Europe’s Festival of Transformational Tech and Impact AI hosted its October Leadership Summit based on “seizing the AI opportunity.”
Who Are CogX?
CogX have built their brand around one central question – “How do we get the next 10 years right?”
Their mission statement is “to convene the tech industry, global leaders, change-makers, creatives and policy makers. We do this through our Festivals and Summits, combining leading speakers, highly focused content sessions and executive connection. Often described as a ‘festival of ideas’ with the heart of a meet-up and the polish of Davos, CogX is an opportunity to immerse yourself in insightful new applications for transformational tech.”
In practical terms, their focus is on five main pillars of outreach and development: Inspirational Editorial, Executive Programmes, Expo and Awards, Premier Connection, and Research & Intelligence. These are rolled out across a trio of distinct platforms – the Cog X Festival, CogX Summit and CogX Awards, where each platform is designed to cater to diverse audiences within the technology and innovation sectors.
From intimate summits to some of the world’s largest arenas in LA and London, CogX has put on a series of spectacular events and built up an increasingly stimulating and engaged community over the last decade. Set to be their largest and most inclusive event yet, their 8th gathering brought together leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, policymakers, artists and academics, all committed to driving transformational change and collectively shaping the future. You can stay up-to-date on what’s happening in your area with CogX’s free weekly newsletters, or via the CogX App.
The CogX Leadership Summit
Hosted at the Royal Albert Hall, the CogX Summit London is a one day event created for teams to re-assess their strategies and ensure that they’re fully equipped to harness emerging potential. It featured 100+ world class speakers, 2 Editorial Main Stages, 10 breakout spaces and 30+ expert led salons facilitating a vibrant exchange of ideas and collaboration among 2,000+ senior level participants.
The agenda included key insights for businesses on generative AI and Deepfakes, talks on the future of work, start-up showcases, the latest tools for boosting growth and innovation, the ways in which AI applications might transform finance and Cybercrime, as well as discussions around whether AI itself might become conscious (“think dissolve not solve”), the ethical implications of creation and suffering, and what it means to be a Living System in an ever-evolving ecosystem.
As well as exploring AI for a greener planet and ethical and effective solutions to some of today’s largest challenges, the closing remarks were delivered by Emma Sinclair in conversation with former Apple Executive and Nest Founder, Tony Fadell – who recommended honing in on Artificial Specific Intelligence over General Intelligence, focusing on building smart and small without needing to raise sky high Silicon Valley figures, and effectively educating users; He further discussed the AI Inflection Point:
“Everybody’s been working on AI for five or six years, really intensely. And then all of a sudden, the ChatGPT moment happened and, boom, now everybody cares… Crises like the pandemic and the financial downturn provide a rich talent pool for the next generation of startups, ready to change the world again. These major macro disruptive events really help us re-galvanise, to figure out what we should be focusing on – instead of, you know, five minute delivery of a pack of gum.”
Testing Transformational Tech
From AI to Biotech, applications are as biased, beneficent and beneficial as the people and ecosystems implementing and adopting them. AI’s impressive successes have made it pervasive in society and this has caught the interest of industry and decision-makers, although little is acknowledged in the public eye about the essential theoretical foundations of its systems.
Standard machine learning requires lots of labelled training data and, once trained, has limited interaction with people. We are currently undergoing a paradigm shift away from this approach towards more interactive and intuitive ways of interfacing with machines, effectively resulting in AI co-pilots and co-workers; This will continue to present both losses and gains at individual and systemic levels over the coming years.
Discussing AI Ethics and scaling safeguards for industry, Sana Khareghani and her panel including Ray Eitel-Porter, Marhi Sheth, and Henry Ajder spoke of the need to provide appropriate regulation in both private and public spheres, with increasing collaboration and cross-talk between these sectors and their respective datasets (especially with regards to efficiency and democracy).
Adoption and co-evolution require experimentation and iteration, and its often during the refinement of these processes that good intentions expose the inevitable consequences of human error and unseen emergent properties. Low-risk applications are a good place to start, and while regulation has historically always lagged behind public safety, inappropriate (over)regulation lacking in contextual nuance further limits access – ensuring “the stability of the graveyard” alongside the proliferation of off-record or illegitimate use-cases.
Developments in Artificial Intelligence have the potential to be a key ingredient towards ameliorating global and social challenges such as climate change, global food security, or reducing inequalities. To avoid exacerbating these same issues, both neurological and artificial problem-solving and decision-making capabilities need to reconsider root-causes, re-definite true value and longevity / sustainability strategies, and re-evaluate the opportunities and trade-offs that exist at various strata, especially within an environment that often perpetuates short-term profit incentives over qualitative returns to people and planet; Only then will we find that “Change Begins.”
Illustration by Graceland London