IBM Watson, Futurism NYC

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This summer I spoke about Artificial Intelligence at IBM Watson’s new headquarters at 51 Astor Place in Manhattan, as part of a panel with Douglas Rushkoff, Martine Rothblatt, Steve Fuller, and Michael Krasnicki. It was apparently the first time any ‘outsiders’ – other than corporate clients and press – have been permitted to enter the inner sanctum of the new IBM building.

Trying to explain to the makers of a real Artificial Intelligence what the concept of ‘intelligence’ means turned out to be not so easy, especially when the audience at the small, crazily-high-security event turned out to be more expert than the panel. NYC A-List Hari Kunzru, Lee Child, Kevin Slavin, Carla Gannis, the faculties from NYU, NYTU, Pratt, CUNY – not to mention the IBM insiders… If I’d known in advance who’d be in the audience I might have quailed.

The evening before, I gave a talk about the history of AI at Futurism NYC on Wall Street. A couple of the participants there persuaded me to shave my head so that I could have my cranium scanned, and I’m now apparently 20% of the Megadome, which is the template for the Ultracortex. No, I can’t explain. But the Open Brain-Computer Interface founders at @OpenBCI can.

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