WEBVTT

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Imagine a world

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where robots are part
of your everyday life,

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and not only as helpers, 
but also as companions and friends.

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And where the minds of such robots 
are not just building the big,

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technological centers of the world
like Silicon Valley,

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but they are built even 
in a small oasis city

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in the middle of the Arabian Desert,

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such as Al Ain.

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Furthermore,

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imagine a world

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in which we can all participate
in wider intelligent entities,

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that are made up of potentially 
thousands of humans and machines,

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even with ten seconds
of our time every day,

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and whose capabilities might 
far surpass the current limits

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of both human
as well as artificial intelligence.

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And finally,

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imagine a world

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where we can harness

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the collective mind and intellect
of the citizens of our nations

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in order to be able to bring forth

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effective participatory governance
for the smart green cities of the future.

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These three have been my dreams
and goals in the last ten years.

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And they have partially
produced some fruit:

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such as Ibn Sina, the world's first
Arabic speaking android robot.

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In the words of the BBC,
as recorded in my lab:

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(Video) But unlike his older counterpart,
this Ibn Sina is altogether

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more high tech.

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As well as being
fluent in English and Arabic,

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he can hold a conversation with humans. 
He looks for information about us

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on the Internet,
and uses that to chat with us.

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He'll also remember it
for the next time you meet.

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Robot voice: Saeed - Happy.

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Narrator: But this lab isn't
in Japan, China, or the United States;

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it is in Al Ain, just an hour's drive
from the UAE capital Abu Dhabi.

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(Applause)

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Nikolaos Mavridis:
I would like to ask you

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to embark with me upon a journey,

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that will have three parts:
first, I will start with

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a very short history of intelligence
on the planet Earth, to arrive

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to the moment where we actually
have robots interacting with humans.

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Then, I will talk about
individual intelligence, 


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and how this scales up 
to collective intelligence.

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And in the end, I will go
to the most crucial question, I think,

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for today: how can we harness
the collective mind of our citizens

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in order to bring forth
effective participatory governance?

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Let us start!

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In the beginning, the Earth

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was full of lifeless matter.

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And then,

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the first organisms appeared,

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And later,

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the first animals

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that could actually perceive
the world through their sensors,

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their eyes and their ears, and then

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mediated through their
natural intelligence,

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they could act upon the world

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through their muscles.

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Later,

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humans appeared,

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and with them,

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the first man-made objects,

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such as tools,

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and much later,

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a very special kind
of man-made objects:

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machines, that could
run along on their own.

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And it wasn't until very recently,

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that we started getting
the first intelligent machines,

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such as computers.

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But ask yourselves:

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how much has our life changed,

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since the introduction
of intelligent machines?

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Just think:

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in the last week,

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how much time have you spent

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in direct interaction, one-to-one
with another person?

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Versus how much time have you spent

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in electronic mediated interaction,

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through your cell phone,
or through your messaging system?

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Versus, more importantly,
how much time have you spent,

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interacting with a machine,
and not a human?

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With a website,
with a computer game, with an ATM,

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and in the future, with robots?

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The average American is spending

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two hours of his day online,

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and a big part of this time has to do

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with interaction with machines,
not with humans.

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So we are spending more
and more time with them,

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and slowly,

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we are starting to relate to them.

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And then,

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came robots.

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And robots are very different
from other intelligent machines;

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they don't need to have
somebody at a keyboard

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in order to feed them

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with information from the world,

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as you need for a computer;

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they have their own sensors,

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they can perceive the world through
their cameras and their vision systems,

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through their sonars, through their 
auditory sensors and so on.

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And most importantly they can also
directly act upon the world;

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they have their own muscles

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which are their motors, in this case.

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And the connection between
the sensors and the motors

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happens through their
artificial intelligence.

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For example,

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when it comes to chess,

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the Deep Blue computer of IBM

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was able to win over Kasparov,

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the World Champion of chess.

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But still, in many, many other things,

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human intelligence is far superior
to machine intelligence;

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take for example, the motor
abilities of a 5 year-old girl,

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if you get the best biped humanoid robot,

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like Asimo that you saw,

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it is much worse when it comes 
to what it can do.

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Take also the abilities of young children

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to be able to continuously learn

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in an exploratory manner.

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Again, the best machine learning program

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out there cannot even think about
doing something like that.

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There are unsurmountable limits, though,
to what a single intelligent entity,

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either it being human or being machine,
can do on its own.

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And this is why, participating in groups

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is not only very, very pleasant 
as an activity,

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but it can enable us to do things
that we cannot even think of alone.

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But the intermediate stage

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between the single individual
and the group

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is the pair.

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In this case, a pair of a robot 
and a human

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interacting with one another.

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And most of the work
that I have done so far in my lab

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actually has to do
with exactly this setting.

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And let me share with you
three interesting examples of that:

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first, the robot Ripley,
which has the form of a helping hand.

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You can give it commands in language,

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it helps you with things
that you want to do on a table

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and it can learn the meaning
of words through examples.

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Let us see it in action!

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(Video) Man: Where is the red one?

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Robot voice: At the top.

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Man: Look at the center!

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Robot voice: OK.

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Man: Where is the red one?

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NM: So up there you can see
what the camera sees,

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and this is the model
of the world that it makes.

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(Video) Man: What color are the objects?

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Robot voice:
One is red, and the other is green.

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NM: It cannot see the red object anymore,
but it still remembers it.

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Man: Imagine a blue object on the left.

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NM: Now we are telling it
that there is an object on the left,

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so it's imagining an object

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and it waits to see it
when it looks on the left.

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(Video) Man: Where is the blue one?

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Robot voice: Most probably at the left.

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Man: How big is the blue one?

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Robot voice: I have no idea.

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Man: Look at the left!

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NM: And now he will see
what he was imagining before

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and verify that indeed
what I was telling him was true,

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that there is a blue object,
and it will know how big it is.

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Man: How big is the blue one?

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Robot voice: Small.

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NM: And the robot can also remember.

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Man: How big was the blue one
when your head started moving?

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Robot voice: I had no idea.

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Man: Where was the red one
when the green one appeared?

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Robot voice: Most probably at the top, 
but maybe not.

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Man: Thank you!

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Robot voice: You're welcome.

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(Applause)

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NM: So you see how, slowly, 
these machines are learning

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how to bring part of the world
within their own mental realm, their head.

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And then they're learning how to connect

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all of these things with language
and help us,

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and even remember
in some cases, and imagine.

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The second example
that I want to share with you

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is from the Facebots robots.

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And here my purpose was to build
a robot that can interact with you

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not only once,
but it can keep your interest

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so you can speak again with him

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after one day, after one week,
many times within a month

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or three months.

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And for that reason it's trying to create

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shared memories with you,

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so it remembers the things
that you did together,

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and shared friends,

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so it can spread gossip about the friends

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and have an interesting discussion.

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At the same time it can meet with
people physically or through Facebook

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and also it can get information from
Facebook that is relevant to them.

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Let us see that too!

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(Video) Robot voice:
Are you Layli Tutunzin?

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Woman: Yes!

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Layli Tutunzin, are you doing well today?
Woman: Yes!

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Robot voice: Well, let me tell you
some updated news

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from the world of technology.

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NM: Here it is giving customised news.

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Robot voice: That's great!

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NM: It has recognised the face
of the person.

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Robot voice: Layli, do you know
that our friend, Panos Tulli,

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has posted a new photo
in the photo album?

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Woman: No.

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Robot voice: I am sending you
an inbox message about this.

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NM: Talking about common friends.

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RV: One of our common friends, 
Panos Tulli, is online.

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Would you like to send
a message to our friend?

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NM: It can connect people, one of which
is online, the other physically there,

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even get people to know one another.

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RV: I remember when we talked 
this morning and I had asked you

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"Are you doing well today?"

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And you were doing well

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and we talked a little about Chandan Data.

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Layli, it was nice speaking to you! 
Goodbye for now.

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(Applause)

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And then, the third example

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after Sarah the Facebot

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is Ibn Sina, which you very 
briefly saw in the beginning.

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And here the purpose was
to create a shopping mall robot,

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or a museum robot,
or even an Interactive theatre actor.

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And this robot actually spoke with
thousands of people as you shall see.

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A lot of degrees of freedom in the face,
it can have facial expressions.

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(Video) Man: Salam Aleikum! Marhaba.

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NM: A simple dialogue system in Arabic.

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It even does the greeting

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of the Khaliji greeting. Haha!

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Robot: Hazin: sadness.

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NM: And it can take facial expressions
corresponding to emotions.

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Sadness.

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Robot: Elpostir: disbelief.

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NM: Disbelief.

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Robot: Motahamas: Excited.

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NM: And excitement!

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(Laughter)

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As you can imagine
this got a lot of publicity,

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so just a small sample follows:

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This is Agence France Press.

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(Video: Speaking in French)

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Dubai TV.

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Thirty countries around the world.

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Netherlands.

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And then the robot also went
to shopping malls and exhibitions

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and spoke with around 3000 people.

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And it also flew on Emirates Airlines
to Saudi Arabia,

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invited by the Minister of Education
of Saudi.

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And here he is very happy.

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And in the end the letter that he wrote

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to Sheikh Nahayan
bin Mubarak of the Emirates.

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(Applause)

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So all of these three examples
that I showed to you

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were examples of interaction
between pairs:

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a human and a robot,

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speaking with one another.

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The next stage is group interaction,

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and in this case we have a group
of two robots and two humans

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from the NASA Robonaut Project.

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And after that, what we reach
is what one could call

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in Layman's terms "superorganisms"

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that could have thousands
of humans and machines,

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connected tightly to one another,
and sharing their eyes and hands,

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and brains, if you want.

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But what do I mean exactly by that?

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Let me give you an example.

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These are ten red balloons;

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they are about I think 
five meters in diameter,

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and they were placed in random locations
around the United States in 2009

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as part of a DARPA research program:

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this was the network challenge,
as they called it.

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And the goal of the teams
that were taking part in the competition

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for these balloons
which were University teams

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was to find a way to find them.

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And they could use whatever they want:

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they could use humans,
they could use satellites,

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they could use machines.

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So the team that
was actually able to win

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which came from the MIT Media Lab,
where I did my PhD too,

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used - what do you think?

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Social networks.

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So they used social networks in order
to get to recruit thousands of people

00:13:25.622 --> 00:13:30.704
who pretty much spent ten seconds
of their time lending their eyes

00:13:30.704 --> 00:13:33.604
and their brain to the system
to look around

00:13:33.604 --> 00:13:36.302
and check if they see a balloon.

00:13:36.302 --> 00:13:39.606
And then, through the thousands
of eyes that contributed to the system

00:13:39.606 --> 00:13:42.274
they were able to find them
in a very, very [short] time.

00:13:42.274 --> 00:13:44.045
Of course you can extend this.

00:13:44.045 --> 00:13:46.562
You can get people give part of their
brain abilities

00:13:46.562 --> 00:13:47.926
as services to the system.

00:13:47.926 --> 00:13:49.317
They can be translating text,

00:13:49.317 --> 00:13:50.354
they can be planning,

00:13:50.354 --> 00:13:51.755
they can be doing operations.

00:13:51.755 --> 00:13:53.755
And if you bring all of this together,

00:13:53.755 --> 00:13:56.701
then you get something that
is much more similar, if you want,

00:13:56.716 --> 00:14:00.204
to this dance of the reincarnation
of the Buddha that they have in China.

00:14:01.926 --> 00:14:04.739
So enough with interactive robots
and the human-robot cloud.

00:14:04.739 --> 00:14:06.800
Now let me go
to the third part of the talk,

00:14:06.800 --> 00:14:08.640
and talk to you about the answer

00:14:08.640 --> 00:14:09.888
to the following question:

00:14:09.888 --> 00:14:12.320
how can we harness
the collective mind of citizens

00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:17.578
in order to be able to bring forth
effective participatory governance?

00:14:19.049 --> 00:14:23.191
Both in Ancient Athens as well as
in Islam and many other cultures

00:14:23.191 --> 00:14:26.495
one of the prime elements of politics

00:14:26.509 --> 00:14:28.242
is "consultation" or "Shura"

00:14:28.298 --> 00:14:29.939
as it's usually called.

00:14:30.485 --> 00:14:34.334
The big issue though with Shura
is that it works at the level of a village

00:14:34.334 --> 00:14:38.430
but how can you extend this
to the multi-million-people nations

00:14:38.430 --> 00:14:40.528
that we have today?

00:14:40.528 --> 00:14:41.651
This is a big problem,

00:14:41.651 --> 00:14:44.539
but this is exactly
the opportunity in terms of technology

00:14:44.539 --> 00:14:48.213
for the first time in the
history of humanity to try to do it.

00:14:48.213 --> 00:14:50.505
And a prime example of this,

00:14:50.505 --> 00:14:51.849
is what his Excellency

00:14:51.849 --> 00:14:56.054
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid
has done in Dubai,

00:14:56.054 --> 00:14:58.288
in which through
the UAE Brainstorm program,

00:14:58.288 --> 00:15:03.155
he brought about ten thousand
of his citizens to contribute

00:15:03.448 --> 00:15:07.587
to the reformation of the
education program of the Emirates

00:15:07.587 --> 00:15:11.736
by sending messages through Twitter
and through the Internet.

00:15:11.736 --> 00:15:15.066
And there are many cases
in which electronic consultation

00:15:15.066 --> 00:15:18.319
can really help bring forth new ideas

00:15:18.319 --> 00:15:21.217
and can really help people
participate in what is happening.

00:15:21.217 --> 00:15:24.533
There are cases though where
it is important to, if you want,

00:15:24.533 --> 00:15:26.897
get the physical element come in there.

00:15:26.897 --> 00:15:29.260
That's why, as part of my involvement

00:15:29.260 --> 00:15:31.627
in “Recreate Greece", which is 
a citizens movement in Greece,

00:15:31.627 --> 00:15:37.113
I planned and organised hybrid
electronic and physical workshops

00:15:37.113 --> 00:15:40.266
for consultation, in which again
we had many citizens of Greece

00:15:40.266 --> 00:15:42.180
coming together and brainstorming

00:15:42.180 --> 00:15:45.981
in order to plan for the
Renaissance of Greece after the crisis.

00:15:45.991 --> 00:15:48.809
And the important thing
about the physical element

00:15:48.809 --> 00:15:51.165
which you cannot find too easily
in the electronic

00:15:51.165 --> 00:15:52.591
is the fact that you can have

00:15:52.591 --> 00:15:55.557
real friendships
taking place in this meeting,

00:15:55.557 --> 00:16:01.163
and also the citizens that get involved
later start group action together.

00:16:01.163 --> 00:16:05.677
So you actually get volunteer groups too
that really do things and not just talk.

00:16:05.867 --> 00:16:07.669
And there are many other technologies

00:16:07.669 --> 00:16:09.391
that have become available right now

00:16:09.391 --> 00:16:11.047
to be able to enhance governance,

00:16:11.047 --> 00:16:14.152
that are based on this collective
mind of the people, if you want.

00:16:14.152 --> 00:16:15.651
There is liquid representation,

00:16:15.651 --> 00:16:17.230
there is participatory budgeting,

00:16:17.230 --> 00:16:18.551
there are online petitions,

00:16:18.551 --> 00:16:20.372
and much more that you can easily find

00:16:20.372 --> 00:16:23.513
if you see for example the World
Forum of Democracy in Strasbourg.

00:16:24.660 --> 00:16:26.433
Also, there are many new technologies

00:16:26.433 --> 00:16:29.034
regarding being able
to analyse public opinion.

00:16:29.034 --> 00:16:32.501
In a project that we started in my lab
recently, we actually fetched

00:16:32.501 --> 00:16:36.930
150.000 tweets that were related
to the ObamaCare website

00:16:36.930 --> 00:16:38.916
and how people reacted to it.

00:16:38.916 --> 00:16:41.065
And we were able to find out

00:16:41.065 --> 00:16:44.062
who the main influencers were,
what the spheres of influence were,

00:16:44.062 --> 00:16:46.205
what the communication dynamics were,

00:16:46.213 --> 00:16:47.690
how the sentiment of the people

00:16:47.690 --> 00:16:49.271
was coming up and down over time,

00:16:49.271 --> 00:16:52.531
and how this whole thing was related
to what was happening out there

00:16:52.531 --> 00:16:56.231
in terms of government announcements
and the real project progress.

00:16:56.231 --> 00:16:59.825
And you were even able to actually get
predictions from what is happening,

00:16:59.825 --> 00:17:02.455
through this analysis of public opinion.

00:17:03.458 --> 00:17:08.075
Thus, in the green smart
cities of the future,

00:17:09.163 --> 00:17:12.908
it's not just the infrastructure
that will be intelligent

00:17:12.908 --> 00:17:15.534
and the buildings,
and environmentally friendly.

00:17:15.534 --> 00:17:19.291
One of the most important elements
we think in that respect is to be able

00:17:19.291 --> 00:17:24.464
to harness both the skills and the mind
and the opinions of all of the citizens

00:17:25.089 --> 00:17:27.314
in order to help governance,

00:17:27.314 --> 00:17:31.494
and in order to help them
make their dreams come true.

00:17:33.602 --> 00:17:35.588
Thus, we have gone a long way.

00:17:35.588 --> 00:17:38.683
I started by talking about lifeless matter
and went all the way

00:17:38.683 --> 00:17:40.461
to robots interacting with humans.

00:17:40.461 --> 00:17:42.494
Then we talked about 
individual intelligence

00:17:42.494 --> 00:17:43.907
and collective intelligence.

00:17:43.907 --> 00:17:46.902
And finally, we asked about
the collective mind of the citizens

00:17:46.902 --> 00:17:50.078
and how it can help
in the new cities of the future.

00:17:51.936 --> 00:17:55.986
Let me thus just close 
with a vision of the future.

00:17:55.986 --> 00:17:59.925
Imagine a world in which humans, robots,

00:17:59.925 --> 00:18:02.727
and all other intelligent
and natural entities

00:18:02.727 --> 00:18:07.257
that will make up the complex biological
and artificial ecosystem of tomorrow,

00:18:07.257 --> 00:18:11.806
will co-exist in peace,
harmony, and mutual benefit,

00:18:12.045 --> 00:18:15.940
and in which through
our participation in larger entities

00:18:15.940 --> 00:18:21.522
we will able to reach a much more
deep collective self-actualization.

00:18:21.750 --> 00:18:24.447
And finally, imagine a world,

00:18:24.447 --> 00:18:27.712
in which through
the collective mind of the citizens,

00:18:27.712 --> 00:18:31.918
we will be able not only to have
effective participatory governance,

00:18:31.918 --> 00:18:36.478
but most importantly,
we will help preserve and enjoy

00:18:36.478 --> 00:18:37.820
our most beautiful planet,

00:18:37.820 --> 00:18:39.128
its biosphere,

00:18:39.128 --> 00:18:41.486
and Mother Earth.

00:18:41.486 --> 00:18:43.492
(Applause)