Some lucky Summer of Tech students attended New Zealand's premier Artificial Intelligence Event in Auckland on 28 March. Here's a guest post from Marina Rufino from AI Day 2018:The A.I. day last week gathered companies that work with Artificial Intelligence in a wide range of markets: from artificial life using neural networks (Soul Machines) to more practical technological solutions intended to offer a better customer experience.Among the organisations that presented on A.I. Day, many of them referred to this new technology as an opportunity to eliminate the repetitive tasks, reduce icons, apps, keyboards and windows and free up the human from repetition and time wasting. Most speakers see the next step of A.I. taking over customer relations/experience for a more personalised customer service aiming for customer retention and behaviour prediction.Some speakers addressed concerns about machines stealing jobs from humans, saying this as untrue since A.I. will create new jobs that do not even exist today and will require humans to learn new skills. The biggest concern mentioned about A.I. is privacy and centralisation. The data that is collected to implement A.I. could be biased and used (shared) improperly. It is essential that users are more conscientious about their data and question if it is necessary to share the data they are requested to.Currently, a typical A.I. team is composed of data scientist, developers, testers and UX designers. If you are interested in any of these fields, here are some links and information about what A.I. can do:

• Translate conversations in real time: translate.it
  • Translate PowerPoint presentations, in case you are oversees attending an event.
  • Real time translation on skype.
• Must watch! Check out Pivothead SMART glasses for the visually impaired:

[embed]https://youtu.be/L7M9P1DQhN4[/embed]

• You can use chatbots like this for answering customers questions or guiding them where to find the answers: https://bot-chat.westpac.co.nz/
• Ohmio has autonomous vehicles operating at Christchurch airport. Autonomous cars vary from a range of 0 (not autonomous) to 5 (completely automated). You could say you own an autonomous car level 0!
• The Cacophony project is managing predators that are a threaten to New Zealand native birds via machine learning algorithms and thermal cameras.
• Netsafe is distracting spammers to waste their time and not attacking more victims. See presentation in the video below, and more info on https://www.rescam.org/

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPajqAJWiNA&feature=youtu.be%20[/embed]It was a great experience to hear about how A.I. is positively impacting New Zealand, understand better how data science is a key aspect of it and, learn more about other areas of artificial intelligence. Thank you Summer of Tech for this awesome opportunity!