Week 3 - MBA 6601 -"Three perspectives: Optimist, Pessimist and Realist" of AI

 Growing up with technology already being pretty advanced gives a very different perspective than many to how I might perceive technology. My parents grew up in the time when the internet was just being created and my grandmother grew up with no advanced (at least what we would say modern today) technology. These three generations will have very different views on computers, and thus AI. You can even say in my generation there are different views. My sister and I are four years apart and experienced different stages of technology. Though I don't think this is what Todd was going for when he titled this subtitle I think that the generations really do share opinions with each perspective. Older, my grandmother, being the pessimist, my parents being the optimist, and my sister and I the realist.

When I share some stories from work my family usually responds with "thats disgusting" or "how did they survive that?" due to working in Emergency Medicine and seeing all the crazy things associated with that field of medicine. But when I mention about some of the things not only the helicopters can do with AI and computers but the medical devices and the advancements in the last few years. My parents are amazed, saying that really cool but.... and say you still had to be there to control things. I further explain that not for long. There are robots using AI and sensors to start IV's, intubate, and administer medications independently. As mentioned in the last posts this is already being tested on pigs and being done successfully. My generation would see this as a reality very soon. My mother "oh yeah right", and my grandmother "that's not real". 

Seeing this pattern I think can also be seen in the generations and what they learned in school. My grandmother, famously will tell you, "I lived in Washington DC for a few years". Followed by what she did, and in today standards it would be completely be done by a computer. She was a typist, transcribing phone calls from insurance companies or business people putting it on paper and mailing the equivalent of a voicemail to people. When she was in high school she said she had a year long class on just how to type. This included typing methods, typing machines, and techniques to make her fast. Continuing on with my mothers generation who also took typing classes but these were digitalized and on a computer. Technology was still a little dated at that time, but she was able to use Microsoft word to make nice looking headers and documents look official on a desktop computer. Then my generation using Microsoft office. I took a year long class in high school dedicated to learning the ins and outs of word, excel, and powerpoint. This included different formulas, headings, formats, ect. This class would be one that blows the mind of my grandmother.

All this being said, as we age its important to continue learning with the machines. Yes we grew up with technology now adays but this field is growing and impacting every job market out there. Having a mind set that a computer can never take your job away is a bad one to have in this century. Though technology seems easy right now it is expanding and growing, you need to grow with it. Don't be like grandma and think that it will never happen because it will, and if your prepared you will succeed. 

Works Cited:

Kelsey, T. (n.d.). Chapter 3. In Surfing the Tsunami: An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. essay.