Artificial Intelligence can be dangerous to health

The Science College at the University of Arizona offers 4 free science lectures on Tuesday evenings in February. At the first lecture I attended a couple of weeks ago the topic was the earth’s biosphere during a changing climate. There was also an excellent musical performance by U. of Arizona grad students prior to the lecture.

Most of the attendees were gray-haired and I suspect many were the snowbirds who flock to Tucson in winter plus others who have retired here permanently.

The next lecture sounded interesting, too: Artificial Intelligence as a Catalyst for Change. But the specter of Coronavirus rose up in the news during the week and I had second thoughts about going to Centennial Hall to sit through a lecture–no matter how interesting–with hundreds of people who may have been traveling who-knows-where recently.

Well, I decided to go anyway. And found a seat that had space around it: no one seated to my right or left or in front of me. And the woman seated behind me didn’t cough or sneeze or look ill.

The lecture was interesting although a bit elementary. Among other things we were told where the word “robot” originated: in a play by Czech writer Karel Capek. And how neural networks for machine learning are structured. And how biases are unintentionally built into the “learning” done through by computers’ neural networks.

But of more interest to me was the fact that these lectures are available online. So I will see the next lecture from the comfort of my office.

Also online at the College of Science website are links to the famed–or perhaps infamous–Biosphere and the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter as well as another lecture series entitled the Science Cafe. But I think I’m going to avoiding big events for a while, except for one. I’m going to the Rillito Racetrack today to take see the AB Clydesdales. Photos to come.

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