August 10th Journal (#1)

Hello! My name is Joshua Ko, and I will be a sophomore this upcoming school year.  One activity that makes up my schedule outside of school is taekwondo. I am a second-degree black belt in taekwondo, and I am currently working hard to get my third-degree. I go to around 3 classes each week, while practicing at home as well. Taekwondo is a great form of exercise, and enhances my mind, body, and spirit. Another activity that makes up my schedule is playing the drums and piano. I really enjoy playing instruments due to the visceral feeling you get while making music. To add on, I am get tutored Algebra 2 by a professor from my church and I am self-studying for the P-SAT.

When I have free time, I like practicing sports such as tennis and skiing recreationally. I also enjoy listening to different genres of music, playing video games, or indulging myself into a good movie or TV show. Some of my favorite musical artists are Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, RADWIMPS, Asian-Kungfu Generation, and Tyler the Creator. My favorite video games right now are Minecraft, Valorant, and Multiversus.  The movies and TV shows that have left the greatest impression on me are probably Interstellar, Forrest Gump, Weathering with You, Clannad Afterstory, Breaking Bad, and The Tatami Galaxy. 

Something that I think is surprising about myself is that I'm Christian. I think people will find this surprising because I rarely talk about my religion at school. My dad is a pastor for a Korean church in Colonie, and Christianity has been a major part of my life since I was a kid. As of today, I attend the teenage bible-study at church and I play drums for our church praise team. Something else that I think is surprising about myself is that I love eating Instant Ramen (maybe this isn't a super significant fact about myself, but I NEEDED to include it here). Although Instant Ramen isn't the most healthy food in the world, I could probably survive eating only Instant Ramen for a whole year. There's something that just hits different about eating Instant Ramen when you're hungry. 

My relationship with grades have been pretty good so far. I have never really struggling too much with grades, but in 9th grade I definitely did have to study a little bit more than in middle school. Sometimes I do get anxious about my grades on tests and assignments because of pressure from my parents and peers to do well. Although grades are very important as a student, I don't want it to define my whole personality. My favorite memories inside of the classroom was probably my 7th grade Social Studies class. Even though Social Studies wasn't my favorite class at that time, the teacher was amazing and really made the class exciting. When we are talking about outside of the classroom, my favorite memory has probably got to be playing in the playground with my friends in 5th grade. 5th grade is extra nostalgic to me because it was the last time I could be stress-free and not have a care in the world. 

My motivations in school come from a combination of my curiosity, self-commitment, and the pressure from my parents and the peers around me. Obviously, my parents motivate me because they help me stay in check with my homework, assignments, and tests. My peers motivate me in a similar fashion by making it easier to study and by driving me to do better on tests. In terms of self-motivation, I think my curiosity and willingness to drives me to work harder. I also want to prove to myself that I can succeed in high school because this is an important period of my academic growth. This is one of the reasons why I signed up for E=mc^2. I saw the email for E=mc^2 and my friend asked me if I wanted to do it with him. I said yes, because I think that doing this course will help me be more independent with my studying.

Some things I like about school is that you get to meet new people. I have met some great friends over the past 11 years in school, and I think there is a lot of value in the social aspect of school. I also like that there is a variety of clubs and groups you can join in the school. This helps with the whole vibe of the school and I enjoy how inclusive it is. Some things I hate about school is that some of the classes  can get tedious and repetitive very fast. Most of the courses are standardized, which gives teachers less flexibility to teach and thereby making classes less interesting. Personally, some of the 9th grade classes were hard to get through because of bad teachers and boring assignments. I also hate standardized tests, even though I am good at them. They are an extra level of stress on top of final exams that most teachers give.

September 14th Journal (#4)

SDA Reflection #1 (10/18/2022)

November 2th Journal (#8)

HOTQ Document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NBJIyA-8ILf6SIYetbvOR8ryHMwUCN7dNoKhN4iz1Qw/edit

My "need to know" is "Which coding language is the most optimal, and how can certain coding languages be improved?

I believe that this falls into both the EVALUATION and SYNTHESIS domain of the HOTQs. I believe that my "need to know" falls in the EVALUATION domain because there are many questions that relate to my topic of choosing the most optimal coding language such as "What would you select...?" and "How would you rate...?". I also believe that my "need to know" falls in the SYNTHESIS domain of the HOTQS because there are questions that talk about improvement, such as "What could be combined to improve...?" or "How would you improve...?".  I will research about different coding languages such as C++, Java, and Python, and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. I might rank these coding languages and try to find ways to make these coding languages better. 

1. "What are some factors that can change how optimal a coding language is?" - I think that this goes into the ANALYSIS domain because I am analyzing the parts or features of coding languages and drawing meaningful conclusions based off of this.

   2.   "Is there such a thing as a "perfect" coding language? If so, how can it be constructed?" - I think that this goes into the  SYNTHESIS section because I am trying to build a "perfect" coding language if possible.

   3. "How can optimizing coding languages be applied in the real world?" - I think that this goes into the APPLICATION section because I am applying what I have learned about improving coding languages and finding ways to incorporate it into different fields.

My "need to know" has changed to "How would you evaluate different coding languages, and how can we use this information to improve coding languages to specific jobs? I think rewording my original "need to know" to this has created a more open-ended question.  My first sub-question has not changed because I think that it is still important to my research and knowledge of computer science as a whole. My third sub-question has also not changed because I think that finding real-life applications is one of the most important parts of my research. I might branch out into a specific application of computer science in the future, so this question will be beneficial.

However, my second sub-question has changed. From my research, I do not think that a "perfect" coding language is possible because each coding language has to compensate something to excel in a certain area.  Most popular coding languages are useful for certain niches, so there wasn't ever one "perfect" coding language for all situations. I changed this question to "How would you design an efficient and useful coding language?" I think that this question compliments my first question, which will help my research be more cohesive in general.

I think that the best sub-question that will help drive my "need to know" is "How can optimizing coding languages be applied in the real world?". This will help me attempt to answer the "need to know" of "How would you evaluate different coding languages, and how can we use this information to improve coding languages to specific jobs?" because it will help me find ways to use coding languages in real-world situations. 

3 MLA sources: 

“Computer Programming and Its Applications: A Basic Guide.” MOOC.org, 16 November 2021, https://www.mooc.org/blog/applications-of-computer-programming. Accessed 1 November 2022. 

“Computer Science is Changing Everything.” YouTube, 30 September 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvyTEx1wyOY. Accessed 1 November 2022. 

Shortliffe, Edward H., et al., editors. Biomedical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine. Springer International Publishing, 2021. Accessed 3 November 2022. 

SDA Reflection #2 (12/5/2022)

Now that my SDA is complete, I have both positive and negative thoughts about this SDA. I definitely believe that this SDA was better than my last SDA because I had a clearer focus on what I wanted to do for this SDA.  I did better on many aspects of this SDA such as my fundamental question and my research. My negative thoughts on this SDA mainly consist of a lack in creativity and me forgetting to publish the website on time. I dedicated around 4 hours to this assignment, and I spread it out over 3 days. I managed my time decently, but I should definitely remember to publish my website for next time.

I think that I am hitting critical thinking, communication, and curiosity well because my SDAs are detailed with information and my own thoughts on certain topics. I still need to work on hitting 4/5 of the 3Cs. I want to work on creativity and collaboration, but I am not 100% sure how to hit these 2 Cs. One plausible way that I have thought about was to do an interview with a professor or a professional in my topic. Then, I could relay this information in an interesting way, maybe with a debate-styled presentation.

Looking back, I am proud of the work I accomplished because of the overall improvement. I thought my new SDA touched on some of the real life applications of computer science, which is a step up from my last SDA. I also added a little bit of cooperation with my friend talking about his perspective on my topic. Giving this new perspective was something that was very important to this specific SDA because the question of "What is the 'best' programming language?" is an opinion-based question. For future SDAs, I want to continue this multi-perspective theme in order to produce a more nuanced assignment.

For me, the HOTQs were extremely helpful in crafting my essential question and sub-questions because they created higher-level questions that would make me think about my topic in a critical manner. Before I used this document, I sometimes got stuck trying to think of questions that weren't easily "googleable" questions. This is why I really like having these HOTQ questions, as I am able to see them all of them in one document. It is a way to easily relate and recognize different aspects of my topic in computer science. I also believe that HOTQs will not only help me in the E=MC^2 elective, but also all of my other classes.

December 13th Journal (#8)

My topic is computer science and I the problems I chose were mainly concerned with the ethical aspects of computer science.

1: The first problem I am interested in is on the ethics of online privacy. I am interested in researching about the ethics behind the privacy of an individual and the morality of collecting a person's data online. An example of a question I want to consider is, "Should websites be allowed to collect an individual's personal data to create a better experience for them?" This is a global interest because the ethical issues behind online privacy can raise many questions about large corporations and websites collecting the personal data from people.

2: The second problem I am interested in is the use of artificial intelligence. I want to research deeper on some of the effects of artificial intelligence on our society, including the impact of AI on employment and the ethical problems that would occur from using AI for certain functions. This problem is a global interest because many tech companies and industries are trying to incorporate AI into their software and products. 

These ethical problems concerning computer science matter a lot because they could potentially impact the daily functions of society in the future. Not considering ethics in the development of AI can create many dilemmas that might worsen society instead of advancing it. For example, disregarding the ethical problems that come with replacing human jobs with AI can lead to unemployment and public disapproval. It is important to keep these ethical problems in mind so that we do not misuse computer science and create something that is harmful or dangerous.

These ethical problems affect pretty much everyone because personal privacy on the internet and AI can affect the functions of many different things. The ethical problem of personal privacy would affect everybody using the internet, as it would affect how websites use data. To add on, my second problem concerning the use of AI is would be prevalent in many places, including hospitals, fast food restaurants, and even our homes. In a world where technology has become a core part of our lives, it is impossible to be unaffected by the implications of these ethical dilemmas.

These ethical problems do pose a real problem because it raises serious questions about how we should be using computer science to better our society. A lot of these questions don't have concrete answers, but it can help us raise important issues about how we are using computer science. The importance of computer science ethics can be seem from an Harvard article that explains the integration of ethics into the Harvard computer science curriculum. Grosz, a Harvard professor of Natural Sciences stated, “To wind up in a situation where different values lead to there being trade-offs and ways to support different ‘right conclusions’ is a challenging mind shift. But getting these normative issues into the computer system designer’s mind is crucial for society right now." 

I would say my biggest weaknesses in EMC right now is creativity and my bibliography. I need to start getting into the habit of sourcing my documents more often, as sometimes I read an article but forget to include it in my bibliography. In the future, I want to try to introduce creativity in my assignments by choosing a unique style to present my information. I would say that my biggest strength in EMC right now is my ability to criticize myself and improve as a result. Through my journals and SDAs, I have realized that I have many things that I can work on to become a better critical thinker. Having a critical mindset has helped me better analyze my own abilities and faults.

January 12th Journal (#9)

Article link on ProQuest: https://explore.proquest.com/elibrary/document/1916720831?searchid=1673568787

The scholarly article I looked into was "The Jobs That Artificial Intelligence Will Create".  The publication of this article was the MITSLOAN Management Review, an academic journal associated with MIT. The authors were H. James Wilson, Paul R. Daughtery, and Nicola Morini-Bianzino. All three authors are working in high positions at Accenture, an Irish -American IT company that specializes in consulting. James Wilson specializes in business research, while Paul R. Daughtery and Nicola Morini-Bianzino specialize in AI management (Wilson et al. 6).

I used the ProQuest database and used the search terms "artificial intelligence and job creation" to find this article.  It was the 3rd article that popped up, and I chose it because I thought it would inform me on some of the potential jobs that AI could create in the workplace.

Summation of the article: Artificial intelligence is becomingly increasingly ubiquitous in the world, and many companies are starting to use AI for their technological systems (Wilson et al. 2). Although this use of AI is substantially changing the nature of the workforce, the authors state that it is not adversely affecting human jobs. This is because new skills are necessary to complement AI and machine learning. Through the authors' research and personal experiences, it is suggested that the demand for human jobs will create new roles of humans who will ensure "that the work of machines is both effective, and responsible - that it is fair, transparent, and auditable" (Wilson et al. 2).

There are main three types of human jobs: trainers, explainers, and sustainers. Firstly, trainers will "train" machines to become more efficient and nuanced. Trainers will do this by reducing the errors of the machines and teaching the machines how to understand more complex behaviors, such as the "subtleties of human communication" (Wilson et al. 2). For instance, these trainers can already be seen in action in Yahoo; Yahoo engineers have created an algorithm that can pick out sarcastic messages on social media about 80% of the time. Secondly, explainers will communicate the ideas of machines to business leaders (Wilson et al. 3). They will help contextualize the effectiveness of certain machines to companies, while also determining if these machines will work for specific scenarios. Lastly, sustainers will continually check if implemented machines are functioning properly (Wilson et al. 4). AI can have unforeseen consequences, such as discrimination against certain ethnic groups from misinterpreted data, so it is important that sustainers respond urgently and ethically. Sustainers will also analyze the ethical aspects of AI and think of solutions for problems.

Narrative: Overall, this article is advocating for the use of AI in the workplace, which is expected as all of the authors work at an IT company that would benefit from AI. The authors explain that many unique jobs will be needed in order to accompany the machines, which paints a positive light on the future of AI as a whole. The authors includes many examples of human jobs in AI, such as "ethic compliance managers" to monitor the morality of AI applications (Wilson et al. 3). The authors also states that companies need to address the challenges for producing jobs that require both higher-level education and lower-level education (Wilson et al. 4).

This article is relevant to my topic of ethics of AI on the human workplace because this article showcased the potential jobs created by the emergence of AI. I learned that advancements in AI will shift the types of jobs available and create a lasting impact on the job market. I also gained a better understanding on the jobs that AI could create because this article had many specific examples of jobs seen in the AI industry.

New Key Terms:

Natural-language processing - a branch of artificial intelligence that deals with helping machines to better understand human language

LIME (Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations): a technique which explains the underlying rationale and trustworthiness of a machine prediction

Midterm Reflection

This midterm was definitely a new experience for me. The research portion of the midterm was somewhat challenging for me, especially at the start. Prior to this assignment, I did have a basic understanding of academic databases, but I had never really searched through a database as deeply as I did during my midterm. Reading scholarly articles was fairly new to me as well because of a scholarly article's dense nature and technical lingo.  Reading scholarly articles differed from reading other research-based texts because scholarly articles are more specialized.  Most scholarly articles are written by experts in their retrospective fields and contain heavily advanced topics. 

I also believe that being limited to ONLY scholarly articles hindered my progress and research skills at the start of my research, but this hindrance went away as I read through more and more scholarly articles. Another challenge I had in my research was finding a database article relevant to my topic of study.  One method I used was to brainstorm key ideas or words and write them down. Then, I would use combinations of these words in the database and experiment with different articles until I found one that would be valuable for my question. This helped my research process a lot and gave me a consistent way to find the right scholarly articles.

The SDA portion of the midterm was genuinely pretty fun because it was a hands-on way to share my knowledge in a creative way.  Since I chose to do a podcast, the most challenging part of my SDA was figuring out the script. The research wasn't the hard part because I had already researched my previous journals. The hard part was actually incorporating the dense scholarly articles into a short podcast while also keeping it entertaining. I had to find the right balance in incorporating my personality, research, and reliability into my script. This was hard because finding that balance took a lot of tweaking and thinking. 

To add on, I think that my essential question was somewhat answered in my SDA. I did talk about potential solutions to the problem of AI implementation on jobs, but I think I could've gone a little more in detail in answering my specific question. I think that my weakest "C" right now is collaboration. Although I ask my friends to give feedback on my SDAs and journals sometimes, my collaboration usually doesn't go beyond that level.  I think this issue will get fixed in the interview because I will have to communicate and collaborate with a professional in my field of study. 

During this midterm, I've been the most proud of the SDAs I've created because they are a culmination of all of the research that I have done for the past month now. Even though my SDAs are by no means perfect, I am happy with how my SDAs turned out in the given time frame. The process in creating the SDA has made me better at researching higher-level topics, creating podcasts, and planning out my assignments ahead of time. Also, I believe that the coordinators generally did a great job in communicating through the feedback doc. The most helpful feedback for me were the questions brought up in the feedback because they helped guide my research and curiosity concerning my topic. Overall, I am happy with this midterm even through all of its obstacles and challenges! I am excited to see where the future of my research goes. 

March 2nd Journal (#12)

The three professionals I would like to speak to for this interview assignment are Ming-Ching Chang, Yoav Artzi, and George Berg.

The first professional I would like to interview is Ming-Ching Chang. I found Dr. Chang by searching for computer science professors at local universities. Ming-Ching Chang is an Associate Professor in computer science at the University of Albany.  He has a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Brown University School of Engineering, and has taught advanced AI courses in the past at the UAlbany Department of Computer Science. His research interests include a wide variety of technology-related topics, such as video analytics, image processing, and artificial intelligence. He is also an active researcher in the computer science field and has published 35 peer-reviewed journals while also reviewing other computer-science related journals. I believe Dr. Chang will be able to give significant insight on my topic of the ethical complications of AI due to his long-term experience and exposure to computer science, specifically AI.

The second professional I would like to interview is Yoav Artzi. I found him by searching for "AI Professors new york" on google. More specifically, I found the AI research group for Cornell University and found Dr. Artzi under the "Natural Language Processing" research area. Dr. Artzi stuck out to me for a few reasons. For one, he seemed very approachable and passionate about his main research area, which is natural language acquisition in automation . Also, his research interests are related to my new research topic concerning the morality of implementing human-like AI (such as CHATGPT). Currently, Yoav Artzi is an Associate Professor at Cornell University Department of Computer Science and researches at ASAPP, an AI company focused on language development. His research group's work has been recognized by an NSF career award, which is a very prestigious honor. I believe Dr. Artzi will help me gain a better understanding of ethical AI implementation, especially concerning language-based AI and chatbots.

The third professional I would like to interview is George Berg. I found Dr. Berg through an AI related article on the University of Albany website. The website was titled "ChatGPT and the Future of Education: A Q&A with George Berg". While reading the article, I realized that Dr. Berg had a lot of perspective on the issues I am researching. Dr. Berg is also an Associate Professor at the University of Albany and has a Ph. D in  computer science from Northwestern University. His main research interests are artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cybersecurity. He also enjoys teaching about STEM education and how to better engage students in these areas. Since George Berg has been a faculty member at the University of Albany since 1988, he would make a great interviewee to talk to. I also think he can bring up an intriguing point of view as he already has insight on chatbots such as ChatGPT.

I will be emailing all three professionals. Here are the emails I want to send:

March 9th Journal (#13)

My essential question has changed from my last journal entry. Instead of the essential question of "What would result if AI replaced all of the current human jobs, and would doing this create a positive or negative impact in our work?, I have changed it to "What are the potential ethical implications and consequences of new AI technologies?

For my last post, I emailed Ming-Ching Chang (professor at UAlbany), George Berg (professor at UAlbany), and Yoav Artzi (professor at Cornell University). I heard back from Ming-Ching Chang so far. Dr. Chang said that we he would be willing to do a Zoom interview in the coming weeks. He responded earlier today and I have thought about scheduling the Zoom meeting for next week at a convenient time. I am going to send Dr. Chang an email about available times for me and ask for consent to record the interview. I will also probably tell Dr. Chang about the general topics I want to talk about.

For the actual podcast SDA itself, I will be using the SoundTrap, the same program I used to make the previous podcast SDAs. Since I already have some experience with the program itself,  I believe the technical aspect of making the podcast will be easier for me. I also want to use snip-bits of my interview in the podcast and create a narrative throughout the clips instead of just including the raw interview.  I have listened to a few podcasts on spotify and will listen to more podcasts such as TedEd Podcasts order to help me create my own.

March 17th Journal (#14)

Here is my interview: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IIcT--TGVLZIUWwhKx4c52HXCcofjRNK/preview

Interview Reflection

I definitely did find the tasks and rubrics helpful through the interview process because they gave me an idea of what I should be working towards. I thought that the timeline was reasonable for this assignment and I thought that this interview assignment had pretty flexible due dates. For me, the most difficult part of this assignment was finding someone to interview. This was due to a mix of hurdles, such as trying to find someone suitable for my topic and someone willing to schedule an interview. On the other hand, the most rewarding part of this interview was probably the interview itself because it was one of my first times talking to a professional with a focused purpose in mind. Being able to talk to someone professionally is a skill that will definitely be useful for the future. If I had the opportunity to interview someone else, I would probably try to find someone more specific to my topic of AI ethics. I chose a software engineer to interview, which is a profession that is somewhat related to my topic of artificial intelligence, but finding someone who has researched in artificial intelligence and specifically ethics would've probably given me more specific information. Still, I believe I have gained a new perspective by talking to my professional. For one, it is definitely easier to be able to talk to somebody rather than read through pages and pages of dense research, and a discussion gives more room for a two-sided discussion.  Also, when interviewing a professional, I can ask specific questions and be a part of the conversation. This aspect of this interview assignment made it different from just research about AI.

I would say that podcasting worked pretty well for this particular assignment. Since my interview was in audio format, it made it transferring the interview to a podcast-form pretty easy.  I had also had experience podcasting for a previous SDA and a lot of the content was already present in my interview. The hard part was being able to sift through the interview and find the parts that I actually wanted. This was the most difficult thing for me while creating this podcast because I wasn't sure what information was necessary and what I needed to commentate on.  I just decided that keeping the interview mostly raw with minimal commentary would work the best for my podcast. To add on, the limitations of technology did affect my podcast in some ways. For instance, my microphone is not the best, which has affected the audio quality of my podcast a little bit. Also, the actual interview itself was recorded on my phone, which doesn't have the best microphone. If I were tasked with another interview in the future, I would make my learning public by posting an interview and using some other form of media to display it. I can't say for sure what I would use to display my learning, as it would probably depend on how the interview went. If the interview contained an interesting narrative or perspective, I would put probably use a podcast or video format. If the interview was mainly an exchange of information, I would probably use an infographic or slideshow to show my learning. Nevertheless, I want to try to interview more professionals in the future because it pushes me out of my comfort zone and also helps me connect with new people.

For Spring Break I'm going to NYC to visit my grandma and some old friends. I'm also going to take a breather (life has been pretty busy recently), meet up with friends, and start studying for APs and finals!

First Symposium Assignment (4/18/23)

1. Establish Ethos/Credibility

But first, I want to explain more about who I am, and how I even stumbled across the topic of AI ethics. I’ve always had an interest in computers at a young age. Therefore, I decided to hop into the world of computer science for my research topic. 

As I was doing my research, one particular topic stood out to me: artificial intelligence. AI’s revolutionary nature meant that it was not only changing the niche AI industry, but a multitude of other industries as well.

More importantly, this seemingly complex technology was affecting my daily life in more ways than one. There was one particular moment during my research, on a Monday night, when I had this revelation. I remember I physically got off of my computer and started to walk around my house with one question: “Where was AI being used?”

 My phone? Check. Amazon Alexa. Check. Even my fridge for heaven's sake was utilizing AI. 

Now understanding the ubiquity of AI, I decided on that Monday night, that I find out the good and the bad of this new technology.

2. Establish Logos

Throughout my research, I found some of the most important ethical consequences of AI. 

• One of the biggest ethical problems that come up with AI is bias. You may be asking, “Isn’t the whole point of AI to eliminate human error and bias?” While automation can eliminate human error, AI models can still contain human biases and possibly even amplify them. This occurs when 

  • For instance, an AI model called the ESM was used to find sepsis cases, but there were a few key problems with this model.

    • It did not test models in real life applications

    • It used proxy variables such as ethnicity and marital status, which are variables that are used for something immeasurable 

• The implementation of AI can not only bring up moral implications, but also economic implications. AI can and already has restructured the workplace and the job market - not necessarily for the better.

  • The expansion of AI has made job loss very common. For instance, many menial workers such as waiters or manufacturers have lost their jobs due to the automation found in AI. Even seemingly “creative” jobs such as artists and lyricists may be replaced as AI can now generate these things with a click of a button.

• So, with all of these problems in mind, what’s our solution? And the solution to this problem, just like any other problem, is not crystal-clear. A combination of addressing, mitigating, and discussing about this problem is needed

  • One aspect we can use to mitigate the job loss created by AI is to upscale workers so that it is less likely that their jobs will be lost

    • This will require a huge effort from government

3. Considering rhetorical devices + organization

I tried my best to make the points transition as smoothly as possible. I tried to use some rhetorical devices, but I think my use of rhetorical devices will improve as I rework some sections more specifically.