Week 6: "Biollante"

Travel Log:

When it comes to writing this blog, there is so much I’ve experienced, both big and small, that there was no way I was ever going to fit into a (somewhat) short weekly blog. I’ve tried writing lightning rounds where I just go over a wide range of content at an extremely fast pace, but every time I finish writing it, one simple thought crosses my mind: “This sucks.” Every draft is just pure Grade A trash, so I have to narrow these blogs down to specific topics and themes, which I believe make for a tighter and more enjoyable reading experience. I’m telling you all of this because there’s been this one particular thought that’s been like an itch in the back of my brain for the past two months, and I only just had an epiphany on how to express it: Why did I find the locations I’ve been to so far so amazing? Part of that answer is, of course, the fact that I’m seeing very grand historical architecture that I’ve never had the chance to see before, but it was more than that sense of newness that left me truly awestruck. 

However, before we reach this particular revelation, let’s talk about the day before, when I was left anything but. See, on that day, I was wandering about a mall when I noticed a fairly large line forming outside this strange attraction whose entrance looked like something straight out of a theme park. Naturally, this piqued my curiosity, and because there wasn’t exactly a brochure in English, I had to do a bit of detective work.  

One quick Google Translate of the neon sign that was bolted to the wall provided the following revelation: “MUSEUM OF GLASS MIRRORS,” don’t touch that keyboard, dear readers, because you will not find it on any internet search; it may as well not exist. Curious and curiouser, what could this possibly be? The advertisements out front showed images of people in front of giant LED screens with images of various incredible vistas and animals, and by this point, they had me hook, line, and sinker. Cheesy pseudo-museums are a long-time guilty pleasure of mine, as any unfortunate souls who I’ve dragged to Ripley’s Believe It or Not know all too well.

I stand in line for roughly twenty to thirty minutes, and then finally they start letting people in. Here we go! We step into this room, which is about the size of a shoebox, with the front half’s walls, ceiling, and floor replaced with LEDS and a glass platform above it, which we all proceed to sit down on. If you’ve ever seen a movie theatre intro where you are flying past the popcorn, soda, and candy, just imagine that, but with generic animals and various natural environments. Better yet, imagine a 4D theatre without any of the 4D or 3D, and then you can get a good idea of how incredible it was(‘nt). “Okay,” I thought, “So that was a bit disappointing, but maybe the rest of the museum will be more interesting.” I stood up, went through the door behind us, and found myself… right back in the mall. “That’s it?!?” “What a letdown.” 

For a moment, I felt genuinely annoyed, like I had been swindled, but then my internal dialogue chimed in, “What did you expect?” The only reason I was so disappointed was because I had let my mind race with possibilities, actively ignoring the obvious signs that this was a cheap kiddie attraction in a mall. Of course, it was gonna be lame, it was clearly designed for 5-year-olds, and I’m sure at that age I would have thought it was amazing. It only got any sort of significant negative reaction out of me because the contrast between expectation versus reality amplified that deflating balloon of an experience. 

The next day, I went to Beihai Park.  It was a late Sunday afternoon, and the midday heat was dissipating, but the air was still sopping wet. Crowds slithered through the subway, constricting anyone who passed by, and even after surfacing, the street was packed. So many people heading home for the day made it feel as if I was swimming up a stream, forcing my way forward step by step, as any thoughts I had were blocked by the cacophony of voices. I finally reached my destination, and instantly I could feel the grip of urban sprawl loosen as the horizon opened up to a picturesque lake. The wind traced the surface of the water, rustled the leaves of the nearby willows, and eventually reached where I was standing, brushing off the humidity that clung to me. The silence was incredible; there were so many people around me, but if you closed your eyes, all you’d be able to hear was the sound of birds chirping, paddles pushing through the water, and footsteps against the bricks. Side paths jutted out to fill the space, each giving you your own slice of nature. For a moment, it was easy to forget I was in Beijing, and that’s when it finally clicked for me.

It's the way that nature contrasts with the sprawl around it that makes these spots so stunning. In most U.S. cities, parks feel like weeds that have grown out of the asphalt. An infestation that exists despite its environment. This makes sense, urban expansion is always going to come into conflict with nature because it inherently pulls everything back to it. Erosion slices and dices, fungus seeps in and infests, vines surround and then crush, and inevitably, everything is destroyed. To offset this as much as possible, the construction of these spires of rebar, brick, and concrete requires architectural acolytes who shrive the land clean of any impurities so that these monuments can last an eternity. Like herding sheep or rustling cattle, they push the green into a space where it can be contained. Central Park is a perfect example of this, a prison yard for the life that once ruled Manhattan Island. It's the sole respite in a city that is otherwise a concrete jungle, yet these manmade titans continue to loom overhead. Beijing, like any city, engages in the same practices; however, its width gives these spaces room to breathe. 

This, in turn, makes the architecture that is present more distinct and beautiful. By having these historical sites nestled in the middle of these spaces, they take on that same distinct feeling, and it creates something truly magical. It feels like a little bubble of the past that has managed to float to the present. The more of them you visit, the more that mental picture is filled in, and that retroactively makes you appreciate previous sites more. For example, the center of the Forbidden City is this colossal stone ziggurat with massive, wide-open vistas where not a single bit of nature is present. Even today, it is still an architectural marvel, but imagine how it must have felt seeing it for the first time in 1420, where all the nature that was present in Beijing was suddenly contrasted with this show of force upon the land. Its appearance served as proof that this was the seat of power in China. Much like in painting or photography, it's these contrasts that can help us see the full picture more clearly than we would have otherwise.

The Benefits AI Chatbots Can Provide:

 

“Logan, you have spent weeks bashing AI, and now you want to sell us on it? Are you out of your mind?!” I know, I know, I know. These past couple of weeks would likely have you assume that my feelings towards AI are entirely negative, but that could not be further from the case. The truth is that the technology that is being made right now is incredible, it is groundbreaking, and it will genuinely change the world forever. In fact, it has been my fascination with this technology that has motivated my research. The reason I have spent so much time bashing it is because it is a tool like any other, but unfortunately, it is ripe for misuse. That misuse comes in a wide variety of forms. It can come from the companies that are pushing chatbots without proper safeguards. It can also come from the users who have preconceived notions of what AI is from pop culture, which prevents them from understanding the full risks of usage. However, with these risks very thoroughly clarified, I think it is fair to now discuss potential benefits. 

The flexible nature of chatbot pattern recognition allows them to fit extremely personalized roles, and in the field of education, this has one clear implication: Low-cost, extremely effective tutors. A pilot program in Nigeria integrated chatbots into a special curriculum for six weeks, and the results were astonishing. (link) Students in the program were .3 standard deviations above their peers, which was equivalent to two years of typical learning. When compared to other typical educational interventions, it outperformed 80% of them, and the benefits did not taper off as the program progressed. This means that long-term integration of utility chatbots into education could provide an even larger boost while potentially alleviating already overloaded teachers.

They can also act as excellent notetaking and summarization tools. I’ve already heard accounts of people using them in environments like quarterly earnings reports to cut through the noise and get the key takeaways. Legal programs like Westlaw and Lexis are attempting to integrate custom chatbots into their websites to make acquiring case information far more accessible. They are also attempting to provide tailored writing assistants, which is in line with a wider trend. For writings with consistent formatting that are not entirely standardized, chatbots could provide insights and ideas on how to get started or get over writer’s block. Grammar correction is another big one, I know, for me personally, using Grammarly has helped catch mistakes I would have otherwise missed as I’ve been writing these blogs. Things like this have real potential to empower people who may otherwise not have the time or resources to reach their full potential.  

Here’s the part where I say but… Hallucinations have the potential to feed kids entirely incorrect information, and they may fail to provide truly neutral perspectives as they pick up on common misconceptions and biases from the data. The same is true with using AI as a summarization or search tool, which is especially harmful in places like the legal field, where correct citations are not just crucial but are required for any lawyer to have a baseline of integrity. Since these AIs are focused on pattern recognition, they may also fail as writing assistants. Again, speaking from personal experience, Grammarly’s corrections are frequently dead wrong, it often misunderstands more nuanced language, and its correction system often butchers my formatting. 

So what’s the lesson here? Using AI chatbot tools is like turning on cruise control in your car; it can relieve a lot of personal effort you would otherwise have to spend, but you still need to have both hands on the wheel. A human element is still very much required to check, correct, and build on these outputs. In an ideal scenario, the general public is very aware of these limitations, everyone keeps their jobs, but their day-to-day workload is made far easier. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. Companies are already mistakenly believing that they can simply fire their workers and pick up the workflow with AI, leading to a cavalcade of sloppy products and embarrassing mistakes.

Chatbots may also open unique avenues to help people socially or mentally. They already exist as great non-judgmental sounding boards for ideas or issues you may want to talk about, but perhaps don’t want to discuss with other people(or don’t have anyone around to discuss with). It does help to get stuff off your chest and feel like you are genuinely being heard, and as previously discussed, part of the brain does consider these interactions as real as interacting with another person, so it follows that they would confer many of the same potential upsides. A study by Harvard found that after a week of regularly interacting with a social chatbot, the users felt less lonely. (link) Other studies have shown uses such as supporting the development of social skills, promoting positive body image in teenagers, and being able to cover gaps in knowledge and ability for parents of children with unique mental health conditions. (link) As a simple example, imagine what chatbots could do for speech therapy. A person who has a severe stutter may suffer from social anxiety, or people may simply not be willing to speak with them. This limits their chances to address it, but a chatbot would always be willing to listen, and that would give them the exact environment they need to help them practice.     

It is unsurprising, then, that mental health professionals are actively looking into making specially tailored social chatbots to assist with their practice, as the personalized nature of the tools could lead to enhanced quality, quantity, and impact of the care that they can provide. Early pushes in this field have found that the implementation of 3D models with emotive faces increased user engagement with these programs by 31% over their purely text-based counterparts; the more human these social chatbots get, the more they will be able to help real people.(link) If these social chatbots can be made to effectively tap into the same mental responses as people, they could prove to be a real boon in addressing the widespread growing mental health crisis in a way that current structures are simply unable to.   

I’ve already gone into extensive discussion about the potential risks. Sycophancy is far and away the biggest concern, with toxic outputs being a clear second place. The problem is that the exact thing that makes these chatbots so amicable is also exactly what creates the risk. The short-term solution is to make sure people are aware of that fact. Long term, there may need to be a real, in-depth discussion about what level of agreeability is safe enough to be the standard. Until then, just be careful,  rely on your support systems around you to double-check anything a chatbot tells you, and do the same for them in return. 

As always, thanks for reading,

Logan Smith