Meet Omoju Miller: Data guru, AI hopeful & Pluralsight LIVE speaker
We couldn’t be more excited to hear from Omoju Miller at Pluralsight LIVE this year. Senior Machine Learning Data Scientist at Github, Omoju has over 10 years of experience in computational intelligence and is a current member of the World Economic Forum Expert Network in AI. But her impressive accolades aren’t the only thing that caught our eye. Read our Q&A with Omoju to see why she’s a perfect fit for the Pluralsight LIVE stage.
What was the primary experience that led you to become a computer scientist?
Omoju Miller: As a teenager, I discovered the internet and was mesmerized by the future it would create. This discovery was back in the late 90s when the internet was in its infancy. The most significant thing that stood out to me was the fact that the internet enabled access to knowledge on-demand. Further, I intrinsically understood that this was a paradigm shift. As such, we get to recreate the world in a digital environment.
Why is artificial intelligence compelling to you?
OM: AI is compelling to me because it is the latest artifact of our quest to understand the metaphysical. My discovery of the internet pulled me into the Computer Science major, but it was artificial intelligence and cognitive science where I found the reason to stay. From what I know about the beginnings of human life, we have always tried to understand the nature of creation, carefully writing down rules and equations that help us know what we know from what we don’t. AI is the ongoing quest to understand life.
Pop culture often portrays a dystopian view of artificial intelligence. Conversely, what is one way you see AI improving the human condition in the next 100 years?
OM: You are correct; often when AI is in pop culture, it usually ends in tears and pain. Instead of the dystopian future of that AI is supposedly bringing to the world, I believe that our AI future is going to create something altogether different. Scientists like myself are spending our time inventing systems that work synergistically with humans. The 17 significant challenges of the world, per the United Nations sustainable development goals, challenges around eradicating poverty, getting down to zero global hunger, achieving global health and well-being, education, gender equality and so forth, are not going to be solved by complete automation.
As long as there are humans on earth, with all of our nuances, social and cultural structures, it is going to be near impossible for a completely autonomous solution to solve our problems. For example, Silicon Valley and the more extensive San Francisco Bay Area suffers intensely from homelessness. Every night in San Francisco, an average of 7,500 people go to bed without shelter. This social problem is happening at the epicenter of technology, in the same city where we are inventing autonomous vehicles, and yet we are unable to automate our way out of it. No bot is going to cure homelessness. Instead, technology can play a role in supporting humans in navigating the multi-dimensional search space where the solutions to these kinds of problems might exist; with the key word being might.
One of the most impactful solutions to a lot of the difficulties we humans and our planet face is the education of girls. I know, I know, it is not the sexy solution you were waiting on. But trust me, it is impactful. Don’t take my word for it, do your research. Moving forward with the assumption that solving the education challenge is a worthwhile pursuit, this is an area where I can see artificial intelligence shining and improving our human condition. As AI progresses, we will start seeing better and better assistive technologies that support all kinds of learning, from the classroom to the playground, to work and on.
What recent machine learning project (at Github or elsewhere) has excited you the most?
OM: The most recent application of machine learning that has excited me the most is a prototype application of computer vision to the area of makeup. For me, this is opening a whole new area of personalized experiences assisted by machine learning. Personalization is not novel when you use a service like Netflix; you are using a recommendation engine. It helps you decide on what to watch. For example, when I travel and land in a completely foreign environment, I can rest assured that through apps like Foursquare and Swarm, I can find restaurants that I would find to my liking. These are uses of AI that impact our experience of the world, however, what I am talking about is different. Now, AI literally has the power to help refine experiences that go on the body; experiences that can potentially transform how we present ourselves.
Why do you feel it’s so important to oppose the myth of “innate ability” in the tech industry?
OM: Chiefly because it is untrue and it stands in the way of expanding the industry. We need everyone who might be interested in technology as a career path to get access to it. Human beings are creative, and I want to see their creations. Right now we are limited in the kinds of innovation that are coming to market because we pull from a limited pool. When we expand that pool, we allow the boundaries of innovation to expand.
Catch Omoju’s session on building data products at GitHub at Pluralsight LIVE 2018. Register today.
