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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INSTITUTE

AII Executive Director Richard Awni to Moderate “The New Tech Superpowers” at Prestel Forum in New York

Writer: Richard Awni
Richard Awni
7 days ago
4 min read

On October 14 at The Harvard Club, Awni will moderate a discussion on AI, space tech and deep tech as family offices confront a harder question: not whether the technology is powerful, but what deserves trust.

Richard Awni, Executive Director of the Artificial Intelligence Institute, will moderate The New Tech Superpowers: AI, Space Tech, and Deep Tech in Discussion at the Prestel & Partner Family Office Forum New York, October 13-14, 2026, at The Harvard Club


LOS ANGELES — The Artificial Intelligence Institute will take part in one of the country’s leading private family-office gatherings next week as Executive Director Richard Awni moderates “The New Tech Superpowers: AI, Space Tech, and Deep Tech in Discussion” at the Prestel & Partner Family Office Forum New York.


The two-day gathering, October 13-14 at The Harvard Club, brings together more than 100 family principals, family-office decisionmakers and a select group of sector experts. Awni’s panel is on Wednesday, October 14 at 10 a.m.


For Awni, the timing of the discussion matters.


Artificial intelligence has moved beyond the stage where sophisticated investors are simply asking whether the technology will be important.


That question has largely been answered.


The harder questions now are about judgment.


What is genuinely differentiated?


What is durable?


What is technically real?


What is an impressive demonstration rather than an enduring advantage?


And when an AI recommendation is polished, confident and economically convenient, who in the room is responsible for challenging it?


Those are the questions Awni increasingly sees at the intersection of capital, enterprise adoption and institutional leadership.


“The most important AI question is no longer whether the system can produce an answer,” Awni said. “It is whether the person making the consequential decision knows what deserves trust.”


Awni will moderate the panel alongside Jared Kash, Managing Partner of Surround Ventures; Rondil Gosine, Founder of Anantis AI; and Russell Knight, PhD, President of the Artificial Intelligence Institute and a senior AI technologist with nearly three decades at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.


Knight’s work has centered on the gap between how convincing an intelligent system appears and how reliable it actually is. Awni’s perspective comes from another side of the same problem: what happens when those systems reach real institutions, real workforces, real classrooms and real investment decisions.


It is a pairing decision-makers have increasingly found useful when a significant AI commitment is on the table: two different perspectives, neither tied to selling the platform under review.


Together, those perspectives have shaped AII’s central thesis.


Powerful intelligence is not enough.


Human readiness determines whether that intelligence becomes leverage or dependence.


AII describes that divide as cognitive offloading versus cognitive amplification.


In cognitive offloading, the machine becomes the thinker.

In cognitive amplification, the human remains in command and uses the machine to extend reasoning, creativity, research and decision-making.


That same distinction applies far beyond education. 


A family office evaluating an AI company can outsource judgment to the sophistication of the pitch.


A CEO evaluating an enterprise deployment can mistake automation for transformation.


An investment committee can accept a market analysis without examining which assumptions, citations or comparisons were generated by the same systems now being evaluated.


Or leadership can use AI aggressively while preserving independent verification and human accountability.


That is the conversation Awni expects to bring into the room at Prestel. He approaches the role the way he approaches advising leaders: as an independent second set of eyes, technically informed and not tied to selling the platform being evaluated. A good moderator, in his view, makes the room’s best thinking visible.


Prestel & Partner has built its forums around privacy, discretion and substantive exchange among family offices and long-term capital. The New York gathering is expected to convene more than 100 families and decision-makers.


“These are people accustomed to protecting capital across generations,” Awni said. “AI deserves the same discipline they would apply to any other consequential asset or operating decision.”


The Artificial Intelligence Institute is grateful to Prestel & Partner for the invitation and for the opportunity to moderate a discussion at the point where emerging technology meets long-term judgment.


The next technology superpowers may be AI, space tech and deep tech.


But the enduring advantage will still belong to the people who know how to evaluate them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------About the Artificial Intelligence Institute

The Artificial Intelligence Institute teaches people across ages, grades and professions how to remain in command of increasingly powerful intelligence systems.


Its proprietary behavioral architecture trains learners to move from cognitive offloading to cognitive amplification, questioning, directing, verifying and controlling the technology rather than surrendering thinking to it.


Think First. AI Helps Second.


The goal: turn advanced intelligence into a personal superpower without surrendering human judgment, authorship or control.



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Family First Foundation

The Artificial Intelligence Institute grew from more than two decades of Family First Foundation work with children, families, schools and communities.


Follow Family First Foundation for the human, family and community side of this work and follow the Artificial Intelligence Institute for the frontier of AI readiness and human amplification.

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