AI for Good Global Summit
Geneva, Switzerland, 7-9 June 2017
Please follow the Summit via Webcast.
Day 1, 7 June 2017
Social events and breaks are kindly sponsored by:
Gold Sponsors:
Corporate Sponsor:

09:30 - 10:00 |
Welcome Address, Popov Room The hosts, ITU and XPRIZE, set the goals and opportunities in collaborating for a better future with Artificial Intelligence.
-
António Guterres (invited), Secretary-General, United Nations [ Video Message ] [
Biography ]
-
Houlin Zhao, Secretary-General, ITU [
Biography ]
-
Peter Diamandis, Founder, XPRIZE Foundation [ Video Message ]
-
Marcus Shingles, CEO, XPRIZE Foundation [
Biography ]
Moderator: Stephen Ibaraki, Social Entrepreneur and Futurist - Chair REDDS Capital [ Biography ] |
10:00 - 10:45 | Opening Keynotes: ‘Moonshots’ - Inspiration for the Future, Popov Room Distinguished keynote speakers from industry and academia will share their ‘moonshots’ for the future of Artificial Intelligence.
Inaugural moonshot keynote:
-
Rupert Stadler, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Management, AUDI AG [
Biography ]
- Introduction by
Stephen Ibaraki, Social Entrepreneur and Futurist - Chair REDDS Capital [
Biography ]
Inspirations about the future:
-
Jürgen Schmidhuber, Scientific Director, Swiss AI Lab, IDSIA; Professor of AI, USI & SUPSI, Switzerland; President of NNAISE NSE
[ Biography ] Moderator:Marcus Shingles, CEO, XPRIZE Foundation [ Biography ]
|
10:45 - 11:15 |
Coffee break, Tower building, Outside Popov Room, -2nd floor
|
11:15 - 12:45 | Plenary 1: State of Play, Popov Room Recent breakthroughs have driven rapid growth in massive data sets, storage capacity, computing power, and open APIs. These changes have fueled the development of machines that can do things that once relied solely on human experience, creativity, and ingenuity.
In the opening presentations of the summit, we explore perspectives of the current moment including how AI is affecting life and organizations.
Speakers:
-
Margaret Chan, Director General, World Health Organization [
Biography ]
-
Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft AI and Research, Microsoft [
Biography ]
-
Izumi Nakamitsu, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, UNODA [
Biography ]
-
Frank La Rue, Assistant Director-General, UNESCO [ Biography ]
-
Yoshua Bengio, Professor, University of Montreal
Moderator:
Wendell Wallach, Consultant, Ethicist, and Scholar at Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center For Bioethics and Senior Advisor to The Hastings Center, and the World Economic Forum [
Biography ] |
12:45 - 14:00 |
Lunch break Brown bag lunch offered to delegates, Tower building, Outside Popov Room, -2nd floor
|
14:00 - 15:30 |
Plenary 2: Transformations on the Horizon, Popov Room Industry and academia are working towards the next generation of computers that can understand and learn from natural spoken language, full motion video, and more. Given how much the world is already changing, what can we expect from the next generation of Artificial Intelligence systems? How will these technologies affect the world?
Presenters will explore these global opportunities, transformations, and challenges.
Speakers:
-
Francesca Rossi, Research Scientist, IBM Watson and Professor of Computer Science, University of Padova [ Biography ]
-
Salil Shetty, Secretary General, Amnesty International [ Biography ]
-
Vicki Hanson, President, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) [ Biography ]
-
Gary Marcus, Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, New York University [
Biography ]
Moderator:
Urs Gasser, Executive Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University [
Biography ]
|
15:30 - 16:00 |
Coffee break, Tower building, Outside Popov room, -2nd floor |
16:00 - 18:00 |
Plenary 3: Future Roadmap – Collaborating for Good, Popov Room A wide range of voices have been debating the future of AI. A roadmap for governments, industry, academia, media, and civil society is critical to ensure that this technology develops in a safe, responsible, and ethical manner benefiting all segments of society.
The presenters and panelists will address the issues above and will introduce the role of the ‘Breakthrough Sessions’ taking place over the next two days of the Summit.
Speakers:
-
Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science and Smith-Zadeh Professor in Engineering, University of California, Berkeley [
Biography ]
-
Katsumi Emura, Chair of Industrialization Roadmap Task Force, Strategic Council for AI Technology [
Biography ]
-
Manuela Veloso, Professor in Computer Science and Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University [
Biography ]
-
Cindy Smith, Director, United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) [ Biography ]
-
Robert Kirkpatrick, Director, UN Global Pulse [
Biography ]
Panel:
-
Chaesub Lee, Director of Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU [
Biography ]
-
Lan Xue, Cheung Kong Chaired Professor and Dean of School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
-
Chris Fabian, Co-Founder, UNICEF Innovation [
Biography ]
-
Sam Molyneux, GM & Scientist, Meta, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative [ Biography ]
-
Peggy Hicks, Director of Thematic Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to Development, OHCHR [
Biography ]
-
Paul Bunje, Chief Scientist at XPRIZE [
Biography ]
Co-Moderators:
-
Nicholas Davis, Head of Society and Innovation, World Economic Forum
[ Biography ]
-
Anja Kaspersen, Head of Strategic Engagement and New Technologies, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
[ Biography ]
|
18:30 - 20:00 | Reception, Montbrillant Cafeteria
|
Day 2, 8 June 2017
Social events and breaks are kindly sponsored by:
Gold Sponsors:

Corporate Sponsor:

09:00 - 10:00 | Plenary 4: Privacy, Security, Ethics and Societal Challenges, Popov Room AI will have far-reaching effects on the future of society that could redefine global ethics, economics, and law.
This session will discuss the need for a guiding ethical framework and code of conduct to direct the design, production, and use of AI and robotics. The session will also explore the framework’s requirements in the areas of fundamental human rights, equality, justice, non-discrimination, privacy and social responsibility. These requirements center the role of the ‘Breakthrough Sessions’ taking place over the next two days of the Summit.
Speakers:
-
Joe Konstan, Professor, University of Minnesota [ Biography ]
-
Mady Delvaux-Stehres, Member of the European Parliament [ Biography ]
-
Lynne Parker, Professor, University of Tennessee-Knoxville [
Biography ]
-
David Hanson, Founder and CEO, Hanson Robotics (demo) [ Biography ]
Moderator: Stephen Cave
|
10:00 - 10:30 |
Coffee break,
Tower building, Outside Popov room, -2nd floor |
10:30 - 12:00 |
Breakthrough Groups on Privacy and Ethics | Breakthrough Groups on Societal Challenges |
Enhancing Privacy and Security Room H
Lead: UNICRI, OHCHR, Global Pulse
Moderator:
Irakli Beridze, Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor, UNICRI [
Biography ]
Speakers: -
Hongjiang Zhang, Managing Director of ByteDance Technical Strategy Research Center [ Biography ]
-
Virginia Dignum, Associate Professor, TU Delft
[ Biography ] -
Drudeisha Madhub, Data Protection Commissioner's Office, Prime Minister’s Office of the Republic of Mauritius [
Biography ]
Panelists:
-
Frederike Kaltheuner, Policy Officer, Privacy International
-
Mark Latonero, Lead researcher for the Data & Human Rights program at Data & Society
-
Brian Witten, Sr Director, Symantec Research Labs, Symantec [
Biography ]
-
Konstantinos Karachalios, Managing Director, IEEE Standards Association
[
Biography ]
Rapporteur: Sean McGregor, Oregon State University
|
Ethical development of AI Room K
Lead: Global Pulse, UNESCO, OHCHR Moderator:
Robert Kirkpatrick, Director, UN Global Pulse [
Biography ]Speakers: -
Luka Omladič, Member of the UNESCO COMEST
[
Biography ] -
Lorna McGregor, Director, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex
[
Biography ]
Panelists:
-
Francesca Rossi, Research Scientist, IBM Watson and Professor of Computer Science, University of Padova [ Biography ]
-
Wendell Wallach, Scholar, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and, Yale University [ Biography ]
-
Chinmayi Arun, Executive Director of the Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University Delhi [
Biography ]
|
Future of Work Popov Room
Lead: ILO, UNIDO, UNDESA
Moderator:
Marie-Jose Bahnam, Sr. Director, Foundation Priorities, XPRIZE [
Biography ] Speakers:
-
Barmak Heshmat, Research Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
[
Biography ] -
Ekkehard Ernst, Research Department, ILO [
Biography ]
Panelists:
-
Irmgard Nübler, Research Department, ILO [
Biography ]
-
Olga Memedovic, Chief, Europe and Central Asia Bureau, UNIDO
-
Ratika Jain, Executive Director – Manufacturing, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)
-
Manuela Veloso, Professor in Computer Science and Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University [ Biography ]
-
Plamen Dimitrov, President of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria
-
Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science and Smith-Zadeh Professor in Engineering, University of California, Berkeley [ Biography ]
-
Plamen Dimitrov, President Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria (CITUB)
Rapporteur: Alexandre Cadain, CEO at Anima and co-lead of post-digital program at Ecole Normale Superieure | Lead: Marie-Hélène Parizeau, Chair of UNESCO COMEST; Joseph Konstan, Professor, University of Minnesota [
Biography ]
Moderator:
Joseph Konstan, Professor, University of Minnesota [
Biography ]
Panels:
-
Marie-Hélène Parizeau, Chair of UNESCO COMEST
- Mady Delvaux-Stehres, Member of the European Parliament, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs, Chair of the
Working Group on robotics [
Biography ] -
Apala Lahiri Chavan, President, Human Factors International [
Biography ]
-
Nic Bidwell, Professor, University of Namibia
Rapporteur: Joseph Konstan, Professor, University of Minnesota [
Biography ] |
12:00 - 13:30 |
Lunch break Brown bag lunch offered to delegates, Tower building, Outside Popov Room, -2nd floor
|
13:30 - 14:00 |
Plenary 5: ‘Breakthrough’ Proposals on Privacy, Security, Ethics and Societal Challenges, Popov Room The rapporteurs of the ‘breakthrough groups’ will present their proposals on near-term, practical applications of AI to solve the challenges presented in their sessions.
|
14:00 - 15:00 |
Plenary 6: AI for Common Good and Sustainable Living, Popov Room AI has the potential to yield enormous value in solving many of humanity’s grandest challenges and advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This session will explore how AI can accelerate and advance the development and democratization of solutions to promote common good and enable sustainable living.
Speakers:
-
Fei-Fei Li, Director, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL) [
Biography ]
-
Antoine Blondeau, Chairman, Sentient [
Biography ]
-
Thomas Wiegand,
Executive Director, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute and Professor, TU Berlin [
Biography ]
Moderator/Speaker:
Thomas Wiegand, Executive Director, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute and Professor, TU Berlin
[
Biography ] |
15:00 - 15:30 |
Coffee break, Tower building, Outside Popov room, -2nd floor |
15:30 - 17:00 |
Breakthrough Groups on Common Good | Breakthrough Groups on Sustainable Living |
AI for Prosperity Room C
Lead: Yoshua Bengio, Professor, University of Montreal
Panelists: -
Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft AI and Research at Microsoft
[
Biography ] -
Wendell Wallach,Consultant, Ethicist, and Scholar at Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, and Senior Advisor to the Hastings Center, and the World Economic Forum
[ Biography ]
-
Lynne Parker, Professor, University of Tennessee-Knoxville [
Biography ]
- Anja Kaspersen, Head of Strategic Engagement and New Technologies, at ICRC
[
Biography ] -
Sam Molyneux,
Sam Molyneux, GM & Scientist, Meta, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
[
Biography ] -
Philippe Beaudoin, VP Research Group and Co-Founder at Element AI
-
Ankur Vora, Director, Strategy, Innovation, & Impact, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Rapporteur: Sean McGregor, Oregon State University
|
Social Good Data Popov Room
Lead: Global Pulse, UNDESA
Moderator: Miguel Luengo-Oroz, Chief Data Scientist, UN Global Pulse Speaker:
-
John Quinn, Pulse Lab Kampala
Panelists: -
Chris Earney, Deputy of UNHCR Innovation, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
-
Moustapha Cissé, Researcher, Facebook
-
Fei-Fei Li, Director, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL) and Chieft Scientist of AI at Google Cloud
[
Biography ]
-
Leila Zia, Senior Research Scientist, Wikimedia Foundation
-
Lars Bromley, Principal Analyst UNOSAT
Rapporteur: Rene Clausen Nielsen, Information Management Lead, IFRC
|
Promoting Healthier Citizens Room K
Lead: WHO
Moderator: Mohamed Alkady, President, Hart
[
Biography ]
Panelists: -
Christiane Woopen, Professor at Ethics and Theory of Medicine, University of Cologne (Member of International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO
-
Jay Komarneni, Founder & Chair of the Human Diagnosis Project ('Human Dx')
-
Barry Ressler, Chairman of the Board/CEO, International Space Medicine Consortium
-
Abha Saxena, Coordinator, Global Health Ethics, WHO
Rapporteur: Preetam Maloor, Strategy and Policy Advisor, ITU
|
Smart Cities and Communities Room H
Lead: ITU, UNIDO
Co-Moderators:
-
Frits Bussemaker, Liaison European Relations, Partner CIONET [
Biography ]
-
Kyle Nel, Founder and executive director of Lowe's Innovation Labs [
Biography ]
Speaker:
-
Okan Geray, Strategy Planning Consultant; Smart Dubai Office [
Biography ]
-
Igor van Gemert, Founder/CEO, SIM-CI
Panelists:
-
Antoine Bordes, Senior Researcher,
Facebook
-
Thomas Wiegand, Executive Director, Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute and Professor, TU Berlin [
Biography ]
-
Peter Marx, Vice President, Advanced Projects, GE
Co-Rapporteurs: Michael Martin, Prize Manager, IBM Watson on AI, XPRIZE; Jose Maria Diaz Batanero, ITU |
17:15 - 17:45 |
Plenary 7: ‘Breakthrough’ Proposals on Common Good and Sustainable Living, Popov Room The rapporteurs of the ‘breakthrough groups’ will present their proposals on near-term, practical applications of AI to solve the challenges presented in their sessions.
|
Day 3, 9 June 2017
Social events and breaks are kindly sponsored by:
Gold Sponsors:

Corporate Sponsor:
09:00 - 10:00 |
Plenary 8: Poverty Reduction and Capacity Building, Popov Room This session will examine how AI can help end deprivation and the dangers of poverty. In addition, it will explore the opportunity for all countries to participate in the development and application of AI. The goal is to avoid expanding the “digital divide” into an “intelligence divide.”
Speakers:
-
Pedro Domingos, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington (remote) [
Biography ]
-
Anders Sandberg, James Martin Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Institute, at University of Oxford
-
Robert Opp, Director, Innovation and Change Management, WFP [
Biography ]
-
Padmanabhan Anandan,
Vice President for Research, Adobe [
Biography ]
Moderator: Anja Kaspersen, Head of Strategic Engagement and New Technologies, International Committee of the Red Cross [
Biography ]
|
10:00 - 10:30 |
Coffee break, Tower building, Outside Popov room, -2nd floor |
10:30 - 12:00 |
Breakthrough Groups on Poverty Reduction |
Breakthrough Groups on Capacity Building |
Ending Hunger Room H
Lead: WFP, IFAD
Moderator:
Robert Opp, Director, Innovation and Change Management, WFP [ Biography ]
Speaker: -
Uyi Stewart, Head of Strategy and Data, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Panelists: -
Andrew Zolli,
Planet Labs (Remote)
-
Marcus Shingles, CEO, XPRIZE Foundation [ Biography ]
-
Behshad Behzadi, Senior Dierctor at Google Switzerland
-
Uyi Stewart, Head of Strategy and Data, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
-
Robert S. Sutor, VP Cognitive, Blockchain and Quantum Solution, IBM Research
Co-Rapporteurs:
Johanna Jochim, Special Projects Manager, WFP;
Jamie Green, Innovation Accelerator Projects Manager, WFP |
Disaster Prevention and Relief Room K
Lead: UNICEF
Moderator:
Louise Story, New York Times
Panelists:
-
Katherine Maher, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
-
Nick Haan, VP, Impact, Singularity University
-
Pablo Rodriguez, CEO, Telefonica Alpha
-
Chris Fabian, Principal Advisor, UNICEF Innovation
[
Biography ]
Rapporteur: Paul Bunje, Chief Scientist, XPRIZE [
Biography ] |
Education Popov Room
Lead: UNESCO, UNITAR, WIPO, UNICRI
Co-Moderator:
Alex Mejia, Senior Manager, UNITAR;
Fengchun Miao, Chief of ICT in Education, UNESCO
Speakers:
-
François Taddei,
Professor, Paris Descartes University
-
Cynthia Breazeal, Professor, MIT Media Lab
[ Biography ] -
Mark R. Nelson, Executive Director, computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) [ Biography ]
Panelists:
-
François Taddei, Professor of Paris Descartes University, UNESCO Chair in Learning Sciences
-
Robin Murphy, Professor, Texas A&M University, Founder, Roboticists Without Borders
[
Biography ]
-
Adam Klaptocz, Co-founder and CTO, WeRobotics
-
Michael Hopkins, CEO of MHC International Ltd
| Promoting Equality in Access to AI Room C
Lead:
OHCHR, UNIDO, ITU, Amnesty international
Moderator:
Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Head of Technology and Human Rights, Amnesty International
Speakers: -
Lydia Nicholas, Senior Researcher, Collective Intelligence Nesta
-
Malavika Jayaram, Executive Director, Digital Asia Hub
Panelists: -
Frederike Kaltheuner, Policy Officer, Privacy International
-
Vivian Ng, Senior Research Officer, Human Rights, Big Data & Technology Project, University of Essex
-
Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft AI and Research, Microsoft [ Biography ]
Rapporteur: Ahmed Motala, Human Rights Officer, OHCHR
|
12:00 - 12:30 |
Plenary 9: ‘Breakthrough’ Proposals on Poverty Reduction and Capacity Building, Popov Room The rapporteurs of the ‘breakthrough groups’ will present their proposals on near-term, practical applications of AI to solve the challenges presented in their session.
|
12:30 - 13:30 |
Lunch break Brown bag lunch offered to delegates, Tower building, Outside Popov Room, -2nd floor
|
13:30 - 14:00 |
Plenary 10: Investments, Economic Aspects and Designing the Future, Popov Room Government, industry, academia, private sector and civil society need to work together to mitigate the risks posed by AI, ensuring that AI benefits all of humanity. This session will explore how Global partnerships inclusive of all segments of society will offer crucial support to the pursuit of this goal.
Speaker:
-
Neil Sahota,
World Wide Business Development Leader, IBM Watson [
Biography ]
-
Eric Horvitz, Technical Fellow and Managing Director, Microsoft Research (remote)
Moderator: Andy Chen, Board Chair, IEEE Computer Society [ Biography ] |
14:00 - 15:30 |
Breakthrough Groups on investment and Economic Aspects |
Breakthrough Groups on Designing the Future |
Investing for Impact with AI Room H
Lead:
Ash Fontana, Managing Director, Zetta Ventures [
Biography ]
Moderator: Ash Fontana, Managing Director, Zetta Ventures [ Biography ]
Panelists: -
Christian Steinruecken, CTO of Invenia and King’s College, Cambridge
-
Sven Strohband, CTO of Khosla Ventures
-
David Hunter, CEO of Optimal Agriculture
[
Biography ] -
Ankur Vora, Director, Strategy, Innovation, & Impact, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Rapporteur:Rigas Hadzilacos, Practice Lead, Knowledge Networks and Analysis, World Economic Forum (WEF)
|
KPI for Success Room K
Lead: XPRIZE
Moderator: Chris Fabian, Co-Founder, UNICEF Innovation [ Biography ]Panelists: -
Marcus Shingles, CEO, XPRIZE Foundation
[ Biography ] -
Kyle Nel, Founder and executive director of Lowe's Innovation Labs [ Biography ]
-
Joe Konstan, Professor, University of Minnesota [ Biography ]
-
Sean McGregor, Oregon State University
-
Nikita Aggarwal, Visiting Fellow, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London
Rapporteur: Sean McGregor, Oregon State University
|
Lead: Lynne Parker, Professor, University of Tennessee-Knoxville [
Biography ]
Panelists:
-
Ekkhard Ernst,
Chief of the Macroeconomic Policies and Jobs Unit, Research Department, ILO
[
Biography ] -
Konstantinos Karachalios,
Managing Director, IEEE Standards Association
[
Biography ] -
Anja Kaspersen, Head of Strategic Engagement and New Technologies, International Committee of the Red Cross [
Biography ]
-
Jonggun Lee,Data Scientist, UN Global Pulse
-
Francesca Rossi, Professor at University of Padova, and Research Scientist at IBM Watson [ Biography ]
-
Uyi Stewart, Head of Strategy and Data, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
-
Xu Guibao, Senior Engineer and Project Director, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology
Rapporteur: Preetam Maloor, Strategy and Policy Advisor, ITU
|
Roadmap for Collaboration Popov Room
Lead: XPRIZE and ITU
Co-Moderators: Marie-Jose Bahnam, Sr. Director, Foundation Priorities, XPRIZE [ Biography ]; Paul Bunje, Chief Scientist at XPRIZE [
Biography ]
Panelists:
-
Chaesub Lee, Director of Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, ITU [
Biography ]
-
Gary Marcus, Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, New York University [
Biography ]
-
Peter Marx, Vice President, Advanced Projects, GE
-
Robin Murphy, Professor Texas A&M University, and Founder of Roboticists Without Borders
[
Biography ] -
Robert Opp, Director of Innovation and Change Management at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) (TBC)
[
Biography ]
Rapporteurs: Marie-Jose Bahnam, Sr. Director, Foundation Priorities, XPRIZE [ Biography ]; Paul Bunje, Chief Scientist at XPRIZE; XPRIZE [ Biography ] |
15:30 - 16:00 |
Coffee break, Tower building, Outside Popov room, -2nd floor
|
16:00 - 16:30 |
Plenary 11: ‘Breakthrough’ proposals on investments, economic aspects and designing the future, Popov Room The rapporteurs of the ‘breakthrough groups’ will present their proposals on near-term, practical applications of AI to solve the challenges presented in their sessions.
|
16:30 - 17:45 |
Plenary 12: Closing Session - Applying AI for Good, Popov Room Drawing on all of the proposals from the ‘Breakthrough Sessions’, the Summit will propose strategies for:
- Development of applications and systems that benefit humanity
- Identifying opportunities to pinpoint practical and impactful applications, with impact in the near term
- Identifying a roadmap for ethical, safe, and democratic access
- Ongoing UN ITU and XPRIZE inspired projects to support and monitor the practical implementations of AI for Good
Speakers:
-
Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google (remote) [
Biography ]
-
Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science and Smith-Zadeh Professor in Engineering, University of California, Berkeley [
Biography ]
-
Eric Horvitz, Technical Fellow and Managing Director, Microsoft Research (remote)
-
Marcus Shingles, CEO, XPRIZE Foundation [ Biography ]
-
Houlin Zhao, Secretary-General, ITU [ Biography ]
|
Breakthrough Sessions
Enhancing Privacy and Security
AI has the potential to reveal detailed private information through embedded, mobile and wearable devices, advanced facial recognition and predictive analysis, leading to the questions of whether the current privacy and security standards can still protect and safeguard personal data, individual privacy and anonymity. The increasing security vulnerabilities will affect the application of AI technologies in a safe manner, in context of autonomous vehicles and drones, biomonitoring, healthcare robotics, or robots responsible for the maintenance of public order. As AI powered technologies can self-advance, leaving uncertainty in applying standard data protection principles of accountability, transparency, consent, control, how can we ensure that proper data privacy and data security measures and standards are in place. This session will aim to discuss and identify strategies to ensure that AI contributes to the global security and peace, protect individuals against unauthorized manipulation of AI algorithms and not create chaos.
[Updated on 1 June 2017]
Ethical development of AI
Algorithm-based machines increasingly learn from and autonomously interact with their environments, thereby developing unexplainable forms of decision making. In many ways this is just as much as a new frontier for ethics and risk assessment as it is for emerging technologies of AI. Should AI be able to make life-and-death decisions, for example, in deciding how autonomous vehicles behave in the moments preceding a crash? Where does the liability rest for harm caused by AI ? How can we avoid the biases in decision-making by AI, causing inequalities and discrimination? How can we ensure that a world of increasingly pro-active computing remains human-centered, protecting human identity and dignity? This session will discuss the challenges of today's world posed by the use of AI and will aim to identify possible solutions that can ensure that the design and operation of AI is at minimum characterized by accountability and respect for human rights and purpose?
[Updated on 5 June, 2017]
Future of Work
AI will eventually be capable of performing not just routine tasks but also the functions of doctors, lawyers, engineers and other professions reliant on expert judgement and specialized qualifications. How will AI's augmentation of jobs, elimination of jobs affect the quality of life enjoyed by human beings? Will AI's increasing influence on production processes reduce tax revenues to the detriment of social welfare systems, and is it time to revisit the concept of social welfare spending as more and more people hand over their jobs to machines?
[Updated on 1 June, 2017]
Humans and Machines
AI technology is enabling a wide range of new ways for humans and machines to interact, from intelligent and autonomous robots to smart spaces to natural language and even physical and cognitive human augmentation. These technologies, if well-deployed, can have enormous social impact, supporting independence, economic development and engagement, and cultural diversity. What are the most promising potential applications of novel human-machine interaction in the coming five to ten years, focusing on applications that can support disadvantaged individuals and communities? And what are the associated risks of these technologies and the steps that developers, communities, and governments may need to take to regulate them to ensure that their good outweighs adverse impacts?
[Updated on 1 June 2017]
AI for Prosperity
AI will increase efficiency and productivity to an extent far beyond the current limitations of human labor. AI-powered automation may create factories full of workers that never sleep, eat, or expect pay for the day’s labor. As this type of production process yields higher economic output, how will we ensure that the associated financial gains do not accrue just to the owners of AI-powered machinery? How can we ensure developing nations can continue to develop towards prosperity?
Social Good Data
AI innovation will be central to the achievement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals by capitalizing on the unprecedented quantities of data now being generated by sensors, mobile and embedded devices/chips, IoT, and satellites related to sentiment behavior, human health, commerce, communications, migration and more. What are the datasets and practical means of capturing them, protecting them, and exploiting them with the greatest potential to deliver insight able to assist us meeting the grandest challenges facing humanity? How can we provide increased access to data sets that will provide great insight where protection of individuals and their anonymity is critical? And considering that data resources result from digitalization, a process many countries are only just beginning, how might we democratize access to the data-derived insight to inform future development strategies? Furthermore, what are the practical issues involved in deploying operational systems to support decision-making on the ground and at scale?
[Updated on 1 June, 2017]
Promoting Healthier Citizens
The practice of medicine is now augmented by AI systems that can process the entire history of recorded medical research and analyze large datasets of medical imagery. These systems guide evidence-based treatments and inform healthcare policy. Initial deployments of these AI medical systems are largely in the developed world, which further expands the gap between medical standards and practices around the world. What are the foundational requirements for extending AI-enhanced medicine to the developing world?
Smart Cities and Communities
The world needs to maintain quality of life for the billions of people living in increasingly dense, urban environments. Improvements in sensor technology, Internet connectivity, and autonomous vehicles will improve the capabilities for building “smart cities.” How will we improve the quality of urban life by improving the social and physical infrastructure of cities? How can corporations and governments work with AI technologies to improve communities?
Ending Hunger
The number of people inhabiting the earth is increasing far faster than the area of arable land. Solving the challenge of hunger requires smarter means of crop production and distribution. Improvements in satellite imagery, sensor data and the understanding of natural systems can feed into modern AI models. Technologies can help us to optimize crop yields, reduce water use and improve crop disease treatment. What are the most effective means of leveraging AI to improve food production and procurement for all people?
Disaster Prevention and Relief
The world is facing a series of shocks that have never been as compounded, or come as quickly, as they will over the next 15 years. These disasters can include catastrophic failures of climate including drought and flooding, massive loss of jobs due to automation, increased nationalism leading to conflict, and a connected world where disease spreads faster than ever. We will explore the impact and benefits of AI technologies and formulate strategies for preparedness and resilience of the human species for the changes that are to come.
[Updated on 1 June 2017]
Education
AI promises to boost all forms of education, enabling the personalization of education at scale. Wider access to networks and knowledge, peer learning capabilities, crowdsourcing new content and machine learning are driving significant advances in online learning and have enabled teachers in K-12 schools and higher education to multiply the size of their classrooms while addressing individual students' unique learning pace, needs and styles. The continued improvements of AI, however, may render current education systems obsolete, calling for dialogue and guidelines around global inclusion and access to knowledge and skills most relevant to the human experience of the future.
[Updated 1 June 2017]
Promoting Equality in access to AI
Artificial intelligence is beginning to play an increasing role in different facets of life including product design, diagnosing diseases, assessing credit risk, combating crime, promoting freedom of speech and democracy. While the world is increasingly benefiting from these advances, how can we have universally inclusive research and development and data respecting local culture, gender, race, and cultural and geographical realities? How can we ensure that AI applications promote equality rather than entrench bias? How can we provide an equitable basis for all the world's countries to expand their knowledge of AI and participate in the global scene of progress and innovation? Artificial Intelligence has vast potential, and this session will aim to identify strategies to allow everyone to participate in the next frontiers of human evolution. [Updated on 1 June 2017]
Investing for Impact with AI
We have a general, moral imperative to maintain the quality of life for people all around the world. This is difficult to satisfy as populations increase and resources decrease. However, machine learning technologies are particularly good at solving complex optimization problems. This session will focus on how to invest in machine learning technologies to solve significant, societal problems. The session will provide guidelines for allocating capital to such technologies in terms of finding large problems, allocating capital in underinvested areas and avoiding negative consequences. We will use the global resource allocation issues in the food, logistics and energy industries by way of example. This session is relevant to firms allocating assets to such technologies and practitioners considering how to apply their skills for maximum, global impact. This panel will identify guidelines to allow for investment in technologies that efficiently allocate natural resources to solve significant, societal problems.
[Updated on 7 June 2017]
KPI for Success
As AI technologies continue to develop, we require better methods for understanding how regulations and investments are shaping the general welfare. With proper measurement it is possible to understand how our interventions may (or may not) promote solutions to sustainable development goals. The principal concern is that AI systems are being integrated into key social institutions, even though their accuracy, and their social and economic effects, have not been rigorously studied or validated. In this session we explore questions at the intersection of AI, public policy, and economics to develop possible quantitative assessment of AI Roadmaps.
[Updated on 23 May 2017]
Approaches by Governments, Industries, and Other Stakeholders
Several governmental reports have recommended national approaches to questions surrounding artificial intelligence and its impact on society. Is there a global approach we could extract from these national efforts? What are the similarities and differences between these approaches? Can we identify a common path towards AI for Good?
Roadmap for Collaboration
Although we are yet to agree on the required mechanism, we are in clear need of an inclusive global dialogue to address the challenges and opportunities brought on by AI in policy, regulation, business, ethics and standardization. The agreement of a roadmap plotting a responsible development path for technology will demand the active involvement of government, industry, academia and civil society. How can we best utilize the expertise of AI researchers, corporations, and the general public to inform policy decisions around artificial intelligence? How can institutions adapt their missions to utilize the new opportunities of AI? What perspectives are currently missing from the discussion and how can we involve them? It is crucial that all stakeholders work together to identify a set of specific frameworks and strategies to create a roadmap to ensure that AI benefits all of humanity.