It’s sweater weather in San Francisco!
At least until 10 am. Then it’s sweat-in-your-sweater weather until 5 pm. Then it’s sweater weather again. But by 9 pm, you’ll need to get a better sweater.
In today’s newsletter:
🍎 Apple Sauce: An AI dog meets a real-life dog
🌱 Planting the Seed: Meet Professor Fei Fei Li, an Ammi of AI
🍇 Fruitful Harvest: An AI Ammi on #AI-inspiration
I’d like to start by sharing why this is a special edition of ammi.ai.
This week, I braved the questionable sights and scents of the San Francisco Bay Area Railroad Transportation system, or the BART, to attend the Axios AI Summit, an AI event for tech leaders to hear from other tech leaders, hosted and moderated by a media company. Why? Because the event had an intriguing line-up of speakers at an intriguing price point: free.
In today’s boots-on-the-ground edition of ammi.ai, we’ll cover our usual 3 sections with tech, talks, and tidbits from the event! If interested, you can find the full recording of the event here.
An Ammi’s boots on the ground in SF. An Ammi regrets that decision. An Ammi should have worn sneakers.
🍎 Apple Sauce
Time for the ‘sauce’, or overview on AI apps we’ve been trying out, that may be useful to you!
Today’s apple: Astro the robot dog
Disclaimer: today’s Apple Sauce is less of an tool overview and more of a technology preview of an AI-powered robot.
A robot is a physical machine equipped with technology to process its environment and perform tasks. The technology can include sensors, cameras, simple computer programs, and even AI.
At the Axios event, we met Astro, an AI-powered robot dog. Here is the moment Astro came on stage:
“w00f w00f” -Astro
Astro was accompanied by one of its builders, Rikard Steiber, who explained that Astro could be used for inspections in potentially dangerous environments, like oil fields or mines. He also mentioned Astro’s potential to act as a guard or police dog. For example, using image recognition, Astro could scare an intruder.
The interviewer asked a question I immediately had on my mind too: how can you trust the AI, and thus the robot, to act in a fair, unbiased manner? AI systems are known to be biased, which has serious implications, particularly in law enforcement.
Steiber said this is out of their scope because the AI software powering Astro is built by another company. They’re trusting the software will be suitable for their uses.
This was a very enlightening conversation. As an Ammi, it made me ask myself: would I be comfortable with AI-powered robots in day-to-day life, interacting with my family, whether at home or out in society? What criteria would I use to assess whether I want to buy an AI robot for example?
One thing I know for sure: I would probably assess the quality and trustworthiness of the AI just as much as I would assess the quality and functionality of the robot.
How do you feel? Astro or Ast-no?
It’s quite clear how Tato the real-life dog felt upon meeting Astro:
“It’s a no from me, dawg" - Tato
🌱 Planting the Seed
Embark on your AI journey by learning about the fundamental concepts and terminology. Let’s demystify AI topics and headlines in language your kid could understand!
Fei Fei Li, PhD: an Ammi of AI, on Human-centered AI
My main goal in attending this event was to see Professor Fei Fei Li. Along with being a devoted daughter, an Ammi, and a champion of diversity and inclusion in the AI field, Professor Li is heralded as a Founding Mother of AI. She is currently the co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI.
Professor Fei Fei Li at the Axios Summit.
Here are some highlights from her conversation.
On combining passions: As Professor Li frequented healthcare facilities due to her mother’s chronic illness earlier in her life, she was inspired to combine her passion for AI with a need to care for humanity.
On the term ‘Artificial’: The term artificial intelligence is misleading, she says. “There’s nothing artificial about this.” AI is created, deployed, governed, and used by humans.
On humans and tools: Her advice to builders and buyers of AI? Acknowledge humans’ history with tools. Humans can’t stop innovating, but sometimes we “bring intended or unintended consequences of harm and hurt” with these tools. As people in the AI age, we need to understand what this technology is, how to build it responsibly, and how to use it responsibly.
On being called a ‘Founding Mother of AI’: Over a decade ago, Professor Li and her team developed a famous dataset, ImageNet, that helped supercharge the development of image-recognition AI models in the 2010s. She is seen as a pioneer and trusted leader in the AI space. Though being called a Founding Mother makes Professor Li “really uncomfortable,” she accepts the label, hoping it becomes a plural: Founding Mothers of AI.
You can learn more about Professor Li in her new memoir, The Worlds I See.
🍇 Fruitful Harvest
We’ll pluck some of the best AI Prompts, AI-generated images, and overall good stuff from the ammi.ai community and share them here.
"I really think living life, and understanding life, and playing the roles we have in our own life is the most important grounding, creative opportunity for us to do technology. Every time I go with my mom to the hospital, I look at the possibilities of innovating healthcare. Every time I drive my kids to school, I look at just the fascinating ways that life is or how they learn. It makes me a better technologist."
This life experience inspired me to remember to pack my favorite technology, sunglasses, next time.
👩🌾Cultivating Conversation
Your thoughts are invaluable — whatever they may be! Feedback on anything above? Gen AI prompts or AI Artwork to share? Questions that you’d love to explore with the ammi.ai community? Reply to this email.
Here is a question from ammi.ai to you:
🪴 Propagation Poll
💐If you liked this, pollinate!
So far, all our growth has been organic - through pollination from the ammi.ai community! We’d love to show our appreciation. When someone subscribes to ammi.ai through your unique link below, you can win gifts!
🌿 If you’d like a pre-built Whatsapp template to forward your referral link, reply to this email with ‘Whatsapp’. 🌿
Let’s grow, let’s grow, let’s grow!
Thanks for spending a few of your precious, precious minutes with us.
How did you like today's newsletter?
See y’all in a week!
Ruqaiya
Ammi by day, Ammi by night
