Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit
Craig Mundie (Mundie & Associates)
Distinguished Lecture Series
Tuesday, January 7, 2025, 3:30 pm
Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium
Abstract
The Allen School and the Foster School's Creative Destruction Lab at the UW welcome Craig Mundie — president of Mundie & Associates and former chief research and strategy officer of Microsoft — for a discussion of his new book co-authored with Eric Schmidt and Henry Kissinger, Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit.
About Genesis
As it absorbs data, gains agency, and intermediates between humans and reality, AI (Artificial Intelligence) will help us to address enormous crises, from climate change to geopolitical conflicts to income inequality. It might well solve some of the greatest mysteries of our universe and elevate the human spirit to unimaginable heights. But it will also pose challenges on a scale and of an intensity that we have never seen—usurping our power of independent judgment and action, testing our relationship with the divine, and perhaps even spurring a new phase in human evolution.
The last book of elder statesman Henry Kissinger, written with technologists Craig Mundie and Eric Schmidt, Genesis charts a course between blind faith and unjustified fear as it outlines an effective strategy for navigating the age of AI.
Biography
Craig J. Mundie, president of Mundie & Associates, joined Microsoft in 1992 and retired in 2014 as chief research and strategy officer. He advises Microsoft on quantum computing and cybersecurity, is a director of the Institute for Systems Biology, a technology advisor to the Cleveland Clinic, and also an investor/advisor in early-stage companies involved in AI, biotech, fusion energy, and materials science. He served Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama on the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Council and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Among his honors is a Doctor of Engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
This event is co-sponsored by the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and The Foster School's Creative Destruction Lab.
A recording of this talk is on our YouTube channel.