Explainable AI (XAI)

Market Hunt

English - June 17, 2021 15:41 - 52 minutes - 47.7 MB
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Machines are replacing humans to program software, using deep learning to tackle some of the world's most pressing issues. This automation could turbocharge every industry. But in order to trust it, we need to understand how it works. On this episode of Market Hunt, we chat with Sheldon Fernandez, CEO of DarwinAI.

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Questions or feedback on our episode? Get in touch with show host Thierry Harris: [email protected]

Episode Research Question:

To what fields could you apply artificial intelligence to and how would you go about commercializing it?

Write to us at [email protected] and we'll post some of your answers on our website page.

Guest bio: Sheldon Fernandez

Sheldon Fernandez is the CEO of DarwinAI. He is a seasoned executive and respected thought leader in the technical and enterprise communities. Throughout his career, he has applied emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence to the enterprise. First, in his capacity as CTO at Infusion, the company he founded out of Waterloo with five partners that grew to 700 people. Then subsequently, at Avanade, the organization that acquired Infusion in March of 2017. Now, Sheldon is the CEO at DarwinAI, the explainable AI company that enables enterprises to build AI they can trust. Since 2017 DarwinAI’s solutions have been leveraged in a variety of enterprise contexts, including in advanced manufacturing and industrial automation. Within healthcare, DarwinAI’s technology resulted in the development of Covid-Net, an open source system to diagnose Covid-19 via chest x-rays.

Alongside his work as CEO at DarwinAI, Sheldon is also an accomplished author and speaker. He has spoken at numerous conferences in numerous contexts, including Singularity University and MIT technology conference, and has written technical books and articles on many topics. Through his career, Sheldon has coupled his entrepreneurial endeavors with non-technical pursuits, resulting in an interdisciplinary approach that is critical to the intelligent application of AI. In addition to his BASc in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, he completed a Master’s degree in theology at the University of Toronto with thesis work in neuroscience and metaethics and also pursued creative writing at Oxford University.

Episode Links:

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Explainable AI (XAI)

Explainable AI

Deep learning

Explainable AI - How system reaches its decisions

Deep learning Market Potential

Computer Military history

Computer Consumer history

Windows Application software

Microsoft AI news

Google as a utility - Ohio Case

Universal Income

Ontario Basic Income pilot project

Roadblocks to AI adoption

Data Bias

AI gender bias

AI ethnicities bias

AI sexual orientation bias

Covid impact on economic inequality

US capitol insurrection

Impact of misinformation

Canada universal broadband fund (UBF)

Growing Canada’s Innovation Economy

Innovation Economy Council Report #1 - IP a symptom, not a cause for Canada’s failure to scale

Innovation Economy Council Report #2 - Beyond Patents

DarwinAI

Gensynth Platform

Covid-Net

DarwinAI focus - manufacturing

DarwinAI focus - healthcare

Alexander Wong - Canada Research Chair in AI

Sheldon Fernandez Further reading

Sheldon Fernandez on AI Explainability

Sheldon Fernandez on Deep Learning

Sheldon Fernandez NVIDIA Pitch for DarwinAI

Sheldon Fernandez on GO game

Article on ethics: Volunteer work in Kenya

Article on technology’s butterfly effect and advice for would be entrepreneurs

Article on the significance of AlphaGo experiment and artificial consciousness

Book: The promise of Artificial Intelligence, Brain Cantwell Smith

A very informative and captivating read on second wave AI. The final paragraph gives a sense of its philosophical flavor:

Where does that leave us? We should be humbled by [second wave] AI’s inadequacy, given the depth of the insights on which it was based. We should be cautious about the successes of second-wave AI, mindful of its limitations and restrictions. But mostly we should stand in awe of the capacity of the human mind, and of the achievements of human culture, in having developed registrational strategies, governing norms, ontological commitments, and epistemic practices that allow us to comprehend and go to bat for the world as the world.

Companies / Institutions / People discussed

Avanade

Cogiscan

University of Waterloo

CVPR Europe

Creative Destruction Lab Toronto