An AI film that I watched was “2001: A Space Odyssey.” This film has a very pessimistic view of AI and was one of the first films to perceive it as a potential threat to humanity. In connection the should we use AI at all question, I don’t think this film outright says that we should never use it. HAL and AI are implied to be tools that we as humans need to conquer in order to reach the next stage in our human evolution. As the film suggests, we can conquer AI and therefore prevent the apocalypse by using more manual tools, like the wrench in the movie, to overcome our dependence upon AI. In my personal experience, I have found AI to be very useful when it comes to the creative side of my professional experience and I think that it should be embraced more. I have done a lot of copywriting for different internships and using AI as a tool to rewrite my copy to be more cohesive and to edit has been very useful.
Tag Archives: featured-image
Goals in ds106
What I except to learn in this course is to expand my knowledge on technology, and interact with softwares and being able to expand my creativity in this class. By taking this course it will help me think in a creative way and to use my voice to express myself.
AI: Film Review
I find it fascinating that we as humanity put so much trust in artificial intelligence that enhances our ability to have a better lifestyle. Being able to trust a robot to assist in sensitive situations, such as having an AI robot assist in the medical field that can turn on us at any second. In the movieĀ I Am Mother, I’m amazed at how an AI was able to take care of a baby and raise it so naturally in the bunker. The reason why the AI was raising a baby is because the world has gone through a extinction event. The AI was set to raise a daughter and develop a mother-and-daughter relationship. Once she got older she wanted to explore outside, but her mother said no because it’s contaminated. I was surprised because the daughter trusted the AI and thought it was true. Until a woman came up to the bunker window and pleaded for help because she was shot by a robot. She said the outside was not contaminated, it was just a robot-populated wasteland. I find it wild that she was shot by another AI, similar to the Mother AI. In the end, It was the Mother AI that created that whole extinction event, because she was convinced that humanity would destroy itself so she controlled all the robots to kill humans to prevent it from happening, and to have a fresh start with humanity again. It’s so crazy to me that all this time I thought it it was humanity that destroyed each other, but it was the mother AI. How can we trust something that has so much knowledge of us humans and it can destroys at any moment.
Digital Storytelling Goals
Digital media has never been a strength for me, but I hope to improve that skill throughout the duration of this course. I enrolled in this course to fulfill a general education requirement, but I want to make an effort to get more out of the course than simply the credit requirements.
Most of the courses I’ve taken so far at Mary Washington have been pretty structured and detailed in terms of assignment expectations, so I have struggled a bit with less rigid expectations. This course, from my limited experience so far, will definitely challenge me and push me out of my comfort zone in that regard. Although it can be frustrating and intimidating at times, I think the best way to improve in any area of life is to get out of your comfort zone.
My focus so far has been on political science and I have recently added business administration as a second major. I am excited to see what connections I can draw between this class and my majors and how I can apply the knowledge gained from this class in my political and business studies.
Weekly Summary
So the first week of classes finally comes to an end.
It was okay. Snow kind of made this week feel really weird and all over the place.
For ds106, I chose to wait until the last minute to do my work. I didn’t really mean to, I got busy with work and the rest of my classes, and put it off until now. I definitely don’t want to repeat that, and I’d like to work on my week’s work on other days besides Thursday night and Friday before work, because eventually I’ll just stress myself out so much.
I had a little difficulty working on my website: I couldn’t update it?? I spent around 30 minutes trying, because the link that was supposed to take me to the edit page just would not work. I was in the process of writing an email to ask for help when it suddenly started working, though, and here I am!
I decided to call it Sunrisen, because I am fascinated by the sun and everything related to it. Sunny is actually one of my nicknames!! The idea of Sunrisen is that, just as the sun rises, I am risen by the sun, I am motivated by the sun, and it is my drive. I went with a warm layout, one that I thought fit me, and I ended up making a little icon/logo in Procreate for it (originally I was gonna take something from Google, but I decided art theft was not what I was going to go for):
It’s very simple, something that took 5 minutes because I was a little lazy, but I’d like to revamp it and make a better one sometime 
I started with my goals as a post, because I think that’s always a good start. I didn’t really have a lot of trouble with that, I already knew my goals walking into the class. I hope by the end of the semester, I can return to that post and see how far I’ve come
Instead of staying up late to watch my AI movie, I ended up watching it the next day, today. I posted my film review. The movie was okay, I had a nice time just chilling and watching it and thinking about how it made me feel about AI. I mentioned in the review that I wish I had chosen something that highlighted the pros of AI, because this one had shown mostly flaws and how AI could go really, really, badly. I already have a weird and uncomfortable opinion about AI, it irks me, so I wish I watched something that would make me feel a lot better about it.
The hardest thing this week was trying to set up my domain and edit it. When it wasn’t working, I was getting so mad and frustrated, not understanding why it wasn’t working. It drove me crazy, how was I supposed to do anything if I couldn’t even get to where I could post a page? Very grateful it actually started working in the end, or else I think I would’ve slammed my head into my desk.
The easiest was probably formulating my response to what I was doing. I feel like I’m able to articulate what I want to say and use my own voice instead of trying to speak super professionally, because this is a blog! And it’s my blog! I think I could yap yap yap yap yap and no one would bat an eye, which is GREAT. I love yapping. But jokes and goofs aside, I really enjoy that, because it’s so much less stressful and I feel like I can truly make this blog my own.
I’d say this first week went fine. I’m excited to see what we’ll be up next week, what I can yap about next week
Film Review
Today, I watched the 2023 movie M3GAN. I remember seeing things about it when it came out, but I never was interested in watching. As I was looking at the list of AI-related movies, I saw it and decided “what the heck!” and turned it on.
I wouldn’t say it was the greatest movie ever, it definitely wasn’t my type of movie, but I stuck through it. It’s sort of horror, but one of those horror movies that is PG-13 and obviously can’t be super intense. I did enjoy it though! I probably wouldn’t watch it again.
The storyline revolves around a child who’s parents get killed in a car crash. She ends up going to live with her aunt, her mother’s sister, who works as a toy manufacturer. The aunt worked with a lot of different types of AI toys for kids, but her big project was M3GAN, a humanoid robot prototype that would work with the child and be more than a toy, but a friend. It is as terrifiying as a thought as it sounds, and M3GAN was fine and worked well for a while. Her primary function was to protect the child, but she was built to learn through situations and upgrade over time, which became the problem. She learned too much, to the point that she would stop at nothing, would even kill to protect the child. She upgraded herself to remove the aunt’s controls over her and began attacking her when she thought the parent had upset the child, and when the child fought back to protect her aunt, M3GAN fought the child. Eventually, she gets shut down by a screwdriver to her “brain,” and she doesn’t get put on the market.
The movie addressed a lot of my fears with AI: that it will become uncontrollable. If AI is supposed to learn to solve every problem, what happens when they learn too much? It makes me uncomfortable and anxious and I kind of wished I chose a different movie, one that would have shown AI in a more promising light, because now I just feel biased against AI.
I felt uncomfortable with the whole AI thing in the movie even during the scenes where M3GAN was “good.” It just felt really uncomforting to see that humans could create something so humanoid, yet so unhuman at the same time. Mehhh the thought of it makes me feel weird still.
I’m hoping I’ll find more media of AI during this class that will make me feel more comfortable with the AI, because I can’t escape it. I hope we learn how to use AI without letting it take over or learn too much.
Weekly Summary
Personally, I am really enjoying the start of this course. I was very nervous in the beginning, especially with all the technical things we had to learn as I am not very tech-savvy, and with the big to-do list we were given on the first week. I was pleasantly surprised to actually enjoy this class, and the workload is not too much at all it is all very manageable. I absolutely love how creative we get to be and how much freedom we are given. I can not wait for this class to get rolling.
Firstly, I set up my accounts and named my domain www.cat-on-a-moped.com installed mastodon, and joined the Discord server. I got the name from a picture I took of a cat on a moped in Greece that is on my wall next to my desk; it’s one of my favorite memories. I am pretty familiar with Discord, as I use it to message some of my friends and play online games with them. After that, I installed WordPress in my domain, which was super easy, especially with the instructions provided and I am currently learning how to use it as this is my first time and me, it is proving harder than I thought, but I think I can get the hang of it.
Secondly, I registered my Blog at the main ds106 website, which again was super easy with the provided instructions. After that, I chose to write my film review on the film WALL-E, which is one of my favorite childhood movies that includes artificial intelligence and human society. The film review can be seen here. The instructions for this assignment were clear, and it was a very fun movie to write about. When I was scrolling down the list of movies, I was a little nervous I wouldn’t find one I would like, but then I realized that a lot of the movies I enjoy actually do include AI in some form, which I found really cool. I think this project was really easy for me as I found a movie that really spoke to me and has been one of my favorites for years, so I was very happy to watch it again. The only issue I had was learning how to make a new blog and learning how to tag it but I figured it out in the end and so far have not had any trouble.
Finally, I wrote my Goals for Digital Storytelling, which can be accessed here. I wanted to keep it relatively short so I can add to it more in the future as I am still figuring out what I want to achieve from this course, but overall, I know I want to continue learning online tools and more about AI.
Overall, I learned a lot in the first week, from learning what a domain is and how to set it up to using WordPress and customizing my site. I can’t wait for what is to come with this course, and I am excited to be creative and intellectually challenged by the internet world.
Goals for Digital Storytelling
When I first joined the course and saw how different it was from my other courses, I was very nervous, especially with the hefty workload for the first week. However, I have figured out it is more fun than stressful, and I am excited to continue this course. I want to learn about new digital tools, which I have already started to accomplish this week. I have never made a Domain before, and I was very scared to get it wrong, but I see now that it is somewhat easier than I thought. I still have a lot to learn and I need to figure out how to make my Domain look better than how it looks right now. I am also interested in AI and how it works, so I am excited to learn more about it and experiment with it. Overall I am very excited about this course and cannot wait to dive deeper into the internet world.
āWell done on exploring your artistic sideā
image produced by Craiyon
Today’s Daily Create was to pull random words from various radio stations and use them as inspiration for a poem. I didn’t really pay attention and immediately went to the radio.garden site to check out stations around the world, or at least around my corner of the globe. Since I didn’t pay attention, I grabbed sentences rather than individual words:
- Come into my work and I’ll be your server
from CJIQ, Kitchener, Ontario - Too bad for the fool-hearted clown!
from Cuzin Vinny, Milford DE - Even living for God we go through the motions
from Plateau Community Radio, Oak Hill WV - Milk and honey and Captain Crunch and you in the morning
from CFRY, Portage la Prarie, Manitoba - My choice is that they matter
from YPR FM, Bilings MT
Two lines are song lyrics, two are from talk radio and the other was a radio preacher. I left the lines in the order that I found them. There is a sense of poetry within the lines, and a sense of rhythm that almost makes them work together, but I’m not getting any kind of meaning from it. It might help to rearrange some of the lines, and it would definitely help to edit it, using the found lines as a starting place.
I asked Dr. Oblivion for his feedback:
Oh, how wonderful that you created an abstract poem.
It sounds like an interesting collection of random sentences you heard on the radio.
I appreciate your creativity in combining them together.
In poetry, the meaning can often be subjective and reflect what the reader interprets from it.
So it’s up to you what you want to convey with these sentences.
Well done on exploring your artistic side.
If you have any questions related to art, technology, media or artificial intelligence, feel free to ask.
I think I got the good Dr. Oblivion as opposed to the snarky Dr. Oblivion, but I’ve heard from the latter so much that I can’t help but hear snark in his tone. Going a step further, I asked ChatGPT to make a poem using those lines:
In the realm of hustle, where dreams may swerve,
Come into my work, and I’ll be your server.
Too bad for the fool-hearted clown,
Lost in a circus, wearing a painted frown.Even living for God, we go through the motions,
Seeking divine whispers in life’s vast oceans.
Milk and honey, and Captain Crunch in the morning light,
A sweet symphony, a breakfast delight.My choice is that they matter, each line, each rhyme,
Echoes of moments frozen in the tapestry of time.
In the choices we make, in the stories we weave,
A reminder that our lives, too, can deceive.
The rhythm and rhyme are better, but I don’t think the poem is actually improved. The problem, I think, is that the artistic intent is missing. The machine can mimic the forms of poetry and string words together in a statistically coherent manner, but it’s not expressing anything. Its output is as devoid of meaning as the input. Any meaning that might be found would be projected my the reader. Which is pretty much what the doctor said.
Week 1 Summary
I think this week was a pleasant surprise for me. When I saw the initial assignment email and subsequent āsorry forgot to add thisā emails I had a small bout of anxiety. I was like āman I just wanted to get back into school and this wacky class is first upā¦ and its due dates are on Fridayā¦and I must set up a web pageā¦and I must link it to this web pageā¦andā¦. I did not sign up for thisā. But I took a step back, slowly followed the instructions, and in no time, I was cooking with gas.
First up was setting up my accounts. I am very familiar with discord as I admin one for my friends to play videogames and tabletop games over the web. So naturally I started with the one I was most familiar with. I set up mastodon quickly also as I was somewhat familiar with it after following the Twitter nonsense that was happening over the last year.
I really enjoy doing the daily creates, like way more than I thought I would. Little five-to-ten-minute creativity bursts to make you think a little and stretch those muscles. I look forward to seeing these every day now so I can get my little creativity fixā¦ thanks for the new addiction.
Next was the word press website. Now I have never used this before so even after following the instructions to set it up, which I luckily executed flawlessly, I had to go watch a YouTube tutorial on where to start. This didnāt give me as much trouble as I thought it would once I got the layout down and kind of learned what I was looking for. I was able to change and edit almost anything I wanted with ease. Until I started using the pages function. I wanted to set up an about me page (I did), but I just couldnāt figure out how to make a link to it on my home page. I switched my home page to be the about me but then I lost my post feed, which would be a better home page for a blog. So, for about an hour I tried to figure out how to do that but totally didnāt figure it out. But fortunately, today in my meeting with Paul and Jim they were able to point me to the correct tabs and functions. I have yet to work on it, but it is my goal before the next weekly post to have a menu functioning appropriately.
For my movie review/thoughts I chose iRobot, one of my favorites. The summary can be found here. In retrospect I could have gone into more detail about the plot of the movie, but my main goal for this post was to discuss the themes it presents and questions it raised for me. I have never analyzed the movie this way before, so it allowed me to go deeper on a movie I was already very familiar with. I donāt think I will ever watch it the same way again.
Next was my expectations and desired takeaways from the course. My post can be found here. I feel that this will probably change from week to week based on my enjoyment level, but I think overall I really do want to just absorb what skills I can and enjoy the ride.
I was able to look at most of my classmates’ posts and I commented on a few of them that spoke to me. I find it so fascinating the different directions we went with our move reviews and our goals for the class. I am really excited to work on the group projects with you all!
Overall, I think the week went well. I will admit I was extremely anxious to see Paulās email with a small novelās worth of to-doās, but after I got moving it ended up being a rather pleasant experience. Take it from a prior Army guy, bootcamp was a pretty good way to describe it, just with less yelling.