Should you’re interested by rising tech, it’s more durable to think about a cooler job than Allison Duettmann’s. She’s the CEO of the Foresight Institute, a assume tank based in 1986 that’s dedicated to advancing science and tech that’s arguably undervalued — fields like nanotechnology, area exploration, and harnessing cryptography to construct safer AI.
Allison Duettmann is speaker on the AI Stage at Consensus 2024, in Austin, Texas, Could 29-31.
Duettmann lives on the earth of Large Future Concepts. She’s the coauthor of “Gaming the Future: Applied sciences for Clever Voluntary Cooperation”; she’s the founding father of Existential Hope (with a mission of “Considering Large for Constructive Futures”); and he or she’ll be becoming a member of Consensus 2024 on the inaugural AI Summit to share insights on what’s legitimately helpful on the earth of AI+Crypto, and what’s simply hype.
In a latest Zoom interview, we cowl the staggering upside of nanotechnology, dig into how crypto might assist the event of AI, and we might have by accident simply birthed a billion-dollar token.
Interview has been condensed and flippantly edited for readability.Let’s begin with a curveball. With some tech that appears necessary to you, however doesn’t get a number of press: Nanotechnology. If we crack the code of nanotech, what’s an instance of a use case? How would the world be totally different?Allison Duettmann: Mainly, it will revolutionize the whole means by which we produce issues. So, sure, particular person functions are thrilling. However extra typically, it’s nearly like we’re nonetheless producing issues on this tremendous stone-agey means. We take the assets we now have and try to strap them collectively.
But when we might get rather more exact [through nanotech] about what sorts of assets we use within the manufacturing course of… Like, at the moment, we’re working at a wholly mistaken degree. We’re producing a lot waste within the course of of manufacturing.
Think about a 3D-printing methodology, for instance, however on a tiny molecular scale. So that you’d have large features on that entrance. Nanotech might have actually attention-grabbing implications on {hardware} for computing, and actually attention-grabbing functions in longevity know-how.
How so?
For cryonics, for instance, you want nearly molecular nanotechnology for the revival of sufferers — resembling on the drug supply degree or the nanobots in your bloodstream perspective. Then there’s additionally innovation from an environmental perspective; carbon drawdown can be enabled via molecular nanotechnology, or waste removing within the biosphere.
Given the large upside, why hasn’t there been extra growth in nanotech?
One factor that is so attention-grabbing about nanotech is that for anybody particular person utility, there’s in all probability a better approach to do it. But when we had this type of normal function, excessive throughput nanotechnology, then you would be utilizing that for a lot of totally different fields.
So there’s by no means one incentive to develop it for a person actor. That’s why progress has been so sluggish. It’s nearly like this public good that after it’s created, it will probably trigger these revolutions throughout totally different industries. However for any particular person utility, there’s by no means a novel ingenious to develop it.
That’s so attention-grabbing. I say this solely principally in jest… it feels like candidate for a crypto challenge. As a result of it’s one thing that may take an enormous crowd to capitalize, with the advantages conferred to a bigger group. Is there a NANO token?!
Properly…
If not, let’s begin one, Allison!
Sure, now that we’ve mentioned it, the Nano DAO.
[Both laugh.]
No, however I believe in all seriousness, it matches very well. There are numerous folks within the Foresight group which might be additionally in crypto and care a bunch about nano. Plenty of the early sci-fi nano concepts match very well with the philosophy of crypto.
Okay let’s speak about crypto and AI. What do you see as probably the most promising, professional ways in which blockchain might help with the event of safer or higher AI?
I suppose I’d say there are three buckets. One can be the safety aspect of issues, the place the Web3/crypto area has a number of expertise with failing quick if you do not have safe techniques constructed.
As a result of lots of the techniques within the permissionless or immutable areas — for those who do not construct them appropriately — there could also be a million-dollar bounty hooked up to them. So I believe this spirit of constructing security and having an nearly unintentional vetting course of is a crucial mindset, as we construct up AI techniques.
And the second?
The second is on the aspect of, how can we leverage applied sciences that the crypto area can also be engaged on, to construct AI techniques that we might need from a human perspective?
Are you able to give an instance?
So, there could also be extra privacy-preserving functions which might be attainable as we draw extra on the cryptography areas. They could allow us to provide higher functions, for instance, for human well being and in finance, leveraging cryptographic applied sciences. And we might be able to use cryptographic applied sciences to assist us create higher, very superior AI techniques.
And what’s the third and last bucket?
The governance aspect of AI. So, you may probably use cryptographic applied sciences to show that you simply’re following sure security benchmarks or requirements. Fairly than having to share all the info that’s probably proprietary, you may solely share info that’s wanted to show you’re hitting sure security benchmarks.
Nice, and I do know we’ll unpack all of this extra on the AI Summit. Talking of, what are you most wanting ahead to at Consensus this yr?
I’m actually wanting ahead to discovering what the state of crypto and AI has actually come to at this level. I come at it from the foundational analysis aspect of issues or extra on the form of cryptography and safety aspect of issues. However I additionally know that many individuals have been actually constructing arduous within the Web3 and AI area. So, I am actually to see which of my hypotheses — or which of different folks’s hypotheses — have come out. Who’s constructing what proper now? And the place are there attainable synergies throughout totally different merchandise? I’m excited to see what’s occurring in that area.
You and me each. See you at Consensus.