I was excited to finally be able to understand what is meant by the term DEEP LEARNING on Wednesday evening. Terrence Sejnowski gave the Merson lecture originally titled A DEEP DIVE INTO DEEP LEARNING which he cheekily changed to A DIP INTO DEEP DIVING while the slide was up on the screen. How merciful that decision to take a dip was - by the end of the lecture my head was swimming with information on the history of artificial intelligence, how we are currently using it and possibilities for the future.

Terry is a computational neuroscientist based in the US who is part of Barack Obama's BRAIN Initiative. He speaks quite quickly and you can't help but imagine it is an attempt to keep the large amount of knowledge he has from spilling out. To chart the progress of artificial intelligence Terry used the example of facial recognition - something that humans are usually very skilled at, due to the visual cortex taking up over half the brain processes. It has taken a combination of learnings from engineering and neuroscience to come up with the various algorithms for a computer to recognise faces effectively.

I would describe Deep Learning as the process of taking what we know about how the human brain works and applying it to computers. Some of the features that have progressed artificial intelligence from neuroscience have been:

networking
recurring learning
forming networks
classical conditioning
temporal difference learning
reward systems

You might notice these advances on Facebook where an algorithm can not only recognise a picture but also caption it with some degree of accuracy. The latest advance has computers detecting human microexpressions which potentially gives companies the power to know how we really feel about their offer. Rather than be creeped out by this Terry notes that every computers have seemingly outstripped us, we have the ability to learn from them and become more skillful in turn. He sites the democratisation of chess as a perfect example.

Emphasising that each improvement is due to our advancing knowledge of how the brain functions, Terry left us with a utopian vision of the future classroom. A class robot will record each individual students progress, then create a learning plan tailored to their own rate and style of learning. I hope to see this in action if grandchildren eventuate, what a great response to Eleanor Roosevelt's entreaty. "What we must learn to do is to create unbreakable bonds between the sciences and humanities."

Last week was unusually filled with cultural events. On Tuesday I went along to the QBI to hear the University of Queensland's inaugural Diversity Lecture. Minister Leeanne Enoch stepped up to the lectern to share the story of her two grandfathers. One black, one white - they both fought for their country in WWII and as soldiers were treated fairly equally. After the war, the picture was very different, the returned soldier benefits and re-training opportunities provided by the government were only available to the white grandfather. The black grandfather had the right to fight for his country, but not the right to vote in his country. It's always shameful to be reminded that as a society we could think any discrimination is acceptable.

Leeanne went on to talk about some advice from her grandmother, she cautioned her "you can walk amongst them and they'll never know" referring to Leeanne's light coloured skin. It took her many years to process this advice, her conclusion was that she would change it to “I will walk amongst you and you will know.” I loved this assertive response, it's a quietly powerful statement.

After the lecture there was a panel discussion about diversity with The Honourable Leeanne Enoch, Dr Sallyanne Atkinson, Professor Cindy Shannon and Professor Iain Watson. There were individual tales about their fight for inclusion and insightful statements about diversity.

Talking about her role at UQ, Cindy said their focus was "celebrating difference and celebrating the value that diversity brings." Iain hopes "to make diversity normal, not 'special'", he wants UQ to have a culture that is welcoming and safe. To this end UQ has a PLEASE EXPLAIN policy when there is a lack of diversity in applications for senior roles, especially given that femalesnow make up 52% of graduates.

To round off the evening Leeanne stressed the many benefits that many viewpoints can bring "diversity is an important part of a nation's success."