Nikos Acuña cannot wait for the future. A futurist, author, and recently named Chief Visionary of Sizmek, Acuña’s belief that artificial intelligence will guide us to the tomorrow of our dreams is both an optimistic and precisely-measured prediction. “We are the tool-forging species,” Acuña reminds us in one of his videos, explaining that AI is a technology we have been hastening to yield exponential rewards for humanity.
In anticipation of his thrilling panel at SXSW this week, Acuña shared his thoughts with SXTXState.com on the significance of this technology for humanity.
As the brain-child behind the panel, What AI Reveals About Our Place in the Universe, Acuña said he hoped to “bring together an interdisciplinary channel.” Indeed, with theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, neuroscientist Vivienne Ming, and technologist Louis Rosenberg together, the synergy will certainly forge a universal perspective on AI.
What has always intrigued Acuña, and what ultimately brought him to AI, is intrinsic patterns. He described how “the alveoli in our lungs are very much similar to the neurons of our brains and the riverbeds and trees of muir woods.” What continues to thrill Acuña, is the possibility of humanity that could be unlocked through the development of artificial intelligence. “As we continue to understand how AI works,” Acuña said, “we not only uncover the deepest facets of our own intelligence, but it also gives us a much broader understanding of what sensing, thinking, and acting is; therefore, creating this tie and this recurring intrinsic pattern that would hopefully help us to unlock the deepest patterns of the cosmos, to understand creativity, and to understand who we are as individuals and what we are destined to become.” This perspective is certainly what fuels his enthusiasm.
AI has a lot to teach us, and with his new role of Chief Visionary at Sizmek, Acuña understands what artificial intelligence can harness for brands in his video, The Future of Marketing:
Many link the development of AI and technology to a future that looks something like Wall-E. What can we take away from Acuña when looking toward the future? Optimism. “The whole purpose of AI and the derivatives of technologies like it, exist so that we can do more meaningful work–not the low-level menial work.” The effect of such work would again yield exponential rewards for humanity and the work that we are capable of. When asked what is disconcerting about the future, he stated that he hopes we are “moving toward abundance overall, versus these technologies being used for negative purposes or people’s self-interests.”
“I’ll be the first one to sign up as a guinea pig for putting an AI chip in my brain to make me smarter so I don’t have to continue plugging away at my phone all the time,” Acuña said.
As a futurist, Acuña hopes to uncover everything there is to discover among data, technology, experiences, and ultimately, how people connect with one another. He hopes the audience at SXSW will leave the panel both inspired and open to figuring out how humanity can achieve such abundance.
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Friday, March 9
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Find out more: What AI Reveals About Our Place in the Universe
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