Month: December 2023

I sit down, fire up my Chromebook, and open a blank document. It is a Friday, sometime around 10 pm, and I begin writing. Despite putting off the blogs until the last minute, I looked forward to writing them. No limits in terms of a topic, just writing whatever was off the top of my head at that given moment. One day it was about the NYT games I play, or when I had a conversation with my friend about ChatGPT, maybe it was my life story. The limited time I had to finish up my endless thoughts was the perfect end to a tiring school week.

I enjoyed writing the earliest reading memory the most. The assignment was simple, what is your earliest reading memory, only, the question wasn’t so simple. This question however forced me to look back to my oldest memories, perhaps ones that were on the brink of being forgotten. My favorite book as a child, Asterix and Obelix, was almost forgotten, until this assignment. After some digging, I was able to relive the joyous memories I had when I used to read these books as a kid. This then helped me ponder about how we as humans obviously have a limited memory capacity, so we often forget our oldest, and perhaps most memorable memories of our lives. The good ones, the bad ones, are all gone. In a day with so much technology, much of our lives, or memories can be recorded. But in the process of recording, we often forget to live the moments as they come to us. Watching a sunset, waves crashing at a beach, a kid walking for the first time; sure they are good memories to keep a record of, but putting the phone aside and taking it all in is a sure way to have the ability to perfectly relive a moment, until it might be erased however.

As a writer, I think I have reached a new means of expressing my emotions or even just my opinions in a more fluent manner. When I just began writing, it was so daunting, but through the course of this semester, I’ve gained a great number of skills when it comes to writing. Something I’ve been dreading might just become a new passion.

Everything we like, dislike, hate, or love, has a list. I love Nashville hot chicken sandwiches, so I have a list; Fry the coop taking the top spot, Dave’s Hot Chicken follows it, and then Hangry Joe’s. Lists were a common topic among many blogs, one of the most favorite types of blogs to read. There was a blog about NYT games (which I then followed later), and one about the best spots to go for off-campus lunch. These lists helped me gain a little more insight into people’s interests and opinions about a wide array of topics.

So what do I take away from this semester? This semester was a disaster regarding my grades, the effort I put into schoolwork outside of school was dangerously low. Many call it senioritis, and while that is true, I think of it as a mini failure in my life where I lost sight of what matters to me, especially if it was something I might’ve disliked but felt it was important. While most of my collegeapps have been submitted, and a great percent of them don’t require midyear, I weaned off the effort I put into school. After getting rejected from my ED (although it was a huge reach), I immediately realized my mistake. So close to the finish line (high school), and I didn’t give it my best. I let off the push while in first place and lost the race at the line.

 

Despite some of my shortcomings, I learned a great deal and made great new memories. I’m going to pick up the pace in the following semester, despite it mattering the least. I also want to continue writing these blogs, whether they are published or not, once every other week or even once every week. These blogs gave me unfettered access to my creativity, and are a sure way of me being able to continue utilizing said creativity.

Most of us know what AI is, or at least its general functionality and purpose. I decided to dig deeper into my knowledge of how the field began, primarily the contribution of arguably the most popular AI company: OpenAI.

On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released an AI model called ChatGPT. This model gained huge amounts of popularity among people worldwide shortly after its release. People use this model to write code, write emails, clarify complex topics, debug their code, or even write essays. Used for personal reasons, professional ones, and even educational ones.

Jumping into the history of the company. OpenAI first began in 2015 when multiple investors pledged over $1 billion to the venture. These investors included influential figures such as Elon Musk, and influential companies such as AWS and Infosys. OpenAI continued to make small advancements in the developing field. In 2018 however, Musk resigned from the board of directors because of potential conflicts with OpenAI and his own AI developments in Tesla’s self-driving cars. In 2019 they transitioned from a non-profit to a capped for-profit (a cap on the amount of profit they can take). Following their developments, they were able to release ChatGPT (after several previous non-free AI models) for free. This caused a boom in their revenue, allowing for more research into the thriving and greatly advancing field.

The AI field is an evolving one; the growing number of AI companies, but also the investments being made into the field are increasing at an exponential rate. OpenAI is mostly responsible for the recent boom in interest in AI as the ChatGPT model was the most successful AI model to be released for free. This widespread interest also increased curiosity among people, leading to a greater number of people studying artificial intelligence and even the theory behind it. OpenAI is also responsible for essentially unifying the artificial intelligence field. Prior to the launch of GPT, there lacked any common goal from AI companies. Following it, however, most of the scattered research has since been unified.

This company however was not immune to controversy, even from the key figures in this company.

On November 17, 2023, Sam Altman (CEO and Founder) was removed from the board citing a “lack of confidence” in him. Following his removal, many key OpenAI researchers resigned. Microsoft was then quick to pick up Altman (although they already own 49% of the start-up) to do their own AI research. After many employees threatened to join Microsoft unless Altman was back at OpenAI, the board was pressured to reappoint him as operational CEO. Some say that Altman was fired because of the company’s advancements into newer and more cutting-edge AI models, such as Q* (pronounced Q-Star).

Q* is an AI model created by OpenAI that largely focuses on logical and mathematical reasoning. Existing AI models focus on the knowledge that already exists (calculus among others), simply executing the knowledge at an exponentially faster rate than humans would. Q* looks beyond that. This model is expected to look much beyond that, to the lengths of creating its own mathematical/logical reasoning in order to solve problems. “If you can create an AI that can solve a problem where you know it hasn’t already seen the solution somewhere in its vast training sets, then that’s a big deal, even if the maths is relatively simple,” said Altman regarding the developing Q*.

This however raised security flags because the pace of increasing AI security was far outpaced by the development of this model. This is why Altman is rumored to be fired. Microsoft President Brad Smith argues that there are no dangerous breakthroughs with this model or research place OpenAI is currently at, saying that it’s going to take years, if not decades, where computers are more powerful than people. He however still suggests that emphasis be placed on the security level of artificial intelligence.

As we continue to incorporate artificial intelligence into our everyday lives, this field is only going to become a more vital and developed one in the coming years (if we have not reached that point already). I am excited to see how the unreleased AI models will play out in the future and hopefully educate us just as much. Much like how our futures will integrate with that of artificial intelligence, being incorporated into our college careers and further.

I also can’t help but think of the movie Terminator (and other such movies) where artificial systems are taken too far, possibly to the end of humanity. Hopefully, we avoid such an event!