ARTICLE
An Interview With Frances Buontempo, Consultant and Author
Frances Buontempo is editor of the ACCU's Overload magazine and author or Genetic Algorithms and Machine Learning. We caught ask Cien about her mission and why she's excited to join us as a speaker at AI for the rest of us.
Tell us your story? When did you start working in AI?
I did a PhD as a mature student doing "data mining" to model toxicity data, in theory reducing animal experiments, which is something I care about. I used neural networks and genetic algorithms, and more besides, to model data. Since then, I have done several personal projects using AI to keep up to speed, and given talks plus written a book about these.
Why is AI fluency so important?
As with any buzz word, you can get "sold a dud" or waste time and money easily. If you learn one or two fundamental things, like randomness might mean non-deterministic outputs, you are empowered to think about testing, deployment, and monitoring if you work in IT. Even if you don't work in IT, knowing a bit about what's really going on can help you ask better questions so you can make better decisions.
What is one thing you’ve learned recently that changed how you think about AI?
I am horrified about how much power some LLMs use. I want to see everyone start to consider their IT carbon footprint and find more efficient ways to do things.
Frances Buontempo
Consultant and Author
"Knowing a bit about what's really going on can help you ask better questions so you can make better decisions."
Why are you excited to attend AI for the rest of us?
I am looking forward to talks that demystify AI, and am certain I will learn lots while there.
What can attendees expect to learn from your session?
My session will take a long overview, reminding people there is more to AI that LLMs and ChatGPT. I will include a simple mathematics equation people might have seen at school and expand on that to hint at how neural networks work.
What other talks are you excited about attending?
Lisa Becker's session: "Beyond LLM-Washing: When other ML models are simply better" looks great because it will remind us of other machine learning models than LLMs.
Ana Filipa de Almeida's talk: "Pushing AI to Production: Real Stories From Infra and Code Challenges" also looks great. It's important to think about how to get AI into production code, since it poses some unique challenges.
Mo McElaney's talk: "Digital Discrimination: Cognitive Bias in Machine Learning (and LLMs!)" about detecting and removing bias covers a vital topic, which people need to start taking very seriously.
Start Your Journey to AI Fluency! Join us on October 24 - 25, 2024, in London for an AI learning experience like no other!
Don‘t miss out!
Tickets on sale now!
AI for the rest of us is brought to you by Kortensia. Kortensia Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales (Company No.15773675)