The 2024 Ultimate Masterclass Festival kicked off in spectacular fashion as AI guru Nina Schick headlined a special dinner at the Chester Hotel.
A world-leader in her field, Nina has advised global leaders including US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Secretary General of NATO.
Addressing an engrossed Chester Hotel, Nina warned about the dangers AI possesses, but also the endless opportunities offered by this exponential technology.
The room firstly heard from the events three sponsors - Mearns & Gill, Ascot Lloyd and Onboard Tracker - prior to Nina taking to the stage.
The AI arms race
Nina began her speech explaining the near-impossibility of differentiating between AI, before showing the enormous growth of AI in recent times.
The new techonology is growing faster than anything ever has before. It took Twitter nearly two years to reach a million users, and Facebook around 10 months.
ChatGPT took just five days.
And it's not only tech companies like Meta and Google that invest in future technology.
"This has become not only an arms race amongst the big tech players, but amongst nation states," according to Nina.
"Early movers are the US, China, Canada, who had national strategies on AI, but since then there's over 50 national strategies on AI.
"The mood music seems to be pretty unanimous, that we're all committed to the development of ethical and responsible and safe AI.
"What we're actually starting to see is very different strategies in different markets.
"My view is that the US and China are going to be the biggest players, but that the US far, far outpaces China.
"If you look at the investment that is going in...the US lead the pack, China second and at the very, very bottom you have the European Union and the UK."
Really, really scary, but really, really cool
Closing her keynote address, Nina shared a recording of a podcast between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs.
"It will be interesting to see what happens when you have computers that are as smart as people but much more reliable," Jobs said.
He continued: "They won't get tired, they won't get sick, they won't go on vacation and leave work unfinished. You tell them to do something, they'll just do it.
"And they will have many more orders of intelligence than people have. The computer will be a thousand times more important than it is today, we're right on the edge of that.
"So what do we want to do about it? Do we want to just ride the wave or do something else?
"It should scare you, but it is also really cool."
Nina's assessment: "[AI is] really, really scary, but also really, really cool.
"And of course in the plot twist that no one saw coming...that is an entirely AI generated conversation."
Use AI, but don't lose trust
Following her speech, Nina took a number of questions from an intrigued audience about the implementation of AI throughout the business world.
"I encourage everyone to be innovative, but always make sure you're not implementing something that could lose trust of your clients or your customers, because once it's gone, it's very hard to come back.
"When you talk about trust, it isn't just some wooly concept, decades of research has basically found that you distil it down to three main pillars, or three main components: integrity, benevolence, and competence.
"So you can see why for political leaders or public institutions trust is declining because we don't see that they are benevolent, that they have integrity, or that they are competent.
"Maybe in part it's because the challenges are just so vast, but you as a business leader, you can demonstrate that.
"I would say trust in how you embody your integrity, benevolence, and competence is going to be absolutely essential."
Last tickets remaining for Gary Neville
Less than 100 tickets remain to see footballer and entrepreneur Gary Neville under a fortnight as the next headliner for 2024's Ultimate Masterclass Festival.
The Sky Sports pundit will headline the Music Hall on March 13 as part of the year-long series, organised by Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce alongside series partner TotalEnergies.
Click here to get your hands on one of the final few tickets to the event.
The title sponsor of UMF 2024 is TotalEnergies.
TotalEnergies is a multi-energy company that produces and markets fuels, natural gas and electricity. Committed to better energy that is more affordable, more reliable, cleaner and accessible to as many people as possible, TotalEnegies' ambition is to become the responsible energy major.