Ep. 66: AI. Progress or Peril? Pedro Domingos On Where We Are Now and What's Next.

"Learn to use AI. That's, that's my message. You wanna learn to use AI as a professional and as a citizen in your personal life. The more you know how to use it, the better you'll make of it, the better your life will be. AI gives power; like any technology, it gives power to those who understand it and use it" - Pedro Domingos

Recent developments in AI, specifically consumer-facing generative AIs, are helping people create a lot of cool content while also generating a ton of concern. A big bucket of that concern is AI alignment - what are the possible unintended consequences to humans? The internet transformed our relationship to information, but it took a few years; now, AI is doing it in real time. 

My guest on this episode is Professor Pedro Domingos. 

Pedro is a leading AI researcher and the author of the worldwide bestseller "The Master Algorithm." He is a professor of computer science at the University of Washington in Seattle. He won the Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining Innovation Award and the international joint Conference on AI John McCarthy Award, two of the highest honors in data science and AI.

Pedro helped start the fields of statistical relational AI, data stream mining, adversarial learning, machine learning for information integration, and influence maximization in social networks. 

On this episode, we run the gamut to include...

• Where are we with generative AIs
• Pedro demystifies LLMs (Large Language Models)
• Progress and problems with generative AIs
• Hallucination in AI - and Illusion in humans
• The homunculus fallacy
• Risks, regulations, known-unknowns
• Comments on existential threats
• The S curve in emerging technologies like AI
• AI's possible impact on employment and the economy
• Artificial General Intellience or AGI
• Goals and end games, is AGI the goal?
• Does he think LLMs AI's like ChatGPT are conscious?

No matter your technical level, you'll enjoy this discussion with Pedro. He is passionate about the subject matter, no surprise - much of what he's predicted has come to pass in the field, And if you feel a tinge of AI anxiety, consider this a bit of exposure therapy. 

Listen and learn more about how these systems work and how they might impact your life. 

For show notes and more, visit larryweeks.com