Introduction to AI, Machine Learning, and Data Innovation
There was a lot of background history of AI development that I don't need to regurgitate here.
I guess my biggest takeaway from that information was that AI has been a long time coming if you consider that the vision started with Alan Turing.
The different types of AI were defined as:-
- Narrow (ANI) - Siri, Alexa, ChatGPT
- General (AGI) - Does Not Exist Yet
- Super (ASI) - Does Not Exist Yet
For me, that emphasised the level of confusion and hype currently clouding this space as I'm sure some would have the impression ChatGPT is a lot smarter than it really is.
When you consider ChatGPT is both 'Narrow' and 'Weak' by definition then there is still a long way to go with AI, even though the speed of development appears to be accelerating rapidly now.
Models trained via machine learning allow humans to know new things (the models' outputs) but not to understand how the discoveries were made (the models' internal processes). This separates human knowledge from human understanding in a way that would have been foreign to any other age of humanity.
Genesis Gem
(These are taken from Henry Kissinger's last book 'Genesis' about the opportunity and threats posed by AI)
A section on the current and potential uses of AI was a lot more insightful and gave some examples of projects UoP is involved with - notably :-
AI based security systems on mobile networks
AI based safety systems on construction equipment
AI assisted skin lesion detection
As discussion moved on to the risks associated with AI, the source of the information was identified as this insightful article by McKinsey
When we were asked how we saw the future of AI developing I felt compelled to say that I was feeling a sense of deja vu currently.
As a one time 'evangelist' of web technologies with a utopian outlook on how they could change societies I ultimately ended up disappointed and frustrated in the way mass adoption happened and the way the technology was exploited for immense profit at the expense of user's health, well being and sanity.
If the future is a competition to reach a single, perfect, unquestionably dominant intelligence, then it seems likely that humanity will either lose control of an exis-tential race among multiple actors or suffer the exercise of supreme hegemony by a victor unharnessed by traditional checks and balances. The closer the margin by which the race is won, the higher the probability of human miscalculation.
Genesis Gem
The lecturer was young and seemed boundlessly hopeful that AI will be used for good rather than evil.
All I know is that whatever the outcome of these next six months I intend to use any new found knowledge and ability for wholesome and joyful purposes.
If, following from the instinct for self-preservation, each human society wishes to maximize its unilateral position, then the conditions would be set for a psycho- logical contest between rival military forces and intelligence agencies, the likes of which humanity has never faced before. Today, in the years, months, weeks, and days leading up to the arrival of the first superintelligence, a security dilemma of existential nature awaits. The logical first wish for any human actor coming into possession of such a capability might be to attempt a guarantee of sin- gular continued existence. Any such actor might also reasonably assume by default that its rival, under the same uncertainties and facing the same stakes, would be pondering a similar move.
Genesis Gem
And talking of new knowledge and abilities, the practical session after lunch was very insightful.
Practical Session 1
If you haven't yet played around with Google Colab I recommend having a go :-
https://colab.research.google.com/
Colab, or Google Colaboratory, is a free, browser-based tool that allows users to:
- Write and run Python code
- Combine code with rich text, images, HTML, and LaTeX
- Store notebooks in Google Drive and share them with others
- Work through data analytics and manipulation problems in collaboration
- Develop documentation in Markdown format, LaTeX, or HTML
- Copy finished analytics code into other platforms for production use
Our first practical session focused on using Colab for some basic data analytics by importing .CSV files and then interrogating them with a range of code prompts.
At this point I was grateful for having spent a fair amount of the last 10 years with my head buried in code of one form or another. That's tended to be HTML, CSS, SQL and a bit of PHP rather than Python but it helped me understand the principles of what we were doing.
A human user querying an Al model - for instance, by typing a question into ChatGPT - is asking it not merely to retrieve a point of information, as conventional search engines do, but to synthesize multiple points of information and on that basis to deliver a conclusion. Moving simultaneously in multiple directions and multiple dimensions, it generates representations of information in high-dimensional space, involving relationships within and among innumerable fields and subfields; and from those complexly net- worked representations, it derives its conclusions.
Genesis Gem
The processes reminded me very much of Composer and Drush command line prompts I have used a lot in recent years.
For example - 'df' means 'dataframe' and commands like 'df.info' and 'df.describe' produce useful insights into the structure of the data and summaries of the data ranges.
My homework this coming week is to interrogate some information I have to hand from a project I've worked on in recent years - https://djteams.co.uk/
The prototype for this focused CRM produced a lot of data about DJ bookings, venues, clients and playlists that could provide some interesting insights into how the best parties work.
One possibility for a future project is an AI enabled DJ - who knows just what to play, and when, to get the party started and people dancing.
Career Session
Every few weeks there will be a session helping the attendees re-evaluate their career choices in the context of what they've learned.
There is a real drive in this course to start to plug rapidly emerging gaps between the potential of AI and those with the knowledge and ability to apply it in meaningful ways within organisations.
One of the people running the session is a director of a recruitment company specialising in the STEMM sectors.
He has some real horror stories about the ways AI is being misused in recruitment processes where the wrong people are being put into positions with the potential for real damage being done. He reeled off four tools they are using day in, day out to identify CVs and applications written by AI.
The session started with us being asked to complete this personality test:-
https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test
It's at least 15 years since I've done one of these so I was impressed that it came up with exactly the same result as previously - I guess that says something - for better or worse.
INTP-A (Logician)
https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality
I've always wondered how much my hearing disability has influenced my personality, particularly when it comes to introversion. Through situations like this course and other things I've done since receiving the Cochlear Implant I feel I am becoming more extraverted.
Having established our personality types we were then encouraged to think through a SWOT analysis and then short and long term goals.
The last time I did this sort of exercise was 30 years ago on first joining National Transcommunications Limited - the company that became NTL and later Arqiva/Virgin Media.
As someone in my 20s the goals I chose were about getting married, buying a decent house, having children, being a senior manager/director and having a nice car.
When you are rapidly approaching 60 and have ticked off those goals, at least to the extent you wanted to, this sort of exercise becomes a lot harder - but no less useful.
In talking it through with the lecturer - a woman in her mid thirties - there was some agreement that I should continue to seek a role, contract or project that has a strong sense of purpose and gives 'joy'.
It will be interesting to see what 2025 brings ...