Early versions of generative AI were “like a dancing bear,” says Werner Vogels, the Amazon chief technology officer. “We’re all amazed that this bear can dance,” he explains. “We don’t really look at whether it dances well or not.”
In the past two years, with ample training, the bear has become a better dancer.
However, he says, “this is still technology that relies on you, as an individual, actually taking action based on what this technology tells you. It’s a tool. Artificial intelligence makes predictions. We as humans take actions based on that.”
That’s one of the highlights from our conversation with Vogels on this week’s GeekWire Podcast, recorded at Amazon in Seattle. We talk about the evolution of AI, its promise in healthcare and the environment, his broader tech predictions for the year, and one of his most iconic traditions at Amazon’s annual cloud conference.
Listen below, and keep reading for excerpts, edited for context and clarity.
The rapid evolution of technology, and the changing nature of education: Technology has been evolving exponentially fast. Let’s say you have a computer science degree. You probably weren’t exposed to large language models during your education. So there’s a lot of on-the-job training that still needs to happen. That’s a shift that is happening, where the university four-year education is much more about critical thinking, and learning how to learn, because technology will be a lifelong learning experience for anyone. … Individual companies like Amazon will be doing the education themselves, assisted by these large language models.
The rise of culturally aware AI models: It has triggered a number of very interesting things. For example, our Japan team, with a whole range of our customers, did a hackathon and built many of these culturally aware Japanese models. These models can compete with each other, and talk to each other, and agree on what the answer should be.
The potential of fine-grained sustainability reporting: I believe we as cloud providers, not just AWS, we need to get to the point where we not only report [to customers] on costs, but report on milligrams of CO2 used by your particular service, for this particular period of time. We’re not terribly far from there. That will definitely happen. At this moment, the amount of resources that you’ve used in general with a pay-as-you-go model means you pay more if you use more resources. So it’s already a pretty good proxy for sustainability. But we need to present it in a way to our customers that is true and accurate, in ways that they can also use it towards their regulatory agencies, for example.
His selection of t-shirts from different bands for his annual AWS re:Invent keynote: I’ve always been a t-shirt and jeans guy. I pick every year something that I think will be fun. … If there is a link between the different t-shirts, it is that I feel that those that I have promoted have been innovators in their type of music.
The broader social responsibility of the technology industry: We as technologists have the responsibility to make sure that our technology is used responsibly, that there are tools next to this technology where we can investigate whether it’s being used correctly. … We need to make sure that we have these large data sets available for everyone to use. Good AI requires good data. Good work requires good people. And we as technologists should be stepping in there to do the right thing for this planet.
Listen to the full conversation above, or subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Related links
- Werner Vogels – All Things Distributed
- Archive of Now Go Build episodes
- AWS re:Invent 2023 – Keynote with Dr. Werner Vogels
- Tech Predictions for 2024 and beyond
- @Werner on X.
Audio editing by Curt Milton.
