Who's Afraid of General AI?

Byron Reese believes technology has only truly reshaped humanity three times in history. The first came with the harnessing of fire. And the "third age" came with the invention of the wheel and writing. Reese, CEO and publisher of the technology research company, Gigaom, and host of the Voices in AI podcast, has spent the majority of his career exploring how technology and humanity intersect. He believes the emergence of artificial intelligence is pushing us into a "fourth age" in which AI and robotics will forever transform not only how we work and play, but also how we think about deeper philosophical topics, such as the nature of consciousness. Byron Reese spoke* with Design News about the implications of artificial general intelligence (AGI), the possibility of creating machines that truly think, automation's impact on jobs, and the ways society might be forever transformed by AI.