Introduction

So my presentation is about what kind of future do we want with AI.

The question has already been raised, like things can go wrong, LMs are not always right, they're often wrong.

And there is so much happening. I work in the digital sector, like events are really accumulating.

About the Speaker

So about me, I'm a UX designer, I design interfaces.

From UX to Societal Impact

interfaces and as AI is changing so much and so much is happening in the digital landscape I also became interested like usually I would study the relationship of users with technology and now that technology is changing so much I also became interested in what AI or technology in general

Policy and Civic Engagement

does at a societal scale so I also became active as a policy shaper for Volt Europa Europa.

You may know it as a political party here, but it's also a pan -European movement where we try to enhance innovation, take down like bureaucracy, help our continent innovate, but within democratic boundaries.

A Brief History of AI and Tech Optimism

So first, let's zoom out a little. look at their context from like a bit of a bit of a distance we're talking about

We already had like the origins of how Richard started using tech I think it's always helpful to to

Origins and Early Optimism

AI a lot but actually I found it very interesting to know that AI was like artificial intelligence the worst word was first being used in the 1950s it was a time of the Cold War so not the most delighted times with true threats but but yet people were very optimistic about what technology could bring.

Shifting Sentiments Today

Right now, we're not in easy times either. I don't know if we're still as optimistic about what technology can bring us.

The PC and Internet Eras

Then, of course, there's also the arrival of the personal computer internet when people really start using technology at home, which was unimaginable before that.

Generative AI and the AGI Question

And, of course, we're now in a phase that generative AI is becoming like omnipresent and we always have this question will we reach AGI so that's artificial general intelligence will computers get conscious at some point out of curiosity

who of you believes that at some points computers will become conscious and take off off.

It depends on how you define consciousness, of course. That's true.

Lessons From the Internet Boom

So, if we go back to this internet bubble, I think it's interesting, like, what is interesting about our period is that we have lots of expectations, which was also the case when internet first arrived in our houses.

So, when we first could connect to the internet in the late 90s, I was like almost a student and I was experimenting with it myself as well.

Early Expectations vs Reality

People were excited that information would become so available to everyone and also everybody would have the capacity to publish information and would democratize society.

This was a real belief at the time. Now of course we know that there is a lot of disinformation.

Productivity, Power, and the Bubble

Yes we all have access but at the same time the web is also in the hands of a few very powerful companies like for clouds etc for infrastructure it increased productivity I can't imagine doing my work without

email for example but then we spend our days sending emails for example and of course there was also a bubble but nonetheless there is a value that has been proven over time because we still obviously use the Internet so much then

Competing Narratives About AI

Then if we take the expectations of today, and this is just by me following people on LinkedIn, newsletters, reading books about AI and what to expect of it.

Utopians vs Doomers

We have the AI antichasts that say AI will solve humanity. It can really solve problems that we couldn't have before.

We have the AI doomers as well, that AI will take our jobs, destroy democracy and make humans irrelevant. relevant.

What actually these two have in common is that they attribute a lot of power to AI, right? Because it will highly influence society.

Skeptics and Pragmatists

Then of course there are the people that are more skeptic.

It's the typical post like, vibe coding doesn't work, I spend more time debugging it afterwards, what I see a lot of on LinkedIn currently.

And there are

the optimists say, okay, AI will be useful, but it's made for humans, and we will always be relevant.

Early Signals: Promise and Peril

So I think, again, we've seen the arrival of Gen AI, we have like more information about how it's getting used, we've seen some first tendencies that are very positive, but also some things we we can worry about.

So I'm just going to go through them very quickly here.

There has

Reliance and Cognitive Offloading

been a very relevant study by the MIT on how our brains react to using JetGBT for making essays.

And what happens a lot is that people tend to rely on these chatbots. We basically become lazy.

And this is like a research done on essays, but I also read recently in the press an American guy who divorced from his wife because she wasn't able to provide a normal answer in a human -to -human discussion.

She would say like, ah, my son is angry with me. I'll ask chat GPT how to react. And this is really like relying more and more on these kind of technologies.

AI-Generated Content and Cultural Quality

Then there is, of course, the gen AI slop, whether it's videos on YouTube, music on Spotify, books written by AI sold on Amazon. The web is being flooded by AI -generated content.

What do we want with it? Is it relevant? What is the web even for?

Because it was for connecting people. Is it now just a stand -alone thing?

Copyright and Creative Economies

And very related to that, copyright infringement, because Gen AI learns from real human -created content.

How can we keep our society, like, how can we keep a place for creative people? Can they still make their money by the content they create? Very relevant question as well.

Environmental Costs and Market Bubbles

Of course, there's also the environmental impact of AI, and we're currently talking about a bubble that may burst.

so how do we want this to continue so if we look back about like these to these

Futures: Dystopia vs Utopia

different visions of how people considered AI I think there is like either the utopian vision and the kind of the doom vision and if we look into

Concentration of Power and Techno-Feudalism

them what's what does it tell us so in one extreme AI takes over and that means power is concentrated among very few companies like it's kind of where we're heading it with big tech in which case we don't have a lot of choice in the AI

that we use is imposed and of course the value and productivity generated from it is in the hand of just a few people this would mean it's kind of what people call techno feudalism a new kind of disempowerment people are talking in this scenario about

monoculture and human labor no longer being useful so basically human relevance is kind of gone and I am even reading like extinction of humanity which sounds very dramatic and if you think like

it's some kind of NGO talking about that remember that even a while ago Elon Musk was was scared about AI as well and actually asking to stop developing AI for six months to put a pause so we could think more about the consequences.

Automation Utopia and Human Flourishing

Then on the other hand, there is the utopian vision. Humans are set free. It's really our dream, right?

It's like we use technology, it's useful for us so we can have a better life. so imagine AI doing all the hard work and we get like all the power we get the

free time because AI does our work in that case power and wealth are redistributed we work less or we don't work at all we would need a universal basic income and we could concentrate more on things that give meaning to to

our society now obviously this needs a lot of governments right it's very far from what our society is currently like but nonetheless I think it's worth to think a bit more about what kind of relationship do we want with technology

Re-centering Technology to Serve Humans

we see that big tech companies they are raised like they're trying to win the race and it almost becomes like a goal as such but finally I think technology is there to serve us as humans.

So there is a debate like how can we change that? How can we not let technology get away with our own power?

Governance, Regulation, and the Middle Path

There is this belief

Why Rules Don’t Kill Innovation

that regulation hinders innovation, but if you think of it, nobody would think of bringing cars to the market without any safety restrictions, right?

And it doesn't mean we can't sell cars just because there is regulation so can we think of a way that is a bit

Designing for Choice, Agency, and Control

more something in the middle between the this utopia and this dystopia where humans are still needed humans use ai in their work we can have different models of power but nonetheless i think where it should be important that people can have a real choice about the technology that they use and it serves them and not the other way around.

Learning From Past Bubbles

And there is a Dutch tech guru who is a lot into government tech that says, like, even though the AI economy might collapse if there is a bubble, this does not invalidate that there are AI things that are truly astounding and remain so and will likely even get better.

So if we think back about the internet bubble, there were high expectations, the bubble burst, but still there was a value that really served us and our society.

Building Trustworthy AI Products

So, how should we go about that? I think there are many sides to it.

Value and Capabilities for Users

And if you create an AI product, of course, as a user, you want to know what can it do for me? I can delegate my Monday task. It can solve complex problems. It can predict several things I wouldn't know about.

Human-in-the-Loop and Agentic Systems

But equally important, because AI can already do a lot of that, but also can I trust it? And now that we're seeing more and more agentic products, which means like I delegate, but then that product also delegates to another agent, etc., etc., how can we be sure that the human remains in the loop and that we keep in control? Because obviously we don't want it to do anything that we wouldn't agree with as a human.

and for this kind of model because now our data is often given away we need to find think of that

Sustainable Business Models and Data Stewardship

financially how could such a product work financially could I imagine an AI agent that is for me I pay it but I completely trust it what would that look like and I think it also helps to

Embedding Values and Long-Term Integrity

look at these kind of things from a like more philosophical kind of way because at the end what is tech created for and how can I can you apply values at your product and make sure that it works over time and doesn't end like as an addictive thing or something that

will lie to you or something that you will distrust in the end so to kind of conclude I think we live

Bridging Tech and Policy

in a complicated, fragmented society where tech people, policy makers, etc. live in very different realities and I think it's really interesting to analyse what's happening from an interdisciplinary approach.

Mutual Understanding and Collaboration

And as I work in the tech sector and also I see the policy policymaker side I think there is really a need to understand each other like in one of our MEPs of Vault Europa he's currently doing a tour with startups to understand what actually startups need

but also the other way around when you create a business what actually is the impact it will have on society and I think the more we get out of our bubble and think from different perspectives the more we're able to find maybe new models.

Conclusion

So yeah, that's it. Thank you very much.