De Kai Joins "Breaking the AI Barrier" July 20th
"Raising AI: An Essential Guide To Parenting Our Future" author De Kai joins the "Breaking the AI Barrier" discussion
De Kai — author, professor, and director of the Artificial Intelligence ethics think tank, The Future Society — will join the “Breaking the AI Barrier” seminar hosted by Liminal Media as a guest speaker. De Kai is best known as the inventor of the first global online language translator, a breakthrough which led to Google Translate, Yahoo Translate, and Microsoft Bing Translator. He worked closely with Geoffrey Hinton, who is often described as the “godfather of AI” and has recently been warning of AI’s potential to cause human extinction.
In his new book, Raising AI: An Essential Guide to Parenting Our Future (MIT Press) De Kai presents a more positive view. “The biggest fear in the AI era is fear itself,” he notes. De Kai thinks we should see AI as something like a child that we are now raising, collectively. While AI is super-advanced in some ways, in other ways it is emotionally and psychologically immature. It is still looking to us — it’s human parents — for guidance. How we treat AI will influence its evolution.
De Kai believes we need something like a global PTA to help people learn to be good parents and stewards of AI. “We need AI to be democratizing empathy rather than [distributing] weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). We must stop AI-powered fearmongering from driving our civilizations headlong into mutually assured destruction. Even if all our many cultures dont agree on everything, we need AI to help us with listening to each other, suspending our fear. And we all need to be a part of this cultural shift.”
De Kai will be presenting his thoughts on AI’s integration into society during Breaking the AI Barrier. Participants in the seminar will have the possibility of contributing to an emergent global initiative around AI safety and development based on his ideas. His 2025 TEDx talk:
Breaking the AI Barrier (July 6–30) examines the philosophical questions posed by AI and explores practical approaches for how you can leverage it for both personal and societal benefit. The live seminar meets Sundays and Wednesdays. All sessions will be recorded for replay, and we will also have a community network hub for sharing and co-creating. We hope to see you there!
Use code AIBARRIER10 for 10% off. Offer valid for one week only.
