FUTURE MACHINA – Assignment #1

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  Film:

ASSIGNMENT 1 REFLECTION

Assignment 1 gave me an opportunity to make a bold imagine of the workplace of tomorrow. From AI, a technology that seems very far away from ordinary people’s lives but quietly penetrates into daily life, as an entry point, I thought about the convenience and potential dangers that technology brings to people.

In my vision, the workplace of the future will not be limited in any way, just as I stayed in China during the epidemic to take online classes, technology as a medium can connect people from any corner of the world. As someone who really likes to stay at home, home is definitely the most comfortable working environment for me. In recent years I have found the time my friends and myself using Siri are getting more and more frequently, so I hypothesized a smarter and better artificial intelligence assistant. It exists in a contact lens with a special chip that facilitates our lives through virtual imaging and intelligent voice.Because this is an eye-contact product, I decided to shoot the film from a first-person point of view. It can provide users with a great work experience, planning daily work content arrangement or even simple data processing. At the same time in this process humans also need to continuously strengthen the memory of the AI, and at the same time can learn some knowledge about AI. By preparing human labor to interact effectively and efficiently with machines, we can maximise the productivity gains from the interrelated tasks. (Neufeind, M., 2018)

While assisting users in their work, AI assistants can also put their lives in order. Simple but time-consuming tasks such as cooking and cleaning can be left to AI assistants. The field of AI aims at the automation of a broad range of tasks. (Brundage, M., 2018) With AI, we can program some repetitive labor, just like an industrial assembly line. This will save a lot of time and effort. Imagine not having to panic about washing up and making breakfast on a weekday morning, and with the help of an AI assistant who takes an hour to arrive at the office ready to get into work, you may only need 15 minutes to open a virtual video conference for a great presentation.

These functions I mentioned above are actually being gradually implemented in life, such as the popularity of smart home and home office software is trying to achieve the goal of automating life chores. At this point I can’t help but think about the other conveniences technology brings to humans in addition to daily life and work. Then the question comes back to the most important and most easily ignored by young people – health. Medical care has always been a very expensive thing in my eyes, so is it possible for technology to help bring everyone closer to advanced medical treatments? I hope AI technology can help more people to detect potential diseases earlier, and simplify the process of accessing medical treatment and reduce the cost.

While we enjoy the convenience of technology, the risks that come with it are not to be underestimated. As Georgios mentions in THE IMPACT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON EMPLOYMENT, the number of middle-education jobs (clerks, machine operators, assemblers) is declining. This makes me wonder what will happen to these workers when AI can completely replace these middle-education jobs. I brought up the same question in the film —- Nancy, the human housekeeper who was eliminated by the efficient AI housekeeper. This brings me back to the importance of humans interacting and working effectively with AI in the workplace. Perhaps the maturity of AI technology will bring more jobs in the field of technology, but for ordinary people, how to learn to work efficiently with AI technology may be the optimal solution to a better future.

Of course, as a 2-minute film it is very limited in what it can cover, and I tried to express my thoughts as fully as possible in the film. This is the first time I tried to use the iPhone’s movie mode to shoot video, and I was not particularly comfortable with the background bokeh control, but I was able to use manual focus to control the image after finishing this work. I had never added effects to my previous videos before, let alone green screen. This was too difficult for me, but with Cat’s careful explanation and tutorials in class, I was able to get through the green screen process very smoothly. I had never used any audio editing software before, and when I tried to use Vocoder to edit the recording, I found that I couldn’t correlate the effects with the sound in any way. In the end I was able to get the same effect by adjusting the pitch and finished the whole film. In terms of sound effects, I believe it’s still a bit too boring, in fact, I can add some more sounds such as file loading sound and high-tech sound effect. Because I’m not skilled in video effects as well, I spent a lot of time working on video effects. Maybe in the following video production I will try to add more fun to the audio production, so that the overall film is more engaging.

All in all, for me, this class exposed me to so many skills and knowledge that I had not been exposed to before, and although it was challenging for me, completing it also enriched me, i.e. learning editing skills and making me think deeply about the relationship between technology and human beings. In any case, Technology is transforming the way we work, live and entertain ourselves.(Amato, G, 2019) Before assignment I always thought that it would definitely transform in a good direction, but now I have more concerns about it. Maybe just as Musk said “AI will be the best or worst thing ever for humanity, so let’s get it right”(2017).

Reference:
  • Amato, G., Behrmann, M., Bimbot, F., Caramiaux, B., Falchi, F., Garcia, A., Geurts, J., Gibert, J., Gravier, G., Holken, H., Koenitz, H., Lefebvre, S., Liutkus, A., Lotte, F., Perkis, A., Redondo, R., Turrin, E., Vieville, T. and Vincent, E., April 2019. AI in the media and creative industries. [online] arXiv.org. Available at: <https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.04175> [Accessed 8 March 2022].

 

  • Brundage, M., Avin, S., Clark, J., Toner, H., Eckersley, P., Garfinkel, B., Dafoe, A., Scharre, P., Zeitzoff, T., Filar, B., Anderson, H., Roff, H., Allen, G., Steinhardt, J., Flynn, C., h&Eacute;igeartaigh, S., Beard, S., Belfield, H., Farquhar, S., Lyle, C., Crootof, R., Evans, O., Page, M., Bryson, J., Yampolskiy, R. and Amodei, D., 2018. The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation. [online] arXiv.org. Available at: <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.07228.pdf > [Accessed 11 March 2022].

 

  • Neufeind, M., O’Reilly, J., Ranft, F., (2018). Work in the digital age: challenges of the fourth industrial revolution Identifying the challenges for work in the digital age. [online] Bruegel.org. Available at: <https://www.bruegel.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Impact-of-AI-Petroupoulos.pdf> [Accessed 7 March 2022].

 

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