Tania Peitzker

Tania Peitzker is an international technologist, author, and speaker, notable for her expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies. She has served as a strategic adviser for venture capital funds, private equity firms, and board directors. Peitzker's work has had in-depth coverage from influential podcasters in the USA, India, Germany, Canada and the UK.{{Cite web|url=https://www.cityam.com/brains-chains-and-autobots/|website=City AM UK|title=Independent media outlets, such as TechGuide in San Francisco and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Queensland,have extensively covered her contributions to the field.
In 2024, she began creating an event series on AI applications in industry, specifically knowledge transfer from universities to communities in Switzerland, which was commissioned by the New Helvetic Society in London. Peitzker is an AI Ambassador for the European tech headhunters Keller West, based in Frankfurt for the DACH region. Dr Peitzker holds the position of adjunct professor of artificial intelligence and immersive technologies at the University of Silicon Valley (USV), formerly known as Cogswell College, located in San Jose. At USV, she is involved in developing and teaching online courses on extended reality and applied artificial intelligence, collaborating with an interdisciplinary team of professors.
Peitzker has delivered lectures at various universities and business schools across Europe, the USA, and Australia.Cambridge Judge Business School – see the links in the references below; University of Kent, public lecture on the Canterbury campus, SKEMA Business School in Sophia Antipolis Tech Park In 2022, she authored and published a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled "Metaverses, Extended Reality & Cognitive Interfaces" commissioned by Springer Nature's iversity.
==Key Contributions to Literature on AI and Emerging Tech==
Peitzker is known in the industry and academia for her book "The Uses and Risks of Business Chatbots: Guidelines for Purchasers in the Public and Private Sectors," published originally by Business Expert Press (BEP)] in New York. This book has received recommendations and reprints in various formats.
In December 2023, Dutch reviewer Ben Holland praised Peitzker's insights in her book, referring to them as "gold." He emphasized the importance of understanding the role of chatbots in business interactions, highlighting Peitzker's ability to navigate the complexities of emerging technologies:
Peitzker's AI bots book is supported by leading book distributors such as O'Reilly Media and OverDrive, Inc.Peitzker's AI bots book is sold by O'Reilly and numerous other online resellers. https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/uses-and-risks/9781949443448/Text/09_Index.xhtml ; OverDrive for distribution to universities and colleges https://www.overdrive.com/creators/2191129/tania-peitzker More in-depth, secondary reviews of her work have been curated in the Media Kit provided by her New York-based publisher, Business Expert Press. https://www.businessexpertpress.com/tania-peitzker/ Media Kit is available from Q2, 2024, on Peitzker's Author Page of BEP.
===Case Studies in Applied Conversational AI===
Peitzker covers Greenfield Projects for industry and government and many well-known chatbot developers such as:
*Microsoft's Tay AI bot and the Turing Test legacy of Natural language processing chatbots; this Case Study was based on her earlier article for VentureBeat (VB) about wide-ranging societal and legal consequences if and when chatbots go rogue, in particular how this could exacerbate Hate Speech online and lead to physical violent acts as in the instance of the murdered British MP Jo Cox
*SapientX’s Hilary and Obama chatbots – a Case Study on the political campaign bots of the US Democrats and Republican Party (United States), as well as the Labour Party (UK); this Case Study was drawn from her earlier analysis for VB about the "first chatbot arrest" in Switzerland which examined issues of liability, intention of the users as opposed to the increasingly autonomous AI bots (in this case the chatbot following humans' instructions to shop around and then pay for illegal, dangerous physical materials on the Dark Web; after it had them delivered to a Swiss art gallery the chatbot and not its human owners got arrested by Swiss police)
*Amazon Alexa as well as rivals like Google Assistant, Apple's Siri, Samsung's Bixby, IBM’s Watson; the analysis draws on her VentureBeat key article "Why chatbots are so disruptive" that forsaw the coming of Generative AI with Peitzker tagging the evolutionary improvements of NLP bots as "advanced chatbots" with increasingly sophisticated "brains" or complicated algorithms that would lead to the ultimate disruption – as evident in 2023 with the arrival of numerous Gen AI cognitive interfaces
* the voice UX and anime bots of Gatebox in Tokyo – the domestic companions as 3D holograms became known as the "Japanese Girlfriend or Wife" built for Home Environments and, some years later, DOOH spaces (Digital Out of Home, also known as Out-of-home advertising); this Case Study was drawn largely from her guest lecture at Cambridge Judge Business School for a large audience of students and staff. These case studies provide insights into the societal and legal implications of AI technologies. Numerous university libraries and industry associations hold copies of the digitised and printed textbook.ASME, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/bep-ebooks/book/407/Uses-and-Risks-of-Business-ChatbotsGuidelines-for ; The Open University https://library-search.open.ac.uk/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma9952820447802316&context=L&vid=44OPN_INST:VU1&lang=en&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=sub,exact,Speech%20processing%20systems,AND&mode=advanced&offset=0 ; The University of Adelaide https://librarysearch.adelaide.edu.au/discovery/fulldisplay/alma9928234530101811/61ADELAIDE_INST:UOFA ; Pierce College https://library.piercecollege.edu/c.php?g=1373957&p=10156847 
==Early Career in the Creative Industries and Academic Achievements==
===Theatre, Radio and Classical Music===
Peitzker's career began in the creative industries and academia in Australia during the late 1980s and early 1990s. She gained recognition for her contributions to theatre and classical music, including writing, directing, and producing plays. Her successful play "Life with Marion" had two seasons, sold-out performances, and was initially funded by the University of Queensland Student Union’s Women’s Office and the national Student Initiatives in Community Health (SICH) before it became profitable by ticket sales. After the success of “Life with Marion”, Peitzker then won the University of Melbourne theatre award for “A Smedley of Revolution”. This funding was for writing her play about the American travel writer Agnes Smedley who was known as an a global left wing activist and expert on China during the early to mid twentieth century; Peitzker's play added a foray into the history of Chinese immigrants in Australia from its foundation as a colony.See Tania Peitzker Papers
She also hosted her own radio program focusing on women composers of classical music on the classical music station 4MBS in Brisbane called "Why Not Women" from ca 1988 to 1990. The show focused on broadcasting and promoting women composers of classical music through the ages, from the early medieval Hildegard von Bingen to the 18th and 19th century women composers from Germany, France, England and the USA. Peitzker created a global archive for all the material sent to her by the New York-based ILWC, International League of Women Composers. This included original recordings that had never been broadcast in Australia. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) syndicated some of the episodes of “Why Not Women” and broadcast them nationally. She also organised a concert of ILWC compositions and local composers’ work Mary Mageau and Betty Beath at the Queensland State Library auditorium.
===Journalism and Specialist Reporting on New Tech===
Later after her relocation to Europe in the early 1990s, she became a journalist for leading newspaper organisations in the UK, USA, Germany and Switzerland. She had been a reporter on "knowledge transfer" and nascent tech commercialisation news for The Times Higher Education Supplement in London (as their stringer in Berlin, Zurich and at the United Nations in Geneva). Apart from the Times Higher Education Supplement, Peitzker had also been a staff writer for swissinfo, part of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation in Bern and the Wall Street Journal Europe in Berlin, Brussels and New York.
At the UN Peitzker interviewed high level decision-makers about innovations in tech and biomedical education at the World Health Organisation, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and other departments within the UN that promoted innovative education and knowledge transfer from Europe to developing countries.
===Archival Holdings of Peitzker's Work===
The University of Queensland's Fryer Library "Notable Australians" archive established the "Tania Peitzker Papers" collection in the early 1990s, documenting her contributions to Australian cultural history and academia. This collection includes materials spanning from her early career to the present day, providing valuable insights into her diverse range of endeavors. The "Tania Peitzker Papers" were acquired when she was 24 upon her departure from Australia to Germany. Since their initial purchase of her material, Peitzker has regularly donated further items and updates until 2024.Fryer Library records (UQ Tania Peitzker Papers) 
https://manuscripts.library.uq.edu.au/index.php/informationobject/browse?sort=endDate&sortDir=desc The archive's contents and catalogued, annotated inventory are accessible online at the Tania Peitzker Papers at the Fryer, now called the University of Queensland Library. Some of the contents are also held in Melbourne at the Australian Queer Archives.The Australian Queer Archives, formerly known as ALGA, the Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Original listing of Peitzker's Honours thesis, item no. 63 in ALGA's archival index https://www.alga.org.au/files/thesesandpapers.pdf AQA collected her Honours thesis work on “Towards a Lesbian History in Australia: Dyke Intellectuals of the Liberation Movements and their Influence on Sexual Politics Today”. Peitzker's thesis is listed on p. 19 https://queerarchives.org.au/app/uploads/2021/02/Catalog-Theses-and-Unpublished-Papers.pdf Much of the original research material is held in the Fryer collection of her work - the University of Queensland Library. https://manuscripts.library.uq.edu.au/index.php/lesbianism-australia?sortDir=desc&sort=alphabetic&onlyDirect=1&listLimit=10 
Peitzker wrote two Honours theses: one on the first history of the role of Australian lesbians and feminists in the Gay and Women's Liberation Movements; the second was the first history of Australian Cultural Studies featuring original interviews with Australian "public intellectuals" like Meaghan Morris and John Frow. Her research traced a "genealogy" of ACS as an academic, interdisciplinary field back to the Australian Workers' Education movement from the 1970s.See the Contents of the Tania Peitzker Papers: https://manuscripts.library.uq.edu.au/index.php/informationobject/browse?sortDir=desc&sort=endDate&page=1&repos=13612 UQFL310 Collection 1970-2022 
"Tania Peitzker studied at the University of Queensland, undertaking a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in the 1990s. This collection is comprised of material relating to her fourth year honours project. It includes annotated copies of printouts of journal articles, notes, correspondence, drafts of her report 'Toward the construction of a lesbian history in Australia : dyke intellectuals of the liberation movements and their influence on sexual politics today' and her honours thesis 'Questions of politics in the "moment" of the Australian journal of cultural studies : a genealogy of interdisciplinary knowledge and practice in Australia" (1994). Where possible original folders have been retained; and includes material relating to Tania Peitzker's nomination for Australian Historical Association Prize for Australian History; material relating to Queer Collaborations conference, Brisbane, 2-9 July 1994; and a hard bound copy of her PhD dissertation 'Dymphna Cusack (1902-1981) : a feminist analysis of gender in her romantic realistic texts' (2000).Reports, articles, notes, correspondence, publications, dissertation on Dymphna Cusack, draft scripts and poetry. There are creative works, published and unpublished, of Tania Peitzker including her poems, plays, novels, satirical essays, journal articles and short stories. Additionally there is some correspondence, public relations and journalism work".
==Emerging Tech Ventures==
Throughout the early 2000s, Peitzker ventured into interactive gaming, news, and virtual assistant technologies.During her Berlin and Potsdam years, she was involved in various cultural activities and business ventures, including running a Fine Arts showroom to promote Australian galleries and artists at art fairs (which was opened by the Australian Ambassador to Germany and Switzerland), a PR and Creative Industries marketing agency called EU public relations, and a consultancy as an Investor Liaison for capital raising for high tech start-ups in the European Union and Australia. From Swiss business angels for the "Europa Fortnightly" printed prototype to collaboration with the newsroom of the European Commission in Brussels for "My Own Reporter", Peitzker led the start up that created an embedded chatbot connected to the RSS news feeds about the European Union. 
She co-founded "My Own Reporter" as a chatbot news platform. She and her co-founders, the brothers Darren and Cliff Lee from Devon, also collaborated with the EU Delegation to Australia and New Zealand (Embassy of the European Union) in Canberra. The "viledge" prototype turned video gaming into an immersive world – via one of the first 3D online spaces for the Extreme Sports community – for around 20 000 users plus six autonomous chatbots who did "meet and greet" in the computer game rendered as various community spaces or areas of a "digital village". Using the same source code from MOR and viledge, the two ventures were merged into a new company called velmai Ltd.
==Conversational AI engines and innovative Use Cases 2020–2024==
===AI Bots as a Service | AI BaaS in Munich, Germany===
The non-trading R&D holding velmai was dissolved in 2019 and the founders Darren Lee, a programmer with leading European IT corporations, his brother graphic designer Cliff Lee and Peitzker were then backed by a German business angel, a former SAP executive. They established AI BaaS/AI Bots as a Service in Munich which ran successful pilots in Bavaria and on Lake Constance from 2020 to 2023. As a result of these beta tests, Peitzker was selected as a finalist from hundreds of nominations for the Globant "Women That Build" awards for innovations in IT.
The Munich launch involved various talks, live demos and presentations including for
* The German Australian Business Council – livestreamed from the Lindau installation
* Cambridge Judge Business School as a live demo between the Devon Lab and Cambridge
* OOP Konferenz software meets business; annual conference for ca 2000 developers
* As the CEO for AI BaaS, Dr Peitzker appeared on a Bavarian TV panel alongside a Microsoft Deutschland executive for BAYME VBM, the Bavarian Electrical and Engineering Employers Associations in Munich. She gave live demos of the AI BaaS interactive hologram "Birgit/Kylie" at this event.Programme for the BAYMEhttps://jimdo-storage.global.ssl.fastly.net/file/381bb6dd-9e48-4fa9-8ebe-42200aabf747/programme.pdf BAYME VBM Business Excellence Day in Munich
* Peitzker also logged their Greenfield Project in a large entertainment and restaurant venue in the harbour of Lindau – see the AI bot's performance log in the SwissCognitive piece "Should you feel guilty about switching off a bot?" As of 2024, Peitzker, along with co-founders Darren and Cliff Lee, own and run the source code for the Inception Suite, a cognitive interface for XR (Extended Reality) builds. The front end interface for non-developers and B2B2C resellers enables the building of a customisable, virtual assistant to be embedded in cognitive interfaces like Wayfinder, Digital Out of Home screens and interactive maps.
==Keynotes, Thought Leadership and Further Education==
In recent years, Peitzker has been delivering talks, upskilling workshops, and thought leadership pieces for various industry and government bodies worldwide. Her expertise in AI and emerging technologies has been recognized through her participation at international events such as CeBIT Hannover, the Davos Digital Forum, and London tech conferences. 
Some of Dr Peitzker's work for authorities in her industry worldwide include: 
* the United States Department of Commerce's agency NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology) FISSEA webinar in Washington DC NIST web page with the FISSEA recording of the webinar from 2023
* staff webinar for UKRI, the body known as UK Research & Innovation that is funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology in the United Kingdom 
* the Gen AI Summit in Berlin by the AI Accelerator group in London Substack post with the talk recording and PPT
* "Digital First" and "CXO Magazine" feature articles in India and CXO Magazine 
* "60 Leaders in AI" article: “Why is AI so sexist and solutions for making it more open to women and girls"
* keynotes at CeBIT Hannover, in Munich for AI BaaS (see above), London tech conferences and the Davos Digital Forum, among others.
Peitzker has also been vocal about the importance of considering environmental, social, and corporate governance concerns in digitized production processes, particularly in the context of AI safety issues and reducing the carbon footprint of new and emerging technologies. She has critiqued digitised production in terms of Environmental, social, and corporate governance concerns, specifically AI safety issues and reducing the Carbon footprint of New and Emerging technologies. Dr Peitzker is currently exploring hybrid, scaleable Small Language Models (SLMs in Natural language processing) combined with a Large Language Model, also known as Generative artificial intelligence, for deployments in a Smart City.
===Sources===
* Official Site for Dr Peitzker's Emerging Tech consultancy for VCs, private equity firms and Board Directors
* AI innovations site Smart Green Tours featuring the Peitzker Prizes podcast
* Adjunct Professor of XR and AI at University of Silicon Valley
* Peitzker's MOOC on metaverses, extended reality and cognitive interfaces on Springer Nature's iversity
* Peitzker's textbook on chatbot evolution published by Business Expert Press in New York
* University of Queensland Library, The Peitzer Papers
*" AI × EI + Human-Machine Interaction, An Historical Overview of Chatbots with Emotional & Artificial Intelligence: with illustrations from velmai"
Category: Natural language processing 
Category: Artificial intelligence 
Category: Generative artificial intelligence 
Category: Writer 
Category: Silicon Valley
Category: European Union
Category:German people
Category:Australian people