Paula chaired the meeting and reminded us that our Club Rotary Visioning Retreat is scheduled for March 20th, 4:30PM to 8:30PM.  A survey of club members will be sent prior to the meeting using clubrunner. The Past District Governor, Blaine Johnson, will be taking us through the process.

 

Carl Sneep gave a Rotary Foundation board update.

 

Speaker: Andy Rangen presented on Artificial Intelligence (AI): Past, Present and Future!

 

Since his company uses AI this talk was both academic and practical.  He shared that ChatGPT is a recent example of AI.  AI is a computer science discipline that enables software to solve novel and difficult tasks with human-level performance. Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a field of theoretical AI research that attempts to create software with human-like intelligence and the ability to self-teach. In contrast to AI, an AGI system can solve problems in various domains, like a human being, without manual intervention. Unsupervised learning is using inputs to learn on its' own, no human intervention.

 

The goal is to create AGI systems.  It would be self aware, like a computer with emotions, but no one knows when this will happen.

 

There is a big race to develop AI. For example Microsoft invested $10B in AI technology.  AI ingests huge amounts of data.  Today we are in deep learning phase. For example social media companies are heavily invested in AI to increase consumer engagement with their services.  Tesla is developing self driving cars based upon massive user data inputs.

 

OpenAI came about last year by typing a question and getting a response.  OpenAI is a non profit company funded by users

 

Today AI can pass law and medical board license exams.  Futurists are trying to determine the impact but most agree AI will result in job losses and create new opportunities. For example, medical research is sped up using AI. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a cause of staph infection that is difficult to treat because of resistance to some antibiotics. Staph infections—including those caused by MRSA—can spread in hospitals, other healthcare facilities, and in the community where you live, work, and go to school.  Using AI researchers recently discovered a new class of antibiotics to treat MRSA. The presentation ended with a lively Q and A session.

 

 

Greeters:
1/16/2024: Sam Anderson, Brain Andrews, Aaron Antony
1/23/2024: Nick Barth, Loren Beilke, Jennifer Bergman
1/30/2024: Jeff Birks, Mike Bjerkness, Dan Brown

Jan 30, 2024: Amy Eppen - Ann Bancroft Foundation