In the realm of machine learning, adaptation, and even anticipation of our human needs, artificial intelligence (AI) stands as the quintessential symbol of technological prowess and the gateway to an unknown future. In the article “8 Big Questions to Ask AI” from the New York Times, we have five experts associated with creating artificial intelligence that answers the 8 questions. The first question asked was “Is the AI overblown, or are we underrating its trajectory?” According to the dialogists they mention that it's equally overblown and underrated in society. Things don’t move as fast as people hype them up to be, but when they move, they move with ferocity and affect society a lot. People also ask the same question which is, “Will AI make people lose their jobs?” but we are left with a cliffhanger as Rumman Chowdhury, a fellow responsible AI at Harvard University, changes the dialogue to a question we should be asking instead which is,” What are the things that are wrong with society today, and how might that be reflected in the AI systems that we are building?” One of the reasons as to why I think she mentioned this question was because as humans we look for ways to make our lives better or easily fix a problem in society which ultimately leads to us creating something to fix that is wrong in society.
Another question brought up was “What is something about AI that you think most people don't realize?” This question was asked to the five experts and the responses seem to be credulous. Rumman Chowdhury asserts, “The AI system already determines if we are a good fit for a job nowadays.” In my personal experience, I've seen it give both good and bad results in the process of examining if a person is a good fit in the workplace and if they are likely to help company productivity. One of the major flaws of AI I've determined is the absence of human emotion and lack of intuition or gut feeling. Moreover, AI's capacity to mirror human biases and perpetuate discrimination against minority groups underscores the ethical considerations inherited in its development and deployment. This is a major flaw for the future when it comes to trying to exterminate racism in our society.
The New York Times also interviewed experts about their experiences with AI programming. Roman Yampolskiy mentioned that AI is both intelligent and dumb. While AI can't generate entirely new ideas like humans can, it excels at certain tasks such as data analysis, image recognition, and predicting analytics. Experts also expressed skepticism about AI surpassing humanity, as it can only work with the ideas it's provided, and it's a tool for human use thus the human has control. Additionally, an experiment was conducted where Rumman Chowdhury asked about herself, and AI-generated a different identity based solely on their name, created a whole new person and personality and revealed biases, like sexist stereotypes about appearance. This raises concerns about AI perpetuating biases and its potential impact on societal issues and its solutions to them.
Exploring the connection between music and mental health, psychiatry has made an unexpected venture into the top 40 in the music world, propelled by famous singers who candidly share their struggles and dilemmas through their music. This introduces a new era of emotionally invested and introspective songs. Another article in The New York Times, “How Psychiatry Broke the Top 40” reveals a steady increase in mental health-themed songs over the past two decades, noted by Dr. Kresivic, It's become very normalized. For instance, the renowned Rapper Logic, in his track “Anxiety,” says “When suddenly I was engulfed with fear and panic as my body began to fade at this moment my mind was full of clarity but my body insisted it was in danger”. Dr.Jessi Gold, a psychiatrist at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center stated that they relate to the lyrics as that's what they feel is the best way to describe how they feel. I never had a panic attack but the way the lyrics go into deep detail and people use those lyrics to describe their emotional stance when it happens makes me feel like I'm somewhat in their shoes experiencing that traumatic moment.
Another instance of mental issues being shown in the top 40 would be by none other than Taylor Swift, in her track she mentions, “They told me all of my cages were mental so I got wasted like all my potential and my words shoot to kill when I'm mad I have a lot of regrets about that”. Taylor Swift's lyrics are something I would kind of relate to knowing that when I'm mad there's a possibility that I will say something I don't mean and regret saying later on, this problem has made me emotionally independent and led to me being able to take control of my emotions and never let it take control of me again. Moreover, people will always have something bad to say about you and you can't stop most of them all the time so fundamentally you should try to take in constructive criticism and change from it but not just take it as a way to break yourself down.
Despite addressing seemingly different topics, the article on artificial intelligence (AI) and psychiatry share similarities in their exploration of human cognition, societal impact, and the evolving landscape of technology and mental health. Both articles shed light on profound ways in which human experiences, emotions, and behaviors intersect advancements in technology and cultural expressions. Some of the similarities in greater detail would be that both include the evolution of psychiatric treatments as well as spotting them, one being more as a tool and informative and the other being a societal factor on which people can rely when trying to express their emotions. In addition, both can be the key factors in how society steps up to mental well being leading to more efficient ways to treat it and a way to completely avoid mental deterioration. Furthermore, both can assist with predictions and emerging issues with the trends rising. This makes me think about how the reliance on societal factors for expressing their emotions can potentially impact the effectiveness of psychiatric treatments in the upcoming future? Both overall can give us an insight into what the future holds for us, what would be the trends coming up, and if they are constructive or destructive to society.
I felt inspired by the rise in A.I. usage over the years. I felt compelled to see how much A.I. has developed over the years and whether its effects are positive or negative in our society. My writing process overall was easy: investigation, prewriting, drafting, revising with my peers, and editing. I started with an introduction of the topic and the body paragraphs, which were based on facts from an article with questions for A.I. developers. I talked about them based on their perspectives and then connected them to mention their similarities. At the end, I gave my opinion on the article. I based my writing on information and the uncertainty of the future. My inspiration was the Ted talks, which talked about AI and the future of our society, and how informative they were.