There I am tonight (not on time, but miraculously 20 minutes early reserving our table), when in walks our first meeting attendee. Heads turn in the upscale open dining concept of the Sherwood Cafe and Bar. Loomo is rolling behind our first attendee like an obedient dog. Loomo is a mobile AI sidekick and mini personal transporter. It is made by Segway and you can ride on Loomo for 30 kilometres before it needs charging. Loomo can take pictures (see below) and respond to people’s voices. Loomo can also recognize people. His owner described it as a baby who is learning about his environment and taking it all in. You can learn more about Loomo here.

Photo that Loomo took.

Loomo

Next, we explored two articles from wired.com. The first article states that there is a “free feed of vulnerability information that can tell systems administrators what bugs they really need to patch, updated 24/7: Twitter.” However, the article suggests that a human being is still needed to sort through this information. One attendee was able to relate to this article: her job was going to be replaced by software, but she was still needed for programming and ended up staying on to analyze the results from the software too. We talked about how one person or one machine can’t do it all, although machine learning does save us time. Machines are great for collecting big data, but you still need a person to analyze this data.

We all agreed with the second article, “The Wired Guide to Artificial Intelligence,” because it stated that even though software is smarter, we still need humans too. However, it’s great to have technology help us in our everyday lives, especially in the health care industry. The article said that “Hospitals in India are testing software that checks images of a person’s retina for signs of diabetic retinopathy, a condition frequently diagnosed too late to prevent vision loss.” Another attendee said that having a vaccine app to track all of your immunizations would be great. Island Health created the BoosterBuddy App, which helps track medications and your mental health.

We discussed AI in our favourite TV shows and how Westworld makes you take the side of the AI robots. The robots are controlled by the humans who programmed them and then they develop memories and feelings. This might not be too far from reality with singularity, which one attendee defined as the belief that robots will be more human in 26 years. The Wikipedia definition says “The technological singularity (also, simply, the singularity)^[1] is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial superintelligence (ASI) will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.”

After the Old Fashioneds had been sipped and the healthy roasted greens savoured (in terms of trending veggies, I think brussel sprouts are going to be the new cauliflower), we ended with a discussion about working from home. We agreed that more employers should adopt this healthy work life balance that can help save employees commute time and allow them to work the hours when they can perform their best. For some employers, as long as the work gets done it doesn’t matter if it’s done during the evening or day.

We used technology to our advantage and used the LinkedIn Nearby app feature to connect with each other online. It only took seconds and saved us time searching for each other. We all concluded that we want to adapt to work with AI. Loomo was definitely the star of our meeting and we were grateful that Loomo and its owner made an appearance. One attendee said we all may just become part cyborg one day.

Roasted brussels sprouts with cilantro and peanuts

Serena Beck

Serena Beck has been a technical writer for 13 years and currently writes about blood and plasma hardware and software. She is the past president of the STC Canada West Coast chapter.