It was a packed house once again for the sixth Data Science Ireland meetup with another excellent line-up of speakers. On Wednesday we learned about Creative AI disrupting the entertainment business and how we can increase public awareness of Artificial Intelligence.
We picked up from where we left off from our July meetup as CTO and founder of Artomatix Eric Risser discussed how Artificial Intelligence is disrupting the future of content creation in Arts and Entertainment, particularly in the world of gaming and film.
An incredible $80bn has been spent on improving visuals in gaming but through Creative AI, much of these costings and the designers time can be saved will would also, in turn, improve productivity and higher quality graphics.
Eric introduced us to the history behind Creative AI and delving into specific use cases and applications such as Texture Synthesis, Material Enhancement, Hybridization and Style Transfer. It is incredible to see how someone can take a picture of a cat and turn it into looking like an oil painting.
Eric told is that there is more value in recycling old art rather than reinventing the wheel and I am sure through Creative AI, the art of design will only become better and better.
Project lead and co-founder of The M Tank Dan Flynn presented his talk “Progress, bottlenecks and barriers: A wander through the AI landscape” as he discussed his work so far with The M Tank and improve public perceptions of Artificial Intelligence.
There is definitely a lot of hype in the media about how AI will impact our lives, including robots taking our jobs, but he believes that the media tend to overhype the potential of AI. Therefore, people cannot agree on what AI really is and how it will impact their lives.
Dan and his colleagues came together to set up The M Tank to tackle this and educate the public on how AI will impact their lives through open-source publications, tutorials, research and projects. He told us about DeepFake and raised the question: how reliable photographic content can be if people can create photos of fake people?
There are challenges that AI still have to overcome in privacy and ethics but Dan and The M Tank have the ambition to accelerate safe AGI to contribute long-term success to these new technology breakthroughs.
Finally, Mark Kelly outlined why he set up AI Ireland and discussed what he learned from conducting over 65 formal interviews over 40 incredible podcast episodes to date on the AI in Action podcast.
Mark gave some very interesting examples of AI in Ireland from autonomous systems, ground navigation, aerial, industrial, personal agents, agriculture, education, patient healthcare, agent enablers etc. You name it, he shared it.
After seeing these great companies doing fantastic work, Mark decided to set up the AI Awards which will celebrate the great work done in AI in Ireland and to also promote Ireland as a hub for AI investment.
Mark set out what he has learned from reading the national strategies of the of Canada, Finland and France (he’s nearly finished the 264-page French document) and how Ireland can differentiate itself from other countries to be at the forefront of AI Investment.
It was another fantastic meetup with some thought-provoking insights and I hope our guests really enjoyed what they saw. A big thank you to Eric, Dan and Mark for delivering more world-class presentations and of course to our members who came along. It is great to see the Data Science Ireland community continuing to grow and grow.
Our next Meetup is on Wednesday 5 September with another fantastic line-up, including DCU researcher and lecturer Susanne Little, Zalando’s engineering lead Adam Bermingham and Parsa Ghaffari who is the CEO of the internationally recognised AYLIEN. If you would like to come along to Huckletree for the next meetup, then don’t forget to register and RSVP on our meetup page.
AI Awards 2018: Applications Open
Connecting Ireland’s AI ecosystem for a higher purpose
Applications are still open for you to take part in the inaugural AI Awards and showcase your skills and expertise to the AI community on the island of Ireland.
The AI Awards is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting, advancing and rewarding corporate and academic excellence in Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation, research & development and products.
It is our mission to support the AI community by recognising the hard work and dedication of those working in the field and to help promote and market Ireland globally as the first-choice home for AI investment and job creation in research and product development.
For more information about the awards, you can see more information here.