UN: Italy hosts talk on Artificial Intelligence by Israeli expert
New York - How far is the day when a computer will be built with full human brain capacity? Can robots take over humanity? The Italian Cultural Institute and the Italian Permanent Mission to the United Nations hosted - reports the site Onuitalia.com - a lecture by Shmuel (Mooly) Eden, one of Israel ’s leading technology experts and until recently the senior Vice President of Intel. The event was co-organized with the mission of Israel. Ambassadors Sebastiano Cardi and Israel’s Danny Danon introduced the talk. How far is the day when a computer will be built with full human brain capacity? Can robots take over humanity? The Italian Cultural Institute and the Italian Permanent Mission to the United Nations hosted - reports the site Onuitalia.com - a lecture by Shmuel (Mooly) Eden, one of Israel ’s leading technology experts and until recently the senior Vice President of Intel. The event was co-organized with the mission of Israel. Ambassadors Sebastiano Cardi and Israel’s Danny Danon introduced the talk. In 2012, Eden was recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of 10 brilliant tech-visionaries in the world alongside with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and current Apple Chief Design Officer Jonathan Ive. Cardi, introducing Mr. Eden, stressed that the initiative stems from the strong cooperation between Israel and Italy on issues related to science and technology. “Israel is a leader in innovation, and we look forward to strengthening our bilateral cooperation on this issue and on others”, the Ambassador said. Cardi remarked that A.I. is already impacting our lives. “What strikes most is the speed of the present technological acceleration. We also have to have in mind the many questions, doubts – even fears – and moral imperatives raised by this issue. We have long assumed that there will always be tasks that machines are not able to do, and that humanity will always have a comparative advantage. Let’s hope we’ll be able to continue to believe so”. When 50 years ago, in 1968, Picasso said that “calculating machines are useless; they can only give you answers,” he could not foresee what computers are able to learn now, how they use the data we feed them to know more than we can tell, and create something, by themselves. “This is at once extraordinary and alarming”, said Cardi: “How can technological change and, in particular, A.I. be used for development without disrupting the expectations of billions of people? How can we harness the benefits of this revolution, a real revolution, and, at the same time, serve the international agenda?”.