AI and Society

Come to check out our hackerspace, talk to people and learn some new things, maybe use the tools for a short while, or just sit down with a laptop and do some work in a quiet place. Also a good time to sign up for a membership! We will have tea and coffee, likely also cookies. Come whenever from 19:00 till 22:00 - we might even be open until 24:00! If there's a problem (i.e. doors not open), call 28701072.

## Riga Philosophy Discussion Meetup Welcome to an open philosophy discussion group for curious minds, thoughtful conversation, and respectful debate. After traveling the world for the past few years as a digital nomad, I’ve noticed that nearly every major city has a philosophy discussion group — a place where people from different backgrounds gather to exchange ideas, challenge assumptions, and explore life’s bigger questions together. This meetup is an opportunity to create that kind of space here as well. The purpose of this group is not to “win” arguments or prove others wrong, but to think deeply, listen carefully, and enjoy meaningful conversation. Whether you are new to philosophy or have studied it for years, everyone is welcome. **Topics may include:** * *Ethics and morality* * *Consciousness and free will* * *Meaning and purpose* * *Technology and society* * *Politics and human nature* * *Happiness and suffering* * *Logic, reason, and belief* * *Artificial intelligence and the future* * *Classic philosophical ideas and modern dilemmas* For our first meetup, we will begin by proposing several discussion topics. The group can then vote, and by majority we will explore whichever topic generates the most interest. Possible first discussion topics: * *Are humans naturally good or selfish?* * *Can happiness be the highest goal?* * *Ethics of artificial intelligence* * *Is ignorance bliss?* * *Should emotions guide decisions?* The format will be informal, open, and conversational. Everyone is encouraged to participate, ask questions, and share perspectives respectfully. If the first meetup goes well, the plan is to make this a weekly gathering. **Simply look for the table with the Latvian flag on it when you enter.** *Note: The conversation and all discussion will solely be in English.*

Every Thursday we go to play Bingo at the Top club. We enjoy the evening, test our luck. Sometimes we also get gifts. Come play with us. Let's have a drink and talk together. **free** event . . Katru ceturtdienu mēs ejam spēlēt Bingo klubā Top. Izbaudām vakaru, pārbaudām savu veiksmi. Dažreiz mēs arī saņemam dāvanas. Nāc spēlēt ar mums. Kopā iedzersim un parunāsim. **bezmaksas** pasākums

Wednesday is karaoke day. Every Wednesday we gather to sing. Come with a friend or alone, with or without a voice. The format is simple: show up, grab a microphone, and sing whatever you want. Or don't sing, just support others. As usual, the meeting place is Top Club. If you haven't been before, you can get to know the space at the same time. We're looking forward to seeing you this Wednesday. See you there! Trešdiena ir karaoke diena. Katru trešdienu mēs pulcējamies dziedāt. Nāc ar draugu vai viens, ar balsi vai bez. Formāts ir vienkāršs: nāc, paņem mikrofonu un dziedi, ko vien vēlies. Vai arī nedzied, vienkārši atbalsti citus. Kā parasti, tikšanās vieta ir Top klubs. Ja iepriekš neesi tur bijis, vari vienlaikus iepazīties ar vietu. Gaidīsim ciemos šajā trešdienā. Tiekamies tur!

Come and meet people in Riga! **New venue:** for the June 5 event I reserved a table at Tallinas Kvartals Ezitis Migla. If the weather is warm, we can be outside, if cold, we can be inside. * **When:** First Friday of each month, this time the 5th of June, 2026, at 7pm * **Ending:** while the duration is announced to be 2 hours, the party usually lasts longer * **Where:** The June 5 event will be held at **Tallinas Kvartals Ezitis Migla** * Prices: the event itself is free of charge, but please get a drink or a meal at the bar. Age limit: 18 and older. Photos of participants might be taken at the event and posted publicly to social media, including but not limited to [meetup.com.](http://meetup.com.) By joining the event, you accept this condition. Please join the event here (meetup.com is free for regular users) or contact us if you have any questions. Event communication will take place within [meetup.com.](http://meetup.com.) Please check for posts and messages regularly. Hope to see you soon. *Photo: [Sandra Q. on Trip Advisor](https://www.tripadvisor.fr/Restaurant_Review-g274967-d21225446-Reviews-Tallinas_Ielas_Kvartals-Riga_Riga_Region.html#/media/21225446/?type=ALL_INCLUDING_RESTRICTED&albumid=101&category=101)*

**Are you interested in photography, creativity, or simply seeing Riga from a fresh perspective?** **We invite you to join our Color Hunting Workshop on June 4 at 2:00 PM in Old Town, Riga!** **During this interactive photography walk, we'll explore the city through colors, patterns, and details that often go unnoticed. Together, we'll challenge ourselves to look at familiar places differently, experiment with creative perspectives, and capture unique moments through our lenses.** **📅 Date: June 4** **🕑 Time: 2:00 PM** **📍 Meeting Point: Old Town, Riga** **No professional camera is needed — your phone is enough! The most important thing is your curiosity and willingness to explore.** **Whether you're passionate about photography or simply looking for a creative way to spend your afternoon, this workshop is for you.** **🔗 Registration link: https://forms.gle/gWqqetkY4fNsbVDeA** **We look forward to discovering the colors of Riga together!** **——————** **📸 Color Hunting Fotodarbnīca (aizpildi formu)** **Kas notiktu, ja mēs uz brīdi palēninātu ikdienas skrējienu un sāktu pamanīt krāsas, kas slēpjas mums apkārt pilsētā?** **Pievienojies radošai foto pastaigai pa Rīgas ielām, kur kopā meklēsim interesantas krāsu kombinācijas, skatīsimies uz pilsētu no dažādām perspektīvām, iemūžināsim detaļas, kuras ikdienā bieži nepamanām, un pārvērtīsim parastus mirkļus mākslā.** **🗓️ 4. jūnijs** **🕑 14:00** **📍 Tikšanās vieta: Vecrīga** **Šī darbnīca ir lieliska iespēja attīstīt savas fotografēšanas prasmes, trenēt aci pamanīt skaistumu mazās lietās un izpaust savu radošumu caur fotogrāfiju — neatkarīgi no tā, vai izmanto kameru vai telefonu.** **🔗https://forms.gle/5XSn6P2S7kqM7p2T6** **Nāc ar ziņkāri, radošumu un vēlmi ieraudzīt Rīgu citādāk ✨** *******Organizē jauniešu organizācija KAŅIERIS (Kaņiera iela 15, Rīga)**

A weekly meetup for language lovers! Come practice new languages, meet great people, and enjoy a drink — whether it’s beer, tea, or coffee. Everyone’s welcome! 🤗 Address - Aldaru Street 9, FOB Bar

NFT's are here to stay folks! This is a group for like minded people interested in understanding, leveraging, using, creating for, profiting from, trading too i suppose, NFT's.. everything around them, complexity, fear and exploits, best practices and more. **PLUS** This group will talk AI ART tools, techniques, artists, video, audio, prototypes and more in the AI assisted production space- ART specifically, but we can get into any aspect of some of the cooler things happening in AI in general.

This is an in-person meeting. At this meeting you will get answers to depression and anxiety. Find out the source of them and how to get rid of them. Did you know that unwanted emotions like anxiety, depression, unhappiness, loneliness, hopelessness, anger, fear, or feelings of irritation don’t just fall on you for no reason. They are not random occurrences that simply happen to people's minds. They are definitely not due to a chemical imbalance in your brain from some nebulous chemical reaction "by chance". Your negative emotions are the symptoms of the painful experiences that you have which are not healed, and which are still affecting you. The effects of these painful experiences are exacerbated by the pressures or difficulties of the other problems in your life. Come to our Meetup, where we can introduce you to some of the knowledge, tools and techniques of the breakthroughs in the field of the mind that we can apply to this ever important area of life. Be sure to click on the red "Attend" button below to come to this local event. We look forward to seeing you there. This group is created by the Hubbard Dianetics Foundation of Central Ohio and Church of Scientology of Central Ohio.

QA or the Highway is a one-day, affordable, regional, professional conference featuring real-world experience and thought leadership in the QA and testing industry. This is a ticketed event please register here: https://www.qaorthehwy.com/ Featured Keynote Speakers: **Matthew-Hope Eland** **(Wizard at Leading EDJE)** \- An AI Specialist and Wizard at Leading EDJE who is known to teach software engineering\, AI\, and data science concepts in the most ridiculous ways possible\. Matt has used machine learning to settle debates over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie\, reinforcement learning to drive the behavior of digital squirrels\, data analytics to suggest improvements to his favorite TV show\, and AI agents to play board games and create an AI agent with the personality of a dog\. Matt is the author of "Data Science in \.NET with Polyglot Notebooks" and "Refactoring with C\#" as well as several LinkedIn Learning courses\. Matt helps organize the Central Ohio \.NET Developer Group\, runs several blogs and a YouTube channel\, has a Master’s of Science in Data Analytics\, and is a current Microsoft MVP in AI and \.NET\. **Tatyana Arbouzova** **(CEO at Innovate QA)** \- Tatyana Arbouzova is an engineering and business leader with a strong background in Quality Engineering across multiple industries\, including Big Tech\, Healthcare\, and Entertainment\. She has held leadership roles at world\-class companies such as Microsoft\, VMware\, Disney\, and The Pokémon Company International\, where she focused on building quality\-driven cultures and scaling teams to deliver high\-impact products\. With decades of experience\, Tatyana has helped organizations transform their quality practices so teams can deliver software efficiently\, confidently\, and with measurable business outcomes\. Today\, Tatyana advises software companies on adopting AI to optimize quality practices and improve how software is delivered at scale\. She is also a passionate community builder and the founder of Innovate QA\, a thriving Seattle\-based community and conference for quality professionals\.

Most people still use AI like a search box: type one question, get one answer, repeat. But the next step is AI agents: systems that can take a goal, break it into steps, use tools, remember context, and produce useful work for a human to review. In this beginner-friendly session, we’ll demystify what AI agents actually are — without hype or jargon. We’ll walk through practical examples of how agents can help with research, planning, writing, coding, operations, and personal productivity. We’ll cover: * What makes an AI “agent” instead of just a chatbot * How agents break tasks into steps * Where agents are genuinely useful today * Where they fail, hallucinate, or need human review * How to design simple AI workflows for your own work * A live demo of an AI agent-style workflow from start to finish No coding experience required. This is for anyone who wants to understand where AI tools are going and how to use them more effectively right now. LOGISTICS AND PARKING: The talk starts at 7:00 PM. The first half hour is reserved for everyone to get set up and mingle. Free pizza and drinks! The cheapest parking option is to find street parking, which will only cost you a few bucks. Otherwise, park in the nearby veteran's museum lot for $8. It's highly recommended you avoid the nearby $15 garage parking.

I have been studying the question of "self" online with Prof. Ellie Anderson and so I thought a prompt on the "self" might be interesting. Full confession: I had Claude create this prompt and I like it, so here goes: Imagine a thought experiment that merges two classic puzzles: > You undergo a procedure, performed neuron by neuron, in which every biological component of your brain is replaced with a functionally identical synthetic substitute. At each step, your behavior, memories, and personality remain unchanged. When the last neuron is swapped, is the consciousness experiencing the world still you? And — more pressingly — was there ever a continuous "you" to begin with? ### Questions to Wrestle With * If consciousness is purely physical, does the *gradual* nature of the replacement matter, or is it equivalent to being destroyed and rebuilt? * Could there be a "self" without continuity of experience — even moment to moment, while you sleep? On a more practical level, consider the simpler case first: **hemispherectomy** patients — people who have had an entire cerebral hemisphere surgically removed — often retain a strong sense of personal identity and continuity. This suggests "you" are not rigidly tied to specific physical material. But does that vindicate the synthetic neuron case, or merely show that identity is more *flexible* than we thought — not that it can survive *complete* substrate replacement? I used Claude so I could get this out today and let everyone have some time to consider it. Hope to see you at the Oracle. Sorry about the location change two weeks ago. That's what I get for trusting local weather predictions!

**Not everyone will come. That is exactly why you should.** **Two for Tuesdays** is for the people who actually want to get out and do something instead of just talking about it. We’re kicking off the night with a one-hour social walk before Duckpin Social. **Expect a laid-back** But an Intentional 1 hour walk (2-3 miles), good people, and a better way to spend your Tuesday than staying home and doing the same thing you always do. **If the weather does not cooperate, we’ll move indoors.** **This is a paid event.** A small contribution helps keeps events sustainable and ensures those **who RSVP actually show up.** Payment **Link Found in comments** or you can pay on Venmo, Paypal, @WiseUnlimitedLLC or Cashapp $WiseUnlimitedLLC. Walk RSVP **$2** Walk / DuckPin Social **$5** Walk / DuckPin Social + 1 game of duckpin **$12** Please be sure **to Put Event and Event Date** in the note when paying RSVP Fee

## 🤝 Host Information A co-hosted event by ProductTank Columbus & Women in Product Columbus 💡 About the Workshop AI adoption is stalling across organizations — not because of a lack of motivation or tools, but because it's fundamentally a behavior design challenge. This hands-on workshop applies proven Behavior Design models and methods to help you move from a vague organizational wish to boost AI adoption to 3-5 concrete, testable interventions you can act on starting tomorrow. Whether you're a product manager, on a product team, or just someone trying to get AI to actually stick at work, you'll leave with a clear picture of what's worth focusing on, what to ignore, and how to drive real, sustained adoption — no guesswork required. 🛠️ What to Bring Laptop: Fully charged and ready to go. AI Assistant: Have your favorite AI assistant pulled up. (Dom will be using Claude, but feel free to use whichever assistant you prefer!) 🍕 Logistics & Perks Food & Drink: Pizza and drinks provided! Parking: Plenty of free spaces available on-site. ###