‘The world as a computer’ Professional Networking Event

It was our pleasure to welcome back alumna Sophie Hackford, speaker at the Professional Networking evening on 16 October. As a technologist and futurist, Sophie spoke on the topic of ‘The world as a computer’.

The evening started with a drinks reception in the Benedict Building at St Helen’s, which allowed the audience of around 30 people to mingle, reminisce and connect with one another. The guests included parents, staff, a few students and of course many alumnae. There was much mixing of the generations, with the Old Girls alone spanning forty years, the youngest having left school in 2020 and the oldest in 1980.

After the refreshments, the attendees were treated to an extraordinarily insightful talk by professional speaker Sophie Hackford, who left St Helen’s in 1999. At the heart of her talk was the hypothesis that we are turning our world into one giant computer. We have already moved beyond simply wearing technology to aid us in our daily lives, such as smart watches, phones and AR-headsets, and into a new paradigm where the technology is wearing us. She discussed how in an AI-enabled future, where powerful microchips already exist in so many household devices, AI could take over our homes. Amongst the questions posed was, are we simply sleepwalking into a new world order where technology takes over from humans? On this computational planet, are we the co-pilot or the cargo, in other words, who is in charge? Indeed, what are the challenges and opportunities of the AI revolution which we are living through today?

Sophie went on to focus on one fascinating area of computing innovation, which may shape the future, that of digitising the natural world. Moving away from digitising only vision, which we have become very adept at, with so many devices having cameras, the computers of the future could begin to interpret all the senses, from smell and taste to sound. Computers which learn from the natural world by for example picking up unusual bird behaviours or whale noises, could become biological weather stations. They could alert us to impending tragedies in the natural world such as earthquakes or tsunamis. If computers learn to understand the natural world better than we humans ever could, they could help us to limit the damage caused by natural catastrophes, especially critical at a time of climate change.

The increasing role of robots in our world over the coming decades was another key thrust of Sophie’s talk. She spoke of an urgency to get better at robots, which go beyond human abilities. Whilst historically machines were measured against human skills, the challenge in the future will be to extend their ability far beyond those of humans. Sophie alluded to numerous examples where this was already a reality. Autonomous chemical and biological labs, which evaluate thousands of hypotheses at once is one example. The development of computers along the lines of human evolution to themselves evolve over time creates a new robotic paradigm. In time robots could develop beyond having vision to being able to fully utilise all their senses.

In summary, Sophie’s talk on an AI-enabled future was eye-opening and posed a range of ethical issues around the difficulties as well as the opportunities associated with this new technology. Will we cede power to computers, or will we successfully harness their power to amplify our humanity? Can man and machine work well in harmony for a better future? These were challenging but hugely important questions, and we thank Sophie for giving her time to enlighten us all a little through her excellent talk.

If you would like to listen to the talk, the link to the video can be found below.