Jonnie Penn

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Jonnie Penn
Born (1987-01-02) January 2, 1987 (age 37)
Vancouver, British Columbia
NationalityCanadian
British
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
Harvard University
McGill University
Websitejonniepenn.com

Jonnie Penn (born January 2, 1987) is a bestselling Canadian non-fiction author and artificial intelligence researcher.

Jonnie is the creator of the MTV documentary series The Buried Life and co-author of the book "What Do You Want To Do Before You Die?", which became a No. 1 New York Times Best Seller.[1]

The Buried life[edit]

After the death of a friend, Jonnie dropped out of university to start The Buried Life with his friends Ben Nemtin, Dave Lingwood and brother Duncan Penn.[2] The Buried Life asks, "What do you want to do before you die?"[3][4]

Barack Obama and the creators of The Buried Life.

Penn appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show[5] on April 9, 2010 to announce a new season of The Buried Life documentary series and to discuss crossing off #95: Play Ball with President Obama.[6] He was recorded by the Guinness World Records for the largest roulette spin in Las Vegas history with all benefits going to World Food Programme. He also helped organize the biggest speed dating event in history with the University of South Florida.[7] In July 2011, the cast helped make a $300,000 donation to The Keep America Beautiful foundation.[8]

Research career[edit]

In high school, Jonnie was selected to represent Canada at the Oxford University Debate Championships.[9] He enrolled at McGill University in Montreal, with a double major in History and English. He then studied Philosophy of Physics and Logic at the University of Cambridge.[10]

He is currently a Rausing, Williamson and Lipton trust and Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence[11] PhD researcher in the History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Cambridge.[12] His research explores the social implications of artificial intelligence over centuries.[13] In 2018, he joined the Harvard Berkman Klein Center as an affiliate and the MIT Media Lab as an Assembly Fellow and served as a Google Technology Policy Fellow with the European Youth Forum.[14][15] He has spoken at the United Nations about the future of work[16] and at the 2019 World Economic Forum at Davos about data centralization.[17]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Saiidi, Uptin. "'Buried Life' Book Makes Best Seller List, No. 19 Crossed Off Bucket List". MTV.
  2. ^ "The Buried Life". Campus Activities Magazin.
  3. ^ "The Buried Life | What Do You Want To Do Before You Die?". The Buried Life.
  4. ^ TEDx Talks (March 13, 2014), How Death Saved My Life: The buried life at TEDxRoma, retrieved June 15, 2019
  5. ^ "What's on Oprah's Bucket List? Video".
  6. ^ "'Buried Life' Stars Tell Oprah About Shooting Hoops With Barack Obama". MTV.
  7. ^ Katz, Taylor. "USF, MTV, Guiness (sic) World Records, Verizon Wireless and speed dating?". WTSP.
  8. ^ "Cast of MTV's The Buried Life Helps Raise $300,000 for Keep America Beautiful". Us Magazine. July 29, 2011.
  9. ^ "The Buried Life – What do You Want to Do Before You Die?".
  10. ^ Swords, Beth (June 20, 2013). "The Tab Meets: Jonnie Penn".
  11. ^ "History of AI". lcfi.ac.uk. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  12. ^ "Jonnie Penn | People | HPS". University of Cambridge. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  13. ^ "AI thinks like a corporation—and that's worrying". The Economist. November 26, 2018. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  14. ^ "Jonnie Penn | People | HPS". University of Cambridge.
  15. ^ "Announcing the 2018 Assembly Cohort". Assembly. December 12, 2017.
  16. ^ "How can AI influence your values? Interview with Jonnie Penn". May 17, 2018.
  17. ^ Collective Bargaining through Personal Data Co-Ops, March 10, 2019, retrieved September 12, 2019