In This Newsletter

• Introduction
• AI and Humanity: A Natural Connection
• Will We Miss a Critical Moment in AI?
• Demystifying AI: Lifting the Hood on Machine Learning
• Words From Our CEO
• Get Involved

Introduction

Even with the leap year, the shortest month was packed to the brim: podcasts, events, and new product features for the AI village!

Now, add our February newsletter to the mix. Immerse yourself as our AI deputies unpack the natural connection between AI and humanity, the timeless challenge of presenting emerging technologies, and the various AI applications.

Happy reading! 👓

About This Month’s Edition

Dr. Jesse Butler dissects the divisive views on AI and challenges the negative connotations with the term “artificial,” suggesting that AI is a product of human effort and creativity.

Uncover the timeless challenge of showcasing the potential of new technologies. Dive into the narrative of technological transformation and the quest to make AI’s potential accessible to all. Are we on the brink of missing AI’s transformative moment, or will we find the key to unlocking its universal appeal? Join Joanna Bloor in exploring the critical path from potential to tangible impact.

Kristen Marshall Talley continues her series as she explores AI in marketing, delving into AI applications like Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing.

About Our Contributors

With 20+ years experience educating people in philosophy, ethics, and critical thinking, Dr. Jesse Butler is a professor of philosophy at the University of Central Arkansas. Jesse specializes in the philosophy of mind and has published on a wide range of issues, including not only his core research on introspection and self-knowledge, but also applied work on research and healthcare ethics, artificial intelligence, and mental health. Jesse’s recent work focuses on the virtues of ecological self-understanding, with applications in environmental ethics and responsible use of technology. Jesse is also a US Fulbright Scholar and taught courses on American philosophy at Jinan University in Guangzhou, while also delivering lectures on cross-cultural understanding at multiple universities across China

Described as part Potentialist and part Fairy Godmother, Joanna Bloor is a veteran of playing with emerging technologies. An early team member at companies like Ticketmaster, OpenTable, and Pandora, Joanna was known for leading people, systems, and customers into new futures. A fateful conversation in 2016 refocused her attention on people. Today, she asks audiences and individuals why we focus on everything else’s future and not our own because Future You > Past you.

Working at Google, Microsoft, AWS, and Salesforce, Kristen Marshall Talley has decades of experience in the technology industry. Starting her career as a seller of text ads to companies like Expedia and LucasArts, she spent eight years living and working in Asia and Europe, building strategic programs to help small and large businesses make the most out of emerging technologies. Kristen currently runs her own consulting firm, Enablement Consult, specializing in Go-To-Market acceleration and M&A integration strategy.

Thought Leadership Corner

AI and Humanity: A Natural Connection

By Jesse Butler

Popular opinions on AI and its relationship to humanity are often dramatically divisive. For many, AI evokes sci-fi-fueled fears of inhuman machines taking over our world like an alien species, beyond our comprehension and control, while skeptics on the other side of the aisle laugh away the hype as a passing fad, dismissing AI as an illusory flash in the pan that only deceives us with the mere appearance of intelligence in glittery new forms. These dueling reactionary narratives shape our collective understanding of AI, polarizing debate between conflicting extremes, as though humanity faces a dilemma between a dystopian future of robotic overlords or jaded smug disdain for just another empty sales pitch, bedazzled with illusion. Might we find a more plausible way to understand the nature of AI and its growing connections to our lives, to gain some perspective beyond imaginative fear of the unknown and the dismissive self-righteousness of human exceptionalism?

Keep reading

Will We Miss a Critical Moment in AI?

By Joanna Bloor

I’d like you to travel back in time with me. I was a young, fresh salesperson for one of the early internet companies. For those who remember it, Citysearch.com. It was 1995. At the time, the commercial internet we know today was in its infancy. Google, Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon weren’t even ideas yet. Even in the then 9-year-old Mark Zuckerberg’s head. I was in Austin, a city with a whopping 30% of its inhabitants “dialing up” to “connect to the web.” AOL, Netscape, and Compaq were the darlings of the market.

As I knocked on businesses’ doors, asking decision-makers if they’d be interested in learning more about “building a page for their business on a website,” I learned some key lessons.

Keep reading

Demystifying AI: Lifting the Hood on Machine Learning

By Kristen Marshall Talley

Last month, I scratched the surface of how Artificial Intelligence is showing up in our collective psyche and how business leaders can think about their marketing strategies in a human-centric way. McKinsey defined AI as the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. An expansion of that definition is that AI creatively solves problems at a higher rate and with a higher degree of accuracy given the data set than humans.

Now, let’s explore the many ways that AI is used.

Keep reading

Words From Our CEO

Updates from Wendy Turner-Williams

Dear Members,

As we step into the heart of February, it’s with immense pride and gratitude that we reflect on the remarkable progress and achievements we’ve made together as a community. From new feature drops to captivating webinars and thought-provoking discussions, February has been nothing short of transformative for TheAssociation.

Keep reading

Get Involved

If you share our passion for shaping a future where AI serves humanity ethically and responsibly, we invite you to take action today.

• Register as a member of TheAssociation and join us in our mission to drive positive change in the world of AI
• Engage your peers in the Forum and follow and get to know one another
• Host a webinar or a topic by placing it on our Members calendar
• Suggest newsletter, webinar and podcast topics to contactus@theassociation.ai
• Socialize TheAssociation and advocate with your management, peers, colleagues, and networks

We are also looking for help in the following areas:

• Social Media Campaigns on X, YouTube and Discord
• A University Engagement Manager to help build University, and Student relationships.