I really enjoyed Node 2 and I feel like I got a much larger understanding of AI out of it. To pull from my “Impressions on AI” discussion post:
On a broad spectrum, I like to use technology as a creative outlet, but I also know I need break from it for my own mental sanity. I think that balance is important when it comes to AI. We give AI the power. We get to choose how prevalent it is in our lives.
September 21st
I think this still stands for me after learning more throughout the past few weeks.
One theme we studied was how AI exists in the real world–and the ethical dilemmas that can occur with it.
One way we say this was in “The Trolley Problem”. Ethics are a consistent part of the real world, yet we sometimes forget how present they are in the digital sphere. “The Trolley Problem” put this into perspective by creating ethical dilemmas in this space, where the player had to choose which characters to run over with a trolley by flipping a switch.
To look more into my reflections, check out my blog post:
We also saw how AI can act unethically outside of a game setting in our law systems.
I think what surprised me the most was how easily AI can adopt this bias–more specifically race bias. Joy Buolamwini’s Ted Talk “How I’m Fighting Bias In Algorithms” put it the most into perspective for me.
I’m white, and I can truthfully say I’ve never experience racial bias, and because of that privilege, I never considered it to be present in digital software. For something like AI to be presented as so “perfect”, it surprised me that it could still be so wrong.
In the class after viewing it, we discussed the assigned readings in Black Software, and something that James, one of the people at my table discussed, was how a lot of these biases are set by the people creating the software.
To quote James,
The creators should also be from diverse backgrounds of thought, education, and world views to ensure the least bias program.
October 1st
James also brought up how we are all human, and inevitably, we all have some form of bias to some extent. Like James said, it’s important that the “creators should also be from diverse backgrounds of thought, education, and world views” and have a seat at the table when creating.
AI allows us to quickly advance the world, but it is up to the creators to make sure we advance in the right direction–not the wrong one.
Another major theme studied these past few weeks was how creativity and AI relate.
Personally, I don’t believe AI can be creative.
Yes, AI’s can grow their “minds” or databases–but they can only grow them based off of what we give them access to. To quote myself…
In my opinion, computers and AI are reflections of the development of information we feed them. If we were to choose to only feed AI one side of something, it adopts the bias (which we have seen in class) and accepts it as a rule. Whereas humans have the ability to be creative 24/7 by reacting to the world around us. To be creative to create new things from sparks of inspiration and develop something created by oneself. Computers lack the ability to be inspired and create something truly on their own. They need our direction.
October 4th
I truly stand by this statement. Even when playing “Bot or Not”, we discussed how one of the painting looking images was based off of an older colonial portrait. This AI representation of the work wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the creativity of the initial–human–artist. If the AI were only to be fed pictures with the same color pallet, it would not just deviate out of no where, it would follow the pattern. Whereas humans have the capacity to try new things on our own for our own growth.
I think overall in these past few weeks I’ve just learned a lot about AI. Initially, all I really could think of when it was brought up were “scary” sci-fi movies. But now, I understand how AI is present in most settings of our day-to-day life. From Siri to smart homes, it’s everywhere. And quite honestly, it’s nothing to be afraid of unless we give it the power to be something to be afraid of.
So I’m excited to see where the world of AI takes us… or I guess where we take the world of AI.
