Week 1 Let’s Get Started!
My initial thoughts on this class are that we will learn to improve our research abilities. That includes the way we find information that will back up or deny our initial research topic and questions. Also to figure out the best information we need for our research. For example we can find hundreds of documents that back our research and yet not all of them are going to be good. I think in this course we will learn to compress the best of the information we find for our research. One thing that I thought about this course was that I will learn to improve how to cite any kind document for the papers I write as it is not one of my strengths.
One of the couple things that I might research is Artificial Intelligence. As AI continues to improve rapidly many people think that it will take control of humanity and see it as a danger to their lives. By researching more about artificial intelligence I think I will learn four major things about it. The first one being is does artificial intelligence benefit society. The second one would be how dangerous is AI. The next one would be how does artificial intelligence work and the final one is can artificial intelligence turn against humanity. One of the reason this will be on of the topics I research is because we as a society is becoming more dependent on artificial intelligence which can be seem as good and bad. With some many people depending on AI we are giving it power by letting it control out finances, private information and so much more. One of the question that I think about the most is if we let AI control that much of our information who is controlling it? Is it a group of people in a company, government or the AI itself. I know some of the things I have mentioned might seem like topics about a science fiction book but the reality is that AI is becoming smarter than humans. Should we let it control us or fear it and have a plan of defense for when it becomes too powerful.
Another topic I want to research is the existence of extraterrestrial lives. What I would like to research is not what they look like or where they are from. I want to research how humanity will handle the proof of extraterrestrial life. Will all the nations in the world welcome this extraterrestrial life or will there be conflict deciding wether we should welcome them or not. I know I might not find a plan from every country on how they will handle the existence of extraterrestrial life since a lot of it can be dismissed as a conspiracy story or just myths.
The final topic I might research is the advancement of bionic limbs and other body parts. Watching start wars as a kid was very exciting with all the different alien life forms and light sabers however one of the most interesting things about the movies for me was how after a character like Luke Skywalker had part of his arm cut off by a light saber he was able to get it replace by a robot arm that had a cover that made it seem like he still had his normal arm. I know it was just a sci-fi movie but the idea of being able to replace an arm just like that was fascinating to me. Of course in the real world we are far from such arm like Luke’s. However with technology and medicine becoming better and faster we are not so far from prosthetics like that. My research on this subject would be how much have prosthetics been improving in the last decade, how far are we from a prosthetic being just a good as a natural limb and of course the cost of such prosthetic.
After reading part one of the Pattern text, I got to know more about what research really is and all the different types of research and how specific each one is. You need to choose the right type of research based on what you want to find out. I think for the three topics that I might research the best type of research would be quantitative research. The time is limited on my research, my knowledge is little about each one of those topics and I would need to look for what the experts in each one of those fields is saying about such technologies and discussions. I would need to find the best literate there is out there for the possible research topics.
I like the topic title you’ve picked. One of my favorite science fiction writers was, and still is, Robert A. Heinlein. Due to subject matter he wrote, it is not possible to copyright the phrase “waterbed” as he invented it, and the reason that remotely controlled robotic arms are called “Waldoes” is because that is what he named them when he wrote about them. He also described a family meal cooked in a microwave in the 1950’s although he didn’t call it that. A lot of what we used to call science fiction has now become reality. Cases in point, the communicator from Star Treak, and Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist communicator.
Topic three caught my eye. I have always been interested in extraterrestrial. I think the world as a whole would lose their mind. Nobody would agree on anything on how to handle any situation like that. But it would make a for a very interesting research idea.
I think your considered topic of Artificial Intelligence is really interesting! That has always been a passion of mine as well and I think it is something to be taken seriously. With new advancements in machine learning software coupled with computing power advancements in quantum computing, the potential is endless. Artificial intelligence is on a course for exponential growth, the same as computing power is. Joe Rogan has some pretty smart people on his podcasts, in my opinion, and this is one of the topics he likes to cover.