November 2023 Qrew Meetup Notes

Attendees: Ripley, ElenaL, JenC, JacobM, LeeG, PatW, JimH 

 

The Portland Qrew met at Harder Mechanical Contractors Headquarters Wednesday at 3PM.

  

Jacob made an informal presentation on his experiences over the past several months with understanding AI and its value. The presentation began with a survey to the group to gather our level of knowledge and interest in the topic. We stopped throughout the presentation to discuss philosophy of AI, ethics and business concerns. The topics covered by Jacob during the presentation include, different versions or products he has  researched, what AI can do and some limitations, security concerns, privacy concerns, the AI overlord and who owns your instance. Finally we looked at how to build a process using actions & pipelines ( which are the same words but different from QuickBase terms and how confusing is that?). The presentation was excellent and stirred ongoing conversation as the evening progressed.

 

After the presentation we headed over to The Pocket Pub for more spirited conversation of AI learning, human learning, Open Source, the future of work and a recommended reading list. It is inspiring to sit and discuss these topics with this group of amazing people. Each month I am amazed at the thought and open minded conversation that takes place.

 

The November Qrew meetup left me with many thoughts that will rumble around in my head over the next month or more. I'm interested to see if researching AI takes any of our group in a different direction or adds another course of action.

 

The biggest takeaway for me at this point is to identify the benefits of leveraging AI to solve most of a problem. I am still going to have to understand the solution or how the solution works or doesn't work, so I can get it to work. I think the point is to get mostly there by leveraging the library of the Internet. At this point, to me what building useful AI means is like an automated Search engine, clean data sets could become a potential commodity. Instead of writing code to make a thing, we'll build the datasets and processes around those datasets that should provide a solution with less researching. Once again a great way to spend the evening with the Portland Qrew.

 

Moving forward, the December Meetup is a collaborative event, so bring your problems and we'll look for solutions together.

After hours Book Qlub

• Patricia wants to Cuddle - Elena
• 1066 and all That - Jim
• Sapiens (and sequel Homo Deus) - Jacob
• Tribe - Elena
• How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion - Daniel H. Wilson

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Jim Harrison
transparency = knowledge + understanding : The Scrum Dudes
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