November Meetup - AI Special

We are delighted to welcome you to our AI Special in person event in November!

Schedule

18:00--18:45h: Refreshments (Food served on first come first served basis)

18:45--18:50h: Welcome given by Leeds Data Science new AI assistant "JaaS" based on Azure Speech and Azure Open AI service

19:00--19:30h: Dylan Hayes on An introduction to Copilot Studio

Microsoft has consolidated many of it's AI capabilities under the Copilot banner. We'll take a look at the newly announced Copilot Studio, which offers a low code approach to building extending the Copilot platform. We'll take a look at the capabilities, and integration points, and compare how it fits in with other similar AI tooling in the Microsoft stack.

19:30--20:00h: Andrew Blance on Ignoring the Hype: Thinking Practically About AI

As new technologies develop, the expectations put upon them become more and more inflated. Nevertheless, this cannot last forever, and as these unrealistic promises reveal themselves as false, popular opinion nose-dives into disillusionment. This talk is all about AI, but in particular ChatGPT, the extremely popular chatbot from OpenAI. ChatGPT has been promised to revolutionise the world. Whether it is coding, education, research, art or writing, nothing is apparently safe from its reach. However, pragmatic reality will be different. Even in the 1960s, there were people who believed chatbots were sentient and would take their jobs. Getting hyped is fun, but it can be a distraction from the very real human consequences AI is having on the world. Let’s take a pragmatic look at AI, and what it is being used for in the world.

Bio for Dylan Hayes

Dylan Hayes is a Microsoft 365 Consultant working at Blacklight Software, a Microsoft Gold Partner in Wakefield near Leeds. He is also one of the organisers of the 'Microsoft 365 North' user group. He came to the information technology profession via an long and interesting road, which left him with an abiding passion for solving business problems with technology. Along the way he's worked with a lot of different technologies but right now is spending his days applying Microsoft platforms to customer challenges. When he's not at work he enjoys being outdoors, and running long distances across wild places.

Bio for Andrew Blance

Andrew Blance is an innovation consultant at Waterstons, an IT consultancy based in Durham. Here, he looks at how he can apply emerging technology like robot dogs or VR headsets or AI from start-ups, research groups, and universities to real-world problems. He has worked with clients to find innovative and exciting ways to use these tools, while still making sure the use case makes sense. Previously, he did his PhD research at Durham University, looking at how AI and quantum computing can be used to overcome challenges in particle physics. He runs the North East Databricks meetup, and has a comedy business podcast called Brains on the Outside.

Please contact the organisers if you would like to volunteer as a speaker for this or future events.

News and Announcements

Have a news item or announcement you'd like to make about upcoming data events or job opportunities in Leeds? Comment below or contact us directly and we'll do our best to circulate this information at the end of the session.