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Understanding and Using AI

Event Summary

AI is everywhere: From your smartphone to your car, favorite calendar application, rice cooker, and even clothes dryer–and in the business services you use, internally and as a customer. The usage of AI in businesses and by consumers has increased dramatically in 2023, and global technology leaders plus thousands of startups are accelerating innovation and racing to deliver new capabilities first. There are now demonstrable benefits of AI in virtually every industry, advancing and optimizing business, healthcare, education, and society overall. But what exactly is AI, how does it work, and what are its risks and limitations (for now)? How can you or your business harness the power of AI? Thus, understanding AI–and the principles, pros, and cons of machine learning-based AI–is increasingly important for everyone. Those who understand AI and how to harness it will be best positioned to lead in business and thrive in life in the years ahead.

This class will present a comprehensive introduction to AI, including generative AI capabilities and tools. The material will cover the basic principles of machine learning and clearly demonstrate how machine learning methods work, their incredible capabilities and potential, and their limitations and risks. It will discuss common AI applications and use cases, how these are evolving and expanding, and possible future directions in AI. The presenters will cover theory while also presenting examples and showing demos to illustrate how machine learning-based AI methods are being used in numerous areas of business and daily life, sometimes transparently. The content does not require mathematics or programming expertise–all principles will be explained at a high level as well–but the pace will be brisk and such understanding would be helpful. The class will be 2.5 hours with a break at the halfway point.

If you are considering a career switch into AI, evaluating whether AI can enhance your company or organization, or just want to understand how the AI in your life–from Siri/Hey Google/Alexa to smartphone facial recognition, from Netflix/Amazon recommendations to ChatGPT– works, and sometimes doesn’t, this class is for you. This class is open to all and is being offered for free via the Austin Forum on Technology & Society by Vizias, which provides staff to execute the Austin Forum on Technology & Society. The instructors–Luke Wilson, Adnan Khaleel, and Jay Boisseau–have over 75 years of combined experience in HPC, AI, and other areas of computing, including research, development, deployment, and education.

Moderators

  • Jay Boisseau

    Jay Boisseau

    Executive Director, Austin Forum on Technology & Society

    Jay Boisseau is an experienced, recognized leader and strategist in advanced computing technologies, with over 25 years in the field. Jay is the executive director and founder of The Austin Forum on Technology & Society, which he created in 2006 and is the leading monthly technology outreach and engagement event in Austin--and now attracts national and international attendees online. The Austin Forum is one of the pillars of the Austin tech scene, providing connections to information, ideas, collaborations, and community overall. In addition, Jay is CEO, co-founder (June 2014), and a partner in Vizias, a small team of passionate professionals with expertise in high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), technology community building, and technology outreach & event planning. Vizias staff lead, execute, and support the Austin Forum through Vizias Research, Education, and Outreach, a non-profit dedicated to using technology for positive social impact. Jay has held previous leadership positions at Dell Technologies, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin, the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center. He received his doctorate in astronomy from UT Austin, and his undergraduate degree in astronomy and physics from the University of Virginia. For Jay's full professional bio, visit here.

  • Luke Wilson

    Luke Wilson

    Chief Data Scientist, Vizias

    Luke has spent the last 20 years advancing the state of the art in high performance computing and artificial intelligence through roles in academia, finance, and technology. In 2005 Luke joined the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and The University of Texas at Austin as a member of HPC research staff and lecturer in the Department of Statistics and Scientific Computation. While at TACC Luke helped in the design, deployment, operations, and programming of more than a dozen Top500 systems from vendors such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, and Cray. In 2016 Luke became Director of Training and Professional Development at TACC and developed the successful and popular TACC Institute Series of week-long training courses in HPC, Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, HPC Administration, and HPC Leadership.

    In 2017 Luke made the move to Dell Technologies, where he served as Chief Data Scientist and Distinguished Engineer for HPC/AI in the Infrastructure Solutions Group. While at Dell Luke led the development and publication of dozens of patents in areas such as infrastructure configuration, cloud computing, and containerization. In 2022 Luke joined market maker and high-frequency trading firm Optiver as Head of Global Research Infrastructure, where he let a global team advance their compute, storage, networking, and software strategies and deployments. Luke holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Texas at San Antonio and has worked on many high-profile projects, including providing data processing support for the Nobel Prize-winning LIGO project and introducing performance and parallel scaling optimizations for early transformer neural networks, paving the way for technologies like GPT-3/ChatGPT. He is the author of more than two dozen peer-reviewed research papers.

    Outside of work, Luke enjoys science fiction and superhero movies, classical history and Egyptology, golf, and spending time with his wife and 2 children.

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