Exiting on a High Note

by Adam Gellert

Okoboji recently held their very own TEDx talk, a first for the area, at the Pearson Lakes Art Center. Several locals put together talks to showcase topics that were important or interesting to them. Some of the topics were water quality, the merits of taking the “hard way” (having “grit”), and water quality.

Local schools had speakers for the event as well. High school student Karima Rostom spoke about difficulties she faced in school as a non-native English speaker. Administrators from Okoboji and Spencer high schools also spoke about the benefits of school cooperation to give students a better education experience. One other speaker came right from Iowa lakes.

Kevin Grems, head of the web and game development programs at Iowa lakes, chose artificial intelligence as his subject. His “Artificial Un-intelligence” gave a detailed view on the state of AI, from someone with experience in the area. His talk was meant to inform people who may not know much about the subject beyond online articles filled with buzz-words claiming that AI is becoming hyper-advanced, and computers will rise up and rule humanity sooner than we think.

“People just need to be aware that it’s not as far along as it seems,” Grems said. “We’re still quite a ways off from fully automatic cars, and Skynet’s not going to take anyone’s job for quite a while.”

In his talk, Grems laid out how AI is actually programmed and explained why reliance on AI, especially for self-driving cars, is still a far off goal. One of the big reasons for this is the fact that there is still a programmer “behind the wheel” of the AI, even if only in the initial coding. Some problems that could arise from this is human error in coding, which could lead to all sorts of malfunctions. Another example is possible bias on the part of the programmer. If a self-driving car has to crash and the car has to choose between two people to hit, how does it make that choice?

The talk wasn’t necessarily a condemnation of the expanding use of AI, it was just informing the public that there’s still a lot of work to do before it’s ready.

According to Grems, the biggest hurdle to overcome while preparing for his talk was committing the whole talk to memory, a new thing for him.

“Memorizing something is not a good way to teach,” Grems said. “It’s not how I’ve taught for the last eight years I’ve been at Iowa Lakes. I’ve always been pretty informal, and just had a rough outline of what I want to talk about and let the class ebb and flow based on the students’ needs. This was eight to ten minutes purely scripted, each word is carefully chosen for maximum impact. To commit all that to memory, I haven’t had to do that for about a decade. In marching band we had to memorize music, but that was more physical, while this was more mental, so it was really different.”

Like some of the other speakers, Grems went to a kind of “dark place” in the beginning of the memorization process. He repeated his talk several times a day, spending his commute reciting his talk to no one.

By the time of the talk he was comfortable with his speech. Grems says he spent the morning in his own corner listening to Angels & Airwaves to get pumped up. He was also glad to be the second speaker of the event, so that his nerves couldn’t build up to the point of being unbearable.

His talk went without issue, and Grems was satisfied. There were some audio issues with following speakers however, something that Grems joked he may have accidentally cursed them with.

“I was the guy up there telling everybody how technology sucks, and then on the next talk, the audio failed. I feel like I might have cursed it a little bit,” he said with a laugh.

The Iowa Lakes Technology Club also had members at the event running an exhibit showing off their virtual reality headset. Attendees had the opportunity between talks to use the VR headset and controllers to paint in a 3D space using Tilt Brush. At each break there was a steady flow of people sampling the VR. Grems, the faculty sponsor of the club, was pleased with how the exhibit went.

“I didn’t really see any downtime there, and they were using Tilt Brush, which is perfect for an art gallery,” Grems said. “They did a good job and I couldn’t be more proud.”

There were several tech club members running the exhibit, making sure to get as many people trying the VR that wanted to. Club member Ganon Ferneau was in charge of teaching attendees about the use of the VR controls.

“It was fun being at the event,” Ferneau said. “Since our booth was only open between talks we got to watch all of the speakers, which was nice. The booth also went really well, we didn’t have to rush people along, but we didn’t ever have an empty booth either.”

With the success of the talk, Grems is ending the semester, and full-time Iowa Lakes career on a high note. After the fall semester, Grems will be leaving his position at Iowa Lakes to a job developing 3D construction software for EPS in Greattinger. Having this kind of job so close was a pleasant surprise for Grems.

“It’s a nice little blend between traditional software development and a little bit of 3D graphics, gaming kind of stuff,” Grems said. “So I was really surprised I found anything like that in this area, and I’m thrilled to have that opportunity.”

While he’s enjoyed his almost eight years at Iowa Lakes interacting with students, Grems is ready to get back into the industry for some practical work.

Grems has been an asset to students through the years, offering advice on internships and job hunting. He also helped a game studio founded by Iowa Lakes students acquire studio space to work on their first game. Grems has even filled in as an impromptu advisor for students outside of his program as well.

As for fondest memory of Iowa Lakes, Grems cites his experience with his TED talk.

“I told the organizers that was probably one of my top ten days of all time. Other than getting married, and having a child, and all of the typical stuff of course,” Grems said with a chuckle.

While pleased with the outcome of the talk, Grems said he wouldn’t do it again. The memorization and preparation process became a bit overwhelming, and he didn’t want to become a “serial TED talker”.

He’s also proud of the growth of the game design program at Iowa Lakes. When he was a student at Iowa Lakes, there were only two related courses offered as electives, which were full. After completing his computer science degree at University of Iowa, Grems returned and built the program up from “basically nothing”.

“It’s been really great to watch that grow over the last few years, from a couple students to now having full classes of students in some cases,” Grems said. “That’s one of the sad things about leaving. That program is my baby, I created it, and I have to trust that my successor will carry that forward. It’s a good program with a lot of interest in it, so it would be shame to see it go away.”

While Grems is done at Iowa Lakes for now, he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of returning to teach as an adjunct professor. He did have one piece of advice initially meant for Iowa Lakes tech students, but could be applied to any student.

“Don’t stop learning, don’t stop experimenting. Keep playing with things, especially outside of the classroom. There’s only so much we can do in a classroom in two years, so experimenting and playing with things, and building on things outside of the classroom will only help you in the long run.”