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Video: Léonie Watson – There Is No Spoon
Léonie Watson has been part of beyond tellerrand for the third time and – once more – did deliver a brilliant talk. This time the talk revolved around AI tools and how they could be of help, but never full trusted.
Francesco Schwarz summarises in his blog post:
What Léonie really hammered home is that we can’t blindly trust these tools. It’s not enough to shrug and say “well, that’s just how it is.” Companies building this stuff need to be held accountable.
She brought up real-time audio descriptions, including a live breakdown of that same spoon-bending scene. Powerful! AI can play a role there. And even more so with static images. Léonie shared how she uses AI to describe (old) photos from her past. She doesn’t always want to keep asking friends for help as it can feel like she’s imposing. But with AI, she gets to explore those memories on her own terms.
A full transcript of the talk is available here.
There Is No Spoon
Generative AI can feel astonishingly real, but like the spoon in The Matrix, it is nothing more than an illusion—patterns of probability masquerading as truth. Just like Neo had to bend his mind to see beyond the illusion, we must recognise that AI does not understand, reason, or perceive reality; it just generates plausible facsimiles.
This talk will explore the relationship between humans and generative AI, particularly in the realm of accessibility, where accuracy, clarity, and real-world impact are critical. We’ll examine the risks and limitations, but also the extraordinary potent
More information about Léonie on her Speaker page
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