I took a lot about digitalization and
the future strategies and and and future
proof business and today I decided to
tell you a love story it’s a personal
life story and as every love story it
starts with infatuation goes through a
stormy called troubled period and then
ends up with a kind of a long-term
comfortable relationship with well
understood roles this love story has two
parties I’m one of them the other party
is not my dear husband it’s actually not
he it’s not a see it’s an eight i T it’s
kind of my lifelong relationship with
deep and broad uses of information
technology it’s becoming a part of not
only our societies but also of who we
are it’s changing our humanity and I
think it’s incredibly important to share
some of the kind of ups and downs of
this relationship because I think the
stock this particular love story will
repeat itself with most view in the very
few months to come it’s relevant
internationally and locally and
individually I’ll see a few few words
about my life because who we are effects
of course all of our relationships so
the kind of three major parts to my
personal and professional life the first
one is this age of IT infatuation about
25 years ago I went to Oxford with a PhD
in algorithm design this is a borderline
subject between mathematics and
computing or programming and I used some
of this work to later have a small part
in the development of one of the first
search engines called AltaVista this was
99
a very interesting time in Silicon
Valley because this was just after the
internet came to stay we realized it’s
going to be very big but we didn’t still
know where the money is going to come
from I remember sitting and eating lunch
with some of the people working with
another search engine that was still a
very early startup at the time they
laughed at us because our owners dec
Digital Equipment Corporation didn’t
want to put commercial money into
commercial growth of the search engine
we laughed back because they tried
selling themselves to dec twice for
$1,000,000 and had received a negative
answer twice and now today they are one
of the most valuable companies in the
world I’m talking about Google if you
look at the five most valuable companies
in the world they are all coming from
software and there is something to their
business model that’s making them
immensely powerful already 25 years ago
when we were developing this technology
we could see the future potential of it
and we were so fascinated this is going
to change the world this is going to be
the engine of growth something that will
bring this incredible abundance in every
product and every service that we have
we also believed it’s going to be very
democratizing because everybody’s going
to have access so finally we will
eliminate things like hunger power
shortages democratic shortages and it’ll
be great trust us it’ll be great then my
wonderful Norwegian husband and I
decided to come back to Norway because
this is a place where you can actually
more easily combine some other parts of
your life than your work back into your
life and eventually we had four children
and this motherhood changed my
perspective I looked at these four messy
little beings by now five seven nine and
eleven and reveled in their messiness
made me aware of the beauty the glorious
messy beauty of the human condition I
didn’t want them to be any more
optimized that they were wanted them
just as stubborn and and and
hopeless couldn’t be better objective as
every mother of course but it kind of
made me aware of this human condition
problem maybe we really shouldn’t be
optimized to live as many years as
possible maybe we shouldn’t be optimized
in terms of how we behave with other
people what we eat when we train maybe
we should just be who we are and make
the most of that maybe that’s why we are
here so I actually started hating AI I
thought you know I really don’t want it
to make the world this mesh where
everything is normalized into something
that will just last as long as possible
and make as much profit as possible and
then the third phase is I’m not just a
mother I’m a board director and I
realize I can’t help build these
companies for the future unless I
actually use the power of technology it
has to be a part of the equation so what
do we do maybe I should say just two
words about myself as well I’m
pathologically curious and I’m
hopelessly hopelessly stubborn and
independent I can’t even stick to a
script I’m sorry my there coaches so you
know I think we’re here also to ask
questions and we have to ask our unique
questions I’m also a long-term optimist
but a short-term pessimist I think
that’s a useful strategy given some of
the countries I’ve lived in and that
have gone not so well
the other party AI maybe deserves a few
words as well so it has become
infinitely smart smarter in the 20 years
that we’ve been friends we started with
something that was purely science
fiction purely mathematical logics and
now it has become a part of our everyday
life science fiction has become science
reality cars are driving themselves
we have robot surgeons we have robot
journalists we have robot everything and
not only are things but also our society
our bank
our energy infrastructure our media
picture our politics are becoming driven
by this digital infrastructure and this
AI it’s super smart it’s super rational
and it poses two very important
questions if it is so much more
efficient than humans will it replace us
what’s our role in the future business
and the future society and the second
thing if it really can optimize us so
much if it really can help us think
better live longer you know how how
should it do that
along with values three quick examples
one is a car imagine a car driving on
its own along the road navigates really
well through its sensors it’s reading
the road it’s reading the traffic it’s
reading the weather and the other
components of this complex picture
suddenly a child jumps in front of the
car should the car hit the child or
should it swerve into a truck beside you
and kill you if it’s a 30% probability
that the child will die or a 60%
probability that you will die what
should it do the algorithm in the heart
of the car if the probabilities are
opposite what should it do if you have
bought a platinum version of Tesla that
gives you a slightly better chance what
should it do it if every insurance
company in the world actually owns 10%
of Tesla or if you have a special
insurance plan with them these are very
deep value-based questions and this is
exactly the problem with AI it’s trying
to optimize the world when world is a
hopelessly complex system every day our
world and our lives are met with a
number of impossible choices it’s not
that one or the other are absolutely
better than each other it’s just that
you have to choose and it’s how we make
these impossible choices that defines us
as humans this is what we humans know or
learn this is what it’s impossible to
program an AI to do
locally individually correct way if we
think global after my every war in human
history was based on disagreement on
what’s best given to impossibly like
choices
another example is a robot journalist
for example it’s writing really well
colloquially funny you can’t really
guess it’s a robot except it’s perfectly
optimized for you and it’s serving you
exactly the news it knows you want but
the human journalist might have given
you the news you need because as my
mother told me many many times in my
life what you want is not necessarily
what you need where is the element of
surprise the last point is teacher think
about the first lecture you heard today
about the role of seeing the human on
the other side in order to be able to
affect them an AI teacher will provide
you with an optimal curriculum for
exactly your needs and your personality
but you can’t give it an apple you can’t
get a human reaction on you being a
human how are you going to care about
what that AI teacher actually thinks
about you which is the best motivating
factor for learning I think these
examples remind us about the human
superpower actually two of them one is
to learn in order to change our minds
and the other thing is the power to
choose when you have impossible choices
I think that in the future where we get
so incredibly good AI enabled digitally
driven tools for our health for our
learning for our driving for our
everything financial and other kinds of
social lives the important role for
humans will be not to not use these
tools because none of us will afford to
do that it will be to ask the right
questions and interpret the ambiguous
answers that any kind of a logical
system will give you when you get such a
complex set of conditions like this
world gives you so
we have to be the driver in the
driverless society we have to demand to
take that wheel and we have to define
our goal and then we have to have the
courage perhaps to take the road less
traveled not the optimal road but the
one that we individually want to take
the other question is this is the role
collaboration with the tools the other
question was how should we accept this
optimization even isn’t my humanity task
individually to try to make the most out
of this hopelessly messy chemistry that
I was given at the at birth as a mother
of four I know that we think we can
shape our children but really they are
really quite done when they come out and
your human condition is living your life
you know with a set of enzymes that
you’re made out of your reaction
patterns and making the most out of that
for you your local context and maybe the
world as the whole so but if they do
everything so much better than we do
these machines I mean they have so much
data they have so much computing power
and they can read each other minds
through the cloud we have had this thing
called Moore’s Law we have had
exponential growth in data in computing
power and in network connectivity how
can we possibly compute compete I was
really worried about this question and
and you know it’s because I thought we
were logical rational machines and then
I was sitting with my kids one day and
you know they asked a million questions
and no AI could come up with questions
like that I guarantee you and one of
them wanted to know he was Thomas of
course was Nikola Tesla smarter than
Albert Einstein was like how much no no
but what do you think let’s google it no
no no what do you think mommy I really
don’t know and then let me started
talking and we were thinking well you
know Einstein and I need to get this
ride because of Christoph I know
what did Einstein do he was thinking
about you know riding a ray of light and
then somehow he figured out this special
theory of relativity he equals MC
squared etc what did Tesla do well he
was he was thinking about generators he
had this incredible visual imagination
and he could think about the whole new
world of generators and then suddenly he
figured out alternating current
let’s throw Newton in the mix he was
thinking about the world without
friction a complete impossibility and
figured out our motion laws no AI in the
world could come up with so impossible
thought experiments it takes an
irreverent stubborn human to come up
with something so far out AIS are very
very smart but they are disciplined our
rebellious Ness is our human superpower
we can think about things that are not
maybe things that shouldn’t be in order
to figure out things that really should
be and this is a big difference in
computation because we can figure out
long term optimize the way that a is
work and learn is figuring out so-called
local optima so I think we will use
these amazing tools but I think we will
be thinking the impossible questions and
then using the tools to prove our
incredibly brilliant answers what I
would like to leave you with is that
there is an absolutely necessary role
for us in the future the future is up to
us the role is to take the wheel in this
autonomous society of future insist on
asking the right questions in system
being able to interpret the answers in
an individual and local way and enjoying
the ride the future is up to us it’s up
to my messy kids and I think it’s really
cool
thank you [Applause]
the future strategies and and and future
proof business and today I decided to
tell you a love story it’s a personal
life story and as every love story it
starts with infatuation goes through a
stormy called troubled period and then
ends up with a kind of a long-term
comfortable relationship with well
understood roles this love story has two
parties I’m one of them the other party
is not my dear husband it’s actually not
he it’s not a see it’s an eight i T it’s
kind of my lifelong relationship with
deep and broad uses of information
technology it’s becoming a part of not
only our societies but also of who we
are it’s changing our humanity and I
think it’s incredibly important to share
some of the kind of ups and downs of
this relationship because I think the
stock this particular love story will
repeat itself with most view in the very
few months to come it’s relevant
internationally and locally and
individually I’ll see a few few words
about my life because who we are effects
of course all of our relationships so
the kind of three major parts to my
personal and professional life the first
one is this age of IT infatuation about
25 years ago I went to Oxford with a PhD
in algorithm design this is a borderline
subject between mathematics and
computing or programming and I used some
of this work to later have a small part
in the development of one of the first
search engines called AltaVista this was
99
a very interesting time in Silicon
Valley because this was just after the
internet came to stay we realized it’s
going to be very big but we didn’t still
know where the money is going to come
from I remember sitting and eating lunch
with some of the people working with
another search engine that was still a
very early startup at the time they
laughed at us because our owners dec
Digital Equipment Corporation didn’t
want to put commercial money into
commercial growth of the search engine
we laughed back because they tried
selling themselves to dec twice for
$1,000,000 and had received a negative
answer twice and now today they are one
of the most valuable companies in the
world I’m talking about Google if you
look at the five most valuable companies
in the world they are all coming from
software and there is something to their
business model that’s making them
immensely powerful already 25 years ago
when we were developing this technology
we could see the future potential of it
and we were so fascinated this is going
to change the world this is going to be
the engine of growth something that will
bring this incredible abundance in every
product and every service that we have
we also believed it’s going to be very
democratizing because everybody’s going
to have access so finally we will
eliminate things like hunger power
shortages democratic shortages and it’ll
be great trust us it’ll be great then my
wonderful Norwegian husband and I
decided to come back to Norway because
this is a place where you can actually
more easily combine some other parts of
your life than your work back into your
life and eventually we had four children
and this motherhood changed my
perspective I looked at these four messy
little beings by now five seven nine and
eleven and reveled in their messiness
made me aware of the beauty the glorious
messy beauty of the human condition I
didn’t want them to be any more
optimized that they were wanted them
just as stubborn and and and
hopeless couldn’t be better objective as
every mother of course but it kind of
made me aware of this human condition
problem maybe we really shouldn’t be
optimized to live as many years as
possible maybe we shouldn’t be optimized
in terms of how we behave with other
people what we eat when we train maybe
we should just be who we are and make
the most of that maybe that’s why we are
here so I actually started hating AI I
thought you know I really don’t want it
to make the world this mesh where
everything is normalized into something
that will just last as long as possible
and make as much profit as possible and
then the third phase is I’m not just a
mother I’m a board director and I
realize I can’t help build these
companies for the future unless I
actually use the power of technology it
has to be a part of the equation so what
do we do maybe I should say just two
words about myself as well I’m
pathologically curious and I’m
hopelessly hopelessly stubborn and
independent I can’t even stick to a
script I’m sorry my there coaches so you
know I think we’re here also to ask
questions and we have to ask our unique
questions I’m also a long-term optimist
but a short-term pessimist I think
that’s a useful strategy given some of
the countries I’ve lived in and that
have gone not so well
the other party AI maybe deserves a few
words as well so it has become
infinitely smart smarter in the 20 years
that we’ve been friends we started with
something that was purely science
fiction purely mathematical logics and
now it has become a part of our everyday
life science fiction has become science
reality cars are driving themselves
we have robot surgeons we have robot
journalists we have robot everything and
not only are things but also our society
our bank
our energy infrastructure our media
picture our politics are becoming driven
by this digital infrastructure and this
AI it’s super smart it’s super rational
and it poses two very important
questions if it is so much more
efficient than humans will it replace us
what’s our role in the future business
and the future society and the second
thing if it really can optimize us so
much if it really can help us think
better live longer you know how how
should it do that
along with values three quick examples
one is a car imagine a car driving on
its own along the road navigates really
well through its sensors it’s reading
the road it’s reading the traffic it’s
reading the weather and the other
components of this complex picture
suddenly a child jumps in front of the
car should the car hit the child or
should it swerve into a truck beside you
and kill you if it’s a 30% probability
that the child will die or a 60%
probability that you will die what
should it do the algorithm in the heart
of the car if the probabilities are
opposite what should it do if you have
bought a platinum version of Tesla that
gives you a slightly better chance what
should it do it if every insurance
company in the world actually owns 10%
of Tesla or if you have a special
insurance plan with them these are very
deep value-based questions and this is
exactly the problem with AI it’s trying
to optimize the world when world is a
hopelessly complex system every day our
world and our lives are met with a
number of impossible choices it’s not
that one or the other are absolutely
better than each other it’s just that
you have to choose and it’s how we make
these impossible choices that defines us
as humans this is what we humans know or
learn this is what it’s impossible to
program an AI to do
locally individually correct way if we
think global after my every war in human
history was based on disagreement on
what’s best given to impossibly like
choices
another example is a robot journalist
for example it’s writing really well
colloquially funny you can’t really
guess it’s a robot except it’s perfectly
optimized for you and it’s serving you
exactly the news it knows you want but
the human journalist might have given
you the news you need because as my
mother told me many many times in my
life what you want is not necessarily
what you need where is the element of
surprise the last point is teacher think
about the first lecture you heard today
about the role of seeing the human on
the other side in order to be able to
affect them an AI teacher will provide
you with an optimal curriculum for
exactly your needs and your personality
but you can’t give it an apple you can’t
get a human reaction on you being a
human how are you going to care about
what that AI teacher actually thinks
about you which is the best motivating
factor for learning I think these
examples remind us about the human
superpower actually two of them one is
to learn in order to change our minds
and the other thing is the power to
choose when you have impossible choices
I think that in the future where we get
so incredibly good AI enabled digitally
driven tools for our health for our
learning for our driving for our
everything financial and other kinds of
social lives the important role for
humans will be not to not use these
tools because none of us will afford to
do that it will be to ask the right
questions and interpret the ambiguous
answers that any kind of a logical
system will give you when you get such a
complex set of conditions like this
world gives you so
we have to be the driver in the
driverless society we have to demand to
take that wheel and we have to define
our goal and then we have to have the
courage perhaps to take the road less
traveled not the optimal road but the
one that we individually want to take
the other question is this is the role
collaboration with the tools the other
question was how should we accept this
optimization even isn’t my humanity task
individually to try to make the most out
of this hopelessly messy chemistry that
I was given at the at birth as a mother
of four I know that we think we can
shape our children but really they are
really quite done when they come out and
your human condition is living your life
you know with a set of enzymes that
you’re made out of your reaction
patterns and making the most out of that
for you your local context and maybe the
world as the whole so but if they do
everything so much better than we do
these machines I mean they have so much
data they have so much computing power
and they can read each other minds
through the cloud we have had this thing
called Moore’s Law we have had
exponential growth in data in computing
power and in network connectivity how
can we possibly compute compete I was
really worried about this question and
and you know it’s because I thought we
were logical rational machines and then
I was sitting with my kids one day and
you know they asked a million questions
and no AI could come up with questions
like that I guarantee you and one of
them wanted to know he was Thomas of
course was Nikola Tesla smarter than
Albert Einstein was like how much no no
but what do you think let’s google it no
no no what do you think mommy I really
don’t know and then let me started
talking and we were thinking well you
know Einstein and I need to get this
ride because of Christoph I know
what did Einstein do he was thinking
about you know riding a ray of light and
then somehow he figured out this special
theory of relativity he equals MC
squared etc what did Tesla do well he
was he was thinking about generators he
had this incredible visual imagination
and he could think about the whole new
world of generators and then suddenly he
figured out alternating current
let’s throw Newton in the mix he was
thinking about the world without
friction a complete impossibility and
figured out our motion laws no AI in the
world could come up with so impossible
thought experiments it takes an
irreverent stubborn human to come up
with something so far out AIS are very
very smart but they are disciplined our
rebellious Ness is our human superpower
we can think about things that are not
maybe things that shouldn’t be in order
to figure out things that really should
be and this is a big difference in
computation because we can figure out
long term optimize the way that a is
work and learn is figuring out so-called
local optima so I think we will use
these amazing tools but I think we will
be thinking the impossible questions and
then using the tools to prove our
incredibly brilliant answers what I
would like to leave you with is that
there is an absolutely necessary role
for us in the future the future is up to
us the role is to take the wheel in this
autonomous society of future insist on
asking the right questions in system
being able to interpret the answers in
an individual and local way and enjoying
the ride the future is up to us it’s up
to my messy kids and I think it’s really
cool
thank you [Applause]
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