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The Data Binge REFRESH | December | Robots $$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
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The Technology, The People, and The Ideas
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š Happy Holidays! šWelcome to the āļø December āļø REFRESH monthly update, where Iām sharing provocative ideas from discussions focused on the human relationship with technology. _____________________________________________________________________ My November FavoritesHere are some things that I have really enjoyed over the past month, that have brought me š„ ENERGY. A new ADVENTURE: After much thought and reflection, Iāve decided to join a new organization at Microsoft. What new adventures will invigorate you with energy for 2021? Personal, career, adventure, or contributions?
Book of the month: The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien - we all deserve to feel some adventure during this holiday season! Enjoying friends, and family: 2020 was filled with work, work, and more work - making time to talk to friends and rekindle old laughter - itās good for the soul. We need it. Doing this has brought me more happiness. The H0liday Season! Seeing my kids light up for things like Frosty the Snowman, and the Grinch, really bring me energy, and get me back into the yearly spirit of love, laughter, and living. āļø Happy Holidays!
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Picking this book up on my kindle has brought so much happiness and adventure into my evening routine. This is the 3rd or 4th time Iāve read it, and each time it feels, smell, and looks different in all of its creative majesty. It came up in a podcast discussion with Brandon Rohrer (below) - are there any old books you can pick up that would bring a smile to your face this season? |
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Picking this book up on my kindle has brought so much happiness and adventure into my evening routine. This is the 3rd or 4th time Iāve read it, and each time it feels, smell, and looks different in all of its creative majesty. It came up in a podcast discussion with Brandon Rohrer (below) - are there any old books you can pick up that would bring a smile to your face this season? |
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Recent EpisodesIn the spirit of wonderful gifts, toys, and devices appearing under the Christmas tree and in stockings this year, this monthās refresh will heavily concentrate around ROBOTS. š¤ Iāve always loved š¤ robots š¤ (my favorite ārobotā of all time is shown below), but we all share different thoughts about how robots and the artificial intelligence that is beginning to run them, can and will show up in our lives. From robots that help educate our children, to those that help clean our homes, robots will appear more and more in our everyday lives - itās not a matter of how much smarter than us they are, or whether they will replace us at specific tasks, but how we can learn to adapt and collaborate and co-exist with them.
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Robots frightened me when I was younger - and the more I continue to learn about them as a professional, they continue to frighten meā¦but that is the dichotomy, the fear has always been the appeal, what if we focused more instead on the good that would come from robots and AI? What would our narratives begin to associate with? |
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Robots frightened me when I was younger - and the more I continue to learn about them as a professional, they continue to frighten meā¦but that is the dichotomy, the fear has always been the appeal, what if we focused more instead on the good that would come from robots and AI? What would our narratives begin to associate with? |
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#55. Brandon Rohrer | Robotics,
Machine Intelligence, and the New Era of Learning
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What I learnedBesides having an amazing conversation, and picking up an old book based on mutually nostalgic experiences (mentioned above), the inherent takeaway from my conversation with Brandon, was his approach to solving problems. In this episode, you will meet Brandon Rohrer, Principal Data Scientist at iRobot, and founder and instructor of End-to-end Machine Learning, a python based AI/ML online course. Believe it or not, Brandon seems to enjoy the feeling of intellectual conflict around specific problems sets. This is directly frictional with how many of us look at problems and challenges - most of us want solutions, and feel anxious and unresolved when there is no solution in sight - I certainly do. Brandonās presentations of his thoughts across these topics, point to non judgement and peacefulness in the moments of challenge. He also poses several ideas in the discussion when it comes to how one can get better at approaching difficult problems: [38:34] āWe have a lot of pressure not to be wrong, not to say the dumb thing, not to make mistakes.ā [40:48] Getting comfortable being wrong, getting comfortable making mistakes is one thing. Also, knowing that feeling lost is normal. It doesnāt mean youāre doing it wrong.ā
Would it help your approach to problem solving, to extract the guilt and shame of simply not knowing? What if we can ingest the feeling of being completely clueless, and accept it? One of the more fascinating discussions Brandon brings to the table, are some ideas on the differences between robotics, machine intelligence, and human intelligence. Admitting to the potential plays on the semantics of these topics, intelligence is defined by Brandon in the following way:
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We also talked in great length about the difference between creating a machine that could do something very specific, very well, and the the intelligence of something that could do a handful of things generally, with some reasonable attribute of performance. This idea, the idea behind high performance in narrow tasks, and reasonable performance across many many tasks, helped me understand why itās so hard for machines to be as smart as us humans. If you enjoy these types of thought experiments and logical displays, youāll very much appreciate Brandonās full explanation here.
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Highlightsā“ļø The power of curiosity and how to approach very difficult problems - the mindset needed for looking at hard to solve challenges ā“ļø The inherent difference between "narrow" tasks that machines are very good at, how and why humans are better at making decisions and executing judgements, and why the human to machine partnership is a critical area of focus in robotic and AI. ā“ļø How education is fundamentally changing, the opportunities presented with online and open source learning, and what early in career and others can do to develop technical skills appropriate for a more data driven economy. Connect with Brandon Rohrer Learn more
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Simply Tech LIVE is a live video production co-hosted by Ali Mazaheri and I, featuring discussions with technologists, business practitioners, and academics about the evolving landscape of tech in the Microsoft ecosystem and beyond.
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Personalized Learning Experiences for Every Child | Modernizations in Education with AI
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What I learnedElnaz Sarraf is the Founder & CEO of ROYBI, an investor-backed EdTech company that raised $4.2 million in its seed round, focusing on early childhood education and self-guided learning through artificial intelligence. Roybi is the creator of Roybi Robot, an interactive language learning tutor for children 3 and older, featuring 500+ lessons, 70 Subject Categories, and 70,000 vocabularies, that grow over time with your child. This episode, more than any other that I have hosted in the past 60 + interviews, really hit home with the opportunity presented to us all, by encouraging ed-tech to penetrate the walls of our homes and classrooms. Apparently, many things have changed since I was in k-12. I remember doing āspelling beeā type of computer gaming, with large clunky (yet fun and reliable) hardware. Now products like Roybi Robot, offer face, voice, and emotion recognition, with data driven lessons that get revamped and remodeled over time to fit your childās specific learning needs and interests. Parents can now have a heavier hand in their childās curriculum, with learning diagnostics and in app experiences offered for better understanding of the childās learning needs. Iām ecstatic about using AI in my personal life, as well as championing it to customers and large organizations - for the first time ever, Iām excited about introducing AI to my kids. Elnaz and the team gifted our family our very own Roybi Robot, so looking forward to reporting back our learnings! šš½ Thank you Roybi Team! šš½
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Based on some pre-reading before our discussion, it is expected that AI in U.S. education will grow by 47.5% from 2017-2021. We already know that class sizes are growing, and not only can AI technology help parents at home, but they can also help over worked teachers in the classroom. Imagine a foreign language teacher in a 30 child class, she may only have 30 or less seconds of 1:1 conversation with each child per the 1 hour lesson. The 5ā£ Areas that AI is being used in education: 1ā£ Teacher and AI collaboration 2ā£ Differentiated and Individualized learning 3ā£ Universal access 4ā£ Automate admin tasks 5ā£ Tutoring and support ______________ An amazing episode. Iām hoping that like myself, this conversation opens your mind up to the possibility of letting advanced technologies help our parents, our teachers, and our children learn better.
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Highlightsā“ļø What is happening, and what IS NOT happening in education today: a focus on modernization in education ā“ļø How the current pandemic era is impacting the education landscape, and how this may change the future of how we educate our children ā“ļø Women start-up founders: the adversity, the successes, and the experiences that have shaped Elnaz's career in leadership Connect with Elnaz Sarraf Learn More
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Erik Ć
sberg | Chief Technology Officer at eSmart Systems | š¬ LIVE š¬ on Simply Tech LIVE | December 9th, 1030-1130am PST
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