A few months ago I had the opportunity to chat with Dr Astro Teller and hear his thoughts on the opportunities and threats we currently face as a community of curious humans. Naturally, one topic we covered formed today’s TL;DR Shorts episode – the creation and use of new technologies like artificial intelligence.
Astro is the co-founder and Captain of Moonshots at X, the Moonshot Factory at Alphabet based in California, USA that is best known for inventions such as Waymo’s self-driving cars and Loon’s balloons of internet connectivity, and so has a wealth of experience in understanding human behaviors and the considerations that must be made when creating impactful solutions to the challenges facing our society.
Astro and the team at X work on a range of projects designed to positively impact society in a range of different ways. In this TL;DR Shorts episode, Astro starts by defining tech; on the one hand we have the “discovery of new knowledge… and an understanding of the possibilities of engineering that knowledge” and on the other we have the realisation of that technology in real-life applications. Astro believes that “the knowledge, the ability, to make things is what makes humanity better”, a belief that strongly shapes the innovative, creative and ambitious projects being undertaken at X.
Astro goes on to remind the research community that it is what we do with that knowledge and creativity as humans helping humans that determines whether new technologies are going to positively impact society, and that we must remain actively responsible for their deployment, adoption, and adaptation.
We’ll be hearing more from Astro later in this series on other topics impacting science and society. If you’d like to suggest future contributors for our series or suggest some topics you’d like us to cover, drop Suze a message on one of our social media channels and use the hashtag #TLDRShorts. Subscribe now to be notified of each weekly release of the latest TL;DR Short, and catch up with the entire series here.
