Artificial Intelligence – In Plain Speak, Coronado Roundtable Hosts Gary Eckert | Coronado Island News

For those struggling to understand artificial intelligence (AI), Friday’s meeting of the Coronado Roundtable went a long way to explaining, in simple English, what it is, how it works, why it’s important, and its impact on America and Americans.

Gary Eckert, a Naval Aviator as well as a career technologist in private industry, provided a superb presentation that included remarkable (and scary) examples of the capabilities of AI. Indicating that AI is basically teaching machines to do intellectual work normally done by humans, he said AI has been around in simple, specifically focused roles since the 1950/1960s, quietly evolving over the intervening decades, citing Siri and Alexa as examples.

The huge increase in AI interest emerged in November 2022 when a company named Open AI released Chat GPT to the public – and the AI race was on. A version of Chat GPT, “Copilot,” now lives on most Microsoft-supported home computers, and Google’s “Gemini” is becoming available for those doing Google searches. For most users, it is free and provides a direct answer in written or spoken sentences, as opposed to a long list of web-based material that must be clicked through to find the question’s answer.

Captain Eckert provided some very visual examples of AI in use today. The first was an AI-generated painting of a “princess in a castle on a horse sitting on a bed.” That’s all AI was told, and it produced a spectacular picture. The second example was a “fly around the interior of a traditional museum showing artwork representing all major artistic styles.” The video produced by AI started as a drone shot approaching a city museum, entering the doors, and moving through an upscale museum complete with wandering people, background noise, benches, doors, and arches … and individually (and differently) framed and appropriately placed artwork. Lastly, he showed a still picture of a woman along with a short recording of her voice – then AI was directed to produce a video having the woman say two paragraphs of scripted material. The result was a movie-quality clip of the women’s movements (eyes, face, head, lips) absolutely in sync with the script – spooky!

Using voice, text, or video inputs, examples of what current AI technology can accomplish include essay and story writing, all types of artistic skills, data analysis, writing computer code, and developing websites – all in a fraction of the time it takes humans.

Captain Eckert closed by discussing the impact AI will have on society: jobs (creating some, replacing others); government regulation of AI as well as its use; military applications; uses in education, business, finance, and healthcare; media (expect increased difficulty in ascertaining truth and be very wary of exploitation); and entertainment. Each field poses many questions on intellectual property, legal accountability, and ethics.

Captain Eckert’s presentation is available on the Coronado Library’s website and may also be found on YouTube by searching for the Coronado Roundtable.

Join the Coronado Roundtable on June 28 at 10:00 a.m. in the Coronado Library as Esther Valdez Clayton, an immigration attorney and frequent media commentator, will discuss immigration.

VOL. 114, NO. 22 – May 29, 2024