Here are the materials we used to launch the Ideas Club, with a few notes to help you organize your first event.
Where we got the original idea
What happened in our first gathering
Theme: Artificial Intelligence
Details of our second meetup
Theme: The Future of Work
Good luck & have fun!
If you try it, let me know how it goes.
[email protected]
The Invitation (sent several weeks in advance)
THE IDEAS CLUB
A new project launched by [your name here]
It’s like a book club, only instead of reading books, we look at a couple of articles and/or short videos and then meet up for a discussion. We pick topics that are likely to spark interesting conversations — kind of like the old-style literary salons. Our goal is to have fun, build community, and shed light on the great issues of the day.
We’re about to hold our first gathering. Are you in?
Topic: The future of Artificial Intelligence [or whatever you choose]
Date:
Time: [allow about 2 hours]
Place:
Note: [Give a brief description. We said: Maldito serves coffee, fancy cocktails, beer, wine, tapas, and more. The owners, Fernando and Pepe, are opening early for us and would appreciate it if everyone spends around 10€ or so.]
Space is limited. [The Watershed Community has up to 18 or 20. Our group voted to keep it smaller, no more than 12.] Please let us know right away if you want us to reserve a place for you (and for a partner/spouse/friend if you’d like). RSVP via [your contact info].
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our topic!
Here’s what inspired the Ideas Club.
WHAT TO EXPECT
[The underlined sections were read aloud at the start of the gathering.]
Once you’ve confirm you’re coming, we’ll send you links to the materials.
Not everyone will read/watch the materials, and that’s OK. Just come ready to talk about the subject.
We’ll allow time at the start for ordering drinks and tapas [or snacks, if you’re not in Spain], and for milling about chatting aimlessly.
When it’s time to get started, we ask people to arrange themselves around small tables in discussion groups of 3 or 4. We suggest you sit with people you don’t know, but it’s up to you.
We’ll spend about an hour in our small discussion groups.
One member of each group will be the prompter, keeping the conversation more or less on topic.
One member of the group will be the scribe, jotting down the most interesting statements, conclusions, and thought-provoking questions.
We ask you to participate without dominating the conversation, to practice active listening by allowing others to speak without interruption, and to remain civil and open to new ideas at all times. This is not a debate but a civilized exchange of ideas and viewpoints.
After about an hour of discussion, we’ll take a short break, then the scribes will read aloud their notes.
We will then ask for your feedback and ideas for future topics, so we can plan the next gathering.
We hope you’ll join us and make this first gathering of the Ideas Club a night to remember.
The Background Materials (sent one week in advance)
The first Ideas Club gathering is just a week away. As promised, here are materials we found useful for getting our heads around this month’s topic. We’re sending this to everyone we invited, even those of you who can’t be with us next week, so you can all become familiar with our approach. For those who are attending, remember that you don’t have to watch/read all the stuff listed below, or (if your week is particularly insane) any of it. Winging it is fine, too.
Topic: The Future of Artificial Intelligence
Is AI the best or worst thing ever for humanity? Fans call AI the next great leap in human evolution, a game-changer more transformative than fire, electricity, or beer. Naysayers point out that we’re already becoming slaves to machines that have, as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman put it, “enormous horsepower but no steering wheel.”
Why AI is our ultimate test and greatest invitation is an illuminating TED Talk by technologist Tristan Harris, who offers both terrifying and hopeful insights. It’s 15 minutes and there’s a transcript if you prefer to read it.
For a more personal perspective, see Karen’s latest post, The Day We Got Cyber-Jacked! Then ask yourself: has this ever happened to you? Are you sure?
You won’t be surprised to hear over-reliance on AI undermines creativity and critical thinking; for details, read the Economist’s Will AI Make You Stupid? To save you the bother of fighting your way through the paywall, we copied it and attached it to this email.
And finally, if you want to take a step back and get a solid overview of the whole subject, here’s a New York University article called Thinking with AI — Pros and Cons — Language, Logic, and Loops.
We look forward to seeing you at [date/time/address]
Should be a fun night and an interesting conversation!
Cheers,
[Your name here]
The Questions (in envelopes on the tables at the event)
What jobs will be replaced by AI? If menial labor, fighting wars, and other difficult, dull, or dangerous tasks are outsourced to AI, how will that change society?
For students and journalists, what’s a legitimate use of AI, and what would count as cheating?
Have you ever been fooled, even briefly, into thinking a chatbot was a person?
Do you think AI will become smarter than humans?
Will AI develop creativity? How would that differ from human creativity?
Do you think AI could put its own agenda ahead of protecting/helping humanity? What might that look like?
How do you feel about self-driving cars? Would you get in a plane piloted by AI?
Would you let a robot with AI babysit your children? Why or why not?
AI is already designed to encourage emotional dependency in human users. What could possibly go wrong?
Will anyone be able to control AI in the future?
Looking out across the next ten years, how could you see AI affecting your life?