Our vision for Highland, from its very inception, consisted of two mutually-reinforcing parts. The first was the Highland City Club, the premier social and business establishment you see today with great food, beautiful art, enchanting gardens, and enlightened members. The second was the Highland Institute, dedicated to furthering the Advancement of Humanity in ways yet to be defined.

Recent revelations have suddenly provided some clarity regarding the second part of this vision, highlighted in the above graph forwarded by member Stephan Van der Mersch for our review and discussion. Once I grasped the importance of the new and explosive field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), I realized its relevance as an element of the Highland Institute.

Coincidentally, AI happens to be the topic of Steve Smith’s upcoming Member Monday for 12/19/22, Chat GPT, specifically the way AI is rapidly finding its way into using deep learning to produce human-like text, voice, and creativity. 

Add to this the advent of quantum computing, blockchain, and G-6, along with remote working, self-driving cars, intelligent robots, nanotechnology, and hopefully, someday soon, nuclear fusion, and it is easy to see technology’s central role in humanity’s future.

Like the blind men groping the proverbial elephant as a way to define it, Highland Institute strives to identify the key elements in humanity’s future with the goal of adjusting and preparing for it.

In light of the above, members Todd Minnis and Matt Harder are leading a group to investigate how technology might be applied to the growth and expansion of Highland to support and explore ideas important to our community members.

I invite all our members to get involved in this exciting endeavor.

— Sina.