Artificial Intelligence, AI, has exploded into the mainstream in recent years. We have always known that AI would be something of the future, but the force and speed at which AI would influence people’s lives was not anticipated by the general population until it was suddenly here. ChatGPT is the primary model that most people think of when they hear AI as it is the most widely used and accessible model, but there are hundreds of other AI tools out there for people to use with their own niche. Prior to ICS 314 I used AI minimally, primarily just for asking silly questions, as it was largely frowned upon for use in other classes. However, since this class encouraged the use of AI tools I decided to explore the possibilities available at my fingertips. I primarily used ChatGPT for this class. I tried to use CoPilot at one point but found it to be annoying and decided to just use ChatGPT since it seemed to do a pretty good job at answering my questions.
I have used AI in class this semester in the following areas:
I never used AI for the experience WOD’s because I figured I would learn better if I just struggled through it myself and watched the walkthrough videos where necessary.
AI was not used for the practice WODs because I used them as a gauge for knowing how close I was with the material and where I needed to study for the real thing.
When it came to the WODs I actually only used ChatGPT for the bootstrap and HTML WODs because it was good at creating code that was directly implementable with only minor tweaks needed. This was helpful in scenarios where time was tight and I did not know all of the syntax or structure necessary for completing the WOD. I just had to know how to implement the code it gave me.
I did not use AI for my essays because I find I do not have trouble with writing and figured it would take away from my authentic voice.
ChatGPT has been used extensively for the final project. I would say that 90% of the code I wrote for the final project has been generated by AI. This is because I have been slammed with exams, projects and papers for my other classes and simply haven’t had the time to sit there and struggle with implementing code. ChatGPT has been able to do most of the work for me and all I have to do is modify it to fit my code and understand where everything is supposed to go for it to work. I would say it has saved me hours of time for contributing to the final project.
I guess AI has been used for learning concepts because when I ask it to write code, if I do not understand what it has written I will ask it to tell me what the different parts of the code do.
AI was not used for this. I answered very few questions in class or in Discord and only gave answers to problems I knew how to solve without AI.
AI was not used for this. I answered very few questions in class or in Discord and only gave answers to problems I knew how to solve without AI. However, it probably would have been good to use for improving the quality of my questions.
I did not really use AI for giving examples. I would just plug the problem directly into ChatGPT and hope it gave me an answer.
Whenever ChatGPT generated code that I did not understand I would ask it to break down the different pieces of code and how they work. This was very helpful.
I would actively upload the task into ChatGPT and have it write solution code for me. If it did not work I would tell Chat why it is not working and it would regenerate the code for me. Sometimes it could not fix the problem for me and I would have to manually adjust the code to work.
ChatGPT is incredible at documenting code. Especially the code it generates for you I found to be very well documented.
ChatGPT was not used for quality assurance. All testing was done personally or by peers.
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It is safe to say that the use of AI has had both a positive and negative impact on my learning in this class. On the positive side, AI has helped me work more efficiently and understand pieces of information that I did not understand rapidly. On the negative side, having a tool that bypassed the struggle needed to effectively implement code allowed me to complete assignments and WODs with only a surface level understanding.
AI has practical applications in just about every field that incorporates the use of technology on any level. It is a powerful tool that can increase the productivity of work. For instance, I was a little short on time to complete this essay and asked ChatGPT to describe the practical implications of AI in a paragraph. Here is what it told me:
AI has become a transformative force across numerous industries, manifesting in a multitude of practical applications. In healthcare, it facilitates early disease detection through data analysis, assists in personalized treatment plans, and streamlines administrative tasks, enhancing both patient care and operational efficiency. In finance, AI algorithms analyze vast amounts of financial data to detect fraud, optimize investment strategies, and automate customer service through chatbots. In manufacturing, AI-driven predictive maintenance minimizes downtime by forecasting equipment failures, while robotic automation enhances production efficiency. Transportation benefits from AI-powered systems for route optimization, traffic management, and autonomous vehicle technology, promising safer and more efficient mobility solutions. Moreover, AI plays a crucial role in natural language processing, powering virtual assistants, language translation services, and sentiment analysis for customer feedback, revolutionizing communication and customer service across various sectors.
I also had ChatGPT generate a response for this question:
AI presents both significant challenges and vast opportunities. On the challenge side, ethical concerns surrounding data privacy, bias in algorithms, and potential job displacement are paramount. Ensuring AI systems are fair, transparent, and accountable requires ongoing attention. Additionally, there are technical hurdles such as the interpretability of complex AI models, the need for large datasets, and the computational power required for training and deployment. Moreover, there are societal implications, including the potential exacerbation of existing inequalities if AI benefits are not equitably distributed. However, amidst these challenges lie vast opportunities. AI has the potential to revolutionize industries, improve healthcare outcomes, enhance efficiency in manufacturing and logistics, and enable more personalized customer experiences. It can also augment human capabilities, freeing individuals from repetitive tasks and empowering them to focus on creative problem-solving and innovation. Furthermore, AI-driven insights from vast datasets can lead to breakthroughs in scientific research and contribute to addressing pressing global challenges such as climate change and public health crises. Navigating the challenges while harnessing the opportunities requires a multidisciplinary approach, involving collaboration between technologists, policymakers, ethicists, and society at large.
In addition to this AI generated response, I would say that AI also poses an ecological and power challenge. Due to the large amount of energy needed to operate the servers and processors for running these AI models it is possible that AI will cause a large amount of CO2 emissions and put strain on the power grid unless energy production is increased with more environmentally friendly energy sources.
Given the answers listed above, it is safe to say that AI has improved my productivity and success in this class. However, it is clear that it has impacted the level of learning and understanding of the material in this class for me. While grades are important, they are not everything; there is something to be said about the benefits of learning through the struggle which my use of AI took away from. With that being said, I think that my use of ChatGPT enhanced my ability to perform in this class, but took away from my overall understanding of the material.
In the future, I think I will be more proactive with getting ahead on my work so that I will not be required to rely on AI for carrying the weight of my inaction. While AI has been a powerful tool in accomplishing my goals for this class, I think these successes should come with an asterisk because I did not do all of the work for myself. In a professional setting, I think AI will be a great tool for improving my productivity in the workplace, but learning the fundamentals of coding and software development are important in implementing more complex code in the future which AI may not be able to produce for me.
In conclusion, AI has been a wonderful tool for me to improve my overall success and productivity in ICS 314. However, it has certainly curbed my overall learning. In the future, I will be using AI to provide examples for me to learn from when I get stuck, but will not be using it to do my work for me since the purpose of school is for me to learn, not have a helper do my work for me. I do not believe in cheating my way through life and believe that success only comes through hard work and struggle. Therefore, I will search for alternative ways to utilize AI for helping me while not impacting my overall learning in future classes. Interestingly, ICS 314 is the only class I have found AI profoundly influential in my productivity. For my other engineering courses which are more heavily math focused, AI like ChatGPT can only help by providing examples or processes for accomplishing a task, but is not yet powerful enough to do my work for me. I think this is because many of the techniques needed for doing well in my core engineering courses are more nuanced than ChatGPT seems to be capable of completing.