These experts on AI are here to help us understand important things about AI.
Who are these generous, helpful experts that the CBC found, you ask?
“Dr. Muhammad Mamdani, vice-president of data science and advanced analytics at Unity Health Toronto”, per LinkedIn a PharmD, who also serves in various AI-associated centres and institutes.
“(Jeff) Macpherson is a director and co-founder at Xagency.AI”, a tech startup which does, uh, lots of stuff with AI (see their wild services page) that appears to have been announced on LinkedIn two months ago. The founders section lists other details apart from J.M.'s “over 7 years in the tech sector” which are interesting to read in light of J.M.'s own LinkedIn page.
Other people making points in this article:
C. L. Polk, award-winning author (of Witchmark).
“Illustrator Martin Deschatelets” whose employment prospects are dimming this year (and who knows a bunch of people in this situation), who per LinkedIn has worked on some nifty things.
“Ottawa economist Armine Yalnizyan”, per LinkedIn a fellow at the Atkinson Foundation who used to work at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Could the CBC actually seriously not find anybody willing to discuss the actual technology and how it gets its results? This is archetypal hood-welded-shut sort of stuff.
Things I picked out, from article and round table (before the video stopped playing):
Does that Unity Health doctor go back later and check these emergency room intake predictions against actual cases appearing there?
Who is the “we” who have to adapt here?
AI is apparently “something that can tell you how many cows are in the world” (J.M.). Detecting a lack of results validation here again.
“At the end of the day that’s what it’s all for. The efficiency, the productivity, to put profit in all of our pockets”, from J.M.
“You now have the opportunity to become a Prompt Engineer”, from J.M. to the author and illustrator. (It’s worth watching the video to listen to this person.)
Me about the article:
I’m feeling that same underwhelming “is this it” bewilderment again.
Me about the video:
Critical thinking and ethics and “how software products work in practice” classes for everybody in this industry please.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In an era of chronic labour shortages in health care, the technology is offering huge relief to staff who Mamdani says can now better focus on patients while also saving lives.
Mamdani said St. Michael’s could reduce staffing by 20 to 30 per cent through efficiencies using things like natural language processing to go through data and collect information.
Macpherson is a director and co-founder at Xagency.AI, an agency in the Greater Toronto Area that helps companies incorporate AI into their workforces in ways ranging from customer service centres to blogs and sales.
The best thing students can do, he said, is “embrace the technology” and make sure to develop some broad, flexible skills — in areas such as entrepreneurship or cognitive thinking — so you can pivot if needed.
Blit said in the past it has been hard to get the federal government to take much action because it felt too far in the future, but there is a renewed and urgent interest as AI “exploded” overnight.
In order to prevent the human impact, we need to prepare with things like maintaining a generous social service net and thinking about retraining programs."
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