CafeNova - April 2, 2019

The evening began with introductions from Professors Yevgen Borodin and Niranjan Balasubramanian from Department of Computer Science. Both work on applications of Artificial Intelligence techniques. Yevgen is both a researcher and an entrepreneur, who is developing tools that improve access to information, especially for the visually challenged. Niranjan works main on research issues in getting computers to understand language and trains graduate students.

The evening began with quick introductions. The conversation dived into AI's impact on society almost immediately. Yevgen presented the positive impacts of AI in many fields, including his own technology that improves information access in meaningful ways for specific subgroups. Niranjan agreed with the concerns on how the push to automate can likely cause big societal upheavals in the short term but emphasized how we are still far from singularity and the futility of trying to predict technology spurts.

The remainder of the conversation centered around the key research problems in AI and what are good ways to plan for a career in a world where AI is going to be everywhere.

Below are the photos from the meeting; you can also veiw them here

We are looking forward to the next meeting of CafeNova scheduled for the first Tuesday of May (May 7). To learn about the program of that meeting stay tuned for future CafeNova announcements.