AI April
AI is everywhere in 2024, and the Austin Forum on Technology & Society can help you learn, share, and connect/collaborate with professionals to use AI in new ways for your work and your lives. As we approach our third “AI April”–a month of presentations, events, and podcasts dedicated to AI capabilities, applications, future impacts, challenges, and more–we are excited that our AI programming for April is bigger than ever! It’s so big that we have to start early: join us on Wednesday, March 20, for an online discussion of the new book “Introduction to Generative AI” by Numa Dhamani of KUNGFU.AI (an Austin Forum annual partner) and Maggie Engler of Inflection AI–and these brilliant co-authors will be the moderators of our discussion!
As April formally begins, we start with two incredible speakers in the first week! On Tuesday, April 2, Joey deVilla will deliver an online presentation to help our (now global) audience ramp into AI! Joey will explain how anyone can get started and will have lab exercises you can try out while listening to the presentation online. This online-only format enables anyone from anywhere to participate while using their personal computers for the labs. We are excited to try this online, interactive format for a presentation event! On Tuesday, April 4, we have Dmitri Alperovitch–strategist, thought leader, and author–in Austin for an in-person presentation discussing the crucial importance of the US leading in the race to advance AI and other key strategic technologies at Capital Factory. These amazing, complementary events are followed by our monthly hybrid presentation + networking event on April 16 with globally renowned AI expert Paco Nathan delivering his take on where AI is now and where it’s going–and what you need to know. The three April presentation events will be complemented by other events including an online discussion of the book “A Brief History of Intelligence” moderated by myself on April 23, and other events–a meetup, a workshop, and a movie screening w/Q&A– to be announced soon. Finally, we will publish four new episodes of the Austin Forum Upload podcast on AI topics in April. By the end of April, you will have a great understanding of the nature and importance of AI, how to use AI in your careers and lives, the potential rewards and risks of AI in the future, and even how to become an AI expert if you wish!
We will continue to revisit AI throughout the year alongside other emerging and impactful technologies. Future topics in 2024 include misinformation/disinformation, robotics, energy tech, climate and sustainability tech, health tech, cybersecurity, gaming & gamification, AR/VR/XR, space tech, gene editing and synthetic biology, fintech, and more. AI is enhancing all of these areas as well, so there will be nearly continuous coverage of AI’s impact and influence in our future programming.
Thank you for being part of the Austin Forum, and we look forward to seeing you at our events–AI and otherwise–in the weeks and months ahead!
Jay Boisseau, Ph.D.
Executive Director
