1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: With Daniel Cohen, General Partner at Viola Ventures (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: There’s a part that is very worrisome. Have you read Yuval Noah Harari’s most recent book, Nexus?

Daniel Cohen: I have not, not yet, I should.

Sramana Mitra: You should. He talks about some things that are worrisome. I’ll give you one example from his book, which I happen to agree with. I happen to agree with a lot of what he’s saying. So it was really a very high resonance book for me.

He’s talking about how religion, for example, is a very big influencer in society. Religion drives a lot of action, a lot of group behavior, and a lot of the narratives.

Now, given AI has this kind of power of creating real intimacy at a highly personalized level, if new religions are created by AI and then propagated with this highly personalized intimacy with large masses of people, it’s an enormously powerful use case of AI.

That can be good. It can also be absolutely devastating.

Daniel Cohen: Yes, it can be devastating. Now I need to think about it. I’m going to read the book.

Sramana Mitra: You will have to think about it. This is a big, big topic, but I do recommend the book to all of you. If you haven’t read Harari’s Nexus, it is a very interesting book and it really goes into where the pitfalls of AI could come up. It is something that we all need to understand because of where we’re going.

Well, fantastic conversation, Dani. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you would like to discuss?

Daniel Cohen: No, I think this is good. Now I come out with things to think about and a book to read. I’m very excited about what the future lies ahead. By the way, I want to say I’m optimistic. I still think that overall, you’re scared of technology, but at the end, I think humanity has done well with a lot of technologies.

Sramana Mitra: I’m optimistic as well. I’m most optimistic about healthcare. I think in healthcare, if we can manage the AI applications well, it can completely change the game. 10 billion people can access high quality healthcare, robotic surgery, etc. For humanity, this could be an enormous way forward.

Daniel Cohen: Sramana, I want you to invite me again to another roundtable – number 850 perhaps. We’ll see what has changed in AI and what stayed the same. We can reflect on this conversation.

Sramana Mitra: We will. We started doing the series in July. We’ve done a lot of these discussions, but everybody needs to come back. Every four to six months, everybody needs to come back because so much is changing so quickly. You need to exchange notes in due course. Well, thank you for coming, Dani. We’ll be in touch and we will definitely have you over again.

Daniel Cohen: Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks everyone.

This segment is part 6 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: With Daniel Cohen, General Partner at Viola Ventures
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