Understanding Machine Learning

Machine Learning is rapidly changing the way we build applications and the kinds of capabilities our apps can have. Join us for this free event as Jen Looper explores the possibilities and limitations of machine learning and natural language processing.

Machine Learning for Poets: The eMiLy App

Can an AI generate believable poetry? Join me as we romp through venerable 19th century poetry to create the eMiLy app: a new way to experience the ethereal poetry of Emily Dickinson, rooted in the 1800s but renewed for 2019. In this talk, I’ll guide you through the creation of the eMiLy app, a mobile app designed to influence the user’s mood. Feeling sad? Take a selfie, and allow Azure cognitive services to choose a happy or sad poem to alter your mood. Or simply select a happy or sad poem, as determined by an AI’s natural language processing power, to allow yourself to feel better, or more grounded, by the power of Dickinson’s words. Or, discover how an AI can simulate Emily’s poetry, generating new poems before your eyes. It’s up to you to decide whether machine learning can enhance, or somehow tarnish, the great classics of the 19th century by the Belle of Amherst.

Jen Looper is a creative technologist and educator with over 25 years’ experience as a web and mobile developer and Developer Advocate at companies including Microsoft and AWS, specializing in creating cross-platform mobile and web apps and applied machine learning. A published author, Jen has written Computer Science for Kids, a textbook aligned to CSTA standards for grades 6-8, as well as The Illustrated AWS Cloud, both published by Wiley. She’s a multilingual multiculturalist with a passion for web technologies, applied machine learning and AI and discovering new things every day. With a PhD in medieval French literature, Jen’s area of focus is curriculum development and the application of sound pedagogy to technical topics. Visit Jen’s personal site at https://www.jenlooper.com.

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