23rd January 2025 – Club Meeting – Speaker David Bryant who gave a talk about Country Chairs
David is a member of our Club.
David told us he’d become interested in chair design and construction following a talk in Macclesfield given by Bill Cotton.
He found it fascinating that so many variations were present in England and these differences often told a story of which part of the UK they were made. Starting with the iconic Windsor Chair, these were constructed around the Thames Valley area from the 1700s up until the 1950s using all types of wood, some of which, had better properties for steam bending to form the characteristic ‘Bow back’. Scroll back versions were available but the ‘Stick back’ design was dominant. The timber’s moisture content was key to the success of this method.
David took us through all the regions of England and gave details about the manufacturers and their design idiosyncrasies. These featured Norfolk, The West Midlands, South West England, the East, being Grantham & Caistor in Lincolnshire, as well as the North West with a concentration around Billinge in Lancashire and Macclesfield in Cheshire. North west chairs were often characterised by having Rush woven seats. Most of these concentrations suffered decline during after after the British led Industrial Revolution.
David continued by showing us many different chair designs which he’d made himself and often these utilised Rigs and Jigs he’d invented and made himself. Some designs were from other countries including an interesting platform Rocking Chair from the United States.
Getting back to his own history David told us he’d trained and worked as a Mechanical Engineer but at the same time developed a secondary profession making and repairing Chairs and particularly Spinning Wheels due to the influence of his wife Valerie with her connections in Textile Heritage.
David showed us several books he’d written and magazine features he’d contributed to with his many articles. His anecdotes were incredible to hear!
17th January 2025 – Funeral of Member Dick Warwick
Dick passed away on Boxing Day at Leighton Hospital in Crewe after a sudden deterioration in his health.
Dick would have reached his 91st Birthday on March 3rd.
Dick was originally from the Newcastle upon Tyne area being the son of a Church of England vicar. Dick served in the Royal Navy and afterwards became a Mechanical Engineer and, like several other Probus members, he was also an Associate of the Institute of Electrical Engineers. Dick joined Rex Probus Club in April 1996 and served as Treasurer for 6 years between 1999 and 2005. He became Chairman in 2009-2010 and was our President in 2017.
David Bryant reports:- Dick was a highly respected member of Probus and the community. He encouraged David to become Chairman of Probus. He gave generously to the Heritage Centre for many years and especially so last year. He also used to audit the Friends of KHC annual accounts of which David is now the treasurer. Dick was an Elder at St. Cross Church in Knutsford and the Parish Treasurer for many years.
Knutsford Rex Probus pass on their sincere condolences to Dick’s family and many friends.
16th January 2025 – Club Meeting – Speaker, Professor Alistair Sutcliffe, who gave a talk ‘Artificial Intelligence – Genesis or Nemesis?’.
Alistair set out by giving us a clue to his credentials, being an Emeritus Professor of Computer Sciences at Manchester University. He started by mentioning the late Stephen Hawking’s overview about Artificial Intelligence where he said “it could be the best thing or the worst thing” continuing “or if we’re not careful, it very well may be the last thing”.
Alistair briefly defined AI as being the capacity of computers or other machines to exhibit or simulate intelligent behaviour and the science relies on the machine’s ability to use vast amounts of data to find patterns and sometimes these become so complicated we can lose track of how it’s working. Unfortunately via ‘Perceptrons’ pattern recognition frequently drives us towards biases. Using an initial query AI uses a learning phase, followed by a test phase and then a decision phase. Successes in AI include Medical Diagnosis through screening, Driverless vehicles, Image recognition for passports and ANPR(Number plates), Recommender systems which support online markets like Amazon, Facebook etc., Logistics scheduling deliveries, timetables and transport resources and Financial Tech supporting automatic exchange transactions in Equities and currencies.
On the Failures side, Alistair highlighted instances where discrimination and False positives had occurred. Safety had been over-ridden creating vehicle accidents. There had been failures in correctly diagnosing certain cancers and Social Media had gone ‘Rogue’ when it had become too extreme in its oversight. So AI, if we’re not careful, can become dangerous! It likes regularity rather than unusual events. It can’t handle Analogues or Euphemisms.
Who owns AI? The likes of Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon and particularly Nvidia who manufacture the complex chips that power the AI systems. These are generally US owned companies but there are a few Chinese ones however Chinese systems have limited input resources due to state censorship. These companies all have the potential to become ‘Oligarchic’ in their behaviour and in some states bad actors are being allowed to be involved in many subversive activities. AI gradually becomes so complex that accountability will become too difficult to administer.
Many Administration functions can be replaced by AI but this creates vast amounts of unemployment and this was adequately countered with strike action by groups like ‘The Actors and Writers Guilds of America’ warning the Hollywood moguls not to kill off their functions within the film industry. Whilst many ‘white collar’ jobs are under threat, the Construction industry remains fairly safe as it would be hard to teach a computer the various nuances of those functions but they will learn as time goes on.
Going forward programs like Chat GTP can understand and output in most languages and the industry is still evaluating some of AI’s unintended consequences whilst it concentrates on monetising the opportunities it presents. Referring to our Governments recent overtures about utilising AI, Alistair pointed out that Tech is extremely quick but Government is incredibly slow and cumbersome.
So Genesis or Nemesis? Referring us back to Stephen Hawking, Alistair reminded us of Hawking’s edict, “it could be the best thing or the worst thing or if we’re not careful, it very well may be the last thing”.