When you hear the words "Artificial Intelligence", what are the first four things that come to your mind? (p.11)
- A Robot/Cyborg: Even though I know AI doesn’t necessarily require a physical form, my first association is still with robots or cyborgs, where programs are embedded into physical entities to give them a kind of intelligence.
- Algorithms: I’ll think of algorithms behind AI since AI depends heavily on how its algorithms are designed. Algorithms directly influence the output and could cause some potential issues such as algorithmic bias.
- Large Language Models: AI (especially in NLP) relies on large language models to support finishing tasks like text generation and question answering.
- Data processing: I’ll think of the data pipelines that make AI possible. A mature AI model always requires large amounts of data as input, along with training through collecting and analyzing data to improve its performance.
Think about the devices and/or digital services you use daily. Write below a list of the top three that are present in your life.
- Phone
- Laptop
- Streaming platforms (for music and videos etc.)
Moment: I use Bilibili, a Chinese video platform, quite often, and I sometimes get annoyed by its recommendation. I know the recommendation system is driven by algorithms to predict what kind of content I might be interested in, but sometimes I get results I don’t expect. My recommendation page also becomes very homogeneous, which I don’t like because it makes me feel like I’m stuck in an information cocoon.
Take a moment to see if you can identify what function AI plays
in the following list.
| DEVICE OR DIGITAL
| SERVICE WITH AI |
AI FUNCTION(S) |
| Email inbox |
Filter spams |
| Check depositing |
Image recognition |
| Texting and mobile |
|
| keyboards |
Auto-correct spelling and predict the next word |
| Netflix |
Recommend videos |
| Google (search function) |
Sort information and find the most relevant results |
| Social media platforms |
|
| (Instagram, Facebook, |
|
| Twitter, etc) |
Personalize your feed |
| Automated message systems |
Answer all kinds of questions |
What do we gain by having AI in our everyday lives?
- Higher efficiency: Needless to say, AI makes many things more convenient and helps us complete tasks faster and easier.
- A virtual “friend” or “therapist”: I notice that more and more people turn to AI for conversations, sharing their daily experiences and feelings. Many find AI chatbots to be good listeners, which I think is very interesting.
What do we lose by having AI in our daily lives?
- Imagination and creativity
- Critical thinking
- Jobs: AI creates the threat of human workers being replaced. Even if not fully replaced, their uniqueness and irreplaceability may decrease.
- Copyright: AI-generated content relies on large datasets, which may sometimes involve copyright issues and raise concerns about fair use of original works.