September 23rd was National Learn to Code Day which was started by the Halifax based organization, Ladies Learning Code. This yearly tradition has grown massively since its inception in 2013. This year, from coast to coast to coast, workshops were held in significant Canadian cities to share and spread knowledge on AI and ML. Other than being four uppercase letters, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are two popular terms in Computer Science that have gained much attention in the past few years.
You are Intelligent! You are at a university reading The Ath and are able to understand and process it. Artificial Intelligence is a concept of making a machine that is no different than you. It’s just a set of algorithms (something like formulas in math) that have the ability to learn and reason just like us humans. Now how does AI learn? It’s given data! Just like you were taught A is for apple and B is for banana, an AI machine “learns” by having access to tons of data. Now, Machine Learning is a technique to achieve AI. It’s where the computer learns by itself. A machine is given a thousand pictures of cats and a thousand pictures of dogs and is asked to learn the difference between them. After this, if it is asked to categorize a million pictures of cats and dogs, it should do so with a certain level of accuracy!
On September 23rd, Wolfville had its own little workshop where 41 absolute beginners learned more about our world’s technological future. Thanks to Refresh Annapolis, WISE, JSoCS and Acadia Entrepreneurship Centre for their assistance.
For a better understanding of AI and ML, stay tuned for more articles!
