Speaker Meeting - Kirsten McCormack - AI

BEXHILL ROTARIANS GET THE LOWDOWN ON AI

Bexhill Rotarians were treated to a thorough presentation on the ins and outs of Artificial Intelligence by guest speaker, Kirsten McCormick, at their meeting this week on Tuesday 21st May.

Kirsten McCormick (pictured) is a notable expert of the subject of AI as she is the Chair of Institute of Engineering and Technology AI Technical Network, she is also Senior Systems Engineer and Artificial Intelligence Lead at General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited (GDMS-UK), a leading prime contractor and complex systems integrator working in partnership with government, military and private companies worldwide.

Kirsten in her talk sought to demystify Artificial Intelligence which covers a good number of areas. One of the areas she explained was Machine Learning which she claimed was good but is limited because it relies on human interaction. Kirsten next covered Deep Learning which is a subset of Machine Learning that uses neural networks to simulate the human brain’s behaviour. Kirsten also discussed the ethical considerations concerning the uses of AI across various applications such as defence and intelligence.

Towards the end of her all-embracing talk Kirsten covered several ‘myth busters’ about AI and challenged the Rotarians with a number of statements asking if they were correct or incorrect.

To prove that the Rotarians had been totally enthralled by all the information that had been presented to them, at the end of the evening a barrage of questions came from the floor, all of which Kirsten answered clearly and comprehensively.

The Q&A session was followed by a rousing round of applause after Bexhill Rotarian Phil Johnson had given a vote of thanks to Kirsten for her illuminating presentation of Artificial Intelligence.