Recap from the Big Easy - AI to Inspiration

We're wrapping up the 2024 ACEC Annual Fall Conference in New Orleans. If you weren't able to make it, here's what you missed from the main stage.

AI Pioneer: The Future is NOW

As artificial intelligence continues to top lists of both concern and opportunity for the engineering industry, ACEC Fall Conference attendees had the opportunity this morning to hear directly from one of the world’s leading experts on the subject.

For more than a decade, Didem Un Ates has been at the forefront of the creation of generative AI. At the same time, she has been one of the industry’s most forceful and passionate voices in favor of the technology being used and applied responsibly.

Un Ates began her presentation with an overview of AI: what it is, how it came about, and how it continues to evolve. To explain AI at its most basic, she compared it to a newborn baby just learning to see, comprehend and understand the world around him. “It’s watching a baby learn what is an orange and what is an apple and learning to be able to tell the difference,” she said.

But artificial generative AI is a whole other ballgame, as algorithms become more intelligent and begin to mimic more closely human cognitive and creative ability. On the question of when – not WHETHER, but WHEN – generative AI will surpass humans, Un Ates said, “We used to say around 2040. I think it’s closer – more like a couple of years. That’s why there’s no way to go back.”

And it was that prediction that informed the second part of Un Ates presentation, which she said was the most important takeaway for attendees: preparing our workforce to navigate this changed AI-driven landscape. It’s a nearly universal oversight among businesses, said Un Ates. “Very few [companies] are doing something with talent, which to me is very scary.”

By 2030, it is expected that 30 percent of hours worked will be automated. The future will belong to those who learn to leverage AI, and who take advantage of that extra time to reskill and upskill. And that future, said Un Ates, is getting closer by the day. In many ways, it’s already here – and employers and firms alike must adapt.

“Blocking employees from AI is not a strategy for survival. Look at talent transformation,” she said, “and start with yourself.”

Lunchtime Life Lessons with Sebastian Terry

When he was 25 years old, Sebastian Terry was awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call that changed not only his life, but also spurred a movement that has changed countless other lives as well.

That phone call informing him of the sudden death of his closest childhood friend at the age of 24 created in Terry a grief so profound that he looked for something – anything – that would help ease his pain. From that grief came a list of 100 Things Terry wanted to do before he died: the Ultimate Bucket List.

Terry realized that while his late friend had lived a life full of purpose and absent regret, he could not say the same of his own life. Within this list were 100 tasks and experiences – some deeply personal, some silly – that he decided were for him the building blocks of a purposeful existence. From marrying a stranger in Las Vegas (pics or it didn’t happen – and he showed the pics) to helping deliver a stranger’s baby, from crashing the red carpet at the Cannes festival to helping a stranger in a wheelchair realize HIS dream of completing a marathon, Terry found an incredible sense of empowerment in stepping out of his comfort zone.

And in so doing, he also created a movement driven by purpose, connection, expression, and agency. In giving voice to our dreams, he said, we make them real. But what is most important is remembering that we don’t have to wait.

Terry told the story of a friend who was told in his 20s during a routine doctor’s appointment that he was dying of Stage 4 cancer. The man immediately asked himself what he wanted to do with the rest of his life and decided to embark on a global shopping spree. Armed with a wallet full of newly acquired credit cards, he began a whirlwind tour of high-end shops in some of the world’s most expensive cities. The punchline? The man recovered, is still very much alive – and still very much in debt. And Terry said he regrets nothing.

“He’s the best dressed guy everywhere he goes,” he said.

A Brilliant Future Written in the Stars

The first keynote speaker of the 2024 ACEC Fall Conference in New Orleans kicked off his presentation with a bang – literally.

Astrophysicist and former Space Science Education Lead Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi prefaced his remarks with a brief video on “extreme science” – experiments gone wrong that led to discoveries that ultimately would make life safer, easier, and just flat out more fun.

Oluseyi greeted the roomful of engineering professionals with, “Good morning, fellow nerds,” setting the stage for a 45-minute address that was equal parts inspirational and hilarious. He began with a metaphor about quantum physics, namely that initial conditions don’t define outcome. It’s widely accepted social science that economic and educational factors surrounding children determine their future prospects. But, Oluseyi declared, it’s not necessarily so.

Demography doesn’t always have to be destiny.

The brilliant, highly esteemed, internationally renowned scientist then began his life story. Raised in deep poverty, Oluseyi moved every year for a decade, each time to some of the most economically ravaged parts of the Deep South. By the time he landed in rural Mississippi, two sets of circumstances had converged. The first was that Oluseyi had become more deeply involved in his father’s “business,” about which he joked that his late parent would be “happy to know is now legal in 35 states.”

The second was that he “fell in love with nature.” Oluseyi joked that he was “born a nerd,” and that his love of books began at an early age. With no children’s books in the house, he voraciously consumed Alex Haley’s “Roots,” which further ignited his love of learning and sparked a realization that there was a bigger world than that which surrounded him.

The self-proclaimed “gangsta nerd,” continued to lead a double life – relaxing after a day spent packaging drugs by reading the entire collection of World Book encyclopedias. When he reached the letter “E,” that’s when life began to change. “I ran into this dude,” Oluseyi said, pointing to a photo on the screen. That “dude” was Albert Einstein, whose work inspired the 10-year-old Oluseyi to “master relativity.”

From that moment, a new trajectory was created, helped along by what he called “Hustle, Hope, and Help.” The first in his family to graduate high school, Oluseyi found himself at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. Homeless for his first two summers, he began working as a research assistant at the University of Georgia in Athens. Recognizing his brilliance, a series of mentors steered Oluseyi toward grad school. The kid from the worst high school in the poorest part of the poorest state in America was accepted to Stanford University.

Oluseyi closed his remarks by remembering those who helped him find his way, and shared that he continues to pay that forward with other disadvantaged young people. “When we help each other,” he said, “we can accomplish anything. There’s no telling what can happen.”