For the past three years, the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center (MMAC) has brought experts in to share their cutting-edge information with an open audience during MMAC Tech Talks. Topics have included: energy conservation, electric propulsion in aviation, unmanned systems research, and integrating drones into our airspace to name a few. The most recent Tech Talk brought in experts on Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), who reinforced the Center’s goal of building the foundation of safety today for tomorrow’s technologies.

Generative AI is reinventing the way we perform work, and two representatives from Deloitte Consulting LLP revealed specific examples of that with the MMAC Tech Talks audience on November 1st, 2023. The Aeronautical Center was proud to present Ms. Genevieve Oudar and Michael Isman, who gave a very informative presentation.

Ms. Genevieve Oudar, Managing Director from Deloitte Consulting LLP is a leader in the company’s Strategy and Analytics practice. She has over 20 years of experience in program management, full life-cycle system development, data management and analytics, and program transformation. She has led multiple teams to successfully deliver systems implementation and integration services across various industries spanning higher education, commercial, and federal clients. She recently began managing a portfolio of AI and analytics projects addressing infrastructure grants management, rail safety, mobility, and international affairs mission requirements.

Michael Isman, another Managing Director from Deloitte Consulting LLP is Deloitte’s Lead Client Service Partner for the Federal Transportation Market, serving the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, Amtrak, and other federal transportation organizations. He is also a senior leader in the firm’s Strategy & Analytics Offering Portfolio and Innovation Group: Deloitte Catalyst. Mr. Isman was one of the founding partners of the Deloitte Catalyst program for their U.S. Member Firm and currently leads their Government and Public Services Innovation/Catalyst program. He is a senior leader with over 30 years of experience in the public sector and financial services markets. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies, federal agencies across the Government, and the Emerging Technology/Startup Ecosystem.

Together, they delivered an overview of artificial intelligence, what the arrival of this technology has meant to our society, and how we are using it. They explored the different organizations that are applying generative artificial intelligence and ways that we, individually, can build upon our knowledge of this technology.

Generative AI can provide businesses with new opportunities to improve their products and services, automate repetitive tasks, and create new and innovative customer experiences, much like Robotic Process Automation that is already in use with the Enterprise Services Center.

Artificial Intelligence is powered by foundation models such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 and NVIDIA’s Megatron, which are trained on vast amounts of data to understand human communication and natural language. The Civil Aerospace Medical Institute also uses voice communication AI with their recent Pilot Reports (PIREPs) research endeavors.

The capabilities of AI are limitless and always improving. It can be used to help correct grammar or write documents automatically (using OpenAI’s ChatGPT). It can also generate imagery based on prompts like, "a bowl of soup that is a portal to another dimension as digital art," using OpenAI’s DALL-E2. With Google’s program "Dreamix", AI can create a unique video for you, of a teddy bear painting a portrait, or one can even generate computer code using OpenAI’s Codex.

Some interesting statistics from Salesforce.com’s Generative AI Snapshot Research series reveal that in surveying 4,000 people who work across IT, marketing, sales, and service, these were some interesting indicators:

• 73% of the adults surveyed from India are using generative AI.
• 65% of the generative AI users are Millennials or Gen Z’ers
• Half of the workers surveyed (54%) worry that generative AI outputs are inaccurate, and 59% fear that the outputs are biased.
• Nearly 2 in 3 respondents (65%) said they can’t justify implementing generative AI yet. Some of the barriers they cite include security threats, lack of skills, and generative AI can’t integrate with w/their business yet.

Whether we are reluctant to use Artificial Intelligence or not, it is already here. Thanks to the MMAC Tech Talks, as employees, we learned a bit more about it, allowing us to decide what level of engagement with want with AI. Together, we’ll continue to explore this new frontier.