“Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World” is being released on March 16, 2021.
The day before the book’s release date, March 15, 2021 at 12 pm, author Cade Metz will be having a ‘fireside chat’ with Graham Taylor, associate professor at the University of Guelph and Canada CIFAR (Canadian Institute for Advanced Research) AI (artificial intelligence) chair and Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence at the University of Toronto faculty member, (Preregistration for the event will make you eligible for a prize draw, if you’re a Canadian resident.)
The curious can find out more about the Vector Institute in my March 31, 2017 posting about its inception.
Here are the ‘fireside chat’ details, from the Vector Institute’s Genius Makers event page,
Join author and New York Times technology writer Cade Metz and Canada CIFAR AI chair and Vector Institute faculty member Graham Taylor for a dynamic ‘virtual fireside’ discussion that explores the past, present and future of AI.
Vector Institute is proud to host this special event marking the launch of Metz’s new book, GENIUS MAKERS, which traces the thrilling history of artificial intelligence – including the mavericks who brought AI to leading companies and the world. Together, Metz and Taylor will explore the inspiration for writing the book, the experience of interviewing the trailblazers who have shaped the thrilling and still-unfolding evolution of AI and the challenges and opportunities ahead in Canada and beyond.
AI innovators, researchers, business leaders, policymakers and enthusiasts alike will benefit from new perspectives on unlocking the transformative potential of AI while balancing issues of national interests, shareholder value, commercialization, the pursuit of scientific knowledge and concerns about privacy and bias – and more.
An audience Q&A session will follow the discussion.
Agenda:
12 noon: Welcome and opening
12:05-12:40: Discussion, Cade Metz & Graham Taylor
12:40-12:55: Q&A Session
12:55-1pm: Wrap-up
REGISTER EARLY FOR A CHANCE TO WIN
Those who pre-register by Sunday, March 14, 2021, 11:59pmET are eligible to be entered in a draw for one of two complimentary copies of Genius Makers by Cade Metz. Draw to be held by 6pm ET on March 15; winners will be notified by email. Open to Canadian residents only.
The description for Metz’s book (Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World) is interesting, I gather Dutton is the imprint under which Penguin Random House is publishing Metz’s book,
THE UNTOLD TECH STORY OF OUR TIME
What does it mean to be smart? To be human? What do we really want from life and the intelligence we have, or might create?
With deep and exclusive reporting, across hundreds of interviews, New York Times Silicon Valley journalist Cade Metz brings you into the rooms where these questions are being answered. Where an extraordinarily powerful new artificial intelligence has been built into our biggest companies, our social discourse, and our daily lives, with few of us even noticing.
Long dismissed as a technology of the distant future, artificial intelligence was a project consigned to the fringes of the scientific community. Then two researchers changed everything. One was a sixty-four-year-old computer science professor who didn’t drive and didn’t fly because he could no longer sit down—but still made his way across North America for the moment that would define a new age of technology. The other was a thirty-six-year-old neuroscientist and chess prodigy who laid claim to being the greatest game player of all time before vowing to build a machine that could do anything the human brain could do.
They took two very different paths to that lofty goal, and they disagreed on how quickly it would arrive. But both were soon drawn into the heart of the tech industry. Their ideas drove a new kind of arms race, spanning Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and OpenAI, a new lab founded by Silicon Valley kingpin Elon Musk. But some believed that China would beat them all to the finish line.
Genius Makers dramatically presents the fierce conflict between national interests, shareholder value, the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the very human concerns about privacy, security, bias, and prejudice. Like a great Victorian novel, this world of eccentric, brilliant, often unimaginably yet suddenly wealthy characters draws you into the most profound moral questions we can ask. And like a great mystery, it presents the story and facts that lead to a core, vital question:
How far will we let it go?
Let me understand this: two men will be discussing how two men developed the current artificial intelligence scene and the titanic struggle taking place. Between US companies and between the US and China. (pause)
That’s certainly one way to look at it.
It seems odd that there’d be a ‘Canadian’ book launch, unless you consider this from my March 31, 2017 posting about the Vector Institute,
… Geoffrey Hinton, considered the “godfather” of deep learning for the breakthroughs he made while a professor at U of T, has worked for Google since 2013 in California and Toronto
I’m guessing Hinton might be one of Metz’s ‘genius makers’.
By the way, Hinton’s longest running academic association is with the University of Toronto (professor from 1987 – 98, 2001 – present).