This panel was so exciting. I am so glad that I went to the 6:30pm panel even though I was dead tired. We need to keep up these great conversations and stay aware of how technology affects us as humans.
Panelists:
Arvel Chappell III
Manager Emerging Technology at Warner Bros. Entertainment Group of Companies
Nova Spivack
Nova is the Co-Founder and Chairman of the Arch Mission Foundation, which is building a solar-system scale archive of all human knowledge, that will last up to 14 billion years. The Arch Mission successfully launched the first permanent library in space, and the longest-lasting library in human history, on February 6, 2018, as the secret payload of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy test launch. This first “Arch” (pronounced “Ark”) will orbit the Sun for at least many tens of millions of years – making it also one of the longest lasting objects humanity has ever created.
Sinclair Fleming-Moderator
Engineering Executive – Virtual Reality, AR & Immersive Entertainment technology
Starbreeze Studios
Mark Murphy
Founding Partner at Voyager Media Company. VMC generates and manages IP for a transmedia market. Currently a co-founder and partner in the multi-platform franchise, “Neil deGrasse Tyson Presents Space Odyssey”, which is developing a PC game and VR missions, an animated spin-off series, as well as a comic book series.
www.spaceodysseygame.com
Alexander Mejia
Alexander Mejia is an Emmy award winning Creative Director at Human Interact with over 9 years in the AAA gaming industry. Human Interact’s debut VR game ,STARSHIP COMMANDER, puts you in charge your own personal, tent-pole, Hollywood film making you the main character of your own science fiction story. Powered by next generation natural language processing technology featured at Microsoft Build 2017, You control the story by speaking naturally with characters.
Stephen Powers
Educated at MIT, Stephen Powers is a creative entrepreneur, producer and business leader. He served as Founder, President or CEO of Agape Media International; consumer electronics innovator Miller & Kreisel Sound; Drive Entertainment/Universal; Chameleon Music Grp/Capitol-EMI; theater and drama school Theatricum Botanicum; Mountain Railroad; and Charlotte’s Web For The Performing Arts. He was Director of A&R at Capitol Records; Director of Entertainment for 1984 LA Olympics; and NPR radio host. He’s a keynote speaker, TV commentator and writer. Powers OmniMedia clients incl. The Shift Network, Brahma Kumaris, ShopTribe, Celerity, House of Intl Media.
Open Question: What makes science cool?
Alexander Mejia: I feel like we are building experiences that young people are going to say, “Why don’t we just do that; just build that”.
Stephen Powers: When I was in college science was definitely not cool. What makes it cool now is that science is based on facts. What we know today 50 years ago was different or unknown and 50 years from now that will be the different than it is now. The social impact is important. How can we improve the human condition, get along better and communicate better.
Arvel Chappell III: I was volunteering in Skid Row downtown. There was a homeless girl about 5 or 6 years old. I was trying to show her how to calculate the gravity of the moon. I was wondering how am I going to explain this to a child? I start calculating it out on paper and the kid says, “I get it! There are more people on the Earth than the moon and that’s why we have more gravity.” It was wrong, but it make her realize how we are a little part of a big world.
Mark Murphy: Science inspires ideas that inspire us to go further. When building Space Odyssey we are looking to the future to see what can be actualized for the future. We are just stardust as Neil deGrasse Tyson says.
Open Question: Dealing with the real advent of Virtual Reality, why is immersive technology important?
Stephen Powers: One of the companies I work with uses immersive entertainment that gives us surround sound and a 3D experience. Adding elements of fantasy combined that seems so real that the learning experience is heightened. The brain does not distinguish between immersive r and reality.
Alexander Mejia: Virtual reality will change education. If I make a video to teach a task only 30% will remember. If I make a virtual reality simulation teaching that same task 70% will remember the task. Education will be an experience and not just reading.
Mark Murphy: A great stepping stone into education.
Nova Spivack: Right now we have augmented reality, mixed reality, real reality and virtual reality. What’s going to happen? Are they going in different directions or will they come together? I am in the thought they are going to come together and we will have more control. For example, we could have the ability to make dreams happen. To control the dreams with a new level of consciousness.
Arvel Chappell III: Learning is a storytelling journey, we learn resolution. With virtual reality you change as a protagonist. That could change mental health and well being.
Stephen Powers: Definitions are very important. Virtual Reality is an experience in a headset, oculus experience. Augmented reality is a virtual experience and real world experience. Alternate reality is a Sci-fi overlay into the real world.
Sinclair Fleming: Vocabulary is very important.
Open question: Do content creators have a social obligation to society to present science when it is ambiguous to whether it is science or sci-fiction?
Stephen Powers:: Everything should be looked at through the lens of social impact. All businesses should clearly identify their social impact of their business. Neil deGrasse Tyson is great because he changing the fact that most of society learned what they know about science from Star Trek.
Mark Murphy: We look at science future. There are so many things that we truly don’t understand. But if we are true to science and fact we are not doing a disservice to the public . There is no gray area.
Open Question: In science of space exploration, in the past, the astronauts were a big part of the star power of engaging the public. Space is getting cool again Is the star power going to again be important again?
Nova Spivack: It already has. You have Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos Richard Branson, the Google Lunar XPRISE (even though it was cancelled) and we will four or five different teams landing on the moon before 2022. I am working with many of them now. Each moon landing will have easter eggs and that will be exciting. Moving toward first inhabitants on Mars. The people that go to Mars might not come back. They might have a hard landing or soft landing but there is no way to get back from Mars. We will be watching a reality show on mars of people living on mars in a glass bubble.
Mark Murphy: Some companies are looking into mining asteroids. Other companies want to become the trading post in space.
Nova Spivack: Space for Humanity, a company I work for is going to pay for 1000 ordinary people to go to space. You can apply https://spaceforhumanity.org. They want to give people the overview effect. Overview effect means a person sees the system you are in, from the outside, for the first time. I know, because I did it. Social media will spread the word about it.
Stephen Powers: Neil deGrasse Tyson is entertaining is funny and he makes science cool.
Arvel Chappell III: Space has always been cool. I am jealous of people older than me that watched it all on TV when they were young. Space is definitely coming back in.
Open Question: The advent of autonomous systems around us. Should we fear this?
Nick Spivack: I am afraid of bad ones. There are going to be a couple of decades of that. I am fearful of that.
Sinclair Fleming: In pop culture we have a lot of cautionary tales that tell about virtual environment that people are drawn into can cause unbelievable societal harm. Are we at the point where we need to start talking about that.
Stephen Powers: We should be very aware. We should learn from history that many things that have been used badly before it was used for good.
Mark Murphy: We are looking at bringing machine learning algorithms into the structure, but allowing the participants to crafts to build bots with AI to see how machine learning takes place. Also, we could create personalities in AI how do they function with hat. We aren’t really looking at exploring autonomous futures we are looking for innovations. We are not following the narrative that the Earth is a dying husk or a zombie apocalypse.
Nick Spivack: But we are going to get to a critical point in a couple of decades where automation is good enough to replace a high percentage of labor intensive but non- skilled jobs. When that happens we will have a big problem. Population is going up. Resources are going down. All of a sudden unemployment is going to rise. What happens to those people? Some people say, “they will maintain the robots”. That’s not true. You can program robots can train robots. That is going to be a big question. You will see some countries legislate against robots. Probably France. They always have riots when people lose their jobs. There have been proposals to tax companies that use robots. It will be a problem for our kids.
Stephen Powers: We have this human body that we need to get fit. We are having less and less exercise. The same applies for mental exercise. When you use machines you will lose your mental strength as well.
Arvel Chappell III: There has to be rules. The economic singularity is the biggest concern. There are groups that give me promise. IEEE (is one of those organizations that has a group about artificial intelligence and well being, that I am a part of. Organizations like that will have to step up so that we make sure we don’t drive humanity off a cliff.
Nova Spivack: I think there will be two possible futures. One where machines come more like humans until you can’t tell the difference or the other is humans become more like machines until you can’t tell the difference. Now that is the choice. That is the big choice.
Alexander Mejia: Technology is who we are as a society. When the internet first because popular you had an offline life and an online life. Now we have no difference. We have to ask ourselves the question, “Are we going to be socially responsible or just use this technology for personal gain?” I think we are going to go to an economy that awards social good. Where we reward the arts and reward music. Humans are really good at that and an AI will never be able to be original.
As always, you can comment below or find me on Instagram and Twitter and you can find the whole pixelatedgeek.com gang on Instagram or Twitter.