The kind of AI we actually need | Van Jones

**Elise Hu** (0:04)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu.
We have a dangerous math problem on our hands. AI is developing exponentially, but humanity's ability to adapt is on a linear path. The question then becomes, are we wise enough for the world we're building?

**Van Jones** (0:25)
Will it be a world of human flourishing, where all these technologies are helping people do great things? Or will it be a world where robots with no hearts dominate human beings with no agencies?

**Elise Hu** (0:37)
That's Van Jones, TV host, author and serial social entrepreneur, who has a track record of building productive coalitions among people who disagree.
In his talk, he zeros in on what he calls the adaptation gap, the dangerous distance between how fast technology is moving and how fast the rest of us can keep up. He warns that the gap will give rise to mass social unrest as AI continues to disrupt the economy and put people out of work. But closing that gap isn't just a tech problem or a policy problem, it's a wisdom problem, wisdom that's already out there in places many of us have forgotten to look.

**Van Jones** (1:14)
I think the better move is to accelerate humanity. And there's a way to do that, but it requires both sides of the tech divide to come back to ancient intelligence, ancestral intelligence.

**Elise Hu** (1:30)
Van gives examples of projects that are pairing AI insiders with people on the ground, closest to the problems, because the next trillion dollar solution is probably hiding somewhere that power has long overlooked. That's coming up right after a short break.
And now, our TED Talk of the day.

**Van Jones** (1:55)
Everywhere we go now, we hear people talking about artificial intelligence. And it's unbelievable, it's powerful, and it's also a little scary to me. I worry about what we're doing. I worry about where we're going. I worry that we're in danger of building this brave new world with all this data and no wisdom.
All this data but no wisdom. Is there room for wisdom? Where is the wisdom going to come from in this brave new world? And so I want to talk about a different kind of AI. I want to talk about the AI that's absolutely necessary for us to give our children the future they deserve. I want to talk about ancient intelligence, AI. I want to talk about ancestral intelligence, AI. Do our ancestors have anything to teach us about entering new eras and creating new worlds? Or should we just push all the old folks on one side? I'm a ninth-generation American, but I'm the first one in my family that was born with all my rights recognized by this government. Why? Why? Because my mother and my father did everything they could to make sure that I grew up in a better world. And I want to do that for my children, but I'm afraid.
I don't know how to do that. I'm worried. Because a new human civilization is being born, and my children are going to grow up in it. And it is very different than the one I was born into.
I have four children. Two of them are still sleeping in diapers. Here's the reality for them. Just as a parent, their first crushes, probably not going to be a rock star or an athlete, their first crushes may well be an AI. May well be an AI. That's a different human civilization than the one I grew up in. As they get older, when they decide to start families, they might open up a laptop or a holographic interface and use biotech tools to design my grandchildren. That's a different human civilization. With longevity tech and all these health breakthroughs, they might be running marathons at the age of 90 or 120
When, heaven forbid, it's time for them to be buried. My children, who I'm looking at right now, might be buried on the moon or on Mars because within 100 years we're gonna be a fully space-faring civilization. That's a different human civilization. But I have a question about it. Will it be human and will it be civilized? Will the world that we are building, will it be human and will it be civilized? Will it be a world of human flourishing where all these technologies are helping people do great things or will it be a world where robots with no hearts dominate human beings with no agencies? That's my question. Humanity now has a math problem that we're gonna have to come together to solve. This is what I would call the adaptation gap. Technology is now proceeding on an exponential curve. Robotics, biotech, AI, quantum computing, space exploration, these technologies are now growing their capability on an exponential curve. Some of the breakthroughs that would have been the breakthrough of a decade just a few years ago are not even the breakthrough of the day today. You can't even win a Twitter cycle because by noon something else has come out. But humans don't develop that quickly. Humans evolve on more of a linear slope. Humans are not that much smarter, that much faster than we were 5,000 years ago, let alone five weeks ago. And this gap is a gap that terrifies me. This is the gap that if we don't handle it properly, can lead to social unrest, where people don't have what they need and they're left behind, and they feel that the future doesn't need them at all. Now, what I see a lot of people trying to do is to figure out some way to decelerate technology, to use legislation and laws to decelerate the technology so we don't get left behind. But I have bad news for you.