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Weekend Recs: Artificial Intelligence

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

AI, or artificial intelligence, is becoming a more and more prevalent topic in the U.S. What once was a sci-fi work of fiction is now a very real possibility, albeit (likely and hopefully) less dystopian. Although the AI we see today is far from the likes of films such as Smart House, The Matrix, or Tau, it still raises some interesting questions and concerns. This weekends’ recs will help you enter the AI conversation.

If you have 1 minute…and want to see AI at work for yourself, watch this TikTok. It features a filter that uses AI to generate a background based on what words you type (which you can test yourself).

If you have 10 minutes…and don’t know a lot about AI, read Guru99′s guide to AI. It gives important background and basic information about AI.

If you have another 10 minutes…and are interested in a recent AI-related controversy, read this New York Times article about an AI-generated digital painting winning an award at an art competition. This certainly is a fitting example of the popular concern that AI might eventually replace human labor.

If you have 15 minutes…and are a mental health proponent, read this New York Times article about an AI therapy bot (that surprisingly performed decently well, all things considered).

If you have 20 minutes…and have some questions on AI sentience, read this New York Times article. It might debunk some common misconceptions about just how “human” AI actually can be.

If you have 30 minutes…and want to read a thought-provoking piece on the ways in which social biases are often inadvertently coded in AI technology, read “Engineered Inequity: Are Robots Racist” from Ruha Benjamin’s book Race after Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. This chapter genuinely changed the way in which I think about AI for the better. Just because something is becoming “more human” does not make it better.

If you have 2 hours and 20 minutes…and want to cross a cinematic classic off your list, watch 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you’re a sci-fi fan, Stanley Kubrick enthusiast, or just an enjoyer of good movies, this is definitely worth a watch.

If you have 12 or more hours…and are into story-based video games, play (or watch a playthrough of) Detroit: Become Human. This game, set in 2026 Detroit, features the rise of AI androids in the American workforce. It’s basically a sci-fi movie that you can play, and it touches on some of the (realistic or not) concerns many have with the rise of AI technology.


Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Library.

 

 

 

 


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Last Modified: September 30, 2022

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