Machines Thinking, Particles Synching: The Future Called—It Wants Its Tech Back!

From McCulloch and Pitts’ 1943 model of brain cells to the rise of ChatGPT, giving machines a brain has been a decades-long journey. Their simple neuron model sparked the idea of intelligent machines. But progress had its ups and downs, stalling through several AI winters. During these quiet periods, a key breakthrough emerged: the backpropagation algorithm. Then, in 2011, advances in computing power and data finally unleashed the full potential of artificial intelligence. In this talk, discover how 80 years of science led to machines that can talk back—and sometimes sound almost human.

In 1665, Christian Huygens watched two pendulum clocks fall into sync—now, nearly 400 years later, we’re seeing the same phenomenon in the quantum world. Quantum particles can spontaneously synchronize, not despite random fluctuations (or noise), but because of them! In this talk, we’ll explore how this surprising effect could help us build better quantum computers and more secure communication networks. Come along for a pint and discover how randomness might be the secret sauce of tomorrow’s quantum technology!