Technical advances are moving at such a rapid pace that it can be challenging to define the tomorrow we’re working toward. In The Shape of Things to Come, Microsoft research leader Doug Burger and experts from across disciplines tease out the thorniest AI issues facing technologists, policymakers, business decision-makers, and other stakeholders today. The goal: to amplify the shared understanding needed to help ensure we can build a future in which the AI transition is a net positive.
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Transcript
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DOUG BURGER: AI is going to reshape the future. I don’t think there’s any question about that now. How we reshape it depends on the choices we make, and so it’s important to understand what we think those shapes are.
This is The Shape of Things to Come. I’m Doug Burger. I manage Microsoft Research’s worldwide labs, and I’m excited to introduce this new Microsoft Research Podcast series.
I called the podcast The Shape of Things to Come because as researchers, the problems that we choose to solve and the technologies that we develop do change the shape of the future.
It’s very hard to say whether we’re in an inflection point because I see the advancement of technology accelerating. But I don’t know what the inflection point is because all I’ve seen is a curve going up. And so I do think this technology at the rate that it’s accelerating—and I think it will continue to accelerate—it offers tremendous promise and potential for the human race. But there are also dangers, and this technology is coming so fast and advancing so fast, it’s very hard to see where it will go.
My goal for the series is for, you know, the people that choose to listen to come away more informed about where we think AI is headed, to have some of the myths dispelled, to have a deeper understanding of the stack and what’s on the cutting edge and where we think some of the unsolved problems are, and really thinking about what this explosion in intelligence means for humanity going forward.
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Artificial intelligence