Artificial intelligence! Those two words appended to anything is enough to either fill you with or with fear. Imagine the home of the future. You may have AI-powered refrigerators, ovens or even showers and toilets. All these devices listening in, and sending, information up into the cloud somewhere. What happens to your privacy? And wouldn’t it be funny if those appliances actually talked to each other about you? The toilet might say “Hey fridge, this guy ate something bad again yesterday”. To which the fridge might answer back “I tried to warn him he wouldn’t listen. I suppose we need to ask the IPhone to order him more Imodium”. Or,a future where the military forces use smart weapon systems. Systems able to distinguish between friends and foe. To determine who lives, and who dies. Scary isn’t it. Very Terminator-like if you will. The time when weapons operate without human intervention is still many years away. Perhaps not in our lifetime. What is closer to reality is how AI will affect our economy. Indeed, even how we live our lives. Is our society ready for this? You can find articles about how AI will benefit society. But not enough about how it might cause harm instead. There is enough concern that recently, a number of technology and scientific groups have come together to call for governments to consider the negative impact of AI on society, and to develop solutions. Among these people are Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Stephen Hawkins. If AI is so beneficial, why should worry? After all, disruptive technology has happened before. Examples are the development of the PC, the internet, the smartphone. These disruptors have one thing in common. They allowed us to increase productivity. Farmers still drove their tractors and they could farm more efficiently by using GPS and computers to plan when and where to plant. And how to best harvest their fields. Ships needed fewer people to run her. The flight engineer on airplanes might seem redundant. More work is done but with fewer people. But, the jobs were still there. AI combines with advances in material and miniaturization, has the capacity to actually take jobs away. Like the job of a driver. There…
Speech 5. A Story About Cats
My speech today is about Cats. No, not the award-winning Broadway musical. I’m talking about real, domesticated, cats. The 4 legged animal people either love or hate. Our first feline pet was a little black and white kitten. We decided to train this kitten to do tricks. We would say words like “seat” while pushing its…
The Hardest Part in Preparing A Speech
What is the hardest part of preparing a speech? Is it the research? The Practice? Whenever I am preparing a speech, I am reminded of an episode of “How I Met Your Mother”. In this episode, Marshall Ericksen had received a call and had received an offer to become a Judge. Marshall had studies law and becoming…
Speech 4. Making an Omelet
My speech is about making an omelet. Now, why am I talking about an omelet? I guess it is because there is a certain amount of pride in achieving this culinary victory. I enjoy cooking breakfast on the weekends. The items on the menu comprised of hot dogs, fried eggs, turkey bacon and polish sausage….
Speech 3. Ancient Dreamers
It has been more than a year since I last gave a speech. Speech number 2 seems a distant memory. After many missed meetings and much hesitation, I’ve decided that it is now or never. I am either going to make the most of my membership to the club, or I am going to quit….
Camera Lenses
Photography can be described as the art of capturing light. That means the quality of your lens is very important if not the most important part of your camera. There are few important things to remember when choosing a lens. Sensor size A normal sensor is a camera that has a sensor size that is…
Big Fish
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace is described as a book about how William Bloom tries to understand his dying Father, Edward Bloom The book is broken into 4 sections, each dealing with the same topic of his Father’s death from a different point of view. Each of these views is looked into from the lens…
Closing Down Again?
It has been almost 6 months since I last attended a club meeting. I decided to take it slow by taking on the role of the timer. At some level, I already knew this would not be a good meeting. I have observed meeting cancellations the past few months due to low attendance so the…
Photo Projects
It is true, practice makes perfect. And the best way to get better at photography is to practice what you’ve learned. Lynda.com has been a big help in providing new insights and ideas, things I have taken longer to learn. There are still many lessons to learn, but now I also have to practice the…
Organizing your Photographs
I confess. I still have boxes of photographs tucked in somewhere in the basement. Keeping tabs of what photo has always been a problem especially after my kids were born. I never put these in albums or labeled. This means that if I want to find a particular photo, there is a real possibility I…