PyVideo.org - Emma Gordon

Keynote: Writing Code? Pfft... Evolve it Instead!

Emma Gordon — Wed, 23 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Description

We’re heading into a future of delivery drones, driverless cars and 3D-printed “hoverboards” …

With machines now able to perform many tasks better than humans, some people are going to be out of a job.

But not software developers, right?! Could a computer generate the code you currently write for a living?

In this talk, we’ll take a look at how technology is changing the work that people do, and think about the implications of that for our society. We'll then take a look at one of the many biologically inspired approaches to AI - Genetic Algorithms, and how they can be used to generate code given a description of the function that that code should perform, rather than having a software developer write it.

Spoiler - you’re probably not out of a job, yet…

Emma Gordon

Python Bee

Emma Gordon — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Description

Thought up in 2009 by a group of MIT students who entered the Python bee into a competition for “bad ideas”, a Python bee is like a spelling bee for programmers.

Instead of spelling words, participants are given functions to write and must spell them out loud - one character at a time, without looking at the code that they're writing! Players must spell valid Python and every character counts, including symbols and whitespace.

And the twist for the second round (credit for this one goes to dropboxblogs):

You're now allowed to look at the code, but... you must now team up with other programmers, entering alternate characters without being allowed to communicate via any other means.

In order for everyone to be able to have a go, we'll split up into small groups to play - for those that want to be competitive, we'll use a scoring system so that we can still declare an overall champion. You're very welcome to come along just to have fun though!

TL;DR - a fun hour of slightly ridiculous programming games :)

Writing code? Pfft... Evolve it instead!

Emma Gordon — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Description

We're heading into a future of delivery drones, driverless cars and 3D-printed "hoverboards" ...

With machines now able to perform many tasks better than humans, some people are going to be out of a job.

But not software developers, right?! Could a computer generate the code you currently write for a living?

In this talk, we'll take a look at one of the many biologically inspired approaches to AI - Genetic Algorithms, and how they can be used to generate code given a description of the function that that code should perform.

Spoiler - you're probably not out of a job, yet...

Introduction to Neural Networks

Emma Gordon — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Description

So, you keep hearing about neural networks. Perhaps you've even gone to a talk or two, but are still wondering exactly how a neural network works, what you'd use one for and how to get started. This talk has you covered.

We'll illustrate the basic concepts by walking through implementing a neural network from scratch in Python, and then move on to the powerful real world libraries you'd use in production.

This session is aimed at programmers of all experience levels who are newcomers to the subject of neural networks. If you're already using them as part of your work, there will likely be nothing new for you here.