I had known a little about the digital world before this class, however what we talked about opened my eyes to some things that I was not aware of. Below are the aspects of the class that resonated the most with me and my personal values.
Learning how to use WordPress and Divi was very helpful for me and my career. I work for my father’s business doing marketing, and our website is made with WordPress and Divi. I knew how to edit it as necessary, but now I have more background knowledge.
As AI is becoming more prominent, it was interesting to compare different generators and see which are the most successful or efficient. It was very compelling to see which generators are better at certain things, and the fact that many require a subscription for access to better results. Since it is still new technology, we cannot expect it to be perfect, and it’s especially entertaining to “make fun” of AI.
I appreciated learning about weaving and the Jacquard Loom, because it truly is a great example of an analog task becoming digital. Because I am very creative-minded, the weaving portion of class made a lot of sense to me. Doing the project for homework and class also resonated with me because I am a hands-on and visual learner.
With graphic design in mind, looking at the medieval-type letters made me think about a font I had created in typography class. Since we have the alphabet as a digital means of communication, I knew what each letterform had to look like. Thinking back to a time with hieroglyphs, it would have been interesting to live in this time. They went from analog symbols to digital letters very successfully, though I am sure it took a lot of work to figure out.
Lastly, I appreciated the video we watched about the brain and the question if it is a machine or not. I think the brain is a highly complex organ that acts like a machine does. Our brains have an extreme amount of power and influence over our body. Everyone processes information slightly differently, but that is arguably what makes the human race so beautiful – no two of us are the exact same.
This class challenged me to think and made me consider some opinions that I had not thought about. Seeing the presentations at the end and learning how much AI can offer both amazed and frightened me. As of right now, I am not the most welcoming to AI. I think humans benefit from hard work because the end result is more rewarding. AI takes this away from humans if it is over-exploited.