Algorithms For Happiness

Liu Feng-Yuan predicts that the world will be hyper-personalised. Is this a good thing?

- Farhan Shah

The late Italian physicist Enrico Fermi once asked: “Where is everyone else out there?” This became known as the Fermi Paradox and presents the idea that, based on statistical probability, there should be at least a billion Earth-like planets capable of hosting 100,000 intelligent civilisations out there.

One concept that explains this paradox and the lack of intelligent life is The Great Filter. At its simplified core, it essentially means that any intelligent life hits a brick wall and gets wiped out. A possible future Great Filter candidate is a cataclysmic natural event, such as a meteorite or a huge gamma-ray burst.

So, while I was discussing the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) with Liu Feng-Yuan via Zoom, a thought struck me: what if the Great Filter is AI? After all, visionaries such as Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have continuously sounded warning bells about the risks.

Liu is the CEO and co-founder of Basis AI, a Singapore technology company that offers scalable and accountable “turnkey AI solutions to help enterprises accelerate AI adoption”. The former Director of Data Science and AI at the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) teamed up with twin tech wunderkinds Linus and Silvanus Lee to start Basis AI in 2018. By early last year, the early-stage start-up had raised just over S$8 million in seed funding from Temasek Holdings and Sequoia Capital India.