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#TechTalkCPT: HOW TO SURVIVE THE ROBOT UPRISING
Wed Sep 16, 18:00 - Wed Sep 16, 20:30
75 Harrington Street
ABOUT
The concept of robots has been around since ancient Greece but in the last century we have seen them progress faster than only SciFi writers dreamed. We created them to do tasks that we found tedious, giving them intelligence to perform without our supervision, and now we fear they will outgrow us.
September's #TechTalkCPT focus's on AI and machines learning.
Speakers:
Dirk Brand - HOW TO TEACH YOUR ROBOT SOME MAGIC TO AVOID THE TOTALLY AVOIDABLE ROBOT UPRISING
James Saunders - THE ROBOTS AND THE REST OF US: Are we facing the obsolescence of our species, or are we on the cusp of a post labour utopia
KAT-O's #TechTalkCPT happens one evening every month, where we bring you the bleeding edge of technology, science and innovation as presented by specialists within a field, accompanied by food, drinks and networking.
September's #TechTalkCPT focus's on AI and machines learning.
Speakers:
Dirk Brand - HOW TO TEACH YOUR ROBOT SOME MAGIC TO AVOID THE TOTALLY AVOIDABLE ROBOT UPRISING
James Saunders - THE ROBOTS AND THE REST OF US: Are we facing the obsolescence of our species, or are we on the cusp of a post labour utopia
KAT-O's #TechTalkCPT happens one evening every month, where we bring you the bleeding edge of technology, science and innovation as presented by specialists within a field, accompanied by food, drinks and networking.
DIRK BRAND
The totally avoidable robot uprising a.k.a how to teach your robot some magic!
We have all seen those sci-fi movies where the professor teaches the robot to "think" (e.g. iRobot, Ex Machina) but then the robot figures out that humanity is its own biggest threat, and therefore not necessary, and must thus be eliminated (or TERMINATED). With the recent advances in artificial intelligence, is this a credible threat? Should we be teaching our computers to recognize our images, videos, text, behaviour and motions? Are we busy training our own eventual destruction?
About Dirk:
Dirk specializing in AI, machine learning and text processing at the University of Stellenbosch, where he is currently completing his Masters in Computer Science. He loves making and consuming beer, as well as sampling the AI from the various PC games that are available on the market. The most facinating moments of his life happen when he opens an app that uses machine learning, it totally blows his mind (Siri is amazing...).
[email protected]
JAMES SAUNDERS
The robots and the rest of us
The robots are here, and there are more and more of them around you everyday. How did this happen, and why does it suddenly feel like we are on the edge of something very different? Are we facing the obsolescence of our species, or are we on the cusp of a post labour utopia. This talk explores these ideas both with a touch of futurism but also grounded in the perspective of an active practitioner.
About James:
James spends his time thinking how we can use computing to solve impactful problems, and what that is going to mean to society. He fuels these ideas with obscure literature and badly lit bars. In his waking life James is a founder and the current CTO of BusinessOptics, who provide a prescriptive and predictive analytics platform to assist and automate enterprise wide decisions in a variety of industries. He has previously worked in a broad array of fields, including oil and energy, automated industrial systems, computer vision and security, mobile auditing, robotics, financial risk and environmental planning systems. He has worked extensively in South Africa, Saudi Arabia and the United States. He has a graduate degree in Mathematical and Theoretical Computer Science.
James spends his time thinking how we can use computing to solve impactful problems, and what that is going to mean to society. He fuels these ideas with obscure literature and badly lit bars. In his waking life James is a founder and the current CTO of BusinessOptics, who provide a prescriptive and predictive analytics platform to assist and automate enterprise wide decisions in a variety of industries. He has previously worked in a broad array of fields, including oil and energy, automated industrial systems, computer vision and security, mobile auditing, robotics, financial risk and environmental planning systems. He has worked extensively in South Africa, Saudi Arabia and the United States. He has a graduate degree in Mathematical and Theoretical Computer Science.
Twitter: @jameshsaunders
DIRECTIONS
#TechTalkCPT: HOW TO SURVIVE THE ROBOT UPRISING
75 Harrington Street
75 Harrington St, Gardens, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa
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