How do you plan to integrate AI in your life going forward – whether personally or professionally? Do you feel you have a choice here, for example is deciding not to use AI an option?

Honestly, I see AI becoming something I use the same way I use Google or a calculator it’s just part of how I get things done. For school and anything related to computer science, I’d use it to help me understand concepts faster, debug code, and get unstuck when I hit a wall. It saves time, but I’d still make sure I actually get the material, because if you just copy what AI gives you, you’re not really learning anything.

In my personal life, I’d probably use it to stay organized, plan things, or learn new stuff more efficiently. But I wouldn’t want it to take over everything. There’s still something important about figuring things out on your own and thinking through problems without shortcuts every single time.

As for not using AI at all, I don’t think that’s very realistic anymore. It’s already built into so many things we use every day, so completely avoiding it would honestly just make life harder. But I do think there’s a difference between using it as a tool and depending on it too much. I’d want to stay in that middle ground where it helps me, but I’m still the one actually thinking.

When it comes to AI use in the classroom, in your professional lives, how do we determine how much is too much? 

When it comes to AI in the classroom, the most challenging part is determining the appropriate level of its involvement into educational process. At first glance, AI seems to be a shortcut, but after reading the readings this week, it became clear to me that there is another side of the coin. 

One line that stuck with me was that “there are no shortcuts” in education got me to reflect on how I use AI in my studies. I realize that if it does the job for me, I do not learn anything, because I simply repeat the answers that were generated by the algorithm. 

 However, I believe that AI itself is not bad. On the contrary, the problem lies within people’s excessive usage of it. In this regard, for me, AI stops being beneficial when I stop working on the assignment but let it work for me. 

 In summary, while using AI, one should find the right balance between using it as a tool and abusing it for personal benefit. 

Did any of the AI models demonstrate creativity? Why or why not? 

To me, being creative means more than producing an interesting and/or rhythmic product. It is coming up with something unique, purposeful, and genuine. something that conveys a certain message or experience. Based on our discussions in class, I would say that creativity revolves around two key elements, uniqueness and significance. It must be distinctive, but at the same time, it must have some meaning or connection to other people. 

Example  

On Maple Street, past the cracked old sign,  

Lived a kid named Jake in ‘09.  

 He rode his bike past Miller’s store,  

 Where the bell still rings on the squeaky door.  

 His mom yelled, “Dinner!” at half past six,  

 Same as always; meatloaf, potatoes, and Fix.  

 That’s the soda his dad always drank on ice,  

 Said, “Not too warm and not too nice.”)  

 The bus came early on cold fall days,  

 With fog on the windows and sleepy haze.  

 Ms. Carter would greet with a nod and a grin,  

 “Find your seat, let the learning begin.” 

Our group told AI(Chatgpt)  to make a poem that sounds like it was written by Dr. Seuss, and at first I thought it would either mess it up or go full cliché with random rhymes, but it actually surprised me, not because it sounded like Dr. Seuss (it didn’t), but because it felt more emotional and reflective. The poem is creative on the surface since it uses rhyme, clear imagery, and tells a small story about this kid, Jake, and some lines, like “how quiet feels louder than noise or din,” feel genuinely thoughtful. But it doesn’t really match Dr. Seuss’s playful and imaginative style instead, it feels more calm and nostalgic, so it missed part of the prompt. This connects to what we talked about in class, AI doesn’t truly “create,” it just mixes patterns it has already seen, which is why the poem feels meaningful but is probably built from familiar ideas like childhood memories. So is it creative? Kind of but not in a human way. It shows functional creativity by making something new and clear, but not intentional creativity, since it doesn’t actually understand what it’s saying it just produces something that sounds meaningful. This assignment changed how I see AI a bit because I used to think it wouldn’t be creative at all, but now I see it can come close still, there’s something missing, since real creativity comes from personal experience and intention, which AI doesn’t have. 

The prompt I used was “make me a workout plan.” I kept it super simple and straight to the point. In class, we discussed how a vague prompt usually leads to a generic answer. I gave the prompt to ChatGPT, and I got a very general workout plan. It was obvious the program didn’t understand what I was asking. It was simply producing something that sounded like a generic workout plan. 

This prompt would be helpful if a person simply wants a quick starting point, like a beginner who does not know where to begin with fitness. However, for a person like me, it is not particularly helpful without more information. For instance, I would want more information regarding specific goals, scheduling, and perhaps equipment availability. This is particularly relevant to our previous discussion in class regarding how the usefulness of an LLM depends on how specific a prompt is. For instance, when I improved the prompt by adding more information such as 5-day gym plan focused on muscle gain with dumbbells and machines, it became more relevant. 

ChatGPT provided a structure for a weekly routine (e.g., chest day, leg day, etc.) this only works effectively once you change the prompt and modify it. This is really the key to understanding why this model is not thinking but simply reacting to patterns based on common requests for information. That’s also why it can sometimes make recommendations that are off or general. 

This all ties together with the readings we had in class. The OpenAI guide emphasizes that good prompts should clearly define the task, provide context, and specify the desired output, which I didn’t do at first, leading to a weaker response. Similarly, the Claude prompting guide explains that you should treat the model like a “new employee” who has no prior context and needs clear instructions. That idea really clicked for me here. my original prompt didn’t give the model anything to work with, so it gave me the most average answer possible. 

The output ChatGPT gave me: 

Schedule 

• Day 1 – Workout  

• Day 2 – Rest  

• Day 3 – Workout  

• Day 4 – Rest  

• Day 5 – Workout  

• Weekend – Rest  

Workout A 

• Squats – 3 × 8  

• Push-ups (or bench press) – 3 × 8  

• Lat Pulldown (or assisted pull-ups) – 3 × 8  

• Plank – 3 × 20–30 sec  

Workout B 

• Deadlifts – 3 × 5  

• Dumbbell Shoulder Press – 3 × 8  

• Dumbbell Rows – 3 × 8  

• Crunches – 3 × 12 

Citation 

OpenAI. Prompting Guide. OpenAI Academy. 

For the most part, people tend to think of artificial intelligence as something futuristic, like robots, ChatGPT, or self-driving cars. But the strange thing that I found out during our research lab is that most people are already utilizing artificial intelligence every single day without even realizing it. It is just running in the background of the apps that we use on a daily basis.  

 One of the things that really caught my attention is the music streaming services that we all use, like Spotify. The playlists that we get from Spotify, like Discover Weekly or Daily Mix, are not random. They are generated based on our listening habits compared to millions of users across the platform. In a way, artificial intelligence is dictating the type of music that we will probably listen to without even realizing it. 

The ethical issue that really stood out to me is the fact that this influence can be so invisible. When AI systems are making decisions for us, for instance, the type of music or news that we are exposed to, they can, without our knowledge, influence our preferences, as well as our worldview. The biggest surprise for me during my research was the fact that the influence of AI can be so invisible. Sometimes, AI does not necessarily feel like “technology making decisions.” Sometimes, it feels as though the app somehow knows you really well.  

 Another thing that I learned from the research lab is the fact that the way you talk to the AI can really matter. One of the very helpful techniques for interacting with large language models is the fact that you can give them context. Instead of asking vague questions, giving them specific prompts can really work for you. 

AI is becoming part of everyday life often quietly in the background. The more we understand how it works, the better we can decide how much influence we want it to have. 

Source 

MIT Technology Review. “How Recommendation Algorithms Work.” 

Spotify Engineering. “How Discover Weekly Works.” 

My name is Jordy I am a Sophmore majoring in Computer Science and I come from Rwanda. In my free time I like to play basketball, golf, listen to music and video games. My favorite player of all time is the goat himself Lebron James. One thing I find interesting about AI today is how quietly we use it without even realizing it. For example, apps like Spotify use AI to recommend songs and create playlists based on what we listen to. Most of the time we don’t think about it, but AI is constantly working in the background to shape our experience and help us discover new music.