“AI Talks” is a new series from the Huntsville Business Journal on Artificial Intelligence and its applicability to the world of business. Each month, HBJ plans on bringing you interesting topics led by our new contributing expert writer, Carl Holden.

This series will also introduce another new “writer” to our journal: Artificial Intelligence itself. Using Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT), we plan on bringing our readers an “article” written directly by AI.

While AI cannot currently write a news article with fully original sources, this series hopefully will introduce our readers to the nuances of Artificial Intelligence in the modern age of business. The first article in this series is written from our contributing expert writer, Carl Holden. One the next page, you can find an article using ChatGPT.

Exploring the Future: Huntsville Gears Up for the 2024 AI Symposium at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center

As locals of Huntsville, AL, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center holds a special place in our hearts and minds. Almost 25 years ago, fifth-grader Carl was running around Space Camp in a dopey blue flight suit, amazed and enthralled with space travel. Since then, my family and I have brought almost any visitor we’ve had to tour the museum.

Some residents may not know that Space Camp has evolved into five distinct programs, each tailored to different aspects of space and technology: Space Camp, Aviation Challenge, Space Camp Robotics, U.S. Cyber Camp, and Space Camp Institute. This diversity reflects the Center’s dedication to fostering STEM education and its pivotal role in inspiring the next generation of explorers and innovators.

The latest addition to this educational legacy is the Space Camp Institute, focusing on adult learners. This new venture offers unique team-building and certification programs, underlining the Center’s commitment to lifelong learning and exploration.

“The U.S. Space & Rocket Center has always been a launchpad for human exploration,” says Dr. Kimberly Robinson, CEO and Executive Director. “This AI Symposium is the perfect introduction to the Space Camp Institute, our new home for professional and corporate programming and lifelong learning.”

The 4-day event promises an immersive experience with a meticulously crafted curriculum. Attendees will engage with local and industry leaders in thought-provoking discussions about the future of AI, its impact on various sectors, and its real-world applications.

Artificial Intelligence represents a new frontier in human exploration. The evolution from Chat GPT3 of November 2022 to the much-anticipated Chat GPT5 exemplifies the rapid advancements in this field. Almost every week in 2023 had some kind of AI announcement and billions of dollars have been invested. These AI models, with their ever-improving ability to mimic human thought and creativity, challenge our understanding of intelligence as a species.

I’m excited to be on the list of speakers at this conference. My speech is titled “The TRUST Framework: Ethically Integrating AI Into Your Organization” and is based on a book I’ll be releasing soon. I’m humbled to be speaking alongside an incredible list of professionals such as AI lab directors, CEOs, professors, scientists, and entrepreneurs. It’s going to be full of incredible information and essential to our communities adoption and success within this exploding technology.

The Space and Rocket Center is partnering with local tech company, RippleWorx. RippleWorx offers a myriad of technologies in the HR space that tackle tough problems like retention, burnout, turnover, and training deficiencies. AI is critical to their data aggregation, and like many other companies, increasingly important every single day.

I was able to ask Dr. Larry Lowe, Chief Scientist and a speaker at the Symposium, a few questions on AI. His contribution is a speaker-led activity titled “Practicum- Prompt Engineering” where he will delve into the practical use of large language models.

Why is AI important to you?

“Generative AI is our generation’s zero to one technology revolution. It took OpenAI 2 months to reach 100M unique users with ChatGPT. The iPhone took 3.6 years and Facebook took 4.7 years to achieve that same user-base level. This is clearly a revolutionary technology that has the potential to accelerate human flourishing, and, equally, has the potential to accelerate human separation. It is imperative that we humans engage with this new technology to ensure we shape it into useful tools that align with a net positive beneficial future for all of us.”

What ways do you see AI uniquely benefiting us?

“People are finding new ways to leverage these tools daily. We are literally digital pioneers exploring a new application landscape… Individually, these tools are accelerating creation, but real change comes from linking these generative tools, and other AI/ML tools, together in workflows. We are barely in the first inning on the transformations that are coming. Truly exciting times!”

Who might benefit from this conference?

“Everyone. Individuals working with language, Image and video tools at home or with their small business, corporate leaders wanting to create workflows, non-technical folks that might be concerned with the story lines they are seeing in their media streams… Everyone needs to be knowledgeable on the incredible benefits, and the incredible risks associated with these tools.”

The AI Symposium at the Space Camp Institute invites participants to explore these themes. It’s an opportunity to understand how AI can be beneficial in the present while contemplating its future implications. The symposium offers a rare chance to dive into the realms of AI and space exploration, bridging the gap between theoretical concepts and their practical applications.

I can’t say that as a nerdy fifth grader learning about multi-stage rockets in 1998 that I would have imagined speaking about AI here over two decades later. So much of this technology gives me a similar feeling as space gave me back then- expanding, unexplored, and full of possibilities.

Certain tickets are still available on their website at www.rocketcenter.com/institute/register. I hope to see you there!