Analyzing a TED Talk

Analysis of Nick Bostrom’s “What happens when our computers get smarter than we are?”
Available at
 https://www.ted.com/talks/nick_bostrom_what_happens_when_our_computers_get_smarter_than_we_are?language=en#t-459618

Nick Bostrom, April 2015. From ted.com

Nick Bostrom has an quirky Swedish accent, which forces listeners to pay an extra big of attention to this intelligent looking man. The audience does not seem more than somewhat aware of the current state of artificial intelligence, so he begins slowly and makes his ideas easy to follow.  He starts off his speech by making audiences laugh with a familiar picture from the film Office Space, and says the photo represents the human condition. He then introduces some statistics that really make the human race sound short-lived, “If the earth were created one year ago… the industrial era happened two seconds ago”. He also makes a slapstick joke about not wanting to sit on a pointy graph showing human progress. He then dives into the body of his lecture. All of this is what I would consider his introduction, before diving into a brief background over the history of artificial intelligence.
“Creating algorithms that learn… the AI is not limited to one domain”, he warns later. He has taken on a much more serious tone, and the audience is aware that some dismal future is about to be described. After describing the advantages technology has over us, he than includes another humorous visual to somewhat lighten the mood, calling “Village idiot” the lower bound of human intelligence. One of the most important visuals he used was while relating the dormant power of artificial intelligence to the dormancy of the power of the atom through human history. Bostrom then predicted if we unlock that information… there will be an “information explosion”, and showed a nuclear blast filled with circuitry. He also criticizes the media by describing how anthropomorphized the subject has become, and he flashes a picture of an evil Terminator on screen, resulting in a few laughs.

Terminator: not necessarily realistic...yet. From theatlantic.com

The rest of the speech follows a similar pattern- him making light of dire situations, along with scattered visual effects. He has an incredible ability to build suspense. This is one of the most effective tools Bostrom utilizes. When he introduces a sci-fi sounding thought experiment regarding superintelligent takeover, he delivers the narrative in a very intense way. He even uses a disturbing circa 1920’s era photo of some strange science involving electroschock therapy. All of this makes his warnings and points about the future of AI that much more impactful.

The way I relate this speech to my topic is because with the other volunteer work I am involved in, my peer mentor is working in the field of artificial intelligence within education. I have been thinking about programs that learn how to learn how to teach (as confusing as that sounds). But artificial intelligence has a tremendous effect on the future of education, and being able to customize lessons around computer- derived information. I think this is an interesting field of research at the moment, and I think in the near future applications of artificial intelligence to the academic world will change education. Even elementary schools could utilize this technology and better tailor lessons to student’s individual needs… perhaps eradicating the need for Homework Helpers (I know…not likely).