Reaching out

This week was the week where I began to delve deeper into the technical aspects of artificial intelligence. While having a broader understanding of the implications of this technology in society is invaluable, the technical skills acquired by developing my own artificial intelligence algorithms are equally as valuable. I spent the former half of the week contemplating my ideas for my first original work project. After evaluating what experiences and skills I seek to gain out of this original work opportunity, I knew I had to think big regarding my project. After careful deliberation, I decided to develop a handwriting recognition and translation machine learning algorithm. While it is not the most glamorous aspect of artificial intelligence, clear communication between humans and algorithms is critical to ensure practical applications of AI. Given how much humans write down information, thoughts, and ideas without any immediate digital counterparts, being able to convert these gargantuan amounts of information into digitally accessible information in an efficient manner is critical to AI development. Thus, establishing a consistent machine learning prediction mechanism for my learning and future projects is extremely important to me. Additionally, I had a conversation with an ISM alumni who is currently attending UT Austin and he gave great advice about working on my original work. He proposed some languages, external dependencies, and environments to work with to make my development experience as smooth and valuable as possible. Additionally, I began to reach out to a PhD student at UC Berkeley who is working at the BAIR artificial intelligence lab. His digital portfolio contained projects that sparked my interest in AI in the first place and I would really like to hear about his experiences and advice in AI through an interview. I reached out to him recently and am waiting to hear a response. I am excited to finally get involved with individuals who are actually involved in the world of artificial intelligence and learn from their advice and experiences and can't wait to see what the future holds.