Fifteen members of the group met on Thursday 3rd October at Loder Hall to hear group member, Tim Simmons, enlighten us on the now topical subject of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The history of AI goes back to the 1940s and Alan Turing, based at Bletchley Park. Turing, considered to be the father of digital computing and computer science and also the “Turing Test”. To pass the Turing test it was necessary for a computer to communicate indistinguishably from a human. Clearly before the days of solid-state electronics there was far too little electronic memory capacity available. Now with super computers and their vast storage capability Turing`s theories are being realised.
An algorithm, by comparison, is a set path of procedures using simple computer programmes to determine the outcome of a sequence of events. This is not AI. AI is a process which trawls through everything we know about everything and links the key words to provide a structured description or answer to the question being asked. So, unlike Google which will provide us with a list of sources to be explored, each of which may differ greatly in accuracy, using AI will source all these records simultaneously to provide one intelligent answer or description of what is being sought in a text indistinguishable from that produced by a human being.
As more information is loaded into the vast data storage computers the more precise will be the outcome. It is estimated that around 40% of all known information, ie the contents of Wikipedia, have now been loaded into computer memory. The information is stored in numerical code form.
The process can be applied to many disciplines, not just written text, for example diagrams and pictures. Tim demonstrated by asking ChatGPT to create a photograph of a Chihuahua dog sitting on an aircraft seat. Wow! - in only a few seconds out came a picture of said animal sitting in the middle of a bank of 3 aircraft seats, a brilliant example of the capability of AI.
Report by Colin Rowe