“Surviving and Thriving in the AI Era”

“Surviving and Thriving in the AI Era”

Head of Computing Faculty at Griffith College, Dr Waseem Akhtar spoke at this year’s IT & Data Summit, which took place at the RDS, Ballsbridge. On the day, more than 2,500 delegates visited the RDS in search of information and inspiration relating to IT and data, where there were 108 exhibitors and 230 speakers.

Artificial Intelligence and how it will impact us

Waseem spoke to a room full of people about a very topical remit of conversation in the IT world, Artificial Intelligence. At the heart of Waseem’s discussion was the importance of AI and the impact it is set to have on society. The main question was, “what do we expect our relationship with robots to be like? What kind of future do we see?”

What is Machine Learning?

To engage the audience, Waseem started with a discussion around machine learning and what it means to us all.

Machine learning is, as Dr Akhtar put it, asking a machine to do something without specifically writing the code for it. When considering how machine learning has affected us in the past, we’re asked to look at those that give us systems that can look at x-rays, CT-scans and look for anomalies within these. Paired with this, Waseem mentioned machine learning that allows robots play chess with us, and most importantly, beating us in chess.

Next level AI

From here, Waseem touched off Google Home and Alexa. These applications are considered AI, and is used to process the person’s command. It is designed to understand and act upon our command. According to Waseem, this is set to change, where the device will not only act upon the request but attempt to gauge the mood or emotion of the person asking the question.