The Age of AI

      (Sorry about the formatting I’m not sure what happened but I couldn’t fix it)

   I think the biggest thing I learned about AI is how scared it is making people. I didn’t think that people actually thought that it was gonna take away their jobs because I didn’t think it was that developed but I was very much wrong. I also think that frightened me the most because it is a lot easier to automate something then pay someone and it’s a disabled person who already has to compete with her able-bodied peers for jobs and prove herself, AI becoming more prevalent that I’m even less likely to get a job between higher performing peers and now more automated jobs. I also find it kind of scary that companies like Google know all about us without us even realizing how we’re giving them the information. I find it kind of sad that Google is originally against it but then had to sell the information and support advertisements to make more money, I felt like they were peer pressured into not being themselves. The only thing I found cool about it is how it might eventually make my life easier when it comes to doing daily tasks. Such as turning on and off lights and opening and closing doors, however this comes at a high cost that I don’t think I’m ready for, specially since that intelligence is smart enough that it can outsmart a human in other situations. What I thought was interesting is how we are in a battle against China and I wonder what will happen if China wins which I feel like they will because they are already using AI in different capacities then we are. I’m also wondering if with the writer strikes going on if the US or other countries are going to have bureaus/committees that are going to regulate AI, it seems like the next logical step so that way it doesn’t completely take over human creativity or work ethic. are these gonna be government related bureaus or are they going to start their own independent organizations? I’m hoping for the latter  as I think it will be hard to convince the government to not use AI to its own advantages.

Diffusion of innovation: Starbucks version

 Blog Post Number 7

 Diffusion of Innovations Starbucks Version

I chose Starbucks because it’s a company that everybody loves and gained quite a bit of popularity in the early 2000s/1990s and I wanted to figure out just exactly why they seemed to grow so quickly, and yet in the 2020s are having trouble keeping employees.

Pioneers (1971-1980) Starbucks was founded as a coffee, tea, and spices importing business that would occasionally serve the coffee they imported as a way for potential customers to get a taste of what they would be buying. Quickly gains popularity in the Pacific Northwest and multiple offers to expand into a chain that gets denied.

Early Adopters/Late Majority (1987-2007) Gets bought by Howard Schultz, expands from 20 stores to 100 in the US, and goes public at the very end of 1992. It had a massive international expansion in 1996 and had over 2,500 locations worldwide at the end of the decade. has a massive closure in 2007 to re-evaluate extensive procedures and find multiple chains of coffee supply companies and bakeries to rule out new products 

Laggers (2007-Present) Today despite the pandemic and multiple changes in leadership Starbucks has over 32,000 stores worldwide. It is it started rolling out different concepts such as a higher-end version of its stores called Reserve Roasteries in 2019.  They started training their own coffee farmers with what they call their “C.A.F.E. Principles” to make sure that the coffee is ethically sourced despite accusations of child labor, in regards to labor many Starbucks locations are trying to unionize in order to receive a fair wage and fair treatment of its employees, because of this many stores in more liberal areas are being boycotted by its customer base and outsold by other businesses in support of the unionization

References

Petruzzello, M., & Bondarenko, P. (2023). Starbucks. In Encyclopedia Britannica.

Blog 8: Privacy

 Privacy

Blog Post #8

Privacy affects everybody in my life. I knew that companies could figure out what you wear and what you do to give you better advertising experiences because I've experienced that on my own. but I did not know that the police had cameras everywhere to track license plates and basically everything you do in case you're a criminal. I am not a criminal so this doesn't  make me feel very safe. What if they see me do something that they think is illegal? what if the camera doesn't tell them everything and they arrest me based on false pretense? What the government should be doing is not allowing companies to track US in the first place but they should also be gaining our information on license plates in a different way or just tracking people with a criminal record. that could be their punishment for committing a crime that they be tracked for a certain number of years before the data is eventually wiped after their punishment is over. If the police have to use our data for any particular reasons they should be signing forms that say they won't leak it to other people. Commercial companies however should not have our data at all and the government should make it illegal for them to have data beyond what we give them to buy things and even then they should be able to erase it after we use it. we can protect ourselves from invasions of privacy by not saving our information in our computer or browsers because then companies have an easier time accessing the information. We can also refrain from sharing information that could be confidential over certain phone lines or social media sites. (My doctors do this when I have to have virtual appointments,  they use a software that has HIPAA compliance so my information and what I'm saying in the session doesn't get leaked) If the police Need your information give them a burner email and make sure that you only tell them what they really need to know and not anything else.

EOTO 2: Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias

Ladies and Gents:The Man Himself Mr. Peter Watson

Confirmation bias, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “the tendency to interpret evidence as one’s existing beliefs or theories.” Confirmation bias is unintentional and usually results in ignoring information that is inconsistent with previous beliefs. For example, I am more likely to ignore information that supports conservative beliefs because I, myself, am not a conservative. It is easier for people to not have confirmation bias if they are emotionally distant from the issue. The phrase “confirmation bias” was first used by Peter Watson in the 1960s. He wanted to see how far people would go to back up already formed hypotheses, even if new information came out that disproved the original hypothesis.

 “In the initial experiment that led to the development of the concept, psychologist Peter Wason gave subjects a group of three numbers, 2-4-6, and asked them to identify a rule the sequence was following by testing their own groups of numbers. The rule was extremely simple: three increasing numbers. But he found that subjects would fixate on guessing sequences that confirmed their initial hypothesis.” (Bouygues)

 There are multiple types of confirmation bias. Bias information sourcing is seeking out information that only supports your belief (AKA the example mentioned above, This is something we do every day on social media when we read articles or posts from people with beliefs that are similar to ours and tend to ignore the true source that might have another point of view that doesn't coexist peacefully with our beliefs). Another form is data interpretation bias. Data interpretation bias comes from perceiving data unevenly which can cause incorrect results. For example, using someone else's data in a research study and only including the data that supports your research. A third type of confirmation bias is memory bias which is subconsciously recalling information in a different way so one’s own beliefs seem supported. One example of this is reinforcing a stereotype. (Indeed)  For example, I may or may not do this by preferring to wear a more traditionally “Feminine” color palette (pinks and purples) 

You can “debias” or lessen your personal confirmation bias by testing your hypothesis to make sure that alternatives or negatives (from the original bias) are factually correct. This is called “consider-the-opposite” strategy. An example of this is when we are asked to see someone convicted of a crime, “innocent until proven guilty.” (Morewedge) I personally think that we as humans subconsciously create confirmation bias to help us cope with the uncomfortable feelings of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is when your actions go against your beliefs.  What does this have to do with confirmation bias?  The more somebody reinforces something you already believe the less likely your actions are going to go against that belief, hence no more dealing with cognitive dissonance…or so we thought. Unfortunately, people still deal with cognitive dissonance on a regular basis as many people do actions that go against their beliefs daily, (ex: Someone who is pro-life going to get an abortion)

References

Bouygues, H. L. (2021, April 16). Confirmation bias: What you need to know. REBOOT FOUNDATION | Promoting and Developing Critical Thinking Tools and Resources. https://reboot-foundation.org/confirmation-bias/

Casad, B. J., & Luebering, J. E. (2023). confirmation bias. In Encyclopedia Britannica.

Morewedge, C. (2022, June 6). Confirmation bias in journalism: What it is and strategies to avoid it. The Journalist’s Resource. https://journalistsresource.org/home/confirmation-bias-strategies-to-avoid-it/

The curious case of confirmation bias. (n.d.). Psychology Today. Retrieved September 25, 2023, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/seeing-what-others-dont/201905/the-curious-case-confirmation-bias

What is Confirmation Bias? (n.d.). Indeed.com. Retrieved September 25, 2023, from https://ca.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/what-is-confirmation-bias

 

Anti War

We Want Peace

 

We have to seek out obscure websites to hear Anti-War opinions because the government makes money off of war and does not want it to stop. According to The Medium: “Over several years, America has been producing about 37% of the weapons and arms used for mass destruction across the globe. The weapons industry is considered a big wealthy business that supports an annual global arms trade worth around $100 billion.”

 It's common knowledge that the US is trillions of dollars in debt due to its lack of neutrality in many foreign affairs. We can infer that the United States pays off a small percentage of its debts by using money it makes through weapon manufacturing and sending weapons to foreign countries. 

“These companies sell weapons to countries such as Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Sudan. Without considering if these nations follow the concepts and principles of democracy/civil rights. To fight these wars, the US Department of Defense buys ammunition from nations such as these.” What this means is no matter what side the US is on when it comes to a war if it is fighting against countries that pay them to create ammunition the US will always come out on top in some way even if they lose because they are making money off of the war whereas these other countries are not. We may have gone into foreign affairs with good intentions in the first place, but now our intentions are more corrupt than we probably could have imagined. 

So why do not a lot of people know about this? simple it's because most major newspapers are probably paid to keep quiet or are ignorant of just how much the government spends on war. they use our political divisiveness as a scapegoat for what's really going on in the United States government. Abraham Lincoln once said:  “A house divided against itself cannot stand” The government is using our division as a way to distract us from what's really going on and not have us support what might be the right thing to do so it can continue to profit. The US worries that if people learn more about anti-war philosophy the country will advocate for more peaceful adaptations which means less money for the United States.

References

Casualties, I. (n.d.). Antiwar.com. Antiwar.com. Retrieved September 20, 2023, from https://www.antiwar.com/

Home. (2022, June 7). The American Conservative. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/

House divided speech - Lincoln home national historic site (U.s. national Park service). (n.d.). Nps.gov. Retrieved September 20, 2023, from https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/housedivided.htm

Rode, R. (2021, October 17). How does the USA make a profit from war? - Riya Rode. Medium. https://medium.com/@roderiya28/how-does-the-usa-make-a-profit-from-war-e53e4f9f03b1

EOTO Reflection

 The coolest thing I learned from our EOTO  presentations was that Netflix was originally a mail DVD service. I remember Blockbuster a little bit as a kid but I think it closed before I could fully form actual memories. I like how quickly it pivoted the platform to streaming things online as a way to make themselves stand out. and when streaming things online became the norm they pivoted their model again to adding more Netflix originals. They're quite Innovative and despite many other streaming services coming out they still managed to be the ones on top.

Another really cool thing I learned was about the origin story of Facebook, it was originally a ranking system for the college guys to rank girls at Harvard, and instead of kicking Mark Zuckerberg out when they found out he made a deal with them and helped them eventually strengthen their online security. Like Netflix Facebook kept changing their model it went from a ranking system of the girls at Harvard to a way to get to know your roommate that was University-Based ( kind of like today’s ZeeMee.) To the social media giant that we know today and despite Gen-Z’s lack of use for Facebook it is still one of the most popular social media platforms.

Finally, a third thing I learned is about carrier pigeons! I had no idea that they were given Medals of Honor and did such Brave things. the pigeons we see today are not very bright so I had no idea that they had the cognitive function to be able to continue to do their jobs in the face of adversity. I also had your idea that they weren't around in the US today for systems because we have faster technology. I just thought they weren't around because the US hasn't had a war on our home turf in a bit. If they would still end up doing that experiment that they did in 2006 comparing a carrier pigeon to the internet in South Africa. I wonder if pigeons would still be faster?

The Typewriter

 

Blog Post Four

The Typewriter

An example of a typewriter

The invention I chose for our presentation is the typewriter! I chose this invention because I love to write and I wanted to learn more about what came before our modern computers and word processors. Also, I used to play with my grandma‘s old typewriter as a kid and I thought it was the coolest thing! According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the typewriter is defined as: “a machine in which the characters are produced by steel types striking the paper through an inked ribbon with the types being actuated by corresponding keys on a keyboard and the paper being held by a platen that is automatically moved along with a carriage when a key is struck.” (Britannica)

The typewriter has hazy origins many say was originally invented by an Italian man of unknown origin as a way to help blind people write. While others say it was invented by English royalty to make proclamations more efficient. Nonetheless, it was reinvented, patented, and brought to the United States by a man named Christopher Sholes in 1867. Scholes originally put the keyboard in alphabetical order but noticed that when he often typed with letters in that order, many of the vowels or consonants that we commonly use would get stuck together if they were used at the same time. Because of this, he invented the keyboard order that we know today also known as the QWERTY keyboard. When Sholes brought the typewriter to America it was not powered by electricity. However, that did not stop people from making the typewriter a household phenomenon. The typewriter was featured in many commercials and print advertisements as well as radio programs. Which just showed how important it became to not only communication but pop culture. “The importance and popularity of [Sholes’s most popular typewriter] can be seen in its advertisements. Some of my favorites were those that included the results of typewriting competitions and those that included the names of companies that bought their product. Another favorite was an advertisement from 1915 that indicated the [typewriter] had won the First Grand Prize at the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915. During WWI their advertisements touted the typewriter’s contribution to the war effort – one encouraged people to get involved using their typing skills” (Library of Congress) although Thomas Edison tried it was eventually IBM who Commercialized it in 1873 and made the first successful electric version in the 1920s. “It is interesting to note that Mr. Sholes invited Thomas A. Edison to Milwaukee to see his miracle machine and Mr. Edison told Mr. Sholes at the time that someday the typewriter would be operated by electricity. In fact, a short time later Mr. Edison built a typewriter which was operated electrically -- by a series of magnets. Since it was a large, cumbersome and expensive machine, it was never marketed.” (IBM) Unfortunately, after several decades the typewriter eventually became obsolete in favor of more efficient devices such as word processors and today’s personal computers, but the typewriter and its contributions will never be forgotten, as it was a large stepping stone to today’s modern culture and technology.

(My work cited page wasn't formatted correctly so here are all my sources)

https://www.britannica.com/technology/typewriter

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/modelb/modelb_history.html#:~:text=The%20first%20practical%20typewriter%20was,on%20a%20sewing%20machine%20stand.

https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-collections/stories/science-and-technology/the-typewriter/typewriter-chapters/history-of-the-typewriter/#:~:text=Early%20days,to%20print%20it%20on%20paper

https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/march/typewriter-production-began#:~:text=In%20the%20U.S.%2C%20one%20of,patent%20in%201878%20US%20207%2C559%20).

https://smithsonianeducation.org/scitech/carbons/typewriters.html

The Eight Values of Free Expression

 

Eight Values of Free Expression

Speech Bubble

The first value I would like to discuss is value number four, “Individual Self-Fulfillment” This value allows American citizens to create their own identity and explore what being a person means for them. When doing this we often find Kindred Spirits and support groups that can help us through unique challenges. This value resonates with me because I am part of a minority community.

Growing up I never felt like I fit in really anywhere, from the age of 12  on it was really hard for me as I was one of the only mainstreamed disabled children in my district of about several thousand. I wasn't sure who to turn to when things got medically complex and knew that as much as my friends loved me they would never truly understand the experiences I went through because they were not disabled. I felt really lonely and angry and I wasn't sure where to turn at the time. It took 3 years and lots of social media stalking but I finally found the community I was looking for. It is a community of about 200 girls in chairs that get together every year in Los Angeles. many of these girls are from around the world and have been through similar things that I have. having their support and unconditional acceptance means the world to me and if it weren't for the ability to explore this part of my identity that is so Taboo in other countries I would have never found the community that I have and would have never come to a place of mostly acceptance around my disability. I would still be that lonely angry kid who just wanted someone to understand her. I find it unfortunate that many countries don't allow this level of freedom of speech that we have because it leaves many minorities isolated from people who could be their peers both in person and online. 

The second value I would like to talk about is Participation in Self-Government, I think this one is important because it's one of the principles that even the founding fathers stood on when they wanted to leave British rule. they wanted to be able to know what was going on and have a say in their government and the British rule was not giving them that. It saddens me to think that many countries today still have to deal with not understanding or being given the choice to control their government. Because we have many protections surrounding Free Speech we are also able to exercise autonomy in what we believe, and the information we can access. a lot of countries that don't have free speech have censored information that only says what the government wants them to hear. I'm thankful that we don't have this otherwise many voices that would not get a chance to speak normally would be completely eradicated. it's important that we hear these voices out because they have a different perspective that could potentially lead to positive change in the future.

What I learned about the Supreme Court

 

The Late Honorable RBG

What I learned from the Supreme Court documentary

I think the biggest thing I learned is how closely the judges work together. For example, I originally thought that a committee that was not made up of the judges and made up of a jury would be the one to choose which court cases were reviewed by the Supreme Court ( I thought this would work the best because it would hopefully eliminate as much bias as possible.) Turns out that the judges do not only decide the outcome of the cases they take but they decide which cases they take as a group which I thought would be harder to do especially because many of these judges are of different political parties.

I really liked hearing about how they shake hands before every meeting they have, they said that they do this to avoid grudges or any lasting bitterness over a difference of opinion. I think that's really noble and makes them work better as a team and I hope they still continue to do that today even if many of the judges in the documentary are no longer there. 

I also learned that the Supreme Court had a huge role in keeping slavery around for a lot longer than it needed to be. I don't know why I assumed this but I figured that because Congress was so divided the Supreme Court was also divided when it came to slavery. Turns out they weren't as divided and ruled slaves as not citizens and ruled their citizenship as unconstitutional. I also didn't realize that once slavery was abolished many people held a grudge against the Supreme Court about their decision on slavery.

 I also learned that the Constitution does not specify the number of judges on the Supreme Court and that it's been fluctuating since its very founding. Before 1869 when they started having nine judges they used to have an even number of judges because they didn't think that split decisions were going to be as much of an issue as they've become. Over the years people have tried to change the number, (FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court with 15 judges) but it's always stayed at 9. 

References

Roos, D. (2020, September 23). Why do 9 justices serve on the supreme Court? HISTORY. https://www.history.com/news/supreme-court-justices-number-constitution

Stephens, D. [@davisstephens7898]. (2013a, September 11). Comm3390 Supreme Court, Pt. 1. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWRoXYRsaeo

Stephens, D. [@davisstephens7898]. (2013b, September 13). Comm3390 Supreme Court, Pt. 2. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca8qSuWxcG8