Will A.I. Allow Humans to Realize Our Full Potential? | Toni Lane Casserly | Big Think

Will A.I. Allow Humans to Realize Our Full Potential? |

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We are on the verge of something meaningful and incredible with emergent artificial intelligence, says Toni Lane Casserly. But which way will humanity steer it? As with any system, it's up to us.The future of artificial intelligence terrifies us in the same way that God once terrified us. The seed of that fear, says Bitcoin and blockchain expert Toni Lane Casserly, is the centralization of power – one person, body, or system possessing all the world’s knowledge would put human beings under its thumb. When humans feel out of control, they panic. Will we have a robot takeover, for example? Maybe. Any system is only as noble as its creator, and the same is true for the future of AI: "If the minds operating the system lack integrity then the system, no matter how it's logically constructed, will lack integrity," says Casserly. It's outlandish, but hear it out: what if the only way to avoid all disasters involving emergent AI technology would be to create an AI God (for lack of a better term) who has all the world's data and wisdom, whose mind is pure and who cares equally for every human. This God would then design all AI technology for us according to our needs. But that's the exact centralization of power that Casserly and blockchain technology opposes. So let's float back down to reality: the net positives of AI will outweigh the negative experiences we may come to have. Here, Casserly is wholly optimistic that AI will liberate us from drudgery and struggle, and allow all humans to step into their full potential. What’s been stopping us from fulfilling our potential thus far has been poor resource allocation – some of us swim, but most are too busy treading water to do much else. Distributing resources through AI relief and emergent technology may be the path to releasing human potential on a larger scale – if we choose to move together in the right direction.

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TONI LANE CASSERLY:

Toni Lane Casserly is an American tech entrepreneur, artist and thought leader. She is a Young Star of Bitcoin and the co-founder of CoinTelegraph, the largest media network in the bitcoin and blockchain industries. She is a partner at BitNation.

As a philanthropist, Casserly co-founded Kids Compassion Charity when she funded a village to survive Ebola using bitcoin. As part of this endeavor, she put 14 children through school and has provided 14 orphans with a home.

Casserly currently works toward establishing digital currency economies, mesh internets and peaceful seasteads to help free citizens from the hands of war-torn, oppressive and corrupt leadership while preserving the planet. She serves as an advisor and/or board member to 6+ companies and funds as she simultaneously works in the field of human rights to establish digital currency economies, mesh networks and alternative governance structures in countries ruled by oppressive leaders and corrupt jurisdiction. She has been affectionately entitled “The Joan of Arc of Bitcoin” by her peers and various publications.

In the art sphere, Casserly is a recording artist and the founder of the “immateralism” (post art) movement, where she uses consciousness and lucid dreaming as a medium.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Toni Lane Casserly: We really have to understand more deeply what the implications of creating an AI are, not that we haven't already created AIs. And I think the bigger fear with artificial intelligence that a lot of people possess can actually be solved by the fundamental ethic behind blockchain technology. Because when you think about systems logic and systems integrity, if the minds operating the system lack integrity then the system, no matter how it's logically constructed, will lack integrity. And I think the big fear with AI has to do with the centralization of power. Because the moment that we put something in a god like state and we say you have all knowledge in the universe, you have all power, you have access to every piece of knowledge that is created around the world from every human being and once and if we store all of that knowledge in something that is all powerful, yeah that is totally scary.

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