Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Business Breakfast #heraldAI

Guest this morning at Herald AI briefing - so these are some quick jottings on proceedings.

The Sponsors:  Cathcart Associates , Brodies , The Herald , Incremental Group and Strathclyde University. 




Image result for data science hierarchy of needs

Everyman Cinema Glasgow Princes Square - is a nice venue but no wifi.

Pre meeting coffee, met microforming man from Strathclyde, charged with buying NMIS kit for next 4 years - Strathclyde have VR suite for developers - had useful conversation around www.nmis-skills.org and the establishment of the new manufacturing centre that is centerpiece of National Manufacturing Institute Scotland.


To see other tweets from event check out #heraldAI on twitter.


Event starts with great marketing around GPT2, too dangerous to release into wild,  apparently. You can check out the back story here,  example implementation called Talk to Transformer.  And follow creator here @adamdanielking ,see it in the context of other current  AI solutions here 


Perhaps how Herald will be written soon, spotted Donald Martin Herald Editor in audience. 

Thinkpiece keynote from Dr Adam Sroka @adzsroka


Incremental Group data and AI . The organisation do Digital transformation through microsoft and associated technologies. 
Presentation gave some good examples :


  • AI and manufacturing - can now scan and find faults in sheet metal etc - autonomous inspection -
  • Retail - AI to analyse transactions around buying and returns - could focus sales and avoid customers who bought and returned most.
  • Insurance - predicting - risk and wealth - use satellite images of addresses - it’s illegal to price on ethnicity - but you can do scrabble score in surnames though. ( Hmmn  ) and hope HMRC are using the matching postcode to house image - wonder too how GDPR compliant this all is. 
  • Banks can monitor millions of transactions and stop your account when they see outlier behaviours.
  • Most banking communications now driven by AI people can text and get answer from AI not a human. 
  • McDonalds can do speech to order with AI  find Drivethru.wav speech recognition to burger order - good example.
  • Ethics and things like driverless vehicles - autonomous systems need rules
  • Data science hierarchy of needs - see heading. 
Then on to Question and Answer and some of the usual suspects on the panel - 

  • Digital Health and Care directory looking for more AI examples around Healthcare.
  • Centre of excellence in Satellite Applications Strathclyde - good question -. What are limits of data collection it does cost money and energy to collect and crunch.
  • Craig Patterson Data Lab - the aim to make Scotland famous for data - education advisor.
  • Aggreko ( the generator people )  have team of data scientists.
  • Stachastic solutions Sam Rhynas < girl geek scotland > commercial supporting data analysis for private companies - putting data at heart of business.
  • Prof Crawford Revie - data analyst working in health - data driven models to predict health outcomes - delivering new masters degree in artificial intelligence.
  • Stevie Grier Microsoft. AI example -
  • How do you analyse the data set from colonoscopy 40,000 images AI is better than consultant.
  • Martin Sloan Brodies LLP and Deryck Smith Clydesdale Bank.

Q and A 

Can you retrain business analysts to be Data scientists ? good question - I think Business Analyst covers lots of job descriptions.

Big focus on how AI is used to understand the customer actual and potential and their behaviours.
There is real fear and lack of understanding of how AI can bring benefits and a lot is simply still process automation - look where you have seen AI drive value and how you apply this to your own business.


AI danger of introducing bias in workflow - if not thought through.
Amazon example - used past data and then found no change in recruitment metrics - bias had been built into system - by using past data as system training methodology - they built in bias.

AI as seventh consultant - offers another opinion- human experts evaluate this - perhaps improves decision making.

Stephen Grier cites - thriving Modern Apprenticeship programme - but still 10/12k people shortfall digital skills - Stephen - banish word computing - industry pays on average 25% more than other occupations. Amen but familiar cry.

Check out 99% invisible podcasts and articles

Brexit is starting to drive skill shortages - BI < business intelligence systems > programmers not enough people doing this.

How do we promote neural diversity , maths is creative , mix of skills , data lab supports placements , daydream believers creates learning materials for teachers to help them understand . I knew about this but good to share again.

In banking used to prevent fraud - almost AI v AI and money is becoming obsolete.
In remote places card machines are easier than cash - when there is no bank to bank the cash. This is to me counterintuitive .  I think this is wishful thinking from the Clydesdale bank - case study Argyll where apparently you are most likely to see signs saying card payments only. I am wondering if this is, as all the rural banks have been closed down. I'm still used to seeing cash only in remote communities in Scotland. 


Usual collective moan from panel mostly composed of industry, it is  all education's fault apparently. 

Kudos, I think to Strathclyde who have just started an MSC in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. 

As a throw away someone recommended
Book -The 100 Year Life


Useful event now scrambling back to work.


That's all folks !