Below is my Microfiction:

Violet Penelope goes to Yale University, the Harvard of the North, at least that is what everyone says. She is from Lancaster, a small town in Pennsylvania.  All throughout highschool she excelled in school and was praised with many accolades and awards to recognize her achievements. Her parents were so proud, but they did not know how much school was making her suffer. She was diagnosed with anxiety during her last semester of her freshman year, and it was due to the pressure she was applying to herself. Violet was taking medications but it never seemed to work.

Finals week has proven to be her toughest week to date. “She was exhausted from hours spent poring over research and articles on the potential of artificial intelligence in higher education, but her mind was still racing with intrusive thoughts about looming deadlines and the potential for failure; her research due, her final project in the morning, and the final exam at the end of the week. She tried to shake them off, to focus on the task at hand – but it was hard when her anxiety seemed so determined to overwhelm her.” (Sudowrite) “This project seeks to explore the current potential of artificial intelligence in higher education, and to evaluate its potential for revolutionizing the way we learn, adapt, and think.”(SudoWrite) These words appeared to bounce around on her computer screen as she kept re-reading the instructions for the assignment. 

Living in a world with AI all around her she tried her best to be honest in her work. Morality was everything to Violet, but with all of the pressure over her head like a dark cloud she was starting to think about using these writing tools to complete her final research paper. She has never done this before and just wanted to see how much it could help take some of the stress off of herself. So she decided this would be the best option to use an AI writing tool just for a head start. 

Tonight before she started working on her paper she wanted to use some exercises her psychiatrist had given to her when she ever felt the walls closing in on her. “For a moment, she was tempted to take a break, to grab her phone and check her emails or catch up on the news – anything to get her mind off of her impending disaster – but she quickly dismissed the idea.”(Sudowrite) Social media is always her go to when she wants a great distraction and possibly a laugh, but even that wouldn’t make the task at hand go away. “Instead, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to calm her racing heart and plummeting thoughts. She reminded herself that she could do this; that she had the knowledge and the skills to succeed, and that she could rise to the challenge.”(Sudowrite)

She opened ChatGPT and typed in “AI on the rise in higher learning. What environment does this create in Education?” The words appear in a flash and immediately she is met with a ton of inspiration. She sits for a few hours and literally flies through her paper. Violet kept breathing slowly to keep her calm and she finally finished, and was very proud of herself for overcoming this hump yet again. 

“Violet was pleased to learn that AI had helped her achieve her goal and that she was no longer limited by her anxiety. She had taken a chance and used AI to make her research paper easier, and it had paid off. She was grateful for the opportunity to prove to herself that she had what it took to succeed.”(SudoWrite)

Writing this micro fiction I wanted to kind of tell my story. I suffer with anxiety and I have since my 3rd year of my undergrad. Seeking help from my therapist has helped me put a lot into perspective over the years. Starting this graduate program brought back my anxiety, because I have this need to do well. I want to show myself that I can do it, be even my parents who have put a lot into my education through my years of school. I never have never wanted to let them down, and I learned that sometimes this thought in my head held me back a lot. I had to learn that alot of my issue was mind over matter. Sometimes the voices in my head can override my true thoughts and opinions, and I needed to learn how to shut them off.

I enjoyed using SudoWrite I can see how it can be a helpful tool when creating a story of any kind. It offered me a lot of options and directions to go in with the suggestions they gave. It made writing this piece quite simple, especially keeping in mind the word count. As a writer I can over talk (or over type), but SudoWrite really helped to keep it short and simple and still get my thoughts out.

As AI writing tools progress I hope to see educators using these tools in the classrooms to help students gain confidence when it comes to writing. I feel great collaborations can come from using these tools and can help students create great work. Embracing these tools can help offer more in the classroom as well.

I have truly enjoyed putting this micro fiction together. I used SudoWrite to help me. I gave myself 3 different drafts using SudoWrite and I allowed my inspiration to come from the 3 rough drafts as I pieced them together. I have my idea of using a graduate student who suffered from anxiety and was currently in their final week of the semester. Meaning they were overwhelmed with finals and their big paper. Her name is Violet ( stolen from one of my daughters) and she is so used to excelling in school and would truly hate to let her parents down. This is something I have personally related to and was even unable to tell my parents the first year of undergrad that I was diagnosed with severe anxiety, which often cam from the fear of failing. So I allowed the character to violet to solve her issue with the help of AI. I thought this was a way to show how helpful AI can be in academics directly, because at times I can see a more negative tone with AI in academics.

I let SudoWrite give me 3 rough drafts with different questions I posted for my topic. I specifically asked for a micro fiction version so I wouldn’t go over my particular word count and it also helped me to see how to structure my micro fiction, as I have never written anything with a 500 word count restraint. I needed to visually see for myself how to properly structure the writing so I could make my message clear and easy to read. With this I then quoted from SudoWrite and kind of allowed it to help me create the story. I wrote a paragraph and used a paragraph from a draft to do the next and I went on like that for the entire paper. Since this assignment asked for us to use the hep of AI I liked the ID of writing with SudoWrite, so to speak.

My issue now is as my story is finished, to me, I am at 657 words ! I feel I have a solid beginning, middle, and end, and this is after I have removed certain things from my story. I am stuck on trying to figure out what words to remove, or maybe even re-writing sentences to meet the 500 word requirement. This is my first time writing a story in 500 words, so with this new experience it is teaching me the true lesson of less is more. Following the example of SudoWrite I learned you can actually say a lot in 500 words using detail and concise tone.

Speaking on this weeks reading censorship is very important in the world of creative expression and artistry. With Deformation laws you would think it can be quite simple to weed out the wrong doings of people misusing AI, but sadly it can still hurt the reputation of the artist and create controversy for them.

Artist in any form strive to have their work represent them and show them in the best light. They of course want credit for their authentic work as they created it with the intent to receive recognition from it. AI can now in some forms take away from this for artist, so as the technologies develop they should create away to still preserve the works of the artists and have AI help them develop their natural gifts.

This is the link to my presentation.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1BE3Lss3mwOuOPskgCUA_M1kAlHcOZqVYFbPLOKrBNHQ/edit?usp=sharing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZESTKVFDBg

https://youtu.be/WImlyoQuQzo

These videos are clips from the Joe Budden Podcast, some thing I am a frequent viewer of. I like when Joe brings the conversation of AI and the art of creating together because he himself is a creator. At one point he was a rapper, but he always prided himself on the ideas of freedom of expression and being authentic with lyrics for the artist who were his peers. All artist, whether they are musical artist, painters, sculptor’s, etc., are very passionate about the things they create because at some point it was literally an original feeling or thought towards something or someone that brought them to their creation, whether its a song, or painting.

We all know they are able to manufacture anything just about today, even the music can be produced through AI. This now creates a question with the authenticity of the music. This is how vocal artist can connect with their fans. Cinematographers connect through their lens with their fans and core audience. How will an AI truly connect with an audience if they are lacking the feelings and emotions that express empathy, that creates timeless pieces. Some may argue that when Vincent Vangough created his masterpieces their were no electronics and it was all done by hand with the most basic tools compared to what we see today, but this painting has been in galleries all around the world, and has inspired many individuals. Do we lose this if we give the power to AI to create what we as humans feel and express?

The article that spoke on Computational Creativity gives a great counter argument to the question on if AI’s and humans should be held to the same standard . “Rather than just seeing the computer as a tool to help human creators, we could see it as a creative entity in its own right. This view has triggered a new subfield of Artificial Intelligence called Computational Creativity.” Authenticity comes from the emotions humans have developed when dealing with life and going through new experiences. Computers are programmed by humans who have had these experiences, but it still wasn’t there to “feel” it for itself, so to speak. So what makes it authentic enough to be compared to great human artist who have shared from personal experience and personal knowledge.

AI is great with assisting artist in the production of their work. That comes with the many technological advances we are starting to make in shorter time spans, which leaves us with so many options to produce the best work faster. Because today everything moves pretty fast in our part of the world so keeping up with the mass production from peers artist today are trying to find faster ways to not only perfect their craft, but to also produce it at a faster rate to keep the engagement from their core audience interested. AI helps with this part when it comes to the money and circulation of the work the artist is selling, but from an authenticity point I can see it creating some issues with trust between artist and fans, nothing would seem real.

” But the idea of super intelligent machines with their own agency and decision- making power is not only far from reality- it distracts us from the real risks to human lives surrounding the development and deployment AI systems.” I want to start with this quote from “The Exploited Labor Behind Artificial Intelligence” article, simply because this offers the best assessment to the entire AI talking realm. In movies and television we have seen some options of the end of the world being robots taking over the world, and humans became slaves. Literally this is not true, but figuratively this is slowly something that can become possible. I always think of WALL-E whenever disgusting AI. The technology took care of the people in that world so much that they knew how to do nothing without a screen in front of their faces and became slaves to the robots who were caring for them. If they moved out of line or did anything out of order the humans were quickly corrected, and the robots were in control of order. That is no different as it comes to talking about jobs and career related issues.

Looking at job security now can start to look a bit shaky. During covid we were able to see a big change in how you can easily replace the daily office with at home work with the use of technology. This has created a great deal of benefits for both the business and the employees. With this shift it truly shows how great a service technology is actually doing and how well we are advancing with technology. Now with us working from home I can easily see how businesses who have may have seen a huge saving from having workers WFH, can see how AI technology can help them save more if they no longer have to depend on humans for their labor. This can increase the revenue for the businesses, and BUSINESS is all about earning money. If as a business you see something causing your profit margin to grow you are more likely to do it.

Taking a look at the music industry, which is a very big business, songwriters, producers, and engineers, which are very influential authentic parts to the production of music, can have questionable jobs at this point. There was a full AI rapper created and he was an example of the entire culture and even had a feature with a premium artist. A gaming company was behind the production of the rapper and even was Abel to sign his deal. Is this an Authentic artist and should he be help to the same standards of those who have worked hard int he music industry and created their own works? This is the question AI poses as it slowly replaces humans. The control will come from the idea that we as humans were the ones programming it to know everything about us, so in some way by using our phones, and different social apps, or regular apps we are feeding into the total control AI will have over us all.

The idea of teachers having mixed views on AI chatbots, like ChatGPT does not surprise me. We haver those teachers who like new fresh ideas when it comes to planning lessons and engaging their students, but then their are some teachers who think the way things have been done have produced great results, so why fix something that isn’t broken. No way is right or wrong, all that matters is helping students to understanding the subject, and helping them they best way the teacher can to retain the information. If only it were that simple.

The one idea all teachers share when dealing with the education world today is that every student learns differently. Some may learn a bit easier than other, and some may need a few tries to hit a goal or target, either way a great teacher will get the job done, and that’s what makes them awesome!

I feel AI chatbots like ChatGPT can offer CONFIDENCE in the classroom if used correctly. With it being so downloaded with information on all subjects and able to do anything just about it can serve as a great learning tool to make students feel a bit more confident with the work they produce. I know teachers would hate for students to plagiarize things, and I personally wouldn’t agree with this either, but I you teach the uses of ChatGPT to students that shows them what they can find on it and ways it can help to “improve” their work, it could really bring better marks for students and give them a positive attitude towards school.

I remember I use to HATE history in high school. I even tried skipping the class at times ( which was impossible in a small private schools with nuns who knew your ever move), but I just wanted to be anywhere but there, because I always felt no matter how hard I studied it was no way I could possibly retain all of the information about past wars, politics, and dates mixed with important people blah blah blah, all for one test! And again I’ve always been a big reader because I learned early on if I read I retain the information faster , but it just never worked for that class and the C’s really made me unmotivated in that subject. I think if I had ChatGPT it would have really helped me to create better papers because I could pull up speeches, dates and full blown war accounts for soldiers who probably were there all in one place on demand, and it would have helped me to produce better work.

If the right teacher introduces ChatGPT to their students as a way to help them, and show students that you are trusting them to be responsible when it comes to integrity within the work, this could really change attitudes that students have early on towards school. A lot of time students get discouraged in subjects they may see others excelling in, but these AI tools can really bring them confidence in the work they produce and in return give them better grades.

Voice is the most important part of being a writer. It goes along with finding your style and how you go about composing your writings. This sets the tone off of you as writer, and through voice you find your audience, which is another key component of writing. As I have journeyed through my own personal writing experience I struggled at first with finding my true voice. I had to later see that this is something that developed naturally and is very distinctive to different cultural experiences, backgrounds, personal growth, and other self acquired views of life in general. I learned to focus on allowing my voice to come naturally, and this in turn allowed me to develop organically and stop caring about trying to appeal to anyone in particular, and just curate writing content more focused on my internal views and mindset.

I read a lot, and have been doing so since I was in elementary school. When I go through the hundreds of books I have read overall I saw a pattern as I entered my teenage and adult years. Most of the authorsI generally liked tended to write in a more narrative journal style of writing. This I saw helped to see why my style of writing was this way. When I wrote in my personal life my voice lended itself to be more of a narrative style, which was my comfort zone. I in turn challenged myself to writing other pieces that were different just to see if I was capable. I had to go outside of my normal favorite authors to find others styles to try my best to imitate and make my own, which worked for both expanding my reading content, and further developing my voice in writing.

As we look into the ChatGPT world and how it is developing to meet the growing writing content world, I feel voice plays a very big part in the authenticity of the work being produced. Wether academic or creative as writers we all have certain style we chose to write inland we all use a certain type of vocabulary throughout our writing. When it comes to finding plagiarized works within academic writing it may be hard to decipher what has been organically created, and what has been generated using AI technology. This is because AI has been programmed to follow the voices of most writers, but this is where uniqueness come into affect. Recently read an article that questioned not the writing of the students producing the academic writings, but it looked further at the questions the professors were using to get the information from their students. It mentioned that if the questions being asked are superficial and not complex, then. the answers can be easily generated using AI technology. That then made me think should students be punished in academic writing for finding ways to complete work easier, or should professors be more complex in their questions to really dig deep and see how well students are receiving the information they are being taught?

This week our 2 of our articles related to trauma students may experience at home, and it affects the student in the classroom. it can affect their learning ability which impacts them in the long run. This is something that has been going on for ages and puts a lot of students behind before they even had the chance to really engage in school. Unfortunately educators are not privy to the home life that their students may experience outside of their care, but have the opportunity to create a safe space within their classroom to give all students a fair option to engage and feel protected for the time they spend with their teachers.

Recently I was thrown into a conversation where we spoke about people who live in survival all their lives. Meaning they grow up always on defense in life. (I must say it is very ironic I just had this conversation with some friends and it is now a topic we are engaging in. Lets me know to stay in school lol)

I have friends who feel they have been in survival mode there who life. Constantly living with a chip on their shoulder almost and thinking the world is out to get them. They tend to be more independent due to being let down a lot in their life. Since childhood they felt they have no outside protection only themselves, which has led to the choices they have made. A big negative each person had was school and how it truly effected their mental as they developed amongst their peers. IP’s singled them out in classrooms and made them dislike school in more ways than one. This is understandable if since a child they individual has felt alone or afraid throughout life.

On the contrary I have felt quite the opposite. Yes I experienced things as a child that could have caused me trauma, but being in environments that helped my development instead of hindering it made it easy to work through these traumas. I never really ever felt like I had to be in defense through life, so I have been very naive to a lot of things. As I grew older I learned the way the world works. everyone is coming from different places, with different baggage which an effect how they view certain situations. I even had to learn to grow with my Fiancé and we in turn have taught each other a lot. I noticed things I would say to him would have his very defensive at times, even when I didn’t mean to be. 8 years later we have learned to communicate in healthier ways that makes us both feel comfortable, but he can’t shake that feeling he has been having since his childhood, so I know I have to approach him differently with certain stuff.

Being a parent now I make myself very aware of how I react to certain things around my children, and how I help them mange their stress. Like I stated earlier we will all experience trauma and we won’t know really how it affects us until we are older. For me right now since my children are all under 5 it is important for me to let them know that it is okay for them to feel their emotions, and experience them, but I don’t want them to dwell on them to long. Sometimes as parents we hate to hear our kids cry as we are making a bottle, but I read a parenting book that said if your child can see you are making the bottle, and they know the routine they are simply crying because their needs aren’t being met at that second, but if you the parent are doing what is needed by preparing the bottle, it is okay for them to cry it out and feel sad. They will soon be happy with the results. I want my children to learn to work through their emotions so when they do get to school they will learn to not take everything so personal in the classroom amongst others, and find healthy ways to channel their emotions.

When children reach school age it becomes a huge competition, even though they don’t tell us that. We are put into classrooms and may the best win ( or receive awards and achievements) while those who are not “behaving” or “acting out” are single out and usually children can see this. This creates a trauma for children in itself, and it’s a system we have yet to change or fix. We keep going because it works for most, but what about those that it doesn’t work for? They tend to grow up telling others how much they hated school, when in actuality they just experienced through a survival mode state, where they just wanted to get through it, or some even quit. There is no true way to measure how much trauma a child may be experiencing, but actions show a lot. Those who are living in survival mode are often withdrawn, defensive, and seen as problematic, when in reality they just want to feel like someone is there.

Taking a look at the notes from the class discussion last week I see a theme was mainly the topic of Voice in writing. Voice in writing can be interpreted differently by each person. For me it mean to capture what my minds eye is trying to re create into words. The voice in my head is met by paper and pen (or keyboard) and I am able to express my thoughts and feelings more comfortably and effortlessly. It is great as a writer to always feel the need to create and how simple it is to just use my voice to express myself.

The experiment question that was asked in class stated “What is the difference between high school and college?” My answer would be a couple of things. First is academically the work because a bit more demanding in ways, but then in time can be quite effective because you have more time to complete assignments outside of your classes in college. I think responsibilities may change from high school to college. For instance in my high school experience I only focused on sports, cheerleading and volleyball, and school work. When I entered my junior year of college I started working full time and do school full time in college, so my time and responsibility at the time changed.

The ChatGPT offers a great resource to spark inspiration, but it can also take away from the human ability to be create and think of the impossible which makes great literature. I asked it the experience question and it gave the response pictured below:

It gave part of my answer and continued on the point out the classes and how they are more focused and intense with subject. I noticed I went more off of my personal opinion of how I interpreted high school and college differences. This is what I feel we may lose as we continue to grow the AI and Writing culture and learn how to mesh them. Let’s still be able to have our Voice heard, but always have somewhere to go to find out facts without opinion. This coming Thursday the class is going to see James McBride speak on campus. We read an article giving us some of his life facts in his chat he did on the radio. He is from Brooklyn New York and grew up where he was always responsible for him having a lot of siblings. His mother was white, but all of his brothers and sisters were black, which gave him a great outlook on life, and how people treat others. All of this helped him to shape his writing voice and he has some of his best material in works read by a wide audience. He uses his voice to give his opinion on the situations he has experienced, which makes it great for readers to better understand and relate to the author.

The Two Questions I may ask:

Do you believe politics, culture, or bias has a huge impact on the way you chose to write your material?

When did you first develop your true interest in writing?

I’m excited to be hearing him speak this week and can’t wait to hear what we learn.

I found both the reading and video great introductions to the AI world, how far technology has come, and how far can it go in advancements.

Starting I felt AI introduces a conversation that compares what exactly a creator is and what an artist is. I feel a lot of people in this era create content on the internet and are able to captivate their particular audience. When I think of artist I think of Da Vinci with the Mona Lisa and he actually created something others have been inspired by of many years. It was his original thought that sparked many creators to put a spin on his work. This idea may become blinded at some point when it comes to AI in the near future.

It was mentioned that China will soon have a lead against the U.S. when it comes to AI technology by the year 2025. The reason being is they have a leg up when it comes to data and information they are getting from their vast population. They have 10x more data being pressed through AI technology than the U.S., and this is simply because they have a wider population and are able to have the majority using it. They have started using AI as ways to rank what type of citizen you will, or can be.

“Black Mirror” on net flicks has an episode in season 3 that shows this exact method China is using, and exactly how it leads different in the society to the way they chose to live. This community used ratings for housing, travel, and other life necessities that could affect your economic status in America. The main characters whole goal was at first to buy the house of her dreams, and lived like some of her “friends” were. Her rating was lower than those who brought property in that area, so she tried her best to raise her score by getting likes from those around her, and trying to be more interactive with the social part of their society. It drove her crazy, and really showed me how very soon everything will be using this AI technology to take away the “Human Experience”.

The true voice of authors, writers, musicians, and artist are that they were able to make personal connections with an audience that they can keep engaging with. I feel with AI this enters the ideas of just creating content as opposed to actually making it. It loses the human touch that is always needed, because as humans we have something machines can never have, and that is Empathy. This is why movies like M3Gan end with the robot wanting to destroy humans and companions no matter how much information you download in them, or how close you get them to be with a human. Machines lack the human emotion of having empathy for the world around you, and that isn’t something they have mentioned in the AI development process.