Meet the Speaker — Alley Lyles-Jenkins
3 min readSep 28, 2022
Alley Lyles-Jenkins is a Principal, Product Innovation at Slalom Consulting. Her session at the WITS Fall 2022 Virtual Summit is AI’s Half Life in eSports.
- Why is speaking at WITS important to you? WITS events have been enjoyable for me as a speaker and attendee. I filled my schedule with panels related to technology’s business and technical aspects. I appreciate that the programming is diverse in its approach to the topics covered under the Tech umbrella.
- What or who inspires you?
- What inspires me: The advancements associated with DALL*E, the AI system that creates realistic images and art from natural language descriptions, are astounding. There are implications for content, advertising, and investment opportunities. Dall*E’s ease of use and scalability question how we approach content creation and dissemination. For example, “Why spend $100,000 on a single television commercial targeting millions of people when, with the same budget, an advertiser will create 10,000 different commercials, each tuned to a cluster of like-minded viewers at the moment?”
- Who Inspires Me: My seven-year-old niece (Sophia), and her sense of wonder, inspire me. She enjoys putting bugs from the backyard under a microscope; she’s propelled to learn.
- Most useful article you’ve read in the last month: Pew Research Center’s “Experts Doubt Ethical AI Design Will Be Broadly Adopted as the Norm Within a Decade”
I’d read the article to prepare for a recent talk I gave on Ethical AI/ML. AI/ML is an exciting technology that still leaves me feeling cautiously optimistic sometimes. I cheer on advancements in healthcare and business; simultaneously, I worry about the accountability associated with a self-driving car speeding away from a police car (referencing a video that went viral two months previously).
We’re in a predicament where technology outpaces law. It will be interesting to see how businesses navigate the technical and ethical challenges.
- When you were a kid what was your dream job? I wanted to be a lawyer. I am not sure why. I’m glad I did not become a lawyer because it doesn’t suit my personality.
- Tell us something about your session: My session will briefly review how AI is helping to train elite eSports teams worldwide — and mention AI’s shortcomings. Because AI requires fast decision-making, agility, and skill, AI can never replace a human being. We’ll talk about AI’s shortcomings in gaming.
- What other sessions or speakers are you most excited to see? I am excited to support my fellow UX-ers Lauren Giacobbo “Setting a Collaborative vision — UX, Dev and Product: Brainstorm facilitation and analysis” and Katie Gatto’s “UX Writing: Creating Effective Microcopy.” Also, I am excited to build on my blockchain skills with Kate Baucherel’s “Blockchain and crypto explained in thirty minutes” talk.
