Technology.
- He mentioned innovative companies, like Zipline in Rwanda using autonomous electric drones to deliver blood in Rwanda. Food labs cultivating lab grown meat differently, by taking sesame-seed sized sample of cells, and nurturing them to naturally grow into beef. A beef burger where no animal is harmed, and improving what we already have.
- He talked about energy improvement and a fusion synthetic sun.
- He said that even though millions of people are already using “generative A.I.” tools such as ChatGPT and Dall-E 2, he described using these AI interfaces/ conversational user interfaces, as “primitive A.I. agents” and should be best thought of as universal interns. People are using them to write rough drafts, suggest code, summarise research, and brainstorm but getting high-quality results from them isn’t necessarily easy or correct!
- He expects that AI will replace many tasks, but not necessarily jobs. The fast adoption of AI and the potential for human-AI interaction with different kinds of minds, (including robots and humans) will influence and shape each other’s thinking processes.
- He talked about how AI will and the emergence of the metaverse and the ability for more people to create solo-generated movies and games using AI-generated content. 3D video is the new superpower.
- Although, there are no A.I. experts today its a great time to enter the field as these new technologies are new and rapidly evolving, so its a good time to learn and leap ahead. He mentioned the new jobs in A.I. such as working as a “prompt engineer.” where, individuals devise prompts—or chains of prompts—to get A.I. systems to produce a desired result for a wide variety of purposes and industries
- The capacity to solve problems is growing faster than ever before, and the future will be shaped by optimism and advancements yet to come but despite improvements in many areas, there are still significant problems that require optimists to address.
- Now there are ample opportunities, few experts, and a large market so this is time to take action.
- He emphasised the importance of believing in the impossible and overestimating short-term progress…And underestimating longterm process.
- He talked about the notion of overrating intelligence and recognising the importance of other qualities was briefly mentioned, along with a reference to Elon Musk and his views on intelligence…
- But he believes the world has gigantic problems, which require more optimists to fix, but now that our capacity to solve problems is growing faster he is optimistic about the future. The future will be shaped by optimists. 20 years from today the things we use will not have even been invented yet! Progress is indeed real.
If you would like to book Kevin Kelly as a Keynote Speaker at your next event contact us today
