AI for all

COEUR d’ALENE  — Daniel Black uses artificial intelligence for programming. Market research. Start-up planning. 

“Everything and anything,” he said.

Including what’s for dinner.

“I even use it to tell me what’s a good meal to make for the day,” he said.

AI was helping Black and about 15 AI practitioners at the fourth “Hackathon” on Friday at the Innovation Collective Den.

No, it’s not about trying to hack into secure sites and steal sensitive information or money. This is about creating, improving and solving with  little help from AI.

The goal of their eight-hour gathering is to come up with proposals, pitch them, and take them from an idea to a demo before the night’s end.

Before it’s over, members of the Machine Learners Club huddle around laptops and desk tops, talk about codes, confer with colleagues, call on AI and enjoy pizza.

There’s no money or prizes at stake. But sometimes, investors are paying attention and they have deep pockets and are often willing to back the unknown.

“A hackathon is specifically like nerds, heads down, working on their thing,” said Josh Freckleton, one of the hackathon participants. 

Hackers are out-of-the-box thinkers.

Their minds whirl through the night, pondering possibilities, bringing thoughts to life on the small screen.

One came up with AI-powered email sorting. Another was building an AI-powered filter to keep inappropriate music from the ears of his children. 

Another, looking for spiritual help, came up with a Christian AI chatbot. It can carry on conversations about the Bible, philosophy, faith, or depression.

People are even retraining and motivating AT chatbots to handle any number of tasks.

Freckleton said AI gets a bad rap from the likes of corporations, politicians and the media.

“They feel threatened by it,” he said.

He offered the scenario of a reporter at a small town weekly able to produce stories just as detailed and well-written as a reporter at a large daily by using AI.

“At the end of the day, it’s a tool. And if that tool is in the hands of productive people who want to create, which is most of us, the future is brilliant,” Freckleton said. “If that power is consolidated in the hands of a few who determine what you are allowed to do, what you’re allow to think, what you’re allowed to say, that’s not a bright future.”

Daniel Finley described the Coeur d’Alene Machine Learners Club as “a group for hobbyists, enthusiasts and professionals, but the depth of specialized AI knowledge in the group sometimes surprises long-time residents as well as recent transplants.”

Freckleton said at a hackathon, they will work individually or in small groups with some specializing in certain areas that compliment each other.

He told another hackathon story of a runner who used a GoPro and want to develop a way to quickly edit the footage to the more compelling scenes and remove the mundane parts.

Freckleton said the runner connected with someone who had something like what he was after. 

“There’s a lot of cross pollination,” he said. 

Freckleton is working on a program to make AI more simple and convenient for those who might not quite understand its applications and have no clue what “vectorization and retrieval of data” means.

That way, should those in power try to limit AI access, people can argue it’s helped with their business, their life or their faith in God.

“Right now, you have to have a certain level of competency to do this,” Freckleton  said. “I want to lower that bar so anybody can run AI, whatever AI they want.”

    Daniel Black focuses on his work during the "Hackathon" at the Innovation Collective Den on Friday.