change lives. we are all terrorist prevention stakeholder events we don't know it yet. thank you. [applause] i'm very happy to be here to introduce amy whose title i understand his quantitative future this so she has the most interesting title of anybody in this room. she founded the future to the institute and teaches at nyu's school of business where she studies how technology and science will ignite geopolitical change and the universities industries and governments on how to navigate the change. she scores a range of intriguing

ideas like what she calls fair and equal code base against the dangers of online buyers. also an accomplished author or most recent book the signals are talking teaches us how to think like a futurist and distinguish the real trends from the merely trendy. it was selected as one of the best books. a brave soul she once chronicled her adventures in online dating on data a love story as only someone with a degree in this series may do she created an algorithm for love which led her to the love of her life. for those of you that are single you can check out the talk which got 6 million views. amy will be joined by rob tech policy journalist for yahoo! news. please welcome rob and the woman who was named as one of the women changing the world through technology. [applause]

good morning. so, i want to start by i have heard both net a lot this morning. as though this is a new phenomenon. i would like to take you back to 2011 when we saw the first emergence throughout the current modern social media. in 2014 there was somebody experimenting with something called the dark net shopper. how many of you have heard about the random dark net shopper so this is a problem. in 2014 and was deployed and it wasn't until 2015 that authorities realized they had about ecstasy pills and

passports. the problem was there was no case law or policy or thinking about what do we do. to me this is problematic for two reasons, first i spoke with several different government agencies including state about the random dark net shopper and that it eliminated two very important things. first there is such a thing that we ought to be paying attention to in the second, we don't have any thinking around this because if it can be deployed to purchase stuff illegally that is hard. spreading this information is actually pretty easy. we are now at the four year anniversary and to my knowledge there is no case law or policy or thinking around the future of .net and i keep hearing plans to fight something that's already happened. this is incredibly important

because the technology compared to what is already on the horizon is like child's play. we are entering a new era of computing artificial intelligence. this is and code-based. it's the third era of computing and in the united states not only does it not have any realistic depoliticized policy or thinking around artificial intelligence and any cohesive way that we are not pouring money into the field of the others are aon't like and yet an it will wind up being politicized. we don't have a an office of technology assessment anymore and even though other countries do around the world so what ends up happening is we have people who are constantly recognizing far too late that the technology

maybe can behavmay be can behave don't like. .. >> we can talk about it but if

you're just starting this conference today it really concerns me everybody is fired up about technology that is four years old in terms of reading havoc on the internet that seems to be surprising people. >> so the gauntlet has been thrown down for the next speaker. >> and explains why net neutrality became a crazy juggernaut what everybody was fixated against artificial intelligence and it explains why it is part of the infrastructure but nobody knows. >> so look at this conference compared to two years ago talk about tech with social media. now the discussion is what we

missed many of you see them. >> my world met the fundamental shift so the reason we keep missing things we are a nation of now we don't think about the future and i am politically independent but our current administration is backwards thinking toward technology and science. we are very far behind china in key areas and that is a problem we are behind russia and some areas of technological development and

we have three more years of not getting ourselves caught up which is a critical period. so at that period of transition the beginning of the end of smart phones and computational technology like the standard type of computers and we are busy looking backwards and squabbling over yesterday's news. so not only are they moving forward with the new alliances with the environmental technology. >> they could progress on that.

but that trumpet ministration is really trying to think of nationalizing those networks that are built out by the carriers? whether it was the last intern to have access. [laughter] did you see that coming? but here's what i find problematic. the last thing that i need at this point is very little actual data but that is too wild speculation.

but instead reacting. we can all react. and here's the reality. but as we move into a world of connected things the challenges they need more bandwidth and connect to each other in a secure way. that isn't just the new refrigerators and connected kitchens but also the vehicles we are driving. and with those technologies on the horizon. and wanting to ensure that systems some way. where has the government been the past 60 years?

that whole infrastructure was built by commercial entities. to be fair they should have years ago and that broadband and digital video was coming. and they build that network to have some say in monetizing that investment in that transition has been slower in the united states than elsewhere. but all of these conversations now because at this point better to have had these conversations ten years ago before they had to make decisions under duress. so don't knows. >> artificial intelligence a

special sauce to make it sound more attractive. >> that was two years ago. what is that policy implications if you look at social networks to say there wasn't so much disclosure -- discussion but then we thought we should solve harassment and change people's minds but not by being mean to them. >> here is what i would say about a.i. it is not singular. it is a way of computing and those challenges in general is most of the research is handled by nine companies. not research institutions.

all of the advancement by corporate interests. however at some point but up against the national interest and in the future of humanity. microsoft and facebook and google and i am forgetting one. >> apple? >> and ibm. and most people globally are in china. but the chinese government is that proclamations over the

next 20 years. with that global leader and china doesn't always follow through measuring up to the proclamation that china is not going alone. but they are pouring money but unlike a traditional venture capitalist they are also bleeding information technology. but there is no way for me to build a scenario out for the next 20 years that has the optimistic framing. china because it is mind and

refined. and i should have mentioned amazon. so if that is the case in the united states jeff be so says the new rockefeller. but not as powerful as china. so the united states lacks as china. so the united states lacks a.i. lacks like automation and transportation in all of these different areas. and we don't have a national biology policy that is one of the most important platforms of the 21st century. we do have a national biology strategy or a national a.i.

strategy that i know of. i am not seeing a lot of the same enthusiasm but instead avoiding the subject or waiting or throwing money into yesterday's technology. that is infuriating because it doesn't have to be that way. i don't want to wake and are

supposed to say where did this come from? >> that is not the first time you overstepped. >> one of the things we have to do going forward is to write policy in a way that makes sense given the technology is intended to govern. at the moment technology is advancing foss asked her to write policy or to legislate. and if that is the scenario one has to wonder how does it get enforced? if you are worried about fake news now entering into the

splintered internet depending where you are in the world, absolutely it has geopolitical borders and as of may incredibly stringent regulatory borders with the content but also may not be legal in italy or canada versus mexico. how do we enforce that? i think we have to think critically creating policy those that are creating those technologies. you don't want to stifle that innovation and development that you cannot regulate three years after the fact.

but there are different pockets to have hundreds upon hundreds of technologist and mathematicians who are nonpartisan whose job it is to write policy. we don't have that anymore. >> bet that technology assessment. >> how much money did we save? >> so much probably one seat on an aircraft carrier. >> air force one? that could be real money. >> but in the united states we were the template for other countries around the world. so to have that equivalent now to have that conversation also

to have a cdc for public health but we do have something similar to that. and as a very smart person so now my dad will get hacked. >> but that technology that we use isn't it time to have a cdc to educate the everyday person about the benefits and dangers to use digital tools

and infrastructure and online media but in a way that is relatable. >> so when the last discussion it was not great. what are the signs you are looking for? with the 400-pound? is how far out of touch you assume hackers are still people. they are not. on the more advanced side people have written programs to do this automatically. so the 400-pound hacker as the cause of election problems, that is not what we are talking about. and smaller than that.

and when you think of hacking you probably still think about computers within our lifetime or in the next 15 years we will have new types of technology that we ingest or that we wher where -- wherefore purposes i don't think anybody has a clue as to what is coming to washington d.c. has thought this through. and those voices would be great to hear i just don't think we are prepared or to constantly look for doom and gloom but given what i know to be true today i'm having a hard time. i'm having a hard time.

>> so we just go further down this path? >> i don't think we are living in the west world we do have the ability to change or to write the futures but then push up our sleeves to do the difficult job so to create that future that we want. depending on where you are you may have access to make fake news that much more difficult to do something about that now.

i watched, twitter and facebook made big promises. >> did anybody get the survey? >> nobody? >> it was a two question survey basically do you trust the sources and that was basically it. twitter promised to combat these problems with the international holocaust remembrance day with the left rail one was islam i clicked on in the very top news story was from russia today.

it was a totally made-up story i won't repeat it it was not even worth repeating it is made up and i have a verified account. this is not magical pixie dust that nobody can grab onto it is not that hard to fix they just choose not to. that is the case for not the problem so we are part of the problem for what will happen next then we have to do something about it which is just having occasional meetings in washington d.c. >> on the other hand it seems

there is this strain through humans. >> but that is perpetuated the current internet plays very well to our limbic system. so on the one hand it is our biology. not our fault. but there are other times we have medical ailments and we have a way to get around it but the problem is we all enjoy this too much we like to smack talk everybody has an opinion on net neutrality. why? why does burger king?

but that is the point it doesn't matter if it is fake news or actual news everybody wants to be a part of it but our attention is currency so we have to decide we want a different future for ourselves that is the mandate. >> the book is about how to be a better futurist so what are the questions they should be asking here is a security breach here is this other thing that you can now worry about. >> all my research and methodology was published it is also publicly available. my feeling is the kind of work that i do it is what anybody

can do but just make a decision going forwards on digital literacy there is a lot of amazing organizations that are working on this there is a lot of different ways to help but in terms of thinking about the future it isn't like checking the wind it is more than that but it is what everybody's office should be fully engaged in the last 75 and slow down a little bit. i know we live in a fast-paced society but the technology we are confronting is a means several years from now we will be living in a magical world.

but at some point somebody will want to legislate against it or somebody will break a law in a way we haven't thought of? even now do our constitutional guarantees if i if the code is slaved? we have a lot of difficult questions on the horizon and not to answer those under duress so everybody can take a moment to engage and hopefully we are better off in the long run. >> now there is a coffee break. >> so go caffeinated. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> thanks for coming back today for the lunch we are sandwiching lunch between two chairmen in between that we have a quick lunch so it is a tight schedule for the keynote speaker for the first part