The study of AI (artificial intelligence) and its development is as complex as its promising.

Its precisely why those skilled in this field enjoy what many consider a progressive career a job where theres growth in its difficulty and responsibility.

And there are many such roles today.

Computer science and information technology employment was predicted to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029 adding about 531,200 new jobs in the industry with a higher-than-average salary, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The World Economic Forum ranked AI and Machine Learning Specialist #2 on its list of Top 20 job roles in increasing and decreasing demand across industries.

But that does not seem to be the case for Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI last weekend.

Open AI is the company that kicked off an AI arms race when its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, first debuted last November. It was dubbed the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public.

Altman quickly became the face of GenAI. A few months later, Microsoft invested US$1 billion in OpenAI to build artificial general intelligence: i.e. a machine that could do anything the human brain could do.

Altman was compared to Bill Gates, the co-founder of software giant Microsoft.

Then, last weekend, a stunning fall from grace.

On Nov. 17, 2023, Altman was dismissed abruptly following what OpenAI said was a deliberative review process by the board, which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with them, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.

At the time, OpenAIs board was composed of six members three co-founders and three non-staff members:

Other sources such as AFP reported that the turmoil escalated the differences between Altman who has become the face of generative AIs rapid commercialisation since ChatGPTs arrival a year ago and Open AIs board members who expressed deep reservations about the safety risks posed by AI as it gets more advanced.

These are signs of cracks within Silicon Valley.

More importantly, it begs the question: why is there such drama surrounding the study of AI and its development?

While generative AI has disrupted many lives and industries across the globe, some world leaders have grown petrified about the potential of limitless power.

Even before ChatGPT, the US government has warned of the dangers of AI in wiping out jobs.

The issue is not that automation will render the vast majority of the population unemployable, said Jason Furman, Obamas chief economist and chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisors.

Instead, jobs created by AI could come too slowly, pay too little, and exclude the least skilled who need them most. Workers who lack the skills or opportunity to quickly find new, decent jobs enabled by automation could find themselves effectively excluded from the job market. That eaves us with the worry that the only reason we will still have our jobs is because we are willing to do them for lower wages.

The warnings continued in the years that followed.

In May this year, scientists and tech industry leaders, including high-level executives at Microsoft and Google, issued a new warning about the perils that AI poses to humankind.

Worries about AI systems outsmarting humans have intensified with the rise of a new generation of capable AI chatbots like Bard, ChatGPT, AppleGPT, and many others like it.

It sent countries across the globe to regulate developing technologies, with the European Union blazing the trail with its proposed AI Act.

Higher education institutions have responded in their own ways, too.

The Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford brings together world-leading philosophers and other experts in the humanities with technical developers and users of AI in academia, business and government.

Researchers here focus on investigating the ethical impacts from all perspectives, covering six themes: AI and Democracy, AI and Governance, AI and Human Rights, AI and Human Well-Being, AI and the Environment, and AI and Society.

The University of Melbourne has micro certificates in Introduction to the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.

Informed by leading research from the Centre of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics (CAIDE), this certificate, among many others, explores how to apply ethical frameworks and theories to AI in your workplace.

But where does Silicon Valley stand in the study of AI and its progress?

Known as the face of ChatGPT, Sam is the CEO and co-founder of OpenAI (theres three co-founders). He was the former President of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator. Source: AFP

The five days of chaos surrounding Altmans position in OpenAI exposed the controversies surrounding Silicon Valley and its study of AI and its development.

Heres what went down:

While OpenAI has been tight-lipped behind the reason for Altmans departure, one report suggests that Sutskever pivotal in developing OpenAIs ChatGPT and wanting highly advanced systems behaving according to defined limits initiated the recent coup.

In this, how much does the education of these influential figures affect their views on the study of AI and its development?

Sam Altman, a tech visionary and entrepreneur, is a name synonymous with innovation.

Altman dropped out of Stanford in 2005 to create Loopt, a location-sharing app, eventually selling it for US$43.4 million to Green Dot in 2012.

In 2011, he joined the influential startup incubator Y Combinator before heading to OpenAI in 2019.

As the CEO of OpenAI, Altman catapulted ChatGPT to global fame and has become Silicon Valleys sought-after voice on the promise and potential dangers of AI.

I cant imagine that this would have happened to me, Altman told Intelligencer about his new role as leader of the AI movement.

Altman believes AI technology will reshape society as we know it. While he thinks it comes with real dangers, it can also be the greatest technology humanity has yet developed to enhance our lives significantly.

Once the Chief Technology Officer at Spike, Brockman left to cofound OpenAI with Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Ilya Sutskever. Source: AFP

Greg Brockman is the President and co-founder of OpenAI.

Greg attended Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), dropping out of both.

At Harvard, he collaborated with the Harvard Computer Society to administer and build computer systems. At MIT, he worked on projects like XVM and Linerva.

He later left to contribute to the founding of Stripe, an Irish-American multinational financial services and software as a service (SaaS) company dual-headquartered in South San Francisco, California, the US and Dublin, Ireland.

In May 2015, Brockman left Stripe to co-found OpenAI with Altman. With a genuine belief in AIs potential for positive impact, Brockman advocates for ethical and responsible development.

We must ensure AI benefits all of humanity, Brockman asserts, underscoring OpenAIs commitment to advancing the field while prioritising safety and inclusivity.

His loyalty to Altman goes deep as Brockman said he was departing as president hours after the board pushed out Altman. In a post on the social media site X, he wrote: Based on todays news, I quit.

Toner joined AIs board in 2021. She is a director of strategy and foundational research grants at Georgetowns Center for Security and Emerging Technology. Source: AFP

Helen Toner, a board member and director of strategy at Georgetowns Centre for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), holds an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown, a BSc in Chemical Engineering, and a Diploma in Languages from the University of Melbourne.

Before joining CSET, Toner lived in Beijing, studying the Chinese AI ecosystem as a research affiliate of Oxford Universitys Center for the Governance of AI.

When it comes to AI, she is clear-eyed about the risks of generative AI.

Toner, who co-authored a paper, has cautioned against excessive reliance on AI chatbots and advocated for US government action to balance innovation with citizen protection from AI risks.

This led her to clash with Altman over an academic paper comparing the safety approaches of OpenAI and Anthropic.

Microsoft invested US$13 billion into OpenAI, yet they were unaware that Sam Altman was fired. Source: AFP

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, has a degree in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology, an MS in computer science from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

In an interview, Nadella shared his perspective on AI, saying, Technology will provide more and more ways to bring people together.

He believes in AIs potential to empower people and transform industries. I see these technologies acting as a co-pilot, helping people do more with less, he stated passionately.

Microsoft is OpenAIs largest investor, with over US$10 billion stake.

The Microsoft CEO reached out to Altman following the firing to offer him support in his next steps.

Ilya is OpenAIs chief scientist, co-founder and a board member who appears to have played an outsized role in Altmans firing. Source: AFP

Ilya Sutskever is OpenAIs chief scientist and co-founder and one of the board members whom Altman clashed with over some aspects, including the pace of developing generative AI.

He graduated from the University of Toronto with a bachelors degree in Mathematics in 2005, a Master of Science in Computer Science in 2007, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 2013.

In 2015, after a short stint at Google, Sutskever co-founded OpenAI and eventually became its chief scientist; so critical was he to the companys success that Elon Musk has taken credit for recruiting him.

In an interview with MIT Technology Review, Sutskever expressed his focus on preventing artificial superintelligence from going rogue.

Artificial superintelligence refers to a hypothetical level of AI that surpasses human intelligence in virtually all aspects.

In fact, the OpenAI leadership shakeup centred on AI safety, with Sutskever disagreeing with Altman on the pace of commercialising generative AI and measures to reduce public harm

Its obviously important that any superintelligence anyone builds does not go rogue, Sutskever says.

However, despite all the fiasco that has happened, Sutskever has since publicly apologised on the X platform.

He expressed regret for his decisive vote against Altman and indicated his renewed support for Altman.

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Study of AI and its heroes, villains in Silicon Valley - Study International News

Samantha Osbiston is one of 30 women in UK to receive the Amazon Future Engineering Bursary

A Durham University student has been granted a 20,000 Amazon Future Engineering Bursary.

Samantha Osbiston has been named as one of 30 student recipients of the bursary this year.

The bursary aims to propel the careers of women in STEM by alleviating financial boundaries and providing gifted students with essential skills that will improve their employability prospects for the future, Palatinate reports.

Since the launch of the national programme in 2021, Amazon has awarded over 1 million worth of bursaries to female students from low-income backgrounds to help fund their university studies in STEM.

In partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering, Amazon seeks to increase diversity in UK STEM talent and address the underrepresentation of women studying computer science and engineering at university in the UK. Currently, the bursary supports 75 women, including Sam, by awarding them with a financial support pack of 20,000.

As well as offering financial support and providing the women with new skills, the bursary allows them to network with Amazon Experts and with the Royal Academy of Engineering to bolster long-term relationships and collaboration with peers. To students like Sam, the bursary offers invaluable opportunities for her to pursue her passion and career in STEM.

Currently studying computer science, Sam explained to Amazon how she faced many setbacks during her time in high school, including bullying, and how her exclusion in her final year before sitting her GCSEs meant that she had to teach herself the content.

It was only during the pandemic that Sam discovered her love and talent for computing: Computer science didnt exist when I was in school, she explained. Back then we studied IT, and I hated it. It wasnt until I taught myself to code that a whole new world opened up to me I fell in love with it.

Recently, a study by The Sutton Trust addressed the persistent access gaps for financially disadvantaged students over the past 25 years, particularly at Russel Group universities. Furthermore, in 2020, UCAS data highlights how women represented just 16 per cent and 18 per cent of accepted applications for degrees in computing and engineering respectively.

To tackle this underrepresentation, Lauren Kisser, an Ambassador for the Amazon Future Engineer programme, explained the importance of their bursaries: Through Amazon Future Engineer, we want to break down the barriers to opportunity that so many young people face to help diversify our next generation of tech talent.

Im delighted that we support our bursary recipients on their journey to become our innovators of the future, and I hope they will inspire even more young women to apply next year.

Lydia Mann, the Head of Education Programmes at the Royal Academy of Engineering asserts that there is need to diversify the STEM sector for the future generation of gifted women, no matter what their financial background is.

She said: The collaboration between the Academy and Amazon shows our mutual commitment to enhancing diversity within the field. We remain dedicated to identifying individuals with remarkable talents to contribute to a more inclusive engineering community that mirrors the society it serves.

Now supported by the Amazon Future Engineer Bursary, Sam spoke of her gratitude and said: I no longer have to scrimp and save, and I get to experience university life fully.

We at The Tab Durham send a huge congratulations to Sam and wish her the best of luck in her degree and future studies.

Featured image via Facebook.

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Durham student studying computer science receives 20k bursary ... - The Tab

UW computer science students Shirley Xue (left) and Dilini Nissanka wearing low-powered wireless earnings they helped develop that could be an alternative to smartwatches and other wearable health devices. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)

Inside one of the University of Washingtons computer science buildings on Tuesday evening, students showed off smart earrings that monitor health metrics, and earbuds that measure blood pressure.

On the floor below, an assistive dexterous arm picked up pieces of fruit as part of a robot-assisted feeding system.

Others demoed their research on the implications of facial recognition technology and security of government websites.

The annual Research Showcase and Open House at the UWs Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering offered a glimpse at the current state and potential direction of computing demonstrating the growing impact of artificial intelligence as both a focus and a tool for computer science breakthroughs.

At the outset of the research process, generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google Bard are dramatically accelerating the process of synthesizing and summarizing existing computer science literature, while also helping to brainstorm potential questions to study, said UW computer science professor Shwetak Patel.

Getting to a candidate research hypothesis is so much faster now, Patel said. Before, he explained, it would take months. But now, You can do this in an hour.

Many of the UW researchers are pursuing and achieving AI breakthroughs.

Seattle venture capital firm Madrona Venture Group each year recognizes teams that demonstrate top research with strong commercial potential. This year both the winner, a project called QLoRA, and runner-up, dubbed Punica, are working on different ways to more efficiently fine-tune large language models.

The picks reflect the recent boom and attention on generative AI and LLMs.

While a lot of exciting news comes from industry right now, the research presented today shows some of the importance and impact of academic research in this space, said Magdalena Balazinska, the Allen School director.

The event also highlighted the emerging disparities in the field, and efforts to overcome them.

The luncheon keynote speaker, Hanna Hajishirzi, a UW associate professor and senior research manager at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2), gave attendees the latest details on OLMo, an AI2 initiative to develop a transparent, open large language model.

The challenge that were facing is that all these state-of-the-art models nowadays are being developed by private companies. And all of these models are proprietary, she said. So its very hard for AI researchers to actually understand and analyze what is going on behind the doors of these large language models.

While researchers can use existing large language models as part of their work, funding and access to the immense processing power needed to train their own LLMs is an ongoing challenge, said the UWs Patel.

We just literally dont have the compute, Patel said. We have to think about research problems that can inform foundational models, or think about application areas. But academia and industry have to co-evolve. And its hard, honestly, to train these models in an academic context.

Many of the UW projects showed how tech can be used for good.

Madronas second runner-up award went to a team working on wireless earbuds that can perform hearing screenings.

The peoples choice award went to the group building the robot-assisted feeding system, a project aimed at helping those who are unable to perform essential tasks live more independently.

Robots can really represent an extension of ones independence and extension of ones ability to act in the world, said Amal Nanavati, a UW Ph.D. computer science student on the team. I think we need more people focusing on projects like this, to take cutting edge technology that we are actively developing and apply it to the needs of people who have been underserved by technological progress so far.

Several projects demonstrated how technology is becoming smaller, faster, cheaper, and more embedded.

Its passively there and helps you get better health, said Shirley Xue, a Ph.D. student who helped develop smart earrings for health monitoring.

UW students arent just focused on developing better software or hardware. Theyre also thinking about the implications of the technology on society.

Ph.D. student Rachel Hong is part of a team researching racial equity in facial recognition software. The work focuses on data collection methods that power such models, which have sparked controversy.

With all the push for machine learning and LLMs, they work well a majority of the time but when they dont, it can be incredibly consequential, Hong said.

View a list of the presenting teams for the poster sessions here, and those who gave presentions during the day here.

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UW computer science research event offers a glimpse of the future ... - GeekWire

Keynote speaker Irfan Essa, the senior associate dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, explained recent developments of artificial intelligence and how these advancements may impact society at the University of Georgia School of Computings Research Day on Nov. 17.

Ask not when, or if, AI will replace people, Essa said. Ask when people using AI will replace people not using AI.

There was also computer science trivia and a panel discussion, in addition to the keynote address. Anna Stenport, Dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, opened with a speech emphasizing the importance of the new School of Computing and all the new possibilities that come with the establishment of this interdisciplinary school.

In July of 2022, UGAs department of computer science was promoted to the School of Computing, and is jointly administered by the College of Engineering and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

This is a jointly appointed school with broad horizons and a bright future, Stenport said. I have come to know, over just the past number of months that I've been on campus, the ways in which we embrace the distinctiveness of this School of Computing, because we embrace the old, the new and the ambitious.

However, Stenport also said that new opportunities come with a responsibility to ethically consider how the power of computing is applied. Shelley Hooks, the Associate Vice-President of Research at UGA, seconded that, saying UGA was a particularly exciting place for computing and artificial intelligence fields.

Essas speech, titled Generative AI and Responsive AI, began with an explanation of what artificial intelligence is and the research and information that goes into its development. He said the interdisciplinary system requires an understanding of humans, as well as the map keys and ethics on how to deploy said systems.

Essa went on to discuss the controversial topics surrounding the development of artificial intelligence, which include subjects ranging from Chat GPT and doctored videos to self-driving cars and robots.

You have to remember that there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation that doesn't use any of this technology, Essa said. People take a picture from 10 years ago and post it saying this happened today and it creates riots. There is no minute image manipulation.

Throughout his keynote speech, Essa went into technical detail about the inner-workings and ongoing research involving artificial and augmented intelligence. The full speeches can be viewed here.

Following the keynote speech, attendees played computer science trivia. After prizes were awarded for the trivia winners, a panel of computer science and artificial intelligence professors convened to discuss the impacts that AI development has had on education.

Different people learn in different ways, Essa said. So we can not fully adapt to every possible learner, but an AI system can.

Following the panel discussion, undergraduate and graduate students presented posters that they created to inform about artificial intelligence, and then professors and students shared a light dinner and discussed computer science in further detail.

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UGA School of Computing hosts Research Day at Georgia Center - Red and Black

Five fish are marked using FISHTRAC. Detecting them in underwater video can typically be relatively difficult due to the complex coral reef background.

In groundbreaking research at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, computer scientist Travis Mandel and his interdisciplinary team have garnered national acclaim for their innovative use of artificial intelligence in revolutionizing reef fish tracking. The teams FISHTRAC software, a creation of collaboration among students, alumni and faculty, employs AI to meticulously follow individual fish through video footage and photographs, providing a transformative solution to the time-consuming task of image review in the realm of marine research.

Mandel and his team published their research paper in Pattern Recognition this past March and recently learned they won the editors choice award.

It certainly works better than all the other algorithms we compared it to in the paper, which was a very large number, said Mandel who is an associate professor of computer science and director of UH Hilos interdisciplinary data science program.

Its still not perfect, he explained, but the reality is the AI allows for much less human effort and time in terms of someone sitting and watching a hundred videos and then drawing boxes around every frame, because that takes forever.

The AI-based video identification would serve as an alternative to catch-and-release tagging research methods, a process that can be invasive to the fish. The central question the research team hoped to address: How can AI and machine learning systems work with humans to solve real problems?

Initially, Mandel was called on by environmental scientists at UH Hilo to help with computer vision issues, or the ability of software to recognize objects consistently in photographs or videos. The process of teaching an AI engine to learn is complex, and projects such as these are on the cutting edge of computer science and environmental science today.

Although Mandels training was not in computer vision, the pressing need for research within this field quickly presented itself.

A lot of people started reaching out to me, faculty members and grad students in different disciplines, saying, Hey, can you help us with our computer vision problems? said Mandel.

Mandel co-authored the paper with UH Hilo alumni Mark Jimenez (computer science), Emily Risley (computer science), Taishi Nammoto (physics) and Rebekka Williams (mathematics). UH Hilo students Meynard Ballesteros (computer science) and Bobbie Suarez (tropical conservation biology and environmental science) also served as co-authors alongside Max Panoff, a doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Florida.

For more go to UH Hilo Stories.

By Evangeline Lemieux, who is double majoring in English and medical anthropology at UH Hilo.

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Using AI to track island fish earns national award | University of ... - University of Hawaii