On 23 November I hosted an informal on-line get-together to give people the opportunity to meet some of their fellow Club members. To ensure that we got conversation flowing, I picked the theme of artificial intelligence (AI) as a talking point–not just the threat it poses, but the opportunities it presents. I broke the proceedings up a little by having some breakout discussion in groups of three, which hopefully gave everybody a better chance of participating actively, and chucked in a live poll as well: I asked the ten members present whether they had used AI. Five had not even experimented with it, two had done, and three had used it actively (as have I). However, the active users had only used AI in their day job rather than for cartooning or illustration work.
It was all a bit of an experiment and the first time we have brought members together in this way (apart from the Annual General Meeting) so inevitably there were teething problems. A small handful of members had not registered in advance and were therefore unable to get in, and I suspect that two had misspelled their email addresses and therefore did not receive their joining instructions. We were pleased that a member from Kansas was able to attend, and this shows that even as a social club we need not be shy about accepting overseas applicants.
Towards the end of the meeting some of those present realised there was scope for them to meet face-to-face in Scotland, which was very gratifying as we’re a social club and proper get-togethers are an important part of what we should be doing.
It is highly likely that we’ll mount a similar on-line social at 7pm on 25 January (not the 18th as originally proposed: that clashed with a get-together in Southampton). Pop that date in your diary if you are a member
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