Is artificial intelligence coming after your job?
Quad Citians are invited to learn about the current realities and future trends of AI technology – including in the workplace – at a free forum Friday, May 8, hosted by Quad Cities Civic Conversations.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a pervasive part of our news, social media feeds and world in general. What are the pros and cons? What do we need to be concerned about? What jobs might be impacted? How can we utilize this technology for both the benefit of our economy and our citizens?
Those questions and more will be explored during ‘Is AI coming for your job?’ The Civic Conversations forum will feature Alan Garfield, professor emeritus of digital art and design at the University of Dubuque. The event, which is free and open to all, will be from 1:30-2:30 p.m. at the Rock Island Public Library Watts-Midtown Branch.
It is sponsored by the Immigration Coalition of the Quad Cities, Iowa Citizens Action Network, One Human Family of the QCA, Progressive Action for the Common Good (PACG) and Quad Cities Interfaith.
“AI is a phenomenal tool. It can examine gargantuan amounts of data much better than we can. It can find relevant content faster than we can. But AI is not like us,” Mr. Garfield said in a news release. “The bottom line is that AI is simply information technology. It is a new technology. Disruption is coming, but maybe it isn’t as dooming as the headlines would show.”
AI explodes with ChatGPT
Mr. Garfield has worked in this arena for many years from a visual standpoint, creating imagery and software for students to use. As a professor at the former Marycrest College, Davenport, he and his students even developed a program “that got rid of the Michelangelo virus. We gave it away for free. Back then there weren’t anti-virus programs,” he recalled.
For most of the general public, the “big AI explosion took place about three years ago. That is when people could go online and ask ChatGPT a question,” he said. “It has been morphing ever since.”
According to Mr. Garfield, the pro of AI “is that it is a phenomenal tool. The con is that it takes two to do that tango. You need the tool and the tool user. The con is always the tool user — that is us – and the inaccuracies of AI.”
His presentation will help those in attendance understand:
- A view of where AI is now.
- The guardrails that can be put in place via coding and how those guardrails can and should be improved – including how government can play a role in this process.
- What jobs are most at risk and what steps people can take to help enhance their job security when AI becomes a more prominent part of their work environment.
- How AI can be improved to become a more “pro-human” tool.
Q&A session follows
“AI is very powerful resource, but it doesn’t replace judgment, creativity or human interactions,” he said. “AI can only work. It doesn’t think. If the data going in is all one-sided or wrong, it doesn’t know any better. It can only analyze what it has been fed.”
Attendees can participate in a question-and-answer period after the presentation.
To register, visit here. For questions, contact event facilitator Gail Karp at [email protected] or Allison Ambrose, co-facilitator of the Immigration Coalition of the Quad Cities and a Progressive Action board member, at [email protected].
