MARK RICCOBONO: This last presentation is one we snuck in at the last second. This gentleman you have known as being on the stage a number of times in a different capacity. And in his former role with his former start up, he was very passionate about the blind community. I remember the convention where he spent the day under sleep shades which showed something about his character in learning how to travel as a blind person, and he wasn't seeking to think he knew everything about blindness, but to get a glimpse into the experience.
So we titled this starting up with the blind. And he has a new start up. And when he first talked to me about it, I said, Suman, what are you talking about? I don't understand. But as I came to learn more about Luther Primes and what the thinking is behind it, it seems to me there might be some interest and possibilities. He said he would like to launch it for the first time at the National Federation of the Blind convention because he loves this audience more than any other.
So here is a friend of the National Federation of the Blind, Suman Kanuganti!
(Music playing, "Back in Time").
SUMAN KANUGANTI: Thank you, Mark. I was curious what music is going to play. (laughing).
Thank you. Good day, everyone. Super excited to be here. I want to thank President Riccobono for inviting me here today and say, you know, speaking with my federation family in July has become a treasured tradition that I look forward to each year.
I am Suman Kanuganti, and I previously spoke to you as the founder and CEO of IRA. I transitioned out of that previous company as of January this year and I continue to be proud of what we built.
Today I'm here to talk publicly for the first time as the founder and CEO of my new technology start up called Luther.ai. Anyone who knows me well knows how much AI excites me. I named the company Luther after Martin Luther King, someone I admire greatly and whose voice is so recognizable worldwide. His famous "I have a dream" speech helped the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights Act in 19656789 his intelligence and character set a new bar for greatness. His voice and speech has created memories that are long lasting and impactful.
My company, Luther, is all about capturing and providing access to your memories. To tell how it will do that, it might be helpful to share more about how I ended up getting into how memories work and the fascinating complexity of the human brain.
Speech and conversations in our daily lives are a few ways humans create intelligence and character. Intelligence is a beautiful thing, and humans over decades have proven to have an innate ability to strive for it.
Then there is character, the personality, the mental and moral qualities that we all are unique in our own ways. From the time we are born, we start learning, we seek knowledge, and we never stop synthesizing this knowledge to refine our skills, creating, communicating, continually striving a different mental state. Intelligence and character is the true goal of education, knowledge, and learning. The ways we seek this knowledge is ever changing. How many of you remember going to the libraries, searching for a book, searching for a topic, and finding the right information? What used to require a ton of time is now at our fingertips with a Google search. Our answer to why that has happened is technology. Technology has paved the way for humans for seek intelligence from centralized macro information such as books and libraries to decentralized information such as Wikipedia, and now to simply asking for that micropiece of information through your smart speakers at your house.
This process every decentralization will continue for unseen future.
Now, not only how we seek information has changed but how much information we seek has dramatically changed. To put that in perspective, our brains process 34 gigabytes per day. That's about 100,000 words a day that our brain processes. Now to the problem. Did you know that 80% of what you process in a given day is forgotten in three days? 80% of what we process is forgotten in 3 days. So all this information today you are hearing from me, from the presidential report earlier today, and tomorrow's banquet speech, you will forget most of it by next Tuesday. Sorry, Mark. But in particular, in a conversation like this, we use short-term working memory which only can retain seven words for 20-30 seconds. Most likely you already forgot what I said in the last 60 seconds. It's true. For example, I know some of you already forgot the company name which I don't want you to forget. It's Luther.ai. On the bright side, there is some transformations happening in the brain to comprehend all the information I'm speaking and creates these few memory blocks stored in your long-term memory. But our quest for intelligence, for hungry humans, can't be fulfilled with our human memory that is fallible and pathetic. I mean, our biological memory can't even keep up with the bursts of information in this digital world we created for ourselves. Based on balanced scale of information, overload is a problem. I told you in the beginning that I love AI. I also love to fall in love with a problem. My philosophy has always been, you don't solve the human; you solve the problem.
So for the past 18 months I've been on a quest to figuring out how to make humans never forget. I got obsessed with biological memory retention and recall. If you are going to be thinking, you may as well think big, so I started creating a technological version of human memory stack to augment your biological memory. My goal is for humans to recall their memories, the source of character and intelligence we all strive for. The time is always right to do what is right.
So Luther is a startup solving the problem of the fallibility of the human memory by creating and integrating AI and neuroscience, to help you recall crucial memory blocks to you never forget. We do this by creating a prime. A prime is an AI version of yourself that integrates and transforms any feed source such as your day-to-day conversations into a queryable interactive version of you. Remember, our conversations are the process to knowledge that we carry. Our lives begin to end when we become silent about the things that matter. And it's important for us to express them. Imagine a digital version of your memory stack that's yours, that you own, that you control, that only you can access, that is private to you, and it's also protected by the block chain technology? For the first time the value focused on people, making people the product. Now, primes are created not only for you to recall your memory blocks, but also others that can interact with your prime to benefit from the intelligence and character that you possess. It is a movement that we've all been waiting for, a society where everyone's memory stack can be part of the economy, especially how with the current pandemic the economy has already shifted. So if you would like to ask me, Suman, how does this affect the blind?
It's not specific to blind. It's specific to people and the people is you. Silicon Valley wanted to hear more about the customers and referred to you as a target market. Well, I came here because you are not the target market but because you are the people. I'm connected to this community for the past 5 years, and I'm not shy to be starting my new company with the blind. Because it's the people who matter.
In 2015 I heard President Mark Riccobono. In 2016 I stood up in line. In 2017, I launched IRA here at the convention. In 2018, I immersed myself into the community to experience the convention wearing sleep shades. 2019 I was an elite sponsor. Now, in 2020, I'm launching my new AI company Luther and speaking about it for the first time in public in front of you all, again, because it's the people that matters. Generally my view of the blind community and this organization is that it's a society of high intelligence and high character. It's a place and community that everyone should spend time with. Today for the first time ever, I'm proud to launch Luther Prime. A prime is a complete AI learning version of yourself available to interact with anyone in the world, which is continuously evolving its intelligence and character with your growing memory stack. Intelligence is a process of gaining knowledge, and character lies in the wisdom. Now, my knowledge is my memory stack and my wisdom is my prime. So I invite you all to interact with my prime called Suman prime. Go to Luther.ai/suman to meet Suman prime. There you can ask about how you can get yourself primed as well. Luther.ai/suman. Join me tomorrow at 11:00 for my session. If you can't make it, you can always interact with my prime.
Finally, I will ask you to never forget one thing from this speech: You are intelligent and you have high character. I'm so thankful to be here. My convention memories are ones I will never forget. Thank you.
MARK RICCOBONO: Thank you, Suman. You sure it's the presidential report is not in the 20% people will remember? You sure? You sure.
[Laughter]
SUMAN KANUGANTI: Probably an outlier.
MARK RICCOBONO: It's great to have you back. I encourage people to go learn about Luther Prime and see what we can do with it.
I appreciate it, Suman, to have you here another year, and thank you for making this audience a priority for you.