After President, Annette Oborn opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, Program Host, Wendy Waskovich led us in a moment of silence.
Annette thanked Steve Dunton and Dave Renninger for getting us checked in this morning and welcomed our visitors: Denise and Eric Green, Laura Trevorrow and our speaker Dr. Lei Xu.
CELEBRATIONS:
Rotary Anniversary: Gail Moseley is observing 5 years as a Rotarian this week.
Wedding Anniversary: Wish happy 40th anniversary to Dave and Sandy Christman.
Drawing: Brad Ruth's table had the winning ticket but drew the 8 of diamonds, so the pot will continue to grow.
CONCERNS: Our thoughts are with Mary Dula who is having surgery today.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Selfie Challenge: Annie Hanson Hilaire announced that the recent Facebook contest was won by Maria Ferrara and Tina Gary! Congratulations to them.
Coffee Drive: Annette announced that the drive will continue through the end of the month. As of yesterday, 66 cans had been collected. You may bring your donations to the meeting, drop them off at the Oborns at 381 Silver Valley Blvd in Munroe Falls. Or, you can have Amazon make the delivery for you. The goal is 250 cans.
Board Meeting: Our Board will meet this Friday, January 12 at City Hall at 7:15a.m. Minutes of the November meeting are attached to these minutes.
Teacher Supply Closet: Thanks to the people who volunteered to deliver to the schools this morning. There were 70 orders so the supplies are really being used.
Fifth Wednesday: We will not meet the morning of January 31 but instead will see "Cher the Musical" at E,J, Thomas Hall in the evening. Tickets for the event are only $15. Gail Moseley needs to have reservations and money next week so that we can be seated together.
Membership Committee: Brad Ruth reported on the Membership Committee. Our recruiting event will be February 29 starting at 6:30 at the VFW Hall where there will be drinks, heavy appetizers, games and a video about our club created by Maria Ferrara. Fliers will go out to parents of Club Interact students. Members are encouraged to bring a prospective member. Watch for further details.
Golf Committee; Scott Miller reported that he has the agreement with Fox Den for our Golf Outing on June 14. He is pleased that they are keeping our rates the same as they were in 2023. If you are interested in being on the committee, please let Scott know with a text or call at: 234-788-7498.
Bulldog Bags: Items needed from us by February 7 are: Cereal cups, mini bags of pretzels, deodorant, 24 or 32 oz. pasta sauce, and a 1# box of pasta, 18 oz. grape or strawberry jelly. Bring your items to a meeting or drop them off in the lobby of City Hall or at the library.
PROGRAM: Program Host, Wendy Waskovich shared her first Rotary moment. When she attended Carolina Day School, they had an exchange student with them from Brazil. Later she went to Spain as an exchange student through the Ohio Erie Club. Now she is a translator by trade.
She introduced Dr. Lei Xu who is with the Computer Science Department at Kent State University as an Assistant Professor. He shared with us his viewpoint of AI Technology and why it is getting so much attention.
Dr. Xu began by talking with us about the Turing Test, which is a method of inquiry for determining whether or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being. Computers and humans work together to make this determination.
Today's AI uses DNN (Deep Neural Network) where a large number of neurons are maximized and minimized to simulate a human. They generally can do a good job of classifying pictures, generating audio and generating dialogue. It generally takes a lot of input to generate output.
He explored three main challenges: 1) The technical perspective.
We don't yet know how to fix it. 2) AI in healthcare. Who is responsible for AI decisions? 3) Ethics. Who or what decides what is a right or responsible decision?
In summary Dr. Xu said that we are still far away from real AI and that what we have today is a useful tool and not a competitor for people. He said that we may worry too much about this technology as we are still quite a ways from it taking over.
Annette closed the meeting by leading us in the Four-Way-Test.
DATES TO REMEMBER:
This evening 4:30-6:30 Foodbank volunteer time.
Friday, January 12, 7:15 a.m. Board Meeting at City Hall.
Wednesday, January 17, Morning Meeting at Bellacino's where our program will be "Lessons on the History of Stow", presented by Tammie Menke and Beth Daugherty.
Wednesday, January 31. No morning meeting but plan to attend "Cher the Musical" at E.J. Thomas. See above about tickets.
Wednesday, February 7, Bulldog Bag items due
Thursday, February 29, 6:30 in the evening at the VFW Hall will be a membership event to acquaint the community with our club.
Saturday, May 11, Heroes Day
Friday, June 14, Golf Outing at Fox Den
Submitted by Andy Denton
Andrea Denton
330-474-7265
330-414-1934