2 Year One

"Welcome to New Night with Nathan. Artificial intelligence is everywhere around us. Whether it is for suggesting us ads on social media or for security and surveillance of our dear ones, we've all seen bits and pieces of it. These are examples of Narrow Artificial Intelligence systems. They excel in specific tasks. A superior version of Artificial intelligence would be General Artificial Intelligence. It could perform any task that a human could. My very special guest tonight is one of the founders of 'Njorun', a company that has captured the imagination of every tech enthusiast in the country. Mr. Zack Markel, welcome to the show."

"Hello. Thanks for having me."

"Every entrepreneur in silicon valley is envious of your success while the big tech giants are getting ready to go to war with you. What makes Njorun such an adversary?"

"Well, you've answered it yourself in your intro. We've cracked it. The solution to creating a fully functional General Artificial Intelligence. The human mind has vast potential. It can store tons of data and perform millions of computations on a daily basis. It is a supercomputer of its own kind but not many are capable of using it. Our company has developed a system which can communicate and make use of the human brain to perform computations like any other computer. We call this new type of AI, harnessed Intelligence or HI for short. So basically companies running their software on our servers run faster. Automated factories using our HI outperform their competitors and are much safer. And the carbon footprint of using HI is abysmally small, so it is very much essential for today's world."

"Very interesting. So you basically turned your employees' minds into a computer. Is it safe to do so? I mean, my mind gets cooked if I take a look at a math book for more than ten minutes. Won't others feel burdened due to all these alien calculations going on in their head?"

"Haha. No. You're severely underestimating the human brain. The human brain has inbuilt safeguards in place to protect itself. It is like any other muscle in the body. The more we use it, the more it develops. We also have several additional safeguards built into the system to avoid any overuse. At present, we have more than a hundred thousand people employed in several countries. We monitor their mental health and wellbeing daily and we haven't had a single case so far. In fact, we've noticed a steady increase in IQ among our employees."

"That sounds wonderful when you say it. But then, can you tell us why we don't have a single employee from the United States? The FDA hasn't given its stamp of approval and several prominent politicians in Congress warn Americans of the dangers of the new technology."

"It's fear, Nathan. Like you said, the big tech giants are scurrying around, lobbying our senators left and right. They are trying their best to sow fear into the minds of people about the dangers of artificial intelligence and automation."

"But isn't their side right? This technology is very disruptive and people have always been afraid of automation making them lose their jobs. I've spoken to several economists and scientists. They've all raised concerns over an imminent crash of markets caused due to the disruption."

"They're thinking about Artificial Intelligence. Njorun deals with Harnessed Intelligence. See, this is the beauty of HI. Let's say that full self driving becomes a reality tomorrow. Thousands of truck drivers will lose their jobs tomorrow. But with Njuron, those very same drivers can be employed the very next day and the intelligence harnessed from them can be used to drive the trucks efficiently. It doesn't have to be used for driving trucks alone. It can be used for anything! And the drivers earn their pay from those jobs."

"It sounds too good to be true."

"Let me share with you a story of one of my employees. We've recently been approved to operate in India and we've received a contract from the New Delhi's state government to provide a solution for cleaning the drainage pipes. These pipes are very old and dangerous to work in. But they need to be cleaned regularly. So these jobs are taken up by the poor communities and they often live in humiliating conditions. They are also ostracised from the rest of the community due to the nature of their jobs. We have gotten in touch with them and employed them for Njorun. We cooperated with a local company working on scavenging robots and successfully completed the contract. Last month, when I visited the India branch, one employee approached me with some home made sweets. He said that he was able to move into a better neighbourhood with the new job and his family feels like they have their dignity back. He was also able to rekindle his passion for cooking and opened up a small shop for sweets. That's the kind of work Njorun is doing. That's what these big tech companies are stopping from happening here in the US."

"That is a touching story. Our research has shown that more than half of Njorun's employees were people from below the poverty line without any formal education in their respective countries when they were hired. Forgive me for asking but won't it be better for the Harnessed Intelligence, if the hired employees were intelligent to begin with?"

"Intelligence is not education. Besides, HI doesn't work that way. It is our company's mission to make the world a better place. So we have taken the conscious decision to hire more people below the poverty line."

"Your critics are saying that you are pandering to the minorities to gain sympathy for your company, thereby, bending the politicians to your will!"

"They are baseless allegations and I do not have to justify my goodwill. Recently Njorun won a contract from a bank here in the US, to deal with fraudulent calls. Our HI was able to filter out all the calls made by the scammers and alert the users immediately. The bank was flooded with calls of appreciation. We were able to identify where these scam calls mainly came from. Upon learning this, Njorun set up branches in those countries and was able to pinpoint them easily."

"Oh sounds wonderful. Did you hand them over to the authorities?"

"No, we offered them jobs at Njorun."

"What? Why would you employ such people?"

"Because they started doing these crimes due to poverty and we believed they had a great future ahead of them if we pulled them out of a life of crime. Because oppression is not the solution, opportunity is."

"Unbelievable. I don't know if I should call this kindness or stupidity! That's all we have for today folks. I still don't understand whether Njorun's 'Harnessed Intelligence' is a boon for this country or a curse. But we'll soon find out! Keep watching, CMN."

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