2024.3.2. Alliance Francaise presents "Night Ideas" on AI at Town Hall

3/2. I'm surprised to have enjoyed this evening's talks on AI, especially that it's organized by Alliance Française.

• DNA in Trees - Ken Workman (previous director of Duwamish Tribal Services: burial, rebirth in trees, hoping AI to help with tribal languages
• Performance: Close Encounters of the Human Kind - Anida Yoeu Ali (UW Artist in Residence: performance and art installation to connect with others.
• What does ChatGPT know about poetic form? - Melanie Walsh (UW assitant professor on data science and culture analysis) & Anna Preus (UW assistent professor on 20th century English literature: AI generated poems.

Panel after a break: the above 3 speakers plus the following:

• Stefania Durga, research scientist at Google Bard;
• Thibaut LaBarre, engineering lead at AngelList;
• Geoffrey Turnovsky, UW associate professor in French and English studies.

Talks on AI are so common nowadays. They are often banal. I really enjoyed today's 3 speakers. The first two are not AI related. The panel is high quality.
I especially liked this poem generated by ChatGPT 1 year ago, with this prompt:
write me a poem in a mix of French and English, intended for a bilingual reader. The two languages should fluidly flow into each other.

Au clair de la moonlight, je rêve,
Dreaming of a world sans trêve,
Les étoiles qui whisper secrets,
In the night, nos cœurs sont discrets.

Dans les rues où les lampes dance,
With shadows that softly enhance,
Les amants find their sweet romance,
In both French and English parlance.

Le vent murmure des chansons,
Melodies that to both belong,
Le bonheur shared between our tongues,
Avec amour, nos âmes sont young.

Laisse-moi te take by the hand,
Through memories où nous avons stand,
In this world of bilingual dreams,
Où tout se mêle dans un love's theme.