Transcripts For CSPAN2 Washington Post Hosts Transformers Summit 20160521

To cspan. Org. Now, a discussion about medical technology and new inventions to aid the disabled. It was part of the washington hosts transformer summit held on wednesday. This is two hours. We are delighted to welcome you here this morning. Thank you for joining us. [applause] were sitting in the center of what we call Washington Post live. The new initiative that extends the reach of our journalism through live events, streaming, and pairs or journalist with leaders and decisionmakers to dissect and explore the most important and compelling issues off our time. The idea of todays conference on transformers actually began with a conversation we had here about the transformation underway at the Washington Post. We have gone from what was once a locally focused newspaper, to a multiplatform Digital First News Organization serving a Broad National and global audience. And although we have made amazing progress and are leading the industry in many ways, well always view ourselves as being in the process of transforming and never fully transformed, because like so Many Industries the media space is changing to rapidly the process of transforming can never really be complete. With advance in technology, the speed and scope of change is only increasing only accelerating. Achieving or maintaining the status quo will never be sufficient. So for all of news journalism today, whether you have just started and your early in your career, or your in my stage, the reality is that our entire profession will be a time of continuous and increasing change, and that is the culture we are embracing here at the Washington Post. For any business, transformation is a delicate balance. What do you utilize and preserve from the past and what do you set aside to create room for the future . For us, the pillar of journalistic excellence has always been, and will always be, fundamental to our mission. But the rest, thats going to be determined by constant innovation and experimentation. As part our transformation we have imbedded more than 80 engineers in the news room to quickly bring stories to life in new and innovative ways. Our Technology Team now creates our own extensive and flexible site architecture and were now licensing that to others. Were constantly testing and experimenting and never standing still. We have bold ambitions to coin to grow across the country and around the world be a moodle for a rapidly changing industry. So, for purposes of todays conversation, how do we translate the broad disruption that were witnessing around the world in all sectors, into a thoughtprovoking event . I think we have accomplished that today with a very unique lineup of voices, who are pushing the boundaries on really every aspect of our lives. The transformers program is anchored by visionaries and innovators in the fields of space explore asia, Artificial Intelligence, impact philanthropy. National security and much more. Well be discussing breathtaking changes that are forever altering the way we live, connect, and learn, from the social platforms we use to communicate, to the cars we drive, or more accurately i say that will drive us. Today well explore efforts to define mortality and what that means for our future. And we even have the father of the internet their explain it all to us, and despite what we may have heard a few Campaign Seasons ago this is actually the father of the internet. To start us off, id like to thank our presenting sponsors. Lockheed martin and samsung electronics. Join me in showing our appreciation. [applause] i also draw your attention to the program where the rest of the supporting sponsors are listed. On the way in you may have seen students building robots. Theyre part of what we call the roporter competitions were holding today. The way we gather news that changed dramatically in many ways of the past few years. Virtual reality, and row boats are helping journalists to tell stories in new and engaging ways. We challenged a team of top science students from five major high schools to build a functioning robot that can help collect information from places that would otherwise be unreachable for journalists. That competition is underway right now, and well be announcing the winners to you later today. But now, please to start our program, please join me in welcoming the head of Samsung Catalyst Fund to say a few years. [applause] good morning. Thank you, fred, and thank you, Washington Post. Im honored to be here presenting samsung electronics. Its a privilege to join you today to listen to you and engage in a conversation about technology and how technology is going to impact us as individuals, as society, as well as our country. Perhaps to just kick it off here today, youre going to listen to some amazing speakers. These are the speakers that represent innovators who really are bringing in the next technology revolution, and you as audience get an opportunity to engage with them, really help shape the conversation how technology is going to in turn influence us as people and as society. At samsung we are very privileged to actually work in the technology industry. We do this every day. As we look out there into the future, we see some very significant challenges we face as a society, Climate Change is one. Shifting demographics. Chronic illnesses and the rising cost of managing chronic illnesses. Security, privacy. These are all very significant issues. We think technology has a role to play there. In just the last few years, theres been some Significant Technology breakthroughs. For example, deep learning, deep networks has been an amazing development. The human brain has been an inspiration for how these new technologies have come together, and deep learning is giving computers an ability to see as well as have a dialogue with us, and that is going to be transformative, quite similarly some of the new Big Data Analytics techniques are deeply influencing how quickly we can analyze dna sequencing and also how inexpensive thats going to become. Theres biology to technology and technology back to biology is creating an amazing cycle and we think we as partners can engage with that and make a transformation in society. We in sam sung believe we cant do this alone weapon would like to engage with grow a conversation. Wes like to figure out how we work in an open collaborative way and then make a fundamental difference in harnessing this technology. Let me perhaps at this point give you a little bit of sense of what we have outside this room. At some point today, if yous like to get a vision of what samsung is doing, we have some demonstrations of our gear. You can if you have some time, please stop by and take a look. Finally, id like to thank Washington Post for having us here, for giving us the opportunity, and thanks to all the speakers in the audience. Thank you. Discover a way to hear what others saw. Since before you could buy books on the internet transformers are dreamers, makers, doers. Theyre the famous and the unknown. They are people who can see, build, or leverage an idea that by design could better everyday life. How the age, how we move from here to there, the way we retreat each other, transformers push the boundaries of what we know. Good morning and welcome to transformers. I on behalf of the Washington Post, oiled like to introduce you to our first guest, who is a stunner. Its actually sort of impossible to imagine the modern World Without our first guest. One of her College Thesis became one of her satellite companies. She was also the president of the First Company to commercially offer gps devices in cars. After that she created sirius xm and was a founder of the entire idea of satellite radio. Not a bad start. As she left sirius 20 years ago she founded a company to assist her youngest daughter who was at the time dying of a then incurable lung disease. The resulting company is United Therapeutics. 6 billion biotech in silver spring, it has extended if not saved the lives of tens of thousands of people, including her daughter, who is now in her 30s. Ladies and gentlemen, she is also the recipient of this years Billy Jean King Leadership Initiative award devoted to alcs to lgbt issues and her company is based in North Carolina the might get arrest for going to the bathroom if the governor had anything to do about it. Ladies and gentlemen, martin. [applause] one of the basic concepts that youre interested in is not just improving life but actually immortality. Were all goes to live forever, and i might mention, founded a religion, as one does, known as its based on transhumannism and you have the idea that were not just going to live a long time but all going to live forever. Tell us your concept of immortality and how that would work. Thank you. Its great pleasure to be here. [inaudible] Information Technology industry for a while. Perhaps a prolific inventer is best known for the idea that as our abilities in the Information Processing industry, computer software, storage of more and more of our thoughts and our ideas outside of our body becomes easier, more automatic, less expensive, that ultimately were going to have sort of digital doppelgangers of ourselves stored in the cloud and are able to present themselves to any manner of devices, and that as thousands and thousands of software coders and hackers and people in the Maker Movement work to make the software that runs these digital doppelgangers ever more lifelike, ever more humanlike, theyll come a Tipping Point when people claim the digital doppelgangers have achieved what we call consciousness, an ability to have a sense of themselves, hope, fears and feelings, and at that point i think the activity will move to the legal arena as to whether or not these digital doppelgangers really are conscious, have an independent legal identity, and kind of the trend of progressive thinking is once theres a Scientific Consensus in this case the science of psychology, the science of the mind that these are digital doppelgangers are in fact cyber conscious. Then well begin to acquire the rights and protections that we assign to even our pets, laboratory animals, and to quite a high extent to primates like chimpanzees and well kind of morph into a digital consciousness that is recognized by the law as being alive. You have a kittyhawk typo jacket on this, named for your lovely spouse, which i have talked to and many others, and sort of a head on a table at this point but it talks to you. And you describe it this isnt the finished product where we want to go, but its the kittyhawk basis of how this call them doppelgangers, can we say robots . Yeah, robots is just as good. And if you put in i have the idea like the matrix, where the plug stuff into the back of people residents head and upload everybodys permits on what amounts to a thumb drive and then upload it to the clouds so youre always there and you can just plug it into a robot and there you are. Right. But its becoming even thats on the screen and thats a recent episode or Morgan Freemans series on the National Geographic channel about the nature of god and religion and whatnot. So, we did this project to really inspire young people, and id say young girls in particular, to become coders, and when they have an opportunity to speak with bina48 and see that even today in our somewhat primitive 20 teens were able to write software that can respond. She doesnt give the same answer any two times and theres no prescripted questions. You can ask her anything. Id say she is way better than siri. Id say just about catching up to her and im sure because theres thousands of people working on alexa shell soar past bina48. But this type of software inspires young people to become coders and why im so confident that cyber consciousness will emerge because its not just our foundation or a couple of Big Companies working on this. There are tens of thousands of people throughout the whole world who can make cyber consciousness. They dont need a factory to make it or a lot of investment to make it. Over a period of even a week we forget 90 percent of what we experienced. What is important to was with emotional context will stick with us for ever and that is what most of us refer to as our sole that does not change. In terms if your soul can be transferred into a cyberconscious form, it will be something that happens gradually and even today there is a debate did dogs or cats have been sold or are conscious and i feel they do. But most people in society that move in that direction when you could gratuitous blow dash gratuitously kill a dog in a horrible way know we would stop you from doing it in the 19th century or even most of the 20th now with is a crime in those states. Sebelius get to the point where there are friends of cyberconscious people with that personal have a lot of friends and i think very quickly we will get to a point where it has a soul in if god forbid getting in a car accident of death and disability you did he continues in the cyberconscious form one. One of the more frightening aspects that none of us want to live forever. Like hitler for example, so that you get into eugenics. So then we will make the drive better. You are a nice person but how do we avoid the the cyberrobots . Where does that come in . I have a point of view that it isnt realistic to fear because the cyberconsciousness and the robots developed are in in the environment it is still the environment much like the natural environment. Like the selection factors. Nobody will want to buy the hitler robot if that emerges from the same thing will happen to the robot as to the real hitler the rest of society will rise up to squash it down. There is no market so does that mean it doesnt exist . No because there are always new stations and there will be bad robots but the vast majority that comprise of the Decision Making with the economic powers will quash down the bad robots so it is a self correcting problem overwhelmingly good humans talk where the cyberconsciousness the verge [inaudible] this is my favorite project from West Virginia the by called genetic mutations but the purpose of these two therapeutics for possible future loan transplant so tell us how that works. Ever since my grandmother received a heart valve because hers had gone bad i have been aware the fact that loans and other organs are very close to the same size and shape and function of human major organs. Has our younger daughter developed of fatal heart and lung disease i learned rather quickly the only cure was a transplant but the problem was as there are too few organs to gore around and Organ Transplants trade one disease for another you trade the end stage organ disease for a chronic organ rejection type of disease ultimately takes the life of many if not most to receive transplants. I set about to solve the problem to make sure our daughter could live a normal life. I went back to school to get a ph. D. In transplantation which is the science of genetically modifying head genome so the organs not only used for humans as the same size and shape but to genetically modifying them it will not give rise to the rejection of flawed the transplants in the past in the thick genome can be modified the individuals who received those organs dont have to take a lifelong immunosuppressed and so with my Company Repurchased the early leaders in this area off the campus of Virginia Tech and hand we are the leaders of genetically modifying genomes so not only their lungs but their hearts and kidneys but can be used as human transplant all of the recent record announced by the nih program from the United Therapeutics with their own records and our goal i am confident to achieve this goal this is some of the earlier satellite communication projects is we can treat the limited supply of transplant organs through the modification of the genome so it is an unlimited supply of heart and liver and kidney and lungs to be tolerated by humans without the need for lifelong immunosuppression. Were on schedule to have reversed clinical procedures by the end of this decade and we hope for Regulatory Approval less than 10 years from now and i am pretty confident by the end of the 2020 is literally tens of thousands of people per year receiving Organ Transplants. To give some idea how quickly make progress how many people worldwide that anyone to but in many started with this and how many are alive now . The way you say that it comes out all i did but when genesis was diagnosed there were only 3,000 people with purges these she was designed at the Childrens National Medical Center we were told she would die because everybody with this condition guys so i knew i did not have time to get the organ transplant going so i left my satellite communication activities focused on pharmaceuticals to be a bridge to the bridge unfortunately our pharmaceuticals were for successful approved by the fda now in the United States there are 40,000 living with pulmonary hypertension so it does sound stranger to say when i started there only 3,000 now there are 40,000 but actually it is really good because that is a whole football stadium of people that are like that would not have been. There would have died already. Mortality is one to three years. Genesis is great working in our Company United therapeutics and is in charge of keeping everybody in the Company Working together using Digital Media to make sure all Clinical Trials and activities in information is available to everybody in the company. Briefly the project started a couple weeks ago is genius by your standards we will reshape called transplants take place across the Country Place an order for up to 1,000 i believe that will replace the helicopters . It will be a drone . It is actually a big project it is more challenging than the genetically modified organs but i had to think about that aspect because when you make of pharmaceutical to get that approved we have to prove that the drugs have a shelf life of one year and that is why every drug company would get medicines itll say refill within one year but we can make medicines and ship them and they can sit on the shelf but if it is genetically modified or guinness vars the fdas concern is the drug called a biologic but this has the 24 hour halflife we all know you cannot just put the organ on the shelf to keep a waiting we cannot ship it to walgreens so remanufacture the organs that are genetically modified p. I. G. S. We have to deliver within hours to the patient at a hospital to be transplanted there is a shelf life so i had to think of a whole new model of how we will transport all these organs in realtime from the point of manufacture to the hospitals and the patients in very much inspired from the owner jeff who provided an Important Foundation of credibility to the concept of commercial use of drones to think maybe it is possible to have a special type of drone you dont just drop it on the front yard. [laughter] so what has to be a special type but if it can drop but a pile of books and it within 10 years it can land very softly to have a person rolled the organ out of the drone and to the surgeons table where they will take it so replace the order for 1,000 manufacturers organ transport helicopters and these will be delivered within the next tender 15 years. Coming back to closed you are this years recipient of the Billie Jean King awarded to lgbt issues a multimilliondollar facility and i thank you were just down there. Leads us on this issue you said you have no plans to move your facility what your thoughts do you stay and fight . What are your thoughts . I think unfortunately i was automatically enlisted to lead the fight seven most visible transgendered ceo in North Carolina. [laughter] but actually it was brought to my attention by lots of people in my company who dont identify as lgbt and all but said this will hurt our recruitment as he always hire people especially scientists and technologists we hire people from all over the country and overseas so can we put out a Public Statement that says we oppose this so rerecording we can say this law was passed by our company has asked to be on record to be opposed so i said absolutely in to be frank i was a little nervous i didnt want it to see like it was my agenda but it bubbled up from the staff at United Therapeutics so we adopted the statement than the newspaper for that area would ask me to do an editorial interview which i did i was gratified that just this weekend on monday the Editorial Board of a major newspaper in North Carolina called me in support of our position of though law is not well thought out and counterproductive for nurse North Carolina should be repealed, and the thinking is there was no documented problem caused by any transgendered person using the bathroom that matched a gender identity so why adopt zero whole lot that specifically requires a transgendered me and who could have a full beard or at least trimmed beard life force that individual to go into the womans bathroom . That is insane. So i mentioned this into my interview and they agreed and i think the people of North Carolina realized this was not well thought out as Big Companies had decided not to go to North Carolina but i was clear from the beginning that North Carolina is not perfect but we love it anyway and i never really agreed with this sentiment letter of the fit or cut and run sodas because North Carolina has one thing bad it has things that are good rather stand unchanged North Carolina they and run away we have hundreds of employees who have families kids are in schools and churches it would be crazy to think up tupolev than leave so we never thought about that instead restated fight later this week i will speak at the festival which is a big electronic Music Festival in North Carolina and that has been turned into a giant protest the festival. And you were quoted by saying it wouldnt last with the u. S. Justice department. Jim crow laws where out over time. [laughter] you have been married in church and racially over 30 years and nobody blinks the labatt issues. But when i was born it was illegal and more than half of the states in the country so i love the fact i am alive at a point in time when progress finally continues to of finance who but the rates of progress increases exponentially to make me feel we are applied at the best of times. [applause] [inaudible conversations] cement good morning the editor of Washington Post lead thanks for being here and now we have speakers on stage who were deeply involved in how we augment our reality to create new incentives i will leave some time for questions first we have the firstperson to have a permit in tenant implanted in his school to recognize as a sideboard by a government yes he sleeps and showers with the antenna a narrow scientist accord now she has a brain to code visual information awarded a Macarthur Foundation grant for her work she has cracked the moral code for blindness in working on an artificial read that to restore vision we have well known john who is the vp with the augmented reality area and has previously been at m. I. T. Media labs lets get going. You are a certified cyborg how does this work . It is a sensory organ it is part of my skillet and it picks the plight frequencies to give me vibrations depending on the cover with in for red deer and ultraviolet to go beyond the visual sector people can share colors with me directly through my head and i concents colors from space and i use technology as a bader part body part i am not wearing technology but i am technology that is why i am a cyborg. Your also an artist . I see that as an arch to design your own perception of reality with a new sensory organs. You were born totally colorblind but now you can hear colors . Yes. Create your own sense is an arch your own body parts is cyborgs art to design your own perception of reality. What do we know about the neural code and how does the of parade the rain take this in . For normal person alien with your photoreceptors we were going to show the slide but i can give you a basic idea i dont know what happened to the slides. But i work with general covered of the retina it goes into your eye to land on your read that and your photoreceptors in the next one will highlight and then it passes through the circuitry in that performs operations to extract information in converts back into a code in the forms of these electrical pulses into the brain the key thing is the image is converted into a code that the brain understands so this pattern represents this babys face so they get this pattern they know was the babys face and of course, it is 1 million cells doing this simultaneously there are 10,000 in the retina but they would know it was the car or a dog so that is how the communication goes from the image into your brain i am working on it you get Macular Degeneration the photoreceptors die dioxin no information can get in so those output cells they still work the idea is if we can make a device to interact with the cells to send in the code we can restore sight to the blind so i worked out the code to make a device to mimic that and send signals to the output cells for a selloff is like a pattern of pulses then they would see stripes so we havent done this since humans but i was at the fda for the application hopefully they will approve it so we can start of trial and the beginning of 2017. I do have a picture to give you a feel why the code is so important showed a picture of the baby face. The idea to tailor the individual reality how does augmented reality work how do you check their brains to see the extra information . It takes the Digital Information connected to create a headset to look through visor to see Digital Information connected the infinite number of screens to interact 3d images and manipulate here is the architect someone else collaborating, if you need to fix your washing machine or do surgery someone could look at what you were doing to help you walk you through that when i think of a typewriter and the keys it is based on the type and so it is less efficient so those mechanical typewriters like a punch card connecting with technology that future with of using gestures is the big leap forward some say it is a 120 million Market Opportunity to change that interface so now we can lick the world and interact you have seen it in movies like iron man or minority report and Mission Impossible to bring into the workplace is not based on deeming or entertainment but productivity. You said headsets so people say this is impractical who will get the headset . Walked us through. At m. I. T. I taught the first class to make the applications for google class that is a heads up display that does not track your hands there is not a device to see the hand it was 2010 technology in 2013 is great they gave it a hardware way it was almost a nightmare but everybody was excited about Virtual Reality to be subversive in Digital Information that ive vented reality is three times bigger than virtual but society has indicted in on the but the device we created has 90degree field of view the equivalent of the screen instead of 90 feet away or television 3 feet you want to eliminate the screens to create an office with no monitors your not switched over to look at the metaphors of the smart phone were disconnected even though we are hyper connected just like the arabian to see Digital Information on the world is a game changer and were very excited about this you can preorder the device. And it is reasonably priced. It is less than microsoft [laughter] companies are sitting on disinformation this is a tool to interact it can change health and design. You are treating your brain to be connected to the internet so what type of information is it sensory overload . It allows me to receive callers from around the world other people can send colors anytime day or night. I have friends on each continent there is a beautiful sunset australian then my friend can send that to me i will sense the sunset walleye and hair here he consider like a sleeping to affect my dreams that i week up i realized i was dreaming said they can intervene in my dreams so we can share covers but my avis to perceive colors from space solicited physically going we can feel the we are there without the struggle of physically going there and then our dna can do it ourselves in the connect through the internet so that is my goal and i can have the permanent connection so we can explore space by sending our mind set a physically and just connecting to the International Space station in two hours a day i am treating migraine. You are connecting to the space station in their working with you on that . Through live stream it is like a stream so i connect there and i try to connect launder and laundry each day but it will take to read three years to have a 24 our connection because it is overwhelming the colors from space are much wider so it is overwhelming. So what are the implications of the human bring it interacting with so much information in a constant way . You have to control it but he does it in a good way not the needs might approval but it is an extra cents without interfering so were a big part of what youre and nervous system does this compresses the information to use it efficiently there is a lot of discussion about big data but there is some downside it is overwhelming like going to all College Class is simultaneously at some point you can function you have 100 million photoreceptors to taken every pixel on your computer monitor then the circuitry is get a reading the stuff of the eliot you dont need so you can maneuver to get on stage i have never been here before and not crashed into people because of the simplification to our brain to learn how to simplify the he has to do that in stages. End i have some adaptation just like the new sense or a new organ to reject that body part so there are those cases of possible rejection. Allows you to Pay Attention to one thing rather than another to control what you taking in. Going back to augmented reality there are a lot of people out there who look at dick as entertainment get a headset can you walk us through how this could help us with our everyday lives with health care or any examples that it is is just about games . It is great to be on this panel with the pioneers with your visionary artist with the macarthur fellows doing Cutting Edge Research we created a tool that the founder and ceo is listed as the thought leader for an operating system that is more connected how the brain works and we have been held hostage based on the technology we have used we want to create a device to manipulate 3d holograms to do what we cannot do before somebody will do a couple your implant surgery looking at a 3d rendering at a screen that is to dimensional it would be more efficient of everybody involved work with 3d so there is a convergence to create a tool to be an extension of the upper body we want to tap those other thought leaders how you use this device who would have thought solitaire was an application to help get us going . Ion excited to help facilitate those partnerships to figure out how to use this technology that is coming people have said 10 years out but i think it is much sooner but i will help create a tool to Impact Society in the internet was big in 2000 and apple does have there first dash group of their smart phone there is indications we have reached the saturation point i think the 20s in the fortune 100 will figure out strategies of the augmented reality if anybody needs help i am therefore you. [laughter] one more question then the audience why its important to be recognized as a cyborg . It wasnt i just had an issue with a Passport Office there would not allow me to read to my passport photo said it isnt Electronic Device it is my body parts i am an organism so i explained that after five months they said yes they allowed me to appear in the passport that has allowed me to travel because airports dole like technology. [laughter] is it on your passport . The pitcher the official image as the antenna they have to except that is my image and part of me i was not seeking for it by trying to renew my passport. That tells us how to deal with a Passport Office. Said the material in my head is british such as a you have a sensory organ from that country so why should he be allowed to be from the country because part of my body is from there. I love that. Are there others better out there . We had a presentation from the Lgbt Community this isnt a community we have heard much about can you talk about that side of it . We are a Minority Group people decided to extend their sentences the senses so there are some for those regenerating preexisting buy parts this is a minority now but whenever there is an earthquake the body vibrates so she can feel that frequency and has for several years so that is a new sense she is used to it also to be implanted with the Magnetic North so were in a stage in history to decide what we want to be but i have senses and you have many more of organs and other species have it is now growing in happening under ground people are doing surgery anonymously just like a trans gender operations were done under brownout are the cybersurgerys from those who will accept the cyborg surgerys for anybody was to extend their perception of reality and other issues. It is great to be at the Washington Post journalism is trying to find a Business Model that works these are Interesting Times we need more editorials more than ever to figure out how new technology can help us to interact is important in the future of the knowledge worker this community has heard a lot but internet of the brain and as we fastforward people can connect through esp water the tools to help us be a collective community . Often when people have Technology Added to biology it doesnt fit i know a lot of people who have lost limbs dont of prospects that they wear because they are not comfortable that is why neurosciences so important because we have been held hostage by technology these are exciting times with the technology that is coming. With the pig is and how you tested what they saw once you implanted . Because the neurons to fire like normal so complete the blind read not and then drive the al put sauls so it is hard to check this they could be blind of course, and track images is hard to do this in primates as i cannot bear to blind a monkey just to test it so if we get permission rigo with humans in the genius of working with patients they are very motivated if you find a blind patients you can Work Together to get the feedback as to how well it is working but the key is to send that same signal they normally get they should be able to see this so we showed what it was like to reconstruct an image from the totally blind read the comparing that to the standard prostatic in what is available and it is much available in think Bloomberg News just a story so it shows what it really looks like. Said in a quiet you assume that the sensory is the bad thing spinning because he is very little of their brain capacity . But what if somebody was born with that ability to filter . Then they cannot connect the dots so why a do you assume that . The other question is do we really want to take that into our own hands . I say that because if somebody could filter that it would be amazing but right now to function quickly as u. S. Me questions i am listening even though all of the information in this room goes into my read and i have ignored it to focus on what you say because it is very hard for you multitask think about when you drive a and textiles is dangerous we have to figure out ways to make use of the information to filter the information take what you need to solve the problem that is in front of you. It is the same with augmented reality not getting into a clash with your own brain were not totally built for that synecdoche is low bandwidth with technology to figure out a way to do that to be productive and creative and collaborative at the end of the day humans are collaborative species and technology breaks that down we can use that to enhance the. Unfortunately that is all we have time for thank you very much. [applause] if you google any of these people there is a wealth of information, about them now i will welcome over my colleague. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] and. Good morning the Washington Posts director of Strategic Initiative i am pleased to welcome to this stage the director of the agency known as star but credibility invention of internet gps and bounding up micra Technology Office and spent more than a decade of the venture capitalists. I am also grateful to have a Harvard University professor from quantitative social science with the open Software Packages and we are here to say numbers tell the truth so what is it they think that means . We think they dated is not about the data but the revolution not the there is more Data Available but we know what to do with it and those that were written to see what people think. It with that capacity of the human race one person could write a post held anyone person understand what they say . And for one day to have this automated rapids the revolution in is of the data but the analytics for what the data says. The most interesting dimensions humanrights is my favorite species but it is plentiful on many areas as well. So i think about the work were doing in even to understand the signaling of the brain and i think when you look through these domains it is an era of the opportunity space to Start Building those techniques and nbc that commercially but it is important to say that has some important limitations and i just want to make sure we dont get into that height so we should talk about both of those. So start their. Where does the capital to the analytics in the tools and the availability of data . Where is that space . That is the space the signups although they invented the term big data so that is a viable thing resonated that they get a sense that it is important is the analytics is rather revolution is. What is the point . To make sense of information that is complicated and doesnt speak to the questions that we have what do we do . We have concurrence to learn about the facts that you dont have. It has nothing to do with the facts that you do have. And is never a sure thing that we test and retest to make ourselves vulnerable that the etf this is a separate topic isnt right because every data has problems. With that enormous progress that if the golan social media with the image that pops up that algorithm is identified it is you in the picture but that is a major Understanding Technology based on Machine Learning with hundreds of thousands or millions of images that are labeled and from that theyll learn this is what a person looks like for this particular person in the overtime they have become very, very good at identifying sometime statistically they are better than humans that is pretty impressive but the important part was to understand the are statistically better but theyre not perfect but neither are humans the important thing to recognize is in this case when the machine is wrong is wrong that no human ever would be. It is the different kind of mistake everything a structure the way humans make mistakes think of itself driving car or a ship that is based on the idea since what is going on around here to learn and adapt to operate without collisions whether on the road or on the ocean but in both of those cases you have to recognize as powerful as these systems are there will be mistakes and it is in the kind of mistakes that we have insurance for because it isnt the way humans make mistakes when you start to unpacked at why did the machine make a different mistake today it is still a black art they dont have a way to explain how they have adapted themselves to recognize pitchers and until we have a deeper understanding we need to recognize there are places to use that technology and other places not ready spinnaker you now implying we have almost too much faith or trust is an Artificial Intelligence that we have now . Day think the public presumes there march festival them they should be . Sometimes i think it is the narrative is extrapolating from the gains we have made to a place that is not realistic but in my world to go from a new Technology Capability to the Defense Department that the military will use it and rely on behalf of very rigorous process to make sure the systems working we can trust them first so there are places that we will not be ready and an example might be a self trading ship in a congested environment we wanted him and in that decision an example might be cybersecurity where if you try to defend your network were at a point we think the power of machines looking at the patterns that they can see that pattern of attack to discern what is happening and alert you to do something about it and waited humans cant and statistically less such an advance over what we can do as humans it will be very valuable to start to get a handle on cybersecurity bank of analyzing data it works fine at the micro level but not to process the amounts of data but on the other end to a full system that is extremely efficient and incredibly dumb imagine a driverless car you dont tell where to go with is not useful but the best technology in most areas is human empowered and computer assisted the computer doesnt tell us what an interesting idea although it could help us to get a sense of the potential but only the human will choose that so with social media we down loaded all the social media post in china and we could download of a post before the Chinese Government could sensor them so we have all the post that were censored and those that were not we looked at what was the case they sensor it for the purpose anytime youre critical of the government or a protest so we would use that wins to analyze the data and it didnt make any sense it was just as much censored as those that were supportive of the government we tried all kinds of other ideas those are the human part data and Data Analytics to make that process automatic it is assisted by not automated but nothing was clarified in tow 1. The graduate student said we thought they were censoring criticism maybe theyre censoring protest and not a criticism because we thought they worse the same thing once we separated them it was incredibly clear they dont censer criticism but they do so under protest party can say the leaders of this towner all stealing money here is how much in the Bank Accounts and they all have mistresses it is not censored but if you say lets go protest it is. [laughter] in fact, if you say the leaders of this town are doing such a great job with a cover rally in their favor it is censored they dont care where you think they are dictators they only care what you can do via the power to move a crowd they are worried theyre not worried about foreign governments are Nuclear Weapons theyre worried about their own people. So those ideas tonight emerge from terrific day it analytics that is our contribution but wants to come up with the ideas we can try things to make our servers will honorable and test the hypothesis that unfortunately we came up with the idea that was completely consistent with the data. That is a great example occasion never would have done it without the data. But that by itself is a very good it empowers us we were like astronomers standing on our toes and squinting now have the photons and a great telescopes and now we also have the analytics teefour the way we studied censorship was one person would see one post, it was censored, and they generalize from that to the entire chinese bureaucracy. But we did is, we had the 1st aerial view of this whole thing, and this is just an example, we could see millions and millions of posts. Around 13 percent were censored every day and different topic areas confident with different kind of events. Once you see this reveals all kinds of different things, the intentions, not only of individuals but of organizations. An organization designed to suppress information in china. It is so large that it conveys a lot about itself if you look at it at scale. It is like an elephant tiptoeing around. And when we look at scale we see the footprint. It is so interesting because in many ways we believe our know the government is using similar analytics to try to understand what is being said. This suggests the tools can be used for healthy and perhaps less healthy outcomes. You buildoutcomes. You build the systems that allow you to understand peoples unspoken tension, how do you ensure they are used in ways we feel ethically comfortable with . What you said is true of every powerful technology, and Human History says the Technology Advanced humanity over many, many centuries, but it is certainly true that how humans use technology has always been for both good and ill. This is a question that must be integral to the work we do at a place like darpa. And we have tried to address that question by 1st and foremost getting those ethical issues on the table. It has been an interesting thing that i observed. In the Defense Department i have the privilege of working with senior people in military leadership positions. It is so while wind of the training of what it means to be a war fighter, the ethics of the business is something that is taught and learned and trained and discussed openly and seriously and is surprising is an engineer by training, ii do not think that we talked about it in science and engineering. Very little today and not to the degree needed because in fact i think that we scientists and engineers certainly do not only answer but we do on the responsibility of getting issues on the table. The one that you touched on is the 1st obvious one when it is human beings data about privacy. One of the things were trying to do is come up with some of the Technology Tools that might allow us to essentially give people and organizations greater agency over their data. We believe that if i could share my healthcare data for medical research knowing who would see it and who would not there would only be available for certain amount of time that is reasonable, it would not be published in the world, i think it would be most more inclined to be open with data if i had that kind of assurance and agency over it. Sometimes the answer is going to include Technology Components that can help, and i think if we could somehow break what i think is a painful trade between privacy and security today it would be a huge advance and it is important to be clear that there is no magic wand. These problems are deeply human, societal issues. Inside a university command we are under strict rules. You dont have to worry about us. But in the public there is a debate. What you are raising basically about more data, data, much better analytics. We can understand what people are doing. Arent theyre going to be privacy violations . Absolutely, but dont forget the good, would you all be willing to give up some of your privacy lived ten years longer than your Life Expectancy . Ask yourself that question, because it is not unrealistic. And it is not just live longer but happier, more convenient, all kinds of others, safer. I am not saying it is the right answer. Im just saying, there are two sides, and both affect everyone of us. And we should not give away the good. We are on the research end of things. We see the good coming down the pike vividly and do not want to miss it. At the same time we have to protect everyones privacy because we can get access to the data to find is wonderful things about the future of humanity. One more question to the panelists and in the room. Given the history of darpa and some of the things you have talked about, Artificial Intelligence, was social sciences kind of quantifiable quantified social Science Research, is that a natural fit . Does the telegraph intentions nor is it just one of many things that you are looking into. It is one of many, but i would like to be explicit. I explicit. I see a huge opportunity the people like gary and other leaders. Social sciences being reinvented because of the availability, massive availability of data all the thoughtful techniques and methodologies that are developing. That is going to allow us to ask questions that have been dead ends in social science for a long time. The Revenue Program called nextgeneration social science specifically about building the tools and methods that would allow for a new generation of social Science Research that can be done on a different scale than graduate students visiting pay 20 bucks to do an experiment, research that could be investigated and sort of scene from the outside. We have chosen that example. We wanted to have a particular sample problem to work on. In that case we chose the question of, one of the key factors in collective identity . As you can imagine, something that is essential in all world if you think about the Stability Operations that happened and in many ways that we are still engaged with, some of the most core questions about any social group, when do a group of individuals believe they are collective whole. I dont think we have good answers. Certainly not practical ones. Our hope is that we will get new insights in that area. But also develop methodologies that scale across more. To step back, i think it is very hard to imagine an area the fact that we have massive opportunities to do that is when we definitely want to tap into. All right. Right. I think we probably have time for at least one, maybe two. An incredible job. Not going that well. An initiative in the Defense Department to try to connect the dod better to the commercial community, the 1st part of that activity is in the Silicon Valley area. This is an important opportunity for the department. Designed to be deeply engaged with the technical community. By 100 Program Technical managers are rarely to be found because they are out in the world and cannot get jobs done without talking to people universities, companies, companies, defense and commercial. So that is inherent. Much of the rest of the operations are jobs that keep them in their offices and talking to each other. Sec. Carter hassecretary carter has underscored how important it is to Start Building channels through creating a permeable membrane so that commercial technology flows in and out much more broadly. Actually think it is an important initiative. Well, darpa has had a 60 year history but our job is to work with a broad technical community. I think it is important for many other parts of the department, more of the operational parts to start tapping where commercial technology can make a big difference in be helpful. Special cases of a general phenomenon. Pretty much all of the data in the world was inside universities. Now its out there, inside companies, and governments, and so the only way that we can do our job and you can do your job and that companies can do the job is to talk to each other and have more connection them before. Finding a treaty so the companies and governments can share data that individuals feeling that privacy has been violated and so academics and other researchers can have access to the data to produce new value for everybody is a really important topic for the politicians over someone here to solve. Well, i am really sorry, but sorry, but we are out of time. I would like you to join me in thanking our guests. Thank you. [applause] please welcome to the stage katie couric for the next segment. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] hi, everyone. Good morning. Nice to see you all. Thank you for being here, and i am looking forward to our conversation about philanthropy with three extraordinary philanthropists. Joining me, David Rubenstein , cofounder of the private equity group and the selfdescribed patriotic philanthropists taking an interest in preserving and in some cases owning some of the nations most prized historical landmarks in the worlds most influential documents. President of the Schmidt Family foundation and founder of its 11 our foundation focused on wide use of Natural Resources among other philanthropic endeavors and is also the founder and Vice President of the Schmidt Ocean institute and peter, the directory of the fund and the chairman of the board. Welcome to all of you. I apologize in advance. Forgive me if i am appear sniffling. Lets start by asking a little bit about the way you were raised. You grew up as an only child in a jewish neighborhood in baltimore. So how are your ideas of philanthropy formed as a young man . I would not say philanthropy was 1st in my thoughts. Getting through the day and having enough money to do basic kind of things was what i was focused on. I would not sell our parents were against philanthropy. They give what they could, but they were not really philanthropists, not in the capacity to do so,so, so i did not get into this until later in life. I tell young people, dont make the mistake that i did. Philanthropyi did. Philanthropy is an ancient greek word that means loving humanity. I regret that i did not give more of my time and energy before i have money. But i got money has decided to raise through the latter part of my life giving away the money, but, but i wish i have been more involved as a younger person. You grew up in orange, new jersey short hills. The parents owned and interior design shop. The 2nd of five children and the only girl. Was philanthropy something your family emphasized . And i think i mean what sort of values did your parents instilled that might have helped kind of promote the notion of philanthropy later in life . I was raised to work hard. My grandparents were philanthropists of some note in their day. But our family was not really focus that way. I may be different from other people in my family, a different kind of life and opportunity. Philanthropy came to me as a necessity after google went public. Wepublic. We had a responsibility to think about what you do with it, how do you not just make contributions to things that help to transform the world . That is the motivation. I know your grandfather and parents started the Family Foundation in 1967. Tell us about the genesis of that foundation . My grandfather and father did well in business. Jim beam bourbon was the name of the company. Can i just say thank you. [laughter] you and i together. And, they were fortunate, the money, the origin, the philanthropic interests are mostly in historically jewish, american jewish. We have expanded it. Two strange things happened. The strange the strange thing to be born and not earn anything, born into a family whether was these assets and foundations and where the 2nd strange thing that happened to me which was very improbable was death from pancreatic cancer and my family when i wasi was a teenager, and suddenly my mother and grandfather died, and suddenly i was the middle of two very unusual circumstances being linked to a foundation and to a very terrible disease which later in life i have tried to take on. Extremely personal reasons. Like in your family. The suffering in your family. I tried to turn that into project channels. I know you have been incredibly active. Actually, gets more attention olympic is not as many people are doing it. Most of my money goes to medical research. Im trying to get people to learn more about our history and heritage so that they can be better citizens. If younger and older people know more, the good and the bad. That is a theory. Maybe it is right or maybe it is wrong. But them in places where people can see them. Obviously in digital form, but then id be inspired to read and learn more. Fixing up the Washington Monument, lincoln memorial, designed to make these places more attractive and make sure more people go to them. What inspired you to do that . Like most things in life it was through serendipity. I did not say, comesay, come along and help me do a better job. I happen to be at a place where the magna carta was being auctioned off, and i decided to buy it and give it to the country. When the Washington Monument and the earthquake damage i fixed it, and then that led to other things. I realized more more people thought it was a good thing. The National Park service has 11 billion unfunded need,of unfunded need, and i dont have that kind of money to do it, so im trying to get other people involved. It is something that i think is a good way to get back. I came from modest means. With my last name in other countries am not sure whatever reason to worry am today. That is the genesis of it. You have something called the mother standard. Became one of the largest private equity, my mother was happy but didnt come in say this is great. When i started giving away the money she said, thats a good thing can we are finally doing something useful with your money. If you can make a jewish mother happy, its a good thing. Much of your philanthropic work is focused on awareness and research and programs which i know are important around preserving Natural Resources, environmental causes over sustainability. What was it about that arena that made you think this is where i want to invest, where i think i can make a big difference. We have to make a decision we started the Family Foundation about what we would focus on. Focused on technology and the evolution of how the world is changing. We met at the end of the 1970s, and since then everything we do is different because of the microprocessor revolution, the way we communicate inand network. That model has stayed with me so powerfully. Looked outside and thought comeau we need to use those tools, look at a system we inherited that transforms the world in good ways but has left terrible environmental degradation behind and many social and environmental problems that we can now understand better and use the tool of communication and networking to address, particularly address, particularly well looking at the ocean, so big, so vast. There were 2 billion people on the planet, and now we are almost 8. The pressure of humanity, the human footprint on the resources of the planet is something that needs to be addressed today and understand how to live within the living systems. I dont know if you saw the tree of life article about where the human branch fits in, something darwin introduced. Scientists have been looking over time. Berkeley scientists came out with the newest tree of life based on the decoding of dna , plants, animals, people over here, the bacterial branches quite large. In the single cell organism branch is very, very large. When you look at this game of the system comeau we are relatively small. If youre going to survive we have to figure out where we fit comeau what we need to look the regenerate in a more circular economy rather than a wasteful one. On a micro level in terms of peter how you decide who gets the money raised, for example, i would love to hear about the criteria that you will have when it comes to making decisions about who is going to get what. I have had the honor to share, the pancreatic cancer action network, the major Umbrella Group taking out pancreatic cancer in america. Pancreatic cancer just surpassed Breast Cancer as the 3rd leading cause of cancer death in america command sadly there is not very much funding either from government or from the private sector. But we gather together some of the nations leading science experts, clinicians as well and they dont make decisions arbitrarily. They respect the dedication and excellence. It is not specific because universities usually for better but sometimes worse have a preference for their own people. The other organization, a little bit more risktaking because you can do that in a private foundation and we use we will do cultural things. Will do help things. He had to take more risk. And i know you held stand up to cancer, an organization i started, ken burns series on pbs copy probably. Will stand up for cancer did was to put cancer on peoples get it front and center. Brilliant filmmaker and could not be more found more proud. When you are thinking about your work in your effort in your oversight will order the things. You ask if they are moving the dial. Energy and climate systems, places where these things intersect. We look for organizations that will be transformative. We take the risk. Risk is a huge thing. So theres a huge role for us to play. I am interested in communications also. Dimension films. These are projects are interested in involving the general public in. To bring what is far away or something that happened in the democratic republic of the congo into your consciousness so that the world is connected. How do you measure success . I dont have a foundation, i i do it all myself. Interrupt you for a few seconds. Of never understood the need. I know what ii want to do and write a check and thats it. Im afraid if i have a staff they would convince me to do what they want to do. Am not critical. I basically do it myself. Do i have money so i couldnt take on africa, lived to see the impact of my modest money compared to his. I have to be frank, i would like to see progress will im alive. What happens is the money, i would rather see it while im alive. The metrics i use, i see people getting some better use of the resources i have given. Ii dont have a profit and loss kind of metric. We give away our money today because there is an infinite amount of good causes in the world, and we could fill up our textbooks which is giving the request. And to be honest, like most people life ive ideas better than somebody elses. 95 percent is something i came up with. Occasionally i will do it, but i like what i think im working on. A little bit of blowback about private individuals and philanthropy, and a 2014 peace in the New York Times for better or worse practice of science in the 21st century is becoming shape less than National Priorities are peerreviewed groups them over the particular individuals with huge amounts of money. Critics have a problem for a number of reasons. Literally, geographically, economically among the nation scientists. The social contract is a good ignoring basic caught for the same article. Then you think about some of the critics and scientists saying this is not really great because it does incentivize is. I want served on the executive branch of the United States government in congress. Private philanthropy, the numbers are much smaller. Much attention you give, what an individual can do comeau also there is an element of fairness. Something that reflects the point of view of the american citizenry, enormous advantages, and its wonderful book that does not have that level of integrity. Integrity. The atlantic wrote an article titled is format to the philanthropy fact with democracy suggesting a decrease the tax base in a country that could be used to help more people. That sounds like something by someone who does not have the money to give away. [laughter] if you do anything in life, anything you will be criticized. If youre going to be frozen you will never get anything done. The government can do whatever he wants. When therapists can get something started and the government might catch up later. Have the brilliant scientists, students the greatest assets our country has, they give schools are the envy of the world, and if we say dont give them any money they wont be the envy command they are doing great things to transform. Im more concerned about my mother. The opportunity is to create new models. We have a Research Vessel called foul core that we have opened up to all scientists around the world share. We have research labs, our of these could way you these, a supercomputer, ship to shore communication, and scientists express there interest. Creating another kind of platform. We need good reference points to develop policies. A pretty optimistic that good data and the results of philanthropy will change policy because all of philanthropy in the world can be destroyed by one bad policy and conversely i get policy can move mountains that philanthropy cannot. The presumption is that wealthy people who have made money are not all that smart and while the worst policy. Inin other words, wealthy people have given away money and have certain ideas, it is not necessarily a bad thing because they have intelligence and ideas that might make the country a better place. On the subsidy issue, but supposed we eliminate the charitable deduction. I think actually most of the philanthropists would give away largely the same amount as now because what will you do with the money . He cannot be barrows with it you dont want to be richest guy in the cemetery. I dont. If the charitable deduction were eliminated i dont think it would appreciably change wealthy people giving it away. It may change other peoples motivations, and i suspect that the action will not be eliminated, but clearly it motivates some people to give away money. The largest philanthropists are not motivated by the tax deduction. Let me say a word on behalf of government funding particularly. Franklin roosevelt started the National Cancer institute, Richard Nixon and subsequent president s have accelerated funding for cancer. I believe Vice President joe biden is the now leader of a major project. If the United States government is behind something in the sciences, and today you have somebody from nasa, it is spectacular with the results can be. They can admire philanthropy and feel honored to be a part of that world, but the federal government gets there and it is historic. To that end, are you worried that somehow the government will be let off the hook or distance and devised to do more . We see an increase in private philanthropy. It depends. It depends on the engagement of the citizenry. Do this and that well. Pancreatic cancer, 10,000 bills introduced, 200 past, one was hours to start a program, framework to take on pancreatic cancer. It can be done. How important is your philanthropic effort and the things you have done in terms of your legacy . But for you personally, what does that mean . And youyou think youre doing something to make the world a slightly better place to make it about yourself. It is not clear just by making more money you are making the world better place. Everybody has to make their own judgment. I think im happy. What has given you the most satisfaction of all your effort . Probably the feeling that i get very often coming up to me, very modest. Giving back to the country is a pleasure. What they see i am doing and hopefully unmotivated for the same. The difference between recognition and legacy. I would answer that by saying, i believe we are living through a revolution. We may not recognize it, but we are. It will make things differently, use resources differently, cnn enormous opportunity. I am focused on the transformation of the world we live in, practices that are healthy for people and the environment around us. We need to move away from the systems of the last century and invent new ones. You hope that will be your legacy . I wouldi would love it. Obviously you can count family that really instills these values. I am curious how you are doing out for your children and now all this regardless of means can instill those values of philanthropy into our children. I hope i have instilled them, there is no one more proud of their sons and i am. I have another son who is a surgical resident, and im hoping he will one day be using his Johns Hopkins and skills to do medical philanthropy. Much less glamorous, much more about nuts and bolts, patriotic, environment, one is really need is more nuts and bolts to write services because many people are suffering, innercity, rural, opioid addiction. The more money can be given to direct services. We were talking about that on the way down from new york saying some of these less glamorous causes, you know, glamorous and quotations sometimes dont get the attention in the funding. Maybe you all can make some glamorous. I dont know about that. The question you addressed earlier. If youre fortunate enough to have a fair amount of money and dont give it all away were supposed to do with it . Much of the conversation we have amongst people were not you should give your children their own foundation, make sure you dont spoil them and teach them about the importance of philanthropy. How much money you give your children and how much freedom you give them to give it away, complicated subjects. They are in a position to be able to deal with it. Two girls. Tell me about their role in philanthropy. What kind of lessons have you tried to show them or do you kind of want them to follow your example . Relatively new in their lives. I have only been working at this for a decade. They are watching what we do and are involved as observers and hopefully practitioners at some point. David raises all the same issues we all face with a legacy. That may be for our next panel. Thank you very much. It will take a break and be back in 15 minutes. Host good afternoon everyone. Im kate seeley. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to todays panel. It is very gratifying to have such a large audience today given how beautiful the weather is. Thank you very much for your interest. Extremists extreme attention on combating isis. Todays panel is going to examine their role