Interview Jiří Materna

“I love talking about AI”

Jiří Materna is founder of Machine Learning Prague which will take place from 27 to 29 May 2022. Image: prg.ai

Jiří Materna is founder of Machine Learning Prague which will take place from 27 to 29 May 2022. Image: prg.ai

Jiří Materna is a machine learning expert and passionate about artificial intelligence. Over dinner at Vienna House Andel’s Prague, the founder of Machine Learning Prague explained why we shouldn’t fear artificial intelligence, how his conference started, and how Prague is becoming an AI Hub.

tw tagungswirtschaft: You organize Machine Learning Prague and your conference website says: “They’re among us. We are in the machine learning revolution age: Machines can learn. Incredibly fast. Faster than you. They are getting smarter and smarter every single day, changing the world we’re living in, our business and our life. The artificial intelligence revolution is here.” … Do we need to be afraid? Jiří Materna: No, definitely not. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are just tools. It is similar to the industrial revolution. People were afraid the new machines would take their jobs away, but it ultimately was beneficial to all. I think it is the same with artificial intelligence. This is a tool designated to help us solve difficult problems and it can help us accomplish tasks we consider boring. I wouldn't be afraid of artificial intelligence at all.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to natural intelligence displayed by humans. Leading AI textbooks define the field as the study of "intelligent agents": any system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of achieving its goals.

Machine learning (ML)

is the study of computer algorithms that can improve automatically through experience and by the use of data. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms build a model based on sample data, known as training data, in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to do so. Machine learning algorithms are used in a wide variety of applications, such as in medicine, email filtering and speech recognition. (Wikipedia)

Image by rawpixel.com

Artificial intelligence (AI)

is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to natural intelligence displayed by humans. Leading AI textbooks define the field as the study of "intelligent agents": any system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of achieving its goals.

Machine learning (ML)

is the study of computer algorithms that can improve automatically through experience and by the use of data. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms build a model based on sample data, known as training data, in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to do so. Machine learning algorithms are used in a wide variety of applications, such as in medicine, email filtering and speech recognition. (Wikipedia)

Image by rawpixel.com

Machine Learning Prague is about applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Could you give us a few examples of applications? For example, Google Translate is an application of machine learning. In fact, in the entire Google engine there are plenty of applications. Advertising, targeting is also based on machine learning. Machine learning is used in self-driving cars. It is found almost everywhere. So, machine learning is already part of our daily lives? Definitely. You just used face ID for your smartphone. This is another application of machine learning. Machine learning has nothing to do with physical machines, it is only software. It is a method of making computers learn something.

Who is Jiří Materna?

Jiří Materna is a machine learning expert with more than 15 years of experience with machine learning applications. He has a PHD in computer science and machine learning. After working seven years as head of the research department at Seznam.cz, he is now offering machine learning solutions and consulting as a freelancer. Materna is founder and co-organizer of Machine Learning Prague, Europe’s biggest conference on applications of machine learning, founder and lecturer at the Machine Learning College, a study program of machine learning engineering, and a technological mentor at StartupYard and AI Startup Incubator. His professional interests include machine learning, natural language processing, information retrieval, statistics and solving challenging computational

Who is Jiří Materna?

Jiří Materna is a machine learning expert with more than 15 years of experience with machine learning applications. He has a PHD in computer science and machine learning. After working seven years as head of the research department at Seznam.cz, he is now offering machine learning solutions and consulting as a freelancer. Materna is founder and co-organizer of Machine Learning Prague, Europe’s biggest conference on applications of machine learning, founder and lecturer at the Machine Learning College, a study program of machine learning engineering, and a technological mentor at StartupYard and AI Startup Incubator. His professional interests include machine learning, natural language processing, information retrieval, statistics and solving challenging computational

Why is Europe’s biggest conference on applications of machine learning being staged in Prague? Back in 2013, when the idea first came to my mind, there weren’t any conferences focussing on applications of machine learning. In those days, artificial intelligence and machine learning were not as commonplace as today. Obviously, this has changed a lot. It is partly due to the technical progress, there is presently a big hype about machine learning. Even people who aren’t technicians and who don’t know anything about computers are interested in artificial intelligence. Some applications are truly amazing, which makes people think further. And due to the pandemic, machine learning is growing exponentially. Back in 2013, what became of your idea? I don’t really remember at which conference I met Šárka Štrossová. At the time, she was with WebExpo and in charge of organizing a major conference on web technologies. I was introduced to Šárka and told her that I was thinking about establishing a conference on applications of machine learning. As I mentioned before, artificial intelligence and machine learning in those days were rather untried novelties, but Šárka said: That’s a good idea, let’s do it together! The two of you met for the first time and decided to set up a conference? Yes. I have a PHD in computer science and machine learning. I am an engineer, but I am not an event organizer. So I am not the person to start a conference, but when Šárka told me that my idea interested her, I seized the opportunity. After a few months of discussion, we started to work on this conference.

Machine Learning Prague is the biggest European conference on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and deep learning applications. Machine Learning Prague 2022 will take place from May 27 to 29, 2022. The main conference will take place in-person at La Fabrika and will be live-streamed, workshops will take place at CEVRO Institute.

Three years later you launched Machine Learning Prague 2016. How has the conference evolved since then? In 2016, we chose the Staropramen Brewery as venue and registered nearly 200 participants. It was a considerable success. For 2017, we rented the Lucerna Cinema, and in 2018 and 2019, we moved to a bigger venue: the Rudolfinum concert hall, home of the Czech Philharmonic. We had approximately 1,200 participants. The delegates came from around 40 countries all over the world – some even from as far away as Australia. But then the pandemic took over, and everything went sour. In March 2020, just one week before Machine Learning Prague was scheduled to open, restrictions were imposed and we had to cancel our conference. In 2021, we held Machine Learning Prague virtually with some 1,000 participants.

Machine Learning Prague 2019 was held at the at the Rudolfinum concert hall with 1,200 participants. Image: Machine Learning Prague

What are your plans for this year? Machine Learning Prague 2022 will be an in-person conference again. Main contents will be live-streamed only for those unable to attend. Due to Covid, we had to move Machine Learning Prague 2022 to May and the Rudolfinum concert hall is not available at that time. The main conference will take place at La Fabrika and our workshops will take held at the CEVRO Institute. We anticipate that people will still be afraid of Covid and we don’t know if travel restrictions will be still in effect. We expect only 500 participants mainly from Europe. About 30 delegates will travel here from the United States, Canada and Israel.

Why were you in favor of a cultural venue such as the Rudolfinum concert hall? This was Šárka’s choice and I liked it. It is a very attractive venue especially for people from the United States. They travel here and are simply awed by the beautiful historic setting, it's a fantastic experience. To give you an example: our last physical event took place at the Rudolfinum in 2019, which has an organ in the concert hall. We hired a musician who arranged an introductory composition for us. The conference started with an organ playing in the beautiful hall, and that really had everybody impressed! Is there a main theme for Machine Learning Prague 2022? No, we have a variety of topics and we are working on numerous interesting problems. One topic is explainability. This is a big issue especially with neural networks, an extraordinarily complex modus of machine learning. They are much better than humans in many applications, but the problem is they cannot explain why they arrive at a particular decision. For some applications, there is no need to explain the "why", for example in targeting, as it doesn’t really matter if you get an irrelevant ad, but for other applications it matters very much, for example self-driving cars.

“Machine learning has many applications, but for me, conferences are about meeting people and not about interaction with machines. There are many spheres where people won’t be replaced by machines.”

Jiří Materna, founder of Machine Learning Prague

The team of Machine Learning Prague consists of five people. You and your team members all have regular jobs and you organize the conference on top of all that. Why? Because I love it! I love talking about AI. Artificial Intelligence is my passion! I love to meet people who share this passion! This technology is very rich in prospects. I would like to see the Czech Republic as a center of innovative technologies and a place where intellectual capital is concentrated. One of our goals is to create an AI hub in Prague. With the Prague AI initiative “prg.ai”, we want to be a hub for artificial intelligence in Europe. Of course, there are other hubs such as Berlin and London. All capitals and cities with major universities have the potential to become such a hub. Currently, I am cooperating with prg.ai to bring artificial intelligence to high schools. We created material on teaching AI to students. This activity is sponsored by the City of Prague.

Transforming Prague into a significant European AI hub

Transforming Prague into a significant European AI hub is the main goal of the Prague AI initiative: prg.ai. It was founded in 2019 by academics from the Czech Technical University, Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, supported by the City of Prague. The initiative is connecting key players like the local AI scene, students, researchers, companies and the public and helping them to develop. It promotes the local ecosystem abroad and enlightens the public on the benefits and risks of artificial intelligence. The non-profit initiative strives for a prosperous innovation environment, contributing to Czech economic and social development.

Image: prg.ai

Can event planners in corporations and associations get in touch with the Prague AI community, for example, to find speakers? Absolutely, we are open for such interaction. The best platform for searching speakers is prg.ai. Will I find you in this listing? Yes (laughing). They don’t have a listing, but they will help you find the right speaker. This brings me to my last question: How can organizers use machine learning for conferences? Machine learning has many applications, but for me, conferences are about meeting people and not about interaction with machines. There are many spheres where people won’t be replaced by machines.

Kerstin Wünsch

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