It has been a roller coaster of past two weeks!
Wife gotten deathly ill. She gave some of her crud to me. Took me out of action for a good part of the past week. After caring for her and multiple medical appointments, the diagnosis is viral pneumonia. I'm doing much better, but with pre-existing medical conditions, she's still recovering. I'm exiting the eye of the storm.
The same can be said about my students in IS101-3002, Spring 2024 as they work through the jitters of a new course, new professor, new semester, new country even! Here are some stats:
- 17 names on the roster of 20 launched successfully
- 14 students persisted and reached 100% on Bonus Quiz 1 – Syllabus
Of the 20 names on the roster now, these <variable> are represented:
- U.S. military branches: Marines, Army, Air Force
- Ancestral roots: Vietnam, Laos, Sri Lanka, India
- Academic pursuits:
- 6 Computer and Information Technology degrees
- 5 Business-related degrees or certificates
- 4 Computer Science degrees
- 5 others degrees:
- Construction Management
- Air Conditioning Technology
- Health Information Technology
- Electrical Biomedical Equipment
- Welding Technology - Advanced Level
The 17 students occupy the entire spectrum of progress, some have much to catch-up/clean-up, some are quite ahead of the semester timetable in Canvas. This past Saturday, 7 took Bonus Quiz 2 – Self-Reliance and Self-Responsibility with Haridev (Dev), Justin, and Brandon scoring the highest :-)
This coming week, I will continue to help students clean-up A1 Accounts Setup and Professional Communication, A2 Blog, Posts, Articles, Videos, Comments, and D01 Managing Many Accounts and Self-Responsibility.
In this Saturday's class, I will walk through D02 Email Inbox Rule(s) and Blog Setup and/or D03 Your Connectivity and Connection after Bonus Quiz 3 – Jump Ahead & Special Characters in File Name. I hope Dev, Justin, Brandon will repeat their performance and their classmates will endeavor to join them. The "jump ahead" portion is based on the final page of the instructions for A3 Tailored Cover Letter and Resume. On the first page, is
Artificial Intelligence: The Robots Are Now Hiring (a 10-minute video and a half-page article)
After clicking on the video, choose the [Full Screen] icon in the lower righter corner
Students:
Using algorithms in software to simulate intelligence is nothing new and quite common.
A few years ago, I emailed a company's customer support with some questions. The email responses I received made little sense. I deduced that they were (maybe still are) using software to respond to questions based on keywords/phrases in my email. But when the question is not simple or straightforward, the software make a best guess and respond accordingly. After a few rounds of exchange, a human finally responded and interpreted and answered my questions correctly.
I wonder what other examples of artificial intelligence (AI) have you come across.
Please elaborate in your comment to this blog post ^_^
Your example of AI in use must be unique, meaning if another student or I have used it, you will need to find a different example to use.
I haven't experienced an AI interview personally, but in everyday interactions, I frequently encounter AI applications. For instance, when reaching out to institutions like schools or banks, I often encounter automated robotic messages and responses. Whether calling for assistance or initiating a chat, there's a commonality in encountering AI-driven systems. In these scenarios, chatbots efficiently provide answers to routine queries, while automated phone systems guide me through predefined options. It's a practical use of AI, streamlining information retrieval and issue resolution unless the situation requires the nuanced understanding of a human agent.
ReplyDeleteMy last job, I was tasked with providing some "meaning" to quality control and what that really means. I think my boss just wanted me to spend some time thinking about what it meant to perform quality control and how it could be applied to different projects. I used ChatGPT and asked it to define quality control and describe how it functions within construction. It produced a lot of reading material to sift through and think about. It put words and ideas into my head that I would not have thought about at that time as a Quality Control Manager and helped me better explain to my peers what quality control is and how to better use it in day to day tasks and activities.
ReplyDeleteThe types of AI I've encountered have been covered by Madi and Michael, customer service Chatbots and ChatGPT. I'm not sure if self-driving cars are considered AI, but I had an early experience five years ago using the lane, speed and following interval control. I engaged the functions on the highway, but I didn't feel comfortable in moderate traffic or approaching construction zones. The self-driving mode wasn't smooth, and it was too sudden, not anticipatory like my defensive driving style. It may be fine for an aggressive style driver. Maybe, it's a familiarity and comfort level issue but my feeling the self-driving mode of this particular vehicle was overly aggressive, dangerous and couldn't adapt quickly enough to changing traffic conditions.
ReplyDeleteTo see the class stats at the beginning of the post was very interesting. I love seeing all the different paths in lives so many people have, yet somehow we all meet in this class together despite that fact. AI is scary how far it has gotten in such a short amount of time. Chat GPT is crazy the way it can answer any topic that is asked. Even the AI guy on Snapchat is freaky because he immediately will respond and have a full conversation to you. The automatic responses are just annoying more than anything. I understand them on a convenience standpoint, but as you stated already, once you ask a question that requires thought, it just makes it more difficult to get a timely answer. I also have been seeing celebrities doing "covers" of songs, but really it is AI voice generated. Even though I love Frank Sinatra and he sings that song beautifully, it is freaky how accurate his voice is. That makes me think, how far will this technology go. It is already so accurate to creating faces, answers, and voices, so how will we as a society know what is true or just AI?
ReplyDeleteI am shocked on watching this video. Till now I have not heard about AI used in interviews to capture facial expressions. Whatever I heard till now is that your interview is through video conference, where your video is recorded to check if any vandalization is done in the interview process by using AI. There is a great advancement in technologies. In the olden days I have heard many management and HR people speaking about body language which is considered during the interview process. So, to validate those, the applicants are asked to come for an in-person (Face to face) interview process. I wonder how the organizations are conducting online interviews (through Video) during the pandemic situation. Now I can understand the role of AI played in such situations.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about the tough weeks. Wishing you and your wife a speedy recovery. Impressed by the diverse backgrounds of our class and yes we do have a lot of work to do this upcoming weekend. Also I've encountered AI in voice assistants like Siri, recommendations on streaming apps, and facial recognition in photo apps. It's cool how AI simplifies tasks and enhances our experiences.
ReplyDeleteSo far I have had quite a few interactions with AI. I would say the most prevalent one so far is with the robotics I used to do. We would always have to make code that kind of wrote itself. Meaning that is took input from sensors and made its own way of moving to finish the task. Another example of AI I encountered was at the sphere. They have an couple of AI robots that you can ask different questions and they will give you instant responses/solutions.
ReplyDeleteOne major example of AI i've recently seen is the rise of using Artificial Intelligence to generate art and other images. The art is very unique as it can often seem out of place compared to art made by humans. It can have odd finger placements or create creatures that make no sense in the picture's context. It is certainly a unique advancement but i'm not sure how helpful it will be in the long term.
ReplyDeleteI am curious to face an AI interview and want to see how it is. But honestly I do not like to talk to AI. Even sometimes chatbot also really annoying like when we are in rush. As it mentioned here, they capture our facial expressions through the AI. Its good though now a days with technology, and AI will do a big difference in future world.
ReplyDeleteMy first time interacting with AI was when snapchat released a feature to talk to one disguised as a friend. It was certainly interesting and I asked hard questions which to no surprise, failed to answer. If AI is capable of being conscious and aware of social cues it could potentially be used in a wide range of cases. I also believe AI could ruin careers in the future such as photography, videography, customer support, etc.
ReplyDeleteAI has become, and is becoming more normal than ever. In fact it is look down in the business world when some business aren't implanting some sort of AI in their programs. Just like the professor, I had similar situations regarding AI in chat room I had with "customer service". A more memorable moment now is AI in Adobe Photoshop. I've never been that great on Adobe Photoshop and always take my time when finishing the most simple task on the program, with the aspect of AI now what use to take me 30 minutes to an hour to do is now done in seconds. With this kind of tool however, despite serving a good purpose, it brings up ethical questions regarding its potential. The tool essentially provided the masking of people in the images, creation of backgrounds and now with new updates, you can generate photorealistic details to your images. For example, you could have a person and have the program edit a hat on them, this process previously would take forever with consideration of blending, masking , and color corrections.
ReplyDeleteAside from AI powered virtual assistants like Google and Siri which I rely on for my daily activities while driving or staying at home. I became familiar with video surveillance artificial intelligence quite a few years ago, thanks to my spouse involvement of bringing this amazing technology in our hometown. It helps video operators spot important info and events without constant monitoring. Features like face and vehicle plate recognition highlight its abilities.
ReplyDeleteAI has become very big in the last few years and its only going to grow. Besides the examples other students have already mentioned, one of the most eye opening examples of how AI is being used was recently brought to my attention from an article I read on Routers. The article explained how AI has been recently used in a ongoing conflict between two nations where one of the nations is using an AI program called "Lavender" to crate a list of individuals who could potentially have terrorist ties. Using this program, a list of over 37,000 individuals were identified as targets and marked to be killed. The following is a quote from that article:
ReplyDelete"During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all."
That article was truly eye opening for me. Similar to the video posted above, it shows us that we are becoming dependant on the results that AI is giving us without giving them much thought. It made me wonder of what kinds of list other governments have already come up with using AI and how much oversight has gone into reviewing the results.
I found my example of AI being used as I was quite literally searching for common uses of AI on Google.
ReplyDeleteIt's called an AI overview, which is basically the basic answers you get when asking simple questions on Google, but this was made using AI instead. I'm not sure how recent this was, but it does claim that AI overviews are experimental and take information from across the web and Google's knowledge graph. AI overviews are also a part of generative AI, and according to Google, generative AI is a type of AI that helps create content like images, music, and code.
My first encounter with AI was actually during work, my boss sent us all a link in the group chat to check out this app called ChatGPT and he told us that his app can answer all of the troubleshooting questions. I did play around with it and for the most part, it does answer correctly but we don't use it much or are dependent on it but I know it made an impact in the HVAC industry. I have another app on my phone that helps me find parts for HVAC units and they sent out an email promoting their own AI that will help customers troubleshoot their units or help locate parts.
ReplyDelete