Week 7 Surfing The Tsunami

 In week 7, Dr. Kelsey taught us about the topping of getting to know AI people and perspectives.  We were introduced to some of the leaders and people of note in the AI community.  First we were introduced to Andrew NG who is the co-founder of Coursera and who has courses from Stanford University on machine learning that are open to anyone.  Next Geoffrey Hinton introduced us to artificial neural networking which is basically machine learning through algorithms with the capability to mimic a human brain.  When asked why he is continually evolving the topic he stated he wanted to learn about the human brain so decided to build one.  Later we are introduced to Irving Wladawsky-Bergerwho is a professor at MIT and an expert in emerging technology.  Dr. Kelsey conducted an interview with Irving where he spoke to the research being conducted at MIT in a symposium proposing that AI may actually create more jobs than it eliminates.  My key takeaways from the interview were that the advances at the turn and the beginning of the 20th century were potentially more impactful than that of AI.  He gives examples of electricity, indoor plumbing, airplanes and TV.  Irving additionally presents that 5% of jobs could be fully automated but a third of 60% of jobs can be automated so that we may experience more job transformation through AI than we do job loss.

I learned the importance of networking and keeping abreast about topics that peak my interest in this chapter.  Clearly it is important to have meaningful conversations with pioneers in an industry, follow their research, and build a relationship with them.  These relationships can eventually turn into mentorships, partnerships or collaborations.  Lastly, Dr. Kelsey brings up a good point using AI as an example, there will be opportunities to engineer AI but there are plenty of opportunities for ancillary jobs supporting AI too.