On Friday, May 12th, SWE ECI gathered in 6 different conference rooms across the corridor as well as virtually to watch 2 Ted Talks about AI: where we are now and where it's going. 

The first talk was by Alona Fyshe asking "Does AI Actually Understand Us?"  She made some interesting comparisons between AI and human brains, specifically on how they process instructions.  She talked about how AI could fool people into thinking they were interacting with a human, and perhaps if we only look at the input/output of the interaction, that is possible.  However, she said "it's what's inside that counts."  Her team is working to study the actual neural networks that AI forms and determine how similar that is to a human brain.

The second talk was by Karen Lellouche Tordjman asking "Siri, Alexa, Google... what comes next?"  She talked about the current state of AI personal assistants and how they currently mostly handle only one thing: car, health, etc.  She said there are two main barriers to them becoming fully integrated across our lives: voice and breadth, but researchers are working feverishly on both.  With that in mind, she painted a very interesting picture of a future with AI we couldn't live without.

In our discussions, we touched on the amazing leaps AI has made so far just in our lifetimes, and wondered about how dependent not only current but future generations have become on it.  What has society lost in creativity, spelling ability, or otherwise by our reliance on AI so far?  But what might we have gained?  Technology always brings change and a need to adapt - is this just the next step?  How far is too far for computers to have access into our lives and privacy?  We had some very interesting conversation and we thank everyone for attending!