{"id":243307,"date":"2026-04-23T14:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/243307\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:34:11","slug":"miami-tech-summit-celebrates-that-the-ai-future-is-here-and-theres-still-time-to-get-it-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/243307\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami Tech Summit celebrates that the AI future is here and there’s still time to get it right"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was all about AI as the Miami Tech Summit<\/a> kicked off its 5th year Wednesday with a full house at the Perez Art Museum Miami. Summit organizers Justin Sayfie and Jose Felix Diaz once again brought their \u201clabor of love\u201d to Miami Tech Week with stimulating discussions among a mix of tech, political and civic leaders, both on stage and off. Everybody has an opinion about AI, but one thing speakers did agree on is that it is going to transform the world, for good or bad, and there\u2019s still time to do the work collectively to ensure we get it right.<\/p>\n

Just how will AI shape the future of work? Some researchers forecast 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs going away. Already, hiring in AI-exposed fields has already dropped 16%, and tech companies have eliminated at least 40,000 jobs so far this year. <\/p>\n

From opposite sides of the aisle, former US Senator Laphonza Butler, an advisor to OpenAI, and Taylor Stockton, Chief Innovation Officer of the U.S. Department of Labor, seemed to agree more than they disagree. Taylor emphasized the need to focus on preparing the workforce for AI transformation rather than predicting job loss, citing apprenticeships as a way to get students up to speed quickly and discussing several programs the government has recently launched. Butler agreed, stressing the need for collective action in shaping the future of work. \u201cWe can\u2019t sit on the sidelines and wait for government to fix it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eileen Higgins, Miami\u2019s first elected female mayor and a\u00a0 former county commissioner that has long championed housing affordability, transit, resiliency, applauding the work of Miami Dade College and FIU in training the future workforce, but there is still more to do. \u201dWe do not yet have a workforce training program that goes into every neighborhood,\u201d she said, and she\u2019s working on it. As for AI, she\u2019s an early adopter and sees a lot of ways in government that AI can help make processes more efficient and less repetitive for workers, and she\u2019s focused on trying to ensure that all of Miami \u2013 not just the wealthy \u2013 benefit from Miami\u2019s transformation. Summit goers also heard from Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, MDC President Madeline Pumareiga, County Commissioner Rob Gonzalez, Florida Rep. Mike Redondo, and Simpro Group CEO Fred Voccola, among many others.<\/p>\n

The power of community was also a theme of the fireside chat with Alonzo Mourning. After a 15-year career in the NBA, his focus turned inward, starting and greatly expanding the Overtown Youth Center that has provided a campus for kids age 5 to 25 for free. It\u2019s been quite \u00a0a success story in which 100% of the kids graduate high schoool and 92% go on to college, he said. \u00a0\u201cI wanted to be the change I wanted to see \u2026 and I wanted to pay it forward,\u201d said Mourning, who spend time in a\u00a0foster home as a young teen and without his foster mother\u2019s guidance. \u201cI could have easily gone another way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Summit most thought provoking session was also the final talk of the day. \u00a0Keynote speaker Tristan Harris has been on a mission to create \u201cpro-human technology\u201d after going to Stanford and spending time with the people who went on to create the social media companies \u201cthat have colonized how the world works,\u201d he said. \u201cA handful of people in Califormia that are making technology are starting to rewrite the rules of what drives the world.\u201d They knew what they were doing, he said \u2013 \u201cthey were intentiaonally addicting and manipulating human psychology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris, who sounded the alarm in the massively watched Netflix documentary, is pleased that there have been several \u201cmassive wins\u201d in lawsuits against Meta. He\u2019s also is pleased that 25% of the world now live in countries that banning social media for kids under 16, \u201cbut we\u2019re waking up very very late on this problem and we need to learn our lesson from social media as we move into AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, he says, \u201cAI in its current form is taking us into an anti-human future.\u201d To avoid a race to the bottom, \u201ceveryone needs to see that were living in this anti-human technology paradign and that will motivate us to get to the pro-human future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Tristan Harris, right, and Justin Sayfie<\/p>\n

The Miami Tech Summit ended with a big announcement. In December when Miami is hosting the G20, which also coincides with the USA\u2019s\u00a0 250th anniversary, one of the central pillars to be discussed in technology and innovation policy.\u00a0 Miami Tech Summit and will partner with an advisory firm to host a Global Tech Summit during the G20. And the partners will be inviting global\u00a0 technology CEOs and investors and international institutions in an effort to make the most the the G20 time in Miami in December.<\/p>\n

READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:<\/p>\n

\"Nancy<\/a> I am a writer and editor with extensive media experience and a passion for journalism and serving the community. Most of my career has been spent with the Miami Herald in business news, and my expertise is writing about tech and entrepreneurs. I love hosting this blog for Refresh Miami and we aim to be the go-to site for South Florida startup and tech news, features and views. Have news? Contact me at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. Thanks for reading! \"Nancy<\/a>Latest posts by Nancy Dahlberg (see all<\/a>) \t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was all about AI as the Miami Tech Summit kicked off its 5th year Wednesday with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-243307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}