Phoenix College is proud to be hosting our first ever TEDx event on April 24. The event's theme is The Opportunity of Transformation.
What happens when the world changes? What do we do as an ever evolving and shifting world finds the old way of doing things irrelevant, redundant, and no longer applicable? This TEDxPhoenixCollege event will explore, "The Opportunity of Transformation" when what used to work need to evolve, shift, and change - and how we use that urgency of now to do, create and move towards a better future.
One of the speakers for this event will be AI & ML Research Consultant | Strong TIES Founder & CEO | and Speaker Dr. Loretta Cheeks. Dr. Cheeks is on a mission to create a better world with technology. Before earning a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Arizona State University, the STEAM advocate was developing, deploying and leading various teams within the communications, avionics, instrumentation & control and chemical industries for Fortune 500 corporations. She is the first to identify a computational approach for the discovery of news frames in unstructured text (e.g., online news articles). She has demonstrated a unique ability to integrate communication theory and computer science methods to inform the fields of machine learning, psychology, and mass communication. But this Doctor of Philosophy isn’t just paving the way for up-and-coming engineers, Dr. Cheeks is also committed to improving higher education for underserved and underrepresented communities to follow in her scientific footsteps.
Here is a brief synopsis of Dr. Cheeks' TEDxPhoenixCollege presentation.
This talk provides you with a condensed introduction to the key concepts, usages, and techniques of artificial intelligence. During this talk, you will explore intersections of human intelligence with machine intelligence that rely on Remembering and Embracing Historical Information to make a better choice in our action selection, experience continuous growth, receive healing, and ultimately move forward. It will give you the language and framework to talk to both leaders, educators, experts, and executives.
You will gain insights into the benefits of remembering historical information to inform our present and future. The audience will gain tools for creating bridges to new information paths and improving the integration of the parts of our past to catapult us to discover our true identity through the power of remembering. If you are a student, educator, government, an executive, manager, business leader, faculty, or civic leader, this talk will help inform your decisions about the interplay of artificial intelligence and human intelligence.
We sat down with Dr. Cheeks to learn more about her and why this topic is so meaningful.
Why is this topic important?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here. It is in our homes, cars, streets, social media feeds, TV, health care, and just about everywhere we look. It is important to understand the function of remembering for bridging the connections between human intelligence to artificial intelligence for maximal development and growth.
Tell us a little about the journey to your current position?
In the process of acceptance of what was happening to my son, Ashton, upon learning of his diagnosis of autism, I turned to the only instrument I felt confident and skilled in, computer science. AI is one area within computer science. My journey to acceptance was to study the brain and cognition using neural networks; an approach to AI and an area of research within AI. I conducted this research on cognition and neural networks in the early 1990s. Fast forward 20 years or so, I used the transformative concept of remembering as the impetus to deciding on my area of focus within Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This led to earning a Ph.D. in Computer Science and becoming an expert in this area.
Why does this topic speak to you?
When we remember, this allows humans to move forward in their development and growth for exposing our true essence. This basic need to remember is critical to human growth or transformation. Similarly, AI needs to remember in order to learn, reason, and grow. I am interested in the degrees of freedom afforded when we remember historical events for maximizing human intelligence and artificial intelligence
To learn more about our speakers or TEDxPhoenix College, please contact Rowdy Duncan. Rowdy.Duncan@phoenixcollege.edu