Interactions with AI Agents and Data Security

For July's monthly meetup, we are back on the First Monday of the month at EPIC Innovation!

• 5:30-6pm - Drinks and networking
• 6-6:45 - Hazel Shanks on AI Agents & Time Horizons
• 6:45-7:30 - aimee whitcroft on AI Data & Ethics
• 7:30-8pm - Drinks and Open Q&A

AI Agents and Time Horizons - Hazel Shanks
What's an AI agent, exactly? And do they work? In this talk, Hazel will show you the new UX paradigm for working with AI. With the 'Claude Plays Pokemon' public experiment as the focus, you'll see simple agents built on general-purpose language models succeeding (and failing) at videogames for children.

Learn about Moravec's Paradox, METR's Time Horizons view of agent effectiveness, and the importance of tooling and frameworks. What should you do to make your agents succeed? And -- just how difficult *is* Pokemon Red, exactly?

Taking Agency of Canterbury's Future using Data and AI Ethics - aimee whitcroft
How can we leverage the value of data - through good data and AI governance, including ethics - to take agency over our future, and build a thriving Canterbury and beyond?

Learn how the current focus on GenAI is problematic across a broad range of environmental, social and economic axes, and how reframing and refocusing our attention and efforts could provide positive impacts across our systems, to build the futures we want.