Edit (8pm in Berlin) It says "Just finished" but I'm still fine to answer questions
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/bYkUiE7 (thanks to r/technology mods for approving this AMA)
Right now, I’m at the Berlin Global Dialogue (https://www.berlinglobaldialogue.org/) – an exclusive event where the world’s top tech and business leaders are deciding how to shape the future. It’s like Davos, but with a sharper focus on tech and AI.
Who’s here? The VP of Global Impact at OpenAI, Herman Hauser (founder of ARM), and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Here’s what you need to know:
- AI and machine learning are being treated like the next industrial revolution. One founder shared he'd laid off 300 people replaced with OpenAI's APIs (even the VP of at OpenAI appeared surprised)
- The conversations are heavily focused on how to control and monetize tech and AI – but there’s a glaring issue…
- …everyone here is part of an insider leadership group – and many don't understand the tech they're speaking about (OpenAI does though – their tip was 'use our tech to understand' – that's good for them but not for all)
I’ve been coding for over a decade, teaching programming on Frontend Masters, and running an independent tech school, but what’s happening in these rooms is more critical than ever. If you work in tech, get ready for AI/ML to completely change the game. Every business will incorporate it, whether you’re prepared or not.
As someone raised by two public school teachers, I’m deeply invested in making sure the benefits of AI don’t stay locked behind corporate doors
I’m here all day at the BGD and will be answering your questions as I dive deeper into these conversations. Ask me anything about what’s really happening here.
I'm a Tech CEO at the Berlin Global Dialogue (w OpenAI, Emmanuel Macron) – Here's what you need to know about what's being said about AI/Tech behind closed doors – AMA
byu/WillSen intechnology
26 Comments
This was initially auto-blocked by reddit but now open for questions! Thanks so much to mods for kindly approving just now
Macron speaking – key takeaways:
– The world changed in the last 2 years – US is racing ahead in AI (and trade/security certainties gone)
– US/China forecast to grow 70% vs 30% in Europe at current forecasts
– EU needs **Single market for Technology (including AI)**
I see AI as technology that will be used to benefit the greedy few at the expense of the majority of people, which will be very destructive.
what do you think it needed to distribute power in tech, given how much concentration is taking place?
How much were regulations around AI a part of the conversation, in particular regarding privacy? I know France and Germany are both quite focused on ensuring privacy vis a vis tech.
What do European leaders think about Draghi’s proposal? What in the biggest thing Europe can realistically do to make it competitive in tech?
What specific leadership skills are going to be essential for the next generation of tech leaders to navigate the AI-dominated landscape? How should they adapt to thrive?
Was there talk about power requirements, funding billions of dollars worth of datacenters, or licensing training data?
1) If you’re a working software engineer what do you think they need to do NOW to stay relevant and employed?
2) If you’re NON-TECHNICAL and work as a lawyer/accountant/project manager what should you be doing now to stay relevant in the work force?
3) Has OpenAI acknowledged that they have screwed over the economy? What disturbed you most about their panel??
How soon can I make my own games with ChatGPT?
any discussion of malfs like ‘hallucinations’ and the famous dog-food meltdown?
or the problem of ai generated content feeding back into the training input?
People who sell AI say it will be amazing. Ok, thanks.
AI companies scrapped a lot of content for free from small and medium publishers, and gave nothing in return. The Internet publishing model is now destabilized and a lot of bloggers are struggling, which could endanger the future of the independent Internet.
Do you work on anything related to this problem or see how it can be fixed in the future?
To me, the first and greatest benefit is eliminating waste (and personnel) in ALL departments of government while increasing transparency, enforcing performance metrics, accountability and organizational interoperability.
Any discussion related to this that may bring some relief to taxpayers?
1. How do you envision the future of software engineering processes to evolve with AI tools? As a developer, I enjoy finding pockets of flow and I find it’s a different mode of thinking with needing to reference AI tools.
2. What are the best courses out there to stay relevant as a dev in 2025
What was the best take – if any – from speakers so far on the idea of democratizing technology (specifically new tools like AI) and using these tools to benefit society at large, not simply the few companies (and their CEOs and/or shareholders) who are able to develop the tools?
Did anyone surprise you or scare with their views?
AMEX is going to win so hard in the next few years
I’m retired boys, good luck losing money on “else-if” statements
Can you see an opportunity for public-private partnership in driving forward the distribution of growing tech power? And how would that look like to you?
What advice do you have for early career folks in the medical field? I am about to start my career and wonder if I should take the plunge and work with one of the health tech startups that are seemingly all around us. Thank you for your time and insight!
Imgur isn’t that Anderssen?
Can you tell OpenAI to stop scraping and ***stealing*** hundreds of my copyrighted photographs? Especially with most of them being photojournalism based, their inclusion in OpenAI’s dataset is wholly unethical, let alone illegal. Why is that not being discussed more openly by these for-profit companies?
As someone who works with AI (VP R&D at a medtech company) I don’t think executives or investors have any idea of what to expect from AI technology. To them it’s just a magic box that is surprisingly better than they thought.
The current things AI is really good at is not everything under the sun, as the hype tells us, but rather:
1. Generating, text, images, and now video
2. Having conversations based on training from the internet
3. Finding things in images and video (Classification, Segmentation, Object Detection)
The major business needs you have seen addressed are in customer support, for LLMs, or in computer vision for manufacturing. Outside of these 3 domains, “AI” usefulness is mostly speculative, and there’s often little alignment between the magic being sold to investors and the actual technology.
If CEO’s and world leaders are gloating about laying off 100s of staff at these events, what hope do normal people have? As someone who is completely against the use of AI, especially by evil people, this sounds terrible for the future.
Were any concerns about the impact this will have raised at this event or was it mainly tech bros sucking each other off?
What use cases are the leaders seeing that are not apparent to the public?
From my non technical old guy seat, it seems like image creation writing, maybe video and video games, animation loom great
Chatting about HR policies looks fine
Creating crap content on websites seems fine
I have not seen the other transformational use cases
Do you think IT is worth to do comp science? I want to be in technology. What is your advice?
What was the position of 300 people that were laid off
I’m curious if there’s an awareness of how AI affects innovation. Since AI is basically a master researcher of what we’ve already done, but not at coming up with creative solutions that nobody’s done before.
It seems a lot of writers are being laid off, for example, which I guess makes sense if you’re only writing “content” for SEO, but what about content for humans?
Similarly I’m curious if they’re looking into solutions for plagiarism. Even on my software dev team engineers using AI for take homes was a huge issue our last hiring round. We usually can get around it by asking the engineers to explain their reasoning (surprise the AI ones can’t), but with so many processes in education so standardized, is there an awareness there?