The keynote

Yesterday, I gave my first professional keynote, and by that I mean I made a 2-hour long presentation in front of a group of people who came to listen to me. I feel like a few precisions are required, though: it took place at a business school a friend of mine works at (that’s how I got involved: evidently, I don’t this everyday), and it was related to the actual work I — sometimes — do, more specifically an AI-related project I spent quite a bit of energy on a little while ago. To be clear, I’m not an AI expert (we’ll get to that later), but I’ve met people who are and worked on the topic, so I can talk about it, apparently for 2 hours.

Also, the presentation was given in French to an audience of Chinese businessmen. Right there, I hear you thinking “that doesn’t work”. And that’s because it doesn’t: I also had a translator with me who would do French to Chinese realtime translating. If you’ve never done it, it makes you feel ridiculously important, like someone’s job is to make what you say understandable in another language important. And that’s ridiculous. The upside is — it takes longer to present slides, meaning 2 hours go by faster.

As I got into the main hall of the school, 20 minutes before I was supposed to present, I stumbled upon another speaker I previously did a panel with, also on AI. The difference is — that’s his actual specialty.

Me: Hey man, what’s up?

Friend: Nothing much, getting prepared for a class…

Me: Wait, you teach now?

Friend: Yeah, first time, quite interesting…

Me: OK… Well, I’m about to give a speech.

Friend: Oh, to the Chinese group?

Me: You know about the Chinese group?

Friend: I talked to them last week.

Me: About AI?

Friend: Yup.

Me: What did you talk about?

Friend: Well, you know, how AI is made, with regression as a basis for machine learning… Also talked about a couple prototypes we’re currently working on, that kind of thing… You?

Me: Since you already covered that, I won’t go into the specifics…

And only for that reason.