The $500 Billion Gamble: Can AI save humanity without breaking it?
OK so I caved and asked DeepSeek to generate the title for this post – it only seemed appropriate given the AI roller coaster we seem to be on at the moment!
It was only last Thursday that my co-host Sean Leahy and I recorded this week’s episode of Modem Futura. It had been a tumultuous week for AI, from the announcement of the aspirational $500B Stargate Project, to the rescinding of President Biden’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, and we were feeling a little overwhelmed.
And then — after we’d got the episode in the can — the Chinese AI company DeepSeek dropped their new reasoning model R1.
Looking back a mere five days, it seems rather quaint now talking about Stargate. Fortunately, our conversation built on last week’s announcements to tackle bigger questions around responsible AI and human flourishing. As a result it’s more relevant than ever — including discussing the increasingly important challenge of steering accelerating AI capabilities toward benefitting society, rather than leading to a whole flock of black swan events.
We’ll be diving more into DeepSeek in next week’s episode with Western University’s Chief AI Officer Mark Daley. But until then, enjoy this week’s episode as we take a deep dive into responsible innovation, positive futures, and what Sean could not resist calling “Stargate AG-I!”
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