In April, Dr Finkel gave a keynote address on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence at Creative Innovation 2019, an annual conference that encourages participants to consider how creative thinking helps to navigate the one constant in our lives: change.

His speech explained how science fiction author Isaac Asimov’s famous three laws of robotics encouraged his own thinking in developing his four “elements” of ethical development:

• The Golden Rule: we will not detach human loss and human suffering from human agency, judgment, and empathy.
• The Carbon Rule: if machine intelligence is advancing, then human intelligence ought to do the same.
• The Argon Rule: technology developers and adopters, don’t be greedy.
• And the Platinum Rule: Every machine should have an off-switch. And an off-switch is useless unless there are humans who are trained to know when to use it.

The recording of the session is available online.

Dr Finkel at Creative Innovation 2019

Later in the month, Dr Finkel addressed the US Department of Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program Annual Merits Review in Washington, USA, on the challenges of growing the world’s hydrogen economy, and where Australia may be able to play a key role in this emerging industry.

Dr Finkel started by framing the big opportunity: zero emissions energy everywhere, for everyone.

“I see the hydrogen economy of 2050.

“Half a billion hydrogen cars, buses and trucks.

“Thousands of square miles of solar PV.

“Hundreds of hydrogen carrier ships criss-crossing the globe.

“It’s glorious. And then I look at the terrain right in front of me.

“And somehow, you, and I, and all of the pioneers who can see that brilliant future so clearly, have got to rally our people to hitch up the wagons… and trudge down that slope. And through the canyon. And up the other side.”

While in Washington, Dr Finkel also met with the Director of US Office of Science and Technology Policy Dr Kelvin Droegemeier.