LDNUG July 2025 with Rendle and David Whitney

We're back at Accurx in Shoreditch for our July meetup, with guest speakers Rendle and David Whitney. Doors 18:30, first talk starts 19:00 and we'll head to the pub at 21:00 to continue the conversation over drinks.

Rendle: How ChatGPT Happened

Almost as soon as we invented computers, we thought the day would soon come when they would eclipse human intelligence. People were working on this stuff in the 1950s; it's what LISP was invented for. Now, 70 years later, we have finally succeeded in building machines that can munge together petabytes of information and regurgitate it in probabilistic ways that resemble intelligence.

How did we get from there to here? What did we try along the way? Is it really a good idea? Did Rendle write this abstract themselves or did they use Claude Sonnet Opus 4? They'll never tell. But they'll try and answer the other questions.

Rendle is the CTO of XRAI Glass, where they make an app that provides closed captions on Augmented Reality glasses and other, less exciting, devices. Currently Rendle is trying to get transcription and translation models running on-device instead of in the cloud. In their spare time they wish they had more spare time, then they sleep. They recently learned to play bass so they could join tech parody band The Linebreakers.

David Whitney: Talk TBC

"happy to do something, don't know what yet, but can do the date" 🤣

David is the Director of Architecture for NewDay, and the founder of Electric Head Software. Focusing on iterative software delivery, developer mentoring and cultural change - mostly working with London-based organisations.

He speaks about software design, culture, and ethics in technology - rounded out by an assortment of talks about software that probably doesn't need to exist but makes the world a little more fun. David has previously served as the chief coding technical architect for JustGiving and helped market-leading organisations including JUST-EAT, Trainline and Vodafone improve their technical capabilities.

David is a Microsoft MVP, has been part of the OpenUK Honours list for open-source advocacy, and is a twice bestselling author of children's books about programming.

You can find his open-source projects on NuGet, npm and GitHub, follow him on Twitter @david_whitney, or check out his technical blog at http://www.davidwhitney.co.uk/Blog.

http://www.electricheadsoftware.com
http://www.davidwhitney.co.uk