Summer Camp 11th grade

 

What skill did you choose to gain this summer?

This summer, I have chosen to further my programming and AI knowledge since I have taken a recent interest in those topics. I registered for the Koç University AI Camp, for which I had to pass an open-ended coding exam beforehand. It was a nice way to see how much I had progressed over the past year in programming. From knowing nothing to being able to do the questions with ease made me feel more confident in my abilities.

Summarise the main things you learned on your course. Did you learn any other skills you weren’t expecting?

 

In this course I learned a lot about the different fields of Artificial Intelligence and how to program them. The course was divided into lectures and practice sessions where we first learned the outlines of the topics and then did projects about them. I have learned about machine learning and neural network styles of training to do a various number of tasks. We practiced with two different materials to see the differences between the two training models while also learning the basic code to get results. It was great to see the differences between how they are programmed, and which one is advantageous in which situation. We then moved on to computer security and how AI can be used for that, and I would have never expected it to be a field of study, so it was interesting. Just like security, medical image analysis and medicine production were two fields I would have never expected to see in an AI course, and both were amazing fields of study that really interested me. Not only that but we also used models to analyze language and there are so many ways of doing it that it is a broad topic. Audio and visual processing were two topics that I expected to learn, and I was not disappointed in the slightest. They can both produce amazing results and everything else seems to branch from them. For example, optical flow is concerned with estimating motion and uses visual aspects, and it is very useful for modern technology. Other than that robotics was an expected and welcome field while GAN models were highly entertaining despite having less practical use. Overall, this course taught me a lot of things but more importantly it made me realize that if I choose to go through with this field of study, I will be able to work in very diverse branches since it was a much broader field than I initially thought.

Think about your university aspirations. How does this skill make you a better candidate for your chosen course?

 

Since I want to pursue something related to computer science/programming and AI this course was the best opportunity. I’ve learned many things about said fields and improved myself. The best part was that I learned about the many branches of studies I could pursue under the same category, and I also had the chance to meet and take lectures from professors of their fields. All in all with the amount of insight it gave me and projects it allowed me to do, I would say it made me more sure of myself and a better candidate for my aspirations.

 

                             Which article did you choose and why? What interests you about this topic?

 

I chose the article “How artificial intelligence is changing the world” from the website Brookings

since the article was very broad and covered a lot of points about AI. After I completed the course

and learned about where each AI model is used and how to train them, I wanted to learn more

about what exactly makes it significant and why it is an important field that needs to be developed,

or on the contrary, maybe stunted.

Summarise the main arguments of the article in bullet points.

 

• Encourage greater data access for researchers without compromising users’ personal privacy,
• invest more government funding in unclassified AI research,
• promote new models of digital education and AI workforce development so employees have the skills needed in the 21^st-century economy,
• create a federal AI advisory committee to make policy recommendations,
• maintain mechanisms for human oversight and control,
• regulate broad objectives more than specific algorithms
• penalize malicious AI behaviour and promote cybersecurity
• artificial intelligence is beneficial for the economy, security and health industry
• artificial intelligence helps see the inconsistencies and frauds when humans can’t
• if it is needed AI can be used in a hyper war
• AI advancement in transportation could be dangerous and unpredictable
• data access is crucial for success in the field because insufficient data can enable racism
• depending on regulation AI could cause both just and unjust results
• due to its complicated process, it remains a question who will be sued in a potential accident
• taking biases into account is of extreme importance

Did you find the article persuasive? Do you agree or disagree with the author’s arguments, and why?

 

The article was very persuasive and detailed. It cited trustworthy sources and touched upon expert opinions which made it credible. I do agree with most of the statements as they are backed by facts such as the opinion about how it is complicated to decide who is to blame in a mishap or how AI might cause discrimination if not regulated properly. Other than that I do not agree that we should start data expansion as soon as possible since there aren’t enough laws or resources to securely back up that kind of system. I also don’t agree that once we finalize the broad objectives, we should give up on regulating individual systems as they might still pose certain threats to safety. In general, I do agree with the authors for the most part but I still wish they also focused more on the global side rather than sticking closely to American principles.

 

How does this article relate to other topics you’ve covered in class?

 

This article puts everything we’ve learned into real life perspective. From the course I learned what I can do with AI and how I can do it, with this article I got a sense of why I should do it and what are the future implications of it. This article clarified the important fields of AI and talked about the benefits of using it in a changing world. It also provided insight on the financial, ethical, and legal sides of it which made me understand the complications of the industry. It didn’t talk about the programming aspect of it but rather taught me about the career side of things with a thorough essay.