Week 7 – MBA6101 – Surfing the Tsunami

In Chapter 7 of Surfing the Tsunami , Kelsey provides a few great articles to read a little more in-depth about AI and the various perspectives people have on the topic. 

The Forbes article on deep learning was a terrific read because it broke it down to terms that were easy to digest and literally visualize. In particular, machine learning is defined as "you plug the data in and get an answer in return," adding that "Machine learning uses the data to write the program." Deep learning takes machine learning to the next level through the use of artificial neural networks. 

There was mention of image recognition systems that were built on massive neural networks which learned (had been trained with large amounts of internet data) to recognize images. I experienced this first-hand using the little camera icon on the Amazon.com home page using a mobile device: 

A customer can tap the icon and the phone's camera (assuming permissions on the device allow access, ofc) can be used to either scan a product bar code or "look" at a product, "recognize" it to match against their inventory, doing a very intelligent search. Amazing. I didn't see/know about this function until a more geeked-out friend of mine pointed it out. This is what makes AI more real to me in my day-to-day. I just never knew enough about it to realize it was all around me! Crazy, I know.

The other thing that fascinated me in the book was the interview with Jim Spohrer, a computer scientist with IBM, One key piece of advice he gives, "Students should start thinking about making a job and note taking a job. In order to 'think beyond taking a job or making a career' requires understanding aspirations or even callings." I believe he is correct when he encourages one to to work on multi-disciplinary teams. I am not technical, at all. I get math, but that's not my strong suit. In my advertising career, I am not a creative (those are the graphic designers and copywriters that create the asset), but a creative could not come to life without a team of SMEs that include client service (my role), strategy/planning, project management, production, legal, compliance, finance, etc. And my experience is all the richer with my need to engage with all of them in order to create something that ladders up to the brief we receive from the client that contains the "ask". Spohrer also recommends one finds a role model, get to know them, and help them solve problems. Brilliant in its simplicity.