Learning Journal - Week 7

 Video Project Planning

    So far, my team have been using a few different websites and methods for project planning, communication, and project tracking. For project management, we've been using Trello.com which is a website that lets us communicate with each other what specific task we're working on and when they'll be finished by. It's a very easy-to-use tool but it has been working great for tracking our progress and reminding us when we should be done with certain tasks, like script-writing and editing. We've also been utilizing Google Drive for file management and collaborative script-writing, as well as Canva for designing presentation slides for our video.

     Our strategies have been working well for us so far, and during our meetings we make sure everyone fully understands our do-by times and tasks. So far, everything has been working perfectly for myself so I can't say for certain if there's anything else I would do differently for next time, which I think I will get some more insight on depending on our end result.

 

 TED Reflection

    This past week I was able to finish my ethics essay for my CST-300 course, continue working on my video project, and reflect on a few lectures I saw in my CST-349 course.  

    I watched a couple of TED.com presentation videos, one of them was on how to spot AI-generated photos (Link). Speaker Hany Farid talks about his team who is trained on detecting AI generated images and the improvement of generative AI over the years. He discusses that generative AI can be used for malicious purposes, like blackmail and deceiving people using fake videos.

    He goes over how generative AI creates images, such as de-noising images and recognizing the patterns between images and their textual captions. He mentions that the process is technically impressive, but there is a clear pattern difference between a real image and how pixels are generated using cameras and lighting, versus an AI-generated image which relies on noise patterns.

    This video takes on a very technical and physics-based approach to detecting artificial intelligence and it was very interesting to learn the different tactics of utilizing digital forensics.

 

     I also watched a video about the technology that powers smartphone cameras (Link). On the surface, it sounded like a slightly interesting topic, but right away they explained how cameras actually work and why phone cameras -- being the size that they are -- have a theoretical physical limitation that differs from traditional DSLR and Mirrorless cameras. 

     To put simply, a camera relies on a sensor that takes in light and tracks how much Red, Green, and Blue light there is spread across a range of pixels. The larger the sensors cells are, the more detail it can capture. Smartphones, however, are highly limited in size and must also leave space for other components. Therefore, smartphones don't have nearly as much physical potential as traditional cameras. So how is it that smartphone camera quality seems to improve from year to year? The answer is by using the phone's processor to automatically sharpen the images and solve any brightness shortcomings. Nowadays, smartphones are starting to rely on machine-learning and artificial intelligence to intelligently enhance image output, even without changing the physical sensor inside.

 

Harvard Podcast

     I got the chance to listen to a podcast episode from Harvard University, released in April of 2024 (Link). This episode seems to focus on artificial intelligence and its development. They reflect over the potential fears of AI and the potential for it to outgrow humans' development. The ethics of AI use is also mentioned and the complication of using generative AI. 

    I was very interested when they began to talk about legal regulation beyond the point of ethics and how regulation will overall determine how AI can be used. I agree when they said that regulation typically reflects what the common population believes.

    It was also really interesting to hear the exciting tools of AI and how it can be a net positive, like hospitals using it for pattern recognition to maximize efficiency. Overall, this form of new technology has a lot of potential and can cover a lot of bases. I personally think that there is a difference of how generative AI is used and general machine learning.

 

 Presentation Skills

     I recently watched a comedy-oriented presentation delivered by comedian Don McMillan about how to make an effective presentation, and it was both engaging and informative! In a comedic way, he went over the do's and don'ts of presenting, like reading out all the points in a slide, and also to be conservative with motion graphics. 

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