Wednesday
Room 3 - Level 4
17:40 - 18:40
(UTC±00)
Talk (60 min)
Separating fact from fiction in a world of AI fairytales
If you've been remotely tuned in to the developments in generative AI over the past year, you've likely been inundated with news, ranging from claims that these models will replace numerous white-collar jobs to declarations of sentience and an impending AI apocalypse. At this stage, the hype surrounding AI has far surpassed the actual useful information available.
In this presentation, we’ll cut through the noise and delve deep into the current applications, risks, and limitations of these generative AI models. We will start with the early research endeavours aimed at creating an "artificial brain" and trace the path that has led us to today's sophisticated models. Along the way, we will address the misconception of mistaking these models for intelligent systems and shed light on the actual requirements for developing true artificial general intelligence, and see how far we seem to be from this goal. Moreover, we will highlight how an excessive focus on topics like the sentience of these systems has overshadowed the genuine issues associated with these models. By shifting our attention towards their real limitations, we will see how we can better maximise the potential of these exciting models.
Jodie Burchell
Dr. Jodie Burchell is the Developer Advocate in Data Science at JetBrains, and was previously the Lead Data Scientist in audiences generation at Verve Group Europe. She completed a PhD in clinical psychology and a postdoc in biostatistics, before leaving academia for a data science career. She has worked for 7 years as a data scientist in both Australia and Germany, developing a range of products including recommendation systems, analysis platforms, search engine improvements and audience profiling. She has held a broad range of responsibilities in her career, doing everything from data analytics to maintaining machine learning solutions in production. She is a long time content creator in data science, across conference and user group presentations, books, webinars, and posts on both her own and JetBrain's blogs.