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• AI – Artificial Intelligence: Possibilities, Perils, and Peculiarities of a Powerful Technology

  • When
    14 Mar 2025
  •  
    12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
  • Location
    Willamette Heritage Center, Dye House 1313 Mill St SE, Salem, OR 97301

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  AI, artificial intelligence. While in 2025 “AI" garners prolific news, hopeful hype, dire warnings, and viral commentary -- and billions in investments for research and applications – this technology dates back to at least 1956. 

  
  

  “The term “artificial intelligence" [was] first coined in a workshop proposal titled "A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence,"3 submitted by John McCarthy of Dartmouth College, Marvin Minsky of Harvard University, Nathaniel Rochester from IBM and Claude Shannon from Bell Telephone Laboratories. . . The workshop, which took place a year later, in July and August 1956, is generally considered the official birthdate of the burgeoning field of AI.” -Tim Mucci, a Writer for IBM

  Fast-forward to November 2024, when Christopher Mims in his Wall Street Journal column Keywords, announced that “A Powerful AI Breakthrough is About to Transform the World” and that “The technology driving ChatGPT (an early demo was released Nov. 30, 2022) is capable of so much more.” (WSJ, Nov.16-17, 2024); on to a Feb.24.2025 front page headline in the Statesman Journal: “Legislators propose new laws around AI” -- and you see a phenomenon that is garnering increasing interest, excitement, and concern. 

  
  

  Speaker

  In this program, Dr. Calvin Deutschbein, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Willamette University, will introduce us to AI.  Calvin will define what it is (and isn’t) and provide a brief history of the development of AI.  Dr. Deutschbein will outline its capabilities and share examples of how this technology is being applied today.  Calvin will also discuss AI’s limitations, as well as actual and potential problems and challenges that it presents and may pose in the future. They will also share a basic demonstration of AI/ChatGPT. As with all Salem City Club programs, there will be time at the end of the presentation for Q & A with the presenter.

  
  

  Registration

  Members: Free

  Non-member: $10

  
  

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