November 2023 | Automating my Dog with Azure Cognitive Services

Posted on 17 Jul 2023

meetup overview

Like many terrier owners, I have a problem. My dog is overworked from the constant need to monitor multiple streets to bark at squirrels or passers by. I'd like to free up more of his time and energy for snuggling and play but the outdoors must still be monitored. Thankfully, it turns out that much of what my dog does can be automated using Azure Cognitive Services and OpenAI.

In this talk we'll use this absurd premise to build an AI dog through the Azure Cognitive Services speech, vision, and text APIs and OpenAI on Azure using the Turbo 3.5 GPT model and explore how these different capabilities can work together in tandem to create an immersive application that happens to think its a dog and is able to respond semi-intelligently to what the user says and what it sees.

By the end of this session you'll have more of an understanding of what Azure Cognitive Services and OpenAI on Azure can do and the basics of how to interact with them from code so that you, like my dog, can take advantage of pre-trained machine learning models to enhance devote more of your energy to other areas.

Matt Eland

Matt Eland is a software engineering leader and data scientist who has served as a senior engineer, software engineering manager, professional programming instructor, and has helped build enterprise-level software at a variety of organizations before distinguishing himself as a Microsoft MVP in Artificial Intelligence by using technology to accomplish ridiculous things in the name of science and teaching others.

Matt makes it his job to learn new things and share them with others through articles, videos, and talks at user groups and conferences covering a wide range of topics from software architecture to programming topics to artificial intelligence and data science.

Matt is a current data analytics master's student, a Senior Solutions Developer II at Leading EDJE, is writing a book called "Refactoring with C#" releasing in spring of 2024, and occasionally sleeps as well.