User:CKoerner (WMF)/Notes from Strange Loop 2017

Strange Loop

At the tail end of September I attended a yearly tech and community conference called Strange Loop. Hosted in my hometown of St. Louis, MO USA the event was an opportunity to learn about emergent trends in the technology field. Topics were spread wide, from new programming languages, the intersection of art and technology, security, and programatic work to leverage technology for positive social change.

There were nine - yes NINE - tracks throughout the day, meaning any review will be woefully incomplete, this one especially. Out of all the sessions I attended the general theme I walked away from the conference with was, "Machines. Are they real?".

Not an overly useful one-line summary. :) In earnest, this theme touches on the importance of using technology like machine learning and supportive programatic resources to create technology that amplifies the abilities off all people.

Prior to attending I had heard great acclaim for the event. Looking at past, and even current, schedules gave me pause to attend. Many of the sessions appeared to lean heavily into seemingly purely technical presentations that appear to be beyond my own kownlelge and interests. However, as emphasized this year by the organizers, the sessions were very diverse and approachable. The first session I attended was titled, "The Biological Path Toward Strong AI" (video) and the presenter basically gave a "Neuroscience 101" session covering how the neurons in our brains work and how we might be able to programmatically understand how the coding works to generate artificial intelligence. While a topic I had personal curiosity toward I was prepared for a deeply academic approach to the subject, but was pleasantly surprised by how much I understood and the skill in the presenter in approaching the subject without assuming prior knowledge.

General organizational notes
Duty officer registration orange shirt

First keynote was run on English Wikipedia data

Having the talks in two venues, each nearly 3 city blocks away from one another and with only 20 minutes between each was a little, "Eh, maybe I'll just stay here and settle for a different talk".

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/38.6288592,-90.2094884/38.6282275,-90.2016608/@38.6286753,-90.2076184,17z/data=!4m2!4m1!3e2

Do note, there were busses running between each location, but at 3 blocks still seemed a little weird.

Sessions I sat in:

Friday

10:10 - The Biological Path Towards Strong AI - POH Midland States Bank Community manager - matt 11:10 - THIS CRUISE SHIP CAN FLY - US Regency C 1pm - "It Me": Under the Hood of Web Authentication - POH Theatre 2pm Narriated Reality 3:10 - EXPERIMENTAL CREATIVE WRITING WITH THE VECTORIZED WORD 4:10 - THE FUTURE IS NOW

Saturday

10:10 - MORIEL - US Regency C 11:10 - ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE-LAND - US Regency C 2pm - HOW TO PLAY WITH DEEP SPACE DATA - US Grand EF	Data.nasa.gov 3:10 - KEY TO THE CITY: WRITING CODE TO INDUCE SOCIAL CHANGE

People I want to connect with further:

Nadia (keynote) carnage Mellon colleague did some research

Love to have them talk to wmf about her presentation

https://www.fordfoundation.org/library/reports-and-studies/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/

http://themaintainers.org/blog/

https://hypatia.ca/2016/06/21/no-more-rock-stars/ less rockstars more revolutionaries

Lexiconjecture

https://github.com/strangeloop/StrangeLoop2017/tree/master/slides

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zoa3xkzgFk&list=PLcGKfGEEONaDzd0Hkn2f1talsTu1HLDYu

https://open.spotify.com/user/puredanger/playlist/32m01FMYGGCtF6IzLgxkGv

Sessions I wanted to see, but did not:

THE TRUTH ABOUT MENTORING MINORITIES TUNING ELASTICSEARCH FOR ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PRECISION or DEATH OF THE TRUSTED INTERNET Kevin Shekleton - video game security