Author Archives: Rishi Shankar CPSC 106 Blog

Week 1 Summary

This first week of engaging with the class went pretty smoothly overall, however, there some hiccups on the way. The issues were not too time consuming and I was able to resolve all the issues with a little bit of research and understanding of how the various websites and services worked. This week consisted of setting up most of the services and the main website (https://rishicshankards106.com/) that will be used over the course of the semester. This assignment did not prove to be that difficult, and I think that I completed all of the assignments to the best of my ability and completed everything with all of the requirements that were needed and with my best effort.

Overall, I did not have too much trouble with the assignments, however, this was my first time using WordPress and so it did take some time to try and figure out how everything works and what needed to be added and what was already ready to use. After I was able to find out how everything works, I was easily able to start writing my blog posts and the began working on my first blog post of the semester, which was the film review related to the field of AI (Artificial Intelligence). This blog post can be found here: https://rishicshankards106.com/ds106/iron-man-film-review/. With this assignment, I was able to watch the Iron Man film and complete the blog post while also meeting all of the requirements. I then proceeded to make my second blog posts which was related to my course goals for the semester, and that is located here: https://rishicshankards106.com/ds106/goals-for-the-course/. Once again, I think that I was able to sufficiently and efficiently complete the requirements for this assignment as well and felt that I was thorough with my ideas and hopes for this course over the course of the semester.

Like stated before, the only real issues that I encountered were due to the fact that I was new to the workings of WordPress and so it took some time to figure out how the service worked, however, once that was figured out, it was really easy to get into a groove of creating posts and publishing them for the assignment. I enjoyed the first assignment in relation to the film review because I was able to watch a movie that I really enjoyed and write a brief blog post on it and actually analyze from a perspective that I have thought about before. I enjoyed learning and thinking about how AI was being used in the movie and its capabilities and how it can be incorporated into real human life and got me thinking if AI could ever get to the level that was portrayed in the movie.

I think one thing that I would do differently is try to go one assignment at a time for the weekly assignments, because when I first started this week I was bouncing around with the registering for services and everything and was getting somewhat confused as to what I was doing and so it took some more time to get stuff done but at the end of the day, I was able to get everything done properly. At this point in time, I do not have any further questions about the course or the assignments, however, I am sure that this will definitely change of the course of the semester as we start diving deeper and deeper into the content and assignments over the course of the semester. Similarly, I do not think that my assignments have any overarching issues surrounding my work because the assignments were fairly simple this week so it was clear what was needed and I was able to accomplish those tasks properly and efficiently. Overall, it was a good start to the semester and allowed me to familiarize myself with the class and its inner workings and I have no doubt that the assignments and the completion of the assignments will become more and more smooth over the course of the semester. I can say that I am excited to see where this course takes me and am interested to see how all my work and assignments turn out!

Goals for the Course

To start, I think that this course will be very interesting in terms of the information we gain and the assignments that we do. For example, with the first assignment being to watch a movie and write a review on it and its relation to the field of AI shows that the class is very hands-on which is something that I enjoy but also makes the class more engaging. Over the course of the semester, I look forward to creating various pieces of work that convey the creativeness of the students along with being able to describe what went into the creation of the work of art or completion of an assignment. It will also be interesting because I would like to be able to take the time to think about how to complete assignments and how to make it creative and engaging. I am also looking forward to creating various digital works to show off my skills as well as showing others the creative side of me. Overall, I am looking forward to having that freedom to design because it allows people to come up with their best work because there is no longer a restriction on what can be done and what cannot which is better for everyone. I am looking forward to going through with this class and am excited to see where it goes. My main goal is create multiple works of digital art that are creative and intriguing while also explaining my thought process along the way so that others can understand the story behind the works of art.

Iron Man Film Review

The movie that I chose to watch in relation to the field of Artificial Intelligence was the Marvel Studios’ Iron Man. I really enjoyed watching this movie again, as I enjoy all of the Marvel movies and so it was nice to have another one to watch for this assignment. I find the storyline pretty interesting on how Stark is kidnapped and it really changed the way he was as a human and changed his outlook on life. He was pretty self-absorbed before but after the kidnapping situation, he decided that his weapons were too dangerous and so he had to stop manufacturing those kinds of weapons. Overall, it was really interesting and enjoyable to watch this movie.

Although I have already watched this movie on multiple other occasions, it was interesting to watch it while trying to see how AI was being incorporated into the movie. Other times, I just watched the movie just to enjoy it, but this time I was able to determine that Jarvis, the automated system that is incorporated into Tony Stark’s suit, plays a big role in the functionality and usage of the suit. With simple commands spoken to it by the user, Stark was able to accomplish many tasks while trying to accomplish the various tasks he was trying to do.

One of the questions that we are trying to explore is “How can we use AI applications to enhance human creativity in storytelling and making art on the web?” and so this movie help inspire some thoughts about this question. Although it is not exactly the same situation, the use of the Iron Man suit and its ability to integrate an AI agent into the suit so that the tasks become more automated helps enhance what humans can do with the assistance of AI. Using AI, humans can discover new ideas and go through with creating new works of art so that the field can be expanded over time. The Iron Man suit is an example of this situation because Stark was able to make a suit of armor that is able to protect the user from almost all weapons and danger which allows the user to be able to do acts of good while also being protected. In a sense, the suit itself is a work of art created by Stark. Overall, I think that AI should definitely be used in the human life and be used to come up with new ideas and works of art, but should also be sure to not to overuse the capabilities of AI so that the sense of creativity can manifest in humans.