Artificial Intelligence is one of the most hot-button topics of our time.
For some technology optimists, AI will be a crucial piece of a near-future resembling that of The Jetsons — our daily mundanity is outsourced to helpful robots who wear cute aprons and anticipate our every need.
For pessimists, that future horizon is a burning hellscape where artillery drones zoom overhead, eliminating targets with laser beams. Terminator robots, wirelessly linked to an artificial neural network, pick off the last of humanity’s resistance fighters with cold pragmatism.
Regardless of which camp Central Oregonians might find themselves, Kevin Goldberg, a founder and CEO of iS2 Digital , a business technology firm, wants to equip them with the most current, accurate information at the AI Fireside Chat, which he’s hosting at Central Oregon Community College’s Hitchcock Auditorium on June 22 at 6 pm. Goldberg promises no doom nor magic; just jargon-free insight into a revolutionary technology.
Goldberg’s first guest of the series, which he hopes to offer quarterly, will be Alan Hellawell, a 30-year tech industry veteran, lecturer at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University and host of the Indonesia-focused indo teckno podcast.
Topics will range from how AI is changing work, which jobs are most at risk and why that answer surprises most people. The hour-long conversation, punctuated by two audience Q&A sessions, will also give folks pragmatic tips on how to stay ahead of the AI curve with things they can begin doing this week.
The Source recently chatted with Goldberg and Hellawell by video call, once this slightly technophobic reporter figured out how to record the conversation. Below is a portion of that conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.
tS: I might be a good sample audience member in that I bring a very common skepticism and distrust not just of AI, but of any altruistic promises by Silicon Valley. What was the genesis of the AI Fireside Chat?
Goldberg: I’ve been deep diving into AI for the last couple years. I realized that in what you read, there’s just so much misinformation and so much hype. So little clarity. I thought there’s a real opportunity to help people understand what AI is, what it isn’t and where it seems to be going. Alan’s got a strong background in podcasting and he works in tech and business. The AI Fireside Chat came about when we were out to dinner with our wives. We just started brainstorming about this very technical, heavy thing to teach. Alan is really insightful in the way he asks questions. We found that we have a good rhythm. The intention is to help people understand what this incredible technology is doing, which I don’t think a lot of people do.
Hellawell: This session is really designed to cultivate literacy. If we compare the ongoing AI era to other large technological transformations, such as the advent of the personal computer or the internet revolution, we have much more to lose by remaining illiterate during these tectonic changes. The common thread of our fireside chat topics all relate to arming people with at least a very basic awareness. Ideally, we can build on that.
Goldberg: When we began doing a run-through [of our talking points], it really illuminated the gap between what an average, smart, well-read person knows about AI and what AI really is. That was a bit of an aha moment.
Hellawell: Flipping the coin over, our hope is that those who attend our sessions can harness artificial intelligence well beyond what they would have envisioned. There are some straightforward productivity elements that most people understand. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You can automate almost the entirety of your life using AI properly. There’s also a hope that we can empower people to lead far more productive lives.
tS: Artificial Intelligence is a technological shift, to say the least. Are there lessons we can learn from previous shifts that completely changed work?
Goldberg: That consideration is a big chunk of one of the segments. I’ll take electricity, for example. The interesting about electricity is that it didn’t really hit factories once the light bulb was created. The power plants actually came fast, but the factories didn’t change. It took another 20 to 30 years before factories were able to leverage electricity. The took the steam engine out and replaced it with the electric motor while the factory’s gears and pulleys — everything remained the same.
Much later, factories started saying, ‘Hey, we could actually take this electric motor and put it on individual machines and retool the factory floor to be more optimized for workflow — not optimized for the pulley system that was generating the movement.’ And that’s when they finally saw the incredible advancements. So, in terms of AI, an analogy that is really relevant is that of the factory. We’re still working with the old factory because we’re still applying AI to existing tasks. Yet we haven’t seen all the new positions, the new methods, the new jobs that are going to come out of this technology. It’s just so generalizable. We’re in this early process with AI. We don’t know when that switch will get flipped.
AI Fireside Chat
Mon, June 22, 6pm
Central Oregon Community College
Hitchcock Auditorium
2600 NW College Way, Bend
https://tinyurl.com/m7fjyy4n
$20-$40
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