Computing Society Visits Jesus College, Cambridge

On Monday 18th March the Computing Society took a trip to beautiful Jesus College, Cambridge to participate in a lecture by Dr Ulrich Schneider, University Reader in Many-body Physics, and Fellow & Director of Studies, Jesus College.

The talk was held at the College’s West Court Lecture Theatre and proved insightful for the students, and gave good background to what quantum computers are versus their counterpart classical computers. These novel machines which fully harness the ‘weirdness’ of quantum mechanics are supposed to soon outperform all classical computers and change the world! What was particularly interesting though, was when Dr Schneider spoke about what quantum computers could open up for us in the future and specifically how RSA encryption could be broken in a matter of seconds versus the thousands of years that is presently required to break encryption. Dr Schneider also spoke about the time that is needed before quantum computers become part of our everyday life, and how perhaps one day they could be incorporated into devices we carry around every day and although that’s not currently possible as the technology has yet to develop – it could quite easily become a reality in the future.

After a Q&A with Dr Schneider, we walked into Cambridge city centre where we purchased a meal at a local burger restaurant and our discussions continued – where might quantum computers lead us? What are the realistic prospects of quantum computers?

We thank the Cambridge University Science Festival for hosting and running this fascinating lecture, we feel fortunate to have secured tickets and listen to the eye-opening address by Dr Schneider.

Computing Society see Prof. Brian Cox

Students come face-to-face with AI.

Students within The Computing Society have just enjoyed their first outreach trip; we all travelled to London to see a Royal Society production of a lecture ‘You and AI’. The evening took place at the Barbican Hall and was presented by Professor Brian Cox. This unique presentation invited the audience to consider and question what challenges and opportunities AI (artificial intelligence) will present us within the next decade. The event brought together a panel of experts of AI who answered questions sent in by the audience which proved to be both interesting and insightful with some very thought provoking issues being raised – plus plenty of real world examples to illustrate how and what the changes are that AI is bringing and may bring – to our lives.

One example given was by Vivienne Ming, who quoted a recent event that took place at Columbia University where there was a competition between human lawyers and their artificial counterparts in which both read a series of non-disclosure agreements with deliberate loopholes in them. The AI found 95% of the loopholes, and the humans just 88%. However, the interesting aspect was that the human took 90 minutes to read and find them, whilst the AI took just 22 seconds! This indicates perfectly just how AI will cause labour market disruption, not just for factory jobs, but also for brain workers.

During the train journey home, we found ourselves discussing many of the topics raised in the lecture and it was interesting to compare opinions and thoughts with one another and whether we agreed with the Barbican panel. One thing is for sure, our world will see rapid technological change in the next 20 years and AI is here to stay. Thank you to all Year 13 Computer Scientists who went on the trip and entered into the spirit of the lecture.

Inaugural speaker, former student Ben Biggs, presented a session on AI to the Computing Society.

We were very pleased to welcome our inaugural speaker, former student Ben Biggs, who visited TBSHS and presented a session to enthusiastic students in the Computing Society.

Ben spoke about his work relating to tracking and reconstruction using artificial intelligence, with particular attention towards deriving 3D-shape and pose from animals and humans. He also showed off the new Microsoft Hololens, allowing some students to experience their first taste of augmented reality, which was an extraordinary experience. The work Ben is doing for Microsoft is incredibly exciting and it will be interesting to see if Ben’s developing projects become a part of every-day life in the future.

The Society thanks Ben for his time and trouble, especially as he’s so busy. The presentation worked well as a dry run for the International Computer Vision Conference in Perth, Australia where he flies on Friday. Ben will be addressing 2,000 people at the conference – let’s hope they ask as interesting questions as the Society!