Thomas A. Edison Awards

 The Mission Statement

The greatest innovator in American history, inventor of the “Incandescent Light Bulb,” “The Motion Picture Camera,” “The Phonograph,” “The Quadruplex Telegraph,” “The Alkaline Battery,” Thomas Alva Edison represents what an unique and remarkable man and the magnificent team he originally assembled in Menlo Park, New Jersey, can achieve. It is with that in mind that we announce the “Thomas Edison Achievement in Artificial Intelligence Awards.”

Today, the excitement of AI, has in the past two years, captured the “Global Imagination,” presenting the possibility of what technology giants, from the CEOs of Google, NVIDIA and Microsoft to innovators such as Marc Andreessen to describe the “Epochal Moment,” as nothing short of historic and transformative, a moment to “Save the World.”  At the same time, there are equally important voices, significant AI figures such as Geoffrey Hinton, often called, “The Godfather of AI,” who has warned that the “Power and Intelligence” of AI might easily and quite soon surpass “Human Intelligence,” and become a threat to civilization.

As we embrace and revere both visions of the future, each of us, as individuals, technology innovators and visionaries, research, and academic organizations as well as government entities all choose our own unique contributions as the role of advanced technology emerges and finds its way into the greater culture. It is with this in mind that we take this moment to “Honor the Best” in our community of innovation, the “Best in Ourselves,” the best minds, the men, and women with the strongest “Instincts to Discover Goodness,” and hopefully the best that our culture has to offer.