Predicting the future is not magic,it is artificial intelligence
“Mom, how did dad text you on your phone?”, which were the words that came out of a five-year-old boy trying to process the entire concept of how the then SMS messages worked, was answered with a burst of loud raving laughter from my older cousins, and a long drawn out silence from my mother. Now almost after 11 years of asking my mother this question, which of course she could not answer as she was only familiar with putting young children to sleep in the hospital, being an anesthetist doctor, I have since then culminated my passion and interest in the world of technology. And, yes- I now know the answer to the question posed by my five-year-old self. The world of computing has always fascinated me, and although I live in a developing country, Sri Lanka, where we get access to breakthrough technology months or even years after they have been put on the global market, has not stopped me from diving deeper into my interests. With the aid of the information, I gained from a robotics course I took, I was able to construct my own mars rover prototype three years ago. Of course, it didn’t collect data as a real Mars rover did but seeing it recognize obstacles and avoid them really convinced me that this is the field I want to work in. For that reason, I decided to enroll in this boot camp in order to learn more about artificial intelligence and how cutting-edge models like Sophia the robot and Mars space rovers actually function.
When I was first introduced to the concept of “Artificial Intelligence”, I immediately saw it as some sort of tool that would lead to an “apocalyptic doomsday,” as shown in the sci-fi film “The Terminator.” But, over time, I have come to realize that AI, ranging from simple systems like chatboxes or text editors to complex systems like autonomous cars and humanoid robots, all serve the same purpose: to efficiently assist mankind in its pursuit of a more developed society.
Currently, all Sri Lankans are living through a difficult period of time, due to an economic crisis, thus making us face daily long power cuts, stand in very long queues to get basic necessities like fuel for cooking and transporting, and it has been really difficult for most of us to cope up with even affording two meals to get the energy necessary to work during the day. Although my parents are doctors, it is still really difficult for our family to provide for most of our needs owing to the fact that I have two more siblings and that the salary of most government doctors like them is substantially low. But this did not stop me from enrolling myself in this Bootcamp provided that I received a huge discount from my school.
And I have certainly not regretted my decision. Throughout this Bootcamp, a wide variety of codes were covered, and we were introduced to different AI concepts including logistic regressions, linear regressions, CNN, and so on has truly helped me to better understand the inner workings of the “brain” of most AI applications. Out of all of them, the ones on generative adversarial networks (GAN), particularly the ones on creating gif animation, caught my attention the most. The two areas of Gifs and image editing has always been a mystery for me, and now I have definitely cracked open the code-literary. I have always wanted to delve deep and discover how Gifs truly worked so that I could view it from a programmer’s viewpoint since I have always been a big lover of Gifs always; sending them to my friends via Instagram and WhatsApp. For this same reason, I joined the GAN group for our poster assignment, and I have to tell you that I really enjoyed it.
Moreover, I was initially unsure of what career I wanted to pursue and was finding it hard to choose between the subjects of computing and biology, because I was interested in both of them. Although I had an inclination towards the field of IT, since both my parents are doctors and want me to be a doctor just like them, I was in a huge dilemma the past few days as I would also have to apply for universities this August, and needed to choose between one field. But after enrolling in the Avada University’s Artificial Intelligence Bootcamp, I made the firm decision that I would pursue an engineering career in the IT sector, which is a significant deviation from the field of medicine that I had previously considered, as my interest and passion for IT skyrocketed after following this course.
My instructor, Aarshavi, was the best because she took the time to address any and all problems, questions, and misconceptions that any student had. She also created her own presentations so that we could comprehend the subjects better. She provided us with one exercise every day once we had learned the fundamentals of Python so that we could become fluent in the language and use it to solve coding problems. She exposed us to the new realm of artificial intelligence and, in my opinion, really made us adore this boot camp.
More than anything, I think this course gave me an understanding of what artificial intelligence is and how fascinating this topic is. Since I’ll be applying to colleges this year, I am sure this course will help show that I’m interested in this area of cutting-edge computer technology, which will be a big advantage for my application. I will undoubtedly benefit from the experience I gained from this artificial intelligence Bootcamp, which also allowed me to interact with a wide variety of people like me from across the globe. I definitely believe that the artificial intelligence boot camp has certainly added more fuel to my interest in the field of Artificial intelligence, and I have never done more research into machine learning the way I did during the past two weeks of following this course.The part of artificial intelligence that most inspires me is how computers always learn from their mistakes, honing and enhancing themselves each time. They don’t see their errors as obstacles; rather, they see them as stepping stones to success and perfection.
The question I asked my mother five years ago has gone a long way toward fueling my hunger and craving to improve my knowledge while helping me to continually transgress all kinds of boundaries of acquiring new knowledge. If my mother had never shown me the message my dad send me 11 years ago, learning artificial intelligence would never have been a dream. The famous Chinese proverb “he who asks questions remains a fool for five minutes, and he who does not ask remains a fool forever” certainly speaks for itself.