Get Smart: Unpacking AI with Leading Academics, Scientists and Business Leaders / by James Kelly

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Artificial Intelligence (AI), as both a term and a technology, has been present for more than half a century; however, there is often a misunderstanding around the uses for AI, especially applications in daily life. While general AI may be a common subject in Sci-Fi movies, it is far from reality. A more tangible meaning of AI refers to the underlying technology that shapes human-like virtual assistants, applications of machine learning to improve industrial processes and other machine intelligence in limited technological interactions with the natural world.

AI is undergoing a renaissance as today’s cloud compute resources driven by major advances in massive parallel processing technologies, like GPUs, allowing for its advancement, especially in the form of machine learning (ML) called deep learning, which involves neural networks. These neural networks have been around for a long time, but only recently have we had the data and compute to feed and train them to the point of providing helpful insights.

What do the AI pundits think?

Today, we have brought together leaders from diverse, AI-centric backgrounds for  a series of three light-hearted debates, hosted by SiliconANGLE with sponsorship from Juniper Networks. One panelist from each round will advance to the final grand showdown, which will be held next month during Juniper’s annual customer and partner event, NXTWORK, in Las Vegas on November 12.

Panelists: Eugene Santos Jr., Ph.D., Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth College; Ed Henry Sr., Scientist and Distinguished Member Technical Staff at Dell EMC; and Bob Friday, VP and CTO at Mist. Moderator: John Furrier is founder, co-CEO and Editor-in-Chief of SiliconANGLE.

Panelists: Ken Jennings, All-Time Jeopardy! Champion, Computer Scientist, and Author; Charna Parkey, Applied Scientist at Textio; and John Hinson, Director of AI at EVOTEK. Moderator: John Furrier is founder, co-CEO and Editor-in-Chief of SiliconANGLE.

Panelists: Rajen Sheth, VP of AI Product Management at Google; Dr. Kate Darling, Research Specialist at MIT Media Lab; and Professor Barry O’Sullivan, Director of the SFI Centre for Research Training in AI at University College Cork, Ireland. Moderator: John Furrier is founder, co-CEO and Editor-in-Chief of SiliconANGLE.


Panelists: Rajen Sheth, VP of AI Product Management at Google; Bob Friday, VP and CTO at Mist; and Charna Parkey, Applied Scientist at Textio. Moderator: Jeff Frick is GM and host at SiliconANGLE.