Thoughts from Boston

To that end, let’s go to a panel that I saw at the Imagination in Action event (this is an event I am involved in hosting) at MIT here in Boston, in April. Award-winning journalist Nina Gregory interviewed Keyun Ruan, Co-Director of the AI and Flourishing Program at Harvard University, and Tim White of NuVert. They talked about how it is that humans can flourish alongside AI.

And they started with some definitions.

“I think that human-centered approaches are really just building upon frameworks of humanity and considering frameworks of humanity as you develop these artificial intelligence solutions,” White said. “I think that many people look at the technology first, and the output that AI can give them, and the results that it can give them, and they focus on those results, instead of focusing first on where this is going to impact the lives of another person.”

He continued:

“I think human-centered AI is having that mindset and understanding that this will have this impact on some person's individual understanding, or some person's individual flourishing … it's just a mindset of how we approach implementation of AI.”

“It's kind of multifaceted,” Ruan added. “A lot of risk we see with AI is rooted in the fact that we're building this transformative technology under systems that are not human-centric, so our economic system is not built to be human-centric: it's kind of a legacy system from the industrial age, which is very much about productivity, efficiency. Inherently, humans are not in the center of every corporation. So I think human-centric, in the AI era, means nourishing a shift towards this new value system that is about healing and flourishing, and we need to figure out what that means. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done.”

Here’s more of what Ruan had to say around this, envisioning what a human-centric world would look like:

“In the human-centric world, if we build economic systems and incentive systems and technology around human flourishing, the energy problem should not exist,” she said, tying the issue to planetary health, which would become a theme of the conversation. “I think the energy problem exists because we were building this technology under the old system that is about extraction.”

Human labor, she noted, has historically been very extractive.

“In the future, we’re going to work much less,” she said, “and it's going to be more about joy and connection and all of that kind of stuff.”

White talked about empathy, and thinking about the people around us.

Ruan mentioned the link between people, and the planet.

“There are multiple dimensions to human flourishing,” she said. “So planetary well-being is part of it. We are building flourishing matrices for AI. So as part of that, there will be an energy metric. It's just one metric in this comprehensive model. We have not just AI, but multiple quantum multiple technologies that are pointing to greater and deeper connection with human consciousness, or broader consciousness, and how we can enable that is part of human flourishing as well.”

Making Decisions at the Helm

Panelists also discussed the role of “C-suite” people, the power they have to make change, and what they have to deal with while navigating the world of AI.

“A lot of the time, they're under pressure to produce results, especially from their board members and things of that nature, but even though they have this pressure, their focus is on what this is actually going to mean for the people,” White said. “One of the frameworks that we like to utilize is helping people to see what is a step-by-step approach toward implementing AI within their organizations. First of all, we might give them a first view of what AI is, understanding sort of the 10-year road map of how we got to where we are, and then starting to drill into: ‘okay, now you understand what AI is’ and let them have hands-on implementation. Let them actually take out their computer, their keyboards, and test some of these models and see how they can use AI for executive decision-making.”

Working Together

Panelists also talked about the involvement of stakeholders like universities and government offices, like the United Nations.

“I think that AI literacy at every level is what’s really the most important aspect to consider,” White said, “because even if you have the technology ready, but the people don't understand it, and the people are have this fear of adoption, then it's impossible for them to actually want to integrate it.”

He noted fears of job displacement, which also factor into the big picture. Those fears are not unreasonable, either, given the ability of AI to do so many things so well.

The future is uncertain, and even the human uses of AI, from the user side, are something of a black box, adding to the challenges of really knowing how all of this is going to play out.

“We have recognized that as a gap,” Ruan said, detailing further research that’s happening right now.

Focus

Near the end of the discussion, Gregory herself posited this issue:

“When you go to Silicon Valley and talk to people who have startups, or investors in startups, people building these tools, they're sometimes building to the standard that the big tech companies build to: minimum viable product,” she said. “There's not really a lot of room there for human flourishing in MVP.”

“That's the problem we want to solve,” Ruan responded. “Because it has to be where we start. I think it's about understanding what human flourishing means, and building products and services around those values, because it is an infinite market.”

White added some thoughts about focusing in on people, characterizing what often happens in collaborations.

“A lot of the conversations are just helping people realize where they actually sit,” he said, “because the whole world is really still trying to figure it out. The fact that less than 1% of people are paying for AI today clearly shows that the literacy rate has to continue to increase.”

White said this of executive leadership in describing how he wants to put people at ease:

“Of course, they have a responsibility, and they know their responsibility, so they're trying to step into their responsibility, but just letting them understand it's going to be okay, it's not the end of the world,” he said.

“We are building the industry council, we are on-boarding industry partners,” Ruan said, describing a new project on risk, and also mentioning the need for broad involvement. “Civil participation is one of the dimensions of human flourishing.”

So that’s a little bit about how we can promote the common good today. Let’s not forget that imperative.