B., By, -, & R, B. (2019, April 27). AI can now help speak your mind: UC researchers introduce a neural decoder that translates brain signals to natural-sounding speech. Retrieved December 31, 2020, from https://hub.packtpub.com/ai-can-now-help-speak-your-mind-uc-researchers-introduce-a-neural-decoder-that-translates-brain-signals-to-natural-sounding-speech/
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Answering:
- Tell us a little bit about yourself! What are your hobbies? Why are you studying artificial intelligence? Anything else we should know?
- What was your AI Scholars experience like? Who was your instructor and what was it like working with them? What project did you work on?
- What AI topic will you be writing about in your blog? Describe your topic in detail.
- Who is your target audience? Why should they be interested in your blog?
- What are you hoping to achieve with your blog?
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Artificial intelligence will render us all obsolete: purported by some, evidenced by none. The prospect of machines being able to make intelligent decisions seems scary, and is much less a prospect than it is a reality. Will robots take over the world? Will they change everything? Can we please just get rid of them?
No, they will not take over the world. Yes, they will change everything. Do you really want to get rid of them?
I’m Afrah: basketball addict, avid conversationalist, and psychology enthusiast. My love for psychology knows no bounds (except for maybe when I have to study the structure of the eye): I find solace and beauty in the intricate complexity of the human mind, and through research I was doing a couple of months ago I came across the drastic situation of public mental health: 800,000 people die from suicide every year, which is 1 death every 40 seconds (World Health Organization, 2019). If you didn’t glaze over that citation, you might care to know that the pandemic of 2020 has undeniably had and will continue to have a severe impact on those numbers.
I wondered how I could help with prevention, and through further research on the topic discovered that stigma and lack of resources were the main barriers to mental health care. Technology is private and accessible to many, through it I realized we can combat the widespread prevalence of mental illness. This led me to start my project LiveX (which may or may not have been named basketball at one point in time…), an AI-powered application aiming to make comprehensive and personalized mental health upkeep private and accessible.
I soon realized I needed to learn more to bring my newfound obsession to life. This led me to (surprise, surprise) talk a lot, and soon I heard about Inspirit. My AI Scholars experience was awesome: can’t really forget those 6 am summer classes…I walked in (clicked in?) to Inspirit with no real exposure to AI: my instructor, Raunak, taught me everything I now know. He worked with us on an AI-powered driver alertness tech that he had experience with at Google: sounds incredibly complex I know, but Raunak made it seem like shooting free throws at the park.
My 3-part blog series will examine how AI will undoubtedly be used as an indispensable force for good, in synergy with and for us. I will in particular be looking at AI + your mind (since I am, as aforementioned, a psychology enthusiast ;). Stay tuned and discover your future if you don’t want to be a lame and uninformed loser.
You can check out my project at https://www.livex.me/ — fill out the survey, and I would love for you to leave feedback!
Reference:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide
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Afrah is a Student Ambassador in the Inspirit AI Student Ambassadors Program. Inspirit AI is a pre-collegiate enrichment program that exposes curious high school students globally to AI through live online classes. Learn more at https://www.inspiritai.com/.
