A.I. Brings Opportunities

Programming has many uses; it can be used to

Reese Philips ( Junior ) works on some code in Mr. Murphy's class

make useful software for computers and machines, and it can also be used to develop games. There are a variety of programming languages, but the one that is chiefly used for software development is Python, which is the second most popular for creating a neural network: a machines brain.

With a well-made neural network, the machine can learn to put on a shirt, walk, and distinguish a chihuahua from a blueberry muffin, with a small sample. Pat Murphy, a computer science teacher at CHS, says,“Based on the pixels and where everything is aligned ... the data in the algorithms can figure out it’s a chihuahua.”

Another fact about machine learning (ML)is that it affects us every day. For example, every time someone goes onto a social media platform, the algorithm looks at all the data on one's account, especially on facebook, with the data being the people you follow, the posts you look at, the posts you like and dislike, and what you search is all sent into an algorithm which processes that information to determine which ads will pop up. Additionally, M.L. does not have to be used for making money; it could be used to dress the elderly, aid a paraplegic with basic life, and to fight wars.

In Mr. Murphy’s robotics class, they made a robot scan a room and infer what the objects are. The way this works, Mr. Murphy explained, is the robot scans the room and puts the data into an M.L. algorithm, but since the robot just sees a circle, we have to infer it’s a garbage can, but when all of the data is run through, the robot can infer objects in a room.

Machines do learn faster than humans, but there some things that an A.I. can’t do. Also, based on my personal experiences with M.L., an A.I. can’t make music without a couple of extradentarily sour notes. A.I.’s can’t make music quite like humans can due to the fact that they don’t understand harmony, the way two notes sound great together.

If you would like to learn more about M.L., join Mr. Murphy’s A.P computer science principles next year.