AI is evolving from models to systems to agents—autonomous entities that act, adapt, and collaborate. As intelligence emerges from interactions, the future of AI depends on context, trust, and workflow integration. How we design social AI today will shape its role in amplifying human intelligence.
A lecture by Michael Levin, distinguished professor of biology at Tufts University and associate at Harvard's Wyss Institute
Preparatory material for our workshop on using generative AI for decision-making, generated by NotebookLM.
Imagining the existential risk of AI using generative AI.
We enjoy using generative AI to experience its reflection of humanity. How does an AI imagine a concept based on what it has learned from its training on human history?
In this gallery, we explore how Midjourney imagines concepts from our essay on existential risk. What is the existential risk of AI? What is artificial general intelligence and AI super intelligence? Will AI save us?
The results show that when holding up a generative AI mirror to humanity, we find the existential risk of AI to be terrifying.
Our initial series imagines the existential risk of AI. Midjourney reflects our dystopian fears.
Our next series adds concepts to the existential risk of AI, including AI superintelligence, end of humanity, and robot dominance.
We wondered if Midjourney could imagine a positive future so we prompted it with the idea of AI and robots saving the world. No question, Midjourney imagines “AI saving the world” to be a much more positive than any of our other prompts. However, the final image isn’t imagining a world we consider “saved.”
Perhaps due to the influence of Pixar and others in Hollywood, Midjourney imagines that “robots saving the world” as cute anthropomorphized robots having tender moments with children.
Finally, we wondered whether Midjourney could help us answer the questions: Can AI save us? And, Can AI save humanity? While the first presents a possibly hopeful cyborg future, the second doesn’t give us much hope at all.
Writing and Conversations About AI (Not Written by AI)
