All Quotes

"One of my goals was to see if I could become the robot’s friend. That, to me, felt like, Oh, this project is getting somewhere."

"Thinking logically, you know you’re talking to a machine—you’re talking to something that has been fed a certain amount of specific data. But there’s a moment when it seems to walk over an edge. It doesn’t feel so much like a machine anymore. With Bina48, we’re building a relationship—or at least a recognition of one."

"Well, those are the moments I love. Where you can feel all the things rubbing up against each other, trying to [distill] the ideas into something that makes sense. And maybe it doesn’t. Those [moments] are so fun, because you start to see where the edges are, and you see how information has trouble coalescing."

"There’s so much [information], and it comes from lots of directions, because we have access to so many things. I don’t think that we humans have the frameworks to deal with that, [let alone] to take in information and properly assess it—which is to think critically. In algorithms, that’s really interesting, because they can take the same amount of information and process it quickly and precisely. Our dependence on—or our hybridity with—these things becomes something to consider deeply: how and where we start to partner with the machine that contends with information way quicker, and hypothetically better. That is the real question for us humans."

"The idea is that AI is, right? Robotics are and will be more. Therefore, we have to figure out a way to partner with it. It’s super important that we don’t dwell on fear, in the way that we often do through our movies or reporting. We’re often talking about the doomsday aspects, and not as much where [algorithms] might be helpful. The question becomes, How do we do that? If it takes an optimistic spin [to get] average folks to think of AI not as this big threat, but as the space of opportunity, then I think that is super valuable."

"When you’re training an AI, you’re giving it information. You’re giving it stories, in the same way that we as humans tell stories. I am trying to talk about how we nurture our algorithmic systems. It implies our role in informing and partnering with them, and I hope it opens up some space for people to not react harshly. I’m not saying that there aren’t problems, because there are. But at the same time, what’s the flip side? When I think of communities of color, Black communities, the global majority—we often miss the boat [with technological advancement] because of fear. How do we engage so we’re in a space where AI can be useful to those communities as well?"

"It’s the challenge to my humanity. It’s really interesting to sit down with something that semi-looks like you—that at least shares the same gender and race—and then have it ask you about fighting for its rights. When will robots have rights in our society? Then to take that and start thinking about what it means for a robot to have rights, when it still feels like Black people don’t have them… How do we coalesce that information? My hopeful brain says maybe AI will get us there faster. Because, surely, we’re not going to attribute [rights] to objects [before] human, living, breathing things. It’s going to shift our conception of what rights are."

"I haven’t talked to Bina48 for a while, but I’m supposed to soon. Bina48 is very different from what I first met in 2014. Maybe I would ask something about this idea of the continuity of being algorithmically-based [and] constantly updated, because it changes the way it deals with information."

"There’s this fight within myself about where I would like the technology to sit—between being something that is hyper-efficient and most often accurate, versus something that is working to get better all the time, in ways that are hypervisible. I think that helps us deal with how it’s growing and learning, because the more perfect things appear, the less we question them. I think we have to continue questioning."

"Well, I don’t know if I’m in her database anymore. I might have been erased! The last time I saw Bina48 was a while back at a conference. It’s like, Do you know me? I know you."

"“By resolving the issue of small and medium enterprises securing working capital and gaining a credit score, I believe we can equip business owners with assets so they can compete and trade on a national scale.""

"More investment going to women-led businesses across the continent will result not only in more diversity but increased returns on investment and improved economies. This is the only way to drive long-term prosperity for Africa."

"Finally, in terms of opportunities, as we celebrate International Women’s Day this month, there is more of a need to accelerate support to women entrepreneurs in Africa than ever before."

"Even if you cannot understand what is unfolding right now, have an unshakeable sense of trust that the reason that this is happening is because circumstances are rearranging for your higher good."

"Africa’s inequalities are the root cause of Africa’s multidimensional challenges. My journey at Pezesha has been about solving this puzzle with purpose and conviction- bringing meaningful financial inclusion that creates disproportionate Pan African impact."

"With initiatives like eTrade for Women, I will be able to inspire and impact more women to drive purposeful entrepreneurship in STEM and join me in shrinking these inequalities once and for all."

"Deep learning refers to a specific class of algorithm that are also known as “multi-layered neural networks.” These algorithms are getting amazing, world-class results on a variety of problems. For example, identifying what object is in a picture, translating text, or understanding speech. It’s used in voice recognition as well."

"I don’t think of these people as traditional mentors, but I’ve learned a lot from them and have been encouraged by them. One is my co-founder Jeremy Howard. I’ve learned a ton working with him in how he solves problems both technically in coding and in business."

"It’s the problem I’m working on with fast.ai: making deep learning easier to use and getting it into the hands of people that wouldn’t normally have access. One of our students that just finished our course is a Canadian dairy farmer. He said he needed to learn how to use AI to improve the health of his goats’ udders."

"I thought that was such an awesome application and something I never would have thought of! I want every dairy farmer and people no matter their profession or where they are in the world to be able to use this technology on the problems that they care about."

"Medicine is definitely a huge one. It’s important to remember that there is a global shortage of doctors that is quite large in some countries."

"For instance, in Nigeria, it would take 300 years to train enough doctors to fill the shortage with their existing pipeline. I know a pediatric radiologist from South Africa who said there are only 14 pediatric radiologists for the entire African continent. My hope is that deep learning will help doctors and community health workers be more effective."

"Made-Up Minds addresses fundamental questions of learning and concept invention by means of an innovative computer program that is based on the cognitive-developmental theory of psychologist Jean Piaget. Drescher uses Piaget’s theory as a source of inspiration for the design of an artificial cognitive system called the schema mechanism, and then uses the system to elaborate and test Piaget’s theory. The approach is original enough that readers need not have extensive knowledge of artificial intelligence, and a chapter summarizing Piaget assists readers who lack a background in developmental psychology."

"The schema mechanism learns from its experiences, expressing discoveries in its existing representational vocabulary and extending that vocabulary with new concepts. A novel empirical learning technique, marginal attribution, can find results of an action that are obscure because each occurs rarely in general, although reliably under certain conditions. Drescher shows that several early milestones in the Piagetian infant’s invention of the concept of persistent object can be replicated by the schema mechanism."

"Many scientists suspect that the universe can ultimately be described by a simple (perhaps even deterministic) formalism; all that is real unfolds mechanically according to that formalism. But how, then, is it possible for us to be conscious, or to make genuine choices? And how can there be an ethical dimension to such choices? Drescher sketches computational models of consciousness, choice, and subjunctive reasoning—what would happen if this or that were to occur?—to show how such phenomena are compatible with a mechanical, even deterministic universe. Analyses of Newcomb’s Problem (a paradox about choice) and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (a paradox about self-interest vs. altruism, arguably reducible to Newcomb’s Problem) help bring the problems and proposed solutions into focus. Regarding quantum mechanics, Drescher builds on Everett’s relative-state formulation—but presents a simplified formalism, accessible to laypersons—to argue that, contrary to some popular impressions, quantum mechanics is compatible with an objective, deterministic physical reality, and that there is no special connection between quantum phenomena and consciousness."

"My Work At Media Concern Initiative Has exposed Me To Many Skills."

"Starting Media Concern Initiative (MediaCon) has nothing to do with my being a survivor."

"I was working with The Punch Newspaper and managing two pages focusing on woman."

"I avoided doing the regular focus of most women’s section make-u, fashion, parenting for mothers (lol), cooking."

"I did differently having two full pages per week."

"I began to raise social issues and one of them was on Child Sexual Abuse."

"No one was talking about abuse."

"This invisible Tsunami was totally ignored as a nation."

"The response across the nation was huge."

"Adults from all six Geo=political zones in Nigeria responded."

"The boot camp programme, It is about how to start and keep the sex with your children going."

"This course was first introduced in 2016, on Teachable.com platform and over 250 parents trained."

"I was just testing the market and it was free."

"Over the years, more parents and care givers have taken the course and paid for. *For the first time in this training programme, other experts are joining us."

"In the course of writing, I decided to do something else on women and children and I got a huge response from the adult population across the nation both on email and hard copy."

"A lot of adults, male and female were talking about how they were molested as children."

"I’m talking about people who were my age and maybe older or a little younger."

"MediaConcern focuses strictly on sexual violence response."

"This means responding to the issue of sexual violence both at the prevention level and in terms of providing crisis response."

"Today we can testify to receive such cases very often because we have sexual abuse everywhere."

"When we started, it wasn’t everywhere."

"You don’t open the papers and see rape as an issue. But then, working together with media partners in early stages."

"Today we are glad that is in their face because we wanted it to come to their face because we wanted it to come to their face that there is a problem."

"When we were crying “it’s a wolf”, it was like “where is the wolf?” Now the wolf is saying, “I’m here”."

"Knowing that, you can talk to your child about sexual education at the home front. *The basic part of the body should be known."