2021-03-24 - Blog 000

Yet another blogger.

I thought I'd take a crack at blogging to help crystalize some thoughts and document what I’ve been doing. I’ll aim for under 250 words or approximately 2 minute reads. No set periodicity, just whenever there’s something worth writing/reading.

This week I attended The Alan Turing Institute’s AI showcase virtually. The event was a collection of discussions and presentations from across the AI spectrum including industrial and academic applications, discussions about what the UK needs to do at a government level to encourage research/industry, and discussions on ethics.

A few personal highlights were:

• Fernando Lucini proposing a “professionalising” of AI to better define roles, much like you’d find in Engineering or Banking.
• Tim Clement Jones discussing that AI needs to avoid getting a public perception like GM foods has.
• Ed Keedwell improving Evolutionary Algorithm design utility by incorporating learning from watching human’s tweak similar systems. Link to paper.
• Matt Parker’s stand-up math to round of day 1.
• Jonathon Lawry’s presentation on collective learning.
• (Can’t remember who) using “Rise” to make Jupyter into a slideshow.
• Jose Miguel Henandez Lobato on automatic chemical design. I didn’t understand the chemistry but interested in the AI. Link to paper.
• A wonderful “through the looking glass” discussion about the future of AI to round of the 2 days.

The aim of my attendance was to broaden my horizons, which it definitely did. Keen to go again in 2022, hopefully in person!

Rory