Introduction: A Human in the AI World

Hi everyone, so I'm Shaji, and I live here in Geneva, and I am one of the very few people who is not technical, but is in the AI field.

So I feel like I am an interloper, because I don't really belong in the field of AI, yet I've somehow usurped myself into the field. field.

Mostly because I feel that the field of AI needs more humans. Needs a little bit of a humanity edge to it.

Anyone else think that's maybe true? Yeah? Fantastic, you're my people then.

Why Swiss AI Academy Exists

So I formed a not -for -profit that I called Swiss AI Academy. And I called the Swiss AI Academy because I have a deep -rooted appreciation for education.

A Personal Story: School, Neurodivergence, and Finding a Path

Not that I myself did good in education, because I did terrible. I changed schools more often than I changed clothes, mostly because I figured out only after the

the fact that I was what they call now in Switzerland, hypo or hyper or HP or whatever, which was a fantastic, you know, cause it was like, yes, I was too smart for school.

But back then it was terrible cause I was pretty much written off, right? It was, I had to change school because I, it was either that or get expelled.

So my mother would just wait till the last moment till the principal said, kick him out, to change schools.

And not only change schools, as I was telling Nancy, I was actually in the UK for a while, so she thought, let's change countries.

And then after that, she said, well, you know what? UK is too strict, well, let's go to California. So she sent me to the States. She said, it might be easier.

In fact, actually, I went to high school in the US and it was a little bit easier in California

to be honest so I being neurodivergent is how we call me now I then struggled right and it became a thing for me when I figured out how to compensate and how to become part force myself to figure out how to be part of the society to To then figure out, well, okay, how do I need to operate and be relatively normal.

How Generative AI Changed My Work and Life

To then, when I discovered AI, Reggie's right, AI has been around since the 60s, so AI is nothing new. AI has been around.

What's new is the chat element of AI, where it moved from the domain of engineers and and machine learning to us via LLMs and ChatGPT. And when that happened, it changed my life.

It literally changed my life. My productivity at work has exploded. Not only that, I am doing like six things at one time now.

because my ADHD what it used to do was it take me down to a rabbit hole and then just before breakthrough I would stop because I got bored or distracted squirrel okay that was literally me anyone seen the movie up you know that dog that that was me I still me by the way and with the the power of AI what was happening was I was going down that rabbit hole with chat GPT and then I could come back to it and my thinking was all there so I could pick it up and run with it again

so now my emails are done my project is done I just got a paper published on IEEE which is mind -boggling me did a publish I am I just finished a billion dollar project at work I work for Procter & Gamble, by the way. I run the European Division for Digital Transformation, which is pretty cool.

And so I find that AI has changed my life, and I believe that AI is the answer for us and for humanity. And I fundamentally believe that AI has the power to uplift all of us. AI can uplift humanity and I do believe it is the answer to our future

Humanity at a Crossroads

I gave a talk at Davos World Economic Forum Davos in January and I presented

humanity is at a crossroads I presented that humanity can go so first

we have walked ourselves into idiocracy anyone seen Idiocracy the movie? I knew you would have you would like to tell us what it would you like to tell us what the democracy the movies about it's about a near future where basically

the the main theory is that intelligent people do not reproduce enough and dumb people reproduce a lot like rabbits and in 500 years a guy from the 20th century is frozen and get at that period of time and he was the average guy and becomes the super intelligent guy around him and the story of the movie is very nice but the movie is very bad but the story is very is very nice just like any true cult classic the movie itself is shit

uh sorry can i say shit you can say whatever you want all right so the movie itself is rubbish but the story is great

so we have walked ourselves into idiocracy and what do I mean by that is we have so chat GPT hi come on in hi hello hi so

Cognitive Offloading and “Brain Rot”

has anyone heard the concept of cognitive offloading, otherwise known as brain rot. Yeah, yeah, we know what brain rot is, right?

Anyone here have kids? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know what brain rot is, right?

So, what happens with, when we use ChatGPT or Claude or heaven forbid, Grok, right? What happens is when we use it enough, enough, we end up giving our thinking powers to it.

We surrender our critical thinking. And when we do that, that's called, in scientific terms, cognitive offloading. In essence, we

have what's called the prefrontal cortex, which is the front little part of our brain. So we've got a brain here, right? So we've got a brain here. So we've got the front,

the left row and the right row and I'm not a brain scientist as you can see right but that somewhere in the front we've got a prefrontal cortex which actually develops as we grow older and that's where the logical part of her brain comes in and it really starts kicking into gear around 12 13 because

you know the 10 year olds are not really about all about logic and then it continues to grow as we grow older and back in the day a few years ago they It used to say that it stops growing when you're on 20, 25.

Now we say you can actually manage and control it into your 60s, which is great news.

If you're using chat GPT or any of these LLMs and you're not practicing creative thinking or critical thinking, and you're not thinking for yourself anymore,

just like any muscle, your prefrontal cortex starts shrinking.

A Simple Analogy: Use It or Lose It

Couple of Aprils ago, I injured my elbow. I couldn't move it, so I had to immobilize it, right? So just for a couple of weeks, that's it.

And by the time I got done and removed it, I could not open my elbow anymore. Just couple of weeks of not using it was enough that my muscle said, it went into atrophy, right?

Just couple of weeks, and then I had to go to physio to teach myself how to move it again. It's the same thing on your brains.

three weeks three weeks is all it takes for you to start losing your cognitive ability three weeks chat GPT is three years old already the people that we're hiring well I can't say that but people that are coming out of University and and being hired are already suffering from brain rot. Our youth are already infected, right?

From Concern to Mission: What We Need to Do

And this is where my, that is the mission of my not -for -profit is how do we address that at an individual level, at a organization level, and at a community level.

and this is what we need to do this is what we need to somehow bring attention and the conversations need to happen

and this is part of why when Reggie said hey you want to come give a talk I said yeah because this is the conversation that needs to happen even though we're not in Zurich

and shame on Reggie for keeping on to comparing Geneva to Zurich I go there with a piece. Right? Geneva represent.

I do. They love me there. I became a citizen of Geneva before I became a citizen of Switzerland. Thank you very much.

But this is really the conversation we need to have.

Why Geneva (and Switzerland) Matter in the AI Conversation

And in fact, as most of you probably know, the Global AI Summit is coming to Geneva, right?

And I have been petitioning the people that are organizing it to make human centricity the topic. In fact, my pitch was Geneva Convention 2 .0, the new human rights in the age of AI.

Didn't like it so much. But that was my pitch nonetheless. So that is who I am. That is what my passion is. That is what I talk about and do.

I am, in fact, going back to Davos for another SME talk in June. I am quite excited to say that I've been invited to TEDxBerlin in June as well, which I'm doing. So the whole point and the whole idea is to spread the word and spread the mission. And I'm involved in a couple of initiatives at a global level to do the same.

A New Hypothesis: AI Could Push Us Back Toward Human Connection

but today what I thought I could do with this lovely group here is have a conversation that I have been having lately with some thought leaders in fact the conversation I had with an MIT professor two or three days ago and it was it was a post she did which then I asked her about and I had a conversation

conversation over the phone, not a phone, Google Meet, that's how old I am, I say phone, with her and what I said was AI is going to force us to connect with people, to take us back the way we connected with people right back to the beginning of human evolution. Conversations and storytelling.

So the tag language I'm quite proud of is that we're going to have to connect the very same way that we connected like before, but never like the same way as before. I need to wordsmith it. But something like that, right? Right.

And that's what I want to talk a little bit about with you and sort of suss it out, because that's going to be my next paper that I want to get published.

What Does It Mean for Humans to Flourish?

So I want to I want to talk to you about that a little bit is first to say is I started off by saying that humanity is going to get uplifted by AI. So what people call that is flourishing. Right. Humanity is going to flourish with AI.

what do we can can can anyone shout out or please people shout out what do we mean you think by when we say flourish what comes to your mind I'm there's some words here but what some of the things when we say flourish what does that mean to you improving to grow spread around the world positive way fulfilled be Be better off.

These are fantastic. What else? Innovation and knowledge. Innovation and knowledge, love it.

What else? Development. Development, brilliant, brilliant.

Efficiency. Added knowledge as well. Added knowledge, love it.

Efficiency. Efficiency, abundance, love it, good. What else?

Peace. Peace, good. What else?

Bloom. Bloom, bloom, tell me more. What do you mean by bloom? Open up.

Open, like a flower. Bloom, amazing, flourish like a flower. Good, what else?

Exploration. Exploration. Learn, brilliant.

Open mind. Open -mindedness.

Wow, I thought they were gonna max out a long time ago. Dude. I'm stunned.

I was like, wow, this is still coming to me. We're talking about flourishing, man. Let them flourish. I'm not letting it happen.

I'm seeing it. Well, you just stopped it. So much, right? Flourishing.

And that's part of it, right? What does it mean for humans to flourish? And there's so much positivity. There's so much we can do and so much we want to do.

and the way we define flourishing is up to each and every individual one of us

Can We Standardize “Flourishing”? The IEEE Effort

right so I sit on a in a in a committee does anyone know what I Triple E is you You do? Yeah, I have no idea what it stands for either, right? But it's an, sorry, yeah, it's an engineering, so,

yeah, so it is, in essence, in essence, it is a technical body which writes the standards standards for the world on technical stuff, right? It's an engineering technical body.

And it has decided that it is going to write the technical standards for what human flourishing in the age of technology means. Right?

Well, I think that's amazing. but no one knows how the hell to do that right but someone's got to start right so I found myself by the way on that initiative and and and I am

involved in the education element of that specifically and how to define human flourishing is something that is so individual, right? We can't really know how to define flourishing for you.

But when we talk about humanity flourishing, we can, right? We just did.

One of the elements of that, though, which we didn't touch, and I heard no one really message, with the exception of Bloom, which was adjacent. And I tried to suggest it vehemently in this picture.

No Flourishing Without the Planet

Can humanity flourish without its planet? Not yet. There is no planet B.

Someone I respect very much said to me, everyone's talking about Mars, right? But have you checked the weather on Mars? That's a great point, right?

Have you checked the weather on Mars? So when we talk about human flourishing, we need to talk about our environment and our ecosystem.

I'm trying to figure out the address here. I'm sorry, it's seriously through the pizza. I'm trying to figure out what's the address on this side.

N 'est -ce qu 'il y a? N 'est -ce qu 'il y a? Trois -neuf -quatre. Apparently it doesn't work.

I'm trying to figure that out. Sorry. your problems too no no no

I'm happy to stop for pizza man another important question real quick

sorry does someone here have gluten that has gluten intolerance

I had this yesterday so I'm asking celiac or something like that one

and I will do it I ask I ask

did you drink my water no if you get you some would you

yeah I will thank you sir thank you sir

do the pizzas first priorities so

when we talk about flourishing we need to think about not only us flourishing

as humans we need to think about the whole system right

because the system is what sustains us right

we could I mean we could be flourishing but do we really want to be flourishing

inside a bomb shelter underneath the ground I mean sure but if we have to

has anyone seen the movie the TV show Paradise it is a great show right

are they flourishing I mean the president his big idea was

let's turn this temperature up to get more summer right I mean

and they said no because we don't have enough power I'm not ruining it for you

have you seen season 2 All right, you've done it? Okay, good. I'm not ruining for you.

A Working Definition: Human + Environment, with Tech as Enabler

So that's not flourishing, right? So the way to think about technology and flourishing is the balance between human and environment with technology as an enabler, right? At least that's the way I define flourishing.

But at an individual level, you get to define flourishing for you. Is that something that we can agree on? Anyone say, no, I don't agree with that?

I'm happy. I mean, it's completely fine. That's why we're having a conversation.

It's more complex than that. Oh, for sure. By far. Oh, absolutely.

It's very hard to say whether it's going to turn the right way. So what I was... As you said earlier, your life changed when you discovered the AI. It's the same for me.

I think it's very, very hard to really say in which direction it's going. Very good point. What you say, your story is nice, but to be honest, I'm not so convinced of that.

I'm just looking at things as they come and discovering things. It is very true, sir. and I could not agree with you more.

What I, what I, didn't continue my story, but, so let me just take a step back. So when I said it's... You lost me, huh?

Two Futures: Terminator vs. Star Trek

No, no. So when I, so what, the talk that I gave at Davos, so when I said we stepped into the idiocracy, what I meant, was talking about was that with,

thanks to cognitive offloading and brain rot, we have created a generation of drones, right? where we're not able to critical think.

So we have a lot of people, and not just the younger generation, a lot of older people.

Anyone see AI slop? Just rubbish content? And that is AI slop because we can't think for ourselves

or we just accept what AI gives us without checking it. So what I say is,

humanity is at a crossroads. We are in idiocracy already.

left is Terminator left is Terminator Terminator is where we go into super intelligence which is a AI run super intelligence where we have given our agency our control our autonomy to a AI run intelligence that is a possibility right and that is a possibility well worth thinking about and that's exactly where I started that's exactly what got me

into this work to say you know what you know what Mark Zuckerberg said there's two quotes I'll give you one quote is Mark Zuckerberg said give me your credit card and I'll take care of everything else right and the second thing Sam said in 2019 was he said the relationship between AI and humans is going to be like humans and animals.

Humans love animals. We take care of it. Sometimes we even prefer animals over other humans, right? But when humans need to make a road between two different cities, we don't ask animals for permissions. We just do it.

And that's how it's going to be between humans and animals if ai needs to make something between two cities ai is not going to ask for permission and for me that is unacceptable so the left road is terminated agi what i'm doing what i'm trying to

do is with conversations like these is to say you know what we do have another possibility let's think about star trek anyone here seen star trek right now star trek is not about space travel though i would love space travel but star trek to me is not about space travel star trek to me is about us having used technology to uplift ourselves to get over the petty differences and elevate ourselves to use it to our advantage is that a possibility I say yes that is human flourishing that is this picture is it a possibility maybe whose choice is it I submit it's our choice is it within our control is it within our control

the first whoever will reach the super intelligence they will always be ahead of others agree and this the human greed factor will not permit that i'm afraid do you think do you think henry ford was greedy yes you don't think henry ford was greedy when he created the car i don't think he was he was he was ambitious but not greedy okay do you think um when the first computers came out were Were the inventors greedy? When the internet first came out, were they greedy?

When - Because it wasn't monetized till later stages, the internet. First, it was just exchange of information, it was good for exchange of information. But later on, the money factor came. But at some point -

Here, we are starting already the AI race, the money, the big billions and trillions are involved. That's true. So the greed is here. Absolutely.

And that's the factor which is going to balance the terminator and I'm afraid. That's absolutely 100 % true.

The Real Tension: Innovation Outpacing Adoption and Governance

So the point here is, so one, agree, and that's exactly my fear, right? So the problem that we have, to articulate it slightly differently, is that innovation Conservation is outpacing adoption, or adoption, excuse me.

So when we think about natural gas, so right now we have thousands of cubic feet of explosive gas underneath our feet, right? Gas, that combustible gas that we use to heat our buildings, thousands of cubic feet, but we're not concerned. Why is that?

When the first steam engine came out, how many people died when the first when when tesla first started experimenting when einstein first started experimenting how many people died when the machines first started how many people died tons look sorry you're talking about a problem that is orders of magnitude greater than any of those scenarios and accelerating at a pace yes that outstrips anything that has

occurred before yes yes yes yes so so the the probability of the current Industrial Revolution which is occurring right now yes steamrolling over the majority of people is much higher than it has ever been before so so they are so in the bionic revolution in which we are now the answer is we just don't don't do anything, so we just give up.

But you seem to be implying that the outcome is in the hands of everybody in this room, and I would suggest that it's not. I agree. I have a simple question.

How do you place Elon Musk and his program in this? Because we have transhumanism. we do have the technology to convert people to some hybrid and they will have no control on the brain and their physical body so there is a I would say

there are benefits yes but there are risks and we have actually today no monitoring of these risks and who will channel these people who will say where

How far we go, and I agree with you, when we see the way this, I would say, events are running in the world today, the people are no longer in control. I mean, the people, the humans, everybody, and a few people decide for us. So, how do you put this in perspective with your picture?

Because Terminator is an extreme. Yes. But we have transhumanism, which is existing today. Yeah.

Techno-Optimism Without Naivety

So let me try and bundle all of this together, right? I am an optimist, a techno -optimist, right? I have to be. I have two young kids at home, right?

I started off with this in this journey to say we're fucked. Quite honestly, we're fucked. Humanity is not at a crossroads, humanity is at the razor's edge, we've looked over and we've gone over.

To then when I started having conversations with amazing people who are fighting back. The ugly seven are the ugly seven, right? We call them magnificent seven, but I choose to call them the ugly seven. We don't have viable alternatives to the ugly seven today.

day but sir I submit there is a momentum working the other way who would have thought until last year we would have rules in Spain that are against meta in Switzerland against social sorry in Australia against social media right that is awareness that is being created to say hey listen

listen, you know what? I am not happy with this kind of reality, right?

Social media was supposed to bring us together, but now we have a reality of people being isolated by the very technology that was supposed to bring us together.

I am not naive enough to say that us individually can somehow turn back the time. The AI genie is out of the bottle.

In fact, I don't want to take put AI back in the bottle because I believe in the power of AI. It has changed my life. I want to leverage AI and improve everyone's life, but it needs to be governed the right way.

A Practical Policy Frame: Treat AI Like a Public Utility

The reason why I brought up the analogy of the gas, the natural gas, is our petition to the government, especially the Swiss government, is to say the way that AI needs to be looked at is it needs to be looked at as a service. Electricity, water, gas, AI.

Why not? Right? I don't know if it can be done, but we need to start. I take no issue with that statement entirely.

Are we going to be able to catch up with the money being spent and the centralization of control that AI enables in time to slow its, not its progress, but its monopolization of thought? That's a real problem. I don't know unless we try.

I have a part of the answer to that question. You mentioned the seven ... Ugly seven. As you wish.

Alternatives to the “Ugly Seven”: Open Models and Sovereign AI

But on the other side, in China, for example, they adopted the open license model because they don't have the capital or the people that are willing to go to China to work for for them and therefore they have a huge workforce that works on the worldwide level to compete with that kind of people.

We can argue it's China, okay, whatever, but there are some opportunities. That's how they also make ... Every month we hear about China - A new model.

A new model that is outpacing some models from the big seven. So there are some solutions. Maybe it's not the best, but...

Have you heard of Aperitus? Who here knows Aperitus? Right?

So Aperitus is not a great model. Right? Aperitus is the Swiss sovereign AI. It's an open source model that is created,

which is GPDR compliant. compliant. It is based on transparency and sustainability and is trying to be a sovereign

AI, meaning that it is built with the idea that it is going to be unbiased and open. I love the concept. The problem is that it's shit, right?

I spoke to some of the people that work on Apparatus and I said, listen, we can't do what DeepSeek did and we don't have the money for ChatGPT.

But DeepSeq was $15 million and ChatGPT is $15 trillion. Can we not find some way to do it in the middle?

And if we do that, can we not create a viable alternative to the commercial entities, right? The thing is,

my whole take on this is I am not a technical guy. I'm not a visionary guy. What I want to do is

I want to say, listen, Listen, I don't know who's having these conversations, but we need to have these conversations, and we need to start down this road. And every time I connect with and I find people who are significantly smarter and much better, but more articulate than me, and when I talk to them, they say, yes, Shaji, don't worry about it.

We're doing this, we're doing this, we're doing this, we're doing this. and the message of hope that I bring to you is to say the doomsday clock for me has gone back a one second than where it was for me in January.

I started down this path that I am now January 2025 when I went to Davos for the first time and my mind was blown to say that we are a knife's edge.

When I went back to Davos again in 2026, I turned the clock. I was ready to turn it forward. But then now I am happy to say that I do feel with the work and the exposure

that I have is that I feel that I can take it back one more second. Only in the AI, but with everything else that's happening in the geopolitical world right now, I feel slightly different. but when it comes to the world of AI I think there is momentum right the

regulation the problem in the u .s. is regulation well regulation just doesn't exist right the idea of regulation does not exist the problem in Europe is the

The EU AI Act? It does not exist. Innovation does not exist. One, innovation doesn't exist.

Second... Because there's too much regulation. There's too much regulation. Inventing, merging...

And whatever regulation there is, is already out of date. It doesn't work, right?

A Swiss Path Forward

However, Switzerland... Switzerland is a little gold nugget, right? Switzerland is not signed up to the EU AI Act, right? right? Switzerland has a reputation for being neutral. Switzerland has a lot of money.

Switzerland is an innovation powerhouse. In fact, it's the top three, top one or two or three in Europe when it comes to AI.

Switzerland is a very reason that I am based in Switzerland where we are Swiss AI Academy is we believe fundamentally Switzerland can lead the way in this conversation. And the The fact that AI is coming home, the Global AI Summit is coming home, is a huge deal. This is why we believe that we can drive the conversation towards human centricity and looking at it this way because Geneva is the right place to have that conversation.

Start the Conversation—Then Act (Including a Referendum)

We don't know how far the conversation is going to go, but I do fundamentally believe that people like you in this room can force other people to have the conversation. And that's the only thing we ask for, is have this conversation, right? And, by the way, when the time comes for a referendum,

because May 27 is when we plan for a referendum, when that comes, find people to do the signature, right? Because if we are to take control, and if we are to direct how this goes, then Switzerland is the one place we can actually manifest that to happen.

what's the referendum exactly about more to come on that yes because i mean we have the rationalist mind which is behind all this ai development and these guys have a different mentality so they are are, how they call it, kind of efficient, I don't know what, so they calculate, everything is based on data, statistics, and how can we fight against human centricity? Because fundamentally they're humans also, right?

Yeah, but it's an ideology, and they are all from that same rationalist mindset. so I asked I once asked an engineer at ETH I asked are you responsible for how your technology is used and he said no right so if I if I make a if I make something and someone else uses it as a weapon it's not my fault and his friend

who sat right next to him said what the fuck's wrong with you who was also an engineer and they work together in the same team so just because you know one person and one person is that way it doesn't mean the other person is not the same way what I'm saying is we have to have the conversation and spread the word.

And for me, when I started this, I found one people, two people, three people, and today I'm having this conversation with 20 people, 30 people, right? And then another 20 people, another 30 people. And now I'm collaborating with MIT professors, University of Leeds.

I'm speaking with the California Teacher of the Year 2024 and we're all saying the same thing so that teacher is now teaching a class in California with using my book right so we are affecting change one by one by one by one right and I don't know if it's going to be fast enough and I don't know if it's if the tidal wave is going to be big enough.

And I don't know if we're going to end up in an underground bunker like paradise, yes or no. But what I do know is be ashamed to die without having won some victory for mankind. It's a quote from Horace Mann.

And that was the quote that I heard Neil deGrasse Tyson say on a radio when I was driving. And that is what stuck with me and that is what drove me to this mission And that's how I started. And that is what brings me here today. And what I'd like to do is I'd like to end with just sharing this last slide.

Community in Action: Global AI Day in Geneva

Our friend Reggie is going to be speaking at an event on May the 7th, which is Global AI Day, which is an event that my not -for -profit is hosting. It is a full -day event in Nation. It's a free event for the community. And it is all around how AI is actually already helping humanity.

So real use cases where people are using AI in healthcare, people are using AI in coaching, people are using AI in many different ways.

In the morning, we have a panel of fantastic women, all women talking about women in tech and AI. It's going to be a bilingual event, so it is meant for the community. So English and French.

In the afternoon, we have two vibe coders, women, who are going to show how they use their created their own apps to help improve their lives at home and at work. And like I said, Reggie is going to be there. if anyone wants to join that's the QR code please sign up and I will be there

full day will end up end with an apparel and we'll start at 1030 unfortunately there's no pizza because we don't we don't have a sponsor but I don't know how much more time we have right I keep going I'm more than happy to keep going man.

Is this my water? What's your question? It was still there. Oh.

Yeah, that's yours. I didn't touch it. Oh, I'm sorry, man. Thank you, sir.

Sorry. My apologies.

Q&A: Responsible Innovation, Regulation, and Risk

So we've been going through this role of saying why babies might be becoming the doomsday exterminator. I don't even think exterminator is the worst scenario. I think AI would be smart enough to create a prison that we wouldn't be aware. That's even worse because if we said exterminator, there's a resilience against it.

So I'm on that side, but I do have to pull up the critical questions, but by doing this, aren't we stopping something better? Couldn't we be doing something, for example, when we go to Thomas Edison and say, hey, slow down the lab because we're not comfortable about this.

Aren't we saying, all of those examples that you gave, hey, Mr. Ford, slow down a bit because you're not comfortable. Aren't we, by doing this world as you were suggesting, potentially in doing that?

Yes. And so, I just want to, you know, turn the page, like, we are going the same, I think we're all going the same direction in this discussion, but if I say that, like, why shouldn't we, like, imitate it more?

That's, that's, that's a very good, that's fantastic, thank you very much for saying that. So, we don't, we should not stop innovation, right? But what we should have is we should have responsible innovation.

We should understand what is the impact of innovation before we do the next innovation. But we were never able to do that, not with electric, not even with any technology.

It would be the same as to go to, hey, before we invent the lamp, let's just figure out what the impact of that lamp will be in the far future and then take a decision. We could never figure it out.

See, just building on what the gentleman was saying is is one of the things we need to consider is the blast radius so the so the nuclear energy was great yeah and someone made a bomb out of it

I'm trying to figure out here like because there's no way we're going to be able to predict the consequences of our future no just no way so are we by by trying to regulate it too much or at least enough, aren't we kind of stopping it?

Would be the same as I said in the example. So at one point, I started off by saying, listen, I don't care the how. I just want to be sure the what, for example.

I said, I don't care what your engine looks like. Just don't make porn. So that was the point, to say that the how is controlled. told, don't do this, don't do this, don't do that, and then whatever the engine is doing

doesn't matter. But I don't think that is sufficient anymore. So the three rules of robotics, do no harm, whatever, is not sufficient because it's just not enough.

The analogy that I think about is when I do digital transformation at work, for example, there's 10 things I can fix. sometimes though if I fix something it costs you more than the return I get so I don't fix it other times when I fix something it has a negative impact on other parts of the system so I don't

fix it so if I fix something it should have a total net positive impact to the total system right even if it hurts one other part of the system that's okay so so long as there's a total net positive. Can I say that with anything that comes out with an AI?

I don't know, right? And until I have some level of control, I don't know the answer to that question. So I feel uncomfortable with letting it go out for free, run free, right?

So there needs to be some level of control in which innovation is still allowed within some sort of a sandbox, but it should not be allowed to run free where it continuously impacts the community or there's the total system around it how and what that framework looks like I

don't know right but I personally think as a human as part of society that that should be something that we should do That's also how innovation works.

To put it in the sandbox, you get rid of all the next innovation coming from that innovation. If you get the innovation to different groups, to different countries, different areas, you will have different usage in terms of sector,

in terms of application, and innovation brings innovation. If you put it in the sandbox, you will have not that kind of good effect, even if there is some bad effects like the nuclear bomb or whatever. But we also have the nuclear power plant as well.

And the bombs came out before the power plant. Yeah.

So I want to challenge something in that discussion. Because originally when the idea that we had was that the question that he led with is an open question to them. So in the end, it worked out pretty interestingly, because it triggered certain of you, and you asked certain questions, made comments that I think are really legitimate. But it also, for me, is very interesting as a contrast of culture when it comes to change.

Why These Meetups Matter: Rebuilding Public Voice

Because I have the pleasure of doing this in two different cities where we talk a lot about these cities. But one thing I can say is that certain environments and certain communities grasp the opportunities opportunities behind an innovation. In Geneva we're not like that.

We want to benefit from it. We do. We want to benefit from it. We want the upside. We want to lower the downside. We're risk averse but we're capitalists.

The reason I bring this up is because for the next 10 -15 minutes I'm very curious about something. There's a question I haven't found an answer since I started doing this event that I haven't found an answer for the Geneva crowd. I don't know why you people come to these events it's not really a joke it's not really a joke

I do this because I believe that no one likes debates anymore I have no opinions on AI I'm not skeptical I'm not optimistic I'm not cynical I'm not positive I just think that it's there

and that it's the one innovation I think I feel like all those generative AIs and all the other of them were the one thing that for once we didn't really have a choice to accept to exist. So for me, doing these events is a way of telling people, listen, it's there. People are using it. People will use it. People will build things for you with it. People will make you use it without you noticing it.

But then what is your take on it? And everyone tells me always the same thing. When they come here, they tell me, yeah, I'm just curious. and then I listen to your triggers and your comments and your questions you're not curious you just think that you don't have a say in this and then when we have a speaker like Saji who almost acts like CHPT in the sense that he hasn't answered all your comments and your questions it makes you feel like it's like okay well then there's an answer for it there's no answers to it

there's a conversation to be had because let me give you a very like a far -fetched example that you will understand. Not so long ago in this country, less than a hundred years ago, people in this room couldn't vote. Not so long ago, not so far from this country, funded by this country, I couldn't vote. I had no rights. And that's okay. People in this room didn't have rights.

And the same conversations that were happening in salons and in rooms around the world sparked change because Because even the powers that be, whatever it was related to, they couldn't overcome public outcry.

And my fear with AI is a lot of very smart people are used to not sharing their opinions because I think the biggest mistake, the biggest, the most, the biggest, I think, obstacle to where we are right now is that we're in the era of social media. And because we're in the era of social media and a lot of people are sharing their opinions and contents and things you don't want to hear, I think a lot of people that could make their voice heard are used to just saying, I turn it off, that's not my problem. But then by doing this, you're in an environment where there's noise that you don't commit to, you don't agree with, but you're saying, nah, that's not for me. But the conversation's being had, you're just not in it.

So I do these events for that specific reason. It's not necessarily for the speakers. speakers will say what they want to say. It's actually for the comments and the questions.

But what's great about this city is that down the line as much as we are all these things, I feel like we kind of lost our ability to say what we want to say. We'll say it to people that agree with us. If I feel like this guy agrees with me, I will say I agree with you. But I will not waste my breath with someone that I would agree with. And the Canadian, any American or Haitian in me will tell you that's bullshit.

Why is it bullshit? Because there's more value that comes from opposite thoughts than just leaving here with the same thought you had in the beginning, say, I didn't agree with this, and I walked away.

So the question is this. The question was the original question that you had. Can you bring me back to the first slide? We know in what world we are. Some of you have kids. So you will leave this world to your kids. You will leave this world to your kids. you're leaving this to us. It's going to happen regardless. So how? Like the original question was, and I think I have it here. The original question we were discussing is the following.

The Central Question: Can AI Bring Us Closer and Help Us Flourish?

It's does AI really have the power to bring us together closer and help humanity flourish?

I actually never got to say that question. I know, but that's why I'm getting to it. Because I'm just saying that was the whole point of this.

The whole point of this is maybe the answer is no but if it's no if you want to say no my only question to you is and that's the rule in this meetup you have to say why I don't care about no I don't care about yes I care about why so do you think at this age

AI can it's the goal of everyone producing technology first of all to be honest the role of anyone producing technology is to work less okay to be more productive they don't really care about the rest but then for the users do

Do you think it could bring us closer? You think it can help us flourish as humans, or not? That's the question.

So let's start simple. We're gonna start small, because I know I get it.

Who thinks that yes? Who believes that down the line, at the end of the game, AI can help us as humanity, can help humanity bring us closer, help us flourish as humans? Who believes that?

Can or will? Pick your word, pick your word. Either way, it's the positive side. I don't care if it can, will, might, should. I'll vote yes for can. But we're playing around here.

See, here's the thing. We're in the gray, we're in the gray, no. See, that's the kind of bullshit I'm trying to get. It's not against you.

It's not bullshit. It's not against you. It's semantics. At the end of the day.

It's not. At the end of the day. It's not. At the end of the day.

Can this gun protect you from somebody or will it? That is a pertinent distinction. The distinction does, but the point I was making just before for five minutes. There you go.

You got it. Okay, that's my part.

So, can or will, might, should, positive side, that's it. And I'm not trying to make it black or white, because I care about why I said it before. That's why I did, like, this message with it.

So, again, that side, positive, can, will, might, help humanity flourish. Who believes that or not? Interesting. Okay.

Now, because this is Geneva, I'm still going to go with it depends. So, who thinks it depends? No, no, because I'm used to this. Okay, that's perfect.

No, because that's the thing, that's the thing I've been saying. Who thinks it won't? Or can't? There's a negative.

Won't? Won't. Absolutely. Okay, so can or won't.

So who thinks it cannot or it's not possible, it won't bring us closer? Everyone here, it depends? Everyone here is optimistic? Okay, let's play with it.

I am not that optimistic. So why didn't you raise your hand? Now she is? No, because it was depends.

Depends is sometimes. Okay, so in the depends, now we can play with this.

Who is like less than 50 % positive about it? In the depends. People who said depends? Who are less than 50 %? Okay, good.

Who are more than 50 %? Interesting. Who's really 50 -50? This is quantitative. This is me doing quantitative research.

This gives me no insight on why, but it makes you have a position. It makes you kind of put a stance and make it in public.

Audience Perspectives: Why Some Say “Yes” (and Why Others Hesitate)

Now among those who said it can or will, why? So who said can or will? I'm sorry. Why? Who Who wants to share why?

I would like to say that I'm very grateful for this presentation because it's very much along the lines of how I feel about humanity. We are human, and we will always be human, in my opinion. No matter, even with what you're talking about,

I believe it will always win. And it's an opportunity. It's a tool. It's an opportunity.

I mean, our brains, we haven't even used the extent of our brains. Imagine what we can do with a tool like this. already all of us using chat GPT or whatever we use we've been able to save a lot of the administrative time that we've had in our work we now have more

free time to be creative to be able to to add new solutions to to build new things there's a lot of potential so I believe that we're always human my daughter she loves I mean she's she's in her 20s she has gone back to sending sending postcards, doing things that she won't necessarily be on her phone.

She'll get on the phone, and instead of chatting, she'll get on the phone to talk to someone, to hear them, or to go visit them. But I believe that our youth are hungry for getting back to the human side of things.

Also, there's a whole industry. You've heard of l 'école hôtelière, the hospitality industry. It's booming. there are these people who want to get back into contact client contact

relationship with people and people are ready to spend a lot of money for that they don't want to go and check into a hotel where they just never run into a person and and you know they don't they don't want that for human contact so

humanity in my opinion will always win but AI is an amazing tool to help us even become more human wow that's how i feel here here yes i think we can still go either way but i

think we're underestimating our ability to find solutions for the challenges that will come with ai so we're still at the very very beginning of this process we still are engaging with these technologies in a way that is more at a discoverability level. We have the

opportunity to really come together to think about solutions that are addressing the explainability of AI, how do knowledge graphs, how do different data frameworks come in to allow us to be able to detect if AI is maybe crossing a boundary that we choose or deem it not to be correct.

Then there's also the regulatory aspect. We're still experimenting with how much is too much, what do we need to regulate, what does it make sense for collectivist society to

really manage and create boundaries on. And then beyond that there's so many different registers and problems that we still have the possibility to intervene and to create solutions for so I do think that obviously there are many

risks associated with this but the possibility of us coming together to create solutions on the many tiers that will require us to intervene it's there and it's up for the taking so it's our opportunity to really look at it if it's even combating some of these more hegemonic tech companies

and big tech geese, then addressing what is the economic framework that is allowing for them to continue growing in the way that they're growing,

it's an opportunity for us to rise up to the analytical. Exactly. Perfect. Thank you.

I enjoy the optimism because I feel, that's my personal take, is that I feel like, as a human, we stopped congregating for good. Basically, we talk about ideologies.

We talk about all the ideologies that are the forces against, of anything, social media, this and that. But I always wondered, we did so many things in the last 50, 70, 80 years. It's like almost as if we peaked, and then all of a sudden,

it's like, oh, there's no more fights. There are. And I'm always very curious of people's ability to band together together and be like, okay, well then, you know, be that voice.

Be that voice. Like lead that voice. Lead the take.

I'm curious. I'm not saying cynical, but I'm curious. It gives me hope to hear this, because to be honest, most people, I felt like they were watching

on, hoping that someone else would do it. So, I don't know. Curious.

Just because you have a cynical perspective doesn't mean that you're not doing anything. You have to have a little bit of cynicism about it in order to feel like something needs to be done. I agree but then when you wait on for people to kind of like take

action. But who says that the cynics are waiting? I challenge it.

You know why I challenge it? It's because you watch on long enough right you bring people together okay that's my 12 years of my life okay you bring people together on topics the most people tell me those topics they would never work right and

then at the end of the day you realize it's just like you're like okay you do it and no I'm no different I'm like I'm everyone's man right but then you're like okay if I stop doing it then you just wonder it's like okay who's next because it's not so much it's not about giving your voice not just about it's

actually about kind of like bringing them together it's a comment of I need to see more people actually bring people together because it's not you people are all smart everything you said are well articulated eloquent it's not my issue they have thoughts they have opinions the reason I said I think social media

you'll get it in a way. But most people say it's like the mediums that exist to voice these things.

Also, it's like, no, no, no. Most of them will say, no, actually, I'm not on them. They're like, okay,

so where are you? Because they should hear these voices is what I'm saying. And it's the only reason

why I'm creating these platforms. I'm not speaking at these platforms. I'm essentially just telling people, you should be one of my speakers.

And the fact that you're even grinning at it, I'm like, you know why? Because you sound brilliant.

I don't even know what you do. I don't even need to know what you do to tell you you should be in front of a stage.

And to be honest, based on what we're talking about right now, you should take it upon yourself to be like, I should. Whatever it is, see, that's actually my point,

is that I challenge a lot, but because I feel like some people, they're in a crowd, and I'm like, I should not be on stage.

I should just be hosting it. I shouldn't have people, that there are thoughts that people don't think. Most people would say, oh, if you do these events,

you must be an A .I. aficionado, and then Tuesday. I am not. I want as many different thoughts as possible.

That's what makes this valuable. valuable. So yes, that's what I challenge. You should be on stage.

I should know you. People should tell me, hey, he should be on stage. And I think everyone, if I made a vote, people would be like, this guy should be on stage.

And this guy should be on stage too. No, no, right next to you, don't just sit there. But you also.

What I'm saying is, like, the platform is here for that. And one of the reasons I do mention it is because the hardest thing about this event is to find speakers.

So that's what I'm challenging. The hardest thing, and again, I'm not saying no. I didn't ask yet.

I didn't ask yet. I'm not putting you on the spot. What I'm saying is a fact. This is a community -curated event.

The goal is the voices, some people in this room are the speakers, some maybe I've kind of tricked them into it, it's hard. But the point is, it's because I like their way of thinking, I like the perspective they bring, and I want this to be a platform for that.

Most people are like, yeah, sure, I could do it, and then they disappear in the wilderness, which is fine. but this is where I challenge our ability to speak up at a moment where we feel like everyone else is speaking for us on the note I think this is the best

possible moment in humanity to like to speak your mind and to make it heard regardless of it in life online or wherever that's where the charge 12 years of my life I've seen people from all the way around being able to stand on stage in front of speakers a bit for the strangers being filmed not film

online, offline to share a thought that could impact someone else. That's the game. And that's the hardest part. Whenever I see these conversations, I'm like, damn,

bunch of smart people are gonna walk out, take some pizza, and then I'll never see them again. Just because, because.

Data, Power, and Regulation: Who Controls the Future?

Another cynical here. And the thing is not that we don't like AI. The thing is that there are so much things to do to protect people. actually, the regulation is not there, and it's invading our lives via social media, via everything.

We're putting a monstrous amount of data in there, and it's totally not controlled. And knowing, I could not help myself, but I have been reading books of Scott Alexander, for example, that have have this rationalist again I'm coming behavior and you find big names in there you find some elements you find some you go back you find some

big names that are behind the modern AI creation that has this mentality of of effective efficient altruism or something like that so so everything is It's based on rationality, on the calculation statistics. So basically, human being and feelings and so on doesn't count in their mentality.

And those are the people that are at the bottom, at the creation of the most powerful AI we are using today. And it's not regulated.

First, let me say a couple of things. So first, today, you're playing data donor, right? you're using chat GPT or whatever you want but you do have a choice to use open source models right so if you went to hugging face or some of the other

models you can use deep seek for example if you want it or use one of the other ones which are open source in which you are not data donor where you can even you can download something called LMS LLM studio and the whole thing runs on your computer the problem is it just becomes a little bit more difficult but

it's all free so you don't even have to don't you don't have to pay for it and the performance benchmarks almost as good as some of the other models but not as good right so that's that's the first thing second then even if you wanted to

give money to the big ones you know anthropic I personally like now I'm really annoyed with them right now because they have you up their usage things and they're making it difficult for me because I use it so much they're now taking more money but from a social responsibility point of view they seem

to be better than the other ones but at some point them too are going to bow down to the shareholders because they're ready to go public and they've just taken a huge chunk of money from Google right so at some point even they are not going to be the right option so we need to think we need to be aware of what are

the other options at the same time 100 % agree with you that the regulation is not there the control is not there we need to build that and work that and and and that is a point that is lacking and that is something that we are pushing governments to work on with IEEE as part of standards but also the work that we're doing

petitioning the Swiss government to start within Switzerland because they're not party to the EU AI Act so that means we can drive regulation within Switzerland then we hope that it becomes a leading light for the rest of Europe and the rest of the world afterwards right so we want to do what's within a sphere of control because if we if we focus on what's in a sphere of concern

concern, we will get paralyzed, right? So that's where we're trying to start.

What you spoke about before about the nuclear energy, right? So that's what I'm comparing, this new thing. You have from one side unlimited power, yes, nuclear energy, and on the other

side you have a few crazy nutcases hijacking the whole world with their access to nuclear I'm just afraid that the same thing will face the humanity within the very near future with the usage of AI. Even if AI doesn't become the super intelligence which we are thinking about, the terminator, let's leave this aside.

Some forces, some people, some greedy bastards, they're going to use this, not for the good of the humanity, but they're going to use it as we are seeing what's going on right now in Iran, in many places in the world. That's the issue.

The Nuclear Analogy: High Upside, High Misuse Potential

So I had a conversation with a gentleman called Dekai. Does anyone know Dekai? When you get story, I just want to finish with the idiocracy. I'm going to talk about The Man and Mice by Steinbeck.

That's the book. The Mice and Men. The Mice and Men. This is the beginning of the whole thing.

The well -laid plans of Mice and Men. I agree. So if you want to make God laugh, tell him you have a plan. Yes.

Right? So the conversation I had with Dekai, So, Dekai is one of the old school people in AI and technology.

And one of the things he said was, today, a 16 -year -old college student sitting in his underwear or 18 -year -old college student sitting in his underwear on a sofa can choose to either solve cold fusion or create nuclear bomb. He has the knowledge.

The only thing missing is the skill and desire. And that's partially your point.

that is the reality we face today indeed thanks to people like you who are foreseeing yeah and that's and that's exactly the conversation so at the event on May the 6th one of the people that's coming there is a negotiator ex negotiator at the WTO.

He has led trillion -dollar negotiations with governments, right? We're having high -level conversations with these people to influence the government, right?

Now I myself cannot affect change because I'm one person, but conversations like these and then you talk with your people and then you talk to some people and you know more people

Conclusion: Don’t Be Ashamed to Die Without a Victory for Mankind

people, like Reggie was saying, we have become, because we haven't gone through a crisis in a long time, we haven't gone through an existential crisis, us as people, in a long time. right the the the the civil rights movement in the 60s you know that's some of us some some might remember that like suffrage movement in those those things

that that Reggie was recalling I moved to the US when I was 17 for for college I left home. It was a tough environment. And I tried to make my own life.

And it wasn't easy in a different country, in a different world, all by myself. and I ended up 45 minutes away from a KKK headquarters and one of the first things I saw was a rally and I wanted to go see it

and people that I was with were like, what the fuck is wrong with you? I'm like, I don't know. I don't understand this, right?

And one of the things that I did before leaving was I actually filed a class action lawsuit against my university on racism right so I have a the the activist spirit and I bring that here to AI and I bring that to you to say that we have gotten comfortable right and I think I

think I'm not saying rise but I think the what I do say is I think the conversation is needed and with your kids with your family with your friends

it's important to talk about safe AI because that is super important cognitive offloading is a real thing it's a real danger and then after you've had that conversation talk to other people about how do we make sure that we make safe AI safe for everyone thank you very much for your time it's

been an absolute pleasure please connect with me on LinkedIn I'll be there for pizza, absolutely. I'm happy to have conversations, talk, answer any questions, and engage with any and everyone with you. Thank you so much.